Samira

Explosions rocked the ship and alarms started to blare as the crew panicked. The captain shouted orders to get a medical team to the bridge, and I reached over to scritch behind Sora’s ear before grabbing another fistful of popcorn.

The movie Jayne recommended to me had been accurate enough as far as the technical side of things went, if a bit dated. But apparently, it lacked the action or sexual content that was required to keep Sora’s attention. Instead, they were curled up next to me on the couch, asleep in their fox form. Which was fine, because I really didn’t need the running commentary that came with trying to watch a movie while they were awake.

There was a sudden swishing sound, followed by a slight breeze, as somebody appeared behind me.

“Hey Ithnaa, how’d it go with your cousin?” I asked, without taking my eyes off the screen.

“Well enough,” the djinn leaned over the couch to pick up Sora before leaping over the back to land next to me with them on her lap. “She signed a contract without reading it, and now she’s trapped in a bottle for the next six centuries.”

“I’ll be sure to remind the captain to read through any contract with you carefully.” I offered the bowl I was holding to Ithnaa. “Want some popcorn?”

She took a few pieces from the bowl and popped them into her mouth before speaking. “So, where are we?”

“Somewhere in the Aether. I don’t know the specific location, but Sora set us down on some island a couple of days ago and now I’m letting the lines discharge before I work on the shields.”

“Oh, I don’t really care about any of that,” Ithnaa said, as she grabbed a fistful of my popcorn. “I was talking about Star Chasers. Where are we in the movie?”

“Xavier is trying to rebuild the engines without any spare parts because the captain left everything behind in order to gain a few extra cubic meters of space for fuel.”

“Xavier? Is that the engineer?” Ithnaa asked, grabbing more of the popcorn. “I thought his name was Sparky.”

“That’s what was listed on the forms when they registered for the race,” I explained. “Everybody just calls him Sparky, but I don’t think he likes it. Besides, it feels a bit racist to call a lightning elemental Sparky.”

“This was made during the war, before everybody got super PC about elemental names. Honestly, it was progressive at the time to hire an actual elemental to play him instead of just using special effects. I remember the controversy when the credits were announced. It’s why it had such crappy sales and also why we never got a sequel.”

“You’re old.” I ignored the djinn’s glare as I munched more of the buttery popcorn. “Are you sticking around for long, or running off to trick another cousin?”

“Actually, Teolix is next on my agenda,” Ithnaa announced, while stealing another fistful of my popcorn. “He’s in the middle of a siege with the corporate police, and if I don’t step in soon, then he’s liable to lose the whole system.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

“That’s really tempting…” She shook her head, dismissing the idea. “But I’ll probably just demote him into a secretary or something, at least for a few centuries. He’s still too valuable to give up on entirely, but I also can’t let what he did go unpunished.”

“Is he actually that valuable? I mean, he’s a dragon, sure, but you must have other powerful people in your organization.”

“Teolix is the youngest son of the Balidred family.” Ithnaa went to grab more of my popcorn, but I moved the bowl just out of her reach to stop her thieving. “I don’t know how much you know about dragon clans, but killing him outright isn’t an option and arranging a trial by combat would be a political nightmare. It’s just not worth it.”

“You could always just have him assassinated or something. That would probably give you enough plausible deniability for the dragon clans, and then you wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.”

Ithnaa snorted at my suggestion. “You really don’t like Teolix, do you?”

“He nearly caused Sora and I to starve on the streets just because we didn’t want to work for him after I was almost assaulted by his goons, then he planted a bomb on our ship before tricking the captain into delivering blackmail to a werewolf mob boss. So you’ll understand if I’m not in a rush to defend him.”

“But he did give you this ship.” The djinn pointed out, and I paused to consider her argument.

“Okay, maybe he’s not that bad,” I conceded, which prompted Ithnaa to reach overtop me to grab the entire bowl of popcorn. I just rolled my eyes and paused the movie to go get some more from the kitchen.

We had bought food to prepare for Thea being gone for an unknown length of time, which meant I had plenty of popcorn to replace the mostly empty bowl Ithnaa had stolen. It felt nice to actually spend some of the money we got from the Drassun job, and it’s possible that I might have gone a bit overboard with the food stores.

I had been expecting that I’d probably want another bowl, so I had left the popcorn container out and the pot on the stove. Which meant I was exiting the kitchen with my buttered deliciousness only a few minutes later. But when I did, I found Sora mixing drinks while Ithnaa watched them from the other side of the bar. I sighed as I gave up on the idea of finishing my movie in peace.

“All ready?” Ithnaa asked as Sora handed her the drink. “We were just getting to the part where the navigator has to sell out the rest of the crew to save her sick brother. It’s super emotional, and I cry every single time.”

I shot Sora a very pointed look, and they winked back at me. “That does sound incredibly dramatic and like a ton of fun, but I was actually hoping that you’d be able to help me with a project I’ve been working on downstairs. We can even make it interesting if you’re willing to risk a little wager.”

Ithnaa paused for a moment as she seemed split between finishing the movie with me, and working on Sora’s little ‘project’, so I tried to sweeten the deal. “I put Star Chasers on the ship’s central drive, so you can just watch it later from your own room if you want.”

“Alright, fine.” She agreed, and I almost relaxed until she continued. “But Sami, remind me later to show you the fan-made sequel that came out after the studio released the rights to the series. It’s all canon to the universe and nearly three hours long, plus the production value is incredible. It almost looks like it was made by professionals.”

I looked to Sora for help, but they just smiled as they betrayed me. “Sounds like fun. I might try to join you two for that.”

I was about to protest when the power flickered off momentarily, and I heard something hit the ground in the darkness. When the lights came back on, Sora was lying on the floor in a puddle of alcohol.

Ithnaa immediately turned away from the bar and started shouting orders. “Sami, drag Sora into the kitchen and barricade the door. Don’t open it for anything.”

“What was that?” I asked as I knelt down to make sure Sora was still breathing, and I thanked every god I knew when I saw that they were.

“It was a synapses overload bomb, or an S.O.B. Pirates use them to board ships when they don’t want to deal with the navigator,” she explained while keeping her back towards us. “Sora will be fine in a few hours. We just need to make sure they live that long.”

I nodded and started dragging Sora into the kitchen. Thankfully, I managed to get them past the door before an explosion rocked the ship. It sounded like it came from the starboard side, which meant they had probably just blown open the airlock. That would be a pain in the ass to fix, but we would probably still be able to fly so long as they didn’t damage the internal door.

I looked around for some way to barricade the kitchen, but everything was bolted down. My only choice to block it off would be to lean myself against the door, and hope that if whoever was attacking us managed to make it past Ithnaa, then they’d somehow be too weak to push their way past a twenty-something year-old girl who spent her entire life being underfed.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. So, instead, I pulled Sora into the pantry just to put a little more distance between them and the fighting. Then I opened up the cupboard under the sink, looking for anything I might use to defend myself. There was nothing. Literally there was nothing underneath the sink, because Thea couldn’t be a reasonable person and keep cleaning supplies in a normal spot. I opened cabinets and drawers, looking for anything to defend myself, but then the gunfire started.

I freaked out and grabbed the sharpest knife I could find before huddling myself into a corner where I could still see the kitchen door. This wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t a fighter like everybody else. I fixed things. All I could do in this situation was to be scared and pray it was Ithnaa who walked through that door when everything was done.

I swore before all the gods that if it was her who walked through that door, then I’d watch that stupid fan-sequel she was talking about. All three hours of it, and I wasn’t even going to complain about it.

The gunfire eventually stopped, and just as I let myself relax, a shockwave rocked the ship. Somehow it passed through the walls without damaging them, but still managed to knock all the dishes out of the cabinets that were still open from my frantic searching. I didn’t know what sort of weapon could do that, but I was hoping it belonged to a djinn. At least, I was pretty sure it was magical.

“Holy hells, what was she?” My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and I tried pushing myself further into the corner as I heard the strange male voice approaching the bar beyond the door.

“I’m not sure. Stay alert. I need to patch up Ja’kol before he bleeds out and the entirety of the known crew is still unaccounted for,” a woman said. It sounded like one of their friends was hurt, which meant I needed to do something, literally anything, while I still had a chance. But my mind refused to focus on anything productive, instead it was filled with all the terrible ways this could end for me.

In a fit of panic, I threw my knife across the room and rushed for the pantry door. I immediately regretted every choice I had just made, but acting had at least cleared my mind somewhat, and I used my newfound clarity to look around the room.

It was still just the pantry, and other than the usual shelves that were organized in such a way that only Thea could find anything, there was just me and an unconscious Sora. But, on the deck below us was a shuttle that we might be able to use to escape. There wasn’t direct access to that deck from the pantry, but there was access to the maintenance corridors, and I could get to the armory from there, which was on the same deck as the shuttle.

It could work, but I was going to have to act quick. I moved Sora aside so that I could get to the panel they were leaning against. Thankfully, the access panels didn’t require a driver to open, which made removing it simple. Unfortunately, Sora was heavier than they looked, and I may have accidentally dropped them while trying to lower them to the deck below.

I heard frantic movement coming from outside the kitchen in response to the noise, but I was already pulling the panel back into place by the time they opened the pantry door.

“You heard that, right?” The man asked.

“Yeah, I did.” The woman confirmed. “Any idea where they went?” There was silence for a moment, and I held my breath until the woman spoke again. “Alright, well, we still need to search the bridge, and we can’t exactly separate. So, at this point, I’m just going to assume the ship is haunted, because I’d hate to have to flush some brat out of the vents using tear gas again.”

I mentally located the mask near my workbench and made a note to grab it on my way out. Dropping Sora again would probably be a bad idea, so I moved them into a more comfortable sitting position before navigating the corridors to the ladder that would take me to my workroom. I figured that I’d just move my bed into position and then lower them onto it using blankets or something.

All the entrances to the engineering sections of the ship were heavily camouflaged, which hopefully meant it would take them some amount of time before they could figure out how to get to me. I used that thought to reassure myself as I descended the ladder into my room, and it seemed to be working too.

That was until I saw a massive alien form standing a few meters from me. They were bulky and easily over two meters tall, with four arms crossed in two pairs over their torso. They were wearing a heavy duty environmental suit that covered their entire body, with a black visor that completely obscured their face.

“Hello Samira, do you know what this is?” The alien asked in a strangely soft and unaccented tone as he unfurled their bottom left hand to reveal a small orb that glowed with a warm, blue light. I nodded as I felt hot tears begin to roll down my face. “And do you know what happens to a navigator if their core is destroyed?”

I nodded again, and the alien seemed to relax somewhat. “Good. I’d hate to have to damage something so precious, but if you run or try to hurt any of my friends, then you’ll force my hand. Now, please come with me, and we’ll have you home soon.”