Chapter 02
Thirty minutes later, I’m standing in a packed bar holding a sealed beaker of what appears to be green sludge, alone, with no idea how to drink it, or really what I’m even doing.
Vera and Jester haven’t abandoned me, I don’t think.
They ordered us a round of the green beakers, then realized they required a needle (for what purpose, I was afraid to ask) and bolted off to find one, leaving me standing in the center of this bar on Skyhub Space Station feeling both out of my element and a little starry-eyed.
I mean, really.
I’ve seen Skyhub in the news. I’ve done virtual walk-throughs and flipped through holographic pictures and even—in one of my more inspired phases—drawn some Skyhub concept art. None of it compares to the feeling of actually being here. Not even close.
Skyhub is shaped like a wheel, with ninety-nine identical detachments situated around the outer ring and six separate spokes leading in toward a central axis.
That focal point is aptly named The Hub, and though it was originally built for storage, over time it’s grown into something more like a city.
On our way to the bar (using a high-speed AI tram that’s apparently achieved consciousness and runs on a schedule of its own making), we zipped from Detachment 94, down Spoke III, and into The Hub, where the scene opened up like the lid off a candy box.
I’d never seen so many buildings jammed inside a single space station.
Or so many Legion members in one place, crowding inside cafés and mingling along the walkways, both with their own fleets and with others.
I should have expected it, obviously, but the magnitude of the whole thing—the size of the Legion, the size of Skyhub—kicked me in the stomach.
There are bars, restaurants, museums, theaters, all built in converted warehouses between neon billboards and tram tubes, and all intended to serve Legion members who are looking to blow off some steam between missions.
It’s excessive. And exciting. And apparently part of my new life.
Now, I glance around the bar (which, according to the sign over the door, is just called BAR) where I’m standing with my beaker.
Vera and Jester have probably only been gone a few minutes, though it feels like much longer.
The patrons here aren’t only Starfield Fleet members (though there are plenty of them, easy to spot in their whites) but also a diverse mix of humans and other life-forms who either work on Skyhub or are visiting for business.
The bar itself is dimly lit and jam-packed, everyone jostling for space.
Another slow minute ticks by. I toy with my lifestone, which hangs on a cord beneath my shirt, then realize what I’m doing and drop my hand.
It occurs to me that this might be some kind of prank.
Did Lament somehow get to Vera and Jester?
Did they conspire to usher me out to a random tavern and then lose me in the crowd?
I know it’s unreasonable. I haven’t been deserted. Yet my throat goes dry at the thought, and I can’t quite stop myself from twisting around again, searching for Vera’s black hair, Jester’s tall, slim figure …
“Lose someone?”
I turn to see a woman behind me. Her face is flat and wide, her eyes nearly hidden under a massive brow bone, which is covered in fatty lumps that spread across her cheeks and down her neck.
My reflexive laugh is back, too loud in my ears. “I’m all right.”
“You look lost.”
“Just waiting for my friends.”
She grins. “Let me help you find them.”
“Um.” My smile feels strained. “That’s really not necessary.”
Our conversation is drawing attention from nearby patrons.
I’m not sure of their species, but several also have overlarge brow bones and clusters of fatty skin tissue.
Maybe it’s because it’s my first day on Skyhub, and I’m semi-lost, and I may or may not have been abandoned by my new fleetmates, but my heart ratchets, my hand instinctively dropping to my hip where my ray gun is holstered.
It’s an old impulse, one my Academy officers spent years trying to train out of my system before it could get me into real trouble.
Like it’s doing now.
As soon as my hand connects with the weapon, the mood of the room shifts.
I think of the quick pull of a zipper, all those interlocking teeth.
Several nearby patrons come to their feet, their hands going to their weapons, murmurs sweeping through the bar.
I swear it’s not my imagination when the lights dim even further.
The woman bares her teeth. “I see your intentions are not entirely pure, Mr. Hartman.”
“My intentions—wait, how do you know my name?”
“Your fate has been written.”
“My what?”
“Keller, there you are.” Vera materializes like the Mother of Stars herself, Jester trailing close behind.
It’s dizzying how quickly the bar snaps back to normal, weapons tucked under cloaks, gazes darting away.
The lights brighten, the tension dissipating as if it’d never been.
When I glance behind me, the woman is gone.
“Got the needle.” Vera raises the item like a trophy. “Let’s see if we can find a seat.”
My pulse is still too high, my neck hairs standing on end. Slowly, I peel my fingers off my ray gun. I’m about to ask Vera and Jester if they know anything about block-browed strangers when I notice the object in Vera’s fist. “That’s not a needle,” I blurt. “It’s a syringe.”
Vera frowns. “Is there a difference?”
“Depends. Are you planning on jabbing it into my veins?”
“What?” She looks aghast. “No! It’s gelatin. These are gelatin shots.” She shows me, pressing the syringe into the top of her vial and sucking out the green sludge before squirting it into Jester’s mouth.
He smacks his lips, making a show of it. It’s a tradition in the Sixth to buy new members a gelatin shot, but of course, if you don’t want—
“No, no.” Relief—that they haven’t abandoned me, that it’s just gelatin, that I wasn’t attacked by a complete stranger who somehow knew my name—gathers under my ribs, making me weak and oddly giddy. “It’s good, I’m good. Do me next.”
The shot tastes like green apple, tart and tangy with a zing that goes straight to my head.
Vera is a lot shorter than me, so she has to stand on her toes to deliver my round, which means she kind of misses my mouth and gets half the gelatin on my chin, but I don’t care.
She’s giggling, and I’m smiling, and Jester’s visor is a long chain of hahahaha, and for the first time since arriving at Skyhub I feel like maybe this day won’t be a complete disaster after all.
“Youvu Hum and Youvu Hum should be here soon,” Vera says as we manage to snag a booth, which we accomplish by hovering menacingly over its former occupants and diving in as soon as they leave. “Toph is a maybe—he’s got a spacecraft repair to finish—but Avi should be coming, too.”
You invited Avi to a bar? Jester arches an eyebrow over the rim of his visor. Isn’t she a bit young?
Vera shrugs. “It’s not like she’s going to be drinking.”
They’ll stop her at the door.
Vera snorts. “They’ll try.”
Youvu Hum and Youvu Hum are the first to arrive.
Confusingly, they’re not twins or clones (cloning is strictly forbidden in Romothrida Galaxy), but they look identical, each with blade-straight black hair, oval faces, and flawless skin.
No one really knows how it happened, but the prevailing theory seems to be there was some kind of convergence between two parallel universes that brought the Youvu Hums together.
Technically, this means they’re the same person, but that’s even harder to wrap my head around, so I try not to think too hard about it.
“Hello,” they say in unison.
“Hello,” is my reply.
Dilpert “Overlord” Toph arrives next, a huge muscle of a person with a booming voice and a beard that looks coarse enough to sand wood.
At thirty, he’s the second oldest member of the Sixth behind Illiviamona.
(I haven’t met her yet, but she’s either one hundred and five or five hundred and one—her species uses a complicated number system for recording age that leaves this up to interpretation.) Toph doesn’t fit into the booth, which is apparently not uncommon, and everyone seems perfectly at ease with him standing at its end.
Avi Heplex is the last to appear, a snub-nosed button of a human who (as I’d learned from my stalker research) is eleven years old.
“The bouncer wouldn’t let me in,” Avi complains as she slides into the booth.
“Well,” Youvu Hum says consolingly, “they have an age limit.”
“There’s an age limit for drinking. No such limit exists for sitting beside people who are drinking.”
“So how’d you get in?” I ask.
Don’t encourage her, Jester warns.
“I blackmailed him,” Avi replies.
I squint an eye at her. “You have dirt on the bouncer?”
“I have dirt on everyone.”
Avi is the youngest member to ever enter the Legion, Jester interrupts in an apparent effort to redirect the conversation. She’s our pyrotechnician.
Avi tips her head back and forth. “That’s code for spymaster.”
“No,” Vera sighs, “it’s not.”
“I’m confused,” I admit.
“She’s our pyro,” says Youvu Hum.
“Starfield Fleets don’t have spymasters,” the other Youvu Hum emphasizes.
“Officially speaking,” Avi adds with widened eyes.
Vera buries her face in her hands.
“You know,” I tell Avi, “pyrotechnics isn’t that far-off from gunning. You and I probably have a lot in common.”
“You mean, we like destroying things?”
“Avi.” Vera.
“Ah, no.” I flounder. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Why not?” Avi no longer looks like a button.
More like a ticking time bomb. “You wouldn’t make a very good gunner if you didn’t like shooting.
Just like I wouldn’t be a very good pyrotechnician if I didn’t like explosions.
” There’s only the slightest pause before she rushes on, “Or a very good spymaster if I didn’t—”
“You’re not our spymaster,” interject the Youvu Hums.