Tink was resigned. Despite all sense, they'd agreed to the contract from Ellis: rescue two packages from a ship adrift. One was a small container holding an experiment of the Dominion Science Council, the second a crate of well-aged Asterian wine that was precious to the noble requesting the salvage. After they retrieved those packages, they could do whatever they wanted with the wreck: salvage rights were theirs.
She sat hunched at the table in the common room, having left her self-imposed exile in the engine room after they rose out of the slipstream. Now that they were inside the target system's asteroid belt, Severn was on watch as Cass took over piloting while Alek got some rest. However, what Alek was doing didn't seem very restful to her. The repetitive thwap-thwap-pow coming from the other side of the common room would be almost hypnotic if it weren't so irritating. She watched him flick the paddle, the muscles in his forearms contracting as he returned Ish's volley. She sighed and huffed, blowing a curl out from in front of her eyes. He smiled when he scored a point against Ish, and a dimple formed on his cheek. Her eyebrows pulled together as she turned her attention to the starburst she was working on and tried to focus. The thing was tiny, and the springs, gears and pinions were blurry despite the goggles. She took care to avoid the charge; it wouldn't do to blind her crewmates in an explosion of light.
At Kandi's laugh, she lifted her head and strained her neck, cracking out a spot of tension. Kandi stood over Ish's shoulder, giving encouragement with an smile on a face more accustomed to being fierce. Tink squinted at Alek and Ish, and the game they played. She grimaced. She'd never mastered Kora, with its paddles and balls — she didn't have the necessary coordination. She watched as Ish's hand flicked and Alek's forearm twitched. The pilot's powerful build gave him little advantage in this game of reflex. Even so, judging by the grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes — and the look of concentration on Ish's — Alek didn't seem to be doing too badly. She dropped her eyes to examine her starburst again, a frown on her lips.
A half minute later, she glanced over at the captain, who sat beside her in companionable silence, the traitorous Grim in her lap, purring away. She was ostensibly reading something on her tablet, but Tink saw her glance at the game, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
The thwap-thwap ended with a hurrah. Ish's voice. Tink looked up with a smile to congratulate her friend, only to see Alek patting Ish on the back. "Rematch?"
Ish beamed back at him. Tink felt a jolt as she realized her friend was almost as tall as Alek.
"Next time," Ish said, running a hand through his hair, glancing at the clock. "I should get cleaned up." He looked back at Alek, who'd lifted his shirt to wipe a sheen of sweat off his face, revealing toned abs. "So should you," Ish continued. "We're nearing our destination." He snatched up the tunic he'd divested when they started playing and left the room.
Alek, on the other hand, filled a glass with water and came to join her and Rebeka, flipping the chair around to sit in it backwards. Tink grimaced at Kandi when she mimicked him. Kandi pulled a face in return, and Tink pretended to be absorbed by her starburst.
Rebeka lifted her head. "You are needed on the bridge, pilot." But her light tone took any command out of those words.
"Why?" Tink scoffed, examining a spring. "So he can hotshot us into the sun?" Silence fell, and she looked up to see the cause. They all stared at her, even the cat. Kandi's eyes narrowed and her arms crossed over her chest, while Rebeka's lips pressed together, and Grim's ears flicked. But Alek's expression was unfathomable. Tink shifted in the chair that had become suddenly uncomfortable.
"Why don't you like me?" he asked, turning the glass around in his hand. He gazed at her with that inscrutable look in his storm-blue eyes, not breaking away.
Tink peered at the half-finished starburst, then forced herself to meet his eyes again. "It's not that I don't like you. I don't like you taking risks with my ship."
"Your ship?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
"All engineers see the ship as theirs." Rebeka's tone ended the brewing argument before it began. Then she stood up, unceremoniously dislodging the now disgruntled cat. "But Ish is right. We should all get ready to work."
"Aye aye, Captain." Alek stood up and gave her a mock salute before heading for the door. Rebeka graced him with a half-frown that was almost the same as a smile.
"Oh, that kind of thing will get you killed," Kandi said with that same easy smile that unsettled Tink, pushing him ahead. She stopped at the door and gave a stage whisper over her shoulder. "I think he likes you." Her laugh at Tink's grimace was full-throated. Tink's heart lifted to see her friends so happy. Then it crashed again. How can they excuse Alek's behaviour? She sighed as the cat jumped into her lap and started kneading.
Rebeka turned to the coffee machine to refill her mug then started for the door.
"Maybe we can get a new pilot at the next port," Tink said, looking down at the cat, which peered at her with his green eyes.
"No." Rebeka's voice brooked no argument.
"But we'll pass a port while slipping back." Tink looked at her, hoping her face conveyed worry for the ship and its crew, not antipathy towards Alek. Because it wasn't that she disliked him; she just disliked his flying and his mannerisms...the impact he had on her friends and the bundle of nerves in her abdomen since he'd come on board.
"We're not breaking in a new pilot mid-job." Rebeka's voice softened. "Besides, the next port is where we drop off the cargo, and he may not want to stay on with you being such a grumpus." She headed out the door and down the corridor to the bridge.
"But..." Tink dropped the cat, who chirruped his disgust, to run after Rebeka, who was already halfway to the bridge.
Arriving at the bridge, Rebeka became Captain again. "Where's the target?"
"Coordinates are just the other side of this moon." Alek looked between his display and the viewscreen, which was filled with an opalescent green orb. Ish leaned over and read off some numbers, his voice too low for Tink to hear. Alek gave a sharp nod, then the ship banked as he shifted its trajectory.
"Not getting any signals," Kandi said, the seriousness back in her expression. Severn sat at the station beside her, scrolling through the sensor readings.
Tink leaned towards the captain. "We could pop back to the last gate..."
"No," Rebeka said, lacing the word with more sharpness than a single word should have. The captain didn't even glance at her, instead keeping her focus on the viewscreen where something large had appeared now that the moon was at the edge of their field of view. Much too massive to be some minor noble's pleasure craft. Tink's stomach felt like tiger ants gnawed at it.
The bridge went silent as everyone tried to process the scene in front of them. Tink's mouth dropped open. But it was Alek who said what she was thinking.
"What the hell is that?"