“Why a sword? Why not something that shoots plasma?” I asked him.
His smile was predatory. “I enjoy the close up kill. Can you really claim to be a warrior if you don’t watch the life drain from your enemy’s eyes?”
I looked at Ohem with wide eyes. “I can see why you’re nervous about our friendship now. Never send me and Aga out alone together.”
Aga laughed and pointed at me. “There would be no one left, Rijitera. We would kill them all.” He was still laughing after he put his sword into its sheath and went back to directing.
Ohem pinched my chin with his thumb and forefinger, tilting my head up. “No fighting alongside Aga.”
I grinned at him. I would promise nothing. Ohem growled at me and pulled me over to stand in front of Dr. Ghix. The good doctor smiled at me and handed over a box. I scowled at it in confusion, but took it. He’d poked and prodded me a couple of times over the last week, and I was a little twitchy around him now. I opened the box with a dramatic amount of caution. I heard Dr. Ghix sigh in exasperation and I snickered. Inside the box was a black cloth. I frowned at the doctor while I pulled it out and held it up. It was a black bodysuit.
I gave it a shake and raised my eyebrow. “What’s this?”
Dr. Ghix smiled. “Just put it on, Jack.”
He gestured behind me and I turned to see a raised cloth changing room set up between crates waiting to be loaded. Shrugging, I went to put on the catsuit. I snapped the curtains closed and quickly shucked off my clothes and shoes. I stared hard at the suit, trying to figure out how to put the damn thing on. There was no zipper and the neck hole wasn’t big enough to step into.
I pulled on it to see if it stretched and the back split open so fast I thought I tore it apart. Oh, right. Everything they used on this ship was magnetic. They didn’t even know what a zipper was. I stepped into the legs, pulling it over my body. It was a very soft material. As soon as I had it on properly, the back sealed up on its own. Smart clothes were so cool.
I slipped on my red flats and walked out to see Dr. Ghix holding up a pair of socks. I sighed and put them on, too.
“Leave the shoes off. The cloth you are wearing will harden into a type of armor more akin to a shell. It shouldn’t rip when you change and isn’t made from any technology. Just a special type of fabric made from the secretions of an insect found on my planet. It should be hard enough to protect you from most plasma blasts. I know you heal quickly, but Sam wanted to negate the need to,” he smiled at me. “She worked very hard to find something your nanos wouldn’t reject.”
My throat got tight. I cleared it, smiled at the doctor. The smile crumpled with the urge to cry. I took a couple of breaths and cleared my throat again.
“You tell her thank you for me. Tell her I love it, and I love her,” I said.
I was proud my voice didn’t wobble. Damn human woman, making me an emotional mess. I could have told her on my neck link, but I didn’t feel like blubbering right before we left. It would ruin my reputation with the crew.
Ohem placed his hand on the small of my back. “Monitor our friends, Urli,” Ohem said to Ghix.
I turned my head towards the doctor and mouthed “Urli?” as Ohem ushered me into the ship. I caught the doctor’s grimace before the door shut us inside. It was a terrible name for a huge spider man. Ohem used his hands on my shoulder to gently push me into a seat. He pulled a hard harness made from the same porous fibers at the joints of his armor down over me that snicked into place in the seat back at my hips. He jerked on it a few times to make sure it was secure, and then took a seat next to me, pulling his own harness down.
Rema and Aga took their seats across from me, and a few other soldiers settled in around them, filling the empty seats quickly, but no one sat on the other side of me and I couldn’t help but snicker at Ohem. He gave me a long look but didn’t rise to the bait. I reached across to give his thigh a squeeze and waited for the liftoff.
I didn’t have to wait long, the clank of the claw connecting to the hull of the shuttle set my teeth on edge. We were lifted smoothly; the engines hummed to life and then we were accelerating down the tube and out into space. The door became transparent, giving me an unfettered view into space.
The shuttle shuddered for a moment as the engines fired us faster across the void. In under five minutes, we were entering the atmosphere. The shuttle dropped twice and my stomach dropped with it. Spaceships should be immune to turbulence. It wasn’t right that we were on a super advanced alien craft and the air currents still battered us around. I closed my eyes to think happy thoughts, anything to keep my gorge from rising.
The ship dropped sharply, shuddered, and rose again. The pilot spoke over our links. “Storm is pretty bad. Brace yourselves.”
Understatement of the fucking century!
The ship jerked like it was being tossed back and forth between a giant’s hands. I had a death grip on Ohem’s thigh and his warm hand over mine did absolutely nothing to calm me down. I hated flying!
Hated. It.
Callie was a goddamned crazy person for wanting to do this.
I cracked an eye open to see if anyone else was having a hard time. Aga was smiling,the psychopath. Remawassleeping.The elf was passed out cold, like none of this was happening. His head jerked from side to side when the ship dipped up and down. The rest of the soldiers looked bored. I peeked at Ohem. He was leaning back, body relaxed, just going with the flow.
All aliens were crazy!
I shut my eyes again and waited for it to be over. I never used to be this way on Earth. I’d flown all over the world and didn’t get sick. Wonder if it had anything to do with falling out of space in a glorified U-Haul?
I was going to need so much therapy after this war was over. Funny how ripping someone’s spine out didn’t send me into a tailspin of anxiety, but add some turbulence and I was a mess. The Healer on the Solus had said it was all about control and losing it. Killing someone was me in control, falling out of the sky was menotin control. Made sense to me.
A thud rattled us around like rocks in a can and my eyes flew open. Rema opened his eyes and yawned, stretching his arms over his head, and shook his head as if to clear the sleep from his mind. He caught me staring at him and smiled.
