NOMAD Episode 7: Choice

Story by

KAYE THORNBRUGH

Illustrated by

KAMI THORNBRUGH

Humans were the workhorses of the galaxy: sturdy, practically inexhaustible compared to many species, able to reproduce at a rate of one per standard year. That was why they made such good slaves.

Mik would know—that was once her life, from the day she was born until the Blue Moons took her in.

When she heard Neal admit that he knew about a ship full of human slaves docked somewhere on NOMAD Station, she felt a sudden pain in her chest, like an old wound had pulled open. For a second, she was 14 again, stuffed into the cramped darkness of a cargo hold after she and her mother were sold to buyers on different worlds.

She pushed through the kitchen door and saw Delphine facing Neal across the counter, both of them wide-eyed.

“Explain,” Mik said to Neal. “Now.”

Instead, Neal glanced at Delphine, plainly nervous. “What’s she doing here?”

“I hired her,” Delphine said, without hesitation, and Mik was strangely grateful for the acknowledgement.

Neal swore under his breath in a language Mik didn’t recognize. “Didn’t know you were in the habit of picking up strays,” he muttered.

That made Delphine frown. “I spend time with you, don’t I?” she fired back.

Grimacing, Neal swiped a juice bottle off the counter and turned to the door. “Put it on my tab,” he said before hurrying out of the cafe.

Mik limped after him, ignoring Delphine’s protests, the bells above the door ringing behind her. The loudest sound was her blood rushing in her ears.

When she caught up to Neal, she grabbed the back of his jacket and spun him around to face her. He looked shocked.

“Who do you work for?” she demanded. Her heart was beating so fast she could feel it in her throat, a kind of furious anxiety.

He squirmed under her scrutiny. “The Jed,” he admitted, in a quiet voice, mindful of being overheard.

That was as she’d suspected. But there was something that didn’t quite add up.

“You don’t have the mark,” Mik said. He didn’t even wear their symbol on his clothing.

“No,” he said. “I work for them, but I’m not… with them. Not officially.”

But he would soon, Mik guessed. He had that look about him: panicked, like an animal caught in a trap. Some creatures would chew their own leg off in order to escape. Others wouldn’t. Mik knew which kind she was—but at this point, she wasn’t sure about Neal. When pushed into a corner, how would he react?

“What do they have on you?” she asked, studying him. Everyone had a pressure point, a weakness to exploit. That was how they got you in the first place and how they kept you later on.

Neal hesitated. Then he said, somewhat bitterly, “Take a wild guess.”

“Ah,” Mik said. “Credits.”

She recalled something Neal had said to her the other day, that not everyone had a ship they could sell in order to buy passage off this station. He was a castaway, it seemed.

“What kind of work do you do for them?” she pressed. “The Jed.”

Neal lifted one shoulder in a shrug, looking harried. “I’m a mechanic. I keep their tech in good repair,” he said. “And I help manage the… delicate cargo.”

Mik knew from experience that “delicate cargo” could describe anything from illicit spice to exotic animals. In this case, Neal was referring to human slaves who would probably soon go to market in another system.

The back of Mik’s neck prickled; she fought the urge to scratch the old surgical scar, where the slave device was implanted near the base of her skull. She got a kind of phantom itch there sometimes, an urge to dig out the device still buried under her skin.

Mik was young enough then that she had no memories of the procedure. It was as if the implant had always been there, just another part of her body. She’d changed hands a few times after that, sold and resold on different planets, until Johanna finally purchased her contract and she fell in with the Blue Moons.

She still remembered the sting of the needle when Johanna tattooed over the implant scar. It had felt like freedom to her then. Like the beginning of something—a better life with her new family.

Mik turned out to be wrong about that. She was wrong about a lot of things.

Neal must owe the Jed a lot of money to be doing this kind of work for them. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were offering to clear his debt in exchange for accepting the brand and joining them formally.

“What they’re asking you to do,” Mik said in a low voice. “You don’t want to live with that. If you let that ship leave with that cargo, you’ll be a different kind of person.”

It felt strange to speak this way to Neal—about something that mattered to her. She didn’t really know him. Didn’t particularly want to know him, either. But right now, somewhere on this station, there was a cargo hold full of human slaves. And he knew where it was.

“Look—” Neal started, but she cut across him.

“Whatever you owe them,” she said. “It’s not worth this.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” he said, defensively. There it was again: the look of a trapped animal. He didn’t know which way to turn. She knew the feeling—desperation was an old friend of Mik’s.

“Help me,” she replied, like it was a simple thing. In a better world, it would be. “Help me fix this.”

Wary, Neal took half a step back. She caught his wrist and squeezed, hard enough to hurt him a little. A warning.

“I’m asking for your help,” Mik said in a low voice. She fixed her eyes on his. “But I’m only asking once. You understand?”

If she had to break his arm to make him tell her where the slave ship was docked, she would. It wouldn’t even bother her that much. When she was running with the Blue Moons, she’d done worse to better people than Neal.

For a second, they stared at each other. His eyes were huge and so dark that she couldn’t see herself reflected.

Then he wrenched his wrist out of her grasp.

“Day one, I told you to get off this heap of scrap metal,” he said. “And here you are. You don’t have much sense, do you?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Mik said, and it was true. Johanna used to tell her that all the time—that she was a foolish girl who needed someone else to direct her. Mik used to believe that, too.

Neal gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah, well,” he said. “Meet me by the docking center when the night cycle starts.”

With that, he turned and Mik was left staring after him.

Maybe she’d misjudged Neal, after all.

She would find out for sure tonight.