“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I must be hallucinating. Did you sayKravaxianswill be boarding?” I blinked. “On purpose?”
“No,” Rax growled. “They will not.”
Toggling his hoverchair controls, Chan rocked nervously back and forth. “Isn’t it, uh, exciting?” He couldn’t hide his grimace as the words left his mouth.
Rax and Morgath bellowed their objections, Elanie mumbled something to herself about “morons,” and Freddie frowned, opening and closing his mouth like he almost had a response, like it was on the tip of his tongue but just wouldn’t come. Which was not something I remembered him having any issues withat all.
I know, I know. This was not an appropriate thought to have at a staff meeting, certainly not in the face of Kravaxian visitation. And yet…
“Everyone, calm down, please.” Chan’s voice carried overthe din of outrage and general bafflement ricocheting off the staff room walls. “Let me explain.”
“Oh, there’s no need to explain.” Morgath’s hands splayed flat on the table as he hovered ominously over Chan like a muscle-bound green gargoyle. “You’ve obviously lost your godsdamned mind. There is a senator on the ship, for fuck’s sake.”
I met Freddie’s stare before we both turned toward Morgath, then toward Chan, then back to each other, both of us so mystified I almost laughed.
The problem with Chan’s revelation was that Kravaxians were, not to mince words, terrifying. They were space pirates, murderers, arsonists, chaos breeders, and—if one believed the rumors—raging cannibals. Clever, vicious, brutal, and with no allegiances aside from the all-mighty credit, they were, in my humble opinion, exceptionally bad cruise ship guests.
Freddie cleared his throat and, with some hesitation, suggested, “Perhaps we should give Chandler a chance to explain.”
“Explain what?” Rax snapped, flinging his hands into the air. “That we’ve decided to invite Godzilla into the city?”
Silence descended as all beings at the table stared blankly at Rax.
“What’s that?” I asked, having no idea what aGodzillawas.
Rax grunted in frustration as Morgath said, “Old Earth movie monster. Giant lizard thing. Destroys buildings, shoots lightning-fire out of its mouth, kills everyone. That sort of deal.”
“Ah, well, then.” I nodded, acknowledging the similarities. “Accurate.”
Looking up from her nails, Elanie said, “Bright side. Wewon’t have to worry about feeding them. Our guests should suffice.”
Chan palmed his forehead. “It’s not what you think. They won’t eat our guests.”
Tig trembled. “They’ll eat me first, won’t they? I’m, like, bite sized.”
“Really,Chan? Why do you want Tig to get eaten,Chan?” Morgath, still on his feet, punctuated Chan’s name like he might as well have been sayingassholeordipshit.
Poor Chan—who couldn’t get a word in edgewise over the irate twins spiking accusations at him in rapid succession—tried to shout above their verbal assault. “Nobody is going to get eaten!”
“I didn’t know they made muzzles big enough to fit a Kravaxian,” Elanie said under her breath.
“And the captains signed off on this?” Rax asked in utter disbelief.
“They did.” Chan leveraged this bit of camaraderie from the captains to wrangle the conversation back in. “And if you’ll give me a second, I’ll tell you why.” He leaned over, fished some brochures out of the side pocket of his chair, and passed them out. “The Kravaxians we will host have been hand selected by LunaCorp as a local task force leading the Bring Labor and Industry to Kravax initiative—or BLIX, as they’re calling it.”
“BLIX?” Elanie scoffed. “That’s the best they could come up with?”
Chan shrugged. “They were going to go with BLIK, which is, objectively, much worse.”
“This all sounds like a load of trestal shit to me,” Morgath grumbled.
I turned the BLIX brochure over in my hand. On the front, Kravax hovered, a marbled brown and green planetwith its two tiny moons glinting in the darkness. And on the back, the New Earther entrepreneur-turned-CEO of LunaCorp, Brock Karlovich, stood on the steps of the LunaCorp HQ building, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze piercing. I studied Mr. Karlovich, with his smug grin and chiseled jaw and… I looked closer. Was he wearing makeup? Self-tanner? Maybe some blush? He looked far too orange to be real. For any species.
Tig, always one for gathering as much information as possible, took a break from biting her cuticles to ask, “What sort of industry are they hoping to bring to Kravax?”
“Uh,” Chan wavered. “I believe they will start with manufacturing, tourism, and…banking?” He said it like a question, like even he couldn’t believe it.
“Banking?” Freddie repeated, not believing it either. “With those thieves?”
