"I know you."
The speaker was Human, male, close to 200 centimeters tall, compensating for the lack of hair on his head with the ugliest ginger mustache Torin had ever seen.
"I know you," he said again. "You're that Marine who says plastic aliens are the enemy, not those murdering, fukking Others. It wasn't fukking plastic aliens who killed my sister, now was it?"
Most of the people packed in around them had abandoned personal conversations and were waiting, with him, for Torin to answer.
"Where did your sister die?" she asked.
He blinked pale eyes. "What?"
Torin repeated the question. "Where did your sister die?"
"On Barnin Four. Those bastards wiped out the whole colony."
"Then she was likely killed by the low orbit bombardment." The colony had been small, agrarian, with no offensive capabilities. There'd been no reason for the Primacy to attack as the entire Barnin system had been well within the Confederation's borders, but since discovering the war had been designed as a laboratory to study the species involved, Torin had come to realize that many decisions on both sides had been less than rational all along. "There's no way of knowing what species was directly responsible."
He folded his arms. "Well, it wasn't fukking plastic aliens, I know that."
"How?"
"What?"
"How do you know it wasn't the plastic aliens?"
Ginger brows drew in to nearly touch over his nose. "Fuk you!"
He aimed a shove at her unoccupied shoulder and, without moving her feet, she twisted just far enough around for it to miss.
Reaching out, Jeremy wiped greasy fingers on the sleeve of his jacket.
When he snarled and tried a second shove, Torin caught his hand, folded his thumb back, and dropped him to his knees. Face screwed up in pain, he shifted his weight back, the fingers of his free hand curling into a fist. Torin locked her eyes on his and growled, "Don't." Against all odds, he turned out to be smart enough to listen. "You want to take out your grief on me," she told him quietly, "I'm willing to beat the shit out of you any time I'm not holding a four year old. Jeremy, are you related to this man?"
Jeremy took a long look. "No."
"Then you don't get to wipe your hands on him. Apologize."
"But…" When Torin raised a brow, he sighed dramatically and leaned forward far enough to peer down at the kneeling man. "Sorry I wiped my hands on you, okay?"
Torin waited a moment then applied a little more pressure to the man's thumb until he choked out a reasonably sincere, "Okay."
"The plastic aliens started the war that killed your sister," she said, releasing him. Plastic alien was simplistic, but it was a lot easier to say than polynumerous molecular species or polyhydroxide hive mind. "Don't forget that because they'll be back."
Then she turned to get Jeremy another mushroom, keeping most of her attention on the man rising to his feet. Muttering under his breath, he pushed his way through the crowd who, in spite of having been avidly watching the confrontation, were all maintaining a strict none of my business air about them. She wondered what would have happened had there actually been a fight. Would the crowd's individuality at all costs have held or would it have turned into a mob as she became an outsider beating one of their own?
How close to death would Ginger Mustache have to be to bring the salvage operators together?
Or did only the dead get parties?
Spotting Jenn over by a group of Krai who were probably complaining about the waste of food-they ate their dead, and saw no real reason why they couldn't eat everyone's even if the articles drawn up when they joined the Confederaton expressly forbid it-Torin caught her eye and nodded toward Jeremy, silently asking if she wanted him back.
When it appeared she didn't, Torin allowed the child to drag her over toward the stage where a band named Toyboat-two Humans, a di'Taykan and a Niln on the beatbox-were doing a power chord cover of H'san opera. She could honestly say she'd never heard a better version of O'gra Morf Dennab. And she'd definitely had worse dancing partners.
By 2100, most of the kids had gone and the serious drinking had started. Craig knew of three stills which meant there had to be at least half a dozen more on the station he didn't know about, all supplying alcohol for the funeral-and that wasn't even counting perfectly innocent food and drink that got a lot less innocent when it crossed species lines. Personally, Craig was sticking with the fernim made by the Katrien collective; sweet and dark, about 80 proof and the best fukking thing ever to put in coffee. If there was anything resembling justice left in the universe, he'd be taking a bottle or two away with him. The Katrien collective hadn't been part of the station last time he'd been by. For the sake of the fernim alone, he hoped like hell they stayed.
From where Craig was sitting, he could see Torin deep in discussion with a couple of di'Taykan. Kiku had served one contract in the Corps as a comm tech and Meryn had been Navy, so the odds were high they were rehashing old battles. Or at least the di'Taykan were. It wasn't something he'd ever heard Torin do. He supposed, as career Corps, she'd seen enough battles the novelty had worn off. If the di'Taykan were trying to impress her, well, they didn't stand a hope in hell. Any hell. Pick one.
If he were a betting man-and he was-he'd bet the conversation had started with a proposition, even given that Torin had been named a progenitor and every Taykan in the Confederation seemed to know it. Still, it wasn't like she was planning to start a Taykan family line. Or, given the differences in biology, a Human line on Taykan. Or that anything much kept a di'Taykan from suggesting sex. They'd never discussed where they stood with the di'Taykan, Torin and him. Although it was pretty much a consistent belief across known space that sex with a di'Taykan didn't count, he found he was pleased Torin hadn't gone with them. If that made him unevolved-he took another swallow of coffee and fernim-he didn't fukking care.
"So pendejo…" Pedro dropped down on one side of him, Alia on the other. "… you are serious about this woman, yes?"
Craig toasted Pedro with his mug. "Would I have exposed her to your ugly ass self if I wasn't?"
"You might have been trying to scare her off," Alia said thoughtfully, crossing her legs at the ankles. At some point during the evening, she'd had the H'san symbol for life hennaed onto the tops of both bare feet. "Tossing her into the deep end. Seeing if she'll swim."
"She swims fine. Threw me in a freezing, fukking lake on Paradise."
Alia snickered. "You suck at metaphor when you're drinking."
Craig toasted her, too.
And nearly coughed the mouthful back up when Pedro jabbed a bony elbow into his side. "Your woman, she's used to ordering a lot of people around. You sure you going to be enough for her?"
Yeah, it wasn't like he hadn't wondered about that. He shrugged. "She chose to come with me."
"Never doubted it."
"Never thought for a minute you could make that one do anything she didn't want to," Alia snorted.
"'S truth." Craig nodded. "Or she didn't feel she had to."
He could hear the frown in Alia's voice although he kept his attention on the last swallow of his coffee. "Isn't that the same thing?"
Pedro leaned across him, reaching for her mug. "How much of that have you had?"
"Not enough." She easily evaded his grab and got to her feet, graceful in spite of the swaying. Or maybe swaying gracefully, Craig wasn't entirely sure. "You two behave," she added as she left.
"I love that woman.?Te amo, mujer!" Pedro shouted at her back.
Alia flipped him off without turning.
"She loves me, too."
"She married your ugly ass, she must."
"So are you and…"
"Don't know. We haven't talked about it."
"She took you home to meet her family."
Craig shrugged, unwilling to read any more into that than there'd been. "I'd already met her father. Back when she was dead." Fukking mug was empty. He pulled Pedro's from lax fingers and swallowed a mouthful of… "What the fuk is this?" he gasped, eyes welling up.