Page 2

chaptertwo

roxy

“Don’t letthem see you, Sha,” I warned.

My copilot shifted effortlessly from their Kelki form—all purple tentacles and beaks—into a human man as they flipped switches on our craft to land at the Aeon Trillium Cabaret & Casino.

“I swear to Dilf, Roxy, don’t tell me how to shift my shape.” Sha glanced at me and shifted their hair color closer to mine. “All humans look alike anyways.”

I zipped my boots up under the long, red evening gown I’d chosen for this escapade. “You can’t wing it, Sha. They don’t look the same on visual record.” I depressed the activation node on my infomatter. “Show me Count Borrdaff.” I tossed it to Sha. “Here.”

Sha spruced themself up with the new information, adjusting their face to a match for Borrdaff Kahcksuccerce, the Minor Crime Count of a nearby system. “I guess we’d better do a good job retrieving this Llurren for IFUCS. Maybe they’ll throw us more business.”

“I don’t give a good fuck what IFUCS thinks,” I said. “You know the Admiral of the Intergalactic Federation of United & Conjunct Starsystems wouldn’t have hired us if they had better options. We’re expendable to them, and don’t forget it. We’ll be lucky to make it out of here alive, much less successfully extract the Llurren scientist. But you’re right about one thing—we can’t afford to fumble this mission. We need the money.”

“Faaaa,” Sha balked, their voice modulating up and down along a lower register, trying to match the videos of Borrdaff they were now watching. “Youcan’t afford to fumble this mission. I can’t believe you’re taking your half of the money to retire and leave me to my own devices.”

I ignored that jab, placing the custom untraceable weapon-dampeners I’d fabricated onto my boots and leg straps, as well as a variety of other tricks and baubles. Sha only lashed out because they were going to miss me. We’d worked together a long time, traveling all over the galaxy as soldiers for hire. But this payout was all I needed to retire to the planet of my choice and continue inventing my anti-weapons. I’d even have enough to hack the LonelyStars database to find out what happened to the being I’d been messaging. Next week would mark six months since PowerPurr838 sent his last message:Thank you, Pretty. I love talking to you.

“I could retire on this haul if I wanted to,” Sha said, breaking my thoughts from my lost…friend? Maybe future lover? Whatever me and Purr had been.

“Don’t give me that shit, Sha. You don’t have but a hundred credits saved. Do you know what I think?”

Sha’s violet eyes rolled toward me as they flipped switches and our ship descended onto the casino’s landing platform. “What?”

“Brown eyes, Sha. I think you love the adventure. I think you’re addicted to being a mercenary.”

Sha’s eyes shifted brown as their human face grinned. “Been at it long before you were born, and I’ll be at it long after you’re gone, baby girl.”

I stuck my tongue out playfully. “Why do you constantly have to rub my life expectancy in my face?”

Sha chuckled in Count Borrdaff’s voice, and my eyes fell on the visual record of Planet Liminato I’d hung up in the cockpit, its green, rolling hills and blue skies calling me. I would’ve gone there long ago if I wasn’t stuck, penniless, in this life. Purr was stuck, too, wherever in the galaxy he was. We both yearned for what we called “an afterlife while we’re still alive,” a peaceful life on a farm with someone we loved to balance out the strife we’d borne in our quarter-century of living.

I hoped he’d gotten unstuck, not gotten himself in trouble. I didn’t know Purr’s situation, but I’d been on the run since I ditched the orphanage on Hupfrair at sixteen to join a smugglers’ guild. Thank Dilf that Sha found me at seventeen and took me away from those cutthroat criminals, teaching me almost everything I knew and letting me join their ship. They’d even indulged my tinkering, stealing endless amounts of equipment and supplies for it.

Smiling, I watched their hands shift between Kelki and human appendages at the controls as they prepped our ship for a quick getaway, just in case. I wrapped my little human arms around them, and they bore it with a smirk and a sigh.

“I love you, Sha.” I would’ve added,You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a parent, but that would just embarrass them.

“Sure, whatever.” They accepted my human affection with feigned resignation but loved it all the same. I could tell by the way the shifted human skin on their hand involuntarily tinged green as they patted my arm.

They waited until I removed myself before adjusting their skin color back to a deep, tanned peach. “Didn’t we get a visual record of the Llurren?”

I shook my head. “They didn’t have one. He’s been in a top-secret location and normally works alone.”

Sha rubbed their whole human face with a purple tentacle before morphing it back into a human hand. “Llurrens. Remind me—tall and scaly? Or short and furry?”

I rolled my eyes and fixed my stare on them. “You know what a Llurren looks like. I’ve seen you impersonate at least ten of them in the time I’ve known you. Just imagine a tall human, maybe a range of six to eight feet. But with skin in colors like blue, green, and gold—our target’s gold. Llurrens are really muscular—built like those ideal human joining droids. Pretty hairy.”

“Are we talking full body hair?”

“Some do, but some have hair like humans—mostly on their head, chest, and limbs.” I checked my weapons one last time. The docking crew approached our craft with a Gaming Ambassador, who, thanks to our impersonation of the Count and his daughter, would be our guide to the Casino and unwitting accomplice to our rescue of the Llurren.

I turned to Sha. “Ready?”

Sha ran a hand through their salt-and-pepper human hair. “I was hatched ready.” They flipped the switch to open the craft door. “Wait,” they stage-whispered. “What’s my name again?”

“Oh sweet Dilf. You’re Count Borrdaff Kahcksuccerce.”