Chapter 7
7
The weeks on the ship passed by with relative ease, aside from how hard I’d had to work not to stare too long or too hard at Freddie. Professional Freddie, all-business Freddie, never-once-flirting-with-me Freddie. Which was good, the lack of flirting. It was a good thing that he wasn’t interested in me anymore. It was exactly what I’d asked for. What I’d wanted. What I still wanted. One hundred percent.
But today, I sensed that relative ease slipping away. Because Chan had brought booze to yet another staff meeting, and when he clinked his glass of champagne with his fork, my what fresh bullshit will this be? meter pinged off the charts.
“Let’s all raise a toast to our new L&C,” he said, holding his glass high. “In the short time Freddie has been with us, he’s already prevented Aquilinian on Martian violence, resolved a Ulaperian scone crisis, and averted a cataclysmic misunderstanding by rerouting that Delphinian flash mob to deck sixteen where they wouldn’t upset the Gorbies staying on fifteen—since we all know how offended our guests from Gorbulon-7 get by unexpected dancing.” Grinning a little too widely, Chan tilted his glass toward Freddie. “We’re so happy to have you, and that you are so brilliantly capable because…” His gaze darted around the table, never really landing on anyone while he chewed on his lower lip.
“Chan?” I prompted after several seconds of suspicious silence.
“Oh, right.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Because now is the perfect time to, ah…” He stalled out, then steamrolled through the remainder of his sentence with a single breath and no breaks. “…let you all know that we will be hosting a party of Kravaxians in three weeks’ time.”
My mouth sprang open. Freddie spluttered on his sip of champagne. Tig pulled the drawstrings of her hood fully closed. And Rax and Morgath burst from their chairs, shouting, “Over our dead bodies!” at the same time.
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I must be hallucinating. Did you say Kravaxians will be boarding?” I blinked. “On purpose?”
“No,” Rax growled. “They will not.”
Toggling his hoverchair controls, Chan rocked nervously back and forth. “Isn’t it, uh, exciting?” He couldn’t hide his grimace as the words left his mouth.
Rax and Morgath bellowed their objections, Elanie mumbled something to herself about “morons,” and Freddie frowned, opening and closing his mouth like he almost had a response, like it was on the tip of his tongue but just wouldn’t come. Which was not something I remembered him having any issues with at all .
I know, I know. This was not an appropriate thought to have at a staff meeting, certainly not in the face of Kravaxian visitation. And yet…
“Everyone, calm down, please.” Chan’s voice carried over the din of outrage and general bafflement ricocheting off the staff room walls. “Let me explain.”
“Oh, there’s no need to explain.” Morgath’s hands splayed flat on the table as he hovered ominously over Chan like a muscle-bound green gargoyle. “You’ve obviously lost your godsdamned mind. There is a senator on the ship, for fuck’s sake.”
I met Freddie’s stare before we both turned toward Morgath, then toward Chan, then back to each other, both of us so mystified I almost laughed.
The problem with Chan’s revelation was that Kravaxians were, not to mince words, terrifying. They were space pirates, murderers, arsonists, chaos breeders, and—if one believed the rumors—raging cannibals. Clever, vicious, brutal, and with no allegiances aside from the all-mighty credit, they were, in my humble opinion, exceptionally bad cruise ship guests.
Freddie cleared his throat and, with some hesitation, suggested, “Perhaps we should give Chandler a chance to explain.”
“Explain what?” Rax snapped, flinging his hands into the air. “That we’ve decided to invite Godzilla into the city?”
Silence descended as all beings at the table stared blankly at Rax.
“What’s that?” I asked, having no idea what a Godzilla was.
Rax grunted in frustration as Morgath said, “Old Earth movie monster. Giant lizard thing. Destroys buildings, shoots lightning-fire out of its mouth, kills everyone. That sort of deal.”
“Ah, well, then.” I nodded, acknowledging the similarities. “Accurate.”
Looking up from her nails, Elanie said, “Bright side. We won’t have to worry about feeding them. Our guests should suffice.”
Chan palmed his forehead. “It’s not what you think. They won’t eat our guests.”
Tig trembled. “They’ll eat me first, won’t they? I’m, like, bite sized.”
“Really, Chan ? Why do you want Tig to get eaten, Chan ?” Morgath, still on his feet, punctuated Chan’s name like he might as well have been saying asshole or dipshit.
Poor Chan—who couldn’t get a word in edgewise over the irate twins spiking accusations at him in rapid succession—tried to shout above their verbal assault. “Nobody is going to get eaten!”
“I didn’t know they made muzzles big enough to fit a Kravaxian,” Elanie said under her breath.
“And the captains signed off on this?” Rax asked in utter disbelief.
“They did.” Chan leveraged this bit of camaraderie from the captains to wrangle the conversation back in. “And if you’ll give me a second, I’ll tell you why.” He leaned over, fished some brochures out of the side pocket of his chair, and passed them out. “The Kravaxians we will host have been hand selected by LunaCorp as a local task force leading the Bring Labor and Industry to Kravax initiative—or BLIX, as they’re calling it.”
“BLIX?” Elanie scoffed. “That’s the best they could come up with?”
Chan shrugged. “They were going to go with BLIK, which is, objectively, much worse.”
“This all sounds like a load of trestal shit to me,” Morgath grumbled.
I turned the BLIX brochure over in my hand. On the front, Kravax hovered, a marbled brown and green planet with its two tiny moons glinting in the darkness. And on the back, the New Earther entrepreneur-turned-CEO of LunaCorp, Brock Karlovich, stood on the steps of the LunaCorp HQ building, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze piercing. I studied Mr. Karlovich, with his smug grin and chiseled jaw and… I looked closer. Was he wearing makeup? Self-tanner? Maybe some blush? He looked far too orange to be real. For any species.
Tig, always one for gathering as much information as possible, took a break from biting her cuticles to ask, “What sort of industry are they hoping to bring to Kravax?”
“Uh,” Chan wavered. “I believe they will start with manufacturing, tourism, and…banking?” He said it like a question, like even he couldn’t believe it.
“Banking?” Freddie repeated, not believing it either. “With those thieves?”
“Mr. Karlovich feels that Kravax presents an untapped resource. Namely, a species that is”—Chan paused again, seeming to gird his loins to quote—“‘very good with money.’”
Freddie laughed out loud at this, followed by Elanie. And then we all erupted into hysterics. Even Chan.
“That’s one way to put it,” Freddie said with a little giggle that was too delightful to even talk about.
Rax shook his head. “This is absurd.”
“I agree that it’s not ideal,” Chan said. “But the Kravaxians have been training with LunaCorp execs for the last six months. They have evidently earned a holiday with us. We are to show them a”—he drew air quotes—“‘good time.’”
We all groaned while Rax and Morgath spat a litany of Aquilinian expletives that would have turned their sweet mother’s hair gray. But it didn’t matter. We all knew there was no way out of this one .
LunaCorp owned the Ignisar , along with most of the ships and asteroids streaking through the KU, as well as several moons, including the one orbiting New Earth. When LunaCorp snapped its fingers, you jumped. But the last time corporate had instructed us to show our special guests—some sportsball team from New Earth they’d been trying to recruit to Mars—a “good time,” the hooligans stole an oorthorse from the Cosmic Spectacle stables and hid it in their pods. Where what it didn’t ruin with its copious shitting, it ate. And then shat that out too.
Sometimes working for one of the colossal conglomerates that ran almost everything in the KU felt a lot like being squished under an enormous boot heel. One that was commonly covered in shit.
Apparently recalling those same events, Chan said, “It won’t be like last time. For starters, we’ve tripled the security mechs around the Cosmic Spectacle. Second, I’ve read all the reports on the Kravaxians, and I will make them available to Freddie directly after this meeting.” He turned to Freddie. “If you aren’t convinced of their civility after reading the reports, we won’t allow them on board.”
Freddie’s brows floated up. “But…” he started, as if waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop.
Chan sighed. “But we have been strongly encouraged to take them.”
With a resigned press of his lips, Freddie said, “Of course.”
“How many are there?” I asked, wondering what sort of strings I’d need to pull to meet the Kravaxians’ unique hospitality needs. Trying to secure, house, and milk a kurot alone would be next to impossible. Kurots were a bit like New Earth cows but bigger and meaner, and Kravaxians bathed only in their fresh milk. Or so I’d heard .
“Four,” Chan answered. “Two men, two women.”
Giving his head a shake, Rax grumbled, “Four fucking Kravaxians.”
Elanie sighed. “There goes the neighborhood.”
After Rax gave Morgath a meaningful look, the twins stood from the table. “We’ll need time,” Rax said. “To work out the security logistics of protecting our guests from the FFKs.”
“FFKs?” Tig asked, leaning back in her chair to stare up at the twins.
“Four Fucking Kravaxians,” Morgath snarled.
Freddie hid his laughter behind a cough.
“Of course.” Chan blew out a breath, probably relieved that the meeting might end without a staff resignation—or a need to put in a work order to fix the big table. “Whatever you need, it’s yours.”
After Rax and Morgath stalked from the room, Freddie asked, “There’s no chance this is all some hysterical initiation prank you’re pulling on me, is there?”
With a deep, troubled frown, Chan said, “I’m afraid not.”
“Hell of a first few weeks,” Freddie mused.
We walked side by side down the staff quarters hallway again, like we did at the end of every day now. He always kept his hands in his pockets, his eyes facing forward, his body language friendly and professional. But each night, we moved a bit closer, drawn to each other like we had magnets in our pockets. “At this rate,” he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we wake up tomorrow to find the ship overrun by fungus rats. ”
“Don’t tempt fate.” I shuddered. “That almost happened once.”
“No.” He gasped. “Really?”
I nodded, wishing he’d take his hands out of his pockets just once so my knuckles might accidentally brush against his. “They’d snuck into a guest’s bags after they’d visited Gorbulon-7 and had gotten lost in the mold swamps. Must’ve picked up some rats along the way. It was horrific.”
“I can only imagine.” When we reached his pod, he turned to face me. “Most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen—and that was only a baby fungus rat in a cage at the Foulest Creatures in the KU exhibit on Venus. The teeth, the growths.” He grimaced. “The smell .”
I laughed, and he asked, “Do you know what they call a group of rats?”
“They’re not just called a group?”
When we stopped outside his door, he gave me a wry smile. “No. They’re called a mischief.”
“Well,” I said, smiling back, “if you think Rax and Morgath were upset today, you should have seen them when they had to chase after a mischief of fungus rats running loose around the decks.”
We laughed, then stared at each other, and then he closed his eyes. “Oh, Chan just sent me the FFK’s file,” he said, opening his eyes again, standing a little straighter. “I suppose I’ll be spending the rest of the evening reading the reports and brushing up on my Kravaxian nonverbals. Wouldn’t want to offend a ruthless space pirate with an accidental thumbs-up.”
My eyes popped, my stomach dropping to somewhere around my knees as I realized, quite suddenly, the very real dangers inherent in FFK visitation. “Good idea,” I said. “And note taken, no thumb movements. Wait, what would that mean? If I did give them a thumbs-up?”
Taking a step toward me, moving close, he said, “It would indicate that you were interested in them.”
“Interested?” I repeated as heat flashed across my cheeks.
He backed away again, leaning his shoulder against his door. “That’s correct.”
“Well,” I said, flicking my bangs off my forehead. “I won’t be doing that, then. No, sir. And thank you. For the warning.”
“Of course.” He winked. “It’s kind of my job.”
“Ha. Right.” My voice was all wrong, too loud, too high. Chirpy .
“Tell me, Sunny,” he said, changing gears. “What should I expect from the upcoming Fire Ball?”
I had to tear my eyes away from his juicy lower lip before replying. “Anything and everything, darling.”
He hummed. “That sounds…intimidating.”
“Oh, it is. But it’s also wonderful, exhilarating. A night without inhibitions.”
The way he looked at me, like he wanted to say something, like he wanted to do something… I retreated a step, and then another, just to be on the safe side. Which was, to be honest, probably located halfway across the hall.
Taking his own backward step, he said, “I can’t wait. Good night, Sunastara.”
“Good night, Freddie.”
And as much as I tried to deny it, it was useless. I wanted him. Every night, every walk back to our pods, stars save me , I wanted him even more. I wanted to kiss him and taste him and feel him again, and he probably knew it. He probably knew how much I wanted that good night to turn into a good morning . It was there in his eyes. Mischief, just like those damn rats.
Turning on my heel to keep myself from inadvertently grabbing him by the lapels of his suit coat and pulling his mouth to mine, I waved over my shoulder while marching away from his door.
It wasn’t against the law, wanting him. It didn’t even mean anything. He was attractive. I had eyes. I could want him all I wanted. I’d just have to do it in my pod, in private, alone, with my vibrator.