Zenith by Sasha Alsberg Page A

exhaustion.
    Tonight, as promised, the nightmares had come. Unable to return to sleep, Andi sat on the main deck of her ship, the Marauder, scratching a fresh set of tallies into her twin swords.
    Her fingertips were white as she gouged a thin tally the length of her smallest finger into one blade. Without its spirals of electricity, the sword looked like any other weapon, the tallies, any other soldier’s lucky mark. But Andi knew better. Each line she etched into the metal was another life cut off, another heart stopped at the slice of this very blade.
    A hundred lives to cover up the pain of the very first. A hundred more to shovel away the hurt into a place that was dark and deep.
    Andi looked up from her blades as a flash of light in the sky caught her eye.
    A piece of space trash, hurtling through thousands of stars.
    Andi yawned. She had always loved the stars. But tonight, she felt as if they were watching her, waiting for her to fail. Mocking little bastards. They’d be sorely disappointed.
    The Marauder , a glimmering starship with walls made from the rare glass Varillium, was known for its devilish speed and agility. And Andi’s crew, a group of girls who had run from every hellish corner of the galaxy, were as sharp as Andi’s blades, the heart of the ship, and the three reasons that Andi had survived this long.
    Five days ago, the girls had taken on a job to steal a starload of sealed BioDrugs from the planet Solera in the Tavina System, and deliver them to a satellite station just outside the planet Tenebris in the neighboring system of Prime.
    It wasn’t an unusual job. BioDrugs were one of Andi’s most requested transports. These particular drugs could turn someone's brain to bits or, if done right, send them to a blissful oblivion.
    Which, Andi thought, as she picked up the metal shiv and resumed her death-mark scratching, I wouldn't mind having right now.
    She could still feel the hot blood on her hands, from the man she’d slayed in Tenebris. Could still see the way his eyes had locked onto hers before she’d pulled her sword back out, silent as a whisper.
    Bringing herself back to the present, Andi worked in silence to the hum of the ship’s engines far beneath her and the random hiss of the cooling system kicking on overhead. Outer space was quiet, and soothing, and she nearly felt herself succumbing to sleep, where the nightmares would be lurking.
    The sound of footsteps made her look up.
    The rhythmic tapping made its way down the small hallway that lead out of the pilot’s bay. Andi continued her scratching, glancing up again when a figure stopped in the doorway, blue arms poised on narrow hips.
    “As Second in Command,” the figure said, her voice as smooth as the spiced rigna they drank last week, “I demand that you return to your quarters and get some sleep.”
    “Good morning to you too, Lira,” Andi said, sighing. Her Second always seemed to know where she was, what she was doing.
    It was one of the peculiar traits of Adhirans. Along with their pigmented skin and hairless bodies, their eyes seemed to catch every detail, no matter how small. It made Lira one of the best damned pilots in the entire Mirabel Galaxy, and it was the reason they’d managed to succeed at so many jobs thus far.
    Lira stepped into the starlit bay and lifted a hairless brow. “Sooner or later, you’re going to run out of space on those swords.”
    “And then I’ll turn my tallies on to you,” Andi said, with a wicked grin.
    Lira smirked back as she lifted her wrist to her blue lips. “Rise and shine, ladies. If the captain can’t sleep, we shouldn’t either.”
    Andi couldn’t hear the response Lira chuckled at, but soon enough, more footsteps sounded from the decks below and above, and she knew the rest of her crew was on their way.
    Gilly arrived first, her fire-red braids bouncing on her shoulders as she approached. She was small for her age, no older than thirteen, but Andi wasn’t fooled by her