{Enki}
Lucy gazed out at the view from the shrine. A Dyson’s Sphere with a tiny planet inside it, and the two halves of that tiny planet promised beautiful destruction. The star at the heart of Enki shone brightly beyond the shields in its orbit that provided some semblance of day and night.
It was night.
Lucy sat at a control panel of projected Tritan-tech to monitor the situation unfolding below, a ringside seat to Enki’s obliteration. She let the others, a Collective-wide team dedicated to preventing the disaster, go to bed and leave them alone.
Them.
Lucy and a teammate, a Tritan guard named Yito. One such supervisor stayed with each shift. He constantly responded to a computer implanted in his palm, ever-vigilant of her and Matt’s communications. At one point, Yito felt the need to say, “Damn, that human’s a lucky man married to you and all. How did you two meet?”
Lucy, who had her back to him, plastered on a sweet smile and relaxed her otherwise straightened shoulders before turning around with the full force of her dark blue eyes and bright white teeth through lips plumped from her biting. “He knows he’s a lucky man, too, Yito. We met at school during a big event and really hit it off.”
Yito took in Lucy with an assessing stare. Her jumpsuit clung to her form. Not all men liked this. Too sexually aggressive of an ensemble could heighten their animosity, but these suits were standard issue. She did her best with the rest. No obvious makeup, only some mascara. Her blond hair stayed down and softened her youthful face. Her hair was long enough now that it hid any cleavage, only offering tantalizing glimpses. Men liked this.
Men like Justice Lee and Razor.
Lucy diverted the subject to Yito. Always good to talk about them. “Do you have someone special waiting for you at the end of this project?” She sat down across from the blue alien with an almost feature-less face to place them on a level playing field, but he didn’t even know he was playing a game.
Her game.
“Nah.” Yito dismissed her question with a wave of his gloved hand. “We’re not permitted. Keeps us available for our work.”
Brightening her smile, Lucy leaned forward, gaping her top and sweeping her hair away. “What kind of work do you do aside from stopping rogue planets? I’m so fascinated with Enki.”
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Yito chuckled with the unassuming nature of a well-distracted man. “It would dazzle you humans. It’s a fascinating structure, no?”
Not that it was theirs. “It really is.”
Something pulsed in his palm, and he shrank back into his reserves to answer it. “Excuse me.”
From the Verses and the Progeny girls’ accounts, Lucy imagined a lot of Tritans could play her game. But maybe not this one. He only seemed to possess the usual curiosity straight men had for women, and he was polite, which she didn’t expect from his kind. Maybe he was a better candidate for—
“Morning Star. This is Ginger. We received the bins. Over.”
Matt.
Elden, Lucy loved the sound of his voice. The confidence and the easy-going tone of it, but most importantly, the undercurrent of unrestrained danger. A predator lurked here. She almost left him on the hook long enough for him to speak again, but she was monitored and needed to play it safe.
“Ginger. Good job. Are the heavies on the way? Over.” The full bins returned to the shrine for inspection before some Tritan fetched them for the trove hidden deeper in the Dyson’s Sphere’s maze.
“Affirmative, Morning Star. ETA forty-eighty hours. And—what, what do you want me to say? Oh—Puk says thanks for the inertia kits. Over and Out.”
That Monarch 3 drone deserved a hug for putting up with all this nausea—
“You three make a decent team.”
Decent was not a word Lucy would use to describe them. She faced Yito with a pretty smile. “Yeah. I guess we do.”
He returned her smile in the way that showed all those Tritan teeth, sharp rows of them. “I’ll request to set you for a permanent detail. No sense in keeping strong players apart.”
“Thanks.” Yes. Yito would make a fine addition to Lucy’s mission. Tilting her head so her hair fell softly from one shoulder, she inquired innocently, “Any news I should worry about?”
The Tritan sighed. “The Progeny King and our rogue Officer, Tumu, destroyed the promenade on Pil, and other Shadow agents apparently killed a bunch of slaves on Lukemore in a tectonic attack. I swear. We were all routing for the Progeny, but this kind of guerrilla activity hurts everyone against Imminent. Do you know what I mean?”
Lucy nodded solemnly. “I do. Working for the vice industry taught me all about how terrorism works against the common good.”
Yito gestured at her excitedly before diatribing, “Exactly! You get it! It’s so polarizing these days. Team Shadow. Team Imminent. But what about Team Vast Collective? What about our rights? What a mess… It’ll just end with Enki putting down all the fun. That’s what they did in Elden’s day.”
Barely concealing her double-take, Lucy controlled the surprise in her voice when she asked, “What do you mean? I’m kinda young.”
A black flush graced Yito’s cheeks as he abashed and explained, “Oh, right. Humans are so recent. Back during Elden’s glorious revolt, when imminent silence threatened our stars, the Primaries did their worst to stop him, and sucked the fun right out of the Vast Collective. None of the old Tritans have relaxed since. Now we all pay for it, and us younger ones are frozen and trapped here in Enki—Oh, sorry.” Yito looked around as if remembering where he was and who he was talking to. “You’re a good listener, and it’s been a while since I talked to anyone about this. Thanks.”
Lucy beamed at him. “No. Thank you.”
A fine addition, indeed.