“Did you say treason?” There’s a flash of surprise before Leef locks the emotion down.
“Talie!” Renner rounds on me. “I’m working on a plan.” He taps his temple.
“We’re out of options, Ren.” Meloran is so close, I can feel it. If a little more information could get us there, then why not? It seems an acceptable risk.
“But—”
“Color me intrigued,” Leef interrupts. “Are we talking rebellion on a small scale or is this more, oh, I don’t know, galactic?”
The spark of hope sputters. As a Rimmer, Leef can’t be trusted. He has his own secrets, but without knowing what they are, we’ve got no leverage. I just have to hope that the same gut feeling I had when Dot approached us won’t fail me now.
“Unbuckle your harness.” I meet our captain’s gaze.
“Talie, you don’t need—”
I raise my hand, palm out, to silence Renner. I have no doubt he could find a way for us to get to Meloran, but it might have included theft and fighting, and we need a sure thing.
“Okaaay.” The word drips with suspicion as Leef unclips his harness. “Should I be worried?”
I close my eyes. I can feel…everything. I don’t know if I just needed rest or if my ability is growing from use, but I sense the mass of every movable object in the cockpit. It’s overwhelming and intoxicating.
Leef rests solidly in his chair—not heavy in a clunky sense, just weighed down with muscle. It’s a similar feeling to Renner’s mass, and yet I know Ren’s shape by heart. He’s as solid in my mind as the chair I’m sitting in, and it would take a mere thought to raise him because he feels like an extension of myself.
I force my eyes open. My cheeks are flushed, and I realize Renner’s dark hair is floating like we’re in Zero-G. The familiarity I feel for him goes so much deeper than I’m willing to admit. I meet his gaze and know he’s asking if I’m all right. I offer a nod then refocus my attention on Leef, where it should have been this whole time.
“We’re talking rebellion.” I turn to the young captain. “On a galactic scale.”
Then, with a flick, he rises into the air, still in a seated position. His mouth goes slack, and his hands fumble.
“What in the bloody black?” Leef’s arms continue to flail, but I won’t let him get within reach of anything. I let him feel out of sorts. Let him get a small taste of what Renner and I have faced while racing through the galaxy on a mission that I’m starting to think is fated to fail.
“We need to know if we have your loyalty, Captain.” Another flick of my finger, and he swivels upside down. His shock is comical, and I force down a laugh.
Renner doesn’t have the same compunction and snorts behind me. “Sweet muffins, this is the best.”
“I must insist you let Captain Leef go.” Dot’s been watching the whole time, but the levels of subtext clouded the situation until now. It’s clear to the bot the captain might be in danger.
“I’m fine, Dot.” Leef’s turning deep crimson. “But it would be lovely to be right side up. That is, if you’re done showing off, Gravless?”
I flip him fast and send him inches above his seat before letting him drop onto the cushion. His cheeks remain flushed, and there’s a hardness to his features I don’t like. It wasn’t that I wanted to scare him, but I need Leef to understand this isn’t some Rim-Run. We’re serious, and we need a captain who is, too.
“What’s in Meloran?” He straightens his loose tunic and sniffs.
“We need to meet with the High Council.”
“That’s all he needs to know, Tal.” Renner quickly recovers from his fit of laughter. “You’ll get your payment, Debray, and more for your cooperation and silence.” He sounds more like the royal guard he is.
“The High Council doesn’t meet on Meloran.” Leef’s voice is casual now. Too casual.
“What do you know of it?” I lean forward in earnest, but he doesn’t react. Instead, he meets me with a cool stare, daring me to unravel it. We know he’s got contacts all over the galaxy, but even that shouldn’t be enough to locate the ultra-secretive meetings of the High Council.
“Well?” I press.
“Maybe I don’t know.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It’s just something I’ve heard.”
I want to push. Where has he heard this? Are his sources reliable? Those secrets are surfacing, and—
“Will you take us?” This time, it’s Renner who pleads. Not in a groveling way, just with a raw question. It makes me step back from Leef, crossing my arms and pacing away.
I want to argue that we should wait him out, uncover what he knows, but I take a breath to steady myself. Perhaps Renner senses something I don’t. Some type of plan he’s setting into motion I don’t understand—yet. Or maybe he senses that Leef is the type of guy who won’t share. Maybe he’s right.
I spin back and see Leef look out the view screen, rubbing at his neck again. There’s not much to see aside from the duraplast interior of the port, maintenance bots zipping past and drones carrying items through the hall in front of us.
“You had to be Gravless.” Leef groans.
“Does it matter? You’ll be well paid and, once we’re on Meloran, your job will be done.” I try to play to a Rimmer’s desires and hope my promise of payment is enough.
“I’ve never been this close to royalty.” Leef finally meets my gaze.
“Let’s keep it that way.” Renner mumbles, but we all hear him. I never took him for jealous, but with the attention Leef gives me, flirtatious and ridiculous as it is, he seems to be affected by it. I let the thought warm me before I press it down.
“So, you’re her what? Royal guard?”
“Something like that.” Renner doesn’t look at me.
“Passage to Meloran. That’s it? That’s all you want?”
I can’t help but think this is a test, though I don’t know what for, but I won’t endanger Freyda by mentioning our connection to her father.
“Should there be something else we bind you to? Or are you planning to renege on this deal as well?” Renner’s eyes narrow.
“Don’t get your shorts in a twist, mate. Just making sure I’m hearing this right.”
“Yes.” I wait until he meets my gaze. “Safe and undetected passage to Meloran. That’s it.”
We hold the stare, long and unblinking, like a game I used to play as a child. Somehow Merritt always made me blink first, but this time I won’t cave.
Leef blinks. “Fine. Let’s figure out how we’re getting out of here.” He spins in his chair and begins flipping through screens and typing like he’s outmaneuvering a fighter pilot with his fingers.
“What’s your plan?” Renner comes to stand over him.
“Visually, there are a few things we can do, but digitally even more. I can paint the canvas of the Andromeda however I’d like. Change the ship’s class, signature, things like that.”
“I thought it had no signature?” I say.
“True, but if you see a ship, and the instruments tell you there’s no ship, what do you think?”
“That something is wrong.”
“Exactly. We’ll provide a good story with this signature. Dot,” he doesn’t look at the bot, but its head swivels to him. “Can you go out and attach packet Alpha-03 to the hull?”
“Yes, Master Leef. Right away.” It unhooks from its port and zips toward the back of the ship.
“What’s that?” The bot takes out large crates only to disappear through a small interior airlock.
“Camouflage, love.” Leef’s reply is accompanied by a toothy grin.
Renner steps between us, effectively blocking Leef’s gaze, and starts pointing out things over Leef’s shoulder. Leef tries and fails to shoo him away, and the two begin debating the best way to make the mods to the ship.
By all appearances, Leef seems back to his usual, flirtatious self, but I don’t believe it. There was too much in the look he gave me. Like his façade fractured when I outed myself as Gravless, and he needed time to patch the crack. It’s how I felt when Renner dropped me during our act.
But what is Leef hiding below the surface?
I move through the ship, back to my berth, and slide the door up. I don’t know where we are exactly, but I estimate it’s at least another day’s travel before we reach Meloran. I’ll let the boys figure out the ship changes and take this time to rest.
I slip onto the lower bunk and close the covering. Darkness and silence surround me like a cocoon, and I let the worry seep out of me, relaxing tired muscles. When I breathe in, the space smells like Renner. The faint dusk mint swirls around me, sweet and spicy. It must be coming from the bunk above mine. The distraction forces me onto my side in an attempt to shove thoughts of him out of my head.
I need the silence for as long as it will last. I know it was right to show Leef who I am, but now I feel vulnerable. Exposed. Necessity demands we trust him as our best chance at reaching Meloran quickly, but it’s still a risk.
Meloran. I close my eyes and remember the images Freyda used to show me. We’d lay on her bed with the holo playing her home videos above us, images of lush, verdant greenery and water teeming with life all around us. I wonder again how Freyda is doing, the ache in my chest growing. And what about the rest of the circus? Are they safe?
The ache deepens, flooding through me at the thought of never seeing them again, of the life I’ll never get back. I curl into a ball. I know it wasn’t meant for me to be the Soaring Starress forever, but that doesn’t mean I can’t miss it. It was the best life I’ve known in all my seventeen cycles.
But do I wish I weren’t Gravless? That it wasn’t my responsibility to rule?
My eyes open to darkness without stars. It feels wrong, off somehow, as if all blackness should be accompanied by pinpricks of ancient light. The troubles that have befallen the Xerus Galaxy aren’t my fault, but they are my responsibility.
The sooner I accept that, the easier this should be.