ROGUE’S TALE

ROGUE STAR: BOOK SEVEN

AVA YORK

CONTENTS

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Epilogue

Letter from Ava

Rogue’s Play Sneak Peek!

GALLUS

“Gallus?”

It was Maris, Orrin’s mate and my pseudo-replacement as Second Engineer.

I wasn’t angry about it.

I still held the official title, so when I eventually ended up with my own ship, that would work for me.

If you had asked me a year ago where we would be as a crew and an operation, I certainly wouldn’t have said that we would be hiding out at a pirate sanctuary with a bunch of human women now part of the crew.

I most definitely would not have said that some of our own would end up falling in love with those same human women, or that the crew would have come to count the women as family.

What we ended up discovering, and blurted out to the entire galaxy, was that the Dominion was involved in some back-door negotiations with several dozen governments, promising them inclusion into the Dominion if they paid with a selection of females that were to be tested.

The Dominion was looking for specific genetic markers that could be used to essentially create the “perfect” race.

We broadcast their own conversations with the humans from their own secret hiding place, which really put a bit of a crimp in their plans, and their popularity.

Now, because of us, they weren’t the supreme, all-mighty governing body anymore.

Now, they were facing numerous public disputes, their reputation had taken a hit, there were suddenly more non-Dominion governments popping up, and some of the places that had surrendered their women in order to join the Dominion were facing serious political issues.

In the two months we’d stayed here at Sanctuary, I’d picked up on several reports of full-blown government turnovers or rebellions in some of the sectors that had paid the Dominion’s price.

And through all of it, we’d made a legitimate family with the human women, found a friend and benefactor in Itair, and gained some allies that we hadn’t had before.

So, if you were to have asked me a year ago where I thought we would be as a ship and crew, I wouldn’t have dreamed of any of this.

“What did you need, Maris?” I asked, sitting up from my lounge chair.

I was enjoying a day off, one of the few that I had actually taken here, and had found a place by the beach where the breeze was blocked just enough to let me still feel it, but not be bothered by it.

The purple ocean lapped at the beach while numerous birds squawked in the trees above.

Qal’s little blue friend chittered nearby. I must have woken her up from her nap. “Sorry, Neela,” I said to her before turning my attention back to Maris.

“Orrin was wondering if you finished running the maintenance check on the new damper discs,” she said as she took a seat on a big rock next to me. When we had first met, she was—as the women said—a bitch. She was always angry about something and doing what she could to prove to us that she was smart and competent, even if that meant disobeying orders and going behind Orrin’s back.

I liked her from the start.

Her attitude and determination shut Orrin up and stopped him from being the pretentious ass that he was before all this happened.

Now, he and I were legitimate friends, and I liked that. I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Finished them bright and early this morning, left the report on Orrin’s tablet. Why?”

She had been smiling until my question. “Because they’re off balance again.”

“Again? Seriously? Kout,” I swore.

The umbba dampers that we had recently installed were giving me fits. When they worked, our output was phenomenal, but they liked to slip out of balance, which screwed up our engines.

I thought I had fixed it and had conducted four tests on them to make sure. They had held up. “Any idea what caused it this time?”

“I’d lay money we can put the blame at the sticky feet of one of those damn little lizards that Shenna has been ‘adopting’,” she said with air quotes.

I should have known. Aavat, one of the members of the ship’s leadership, had fallen for a young lady with a fabulous attitude, and a terrible sense of how much damage her kouting zoo was creating for all of us.

I let out a long sigh, dropped my head, and resisted the urge to hit my head on one of the lush trees.

“Okay,” I said, about as dejected as I could possibly be. “I’ll go fix it. But,” I said, staring Maris in the face and putting on my most I’m-not-putting-up-with-this-scro-anymore expression. “You’re telling her to keep her goddamn animals out of the engine compartment, or I’m eating the bastards.”

Neela chittered loudly from behind me and jumped on my shoulder, smacking me in the back of the head.

I laughed. “No, not you, Neela. You’re safe, promise,” I chuckled. That seemed to pacify the little blue…thing.

“Yeah,” Maris chuckled. “Like she’ll listen to me. You’ve used that threat before and haven’t followed through on it.”

I shrugged, stood up, and started heading towards the Star, Neela still sitting comfortably on my shoulder, her little tail wrapped around me to help her keep her balance.

“I’ll bring it up with her, though,” Maris said as she came up next to me. “She needs to understand that those pets of hers are gonna get us killed if they keep messing with the engines.”

I nodded. I was trying to resign myself to the next three hours of work that it would take to balance the kouting discs again. I was not happy.

The next three hours were stressful. So much so that I was cursing every umbba creature on board this ship except for the cat, Persephone, and Neela. At least those two stayed out of trouble. I hated that little puff-ball that Shenna had stolen from Itair. It always made me wonder why he never confronted her about it. He had to have seen it roaming around the ship.

Bringing my mind back to the task at hand, I finished setting the discs to the proper balance and started running my maintenance checks.

I was into my third check when the alarms sounded. “RED ALERT! RED ALERT! DOMINION SHIPS INBOUND!” Qal’s voice blared over the shipwide system, and if I knew Qal, he was also blaring it out over the outboard speakers, as well.

I quickly brought up video and watched in horror as six Dominion ships of various sizes tore through the atmosphere. “Holy kout!” I swore.

I rushed to the primary engineering station and quickly started the process to get the engines back online.

“Engineering!” It was Kovor’s voice, our third captain.

“Here, Captain,” I called back.

“Are those engines up yet?”

“Getting them online now. Activating shields and repositioning them above us,” I yelled back.

“Good. Make sure we’re ready to get in the air as soon as possible,” he called back and clicked off communication.

As if I would have done anything different. Maris and Orrin burst into the engine room, taking positions to help.

“The discs ready?” Orrin asked.

I nodded as the ship shook. I looked at the screen to see one of the Dominion ships firing.

Then, as quickly as the shooting started, it was answered.

Dozens of small ships launched from the surface, while a barrage of laser cannon shots exploded on and around the Dominion ship that had fired.

It broke apart and began falling to the surface in dozens of little burning fireballs of debris.

Seriously?

We’d been here two months, and I’d never had a clue about the defenses around this place.

Not a surprise, when I had the chance to think about it.

A pirate haven was likely to be fortified, but I had not anticipated the pirates here to be so prepared and heavily defended.

It was a sight to behold.

Or would have been, if I’d been able to pay attention.

Instead, I watched out of the corner of my eye as I worked with Maris and Orrin to finish getting the engines ready to launch and break atmo.

Tiny little puffs of exploding ordnance filled the sky on the screen as the Dominion ships fired in return.

We were rocked as several shots hit our shields.

“How much longer do I have?” I yelled into the comm unit.

“Twenty seconds,” Qal yelled back.

I could do it. I started counting down from fifteen, just in case. At eight, Kovor ordered us to fly and the engines fired to life as Qal started getting us into the air.

It was a harrowing escape, our lift-off slightly hampered by the sand of the beach being as loose as it was, slowing down our ascent, as the engines didn’t have a solid surface to push against.

Once in the air, however, the damper discs did their job and our engine kicked in hard. I lost my balance as the engines catapulted us forward and was forced to grab a nearby wall sconce.

Looking at Orrin and Maris, we watched the screen to see if we were being followed. As soon as we were clear of the planet’s gravitational field, the next call rang through the ship.

“Prepare for fold,” came the order from above. Scro. I hated folding. The queasiness I always felt kept me wanting to vomit for hours afterwards.

Something grabbed my leg.

Double scro.

I looked down, spotted Neela, and called her up.

“Sorry, girl. Guess you get to see the stars, after all.”

She jumped up to my chest and I held her close as the fold-engine kicked in and hurtled us away from Sanctuary and the Dominion ships.

XYLA

After everything that’s happened to us in the past few months, I could honestly say that nothing surprised me anymore.

When the Dominion fleet descended upon us, I wasn’t even shocked.

If I’d had more time to think about it, I might’ve realized how messed up that was.

A life-threatening situation should get some kind of rise out of me.

But honestly?

I was annoyed more than anything.

My reaction had to be some kind of coping mechanism. Or worse, I’d become too used to being in incredibly dangerous situations. There could be worse things.

I could’ve become too used to lounging on the beach all day.

Thankfully, I was as fit as I was the day the Persephone Station was blown to bits and I got sucked into this mess. While the rest of the crew enjoyed the sun and sand, I devoted much of my spare time to exercise.

I didn’t like to stay still.

Once, years ago, a doctor instructed me to channel all my extra anger into physical exercise.

While he was a smug bastard, and it had been tempting to punch him, his advice had always worked for me.

I’d freely admit that when I was holed up in the cargo bay with the others, unable to walk around or do anything, my temper took on a life of its own. It stayed alive and fiery until I had the entire stretch of beach to run along.

Having the beach at my disposal served me well as I sprinted down the main entry corridor of the Rogue Star.

The ship tilted hard to the right. Manda, running a few paces ahead of me, stumbled and fell with a crash.

The Rogue Star banked so hard, the left wall was where the floor ought to be. I grabbed some of the exposed piping and held fast. I sure hoped I wasn’t grabbing something important.

The last thing we needed was for a pipe to burst.

Memories of noxious gas fogging up the hallways came to mind, tightening my throat. When that horrible demon-eyed princess-chick double-crossed us, she’d tried to gas us all.

That was the last time I truly felt afraid. And I shoved that back down, burning away the fear and the worry with anger.

Always worked. No reason to stop now.

The ship pitched again, this time in the opposite direction. Manda fell from one side of the corridor to the other with a grunt.

“Grab hold of something!” I shouted to her.

“I’m trying!” she yelled back. She was holding one of her arms at an odd angle. I half-crawled, half-climbed down the corridor until I reached her.

“Find an alcove,” I instructed. “Tuck yourself somewhere safe until we smooth out.”

“I don’t think I can move. I landed hard on my arm. I think it’s sprained,” Manda whimpered.

From where I was, I could see swelling already in her wrist. First aid wasn’t my strongest suit, and even if it was, there wasn’t anything nearby that I could use. With a hint of bitterness, I recalled a time on the Persephone Station a few years back when I’d requested to be trained in medical duty. Lynna said I didn’t have a good bedside manner, as if politeness had anything to do with saving someone’s life.

I pushed the thought away to better focus on the issue at hand. But maybe, just maybe, I’d remind her that it wouldn’t hurt for all of us to have some basic training, cheerful little daisies or not.

“Hold on to me,” I instructed just as the Rogue Star leveled out. Manda and I crashed down onto the floor, which was once again in its proper place.

“I think I just sprained my other wrist,” Manda grumbled.

“I think you just bruised my rib,” I groaned. “So much for good intentions.”

“I appreciate that you tried to help me,” Manda’s eyes were wide with sincerity. “I’m surprised-” She seemed to catch herself and clamped her mouth shut.

“What’s surprising?” I asked.

“Nothing, I don’t know what I was trying to say,” she laughed awkwardly.

I knew exactly what she was going to say.

She was going to say that she was surprised I’d go out of my way to help her. I knew I didn’t have the friendliest reputation.

It’s no secret that I wasn’t a fan of Commander Kalyn or anything she’d led us into ever since Persephone Station blew.

But the fact that Manda thought I’d stoop so low as to refuse to help one of my crewmates hurt a bit.

More than a bit.

Clearly, I needed to work on my image.

But later. One of the Dominion ships hunting us fired some kind of explosive. The shockwave reverberated through the ship, making me stumble. Now was not the time to worry about my image.

The red alarm light flared to life over our heads. That last blast had done something important to the Rogue Star.

“Get somewhere where you won’t get thrown around again,” I told Manda before taking off down the corridor.

I needed answers, and there was one place closer than the bridge that might have them.

I burst into Qal’s room, where he was frantically trying to maneuver the Rogue Star.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“What do you think?” he shouted back. “I’m trying to dodge the blasts of an entire fleet. The ummba Dominion ships followed us through the fold.”

“The emergency alarm is blaring. Do you know where the issue is?”

Qal cast a quick glance at the detailed schematic on display to his right. From where I stood, I could see a red dot on the display, but I couldn’t tell where it was.

“The room under the bridge.”

“Crap.” I bolted out of the room.

If the engine room was the heart of the Rogue Star, then the room under the bridge was like the brain. It was likely that someone else was already headed down there, someone more qualified than me, but I didn’t know what else to do.

Some of the crew had emergency stations to report to. I was one of the many who didn’t.

In situations like these, those who didn’t have an emergency station were required to hide themselves away in the cargo bay until the danger passed.

I hated the cargo bay.

I hated not having a proper job.

I hated that the idea of me being helpful was such a surprise to others.

I passed many of my crewmates as I made my way to the room beneath the bridge. They were so frantic that no one noticed I was heading in the exact opposite direction of the cargo bay.

When I got to the room, I wasn’t alone.

A Shein male stood at the far end, bent down trying to patch one of the pipes.

The odd smell in the air told me that it was some kind of coolant leak. It wouldn’t cause the ship to burst into flames, which was good.

However, all of the circuits and machinery in this room needed to be kept cool. If they overheated, they would automatically shut down. The environmental regulators could go down. Qal’s navigations systems could go down.

“You shouldn’t be down here!” the Shein called over his shoulder when he spotted me. I recognized him, though his name escaped me at the moment.

“You need help!” I shouted back.

There were three other fractures in the coolant piping. He could only block one at a time. “Tell me what to do.”

At least he wasn’t stupid enough to turn away a set of helping hands.

“See that tub there?” he jerked his chin toward a medium-sized tub filled with something shiny and pitch black. “Take a scoop and cover the crack.”

I did as I was told without hesitation. Whatever the sticky, tarlike material was, it did the trick patching the pipes.

But it wasn’t meant to be handled by human hands.

“It burns,” I gasped. I immediately tried to wipe it off on the rest of the pipe. “Is it supposed to burn?”

“Here.” The male pushed a damp cloth into my hand. The coolness of it soothed the burning sensation enough so that I could continue the patch job. I fell into a system. Handle the black gunk until the burning was too much, wipe, and repeat.

“You don’t have to keep going if it hurts you,” the male said.

“We have to get this done,” I called back. “I’ve only got one more left to do, anyway.” I smeared the black gunk over the last crack. The male came up behind me with some kind of spray gun. Over the patched piping, he sprayed what looked like pure liquid metal until the pipe looked perfect once more.

“Don’t breathe that in,” he warned.

I lifted my hand to cover my mouth and nose.

“You could have said that before you sprayed it,” I replied. The skin on my face started to burn. I immediately covered my face with the cloth.

“You’re probably right.” He had the nerve to smile at me. “You might need a quick trip to the med bay when this is over, regardless.”

“What?” I cried.

“Apparently, the pipe sealer is mildly toxic to humans,” he shrugged.

“The one time I’m helpful, it comes back to bite me,” I rolled my eyes. Above our heads, the red emergency alarm stopped flashing.

“That’s one crisis averted,” the male said. “We should see if there’s anything else we can do.”

“We?”

“If you’re helpful a second time, it might not bite you,” he said.

“What’s one more chemical burn or lung irritant?” I shrugged and followed him out of the room.

“I’m Gallus, by the way,” he said as we walked.

“I know,” I said, even though I didn’t. We’d spoken once or twice before. I should’ve known his name.

“No, you don’t,” Gallus smirked. “I never told you my name. I appreciate that you tried to pretend that you did, though.”

“Any time,” I winced. “I’m Xyla.”

“I know.”

“But I never told you,” I fed his own line back to him.

“No, you didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention.”

Not many people had the ability to put me off my stride, but it took me a moment to untangle my words.

“You’re awfully chipper considering we’re under attack,” I diverted the subject.

“Between you and me, I like the excitement,” he admitted, a kinda cute half-smile lifting a corner of his mouth.

Before I could say anything, we arrived on the bridge. Aavat was there, giving orders and monitoring the Dominion fleet on our tail.

“Anything needing attention?” Gallus asked.

“Aside from the government organization trying to kill us?” Aavat snapped.

I liked it when everyone was under pressure like this.

They showed their true colors instead of pretending to be nicer than they were.

At least Aavat wasn’t one to put on a mask in the first place. He was a rude, arrogant bastard, and didn’t try to pass himself off as anything different.

It was a refreshing change.

I could do without the constant threat of death, though.

Another explosion went off somewhere in the space around us. My arms shot out to balance myself and I accidentally latched on to Gallus’s arm. I retracted my hands as soon as I regained my balance.

I risked a glance at Gallus to see if he’d noticed, but his focus was directed on the monitors.

“Aavat, what are those?” he asked.

I followed his gaze to the live feed of the starboard side of the ship. Another fleet of ships was fast approaching. My stomach sank.

If those were more Dominion ships, we wouldn’t survive much longer.

“I don’t know,” Aavat replied. “I don’t recognize the ship model. The scanners can’t figure out what they are, either.”

We watched the fleet of mystery ships swoop closer.

Lights flared all around us as their cannons fired, and I braced myself.

But the unknown ships flitted around us, engaging the Dominion cruisers.

Nimbly, the smaller, faster ships soon divided up the Dominion fleet, driving them away until, one by one, our attackers folded away.

Eventually, the void outside was cleared.

The mystery fleet circled around us.

“This is either really good or really bad,” I muttered under my breath. Gallus gave an uneasy laugh.

“Hopefully, it’s good,” Aavat looked over his shoulder at us. “They’re requesting permission to board us.”

GALLUS

Xyla stared at the screen, watching the unidentified vessels. “Who are they?”

Aavat and Dejar were busy at the comms, talking with whoever they were.

“I wish I knew, but I’m sure that the captain is dealing with it,” I answered.

“You can be sure, but I’m not,” she waved me off. “Where are they going to board?”

Well, if that wasn’t rude, I don’t know the definition of the word.

“Most likely going to be in the primary cargo bay. I’m assuming that their captain will come over and speak with our captain.” Before I could thank her for her help again, and ask her if there was anything I might be able to help her with, she looked at me with narrowed, appraising eyes.

“I’m gonna go. You coming?”

I reached out for her, but stopped short of touching her as she glared at me. “I don’t think that would be the greatest of ideas. This is a meeting between ship leaders.”

Over her shoulder, I could see the ship coming up next to us. Within moments, the docking tubes had extended and we were connected to one another.

“I’m not going to interrupt the meeting, I just want to see who we’re dealing with,” she said as she watched our two ships connecting. “I’m going.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” I tried again.

She stopped, and snapped around, pointing at me. “I’m sick and tired of being held back on this ship,” she snarled. She stomped towards me and stuck that finger into my chest. “I know I can do things to help, but I never get the chance.” Her glare seemed to soften from pure anger and hatred to sheer determination. “I’m done being forgotten. I’m done being left behind. I’m doing what I want, and right now, I want to see who the hell just saved us from those Dominion bastards.”

With that, she spun around and stalked away.

I knew my job was to stop her and take her somewhere safe, just in case, but, if I had to be honest, that fire?

Sexy as all hell.

I shook my head in wonder as I started to follow her. The problem was, she wasn’t just filled with passion, she was angry, as well.

That kind of anger, if not dealt with, would lead to something not smart, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be around when that ‘not smart’ thing happened.

Then again, I wasn’t sure I that I didn’t want to be around to stop her from doing something stupid.

Maybe the fumes were mildly toxic to Shein as well. Or maybe it was just her presence that scrambled my brain.

When it came down to it, she did have a point.

I was just a little curious myself as to who’d saved us, so I followed her to the cargo bay.

She was standing in the open, in one of the doorways, watching as our new friends—at least, I hoped they were friends—made their way down the docking tunnel.

I tapped her on the shoulder. “Hi,” I whispered.

She rolled her eyes slightly. “Guess you’re interested, too, huh?” she whispered back.

I nodded, not a bit ashamed. “We should probably get out of sight, though,” I said quietly, motioning towards some nearby crates.

She huffed. “Really? Are you going to tell me that I ‘need to be safe,’ too?” It was apparent that she wasn’t happy with my suggestion.

So, I decided to try a different tactic. “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m just being cautious. If this turns into a fight, we’ll already be behind cover. But if you want to be out in the open where they can see you and shoot you, be my guest.” I turned and took a few steps away. I stopped and looked back. “Then again, what if these guys are looking for you ladies and they do worse to humans than the Dominion does?” I walked behind a stack of crates and leaned myself against them, grateful that they were heavy and didn’t move when I did so.

As the door to the cargo bay opened, I could see Xyla struggling with her indecision, then, in what I assumed to be angry resignation, she blew out a large breath of air and joined me behind the crates.

Our new friends were something I had never seen before. They were slim, athletic looking people with green-black skin that looked to be absurdly smooth.

They walked with effortless grace, looking as though they simply floated across the floor. I had to look at their legs to make sure they were moving, that’s how smoothly they flowed.

Captain Dejar, Aavat, and Kovor were waiting. As our new friends approached, Dejar stepped forward and extended a hand in the universal greeting. The apparent leader, I assumed it was male, stepped forward and returned the greeting, reaching forward and grasping Dejar’s forearm as Dejar grasped his.

“Welcome aboard the Rogue Star,” Dejar said. “I thank you for your assistance against the Dominion. It is highly appreciated.”

“We are happy to have been of assistance, Captain,” the beautiful man answered, his voice almost musical. “My name is Phezn. We,” he started, waving his arm to include his small entourage, which consisted of two males and two females, both of which were difficult to keep my eyes off of. “We are the Gaed. We are not of the Dominion, nor are we friends of the Dominion.”

“Well, as you could see, neither are we,” Dejar said.

“Yes. However, you must understand, while we are not friends of the Dominion, we are also not enemies. We have a polite agreement to leave one another alone,” Phezn explained.

“I see. Then, if you don’t mind my asking, why did you come to our rescue?”

Phezn tilted his head a bit, as if he was a bit amused by the question. “As I said, we are not friends with the Dominion. You had folded to the edge of our system, then drifted in. They were in our system without permission, so we escorted them away.”

Dejar nodded.

It didn’t make sense to me, though. There had to be more reason behind it. If they weren’t friends, but also weren’t enemies, then wouldn’t the smart thing for the Gaed to do be simply turn us over in order to keep their relationship ambivalent?

“Well, I thank you again,” Dejar said. “Now, you said something about wanting to speak.”

“Correct.”

“Okay, what about?”

Phezn looked back at his people, and at their nod, he turned back to Dejar. “We wish to offer you, your crew, and your ship a safe haven in which to stay away from the Dominion.”

I was blown away, and I guessed that Xyla was, as well, as she had let out a small gasp. One of the Gaed looked in our direction, a small smile on her face, before turning her attention back to Dejar and Phezn.

“Well, I am obviously very grateful for your offer,” Dejar said as he turned to Aavat and Kovor. They looked almost as surprised as I was. “But, and I don’t mean to be rude in any manner, I must ask why you would offer this to us.”

Phezn nodded in understanding. “I understand your hesitation. After your infiltration of the Dominion facility and the subsequent broadcast of their secret actions, our leaders felt that you and your people were worth helping if you ever needed it.”

“Thank you,” Dejar said, flabbergasted. “But, won’t this put you in bad graces in your somewhat neutral relationship?”

“It is possible,” Phezn said flatly. “But it is a decision we agreed was worth the risk. Currently, the Dominion cannot risk attacking us, not with their newfound troubles from all around and within, all thanks to what you and your crew have done.”

Before Dejar could say anything, Aavat stepped forward. “This is a tremendous offer; can we speak about it among ourselves for just a moment?”

“Why would you hesitate?” Phezn asked, turning his attention away from Dejar.

Aavat shrugged. “Think about it. We thought the Dominion could be trusted and we were betrayed. We thought a few others could be trusted, and they were involved in all that, as well. I think we’ve earned the right to hesitate a few moments.”

“You make a compelling argument. Very well,” Phezn said with a graceful nod. He then turned around and went back to his group as Dejar, Aavat, and Kovor talked.

It wasn’t that long a conversation, and I could imagine it consisted mostly of the captains just trying to weigh the risks of staying versus trying to run.

Dejar turned back to Phezn, meeting him once again in the middle of the cargo bay. “We accept your gracious offer,” Dejar said, his hand extended.

Phezn accepted the extended hand with a smile. “It is an honor to begin a friendship with all of you.”

Xyla looked up at me, her eyes wide, but not in wonder.

That was more anger.

Scro.

XYLA

“Does it actually matter what the rest of us think?”

I couldn’t keep my temper under wraps any longer.

Me, Emmery, Paila and some of the other women were against going with the Gaed.

It didn’t matter, though.

Our words wouldn’t be listened to. They never were.

Kalyn was halfway back to her quarters when I called out to her, tired of biting my tongue.

She turned slowly on her heel, wearing her ‘stern’ expression.

It didn’t come naturally to her. I’ve caught her practicing in the mirror a few times.

To her credit, she’d gotten pretty good at it, but it wasn’t enough to scare me.

Nothing about Kalyn scared me.

“Excuse me?”

“You never have, and never will, listened to any of your crew’s concerns,” I snapped.

“I’ll take everyone’s concerns into account when I make my decisions,” Kalyn said firmly.

“That’s not true.” I let out a frustrated groan. “You only pretend to listen to us so it doesn’t seem like you’re blindly agreeing with whatever Dejar wants. And it’s obvious you’re always going to agree with him because you share a bed.”

“Enough!” Kalyn barked. She closed the distance between us with quick steps. The heels of her boots made hard contact against the floor as she moved.

Others had heard our exchange. Some gathered around, interested to see how this was going to play out, though they pretended to be nonchalant.

The rest looked ready to intervene if Kalyn and I came to blows.

I was angry enough to smack her in the jaw, but I’d never actually do that. Despite what people thought of me, I had my limits.

My friends, Emmery and Paila, took a step back.

They weren’t afraid to get into it with Kalyn on my behalf, but they understood that I liked to handle my own fights.

“Nothing I do is good enough for you, Xyla. I understand that I will never earn your approval. You will never be on my side. You will always have something horrible to say. I’m starting to think you disagree with me for the sake of disagreeing with me.” Kalyn struggled to keep her voice calm and even.

“How many times did your mother say that to you, I wonder?” I spat back.

“I am your commander.” Kalyn’s face was turning red. I couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. “You don’t have to like me. I definitely don’t like you. But you will show me respect.”

“Or what? You can’t do anything to me out here worse than what the Dominion’s done,” I pointed out. “You call yourself a commander, but all you do is simper in Captain Dejar’s shadow and eagerly nod along while he makes all the decisions. I have at least some respect for him, but none for you. Do you want to know why?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Kalyn said through clenched teeth.

“You know what? I’m not.” I folded my arms over my chest. “I won’t waste my breath on someone who isn’t going to listen.”

I strode past her in a huff. Emmery and Paila came after me. I didn’t stop walking until I reached my room.

“Are you all right?” Emmery asked after a moment of silence.

“Not really,” I sighed. “There was a better way to handle that, wasn’t there?”

“Yes,” Paila winced. “But nothing you said was untrue. Kalyn only listens to Dejar and her friends. I often forget that she’s our direct commander.”

“I’m sure her confidence took a hit after she found out about her mother,” Emmery added. “Who wouldn’t take a step back after that?”

I’ve said before that not much surprises me, but finding out my mother had sold us out to an evil alien government for non-consensual genetic experimentation in exchange for power would do the trick.

That was exactly what Kalyn’s mother, Adastria, did.

“Believe it or not, I sympathize with her,” I replied.

“You’re right. I don’t really believe it.” Emmery gave me a suspicious look.

“Yeah, me, too,” Paila added.

“Do even you two think I’m completely horrible?” I asked.

“Not completely!” Emmery said quickly.

“You’re a little prickly, that’s all. But we love you!” Paila said quickly.

“How does it not bother you?” I asked.

“What?”

“Never being heard,” I said.

“I prefer to think of us as a single unit,” Emmery spoke up. “Once a decision has been reached, it’s not helpful to go against it.”

“Does that really make you feel better?” I lifted a brow.

“It makes me feel like, even though my voice often goes unheard, I’m still helping the crew,” Emmery finished.

“That’s sad,” Paila blurted. Judging by how wide her eyes went once the words left her mouth, she hadn’t intended on saying them out loud.

“Yeah, I know,” Emmery snorted. “But it’s either that or start a mutiny.”

“Xyla’s beat you to the punch,” Paila bumped my shoulder with hers.

“I’m not trying to stage a mutiny,” I laughed and rolled my eyes. “I just want to make a point. How can we trust the Gaed? Not even Dejar knows anything about them, or Qal, and he’s been everywhere.” I threw my hands in the air. “It’s apparently just a holdover from an old trade module that our translators even have their language built in. Who knows where they’re leading us?”

“Worst case, they’re leading us to our death,” Paila shrugged. “That’s not that horrible in the grand scheme of things.”

“Good god, that was morbid,” I laughed. “I’d prefer to stay alive, if that’s okay with you.”

“Go at Kalyn one more time and she might not give you the option. She looked like she wanted to shoot you out the airlock,” Emmery said.

“I’d like to see her try. I could totally take her in a fight. She’s tinier than me.”

“True, but I’ll bet she’s had better combat training,” Emmery countered.

“Are you trying to stage a fight?” I asked.

“If she were, I’d put some money on it,” Paila nodded.

“I’m going to assume you mean that you’d bet on me.” I gave Paila a pointed look.

“Depends on the arena,” she said as she picked at imaginary dirt on her nails.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I laughed despite how crappy I felt. No matter how ignored I felt, I knew Paila and Emmery always heard me.

“She’s just being dramatic.” Emmery lightly elbowed Paila. “You know how she is.”

“That’s right. I’m thriving on this new, exciting stage.” Paila threw her arm over her eyes and tipped her head back in an exaggerated motion.

“All hands to stations. Approaching Ya-Sin port,” Aavat’s voice came through the intercom speakers.

“We have no stations,” Emmery sighed. “That’s another thing that’s getting old. I don’t like not having a set place in the system.”

“We’re vital cogs,” Paila insisted. “Who else would keep the pipes from rusting?”

“We don’t even know if they can rust out here in deep space,” I pointed out.

“And we’re never going to find out, because we’re going to keep those pipes so damn clean,” Emmery joked.

“Come on, I want to go see if we’re pulling into our deaths or not.” Paila stood up and extended her arm to Emmery, who took it and allowed herself to be hauled up.

“Are you coming, Xyla?” Emmery asked when I didn’t move.

“No, I have some things I want to think about alone,” I replied.

“Are you sure?” Paila made it sound so tempting!” Emmery rolled her eyes.

“I’m sure.” I offered them a faint smile.

“We’ll be up on the observation deck if you change your mind,” Emmery said.

“Or if you want to spend your last moments with your dearest friends,” Paila added before disappearing down the corridor.

“Gothic doesn’t suit you!” I called after her. I shut my door once they were out of sight.

When I first called after Kalyn, I’d hoped getting my voice out there would make me feel better. In reality, nothing was accomplished at all.

In fact, I probably just made myself look even worse.

This wasn’t the first time I’d snapped at Kalyn. It should have been my last, though. If I was going to be heard, I had to find another way to speak out.

It didn’t take long for me to get sick of being alone in my room. Paila had a point, albeit a dark one. If the Gaed weren’t trustworthy and the Rogue Star was pulling into an ambush, I wanted to be with my friends when it happened.

But first, I desperately needed some food. I’d skipped out on breakfast that morning in favor of going for a beach run. As if to prove a point, my stomach let out a noise that no human stomach should ever make.

Maybe I should’ve gone to the med bay like Gallus suggested.

My unnatural stomach noises could be a symptom of poisoning from that black gunk I’d sealed the pipes with.

For a moment, I wondered what he was doing, then brushed it away. What did it matter?

I didn’t see a single soul as I made my way through the ship. Naturally, everyone was at their positions or lounging on the observation deck. Would there even be food in the dining hall? For as long as I’d been on this ship, there had never not been food in the dining hall.

I passed the corridor where Manda and I had gotten tossed around earlier that morning.

I didn’t think anything of it until I saw that the main entry door wasn’t sealed. Just beyond it, I could see a city skyline. Somehow, I’d missed the entire docking process.

Paila must’ve been feeling some relief. If the Gaed were going to do something, they likely would’ve done it by now.

It was then that an idea struck me. It was a stupid idea and I knew that, but it was so irresistible that, before I knew it, I was walking down the length of the corridor toward the open entry door.

If I could spend time without restrictions for a bit, where I could be my own person once more, I’d settle down some.

Stretch my legs, burn off the anger.

Then I could talk with Kalyn again, try to make her understand.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I was out the door and down the dock.

GALLUS

A well-maintained ship was a healthy ship. That was the motto I had grown up believing in because of my grandfather.

That was the motto I still believed in.

So, no matter what needed to be done around the Rogue Star, I sucked it up and did my job.

And, right now, that job consisted of doing some minor repairs in Valtic’s office. One of the power panels was shorting out, and that created a problem for Valtic when it came to him being able to do his job. He was the surveillance man, he was the one that monitored all the cameras and kept an eye out for the Dominion’s ships.

So, as I worked on the power panel, I thought about what had happened. We had been chased away from our temporary home at Sanctuary, chased through the fold, and then rescued by a race of beings called the Gaed who offered us a safe place in their system.

I had looked up the Ya-Sin system, and found that it was home to eleven planets, approximately four to five dozen moons, and a fleet of manufacturing stations that were beyond impressive.

They mined their own minerals, captured and refined their own gases, and manufactured their own materials, all of which were either top of the line or close to it.

“You doing okay over there?” Valtic asked me as yet another zap of electricity leapt out of the panel at me, causing me to jump.

I shook my hand in frustration to stop the tingling. “Yeah. This umbba panel is still carrying a lot of juice in it. I suspended the flow to it, but it still seems to be pretty volatile.”

“Looks that way,” he snickered. Okay, I deserved that. I had forgotten to flush the power from the panel after suspending the power flow. Now I was paying for it with some fantastic shocks to my system.

After getting proper feeling back into my hand, I flushed the panel and got back to work on it. There were two blown transistors and a broken relay. “How did you cause this much damage to the panel?” I asked, looking back at him.

“Wasn’t me,” he said with a head shake and shoulder shrug. “I did my typical restart of the system, just like I do every other day, and then there was a surge and things were acting weird.”

“Walk me through your restart procedures,” I told him.

With a deep intake of breath, Valtic started explaining. He quickly brought up his tertiary recording systems, switched the system to those systems, then did a manual shutdown and restart of his primary backup system. When those systems were back on, he then shut down and restarted the primary system. It was during the restart of the primary system that the surge happened.

“Okay, you followed procedure and did things right.” That meant that the panel or something connected to it was failing. I replaced the transistors and the relay, brought back the power flow at only fifty percent, then ran a diagnostic of the entire system.

Within a few minutes, I found the problem. Our latest dustup with the Dominion had caused a small crack in one of the cable-runs and that crack had frayed some of the wires. Valtic helped me remove the panel from the wall, then I quickly cut the protective covering of the cable-run, replaced the frayed wires, put a new cover on, replaced the wall panel, and turned the power back on.

Diagnostics showed everything working as it should, so we connected his systems and turned them on, hoping I had done the work right.

Nothing was wrong. With a sigh of relief, I smiled at Valtic as he continued to turn his equipment on. As the screens came on, I spotted something. There, on the primary exit camera, was Xyla, walking off the ship.

I instinctively reached for my comm unit to let security know, then hesitated.

She wasn’t terribly happy being on the ship, especially being told that she had to be on the ship and that she had to do certain jobs. There wasn’t a general confinement of the women to the ship, but usually leaving required getting permission from the captain. Unauthorized departures were reserved only for senior personnel.

“Anything else?” I asked Valtic, a plan already forming in my mind.

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I think we’re good. Thank you, Gallus.”

“My pleasure,” I said. I quickly gathered my gear, put it away—I was so happy that Valtic’s office was just off the main engineering bay—and made my way to the cargo bay. I signed out and left the ship.

I had no idea where Xyla had gone, but it couldn’t be that hard to find her. Her light-brown colored skin would stand out amongst the green-and-black-skinned Gaed.

After wandering around for maybe half an hour, I finally saw her. She was talking with a few Gaed women. The auto-translators had been updated for Gaed upon docking in the Ya-Sin system and Xyla was making full use of it. She actually seemed, I struggled to find the word, comfortable. Then she looked around, saw me, and that comfort vanished. She quickly said something to the Gaed women and started to walk away from me.

I followed her through the streets, trying to catch up to her without scaring her, but I probably already had her stressed out. It didn’t take long before my much longer strides brought me up next to her. We walked next to one another for a few yards before she finally stopped.

“What do you want?” she snapped, folding her arms over her chest.

“Nothing,” I said innocently. “Just out for a walk, saw you, wondered if you wanted company.”

She looked at me and I could see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to decide if she was going to believe my lie or not. Apparently, she wasn’t. “I’m not going back, and you have no right to force me back. I haven’t done anything to deserve being treated like a fucking prisoner.”

I held up my hands in mock surrender. “I’m not here to take you back, promise.”

“Then why are you here?” She was still angry and still didn’t believe me, but she wasn’t as caustic as a few seconds ago.

“Like I said, I’m out taking a walk. I just happened to walk in your direction, is all,” I said innocently. Before she could rip into me, I held up a hand. “I’m not here to take you back to the ship until you’re ready to go back. I’m only here to make sure you’re safe.”

That was the wrong word, and I knew it as soon as I said it. “Safe?” she snarled. “I’m so fucking sick and tired of hearing that word.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “What I meant was,” I hesitated as I tried to come up with a different word. I couldn’t. “You know what? I’m not sorry. I want to make sure you’re safe. We’re on a planet loaded with people we don’t know, and if this past year has told you nothing else, it should have told you that your human-ness might not be looked at as nothing.”

That, thankfully, shut her up a bit. She opened her mouth a few times to say something, but didn’t. I took advantage.

“Look, I’ll walk with you, make sure no one decides to take the Dominion’s offer on, and simply let you do what you want to do until you’re ready to go back to the Star,” I said sincerely. “Deal?”

“Fine,” she said after a moment’s thought. Her tone of voice had changed. It wasn’t venomous, it wasn’t angry, it was frustrated. I took that as an accomplishment and a sign that she was softening to me.

I smiled.

“What the hell are you smiling at?” she shot at me.

I wiped my hand across my face, pantomiming wiping the smile away. She rolled her eyes and stomped away. I was next to her in two steps. “So, where are we going?” I asked as innocently as possible.

“Look, I admit that you were right that I shouldn’t be out here alone on an unknown planet, in an unknown city, surrounded by unknown people,” she started. She looked up at me, daggers in her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean that I have to talk to you. Understand?”

“Okay,” I said, a hand up. I resigned myself to walking in silence and taking in the sights.

Whatever the name of this city was, it was beautiful. The way that the Gaed had built their structures was different than most of what I had seen. Each building here shared a color palette with the surrounding nature and the giant sea we were next to. The buildings were designed to look like they were parts of nature, synthetic versions of what nature had done naturally all around us.

Trees, grasses, flowers, and colorful bushes lined the streets.

Whatever the Gaed were, they took their connection to beauty seriously.

I glanced over at Xyla as she stalked through the streets, eyes taking it all in.

For all the designed loveliness around us, I couldn’t take my eyes off her for long.

It was my job to keep her safe. Part of the crew.

Really.

That was all.

XYLA

The longer I walked around, the more I felt like my old self. Though truth be told, I wasn’t sure who my old self was anymore.

My family history was as patchy as it got. Like ninety-nine percent of the women in the Terran System, I had no idea who my father was.

If my mother had had her papers in order, I could’ve found my father’s identification number and the camp where he lived. However, she died suddenly and never managed to get all her paperwork done. Even if she had, I was very young at the time. I wouldn’t have known what to do with such papers.

I’d spent all my life with people telling me what to do. I’d never liked it. Who would? Up until now, I’d always found a way to bear it.

Until recently, nothing truly horrible had happened to me under someone else’s direction.

But the moment Kalyn stepped into my life, my home got blown to bits and I’d been dragged from one end of a corrupt universe to the other.

Was that Kalyn’s fault?

No, of course, it wasn’t.

It was her mother’s fault, if anything.

Was it her fault that I hadn’t had a say in my own life since the moment I met her?

Yes, it absolutely was.

What made it worse was that she hadn’t tried to get to know all of us before she took charge of us.

Even after everything we’d gone through, she only chose to get to know a mere handful of us. There were nearly thirty women who’d survived the Persephone explosion.

We were all her responsibility.

She needed to care about all of us as people, not just as an idea.

I felt my temper rising again.

Dammit.

I didn’t want that. I couldn’t properly enjoy this new city if I was angry.

I looked around, truly looked around, for the first time since I’d left the dock.

Immediately, I felt a sharp pang of panic. I wasn’t wearing a disguise. I’d never worn one before, since I’d never left the ship during our time as fugitives within the Dominion.

I didn’t have to go into that ridiculous little room and cover myself in paint, stardust, and fake eyeballs.

But here, no one seemed to notice me, aside from a series of quick glances.

No one approached me.

No one’s eyes lingered longer than they should’ve.

Nothing could have made it clearer that I wasn’t in Dominion space. I wasn’t going to be arrested on sight for being a human.

The Gaed probably had no idea what humans were, didn’t care.

We were just another foreign species to them, nothing interesting.

I found that thought oddly comforting.

“Let me know when you want to stop somewhere.” Gallus’ voice startled me. I’d forgotten he was even there. I gave a jerky nod, equal parts irritated with his presence and embarrassed that I was able to ignore him so easily. Conflicting, I know.

A weird tension hung between us as we walked on. I was sure he’d try to strike up a conversation.

He seemed like a nice enough person, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. The whole point of sneaking off the Rogue Star in the first place was so that I could get a moment to myself.

Unlike everyone else, Gallus didn’t push for conversation. From what I could see, he was just as content to walk around and take in the scenery. Perhaps he had his own thoughts to ponder in brooding silence.

He didn’t look very broody, though.

In fact, he looked content. Not in an overly-chipper, happy-to-be-alive way, but in a calm, collected way. If he’d been walking around with a spring in his step and a dopey grin on his face, I would’ve ditched him by now.

Gallus was taller than most of the Gaed, broader, too. He moved with ease through the clusters of Gaed.

In fact, he received more stares than I did.

Why was I paying so much attention to Gallus?

It wasn’t like he was doing anything interesting. Anyone could square their shoulders and walk forward. I made a point to look away from him.

If I were a nicer person, I probably would’ve struck up a conversation. That was my problem. I didn’t want to be considered ‘the bitch’ of the Rogue Star crew anymore, but I couldn’t make myself take that first step.

“I like the silence,” Gallus said suddenly.

“What?”

“You looked like you were struggling with something. Plus, you kept looking at me and then looking away. I may be wrong, but I think you were trying to come up with something to say,” he explained. “So, I’m putting you out of your misery. I like walking in silence.”

“Right,” I said stiffly.

Well, that was that.

We exchanged only a handful of words over the next hour or so. It was marvelous. After a while, I found myself looking over my shoulder to make sure he was still there. Each time I did, he gave me a quick smile and nod before going back to thinking about whatever it was he had to think about.

I didn’t plan on stopping for anything, but when I passed an open door and inhaled the mouth-watering aroma of something delicious cooking, I stopped in my tracks.

“Hungry?” Gallus asked.

My stomach growled in response.

“Can humans do that on command?” he asked.

“No, that was just impeccable timing on my part,” I chuckled. “I’m starving, though. Please tell me that it’s food I’m smelling.”

“You’d know as well as I would,” Gallus shrugged.

He leaned through the doorway and took a look.

“It’s a pub, I think,” Gallus reported back. “Let’s eat and then head back to the Rogue Star,” he suggested.

I pondered for a moment. I wasn’t planning on sitting down and having a meal with Gallus. Something about the dim lighting and the small tables made it seem too intimate. This was the kind of place people dined at when they were something other than complete strangers. However, the food smelled amazing and I was more tired that I was willing to let on.

I stepped inside and looked around. I settled on a table in the corner. It was small. If Gallus and I both decided to lean over our plates, we’d smack heads.

He followed me across the floor to the table. Once I settled into the chair I preferred, he took the one opposite me.

“You didn’t have to wait for me to sit down,” I told him.

“And risk you bolting? I got lucky tracking you down the first time. I don’t think I’d get that lucky again on an empty stomach,” he said.

“I won’t bolt again,” I said.

“I know.” Gallus offered me an exasperated smile. “I was just teasing you.”

“Oh.” I suddenly felt stupid. It was so easy for me to talk to Emmery and Paila.

Why couldn’t I talk normally to other people?

I hoped Gallus could see how stupid I felt. At some point between the orphanage and here, I’d forgotten how to act like a normal human.

Not that it mattered. Gallus and I would have our lunch, chat a bit, and then go back to the Rogue Star, and we’d go back to barely interacting.

“No banter then,” Gallus chuckled.

A Gaed woman dropped a thin silver disk on our table with a smile and a nod. Her eyes lingered on Gallus for a moment too long.

“Strange of them to bring out plates before we’ve ordered anything.” I made an attempt at conversation like a nice person would do.

“I’m not sure this is a plate.” Gallus held the disk up and turned it over in his hands. His fingers must have brushed something, for a holographic display flickered to life over the disk.

“Is that a menu?”

“I think so,” Gallus nodded. “There’s no words. Just pictures.”

A laugh bubbled up through my throat. “Ordering is going to be fun.”

“Should we just point at something random and hope for the best?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.” I leaned over the table to get a look at the strange symbols. “Some restaurants in the Terran System only had pictures. They were too colorful and looked nothing like the reality, but it made reading a menu much easier.”

“You should tell that to the owner,” Gallus suggested. “I think I’m going to have this thing.” He poked a string of glowing pictures. They flickered and disappeared off the menu.

“Where did it go?” I lift my brows.

“Either I broke it or I’ve ordered it,” Gallus shrugged.

“What if I wanted to order the same thing?” I asked.

“Too bad,” he smirked. “Pick something.”

He passed the menu-disk to me. I tapped something without thinking about it too much.

“Whatever it is, I hope it’s better for me than whatever you gave me to patch up those leaks.”

“How was I supposed to know it was toxic to humans?” Gallus replied.

“Things that are black and sludgy are usually toxic to humans,” I countered.

“Then you should’ve known better than to touch it,” he laughed. “At least Lynna gave you that respiratory treatment and blood cleaner, right?”

“I’m sorry, what?” I sputtered.

“You did go to the med bay like I suggested, didn’t you?”

I shook my head.

“That’s a shame. You’re definitely going to die now.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Is this the banter you wanted?” I narrowed my eyes.

“Yes. Thanks for obliging me.”

When our food arrived, I took slow bites at first.

Once I felt sure I wasn’t going to start foaming at the mouth or go into cardiac arrest, I ate freely. Conversation halted between us, but I didn’t feel bad about it this time.

“We have a chance to bring down the Dominion. We have to take it.” A voice a few tables over caught my attention. Gallus set his utensils down with a serious expression.

He’d heard it, too.

“It’s too risky. Nothing we do will ever be enough to take down the Dominion. It’s like throwing a pebble at a mountain,” another voice said.

“That was before the rebel ship pulled into our port. How can we miss an opportunity like that?”

“They’re talking about us,” I whispered to Gallus.

I pushed myself up from the table, resolution running down my spine.

If these Gaed, whoever they were, wanted to topple the Dominion?

I was in.

Gallus

MY ARM SNAPPED FORWARD like a Perlian snake, grabbing onto Xyla as she stood up. “Where are you going?” I asked quietly and gently.

I had to make sure to not make this look like I was trying to force her to do anything.

She didn’t look upset, which took me by surprise. “I want to know what they’re talking about. I want to know about this ‘rebel ship’ they mentioned.”

“I’m fairly positive that the ‘rebel ship’ is us,” I said. I watched her face. I was impressed by the lack of reaction on it. “I know you’re wanting to do something, but we don’t know these people,” I cautioned. “How do you know we can trust them?”

“How do you know we can’t?” she shot back quietly. She had a point, but so did I. We didn’t know them, we had no idea what their plans were, or how they wanted us to pay for their ‘hospitality’.

“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the benevolent people they’re portraying themselves to be.”

She pulled her arm away from my grasp, a simple thing since I was barely holding her. In a sarcastic whisper, she countered me. “We didn’t know that about you, either, and how’s that turned out so far?”

I blinked. Scro, she was right. They had been forced to trust us, and it had turned out pretty well.

More than that.

“Besides,” she continued, “we deserve to know if we were brought here with some sort of ulterior motive in mind, don’t you think?” With that, she walked away.

I watched in confused silence as she approached the group.

We had picked a direction and folded, and we were chased, so how could we have been brought here to the Ya-Sin System on purpose? Then I thought about how all of this started and remembered that our coordinates were for an asteroid belt, but we ended up thousands of kilometers off course and very nearly crashed into a planet.

It was a long shot, but there could be a possibility that we had been manipulated into coming here.

But, by who? One of the crew?

One of the inhabitants of Sanctuary? One of the Dominion ships and this was all a clever trap?

I shook my head, knowing I wasn’t going to figure it out sitting at this tiny table in this café.

I wasn’t happy with Xyla’s actions, but I had to admit that I was impressed by her fearlessness and her fortitude. She was as stubborn as any of the women, perhaps more so with her insatiable need to prove that she was something more than what we thought of her as.

She had been angry ever since we had rescued them and given the women jobs.

I had asked a little about her. The issue was that no one really knew much, or they wouldn’t tell me.

They just knew she was angry, hated the ship, and hated how she was forced to do work she thought was beneath her.

Some of the women wondered if she still held onto a little bit of her xenophobia, quietly blaming us for how everything had gone wrong in her life.

I was a bit offended by that idea, but I also understood it a bit, since the Dominion had set us up.

I sat back and watched as Xyla and the Gaed group spoke to one another. Xyla was animated, but not in an angry way. She seemed to be excited. After several more minutes, she looked over at me and waved me over.

I hesitated, and she waved me over a little more forcefully, a sort of ‘get-over-here-now-you’re-embarrassing-me’ look on her face.

With a heavy sigh, I stood up from our tiny table and approached them.

“This is my friend, Gallus,” Xyla introduced me. “He’s one of the engineers aboard the Star and can talk to the captain.”

Well, nice way to put pressure on me from the jump.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to talk to the captain about, and honestly, while we weren’t sticklers for protocol on the Rogue Star, it wasn’t like I could just talk Dejar or Aavat into anything.

Kovor, maybe.

The Gaed, three women and one man, introduced themselves as they stood and shook my hand. There was Folen, the oldest of the women, Elas and Axilya, sisters and Folen’s nieces, and Jial, the male of the group.

Folen seemed to be the speaker. “It is a pleasure to meet you, young Gallus. We have been following your exploits for many months now.”

It took me a few heartbeats to realize that she didn’t mean me specifically, but Rogue Star. I felt a wave of relief. If they had been following me, this meeting would be filled with many disappointed faces.

“Th-thank you?” I said hesitantly. “I’m sorry, I’m not exactly sure what to say to that.”

Folen laughed, an easy, genuine laugh that helped to set me at ease. “It is quite alright, my young friend. The Rogue Star has become a beacon within the cosmos, a beacon of hope against the Dominion and what they stand for.”

I cleared my throat in embarrassment. To hear that statement was flattering, and scary. “But why?”

When Folen looked at me with a mixed ‘what-do-you-mean-and-are-you-stupid’ look, I quickly explained myself. “What I mean is, why are you so against the Dominion? From what I heard when we first met your kind, it was made to seem as though the Gaed and the Dominion were…”

“Equals?” Folen interrupted. “That we had a non-aggression agreement between us? That we were ambivalent towards one another? Is that what you were about to say?”

I nodded, a bit intimidated by the sudden anger and fire emanating from Folen and the others. That was not something that I had anticipated.

I quickly located exits and ways to get out of here with Xyla. I wasn’t armed, but I could get her out, buy her time...

“You have nothing to fear from us,” Jial said, his voice a deep baritone that seemed odd coming from his mouth. His slim form did not look as though he would have carried that kind of voice. “Our ire is directed at the Dominion. They have exploited their power and influence for too long, allowing themselves to become unethical and corrupt.”

Axilya leaned forward in her chair, a tear forming in her right eye. “Years ago, only a few days after my sister and I were born, the Dominion came.” She stopped to gather her composure as her sister Elas took Axilya’s hands in her own. Now that I was looking closely, it was clear they were twins. When Axilya was composed enough again, she continued. “They propositioned our government for inclusion into the Dominion fold, to become a ‘member of high standing’ and part of the Dominion High Council.”

“All we had to do,” Elas took over seamlessly, “was give them a few dozen of our women for ‘testing purposes’.”

I looked at the two of them, wondering how they could know this much information, then I looked at Folen, who nodded at me. “You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?” she asked.

“Not quite,” I admitted. “But I’m going to run with the notion that you’ve told them this many times, and since they’re your nieces, your sister was somehow involved.”

She nodded. “When our government refused their request, the Dominion politely accepted our refusal and left. Two days later, three Dominion ships arrived and several dozen of our women were kidnapped. One of them was my sister, their mother,” she said with a nod at the twins. “I’ve raised them since then. When our government demanded the return of our people, the Dominion claimed it was a rogue operation carried out by crews that were no longer part of the Dominion. A few months later, they even brought us the remains of the ships and the bodies of the ships’ ‘leaders’.”

Xyla and I both started at this.

Folen shook her head. “The bodies were of pirates and smugglers, not Dominion. Eventually, after many years, I was able to discover that my sister had been brutally killed trying to escape. I’ve been trying to work against the Dominion ever since.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I said, “how did you manage to get so much information about all of that? That seems like something that the government would try to keep quiet in order to prevent riots, rebellions, and vigilantes from inadvertently causing a war.”

She nodded knowingly. “I was part of the government when the Dominion approached us. I retired a decade ago, tired of the hesitation to retaliate. Now I focus my energies on raising these two, and trying to find ways to drive a wedge into the Dominion’s power.”

“And we’re your newest wedge,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Only if you choose to be,” Folen said. “We are not the Dominion. We will not force anyone to fight our fight.”

“Why won’t your government get involved?”

“They’re cowards,” Jial spat.

“Calm down, Jial,” Folen whispered. “That will not help our cause.”

“My apologies, Lady Folen,” Jial apologized with a bow. I could see that his anger was not calmed, however.

Folen turned her attention back to me with a small shake of her head. “Our government does not wish for war, a war that could bring too many enemies to our doors. But now,” she said, leaning forward, “if the Rogue Star were to join our cause, we could bring allies into this battle that would change the minds of the leaders that are scared.”

The passion in her voice was intoxicating. I found myself wanting to help her, to help the twins gain vengeance for their mother’s kidnapping and death, to help Jial find an outlet for his anger.

However, it wasn’t my decision. I looked at Xyla and the look in her eyes was something that I had seen only once in my life, right before my father rushed into a burning building to save my mother and baby brother.

It was the look of someone determined to sacrifice everything they had and were for the sake of another.

I was lucky to still have my family, but I wondered if this gamble would end up as successful as my father’s.

“I don’t know what will happen, but I can talk to my captains. This is something that needs to be done, but I’m not sure if I can convince my captains to join the cause.” The force of my own words surprised me.

Maybe I’d been spending too much time thinking about the Dominion, about what they’d done.

What we’d seen in that testing facility.

What we’d seen with the women we’d rescued from the auction houses, the ones that hadn’t been found useful, that had been sold like scraps.

The sheer arrogance of the official and his utterly insincere apology for what had happened.

All of it brought bitter anger to my tongue.

But the sweetness of the smile that beamed from Xyla’s face at my words?

I’d do quite a lot to keep that there.

Xyla

“DO you think the good news we’re bringing is enough to cancel out the obscene amount of trouble we’ll be in?” I asked Gallus as we approached the Rogue Star. Night had fallen, and only the palest strip of light hovered over the horizon.

“Bold of you to assume our news is good news,” Gallus replied with a grin.

“Isn’t it?”

That group was exactly what we needed. No way did Dejar plan on hiding out in fringe systems for the rest of our lives.

Gallus punched in his code to open the entry door of the ship. We walked into a flurry of activity. It looked like the crew was preparing to exit the ship.

“There you are!” Lynna exclaimed the moment she saw me. “They’re back!” She shouted to the rest of the ship. The whirlwind of activity ceased. Crewmembers gave us looks that varied from relieved to angry.

“Didn’t you tell anyone you left the ship?” I whispered to Gallus.

“If I’d taken the time, I would’ve lost sight of you,” he whispered back.

“Xyla!” Emmery’s voice carried across the bridge. She ran to me and threw her arms around me. Paila wasn’t far behind.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were leaving the ship?” Paila demanded. “We would’ve gone with you.”

“That’s concerning,” Gallus said.

“We stick together,” Emmery said defensively before turning back to me. “Seriously, why didn’t you tell us?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed and lowered my gaze. “I was angry. It was an impulsive decision. I didn’t plan it.”

“Clearly.” Paila lifted her brows.

“I just wanted some time alone,” I said lamely.

“But he was with you?” Emmery jerked her head toward Gallus.

“That wasn’t planned, either,” I admitted.

“I followed her when I saw her leave,” he explained.

“Good thing you did,” Paila nodded. “Who knows what could’ve happened.”

“Exactly.” Gallus gave me a smug smile. I rolled my eyes.

“I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.” I put my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “We don’t need to make a big deal out of this.”

“I disagree.”

Damn it.

I turned around to see Kalyn standing behind me, arms folded over her chest and a deep scowl on her face.

“I can live with the disrespect,” she began. “But the blatant disregard for your own safety and the safety of everyone on this ship is something I will not tolerate. Go to the office. You, too,” she shot a pointed look at Gallus.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“I knew the risks when I went after you. I broke protocol just as much as you did,” Gallus shrugged. “Besides, Dejar likes me way more than Kalyn likes you.”

“Good thing Dejar is the one with authority here,” I said loud enough for Kalyn to hear me.

I knew I shouldn’t do anything to make her even angrier with me, but apparently I was still annoyed about our little disagreement earlier. Even now, she never bothered to ask if I was okay or why I’d left the ship.

“Try not to say anything that’ll get us into more trouble,” Gallus warned me. “I have a feeling that’s something you do a lot.”

“Run my mouth? It’s a talent,” I replied.

“That’s not a talent. That’s a liability,” Gallus snapped back.

“I liked you better when you were silent,” I said.

“Good, because you’re doing all of the talking once we get in there,” Gallus smarted.

Dejar and Aavat were already in the office when Kalyn let us in. They looked equally upset. Twin metal sculptures with deep scowls and crossed arms.

“I didn’t expect this sort of behavior from you, Gallus,” Dejar began. “What possessed either of you to leave the ship? Do you understand where we are? We’re completely at the mercy of the Gaed. We know nothing about them. We’re at a permanent disadvantage and you decide to pull a stunt like this?”

“It’s my fault,” I said quickly.

“What?” all four of them spoke in unison.

“Come on,” I rolled my eyes. “You all know it’s my fault. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

“I wasn’t expecting an outright confession,” Dejar said.

“That’s quite an assumption to make, since you hardly know me.” I furrowed my brow. “I wasn’t thinking. When I saw the entry door open, I let my impulsiveness get the better of me. I was sick of the ship, shaken up from the Dominion attack, and angry about everything. I shouldn’t have left and I’m sorry I did. I’m sorry, Gallus, for dragging you into this, as well.”

“You didn’t drag me into anything,” Gallus said. “I followed you because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Thanks.” My voice came out softer than I wanted it to.

“That’s all very touching, but we’re still dealing with a serious breach of protocol.” Aavat clapped his hands together, drawing our attention. “Commander Kalyn, this is far from the first time one of your ladies has left the ship without permission. In fact, that seems to happen more often than not.”

“Aavat,” Dejar warned.

“She’s their commander, Dejar,” Aavat sighed. “She should be able to keep them in line. Or at least on the ship.”

“Xyla has been known to test the boundaries,” Kalyn said through clenched teeth.

“Don’t you dare put all of your shortcomings on me,” I snapped.

“Easy,” Gallus murmured beside me.

“Other Persephone women have left the ship against protocol and I have punished them,” Kalyn said in her defense.

“Lightly,” Aavat countered.

“Because when they leave the ship, they tend to come back with something useful,” Dejar defended Kalyn.

“This is a damn disaster,” I muttered under my breath.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Gallus taunted. When I looked up at him, I saw that he was fighting a smile.

“You think this is funny?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

“A little bit,” Gallus admitted. “They aren’t yelling at us, so there’s that.”

“You. They aren’t yelling at you. They’ve already yelled at me plenty and I’m sure they aren’t done,” I replied.

“You’re damn right we’re not done,” Kalyn snapped. “What is it going to take for you to understand that you are not in charge here?”

“Wait, let’s back up for a moment,” I lifted my hands. “Dejar just defended you because every time one of us leaves the ship without permission, something good comes out of it. Looks like you’ve gone ahead and assumed I couldn’t possibly bring in anything useful.”

“Have you?” Aavat asked.

“As a matter of fact, I have.” I lifted my chin. “Gallus and I met with a Gaed group that wants to take down the Dominion. They know about the Rogue Star and what we stand for. They want to work with us.”

“Excuse me?” Kalyn sputtered. “You left the ship to divulge our information to a group of self-proclaimed rebels?”

“No,” I clenched my jaw. “I left the ship to get away from you for an hour. Gallus and I overheard the rebels talking about the Rogue Star. I’m the one that decided to engage them. Gallus had nothing to do with that.”

“At first,” Gallus cut in. “I talked with them, as well, after Xyla approached them.”

“I’m trying to keep you out of trouble here,” I nudged him.

“I’ll own up to my part in this,” he said back.

“I think they’re worth meeting.” I turned back to Dejar. “Right now, there’s not much any of us can do against the Dominion, but maybe joining some kind of,” I tried to think of the right word, “rebel force can spark something.”

“How big was this group?” Dejar asked.

“Fifteen Gaed,” I guessed. “Maybe a few more.”

Dejar scoffed and shook his head.

“Our ship and fifteen strangers are not going to do anything against the Dominion,” he dismissed.

“Our ship has already done something,” I countered. “We exposed the secret experimental facilities. Why not take the next step?”

“Why not?” Kalyn exclaimed. “Do you want to get us all killed? We don’t know anything about these people.”

“It’s too big of a risk.” Dejar’s expression softened, but only slightly. “I appreciate the thought. Your dedication is a pleasant surprise.”

“I’m going to try to take that as a compliment,” I said.

“However,” Dejar continued as if I hadn’t said anything at all, “it’s too big of a risk. We aren’t in shape to join up with rebel forces. We’ve only just arrived. The Rogue Star took some heavy hits.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Well, until you’re ready to get off your ass, you don’t have any use for me.”

My anger came rushing back to me all over again and I stormed out without waiting to be dismissed. I tried to rein it in, but I almost barreled over Emmery as I moved.

“Easy there, fireball.” She gripped me by my shoulders and forced me to slow down. “Did Kalyn lay into you?”

“Yes, but that’s not what I’m pissed about.” I force myself to take a deep breath. “Gallus and I found some people who could help us take care of the Dominion once and for all, but Dejar won’t even consider it because Kalyn doesn’t want to admit I’m useful in any way.”

“I’m sure that’s not it.” Emmery gave my arm a squeeze. “Though Dejar is biased towards whatever Kalyn wants.”

“Exactly!” I exclaimed. “This is the first time I’ve had the chance to be more than an extra set of hands that cleans pipes, but I don’t think Kalyn wants me to be anything more than that.”

“What kind of punishment did you get?” Emmery asked.

“I actually left before they could get to the punishing.” My laughter was dry and forced. “No doubt I’ve made it worse on myself.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Dejar and Kalyn may not see it, but we need those rebels. I’m going to find a way to make them see it.” I lifted my chin and set my jaw.

“I meant about your punishment, not joining a political rebellion,” Emmery laughed.

“Can’t I do both?”

GALLUS

“I believe that you’re wrong in this decision, sir,” I said as the door closed behind Xyla’s retreating form, my eyes staring after her.

“Oh,” Dejar said. I could hear the surprise in his voice. I had never countered his decisions before, but this time was different.

I nodded as I turned back to the looks and glares of Dejar, Kalyn, and Aavat. Kovor was looking down at a datapad. “I understand your decision, sir, and I know your reasoning behind it, but it’s the wrong decision to make, and I think you know it.”

“You better watch what you say, Gallus,” Aavat said, a bit of a growl in his voice. “I’m not liking this little act of defiance.”

“Well, sir, it’s not an act,” I said firmly. His eyes hardened, but I kept going. “We are directly involved in all of this. Do you really believe that the Dominion is going to leave us alone? They’ve already proven that they can, and will, find us, no matter where we go.”

“You think I don’t understand that?” Dejar asked. He opened his mouth to continue whatever point he was trying to make, but I didn’t let him.

“I know you understand,” I said as I got to my feet, forcing all of them to look up at me. “Trust me, sir, I fully comprehend that you understand the situation. However, just because we’re currently under the Gaed’s protection does not mean that we’re safe.” I started pacing the room. “The only way we’re going to be safe in the long run is if we take the fight to the Dominion and show them that messing with us is a mistake.”

I found myself standing next to the door, not entirely sure how I had gotten there. “The four of you are in charge, and I’m not interested in trying to do your jobs. However, even I know that sitting here is the wrong decision. This is a fight we need to join, you know it as well as I do. We worked hard, all of us, to figure out what was happening, then to expose the Dominion for what they were doing. Why back away now? The Dominion won’t leave us alone, so why pretend that they will?”

I didn’t wait for a response. I no longer cared if I was going to be in trouble or not. They were wrong. There was no way we would be left alone.

The Dominion would chase us down no matter where we tried to hide. Even in the unlikely event the Dominion deemed us as unworthy of their time, the forces that were against the Dominion would seek us out as leverage, as a tool.

There was no way we would be forgotten. I knew that the Dominion had a long memory.

They held grudges. It had taken them nearly a decade to follow through, but they finally destroyed a small faction of rebels that had raided two outposts. The Dominion had publicly deemed them as beneath their line of sight, but it was all a ploy.

With absolutely no warning, they’d brought in two fleets and obliterated the faction and everyone involved with them. There had been nothing left of the small moon they had called home; the Dominion reduced the entire thing to ash and particles.

For our four leaders to think that we weren’t a priority, if they truly thought that, was short-sighted and stupid.

Which surprised me. I didn’t know Kalyn well, but I knew the others. I’d never have expected them to act this way.

Maybe they had their own plan, but dismissing what Xyla had found made no sense.

I unclenched my fists.

And if I was this upset about it all, I knew Xyla’s anger would be hot enough to melt this ship.

I needed to find her, to attempt to calm her down a bit, but also to tell her that I was on her side. I had a feeling that she would try to do something, anything, about this and that attempt might end up being something volatile.

I tracked her down in her room. Her fierce gaze pierced me as she slid open the door.

“And what do you want?” Xyla hissed. Great, she was angry at me, too. I thought as I tried to dial up a reassuring smile. I didn’t think it worked, because she snarled, her upper lip curling as she did.

“I’m here to help.”

She shot me a look that said What are you talking about?

“Dejar and Aavat are wrong. We can’t just sit back, so I’m on your side,” I explained. “I’m here to help. Whatever we can do to help the Gaed, whatever you need from me to help you, let’s do it.”

The look on her face was priceless.

She looked as though she had just been given the greatest gift anyone could give her. She pulled me into the room and closed the door. When I turned back to look at her, I was surprised to see tears streaming down her face.

“You want to help me, for real?” she asked, her voice breaking with emotion.

I nodded and gently grabbed her shoulders. “I don’t know how much help you and I will be. I don’t know what we’ll be capable of doing, but I’m beyond positive that this is the correct course of action. Somehow, someway, I’ll help you make this happen.”

The tears streamed freely down her cheeks, dropping onto the floor at my feet. I brought up a hand and wiped the tears away, lightly cupping her face as I did.

She looked up at me and I felt something inside that I hadn’t felt before. There was a sudden connection to this woman that I didn’t know I could feel. I wanted, more than anything, to help her find her way in the world, and if finding her way in the world was being part of a rebellion, then I was fully behind that idea.

Her voice was a bit husky as she spoke. “You have no idea what this means to me. I’ve never had anyone willing to support me like this.” She looked quickly at her friend. “Sorry, Emmery.”

With a jolt, I realized we weren’t alone. Everything had centered on Xyla, and the rest of the room, even the ship, had vanished.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Emmery shake her head. “No, don’t be. I wish I could be as fervent and passionate about something as you are. I just,” she paused. “I’m just scared, so it’s hard for me to back you, knowing that you want to jump into the fire. But, I’ll still try to help if I can.”

“Thank you,” Xyla said, her voice back. She then looked up at me and I took my hands off her. “Are you sure you want to do this? You know this means you’re going to be in a ton of trouble?”

I nodded. “I’m good. I mean it.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “So, what do we do and how do we do it?”

“We need to talk with Folen and her people,” I answered. “They’re the ones that have something started. So, we need to get back to them and figure out where to go from there.”

“I agree wholeheartedly, but how?”

I smiled at her. “I can get us off the ship.”

“How?” she asked. “We got into trouble last time we left without their permission,” she said with a vile tone, “and I seriously doubt they’ll let us go again.”

“Give me a day,” I said quietly. “Tomorrow evening, maybe after dinner, I’ll bypass the security and get us a way off the ship. We’ll find Folen, we’ll talk to her, and we’ll go from there. What do you say?”

She arched her eyebrows at me. “What do I say? You get us off the ship, you’re the best person on this ship.”

I knew better.

But those words on her lips?

Worth it.

XYLA

It seemed like years ago that we were all lounging on the beach and I felt annoyed and restless.

Now I was annoyed, restless, and not on a beach.

Crazy how things change.

“You look like you’ve just eaten a handful of pipe sealant,” Gallus said as soon as I stepped into the corridor. His metallic skin reflected the dim lights, drawing my eyes to his sculpted arms.

“Are you this nice to all of your midnight dates?” I replied.

“No, I’m only charming to my criminals in arms,” Gallus declared.

“We aren’t doing anything illegal.” I rolled my eyes. “Though Kalyn might disagree.”

“Captain’s word is law. Dejar said not to do this and we are. We’re breaking a law and we’re now criminals in arms,” Gallus reasoned.

“You’re awfully chatty for someone who’s trying to pull a stealthy escape,” I muttered.

“You’re awfully chatty for someone who doesn’t like to chat,” Gallus quipped.

“I’m sleep deprived. Don’t read too much into this.” I waved him off. “How do you plan to get out without alerting everyone?”

“I’ve got these.” Gallus pulled out two thick silver wristbands. In the center of each of them was a black bar filled with blinking lights and tiny circuits.

“What are those?”

“I’ve been calling them Scramblers.” Gallus tossed one in the air, letting it flip before catching it. “They’ll disrupt the security systems long enough for us to slip by.”

“How did you get those?” I was impressed. I hadn’t expected Gallus to bring something so useful. I never expected anything from anyone, that way I was either right not to get my hopes up, or I was pleasantly surprised.

“I have a lot of free time on my hands,” was all Gallus offered as an explanation. “I have to warn you, though, they don’t work perfectly. I’d suggest we dash out and take them off quickly.”

“Or… what happens?” I asked.

“About half the time, it gives a nasty shock a bit after they’ve gone through the system.”

“What? How long after?”

“Fifteen seconds. Give or take.”

“Which is it? Give or take?” I exclaimed.

“Shh! You’ll give us away,” Gallus hushed me. “Put your Scrambler on.”

“Not sure I want to now that you’ve told me it’ll fry me in fifteen seconds.” I took a step back.

“It might take longer than fifteen seconds,” Gallus said.

“It might take shorter than fifteen seconds,” I snapped back.

“Just put the stupid band on and run, will you?” He thrust the Scramble at me. With a sigh, I clamped it onto my wrist.

“Just tell me what to do so I won’t get fried.”

“Run when I say run.”

“That’s uncomfortably vague.” I pressed the palm of my hand into my forehead.

“No, it’s not. Run!” Gallus barked.

Startled, I sprinted through the open entry door before it even fully opened. I bolted down the dock until I was halfway to the port entrance before tearing off the Scrambler and tossing it to the ground.

“Wow,” Gallus said when he strolled up beside me, carrying the Scrambler. He held his own Scrambler in his hand. All of the blinking lights on mine had gone black. “Didn’t think you were going to throw it like that. We’ll need these for later when we need to get back in. So, you break it, you buy it.”

“I’ll be sure to fish out some shiny scrap from the junkyard next time I pass one.” The laughter in my voice surprised me.

Gallus and I walked quietly through the city. Many places were still open, though the streets weren’t as crowded as they were earlier today. We found the café after a short search. Thankfully, it was open, as well. All the tables were pushed together to accommodate a group of about twenty Gaed.

Of the group we’d spoken to earlier, only Jial remained.

“Half of you owe me twenty credits,” he crowed. “They showed.”

“You were betting on us?” I lifted a brow.

“Of course! Glad I did, too. I’d started to think you wouldn’t come back.” He jumped up from his seat and walked over to us. “Did you talk to the rebel ship’s captain?” Jial asked.

I bit back a laugh. Dejar called Jial and his followers rebels. Jial called the Rogue Star crew rebels.

“Yes. He’s skeptical,” I answered.

“Understandable,” Jial nodded. “If our roles were reversed, I’d be skeptical, too.”

“Sorry,” I shrugged.

“Thank you for trying,” Jial waved me off. “Even if your captain hasn’t come around to our cause yet, we still have the two of you. We can work with that.”

“That sounds like a compliment but I’m not sure it is.” I pursed my lips. That was the second time that’d happened to me today. Personal record.

“Who are they?” A male – I think? - who was definitely not a Gaed, gruffly asked Jial.

“They’re here to join our cause,” Jial answered with a blinding grin.

“As long as they don’t bring trouble,” the other one huffed before hobbling away.

“Who was that?” I asked. “He doesn’t seem to want us here.”

“That’s Xlax. He owns the place. Nicest being you’ll ever meet,” Jial explained breezily.

“Is that so?” Somehow, I had a hard time imagining it.

“He’s a little rough around the edges, but he hates the Dominion as much as we do, so he lets us hold our meetings here,” Jial explained.

“What, exactly, do you plan on doing here?” Gallus stepped up. “No offense, but you don’t exactly have an army.”

“We’re a different sort of army,” Jial said. “We don’t fight with weapons and spaceships. Frankly, none of that is in our budget. Even if it were, we know a full-on war against the Dominion would be a suicide mission.”

“So, what’s the point?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to take them down.”

“We do,” Jial assured me. “But there’s an art to it. We want to destroy them from the inside. An implosion rather than an explosion, if you follow.”

“I follow.”

“The Dominion sets the standard for security,” Gallus said. “How do you plan on getting around that?”

“We haven’t reached that phase of our plan yet,” Jial explained.

“What phase have you reached, then?” Gallus asked.

“None.”

I blinked in surprise.

“I’m confused. I thought you needed our help,” I said. “Why are we here?”

For a split second, I feared everything Kalyn said was true. What if this was too big of a risk and Gallus and I ended up in a bad position?

We didn’t know anything about these people. We had no backup. No one even knew where we were.

“We need information,” Jial said. “You’ve dealt with the Dominion directly. You know the details of Dominion space that none of us know. That’s how you can help us, for starters.”

Panic rushed out of my chest as I exhaled. Gallus gave me a curious look. I wondered if he could hear my heart beating. I sure could.

“Xyla, I also have something to ask of you.” Jial’s tone changed to something softer.

I was immediately suspicious of him.

“What?”

“I want you to share your story of how the Dominion took you,” he said.

“You mean, tell them?” I gestured to the group of Gaed drinking and talking amongst themselves.

“Not just them. Everyone,” Jial grinned.

“I don’t get your meaning.” I looked up at Gallus to see if he caught something I didn’t.

“Some of my people are torn on the Dominion, or they simply don’t care enough to take a stand. I want you to change that,” Jial said.

“I don’t understand.”

“I want to broadcast a clip of you telling your story to every screen in the city. Better yet, in the system, if I can manage it.” Jial was clearly excited about this plan.

“You want to film me?” I didn’t know why everything that came out of my mouth sounded like a question. I had a difficult time wrapping my head around the fact that Jial wanted my story, my voice, to be the one heard throughout the system.

“You can give a rare firsthand account of how horrible the Dominion is. People will listen. People will care. People will donate,” Jial winked. “We need money to pull off our master plan. We need skilled individuals willing to donate their time, as well.”

“You want to turn me into a charity case.” I nodded with a frown.

“Yes,” Jial said bluntly. I had to admit that I appreciated his honesty. “Think of it this way, I want you to help me manipulate the indifferent masses for the greater good.”

“That has a much nicer ring to it,” I nodded.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Gallus’s hand on my shoulder surprised me.

“I know,” I said. “Thank you, though.”

He gave me a nod and removed his hand. I turned back to Jial.

“I’m in.”

GALLUS

Things moved much faster than I’d thought they would have.

At almost the moment Xyla agreed to give her testimony, we were ushered into a back room where three more Gaed were tinkering with a computer.

In the center of the room, facing the wall opposite the door we’d come through, was a camera pointed at a high-backed wooden stool. It could have been metal painted to look like wood, I wasn’t sure.

And realized my preoccupation with meaningless details was my mind trying to distract itself.

In just a moment, we’d be committed to this.

Was it the best idea?

“Okay,” Jial said as we entered the room. “This is Xyla. She’s here to record her testimony. Make sure we do it right.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright.”

The three inside barely looked up from the computer as they answered. Jial directed Xyla to the stool. “You’re going to be just fine, my dear,” he told her. “Just tell your story, that’s all.”

She nodded and started to take some deep breaths. She looked around the room, finally settling her eyes on me.

I nodded to her in an attempt to encourage her. “You got this,” I told her. “Just talk, that’s all. I know you can do that,” I smiled at her. She gave me a weak smile in return. “I’ll go ahead and step outside.”

“No,” she whispered to me. “Stay. It’s, it’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” I asked as I knelt down in front of her.

She nodded as she bit her bottom lip. “Yes. It’s okay if you hear this.” She swallowed hard. “I want you to hear this.”

“We’re ready,” one of the Gaed said behind me.

I patted Xyla’s leg in support “You’re going to be fantastic.” I stood up and backed away, eventually depositing myself in a corner.

“Alright, um, Xyla?” She nodded at the man that was talking to her. “Okay, well, it’s simple. Just look into the cameras and talk.” He waved to the cluster of microcams hovering around her. “Start from the beginning, explain how you got here. Everything. The microphone will pick up your words, even if you end up whispering, and the system translators will take care of any language issues. Try to make sure you look at the camera, at least most of the time,” he said.

She nodded. “Okay,” I saw her mumble, even though I didn’t hear the word.

He stood up, turned away from her, and shrugged at the others as if to say, “we’ll see.” He moved to the camera and turned it on. He motioned to Xyla and she sat there.

She sat there, unmoving for forty-four heartbeats before she started talking.

“My name is,” she took a deep, shuddering breath, raised her chin, then continued. “My name is Xyla Foust. I am, if you can see me, from the Terran System. I’m a human. My life has not been easy, but I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me just because of that. I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me at all, I just hope for you to listen.”

She let her eyes travel all over the room before settling on the camera again. “I,” she hesitated, “I grew up without knowing my family. My father was just someone that happened to donate the sperm my mother needed to have me. My mother, I loved her. I loved her very much, and I know that she loved me.

“But, she died when I was little, and I didn’t have any other family. So, I was shipped off to an orphanage, where I stayed until I was too old to stay there anymore. My life after that was,” she took a shuddering breath again. “While I was at the orphanage, the lady that ran the place was not particularly kind to us. As much as the government wanted to make sure we were treated fairly, we weren’t a priority to them.

“She treated us like shit. I’m sorry, you probably don’t know what shit is since it’s a human word. Suffice it to say, she treated us very badly. We were essentially used as slaves, and we weren’t fed if we didn’t do what she told us to do. There were many nights where I didn’t eat. When I was done at the orphanage, I was forced out into the streets. No one was going to adopt a fifteen-year-old, and I couldn’t get a job that young.

“We were educated, I was educated. I knew things, but I wasn’t allowed to do anything. So, I lived wherever I could find a bed. I wasn’t selling myself or anything like that, I did real work for people in exchange for food and a place to sleep. I never had a permanent home.”

As she continued to tell the story of her life on Earth, I stood in the corner, mesmerized by what she was saying.

I never knew any of this. I never knew any of what had happened to her, or any of the women from Persephone.

We had been around one another for almost a year now, and I knew almost nothing about them. I hated myself for that.

There was this palpable, overwhelming hatred for my actions, or lack thereof, when it came to the women. How could I have ever been so stupid?

I turned my attention back to Xyla. “I was never a nice person. I was angry, a lot. And, as an angry person, I made mistakes and got into trouble. That trouble got me sent to Persephone Station on Pluto. The details aren’t important. My job there was to make sure that the water we drank and used was recycled correctly, that it was properly maintained, and that it had the right nutrients in it for us to survive. It wasn’t the job that I wanted, but it was something I could do. It mattered. I was good at it. Then, everything went to hell when the station was destroyed.

“We were picked up by the very people that had destroyed our station and taken away from our home. I was angry, beyond angry. We were taken away from our home because they were too afraid to face the consequences. Then,” she looked at me in the corner and smiled. “Then I found out that they had been set up. We were set up. There was nothing they could have done. The crew of the Rogue Star saving us was what had to happen. We were chased, we were hunted, and we were nearly captured.

“They wanted to run experiments on us. They wanted to test us, to do things to us, to make us feel things, do things. The fucking Dominion wanted to take our DNA, my DNA,” she was nearly screaming, and forced herself to calm down. “They wanted our genetic code so they could create some sort of ‘perfect’ race, some sort of ‘perfect’ species.

“They hunted us, and we weren’t the only ones. We weren’t the only women they did this to, and you know that.”

Her voice was even.

She didn’t look angry, she didn’t look upset.

She looked calm, if you ignored the tears in her eyes and the raging inferno that was behind them.

I stared at her, not sure how to react. Her words gave me bumps all over my body, shivers up and down my spine, and a knotted feeling in my chest that made it hard for me to breathe.

I struggled to comprehend her life, her struggles. My own life was a paradise in comparison. I had a family. I had parents that loved me, family that cared for me, and friends that I grew up with.

She’d had none of that. She had been forced to live her life in a way that most people that I knew would have failed at.

“When we realized that the Dominion had been behind everything, had messed with the ship to force them to show up at Persephone, had forced them to take us to Outpost Nine, had forced us to run, we decided to fight back. We found their secret base, the place where they were running these sick tests on women from all over the universe. It was there that we discovered that it was our own leader’s mother that had done that to us. She had been the one to tell the Dominion about us. She had been the one to bring the Dominion to our home and take us.”

Now, her anger was visibly returning, as was mine, a white-hot fury pushing behind my eyes. “We broadcast the bitch’s conversation with the Dominion all over, everywhere. We hurt them, but not badly enough. I’m here. I’m here because of them, but I’m glad that I’m here, because now I get to be here, and I get to tell you my story. This, hopefully, this will get you to step up and fight. The Dominion only has as much power as we let them have, and if we don’t stand up to them, they’ll keep taking. They think they have the right to do what they want, and we have to stop them.

“But I understand if you’re scared. I’m scared. I’m freaking terrified. But I won’t stop until they’re done, until they’ve been destroyed. I refuse to let them win, and I am here to fight.”

She got up from the chair and walked out of sight of the camera. She came to me and nearly tackled me with a massive hug. “How did I do?” she asked.

“You were beautiful,” I said. “Beyond beautiful. Xyla,” I said, holding her close to me. “You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met. You are beautiful. You are strong. You are brave.”

Her forehead rested on my chest and I could feel her breath through my shirt, the intimate moment making us an island in the flurry of activity around us.

My fingers tightened on her arms as I fought to keep from stroking her hair.

Strong and brave.

And beautiful.

And she’d probably fight like hell once I told her she was mine.

XYLA

“Please tell me that’s not their sun,” I groaned as Gallus and I once again made our way back to the Rogue Star.

“I won’t tell you that’s the sun,” Gallus replied.

“You’re a liar.”

“You told me not to tell you that was the sun. You didn’t tell me to tell the truth,” Gallus shrugged.

“I can’t believe we were out all night. That meeting didn’t feel that long,” I mumbled. “Are we going to use the Scramblers again?”

“In theory,” Gallus gave a grin that didn’t exactly inspire confidence. I placed the reset Scrambler back around my wrist right as Gallus opened the door. Just like last time, I bolted in and tossed the band off as soon as I could.

“You don’t need to throw it like that.” Gallus shot me a look as he picked up my discarded Scrambler.

“But it’s so much fun,” I grinned. He rolled his eyes at me but I spotted the smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Go get some sleep,” he instructed me. “We have to look like nothing is amiss.”

“Hopefully I won’t fall asleep on the way there.” We bid each other good night-slash-morning and went our separate ways. I was so tired that I stumbled into the wall three times on the way to my room. Unfortunately for me, the walls weren’t smooth but were covered in uneven, exposed piping.

I’ve slept in some uncomfortable places in my life. My sleeping mat on the Rogue Star was pretty near the top of that list. Yet when I stepped into my shoebox of a room and gazed upon my thin mat and lumpy pillow, it looked like the most comfortable thing I’d ever seen. I fell onto my mat, asleep before I landed.

“Xyla, didn’t you set your alarm?”

That was Paila’s voice. But what was Paila doing in my dream? Something jostled my shoulder. I rolled away from it.

“Xyla!”

“I’m trying to sleep,” I grumbled.

“Trying? You’re succeeding. I’ve been shouting your name for ages,” Paila gave an exasperated sigh.

“What are you talking about? I just lay down.”

“I don’t know how late you went to bed last night, but it’s time to start dailies.” Paila jostled my shoulder again. This time, my eyes flew open.

“What do you mean, it’s time for dailies?” I blurted.

“I don’t think that has a second meaning, Xyla.” Paila leaned over me, giving me a quizzical look. “Are you sick? You seem really out of it.”

“I’m not sick. I didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”

More like I didn’t sleep at all.

“Up and at ’em. Don’t give Kalyn any more reason to dislike you by shirking your daily chores,” Paila advised.

“I think that ship has sailed,” I chuckled. “Did Emmery tell you what I told her yesterday?”

“She mentioned something about you sneaking off the ship and staging a coup. I figured she was just making up stories out of boredom,” Paila shrugged.

“Paila, you’re the one notorious for making up stories. And no, I didn’t stage a coup,” I shook my head. “I technically didn’t sneak off the ship, either. The door was open and I walked through it. No sneaking. I did, however, stumble across a group of Gaed rebels itching to destroy the Dominion. Kalyn and Dejar don’t want me to have anything to do with them.”

“That’s boring,” Paila grinned, a mischievous light in her eyes. “Did you sneak out to see them last night?”

“I did.” Admitting it sent a streak of pride through my body.

“I’m so jealous,” Paila groaned. “Nothing exciting happens on the ship.”

“We were chased by a Dominion fleet yesterday,” I laughed.

“That was yesterday. Today’s been boring,” Paila insisted.

“Today hasn’t even started yet!”

“You’re right. We have to go. As much as I want to hear about you joining up with rebels and staging coups, I don’t want to be late,” Paila declared.

“You’re a strange person!” I called after her when she left the room.

“I know! I’m so lucky,” she shouted back. “I’ll meet you for lunch later.”

Laughing, I climbed off my sleeping mat. I was still groggy and unhappy about being awake, but at least Paila had put me in a better mood.

I got dressed in a hurry. I was already going to be late, but if I planned it right, no one would notice. Before I left my room, I tucked the little black pager into my side pocket. Jial gave one to me and one to Gallus before we left last night. He said he would use it contact us if he needed us to report to headquarters.

Rebel headquarters.

That certainly wasn’t boring.

I fought the urge to stare at it in hopes that Jial would call me in. If he did, I didn’t know how I’d get out without Gallus’s Scramblers, even if they did scare me.

Speaking of Gallus, he was walking toward me in the same corridor I was walking along. We didn’t say anything to each other. I could tell from the half-moons under his eyes and his disheveled state of dress that he hadn’t slept any better than I had. As we passed each other, we exchanged a glance and a small, secret smile.

Shame we wouldn’t get to work together. I wanted to talk to him about everything we’d learned last night.

I fell asleep twice during my daily chores. It was a miracle that Kalyn didn’t stumble upon me as she walked the halls. By the time I finished everything on my to-do list, I was late for lunch and my stomach was roaring.

I was in some kind of sleep- and food-deprived fog as I went to the dining hall. One moment, I was stepping through the swinging doors and the next I was standing in the middle of the room with a trayful of steaming food.

I forced myself over to a table and sat down.

“This seat taken?”

I looked up to find Gallus grinning down at me, his own tray in hand.

“Not at all,” I smiled back. “Though if you’re looking for conversation, I’ll be too busy stuffing my face to talk.”

“You know I don’t mind the silence.” Gallus took his seat and pushed some food around with his fork. “Be careful you don’t nod off into your mashed squell beans. The purple coloring stains skin.”

“That’s a shame. They look so much like a fluffy pillow,” I said between mouthfuls. “Has your pager gone off?”

“If it had, I would’ve told you,” Gallus assured me. “But we shouldn’t talk about that here. Someone might hear us.”

“Yes, stealth master,” I chuckled.

“I’m stealthier than you are,” Gallus objected. “You’re the one that throws pieces of clanging metal around.”

“Only if they’re threatening to short circuit my brain,” I countered.

“I heard you fell asleep during your morning work.” Gallus looked at me with a mischievous grin.

“How did you hear about that?” I gasped.

“Orrin saw you,” Gallus informed me. “You’re lucky he has a good sense of humor and didn’t tell Kalyn you were sleeping on the job.”

“I was only sleeping on that job because I was up all night doing a more important job,” I said.

“Your job here is important, too.”

“Really? What’s my job?” I asked him. Gallus struggled to come up with a straight answer for a moment before shaking his head.

“I actually don’t know what you do,” he winced.

“Exactly. I don’t really know what I do either, besides busywork,” I said. “Anything else is more important by default.”

“Your more valued than you think you are,” Gallus said.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” I sighed.

“You will,” Gallus assured me, though I had no idea what he meant by that. “Wish I could stay longer, but I have a lot of work to do.”

“Must be nice,” I mused.

Gallus gave my shoulder a squeeze before leaving the dining hall. I was only alone for a moment before Paila slipped into his seat.

“I came to meet you for lunch but you were already taken,” she told me.

“Oh, that’s right,” I winced. “I’m sorry, I was so tired and so hungry I wasn’t focusing on anything other than my food and my fork.”

“It’s fine, I enjoyed watching the show,” Paila smirked.

“What show?”

“You and Gallus. Flirt city.”

“No way.” I rolled my eyes.

“Really? Then why are you suddenly so close with him all of a sudden?” Paila asked with a conspiratorial grin.

“If you must know, he’s been staging coups with me,” I admitted. “Don’t tell anyone, though. It’s one thing for me to get myself into trouble. I don’t want to get him in trouble. Well, any more trouble.”

“Can I tell Emmery?” Paila asked.

“Yes, but that’s it,” I allowed. “And don’t say anything about flirt city.”

“So, you admit you were in flirt city?” Paila gave me a wink.

“I definitely was not. If you were any good at eavesdropping, you’d know that I was talking about using my food as a pillow.”

“Pillow-talk is a thing,” Paila raised her eyebrows.

“Not when there’s food involved. Stop trying to make this happen,” I laughed.

“You must have some kind of feelings for him,” she insisted. “You’ve never talked to someone other than me and Emmery for that long. Gallus must be special.”

I considered her words for a few moments, ignoring the warm sensation that spread through my chest, just thinking about him.

Gallus.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I think he is. I’m just not sure how yet.”

GALLUS

I was in the second engine bay, rechecking the valves, the rotors, the connection points, and the sensors, when Orrin approached me.

“Where were you last night? I was hoping to run some numbers by you and you weren’t around,” he said as I monitored the computer screen. There was a fluctuation in valve seven that I wasn’t happy with.

As I left the computer station, making my way towards where valve seven was, I glanced back and answered. “I was fiddling around with one of the shuttles and fell asleep in there.”

“What were you doing?”

“You know how we can get the shuttle to yield more efficiently than the Star and get it to use less fuel, proportionately?” I asked him as we both ducked into the compartment. There it was, valve seven.

“What about it?” he asked as we both looked at the loose wire that was supposed to be regulating the valve’s pressure sensor. As I put a temporary block to the power feeding the wire, Orrin handed me some wire strippers.

I stripped the casing from the wire, cut it, then quickly soldered the wiring back to the control panel. I took away the power block and ran a quick diagnostic. Everything was running according to specs. I looked at Orrin. “I was trying to figure out if we could make our engines more efficient while making them more powerful. I was hoping to learn something from the shuttles.”

“Okay,” he said with a nod. “Maris did something similar a while ago. Did you figure anything new out?” I knew I could trust Orrin to be interested in the mechanics of some things, so the fact that I was blatantly lying to him didn’t bother me in the slightest.

I shook my head in mock disappointment. “Not really. Unfortunately, we’re just too big with too much to push and pull around. The engines on the shuttles are essentially useless in teaching us anything.” I looked at him to judge his reaction. He seemed to take what I said at face value.

Luckily for me, I had actually done what I said I had, I’d just done it three nights ago.

“Well, at least you gave it a chance,” he finally said after we had walked our way back to the computer station in bay two. “Okay, then. I have a few reports to fill out and some parts to price, so I guess I’ll get back with you about those numbers later?”

I nodded.

He nodded.

We both nodded again.

He knew I had lied to him, and I knew that he knew.

I didn’t understand why...but he wasn’t pushing it, so neither did I.

He walked away after a moment of awkwardness and I went back to doing my day-to-day maintenance on the engines.

It was less than an hour later when the pager that Jial had given Xyla and me went off.

I quickly looked to see if anyone was around, and seeing that I was alone, I grabbed the pager and checked it. The message said that the video of Xyla and her testimony would broadcast in five minutes.

I rushed to find her so we could watch her video together. It took a few moments, and I was afraid that she might not have been on the ship when we literally bumped into one another near our lounge area.

“Oh my gosh, I was looking everywhere for you,” she gasped. “The video’s about to play.”

“I know,” I said. “I was looking for you, too. I know where we can watch it. Hurry,” I said as I grabbed her hand and pulled her behind me.

I’d made so many gambles lately, this didn’t seem to be much of a risk.

All of the crew had been angry at what had happened to the women in that testing facility.

Valtic hadn’t spoken for days.

If we could convince him we were trying to burn the Dominion down, I strongly suspected he’d hand me the matches.

We got to Valtic’s office just in time, barely missing the first few words that Jial had to say.

What came next was Xyla’s testimony. I watched her, again admiring the strength she’d had to go through with what she said.

Through a view screen, she looked stark and earnest. Her voice was filled with passion, pain, and a bit of loss. It was just as moving now as it was when we had recorded it the night before. If that wasn’t effective at furthering the cause against the Dominion, I was no longer sure what would be.

When it ended, she looked at me questioningly. “Did I do good?” The look in her eyes was almost begging for validation.

I nodded with a gentle smile. “You did magnificently,” I said, drawing her in for a brief hug. She hugged me back.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I just hope it works,” she said as she pulled away from me.

I nodded a ‘thank you’ to Valtic, who hit me with a fierce grin and arched eyebrow, and we left his office.

We made our way back to where she was supposed to be working, only to be approached by an extremely angry Dejar and a slightly perturbed Aavat. It was odd to see Aavat the calmer of the two. Kalyn’s small form stepped from behind the two men that dwarfed her, her face barely constraining her fury.

“What was that?” Dejar asked, his quiet volume and even tone not matching the anger displayed on his face. That was scary.

Xyla looked up at him, as calm as could be. “What was what, sir?”

“That video that was just broadcast, of you,” he said, a lot of force behind his quiet voice, “telling everyone, everywhere what has happened to all of you. Not to mention the fact that you also broadcast what we did at the secret lab, and that the human race was involved.”

“What about it?”

Her calm was surprising. I knew she had made the decision to do what she thought was right, and that she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her, but the calm in her defiance was beyond what I had expected.

I found myself impressed and entertained.

“Do you realize the damage you could have caused? How much danger you could have put the rest of us in?” Kalyn shot out.

“Well, if you’re scared, you can leave and I’ll stay here and do what’s needed,” Xyla responded, her arms crossed as she started a stare down with Kalyn. It dawned on me that apparently the broadcast had gone out to more than the citizenry of the Gaed planet. It might have gone to the entire system, possibly even further.

That was a slightly unnerving thought, but the more I thought about it while Kalyn and Xyla argued, the more I realized that I had agreed to be part of this and that meant that I had to be okay with the consequences, as well.

“You’ve overstepped yourself, Xyla,” Dejar said. “This was irresponsible, dangerous, and, I’m sorry to say, stupid. I can’t believe you would do something like that on your own.”

“I’m sorry, but I need to interject something here,” I interrupted. The three of them looked at me as I looked down at Xyla. I smiled at her before turning myself back to the leadership group. “I was there, as well.”

“What do you mean?” Aavat asked quietly.

I shrugged. “I’m the one that helped her sneak out to record that testimony. We snuck out last night.”

If I had been Qal, I would have been sorely tempted to laugh at the expressions on their faces. Actually, I was still tempted, but I knew better.

Xyla looked up at me in pride.

Kalyn was the first to recover. “Why?”

I shook my head. “It was the right thing to do.”

Dejar threw his hands in the air. “You two, of all the…you have the…” he took a few deep breaths before finishing. “The two of you are confined to quarters until we can come up with a suitable punishment for the both of you. Do you truly not understand what kind of hell you could be bringing down on us with that stunt?”

“You’re seriously trying to stop us from doing what’s right?” Xyla snapped back. I looked down at her and I could tell she was on the verge of unleashing that volcano of anger she had deep inside. “You’re honestly telling me that you don’t want me to do the right thing?”

“It’s not that we don’t want you to do the right thing,” Kalyn started.

“Oh, that’s complete bullshit, and you know it,” Xyla nearly screamed. “You’re just scared, and you’re trying to put that fear onto us.”

“That is not true, Xyla,” Dejar said. “We’re not wanting you to stop doing the right thing, and we are most certainly not trying to project any fear on you. Our issue is that you put yourselves above the rest of the crew.”

“Excuse me?”

Dejar sighed. “You acted out of your own desires, which was a decision that could hurt the entire crew. Sometimes, doing the right thing is wrong when it results in the people around you getting hurt because of it.”

“Doing the right thing is never wrong, and if you weren’t such a chicken-shit, you’d understand that,” Xyla spat.

With an arched eyebrow, Dejar responded simply. “When the people around you know nothing of your ‘doing the right thing’ actions, then they don’t have the ability to join you or walk away. You’re putting them in the line of fire, whether that fire is real or metaphorical. It’s not fair to force people into your way of thinking.”

“Isn’t that what you three are doing right now?” Xyla shot back. She then turned on her heel and stomped away.

I looked at Dejar and Kalyn as they tried to quickly digest what Xyla had just said. “She’s right,” I said. “You’re forcing us to do things the way you think is right. So how was her decision any different?”

I didn’t wait to hear their response. I turned around and started walking away.

“I know where my quarters are,” I called over my shoulder.

XYLA

I marched down the corridor in a haze of anger.

Who did Dejar and Kalyn think they were? Just because they were in charge didn’t mean they had all the right answers. Of course, that didn’t seem to stop them from trying to push their worldview down everyone’s throat all the same.

Still replaying the whole conversation inside my head, I stopped in the middle of the corridor and hissed through my gritted teeth. Turning on my heels, I eyed the wall in front of me for a fraction of a second and pictured Dejar’s face on it. Then, before I even knew what the hell I was doing, I kicked the wall as hard as I could.

“Crap,” I breathed out, pain exploding in my toes and shooting up my leg. I was still bent over and massaging my foot when I heard the footsteps of someone coming down the corridor. Probably Kalyn again. Fantastic. “Listen, I’ve had it with your preaching. I don’t want to talk about—”

“It’s me, Xyla,” a familiar voice said, and I looked up to meet Gallus’s gaze.

Offering me his hand, he allowed a smile to spread across his lips and helped me up. “I heard that kick of yours. What did the Rogue Star ever do to you?”

“Sorry,” I muttered, raking one hand over my face. “I’m just angry.”

“I can see that.”

“What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you went to your quarters.” Placing both hands on my hips, I arched one eyebrow up. “Don’t tell me you’re disobeying the orders of our oh-so-wise leaders.”

“Nothing like that,” he said. “I saw how angry you were, and I just thought I’d check up on you.”

“I, huh, thank you,” I mumbled, somehow stopping myself from spitting out a snarky remark. I was still riled up from the confrontation with Dejar and Kalyn, and I just wanted to lash out at whoever was close.

Gallus, of course, didn’t deserve that. He deserved.... I stopped myself from going any further down that path.

“I know what they’re getting at, but I just think they’re wrong. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m proud of that video and I won’t hide it.”

“Nothing to hide.” Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Gallus seemed like he wanted to prove what he had just said with more than words.

For a moment, I almost thought he’d wrap his arms around me and pull me in for an embrace.

When he didn’t, I felt a slight stab of disappointment

“You did the right thing,” he continued.

“Thank you.” Taking a deep breath, I felt my rage finally start to die down, and I smiled. Then, before I could stop myself, I took one step forward and embraced Gallus. I wrapped my arms around his muscular frame and laid my head on his chest. He hesitated at first, but then cautiously held me, one hand resting on the nape of my neck. “I really appreciate you having my back.”

He said nothing at that, but he didn’t need to. The way he held me against his chest was enough for me to know that Gallus was a man I could trust. Just as long as I stuck to doing the right thing, he would always have my back.

And the right thing, right now? I breathed deeply of the scent of his skin, leaned into his broad chest.

Then sanity saved me.

Clearing my throat, I finally pulled back from Gallus. I averted my gaze from his for a couple of seconds, still trying to process the fact I had just rushed into his arms, and only then did I look at him again.

“You’re a brave woman,” he said with a slight nod. “Not many would stand up for what they believe like you did. I admire you for not backing down. This universe would be a much better place if there were more people like you.”

“I don’t know about that,” I chuckled.

Even though I didn’t like to admit it, I was perfectly aware that I had a difficult personality at times. “So, what do we do now?”

“We’re supposed to be confined to our quarters.”

“I’m not in the habit of doing what I’m told,” I merely shrugged. As I said it, I felt a grin tug at my lips. “What do you say we head to the dining hall and talk about our options? Beats being holed up.”

“Dejar won’t be happy if he sees us walking around,” he said, almost as if he was really considering locking himself up. “But he’s already mad at us, isn’t he? I doubt that a cup of that coffee-stuff you like will make him madder.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I laughed, already walking down the Rogue Star’s corridors once more. “And it's not really coffee, but I think we’re hoping if we just keep calling it that, we’ll forget.”

With Gallus by my side, I made my way toward the dining hall and exhaled with relief as I saw that it was empty. That meant Gallus and I would have some privacy, and that we wouldn’t have to wait in life for our coffee. And if there was something I really hated, it was having to wait for my coffee.

As I took a seat at one of the corner tables, Gallus busied himself with grabbing our ‘coffees’. When he finally made his way toward me, there were two steaming cups in his hands. He set them both down on the table, and then pushed one of them toward me.

“Careful, it’s super hot.”

“Just how I like it,” I said, gently blowing into my cup, the steam rising from it dispersing into the air. Gently wrapping the palms of my hands around the cup, I let the warmth seep into my skin and felt a smile spread across my lips. Caffeine didn’t really solve any of my problems, but there was nothing quite like a warm cup of coffee to remind me that good things still existed in such a bleak universe.

“Look at who we have here,” I heard someone say, and I turned on my seat in time to see Itair enter the dining hall, just before a crowd of people. With a smile etched on his lips, he headed straight toward us and sat at the head of the table. Gallus and I exchanged a questioning glance but said nothing.

“Congratulations, Xyla. What you did was very brave.”

“Thank you,” I replied, but kept my guard up. I didn’t really have a problem with Itair, but I couldn’t say that I trusted him. His presence aboard the Rogue Star was just another fact of life, one that I had learned to simply accept and not question. “What do you want, Itair?”

“What do we all want?” He sighed in a curious manner, leaning back in his seat and folding his hands over his lap. Looking straight at me, he then widened his smile. “I want to help you, that is all.”

“You want to help?” I echoed, my eyebrows shooting up.

Itair wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to offer his help without some serious strings attached, so his offer wasn’t exactly an obvious one. Still, I couldn’t help but be curious. “And why do you want to help?”

“I watched the broadcast,” he shrugged. “And it really moved me. I just want to help and deliver the galaxy from the Dominion’s ruthless reign.”

“Right.” It didn’t make any sense.

Itair didn’t give two shits about the Dominion, and I knew that for a certainty. In fact, he had always benefited from the Dominion’s reign, so it made zero sense for him to be offering his help right now.

“I sense that you don’t trust me, young Xyla.”

“Of course she doesn’t trust you,” Gallus snorted. “Why should you be offering your help when you’ve always benefited from the Dominion?”

“A true straight-talker, aren’t you?” Chuckling softly, Itair leaned forward and rested both his elbows on the table. Then, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper, he continued. “See, I miss my estate. Living without the fineries and delights I’ve grown accustomed to has been nothing but an ordeal. And a really unpleasant one. Now, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the quarters I have here on the Rogue Star, but there’s more to life than a cramped spaceship. A smuggler’s life is not for me.”

“You’re not a smuggler,” Gallus frowned, but I cut him short before he could continue.

“So what is it you do want, Itair?”

“I just want my old life back,” he replied. “My funds are still untouched and just as I left them, though accessing them might alert the Dominion. But who knows? Maybe, if I’m introduced to your new friends, there’s something I can do about this crusade of yours.”

“And why should we trust you?”

“Why should you trust anyone, really?” he laughed.

“I don’t think that—”

“Alright,” I cut Gallus short again, my eyes focused on Itair. “We’ll take you to meet the rebels.” As Itair smiled, I felt Gallus’s gaze weigh heavily on me. Still, he said nothing. Even though I was pretty sure Itair’s interests were self-serving, I really didn’t give a shit.

As long as his interests aligned with the right ones, I was fine with it.

And by the right ones? I meant mine.

GALLUS

To say that I was surprised at Itair’s offer would be an understatement. His admission that he wanted to return to his previous standard of living, and that he was willing to take down the Dominion to do that, that was believable.

And it had been enough to convince Xyla that he could help.

Itair had joked several times when he first “joined” us that his inaccessible funds were enough to fund a small revolution, now he was willing to do exactly that. “We just need to get off the ship and meet with your friend,” he had told me after Xyla finally agreed to let him in.

“Considering the amount of trouble we’re in, that won’t be terribly easy,” I responded.

“You could always say that you’re showing me around, that I asked you to be my guides around the city,” he offered.

“We could, but since no one would believe it, why don’t we just tell the truth?” I asked. Xyla looked at me, first in confusion, then in understanding.

“Just walk right out, Itair at our side?” she asked.

I nodded. “Why not? We’re already in trouble, and the worst that would happen is we’re accused of mutiny and we’re either confined to quarters and guarded as prisoners, which makes us martyrs, or we’re thrown off the ship and we do what we want anyway.”

“I love it,” Itair said. We were sitting in the corner of the dining hall, sipping on coffee, or in Itair’s case, Skylian Tea. “By simply walking off the ship, we’re forcing Dejar’s hand. My, but you two certainly know how to make things interesting on this ship.”

His smile was a little too giddy for my liking.

Regardless, he needed to be brought to Jial and the only way to do that was to simply walk off the ship and take him. “Should we go now, or get something to eat first?” I asked.

“Well, I am truly famished and today the cook is making my favorite dish,” Itair smiled. With a roll of her eyes, Xyla admitted she was a little hungry herself.

We quickly got ourselves something to eat and pointedly ignored the glances and stares of others. I wasn’t sure if the stares were from people upset with us, curious with what we were doing, or possibly wanting to join us, but it wasn’t time to confront them.

There was already enough of a wedge between the leadership and Xyla and me. To potentially drive another wedge between us and the rest of the crew, even if one was already started, it wasn’t the time to attempt that.

We quickly ate our food, cleaned up after ourselves, and proceeded to make our way off the ship. Dejar was in the cargo bay with Valtic when we entered. He quickly said something to Valtic before approaching us.

Scro.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

Itair stepped forward. “I was so inspired by these two people that I asked them to take me to this rebel leader so that I may speak to him myself.”

Dejar looked at Itair as though he was a fly that had just landed on his food. After a few seconds of glaring at Itair, he turned to Xyla and me. “The two of you have been confined, or have you already forgotten that?”

“No, we haven’t forgotten,” Xyla responded. “We just don’t care.” Well, that certainly put things on a decidedly downhill path.

“You don’t care?” Dejar repeated. “Really? And what if I were to charge you with mutiny? What about then?”

“Charge us,” Xyla said with a shrug. Without waiting for a response, she hooked her arm into Itair’s and walked him off the ship.

I stepped forward, upset with Xyla for the disrespect she had just shown, but more perturbed with Dejar.

“Sir,” I said. He turned towards me, fire in his eyes. “I’ve always looked up to you, sir,” I started. “You’ve always been fair and reasonable. I have the utmost respect for you and believe you to be one of the finest men that I have ever known or heard of.” I clenched and unclenched my hands as I searched for the words I wanted.

“You have been an inspiration, sir, and I’ve always hoped that, when I get my own ship one of these days, that I could be as good a captain as you are.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“But I think you’re wrong on this and you know it. We’ve started something that’s very important, and now you want to back away.” I hesitated. “You’ve always, whenever possible, done the right thing and have had us on the right side of things, sir. And that’s what I’m doing now.”

The look on his face made me sick to my stomach. He looked as though I just stabbed him in the heart, and I hated seeing that look.

I wanted to apologize, immediately, but I couldn’t. “You’re wrong this time. This isn’t something we can step away from just because we’re not the immediate center of attention. The thing is, sir, that we are the center of attention. We created this situation where people are finally wanting to step up to the Dominion. We put things into motion. Are we cowards now? Are we willing to step away from what we’ve started just because things might get intense?”

I wasn’t sure where else I was going to go with my words, so I stopped talking and walked away, leaving my captain speechless as I exited the ship. A few yards from the ship, Xyla and Itair waited for me. Neither of them said anything and I was grateful for that.

I was both proud and sick to my stomach for my actions and words. I truly did respect Dejar and looked to him for inspiration, learning from him how to be a good captain.

To be forced to tell him what I had hurt my heart.

“Come,” I said to the two of them. “I believe we have some introductions to make.” We made our way to the café, which took a little longer than the last time, as several people stopped us to thank Xyla for her bravery and her words.

She took it all in stride, thanking each of them for the opportunity and finding something to compliment each of them on, some small thing to make a connection.

We arrived and walked in, and were nearly overwhelmed by the number of people inside. Jial, standing at the counter, saw us and waved us over. We made our way through the crowd to him.

“My friends,” he said as he greeted each of us with a hug, including Itair. “I don’t believe we’ve been officially introduced, my Pronarian friend.”

“This is our, um, well, I don’t really know what he is to us,” Xyla said bluntly.

Itair chuckled. “I can do this, my dear. Pirates, renegades, government officials, rebels, schmoozing is all the same.” He turned to Jial. “I’m their unofficial benefactor. My name is Itair, and I believe that I may be of some assistance to your little rebellion.”

“Oh,” Jial said, obviously surprised. “And what sort of help can you offer?”

Itair shrugged. “Perhaps over a cup of tea?” he asked. Jial nodded. We all ordered something to drink and Jial led us to his table in the far corner of the café, which wasn’t saying much with how small it was.

“Let’s just say,” Itair started as he made himself comfortable in his chair, “that I have a significant amount of funds and some connections with people that just may be able to help.”

“Connections?” Jial asked, a bit apprehensive. “What kind of connections?”

“Well, as I’m sure you know, in every governmental body, there are always people that don’t agree with the way things are being handled. Ah, thank you, my dear,” Itair said as his cup of tea was placed in front of him. He took a sip without even letting it cool off. “Hmm, a bit sweet, but delicious. Where was I?”

“You were saying something about governments not agreeing with themselves,” Xyla answered.

“Ah, yes,” Itair nodded. “Within the Dominion, there are numerous people that don’t necessarily agree with the direction that they’ve been going. Their wish is to make the Dominion a kind and benevolent government, just like they’ve been pretending to be. I happen to know many of them, and of those many, some of them are in positions of influence.”

“What are you saying, friend?” Jial asked.

“I’m saying that, if I can get into contact with them, I can get my money back and I can start sowing the seeds of rebellion from the inside out. Even if there’s no physical conflict, there will be political in-fighting, and that will make the Dominion weaker.”

I sat back and thought about what Itair said.

He had a point, and if he could pull it off, the whole getting access to his money and sowing seeds of discord inside the Dominion at the same time, that would certainly make things easier for us.

Jial thought about it for several minutes as Itair struck up a conversation with Xyla. I looked around the busy café. I could see several people that I recognized from the last time we were here, but there seemed to be nearly three times that number here now, and if I overheard the conversations correctly, they were talking about Xyla’s testimonial and the Dominion.

Could we have already gotten more people on board with this?

“How well do you trust these people?” Jial finally asked. “These friends of yours inside the Dominion.”

Itair stopped mid-sentence with Xyla and turned to Jial. “They won’t betray us.”

“How do you know?”

“How do you know you can trust these people here?” Itair countered. “It’s because you just have a feeling about them, yes?”

Jial nodded.

“Well, I feel the same way. My years working with these specific people that I know tell me that I can trust them.”

Jial nodded. “Very well. Let me introduce you to the group. It might take a little while, we’ve sort of had a bit of a growth spurt,” he said with a wink at Xyla.

They certainly had.

Her words had set the spark. But how were we going to set it all aflame?

XYLA

Following Jial’s lead, we all stepped inside a small backroom. A group that was sitting at a table close to the one we were at followed after us and, judging by their serious expression and respectful posture toward Jial, I assumed they were part of the rebellion’s inner circle.

After everyone took a seat, Gallus and Itair right next to me, Jial stood in front of the room and started addressing everyone. He introduced Itair, probably with a little more ceremony that I would’ve cared for, but there was a certain pragmatism to it: if Itair could really help the rebellion, then it made sense for everyone to keep him happy.

“Are you sure you can provide us with the funds we need?” A member of Jial’s cadre asked. Standing tall, he looked Itair straight in the eyes. To his merit, Itair didn’t seem affected by the high stakes involved in all this. Either he was a fool and didn’t realize the danger we were in, or he was confident that we could pull it off.

“Not an easy task,” he replied. “Surely the Dominion’s keeping a close eye on any transactions I might perform, but I believe that with some financial magic, I might release the funds you need. And I have enough funds to prop up a rebellion like yours, you can trust me on that.”

A smug little smile took over his lips, and he even leaned back in his seat with an amused expression. I wasn’t exactly sure on what his net worth was, but his whole demeanor seemed to assure anyone that he had the money to make a true rebellion happen.

There was a little back-and-forth between some of the members in attendance, but it didn’t take long before a consensus was reached. If Itair could produce the funds, then the rebellion would start securing all the resources needed to upstage the Dominion. Itair wasn’t sure on how much he could sneak past the Dominion’s financial authorities, so he avoided specific amounts, but everyone seemed in high-spirits, all the same.

After all, this whole thing had started with nothing but a couple of cameras and my testimony, and now here we were...nurturing the growing anti-Dominion sentiment with a careful hand.

“We also need to secure the sympathy of the Ya-system,” Gallus added. Even though he was an outsider of sorts, everyone looked at him with what seemed like respect.

That didn’t surprise me: I figured the Shein were the kind of race that inspired respect wherever they went. You disrespected them and you risked your neck, after all.

“I think Xyla’s testimony will prove invaluable in that,” Jial said, offering me a slight smile. “The video has had a ripple effect, and more people are showing their sympathy toward our movement with each passing hour. We can’t win everyone over, sure, but we’re off to a good start.”

“We should include the government, if possible,” I added. Even though convincing the Ya-Sin government was much more challenging than convincing the common-folk, their allegiance to the cause would definitely be a major asset.

“Hard to do,” Jial said, “but we’re working on it. I believe we can do it, given the right time frame and the right arguments. We have to be cautious and measure every step we take. If the government doesn’t come around, that’ll be a setback.”

The mood in the room was electric. Even though there were a lot of difficulties involved in what we were trying to do, it felt like we were at the forefront of something that would change the lives of billions. The Dominion had exerted their dominance without anyone standing up to them and now, in the backroom of a tiny café, the discontented were finally growing some fangs.

When Jial finally ended the meeting, we left the backroom and entered the main room of the café once more. “We still need to consider how to get the Rogue Star back into Dominion space without raising any alarms,” Gallus whispered as we returned to our seats. I just replied with a nod.

Even though we were doing the right thing, the challenges ahead of us sometimes seemed insurmountable. Still, I relished it. It made me feel as if I was no longer reacting to events...for once, I was finally going on the offensive and making things happen. Even if things were hard, I wanted to keep on pushing.

“What now?” Itair asked us, watching as Jial slipped out of the café with his entourage. “Do we return to the Rogue Star, or what? As much as I appreciate a good adventure, I don’t think rough sleeping agrees with me.”

“Going back to the Rogue Star is not an option, not right now,” Gallus slowly replied. He clenched his jaw, as if he was struggling with something inside of him, and then let out a sigh. “It’s not a good idea to head back there, at least not today. We would just get thrown into the brig.” He grinned, a ghost of his usual smile. “We don’t have one, but I suspect Dejar might be mad enough to have one built, just for us. I’ve already talked with Jial, and he told me a friend of the cause owns a small inn in this neighborhood. We can stay there for the time being.”

“An inn, huh?” Nodding approvingly, Itair drummed his fingers against the counter. Even though he could be a hard one to read at times, I could tell he was already imagining a large room with a balcony and silk sheets. I doubted that we’d find rooms like that, but I said nothing.

After settling our bill with the server—who pretty much just waved us away with a wink and a smile—the three of us stepped out onto the street. Gallus led us through a maze of narrow streets and alleyways, following the directions Jial had given him, and we finally arrived at a three-story building that seemed like the exact opposite of whatever Itair had imagined.

Stuck in an alleyway, the building rose up at an angle, almost as if the foundations had been laid wrong. The windows were small, more like portholes than anything, and there was already a hint of rust on the front door. Gallus didn’t seem concerned with any of that: he just pushed the door open and stepped inside. I followed him, but had to stop and look back at Itair over my shoulder. He stood on the middle of the street, slack-jawed as he realized this was the inn we were supposed to stay in.

“Come on,” I sighed, and then just grabbed him by the arm and pulled him after me. He grumbled a bit, but then stopped complaining as he realized that the place looked much better inside. Of course, his optimism didn’t last long—when the receptionist told Gallus there were only two rooms available, Gallus quickly decided that the men would have to share a room.

Itair went back to muttering his complaints. Still, he seemed to prefer a night at the inn than a bunk bed in the Rogue Star’s theoretical brig. As for me, I got my own room.

“This is for you,” Gallus said, depositing a magnetic key card in Itair’s hand, who promptly disappeared down a corridor to investigate his new quarters. “And this is for you,” Gallus continued, giving me my own card.

“Thank you.”

As he pressed the card into my hands, my fingers brushed against his and I felt a shiver run up my spine.

The good kind of shiver. There was something about Gallus that always managed to prickle my skin, almost as if his touch was electric.

I wasn’t really sure what it was, but the fact that it happened every time he touched me wasn’t something I could deny, not any longer.

“I’ll take you to your room,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. Nodding, mouth suddenly dry, I followed him up a flight of stairs and then he stopped in front of a door. “So... this is you.”

“Yeah,” I smiled, pushing a stray lock of hair away from my face. Still looking into his eyes, I tried to think of something witty and smart to say.

Something right.

Something perfect.

And, that was never going to be me.

When I didn’t find the right words, I just smiled and laid one hand on his chest. “Listen...thank you for everything. I know that you hate to go against Dejar, so I really value everything you’re doing here.”

“You don’t need to—”

I didn’t let him finish.

Going up on tiptoes, I simply pressed my lips against his and shut him up. I wasn’t sure of what made me do it, but it felt right to do it all the same. His mouth fit on mine perfectly, as if our kiss was meant to be.

Placing both hands on my hips, already returning my kiss, Gallus pulled me into him and my heart started racing at a thousand miles an hour. My body wanted more than just a kiss. I wanted more than just his lips. I wanted everything he could give me.

I wanted him with a flare of desire so strong it scared me.

Using all of my willpower, I pulled back from him and gave him one final smile.

Before I could think twice about it, I stepped inside the room and closed the door behind me, leaving a very confused Gallus in the corridor.

And a very confused, very needy me inside the room.

Damn it.

GALLUS

I’ve been around loud noises. I’ve been around obnoxious noises. I’ve been around loud noises that are obnoxious, annoying, and painful to hear.

I was in the engine compartment when there was a blockage in the lubricant line and all the components started grinding against one another, letting off an ungodly squealing and grinding sound.

My hearing was muffled for nearly a week after that.

All of that, including hearing nails on a tile, feedback from a microphone, and the incessantly nasal laughs of my aunts and their friends, all of that was preferable, even desirable, when compared to what I was being subjected to now.

Itair lay in his bed in the room we shared, snoring away.

I was already having trouble sleeping, with thoughts of Xyla running through my mind, but the sounds that were coming from him would have kept me awake even if my mind had been clear.

The more I thought about it, the more surprised I was that we hadn’t heard him snoring back on the ship. I had never been more grateful for the soundproofing of the rooms than I was now.

I tried to cover my ears, but that only made his snores deeper. I growled and couldn’t even hear my own growl. I looked at him, legs sprawled out, his right foot uncovered, as the rest of the sheet barely covered him. His slight pudge rose and fell with each earth-shattering breath. His head, no longer on his pillow, was actually slightly under his pillow.

I had visions of taking that pillow and shoving the whole thing down his throat. He would undoubtedly choke a bit, but he would eventually be quiet. Of course, then we wouldn’t have access to his money or his contacts within the Dominion hierarchy, so I couldn’t do that.

After a particularly loud snore that consisted of six snorts, a slight wheeze, and a mumble of something in a language I didn’t recognize, I had had enough. I got out of my bed, walked over to his, grabbed his pillow, and smacked him in the face with it.

He shot up, eyes still closed, snorted twice, then laid back down, his arm over his head. He slept quietly and I was happy. I put his pillow down next to him and went back to my own bed. Just as I sat down, the noise started up again. Of all the…

I’d had enough. I got up, glared at him, pantomimed choking him to death, and since that was a very distinct possibility, as he was so undefended and easy to grab ahold of, I decided to leave the room.

I closed the door behind me quietly, not for his benefit, but simply because I didn’t want to slam it shut and wake up anyone around us.

Then again, I could still hear his snores through the door and it made me wonder if anyone on this block was currently able to sleep.

I needed a walk. I needed to clear my head and try to figure out what was happening. There were just so many things going on. As I left the inn and started walking around in the clear, cool night, I thought about this rebellion we were trying to start.

There had to be more people than the few here that were tired of the Dominion and what they had done. There simply had to be. Not even counting this whole thing with the women, the Dominion hadn’t always been the nicest government. They had done a lot of things in the name of “improvement” or “peace” or even “the betterment of the universe”.

Not all of those things were terribly nice, either. There was the destruction of several pirate factions, which were good because they cut down on attacks and raids, but the way the Dominion just obliterated the factions was beyond the line of decency. They obliterated every trace of the pirate factions, including family members and even stations that had taken the pirates in.

A few rogue governments where the leaders spoke up against the Dominion suddenly found themselves facing embargos, blockades, or a sudden change of government. Many people were willing to look the other way because eventually things were improved and better, so people looked back at the tactics as a necessary evil in order to make the good prevail.

But this had gone too far, and that’s why we were here, and there had to be others out there like Xyla and me.

Thinking about Xyla made me think about our kiss. I had seen others of the crew kiss the human women, and while I had wondered what it would be like to kiss one, I hadn’t counted on it happening to me, because I was always down in the bowels of the ship, away from everyone.

Xyla was different. Maybe others called her a bitch, but to me, she was stubborn and proud. She was smart, talented, and passionate about what she cared for.

The more I thought about her, the more I remembered how it had felt to kiss her. The softness of her lips and the intensity of the kiss, even if it was short and gentle, were unlike anything that I had felt before. I’d had numerous relationships in my past, if you could call them that. There was never anything serious, never anything that lasted longer than a few weeks, but none of them compared to how it felt when Xyla’s lips touched mine.

But how could something between us work?

I knew the others had made their relationships work, but the only reason why Xyla and I had any sort of relationship at all was because of this rebellion. Would we have come together on our own without it? Would we have ever gotten this close naturally?

If I could be honest with myself, I had originally found her to be a bit annoying, always angry all the time. I had actually tried to make a point of avoiding her. If I had wanted to avoid her so badly at first, would we return to that level of feeling if this whole thing stopped?

I found myself back in the inn, standing in front of her door. I didn’t remember coming back inside or coming back to our floor. All I knew was that I was standing in front of her door, seeing the light on under it, and I had this massive desire to knock.

I shouldn’t disturb her, I thought as my hand lifted, formed itself into a light fist, and knocked on her door. What the scro are you doing? I yelled at myself as I heard steps.

When Xyla opened the door, her slightly ruffled hair framed her face more beautifully than I had ever thought it could have before.

“Hey, Gallus. What’s up?” she asked. She was only wearing a shirt that barely came down to her thighs, her bare legs smooth, while her feet and toes flexed and gripped the thick green carpet.

I think it was the bare toes that finally did it.

Not thinking, I reached out and wrapped my arm around her lower back, pulling her in and up to me as I lowered my head to kiss her.

As our lips and tongues wrestled, she pulled me into the room, the door shutting behind us.

Her kiss was everything I hadn’t known I craved. Soft, hard, wanting… it curiously teased me. I grabbed at her waist, pulling her tight to me. The swell of her breasts met my chest, soft and full at the same time. Her scent enveloped me, drawing me in. Her mouth, her lips, her tongue moved with mine… this was everything I imagined it could be.

I traced my fingers along the skin of her arms. I felt her shiver at my touch.

I waited for her to pull back, to withdraw, but she came in closer. I felt her arms move toward herself and I saw she was unbuttoning her shirt.

I helped her pull it over her head, discarding it to the floor like an empty wrapper of a most precious jewel.

She stood before me naked, reaching for my belt.

I shook my head, smiled, and kissed her again. Her mouth was hot, her tongue searched mine and her lips folded over my lips again and again.

I moved my mouth down her neck, planting feathery kisses that made her release a little sigh. My tongue ran across her collarbone. I rubbed my thumb across one nipple, cupping the weight of her breast with the palm of my hand. Xyla’s nipple grew larger and she threw her head back and relaxed her chest into me, giving it to me for that moment. She curled her fingers through my hair as I softly sucked at the delicious bud and gently massaged her breasts.

I moved from one to the other, heard a whisper of a moan, and sought to set it free. I traced my tongue slowly, with the weight of a feather, around the swollen edges of her nipples.

Her legs trembled slightly, and I felt her body shudder against me as she became unsteady on her feet. She pulled me in tighter to her chest, burying my face against her.

For a moment, I allowed her to guide me, before pulling back and repeating the soft flicks of my tongue across the tip of her nipple, gently pulsing her other one between my finger and thumb. Her head bowed down to mine as she cradled my hand to her body, unable to control my speed or force.

Xyla was at my mercy, her heightened senses demanding more, but I made her wait. I wanted her to feel every moment and to draw it out as long as I could, but her body was already buckling. The hotness of my breath and the wetness of my tongue cradled her nipple at the edge of my mouth, licking, suckling, licking, sucking, then I paused.

Her breathing erupted into a frenzy of gasps as she struggled with the lack of touch.

My breath was now the only thing making contact. My mouth was so close, she could feel the heat of me, but nothing more.

She began to shake.

I pulled her waist to me and kept my hands on her hips. Using only my tongue, I released little flicks of it onto her nipple, tapping it in rhythm. The noise that escaped her throat was the most beautiful her voice had ever sounded to me. She gripped my shoulders, squeezing and releasing me as I continued with the flick, flick rhythm. Then I heard her cry, the moan of her ecstasy, and my mouth closed over her breast, sucking, my tongue searching over her flesh, as she shook more and fell into me.

Her breathing was heavy into my shoulder, against my skin, then she raised her gaze to meet my eyes and put her mouth firmly on mine, as if wanting to devour me. Her kiss sent my pulse racing. I pulled her slender legs up around my waist and walked us to the bed.

I lay her down before me, her naked body relaxed and open for more. Her brown eyes stared deeply into mine, searching for what came next. She watched as I pulled my top over my head and discarded it to the chair with a flick of the wrist. She lay quite still, her knees spread, her pussy glistening with juice.

I crawled over her waist and nudged her legs wider apart. I let the heat of my breath hover over her, so close, but not close enough for my mouth to touch. I let the anticipation run through her like a river coursing to its end. I moved upward, fixing my hands in hers, kissing her neck, her mouth.

I whispered “don’t move” into her neck. My hands left hers and my mouth traveled down her chest, along her smooth stomach, and stopped just above her gorgeous pussy.

I hovered a moment, letting the heat of my breath do the work, slowly igniting the fire that burned within her… again. I could see her wanting to move, or wanting to urge me to be faster, as her hips were moving slightly. I pushed them still, down into the bed.

I moved downwards, so my mouth was aligned with her pussy.

To not dive right in was a fight for me, but I held on and did it the right way, the only way that it should ever be done.

I placed my arms beneath her thighs and ran my tongue from the bottom all the way to the top, passing over the clit in one sweeping motion. Her body jolted. I kissed her just above her delicate sex, carrying myself back down to where I’d begun, holding my breath there for a moment, then repeated it.

My tongue traveled over her in one sweeping motion. This time. her hips rose to meet me. I smiled, pushing her back down again. I continued this rhythm several more times until she arched up to me once more, then I rewarded her. I moved one arm from beneath her, laying into her slightly with the other. Then I let my tongue dance over her swollen clitoris while I slid my finger into her pussy. It was so hot, I almost balked.

She moaned as my finger slid in, and out, in, and out, in…

“Gallus,” she called my name on a whisper.

I let my tongue invade her pussy. She was hot, wet, and pulsing against my mouth. Her hips rose again, and this time I allow it, while my finger slid deeper, searching and swirling inside her. Another beautiful noise escaped her throat. Just a little more and I would show myself to her. I slid my finger from her, leaving her panting for more. I move it to her anus and let her juices lubricate my way in.

Shifting my position, getting myself ready to join in, I got up on my knees and crouched over her, my tongue still devouring her pussy, one finger gently finding its way around her anus, making circular motions, sending her wild in her hip movements, thrusting for more. I used another finger to slide into her pussy, this time using the motion to slide my other finger all the way into her ass.

Her moans grew louder. I made sure that my mouth didn’t leave her pussy while I pulled my finger from her ass and circle the outer area, while my other finger and my tongue pumped rhythmically inside her pussy. Her body began to shake, her hips went rigid, relaxed, rigid again as she tried to claim control. I moved my fingers faster and applied more pressure with my tongue, until she let out a noise broken with shudders and relaxed into the bed.

Her breath was fast and shallow as she recovered. Her body still trembled. Now was my time. I let her relax for a moment. I kissed her mouth, then I began to remove my pants. She’d closed her eyes as her breathing slowed. As she opened them, her eyes grew wide with what I hoped was shock, and not horror. My cocks were gleaming in the darkness, ready to claim what was theirs.

Her body had stopped shaking. I began to kiss the skin on her thighs, as soft as silk on my mouth. I guided my way to her stomach, offering the lightest touch with my lips. I passed her breasts and kissed each one before arriving at her neck. She flipped me onto my back, running her kisses across my chest, along my torso, and lower.

Holding my cock in her hand, she flicked her tongue back and forth over its straining head. She was building a steady rhythm when we heard banging on the door.

She pulled back and leaped off me. We looked at one another, then she quickly wrapped a sheet around herself and went to the door as I put my pants on.

“Yes?” she called out.

“Madam Xyla, Jial has requested you and mister Gallus to come to the café as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “Why?”

“He did not explain to me, madam. Should I tell him you’re coming?”

She looked at me, the question obvious on her face. I nodded, disappointed that our evening had been interrupted.

“Yes. Tell him that Gallus and I will be there soon.” Then, very quickly, she added, “I’ll get Gallus, no need to wake him yourself.”

“Yes, madam.”

We looked at one another, smiles playing on our faces, but we also knew that we couldn’t finish what we had started, not yet. I, at least, wanted to savor every moment with her and make them last as long as I could.

XYLA

“Do you really think we should wake him up?”

Standing in front of Itair’s room, I hesitated for a moment before rapping my knuckles against the door. Jial had only summoned me and Gallus, but I figured that since Itair was now a part of the rebellion, that he should come as well.

“I figure it won’t hurt to have him with us,” I finally told Gallus.

I frowned as I waited for Itair’s reply to my knocking and, when one didn’t come, I knocked again. I waited for a full minute and then, getting angry, I knocked a third time for good measure. Only then did I start hearing a few mumbles from inside the room. When the door finally swung back on its hinges, it did so to reveal a bleary-eyed Itair.

He didn’t look happy.

“What do you want?” he grumbled. “Do you know what time it is? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Jial wants to meet with us.”

“So?” Itair asked. “Go and meet him, and then you can tell me all about it. I’m sure this rebellion stuff is so fascinating that it can’t wait for the morning, but I’m bowing out. I’m sure Jial doesn’t expect me to join him this late at night.”

I was about to protest when Itair slammed the door in my face. I heard the shuffling of feet and then the inevitable sound of a body collapsing on top of the mattress. The asshole had returned to his bed.

“So much for that,” Gallus said as he shook his head. “C’mon, leave him be. The two of us can handle this, whatever it is.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” With a sigh, I turned my back to the door... even though I was still considering kicking it down just so I could drag Itair out of the bed. I couldn’t believe the asshole had the gall to slam the door in my face. Just because he had money didn’t make him any better than the rest of us.

“Don’t dwell on it,” Gallus told me as we left the inn, a slight breeze whipping my hair back. “Itair has a complicated personality.”

“He’s an asshole, that’s what you really want to say,” I corrected Gallus, and that made him chuckle. Keeping our voices low, we made our way through the maze of streets and alleyways, and after a few minutes we found ourselves in front of the tiny café. The door was locked, and there weren’t any lights inside.

“Should we knock?” I asked, but Gallus didn’t have time to reply. The moment the words left my mouth, the door swung open. Jial was standing in the doorway and waved us in quickly. We followed him in silence and made our way toward the backroom where we had had the previous meeting.

“What’s going on?” Gallus asked the moment Jial closed the door behind us. In this room, the lights were on and there was a computer propped up on a table in the corner. By the look of it, Jial had spent the whole night working. He was so consumed by thoughts of rebellion that I doubted he ever slept.

“I’m afraid to say I don’t have good news,” he finally started, gesturing for us to take a seat. Only when the three of us were sitting around the table did he continue. “As good as Xyla’s testimony was, some people have started to brush it off.”

“Brush it off?” Frowning, I leaned back in my seat. Just yesterday everything seemed to be going according to plan, and people were sympathizing with my history. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, it’s complicated,” Jial sighed, nervously raking one hand over his face. More than just tired, he looked exhausted.

“Well, complicated is my bread and butter. So let me have it. Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

“Very well,” he nodded. “Some people have started to say that you are an actress, and that this whole thing is a farce. They believe you’re in it for the money. Some people are calling your testimony a lie, and they’ve started to question your identity.”

“What?” Clenching my jaw, I felt my fingernails digging into the palms of my hands as I turned them into fists. After opening myself up like I had, I was now being called a liar? That was pure bullshit.

“That can’t be,” Gallus whispered, taking his time with his words. “Why would people say that? I know it can be hard to see things in a new perspective, especially when it comes to the Dominion, but it’s not like people can disprove anything Xyla said.”

“I know what you’re saying, my friend, but we knew this wouldn’t be easy.” Holding Gallus’ gaze, Jial’s expression hardened. “We didn’t expect for problems like this to hinder us so quickly, though. We have to do something about it, or I’m afraid the little support we’ve managed to garner will quickly turn to dust.”

“Is it that bad?” I asked. To know that people thought of me as a liar felt like being punched in the stomach.

“Yes,” Jial said. “We don’t know who started this theory, but it’s spreading fast.”

“Do you think the Dominion is behind this?”

“Could be,” he shrugged. “Dominion agents are pretty much everywhere, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some counterintelligence officer working for the Dominion put this in motion. Or maybe the Ya-Sin government is behind this. They aren’t exactly enthusiastic about the idea of opposing the Dominion, so some sector of the government advocating for a more neutral stance could’ve started it. We simply have no idea. But the fact remains...people have started to believe these lies, and we need to stop that before it damages our movement.”

“And how, exactly, are we going to do that?” Running one hand through my hair, I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. I could already feel a headache brewing there. We had barely started this rebellion, and we had already encountered a roadblock.

“I have a suggestion, if I may,” Jial said, a note of hesitancy in his voice.

“We’re all ears.”

“We could refute those lies if more people stepped up. If the entire Rogue Star crew came forward, made themselves known and told their stories...well, then it’d be much harder for people to disprove your testimony.”

“That’s a tough thing to ask for,” Gallus said. “The captain isn’t too happy about what we’ve done. If I went up to him and asked for such a thing, he’d just throw me into the brig.”

“Forget about Kalyn and Dejar,” I found myself saying. Jial’s idea wasn’t that bad, after all. “I know they won’t come around, but some of the others might. Part of the crew is growing restless, and I know they’re aching to do something. They want to help out, and this is how they can do it.”

“Dejar is going to hate it,” Gallus sighed, pursing his lips tightly. He held his breath for a second, almost as if he was debating with himself, and then looked straight at me. Reaching for him, I laid my hand on top of his and squeezed it.

“We need to do it.”

“We do,” he agreed, finally breathing out. Turning to Jial, he offered him a nod. “We can’t make any promises, but we’re going to try our best.”

“Bring in as many Rogue Star crewmembers as you can,” Jial said. “The more testimonials we have, the better our case will be built. The whole rebellion depends on this. If we don’t get the people behind us, it’ll be futile to even try.”

“No promises...but we’ll try.” Pushing my chair back, I jumped to my feet. “We’ll do our best.”

GALLUS

We didn’t get much sleep, but at least we slept. After Jial told us that people were doubting the validity of her testimony, Xyla and I agreed that we needed to go back to the Rogue Star and get others to tell their stories.

We also decided that we needed some sleep in order to do that, and that I wasn’t going to get any sleep at all in the same room as Itair, a man whose snores could drive a deaf man to insanity.

And we actually slept. We didn’t try to finish what had started before Jial interrupted us. We went back to the room, held on to one another, and fell asleep.

Now, after a quick breakfast, we made our way back to the Star, with Itair in tow. None of us knew what to expect returning to the ship. Would we be treated as traitors, thrown in the brig for mutiny? Would we be denied entry, told that we were no longer crew and no longer welcome on the ship?

We expected the worst scenarios and prepared ourselves for them. What we couldn’t prepare ourselves for was that we were able to board the ship as though nothing had happened. A few of the crew looked at us a little longer than normal, but no one glared, no one stared, no one went running calling for security. They just looked at us, some nodded greetings, and went on about their normal duties.

“This is certainly unexpected,” Itair said, echoing my thoughts.

I nodded. “What do we do?”

Xyla squeezed my hand. “We go do our jobs and talk to people. I’ll go get started.” She stood on tip-toes, gave me a peck on the cheek, and left to go talk to the women. I was fairly positive that she was going to speak with Emmery and Paila, her two closest friends.

She was sure that she would be able to talk them into joining the cause, and I didn’t doubt her.

Itair gave me a nod, shook my hand, and left, presumably to go to his room, although grabbing a bite to eat wasn’t entirely out of the question.

That left me standing in the middle of the cargo bay, confused about what I could do, or at least, should do.

Without any ideas in my head, and no desire to eat at the moment, I went back to the engine room. I walked down to the primary workstation and found Orrin working there. I hesitated a bit as he turned around and saw me.

I wasn’t sure what the look on his face was supposed to mean.

Maybe everything would be fine.

“Ho, Orrin,” I said as I approached the workstation. “What are we working on today?” I had hoped that he would simply leave things be and we would work, but that hope was quickly destroyed.

“What were you thinking?”

I looked at Orrin, attempting to rekindle my sense of hope by thinking there was a chance he was talking about something I had done with the engine or something. “You wouldn’t happen to be talking about the engine, would you?”

He set down his tools, pulled up a stool, and sat down. Scro. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Gallus. What the kopa were you thinking when you decided to go against Dejar and rebel?”

Well, there was no other way to deal with this than to talk about it and explain myself.

“Okay,” I said with a nod and heavy breath. I grabbed my own stool, sat down, and started talking. “A few days ago, I followed Xyla out of the ship. I hadn’t intended it to be anything other than trying to make sure she was safe. We’re on a planet that we know nothing about, surrounded by people we know nothing about, and we’re being chased by the Dominion. How did we know that this wasn’t a ridiculously elaborate trap?”

“Okay. Go on.”

“Well, while following her, we ended up at a café where we overheard four people talking about a potential rebellion against the Dominion. They were talking about how the new ship, I was guessing us, could be a beacon of hope for the rebellion. Xyla, against my cautions, went to go speak with them. Eventually, we were introduced to a man named Jial.”

I took in a deep breath, looked down, and repositioned myself on the stool. “He talked us into making the video.”

“Why didn’t you stop her then? You had to know that the video was a bad move for all of us,” Orrin said.

I nodded. “Except I agreed with it.”

“Wait, what?”

I nodded, again. “Dejar and the others think that we’ll be able to sit back and hide, sit back and just wait until the Dominion either forgets about us or is too busy with their own troubles to concentrate on us.”

Orrin nodded in agreement.

“But we can’t do that,” I continued. “We can’t sit back. We’ve already seen that we can’t sit for long. They kouting found us on Sanctuary, a place that very few people know about if you believe Qal.”

“Good point. We were found there, so, if you subscribe to the notion that they can find us in a hard-to-find place, then they can find us anywhere,” Orrin said.

“Exactly,” I said. “There is nowhere we can go. You know that the Dominion has a long memory and an even longer reach. And I agree. The Dominion needs to be stopped.”

Orrin was smiling. “Did you agree with the notion of the rebellion, or that Xyla wants one?”

I tilted my head as I looked at him in wonder. “What do you mean? Anyway,” I shook him off before he could answer. “I felt that what they were doing was something worthwhile.”

“Yes, but is it worthwhile because of your own beliefs or because of hers?”

“What are you trying to say?”

He smiled again. “I’m trying to say that I now understand you better. I didn’t know what you were doing, or why, but now I do. And you’re right. The Dominion does need to be stopped. They do have a long reach and a long memory, and there would be nowhere for us to hide away, not for long, anyway. So, now that I know the information behind your actions, I understand you better.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“But I do have a question for you,” he said.

“What?”

“Would you have done this if Xyla wasn’t there?” he asked. “What I mean is, if you had left the ship on your own, for your own reasons, and had made it to the same café, overheard the same conversation, would you have approached the people talking? Would you have met this Jial person and have agreed with his rebellion?”

I thought about it for only a split second. “Yeah, I would have agreed with his ideas of rebellion.”

“But you ignored the rest of the question. Would you have talked to the people if Xyla hadn’t been there and forced you?” he asked.

I hesitated. I had to think about that. Would I have gone up to them? Actually, no, I wouldn’t have. I had tried to talk her out of it, so I almost certainly wouldn’t have gone over on my own. And, if I hadn’t gone over on my own, we wouldn’t be in the situation we were in at the moment.

Which meant, if I pulled my head out of my four points of contact and thought about it properly, that everything I did was because Xyla had wanted to do it.

“Scro,” I said.

He laughed at me. “You did everything because of her, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “You’re right. Everything, all of this, all of the trouble I’m in with the captains, with you, all of it, it’s all because I went with her. I—what’s that look for?”

Orrin was staring at me, a stupid little grin on his face. A stupid little grin that was annoying, frustrating, and hilarious, all at once. He held back a chuckle, cleared his throat, and answered me. “Well, you’re in a world of scro, doing things you don’t normally do, all for a woman. You’re in love, my friend.”

With my face scrunched up as much as it could, I tried to digest what he had just said. “No, I’m not,” I said reflexively as I thought.

He let his laughter roll out as he got up from his stool and put it away. “Try to deny it all you want, but everything you’ve done is because of her. All the trouble you’re in is because of her. This whole rebellion is taking off because of her. You let her join the rebellion, because of her.” He looked back at me. “You really think it’s all because this is the, and I quote, right thing to do?”

I hated him. I truly hated him. I hated him with the burning heat of twelve suns.

Son of a…

Could I really be in love?

XYLA

“Well, this is odd,” I muttered under my breath as I walked through the ship.

The Rogue Star crewmembers went about their day as I passed by them and, even though some glared at me, no one seemed in a hurry to drag me toward the brig. In my book, that was a victory—a small one, to be sure, but a victory nonetheless. I was prepared to make my case from a cell if it came to that, but it would be far easier to convince people to help me if I wasn’t behind bars.

“Xyla?” I heard a familiar voice say, and I spun to find Emmery staring at me. Her mouth was open in surprise, almost as if she hadn’t expected to see me. “What are you doing here?”

Quickly closing the distance between us, she looked around to see if anyone was within earshot, and then smiled. “Dejar and Kalyn are pissed, girl. I actually thought you had left the Rogue Star for good.”

“And what? Leave you all behind?” I laughed. Right then, Paila bumped against me from behind.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she quickly apologized. “I was distracted and—Xyla? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Alright,” I laughed again. “This will go easier if I tell you both the story at the same time. Let’s head to my room.” Without waiting for a reply, I quickly started marching down the corridor and allowed myself a grin as I heard them following after me.

“Spill it,” Emmery said the moment we were in my room. “I want to hear what the hell you were thinking. Kalyn is going to bite your head off.”

With the door firmly closed behind us, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be bothered. Unless Dejar decided to send someone here to drag me toward the brig, but if that happened, I would deal with it then. No use in worrying about what was out of my control.

“You’ve seen my video,” I started, and the two women nodded at that, “and you know that I’ve been helping the Gaed rebels. I’m making my stand against the Dominion.”

“And are you sure that’s how you should go about things?” Paila asked. Sitting on the edge of my bed, she looked at me with a concerned expression. “You might be rushing things, Xyla. Kalyn thinks that we should wait before making a move, and that we should observe before going on the offensive.”

“And do you agree with her?”

They didn’t reply immediately. They just shared a hesitant glance, and then returned their attention to me. “Well, it’s Kalyn we’re talking about...she’s usually right about these things, isn’t she?”

“Look, I know that you like Kalyn. And I also know that she’s been right about a lot of things before. But I don’t think she’s doing the right thing here. She’s hesitating too damn much, and that’ll do us no good against the Dominion. We need to go on the offensive instead of sitting on our asses. The Dominion has the upper hand, and our odds are bad...but if we just continue to react to their actions, we’re going to fall into their hands again. We need to start making them react to us. We need to fight back.”

“And how do you plan on making all that happen?”

“Yeah, what does all that mean? Are you going to fight them with your fists?”

“Of course I’m not going to fight them with my fists,” I laughed. Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind punching a few of those Dominion assholes. “But we have a plan. We just need your help to make it happen.”

“Our help?” they echoed in unison.

“Your help,” I nodded, and then gave them a rundown of Jial’s idea. They seemed a bit hesitant about sharing their testimonies, especially because that meant they would become somewhat famous, an idea that scared them, but it didn’t take long before they warmed up to it all. When they finally agreed to do it, I let out a relieved sigh. This was a good start. If I somehow managed to convince the others to join in, maybe there was still hope.

“Do you think you can help me spread the word?” I asked them. “We need as many people as we can get. The more testimonies out there, the harder it’ll be for the Dominion to bury the truth.”

“I don’t know how many people will agree to it, but I’ll try,” Paila said, while Emmery nodded. “I know that some of us aren’t happy with Kalyn’s strategy of waiting around, so I figure at least a few of them will be up for it. Anything to make those Dominion assholes pay.”

“Thank you,” I smiled, and the two of them chuckled as if on cue. “What’s so funny?”

“This is just so unlike you, Xyla.”

“What is?”

“Well, you’re asking for our help, you’re thanking us...it’s just unlike you. You’ve always been a bit of a loner, you know?”

“I guess…” I whispered, and the two of them smiled, as if they had a secret. It seemed they preferred this new version of me to the old loner one.

I couldn’t exactly blame them for that. I didn’t get along well with people, and I had always preferred to do things my way.

People were just a nuisance most of the time. Now, though, I was learning to see things differently.

“Well, we like this new you,” Paila said. “I have to say, though, I was a bit surprised when you started getting along with Gallus. I never really thought I’d see you working alongside someone, let alone an alien.”

“Gallus is different,” I said before I could stop myself. The moment the words left my lips, I felt warm blood rush to my cheeks. “He’s useful and he’s helpful. Most people aren’t, so I just appreciate the fact he isn’t a deadweight.”

“Are you sure there isn’t more to it?” Emmery chuckled. “I mean, you guys must’ve grown close by now.”

“Like I said, he’s helpful. There’s nothing more to it.” It was a complete lie, of course.

There was so much more to it.

But I couldn’t say it out loud. I wasn’t exactly used to expressing myself when it came to matters of the heart, and I had no idea what I should say.

I couldn’t even explain to myself what was going on between us.

“I think that you like him.”

“I’m with Paila. I think there’s something going on between the two of you.”

“C’mon,” I protested, my cheeks already feeling red-hot. “It’s nothing like that. Just because we’re spending time together doesn’t mean that we’re an item. We’re just working together, and that’s about it.”

Paila and Emmery looked at each other, exchanged a knowing glance, and then burst out laughing. With both hands on my hips, I tapped my foot against the floor and stared them down.

“What the hell is so damn funny?”

“You’re a terrible liar, Xyla, that’s what’s funny.”

I merely shook my head. It was useless to argue against them. They had seen through me easily. That, of course, didn’t mean I would sit around idly and start gossiping with the girls.

I had a job to do.

“Alright,” I said, already heading toward the door. “I need to talk to more people, see if I can get them on board. You guys will do the same, right?”

“Right,” they said at once, and I gave them a little smile before the three of us left the room. As I walked down the corridor, though, I started thinking about Gallus. Were Paila and Emmery right? Was there something there, between the two of us? Last night at the inn seemed to prove it, no doubt about that.

The way he had held me, the way our mouths had met, and the way his hands had wandered all over my body...there was so much perfection in the memories I held from that moment that it was enough for my heart to skip a beat.

I still couldn’t believe how close we had come to crossing a line that couldn’t be undone.

Even the sweetness of sleeping in his arms, just sleeping, only riled me up more.

And now that I thought of it, I just couldn’t wait for it to happen again.

Except this time, I wanted to go all the way.

GALLUS

I spent the rest of the day doing whatever I could around the engine room, occasionally talking with Orrin about what the rebellion was trying to do and why we had come back to the ship.

“So, you need more people to join your cause and do a video testimony?” he asked as we changed out some bearings in compartment one.

“Essentially,” I answered as I sprayed some engine lubricant where the new bearings were going.

As Orrin installed the bearings, I cleaned up. “So,” he said, “have you gotten anyone yet?”

“I haven’t,” I was forced to admit. “To be honest, I wouldn’t even know how to broach the subject with people.”

“Good point,” he said with a smirk. He laughed and looked at me. “It’s not like you can just go up and say ‘Hey, you wanna go on video, tell the universe your problems, and get into a rebellion against the Dominion with me?’ That would be weird.”

We both laughed at the absurdity of it. At least, the absurdity of me being the one to ask people that.

“I’ll do it.”

I snapped my head around and looked at Orrin. “Wait, what?”

“I’ll do it,” he repeated. “Look, when I was pissed off at you, I didn’t have all the information. Well, that and you lied to me.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Eh. But now that I know what’s going on and that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m in.”

I looked at him in wonder.

He took a quick glance at me, then burst into raucous laughter. “Oh, by the gods of hyperspace, I really wish you could see your face.”

“I have to agree, you look absolutely hilarious right now.”

I wasn’t quite sure who jumped the highest, but I will always swear that Orrin did. Both of us looked over to see Valtic standing nearby.

He shrugged. “Well, now you both look positively stupid with those looks on your faces. I really wish I was able to take a picture. Oh, wait, here.” What I hadn’t noticed was that his left hand was in his pocket. I heard an audible click from his pocket. “There we go. Now I have proof that the two of you are certainly capable of looking like complete idiots.”

Orrin was the first to recover. “And you’re an ass. What brings you down into the bowels, Valtic?”

“Well, I was actually coming to ask a favor, but I’ve decided to do you a favor, instead,” he answered, pointing at me.

“Oh?” I said.

He nodded. “I’ll participate in this little video montage thing you have going, and I’ll talk to Lynna. She still has nightmares,” he added in a low growl.

I had to look back and forth between the two of them in wide-eyed wonder. “Thank you,” I finally managed to mumble.

“Uh-huh. When do we meet up with this woman of yours?” Valtic asked.

“We meet up just after dinner,” I answered.

“Huh,” Orrin said. “Well, I’m hungry. You, Valtic?”

“Starving. Early dinner?”

“Early dinner,” Orrin said with a mischievous grin. We all laughed as we cleaned up our work area. We went to get some food and, on the way, we met up with Xyla and her group of volunteers: Emmery, Paila, and Aryn.

“This is everyone?” Xyla asked, obviously disappointed.

I nodded. “Yes, but, even though it’s not everyone or even a lot of people, this is a decent start.” I tried to soothe her and her disappointment as we ate. The seven of us talked, not loudly, but not especially quietly, either. I could see others paying attention, but no one else joined us at the table.

That was a little disappointing.

But they were listening. They weren’t arguing with us, they weren’t talking against us, they were listening and thinking.

They were contemplating this. They had to be. Either that, or they were listening to everything we said so they could report to Dejar and Aavat.

Speaking of whom, Dejar, Aavat, and Kalyn came into the dining hall.

“Shit,” I heard Xyla say. “Well, we’re about to get fucking reamed, again, by the scared-shitless police.”

I wasn’t completely fond of what she said or how she said it, but there was a distinct chance that she was right.

I prepared myself for a massive yelling-at.

Dejar faced us, squared his shoulders.

“We need to apologize.”

“What the hell did you just say?” Xyla blurted out as the rest of us stared at our respective leaders.

Dejar sighed and rolled his eyes a bit. “I said, we’re sorry.” He turned his attention to me. “I’ve had some time to think about what you said, and you were right. While you might not have said the words, you certainly implied them. I was running scared. Not for myself, but for the people that I’ve come to think of as family. And it was that fear for their well-being that made me shoot all of this down. However,” he said, holding up a hand to forestall Xyla from ripping into him, “it was that fear for their well-being, for your well-being, that should have pushed me to agree with you.”

“So, what you’re trying to say in a long-winded sort of way is that we were right,” Xyla said.

“Yes,” Dejar said through a heavy breath.

Before Xyla could say anything more, I put my hand on her leg and squeezed once, just to distract her. “So, what does all that mean, sir?” I asked.

“It means that we agree with you,” Dejar answered.

“Yep, you guys were right. This whole idea of a revolution, or rebellion, or whatever it’s going to end up being,” Aavat cut in, “is a good idea. It’s something that we’ve all agreed that we should be a part of, if people want to be.”

He stood up and raised his voice so everyone in the dining hall could hear. “The Dominion is hunting us, actively hunting us. We can’t hide for long, no matter where we try to hide, so we might as well try to deal with this fire instead of trying to run from it, so to speak. However, this is not something that can be decided on lightly, so if there’s anyone that wants out, they’re allowed out with no repercussions.”

I looked at the three of them in wonder. “You mean, you’re not telling us to stop?”

Kalyn smiled. “No, we’re not. We’re actually telling you that we’re here to join up.” She turned and looked at Xyla. “I want to do a video, like you did.”

All the sound in the dining hall stopped. The women were wide-eyed, the men were arching eyebrows, and I was just staring at Dejar as he flashed me a smile.

“You really want to do this?” I said, shattering the silence.

Dejar nodded. “Yes. If you want to be part of this, then be part of this.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

The ten of us then started talking about things and we were slowly joined by more and more women and crewmembers.

Soon enough, nearly everyone in the dining hall, and even some people that weren’t originally there, came over and volunteered to join and give their testimonies.

This was an incredibly amazing thing to happen. We had the people needed to prove that Xyla’s video was not done for money, was not fake, and that it was real and honest.

I was happy with the show of support.

I looked over to Xyla and saw her with a forced smile on her face, but when she wasn’t part of the conversation, she was scowling and angry.

I wanted to ask her about it, but too many people were asking questions, looking for clarification on what we were doing and what the Gaed were trying to accomplish.

We spent the next hour or two explaining things and clarifying anything confusing before taking them toward the café. It was an interesting sight to behold, a large contingent of Rogue Star crewmembers all making their way to see Jial. He wasn’t in the café, but in a different building, so we headed there.

The look on his face when we arrived and he saw the number of people we had managed to bring was complete elation.

“You managed to get everyone involved?” he asked us as our large crowd of crewmembers found places to sit and talk.

I nodded. “Yes. It was a bit of a surprise when it happened, but the Rogue Star is in. We’re here to do what is necessary.”

I introduced Jial to the captains and stood back as they talked.

Xyla’s face was still tight. This was what we wanted, but something had upset her. And somehow that wasn’t acceptable to me, not anymore.

I tried to go to her to ask what was wrong, but Dejar and Jial asked me to stay and help sort out the chaos. Eventually, we got around to organizing the order of recording, with Xyla’s friends going first.

It was absolutely amazing to see how much everyone was willing to step forward, and how the Gaed were reacting. They were positively giddy, yet very serious, all at the same time.

If this didn’t work, if people still claimed that this was a stunt, then those were the people that had to be sympathetic to the Dominion and what they stood for.

There was no way to listen to all of this and not believe that it was real.

XYLA

I couldn’t stand it. It was complete bullshit.

I had been the one to start all of this, and I was barely able to convince my friends to join us.

Then that bitch Kalyn stepped forward and suddenly everyone wants in.

I knew it wasn’t reasonable of me. It wasn’t rational. But I was tired, and my brain didn’t want to do reasonable anymore.

Fuck this.

I left the room and the building, fully intent on walking around everywhere that wasn’t here. This city, which I found out was named Entheas, was beautiful, and I wanted to see more of it.

I realized that my desire to see the city was an excuse, but I didn’t give a shit.

I was nearly a block away from Rebel HQ, as I was calling it, when Gallus caught up to me.

He didn’t say a word as he slowed his pace to match mine. We walked to the other side of town where the River-Walk was, every step of it in silence. The River-Walk was gorgeous.

They had gone out of their way to plant trees, bushes, and flowers of all kinds near the river, all of which were illuminated by soft lights strung across the river in a zig-zag pattern.

There were several small bridges all up and down the river, each one painted with a different pattern and color and each covered with a see-through plexi-glass-like material so people could still enjoy the river while protected from the elements.

I loved this place. It was peaceful, tranquil, and when there wasn’t a massive crowd enjoying it in peace, it was damn near paradise.

And I still wanted to scream.

“So, how are you doing?” Gallus asked as we stopped in the middle of one of the bridges. He leaned against the railing and looked down into the water. When I joined him, I spotted a few fish that glowed in the dark water.

“Do you really want to know?” I asked him.

He nodded. “It’s why I asked,” he said nonchalantly.

With a roll of my eyes, I stomped off the bridge and headed for a nearby fountain with benches around it. The fountain reminded me of a mythical dragon spewing water into the air, and it had been erected only a few feet from the river itself. It was amazing.

“So, are you going to tell me?” Gallus asked as he sat next to me. There was a teasing tone in his voice that kept me calm, even when I was annoyed at him asking me, again.

“No,” I said shortly.

“Okay,” he said as he shifted position and got comfortable on the bench, his arms crossed on his chest. He stared out at the water for a few minutes as I watched him, then he turned to look at me and did a double-take, like he was surprised to see me looking at him. “What?” he asked innocently.

I couldn’t help by give in to the tugging at the corners of my mouth. I smiled and let out a small chuckle. “You’re incorrigible, you know that, right?” I said.

“I have no idea what that means, but if it gets you to tell me what’s bothering you, then I’ll be as ‘incorrigible’ as you want me to be,” he grinned.

With another roll of my eyes and a shake of my head, I slapped him on the arm. “Jerk.” Of course, I smiled to soften the meaning of the word.

“Eh. So?”

“Okay, geez,” I snapped back playfully, then my mood soured again. Normal me, I guess. “I was the one that started this whole thing.”

“Mm-hmm,” he mumbled.

“Well, we got into trouble for it,” I said.

He nodded. “Not that it mattered to either one of us.”

“True,” I agreed. “But, still. We started this, we got into trouble for it, and we were barely able to get anyone to come with us.”

“Okay, but we got people to come, even the captains. So, what’s the problem?”

I threw my hands up in anger. “You don’t get it! I started this and got almost no one to come with. Then, suddenly, Kalyn decides to talk, and everyone miraculously wants to join in. It’s like I did nothing at all. That damn bitch just swooped in and stole my glory.”

I stomped away, staring at the river. In moments, his arms slid around me, pulling me back to lean against his chest.

“Is that what this is about? Glory?” he murmured into my hair.

“Well,” I said, quietly. “Not really, but... We did all the work and then she suddenly opens her mouth and everyone thinks it’s a fantastic idea. It’s fucking annoying.”

“Okay, I get that,” he said with a smile as he turned me back from the river so that he could study my face. “But none of this would have started without you. So what if Kalyn gets the ‘glory’ or was the one that convinced the others to join. You convinced her, and that’s what matters.”

I was a bit taken aback. He was right. I had gotten Kalyn on my side, and that should count for something.

“Look,” Gallus ran his hand down the side of my cheek and tilted up my chin until there was no escape from his eyes. “I know you’re the one that’s responsible for all of this happening, and I’m not the only one.” The pad of his thumb brushed across my lips. “I see you.”

His kiss took my breath away.

I could do nothing but breathe him in. I felt a glimmer of a smirk cross his mouth, then it changed shape into something more determined.

My body cried out for his touch. He could sense it. He led me towards the building, but rather than go through the front, he pulled me through a side door. There was empty space all around us. The room stretched into the near distance, our bodies lost in the shadows.

He kissed me deeply. Before I could help myself, a surge of desire erupted that I couldn’t control. I pulled him tightly into me, my mouth glued to his, wanting to devour every cell of his being. I gripped his belt. This time he had no option but to surrender to me - then he pulled my hand away with little effort, still, it stopped me in my tracks. His strength didn’t scare me, it excited me.

He pushed me into a darker corner until I bumped against something at waist height. He kissed me frantically while pulling at my pants. I kicked off my shoes, and my panties fell next to them. He was already at my crotch, exploring me, spreading my legs wider. His hands stroked the insides of my thighs.

A moan escaped my throat before I knew it.

The feel of his fingers on my skin was like nothing I’d never known, a smoothness like butter rolling over where he touched. He hadn’t even touched my pussy yet, but I knew he was close. I could feel the heat from his breath, the near touch of something more. His closeness was driving me crazy.

Please, please… touch me, there.

And he did. His tongue was serpent-like, only warm and wet, silky and soft. The pressure was exquisite, a slow tantalizing pace that sent bolts of electricity coursing through my veins. He began to suckle gently at my clitoris, circling it, suckling and then reaching as far back as my anus. He circled that, too, then slid his tongue all the way back to my clit. Again, and again, he repeated the motion.

I felt his hand on mine, he guided it to the buttons on my shirt. I did as I was instructed. My shirt fell open. His face moved up to mine, leaving me gasping for air. His mouth hovered against my lips, our tongues touching. He moved downward again, freeing my breasts from my bra as he did. He took my hands and placed them on my nipples.

He looked straight into my eyes. silently giving me an order. Then he was gone again. Down, down…oh my g…. His finger circled my slick folds, teasing and taunting, as his tongue slipped over and around my clitoris. Then I felt sheer pleasure as his finger slid inside me. It circled within me as it slid gently back and forth over my sweet spot.

His tongue kept up the circular motion against my throbbing clitoris, and my nipples were tingling with pleasure as my fingers gently rolled over them. Everything was happening at once, circling, sliding, then wet, gentle, movements, until I could take no more… my essence was spiraling higher and higher until my body finally released itself and I came into his mouth.

I tried to catch my breath, knowing that this was only the beginning. His joy in my pleasure was clear as he planted feathery kisses along my neck. This time I wanted to see him – all of him – without rushing, without interruption. I reached forward and pulled at his belt. My stomach flipped with excitement as he let me.

I inched my hand along the hard cock that sprang to meet me. It was long and firm and wide. As I slid my hand along his length, ridges passed across my palm, gentle, soft, silky ridges and bumps.

I pushed him over onto his back, laying him against the table, giving all my focus to the primary, larger cock.

The smaller, thinner one writhed against the back of my hand, and I shivered just a bit to think what that would feel like.

I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t tease. I just wanted to feel him inside my mouth. He was glorious. Every inch, every bump, every ridge. I could taste fragments of juice that leaked from him. It tasted sweet, deliciously sweet.

My tongue rolled over his tip, again and again, and then I let him slide deep into my throat. I wanted him all. I wanted every inch of him inside me. He tasted so good.

I felt his hand at my neck, then on my chin. He could see I was enjoying myself. He held my gaze. The air was thick with sexual tension as we stared into each other’s eyes through the shadows.

His hips began to move up to me, then as if remembering himself, he gently pulled himself away, never losing focus on me. He leaned into me and kissed me with such force I thought we might merge together. Then he flipped me over.

He began fondling my dangling breasts as I held myself up above the table. I could feel his hardness nudging into me – both of them free of his pants – both of his cocks eager to play. I could feel their juice moistening my skin. My pussy began to throb with anticipation. It was like my pussy needed them to survive.

He released my breasts and pushed my chest closer to the table, so my nipples touched the smooth surface. His hands slid down my spine, over my buttocks. He squeezed them, pulling them apart slightly. Now I knew for sure what was to come.

The thinner cock slipped inside the crack of my buttocks, sliding and slipping against the pucker, his juice lubricating my skin. The primary cock slid between my legs. The ridges massaged my clit and vagina, teasing me, manipulating my heart rate.

I breathed a heavy sigh and moaned without meaning to. His primary cock slid through my folds, sending a pulse of energy up through my tummy and everywhere within my body. He withdrew, waited a moment, then pushed himself further inside me.

I felt his hand come over my mouth, and his voice at my ear, “Shhhhhh”.

I took my order from him gladly.

We couldn’t risk being found.

The thrill only spiked my desire as I pushed back against him, wanting more of him.

Needing him.

He pulled out again, then, with a hard thrust, filled me completely, pinning me beneath him.

The pressure against my pucker increased, and I squirmed against the unfamiliar sensation, until suddenly he was inside me.

A noise I didn’t know I could make tried to break free. I managed to stop it just in time, breathing it into the palm of his hand.

His primary cock was pressed heavily into my vagina, then slowly he pulled himself out until just the tip was still within. As he pushed deeper, he did so with both his cocks.

His slick fingers creeped around to my clitoris. He began sliding across it as he pushed and withdrew himself, pushed deeper again, and withdrew.

My nipples gently grazed the smooth surface of the table, his fingers held a rhythmic circular motion over and around my clit, fast and faster. I felt the whole length of him in my vagina, his girth neatly filling me. If I could stay with this feeling forever, I would. Every inch of me, every cell, was quivering with hope, with temptation, with danger and joy.

In and out, round and round. He held my hip with just one hand, pulling me onto him, pulling himself deeper into me. His pace quickened. I pulled myself up from the table slightly and held onto it tighter as I pushed myself harder against him. I could hear his breath quicken.

He was so controlled. So quiet. So strong and powerful. He was inside me, all of him. The thought of him burying himself within me, pushing himself deeper and deeper, trying to merge us into one, was all it took for me to explode around him.

My body shook and shuddered as every zone on my body dazzled and sparkled, exploding into a million tiny fragments of joyful pleasure.

His hand slid up my body, along my spine.

He roared, the sound sinking into my bones, then gasped deeply and breathed out, then held me tight and dropped his head onto my back. We both lay still for a moment while our breathing returned to normal. He pulled me around to face him and kissed me slowly.

Whatever this was between us, there was no going back.

Not now.

Not ever.

GALLUS

Jial wanted to let his people do some minor editing of the testimonies before broadcasting them. It had given Xyla and me a chance to get cleaned up before coming back in.

Xyla hadn’t wanted to edit them when she found out, but some of the women had drifted a little bit off-topic, so I understood why the edits were needed.

“But that makes their testimonies all the more real, all the more impactful,” Xyla argued. “Think about it. The things that we experienced have forced some of the women to lose their concentration. Them supposedly going ‘off-topic’ is actually a good thing. It shows that they’re real, they’re honest. You need to broadcast them untouched.”

“I’m sorry, Xyla,” Jial said. “But we can’t broadcast testimonies where the speaker is scatterbrained.”

“Bullshit.” Xyla turned away from Jial and approached some of the other Gaed rebels. “What do you guys think? Are the testimonies better coming out natural or if they’re edited and changed?”

The overwhelming answer was for the testimonies to be untouched. “They’re much more impactful, sir,” one of the women said, looking at Jial.

He looked at me for support, but I had none. Xyla was right.

He dropped his head, then chuckled in resignation. “Okay, okay. You win, Xyla.”

“Yes!” she said with a small fist pump. She turned to the film crew. “Okay, boys and girls. Let’s get these videos out. Zo, show me what order you were thinking of. I think we should…” her voice faded away as she started talking to the others.

“She’s certainly very, what’s the word, zealous?” Jial asked as he stood next to me, draping his arm over my shoulder.

I snorted. “You have no idea.” I looked at him. “You do realize that she’s taking this whole thing over, don’t you?”

He gave me a half-shrug. “That’s perfectly fine by me. She can lead this entire revolution for all I care, as long as the Dominion is shut down and not replaced by something worse.”

“You sure about that? You really would be okay taking orders from her?”

“Would you be?” he asked me. There wasn’t much to think about.

“She’s very passionate about what she believes in, but she doesn’t let that passion completely take over. At least,” I started to amend, “that’s what I’ve seen in the year that I’ve been around her.”

“Hmm.” He gave me a pat on the shoulder and went back to work. Over the next few hours, we watched as the unedited words from the men and women of the Rogue Star were broadcast across the system.

The broadcast was sent out over a system that allowed the viewers to respond, to leave comments about what they’d seen.

The comments were mostly supportive and apologetic, until Kalyn spoke.

I’d seen her collapse at the realization of her mother’s betrayal back on the hidden facility.

I’d thought she’d moved past it, put it behind her.

But listening to her talk, it was clear she was still haunted.

Still damaged.

And with the taste of Xyla still on my lips, Dejar’s reluctance to allow anything that would further risk his mate’s peace of mind made sense.

She’d done it anyway, though.

Brave woman. Braver than I’d given her credit for.

When her words were played, the comments changed. There was outrage coming in from throughout the system, outrage at what had happened, at the betrayal by Kalyn’s mother, and at the arrogance of the Dominion for believing that they could do whatever they wanted to.

There were some arguments back and forth, although no one that responded argued in favor of the Dominion. Some of the arguments still called the testimonies as scripted propaganda, while others defended them for their realism and pain. Some of the arguments called for full-scale war against the Dominion, while many people cautioned about going against something that strong and powerful.

Others said that, even though the Dominion should be punished, why should they get involved? This was some other species; how could they care when their own had been damaged and they had yet to get justice for the Dominion’s actions against them?

“This is magnificent,” Jial had said an hour in. Two hours in, his smile was even bigger as he responded to people through his comm unit. When he spotted me looking at him, he pointed at the comm and mouthed “government.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but his smile and nod were encouraging.

Then, as the broadcast started to be repeated, the comments started to turn a bit more pessimistic. They were now more apathetic and uncaring.

“Why should we do anything? Even if we get rid of the Dominion, someone else will just step up and do awful things. It’s how government works.”

“Why don’t we clean up our own messes before worrying about other people’s messes? Do you realize I haven’t gotten a raise at my government job in three years?”

“I’m still struggling to get health services for my son, and you want me to help people I don’t know? If their people are selling them off, then they need to fix their own problems.”

It was getting to be more and more like that. The supporters were arguing that we should help, that we should stand up to the Dominion because “if we don’t, they’ll eventually come after us when they decide we have something else they want.”

And then my favorite. “Oh, good, they got someone else to add their gibberish to this ridiculous diatribe of stupidity. No, I don’t want my daughter taken from me, but I’m also not the type to sell her out for a promise.”

I tried to hide the comments from Xyla, but she saw them, and the rage and pain building up inside her were dangerous. Before she could lose her temper and her composure, Jial called the two of us over.

“This is going fantastic, isn’t it?” he asked cheerfully. Xyla’s eyes went wide and I put my hand on hers to calm her. Jial picked up on it, as well. “I know some of the comments are not what we want, but overall, it’s going well. We have gotten a lot of support, and that means we’re on the right track.”

“We might be on the right track, but there are still too many idiots out there,” Xyla snapped.

With a small sigh, Jial nodded slowly and moved his hand up and down to try to calm Xyla. “Please, my friend. Understand that many people are scared, and that they’re presenting their fears through angry comments. Notice that none of the comments support the Dominion.”

“Yeah, but still,” Xyla started.

Jial held up his hand. “I understand. Things aren’t going completely as we hoped, but they have improved. We have more people wanting to help than we had before, and, to be truthful, we have help from places and people that I hadn’t expected to get help and support from.”

“From who?” I asked.

“We have some smaller governments from all over the system wanting to come together and help us. We have celebrities, major business executives, prominent speakers and professors, and entire planets—some of the small ones—all pledging their support and spreading the word.”

“What about your own government?” Xyla asked.

“Actually, we do have some members of our own government on our side. Granted,” he said with a side-nod, “they’re junior members of government, but still, it’s a magnificent start.” Suddenly, his expression became serious. “And that’s what I wanted to talk to the two of you about.”

“What?” Xyla asked.

“You’re right. This isn’t enough. Too many of my people are more concerned with their own troubles and/maybe or, the troubles of our own kind, than they are the troubles of the rest of the universe. However, it’s common knowledge what the Dominion did to us years ago, kidnapping many of our own.”

“Yeah,” Xyla said. “But that doesn’t seem to make anyone want to do anything.”

“Well, there’s a little more to the story that you don’t know,” Jial said. “One of the women escaped and made her way back home.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Mm-hmm. If we can get her to come and tell her story, then the Gaed will be reminded of the pain that we, ourselves, have felt at the hands of the Dominion and come to the realization that this isn’t an ‘everyone else’ problem, but an ‘us’ problem, as well.”

Jial motioned for us to follow him. He led us to his desk in the far corner and picked up a slip of paper. “Here, this is her address. If you can convince her to come speak, to come tell her story, I just know that she’ll push the doubters past the line to supporters.”

Xyla took the slip of paper and looked at it. “Okay. I’m going to guess this isn’t here in town, is it?”

Jial shook his head. “No, she’s in a small, almost hard-to-spot town to the west by the name of Serrin.”

“How do we find her? There’s not even a name on this,” Xyla commented, handing me the slip of paper.

“Her name is Esanadell, or Esana, for short,” Jial told us. “She’s not very sociable and the people of Serrin are very private. It may be difficult to get them to speak to you.”

“Okay,” I said before Xyla could say anything more. “We’ll go. You wouldn’t happen to have a vehicle we could borrow, would you?”

“You don’t have any?” Jial asked with a look.

I gave him a sheepish shrug. “We do, I’m just not a fan of using them.”

“I’ll drive,” Xyla offered. “What?” she asked when I shot her a look. “I learned how to drive those stolen Skimmers while we were on Haven. Come on.”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me behind her. I looked back at Jial to see him smiling and waving at us.

Guess we were going.

XYLA

The Skimmer roared loudly as I pushed it to its limit, a wide smile on my lips. As much as I had come to like the city, nothing really came close to the places where Nature ruled.

And with a mountain range to my left and the ocean to my right, I was exactly in one of those places.

The woman Jial had sent us to get lived in a remote town a day’s travel from the city, and the farther away we got from the city, the more I started feeling at ease. After learning how to live inside the cramped quarters of the Rogue Star, I had come to long for the freedom only a place like this allowed.

Gallus, for the most part, seemed happy about our little trip, as well. He sat next to me in silence, casually adding some commentary whenever we drove past a particularly beautiful landscape, and he had a smile that looked as wide as mine felt.

Even though we weren’t exactly talking, his presence was a soothing one. I never really thought I’d enjoy someone’s company as I’d come to enjoy Gallus’s, but the fact remained that I now craved all these shared moments.

I just didn’t know what to do about it.

“There,” he said all of a sudden, pointing toward what looked like a small settlement. Walls delineated the perimeter of the small town of Serrin, and inside them, tiny little houses had been erected in what looked like a disorganized manner. The streets zigzagged between the houses, turning left and right without rhyme or reason, and the place looked like a confusing one. Still, there was a certain quaintness to it, and I was eager to explore.

I landed the Skimmer a hundred yards away from the outer walls, and Gallus and I immediately headed into town. A few Gaed milled around the front gate, and they threw a few hard, but curious, glances our way. None of them seemed to recognize me, though. I knew my testimonial had reached some distant places, but this place seemed insulated from it all.

I really couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing.

“Good afternoon,” Gallus said, already walking toward the Gaed by the entrance. They eyed us warily but didn’t say a thing. “I hope we’re not disturbing you. We just came here looking for someone.”

“Who?” one of them asked, the disinterest in his voice plain as day.

“A woman called Esanadell. You might know her as Esana.”

“Esana,” the Gaed nodded. “Yes, I know her. She lives here.”

“Mind pointing us in the right direction?” I asked, trying to be as polite as I could.

Maybe the Gaed didn’t care for my politeness—instead of giving us some directions, he merely pointed toward the town and resumed the conversation he was having with the others.

Not a very helpful bunch, it seemed.

Ignoring the difficult Gaed, Gallus and I strolled into town. It didn’t take long before we were lost and confused. It was a small settlement, but the streets looked as if they had been designed to confound newcomers. To make matters worse, there were no signs indicating the name of the streets, nor were the doors numbered. As such, the address Jial had given us was pretty much a useless piece of paper.

“What the hell do we do now?” I asked him, kicking a small pebble in front of me. It jumped across the street and bounced against the walls of a building. “We can’t leave this place without Esana. If Jial’s right about her, she’s the missing piece of the puzzle. If we get her to tell her story, the Gaed will rally against the Dominion.”

“We’ll have to ask for directions,” Gallus replied.

He didn’t look so happy about it, either. While the Gaed we had found in the city had been generally friendly, those in this little town didn’t seem that pleased to see strangers of a different race walking among them. Not that I believed it had anything to do with our races—they just seemed wary of outsiders.

Following Gallus into what looked like a small grocery store, I tried to remain calm as everyone inside stopped what they were doing to stare at us. Ignoring them, I made my way toward the clerk sitting behind the counter and put on my best smile.

“Hi, I was wondering if you could help us,” I started. “We are looking for someone called Esanadell, or Esana for short, but we don’t know where to find her. We have the address right here.” At that, Gallus grabbed the piece of paper Jial had given us and placed it on the counter.

The clerk didn’t seem particularly impressed with my request. Still, he slowly leaned forward and picked up the address, a bored expression on his face. He eyed the piece of paper for what seemed like an excessive amount of time, and only then did he look up at me.

“Just follow the street outside until you find the market square, and head out of town through the exit there. Then just walk straight ahead and you’ll find a small cottage, right outside the town walls.”

Pushing the address toward me, he looked away from us. Only when he started interacting with his customers did he smile.

“They don’t seem very happy about us being here,” I told Gallus as we left the small store.

“They don’t,” he agreed. “But it doesn’t really matter. We’re not here to make friends. Let’s just go get Esana and get out of here.”

“Damn right.” I’d never let what someone else thought of me slow me down, And I wasn’t about to start now.

The clerk’s directions proved to be correct. After less than a minute of walking, we entered a small market square and, just like we had been told, left through the exit. Esana’s house immediately jumped into sight—nothing but a little cottage with a tiny garden, it still seemed like a nice enough place.

I hesitated before opening the small gate that led into the garden, but then nodded to myself and pressed on. When I finally rapped my knuckles against the front door, an elderly Gaed answered it. Just like the others in town, she didn’t seem that happy to see me on her doorstep. More than that, she seemed actively pissed off.

“What do you want?” she half-snarled, one hand still on the door’s handle, as if she was ready to slam it shut any second. “I’m not buying anything, so if you’ve come this far just to try and sell some bullshit piece of tech, I can tell you right now that I’m not interested.”

“No, not at all,” I said. “My name’s Xyla, and this is Gallus. We’ve come this far not to sell you something, but to hear your story.”

“My story?” she seemed confused for a moment, but then she must’ve realized what I was talking about. “There’s nothing interesting in my life story. Even if there was, I wouldn’t share it with you. Now piss off.”

With that, she did slam the door in my face. It seemed like people really liked doing that to me.

I had to admit, I kinda liked her.

Not one to back down, I simply knocked at her door again.

“Please, this is really important,” Gallus tried, doing his best to sound polite and respectful. “We know what the Dominion did to you and we’re trying to put a stop to their tyranny. Xyla here has already made a stand, and she has told her story to others. We just want you to do the same. We need your help. The galaxy needs to know the truth about the Dominion.”

“Didn’t you understand it when I closed the door in your damn faces?” she snarled from the inside. “I don’t care about any of that, and I really want you to get off my damn lawn.”

“Please, we—”

“Not a word more,” she cried out. “I’m done with you. Piss off.”

“You have an obligation to your people,” I started. “An obligation to all the women that have been kidnapped by the Dominion. Don’t you want to put a stop to all that madness? Don’t you want to ensure no one else has to go through the same things you did?”

That time, she didn’t even bother replying. She remained inside, in complete silence, and ignored us.

Sighing heavily, I closed my eyes as Gallus laid one hand on my shoulder, gently squeezing it.

This trip had been a total and complete failure.

GALLUS

“Why the hell didn’t you help me convince her, or at least do a better job of it?” she cried out at me as we walked back through the tiny town.

With maybe two-hundred inhabitants, it wasn’t a large place, and many of the people looked at us as annoying intruders. We had quickly learned that they appreciated their solitude and only tolerated visitors as a necessary part of their existence.

“Xyla, sweetie,” I said, making sure to use a term of endearment for her to catch her attention.

It worked.

Since there was no one for her to lash out at, that left me.

But if we were going to make this whatever-it-was between us work, that habit had to change.

Now.

She snapped her head around to stare at me. “Okay.” I said. “I don’t know why she doesn’t want to talk. I wish I did. However, taking your frustrations out on others isn’t going to help. What we need to do is find a way to get her to talk, to find a different way to persuade her.”

“And how the hell do you suggest we do that?” she yelled at me, her arms flying everywhere in exasperation.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But maybe our best bet at the moment is to not think about it and try to find a way to enjoy the quiet and the peace. This town is just so…tranquil. I can’t help but feel calm here.”

A passing older woman smiled at me as I said that.

Xyla growled, then forced herself to relax and breathe.

“Tell you what,” I said, trying to take advantage of the situation, “we’re both tired. We’re both hungry. Why don’t we find something to eat, maybe get a room for the night and get some rest? Maybe we’ll figure out a different way to talk to her, to convince her in the morning.”

“Fine,” she said, her voice not as harsh as the word sounded. “You’re right, I am pretty damn tired, and hungry. You sort of helped me work off a lot of calories last night,” she winked.

I fully intended on trying those things again. So, with her in a slightly better mood, we got ourselves something to eat. We stopped at a small food stand and got ourselves a salad made with some fruit, nuts, and, for me, a little bit of meat. We chased down our salads with a fantastic Cretaciun iced tea and citrus sorbet.

Then we found a small home that rented out their spare rooms. The owner led us to our room, notified us that dinner would be in a few hours and that they would be back before then, they had to run to the market for supplies.

That left the two of us alone in a room with a very comfortable bed.

“Feeling better?”

She nodded. “Getting there.”

“I’ve got an idea for how to fix you the rest of the way.”

I raised my eyebrows, cocked my head to the side, and smiled a mischievous little smile.

I traced my finger along her arm, down to her wrist, and back upward. I leaned in and kissed her bare shoulder. The touch of her skin on my lips quickly built a desire for more of her.

I walked her backwards until her knees hit the edge of the bed. Laughing, she rolled over on the bed and watched me as I bent over and looked at her. Her eyes challenged me. I never knew a human woman could be this way, alluring and commanding.

She ran her finger down my cheek and across my chin. She brushed it over my lip. Before she could pull it away, I had it between my teeth and sucked it into my mouth. Excitement flashed across her face. She pulled her finger out and replaced it with her tongue.

Her tongue passed over mine, back and forth. Her lips were so soft. I was reminded of the softness of her breasts and I sat her up on the bed and removed her top. Her nipples were already hard, waiting for me to lick them. She moaned as my mouth covered one of them and my fingers played with the other.

She was so fierce, yet so delicate. I flicked her nipple back and forth, allowing my tongue to move all around it, not leaving it alone for a second. I sucked more of her breast into my mouth and let my tongue travel across its surface. She was beautiful, and she tasted even better.

I let my hand run down her stomach and fingered her bellybutton before burrowing into her panties. She began to wriggle beneath me. Her panties came off. Now my hand and her pussy moved together. As I pulled back, she thrusted forward. As she rose upward, I slipped down. That created an endless friction of my hand tickling her vagina, adding pressure against her clitoris. Up, down, around and around.

She was so relaxed. She leaned into me and I let her. Her leg crossed over my hand, as if sending me a message that she wanted more, that she could take me right now. I moved my mouth from her breast and covered her stomach in feathery kisses, until my hot breath was hovering over her pussy.

It was gleaming with her juice. I stroked my tongue along the arch of it, let it dance a little at the hole, and then suckled at the clitoris.

I spread her legs wider and placed my thumb at her pelvic bone, revealing more of her clitoris. My tongue wriggled in her sweet spot, adding more pressure, relaxing, adding more pressure, then relaxing again – all without ever losing contact between my tongue and her pulsing flesh. She was writhing on the bed, demanding more from me.

Her hips thrust to meet me, locked at the hip, crying for the attention she deserved. Her hands gripped the sheets, and I heard her cry with pleasure as her body shuddered and shook beneath me, releasing her to fly free on the crest of her orgasm.

She called for me, in the smallest of voices, beckoning my mouth to hers. She kissed me with a passion I had never known, yet always wanted. I climbed on top of her and she pulled me inside her with urgency.

She was so wet, her pussy hot from her orgasm. Her hands took hold of my buttocks as she drew me in, panting for more. My secondary cock squirmed against her, teasing her clit without stopping as I sank inside her, the tight, wet heat of her silken walls nearly pushing me over the edge.

She drew me to her and I kissed her lips, our tongues brushing against one another, hungry with desire. I could hear her breathing, softly panting as I rocked back and forth inside her.

Every breath spurred me on, the touch of her fingers clawing into my back driving me harder, thrusting into her, claiming her.

Her eyes fixed on mine.

Her claim on me just as strong.

“You’re mine,” I chanted as I pushed into her over and over, desperate to hear her break beneath me, to watch her shatter in pleasure. “And I’m yours.”

Her breath was fast, then faster.

A long, low cry escaped her throat and I knew it was time. I took a firm grip on her hips and pulled her to me, faster and deeper, then faster still, until all that was left was her cry of pleasure and our two melted bodies on the bed.

XYLA

When I woke in the morning, I felt so much better. It’s amazing how having someone that cares about you, really truly cares, can change your mood and perception on things.

Also, that man was a genius in the sack.

As Gallus still slept, I slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom to clean up. I got dressed and decided to make my way back to Esanadell’s cottage. I left the little house we’d stayed in and walked across the tiny village.

The people that were already up and about gave me the same looks they’d given me yesterday, dirty and mean, as if I was violating something.

It made me feel uncomfortable to have people looking at me that way.

It was too much of a reminder of my younger days when everywhere I went, I was the one that was in the way or doing something wrong.

I knew that these people preferred their solitude, I felt the same way. As a matter of fact, I felt that if I were allowed to move here, I’d be happy.

To be away from everyone, to be around people that respected ‘alone time’ and only knew just enough about you to be able to respect you and your privacy, that sounded fantastic to me.

The small village was situated in the hills and there seemed to always be a slight breeze. Then again, we just might have been in the village during their ‘windy’ season or something. Back at Persephone, there were days where the wind was insatiable and seemed as if it would never stop, then we would go weeks without the slightest hint of wind, so the breeze might just be something normal for the weather at that moment.

Regardless, I enjoyed the cool breeze, even walked a bit with my face pointed to the sky and my eyes closed. I didn’t do that for long, it was hard to walk on uneven ground without looking, but it was relaxing. The only thing that would have relaxed me more would be floating in a pool all alone, with everything quiet around me.

I could feel the water around me as I remembered the last time I was able to float in a pool. It was right before I got busted back on Earth and sent to Persephone. We had a sensory deprivation pool at Persephone to help with stress, but it wasn’t the same as floating in a real pool, or even a lake. The only issue I had with floating in a lake was the natural water always had so many things in it, it just felt dirty.

I ended up at Esanadell’s cottage and hesitated. I wanted to knock on her door. I wanted to talk to her, but I wasn’t sure what to do.

“If you’re going to do nothing at all except block my door, why don’t you block the gate to my yard instead. At least that way, you’ll keep people away.” I looked at the window to see her standing there, glaring at me.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems as though you have the ability to let words pass through your mouth. I’m just not sure you have the capability of listening and comprehending what someone says in return. You certainly haven’t shown the ability to understand what I told you yesterday,” she said.

I could almost taste the anger in the air.

I sighed. “I know that I’m not respecting your wishes to be left alone, and I really do apologize about that, I really do.”

“Oh, you used that phrase twice in one sentence. I guess your apology must be true then,” she said back, the snark in her tone palpable. Is this how I am to people? I thought as I forced my breathing to remain calm.

“Okay, you make a good point,” I started.

“Too bad the point missed,” she snapped. “You’re still here. You better just say what you want to say. I could use the boredom to catch up on the sleep I missed thirty years ago.”

Damn. If I’m even half as bitchy as she is, I’m surprised I haven’t been kicked off the ship or knocked the fuck out by now.

“Why are you being so mean right now?” I asked. I wanted to say the word ‘bitchy,’ but I had already figured out that a lot of Terran words didn’t translate well.

I heard nothing for a minute before realizing that she was either ignoring me or waiting for me to hurry up and finish my story.

“You know what? My apologies. I’m the one that disturbed you and knocked on your door yesterday,” I said.

“That you did, and never really gave me a good reason,” I heard through the door. I also heard a couple of clacking sounds, then the creak of wood.

I wondered if she’d pulled a chair to the door and sat down. That meant, to me at least, that she was willing to listen.

So, I started talking. I told her about me, about what I had gone through growing up, and about what my life was like leading up to Persephone. I had to take a deep breath on occasion to finish a point, but she never interrupted me. I started to wonder as I continued to speak if she was still listening, or if she had fallen asleep like she’d said she would.

“Esanadell?” I asked after many minutes.

“What?”

“Oh, I wasn’t sure if you were still there,” I said. “I was a little worried that I had put you to sleep.”

“Not quite,” she answered. “I’m still listening, for now, but you are beginning to bore me a bit with your life story. It’s not as though others haven’t had a rough life.”

“And I get that, I do. I’m just…” and the frustration built up. “Damn it all, I’m trying to tell you that things need to be done about the Dominion. We, the women that I was with at Persephone Station, we were sold out by one of our own’s mother, all in hopes of getting Terran space included in the Dominion.”

“Go on.”

So, I did. I told her about everything that had happened, including how I felt about everything. I told her how I felt about Kalyn, about the Shein, about the Star, about Gallus, about Kalyn’s mom, all of it. I wasn’t sure why, but I started crying as I talked.

I bared my soul to this woman and told her things that I hadn’t even told Emmery or Paila, things about my past and my feelings that I didn’t include in the video. I took a deep breath and stopped talking. There was nothing left for to say, and I just sat on the ground, my back against her doorframe, and cried.

I was embarrassed, even a bit ashamed, at how I’d let my emotions get the best of me. I was so deep in self-disgust at that moment that I didn’t even notice that she had opened her door.

“Are you going to sit there and cry the whole time?”

I jumped and scrambled away from the door, landing on my ass in the dirt. “I-I,” I stuttered.

“You can get out of my flowers, if you please. I don’t know how you humans treat one another’s gardens, but I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t destroy mine.” The harshness of her words was tempered by the smile on her face. “Now, get up, clean yourself off, and come inside. Take your shoes off. Don’t track in dirt.” She turned around and walked into her home.

I jumped to my feet, dusted myself off, felt miserable about the two flowers I had squashed under my ass, and made my way to her door. I kicked my shoes off and walked inside, closing the door behind me. She opened a couple of windows and motioned for me to sit at a little table by the door.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?” she laughed. “I haven’t done anything except invite you into my home.”

I was lost. “Wait, so, are you going?” I ran my hand through my hair and shifted in my seat. “Will you come tell your story?”

“Tell me, what kind of tea do you drink?” she asked me as she moved around in her tiny little kitchen. I took a quick look around me. Her cottage was small, a simple little three, maybe four, room home where the kitchen, dining room, and living room were one area. There was a small fireplace in the middle of the cottage, and pictures of wildlife, people, and scenery filled the walls. It was like something from an old Earth-vid of what they thought a grandmother’s house was supposed to look like.

“I, uh, I prefer fruit tea, if you have any,” I answered.

“What kind? I have zesty, berry, and something that’s very sour,” she offered.

“Uh, berry, please.” I was a little lost. “So, will you…”

She interrupted me with a look. “I don’t invite people into my home if they’re going to be rude and ask the same question a dozen times. If you want my story, then sit, drink tea with me, and we’ll see how things go.”

I nodded, not really sure what else I could do. If I hadn’t convinced her by now, I wasn’t sure what to say or do next. While she made the tea, she told me a small story about where the berries came from and how she dried them and got them ready to become tea. It was sort of cute, but I was still lost and confused.

She brought over two steaming cups of tea and took the seat next to the window, the one she must have been sitting in when I first got there. She looked at me and I could feel myself squirm under her gaze. I sort of wanted to run.

After what seemed like forever, she finally nodded. “Maybe it’s time. Maybe now, people will listen.” Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “They sure didn’t before. Let me tell you my story.”

GALLUS

Our triumphant return to Gaed Rebellion Headquarters—not a name to be broadcast to the ’verse, or even accepted by Jial and his people, I tried—with Esanadell was the final cog in the propaganda machine.

Jial was positively giddy, until she started talking.

Esanadell sat on a stool, the camera on her, and told everyone her story.

“My name is Esanadell Croiy. I have been approached by a young woman of an origin that I had not known before I met her. When she first approached me to tell my story, I refused. My past is something that I hold very close to my heart, and there are many parts of it that I have worked very diligently to forget. However, she ended up telling me her story and it struck a chord deep within the depths of my soul that I had tried to push away.”

She took a breath, looked into the camera, and spoke, her quiet voice mesmerizing us all. “Everyone knows what happened those years ago when the Dominion violated us and kidnapped many of our women. I, I was one of those women. I was taken away from my family, my friends, my village. I was ripped away from everything I knew, everything I wanted, everything I loved.” Her voice had grown a decided edge to it. Even though her facial expression remained the same sad and hurt that it was when she began, the tone in her voice had become venomous.

“Because of the Dominion’s vile sense of self-righteousness, their sense of arrogance that lets them believe they can do what they feel like without repercussions, I lost everything. I was taken in the middle of the night, and brought to a facility where they began testing me. They poked me with needles, taking nearly two dozen vials of blood, and scraped my skin with tools that I never recognized.” She stood up and lifted her shirt to below her breasts. What we saw there caused many of the people in the building that could see to gasp, and some to turn away.

“These scars,” she said, pointing to her lower torso, which looked as though someone had taken meat, put it in a grinder, burned it, ground it down again, then glued it back on. “These scars are from the ‘experiments’ that the Dominion used me for. They took chunks of me, put things inside of me, and tried to impregnate me through artificial insemination. They left me outside in the elements to test my resolve. After nearly a year of that, I found a way to escape. I crawled through sewers, lived in garbage, and ate whatever I could find, no matter how rotten it was. I felt as though I was surely going to die, until I was found by a shipping crew. They brought me home, but it was no longer a home that I knew.”

Then was when her expression broke. Her breath shuddered, her body shook as she sobbed quietly, tears rained down her cheeks. “My mate had died trying to find me, my daughter took her own life in fear of the Dominion coming back for her, and my son, my precious son, was so terrified of me that he went to be raised by his grandparents. We have a relationship now, and have had one for many years, but we lost so much time because he was afraid of me.

“I came back home and was angry, so unbelievably angry. I hated the Dominion, hated them for what they had taken from me, for what they had done to me, and I hated myself for not being able to take anyone with me when I escaped.”

She stared daggers into the camera. “But, most of all, I hated all of you for allowing us to be kidnapped, for allowing me to be tested on, and for doing absolutely nothing to the Dominion and allowing them to get away with what they did. My life, my family, my sense of peace, my soul have all been destroyed, compromised, and raped by the actions of the Dominion, and it has all been compounded by the inactions of our own government and people.”

She stood up and approached the camera, stopping a foot away. “Don’t, I beg you, don’t let me and the others that have been taken by the Dominion for their ridiculous pursuit of the ‘perfect’ race, please don’t let us continue to suffer.” With that, she walked away, no anger on her face, but a white-hot raging inferno behind her eyes.

She stopped in front of Xyla. “Thank you. I hope it helped, but in the event it didn’t, thank you nonetheless. Go kill those bastards.” She hugged Xyla, then left, with one of the rebels leaving with her to escort her home.

Xyla looked at me, and I had nothing for her.

I looked around the room and the only dry eyes belonged to the pictures. Even my own eyes were a bit misty.

Then, I looked at Jial and the people he had monitoring the incoming comments. “How are we?” I asked, actually afraid of the answer.

He looked up at me, a mix of joy and sadness in his look. “She was brilliant,” he said in a gruff voice. “We’re getting so much support, so many promises of help, so many people committing to the cause, it’s unbelievable.”

“Sir! Sir!” one of the men called out. He was holding up a comm unit. “You need to take this, now!”

Jial rushed over, as did Xyla and I, and listened in as he put the comm unit on speaker. “This is Jial.”

“Jial, doment ikal,” came the male voice through the unit.

“Doment ikal to you, as well,” Jial returned. I assumed it was some sort of localized greeting. “What can I do for you, mister…”

“My name is Priot Ghet. I am a representative for Council Lord Vanna.” The collective muffled gasp in the room told me that this was someone rather important, and judging by his look of pure shock, highlighted by Jial’s skin going so pale that he almost matched Xyla’s own skin-tone, this important person must have been at the top, or near the top, of the government.

He was still speaking. “I have contacted you to tell you that, while the Government Council is unhappy with your methods of persuasion, your message is approved.”

Jial nearly choked at that. He had to clear his throat a few times before he could respond. “I’m-I’m, I’m sorry. Our message has been approved? I’m not sure what that means, Priot Ghet.”

We could hear Priot Ghet sigh as though he were speaking to a child. “Your call for action against the Dominion, for finding a way to make them pay for what they have done to our people, as well as the other people across the cosmos, the Council agrees. It is not a unanimous agreement, but it is enough.”

“Does that mean tha-that the government will go to war against the Dominion?”

“That is a decision that needs to be made at a later time, Jial. For now, be satisfied with the knowledge that you have our support. That is all.”

Priot Ghet disconnected the call.

After a few moments of stunned silence, the room erupted into cheers, hugging, jumping, and celebration.

“Now what? Itair’s friends?” I asked Jial over in a corner of the room, trying to speak above the raucous celebrating.

“No,” he said with a shake of the head. “Not yet. We’re just barely getting started and don’t have a proper plan as of yet. There are so many steps that need to be taken before we get into messing with the Dominion’s insides.”

“So, then what?”

“Well, there’s a chance these videos will get to the Dominion,” he said. It was true, there was nothing to stop the videos from getting that far out. “So, we need to concentrate on concealment. We need more hackers and computer experts to hide our trail. We need to make sure we aren’t seen by our enemies, and that means that you’re going to need to change the Rogue Star’s looks to avoid detection.”

I started laughing. “Really? You want to try to convince Dejar, Aavat, and Kovor to rebuild the Star again? I’d love to see you try that.”

“It must be done, my friend. The Star is the best-equipped and best-piloted ship we have access to. I told you before, you’ve become a beacon.”

I nodded in agreement. “Okay. I’m not a fan of going back into Dominion space without an army behind me, but I do get your point. The captain isn’t going to be happy with the idea of transforming the Star yet again. You are going to have a tough time of that, my friend.” I chuckled at the idea of Jial approaching Dejar and trying to convince him to rip the Star apart and give it another different look.

“That’s why you’re going to do it for me, Gallus,” Jial said with his own laugh. “You’re the one that knows them better, so you’re the one that’s going to have to talk them into it.”

My humor vanished like fog in the sun. Just, gone. Jial patted me on the shoulder, then walked away, leaving me to stew in my own loss of humor.

Kout.

XYLA

Esanadell’s video had done magnificent things. We had more people signing up to be part of the little rebellion we were starting than we could keep up with. In the few days I had known Jial, I don’t think I had ever seen him smile so much.

He was practically little-girl-getting-a-pony happy.

“This is beyond what I imagined,” he had told me this morning. “Your video got everything started, and your work getting the rest of the women from the Rogue Star, and then convincing Esanadell, it was,” he didn’t finish what he was saying. Instead, he grabbed me, hugged me, kissed my cheek and laughed like a little boy as he went back to work, talking to whoever it was that was trying to get his attention that second.

So, I was basically being dismissed, not because I wasn’t needed or wanted, but because I wasn’t needed at that moment.

I could live with that.

I decided to walk around.

I didn’t really make it very far before I was confronted by someone. Maybe confronted was the wrong word.

I was approached by a woman that wanted to thank me for my story. She walked right up to me, hugged me, and proceeded to spend the next thirty or forty seconds thanking me for what I had said.

I was so caught by surprise, the only thing that came out of my mouth was “Thank you. You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.”

It was stupid, but it was all that I could manage to get out. She didn’t wait around for me to say much more, just thanked me again and walked away, waving at me as she did.

She had been the first in a string of people that came up to me as I walked. When I finally managed to get someplace for lunch, it was free. When I asked why, I was told, “Because you’re the face. You’re the one we all look to.”

It was the same with nearly everyone.

“You’re the face of the rebellion. You’re the reason for all of this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked the first couple of times.

“You were the first woman to come forward and tell her story. If it wasn’t for you, none of this would be happening and we would be sitting here, living our lives as though nothing had happened all those years ago.”

“But my story isn’t any more special than the others,” I argued.

“Yes, but you were the first. You were the bravest.”

And that was it. That was the general gist behind my sudden popularity. And down in the deepest recesses of my soul, and all the pathways to get there, I enjoyed it.

I actually liked talking to people and hearing their stories, even if the stories themselves sickened me, made my heart ache.

“I was lying in bed when they came. They took my sister from right next to me, and I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even try,” one of the Gaed was telling me. He looked so ashamed for his lack of action.

“Hey,” I said to him, grabbing onto his hand. “You were a little kid. What were you going to do against grown soldiers?” That wasn’t the right thing to say to him, though, and I knew it as soon as I said it.

“Look, I know you’ve heard that dozens or hundreds of times in your life, and I know it’s not what you want to hear. But,” I said forcefully as he started to pull away from me, “what you weren’t able to do then, you’re doing now. You’re making a difference now. I know that it won’t get your sister back, or return all the years that you’ve lost, but you can help stop the Dominion from doing it to someone else. That’s what we’re doing here. We’re not fixing the past, we’re trying to protect the future.”

And with that, a mini-slogan was born. It traveled all over the city in a matter of hours, and Jial jumped all over it. “We must protect the future, our future from the monsters that are the Dominion!” It became a rallying cry.

Stop the monsters!

Protect our future!

Down with the Dominion!

Not that I had ever wanted to be the center of a rebellion, but it did feel good to have people come to me, talk to me, and listen to me.

“I just don’t know how I can help,” one lady said to me as we sat under a tree.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know what I’m going to be able to do, either,” I told her. “Right now, I’m just trying to help out wherever I’m told they need me. That’s what you can do. Help wherever they need you. What do you do, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I’m a physicist,” she answered.

I’d never had a chance to go to school, but even I knew that physicists were ridiculously smart. “Wow. Really?”

She nodded.

“Then I’m pretty damn positive you’ll have a lot of things you can help with. I mean, you do realize we deal with spaceships and all the science stuff that goes into those, right?” I said.

“Well, yes, but I was never one to dabble in aerospace. I was never smart enough to,” she said.

“Don’t be silly. You never know when a good idea will come through,” I told her. “You just might think of something that none of the others have.”

We spent the next few minutes talking about random things before she left. I spent the rest of the day talking to more and more people that were interested in becoming part of the rebellion.

The ones that I spent most of my time with were the women.

There were more women than I had anticipated that had been through something similar to what we had been through. Some of them were just looking for advice on how to deal with someone that had abused them, but there were several that had been forced to deal with the Dominion or their cohorts.

There had been a small group of Gaed, scientists and researchers, that had bought into the idea of creating a perfect specimen. They had hired goons to kidnap several women so they could experiment on them themselves.

The women that were speaking to me now had been survivors, able to live long enough for the government to find them and rescue them. The scientists and researchers had been jailed, prosecuted, and eventually executed.

“How do we deal with what they’ve done to us?” they had asked me.

I was never sure how to answer that.

I had been asking that same question myself.

“I don’t know,” I told them. When I looked into their disappointed faces, I tried to make things right. “This isn’t an easy question to answer,” I said. “Not everyone is the same. Not everyone deals with things the same way. I,” I sighed and told the truth. “I turned to anger. I was angry, at everyone—almost everyone—and took out my aggressions on a lot of people.”

“But you aren’t angry now,” one of the women said.

“Actually, I am,” I admitted. “I’m extremely angry. I’m angry at the Dominion. I’m angry at the woman that sold us out. I’m angry at myself. I’m angry at those bastards that thought that they had the right to experiment on us.”

“But you don’t look angry,” the same woman said. I looked at her and saw the little girl that she had sitting with her.

“Yours?” I asked. She nodded. “She’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“To answer your question, talking with all of you has helped me deal with my anger. It’s helped me put myself into a place where I can be normal,” I answered. “Well, normal-ish,” I added with a light chuckle.

“What do you mean, ‘normal-ish’?”

“I’m still angry,” I said. “I’m still angry a lot. But I don’t feel that way with all of you. And because I managed to find some way of doing something, I fell for someone. I have a partner in my life who lets me be who I am. He doesn’t try to change me, he just lets me be me and is there for me when I get stupid.”

“But what if we don’t have that special partner?” one of the men asked.

“You don’t need a partner,” I said. “I just got lucky. I got lucky that someone was willing to let me step away from what I thought was a bad situation and put myself into something that might get worse, but at least I’m trying to do something to get over that worse.”

People kept talking to me, kept asking me for advice. I kept answering the best I could. Eventually, it got to the point where I realized that there were a lot of people that wanted a simple chance to just talk about their feelings, their fears, and their worries.

I decided to set up something that would allow people to do that.

One of the men talking to me had an old office that he wasn’t using anymore. He offered me the chance to use it as a place where I could talk to people and try to help them. I ended up with nearly a dozen volunteers to help me help others, and that made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a really long time.

I couldn’t wait to tell Gallus.

GALLUS

It was a different crew meeting than usual. I’d be willing to gamble no one had ever seen such a strange ‘crew meeting.’

This time, we were joined by nearly thirty Gaed and we were holding the meeting in a small park close to where the Star was docked.

It was a beautiful afternoon, the day still had a few hours of sunlight left before dusk, and there was enough of a breeze to make the cool temperature even more comfortable.

We were all sitting in the grass, enjoying the day, as the leaders discussed things. At the far end of the park, Dejar, Aavat, Kovor, Kalyn, Jial, and two other Gaed that I had never seen, sat and talked. Itair had been there, but now he was over by the food making himself a plateful.

Xyla sat next to me, leaning against me as we sat with Orrin, Maris, Paila, and Emmery. We were enjoying each other’s company and some fairly good sandwiches.

Valtic was manning the spit where the Gaed had eight pig-like animals roasting. Every once in a while, he would slice off some meat and put it on a massive platter, then recoat the meat in a sauce he had created. The sauce had a smoky, sweet and sour taste to it that was mouth-watering to smell, and even better to taste.

“And then,” Orrin was saying, in the middle of some story or another, “when he wasn’t looking, I poured coolant in his tank. I tell you, when his engine seized and blew up, it made lots of pretty colors.”

It felt good to relax, to not have any arguments, to not have a worry. Even though we were about to discuss our plan for the rebellion, it still felt good to just be around friends.

“Excuse me, excuse me!” Aavat was trying to call everyone’s attention to the natural stone stage that occupied the center of the park. He waited a second, then got loud. “HEY!”

That caught everyone’s attention. The crew stopped talking and turned towards the stage, where the rebellion leaders stood.

“Okay,” Aavat started, now that he had everyone’s attention. “So, first, we want to thank all of you for staying, and for being willing to take on the Dominion. We know that, at least for the Star crew, we’ve already been doing it for a year now. And from what our new friends here have told me,” he waved his arm to indicate the Gaed behind him, “you’ve been keeping the Dominion at bay for years on end. Now we have a chance to go after them, and we’re gonna take it.”

This brought about some cheers from the crew, and a few from the Gaed, as well.

Aavat smiled and nodded, putting his hands up to calm down the crowd. “What we’re facing is not something that’s going to be easy, we all know that.” He was right.

A rebellion, even one that was focused on bringing down the Dominion from the inside, meant that there would eventually be fighting, and fighting meant people getting hurt or killed.

Aavat was still talking. “There is the distinct likelihood that, once this really gets started, several of us will not make it through this. But, if we don’t stand up to them, if we don’t stand up to the immoral stupidity that is the Dominion, then we will be looking at a world, a universe, where none of us will be free.”

This brought about a lot of shouts and boos from the crowd. Dejar stood up and replaced Aavat. “So, with the understanding of what is at stake and what our personal connections to this situation are, we’ve come up with a basic pathway to follow to get everything started.”

He looked at Jial and the other Gaed sitting behind him. “Thanks to our new friends and their persuasion tactics, we have learned from the Ya-Sin government of a new shield tech that has been created here. However, the problem is that we don’t have a power source that’s capable of running the new shield for longer than a few moments.”

The Gaed in the crowd nodded. Once the idea of the rebellion became less of an idea and more of a certainty, there was talk of the new shield and the possibilities and problems that it presented.

The Gaed didn’t have a power source that could run it without overheating, exploding, or needing to be the size of the Star in order to keep it going for longer than a few seconds.

It was a problem that they hadn’t figured out, and not even our own crew was able to clear up the issues.

“However,” Dejar continued on. “There is word, thanks to our friend, Itair.” I looked over at Itair, who nodded at the stage and drained his glass of wine in a single gulp. “Of a power cell that the Dominion has created that would allow their battleships to fold across the universe dozens of times without refueling. If that is even half-true, that power cell would solve our shielding issues.” Dejar took a small drink from his glass of water and continued.

“So, we’re going to need to find a way to get our hands on at least one of those power cells, and, preferably, the schematics for it, as well. Then, we’ll be able to mass produce our own and make sure that each of our ships are properly shielded.”

“And with our ships properly shielded,” Aavat added, “that would mean we could take the fight to the Dominion themselves.” This brought about a lot of cheers, mostly from the Gaed, but there were several from the crew that cheered right along.

Dejar nodded. “So, we’re going to need a team to infiltrate a Dominion factory and steal those plans. Ideally, an actual power cell, so we’ll have one to study. Next on the list, we need to get Itair to his money and to his contacts. They have information that we’re going to need, and he has generously stepped up and offered up his considerable fortune to help us finance some of the things we need to do and get.”

Itair had a smile on his face, but it wasn’t a smug one as I’d expected.

He seemed genuinely happy to donate to the cause. I wondered what his issue with the Dominion was, because he had been living very well, making a significant amount of money off his connections with them.

Simply attacking him in his home couldn’t be enough to drive him to this level of revenge or rebellion, at least I didn’t think it could.

“That means we’ll need a team for that, as well,” Dejar said. “There is a chance that the theft of the power cell and delivering Itair to his money can be done all at once, but we’ll have to see how things work out in terms of finalizing the plan.”

“We’re also going to need intel,” Aavat said. “We need to know what the Dominion is doing, what they’re up to, and exactly how bad they want us dead.”

“Right,” Dejar said. “But none of that will matter if we’re forced to do all of this alone. That means that we’ll also need some allies, and hopefully allies with some power. When we finally stand up to the Dominion, we need to know that we won’t be fighting alone. There are still far too many people, nations, and races that have no qualms with what the Dominion has been doing. That means that when we face them, we’ll be facing their allies, as well.”

It made sense. You didn’t want to take on an opponent if they had the advantage of numbers. The Dominion was still a massive entity made up of hundreds of worlds and governments, and millions of people.

While it was a given that not every member of the Dominion agreed with them, the sheer number of governments that still threw their hats in with the Dominion was staggering. Even with the exodus of governments after our broadcast of their actions a couple of months ago, they were still the biggest collection of people in the cosmos.

I looked at Xyla and smiled at her. She had helped get all of this started, and I was willing to go with her wherever she decided to go. If she wanted to stay here, I would stay and be happy. If she wanted to be one of the teams to leave, I would follow her and enjoy each day that I could.

She smiled back up at me, squeezing my hand as she did.

“So, with these four steps needed in order to get us started, it means that we’re going to have to split up the crew.”

Wait, what?

We all shot looks at the stage. As many of the crew started questioning what had just been said, Kovor stepped forward and calmed us all down. “Look, we’re a family, and I don’t want to break the family up. But,” he said with a serious look, “it’s because we’re a family, to protect us all, that we have to do this. We need to send teams out to do everything, and we don’t have time to wait for one thing to be accomplished before jumping into the next job. We’re going to need to do a lot of work at the same time.”

As if that hadn’t been obvious enough, Kovor added, “As Aavat and Dejar said, there might be some jobs that can be done by one team, we have too much going on to go rush in as a single ship. Not to mention the fact that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to the Star in order to help us out in case we meet up with any Dominion ships before we get started.”

“That sucks,” Xyla said quietly to our little group.

“It does,” Orrin said, Maris nodding along with him. “But it’s the best way to accomplish what needs to be done. You got us started on this, Xyla, so that means we need to follow through in every way we can.”

She nodded. “No, I get that, I really do. It just sucks that we’re going to have to split up in teams to do things.”

“Well,” Emmery said, “smaller teams are less likely to be noticed, so they’ll probably be more successful.”

We all nodded and turned our attention back to the meeting, as the captains were now answering questions.

XYLA

“I just don’t know how to deal with the anger. I used to be a pacifist. I stood against anger and violence. Now, all I want to do is take the person responsible for my wife’s pain and rip his body into tiny little pieces.”

I looked at Drad in sympathy. While I didn’t, couldn’t, know his exact pain, I knew what it was like to deal with anger issues.

“How is Mehz?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “She’s not sleeping. Ever since your testimony came out, the nightmares have returned. Not that I’m blaming you,” he said quickly as I opened my mouth to apologize. “I blame the Dominion and the people they’ve brainwashed into thinking it’s okay to steal people and ruin their lives.”

“Well, I would still like to apologize for dredging up bad memories for Mehz. It wasn’t my intention to cause her any sort of pain,” I said.

“I know,” Drad responded.

“As for your desire to cause massive physical harm to those responsible, it’s okay to feel that way,” I said.

He shot me a look, one that said he obviously wasn’t expecting that answer.

“I know you probably weren’t expecting that, were you?” He shook his head. I continued on.

“Having a feeling is never a bad thing, or rarely a bad thing. What is bad, however, is acting on those feelings. Instead of letting your anger consume you and have a negative effect on your relationship with friends and family, direct that anger into something constructive.”

If Xyla from a month ago could hear me, she’d be doubled over with laughter. Half the time I couldn’t believe the words I was saying myself.

But it was true.

“And how am I supposed to be constructive with my anger?” he asked, his frustration starting to show.

“You build computers, right?”

He nodded. “Yes, but not for the military. I build computers for the scientific community. I don’t see how that can help.”

“Think about what you just said. You build computers for the science community. Science is integral in aerospace, right?”

He nodded.

“It’s also important in the development of shields, weapons, power cores, new thrusters, better food, anti-venoms, and so on and so forth. Right?”

Another nod.

“Well, while I know that computers don’t come up with the formulas and other stuff that makes those things, they are used to check those formulas, and the faster and more efficient the computer is, the better work those scientists and engineers do. Right?”

It finally hit him. “So, if I can make the computers faster, more reliable, more efficient, and better all around, I’m helping out the rebellion.”

It was my turn to nod. “You think you could turn your anger into something beneficial while keeping it directed away from friends and family?”

“Yes,” he said forcefully. “Yes, I can.”

Drad had been my first conversation of the work day. It was day four of my support-group experiment, and while most of the time it was a lot of groups talking together and helping each other through their problems, sometimes I had some one-on-one conversations.

Drad had been to all four days so far, the first three spent in group talks. Today was the first day he’d spoken to me individually.

Next up for me was Vel, a Pronarian woman that had come to the Ya-Sin system to escape the Dominion, just to have the terrible luck to have been present when they come to steal away the women.

She had managed to get away by whipping one of her would-be kidnappers with her tail, then screaming at the top of her lungs when he let go of her mouth.

It was actually because of Vel that the Gaed government knew it was the Dominion that had invaded them. Her scream had brought some nearby peace authority officers running. They had been dealing with an accident and came quickly when they heard the scream. They spotted the Dominion uniforms and opened fire.

Vel had been living in the same tiny apartment ever since, trying to find the girls that weren’t recovered or hadn’t escaped.

“I just don’t know what to do anymore,” she told me. “I’ve only been able to find seven of them, and only three have made it home.”

“But that’s three that are back home, and at least four that you know the whereabouts of. That’s something to be proud of,” I tried to tell her.

“It’s been decades,” she said back. “That’s a terrible success rate.”

“Actually, considering how hard it is to hack the Dominion systems, that’s pretty good,” I countered. “You can’t take all of that as only your responsibility.”

“But I was able to get away. I feel as though I owe those other women something more.”

“Then go show Jial and the others what you’ve found and how you found it. They could use that information, and those techniques. Maybe we can find more women that have been taken and find a way to get them back home where they belong,” I said.

“Do you really think that would help?” Vel asked.

I nodded. “Mm-hmm. And with more people working on looking for them, the better your chances of finding them.”

She was so happy at that idea. I knew she had had the idea before, but now, with the rebellion starting up, she actually had people that would be willing to help her.

When the day was over, I was a bit tired, but I felt better about myself. I had managed to help people, and that mattered.

That’s the way each of the four days were for me. Lots of talking, lots of helping—hopefully—and lots of people offering their services to the rebellion.

Then I would head back to the ship and handle my daily responsibilities. The part that surprised me the most, though, was that most of the crew talked to me, and not with attitude, either.

Emmery and Paila always asked me how my day went, but they were my friends already. It was when Shenna, or Maris, or Kalyn, or any of the others that normally avoided me came up to talk to me that I realized things were different.

They were trying to be my friends, and I forced myself to try, as well.

It was a little bit fun, to be honest. I finally felt like I belonged somewhere, and while I still wasn’t entirely comfortable aboard the ship, I did feel better and more welcome than I had ever felt.

“How are your support groups going?” Shenna asked me one night at dinner as she fed a little monkey-thing.

“Isn’t that Qal’s pet?” I asked playfully as I popped a piece of orange in my mouth. The fact that the Gaed had oranges and other fruits, that were almost identical to fruits I knew, was a gift from heaven.

I hadn’t had an actual orange since being sent to Persephone, and I had forgotten how amazing the burst of flavor was.

She smiled. “Yes, but Neela likes hanging out with me.”

I shook my head and smiled. Of course our resident zookeeper would make a pet of someone else’s animal. “Well, to answer your question, they’re going pretty well. I think I’m actually making a pretty good impression here, and I’m helping. I hope.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the helping part,” Emmery said through a bite of apple. “You know damn well that you’re helping these people. I mean, how could the face of the rebellion not help people?”

“Ha, ha,” I fake laughed. “Not sure how happy I am being the ‘face’ or whatever, but I am glad we got stuff started. That’s all.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re enjoying being Ms. Popular, admit it,” Emmery grinned as she tossed a blue grape at me.

“Hey!” I shouted in mock indignation as I picked up the grape. “Don’t waste good food.” I tossed the grape into my mouth and marveled at how it tasted like a grape, but with a little bit of blueberry mixed in. “Especially when they taste this good.” I reached out and grabbed a handful of the grapes and another orange.

“I can’t believe it’s been so long since we’ve had fruit this good,” Shenna said. “I mean, the fruit at Sanctuary was really good, but it’s just nice to have something to remind us of home, huh?”

There were lots of murmurs and agreements around the table.

“Speaking of home,” Indira asked. She was one of the women that had worked her way onto the bridge and was learning how to pilot the ship. “Do you think we’ll ever make it back? And, I guess maybe more importantly, do we want to go back?”

That ended up being the question of the night, and the discussion was still going on two hours later when I excused myself to go to bed.

Personally, I was okay if we never made it back to Earth. If I had my way, I’d stay here on the Gaed world. I still have to learn this planet’s name. Can’t believe I haven’t done that yet.

I went to Gallus’s room, where he was waiting for me with some frozen sorbet from our favorite café. “Figured you might want some dessert, especially after a long day helping people and talking about Earth,” he said as he greeted me with a hug and a kiss.

“How did you know about that?” I asked, kissing him back.

“Eh, when you get into your ‘girl-talk’, you don’t pay much attention to the rest of us,” he said with a shrug and a grin.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be, it’s cute. So, what about Earth? Are you wanting to go back?” he asked as he handed me my sorbet.

“Honestly? I’m not sure I want to. I’m happy here, with you.”

“Aww, I’m happy with you, too.”

“Don’t get sappy on me and say something stupid like you love me or some shit like that,” I said through a spoonful of sorbet.

“What, and ruin my opportunity to run to someone else later? Never,” he laughed as he took a bit of sorbet and flung it onto my nose.

“Hey!” I laughed, wiping it off with my finger and licking it. I knew that neither of us would say it, but I did love him, and I was pretty damn confident he loved me, too. I mean, why else would he have stuck around this long?

“So…ready for dessert?” he asked as he fluttered his eyelids and smiled that playful smile of his.

I started laughing. “If you think you can handle a second dessert tonight,” I said playfully.

“Second? I was thinking thirds, maybe fourths!”

“Ah!”

EPILOGUE

She sat at the table, watching as her partner for the night slept in the bed. He looked peaceful as he was sprawled out naked on top of the sheets.

She sipped at her sizzle and contemplated everything that had happened that evening. She had chosen a white dress, done her hair up into several ponytails linked together into one, and made sure that she had chosen just the right bit of perfume for the evening.

The man that she had been looking for had a weakness for women that wore that brand of perfume, and she liked how it smelled.

She’d met the man, a handsome soldier of fortune, at a cozy little restaurant where they’d sat and eaten a quaint little meal and shared some laughs.

Then, at her suggestion, they went out to the public square where, after a few drinks, they danced and laughed and enjoyed one another’s company. After dancing, they decided to walk back to her apartment. The evening was comfortable and the city was relatively quiet.

“Tell me more about what someone like you does,” she said as they walked, her arm linked through his and her head leaning against his shoulder.

“Ah, you don’t want to hear about all that,” he had said back to her.

She looked up at him, not very far up, for she was only two inches shorter than him, and gave him an innocent smile. “But I do,” she said sweetly. “I’ve never really known what would drive someone into becoming a mercenary. Why did you do it?”

He shrugged as he looked down at her. He let his hand slip from the middle of her back to her upper buttocks as he answered. “Eh. Sometimes it’s all about the money. I’ve had a few jobs where I got some serious pay, like earned-more-on-one-job-than-in-a-year type of pay.”

“Wow.” Her brilliant eyes shined in the night as she looked at him in wide-eyed wonder. “But, you said ‘sometimes’. Did that mean you sometimes did jobs for something other than money?”

He nodded. “Yeah, sometimes I did it for the opportunity to end up somewhere else.”

“You mean, like here?” she asked with a slight lilt to her voice. He looked at her and smiled. Gently putting his hand on her cheek, he drew her in for a kiss.

“This is the best place I could have landed,” he answered when they stopped kissing.

“I feel the same way, too,” she said after catching her breath. They kissed again and made their way to her apartment. After they had sex for the first time that night, he became comfortable with her, and she with him.

“You know how I said that I sometimes took jobs to get to places or whatever?” he asked her as she lay in his arms, tracing her finger up and down his chest.

“Mm-hmm,” she hummed, kissing his chest.

“One of those places I went felt more like home than any place I’ve ever been, until now,” he said quietly.

“Oh?”

He nodded and kissed her hair. “Yeah. It was this run-down, backwater, broken place called Zolla-T.”

“How could a place like that be home? It sounds like a junkyard,” she said, looking up at him.

“Oh, it was,” he chuckled. “But, there was just something about it that was comfortable for me. Things were cheap, I was busy messing around with parts and building things—which, by the way, I’m pretty good at. I mean, I’m not an expert or any kind of an engineer or anything, but I’m pretty good at putting stuff together.”

“Hmm,” she hummed again. “What made you leave?”

“This ship came through, on the run from the Dominion,” he answered. “While that’s not necessarily anything major, this time, it was different.”

“How so?” she asked as she sat up in the bed and sat tailor-fashion. She began massaging his legs as he spoke.

“The group was hiding something. There were a bunch of people that stayed on the ship. I swear that some of them were women. Mmm, that feels good,” he said as his eyes closed in pleasure. She continued to rub his legs.

“Why would the women stay on the ship?” she asked.

“Eh, who knows,” he said. “I really didn’t pay much attention. I just helped them make some modifications to their ship. Well, I just helped them find the parts they were looking for, really.”

“Then why did you leave?”

He shrugged again. “Didn’t want to be around when the Dominion came asking questions. I took the next barge out of there, ended up here a few months ago. What about you, what’s your story?”

“What was the name of the ship?” she asked, ignoring his question.

Now he looked at her a little oddly. “The barge? I don’t remember. It was something like Red Surfer or something weird like that. Why?”

“No,” she said, a bit forcefully. “The other ship. What was its name?”

He sat up in the bed, a bit confused at the sudden interest.

“I’m not sure exactly. Something that started with an ‘r.’ Why?”

Her mood changed again. She was back to being sweet, sexy, and attentive to him. “I’m sorry. I’ve always been interested in things that are a bit against the rules. Do you understand my meaning?” She winked at him and started crawling up the bed towards him. “I’ve always had a soft spot for the ‘bad’ things.” She grabbed him between his legs to help emphasize her point.

With a grunt, he smiled at her. “Oh yeah, I understand.”

They had sex again, this time with much more enthusiasm.

Now she sat at the table, sipping her drink and thinking about what he had said. The name of the ship started with an ‘r.’

It could be the Rogue Star. Especially with rumors of women that never left the ship.

They had used Zolla-T to hide from the Dominion, and while they were now hiding in Gaed space, they might come back to an old ally.

She had to go to Zolla-T and find out what she could about the Rogue Star and her crew.

If they were people willing to help smugglers and criminals hide from the Dominion, they might be the type of people willing to stand up and fight against the Dominion.

She couldn’t let that happen.

She glanced over at the man she had slept with twice in order to gather this information. It wasn’t exactly the information she wanted, but it was enough. Now, she had to gather more.

She set down her coffee and walked over to where her bag was. The idiot hadn’t bothered to ask why she had a bag that size sitting on the couch, then again, they never bothered to mess with the couch in this small apartment. The main room consisted of a bed, a couch, a small table that she now sat at, and a tiny kitchen. The only other room in the apartment was the bathroom.

She grabbed a knife, took it from its sheath, and walked over to the man in the bed, not a single sound made as her bare feet glided across the wood floor.

She leaned over him, lips curved into the same smile that had attracted him to begin with, and slid the knife across his throat, cutting through his rough skin as if it were air.

His purple blood squirted out, covering her. As he gurgled and choked to death on his own blood, she sat down by him.

“My apologies,” she whispered, her voice sweet and loving. “You truly were fun to be with, but I can’t leave you alive. You’ve already proven to have a big mouth, and while that big mouth was fun to experience, it’s not something I can leave behind.”

He was dead before she finished talking, but it didn’t matter to her. She leaned down, kissed his lips, then got off him and made her way to the bathroom. She turned on the shower and waited for the water to reach a comfortable temperature.

After she finished washing her green and gray body and rinsing the blood from her raven-colored hair that hung down to her knees, she turned the lights on in the apartment and got to work.

Three hours later, there was no blood, no body, and no evidence that she had shared the place with anyone.

With one last look to verify, she was satisfied with her work. She grabbed her bag and left the apartment, never really knowing who the true owner of the place was.

She headed to her ship and plugged in the coordinates for Zolla-T.

LETTER FROM AVA

Welcome back to the world of the Rogue Star!

The crew has made their choice: Rebellion.

The next few books will be all about how they gather their forces and build those alliances. And of course, more mates will find each other as they fight to survive.

Next up, the rebellion gets started with Rogue’s Play, out June 28.

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ROGUE’S PLAY SNEAK PEEK!

Emmery

“All personnel report to the crew mess,” a disembodied voice said through the speakers. “I repeat, all personnel report to the crew mess.”

The klaxons weren’t blaring, and there was no urgency to that voice, so I stretched my back lazily and only then swung my feet off the bed. I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn’t in a hurry to find out either. These days there was always something happening.

I stood in front of the small mirror I had hung right beside the bed, finger-combed my hair before deciding to tie it into a bun, and only then punched the panel that unlocked the door. I stepped out of my cramped quarters to see an ocean of people walking down the corridors and toward the crew mess, and I joined them without thinking twice about it.

“Any idea what’s going on?” I asked Xyla as she appeared beside me, a spring to her step.

“I have an idea, yes,” she said with a wink.

She used to have such a closed off character, one that I had grown used to, but the past few weeks had changed her. And all because of Gallus, a bronze Shein that acted as one of the ship’s engineers. The two had grown...intimate. At least the sounds coming out of her quarters seemed to point at that.

She wasn’t the first one to change because of the Rogue Star crew and, unless I was mistaken, she wouldn’t be the last either. There was something about this race of burly aliens, the ones in command of the ship I now called home, that attracted the female members of the crew.

To be honest, I didn’t really know what to make of it. While some were nice, I had never really developed a close relationship with any of them. The way I saw it, they were nothing but my co-workers. Although, to be fair, co-workers weren’t supposed to drag your ass halfway across the galaxy and put you on a warpath with one of the most powerful forces in the universe.

“Does this have anything to do with the Gaed?” I asked Xyla, but she merely looked back at me over her shoulder to offer me a sly smile.

I would get nothing out of her.

Still, I was pretty sure that this prospective Gaed rebellion was the reason behind this ship-wide meeting.

Either that or the Dominion had found us and were en route, which I thought to be a pretty unlikely scenario. Even they wouldn’t be so stupid to threaten war with an independent system like the Ya-sin.

Probably.

To be honest, ever since the crew wide meeting in the park, my mind had been spinning.

Ever since Persephone Station, I’d stayed back. Didn’t want to risk getting involved.

But maybe that wasn’t an option anymore.

When Xyla and I finally got to the crew mess, we found the place completely packed. The entire crew of theRogue Star had answered the call, it seemed.

At the center of the room were Kalyn, the woman that used to be our commander back at Persephone station, and Dejar, the Rogue Star’s captain. Chief Aavat stood close to them.

“Please, don’t tell me we’ll have to go on the run again,” I muttered under my breath.

Xyla said nothing, but she laid one hand on my shoulder and squeezed it softly. Then, to my surprise, she started walking toward Kalyn and Dejar.

“Thank you all for being here,” she started to say, addressing the whole room. “A few of you have your suspicious about the reason behind this meeting, so let me be straightforward with you: if you thought you’d be coming here because of the Gaed rebellion...then you’re absolutely right.”

Damn, I knew it.

Running one hand through my hair, I considered my next move.

As a programmer and hacker, I had the know-how when it came to network systems.

I’d been better than good. I’d been amazing.

The only reason I was caught and sent to Persephone Station was a client rolled on me. Gave my name up in return for a better deal.

I hadn’t had the opportunity to try, but I’d bet I could infiltrate the Dominion systems.

Create those false identities for the teams we’d send in these covert-ops everyone had been talking about, that Xyla and the others were laying out in more detail.

But I barely listened, wrestling with myself.

When we first came on board the Rogue Star, I’d kept my head down.

Didn’t volunteer any information.

Even if it might have helped, the Shein were aliens. Strangers.

Chief Aavat had put me on to scrubbing pipes.

Boring, but safe.

Now we were all in danger. And the crew weren’t strangers anymore.

These were my friends.

Maybe, maybe this was worth standing up for.

It’d be a lot of work, but what the hell.

“Alright,” I said, taking a step forward. “I’m in. Even if I regret it.”

Zadden

I’d been a bit surprised when none of the crew decided to leave after the meeting in the park.

After the events of the past year, there had been some talk about leaving the Rogue Star, finding another ship.

While everyone had been prepared to fix some paperwork, do a little bit of a song and dance to get around customs, even deal with pirates if needed, this was different.

From the moment we jumped into the Terran station, working on the Rogue Star had become something different.

More dangerous.

But not a single member of the crew took the opportunity to leave.

I wasn’t too surprised.

We’d seen too much of what the Dominion was willing to do to maintain power.

We were all ready for a fight.

Which was great, but personally, a bit of a hassle.

I’d already come up with new duty rotations and a list of potential security issues in anticipation of losing nearly quarter of the crew.

Wasted time. Wasted effort.

Ah, well.

The meeting was long since over, but people were still milling around, making plans, speaking with the Captain and Chief, volunteering their services or asking for clarification of things.

The usual chaos.

As for myself, I went back to my duties.

I had been hired on three years ago as part of the security team.

I did my job, did it well.

But really, I’d been looking for something else.

Something with fewer ghosts.

The small crew roster on the Rogue Star allowed for cross training. Before the women came on board, it’d been almost mandatory. Too many jobs, never quite enough hands.

I’d worked my way around the ship, looking for something that clicked.

To my surprise, I’d finally ended up spending most of my time in the kitchen when I wasn’t on security detail.

Cooking was relaxing. An intricate dish required a level of planning, of focus, that could match the most complex of ops.

The reward was the pleased smiles of the crew. And if something didn’t turn out quite right, you could match it with another ingredient, savage the dish, start again.

Nobody died.

Relaxing.

I was in the process of prepping the night’s dinner with Sars when Dejar popped his golden head through the doorway.

“Zadden?”

I looked up from my station where I was preparing the fish. “What can I do for you, Captain? Special request for dinner tonight? We’re having braised nodon with a citrus broth.”

He gave me a brief nod of approval before responding. “That actually sounds very good. Where are you getting the nodon?”

“Right here in town,” I answered. “Apparently, nodon is a very prominent fish on this planet.”

“Did not know that,” he said. “But, to get back on topic, I was really looking for you. Can we talk? In private?”

I motioned Rassic to take over preparing the finicky fish for me. It couldn’t be left sitting for too long or it just wouldn’t cook right.

After giving Rassic some quick instructions and wiping my hands clean, I followed the Captain. He led me to a small room near the mess hall, holding the door open for me.

I was a bit apprehensive, but walked into the room and took a seat in one of the two chairs inside.

The room was sparsely decorated with the two chairs, a small desk, and a couple of pictures on the walls.

When we’d redecorated months ago, planning for more passengers, legitimate clients, this was meant to be a private dining area.

We hadn’t gotten the table in here before everything went sideways. The Haven had a lot of things, but not spare dining tables.

“I know you’re getting ready for dinner service,” Dejar started. “The timing isn’t the best, and I apologize for that.”

That was certainly odd. While Dejar had never been the most restrictive person around, he didn’t apologize often, unless it was truly warranted. Even after the women became part of the crew and Dejar connected with Kalyn, he still didn’t apologize, at least not where I could hear.

He was still talking. “I know you came here to try to slow your life down a bit,” he said as he sat in the other chair. “And, if I’m not exceedingly mistaken, you’ve been happy to be a part of the crew. Correct?”

“I have been, sir,” I answered. Then, with the slightest of shrugs, “The last year has certainly cancelled the slow monotony of things.”

He laughed. “True, very true. This past year has certainly been much different than any of us could have anticipated.” He cocked his head to the side. “But you decided to stay.”

I nodded. “There’s too much at stake, and if this rebellion does get off the ground, it’s going to turn into a war that’s going to suck everyone in anyway.” I leaned back slightly. “Figured that I might as well stay right here in the middle of things.”

He rubbed his hands together as he leaned back in his chair. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m assuming you heard everything at the meeting in the park, as well as earlier?”

I nodded.

“Good. Then I need a favor. The power core that we need for the shields that the Gaed have created, I want you to be the one to get it.”

I’d known this was a possibility.

All those ops.

All those moving parts.

They’d need everyone who had this sort of background.

And even as I protested about coming out of retirement, a small part of me sat up excitedly.

I’d been good at this. I couldn’t deny it.

Maybe it was time to stop relaxing.

Still, I had questions.

“Why me for this job?” I asked. “If you don’t mind my asking,” I quickly added.

“I know what you’re capable of,” he answered. “I ran an in-depth background check on you when you first came to me.” A half-smile twisted his lips. “I know about your past, at least enough of it to know that you’re more than capable of doing this and that I can trust you.”

I kept my face as impassive as I could.

I was never sure how far back into my history he had been able to dive. There were some things I had done that were not terribly nice, or even remotely ethical.

As a matter of fact, there were a couple of jobs I pulled when I was younger that very nearly had me on the ‘Wanted’ lists for at least nine sectors, maybe more.

But whatever he’d found, didn’t seem to give him concern.

I nodded, slowly. “How many people involved?”

“I’ll leave it up to you,” he answered. “But, I would say no more than six or seven.”

“Do we know where this power core is?”

“A small rocky moon near Karben.”

I spent a few brief moments thinking about it, weighing the options. “And I get to pick the team?”

He nodded.

“Okay,” I answered. “I’m in.”

“Thank you,” Dejar said. The heaviness in his voice pulled my eyes to him, studying him closely.

He looked older than he was. Older than he’d seemed even a few weeks ago.

This potential rebellion was weighing on him. He looked as though he hadn’t gotten much sleep for a long time.

This was not what he had wanted either, I was positive of that.

He had been much like me, looking for something to keep the boredom away but also not tied to a daily threat of death beyond the normal ones associated with space travel.

There was a difference between worrying about whether or not the ship was going to hold together through normal usage, and whether or not the next ship you saw was going to shoot you down.

“How long before I go?” I asked.

“That depends on how long it takes Emmery to make false identities for everyone. If you’re caught in Dominion Space, we need to make sure you’re not discovered as part of this crew.”

Emmery.

An entirely different part of me started paying attention.

Dejar got up and stretched, holding his lower back as he did.

“As soon as she’s done making identities that we’re confident in, we’ll get you a small ship and send you and your team out.”

I hadn’t known that about her. And now I wanted to know everything.

I kept my voice level. “Reasable plan. I’ll keep you posted on my choices.”

“Save me some of that nodon,” he called back as he reentered the mess hall, leaving me to my own thoughts.

I had given up the mercenary life.

I had given up the stress of private security.

This time, I would be working for something that was worthwhile.

But Emmery was involved.

Nothing relaxing about that.

Nothing at all.

Emmery

“How’s it going?” Xyla asked, poking her head into the small room Dejar had assigned me.

Near the engine room, it was so tiny I could almost touch opposite walls if I stretched my arms.

My guess was that it had been some kind of janitorial closet, but Dejar had it converted into a one-woman workshop: someone had miraculously managed to place a small desk inside the room, and six computer monitors had been bolted to the wall.

It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable of places, but I didn’t really mind it. I’d certainly worked in worse.

Just as long as my fingers were flying over the keyboard and I was in the zone, my surroundings were meaningless.

Except, of course, my fingers were not flying over the keyboard and I was definitely not in the zone.

“I’m so damn bored.”  I leaned back on my seat and propped my feet up on the desk. The cup I had sitting by the keyboard wobbled slightly, but it stopped before my coffee became a puddle on the floor. “I feel like ripping my eyes out. Do you have a spoon I can do it with?”

“Wow,” Xyla laughed. “You’re in a good mood, aren’t you?”

“I was.” Lacing my fingers behind my head, I glanced at the small army of computer screens in front of me and sighed, the information plastered there reminding me of the brewing headache between my eyes.

Getting into the Dominion identification systems had been surprisingly easy.

I’d been practicing, learning the new, alien information architecture, coding paths, all of it, the entire time we’d been on board the Rogue Star.

It made the autotutor modules worthwhile, even if I wasn’t really planning on doing anything with it.

And mindless scrubbing during the day gave me plenty of time to memorize command structures, how script loops were called here.

It was like my first mentor had always said. As long as you can make yourself think like the computers do, understand how the databases interact, learning a specific programming language is just a detail.

Too bad she’d never know the extremes to which I’d taken her philosophy.

I had made it look as if my point of access was somewhere in the Dominion, masked my virtual ID, and then it was only a matter of hacking my way into government databases.

All with the help of the best translation software I had managed to find. I had gotten all the information I needed to forge new identities for the team Dejar had assembled, but now I was struggling.

“Seriously, I need an assistant or something. I have all the information we need, now it’s only a matter of going through the motions and crafting these IDs. A well-trained monkey could do this part of the job.”

“I don’t remember seeing any monkeys around these parts except for Qal’s pet,” Xyla said kindly, but I found myself frowning all the same.

I was having to juggle a mountain of databases—I had to insert the information from these new identities in every official Dominion database, as I didn’t know which they would use during a particular ID check—and there was so much minutia to input, check and double check, that I no longer felt like a hacker.

More like a glorified data-entry assistant.

“Really funny, Xyla,” I told her as I pulled my feet from the desk and sat straight once more. “When I volunteered I didn’t know I’d be stuck in a broom closet, you know? This is a rebellion, right? It should be dangerous and exciting and—”

“And you’re safe in here.”

“We’re trying to overthrow the Dominion. That’s not the definition of safe, at least last time I checked,” I argued. “Besides, it’s not like I’m asking to be sent to the frontlines. Trust me, I rather be behind a keyboard than facing the Dominion soldiers. I just want to start working on the more interesting parts.” I sank my head into my hands, resting my aching eyeballs.

“I’ve laid the groundwork on these fake identities, and while there’s still some work to be done, I want to move on and start doing what I’m good at. I want to get into the Dominion central.”

“I’m sure that’s part of Dejar’s plan. You’ll just have to be patient and keep at it.”

“Are you sure?” Drumming my fingers against the desk, I eyed the computer screens again and sighed. “I don’t really know what Dejar plans are, to be honest. He keeps things close to his chest, and it’s not like I’m part of the inner circle. Unlike a certain someone I know, a smart and persuasive woman who could—”

“No way.” Raising both her hands up, almost as if I was pointing a hand at her, Xyla took one step back. She was already opening her mouth to say that she wouldn’t help me under any circumstance, but I was faster than she was.

“C’mon,” I insisted. “All I’m asking is for you to put a word in my behalf. Hell, Dejar might not even know I can hack into the Dominion central. All you have to do is remind him of that, and maybe I can finally start helping the rebellion.”

“You are helping the rebellion,” she sighed. “These fake IDs are essential.”

“I know but—”

“And are you even sure you can hack into the central?”

“Now you’ve offended me.”

“Alright, fine.” She shook her head and, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, finally gave me a nod. “I’ll talk to Dejar and remind him of what you can do for us. God, you’re impossible.”

“You know me.” Jumping out from my seat, I closed the space between us and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, Xyla, I really appreciate you doing this. I’m dying of boredom in here.”

“I’m going to try,” she said. “No promises.”

“That was all I was asking.”

The next few hours were a slog.

I spent them hunched over my keyboard, furiously typing away endless lines of code and trying to create real persons out of the information Dejar had given me.

Although some parts of the job were interesting—especially when it involved sneaking in and out of databases to insert the information—others were so boring I was actually surprised I hadn’t fallen asleep at the desk.

Still, I kept at it.

Even though I had complained to Xyla, this sure was better than just being sent around to clean random things.

And it was definitely more agreeable than being the designated tech person on a station like Persephone. I snorted at that thought. I didn’t know who had thought to call that shithole a station—probably Kalyn’s mother—but I had thought of slapping that person countless times, were I ever to meet her.

Located on the fringes of the solar system, Persephone was one of the places Terrans used to send their pariahs. People just like me. I still remembered the day the judge banged his gavel and told me I was being sentenced to five years of service at the Persephone station for my “antisocial behavior and criminal tendencies.”

In truth, while my social manners were sometimes lacking, I had never been a criminal. Sure, I had hacked into highly secured systems and accessed confidential information, but I hadn’t done it out of malice. I did it out of boredom.

Mostly.

“Alright, I’m done here,” I sighed, pushing my chair back. I hadn’t eaten anything since morning, and it was already time for dinner. I secured all the information on the terminal, ensuring no one would be able to retrace my steps, and then turned on security on my computer.

No one but me could access it.

I narrowed my eyes into slits as I stepped out of the room, the bright lights of the Rogue Star’s corridors a stark contrast to the darkness I kept in my new office, and made my way toward the crew mess at a lazy pace.

Xyla sat by herself in one of the corner tables, and I made my way toward her before picking up any food.

Dinner could wait a few more minutes.

I took over the seat across her and she raised her head to face me.

“Emmery.” She kept on chewing her sandwich as she spoke, and she looked as if she had been lost in thought before I sat down. “Are you done for the day?”

“I think so,” I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll head back to check on some more stuff, but I don’t plan on working late tonight. Why? Does Dejar need me? Have you talked with him?”

“Alright, slow your horses,” she sighed, wiping the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “I did go and talk to Dejar—”

“And?”

“And he told me he wants you to focus on those fakes IDs. He’ll give you the final details for the identities once the whole team has been assembled.”

“Are you serious?” Raking one head over my face, I did my best not to raise my voice. “I mean, there’s so much we could do if we hacked into the Dominion central. Just imagine, we could start messing with—”

“Look, I get it,” she cut me short. “I understand that hacking into their central would be a major victory for us, and I think Dejar understands that as well. Thing is, the priority right now is to have those fake identities sorted out. Once you’re through with that, maybe Dejar will start thinking of more stuff for you to do.”

“What am I supposed to do in the meanwhile?”

“Have you been listening to me? You have to get those IDs done, Emmery. So that’s what you’re going to do while you wait for your dream job.”

Shrugging, she then offered me a smile as way of apology. “You’ll be out of that broom closet soon enough, I’m sure.”

“I don’t mind the closet,” I admitted. “I just want to help out.”

“You’ll have your chance,” she shrugged. “And maybe sooner than you think.”

GET Rogue’s Play by clicking here!

Copyright © 2019 by Ava York

All rights reserved. These books or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the Author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Contents

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Gallus

Xyla

Epilogue

Letter from Ava

Rogue’s Play Sneak Peek!

Copyright