Chapter 3
The next few days were going to be very interesting—or very short. Possibly both. The Cooperation Initiative turned out to be Administrator Graham’s fancy way of saying forced cohabitation with someone who could kill you with their pinky finger.
The program guidelines pinged my datapad that evening, smug little glyphs spelling doom. Two weeks of “cultural exchange,” which translated to forced cohabitation with someone who could kill me by sneezing. accompanied by what I could only describe as the digital equivalent of Graham’s smug face. According to the documentation, I would be sharing quarters with my assigned Ardani partner for two weeks, supposedly to foster “understanding, cultural and knowledge exchange.”
My assigned partner? Sarah. Of course. Because the universe doesn’t just hate me — it enjoys the show.
“This has to be a joke,” I muttered, scrolling through the assignment details.
The temporary quarters were in Section C, the diplomatic wing. At least that meant nicer amenities than my usual closet-sized room in engineering territory.
My communicator buzzed. Text only. Sender unknown.
“Pack light, Engineer. Ardani despises clutter.”
“I typed back: Any survival tips for the next two weeks?”
Her reply came instantly: “Yes. Don’t bore me.” I stared at the screen. Apparently “death by boredom” was now on the table.
The connection terminated, leaving me to contemplate what exactly constituted “boring” to someone who treated combat like a recreational activity.
I packed the essentials: two changes of clothes, my lucky hyperspanner, and the Centauri whiskey I’d been saving for a “special occasion.” Surviving two weeks with Sarah Walker definitely qualified. I considered bringing my toaster, but decided against it. No sense tempting fate.
The next morning I arrived at Habitat C4 with my duffel bag and a sense of impending doom. The door slid open to reveal quarters several pay grades above my usual engineering closet. Plush seating, a neon skyline view — the kind of place you’d expect for diplomats or high-ranking executives and bureaucrats, not grease monkeys.
The door slid shut behind me with a hiss that sounded far too final. My duffel bag felt suddenly heavier, like it knew I’d just walked into my own execution chamber.
Sarah was already there, seated cross legged on the floor of the living area, polishing a blade that looked like it could cut through a starship hull. The weapon gleamed under the neon glow from the window, every stroke of her cloth precise, ritualistic.
“Engineer,” she said without looking up. Her voice carried the same lethal calm as before, but here, in the quiet of shared quarters, it felt even sharper. “You are late.”
I checked my wrist chrono. “Technically, I’m five minutes early. But hey, time zones are tricky when you’re living in space.”
Her eyes flicked up, glowing faintly blue due to the lighting. “Excuses are the language of the weak.”
“Good thing I’m fluent,” I muttered, dropping my bag on the couch.
She tilted her head, studying me like I was a malfunctioning droid she hadn’t decided whether to scrap or repair. “You brought alcohol.”
I froze. “How? You can smell that?”
She gestured toward the duffel. “Centauri whiskey. Strong. Dangerous. I an interesting choice.”
I blinked. “Wait, you approve? That’s… unexpected. I was prepared for a lecture about dishonor and weakness.”
Her lips curved — not quite a smile, more like the shadow of one. “Alcohol dulls reflexes. I do not drink. But watching you attempt to survive two weeks with me while impaired may prove… entertaining.”
“Great. So I’m basically your reality show.”
She set the blade aside, rising with fluid grace. Even without armor, she moved like a predator — silent, controlled, every step deliberate. She crossed the room and stopped just inside my personal space, close enough that I could see faint scars along her jawline.
“You will keep your quarters clean,” she said. “Weapons demand respect. So does space.”
I raised my hands in mock surrender. “No dirty socks on the floor. Got it. Though, full disclosure, my laundry system involves waiting until I run out of clean clothes and then panicking.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Unacceptable.”
“Right. I’ll panic sooner.”
For a moment, silence stretched between us. The hum of the station’s systems filled the air, punctuated by the faint buzz of neon outside.
Then, unexpectedly, she asked, “Why do you joke when faced with the possibility of harm—or even death?”
The question struck deeper than any blade. I swallowed, suddenly aware of the weight behind her words. “Because if I don’t laugh, I’ll freeze. And freezing gets you killed. Humor keeps me moving—it always has. After losing my entire family in a Trandoshan attack, I could have drowned in bitterness and self-pity. But instead, I chose to grow, to become the best version of myself. I chose life. And along the way, I found a surrogate family. Together, we learned that when life hands you lemons, you don’t just make lemonade—you make it the sweetest, strongest drink you can, and you keep going.”
She studied me, expression unreadable. Finally, she said, “Perhaps that is why you survived the breach.”
I shrugged, forcing a grin. “Or maybe I’m just too stubborn to die.”
Her gaze lingered a moment longer, then she stepped back, reclaiming her blade. “We will see.”
I exhaled, tension draining from my shoulders. “So… dinner? Or do Ardani warriors just stare at their weapons until bedtime?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she resumed polishing, the blade catching neon light like a shard of frozen lightning.
I flopped onto the couch, clutching my whiskey like a lifeline. Two weeks. Just me, my jokes, and a warrior who thought boredom was a capital offense.
This was going to be interesting. Or very short. Possibly both.
Then I glanced into Sarah’s room. It looked like a weapons museum had exploded and then carefully reassembled itself. Blades lined the walls in neat rows, each gleaming like it had been polished with the blood of its last victim.
Blades of every conceivable size and shape adorned the walls—from curved daggers that seemed to bend light around them to something that looked like a cross between a sword and a very angry piece of modern art. Each weapon was meticulously maintained, gleaming with lethal precision. I suddenly wondered how she’d react to my socks on the floor. Probably with decapitation.
“Admiring my collection?”
I jumped, spinning to find her standing directly behind me. She hadn’t made a sound. Her lips quirked in what might have been amusement.
“It’s very… nasty,” I managed. “Going for a medieval armory meets death boutique aesthetic?”
“Each blade has taken at least one life,” she said, moving past me to enter her room. “They are reminders of battles won, and enemies who learned too late that the Walker Blade does not show mercy.”
“Cool, cool. I collect vintage circuit boards, so we’re basically the same.”
She was out of her armor today, wearing what I assumed passed for casual wear among the Ardani: form-fitting black fabric that looked like it could stop a knife while still allowing for the kind of movement that would make Olympic gymnasts weep. Even in “casual” clothing, she looked combat-ready. The bioports on her arms and neck were more visible now, forming intricate patterns that pulsed faintly with her heartbeat.
“The initiative requires us to share meals,” she announced, pulling something from a storage unit that looked disturbingly like flour. “I trust you have no dietary restrictions regarding protein.”
I eyed the mixture. It wasn’t flour—it was a nutrient base, engineered paste designed to meet Ardani metabolic requirements. To me, it looked like prison food.
“As long as it’s sweet, we’re good.”
“Sweetness damages the nutritional value.”
“It also has better taste, which I’m personally a fan of.”
She tilted her head in that way I was beginning to recognize—processing something that didn’t fit her worldview.
“Your culture is weak.”
“We prefer cautious. It’s worked out pretty well for us so far.”
“Has it? Your homeworld required terraforming to remain habitable after your industrial age. You’ve had seventeen near-extinction events in recorded history. Your bodies break from falls that Ardani children would barely notice.”
“Yeah, but we invented pizza. So I’d call it even.”
She blinked. “What is pizza?”
And that’s how I ended up explaining the concept of pizza to one of the deadliest beings in known space while she consumed her nutrient paste with the same seriousness she gave to combat drills. She listened with the kind of intense focus usually reserved for battle planning, occasionally asking questions that made me reconsider everything I thought I knew about Italian cuisine.
“So you take basic nutrients,” she summarized, “cover them in processed plant matter and congealed animal proteins, then subject them to extreme heat until the molecular structure changes.”
“You make it sound so unappetizing.”
“It sounds like what my people feed to prisoners.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just insult the greatest food in the galaxy.” I pulled up my communicator. “Friday night. I’m ordering pizza from Mario’s. You’re going to try it and admit I’m right.”
“I do not admit things.”
“First time for everything.”
The next few days fell into a strange routine. Sarah would wake before dawn for what she called “basic conditioning,” but what looked to me like preparation for a one-woman war. I’d stumble out around seven, make coffee strong enough to wake the dead, and try not to stare as she went through combat forms that defied several laws of physics.
She accompanied me to engineering during my shifts, which led to some interesting moments.
“Why are you using that tool?” she asked on day three, watching me work on a particularly stubborn coupling.
“Because it’s the right tool for the job.”
“A plasma cutter would be more efficient.”
“It would also destroy the coupling, vent atmosphere into the corridor, and probably get me fired.”
“But it would be faster.”
“Not everything needs to be solved with maximum force, you know.”
She made a sound that might have been disagreement, but helped me hold the coupling steady anyway. Her strength made the two-person job trivial, and I found myself wondering what other routine tasks could be improved with the application of Ardani muscle.
“Your technology is inefficient,” she observed, studying the maze of conduits and processors that kept the station running.
“Ardani systems are part electronic, part organic. They can grow with the structure.”
“Must make repairs interesting. Sorry, boss. Can’t fix the life support—it needs to pupate for three weeks.”
“You mock what you don’t understand.”
“It’s kind of my thing. You might have noticed.”
“I have noticed many things about you, Chuck Bartowski.”
The way she said my name made it sound like a threat and a promise wrapped in syllables. I worked very hard to avoid cross-wiring the coupling.
The real surprise came that evening when I returned from a parts run to find her examining my collection of vintage circuit boards. She held one up to the light, studying the pathways with the same intensity she probably used to plan assassination routes.
“These are obsolete,” she stated.
“That’s what makes them vintage. This one’s from the first Mars colony. Still has red dust in the crevices.”
“You keep broken technology as trophies.”
“Not broken, just old. They’re pieces of history. Proof that we’ve come a long way from where we started.”
She set the board down with surprising gentleness. “My people do not preserve the obsolete.”
“What about those blades? Some of them look ancient.”
“They still function. A blade that can no longer cut is melted down and reforged.”
“Harsh but practical. Very on brand for your culture.”
She moved to the window, looking out at the Commerce District’s chaos. “Tell me about Earth.”
The question caught me off guard. “What about it?”
“You speak of it with… fondness. Despite its failures.”
I joined her at the window, maintaining what I hoped was a safe distance. “It’s home—or was. Haven’t been back in years. But I remember the good parts. Blue skies when the weather cooperators weren’t acting up. Oceans that stretched to the horizon. Cities that grew like living things.”
“The Ardani homeworld—the only one I remember, although I am human—has no oceans. Only blood plains where warriors train.”
I blinked. “Wait—when you were adopted by the Ardani?”
She turned her gaze toward me, unflinching. “I was a baby when the Ardani adopted me. They raised me as one of their own. I am Walker Blade.”
I stared, trying to reconcile the lethal warrior in front of me with the fact that she shared my species, but not our culture. “So you’re basically the galaxy’s deadliest foster kid. That explains a lot.”
I stared, trying to reconcile the lethal warrior in front of me with the fact that she shared my species. “So you’re basically the galaxy’s deadliest foster kid. That explains a lot.”
Her eyes narrowed, but there was no anger—only a faint glimmer of something I couldn’t name.
“Sounds cheerful,” I added quickly.
“It produces the finest soldiers in the galaxy.”
“But do you miss it?”
She was quiet for so long, I thought she wouldn’t answer.
“Missing things is a weakness.”
“Or it’s what makes us people instead of weapons.”
Her head snapped toward me, blue eyes flashing. For a moment, I thought I’d crossed some invisible line. Then she laughed—a sound like grinding gears learning to sing.
I froze. Sarah laughing was not on the list of things I expected to survive today. It wasn’t cruel or mocking, just raw and unpracticed, like her body had forgotten how to make the sound until now. And strangely, it suited her—harsh, metallic, but alive.
“You are either very brave or very stupid, Engineer.”
“We’ve established it’s the latter.”
For the briefest instant, her expression shifted. Surprise flickered across her flawless features, as if she hadn’t expected the laugh herself. Her eyes narrowed, not in anger but in contemplation, and I caught the faintest trace of wonder.
“Perhaps,” she said slowly. “Or perhaps you see things others miss while they are watching for threats.”
She turned away, but I noticed the way her lips lingered in the ghost of a smile. The sound she had made seemed strange to her—alien, almost unwelcome—but satisfying in a way she couldn’t quite name.
Before I could process any of it, she was already moving toward the door and out of the engineering lab.
Before she was out, she said, “Friday approaches. You will show me this pizza, and I will judge whether your species has contributed anything worthwhile to the galaxy.”
“Pressure’s on then.”
“I do not understand.”
“Human expression. Means I better not screw it up.”
“You are exceptionally talented at that—at screwing up.”
But there was something almost like warmth in her voice when she said it, and for the first time I wondered if, beneath all the blades and battle scars, Sarah Walker Blade might actually be curious about more than just war.