Chapter 20 #3
“I can taste it now.” Jin gagged. “How is that better?”
“Here.” Finn held out a container of ointment. Opening it, he swiped his finger in it before smearing the stuff beneath Jin’s nostrils. “This should help.”
Jin took an experimental sniff, his expression lighting up. “It does.”
“Where did that come from?” Kira asked.
The container disappeared back into Finn’s hoodie. “Since you have many dealings with humans, I thought it appropriate to keep some on hand as our senses and theirs are often at odds.”
He was saying they sometimes stunk.
Seeing Dylan, Finn paused with his hand still tucked half in his bright orange top. “Would you—”
Dylan shook his head. “No need. I’m fine.”
Kira glared as Finn dropped his hand. “Why not ask me?”
“I forgot. Just like you forgot to warn me to bring civilian clothes.”
Kira’s mouth snapped closed.
Raider nudged her. “Is that it?”
Kira looked in the direction he was pointing and saw the dim glow of the bar’s name. Multiple letters had burned out. Along with half of the cat’s paw that acted as its logo. The windows were dingy and covered in decades of grime that rendered them opaque.
“That’s it.”
“Here we go,” Raider muttered, striding into the bar first.
Finn and Dylan flanked Kira and Jin as they followed.
A few people looked up at their entrance. In one corner, a man held court. His clothes nicer than those around him. Tattoos decorated his forearms and neck.
Kira looked him over, dismissing him as she swept an eye over the room in search of Raider’s contact. Her gaze landed on the bartender a second before the tattooed man shoved aside one of his underlings for a better look at Raider.
“Chief?” The man opened his arms with a wide smile. “I can’t believe it. Son of a bitch. It really is you. What are you doing on Titan?”
“Friend of yours?” Kira asked, finding it amusing that for once it wasn’t her or Jin attracting the wrong kind of attention.
“We’re not friends,” Raider muttered.
“Want us to ignore him?”
“That’ll probably cause more problems than it’s worth. Let me see if I can shake him off first.”
“You do that. I’m going to get us drinks,” Kira said, already moving toward the bar.
“Wow!” Jin exclaimed as Raider faked a smile and let his not-buddy clamp him in a hug. “This is so much better than I ever imagined.”
Raider’s smile dropped and he glared at Jin over the man’s shoulder before faking his smile once again.
“Five years, asshole. How the hell have you been?” the man asked, letting go of him.
Kira pushed through the crowd to the bar, finding an open space next to a scantily clad woman resting with her back to it.
“Is this spot taken?” Kira asked.
“All yours, beautiful.”
Kira slid into the opening and set her hands on the bar. She didn’t have to wave down the bartender. He was already waiting for her. His eyes warm and his lips containing the barest trace of an upward tilt at the corners.
“What are you drinking?”
“I’ll have a solar flare and a ruby onyx,” Kira said, naming two drinks off the top of her head.
It didn’t really matter what she ordered. Human alcohol did nothing for her, and Raider would only pretend to drink in a situation like this. The beverages were more about blending in than anything else.
The man pretended to consider her. “You don’t look like an onyx girl. Why don’t you let me make you something special?”
“Sure—if you answer a question of mine first.”
He indicated for her to go ahead as he got busy making her drinks.
Kira leaned over the bar. “What’s a good boy like you doing in a shit hole like this?”
“Exactly what any good boy would be doing.” He winked and set her drinks on the bar. “Discovering the meaning of life.”
Kira studied the drinks. The first was exactly what she’d asked for. A solar flare. An unnatural yellow with a streak of orange softly swirling within. All in an odd shaped vessel that Kira thought was supposed to resemble an actual solar flare.
The second was the most perfectly crafted cup of masala chai that she’d ever seen. She hadn’t tasted it yet, but somehow, she just knew it would be divine. Steam wafted off its surface, tempting her to take a sip.
“Enjoy,” the bartender said.
“What do I owe you?”
“It’s on the house.”
Normally, Kira would have argued but in this instance, she let it go.
“See you around, dreamer,” she said, lifting the glasses off the bar top.
“Yes, you will, firebird.”
Kira stopped next to the woman and placed her lips against her ear. “The Red Rabbit. Station new day. I’ll see you there.”
That was approximately five hours from now. Plenty of time for Kira to conclude her business.
The woman took a slow sip from her beer stein.
Kira sashayed away, leaving the woman and bartender to share a look.
“Who is the kid?” Raider’s friend was asking as Kira walked up to the table.
She set the chai and solar flare down a little harder than necessary. Liquid sloshed over the rims. “The kid is none of your business.”
The man paused to look Kira up and down. “Chief, you’ve got rude friends.”
One of the nearby roughs, a man with flame colored hair, hit his friend in the chest with the back of his hand and gestured. His friend looked over and nodded. He rose from the chair he’d been straddling. A couple of other roughs joined him.
They pressed in on Kira and the table, surrounding it.
“He’s no one,” Raider said quickly in an attempt to defuse the situation. “Just a friend’s child I got roped into looking after for a few days.”
For a moment, tension remained.
Then his friend guffawed and slapped the table. “Someone trusted you with their offspring? They must not love their kid very much.”
Kira wondered how surprised this man would be if he knew that Raider had a daughter. And that he was actually a great father.
His friend wiped the tears from his eyes. “How are you doing, asshole?”
“Can’t complain, Gator.”
“You still playing soldier boy? Or have you moved on to greener pastures?”
Kira noted as a few patrons got up and slipped out of the bar. Of those who remained, at least half were now watching their group.
Kira hoped Raider’s contact was worth it.
Because his new friend was proving to be something of a pain in the ass. In the span of a few words, he’d managed to warn off those around them. By the time they finished this conversation, half the station would know who Raider was and what he used to do.
Raider leaned back in his chair. “Naw, man. I got tired of the bullshit. I’m a free agent now. I’ve got a ship and thought I might try my hand at salvaging.”
The flame haired rough left his table, drifting closer. He circled their table, ending up behind Kira.
He leaned a forearm against the back of her chair, one hand toying with the back of her hood as the other reached around to grab her drink. “Hmm. Chai. Delicious.” He licked his lips, setting the drink back down in front of her. “Ships don’t come cheap these days.”
Kira nudged the glass away. Guess she was done with that. Too bad. She hadn’t even gotten a single sip.
Raider eyed her, looking worried. He knew how much she disliked people touching her food. “Paychecks add up when you’ve lived your entire adult life either on the battlefield or a military ship.”
Especially when you factored in combat pay.
“Salvaging though. That’s hard work. High mortality rate,” Gator drawled.
Raider’s gaze moved between Gator and Flame, trying to get a read on them. “You say that like I’m a stranger to death.”
Wave runners had one of the shortest life expectancies of any in the military. During the height of the war, they averaged three missions before biting the big one.
About six months.
Take into account that the Curs were a specialty unit who saw some of the worst combat in the war, and it wasn’t strange that most of them hadn’t lived long enough to see the peace they helped create.
Rather, it was a miracle that any of them had survived at all.
“Who’re your friends?” Gator asked.
“Crew members,” Raider answered.
“Oh yeah? They former military too.”
“Something like that.”
Gator’s friend glanced at Jin. “I didn’t know they were letting children serve these days.”
Jin bared his teeth in a display of aggression that Kira was pretty sure he meant to be a snarl. It wasn’t. It was far too adorable. “New program. Top secret.”
Gator’s friend stifled a smile.
“Aren’t you an amusing child?” Gator considered Jin with a dangerous look in his eyes. “You have to be careful though. Not everyone will be so understanding of a boy’s antics.”
Jin’s eyes narrowed, but to Kira’s relief he didn’t spout off.
Gator glanced back at Raider. “Why don’t you have your companion remove their hood before we go any further? We’re all friends here. Keeping it raised is just rude.”
For a long, tense moment, neither Kira nor Raider moved.
They didn’t look at each other. They didn’t need to. They already knew what each other was thinking.
For instance, Kira had no intention of removing her hood. Gator might not recognize her, but there was a chance that others might. On the other hand, Raider was considering the likelihood of him being able to yank Gator’s spine out through his mouth without any of Gator’s lackeys intervening.
“While you’re at it, you might as well tell your friends over there to join us.” Gator nodded at Finn and Dylan. “They’re not fooling anyone with their act.”
Raider’s smile was sudden and brilliant. “Well, you see, I can’t do that. My friend here is pretty shy.”
He dropped his arm from the back of his chair. Putting his hand under the table, he flashed Kira the sign for danger imminent.
Kira lifted the tip of her middle finger from the table in acknowledgment.
Understood.
Jin wiggled, getting ready.
“And I’m not sure who those two are so I won’t be asking them to join us. Now, this has been fun, but I think it’s time we continue on our way. Let’s try not to meet again in future, Gator.”
Raider shoved his chair away from the table.
“Sit down,” Gator ordered.
Raider leaned over the table, dropping all pretense of civility. “It’ll be a cold day in the hell my parents believed in before I take orders from you.”
Temper mottled Gator’s skin. “You’ll do what I tell you or find yourself spaced. We’re not on a warship anymore. Here, I am God.”
“You’re right about that,” Kira said, nodding. “This isn’t a war ship.”
Confusion flitted across Gator’s face.
“Which means we can do what we want,” Raider added.
Jin slipped out of his chair, seeking refuge under the table as Raider flew over it. He tackled Gator, the chair the other was sitting in tilting then toppling backward.
Kira hooked her foot in the rungs of the chair next to her and whipped it into Flame’s stomach.
A good old fashioned brawl ensued.
The bartender and woman from before slipped out a side exit as Dylan and Finn raced across the room, barreling into the rest of Gator’s lackeys before they could come to their boss’s aid.
Flame proved a better opponent than she’d expected, catching the chair before she could finish beating him over the head with it.
He shoved it into her.
Kira staggered back a step, pain blooming in the small of her back as the edge of the table dug into it.
Flame grinned. “You should have just removed the hood. It would have been less painful.”
Kira shoved away from the table and hammered a kick into the chair the man was using as a shield.
It broke, sending her momentarily off balance.
Flame tossed one half away, using the other as a bludgeon.
She blocked, taking the blow meant for her head on her forearm instead.
Pain splintered through the bone.
God, she hoped it wasn’t broken.
In the scuffle, she didn’t notice her hood being knocked back.
The man’s eyes widened at the sight of her dark red hair. “Phoenix.”
Kira tackled him, driving her shoulder into his middle.
He fell backward. Glass shattered as he crashed through the window, taking her with him.
They landed. Him on his back. Her on top.
She drove a knee into his solar plexus. And would have done the same to his face if he hadn’t blocked.
She responded by clubbing him in the side of his head.
He acted like he barely felt it, lunging up to wrap her in a bear hug and rolling them until he was on top.
Kira squirmed, getting one leg and arm free.
She kneed him in the ribs, her hand scrabbling across the floor in search of broken glass.
Her fingers closed around a shard. Its sharp edges bit into her palm as she whipped it up to place against his throat. Right next to the tip of the blade already resting there.
A voice came from above.
“Coli, why is it that I always seem to run into you in the absolute last place you should be?”
Kira traced the length of the sword with her gaze. Past Flame’s tense features.
Up.
And up.
And up.
All the way to a pair of stormy gray eyes belonging to the one man she’d most hoped to avoid.