by A. B. Keuser
“Dani girl, Are you okay?”
“I’m surviving, Nial. This whole thing has gone to shit and I’m doing everything I can to get this ship back to you.”
“Why are you headed in the opposite direction then?”
“The Breaker had some weird protocol in her banks. Lyz is still clearing it out, until then, it’s like she’s a homing pigeon. I’m not sure where we’re headed, I’m only able to make minor course changes… deviations to avoid satellites or errant asteroids.”
“You’re not telling me something. I can see it in the way you keep looking away.”
Dani swallowed and glanced toward Mopeña. “We’ve had some casualties.”
“What? Who?” Nial leaned closer to the camera as if he could see them.
“Chin and José.”
“Oh my God, Dani. I am so sorry. Foul play? Accidents?” Si heard snapping over the speakers. He was trying to get someone’s attention. “I’m going to come find you. What are your present coordinates?”
“That’s really not necessary, Nial. I’m a big girl, I can take care of this on my own. I’ve still got everyone else and those accidents won’t be repeated.”
“Dani, I’m so sorry. I know how much José meant to you. I— crap, I’m saying the wrong things, please don’t cry.”
Si’s eyes opened and he saw the heavy sheen glistening off her eyes. He moved forward, but Mopeña got there first. “Don’t worry about her, Mandall, we’ve got her back.”
“You’d better. I’ve got friends in high places, Mopeña, if something happens to her I will hunt your entire crew down and see to it that you’re all held accountable.”
“That’s enough, Nial. Don’t threaten my crew. I’m tired, and you adding to the stress isn’t going to help.”
Mopeña moved around to the side of the console where Si stood and gave him a “back off” look. It wasn’t threatening, his eyes wide, one eyebrow cocked… he looked scared more than anything.
“Dani, I won’t have you out there by yourself. You’re an amazingly strong woman, but you shouldn’t have to handle this alone.”
“We’re not having this discussion again, Nial. I run my own crew, I deal with my own problems. Don’t for a second think I wouldn’t ask for your help if I needed it.”
“I don’t want someone to take you away from me.”
“Well then you’re lucky I’m not yours, Nial. You’re a great guy. I have no problem working with you, but I can’t deal with your possessiveness right now.”
“I never meant to make you feel—”
Dani cut him off , “I know. Just let me do my job and we’ll talk about that later. Was this just a checkup of my wellbeing, or have things changed and I need to be apprised?”
“Full on business voice… Okay, you’re stressed, I get it. Mostly I wanted to make sure you were okay. Also, I’ve decided to stay until you get back. We’ll talk about those other things when you bring that boat in. My father would also like you to know the Pääom has reason to believe you’re not the only one after the Breaker so we want you to be careful.”
“As long as she’s under my control, you’ll be the ones who get her.” She smiled at the screen before disconnecting and closing her eyes. Two long, deep breaths later, she opened her eyes and stared at the both Mopeña and him. “It wasn’t a lie. I’ve never been in control of Obie, she’s got that covered all on her own.”
Si turned to Mopeña, “We’re still on auto, so you’re not really needed up here, I want you to go find Lyz. And I want you to stay with her. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
“Have Gill do the same thing with Goo. It’s better to stay in pairs.” Yella added before he could step over the hatch.
“Okay…” Willy looked like he wanted to ask a dozen or so questions, but he left without voicing any of them.
Si moved around the console, pulling Yella to him and stroking her hair. “It’s been a rough couple of days. No one expects you to bottle it all up.”
She buried her face in his chest and he felt the tremors as she sobbed. He sat down, pulling her into his lap and let her cry, rocking gently.
“Si,” she said when she finally stopped shaking. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I had a plan, and it’s been pulled apart day by day for the last ten years. Now all I have are shreds of something that could have worked. But it didn’t. I’m adrift and I’ve got nothing out there to tell me which way to go.”
“We’ll figure it out. You’re not out here alone. You never have been.”
“You and Lyz are all I have left, Si. They’ve taken away everything else.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I can keep that one.” He pulled her up to standing and looked her square in the face. “When is the last time you ate?”
“I can’t remember. Things have been… so off.”
“Then we need to get you down to the mess, because you’re not going to help me or anyone else if you’re dead on your feet.”
His arm wrapped around her waist, he all but dragged her to the elevator. “Now, let’s talk about you being off the market.” He said as he mashed the button and watched the door close.
“Si….”
“Listen, I think that whatever greater cosmic power there is out there may have had an idea what it was doing when it put me in that cryo capsule.”
Yella gave him a skeptical scowl.
“But I might not be alive to help you through this,” Osiris said, sweeping a piece of hair behind her ear. “Listen, as far as I’m concerned, this is a fresh start and I’m not going to let anyone or anything take you away from me. Got it?”
“If you say so.”
“Glad we got that cleared up.”
Four bodies occupied the table closest to the kitchen in the mess hall, Si nodded to the four who had been in engineering as he sat Yella down and moved to the kitchen door. He cast a glance back at the table as he went inside and hoped Adi and Yella would get along. It wasn’t terribly much to ask.
He slipped into the galley and rifled through the food they brought with them. Their static ration packs could have feed an army. Si still felt strange about taking their food. He pulled one plate from the cabinet, loading up what he hoped would suffice and put the gray plastic disk in the convection cube.
He moved to the door and listened.
“Sort of a key to your heart thing? Sure that was a hit with later boyfriends.” Adi’s voice was pitched with derision.
Si closed his eyes, fighting against the urge to run out and defend her.
Gill’s laughter broke through the door, “Please, no one ever lasts long with her. None of them ever lived up to Bowlin’s standards.”
“Tragic. You never got over it? Even after everyone thought we were all dead?”
“That’s not exactly accurate.” Yella sounded sad and his eyes flicked to the timer, fighting the urge once again. “And it’s not like I sat at home and pined away.”
“Yeah, you did the opposite of pine. It was a revolving door there for a while .” Gill snorted, dissolving into a riot of strangled laughter. “Sorry, every time I think of Ashley or Burke…. Those two would have been fun to keep around longer.”
The convection cube beeped and he hurried to get back out into the mess.
Everyone turned to face him as the door opened.
“Look at that, you pull him out of cryo and it seems he’s your slave for life. Maybe I should have tried that.”
Si ignored the comment and set the plate down in front of Dani.
She looked at him expectantly “Not hungry?”
“I’m good.” He sat on the bench next to her and dropped his hand between them, leaning on it instead of toward the table.
Yella’s hand moved to rest on his and Si couldn’t help himself from smiling at the movement.
With a disgusted snort, Stugg pushed himself to his feet and stormed off. Si watched
him go, wondering if there was a point at which the young engineer would snap.
“What’s his problem?” Adi asked, though he was fairly confident she knew.
Gill swirled whatever was in his cup as he watched the other engineer slip through the hatch. “He’s just upset she didn’t take a chance to try and forget you with him.”
“He’s a child and I don’t mean anything to him.” Dani said, focus back on her food. “Not really.”
Si couldn’t tell who Yella was defending with the comment, Stugg or herself. He also wasn’t sure if it had been meant more for him, Gill or Adi.
Adi turned to him. “From what I can tell, I like her more than you. Ever thought of stepping down to second mate? The position is available.”
Adi stared at Dani, her face slowly losing the tension it had held since they’d entered. She winked and then turned back to him.
“Now, why have you two allowed the casualties and injury list to get so high?”
“We have had an unusual amount of accidents this time around.” Gill stabbed at the meat analog on his plate. “And your guy was an unfortunate catalyst.”
“Oath Breaker killed them.”
Everyone turned to Kiori, though Gill was the only one that wore a look of shock, Si had a feeling the other two were as surprised as he was that the little weapon’s specialist figured it out.
“Is she serious?” Gill’s head had snapped back and he stared at Dani as though she’d grown a second pair of eyes.
“We both know Kiori doesn’t lie.” Dani had gone back to pushing things around on her plate.
“Even José?” Gill looked like he wanted to ralph.
As Dani nodded, Si could see the beginning stages of a class three meltdown and pressed his hand on the table leaning in toward Gill. “Listen to me very carefully. Obie is the only thing keeping us alive out here.”
“What’s that matter if she’s systematically killing us off as well?”
“That’s not how she works.” Adi’s hand was on the engineer’s shoulder, keeping him in his seat. “She’s only going to kill someone if she feels they’re a serious threat to Si or her mission.”
Yella was back to looking Gill in the eye, “She’s right. Obie saw José as a point of authority for me that might undermine Si and so she took him out before that was a possibility.”
“You’re still around.” Gill had stood and moved toward Kiori in spite of Adi’s attempt to keep him down.
Once again, Adi provided him with the answer. “She’s not going to do anything that would hurt Si.” Adi made a gagging noise.
Gill turned back to Si. “That’s what you meant earlier. I thought it was just some machismo. Thanks for having our back.”
“Sorry I wasn’t clearer,” Si said.
“We’re off shift, so….” Kiori tugged on Gill’s hand.
Yella sat up straighter and looked at them with a pursed smile. “I’m pretty sure if you’re in your bunks, minding your own, you’ll be fine. Get some sleep. You two haven’t done anything to make yourselves threats, you’ve got nothing to worry about. We’ll get to Roskakori and things will be better.”
“I don’t think anyone has said that line before. Ever.” Gill’s head moved in a jerky arc as he looked to each of them.
“It’s true.” Kiori stood and took Gill's hand, pulling him to standing. “Evening.”
“That girl never says more than five words at a time.” Adi said watching them leave.
“You got five out of her? Wow, she must have been pissed.” Yella did her own impression of Adi’s snort. Si had to admit, Adi was better at it, but that made Yella’s more endearing.
“Seriously, does she ever actually talk… like normal?” Adilyn watched her go.
Si looked from Adi to Dani and decided he’d stay out of it.
“Not often. She was raised by a family that felt you should keep your thoughts to yourself unless their expression was vital.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” Adi asked.
“Why should it? She does her job. Really well, I might add… there was a time on Nauttinen when she used an armada of paper boats to blow up a city block housing the Pääom records depot.”
“How did she do that?” Si couldn’t even begin to guess.
“They were the deployment system, she sent them through the sewers.”
“Creative. Sounds like someone you would have hired.” Adi looked at Si pointedly.
Yella looked at her flatly. “He did. Well, technically. Her older brother was a member of your crew. Kion Tengu.”
“I get the Goo nickname now.” Si had never called the former Goo by that name, but it worked for what he remembered of the boy.
“Was he that quiet?” Adi asked, she stared at the floor in the spaced out look she’d get when she was trying really hard to remember.
“I don’t remember. But that’s probably why.”
“Was he one of the ones in the hold when…?” Dani asked.
“No, he was one of the thirteen before that.” He hoped Dani wouldn’t ask him how the former Goo had died, because he couldn’t remember and he knew he should be able to.
“Captain Cholla, I am receiving a comm from Theodore Mandall. It is tagged for you.”
“Disconnect him.” She stood, sliding the plate toward Si. “I need Lyz’s help to remove that override code. In hindsight, I’m kind of amazed we were allowed to put it on at all.”
“The destination vindicates the means.”
“If that hadn’t been drilled into my memory by Pääom officials, I might agree with you, Obie. As it is, the recollection makes me want to claw my skin off.”
She stepped through the hatch and disappeared, but something kept him from going after her. He turned to Adi, “Can you do me a favor?”
“I’m going to say yes, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the sort of favor I used to love you asking for.”
“I need you to keep an eye on Stugg. Dani said he spent a year or so with the Mandalls. I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t trust him because his tongue wags out of his mouth every time he sees your beloved Yella. That boy is loyal as a puppy to her. Seriously. I said one wrong thing about her in front of him and was about three inches from taking a wrench to my head. Gill managed to stop him and he apologized when he got calmed down, but I tell you what, that boy wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”
“Not willingly, no.”
“I get it, Si. You guys have a history, on top of that, she’s gorgeous and seems to have her head screwed on straight.”
He stood and followed after Yella, hoping like hell Adi would take his request as an order.
FOURTEEN
Danielle didn’t know if she was happy Si had let her go alone, or worried that he’d done so by staying with his ex-wife. More likely she was worried that it worried her. She had no reason to be jealous, after all, she was the one looking for ways to change his mind.
“Jealousy is a withered bloom in a garden abuzz with bees.” Dani’s mother had said that to her as a girl, and while it often crossed through her mind, she still wasn’t certain the sentiment was correct—for this situation or any of the ones her mother used it for. She had the smallest of suspicions it was simply what her mother said when she had nothing else to offer.
Dani took the ladderway up to the crew quarters, something about bypassing the elevators made her feel as though there was one less thing in Obie’s control. Though she knew as long as she was breathing Obie’s recirculated air, she was only a few processor whirrs from death. She wouldn’t put it past the ship to cut life support just to teach them all a lesson.
Moving quickly across the deck plating, she pounded her fist against Lyz’s hatch before her feet had stopped.
“Elyzabeth is currently in Pilot Mopeña’s quarters.”
“Thanks.” As Dani moved across the hall and knocked on Willy’s hatch, she wondered if she should let them know the ship was a bit of a voyeur.
/> Mopeña opened the hatch holding a pair of pants up around his waist. Dani did her best not to look down, though she noticed he hadn’t taken the time to zip or button his fly. “I need Lyz.”
“Just Lyz?”
She gave him her best impression of her mother’s disapproval.
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ve stopped holding my breath on that threesome.”
Lyz pushed him out of the way, and shooed him back into the room. She looked like a different person wrapped in a gray sheet. “I’m gonna guess this is important.”
Danielle smiled at her best friend’s raised eyebrow. “I haven’t forgotten our deal. I wouldn’t be here, except I need to drop the Mandall’s comm link. They’ll be able to track us with it.”
“Oh, we’re at that stage of this bowlegged plan.” She looked behind her with a reluctant sigh. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Unless you need me there right now.”
Lyz adjusted the sheet, tying the ends around her chest in a knot and motioning that she was ready to go. Dani couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it.
“Gill would kill me if I let you run around in that.”
Lyz rolled her eyes. “He already hates how I dress. Maybe this would meet with his approval.”
“I really doubt it. Go, change into something that won’t come off with one swift tug. I’ll find a way to occupy myself until you’re ready.”
Lyz poked her head out the door looking down the corridor to Dani’s right. “I see, don’t have too much fun. Remember, I’ll have to return the favor and barge in on you if you do.”
Dani turned to where Lyz had looked and saw Si leaning against the bulkhead fifty yards away. “Don’t worry, I know what there is and isn’t time for.”
She gently pushed her best friend’s shoulder and turned away. She heard the hatch door shut as she reached Si. “You didn’t have to follow me, you know.”
“I told you, I wasn't going to let you go anywhere alone. I just had to deal with something first.”