Glitch (Crashland Colony Romances #4)
1. Molly
1
MOLLY
T he silence of the maintenance bay made it a fine retreat from the other inhabitants of Vid Station One — a grand title for Crashland’s only vidstation, but then the boss had a flair for the dramatic. I had one of the camera drones open, parts arranged around it as I swapped out a motor.
These moments were what I lived for, being able to lose myself in my work and forget where I was. Forget about the crash that stranded us here, the alien pirates who’d forced us down. Pirates who somehow were our allies now. I let all that fade into the background and got on with making the world a little bit better, one repaired gadget at a time.
There. The new motor fixed in place, I started reassembling the rest of the drone. With the hard part over, my focus relaxed, and I paid more attention to the world around me. As soon as I did, I realized I wasn’t alone. Putting down my tools with exaggerated care, I turned to see my boss hovering over me.
“How’s the camera, Molly?” Allison asked by way of saying hello. How very like her, all smiles when in front of the cameras but not willing to waste her interpersonal skills when she wasn’t. “We’ll need it first thing, Harmon is doing another dramatic reading of his poetry.”
Well, of fucking course. Allison’s ‘secret’ boyfriend got whatever he needed as soon as he wanted, and we all had to pretend not to know about the relationship. Or the last one, or the one before that…
“Should be up and ready for the morning recordings, Allison,” I told her. The actual figure was half an hour at most, but I’d learned you never go wrong giving the boss a too-long estimate.
Especially when that boss is Allison Greene. She was one of my least favorite humans on the planet, and there she stood, grinning at me with a smile that didn’t reach her bright blue eyes. Long blonde hair which she somehow kept neat and tidy no matter the circumstances, way too much pink, and a perky smile that distracted every man she pointed it at. Today she wore a matching pale pink jacket and skirt, pink pumps, and pink lipstick and nail polish. On her shoulder rode Tulla, her pink tarantula companion.
Allison’s cold eyes made her look like some wicked witch out of a fairy tale. I could believe that, but she was also the only person here who knew anything about vid broadcasting. Her old position in front of the camera wasn’t ideal, but at least she’d seen how a station operated. That was enough to put her in charge of Vidstation One. Someone had to decide on the programing schedule, decide who’d take which show, and Allison got the job.
Never mind that her experience was presenting a weather show back on Earth. Not the best place to learn the ins and outs of management, but she had more experience than anyone else at the Joint Colony.
Which meant I ought to talk to her about the other problem.
“While you’re here, boss, I’ve got something new to report. The ghost’s visited again.”
She didn’t laugh, which was a small mercy. I saw the tug at her lips, the sparkle in her eyes, the careful moderation of her breath. When she spoke, though, no sign of her doubts came across in her words. “The ghost, eh? What’s it taken this time?”
“Not much, I think. The worst is a spool of number five cabling. That’s the shared signal and power cable we use for the transceivers.”
Allison didn’t swear. Somehow her silence made it clear that she didn’t swear. It was worse than having her shout obscenities at the top of her voice.
“How much do we have left?” she asked, smile back in place. “I take it we can use the system as it is?”
“Should be able to; all the transceiver connections look fine. The proof’ll be when you try to call the Wandering Star . But that’s the last of the cable — until we get more, if any of it fails, I won’t be able to fix it.”
Which would be a serious issue. The Wandering Star was the colony ship that brought us here, crashed in the hills below. Now it served as the seat of government for the Joint Colony, and the idea of being isolated from it made my skin crawl.
“I’ll add another couple of reels to the resupply list first thing tomorrow,” Allison said. Her companion AI rubbed its forelegs together, making a note.
“Couldn’t you put it on tomorrow’s shuttle? I’d feel more comfortable if we had it sooner, just in case,” I said, not wanting to argue but finding it hard to let this go. “If any of the cabling fails, it will cut us off from the colony.”
Allison looked at me, raising an eyebrow. “But the big antenna will still work, right? We’ll be able to call for help over that. I don’t want to disturb someone’s sleep to get that cable put onboard before dawn tomorrow — it’s just not that urgent. Now, is there anything else missing? I’ll add it all tomorrow.”
There wasn’t much point in arguing — it was her decision. At least we’d only be out of it for a month. Taking a breath, I tapped my wrist communicator to call up my companion AI, Glitch. He popped into existence, a small black cat with eyes made of static. A paw reached out for me, then flickered back to repeat the motion three times.
This time Allison didn’t hide her laugh. “You know you can get that replaced any time you like, right? Just contact the colony and ask, they’ve got plenty. I’ll stick it in the order for you if you like?”
I did know that, and she knew I did too. Hardly a day passed without someone taking the time to remind me — I could throw my holoprojector into the recycler, pick up a new one from stores, and boot up a new companion, one without Glitch’s, well, glitches.
“I think he’s charming,” I said, scratching Glitch behind the ear. Allison shrugged.
“It’s your companion,” she replied, a slightly more honest smile crossing her face. Was it better that she showed her honest opinion when she mocked me? I sighed. Some questions didn’t have answers.
Glitch unfolded the inventory, a display hanging in midair, and I plucked out the inconsistencies. “To answer your question, a few things have gone missing here and there. The cable spool, two batteries from the charger, four tubes of sealant… nothing that I can see a pattern in. Nothing urgent aside from the cable.”
I flicked the data over to Allison and the shimmering tarantula on her shoulder caught it. In some ways her choice of AI design was the most honest thing about her, a deadly spider colored the same pink as her lipstick.
“I’ll add it to the other reports,” Allison said without glancing at the data. “Do try to keep a better eye on these things in future, though.”
I frowned, opening my mouth and then shutting it, saying none of the things I wanted to. How the fuck am I meant to do that, stay up all night? Or, Why don’t you come down and keep watch?
All an argument would get me was more grief. Allison expected a can-do attitude to her requests, no matter how unlikely.
“Oh, one more thing. I forgot to mention this earlier, but you’ll have some help from now on — the Joint Colony agreed to send us another technician. You’ll meet him when he arrives on the supply shuttle tomorrow morning, okay? Fabulous.” Allison didn’t wait for an acknowledgment, turning on her heel and walking out.
“Maybe I should have hit her,” I said to Glitch, who nodded supportively. “When does the supply shuttle arrive, anyway?”
Glitch displayed that as a clock: 6am. Then the present time: 10pm. What utter fucking bullshit was this? I’d promised Allison her camera drone back in operation, and now she’d ordered me to go to meet this newcomer? I scrunched up my face.
“If I get right to it, I should get all of five hours to sleep before I go meet my new assistant. Thanks a fucking lot, boss.”
The worst thing was that we weren’t expecting any supplies on this delivery. It wouldn’t even be stopping here if it wasn’t for this new technician arriving.
The wind screeched past me and I wrapped my arms around myself, following the winding trail down to the landing pad. Crashland’s pale sun hadn’t risen yet, though the glow at the horizon showed that it wouldn’t be long before it showed itself.
Behind me, the transmitter tower stabbed the heavens like a dagger. This high up the air was thin enough to slow me down, and Glitch scampered ahead, reaching the edge of my hologram projector’s range and turning back to mewl pitifully at me.
“I’m coming as fast as I can, Glitch,” I told him, amused by his impatience.
Glitch meowed again, or tried to. It dissolved into a burst of static as his image fragmented and reformed. The damage to his projector wasn’t going to get repaired, not on Crashland. One more thing to blame the Prytheen pirates for.
The aliens had attacked the colony ship, forced us down on an unknown world inside the borders of the Tavesh Empire. And they’d been forced down too, so we had to share this planet with them.
One of the very best things about working on the vidstation was that it put me far from all the Prytheen.
Lost in morbid thought about the aliens, I almost didn’t realize we’d arrived. Our landing platform was just a cleared area large enough for a flyer to land on. Lights drilled into the stone marked it out for the fliers overhead.
The sun came up behind me, casting long, sharp shadows over the field. Behind me, all the way back at the transmitter, I heard the whirring of the solar collectors opening and angling themselves to catch the light. A terrible grinding noise accompanied number three; something was wrong there, probably a worn-out bearing.
“Move that up the list, Glitch, it’s getting worse.” There were too many things going wrong all at once, and I kept rushing from one emergency fix to the next. Routine maintenance had fallen far behind, but it would be nice to stop something before it became a disaster one of these days.
Glitch pixelated and vanished, reappearing on my shoulder and extending a paw. The flier was approaching.
The heavy, blocky things weren’t really meant for landing on such a small area, but whoever was flying this one didn’t seem to believe in taking it slow. I scowled — the human colonists were always careful to the point of paranoia with the fliers. The ones we had were all we’d get; no way would anyone be able to produce more fliers on Crashland.
But the Prytheen? All, or nearly all, were daredevil pilots. And for some reason, Captain Joyce thought it was okay to let them fly. Probably because she’d fallen for their pirate king, or whatever he called himself.
The Prytheen pilot didn’t even land, just spinning the flier so the cargo ramp descended over the landing platform. Show off.
The ramp lowered, and in the dark shadows inside I saw a figure. A tall man, a long coat…
He stepped into the sunlight and the blood drained from my face. The world spun. My pulse hammered in my ears.
His skin was blue, and he stood at least seven foot tall. A Prytheen? The motherfuckers sent me a Prytheen and didn’t warn me?
That’s it, I’m broadcasting porn at prime time. The promise I always made to myself when angry with the colony leadership, a revenge ridiculous enough to make me laugh and take the edge off.
For the first time I asked myself where I’d get hold of the porn.
The Prytheen warrior descended the ramp and jumped down the six-foot drop to the landing pad. Behind him, the flier’s engines roared, and it took off to wherever the fuck it was going next, leaving me staring at my nightmare come to life.
I couldn’t stop looking at him. Tall, muscular, he looked the part of a pirate. His long coat fluttered in the wind, where most Prytheen wore nothing on their torsos. Perhaps that was his concession to the cold?
Maybe, but his chest was bare beneath it. That became ridiculously clear when the wind blew it open, displaying his broad blue chest, scars across muscle as though he’d been savaged by some great beast. A locket hung around his neck.
At his right hip he wore a blaster, one of the Prytheen weapons that didn’t function on Crashland. On his left, a sword. An honest-to-god sword.
Long dark hair whipped in the wind behind him, framing a rugged face, the scar that cut across his left cheek pulling his lip up into a sneer. Intense violet eyes gazed back at me, a quick flick up and down followed by a longer, lingering look.
The shiver that ran through me had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures. In fact, I felt warmer than I had in weeks.
Approaching me, the Prytheen set down his big duffle bag and stopped just out of arms’ reach. “I am Karnac of the Silver Band, Layol’s Clan, and I am pleased to meet you.”
His voice, gruff and deep and powerful, spoke to my body in ways I could hardly understand, let alone put words to. Whatever it was, my body wanted more. My brain focused on the meaning of the words: Karnac of the slaver pirates was more like it, but I had too much self-control to let myself say that.
Unfortunately, nothing else came to mind. I turned in silence and headed back to the station.