Chapter 9
Safe Harbor
Leaving the warmth of her cot was a struggle. There was a lightness in her chest she hadn’t expected to hold over from the emotional turbulence of the night before. It felt like the satisfying ache of a well-worked muscle.
The fluffy blanket her face was buried in sent her mind wandering towards thoughts of Davik. Specifically, thoughts surrounding the part of him she could see peeking out from the neck of his shirt. An enticing tuft of dark hair that lay between swells of plush skin and muscle on his chest.
I wonder if it’s as soft as it looks.
She shook her head to dispel the thought.
There was much to do, and she could not indulge her impulse to tangle with this enchanting human and get her bearings in this strange world at the same time.
She shirked the coil of blankets around her and donned her borrowed clothes.
The pants came with loops for tools she had no context for, and the not-long-enough-for-her-torso tank top had a logo for a company she had never heard of.
Fia hadn’t spent more than one year in the same place since adolescence.
Moving assignments, ships, and outposts was constant.
Her life always easily fit in a rucksack, and that had never bothered her.
But now, being reduced to only having her weapon and her contraband stickers, she felt painfully unburdened.
My Sovereign is dead, and I am lamenting a lack of trinkets. Pitiful.
When she made it to the mess hall, both Carissa and Davik were chatting away over coffee. She poured herself a cup from the pot and settled down, cupping it between her hands greedily. The taste was vile without cream and sugar, but the warmth and the invigoration were hard to beat.
“Mornin’ Fi,” Davik hummed. The dark circles that were ever-present under his eyes looked a little fainter today.
“Good morning to you two as well,” Fia replied over the brim of her coffee cup, blowing gingerly at the surface of the black brew and watching the ripples.
Carissa fussed as she took a swig. “Ugh … decaf just feels wrong. Dav, your mom probably drank double-strength when she was carrying you and your brother. You turned out just fine. This is overkill. Give me the good stuff.”
“C, have you met me?” he said, gesturing to himself emphatically. “You want a kid with my particular brand of neuroses?”
Fia cocked a brow. “I think you developed quite well. What is the issue?”
Davik held his mug up towards Fia and beamed. “Clearly, I’m doing something right. Or, I have mastered the facade. I’ll drink to that, pirate princess.”
“My titles are changing daily. What will it be tomorrow? Enigmatic icicle?” she asked with a light chuckle.
“Alright, you two, quit flirting,” Carissa grumbled.
A delightful thrill at the accusation, inaccurate though it may be, lit her tendrils with pinpricks of bright green light.
She kept a straight face and busied herself with taking a hefty sip of the bitter drink.
To her delight, Davik was also hiding his face behind his own mug and dodging eye-contact.
He is such a reactive thing. I hope he knows that just makes it even more enticing to push his buttons.
“We’ve got ground to cover and plans to make to get Marius off ice,” the decaf-addled pilot began, swiveling and scooting the display on the datapad so it was visible between the three of them.
There was a representation of the entire Tau Ceti system, annotated with refuel hubs, asteroid colonies, satellite stations, and various other points of interest.
“There are a few time-sensitive jobs that Melli has scouted out for us. Naturally, all are high-risk. But hot inventory is also lucrative as all get out. Fia, your—” Carissa made an antennae-wiggling gesture with her fingers over her head.
“Ahem. ‘Unique capacity for bug-finding’ is a Godsend here. We can take them all on easily with your help. But this is a long string of jobs, and I don’t want to hold you hostage. ”
“Is smuggling like this not what you usually do?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
Davik shrugged. “Yes, and no. We never juggle so many at once. This lineup has a lot of overlap. Because, man. If you get greedy, load your bay to the brim, and get caught? Now you’ve pissed off every little faction and niche you were hauling for, and you have fines so steep you’ll never climb out of that hole. ”
“Understood. Then, what did you mean by holding me hostage?” Fia asked, idly swiveling the system display in front of her.
“Well, I hear you haven’t had great luck in finding connections yet, am I right?”
Her search had been thorough and fruitless. But she had been cautious. Perhaps she needed to be bolder in her inquiries on the datastreams. Though crying out, “Hello, Tau Ceti. Has anyone lost their wartime stowaway?” seemed unwise.
“While we appreciate your help, you’re in a precarious spot,” Carissa continued.
“I’m sure smuggling isn’t what you trekked across the ink to do.
At least, not smuggling with us strangers.
I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to work for me.
You’re out here roaming on your lonesome, which makes me a giant ass if I just milk you for your labor while keeping you from getting your own feet steady. ”
And I am sure they do not want to keep an unbound Icthian aboard longer than they have to.
These people were kind, but they were also a family set on a task that her presence had inadvertently interrupted. This unexpected adventure in mischief and petty crime was just a current she was letting drag her onward, but she had to return to her familiar waters soon.
The Sovereign was dead, but Fia had taken an oath to fight to preserve her people. There had to be something she could do, some fight to join, some resistance to reinforce. Some place she could find that wasn’t so painfully, achingly silent.
“I will need to find … something, yes,” Fia said, doing her best not to look forlorn at the thought. “Any suggestions on where one would find other unbound, lost Icthians?” she asked as she gestured at the map.
“They’re pretty under the radar these days, but TCIP advocates for Icthian liberation. They’re a good starting point. Just look for people with ominous, anonymous tags organizing mutual aid on the social datastreams.”
Davik quirked a brow at that. “Didn’t know you were an anarchist advocate, C.”
Carissa snorted out a laugh. “I’m not. Already did my time risking skin for ideals that aren’t mine. TCIP isn’t anything but the other side of that coin. I just keep apprised of what’s out there, and I don’t get involved.”
Fia pulled out her datapad and made a brief note. “That is a good place to begin. Are they fully militarized, with a chain of command to query?”
“Nah,” Davik said, making a dismissive movement with his hands. “Occasionally, they kick off a minor rebellion, make a little commotion. Nothing crazy, though.”
Carissa made a dismissive noise before she clapped her now-empty mug on the table. “Alright, let’s get rollin’.” She looked at Davik and tossed the datapad at him. “We’ve got five coming in today. First should be within the hour. Chop chop, Momma needs some shuteye before we seal up and ship out.”
Davik groaned and looked at the list. “Aw, man. Liquid transports? Something always pops a leak.” Carissa shot him a stare through her furrowed brow. “Alright, alright! I just hope we’ve got sealant on hand. Yeesh, woman. Go get some sleep before actual lasers shoot out of your pupils.”
Carissa’s expression cracked into a smile, and she gave Davik’s hair a tousle on the way out. “Make sure he doesn’t get off track, Fia. He has a habit of wandering off at this port, and we’re on too tight a schedule for that today.”
Davik looked between the two women, looking wounded. “What? Why is that my fault?” He set down his mug and peered at their itinerary. “Wait, we’re docked at Selv’s Station?! This is the place with the bakery that uses actual butter, C!”
“Yeah, and you stood in line for it so long we missed our departure window last time.”
“But,” he groaned, clutching his stomach. “They are worth it. Think of the baby! You would let the little babeling develop without experiencing the secondhand joy of their mom getting a warm, flaky, fresh croissant?”
Ah, so she is expecting. This explains the urgency. And the decaf.
Carissa rolled her eyes and covered Davik’s ears with her hands, looking straight at her. “I’m deputizing you. You’re in charge. You respect a timeline. He can run off to get snacks after we’re loaded up for the day. Understood?”
“Ah.” Fia grinned broadly, tapping the tips of her claws on the mug with a satisfying tinkling noise. “I have evolved beyond prisoner. I have become the warden.”
“Be a ruthless one for me,” she said, turning on her heel to head off to bed. “If we miss our window, I’m taking it out of your pay!”
“But you do not pay me!” she corrected, but Carissa kept her stride and left the room without another word.
She sighed and rose to head towards the dock herself. Before she could leave, Davik grasped her arm gingerly. He was looking up at her with an intense doe-eyed gaze, squeezing her forearm insistently.
“Fi. You do not understand. I will perish. I will keel over and wither if I leave this station without hitting up Francisco’s.”
“Well then, you had best work quickly.”
With the free arm he was not clinging to, she reached towards his neck and gently dragged a clawed fingertip under his chin to tilt his face upwards. The fare of his pupils was absolutely intoxicating.
No, not intoxicating. Fascinating. I find him peculiar and interesting. I won’t complicate things by pushing beyond that.
“Shall we?” she asked before brushing past him and onward toward the cargo bay.