Page 34 of Star Claimed Omega
From the water filters being poisoned to the sun lamps rigged to control their moods.
She spent most of her time in her room, on conspiracy chat rooms with other misguided, brainwashed souls.
Soleil didn’t evenhavea bedroom.
She slept on a foam pallet tucked behind the collapsed couch frame, with a dented locker for her possessions and an emergency curtain she pulled over her for privacy.
With a sigh, Soleil dropped the ration bag on the kitchenette counter and began cleaning.
She washed up, and once the surfaces were clear of grot and dishes, she unloaded her grocery sack.
Butter. A small block, scarcely discernible. Flour, a week’s ration’s worth. Two eggs, pure gold.
She unwrapped them with care.
With these, she had enough to make a new batch of her favorite baked treats.
As she laid the ingredients out, a question clanged around in her mind like a pan left loose in zero-G.
Why was she baking for Santi?
No doubt, she enjoyed it as a respite from work.
She crafted her goodies in between her shifts and her study of the pile of maps and old ship blueprints scattered across the diminutive table beside her sleeping pallet.
Leaving him a few of her leftover tarts and slices was not a hardship.
Still, what was shedoing?
Hewasn’t for her.
He was leagues above her station.
Santiago Alvarro was the XO of a war machine corporation, one that enforced peace and order with ruthless efficiency on the flotilla.
The epitome of what she fought against these last couple of years.
Yet she thought about him when she cleaned, when she stirred batter or kneaded dough.
She lingered on that lazy smirk of his, the one that curled at the edges of his mouth, the one that made her breath hitch.
She imagined his hands sliding down her spine, holding her from behind as he whispered into her ear and called hercariño.
She told herself it was harmless, that she was only showing appreciation, a gesture.
However, some deep, unspoken part of her knew better.
She wanted to care for him, to freakin’ nurture him, and be cared for by him.
It was as if the sun inside her recognized the storm in him and craved to wrap him in her heat.
She scowled, cracking eggs into a bowl.
‘I’m freakin’ hopeless,’ she muttered to herself.
Lilla shuffled into the common area from the sleeping nook, mumbling.
Her rainbow-hued hair stood up in wild tufts, and she had one sock on.
