Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Jacaranda

T he hum of my cockpit was a nice change from the unpredictable sounds on Earth. The way humans chattered was hell on the nerves. That forest had been nice, though—reminded me of home. Can’t wait to get back there and for all this nonsense to be over .

Egg-shaped glass surrounded me on three sides to improve my view. Unlike my boss, I was my own pilot, so my cockpit was designed to my specifications. Deacon’s ship was top of the line in every way and one of the most uncomfortable vessels I had ever been in. But he was classed and moneyed and with that came certain expectations. Apparently comfort was not one of them.

I flipped the switches for the power driver and the infirmary buzzer light came on. I hit the receiver and asked, “Ode, how is the patient?”

“Eh, not great. Can you come down here?”

“Why? I’m not a doctor.”

“Jacaranda Cozz, I am not delivering a human in her condition to our boss! Get down here!”

Turning off the intercom, I made my way through the ship toward the infirmary. No one was at their station, as I had ordered. What is going on with this girl that caused my whole crew to abandon their posts? Whatever it is, it’s not good.

I double-timed it to the infirmary, past the curved corridors and blinking blue lights. Shouts peppered with Earth-English obscenities came from the infirmary. They released her. Fuck.

When I came around the open doorway, I quickly took in the sights. Ode wielded a jet injector as she leaned away from the human, her blue hair dangling back and her black skin shimmering like crude oil. My crew wore black fatigues, all but Ode. She liked the white lab coats of humans. Even though Ode was two heads taller than the human, she wasn’t aggressive, and defending herself against a patient was not in her.

Sarah had somehow gotten a hold of a penknife and was swinging it wildly at Ode and warning her to stay away. Treg’s green, blubbery form stood between the human and Ode to shield his girlfriend.

My android, Camp Deo, hid in the far corner. Her copper machine parts shone in the bright white laboratory lights—hiding in the corner did nothing to hide her. Camp Deo, being a Deo model android, had no instinct for violence. Deos were best for analytics, languages, ship repairs, and other tasks that required a delicate touch. Wrangling a wild human was not in her programming.

My other crew members, Kapok and Tiger, were sneaking up behind her. Their family resemblance was obvious—like all Ladrians, they had an opalescent layer in the skin that gave them a shimmer, but their family was one of the last who had a purple tinge over their gray skin. When Kapok and Tiger were within reach of Sarah, she turned and nearly nicked them both.

She shouted, “Back the fuck up, bitches!”

I laughed and walked up behind her, tapping her on the shoulder. She was faster than I had expected though and whirled around and slashed my cheek. Then, appearing shocked by my presence, she dropped the penknife.

“I’m sorry—what are you…did they take you too?”

Shit, I still look human. I turned to my crew and said in Ladrian, “You have to look human, or she will keep freaking out. Hit your mogs.”

Each of them tapped the button on their belt transmogrifiers, and they transformed into their human appearances, confusing the actual human. She blinked rapidly, not believing her eyes. In the confusion, Ode was able to sneak up on her and hit her with the jet injector.

The human frowned and looked around, then she clutched her head. In Ladrian, she asked, “What’s happening to me?”

“I’ve given you an injection,” Ode explained. “It will help you to understand our language and to speak it. How are you feeling?”

“I feel a little…strange. Why do you all look human now?” The way her mouth chewed my native language was appalling.

“All your questions will be answered soon, I promise,” the doctor assured her. “Are you feeling drowsy?”

She stumbled against the exam table and frowned. “Yeah, what’s…?”

Ode signaled Kapok and Tiger, and they lifted the human onto the table, where she swiftly fell asleep. With the crisis over, I asked Ode, “What was she doing awake?”

“Do you have any idea how many drugs she is on? I’m amazed she survived the transfer beam ride here! I had to wake her just to make sure there wasn’t any neurological damage.”

“Drugs?” I asked in confusion. “Why would Deacon want some addict?”

Ode frowned. “You would do best to ask him yourself.”

“I know, I know,” I huffed in annoyance. “She was really that messed up?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t have woken her otherwise. I know better.”

Kapok strapped the human to the table, then stared at her a little too long for my comfort. I snapped my fingers at him. “Hey.”

He looked up with that glint in his eyes. “What?”

“Stop thinking that,” I ordered.

He blinked. “Thinking what?”

I glared at him. “I’ve known you too long for you to be able to lie to me.”

“What?” He shrugged. “I’ve never had one of them.”

“And you won’t be having this one, either,” I said in a firm tone. “You want a human, you’ll have to catch one. This one is going to Deacon.”

Tiger asked, “Why does he want her specifically?”

“Couldn’t tell you.” Because it’s classified. And embarrassingly dangerous . “Now that the excitement is over, maybe you could all get back to your jobs?”

“Can we de-mog?” Treg asked.

As much as I preferred him in his human form, I wasn’t going to stop him from being himself. Gorrks were sensitive about their gelatinous, transparent looks. I liked the guy, but the fact that he resembled a midcentury jello dessert made me wonder about Ode’s tastes in men.

I nodded and said, “Go ahead. All of you. I’ll set the course for the orbit of Halla and—”

“Halla?” Tiger asked as he de-mogged back into his alien form. “I thought we were going to Deacon’s.”

“We are.” I headed for the doorway.

“What’s he doing on Halla?”

The kid had always been a curious sort, but sometimes it irritated me, and I couldn’t keep it from the tone of my voice. “Not really your business, is it?”

“Sorry, sir,” he said as he averted his eyes.

Kapok’s eyes, however, were on me while he de-mogged. His expression was a mix of disapproval and anger and didn’t change much when he shifted from human back to Ladrian.

I sighed. “I didn’t mean to snap, Tiger. I’m not allowed to divulge why Deacon is on Halla. You understand.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“And is there a reason that one human was able to garner the attention of my entire crew, or are you all just here to gawk?”

Kapok ushered the other two toward their stations, probably hoping to avoid more of my wrath. I felt bad for snapping at his cousin, but if Tiger wanted to be treated like one of my crew, then he had to harden up. He was too soft for someone his age. Hell, I had been a scout for six years by the time I was twenty. I hoped he grew out of his softness soon. I couldn’t wait around for Kapok’s cousin to catch up to him in maturity—I had hoped he would be as capable as his cousin when I hired him. Kapok was a fierce warrior. Tiger was a wannabe.

Sarah sleepily mumbled in Ladrian, “Who is Deacon?”

“How is she awake?” I barked at Ode.

“I told you, she’s on a ton of drugs, Jacaranda. She is not well.” Ode hit her mog again to appear human. “And there’s no telling how she will react to our medicine.” She walked to her bedside. “I’ll make sure you’re ready to meet him, just hold still.” She pulled out the jet injector again.

The human tried, and failed, to swat it away. “Nnn. Who’s Dea-on?”

I leaned over her and said, “He’s your new master, and—”

“What?” She shrieked out.

I held my ears while Ode sedated her once more, and the human dozed off. The doctor warned me, “If I have to knock her out again like that, I don’t think she’ll make it to Deacon.”

I huffed. “So damned delicate. All of them.”

“All of whom?” Ode asked.

“Humans. I don’t understand how they’ve lasted as long as they have as a species.”

I stared at my quarry. Honestly, she was quite pretty for a human woman. Exotic, wavy brown hair the color of her eyes. Matte ivory skin that humans mistook for white. Slender, but still shaped like a woman. Her name was peculiar—Sarah Hollinger—but most human names were odd to me. What does ‘Sarah’ even mean? She was the size of a teenaged Ladrian, small and fine. Far too fragile for the work ahead of her.

“No clue why he’s so obsessed with her,” I muttered.

Ode laughed. “That’s funny to hear, coming from you.”

“What about me?”

“The only person I know more obsessed with humans than me is you.”

I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall with a smirk. “You’re a human biologist, but I’m more obsessed with humans than you? Do tell.”

“Of all the people I have ever known, who has had more missions to Earth? Who uses their turns of phrase? Who has tattooed one of their trees and taken it for his name? An ancestry tattoo, of all things!”

“Alright, alright, you made your point—”

“And how many of them have you paired with over the years? Dozens? Hundreds?”

More . “I concede that culturally, I may have absorbed a bit of their world. But you studied their anatomy, their sciences. You are an expert and—”

“Which is why you hired me.” She smirked. “And Treg.”

“No,” I smiled at Treg. “I hired him because he is a gifted engineer and keeps my ship running.”

A lot of Ladrians did not associate with Gorrks because of how they looked, but his nearly formless body shape allowed him to get into all the small spaces of my ship, so I didn’t care how he looked. Not much, anyway.

“Speaking of which, the carbon dioxide scrubber, how’s that coming?”

“It needs replacing,” Treg said.

“You said that last month.”

“Because it needed replacing last month, too.”

“You can make it work, though, right? We’re not in any danger?”

Treg laughed and his body shook in every direction. “I told you we were in danger last month. Now, we are in more danger.”

I frowned at him. “Then what is this that we’re breathing now?”

“While you were stalking the Hollinger, I was flushing the system with Earthen air,” he informed me. “How long until we reach Deacon’s ship at Halla?”

I shrugged. “An hour, give or take once I get us moving.”

“Good. I can dock our system with his for more air, and once we get back to Orhon, I’ll be able to replace the scrubber.”

“How much will it cost?”

He closed his eyes and said, “Outside the budget, I’m sure.”

“Get a used one—”

He huffed and groused, “We have a used one—”

“And if we want to keep breathing, then I shouldn’t waste air arguing about it, right?” I smiled and left the infirmary.

We needed a new carbon dioxide scrubber, but I had more important things on my mind. Well, maybe not more important—breathing was technically more important than most other things for five of the six of my crew—but Deacon’s recent foolhardiness took precedence in my head. It had been days since he told me about his plan, but I would need more than just days to be able to grasp it.

If he wanted to take anyone from Earth, it should have been Sarah’s sister, Jenny. She would have been less hysterical, I was sure of it. The youngest Hollinger was a believer in a lot of things—tarot, conspiracy theories, other things humans deemed silly. I imagined she would have been more receptive to being on board a spaceship, though perhaps I was giving her too much credit.

I sat back in the cockpit and flipped the charger for the power driver. Energy surged through the lever and zapped my hand, forcing it to jerk away. I hissed at the lever and cursed, before I pulled the inducing lever, and we took off. My ship, Sovereign , was an old crusty beast and when she wasn’t happy, she told me all about it.

I sighed and patted the dashboard. “I know, girl, I know. I’ll get you patched up when we get home.”

All I had to do was deliver the human woman to Deacon, complete the foolhardy mission, get paid, and get us back home on Orhon, where I planned to surprise Treg with a doubled budget for repairs.

Sovereign deserved more love than I had been able to afford in the past six months. As much as my plan sounded simple, I couldn’t remember the last time anything had been simple. Considering Deacon’s plan for Sarah Hollinger, rising dread filled the back of my mind.

My boss had lost his damned mind.