Javi Barasa, descendant of refugees, accidentally kills a soldier sent to liquidate the shanty town that’s been his home all his life. Meanwhile Arien Lakhami, the agender youngest child of the king of the home planet of Javi’s ancestors, barely escapes an assassination attempt and now, like Javi, they are looking for a way off the planet. Both take entry level jobs on a freighter where Javi meets First Mate Razz Jensen, and hopes for more than friendship. But Razz has a policy about dating crew. Meanwhile Arien arranges to meet their bodyguard -- and fiancé -- Tapuh, at the freighter’s next stop.
Despite Razz’s policy, he and Javi spend the night together at the space station stopover. Arien finds Tapuh waiting there and learns the royal family has been murdered in a coup. Arien is now the strangest claimant to the throne, and since they’ll have to make a political marriage, Tapuh says their engagement is off. Rescued from another murder attempt against Arien, the damaged freighter is taken by the loyalist General Queza to the base where Arien’s allies are gathering for a counter coup. Javi and Razz have time to relax and build their relationship, but Arien has to juggle suitors for their hand in marriage. A marriage that can never result in an heir.
Javi padded softly down the ladder -- as he’d learned to call the steep flights of steps around the ship in the month he’d been aboard -- and stopped on the landing before the last flight to deck two. An open space lay below, one side set up as a recreation area with couches and tables, the other as a gym, with a couple of treadmills and stationary bikes, a rowing machine and some weightlifting equipment.
Nobody was in the lounge -- it was the middle of the afternoon and most people were working. But Javi had his break between the lunch and dinner shifts. He could have taken a nap, but he’d thought he might come and try out some of the exercise equipment. He’d rarely had access to actual gym equipment. And he’d never had to worry much about keeping weight off. But after a month of plentiful food and his commute to work being about one hundred metres long, he’d started to notice his pants fit a little tighter. Better nip that in the bud.
Someone had beaten him to the small gym area. Razz. Javi stopped and sat on a step on the top of the flight that led to the deck. For a few minutes he sat watching Razz through the safety rails of the walkway. God, he was fine looking, his muscles hard and gleaming in the light like marble. Sweat beaded the shoulders and arms shown off by the sleeveless shirt he wore.
“If you’re going to ogle you might as well come and spot me,” Razz called up after Javi had been sitting there a few minutes, and Javi jumped to his feet, startled. He hurried down the ladder.
“I wasn’t ogling,” he said. Though he had been, to be honest. “I was studying your technique.”
“I’ll bet. Can you spot me?”
“You’re hard to miss.”
“Hilarious.” Razz rubbed some chalk from a tray affixed to the wall onto his hands. He sat astride a bench, then lay down on his back, under a barbell with a couple of big weights on it.
Javi knew how to spot someone, even if he hadn’t often been able to use a gym back home. When he had it had usually been at some youth outreach centre. He positioned his hands under the bar as Razz started to lift.
“Great,” he said, encouragingly. “You’re doing great, that’s all you.” He actually concentrated, not letting himself be distracted. He’d hate to have Razz slip and drop the bar on his handsome face.
Razz did ten reps, then sat up to take a drink.
“That’s a pretty gruesome scar,” Javi said, seeing it for the first time, on Razz’s shoulder. “I guess it’s from the military.”
“Yeah.” Razz drank some water and then turned to sit sideways on the bench. “Got it the day I met the Captain.” Another drink. “Major she was then. Off to a forward operating base on the surface of a disputed planet. My squad accompanied her on the shuttle as security. It came under fire and crashed.”
“Wow. That sounds terrifying.”
“I’ve had better days, for sure. I was badly hurt. She was mostly okay. Everyone else was dead. We were in hostile territory, a good fifty kilometres from the base.”
“Did they send someone to rescue you?”
“They came looking, but we couldn’t stay by the ship to wait. Its distress beacon would have attracted the enemy too. She got us away from the ship. She built a travois to put me on and dragged me out of there.”
“Wow. That’s cool.” Javi paused. “Ah, what’s a travois?”
“It’s a sort of sled, made for dragging goods or people.”
“The captain dragged you out of there?” Javi thought about it for a while. “You must have weighed a lot less back then.”
Razz laughed. “If anything I was bigger. Took several days and she had to engage enemy soldiers several times. I was getting delirious and telling her to leave me behind and go on alone, but she ordered me to zip it. She dragged me into the base a week after we crashed and the first thing I did when I woke up from surgery on my broken legs was request a transfer to her command.” Razz looked at him and smiled. “So that’s where I got the scar. And that’s why I’ll never leave the Captain’s side.”
“She seems pretty cool.”
“Yeah. I don’t say she’s the best officer I ever knew, though she’s up there. But something happens when you go through that with a person. Whatever they were to you, if anything, before, it changes after that. And then you have to stay together.”
He finished his water and lay back on the bench. “Come on. We’re just getting started here.”
Javi hoped so.
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