Cosmic Captain: Chapter 22

“I don’t think I can do it.” I was boycotting the chip swap, arms wrapped around my knees as I sat on the bed while Lovath got dressed.

He shot me an unimpressed look. “Ksiva, you’re far safer doing this than not. I won’t drag you around the galaxy knowing anyone could take you from me.”

Well, when he put it that way, it sounded kind of possessive and hot. I knew logically that we couldn’t leave until I had a Federation chip in my skull, but I was still scared. “I don’t want to wake up and find out you’ve left me here.” I confessed quietly.

With a sigh, Lovath leaned over me, lifted my chin, and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “I’m a little too greedy to do that, Gray. I’m not good at giving up things I like.”

And Lovath liked me, as he’d said many times. I just needed to take deep breaths and get through it. So I took the hand he offered, no longer bothered by his lack of fingers, and stood. I threw on a loose tank top and sweats even if that put my entire marked up neck on display. The only person who would try and make me feel bad about it was Derrick, and I doubted he’d be stopping by.

I’d put purpose into knowing we’d be searching for Derrick after leaving Pretia, but now we didn’t need to do that anymore. I found I still had things to look forward to though. Lovath already had the crew’s next job lined up and I was taking lessons with Kryn to learn how to read Common. I’d fixed his medical scanner, but then Qwexil had come around asking if I thought I could tweak his jabber to connect to the inertial dampeners so they’d be easier to work on.

I was pretty sure I could.

A purpose was all I really needed, and somehow I felt more useful out in space than I ever had on Earth. I didn’t have my religiously respected father screaming in my ear about how being gay made him look bad, or about how my abduction experience was a fantasy I made up in my delinquency just to ruin him. I didn’t ever have to see him again—a thought that brought with it a shocking amount of relief.

I didn’t have a good reason why, but I had always been scared of my dad.

Shaking the thought away, I followed Lovath back out in the common area. Only Kryn was there, chatting amiably with Grishe. She was more willowy, like most krexxians I’d seen, and not for the first time I wondered why Kryn was so built compared to others of his species. Though, humans came in a large range of different body types, so it stood to reason aliens would too.

“Grayson, good to see you this morning.” She smiled at me. In the light of day, I could see dark gray tattoos winding a pattern up both of her long arms. I didn’t think they were part of her skin naturally, though they blended in as if they could be. Not like Lovath’s that were jet black and stark against his pale green skin.

“Hi Grishe. Can you remind me how long the procedure will take?” I wasn’t in the mood to be friendly, I just wanted to get it all over with so I could go back home with Lovath.

Home.

In just over a month, I’d started to think of the Event Horizon as home instead of Earth. I felt like I should be bothered by that, but I wasn’t at all.

“Well, that depends.” She waved for me to follow her, and after looking back to make sure Lovath was staying close, I did. Grishe led us up a janky flight of stairs to what was clearly a clinic, with white walls and sterile silver metal everywhere in sight.

I didn’t like that at all.

My gut bottomed out and I backed straight into Lovath, who gently urged me back into the room with whispered reassurances. I tried to stop the sick feeling that lurched in my stomach, tried not to taste the blue gruel the krexxians had fed me for months, tried not to remember the chemical smell that burned my nostrils. But it all rushed back in horrible clarity, and my eyes watered with tears I was refusing to shed.

“You said…” I had to take a deep breath. “You said it depends. On what?”

If Grishe noticed the waver to my voice, she was kind enough not to say. It was actually helping that she was acting like nothing was wrong. Pulling on a pair of black gloves, she grabbed a small metal box from her very organized shelves and set it on a rolling table that looked like an operating table.

Fuck.

Grishe sat on a stool and opened the box, pulling out what looked like two plastic wrapped pieces of metal, which both fit easily in her palm. I assumed they were in some sort of sterile wrapping, and when I dared to get close enough I could see they were two microchips. One was positively tiny, and I was sure undetectable by human technology. The other was a little larger, but still no larger than the eraser end of a pencil.

“The small one is your citizen chip. Should take me an hour. I also managed to get my hands on a jabber if you want it. That one is trickier, so maybe two. Three hours total if you want both.”

I stared at the unassuming chips in her palm. On Earth I’d vowed never to put technology in my body, but I was already getting a microchip that marked me as a Shukasi citizen. Why not one that would allow me to communicate with others, pay for things, and even track my vitals?

“Is both okay?” I asked Lovath. I knew Grishe was putting in the legal chip free of charge, but I doubted she’d lose out on credits to do the jabber free as well.

“Whatever you want, we’ll get.” Lovath agreed, and I could swear I heard Kryn snort in the background.

“I’ll do both.” My voice was a little hoarse, and I eyed the surgical table with wary indecision. I wanted both microchips if I could convince myself to get on the table. Grishe had all sorts of machines nearby, and I watched as the pulled the overhead arm of something near the top of the table.

I shuddered even as Lovath led me over, and I winced at the chill of the table through my clothing. This was immediately horrible. But I let Grishe push me back onto the table, her willowy frame much stronger than I would have expected.

Of course, that’s how all the krexxians had been.

When she pulled out a needle filled with a bright orange fluid, I jerked off the table and skittered away. “Can’t…can’t do that…” I was shaking my head even as Lovath and Grishe shared a concerned look.

“Ksiva…” Lovath approached me carefully. When I didn’t try to back away any further, he pulled me into a tight embrace. “I promise Grishe won’t hurt you. Can you please do this for me?”

I wanted to. I wanted to so badly, because I knew the end result was a good one. But I was also so scared. “You don’t understand, I…it’s not just the krexxian abduction.” That I had experienced twice, no less. “On Earth too, I had…I…there were lots of procedures.” It was all I managed to get out. I struggled to remember my childhood, but being in something that looked like a hospital room was bringing some of it back.

Most of it was painful. I remembered how my leg felt when I broke it the second time, or how all the bones in my hand had been crushed under a tire when I’d been playing behind my dad’s truck unbeknown to him. Or when I’d fallen down the stairs and broken my arm weeks after my leg came out of a cast.

I remembered how bruised my face had been as a teen when I tripped in the driveway and fell face first into my dad’s hitch. How my eye had throbbed for weeks and how my mom hadn’t even taken me to the hospital at all. She’d just sat me down and prodded at the wound with a hydrogen peroxide coated swab until I cried.

Dad had called me less of a man for it.

“Gray, you won’t even know it’s happening, okay?” Lovath’s voice dragged me from my thoughts. I wasn’t on Earth where all those things had happened. I was in space, where krexxians had abducted me and violated my body in every way imaginable.

Fuck.

I swallowed hard, took a step towards the table. Grishe was waiting patiently, to her credit. More steps forward, less backwards. The only thing I could do was continue with my life—a life in space with Lovath that I was actually excited for. I needed to move on, and the only way to do that was as a citizen of the Shukasi Federation.

Sitting back down on the table, I reached out my hand for Lovath’s. He took it and squeezed it tight as I laid fully back again. Keeping my eyes shut, I pretended not to feel the sting of the needle going into my arm. I focused only on the feel of Lovath’s hand in mine, of the soft, pale green skin of his palm contrasting the darker, leathery scales that felt rough on the back of his hand. How despite only having two fingers and a thumb, his hand dwarfed mine. How much I fucking loved him.

Sleep began to overtake me, and it took everything I had to relax and not fight the feeling. If I did, the outcome would be no different and I’d just be panicky instead. As everything faded away, I thought I heard the sound of the intercom’s voice ring out,

“Door guest, Derrick Lyles.”