Chapter 9 #2
Whether it was the threat of missing out on pastries or if he was feeling a little invigorated from the coffee, Fia was astonished at how quickly Davik loaded up the cargo bay.
She had set herself up in a hammock made from cargo netting and was lounging with her datapad in-hand, spending the time between loading check-ins continuing her research for potential contacts.
Every path led to dead ends. Figurative and literal.
She had expanded her search beyond her own squadron, and still she found nothing.
Results were few and far between. All ship records and wartime reports she could find did not offer comforting insights.
So many she had served with were confirmed dead, missing-in-action, or had defected to serve the Federation of Sol.
It felt as though she had committed a betrayal. She slumbered while the conflict claimed the last vestiges of her people. And the currents of the universe ferried her along, delivering her to this strange place where she was too far removed to help anyone.
This had been a running theme in her life. Taking the path of least resistance, finding comfort in following directives, even if it took her into danger. It hadn’t failed her before, but now it left her feeling a sense of absence in her own destiny.
If she had chosen to be here, that choice would at least be something she had a claim to.
It might even feel like a mistake. But at least it would have been her mistake.
Instead, she was stuck like a bit of space-flotsam to the belly of this ship, picked up by accident.
Even her task at hand, finding a TCIP contact, was at the behest of Carissa.
Davik interrupted her self-deprecating spiral. He bounded over to her, holding his hands behind his back as he rocked on the balls of his feet. The gleam in his eyes was infectious, and the creeping dread in her mind faded as she matched his grin.
“All done?”
“Yep, yep. Nothing is strapped down yet, figured you may want them mobile so you can scoot ‘em around while you sniff around with your…” He held his hands over his head and made little wiggling motions with his fingers. “Transmission magic.”
She pursed her lips and stifled a laugh.
“Far from magic, but yes, that is perfect.” She pulled up the itinerary and squinted at him over the top of the datapad as she swayed leisurely in her hammock.
“Impressive. Even the tanks of—” She peered at the list with a confused tilt of the head.
“Why are repairing nanites being smuggled? Or is this like the beans, a false log?”
Davik shook his head. “No, it’s nanites, alright. They fall under the stricture of ‘illegal autonomous devices’. The Fed treats them as a controlled substance out here. It’s overcautious, but in the wrong hands, you can end up with nanites that gnaw holes in the hull of a station.”
“And are these nanites being delivered to someone who will be repairing, or hole-gnawing?”
“I don’t get paid to ask questions. I just move the cargo and stand around looking pretty,” he declared with a proud smile.
That one-sided dimple of his peeked out, and she felt a sudden and powerful urge zip along her spine.
She sat up from the hammock and stretched her arms over her head, rising so she could properly look down at his eager expression.
She cupped her hand under his chin, gently pressing the claw on her thumb into his cheek to mirror the dimple on the other side.
“Well, pretty boy. I think you have earned your freedom.”
She could feel the exquisite throb of his nervous swallow beneath her fingers.
What a responsive thing he is. Reactive and warm. How is he always so warm…
He stood there stock-still, his eager bouncing quelled and his lips slightly parted.
“Go on now,” she murmured, releasing him as she set off towards the cargo to inspect. “Go get your pastries, you have forty minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am, pirate princess, ma’am!” she could hear him call as he sped off towards the station.
The world went dim as she shifted her vision, searching to find any dangerous threads of malicious hardware in the packed-to-the-brim cargo bay. Through the haze of sensations, she could swear she could hear Davik whistling a tune off in the distance.
So the Federation has successfully barred Icthians from settling, and now have barred humans from using their own technology. No wonder everything feels stagnant. They have preserved their world so well that it is frozen still.
But even in this cold wasteland, there are warm little surprises to be found.
Fia was curled up in her shuttle for the night as The Argent trudged on towards the next stop.
The air in the tiny shuttle cabin was filled with the scent of vanilla and some other rich aroma she didn’t have words for.
The bouquet wafted from a box of delicate, flaky pastries that Davik had sheepishly offered them when he returned to the ship thirty minutes late.
It was a delicious peace offering that they had accepted, though Carissa accepted hers with a touch more grumbling.
His late arrival hadn’t set them back in the end.
Apparently, Davik had a habit of being summoned to fix things, move things, or cook things whenever they docked at stations with familiar faces or familiar places.
This happened frequently enough that Carissa had it factored into their itinerary, an entire extra hour: the “Davik Duty” buffer.
He leaves a little imprint everywhere he goes.
She stared fixedly at the sticker she had marked the door to her shuttle with. A glittery purple bear from the sticker sheet that one of her squadron had given her. That was what she left in her wake. Far more ephemeral. Far more hollow.
The low hum of the engines dragging them onward to the next port had lulled her into contemplative thought. She was so busy dwelling on her insignificance that she almost didn’t notice the alert on her datapad.
One of the wide “nets” she had cast into the datastreams wriggled.
It had been a haphazard bit of bait tossed onto one of those fringe anarcho-social boards Carissa had mentioned.
It was bait that would be written off to the wrong audience, but she hoped it would resonate with the right one.
Her risky message blinked on the screen: “Where were you when Our Sovereign fell?”
The reply notification blinked insistently on her datapad, and she sat bolt upright to read it, brushing crumbs off her lap as she did so.
“Some still sing Her song. If you know how to listen.”
She slicked her tendrils back. This required focus. Finesse. She needed to echo this movement, but step closer. It would be risky, but she had to drop some of her obscurity to invite this person to do the same.
“Sentu are skilled listeners. I just need to know where this song can be heard.”
The minutes dragged by as she waited for the response.
She might have been too obscure. Icthian clade taxonomy was likely not covered by standard education in this system.
Even on the Fleet, many had been too far removed from their home world of Bhrella to know much about how the clades were formed.
The rituals and rigor needed to spawn a generation of Sentu like her were an archaic lost art.
And now, they had no oceans, no spawning pools to revive that ancient practice.
No spawning pools to breed in at all. All Icthians not from Bhrella were clone-borne, that vile facsimile of reproducing the Federation had concocted.
A synthetic substitute that kept Icthians from extinction, only living at the behest of Sol, and Pactbound from birth.
Her rumination and worry nearly distracted her from the incoming message.
“I rarely extend invitations, but I can make an exception for an endangered species. If you are truly a keen listener, seek out the song, and ask for safe harbor.”
The exchange closed with one last note from the sender: coordinates to a small station orbiting a tiny moon. No specifics beyond that. No directions, no names, no level, no address. Just Driska Station.
Skila t’eta, Almenes. The ground shifts, and we press on.