She’s got a ramshackle spaceship, a misfit crew, and a big problem with its sexy newest member…
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Constance Fay’s Calamity, a romantic space adventure forthcoming from Tor Publishing Group’s new imprint Bramble on November 14th!
Temperance Reed, banished from the wealthy and dangerous Fifteen Families, just wants to keep her crew together after their feckless captain ran off with the intern. But she’s drowning in debt and revolutionary new engine technology is about to make her beloved ship obsolete.
Enter Arcadio Escajeda. Second child of the terrifying Escajeda Family, he’s the thorn in Temper’s side as they’re sent off on a scouting mission on the backwater desert planet of Herschel 2. They throw sparks every time they meet but Temper’s suspicions of his ulterior motives only serve to fuel the flames between them.
Despite volcanic eruptions, secret cultists, and deadly galactic fighters, the greatest threat on this mission may be to Temper’s heart.
Chapter 1
The searchlight hits Ven’s startled face at the same instant my chest hits the broad surface of the dune. I yank on my captain’s ankle, tumbling him to the sand alongside me on the off chance that someone didn’t notice a surprise person in the midst of what’s supposed to be an unpopulated world. The searchlight pans back over the air above us.
“I don’t think they saw us.” Ven says just as a bolt of light strikes the sand near our conjoined hands.
I scramble to my feet, unsteady in the light gravity and uncertain footing. “Oh, you think?”
Three more bolts hit as we crest the dune, both of us half falling when the sand slides from under our feet. He reaches back and catches my arm, yanking me up and over the peak to the dubious protection of the downslope. I duck lower while I skitter-skid down the smooth surface of the dune, darkness pressing close because when one is on a stealth surveillance mission, carrying a light is counterproductive. I have a pair of infrared glasses in my pocket somewhere, but I took them off when I was nearly blinded by the bright lights of the illegal grow operation.
“Guess we found out what was in the dead zone on the satellite and drone maps.” I’m running so quickly that I have a hand to the side, scraping the steep slope of the dune for balance. My cheap body armor is stiff and awkward, making running more difficult than it should be. The dunes fade to a rocky plateau in front of us, pitted with stone chimneys and caves. The perfect place to hide from the pursuers I can already hear climbing the other side of the dune.
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Calamity
“Temperance, if you don’t draw your blaster right this instant, I’m going to shoot you in the foot and leave you for them.” Ven likes to call me by my full name. My mother did the same thing, to remind me of its meaning. My father shortened it to Temper because I have a bad one. Most people use Temper.
“If I unholster my blaster, I’m going to trip over the sand and accidentally shoot you in the back. Nobody wants that.” It’s a nice back. Better without holes.
We reach the bottom of the dune, sprinting headlong toward the nearest stone chimney, lit only by the light of dual crescent moons. Ven reaches back and captures my hand, pulling me forward. It would be romantic if it wasn’t for the running-for-our-lives part.
One of the planet’s many tumbling air-plants suddenly goes up in flames next to me. Like an idiot, I turn my head to look back. I don’t know why I do it. Knowing what our pursuers look like won’t do a thing to keep their blaster fire from killing me. It’s about ten people, vibrant banishment tattoos glowing under their eyes. Their leader has a big blaster and Pierce-blond hair, illuminated by the light mounted on a neighboring weapon.
We reach the first pale stone chimney and put it between us and our pursuers, carefully winding our way between pits and narrow basalt towers. When we’re far enough into the stone formations that they can’t see us anymore, Ven gives me a boost to the hole in the side of one of the chimneys. I brace my legs inside and hold out a hand for him. He lets me haul him up after me. “Chimney” is the right word. It’s a narrow tube, pressing us together. Chest to chest. Hip to hip.
Other things to other things.
“Do you really have an erection right now?” I hiss at him. Seems like inopportune timing.
His shrug displaces a thin rain of dust from within the walls of the chimney. It patters down at our feet. “You inspire me.”
I laugh, nothing more than a puffed breath, forehead falling forward against his chest. I focus on keeping my breathing silent even though it feels like I inhaled about half the dune. As I catch my breath, Ven contacts the ship on his coms. Nothing much they can do now. We’ll hunker down here and then sneak back; vid evidence captured to share with the Flores Family. Our job is just to scout the place, not to enforce whatever law the growers are breaking.
I don’t even know what the stupid night-blooming flower in the vibrant green fields under the stark grow lights was, but you don’t go to a ghost planet near the edge of charted territory to grow legal florals.
“They were all banished.” Ven is fascinated by my own mark of banishment. It’s the first thing he ever commented on, when we met. All banishment tattoos are the same aesthetically, a glowing line that drips from beneath the left eye, about two finger-widths long. His finger traces down the line on my cheek, tender. Both of us have helmets, but the face shields are back—it’s too dark for them.
A shaft of moonlight from the hole above us illuminates his narrow face and sharp jaw. Ven’s built like a fencer, long and lean. His hand drifts from my cheek to where a strand of my dark-red hair has escaped, coiling it between his fingers. I press upward on my toes, adrenaline still hammering in my veins, and his lips meet mine in a frantic hard kiss. It builds in intensity until I feel like I could float away.
Which is stupid because there are very likely still people pacing around this stony valley waiting for us to make a noise so that they can murder us. We can get away with whispers, between the thick rock walls and the wind whistling between the formations. Not more than that. I disentangle myself gently.
This thing between us isn’t new. It’s been simmering for about half a standard year. Sometimes boiling. Sometimes exploding. But always a secret from the others on board the Quest. According to Ven, fraternizing with the crew leads to feelings of unfairness. Better to keep it quiet.
Honestly, I was just happy to be getting laid. Now, it chafes. It’s time for us to come clean. I want to tell Caro and Itzel, our engineer and biologist. Micah, the medic. Fuck, I even want to tell Itzel’s intern, Oksana. I don’t want Ven to be my secret anymore.
Ven traces a finger on my cheek one more time and takes the opportunity to state the obvious. “People aren’t driven to frontier planets unless they’ve been kicked out of regular society. They’re dangerous.”
All the shooting was a good clue. I snort. “The reason they’re here is probably the reason they were kicked out. They’re farmers, not soldiers. Besides, regular society isn’t all that safe. The Five Families are at each other’s necks and the next Ten are just as bad.”
“You were wasted with the Families, especially with Frederick.” Even trapped in a stone pillar, whispering to avoid getting shot, Ven has a way of stabbing me right in the heart with kindness. Perhaps it’s because my heart is so unused to defending against it.
It’s maybe the shock from that kindness that makes me say what I do next. “We should tell the crew.”
He blinks. Glances up at the night sky visible through the chimney above us. “I did just tell the crew. Sent an image of the flowers to whoever’s awake. Maybe they can ID them.”
A sly spike of discomfort worms its way down my spine. I quell it. He misunderstood. He’s not trying to change the subject. That’s just my brain trying to sabotage itself. “I don’t mean about how we were chased by murderous farmers. I mean about us. We’ve been doing this long enough to know it’s not just hormones and tight spaces. It’s real. I’d like to try it outside storage closets and stolen moments. Not that I don’t enjoy a storage closet here or there.”
He shifts his weight slightly, hand slipping up my back, when the crunch of gravel outside makes its way through the whistle of the wind and the stone of the chimney. We freeze. More steps sound around us, and I flash through a vivid fantasy of them shooting blindly into the rock formations, hoping to startle us out. I hold my breath. Ven is absolutely motionless.
Something scrapes the rock on the other side of the chimney, like the barrel of a blaster being dragged over the basalt.
“Where did you guys find plankat nibarat flowers?” Oksana the intern’s loud cheerful voice squeals out through my inner-ear coms, almost startling me into movement. I do twitch. Ven does, too. I also grimace because of course it would be plankat nibarat.
I’d rather it was drugs.
In the glory days of personal modifications, the one thing that never quite worked was intelligence boosting. Plankat nibarat was a sort of superfuel for fetal brain development and a medium fuel for adult brain enhancements. Nearly every one of the Fifteen Families had their hand in plankat refinement and some even experimented on their own.
Plankat does make geniuses. It just also makes paranoid sociopaths. One murdered his way through a whole satellite before he was finally captured. Shockingly, that wasn’t as popular. After a few very public examples of what became known as plankat poisoning, the cultivation of the flower was banned, and any existing crops were destroyed.
If they were making synth out here, no one would care. Plankat is a different matter because plankat is banned everywhere. It’s a danger to everyone. Plankat is one of the rare things that would drive a Family out of its comfortable territory.
Which means our pursuers really want to kill us. More footsteps approach. My palms grow sweaty.
“I haven’t seen it outside the banned-biology section in school! Could you get me a sample? Everyone would be so jealous if I could get an actual sample of plankat. The professor didn’t even have one.” Oksana keeps yammering, apparently having taken no cue from our silence.
Halfway through a midterm pleasure cruise, Oksana got dumped by her rich boyfriend and left at the nearest way station. She’s trying to save enough credits to work her way home, too embarrassed to admit the situation to her family. Ven’s been generous enough to take her under his wing, pointing out to Itzel that she always said she could use an intern.
“Hello? Are these coms working? If you’re responding, I can’t hear you.” She blithely continues as the scrape of metal against stone comes from our other side. I shift my hand to my hip, drawing my blaster and pointing it up at the open space above, heart lodged firmly in my throat. A slight mutter and scuffling sound comes from the other end of the coms.
“Oh no, you’re in danger. I didn’t know you were in danger.” Now she’s whispering. I pinch my eyes shut. “Itzel says you’re being chased, and I need to shut up because I’m distracting you because you need to lose them before you can come back here. Oh . . . She says I’m still distracting you. I didn’t mean to dis—”
The coms cut out. Thanks to Itzel, I assume. Ven’s chest moves against my own and I glance up to find that he’s silently laughing. I shake my head. Not the time or place. It’s not charming, it’s dangerous.
He silently laughs harder.
The sound of footsteps on gravel retreats. They don’t return. We continue to wait to be discovered or shot.
“My drones just passed over your location.” Caro’s calm voice comes over the coms sometime later. “They’re currently searching the dunes to the south. There’s a window for you to escape to us in the north if you do it fast.”
“Good.” I stretch upward to the hole above, fingers gripping the edges. “I’m starting to get a cramp in my leg.”
Ven thumbs his coms off. “I could have rubbed it for you.”
I raise a brow. “And what would you have wanted me to rub in return?”
He laughs out loud this time. We finally exit the narrow stone chimney and head north, leaving the basalt formations and setting out across rolling hills of sandy desert. The moonlight spills silver on the pale gray sand.
We almost make it to the ship.
“Shit. They have a drone of their own deployed. They’re approaching your location. I missed it. Shit.” Caro’s voice sounds in the coms again. Less calm. I’d define her tone as seriously fucking concerned.
“How far out are they?” Ven asks as we start jogging faster, glancing over our shoulders.
“Don’t jog. Run.”
The sand slides under my boots, loose and silty, turning my attempted sprint to a stumble. We finally reach the last hill and there it is in the distance, our glorious hideous ship, a dark bulk against the dunes. Ven found it in a junk heap and named it Quest. It’s not a good name but we’re used to it. Ven loves the name because of some story he read as a child. The Quest is the closest thing I’ve had to a home in ten standard solar years, and I love every dented bulkhead like it’s my own and I love its crew even more.
“There they are!” someone yells from behind us and the heat of a near-miss blaster shot traces over my hip.
As motivations go, it’s a fantastic one. I tuck my chin down, lengthen my stride, and push as hard as I can for speed. Ven pulls ahead of me.
“Run faster! They’re catching up and they have blasters. Really big ones!” Oksana’s voice breaks through the coms yet again, continuing to offer the sort of top-notch advice that will get her hired on exactly zero future scouting crews. She then appears to respond to something that was said to her outside of the coms stream. We try not to clutter the airways. “What? You said I had to be quiet before. They’re being chased now. Clearly the bad guys know where they are. I am being supportive. You can do it! Run faster!”
The Quest’s lights come on and the sand stirs around the landing gear as the engines rev up.
It’s all going so well until my foot plummets far deeper than a loose spot in the sand should allow. I crash down on my face, knee-deep in some sort of burrow or hole or maybe wherever the stupid air-plants that roll lazily around the surface of this desert originally grew. It should be easy to free myself, but my foot is caught. I shove at the sand ineffectually, trying to get a firm enough grip to pull through it but failing every time.
Ahead of me, Ven reaches the safety of the ship. He turns, probably expecting me right behind him. I’d love to meet expectations.
I give up tugging and dig around my ankle, shoving sand in the air. As I paw at the dirt, I look behind me. In the darkness, lit only by the crescent moons, it’s difficult to count pursuers. Luckily for me, they were all banished, so I can go by the little glowing tattoos bobbing above the ground. Which means that all ten pursuers have crested the hill after us and are closing in on me.
I point my blaster back at them with my free hand, shoveling with the other, and squeeze off a volley of fire. I’m not even aiming. I’m just trying to slow them down. I look back at the ship to find Ven racing toward me, tension bracketing his mouth, eyes darting from me to our pursuers who are getting ever closer. As I frantically yank my ankle again, Ven skids to a halt at my side, reaching into the hole with a knife in his hand. He starts to saw at the thick knotty roots.
My foot breaks free with shattering force, still tangled in roots that don’t seem to have an associated plant, but I don’t even care because I’m back on my feet, and we’re sprinting for the ship as fast as we can. A shot collides with the back of my armor, and two others with the helmet. The sizzle of energy dissipating dances over my skin.
My ankle hurts. Breathing hurts.
My heart, though, is so full it might burst. Ven came back for me. This isn’t just a fling. It’s real. He didn’t get a chance to answer earlier, but of course we’re going to go public with our relationship. This is more than sex.
We burst through the hatch, and it immediately swivels shut behind us. The ship vibrates as Caro launches. I lean against a bulkhead, panting for breath, and watch Ven, heart in my throat. A bead of sweat trickles down my neck.
He looks from the hatch to me, and I open my mouth to say everything I’m thinking. I’ve been his partner for years on the ship, it’s time to be his partner in truth, in all things.
Oksana runs into the chamber and hurls herself into his arms, rich brown-blond hair nestled beneath his chin. Her voice quivers. “I was worried.”
I start to laugh at the overdramatics when she grabs his cheeks between her hands and kisses him like he’s going to war. Like he just came home. Like he’s a bomb that she needs to diffuse with her tongue.
It doesn’t look like a first kiss.
My mouth stays open, but all the words die in my throat.
His eyes find me, over her head, and they hold a kind of panic. Not the panic of someone who’s surprised. The panic of someone who’s found out. They dart back to her and his expression changes. He made up his mind. He kisses her back.
I feel like I’m intruding on a personal moment between the man who I lo—liked and the woman-child who accidentally exploded a rocking furnace in the fume hood the other day because she forgot it was on.
She finally breaks for air and a perfect crystalline tear tumbles down her cheek. “I thought I’d never see you again. I don’t care about keeping it a secret anymore. I love you.”
That was my line. There’s a kind of dull buzzing between my ears. My head goes light and airy. I suck in a slow breath.
I’ve never cried that beautifully in my life. I haven’t done many things as beautifully as Oksana. Compared to her willowy frame, I’m short and solidly built with both an ass and nose that are slightly too big for current fashion. She has smooth skin and so much hair she could hide a weapon in its thickness. I have dark reddish hair that can’t even decide if it wants to be curly or straight and despite the radiation-resistant mods that allow me to absorb the light from suns of any spectrum without developing cancer, my pale skin is still far too reactive for my own good.
A humiliated—not humiliated, angry—flush creeps up my cheeks and I look down at the floor, swallowing hard. It’s not embarrassment. It’s not. I can’t believe I thought he was telling the truth. That I thought he’d really care about me.
Who wants a banished lover who ties them down to only uncharted space? This tattoo that so fascinates him is a closed door. A small squeak that might have been a sob catches in my throat as I stare at them.
He’s still looking at me with those eyes that beg me to just play it calm. To accept my lot and not make a mess of things.
Clearly, he doesn’t know me at all. Making a mess is, like, my best skill.
“What the fuck, Ven?”
Itzel and Micah appear in the entry to the hold, momentarily frozen by the unexpected vitriol in my tone.
“What do you mean?” He’s still desperately trying to play pretend.
“I mean, where do you get off sleeping with me and the intern at the same time?” I enunciate each word carefully, in case Oksana isn’t paying full attention. Then I realize exactly what I implied and clarify. “Not the exact same time. Overlapping times. How long were you going to play us against each other? Telling me it would make the crew uncomfortable if everyone knew?”
“I have no idea what he’d mean by that. I’m certainly not deeply uncomfortable right now.” Micah’s sarcastic tone breaks through the wall of rage building in my head as he crouches near my ankle, poking at it. The ship’s cams probably showed it getting stuck.
“I knew.” Oksana’s voice is quiet. Censuring, even. “He told me how you came on to him. He said he made a mistake.”
A mistake that he kept making for the better part of six standard months Also, I did not come on to him! My mouth drops open, too astounded to even get any words out. Like my rebuttal is a traffic clog in my throat. My finger just stabs angry points at Ven like that will get my position across.
It seems to. He looks terrified.
Micah gives me the all clear to get to my feet. Itzel’s still staring at us, as fascinated as if we were a holo-show. I can’t stand being in this space one more instant. I’m nearly out of the hold when I turn back to Ven and Oksana. “What’s going to happen next? When Oksana finally goes back home? We all know she isn’t going to be a professional scout.”
And what was wrong with me? Sure, it’s a pathetic question, but it’s a real one. I’ve known Ven for years. We have chemistry. We have banter. I thought we had everything. Except I only had half of Ven. If that.
“He’s going home with me.” Oksana staunchly clutches his arm like he’s a trophy. I’m suddenly disgusted with him. With them. With myself. I’m not going to fight over Ven. I need to take a moment. I need to breathe and think and maybe drink a metric fuck-ton of whatever liquor we have on board.
Ven looks anywhere but in my eyes. “I’m selling the Quest, Temperance. Don’t make a scene, please.”
Like I’m the one out of line, here. Maybe, just like my mother, he was also always trying to remind me to restrain myself. To be a little less than I am. I bite the inside of my cheek, hands curling into fists. Micah finally decides he’s done with this whole scene. His shoulder pushes Ven into the doorway as he passes the captain. My jaw sets. Fuck Ven and fuck maturity.
“I think I’m entitled to make a scene, Ven.” When he starts to speak, I cut him off. “I also think you’re desperate. No one’s buying a ship as old and shitty as the Quest. Not with the new phydium engines coming any day now. And I know you don’t have the kind of savings that can get two people across charted territory.”
I know who does, though. Ish. I know what it takes to be a captain. Mostly. I’ve taken care of everything but the budgets and how hard can that be?
By the time we get to Landsdown Way Station, I’ve consulted with the rest of the crew. Ven and Oksana get their tickets across charted territory.
I get the Quest.
For about half of what it’s worth. Which is still double what I can afford. Worth it to never see Ven again.
Chapter 2
My savings weren’t enough to cover the full purchase, which means a debt collector is waiting to seize the ship if I can’t make payments. We need a big job to stay in the sky and to keep the crew together. We’re specialized for planet scouting, which is a big payday when you can find it.
I have two things working against me.
One: everyone appears to be scared bugfuck of hiring me directly and pissing off my brother, the head of the Reed Family. Or, possibly, scared of the reputation of an untrustworthy traitor like me. Frederick made sure rumors spread throughout charted territory after my banishment. The most recent was that I tried to sabotage one of our satellites by selling the plans to a lower-tier family who planned an act of terrorism.
No one bothers to ask why I’d do something so mindlessly evil and stupid. They heard it on the streams, so it must be true.
Besides their issues with me is disadvantage two: it’s a bad time to do business in general.
A couple standard months ago, an article went into the feed about new engines that could revolutionize space travel. The advancement would open uncharted space to everyone—not just generation ships. The problem is that these fancy new engines need fuel. Specifically, the insanely rare mineral phydium.
No one has it. Everyone wants it. And no one wants to make a move on any existing picked-over planet when there might be a better one right over the proverbial horizon once they figure out the resources.
Scouting vessels like the Quest are equipped with faster-than-light drives that allow us to explore farther than most, but if we want to get to the very edge of charted space, we have to go on the same long slog as everyone else. It isn’t worth the money.
In my desire to screw Ven over, I may have just screwed myself. I now have a very expensive ship in a market with no expensive jobs.
I win?
The Five are the only ones who can pay enough, which is why, when I receive the summons from the Escajeda, I grudgingly—and by “grudgingly,” I mean “very professionally”—make my way to the Escajeda Family’s very expensive suite in Landsdown. It’s luck, even if the high-ranking Families make me personally uncomfortable.
When I pound on the heavily embossed outer door of the Escajeda’s rooms, I expect a snooty-faced servant of some kind to reprimand me over the external coms but, instead, the door slides open under my hand and I almost punch Ina Escajeda in her flawless face.
As a way to nonplus me, it’s shockingly effective. I catch my hand and yank it back into my personal bubble, at a loss for words. Ina Escajeda is the wife of Armando. The other half of the empire. She’s not the sort to answer doors. She’s the sort to be featured in a fashion designer’s holo-campaign—lean angular body sculpted just for artistic poses and sparkling brown eyes vibrant with manufactured emotions.
Because she’s probably a sociopath. Families are like that.
Some might call her the second-in-command but that’s only because she looks soft and gentle and comforting. She’ll look that sweet up to and including the moment she pulls the dagger from between your ribs and licks the blade.
She probably doesn’t really either stab people or lick the blade, but she does in my imagination.
“Temperance Reed,” Ina says with a faint accent that is one hundred percent pretension. There are certainly many languages floating over the universe, but Family leadership all speak Standard, and they have for generations.
She’s wearing a slim wrap dress in black and red that probably costs more than the Quest, paired with dangly black earrings and perfectly styled hair in the kind of updo that is impossible to achieve without a personal stylist. It makes me very aware of my own unfashionable hair, which is corralled in a braid—my only reliable hairstyle. My coveralls are two sizes too large because I bought in bulk and this way Caro, Itzel, and I can share. The cuffs are rolled so I don’t step on them. It’s like I’m playing dress-up as a planet-scouting captain.
The Reeds were in the Ten, one tier beneath the Five, but my parents focused my prebirth genetic manipulation on health, coloring, and physical utility. Most aesthetic mods are applied when one is fully grown. By then, Frederick was in charge of our coffers, and he didn’t spare funds to create perfect skin and a whittled waist. In fetal development, the best they could do was ensure that I had the red hair, green eyes, and inconveniently pale skin of a Reed. I’ve heard that Pierce made their aesthetic genes dominant. Any child created by a Pierce parent will have distinctive blond hair and warm brown eyes.
I don’t have time to linger over appearances… there are lives to ruin.
Specifically, my own.
“I received a message from the Escajeda.” The head of a Family gets the name as a title. It gives the impression that there’s a monolith-like presence that controls the Family through generations.
I wait, watching her, and she waits, watching me back. I wonder if she’s going to stand there indefinitely. I stare at her until she presses her index finger against the tattoo on her ring finger. Must be a pressure link that will alert the Escajeda when she wants him. It’s a shocking intimacy for someone of their status. Families are practiced at keeping their own at arm’s length and most spouses are conjoined more by contracts than love. Yet, he’s allowed her under his skin.
I have a brief flash of Ven and Oksana, so coiled in each other it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s something special to let someone within your walls. Something I don’t fully understand. My parents were like that. True partners in everything, not just Family business.
The round entryway behind Ina Escajeda has an elaborate gold-tiled mosaic floor, a surreal golden marble wall—it must be quarried within their territory because I’ve never seen anything like it before—and a floating chandelier made of crystal spheres. A dramatic arched doorway behind Ina leads to a dark-paneled wooden hall. That doorway also has reinforced bars just waiting to drop if someone breeches the entrance. Probably all those shiny gold floor tiles are angled just right to reflect security lasers all over the room until I’m diced into tiny cubes.
When the silence has stretched past awkward to comfortable and then all the way back to awkward again, Ina Escajeda abruptly turns and says, “Follow me.”
I don’t get sliced by a laser in the foyer and I make it under the bars and through the dark hallway without impalement. The hallway opens to an impressive formal sitting area decorated in shades of cream and gold, with splashes of dark burgundy. The Escajeda sits in the center of a spotless cream sofa with gilt-framed paintings arranged behind him in a shape reminiscent of a throne. His hair is a carbon-black sweep so artful it might as well be carved. His face is the specific type of ageless that comes with ridiculous amounts of money, cheekbones high and dark eyes intense. He’s fit for someone old enough to be my father but that could be because his clothes are expensively tailored in a classic style that hides imperfections. His chin is shaped like a butt.
Ina leads me to a chair opposite him and, when I take a seat, it’s so uncomfortable that it must be purposefully designed that way. I smile like I enjoy springs piercing my back and snuggle into it.
Ina perches beside the Escajeda, barely on the sofa. It’s like she’s always poised to attack. He really did marry a guard dog in a wig. A whisper of sound draws my attention to a dark-red chair on the Escajeda side of the room. I briefly completely forget what Ven looks like. I forget what anyone else in charted territory looks like. The man who is sprawled in the chair looks like he belongs on a billboard instead of a meeting room. Or maybe an anatomy lab as an example of the perfect male form.
Not all sliced up with his guts out or anything.
Maybe that. I haven’t spoken to him yet.
The second Escajeda child, Arcadio. Second in line for the throne after his sister and ahead of his four younger brothers. Besides being the second-tier offspring, we don’t have much in common. If I hadn’t been banished, I might know him personally.
Arcadio shares his father’s black hair, although his is slightly mussed—like he’s run his hand through it in frustration recently—and a dark shadow of unshaven beard lines his jaw. He probably shares his father’s butt-chin, although it’s hard to tell beneath the beard. His eyes are black as the void. His features are chiseled. His body exceedingly capable. He’s stunning in the same way that a star is—staring at him for too long could cause damage.
My stomach clenches and I wipe my hands on my coveralls. My ego is usually pretty healthy, but after Ven scampered off with Oksana, I’m feeling stale.
The whole Escajeda clan is far too beautiful. I rarely trust the artfully pretty, although I sure do like looking at them. It’s a tool, and anyone smart enough to be in a Family knows to use it against you.
I turn my attention from the son to his father. “I received your message.”
“We have an opportunity to explore, and we understand that you are between jobs at this moment.” Certain Families speak using the imperial “we.” It’s an affectation I’ve never enjoyed but I suppose they’re entitled to it.
“What possible opportunities would serve both of our purposes?”
“Herschel Two.”
Is this the beginning of a guessing game where I’m forced to drag every bit of information out of him? “What about Herschel Two?”
A hologram pops up on the long table between us. That’s fine craftsmanship because the table looks like a genuine antique. The planet spins over the fine-grained wood and, for a moment, I get lost in trying to figure out how the projection works instead of watching the planet itself.
“If anything we say leaves this room, you won’t have to worry about your new debt, your ramshackle ship will explode from an unforeseen mechanical error and we’ll ensure that your crew is on board when it happens.” His eye contact does not waver, and a shiver of discomfort skitters its way up my back. That was either a lucky shot or a low blow considering how my parents died. I stare back. Maybe I win if he blinks first. Instead, he continues, assuming I’m suitably intimidated—which I am.
“Our spectrometric probes continuously map the chemical composition of unclaimed planets because, although we have many established mining outposts, new materials frequently gain popularity. Recent scans indicated Herschel Two may possess phydium deposits deep beneath the surface.” I nearly drop the small tchotchke that I’ve been fiddling with off the corner of the holo-table. Phydium. What everyone wants and no one has. The key that unlocks the universe. It’s mildly terrifying to imagine the Escajeda with that key in his pocket.
“Why me? You’ve always contracted with Nylla and Hovis and their twelve-person crew if your personal Family crew was otherwise occupied.”
“A smaller team is advantageous for our goals. You can go unnoticed. If other Families know we are scouting Herschel Two, they will either send their own scouts or move on the planet outright. We have no desire to start a land war. It would be better if this planet is acquired in silence. Our crew is otherwise occupied with an investment in the Haxon sector. Nylla and Hovis are prestigious. People keep track of their jobs.”
Apparently, my crew is shitty and obscure enough that no one bothers with what we do. I’ll update our promotional material accordingly. Who knew it was such an advantage? It all makes sense, but something about it still doesn’t ring as the complete truth. For one thing, why the Escajeda himself is meeting with me along with his wife and son. He has a station manager for this sort of task, I’m sure.
It also won’t be as simple as he anticipates. I poke at a northern region on the spinning hologram before giving him the bad news. “Herschel Two has a settlement of the banished. Some religious order. Which means that region is protected from acquisition by the Safe Haven Accords. You can’t acquire the whole planet.” About twenty standard years ago, a group of banished people protested to the Family council about an acquisition that gobbled up some of the rare territory they could claim.
Normally, that wouldn’t have provided successful results, but one of the banished happened to be an ex-Nakatomi. It was enough to remind a few members of the council that one bad week could make the difference between being on the council and being in that seized territory. The accords state that no one may acquire a segment of territory that has been settled by a group of over one hundred.
A muscle twitches in the Escajeda’s jaw. “That is our concern, not yours. We are confident that the regions of interest are outside territory used by the settlers.”
That’s fair, I suppose. Also, he just threatened to blow up my ship, so perhaps this isn’t the time to press him on following the law on colonization. At this point, I can’t even run away from him without using his own credits to do it. “Do you have any reason to believe they’re dangerous?”
He waves a hand dismissively. “That’s what I’m paying you for.”
“And what are you paying us?” I’m not worried about the planet. It’s been surveyed a dozen times. There are streams of data about it that are far more useful than whatever he can tell me. Beyond pinpointing a region of interest, I can find what I need on my own and I don’t want his slant on the information. Honestly, I don’t want to spend one more moment in this carefully manicured room being watched by the Escajeda, his attack-dog wife, and his silent son who may as well be a statue. I don’t even know why Arcadio is here. Did the room not have enough pretty people in it? Is his sister unavailable? Have his legs fallen asleep, and he can’t stand up?
The Escajeda winces. I’ve been tacky, talking about money. It’s never tacky when the wealthy do it, but it’s grasping when people like me do. “For your expediency and your discretion, I’ll pay one and a half times market rate.”
This time I do drop the tchotchke. It rolls under the table with a resounding thunk and I silently wish that nothing broke. Then again, this man is throwing around such high pay rates that maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe I could trip over this priceless holo-table on my way out and he wouldn’t even blink. I didn’t even have to negotiate for it. I could do a lot with those credits. Their sheer quantity makes me suspicious, but you know what they say about the desperate and the suspicious; you can be one or the other, you can’t be both.
“One and a half of market value. Half down.” I add that last bit to clarify.
He nods, which seems too easy until he continues. “Silence is imperative. We must be confident that neither you nor anyone on your crew shares information on the phydium. If anything leaks, we will act accordingly. Don’t assume there’s anywhere you could go that we can’t find you.”
“Of course, we won’t share confidential information.” We’re professionals, after all. Even if we aren’t of the caliber of Nylla and Hovis. “But we can’t be held responsible for everyone who knows about this. People in your employ know. What if they talk?”
“No one in my Family will talk.”
That’s not the same thing. I start to argue again but he talks over me.
“This is time sensitive, as you might imagine. We require your mission to be completed in one standard month.”
I don’t have anything to drop this time. His time limit is ludicrous. No wonder he’s willing to pay a lot. We won’t find anything in that little time, and he won’t have to pay the second half. Or, if we do find something, he can find a way to worm out of his contract due to a travel delay. “It will take at least six standard days to reach Herschel Two. Six to return. That leaves twenty-four standard days to scout an entire planet. It’s unrealistic.”
“We will provide a specific region.” His face is impassive, like a carved statue of power in human form.
“And if I don’t find anything in this region, you want me to leave other areas unscouted?” I want him to say the words.
“I expect you to complete your mission.”
That’s not an answer. Frederick modeled his operational style after the Escajeda, which means I know his tricks. The thing with working for Families is that the little guy doesn’t have a leg to stand on. If they decide not to pay, you can appeal to the Inter-Family council—who will ignore you. Families love not paying for things if they can manage it. That’s part of how they keep their wealth. Working for them offers big paydays if you make them very happy, but as with all things that are high-reward, they come with risk.
Even half of a payment is enough to get me out the door of the station, which buys time and intact limbs. Maybe time to fly as far as we can from anyone with the last name Escajeda. Better to be a thief than to be exploded. So, even if he’s trying to screw me over, I have to go with it. I nod my understanding.
“I’ll forward the pertinent information to your cache. One more thing.” His voice is dry, like this just slipped his mind. Nothing slips his mind. This is yet another manipulation. One that’s being captured on the contractual camera. I could refuse, but then he could withdraw the whole offer. We need those credits. Enough to put up with his unreasonable threats and timelines.
I turn, bracing for the worst but not even knowing what the worst is.
“Your team has no security.”
“You wanted a small crew. It’s a predominantly empty planet. Settlers can be avoided. Two of our team members are trained to double as security.” I’m seeing the hook now and trying to dodge it even if I’m not sure where it’s going to stick.
“The deal is contingent on one addition to your crew to maintain security.”
It’s not an unreasonable request under the circumstances. Clearly, he’s been monitoring Herschel Two closely. Perhaps he’s seen something I haven’t. Extra security isn’t a problem. I can bring Victor and Victory in, if I need to. The twins used to be crew, but they left about a year ago to take up contract work. Pays better than scouting. Although this trip might just be worth it to them. “I’ll recruit qualified applicants before departure. Same pay rate for the new crew members.”
“No need for that. I have the perfect candidate.” His voice is oily.
“I couldn’t possibly take one of your security team from you.” It’s a weak effort. The deal is done. I can try to negotiate more, but I’ve already received all the allowances I can expect. I’m trapped with whatever spy he sticks to me, and he knows it. He’s already threatened to chase us to the ends of charted space and blow up our ship—with us in it.
“It won’t be a member of his security team.” It’s a new voice, deep with the requisite hint of Escajeda accent. The statue speaks. Arcadio leans forward, elbows on knees. “We need assurances that, if you find phydium, you don’t claim you didn’t and then sell the information to the highest bidder. Only Family can guarantee that.”
Well, shit. That makes perfect sense and I hate every syllable of it. This is worse than a random guard-spy, it’s a spoiled princeling. Security-team members have high mortality rates. If it was a spy, I could maybe let them fall into a crevasse and give Escajeda the paycheck back. Harder to do that with one of the man’s sons. Yes, he looks like he could bench-press a spaceship, but that’s aesthetics. I don’t know if he has any utility. Even if he does, it will come with the ego the size of the way station.
He’s a Family man. They’re all the same.
“Is he qualified?” I direct the question to the Escajeda, partially because he’s the ultimate authority in the room and partially to needle the son and see how he reacts. He doesn’t. I guess he’s either not that bright or very controlled.
The Escajeda’s mouth twitches. A slight vibration reverberates from the interface tattoo at my wrist. I activate my datapad. Arcadio’s qualifications. Any child of the Five, or even the Ten, has combat training. It’s protection against abduction if nothing else. Arcadio Escajeda isn’t any child of the Five. Apparently, he is his father’s general. Ranking off the charts in endurance—which my brain tries to take a detour on until I steer back in the right direction—strength, and tactics. He’s in charge of security for his whole Family, which means I don’t stand a chance in a black hole of claiming he’s unqualified.
I want to protest but it’s clear from his presence in the room that this was the Escajeda’s plan all along.
The Escajeda holds out a hand, thrusting it through the hologram of Herschel Two, and I take it. His grip is hard but controlled. He’s not squeezing but creating a cage around my hand. His is softer than I expected and very warm. It’s sort of like holding a slab of meat fresh out of the oven. With that shake, I’ve sold my soul to get my soul back.
“I’ll accompany you to the docks now. If we leave tomorrow, I must assess the state of the ship to make my own preparations,” Arcadio says smoothly, as though I have nothing better to do with my time.
It’s the competent answer, so I should be happy, but it sets my teeth on edge even more than they were already. It’s probably the delivery that bothers me the most, a deep baritone voice with the confidence of someone who’s never been told no and the commanding inflection of someone who expects to be heard. I’m also bothered by the way his father waited until our deal was almost done to slip him in.
His father watches him with pride.
I remember the first time my father looked at me that way. I was in the training arena, sparring with Frederick, who was five years older than I was. The size difference between us was significant. He was strong, but I was sneaky, and I pinned him. My father beamed with pride.
Later that day, Frederick caught me in the library and broke my leg. He threatened that, if I ever told anyone, he’d break my best friend Kari’s leg in retaliation. I learned quickly that, with Frederick in my life, I didn’t want to attract too much parental admiration. As it happened, ten years later, I attracted Frederick’s undivided focus anyway, and someone else paid the price.
Arguably, everyone else paid the price.
“Follow me,” I grit through my teeth as we exit the opulent suite.
Chapter 3
“This body armor is a disgrace. The rest of your ship is equipped sufficiently, but for some reason your personal-protection equipment is a joke.” Arcadio Escajeda pokes at my armor with one stiff finger as we walk toward the helm. He’s been spending the first hours of our journey performing inventory of our armaments and—shockingly—has found them lacking. Lacking enough that he needs to bring the whole suit up and wave it in front of me as though I don’t know my own armor.
Sure, my armor is a little outdated. My helmet doesn’t match the rest because I got shot too many times and had to replace the suit. Helmets are expensive, so I kept the old one.
“Credits don’t grow on space stations. I had to spend our deposit on fuel and food.” And repaying debts. “You’re welcome.”
“There’s a gap between helmet and collar. The circuit won’t complete. That means no heads-up display or night vision—not that that would be a problem for you. That sliver of exposed skin is a huge vulnerability. You might as well not wear armor at all.”
He apparently assumes I’m an idiot and don’t understand how armor works. He also assumes I have night-vision mods. Most Family-raised people do. I don’t. Yet another of those little perks that Frederick decided I didn’t need. But I’m not in the mood to share even more weak spots. “Look, as a Five Family member, maybe you deal with a lot of highly trained snipers. I get shot at, but it’s mostly by idiots who barely know how to hold a blaster. If I’m dumb enough to make a target of my neck, I deserve to get shot in it.”
His coveralls are a black so dark that they must never have been laundered before. All blacks become gray after being placed in the ship laundry. Just that little hint of wealth is enough to make me intensely dislike him. “You need to—”
“I don’t need to do anything besides scout the territory. And speaking of that… ” We arrive in the helm where the rest of the crew waits for the briefing. This will be the first one that I’ve run as captain.
I pull up a holo of Herschel Two on the corner unit. It isn’t as fancy as the Escajeda’s. A section on the southern quadrant keeps shorting out. Caro helpfully smacks the side of the unit and the projected image smooths. Clearly, the Quest was a fantastic investment.
“Herschel Two.” Itzel shakes her head as we study the inhospitable surface of the planet. “Everyone assumed it was useless desert territory. There’s one vaguely habitable region in the north that wouldn’t require aquatic featuring but there are so many volcanos and cliffs that it would cost more credits than any Family has to flatten it out enough for buildings. What could the Escajeda possibly want with it?”
“Escajedas mine, they don’t build.” Caro walks around the unit, studying the planet from all sides even though the projection lazily rotates. “But plenty of people who aren’t us have scouted it before and deemed it worthless. That’s why they don’t quibble about the cult that’s set up on the surface. You know a Family would try to push them out if there was any value.”
“It’s a cult?” Micah rubs his chin with one broad hand. “I thought it was just a religious order.”
Everyone who isn’t an Escajeda avoids looking at Itzel. If one is generous, the monastery of the Dark Mother of the Void, where she was raised, could be considered a religious order. The kind that religiously loves a murder-goddess. Time for me to make a convenient interjection. “Let’s not parse the fine details of religious preference. Herschel Two was considered useless for habitation up until recent Escajeda scans indicated the presence of phydium beneath the surface of the planet. Still useless for habitation, but now it’s the sort of thing that could make a fortune. Another fortune.”
Everyone now avoids looking at Arcadio. Probably all thinking what I’m thinking, which is that the last thing his Family needs is one more advantage.
“If they’ve detected phydium, what do they need us for?” Micah traces a hand through the holo, disrupting the light.
“Phydium graphical peaks are very similar to ulonium. They can’t get better information without sending a team to the planet’s surface.” Above the planet, I project the signatures of the two minerals.
“My father’s intelligence has outlined this area of interest.” Arcadio activates the holo and one region of the northern hemisphere lights up. It’s suspiciously close to the cult’s settlement.
Of course, it is. Fucking Families and their maneuvering.
That said, I really like remaining unexploded, and I have no doubt that the Escajeda will follow through on his threat if I renege. Maybe his son will do it for him. I haven’t told the crew about the threat. They won’t work with Arcadio if they know, and I need them to work well together.
If only I could work well with him. Between the fact that his father threatened to kill me and that Arcadio himself is airbrushed holo perfection, I’m constantly braced for the worst. His presence is forebodingly burly and masculine in a very specific way that makes me want to poke him until he explodes. It probably says something unflattering about me that my first instinct upon feeling attraction for a man is to irritate him.
Then again, we’ve already established, vis-à-vis Ven, that my instincts are faulty.
***
The ship’s been making a weird grinding noise since we launched from Landsdown. I’m not out to impress Escajeda, but I’d prefer that we didn’t look quite so pathetic in front of him. I haven’t even had a chance to fail at captaining yet.
“It’s the normal kind of grinding. Not the bad kind.” Caro reassures me while barely hiding a grimace as she reaches into a battery chamber in the engine room. Her hair has at least three styli stuck in it, and a collection of gold earrings lines the dark-brown skin of her ears. She’s a little taller than I am, a little curvier, and a lot more cynical. Her identity appeared out of nowhere about ten years ago. Prior to that, no one had ever heard of Caro Osondu. I’ve gleaned a fraction of her history, but she clearly wants to keep it private, and I respect that.
“Normal grinding has never happened before,” I point out.
“When are you renaming the ship? You know Quest is a terrible name, right? There’s no charisma. We’re a charismatic crew. We deserve a good name.”
“Charisma” is one thing to call what we have. “I’m not renaming the ship. There’s nothing wrong with Quest. I have enough problems. First and foremost, finding samples of the mineral that’s going to put us out of business.” Our faster-than-light engine won’t be able to compete with phydium-powered engines.
“I wish we were twenty years in the future and the phydium problem was solved.” Caro stares at the engine dreamily.
“Because our engines would be better?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “It’s not just engines, Temper. That’s the first thing, the biggest. But it’s anything that needs energy. Fuck. Phydium, if controlled by someone else, could completely put the Pierce Family out of business. It would revolutionize energy sources. Your blaster charge would last for thousands more shots at higher intensities. With more reliable power, it would be cheap to set up a new colony, to power terraforming engines, to clean oceans and atmospheres from the polluted core worlds. Anyone could do it, not just Families. It makes tools like this one”—she holds a sensor aloft—“far less likely to fail us. Because the solar panels for this piece of shit aren’t quite in tune to the spectrum emitted by most suns and the recharger is spotty. Phydium doesn’t just change space travel, it changes everything. You didn’t think it only revolutionized ships, did you?”
“Noooo. Of course not.” The article I read only mentioned space travel. I’ve been a little distracted by the whole “betrayal of my captain and potential love interest whom I only just decided to love and maybe didn’t even really, but a betrayal is still a betrayal—oh, and also now I’m in debt and might be exploded” thing. “I definitely knew it had other purposes.”
Caro glances at me sideways and I give a big, confident grin. She rolls her eyes. “Phydium changes how we live. I hope to my ancestors that whoever does find a deposit isn’t part of a Family. Then again, anything that hurts Pierce sounds like a good idea.”
She has a thing about Pierce. None of my business. She’s not wrong. Whoever secures this little element suddenly has a stranglehold on all commerce. No one should have that much power.
But they will.
“I wish we didn’t have to take this run. I don’t like the way the Escajedas do business and I don’t like the son on our ship.”
She waves her hand loftily as if to say that’s a silly quibble. “You’re being sensitive because your boyfriend left the ship with the intern none of us wanted to take on in the first place. We’re better off without her, certainly. Without him, too. Something new and pretty to look at won’t hurt you.”
“Ven saved my life after I was banished,” I protest. “Twice. Well, more than twice, but the lifesaving bookended our working relationship.”
“What’s he done besides that?” She tosses an oil-smudged towel over her shoulder and digs deeper into a gap where a belt wraps around a rotor shaft. Or, where it should wrap around the shaft. It’s shifted. “These piece-of-shit belts are slightly out of spec. No wonder they were so cheap. Sorry, I thought they were fine when I specced them for you. I’m serious, Temper. Ven drummed up business. Sometimes. More frequently it was word of mouth because the rest of us did a good job. On-planet, he held a blaster and looked dramatic. If we really needed help, we brought on Victor and Victory, and they did all the work.”
I try to find the lie in what she said. I can’t. The words escape before I properly think about whether or not I should share them. “He told me he was in love with me. A couple months ago, on Landsdown right after we had that hairy mission on Terraform Twenty-Five.”
“He what?” She almost disembowels herself on a pipe she turns around so fast.
“Said he loved me. Kissed me like he thought I was—” I pause, searching for the word. I know the word but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t embarrassing to actually say it. I glance away from her, toward the doorway. “Like he thought I was precious.”
She snorts, returning to the battery. “Oksana is precious. Shiny ornaments are precious. You’re exceptional.”
“‘Exceptional’ is a bit strong.” I tuck a chunk of hair behind my ear and hand her a wrench when she makes a clutching motion in its direction. She’s moved on from the belt to a clamp on a fuel line. “I’m an ex-rich girl with some fancy tech in my brain and a high pain threshold.”
“You can be more than one thing.” She looks over her shoulder at my face. “Okay, look at it this way. Why’d you wait to tell anyone? He professes his love, hands you himself on a platter, and you still keep it a secret? That doesn’t sound like someone in love.”
Sounds like me in love. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Never have. Not with emotional stuff.
“Who’s in love?” Itzel wanders into the engine room, holding a bucket of algae destined as supplemental fuel. She uses the algae to eat excess lab compounds that require safe disposal. The algae digestion process renders most chemicals harmless. Her hooded coveralls shadow a pixie face with delicate features and wide dark eyes. The space-pale tan skin of her hands is nearly completely obscured by the intricate tattoos that declare her a former acolyte of the Dark Mother of the Void.
I fill her in on our conversation. She doesn’t act like any of it is a surprise. “Ven had been sparking Oksana since she came aboard and started shedding her hair all over my lab.”
“Sparking?” Caro asks before I can.
“I’m working on a new euphemism. The current ones are boring. ‘Sparking’ is nice, right? Like generating heat and power.”
“That’s very romantic.” I allow. “I’m surprised it’s not already been used.”
She shrugs and hefts the bucket higher. “Then I’m bringing back an old euphemism. Don’t get caught up in the technicalities.”
I take her advice and return to the primary subject. “So, we nearly had complete overlap. Ugh. I feel so stupid. Wait, if you knew they were doing it, why didn’t you tell us?”
“It was none of my business. If it makes you feel better, you were much better at keeping secrets than she was. She made up a little song about their happy future that she sang to herself in the lab. If I knew he was going after both of you, I’d have warned you.” Itzel dumps the bucket in a tube near the wall. “Still, if you have to keep it a secret, it’s not right. You’re one of the most forthright people I’ve ever met.”
“To paraphrase Caro, I can be more than one thing.” Like a romantic mess. I can definitely be that thing. That isn’t all, though.
It’s not that I have a tender heart because Ven didn’t wait for me and decided he could do better—it’s whom he decided was better. “I don’t know if I’m more hurt that he didn’t stick around like he said or that someone like Oksana was a suitable replacement for me.”
“He’s a man, isn’t he? They all like incompetent beauties because they seem so much more impressive by comparison. You ran circles around Ven on the regular, Temper. He isn’t the type to handle that.” Caro cranks the wrench hard and smacks the wall beside the control panel of the generator with one flat hand. A bright-green light flashes on.
“All men aren’t like that,” Itzel chastises. “Some are not so easily intimidated.”
Caro cuts me a glance. “You ever meet one of those?”
“Ven was like that, though,” Itzel continues before I can answer.
“He taught me everything I know about scouting,” I protest. It’s come around far enough that I feel like I need to remind them about his good points because I’m now aware of so many bad ones.
“And that’s probably about when he lost interest.” Caro wipes her hands off again and rinses out Itzel’s bucket using one of the hoses in the wall. As little droplets splash, she continues to share her personal worldview. I’ve never known Caro to be intimate with anyone since she came on board, so I’m not sure where all this expertise comes from. Perhaps she’s had a torrid affair or two but is simply fiercely private. “Once you got better than him, he didn’t feel impressive anymore.”
Itzel takes the bucket back. “I don’t know that it’s as bad as that, Caro. That’s how you see men. Ven’s nice—kind of dumb, but nice. Not for Temper, though. She’s a lot.”
That sums it up.
“I’ve sworn off men, anyway.” I take the wrench back from Caro and slide it into its slot in the tool drawer.
“Was he bad in bed?” Caro studies me like I’m a bad engine. “Is that why you took so long to decide?”
“You know who wouldn’t be bad? Or who would—in the most delicious way?” Itzel interrupts before I have a chance to defend Ven’s honor. Kind of defend it. He wasn’t bad. He just wasn’t earth-shattering.
Caro points a finger through the ceiling and raises her eyebrows in response to Itzel’s question.
Itzel nods emphatically. “He’s like a space walk—takes your breath away.”
Somehow, I don’t think they’re talking about Micah. “Escajeda is from a Family. They don’t waste time with the commoners.”
“Don’t ruin the fantasy, Temper.” Caro waves her hand at me again.
“Aren’t all men awful and only after beautiful idiots?”
“And they can also be excellent kissers. You know what they say is the best way to get over someone?”
“To get over someone else!” Itzel holds up a finger.
Close enough.
I cross my arms over my chest and use my brand-new captain voice. “There will be no getting over an Escajeda. I’m not into threesomes and that man goes nowhere without his ego.”
***
“Get out of my infirmary before I rip off your leg and beat you to death with it,” Micah barks so loudly I hear it from the bunk area.
I’m briefly concerned that I might need to intervene, so I approach the door just in time to collide with Escajeda as he storms out of the infirmary. Our limbs tangle and my face smushes up against a chest that is unsurprisingly well-defined. One of his hands snakes around my waist and presses against the small of my back, keeping me from bouncing away.
The Escajeda Family genetic manipulation and mods may have created an imposing specimen on-planet or in a station but he is a nightmare in a ship—taking up far too much space.
Once we recover our equilibrium—or he recovers his equilibrium and I internally smack myself in the head repeatedly because it suddenly got too tight inside my skin and my gut feels like I’ve been kicked in it—I realize that my fingers are clutching very impressive biceps and my lips have nearly made contact with the smooth corded muscle of his neck. His body is curled around mine and it feels far better than it ought to.
His hand on my waist tightens for a moment and my eyes probably nearly bug out of my head as lust and professionalism battle to the death in my body.
Caro and Itzel are probably right. He’d be an excellent lover.
Where did that thought come from? Where did any of this come from? I am stronger than my hormones. I cannot find anyone from a Family attractive. It’s a recipe for disaster in nearly every conceivable way.
Luckily, he opens his mouth. “This place is chaos and there don’t seem to be any rules. Did you make it a point to hire a whole ship full of sensitive criminals?”
“That’s offensive.” I want to take a big step back, but the hall isn’t quite large enough for that. “Caro isn’t a criminal.”
He looks at me dubiously, as though something smells slightly of dung. “You weren’t even loyal to your own Family. Don’t pretend to be loyal to your crew.”
It stings. I don’t know why it should. I’ve been judged by better than him. I was judged by everyone in my own territory. A banishment is a harsh punishment, but sometimes people secretly reach out to the banished. They offer funds, or at least support.
I received no such offers. After what happened to her father, my best friend, Kari, refused to even speak to me. Frederick so effectively painted me as the villain that even people whom I’d known my entire life—who knew him his entire life—assumed the worst. No one seems to understand that Frederick is the one who betrayed our Family. I just betrayed him.
“Don’t worry, you aren’t a part of my crew, so my dubious loyalty doesn’t extend to you,” I snap.
A head of lettuce flies over my shoulder and Escajeda catches it in one hand, glancing behind me. Itzel calls from the galley, “Help me get lunch going. I need someone to help chop veggies.”
She absolutely does not. She’s giving him a chance to be one of the crew. And he’s going to turn her down because he thinks he’s too good for us.
“Happy to help.” Escajeda edges past me toward the biologist, tossing the lettuce casually with one hand. I snap my mouth closed. “Bet I can chop them finer.”
“Oh really? Better put your credits on the table.” Her delighted grin tells me she’s already planning how to spend them.
I leave them to meal prep and duck into the lab, the door sliding shut behind me. Micah’s sitting by a lab table that will double as a bed in case of medical emergencies. His usual sleeveless coveralls display well-defined arms, and his brows are pinched in their habitual scowl. The table is strewn with an array of medical supplies. Now that I’m captaining, he’s taking over some of my old roles—supply inventory being one of them. Before, he was backup security for Ven when he wasn’t gluing one of us back together.
Micah is a man of many hats. And now, a man of many bandages.
“Did a rat get loose in the lab?” I ask brightly, poking at a bright-orange gauze. “And did it steal all the normal gauze?”
“Orange is cheaper.” He gives me a pointed eye at the word “cheaper.” He’s still using his cranky voice, so my effervescent presence must not be making a difference.
“What was our new security officer bothering you about?” The infirmary is small. Cabinets and built-in benches line the walls because the thing about a spaceship is that everything has to be secured. If something goes wrong and we lose gravity, having a room full of floating syringes could be problematic. Even more if you happen to be inside that room and the ship maneuvers hard to starboard.
Micah snorts, running a dark hand through his short black hair and disrupting the natural wave that gives him an almost boyish air—if he didn’t look like he’d happily bite you in half. “Pretty Boy was worried about how we control our medications. Thinks we’re going to inject opioids and then shoot a frag cannon for fun.”
The only one of us who would do that is Itzel, and she wouldn’t use opioids from the clinic, she’d find them on-planet, and only for experimental purposes. Mostly. I understand the question. I even appreciate it. The problem is, Escajeda shouldn’t be striding through my ship making demands of the crew. Being rich and wellborn doesn’t make him the captain and medical supplies don’t fall under the purview of security.
I barely have any authority over him and it’s already slipping through my fingers.
I shove away from the table. I’ve held my tongue thus far. Well, I’ve kind of held it. I’ve meant to hold it. “Someone needs a reminder about his place on this ship.”
And this time I won’t touch him, so his impressive musculature won’t distract me.
Micah’s dry chuckle follows me to the door. “This is why I don’t have any desire to be captain. Everyone’s problems are yours. At least back in the day, you could make it Ven’s problem.”
I never did. I make everyone’s problems my own anyway. It’s like a gift. I’m halfway to the helm—which means I’ve taken roughly
five steps—when the running lights in the hall flash from white to blue. We are being hailed by another vessel. No one ever hails you because they just want to tell you your ship is pretty.
When I reach the helm, Escajeda is already there, a scrap of lettuce stuck to his sleeve and his hand poised over the coms console like he’s going to answer the hail. He really does think that he’s captain here. I shoulder-check him out of my way and brace myself in front of the console just in case he tries to throw some of his weight back at me. He doesn’t push back. Good. Maybe, just maybe, he understands priorities in the face of an external threat.
I activate the holo-field and a projected face pops up in front of me. Male, indeterminate height, with a slightly upturned nose and dark eyes. His mouth is a slat of irritation, probably because I took a moment to answer the hail, and no one likes to wait.
“Scouting Vessel Quest, speaking to—?” I’m trying to be professional, but Escajeda is crowding me again. Guess that answers my question about priorities in the face of an external threat. He’s standing so close behind me that my projection in the other ship must have a misshapen lump of light looming over it. I throw an elbow into his gut to try to make him back up. He absorbs the blow but only retreats a hair.
“Scouting Vessel Quest, this is Nakatomi Horizon. You have infringed in Nakatomi-owned space. You have five standard minutes to vacate this space, or we have rights to defend our territory.” He seems very proud of himself. I’d laugh except the scans show me that the Nakatomi Horizon is armed to the teeth and close enough that my shielding—impressive as it may be for a small vessel—isn’t nearly enough.
I shove back harder against Escajeda while bringing up the detailed navigational readings. The last thing I need is for the Nakatomi Family to find the eldest son of their mortal enemy in a dingy little scouting vessel and decide that blowing us into tiny pieces is a fun way to spend the day.
The nav readings confirm what I thought. We aren’t in Nakatomi space. We’re close to Nakatomi space but not in it, which means this is a territory grab that they’re trying on someone who knows better. Normally, I’d run because it’s none of my business if Nakatomi wants to pull something over on the other Families. The problem is that deviating to the border where they’re claiming Nakatomi space ends will add standard days to our schedule and put us perilously close to actual Flores space. Deviating around that will add a month to our trip and I don’t know if we have the fuel to sustain that kind of a burn. I definitely don’t have the money for more fuel, not until we get paid. And we won’t get paid if we take a month.
“Nakatomi Horizon, this space is public transit. Nakatomi space starts at the gravity well of newly acquired planet Kohaishimi. Quest is well outside that range.” Now they know I know.
Escajeda has finally stopped hovering at my back but instead, he’s moving toward the weapons console. I flip my side of the ship-to-ship communicator to mute and turn around to address the fool.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I hiss, like I still need to be quiet. Itzel runs into the helm and stands between us. Of all my crew, she’s the least helpful in this situation.
She’s great if you need to poke a plant or tame a creature. Shockingly good if you need violence—if you have time for the panic attacks and recriminations that come later. Not talented whatsoever at negotiations or intimidation. Caro and Micah, the two who are better at those, are probably nailing down everything on the ship just in case I need to maneuver.
“I’m activating our weapons system. The Nakatomi Family attacks. They don’t negotiate.” Escajeda speaks slowly like he needs to educate me about bad Families.
“It takes one to know one, I guess.” I say, very maturely. “Of course, they attack when they think they can get away with it. They just don’t realize they can’t get away with it, yet. You fire on them, we’re a bunch of tiny pieces of scrap metal punctuating a bunch of tinier pieces of frozen flesh. Or, if we luck out and destroy them before they retaliate, I’ve just declared war on a Family that is known for their weapons. Oh yeah, and top-tier spaceships—which means we won’t get lucky and destroy them. Maybe you’re well-connected enough to survive a war with the Nakatomis, but I sure as shit am not. Now keep your hands to yourself and let me de-escalate this son of a bitch.”
And now, I have to stop paying attention to my on-ship problem because my off-ship problem is responding to my coms.
“Scouting Vessel Quest, your information is out-of-date. Nakatomi territory extends a milliparsec from the planet’s gravity well in any direction. You have two standard minutes.” Officious little priap. I wonder if he even knows he’s lying. Escajeda is inching closer to the weapons console and we’re two minutes away from crisis.
“Nakatomi Horizon, my information is current. Who do you think scouted the fucking planet for you? I’m still picking the pooling-tree sap out of the soles of my boots. I know exactly what’s under that old-growth forest facing my ship right now.” A trifle exaggerated. We scouted the planet a couple years ago. Ven got along with Nakatomi. Clearly better than I do.
“Scouting Vessel Quest, you have one minute to comply.”
He’s not going to see reason, which means I need to go into annihilation mode. I lean over the console and give him good hard eye contact, which is difficult because my camera isn’t anywhere near where the holo’s eyes are. “I’ll spell out the threat that I just politely obscured. Nakatomi Horizon, your Family was interested in Kohaishimi because of deep reserves of weapons-purity gas beneath the forest on the northern hemisphere of the planet. One particularly large deposit is within range of my ship. With one shot, I can blow a crater in that planet so large you’ll never recover your investment. I strongly recommend you reconsider your position because I guarantee, no matter what weapons you bear against me, I will get one shot off.”
I go back on mute. “Escajeda, activate the shield and target the coordinates I forward to the console.”
I send him the location with a swipe of my hand and don’t bother to see if he’s complying. Itzel straps herself into the chairs, something I should be doing but I’m so caught into the mythos of my own negotiation prowess that I don’t bother. The next few seconds will tell all.
The ship is visible through the ports that line the front and ceiling of my helm. It’s a sleek, vicious thing with a battery of cannons pointed at us. Somehow the mouths of those cannons are blacker than the space around the ship. I hold my breath, fingers clenched around the coms console, knuckles white. I might puke a little if they don’t explode us in the next few seconds. The sound of a buckle clicks to the other side of the helm. Caro has come up to watch.
I flip the inner-ship coms to private. I’ve been broadcasting the whole exchange. “Micah, strap down, wherever you are. It might get turbulent in a moment.”
“Better turbulent than absolute zero.” The medic’s wry tone rings through the coms.
I wait a few more heartbeats. I’m either about to be vindicated or embarrassed. Less important than alive or dead, but still, it matters. I don’t want to look directly at him, but I tilt my head a little to the side to catch Escajeda in my peripheral vision. He’s waiting, calm and collected, like he’s ready to explode a planet every day. Like he’s ready to be exploded every day.
It occurs to me that my upbringing was no pleasure, and I was only one of the Ten. What must it be like to be raised in the Five—with the Escajeda as a father?
Luckily for me, before I develop too much empathy, the cannons move away from us, one by one.
“Scouting Vessel Quest, we have verified position on our maps and found a glitch in our navigational calculations. You are free to pass.”
Generous of them. I release my breath in a slow stream. “Nakatomi Horizon, message received. Be sure you investigate that glitch. I’d hate for you to accidentally harm any other passing ships.”
That’s snide bluster and we both know it. There isn’t a glitch and the very next ship to pass, they’ll try this again. That ship won’t have any leverage, so they’ll get out of the lanes and the Nakatomis will have advanced their territory with little more than a threat and a lie. Next time, they may not bother to give the vessel a chance to retreat.
For something so large, space can seem awfully tight.
“Keep the weapons targeted until we’re out of their range,” I tell Escajeda as I bump up our speed. My knees might just give out any moment. “How’s everyone doing?”
Caro’s already back to her datapad, the golden interface tattoos that bedeck her fingers flashing in the helm’s light. “Still breathing.”
Itzel blinks open her eyes. Her hands are on her lap, twisted into strange shapes. Our biologist is a mystery, even to herself. A pacifist assassin monk who parted ways with her death goddess but still wears the vestments of her order in her free time. In times of great stress, habit takes over and she spells out the scriptures using sign language or traces them on her skin.
“That was an impressive bluff.” Escajeda’s still poised at the weapon’s console, looking at me like he sees something unexpected.
“Something you should know about me, Escajeda: I never bluff.”
Which is a lie. I nearly always bluff, but today? Today I almost believe that I would have taken the shot.
Excerpted from Calamity, copyright © 2023 by Constance Fay.
