Page 13 of Defiance (The Intersolar Union #7)

We followed Commander Xata to a lift and up three guns.

The doors opened into an open-plan suite with a sultry attitude.

There was a conference table with neatly organized plasdocs spread over its surface, but it also held a hookah and discarded, recently worn lingerie.

An armory in one corner had a glowing gun display and two sets of full-body armor, but also a velvety red pouf and a vanity table.

Down two shallow steps were Xata’s bed—large enough for four, draped in unkempt black sheets—and pillows surrounding a low table.

All around the perimeter of the room, a ribbon of windows revealed the stars, twinkling like sequins in a spotlight.

I sat down at the conference table, but Agent Gaul glanced at the lingerie, then crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.

His tail curled into a spiral behind him as his ears brushed the ceiling.

“Your usual, Novak?”

Xata asked, punching an order into a foodbay hidden in the wall nearby. She shifted on her hip, glancing at him sideways.

“Or something stronger?”

Novak adjusted his fangs, licking his teeth with his unruly forked tongue. I adjusted my seat, squirming from one hip bone to the other to alleviate some of the heat between my legs.

“An iqua,”

he grunted.

“Suit yourself.”

Xata didn’t ask me and the tension rose. I busied myself with perfecting the corners of a stack of plasdocs and counting to bloody one hundred to keep myself from spitting curses. There was something unspoken in the room and I had a gut-wrenching feeling that the problem was me. They had history—or maybe not-so-history—and I’d stepped in it when I took Gaul’s offer.

“Tidus can offer you surveillance as back-up while you’re on Piaoguo.”

The commander held out Gaul’s drink and he took it from her hand. She grinned sourly, and pushed her own lingerie onto the floor as she sat down with a tall flute of something dark and sticky hanging from the tips of her fingers.

“But technically, I’m escorting you there to act as Ferulis’s proxy and sign a bunch of—”

I stood up, cutting her off.

“Right, well. Sounds like a chat I don’t need to be in the middle of.”

My fingers trembled and my cheeks blazed, but my voice was steady. I smiled in an attempt to appear friendly, training it on Xata and resolutely ignoring the black shadow to my right.

“You two enjoy your drinks. Talk it out. I’ll just ask the ship where I’m bunking and get out of your hair. Or, eh, tendrils.”

I sidled out of my chair and nearly tripped. Novak’s tail had wrapped around my ankle, holding me in place.

“Stay,”

he said, piercing me with his black stare. His red slitted pupils dilated open and Xata burst into laughter.

“Oops!”

she tittered.

“Did I forget to type in your drink order? My bad.”

Gaul’s grip on my boot tightened. He jerked his head at my chair.

“Sit, Charlie.”

His jaw ticked.

“Ms Halloway.”

Xata laughed.

“Sorry now, but what in God’s name is wrong with her?”

I blurted, exasperated.

“Offer you two some space and she takes the piss!”

Xata laughed harder.

“Did she just insinuate that I stole her urine?”

Just as I lunged over the table to point in Xata’s face and give her a tongue lashing, Gaul scooped me up under the ribs and hoisted me away from the table. He set me on the ground, standing between us. For the first time that day, our eyes met and stuck. So did the breath in my lungs.

“That’s enough, kitten,”

he sighed.

“Your claws aren’t sharp enough for a fight.”

I sneered at him and landed a slap so hard against the side of his jaw that it clapped like thunder. His eyes went wide as his head snapped sideways, and he had the good sense to stay there, gripping his tail so hard in his fist that his scales separated over his knuckles.

“Don’t ever equate me to a child again,”

I snarled. He didn’t know what an insult that was to a grown human woman, but I wasn’t bloody having it. It brought back humiliating, demoralizing fights with John, with my mother. The weight of St Anthony around my neck was a hot coal just like the day I found out our priest wouldn’t allow me to take communion anymore because my mother told him I’d started using a dating app before my divorce was final.

Gaul’s jaws rolled, adjusting his fangs individually as if I’d knocked him out of alignment.

“Siat likes to get under people’s skin,”

he said, one ear trained backwards.

“She’s uniquely good at it.”

“And I’m uniquely good at not taking shite from anyone anymore.”

Xata’s hand reached around Novak’s back, waving a cold bottle of salted beer. She peeked out from behind his shoulders with a smile and twisted the tips of her tendrils as they crawled over his bicep.

“I’m sorry, is this what you like?”

she asked in a saccharine tone.

“Umdhee is what all the engineers drink in Renata and you do taste like the hangar.”

Hellfire blazed in my chest as I snatched the bottle and sat back down, knocking into Gaul’s shoulder and her tendrils. Her mane retracted with a hiss and she pouted as it slithered behind her shoulders.

Agent Gaul sat beside me, forcing Xata to the other side of the table. She arched her back as she lowered into her chair and gestured at the plasdocs.

“I thought this might be easier for our guest to review,”

she said, taking a jab at my ability to use a holotab.

“It’s a primer on hjarna etiquette and a few other things I thought might be useful.”

I shuffled through them. My job was serious. I had to keep reminding myself of that. Serious, serious. This was important, even if Xata was a bitch. Then I found several plasdocs at the bottom of the pile featuring far too many exclamation points and pictures of impressive things to see. She’d printed me tourist leaflets.

“For feck’s sake,”

I sighed with exasperation, shaking my head. The absolute cheek—

“Support,”

Novak began, redirecting Xata’s attention from my ruffled temper.

“Can you give us continuous bug surveillance?”

Xata straightened her shoulders, tapping a display on the conference table’s central light rail. Her mirth at my expense went cold as she focused on their business.

“I can, but only if you agree to tab wires. CMO Biroti can install them tomorrow. The ones we have in stock will alert you to any data siphons or GPS trackers within a ten-foot radius via blue comms on your holotab so you can choose how to handle it.”

“Can they disengage taps on the go?”

Xata’s mane spiraled in the negative.

“No, but I do have a halo scrambler. Only one.”

Gaul sat back, tapping his claw on the table in thought. He licked the side of his jaw that I’d slapped, then snapped his tail on the ground.

“Better not,”

he decided.

“If Ms Halloway is taken, it’ll be easier to track her with her data halo intact.”

“You could use it yourself.”

He grinned, gesturing between them.

“Our data halos are already encrypted. Why scramble it?”

Xata shrugged.

“Makes bog targeting systems glitch out. Besides, it’s a necklace that would look enticing on that long neck of yours.”

I rolled my eyes at her sultry tone, keeping one ear on their planning session while I took notes on the hjarna primer. Greeting gestures, table manners, who walks through doors first, what their facial expressions meant… I ended up falling down a rabbit hole when I reached their climate zones and food production and completely forgot the important details being hashed out across the table.

Then there was a breathy chuckle and Gaul stood abruptly. He snapped his teeth and paced away, glaring below the table. Xata sighed, groaning at the ceiling.

“Stop your shit, Siat,”

he snarled.

“You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“Why? Because you’re horny and won’t let someone take care of it?”

she said with a sneer.

Gaul’s scales rose, his tail whipping the air. The tip snapped against the wall and left a dent.

“Right,”

I said, smacking my palms on the table and rising to my feet.

“I really am going to go.”

“We’re not fucking,”

Xata informed me, crossing her arms with a huff of bitter amusement.

“Not from lack of trying…”

“You can find a joyride at any port.”

“Not an advenan joyride. It’s the one notch left on my belt, Novak. Do a girl a solid, won’t you? Be a pal. Break some laws with me.”

I leaned my palms on the table and set my jaw.

“He said no. Fuck all the way off.”

Xata’s glare drained of fire. Her lips pursed in defeat, then she laughed under her breath.

“Another hand lost to humans… Seems convenient how many rounds you’ve won.”

She pushed away from the table.

“I have duties to attend to, anyway. Both of you get out.”

She picked up Agent Gaul’s half-full glass of milky white alcohol and took it with her down into the living quarters. A list of contacts popped up on her holoscreen, all blaring with messages. She chose one, falling back on her bed. She started a comm and a man on the other end answered sounding stressed. Her mane purred soothingly, but the words were too hushed to make out.

I was not going to sit there while Xata sex-commed a rando on the alien internet.

“Did you get what you need?”

I asked, looking at Gaul over my shoulder. His colear? flared, but he gave me a stiff human nod.

“Then let’s go.”

I didn’t wait to see if he followed me towards the lift.