*
Baeven informed them that they would remain in jump for almost two weeks.
That would to give the Triaxians and anyone else looking for them absolute fits.
Naero learned her cover identities well, including the one for their current ship: a second mate named Krellin.
Their tiny Lidoma merchant craft only required two crew to operate it. It was even smaller than The Ardala. Baeven’s security measures would mask their Spacer genetics and not reveal other lifeforms on board to any type of scan.
Baeven had them on a long-range cargo run of spices and crystals way out to Jodien-2 and beyond, eventually heading into Matashi Corps space, even farther away from the Free Space Zones of the Spacer Clans.
She and Gallan divided their free time between Tarim and Ellis, both of them still restricted to quarters.
Gallan tolerated the Matayan, for her sake.
From the outset, Ellis assumed an almost instinctive dislike of Tarim, and readily seized every opportunity to treat him as inferior. They did not get along in the least, and it was mostly Ellis’ fault.
That did not earn him any points in Naero’s book, even though she had her own misguided prejudices about landers.
At least she made an attempt to get past those prejudices.
She kept the two young men apart whenever possible.
Tarim, on the other hand, took to Gallan’s easy-going nature right away and they became fast friends.
But he definitely had it bad for Naero.
She tried to discourage him without being unfriendly, but he seemed oblivious to her efforts.
The way of infatuation and obsession we’re indeed mysterious.
Fortunately, she and Gallan kept Tarim busy developing other interests.
For the first time in his life, the lander found himself surrounded by a wealth of knowledge and instruction. For days he hardly slept, reading, learning, practicing–trying out whatever caught his fancy.
Baeven ignored the Matayan completely, and generally avoided Tarim and his tiresome questions from the outset.
To Baeven, they were nothing but annoying distractions.
Even Naero and Gallan had to shut Tarim down at times.
He kept the tired old simulators on the ship very busy, and ignored even Ellis’s withering ridicule.
More than his infatuation with Naero, even, the lander seemed obsessed with making himself useful, perhaps in an attempt to impress her.
Whatever his motivation, he worked hard at bettering himself. Naero couldn’t help admiring that.
She and Gallan worked out and sparred with Baeven each day.
From the start, they were clearly no match for someone who had trained for years with the Mystics from an early age. But working with someone of that caliber did help them hone their own skills in many small but important ways.
When Prince Ellis learned about their daily sparring, he requested to join them. He protested and argued on their way back from the mess hall.
“I am sick of being penned up here like an animal, or merely allowed to do forms. And the simulators on this heap of scrap are so outdated they are no challenge whatsoever. I want to match my skills against another. Surely in a few days’ time I will not be able to steal any of your Spacer fighting secrets. I formally request the right to spar with someone. I do not count the miner boy. He obviously has no breeding or skill.”
“You talk about him as if he were subhuman,” Naero said, her ire rising at the Matayan’s prejudice, even though she knew she had her own dislike for most landers.
“I know you are fond of the worker boy, sort of like a pet, I assume, for reasons I do not quite fathom. But he is beneath me. I could kill him any time I like.”
“Why do you even think like that? His name is Tarim, and miner or not, he’s been through a lot.”
“I see; you pity him, then.”
“I feel sorry for what he’s been through. There’s a difference.”
“Hah, slight at best.”
Despite her physical attraction to him, Ellis could almost always say the perfect thing to piss her off.
“You know, Matayans might not have so much trouble getting along with people if they weren’t such jerks.”
Ellis laughed. “The same has been said about your people, Naero. I do not mean to insult you or your little charity case, but, as I have made it clear, I do not wish to be bothered by his kind. He is weak, ignorant, and annoying, and obviously beneath the rest of us. Admit it.”
Naero pointed a finger straight at Ellis.
“What are you doing? Get your hand out of my face.”
She ignored him.
“Tarim has a good heart, and a kind nature,” she said. “That’s more than I can say for a certain intolerant princeling of the Matayan master race. Just because you can take someone down doesn’t make them any less valuable as a person. You might have a chance to reconsider that, Prince Ellis. If Baeven ever does allow you to spar with him…or me and Gallan, for that matter. Be careful what you wish for.”
He flung his arms up wide. “I welcome the challenge.” Ellis chuckled again, coming a little closer and whispering.
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Naero? Both of us sweaty and wrestling, locked together on the mats? I see the way you look at me. You don’t think women have looked at me like that before? I know very well what it means.”
Naero resisted the urge to strike him.
“In your dreams, my prince.”
“Hah. You make me laugh, Naero. So wonderfully honest. You can’t even admit this attraction between us when it so obv–”
Naero snarled, grabbed him under both of his muscled arms and slammed him against the hull of the ship.
He grunted, gasping for air.
She revealed her superior, genetically enhanced strength and speed to the oaf for the first time, pinning him there.
“I admit it. There is a base, physical, animal attraction based solely on appearances. So what?”
She batted her eyes at him in mock humor. “I’m not some helpless little girl, looking to fall in flowery love for the first time. And it certainly wouldn’t be with a stuck-up, pompous popinjay like you, Your Highness.”
She let him fall. He dropped to the floor to one side on his hands and knees.
“I should have left you trussed up back with Kattryll. Maybe he’d be using your hide for for a bathrobe by now.”
She backed away.
Ellis stared up at her in surprise.
“Perhaps...you are right. Matayan pride, honor, and overconfidence have nearly destroyed my people.” He smiled. Then he even laughed, gazing up at the ceiling.
“First the Spacers, and then the Corps defeated us. Now we are being used as their shock troops–expendable cannon fodder. After that, they will reduce us to slaves, no better off than Tarim. My people will end up just like his, like all the rest.”
He paused and then looked up at her. “You have my word, Naero. I will try to go easier on the miner boy.”
He shook his head again. “Damn it all to hell. I just don’t know what to do. I want to do something to free my people. But there’s nothing. No way out of it all. Perhaps we are all jerks, like you say. Perhaps we don’t deserve freedom.”
Ellis hung his head.
“Everyone deserves to be free,” Naero said. “But its what we do with that freedom and the way we treat others that determines whether we deserve ours.”
Ellis laughed again. “Perhaps we should keep a Spacer by our ear to remind us of our imperfections. Maybe we Matayans do need more of a conscience. The Corps subjugate and enslave us just as we did others. There is no difference. They beat us and train us to be their blood-thirsty attack dogs. We’re just shock troops to them. It is their way. The strong dominate the weak, and they are the strong.”
“They only know how to use and destroy. They force everyone to live by their ideas and call it liberation. It doesn’t have to be that way, Ellis. My
people have proven that. Look at Joshua Tech Space. They’re a Gigacorps, and yet they treat their people well.”
“An aberration,” Ellis noted. “The other Corps will wipe you all out if they can. And they will not stop.”
“Neither will we,” Naero said. “Look, I don’t expect you to completely transform and change your mind overnight. You come from your culture and your ways. Just think about it. And yes, please give Tarim a break. He’s a good guy. Don’t pick on him so much.”
“I will try to go easier on him, as you say. And what about something for me? A little more freedom for the Matayan jerk perhaps?”
Naero lifted both eyebrows. “That’s up to Baeven.”
They walked back to Ellis’s quarters and he faced her from within the threshold.
“This Baeven of yours, he has the eyes of a Slayer. He is a very scary person, this one. I have seen it before. He has killed many, I think, and will continue to do so.”
Naero raised her eyebrows. “I’ve seen him fight; I wouldn’t ever cross him, if I were you.”
“Please, not to worry. Have I not already given my word as a Matayan?”
She glared at him.
“As a prince, then. My word that I will not harm you or any of your friends? Or this minuscule ship? Please. I’m going crazy. That is partly why I am so ill-tempered.”
“I’ll look into it. And I’ll have to hold you to your word, even if it is that of a Matayan, and a prince.”
“Thank you. That’s all I ask.”
Naero smiled at Ellis, and looked him in the eye just a little too long and tilted her head as his panel slid shut.
She couldn’t help it.
Who was she kidding? There wasn’t any kind of a future with his kind.
But the short-term options were still fun to consider.
Definitely time to go.
Naero left him locked in his room, still unable to believe the thoughts she was entertaining.
And about a Matayan, no less.
Still, he was very good-looking, Matayan or not. She had to give him that much.
Her mother and father both warned her about being smitten, merely by physical attraction.
Until she saw Ellis, she couldn’t imagine that it would ever happen to her.
I do not understand you, Naero. Do you wish to mate with this male or not? I thought he was an enemy? Your thoughts and emotions are extremely confusing.
If you figure it out, Om, let me know.
27