And tough exoskeleton or not, I got under his skin real easy. Sometimes too easy, and it zapped the fun out of it—like a beryllium core mounted too close to a quantum intake.
I focused for a second on Evik, long enough to ‘hear’ what he was saying.
“Calm down, man. Keep it in your pants,” was the gist.
I didn’t make a habit of getting overly close with anyone, though as far as friends went, these two dumbasses were as near to a meaningful relationship as I currently had. Being a prince on the run had its drawbacks. There was always the niggling worry that anyone who saw my face might also see one of the bounty notices. Even the most loyal friendship might be swayed by ten thousand digi-coins, courtesy of the Duprasi Queen herself. Hell…I’d been tempted a time or two to turn my own cursed self in.
I didn’t make the marriage agreement to her second-born daughter. That was all my parents’ doing. They had a bounty out on me, too. Good old loving Mom and Dad. Yet here I was on the run, pulling scams to make my next meal.
We were a proud planet colonized by the first early wave of human refugees. We’d cross-bred with the humanoid natives and built a civilization as advanced as any thriving thirty-first century Earth city. There was little advantage, in my mind, to joining with the Duprasi. Sure, a quicker route through the Öpik–Oort to certain trade posts might have its benefits, and we’d no longer have to fork over the insane toll the Bufo Alvarius Empress charged for passing through her galaxy, but...
There was no way, not by the heat of a dozen suns, that I was going back to marry a woman who basically looked like a walking, talking magbrie. They were uglier than a damn Earth rat. I’d rather dive headfirst into a black hole and take my chances.
The spitfire of a woman was still whispering, but then her hand dropped from her ear and she turned back towards us. She was grinning.
“You’re wanted by the Duprasi for some reason.” She pointed at me. “You’re wanted by the Chilcheks.” She pointed at Evik. “And you,” she directed her finger at Morph. “Holy space crimes against the known universe, Batman.”
Morpheus stood up, raising to his full height, his wings outspreading in a metallic rainbow.
“Fine,” Morph said. And I’d never seen him look worried, but hell if this tiny ass woman hadn’t just said something to shake up the impenetrable, scarred, mysterious fucking Morpheus Madagar.
“Fine what?” I looked over at him, confusion jumping around my brain like heating kernels refusing to burst.
He looked at me, his large eyes narrowed. “We’ll be her crew.”
3
Evik of the Chilchek
“Blue is this way.” The tiny human woman led us through the station toward her ship’s berth, jogging to stay in front of the three of us. I tried to read her emotions, get a sense of what she was feeling, but Morpheus’s fear-laced rage overwhelmed everything else. It roiled around him in bitter waves of orange and red, covering even the scent of Alder’s lust.
The swirl of emotions was enough to make me pull my antennae close to my body to try to block out my partners’ responses to the woman.
Sure, she’d essentially blackmailed us, but it wasn’t like we had anything else to do. Our own ship had been virtually destroyed by weapons-fire during our frantic escape from the last station we’d docked in. The authorities there caught onto our scams too quickly. Their docking clamps were disabled easily enough, though—for all that Morpheus and Alder might call my upper appendages my “horns,” my mandibles were perfect for snipping wires.
They were pretty good at cutting through flesh, too. And if Morpheus didn’t rein in his emotions, I might take a chunk out of him.
Alder dropped back beside me, speaking in that quiet hiss humans sometimes used to shield their voices from others’ hearing. “Sensing anything about our new boss?”
I signaled no with my scent glands and mandibles, but unlike Morpheus, Alder had never learned to read those signs, so I clicked a negative for his vocal translator to give him.
“Too bad. I’d like to know how much trouble we’re in.” With a sigh that my translator told me suggested annoyance, Alder quickened his pace to walk next to Morpheus.
I shook off my own irritation, flicking one of my wing casings as if I could physically remove the emotion from my body. I didn’t expand my wings, though. For one thing, we were headed down the hallway leading to berth 351, and it wasn’t wide enough for my wingspan. More importantly, though, seeing my wings always put Morph in a foul mood. And the last thing any of us needed was more anger from him.
Instead, I focused on the woman, examining her from all sides. Until I’d left Chilchek, I hadn’t really believed that other species’ eyes couldn’t take in multiple angles at once.
Her skin, paler even than Alder’s, glowed from within. The heat radiating from her brushed against my maxillary palps, making me want to move them against her as if she were food, or maybe a mate.
The thought made the tip of my flagellum stiffen.
And to think I’d told Alder to keep it in his endosoma. Not that human males could tuck their reproductive organs away safely.
Exposed genitals. So ridiculous.
Mammals. They were soft in every way. No natural armor to cover their most vulnerable bits. Limited senses. No eye facets. And most of them couldn’t even hide their emotions. Even Morpheus, who was closer to Chilchek than the others, radiated his feelings.
Back home, had I finished my training as a warrior, I would have been a Paladin in my
