Nayla barely stopped in time to avoid colliding with the box. Square, the length and width of her hand, it floated at eye level just outside her quarters, and she’d nearly plowed into it on her way out the door.
Which would have been painful. The box was made of wood and looked to have crisply defined edges.
She stared at it, her mind sluggish this early. It was still technically sleep cycle, with a good two hours to go until most of day shift would be waking up to start the morning, but Nayla always went to the infirmary early.
The box spun slowly, suspended, she was sure, by someone’s telekinesis. She peered down the corridor, first one direction, then the other, but saw no one. Tentatively, she sent out a questing thought, but brushed no nearby minds. Someone was good at hiding.
She focused her attention back on the box. Wood, as her first impression had indicated, with no visible openings, its only distinctive feature a geometric pattern covering the surface in what appeared to be a decorative adornment.
She reached out a hand to touch it, and the box smoothly glided forward and nestled into her palm as though someone was setting it there. Hmmm. A gift? Why go to such lengths to be anonymous, then? And why present it in a box that appeared, at first glance, to have no obvious method of opening?
Odd. The whole thing was just odd.
A second later the box abruptly grew heavy and she almost dropped it. Whoever had been using telekinesis on it had let it go. It rested fully in her hands.
Nayla tucked the box away into the bag at her hip, slung cross-wise from her shoulder. She always carried a basic medical kit, her datapad, and some snacks. It wasn’t unusual for the infirmary to be so busy they didn’t have time to stop for a meal, and Doc got cranky when he didn’t eat. Well, more cranky.
She had a shift to start, so the mysterious box was just going to have to wait.
“Morning, Nayla.”
She looked up at the familiar voice, any tension she’d felt immediately melting away.
“Haggerty. I wasn’t sure I’d see you today.”
Her best friend shrugged, his uniform pulling tight across his shoulders with the movement.
“Zion’s gone with Reaper, so there’s not much keeping me in bed at the moment.” A frown tugged at his expressive mouth, a sure sign that Haggerty was at odds with his partner, Zion, once again. The two had been lovers on and off for more than three years, the relationship often a tumultuous one. Both men worked long hours, which didn’t help. Zion was often away from the ship, while Haggerty’s job was tied to Nemesis. That didn’t help either.
Nayla hated the traitorous little zing of hope she felt. She buried the emotion so deep, even her empathic sister, Sanah, would have a difficult time unearthing it.
Haggerty was a dog, one of the soldiers trained to serve Core members as a kind of honor guard. Core members were sort of the ruling council of the pirate colonies, although even they answered to the pirate King, Cannon.
In his case, Haggerty served Dem, the Chief of Security aboard Nemesis, the flagship of the pirate fleet. Essentially, he was Dem’s second-in-command. All the dogs wore uniforms, black armored clothing accented with whatever color represented the person they were sworn to serve. Haggerty’s was red. The color lined his collar and sleeves.
Nayla had saved his life with her Talent a few years ago. They’d been friends ever since.
Technically, he’d been dead for a few minutes. Nayla’s biokenesis healed him and brought him back. But they never talked about that. No one ever talked about it. Not Nayla. Not Haggerty. Not Doc. What Nayla had done, in Doc’s mind, nothing short of miraculous, and the physician who acted as her father in all things didn’t want her mobbed by people wanting more miracles, so he forbid them to ever speak of it. Don’t even think of it, Doc said. And for Mother’s sake, don’t do it again.
But Nayla thought of it every time she saw Haggerty. She couldn’t help it. Something connected them now. Something deeper than friendship. Closer than she felt to Doc, or even to her sister, Sanah. She lit up with a smile whenever she saw him, which was often. Whenever his schedule allowed, Haggerty showed up each morning to walk her to work, and again each evening to walk her back to her quarters. They often ate dinner together on Nemesis, the enormous capital ship that was their home. A Monarch class, it was the largest ship ever produced by the Commonwealth of Sovereign Planets, with a standing crew of over ten thousand people. It functioned, in many ways, like a small city.
Nayla loved it. She loved visiting the pirate colonies, but she loved living on Nemesis even more, working in the infirmary, a valued part of the crew, earning her way with her skills and education, and not just the rare Talent she’d been born with.
When she’d first come aboard Nemesis five years ago, Haggerty was assigned to her as a safety precaution. Nayla had only been sixteen at the time, and recently escaped from an abusive situation with her brother. Haggerty was there to keep her safe, to make her feel protected, and he’d died doing it. Though no orders continued to require it, he never stopped taking the duty seriously. Kayla even suspected that her brother-in-law and Haggerty’s boss, Dem, allotted time in his schedule for this purpose.
The two of them walked in companionable silence to the infirmary. Nayla spent her days constantly under a barrage of people. Everyone who walked through the infirmary doors was in a state of agitation, or deep reluctance to avoid Doc and his temper. Either way, they wanted to talk to her. Spending time with someone she cared about, and just enjoying their company with neither words nor thoughts exchanged was a soothing balm.
When they approached the open hatch of the infirmary, Nayla lifted her hand in farewell, and Haggerty moved to step off.
“Chote mata1. Wait!” Doc’s voice called from beyond the doorway, clipped and impatient. Surprised, Haggerty turned back just as the diminutive doctor stepped out into the hall. Doc’s dark hair was short and rigidly straight, his clothing just as neat and perfect. He carried one of the larger travel packs in his hands, which he shoved unceremoniously at Haggerty. “You, carry this. You’ll be going with her.” He looked at Nayla. “There is a medical emergency on one of the colonies. Your Talent may be needed.” He lifted a hand, emphatic. “Do not use your gifts unless you have no other choice. Wakarimasuka?2”
The more agitated Doc was, the more he slipped into the ancient language of his ancestors, one so little used and from so long ago that universal translators didn’t recognize it. But Nayla knew the phrases he used most often. This one simply asked if she understood.
“Of course.” She was surprised. The situation had to be dire. Doc never let her go if he could go instead. He didn’t like sending her alone into the unknown. She studied his face. He wore his usual emotionless mask, but the lines around his eyes were more pronounced, a tightness to his mouth betraying tension. She touched his arm lightly. “Doc,” she said softly. “What is it?”
His face softened, his dark eyes bright as he looked at her. “Nothing, musume3. Just be careful. Kaiht is one of our rougher colonies, with a distinctly violent element.” He nodded to Haggerty. “Obey your bodyguard.” He fingered her coat, just beside the symbol of the medical corp holographically emblazoned on the shoulder. “This should keep you safe, but if not, Haggerty will protect you.”
Gently, he pushed her back toward the lift. “Now, go! A dropship waits to take you.”
Nayla resisted. “But who is the patient? What is the malady?”
“I’m sending all information to your datapad. There is no time, you must go.”
Haggerty, carrying the heavy medical kit in one hand as though it weighed nothing, took her arm in his free hand and ushered her to the lift. She let him, still uncertain, but sure that whatever was happening must truly be an emergency. Doc would never send her to a colony, much less a potentially violet one, otherwise. As the lift doors closed, she turned to her best friend.
Like Doc, Haggerty’s handsome features were now tight with tension. “Tell me about Kaiht,” she said.
His jaw clenched tighter. “They like to think of themselves as lawless,” he said. “Not subject to the same rules as the rest of us.”
“Why? Aren’t they all pirates? Beholden to Mercy as Queen?” Well, technically Cannon as King. Mercy was a queen by Talent. All the pirates were bound to her on a psychic level. By this alone she should have ruled. But she was uncomfortable with the idea of everyone looking to her, having only come to be with the pirates recently.
“Yes,” Haggerty said, his face dark. The lift stopped and the doors opened onto the hangar deck before she could respond to his terse reply. A wave of noise washed over them: screeching metal, engines firing, loud machinery and tools. Nayla winced and followed Haggerty as he wove his way unerringly across the deck to a Viking already fired up and ready to go. A familiar figure stood beside it, and Nayla couldn’t keep the smile from her face.
“Ava,” she said, greeting the female pilot.
Tall and athletic, Ava stood with her hands on her hips, her blond hair in a long braid down her back. She narrowed sharp green eyes at Haggerty. “He has to come?” she asked, jerking her thumb at him. “Why do we need one of Dem’s dogs?” The way she said the words, sneering, it made being a dog sound like a lowly position, instead of coveted and elite. Haggerty walked by her without a glance, ducking as he entered the hatch of the Viking.
A lot of people found Ava prickly and hard to get along with, but Nayla had spent time with her. Many of the women who survived the devastating virus that swept the pirate colonies many years ago were left with internal scarring that left them barren. Ava was one of them, and Nayla had been working closely with her sister Sanah to try and heal the scars and find out if the condition could be reversed. She’d seen Ava at her most vulnerable, and understood that her attitude was a defensive tactic to keep others from getting close enough to hurt her. She had suffered many losses and disappointments in her life.
Before Ava could protest, Nayla hugged her. “Be nice to Haggerty,” she whispered. “He was ordered to come.”
Clearly amused, Ava’s full mouth twitched in the hint of a smile. “He would come anyway,” she said. “Kaiht? You? There is no way your watch dog would let you go without him.”
So, she’d just said those words to needle Haggerty. Typical Ava.
Nayla gave her an imploring look, and Ava rolled her eyes. “Fine! I’ll be nice. Mostly. Better get in. We’ve got orders to jump the second we can.”
“What is so dangerous about Kaiht?” Nayla asked, following Ava inside the ship.
“They didn’t tell you?” Her friend’s words drifted back as she moved through the crew compartment and swung herself into the pilot’s seat. Haggerty already occupied the copilot’s chair.
“No.”
Ava tossed a look back over her shoulder as she started the launch sequence. “Kaiht is where your brother-in-law’s people come from.” She grimaced. “It’s a planet full of Killers.”