Page 6 of Seven Oars (Rix Universe #3)

Despite their resolve to get some rest, no one really slept.

Rosamma, tucked in next to Daphne and Gro, shivered from the cold and fought a headache.

Whether it was day or night, she didn’t know. She only knew she was still alive, lost somewhere on the outer edges of the galaxy, unlikely to ever be found.

She had dozed off at some point, only to wake up to the robot’s purple light blinking into her face.

The brutal zap that came without warning was hot and cold, paralyzing and galvanizing.

Rosamma’s body bowed off the floor. Sagged back down. Convulsed.

“Git, demon!”

Gro pushed the robot’s square metal body away from Rosamma, making it roll backward on its rover wheels.

“Your actions are perceived as an offensive, human,”

it intoned and zapped Gro, sending her into the same contortions.

“Fucking golem,”

Gro wheezed, writhing.

Sassa’s round eye peeked at Rosamma from the depths of a hoodie she was trying to disappear into.

“I think it was trying to wake you, Rosamma,”

she whispered, drawing back.

Groaning, Rosamma sat up.

“I am listening.”

She had no idea if the robot would respond.

It did.

“Striker Fincros wants your presence in the Habitat immediately.”

It rolled toward the door, expecting Rosamma to follow.

Two things occurred at once to Rosamma as she stood, favoring the side still tender from Nud’s kicking.

First, the Striker had a name.

And, she’d once again become the go-to spokesperson for their group, a role she hadn’t volunteered for and could definitely do without.

Her heart rate picked up when they neared the pirates’ room. The Habitat. It brought back vivid memories of pain and ugliness. And fear. So much fear.

She shook her ringing head and squared her shoulders, telling herself not to appear afraid. There was nothing she could do to make herself bigger-faster-stronger, but did she have to look like a pale shadow of a woman?

They were bullies. They fed on fear. She would not show any.

Yet her self-talk did nothing to quiet her hammering heart.

I won’t bow down to that Striker. For once in my life, I will stand tall. Even if he kills me. That is, before he does.

She crossed the threshold and stumbled.

Her foot twisted, her leg bent, and she pitched forward, body-planting onto the robot.

It rolled beneath her, taking Rosamma on a wild ride around the room on the madly squeaking rover wheels. The purple light flashed rapidly, and after a series of high-pitched beeps and whistles, the robot zapped her again.

Completely incapacitated, she slid off the indignant contraption to land on her hands and knees at the foot of the platform holding the chair. With Striker Fincros sitting in it.

His scarred face wore the cruel, remote expression she remembered, but there was a distinct cringe vibe about him, as if he felt acute secondhand embarrassment on her behalf.

“Is she worth keeping around?”

The Tarai alien asked moodily.

He leaned against the wall, unimpressed by Rosamma’s dramatic entrance.

Otherwise, the room was empty. It was also quiet, and only the lingering smell from the weed smoke reminded her of the absolute mayhem she had witnessed—was it only a day before?

“Rise,”

the Striker ordered without answering the Tarai’s question.

“I have more questions for you.”

Gingerly, Rosamma stood. The robot’s zaps had been vicious, and every muscle in her body felt about as supple as jerky.

She figured the Striker wanted her alive for now, but the chances that she’d see her brother again were less than slim.

“Tell me what you know about the Shadow Flyer,”

the Striker ordered her.

It surprised her. “Lyle?”

He said nothing. The silence turned ominous.

“I met Lyle, the Shadow Flyer, through my brother,”

she began quickly.

“He—we—wanted to leave our home planet, Meeus, but couldn’t. So my brother made a deal with Lyle.”

“What was Lyle doing on Meeus?”

“I don’t know exactly. I heard he came under false pretenses to infiltrate a medical facility that was carrying out experiments using Rix genes.”

“What?”

The Tarai alien’s ears twitched.

He, at least, had facial expressions that Rosamma’s human brain could interpret.

She half-turned to him. It was easier somehow.

“Yes. The Rix defenders wanted it to stop. So they sent Lyle…”

Someone else entered the room and stopped behind her. She instinctively tensed up for a blow, but thankfully, it never came.

Her hand found the end of her unkempt braid and twisted it. It gave away her nervousness, but she didn’t care. She was out of her depth. Way out.

The Striker canted his head as if puzzling over this lowly, pale creature before him. He was actively trying to make sense of her. Rosamma’s fears spiked. Why? What was going through his mind?

She shifted on her feet, felt a stab of pain in her injured side, and went still again.

“The little dipshit works for the defenders now?”

said a hoarse voice behind her.

Turning slightly, Rosamma recognized the second scarred pirate, Esseh. By “little dipshit,”

he must’ve meant Lyle.

“Yes.”

“Did Shadow Flyer complete his mission on Meeus?”

Striker Fincros asked.

Rosamma let go of her braid.

“I don’t know if he completed it. He got sick. They… something had been done to him on Enzomora. He was in prison there. They put him on some medication to make sure he was… complacent. So he couldn’t fly,”

she finished quietly.

The Tarai smiled.

“That’s clever.”

“Rix methods usually are, Keerym. And effective,”

Esseh informed him.

Striker Fincros cracked his fist.

“How was Shadow Flyer going to get you to Priss if he couldn’t fly?”

Rosamma’s heart gave a thump every time he asked her a question. This pirate was the most terrifying for his total lack of empathy. He wasn’t good at controlling his emotions; he didn’t have any to control.

“He went off the medication,”

Rosamma whispered.

“But he got very sick from withdrawal. In the end, he couldn’t fly either way. His mate was desperate to get him help…”

She had to stop and swallow. Her eyes landed on the Striker’s scarred face, without meaning to.

“I hope he survives.”

There was a brief silence.

“He has another mate?”

Esseh asked.

Rosamma looked up at him. “Another?”

“He had some on Sir-Sar.”

“What is Sir-Sar?”

Esseh didn’t seem pleased that she was asking questions. Nevertheless, he answered, “The planet where we are from. Where the Shadow Flyer was from. It was a great, free world. No rules, no defenders obsessed with order. They’ve weakened our race, enslaved by their own rules. Scum.”

Esseh spat a wad of thick saliva on the floor, and it slid slowly between the mesh slits.

Uneasy, Rosamma’s attention returned to the Striker, and she found him studying her. She wasn’t sure how she knew. He could’ve been looking anywhere. But she felt his attention in her bones.

She braced for more questions about Lyle, but instead, he changed the topic.

“We’re all that’s left of the free world that was Sir-Sar,”

he said.

“You can thank your lucky stars that you ended up here, not on some filthy defender ship.”

Rosamma got a distinct feeling he was mocking her, although his tone was dead serious.

“You and your women will room at the Cargo Hold. Consider yourselves cargo.”

His words rang with finality.

She dropped her gaze to hide her distress, her fingers gripping the end of her braid.

The Striker gave a casual kick to a can of food near his chair.

“Go tell your humans to clean up this mess. Store the food in the Cargo Hold. It’s yours to live on, but that’s all you’ll get. Understood?”

Rosamma nodded.

“Get it done before the next shift change, or I’ll punish…”

He paused.

“…the defender.”

Still caught in the chill of his scrutiny, all Rosamma felt was pure dread. He was utterly, glaringly inhuman. Finding common ground with a creature like this would be like trying to relate to a dinosaur. Both smelled bad, too.

“The defender’s name is Phex,”

she heard herself say into his scarred face with sudden, reckless defiance.

It galled too badly that Phex was entirely at the mercy of this… dinosaur.

“I’ll remember that next time I break his ribs.”

She stumbled out of the Habitat.

*****

“When’s the next shift change?”

Gro asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

Rosamma crawled around the empty Striker’s chair, picking up items that had rolled behind it. Every little thing counted.

The women busily scurried back and forth between the Habitat and the Cargo Hold, carrying their mangled supplies.

Fawn tsk-tsk’d.

“You were right here with them. You could’ve asked so many questions. Like, what are they gonna do with us?”

“We weren’t having a dialogue, exactly.”

“Pfft. I would’ve made them listen to me.”

Anske shoved a handful of stuff at Fawn.

“Don’t be a dolt.”

Rosamma kept crawling around the platform, careful not to touch the tattooed chair.

The pirates were, thankfully, nowhere to be seen, but the robot hummed in a corner, supervising the proceedings.

Alyesha zeroed in on the bot.

“When is the next shift change?”

she asked in Universal.

“You are classified as a prisoner, human. Prisoners cannot receive this information.”

“Great.”

Alyesha threw a loaded glance in Rosamma’s direction.

“I knew this deal with your brother was too cheap to be true.”

It was all Rosamma could do not to burst into tears. She wasn’t having a very good day.

Once in the Cargo Hold, the women pushed everything into a corner to be organized later.

“We have water. That’s the important part.”

Gro handed out sealed pouches with flexible straws, which everyone sucked on greedily.

“It won’t last as long as the food, so we’ll need to figure out a filtration system.”

Gro had naturally taken charge, her survival skills honed by the hard life she’d lived.

Rosamma, of course, was the second least adjusted after Daphne, with zero ideas about what to do next. Or what to do, period. Her audience with the Striker, followed by the supply gathering, had exhausted her.

She sank to the floor as the tingling of low energy and her other aches and pains caught up with her.

Sassa looked around beseechingly, her face strained and pale.

“We aren’t going to stay here forever, are we? We’ll escape soon, right?”

“Well, we’re kind of stuck here now. We need to eat while we figure out what to do,”

Gro replied, sidestepping the question.

The women exchanged glances. It was dawning on everyone that help was not, in fact, on the way.

“What are they going to do to us?”

Sassa asked them.

“I wouldn’t speculate about that,”

Gro advised.

“Think about today.”

“They’re all men. Do you think they’ll force us to… you know?”

“I don’t know, Sassa,”

Gro admitted.

“The defenders thought we were weird cosmic worms. Let’s hope these ones will think so too and leave us alone.”

“How much food do we have?”

Eze asked, steering the conversation toward more practical matters.

It was difficult to estimate by eyeballing the pile, but its size was reassuring. Their little cruiser had been well-stocked for a group twice the size of what it was now.

“I’m surprised the pirates didn’t take all our food for themselves,”

Eze remarked.

“That’s good,”

Fawn said.

“That means they care to let us live.”

“Who, the pirates?”

Gro laughed.

“Nah. They just don’t like the refried bean mash.”

“The Rix don’t eat plant food, if I remember correctly,”

Rosamma mumbled.

“Excellent,”

Anske brightened up, snatching up a pack of crackers.

“I’m not sharing a crumb with them. Or with him.”

They all turned to look at Phex, lying still along the opposite wall.

The face Rosamma had found so arresting was a study in bumps, lumps, and discoloration, but eyes were open to the extent his swollen tissues allowed.

Rosamma sat up.

“We’ll find something he can digest. Rix don’t eat much at all.”

There were grumbles, and even Gro looked undecided.

The women still saw Phex as the alien who had pushed them around. They had reason to mistrust him, but the situation had changed.

“He’s one of us now,”

Rosamma said firmly and moved to sit next to him.

“That’s because she’s an alien herself,”

someone whispered.

“Weird woman…”

Rosamma tuned them out. Nothing new here.

“I’m sorry,”

she said, switching to Universal.

Phex’s eyebrows twitched.

“Not your fault.”

“I was so afraid for you. I’m glad they didn’t… well, hurt you worse.”

As in, kill him. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

He got it.

“If they wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Like my crew.”

There was nothing Rosamma could do to ease that pain. Riel, Silo, even the unfriendly Aris—they stood so vividly in her memory.

“I’m sorry they died,”

she said in a low voice.

“It’s better to be dead than captured,”

he said through his busted lips.

“No, Phex!”

It was the first time she’d contradicted him.

“If you’re alive, you can escape. There’s hope. We can’t lose you. Please, stay with us.”

He didn’t move, but Rosamma knew he was looking at her. Seeing her.

Only recently, she’d pined for his attention. The irony of the timing left her saddened.

She scooted closer and picked up his limp wrist, sending a small burst of energy into him.

A frown formed between his expressive eyebrows, but he didn’t withdraw.

“How do you do that?” he asked.

“Because I’m only half-Tana-Tana, my energy circle isn’t fully closed,”

Rosamma explained.

“Of course, it’s not normal to have a hole in your energy system. But as fate has it, mine’s got this nifty benefit: I can share energy with the species that are receptive to it. Rix happen to be one of them. It’s restorative. Does it help?”

She sent another controlled pulse.

He sighed in contentment.

“It does. I am very grateful to you.”

Her heart full, Rosamma removed her hand, careful to ration her limited reserves. She had a feeling Phex would need her again soon.

Revived by Rosamma’s ministrations, Phex sat up and eyed the heap of supplies.

“They gave you all of this?”

“Yes. They won’t eat any of it. I know you won’t, either, so let me find you something.”

She rummaged through the cans as the women watched. Their regard was accusing, but they didn’t say anything to her.

After he ate, he carefully replaced the lid and stashed the unfinished can behind him.

“I appreciate it,”

he said slowly. He must be hurting everywhere.

Gro ventured forward and stopped a respectful distance from Phex.

“What is your opinion on where this is going, Defender Phex?”

she asked.

He thought before answering.

“The pirates want to keep us alive; otherwise, they would have already killed us.”

“Keep us for what purpose?”

Phex winced, trying to find a more comfortable position.

“Amusement? They’ve been alone at this place for a long time.”

“Do you mean… this is our home now? Forever?”

Trepidation made Sassa stutter.

Phex lowered his head.

“While your supplies last. Don’t expect the pirates to provide for you.”

Everyone turned to look at the food pile, mentally calculating how long they could subsist on it.

“That’s what the Striker told us,”

Rosamma confirmed.

“We’ll take inventory and go from there.”

Alyesha leaned forward.

“That’s good, actually. It gives us time to come up with a plan. You’re a space pilot.”

She pointed at Phex.

“Can you fly a ship by yourself?”

“What ship?”

Phex asked slowly.

“Our cruiser! It’s docked to the station.”

“Is it operational?”

Alyesha’s face fell.

“I don’t know.”

“Even if it is,”

Phex said, “it would be locked in the dock. Unless you know the access code, you can’t break away from the station.”

The mood in the Cargo Hold sank, but Phex seemed unaware of it. He leaned against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut.

“A better strategy is to send out a distress signal,”

he said without opening them.

“Who will hear it?”

Gro asked, doubtful.

He shrugged, fading into his stasis.

“Anybody. Somebody.”

None of them had any idea where to begin. Everyone felt lost. Thoughts were in disarray. Plans refused to formulate.

Their spirits were dangerously low.

Anske adjusted her voluminous overcoat decorated with bright embroidery of sunflowers and bees, as incongruous on the pirates’ space station as it was back home on Meeus.

“That’s not right. Ladies, we need to keep our spirits up. Who wants to sing some hymns with me?”

“What are you talking about?”

Alyesha stared Anske down.

“If I had my Holy Guide, I’d find the right quote to ground and soothe you. But no matter. Hymns work as well when you need to clear your mind.”

She began to sing nasally and in the wrong register, a jumble of words that could mean different things for different people.

Gro rolled up the sleeves of her plaid shirt, exposing extensive tattoos on tough, leathery forearms. Her lined, clever face took on a determined expression.

“Hymns are good, but we need action. Let’s get familiar with the station so we can make a plan.”

She nodded to herself.

“We’re many and we’re smart. And the pirates are… well, not so.”

“Don't underestimate them,”

Eze cautioned.

“They may look dumb as rocks, but they haven’t survived this place by being complete idiots. And then there’s that wily robot.”

Daphne raised her head.

“I need to pee!”

Anske stopped singing.

“Me too,”

Fawn admitted sheepishly.