Voidhawk - Lost Soul by Jason Halstead Page A

could tell she had a few words to share with him on the topic, but they weren’t the kind of words he allowed in front of his crew. He almost grinned at how easily they were falling back into their roles as though it had only been six days instead of six years.
    “ I’ll be sure the spixers don’t undo what improvements you make,” He said, closing the subject. The spixers were what the Navy sailors had come to call the constructs the elders had shown the elves how to build. Xander, in particular, had taken great interest in them. The spixers were a metallic sphere with four articulated legs to allow them to climb all over the hull of a ship and reach damaged sections. Additional arms with tools built into them emerged from the sphere as needed to repair the damages. The name came from a cross between a spider and a fixer.
    Dexter turned to face the rest of his crew ’s direction. “I mark it a couple of weeks to Port Freedom,” Dexter changed the topic. “Time enough to get some practice in. I’ll lay good odds that we won’t get out of this without it getting bloody. But first, send Keshira to my cabin.”
    He noticed the lines around Jenna’s eyes tighten briefly. She’d wanted to say whatever she needed to. “Captain, I—”
    “Will accompany Keshira to my cabin? Good, I can’t think of a better idea,” Dexter interrupted. He flashed her a smile then finished the water in his cup. “Ladies, wizard,” he said by way of dismissal. Dexter put his cup in the washing bucket then made his way to his cabin to await Keshira and Jenna.
    His wait was short lived even though he’d nearly nodded off to sleep in his chair. In spite of two days of sleep he was exhausted by the brief activity. A sharp rap on the door and then Jenna pushed it open, leading the woman in. Dexter looked at her and was amazed at what he saw. Instead of the ready smile she shared with everyone and permanent erect posture she carried herself with, she looked defeated and miserable. She’d once been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen but now even Xander in his wizard dresses seemed more fetching.
    “Captain!” Keshira said, her eyes brightening a little. The corners of her lips twitched, threatening to grow into a smile. It faded before it could be realized. “Sir, are you real? I can’t feel you anymore.”
    “I’m real, Keshira. Xander says that because of what happened to me, something about me not being connected to my body anymore for a little bit, that our bond was broken.”
    “I’m all alone,” Keshira said. It sounded like she was whining, but Dexter knew it was a simple statement.
    “You’re the same as any of us now,” he tried to reassure her. “Just an insecure about what other people think of us and alone in a void filled with other lonely people.”
    Jenna scowled at the analogy, which prompted a wink from Dexter.
    “Some of us get lucky and we find someone special,” he said. “You know what I’m talking about, you’ve felt the love Jenna and I got for each other. I hope you can find that yourself someday. That takes away the loneliness.”
    “I’ve felt it,” she echoed. She looked at Jenna and then Dexter. “I felt your love for Jianna too. I tried to make her like me.”
    Dexter chuckled. “She knows, she’s just young. She didn’t understand how you could smile so much.”
    “I’m not sure how I did either.”
    “You’ve known nothing but happiness. Even some of our miserable times were happy times for you – you were fulfilling the only existence you knew you had. Now you can do anything, Keshira. You can be anything. You’ll always have a place on my crew or as my friend, but should you want to go and find your own life I won’t hold it against you.”
    “That’s it?” Keshira asked.
    Dexter’s smile faded. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he said. He frowned. He’d hoped it would go better. “I can tell you what to do on the ‘Hawk, but I can’t tell you who you should be or