Page 7 of Adrift!
“Your enhancements must give you an edge.”
“Mostly they’ve just kept me alive.”
She froze with the mug halfway to her mouth, her cheeks blanching with dismay. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to seem like I was prying.”
With precise calibration, he aligned the flask with the other aromatics. “It’s fine. I am not self-conscious about my augments. They could be reengineered and integrated less obviously, but I never bothered.” He rested his hand on the bar, like it was just another tool. “They’re a reminder that I’ve survived.”
To his surprise, she set the mug aside to take his hand, gently swiveling it upward to reveal the interface of tech to flesh that had rebuilt his arm. Responding unexpectedly to the contact, electricity shimmered through the circuitry. An errant electron flared up farther, following the inscriptions in his organic skin.
“That’s beautiful.”
In her slightly husky voice, the comment rippled through him with more power than seemed warranted. And he couldn’t stop the brighter spark that zinged visibly over his skin.
Abruptly, Remy released him. “Thanks for the drink. I should probably…” She waved one hand behind her.
She’d wanted to avoid the others until this little moment with him, and now she was fleeing him as well.
But he’d been hired to serve drinks; it wasn’t his job to convince anyone to fall in love with an alien.
And he certainly wasn’t here to fall in love with an alien himself.
Chapter 3
The next “day”, Remy stayed in her quarters for as long as she could stand it.
The cabin was nice enough, combining comfortable with streamlined like any decent cruise ship. She’d gawped briefly at the “futuristic” amenities—the fabricator, the biometric bath, the endlessly customizable settings for the ambiance of lights, sounds, and even scents—before reminding herself thiswasthe future.
Although the bed was too big for only one person. Of course.
But the in-room diversions were limited to light snacks and slightly suggestive ambient music, probably because the passengers were supposed to be entertaining each other. And she hadn’t loaded her personal datpad with anything sufficiently distracting since she hadn’t intended to be stranded in space.
Plus, the room dispenser didn’t have coffee. What sort of cruise from hell was this anyway?
So she donned some fuzzy orange socks (she’d programmed the fabricator for “comfortable footwear” and it churned out fuzzy orange for some reason so she’d been very carefully specific in her request for clean underwear) and ventured into the great beyond.
A Cosmic Connections Cruise had seemed fantastical—or maybe ridiculous was the better word, since apparently she needed to be more precise. But fantasy or joke, at least it wasnotthe world she’d wanted to escape, and claiming the free cruise ticket had felt like fate taking pity on her.
Now it seemed more like the next verse in the universe’s most maudlin and unbelievable blues song.
When she reached the Starlit Lounge, she sniffed. At least there was coffee.
Only a few of her fellow passengers lingered at the couches near the breakfast buffet. Remy beelined to the carafes set up on the bar—nodding once to Ikaryo who stood there as if he’d never left.
“Good morning,” he said in his slightly buzzy baritone.
She glanced at the viewport. Still very black. “I…guess?”
He chuckled, a very Earther sound. Was that something he’d learned along with slinging drinks? She realized she didn’t even know his species. Was it ruder to not know or to ask?
Feeling her cheeks flush, she grabbed her coffee and turned to find an empty nook where she could caffeinate in peace. But right then, Mariah arrived, alone. When they made inadvertent eye contact, Remy dredged up a smile. Probably not as convincing as Ikaryo’s, but the other woman grabbed a drink, and after a brief chat with the alien bartender, she hastened over to Remy.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Of course. Or I mean, of coursenot.” She shook her head. “We both are native English speakers, we both have universal translators, and I’m still not making sense.”
Mariah laughed. “We both haven’t had our coffee.”
Remy gestured at the cushions across from her. “First things first.”
