It’s a long shot, but Fiona or Ilya might know about Solace. Either way, I have to keep busy. It’s either that or remain in the shower, thinking of Grantian until I have a cramped wrist and a mind as dirty as a gutter.
When I finally leave, there’s a spring in my step.
Chapter Six
Grantian
“What’s wrong this time?” Pushing my way into the bridge, my gaze flies straight to Swipt. He’s sitting behind the navigational console, alongside Lokyer, and the two of them seem to be studying the logs and reviewing our trajectory. “Swipt, if you’re calling me about that damn terminal again, I swear I’m gonna—”
“Someone’s in a bad mood.” Turning his chair around, he drapes his arms over the armrests and cocks one eyebrow up. “What bug crawled up your ass this morning, Grantian? Anyway, I’m not the one in need of your immense wisdom. You want to grunt at someone, grunt at our captain.”
“Right,” I mutter, suddenly feeling foolish. I was enjoying being with Lamira so damn much I’m irritated at being pulled onto the bridge. That’d be understandable if I were some young rookie with more hot blood than common sense, but that’s not the case. I’m this ship’s second, and I better keep that in mind at all times.
Slowly, I make my way toward the center of the bridge. Solair’s standing before the main terminal’s console, a small group surrounding him, and everyone seems to be focused on a holographic map of the quadrant.
“Where are we going?” I ask the group, scratching my chin as I stare at the map.
“We need supplies,” Solair tells me, confirming my suspicions. “Jax has reported that we’re running low on food. We simply have too many people aboard, and we’re not going to last long without a resupply.”
“Can’t we ration the food that remains, just until we have enough credits for a matter replicator?” I offer, but Solair’s concerned expression doesn’t change.
“We’re still a long way off from having enough money to buy the matter replicator, and I figure we’ll all die of starvation before we manage to get our hands on one of those things.”
“Alright, got it. The matter replicator is out.”
“Would any of those Outer Rim colonies be safe enough for us to make port?” He enlarges the map so it focuses on a system known for a large asteroid belt mined by IHC corporations. The gigantic mining crews eventually settled some of the smaller planets on the system, turning them into support bases for the operation. Any other day I’d say it’d be safe to make a quick run on any those colonies, but our situation has changed.
“The Interstellar Human Confederation patrols the area, even if the colonies aren’t technically part of the IHC yet. But as more humans move to them, they know it’s only a matter of time. They may be lawless right now, but that’ll change soon. We’re more likely to run into an IHC patrol who will wonder why we have so many human women on board.”
“So anywhere close to the IHC border with League space is a bad idea?”
I look at the map. “Yes, I think that’s a bad idea,” I finally reply. “The entire system is teeming with IHC ships—whether it’s colony support, security, or military. Even if we’re just talking about civilian ships, it’d be a risk to go there.” I don’t need to state the obvious. Now that the IHC has put out bulletins on all the women aboard our ship, to land in any of the colonies inside or close to League Space would be too dangerous.
“The news bulletin said these women are not just domestic terrorists, but may be involved in attempting to bring down the human government. Those are crimes punishable by execution. My advice is to steer far, far away and avoid taking any chances at all.”
“Aren’t there any other alternatives?” Gripping the edge of the console, Varia leans in, looking at me through the blue holographic map. There’s a cool edge to her voice, and I take that as a good sign. The woman is under a lot of pressure, but she seems more than capable of keeping her head over her shoulders. “Going by Jax’s estimates, we only have a couple of days before we have to start rationing our supplies even more than we already are. And even if we do that, there won’t be enough to last us for more than a week or two.”
“There’s a place I know of,” I