Once Fresia started talking, the whole story had simply poured out of her in a rush. Petronan had gone with her and directed them to a little open-air market he knew about. Kalan was confident he knew what kind of market she meant. They were common enough in port cities. They were less of a formal structure and more an ever-changing assortment of little stalls that sold food, useful tools, and the inexpensive trinkets that people liked to buy as proof they’d been somewhere. It was the kind of place Kalan probably would have taken her if he hadn’t been preoccupied with Kessellian politics, dead bodies, and fighting foreign agents. Given his own actions, he wondered if someone would consider him a foreign agent now. That wasn’t an idea that gave him a warm feeling inside.

Petronan had walked around with her until he spotted a vendor he knew. He’d told Fresia to look around and that the stuff the vendor sold was good. He’d left her alone for a minute to go find something for them to eat. She’d been looking at some rings when a boy approached her. Kalan winced inside. He had a pretty good idea of where the rest of the story was going. Fresia stopped talking at that point and sat there as her face shifted back and forth between embarrassment, anger, and guilt. Kalan let her sit like that for a spell before he prompted her.

“What happened then?”

“We were talking. He seemed so nice. He told me he knew another stall where they had the best jewelry. I knew I should wait for Petronan, but that boy was so,” she trailed off.

“Handsome,” Kalan supplied.

Fresia went very red in the face and nodded. “Yeah. He was handsome and nice, and he was talking to me.”

“So, you went with him?”

Fresia stared at the floor. “Yeah. I went with him. He took me away from the stalls out in the, um, square?”

“Yes, I expect that’s right.”

“He took me into a small street off the square. It was dark, but I didn’t really notice. We were talking. Then, there were these other men. One of them grabbed my arm.”

Kalan couldn’t know for sure exactly what those men had planned, but none of the possibilities would have ended well for Fresia. Kalan forcefully pushed down an impulse to tell Em to turn the ship around. As much as he might want to go back there and have himself a nice little killing spree, it wasn’t the lesson to leave Fresia with right now. He assuaged his anger by saying that they could always come back later. Kalan was honest enough to admit to himself that it was more along the lines of a promise. Maybe he’d take Petronan along. The chief deserved a chance to get his own with the odds evened up a little. Kalan did everything he could to keep his expression calm.

“Then?”

“I punched him.”

“The one who grabbed you?”

“Yeah.”

“What did he do?”

Fresia gave him a confused look. “He fell down. I mean, he couldn’t breathe.”

“Where did you punch him?”

“Here,” said Fresia, pointing at her windpipe. “I figured if he couldn’t breathe, he’d let me go.”

The angry part of Kalan exulted a little at that news. Fresia probably didn’t realize it yet, but there was a decent chance she’d killed that man. She was young and had that native strength that youth conferred even before they’d started their training. She’d had better than a month of Kalan’s conditioning regimen to build on that strength. He’d also spent more than a little time teaching her how to throw punches. He imagined that poor bastard, whoever he was, had probably felt like he’d been hit in the throat with a hammer. It might have been a small hammer, but a hammer all the same. Yes, she’d come a long way since that wannabe thug on Cobalt 7 tried to take her bag. The part of him that was her teacher decided that he wasn’t going to tell her that she’d probably killed him. It was clear she hadn’t meant to, and Kalan didn’t see any benefit in saddling her with that knowledge now. She’d figure it out eventually. If she wanted to talk about it then, they’d talk.

“Ah,” said Kalan, nodding. “What happened then?”

“One of the other men hit me. I don’t know which one. Everything went fuzzy for a little bit. When I could see again, Petronan was fighting with them. I got up. I went to try to help him, but he shouted at me to run and get help.”

“Did you?”

Shame contorted Fresia’s face. “Yeah. I ran back to the market. I was yelling for someone to help, that they were hurting my friend. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You did the right thing.”

There were tears running freely down Fresia’s face when she shouted, “I left him behind!”

There were all kinds of things that Kalan knew that he’d have to tell her about tactical retreats and seeking reinforcements. He also knew that none of that would help her today. He gave her a steady look.

“If you had stayed, there’s a good chance that Petronan would be dead. You might be dead, too, or worse.”

She blinked at him. “Worse than dead?”

“They might have sold you into slavery on some backwater world. They might have taken you somewhere and kept you for their,” Kalan realized he had a white-knuckle grip around the hilt of his sword, “amusement.”

Fresia didn’t need him to spell it out for her. She went very pale, and Kalan was finally able to see the mark on her cheek where she’d been hit. The flush from her wildly shifting emotions had kept it hidden until now. Kalan made a mental note to run a diagnostic scan on her. She could have injuries that the adrenaline was masking.

“Oh gods,” she said.

“The point is, leaving was the right thing to do in that situation. I assume someone helped.”

Fresia gave an absent nod before coming back to herself. “There were a couple of soldiers. They asked me where it was happening. I pointed, and they took off at a run. I followed them. Petronan was on the ground when we got there. They were kicking him. The soldiers didn’t seem to like that very much. They charged in and started punching and kicking. The men who tried to grab me ran away.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“I’m sure they did,” said Kalan, wondering if he’d be able to track those helpful soldiers down and thank them.

Fresia fixed him with a hard look. “I want to learn to fight like those soldiers did.”

Kalan met her eyes. “Train with me long enough, and I’ll teach you how to fight that many people by yourself and win.”

“Good,” she said.

The tone she used made Kalan wonder if Fresia had made her own plans to revisit that market one day. He could hardly begrudge her that idea. At least he could do his part to keep her at a distance from the place until she was ready. Kalan glanced over at Petronan and considered the man’s battered appearance.

“How did you get back here?” He asked. “Didn’t port security stop you?”

“The soldiers helped us get back. They talked to the security people.”

“You keep saying they were soldiers. Why is that?”

“They told me. Said they were Kessellian Marines. I’m grateful to them, but they were weird. Kept talking about how they would have made the captain proud.”

Kalan groaned inside. He needed to get the ship off this planet. Even so, he’d have to send a message to Beya and see if she could track down the marines in question. He didn’t want to reinforce this nonsense about him being a hero, but he’d put up with it long enough to say thank you to those men who jumped in when they didn’t need to. At least some good had actually come out of all of those ridiculous exaggerations Edmus had told.

“Whatever their reasons were, I’m glad they were there to help you. I don’t suppose you got their names?”

Fresia shook her head. “I meant to. I think they told me. I was just so worried about Petronan that I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Fair enough,” said Kalan.

He went over to some cabinets and began poking through them. It took a little searching, but he eventually found a portable diagnostic unit. He brought it over to where Fresia was sitting and waited as it powered up and the onboard software loaded. Fresia kept watching him with a hesitant expression. Once the unit signaled it was ready, he withdrew a diagnostic sensor wand from the machine.

“Okay,” he said. “I need you to sit still for a minute while I do this.”

The girl assumed an almost comically rigid posture. Kalan nearly lost the battle not to smile. Fresia was trying so hard to follow his casual order. He slowly swept the wand down past Fresia’s head, torso, and legs. He replaced the wand inside the diagnostic unit and waited while it ran its analysis.

“So?” Fresia demanded.

Kalan directed a blank look at her. “What?”

“Aren’t you going to yell at me?”

“What would I say?”

“That I never should have gone off with that boy. Or, I should have at least waited until Petronan got back. That there was no point in having me read all those books about tactics and strategy if I wasn’t going to use what I learned. That I put myself and Petronan in danger because I was so worried about some stupid boy not liking me anymore if I didn’t go with him right that second. That it was a stupid, stupid thing to do.”

“It seems to me that you have a handle on it. Would it help if I said all of that to you as well?”

Fresia just stared at him for a second before she slumped back in the chair and said, “No. I guess it wouldn’t.”

“Okay. I will add something, though. Reading about something and experiencing something are very different things. You’re young, Fresia. It’s your first time away Cobalt 7. You’re going to make mistakes. It’s why Petronan went with you. It’s why he told you to go get help. He knew what he was doing. He knew what it might mean. As for learning, will you ever do something like that again?”

“Gods, no!”

“Then, that’s the best anyone can ask for.”

“But,” Fresia said.

Kalan waited and nothing followed that single word. He sighed.

“Are you waiting for me to punish you, Fresia?”

“Well, yeah, I guess so.”

“How? Should I make you do hours of difficult physical training every day? Assign you endless reading? Make you give me verbal reports and quiz you about what you’re reading?”

“You already do all of that.”

“You see my point? How exactly would I punish you? What would I add to that? If you were me, how would you punish you?”

Fresia thought about it in silence for a long time before she said, “Cut my food rations.”

“Absolutely not,” said Kalan. “That’s not punishment, it’s just cruelty. With the kind of training you’re doing, it’s abusive and dangerous. Your body will eat itself, Fresia. It will literally eat your muscles to try and survive.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Fresia, her eyes wide.

“You do now. If you need some kind of punishment, here it is. You’ll tend to Petronan’s injuries. You’ll report on his progress to me daily. You’ll apologize to him and ask for his forgiveness.”

Fresia went a little pale again. “I don’t know anything about medicine.”

“You’re in the medical suite. This ship has a very good medical database. Learn.”

Fresia bit her lip, but she nodded. “Yes, captain.”

Kalan glanced at the display on the portable diagnostic. Aside from the one hit, Fresia had come out of the whole encounter relatively unscathed. She’d have a few bruises, but nothing was broken. Kalan felt a little swell of relief. She’d gotten very lucky. Fresia wouldn’t see it, but Petronan had been lucky that those men hadn’t simply killed him outright. Although, the rescue by the marines may have been the deciding factor there. There was no way to know for sure.

“Scan says you’re basically fine,” Kalan told her. “Just some bumps and bruises.”

“Why aren’t you angry?” Fresia asked.

He looked over at her. “Who says I’m not angry? I am angry. I just know where that anger should go. You made a mistake, Fresia. It was a bad mistake, but just a mistake. Those men, that boy, they didn’t make a mistake. They knew exactly what they were doing. They knew it was wrong. They were going to do it anyway. I’m reserving my anger for them, and people like them. If we ever run across those men, though, I’ll be happy to show them exactly how angry I am.”

Fresia swallowed hard before she whispered, “Oh.”

“For right now, though, the important thing is that you’re here and safe. Petronan is here and safe. You’ll both heal. Things could have gone a very different way.”

Fresia and Kalan both fell into a vaguely uncomfortable silence, lost in their own thoughts. Kalan tried not to blame Tessan for all of the shit that had come down on his crew. It was difficult to buy into that line of thought without knowing for sure if Tessan had intentionally sent them into harm’s way. Kalan was relieved when Em reported that they were approaching their destination.

“Go get something to eat,” he told Fresia. “The medsuite will work on Petronan for a while yet. I’m going to go deal with our new cargo.”

“I can help,” said Fresia, pushing up out of the chair.

She swayed a bit. Kalan put a steadying hand on her arm.

“Fights are stressful and tiring. Go get something to eat. Then, come back and check on Petronan. I’m pretty sure I can handle getting some vegetables aboard.”

As if to prove his point, Fresia yawned. “Okay, yeah, maybe some food.”

Much to Kalan’s shock, getting the kelops aboard the ship went off without a single hitch, explosion, fight, or the intrusion of galactic politics. He felt like he should thank someone but wasn’t sure which god or goddess would be appropriate on this particular planet. He shrugged to himself, sent out a mental thanks to whatever deity was listening, and headed back to the bridge. He dropped into the captain’s chair with relief. Things had been so much easier before he took on that stupid, stupid courier job for Tessan. He mostly left Em alone to deal with getting them into orbit and headed toward the wormhole juncture.

On some ships, the captains insisted on controlling everything to an absurd level. Kalan wasn’t sure if it was insecurity, ego, or a power trip, but he hadn’t enjoyed his time on those ships. In his experience, most people who served as crew on a ship knew their jobs. They didn’t need orders to know what to do when things were normal, except maybe to deal with some unpleasant tasks that everyone avoided. To Kalan’s way of thinking, the real job of the captain was crisis management. When things went abruptly, terribly wrong, it was the captain’s job to re-impose sanity on the micro-universe of the ship, to serve as a cool, calm center of detached reason, and direct the activities that would see the ship safely home. Every once in a while, though, on especially trying days, Kalan would give unnecessary orders. Today was one of those days.

“Take us home, Em. Take us back to Cobalt 7.”

“Yes, captain.”

For once, Kalan didn’t resent that momentary feeling of being no place when they entered the wormhole. He was just happy to leave Hasen 5 behind.