New Horizons: Chapter 2

My entire mood soured at the sight of Gray’s traakian lover. Lovath looked like any other of his species, with pale green skin and darker green, leathery patches all over. Most notably, instead of hair he had long, dark green head tendrils that looked enough like locs to be mistaken as such.

Fucking weird. Gray had sex with that thing? I’d give him the benefit of Lovath’s body being relatively human. He was leanly muscled too, in less of an overly buff way and more of a subtle way. But he was maybe only a few inches taller than me so it wasn’t like he was some god of sexy.

Either unaware of or simply ignoring the change in my demeanor, Gray answered, “Grishe is finally getting me a new jabber.” He held out his left arm to me as Lovath slid a hand around his waist. A creepy hand with only two fingers and a thumb. “Kryn cleared me for it last week.”

My eyes flicked to the dark green splotch on Lovath’s collarbone that was clearly a hickey. Ugh. Forcing myself to focus, I looked at Gray’s arm. There was a long, barely visible scar on the back of his wrist where his jabber had been cut out by Qwexil, the Event Horizon’s prior mechanic, and it made me sick to my stomach. I didn’t know how Lovath slept at night knowing Qwexil was still out there somewhere.

Next to Gray, I guessed.

I knew Kryn to be the Event Horizon’s medic, but he was also krexxian. The very same race of aliens that had abducted us and made this all a problem in the first place. The medical field out here was dominated by krexxians, which was why krexxian research ships often had special licenses to enter the Sol System to study humans for medical purposes. It just so happened that many research ships took advantage of the privilege to make an extra credit or two selling humans on the illegal exotics market.

But I was sure Kryn was a fucking great guy.

“You want a new one? Maybe you just weren’t meant to have one.” I tried to keep my tone teasing, but I found it a lucky reset that Gray didn’t have a jabber. It meant if I convinced him to go back to Earth with me, he wouldn’t have to worry about alien technology in his arm.

Gray rolled his eyes, apparently catching on. “This again? A jabber won’t keep me from going back to Earth. The implants I’m about to get in my heart will.”

I balked. “The what?”

Gray waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, it’ll extend my lifespan, dude. Lovath's gonna live like 400 more years, I have to keep up.” Looking at the traakian that still had his arm around him, Gray pushed up on his toes to kiss the underside of his jaw.

I suppressed my frown to the best of my ability. “Your body.” I shrugged. “Glad you came to visit. You want company at Grishe’s? Or you just come to say hi?” Grishe was another krexxian—gray, hairless aliens with two sets of eyes—that had been hiding out on Pretia for a while. She was apparently Lovath’s contact for modified Federation microchips and other illegal implants.

That was something that was never coming out of my head. The overarching government in most of the Milky Way galaxy was the Shukasi Federation. Run by the shukasi—a Class 1 species who communicated through telepathy—they required all citizens to have a Federation issue microchip in their skulls. I viewed it like having a social security number.

I was given one the moment I escaped my krexxian captors and was taken in by Federation enforcers. It wasn’t the best case scenario that I would have the chip forever, but it was undetectable by human technology, so it couldn’t be removed on Earth and wouldn’t hurt anything either.

“Actually I want to hire you.” Lovath spoke for the first time this interaction, and I sucked in a breath, blinking at him in shock.

“What?”

Gray coughed a laugh, and he seemed the only person amused by the situation. Lovath was just wary. “Yeah. The Horizon needs a new mechanic. I’m doing two jobs right now working on the damned thing and trying to be a captain.” He wasn’t selling it super hard, and I had a feeling Gray had talked him into it. Not having a mechanic onboard likely did suck, but there was no reason to ask me, specifically.

“And if I have reservations about the kind of work you do?” I knew that Lovath and his crew were smugglers. Gray insisted that Lovath never had and never would deal in exotics or slave trade, but I was certain he had his three, weird fingers in everything else. Illegal drugs, contraband weapons and materials, banned implants…the list went on. I’d been a pretty upright guy on Earth. Not that I’d had much of a choice. Being Black in a country where I got racially profiled left and right didn’t leave a lot of room for illegal activity.

So I kept my hands clean.

Gray groaned. “Come on, Derrick. Lovath just delivers. He doesn’t buy or use…most of it.”

It was shady. Gray knew it too. But he looked at Lovath with stars in his eyes. The traakian could kill someone in cold blood and Gray would probably have an orgasm.

“Then what’s your next job? I want to know what I’d be getting into.” Despite the circumstances, I had to admit it was still a good offer. I’d get off the planet that was slowly destroying my lungs and I’d be a traveling mechanic just like I’d been wanting. One step closer to making it back to Earth.

For Gray’s sake, I’d try to find a way other than stealing the Event Horizon. But if that became my only choice, I wouldn’t hesitate. Maybe then I’d get a closer look into Lovath and Gray’s relationship. I could make sure he was telling the truth and he wasn’t being coerced.

Lovath looked around and shifted on his feet. “Just making deliveries when we can. Most of our focus right now is hunting down Qwexil.”

That was interesting to me. A common goal between me and Lovath. Beyond being the Horizon's mechanic, Qwexil had been Gray’s friend. He’d betrayed Gray’s trust by kidnapping him and delivering him to the very buyer Lovath had spurned. The fucker had apparently slipped away to some far corner of the galaxy, and Lovath had chosen to rescue Gray instead of going after Qwexil initially.

Because of the lost time, the trail had gone cold.

“And pay?”

“All jobs get split equally between crew.”

That was…surprisingly magnanimous for a pirate ship. Lovath could easily give me a smaller percentage for being new, or even just for being a human. “Your crew won’t mind sharing?”

Lovath snorted. “The can get the drek off my ship if they care. Besides, while none of us are going to be buying luxury planets or anything, there’s plenty of credits to go around.”

When I glanced at Gray, his hopeful expression made me melt. It sounded like good credits, we’d be going after the asshole that hurt Gray, and I’d get the fuck off of Pretia. I really couldn’t justify telling Lovath no.

“Okay. I’m in.”