Chapter 10
“Maybe I do need Dutch’s help,” Torian grumbled.
Sleep fogged the edges of her mind, weighed on her shoulders, but she wouldn’t stop working, not until they were safely inside another wormhole flying toward Rhymarra.
“Humans use chemical rocket engines. This is a more advanced version, but with systems I can’t even replicate. ”
“It is an iradia fusion engine. The nylarians chose iradia because it is readily available in their asteroid field, and its fusion produces high heat, but very few toxic materials.”
Torian rubbed her brow. The temperature range on this ship was comfortable, but she’d been lifting heavy machinery for hours now. The engine lay in pieces as she struggled to identify what, exactly, broke.
She suspected it was the exhaust valve, but she definitely didn’t have a replacement part. She also wasn’t entirely confident that was the problem, since her education in solar fucking engineering did little to prepare for an alien starship engine.
Moss was trying to help, but a half-organic life support system wasn’t doing much for engine repair.
Despite their struggle, Torian wasn’t willing to offer Dutch access to the ship’s interior.
A dark part of her feared that if Dutch stepped inside, he might never leave.
Even if he meant well, even if he followed through on fixing the engine …
she’d owe him. He might delay her trip somehow, or try to make another claim on Moss.
Torian couldn’t risk that.
“I might need a break,” Torian muttered, pushing away from the engine. Standing made her a bit dizzy, and she blinked hard.
“Your systems are failing,” Moss observed.
“I’m just tired.”
“Humans cannot bypass sleep, and your last rest cycle was interrupted.”
She cast a wry glance at Moss’s central system.
It was the physical server tower she’d seen peeking into the engine room earlier—tall as a pillar and covered in thick moss.
Shining through the leaves was soft yellow light.
If she squinted, she saw hints of metal mesh, apparently what the moss’s roots—er, rhizoids, as Moss had corrected—had latched on to.
Between the central server and the engine itself, there really wasn’t much room to stand, so Torian climbed the metal ladder and emerged beside the kitchenette. Convenient. She dropped the hatch and stretched, savoring the extra ceiling height. “I’m fine. Just need coffee. Or maybe ravla.”
“Ravla will offer temporary energy. It will not replenish you.”
Torian puffed. “Okay, Celise.”
“I am not a doctor human.”
“You’re acting like one.”
“Rude.”
Torian flicked on the kettle. While it heated, she moseyed to the windows. The space station appeared to be in steady orbit over Verdaan, which meant it also had night and daytime cycles. Sunlight slid over half the station now, creeping toward them. Morning—or a semblance of it.
Maybe she did need sleep.
A flash caught her eye: something diving across the darkness of space. It sailed over the sunlight, briefly, and she caught the afterimage of a serpentine form before it vanished. Torian flinched, squinting toward the sun—but nothing was there.
“Did you see that?” she demanded, pressing closer to the window.
“I do not see anything. I have no ocular function.”
“Through the cameras,” Torian hissed. “I’m telling you, Moss; I think something’s out there.”
Moss was silent for a moment. “My cameras are not registering anything. Except, perhaps, a human hallucinating in the kitchen.”
Torian knew she was tired when frustration swelled in her chest. “Oh, come on. I saw something when we flew into this nebula. I just saw it again. We’re not alone here.”
“That is correct. The dog-turd fungus is approaching.”
Dutch. Fuck. Torian abandoned the kettle, sprinting for the short staircase that led below the flight deck. Three steps, and she reached the panel in the cargo hold, cycling through camera angles to find the one positioned by the cargo doors.
Sure as shit, Dutch was outside. He looked perfectly refreshed, and had a box of supplies under one arm. He waved cheerfully and called to the exterior microphone, “Hello, Ms. Razner! Moss! I thought I’d swing by and … ah, see if you need any help.”
The last part was hesitant.
Torian grimaced. “I’ll send him away.”
“Don’t,” Moss said quickly.
Torian hesitated, glancing at the ceiling. “What do you mean, don’t? I thought you hated him.”
“I was not programmed with simple human emotions. However, it…” a pause, like it was determining its emotion, “it pleases me that he is now begging for my attention.” A malicious undertone slid into Moss’s artificial voice. “Your human phrase applies: ‘Turnabout being fair play.’”
“‘Turnabout is fair play,’” Torian corrected. “For this situation, a more accurate saying would be ‘How the tables have turned.’”
Moss spoke over the loudspeaker outside: “Ah-hah. How the tables have turned.”
Dutch’s brow furrowed. His eyebrows were blue, too, and flecked with light at the statement. “Um. Is that a human idiom?”
“Yes. It means—” Moss paused, switching speakers. “What does it mean, Torian?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. She was too tired for this shit, and the engine was still broken. “Let me just open the door.” She tapped a few commands on the panel. The blue energy shield vanished, and the cargo hold’s door slid open.
She leaned against the doorframe, blocking Dutch’s entrance. “You’re still not welcome here. I’m sorry.”
“You are a little welcome,” Moss intoned overhead. “Provided you’ve come with extensive apologies.”
“Apologies, yes, and also parts to repair the engine!” Dutch hefted the box with a grunt.
Torian peered past him, but other than them, the dock was empty. The draic, Zen, must have stayed on his own ship.
Dutch continued: “Well, hopefully these parts work. Vaesa’s maintenance hangar is in another biome that appears to have suffered catastrophic loss of life support.
I suspect the Destiny—ah, sorry, Destitute—or is it Traitor?
Well, never mind. I suspect the auto-navigation likely detected unbreathable atmosphere at the proper maintenance hangar, and redirected you here instead.
That’s how you found this space station, correct? ”
It was nearly impossible to follow his thought process, especially after pulling an all-nighter. Torian crossed her arms and took a moment to parse through the question, at least. “Yeah. Pulled us out of a wormhole and dropped us here.”
“Of course it did. Erm, may I?”
He wanted to come aboard. Torian wrestled with it. She was exhausted, and making no progress … but every moment she wasted was another moment Celise was suffering. And fucking up a starship engine repair was a catastrophically bad idea. She could be dead in space with one bad “fix.”
It was smarter to let Dutch, the nylarian who built this ship, repair it.
She still didn’t move.
Dutch sighed, shifting the weight of the box to his opposite arm. His limbs were thin and longer than a human’s, just different enough to be vaguely unsettling. “My dear, if I was going to muscle you out of your ship, I’d have brought my dashingly strong partner.”
“A draic has enough strength to pick up a human and tear off their limbs,” Moss supplied.
“Thank you, Moss,” Torian called.
Dutch offered a comforting smile. “You can have this ship, Ms. Razner. Or should I say, Captain Razner? You were right; your life is a blink for me. But for Moss, I suspect it’s much, much longer—which is why I’m here. I need to speak with it.”
“Did you ask Moss if it wants to talk?” Torian replied.
Silence.
Behind Torian, a light illuminated up the staircase, leading toward the engine hatch.
Moss sounded grudging. “I am willing to hear your extensive apologies. It will not change my preference of the current starship owner, but … persistent apologies over the course of Torian’s life might repair the years where I was abandoned, alone, inside a dark human hangar, decaying while you cavorted with a draic. ”
Dutch’s smile faltered, sliding into something closer to guilt. He laughed nervously. “Ah, yes. I deserve that.”
“Correct.”
Torian sighed, stepping aside. It was probably good she hadn’t finished brewing her cup of ravla—she was feeling disconnected now, like she was floating, listening to this conversation secondhand.
“Okay, well … if you and Dutch need to talk, maybe I will get some sleep. But Moss, make sure he’s not going to break the engine more. ”
“Whyever would I do that?” Dutch sounded aghast.
Torian massaged her brow. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about you.”
“Same for you. Isn’t that exciting?” Dutch slid past her into the ship.
He moved with confidence up the staircase, following Moss’s lights.
She climbed after him, watching from the living area as he passed the kitchenette and descended down the hatch.
It was a struggle with the crate of supplies in his arms, but he somehow managed it.
Torian drew a slow breath and pivoted toward the sleeping room. “Moss,” she murmured. “Promise me something?”
Moss knew enough to lower its volume so they could have some semblance of privacy. “Of course. You always fulfill your promises. What is mine?”
“Don’t let him take the ship back. Don’t … um. Don’t leave me alone here.”
Moss was quiet for a moment. “You are the Destitute’s pilot, and you are my friend. He left me. I will not choose him over you.”
Torian smiled, stepping into the sleeping pod and dropping to the bed. That, somehow, was oddly comforting. She lay against the pillow, swallowing a yawn as her eyes drifted closed. The door slid shut automatically, casting the cozy room in comforting darkness. “Thanks, Moss.”
“Enjoy your sleep cycle, Torian. I will ensure we reach Rhymarra in a timely manner.”
Well, it was something.