Chapter Four

  The ship’s dinner hour came and went in a flash. Jersey worked the line. Natey came through, grabbed a few items, flashed him a smile, and blew him an exaggerated kiss, but did not draw it out. She wasn’t going to distract him from his job—too much.

  One notable absence from the dinner run was Ladan. He never showed.

  “Finally,” Jersey said aloud when his wrist computer chimed, alerting him that it was 1800 hours. His shift was over. He quickly made his way out of the mess hall, the promise of getting to spend more time with Natey putting more pep in his step. He reached the lift and pressed the button for C-Deck.

  When the doors opened, what felt like an emotional promise was instantly shattered into sheer madness with the loud noise pulsing from down the hall.

  Natey’s angry yell pierced the still air like a javelin. “It’s none of your goddamned business, Ladan! I’m a grown-ass woman!”

  A couple of onlookers stood just outside Natey’s cabin, watching the drama unfold.

  “So, you moved on from Jarai that quickly, only to fuck someone you don’t even know?” Ladan shot back equally loud.

  Jersey darted forward in a run with Natey’s first yell and reached her open cabin doors just as Ladan finished his retort.

  “Oh, now you’re worried about me moving on from Jarai?” she fired back hotly. “You certainly didn’t seem to care about that last night when you tried to invite me into the backrooms!”

  “That’s different,” he yelled back, completely on the defensive. “You and I know each other. We have history!”

  “Ladan, how many times do I have to tell you?” Natey questioned loudly. “You’re my friend and that’s all you will ever be. I don’t love you like you love me. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

  “But you can go off and get plowed by that sickly-looking piss-ant who looks like he couldn’t fight his way through a wet roll of tissue paper?”

  Wow! He decided to throw out an insult. Natey shook her head in disgust. But was she going to let Ladan’s cheap shot slide? Not a chance in hell. And she prepared a quick, yet brutal response. “Really, Ladan? Gotta go low? Well, that sickly-looking piss-ant, as you rudely called him, has some impressive stamina. He kept up with me for over ten hours. You couldn’t even manage two.”

  That did it. Natey had just hit the ultimate low blow. But hers was directed at the source, not the third party, as Ladan’s had been. The room felt like someone had just released the airlock.

  Ladan’s lower jaw tightened and twitched. He stood frozen in place, as if his flesh had just been hardened in bronze. He remained nearly perfectly still for several long seconds before he erupted in a blindingly quick action. He swung his left arm around and hit Natey in the face with a very powerful backhand, sending her crashing backward onto her floor. “FUCK YOU, NATEY!”

  Immediately following that, Jersey could only see red. He didn’t shout. He didn’t speak. He just moved—shoulder down, fists clenched, eyes locked on Ladan like a missile with a single target.

  The impact was thunderous. Jersey’s tackle drove Ladan backward into the bulkhead with a sickening crack, the metal groaning under the force. Before Ladan could react, Jersey’s fists were already flying—two, three, four savage blows to the face and ribs, each one fueled by pure fury.

  Ladan’s head snapped to the side, blood spraying from his nose. But he didn’t fall.

  He roared—not with sound, but with motion—and twisted violently, slamming his elbow into the side of Jersey’s head. Jersey staggered. Ladan surged forward, grabbed a fistful of Jersey’s shirt, and threw him across the room. Jersey hit the edge of the bunk hard, the frame splintering beneath his weight.

  Jersey rolled, came up swinging. A wild right hook caught Ladan in the jaw. Ladan reeled, then retaliated with a brutal knee to Jersey’s stomach that folded him in half. He followed with a hammering blow to the back that sent Jersey crashing to the floor.

  Jersey didn’t stay down.

  He launched upward, headbutting Ladan square in the face. The crunch of cartilage echoed in the cabin. Ladan stumbled, blood pouring from his nose, but he didn’t retreat. He lunged again, fists pounding into Jersey’s ribs, his side, his face—each strike landing with bone-jarring force.

  Jersey answered with a savage uppercut that snapped Ladan’s head back, then a hook that split his lip wide open. Blood dripped onto the floor. They grappled, slammed into walls, knocked over furniture. A lamp shattered. A chair cracked in half. The room became a warzone.

  Neither man spoke. Only the sound of fists on flesh, labored breathing, and the occasional grunt of pain filled the air. Jersey moved in for another blow.

  Ladan caught his arm mid-swing and twisted, slamming him into the wall again. Jersey’s head bounced off the metal with a dull thud, but he didn’t falter. He grabbed Ladan’s collar and dragged him down with him. They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs, rolling, punching, clawing for leverage.

  Jersey’s knuckles were raw and bleeding. Ladan’s eye was swelling shut. Both men were panting, bloodied, their uniforms torn and stained crimson.

  And still, they fought.

  Natey sat against the far wall, clutching her face where Ladan’s hand had struck. Her cheek was flushed red, already beginning to swell. Tears streamed down her face—not just from pain, but from shock, betrayal, and the sheer violence unfolding before her. She tried to speak, to scream, but her voice cracked under the weight of it.

  “Stop!” she finally cried, her voice ragged. “Please, stop!”

  Neither man heard her.

  Jersey shoved Ladan backward, and the momentum carried them both out of the cabin. They slammed into the hallway wall, knocking one of the onlookers off balance. The crew member—a young technician—crashed to the floor with a startled yelp, scrambling backward to avoid the flailing limbs. Others scattered, some shouting, some frozen in place.

  The hallway echoed with the sounds of fists on flesh, boots scraping against metal, and the wet splatter of blood hitting the floor.

  Ladan landed a brutal punch to Jersey’s ribs, followed by a savage elbow to the jaw. Jersey reeled, then retaliated with a hook that split Ladan’s lip wide open. Blood sprayed across the corridor wall in a crimson arc.

  Natey crawled to the doorway, still clutching her face, her breath hitching with every sob. “Jersey!” she screamed, voice cracking. “Please!”

  Jersey didn’t respond. He was locked in.

  Ladan tackled him again, driving him into the opposite wall. The impact left a dent in the paneling. Jersey twisted free and slammed his fist into Ladan’s gut, then followed with a knee to the chest that sent Ladan stumbling backward.

  The fight was primal now—no technique, no restraint. Just rage and pain and the need to hurt.

  Crew members shouted for help. The corridor was in chaos. The fight had been brutal, an explosion of pent-up emotion. And yet, it continued. Fists swung, blood splattered. It didn’t even slow when a large shadow fell over them.

  Nealon had arrived in the hall with Raven arriving a second or two later. Raven diverted his course to check on Natey, who by now had returned to her feet, but her face looked rough.

  Nealon knew where he needed to be. His massive Veylar frame towered above his human counterparts. His eyes locked onto the two men, and without a word, he moved.

  He reached down, grabbed Jersey and Ladan by the backs of their necks, and lifted them off the floor like rag dolls, stretching his arms outwards to provide separation. Jersey’s boots scraped against the deck. Ladan’s fists still twitched, but he couldn’t move.

  Both men were bleeding. Both were broken. But neither had won.

  Nealon’s voice was low, final, and cold as a vacuum. “That’s enough! What the fuck happened here?”

  The corridor fell silent.

  Jersey and Ladan continued trying to get at each other, but Nealon was simply far too strong and broad. “Stop it, right now! It’s over.”

  Jersey relented. He knew that to continue was a futile gesture.

  Ladan, on the other hand, was still not ready to surrender. His blood had been boiling over for too long already. Natey’s rejection of him and acceptance of someone she’d never met, and knowing what they’d done that night, had practically turned his emotions into a pressure cooker, and all of that bottled rage had nowhere to go but out.

  “Put me down, you fucking tree-kissing flower brute!”

  “HEY!” Raven overheard and shot back fiercely.

  Ladan truly didn’t know that Raven and Nealon were married, and his rude statement was, in essence, a direct verbal assault on the Veylar naturist world views, but to Raven, it sounded more like a direct jab at their sexuality.

  Nealon wasn’t offended, nor did he budge. He simply squeezed Ladan’s neck a little tighter, eliciting a painful yell from him. He didn’t lower either party to the floor just yet. “You'd better watch what you say to me, boy. Don’t forget, my fingers can crush your neck, and all I’ll feel is a light tingle. Do you want to test me?”

  Ladan continued to resist for several minutes longer before finally giving in to the truth. The Veylar were the strongest race in the galaxy, by far. The Veylar from the First Blood Incident had ripped off the counsellor’s arm. He knew that Nealon could truly back up his words. Ladan finally stopped squirming, lowering his head in submission.

  “Are we going to squash this thing?” Nealon asked both men.

  Jersey was the first to answer with a solemn, “Yes.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Ladan followed suit. “I’m done.”

  Nealon pulled both men in close and turned them to face him, but still keeping them firmly in the air in his powerful grip. “Then this is settled! Do you hear me? I won’t report this to Lorenzo as I should. Nobody else had better either. I am ending this here and now. You go back to your deck and stay there. If I see you back on this deck causing trouble, I’ll toss your ass out the airlock. Same for you, Jersey.”

  Nealon lowered the men back onto the floor, and Ladan kept his word. He limped away toward the lift, slowly and methodically, like a shamed convict. He was defeated. The “Piss-ant” had truly stood toe to toe with him and didn’t falter. Perhaps he was wrong about him.

  Jersey, on the other hand, walked towards his own cabin. Natey, the pain subsiding, approached him, but he simply walked right past her without stopping or even acknowledging her and disappeared inside his quarters.

  Natey was utterly stunned. What had she done?

  Natey kept her distance for a few minutes to give Jersey time to simmer down. The crowds had dispersed, and Raven and Nealon had cleared out. She was on the verge of a mental collapse at this point. She’d known Ladan since childhood. She hadn’t known Jarai even half as long. Their friendship went way back, and it was shattered in a single night. The very friend who had always been there for her was now the one who broke her.

  Natey ventured from her cabin, stepping over to Jersey’s. She hesitated briefly, but finally rapped at the steel door. The response was slow, but the door hummed to life and parted open for her to enter.

  Jersey sat alone at the edge of his bed, his face looking rough, but he had at least cleaned the blood and stopped the bleeding. His right eye was slightly swollen, and the gash on his lip was prominent. Otherwise, he was ok. It seemed like Ladan might have had slightly worse injuries, but that wasn’t saying much.

  She approached him at his bed. “Jersey? May I sit down beside you?”

  He didn’t answer with words. He merely gestured to her that she could.

  She slowly approached and sat down beside him. She kept her hands to herself, careful not to invade his personal space. She knew it wasn’t the time for it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to be in the middle of all this.”

  Jersey turned his attention to her. “Last night was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time. You are an incredible, beautiful woman. But what the hell did I just get caught up in?”

  Natey felt horrible. None of this was his fault. Not really. He didn’t know when he chose to participate. She had to shoulder her share of the blame. “Ladan and I have been friends since we were children. I had sex with him only one time, a little over three years ago. I was lonely and needed someone to touch me. To make me feel truly alive again. He’s always been in love with me, but it’s a feeling I can’t share. I wanted to, but there’s nothing there.”

  Natey’s eyes started to water at this point. “Last night, before I met you, he asked me to go into the backrooms with him. I told him no. I know that he’s trying to hold onto his idea of me that I just don’t share. When I met you and took you back into those same backrooms, I made love to you all night long. Not him. It set him off. I’ve never seen him go to the lengths he did tonight. He’s never shown a violent streak before. Again, I’m sorry. You have every right to hate me, and I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Jersey hesitated in silence for a few moments, processing her words. His eyes peered into her soul. The truth was there. He knew she wasn’t lying. A single tear rolled down her cheek, and he softly wiped it away. “I don’t hate you, Natey.” He replied in earnest. “This was insane, but it won’t change a thing. I don’t want it to either. Last night was the most perfect encounter I’ve ever had. You were perfect. I still want to know you.”

  Natey raised her head and looked him in the eye, but kept her distance. “I enjoyed it too,” she admitted, somberly, yet hopefully.

  Jersey kept his attention focused on her as a thought entered his mind. “Have you ever travelled at FTL speeds before?”

  “This is my first time,” she answered truthfully.

  Jersey couldn’t help but smile, even though the act was painful. His face was still quite sore. “You’ve just been full of firsts since last night, haven’t you?”

  Natey returned the smile. “Apparently, yes. But my favorite first was you, hands down.”

  “Well, come with me,” Jersey said as he rose to his feet. “I want to show you something amazing.”

  Jersey took her by the hand and led her up to the bridge. As they approached the bridge door, he noticed that the captain’s red light was active. “Look, Lorenzo and Naomi are, or at least were, doing the business.”

  Natey laughed.

  They didn’t linger. Jersey led her inside the bridge and gestured toward the viewing window. At faster-than-light speeds, space wasn’t empty—it was alive. The bow shock ahead of the Firehawk compressed stray particles into a luminous veil of plasma, weaving and writhing like a living aurora. Colors shifted in slow, hypnotic pulses—violet to gold, sapphire to ember—dancing across the void in a silent symphony of motion and light.

  Jersey had been mesmerized the first time he saw it. Two weeks later, the wonder hadn’t dulled. But now, watching Natey’s face as she took it in for the first time, it felt new again.

  She stepped closer to the viewport, eyes wide, lips parted.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “That’s… amazing.”

  Jersey didn’t answer. He just watched her, the glow of the plasma reflecting in her eyes. For a moment, the bruises didn’t matter. The fight didn’t matter. There was only this—light, motion, and the quiet.

  Natey whipped her body around in front of Jersey. “Thank you for showing me this. And—thank you for standing up for me with Ladan. I’m truly sorry, I brought you into this. I can’t say it enough. But, I’m also glad you haven’t chosen to abandon me.”

  Jersey opened his mouth to respond, but was quickly interrupted when the bridge door slid open, and Raven stepped inside.

  Raven moved directly over to his usual station. “We’re about to drop back to normal cruising speed. If you’ve never felt the shift, you should stand perfectly still. It’s subtle, but it always gets me. I can’t really describe the sensation. You have to experience it for yourselves.”

  Jersey and Natey stood as still as possible, and as Raven said, they did indeed feel the shift, and it was unlike anything they’d ever felt before.

  Raven flopped down into his chair immediately after the ship dropped out of the galaxy jump. He was officially on duty. He made a few quick taps against his console to check for backlogged communications traffic. Surprisingly, there wasn’t any. But his sensors quickly detected something else. His Virellan core flashed a cautionary yellow and stayed that way.

  Three soft chimes, followed by a distorted digital male voice pushed through his console’s audio. “Distress. Distress.” Three more chimes.

  “We’ve got something,” Raven said calmly, while clearly conveying his hyper-alertness.

  Jersey approached the communication station. “What is it?”

  “I’m not quite sure,” Raven answered. “The signal is very weak, but it’s close.” Raven tapped on his terminal and waited for several moments for it to return a response.

  Jersey checked Raven’s screen, but wasn’t able to decipher the details Raven was reading.

  Raven activated his console, “Admiral, I apologize for disturbing you, but I need you on the bridge immediately. I’ve detected a distress signal nearby.”

  Lorenzo’s reply didn’t sit well with anybody on the bridge. “That’s not possible. There isn’t supposed to be any ship in this sector except for us. I will be there in a minute.”

  “Any thoughts on what, or who it could be?” Natey asked with subtle fear in her tone.

  “Well, that’s the million credit question,” Raven replied. “You heard the Admiral. We are the only vessel that should be in this sector.”

  The distress signal repeated, though it felt slightly weaker than before.

  Lorenzo was quicker than expected. He stepped on the bridge in full uniform, followed by Naomi, looking as pristine and beautiful as ever. She quickly spotted Jersey and his injuries from the fight.

  “What happened to you, Jersey?” she asked, genuinely concerned.

  “It’s a wild story, but not now,” He answered.

  “Jersey, get on the LRS,” Lorenzo ordered. “Increment at three degrees. Make a full sweep.”

  “Aye, sir,” Jersey obeyed and immediately jumped over to the long-range scanner and started pulsing it and then adjusting the angle he’d been ordered.

  “Admiral Lorenzo, is there anything I can do?” Natey asked.

  “Right now, no,” Lorenzo replied.

  The distress signal pinged again, this time clearly weaker. “Admiral, the distress signal is getting weaker by the minute. Either it’s losing power, or we are getting out of range.”

  “Naomi, slow us down to fifty percent light speed.”

  “Aye, sir,” she said and hurried over to the helm control to carry out her order.

  “I’ve got something, sir,” Jersey said. “It’s definitely a ship of sorts, but it doesn’t match anything I’m familiar with.”

  Natey stepped over to the LRS. “Admiral, permission to take over the LRS, I might be able to identify it.”

  “Do it,” Lorenzo replied quickly.

  Natey replaced Jersey at the console and thumbed through the data on the display. She was by no means a pilot, but she’s always had a love of starships. It took her several moments, but she finally managed to identify the ship’s designation. “Admiral, I’ve got it. Designation, GSRV-107.”

  Lorenzo’s eyes widened in shock at the news. “That’s a Gantry Station short-range vessel. One of their patrol ships. How the hell can it be out this far? They only have a two AU operational range. Gantry’s automatic overrides should have caught it at the outer boundary and piloted it back to the station.”

  “I’m asking myself that same question,” Natey responded confidently. “They’re not even equipped to survive this far out. Either the override malfunctioned or someone intentionally disabled it. Neither option is inviting.”

  Natey turned back to the console and made an even more alarming discovery. “Sir, I’m detecting a single occupant. Very weak life signs. The ship’s power is failing. That person is dead if we don’t act quickly.”

  “Natey, send the vectors over to Naomi,” Lorenzo ordered. “Naomi, plot course for immediate intercept. Raven, reach out to the other two new crew members, Ladan and Corley. Get them on the bridge now. They’re all from Gantry, and they would know that SRV best.”

  “Aye, sir,” Naomi, Natey, and Raven replied in perfect unison.

  Visual contact with the SRV was made barely five minutes later—almost exactly the same time that Corley and Ladan arrived on the bridge. From the Firehawk’s vantage point, the SRV looked to be in perfect condition, but they couldn’t see the whole vessel.

  “Natey and Corley,” Lorenzo called. Head down to airlock, A-3, and suit up. You are going over to the ship. Corley, you prioritize the survivor. Natey, you check the ship's logs. Ladan, I want you to man the umbilical.”

  Natey and Corley were suited up and pressurized in their EVA suits. They stepped into the air lock, sealing the inner door behind them. Ladan triggered the umbilical and guided it over to the SRV and latched it onto its air lock. A light on the console changed to green, indicating a good seal.

  Corley opened the outer air lock, and he and Natey floated through the umbilical to the SRV. “Admiral, the shell looks clean. No signs of damage. Accessing air lock.”

  “Roger that, boarding party,” Lorenzo replied over their suit array.

  Corely gained access to the SRV with ease and within moments, he and Natey were inside, each moving separately to carry out their assignments. Corley headed aft to the life support bay while Natey made her way forward to the bridge to check the logs.

  On board the SRV, the power was failing fast. The handful of lights that still drew power were dim and flickering, forcing the boarding party to rely on their twin suit headlamps to be able to see effectively.

  “Admiral, this ship is dying,” Natey confessed. The air was thin and reeked of burnt metal, an alarming fragrance. She reached the bridge and went to the log computer. Dead. “No power to the logs. I’m going to plug in and see if I can reroute enough juice to find answers.”

  “Roger,” replied Lorenzo.

  The ship creaked and groaned, several metallic taps and a slow and steady, but muffled beep. The SRV’s navigation beacon. It was on a separate power grid from the main. In case of an emergency, it could still transmit the distress signal, but even the emergency power couldn’t hold out forever. It wasn’t clear how long this ship had been adrift. Natey only remembered vague reports that one of Gantry’s SRVs had crashed.

  Too many things didn’t make sense to her. She knew the SRV shouldn’t be able to survive this far out. It shouldn’t have even made it. It couldn’t even reach light speed. On the high end, the SRV’s maximum velocity was no more than twenty-five percent of light speed. Even at that speed, this vessel couldn’t have reached this far in the month since it was reported crashed.

  Why would they put out a press release claiming it crashed when it clearly hadn’t? How did it get here? Natey’s power transfer failed. She couldn’t access the ship’s logs.

  “Natey,” announced Corley through her headset. “I’ve found the survivor. He’s alive, but fading. I’m going to transport the pod intact. You should hurry. Everything’s good this way. No signs of damage.”

  “I’m going to check in engineering,” Natey replied. “Ship logs are a no-go. Not enough power to make the system burp.”

  “Don’t,” Corley replied hastily. “Don’t worry about engineering. It’s clean. Go ahead and return to the Firehawk. I will check engineering. I’m going to have to cut through there anyway on my way back out. This pod won’t fit any other way. It’s too big.”

  Natey chose not to listen to Corley. Her orders transcended his protests. They came from Admiral Lorenzo. She wasn’t about to ignore orders. That’s not who she was. She willed herself through the corridor to the engineering bay doors. The burnt metallic stench was at its strongest here.

  She had to pry open the door, and it wasn’t easy. They were huge and heavy, but once you got them rolling on their tracks, they could easily be pushed. Normally, they would open automatically with the press of a button, but even if the ship didn’t have enough power, they could be manually opened with enough physical force.

  Natey had to put everything she could muster just to get a purchase on the steel behemoth, but after several failed attempts, she succeeded. She pushed with her legs against the frame, and the door started rolling. Once it was open, Natey stepped inside, not really expecting much, but definitely not expecting what she found.

  “Admiral Lorenzo,” she cried out. “This ship has a jump core! And half the engineering bay is completely gone! No wonder this ship is dying!”