Page 59 of Shellshock

She didn’t need to lift a finger or intend violence on anyone. She simply had to do her job.

Perhaps her ship had brought those human vessels to the Astral Reef. His chest burned with anger.

“What happened to the others on your ship?” he asked, knowing she would finally answer.

Her hand slipped over her mouth and she went quiet. Rousing herself after a pause, lashes brimming with tears, she spoke in a low voice mottled with emotion.

“Your ships are so different from ours. The doors open so easily. One wrong hiccup—one little button press, and the entire ship can vent open.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. She wouldn’t look at him as she relived the horrors in her mind.

“It wasn’t like I had enough time to get familiar with this ship before we left the hangar. They told me the ship was ready and the next day, put me on it. I didn’t know how everything worked yet. I was just—I was testing the scheduling system. Something small—we were trying to convert our time to yours. And I was in the engine room while my crewmates were near the back, and something shorted, and—”

“You killed them,” Caligher said.

Another tear. A hard swallow. “The airlock opened. So did the inner door to where they were standing. I didn’t even realize it at first, but I remember thesound.”

Tears broke loose in endless waves. She kept wiping at her mouth in horror, then wringing her hands.

“I just remember the sound, and this… chill in my stomach. You know when you know something’s wrong? Like instinctively? I tried to ignore it but kept having this… sense. Then I checked the cameras, and… god. I’ll never forget what they looked like. It was sodarkoutside—and they were struggling to get back in.”

She sank completely into her chair and all the tension seemed to leak out of her, leaving her empty. Lucca stared at her terminal in dense silence.

“I could be home right now,” she said after all that pausing. Her voice was ragged, skin flushed, but her cheeks were finally drying. “Someone else would be here—maybe my crewmates would be alive. Someone else could be hurting you and you would still be blowing up ships and I would have no clue! I’d just be back home, blissfully unaware! How’s that for a thought? It doesn’tmatterwhat I do.”

“I disagree with that,” Caligher said.

She straightened, throwing him a startled glance as if she’d forgotten he was there. Her face drained of color for an instant before she slumped with a hand over her eyes.

“My computer’s dead anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I’m useless out here.”

Silence again.

Caligher settled into it with her, listening to the disrupted heartbeat of her ship. He’d given it a stutter with his mangling of her system.

He knew he hadn’t been nice to her so far, but he needed whatever information he could get before he let her slip back into thinking she could lie to him again. The weirdest thing was, nowhefelt guilty for reasons he couldn’t sort out. Maybe he was absorbing her emotions?

Morwong finally picked up. “Lucca?”

“Caligher,” he corrected, irritated at how hopeful Morwong’s voice sounded—and how quickly the merchant audibly scowled to hear Caligher instead.

Lucca stared at her dead console with an unreadable expression, chewing on her lip. The darker skin was slightly swollen from her tormenting the thing.

Caligher explained to Morwong where they might find the jump point—to which the merchant laughed grimly, explaining how he’d already put his feelers in that direction. Groaning, Caligher rubbed his hand slowly over his face at the realization settling in.

Morwongknewwhat Lucca was. Already. Had known for a while.

Caligher was the only fool blind enough not to see the truth smacking him in the face, and Morwong had left him to suffer in the dark. Maybe, just maybe, Caligher would hop down there and strangle the merchant for good measure.

But he finally knew the truth, and there was nowhere for Lucca to go. Theywouldfind the jump point, and they’d put a permanent end to this human invasion.

His life was moving in the direction he wanted it to—even if it didn’t feel like it.

* * *

LUCCA

Weird, how when Lucca had first shared her picture of the Crescent Rim, Morwong had said it would be difficult to locate. And now they suddenly,magicallyhad no problem finding it. Lucca sat, half-naked in her chair, listening to the two Ternetzi men talk. And she felt undeniably miffed about the whole thing.

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