Separated Starlight (NightPiercer Book 2)

by Merry Ravenell

  She pulled her shoulders back and said nothing.

  Tsu nodded and gestured for them to sit. Someone brought him a small tray. On it were two small, gleaming pins of gold. “We have two that passed this year.”

  More mumbles and shuffles. Two was twice the normal pass rate.

  Tsu picked up one of the pins. “Lieutenant Jeremy.”

  Lachesis gasped and looked at Jeremy down the line, and her hands clasped together, then everyone else was clapping.

  Jeremy limped up onto the stage, leaning on a cane, his lower leg in a cast, and presented himself to Tsu.

  “Your quick-thinking and diplomatic behavior was a calming influence,” Tsu told him as he pinned the gold onto the man’s chest. “You did not lose composure, supported your crew and commanding officer, and did not waste precious time arguing once the crew had made its choice—rightly or wrongly—which course of power to follow. You showed compassion and courage, endured serious injury, and both followed and gave orders as appropriate. We agree, unanimously, that you passed.”

  Jeremy’s family jumped up and down in the back, then pushed through the crowd, invited up on stage to shake Tsu’s hand, and share in the moment. The crowd clapped and cheered.

  Belle nudged her. “Not a complete failure. At least Jeremy got it. Fuck Marcus.”

  “Don’t say that,” Lachesis whispered.

  “I’m not sorry,” Belle hissed back. “They can put that pin on Marcus if they want, but they’re just protecting the chain of command.”

  “I’m so sorry about Clint,” Lachesis said. “I know he was your best friend.”

  “He’d be happy to know two of us passed,” Belle whispered.

  Tsu waited until Jeremy was back in line before picking up the next pin. The crowd quieted. Tsu held up the pin, and said, “We were certain, as we watched, that we would lose everyone. Once the moonlet struck the ship, we considered the scenario unwinnable.

  “It was only through the most extraordinary courage that anyone survived. The courage to do what had to be done, to swallow pride and selfishness, to put the ship’s survival before anything, to call on the courage of everyone around them, and to make those who serve with them better and braver even in the darkest moments any crew will ever face. We saw what we, as a civilization, are capable of when faced with the most desperate of challenges and most overwhelming of odds.

  “The officers would like to commend everyone, save one, for their extraordinary performances. While we have only passed two of you, all, save that one, of you showed courage, selflessness, excellent judgement, and vast ability.”

  Save one. Everyone looked at her.

  “Lachesis.”

  Rainer was standing now too, so quickly the hems of his dress coat swirled around his calves. A few other members of the audience had gotten to their feet.

  “What?” Lachesis asked Belle.

  Belle had her hands over her mouth.

  Tsu pointed at her with his other hand. “Lachesis. Our vote was swift, unanimous, and not only have you become one of the rare few that passed Aptitude, you have joined the elite group that has passed with honors. Your resolve, courage, and sheer ability salvaged an unwinnable, total-loss-of-life scenario into seven exiting the box alive, and six still alive today. We consider ourselves honored to have witnessed such an exemplary display of what every command officer should be.”

  “What?!” Marcus exclaimed.

  “Honors?!” Dietrich jumped up. Even Jeremy crawled to his feet.

  “She mutinied!” Malcom shouted.

  “Sit,” Bennett’s growl cut through the churn of noise. He gestured with a flat slice of his gloved palm.

  Stunned, she presented herself to Tsu. Tsu pinned the small gold medallion over her breast. There wasn’t much applause—just a dry round that stopped when it didn’t catch on.

  Tsu folded his hands once again. “My personal compliments on a most extraordinary achievement.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she rasped.

  Marcus’ bootfalls echoed on the floor as he stormed out.

  She took in the total silence, then looked at the officers. Only Rainer stood. The others remained seated, and their expressions were impossible to read.

  Tsu offered her nothing else.

  She turned back to Tsu. “I have no friends or family to celebrate with. May I be dismissed so others may start the festivities?”

  Tsu nodded.

  Without another word she turned, stepped down the steps, and walked through the ranks out of the square, her red hair swirling behind her.

  Rainer walked after her.

  A Different Kind of Rabbit

  She yanked the collar of her uniform free so she could breathe.

  “Lachesis.” Rainer’s voice carried with the sound of his dress boots clicking on the polished floor.

  Clint was dead. If she’d acted sooner, he might still be alive. Jeremy was hurt and would never recover completely. It didn’t matter how much praise the officers heaped on her. NightPiercer couldn’t unsee what had happened in that box.

  “Wait,” he said, catching up to her. He tried to circle her waist with his arm, she ducked away.

  “How did I pass?” she demanded angrily. “How!”

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “How did I pass? I know you recused yourself, but you’ve sat at that table. How did I pass?”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “No one cheered. They all know I’m a fraud.”

  “You are not a fraud.”

  She threw up her hands and walked with him back to their quarters. Rainer poured her a drink while she sat on the couch, foot on the table, staring at nothing.

  “Here.” He offered her some watered-down swill. He sat down next to her, put the bottle into the cushions between them, and sighed as well.

  She sipped her swill. “How did I pass? I mutinied. I did exactly what everyone is so fucking scared werewolves will do. I didn’t like getting bossed around. I revolted. You knew it. You designed the test to push me to show my fangs!”

  “Yes, I did,” Rainer said. “And from where I was sitting, it looked like you decided that a moonlet hitting the ship was where a line needed to be drawn.”

  “And how did I resolve it? With my claws. Almost. If I could have shifted, I would have. Everyone saw me do exactly what they’re afraid werewolves will do. This ship will never accept me. Never. I wish Tsu had just let me fail.”

  “Tsu only had one vote.”

  “Even my own crew didn’t cheer for me.”

  Rainer hooked the toe of one boot on the heel of the other and pushed, dislodging the leather. “I know that silence too.”

  She watched as he pulled off his boots. “Not even your parents clapped?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t even know if Ark awards honors. I’ve never heard about it. They didn’t broadcast the feed, so no idea what happened in the box. How hard is it to get honors here?”

  “Almost impossible, and everyone voted to grant it to you. Notice your pin isn’t like Jeremy’s.” He nodded to the gold on her chest. In the center was a ruby.

  Rainer clinked his glass against hers before taking another drink. “I had a reputation going into the test. I confirmed my reputation. Things have never been the same, including between my parents and I.”

  “But you spoke to your mother about me,” she said, not understanding.

  “We don’t not speak. We aren’t hostile. We lead different lives.” Rainer’s expression and tone remained neutral, but his scent was grim and sad. “It’s difficult to explain.”

  “Try.”

  “I passed the same way you did. Mutiny.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “You did?”

  Rainer stretched his spine and settled himself against the couch. “The test is designed to be like a wood ladder. It’s designed to prey on complacency and assumptions. Make a mistake, the rung breaks. Break too many rungs, the l
adder is useless. The test is very carefully designed that there is not one single point of failure. It punishes you for cumulative mistakes.”

  She unpinned her pin and set it on the coffee table.

  He continued his explanation. “Aptitude’s goal isn’t just to test if each person can manage their own internal ladders. Fear and panic are contagious. It becomes like dominos. Officers can’t break, they have to be able to deal with people who have broken, and the very best officers—the ones who earn honors—are the ones who become the ladder. That is what Aptitude is designed to test.”

  She took another sip, her mouth still painfully dry.

  He shifted one arm around her, fingers playing with the ends of her hair. “Six of us in an Engineering scenario. Things had gone completely to shit. One dead, one dying. Core in overload, the box was an oven, radiation leaks, impossible to breathe. Our Lead was fixated on averting disaster, but it was too late. We needed to mitigate. He kept giving orders that pushed us deeper.”

  “So what did you do?” she asked softly.

  Rainer took a moment to reply. “I told him he was relieved of command. He rejected it. I told him if he didn’t stand down, I’d kill him. He didn’t. So I shifted to war-form, put my claws through his neck, and ripped his head off.”

  She rotated her cup counter clockwise, watching the liquid slip around.

  Rainer tilted his head back, looked at the moon painting over them, closed his eyes. “Didn’t hesitate, didn’t think about it. No. That’s not true. I dragged him into a corner before I ripped his head off. I made sure to put him in the corner so we wouldn’t be slipping over the blood or tripping over the body.”

  Rainer saluted nobody in particular with his drink. “So that’s what I am in the darkest moments. A calculating, coherent, clear-thinking, and violent predator with zero remorse.”

  “How many survived?” she asked softly.

  “Just myself and one other. He didn’t pass. He left the ceremony and refuses to speak to me to this day,” Rainer said. “My parents always told me my duty was to civilization, that I had a unique combination of attributes, and that being feral was a prized trait. That because I was a feral, I could look evil in the eye when others faltered. But then they saw what that really meant, and what I really was.”

  Rainer set his drink aside and picked up her hand. He pressed his fingers between hers. “Marcus disgraced himself. But it will still be easier for the ship to believe you and I crossed the line, that we didn’t consider all the options, that it was our egos talking, that we’re ferals, that survival was achieved in spite of our actions and not because of them. And that’s for the best.”

  “Why is it for the best?”? she asked, aghast.

  “Because the idea of a command officer failing is frightening. They want to believe we don’t live that close to the edge. They want to see the command staff as stern but ultimately benevolent.”

  “Like Bennett,” she said bitterly. “So did he mutiny?”

  “Maybe one day you’ll get enough rank you can watch the recording of his test.”

  She had a pin, a bad reputation, and a damaged heart. “I need another drink.”

  “You shouldn’t even have had that one.”

  “Then are you going to do something to take my mind off this?”

  Rainer took her cup, set it aside, and proceeded to distract her in every possible way.

  Not Together, Never Apart

  “Lake. Sit.” Captain Tsu gestured for her to take the chair next to Doctor Forrest.

  Rainer had been on edge the last few days, and refused to talk to her about it, citing “concerns of rank.” Which was a new one, considering spousal privilege had always been enough protection for him. She’d been exhausted from Aptitude, and the shitty news Forrest wanted to leave her heart implant in. She hadn’t been commissioned to service, so it’d been back to pet guppy status.

  At least she hadn’t been married off to Bennett. Keenan didn’t even look malevolent. But she was there—as were every other section lead—so that was not a good sign.

  From the smell in the room, she’d come in mid-argument, and Rainer was practically vibrating, and Bennett’s expression was dour, and Keenan’s pinched, and everyone else concerned. Only Tsu seemed calm. “You’re aware of LightBearer’s situation.”

  She almost made the mistake of looking at Rainer. “I am, sir.”

  Bennett rested his head on his palm and tapped his temple with one finger. “Of course you are. Can we skip the bullshit?”

  “You first,” she shot back.

  “Have you been aware of our activities around LightBearer since your arrival?” Tsu asked.

  “No,” she said, not having to feign surprise. There had been activities outside her own?

  “The Captain means in the last ten weeks,” Bennett clarified.

  “I know what he meant. I thought NightPiercer had refused to help LightBearer.”

  Bennett eyed her. “Officially, yes, but you know—”

  “I know what, Commander?” she asked sweetly.

  “That is an entirely different discussion that doesn’t interest me right now,” Tsu told Bennet.

  Bennett resettled himself. Rainer did not relax.

  Tsu refocused on her. “LightBearer’s position changed dramatically approximately thirteen weeks ago. We became aware of it six weeks ago. Commander Rainer and Telemetry discovered it while planning a shuttle crossing.”

  Keenan and Bennett both snorted.

  So that was how Rainer had figured out how to float the information up the chain of command: under the guise of it’s been a year, we should really try to send a shuttle. Then Oh, gee, look, the ship’s moved.

  Not that anyone in the room actually believed that.

  “Do you need me to calculate a new course for the shuttle crossing, sir?” she inquired, trying not to sound too innocent, because fuck, she was not innocent and she was dangerously close to lying.

  A few of the section leads rolled their eyes.

  Tsu almost seemed to smile. “So you’re unaware of what’s been transpiring the past six weeks. Or is that spousal privilege talking?”

  A bit of both. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “We’ve been engaged in three-way conversations with Ark and LightBearer. The summary is that LightBearer has formally requested assistance.”

  “LightBearer asked for help years ago.”

  “This is a new request. Quite urgent. We’ve been hastily gathering data and analyzing it.”

  A new cry for help from LightBearer. She looked at Rainer, shocked. “You didn’t tell me?”

  “I wasn’t in a position to,” Rainer said.

  Tsu recaptured her attention. “We sent our Telemetry data to Ark to compile with their data as Ark has established protocols with LightBearer for this kind of work. LightBearer is confirmed on a terminal path towards the plasma torus and estimated remaining hull life is a maximum of twenty-eight months.”

  She shrank back into her chair. “How did this happen?”

  Bennett, still tapping his temple, said, “We’re not clear on that, and LightBearer isn’t either. They were doing a standard course correction for Io’s transit and an incoming flare. They claim it’s an asymmetrical engine thrust issue.”

  Rainer’s frigid calm seemed on the verge of cracking, and each word had a brittle quality. “They do have an asymmetrical thrust issue, along with very serious engine degradation, and a low fuel load situation.”

  Tsu told Lachesis, “The working theory is they adjusted course, but the asymmetrical thrust coupled with reduced capacity sent them where they didn’t intend to go, and now they are trapped.”

  This still shouldn’t have happened. Asymmetrical engine thrust should have been compensated for by the flight system. If the engines were so out of sync they’d caused LightBearer to shoot off-course, the flight system should have errored out before the engines had fired. She also knew there’d been a main en
gine burn, but time to play a bit stupid. “Idle thrust shouldn’t have done that.”

  Rainer said, “Engine performance has degraded so much they need main engines for repositioning. They did an eighteen-second burn.”

  She’d been working on LightBearer for years, and all the data she’d had from them said that they had been using idle power for almost all repositioning. “That’s a sudden change in the engines.”

  “It is. All the models suggest those engines fail slowly, not suddenly,” Rainer agreed. “But they’re only models. Nobody knew for sure what would happen with extended practical use.”

  Tsu tapped his hands on the table, tone somber. “Evacuating LightBearer is impossible, and Ark has said they are in no position to render additional aid.”

  Now Rainer tensed again and smelled of rage. “Keep her out of this, Captain. You know—”

  Tsu cocked his head at Rainer. “You really haven’t discussed any of this with her?”

  “No,” Rainer said, tone steel.

  Keenan sighed.

  “Well, I guess I am going to get the pleasure of watching you destroy your marriage,” Bennett told Rainer.

  “So you can pick up the pieces?” Rainer snarled.

  Tsu cut them off with a gesture. “Rainer has volunteered to lead a team to LightBearer.”

  She sat, blank, for a second. Then her jaw dropped. Her heart forgot to beat.

  Zap.

  “Excuse me.” She spun in her chair towards her husband. “You’re doing what?”

  Bennett drew his finger across his throat.

  Old wounds ripped open. “So all that Lachesis, come back, this is your home and you’re planning to go to another ship? You just unilaterally decided to go to LightBearer?”

  “I wasn’t going to spring this on you when you were studying and recovering from Aptitude,” he said. “You still have your heart implant, Medical isn’t rushing to remove it, you’ve got some stitches, trauma, I’ve been in that box, and I know what it does to your mind and body. I can’t keep asking you for more. I can’t keep doing this to you. I know you would have told me to go to LightBearer, so what’s the problem?”