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A delighted squeal was not a common sound to hear on the Tangled Shore, not least because the thin atmosphere between asteroids tended to muffle sound over long distances. Nonetheless, one resounded across the pitted rock one misty day on the outskirts of the built-up region. There was only one person within earshot of it, and he was not pleased about it.
"Shut up!" a docked dreg hissed at the tall Awoken woman who was damaging his hearing. "A wreck that new will bring scavengers soon, if not already."
"Oh, but look at it! This one isn't picked clean down to rusty struts like everything else. We could make that work!" Corey pulled her small longscry lens out of the chest pocket of her vest by its leather loop and peered through the little glass disc. The downed jumpship two small asteroids away was badly dented on the port side, but otherwise nearly whole.
"We can't defend salvage that big. No weapons, even."
"True. We'll have to be fast. Get it somewhere else." Corey paused as her companion's words caught up to her. "Wait, didn't you have a shock pistol? I know it wouldn't do any good against more than one, but—"
"I am a dreg!" he shouted, almost as loud as her squeal, if more sibilant. "Even if, I cannot even fight a vandal. Always vandals on salvage squads. You only have a stick." He gave her wooden staff a contemptuous look and crossed his arms across his narrow chest. The grumpy gesture looked so unexpectedly human that Corey wanted to giggle, but she held her tongue to pay attention to what Noriiksis was saying. He knew more about the Shore than she did. "And no, no shock pistol. Dropped it when we escaped from Kiniks' gang. Stupid thing always catches, but I miss it. I don't like being defenseless."
Well, after their last escapade, Corey could sure understand that. She curled her fingers around the tall, sturdy walking stick she'd started carrying as a deterrent, if only a mild one for the average opportunist around here. "We ought to get you a new one," she said. "Especially if we're gonna be on the Shore for a bit."
"Where? All my old contacts will report me to my old captain," he groaned. "Then they will know I'm not dead, and deserters get double docked. As good as dead."
"It'll be okay, they won't catch us," Corey said. Noriiksis tilted his head and looked at her oddly as she pulled a ration bar out of her pack and unwrapped it. "There's gotta be somewhere else we can go. I can be the one to go get it and they won't even see you, how's that?" She took a bite out of the ration bar and made a face. Way too grainy and dry. How did people live off these? She could not wait to have her own kitchen again.
Noriiksis hadn’t answered her. He just kept staring. "Why are you giving me that look?"
"What 'us?'" he said, bemused. He leaned back against the rock, ship briefly forgotten. "Nobody would dock you. They may not even recognize you. I will not do anything stupid like gun shopping to get caught. But if I did, you could escape, easy."
Once again, Corey held her tongue, this time to curb her dismay and anger. They weren't directed at Noriiksis, but rather at the cruelty that had made him expect to be abandoned as a matter of course. She blew out a deep breath. "I wouldn't do that. We're a team now, aren't we? I need you here to fix up the food truck. You can't do that if those guys cart you off, so if they tried, I'd help. You help me, I help you. You know?"
Noriiksis just shook his head, more in disbelief than denial. He took a measured pull of ether from his rebreather. "You talk like old mother-stories, Awoken."
"I what?" Corey said eloquently.
"The Shore is not like that. Helping and helping, like on old Riis homeworld in the stories mothers tell hatchlings, even between House and House. Never now. Probably never then, either," he said, voice sour with doubt.
"Huh. I don't know. The stories have to come from somewhere, don't they?" Noriiksis shrugged in disinterest. "Well, I'm not from a different House, if that makes anything better," she said reasonably. "I don't have an Eliksni House."
"Me neither, now," he said glumly, plucking at the faded purple of his House Dusk tunic with an idle claw. He was simply not going to cheer up without a fight.
"Well. House or no House, what do you wanna bet you can get that thing," she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, "up and running enough to get it somewhere we can really take a look at it? I saw what you did with the busted grav hook launcher, you're great at this. We can leave those Dusk guys in the stardust."
"We don't even know if it can fly. Why else leave a whole ship?" The look Noriiksis gave her was very unimpressed by her transparent efforts to lift the mood. But at least he was thinking about problem solving instead of stuff that made him more miserable than usual.
"Do you really want to keep shopping around the Shore in that crappy hat and mask and with me until someone recognizes us? We're not gonna get a better deal than this." She crammed the rest of the disgraceful ‘rations’ into her mouth and gulped it down with a grimace.
A long-suffering groan creaked out of Noriiksis in a wheeze of ether. His eyes narrowed into four gleaming blue slits. He reconsidered. "It's still fresh enough someone could be...in there."
"Huh." Corey frowned back at the wreck. There could be a corpse in there. Or, worse, someone who hadn't quite become one yet. Corey winced. "There's no distress beacons, no radio broadcasts for help."
"There would not be if they were hiding from someone," he pointed out.
"Okay, fair. How about we get a little closer and scan for life forms?"
They clambered from their current perch to the side nearest the asteroid in between them and their potential jackpot. Then Corey hauled her heavy pack off her shoulder and started unpacking their repaired grav hook launcher again. She was getting to be a quick hand at this.
Now that she'd climbed the learning curve searching several fruitless scrap piles this way, Corey was starting to enjoy grav-grappling through the asteroid field. There was something about the rhythm of launching the grav hook to attach to the next rock, letting the cable start reeling her in, and making the leap from one asteroid's weak gravity to the inverted field of the next like a waterbird diving from soaring to swimming in the same graceful motion. That weightless, suspended moment in the middle was exhilarating. It was even more thrilling that one time she'd skipped putting on her thin-atmosphere respirator to experience an instant of true breathlessness. Slowly, she'd rotated around her own center of gravity like just another celestial body before landing feet-first where there was enough air again. Noriiksis had nearly split his carapace about it. She'd had to promise him not to do it again. For now.
They got as close to the wreck as they could without grappling again and scanned for survivors. "Nothing. Not even any biosigns," Corey said. "Whoever came down must have had a backup plan and got away clean. They're gone."
"Hmph. Smells like figs hollow-rotted."
"What? " Corey couldn't help a small snort at what was surely an idiom's failed translation.
Noriiksis waved an impatient hand. "Suspicious. We need a backup plan to get away if it's a trap."
"Okay, okay, you're right. Let's hop over and if nothing acts up, I'll go look inside while you stand watch."
"No, no, no, no," he scolded her. "When we met, you walked into a black market deal in Kiniks' neighborhood like buying bolts. You don't know a threat from a soldering iron. You stand watch. I will inspect."
"Okay! All right, all right." Corey held her hands up in surrender.
Noriiksis took long enough searching the ship for Corey's foot to start tapping nervously on the bare rock. The asteroid was large enough to have a bit of gravity and atmosphere, but not enough to support any visible life. The coast stayed equally clear on all horizons. She was just about to go in after him and put up with his complaints for doing so when he finally emerged from the intact airlock once more.
"No one. Nothing left inside, either. Must have been a Lightbearer."
"A Guardian? How do you figure?"
He pointed at the blocky starboard section of the ship angling above them. "Old ship, easy to salvage on Earth. Mostly Lightbearers fly them. Cockpit damaged, but no body, no things left behind in a rush. Ships are easy for them to get. They just...left it. Didn't want to fix." Noriiksis shook himself, somehow looking both aghast and indignant. It was something in the way his jaw hung with the long teeth just slightly gaping. Corey was slowly picking up on his body language.
"Guess it's a lot easier to look for stuff like this when you aren't worried about dying."
"Yeah," he scoffed. "Come on. If it will fly, I need to fix the cracked cockpit. I need you to hold it in place. It's heavy."
To both their surprise, they finished the bare minimum of repairs without any interruption. Before two hours had passed, the blocky ship was able to wobble above the surface of its would-be grave and begin cruising the Reef.
"All right!" Corey exclaimed. She was piloting, since the controls were more suited to the shape of her hands, and she didn’t seem much better or worse at it than Noriiksis' passable skill. "Let's get this baby to somewhere we can fix her up right!"
"The warp drive needs repaired. Not badly broken, but it will not work until we replace—” he said some technical terms in his own language that neither of them could translate. He shrugged. “Special parts. Until then, we only have the emergency fuel tank," Noriiksis said. "Where can we go...?"
"Well, further from the Tangled Shore. I was thinking closer to the Dreaming City, it’s not far. I've always wanted to visi—wait SHIT. They won't let you in, will they?"
Noriiksis huffed and waggled a three-fingered hand in the air precariously. "Not banned, but Eliksni are not as welcome there anymore. Not after House Wolves rebelled."
"Shit, okay. But we need supplies for the fix-up, and I don't know anywhere else around here we'll find them. I mean, except the Shore. Which we're trying to get away from."
Noriiksis tapped a thoughtful claw against his upper mandible. "There is a small outpost, maybe half a radial down the belt. Still part of the Reef, many Eliksni, but many Awoken as well. They may not know my captain. It is far, but..." He squinted at the ship's fuel gauge on the navigation display. A few of the lit-up orange meter markers had gone out, but it was still readable. "I do not like to risk running out of fuel. But we may have enough."
"Well then, it's that or the Dreaming City and trying to pass you off as my blue-eyed cousin with a head cold. Even if you do have just the two arms, I'm not sure they'll buy it." Plenty Awoken had glowing blue eyes like his, so he wasn't sure why that part mattered, but that wasn't his concern.
"We could leave the ship somewhere hidden. Come back for it with supplies," Noriiksis said with an air of someone pointing out the obvious.
"Do you really think we'll be that lucky again?" Corey was not making a statement with a foregone conclusion. She was actually asking him his opinion, as if she really would risk leaving their prize behind if he objected that much.
He made a small frustrated, tinny growl in his throat. Corey jumped at the unexpected noise, but her shoulders relaxed from her startlement as she realized it was a contemplative sound.
"You worried we will be stranded if we run out?"
"Well, kinda, but if it comes down to it we have the emergency packs. And the grav hook," she said helpfully. "We can always grav-grapple the rest of the way there."
Noriiksis yawned, then champed his teeth twice. "Fine. Let's try it."
That obnoxious grin opened up Corey's face again. She clapped his shoulder with a broad, flat hand. "Awesome. Let's hit the field, partner." He staggered into the corner of the control panel.
Their ship listed off counterclockwise down the asteroid belt, only trailing a little dust from the half-crushed port wing.
Noriiksis' disguise was uncomfortable, but he didn't want to take any chances of being recognized even this far from his former haunts. He had swapped out his usual helm for one with a particularly narrow slit at the crown that made his bristle-crest look thinner than it actually was. However, it made the flattened hidden bristles itch so badly he felt about to molt. At least he could wear his usual comfortable old scrap of a scarf. It obscured the particularly rounded shape of his jaw and the nock of the scar toward the front of his lower right mandible. Hard to miss, that, and so far it hadn't shed out with his molts in the past few turns.
Then again, now that he thought of it, maybe the scarf had been a bad idea. He’d found the thing stuck fluttering from a rusted spar of an old downed skiff. It had been tattered even then, but its unusual pattern of fine crossed perpendicular lines in faded blue and brown had caught a few of his eyes. Well, hopefully, if it had been too unremarkable to steal from a dreg, it wasn’t interesting enough to remember. It was too late to change now.
He slunk under the sheet-metal awning that sheltered the entrance to the outpost's repair shop, following Corey past the ragged curtain. Her stride was confident, but her posture too open and friendly. Well, he supposed her confidence sprang from her inscrutable delight at meeting people, so it would have to do. Better than the none that he had. What a mystery she was.
As she engaged a vandal attending the counter, he looked around at the wares on display. The meager offerings made the ether slow in his arteries in dismay. This place was too small; they might find a few of the larger parts they needed, but they wouldn't find them all unless they were very lucky.
They were not.
Noriiksis had just finished conveying his assessment to Corey when someone ripped aside the curtain and barged into the repair shop.
It was his captain.
Noriiksis suppressed a wheeze of terror. Yet, to his utter shock, Captain Tarask made an ether-line not for him, but for the next vandal at the counter, and started barking questions at her. He hadn’t recognized him yet.
Corey looked askance at him where he huddled beside her, hopefully out of Tarask's view behind her bulk. He blinked aggressively first at the captain at her other elbow, then at her. Her violet eyes went as big and bright as a servitor’s as she put his silence together with the barely-smothered shaking of his limbs.
"We'll just take the emergency fuel tank, thanks!" she said too loudly in her accented pidgin. The vandal clerk took the glimmer she pushed across the counter and waved over an Awoken carrying a heavy metal tank.
She wrapped her two soft, fleshy arms around the canister, lifted it with a grunt, and made for the door with heavy steps. "Bye!" she announced. She turned away just as a dreg pulled out an empty rolling cart from behind the sales counter. She looked after Corey, looked at Noriiksis, then shrugged and rolled it back. He scurried to follow Corey closely, wishing she would get through the doorway faster.
Once they were outside the shop, Noriiksis lost patience and grabbed one end of the fuel canister to drag Corey toward the ship faster. They spent a frantic minute scrambling around the ship looking for the emergency fuel valve before he hustled them both toward the hatch.
"Go, Dreaming City, go!" Noriiksis yelped. Corey fell into the pilot's seat. There was no way Captain Tarask would not notice the extremely suspicious exodus of two people matching his fugitives directly in front of his mandibles. Noriiksis crowded close behind her chair and wrapped both hands around the peeling head cushion. "They will not follow there."
"Okay, okay!" Corey's hands pattered at the console as she searched for the right buttons. Noriiksis jabbed the one to release the brake, but Corey batted him away from the controls. "No backseat flying!" He hissed in frustration but retreated to crouch behind the chair again.
Just visible at a sharp angle from the cockpit, the hulking, fur-lined silhouette Noriiksis had been dreading emerged once more from behind the curtain of the repair shop. Baleful Glimmer-blue eyes glinted directly up at them.
"Now, now, Corey, go!" he howled.
"I'm going!" The ship lifted awkwardly from the surface. With a jarring shudder that almost knocked him to the floor, she slammed the thrusters. They arced upward away from the asteroid at an alarming tilt. "Yeeehaw!" Corey yelled.
When he strained back to standing enough to look back out the window, he could barely see the shape of a bowled-over captain far below, tumbling toes over spikes in the space dust at his vandals' feet.
Noriiksis chattered with half-panicked laughter. "Take that, Tarask! I hope you break all your teeth on rock."
Then Corey started laughing, too, a loud, warm sound. Their relief boiled over into breathless hilarity that carried them halfway to their next destination.
The crackle of incoming comms broke the atypical silence that had held sway for the latter half of the flight.
"Unknown ship, identify yourself," said a polished voice.
"Coriana Sur, from Syll Field in Epsilon Quadrant."
"Well, you're a long way from home, cousin. What brings you to the Dreaming City?"
"Ship repairs, mostly. But I've always wanted to visit! See the sights. Try the food,” she said longingly. “Long way from the backfield, never had the chance."
"Ah, convenience and a pilgrimage. And what about your companion? We've got another life sign aboard."
"Oh! Yeah," Corey said, horribly awkward. Noriiksis cringed where he sat on the tiny bunk just behind the cockpit. They'd been so caught up in their narrow escape from the outpost, they hadn't planned for this. "That's my cousin, uhh—Cousin N-Nori. We're traveling together. He's got—he's got vacuum flu, has since just after we left home. He's pretty well out of it."
"Does he require a medic?"
"N-no, no!" Corey squeaked. "He's on the mend now, just achy and waiting for his voice to come back proper. Thanks, though!"
"Uh-huh. Hmm," came the crackle over the comms. "Well. What kind of repairs do you need? Other than that sad port wing."
"Uhmm... Well, the wing, yeah, and if someone could pop the port wall back out so we can get into the galley that would be great. Couple minor warp drive parts. And, uhh..." She turned from the console to see Noriiksis gesticulating so wildly toward the temp-seal tape across the massive crack in the hull-glass that the air audibly swished through his claws. "Oh! Yeah, getting the cockpit shield re-fused and sealed would be really great." Noriiksis lay back on his 'sickbed' and covered his face with his hands.
"You flew here in an unsealed cockpit? For light and shadow's sakes, cousin." A scratchy sigh blew out the speakers slightly. "Look, there's a repair depot just outside the city wall. I will send you the coordinates. And let them know you're coming. They will be able to get you spaceworthy again. And maybe add some more safety features. What in Sol did you do to that ship, anyway?"
"Oh, it's waaay too long a story," Corey said. "Thanksgoodbye!" She cut the feed as soon as the console beeped with the received coordinates. She altered their trajectory and set them sailing deeper into the Dreaming City’s rainbowed aura.
"Phew!" she said, then raised both forelimbs high in some sort of mammalian display. "We did it! Not bad, eh Cousin Nori?"
Cousin Nori scooped his bristle-thinner hat from the floor and threw it at her with a scowl. "You're lucky I am here. Fool."
She dodged it, laughing. It clattered off somewhere below the console. In retaliation, she wadded up the soft overshirt she had flung over the back of the pilot's chair and launched it directly at his chest. He caught it with a small whoof of air and ether. "Pull that on. It's big enough on you, you could probably fit two arms in a sleeve without your hands sticking out. Totally Awoken."
"No more costumes after this!" he said, pointing at her with a dramatic claw.
"All right, all right," she said with a placating smile. She bent over double in the creaky pilot’s chair to rummage in her pack on the floor and retrieved the last of her homemade travel bars: sweet puffed aster-rice with dried bell berries. A victory meal of actual, enjoyable food. "We'll get out of the Reef after this. Once the warp drive is fixed, we can go anywhere! Oh, I can't wait to see the rest of Sol system." She broke off a small piece of the bar and handed it to her co-conspirator.
Nori gave a long-suffering groan, but took the offered morsel. He chewed it thoughtfully. "We have no kitchen, even."
"Not yet. But we will."