Treasured By the Alien Pirate by Celia Kyle Page 0,26
“That one, for instance, is called Consolation.”
“Exactly,” Fiona smiles. “And do you know what’s a synonym for consolation? There’s no prize if you guess right, but—”
“Solace,” I whisper, my heart picking up the pace as I stare at the small moon floating in front of us. “So, is this the place we’re looking for? Is this what the woman on the medbay was talking about? It has to be.”
“I can’t know for sure,” Fiona sighs. She presses a button on her datapad’s screen and the holographic map fades immediately. We’re just left staring at each other, anticipation and anxiety making the atmosphere electric. After being in the dark for so damn long, we’re on the verge of shedding some light into what the hell happened to us. If there’s a connection between Solace and the Frontier, we have to know what it is. “I know it’s a stretch to say this Consolation is the place we’re after, but I’m betting it is. It just seems like too much of a coincidence, especially after what Lamira heard back at the market.”
“It makes sense, yeah,” I agree, my voice acquiring an almost conspiratorial tone. “Solace must be some kind of codename. After all, if they—whoever they are—used the name Consolation, it’d be much easier to track them.”
“But I tracked them anyway.” Smiling widely, Fiona lets her triumphant self show. She kept us alive with her tech skills aboard the Frontier, and now she’s pushing toward an answer; if anyone has earned the right to be confident, it’s her. “Tartus isn’t that far away from our current coordinates. We could check it out, but…”
“But?”
“From the information I’ve managed to gather, the place is super sketchy,” Fiona admits. “There’s only one chartered settlement in there, but it seems like a few others have managed to fly under the radar so far. That’s because the place is teeming with smugglers, thieves, and Mother knows what else. Tartus is one unsavory place, to say the least.”
“The Kilgari are smugglers,” I remind everyone. “They wouldn’t stand out. Besides, we’re not interested in Tartus, only in one of its moons.”
“That’s a good point,” Varia agrees but doesn’t sound too confident about our whole conversation. Sitting on the edge of my bed, she runs one hand through her hair and sighs. “Thing is, I’m not entirely sure if Solair would agree to such an expedition. We don’t know what we might find there, and we’re already taking a lot of risks as it is. Besides, I know the Ancestral Queen’s finances aren’t exactly stellar. I don’t know if investigating Tartus will be a priority for the Kilgari, at least right now. At the very least, it’ll take some convincing, and I don’t—”
Before she’s done talking, I head toward the door. Both Fiona and Varia follow me with my gaze, and I stop by the doorway and look back at them over one shoulder. Smiling, I give them what I hope to be a reassuring nod.
“I think I know someone who might be able to help us,” I tell them.
With that, I’m gone.
Chapter Fourteen
Grantian
It’s my responsibility as first mate to watch the bridge during the night shift, and it’s been a long twelve hours. I’m looking forward to returning to my quarters and my comfortable bed, assured I’ll probably be asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow. Although all was quiet, sometimes those shifts are the worst because I’m awarded with too much time to think.
And of course, like it’s been nearly every spare moment over the past few days, my mind’s been filled with Lamira. Her beautiful face has started invading my thoughts quite often as of late—in a good way, of course—but never more often than when my mind is unoccupied.
Not that I mind at all. I could certainly dwell on worse things.
During my shift, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened in the market on Kyvos. I couldn’t believe the guards who’d assisted her hadn’t seemed to think it strange that a human female was working on a planet so far away from IHC space. They’d only helped her pick up the dropped melons and sent her on her merry way, not even bothering to throw her another glance after she’d departed.
Either they were very stupid, or we were very, very lucky.
I haven’t seen Lamira since we left the market and I’m suffering for it. Much to my chagrin I’m quickly turning into a lovesick fool, constantly hoping I’ll run into her somewhere on