1. Hazel

1

Hazel

My stomach tightened as I looked up at the long-range frigate parked in the docking bay. Was I really going into deep space in that?

Rusty welds barely held the crumbling hull seams together, and a coil of wire laced the starboard engine block to the fuselage. I shuddered when my eyes landed on the ship's name plate: Methuselah .

An ancient nursery rhyme came back to me from my long-forgotten childhood. What was it again? Methuselah lived nine hundred years. This ship certainly looked nine hundred years old… Or maybe it died a long time ago, and this was its reanimated corpse.

Just on the off chance someone in Logistics made a tragic mistake, I pulled out my tablet and double-checked my flight itinerary. Nope. No mistake. My orders stared back at me in stark, glaring detail.

Depart Elysium Space Station, Docking Bay 14, 1040 Hours, Frigate Methuselah, Nixen Zol Captain, Destination Trozolla System…

This was it. This was the ship that would take me on this ridiculous mission.

I couldn't look at it anymore. I turned away as my stomach twisted in knots. I spent my entire life on the Elysium Space Station. This would be the first time I ever left it for a significant length of time. I'd been on short expeditions lasting a day or two, but nothing as long as this one.

I didn't really want to leave Elysium, especially on such a trumped-up mission as this one. The Intergalactic Peace Alliance detected unrest in the Trozolla system, but so what? The IPA would almost always send drones to check out those types of reports. Why a manned mission?

Well, I would be lying to myself if I claimed I didn't know why. My commanding officer wanted to make an example out of me. He wanted to prove he wasn't going easy on me just because my parents were some of the most renowned members of the IPA.

Little did he know that my parents' string- pulling and nepotism annoyed me as much as it annoyed him.

"Officer Simmons?"

I turned around… and froze. A monstrous devil towered above me. He had red skin, pointed horns, and blue eyes so dark they were almost black. A mane of dark hair hung long and shaggy around his horns. He was already two feet above me in height, but his bulky stature and his wild appearance made him seem three times bigger.

He wore only a ragged pair of pants. The straps of two massive weapons hung across his chest, along with giant belts of ammunition. A huge dagger—really more like a short sword—hung from his belt.

I stared at him with my mouth wide open. I had specialized in alien biology, anthropology, and political science, but I never even heard of a species like his.

Where did he come from? What was he doing here? I looked over my shoulder, but no other ship occupied the docking bay. The Methuselah had the bay all to itself.

"You are Officer Simmons, aren't you?" the devilish alien asked. "Officer Hazel Simmons?"

His voice sounded silky smooth, almost sultry. I almost didn't believe it came from this… this fiend. I sn apped myself out of my shock and cleared my throat. "Yes. Who wants to know?"

He straightened up and his expression cleared now that he determined I wasn't irretrievably stupid. "I'll be your bodyguard and guide on this mission." He nodded toward the Methuselah . He couldn't be nodding toward anything else.

"You—my guide!" I blurted out. "That's impossible."

He frowned, almost even pouted. The expression was cute on his rugged face. "Do you doubt my credentials? If you look up the mission brief on your tablet, you'll find my service record and my qualifications. I'm sure your commanding officer would love to hear any objections you wish to raise."

I shook my head quickly. My commanding officer would definitely not love to hear any objections I wished to raise. He would be livid if I complained about any aspect of this mission.

"It isn't that," I stammered. "I'm sure you're perfectly qualified. The IPA wouldn't hire you if you weren't. It's just that you're…"

My eyes dipped to his sturdy chest. I meant to look at the weapons sticking out over each muscled shoulder, but I ended up looking at the cleft of his sternum instead. His tattered pants hung low over his hips and revealed every distinct dip of his abs disappearing beneath his waistband. The blood rushed to my cheeks, and I tore my eyes away.

Now he seemed amused. "What exactly has you so flustered, Officer Simmons?"

I tried to wave my confusion away, but I ended up flapping my hand instead. "It's just that… Most alien guides are… You know…"

"Wimps?"

I burst out laughing. Hearing my reasoning spoken out loud made it all the more absurd, but he had me pinned. Most alien guides were wimps. They were bookish, quiet types who specialized in diplomacy with sensitive alien cultures. They trained in protecting the delicate cultural customs and peace negotiations between the aliens and the mostly human IPA. They stood no chance in a real fight.

"What good is a guide if he can't defend you?" he went on, that amused smirk growing.

My eyes darted toward the Methuselah again. No one would try to harm me on this mission. I didn't even understand why my commanding officer assigned me an alien guide when I wasn't supposed to be contacting any aliens, anyway. That was why the IPA always sent drones on missions like this.

The brute interrupted my thoughts. "Is there a problem?"

"No! Not at all." What could be wrong with having a monstrous, horned beast as a diplomatic guide? This… this man looked ready to tear a rhino in half. He didn't even look like a bodyguard. He struck me more as the mercenary type.

This wouldn't be the first time the IPA contracted an independent party for defense, but they usually did that on missions that involved exploring dangerous territory. This mission was about as far from that as possible.

Either way, I would be flying with him on the Methuselah for at least four weeks. I pulled myself together and managed to say, "It's very nice to meet you. I didn't catch your name."

"Valmore—at your service." He cracked a huge grin and chopped his hand against his forehead in a mock pantomime of a salute. "You'll be safe in my hands."

In your hands? My cheeks again betrayed me, and my brain struggled to come up with a witty reply.

Just in time, Captain Zol approached us.

I'd seen him around Elysium before, but I never met him. He docked here more than once, but never on the Methuselah . Hardly anyone knew anything about his business or his connections beyond the IPA, of which he was too slimy to be a member.

He belonged to the Bossup species of mollusks. His bulbous head wobbled on a cluster of tentacles that slithered across the docking bay floor. He was a bit wet too. I felt bad for whoever was going to have to mop up after him.

"Officer Simmons," he slurped. "The ship is ready to board… if you so wish."

"Thank you." I turned to Valmore. "I suppose we should get started then."

I headed for the ramp, but when I climbed up to enter the hold, I realized that Valmore and Captain Zol hadn't followed behind me.

I looked back. They stood together in the same place I had left them, talking together in low tones. Zol's head wobbled again, and Valmore nodded. What were they talking about? Their close and casual stance told me they knew each other somehow.

I frowned. Wasn't it against protocol to hire bodyguards with prior connections to a contracted crew? Wasn't that a potential conflict of interest?

"You must be Officer Simmons."

I whipped around, ready to encounter yet another hideous creature. Instead, I came face to face with the most ordinary human guy imaginable. Average height, brown hair, brown eyes, and entirely unremarkable.

I found it to be a nice change in pace after the big, handsome horned guy.

The man stuck out his hand. "I'm Jesse. Nice to meet you." He laughed for no particular reason. "Come on. I'll show you to your quarters."

He crushed my hand in a powerful handshake. I glanced over my shoulder again. Valmore now stood alone across the bay, his gaze boring into me. Was he glaring at me, or at Jesse? From this distance, it was hard to tell.

"Come on!" Jesse's voice echoed through the hold as he turned around and took off.

I hurried after him. He held a hatch open for me and we entered a long corridor. The ship's interior looked even shoddier and more decrepit than its exterior. Rust, corrosion, and rot marred every surface.

A few more crew members passed us on the way through the ship. They were a mix of human and aliens, but they all bore a stamp of something… odd. They didn't carry themselves the same as most independent contractors I had dealt with. They seemed less formal, less alert and concerned. Like they were the ones on top of the food chain.

Nearly all of them carried weapons—huge weapons—and a lot more of them than I would have thought necessary. This was just a slow cruise to the Trozolla system. And even when we got there, we would observe the situation rather than participate in it. Our orders called for reporting the nature of the unrest, not quelling it .

So why the heavy weapons?

Just then, Jesse halted next to a door that looked ready to drop off its hinges. He opened it and waved inside the compartment. "Here you go! You'll hear the meal bell for mess hours. Other than that, you can relax and leave the flying to us for the next two weeks. We'll let you know when we get there."

He gave me another cheery grin—or was that grin just sleazy? The crew didn't give me a confident feeling, either. In fact, nothing about this mission did.

I shook my misgivings out of my head and stepped into the compartment. My breath caught when I saw the hole that would be my home for the next four weeks.

The only furnishings were a haphazardly made bunk and a tiny locker. Stains, rust, and corroded holes dotted the walls. I didn't even see a vent to circulate fresh air into this pit.

The door slammed shut behind me and cast the chamber into semi-darkness. A round porthole in the door gave the only light. I gulped down a lump in my throat. I knew that my commanding officer wanted to stick it to me, but this felt like he was sending me on a suicide mission.

I sank down on the bunk and bumped my head on the upper rim. My suitcase took up all the space between the bunk and the wall. This compartment didn't even have anywhere to put my things away. I would be living out of my suitcase until I returned to Elysium.

There had to be more to life than this. Despite following in my parents' footsteps, all I seemed to do was tread water. And it didn't seem like I would ever manage to do anything better than that. I would do something else if I knew how, but this station and the IPA were all I knew.

Maybe this horrible derelict ship was an opportunity in disguise. A way to break out of my rut, out of my directionless routine.

Or maybe it'd just be the death of me.