Alpha Centauri

Thirty - Jaden

I man the controls while Nathan and Raev get themselves cleaned up. Those two bastards still owe me an explanation and an apology.

Later, they emerge from the next room newly clothed and still laughing like the dumbasses they are. Nathan wears a t-shirt, a bandage around his burnt arm. Raev has on a new pair of the same pants he was wearing, but just wears a black undershirt. Even wet, his hair stays spiky.

Barefoot, Nathan pads over to the controls and falls back into the chair beside mine. Raev sits on the bottom bunk bed and laces up his heavy black boots, covering his feet, which are surprisingly normal-looking, just really pale.

"You still haven't told me what happened," I say, crossing my arms and putting on my best bitch face.

"C'mon, Nathan," Raev says. "Pissing Jaden off has been fun, but she does deserve some justification."

"Uh, damn right I do," I say.

When they finish the story, I'm completely astounded. How had all this happened during my nap? How the hell had I slept through this?

"Why didn't you wake me up?" I ask.

"If the Scriosians found you, they'd kill you on the spot," Raev says. "That pod was wired with sensors, and it detected two passengers. I sent a message to the Mikuris saying I had captured one of the twins' allies."

"How did the ship not sense three passengers?" I ask.

Raev hiss-laughs nervously. "Well, it's programmed with a higher scale since Scriosians are bigger than humans, and you're so small, the ship didn't sense you."

"Well, that's reassuring. But hey, I'm still impressed. That was ass-kickery at its finest."

Nathan folds his skinny arms smugly, but Raev smiles sheepishly and scratches the back of his head with one of his hands.

"Hey, Raev, is there anything to eat on this ship?" Nathan wonders.

"Yeah, I think so. You can probably look around and find something."

Nathan rises and leaves the cockpit, his bare feet slapping against the smooth floor. Raev turns back and forth in his swivel chair, bored. When he turns, I can see the cut on his top left arm. It looks like it's stopped bleeding, but it can't be safe to leave it like that.

"Hey, let me clean that up for you," I say, standing and looking around for some sort of Scriosian first aid kit.

Raev looks down at his arm. "Oh, this? This's nothing. You should see Nathan's leg."

"Bullshit. That shit's gonna get infected."

"Since when do you care about what happens to me, kid?" He leans forward in his seat and raises his eyebrows.

"Since you betrayed your own kind and blew up a shit ton of warships for me," I say, walking into another room, recalling him scooping me up out of one of the cots in his space pod and hurling me into a moving warship. I leave the room with a metal box which looks a lot like a first aid kit. I open it and prop it up on the chair beside Raev's.

Raev sits patiently and quietly as I clean up his cut.

"So, Nathan said something about the Commander saying something to you, like 'You know perfectly well what I'm talking about'. Dare I ask what that was about?"

His red eyes drop to the floor. He nervously twists a pair of his hands together. "If I tell you you're probably going to like me a lot less."

I smile. "Who said I even liked you in the first place?"