I saw her head tip just slightly as she smiled, knowing that I was challenging her and finding it mildly amusing, like a spider challenging a boot. “I’ll consider it, Engineer.”
Her eyes widened a little and her gaze shifted to the door, telling me it was time for me to leave. Winn had her eyes closed, as if she was in pain.
I was already eating when Winona sat down across from me a few minutes later with an exasperated sigh.
“Oh, come on, Winn. Sometimes I just gotta poke the bear.”
“Really? Just because you’ve survived doing it all these years doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Marguerite is under tremendous pressure right now. Some of our team will be dead in a few days. Just how many will depend on her ability to make the right decisions.”
I nodded, took another bite, and said softly. “First name basis?”
“I’m helping her make those decisions.”
She didn’t sound happy about it. Her emotions were leaking again, and the little glimpses I was getting were fearful and full of self-doubt. There were little creases between her eyes, lines that would eventually become permanent if she stayed in this business and if she lived long enough. It made me want to take her and hold her close to me.
“I hope you’re making time for Kal in your schedule.”
Her eyes went soft at the mention of his name and some of the tension left her face. I wondered to myself, had I really been that bad with Sam? That just the mention of his name pushed all the worries out of me?
“Yes, Duse, you really were that bad, and you still are.”
I blinked at her, horrified. “Are you reading my thoughts too? Not just my emotions?”
“With you, there’s not much difference.”
“God, I miss him. I can still feel him though, and that means the Vengeur must be doing the same hops through the DSHs we are. Should that worry me as much as it does?”
She stirred her soup before answering, sniffing absently at the steam. “It shouldn’t be worrying you. But now it worries me from an operational security perspective. You’re not supposed to know anything about it at all.”
“Not helpful.”
“There’s an initial briefing for the teams tomorrow at 06:30. Be there.”
“I don’t think I was invited.”
“I’m sure that was just an oversight.” She shrugged and went back to her soup.
“She’s never going to like me.”
“No, probably not. That’s not part of her job. But she is starting to respect you. I think she’s past the point of seeing you as a weak Dulcinean stick girl. Just don’t…do anything crazy.”
I blinked at her, wide eyed.
“You know what I mean. Don’t have Storm play any of that weird music that you like during dinner or change the ambient lighting to purple, OK?”
“Both really good ideas, but OK. I need to think of something special to teach Storm for dinner tomorrow night in case the Captain calls my bluff.”
“Be careful, Duse, I don’t think she bluffs.”
“Good. Neither do I.”
“Yes, you do, you do it all the time. You’re just lucky that I’m the only one on board that knows how scared you are right now.”
“Hush, I’m thinking about food. Captain Rostron is from the Palma Federated States’ North Islands district, probably from Perouges based on her accent.”
“Hannah would be proud of you.”
“My best friend in seventh grade was from there, Calanthe. She gave up on me when I kept insisting that I could feel my parent’s emotions.” I sighed, remembering the fun we’d had one summer, learning to rock climb, swimming almost every day. “Where was I?”
“Perouges.”
“Right. She’ll want something simple, like a cassoulet. Mom used to make those a lot because they’re quick, easy, and taste even better as leftovers.”
“Do the one with the sausages all diced up. That one’s the best.”
I smiled at her, happy to see that the little lines between her eyes were gone. “You got it. I’ll start Storm working on it tomorrow, along with the chilaquiles.”
Kal finally joined us as we were finishing desert, looking flushed and smelling of hard exercise. Winn wrinkled her nose at him after they kissed.
“Sorry, Colin and I have been working simulations in the outer ring corridor. He was having too much fun for me to tell him it was time to knock off for the day.”
“Really?” I asked. “What sim were you using? My favorite is the Dulcinean Heritage Trail. I used to go camping along the real DHT every summer when I was little.”
“Um, well, we were using a mockup of Costrano’s Redoubt. He needs to learn the layout and it’s messy, so it was more like work than play. Not that Colin knows the difference. I think everything is play to him, even when someone’s shooting at us. Besides, he’s a space dog; he’s never seen grass or trees. I think it would just confuse him.”
“Oh.”
Winona gave my leg a quick squeeze under the table, trying to reassure me. I tried to move past the idea of a dog that had never seen grass and get my brain working again. She touched Kal’s face with her other hand, and he kissed it, losing himself in her eyes.
“How long have you and Colin been together?”
He smiled at me, suddenly remembering that I existed. “Oh, I gotta think. A year and a half now, I guess. I got him when he was just about four months old, after I lost Emma.”
I was having trouble moving past that one too. How could we allow joyful dogs like Colin to be killed? I forced myself to ask, “Emma was your dog before Colin?”
“Emma was the other handler I was working with. We were doing a sweep through an area that had already been cleared so she could give Colin an idea of what it was like. She triggered something that everyone else had missed and it sent shrapnel all through her legs. She bled out before we could get her back to the ship.” He looked away from me and back into Winona’s eyes. “It happens.”
“And…and you adopted Colin?” My voice was starting to crack, but I think only Winn noticed.
“Sure. It seemed like the right thing to do to honor Emma, and it’s like something of her still lives on in him.”
“Excuse me.” I stood, biting my lip so hard it was drawing blood. “Need to go talk to Storm.” Winn nodded, busy studying Kal’s face, eyes big.
I was proud of myself for making it back to my cabin before I threw up.
The ding of my display pad woke me the next morning at 03:00. Captain Rostron watched me drag myself out of my bunk and stumble to my desk to acknowledge her call. She was as sharp and rested as she had been when I’d last seen her on the bridge, and there was a confident, haughty glint in her eyes, as if she was stepping on a spider. I tried not to think about what I looked like.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please move all of the shuttles out of bay two. I’m going to use that space for this morning’s briefing.”
The screen blanked and I yawned, which turned into a shiver. The cabin was cold and I hadn’t grabbed my robe. I looked down at myself and sighed. “I guess I’m going to have to start wearing a t-shirt to bed. Good morning, Esprit Orageux. You heard our Captain?”
“I did. Would you like me to start prepping the shuttles for external stowage?”
“Yes, please. All six of them. Let me know if there are any issues and before you start launching. I’m going down to take a quick shower.”
“Not going back to bed? You need at least ninety minutes more sleep.”
I shook my head, stretching so hard I almost lost my balance. “I think I’m up for the day.”
It took over an hour to get the shuttles toggled down securely on the outside of Storm’s hull in the lazaret beneath her layers of Holloman armor. I went out to inspect them afterward, more because I’d never seen my namesake arm
or in the field than any concerns over the shuttles. Captain Rostron was waiting for me in the shuttle bay when the airlock cycled me back in.
“All tight?”
“Yes, ma’am. The armor above the shuttle bay doors has been reconstituted. Those printers are really fast.” The awe that had filled me watching them scuttling across the hull was still in my voice.
“Aren’t you the one who designed them?”
“I am, but I’d never seen them working operationally. Knowing the design and performance specs isn’t the same as actually being there when it happens.”
“True of most things.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I stood there, letting her stare at me while I had one hand inside the neck of my pressure suit to keep it from rubbing on my bare shoulders. They never fit me the way they’re supposed to. I needed extra padding.
After a few seconds of squinty-eyed inspection, Captain Rostron took a step closer to me and asked, “Why the hell are you here, Holloman? Do you know how out of place you are? Why aren’t you back in a lab somewhere coming up with your next great invention? And don’t tell me about being crimped; the time to make that complaint would have been when you were first brought on board two weeks ago before you took your oath of commission.”
I sighed, knowing she’d think I was crazy if I told her the truth. Talking about the Tarakana was never a good idea. “I think I’m supposed to be here. Nothing happens by accident.”
“A very fatalistic philosophy. Do you really believe it?”
“I have faith that God will use me here, even though I’m not where I want to be, if that’s what you mean.”
“You might be dead a few days from now. You think God will use that too?”
“I’m sure He would, but I don’t think I’m going to die. Not yet. That would be too easy.”
“Your friend has been telling me stories about you. She thinks that you’re tougher than I do, but she still worries excessively about you for some reason.”
I felt my eyes growing large.
“I don’t believe most of what she says if that makes you feel any better. But that scar on your shoulder looks real. I know the kind of mark a bullet makes.” She frowned, as if she was tasting something bitter. “I talked to Captain Bouvet on the Vengeur. You hold my ship together for me, Engineer, and we’ll swap medical officers at our next opportunity after Costrano. Would that make you want to be here a little more?”
“Sam.” I said his name aloud. I hadn’t wanted to, but the thought of being together on a ship where we could be together pushed everything else out of my head. I felt an answering touch from him, sleepy and amused. The feelings shattering my brain had woken him and he was curious about what was happening.
I refocused on the Captain. “Sam.” I said his name again, not able to say anything else.
She chuckled. It seemed to be painful. “I’ll take that as your agreement to our deal.”
I nodded, resisting the urge to wrap my arms around her.
“God, I regret it already. Get out of that suit and be back here by 06:00 to set up for the mission brief.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She turned to leave and I called after her, “Thank you, ma’am.” She didn’t answer or turn to acknowledge my thanks. I think in her world, ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ fell into the same category of things never said, and better never felt.
CHAPTER 7
COSTRANO’S REDOUBT
“Costrano’s Redoubt.” Captain Rostron turned all around, taking in the structures built into the stone walls and the recorded images of people moving around and through us. “Costrano wanted to enlarge it last year, and we managed to get one of our agents the contract to perform the geologic survey. A brave man. He succeeded in walking through a few of these areas last October before the enemy detected him. That was six months ago, so things may have changed.”
“Last October,” I whispered to Winona. “Isn’t that when my dad was off planet?”
“Hush,” she whispered back.
“Note that the average passage width is four meters, and there’s somewhere around fifty kilometers of passageways carved out of an asteroid with an average diameter of five klicks. And then there are larger rooms like this one.” The scene shifted and we were all standing in an open area fifty meters on a side. “Note the monitoring systems and gun ports that have been crudely added onto the corners of the structures. Not what the mining company that moved this rock into orbit above Kastanje originally had planned. The drones should have eliminated all of them by the time your assault teams get in there, but you’ll need to be careful.”
The scene shifted again and we were in a rock-walled hangar bay looking at a Fast Attack Craft about one hundred-fifty meters long by fifty across her beam. It was a tight fit in the bay, and I pointed out the gouges in her hull and the metallic streaks on the rock walls to Winona. I whispered in her ear, “Bet that was painful when it hit.”
“Scraping the rocks or what their Commander must’ve said to the pilot afterwards?”
I stifled a giggle, and Kal and Colin both raised an eyebrow at me. The identical look in their eyes made it hard not to giggle again. Captain Rostron squinted hard in my direction before continuing.
“Securing the FACs is your number two priority. The drones could destroy all twenty-three of them, but we’d rather they be captured for our own use. Destroy them only if you don’t think you can hold the Redoubt. Understood, Alaoui?”
“Understood.”
Marine Major Amina Alaoui didn’t look happy about the insinuation that her teams might fail, but I’d never seen her happy, so I wasn’t really sure what it would look like on her face. Major Alaoui commanded all three strike teams and the canine unit. To hear Kal tell it, she was the best tactical commander the Union had ever produced. She was also one of the people I’d walked past on my first day, one of the hardened Marines that had stared at me as if I was a weak, defective little freak. Kal admired her. Winona said she was OK, after having worked with her for the past ten days incorporating her requirements into the attack vectors. Watching her standing with the commanders of her teams, arrogant smile on her lips, looking confident and comfortable with what was about to happen, made me want to like her. No, that wasn’t exactly true. It made me want her to like me.
“Damn,” I whispered out loud, making Winn give my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Why can’t I just fit in here, Winn?”
“You do,” she whispered back without turning. “But you’re special.”
“Great. Weird Mala Dusa, that’s me.”
That got her to smile. “Hush, now. Listen.”
The scene changed again, and we were in one of the larger rooms with what looked like apartments framed out from the walls.
“Watch closely.” Captain Rostron stepped toward one of the buildings as a man somewhere in his thirties stepped through the door followed by two men in uniform. “Pause. This is Artem Costrano.” She put her hand through the image of his face, drawing chuckles from the teams. “He is your first priority. He designed the Redoubt and developed Kastanje’s defenses. He’s brilliant and unstable, with a reputation for personal violence against rivals. He never sleeps in the same apartment twice, or with the same person.”
“Capture or kill?” Major Alaoui asked.
The Captain shook her head and stared up at the ceiling and everyone laughed, as if it was a long running joke. “Do what you think is best, Major. Bring him on board as your personal pet if you like or–”
“Kill it is, then.”
“Continue playback, Storm.”
As Artem Costrano continued walking, two large dogs fell in behind him, mostly black with just the lower legs showing a little tan.
Kal protested before I could embarrass myself by screaming, There’s your problem. Kill the Tarakana, not the man.
“Storm, pause there.
Damn it, Captain, you didn’t say that he had dogs guarding him.”
“Is that going to be a problem, Kal?”
“No, ma’am. It just would have been nice to know, for training purposes.”
“Well, now you know. We’ve never seen him without the dogs, so factor it in.”
Kal turned to Winona. “Caucasian Ovcharkas. Damn. I’ve never seen any that big.”
Winn had a slight smile on her lips. I’d seen her do that before when she was scared all the way through. It was her ‘This is a good day to die. Follow me.’ smile. “Not dogs, Kal. Remember the Tarakana I told you about my first night here?”
“You said a lot of things that night. I’m not sure I believed that one.”
She glanced up at him, forehead wrinkling, hurt.
He shrugged. “Sorry. A super intelligent alien species living alongside us? It’s kind of hard to accept.”
She looked back at the Tarakana dogs. “Oh, you’ll believe me before this is over. If we live through it, I’ll accept your apology and give you every opportunity to make it up to me. Everything just changed.”
Her fear was like a sharp metallic taste on my tongue.
“Resume playback.”
We followed Artem Costrano a few steps, but then one of the Ovcharkas stopped and turned toward our point of view. The Captain continued her narration. “This is where it gets interesting. The playback is smoothed, but somehow one of the dogs realized that the man doing the geologic survey wasn’t what he seemed, and the rest of this was recorded at a dead run. Try to pay attention to the structures built into the walls as they pass. There are a lot of places for people to hide and don’t count on the drones being able to eliminate them all before you go in. Your number three priority will be to sweep the engineering spaces and labs for any intel. Grab what you can, but don’t take any chances. We’ll move the FACs out after you secure them and then blow the whole rock into dust.”
The passageways continued to fly past us; apartments, mess hall, and lots of people looking startled. I was paying attention to the people. They weren’t just military; there were families and children, some school age, and some much younger.
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