Nev shared my grin. “And Basra?” he asked.
“Basra found me too, soon after. I’d seen this strange, hooded figure around Gamut for a week or so, and it always seemed to be watching me—watching everything, really. And then one day, this person approached me while we were unloading a huge catch of Shadow, pulled down the hood, and there was Basra. Perfect timing, since I was struggling to find a stable market that would offer a decent price. He told me that, for a percentage, he could make me deals I couldn’t imagine for my Shadow, and he wasn’t kidding.” I frowned. “Seems like he could be making way more money somewhere else. I’m not sure why he stays. He’s the best there is.”
I wondered what was going on between him and Arjan again, but I didn’t have long before Nev interrupted my thoughts.
“Like I said, you’re also the best at what you do. It’s pretty obvious once one meets you. Basra must have been looking for you, like I was.”
I bent forward and put my head in my hands. My hair was loose, falling in a long, tangled curtain on either side of my face, all the easier to hide my blush or anything else he might see in my eyes, unpredictable tears or something darker. “If I’m the best, then why does everything always seem to fall apart around me?”
My family, my ship, my crew, my life…
“I don’t think you realize how much you’re holding together, and what few resources you use to do it.” Something definitely rose up inside me then, but not tears or Shadow. It was a hot pressure, coiling around my rib cage and pinching my lungs too tight. It felt horrible, and good, to hear him acknowledge that. I rubbed at my eyes just in case, and he hesitated. “I’m sorry, Qole, if I’ve crossed a line. What about Telu. How did she join you?”
I pulled my hands away from my face, but kept leaning on my knees, unable to look at Nev just yet. “I’ve known her…and her family…practically since she was born. We grew up together. She’s a year younger than me.” I held my palms up, looking at the lines there, reflecting on everything Telu and I had been through, ups and downs alike.
Nev straightened slightly at that. “She’s only sixteen? Wow. The girl is…formidable…for someone so young.” He barked a laugh. “Terrifying, actually.”
I tucked my hair behind my ear to look at him. “There’s a good reason she’s that way.”
He sobered. “No doubt. Are her parents…?”
“Both are alive, actually,” I said, and he blinked. “But they’re not exactly…present.”
He waited for me to explain.
I took a deep breath. “Both of them have a Shadow affinity, but only enough for them to go a little crazy and not die outright. Her father had a ship and was a decent fisherman, until he decided to drink all the time to ward off the hallucinations. Drink and take out his fear and frustration on Telu and her mom. For the longest time, Telu just buried herself in a virtual world. That—and her Shadow affinity—is why she’s such a good hacker. Her mom was too out of it to do anything to stop her father, but Telu eventually tried. Law enforcement didn’t listen.”
Nev grimaced. “Why not?”
Now it was my turn to bark a laugh, a bitter one. “They don’t care. We have one officer in Gamut, and they change all the time. Beyond making sure we’re not burning the place down or messing with the drones—your drones,” I added sourly, “they couldn’t care less what happens to us, or whether a father beats his wife and daughter senseless every so often. So, Telu, she…uh…”
“She what?” Nev asked, his voice softening.
I cleared my throat. “She asked for my help. I took her dad’s ship when he was passed out drunk, and I…I shot down a drone.” I looked at him, daring him to get offended.
He looked amazed, instead. “You shot down a drone with a fishing vessel? By yourself??” I nodded. “What kind of vessel was it?”
I shook my head, laughing in exasperation. “What does that have to do with anything? You and your ships. I don’t know, it was like all the fishing ships in Gamut, some kind of mishmash.”
He laughed at himself. “Fair enough.” His face quickly moved from boyish curiosity to seriousness, his smile sliding away as his eyebrows dropped. “But…how did you survive? Even if you managed to shoot one down, drones swarm when one is attacked…” He trailed off, thinking of the implications. I sobered, too, suddenly and irrationally angry at him again. Whole communities had been wiped out because of that drone function.
I exhaled slowly. “Telu hacked the alert signal,” I said, “to keep it from calling the others.”
“The authorities would have to know it had been sabotaged.”
I pulled my lips back into a humorless smile. “I know. Exactly.”
“You…,” Nev said, stunned. “You pinned it on her father.”
Even now, I felt a grim satisfaction over what I had done. I leaned back into the wall, feeling the cold surface press into my shoulders. “The authorities paid attention to him then. He was too drunk and crazy to even know whether he’d done it, and they didn’t look into it all that deeply. Hauled him offworld to some prison. He hasn’t bothered Telu or her mom since. They confiscated his ship, of course, so now Telu works with me to support her mother. She viewed it as a fair trade.”
Nev was looking at me as if seeing me for the first time. I didn’t know if it was good or bad. “I see,” he said.
I felt defensive without even knowing if I should be. I opened my mouth, but he spoke over me.
“I see, even more now, why you’re the best captain on Alaxak at seventeen. It makes perfect sense.” Before I could sputter anything, he said, “But the one I don’t quite understand is Arjan. He’s four years older than you, twenty-one now, right? Did he not want to captain?”
I swallowed and glanced at the airlock doors, even though I couldn’t see inside. “No,” I said shortly.
Nev was silent for a moment, and then his voice prodded me gently in the dimness. “Why not?”
“He’s…scared. Scared of this.” I held my hands out in front of me again, not to look at the lines in my skin this time, but as if to see what dwelled underneath. “You’ve seen how he pilots the skiff. He has this too—the skill, the darkness. But he watched it kill my parents. And then our oldest brother, Onai, only two years later, just after he’d turned twenty-five. Arjan wants to hide from it, and not lose himself or anyone else. Captaining would have required him to take responsibility for a crew, and to face his fears every day. He still faces them in the skiff, but it’s different. Less pressure. Less of a chance to snap.” I swallowed. “And he’s the only one at risk if he does.”
Nev was quiet for a moment, and when his voice came again, it was practically a whisper. “Are you scared?”