Page 3 of The First Omega Made
“Let me think about it.”
“Shouldn’t be anything to think about.” I slipped my hand to the side of his face, down his neck to his chest. His heart didn’t beat, but the rhythmic pulse of something told me he understood.
“Want my opinion on this?” Merriel broke the moment, earning a sigh from the both of us.
“No,” we said in unison as I sat up and tucked my hair into place.
“But want me to tell you where your limiter switch is so you can synthesize drugs again?” With any luck, we could keep Merriel’s mouth shut for a little longer. I smiled up hopefully and earned a long silence.
“No bueno, my dudes. Noel needs me to keep an eye on Nexus, and I can’t do that if I’m high.”
“Fuck.” Sarge rubbed his temples. “Any chance—”
“What happens in the holochamber stays in the holochamber.” A pitiable beep preceded silence that stretched for several seconds. Merriel said no more.
“Do we trust he’ll—” I stared at the ceiling.
“Who the fuck knows?” Sarge tucked his clothes into place and hurried out, his face a mask, as if all control to it had been shut off.
I wanted to hope and pray to the progenitors that one day he told Vil, that they took it well, and found a solution.
Because as it stood, Sarge’s body was dying.
Chapter Two
Sarge
I slept a lot more. That was one change, since my body showed signs of failing. I took my shirt off and stared in my chamber’s mirror. The knotted network of scars across my chest pulsed rhythmically. Beneath that skin lay my true form. I pressed fingers that were not my own to the translucent, pink surface. It’d be so easy to rip the skin off, to crawl from that form and find a new host. There were plenty aboard, but I’d made a grave error for my species—I cared. I valued sentient life.
Once upon a time, I hadn’t.
“Gnarly-looking, Sarge.” Merriel’s two cents chimed in unwelcome. We’d all been picking up on twenty-first-century Mater Terra slang from Noel, and I didn’t hate it. I didn’t know what cents were or why there were two of them.
“Don’t you have work to be doing, Merriel?” I closed my shirt, fastening the buttons hurriedly.
“I’m doing it. I can be multiple places at once. Found a few places to hit, too. So, like, the last time I found a haunted military base, we got Noel. Can I pick another creepy-ass place?” Merriel’s voice distorted with excitement.
I paused, brow tightening. The sensation didn’t bode well as numb patches tightened. “You’ve not been telling us about places just because they’re haunted?”
“I mean, duh?”
I sighed heavily. “What’s the most cursed place you can send us to?”
“There’s this old Revulon war base outside of TS-490. Even Kanoiks flee the place. Seriously. If we go to the planet, there’ll be a few of the bastards in orbit trying to swim through space toescape it. Haunted AF.” Merriel’s tinny tones grated on my every nerve.
“You know what? Let’s go there. Now. I’m making the call. Tell Captain.” I marched from my quarters and down the hall, making my way to the mess hall. Maybe Wallace would have something for me to eat. Meat sounded good, and we still had an ample supply since Roan’s gift to Noel.
Fortunately for me, as I made my way in, Wallace caught my eye on his side of the galley and shuffled to the kitchen unspoken. He prepared a bowl of stew for me—meat, shalk root, and generic greens floating in a brown sludge that threw off a heavenly scent. Noel said it lacked something calledgarlicbut otherwise tasted like Mater Terra beef stew. It wasn’t too bad, but he tended to eat it with a copious amount of rice.
As I settled down to take a bite, a clamoring of claws tapped across the metal floor and drew my gaze. Crouched on all fours, a bright blue little Naleucian child stared up at me, our captain’s errant little one. “Hey, guy.”
He grinned, baring sharp teeth. His eyes, unlike either of his parents, were solid blue, no discernible pupil, just an expanse of ice that glittered as if backlit. “Mea!”
He’d not quite mastered the use of t’s, but for a two-month-old child to say words at all was astounding. So, grudgingly, I fished a chunk of meat from my stew and offered it down.
He grabbed for it with clumsy little fingers and stuffed the hot morsel in his mouth with an appreciative noise. “Fank oo!”
He licked at his hands for a moment before scampering off, straight up a wall and into one of the air vents.Polite little shit.
