Star Side

Chapter 28

Stellar date (Earth Time): 02-15-2914

"Can't say I'll regret it if he dies," said Naomi.

She'd come out at some point to find me hunkered down in Josh's old plant bionics lab trying to nurse a dying alien. I can't say I didn't feel waves of guilt at her bland look, but, to her credit, she didn't question me. She only dragged me out to run tests on me to make sure whatever the alien had hadn't jumped onto me and that I was eating and all that schmuck. When I'd blabbered apologies, even offering to shoot the alien out into space (despite the horror and grief that came over me at the thought), she'd stopped me with a hard hand and said tending to the alien was my own way of coping with Joshua's death.

"Besides," she had said, "I looked more closely at the hairs in the pod and on the remains of the venom and hair that had been on Josh. It wasn't that alien that killed him. And, frankly, if something butt ugly like us came into my home turf, I'd probably kill them too."

I'd cried a lot then. I hadn't realized how much stress had built up inside me over the conflict of conscience between keeping the alien alive and Josh's death. I hadn't eaten or slept much either since the alien got sick, so once I'd had my cry I ended up passing out on Naomi's lap. I hadn't realized how much I had missed her until then either.

When I next woke up it had been on the couch in the lounge where Naomi had taken me to eat. Naomi and Levi sat on another couch across from me, watching a holocaust of the plant bionics and having tea and breakfast. Levi's dark eyes noticed me awake and he nodded.

"I wouldn't either," he said. "I haven't slept right since that thing's come aboard."

My chest clenched. I sat up. "Is he okay?"

Naomi gave me a pinched smile. "Good morning, baby."

"He's fine," Levi grumped at my continued panic. "Same as you left him."

"That's not fine."

"Fine in my book. He's alive, ain't he? Oh shit, now I've given it a gender too."

"Just give in, Levi. It's a boy. We can do the cake and gender reveal later."

He rolled his black eyes and stuffed another slice of bacon into his mouth.

"I managed to get some samples off him while you slept," said Naomi. "I plan on running some tests once I'm done with breakfast here. I don't think we'll be able to do anything, but learning about him wouldn't hurt."

"Thank you," I said. And I meant it. I didn't know when I had gotten so attached.

Levi narrowed his eyes, but didn't say anything.

"How long until we can expect a message from base?" I asked.

"About a week," said Naomi, lifting up her tea for a sip.

"Six days, three hours, something minutes," muttered Levi.

"Don't get too excited, it might show."

He grumbled at her. The shadows under his eyes looked especially deep this morning. I could practically smell the extra espresso shots in his coffee. Inbibing caffeine was discouraged by the health commission who sent us here, let alone in that amount, but Levi following health codes would have meant an imposter had taken his place and started handing out candy.

"Shouldn't you be asleep?" I said anyway, holding the spirit of things.

"He should," said Naomi.

"Don't mom me," he grumbled.

"I'm your older sister," Naomi said at the same time that I said, "I'll do what I want."

He sighed and buried himself in coffee so he wouldn't have to look at either of us.

"Has he eaten anything, at least?" I asked.

"Yes, actually," Naomi tapped off the lock on the holo-screen and slid it over to me. I caught the edge of the screen, though I felt nothing but a slight buzz as it was made of only light and some charged electrons, and took a look.

My alien had shifted from how I'd last left him. His tail had snuck out, for one, but he was still mostly curled, an arm over his horned head. Sure enough, though, I noticed some food missing from the plates I'd left out and the bowl of water had been emptied.

Relief felt so good.

"Eat," said Naomi. "You've got a lot of work to catch up with today, and I'll need help with those tests."

I inwardly sighed. I had done any work I could while sitting in the room with the alien, but my job requirements included maintenance with Levi on the station, and that couldn't be done sitting at someone's sick bed. We were on this station for a reason, after all. I could feel the pent up energy from so many days sitting around anyway.

But it still ached to leave the alien I'd put so much effort into lay alone. I didn't want to be off doing something else if he died.

"Stop," said Levi.

I glanced over from where I'd been typing in my order to the cafeteria bots. "Huh?"

"You're worrying about it," he said. "Stop."

I hit send. "Not everyone can command their emotions with such precision as you, Captain."

"I thought you were at least logical, though."

"She is," said Naomi with some irritation. "You're just jealous she's giving more attention to it than you."

Even without looking, I felt the chill that came into the atmosphere at those words.

"Don't joke about that," said Levi.

"Who said I was joking?"

Levi's mug came down on the table with a hard tink. Then he rose and left, leaving behind his half empty plate and the hiss of the lounge door sliding shut.

Naomi and I exchanged looks.

"What crawled up his sphincter?" I asked.

"Exactly what I said," said Naomi with a harrumph. "Does he seriously expect me to clean up after him? And after he told me not to mom."

"My mom always made us clean up our own food."

"Ours too."