Cosmic Captain: Chapter 10

Everyone blinked at me owlishly, and Talisaar spun back around in his chair. A whistle came from behind me, and I turned to see Qwexil approaching with Kryn. The sight of the big gray alien still filled me with fear, especially given how muscled and bulky he was.

All the aliens—krexxians—I’d been in contact with prior to him were wily and frail looking, yet they’d easily overpowered me all the time. Kryn still had the krexxian height yet was built like an Greek statue. He could probably break me with his pinkie finger.

Not at all like Lovath, who was leanly muscled. Enough to be strong, to have those hot, defined lines of his tattooed biceps, but not enough to be bulky and huge. And I immediately ended that train of thought because no way in all hell had I just equated anything of Lovath’s to being hot.

I hated aliens. Aliens were ugly. Except Lovath really wasn’t that strange as far as aliens went. Those hair tentacle things on his head did just look like locs at a glance and sure he was green and had those leathery patches, but his body was pretty humanoid and—

No.

“Maybe you should clarify what you mean by that, Grayson.” It was Qwexil who spoke—one of the ones who actually used my name—and it took me a moment to remember I’d asked about coding at all. My thoughts were too drawn to the contemplative way Lovath was looking at me, and really he had very normal lips.

What the fuck?

I shook my head and glanced at Qwexil before meeting Lovath’s gaze. “You said the code is bugged for the cargo bay doors. I worked on stuff like that on Earth. I wanted to see if I could learn and maybe fix it.” That wasn’t quite true, but it was close enough. By the looks on everyone’s faces, though, I’d said something supremely stupid.

“You really think anything on Earth is even remotely similar to a spaceship?” Talisaar asked, tone condescending in a way I was never going to get used to.

“Humans aren’t idiots. I know every coding language where I’m from. It might take time, but I could learn another.” It felt like a losing battle already, and even Lovath looked skeptical.

“Even if you could, it would be a little unwise of us to give you access to our systems like that.” Zenkara offered, and as sweet as she seemed, I wanted to scream at her. Couldn’t forget she’d voted to deliver me to Torvan, too.

“We can restrict his access to everything but the door.” Kryn offered, and if I wasn’t so terrified of him, I could hug him.

“And if he figured out how to override the restrictions?”

“Tal, you can’t argue that humans are too stupid to learn our code in the first place, then also say we’re at risk of him hacking our entire system. Pick an opinion, man.” Qwexil rolled his eyes, then looked pointedly at Lovath. “I don’t see why not, and we can protect everything important if he can figure out the code.”

Lovath had just been looking at me the entire time, with his solid green eyes and the thinnest slitted pupils. It was like he was searching for something from me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. After a long minute of his silent gaze on me, my cheeks flushed and I squirmed a little in my seat.

His mouth crooked into an attractive smirk. “What could it hurt?”

It could hurt my ego. This shit really was nothing like Earth code. But..it wasn’t unlearnable either. I’d spent every moment of the past six days poring over the tablet Lovath had let me use, whether in my room or down in the engine room by the malfunctioning door.

Lovath had given me access to some tutorials along with the actual program to manipulate the code, which I’d tried not to act too grateful for. He checked on me every once in a while, and I found my eyes tracking him every time he left.

Why did an alien have to be so god damned attractive?

I was keenly aware I had only a few days until we reached Torvan. Until I was dropped of like cargo at my buyer’s doorstep. It renewed my efforts to learn the code, and over long hours, it was starting to come together. My understanding was rudimentary, but it didn’t look quite so alien and strange anymore.

While I’d found no solution for the door—I did actually want to fix it—I was able to figure out how to override the personal quarter’s door locks. They were less heavily protected than something like the flight deck or the airlock, and I was reasonably certain I could override someone’s door lock if I wanted to.

Obviously Lovath’s, to catch him at a disadvantage and make him take me back to Earth. Except I didn’t have anything to make me threatening in the slightest. He’d probably just laugh me out of the room, or even use my microchip to paralyze me.

The chip was something I couldn’t access at all, and I had a feeling a professional in implants would have to look at that. Through my own observations and asking everyone a question here and there, I’d gained a lot of knowledge I didn’t previously have.

Such as, Lovath was a species called traakian. Those tentacle things draping from his head were called xivpa. That Lovath and his crew dealt mostly with the illegal transportation of drugs and weapons. Sometimes cybernetic implants too. They were often surprised at my ability to understand what they were talking about, and I tried not to find it offensive.

If a monkey started trying to talk to me about quantum particles, I might be a bit disbelieving too.

“Water.” A metal bottle came between my face and the tablet I was working on. “I haven’t seen you drink all day.” When I looked up, Lovath was looking down at me, arm held out.

Gingerly, I took the bottle from him, my fingers brushing his. His hands had those dark, scaly patches on top but his palms were smooth and pale green like most of the rest of him. “Thanks.” I rasped, my throat drier than I remembered. Lovath had taken to making sure I stayed hydrated, and he often brought me food too.

When I’d asked if it was dangerous to have liquids that could be spilled through the metal grates into the tubing and wiring below, Lovath had just shrugged. I’d promptly asked Qwexil after that—who was the ship’s mechanic—and he’d said it wouldn’t be a very good spaceship if a bottle of water could ruin all the equipment.

“Making any headway?” He waved at the tablet in my hands.

“Some.” I didn’t want to reveal too much yet. So I diverted. “How does someone end up being a smuggler out in space?”

Lovath snorted. “Try being dirt poor and growing up on a seedy space station. I’ve been stealing to survive since I was a kid.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug, and I tracked one of his xivpa with my eyes as it slipped over his shoulder.

“So lying just comes naturally to you, then?” Maybe it was a callous thing to say when he’d just revealed a bit of his past, but I didn’t care. Just like I didn’t care about how nice his arms looked while they were crossed over his chest.

A playful grin lit up his face, baring canines that were definitely larger than a human’s. “A lot of things come naturally to me, ksiva.”

I choked on the water I’d been glugging. Had he meant that to be sexual? Judging by his low chuckle as I hacked up a lung, he totally had. Blood rushed to my face, and I avoided eye contact as I made the poor decision to retort, “That attitude gets all the women for you?”

Lovath actually laughed at that, and I dared to glance back up at him. “All the men maybe.” And he shot me a pointed look. Okay, bad question. Very, very bad question. If there had been any doubt before that he was attracted to me, that was certainly cleared right up.

“So you, uh…grew up…stealing?” I forced myself to ask, flustered as fuck.

“I’ll save it for another time, Gray.” And really, Lovath had no right to sound so smug. “I’ll leave you to your code.” Somehow he’d managed to say that without a hint of condescension, and I staved off any feeling of gratefulness. It wasn’t kind of him to act like I was capable of learning; that was basic human decency, which he seemed low on.

Lovath left and my mind wandered. In a way, I wished he’d come back so I could be reminded what an arrogant asshole he was. When he wasn’t around, I always found myself asking if he was really that bad. I was being delivered like cargo, but the crew was treating me well. Despite being flirty, Lovath never touched me and they kept me well-fed. They were even doing their best to treat me like an equal.

Except maybe Talisaar.

“How’s it going down here?” Qwexil’s voice rang out across the engine room, and I found myself disappointed Lovath hadn’t come back. Fuck, I had some problems.

Before the whole alien abduction thing, I’d been a bit out there in my…tastes. ‘Monster fucker’ was definitely a label I’d taken on in the past, because it had all been fantasy. A lot of things were fun in fantasy. Since being violated by the krexxians, though, I’d barely even been able to stomach my own hand.

So whatever fixation I was developing on Lovath had to stop.

“It’s going.” I sighed as Qwexil approached. Though very alien, Qwexil was another one that had started to almost pass as attractive in my mind. His stark white color was intriguing and his face was almost delicate and elfin despite the hard double sets of horns on his head.

Jesus, I was starved for human contact. Not for the first time, I wished Derrick was here. That was something I needed to figure out as well; had Derrick been taken and if so, where could I find him? It was an insult to my human friend to start normalizing the presence of aliens in my life.

“That doesn’t sound promising.” Qwexil chuckled.

“I actually think I’m getting there. It’s just complicated.” I told the truth. Truths were easier to keep track of than lies, and pretending that I didn’t understand the coding shit at all could have lost me my tablet privileges.

“Damn straight. Humans aren’t there with the technology yet, but Tal acts like you guys aren’t capable of higher understanding whatsoever. Not like any of us come from Class 1 societies. We’re not that much better than humans.” Qwexil was chatty, and even if I missed Lovath, I liked it. I could get a lot of my questions answered when Qwexil was around.

“What separates Class 1 from Class 2?” All I knew was that Class 2 societies had developed advanced space travel.

“Telepathy. Class 1 species can communicate via telepathic links. It’s regarded as the highest stage of evolution, though I call bolshtec. We’re operating in Shukasi Federation space though, and they make the rules because they’re the telepaths.”

Free with information, like I said.

“So it’s the shukasi that say you can’t interact with Class 3 and lower planets?” Idly, I scrolled through code, trying not to sound too interested.

“Yep.” He popped the ‘p’ pretty well for someone who wasn’t speaking in English. Maybe my translator made that part up. “Impossible not to get caught, really, and you’d catch centuries worth of fines and a prison sentence for even trying. Human advancement is supposed to happen on its own. That’s why we can’t put people back either, even if they’re taken illegally. You would know about us. One person spreading it around would just be called crazy, but multiple? Too risky.”

I hated that it made sense. I didn’t want it to. “You couldn’t just wipe our memories or something?” Looking up, I wanted to see Qwexil’s reaction because I was only half joking.

Qwexil snorted a laugh, “Nah, my guy. That would be helpful technology. As of yet, uninvented.” There was a long pause before he continued with, “Look, Gray. I know what it’s like to feel helpless. I can’t stop the ship’s trajectory, but I can try and give you a leg up.”

Consider my interest piqued. Perking up, I asked, “What kind of leg up?”

“Here.”

My eyes widened to saucers as he held out a sharp object that my brain belatedly recognized as a knife. Well, really more of a shiv. It was barely the length of my palm, but…that could do some damage if I needed to defend myself, right?

“Are you sure?” I cursed myself for asking that instead of just taking it.

“Yeah. Give Torvan a run for his money.”

I almost felt bad I’d be betraying Qwexil’s trust immediately. But I didn’t plan on waiting to get to Torvan to use my new weapon. I knew how to override the door locks, and Lovath was getting a visit. A path home was finally in sight.