Later, Enzo snuck back into the ship’s kitchen and tried to call Kade’s ship a few more times, but the scanners wouldn’t let his face through. He’d been completely blocked from all communication, just like the other exiles. Briefly, he considered the possibility of just showing up wherever Kade and his crew were, demanding he be heard, tossing the crown at the man’s feet as proof he’d done nothing wrong. The problem was, though, that he was a long way from the kid who had crawled up into Kade’s bed after a nightmare. He’d suspected for a very long time that whatever affection Kade held for him had died with the realization that he didn’t have to be responsible for him anymore, that there was no obligation to keep him safe once he was old enough to be a full member of the crew. The evidence was right there, in the hard bunk he’d been staying in the past six months, in the cold, detached way Kade had been talking to him if he talked to him at all.

Maybe Talon was right, maybe he really did have an inflated sense of ego. If Kade honestly believed he had betrayed them, if he didn’t even want to give him even thirty seconds to explain himself, maybe Enzo had been wrong all along. Maybe Kade had never felt anything more than an obligation for him.

In the end, when they were pulling into the hangar of Zarek’s mothership, he shoved all that hurt and anger and budding resentment into the darkest reaches of his mind, vowing right there to move on and forget because that’s what he did - he survived. He took a deep breath and held out his hand to the other man. “Alright, you’re on.”

Zarek grinned and when they clasped forearms Enzo told himself that the flutter in his chest had nothing to do with that cocky smirk and everything to do with starting a new chapter in his life, with the change that was going to entail. “Welcome aboard,” Zarek said as the ramp lowered in the hangar.

The ship was nothing like Kade’s, though Enzo wasn’t sure why he’d thought it would be. Kade’s ship was modern, a Galactic Navy-issued ship, though no one but Enzo and Kade knew that. Kade did a lot of work for the Navy, the things they were too bureaucratic to get their military fingers into like breaking up the slave trade or tracking down big-time but politically influential criminals. In return, they paid him in money and goods like the Hesperia, and their weapons. They also looked the other way when Kade and his men got too ruthless. It was a secret Enzo had felt privileged to know.

Zarek’s ship, Veles, had clearly been stolen and repurposed - a personal cruiser, a mansion of a ship. Where the Hesperia was sleek, bright, white, and full of clean high-tech machinery, Zarek’s ship was ornate; plush, impractical, and somehow extremely fitting for the person Enzo was beginning to suspect Zarek was. It had been outfitted with great tech in the same way his small starship had, a meshing of machinery from several systems Enzo knew and several he didn’t. Maybe half the size of the Hesperia, the Veles was still large enough to house at least fifty personal ships in every variety, lined up in the hangar with no sense of order whatsoever, clamoring for space. He wondered how much of a mess it was when they all took off at once.

“How many men do you have?” Enzo asked as they exited the hangar and began making their way down a long hall with a line of red doors on either side.

“Counting you?” Zarek hummed as if he were genuinely considering the question. “I think - sixty-two? No, wait, sixty-one - Harrow died last week.”

Harrow died last week, no big deal, just a thing that happened. Enzo wondered just how often Zarek’s men died that he could be so flippant about it. Men died all the time on Kade’s crew, sure, but each death was treated with appropriate gravitas.

As they turned a corner an extremely tall woman with eight green eyes and four spindly legs walked by them - on the ceiling. “Hey, Cap,” she said, and she and Zarek slapped hands as she passed overhead.

“Vikali, have you seen Jaela?” Zarek asked. He had turned around and was walking backward, eyes focused on the still-retreating form of Vikali.

“Yup, she’s on deck four kicking Jager’s ass from here to the Milky Way.”

Zarek laughed and turned back around, waving over his shoulder. “Thanks!”

“Jaela’s my first mate - she’s an asshole.” Zarek cocked his head to the side and when Enzo looked over at him he caught his smirk. “You two’ll get along great!”

“You callin’ me an asshole?” Enzo asked.

They stepped onto a lift and Zarek pressed the fourth button from the bottom on the wall, which had no numbers but rather symbols that looked more or less exactly the same to Enzo.

“Yup, that’s exactly what I’m doing, kid.”

Enzo shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, that’s fair, I am kind of an asshole.”

The lift doors opened with a musical trill, high pitched and cheery, and Enzo raised his eyebrow. Zarek looked over at him and laughed, a sound Enzo was entirely sure he could get used to. “Yeah, the dignitary I stole this ship from was definitely interesting. I kinda like it - it has charm.”

It was annoying and ridiculous, and Enzo secretly thought that it was cute that Zarek had left it. He said nothing, though, just followed along behind his new captain until they reached a set of massive doors, silver with a raised pattern of intricate golden vines. Zarek pressed a code into the keypad - also in those symbols that looked exactly the same to Enzo - and the doors swished open so silently that all Enzo heard was the displacement of air as the massive weight of them cut through it.

“Damn,” Enzo whistled when they stepped inside. He could very nearly guarantee that the room had been a ballroom at some point - there were floor-to-vaulted-ceiling windows that offered a breathtaking view of the stars, and the smooth floor was designed to look like an intricate pink-blue-yellow nebula set with stars that genuinely twinkled. There had been a chandelier at some point, but it was gone now, nothing but the wires it had been attached to dangling forlornly over the room. The room itself had been converted into a training room, and there were twenty or so people doing everything from target practice to hand-to-hand combat. One person was fighting a holo image of a caricature of a Galactic Navy officer; big head, military medals comically large, and a dopey cross-eyed look permanently on his flickering face.

Zarek turned towards a group watching two people fight, and it was nothing like any training fight Enzo had ever seen. There was more blood, for one thing, and the cheers of the crew were jeering and bloodthirsty. Before they even approached Enzo knew it was the woman who was winning, a short woman with blue skin and three twitching antennae instead of hair. Her opponent was so large he dwarfed her, a Terran with muscles upon muscles and one bionic arm. The woman was fast, sliding under his legs and sweeping them out from under him, landing an elbow to his nose before he even registered he was down.

“Jaela!” Zarek said. He didn’t shout, but everyone in the room heard him nonetheless. It was a display of power Enzo was genuinely impressed with, the way every person stopped and turned as one to see their captain strolling towards them. Jaela faltered at the sound of his voice, all that brutal grace shifting to shuffling clumsiness so fast her opponent was able to land one hard punch to her jaw before they, too, stopped what they were doing. “You’ve beaten Jager enough, don’t you think? I’ve got a new crewmember for you to torment, anyway, a fresh Terran.”

Enzo bristled at being referred to in so predatory a manner, and he eyed Jaela’s bloody fists with trepidation. She grinned at him, awkwardness forgotten, and wiped the blood off on Jager’s already bloody shirt before standing and striding over to them. When she approached Enzo had to look down at her, a full head shorter than him, and he was no less intimidated.

Zarek gestured from Enzo to Jaela and back again. “Jeana, Enzo. Enzo, Jaela. You’re in charge of his training. You two can talk shop; kid’s got some tech you’ll be just dying to get your hands on. I want him on third shift, our team while we see what he’s really made of.” He clapped Jaela on the shoulder and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially in her ear, though everyone could hear him. “Watch out for him, yeah? He’s got morals and shit - the crew’ll have a field day with him.”

“You got it, Cap,” Jaela said, and her voice was lilting, musical in a way Enzo genuinely had not expected out of someone so clearly ruthless. Her cheeks had flushed a pretty purple when Zarek leaned in close, but it had faded by the time she turned to smirk at Enzo again. “We’ll knock that moral crap right out of him, you’ll see.”

“Good man,” Zarek said. He punched Enzo none-too-gently in the shoulder and turned, waving one hand as he walked away. “At ease, guys.”

Enzo watched him leave, eyes roving down broad muscled shoulders, thick thighs, and -

“Don’t even think about it, kid,” Jaela said, and Enzo’s cheeks filled with heat when he glanced down and saw that she had been watching him very obviously check the captain out. “He’d eat you alive.”

As he turned to watch the doors swing shut behind his new captain, he thought, just for a moment, that that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Jaela punched him in the arm and he turned to find her rolling her eyes at him. “Seriously - bad idea.”

“Sometimes good ideas just kind of look like really bad ones,” Enzo said, a smirk tugging at his lips.

Jaela gestured for him to follow her out of the room. “That doesn’t even make sense. You know that, right? Some twisted logic right there, my little Terran friend.”

Enzo shrugged because, well, she wasn’t wrong. “So, what’s the bunk situation like on a ship like this? Because if I get a choice I’m thinking, like, king size bed. I wouldn’t say no to my own bathroom, too, you know - I like a good soak in a tub every now and then. A few bubbles, some champagne.”

“Oh, of course, let me just show you the perfect room for your needs.”

When they came to a stop two floors down, Jaela pressed a code into one of the identical red doors lining the hallway and it swung open to reveal a dark room. “Lights,” Jaela said, and Enzo let out a slow sigh as they flicked on. It was a one person room with a two person bunk, scattered with knives and wires and tech in various degrees of disrepair.

“Not exactly what I pictured, you know, less ‘fit for a king’ and more ‘an armory threw up in here’. Besides - “ He kicked a pair of tiny boots under the bottom bunk of the bed. “Looks like someone already lives here.”

Jaela leaned against one of the bunk’s pillars and crossed her arms. “Yup. Me.”

“Oh, roommates! We’re gonna have so much fun,” Enzo singsonged, hopping up onto the top bunk and swinging his long legs. “We can braid each other’s hair - excuse me, antennae - and talk about boys, and - “

Enzo yelped when one tiny hand wrapped around his ankle with surprising force and he was yanked bodily off the bunk. His wound screamed at him when he landed on the floor, and he counted himself lucky that he hadn’t actually hit it on impact and popped the stitches. His breath left him in a wheezing huff, and Jaela knelt down in front of him.

“Listen up, big guy, coz I’m only gonna say this once.” She pressed a finger into his jaw and pushed his head back until he was looking her in the eye. “Your ass is mine from now until the captain says otherwise - put that godsdamn smirk away, you idiot - and that means you do what I say when I say it. You sleep when I do, you eat when I do, you train when I do - you stick to me like your fucking life depends on it because guess what? It does. You fuck up, you die, that’s how it is in our line of work, and I don’t much feel like dying right along with you so you best work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life to keep up with me, you understand?”

“Y’know - “ Enzo stopped, wheezing for just a second, clutching his side. “I’m really into this kinky shit, but damn - buy a guy a drink first, huh?”

Jaela deflated, and her left antenna twitched with her irritation at not being taken seriously. Enzo smirked. He was just sure that she’d given that speech before and that it had been met with the fear she was trying to instill, some new guy all but pissing his pants on her floor because she was genuinely scary. She dropped his jaw and groaned in disgust before pulling herself to her feet. “Of course you’re a jackass. Captain brings home a stray out of nowhere and he’s this big hulking idiot. Why am I not surprised?” She looked down and kicked him not-quite gently in his unhurt side. “Top bunk’s mine, Terran, I don’t need your fool ass falling on me in the middle of the night.”

“You’re just mean, did you know that?” He pulled himself into some semblance of a sitting position and pressed a hand gingerly to his stitches. “Abuse, that’s what they call this in some systems, you know, I should call Terran Protective Services on you.”

Jaela was making her way to the door. “Mouth like that is gonna earn you a reputation I’m sure you don’t want on this ship, kid, so you’d better have the brawn to back up all that lip.”

The door swished shut behind her and Enzo fell gingerly back with a groan. He really needed to find an infirmary, if they had one at all, because he had no doubt that Jaela was going to brutally kick his ass in training the next day. Least he could do was make sure he was in top form before she took him out. He thought with a pang of Kade, of Terrance and his crew, of the life he was never going to see again, just ten seconds of hurt before he buried it down again and he could pull himself to his feet and go looking for some kind of medical aid. He reminded himself that it was in the past, that there was no point in looking back.

Besides, he thought as he wandered the halls peering into every open door, the future looks scarred, tattooed, and just like my type of trouble.