“How’s he holding up?”

Tooley walked into the cockpit and plopped down into the pilot’s seat before answering the question.

“Drunk as hell and unconscious,” Tooley said. Corey was currently passed out in his room, putting an end to his intermittent bouts of rage and despair. Tooley trusted him to calm down before he woke up, but she’d confiscated his knife—and all the other weapons in his room—before leaving just to be safe. “Not great, but better than he could be.”

“Good. We need to have a talk.”

The rest of the crew, obviously minus Corey, turned their attention to Kamak.

“I don’t want to sound insensitive to Corey, but looking at the big picture, this might actually be good news,” Kamak said. “I think we finally have something that can solve our Morrakesh problem.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“The short version of the story is that for a while now, Timeka’s been dealing with a graverobbing problem,” Kamak said. “Bodies of recently deceased employees have been disappearing shortly after burial. Nothing ever happens afterwards -as far as they knew.”

“But if Corey’s theory is true, perhaps Morrakesh has been committing large scale industrial espionage via their bodies,” Farsus said.

“Right. Which tracks with everything we know about all the trade route bullshit,” Kamak said. “They’ve probably taken billions of cece’s worth of info already. Don’t think Timeka will want them taking any more.”

“We plan on walking up and saying ‘Hey, I know the whole universe hates us, but trust us’?” Tooley said. “Yeah, it sounds logical, I guess, but we’ve got no fucking evidence.”

“Timeka knows there’s something else going with all this,” Kamak insisted. “And I’ve still got some trust left there. I’m not saying they’re going to send a fleet to swarm Morrakesh’s doorstep, but they’ll be on the same page as us, at least. And they’ve got a hell of a lot more resources and influence to look into it with.”

“It’s not perfect,” Farsus said, stating the obvious. “But I believe it is the closest thing we’ve had to a truly good opportunity since this all began.”

“Not saying you’re wrong, just saying we should maybe think about showing up with something more than a hunch about Corey’s dead mom,” Tooley said. “But if this is all we’ve got, it’s all we’ve got. I’m in.”

“Let’s do it,” Doprel said.

“If my feelings were not already self-evident, I am in favor,” Farsus said.

“Great. I’m sure Corey will agree, so Tooley, set a course and-”

Kamak caught himself mid-sentence. Doprel was giving him a look.

“Ugh. Fine. To Vo?”

“I’m in favor.”

“Great! That’s two seconds of my life I’m not getting back,” Kamak said. “Tooley, like I said, start planning our course. To Vo, you want to earn that vote, start compiling notes on everything we know about Morrakesh.”

To Vo pulled out her datapad, hit one button, and Kamak immediately got a notification that someone was trying to transfer files to him. He looked down at his own pad to see several documents waiting for review.

“You’ve been doing that the whole time, huh?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good job.”

----------------------------------------

Tooley sat in the cockpit and watched the beige blur of FTL travel soar by. They were only a few cycles out now, and given the current mood on the ship, it was going to be a long, quiet trip. Everyone else on the crew was already asleep, and Tooley was soon heading there herself. She just wanted to watch the blur for a while first. Tooley got comfortable and kept her eyes on the beige wall of light.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Amid the wall of monochrome, a quick glint of some other unidentifiable color flickered. Tooley sat upright, but by the time she did so, the glimmer was already gone. She’d talked about that same phenomenon with Corey a while ago, before their life had turned to chaos. It was inexplicable and rare.

Tooley found herself regretting that Corey had missed it.

She looked over her shoulder at the common room, and the bedroom doors that connected to it. It had been a couple cycles since anyone had checked on Corey.

Tooley would be sure to ask To Vo to do that later. She’d love to have something to keep tabs on. Tooley returned her eyes to the beige blur of space travel, and the endless monotony sank back in. For about fifteen ticks.

“Fuck me,” Tooley mumbled. She just couldn’t help herself, for reasons unknown even to her. They were already on a safe FTL route, but she double-checked their heading just to be sure before she left her seat and headed for Corey’s room.

While Tooley took the utmost care to be silent and inconspicuous, she unfortunately forgot a crucial detail about Corey Vash: his low-level yet ever present paranoid streak. He had small chits of metal dangling from his door that jangled as Tooley opened it. Corey woke with a start at the sound, and instinctively reached for a weapon that was not there. He groped around in the darkness for a gun Tooley had confiscated long ago.

“Easy, Corvash, easy,” Tooley said. “Just me.”

“Christ. What are you sneaking around for?”

“Just checking on you.”

A simple sentiment that served as an unfortunate reminder of his current circumstances. Corey focused aggressively on anything other than his misappropriated mother. He turned on the room lights and took a quick look around to see that his collection of weapons was entirely gone, even the knife he kept in his boot.

“Where’d my stuff go?”

“Well, no offense, but considering the mood you were in, we sort of...took it,” Tooley said. “Just to turn that one percent chance of you doing something dumb into a zero percent chance, you know.”

Corey shook the last bits of sleep out of his eyes for the sole purpose of glaring at Tooley with the correct amount of spite.

“Well give them back,” he demanded.

“Yeah, sure, eventually,” Tooley said. “Are you sure you need everything, though? The boot knife I get, that’s handy, but you’ve built up a weird little collection of things people have tried to kill us with.”

On top of the knife he’d snatched from the corpse of the assassin long ago, Corey had grabbed Vansis’ gun, and a weapon from the cop who’d taken him hostage, and now he held on to one of Khem’s spears, which he couldn’t even lift well enough to use effectively. Tooley found the odd trophies impractical and uncomfortable.

“If I’ve got them, the people trying to kill us don’t,” Corey said. “It’s practical.”

“Okay, sure,” Tooley said. That almost made sense. “Anyway, your shits all up in Kamak’s room, and he keeps that place locked up tight while he sleeps. We’ll get it when folks wake up.”

“Ugh. I’ll get it now.”

Corey stood up, and Tooley stepped forward to intercept him.

“What’s the rush? It’s just knives and guns.”

“It’s my stuff and I want it,” Corey said. Tooley’s eyes narrowed as she glared at him.

“You’re using that voice you always use when you’re trying to make a big deal seem like not a big deal.”

“I don’t do that.”

A single raised eyebrow was all it took to put a permanent end to Corey’s protests. He sighed and sank back onto his bed.

“It just...it helps me sleep.”

“Having a weapon?”

“Yeah. I know it’s a bad habit, but my mom always-”

Corey choked on his words for a moment and tried to start over without mentioning his mom.

“After we left, the church used to send people. They’d just drive around the block, or stand outside the house across the street,” Corey said. “After a few months of that, in the middle of the night somebody set our front door on fire. The fire was small, but...my mom took a gun out of her nightstand and fired a shot at a guy running from our house. After that, nobody ever bothered us again. And my mom got me a gun as soon as I was old enough.”

“So having a weapon makes you feel safe.”

“Safer, yeah,” Corey said. Nothing ever made him feel completely safe. “Helps me sleep.”

“Better than a security blanket, I guess,” Tooley said. “Alright. I got my pistol here.”

She patted her hip, where the small firearm rested. She’d usually kept it in a drawer in her room, but getting stabbed by an assassin had turned her into a full-time carrier. She could understand Corey’s paranoia, to an extent

“Thanks. I’ll give it back first thing in the morning.”

“No you won’t,” Tooley said. “You’re not borrowing the pistol. You’re borrowing me.”

The bed was too small by far for two people to sleep comfortably, but there was plenty of room on the floor. Tooley sat down, rested her head on the side of Corey’s bed, and got comfortable.

“Tooley-”

“Don’t worry about. I’m a pilot, I sleep in my chair all the time,” Tooley said. “Hell, sometimes I sleep sitting up in my own bed. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”

“Save yourself the trouble and don’t try to talk me out of it. I’m stubborn,” Tooley insisted. “Just go to sleep, Corey.”

“Right. Okay. Sure.”

Corey hit the lights, laid back, and tried to ignore Tooley’s presence in his room. True to her word, she fell asleep easily even in the awkward position, and the sound of her quiet, peaceful breathing filled the room. Corey listened to it, focused on the rhythm of her breathing, and closed his eyes. He was asleep before he knew it.