“What?”

  Jo was staring at me in shock and confusion after I’d burst into her office and informed her of my revelation; that her people had, at some point, been in this region of space, and left enough evidence of themselves that it allowed a company here rudimentary understanding of their language. Looking back, I have to admit I may have been ranting more than a little bit as I explained it. In my defence, I was just a little freaked out that in all the time I’d been on the Elegance, I’d never put two and two together.

  “Thomas,” she finally said slowly and firmly, “I need you to sit your ass down, sip some graptak, take a breath, and explain that again slowly. You aren’t making any sense.”

  A growl of frustration escaped my throat as I slipped into my usual seat across the desk from her. She filled one of the small tulip blossom shaped cups from the niktcha already set up to the side, and pushed it towards me. I accepted it with a grateful nod, considered for a moment, then reached for the matching clay ceramic pitcher and poured a small measure of milky green liquid into the graptak.

  Jo raised one of her eyebrows at me, and I found myself chuckling a bit. I generally stuck to drinking my graptak unaltered by either of the traditional additives, but for some reason, I felt the urge to add a splash of pingkon. The slightly sweet, fermented liquid could sometimes be rather soothing, and I hoped it might help calm me down.

  Taking a slow sip from my cup, I let out a breath as the warm flavors slid down my throat. “I’m sorry, Jo.” I said finally, setting the cup down in front of me, “I was getting ready to make my way here, joking around a bit with Stacy, and she mentioned getting a contract hammered out for her redesign of the Optimaster. That’s the tool I used to get past the security in order to get into the station.”

  “I remember discussing that with the security teams.” She responded with a slight nod, “I’d left instructions for them to tighten things up. I’m really glad you managed to get in, but we can’t have the station be vulnerable to just anyone.”

  “No, I get it. And I don’t blame you at all. The Optimasters are tools you legally require a license to own anyway.” I shrugged, “but that’s not the point here. Stacy talking about the contract got me remembering that whole scenario, and a little detail jumped out at me that might be very important right now.”

  “Oh?”

  “The thing is only as useful as it is because it has a massive linguistic database in it.” I explained. “When it is plugged into a system using a completely unknown language, it takes far more time to decrypt and provide any sort of security codes. I’m talking at least five times as long, sometimes as much as twenty.

  “Jo, if it’d had to run a full decryption analysis in order to get me the access code so I could get inside, I’d be a corpse laying just outside that airlock right now. The Optimaster knows your language! Or at least enough of it. Someone in this sector of space has encountered it before!”

  She leveled an epic frown at me, her brows pulling together in a distracting way. “You’re sure about this?” She asked, “I know you were suffering from lack of oxygen at that point. Could you have been hallucinating?"

  “Boss?” Stacy interrupted, “my apologies for interjecting during your evening meeting, but I had the same thought when Thomas started ranting. I decided to check on his suit’s data storage. He’s got a habit that borders on addiction when it comes to recording everything when he’s in that thing. So much so that when we rebuilt it, he made sure to expand the storage capacity with giobhioni tech.

  “The stored feed from that period is slightly corrupted, probably from the damage his suit took during that time, but it’s there, Boss.”

  The desk’s holomonitor lit up and displayed the static obscured, first person view from my old helmet, the O2 level readout flashing an angry red. In my hand was my old Optimaster, its optical cables spun out and linked into the lines exposed by the dangling control panel. Flashing on the Optimaster’s screen were the words, “Language identified: Giobhioni”

  “I also tapped into the StellarNet and ran a search.” Stacy explained, “It’s very obscure, with extremely little on the public facing side, but it’s there. A xenoanthropology dig on a moon orbiting a planet officially labelled TOI-532c, or by the team that investigated it, Parthax. There were ruins there, and inscriptions. I’m trying to get access to more in depth information, but it’s either behind some really heavy firewalls, or they’ve airgapped the servers for some reason.”

  Jo leaned back in her chair and rubbed her left ear thoughtfully. “To the best of my knowledge, the Giobhioni republic never explored this region of space.” she said as she stared at the image of my old Optimaster on the holomonitor. It was strange that the little device that I wasn’t legally even supposed to have had access to, had not only saved my life, but was now posing what could be a pivotal question to us.

  I had finished my first cup of graptak, and was in the process of refilling both mine and Jo’s cup when she finally spoke again.

  “Stacy, contact Admiral LeBeau.” Jo said, “Ask her if she would kindly see if she can pry more information from whatever organization has it. If our people were out here, hundreds of light years from our own space, there had to be a reason. Also, put our people back on the station on the task of pouring over any information in our databases that could possibly hint at what we were doing out this way.

  “It’s quite possible it happened after we got the lockdown orders, so we might not have been informed of the mission. But I don’t want to ignore the chance it’s there somewhere.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Stacy replied, “I’ll keep digging through the StellarNet as well.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Jophixa gave a decisive nod, then smiled at me. “I guess we know where we’re going next.” She said, “It could end up being a opinata hunt, but there might be records of what happened after we went into stasis that could help us now.”

  “I guess it’s back to hurrying off into the black.” I said with a chuckle, “I’d been half hoping we’d need to spend a couple of days figuring out our next steps before we had to go haring off again. Maybe take the chance to get Miles settled in, get started figuring out how to add a kaon lance into the ship’s armaments…”

  She gave me a questioning look and rubbed at her ear again. Eventually, a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Stacy, what is the estimated travel time from here to this Parthax place?” she asked thoughtfully.

  “Given the efficiency increase projected from the use of the new cryonic fluid,” Stacy replied, “estimated time in hyperspace will be approximately eight point four six Terran standard days, or seven point three nine giobhioni cycles. Plenty of time to get quarters for Miles sorted out, work out designs for a kaon weapons system, and still leave the ship’s commander and chief engineer time to…what is the human term Tomminoms? Canoodle?”

  “Stacy!” I exclaimed, feeling my cheeks heat up.

  But Jo just let out a rippling peal of laughter, then to my shock, crawled over her desk - carefully sliding her prized niktcha out of the way - and deposited herself in my lap. “Stacy, lock my office door please, and do not interrupt unless there is an emergency that absolutely needs one of us.” she said, giving me a very toothsome grin. “And no observing! I don’t care what Tratsa or Boudya allow, I want privacy…”

  She leaned into me and caught my ear in her teeth, “At least this time.” she whispered quietly.

  Our regular evening get together that day ended up turning into an all night situation.

  After the initial frenzied passion that rivaled some of my most heated memories with Boudya, we found ourselves lying on the floor of Jo’s office, sweaty, panting, in my own case, bleeding ever so slightly from a number of bites and scratches. I wasn’t feeling it though, at least not yet, and in the afterglow of our activities, we found ourselves not wanting to move from each other's arms.

  It’s funny, since the whole situation started with Barstol’s blackmail, not only had I started whatever it was I had with Tratsa, rekindled my relationship with Boudya, but now there was this new thing with Jo. It was almost starting to feel like I should say thank you to the disreputable scumbag. If he hadn’t dragged me kicking and screaming out of my “retirement”, I’d be still hiding in that backwater, doing odd jobs and trying to ignore the nightmares. I wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction, even if he is still alive, but I had to admit my current love life only happened because I got stuck on that planetoid.

  Once Jo and I came down from the high of our exertions, she asked that I stay the night in her cabin, and how could I refuse. Now that we were being honest with each other about our feelings, there was a need to spend more time in close proximity. So after a few false starts, we got up off the floor and got dressed. I did my best to put my hair in some sort of order, but I don’t think I succeeded very well. I’d just have to hope none of the others noticed.

  I also hoped the bulkheads around Jo’s office were relatively soundproof.

  I did my best to look casual when I left her office and then off of the command deck, not wanting there to be any embarrassment for anyone - especially as my sister had been there when I’d arrived. I’m not entirely sure either Toftri or jesse were fooled by my attempt at casualness, I’m pretty sure I caught Toftri casting a knowing smirk in my direction, even if Jesse pointedly did not look my way.

  A quick stop by my quarters to deal with my “battle wounds”, and to grab a change of uniform, and then I stopped off to let Boudya know I’d be absent tonight. She gave me a knowing smile, and a look that said we’d be talking later. One thing about benastians, they don’t tend to give their partners shit about anyone else they get involved with, they just want to be informed.

  I managed to avoid anyone else in the corridors on the way to Jo’s quarters, which were on the opposite side of the landing bay from mine. When I arrived at her door, it opened without prompting to let me in.

  The room was dark, but as the door slid shut behind me, holographic candles, positioned in various places throughout the room, sprang to life. Revealed by the soft, flickering light, was a room adorned with what I imagined were traditional giobhioni works of handicraft and art. Sculptures of tiny warriors fighting against much larger creatures, what looked like animal hides draped over the chairs, lounge and bed. On one wall, a mosaic crest worked out of tiny carved bone beads, below it, a heavy, musky smelling smoke swirled upwards from a patterned clay bowl.

  This…was not what I was expecting Jo’s quarters to look like.

  It possibly shouldn’t have been surprising, given that everything I’d read about their culture indicated strong ties to certain traditions, but every giobhioni I’d spent any time with seemed to have such a modern, even advanced by human standards, way of behaving. These sorts of earthy decorations were shockingly at odds with that behavior.

  “Are you going to stare at the decor all night?” a husky whisper broke into my thoughts.

  Turning, I was confronted by an even more startling sight. Jophixa stood in the doorway to her private head, leaning against the door jam with one gloriously rounded hip thrust out to the side, naked but for an intricately tied bit of rope around her taught abdomen like a roughly woven corset. Her demeanor of exotic confidence marred only by her quivering ears.

  It doesn’t matter what anyone tries to say, how blase they try to be. When confronted with a sight such as her, with candle-light flickering off her green skin, highlighting those generous, fit curves… If they are not struck speechless, they are far too jaded.

  Realizing that I was staring, having not said a single word, I mentally shook myself. I didn’t want another misunderstanding to develop between us, and although we’d just enjoyed one another not that long ago, I didn’t think it was beyond possibility of happening. I might be dense sometimes, but I’m not outright stupid.

  Shut up, Stacy. I thought, expecting my AI friend to be reading my mind right about then.

  Smiling, I started crossing the deck towards her, seeing her chest heave in anticipation as I did so. When I was standing directly in front of her, I looked down into her deep violet eyes for a long moment, before dropping to my knees right there and pulling her into a long and lingering kiss. I was struck again, as I was earlier that evening, but how soft she felt against me when she spent so much time being firm and strong in her role as the commander of the ship.

  My hands slid up over the back of her legs to take hold of her ass like I had when I’d woken up that day not that long ago, and pulled her firmly against me. She didn’t even flinch in surprise, just smiled around our kiss, grabbed me by the ears, and kissed me harder.

  You’d never guess that kissing wasn’t something giobhioni knew about, the way she kissed me then. But I really didn’t care. At that moment, I just wanted more.

  And thankfully, I got it.

  The Salvager’s Plague

  Ko-Fi or on