A Garden in Space

Chapter 1: Non 

It had been four months since Valouatthiaslouan last uttered a sound.

As the raiders held him down against the damp floor of their ship, he held a scream. He held the desperate clawing feeling within him to fight back. He even held his breath.

The silence mounted as it had for months. A familiar cold washed over his thoughts. He shut himself off from feeling and focused on calculating everything around him, methodically and patiently. 

The spaceship on which he was imprisoned smelled like rust and mineral and sweat. The Earthlings around him stunk. They came from a wet, salty planet that made their bodies permanently moist. The stink of mildew followed them in space, far from their home, in the outstretches of the Milky Way.

As an Amenon, Val smelled less of nature and more of metal. After all, his genetic makeup was more closely related to the spaceship they were on than the humans that kept him prisoner.

Sticky hands pressed down on him, pinning him in place. He could hear the low hum of a razor and he felt as it touched his skin, shearing away the metallic black stubble that grew along his head. He was forced onto his back as the razor reached his face, smoothing the short hair off his chin and neck, too. He stared up, ignoring his captors, eyes focused far away on the black ceiling above. He ignored the massive amount of input from his analyses. Numbers flitted across his consciousness—the number of men surrounding him, the number of women, probable weaknesses, and an incessant warning that he needed to consume food soon. 

They shut the razor off. The same hands that held him down hauled him to his feet. Val kept his gaze unfocused and movements slow. He allowed himself to be manhandled back towards the large cage they’d kept him in for all four months. It was below deck, aside all the rest of their illegally-acquired goods, with no light or windows to look out into the rural stretch of the Milky Way that they patrolled. The room wasn’t even climate controlled, but as an Amenon, it wasn’t particularly difficult to adjust his internal temperature as required. Val would have had an even easier time if the crew ever bothered to feed him more than meager scraps every few days, but he wasn’t going to complain.

No, he was going to remain dutifully silent, because the humans didn’t deserve an utterance of a word from the Amenon crown prince.

Val ducked beneath the bars of his cage and turned to look at the crowd of crewmen that began to disperse. The entire ship usually came to watch the spectacle of the Amenon when he was brought out of the cage. None had ever seen one in person until his capture. They were a dying breed, with the few living survivors scattered across the galaxy, moving in shadow, avoiding the very situation Val was in. Slavery. 

“What do you think goes through his head?” one crewman asked.

“He’s a fucking robot. Nothing goes through his head.”

“That can’t be entirely true. The Amenon fuck like humans do. They gotta think about sex. It’s just nature.”

“That’s gross, man.” There was a series of agreeing grunts. “Lock the cage. The Exe’s gonna dock with us any minute to trade him off.”

Val’s breath caught short.

The Exe.

This was it. This is why he’d let himself be captured all those months ago; this is why he hadn’t slaughtered the traffickers that had kept him under lock. The Exe was one of the keys to his entire mission. And for years now, the ship had been under pirate control. Val hadn’t the resources to track it, though he had tried. He was one of two remaining princes of Amenon—but it hadn’t mattered. With the majority of his people dead, and their wealth and natural resources eradicated, his power was irrelevant—the monarchy meant nothing.

After all, a throne upon an empty planet is only a chair.

So Val allowed himself to be caught months ago. He was a rare, expensive commodity—a tamed and quiet “robot.” He knew the Exe, being a remarkably powerful vessel, would eventually come to collect the remarkably powerful captive Amenon.

But nothing could have prepared him for the reality of of being a captive, of being treated like a tradable good, of being cursed at, spit at, and kicked around. He’d been repeatedly starved, unwashed, made to sleep in his own filth, and consistently, cruelly mocked. None thought he understood them, and hearing the truth of what humans thought was enlightening in its malice.

And nevertheless he persisted, silently. For four months.

One of the smaller raiders—a young man, probably in his later teen years—fastened Val’s cage door with a digital key and dared a glance up at him. Val was a head taller than even the tallest human on the ship, and this kid in particular barely made it waist-high.

“Don’t look at me, you fucking creep,” the raider hissed, lip coiled in disgust. He pocketed the key and turned away, but as soon as he approached the rickety staircase to return to the cockpit of the ship—the room lurched. Val snatched ahold of the bars of his cell to keep himself upright, but the raider went flying off his feet and hit the adjacent wall with a loud, echoing crack.

Seconds later, the alarms rang out.

Warning: this ship has been docked by the Earthguard. All persons aboard are required to disarm.

Repeat: this ship is under Earthguard custody. Arms down.

Val hadn’t needed to form any calculations for what would happen next. It was common knowledge: expatriots don’t surrender.

The ship rocked again and Val recognized the hum of the pulse guns as they were ignited above deck. The entire vessel whined as the engines struggled to pull it away from the magnetic docking mechanism from the Earthguard. There was another violent jerk and the storage cabin in which Val was housed began to fill with a thick fog at the seams. They’d burst a fuel pipe. Val struggled to keep his footing as the cage rocked forward and landed back again with a deafening crash.

He could hear screaming above deck—the incoherent, furious shouts of desperate men. Another jerk of the ship sent some boxes flying towards his cage and Val managed to jump back before they crashed against the bars. The smoke hissed as it bloomed around him. Val took a breath and held it. He could hold his breath for nearly half an hour without effect, but he had to find a way out of the cage before it was destroyed in crossfire.

He stepped forward and his bare foot slipped against something wet.

Blood.

His eyes followed the thick red line to the broken body of the young expie that had locked him in, crammed and bleeding between some crates. His eyes were open, glassy, jaw slack, color already gone from his face. Val didn’t have time to hesitate. He shoved his hand through the bars of his cage, into the boy’s pocket, and found the key. He jerked it against the lock of his cage and shoved the metal door open. It whined, a sharp sound cutting through the hissing and gunfire and screams, and Val pushed himself through.

He started to the stairs when a pair of well-oiled navy boots stepped down. And then he had a gun to his head.

He had a half dozen guns to his head.

Val recognized the navy and white uniforms of the Earthguard and put his hands up in immediate surrender. He could barely see the shapes of the men as they appeared below deck, one by one. The smoke was growing more dense, blacker, the longer he stood there.

One of the men barked, “On your knees!”

Val’s heart thunked in his chest. He didn’t move.

“On your fucking knees or I shoot to kill!”

He wanted to obey.

But he calculated the risk: odds were exactly ten to one that he would survive the encounter if he didn’t speak.

He kept his hands raised and stared forward, blankly, the same way he’d done for months. He couldn’t let the humans know he understood them. They couldn’t question someone who couldn’t understand their language. He didn’t have to explain himself to them—he didn’t have to discuss how desperately he sought the Exe, and how close he’d gotten before they interfered. His fingers twitched with the want to subdue them all, to take off, to give himself the chance to succeed—

“Now!”

Val’s jaw tightened. He raised his hands higher, feet rooted in place. The soldiers swept their visors over him. The only sounds were the humming of the magnetic dock and the hissing of the burst pipe that continuously pumped poison into the space.

The gun pointed at his face whirred up in a digital charge. The soldier’s finger slid against the trigger—

“Wait,” someone said, rushing forward. “Sir, that’s—my readings think—that’s an Amenon.”

A stunned silence fell over the group.

“I don’t care what he is. Kill hi—”

“Sir, I don’t think he speaks English!” the same soldier interrupted, gesturing. “The Amenon aren’t usually found on human ships. They don’t—we haven’t had much contact. I don’t think he understands you.” And then, added more quietly, “He’s unarmed. Obviously.”

Under any other circumstance, Val might have thought the group’s simultaneous glance down his nude body was amusing. Instead, his skin began to crawl. The Amenon weren’t a particularly modest people, but he knew precisely why he’d been captured to begin with, and it was only partially because he was undoubtedly stronger than ten men combined.

It was sick. And perhaps months of harassment had gotten to him more deeply than he realized—because he felt more uneasy now than when the soldiers’ guns were pointed to kill.

For a long—too long—moment, no one moved. And then, the man in charge motioned with one hand to the group. “Fine. We’ll figure that shit out later. Is there anyone alive on this ship?”

“No. There’s another body down here. He died of blunt force trauma. The crates down here—they crushed him.”

“Tell dispatch.”

The soldier turned on his heel and started back up the stairs with his partner in tow, leaving Val with three others.

“We’ve got to go,” one of them said to the others. “This smog’s poisonous. It’s full of lead. What do we do with him?”

One Earthguard circled around Val’s back and jolted him forward with the barrel of his weapon. “We take him with us. He’s on an expie ship. For all intents and purposes, he’s an expatriot to us. Get the cuffs.”

Val stepped forward and another soldier stepped behind. They locked his wrists together in plastic. “He’s got blood on him,” he said, noticing where Val had stepped. “Do you think he killed the guy down here?”

“Naked and with no weapons? Give me a break.” The gun returned, jerking Val into motion up the stairs. “That kid down here has a ST445 automatic in his hand. I don’t know what you think you know about the Amenon. They’re not bulletproof.”

Earthlings were astoundingly dumb. Val walked forward as directed, bare feet tapping on each step of the stairs as he climbed up.

He took in a breath as soon as they were free of the smoke. He looked up, out the glass shield of the cockpit, and saw the stars for the first time in weeks. He let the sight wash over him, filling him with a kind of relief and remorse simultaneously. And then he shut the feelings off, like he’d done before. 

“We got the Exe too, you know,” one of the soldiers said. “We’re gonna have way more bodies than cells in our brig.”

The Exe. The Earthguard had the Exe. Val carefully trained the shock out of his expression, marching on without a single misstep.

“Don’t worry about it,” another replied, jabbing Val forward, towards the hatch that was open inside the Earthguard ship. “We’re dropping them on Opis.”

“What—the space station? No way. I thought it was shut down.”

“Soon. They’ve got another six months.”

“Are they gonna be equipped to deal with an Amenon if they’re in the middle of decommission?”

The soldier snorted, guiding Val through the hatch and into an awaiting group of armed men. “That’s someone else’s problem.”

#

An afternoon spent tending to his roses typically left Haley dirt-streaked and smiling.

Today, he was left bitter and resigned.

“It’s really nice, don’t get me wrong,” the purveyor said, and he gave Haley one of those pitying, watery smiles, “But I don’t believe it’s essential. At least—not for now. A garden smply isn’t a necessity to the skeleton crew that will be living here, even if those roses look divine.”

“Thank you,” Haley said, and he couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice. “They’re a special hybrid I germinated.”

“See, son, you’ll be alright. I’ll forward the paperwork for a transfer—you may wind up on an even better station, with an even better garden, you know. This could be great. Thetis may even take you on board. That’d be something.”

Haley couldn’t even acknowledge the thought with anything more than a stiff, clammy handshake. The purveyor left, automatic doors swishing behind him.

Haley turned and looked upon his—and his mother’s—life’s work: the garden on space station Opis.

“I don’t know why I’m so sad,” he said into the humid, breezy air. “You’ll probably be fine without me.”

The roses, the ferns, the oak trees all didn’t reply.

The garden was beautiful. It had been a passion project for Petra Lovell and while she never intended for her son to inherit the responsibility after her sudden death, Haley had done so. Gladly.

It was an entire acre filled corner to corner with greenery and flowers and twittering birds that swooped overhead, topped with a clear dome. And while it was technically mid-afternoon, the current sky was black and littered with stars from the outreaches of the Milky Way. 

He watched the constellations dance overhead. “I don’t want to leave,” he said quietly.

Opis was being decommissioned. The Earthguard had talked of leaving the space station for years, but Haley never imagined they’d go through with it—not when there was so much work, so much history, and nearly twenty-thousand residents aboard. Nevertheless, in a half year’s time, it would be left to drift into empty space. His garden, abandoned. His roses, orphaned.

Haley Lovell, homeless.

He lifted a hand. “Opis, disable my previous override. Please.” The computer twittered overhead and the glass dome began to flood with the colors of a traditional Earth sky. Like ink poured through water, the visual bloomed overhead, and an artificial warmth filled the garden.

Haley tilted his head up towards the fake sun, eyes shut.

The double doors swished open behind him. Haley turned to see a soldier step through, dressed in the navy fatigues of the Earthguard. He held a rifle at his front and Haley’s stomach did a flip. 

“Lovell. You’ve been requested at the brig.” 

Haley took a short step backwards—and into the rosebush, which pricked him forward. He felt an irrational sense of betrayal and shot the roses a menacing look, before turning back to the guard.

“It’s urgent, Lovell.”

Haley stood at his tallest and pushed forward, stepping through damp grass with practiced care and mud-laden boots. “I can’t leave. I’m in the middle of work.” He felt like a weed—stubborn and small and determined to stay inside this garden as long as he could. Which, given the purveyor’s analysis, meant he’d only get another six months.

“It’s an order from General Owens.”

Owens? The name rang a bell, vaguely. “Who?”

“Seriously?” The guard paused. “She’s—” he sighed. “Nevermind.” He motioned with his gun towards the doors. “Follow me.”

Haley nearly stayed put—and then threw his hands up. “Fine.”

Together they started down a wide white and chrome hallway in uncomfortable silence. The highest deck of Opis, the deck with the garden, was one of the most popular in the evenings—it had a library, and the observatory, and restaurants aplenty. But instead of the usual bustle and laughter, the deck was dead silent. Nearly empty. It wasn’t terribly surprising—half the residents had left already. Haley’s steps echoed one after another.

They reached an alcove full of various elevators and the guard swiped his keycard at a set of red doors that opened with a deafening beep. Known as the lock-lift, the red elevator was open to Earthguard personnel only, and ran the entire length of the space station—all 102 floors. Haley had only taken it a few times before, and usually when he, himself, was in deep shit.

Once the lift took off, Haley narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t about what I said earlier in the mess hall, right?”

“What did you say earlier in the mess hall?”

“That the Earthguards are a bunch of dumbfuck DEMs and they don’t know what they’re doing.” He trailed off and then gave the guard the kindest smile he could manage. DEM, or decommissioned militant, was a particularly cutting insult during the shutdown. “I didn’t really mean it.”

The guard glanced around, as if they weren’t blatantly alone. “I don’t think anyone disagrees with you right now. I certainly don’t.” He snorted. “I got transferred here less than a year ago.” With a three-month journey from Earth to Opis, this meant the guard had uprooted his life—and been trapped in notoriously frills-free space travel—for no reason. Haley felt a twinge of sympathy. The guard added, “It’s worse for you, probably. You were born here. Your mom is—” He stopped himself short.

“You know who I am?”

The guard shifted uncomfortably but trained his stare forward, at the shiny reflective surface of the elevator doors. Haley looked forward too. He was nearly a head shorter than the guard, with curly, half-mussed ash-brown hair, and wide ash-brown eyes. While the guard was fair, with light eyes and blond hair, Haley was golden-tan. The guard was silent for a moment before he said, “Your face made the news a few times planetside. Because you’re one of the first ever spaceborn--” he was the third human born on Opis, ever-- “And because of your mom.”

Ah. Haley felt the familiar twinge he got whenever someone brought her up, but he beat the feeling into a tiny box locked far away into the recesses of his mind. “I see.” The air grew stuffy inside the elevator. Haley smiled to himself, turned to the guard, and read the tag on his uniform. “You telling me I’m famous, Young?”

“Uh, it’s Ari. You can call me Ari.”

“Ari,” Haley said. “And you don’t know what this Owens person wants with me, Grant?”

He shrugged and said, “Look—we’re working with a skeleton crew right now, since most of the primary ops have already left the station. Owens needs your help with something. I don’t think she even wanted to ask.”

“Something?”

“It’s classified. I don’t actually know yet. No one does, except for her. I promise.”

Haley sighed, thoughtlessly ran a mud-streaked hand through his hair, and then made a face. He looked down at his dirty hand, scowling. Perfect. “The first person to complain about my smell is going to be directed to you, Ari.”

“You smell nice.” The barest bit of color filled the soldier’s face. He added, voice going small, “Mostly flowers. That’s--uh—you smell like flowers.”

Haley laughed. “That’s comforting.”

Another deafening beep filled the car as the elevator came to a stop. The doors swished open and Ari took off like a jumpy colt out the gate. His strides were long and pointed, forcing Haley to close the gap with a jog. They moved to the far end of the gridded walkway, which overlooked several floors below. Haley dared a glance down to see a handful of soldiers working, and a few robots drilling repairs on one wall.

The entire bottom quarter of Opis was a prison for deep space outlaws. It was strikingly different from the rest of the space station, which was clean and contemporary with white fixtures and polished metals. The brig was cold, gray, and filled with fluorescents. Devoid of character, with raw steel and industrial-looking beams criss-crossing the ceilings on each level.

The entrance and central hub was a round room with numerous monitors and desks, most of which were empty now. Two guards sat opposite of each other in the space, wearing large headsets and tapping away at their machines. Ari grabbed a badge from an empty desk and handed it to Haley before continuing through two more sets of doors, onto the sterile and cramped ramps of their prison.

Haley clipped the visitor pass to his lapel and chewed his bottom lip. The Earthguard didn’t ask much of their civilian residents. It was truthfully unsettling to be inside the brig at all. Civs didn’t belong there—unless they were in trouble.

“We’ll wait in the mess hall until Owens calls for you.”

“Wait—mess hall?” Haley stopped short and looked back at the door they’d come through, plotting his escape already. “That seems like a terrible idea.”

Ari’s forehead creased in confusion and then he blinked. “Oh, it’s for the guards. It’s not actually in the brig. This way.”

“Oh,” Haley replied. 

They descended a short set of stairs and entered a large rectangular room with several large rectangular tables, all of the same brushed metal. A handful of soldiers milled about, grabbing food off the buffet along one wall. One woman tapped a button and, with a flash, a warm bowl of soup appeared upon her tray. “Do you want anything?” Ari asked.

“That’s alright—thank you,” Haley said. “I just ate a tomato.”

Ari led him to a table and took a seat. “A tomato? Like—just—a whole tomato?”

Haley grinned and, instead of taking a seat at the table, he rested his hip upon it. “I was showing the purveyor how much better they are than the stuff we print in the cafeterias here. I was kind of hoping they’d keep me on Opis indefinitely if the tomatoes were good enough. ” Haley looked over the buffet again. And sighed. “They weren’t.”

“Can anyone have one?”

Haley blinked back to Ari and tried not to smile at his earnest, careful excitement. Haley crossed his arms. “Well, you have to know someone in the garden, so…”

“Oh.”

“Me. You have to know me. I’ll bring you a tomato, Ari. I’d be happy to.”

“Whoa, whoa—” a different man slid over to the table. “Are you talking about the fruit in the garden? Up on the top deck?”

“Yes—” Haley started, only to be interrupted by Ari saying, “Fuck off, man, I called dibs already.”

Haley laughed. “I have enough to share.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve got blackberries. And watermelons… I can bring some down here, if you want.” With the population on Opis shrunk as it was, and almost all the restaurants closed, there was plenty of produce to go around. Haley felt like an idiot to have not considered the staff in the brig until now. This place had a certain pallor, a sadness, that sat overhead. Something about the lack of color and lack of warm light made it dismal—intentional, Haley was sure, because it was a prison. But it was begging for a fruit basket. He made a mental note to arrange one the minute he got back on deck.

Both men blinked owlishly, and the new soldier said, “You grew them?”

“I’m a botanist, technically. But really I’m just—like—a glorified gardener, so I grow lots of things.”

“Do you have strawberries?” Another newcomer—a female guard in casuals—sat down on the other side of Ari. “The buffet printers don’t get them right. I don’t care what anyone says.”

“They’re a little out of season right now, but I have some raspberries?”

All three gasped. “I love raspberries—”

“Me too—”

“Young.”

All three guards jerked to their feet. Haley turned to see a severe looking woman at one end of the room, but before he could place her, she turned and walked out.

“Shit. I should have been paying attention to my watch. This way,” Ari said. His watch was an intricate device that contained orders. Every soldier had one. Haley glanced down at his wrist before he followed Ari out of the mess hall, and shot a parting smile to his new friends.

They moved down the platform until they reached an open door.

“General Owens. Here’s Lovell,” Ari said, stepping into a large room with long narrow windows low on the walls both outside, overlooking the stars, and on the inside wall, looking into the brig.

“Thank you, Ari,” a different, older Earthguard replied. The woman from before. Owens, presumably.A

Ari flashed an apologetic smile as he ducked away, out of the room. Haley turned to size up the general and had a feeling he’d met her before. There was something familiar about her silver hair, cropped into a tight buzzcut against her skull, and her deeply set black eyes. Haley tried not to jerk away as she reached out with one large, calloused hand, and gripped his in a firm shake. “Hi. Uh, nice to meet you, ma’am,” Haley said, feeling awkward and untrained as he often did around the ‘Guard. They had protocol for everything. Was ma’am even correct?

Her lip curled, and Haley’s stomach bottomed out. Her voice was cool as she said, “I’m General Carol Owens.” Haley offered a smile and the wrinkle at the corner of her mouth grew deeper. “Are you familiar with Dr. Sella, Mr. Lovell?”

“Sella—yeah. She’s one of the Earthguard scientists.” Not a civilian scientist like Haley, but rather a scientist trained and commissioned by the Earthguard. “I saw her once or twice. I’m pretty sure she visited a few classes I had as a kid. Why? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. She departed Opis three weeks ago after the announcement of our decommission. She’s on her way to Thetis now.” It was the second time in an hour someone had brought up Thetis. Haley suppressed the desire to roll his eyes. It was another Earthguard space station, and the largest. Placement there was highly coveted, especially given its proximity to Earth—it took only a day of travel to return to Earth shores. Owens continued, “We’re going to need you to fill her role. Temporarily.”

Haley squinted. “Dr. Sella is a linguist.”

Owens narrowed her eyes in return. “Yes.”

Haley pointed to himself slowly. “I’m a botanist.” Like he’d said minutes before: he was really a glorified gardener.

“Indeed. Have a seat,” Owens said, sweeping her hand over the uninviting metal chairs centered around a square table. Sitting on top were several documents and a fat spiral-bound book. When Haley sat, Owens followed suit, and tapped the table as she spoke. “Right now, you’re the foremost language expert on Opis.”

A beat of silence passed between them. And then: “What?”

Owens lifted a digital folder from the pile of documents, swiped her hand across the front, and a glowing screen of information appeared at her fingertips. “You’re fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, and Gacommon. Correct?” She turned the folder over to reveal Haley’s name, profile photo, and the basics of his character written in sterile—almost judgmental—language. He noted the red caption at the bottom which read INSUBORDINATE. UNFIT FOR TEG. TEG? The Earthguard, he supposed. He winkled his nose. He didn’t want to be “TEG” anyway.

He reached for the folder, only to have it pulled back. He frowned and stuttered into explanation: “I--that’s--not really. On a rudimentary level, I can speak those languages, maybe. I’m not any kind of expert.” His mother had been Mexican-American and his father was Singaporean. They’d made a concentrated effort to teach Haley Spanish and Chinese—his father’s most native language—as a child. He spoke mostly Mandarin to his father when they were alone, in fact, but it was pitifully far-fetched to call him fluent.

“Considering our situation, I’ve made concessions with our required level of expertise. We need someone who has a broad grasp of linguistics. You’re no Sella,” another curl of her lip made it apparent she wasn’t happy with that fact, “But you’re the most advanced polyglot aboard.”

“More advanced than the trancom? Isn’t it supposed to be fluent in every language known to man? Opis herself has a trancom. You can’t just ask her?” Haley pointed up towards the ceiling, referring to the computer aboard the station—the very same that helped him with his duties in the garden.

“You’re right. Opis speaks every language known to man.” Owens cleared her throat and picked up a fat spiral-bound book, before dropping it in front of Haley right-side up. “Mankind doesn’t know this one.”

The front of the book read, simply: Amenon.

Haley sat straight, breath caught. The Amenon were a race of android-humanoid aliens—notoriously powerful, cold-hearted, and robotic. First encounter had been almost a hundred years prior, and contact from that point had been minimal. For humanity’s own safety, Haley presumed. The Amenon were rare, and based on what few images humans had of their race, they seemed terrifying. They were like the boogie-men of space—seven, eight feet tall, pointed ears, and muscular enough to lift ten tons. Some didn’t even believe they were real, but rather a haunting fabrication to make the outreaches of space seem more interesting.

“We have an Amenon aboard and no means to communicate with him.” Her tongue clicked as she stabbed at the Amenon dissertation with a finger. “You’re our best option.”

Chapter 2: Lou

Haley followed Owens down several flights of stairs, clutching the book on Amenon language in a daze. Descending deeper into the brig was like sinking into murky, gray water. There was even less color this low, and the air was bitingly cold. They stopped, finally, at two armored guards before a solid metal door.

“This is the Sixth block,” Owens said. “It’s our most secure deck.”

Haley realized belatedly that she was waiting for a response, so he said, “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. It’s the—uh—the death row block.” He nearly asked why the Amenon was in this block but stopped short as Owens nodded sharply.

“Do not communicate with any inmate on this level—aside from your assignment,” she said. “And you have to follow the orders any guard gives you while you’re on the floor. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Haley said. “Is it really safe for me to be down here?”

“No, not really.” She looked perfectly blank and held out a small circular earpiece. “The Amenon was found on a raider ship. It’s possible he was in collusion with them. However—” her black eyes cut through Haley, “— he hasn’t been violent. He’s pliant and cooperative. And mute, so far, but presumably that’s because we’ve yet to talk to him in a language he understands. English and Gacommon are a bust.” She looked to her watch, which whirred with some kind of notification Haley didn’t catch. “We’ve collared him and his cell is outfitted with full surveillance.” Haley shot her a look. Collaring was a practice used for especially aggressive inmates. He’d studied the technology back in school—the “collars” themselves were an imbedded ink, like a tattoo, that was applied to a person’s skin. It was typically placed at the base of their throat, and could be remote-activated to electrocute, paralyze, or even kill with the press of a button. Owens continued, “He’ll be incapacitated if he were to attack you. So you aren’t in any real danger.”

Haley took the earpiece Owens held out and examined it before sliding it over the shell of his ear. “Comforting.”

Owens motioned to the guards, who nodded and opened the door for her to step through. Haley followed at her heels as they entered a new corridor. The hallway looked to be solid metal panels, one after another. No doors, or windows, or anything—a blank, empty rectangle.

But Haley knew better. Owens approached one corner and tapped the metal panel with her wristband. A high-pitched alarm whined overhead—and a hidden door slid open. Haley felt the gray waters pull him under and panic held him into place. 

“Lovell,” Owens snapped.

Haley decided he’d really like to talk himself out of the assignment. He said, “This is it?”

But Owens didn’t reply. She marched forward, grabbed his shoulder, and shoved him bodily into the cell. “We appreciate your service.”

The door to the cell swished shut as Haley caught his footing inside, stumbling over his muddy work boots and nearly dropping Sella’s dissertation. He caught it, barely, and stood up straight.

Haley felt the presence before he even looked up.

The Amenon sat on the low cot that ran along the back of the cell, and he was gigantic—six and a half feet tall, or maybe seven—if Haley had to guess. His legs were spread, elbows rested on his thighs, and he dwarfed the cell entirely. Haley was hit with the distinct fact that this alien was an apex predator. He seemed more a panther than a prisoner. 

Haley took an involuntary step backwards, stunned. In his face, the Amenon looked human enough. He had a straight nose, a full and expressionless mouth, and a square jaw. His skin was bluish black in some panels, and lighter blue in others, two colors completely unnatural to humans. He had no hair, save for thick black brows and long black lashes that framed his eyes, which were mostly blue-white. His irises were yellow, pupils black and octagonal in shape. Haley squinted in disbelief.

The Amenon was beautiful.

Haley’s mouth went dry, stomach doing little nervous flips the longer he stood still. He motioned to the Amenon’s body—at his broad, defined chest and abdomen, visible even in the starchy white uniform prisoners wore while in the brig. “You’re joking. Right? Are you some kind of warrior-prince? Or do all Amenon just—just—look like that?”

And then the Amenon made a mistake. It was small, nearly imperceptible: the corner of his mouth tilted up in a ghost of a smile.

Ah, but Haley had been staring, very intently, at his beautiful face. A beat passed and then Haley said, “You understood me.”

The Amenon’s face was, once again, entirely blank.

Haley’s mind raced. Had he imagined it? Maybe—no. His brows pinched together. No. He had no evidence. And by all rights, based on what Owens said, this Amenon didn’t understand English. She was quite clear. But—

That big fuckin’ alien had understood what he said. That big fuckin’ alien had almost laughed at what he said.

The Amenon remained motionless.

“This is fucked,” Haley said flatly. Their silence bloomed tangibly in the small room. Haley looked away, over the cell, swallowing hard. The space was probably six feet wide and nine feet long, with one long narrow window that revealed the stars outside. Just a sliver of space—but Haley thought that was nice. At least it wasn’t an entirely enclosed box.

After another beat of silence, Haley shifted the book he held.

“I’m gonna—” he paused, hummed, and opened the dissertation. He peeked at the Amenon briefly before focusing on page one. “...Okay.”

The first several pages discussed Dr. Sella’s method of research. As an academic, Haley should have found it fascinating, but right now, with a cold, nervous sweat beading beneath his collar, he wanted a simple fucking glossary.

He got about twenty pages in before he saw the very first word written in roman characters: “Aameno...n.” Haley’s brow furrowed. “What? Aamenon. That sounds almost exactly like Amenon. What the hell is the difference?” He examined the page after another deep breath to clear his head. Aamenon. “Hm.”

He looked up to the stoic Amenon, lost grip of his tenuous confidence, and looked away again. 

He hissed, turning to another page, “You’re killing me, Sella.”

Haley continued to turn pages in the book, but the graphs and translations were all extraordinarily complex, filled with numbers and formulas more closely associated with computer science than linguistics. Sella was apparently a sadist. Haley nearly dropped the book as he stood and grunted, catching it mid-air. He didn’t even have a chair. He looked at the floor and rolled his shoulders. Fine.

“You mind if I sit? No? Great. Thanks.” Haley spared the Amenon another short glance before he dropped down and sat on the floor, book in his lap, legs folded criss-cross. He sighed, reading the next page carefully. “Why wouldn’t she start with ‘hello’? Give me a simple ‘hello.’” He fell silent, reading as closely as he could manage under the circumstances.

After several minutes, he glanced up. The Amenon still hadn’t moved. They watched one another for a moment, silently. Haley’s eyes narrowed.

That alien knew English.

Haley was sure of it.

He looked back to the book and started searching for greetings. Minutes later, he found one: qha. Hello. He looked from the page, to the Amenon, and back again. He wasn’t sure he’d pronounce it correctly—Dr. Sella’s pronunciation chart left something to be desired. Haley tried. “Ka?”

The Amenon very slightly arched one brow.

He tried again, pronouncing the word from the back of his mouth. “Qha.” And then he pressed a hand against his own chest and said, “Haley.” He pointed to the Amenon.

No reaction.

Haley repeated, pointing to himself, “Qha. Haley. That’s my name. Haley. Qha—” He pointed to the Amenon.

“Valouatthiaslouan,” the Amenon said. His voice was deep. It was like the bass of some familiar song reverberating through Haley as he sat, stunned. Valouatthiaslouan. “Qha, Haley.”

There was un universal truth about living aboard Opis, and that was the unceasing sound. The station hummed with motors and electronics and the power required to keep a city-sized spacecraft afloat.

Nevertheless, in that moment, Haley could have heard a pin drop.

The Amenon had spoken.

#

Alien species were never kind to Amenon travelers. 

Any average Amenon looked outwardly dangerous to any person unfamiliar with their race. Of the humanoid races living in the galaxy—the Earthlings, the Tarotans, the Vn, and the Amenon—the Amenon were by far the biggest. Val was fairly average sized, and still towered over most any other alien he encountered. What’s more, Amenon intelligence was nearly unrivaled, with processing speeds and unfailing logic a core component of their android-like genetic makeup. But none of that was as frightening as the complete lack of contact. The Amenon were solitary and their planet was remote.

No one knew what the Amenon were capable of and they feared the possibilities.

Val could see it in the face of every guard that passed through his prison cell in inspection. They stunk of mildew and fear. They were poised to kill him. They were ready to jump at a moment’s notice should Val move one way or another, because they’d rather he be dead than a threat.

Except Haley.

He’d stumbled into Val’s cell smelling of earth. Not damp—but like dirt, and flowers. Val found himself staring and unable to stop, even after months of ignoring his captors at every turn. This small human—5’9, precisely—had long, thin limbs, and his coloring was uniquely monotone. Light brown hair, light brown eyes, light brown skin. With dots. His skin had small flicks of colors spattered across it, along his nose, on the backs of his hands. They were like stars, but written across brown skin instead of black sky. It was fascinating.

His eyes were round, nearly bigger than the round button of his nose. He looked terribly human, with no straight or severe lines common among Val’s own people. Even his hair looked soft—little curls tumbling down his face. 

Val forced himself to focus on facts—on numbers. Val knew Haley was a man, aged 22 years, with a plant-based diet and many hours of work outdoors.

Outdoors?

In space? On Opis?

Val was so distracted by his presence, by the way he stood there like some kind of peasant scholar with a faded jumpsuit and thick text, that he couldn’t control his face the way he’d practiced for so long, and he didn’t bother to hide his name.

“Valouatthiaslouan.”

Haley’s small intake of breath echoed between Val’s pointed ears, but he trained himself still and unresponsive. “You spoke.” Haley jerked to his feet, took a step forward, and stumbled over the name, “Valotaslouan?”

Val spoke more slowly. “Valouatthiaslouan.”

Haley’s eyes were wider, rounder. “Valouatthiaslouan.” His pupils dilated, nearly blackening the warm brown of his irises. Human eyes were beautifully responsive. Why hadn’t Val noticed before how interesting their round pupils were? He added, “Val.”

Haley breathed the name out. “Val. Qha, Val.”

“Qha, Haley.”

Val received a smile so warm and genuine and stunning that he very nearly responded in kind. And then shut himself off entirely, the way he had learned. He wasn’t strictly kind. He was a prince—the oldest child in a family descended from some of the original Amenon lords, respected as gods—trained in social graces, but he’d never been one to take to them naturally. Even as a child, his parents had called him cold. The only person alive that knew the kindness of Val was his younger brother, who was dying planet-side of the same disease that had nearly eradicated them all.

Val pulled his thoughts into the mission. He had to. He made no response. Haley’s smile faded uncomfortably and he returned to his book.

And as suddenly as Haley had appeared, so appeared two guards, storming inside the cell with a flurry of weapons and shouts. The barrel of a firearm pointed towards Val as one of the men grabbed Haley by the arm. Haley pulled away and said, “What the hell are you doing?”

“You got him to talk,” the guard said, “That’s all Owens needed right now. You’re out.”

“I was just getting started,” Haley said, backing up.

“And I said you’re done, kid.”

“Give me a few more minutes. You can’t be stupid enough to interrupt during a breakthrough—”

The guard snarled and grabbed the front of Haley’s suit, hauling him forward and shoving him back through the cell door.

Val stared blankly into the face of the second guard. Slowly, he backed out, and left Val alone once more.

It took a minute for the stunned ringing to leave Val’s mind. After four months of dense, suffocating silence, Val wondered if maybe he’d malfunctioned. Perhaps he had hallucinated Haley—with his warm voice and interesting eyes. The only evidence Val had that Haley was real, that he’d really been there, was a lingering scent of earth.

He shifted on the bed he had been provided, and looked out the long, narrow window that lined the outer wall. The stars were white glowing halos beckoning him—as they always did. Life upon a dying planet sent many Amenon in flight, towards other planets. Towards hope. Val was no exception.

Hours passed and the weight of Haley’s presence faded, leaving Val to strengthen his resolve. The humans weren’t to be trusted, even those belonging to the Earthguard, which seemed to pride itself on guns and rules. In that order.

For the first time since starting the mission, he felt hopeless. Val folded his hands together and closed his eyes, resting his forehead along the tight line of his thumbs. Sharing his name with Haley had been an impulsive mistake.

He was a prince. He was a soldier. The words he spoke carried the fate of all his people, and the Earthguard were no merciful explorers. Every interaction put the planet at terrible risk. He had to get to the Exe and uncover the research inside the vessel—

Val’s jaw tightened. He sat up, rolling his shoulders back, and stared straight ahead once more. He was going to succeed. Despite all the mistakes—he would save his people. He would save his brother. He was close.

The Earthguard had captured the Exe. The ship was within their custody, on Opis. The final step of the mission was simple: he had to get off the brig.

His poised silence had already worked in his benefit, because the Earthguard couldn’t decide exactly how to persecute him—if they were going to persecute him at all. It didn’t seem likely he was going to be jettisoned into space. Based purely on the accommodations he’d been afforded, the ‘Guard had plans to keep him alive for some time. His cell held comforts he’d gone without for months. Clothes. Soft blankets. A mattress. A toilet. A sink. Even a window, looking out upon the stars. What’s more, they’d given him food. He’d gone weeks since his last meal and the Earthguard had handed one over with no fanfare at all, as if it were an expected luxury.

Opis wasn’t at all like he’d expected.

Haley wasn’t at all like the humans he’d grown accustomed to.

The lights overhead in his cell snapped off, suddenly, signaling the end of his second day aboard the station. He shifted on the cot provided and laid back. As he lay there, tired but unafraid, Val knew one thing for certain: humans were consistently full of error. He would capitalize on a mistake. Eventually.

#

“I didn’t agree to this,” Haley said.

General Owens stared down at him from her angled nose and said, “You did, in fact.”

He gestured fervently at the door to which he had no key, around the room he was trapped inside until told otherwise. “You’ve put me in here without access to my phone, to my living quarters, to my garden. You have to let me out.”

“No,” she replied, “I don’t.”

Haley felt his face grow hot. He stared at Owens, crossed between a feeling of disbelief—had this entire day been a bad dream?—and fury. He jerked away and looked back over the room. He likened it to a very well-cleaned closet. The ceiling and floor were both slate gray; solid sheets of metal that vibrated every subtle movement he made. “This is absurd.”

The line between Owens’ eyebrows creased and she spoke slowly, methodically. “You’re being quarantined within the brig because your assignment is extraordinarily confidential. The fact is—you signed a document agreeing to the Earthguard contractor terms. Which included the possibility of a quarantine. Right now, you work for me, and right now, you are to remain within the walls of the brig until it’s safe for you to leave.”

“My garden—”

“Will be tended to by Opis herself. Unless you’re especially bad at your job, I do believe the flowers can go quite some time without pointless doting.”

Haley was struck silent, deeply insulted in a way that transported him back to his childhood. He’d lived his whole life knowing and openly accepting his differences, and was endlessly held in contempt for them. Things had gotten better as he got older, and improved even more when he entered into the sciences as an academic. His advancements and research had yielded endless results that his peers couldn’t deny. He was a glorified gardener, yes, but he was damn good at it.

Owens was certainly not getting a fruit basket.

Haley’s thoughts were transparent enough for her to bristle uncomfortably, as if she realized she was out of line. “That is—” she cleared her throat, “I assure you we will check the garden several times daily.”

Haley didn’t reply, watching her flatly, jaw tight.

“Ari will show you the facilities the guards use when they’re stationed in the brig for twenty-twos.”

“Twenty-twos?”

“Twenty-two day shifts.”

Haley looked over to Ari, who was waiting patiently behind Owens in the doorway. It’d only been an hour or so, but Ari had changed out of the combatant uniform he’d worn when he picked Haley up at the garden. He was wearing casual fatigues instead.

Twenty-two days was nothing to sniff at. Even Sylvan, Haley’s best friend, didn’t work that long—and he was a medical officer with the Earthguard with an almost endless schedule. He didn’t even get holidays—but Haley had never heard of him working twenty-two days straight. “Is that even safe?”

Owens’ lips pursed. “It’s why we have sleeping quarters assigned.”

“For what it’s worth,” Ari added, saluting Owens as he spoke, “This particular pod you’re staying in is one of the nicest we have. The bed’s new. Newer than yours above deck, I bet.”

“Lucky me.”

Ari tried to hide a smile behind a polite cough.

Owens checked her watch, and then her phone, and her brows pinched together in thought. “I’ve got a meeting. I’ll leave you with Ari. Goodnight, Haley.”

Haley tried to smile and bared his teeth instead. Ari saluted again as she passed and then took a step inside the holding cell—the “assigned living quarters”—where Haley was to remain confined.

“I bet you wanna get out of those clothes, huh?” Ari said.

It was low-hanging fruit, but Haley was tired, so he said, carelessly, “I’d really rather get to know you first.”

There was a moment where neither spoke, and the puzzled look on Ari’s face cleared into one of sheer apprehension. “I—I—wow, Lovell, I really didn’t mean for that to sound the way it did.”

Haley snorted and stretched out his arms. “I knew what you meant. I was kidding.” And then, because Ari’s red face was growing only darker, Haley laughed and said, “It was an obvious joke because I’m constantly sleeping with men without getting to know them first.”

Ari appeared to short-circuit. He took a step backwards and Haley burst into a laugh.

“I’m joking. I’m joking, Ari! I’m sorry; you set it up!”

Ari coughed out a single laugh and started to look anywhere that wasn’t Haley. “Right, yeah, I got you. Uh, so—no showers, then?”

“A shower will be nice. Thanks.”

He nodded stiffly, backed up out of the doorway, and started down the hall. He stopped at an alcove and pointed to a flat digital reader. “Put your wrist up to this to get a uniform each day. You can deposit old ones in the hamper in your room.”

The wristband-or-shackle Haley wore had his permanent visitor identification embedded, so when he swiped it across the reader, the alcove was filled with a whirl of simple gray jumpsuits. He snagged one.

“Gray will identify you to everyone as a guest. The guards wear navy fatigues. The convicts wear white jumpsuits.” Haley nodded, holding out his new uniform. It wasn’t incredibly different from the one he wore to the garden, except that it was much cleaner, and recently pressed. Ari shifted beside Haley. He looked back and forth down the empty hall before leaning down to whisper, “It’s true that it’s an Amenon, isn’t it?”

Haley leveled him with an unimpressed stare. “I’m being held in here because your general doesn’t trust that I can’t keep a secret. Should I really talk to you about this?”

Ari stood straight, blushing again. “I guess not.”

Haley sighed. “Showers?”

“This way.”

The showers and bathroom were not unlike the communal baths on the civilian decks. There were large tubs of heated water—some with special properties for a variety of ailments, including headaches, backaches, scrapes, bruises, nausea, fatigue, and stress. There were also showers along the opposite slate wall, and behind those, urinals and toilets. Some of them were out of order—a robot whirred away in one corner of the bath, adjusting a pipe.

Haley spotted Ari waiting by the sliding door to the bath, leaning against one wall, tapping on his phone.

“Are you supposed to stand there and watch me?”

Ari looked up. “What?”

“While I shower. To make sure I don’t run off or something.” Not that he could activate the lock-lift, even if he did make it out.

Ari seemed frozen in place. His brows pinched together and his eyes, for the first time, didn’t stray. Instead they tracked down Haley’s front, and then back to his face.

Haley could predict what came next: a flirtatious invitation to stay, a quick encounter in the shower, and rumors about this night for the next six months. He wasn’t surprised, not really, by the look. Curiosity wasn’t a rare trait among men in space. Haley was curious too. 

But not about Ari.

The image of Val spread across that cot in his cell flashed across Haley’s mind. He shook his head and cleared his throat. He was too overwhelmed—too inexplicably fascinated with Val—to do anything but bathe, and maybe eat, and then sleep. “I’ll be done in a minute.”

Ari nodded as if he hadn’t expected anything else and said, “I’ll wait outside.”

Chapter 3: An

Something wasn’t right. 

Val could tell from an initial scan. Haley walked into the cell slowly, knuckles white on the text he had hugged against his chest. It should have been a relief to see him drawn in on himself. A reprieve from his charisma, and the warmth that radiated off him like a star. 

This version of Haley, slow and quiet, would make it easier for Val to distance himself. 

But Val’s thoughts weren’t of his mission, or the Exe, or even his home. Instead, his jaw tightened, eyes scouring for an obvious injury. Humans were weak and Haley didn’t seem particularly adept to fight. There were dark half-moon shapes beneath his eyes and he opened his mouth in a long yawn before turning to Val.

“Qha,” Haley said.

Val found himself replying, because he couldn’t ask what had happened. “Qha, Haley.”

Haley’s eyes lit up, rounding a bit, and a fraction more color filled his face. Val nodded, then, satisfied that at least Haley wasn’t dying, or gravely injured. He asked, “Did you sleep alright?”

Val didn’t reply.

“I couldn’t fall asleep last night,” Haley said, and then he laughed. “I kept reaching for my stupid fucking phone even though I don’t have it with me.”

Ah, Val understood. Humans needed rest—consistent rest—or else they’d become physically and mentally incapacitated. It was an exploitable weakness he’d noted over months of studying the raider crew.

Haley sniffled, rubbed his nose, and lowered himself to the floor like he had the day before. “They keep it cold as hell down here,” he muttered. He flipped open the text. “I’m going to keep reading this but we both know it’s an exercise in futility.” He didn’t look up. Silence stretched between them. After several moments, Haley scoffed.

Because Haley knew Val spoke English.

He studied on the floor for some time, well into the morning, hunched over the book, one hand holding back his long hair out of his eyes. Food arrived but Haley mostly ignored it, picking at a piece of bread thoughtlessly as he remained entranced with page after page of dense text. He had pulled out a pen at some point, making notes in the margins.

Val noticed he didn’t smell like earth anymore. He would have been disappointed, but it was altogether easier to concentrate when Haley smelled nearly of nothing—vague traces of soap and sweat. How could Haley have smelled so strongly of the outdoors the day before? Were they close to a planet? He glanced out the window into the stars. It didn’t seem so. Amenon was likely the closest planet to the station. Haley certainly wouldn’t’ve been gardening on Amenon. Their vegetation was failing—almost entirely gone.

Val’s memory stretched before him of Amenon when he left. Barren, dusty landscapes, and sickly brown clouds overhead, and the utter silence of what was once a bustling village outside of his home city. Death and disease were rampant, but there was hope—some research Amenon scientists had conducted had proven there was a chance for them to save the planet with some antidotes. But the research—and the formulas for antidotes—were eradicated by the millions-of-years-old nanites that were meant to protect and fuel the planet. 

The nanites were the first to die when disease struck Amenon, and their death had rippling consequences that shut down the entire world over the course of several years. It began when Val was a child. But he’d been old enough to remember the way things were—he remembered the flowers that bloomed on the wall of the palace. He remembered their array of vivid purple and pink. He remembered how soft their petals had been. 

He remembered how they smelled.

Haley, inexplicably, walked into his cell smelling like home.

Val had trained for years to detach himself from the trauma that encompassed his life. To focus. To power through. To march forward. And all of that was dismantled by the bright smile and brown eyes of one small human.

“Amenon won’t be visible out that window for another six days,” Haley said.

Val snapped his head straight.

“That’s what you were looking for, right?”

Val dared to meet his eyes. He raised an eyebrow.

“You know—” Haley flipped a page, pointed with his finger, and said, “Vhounon.”

Home.

Something in Val felt tight. Uncomfortable. Haley continued, “That’s what you were looking for, wasn’t it? Your home. Vhounon. Amenon.” He flipped another few pages. “Sed?” Yes?

Impossibly bright, Val thought. Haley was impossibly bright. He’d even managed to replicate a traditional—albeit dated—Amenon accent. “Sed. Amenon t’vhounon,” Val said. Yes. Amenon is my home.

Haley’s head tilted, hair spilling down his face. “T’vhounon.” My home.

Val snorted before he could stop himself. “Hed. G’vhounon’h.” No. It’s not your home. Haley’s eyes rounded. “Earthling.”

He seemed confused, and then: “Ah—” Realization dawned over Haley’s face. “Earthling?” Haley laughed, the sound a warm ringing between Val’s ears. He mimicked Val’s account as he said, “Eact-ling.”

Val refused to scoff, but the urge bubbled in him. English pronunciation was a travesty. The R sound, the TH sound—anomalies among the dozens of languages Val had learned.

“I love the way you speak,” Haley said, gesturing into the air, and he laughed again. “Eact-ling. It almost sounds French.”

Val took a moment to examine Haley once more. There was something wrong with the way Val felt when he laughed. Something nagged at him from the back of his mind, like he’d missed something obvious. 

Haley caught him staring more intensely and tilted his head at him, vividly brown eyes glinting in the starlight that trickled in from the window.

His beauty was like a cold slap and Val realized what it was he’d missed: Haley was incredibly attractive. Physically. Sexually.

And while Val didn’t know the exact human definitions of beauty, he had a suspicion Haley was considered attractive to them, too. He had his own gravitational pull in a way that transcended beyond planets and alien races. His full mouth and long neck and calloused hands were beckoning for touch.

The Earthguard had planted an attractive, friendly, seemingly harmless human inside his cell. If they’d been smart, it would have been intentional. They could have capitalized on Val’s isolation, his loneliness. He was cold and distant as a rule, but he had a mounte: a soul. It craved a matching soul. It craved Haley.

And with that understanding, Val shuttered himself closed again. 

He didn’t believe the humans, the Earthguard, were smart or coordinated enough to have planted Haley intentionally. They could have used him to gain Val’s favor in friendship—or in sex. 

But his calculations were clear: the chances of the humans using Haley in that way were practically zero. 

But the chances of Haley seducing him if he really tried were significant enough to note, file away, and close off with a menacing glare.

Haley looked startled. “Val?”

Val turned towards the stars again. They winked at him and he let his systems reach out, digitally scanning the star placement. It would take time to decipher his scan. Time that would be spent silently inside of himself, with no distractions.

“Is everything—” Haley stopped short. “Nevermind.”

The scan lasted a minute. Val’s eyes strayed. Haley was, once again, buried in his book, pen held tightly between his fingers. His lips moved to form some word he read on the page, and his head tilted slightly, brows furrowing, as he concentrated on its meaning. He bit his lip and slid his pen across the text’s surface.

And the second realization dawned that day—

Haley didn’t know. Haley didn’t realize the power he had over Val’s thoughts. Val watched him as he read the dissertation with single-minded focus. He meant only to learn the Amenon language to communicate with Val academically, systematically, and so he was studying, practicing, and patiently reaching out. He had no intention of pursuing friendship. He felt no desire to deepen his bond with Val sexually. He wasn’t going to use his looks, or his body, in any advantage. No, he was a scholar, and that was all. 

Val had never felt so certain of something in his life: Haley wouldn’t know the first thing about seducing a man for information. 

#

On the third day of his mission, Haley decided he was going to seduce Val for information.

Sort of.

He walked into Val’s cell, pepped up, in fresh clothes, hair styled, and his confidence plummeted. It was one thing to imagine casting meaningful, thousand-word looks to a big fuckin’ alien captive—it was another to actually cast them towards a really, really big fuckin’ alien captive. It was like the Amenon took a regular human, sized them up by twenty percent, and said, “Yep, that’s our people. What do you mean, ‘That’s kinda scary?’”

Val was sat with his back against the wall, eyes closed, jaw set tight. Haley cleared his throat. Confidence be damned; Haley wanted to be done with it already. He wanted to go home, to the decks above, back to his garden. It’d only been three days, but he missed it terribly. And every day that passed was one day fewer he’d get to spend with his roses before he was ripped away from them permanently. He’d had that realization in the shower the night before, and spent his night tossing and turning in pure frustration.

And since Val continued to play dumb—even though he knew that Haley knew that he spoke English—Haley was going to do what he could without any verbal cues. Val seemed to consistently respond in the subtlest of ways when Haley talked, and those subtleties were going to be his ticket out. He glanced up at the ever-observant camera in the corner of the room and squinted, no doubt in his mind that someone was watch dutifully. 

He couldn’t outright say, “This Amenon you have captive is fluent in English, by the way,” because Haley had no doubt the Earthguard would tear Val apart for lying. Haley wasn’t that cruel, and he had his suspicions for why Val was so stubbornly mute. No, he was going to have to crack through Val’s well-constructed emotional barrier his own way.

He stared for a minute more, questioning himself—who was he to act like he knew what was going on?—but finally said, “Val.”

Val didn’t move; didn’t even open his eyes. But the highest arch of his brow lifted marginally. He was listening.

“Why are you here and not on Amenon?”

Val’s eyes opened but he simply stared forward, strange yellow eyes tracking back and forth in thought.

“Valouatthiaslouan,” Haley said, “T’ami? T’ami’h?”

Val turned, startled, eyes wide. Haley wondered, briefly, if he’d created the wrong word. And he had created it. After several days reading Sella’s study, Haley was able to mathematically replicate the pattern in which the Amenon alphabet created words. Every syllable had a different meaning, and combining them created words. It actually wasn’t unlike the way Chinese characters had been created, thousands and thousands of years ago. It was pretty fortuitous that he understood Mandarin, but he was really hoping that Owens would never find that out. He wouldn’t want her thinking any part of this contract was a good idea. 

It wasn’t.

He believed that his combination of ta, am, ia, and ha had produced the expected word: friend. He repeated himself, slowly, approaching the cot where Val remained stone still. “T’ami, Val?” Are you my friend? And with an exhalation at the end, -h, “T’ami’h?” Are you not my friend?

A ghost of a look of pain passed over Val’s face. Haley’s heart thunked against his ribs, and disappointment gripped him. He hadn’t done it right.

“Sed?”

Val moved so quickly that Haley didn’t understand what was happening until he was pinned against the opposite wall and Val barked, “T’ami’h va yat oh g’ami, Haley.” His enormous hands of blackish blue held Haley by his biceps, pressing him against cold steel.

Haley’s mind caught up to his body and he gasped. It was the closest they’d ever been to one another, even in the tiny shared space of Val’s cell, and Haley could see the smooth, soft texture of Val’s skin—and the shadow of hair that was growing in along his jaw and the top of his head. He shook his head in a frantic motion. “Val, no. You can’t touch me. They’ll shock you. Your collar—” Haley jerked his nose towards the silver tattoo at the base of Val’s neck.

Val glanced down at the exact moment the malfunction happened.

The lights shut off. For a moment, they were pitched into blackness.

“What?” Haley went taut in fear. Several seconds ticked by before emergency lights of a very dim blue lit along the walls around them.

And then the gravity failed. The first indication was the utter silence that took over the cell—no engine noise humming around them—and the second was that Val’s hands fell away. Val looked from Haley down to his open palms curiously, and then around the cell.

“Is this—are they doing this because of you?” Haley shot a bewildered look to Val and felt himself levitate upwards. “Shit,” he said, curling his legs up under himself. Having been raised in space, Haley had trained many times in zero-g. But those were well-surveyed exercises, typically with a dozen other people, everyone tucking and spinning precisely as ordered.

Val drifted backwards and then down, until there was an audible clink of his feet hitting the floor. Haley blinked at him, squinting through the dark. Did Amenon make their own gravity somehow?

Haley watched as Val outstretched a hand to the wall. It snapped into place with another clink. “Magnets. You—you’re magnetic?”

Val tilted his head up to Haley and his eyes were glowing in the dark, enough for him to see an arched eyebrow.

Haley collided with the ceiling above, gently, and tried to keep his knees tucked towards his chest. The silence, the complete lack of engine noise, was unsettling—unnatural. Haley felt his hair stand on end and he whispered, “I don’t think this is because you touched me, Val.” He lifted his wrist, arm trembling. “Opis, status please.”

“Software malfunction in BR-006-A, B, C, D, F,” his bracelet—Opis, with her robotic, patient voice—replied.

“Software malfunction? Opis, what software malfunction?”

“Unknown.”

Haley’s heart began to race. “Opis, does the ‘Guard know I’m down here?”

“Unknown.”

“Opis, can you contact one of the guards, please?”

There was a chime as Opis processed and attempted the request, and then a lower beep to confirm failure. “Communication systems are inoperable in all BR levels.”

“Opis, am I in danger?”

A chime and some silence. “I am repairing the systems,” she said. “Please remain in place. Please do not panic. Please follow zero-g protocol for best safety assurance.”

In the twenty-two years Haley had lived aboard Opis, and even on all ships he’d ever traveled aboard, Haley hadn’t experienced gravity system failure. It didn’t happen in this day and age. There were stories about the first steps of space exploration, and how much of it had been done without the use of artificial gravity, but in modern day? Gravity was as much a given as as the ever-stretching blackness outside every window of Opis. It just was .

Haley’s breathing was the only sound in the cell, and the more he could hear it, the louder it became. The faster it became. He felt his limbs begin to shake, and he started to feel very distant from his body, mind slowly spilling away in an array of fear and panic.

Was the oxygen next to go? How deep did the system failure run? And as that thought crept into his mind, Haley could feel it. The thinning of the air. “No,” he choked out. “No, no—” The guards didn’t know where he was at. He was cold and alone at the very bottom of his space station and no one would even know he was dead.

He didn’t want to die. His hands scrambled for purchase against the smooth metal of the ceiling, where he’d managed to settle, but the movement managed only to push him away. He choked in air, but he couldn’t breathe. How long could he go without oxygen? Two minutes? Three?

The realization hit with a spiking, feverish panic: he was going to die.

A pair of tepid hands slid against his forearms, steadying his spin. A low voice whispered, “Shhh.” A hand pressed against his sternum, until he was pinned to one wall, and the pressure grounded him there.

Haley’s eyes, blurred in his hysterical state, blinked up until he saw glowing yellow. “I can’t breathe,” he managed to wheeze.

The hand pressed against his sternum. “You are safe, Haley.”

The words settled like a heavy, warm blanket against a constant battering of icy wind. Haley gasped in air and his arms and legs tingled as the oxygen hit his system again. He took a breath in, and then out, and then in again. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to come back to himself, but it had to be minutes. He blinked up and realized Val was holding him against the wall, so that he was standing upright, with a hand flat in the center of his chest.

He squinted in the dark at Val’s yellow eyes, watching him mindfully.

That was certainly embarrassing—Haley hadn’t had a panic attack in front of anyone other than Sylvan in his whole life. His face began to burn. Voice mild, Haley said, “Did you just speak?” 

And Val smiled with just one corner of his lips—right as the systems were restored. 

The light was blinding the moment it came on, and there was a terribly loud creak as the gravity was restored, and Dr. Sella’s dissertation hit the floor with a thud. Haley felt his weight slump against Val’s hand, but Val didn’t move in the slightest. Haley hissed as his pupils adjusted.

And then it was like the malfunction was this tiny pocket of time in which nothing had happened at all, because reality picked back up exactly where it left off, and Haley realized he was being pinned to the wall by Val still. He gasped.

“Val, get back. You can’t touch me, they’ll attack y—”

Haley felt static before the collar around Val’s neck screamed to life with a high-pitched squeal and a thunderous bolt of electricity. Val made a soft sound, somewhere between a grunt and a sigh, and collapsed to his knees. Two guards burst into the cell, firearms at the ready.

“No,” Haley shouted, “No! Stop!”

The butt of one gun collided with the side of Val’s head, sending him sprawling backwards. 

Haley screamed, “Stop!” And threw himself forward, only to be caught around the waist by the second guard. “Let go of me,” he hissed, thrashing, “I said to stop! Stop—you’ll kill him—” Val arched back on the ground, white, straight teeth grit in agony. The other guard had the remote in hand, holding it towards Val, increasing the wattage with the click of a button. “Stop! Please! I’ll do anything! Please, don’t kill him! I can’t watch someone else die. I can’t. I can’t!”

His mom’s slack, gray face filled his mind, and for the second time in minutes, Haley seized in panic. But this time, fat tears blurred his vision.

“God, please, don’t—”

“Hey,” one of the guards said, “Hey, hold on—it’s okay. Shit.”

The hum of electricity stopped.

“He wasn’t hurting me, he wouldn’t hurt me,” Haley blabbered, sobbing now, “Please don’t kill him.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Owens barked from the doorway. She was out breath, and hand a conspicuous handgun strapped to her belt, and a radio fastened to one shoulder. She’d clearly sprinted to Val’s cell as soon as the malfunctioned had restored, expecting the worst.

The two guards jumped back and then at attention, leaving Haley to collapse beside Val. He immediately checked that he was alive, and he was. Val blinked at him, looking tired for the first time in their three days together, but he was completely unmarked otherwise.

“I expect an answer when I ask you a question,” Owens said.

“Ma’am, yes. When we restored systems, the Amenon had Lovell pinned to the wall.”

“No!” Haley said, throwing himself over Val, almost sitting on his chest, in a clumsy attempt to shield him. “He didn’t. He was holding me still—because the gravity failed—he’s—he’s got magnets. There are magnets. He was holding me—safe—” he sniffed, hiccuped, and said, “He was helping me.” He rubbed his face off on one sleeve to compose himself some and grit his teeth. “He’s not dangerous like you think.”

Owens casted judgmental, dark looks over her guards.

“We were following protocol, ma’am,” the guard said. “We had no way of knowing.”

“Protocol? Were you not appraised of protocol around Lovell, lieutenant?”

“I—” the guard stopped himself from continuing and nodded. “I’m sorry, ma’am. We were moving on instinct. It was my mistake.”

Haley sniffed and wiped at his face with one trembling hand, crouched over Val like he wasn’t sure what the guards’ next move would be. “Protocol?”

Owens looked at him, but where he expected sympathy, he received only blank professionalism. “Dr. Singh had provided your records, Haley. We know not to attack anyone where you could see it, if possible to avoid. Because of your post-traumatic stress disorder, we were trying to avoid…” she glanced him up and down and her shell cracked, finally, brows pinching together in a moment of concern. “This.”

Sylvan Singh—his best friend, a physician aboard Opis, and one of the only people intimately familiar with Haley’s trauma. Sylvan had been the first person there after he’d been forced to watch the sudden and bloody death of his mom. Sylvan had held Haley, let him shiver into his blankets in his pod, for days—weeks—after.

It had been a slow recovery, but he had recovered—some—thanks to Sylvan. Even now, years later, and without even knowing it, he was helping Haley still.

Haley jerked his head up and down, to acknowledge that Owens had said something, but he couldn’t really talk. He hiccuped again.

“Come on. Help him up,” Owens said.

Haley jerked back, closer to Val. “You aren’t going to kill him.”

“No. Our cameras were inoperable during the malfunction, but—” she squinted at Val, who had pushed up to his elbows, blinking. “We have no reason to believe he wasn’t helping you, as you say.”

The guards approached carefully, pulling Haley to his feet. They began to guide him to the door.

“Wait—” Haley’s voice caught. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m not done for the day, am I?”

Owens’ face was one of pure disbelief. “Yes. You’re done.”

“I hadn’t—” Haley looked back to Val, who was gingerly pushing himself to his feet. “I hadn’t even started.”

“You’re completely compromised. I wouldn’t expect you to work after this. And we have to have crews sweep every cell that was affected during the malfunction. The Amenon is going to be temporarily displaced.”

“His name is Valouatthiaslouan.”

“That’s what he told you, yes.”

Haley shot her a look of pure disbelief and then scoffed in disgust. “Whatever, general.”

Owens nodded at the guards and they released Haley from their hold, and Owens motioned for him to follow as she ascended the stairs. “He’ll be there tomorrow.”

Haley swallowed hard, but had no energy to argue. He followed behind, each step heavier than the last.

#

The upper levels of the brig were crowded, noisy, and smelled suspiciously of oil and blood. And the floors weren’t smooth like Val was used to on the sixth—they were made of bumpy, textured metal with conspicuous dents and gouges every few feet. The lights overhead were bright and occasionally pulsing, like they were connected to the arteries of Opis herself.

As one of the level-six inmates, Val had been forced into a special jumpsuit that included a hood that would properly hide his identity. The black mask closed in around the collar at his neck—something he was all too sensitive towards now that he’d experienced what it could actually do. Not much that the humans had done to him had caused actual pain. The collar? This tattoo they’d painlessly applied when he was first captured by the ‘Guard?

It was agony.

He tried not to think about what had happened the previous day, when Opis’ systems broke down. He tried not to think about the pain. But what he really, truly tried to not think about was Haley. He’d been so warm to the touch. Humans ran warmer than Amenon, but he’d never truly felt it until yesterday. And Haley was so light—half the weight, if not less, than Val himself. He could hold him up entirely with one hand.

His attraction to Haley was as unwelcome as it was incessant.

He tightened his fists, gloves creaking under his grip, and turned his attention outwards. He was out of his mind. He couldn’t control his memories. They were unrelenting. Up close like that, Haley smelled like flowers again, like there was some garden hidden within him, floral and green.

Val was fairly certain the hooded jumpsuit he now wore would have muffled all sound and blurred all vision if he’d been human. As it were, it was like viewing the world through a dim bubble. The other level-sixes were standing in a line against one wall, unmoving, presumably because their senses were appropriately blocked. The group was shackled together in a long line of chain, staring outwards into some sort of mess hall. The other prisoners, the ones from other levels, paid them little attention.

At least not conspicuously. Val caught a few looks in their direction. And more than once he’d heard the word whispered: Amenon. Apparently rumors had spread quickly. And apparently the other inmates really wanted nothing to do with the level-sixes, Amenon or not. They were the dangerous ones, after all—the serial killers, the rapists, the genocidal maniacs. And, well, an Amenon.

Val would have been insulted to be lumped in with a group of degenerates, but he was grateful to be so perfectly isolated. In truth, his quiet empty cell was welcome peace. And the only other person he ever got to see was gentle and respectful and wanted so terribly to keep him alive.

The inmates from other floors weren’t quite as open-minded. They seemed utterly feral in comparison. They snarled at one another in passing, teeth gnashing, limbs twitching.

Two guards passed over the level-sixes. One of them stopped in front of Val, glancing him up and down a few times. “Ari?” the guard called. The second guard, Ari, strolled over to the first, hands fastened on the black rifle he held at his front. “You think this is the one?”

Ari nodded. “I mean, if the rumors are right, it’d be this one.”

“He’s not that tall.”

“He’s the tallest one in the room.”

“Still.” The guard shrugged.

Ari snorted. “You gonna go check on the fives? I’ll stay here with the sixes for a few. Just to keep a look out.”

The other guard shrugged. “If you want. Where’s Axel?”

“Dinner.”

“Fuck this understaffing. There should be a dozen of us in here right now. Not two.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Ari said. “Don’t worry. I got this group. Go check the fives. We’ll meet up after.”

“Got it. Thanks, man.”

Ari’s smile was bright and white, skin pale. Val’s rudimentary analysis determined he was a year older than Haley at age 23, and well-trained for combat, with a diet ripe in protein. He was blond, Val knew, though Ari’s head was covered from the nose up by a visor fastened to a navy helmet. The Earthguard insignia was emblazoned across the temples. He was fairly big, as far as humans went, with broad shoulders and a trim waist fastened with a variety of weapons. Val noted the remote—the one that controlled the electric pulses on his collar. His hand twitched, fists tightening again, and he found himself wanting Haley nearby.

Foolish. Pointless. Haley couldn’t save him if the ‘Guard decided he was meant to die. Even if he wanted to step in, to save this prisoner he didn’t even know, he was helpless. Frankly, Haley’s tears the day before had been more useful than his pitiful attempt at shielding Val from their guns. He was completely untrained. And weak.

So why did Val feel so grateful? 

Why did Val feel safer in his presence?

Ari turned back to Val when the other guard departed. He lifted his visor, revealing sharp blue eyes. They tracked down Val’s body thoughtfully. After a moment of silence, he turned away, and walked down the line of prisoners, all standing numbly against the wall. All wearing black masks. Ari stopped at the third. He slid a hand into the back pocket of his navy jumpsuit and the mask of the person he was next to flickered in and out, like he had disabled some sort of field between them. Ari leaned in. “It worked.”

“I told you it would.”

“Yep. We’re good to go.”

“Is there anything else?”

“One of the sixes is probably an Amenon.”

“What?”

“He’s either a giant human, Tarotan, or Vn—or an average Amenon.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. If he actually is—he doesn’t speak English or Gacommon. He’ll probably be disoriented during the escape. And if what we know about them is true, he could be a pain in our ass. If he decides he wants to stop us, he might be able to do it.”

“You believe that that bullshit about Amenon being able to lift ten tons? That they can snap human necks with one hand? That shit’s fairytales, Young.” A scoff. “He’s a prisoner here like any of us.” Val peered discreetly at the inmate. His analysis was stunted by her full-coverage jumpsuit, but nevertheless he knew she was a woman, mid-twenties, with an above-average height and weight rating. “If anything, he’ll be on our side.”

“You speak Amenon, Court?”

“No, but I think he’ll be able to read the message clearly enough when we sever Owens’ head. Besides, if he has a problem, we’ll stop him. We outnumber the ‘Guard and an Amenon ten to one.”

Ari snorted in response, but Val noted the way his pulse ticked up. “There’s going to be a civ, too.”

“You’re kidding. For fuck’s sake. What’s a civilian doing in the brig?”

Ari shook his head. “A kid named Haley Lovell. He’s on special assignment to learn some alien language. Probably Amenon. That’s where all the rumors are coming from.”

“Fuck him. We’ll gut him like everyone else.”

“He might be more useful alive.”

“Oh?”

Ari shrugged. “He speaks several languages, and Owens seems soft on him. Most of the ‘Guard is, I think. He’s one of the first spaceborn.”

“Ah, I see.” There was a beat of silence before the inmate said, “You sweet on him, Young?”

Ari shifted, hands tightening on his weapon. “Come on. Don’t go there.”

“I’m only asking if you want to fuck him.”

“Courtney.”

“You seem terribly invested in keeping him alive.”

“Fuck’s sake. Kill him, then. Jesus.”

“You said he’s working with the Amenon. He speak any?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, it’s all rumors right now. Owens has reported positively on the mission so far.”

“Interesting.” Silence fell over the pair until the prisoner, Courtney, added, “It really doesn’t change anything.”

Ari nodded.

Courtney continued, “Confirm it with Mia.”

“Two days. Thirteen-hundred hours.”

“That’s right.”

“The Exe’ll be ready.”

It was like a clap of thunder between Val’s ears.

The Exe.

The expies were going to behead Owens and take his ship.

And they were going to kill Haley.

“Two days,” Ari repeated. “I won’t be in contact until then.” Ari turned away, like he wasn’t addressing anyone, like he hadn’t discussed open and blatant betrayal. No one should have overheard—with the only people around being blinded by the masks. Ari fished into his back pocket once more, then snapped his visor back over his eyes, and continued walking down the line. Court was back into that stiff, unmoving position against the wall.

Ari—and the rest of the Earthguard—were clearly operating under the assumption that this jumpsuit muffled Val’s senses like it would any human captive. They were wrong, and now Val knew that this member of the ‘Guard was indisputably part of the malfunction that had sent Haley into hysteria, and that there was a second round coming. A second round that included substantial homicide.

But beyond that—if anyone was going to steal the Exe, it was going to be Val. Even if it meant letting Haley die. He wasn’t worth sacrificing the entirety of Amenon. He wasn’t worth compromising his mission.

Val’s stomach twisted. He had to save his people.

Chapter 4: Wa

Hours later Val was escorted back to his cell. Shackled together with the other level-sixes, they shuffled step after step down the stairs until they were each returned to their cells. Val noted that Court’s was located three down from his own.

Two guards pulled the hood off Val once he was securely inside his cell, and unfastened his cuffs.

“Lovell’s been asking about him,” one guard said, voice gruff.

“I feel bad about that shit, man.” Val looked into the man’s face and recognized him as one of the two guards that had been present during the activation of his collar. Something unsettling settled into his gut at the man’s cool, expressionless mask.

“Don’t be. You know that Amenon can’t hold grudges, right?”

“What, like, scientifically?”

“They don’t have feelings, man. They have no emotion. They’re robots.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense.” A shrug.

“Yeah. No hard feelings, here. Trust me.” The guard chuckled as they departed his cell, shackles and chains in tow. “He doesn’t care about anything.”

An impulsive fury flooded Val’s mind. And as soon as he was alone, door swished shut behind the guards, he reached up to the collar around his neck. He couldn’t grab purchase because the ink was imbedded in his skin. He dug his nails into it and grunted. He couldn’t scratch it off—it wasn’t going anywhere. 

Furious, Val thought to himself that he would absolutely let Haley die when the attacks came. One fewer human would be a benefit to the universe. All of the cruel whispered things he’d heard in the last four months came rushing back to him: robot, emotionless, monster, freak, unnatural, heartless, soulless, idiotic, useless, worthless—

He was going to leave Haley to die and would escape with the expies when the time came. He had to get aboard the Exe. He had to recover the research it contained.

The lights overhead clicked off, signaling the end of another day. As Val turned to his bed, he nearly stepped upon Haley’s book. The one he had been studying from. It sat where it’d fallen after gravity had been restored, untouched, pages bent. He scooped it up and folded down the pages slowly, walking over to his cot. There were scrawled notes throughout, but Val ignored them, focusing only on unfolding what he could. When he finished, he sat upon his bed and dropped the text flat on the floor.

On the back of the book, visible now, was Haley’s neat, short scrawl.

The Motives:

1. Home. He just wants to go home. 

2. He can’t trust humans. 

And circled beneath: help him.

Val remained unmoving for some time, seated in the dark. He eventually shifted, until he was laying flat, knees bent.

Haley was unique, and clever, and wonderful. It was infuriating. Humans, in his mind, were determined to take and destroy and rule over everything and everyone they encountered, with no room for understanding. Sure, they’d made allies with the Tarotans, but the Vn and Amenon were hardly even cordial in the outreaches of space—for good reason. The Earthlings wanted only to take.

Except Haley.

Haley stepped into this very cell, smelling of flowers and plants and dirt, with his thick curly hair fallen around his face, his eyes so bright, and earnest, and he learned—straightaway—how to say hello. Because saying hello was important to him. He’d given Val something he hadn’t realized he missed by speaking his own language at him.

Val pushed the butts of his hands into his eyes, teeth grit in frustration. Thinking about Haley only exasperated him, and made him more difficult to understand. He couldn’t stop, like picking at a mathematical equation he hadn’t been taught to solve yet.

And now he had to make a choice on whether or not Haley would die.

This was a problem he’d never be able to logically solve. Why was Haley so different from the other humans? Was it because he was neither an expie nor Earthguard? Did him being a civilian make his entire being utterly unique? Val had heard Ari call him spaceborn. Did being born among the stars grant him powers unlike any other human? Did it make him more understanding, somehow?

Haley had so easily reached the heart of Val’s motives, in only three days. And here Val sat on the fourth, utterly mystified with what drove Haley to act the way he had. He’d implored the guard to spare Val. He’d insisted on ensuring his safety. He’d learned how to say hello in Amenon so he could greet Val in a way he hadn’t heard in months. He had taught himself the word friend, so he could be Val’s friend. How utterly foolish, but remarkably kind—

When the time came, would Val really let Haley die?

He already knew the answer.

No.

He wouldn’t let the only good he had seen in the universe be eradicated by the insidious motivations of an unhappy crew. After all, Haley hadn’t asked to be there, in the brig. If Val understood correctly, Haley was trapped here, too. He was a prisoner by another name.

And now his life was intrinsically linked to Val’s.

Mind made up, Val settled into his bed, and forced himself to sleep. It worked, after some time, and his muscles relaxed into slumber. 

In his dreams, he saw flowers.

#

The last two days had been agonizing, and not just because Haley had been terribly worried that Val was going to get cornered and killed without his knowledge. The wait was agonizing because he had absolutely nothing to do. He hadn’t even Sella’s dissertation to study; it’d been left behind in Val’s cell after “the incident.”

That’s what everyone in the Earthguard was calling it. “The incident.”

Haley only heard passing chatter in the showers and in the mess hall, but he was now being escorted everywhere and couldn’t listen properly to the gossip. Everywhere he went—toilet, even—either by Owens herself was at his side, or occasionally a babysitter guard. No one acknowledged him, but instead moved stiffly in his presence like robots that had been ordered to avoid interaction.

Haley snorted an exasperated sigh as he stood in the middle of his room. People often called the Amenon robots. A misnomer—they were as alive as any other humanoid in the galaxy, with beating hearts, and homes, and loved ones. They just happened to have body parts that appeared similar in function to technology they have had on Earth for thousands of years.

You’d think the humans would like that about the Amenon. Their components were familiar and their culture functional in a way that made it easy to understand. Sure, there were very few of them left in the galaxy, which made them seem like a ghost story, and they were gigantic, which made them intimidating, but Haley had never thought of the Earthlings in space as cowardly—after all, they’d faced bigger and badder threats than anything like Val. And the Amenon had this appealing familiarity about them. Compared to, say, the Medese—stony humanoids with baffling customs and tech—the Amenon were like coming home.

And Haley felt like he understood Val from the minute they met. 

Inside his cell, Haley stretched, looked to the ceiling, and jumped. He was getting closer and closer to touching the smooth metal above. A few hours of stretching and leaping had done wonders. With nothing to do, he was climbing the walls, literally. Exerting himself, even a little, while contemplating some of life’s mysteries, was all he had to entertain himself.

When Owens finally darkened his doorway, it’d been ten hours since he’d seen her last, and his fingers had just managed to brush the ceiling. It was cold. As expected.

“What are you doing?” she asked, arms tucked behind her back. Haley sprawled against the wall, frozen, before scrambling to stand straight. His throat clicked as he swallowed.

“You know how if you put a rat in a box with nothing to do, it winds up like, chewing off its own leg?”

Owens’ face was trained especially still.

“Nothing,” Haley said. “Please tell me I can get back to work now.”

“You’re still confined to the brig,” she said.

“I mean—with Val. Or anything else you want me to do.” He dusted off his perfectly-clean jumpsuit. “I’d love to do anything that isn’t sitting inside this metal box, General.”

“Very well. Follow me,” she said. Finally, god, something to do. Not to mention—maybe a step closer to freedom. Being trapped with the ‘Guard was having a few unexpected and wholly irritating effects. Truthfully, he didn’t feel comfortable jerking off in the brig. And while he wouldn’t call himself incredibly sexual—hell, he’d gone an entire year without any sort of libido to speak of after his mom died—being around sweaty well-sculpted men and an Amenon whose presence said, “I have a monster cock and that’s how things are on Amenon,” was leaving him feeling, uh. Sensitive? Irritated.

Horny.

They started down a set of metal stairs towards the lower levels of the brig, where Val was held.

“So, what was it?” Haley asked, only steps behind Owens as she marched ahead. He stared at the back of her tightly buzzed white-gray hair. The collar of her well-pressed navy uniform was so heavily decorated with medals that they wrapped all the way around, sparkling in silver and gold.

“What was what?”

“The malfunction. ‘The incident,’ as they’re calling it down here. What happened?”

She tossed a look over her shoulder and then continued on. “An error born from our staffing shortage. The software systems on Opis hadn’t been properly secured.”

“Secured? Wait—were they hacked? Was Opis hacked?” Hacking into something as dense and powerful as the Opis space station was no small task. Chills rushed down Haley’s spine and he nearly fell out of step as they descended more stairs.

“No,” Owens said, the word a bit too sharp to be believed. “A conflict in the system’s programming caused unexpected downtime. It’s not an error that will not be repeated.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not an expert in our digital systems, Haley,” she said, opening one of the brig doors with her wristlet. “I’m simply relaying the information our engineers told me.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. The lights, the gravity...”

“In my twenty-three years of service with the Earthguard—” Owens started, and then stopped. She said, clipped, “I haven’t, either.” Haley blinked.

“You started with the ‘Guard the same time as my mom?” Twenty-three years almost exactly. Though she had passed, each year Haley was awarded an honorary badge for her service. Her merit award for year twenty-three had passed just months ago.

“Yes.”

“Did you know her?”

“Yes.”

“No way.” It made sense; they were both stationed on Opis. They were both women in fields dominated by men. Though Owens was military and Haley’s mom had been sci-ops, there was no way they hadn’t crossed paths more than once. Hell, on paper, they probably would have been close. “Wait, were you friends? Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“You didn’t recognize me and it seemed unnecessarily awkward for me to point out that you’ve met me several times in your life. Most recently at Petra’s funeral, in fact.” Only two years earlier. Haley remembered Owens’ disapproving stare when he’d walked into the brig on the first day and introduced himself. Like an idiot.

He felt himself flush head to toe at the memory and sputtered out, “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t remember.” The day of the funeral had been a blur of anguish, of hands stroking his back as he rushed to the toilets to puke, of gentle words. He couldn’t’ve picked a face out of the crowd even if asked. “I mean—I didn’t think mom had many friends.”

“Yes, well. She spent most of her time with Yao,” Owens said, and Haley wondered if it was his imagination or if Owens really had spat out his dad’s name like a curse. “Or with you.”

“Oh.” Now significantly more uncomfortable, Haley fell quiet.

They reached the solid panel that contained the hidden door to Val’s cell. Owens opened it and then stepped back. “We appreciate your service.”

“Uh, yeah. No problem,” Haley said, walking through the threshold. He tilted his head at Owens. “And I’m sorry.”

She blinked at him, face blank, before walking away.

After the cell door closed, he groaned and rubbed at his face with two hands. “Way to go, idiot.”

There was an exhale, almost like the sound of a quiet laugh, from Haley’s left. He turned to see Val seated upon his cot, a half-smile on his face.

“Ah, hi,” Haley said, eyes wide. “Qha.”

Val’s normal stare returned—the blank one that could have been carved from marble. “Qha, Haley.”

Silence passed between them until Val stood up. He had Sella’s book in-hand and he held it out—the entire thick, oversized text held easily in one hand. Haley looked down at it and realized it was right-side-down, with his personal notes written in plain sight along the back. A blush covered his face as he reached out for it.

Could Val read?

Jesus, Haley hoped he hadn’t gone through the text at length. He’d written several questionable things in the margins. Things like:

Do Amenon love? Sex??? Alien sex?? Weird. It’s probably hot. 

He looks like he would be married. Hot wife. Eighty kids?? Prime real estate. Blow-job is a weird word. Bloooowwwwweeee.

Face burning, Haley pulled the text to his chest. “Thanks,” he said, unable to meet Val’s stare.

And he was staring. It took a few minutes of quiet shuffling and adjusting the bent corners of the book to be sure, but… Val’s was hyperfocused on him. Haley looked up, finally, if only to ask if something was on his face. Something in Val’s intense, imploring stare made the words dry up. His breath caught. “What?” Haley asked. Val didn’t say anything—of course—but his eyebrows pulled down over his eyes and his fists tightened at his side. “What’s wrong?”

Val turned to the side, looking out the window into the stars outside. He looked almost pained, and Haley had a flash of worry that he was hurt somehow. He remembered how heavily he’d electrocuted.

Haley took a step forward and hesitated about a foot away. His eyes flickered involuntarily to the camera at the corner of the room, knowing that if he were to touch Val, the consequence would be immediate. “Val.” Haley’s hands tightened against the book he had hugged into his chest. “I know you have no reason to believe me when I say this, and I know there’s a chance you won’t even understand me, but—you can trust me. Okay?”

Val’s eyes pulled away from the stars and met Haley’s instead, hyperpigmented yellow glowing even in the bright light of the cell.

“Are you hurt?”

No response.

“Something happened when you were outside the cell.”

A barely perceptible exhale from Val’s nose was all the answer Haley needed. His pulse raced before fury flooded him inside and out.

Something had happened. Owens said Val wouldn’t be hurt. She had promised nothing would happen. She had lied. “I should know better than to trust the fucking Earthguard,” Haley hissed. “They hurt you? Of course they did. For fuck’s sake.” he began to pace back and forth just one step, back and forth impatiently. 

Val reached up and touched the thin silver collar tattoo at the base of his neck. Haley tracked the movement in his periphery and then kept pacing. “Haley,” Val said. The sound was sudden and startling and he nearly fell over his feet as he stopped. And then Val asked, question quiet but reverberating in the space like it’d been spoken in an arena, thundering inside Haley’s chest: “G’ami?”

G’ami.

Haley’s mind raced. G’ seemed to indicate that Val was referring to a second party—to Haley. Ami?

Friend?

Haley stared up at Val for a moment before he said, praying that the answer was right: “Sed, Valouatthiaslouan. T’ami.”

I’m your friend.

Val turned away and sat on his cot without addressing Haley again.

Deciding to return to his studies, Haley sank to the floor and opened Dr. Sella’s book across his lap. He fished the red pen from the pocket on his breast, and got to work reading where he’d left off: three-letter syllables. There were a number of Amenon sounds that humans are typically unable to replicate, Sella said. Haley pouted and read on, but he couldn’t help but to glance up every few minutes, wishing that Val would speak again, even in Amenon. There was a thrill in hearing him speak.

His voice was hot.

Haley blushed again and shifted the book across his lap.

After an hour or two of reading, Val had started fidgeting. Haley thought, at first, that he was imagining it. But no. It was apparent that Val was, once more, watching Haley closely. Finally, he sat the book down on the ground, and looked up.

When they met eyes, Haley raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a universal signal of, “Yes? What do you want?”

Val’s eyes dropped to Haley’s wrist.

His identification band? He looked at it, lifting his wrist so the small panel embedded lit up with the standard information: his name, his status, and the hour. He couldn’t take it off to give to Val, if he even wanted to. He blinked dumbly. And then he realized the lunch hour had passed, somehow. “Huh, weird. It’s already after thirteen-hundred. Our lunch is late.”

Val shot up straight where he was seated.

Haley blinked. “I’m sure it’ll be here. I didn’t even realize that much time had passed.”

Val’s eyes darted to the wall, where the entrance to the cell was hidden, and then back to Haley.

“Val?”

There was a thud of something hitting the wall outside. It was muffled and barely audible from inside the cell, but it made Haley jump nevertheless. He pushed to his feet. Val did the same.

Haley’s heart sank. His instincts picked up on it faster than his brain, but it got there eventually, piecing together the situation the very same way that the Amenon formed words: something big was happening. Val seeming concerned. Val being interested in Haley’s wristlet. The delay in lunch. The damp sound of something hitting the door. Haley’s brain screamed: something bad—something dangerous—something big—is happening.

And in the very next moment, the lights shut off and left Haley standing in pitch darkness. He gasped. “Oh no.”

The emergency lights came on just as they had during the malfunction and Haley braced himself for the gravity to fail. After several seconds, nothing changed—gravity still perfectly in-place—but Val had his fists clenched at his sides. The blue holographic emergency light cast across them both, twisting everything so Haley felt he was trapped inside something two-dimensional; a macabre vision of reality.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” Haley asked. Val looked to him and opened his mouth to speak, but the door to the cell swished open with an echoing hiss and cut him off.

A guard fell in. He collapsed in the threshold and the smell of blood hit Haley before he even noticed the red pool flooding out of the body. The guard was dead, shot through the middle, somehow. Haley recognized him as one of the special ops officers that operated outside Val’s cell specifically—one of the more highly trained guards, well-outfitted, and specifically stationed on level six.

Haley’s hands went numb. “Oh no,” he said again, voice sounding distant to himself.

He had to run. His mind screamed at him in panic: run. Move. Get out. As he looke down at the dead guard, his mother’s face flashed before him and Haley let out a panicked gasp. He stumbled forward and his limbs felt heavy, like he was underwater, or in a nightmare. He managed to escape the cell without falling or slipping in the gore at his feet. He gasped for air when he made it to the hall, vision blurred in his panic. Shaking, he placed his hands on his knees, and took a minute to breathe.

“What’s this?” a voice, chipper and sharp, cut through Haley like a knife. He jumped back with a gasp, until he hit the far wall of level six, and looked out to see a man. He had a clean-shaven head and a white jumpsuit identifying him as an inmate, and a weapon—one of the guard’s rifles—slung carelessly at his side. “I can’t really see shit in this dark. Is that a gray suit?”

He was a level six inmate. A murderer.

Haley realized belatedly, still not thinking clearly, that this man had killed the guard. Haley’s hands, still numb, were shaking as he pressed them to his front, looking down at the jumpsuit he wore. It was true the colors were hard to distinguish—the hall was filled with red and blue emergency lights, distorting everything around him. The red lights blinked every few seconds in a slow, rhythmic pulse.

“You’re a civ,” the inmate said.

Haley looked to him, wide-eyed, voice trapped in his throat. He nodded.

“What’re you doing down here, you pretty little thing?” The prisoner approached, and Haley had nowhere to go—not that he could have moved. He could make out the lines on the man’s face, deeply set, with a series of scars lining the sides of his head. His eyes were small and unreasonably blue, even in the dark. He’d been altered, Haley was certain. Cyberkinetic technology, a strictly illegal practice, was used to enhance human senses with varying degrees of success. “What’re they keeping you in a cell for, sweetheart?”

Terror streaked through Haley at the man’s sing-song tone and the affectionate names. He looked down at the gun the inmate had; large enough to blast through a wall if he charged it to maximum. He couldn’t even fight, not against that.

“Shh,” he said. “Don’t cry.”

“Don’t kill me,” Haley managed to choke out. 

The inmate laughed as he moved forward. He reached a hand out and Haley flinched back. At that, the inmate snarled, and lashed out. He grabbed onto Haley’s throat and squeezed. The dull points of his nails dug into Haley’s flesh and cut off his air. “You gotta know, begging really does it for me.”

Haley could only croak, vocal chords smashed in the inmate’s sweaty fist. Haley gripped his wrist between his two hands, trying—failing—to pull him off. The man was definitely enhanced. His strength was unnatural.

“This is like a dream. The door opens. The guard’s down here alone, wandering, confused. And then he dies, real easy. And out pops you.” the inmate said, stepping forward. “I’ve craved this for years, sweetheart. Fuck, this feels so fucking good.” His grip tightened.

Haley’s vision dimmed.

And then the inmate’s head popped like a ripe cherry between someone’s teeth. A spray of blood hit Haley across the face, but most of his skull, and brain, and face splattered off to the right with such force that it hit the far wall with a concussive bang. 

Val stood with his arm outstretched, holding the fallen guard’s second weapon. A pulse gun. Steam rolled out of its chamber from where it’d been fired.

Haley’s eyes tracked from Val’s face, to his arm, to his gun, and then back to the headless body pulling him forward. He gagged as he pulled the stiff hand off his throat, and cried out in panic as he shoved what was left of the inmate away from himself. He stumbled to the side, away from the spray of remains, and coughed as air entered his lungs again.

He fell back onto his ass. Shaking, sobbing, choking, he curled in on himself. His mom’s glassy, lifeless eyes haunted him; the smell of blood—was it her blood? It was like she had died again, right before him. She was gone and he was covered in her blood. Haley gagged as he ran his hands over his face, trying to clean himself, trying to get it off—

Cool, soft hands pulled his wet fingers away, and then cupped his face. “You are safe, Haley.” Tears continued to roll down his cheeks. Haley hiccuped and looked into Val’s face. Even crouched, he seemed enormous, towering over Haley. “Do not be afraid.” And somehow his size was comforting, like Val’s unmatched strength was a shield against everything that had gone wrong. Broad thumbs stroked Haley’s face, wiping away the blood and tears, while the rest of his fingers cupped his head, stroking soothingly against his hair.

He sat holding Haley for a long time, until his tears dried and his breathing was even again. Haley stared into Val’s eyes and eventually said, voice a hoarse whisper, “I knew you could talk.”

He was rewarded with a gentle stroke against his hair. “You are among the cleverest of your people, yes.”

Haley laughed humorlessly. “Am I?”

“Yes,” Val said, and he sounded so sincere, and the word was so full of—meaning, and depth. It was like he’d recited a soliloquy in a single syllable. Haley reached out and stopped himself short. “Can you stand?”

Haley’s heart thundered in his chest, but he could breathe again, and his limbs buzzed, but worked nonetheless. “Yeah—yes,” he said. Val stepped back, rising to his full height, while Haley pushed himself up. He looked out into the hall and cringed at the sight. The body of the guard still sat in the doorway, and the headless inmate was thrown haphazardly near one corner.

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for saving my life,” Haley said. 

“But I have made you uncomfortable. I sent you into a panic by killing the dangerous man.”

Haley shrugged. “I—” he looked down at his hands for a distraction. “It’s not your fault. My mom died in front of me a few years ago.”

“Mine did as well.”

Haley swung to look at Val, eyes wide.

“Half a century ago now, but the memory will remain in infinity.”

Haley willed himself not to cry. He nodded stiffly instead. And in perfect silence, like all the times before, they stood staring. Understanding. They didn’t need words; a shared experience like the death of a loved one—of a mother—transcended language entirely.

After a moment, Val walked towards the open staircase leading to levels above. He paused at the first step and looked to Haley. He raised one brow and Haley nodded in reply. He scrambled up behind him, and together they ascended the staircase up to level five.

It was eerily quiet. All of the cells were open, just as they had been on level six. Haley took a step towards one, to peer inside. Val reached out and slipped a hand around Haley’s arm, pulling him back. Haley nodded. Yes, he was right; it would be a terrible idea to inspect each room. If any inmate had remained, there was a distinct possibility they would be both dangerous and frightened.

Haley looked up to Val. He didn’t appear afraid, and it would have been easy to dismiss him as stoic, but there was something there. A line between his eyes. He was grappling with something internally. Was he afraid?

They moved to the next level, and the next, until they were standing on the third. They’d made it only two steps forward before the alarm sounded above. It startled Haley enough that he nearly fell over, and then flushed red-faced at Val’s concerned look.

“Does this have a meaning?” he asked, voice carrying over the noise. He pointed towards one of the blaring speakers.

Haley nodded. “It’s an alarm. This one—” Four staccato beats in rapid succession, “It’s a lockdown. We’re—uh, I’m supposed to find a place to hide and wait.”

“You do not fight,” Val said, and it wasn’t really a question. "The alarm means to hide.”

Haley nodded.

Val shook his head. “We cannot.”

"Okay,” Haley said. “You know, I’m not—” he started after Val as he took off towards the second level. “I’m not a soldier.” 

“Yes,” Val said. “This I know.”

“Oh.”

“I will protect you.”

Haley laughed as his heart raced again. “Yeah, obviously, but this isn’t exactly—” he gestured around them. “You can’t stop a bullet if someone shoots me.”

Val didn’t reply. He did, however, stop walking. He turned to Haley and held out the dissertation. Haley didn’t even realize he’d been carrying it. 

Haley accepted it, and then tucked the book underneath an arm.

They reached the second level. Open to the first level with risen platforms overhead, Haley could hear the shouting, and he could smell the blood. The whirring sound of charged weapons hung in the air like an echo. 

They stopped short when the body of another guard was strewn across the platform before them. Haley stopped breathing again, arm tightening around the dissertation.

Val held out his hand to Haley.

Haley looked down at it. He reached out, grabbing ahold of Val, and jerked himself forward. Hand in hand, they stepped over the man’s body, and moved to the last set of stairs.

“Where is the port of call?” Val asked.

“What?” Haley asked, breathless from his attempts to block the growing stench of death by holding his breath, even as he climbed the stairs. He’d grown dizzy already.

“The prisoners have made an escape plan to board a ship called the Exe and depart your Opis to ensure their freedom.” He looked as if he hadn’t finished the thought, but then refused to continue.

Haley chewed his lip and asked, “How do you know?”

Val looked down the stairs at where Haley was following, stopped halfway. His eyes were two glowing points in the dark. When he didn’t answer, Haley climbed up until they were side to side. Val’s silence spoke volumes. This was an organized outbreak and Val had known about it. Haley pieced together the puzzle quickly: having been kept separate from other prisoners, this was organized by someone on the inside of the Earthguard. 

And then the next point came to Haley in perfect clarity: Val was going to leave with the expies. Haley’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “You can’t trust them,” he said, “They’ll kill you. That’s why they’re here, Val.”

Val’s jaw tightened. “They have something I need.”

Haley squeezed Val’s hand and hugged the book more tightly. “If you go, the Earthguard is going to kill you, if they get the chance. You’ll be a criminal. You’ll be one of them.”

Val looked down at Haley, brows pinched. “I have no choice.” And then he added, eyes gone soft, “I am very sorry.”

The words vibrated in Haley’s core. There was a weight to them. An importance. So Haley said, gently, “It’s outside of the brig on deck eight. The dock.”

Val tore his eyes away and took a step forward. Into the chaos.

The first deck in the Opis brig was a series of elevated platforms that led to the entrance on one side and the residential quarters on the other, with offices and meeting rooms in between. The stairs that connected the second level to the first came out directly across from the entrance and control room.

It was through the control room’s open door and many windows that Haley could see Owens, held at gunpoint, with three of her guards cuffed to the metal piping just outside of the room. Two of them were unmoving, and the third was coughing blood. Owens herself had a vivid red mark across half her face and an eye swelling already from where she’d been struck.

The gun was pressed to Owens’ throat and she stared forward into the face of her captor—a tall, muscular woman with thick black hair and a prosthetic leg that came to a sharp point. It scraped the floor as she took a step forward and screamed something into Owens’ face.

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

Haley was frozen at the top of the stairs. So much bloodshed—

Val squeezed his hand. “Haley. They cannot know that I understand their languages.” His look was imploring. Haley didn’t understand yet why Val said this, because Haley hadn’t yet understood what Val meant to do.

Haley saw him look out onto the deck, through the threshold of the door they were standing in. He shot Haley a hard look and then took off. 

Haley was baffled as they propelled forward to the fight. He certainly didn’t want to see Owens die, and wanted to help, but like he’d told Val already—he was no soldier. 

What was Val doing?

They cannot know.

Together they ran forward. Val was fast—inhumanly, startlingly fast—but he didn’t release Haley’s hand, even as he struggled to keep up. The woman with the weapon turned when she saw them in her periphery and Owens took that opportunity as soon as it was presented. She ducked down beneath the weapon and punched the woman at her armpit, so that the weapon fell from her hand. Owens kicked the gun away and ran at the doors.

Haley scrambled forward, moving on pure instinct. He saw Owens slap something against the wall and got close enough in time to hear her bark, “Opis, protocol IN-8.”

The alarm, which had been a continuous warning, whirred to a stop. And then the doors, every door in the brig, began to slide shut.

They were too far behind to make it past the door at the entrance of the brig. Val probably could make it, but Haley could never run so fast—

Before it registered, Haley was thrown bodily forward. He landed on the other side of the closing door, slamming into the woman with the gun. The door closed behind him, separating him from Val.

“No!” Haley screamed.

“Fucking Christ,” the woman said, “That’s an actual Amenon.”

Haley ignored her, scrambling to his feet. “Val!”

Val’s hand caught the door just before it slid shut. Haley gasped, expecting his fingers to pop off like any human’s might. Instead, the door whined. And creaked. And was forced open with a rushing boom. Val stepped through it, let it go, and it slammed closed.

Owens stood on the opposite side of the door, framed by its window, color drained from her face.

And then she noticed Haley. Her face flushed red with fury. He couldn’t hear her through the soundproof door, but he could make out the syllables as she shouted them: Haley, no. No. No.

He turned away to see a group of inmates squared off opposite Val. Haley rushed forward and stood between them, hands outstretched. “Don’t shoot!” And then the lie came to him without his bidding, like his heart understood what Val needed without any thought: “He can’t speak English.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at him. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Haley Lovell. I’m—I’m the gardener. The translator. I can speak some Amenon.”

“You’re the civilian,” she said, recognition dawning on her face. Haley’s eyes widened; how did she know who he was? She looked him up and down and snorted. “Of course you are. He’s so fucking predictable.”

“What? Look—Val has to go with you. He’s leaving on the ship with you.”

“That’s not happening. We don’t really have a use for you. Or him. No hard feelings.” In one fluid motion, she lifted a gun from her belt, aimed it at Haley’s gut, and snapped the trigger back.

In a blink, Haley fell backwards, and Val was standing before him, and the bullet had ricocheted off his outstretched arm with a powerful, audible ping. He turned his head to the woman, eyes narrowed.

Her jaw was slack.

Haley’s hands were shaking but nevertheless he stepped forward and said, “Uh, that’s Amenon for, ‘you don’t have a choice.’” Haley looked back to Owens, who was frantically yelling into the wristlet she wore. 

“Court,” someone said, “We have to go. The lift’s here.”

The locklift, red at the end of the room, binged to alert its arrival. The doors opened with a hiss and Ari Young stood on the other side. Haley jolted backwards, but when no one else reacted—not even Val, he knew.

Ari was the inside man. 

Haley said it before he could stop himself. “How could you?”

Ari looked momentarily stunned as he faced Haley, like he hadn’t expected him to be there. Like he hadn’t expected him to be alive. His blue eyes flashed with relief, just for a moment, but Haley only saw him for the traitor he was and not the friend he’d made. At Haley’s pinched look, Ari turned away, jaw grit tight.

“Let’s move,” Court said. She turned narrowed eyes to Haley and Val. “All of us. Now.”

“What?” Haley remained rooted in place. He looked to Val. “No, I’m not—I can’t go.”

“We’re not asking, civvie,” Court said. She pointed her gun at Haley again, and when Val stepped between them again, he suddenly jerked straight—before dropping to one knee. Haley gasped as he heard the familiar pulse of the electricity shooting through the collar. He looked up to see Ari, remote in hand, finger depressing the button until his knuckle went white.

“Stop!” Haley said. 

“Move. Now,” Court barked.

“Alright, just—stop!” Haley gestured to Ari. “Please, Ari.”

He released the button and Val shot back to his feet, lip curled. Haley flagged his hands in surrender. “We’ll go! Val, we’ll go.” He wracked his brain for a moment. Go, go, go—ya meant to start, min meant something like ‘ongoing,’ and ‘e indicated action. Maybe? “Yamin’e,” Haley said, hoping it was close. Not that anyone would know the difference—the language barrier they presented to the expies was all a charade. “Yamin’e, Valouatthiaslouan.”

Val nodded once, sharply. He didn’t reply, but started walking as Court led the way. Haley felt relief wash through him.

He quickly picked up the dissertation where he’d dropped it inside the control room, and then shuffled behind the group of convicts, each reeking of blood and sweat, and felt his heart tighten. As the locklift doors closed, he watched Owens screaming inaudibly into her wristlet. He had to close his eyes.

When he opened them next, they were in the dock, where the Exe sat, doors open, ready to board.

The ship was massive and took up the entirety of the bay on this half of deck eight. Shaped much like a cube tilted on one corner, the Exe was glassy and black. It operated on some form of foreign tech that Haley hadn’t seen often. Only in passing. It easily defied the artificial gravity of Opis, floating on one pointed edge in her cargo bay.

The expatriots rushed forward and into the open door at the Exe’s base. As he moved, Haley counted two dozen escapees, plus Ari, himself, and Val. There were hundreds of fugitives held on Opis, typically. Where had the rest gone?

Haley followed the group inside the Exe. A gust of cold, artificial air hit him in the face and he shuddered head to toe. The inside was the same gleaming black as the outside, with lights dotting the floor and ceiling in precise lines.

He hadn’t traveled outside of Opis much but when he had, that same smell—clean and plastic and quintessentially spacecraft—invoked a feeling of anticipation. Right now, that feeling was amped up to ten. His arms were shaking despite how hard he gripped Sella’s book to his chest.

The panel on the Exe snapped shut behind them. A ramp led upwards, deeper into the ship, and Haley found himself in a thoroughfare with five halls branching different directions. 

“This way with them,” Court ordered. “Take off as soon as you’re able,” she said to another girl. She nodded and scampered away, a group of men following her lead.

Court and Ari led Haley and Val down a different hall that sloped downwards. There were windows on one side. Haley looked out the nearest one, into the dock. How had no soldiers stopped them? 

He was really about to be taken away from his home. 

“Keep moving,” Ari said, voice quiet.

Haley shot him a glare but obeyed. A second later, the ship lurched. Out the windows, Haley could see them move out of the dock. 

The Exe moved backwards, rapidly, until they were outside of Opis entirely. Haley scrambled closer to the window. He was leaving it. He was leaving home.

He was leaving his garden.

Frantically, he lifted his wrist. “Opis!”

The wristlet he wore chimed.

“Opis, please,” he said, voice catching, “Please take care of my garden.”

Another chime. “Affirmative, Ha --” Opis’ voice crackled, and buzzed, unable to keep a signal as they moved outside her walls. “-- ley.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said, shaking. He watched Opis as they backed away. Lights began to flash on several decks. Alarms. 

“Affirm --” a pitchy whine filled the line, until it picked back up, “-- ost, Haley.”

The wristlet went dead. The station sank farther away; a long white cylinder in space, spinning slowly, twinkling like a very unusual star. The Earthling space stations were called Nereidstars for a reason, Haley thought idly.

Val’s hand pressed against the back of Haley’s neck in a silent gesture of comfort. Haley’s mouth went dry but his pulse slowed some; an instant relief. When his hand moved away, Haley felt comforted. Grounded.

Mad.

They exited the hall into a wide open room. Court spun on a heel, facing Haley. “Now we can take care of you.”

Hands came down around Haley’s neck before he could react. A thin silver line pressed into the base of his throat. A collar. It sank into his skin like a tattoo and he gasped, jerking back. The man who’d put it on looked emotionlessly to Court, and handed her the remote.

Haley turned around in time to see Ari holding the second remote out at Val, who was staring back warily.

Court smiled. “Welcome aboard my ship, Haley, and Amenon.” She turned to Ari. “Take them to the brig.”

“Aye, captain,” he said. He took the second remote. It clipped to the first seamlessly. He tucked it into his belt and reached up to pull the Earthguard helmet off. He dropped it onto the ground and exhaled in relief. The rest of the uniform was still intact, though. He caught Haley staring and sighed. “Please stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know like what.” Ari’s mouth twisted. “It’s not—” he stopped and grunted in frustration. “I know what it looks like to you.” He gestured down the hall. “Walk. This way.” 

“You’re going to put us in the brig.”

“Yeah. We hadn’t planned on this.”

“Right. Your plan was to kill everyone instead.”

A bitter laugh. “This isn’t a fraction of the people I’ve had to murder on Earthguard orders, so you can save your moral outrage. At least I’m not getting paid to kill anyone this time.” 

Ari looked different now. Perhaps it was because Haley understood him better. Haley understood the level of betrayal Ari had committed against the soldiers that were his allies—friends—brothers. There was something deep and unsettling in the way his blue eyes flattened out, distant from the reality of what he’d done.

“Just like Opis,” Ari said as they walked, “the brig on the Exe is at the bottom of the vessel. You know why that is?”

Haley didn’t answer and instead sought out Val’s eyes. Val didn’t look his way, but forward, instead. Pretending not to hear—not to understand.

Ari grabbed Haley’s arm, jerking him away from Val. “It’s because it’s the most dangerous place on the ship. The bottom of any craft is where it takes off and lands. It has the most wear. It’s the most structurally fatigued.” He pulled Haley down the ramp, until they were in a very small level, dark and barren. “If the structure were to collapse, it’s the prisoners that die first. Nice, huh? Nice to know the value these people have for someone’s life, right?”

Ari let Haley go and opened a solid black door halfway into one wall. It slid open to the side to reveal an empty, dark space. There was a single dim beam of light glowing from between panels in the ceiling, which was quite low. The top of Val’s head brushed it as they were forced inside.

“You’re thinking that I’m a fucking monster, right?” Ari said. He laughed, like it was a joke. “That I’m an expatriot scumbag.” Haley opened his mouth to say no, even as he stumbled on his own feet into the cell, but Ari’s voice cracked as he continued, “I had to.”

Haley didn’t know what to say. He wrung his hands together and stared up into his face.

“Stop looking like that,” he said, voice a little more like Haley knew it. His look softened.

“Don’t leave me down here,” Haley said. Ari’s face twisted into concern. “Val didn’t do this to hurt any of you. He just wants to get home.” The look was replaced, instantly, with one of disgust. He backed away and slammed the door shut in Haley’s face.

“You can’t leave us in here—there’s nothing even here—” Haley said, and he slammed the side of his fist against the door. “Please! Ari!”

He slammed his fist down again, and again, and then Val’s hand gently stopped his wrist from moving. He pulled Haley away.

“He is gone,” he said.

Haley rushed to cover Val’s mouth with a palm and looked up, at the ceiling, seeking out the cameras or bugs surely spying on their every move.

“It is safe to speak,” Val said, pulling Haley’s fingers from his lips. “There is no surveillance inside the brig of this vessel.”

“There has to be,” Haley said. He shook his head. “You couldn’t possibly know.”

“I know,” Val said, stepping backwards. “Because this is my ship.”