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Mystery solved. There was no deep, dark conspiracy: the plants had simply been loved to death.
They’d spent the last few days hiding in an asteroid field as Gavin changed the ship’s identifying signature, and Delaney had finally met everyone on the crew. The jacket she’d worn to the meeting with Varan had belonged to Roxy, a busty brunette who worked on the operations and maintenance of all the ship’s onboard weapons withCkzarr, the ship’s gunner. Apparently, theRevengehad so many weapons that one person couldn’t possibly fire them all.
It was a lot of new faces to keep straight, and Delaney was still struggling to remember everyone’s names and what they did on the ship. A few of them didn’t actually have jobs on the ship and were only there as muscle for planetside missions.
With her on board, there were now six humans and seven Talleans in the crew. The humans were easy for her to remember. There was her and Roxy, the only two human women. Emil and Gavin she already knew, same as Dex—as in Poindexter— the nerdy accountant and treasurer for the ship, complete with glasses and button-up shirts. Delaney was sure he played up the look on purpose. The last human was Cage. He didn’t talk much, and she had no idea yet what he did.
As for the Talleans, there was the captain, of course. Tuhror was the pilot and shared navigation duty with Emil. And Tahra was the medic. Berus was the one who loved to eat and fight. There were Ckzarr, the gunner, and Kirek, the weapons guy…although Delaney had no idea what the difference was. Lastly, there was Vhast, who looked young, and like Cage and Berus, seemed to do nothing on the ship.
Delaney was shocked at how few people were actually needed for a ship this size. No wonder Ulrek had been so sure no one on board was messing with the settings on purpose. He knew everyone well, and they were a family of sorts.
A family she didn’t fit into.
She’d been hiding out in the greenroom for the last few days. It had been pretty easy to stay away from Ulrek because he was still preoccupied with monitoring the situation with the broadcast.
It appeared the bounty hunters had been funded by someone named Gritarr. He’d been after Ulrek’s bounty for a while now, but he was selfish, so Ulrek doubted he was behind the broadcast. By the number of simultaneous eye rolls at the mere mention of Gritarr’s name, the crew was familiar with this guy.
Hiding out meant Delaney had tons of time to work on the greenroom undisturbed…mostly. Each crew member had come by one by one to talk to her.
She’d finally met Roxy, the owner of the jacket she’d borrowed that last day on Reka. Instead of Reka 5, Roxy had spent her time freed from the Dominion on Vosthea. Missing her video games, she’d found her way into a training simulator after hours and started playing a “game” that had her playing as a gunner on a ship. Their training sims were what VR in Earth had aspired to be, but better. Her high score had been the thing that outed her unauthorized use of the simulator. And that was how the busty babe with the multicolored hair had ended up on the Revenge.
Berus had come by several times and was the only reason Delaney managed to clean out most of the dying plant matter and contaminated substrate. The gentle giant didn’t have much to do and was bored out of his mind, so he didn’t mind taking on the grunt work of lugging the heavy containers full of garbage down to the airlock, especially if it meant the greenhouse got fixed faster and Delaney could work on food production.
That was the good thing about doing this part out in space: she didn’t have to worry about proper disposal so as not to contaminate the native flora of a planet. The official and acceptable method was just to space everything.
Like the other Tallean males on the crew, Berus had worked on theStellar Fortune.He’d been a simple soldier, paid for his brawn and not his brain. He apologized for his part in raiding Earth, which had Delaney feeling a bit awkward. When she accepted his apology, he went into his story on how Ulrek had helped him leave the Dominion.
By now, Delaney had heard the story several time from different perspective. No wonder those on board were so loyal to him.
The only section left now was the one with the kima plant.
Delaney had discovered the name of the plant by chance while doing her fair share of cyberstalking the ex-Dominion captain. She’d foundthe video. The one where his mother disowned him for abandoning the Dominion and the Goddess. It had been played billions of times across the known universe. Delaney had seen short clips of it before but had never really paid attention. Now that she knew how much it had affected Ulrek, she watched it with new eyes.
In the video, behind the impeccably-dressed Tallean woman, there was a wall of beautiful blood-red blooms, their color rich against the green of thick, fleshy stems and leaves. They reminded Delaney of alien roses. She had looked them up, and lo and behold, it had been the very same plant Ulrek had tried to grow in his greenroom.
Except the specimen on the ship looked nothing like the impressive display in the video.
She was also beginning to suspect that it had been the cause of all the problems to begin with. She’d tested the substrate around the plant and had found it to be much more alkaline than it should be. The high PH prevented any other plants in the vicinity from taking up certain nutrients.
She’d managed to save a handful of the other plants, taking cuttings of them and rooting them in new substrate. She’d taken over part of the food production area expressly for this purpose and had a whole propagation station set up. She had taken a cutting of the kima too, but she was pretty sure it would fail to thrive.
She’d be ready to replant the other cuttings soon. That meant she needed to talk to Ulrek about when and where to order the supplies as well as figure out the budget she was working with.
She’d caught flashes of the captain here and there and had even seen him briefly during the evening meal—theRevengeran on the Galactic day and night cycle—but that was it. When they’d first lifted off, he’d sent her a brief message reminding her that she was welcome to visit him any time in his room.
She’d been tempted once or twice, especially after seeing him in those buttery soft lounge pants he liked to wear around the ship with nothing else. How he managed to make drawstring waistband pants sexy was beyond her. A lot of the other guys went around topless too, but they didn’t draw her attention the way Ulrek did. Even his burn scars couldn’t put a dent in his hotness.
She’d expected him to be a hard-ass captain to his crew same as Dominion captains were known to be, but things were very casual on board. A good thing too, because the ship ran hot sometimes, and it meant she could work in the lightweight shift dresses she’d brought along.
It was less a workplace environment and more like a bunch of friends hanging out and getting stuff done at the same time. It was obvious that they all cared about each other. None of the humans onboard treated Ulrek any differently. If anything, they respected him and looked up to him. Which was just weird to Delaney.
Footsteps sounded at the door. Delaney twisted to look back behind her, expecting Berus again, asking if she needed any more help, but Ulrek stood at the entrance instead.
He was wearing those same lounge pants but in a different color. These ones were gold and reminded her of the gaudy clothes of Tallean merchants, minus all the gems and jewels. They hugged his ass and thighs and showed off his muscles with every movement. The contrast of the fabric against his dark skin at the waistband made her swallow hard.
No wonder Talleans loved gold so much. It looked so good with their coloring.
He wore nothing on top, and his hair was down. There were a few thin braids scattered throughout the wiry strands.
