“Sent him for what?” I asked.
Jaxon looked at me, a challenge in his coffee-dark eyes. He rarely pressed these points, but I could tell he wanted to now. “Maybe to keep the Black Widow from crushing us into nothing.”
There was no denying that something strange had happened in Sector 14. Going into the Widow, I’d fully expected to become less than dust. And yet here we all were—alive. I was more likely to look for a scientific explanation, though. Something involving physics, not religion.
“The Sky Mother is all-powerful,” Shiori said from just behind Miko in the shadows of the ship. Stepping forward, she emerged into the sunlight next to the others, turning her sightless eyes toward its warmth.
Miko stopped her grandmother when Shiori got too close to the edge, the blunt end of her severed hand crossing the older woman’s middle as she cautioned her to be careful.
Shiori clearly wanted off the ship, if only for a few minutes, so Jaxon jumped down and then lifted her to the platform. We almost never put down the stairs. Waiting for them to fold and unfold never seemed worth it.
As soon as she was steady, Jax let go of her, and Shiori lifted her face to the sun. She breathed deeply through her small, somewhat flat nose. The white hair that had escaped the bun at her nape fluttered on a breeze I’d hardly noticed before, reminding me of the images I’d seen of the tattered flags of the old nations as they’d been ripped down and the galaxy burned into one.
Shiori spoke again, her soft, musical accent lending an almost prophetess quality to her words. “The Sky Mother balances everything. From the center of the galaxy, She sends out Her rays of light.”
Yeah. That’s because it’s a freaking star, and they’re bright.
And if She and Her Powers really balanced anything, they would have kicked my father off his throne a long time ago—maybe before he’d murdered millions in the night.
“I’m off, then,” I said, slicing through a conversation I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Besides, there were more pressing matters than debating theology—like finding someone to repair the Endeavor. And I loved both Jax and Shiori too much to try to rattle their faith with my own bitterness and doubt.
“Watch your back out there, partner,” Jax said with a single, solemn nod.
My heart clenched a little in my chest. Jax didn’t use that name for me much anymore. Partner. That was what we’d been back in the mines, when there’d been a different type of overseer with a whip at our backs.
I nodded to him, but as I walked toward the elevator tube, hiking the strap of my bag up over my shoulder, I couldn’t help remembering that first day on Hourglass Mile, when rough hands had thrown me at Jax. He’d been a man already, thirty years old and no mistaking it. I’d been nineteen and scared to death.
They’d brought us in on the same day, Jax half insane with grief and me still stunned that I’d been caught, neither of us having any idea that the warden’s bright idea was to pair male and female inmates off together for daily work in the mines. The warden had figured the fraternization would help keep the peace, which it did, I supposed. Once pairs were formed, that was it. No changes were made unless someone’s sentence was up or someone died. Some people, like Fiona, ended up with a lover. Other women got an abuser. And some, like me, found a friend for life.
Lady Luck had been with me that day, too. Maybe she wasn’t such a fickle bitch.
Chapter 5
Two people on the avenue at the bottom of the Squirrel Tree both directed me to the same place: Ganavan’s Products and Parts. It wasn’t too far—still in the docking district and within easy walking distance—so I figured it was a good place to start.
I found the shop at the base of a towering, warehouse-type structure. It was recessed into the ground a few feet, requiring me to take a short flight of stairs down to access it from street level. A bell tinkled over the door when I swung it open, surprising me with the light, merry chiming. I couldn’t help appreciating the quaint touch in the otherwise industrial setting of the city’s sprawling, somewhat dingy docks.
Inside, the shop was bigger than I’d expected and crowded with metallic shelving packed with more stuff than any space rat could ever possibly want. It was almost overwhelming—and half of it was covered in dust. Motes twirled in the air, floating in the sunbeams streaming in through the high-up windows that let in most of the shop’s light.
I didn’t see anyone behind the register to query about repairs, so I walked the aisles, looking for anything that might be of use. I picked up forty rounds of LW-9 bullets in a sleek metal case for our Grayhawk handguns, but I didn’t really need things like the rest of this—gadgets and doodads and crap. I needed reinforced metal panels and someone who could weld them onto my ship.
I scanned the shelves for fuses and wiring, too, but didn’t see anything. The Endeavor’s electrical components weren’t in great shape, even with Big Guy’s brief help, and my console was currently dead. I’d have to see, but I hoped Jaxon would end up being enough of an electrician to fix it. When it came to a ship’s central power grid, I had some skills myself.
“Can I help you?” a man asked.
I turned and watched the speaker walk toward me from what looked like a back office, his steps silent and almost prowling. Despite his height and imposing physique, I might not have heard him coming if he hadn’t made his presence known.
Was this Ganavan? He was tall, with at least a few inches on me. He was wide, too, but mainly in the shoulders. His body looked healthy and trim. Like me, I thought his origins could probably be traced back to pre-exodus Caucasian. Unlike me, he had a healthy tan.
The fact that he was tall, dark, and hot didn’t stop my usual default mode from kicking in—to assess any stranger I met and determine how I would try to bring that person down in a fight.
I came up with a defensive scenario before he got too close. A ducking spin as he came at me, his own weight hopefully throwing him off-balance as I slid out of the way. A quick, hard kick to the back of a knee to get him lower than me. A sleeper hold from behind with my arm in a tight V around his neck, cutting off the blood flow through his arteries. With any luck, I could knock him out without ever touching his windpipe.
Unfortunately, looking at him, I estimated my chances of success with any of that at about eight percent, which made me glad there was no reason to think he was unfriendly.
He watched me, too, his brown eyes like lasers. I’d rarely been subjected to such a steady stare, especially from a gaze that held definite hints of interest and appreciation. My body started to heat from more than just the sunlight filtering down from the high windows. The light hit him at an angle, turning his eyes a tawny amber, like those of a jungle predator.
No. A jungle animal would scare me, and this man didn’t, despite his obvious physical advantage. His eyes were more the color of dark honey, appealing, all warm and tempting in the sun.
My taste buds seemed to burst to life with the memory of sweetness on my tongue. Starway 8 was one of the few places left in the galaxy with an actual apiary, and the liquid gold the director sold to the wealthy elite in Sector 12 was the main source of revenue for the orphanage. This man’s eyes looked just like honey number seven—my favorite. Almost the darkest. The darker honeys had more flavor.
He stopped a few feet from me, and those honey-brown eyes dipped, taking me in from my head to my toes. My clothing was skintight, and I felt a blush flare under his slow inspection.
Finally, he looked up. “Just checking for weapons.”
I snorted. “Really? Weapons? I haven’t heard that one before.”
He winked at me like the scoundrel I highly suspected he was. “We’re inventive out here in 2. Where’re you from?”
“What makes you think I’m not from here?”
“You’re a 12-er. I can hear it in your posh voice.”
Time seemed to slow down as my mind processed his words one by one, even though it only took a second. I hardly spoke to anyone besides my crew, and they didn’t care what I sounded like. Blurring my trail outside of the Endeavor meant it was time to work on a new accent, though. It was too bad. The precise, cut-glass diction was one of the only things I liked about Sector 12.