Salvation (3 page)

I let go of his shirt and stepped back.

"Sorry about that, sir."

"
Um, that's all right, Simmons," he stepped back uncomfortably. "We just need to teach you how to fight."

"
Yes, sir. That's a skill I could use." I squared my shoulders.

"Do you want any medicine from the med bay for that eye?" He asked, tilting my head into the light with a hand under my chin.

"No, sir," I replied, trying to make my voice sound brave. "I'm just going to take it like a man."

He thumped me on the shoulder one more time, looking relieved
, and maybe a bit proud. "Good night, Simmons," he said formally, striding to the door.

"Good night, sir." I replied.

That night, lying in bed, I
tried to ignore the throbbing in my face as I thought about the deadly beauty of the captain's form as he had beaten those men. A kind of excitement filled me when I thought about the power and grace of his movements. I felt my cheeks flush as I thought about him defending me, and the way his arm felt around me, his body brushing mine as we walked.

I felt safe when the captain was around, but I
decided that night that I wouldn't leave the ship again by myself. Over time, I resorted to submitting fake planet passes for every other safe planet to prevent the captain from questioning me again. The night before, I would grab extra protein bars, and then sneak back into my quarters and hide out until I was supposed to be back. No one ever paid me much attention, so it seemed to go unnoticed, and the captain was extremely busy so he didn't question me again for several weeks.

Until my nightmare, that is.

Raz was chasing me into an alley, but there was no one to help me this time. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I knew this was the end. Several enormous brutes surrounded me, then suddenly we were in a bathroom and all of them were standing in puddles of urine and beating the captain's head against a urinal...

"Simmons, wake up, dammit!" I heard the captain's fierce order. He was shaking my shoulders.

I opened my eyes immediately and was staring into his stern face.

"There you go." The captain helped me sit up, the palm of his hand surprisingly gentle on my back.

I wiped
my face quickly and saw my hands were wet with tears. "Wha—what are you doing here?"

He stood up and I heard him walk over to the small sink and fill
a cup with water. He brought it back and sat on the edge of the bed, handing it down to me.

His voice
held a note of humor. "You were screaming loud enough to wake the dead. Luckily I was still up and I heard you through the walls." He paused, looked at the perfectly made bed, and then back down at my blankets on the floor. "You realize there's a perfectly good bed up here, don't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know you can use it, right? The only two people on this ship who can get in here are you and me."

"Yes, sir. I'm just more comfortable down here." I winced
at my poor excuses.
Think, kid, think
.

He sighed
and scooted off the bed, sitting on the floor beside me. "Simmons, I'm the captain, and I'm not used to developing personal relationships with the crew. However, you're a lot younger than anyone I've taken on before, and I want you to know you can trust me."

"I do trust you, sir." I tried to look him in the eye as I said it, but it was hard.

"I know you had a bad experience at the bar that night. Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head. "No, sir."

"Is there anything else you need to talk about?"

H
is voice was gentle, which was really out of character, and I knew he was making a huge effort to be nice to me. I felt like spilling my guts, but there was nothing I could tell him that wouldn't ruin everything. If he ever found out I wasn't a man, he would kick me off the ship and I would never see him again.

"No, sir," I said miserably
, wishing I could have confided something, anything, to him to keep the closeness between us.

He seemed to pull back
, and his hawk-eyed demeanor returned as he stood up. "Well, I'm not going to pressure you to tell me. But if you ever need to talk, know that I am here for you. Good night, Simmons."

"Good
night, sir," I mumbled as he left.

For a long time,
I lay there on the floor in the darkness, picturing those green eyes above me.

I
had already attended several meetings for negotiations as the captain's translator aboard the
Exteris
while we were in port, so I was thrilled when the captain asked me to accompany him to a negotiation meeting on the Prisema Spaceport. Even with all of our travels, I'd never been to an orbiting spaceport before. The
Exteris
set itself up in orbit not far from the port, and I happily followed the captain to the shuttle bay.

But
when we met Jeremiah and Riggs at the landing shuttles, the captain stopped me. "I want you to be on your guard in case this situation turns dangerous, Simmons. The Lisellian prince and his envoy are good people. But the Bakians we are dealing with are rogues, not part of the alliance, so they are not bound by any laws—and they have a reputation for abusing that fact."

He
waited until I nodded gravely, then continued. "I want you to be especially careful because of your youth. Stay behind me, keep your face impassive, and pretend that you don't know what they are saying."

My eyes widened. "Yes, sir," I said, squaring my shoulders.

"I'm going to introduce you as my son to give you some added protection."

I tried to conceal my surprise
but couldn't completely hold back. "But I'm seventeen, sir. The age difference is too small."

The captain raised one eyebrow and looked at Jeremiah, who burst out laughing
along with the others. "I don't think that's going to be a problem. Do you, Jeremiah?"

"No, sir!" Jeremiah said with a wide grin on his face.

My face flushed furiously as a I realized they probably all thought I was lying about my age. I shrugged and nodded, ignoring the guffaws around me. "Whatever you think best, sir."

He seemed reassured because then he looked back at
Jeremiah. "Take care of the ship while we're gone."

Jeremiah nodded and then leaned in close, "You take care, Captain." His vo
ice was serious as he clapped his hand on the captain's shoulder. "You know who you're dealing with."

The small craft
s only seated two, and usually Jeremiah would have gone with the captain. However, the captain was hoping to put my translation skills to work. Although it was supposedly large enough to seat two men, the cockpit seemed small with the captain's presence, and I wondered how both he and Jeremiah would have fit. His large body filled the seat and his arm brushed mine as he reached for the controls.

"I guess this is as good a time as any to teach you how to fly this thing.
..in case things go really bad." He winked at me and chuckled.

I sat forward in excitement and bumped his arm. It felt warm and
strong, and I could see each of the dark hairs standing out against his smooth skin.

"Uh, sorry, sir," I mumbled, trying to scoot back. The confined space was really too small for me to get away from him
, even as small as I was. An unfortunate blush stained my cheeks.

He looked over at me
. "What? Forget it. This space is tight." Then he looked back at me, his face bemused. "Are you blushing?"

I took a deep breath and tried to sound casual. "No, sir. I'm just very excited to learn how to fly this thing."

He shook his head once, but then relaxed. "Now, pay attention because although this is relatively automated, there is still a sequence that you need to know."

For the next few minutes, he walked me through the start
-up sequence, which basically consisted of getting clearance, setting the air lock and pressurization, and starting the engines. I watched his large hands deftly work the controls and learned every step in the process, but it still seemed like magic. I held my breath when we disengaged from the
Exteris
and fired our boosters to take us toward the spaceport.

Of course, being the captain, he talked about the ship and the shuttles enthusiastically.
"The
Exteris
has two standard shuttles which would hold everyone for about twelve standard hours in case we needed to abandon ship. However, I special-ordered two of these smaller shuttles because those are impractical to fire up every time we need to make small runs like this.

"
I had them modified so that they can fly at warp 2, that way if we do have to abandon ship we can send these out in opposite directions with radios to try to signal for help. Of course," he smiled grimly, "it also helps to be fast if you want to get away from a sticky situation. We can all blast out of here and meet up with the
Exteris
somewhere safer."

I watched the light of the spaceport as it reflected in his eyes and the creases in the corners of his mouth when he smiled. I asked every question that I could think of just to hear him speak, and absorbed every word he spoke in his rumbling voice.

Finally, I turned my eyes to the spaceport and realized we were almost upon it. I gasped; it looked like a small and beautiful moon. Thousands of glowing white lights on countless levels twinkled at us, and I wondered how we would ever find our space. But when we contacted the air controller for landing, we could see green lights blinking in succession, leading us to our landing dock.

As the spaceport had been built for meetings such as ours, it wasn't far to the meeting room. T
he captain's long strides took us there in minutes, but as it turned out, we weren't the first to arrive. When we walked in, three tall, reptilian beings were already seated. The one who had seated himself at the head of the table got up and seemed to glide smoothly over to us.

"
You must be Captain Morsse. I have heard of you, of course." The slitted eyes narrowed and he slithered forward, extending an arm tipped with a set of three green razor-sharp claws. I shuddered inwardly. Thank god I didn't have to shake it.

"
Angorak," the captain's voice was confident as he strode forward. He didn't flinch but took the clawed hand with his own and shook it firmly.

"And who
iss thiss?" hissed the reptilian, looking at me.

I tried not to shrink back.

"This is my son, Simmons," the captain answered.

"Your
sson?" The reptile drew back, blinking, and the slits in its yellow eyes seemed to widen in surprise. He peered at the captain, then down at me, then back at the captain. Finally, rapid hissing noises came from his mouth, and I got the distinct feeling that he was laughing.

"
Sss, sss, sss, Captain Morsse," he hissed. "Did you mate with a Bakian elf to produce this runt? Sss, sss, sss."

The c
aptain's face remained impassive but his jaw clenched.

I felt my face start to burn
but took my cue from the captain, squaring my shoulders and clenching my fists.

Just then, the main door opened and the Lisellian prince and his envoy arrived.
They were tall, slim beings with long, golden-blond hair that flowed down their backs. Their robes sparkled as if made of gems, winking in the light with their movements. The prince's garment appeared as if were made of thousands of diamonds and his compatriots' sparkled like emeralds.

Their demeanors were peaceful, yet somehow still powerful and alert
. The prince's gaze was as sharp as the captain's and held warmth and intelligence. He smiled widely as they shook hands firmly over the table, the captain returning his smile.

When everyone was seated, t
he presentations began in earnest. The Lisellian prince presented his plans to have the captain help them export rare herbs and medicinal plants from their planet to outside planets and bring back precious metals, which were not easily acquired on their planet due to their depth. His deal was fair, beneficial to all, and would profit all three races.

The Bakians took notes throughout the presentation so that they could translate the deal into English for us to understand. Once they started to present, however, I was shocked to realize that the
terms of the deal that they presented in English were completely different from the terms the Lisellian prince had presented.

I had schooled my face to be impassive
under the captain's order, but several times it was hard for me to conceal my surprise. When they were finished, I calculated the numbers in my head quickly. What should have been a deal split three ways relatively equally was now being presented where the Lisellians would make 33%, the Bakians would make 57%, and the captain would make about 10%.

When the presentations were finished, each party retired to separate adjoining rooms to decide on the deal amongst themselves. Once seated around the smaller table, the captain turned to me. "Were the Bakians
correct in the terms of the deal?"

I almost laughed
at that, but his face was so stern that I knew it was no laughing matter.

"No, sir." I shook my head.

"Which part was a lie?"

"All of it, sir." I replied.

"Damn." He sat back in his chair. "How much can you remember? I need to know the true terms."

"All of it, sir."

His eyebrows flew up. "Really?"

"Yes, sir. I have a very good memory for words, sir. It's how I remember languages so well."

The captain didn't even have to think about it. "Start talking," he ordered.

I spoke for fifteen minutes, relating the terms of the original deal. When I finished, he sat back in his chair, lost in thought. Finally, he turned to Jeremiah. "What do you think we should do?"

Jeremiah shook his head slowly. "I don't know, Captain. We can tell the Bakians we know their ruse and force them to stick to the terms of the deal."

"Captain?" I ventured.

"What, Simmons?" He turned to me with his brows furrowed.

"If I may, sir.
The prince seems like an honest man. Could I suggest that we simply make the deal with the Lisellians and leave the Bakians out of it? They aren't really bringing anything to the table except for their negotiation and translation services, but now that you have me you can deal with the Lisellians directly."

The captain sat back in his chair again
, deep in thought. Finally, he nodded.

"All right, Simmons, I agree.
But this is a dangerous play - the Bakians aren't going to be happy about losing all that money. When we go back in, I want you to tell the Lisellians exactly what I tell you to, but leave the Bakians to me. And whatever you do, stay behind me."

"Yes, sir."

We walked back in, and I
made sure to stay behind the captain. The other two groups had already returned. The captain remained standing and turned to Angorak.

"
Angorak, thank you for your time, but I would rather deal directly with the Lisellians in this matter."

The reptile blinked his eyes in surprise. "How will you do that,
Morsse? We are your translatorss."

"My son here happens to speak Lisellian. He will deal with this matter for me."

The slitted eyes flicked to me and narrowed. "I ssee," he said, standing. "You deliberately did not reveal thiss information to uss."

The
captain shrugged. "I figured it was on a need-to-know basis."

The expression on the reptilian's face
might have been comical under different circumstances. His narrowed eyes blinked rapidly and his tail swished back and forth behind him.

When he leaned over the table, the captain
swiftly put his hands on the table and leaned into him until they were eye to eye. "Your business here is finished, Angorak. You'll be compensated for your time."

"I don't think
sso, Captain. We had a deal." His voice was loud and angry.

"
That deal didn't include you lying to us." He pointed at the door and his voice thundered. "Now get out!"

The reptilian stood up and took a step back.
"You have made an enemy here today, Morsse," he warned, motioning his two colleagues to the door.

"Get in line," the captain dismiss
ed him and Angorak's eyes narrowed even more.

"
Ssimmonss," the Bakian hissed, giving me one last look of pure hatred. I shivered. I did not like the way that reptile said my name. With one last hiss, he sauntered out the door.

Negotiations proceeded swiftly after that, and even though they couldn't speak the same language, I could tell that the Lisellian prince and the captain had an affinity for one another. They thought very similarly and their characters were
almost alike. I had a feeling that they would be doing business long into the future, and I was happy when they shook hands warmly before the prince took his leave.

As we walked back to the shuttle, the captain slung his arm around my shoulders. "You never cease to amaze me, Simmons. You were great in there."

"Thank you, sir," I
kept my voice calm, but inside I rejoiced. The captain was proud of me!