Sector 00: Cita Ciel
Jan. 26, 462 AC
The synthetic at the gate leaned forward in his seat. "So you're an..."
"An empath," En said, grinning lazily. He wetted his lips and combed back his dark hair. The syn's eyes followed his hands. "Means I generally know what people like."
The syn at the gate was an eight, at least. He was tall, with a shade of facial hair and long features, with eyebrows suited to severity. Nothing about him was severe in that moment, though, as his functions verged on something flustered. "A-all your data looks fine," the syn said. "But the Man of Means put an alert on all vessels coming dead sectors. I'll still have to check your cargo before you can enter the colony."
"Help yourself," En said. "I'll open the back hatch. Nothing there but salvaged syns."
They were docked at a narrow platform below the tall gate of Cita Ciel, which was studded with gems and silver. Behind them, a line of perhaps two hundred ships curved up against the blue barrier, wedged between rows of guiding lights. The air was sharp: crisp with oxygen elevated at thirty percent. Jagged, clean-cut light shone down into En's cockpit. Surrounding lunaroids were composites of precious minerals and shining glass. Miniature barriers surrounded every lunaroid building. Despite the crowds, there was a detached stillness about the colony. Every rock and ship was sound-proofed, and their windows tinted.
The gate syn left his booth and climbed around their black ship to check their cargo.
Lady leaned across the cockpit. "Heartbreaker," she teased. "You should come with a warning label."
En laughed. "I'm the dangerous one? You can control every sky fish in a twenty-rock radius and your red-coated boy starts fires with his mind. Not to mention your father."
"And how far do you think you can push these poor syns?" Lady asked. "Could you ask them to report false information? Or leave the gate open for criminals? Join you in the cargo bay for a tryst?"
"That'd be wrong, wouldn't it?"
"If you say so," Lady batted her long lashes. "I've never had the luxury of wasting talent, whether they were dish bred or god given." En shrugged because he knew, perhaps better than most, the things Lady had to do to thrive and grow under her father's rule.
A scream—more animal than human—cut through their conversation. It came from their cargo bay.
En stiffened. Lady met his eyes over the ship controls. Both barreled for the back through the panel. Lady darted in front of En, pale skirt spinning like a dervish's. In the pale light, one of the glass cells was empty, the door swinging open. They smelled iron.
En's breath caught.
There, by the ship hatch, they found a massive feral. It perched over the gate syn. Blood sputtered from a bite wound in the gate syn's neck. Rot-covered teeth tore at his uniform. Red soaked down his side. The feral shrieked, and ripped a fistful of fabric and flesh free.
En drew his sidearm, but Lady was faster. She gestured, and the air hissed with static. Every sky fish outside, from Lamias to new fry, untangled in unison. They launched towards their ship, ringed teeth outstretched and long fins flared.
The feral jerked around, dead eyes blown wide, and it fled. It pushed off their hatch, scrambled across the cockpit of the ship behind them, and vanished into the dark. The fish arced after it. Alarms sounded from the line of ships. A few vessels scattered out of line to safe distances, pooling around the dock and against the blue colony barrier. The fish and feral were a distant flurry.
YOU ARE READING
SOMA (LGBT-scifi-romance)
Science FictionAfter tragedy befalls his colony, Soma must escape the grasp of a tall-dark-and-suspiciously charming captor. It's hard, however, to fall in love when you were raised among robots. Even harder, when you're the secret weapon of a criminal robot rebel...
