“Mmmh, keep a partner for longer than six months?”
“You wound me, Arie. My last partner was atleastsix and a half.”
Kotti was five years my senior and one of my favorite people in the whole galaxy. Growing up, I had madefriends with other kids during the tours, but it was hard to keep friendships when you kept moving around. Kotti had been the only exception. The first time she came onto theStarfarer, she’d been thirteen and with her parents, lovestruck by the grandeur of the ship and its promise ofadventure. I had been eight and wanted nothing more than a friend.
Ten years later, Kotti was in charge of our guest relations and had become a staple in my life who knew me better than I knew myself most days.
“But seriously,” she added, “what happened? I called you and you stopped answering, and then you didn’t show up when you said you would. You seriously gave me a heart palpitation.”
“I just got lost,” I replied quickly, watching two spindly droids behind her tug the crate to the back of the ship and load it into the supply port.
“Liar.”
“There was traffic.”
“There’salwaystraffic. Are you in trouble?”
Not exactly, but it wasn’t something I could tell Kotti about—at least not here, out in the open. Besides, I needed to get to the galley before the droids started unpacking the supplies and found my stowaway.
And you’ll bring her into all of this if you tell her anything, I thought.You’ll put her in danger.
And that was the last thing I wanted.
“I thought we didn’t lie to each other,” she added quietly.
I flinched. “No, that’s not—”
From the mouth of the ship, a booming voice cried, “Daughter!There you are!”
We jumped, startled, and spun around on the gangway toward the voice.
Standing in the airlock, a middle-aged man crossed his arms over his broad chest and quirked a thick peppery-brown eyebrow. His dark blue uniform was pressed to perfection, not a single golden tassel out of place, with the medals he’d earned from the war pinned to his collar. He must’ve just gotten out of a meeting with someone important, because he looked quite captain-like at the moment, his deep brown beard braided with souvenir rings and ornaments from faraway planets, his hair pulled into a neat ponytail. His beard had a streak of white, like a vein of silver in clay. He always joked that it was a gift from his children.
I knew he couldn’t possibly meanme.
Captain Hansifred Quay cut an imposing figure to anyone who didn’t know he had a sweet tooth for obessa seeds and a secret love of the opera.
Kotti pushed back her disappointment and called up to the captain, “She finally came out of her room! Yay!”
He studied me, worried. “And everything’s sorted?”
“Um—yes.” What had Kottitoldhim? “I’m feeling better now.”
The worry quickly faded, overcome with excitement. “Grand! Because we need you in tip-top shape for this tour! I have a feeling it’s going to be special.”
“You say that abouteverytour,” I pointed out, and Kotti agreed.
“And I’m right about every tour,” he said with a wag of his finger, unable to hide a toothy smile exposing that he was missing his left canine. The way he told it, he had gotten into a fistfight with an Imperial stormtrooper during the war, but I think he lost it in drunk celebration one night just after the fall of the Empire. He tilted his head behind him and said to Kotti, “Speakin’ of things that always happen, Veebee needs one of you. She lost her finger again.”
Kotti sighed. “Fine.I’m done with my precheck, so I’ll do it. Where is she? In the galley?”
“Last I saw,” Dad said.
The galley? Oh, no. The supply crate.Sian.
I jumped. “I’ll do it!”
Kotti waved her hand in dismissal. “I really can. I don’t mind.”
