"Doesn't seem that different.” She cut me off, all confidence. I glared at her, but she continued, “Give me a knife and I'll be fine." I looked at her face. She was grinning, already victorious.
Damn it. She had a point.
"You know, it's really hard to try to protect and pamper you when you pretend to be such a badass."
"I am a badass, Myro." She grinned, her wide smile stretching before she lifted up on tip toes and kissed my nose. "Now give me a damn knife."
Exhaling in defeat, I crossed to the large cabinet where we kept the weapons, flinging the doors open and pulling out the knife and sheath that I had picked up a few years ago. I don't even remember where.
"Still," I said, pulling the knife back when she went to grab for it. "Be careful."
"Always." She snatched the knife, belting it to her hip and hiding it in her pants as we made our way down the gangplank and into the massive bay that made up the outer ring of Io's space station.
"Holy fuck!" It was a phrase I was starting to hear a lot from her.
Not that I minded. Each time she said it, it came with a look of wonder, her eyes glittering as she looked from one corner of the bay to another.
Massive ships of every shape, color, and design sat in lines, stretching as far as you could see in either direction. A blue ship with very obvious laser scarring from some battle or another sat in the bay next to us, the grey Fironians yelling at the Io workers as they demanded repairs. Their shouts were drowned out as the taxis pulled another ship past us, the yellow behemoth emblazoned with a faded red rose.
Kylie's eyes went one way and then another, still wide and awed. However, as I turned to her, she shook her head, straightening her shoulders and tightening her lips as the wonder in her eyes faded to that hard light that I had seen a few times before.
It was as though she had slid a mask into place, going from a woman who was seeing miracles for the first time to a warrior who was not one to be messed with.
"You ready for this?" I asked, holding out my hand as I took a few steps closer to the entrance of the station, the doorway already swelling with species of every kind as they moved to and fro.
"Oh, I'm already two steps ahead of you." She grinned, blew me a kiss, and strutted past me, not even giving my hand a second look.
Damn. This girl was a force to be reckoned with.
And it was fucking hot.
16
Kylie
Do not look like you live in a fish tank. Do not look like you live in a fish tank.
There was so much to look at that I was really struggling not to whip my head around like a toddler when they see their first blue skinned alien. Which wasn’t too far from the truth. There were so many different shades of blue aliens I hadn't seen before that I was reminded of how vast the universe was. There were aliens with giant spikes jutting out of their shoulders, aliens as broad as I was tall, female aliens with three boobs. There was even an alien with a giant appendage that looked a little too much like a penis jutting out of their forehead.
And that was just the aliens.
The space station on Io reminded me of home in the most unexpected way. The smell.
It smelled like smog, and garbage, and the soot of a hundred years of fires and overworked boilers. It was pungent and sweet and sour and mixed wonderfully with the aromas of boiled rat and stewed who-knows-what that wafted from the restaurants we passed. It was familiar in a way that made Myro wrinkle his nose. He didn't even seem interested in a spicy type of food that proudly proclaimed itself as 'Ancient Chinese'. I didn't know what that was, but I wanted to eat it.
"This way," Myro whispered, tapping my shoulder and pulling me down another overcrowded pathway. Bodies slammed into each other, everything so clogged I wasn't sure how anyone was moving.
"Vidool!" Some massive green guy covered in tattoos grumbled as he slammed into my shoulder, the meaning of the unfamiliar words clear.
Instinctively I tapped the leather strap on my waist, and the heavy handle of the knife that was attached to it. It was still there, although the snap clasp was undone. Guess the guy had tried to take it. I’d be leaving my hand on the blade from then on.
It was hard to stay focused on the dangers around me when there was so much exciting stuff to see, but Myro was right, this place reeked of danger. It took me right back to growing up on the streets of the Smog City.
Yet another thing that was the same.
"Wait. It's this way," Myro grabbed my elbow then, pulling me as he weaved through the wall of bodies toward what appeared to be a wall of garbage. The sweet smell of rot grew, mixing uncomfortably with that spicy 'Ancient Chinese' that I had wanted so much to gorge myself on.
"Please tell me we aren't buying food from a garbage vendor." The thought made my stomach turn, and Myro looked back as though he had been caught.
"It's a space station, there isn't a lot of places to throw stuff away, so it piles up..."
"I'm not eating garbage, Myro."
"Don't worry, neither am I." He grinned, pulling me ahead of him as the crowd broke apart. "Oh good, it's still there."
The pile of trash stretched from the floor to the high metal ceiling that you could
