Page 11 of New World

Her gaze moved back down to the planet. She didn’t know if it was habitable. It could be a gas giant, with no actual landmass. Pain flashed through her at the thought that she—or one of the others—could have landed on such a world.

The thought settled like cold steel in her chest, building as another sank in. There was no home to return to—not without another gateway and a spaceship that could take them. Even if they had one, there was no guarantee a new gateway would spit them into their galaxy.

“What would I have to go back to anyway? The cage my father kept me locked in?” she murmured, her voice raw with emotion.

Closing her eyes as a swift shaft of pain ran through her, she released a silent prayer to the universe.

Please… let the others be safe.

Three weeks later, Mei had become a ghost aboard the alien freighter, slipping into their stores of food and water, memorizing the ship’s layout, and watching the crew from the darkness. She moved silent as a breath, and used the maze of rusted passageways and flickering lights to her advantage.

The ship was old, patched together with scraps of salvaged tech. The air always carried a scent of ozone and burned metal, and the hull creaked like an ancient beast groaning under its own weight.

Sitting on a beam high above the massive storage bay where they sorted what they had collected, she pulled a small notebook and pencil out of a pocket of her cargo pants and leaned back in the shadows, observing the two men below.

She opened the notebook and turned to a new page. Her eyes flicked between the scene below and the drawing she was making to capture it. This was her tether. Her quiet anchor in a world she did not belong to. Some wrote journals to process their thoughts—Mei let them bleed into lines and shading. Each sketch was proof she existed. That she was still here.

She had captured each of the five crew members onboard the freighter. As far as she could tell based on their physical characteristics, they all came from different worlds. This meant that wherever she had awoken, there were multiple planets that could sustain life.

She paused in her drawing when the tall, reptilian man with dark, shimmery green patches of luminescent gold skin that pulsed when he spoke entered through a narrow doorway. She knew that the doorway led to the level where the galley and the crew cabins were located. He paused on the platform and called out to the two men. His name was Xyphos, among a few other things which she might not precisely understand but knew the gist of based on the derisive tone with which they were said. He had four eyes that blinked independently, a sour disposition, and from the way the men reacted to him, she was positive he was the captain of the freighter.

“Rak’tol varun nezhak-toh kry’tulakh ves’tan Cryon-II!” Xyphos commanded.

Grak shrugged while Tiv snapped to attention. Even without understanding the words, Mei recognized submission when she saw it. Tiv moved faster, his mandibles clicking, while Grak—slower, lazier—barely acknowledged the command, tossing debris over his shoulder with deliberate indifference.

“Tzarak Urvalek. Vash’kal nerai Frell’shak vok’ta Cryon-II turak vor’zhak,” Xyphos grumbled to himself in a voice pointedly loud enough to be overheard, his glance singling out Grak.

Mei’s lips twitched. Even without knowing the words, she could tell he wasn’t wishing Grak good health. Her gaze flickered down to the quick sketch she had drawn of Xyphos, the lines of his angry expression dark and emphatic.

Lorik stepped through the doorway to stand beside Xyphos, and Mei watched with amusement as the captain started for the stairs, intending to grouchily ignore the newcomer on the scene before Lorik placed his hand on Xyphos’s arm, shook his head, and spoke in that hypnotic voice of his. A moment later, Xyphos grumbled something she couldn’t hear, nodded, and disappeared back the way he came.

Lorik was the most human-like of the five. He had dark obsidian skin with silver veins that pulsed faintly, but it was his voice that Mei found the most intriguing. It was smooth, spellbinding. He used it most with the three other crew members, but like today, she had seen him use it a few times on the captain when the man had become tired of the bickering among the crew or with Grak’s insubordination.

Grak, Frell, and Tiv were the grunts. From the disconnection between them and the captain and first officer, she suspected they had been a rash hire—one that both men regretted.

Mei casually sketched Grak. He was a massive hulking brute, with thick skin covered in spiked ridges down his arms. He was slow, but strong. His voice was a deep, guttural growl.

She had noticed over the last few weeks that he had a bad habit of drinking too much. He was not a functioning alcoholic. His ineptness had led to a near fatal accident yesterday when he hit the wrong button on the lift controls and dropped a pile of space debris on Frell.

That was probably why Frell wasn’t there today. Frell, the smallest of the crew members, had been fortunate that he was wiry and fast. He had four arms and piercing red eyes that never stayed still. Yesterday, he had come close to killing Grak. The argument had escalated to the point that Mei had been surprised that Lorik hadn’t confined Grak to keep him from being murdered.

Her eyes softened when she studied Tiv. He was the only one she found herself… liking. Which was strange—he wasn’t human, wasn’t even close. But unlike the others, he never barked orders, never wasted words on cruelty.

His mandibles clicked when he was nervous, and sometimes, she imagined she understood what he meant by the small, weary tilt of his head. Maybe that was why she watched him more than the others. Maybe that was also why she hoped—just a little—that when she finally made her move, he wouldn’t be in the way.

He was the only one of the crew worth keeping in her opinion. Tiv worked tirelessly, never complained—that she had witnessed—and kept to himself. When he was working with Grak and Frell, he tried to keep the peace between the two.

Out of the five, Mei enjoyed watching Tiv the most. There was something about the way his eyes moved and how he would just shake his head at Grak and Frell that amused her and reminded her of Julia, Ash, and Josh when she and Sergi were teasing each other.

Well, not quite the same way. We picked on each other for fun.

The memories caught her off guard. For a short time, she’d had a family—one made of laughter and teasing and bad birthday surprises. One where she wasn’t a tool, a weapon, or a mission. She hoped—desperately—that she still did have a family. Somewhere. Anywhere in this strange new universe.

With a shake of her head, she returned to her observations. The aliens’ languages were a chaotic mix of guttural clicks, rolling consonants, and deep rumbles. She could pick up fragments, but nothing cohesive. There was one word that stood out, though. Turbinta.

They had said it often over the last few days. When they did, their voices lowered. Their gazes darkened. It was a name, a place, or a warning.

Interesting. Very interesting.

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