“Challenging?” Lachesis offered knowingly.
Clint nodded, relieved, and said to her, “You’d think having eight months to set it up would have been enough, but we keep hitting stumbling blocks. Your file is causing havoc because the systems expect a lot of historical data, but you don’t have any, and we’ve been trying to import all of your Ark file, except we haven’t been able to make that work right either, so I hate to say it… it could have just been a really bad glitch or typo. I mean, I guess you know all this already. You look like you know what happened.”
“I know what happened,” she said, dredging up a smile for him. Rumors of her getting flagged for euth, but it was because of a Tech typo? Best. News. In. A. Month. “These ships weren’t intended to house us permanently, just long enough, you know? I’ve stopped being surprised.”
Jeremy took the ball from Lachesis. “We’ll spot you and make sure you get a good workout. And I’ll tell Marcus and the others about your AGRS. They need to know, but it’ll spare you having to take another ride through the rumor mill.”
Lil cursed under her breath, which must have counted as an apology.
“Thanks,” Lachesis said.
Jeremy tossed the ball. “We’re going to play pool after this. You should come with.”
“I’m not allowed in the pool den,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Wait, are we talking about a legitimate pool den or a not-legitimate one?” She hadn’t come across a legitimate pool den. She hadn’t even thought that NightPiercer had any. Because it should be really obvious why she wasn’t allowed in the one down in long term storage.
“There’s a not-legitimate one?” Jeremy asked.
These Operations guys were squeaky clean. Lachesis tossed the ball back to Jeremy as hard as she could manage and tried her best to look innocent.
Jeremy, still skeptical, said, “Legit, I guess. Come with.”
She almost said yes, then remembered she was utterly dead broke because… another thing Operations had forgotten about. Or maybe it was Tech. The only thing of value she owned was her medications, and unless someone especially enjoyed having a perpetually dry mouth, they wouldn’t like her meds. Chances were a few hours playing pool wasn’t free. “I’d love to, but I’ve got a lot of studying to do. I don’t know anything about handling Telemetry instruments.”
“I want to know where they’ve been hiding a pool table,” Clint was telling Dietrich. “How do you hide a pool table?”
More like how did someone get senior enough to take Aptitude, and hear rumors out of Medical and Biome, but not hear rumors about the Engineering Gambling Den? She suppressed a laugh, and said, as innocently as she could manage, “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Turnabout
She studied the fresh batch of data Rainer had given her. Studying Telemetry instrument manuals? Not so much. Actual Telemetry data? Yes.
LightBearer’s course had stabilized, but the ship still appeared to be moving in the wrong direction. She worried a hangnail with her teeth.
“You’re here,” Rainer said as he came home, carrying some things in his satchel.
Normally he sounded more pleased to see her. Tsu had warned her to be discrete, well, she was discrete. She hadn’t announced to anyone where she was going, and nobody was going to miss her. As long as she wasn’t parading her furry ass through the market, everyone was happy to ignore her existence. “You don’t sound pleased.”
“I am always pleased to see you.”
He had the usual: dried fruits, algae flour, a few bottles of something that looked like homemade swill for his collection. He sounded distracted at best, and insincere at worst. She said, “I could be out playing pool with my Aptitude crewmates.”
No, she couldn’t, because she was broke, but not a chance she’d mention it. Her Aptitude crewmates might find out about a credit transfer. That wouldn’t be discrete.
Still distracted, Rainer said, “You worked your charms on them?”
“You and I do not have charms.” At best, hers was zero, and his was somewhere less than that.
“We are obnoxiously brilliant and capable. That’s our charm.”
So that’s how he justified his lone-wolf existence. She’d never had many friends, but she missed her little band of social misfit buddies. She’d always had someone to bunk with, work out with, go bowling with.
“I know I shouldn’t be here,” she said, “but I had to come see the latest LightBearer data. Have you managed to pull some strings and work your dark magic?”
“Nothing but Aptitude is a priority right now,” he said, scent clouding as he walked over to the couch.
“LightBearer’s descent into Jupiter gives no fucks about Aptitude.”
“I am working on it,” he growled.
She blinked. “It’s forty percent of civilization. Sorry to inconvenience a test that is for the next Generation you swear we shouldn’t breed at all.”
Rainer’s expression chilled. “The entire ship plans for almost a year to run an Aptitude. You’ve made it clear you want to take Aptitude—”
“You didn’t have a problem with it before,” she said, just as coldly. “If you’d had a problem with it, you shouldn’t have acted so damn happy.”
He breathed out, exasperated. “I am happy for you. My point is you want to take Aptitude.”
“That’s an exaggeration. More like Tsu has ordered me to want to take Aptitude.”
“Admit it, you like the idea of testing yourself against it. Don’t tell me you don’t.” He stared at her, his greenish-amber eyes hard. “Deep down, you want to pass it.”
“Deep down, I want a lot of things.” Like she wanted to believe Gaia was real, they’d get off this ship somehow, and that mates were real and Gaia had forgiven them. Or at least told them they could work on redemption. She also wanted him to prove to her, without question, he was enough.
Rainer worked his jaw, aggravated, “If I start insisting and demanding that people look at this Telemetry data that I have no legitimate reason to be examining in any great detail and historically I have given no fucks about LightBearer, Bennett and Keenan will pounce at the opportunity to ask questions, and I am not in Tsu’s good graces right now, so he’ll let them pick my bones.”
“What did you do to piss off Tsu?” She cocked her head to the side.
“Argued something I shouldn’t have argued, from a position of weakness, and knowing it was a futile argument to have at all. Considering I have not been on my best behavior since your arrival, it’s now my turn to find some fucks to give. I know you want an answer now, but you won’t like the price we’ll both pay.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“What’s forty percent of civilization worth?”
“If you make this demand, it will be the last demand I ever get to make on your behalf. Forever.”
“Exactly how angry is angry?”
Rainer moved his tablet to his lap and doodled an ornate little shape, weighing the political math of his Captain’s fury. “I would say my political capital with him right now is zero.”
“Flat zero, or metaphorically zero?”
Rainer grinned, humorlessly. “Absolute zero.”
“Absolute zero is only theoretically possible.”
Rainer’s grin spread, ghoulish. “And they say faster-than-light travel isn’t possible either, but on this ship, I’ve got some arguments to the contrary.”
“Crap,” she said, sinking into the chair, defeated.
He continued his sketch.
She hesitated a moment, then shifted her tablets to the table and moved herself to sit next to him so she could see what he was drawing: an ornate and antique-looking cluster of leaves and berries and flowers.
He stopped and turned his head to look at her.
“I just enjoy watching you draw,” she said awkwardly. She’d never watched an artist paint or draw or sculpt. His scent was… something li
ke nightmare, but not quite.
A long pause, then, “I should be working.”
Another very long pause.
“You should go,” he told her.
The shock of unexpected injury struck her, but she buried it down with all the other discomfort of recent weeks. His scent said more than his words did: you shouldn’t be here.
“I—” he started to say, then stopped.
“It’s fine. I understand,” she assured him, even though she didn’t.
Beware Small Details
The wardroom was more or less empty. She still felt strange about going alone, but she was obviously no longer near death and in need of in-quarter feeding. Her crewmates all had different shifts, and the only crewmembers she shared a messhall were Dietrich and Lil, and they didn’t share the same shifts with her.
For greenery, a light salad was placed in front of her.
She ate each bite, enjoying the fresh greens from sweeter, softer lettuces. Usually greens in the mess hall were arugula or kale. The more delicate leafy lettuces were impossible to grow or store in sufficient bulk to justify more than keeping crops for maintenance.
“Lachesis,” Commander Bennett said just as she was finished with the last bite of her salad.
“Commander.” She’d been avoiding him. Easy enough to do—once she’d been willing to sneak through Rainer’s sandbox and find a duty roster that included Bennett’s schedule. She’d also overheard from Petey that Bennett liked to rotate between all the non-officer gyms on the ship. A careful dance of usually being on the track or moving pathetic weights around when Bennett probably wouldn’t be at the gym had enabled her to avoid the First Officer.
He sat down in the other chair.
Lunch officially ruined.
The staff brought him a salad as well and set her sandwich before her.
“You looked lovely at the concert,” he said.
“The performance was wonderful,” she replied.
“Have you given some thought to what we discussed?”
Sure, she had given it thought and promptly discarded it into the hell no pile. She picked up her sandwich and took a bite. “I have.”
“Excellent.”
“But I’m eating right now, Commander.” She held up her munched-on wedge to illustrate her point. “Medical gets angry if I don’t eat properly.”
“You can’t talk and eat at the same time?”
“I’d lose my appetite.”
Bennett’s expression chilled. “So you’re refusing.”
As if her ignoring and avoiding him hadn’t been clue enough. “I am declining, yes.”
“I see.”
She took another bite of her sandwich. She expected at that point he’d take the hint, and his plate, and get away from her, but he didn’t, and instead he ate his meal in awkward multi-course silence, then followed her out when she left.
“You should reconsider, Lachesis,” he said, walking alongside her.
“I’m quite comfortable with my decision.”
He seized her wrist and yanked her to a stop.
“What are you doing?” She yanked, but he held her firm. “This is not how you tame a she-wolf.”
“Seems you enjoy making Rainer dance at the end of his leash. I know you spend your days in his quarters. I know he feeds you. You go with him to concerts, you eat in the wardroom, you wear the clothing he gives you, but you sleep in that bunk. What game are you playing with him?”
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Commander.”
“I expected you to be smarter. I told you: he’s a wolf who likes to win, nothing else. Put more thought into it,” Bennett lowered his voice, “and refuse me if you want, but I think I will put the idea in Keenan’s head anyway.”
“What makes you think we’ll ever get past Supervision if you old-Earth warlord this?” she growled back.
He smiled unpleasantly. “I think we won’t do Supervision. You’re a problem, and marrying me makes you not a problem. You’re young and fertile, and you’re going to end up married to someone on this ship. Keenan’s going to get her value out of you, and she was there last night too. You’re playing both sides, and you’ve already screwed her once. She doesn’t like the taste of crow. She’s not going to give you a chance to feed her a second helping.”
“I’m not a whore,” she hissed.
Bennett moved closer, yanked off his comm, and reached behind her ear to pull off hers. “Tell me what Rainer is doing. You know he’s dangerous. He’s told you his plan. He’s confided in you. Has he promised you are his one, true, Gaia-ordained mate?”
“Mates don’t exist,” she hissed. “And for all our sakes, I hope they never did!”
“I’m glad you’re the sane one, but he’s been accessing the archives. Those old dingy ones from when your species wrote everything down but hid it from humans. He’s been reading everything he can find about mates, repudiated loves, old advice and stories of courtship, love lost, bereft pairs, redemption.” The First Officer practically licked his lips and salivated at the delicious scandal.
Holy shit, what was Rainer doing?
Bennett’s lips curled. “He convinced all of us he didn’t want you, but now he’s desperate to win you back. You’re his possession. He’s either deluded or preparing to spin some lies to get you back.”
“You’re working pretty damn hard at charming me into your quarters.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough. So if you don’t know why he’s digging in the archives, perhaps you could help me solve another mystery.”
She glared at him. “Like why you’re wasting your time digging around in the Third Officer’s access logs? Because you’ve got some petty axe to grind with him.”
“Petty? He’s dangerous and you know it,” Bennett snarled, smelling of real anger. “As you wolves would say, I’m on his scent. Wasting my time digging in his access logs? I don’t think I’m wasting my time when I discover that for the past six weeks he has been logged into his sandbox from his quarters, drawing minor amounts of computer resources, and yet, he is physically down in Engineering. You are the one in his quarters during those times.”
“It’s his sandbox, ask him.”
“And he just happened to gain an interest in flying to LightBearer and just happened to spot the massive change in the ship’s position?”
“You haven’t flown a LightBearer shuttle route in almost a year. I’d say there’s probably a lot of mail piling up in his cargo bays,” she said, but her pulse increased. So Tsu knew about LightBearer’s change in position!
“Should I ask what you both are up to?”
“I’m not marrying you and that’s final. Next time I’m taking this to Tsu.”
“And tell him what? That I suggested you divorce Rainer and marry me?”
“I’m so glad you’re able to follow the thread of conversation.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not fraternization when you have no rank. If you make too much noise, you’ll end up the center of attention again. The ungrateful trouble-causer who cost a hive of bees, married the Third Officer, was indulged by the Captain, offered Operations and Command Aptitude while exploiting the Third Officer’s good will, and then had a tantrum when she got upgraded to the First Officer.”
He then whispered, “And that’s before I mention to anyone about how you’ve been accessing his sandbox. Tsk, tsk, Lachesis. Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time about accessing sensitive flight control systems?”
“Snake,” she hissed.
He grinned.
She ducked under his arm and walked away. “Fucking scavenger. Go earn your spouse the right way.”
He laughed. “Don’t be rash, wolf. You can’t live alone like this forever. Keenan’s going to get her value from you.”
She spun around and fumed, itching to bite his smirking face right off. “I have Tsu’s word.”
“His word that you can have the time you need to figure out if you want Rainer or a divor
ce. If he thinks you’re not going to choose, he’ll choose for you,” Bennett said, grin not faltering. “And I have already mentioned to him how very much I admire you.”
This… this… scavenger! She stormed away and flipped her middle finger over her shoulder.
1 * -1 = -1
She brushed her ear.
Fuck fuck fuck.
Bennett still had her comm.
She laid her head down on her mattress and suppressed a groan.
Fuck.
Thanks to studying for the Operations Entry Exam (and not having been born yesterday or being a general idiot) she knew losing a comm was a Very Bad Thing. Technically, they were never supposed to be off outside of one’s bunk or quarters.
She should file a Lost Comm report. With Operations.
And Bennett would give it back, reeking of oh-so-smug and smirking to match.
Maybe it would just… turn up. Magically. Somehow. Because he didn’t want to be in possession of it more than she wanted to be without it.
She forced herself to pull up the Lost Comm report.
It required a detailed explanation. Was she just supposed to say the XO was breathing on me and took it off me while proposing marriage and talking shit about the Third Officer?
Her heartbeat tripled, and her implant jabbed her.
Shit, she couldn’t end up in Medical either.
She flopped over face-first into her pillow.
No help for it: she’d have to discreetly go to Bennett. He’d probably make her beg and plead and lord it over her, and maybe even force her to file a Lost Comm report with some humiliating version of events.
Although maybe he wouldn’t, and he’d just tell her she owed him a favor, and fork the comm over.
She turned over and stared at the ceiling while the implant zapped her heart over and over again.
First thing in the morning, she was going to have to suck it up and go find the First Officer, and see what she could negotiate.
She waited in line for the shower, hair up, towel around her. It seemed prudent to let her bunkmates see her shower at least every few days, so they weren’t wondering how she wasn’t turning into a smelly brown-line fish.
Separated Starlight (NightPiercer Book 2) Page 12