Damage Control (Valiant Knox)

by Jess Anastasi

  “So how do we find one specific transit car?” he asked as she stopped in front of him.

  “Well, for a start, we’re better off not doing it here where anyone can see us. I think we should backtrack. If we head down to the utility level where the shooter got off, I can start there.”

  He pressed the button for the transit and the door opened right away.

  “By the way,” he said as they stepped on to the car and he put in the lower utility level as the destination. “If anyone asks, I kept you in the ready room by yourself to complete a report on survival skills as punishment for your lack of attention while I went and had lunch. We didn’t spend more than two minutes together.”

  “Got it.” She moved to the rear of the transit and leaned against the back wall. It would take a few minutes to get to the bottom of the ship.

  Leigh came over and leaned next to her, kicking one boot over the other in a pose that was about as relaxed as she’d ever seen him.

  “So aeronautical engineering, huh? What’s the lure?” His shoulder brushed hers as he glanced down at her.

  “I like knowing how things work, down to the last detail. I like to take them apart and put them back together. I love the idea of finding new ways to make things work better. What about you? What’s the lure of being a fighter pilot? It’s pretty dangerous. Besides being on the front lines, the fighter squadrons have the highest mortality rate.”

  He shifted his gaze to focus on the transit doors. “I wasn’t meant to be a fighter pilot, according to the computer psyche-eval, anyway. It pegged me for a leadership track, which would have put me behind a desk for most of my career. Maybe I could have done some good in that sort of role. But I wanted to wake up every day knowing I was making a difference right in that moment by simply being where I was, not pushing papers and playing politics.”

  She studied his profile, surprised at this revelation. He was such a great fighter pilot, had literally become a legend of the UEF, she couldn’t believe he’d ever been assigned to anything else.

  “So how did you end up on the Knox? I didn’t think there was any way to circumvent the computer eval.”

  “So few people are singled out as leaders at such a young age, it doesn’t come without its perks. I told them I’d happily take a brass role, but I wanted actual experience behind me, not just what I gleaned from reading reports. They were more than happy to put me anywhere I wanted to go, and joining the FP squadron on the Knox seemed like the hardest and fastest way I was going to learn the real cost of this war.”

  If she hadn’t been impressed with him before now, that little revelation would have sealed the deal. He could have gone off to a UEF ivory-tower office somewhere far from the front lines, had a cushy future of money, privilege, and women, yet instead he’d chosen to put his life on the line. Not just once, but day after day.

  “No wonder everyone around here thinks you’re such a hero.”

  He finally looked back at her, shadows in his eyes. “No one except Commander Yang knows where the computer eval assigned me. And I’m no hero. If you knew how many good men had died on my watch—” He released a harsh breath, shaking his head. “I’m not a hero, Mia. Hell, if it was humanly possible to do any more I would, because every single one of those pilots I lost burned a place into my soul.”

  He pressed a hand against his mouth as if to stop himself from saying anything else as he avoided her gaze.

  Her heart ached for him, for the things he clearly struggled with but hid from the world. Why had he revealed this to her, especially if Commander Yang was the only other person who knew about his true posting? But she pushed the questions aside and shifted to face him, her heart skipping a beat when she set her hand on his shoulder.

  “You didn’t get those men killed, Leigh; the war did. And maybe if you weren’t the CAFF, the number of people dead would be twice as many. I’m sure you’ve saved far more.”

  His chest expanded as he took in a deep breath. “You know, I’m not sure if I can be friends with someone who is so blatantly optimistic and sensible. It’s kind of scary.”

  “Friends? Is that what this is? See, I thought it was some weird situation where my CO was blackmailing me into doing all sorts of dreadful things.” Her hand tightened a little on his shoulder. It was the only way she could stop herself from sliding it up to his neck, to getting closer to him and repeating the same mistake she’d made last night. Apparently the temptation of him when they were alone really damaged her common sense.

  He braced one of his hands on the wall just above her head and leaned the slightest bit closer to her. “So you’re innocent in all this? Is that what you’ll tell them if we get caught?”

  “Yeah, I’m totally going to throw you in front of the ship to save myself.” She let herself slip just a little closer, the warmth of his body and light woodsy scent of him rippling through her in tingling waves.

  “Well, then, I’m glad we know where we stand with each other,” he murmured. He tilted his head, the movement nearly indiscernible; she would have missed it if she hadn’t been watching him so closely. His gesture promised what she’d been yearning for and her breath caught, the buzz within her intensifying in anticipation of his lips touching hers.

  A chime sounded above them and Leigh glanced away as the transit doors opened. He cleared his throat and shifted back from her, leaving a swirl of cool air where his body had been.

  The deflating disappointment was almost enough to make her groan. Instead, she tightened her grip on the datapad and reminded herself why she and Leigh were alone in the first place. And it certainly wasn’t to have some heart-to-heart or any other kinds of personal interactions.

  “Come on. Let’s see what we can find,” he said as he headed out of the transit.

  She nodded, since her vocal chords had apparently forgotten how to work, and followed him out into the passageway.

  As expected, the lighting was set down low to auxiliary only, while a quick scan on the datapad revealed there wasn’t a single other soul on this level.

  “Okay, we’re all alone down here, so we don’t need to worry about bumping into anyone.” Turning to the screen inset in the bulkhead next to the transit doors, she set about linking into the system.

  “We might not need to worry about bumping into anyone, but what about the security feeds?” Leigh asked from right behind her, the sound of his voice so close, startling her, since she’d been focused on getting the datapad to connect with the transit station.

  “I put the feed for the utility level on a loop. If anyone checks, it’ll show the same empty corridor from ten minutes ago. I also used a similar transit ID scramble like the traitor did to cover any evidence that we even came down here.”

  “Smart,” he murmured, which sent a small swell of warmth through her. Clearly, she enjoyed his approval more than she probably had any right to. Giving herself a mental slap and a stern reminder on why she was here, she returned her concentration to the datapad, taking a few long minutes to slip seamlessly into the system, connecting with this transit-porter so that no one in the command center would pick up the activity.

  Leigh moved from behind her to lean against the bulkhead, arms crossed but appearing alert, even though she’d told him there was no one else down here. Maybe that was part of what made him so good at what he did—he was always ready for action, no matter the circumstances.

  It didn’t take long to run a diagnostic. The tampering definitely hadn’t been done from out here.

  “This is a dead end,” she said, not quite able to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “It was probably always a long shot.” Leigh didn’t sound too worried about the fact that she hadn’t found anything. “Did you still want to find the transit car the shooter got onto?”

  “Already on it.” While she’d been checking the station, she’d also called down the exact transit car the shooter had used to escape.

  After another few silent moments, the t
ransit chimed and the doors opened, revealing a car that looked like every single other transit operating on the Knox. She switched the datapad connection over to the screen inside and stepped in, Leigh following behind her. As the doors closed, she ran a quick override command so that the car couldn’t go anywhere while she ran the checks.

  “Is this going to take long?” Leigh asked, picking a new wall to lean against. “We’ve got to get back before the next session starts, and I heard they were serving burgers at messdeck today.”

  “Depends on if I find anything,” she returned distractedly. Except her stomach pinched at the thought of a burger. Damn, she hadn’t been hungry until he’d mentioned food.

  A slight anomaly popped out at her. If a transit failed to respond to a call-up, another one quickly took its place. But this packet of data was too big for a simple routine glitch.

  “I think I found something.” She tried to keep the excitement out of her voice since this could still turn out to be nothing. But the fact that she might have a clue was just too damn exhilarating.

  “What is it?” Leigh shifted closer, his chest brushing her shoulder as he leaned in to look down at the datapad. “All I see is a bunch of numbers and letters.”

  The dismay in his voice would have been funny if she hadn’t been so hooked into unraveling this mystery.

  “It’s system coding. If you know how to read it, this can tell you all sorts of things about how the Knox is running.”

  “I’ll take your word on it,” he returned dryly, shifting back again.

  She didn’t reply as she isolated the packet of data and begin extrapolating the information. However, the screen flickered, the various tabs scrambling together.

  “Uh-oh.” The transit car shifted up with a sudden jolt and she threw a hand out to keep her balance.

  “And I’m assuming uh-oh means—”

  The lights cut out, the transit grinding to a halt and powering down with a lowering hum. The blue-white glow of the datapad screen didn’t go very far in the pitch-blackness, and she glanced up at Leigh.

  “That’s what uh-oh means.”

  His expression was exasperated as he glanced around the darkened space, not looking the least bit worried about the fact they were trapped in a powered-off transit car and nobody knew they were down here.

  “Crap,” she muttered, stepping over to the screen next to the doors. She pressed the emergency call icon on the otherwise blank screen but, of course, nothing happened.

  Leigh moved over next to her. “How long will it take you to get this transit back online? We’ve only got forty minutes until the next session starts.”

  She glanced down at the datapad in her hand. “I don’t know if I can, not from in here any way.”

  “Okay, so we’ll put a call out for someone to come and get us.” He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out his comm.

  “That won’t work.”

  “Why not?” He tapped at the screen, adding an extra glow to the darkness.

  “Because comm and datapad signals are usually routed through the transit screen during a trip. There’s no signal getting in here.” Somehow, she had to find a way to reboot the system, which was next to impossible with the transit car powered off and no access to the outside.

  He frowned, beginning to look a little unimpressed. “Then what usually happens when people get stuck in a transit car? Everyone knows it happens every now and then.”

  Frustration and apprehension had started chipping away at her calm, making it harder to keep her thoughts straight, to find an answer to this problem.

  “Usually people get stuck from anomalies or malfunctions that stall the system. The transit cars never power down like this. Plus an alert will be sent to the central maintenance station.”

  Leigh slipped his comm away again. “So someone will know the transit car is stuck. Can we get out before they send a team down to check it out?”

  She lowered the datapad and spun to face him. “Weren’t you listening? I said I don’t know if I can get us out at all, let alone before the maintenance crew turns up.”

  Leigh reached up and set his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t freak out, Mia. Just stay calm, we’ll work something out.”

  “I’m not freaking out.” Though, really, she kind of was considering that her screwing around with the system might have got them trapped in here indefinitely. So she forced a slow breath to fill her lungs. “Sorry. It’s just dark in here and with the power off, I’m not sure if we’re getting a fresh oxygen supply. Plus if a team of maintenance officers find us in here, how are we going to explain that?”

  Leigh didn’t look the least bit ruffled, either about their possible lack of air or them getting caught. “We’ll just tell them we were heading from squad level down to messdeck when the transit malfunctioned and we didn’t even know we’d ended up down in the utility levels.”

  Some of the tension leeched out of her at his totally logical reasoning. “Oh, that makes sense.”

  “Yeah, it does. Now, before you do anything else, how about you work out whether or not we’re going to be able to keep breathing?”

  She nodded, lowering her head to turn her attention back to the datapad. He squeezed her shoulders reassuringly, then let his hands slip down her arms as he stepped back.

  Putting all other thoughts out of her mind, she tried to revive the connection with the transit car screen, not aware of time passing. Except after a little while, her legs started aching from standing in the same spot. Glancing up, she found Leigh had sat down on the floor, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one boot kicked over the other and hands clasped over his stomach.

  With a sigh, she joined him on the floor, crossing her legs and setting the datapad on her knee while she stretched her fingers.

  “How is it looking?”

  She picked up the datapad again, checking the progress of the latest connection route she’d run. “Ask me something else.”

  “Will you have us out of here in the next ten minutes before the afternoon session starts?”

  She sent him an annoyed look. “That’s not helpful.”

  “Sorry.” The expression on his face didn’t appear at all repentant, despite his apology.

  Above them, the lights came on to half strength, while a whoosh of fresh air cycled down.

  Leigh straightened from where he’d been slouched against the bulkhead. “Have you done it?”

  She shook her head, chewing on her thumbnail as she started a secondary program. “No, I got basic power up, but the main controls are still offline.”

  “You’ll figure it out, Mia.” The quiet confidence in his words had the opposite effect from what he’d probably intended, bringing the panic up again.

  “But what if I can’t? What if we’re stuck here for hours—”

  He reached up and cupped a hand over her collarbone, at the base of her neck, effectively cutting off the trepidation spinning through her.

  “If you can’t get us out, it doesn’t matter. Eventually the maintenance crew will find us, especially once the next session starts and people notice we’re missing. And before you can start worrying about it again, no one will have any reason to question us when we tell them we got on at squad level and the transit car malfunctioned.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words just kind of blurted out, even though she had no idea what she was apologizing for.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about, except maybe my empty stomach.” He sent her a half grin, letting her know he wasn’t really put out by this situation. Amazing. Even in a situation like this, one that most people would be angry, frustrated, or anxious about, he was as calm as ever. It forced her to reassess her own nerves and keep her composure. “Is there anything else you can try?”

  “I am running another diagnostic program that will hopefully restore the full connection. But it could take a few minutes, or it could take an hour.”

  “Since you got half the lights back on and
the airflow going again, we’re not in any immediate danger. So why don’t you put the datapad down and take a quick break? Maybe the answer will come to you if you’re not stressing so much.”

  With a sigh, she set the datapad down on the floor, despite her brain telling her she had to keep working the problem until she found a solution. She leaned back against the wall and Leigh shifted to sit next to her, their shoulders not quite touching.

  “There. Is that better?”

  “No,” she replied grumpily, but then immediately realized how ridiculous that sounded. She glanced up at Leigh to see an amused glint in his eyes and couldn’t help breaking into a laugh, relieving some of the tension within her. “Clearly I’m not the best person to be stuck in a transit with.”

  “Truthfully, I could think of worse people to be stuck in here with.”

  Maybe his statement had meant to be flippant, but somehow it ended up creating a different sort of tension in the air between them. Just the same way things had gone before she’d given into the stupid impulse to kiss him yesterday afternoon.

  Like then, all rational thought was quickly evaporating from her mind as she stared up at him, tempting her toward things she shouldn’t want. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t slip up like that again. But sitting here, closed in the transit, the lighting dim above them, no one aware they were down here together, it became harder by the second to stick to her resolve to stay detached from him.

  Though she’d mostly put the kiss out of her thoughts straight after it had happened and had kept herself busy since, now it was all she could think of. And she couldn’t see him as her CO anymore, couldn’t see a man who should be forbidden to her. All she could see was his gray-blue eyes, lit with an intensity that sent an answering warmth swelling within her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Leigh forced a slow breath on himself, hanging onto the threads of his tenuous control with every last shred of determination he possessed. Maybe he should reassess his last statement—Mia was the worst possible person he could have gotten trapped in a transit with. Especially considering the way she was looking at him right now, a definite gleam of desire mixed with a hint of curiosity, like maybe she was wondering exactly what it would be like if they shared more than just a brief kiss.