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“Is this you showing surrender?” she asks. “Or…isn’t that what the Skoropi do? Like, if I was a First House soldier, I could sting you right now and make you mybaybeemawmaw.”
I do not know what abaybeemawmawis, but I would happily be one for Frankie.
Ourzephtanrumbles underneath us, Jaya voicing her distaste for this whole situation. A delicate, probing vine erupts from the floor underneath me, squeezing my wrist gently. I retract my claws to nudge the vine, assuring Jaya that I’m alright. I don’t think she understands what we’re doing here; we have never sparred onboard before.
As much as we call her a warship, Jaya is a true pacifist.
Frankie helps me to my feet once more.
“Sorry, Jai,” she says as she walks away. “I know you don’t like it when mom and dad fight.”
“I think Zandro and Bekah are more like her mother and father,” I cut in.
“Okay,” she says. “So we’re…the cool aunt and uncle?”
“Can uncles be cool?” I ask. I’ve never met a cool uncle. Indeed, the only ‘uncle’ I have ever met is Zandro’s murderous uncle Dalphox, the warlord of the First House.
“Of course they can,” she says, peering at me.
She puts down her flask and pulls a band from her wrist, then yanks her hair up to tie it at the crown of her head. She fastens it into a topknot before tilting her head from side to side for a stretch. I try not to stare at the curve of her neck, a drop of sweat clinging to her throat before trailing to her clavicle.
I’m interrupted in my reverie when the comm on Frankie’s wrist suddenly chimes, alerting us to a message. She frowns and looks down at it, tapping the surface to answer. “Yeah, Nguyen?” she says. “What’s up?”
“You and Taraven need to get up here,” a stern voice says on the other end. “Something…”
She pauses, rustling sounds emanating from Frankie’s device. I hear Bekah’s voice in the background, her voice cracking. “Oh my God,” she whispers.
“Just get up here,” Agent Nguyen says. “Now.”
The connection terminates and Frankie and I exchange a glance.
“Guess we’d better get going,” she says.
Frankie leads the way up from the hull, Jaya rumbling around us. Her song is strange and jarring; something is definitely wrong.
“Are we under attack?” Frankie asks, picking up on Jaya’s mood just after I do. “She sounds upset.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “But Jaya picks up on all kinds of things we can’t detect because she can travel through transdimensional space; something could be happening three galaxies over and it might rattle her.”
“I’ve never heard her like this, though,” Frankie says. “Even when Bekah was in the driver’s seat and took us to Skoro.”
“That’s why I’m concerned,” I say.
We’re running up the spine by the time we reach the cortex, the two of us rushing through the vine-layered passage to find the rest of our crew standing around a lit holo-screen. No one looks at us as we enter, walking slowly toward them.
Everyone is here—every single crew member, and our captain at the front of the group. Zandro’s eyes are narrowed as he stares at the screen, a protective arm wrapped around hisekirah, Bekah.
The screen doesn’t divulge much about why we’re all here; it appears to be a cluster of asteroids, floating around a single point of light. I peer down at it and look from the group to Frankie, who seems just as nonplussed as I do.
“What’s going on?” she asks, looking at Agent Nguyen.
I glance down at Nguyen’s hand, which is gripped tightly around her Lyran mate’s.
“Rath,” Nguyen’s mate Reza says. He tilts his violet-scaled head toward the screen, his golden eyes shining with a strange lustre. “It’s gone.”
Nguyen’s arm slides around Reza’s waist as I try to discern what’s going on.
Frankie looks up at me, her eyes wide.
