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Which means Taraven and I are together again—just like always.
The big, goofy Skoropi has become my best friend in the months I’ve been on Jaya. I’m close enough with Mai—she’s my mentor, after all, and she’s done a lot for my career—but I can’t deny that Taraven and I have something special. He’s been kind to me ever since we came aboard, welcoming and generous. I started sharing a drink with him every so often early on in my tenure on Jaya, and we’ve done it ever since.
I care for him.
I…kind of love him.
And I hate it, because this is no time for feelings like that. I was in the reserves during the Lyran Civil War—just out of training and eager to get to work—and we were always discouraged from engaging in romantic relationships with other soldiers, or with anyone else on the front lines. Those kinds of feelings clouded our judgement, made us stupid and reckless…
I made a mistake like that once and I won’t make it again.
But I can’t just avoid him, no matter how hard I try. Especially if we all go on this mission—me, Taraven, Malix, and Ravik—I won’t be able to avoid him at all.
It would be so much easier if I could just use him to blow off steam.
Not that I haven’t considered it…though I haven’t made any real effort. When I first came aboard Jaya, it was obvious that he was in some kind of throuple with Zandro and Bekah—then that stopped, and I figured he had gone back to fucking around in the crew quarters. I got the impression he was a bit of a slut at the time, and I respected that.
And I kept waiting andwaitingfor him to say something. To ask me to come to his bed, to blow off steam or something more.
He never did. I still don’t know why.
Not that I even know if I would have said yes.
I walk through camp that night, weaving around thezephtangrazing in the tall grasses. They’re moving ever outward, the food here not enough to sustain an armada. They need the jungles of Razakii, not this plain, colorless grassland. Things have to be getting dire, but none of the Skoropi here will talk to me about it; thezephtantenders seem to be far more interested in their charges than in me. They’re focused on protecting the things closest to them.
I get that.
So am I.
I’m getting hungry by the time I finally wander back toward Jaya, the twin moons of Azoth rising overhead. They don’t normally align—or at least, they haven’t in the time I’ve been here—but I guess their orbits are almost perfectly in sync at the moment, one big orb hovering in the night sky with a pinprick moon beyond it. The aurora borealis in Azoth’s atmosphere has come into effect as well, casting the white grasses of the plains in a prism of colorful lights.
The hatch is open, steam and the welcoming glow of firefern pouring out. But I don’t go inside—because Taraven is standing beside the entrance, staring up at the sky. He leans against Jaya’s hull, idly stroking her bark-like exterior like he’s petting a dog, his eyes flaring with a multitude of colors and reflecting the aurora in the sky.
“Hey,” I say, raising my hand in greeting as I get closer.
“Hey,” he replies. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Orale!—it continues to startle me how good he is at English. They pick up language so fast that he’ll outstrip me in Lyran soon, and I was forced to take the language for twelve years in primary school. He’s even started to pick up figures of speech and euphemisms, learning enough for his language to become informal.
“Didn’t want to join the crew for dinner?” I ask.
“And miss this?” he says with a smile, gesturing up at the sky. “No way.”
I ignore my grumbly stomach and join him, leaning back against the hull with him. Jaya lets out a satisfied rumble, the sound reverberating through my chest and shoulders. I’ve gotten so used to that sound that I’m not sure I would be comfortable shipping on a Lyran or human vessel at this point; having a living creature haul you around the galaxy is far preferable to a piece of machinery you can’t trust.
“So,” I say. “I guess we’re going into clear and certain danger…again.”
Taraven snorts. “So we are,” he says. “And with Ravik in the cortex, no less.”
“You don’t trust him?” I ask.
“Of course I don’t.” Taraven shakes his head, sighing deeply. “Ravik is angry. All he wants to do is escape. To put him in control of azephtan…I don’t like it.”
“You think he would run off with it?”
“I do,” Taraven says. “And who knows where he might leave us?”
I raise my hand to my lips and chew on my thumbnail, the edge already jagged. It’s a bad habit I tend to pick up when I’m stressed; lately, I’m always stressed.
