However, Sway couldn’t tell him not to come. He couldn’t control Loyalty. He had as much of a right to go to the colony as any of them.
“You know you don’t have to leave the ship,” Sway said. “We really aren’t going to charge you for these extra days. We’re staying because of me, not anything you did.”
Loyalty gave him a warm look. “You know, for a group of thugs from Rik-Vane, you lot are honorable males.”
“We really aren’t,” Sway frowned. “It’s just not a matter worth arguing over.”
“You don’t think you’re honorable?”
“Most certainly not.”
Loyalty chuckled. “I suppose we can disagree on that. So, I take it then that you won’t mind if I follow you?”
Sway was still confused about his intentions, but the truth was-
“No, I don’t.”
“Great.” He turned, tipping his muzzle to Grace. “I’ll take care of you two while you’re down there.”
Grace chuckled like she thought he was silly. No doubt, she had the same thought about the safety of a farasie colony as himself. Still, she was polite and genuine when she said, “Thanks, Loyalty.”
Sway didn’t need to be taken care of. Unlike her, he was rather annoyed at the reassurance. It made it sound like he needed to rely on Loyalty, and he didn’t want that. Doing so would make him indebted to him, and he didn’t like to owe things to others. Part of the benefit of their crew was that they could do things like look out for each other without racking up a debt.
But before he could argue, Loyalty was leaving the room, looking mighty pleased with himself.
“What was with that?” Sway asked, confused as he stared at the door that had closed behind him.
Grace, giggling, took his hand. “I think he was worried about you.”
“Me? I think he meant you.”
Grace shook her head. “He asked to followyou, Sway. I think you have another friend.”
The look he shot her must have been hilarious, because she burst into laughter. Though he couldn’t imagine why that would be funny, he couldn’t be disgruntled. Not when the music of her joy was floating through the air. That was a sound he could listen to forever, even if it came at his expense.
Chapter 16
Grace
The dwarf planet that the Song of Retrieval set their colony on was one that had been terraformed for generations now. As a result, it was absolutely covered in life. As they approached in the Humility’s shuttle, Grace got to stare out the small window beside Garnet and Goldie, the three of them ooh-ing and aww-ing over the incoming planet. It was nothing like the factory world they’d visited before, and they were all so excited. They were talking over each other, trying to point out everything at once.
The planet had been named Flowers of Eternity, and it was the passion project of a very wealthy farasie family. Just like the billionaires on Earth, the ultra rich in the Coalition had hobbies that others would find to be extreme. Terraforming planets or asteroids was to the uber wealthy what a dollhouse hobby would be to a regular person. It was a vanity project, a total money sink, and, for the first few decades, if not more, would not yield anything useful. But bragging about a planet that you designed in your own image, to your own specification, was a flex for exactly that reason. It meant you had that much money to burn, and that much power to sling around.
Flowers of Eternity was so named because it was like a massive, tropical greenhouse. The entire planet was green – but a vibrant, yellow green not all that similar to Earth’s cooler, emerald green. From above, the singular ocean that only took up about a fourth of the surface, sparkled extremely bright blue, almost like it was glowing. It was a planet filled with flowers and plants of all different types. The owner had made sure to separate them by planet of origin, creating distinct, banding zones that could be seen from space.
There was only one colony on the planet. The Song of Retrieval was big enough that they could see it sprawling out, like a city, on a bright blue bay. The sparkling, nearly white, limestone buildings covered a large surface area of the planet, but it was relative since the planet itself was only about the size of Earth’s moon.
But even from here, as they were coming in on approach, she could see the obelisks that formed the perimeter of the city. Their edges were glowing a very soft purple, indicating that they were on and fully functioning.
Grace explained terraforming – what she knew of it – and rich people passions projects and whatever other little tidbits she could remember to the girls as they aimed for the space port. Being the one who knew things was strange, but she didn’t dislike it.
Of course, the guys were also there. Sway and Loyalty, yes, but the others had come along as well. The entire crew had jammed themselves into the shuttle, almost without enough room for everyone thanks to Tanin’s monohov that was against one wall in its charging port.
They were all going down. Garnet said that the ship’s AI was going to be watching things while they were gone. Grace felt like they were putting an awful lot of trust in a basic AI, but it wasn’t her ship, so she accepted the decision without comment and instead focused on the crew themselves.
It was the first time she’d seen them all together. The overall effect was… scary.
Sure, Sway automatically seemed harmless thanks to being a farasie, but he was the most harmless looking of the bunch. Everyone else was intimidating in their own right. Rok, though he smiled sweetly and tried to look smaller, couldn’t hide the fact that he was the biggest guy here. Vytln, the lvtl male, was almost just as big, and he had a deep scowl on his hard face that did not, at all, encourage any sort of interactions. The avanava males, standing in the back since there were no more seats, both had icy, closed off expressions on their faces. The very air around them seemed colder. Trove, for all that he was smiling, was still a domini, a species notorious for loving a good fight, and he kept a hand on his plasma pistol like he was a gunslinger from the old west, ready to shoot at will. Tanin was probably the second least intimidating at first glance, but she knew that the s’skree people as a species, though they were considered small on average, were incredibly strong. And the longer you were around Tanin, the more you came to realize just how in control of everything he was.
