The Defiant
Chapter Fifteen

We redoubled our efforts at studying information we might need to converse on at the party. Over the week in transit between the station and Byth, the planet the Aerzhu had designated as safe for us to refuel at, I forced a ludicrous amount of information into my uncooperative brain.

If we got caught in a deception, the punishments would be severe, not even counting the permanent loss of our memories, so it was extremely important that we know every detail we could possibly need. Four had promised to go over the blueprint of the prime minister’s house with us in the week before we arrived at Cebos. We would formulate our final plan then.

In the meantime, the girls and I quizzed each other on popular Eranian style trends, endless lists of Eranian pop culture icons, and the entire royal family tree. I went to bed every night with a headache pounding behind my eyes and woke up every morning with bags underneath them, having been unable to sleep.

I found myself waking up two or three times a night with nightmares. They weren’t coherent dreams, like being chased by a monster or falling off a cliff, but rather emotions.

I couldn’t remember in the mornings if I had had a corporeal form in the dreams. The only thing I remembered was a sick, rushing fear, occasionally accompanied by tinges of rage or anguish. If I didn’t know better, I would almost think them memories, but memories are associated with senses. When you remember something, you remember how it looks, sounds, and smells. My nightmares were pure emotion, no other senses, which made me doubt that they were memories.

What, then? Was the unknown operation the Aerzhu had performed on me to remove my memories unraveling my sanity?

I didn’t know. But I didn’t have much time to dwell on it.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one not getting sleep. We were all irritated and crabby, probably a by-product of spending so much time together. Even the boys, who were only attending the ball as guards, had gotten roped into our practice sessions. Four decided it would be a good idea for the boys to practice being, well, guard-like. And what Four wanted, she got, usually through threat of violence.

Apparently, Eranians went for the strong, silent type in their guards. All Two, Five, and Six had to do was follow us at a discreet distance when we walked, and stand along the walls and look tough while we socialized at the ball. They were not allowed to talk to us or deviate from a flat facial expression at all.

It didn’t sound hard to me, but apparently it did to Two and Five (not Six, for obvious reasons). Two, of course, couldn’t stop moving or asking questions about whatever we were studying. Five had no trouble standing still, but he always had to have the last word. Every time one of us said something he thought was dumb, he did not hesitate to mock them mercilessly. The two of them frustrated Four to no end.

“How hard is it to stand there and do nothing?” she eventually yelled, irate. Her face was getting redder and redder, and her curls were escaping from her voluminous ponytail. She actually looked quite deranged.

“I’m bored,” Two whined, peeling himself off the wall to stand over by the table with us.

“I’m sure you won’t be bored sitting in your cell awaiting execution after the Cebosians catch us in our lie and take us prisoner,” I deadpanned

“Fine,” he said petulantly, returning to the wall and crossing his arms. Five winked at me.

Overall, the days progressed in much the same fashion as they had before Kryllian space, with one notable difference.

Two days after our departure from the station, I was preparing for bed when a buzz came from the door. Patting my half-braided hair, I rose and crossed the room to open it.

Yawning slightly, I slid the door open, taken aback when I saw Five on the other side. He smirked, eyes passing down my body, taking in my pajamas and partly French-braided hair.

“Time for bed, Girl Scout?” he said cockily, leaning against the door frame.

I put my hands on my hips. “What do you want, Five?”

“Touchy, touchy,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Got time for a walk? I need to talk to you about something.”

I sighed ruefully. “Sure.”

I stepped out of my room and let the door close behind me, following Five down the hall to the lift.

“Deck Five,” he told the computer once we’d entered.

I looked at him curiously. The only things on Deck Five were Seven’s garden and the engine room.

Five noticed my look, and answered my unasked question.

“No one will be down there. No chance of being overheard.”

“Overheard? What are you talking about?”

Five sighed and turned to face me.

“You know when I asked that girl on the station about the Aerzhu?” I nodded. “Well, while she was telling me all that stuff about them being a resistance group, there was a guy next to us who was listening in, and he had a different opinion.”

The doors to Deck Five opened, and we stepped into the empty hall. The lift doors closed behind us.

“What did he say?”

“He said—and mind you, I dunno if this is right or not—he said that they weren’t as wonderful as they look on paper. Said they didn’t really care about liberating the Sedha and just wanted to cause chaos and panic. Apparently, they haven’t tried any diplomatic solutions, but they’ve used plenty of bombs, on Sedha and humans alike.”

I paused for a moment, considering. “Why are you telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell the whole crew back when we were at the station?”

“I’m not sure if it’s true or not. It probably isn’t, after all, and I didn’t want the others to have doubts in their minds about whether or not we should do this mission. We can’t afford to be indecisive or divided at this point. But I knew I had to tell someone, because it makes just enough sense that it might be true, and I thought the captain should know.”

“I’m only captain in title, Five. We’re all in this together, and I can’t make any decisions for the rest of you.”

“Yes, you can,” Five said encouragingly. “Why do you think you got chosen for captain? You’re smart, One, and you know what to do. This information is yours now, and you can do whatever you want with i—”

The sound of the lift whooshing to a halt behind us interrupted him. In a heartbeat, he grabbed my arm and pulled me through the doorway to the garden just as the lift doors opened outside. In the hall beyond the door behind me, I heard Four’s young voice whistling an Irish tune, heading off into the engine room.

My back was pressed against the door. Five stood in front of me, hands on the door on either side of my shoulder, head cocked to the side, listening.

“Why are we hiding?” I whispered. Did he know something I didn’t?

“I… don’t really know,” he said slowly, bringing his gaze down to meet mine. I suddenly became aware of how close we were, pushed together against the door. I could feel his body heat around me.

My breath came up short, and my heart started pounding. Could he hear it? Surely he could; we were so close.

“Um,” I said breathlessly, cursing myself for how stupid it sounded, “We should probably…”

“Yeah,” he whispered, but neither of us made a move, and then all of a sudden he was kissing me, lips insistent against mine, and I was kissing him back, knotting my fists in his shirt, pulling him closer, the sounds of our breathing filling the silence in the room, and we were melting together, forgetting about the outside world, about everything around us—

And then it was over. He pulled back from me, opening his eyes, slowly, and I fell back from him, breathing hard. My lips throbbed, wanting more.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have—” he started, but I cut him off, reaching up and pulling his face back down to mine.

I don’t know how long we stood there, kissing, but eventually we drew apart, smiling slightly, giddy like schoolchildren.

“So...uh…” he stammered.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“We’re, uh, we’re kissing, then?” he said.

“Well, not anymore.”

“But we’re—we’re kissing. That’s, um…” He swallowed.

I smiled. “Four’s probably engrossed in her engines by now. We can probably leave. Unless you had something else to add about the Aerzhu.”

“No, that was it. Um, what are you going to do about this?”

“I don’t know. I guess we should keep it secret for a while. Like you said, it may not even be true, and I wouldn’t want to shake the crew right now by telling them that the Aerzhu might be—”

“No, I meant about this,” Five said, motioning between the two of us. “I mean, is it going to happen again, or what?”

“Well, you know, I wouldn’t be opposed to that idea,” I said. “That is, if you want to.”

“Yeah, I want to. That was,” he paused. “That was a good kiss.”

“I certainly thought so.”

Five grinned at me, rather bashfully, and started to lean in again, but we were interrupted by the clang of something metal from across the hall. I cleared my throat.

“We should probably go back up,” I said.

“Yeah,” Five agreed reluctantly, and we snuck back down the corridor and into the lift, where we waited in silence until the lift deposited us back on Deck Three.

“I guess I’ll see you around,” Five told me, brushing a quick kiss across my lips and disappearing into his room.

Unable to conjure up the motivation to move, I stood in front of the door to my own room, lightly touching my tingling lips and smiling faintly.

A few minutes later, the lift doors open and expelled Three, who took in my vapid expression and disheveled hair and raised an eyebrow before heading through the door to my right, into her quarters. I backed slowly into mine for the night, still grinning stupidly.

For the better part of the week, my days consisted of study for the mission, with occasional bridge duty and recreational time in the training room, meals in the galley, and quick kisses stolen with Five in private corners of the ship.

The crew settled into a sort of routine, and we began to relax, becoming more comfortable with each other and with our role in the events taking place in the galaxy. I told no one what Five had passed on to me about the Aerzhu. Part of me thought the rest had a right to know, but another, slightly larger, part convinced me it made no sense to cause a panic with no evidence.

Overall, I was at peace. But of course, just like anything good, it couldn’t last, and we soon arrived at Byth, the halfway point of our mission.