“Which is when local Junktion residents Jrill and”—the news reader glanced down at their notes—“Firstname Lastname, is that right? I’m being told it’s right. Jrill and Firstname sprang into action and tracked the dangerous Gomeltic into the reclamation tunnels and valiantly wrestled the creature back to the surface, where it was safely taken into quarantine by station personnel.”
The feed switched from the studio set to stock footage of First looking uncomfortably past the camera. “It was just the right thing to do,” she said unsteadily. “I’m sure anyone would have done it. We were just in the right place at the right time to see where Guin … the creature escaped into the sewers.”
Loritt paused the recording with a flex of his fingers and glanced at Jrill wearily. “Care to explain this one?”
Jrill stood at parade-ground attention. “I think the news segment covered the basics very well, for once.”
“I notice it left off the part where First was the one to let it loose on the station in the first place,” Loritt said. “Causing a loss of limb to one customs agent and slashing wounds to several bystanders not quite fleet-footed enough to get out of the way?”
“I’m sure I don’t know anything about that, boss.”
“So the beast just muscled its way out of a locked counter-grav crate while First looked on innocently, then?”
“Gomeltics are famous across the Assembly for their strength, boss.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Loritt laced his fingers. “I still have a peephole on her hacking deck she missed. Did a damned fine job getting the rest of them, I’ll give her credit there. But I know she popped the lock on that crate. The only reason she’s not on her way to a holding cell right now is she managed, somehow, to recognize and correct her mistake. Don’t suppose you had anything to do with that?”
“May have nudged her a bit. Still can’t figure out what she saw in that monster, though.”
Loritt considered his resident Turemok for several rakims. “There’s only one thing you need to know to understand humans. For millions of cycles of their evolution, predators called lions, and tigers, and panthers shredded untold thousands of their ancestors alive.”
“And the surviving humans hunted them to extinction,” Jrill said.
“No, that’s just it. Humans venerated them. Worshiped them as gods. Built monuments to them. And finally shrank them down, called them ‘kitties,’ invited them into their homes, and then invented the internet so they could share cute videos of them with each other. They’re complete lunatics.” Loritt shook his head in exasperation.
“Anyway, First is on probation,” he said finally. “If she so much as sneezes in an unapproved direction, she’s getting turned over to station security with evidence of her stealing my aircar and popping the lock on that crate. Am I clear?”
“I’ll make sure she understands the gravity of the situation.”
“No, you won’t.”
Jrill cocked her head. “Boss?”
“I don’t want her to know how thin the ice under her is. I want to see what choices she makes based on her own conscience. I want to see if she’s actually learned anything. So you’re not going to tell her she’s on probation as you give her a briefing on her first individual assignment.”
Jrill’s posture broke, just for a moment. “I’m sorry, but you’re putting her on secret probation, then sending her out on a contract by herself, and that doesn’t strike you as particularly reckless?”
“Finally, some unprompted candor,” Loritt said. “Fear not. This is a decidedly low-stakes job and one that, as fate would have it, our young human is uniquely suited for.”
“This is complete bullshit,” First said as the briefing concluded.
“I’ll assume that’s a curse meant to convey dissatisfaction,” Jrill responded.
“A safe assumption.”
“I don’t entirely understand,” Jrill said. “You are being awarded greater independence and responsibility. Neither of which, if we’re both being honest, you’ve actually earned in the last week.”
“Please, spare me the pep talk,” First said. “Loritt’s giving me this job because I’m the only human on the team and I happen to be the right gender.”
“You’re the only human on any team, as far as I’m aware,” Jrill replied. “And that’s an advantage, just as my Turemok military experience was an advantage on the Pay to Prey job. We all bring not only unique talents but unique openings for the team.”
“Well, I’d prefer to keep control over my ‘openings,’ if you don’t mind,” First said. “Have you met any early-twenties human males? They are the worst creatures in the entire universe. Not the most dangerous or the most cunning. Just. The. Worst. They’re half the reason I’m out here, because aside from a handful of fetish weirdos, nobody is staring at me like I’m a piece of meat.”
“There are plenty of carnivorous species on Junktion that, given the chance—” Jrill started, but First stopped her.
“Not that kind of meat. That I can handle.”
“This is the job,” Jrill said with finality. “You are the only one who can do it. Are you doing your job or not?”
First sighed her surrender. “But I don’t even like hair metal…”
The trip from Junktion to catch up with the Wolverines’ next appearance meant two full days locked up in yet another transport. Fortunately, First was an old pro and knew all the tricks to keep from getting too stiff or going stir-crazy.
She was on her own for this one. It was hardly the first time, but she’d just been getting used to the feeling of having some backup if things went south and found she already missed it. Jrill had said the rest of the team was splitting off to handle another time-sensitive job and it was the only practical way to do both simultaneously, but First harbored doubts. This was another one of Loritt’s tests.
Testing her for what was the question.
The transport’s captain broke through over the intercom to announce they were on terminal approach to Mulos Minor. From there, First still had a four-hour real-space shuttle ride from the planet’s orbit out to the large shepherd moon near the edge of its ring system where the concert venue was actually located.
First endured the last leg of the trip preparing her deck. Despite their meteoric rise and smashing tour success, the Wolverines had a cash flow problem. Whether due to truly rock-star spending habits or to criminally negligent levels of mismanagement, they were selling out hundred thousand–seat venues and walking away with little or nothing to show for it, week after week.
The star liner company they’d leased their tour bus from had finally had enough and called in a repo contract. It was a paltry score as Loritt’s usual paydays went, scarcely worth more than his Proteus by the time all the expenses were tabulated.
But it was also a dead-easy job. The leasing company had turned over all of the tour bus’s access codes and system protocols. All she had to do was get past whatever security personnel the band had, and she could fly it out without so much as breaking a sweat or muttering a curse.
Unfortunately, the easiest way to do that was also by far the least appealing to First’s sensibilities and pride.
First comforted herself with the knowledge that any temporary indignities she experienced would be offset almost immediately by the satisfaction of stealing their ride.
The shuttle settled in for a landing at the spaceport that pulled double duty, servicing both the small mining concern that employed a few thousand people per year and the concert venue that had a few million visitors annually.
Other shuttles followed, disgorging their passengers in waves of a thousand or more at a time. The growing crowd of fans trended into two camps that First had already noticed on her own transport: about 80 percent young music obsessives from across dozens of species, and about 20 percent older, wealthier attendees whose hungry glances betrayed their desire to prey on the rest.
The youth among the crowd were decked out in Wolverines gear, furry gloves with plastic claws, torn T-shirts, and red bandannas. Some of them carried homemade replica AK-47s on slings. Two of them ran around together in a Russian attack helicopter costume, making fake gun runs on small groups.
It was all in good fun. The weapons scanners at the entrances would pick out any energy packs or chemical propellants a terrorist might try to sneak in among the harmless props. First, who hadn’t even brought her manual lock-picking set, passed through without incident.
She angled for the nearest bathroom where she could enjoy a little privacy to change into her “uniform” for the evening. First passed by a three-headed T-shirt vendor hawking their wares at a simply superhuman volume while seemingly arguing with … themself? Themselves?
For a moment, First considered buying a tour shirt to blend in, but thought better of it. There was nothing more worthless from a fandom legitimacy standpoint than a freshly bought shirt. Concert memorabilia cred, like wine, accumulated with vintage.
Instead, she found an open stall and dug into her carry-on for the platform heels, neon-green fishnet stockings, vinyl miniskirt, and Whitesnake halter top she’d paid a fashion boutique a pretty penny to screen print before leaving Junktion.
Looking around at the rest of the ladies in the crowd, or their equivalents, First made a few small adjustments to her outfit. She adjusted her halter top to hang off one shoulder, tied her hair up in a messy ponytail near the top of her head, and tore some holes in her fishnets, which, ironically, reduced the total number of holes they had.
First followed the flow of the crowd through the turnstiles, presented her ticket, smiled pleasantly as the overworked gate attendant failed to spot the forgery, then entered the venue, looked up, and experienced a moment of unbridled terror.
Mulos Minor was something of a minor miracle. Several hundred thousand years earlier, as the native sentients were still figuring out how to smelt copper, the planet trapped a small planetoid ejected by a nearby gas giant in its gravity well. For a few thousand years, all was well, and the inhabitants welcomed a new god to their pantheon. But then, gravitational stresses between the planet, its moon, and the newcomer took their toll, disintegrating the planetoid and throwing billions of fragments into eccentric orbits and causing a devastating period of bombardment on Mulos Minor’s surface, centered on its equatorial region. The band of craters was still clearly visible even from orbit.
But in the aftermath of the tragedy, rings formed. The few native survivors restarted their civilization and grew to flourish, making Mulos Minor one of only a handful of inhabited worlds with a naturally occurring ring system.
From the surface, looking up through the planet’s atmosphere, the rings were quite a sight. But from the airless surface of the tidally locked moon, looking down the glimmering rings and onto the sapphire jewel of Mulos Minor itself, that was said to be one of the most stunning vistas in the quadrant.
Which is why an enterprising group of nouveau riche had dumped some money into carving an amphitheater into an old lava tube just north of the moon’s equator and glassing in the ceiling with one of the largest single unsupported panes ever laid down.
The glass was of such pristine quality and kept so thoroughly clean that for a fleeting moment, First’s eyes thought they looked out into open space. Her breath caught in her chest, and she was sure it was about to be scoured from her lungs by hungry vacuum. She wasn’t alone. Quite a fraction of the crowd paused in fear as soon as they entered the venue space.
First’s rational mind took control after a moment and forced her to breathe deeply. Once the shock passed, she stood there for a long time, letting the panorama above play out in her mind’s eye. She stared, openmouthed, at the gossamer rings laid out like the ridges of a platinum record glinting in the sun, and on down to the crescent pearl of Mulos Minor at the center. It was breathtaking in every sense of the word.
That’d make one hell of an album cover, First thought.
Something—no, First corrected herself, someone—bumped into her from behind.
“Oh. My. Lords!” the red, segmented being exclaimed at First’s face. “Your human cosplay is incredible!”
“Um, thanks?”
“The face, the skin tones, it must have taken forever!”
“About eighteen years, actually,” First said. “But my parents helped some.”
“Wow! Can I get a selfie?”
“I’d prefer if you—”
Flash!
“Right.”
“Thank you sooo much,” the red alien in the absurdly long Wolverines onesie said as they inch-wormed away. “My followers will love this. You’re amazing.”
“Great,” is all First could say as the crimson caterpillar disappeared into the surging throngs. The opening band began their sound checks. It would be showtime soon. For more than just the headliners.
First drifted over to the edge of the crowd where there was a little more wiggle room this early in the show, then began to excuse and elbow her way toward the stage where her trap was to be set. In the end, it was more elbowing than excusing. Sweating and swearing, First found herself pressed up against the barricades that separated the crowd from the stage. Right where she needed to be.
The opening band was made up of what looked like giant tardigrades in clown outfits playing Winger tunes. They were sufficient, but unmemorable, which is the sweet spot for any opener. You never wanted to upstage the main act. That was professional suicide. No matter where you were in the galaxy, there was etiquette to follow.
Then, the Wolverines took the stage. First, Beast Mode came out twirling his drumsticks. The crowd greeted him like a second cousin with three DUIs turning up at a family reunion. Polite, but reserved. Then Kip Burnheart walked out shooting a two-meter jet of flames out of his keytar, throwing the devil horns with his off hand. The crowd answered with a fresh wave of applause. Then Gordo took no notice of the crowd as he arranged himself onstage and began tuning up his bass guitar to a thunderous ovation.
Finally, the lead singer/guitarist, Eagle Independence, buoyed on gently flapping counter-grav wings, floated over the crowd and took the stage to a chorus of strobe lights and pyrotechnics.
On the strength of the greeting alone, he could’ve left the wings backstage. The crowd’s reaction would’ve held him aloft for twenty minutes at least. First just shook her head at the adoration.
“Heeeelloooo, Mulos Minor!” Eagle shouted into the old-fashioned microphone, complete with a cord and stand. The crowd shouted back, “Wolverines!” and the concert really got started. She had to admit, their human schtick was pretty good. First couldn’t see seams, zippers, or anything. Even the hair looked good. Then again, it would have to for a hair band, wouldn’t it?
For the next hour and a half, First endured Poison covers, being pushed, Aerosmith, shoved, Guns N’ Roses, an errant punch, and Twisted Sister. She wasn’t sure which type of assault was worse—the physical or the auditory.
At the end of KISS’s “Detroit Rock City,” the crowd was primed and ready for the grand finale. Eagle took a step back from the mic while the bassist strummed out a powerful bridging beat that slowly morphed into something familiar. The people around her noticed the shift as well and went totally off the rails as the base melody of “Pho Queue” took root. Eagle reappeared from backstage with what looked like a giant, shoulder-mounted, belt-fed grenade launcher. But if the crowd were concerned by the prospect of being torn limb from limb by shrapnel, it didn’t show.
“Who’s hungry?!” Eagle shouted. The crowd assured him that, indeed, they were quite famished. He smiled and pulled the trigger. The triple barrels started spinning. “Okay, you asked for it. Incoming!”
A second later, a stream of instant noodle cups shot out of the gun at six hundred rounds per minute with such force Eagle had to brace himself against the recoil. The cups flew out at twenty-five or thirty meters per second, fast enough that anyone standing directly in front of them could get seriously bruised.
The ammo belt ran dry, and the tri-barrel noodle shooter spun to a stop even as pockets of aliens fought over the last of the starchy souvenirs to land among them. Eagle dropped the noodle gun and threw two hands of devil horns before picking up his Stratocaster and returning to the mic. Halfway through the song, First found herself singing along with the chorus.
Once the band ducked backstage and the crowd started shouting, “Encore!” First made her move. The bulk of the security personnel were busy trying to contain the masses surging toward the stage; they wouldn’t notice a solitary young groupie slipping away into the background.
First hopped over the barricade that had thus far maintained a thin neutral zone between the horde and the stage. Security reacted to the intrusion almost immediately, but the fans behind her reacted even faster. Thirty of them were over the wall before the first guard laid a hand on any of them. First, who was the only one not trying to charge the stage, moved to the far side unnoticed.
She made it almost fifty meters before being challenged.
“Hey, you. Stop there!” an earnest voice called out from behind her.
“I’m with the band,” she called back dismissively and kept walking.
“I said stop!”
First, exuding annoyance, ceased her gait, and turned around with as much disdain as she could muster, and faced the multihorned, pebble-skinned toughie. “What?”
“Let me see your credentials,” the heavy said.
First pointed at her face. “You see any other humans around here?”
“Credentials.”
“Somebody in the crowd yanked my badge while your guys were dicking around trying to break up the push on the stage. Look for a big red caterpillar trying to pass themselves off as me. It won’t be hard.”
“Um…”
“The encore is almost over. I’ve got maybe three minutes to do the preflight and get the tour bus ready for departure before they’re going to need it, or we’ll be running behind for the next stop. Are you helping or not?”
“What’s a ‘minute’?”
“A human unit of time I can’t afford to waste.”
“Right this way, sir,” the guard said.
First rolled her eyes. “Close enough.”
With a renewed sense of urgency, First walked briskly toward the small hangar bay at the back of the venue, where the acts could come and go unseen by the attendees. A half dozen short-range private VIP transports sat scattered around the deck. At the center of it all, painted up in the most garish, red-, white-, and blue-wolverine-themed mural imaginable, sat the SunRunner II 2860. Fifty meters long, it was smaller than most in-system shuttles and just about the smallest hull you could mount a hyperspace portal generator on. But if you were only transporting a few people, it was a posh, if a little cramped, way to travel.
Some enterprising fans had ducked out early just as First had and collected around the tour bus, hoping to catch a glimpse, get an autograph, or even score a fling with their idols. A trio of security guards kept them at arm’s length on the other side of a velvet rope.
“What’s this?” one of them asked as the horned guard walked up with First.
“Preflight checks,” her escort said.
“Doesn’t the pilot do that?”
“He’s busy helping with teardown. They sent me to get started.”
“Where’s your badge?”
“Stolen,” First said. “I already went through all this with him.” She stuck a thumb out at her escort. “If I’m not done with my prep by the time they get here, I’ll get my ass chewed. So do you mind?”
The two guards exchanged weary glances before they waved her through the rope.
“Thanks. I’ll just be a minute.” First pulled her deck out and walked up to the tour bus main cabin hatch, which was wide open. She didn’t even need to put in the code.
Happy birthday to me, she thought as she dropped into the pilot’s chair. Even though it was small for a starship, it was still enormously bigger than any aircar she’d ever flown. But the controls were simplified for civilian users, so they didn’t need to get hyperspace certified to use it, and the automated systems were robust and redundant.
First went down the start-up checklist the company had provided, bringing the bus’s systems online one by one. She was just about to cycle the pressure seals when—
“What are you doing in here?” a resonant voice said from behind her. First spun around in the chair and came face-to-face with Eagle Independence.
“Holy crap,” Eagle said after a shocked moment. “You’re a girl!”
“Uh … yeah.”
“No, I mean like, a human girl. Er, woman. Sorry. You are human, right?”
“Last I checked.” First patted herself down theatrically. “Why, you get a lot of fake humans?”
“You’d be shocked the length some fans will go to. Plastic surgery, gene splicing, and there’s always the shape-shifters. That was a nasty way to wake up, let me tell you.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” Something about his tone shifted First’s assumptions. “Wait, do you mean to tell me you’re human, too?”
“Emphasis on the man part,” Eagle said.
“Killing the mood now.”
“Right, sorry. Wait. What are you doing here?”
“Keeping the seat warm for you,” First said, trying to sound just a touch sultry. It didn’t come naturally to her, but judging by how awkwardly he was staring, it didn’t need to. The fact he was human after all opened up all sorts of ways to get her out of this jam.
“Where’s the rest of the band?” she asked innocently.
“They’re still signing shirts and … other things. I forgot my lucky pen on the bus and, well, how did you get in here again?”
First could see Eagle’s brain fighting with his balls over what to do about the intruder. First decided to help the latter. But she needed to be quick, so she got out of the pilot’s chair and drew herself up, exaggerating the arch of her back and thrusting her bottom out to one side.
“The guards thought you might like to meet me in a more private setting.”
“Oh, um, they’re not supposed to do that anymore. Not after the changeling incident.”
First ran the back of her hand down his exposed arm. His skin was hot and slicked with sweat from the exertion of the performance. He smelled of musk, but not in a disagreeable way. He was also young. Maybe only a year or two older than she was.
But quite opposed to the rock star she’d just seen strutting confidently across the stage for almost two hours, in person, Eagle seemed nervous. His eyes vacillated between hunger and anxiety. How long had they been out on tour now? How long since he’d spent any time with a human girl? Probably almost as long as she’d gone without a human boy. Poor thing. First almost felt bad about how this would end.
Almost.
“Don’t be angry at them. They want you to have a good time. C’mon, Eagle. Are you going to show me around or what?”
“Oh yeah. Of course. Follow me.”
“Eagle?”
“Yeah.”
First pointed at the hatch. “Close the door. I’d like some … alone time.”
He swallowed. Hard. “Right.” He swung the hatch shut and locked it. “Right this way.” He walked deeper into the bus. “Here’s the kitchen. We’ve got all the hits from home in here.” He opened a cupboard door. “Twinkies, Twizzlers, Campbell’s soup.” He moved on to the fridge. “Mountain Dew, Coke, and best of all”—he grabbed a glass bottle and twisted the cap off—“Miller Light! Want one?”
“I’m not old enough,” First said, feigning bashfulness.
“Me neither.” Eagle took a long pull of beer. “But nobody out here’s checking IDs. They don’t care one bit.”
“Just a Coke, please.”
Eagle handed her a cola bottle and continued the tour. “Here’s the bathroom and shower, real water, not that million mosquitoes ultrasonic crap. Back here is the living room where we watch movies, play games, and, ah, other things. The sofa is genuine cow leather. Really comfy. Here.” He leaned over and grabbed a couple of plastic badges off the end table. “Backstage passes. Hold on to them. You can use them anytime we’re in town.”
First smiled warmly and put them in her purse. “Thank you sooo much.”
“My pleasure. Next up comes our bunks.”
“You don’t have your own bedroom?” First said, pouting. “That bed looks awfully narrow. Can two people fit on it together?”
“Um, no, there’s, ah, not enough space.”
“Is that the other things the living room is for?” she said coyly.
“Sometimes, maybe. For the other guys.”
“Mmm-hmm. I’m sure you’re a saint.” First pointed her Coke toward the very end of the hall past the bunks. “What’s back there?”
“Oh, that? That’s just the escape pod.”
“The escape pod? How exciting.”
“I … guess.”
“How big is it inside?”
“Big enough for five. But it’s cramped.”
“Can I see it?” First pleaded.
“Sure. It’s actually pretty cool, all the miniaturized life support systems and stuff.” He opened the hatch. “Don’t close this door behind you. It can’t be opened from the inside.”
“Why not?”
“Because after you’ve been locked in a closet floating in space for a few days, people can get cooped up and do crazy things.”
“Like open the door to vacuum?”
“Exactly.”
They sat down in two of the skeletal, lightweight chairs inside the escape pod. No accommodations to comfort or style had been made in here. Just pure minimalist functionality.
“What’s your name?” Eagle asked.
“First.”
“First? As in the start, the beginning?”
“Maybe, if you’re nice to me.”
“That’s a weird name.”
First snorted. “Says a boy named Eagle Independence.”
Eagle’s cheeks flushed. “It’s just a stage name.”
“Well, mine is, too, sort of.”
“What do you need a stage name for, First? What do you do?”
“Oh, I just came out here for a fresh start. New life, new name, I guess you could say. Honestly, it was a data-entry error that never got fixed, and I’ve just sort of ran with it.”
“You’re a runaway?” Eagle asked.
“Something like that,” First said. “Kind of like you. Ran away from home to become a rock star.”
Eagle smirked. “Something like that.”
“Where’s home?”
“Battle Creek, Michigan. Me and all the guys.”
“Earth, huh? Don’t know anyone from Earth. I grew up on PCB.”
“Hopped the first transport off that dust bowl soon as you could, huh?”
“Damn right. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.” First sipped her Coke. “How about you? How did a kid from Battle Creek wind up way out here?”
“Alien abduction.”
“Seriously?”
“Pretty much. We were all doing band practice in my folks’ garage when an honest-to-God flying saucer came down and asked if we wanted to be rock stars among the stars.”
“And that didn’t strike you as sketchy?”
“Sketchier than running away from home on an alien trade ship?”
“Touché.”
Eagle took another pull of his beer. “You know, for just a second back there, I thought maybe you were trying to steal our bus. Isn’t that funny?”
The comment snapped First back to the then and there. She’d let herself get distracted talking to Eagle. She’d wasted valuable time. But even more surprising was, she realized she was enjoying herself.
“Hilarious.”
“I, um … I like your shirt.” Eagle pointed at it. “Whitesnake were legends. We sing a bunch of their songs on the tour. Is it vintage?”
“I wish,” First said. “It’s a repro, unfortunately.”
“That’s all right. So are most of our shirts. And the tour posters.” He froze, clearly hesitating, then found his courage and leaned in. “Here I go again,” he whispered, but First intercepted his puckering lips with a finger.
“Not so fast.” First finished her Coke and stood up. “Wait right there, rock star. I have a surprise for you.”
“Yeah? Will I like it?”
First leaned over and booped his nose with a fingertip. “You’ll just have to wait and see, big boy.”
She turned and took two steps out of the escape pod, then shut the door with Eagle still inside.
“Hey!” Eagle pounded a fist on the window. “What the hell?”
“I’m a repo agent. Your tour bus has been repossessed. I’ve officially taken legal custody.” First shrugged. “Surprise.”
“Can’t say I’m a fan of the surprise.”
“Just hold tight. You’re not in any danger.” First left him there and returned to the cockpit, past the main hatch on which several angry, panicked security guards were beating. “You’re going to want to get clear,” First said into the intercom. “I’m not waiting for you.”
She plopped down in the pilot’s chair and completed her preflight checklist while the very large, very irate horned guard stood on the nose shouting and making what First had to assume were very obscene gestures with his hands and other appendages of likely reproductive or excretory nature. The counter-grav landing pods spooled to life at her command. As the nose lifted off the ground ever so gently, even the horned guard decided his job wasn’t worth dying for and jumped off.
“Smart,” First said as she pinged the hangar doors to open. Within moments, she was clear of the venue and accelerating over the surface of the airless moon. Within minutes, she was in orbit and waiting for her hyperspace generator to fully charge.
Just one more thing to take care of. First walked back to the escape pod at the end of the hall.
“Listen, Eagle. I’m sorry about this. You seem like a really nice guy, surprisingly. But we’re pretty sure your manager is screwing you over big-time and might even be wrapped up in some nastier stuff. You should get clear of them. But for right now, you’re getting clear of here. You’ll be safe in a stable orbit until someone comes to sweep you up. Probably won’t be more than an hour or two.” She put her hand over the eject button. “Time to fly, Eagle.”
“First, wait!”
First’s hand hovered over the button. “Well?”
“Caleb,” he said. “My real name’s Caleb.”
First’s breath caught in her throat. She thought he was going to beg, or yell at her, or …
She hesitated, staring at him as he looked back at her expectantly. First looked away and gave herself a little shake, then pushed the button. The inner door snapped shut, and for a split second, First saw Caleb’s face looking out at her. He was smiling. Then the escape pod dropped away with a whoosh of propellant gases and flew clear.
First rubbed at her eyes, which were suddenly moist. “Dusty in here,” she told herself. “You’re just homesick, dummy. That idiot was the first human you’ve seen in a year. Besides, he smelled weird.”
With the autopilot set for Junktion, the hyperspace projectors opening a portal, and her 3-D glasses on, First rinsed out the taste of sour grapes with a cold beer. She’d be alone here for two days, anyway. No reason she couldn’t experiment. She’d stop after one. Maybe two.