Chapter 6
Kinetic Communication
“Dav, we’re docking in five. Get up.”
The chirp of Carissa’s voice from the tinny speaker in Davik’s bunk was not his preferred way to wake.
But he was glad to be upright before the pseudo-gravity shifted.
The sensation of the ship’s gravitational field fighting the much more powerful pull of the station they were docking at was stomach-churning.
It wasn’t as bad as full-on vertigo, but it made getting dressed a challenge.
He stood in front of the black screen beside his bunk, tousling up his hair a bit to give the dark waves some life.
His reflection was shockingly similar to his older brother’s.
Everyone on his mother’s side bore that same dark skin tone.
A rich umber carried to him from ancestors hundreds of years removed.
His grandmother had told him the name of the country, but it was a distant fact lost in the back of his mind. It was on the southern edge of a continent, on a planet he would never touch, in a solar system that his family had long since been forced from.
If his life ever slowed down enough for him to linger on ancestry, he’d take the time to find his roots. But that wasn’t what life in Tau Ceti was like. Not for him, at least.
Another to-do to add to the list.
His brow furrowed at the thought of his ever-growing task list. Like his brother, Davik had an aquiline nose and a thick pair of eyebrows.
Though Davik’s expression often looked less stern than Marius’s.
He also didn’t share his brother’s preference for keeping a beard.
Every time he tried, the itchy phase drove him up a wall, and he shaved it before it got to a respectable length.
At a smidge over five and a half feet, he hadn’t grown nearly to the height of his brother either, and Marius had collected far more augmentations over the course of his life than the bare necessities Davik had.
His augments were cheap titanium, simple structural reinforcement that showed in thin lines along his knuckles and elbows. It wasn’t the military-grade enhancements like Carissa and the rest of the crew had. He was the odd one out.
All Davik had was a comms link, his rebuilt throat, and just enough metal to keep his joints intact and his bone density from degrading in his sky-cursed life.
And each new one I get adds one more ache, one more thing to maintain.
Davik finished pulling on a baggy pair of work pants, dark gray and peppered with oil stains and burn holes. He barely got a tank top over his head before the battle between the gravity fields evened out.
With a kick to a stubborn side panel, a nook near his door slid open to reveal his washbasin and toiletries kit. His daily dose of meds, pre-portioned, awaited him in a handy cup. The least enjoyable part of his morning routine.
Augmeds. Anti-inflammatories. Vitamin D supplementation.
Pain management. Anti-depressants. Telomere integrity infusions.
At least six other pills to make up for the lifelong lack of natural air, sunlight, real gravity, or even decent food.
They worked well enough if he stayed consistent.
The readout on his wall display warned he was getting perilously low on a few, and he added “find a pharma hub” to his endless queue of chores.
The docking point for The Argent was through the cargo hold.
On his way to prep the seals for their arrival, he passed by the open and empty cryopod.
Marius was even further out of reach now, but Davik found this newcomer fascinating.
Seeing the pod washed him in a strange mix of emotions that left him feeling contrite.
Having a big green bundle of problems he could actually help solve was a welcome distraction, though. She had also been a pretty spectacular dinner guest. Davik loved puzzles, and she was over six feet of mystery with sharp wit and even sharper claws.
At least you know Marius is alive. You might have messed up the shortcut, but at least he’s not gone forever.
To add insult to injury, the docking procedure was not going smoothly. The station clearly did not prioritize maintenance. Aligning The Argent’s seals with their weathered and outdated junction was proving to be a nightmare.
It was a rest stop they visited frequently for repairs and refreshments, but it didn’t have much else in the way of amenities. The local law did little other than keep wanton murder and ship-jacking to a tolerable minimum, and the dock fees were steep, but they were short on options.
Like Carissa said, beggars can’t be choosers. And we are on our goddamn knees now.
The hissing of the airlock pressurizing the seal between the vessel and the station was a relief. Davik palmed the comm behind his ear, still a tad wobbly from the gravity shake-up.
“C, we’re locked in. Any chores for me, or are we just catching our breath here?”
“Got a couple, hold on. I’m waddling down.”
“You’re barely three months along. You’re far from waddling yet. But remember, you called it waddling. So if I call it waddling later, you can’t yell at me.”
Carissa crossed the bulkhead into the bay and shot him a fiery glare as soon as she got within earshot. “I am given divine right to bark at you for anything you say about me that’s pregnancy-related. That’s the law.”
Davik beamed and swept in a low, and very unrefined, bow. “I will happily let you berate me on behalf of my future little nephew. Niece? Nebulous other?” he asked, gesturing at Carissa’s stomach.
“Until Marius is here, it remains a ‘nebulous other’. Hell, maybe that’ll stick,” she said as she rubbed her belly reflexively.
She wasn’t showing yet, but it wouldn’t stay like that for long.
With a sigh, she looked down at the empty cryopod.
“He was supposed to be here, Dav. I had the whole thing planned. We were going to go to my next check-in and find out together.”
“I know, C. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how everything got so messed up.”
“We were ambitious. Desperate. Weren’t really expecting this particular time constraint.
” She turned back towards Davik, her brows set in stern intensity.
“But don’t even think about planning something to jump the line again.
We didn’t catch heat this time, but there is no way we’ll luck out twice.
And if we tried to scoop him out again and everything goes sideways?
I might actually lose it, Dav. We were so close. ”
He leaned over to wrap an arm around her shoulders, squeezing softly. “I get it, I promise. We’ll just have to do it legit, then.”
“Well, don’t get crazy,” she said with a laugh. “No way in hell we’re landing the coin above-board before this little bundle of bad timing pops out. We’ll be pulling IOUs and taking on the skuzziest jobs, and even that might not cut it.”
“We’ve got an extra pair of hands now, at least,” he said, gesturing back at the ship. “Er, fins?”
“Still called hands,” she huffed with a laugh, her eyes narrowing.
“I’m glad for the help. But let’s be realistic.
We aren’t always running through spots that play nice with Icthians, and she might not be keen on getting her fins dirty in the spots that do.
Fuck, I mean her hands. Dammit, now you’ve got me saying it. ”
He chuckled and pulled up his datapad, giving a few swipes to check on the ship’s status as he talked. “Eh, well, I’ve established that she is not worried about a touch of criminality.”
“You told her all about the family business already?”
“Well, not in great detail. But, c’mon.” He looked up from his datapad, gesturing with it emphatically. “She’s an unbound Icthian, in a settled system, that we sprung out of prison. She’s not averse to law-bending.”
His rebuttal did not strike the chord he had been hoping for. Carissa froze in place, her fingers flexing and clenching. “She doesn’t have a Pactbind? Please, Davik, tell me you’re joking. Fuck, how could I not notice? I’m losing my edge, I swear.”
“What? No, it’s— Look, she’s not going on a feral bender or anything. She’s lost, by herself, and willing to help. Are we really going to nitpick that she is not strictly adhering to a Fed stricture?”
“No,” she flexed her fingers one more time before softening her rigid stance.
“No. I just saw some wild stuff out on the Rim when I toured. Your brother, same as I. It’s not personal, just hard to shake.
” She paused, taking a deep breath and rubbing her temples.
“I’ll do my best to stay open-minded. But even if she’s not the kind that goes hivemind-berserk, she’s a risk.
If we’re caught with an unbound in a high-sec zone? That’s heat we do not need.”
“We rarely go anywhere high-sec to begin with. If it comes to it, I’ll figure something out.”
He sounded confident, but it was all bluster. That was not something fixable on his to-do list. He could manage food, water, shelter, and delightful banter. Solving the problem of the Fed strictures was not in his wheelhouse.
“Besides, we cart Drey around all the time,” he continued. “He’s a carton of trouble with loan sharks hounding him at every port. An unbound Icthian seems less of a hazard than that mess.”
That earned him a snort and a smile from Carissa. A small victory.
“Fine, fine. Just keep her out of trouble and get her ready to help with the inventory. I need to arrange our first transfer. I told Komelli we need to hit the ground running, and she’s kind enough to oblige.”
Komelli Trox was a force to be reckoned with. Fingers in just about every station, hub, port, and satellite in TC. She took a sizable cut of every “transaction” she aided in, but you always knew the info was good and the risks were upfront.
“How’d you jump to the front of the line? Usually, if we say we need quick cash, she tells us to pound sand.”