I shove the roots aside and step outside the chamber, holding the plants out of the way until I can stand upright. I let them go as I move to straighten my posture, but then I stop abruptly when I find myself staring at the point of my own blade. I remain motionless as I take in the details of my predicament.
The sharp end of my knife is ten centimeters from my eyeball and it’s being held by a miniature person with the whitest hair and the wrinkliest skin I’ve ever seen.
“Looking for something?” the small man in front of me asks, his face expressionless, his body language anything but.
Chapter Thirteen
I STAND SLOWLY, PULLING THE front edge of my flightsuit down to remove the folds and wrinkles from it. “Hello, Papa.” Putting my shoulders back, I stretch myself up to my full height, happy to find I have at least twenty centimeters on him. Not that I relish the idea of dropping a guy at least forty years my senior, but he does have my blade, and he is pointing it at my heart right now.
“Hello, Captain.”
I lift a brow. “Are you going to give that back to me, or am I going to have to take it from you?”
He flips the knife around so fast I barely see it happening before the handle is facing me.
I reach out to retrieve it, expecting a trick, but receiving nothing other than his penetrating gaze, taking my measure. As the knife goes back into its sheath, I breathe out a sigh of relief.
“So, where do we go from here?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You’re the captain.”
“And you’re …” I wait for a response, not certain I’m going to get one from this mysterious man.
“I am grandfather to Lucinda. I hope you’ll not blame her for my presence here.”
I smile. “Of course I will. Who else is to blame? Jeffers? Tremblay?”
The old man shrugs.
“Do you have a name?”
“I do.”
“Feel like sharing it?”
“Simion.”
I nod. “And you’re the one I can thank for this biogrid, I take it.” I raise my hands up and gesture to the plants around us.
“My granddaughter is the mistress of the grid.”
“Ohhhh. Mistress of the grid? Fancy.” I step back, suspecting that this guy’s as wily as they come, and I really, really don’t want to cut him. If he comes at me, though, I’ll do it.
“Shall I summon her?” he asks.
I can’t decide if he’s worried, planning something, or completely unfazed by all of this. His expression is as plain as Baebong’s is when he’s asleep.
I shake my head. “No need. She’s busy collecting food for our friends, and I have other things I need to do. You and I can catch up later.”
He nods and folds his hands in front of him, reminding me of Jeffers. Do they know each other?
“You don’t need to hide anymore,” I say as I’m walking away sideways, keeping my eyes on him. “Now that I know you’re here, there’s no point.” He’s kind of a stowaway and kind of not, since he is at least partially responsible for the food we’ll be eating and the system that generates it. Unlike Macon, he’s not taking without giving, and he’s been a shadow member of this crew since before I arrived.
“We were never hiding from you,” he says as I turn the first corner.
I don’t bother to go back and discuss that with him, because first of all, I don’t believe it, and second of all, I already have enough mystery on this ship to manage. I have a party to go to, and before I get there, I need to decide how much of my current situation I’m going to share with the other Alliance members. Dealing with a hidden Romanii grandpa is last on my list of priorities.
I’m sliding into my boots when Macon comes around the corner ahead of Lucinda. He takes one look at me and jumps up, spinning around to face Lucinda and block her cart from going any farther. She remains just out of sight as a result, giving me enough time to finish putting my boots on before she shoves Macon out of the way with her cart and sends him sprawling to the ground at my feet.
“Move!” she yells. “How many times do I have to tell you, we’re on a tight schedule!”
She stops short when she comes around the corner and sees me. “What are you doing here?” She glances over at the door. “How’d you get in without me hearing you?”
I shrug. “Guess you were too busy.” I point at the cart in front of her. “You ready yet? We’re on a tight schedule here, you know.”
I glance at Macon and get a wink from him as he pretends to dust himself off. Shit rolls downhill here, and Macon just moved up the hill from you, lying Romanii girl. I wonder if she’s ignorant to me coming back for my knife because her grandfather has chosen not to tell her he found it or because she hasn’t been back in contact with him since they separated. I can’t imagine he’ll keep the information from her for long, but I’m going to wait and let her hear it from him. It’ll have more impact that way.
I smile inwardly at the idea that her grandfather and I have a little secret between us that, for a time, we will both be keeping from her. She’s going to freak when she finds out. It almost makes it worth it that I have another mouth to feed on this ship.
“Yes, I’m ready,” she says, annoyed. “I just need to get some baskets to put the food in.”
“You have some?”
“I’ve made several, but I have to find where … I put them.”
You mean, you need to find where your papa put them. Nodding, I gesture toward the door. “Great. Macon and I will see you in about a half hour, then. At the airlock.”
“He’s not going to help me?”
“He has something else to do first. Don’t worry. I’m sure you can handle it.” I look out into the plants for a few seconds before leaving, letting her wonder what I might know about her little scheme in there.
Macon waits until we’re out in the main corridor before speaking. “Where are we going? Did you get your knife?”
“Yeah. And I met her grandfather, too.” I head in the direction of the flightdeck and Macon keeps pace at my side.
“Oh, shit, he showed up?”
“Yes. With my knife in his hand.”
“Did you fight him?”
“No. He looks like he’s about a hundred Earth years old.”
“So he just handed it over?”
“Pretty much.”
“What are you going to do about him?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. For now, he’ll help in there.”
“Is he going to join us at the table?”
“No. He wants to stay hidden.” I pause and look up at Macon. “He says he wasn’t hiding from me. What do you think he meant by that?”
Macon shrugs. “I have no idea. Why would I?” He looks way too innocent to be believed.
“Oh, I don’t know … maybe because you were in on a plan to come after me and my ship. Maybe because you said shit about this all being a setup?”
He has the grace to look embarrassed. Dropping eye contact, he starts rubbing his hands together. “People say things they don’t mean sometimes. In the heat of the moment.”
I reach up and push my fist under his chin, lifting his head. “And sometimes people say exactly what they mean to and then regret it later.”
He jerks his face away from my hand, his mood going sour. “Just let it go, Cass. It doesn’t matter now anyway.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Because. Captain Bob is dead, and Tremblay is long gone. He’ll never find you out here.”
“Unless he has some kind of tracker on me. Or a listening device.”
“Does he?” Macon goes a little scared at that.
I shrug. “Someone does. They’re disabled now, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t send them a lot of good info before we got to them.”
“But we went through the wormhole …”
“Which wouldn’t make one bit of difference if they had locator beacons in this part of the galaxy too, now would it?”
&nbs
p; “You really think Tremblay’s that sophisticated?”
“Never underestimate the enemy, Macon. Don’t you remember anything from our training?” I move down the hall toward the flightdeck, not caring whether Macon follows or not. For a few minutes back there in the biogrid I was imagining we could be friends again, but now I’m back to thinking I’ll never be able to trust him. He could be telling me all the information he has about me right now, but instead he’s choosing not to. He’d rather play games. That tells me more than anything that I can’t let my guard down around him. I almost hope he tries to jump me from behind on our way up to the flightdeck so I can remind him once more that I’m not as easy a mark as he thinks I am.
But he doesn’t do anything of the sort. Instead, he runs ahead of me so he can be the one to open the door. He waits and gestures for me to go first.
“After you, Captain.”
I sock him in the gut as I walk by and leave him wheezing in the door.
“So, what’d I miss?” I ask, searching the space for someone to answer my question.
The only one around is Gus. He’s under my chair with just his legs sticking out of the bottom. “Well, you didn’t miss much.” He sounds very unhappy, and I assume it’s because I have his brother in the brig. But when he slides out from under the chair and sits up, I realize it could actually be something else.
“Just some dick cheese thinking it would be fun to surprise the person disarming your bomb with a little something extra.”
His face is bright red, splotchy, and bleeding in spots.
I walk closer. “What in the hell happened to your face?”
“Acid spray. Nice, eh?” He throws a set of pliers and what I assume is part of a dismantled incendiary device over at the toolbox he brought with him. “You’re all set. No more bombski.”
I walk closer and stop when I’m just in front of him, peering at his skin. Most of his freckles have been destroyed, and if he hadn’t been wearing the goggles he’s pushing up onto his head with a wince, he’d probably be blind too. He’s got to be in serious pain. “You need to get this looked at right away.”
He tries to smile, but then winces when it makes his skin crack and bleed even more. “Good thing I’m going to a party with a bunch of med techs, isn’t it?”
I nod, placing my hand on his shoulder and shaking him a little. The front of his clothing starts to fall away as the threads give up the fight against the acid. “We’ll get to the bottom of this very soon, I promise.”
“Bottom of what? My face? All the bombs everywhere? My brother?”
I try not to cringe at his accusatory words, but it’s impossible. This ship is just one disaster after another. “All of it,” I say finally. “I’m going to fix all of it, come hell or high water.”
“Come hell or a device I can’t disarm, you mean.” His attempt at a grin comes out like starshine reflected off a gleaming hull of a new ship. It gives me hope that things won’t suck quite so much in our future if I can just get this crew of amazing, slightly crazy people to stick with me.
“Do they make such a device?” I ask, tilting my head to the side.
He grins again. “Not that I’ve ever seen. But I’m willing to try building one.”
“That’s the spirit.” I look around. “Where’s Jeffers?”
“I think he’s in the galley getting things ready for the party. Said he has a special brew planned.”
I rub my hands together. “Goody. Just what I need. Something to drown my sorrows in.”
“Just don’t get too sloppy,” Gus says as he heads for the door. “Once I get my MI taken care of, I’ll have the skin of a baby again. You’re going to have a hard time keeping your hands off me.”
I wait until he’s gone before I burst out into laughter.
Chapter Fourteen
MY CREW, MINUS ONE HIDEAWAY grandpa and one shadow, are standing in the cargo bay for a quick briefing before we head through the airlock to the meet and greet with the other members of the Alliance. I only had time for a quick wash before coming, but at least my flight suit is clean. I pull at the bottoms of it, hoping it doesn’t look too wrinkled. It didn’t have time to go through a full cycle in the machine.
“So,” I say, addressing the group. “We’ve had quite the day.”
Mutters come from my crewmates but nothing in particular for me to lock in on. I look over the faces before me, happy to see they all made somewhat of an effort to appear presentable to our new friends. Everyone but Gus looks like they washed their faces, removing most of the grime. Lucinda’s ponytail looks especially tight and shiny.
“As you all know, Tam is in the brig where he’ll remain until I can figure out what to do with him.”
“He should be out here with us,” Gus says. He’s back to being grouchy. With all the raw scabs on his face, he makes quite the picture of a disgruntled crewmember.
“I agree,” Lucinda says.
“It might not be a bad idea,” Jeffers adds.
My jaw drops open. I must have been crazy to think we could walk into this thing without discord. I can’t believe these people. “You seriously want a borg representing our ship at this meeting?”
“He’s not a borg!” Gus yells. Then he backs up a step and wipes down the front of his shirt, dropping the volume several notches when he continues. “He’s my brother.”
“He’s not going to do anything harmful,” Jeffers says. “Gus will keep an eye on him, and I’m worried what the Alliance will think if one of our engineers stays behind.”
“There’s nothing strange about keeping a crewmember behind on the ship,” I say, not playing into this game with them. “And Gus is going to be in medical services, so he’s not going to be keeping an eye on anything but the inside of his lids.” I gesture at his face. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but he’s had a little run-in with a bomb.”
Lucinda turns around to look at him, apparently for the first time since she arrived, and then faces me again, her expression aghast. “What the heck happened to him? What bomb? The one under your seat? Did it go off in his face?”
I hold up my hand to stop the barrage of questions. “We have some devices on this ship that someone installed before I arrived. We’ve done a sweep and located all of them, it’s just going to take some time before we can totally dismantle them. Maybe our friends in the Alliance can help. In the meantime, we need to go over there, make introductions, mingle, see what they have to offer us, and show them what we can do.” I sweep the room with my gaze again, locking eyes with everyone, one at a time. “This meeting is critical. They’re going to take our measure and decide how much they’re willing to trust us. I expect each of you to act with respect and a sense of fair play.”
Baebong looks over at Gus. “You hear that? Just eat and keep your mouth shut, and you should be fine.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gus scowls at Baebong, making his face bleed again. He hisses with the pain and almost touches his cheek, but thinks better of it and doesn’t. His hand balls into a fist and rests at his side as he glares at my friend.
“Easy, Baebong. Now’s not the time to be messing around. I’m sure Gus is in a lot of pain and will probably mistake your sense of humor for an insult.” I give him a hard look to tell him to cut it out.
“I’m not messing around. All we need is for him to mention his borg brother, and we’ll get kicked out. Probably blasted into ice crystals for our trouble.”
“He’s not a borg!” Gus moves toward Baebong with fire in his eyes, but he’s held off by Jeffers.
“Not now!” I yell. My voice bounces off the inside of the hull. Everyone faces me, surprised at the sudden vehemence. I take a few breaths to calm myself. “Tam can’t come.”
“I think he should,” Jeffers says, standing up straighter.
I can’t believe this guy. He chooses right now to give me friction? What the hell? I thought we’d moved past that.
“Why?” Baebong says, turning to face
him with his chest puffed out. “Give us one good reason.”
“I already did. Adelle can watch our systems and alert us if anything needs to be addressed. The Alliance will get suspicious if we don’t use our compubot for that. And if they get nervous, they won’t trust us. This is only going to work if we can trust one another. All of us.”
Baebong hisses out his annoyance.
I, on the other hand, have some things to say about that. “Trust. Trust, huh? That’s kind of funny coming from you.”
Jeffers backs his head into his neck. “I don’t see why.”
My next words are for everyone, not just him. “Every single person on this crew, and those who aren’t even on the crew, have secrets they’re keeping from me. You all accused me of being the one keeping secrets, but it’s not me doing that. It’s all of you.” I point at the group. “And until I can trust you, I can’t commit to flying with you beyond this mission.” I focus on Gus. “You should have told me your brother was a shadow.”
Gus looks at the floor. “Why? So you could kick us off at the last station?”
“Maybe. That was my choice, though, wasn’t it? Or it should have been. You took that choice away from me.”
I look at Macon. “You’re still holding information back that could hurt me if not exposed. You put everyone in danger doing that.”
Macon looks around at the others who are now seeing him with new, not very friendly eyes.
I turn to my right. “Baebong, you’ve been my close friend for three years, but I don’t know anything about your past. How do I know none of it will catch up to us and cause us problems in the future?”
He lifts his chin but says nothing.
I stare at Lucinda next. “And you …” I shake my head. I can’t say anything else or I’ll reveal my cards, and I’m not ready to do that.
“What about me?”
“Never mind.” I close my eyes and sigh. “Listen, guys … we’re about to go out there and meet some people who could either make our lives really grand or turn them into nightmares that end with us floating. I need to know that we’re all a crew today. I don’t know what we’ll be when we get to our next station, but for now, I need to know that you have my back.” I open my eyes again. “I promise you that I have yours. If any one of you gets in trouble, you can count on me. I’ll be there.”