Page 22 of Ava Greasemonkey

She didn’t make further eye contact and quickly moved on to the next cell, glancing over her shoulder as she did so.

The Vorbax stayed at the cage front, hanging on to it and watching her as she shoved the trays into the last cage. The occupant within was still asleep so she didn’t bother collecting his used things. She just wanted to get out of there. Now.

Stepping back, she reorganized her cart to fit everything and then nodded to the Vorbax who still stared at her with a curious expression on his face. He’d started to glow again as she was dealing with the trays, though he didn’t take his eyes off her.

As curious as Ava was, she was relieved he didn’t seem to want to say anything more to her. She didn’t look back, but walked briskly toward the door pushing the cart, gliding pastthe Tuxa that were still blissfully sleeping. Exiting quickly, she walked back into the room with the other Tuxa, then wrote on her pinpad to tell them that she would be back down with their second serving as requested.

The head Tuxa was tilted back in his chair as she left. With a lazy hand, he waved her off.

Ebel wasn’t present when she went back to the engine hall for the extra rations. Ava was grateful. She didn’t want to stop and have to explain anything. Her hands were shaky and she felt weak all over as she worked on the food processor. It seemed the odd calm she felt had disappeared the moment she left the area, leaving her with overstretched nerves and a scattered mind.

As soon as she got the cart empty and refilled, she whisked back upstairs again, almost trotting through the halls. When she returned with the second serving, the Tuxa hadn’t moved from his spot guarding the door.

Ava delivered the extra food to the Tuxa, who grunted and motioned to the trays already empty from earlier. She left the excess rations by the prisoner door area, not wanting to go inside there again for the ones still sleeping.

She collected the leftover trays and emptied the trash into the compactor. She forced herself to stay and do a sweep around the room, moving around the Tuxa like a dutiful servant would without making her desire to escape completely apparent. She wanted no complaints or extra scrutiny by not doing a thorough job.

Once done, she practically skipped down the hall after she was out of sight from the Tuxa, riding on adrenaline and wiping the sweat from her brow under the hologram projection. The relief she felt made her lightheaded.

I did it, I did it.As she went, she pulled off the gloves to write easier on the tablet and added her notes to the log the Phor were keeping regarding their rotations tending to the Tuxa. Sheput the thought aside that she would need to go back and just focused on the relief she felt right now.

She’d made it through without being discovered, and could only hope that the Vorbax would keep his thoughts to himself the next few times she went in.

Ava took off the feathers and stripped down her many layers before she messaged Nuor, thanking her, then put everything away in the closet next to the bathroom. Nuor didn’t ping back right away. Ava hoped she was trying to get some sleep finally. She owed the Vali. Big time. Maybe she could go back into the vents and get her a large bag of the yavi fruit to say thank you.

Ebel still wasn’t present when she got back. Now that she wasn’t rushing, curiosity over where he was kicked in. Ava checked his screens and noted that he wasn’t even surfing the sports feed right now.

Where is he?She checked the queen’s feed but it was dark in there. The queen was probably resting as well.

She didn’t want to talk about how the visit went, so it was probably best she was alone. It was by all means a success, but the fact that the Vorbax could tell she wasn’t a Vali really weighed on her mind. She bit her lip, lost in thought.The Vorbax hate the Tuxa, so . . . what could he gain by ratting me out?Nothing?

Ava shifted from side to side, anxiety gnawing at her stomach. At least it was almost a full cycle until she needed to go back again. Was it stupid that she wanted to crawl back in the vents to observe more?

Yes, probably.She talked herself out of it, then clicked on Ebel’s keyboard a few more times before deciding she needed a distraction. The books she had were not going to be enough to distract her, and the silence in the room was deafening. The engine’s whirling, which she usually found soothing, was grating.

It was better than nothing though, so she spent a large chunk of time cleaning the engine and attempting to take a cat nap. Real sleep eluded her.

The control room was still empty, even after she spent as much time as she could distracting herself.

Tapping her fingers on Ebel’s keyboard, she closed the screen and exited the control room, grabbing her sandals at her room on the way. She messaged Ebel on her com to let him know the visit went fine and she was in the mess hall.

She was going to go do the only other pastime available on a ship in the middle of nowhere with no outside communication. Ava was going to walk around and find out what everyone else knew.

It turned out that no one knew that much. All the contractors and other Phor she ran into were absolutely useless for gossip, brushing her off when she tried to make small talk.

At least the food is delicious.Ava sat nursing a fizzy drink that the food programmer up here, in the mess hall, had been loaded with. They never got fizzy drinks in the engine room. It was either water or sometimes a stale juice. She was on her second one, parched from all the running around she’d been doing lately.

One of the contractors had hooked a keg of alcohol to the processor in protest, spiking all the drinks that came out of it. Ava rarely had anything with alcohol in it before, and she enjoyed the loose-limbed feeling it gave her. With the alcohol flowing through her, she was more at ease than she had been in some time.

Ava was in one of the booths that lined the side of the mess hall. No one was paying her any mind. Sometimes she thought of herself as just a part of the sparse, gray background for how often the contractors bothered to talk to her. The Phor only hired a few species as contractors, and none had any interest in her.

The mess hall, a narrow room placed next to the navigation area, had more character than the rest of the ship. Over the years, contractors had added to the standard room to make it more enjoyable than the Phor usually decorated. They had vid feeds on the wall and a few throwing games, which currently sat abandoned and lonely. No one seemed in the mood to play anything.

From the chatter Ava had overheard so far, all the contractors were pissed that they were in this position caught between the Tuxa and the Vorbax, and had their communications cut off until the cargo was transferred.

Ava sipped her drink again and listened to one of the Phor she didn’t know very well trying to placate two Haroo. Other than Nuor, the Haroo were the only other species on board as contractors at the moment.

Ava loved watching the Haroos talk and kept her eyes on them over her drink. They were shaggy, overgrown, fuzzy brown creatures that walked on two legs. They talked, but Ava had never looked deep enough into their fur to see what their mouth or even eyes looked like. They never ran into any walls despite all the hair, so they must see adequately. Their hair jiggled when they talked, like they were laughing, even when they were being serious. One was trying to be very serious right now. In fact, it seemed pissed, which didn’t match the dancing its fur was doing while it argued.

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