A searing pain in her thigh made Eva hiss and bite down hard. Somebody had finally hit her. Unfortunately, that meant her suit was compromised, so she didn’t have long before the methane flames worked their way in as well.
Eva punched the ground one last time, and finally her gravboot shifted. La Sirena Negra hovered above her, with Vakar now dangling upside down from the ladder as he reached his free claw out to her.
Grunting, Eva jumped awkwardly with her good leg and grabbed his arm with both hands. Shots sizzled through the snow around her as the ship shifted, her injury making her scream.
Vakar did the galaxy’s most insane sit-up and hoisted her into the emergency access, the hatch closing beneath her as soon as she was fully inside. He released her gently and she collapsed onto the floor, breathing heavily.
((Jump,)) Eva pinged at Min. The pilot’s response was nearly instant, the whine of the FTL drive preceding the stomach-wrenching sensation of artificial gravity compensating for sudden acceleration. Eva could picture Kehma receding behind them as they flew off into the black, toward the nearest Gate, a few hours away.
They’d made it. And they had the package they’d gone to retrieve, which meant they’d get paid. Despite the pain in her thigh, Eva felt cold with relief.
No, not just relief; also the fire extinguishers coating her in chemicals to stop her from burning up the ship. In moments, she was covered in pale-blue gel, slippery as a dytryrc during mating season but no longer aflame.
Eva deactivated her helmet, which dropped a load of the gel into her black hair. Vakar retracted his helmet as well, releasing mingled smells of incense and licorice; he was worried about her.
“I’ll be fine,” she muttered to Vakar, tugging off her busted gravboot and throwing it against the hull. “But I’m definitely going to need a new pair of pants.”
Eva sat in the med bay, trying not to squirm as Pink’s mechanical eye scanned her for injuries beyond the shot to her thigh. Pink had already patched that with a quick-healing compound and numbing agent, and covered it with the usual self-adhesive bandages and a thick mesh designed to restrict movement. Other parts of Eva ached, from muscle to bone, but how many of those complaints were new was debatable.
“You’ll live, again,” Pink said finally, sliding her eye patch down. “You’re lucky they didn’t hit an artery.”
“I’d be luckier if they had missed entirely,” Eva grumbled.
Pink turned around and rummaged through one of the cabinets. “I’m not wasting the good nanites on you, so you have to take it easy for at least a week. Elevate the leg when you can, pain meds every six hours. And of course, you remember your buddy—” She pulled out a cane and handed it to Eva. Its height was adjustable, but they both knew it was already on the lowest setting for the ship’s second-shortest crew member.
“How can I forget good old Fuácata?” Eva muttered. “Anything else, Captain Jones?”
“I’m Dr. Jones right now, sass mouth,” Pink said. “We still need to have your weekly psych session later. But we should get everyone in the mess to chat, yeah?” She peeled her gloves off and tossed them in the recycler, then gave Eva her arm to help her off the exam chair.
Eva sent a ping to the rest of the crew as she hobbled down the corridor of La Sirena Negra to the mess room. The smell of espresso mingled with incense and anise; that meant Vakar was already there, he had made coffee for her, and he was worried but otherwise in a good mood.
“Look at you, smiling like a fool,” Pink said, elbowing Eva gently.
Eva scowled, but she couldn’t sustain it. Especially not when she saw Vakar waiting, out of his shiny Wraith armor for a change. His pangolin-like scales were freshly scrubbed, and his face palps angled toward her as she entered. The smell of anise shifted to licorice, making Pink groan and roll her eye.
“Are you well?” Vakar asked, his gray-blue eyes staring pointedly at her cane.
“Claro que sí, mi cielo,” Eva said. “This is temporary.”
“She has to rest,” Pink added, pursing her lips and giving Vakar a meaningful look that made him smell grassy, bashful.
There went Eva’s plans for later. She sat down at the head of the room’s big communal table and let Pink prop her leg up with a stool, then accepted her taza of coffee from Vakar gratefully.
“I’m here, Cap!” Min said cheerfully through the ship’s speakers. Eva had assumed so, since Min pretty much was La Sirena Negra as long as she was jacked in, which was always. Still, it was good to be sure. The pilot’s human body had been in the bridge last time Eva checked, with one of the resident psychic cats asleep in her lap. Probably Mala, the unofficial leader of the pack.
That left one more crew member still unaccounted-for.
((Mess, now,)) Eva pinged at Sue.
((Coming,)) the engineer pinged back. A few moments later Sue ran in, her black hair spiked at odd angles like she’d accidentally run a greasy hand through it. Her pink shirt was smudged and streaked with brown, and two of her tiny yellow robots clung to her tool belt, making shrill noises.
“Sorry, Captain,” Sue said breathlessly. “I had to replace a resistor for the aft shields. Min said they were drawing too much power.”
“Your bots couldn’t handle it?” Pink asked.
Sue’s cheeks flushed and she stared at her boots. “I sent Eleven and Nineteen to do it, but they started arguing and I had to separate them.”
The bots’ shrill noises increased in volume, and Sue grabbed one in each hand and brought them up to her face. “Leaky buckets, knock it off already,” she said. “Don’t make me put you in time-out!”
Eva didn’t know what “time-out” meant for tiny robots, but the bots shut up, so it had to be a serious threat. Sue settled into her chair.
Sometimes it seemed like the last six months had been one firefight after another, between sparse cargo-delivery and passenger transport jobs. Fucking with whatever was left of The Fridge had been her crew’s top priority, and thankfully Vakar’s bosses were all too happy to subsidize their endeavors. Eva also got to keep or sell portions of any ill-gotten goods they recovered from their raids, or in situations like the one on Kehma, they returned stolen items for a hefty bounty from the original owner.
It wasn’t an easy life, but more and more often, Eva was starting to feel like it was a pretty good one. Even the food was better than it used to be. She took a sip of her espresso, savoring the sweet bitterness; Vakar had used the stash of real beans instead of the replicator.
“So we got what we came for, and now we drop it off and get paid,” Eva said. Min gave a little cheer of “Jackpot!” while Vakar’s smell gained a brief almond spike of delight.
“Also, we pissed off the Blue Hounders and The Fridge,” Pink added. “It’s like asshole Christmas up in here.”
“Feliz Navidad,” Eva said. “Min, how long until we reach Atrion?”
“About a quarter cycle,” Min replied. “Unless you want to refuel somewhere first.”
Eva shrugged. “Anyone have a layover request?”
Sue shook her head, Pink twirled her finger in a circle, and Vakar’s palps twitched, but he said nothing.
“If we can make it to Atrion, and their fuel prices aren’t ridiculous, let’s just get this job done.” Eva knocked back the last of her coffee. “Nice work, amigos. Take a break.”