Ryker closed the space in the hall to smack Zavir over the back of the head. “You brought fucking moira on planet?! I thought you only had the drought.”
“I wasn’t planning on using it.” Zavir went into his room to get dressed. The rest of us crowded outside the door. “I got it from the same idiot who had the drought. He was some seller, had a ton of shit, so I nicked it.”
“Why? Like you said, you weren’t planning to use it,” said Arana.
“I was going to sell it. It was a four-set. That could have sold for good credits at our next dock.”
Arana shook her head. “Back to his trade networking days. Never forget that’s what put you here to begin with.”
“That was foolish,” said Iylene. “You better hope the captain and head researcher believes you. Should I get in trouble for your faults, there will be consequences.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.” Zavir hurried out the door because the last thing he wanted was to make Roys angrier. He darted to Roys’ office, disappearing around the hall in time for the captain to return.
A shadow fell over his expression, his annoyance palpable. His entrance brought a heat that could rival that of the two suns. The others stood at attention. I stayed leaning against Zavir’s doorway. My gaze drifted over him, his empty pockets and empty hands.
“Should any of you be caught with anything like this again, I don’t care what the head researcher of any project says, I will inform Corporate and you won’t like what they’ll do,” he warned in the most authoritative tone he ever used, then he was off to put Zavir in a figurative hellscape.
“I wouldn’t wish what’s coming to Zavir on my worst enemy,” Arana whispered, then her stomach growled. “Breakfast, everyone?”
In the communal area, the droids set out breakfast. We took our seats, surprised to find the survey team joining us. Not specifically sitting by us, but taking their breakfast in the communal area. Maddy included. She sat by the rudhe of their group. My mind was running into overdrive.
How did she survive? Syrox’s thugs slaughtered everyone previously part of Benno’s network. How did she escape the Colony? I wouldn’t have if the Katlan hadn’t boarded at a dock with a heavy militia presence. Rather than shipping me back, the local militia offered me a chance to join their ranks. There weren’t any better options, so I took what I could for survival.
The survey team, while working with the militia, wasn’t the same. They didn’t sell years of their lives for shitty wages and a dangerous work environment. The Intergalactic Courts, or at least subsets of them, oversaw the investigative portions of this work. Working on a survey team meant having a career, and neither of us was the career type. How did she go from dying at the Colony to thriving on The Planet?
By the time we finished breakfast, Zavir returned wide-eyed and shaking. He got his breakfast and took a seat, utterly traumatized.
“Are you done for?” asked Arana.
“Completely.” Zavir put a spoonful of gruel in his mouth and whimpered. “I won’t survive this damn planet.”
I stood, unable to ignore this nagging sensation penetrating the back of my mind.
“Where are you going?” Lilea asked.
I held up my empty tray. “Finished. Think I’m going to get a little more shut-eye. The captain will have all of us doing extra laps out of spite.”
The group groaned.
After tossing the tray on the counter, I went to Roys’ office. The door wasn’t locked, as usual, and yet my heart stuttered as if surprised. Inside, he sat, elbows on the desk and head in his hands. I didn’t know why I was there. He would have us doing more work that day than usual. I should get a little more shut-eye like I said.
Except I entered, eyes straying over every surface in search of a pack that wasn’t there. Roys lifted his head, his short brown hair a mess, no doubt from running his fingers through it.
“Coming in here to start trouble?” he asked, eyes half-mast in a dangerous manner. “I fear I am in no mood for your theatrics today.”
The door slid shut behind me. I dropped into the chair where Zavir had received his earlier death sentence. Roys frowned when I knocked the chair back to set my sock-clad feet on the desk. “Can’t a guy visit his captain with benefits without being perceived as potentially malicious?”
“Captain with benefits,” he snorted while rubbing his temple. “Is that my title?”
“Is it a wrong title?”
“A rather humiliating one, admittedly.”
“What happened to my little sweetheart?” I tried to poke him with my foot, which he swatted away. “You’re being so mean to me today. You know it’s unbecoming of a superior officer to take their anger out on the ranks.”
He was acting normal. Of course he was. I shouldn’t be surprised, or relieved.
Roys put his hand on my ankle and shoved. My legs dropped, and the chair came forward only for me to stretch out and settle my arms on the desk and then my chinon them. He leaned forward too, looking down at me with those painstakingly beautiful blue eyes. No artist would dare to conjure them.
