In fact, after two noxdiems of traveling, we had to make another stop. Quick thing, no biggie.
The cartridges Donecea had stolen were enough to get us far away from the Blood District, but with them alone, we wouldn't get anywhere near the galaxy's core. I would need to refuel my ship; and, this time, I wouldn't make the mistake of doing it on a planet.
I stopped the Hasta in the orbit of one of my stars and took a spacesuit out of the closet.
"Are you going outside?!" Donecea squeaked as I put that kind of armor over the clothes.
"I've done it enough to know it's safe."
"I think you mean you've done this enough to lose track of the danger."
I smiled at her crossed arms.
"I would also be worried if this was just any outfit. But this armor is so tough that I can get into that sun and I won't even get hot." Maybe I was exaggerating a little, but it was really a great outfit.
"And how did you build something supposedly so strong?"
Distracted with the chest buckles and starting to get used to answering more questions than I should have, I couldn't stop the words from escaping me before they were already in her ears:
"My father built it." Damn it. I wanted to be quiet, forever maybe, but I had already started, so it became even harder to stop... Especially when it was the first time I had been heard in so long. "That was his legacy... In addition to that broken chair..." The copilot's chair, where I sat when he once piloted the Hasta... Traveling the vastness and talking about things that no longer mattered, good moments in themselves, and not just because I couldn't have them anymore.
"What happened?" She asked softly, feeling my abyss.
"What happens to those who are no longer here."
I put on the helmet.
"I'm... Very sorry..."
And, watching her, it felt like she really felt all my pain... Almost as if I could share it with her.
But I didn't want her to feel sorry for me; because if she felt for one thing, she would feel for my whole life; and the rest of my ego would be crushed. It was like coffee grounds, a remnant you use to try to imagine the future when the present has not yet reached your dreams. And, in the end, it was all that was left, like the memory of the taste of coffee in the mouth...
I decided to change the subject.
"You can talk to me on the panel." My voice was picked up by the helmet and reached her through the ship's speakers. "But only emergencies, preferably."
"So you're expecting an emergency?"
"You would complain if I wasn't."
She shook her head. I had made a good point.
"At least you're being cautious... I'm surprised." She provoked.
"It is not so difficult to surprise you, apparently."
"Some things are impossible to predict." I shrugged to her words. "Like you being prudent, for example."
I raised my hands in surrender and let her win, but that made her smile fall. She didn't want to win... She wanted to run away from the silence.
But that wasn't in the agreement.
I made sure my armor was in order and headed for the exit.
"If something tries to kill you, I'll be within shouting distance."
And then I dove into space.
• • • ֍ • • •
I advanced towards the star with the armature thrusters. I was connected to the Hasta by a steel cord, as if held by an umbilical cord and bound to life only by it, that agreement. It was easy to feel the hostility of the space around me, so silently cruel that, reckless as I was, I would never dare to defy it.
I reached one of my solar plates, one of those that, when numerous enough, could feed the pores of Itopis. I hadn't stolen them from the Empire, as they would have missed them, but I built my own. Still, I was stealing something - crumbs that didn't come close to what the Empire owed me - because those stars weren't mine.
I reached one of the plates that orbited the star and collected the cartridges, glowing full of solar energy. One of them wasn't complete yet, so I decided to wait a few minutes.
"Kadi?" Donecea called me on the communication between the ship and the armor.
"There is no Kadi here. Wrong number." I could practically hear her roll her eyes on the other side. "What?"
"Is there something here that could really kill me?"
I didn't contain my laughter. Was she still thinking about it?
"Nothing on purpose."
"If the Hasta tries to kill me, you can't blame me for destroying her." I laughed.
"Nothing will kill you, Donecea."
And then I saw a tiny silver figure pass me, between the helmet and the solar plate in front of me. A projectile.
I turned back to where he had come from and came face to face with a creature in the darkness. His body was covered in a carapace that acted like my armor, protecting the soft parts inside and giving him the advantage of storing oxygen for a while. He was pointing the barrel of his gun at me, and he already had another shot on the way. My eyes fell on the Hasta when I thought about fleeing, but other beings clung to the ship, looking for a way to get inside.
I knew them well, from other times they tried to steal the energy I stole from the Empire, my ship and my life: looters.
I dodged the second shot and lunged for the creature before it fired again. I crashed into him and we floated through the void in a mess of claws and arms.
And then I heard Donecea's screams in my ear, through the communicator.
They were on the ship.
I tried to take the looter's gun, but it slipped away and I dove into the void in search of it. The creature then opened his mouth like a black hole and enveloped my helmet, trying to bite through the glass, as if my head were a candy crystal. There was nothing in my vision but the darkness inside and those huge teeth, scratching the transparent surface. I pictured him managing to break the glass, like one of those stuffed candy, when Donecea fell silent.
And I was alone.
I grabbed the corners of the creature's mouth and yanked them away, not realizing myself roaring until my throat burned, and then my hands ripped the looter in half in a cloud of greenish goo.
I threw his body to the star and flew towards the ship, now with no looters outside.
Because they all had entered.
• • • ֍ • • •
I entered the Hasta like a bullet.
Three of the looters rummaged through my lockers, so distracted they didn't notice me until I slammed my metal-covered hand into one of them, knocking him over. The other two fired at me, but their projectiles just bounced off the armor.
I took the gun from one of them, slammed it into the second looter, and as I turned back to what was left, I felt the claws of a quarter grab me. I tried to wriggle free, but then the third creature swooped its mouth over my head and managed to rip my helmet off while the other held me back. The one who ripped off my helmet retrieved a weapon from the ground and aimed it at the center of my forehead, where the bones of my skull couldn't protect me.
When I heard the shot, I thought I was dead.
But then the looter was down, shot in one of the paws... And I saw Donecea right behind where he'd been, shaking a freshly fired weapon.
She couldn't let that ship explode.
The other creature, holding me in place, destabilized enough for me to land a metal elbow in his the head, freeing me.
One of the other two creatures I hit rose and lunged at Dorecea, knocking the weapon away. The teeth snapped in front of her neck, scraped her skin, and her arms weren't strong enough to keep the creature from killing her any longer.
I lunged for the looter, caught him with my elbow and pulled him away from her, falling to the ground with him being crushed in my arm. I squeezed him, crushed him like an insect over and over, until, with no more blood going to his head, he stopped trying to bite the air and collapsed. I tossed the creature aside and let weariness take every fiber of mine.
Donecea cowered at the far end of the area, staring at me in complete terror.
It was better than pity.
I got up slowly and retrieved a weapon from the ground and aimed at the one who had tried to rip off Donecea's head.
"Don't kill them." She asked. And I stopped. "They've already lost."
Was she serious? Her firm expression told me yes.
I let out a grunt.
"The next time an enemy attacks us, will you spare them even if they kill us?" I growled.
She stood up, all fear dropping to the ground like a second peeling skin, and slowly took the gun out of my hand.
"If our lives are at risk again, I will kill them myself."
Her words might have asked to save lives, but her eyes screamed something quite different... And I wondered which one was telling the truth.
Maybe she was capable of killing...
Like any human.
Like me.