It’s safest. Easiest.
No matter how irritating the va Sithai are, though, the brothers do tend to bring in good scrap…and they don’t show up often enough to make nuisances of themselves.
So I peel myself free of Adiron’s clinging grasp and decide not to kill him. “Why are you here? Kinda out of the way for a ‘favor,’ which means I’m not going to like it.” I give them a polite smile. “So my answer is no. Whatever it is, no.”
“We haven’t even asked,” Kaspar says, frowning at me as he storms down the ramp.
I sigh as all three brothers enter the docking bay, flinging my hands up. “Please. Make yourselves comfortable. You know just how much I love hosting a party out here on a deserted asteroid.” I let sarcasm bleed through my voice.
“We won’t stay long,” Mathiras says, waddling forward in that stiff-hipped way of his. Definitely a stick up his keffing ass.
“Good.” I was looking forward to more peace and quiet. My next regular client isn’t scheduled to bring by a load of scrap until next week. “Speak your business so I can repeat my answer—no—and get you out of here.”
Adiron just grins at me. “You look like shit, my friend. What’s with these rags?” He grabs my sleeve and snorts with amusement when the plas-film, worn clear through, tears a hole.
“Excuse me if there’s not a lot of shopping on this end of the system,” I retort. “Did you come here to critique my fashion, or did you need something?”
“Missed you too, my friend,” Adiron says, ignoring my sour attitude. “How’s the arm?”
“Hurts. Like always.”
“And the leg?”
“Hurts.”
“Like always.” Adiron grins at me. It’s always like this with us—I rebuff him and let him know how completely irritated I am with him, and he ignores my scowls and acts as if we’re soldered at the hip like two transistor chips.
I only tolerate it because we served together. It’s not that I enjoy it.
Mathiras takes a deep breath. “We’re about to go on a very dangerous salvage run.”
“And?” They’re speaking my language, at least.
“And we’re chasing down the Buoyant Star.”
I snort at that. “Good luck.”
“We have a map,” Kaspar says, his eyes glittering with the insane enthusiasm of one with a charmed life. He’s never had his blaster shot out of his hand or a limb blown off, and it shows. If he had, he wouldn’t look so keffing eager to meet danger head-on.
These brothers. Idiots, all three of them.
“So you have a map. Want me to clap for you?”
“We have a map, but it’s leading us to a dangerous end of the Slatra system. And we have some cargo we need you to keep watch over for us while we go.”
I rub my jaw. My goggles whirr with the readings of the old base, letting me know temperatures and oxygen levels of all the different established living areas. It’s a routine feed—white noise—but I like it. I like routine. After serving in the war, I crave routine, and silence, and solitude…unlike Adiron. “So let me get this straight. You hauled ass through my asteroid belt just to come drop off some cargo while you go treasure hunting?” I squint, an old habit, and it activates the magnification module in my cybernetic eye. Irritating, but it quickly flicks back to normal after giving me a too-close-up view of Mathiras’s tunic. “How illegal is this cargo? And what’s my cut?”
Adiron laughs, clapping me on the back. “Knew he’d say yes.”
“I said no. I’m just curious.” Even a solitary bastard like myself gets curious. “Guns? Chemicals? Military equipment?” When they look uneasy, a new thought occurs to me—an unpleasant one. “Does it shit?”
They’re silent.
Kef me. “It shits, doesn’t it? That’s why you can’t have it with you. It’s alive.” I shoot an accusing look over at Adiron, who grimaces. “You can go kef yourselves, I’m not watching any pet you have.”
“It’s not a pet,” Mathiras says, and if anything, the stick in his ass grows larger. “It’s a friend. And we want you to take good care of her.”
“Her?” I practically spit the word.
“Me.”
The voice is small, the language unusual, but my translator picks it up anyhow. I look over at the ramp at the creature standing there, slight and uncertain. It’s a female, all right. It’s an alien species I’ve never seen before, but one I’ve absolutely heard stories of—a human. She takes a few steps forward, and I’m struck at how utterly fragile she is. Her limbs are slender and pale, her eyes large and sad, her hair dark and falling around her face in soft tendrils that sweep her shoulders. She moves gracefully as she goes to stand near the va Sithai brothers, and next to them she looks small and lost and utterly alone.
Of course she does. Humans are grabbed because they’re good to look at and better to mate. Of course she tugs at the heartstrings. I ignore the shy smile she sends in my direction, hardening my heart to her delicate face. I shake my head. “No. No humans.”
6
SOPHIE
The situation is getting worse by the minute.
I’m not sure what I expected when we landed. Part of me had hoped that their friend, the hermit, would be some old, wizened Yoda-type with a heart of gold. That we could hang out, share stories, and get through the next few weeks (or months) easily enough. So much for that.
I don’t want to stay here with this guy.
He gives me a dismissive look, obvious despite the goggles covering the top half of his face. “Humans are trouble. I don’t want one here.”
Adiron claps him on the back again, a movement that seems to irritate the guy even more. “This one’s no trouble, trust me.”
“I’m not interested in hiding your sex toys for you,” the junker says flatly.
I gasp at the insult, though I should have expected it. In a lot of alien eyes, that’s all I’ll ever be.
The junker glances over at me, then looks away again.
“Watch your mouth,” Kaspar says.
“Or what? You’ll turn around and leave?” The junker waves his hands at us and walks away. “Go.”
Adiron shoots a desperate look in my direction. “Come on, Jerrok,” he says, tone cajoling as he chases after the rag-covered male. “Sophie won’t be a problem. And you owe me a favor—”
“Kef off,” Jerrok says crankily.
I watch them go, my stomach churning with distress. If the cranky, dirty-looking jerk is so against me, what’s he going to do when he finds out I have a big attack cat with me? A very expensive one that also likes to take a shit in inconvenient locations? Because the carinoux is fastidious enough, but not even the Little Sister has a litter box big enough to handle him. “Can’t I just come with you?” I ask Mathiras. “I promise I won’t be in the way.”
“If we fail, we’re going to need the funds that the carinoux brings in,” Mathiras tells me. “He’ll come around. He’s always like this when we show up.”