Becauseof coursethey assigned me to the conference room.
Not the barracks. Not medbay. Not even Officer’s Lounge Three, where the worst you might overhear is Lieutenant Serrek grumbling about her foot fungus cream going missing again. No. They wantmepreppingtheroom forthenegotiations. The room where Ambassador Kintar and General Rection will sit across from the Reaper warlord.
Vokar.
I don’t even have to pretend I haven’t heard the stories. They pass around the crew like forbidden candy. Big as a shuttle door. Strong enough to rip a man in half. Laughs while he bleeds you.Has an entire moon under his heel, and rumor says he sleeps under the stars like a beast. Others say he reads poetry in six languages and sings his kills into a bone altar.
I mean… probably nonsense. Still. The thought of being in the same air as someone like that? It makes my heart flutter like a caught moth.
I unlock the conference room and push inside, the door hissing open with the usual pneumatic wheeze. It’s cooler in here. Too quiet, too clean. The air’s been ion scrubbed recently; it smells faintly metallic, like hospital-grade antiseptic and silver polish.
My boots echo on the polished floor tiles as I step in. Long, shiny table in the middle, chairs with high backs and the IHC seal embossed in the headrests. Overhead lights set to warm white, though it still feels cold somehow.
I park the cart by the side wall and stare down the lineup of drink dispensers, trays, and glasses. My job’s simple. Serve beverages. Keep things tidy. Don’t trip over your own damn feet and spill hot karka root across an ambassador’s crotch.
I take a breath. I candothis.
I start arranging the glasses — tall, narrow ones for the humans, squat and ridged for the Reapers, who apparently have different jaw structures or something. One of the science officers once tried to explain it to me. I didn’t retain a damn word. I was too busy watching how his nose twitched when he talked.
“Okay, Freya,” I mutter, lining up a coaster justso. “Deep breaths. No squeaking. And for the love of all things holy, no staring. Even if he’s got tusks or glowy eyes or whatever.”
My hands are shaking.
God, myhands are shaking.
I frown and press my palms down flat on the cart. The cool metal grounds me for a second. The tremor quiets. But it’s not just nerves — it’s that weird hum again. The subtle vibration thattells you something’s coming. Something big. Something that changes things.
I glance toward the viewport.
Storder looms out there. A pale green marble wreathed in mist and storm bands. It’s not beautiful — not in the way Earth was, with her cerulean oceans and perfect clouds. Storder’s got a primal edge to her. Forests that go on forever, broken mountains, dark scars across the equator where meteor storms hit and never healed.
I get it. Igetwhy a man like Vokar would make that place his own.
There’s a strength in things that look ruined but still stand.
I glance down at the tray I’m polishing — an old one, reflective, a little scuffed around the edges. I catch my own eyes in it. Green. Bright. Too bright in this sterile light. I look like a ghost wearing skin. My face is pinched, tired, cheeks a little hollow. That long blonde braid I spent ten minutes fussing with this morning already looks limp. And my eyes…
God, I hate how uncertain they look.
I shake my head, force a little breath through my nose, and keep polishing. The motion helps. Wax on, wax off, like one of those old martial arts vids the orphans used to sneak.
“Think you’ll go unnoticed like always,” I murmur. “Just a little whisper with a mop. Nobody sees the mop girl.”
But I’m lying to myself and I know it.
Because part of me — the tiny stupid part I try to keep buried in my sock drawer —wantsto be seen. Wants one of those terrifying, gorgeous alien warlords to stop mid-sentence, look up, andnoticeme. Not for the mess I might've made or the way I’m careful and silent, but because hewantsto.
Ridiculous. Infantile.
Still.
I wipe another glass with a linen cloth, trying to calm the blush creeping up my neck. My thoughts are spiraling and I don’t have the time. The meeting starts in under an hour and I still haven’t aligned the beverage dispensers or calibrated the temperature for the karka carafe.
Footsteps outside the door snap my head up.
Not heavy enough to be Reaper boots. Probably Kintar’s assistant.
I move fast, grabbing the jug of mineral water and slipping it into the fridge slot to chill it to precisely 9°C — the ambassador’s preference. My hands are steady now, but only because I’m making them be. My stomach’s still a mess of knots.
