3. Hazel

3

Hazel

A gentle electronic ding pulled my attention away from my research. Was that the meal bell Jesse had told me about? I wasn't exactly giddy about leaving my quarters, but I'd be with this crew for at least four weeks it'd take to travel, so it'd be best to become familiar with them.

I pulled open the door to step out into the corridor—and bounced back. I rebounded off a solid brick wall planted across the threshold.

It took a second for me to realize it wasn't a solid brick wall. It was a person, and not just any person. Valmore. The red-skinned, black-horned alien turned around and fixed his devilish eyes on me.

I yelped in alarm, and he raised an eyebrow. "Is there a problem? "

I pressed my knuckles into my sternum, willing myself to breathe. "What are you… Just what exactly do you think you're doing blocking my door?"

Valmore tilted his head. "I'm not blocking your door. I'm guarding it. I'm your bodyguard. That's what bodyguards do." He frowned. "This isn't your first trip into deep space, is it?"

"Of course not!" I lied. He didn't need to know my other forays into space had been brief and trivial.

"Then you've had bodyguards before. You know they're supposed to guard your… body." Valmore's eyes dipped downward again with that maddening inflection on the last word.

"You don't have to barricade my door though." I barged past him into the corridor and immediately set off, even though I didn't know where I should be going. I wanted to put as much distance between myself and him as possible, before my cheeks grew any redder.

Maddeningly, he followed right behind me. "Where exactly should I stand, Officer Simmons?"

"How about down the hall?" I waved over my shoulder and did my best not to freak out that he was still following a few inches behind me. "I don't know what's the worry if this crew's been vetted anyhow."

Valmore said nothing. Why did that make my scalp prickle? He should have laughed it off or… or something, anything but that ominous silence.

I sighed and suggested, "How about you just stand to one side so I don't collide with you when I come out?"

"I can do that."

I glanced over my shoulder—not that I doubted he would still be there. When I did, his unaccountable eyes caught me. I forgot to look where I was going and nearly ran face-first into a wall.

I caught myself in time and halted in the middle of a T-intersection. I looked left and right, trying to decide which way to go. This ancient vessel had no internal signs to indicate where anything was.

"The mess hall is that way." Valmore pointed to the left.

I should have thanked him, but his presence disoriented me. I couldn't decide whether I should act friendly toward him or pretend he wasn't there.

I walked left, still trying to figure it out. He followed.

"Get used to me, Officer Simmons. I'm going to be your shadow for the next four weeks."

I wanted to groan. This would have been so much easier if he was some dweeb my eyes could easily ignore. "Probably over four weeks," I said. "We might be out even longer if we find something of interest at our destination. "

"And that will be when your security becomes even more important. I don't want to take any chances."

"I appreciate your continued diligence," I said, and part of me wasn't being sarcastic. But then again, part of me definitely was. Without thinking, I looked back again, and this time my eyes dipped to his burly frame. Anyone would be safe with a behemoth like him shadowing them. But why did he have to be so damn gorgeous?

I faced forward before I could get any more flustered. It was as if I'd never met a man as sexy as him before.

I mean, I hadn't. But that was beside the point.

I was a professional. An officer. I had to stay focused on the job at hand.

The corridor turned a corner just ahead, and two crew members passed us. One was a human man, and the other was a cat-like humanoid. Their expressions hardened as they walked by. Neither smiled nor greeted us. No, they skewered me with their eyes. Then they were gone.

I stopped in my tracks and turned back, watching them turn the corner.

"Is anything wrong?" Valmore asked.

I tried to shake it off, but that split second of contact with the crew unsettled me. "They don't really seem like they want me here. "

"What do you mean?"

Something in Valmore's tone made me look up at him. He peered down into my eyes with an odd intensity, like he was trying to gauge just how much I knew.

I waved down the hall. "It just seems like everybody on board hates me. I mean, besides Jesse, I've only gotten weird looks from everyone."

At that moment, Jesse strode around the corner. "Hazel!" he sang out. "I'm glad you made it. You better hurry before there's no more food left." He turned to Valmore and burst into loud laughter—maybe a little too loud. "You're under the masterful protection of your bodyguard, I see."

I relaxed. Maybe I had just been imagining things. "Yeah, Valmore takes his job very seriously."

"I'll bet he does!" Jesse burst into another gale of laughter. I didn't see what was so funny about that, but maybe the guy was just nervous.

Jesse clapped Valmore on the shoulder and walked off into the heart of the ship. Valmore and I both turned to watch him disappear, then Valmore glanced at me. "Let's eat, shall we?"

We entered the mess hall to find that much of the food offerings had been plundered. Most of the crew had already finished up, having dropped off their trays, dishes, and utensils into a chute in the sidewall. Within about a minute, Valmore and I had the mess hall to ourselves. Only one or two isolated people remained.

We grabbed our trays and approached the serving table. "So how did you get this job?" I asked Valmore as I put a plate on my tray and served myself what looked to be a casserole. "You don't seem like the IPA type."

He only laughed. "I'm not. I worked as a mercenary for a while, but I was getting sick of that life. I decided to get a more traditional security job, so I came over to the IPA."

Valmore skipped the casserole and instead stabbed a huge fork into a haunch of meat almost as big as my thigh.

He deposited the whole thing onto his tray—no plate, no nothing. I stared at it.

Valmore caught me looking at the meat. "Oh, did you want some? I can cut off a piece for you."

"I don't… I mean… Are you planning on eating all of that?"

"Sure. It's a light lunch for me. They always keep ten or twelve around in case I get hungry."

My eyes shot open. "Ten or twelve! Just for you?"

"Of course. A man has to eat, doesn't he?"

Valmore nodded toward the tables. By now, we really were the only people left in the mess hall.

He set his tray on a table and sat down as I took the spot opposite him. He drew the enormous blade from his belt and started carving into the meat as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"I'm surprised you would leave a life of adventure for the drudgery of the IPA," I remarked. "If I hadn't been raised to be an officer, I would have wanted to explore the universe."

"Be careful what you wish for." Valmore scowled at his meat while he sliced another piece.

"What do you mean by that?"

He speared a piece of meat and stuffed it into his mouth with the point of his blade. "Being a mercenary isn't all fun and adventure. A small part of it is drudgery, while most it is pain, suffering, and death—either yours or someone else's. If you get a taste for it, you might be happy for more drudgery."

I looked up at him. His eyes glittered with that intense, drilling hardness. He fascinated me in ways I never expected. "Tell me about it. Tell me about what you've seen out there."

"You really wanna know?"

"I honestly do."

"My people were hunted and destroyed by another race. I haven't seen another of my kind since I was a child."

"Your people?" Why didn't I think of that? Why had I thought he was one of a kind? "What species are you? I've never seen someone like you—not even in our records. "

"We're Kavians. We originally came from the planet Kavius in the Gilev system."

I frowned and stirred my fork through my food. "The Gilev system… That isn't far from the Trozolla system."

"That's right."

"So, who destroyed your people?"

"The Ranxi. Ever heard of them?"

"Can't say I have."

"Figures they wouldn't be on the IPA's radar. They conquer relatively unknown civilizations. Ones who haven't achieved space flight yet. Easier to get away with it unnoticed."

That sounded awful—and like something the IPA should have been keeping tabs on. "But why? What use do they get out of conquering such societies?"

"You tell me. My theory is that they're using their victims for biological experiments. Building an army. Something like that. They pick up a few choice specimens of a warrior species, then kill the rest so nobody else has access to their genetic code."

"How did you escape?"

"Got lucky. Some of us were rescued by various traders who knew of our planet. But we've been scattered and have gone into hiding. I haven't been able to find any of my own people since, but I've made do as a mercenary. "

I gaped at him in horror. "That's all so awful! I'm so sorry. I guess I should be thankful for the home and family I have, even if my parents can be overbearing at times."

"There's nothing to be thankful for if you're trapped."

I looked up again, but Valmore kept eating as though he had been talking about the weather. I let the matter drop, but I couldn't stop wondering.

I studied him while we both finished eating. Did the IPA know his background? Would they have hired him knowing he spent his formative years wandering, scavenging, and working as a mercenary?

Amazingly, he polished off the whole haunch of meat in the same time it took me to eat my modest serving of casserole.

Without discussing it first, we both stood up. We dumped our trays into the chute. Valmore licked his blade clean and re-sheathed it on his belt.

We wandered into the corridor more slowly. For some reason, I didn't want to shut myself into my quarters right away. I had gone to the mess hall expecting to interact with the crew. Now I knew Valmore's personal history in ways I didn't anticipate.

I was tired, but part of me wanted to keep talking to him—to figure him out and understand how his mind worked. My heart sank when we arrived at my door.

"So… You won't be standing outside my door all night, will you? Don't you ever sleep?"

"Kavians only need a few hours of sleep here and there. Anything more is excessive."

"So… does that mean you will be standing outside my door all night?"

"Yup." Valmore rotated into position and planted himself by the door. He left only a few inches for me to get by.

I forced a laugh, entered the compartment, and switched on the light. I shut the door behind me. When I sat down on the bunk, I saw his bulk parked right outside the porthole.

I didn't feel like working on my tablet anymore, so I stretched out on the bunk and switched the light back off. Valmore's broad shoulders blocked the light from outside.

He cast the whole compartment in gloom, but his presence actually made me feel better. No one would get past him while he stood guard. I had never felt safer.