by Bex McLynn
Returning to the front of the console, she admired her work. Look at her. Fixing the ship and kicking ass, being a fucking hero.
The display flickered, then started flashing images at her.
"Slow down!" Vedma flinched, pulling her eyes from the disorienting images. "Can't tell caro from sard, you're flippin' so fast."
As the images slowed, Vedma's shoulders slumped. Each image, one after the other, showed schematics. Knowing what they showed, though, didn't mean that she knew how to use them.
"Fuck me," she groaned. "I am an idiot."
Kigen replayed the images again, even slower. Blatantly slow. As in, showing the images to a godsdamn moron, kind of slow.
Vedma crossed her arms as she glared at the display. "Don't have to be an arse about it."
Unholde better be laughing his anthers off, because Vedma couldn't think of a worse hope than pinning their endeavor on her engineering skills.
A flare of useless anger had her cursing the Academe. Her education was a joke. They'd limited her technopathic skillset to the AthNet and operating components built with Athelasan tech, but they never had the Athelas handling the hardware. She couldn't repair a Cuneiform screen and could maybe fumble her way through switching out a power cell on a WristCune. No fucking way she could crawl back into the engine cluster and do more than use it as a fancy hiding spot. Sending her into integral parts of the ship with a tool caddy was as negligent as giving a tyke a bone knife and telling him to gut a fish.
This was foolhardy. This was farcical. This was fucked.
"[I ache.]" Kigen reminded her.
"Saw my look of utter befucklement, did you?" Vedma focused on the schematic on the screen. "Well, don't you worry none. This's just my thinkin' face."
She needed to examine the small bits, not the entire undertaking. Give her a rag and a solvent, she could elbow grease with the best of them. Did work like that for her da and the mining crew all the damn time. She just needed to tighten some bolts, clean a few connectors, and wait for Dyr to wake up in a few hours. They'd tackle the big stuff together.
Vedma shifted her feet, widening her stance. She had a plan, but she still had a problem.
"All right," she said, nodding her head with grit and gumption. "I can do this, but no pokin' and proddin' from you, understand? I ain't your grunt."
Tingles, like circulation returning to a numb limb, trickled across her technopathy.
"[I fire.]"
Vedma snarled and waved away the threat. "And I'm the tick on your back. Squash me, and you got nothin'. Nothin' 'til them Gwyretti come back in numbers to strip you bare, or the Teras return and simply ignore your bellyachin'."
"[I ache.]"
"Ech, you're a bellyacher." Vedma rolled her eyes. "And an idiot. You knocked out the fella that could help you way better than me."
Insistence pushed at her, making her feel like they had circled back on some old argument.
"[I wake. I fire. I ache. I wake. I fire—]"
"I getcha," Vedma said with a sigh. She did. She understood. "He's a man. Don't hear you the way I do. But I'm a shit mechanic."
The display before her flickered and showed a live feed from the control room. The lens must have been mounted behind her because Vedma stared at her own back as she stared at the screen. The video bounced for a second, rippled like a bad feed, and when it stabilized, she saw it was crooked.
She tilted her head to compensate for the crooked image. Then it hit her. She blinked at the mounted display and swore.
Godsdamn cheeky barge.
"Aye, I see it's crooked." She gestured to her lopsided Cuneiform screen. "You wanna waste time havin' me fix it? Or we actually gonna get some shit done?"
* * *
Vedma eased herself down next to Dyr. Before squeezing back into the engine cluster, she swung by their cabin and brought him a pillow and blanket. Didn't bother bringing him a cot. He really was a big bastard, easily one of the tallest Teras she'd ever seen. No way she could heft him off the ground.
She'd never been intimidated by burly men. Her da used to barrel through the corridors like a freighter, all bristle and no bite to him. She'd gotten the same read from Dyr on day one. The man woke up gruff as emery, yet smiled as sweet as sucrose when he rolled toward her. He nose-planted his presumptuous arse on the deck, but it was a nice smile nonetheless. She hadn't seen that smile on him again, not until he told her that she'd be his hero.
She shifted herself closer to him but kept her hands to herself. She wasn't a hugger. Wouldn't want anyone pawing at her if she were the one laid out.
Besides, her hands and jumper were coated in grease, and she had rust dust in her hair. She spread her fingers out as she stared at her hands. Look at that. She even broke a nail. She hadn't had cause to break a nail in forever, not since she last clung to the lattice outside her dorm window. After that, Elder Megera had them hack down and remove the flowering creeper that had decorated the east dorm for three decades, all because Vedma had missed curfew. Well, she didn't miss curfew so much as disregarded it entirely. An on-time arrival to her dorm hadn't factored into her plans for that evening.
Kigen nudged at her, drifting over her technopathy with drowsiness. Her WristCune pinged, showing her the cabin with their cots.
"Ech, leave me be." Vedma wiggled her shoulders, trying to shake off the sleepy sensation. "I ain't tired yet. Just waitin'."
Kigen skittered across her technopathy with an inquiry.
Vedma settled her elbow on her knee, then propped her chin on her palm. "For him to wake up."
Kigen remained quiet. Suspiciously quiet.
Vedma glared up at the turret. "He's gonna wake up, ain't he?"
Again, no response.
Dread nipped at her as she leaned over and pressed her ear to his chest. His breathing remained shallow and his heartbeat slow.
"Shit, Kie!" She clutched his undershirt and shook him.
Dyr remained dead weight on the deck.
Vedma tore out of the engine room, stumbling and tripping over her boots. Her heart hammered her chest as she dove into the disastrous mess in their cabin, hunting down the MediCune scanner. Once she had the device in hand, she hurried back to Dyr. The entire time, Kigen trembled her technopathy like a warbling old woman.
"Dammit, Kie! If you can't gimme words, then keep your technopathic yabberin' to yourself!"
She ran the scanner over him. Read the results screen. She read it again and again until Kigen gave her technopathy a tentative jingle.
"Aye, I'm mad!" Vedma shouted. "You shot him up with cryo drugs. Gonna keep him knocked out for weeks." Her voice lodged in her throat. Her next words shredded her like shards of glass. "He'll dehydrate and starve, Kie."
She choked back a snarl. He wasn't laid up, nursing a broken bone. He was unconscious. She had no way to get food or hydration rations into him. Couldn't stimulate his muscles enough to stop atrophy. Couldn't haul his ass off the cold, hard deck.
"[I wake.]"
Her WristCune pinged. Overwhelmed, her eyes drifted to the screen. Kigen sent an image of the cabin with the cryo-bins.
She knew what Kigen suggested. A cryo-bin would sustain him until the drugs ran their course. The bins hovered, easy to move as anything.
Kigen pinged her again, showing her an image of the wench by the power cells.
Vedma slowly set the MediCune down.
Fine. She had a plan. Get a bin. Hoist Dyr inside. Wait out the drugs. Fix the engines.
But she'd be all alone.
She gazed down at him. Ran her eyes over his face, determined to memorize the thick, masculine lines of his praal. She chiseled into her memory the black and red clade tattoos covering his neck, arms, hands, and chest. Never had she seen a man from a Teras Great House inked like Dyrastur Borac. He looked like a gritty bastard who'd have a drink with her da.
Doubling over, she bowed to the despair that crawled up her back and settled on her shoulders. The weight felt like more th
an she could bear. She kowtowed until her forehead rested against his flat stomach. She pushed down, squeezing her eyes tight as his belly sagged. No impulses snapped his muscles taut.
Like a lost soul in the desert, she crawled up his body, seeking any succor that he could give her. She wasn't a hugger, but he was, and he needed her. So she wrapped herself around him, clutching him with her arms and legs.
Kigen pumped sympathy through her technopathy as Fuckles's recording played. "...there was this perfect Athela and an Unsworn technopath..."
For a fleeting second, she thought perhaps the ship played the recording as an apology. But it still didn't change anything, so she buried her face in his chest and sobbed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dyr opened his eyes. Mired in the transition between dreams and awareness, he blinked and listened to the sounds of clanging and blasphemy.
"Throttle your godsdamn thrusters. I ain't done tightenin' it yet."
That feminine timbre kneaded over his body like a firm massage.
He knew that sultry voice, didn't he?
Wanting just five more minutes, he turned to burrow himself further into his blanket, only to find he hadn't one. That he wasn't even in a bunk. Sloping, rectangular walls surrounded him, their polished nacre surface reflecting the lights from overhead. Beneath his body, a firmly cushioned surface pressed against his shoulder and hip, not dipping under his weight. He inhaled the sterilizing odor of hospice.
Glancing down at his body, he saw that he wore the skinsuit again. Above him, he saw the pipes and conduits of the engine room. He fucking knew where he was. He just woke in another cryo-bin, and the voice that he heard belonged to Vedma.
Rolling onto his back, he gripped the metal sides of the cryo-bin and sat up. The bin's lid, propped open on hydraulic hinges, was on his left, the engine cluster on his right. He paused, waiting for the headache and weakness and nausea to rush over him. Nothing. He felt as if he woke from a nap, not cryo-hibernation.
He climbed out. His boots rested next to the bin, waiting for him. Even his sword lay there. But no Vedma.
"Dammit, I just installed that!" Her voice echoed from deep within the cluster.
As if tugged by a leash, he followed her voice.
"Aye, I know about abax sequencin', and it can propagate factors on my praal-puckered ass."
In the shadows of the cluster, he saw the glaring intensity of a work lantern. Vedma, with her back to him, knelt on the deck in a corona of illumination, an open panel before her. She wore a jumper with the arms tied around her waist. A filthy undershirt covered her torso.
She huffed. "Fine. I said 'fine,' didn't I?"
He quickened his shuffling steps, stumbling over something hard that slid out from underneath his boot. The object clanged against the propulsion regulator rack as it skidded away.
Vedma jolted and twisted to look up, over her shoulder. When she caught sight of him, her eyes widened, and her lips parted. Her mouth moved, forming words that carried no sound. She ran her green-gold gaze over him, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. Once she reached his boots, she blinked.
Then she scowled. "Did you just kick my torque spanner under the prop reg?"
Dyr exhaled a breath that he hadn't even known that he held. Air rushed into his aching chest.
"Vedma, what's going on?"
She shuffled backward on her knees and leaned down to search underneath the rack. "I know I gotta mind my tools."
He shook his head, confused. "Who are you talking to?"
"Kie."
"Kie?" He gaped at her bottom as she stretched her arm under the rack.
"The arsehole ship. Ech, you're an arse, and you know it." She grunted and craned her neck to look up at him. "Dammit, Dyr. Get yourself down here. Need your wingspan."
Kie was Kigen?
He remained rooted where he stood. "Vedma, I woke up in a cryo-bin."
She sat upright, still twisting to look at him. "Course you did."
"Why?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "'Cause that's where I put you."
He felt his mouth drop open. He watched her arch her brows, giving him an expectant, impatient look. As if she had better things to do than answer his questions.
He blew out a breath as he snagged her by the elbow.
"All right, Vedma. Up. Come on. Up." He gave her steady support as she got her feet under her.
"Gods, why ain't you weak as a whelp right now?"
Keeping his hand on her, he ran his light grip down her arm and took her by the hand. He retraced his steps, exiting the engine cluster.
"Quit your pullin'," she snapped. "I'm comin'."
He didn't pull, because she actually trailed behind him, and even though she followed, for some reason, he couldn't let go of her. Felt the need to latch on, batten down, and secure his position by her side.
Once he cleared the shadowy racks of the engine cluster, he turned toward her. Watched her emerge into the overhead lighting of the engine room. Again, air rushed from his lungs as his chest tightened.
She stood there, huffing with an angry glint in her eyes, but she'd changed. She'd twisted her hair up into a sloppy knot on her head. Engine grease covered her clothes, face, and hands. He raked his eyes down her body, and her round belly poked out beneath the stretched undershirt.
"Vedma," he breathed.
"What?" She shifted on her feet, tugging the shirt down over her stomach.
Not over her stomach. Over her baby. His baby.
With his eyes locked on her belly, the words whispered out of him. "How long was I in stasis?"
When she didn't answer, he redirected his gaze to her face.
She arched her brow. "Think you already figured it out, thane's son."
His eyes landed on her stomach again. Weeks. Maybe even a month or two.
His legs gave out, and he dropped onto his ass. His thoughts roared inside his head like a wind tunnel.
"I see you need a moment." She jammed a thumb over her shoulder. "While you're havin' your freak out, I'm gonna go—"
"No!" Panicked, he reached out and snared her pant leg.
She flinched, and he contritely softened his tone. "Vedma, stay."
Careful to not unbalance her, he tugged on the material and reeled her in closer. He closed one hand around her shin, while his other hand reached up and hovered over her belly. She didn't protest. Didn't resist him. So he rose up on his knees and gathered her to him, supporting her as he pulled her down into his lap.
She sat there rigidly as if perched on a wobbly stool.
Like a kick to the chest, he realized that if he'd been in stasis for weeks, it'd been weeks since she'd touched anyone. Weeks since she'd been touched by anyone in return.
"Vedma," he said softly, "what happened?"
She stared at her hands that rested limply on her lap. "The ship shot you. Not like she did to the kidnappers or the Gwyretti. Was some kinda dart filled with cryo drugs. You went into cryo-hibernation. Had no choice." She shrugged, still looking at her hands. "Had to put you back in a bin. Let the drugs run their course."
He trusted her to be honest with him. "For months?"
"Forty-seven days."
He lost a moment as his mind tripped over that number. He came back to himself when she shifted in his arms.
"Oh, Vedma." Groaning, he tried to drag her closer, but she stiffened against him. He relented and eased back. "I left you alone. Said I was never gonna leave you."
She gave another sharp shrug of her shoulder. "Wasn't your fault, Dyr. Ship did it. And she's sorry for it, too."
He struggled with that revelation. The ship shot him? "She is?"
"Meant she got me as her mechanic. That'll learn her."
Other things Vedma had just said circled back on him, wracking his brain. The ship killed the Gwyretti and the kidnappers. The ship, on its own, did this.
Leaning back, he gave her a more discerning visual inspection. "You've been safe this whol
e time?"
"Whole time."
"No Gwyretti? Or Teras?"
"Not even a flock of Kraai. Just you and me and Kie."
He huffed out a breath. This was... much to absorb. He cradled in his lap the one thing keeping him from tearing through the barge, spurred on by another bout of unproductive anxiety. Vedma. She carried herself like a castlerock with a foundation of solid sard. Straight spine. Squared shoulders. Resolved tone. She survived for numerous weeks, while he'd been knocked on his ass in a matter of minutes.
Gods, this lady.
She wasn't a raging storm. She was the wind that cleared the skies, heralding cool breezes and warm sunshine.
If Direis granted Dyr's wish and made him a lucky bastard, Vedma would keep him once they left this horrid place. Clutch or marriage, the Athela always chooses, and he'd have to live with her choice.
He splayed his hands over her back and hip, adjusting his hold on her. "I'm gonna do something. It needs to be done."
Only fair that he gave her some warning.
She leaned back, eying him warily. "What?"
He pulled her to him, eradicating the pockets of space between them. Tucked her under his chin. Molded himself around her.
"Dammit, Dyr." She snarled at him, the words muffled by his chest. "I ain't a hugger."
"But I am." He settled in. "I need this, Sarda."
He expected her tiny fists to pummel him, but her hands remained limp, trapped against his stomach. Her first tremble broke his heart. The next one tethered his soul to her suffering. Her sobs transformed his purpose, restructuring him into her shelter. He'd gladly be her barricade, taking on the battering of the whole universe so that she never felt another blow.
He lowered his nose to her hair and shifted a hand up from her hip to cradle the curve of her belly. "I really need this."
* * *
Vedma lay on her back with her knees bent and her feet flat on the cot. That first night, she'd hauled the cot to the engine room, balanced atop the hovering cryo-bin. Had been so damn pleased with herself for thinking up that little solution. Kept her near in case Dyr's condition changed. She'd be right there, ready to hero up and save shit.