“You think I told Sedaya where we were headed?” she replied, offended and angered by the suggestion.

  “How else would he know we would be on Cestus? If there’s another way that makes sense, I’m happy to be wrong. I’ll be happy to apologize.”

  She opened her mouth, but no other excuse came out. She shook her head. “I don’t know. It wasn’t me, Ben. I promise. I hate Sedaya as much as anyone. Probably more.”

  “I want to believe that so badly, but nothing about you makes sense. I accepted it because it didn’t seem to matter, but right now it does. You have multiple personalities. Maybe one of them betrayed us. And you without your pilot persona knowing it.”

  Her face tensed at the idea, as though there was a chance it was true. Then she shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. There’s only one me.”

  “Then how do you only sometimes know how to fly a starship?”

  “It’s…complicated. Ben, please don’t ask me to explain. We knew Sedaya would have eyes and ears on Cestus. We knew an attack would come.”

  “But from the guy in charge of the entire exchange?” I replied. “Did you expect that?”

  “No. It shouldn’t be possible. Sedaya has no jurisdiction here. All he has to offer is…” She trailed off.

  “Is what?”

  “He may be planning to seize Cestus, and perhaps other planets under Duke Hoka’s rule. Buying Yi out ahead of time would be a simpler solution for a world like Cestus. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense. This territory is so far from his own.”

  “Distance wise maybe. It was only three days. Could that be possible?” I was fishing for an alternative. I wanted to believe that Alter had nothing to do with it, and her pleading for me not to pry had left me feeling guilty for even mentioning her nature.

  “It’s definitely possible,” she replied. “But I can’t promise that for sure. Don’t use that as a reason to believe me.”

  I looked over at her. Our eyes met again. I couldn’t help it. For better or worse, I still trusted her. “I believe you,” I said. “Not because of that. Because…I just believe you. Gut feeling I guess. Now, can we get out of here without having to fight our way out?”

  “The ships I saw orbiting the planet are no match for Head Case,” she said. “They won’t try to stop us.”

  “What if they gang up on us?”

  She smiled. “They’re mercenaries, not military. They don’t work well together. We aren’t being chased. We should be safe.”

  I exhaled sharply, letting my body relax. “Whew. Okay. So, where do we go next?”

  “Kasper,” she replied. “We’ve still got a job to do.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Kasper wasn’t close to Cestus. According to Alter, it sat at the farthest side of the Quadrant, one of what she referred to as the Edgeworlds. Under the flag of Duke Nobukku, it was an Earthlike planet in every way, from the composition of the atmosphere to the percentage of land to ocean and an abundance of evolved wildlife.

  And it would take almost all of the nine days Lo had given us to get there.

  After putting Head Case into hyperspace, I removed my helmet and safety restraints, careful not to accidentally elbow the Jagger as I did. The small blue ilf had resumed cleaning himself and didn’t seem bothered by my movements, though he stopped preening to look at me as I got to my feet.

  “I’m going to check on Matt,” I said.

  “I’ll be down there soon,” Alter replied.

  I almost asked her if she was going to change personas again, but I already knew the answer and bringing it up would only reignite her discomfort from our prior conversation. So much about her was so strange and hard to understand, but I had decided I trusted her. And the truth was, we needed to trust her. Matt and I would have been dead three times over without her experience and multiple skill sets.

  I glanced at the Jagger instead. “Are you coming?” He buzzed an affirmative and jumped onto my shoulder again. I was already starting to get used to having him there, his adorable blue rodent shape just visible in my peripheral vision. “Do you have a name?”

  His buzz sounded something like “Shzzzk.”

  “That’s not too easy for a human to say,” I said. “Do you mind if I call you Shaq?”

  His buzz sounded accepting. I smirked at the idea of naming the tiny alien after a seven foot tall basketball player.

  “Great. I’m Ben. It’s nice to formally meet you.”

  “You too,” Shaq buzzed.

  I left the flight deck and Alter, taking the elevator to Deck Two. Instead of going forward to the armory, I turned right off the cab, the hatch opening directly into sickbay. I had been here a few times already to receive treatment for my cancer, and already knew the simple layout well. Three rooms with glass doors that could turn opaque like the booth on Cestus.

  Inside each of the rooms, a well-padded seat with an AI-driven full body scanner hanging over it, able to diagnose most ailments and provide treatment instructions for quite a few. Against the far bulkhead of sickbay, one regular cabinet filled with medical supplies, including medications, as well as a fridge and freezer combo for less stable concoctions. While it was probably the most advanced setup of anything on the ship, it still had one major weakness in that it couldn’t measure and administer the drugs. Just another reason Alter was so vital to our continued success.

  Matt was in the first room, visible behind the clear door. Shirtless and alert, he used his uninjured arm to wave to me when I entered sickbay.

  “Ouch, that looks nasty,” I said upon entering the room and getting a better look at his arm. The skin around the wound was burned, the damage itself a puss-covered mess. “Does it hurt?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I need some painkillers.”

  “Nurse Alter will be here soon.”

  Shaq hopped off my shoulder onto the end of the bed, slinking up Matt’s blanket-covered leg on all fours.

  “Uh, what are you doing?” Matt said.

  I couldn’t understand Shaq’s longer buzz. He continued up Matt’s leg to the edge of the blanket before jumping onto his arm, right next to the wound.

  “Shaq?” I said as Matt raised his other arm, presumably to swat the Jagger away.

  He buzzed again before a line of spittle dropped out of his mouth onto the wound.

  “Shit,” Matt said. “What are you trying to…oh.” He calmed down, smiling as Shaq continued drooling onto the damage. “Wow. Weird, but okay. Our little bro’s spit is a natural painkiller, I guess.”

  “Not exactly,” Alter said, entering the room in her nurse persona. “His spit paralyzed the nerves so you don’t feel the pain. Normally, they use it to numb the area they’re about to bite when attacking their prey, so that it doesn’t even know it’s being bitten before the venom in their fangs kills it. I don’t think he intends to bite you, though.”

  Shaq made a higher pitched buzz that I took as a laugh. Done paralyzing the wound site, he scurried back to Matt’s leg and returned to my shoulder.

  “Thank you,” Matt said.

  “No problem,” Shaq replied.

  Matt glanced at me. “You named him Shaq?”

  “His real name sounds kind of like Shaq. It’s a natural fit.”

  Alter looked at the screen on the side of the autodoc. “You’re lucky it’s only a flesh wound. A few millimeters lower and you would have muscle damage. As it is, you’ll need some salve and a wrap. I’ll be right back.”

  She left the room, heading for the cabinets in the medical storeroom to retrieve everything she needed.

  “Since we’re still alive, I assume we got away,” Matt said. “Where are we headed?”

  “Kasper,” I replied, suddenly remembering our cargo. “Tell me you still have the slab.”

  “Yeah, it’s over there, under my shirt,” he replied.

  Shaq jumped off me to the table where Matt’s slightly bloody shirt rested. He pulled it away, revealing the clear device. I was relieved to see it wasn’t damaged.

  “You wanted off Cestus, right Shaq?” I asked.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he buzzed in reply.

  “We need to go to Kasper first to fulfill our contract and get paid. But where can we drop you off after that?”

  He answered with a quizzical buzz, like he didn’t understand the question.

  “What planet do you want to go to next?”

  Shaq didn’t make a sound.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, frustrated with our inability to communicate.

  “Mmmmm,” he buzzed noncommittally.

  “You want to stay with Ben?” Matt asked.

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” Shaq replied in a higher-pitched, more excited buzz.

  “Really?” I replied. “Why?” I didn’t understand the Jagger’s reply. He liked me for reasons I couldn’t begin to guess at. I shrugged. “It’s fine with me. Matt?”

  Shaq turned to look at him, his big eyes growing bigger and causing Matt to laugh. “I don’t have a problem with it. But I’m with Ben. I have no idea why you like him so much.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Matt laughed. “It’s probably just the shape of your hunched shoulders that he likes. They make a good perch.”

  “My shoulders aren’t hunched.”

  “Yeah, right. Whatever Quasimodo.”

  “They aren’t,” I insisted, looking at Shaq. “They aren’t, are they?”

  Shaq emitted another high-pitched laugh, but didn’t answer the question.

  “Turning on me already?”

  Alter returned with a rolling table. A pair of scissors, a scalpel, gauze, bandages, tape, and two tubes of some medicine or another rested on it.

  “Shaq’s joining the crew,” I announced as she pulled the table up beside Matt’s arm.

  “I believed he would,” she replied, not at all surprised. “But what happened to your last crew?”

  Shaq buzzed out what sounded like a whole backstory while Alter squeezed out the contents of one of the tubes onto Matt’s wound.

  “This is a probably unnecessary numbing agent,” she explained. “Next, I need to cut away the damaged skin, but you won’t feel it.”

  “Do you know what Shaq just said?” I asked.

  “Yes. He said he worked for the two drunk morons we killed.”

  “And you saved me instead of killing me?” I asked.

  “They were assholes,” Alter said. “They treated him like a pet instead of an equal, and never split the electro evenly when he did most of the work. He followed you from there, hoping to earn a place.”

  “You totally earned a place,” I said to Shaq “The thing is, we can’t afford to pay you right now. We’re pretty much broke.”

  Alter translated as Shaq buzzed. “That’s okay. You won’t be broke forever. Besides, I don’t really have much use for electro. It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  “Alter, is there anything you can’t do?” Matt asked.

  “There are a lot of things I can’t do. Understanding Jagger isn’t one of them.”

  “Can all of you speak Jagger?” I asked. It was a bit of a smart-ass question, but I was honestly curious.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she replied. Of course not.

  “How did you learn the language?” Matt asked.

  “Sedaya has a Jagger assassin on his payroll. We taught one another. They make excellent killers, for obvious reasons.”

  Shaq buzzed excitedly in response to the statement.

  “He says not to worry, he won’t kill any of us. He likes us.”

  I smiled. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” he buzzed.

  Alter finished cleaning the wound. She picked up the second tube, squeezing out a dark salve that looked like dog poop onto the damage. Then she covered it with bandages and gauze, taping it around his arm to secure it.

  “It should heal in about twenty-four hours,” she said. “Don’t get it wet until then. The pain shouldn’t return. If it does, I need to know immediately.”

  “Got it,” Matt said. “Twenty-four hours. That’s impressive. Thank you for patching me up.”

  “Of course.”

  I leaned over and grabbed his shirt from the table, tossing it to him. “You probably want to go home again,” I suggested, figuring getting shot would be a real turnoff toward this whole adventure.

  He surprised me, shaking his head. “No. I’m not letting that asshole Sedaya scare me off. But I am more determined than ever to stick it to him somehow. You?”

  “I’ve never been more scared or felt more alive. This feels like where I was always meant to be.”

  Shaq buzzed out something that had an inflection at the end, suggesting a question.

  “He wants to know how a pair of Earthians wound up as mercenaries in the Fertile Quadrant,” Alter said.

  “How do you know we’re Earthians?” I replied.

  He buzzed and pointed at Matt’s foot, jutting up beneath the blanket.

  “The boots,” Alter said, laughing.

  I laughed with her, letting the pent up tension release. “Let’s head down to the living quarters and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The days in hyperspace flowed smoothly from one to the next. Like before, every day started with a few hours of training, Sergeant Alter putting us through our paces and teaching, mostly me, how to defend myself. On top of that, she began giving us educational sessions on the different ilfs in the Fertile Quadrant and across the Manticore Spiral. I was somewhat surprised to learn that the majority of spacefaring intelligent life forms were humanoid in nature. While that made sense for sci-fi movies and tv shows, it had always seemed to me that evolution should be more random than that. Then again, it also made reasonable sense that similar planets with similar atmospheres, climates, and molecular and chemical composition would result in similar evolution.

  Not that there weren’t exceptions. Exotic planets produced more exotic life forms, non-carbon based aliens with stonelike or crystalline appearances, for example. Since they couldn’t survive well beyond their own environments, they didn’t interact as much with the wider Hegemony.

  Then there were the aliens like Shaq, part of a subclass of ilfs that had evolved higher intellect alongside a primary advanced life form. His homeworld, Dasker, was outside the Fertile Quadrant, and was also the homeworld of the Eitnid, a larger humanoid race that bore a generalized resemblance to bigfoot.

  As before, I also took to learning more about Head Case’s computer systems, including trying to understand the source code that made everything work. Since it had origins in the same programming languages and styles I had been learning in school, I wasn’t at a complete loss reading the code. At the same time, the paradigms had evolved so much I still felt lost most of the time.

  I spent the rest of my time hanging out in what we decided to start calling the lounge rather than the common room, hanging out with Matt and Shaq. While we couldn’t understand most of what the Jagger said whenever Alter wasn’t around, we gained enough of an understanding of the different tones of his buzzing and some basic vocalizations that he wasn’t completely left out in the cold. Even as the days passed and we grew closer to Kasper, it continued to amaze me that creatures like Shaq even existed, and that I had started thinking of one of them as a friend.

  As for Alter, she continued doing her various jobs as Head Case’s primary caretaker, though I did manage to convince her to let me help with some of the more basic tasks, like running daily checks across all of the ship’s systems, isolating discrepancies, and logging them for her to make repairs. Keep had claimed the ship didn’t require much maintenance, but that turned out to be a matter of perspective. No more than a day or two went by before Alter had to tweak something, leading me to start thinking Head Case was held together with duct tape and paperclips. By helping her, I managed to start chiseling away at her otherwise aloof presence aboard the ship, and by the eighth day finally got her to accept an invitation to pizza and a movie with the boys.

  Which is what found Matt, Shaq, and I in front of Asshole’s primary assembly unit, waiting for it to finish my latest request. Fully comfy in a t-shirt, hoodie, sweats, and a pair of maglock-capable sneakers, my heart pumped in anticipation.

  “I hope this comes out right,” Matt said, waiting with me. He had gone a different route, dressed in a long-sleeved black velour rocker button-down, properly ripped jeans, and also maglock-capable steel tipped boots.

  “I hope Alter likes it,” I replied.

  “Don’t get those hopes up too high. She likes that syrupy crap that’s popular here. I’m not sure the two are compatible. I still don’t know why you’re going through all this trouble. She’s way too old for you, and she doesn’t seem at all interested.”

  “I’m not trying to date her. I just want her to feel like part of the crew. A real part of the crew, not just here because Head Case is her safe place.”

  “I’m not sure she wants that, though.”

  “Me either, but there’s no harm in trying, right?”

  “You know, I just noticed. You’re starting to look a little more buff under there.” He reached out and squeezed my bicep, which I had also noticed had started to build up a little in response to the daily exercise.

  “Jealous?” I asked. Of course, he was still a lot more cut than me. While I was a nerd getting in better shape, he was a jock upping his game.

  “Totally.” He laughed. “I’m happy for you. The treatments are slowing the cancer, you’re getting in the best shape of your life, and in a few more days maybe you’ll be cured for good.”

  “I’m glad we decided to do this,” I said. “I’m glad we stuck with it. No matter what happens from here, in my mind it was worth it.”

  “Mine too. I didn’t think I would ever say that when we first left Caprum. I’m not even that nervous about getting shot at anymore.”

  “Probably because it seems to happen any time we aren’t in hyperspace.”

  “We were shot at in hyperspace too.”