Surprisingly, when I came to, I could feel my head was nuzzled on someone's thigh, just like the previous night.
"The fuck," I tried to say, but there was also a palm covering my mouth.
"Get your hands off me."
I grumbled, though it only came out in gibberish. I pushed myself off Koji's lap and reclined against the wall.
"What the fuck are you doing? You're supposed to be sleeping."
Koji stared at me.
"You were there," he said in the voice of somebody too exhausted to rest, if that even made sense.
"I was where?" I said in casual disregard. I was too tired, and the thought of engaging Koji in arguments made me feel even more exhausted.
"You know what I mean. The same place you were yesterday. I told you, I'm not your enemy."
I ignored him.
There was no point lying to this guy. He drank in emotions the way I drank water. I would have to really learn how to navigate my way around Zeltrons and their pheromones.
"Listen, I know you're doing something. I don't know what, but I would appreciate it if you told me something. Like, do we have hope? Is there a chance of…"
I ground my teeth before he could finish what I knew he wanted to say.
Escape.
He swallowed the word before it flew out of his mouth.
"Hope. Koji, we are not in Zeltros. This is Ord Mantell. Hope is a commodity that is too expensive, and nobody is selling it here. Better drive it out of your mind."
"Yeah, but you keep leaving. Which means…"
"I keep doing nothing. I'm here, aren't I?"
Honestly, it wasn't that I didn't want to share everything with Koji. In fact, I needed somebody who would watch out for me when I was in that dream state. But Koji was better off knowing nothing about me.
Not because he would betray me, but because the boy could not lie.
From the few incidents I had seen in canon lore and even some legends, Zeltros taught emotional honesty. That your honesty had to be reciprocated. That there was no need to lie because emotions could be felt.
The rest of the galaxy existed to prove them wrong.
Deception was the main currency in the Outer Rim and shady worlds like Ord Mantell. Kindness and honesty, while valuable in Zeltros, were used out here the way fire uses oxygen, only as a tool. Once they had served their purpose, they were discarded.
"You can trust me, no?"
I stared at him for a second. His question was delivered in that childish honesty, and I found it hard to answer him rudely.
"You are asking the wrong question. The question is, can you trust yourself? Look at where you are right now. Look at your injuries. You got there because you find it hard to accept how things work here. But you have to understand that you are not in Zeltros. Out here, nobody gives a damn about wrong or right."
"There is only one language here, which is survival and personal interest. If you keep going out of line, you are not going to do yourself any good. You have to stop reacting every day. The point here is to disappear. Not to be seen."
Koji looked at me as if I had become a Jedi Master pumping wisdom into his brain. I hoped I was... the pumping wisdom part.
"I'm trying. It's just... it feels like it goes against everything I've ever known."
I gave him a pitiful look.
"Well, I hate to be the one to say this, Koji, but everything you have ever known does not apply out here. It may be true in Zeltros, but out here the galaxy runs on a different set of rules. A lie is not your enemy. Neither is selfishness. These are tools for survival. You do not have to lie when you do not need to. But you must when you have to."
Koji was now sitting upright and staring at me, something I had quickly come to know meant nothing good.
"Well, can you teach me?" he asked hopefully.
I glared at him, confused.
"Teach you what?"
"What you said. Survival."
His honesty made him sound like a kid trying to learn a skill from a parent.
"Koji, we are fucking slaves. Lessons are all around you. Just try not to act on impulse. Matter of fact, everything you think about, do not act on it right away."
We were quiet for a while as he contemplated what I had told him.
I myself yearned for sleep. Having exited the dream state at the edge of events meant the night was almost over and the new shift was about to begin.
We still had about two hours, most likely, if there was no emergency cargo to be unloaded.
I felt deeply tired. Too tired to even know what to do.
If I dared close my eyes properly, I did not think even Koji would shake me awake. It would take serious zapping from the debt collar on my neck to wake me. The dream state seemed to drain a lot of energy from me.
I would have to decide which days to enter and which days to rest. I could not go on like this every day. I would collapse one of these days.
Something occurred to me, and I slipped my hand into my pocket, hoping against hope that the piece of bread I had stuffed there would still be there.
I almost yelped in joy when my fingers touched it.
Thank the heavens.
I breathed out slowly.
This was life-changing.
It meant I could carry things between the dimensions. At the moment, I could not see how helpful that would be, but in the long run, I would definitely find a way to turn it into a lifeline.
That was almost a superpower, even without the Force skills I was trying to learn.
Koji was staring at me as if he had detected the excitement. Then again, there was no as if about it. With his free flow of pheromones, he must have sensed the surge of adrenaline.
He looked at me as if expecting an explanation.
Instead, I changed tactics.
"Anyway, how did you and your sister land in Hato's trap?"
He was quiet for a while, as if replaying the events in his head before speaking.
"It's my stupidity, I guess," he said in a small voice. "Mira told me something was not adding up. I felt it too, but the opportunity was too good. So I ignored it. I'm responsible for all this."
I assumed Mira was one of the sisters. I did not know the full details yet, but hearing the guilt in his voice, I knew he was drowning in self-blame.
"Listen, it has nothing to do with your stupidity. They did not manipulate you because you are stupid. It is because you are decent. Something you have to stop being," I added as an afterthought.
He looked at me as if I had insulted him.
"If we stop being honest, we will lose our identity."
"Better that than losing your lives. What is the story anyway?" I said, realizing I had jumped ahead before he had given me the details.
"My parents did not want… I mean, my home world is atrocious. Everything revolves around sex, pleasure, and entertainment. My parents did not like it. They thought we could use our skills in a different way. So my father got a job through one of his friends."
"He told him there was sales work in the capital, Coruscant. He did not have to do anything pleasure related. They just needed him to help sign contracts with one of the entertainment conglomerates."
Yeah, definitely a syndicate hook, line, and sinker. I already had a good guess of what had followed, but I let Koji continue.
"The pay was good, and it offered relocation for the entire family to Coruscant. We were happy. We had only heard about the capital and the Core Worlds. I never thought we would go there ourselves."
"Two days before traveling, the agent came and said transport was becoming a problem and my father had to add fifty thousand credits to secure one ship for all of us. My parents did not have that kind of money."
"They had only paid twenty thousand for a traveling ship leaving in two days. After a while, the agent suggested another way. It was cheaper, but it would only work if we were separated."
Bingo, I thought. Anyone with an open mind would have seen the trap, but not a Zeltron. Always thinking everyone had to be like them.
Koji went on.
"At first, my mother refused, but my father convinced her. They said it would be a decent ship and even faster than the one my parents were taking. That we would arrive hours before them. I think at that point I felt the man was not being honest."
"There was a lot of compromising, and every time he came up with a solution that favored him. But my father was desperate to take us away from Zeltros, so he agreed."
He did not have to finish the story.
The rest was obvious.
The "decent" ship had turned out to be a smuggler's ship. Hato's ship. Some smugglers actually transported people honestly. Not Hato.
Hato must have seen four Zeltrons and an opportunity too good to ignore. He must have made a deal with the agent.
With both parents and children gone, there was nobody to hold the agent accountable. A win for both of them.
"What about you?" Koji asked.
"What about me?" I said, buying myself time to think of a proper lie. After the honesty he had shown, the worst thing I could do was respond carelessly.
I could not tell him the truth either, that I had woken up in a fictional world flying a starship.
If he knew I was a pilot, his hope would skyrocket again. He would start forming ideas. And until he mastered lying, I was not willing to share my secrets. If any overseer or enforcer squeezed him for answers, Koji would struggle to lie.
"Well, our ship broke," I said, forcing myself to think of my ship's AI as another companion. That way, I was not technically lying. "There had been two of us. So I took an escape pod and switched on my distress beacon. Turns out Hato was the one who responded."
"Where were you going?"
Oh come on, stop pushing it.
"Me? My father was a smuggler. He was taking me on one of his trips to learn the trade."
There and then, I had lied.
Honestly, I did not care. It was the same lie I had told the smugglers. I had repeated it so many times it felt like truth.
Whatever Zeltrons sensed, I probably gave very little away.
"Do you think we shall ever see them again?"
"Who, your sisters? If you are not stupid, maybe. Listen, it is not the first time I have seen slaves freed or manage to escape."
I paused and glanced at the others. They were asleep, but I still lowered my voice.
"But Koji, you have to promise me you will be smart. If not for your sake, then for your sisters."
He nodded.
"We can work something out. But you have to be patient. When you have doubts, ask me before you do something stupid like challenging an enforcer."
"Friends then?" he said, offering his arm with a childish grin.
"Friends," I shook the proffered hand. "Now I have to try and shut my eyes, even if it is just for thirty minutes. Will you try to wake me once the enforcers arrive?"
"Yeah. If I am awake myself," Koji said, trying to find a comfortable position. With his injuries, it would take a miracle.
It felt weird agreeing to become friends here.
It was what I had been trying to avoid. If I did not get attached, nothing could hurt me or force me into the kind of stupid decisions I had just warned Koji about.
Friendships were dangerous in this environment.
They made you attached.
And attachments made you involved.
And the more involved you got, the tighter the chains of the syndicate felt around your neck.