The voices were muffled, but Teema wasn’t an idiot. She knew they were talking about her. She sat as quietly as she could in the rickety chair provided, one antennae quirked towards the door as the leaders of the resistance debated her fate.
“You let a fucking vincam into our ship?” Douga snarled, followed by a slamming noise, something flat and open.
//A hand against a table,// her second voice whispered, providing insight from some mysterious source. //Their pulse rate implies agitation.//
She could almost roll her eyes. As if she wouldn’t have been able to figure that one out herself.
“Listen, she says she’s not a vincam, and Yilda vouches for her,” said the second voice, a calmer one.
Teema wasn’t quite as familiar with them, but she knew who they were, if only by the cool authority in their voice.
That calm, even cadence.
Teema closed her eyes, picturing the face on the wanted poster that hung in her quarters at home. Commander Osa. Those steel-gray eyes set in a vretian’s cool blue face, the dangerous warning written across her cheekbones in vivid bioluminescence.. The staunch leader of the resistance, the woman who had ducked a hundred assassination attempts, who had made her way inside of the vincam flagship and had lived to tell the tale…
The bedrock of every freedom fighter, the voice of reason that carried a blaster twice her size and loud as peak of a supernova —
Her hero.
“Plus, she’s got wings and she ain’t dead,” Osa continued, clearly exasperated. “And four arms. You ever hear of a vincam like that?”
“No, but–”
“Listen. We all saw the results of that shooting test. She’s a damn fine marksman, and we need ever gun we can get. We all hate the roaches, but we ain’t so overflowing we can allow stupid things like a poor hand from the genetic lottery to make us turn away recruits. She’s part of your platoon now. Either get over it and get to work, or hand in your blaster. You have your orders, soldier.”
There was another sound, something like the crashing of furniture, and then the heavy stomping of boots. Teema straightened herself in a hurry, flicking her antennae forward, trying to look as if she had heard nothing at all of the conversation, as if she still believed he was trying to sort out the issue with her uniform, rather than —
The door flew open and Douga glared at her, fury on his face, and something darker as well. Something deeper.
Teema swallowed. Maybe her expulsion from the resistance would have been the better outcome after all.
“You’re a liar,” Douga hissed, eyes narrowed as he approached the chair she sat on. He towered over her like this, all broad shoulders and boulder thick-body, like her mom Yilda was, only looking at him gave her nothing of Yilda’s warm, comforting presence. He felt like a death sentence, a blade poised right above her neck. “I don’t know how you’ve done it, but I know you’re a liar. I have my orders, but you should know…
I’m onto you, roach.”