Separated Starlight (NightPiercer Book 2)

by Merry Ravenell

  She rubbed the back of her neck. Still clammy. Still breathless and exhausted. Her fingertips were blue. Her toes were numb.

  The door slid open. Jevon came in. “You don’t look so well.”

  “I’m fine.” Her heart rate jumped and stumbled again.

  Jevon snapped his fingers and said, “Wrist. Let me take your pulse.”

  “I’m fine and you aren’t Medical.”

  “Just because I work in Bio doesn’t mean I don’t know how to take a pulse. Give it. You look like death. Your lips and fingertips are blue.”

  She surrendered her wrist. She waited until he released her, then he picked up her comm. “Put it on.”

  “Why?” she asked dourly.

  “You want to go to Medical or not?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Put it on so I can do some screening, or we’re going to Medical.”

  “You aren’t a doctor.”

  “Stop being stubborn. Dead bodies in bunks are inconvenient.”

  “I wish I could believe you’re saying that because you actually care.” She shoved her comm behind her ear.

  He pulled out his tablet and linked into her comm. She flinched as the nanodes re-aligned themselves. The comms could be cued to provide basic vitals. Apparently Jevon still had that kind of clearance.

  “You need to go to Medical.”

  “The hell I do.”

  “Yes, you do. That’s an order.”

  “Stop flexing on me.”

  “It’s an order, Lake. I’m not even sure you should be walking there with this rhythm, but I don’t want paperwork and neither do you.”

  He wasn’t joking. She wormed off her bed. She winced as pain shot up her legs, and she felt a little light-headed. Jevon took her elbow and guided her out of the bunk.

  “Tell me why,” she demanded, not nearly so light-headed that she couldn’t be pissy at him. “I’m having a shitty day and—”

  “Tell me about your heart condition.”

  “I don’t have a heart condition.”

  “Your blood pressure is too low, your heart rate is too high, and the electrical activity in your heart isn’t normal. That says heart condition. Didn’t you get a bill of health before getting shipped over here?”

  “Yes, but I have AGRS.”

  He gave her a look like she was crazy. “When did you get AGRS? How did you get it?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said angrily.

  “Is that what they’ve been medicating you for?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get AGRS?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Jevon helped her to Medical, which she hadn’t wanted to ever see again, and turned her over to a nurse, who promptly got her onto a bed and shoved some sensor stickies onto her.

  She sighed and stared at the ceiling, trying to ignore the sensation in her chest. A few nurses came and went without a word, and just drew a few vials of blood and pricked her finger. A nurse finally arrived carrying a bag of some kind of pinkish fluid and a large needle.

  “What’s that?” Lachesis recoiled instinctively. “If you’re going to euth me, I’d rather just have—”

  The nurse grabbed her wrist and yanked her arm straight. “Some electrolytes and such to bring your system back into balance. You’re a mess.”

  “Is that an official diagnosis?”

  The nurse gave her an annoyed look. “You haven’t been careful about your AGRS recovery. You’ve been doing too much.”

  “What’s too much when I’ve got to hike up and over fifteen decks for a meal?” she snapped, and she meant to her designated mess hall, not the officer’s deck. “Come to mention it, nobody actually told me what I should be doing or not doing to recover.”

  The nurse tempered her anger. “It takes a long time to recover completely, and you may not completely recover without a heart transplant. There are a lot of stress markers and hormones in your system right now. You had a high spike this afternoon. I won’t pry what it was, but that kind of stress if going to tax your cardiovascular and adrenal systems, which already suffered a lot of abuse. If you have another stress-spike, and it doesn’t resolve within twenty-five minutes, you need to come back.”

  “Why am I just now hearing about needing a heart transplant?” Bennett hadn’t been shitting her. The nurse didn’t answer, except to glance at a screen. “Does Rainer know I’m here?”

  “Standard procedure to inform a spouse when the other is being treated for a Medical urgency or emergency. He’s still your husband, even if you’re not living with him. We don’t have protocols for whatever your arrangement is.”

  Lachesis stared at the needle under her skin. It looked so strange and a little creepy. She wriggled her fingers, and the needle shifted. “How long do I have to stay in here?”

  “Until that bag is done and your heart’s electrical activity normalizes.” The nurse paid attention to the monitor. “Would you like a mild sedative to take the edge off your anxiety?”

  “NightPiercer wasting more medication on me. Should I be flattered? Or can I get some more bad news if you’ve got some left in my file I haven’t found out about yet?”

  The nurse sighed at her. “Your system is too strained for more meds. We have a few different teas we grow from specially bred strains of herbs. Mostly chamomile, valerian, mint. It’s almost as effective as a little alcohol.”

  “How close am I to getting out of here?”

  “You have time for a cup of tea. Possibly the whole pot.”

  “Bah,” she muttered. “Then I guess I’ll have that tea.”

  Underfoot

  Rainer showed up before the tea had a chance to kick in. Her heart rate tried to spike again as another round of endorphins and confusion dumped into her system.

  “I’m fine, go away,” she hissed at him as he strode over to her bed and before he could make a huge scene that disturbed the other patients.

  “You are not fine,” he said, tone hushed but firm. “Why are you in here?”

  “Just got too stressed and my heart didn’t want to play along.”

  “That much I know. Why?”

  “I don’t want to get upset over it again.”

  “Scavenging food, hiding, and now you’re in Medical?” He leaned closer, eyeing her with those strange eyes. “Is this something you need to report? You can’t report it to me, but I can get Tsu or Bennett down here easily enough.”

  She shook her head, her heart rate spiking again. “I’ll be fine. You can go.”

  He crossed his arms and took up a position leaning against the sliver of wall between her and the other bed. He didn’t even have his satchel or a tablet with him. He asked, “What?”

  “You don’t have your tablets or satchel with you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “What do you mean of course not?”

  He gave her a terse, annoyed look. “I dropped everything and came up here. The only reason it took me this long is I was deep in a tube and had to crawl out.”

  She didn’t want to be touched by it, but it hit a raw, sore spot inside her. “But I—”

  “You know how I feel,” he said. “Let the tea and solution do its work. We don’t need to argue about this.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me I’m probably going to need a heart transplant?” she asked. “Why am I the last one to find out?”

  His face drew into a small frown. “Medical tells everyone that has AGRS with cardiac involvement—which is almost everyone—that their heart may fail. When Forrest told me, I assumed it was just the usual warning.”

  “I hate how I found out,” she said, anguished. And she didn’t mean ending up in Medical, but there was no chance she was telling Rainer about Bennett. That’d only end with entrails being strewn across the bridge.

  He traced the line of her arm with his fingertips.

  She fell into silence, and Rainer said nothing. The nurses came by every twenty m
inutes to monitor her and offer her more tea. After several hours, she was free to go, but with strict orders to avoid stress for a few days.

  “And eat,” the nurse advised her sternly. “The medications affect appetite and are rough on your digestive tract, but you have to force yourself to eat. Your condition is back sliding. Leave your comm in. We need to monitor your heart the next few days. And no sex.”

  The nurse looked at Rainer as if his rampant sexual appetite were to blame for her condition.

  “Of course not,” Rainer said once it became obvious the nurse wanted him to acknowledge that statement.

  Rainer helped her off the bed and escorted her out of Medical. “Join me for dinner.”

  “I’m a mess. I came from the gym. I’m gross. Tell me I don’t smell.” Because she could smell herself.

  “You are mildly metallic-smelling,” he agreed. “Come shower and we can go.”

  She shook her head.

  “Good Gaia,” he hissed, “you stubborn she-wolf. Did you not just spend six hours in Medical getting more medication dumped into you, and you want to go take a shower, go to bed cold, and not eat? Did they not just tell you to eat and you haven’t been eating? I am sick of arguing with you about this and doing very basic math for you!”

  “I don’t have any clothes in your quarters.”

  “You think that’s not a problem I can solve? Quit making excuses.”

  Bennett didn’t get to think she was scared of him. With her luck, she’d bump into the First Officer up on the officer’s deck. “I can’t. Please don’t ask me to explain.”

  “You need to eat something, and you shouldn’t be alone.”

  “I’m not alone. I have three bunkmates.”

  “Because bunkmates are excellent caregivers.”

  “Well, mine apparently don’t like random dead bodies, so they’ll keep an eye on me.”

  “Come back for a few nights. I’ll sleep on the floor next to you. Or in the other room. Or in my office in Engineering.”

  “No.” The word was hard to say. “I can’t. I can’t let the person who upset me think they won, and I ran right back to you.”

  “Is that what caused this? Someone bullied you about us?” Rainer demanded in a low tone.

  “Something like that. If I don’t go back to my bunk, they’ll think I ran right to you.”

  “Do you really care what this person thinks of us? Because I don’t. If they upset you badly enough to put you in Medical, you should go to a senior officer. You have been studying for Operations Entry. You know how protocol works.”

  “Yes, I know how it works, you patronizing slug,” she hissed. The only officer who would do anything about this was her husband, and he’d end up in the brig the rest of his life, and she’d still end up married to Bennett. “And yes, I do care what that particular person thinks.”

  “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

  She yanked away from him, lost her balance, and snarled as he caught her before she fell on her ass.

  “Fine. You win. I’ll take you back to your deck so you’ll stop fighting with me. You can find your own way back to your bunk.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she muttered.

  “But tomorrow you come to our quarters—”

  “Your quarters.”

  “Our quarters.”

  She fumed. “I’ve been eating what you’ve left.”

  “Good. And you take a proper hot shower, and properly dry yourself. If you’ve got the standard three minute drying allotment—”

  “I do.”

  “Then you’re leaving the showers wet with all that hair. No wonder you’re wasting into nothing. Or do you not remember cold and hungry forces bodies to work harder to stay alive?”

  “I can’t have it both ways!”

  “You didn’t get AGRS on your own, so you don’t recover on your own. Fuck Bennett for not allocating more resources to you.”

  No, she’d rather not associate fuck and Bennett in the same sentence. “I’m no one to this ship without you and I’m fine with being treated that way. The medication is bad enough.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, you stubborn feral,” he snarled.

  She growled back.

  “Ever hear that old human saying Contritionem praecedit superbia et ante ruinam exaltatur spiritus?”

  “Can’t say I know that one.”

  “It’s Latin.”

  Shit. What had Bennett said about Rainer and Latin? She hid her nervousness by saying, “That language was dead two thousand years before the planet.”

  “Let me translate: hubris is a quick way to ruin a worthy life.”

  “And you wouldn’t know anything about hubris,” she whispered, suddenly raw with emotion.

  “It’s your den, Lachesis. It’s my duty to keep it for you. It’s your den until you say otherwise, and I am yours until you say otherwise, and even then I will still be yours, even if you won’t be mine.”

  She crawled out of her bunk, still a little weak and shaky, and incredibly unwashed, and she needed food. She still had on her gym clothes from the day before. Those gross proteins her heart was leeching, and those solutions that had been poured into her body, had resulted in a weird smell.

  “You reek,” Jevon told her.

  “I know, I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing her stank shirt. “Missed my shower window coming in from Medical.”

  “You get a clean bill of health?” Jevon asked.

  “I wish,” she said, unsure if Jevon was asking because he cared or because he wanted to know if he’d wake up with a dead body above him. “Thank you for yesterday. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “No shit.”

  She gathered up her tablets.

  “Didn’t mean to snap,” Jevon said, a bit awkwardly. “There’s a reason I moved to Bio. I’m better with tubes and petri dishes.”

  “Don’t worry, I understand. I’ve always been better with livestock than people.” She sorted her tablets, gizmo, and a change of clothes, tucked all of it under her arm and didn’t bother to put on shoes.

  Outside the door, Xav waited. She sighed at Rainer’s minion. “What are you doing here, Xav?”

  He brightened a bit. “You remember my name?”

  “You threatened to throw me out of the bay by my hair. Of course I remember who you are.”

  “I’m just making sure you get where you’re going,” he said quickly.

  “Are you sure it’s not because someone told you to spy on me?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t say spy.”

  She hadn’t not negotiated an escort with Rainer, and she felt… not good. Fragile. Getting up to the officer’s level sounded like a really long hike that morning.

  Even getting as far as the lift made her feel a bit faint.

  “Are you going to make it?” Xav asked when she stopped to rest halfway there, her heart rate too shallow and her fingers going numb.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, eyes closed. “I have AGRS. It’s not contagious.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t call me ma’am. Your rank is higher than mine. As in, you have one.”

  Xav fidgeted nervously while she caught her breath. Then she extended a hand to him. He grasped it and hauled her to her feet, and they resumed their slow march towards Rainer’s quarters.

  She pressed her palm into the panel. “Thanks, Xav. Sorry Rainer roped you into this.”

  He craned his neck for a peek into the quarters beyond her. She lingered an extra second to give him a look. From there he could see the moon painting hanging over the couch.

  The quarters smelled of food, and in the kitchen was a tray that had been sent down from the wardroom.

  [Rainer] >> Eat all of it. That’s the deal.

  She grumbled to herself. Yes, yes, nag, nag, nag.

  [Rainer] >> And a proper shower, but if I see that water running longer than fifteen minutes I’m going to think you’ve fainted and come looking for you.

&
nbsp; Lachesis [Rainer] >> no

  [Rainer] >> I don’t suggest you continue with the insubordination.

  He was going to pull rank on her?

  Lachesis [Rainer] >> Don’t make me laugh. I get dizzy.

  [Rainer] >> Now it’s a ten minute shower.

  She decided to cut her losses, or else he’d probably follow through on his threat, and the last thing she wanted was more public drama. A couple of turns in the brig was enough for her.

  Lights Falling

  [Rainer] >> I left something for you on the table.

  She picked up the blue datachip, then slid it into the slot on her tablet.

  She tore herself away from the fresh new data to go find food. She hadn’t seen Rainer since Medical the week before, and her contact had been limited to him asking her to eat with him once a day. She also hadn’t seen Bennett, but it’d been easy to avoid him: Medical had decided she was too immunocompromised and barred her from the gym and public spaces until her counts normalized. Because not working out was definitely going to help cure her AGRS.

  Fucking AGRS.

  She hadn’t finished her analysis of the historical data, but perhaps something would shake loose in the new data. If not, they’d be forced to admit they were down to three choices: cruise by Earth at the cost of hull stress and fuel to get a look, assume the readings were correct and look for a new planet, or just continue to wait.

  Rainer was probably not wrong about the ship’s life expectancy, making option three the easiest and worst option.

  Nestled among the vast array of Jovian and solar data were LightBearer’s coordinates. NightPiercer only monitored LightBearer enough to know where the other ship was, so there wasn’t a complete set of parameters, but the numbers she did have didn’t look right at all.

  She extracted all the fresh data, rounded up the historical data and her own Ark data, and spent the rest of the afternoon setting up some crude simulations.

  Rainer came back.

  “Lachesis,” he said, his voice ticking off each syllable of her name. “Working late?”

  “I think I found something in the Telemetry data.”

  That got his attention instantly. “What is it?”