"What's your name?" When he didn't answer, she nudged him with her toe. "Hey? What's your handle?"
"Turkish Delight."
She must have misunderstood his slurred words. Creche-raised had names like 'Spot' and 'Fang.' Or maybe he hadn't understood her, and thought she had asked something else. He'd spoken Standard in the nest, but with a Russian heavy accent. "Turkish Delight?"
He opened his eyes to give her a look of complete disgust. His eyes were full black from being in the pit; in the glare of the full dazzle, they started to shift to a chocolate brown. He couldn't have been able to see, so the glare was meant to intimidate her.
Paige sighed. It was going to be one of those discussions. Whatever his name was, it was now of minor importance. What mattered now was who could outstare who. She wished she could back down—she was exhausted, bruised and covered with slime that was making her skin crawl—but if she did, next time would be harder. To stay in command, she had to get his name.
"What is your name?" She put an edge to her voice and prodded him with it.
His thick eyebrows and dark eyes were wonderfully expressive; they told her his thoughts even while he silently gazed at her. He was smart enough to quickly go from annoyed to a realization that they were clashing over command issues. As he pondered his options, his focus shifted from her to the endless sea beyond her. At that moment, such despair filled his face that she felt cruel to firmly push for an answer.
He wet his mouth and made the effort to speak more clearly. "My name is Turk."
"All right, Turk it is." She knew he had said Turkish Delight the first time, but she pretended to believe him. She kind of liked Turkish Delight, but maybe he found it embarrassing. What did it mean, she wondered, and how did he get stuck with it?
Turk tapped her on her foot, getting her attention. "What's your name?"
"Paige Bailey. I'm Captain Bailey. Our gunner is Kenya Jones." Paige pointed to Jones who didn't notice. The gunner's focus was wholly on the civ rift and possible pursuit. "Look, I know this is all going to be new to you, but you're only going to get one chance with me. You screw this up, and I'll throw you back into the water. And don't think I can't. Do you understand?"
"Yes." He nodded to show he completely understood.
"I don't care what you were before. You now listen to everyone on this boat. Everyone. No matter how small they are. Someone tells you to lie on your belly and show your throat, you do it. You hurt anyone, and I'll shoot you dead. You disobey anyone, and I'll put you off my boat."
"Yes, Captain." His eyes said he believed her but wasn't afraid. Nor was he hostile. He was waiting to see how well they treated him. It was a good sign that he could dig up patience when he was this battered.
"Welcome to my crew." Paige said since the Rosetta had just come into view. "My boat isn't much to look at, but it's home."
7
The Rosetta
Turk's rescuers had taken him back to a boat of steel and wood, approximately two hundred feet long. The only heavy weaponry was a laser cannon ripped out of a ground assault vehicle and mounted on the bow. Panels of solar arrays stretched out above the main deck like wings. Everywhere he looked, he could spot bits and pieces of salvaged spaceship, from the shell of a lifepod as the boat's bridge to emergency airlocks now acting as deck hatches. It was a Frankenstein arc-welded together; the ugly scars of its creation visible to the naked eye.
Off the stern, a steel grate folded down to make a platform to dock up against. Crew lined the railing, waiting to make fast the launch he was on. They gazed down at him with surprised silence. While their clothes were all sun-bleached white and blues, the outfits didn't seem to be uniforms. There was no rank insignia visible. None of them seemed very old, and there were children mixed in, crying out what the adults were clearly thinking "A Red! Paige found a Red!"
The Rosetta was a civilian ship. And judging on how similar they looked to each other, the crew was one extended family. No wonder Bailey had threatened to kill him on his first offense; she was putting her family at risk by taking him in.
"Hillary, Becky, go tell Manny that there will be another mouth to feed." One of the men ordered the children away from the railing. Away from danger. Away from Turk.
The children out of harm's way, the man caught the rope that Captain Bailey threw and made fast the launch.
The Captain handed across the part she'd carried out of the alien nest. "Orin, get this to Ran and get the ship ready to depart. We're going to have to decom."
Orin handed up the part to another man and gave orders that scattered the crew. He waited until they were gone to say, "Is it safe to bring him on board?"
"We'll give him a chance. He seems to be smart enough to realize the consequences of not behaving."
Orin eyed Turk with open doubt but said nothing more.
Uneasiness settled on Turk as he realized that he hadn't seen one Red among the crew. He'd never been completely alone among humans before. Even when he was a child, there had been the Volkov household's pride drifting at the edges of his awareness. Except for Mikhail, he'd never interacted with humans for extended periods. And how was it that they have didn't have Reds and yet knew about crèches?
"Come on." Captain Bailey held out her hand, offering to help Turk up. "We need to decontaminate."
Turk hated the fact that he needed her help to crawl out of the launch and onto the grate. Five feet and he was shaking with exhaustion. "I'm going to be the only Red?"
"More or less." She dipped a bucket into the ocean, hauled it up full and dumped the salt water over his head.
"Chyort!" He roared in Russian as the salt water burned in a thousand tiny hurts. "Why the hell did you do that?"
"I know this hurts like sin, but if the civ mold got onboard, it could turn the whole ship toxic within a week." She doused him again. It was like having cold fire poured over him. "We're rationing our fresh water. Besides, salt water kills the mold better. Here."
She handed him a bar of soap. Apparently trusting him to wash himself, she started to strip. She was wearing the chest piece from his combat armor. She'd turned off the emergency beacon in the alien nest, leaving him in darkness. Up to that minute, he'd thought it had been torture to hang on the wall while it blazed away, knowing if the Svoboda had landed safely, Mikhail would have sent a rescue team for him. In the dark, without that slim connection, he'd lost all hope. Even now, he teetered on the edge of an unfamiliar dark emotion that he didn't want to acknowledge.
"That's mine." Turk said as Captain Bailey stripped off the chest piece. It was all he had left of Mikhail.
"It was yours." Her boots, socks and pants followed. "In this world, finder's keepers."
Had she rescued him because he was a valuable lost piece of equipment? "That includes me?"
She studied him for a minute. "Yes."
There, he was comfortably annoyed now. "What do you plan to do with me?"
"Put you to work." Captain Bailey sat down and focused on scrubbing the filth from his armor. The hem of her shirt rode up. Her underwear was modest, white, wet, and clinging, accenting her body while pretending to cover it. It was amazing how distracting three square inches of fabric could be. He had to force himself to look away, and try to remember what they were talking about. Her plans for him.
"Doing what?" he asked.
"Whatever needs to be done. Standing guard. Fishing. Scrubbing." She reached out and tapped the bar of soap in his hand. "You rub that against your skin until it foams, and then you rinse it off."
"I know." Part of the ancient imperial trappings that the Volkovs observed were scented bars of soap. Divine right via neo-Luddite cleaning methods.
"Then do it." She whistled to a male crewmember, a younger brother or cousin by the look of him, and handed him the chest piece. "My cabin."
Turk forced himself not to watch them carry it away. It's not like she threw it away. Growing up under Ivan Volkov's rule, he knew the difference of something gone
forever and something that might be earned back.
Captain Bailey stood eyeing him. "You need to wash. Civ mold can take down even a Red's antibodies."
He looked at the soap in his hand. Between the exhaustion and grief, he couldn't find the energy to move.
Captain Bailey sighed, crouching beside him and taking the soap. "Okay, I'll help you now, but you've got to pull your weight."
She worked the bar of soap into a lather that spilled suggestively down her bare legs. She took his hand in hers and started to wash him. She focused a nearly medical attention onto his hand, and yet, after all the practiced seduction of cat fanciers, he found it wildly alluring. "Boy, the mold has already worked into your fur. Can you shed it?"
"I can't shed on command." He snapped. Normally he could, but not now, not feeling this vulnerable. He hated being weak, dependant, ignorant, and needy. He knew that this sudden desire to fuck a complete stranger was just some emotional reaction to being lost and alone. Like starvation making plain food delicious, his complete isolation made Captain Bailey seem like the most desirable woman he ever met. The blue of her eyes wasn't truly that stunning a color. Her lips weren't that kissably full. Her smile wasn't that open and warm. Her body wasn't so fuck-me perfect. He was just imagining it.
Captain Bailey looked up to study him for a moment and then nodded. Bending her head over his hand, she scrubbed her fingers through his fur, kneading in the soap. He closed his eyes to shut out what the wet t-shirt was failing to cover.
Focus, Turk, Focus.
The Captain rinsed the soap from his arm, making him hiss with pain as the salt burned into the tiny cuts she just scrubbed open. "I'm sorry." And then for the first time she moved cautiously, tentatively touching his shoulder. "I need to scrub your head."
She was aware, then, of how dangerous he could be. As she slid her hand up to his neck, he went tense, controlling the instinctive reaction to defend himself. She watched him closely as she continued to work the soap into his fur.
"Easy," she crooned. "No one's going to hurt you."
He wasn't worried about himself. He forced himself to relax. She smiled and used both hands to knead the tight muscles in his neck. It felt wonderful. As she massaged the back of skull, he slumped forward, resting his head against her shoulder. She smelt of soap and clean skin. The civilized part of him whispered that he shouldn't trust this stranger who had no reason to be good to him. The feral part of his soul, though, accepted the offered refuge.
Captain Bailey went still, holding him close, and then pulled away. He could swear she was blushing. "Get rinsed off."
He gritted his teeth through rinsing as she washed her own hair. After he dragged himself on board, she stripped off her wet t-shirt and finished her bathing in false privacy. He lay on the wood planking and watched her bare back as foam slid down her spine. He should have stayed and offered to wash her back. Then again, it was probably better that he hadn't.
* * *
Captain Bailey supplied him with a towel to wrap around his hips, apparently for modesty only. "Lie out in the sun and dry off." She only had a towel on, wrapped under her arms, and barely covering her groin. "Stay here. I'll be right back."
Turk was on the edge of sleep when the hot sun lessened abruptly, as if something large was casting a shadow over him. He felt the movement of someone nearing him. He struggled to wake back up, growling out a warning.
"It's just me." The Captain's voice came from above him.
He pried open his eyes. It alarmed him how difficult even that task was. He was still lying on the wooden deck. The sudden shadow was from a cloth awning that just had been extended over him, creating shade. Captain Bailey had changed to a swath of bright colored fabric around her like a dress, tied so a part of her leg and hip came into view when the wind fluttered the material.
"Too much sun will make you sick." Captain Bailey locked the awning into place. "Here." She swirled a brushed steel carafe, letting him hear the water gurgle inside it. "I brought you lemonade."
He struggled to sit up and take the carafe. The steel tainted the lemonade, but it was cool and tart and probably the most wonderful drink he'd ever tasted. He held it in his mouth, letting it soak into the dry tissue, before swallowing it down.
"I've drunk my fill." Captain Bailey said. "You can have all of that."
He hadn't considered that they might have to share. She sat down beside him and placed a wooden box filled with slices of raw meat between them. "This is dinner."
He snarled at her, angry that she assumed he ate raw flesh like an animal.
"Sorry, it's Manny's turn to be cook and he hates to do it, so we usually end up with sashimi." She mixed a green paste with black liquid, dipped a piece of meat into it and actually ate it without signs of distaste.
"Sashimi?"
"Sushi has rice and sashimi doesn't. It's a Ya-ya dish. Hopefully you don't mind fish, because that's what we mostly eat, although normally not raw."
With shaking fingers, he picked up a piece of meat and tried it. It was surprisingly good. There were thirty pieces roughly the size of his thumb. His share, then, would be fifteen. He wolfed his half of the fish.
"You want more?" Captain Bailey licked her fingers clean after she finished her half. Did she know how erotic it was?
He felt a flash of embarrassment that he had snarled at her. "No." And because that too felt rude, he added, "Thank you."
"Good, I'm beat." She stretched out in the shade. "We took some damage in our crew quarters and we're short on bunks at the moment. We're short on everything. We can rig you a hammock someplace later, when the weather changes."
It wasn't under she closed her eyes that he realized that she meant to sleep beside him.
"You don't have a bunk?"
"We're hot bunking at the moment." She meant that the crew shared one set of bunks. "I worked through my sleep cycle."
Which meant someone was in her shared bed.
He sat in the pool of shade, watching as her breath deepened into sleep. Exhaustion dulled his thoughts and his emotions swam like fish through the murk of his fatigue. He was too tired to even identify them. Was he feeling dismay? Sorrow? Fear?
Why was Captain Bailey laying here beside him like he was her pet cat? Did she think he was harmless? Or was this a subtle invitation? If that was the case, it was too subtle for him. He looked out into the endless blue. It would be comforting to think that he wasn't completely alone in this alien world—but that would be a dangerous trap to fall into.
* * *
Paige woke when the Rosetta's engine coughed and sputtered three decks below where she had slept. She lay still. Listening. Praying.
Please let it work. Please.
The engine coughed and sputtered again before settling into an uneven growl.
I'll take that.
It was only then that she realized Turk slept beside her. His chin nearly touching her shoulder. His breath warmed the bare skin of her neck. He had his arm thrown across her hips to snug her close to him. Their legs entwined. He breathed deep, fast asleep. Not surprising considering his ordeal. He was still furred over from stress, making him velvety soft over rock hard muscles.
She sighed. It been entirely too long since she woke up with a handsome man beside her. And Turk was dangerously good looking. When he wasn't glaring at her—which was most of the time—he had a warm, open expression with meltingly beautiful eyes. His hands were large and strong, and all his below deck equipment matched in size.
It was very tempting to cuddle up to him and let nature take its course. But she had to think of the long journey. She hadn't been able to walk away from him when he was a stranger. If she gave him her body, she'd end up giving him her heart. And after that, every decision would be that much harder to make.
She slipped out from under his arm; putting distance between her and temptation.
The ship cats, Amber and Miles, were curled up against Turk's back. They gave her evil looks as she
shooed them away. Creche training made the Red fairly safe to humans, but God knows what he'd make of cats. And Rantannann.
What the hell had she been thinking? Certainly nothing beyond getting off the civ raft alive. She thanked the gods that Turk was still asleep, giving her time to consider what to do with him next.
While in theory the Rosetta ran as a dictatorship with Paige as tyrant, in reality it operated much more like what it was: a family wrapped in pretensions of obedience. Orin ambushed her before she even got to the clothesline.
"Are you nuts?" he whispered. All their arguments were quiet ones so they could maintain the illusion of a united front against their younger family members. "A crèche-raised Red?"
She didn't need Orin echoing her own thoughts. "I established my dominance yesterday. I let him know he's off the boat if he doesn't obey everyone. And I will put him off."
"With Hilary and Becky knowing damn well that being castaway is a long, slow death?"
"Yes! If I have to." Her clothes were still damp but she jerked them off the line anyhow. She ducked behind one of the sheets drying on the next line to change. "We have to give him a chance. It's the only decent thing to do. He seems intelligent, sensible . . ." . . .sexier than hell.
Orin heard the unvoiced part. "If you screw around with him, you're going to lose dominance."
"Do you have anything to say that I don't know already?" She stripped off the fabric she'd used as an impromptu dress.
"You're so confident in yourself that you don't think you're wrong."
Paige took a deep breath and kept in all the truthful but hurtful things she could say. Luckily he was on the other side of the sheet so he couldn't see them on her face. Telling Orin that he was reacting to a strange male in his territory wouldn't do anything but make Orin angry at her. If he was willing to be truthful with himself, he'd figure it out on his own, otherwise textbook references and photographic evidence wouldn't be enough to convince him. She pulled on her underwear and shorts, aware of the angry silence between them, but too annoyed to fill it with anything safe. She needed to say something, though, or the silence would turn cancerous.