Chapter 12
War Criminal
So, this is the second time in as many months you’re being pinned against a wall. Really need to re-evaluate the direction your life is heading.
“I asked you a fucking question,” the security guard barked, forcing the sharp edge of her elbow between Davik’s shoulder blades. The pressure knocked the wind out of him. His cheek grated against the concrete wall, and he struggled to gasp in the air needed to reply.
“And I told you, we didn’t have a brute rig. She just got lucky!” he hissed back.
Apparently, the slot parlors had a much more aggressive security stance than he had remembered. And so far, this woman — who was fiery in both hair and demeanor — was not a fan of de-escalation. Especially since he had no satisfactory answers to give her.
She snarled, her knee wedging between his legs, perilously close to crushing a precious part of his anatomy against the wall.
Huh. Well, now you know you don’t have a kink for getting manhandled. Maybe you just have a thing for anything the tall green lady does to you.
“Right. You and the fish just got real lucky, so lucky that the machine paid you out more in ten minutes than it does in an entire week. Fuck you,” she spat. “You’ve got about eight seconds to pick a better story, or I’m taking you to the station enforcement.”
“Look, I’ll give you the money back. It wasn’t even that much, holy sh—”
An odd crackling sound cut him off. It sounded like the flutter of static when you brush your hand across a charged panel near high voltage.
The pressure between his shoulder blades released as his groin became blessedly free of his assailant’s encroaching knee, and a guttural choking noise met his ear.
There was sweet relief, but immediate fear. He didn’t dare take a moment to thank the assorted gods. Not yet.
He spun on his heels to see the red-headed security guard lifted off her feet, clutching at her throat. A thick cable was wrapped around the guard’s neck, the garrote crackling with arcing electricity that made her body twitch.
And the hands that held the guard were green, scaled, and webbed.
Davik felt a pang of something that made his stomach flip.
Fia looked terrifying. Terrifying and terrible and entirely unfazed by the thrashing woman in her grasp.
He could see flickers of electrical energy arcing between her fingers, her tendrils, and that strange coil wrapped around the still-struggling woman’s windpipe.
Fia’s deep green eyes were locked on him, and he couldn’t put a good descriptor on her expression. It wasn’t rage. There was an edge to it that didn’t fit. It wasn’t fear, either. If anything, she looked savagely fearsome.
This is the look of a predator with something in its jaws.
That pang of the “something” he was feeling dropped from a tightness in his chest to a tightness in his groin.
Oh my god. As soon as there’s time to book it, therapy therapy therapy therapy therapy. You need so much fucking therapy.
…Fucking her would also be incredibly therapeutic.
The guard kicked out one last time before going limp in her arms.
“Are you hurt?” Fia asked, her voice eerily flat despite her chest heaving in ragged breaths.
“Yeah, bruised ego, but I’m fine. I’m fine. Oh my god, is she dead!?” Davik said with an urgent whisper, his eyes wide as he stared between Fia and the hired muscle.
“No.”
With a grunt, she freed her strange lasso from the throat of the woman and let her slump to the ground with a sickening thud. Much to his relief, he could see the woman’s chest rising and falling with slow, shallow breaths.
“Well, fuck … Uh. So, how did your shopping go?” he asked, trying to keep it light. Despite the last five minutes being filled with his own risk of imprisonment and bodily harm, he was more concerned about her.
This is not how the night was supposed to go. He had taken her out for her first spin off the ship, hoping for a chance at a romantic stroll. He wouldn’t have been averse to some recreational strangulation in an alleyway, but not this.
She took three strides to close the distance between them.
Stalking. That movement, when you see it, you say, “She stalked”. She is stalking. Predator. That shouldn’t be sexy.
She towered over him, grabbing his chin and tilting his face from side to side as she examined him thoroughly.
“Are you hurt?”
Her hands were tingling with that strange flicker of bioelectricity he had felt that night at Hepler Station.
“No, just a little scuffed, but if I pretend I’m wounded, do I get to be thrown over your shoulder and carried to the ship?”
A crack of a smile broke through her stoicism.
Victory.
“Let’s … uh. Let’s get your goodies and get the hell out of dodge before she comes to. And you can explain where you learned to do that when we’re back on the ship. Deal?”
“Deal.”
The cargo bay was a welcome, chilly reprieve from the muggy, hot station.
Davik signaled to Carissa that they were clear to go, and she grumbled something about not operating on his schedule as they began their disembark sequence.
Fia was silent as they worked, dodging his glances while they ran down the departure checklist. Seals were holding, their water tanks were topped off, and they had a clear go from the dockmaster.
They both sat with their backs to the wall in the cargo bay as the ship broke free of the station and set off into the inky black. Shoulder to shoulder, both staring at their feet. Reticent.
He didn’t mind it much, though. She was quiet, but she was here. He could wait. She was just reflecting. Processing.
Processing was something he could manage. He could understand that. She wasn’t hiding. She wasn’t running. That’s what he was truly scared of: being shut out. That’s always what happened when he got close to someone he cared about.
He just wanted to know what she was thinking.
Sure, part of that was his rampant curiosity, but there was more to it than that.
He wanted to peel back her deflection, to see what was keeping her just barely out of reach.
Which was odd, considering she ended up with her hands and claws on him. A lot.
Maybe that’s just an Icthian thing. Maybe a Rim thing. Maybe they are just touchy. Maybe you’re reading into this. Yeah, you’re reading into this. Fuck.
The night had been a spectacularly failed attempt at a date.
Maybe he should have told her he had reservations for dinner lined up.
He had been really looking forward to taking her on a walkabout route through the botanical dome, too.
But as usual, he had tried to plan something, and the world humbled him for it.
On the upside, she had supplies now. He could take a little solace in knowing she might be a bit more comfortable here. With him.
“I did not factor in that you might end up in trouble,” Fia finally murmured, her eyes closed. “You could have gotten hurt. That was an unnecessary risk.”
“Bah,” Davik grumbled. “It wasn’t like that was some heavy-hitter gang lord or a Fed. Just a local shop cop.”
She opened her eyes, looking up at the ceiling. Staring at the wall. Studying her hands. Looking anywhere but at him.
“This is not what I was made for. I … need distance.”
He hadn’t even taken her on a proper date yet, and already she was talking distance. That stung.
“To observe,” she continued. “I, on the Fleet, with that diving bell I showed you? I could see everything, see everyone. To warn them, to keep them safe.” She shook her head, the heels of her palms meeting her temples.
“So … not a pleasure liner fleet, I take it? What exactly was your old job?”
He felt as if he were defusing a bomb, reaching for a delicate wire to snip. But he had to know.
“Communications Officer. Sovereign Fleet.”
“Oh, shit. So, you aren’t from the Rim. You weren’t just down for sixty years. You were—”
She nodded, and he let out a low whistle.
He had been so preoccupied with keeping up the frenetic pace to bail out Marius that he never paused to actually sit down and put the pieces together.
She was clearly far from home and far removed from current events.
That was a given. The Rim was a chaotic place with outdated tech, disconnected from the rest of the settled systems.
This realization made far less sense. The Icthian Incursion had been over two hundred years ago.
The Sovereign and her Fleet had been destroyed in the ages of his great, great great so-on-and-so-forth grandparents.
But somehow, Fia was here. This tall bundle of mystery had suddenly become much, much more mysterious.
“So. Not a cartel ice princess?”
She let out a surprised, bright laugh. “No. Just a war criminal.”
“That is so much cooler, you have no idea.”
“You are a strange, strange man,” she whispered as she gave him a soft nudge with her shoulder.
“No, I just … It’s nice to know more about you.” He returned the nudge with his own, and he reveled in the light chuckle it elicited from her.
“It feels good to be known by you.”
His heart made a valiant attempt to escape his torso.
“If you find what you’re looking for at Driska, just know, I’m— We, we’re gonna miss you.” He paused, but he couldn’t let that sentiment be what hung in the air. “You know, too many riddles left. Not enough time to dig into that fascinating mind of yours.”
She chuckled, and they lingered for a few more minutes of oddly comfortable silence.
“So, weird question then. You were in cryo before the war ended. So … how old are you?” he asked.
“Hmm,” she murmured, inspecting her claws as she spoke. “Temporally, quite ancient. I spent my childhood on Bhrella, but I entered stasis before maturity. Long, long before the exodus, before the oceans withered.”
“You’ve just been on ice, shipped around the ‘verse, your whole life? Did you get a say in it?”