“Will you?” he whispered.
His mouth was distracting, his eyes practically glowing. “Will I what?”
“Take me with you.”
I was about ready to tell him I’d let him go anywhere with me as long as he kissed me, godsdammit, when the ship shuddered around us and the klaxon alarm began blaring as the lights flashed red. The spell broke instantly, and I stood straight. “What is it, Blue?”
“We have company,” she announced, once again speaking aloud for Alder’s benefit.
I glanced over at the—well, he’d said he wasn’t exactly human—whatever he was. All the blood had drained from his face, leaving his skin a waxy gray, and sweat had popped up to bead along his hairline. “We have to run. She’ll kill Morph. And if she catches me...well, I would rather die.”
Fuck. This empress must be truly terrifying.
“Blue?”
“We won’t make it,” the AI replied. Alder groaned.
“Please call everyone to the bridge, Blue.” I paused long enough to hear Alder’s sharply indrawn breath. “If we can’t run, we’ll need to figure out something else.”
I was out of the room and halfway down the hall when I heard Alder’s whisper.
“We’re so dead.”
6
Alder
“Fantastic,” Morph muttered, and Evik moved nervously beside him, filling the air with an acrid scent that meant only one thing—he was afraid.
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” I gave them my most charming smile and winked. Morph huffed in response.
“You say that so easily, Alder, though you were not the one who was the face of our little escape from the Bufo Alvarius Empress.” He rose to his full height, head nearly brushing the ceiling of the bridge. His voice sounded calm, though I could tell he was tense by the way his wings furled and unfurled slightly, the tips dinging against the floor in an almost rhythmic pattern.
“Morph, they have no idea we’re on this ship. For all they know, it’s a junker and we’re a bunch of salvage pirates.” I patted him on the back and moved towards the seat near Lise. “Salvagers aren’t worth their time. Just sit back and relax.”
I looked over at Lise and was surprised to find her staring at me. “Do you have an issue with salvagers, Alder?”
Shifting uncomfortably, I frowned. “I mean, no. Nothing wrong with them. Someone’s got to be the trashmen of the universe.”
“The trashmen of the universe are good people,” she bit out, heat rushing into her cheeks.
“Sure, sure they are,” I fumbled out awkwardly. “Look, I didn’t mean to offend—”
“You didn’t offend me. You’re a conman. Right? Stealing, cheating at cards, that sort of thing? Salvagers are respectable. They’re honest. So remember that the next time you judge them.” She turned in her chair, focusing back on the control panel. The front windshield was opaque now; she’d hit the incognito function.
Knowing I’d stepped in a giant pile of Navarzian shit, I clamped my mouth shut.
Morpheus made a thrumming sound in his throat, his version of a chuckle. I glared at him, and he shrugged, his wings tapping against the floor yet again.
“Stop that sound, whatever it is,” Lise barked out. “If they’re listening, it’ll ping our position. Blue can block heat scans for body temperature, but she’s not soundproof if they’ve got that advanced sonar detector array.”
“Damn thing costs more coin than we make in a dozen cons. They won’t have that.” I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair, feeling smug.
“They’ll have it if it’s an empress scoutship,” Lise shot back.
“Which it is,” the ship’s AI spoke, and then rattled off a list of mechanical updates. “I’ve scanned what I could of the approaching vessel, but it is outfitted with guards against such probes. The insignia on the hull is, without a doubt, Bufo Alvarius.”
“Have they spotted us, Blue?” Lise’s fingers flew across the control board, pressing glowing icons and muttering to herself.
“I engaged stealth mode the minute I picked them up on my sensors, but our additional power reserves are low. I do not know how long our camouflage will last before partial, or complete, failure.”
Evik’s pheromone excretion intensified; it almost became a visible fog in the room. It caused the stress levels of everyone in the vicinity to heighten.
“Evik, brother, you’ve got to calm yourself.”
He clicked back at me, rapidly, then slowly, as he worked through his own anxiety. It was hard for Evik, harder than me and Morph, to be part of such a small unit. Back on his home planet, he would have lived in huge colonies, sharing a home with multiple partners. Togetherness was the base function of their society. When danger reared its head, I believed he felt infinitely more untethered to his current lifestyle. I often wondered why he’d chosen to be part of our rebel band.
“Evik.” It was Morph that spoke this time; he reached with jointed fingers towards his friend and gripped the Chilchek’s arm. He began that sort of buzzing sound, the one that let him re-center himself and focus on memories. We’d found in the past that Evik responded to Morph’s… I don’t know. His similarities, I guessed. They were both like… insects back on Old Earth. It was as if their chemical makeups responded to one another.
And it wasn’t always a positive thing.
Sometimes, when one got really worked up, the other did too. More than once, it had screwed up a planned con. Getting hot under the collar didn’t bode well for smooth sailing.
Lise was talking with Blue, devising some stratagem for escaping right under the nose of the Bufo Alvarius scout ship.
“That won’t work, Lise.” Lights flashed on the control panel, a sequence of greens, reds, and blues.
“Something has to work, Blue. We can’t be out of options.” Lise ran a hand through her hair, the loose curls bouncing against her back.
Morph and Evik weren’t the only ones getting worked up now.
Waves of adrenaline were
