Separated Starlight (NightPiercer Book 2)

by Merry Ravenell

  “Calculate the exit window,” he ordered. “I’m going to find the crew. Don’t leave this bunk.”

  “Gaia damn it, Rainer!” she shouted after him.

  Fuck.

  Like hell she was leaving this ship. Not unless they’d told them to get the fuck out.

  Maybe they had.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  Rainer returned two hours later with the entire team, and still mad as a wet cat plus some. Once the door closed, Rainer ordered the completely confused team, “Pack. We’re leaving.”

  They all proceeded to get with the packing without question.

  She bounced off the bed. “Is this about this morning?”

  “Only in passing,” Rainer told her. “Get your things. Do we have the window?”

  “It’s still calculating. Now tell me what happened.”

  “I’ve made my decision.”

  “So they aren’t kicking us off.”

  “They kicked you off.”

  “What did I do? Can I go apologize?”

  “No, you can’t apologize. They’re offended you exist. They begged for help and are offended by how we provide it? Fuck this ship. Let it burn!”

  “You don’t mean that!” She grabbed the front of his uniform. “No, no, you don’t mean that. You don’t.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her hands. “We’re done here.”

  She shoved him. “I won’t stay married to a wolf who let thousands die because the Captain offended him! Put your dick away.”

  “This isn’t about my dick. This is about the Fifth Law.” Rainer snarled at the crew, who had all paused to listen to the fight.

  Lachesis curled her fingers tighter, twisting the fabric so that the seams strained. “The Laws were never written for living out here in space. The Third Law doesn’t even mean anything anymore. You don’t get to quote the old laws at us when one of them literally doesn’t mean anything.”

  “What’s the Third Law?” Simone asked quietly.

  “Humans will never know about werewolves,” Lachesis said.

  “Yeahhhh… I’d say those Laws need an update.”

  Rainer didn’t release her hands. “I am acting as a wolf of principle, and some things I refuse to compromise on.”

  Oh for fuck’s sake. “How many stupid moments in our collective histories have happened because someone—usually someone with testicles—decided they weren’t going to ‘compromise’ their principles?”

  Rainer’s lips bent in a humorless, grim smile. “Plenty, but Ersu’s the one that asked for help.”

  She released him and yanked her hands out of his. “And who is going to care when we’re all dead? Nobody. Absolutely no one is going to be alive to say well, Rainer, Rainer, he stood on principle, you know. Is that what you’re going to tell Gaia when you go to Judgement? That you let thousands—and maybe civilization itself—die because some frightened little Alpha who isn’t half the wolf you are offended you?”

  “Am I supposed to lay you down on those messhall tables and let every curious person there avail themselves of your body?”

  She laughed once. “If it’d save LightBearer? Go find some lube and booze, Rainer, because I’m going in. Or they are.”

  Rainer actually looked ill.

  “Holy shit,” Juan muttered, blinking.

  Lachesis tossed her hair. “Ersu isn’t my Captain. He’s not yours. I don’t care what his opinion is. I think we marched in muscled up, framed up, and nothing like they’re used to, and it’s scared them, and they’re already scared. Of course Ersu is going to protect them.”

  “This is not protecting them. This is leaving them to die.”

  “You think you’ll be fine with leaving them to die but you—” she twisted around, “could the lot of you like… find somewhere else to be?”

  They looked at her with big eyes.

  Rainer said, “No, because they’re not safe elsewhere. They aren’t even safe in here. Say what you’re going to say.”

  Either he was dragging her into the crazy with him, or she was going to have to crowbar him out. Part of her wanted to get off this stupid hulk and let this stupid pack with its stupid Alpha just… meet whatever fate they seemed destined to meet. On the other hand, their Laws and customs and even all those fucking instincts wired into their lizard brains had never taken this scenario into account.

  She smoothed her hands along his cheeks, up into his hair, to lace them behind his neck. “If what you say about us is true, then you know that I know you will never forgive yourself if you abandon this ship.”

  Rainer pulled back against her grip. “That’s my burden to bear.”

  “If what you say about us is true, then you know we have bigger fights than this waiting for us.” She shifted against him. His hands loosened on hers, and slid over her instead, and she pressed close to him, drinking in his warmth and strength. “We’re not here for diplomacy or future favors. We don’t have anything Ersu wants, but he has something we want. We’re here because we all want to save this ship.”

  Rainer’s strange eyes clouded. For a long moment, he seemed very far away, sorting through a network of thoughts she wasn’t party to. “Ersu should want the same thing as us.”

  She pulled herself closer, focusing on every line and contour of his body, his scent, how it all melted against her, and how warm it all was. “He’s the most frightened of them all. He probably looks at me and says to himself it’s come to this? I’m probably the last rung. You know that feeling of hitting the bottom. You don’t realize you’re there until it’s too late.”

  One of his hands stole over her hip to rest below the small of her back. He pressed a pattern into her skin with his fingertips. “Then, my beautiful sprite, I am even more concerned. Every instinct I have tells me to get you off this ship.”

  “Well, tell those instincts to be quiet. You’re not used to dealing with them.”

  “Is that what you tell your instincts?” he asked in a low tone. “Do you even admit they exist?”

  She whispered, “I have my instincts. And they’re telling me if we leave, it will destroy you. You will never forgive yourself.”

  “I won’t be able to forgive myself if something happens to you.”

  “I am exactly where I want to be.” She brushed her fingertips through the hair at his scarred temple.

  He yanked her close and buried one hand in her hair, tugging at her.

  “Hey, hey, you two,” Juan teased. “Wait until everyone else goes to sleep before you get to the heavy breathing.”

  “What rule is that?” Lachesis untangled herself from his grip. He grabbed a quick squeeze of her ass anyway. “My bunks you just had to wait until light’s out so nobody had to watch.”

  “Oh man, Ark must be a hell of a place.” Juan grinned.

  She curled some hair behind her ear. “So do you have the top bunk custom?”

  “Beg your pardon?” Rainer’s brain hadn’t caught up to the change in topic from end of civilization to light hearted teasing.

  “The person getting laid does it on the bottom bunk?”

  “Yup.” Juan chortled.

  Rainer gave her a blank look. “I’ve never heard of this.”

  “Were you the rude bunkmate?”

  “I’m not following.”

  “If you’re getting laid, you take the bottom bunk so your bunkmate doesn’t have the mattress bouncing in their face.”

  “Unless they’re into that and you don’t mind them playing along,” Juan added.

  Rainer said, “Oh, I see. That makes a lot of jokes I’ve heard make sense.”

  Snickers.

  “And I thought I was the antisocial undersexed prude,” Lachesis told him.

  “If you are an undersexed prude, how does anyone get anything on Ark done?” Rainer asked, genuinely concerned.

  “Ohhhh, someone might not be getting their quota filled,” Jess told the room, pointing her finger dramatically at Lachesis.

  “Com
manding officers have many obligations to see to the well being of the crew,” Xav said, diplomatically.

  Howls of laughter.

  “So unpack, sir?” Juan asked with a straight face, while everyone else was still sniggering.

  Reluctantly, Rainer said, “Unpack. We’ll stay. For now.”

  Fake Hero

  “Captain,” Lachesis greeted Ersu before taking the helm.

  “You look tired, Warrant Officer,” Ersu said.

  “Do I, sir? I slept well.” She shifted her butt on the cold seat and brushed her fingertips along the helm controls. They illuminated, flickered a few times, then stabilized as the system came online.

  As well as she could sleep on the damn ship. Rainer’s pacing was getting worse. Juan kept having dreams he never saw his family again. Jess had broken down and started crying randomly about wanting to go back to NightPiercer. Xav and Kos had joined her in a chorus of mournful howls.

  “The song for the lost pack,” Rainer had said, pegging the strange song Lachesis had never heard.

  The dramatic AG change had cursed Simone with headaches, and Lachesis herself was covered in bruises, and her toes constantly went numb. She had started to feel her implant doing its job on her heart more often.

  She set her main tablet on the little shelf by her seat and started to gather up real-time Telemetry data, then patched it through onto the massive front screen. Now she only had to look at half of Jupiter.

  Ursus flickered onto the other half. Rainer was next to him. LightBearer’s Lead Engineer said, “We’re ready, Captain.”

  “Excellent.” Ersu sat up straighter. “Bring it up slowly.”

  If everything went according to plan, LightBearer’s salvaged two engines would fire, with the thrusters and her flight inputs stabilizing the asymmetrical thrust across the old hull. Then she’d re-program the flight computer to use two engines permanently, and the ship would step-climb back to its old position over the next few months as optimal Io transits and Jovian activity permitted.

  “Hull stress data coming through now,” Telemetry told her, overlaying yet another screen for her.

  She keyed the first stage. Two aft thrusters fired, stabilizing the ship as it very, very slowly started to pull against the gravity of Jupiter.

  LightBearer sang like a bow across violin strings: a long, sonorous note.

  Ursus, on the screen, didn’t seem concerned, but Rainer was frowning and she saw his shoulders moving faster as he worked.

  The load on the forward spars flickered, shifting from green to yellow. A deep moan came from the ship’s belly, surrounding them like they were in the maw of a suffering beast.

  “Thrust loads normal,” Ursus said. “What we’d be expecting from three engines. Right on target.”

  If this was what they considered on target…

  “Are we stable, Lachesis?” Rainer asked.

  Yes seemed too optimistic. The thrusters were having to do quick, short bursts to keep the ship on course. Gravity’s pull wasn’t exactly uniform, but it couldn’t account for how the ship was just… wriggling, and how hard it was to keep stable. It felt like trying to walk on a narrow pipe.

  “Yes, but I don’t like it,” she said after a few seconds. “The ship is fighting back, and these hull stress readings are disturbing. Are you sure the thrust is symmetrical?”

  “As symmetrical as it can be given it’s a tri-engine design.”

  A complex mountain of data dumped itself across the main screen. Hull harmonics. Rainer went to work using the dampers. She tried to figure out if there was a tiny adjustment in the ship’s attitude that would solve the problem.

  Engine thrust continued to build.

  The moan changed pitch, and the ship’s wriggling turned to a wobble on its z-axis.

  Holy shit, what is that. She instinctively grabbed the side of the helm station to steady herself. It wasn’t like a pendulum swinging, or phugoid porpoising. It was shivering.

  The math was too complicated for even Rainer to do on the fly.

  “Shut it down,” she ordered them. “All of it.”

  “What?” Ursus protested. “It’s fine.”

  It was not fine. “Shut it down. I can’t compensate for that shiver. It’s overloading the front forward hull spars.”

  “Figure it out,” Ursus growled. “That’s your job.”

  Rainer moved his hand along the panel. “Shutting down.”

  The weird shivering eased as the engines spooled back to idle.

  “Report, Warrant Officer,” Ersu demanded, tone like ice.

  Rainer ignored the Captain and spoke to her. “Lachesis, can you calculate the exact origin point of that harmonic disruption? I’ll get a team down there.”

  “It’s fine,” Ursus growled at Rainer. “We can fly around it.”

  “The hell we are.” Rainer turned to Ersu. “Not what we’re hoping for, Captain, but it looks like we have to make some further adjustments for the engine modifications.”

  Ersu said in a brittle tone, “I’m at a loss why you’re not able to move my ship without causing damage.”

  His ship was already damaged. Lachesis bit her tongue, but Rainer—utterly resigned to endure Ersu’s attitude—merely nodded acknowledgement and returned to his own calculations, and the screen winked dark.

  Lachesis’ hands smoothed over the console as she examined the rows of data to pinpoint the exact wobble spots in the front section. Behind the data was the usual view of Jupiter. Ersu returned to his chair and began processing reports from the various sections.

  BEEP BEEP BEEP.

  “Telemetry, report.” Ersu shifted in his chair towards that station.

  “Unsure, Captain, there’s no abnormal data in our readings.”

  BEEP BEEP BEEP.

  Lachesis tried to tap into the Telemetry system. Bzzt bzzt. Locked out. Grand. “Give me the data, Bob.”

  Bob snapped at her, “There’s nothing abnormal.”

  “The warning system is going off, so something has set it off,” she said coldly. “Telemetry gathers data, I fly it. You do your job, I do mine.”

  Bob turned back to his station, and data started to flow across her screen. “I haven’t seen this data before.”

  Bob looked at her blankly.

  They’d argue later. She inserted the updated data into her current model of the Jovian system. Well, fuck. “Captain, there’s a moonlet or asteroid in orbit at this position. About twenty meters across.”

  A much bigger item than the one that had hit the box during her Aptitude test.

  Ersu didn’t reply. She hesitated, uncertain, then risked another prod. “It’s going to come very close, sir.”

  Ersu looked up. “How close?”

  “Approximately twelve thousand meters, sir.” With her current margin of error, it was too close for comfort. At twelve thousand meters it could agitate other moonlets or debris. Ersu didn’t reply. He was looking at his tablet. She couldn’t overthrow this Captain, and he wasn’t interested in listening to her, so screw it. “Rainer.”

  He re-appeared on the screen. “Summoning me with my first name isn’t a good sign. What’s on fire?”

  Ersu’s eyes bore into the back of her neck. “There’s a moonlet coming too close for the Warrant Officer’s comfort.”

  Rainer asked, “How close?”

  “Twelve thousand meters. The situation is under control here. Go back to what you’re doing.”

  “Twelve thousand meters merits discussion,” Rainer said.

  “No, it does not,” Ersu said firmly.

  Lachesis planned the many ways she was going to absolutely throttle Bob for not telling her about this fucking new moonlet.

  “We have about eighteen minutes before we have to do something,” Telemetry supplied.

  “The situation is fine, Commander,” Ersu said calmly. “Go back to work.”

  The screen flicked back to Jupiter.

  “It’s not fine,” Lachesis said. “We need to d
o something, and not just wait here for that thing to smash into us.”

  “You should have planned for that,” Ersu growled.

  “I would have if I’d gotten the fucking data!”

  Whoops.

  Swearing… not good.

  “Less than a year ago you were a cull in a Medical bay,” Ersu grated at her. “Do not presume to come onto my bridge and act like you are an officer when you were a piece of livestock sold to NightPiercer for some potato cuttings. Who the hell do you think you are to question my judgement?”

  Lachesis stiffened. How did he know about her time in Medical? How did he know about the euthanasia?

  Ersu’s tone became like acid. “I have tolerated your incompetence, your inexperience, the mistakes, you acting like you’re an officer who deserves to be respected. You’re on my ship, eating our food, breathing our air, drinking our water, soiling our laundry, burdening our life support, and bothering my Medical staff with some absurd COC that is a result of AGRS that you got because you were a cull and you have the audacity to tell me you’re the best there is? Who do you think you are to question my judgement about twelve thousand meaningless meters that you should have noticed before this!”

  If she had been a pane of glass, and every one of his words had been a stone, she’d have been in pieces.

  “If you’re the best we have for that helm, I’ll put my cat in the chair. The worst she’ll do is shed. It is not my problem that Tsu had to marry a future Captain to a cull, and now he’s forced to make you into something respectable. Tsu’s problem isn’t my problem, and it doesn’t change you are arrogant, unqualified, useless, and incompetent. You don’t get to be forged into some fake hero on my time. Get off my bridge and don’t come back.”

  1.2 * 10^4

  She made it back to her bunk without the moonlet plowing into the ship.

  Twelve thousand meters was too damn close.

  She’d spent days planning this, gone over every single detail, and a moonlet whizzed by? It was entirely possible they’d disturbed the moonlet, and it’d just blundered across their path. But Ersu had told her she was incompetent and out of line?