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  “That’s my bird,” he said.

  “Bird?” Her head tipped to one side, and she blinked slowly.

  “My ship. A Dauntless. What I was flying when I towed your ship here.”

  She glanced at him. “I am grateful for your assistance.”

  “You are welcome, ma’am.” He touched the brim of his cap. “Glad to help out a fellow space traveler.” He grinned.

  Her lips twitched once, then she turned, reached up and touched the side of his bird, her fingers spreading on the surface. “It is smooth.” She glanced at him. “And well made. A fine ship.” Now her fingers traced the words he’d painted on the side. “What is this pattern?”

  Coop touched the words, careful not to touch her in the process. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” She looked at him then, an open question in her eyes. He hesitated, wondering if she could understand. “We all pick a thing, in case we have to fight, so we’re fighting for something, something personal, I mean. We all fight for our country, and all that, but we need, well, some of us fight for family, a girl, home.” His family was gone. Didn’t have a girl. When he wasn’t on his sloop, home was here on the Boyington. So he fought for the truth. “Every time I climb aboard, I remember why I fly. What’s personal for me.”

  “The truth shall make you free,” she murmured. “Which symbol means truth?”

  He showed her, then added, “This one spells free.”

  She traced both words with her finger, before looking at him. “I have not found the truth to make me free. The truth was…dangerous where I came from.”

  He rubbed his chin. “The truth can be dangerous where I come from. Not everyone wants to hear it. Doesn’t change what I do. Or why I fight.”

  Her gaze studied his, and his senses sparked off the light flickering in the blue-green depths of her eyes. Heat flicked lightly along his nerve endings as awareness arced between them. His nostrils picked her scent out of the metallic bay smells, exotic, ordinary, compelling. His attention shifted to her parted lips. The edges started to tip up—

  “What’s the holdup, Captain?” the Colonel’s voice broke the moment apart.

  With a rueful grin, he gestured for her to continue toward Pappy, but he was aware of something that felt kind of like regret that he’d missed her smile. If she’d been gonna smile. She glanced back at him, and he knew she had been gonna smile, and for whatever reason, she was sorry, too.

  Derwent stepped between them, cutting off his view, directing her into the small room Coop had set up for their meeting. Coop held back. He needed to get a grip. Pappy wouldn’t thank him for risking his detachment over a girl, no matter where she hailed from. Or maybe that was particularly where she hailed from. Which they still didn’t know, he reminded himself.

  “Is there a problem, Captain?” Pappy’s dry tone cut into his thoughts.

  “No, sir.” He hastily entered the room, stepping carefully past Derwent and then Arian to reach the only empty seat in the corner.

  Pappy’s gaze was not stern, but curious. He lifted a brow in a silent question. Coop shrugged, shook his head slightly, and then, after everyone was seated, sank down, too. Arian glanced at him, then looked away. Her hands settled in her lap, one resting lightly on the other. She gave the appearance of calm, but this close to her—she was far from at ease. It was weird because he’d never been accused of being sensitive to lady body language. Almost felt like he’d connected with her. It was a new enough experience for Coop that he would have dipped his head in some cold water—if he could have. He looked around for a distraction, which was provided by Pappy, another one of the old man’s super powers, Coop decided a bit wryly, as all Coop’s systems jolted back to normal in the face of his Colonel’s chill stare.

  Pappy had taken the seat behind the desk. He leaned back now, his hands clasped on his chest, his gaze sweeping the tray of coffee, juice, and sandwiches that Coop had arranged to be delivered. Coop saw Arian’s gaze stray to the tray and leaned forward to offer her the plate of sandwiches. When she hesitated, he told her, “I asked the doc, and he said it was okay if you had a little something to eat, but to call him if you feel queasy.”

  One hand reached out, shaking slightly before she secured a triangle off the top. How long had it been since she’d had food, he wondered? With careful control, she took a small bite, her white teeth sinking into, and then through the white bread.

  “Thank you. It is very pleasing.”

  Now her look seemed almost shy. He offered her a choice of beverage, and she appeared interested in the juice, so he poured her some.

  She sipped it, then inched past sipping. “That is excellent, as well,” she murmured, lowering the glass only when it was empty. “Thank you. I feel much refreshed.”

  Color crept into her cheeks. The edges of her mouth tipped up, in a movement that was carefully contained. What would it be like if she lost control? Was it wrong to hope he’d be there? He caught Pappy looking at him again and thrust the plate in his direction. Both Pappy and Derwent shook their heads decisively.

  “That cake was very filling,” Derwent admitted. “But good,” he added hastily.

  “I ate three the first time. It was most painful,” Arian offered, her head turning toward the doc with a tone that was almost friendly.

  Coop found it…annoyed him. “You had cake without me?” That got her attention off Derwent. He grinned, so she would know he was joking, relaxing into his seat.

  Pappy cleared his throat ominously, and Coop straightened hastily. Derwent looked like he wanted to speak but was silenced with a look. The old man studied Arian for long enough to make even a senior officer shift in his seat, but she didn’t. Her chin lifted a bit, but that was all.

  “Don’t take this wrong, young lady, but you’re something of a problem for me.” Derwent choked, but Pappy ignored him. “You see, we tried this first contact stuff before—with mixed results. We don’t know you, you don’t know us. So trust is—a work in progress.”

  He paused. Arian appeared to assess his words before offering a slight nod. “I understand.”

  “Do you? You pretty much popped up out of nowhere in front of us and your—” he stopped then, for the first time looking uncertain.

  “My Companion was concerned for my safety.”

  “Right.” He paused, but she didn’t enlarge on this comment.

  She was parsimonious with words. The truth can be dangerous. Well, there wasn’t much more dangerous than first contact, particularly one against many. She didn’t know them. And they didn’t know her, he reminded himself. It didn’t help as much as it should have.

  “Your telepathic companion,” he added.

  “His physiology is not designed for human speech,” she said. “It is the only way he can communicate with us.”

  “Well, on our planet, animals don’t talk to us telepathically or otherwise.”

  She regarded him intently but didn’t comment on this. It was kind of like being in a room with an expert witness. Or a lawyer, he decided. Could tell it didn’t sit well with Pappy. He wanted her to chat, to relax and reveal enough to get a read on her.

  “It can be disconcerting,” she agreed.

  “We’re new to this neighborhood, so we don’t know who all the players are. While we’re happy to provide assistance to someone in trouble, until we know more, we don’t take sides or—”

  He stopped and waited, his gaze fixed on her.

  This silence was longer than the last. Pappy didn’t look upset, so Coop tried not to worry.

  “…trust without further data,” she finished for him finally.

  “That’s right. Why should we trust you?” he asked bluntly, making Derwent wince.

  “You shouldn’t,” she said, almost sounding wistful. “You don’t know me.”

  Pappy looked disconcerted. “Are you a danger to my people or my ship?”

  Her brows arched a bit. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why don�
��t you know?” he barked back.

  “I don’t know enough about your ship to know what is dangerous to it.”

  Coop had to hide a twitch of his lips with his hand.

  “And I’ve obviously banged up my ship.” She had a tiny frown between her brows, and she paused as if she were seriously considering the question. She gave a small sigh. “I probably wouldn’t trust me.”

  “Of course, we’d like to build a trust, er, relationship,” Derwent put in.

  Arian turned toward him. “How?”

  She sounded curious, not hostile.

  “You could tell us more about yourself,” Pappy said.

  She turned back to Pappy. “What would you like to know?”

  “Well, where you come from would be a good start?”

  “Are you familiar with the Itraxis system?”

  Pappy glanced at Coop. “No.”

  “Then how does that help you know me?” She frowned. “Trust is complicated, is it not?”

  “Very.” Pappy sounded rueful.

  “Do you know anything about this system?” Derwent put in, trying not to sound like he was foundering, too.

  “No.”

  “Wait?” Pappy straightened. “What?”

  “I am unfamiliar with this system,” she repeated.

  “But you must have known something about it before jumping here.”

  “No.”

  Pappy looked a bit winded. “You don’t know this system, or you don’t know where you are?”

  “Both,” she said again, not sounding concerned.

  “But the wormhole…you must have known where it would take you.”

  “It was not a mapped anomaly. When we came under fire, my Companion said there were rumors of an unstable anomaly in the region. There were also many meteorites that we could use for cover.”

  For Arian, all those words were like sharing a whole book, Coop decided.

  “You were looking for an unmapped wormhole in a meteorite belt?”

  A slight smile quivered on the edges of her mouth. “It was the only way to escape.”

  “But,” Derwent choked slightly, “that must mean you’re…lost.”

  Not all who wander are lost.

  Coop jerked at the words in his head. How did this alien dragon know a quote from Lord of the Rings?

  “I am not dead,” she pointed out.

  Coop wondered why she didn’t add, “and not a prisoner,” then realized why. For all she knew, she was their prisoner.

  6

  Arian wiped her faced with her sleeve and looked at the Companion. “Try it now.”

  Claws clicked against controls from his specialized station. To her, he was an odd choice for a companion or co-pilot, but her curiosity about him had been trumped by the meeting with the Boyington, and Coop’s people. Her Companion had assisted her with the language divide at first, but at some point, his voice had faded away and she’d understood, well, she understood the words. She did not always understand the meaning Coop’s people gave the words.

  Coop. She smiled to herself. Last night he had given her a somewhat limited tour of his ship. There’d been “dinner” on something called an MRE in a canteen. Canteen. She liked the word. From now on she would call the sustenance station the canteen, even though it was a slot, not a whole room. In a way, the cakes were also MRE’s, since they arrived ready to eat, but there was more variety in Coop’s MREs. There were courses. And dessert. The word fit the experience. She loved dessert.

  After dinner, they’d gone to a lounge to watch a movie. She liked it, too. This view into his home, his world, and his life made her thoughts spin. It was, according to Coop, people pretending to act out a story, but yes, it was somewhat like real life, he had admitted. He’d struggled to explain the differences, but she had not paid that much attention. The story unfolding on the screen left her wide-eyed and with a warm flush on her skin as the male and female got to know one another and fell into something they called love. Her cheeks had heated when the clasping turned into coupling, and she was relieved when the scene changed. She felt Coop looking at her, but she could not look at him, at least not directly. All the way back to the ship, she’d peeked at him, wondering what it would be like to be clasped in his arms, to have his lips pressing hers as they’d done in the movie.

  Love was different from pact bonding since the couple had taken the time to find out about each other. There had been talking and preliminary touching, she’d noticed. Now she felt hyperaware each time Coop touched her. His fingers lightly clasped her elbow as he steered her around an obstacle. Or just the brush of shoulders together as they walked.

  Once a crowded corridor had forced them closer together. She’d stared up at him, felt his breath catch, and the dark centers of his eyes had dilated. The two of them had been surrounded by many others, but she’d felt as if they were alone. She’d licked dry lips and his breath had caught again. His hands on her arms had tightened and then he’d given her a rueful smile that made her breath hitch and warmth suffuse her body.

  Longing had clogged her thoughts because she did not know what to ask or do. The crowd had pressed harder, forcing their bodies together. Her lips had parted and she’d felt aware of all of herself in a new way. Then a new shift of bodies had forced them to part. Even the brush of her own clothes against her skin left a restless longing, a tightness in her chest. It felt like hunger in some ways but in others? She did not know, but it grumbled inside her, becoming more insistent each time she was around Coop. And when she wasn’t.

  Why?

  The need for an answer, and the lack of the words to ask it, had left her tongue-tied on the trip back to her ship. How could she explain the traditions and practices that had shaped the world she fled when she did not understand them? The two of them were as different as the food they ate. And the movie? There was nothing like it on Bosakli. There was work, there was eating, and there was sleeping. And after pact bonding? Thankfully she had not had to find that out, would never have to see Trajan Bester again.

  Coop had been mostly silent on the walk back to the ship, though he had asked one question that she had been unable to answer. Considering it now, it was odd that the Companion did not have a name. As if the Companion sensed her attention turn his direction, his head lifted so that his snout was visible over the back of his seat.

  Is there a concern?

  “Do you have a name? Other than the Companion?”

  He blinked slowly. My given name is Rhubreak. He watched her for several seconds, possibly for a reaction, then his snout retreated, and the clicking resumed.

  “Why didn’t you use it when we met?”

  It wasn’t relevant.

  Because she was supposed to cold sleep, not drive them into an inter-system ditch.

  His head lifted again. A ditch?

  “I was remembering the first time I tried to drive the tractor.”

  Into a ditch?

  She smiled. “Yes. My grandmother was not…happy.” A pattern that persisted the whole of their life together. Now when it was too late, she wondered what the next day had been like for that formidable lady. The day after Arian disappeared with the dragon.

  Are you worried about her?

  Arian considered the question, feeling some guilt that she had not thought about it until now. Their relationship was so detached, it wasn’t a relationship at all, based on what she’d observed here. But she did not wish for her grandmother to be punished.

  “It’s done, and I can’t change it,” Arian murmured.

  You did not belong there.

  The miracle was that she had survived with her mind intact enough to leave. That she’d managed to hide who she was for long enough to escape. How was that possible? Even from her first memories, she knew not to ask, not to question, not to show anything but a blank exterior to those around her. She’d never even asked about her parents. What had happened to them? Why hadn’t she ever asked that question? She’d wondered that many times,
but she’d never asked. She had never belonged there. She’d known that her whole life. But knowing that didn’t tell her where she did belong.

  Rhubreak lowered his head out of her sight once more.

  Life support is working at seventy percent efficiency.

  Arian hesitated, then accepted the change of topic. If he had the answers, he wasn’t thinking them. “Is that good enough?”

  For now.

  “The ship needs a name, too,” she said, under her breath.

  Flivius.

  Is that the ship’s name? She hesitated at calling him Rhubreak.

  Yes, that is this ship’s name. And yes, please call me Rhubreak.

  She nodded, aware that something had changed between them but not sure exactly sure what. She fingered the small laser she’d used to repair life support systems and finally said, “Flivius is not an inspiring name.”

  She liked the sound of the Boyington much better. Coop said it had been named after a brave man.

  Flivius means “collector.”

  Arian frowned. “What is the word for broken?”

  He didn’t respond, but it felt like he chuckled. She went to the next panel and removed it. The damage here was minimal, thank goodness. They needed their long range scanners—their eyes Coop called them—up and running. She studied the configuration of wires and circuits, and in her mind saw how they should be. As she made her adjustments, the flickers of light appeared under the skin of her hands again, and for a brief instant, she thought they made a trail up her arm. She touched her arm, but they faded away.

  Scanner and sensors are starting to come back online.

  She shoved the panel back in place and stood. As if the ship had been waiting for her attention, it pulsed with an unknown contacts alert.

  She dropped into her seat as Rhubreak activated the controls that put the information up for her to see. She waited tensely for the first report. The last time they’d experienced this alert, it had not gone well.

  Ships.

  About twenty of them. She needed more—as if the ship heard her, the data tightened into a closer view. Her first reaction was a sense of relief. They were not Consortium. She frowned. This flotilla had some aspects that were similar to the pirates they’d encountered back in Consortium space. But they could not have come through the anomaly, or they’d be almost on top of them. She blinked, and the scan deepened.