Our crew, Shein men guarding the human women, were almost all through the open hangar bay doors.

  Kovar stood at the foot of the boarding ramp, pointing behind me, yelling over the crowd.

  A blast of light struck the building next to me, the impact sending small particles of debris flying.

  I hunched over Kalyn, desperate to shield her.

  She wasn’t whimpering anymore.

  She wasn’t making any sound at all.

  Fifty paces left to the ramp, and it was all open.

  Not a bit of cover.

  The scent of Kalyn’s blood, her still form in my arms, was all the spur I needed.

  Shots flew by us, but the gap closed. Kovar waved wildly, and through the pounding of my boots I could hear the Rogue Star’s engines start.

  Twenty paces.

  We’d be in the air as soon as I hit the ramp.

  I just had to get there.

  Ten.

  Another blast grazed my arm, but it didn’t matter.

  Five paces.

  And with a leap, we were on the ramp.

  “Go! Go!” I shouted as I tore the rest of the way into the hangar, but Kovar had already hit the button, and shouted commands to the bridge.

  They’d handle it.

  They’d have to, because at the moment the ship could burn.

  The women swarmed, chattering in their concern and worry, but I barreled through them.

  “Lynna!”

  Kalyn was so still.

  “Med bay, now!”

  Kalyn

  My body felt light and floaty, like I was made of clouds and stardust.

  Behind my closed eyelids, whorls of colors swirled and flickered in the blackness. I tried to follow one snap of purple light with my eyes but each time my gaze shifted, the little dancing light moved farther into the corner of my eye.

  “Kalyn, can you hear me?" I knew that voice.

  Soft, nice, and never, ever said mean things...

  Lynna!

  I tried to talk, but only a weird grunt came out.

  “Good enough," Lynna chuckled. I felt something large and warm squeeze my hand.

  “I think I might've given her too big a dose," a voice I didn't recognize spoke next.

  “Her vitals are in the normal range, so I wouldn't worry about it," Lynna said. "She's probably having the time of her life in her head right now."

  Everyone's voice sounded like music. I wanted to wake up and tell everyone how pretty they sounded to me.

  I tried to lift my head, but nothing happened.

  “I think she's trying to move," another voice said.

  That one I recognized immediately.

  Dejar.

  He’d saved my life again. Something squeezed my hand again. I tried my hardest to squeeze back.

  “Don't push yourself." His voice was closer now, and softer. I felt his breath against my skin. I wanted to talk back but I couldn't make my mouth work.

  “We should give her a touch of stimulant," the voice I didn't know suggested.

  “Okay, but just enough to get her conscious for a few minutes. I don't want her to be in pain if she doesn't have to be," Lynna agreed. I heard shuffling and the quiet tinkling of glass touching glass.

  “That should do it," the stranger said. I wasn't sure what he meant until the fog started to clear from my mind. The floaty feeling dissolved into a daze.

  I opened my eyes.

  Lynna, Dejar, and a copper-skinned Shein I'd seen before but never spoken to were gathered around me. I became aware of the bed I was lying on and the stiff sheets covering my body. The lights were far too bright. I closed my eyes immediately.

  “Dim the lights," Dejar snapped.

  From behind closed lids, the light faded. When I opened my eyes again, the overhead light was shut off completely.

  A few bedside `lamps illuminated the room that I recognized as the med bay. My mind instantly went to the three women lost on this ship. They were laid to rest in this very room, perhaps this very bed.

  The thought brought tears to my eyes. I lifted a clumsy hand to my face, but I couldn't make my fingers work the way I wanted them to.

  “Can't move," I croaked.

  “You've been given some strong painkiller," Dejar told me. I swiveled my neck so that I could look at him. His skin glowed in the dim light.

  “Pretty," I mumbled. A smile broke out over his face. I giggled without meaning to.

  “Are you in any pain, Kalyn?” the copper Shein asked. I knew his name, but I couldn’t sort it out in my head. My thoughts felt like they were hidden in a labyrinth I had to weave through in order to retrieve them.

  “I don’t think so.” My tongue felt too big for my mouth.

  “Good,” Lynna nodded. “You’ve been here for almost a day. We’ve fixed most of the damage to your leg, but you’re going to have to take it easy for a little while.”

  “Oh,” was the only word I could conjure. My brain scrambled to untangle her meaning. I remember my leg hurting so bad before. I couldn’t feel it now.

  “This med bay is amazing,” Lynna gushed. “The work we did on your leg only took a few hours.” Her face paled. “I’m not sure if we could have saved it, otherwise. It… it was pretty bad.”

  “I don’t want to lose my leg,” I whimpered. “I need it. I can’t feel it, where did it go?”

  Dejar’s hand came up to rest on my cheek. “You won’t,” he said gently. “Your leg is exactly where it’s supposed to be, and it’ll be good as new before you know it.”

  “Promise?” I whispered.

  “Promise.”

  "Let's give them a moment to chat." Lynna urged the other Shein out of the room. I remembered now that he was called Zayn. I would find him later and thank him for his help.

  If I remembered.

  “What happened?" I asked Dejar once we were alone.

  “The Dominion chased us," he explained. “One of their blasts took a chunk of your leg. It shattered the bone, nicked one of the arteries.” His hand tightened on mine. “You lost a lot of blood.”

  I remembered that part, vaguely. I lifted one hand to examine it. It was still stained with the purple juice of the berries, but the pigment was faded. The curtain I'd used as a headscarf was folded on a chair next to my bed.

  “Yes." Memories took shape in my mind’s eye. "We escaped. I saw you in the crowd when they had us surrounded. Why were you there?"

  “Shortly after we dropped you off at the outpost, I had the most horrible feeling that I'd made a mistake," Dejar explained. “Once I knew it was the right thing to do, we turned the ship around. I'm sorry we didn't get there sooner." His hand caressed mine. I worked my fingers to get a better grip on him.

  “I'm glad you showed up when you did," I said. "I was out of ideas at that point."

  “What were you trying to do?" Dejar asked.

  “Maris and I were looking for a comm. I wanted to call you and ask you to come back for us," I answered, the thoughts getting harder to articulate, the fog settling over my mind again.

  Dejar looked taken aback but I didn't understand why. It was only natural that I wanted him to come back, wasn't it? He was so kind and so handsome. Who wouldn't want him around?

  “I wish I'd gotten there sooner," Dejar sighed heavily. “You might not have gotten injured if I hadn't taken so long."

  “I should've listened to you in the first place," I mumbled. "You were right not to trust the Dominion. They have bad staircases.”

  He cocked his head, and I wondered if that made sense.

  “What were they going to do to you?" Dejar asked.

  “I have no idea." I shook my head. The movement made the room swish back and forth. I giggled until I forced myself to stop moving.

  Dejar stared at me with a look of concerned amusement. I'd never seen him look so perplexed in all the time I'd known him.

  How long was that?

  I couldn't remember, exactly. It felt like I'd known him for years. A sudden fear took over me so thoroughly that it knocked the giddiness right out of my mind.

  “You're real, right?" I asked. “This isn't a symptom of the pain meds?"

  Dejar laughed and gave my hand a good squeeze.

  “I'm really here," he said.

  “Very good," I sighed in relief. “It's hard to be sure. You're sexy enough for me to imagine on pain meds."

  “What does that mean?" Dejar chuckled.

  I burst into uncontrollable giggles.

  “It means you're attractive, silly rabbit!" I exclaimed. "If it turns out you aren't real, props to me for coming up with you."

  “I'm real, Kalyn," Dejar laughed. "I wouldn't lie about that."

  “You better not." I shook a clumsy finger at him. "I'm going to be mad if you're lying."

  “The last thing I want is to cause you distress,” he said. “And, for what it’s worth, I think you’re sexy, too.” I tried to hold in my laughter, but it didn’t work.

  “It sounds weird when you say it,” I cackled.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m in a hospital bed covered in berry juice,” I explained. “There’s no way I’m sexy.”

  “I think you’re attractive, despite the berry juice and messy hair,” Dejar assured me.

  “What’s wrong with my hair?” My hand flew to the crown of my head. Apparently, something was still wrong, because I smacked myself in the forehead, instead.

  “Yes. After being chased, injured, and operated on, your hair got a little messy,” Dejar explained.

  “I was operated on?” I gasped.

  “Lynna and Zayn had to fix the hole in your leg,” Dejar reminded me. “Keeping your hair immaculate wasn’t their priority.”

  “Shut up, you’re not even real,” I insisted.

  “If I’m not real, then why did you say my skin is pretty?”

  “I never said that,” I declared.

  “You said it ten minutes ago when you first woke up.” He looked smug. He shouldn’t be allowed to look so handsome and so smug at the same time. I had a witty remark on the tip of my tongue, but before I could say it, shooting pain stabbed up my leg.

  “Ow,” I winced.

  “Looks like it’s time for some more painkiller.” Dejar stroked my hair and called Lynna and Zayn back into the room.

  “Is everything okay?” Lynna asked.

  “Her pain meds wore off,” he explained. “But she’s still a little loopy.”

  “No, I’m not!” I mumbled, but no one seemed to pay attention.

  “Try to rest now,” Dejar murmured to me. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  “I still don’t think you’re real,” I muttered before sinking back into unconscious bliss.

  Dejar

  “Morning. What are you doing off in Wonderland?”

  I snapped out of my doldrums to see Kalyn smiling at me.

  A magnificent smile, a beautiful smile, a smile I never wanted to see leave her face again.

  I could wake up to that smile every morning for the rest of existence.

  And because I’d been too slow to come back for her, failed to protect her, she’d nearly died.

  “What’s this ‘Wonderland’ I’ve visited?”

  “Huh?” she said absent-mindedly. “Oh, it’s just a saying from Earth. It basically means that your mind is elsewhere, wandering.”

  “Ahh,” I said. Not entirely accurate. My mind never seemed to wander far from her anymore.

  “Hungry?” I held up her breakfast platter, so she could see what I had brought.

  “Ooh. Gimme, gimme.” Her fingers opened and closed quickly in a mob of ‘come hither’ movements.

  I laughed and set the plates down, then helped her sit up. Once the tray was set up between us, there weren’t a lot of words for the next few minutes as she devoured breakfast. I’d piled it high with all the protein and fruit I could get. Lynna said Kalyn was healing well, but surely more food would help.

  I found myself mesmerized by her. I ate my own breakfast silently, reading ship reports and searching the universal net for any reports about our ship on my tablet, but still my eyes kept drifting to her face.

  “So, I’ve noticed you’re spending most of your time in here,” Kalyn mentioned as she bit into a slice of meat.

  I gave her a one-shoulder shrug. “Eh, I needed to make sure Lynna and Zayn were getting along and not destroying my med bay.”

  “Hey,” Lynna protested from the other side of the med bay. “I do have a clue, you know. Zayn’s the one that needs help.”

  “You realize,” Zayn said from behind me, “that I’m standing right here, don’t you?”

  We all shared a quick laugh as I looked back at Kalyn.

  “I like the view here better than in my office, that’s all.”

  “Aww, that’s so cute,” Lynna cooed.

  I turned to glare at Lynna.

  “Uh, Zayn?” she started.

  “Yes?”

  “Let’s go check on the other women, shall we?”

  “But they’re not in here to…” he started.

  “Just come with me,” Lynna commanded as she grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the med bay.

  I looked back at Kalyn and the look on her face made me struggle to keep my composure. We both burst out laughing, only stopping when she winced in pain.

  “Are you alright?” I asked, my hand finding hers.

  She nodded slowly and squeezed my hand. “Yeah. Just a minor twinge in my leg. Guess I can’t laugh too hard for a little bit.”

  “I guess not, unless you want your pain meds again, then you can laugh and giggle and say the most interesting things all over again.” I sat back and smirked at her.

  She hit me with a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh. You don’t remember thinking I was part of your imagination? Or calling me ‘sexy’?”

  She blushed. “I did not say that. Did I?”

  “And so many other things.” I chuckled.

  “That’s not fair!” she pouted playfully. “You can’t say that I did something like that and not tell me what it was.”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes!”

  So, I told her. We spent the next half hour laughing and enjoying one another’s company as I regaled her with her uninhibited mumblings.

  “It’s not fair, you know,” she fussed. “You know all my deepest secrets, and I don’t know a thing about you.”

  I froze.

  “People got hurt. I needed to leave.”

  She didn’t say anything, just traced gentle patterns on my arm with her fingers.

  Like Kalyn had.

  I’d failed to protect her, and she got hurt.

  But she didn’t blame me. She’d shared her stories of her terrible mother, her fears and worries about leadership, her dreams of studying lost cultures.

  I didn’t want to tell her anything. But I wouldn’t fail her again. She deserved more.

  I took a deep breath, tried to decide where to start. “I was not the most well-behaved child. I got into trouble, often.” I sat back in my chair, pulled out old memories I’d tucked away. “I wasn’t involved with the wrong crowd, as such, but I wasn’t exactly around the best people, either. I ended up doing things that my parents became embarrassed by.”

  “Like what?” she asked quietly when I hadn’t spoken again for a few moments.

  With a deep, deep sigh that seemed to come from the bottom of my toes, I looked at who I’d been then. “I was reckless, enjoyed anything that gave me an adrenaline rush. I jumped across buildings, I ran from authorities, I stole vehicles, got into fights with people that I wouldn’t fight with now as a sane adult.” I shook my head. “I made my parents’ lives a nightmare.”

  “And even then, the thrill wasn’t enough. I decided to join some friends of mine in trying to rob a major corporate office. It seemed fair, because everyone knew they were stealing from their customers. We’d be the good guys, or something.” The memories were bitter, no matter how old. “Really, we were just idiots. I wasn’t caught by the authorities, but I was caught on surveillance.” I stopped, remembering that stupid, stupid decision. “It was a bad situation.”

  “Why was it so bad?” Sweet Kalyn. Not a bit of judgment, just concern. I laced my fingers with hers, let her steady me.

  “My father, while not a politician, was a very powerful member of the community, and my actions were disrupting some of his business dealings. Basically, if I continued being what I was, I was going to cost him a tremendous amount of money and respect. They gave me a choice.”

  “What was it?”

  “I could either straighten up and become the upstanding citizen that my parents wanted me to be, or I could be sent away.”

  She looked at me, worried for my well-being. “Where would they send you?”

  “There was a ‘special’ school in the outer regions where a—what was the word you used before, malcontent? —would be sent to be properly trained in how to behave, or else they suffered the consequences.”

  Her eyes went wide. I could see her mind trying to come up with ideas about the consequences. I saved her from having to think too hard.

  “If we didn’t act right, we would be beaten until we did. If we were killed, it meant we weren’t strong enough to make the proper changes.”

  She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry. How did you make it out of there?”

  “Who says I went?”

  “I just assumed, based on what you told me…um,” she dropped her eyes and looked embarrassed by her words.

  I put my finger on her chin and gently lifted her face up to mine. I leaned forward and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek. “It’s okay. I chose to behave, but it didn’t last long. I wasn’t able to live by their rules. I joined the first group of space-runners that came to the area. I tried contacting home a few months later, but I was answered by a member of my father’s staff. He politely told me that I was no longer a member of the family. That was it.”

  “I’m so sorry.” It looked like she wanted to say more, but Lynna and Zayn returned.

  “I should get some work done,” I said, and reached for my tablet.

 

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