Page 68 of Folds
intergalactic accident
BY JENIFER WOODS
chapter one
SADIE
The overtime lights flickered in the access tunnel and I thought, not for the first time, that station maintenance had a strictly “eh, let’s see how long she lasts” take on life support. It was my own fault for mouthing off to the foreman, Chad. I used to have my pick of shifts—then I made it clear I wasn’t interested in Chad or his buzz cut. Plus, his name was Chad. Pass.
I had to get out of maintenance. I was taking classes to transfer to the med bay. The hours were just as bad, but the work wasn’t as demanding on my body, and I thought it would feel a bit more rewarding to be helping people—and aliens—directly.
I pressed my dataglove to the panel, coaxed the circuitry into full brightness, and immediately regretted it; the glare ricocheted off the composite wall, straight into my retinas. I blinked away stars. I had two meters to go, a junction that’d been patched by six generations of engineers with six incompatible toolkits. Last week, it buzzed like a nest of amphetamined hornets. This week, the leak was heat. My job, as ever, was to bandage it enough to get us through.
My dataglove chirped. I braced for a nagging systems alert—standard in my line—but it wasn’t from Station Ops. It was from Etta, which coming this late meant incoming travelers, and I hadto be there to help open the bay. I palmed the wrench back into my satchel and craned my head around the bend just as the stainless utility door shuddered open.
A Bozad carrier landed with athunkin the hangar, and I could immediately tell why they were there. One wing was scorched and covered in blaster marks. I was surprised it was still able to stay in the air. I skittered up the ladder rung, half-dragging my overalls, hoping the angle might make me seem taller.
They noticed me, of course. I was hard to miss, short and human—and female. A human working on the station was rare. A humanwoman? Unheard of. That, and I was the only one in the station willing to stare back when a Bozad gave you the eye.
The smallest of the group—by which I mean only slightly less likely to collapse the deck plating—leaned over the ladder well and regarded me with a glower somewhere between mild offense and earnest curiosity. His skin was that perfect interference-blue, the kind you see on engine coolant pooling under the right light. His hair was black and wild, more coarse than hair I had seen on most humans. His jumpsuit was regulation, but tailored close enough to show what I can only describe as extrastellar commitment to personal fitness.
I took an extra beat to admire the fit, then decided to double the odds he’d either report me to his superior or try to out-stare me.
He stared.
I smiled, which tended to throw them. Most Bozad expect humans to flinch or defer, maybe offer a bow or four, but I took great pride in letting my curiosity get me into trouble. “This is the maintenance bay. You here for that wing?”
He answered, but not with the expected request for parts or patchwork. “We require immediate medical attention. Our flight engineer has sustained serious injury.” The rest of his crew clustered behind him, faces glinting under the harsh lighting, each carrying a different flavor of distrust.
“Med is two decks up,” I said, but he crowded closer on the ladder, blocking the climb with his mass and his certainty.
“I am aware. But the human medtech is… insufficient,” he said, and I realized he meant Mara. Her bedside manner was artillery-grade even on the best days.
I weighed my options. This was not my job, not my deck, and I had rigid plans to finish the shift and hit the sleep pod with minimal drama. But Bozad don’t ask for help. If they do, they mean it.
“Fine,” I said, and made the climb.
When I stepped out onto the deck at the top of the ladder, the air was wet with the sharp, chemical tang of alien blood. The engineer was splayed out on the hull, breathing shallow, a latticework of blood stripes in slow rivulets. His suit had sealed around the wound, but not before the pressure spike turned what looked like a superficial gash into a deep and ragged wound. His fingers twitched in the Bozad sign for pain, and I wasn’t sure if he’d do anything more before passing out.
“Hold him,” I said, snapping on my gloves. The blue one barked a word I didn’t know, and three sets of hands hoisted the engineer upright. His breathing jerked faster. I tore a patch of sealant spray from my kit and wedged myself under his arm, close enough to smell boiled copper and the sharp pine of Bozad skin. The wound was messy but clean—no shrapnel, no burn, just torn muscle under the glossy blue sheath. I thumbed the pressure patch open and cupped it to the gash.
The engineer hissed. I kept eye contact. “You’re not going to lose the arm,” I said, which was the truth and also maybe what he needed to hear. The patch hissed, set, and fused to his skin with a perfect blue-white seam, almost invisible. I watched the blood lattice slow. The blue one looked at me in surprise, then, after a pause long enough for a poker tell, nodded acknowledgement.
“Will he survive?” the blue one asked. He spoke more softly than before. I took stock of the engineer’s color—a duller blue now, but no longer that sickly gray—and nodded.
“You’ll need to keep it clean,” I told him, not sure if Bozad even had words forpost-op care.“Bring him to med if he crashes again.” I caught the engineer’s gaze—alert, lucid, not quite grateful, but better than dead.
The blue one extended his hand, palm up. For a second, I thought maybe I was about to get pulled into a ceremonial death struggle or receive a challenge coin, or hell, a tip. Instead, he just… waited, letting the moment hover as if unsure whether humans even shook hands.
I took it. His skin was cool, almost slick, and there was a strength to the grip designed for more than breaking things.
“Izu Karel,” he said. “You saved my crew. If you require assistance, call for me by name.” The rest of the Bozad, observing this, gave stoic nods—approval, or at least respect in their culture. I tried not to let the flush of adrenaline and pride show on my face.
“Sadie Mercer,” I replied, trying to keep my voice as even as possible.
The rest of my shift was a blur. I finished the repair and ran diagnostics, all with the alien’s name on a loop in my head.Izu Karel. If you require assistance.
I didn’t tell anyone, not even Mara, but a week later, there was a message in my station inbox—Bozad contact protocol, practically a coded distress beacon. The blue bastard must have tracked the terminal I usually used in the rec lounge.
