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Strained silence seemed to have become the norm on board the freighter. Kara had taken to haunting the lower decks and cargo hold, where the life support was either minimal, or turned off in the latter case, and it was only because of her cybernetics and nanosuit that she could remain down there.
Right now, she’d sequestered herself in the cargo hold for her own peace of mind. The awkwardness wasn’t only with Isra; she found she couldn’t be as open with Daku now that she knew the most buried secret of the Empire. What Isra had revealed weighed heavily on her mind. She wanted to speak to him about it, wanted his opinion, but kept her promise to Isra and held her tongue. For now, at least. She found herself biting back a comment, stifling a conversation, and becoming stilted herself.
He’d noticed.
She would catch him watching her, eyes troubled. Was their relationship breaking down? As there were only three of them on the ship, often they weren’t even sleeping at the same time. Only seeing each other in passing, a meal shared here, a word there. One waking up, as the other went to sleep. She didn’t know how to handle that, any more than she knew what to do with the incendiary information she had on the royal family. Thus, her reclusive habit of finding a location in which neither Isra nor Daku could easily reach her, without her knowing about it, was born.
Yet this cycle couldn’t continue.
Something had to give, and she just hoped it wasn’t her.
She exhaled, watching the water vapour in her breath condense and form a cloud. They’d shut down the enviro systems in the large, empty cargo area to conserve energy. The only time freighters kept any kind of life support on down here is if they were transporting fragile and expensive commodities. Metal and polymers didn’t need protecting. They hadn’t even bothered with maintaining a planet-side level of gravity in here either; she wasn’t weightless, but she could definitely move with extreme ease.
With a leap, she bounded across the hold like the floor had springs in it, easily reaching the hatch that led back to the main section of the ship. Her shift at the helm would start soon, leaving her with just enough time to grab a meal, but not enough time to be caught in a lengthy discussion.
She couldn’t face dissecting anything with Isra yet. How could Isra be both a Dralden and the part of the royal family of Rhaslok? If she spent any time with her right now, she was afraid she’d never be able to stop the questions. But she’d sworn her loyalty to Queen Samorn and to Isra. It wasn’t her place to question them.
She also really didn’t like knowing she was lying to Daku, even if only by omission.
These morose thoughts kept her company as she made her way up to the galley, the prospect of food doing little to cheer her up. They were on space-rations, which might be highly nutritional, but the need for them to last a long time had sucked nearly all the flavour from them.
The lights automatically adjusted when she entered the room, the bright glow highlighting every scrape and dent in the battered and well-used galley. Extensive use had left dents and scratches on most of the sliding cupboard doors. She ran her hand along the counter, tracing the cross-hatched marks, dents, and scratches. The food-vac periodically made a strange clunking noise, that, despite multiple tries, she’d yet to find the source of and fix. She gave it a hard glare, daring it to make the noise, but it remained silent this time as she opened the door and pulled out a nice, nutritious food bar.
At least they weren’t grey gloop, but the chewy yellow bars didn’t do much to excite the palate. She leant back against the counter, contemplating the thing. If Tarsk was here, he’d be experimenting with them, trying to make them more appetising.
Her eyes flicked to the galley door at the sound of someone approaching. She pulled in a deep, slow breath, and willed her body to stay relaxed as she knew Daku was about to enter the room. She heard him pause outside; the seconds ticking by before the door slid open and he strolled in.
He looked like he had back on Outpost 7JZ, with the slight swagger and unrepentant confidence. Except, the pinched skin around his mouth and eyes gave him away. He was no more relaxed than she was.
She watched him warily as he grabbed his own food bar and leant against the counter opposite hers. She didn’t know how to break the silence, and it was slowly breaking her.
He absently spun the food bar in his hands before sighing. “This awkward silence has got to stop.” He echoed her own thoughts.
Daku looked up at her. “Kara...what’s going on?”
She licked her lips, formulating a sanitised response. Very sanitised, to the point of not existing.
His face hardened. “I get it. You found out about your brother, and now you’re shutting me out.”
She started. “I’m not—Daku.” But what could she tell him?
He dropped the food bar on the bench and braced his hands on the edge. He raised an eyebrow, waiting.
No longer hungry, she put her food bar down. She absently brushed her fingers around her ear.
“... dow,”
Kara straightened up, her head snapping around the room as she scanned for a threat. She focused on the faint crackling noise, tuning out Daku.
“...Shadow...can” Had Isra just tried to call her over the comms? She started for the door, instantly on high alert, everything else put on hold.
“Damn it, Kara. Are you really going to ignore me...again?”
She paused, glancing back at him. Hadn’t he heard that? But he was still leaning back against the opposite counter, frowning at her.
“Didn’t you just hear the comms?” She tipped her head to the side.
“No.”
She couldn’t be imagining things, could she?
He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking resigned. “Look, if you don’t want to talk, just say so. You don’t have to come up with some excuse.”
Her heart flipped, aching that she’d put that look of mingled sadness and frustration on his face. But she didn’t know what to say, how to bridge the gap, or even how to still the confusion in her own mind. She wasn’t used to relying on or confiding in anyone else. She didn’t know how to communicate with Daku, to let him know it wasn’t him, that it wasn’t about their relationship. She ached to go to him. But she flicked a look at the comms again; if Isra had called her, then she had to go.
Duty came first.
Her fist clenched, her troubled gaze meeting Daku’s. But she was torn. She knew leaving him right now would hurt him, and push them further apart.
“Shadow, can you...me?”
She blinked. Though the words were cracked and faint, they were distinct, almost as if someone were standing next to her. Her hand rose to touch her ear as her eyes stared at the comms unit on the wall.
In her peripheral version, Daku slowly straightened, his arms dropping. He glanced between her and the comms unit. “Kara?”
“It’s not the ship’s comms.” Her head snapped back to him. “It’s my implant.” She focused inwards. “Identify.”
“It’s Sage. Eternities...worked.”
Kara spun to Daku. “It’s Tarsk. I have to get to the bridge before I lose him.” Everything else could wait.
She sped out of the galley, with Daku hard on her heels. As they passed the crew quarters, Isra stepped out of her room, tension tightening her body. But before she could utter a word, Kara dashed past her.
“Not now,” Kara threw over her shoulder, not sparing a second to be polite. She leapt for the rungs of the ladder leading up to the bridge level.
Behind her, Daku had taken the seconds needed to speak. “Tarsk’s linked to her internal comms unit. He’s speaking right now.”
She heard Isra exclaim, but tuned it out, keeping her focus on Tarsk. She wasn’t going to lose this link.
“Sage, are you safe?” Kara demanded, dropping into the comms seat on the bridge.
“Yes...I don’t...long.”
The signal broke again, and Kara frowned in annoyance.
“...hijacked FPC comms pack...looking for...soon.”
She rapidly worked on linking her implant to the freighter’s system, trying to boost the signal and to patch it through, so Daku and Isra could hear Tarsk as well.
Daku barrelled up into the bridge, with Isra seconds behind him. He grabbed the back of her chair, leaning over her, staring over the comms system. Isra dropped into the pilot’s set, checking the autopilot function was still running. Kara focused solely on linking her implant to the freighter’s comms. They stared at her intently, waiting for something to happen, their breaths bated. The only sounds coming from the creaking of the ship and Kara’s fingers tapping over the control panel.
Her aural implant crackled, picking up static again.
“Sage, I can’t hear you. I’m trying to boost the signal. Give me a sec,” Kara said to Tarsk, hoping he’d be able to hear her in return.
Kara checked, then double checked the new parameters on the comms system. If only they were on a Fleet ship, this would have been a lot easier. With top of the line equipment, she would have been able to link the signal immediately, with none of this messing around, and even re-writing sections of the code. But it would have to do, as this old freighter was all they had. She flicked a look at the external scanners and nav system. At least the signal hadn’t been picked up by anyone else out there. If she had to make a choice between this delay to hook herself into the system, or having undesirables breathing down her neck, then she’d take the first choice every time.
She just hoped she didn’t lose Tarsk’s signal in the meantime.
A few more rapid-fire modifications and suddenly the freighter comms crackled to life on the bridge and Tarsk’s voice came through loud, and if not completely clear, at least they could hear each word now.
“Shadow, are you there?” He sounded strained, the words rushed.
“Yes, Sage. We copy you. I’ve boosted the signal through the freighter comms,” Kara replied. “Are you safe?” Why had he risked contacting them? Had he found out something already about their leader?
“Yes, yes. I haven’t stopped the operations or helping them. There’s not much I could do to land myself in serious trouble here, but this might be the one thing. Eternities, I don’t have much time. I don’t know if you heard me before, but I hijacked their comms. They don’t know I’m here. They think I’m prepping for a surgery. They don’t realise I’ve figured out how to use the medical terminals in here to hack into the rest of their systems, and piggyback off them. I followed your direction, Kara,” he sucked in a breath.
“Sage, you’re threatening our security by contacting us,” Isra said, her hands balled into fists.
“I know it’s a risk, but what I’ve just found out—you need to know.”