Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3)

by Melissa Good

  All thoughts of sleep were gone, all the long trials of the day forgotten. All she was focused on right now was this sharing of pleasure, where all her knowledge had come not from programming but from Jess’s playful, gentle lessons.

  And so she gladly used what she’d learned, finding and teasing those places on Jess that made her tense and surrender and release herself to the pleasure with gasping abandon.

  She ended up in a hug, and she exhaled in satisfaction, taking a moment to rest before they’d start the practice all over again.

  Excellent.

  “CENTOPS, THIS IS BR270006, requesting flight status and permission to depart.” Dev released comms and adjusted her power levels, bouncing around a little in her seat as she watched the reflection of Jess relaxing in hers.

  “Centops to BR270006, flight status is go, clearance given. Good flight.”

  Dev lifted off the pad. “Stand by for departure,” she said to her passenger, who opened one eye and regarded her. “I will try to avoid going upside down.”

  “Thanks.” Jess closed her eye and folded her hands over her stomach, “I’ll just be taking a nap back here since I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

  Dev chuckled a little.

  “Not that I’m complaining,” Jess added. “Been a long time since I’ve had that much fun.”

  Dev maneuvered the carrier out of the cavern and into dark gray cloudy, but at the moment rainless, weather. She observed the wind metrics and set her course, taking the vehicle up and over the escarpment that held the Citadel and along the coast heading for Drake’s Bay.

  Familiar route, now. She ran scans along the ground and saw little organic return, save some clusters of seagulls and what she thought might be a whale offshore. “We didn’t bring our packs,” she said.

  “We’re not staying.”

  “I see.” Dev glanced in the reflector and saw Jess just sitting in her station, arms folded over her chest. “You seem discomfited.”

  Jess looked up and their eyes met. “Time to pay the bill, Dev.” She got up and came forward to the pilot’s station, pulled down the jumpseat, and dropped onto it. “Bay wants to know what my intent is.” She rested her head against the console. “So I need to go tell them I’m not going to be the Drake for them. Not now at any rate.”

  “They will not be pleased,” Dev said.

  “I don’t know,” Jess mused. “Something Jake said was right. Hard for the rest of the coast to make deals with me in there. They don’t have much leverage. I remember the yelling matches when my dad was doing it.”

  Dev considered that. “I believe,” she cleared her throat, “they do not have much leverage now in any case. Your birthplace has something all of them want.” She adjusted an engine trim. “Can they continue the seed project? It’s quite technical.”

  “Good question.”

  “It would have been excellent work to assist with that if we had remained there,” Dev said. “I have both the basic and the secondary programming for it.” She turned the carrier a little to follow the coastline, already spotting the promontory that was the outer edge of the half circle of the Bay on the far horizon. “Some of the other sets who came there do also.”

  “Drake’s Bay doesn’t care for bios,” Jess said, but in a musing tone. “Devvie. You’re so damn smart.” She watched Dev’s profile tense into a faint grin. “They just didn’t have the time or energy to kick up when we were in the middle of a firefight.”

  Dev counted down the moments as they sat there together in quiet peace, waiting until she saw the initial stages of the long range scan from the Bay reach them. “Drake’s Bay operations. This is Interforce flight BR270006, inbound.”

  A long pause, then the comms channel opened. “BR270006, welcome. You’re expected,” a male voice answered. “Top dock, pad one.”

  Jess sighed. “All that’s left.”

  “Copy that, Drake’s Bay,” Dev said then closed comms. “Maybe it will be okay, Jess.”

  “Maybe a whale will fly up out of the ocean and sing.”

  HE WAS MANAGING to stay more aware. There was a positive and negative to that. The positive being his brain was healing and negative in that there wasn’t anything to do or look at most of the time when his eyes were open.

  Roughly squared rock walls. The robust security of being inside the mountain. Inside the Citadel, a place he’d stayed long enough at a vulnerable enough time in his life for it to become home in a way station never was.

  Weird little crick in the psyche. He’d collected just enough moments of happiness here for it to have set solid. He realized it when he’d been here last, had known he’d brought it back up to station with him, setting that soft far off sound of fake thunder around him and the gentle patter of rain.

  Ah well. He regarded the slightly uneven ceiling. Now it was his reality again. He tried not to think too much about what was going to happen next. That just got him into a whole circular thought pattern about what he’d left behind up on station, and what was the point?

  Really. What was the point? Justin always said forget the past, don’t worry about the future, just focus on now, and at this very moment he understood.

  Finally.

  The bed moved a little under him, and he shifted with it, grimacing at the stiffness and the phantom pains that were healing nerves. He could only imagine what horrific state he’d been in before he’d been put in the tank, and he flexed his hands, too uncomfortable to go back to sleep.

  He couldn’t focus enough to read a screen, and he wasn’t really sure what he would look at if he could. Sometimes being unconscious had its points.

  Sometime after noon, as he was counting the striations in the ceiling for the nth time, the outer door opened and Jared came in.

  “Hello,” he greeted the senior medic, ready to be mildly entertained. “Been a bother for you I’m sure.”

  “Highlight of the shift.” Jared treated him with respect, as a peer really, since he understood his background. “How’s the head?”

  “Still attached,” Kurok replied. “Got anything to play on the screen? Underwater cam from the turbines? View of the repair pads?”

  Jared smiled. “I’ll see what I can rummage up for later.” He checked one of the input pads. “You cook your own spirals, Doc? You’ve got healing metrics I’ve never seen before.”

  “Yes, well, you’d have to dig into my Interforce records for that, I’m afraid. They shot us up with all kinds of things in field school back in the day.”

  “I’ll have to do some research on that,” Jared said. “But right now, before it gets too long after, I’d like to ask you some questions about something that happened here. Drake tell you?”

  One of Kurok’s blond eyebrows hiked up a bit. “Tell me what?”

  Jared considered. “Easier to show you.” He pulled a screen around so Kurok could see it. “I wouldn’t usually do this, but I doubt you’re shockable.”

  Kurok chuckled just a little. “My scans?” He hazarded a guess.

  “I’ll show you that too since you probably know a lot more about what that looks like than I do,” Jared said. “But no, this first. So basically, you were flatline.”

  “Ah.”

  “So everyone was coming in to say so long.”

  “Oh.” Kurok’s tone changed. “That bad? What the hell am I doing here then?”

  “That’s what I want to know.” Jared triggered the vid. “See what you think.”

  Kurok watched the screen come live in front of him and saw a wide angle view of the tank room, with one occupied and the room filling up with a mix of bios and Interforce, horrified faces of sets, and the stolid lack of expression of the agents and techs.

  Jess, stood square in the middle, her arms around a visibly upset Dev, as though it were the most natural thing in the world and apparently not caring if it wasn’t.

  Dismay. The gasps and moans from the sets when they realized what was going on.

  Dev went to the ta
nk and called the sets over.

  He could see Jared’s back, waiting near the life support gear, ready to remove it.

  The room was full.

  A sudden memory and then Kurok knew what was coming. A brief, vivid flash of field school surfaced, standing next to Justin at the end of a long day, wanting nothing more than to be released to mess and bunk.

  A phantom pressure on his shoulder as Justin rested his forearm on it. In his mind’s eye he could even see the smudge of dried blood on the side of the hand just in his peripheral vision.

  Jess spoke. Standing as family to him in the old tradition and giving him what eulogy she could on short notice, as it always was. “He was kin of my kin.”

  Kurok’s fingertips twitched as he felt a mixture of embarrassment and horror, listening to the accolades he should never have heard, awed at the honesty of them, doubting their truth until the last, Dev’s quiet, “thank you for making me.”

  That, there was no doubting.

  “Give my regards to Dad.”

  Then Jess stood up a little straighter, drew in a deep breath, and started to sing. For a moment he forgot what the song was for in the beauty of her voice.

  He held his breath, almost. Then he had to inhale as the rest of the ops group joined in, a mixture of voices in harmony that made his skin prickle and his eardrums itch, and in pure reflex his lips moved along with them as he felt the echo of that memory again and imagined he heard the ghost of Justy’s voice alongside, deeper and male but that same tonal quality.

  Then it faded and he didn’t want it to.

  Jared was pointing and talking, and he had no real choice but to listen.

  “So right there? See that? You went from flatline to this. What I want to know, Kurok, is how. Why? How did that happen? You know better than I do what the odds were of that.”

  Kurok still heard that song in silent echoes. “Yes,” he finally said, “I know the odds.” He studied the readouts. “Is this where I’m supposed to tell you about some out of body experience, floating around touching clouds or something like that?”

  “I don’t know. Is it?” Jared asked simply. “You were dead. Then you weren’t.”

  Kurok shook his head. “I don’t know what happened,” he answered honestly. “The last thing I remember was doing some damn fool thing and falling in front of a blaster. Then I woke up here yesterday. Jess didn’t mention anything about that.”

  “It’s weird,” Jared said.

  “It’s weird,” Kurok agreed. “But I don’t know.” He studied the now dark screen. “Mind leaving that here though?”

  “No, go ahead.” Jared pushed it a little closer. “They were joking, you know? With Drake. About that singing doing something.”

  “Not possible,” Kurok said. “No auditory response possible in that state. But I have to admit it’s quite stirring. I remember learning to sing that in school.” He paused. “And once in assembly, but there aren’t many voices like hers.”

  Jared grinned. “Surprised me,” he admitted. “You don’t expect that from one of them.”

  Echo of the song again. “She inherited it,” Kurok said. “When he was particularly frustrated, her father used to go down into the turbine cavern and about bring the roof down singing.”

  “Justin Drake?” Jared asked, his eyebrows hiking up to his hairline. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  JESS SHRUGGED INTO her jacket and ran her fingers through her hair as they exited the carrier into the top flight deck at Drake’s Bay. All the flyers left to the stakehold were there in various states of repair, and several others she reckoned were from their neighbors.

  One, conspicuously, from Quebec City, its pilot seated on a skid, looking out over the sea from the shelter of a wing.

  The entry to the cavern was open and there were some stone workers there, fixing the battered metal that once closed it, barely sparing them a glance as they walked by. Once inside they were hit with a barrage of sound from repair stations.

  “Jess.” Dev touched her elbow. “Look.”

  Across the cavern there were three figures intent on one of the power stacks, two tall Bay homesteaders, and one shorter with sandy blond hair in overalls like theirs. “That one of your buddies?” Jess asked in an undertone.

  “Yes, that’s a BeeAye,” Dev whispered back as they passed, watching the three working together intently.

  “Huh.” Jess grunted softly. “Interesting.”

  They walked to the top level of the big central staircase and started down the circular stairway amidst echoes of hammers and the smell of plasma cutters.

  At the bottom, Jess saw a group of figures waiting for them. A mix of Bay and outlanders, long rifles cradled in arms. “That looks friendly.”

  “Does it?” Dev kept pace with her as they continued down.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  Jess had deliberately left her weapons behind, but aside from that she was dressed as reg Interforce in her blacks with their green piping. Dev was in her tech greens, only her sharkskin jacket non reg.

  But that was okay because Rocket had earned that difference, Jess reckoned, and it fit her much better than the reg parka did.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and walked across the floor they’d both last seen covered in bodies toward the waiting group. Jess recognized both Dee Cooper and Jean Argnaut from Quebec City, mixed in with what was left of the leadership of her homestead.

  She slowed and stopped as she reached them. “Morning.”

  “Morning, Jess,” Brion greeted her. “Council chamber.”

  “Let’s go.” Jess made a motion with her hand.

  “Just you.” Brion said.

  “Fuck off,” Jess responded without hesitation. “Dev stays.”

  They regarded each other in silence. No one moved. “You really want her to witness this?” Brion finally asked. “Could get ugly.”

  Dev cleared her throat. “I am a biological alternative who was born from an egg in space. After what I have seen this past half year, I do not think there is anything you could have me witness that would overly disturb me.” She paused. “Unless you intend to do incorrect things to Jess, in which case I will react as my programming allows and it could get discomfiting for everyone.”

  “Besides, for all you know I made her my heir,” Jess said mildly amused. “And you’ll have to deal with her owning Drake’s Bay if you splat me.” She watched the eyeballs widening. “She’s Interforce ops. Has a citizen cred.”

  There were now large clouds of “oh shit” floating over the group. Brion stepped back and swept his arm out in the direction of the family quarters. “Shall we?”

  They walked down the hallway past the room Jess had been born in and turned left down the slope past the kitchen and the family living space, all empty. At the bottom of the passage was a large door. Brion pushed it open and then walked in.

  Inside was the large space that the Bay councils had been held in forever. A large unevenly shaped table was in the middle, surrounded by chairs, some of which had been fixed, refixed, and patched a dozen times. A reproduction of the homestead’s crest was nailed on the wall, and all around the walls were plas cabinets full of records.

  Jess went to the head of the table and sat down in the largest seat. Dev settled next to her, and the rest spread out around the table. The four big Bay guards went to the corners, cradling their weapons, and Jess just smiled at them.

  “Okay. Let’s get this straight,” Jean spoke up.

  “Shut up,” Jess cut him off. “Let me get what I have to say said, then you all can talk.” She stood up and put her hands on the table. “First thing’s first. There’s five hundred thou cred transferring into Bay accounts from Interforce. Should be in tonight.”

  Dead silence. “W..what?” Brion finally said.

  “Compensation,” Jess said, “for damages and unlawful attack on a homestead in contraindication of official
orders.”

  More silence.

  “So whatever scam you all did with Quebec or with Dee is null,” Jess went on. “And it’s null anyway because I didn’t sign off on it.” She slowly scanned the table. “Because you can’t make the inconvenient fact that I am the Drake, go away.” She paused. “Where’s Jake?”

  “We killed him,” Mike said from down the table. “Processed him out the other day.”

  Jess nodded. “I figured. You waste Tayler, too?”

  “No,” Brion responded. “He’s a minor. You can’t proxy to him.”

  Jess sat down. “I wouldn’t anyway. He’s going to Interforce.” She sat and folded her hands on the table.

  “So who runs the place, Jess?” Brion asked. “We killed off everyone we thought you could put in your place. Fish or cut bait. You can’t be the Drake and be Interforce, and we’ve decided which way we want that to go.”

  Jess studied all of them. “You want to force me to stay here?” she asked after a long pause. “Is that what you’re saying?” Her voice lifted in disbelief.

  They nodded. “Good contracts at hand, Jess,” Brion said. “That’s why Jean and Dee are here. Not because we did a scam with them. They want to partner.”

  “But we want someone we can trust,” Dee said. “And that’s not some half assed cousin of yours who can’t spell his name.”

  Jean nodded. “I have seen the product. Without question, you will get top dollar and cheaper for us since we don’t have to buy from station. Win win.”

  Jess leaned back in her seat, hiked up one knee, and clasped her hands over it. “Interesting. I thought you were just going to try and kill me.” She sounded bemused. “Instead, you killed everyone else you thought I could get to stand in for me. Make me come back here. Flattering.” She paused. “I think.”

  “Interesting,” Dev remarked next to her.

  Mike nodded. “Jake was the only one blood close enough to do a handover to. Screw that.” He shrugged. “We want you, Drake. Real Drake. Drake both sides who took up with us against Interforce. Surprised they didn’t just kill ya. That’s how they covered it? Said it was non reg?”