We have two forms still to complete. Crash is still healing. A week until our first official contract. An anxious blob who's now officially our logistics specialist. And absolutely no idea what we're doing.
It’s perfect.
Epilogue: Annual Performance Review
Zola
ONEYEARLATER
I wake up alone, and my first thought is that something has gone catastrophically wrong.
The bed is cold. Notcooling downcold—actually cold, like Crash has been gone for over an hour. My hand slides across the sheets where he should be, finding nothing but the ghost of vanilla-lightning scent and what I’m pretty sure is... is thatsugar?
I sit up, blinking in the dim light of our quarters. One year ago, I would have immediately checked my datapad for incident reports. One year ago, I would have assumed the worst—hull breach, system failure, rogue asteroid field.
One year ago, I didn’t wake up in a former gladiator’s bed on a ship that smells like home.
“KiKi?” I call out, swinging my legs over the side. “Status report?”
“All systems nominal, Zola.” There’s a suspicious pause. “Though I should note that Crash’s heart rate is elevated by forty-two percent, his pheromone output is at four hundred percent baseline, and he has accessed the environmental controls for Cargo Bay Three approximately seventeen times in the last ninety minutes.”
I freeze with one foot in my ship boots. “What’s the probability he’s attempting a grand romantic gesture?”
“Ninety-nine point nine percent.”
“Oh no.”
“Ohyes.” KiKi sounds far too delighted. “I have taken the liberty of recording everything for posterity. And potential blackmail.”
I’m halfway to the door when something gelatinous and vibrating blocks my path. Jitters has manifested directly in front of me, quivering with what I’ve learned to recognize as barely-contained secrets. He’s also wearing a tiny bow tie somehowadhered to his translucent form, which is both adorable and deeply concerning.
“Jitters, move. I need to—”
He herds me backward, then forward, then toward the corridor leading to the cargo bays. His color cycles through excited pinks and golds—none of the anxious grays or nervous purples from a year ago. He’s confident now, settled into his role as Cross-Maxone Solutions’ Communications Specialist with the kind of pride that only comes from finding where you belong.
“He roped you into this, didn’t he?”
Guilty purple.
“And you’re not going to let me get dressed first?”
Adamant orange. He nudges my hip with surprising force for a blob.
I look down at myself—one of Crash’s old training shirts (the one that barely covers my ass) and nothing else. “At least let me grab pants.”
The orange intensifies. Jitters actuallypushesme now, and I let myself be herded because apparently this is my life now. The safety inspector who once filed a formal complaint about improperly secured cargo netting is being escorted through her own ship in her underwear by an anxious shapeshifter, on her way to what is clearly going to be a beautiful disaster.
The old Zola would have been mortified.
The current Zola is fighting a smile.
The cargo bay doors hiss open, and I stop dead.
“Oh. Oh,Crash.”
He’s transformed Cargo Bay Three into... I want to say a garden, but that doesn’t quite capture the magnificent catastrophe before me. Holographic moons flicker overhead like dying light bulbs, casting strobing shadows across what I think are supposed to be the Singing Groves of Velogia. Bioluminescent plants in massive pots line the walls, and theyare indeed singing—if by “singing” you mean “producing sounds remarkably similar to screaming goats.”
There’s a table in the center of the bay, set with what looks like formal Velogian dining ware and covered in dishes of glowing... substances. One of them is actively melting through the tablecloth.
