Chapter 19 #3
They were too close to the section of space that Graydon was supposed to be investigating. Word couldn’t get back to Torvald that they’d strayed into matters they’d been explicitly ordered away from.
“This is a human run station. Speak human standard when on it. Nothing else.”
Bez raised his hand. “What if we don’t speak human standard?”
“Then you don’t speak.”
It was as easy as that.
“Bez and Az, you can see about getting Pye medical attention. Roderick can go with you if you need an interpreter.”
He had basic knowledge of the language.
“Arly and Maksym, I want you with your ears to the ground. There are some strange things happening on this station. I want to know what they are.”
Their lack of contacts remaining on Titan disturbed her. To the common lay person, the power struggle currently taking place wouldn’t be immediately apparent. But there were small signs for those familiar with the former dynamics. Something was going on.
“What about you? What will you be doing?” Bez asked.
The entire ship jolted.
Kira lost her balance, Finn catching her before she could be sent face first into the closest bulkhead. Bez toppled sideways, hitting the wall hard.
Maksym barely stumbled, shrugging into his oversized sweatshirt like this happened all the time.
Roderick caught Az, steadying her before letting go of her arm.
Luckily, Pye was still lying on the pallet they’d arranged for him. Arly threw herself over her friend, preventing the both of them from going sliding.
“Sorry, sorry,” Jin called over the comms. “Just a little bit of unexpected turbulence. Nothing to worry about.”
“This is space.” Raider’s voice was barely audible as he spoke from beside Jin. “There’s no such thing as turbulence.”
“There is if I say there is.”
“Get out of that chair. I knew you weren’t ready to fly,” Raider rumbled.
The sounds of a struggle came through the comm system before it abruptly cut off.
Kira clapped her hands to get the group’s attention. “You heard him. We’ve arrived. Prepare to disembark.”
“This side’s good,” Finn called, helping Kira do the last checks.
Kira peered through the port hole, sweeping a glance over the docking tube to make sure everything was in order.
Although much of the process was automated, she still liked to lay eyeballs on the tube whenever possible.
Every spacer had heard stories of some idiot accidentally spacing themselves over a glitch in the system when a simple visual check could have solved everything.
“Unsealing now,” Kira said.
Readouts were all normal. Oxygen was present on the other side and their system was picking up air flow.
All positive signs that the docking tube had done what it was supposed to.
She cranked the hand wheel responsible for unsealing the hatch a quarter turn, waiting for the loud hiss of air.
“Kira!” Jin yelled, racing into the cargo just as Kira cranked the hand wheel the rest of the way and shouldered open the hatch. “I did it! I found a contact! And you’ll never guess who it is!”
“You mean I found someone,” Raider corrected, ambling after him.
Dylan brought up the rear, clad in a cloak much like the one Roderick had pulled from somewhere.
“Does it really matter who found what?” Jin complained. “The point is they’ve been found.”
“You say that because you’re not the one who saved the day,” Raider grumbled.
Bez stabbed a finger in the two’s direction. “Why do they get to keep their normal clothes?”
At some point, he’d taken Kira’s advice and lost the clothes he’d had on under the jumpsuit. They were now in a bag at his side.
“Raider is human. He already blends in.”
And as far as she knew, he’d never been on Titan so there were no enemies he needed to avoid.
“As for Jin—” Kira examined her friend and nodded. “No one is going to look twice at a child.”
Jin had chosen his clothing wisely, picking items made from fabrics that wouldn’t stand out. Things that appeared neither luxurious nor cheap.
His pointed ears were the only thing that gave him away.
Kira plopped a fuzzy, old hat on his head, tugging down the ear flaps so they covered the pointed tips of his ears.
Jin touched it cautiously. “This had better not have lice.”
“Let’s hope,” Kira agreed. She tossed the twin of Jin’s hat at Bez. Az and Arly’s hair was long enough to cover their ears. “Otherwise, it’s going to suck to be you.”
Bez caught the hat and held it as far away from his body as he could. “What are lice?”
“Trust me, man. You don’t want to know,” Raider assured him.
Bez’s face showed reluctance as he slowly tugged the hat into place.
Kira faked a bright smile. “Everyone ready?”
She didn’t want to do this. Like really, really did not want to do this.
Titan wasn’t reputable or safe. And here she was about to set a bunch of unchaperoned, somewhat naive to the way of humans, Tuann onto the unsuspecting populace.
This was going to be a disaster.
“What’s with that face?” Raider joined her at the mouth of the tube. “You look like someone pissed in your morning chai.”
“Just considering all the ways this could go wrong. Jin wasn’t lying, right? You found a contact?”
Raider’s expression was one she had trouble defining. “That about sums it up.”
“Well? Who is it?”
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you.” Raider was first into the transparent tube connecting the ship to the station. “It’ll be much more fun to let you see for yourself.”
Kira followed Raider, her stomach dropping as the gravity from her ship fell away. The weightlessness of space took over. “I dislike it when you’re mysterious.”
Raider barked out a laugh. “Ain’t that too bad, Nixxy Poo.”
Titan floated above them, a hulking beast against a starry backdrop.
Dozens of ships, much like this one, had anchored in various places around it.
Although newer than O’Riley, Titan had never been built to last. It had been smashed together from a mishmash of random parts.
Basically, it was a massive cylinder with not much intention or purpose behind its design.
Ugly and squat with antennas bristling from every flat surface like quills on a porcupine.
Jin and the others entered the tube one after another.
“Is it good to be back?” Maksym asked, floating up beside Kira.
“I’m not sure.”
To be honest, it was hard to describe what she was feeling.
Titan had never been home.
A temporary stopover on her way to the next salvage. Yes. A base of operations. Sure. Sometimes even a convenient place to blow off steam.
But a home—never.
Roake’s Fortress of the Vigilant was the closest she’d gotten to that concept in a long time. It was one of the reasons she was so invested in protecting it.
“You have friends here, though,” Bez said from behind them.
“I wouldn’t call them that,” Kira admitted.
From a little further back, Jin snorted. “We didn’t win any congeniality pageants last time we were here.”
“Salvaging is a cut-throat business,” Kira explained at Bez’s confused look. “It doesn’t leave a lot of room for connections.”
Centcom only cared about the tech they could turn in.
Not how they came to possess it. Some salvagers saw that as an opportunity.
They acted more like pirates than the actual pirates, waiting until a salvage team had finished and were on their way to Omega or Titan station before attacking and making off with their cargo.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Bez asked.
“It was a living.”
For someone fresh from the battlefield whose primary skill set involved killing, there weren’t a lot of morally upright options.
“Keep a low profile while here,” Kira instructed. “Don’t pick any fights if you can help it.”
“But if someone picks a fight with you, don’t back down either,” Jin added.
“You realize those are contradictory pieces of advice,” Bez pointed out.
Kira shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
They were Tuann. They were all about balance. The keeping of it. The breaking of it.
Raider reached the opposite end of the air lock, touching down as the station’s gravity caught him.
The hatch was already open.
“In and out,” Kira told herself.
Things wouldn’t go the way they had on O’Riley.