Verin glared at the readouts, hoping if he did it hard enough that something would change. They should have picked up the outer system beacons by now. They were about to pass into Sol system rim territory, for hell's sake.
This fucking cargo run had been a disaster. The dark matter generator had done…something and then turned itself off but not before it slammed Shax into the bulkhead and flattened Verin in a pile of squished frogs. The weirdest sensation had crawled through his body, like his center of gravity had shifted several times.
When it stopped suddenly, he lay on the floor sticky and pissed off, gasping and lightheaded. Poor Shaxy had been out cold again, so Verin put him back in sickbay. He'd called for the angel twink to come help but he didn't show, so Verin went looking for him. Ness had been curled up in a whimpering ball in storage, babbling about tiny leaden hands invading his body and never being warm again.
Shax would've known what to do with angel hysterics and tears, but comforting someone was for other people. Verin tried, growling at Ness to man up and stop being a baby. Getting the angel to sob harder hadn't been the plan, so Verin left him where he was to work things out himself.
He fiddled with the comm settings and punched the wall in frustration. Shax always figured this stuff out. He was the smart one, though Verin would die before he told Shax that. Where the flipping fuckity fuck were the beacons?
"Hey." The voice from the doorway was a bare, scraggly whisper. Shax leaned on the seal, looking like he might fall over or toss his cookies any second.
"Should you be up, bonehead?"
"Maybe. I thought I heard croaking."
The comm chirped and Ivana interrupted. "He woke up screaming his head off and wouldn't stop until he crawled into the shower and cycled through the heavy cleaning twice."
"Thank you, Ms. Ivana," Shax murmured as he used the wall and the back of his chair to make his way into the pilot's pod. "Maybe you have video to show Ver, too?"
"I was worried, Hot Stuff." The damn computer actually sounded weepy. Stupid computer. "Your Twinkles wouldn't answer, and Captain Big Horns here wouldn't have been any use."
Shax flopped into the chair to put his head in his arms. "Oh, well. Probably not. Where's my Ness?"
"Having a fit of his own," Verin grumbled. "Don't know what the fuck that dark matter whatsit did, but it screwed with his head."
"I better find him."
"You better park your ass in that damn chair a minute and help me figure out why the hell we're not getting beacon signals."
"We're not getting what beacon signals?"
Right. The whole unconscious thing. "From Sol perimeter."
"Oh. We're that far already?" Shax leaned on his elbows so he could frown at the readouts. "Did you run diagnostics?"
"Yeah. Twice. I'm not an idiot. Nothing."
"Was just a question, Ver." Shax tapped at the console and brought up the diagnostic program anyway.
"So why the fuck run it again?"
"Just want to see if anything jumps out at me." Shax closed his eyes on a shudder, apparently thinking about the phrase in a brand new way.
Verin waited a whole five seconds before he prodded, "And?"
"Nothing. Comm systems check out. I assume it's some odd damage our programs can't pick up." Shax sighed and put his head back down. "That's all right. Send the standard damaged ship warning as we go in. Put a flag on it that we're sending but not receiving. We'll find a mechanic on Europa to take a look at it."
"How do we know we're sending?"
"I suppose we don't. Wing and a prayer, if you pardon the expression."
Verin let the steam curl silently from his nostrils. Normally, he would have slammed Shax for stupid attempts at puns, but he just looked so miserable. Took all the fun out of insulting him. "Not gonna puke on my boards, are you?"
"Promise not to. I'll aim for your feet."
"Thanks."
"Anything for you, Ver." Shax's voice had faded to a drowsy murmur.
Probably all right if he sleeps there, isn't it?
"Shax?" Ness stood in the doorway, wings trembling.
Shit. Doesn't anyone have a whole voice today? At least the twink had resurfaced. "Where the hell have you been, wing boy?"
Ness clutched the door seal in one hand. "Hunting frogs. Ms. Ivana says there's only one more loose."
Verin grunted at that. At least he was making himself useful instead of freaking out.
Shax turned the chair, head cradled in one hand as if it weighed several metric tons. "Hello, cupcake. You okay?"
Ness nodded frantically, the closest thing to a lie he could manage, apparently.
"Where are you putting the nasty things? In the trash compactor?"
"No…Shax, we promised to deliver them." Ness ducked his head farther. "What's left of them. I have a new tank. For the males. The females…some survived. They're in one of the two undamaged tanks. The eggs are in the other."
A hard shudder wracked Shax's body. "Eggs. Oh, crud." He put his head on his knees and took slow, careful breaths. "Please don't mention them again if you can help it."
A croak sounded nearby. Suddenly energized, Shax leaped up onto his chair, his voice shaking as he cried out, "Where is it? Fuck! Ivana! Where is the thing?"
"It's on Twinkle's belt, hon," Ivana said at her most soothing. "He's got a little plasticrete cage for frog hunting that I helped him put together."
"No. Just no. Oh, damn, damn and damn." Shax curled into a ball on the chair, panting.
"It's all right." Ness took a step into the pilot's pod. "I nearly have them all. I won't let—"
"No!" Shax shrieked as Ness reached for him. "Don't touch my with your froggy hands! Don't! Not until you've disinfected! Several times!"
Ness dropped his hand, his look so stricken it would have made a rock demon cry. "I'm sorry. Shax…I'm so sorry."
The poor angel fled with his frog, leaving Shax trembling in his chair and Verin with the uncomfortable feeling that he'd just seen things he couldn't un-see.
Shax uncurled far enough to start tapping listlessly at the console again. "I'm going to have to fix that," he murmured. "I have a lot of things to fix."
Whatever Shax thought he had to fix, he didn't seem in a hell-bent rush to do it. He sat there scrolling through files until he did that little aha grunt that meant he'd found whatever the fuck he was looking for.
"What're you reading, genius?"
"The instructions for the cargo." Shax kept reading but Verin heard the unspoken the ones you should have read loud and clear.
He managed to keep his snorted sparks small, but it pissed him off when Shax was right. Course adjusted, ship beacon sending, Verin didn't have much to do until they got into more populated space. It could get hairy later if they still weren't receiving any info on traffic reports but they'd limped into port on visuals and proximity alarms before.
"Who put the water in the tanks?" Shax finally asked in the same dead-tired, so-not-Shax voice.
"Frogs need water."
"Who put the water in?"
"Twinkles did, all right? Fuck, Shax. Don't get mad at him again. I don't think his little heart can take it. He didn't want the stinking frogs to die."
Shax blinked at him, his eyes red-rimmed and foggy. "I'm not mad at him."
"The way the twink looked, pretty sure he doesn't agree with you."
"He's not a twink. He's taller than I am." Shax's voice had gone extra flat, that first warning sign that he was getting pissed. Not that Shax ticked off was scary or anything, but being mad probably wasn't good for him.
"Whatever."
"Ver…" Shax slumped farther in his chair. "This is why you need to read instructions. The Biogen 4000 Amphi-tank is a self-contained, self-sustaining, species-specific environment. Do not attempt to hydrate specimens once the tank is sealed. Introducing water into the system may seriously damage tank integrity."
"Yeah, yeah. I fucking get it."
Shax stared at the text some more, but Verin wouldn't swear to him actually reading. He was chewing on his bottom lip as he did when he worried at something. "I…have things to do. Yell for me if anything looks weird out there, Ver. Something's not right here."
In the unnatural silence, Verin stomped a clawed foot on the decking in frustration. Sol system should have been noisy as shit, they were getting nothing, and now Shax said he was getting a bad feeling. Fuck. Shax might not always listen to his intuition, but he was a Demon Prince, after all. Even in exile that fabled instinct hadn't faded. Pissed Verin the hell off having one more thing to worry about.
* * * *
Shax wandered the ship's corridors aimlessly. An excavation crew had set up shop in his head. A family of knife jugglers had decided his spine would be a nice place to practice. His left arm had that heavy set of aches that told him it had been dislocated and forced back into place. Things nagged at the back of his brain, but he couldn't think clearly enough to get them to gel, and now he'd upset Ness. Upset Ness more.
His calls over the comm went unanswered, and when he asked Ivana where his angel was, asked quite sweetly, the damnable computer told him Ness was busy.
"But I need him." He let his voice tremble. The artificial intelligence in their ship's comp did seem to react favorably to pitiful.
"You can wait until he's ready to see you. You made him cry. Such a nasty bully sometimes."
"Am not." Shax leaned against the corridor wall, head in both hands. "I just hurt like hell."
Ivana sniffed. "Maybe he does, too."
Shax heaved a long-suffering sigh, giving up the fight. He didn't have the energy. Bed sounded good. He would lie down, maybe nap, let Ness come to him, and then get down on his knees and apologize as if his life depended on it. He shouldn't care. Ness was just another pretty bit to decorate his bed.
Yes. Keep lying to yourself just because you feel like crap. Moron.
He pushed off the wall, keeping a hand on the plates for balance. Bed. Yes. He wasn't thinking straight. One foot in front of the other—
A horrid creak froze him mid-step. Something moved into the middle of the dimly lit corridor, something on the floor, something that hopped.
Heart slamming against his breastbone, Shax backpedaled to the nearest comm. He hit the all-ship corner of the pad and screamed, "Ness! Ness! Fuck! It's here with me!"
The slimy thing took another hop toward him. Shax stumbled back another step. He shouldn't be so afraid. He had been in the hold with several hundred of them, though that was before the damn things had blown up all over him.
The vibration of running footsteps pounding the decking reached through the soles of his boots before the sound. Wings flattened hard against his back, Ness careened into view at the far cross-corridor, his eyes narrowed, his jaw set.
He obviously had his prey in sight, but Shax couldn't help pointing and blurting out, "There! It's right there!"
"I see it, love," Ness said softly. "Stay still please. Calm and still."
The Shax of a few weeks ago would have laughed and tossed off a smartass remark. Now he just swallowed hard and squeaked out, "Okay."
Ness spared him one anguished look and then got down on the deck plates with the frog. "Easy, little one. You don't want to be here. There's no food and no water. No females either."
"It's one of those nasty males?" Shax murmured.
Ness shrugged a wing. "Maybe."
"Can't you just kill it?"
Ness shot him another wounded look and went back to frog whispering. Of course. What a stupid, stupid thing to say to him. Ness's refusal to commit murder, for any reason, was the treasonous act that had prompted his eviction from the heavenly hosts.
The frog turned toward Ness, maybe attracted to his scent, maybe just attracted to Ness like everything in the universe seemed to be. It stared with those horrid protruding eyes. Then it jumped. Shax clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle his cry as Ness pounced, jerking forward to cup his hands around the thing and scoop it neatly into his little belt cage.
Shax sagged against the wall, panting and shaking. "My hero," he managed to gasp out. Ness's worried gaze had found him again, so Shax held up a finger for patience. "Cupcake, you know I think you're the best thing since gold smelting. And I need to have some time with you. But could I ask you to secure your little friend and take a shower before you come talk to me?"
"Will you be all right alone?"
"Oh, I'd imagine so." Shax stuck to the wall while Ness made his reluctant way down the corridor toward the hold. A tremor ran through Ness's wings before he rounded the corner and Shax frowned. Freaked out, Verin had said. His angel needed him to find his balls again. Ness obviously held things in that ate at his insides.
Problem is, I think I left my balls under a frog orgy.
"Fuck it. I'll just have to fake it."
Shax shambled back to his room and curled up on the bed to wait for Ness. His angel didn't waste time, sweeping into the room seconds later, stripping on his way to the shower. The sight of that glorious, muscular ass just before Ness cycled the door shut was a wonderful distraction. The sonic shower hummed, Ness being too polite and too frugal to waste water on himself.
Within five minutes, Ness stepped out again, shoving his tangled hair out of his eyes, not even holding a towel in front since there was no need.
"Ness. Sweetheart. Do you know how beautiful you are?"
Instead of the blush he'd wanted, Shax received a noncommittal shrug. He opened his arms and at least that got a better response. Ness rushed to him, flung himself onto the bed, arms wrapped around Shax tight. He hid his face against Shax's shoulder, rocking them both in an agitated way.
"I'm here," Shax whispered. "I'm here. You've needed me and I've just been falling apart in tiny shrieking pieces."
"Shax, no." Ness's whisper held the threat of tears. "It's all my fault. All of this. Your heart being sliced open. The frogs on your ship. The failure of the tanks. The explosion. I read all the instructions while you were…after you were…"
"Sh, sh, it's all right, hon. I'm all right."
Ness hiccoughed a breath. "I read them all. I put the water in the tanks that made their seals fail. The frogs mixed, male and female, and started the mating orgy. The dark matter generator—the instructions say not to allow certain biological materials to touch it. Especially…especially embryonic material."
"The eggs," Shax murmured, pulling Ness closer.
"Yes. Oh, Shax. I've made a terrible mess of everything."
"Sweetness, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. And you certainly can't prevent me from making my classic ones of being in exactly the wrong places at the wrong times. Something's disturbed you. Profoundly. Something besides seeing me hurt again."
Ness stilled in his arms, his heartbeat fluttering against Shax's ribs before his pulse steadied again. "The explosion…dark matter. I don't know why I thought it would be dark. But it's not visible at all. It was just strange. Vastly strange. It did something. To us. To the ship. I've watched the vids over and over, trying to figure it out, but of course I can't see anything. Something shifted. Something that feels so wrong."
"Wrong. In what way?"
"I don't know. If I could explain it…" A violent shudder wracked Ness and he burrowed closer, one wing wrapping around Shax as if it could hide him from the wrongness. "Shax, I'm afraid."
"It's over now. Whatever happened, it's done. We need to rest, cupcake. We're both exhausted." He petted Ness until his angel's shaking subsided, but his own unease only grew. Something so wrong. Hell's depths, I wish I knew what.
* * * *
"Hey, Shax?" Verin's growl over the comm woke Shax from a sound sleep.
"Busy. Go away."
"Not caring. Stop stuffing your dick in angel anatomy and get up here."
"Always so polite." Shame of it was, he didn't have his genitalia anywhere near angel anatomy unless one counted the arm draped across his stomach.
He sat up, taking stock, gently moving Ness so he could swing his legs out of bed. At least the headache had subsided. He leaned over to kiss Ness's soft, parted lips. "I'll just be a few minutes."
Ness murmured something about staying safe and hugged the pillow but didn't wake all the way. With a fond smile and a soft curse at his foolish heart, Shax tucked the blankets around his sleeping angel and left his cabin.
The door to the pilot's pod slid open as he approached. He flung himself into the copilot's chair and brought up his displays. "What's gotten in your panties, Ver?"
"We're on approach to Europa."
"Oh. That was fast."
"You've been asleep for a whole day, idiot." Verin jutted his chin at the viewscreen. "Anything look off to you?"
Shax watched the slow shifting of Jupiter's atmosphere, the dark dots of its moons girdling its equator. Everything seemed where it should—
"It's awfully quiet out there." No ships gleamed nearby in the traffic lanes. No sat beacons blinked along the route. "Where the hell is everyone?"
"Yeah. That's what I've been thinking for the past few hours. Something's really wrong here."
Fingers flying over the console, Shax ran through the channels, visual, audio, various signal wavelengths. Nothing. The comm system might have been damaged, but they should have been picking up something by now, some evidence of other spacefarers.
"Ver, I don't like this."
"Can't say I do either. We go in for a closer look?"
"I don't see what else we can do."
For once, Verin didn't snarl and cuss, though that was unnerving, too. They sat in uneasy silence, watching Jupiter's moons grow larger on the screens. It reminded Shax of the first time he had stolen from his mother. Verin had helped him and when she had discovered the theft, the two of them had hidden in a dark tunnel, side by side, barely breathing while they waited for the inevitable. Mommy dearest's minions had found them eventually, and punishment had been swift and painful, but in those breathless moments of panicked anticipation, there had been a bizarre sort of camaraderie, a bonding in each anxiety-soaked heartbeat.
Shax reached out and gripped Verin's arm now as he had done then. Verin didn't pull away.
"Ver?"
"Yeah?"
"There are no satellites around the moons."
"I've got eyes, dumbass."
"No stations. No docking domes."
"Nope." Verin's hand closed over his. "Think there was a war?"
"There should be…wreckage, right? Debris? Something?"
"Breathe, Shaxy. Don't panic."
"How could everything be gone?"
Verin just shook his head. They came in on approach, running silent, no need to keep sending with no one to receive.
"Something terrible happened here. Ivana?"
"Hey, cutie. What's up?"
"Scan the surface of Europa, please. Tell me if you pick up any power signatures, any sign of habitation, any evidence of a catastrophic event."
"Scanning." A few seconds clicked by before Ivana responded. "No can do, Hot Stuff."
"What? Why?"
"There's nothing."
"Oh, come on! There has to be something! Slagged foundations? A smoking hole in the ground or two?"
"Nothing, sweetie. It's like no one ever came to Europa."
Shax drummed his fingers on the console. Something's not right. Something's very much not right. "Ver, change course," he said softly.
"What the fuck for?"
"We need to see if Earth is still there."