Corey cleaned the barrel of the gun Farsus had given him, unsure if he was actually doing it right. He couldn’t read the label on the bottle, but it was removing the plasma scorch marks along the interior of the gun just fine. He sure hoped that was what was supposed to happen. Nobody had corrected him yet.

“Do you actually know how to shoot a gun, Tovs?”

While he generally regarded To Vo as a waste of precious time and resources, Kamak wasn’t dumb enough to let an extra gun hand go to waste at a time like this. Providing she was an extra gun hand. If she was completely useless, Kamak would add a few notches to the already high count in favor of throwing To Vo La Su out the airlock when no one was looking.

“I passed my mandated yearly firearm handling tests.”

“Passed how?”

“I hit my target roughly sixty-eight percent of the time.”

Kamak did a quick mental calculus, and relented.

“Alright, we’ll call you covering fire,” he said. Under the pressure of an actual firefight, that sixty-eight percent would turn into twenty-percent real fast, but Kamak was not about to get picky. That, and they would likely be shooting at some very big targets very soon, which would help with accuracy.

The crew needed more information on any possible connections to Morrakesh, and the Doccan were currently their best bet. They were creatures of pure, emotionless decision making, and would always take the most logical course of action that presented itself. Putting a gun to their head and asking a question almost always resulted in that question getting answered. The problem was getting a gun to the head of an eight foot tall mostly bulletproof colossus in the first place.

Thankfully, that same logical nature meant they also had consistent behaviors that made them easy to exploit.

“Doccan always hit unknown threats with a small strike force first,” Doprel explained. “We get some attention, we get a small group after us, we take out a few to prove we’re a viable threat, and maybe we can get something out of the ones that remain.”

To Vo raised her hand, once again acting like she was back in elementary school. If her species had elementary schools. Considering what Corey knew of her culture, they didn’t seem like the classroom type.

“From what I’ve gathered, Mr. Doprel, it seems like our opponent is exploiting those who already hate the Doccan,” To Vo said. “Do your people not believe in the adage that your greatest friend is your enemy’s enemy?”

“Doccan don’t have friends,” Doprel said. “Everything that’s not a Doccan is either a resource or a threat -and they assume ‘threat’ first. We’re going to need to get them at a disadvantage to get them to listen to us.”

“I see. That’s unfortunate.”

All things considered, To Vo seemed more upset by their violent approach to diplomacy than Doprel did. She brushed down some fur that was beginning to stand on end and asked another question.

“Mr. Doprel, would it be offensive of me to ask why you are an exception to your species standard of logical behavior?”

Corey leaned in and paid attention. He’d been wondering about this for a long time too.

“Not at all,” Doprel said. “The short version of the story is that a while after the Doccan made first contact, they started to realize the brains of other creatures worked differently than theirs did. They genetically engineered me and a few other Doccan to have brains that had hormonal systems more like the other species -they gave us emotions, basically, and made us ambassadors, seeing if being more like them would make associating with other races more beneficial.”

“Then why would the Doccan not welcome you with open arms?”

“They decided the experiment was a failure and, to avoid wasting nutrients, ate all of my siblings,” Doprel said. “I barely got away.”

“Oh, storms,” To Vo gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

“I turned out fine,” Doprel said. “It’s fine. Can’t say I’m really excited to go back, but I’m also excited to not get chased by a purple murder ship anymore.”

The Doccan were only a small piece of the larger puzzle, but they were the piece most likely to yield information right now. Doprel could dislike that, thanks to his genetically modified brain, but the natural-born logic centers in his brain recognized it was the smartest choice.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“Are you worried that the other Doccan will try to hurt you while we interact?”

“Not while we have the upper hand,” Doprel said. “They might take a few nibbles on me while we fight, though.”

“Why are we back to cannibalism again?” Tooley shouted from the cockpit.

“You’re the one who took a bite out of a dude,” Kamak shouted back.

“I did not swallow!”

“Don’t try and pretend like you didn’t get something in there,” Kamak said.

The ship underwent the subtle but noticeable shift of deceleration, and Tooley exited the cockpit to slap Kamak in the shoulder. It wasn’t a hard slap, but he rubbed his shoulder anyway.

“Did you bring us out of FTL just to slap me?”

“No, I brought us out of FTL because we’re at our destination,” Tooley said. “Seventy five point eight tachs outside the sensor radius of that monitoring station the Doccan took over, just like you asked. Slapping you was just convenient timing.”

“Okay, thanks. For getting us in place. Fuck you for slapping me.”

“Fuck you too, cap. Are we mission ready?”

“No, might be two swaps or so until we’re ready,” Kamak said.

“Cool, I’ll be getting hammered, then,” Tooley said.

“Don’t go digging into-”

“It is my personal stockpile, and I will chug it if I want to,” Tooley said, before going into her room and slamming the door behind her. Kamak rolled his eyes.

“You want to talk to your woman, Corvash?”

“I think I will, actually,” Corey said. She’d been avoiding him lately, for reasons he didn’t understand. Kamak turned his attention back to mission prep and ignored Corey as he headed to Tooley’s room and knocked on the door.

“Tooley, it’s Corvash. You got a minute?”

“Come in and talk fast,” Tooley grunted. Corey accepted the invitation and stepped inside, finding Tooley’s room exactly as messy as he had last seen it, albeit in a different way. She seemed to clean up old messes and create new ones at a consistent rate. The architect of the messes herself was already lying on the bed, bottle in hand, with her shirt off and her pants unbuttoned for optimum relaxation. She did not get up, or make space for Corey to sit, as he entered.

“What do you want?”

“I’m going to be very blunt here, did I do something to piss you off?”

“Nope.”

Tooley’s facial expression did not change in the slightest as she took another swig.

“You’re kind of acting like you’re mad at me.”

“Nope. Just done with you.”

“Uh...done?”

“Yeah, done,” Tooley said. “Not like, ‘done’ done, we can still drink and fuck together or whatever if you want.”

“So then what does ‘done’ mean?”

“Means I’m not fucking kissing you again, for starters,” Tooley said. “That’s done. Not tying any strings between you and me, Corvash. Attachments between coworkers is always a bad idea, much less coworkers under imminent and constant threat of death.”

Corey at least understood her meaning, though he was no closer to understanding her logic.

“So you’re giving me the cold shoulder...because you like me too much?”

“Not at all,” Tooley said. “If I liked you ‘too much’ it would overcome my desire to give you the cold shoulder, which it does not. You’re kind of riding a middle-ground wave of me liking you enough that I’d be upset if you died, but not so much that I wouldn’t leave you to die to save my own ass. That’s how it should be.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, I said I’d be upset about it,” Tooley protested. “You know who I am. If you had higher expectations from me, that’s your fault.”

Corey didn’t say anything, but Tooley knew the dumbstruck look on his face very well.

“What? You had aspirations of being husband number four?”

“Four?”

“Yeah, four. First husband, I married to get an offworld visa and then ditched as soon as we got off planet, second guy I think I was drunk the entire time, don’t really know what his deal was, third guy...third guy was alright, but he got stabbed to death by some guys he owed money to.”

“Jesus christ!”

“And then there’s wives! First one cheated on me, but the second one, she was fun, and then we went to a space port and then she wandered somewhere and I wandered somewhere and we just never found each other again, I guess. Think I’m still married to her, technically.”

“Is this going somewhere?”

“Sort of. Still got one more spouse to go,” Tooley said. She scratched her stomach idly and pondered her marital history. “They were from a species with five biological sexes so we could never really figure out what to call them husband slash wife wise. That one was mostly because I wanted to see what was in their pants, going to be honest.”

“Okay, again, is this going anywhere?”

“It’s going to make a point about why you should care as little as I do,” Tooley said. “I don’t know if you’re one of those types that wants to mate for life, but if you are, fuck off. If you just want a hole to stick your dick in, I’m your girl. Make your choice and choose wisely.”

Tooley was always at least casually caustic, even with Corey, but right now he could tell she was deliberately trying to piss him off. She wasn’t even trying that hard, but it was working really well.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I’m not putting up with it right now,” Corey said.

“Okay, cool, close the door behind you,” Tooley said. Corey slammed it in a way he hoped would make a point. He wasn’t sure what point it would make, but he had to at least try. Tooley had never turned the full power of her mood-ruining attitude on him before. He wondered how Kamak took it in stride so easily.

“How’d your chat go? Rhetorical question, I don’t care,” Kamak said. “Hands up.”

Corey put his hands up on instinct, and Kamak dropped a very, very large gun into them.

“Get a feel for it, see what you like,” Kamak said. “You’ve been granted temporary Big Ass Gun privileges. Don’t fuck this up and you may get a provisional license.”

It took a while to adjust to the weight, but Corey found a comfortable position to shoulder the gun. It didn’t entirely fix his Tooley-induced bad mood, but it was hard not to feel a little bit better when wielding a gun the size of a guitar.