Chapter 14
Lost Shadows
The door closed, and the wave of quiet brought the space around Fia into sharp clarity. It was dark and moody, lit by an assortment of dim lamps and a bay of screens pulsating with a soft amber glow.
The warm light bathed a collection of mismatched chairs, haphazard shelves, and a wide desk in the center of the room. There was just enough illumination to make out the broad-shouldered outline of an Icthian man sitting behind it.
He had deep gray scales, interspersed with vibrant orange and red markings framing his face and tendrils. He wore several pieces of silver jewelry, but the sickening glint of the golden Pactbind shone in stark contrast around his throat.
When the pink-haired bouncer scanned Fia with a baton, she paused at her hip, the device beeping insistently over where her vertiblade was coiled.
“C’mon,” the woman said as she held out her hand. “Hand it over.”
“Absolutely not,” Fia said, taking a step back.
The heavily augmented woman leveled a deadpan stare between Fia and the Icthian behind the desk, and the man let out a sigh.
“It’s fine. She’s a— She’s a cousin, Darb. We’re good.”
The pink-haired woman left the room with an exasperated huff, leaving just the three of them. Davik, Fia, and the stranger she had come here to see.
“Well, your hospitality here leaves a bit to be desired,” Davik mumbled from his chair.
“You are Theos, I assume?” Fia asked, gesturing at the seated Icthian.
“You assume correctly. You must be the wayward Sentu nosing around on the boards and trying to tap into our comms lines.”
He spoke in plain English with an informal cadence. Not nearly as stilted and textbook as her own grasp of the language. The rough rumble of his voice was gentle and kindly in contrast to the foreboding ambiance of the room.
“Is prose just a fun hobby of yours?” he continued. “Or was that some attempt at being clever? Scrolling through your posts was the highlight of our week.”
Theos flicked at his desk, summoning their conversations on the screens behind him. The message that brought her here appeared along with several other posts she had made. Messages she had assumed had fallen on deaf ears. Apparently not.
The Icthian cleared his throat before he quoted her words with a performative resonance. “Let’s see. ‘I slumbered knowing Her empire and awoke to find it shattered’ — That one was a hit here. Five points for flair.”
“Fia, you never showed me these posts,” Davik said as he read the messages with a growing smile. “This is golden. You wrote ominous, anonymous, sorrowful prose into the social datastreams. Oh my God. That’s adorable. You really are a relic from another time.”
“I believe it is rude to divulge someone’s anachronism, Dav,” she grumbled, a flare of embarrassment glowing along her gills.
Theos snorted a laugh, dismissing the readout with a wave of his hand. He pointed a silver-ringed finger at Fia directly and spoke in the curling and weaving tongue of Teelish.
“I need assurance that he is safe to speak plainly in front of, or he needs to step out. We do not live in a time where we can trust humans easily.”
Fia felt a lash of indignation twine up and flare an irritated flicker of green along her tendrils. She spat back her response in Teelish as well, though hers held none of the warmth Theos had used.
“I awoke unmoored, lost, and alone on his ship. He asked for nothing but my name and how he could help. Speak your fears plainly and ask him yourself. This is disrespectful posturing.”
Davik looked unaffected by their exchange. He was surveying the room with a wandering gaze and tapping his knees while she bristled and hissed.
“Fine, plainly,” Theos relented, opening his hands towards Davik. “My hospitality is lacking, as you noted. I believe our mutual friend here called you Dav. Is it all right if I call you that?”
Davik nodded, reaching out to shake the man’s massive hand. “Full name is Davik. Pleasure to meet you, Theos. And no offense taken. I am out of my depth here. Kicking myself for not taking a class in Teelish back in the day, though. I miss any good gossip?”
Theos cracked a smile and shrugged. “Just caution.” He made a few gestures on the table, pulling up information on his screen.
“Davik Yerevan. Class two technician, registered with the Engineers Guild. Somewhat colorful past of legal trouble and docking violations. How did you come to meet … what did you call her? Fia?”
Fia rubbed the bridge of her nose. Theos was unfamiliar to her, but despite that, he held the same looming and protective air of authority as her superiors on the Fleet. In this situation, he had the upper hand of context she desperately needed, which put her on a very uncomfortable back foot.
“Accidentally broke her out of prison. Which has got to be in the top ten for meet-cutes, let’s be honest,” he said with a grin as he leaned back in his seat.
“I mean, you’re staring at my rap sheet, so you know I’m a smuggler.
My brother got pinched. We went to arrange an early family reunion.
Something got mixed up, and we ended up taking her home instead. ”
“And your brother?”
“Still hanging out on ice. Fia’s been helping us scrape up enough coinage to get him out, legit. Well,” Davik said as he made a so-so gesture with his hands. “Legit-ish.”
Theos steepled his hands and stared between the two of them, his deep orange eyes narrowing as he processed the information.
“Satisfied?” Fia asked. “He is not a puppet of Sol, if that is your concern.”
“An unknown relic seeking TCIP walks into my bar, sporting a bind, with a human in tow. Forgive me for assuming something had gone sideways,” Theos said, gesturing at her throat.
Fia reached back to unhinge the clasp behind her neck, setting the gold-hued Pactbind on the desk.
“A gift, from said human.”
Theos’ brow-ridges raised in curiosity as he picked up the device to inspect it.
In his massive hands, it looked more like a bracelet.
There was a twinge of sorrow in his expression as he turned it around in his grasp, and Fia realized the cruelty of showing off that she could just remove her shackle. Unlike him.
“You made this?” he asked, gesturing to Davik with the mock bind. Davik nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up with a little proud smile. “Fine work. We pinged it. It read back like an active unit.” He continued to examine it, giving it a few more turns in his grasp before returning it to Fia.
“Stragglers and dissenters with pre-war skills are a rarity. But you fell out of the sky and into our inbox,” Theos continued, tapping his desk. “So, where did you come from? A cell on the Rim? Sprung from an experimental clone lab outside of Fed control?”
“Sovereign Fleet. Sent to Tau Ceti before it was taken by Sol. Diverted at some point. Logged as dead. Stored in a Federation cryoprison. The specifics between, I do not know. Pardon the term, but my trail goes cold.”
Theos made a noise of surprise, knocking his knuckles on the table. “Hmm. So you are actually pre-war? Or, I guess, mid-war. I was just making fun of your accent. We’ve had a few relics pop up over the years, but that dried up a good while ago.”
He sank back in his chair and crossed his arms, looking down at his screen readouts.
“Likely, whoever was shuffling you around like precious cargo is dead, or on ice themselves. Or they had a plan to pull you out at a more convenient time. The Fed shoved so many of their problems into cryo that hiding in plain sight works surprisingly well. Unless someone yanks you out by accident.”
Davik shrugged. “Hey, if you wanna give me and mine a list of secretly iced Icthian super-soldiers, I will ensure we never accidentally nab one. Deal?”
“Far from super, I was just a communications officer,” Fia said with a laugh.
“I saw you drop that cop like a sack of potatoes. You are a wildly fearsome potential vessel of destruction. Don’t you dare undersell yourself.”
“You might joke,” Theos interjected, flicking a few commands into his terminal. “But the Federation does not entirely disagree. They have been trying to get their hands on any Fleet folk floating out there.” He stared at Fia with his brow-ridge furrowed. “Sentu, especially.”
“So, the rest of my squadron,” she murmured, her eyes lowering. “Have any others been found that are from the Fleet?”
Theos grimaced and clicked his tongue as he rolled his chair back, striding to a cabinet along the wall. “TCIP doesn’t officially endorse anything I’m about to say, understood?” he asked as he fished out a glass decanter full of some rose-pink liquid and three glasses.
“I was under the impression TCIP was not truly official in any capacity. Just an ideological collective, yes?”
Theos leaned against the front of the desk as he poured a drink for each of them. The floral and bright scent of Chellui liquor hit her nose, and she was plunged into a well-stowed memory of getting shellacked with her comrades on the flagship with just one bottle of the same drink.
“Are we celebrating?” she asked, swirling the Icthian libation.
“No, bracing,” he murmured as he shot his own glass back, biting back a hiss after swigging it down.
“Well, shit. Cheers, I guess?” Davik said. He clinked his glass against hers, and they downed their drinks in unison.
“Alright, well. You’ve been out of the loop, so I’ll try to knit this up succinctly. TCIP is — was, about fifty years back — on the verge of tipping this system to be fully independent from Sol.”
Davik made a noise of minor disagreement, but Theos continued.
“Okay. TCIP got close to lessening the Federation’s hold here.
That rattled Sol enough to send a big military push.
Sol boots swept through stations, rooted out dissenters, and cleaned house.
We struggled to get our footing after that, but someone has been pushing back against Sol ever since.
Not TCIP, someone bigger, but they stay off the radar. ”