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“Here. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Another breakfast. Snacks.” Kamau thrust a huge crate at them. He smiled at Jade, “That’s for you, lovepet. If you want to share with the arrogant agbaya, you can.” The Servali chef winked at her and stuck out his paw to shake Ardol’s. “Safe travels. See you in a week.”
“See you in a week.” Jade tore herself out of the ring of people and found herself the recipient of one more desperate, clinging hug from Claude. “I’ll vid you or comm you every day after school?”
“Promise?”
“I promise!”
“Walkways up!” A loud shout echoed through the cool, misty morning, and Jade started.
“Come on, my love.” Ardol led her away.
Inside the shuttle, Jade blinked and blinked, but instead of the tears drying up like they used to, she found they were escaping faster and faster.
“Oh, Jade.” Ardol embraced her and rocked her against his chest as the freighter’s crew bustled around outside, securing the bay. “Do you want to stay?”
Without him?
No.
With him?
Yes.
The horrible, stunning truth clogged her throat and made her sob harder.
Still holding her in one arm, Ardol hurried over to the control panel to close off the shuttle’s windows to shield them from any curious gazes from the crew of the mining freighter. The shuttle became filled with a dim, yellow light that was soft and comforting.
“You can stay, Jade. My father may think he owns the world, or at least his little piece of it, but he doesn’t own you.”
“I want you. I want to stay with you.” Jade clung to him, suddenly worried that she must look unappealing with leaking eyes and a red, blotchy face.
Ardol didn’t seem to think so, cradling her and kissing her tears away.
“I’m just going to miss this place after all. I didn’t think I would. I hated the loneliness and the work I didn’t understand. I hated the blizzards. Methane blizzards and the dust storms...” she shuddered.
“We don’t have those on my planet.”
“Good.”
“We have monsoons.”
“Less good.”
At least that broke the gloom and made them laugh. Ardol picked her up, her knees over his strong arm and her arm around his shoulders. “Let me give you the grand tour, my Queen. Over here we have two less-than-state-of-the-art seats for the pilot and navigator, or in this case, pilot and passenger. Moving over here, we have the bedroom.”
Jade laughed. The bedroom was one bed (small by Felid sizes) pushed into the recessed side of the shuttle. “Very cozy. I’ll have to sleep curled up on you.”
“Mm, I like this little shuttle more and more.”
“This must be the bathroom.” Jade looked into the small enclosure next to the bed and saw a gleaming metal stall shower and a Felid-sized toilet. If someone does open up a human-friendly shop in the Felix Orbus Galaxy, they should definitely sell toilets that don’t threaten to swallow you every time you sit, thought Jade.
“It was a real rust bucket when Talos and Wendy used it. Jaxson and his team made it shine, didn’t they? And here in the middle, we have the leisure-slash-dining area.”
“It’s bigger than my room at Griselda’s or the Pleasure Parks,” she admitted.
“Shuttle, this is the Mine Cat, please respond.”
Ardol abruptly left her side and smacked a button on the shuttle’s control panel. “This is Comet Stalker Shuttle One responding.”
