Page 43 of Alliance
“That,” he said, tapping my collarbone, “is a dongle for a S-Ion Slab4.”
“Wow,” I said with wide eyes, turning it this way and that to catch the light. “I… don’t know what that is…”
“Dongle is an old word for a tech tuner,” he said dismissively, waving his hand.
I smiled sheepishly. “I mean I don’t know what a S-Ion Slab4 is.”
Fásach leaned over me in awe, but his vitals were anxious and fluttery. He took the little copper dongle as if it were a precious stone while Traveler explained.
“Bogs charge just like you, dolly. Military-grade units are issued a sodium-ion suit or intercasing solar backup for expeditionary assignments.”
“But why?” I asked, blinking at the golden dongle pinched between Fásach’s fingers.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Traveler crossed his arms. “Charging pods don’t exactly grow on trees. Besides, sentinel mode sucks for perimeter defense.”
“This is too much, Trav,” Fásach said, holding the dongle out, jaw muscles bulging as he clenched his teeth. His nostrils flared and he huffed a breath when Traveler didn’t move to take the little pill back. “You haven’t told us what all of thisgood willcosts, and we’re only a couple turns out from the drop point.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Traveler said, his deep glare set in stone.
“Don’t lie. I know this stuff isn’t free—”
“Dolly already paid.”
[Warning] A thick, leaden silence smashed the space between the three of us, making it hard to breathe. Fásach’s ears snapped, his hackles standing on end. Big huffs of air pumped through his lungs like a hunting dog on the scent, ready to snap his teeth in Traveler’s direction. And when I put my hand on his outstretched arm, the muscle was as taut as quivering steel.
“It was nothing,” I lied gently, glancing between them. I patted his arm, trying to lower it, but he refused. When I looked back at his face, his ears were flat, horizontal pupils flattened to slits as he stared at me in shock. I swallowed hard.
[Warning] He knew I was lying.
“What did he ask for, Roz?” he growled low in an effort not to make a scene that would reach the girls’ ears. I pulled a little more forcefully on his arm.
Traveler chuckled. “Trust me, you aren’t a big enough buck to take me down on my own ship. So does it really matter? I can exact whatever price I want, and you can’t do anything about it.”
“Tell me the price,” Fásach clenched. I opened my mouth to tell him, but the captain beat me to it.
“Small potatoes. Truly.” He shrugged, and a maniacal glint caught his gold teeth as he smirked. [Warning] “I just asked for her to give me everything she’s got. And would you believe it? Opened up for me right there in the hallway. She didn’t even sayfuck yo—”
Fásach smashed the back of Traveler’s head against the open compartments in the wall, canisters and doors making a racket as their rails clacked and contents jostled from the force. The captain burst into laughter, holding his gut with both matte black hands.
“I gave him a copy of my code!” I yelled, wedging my way between Traveler’s neck and Fásach’s jaws before he could snap. His upper lip quivered with a menacing snarl as I pushed back on his chest. “That’s all! And it wasn’t for Captain Traveler. TheMummerwanted to talk to it once we’re gone.”
“Small potatoes, see?” Traveler said with gleeful amusement. “Ah man, this has been great. I’ll miss you, you know that? I mean, I’ll miss Rozmore,but—”
Fásach shoved the captain away again, then ran his claws through his tresses. His fur sprayed open like a mohawk beneath his palm, a finger longer than it had been the day before.
“Stop beingfuckinghelpful!” he growled, pointing a black claw in Traveler’s face. The bog smiled.
“Aww, you’re welcome.”
I pressed the dongle to the magnetic plate behind my ear as Traveler directed and attuned my systems while he walked us through our plan of approach. They’d targeted a large relay station south at seventy-four degrees from the polar cap rather than a direct descent, which would act as a shield from its radar and give us a course to follow. The tundra itself was too cold to snow anyway, and the entire ice sheet was a comms dead zone. Too much magnetic interference from Big Blue.
“Will you be okay?” I asked Fásach.
He didn’t seem all that confident when he responded, “Yes. I should be fine. My homeworld has a strong magnetosphere too. I’m more worried about the girls.”
Both our eyes strayed across the hologram of Yaspur’s topography to where the girls were leaning against the thick viewshield near the pilot’s station, twisting this way and that with childlike excitement.
“There’s no way for us to get closer?” I asked Traveler, but the captain shook his head with a negative series of clicks in his throat.
