Adiron (Corsair Brothers 1)

She also cusses a blue streak, which I would expect any pirate to do, really.

Adiron won't leave my side, so Zoey leans against a nav panel that an overdressed someone named Kivian is working on. She tells Adiron that they found the brothers' ship at someplace called V'tarr Station, and it had been found abandoned. Adiron, in turn, tells Zoey all about meeting up with Lord Straik and teaming up together to hunt down the Buoyant Star. "Really, no one should have picked up the Little Sister, considering we left her floating in the middle of nowhere with no distress signal. We figured we'd just swing by and hop in once we were done."

Zoey just rolls her eyes. "You fucking idiots lost your keffing brains when I left, didn't you?" She crosses her arms over her chest. "Lucky for you guys, the Little Sister's safe. Jerrok and Sophie took her back to his station, and he's going to give her a quick tune-up while we were out hunting for you."

"And no sign of Mathiras or Kaspar?" Adiron asks again. He's already asked more than once, but I know how it feels to not want to accept what you're hearing.

"Not a goddamn peep," Zoey says, frowning. "I'm sure they're out here somewhere. We just have to find them. Think like them. If you were Kaspar, what would you do?"

"Run head-first into danger?" Adiron smirks, even as he rubs one of my feet absently.

"Exacta-mundo." Zoey says. "Plus, if Shaalyn really did rendezvous with his escape pod like she said, we'll have coordinates in the ship's logs. We'll find them and go from there. It's as good a place to start as any."

"And Straik?" Adiron asks.

"Haven't looked for him." Zoey shrugs. "Haven't bothered. One messy bitch at a time."

Adiron glances over at me. He squeezes my ankle, as if he knows what I'm thinking. "We need to find him, too. He's got one of Jade's people on board his ship. She's going to need rescuing."

"Like I said, one crisis at a time." Zoey looks disgruntled. "Surely he can wait for a while? What's his connection to all this shit other than he's got a human on board?"

"It's not just that. We've got to get our hands on the Star again before he does. If he turns around and goes back, I worry what's going to happen with the ship."

Kivian pauses and leans over the control panel in front of him. His sleeves look like they have more fabric on each arm than I do on my entire body, and all of it shimmers. "Can I just say it's damned odd that he'd spend all that time hunting for his family's ship, then turn around and leave in the middle of the night? Seems strange and unlike him." He shakes his head. "Rumor has it that he's fairly ruthless. What is it that's got him tucking his tail?"

Zoey tilts her head. "Who cares about him? I want to know what was on the Star." Her eyes glitter with excitement. "Silks? Weapons?"

"Oh, kef." Adiron grimaces. "Speaking of problems…"

73

JADE

"Humans?" Zoey swallows, pale.

"A whole kef-ton of them," Adiron agrees. "We think Straik was just as shocked as we were, and that's why he ran. Didn't like finding out his precious family was into dirty business." His big hand plays over my foot, rubbing the underside and then tweaking my little toe. It's a silent call-out to me, that little touch, because he's always joking about how our “extra” toes and fingers are weird. He's trying to distract me.

It's sweet, and it makes me love him all the more.

"What do we do?" Zoey asks, glancing over at Kivian.

Kivian doesn't even hesitate. "My brother lives on a farm planet that shelters humans. They'll be safe from slavery there. They'll get a plot of land, a home, and they can be free. We just have to get them there."

Adiron looks over at me, and I realize that if I object, he'll support me. It's a good feeling. "I suppose Earth is out of the question?" I ask, because I have to. It doesn't come up at all, so I suspect it's not an option, but I still have to ask.

The hand on my feet tenses, ever so slightly.

"There's nothing left to go back to," Zoey blurts out, her expression hard. "Earth had an 'event' a few years back and the world as we know it is gone. Unfortunately, mesakkah space is all there is for us."

"Oh," I say softly. So much death. All of humanity…gone? I can’t process it. Maybe it’ll sink in later, but for now it doesn’t register. Absently, I wonder what it was that finally killed my planet—nuclear bombs? Global warming? I guess it doesn't matter, but it makes me sad. I'm three years gone from life on Earth, but those in the pods aren't aware of what's happened. "Farm planet it is, then."