They threw themselves into it. With Chloe’s eager help, Krista managed to wrap up the patch job in slightly less time than she’d expected. Once she finished she looked around the room and, without a word spoken, the two of them began the chore of picking up all the pieces, stowing the loose parts and battening down all the hatches. In the end the place was no cleaner than it had been, but there was at least no detritus to endanger life or mechanism when acceleration was applied. Krista surveyed their work with satisfaction.
“So. That should get you to the station without any problem.” She was as filthy as Chloe by this point, but found herself purring with pleasure at a job well done — and, for once, without having to answer for it to Hans or anyone else.
“’Twas amazin’,” Chloe said. “I don’t know how I can be thankin’ you.”
“You can thank me by being extra careful when you push the power into this thing,” Krista told her sternly, then gave a soft sigh. “But just in case something goes wrong I’m going to stay right alongside you all the way into dock. Then all you have to do is pick up the real part on the station, and you’ll be as good as new.”
“You’re really amazin’ with this stuff,” Chloe said, looking shy as she glanced around the newly-kempt engine room. “Better than any of the men back at my uncle’s shop. I — ah, I don’t suppose you would consider givin’ me a hand with gettin’ the new part installed, now, would you?”
Krista eyed the other woman for a moment, then laughed softly and nodded in agreement. “I’ll install it for you, sure,” she said, then considered. “It’s going to cost you a dinner, though.”
Chloe looked surprised at the request, but then her eyes glittered and a sly smile slowly crept across her face.
“You know, I do think that I’d be likin’ that,” she said, and her voice had the oddest husk to it.
The two of them said nothing more as they headed out of the engine room, both wiping their grimy hands on equally grimy rags.
Two days later, shopping done and engine repaired, the two women relaxed at what passed for a sidewalk cafe on Outpost Station — a roped off area of a busy commercial corridor graced with a half-dozen laminate tables and plastic chairs. They were down to picking at the last few morsels of what had been a tasty, if plebian, meal, and sipping on their coffees. Both had found the conversation relaxing — pleasant and mostly general in scope, though both had revealed more than a few experiences and feelings from which they had begun to forge a common bond.
And both very much wished they had more time to share before schedules forced them back to their everyday lives.
Finally, her last bite swallowed and her coffee too cooled to enjoy, Chloe sat back and regarded her new friend from behind drooping eyelids. “Someday,” she said, the words coming almost as a sigh, “you must tell me all there is to know about what you do. How you got to be so good with the machines.”
Krista snorted softly. “There’s not much to tell,” she said, and her voice carried more weariness than two hectic days could account for. “What I do is nothing even as fancy as what you do for your uncle’s company. Mostly....” She paused to draw a breath and decide how to describe her place in Vattermann’s nest. “Mostly, I’m just there for ... decoration. And of course the monthly runs to Outpost Station.”
Chloe’s eyes opened wide, sparkling with appreciation. She gave Krista a sly smile. “You are very decorative,” she said, her voice low and sultry, her smile turning to a grin when Krista blushed several shades of red at the compliment. “But sure and they must be usin’ your brain as well, at least a wee bit.”
“Not that you’d notice.” Krista grimaced, shaking her head as added emphasis. After a moment a look of melancholy spread across her features. “The truth is, these shopping trips are about the only thing that they let me do by myself. They wouldn’t even allow these if they thought one of them could get in and out of Outpost Station without being arrested on sight.” She quirked an unhappy smile at Chloe. “Believe you me, I don’t dare stray from the list by even the slightest little bit!”
Chloe leaned forward, then reached out and placer her hand atop one of Krista’s. “’Tis a terrible way to be livin’,” she said quietly, then gave the hand she held a gentle squeeze. “Why in the name of all that’s Holy do you stay?”
“I —” Krista began, then had to swallow before she could say more. After a moment her melancholy expression turned to one of deep of sadness. “They — Well. Let’s just say they’ve got me in an unbreakable contract. I don’t have the option to leave. I don’t have a choice.”
Chloe pinned Krista with her eyes. “I’m thinkin’ that, contract or no, you’re a brave lass to keep goin’ back there, when you clearly hate the place. Crazy, but brave. I’m also thinkin’ it’s not the whole story that you’re tellin’ me.” Krista averted her eyes, uncomfortable at Chloe’s stare that contained both puzzlement and empathy. “All right, I won’t be pushin’ for details. But only tell me this,” Chloe continued at last, adding another squeeze to the hand that she still held. “Would you leave if you could?”
Krista turned her gaze back to Chloe, and gave her the slightest of nods. “But I can’t.” She held Chloe’s eyes for a long moment before lowering her head and adding, in the merest of whispers, “I can’t. Not now, anyway. I — It’s ... it’s complicated.”
“Believe me, I do understand complicated,” Chloe sighed, then gave Krista’s hand a final squeeze and sat back in her chair once more. Their waiter chose that moment to appear with warm coffee; the women remained silent as their cups were refilled, then continued that way as they each sampled the fresh brew. At length Chloe replaced her cup on the table and tilted her head in thought.
“I know that you don’t feel comfortable tellin’ me too much about yourself,” she said slowly, “seein’ as we’ve only just met and all. But it seems to me we’ve got a whole lot in common, you and me.”
Krista nodded, though the slightest of frowns creased her brow as she wondered where the comment was leading. Chloe sat silent for a long moment, clearly letting the words sink in before she continued.
“Don’t you see, Krista? We’re both comin’ here to Outpost Station on a fairly regular basis. I can pretty well choose when it is I make the run. Within a few days, anyway, one way or the other.”
Krista’s frown deepened. “O ... kay,” she said, her voice a slow drawl.
“So I’m thinkin’,” Chloe went on, looking as though she felt a bit awkward as she did. “Maybe we can — I don’t know, make it a point to be meetin’ up next time we’re both here? To talk and get to know each other better. After that ... well, we’ll just see how things go, after that.”
Krista’s frown slowly faded as the meaning behind the words began to dawn on her. She raised her eyes to Chloe’s, and for the first time since they’d met she could feel a spark within herself — a spark of hope, maybe even a spark of happiness. When she spoke, though, it was to ask a question that clearly took Chloe by complete surprise.
“So that ship of yours,” she said. The tension drained out of her body as she sat back, allowing the lids to slowly hood her eyes. “Has it got a name?”
“Ah.” It was Chloe’s turn to redden with embarrassment. “Sure and she does,” the redhead admitted after a steadying breath. “She’s the Brigid Delaney. I named her after my sainted mother.”
“That is so sweet.” Krista was deeply touched by Chloe’s choice of ship names — and by her admission of something so obviously personal. She allowed a languid smile to grow on her lips before she continued. “Mine’s the Kierkegaard. It’s named after a man who really believed in the importance of personal choice and commitment.” She paused a moment before adding, “Two things that the asshole I work for just doesn’t give a crap about.”
“Oh,” Chloe little more than breathed. “So....”
“So, yeah,” Krista said after another pause. “I’d like to see you again.”
4
Present Day
Krista paid no attention as Hans finished with her. She hadn’t involved her mind or emotions in his crude sex sessions — in reality, rapes — in years. She had become quite adept at letting her body respond to his lusts while her mind drifted in the pleasant memories of better times. She lay now in the afterglow of those memories, barely aware of Vattermann as he staggered away from her, headed for the apartment’s luxurious bathing facilities. She’d long before ceased wondering why he was driven to bathe after their sessions — she was the one routinely coated by the residue of his passion, not him.
It was a few minutes before she began to notice a chill. The sensation bothered her enough to take a glance down at her body. He clothes were in shreds. Krista had noted over the years that Hans seemed to find the sound of ripping cloth to be intensely arousing; as a result, she limited herself to dressing in the cheap clothes that Hans himself supplied her whenever he was around. The few special outfits that she owned remained hidden aboard Kierkegaard, seeing the light of day only when she was off-world and Hans was nowhere around.
When she was with Chloe.
She pulled a blanket from the back of the couch, spreading it over herself as the sounds of showering ceased. She would not give him the pleasure of seeing her naked and soiled with his leavings. Soon enough she would get her time in the bath, time to cleanse away the stench and the scum of the sex, if not the lingering revulsion — but not until Hans was finished and gone back to whatever it was he did when not tormenting her.
There had been a time when she had dreamed of killing Hans Vattermann after sessions like this, dreamed of somehow obtaining a weapon — a gun, a knife, poison ... she wasn’t particular, and all had made for delicious fantasies. As the months had dragged into years, though, she had come to accept the dreams as just that. Vattermann had his claws too deep into her life for his death to grant release.
Nor would ending her own life end the torment — because Hans would still live, and would still have control over the only people who mattered to her other than Chloe: her family. Until recently they had eked out their lives in the slums of “Big Muddy,” the same slums that a piloting license had allowed Krista to escape, six years before. Krista’s most recent check on them, though, had found them gone ... taken by Vattermann to who-knew-where, the better to control his prize possession.
She forced herself to sit up, keeping the blanket around her as Hans emerged from the bowels of the apartment. Dressed to a “T,” he wore as well the feral grin of one sated on both sex and domination. The scent of after shave and cologne wafted from him as he strode past her, leering at her on his way to the doorway. There he paused a moment before turning back, hard eyes boring into her very soul.
“I expect this place clean when I return,” he rumbled, a slight variation on his constant theme of domestic control. Then the hard eyes narrowed. “You do understand what I want you to do on Outpost Station this time.”
“Of course, Hans,” Krista said, almost as a mantra. She nodded when his eyes remained fixed on her, adding, “Find out anything that can help defeat this Sydney Chambers woman.”
Vattermann’s breathing roughened at the mention of the TSM captain, but he otherwise remained in rigid control. “None of your usual screw-ups on this, do you hear?” He breathed hard for another moment. “Mercenaries. Rumors. Weapons. Everything. I want to know.”
“Yes, Hans, I understand.”
Vattermann’s face slowly formed itself into a grim smile. “Smile,” he told Krista in a tone that he mostly reserved for the bedroom. “Once Chambers is dead there is so much more for you to look forward to. I’ll bet we can make today’s session seem like simple foreplay.” Without another word he left the apartment, closing the door with a firm hand.
As Krista stared at the door, tears began to silently drift down her cheeks.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
On the outside, the structures had seemed the very model of a modern, major, general-manufacturing complex. The main assembly building was large enough that sufficient space would be no problem, even in fabricating the largest components Morrigan would need; better yet, it was a part of a group of buildings, situated on a campus small enough that the track from raw material to finished product wouldn’t require huge investments in time to accomplish. The only thing Sydney had counted as a minus, during the shuttle’s approach run, was the relative filth of every structure … clearly an after-effect of the dark smoke billowing from several buildings, on the campus and off. After a moment of thought, though, she had realized that a frontier world such as Cyg-B-3 would hardly be willing to invest resources on environmental controls when those resources were still needed for creating infrastructure. She had only hoped that the offices, at least, would present a somewhat healthier face.
“Somewhat” turned out to be the operative word when the captain and her retinue were shown into the general offices of Arega Heavy Industries. To her right, she could see her exec Steve Garvey echoing her own reaction, breathing a sigh of relief at the reduced amount of dust showing on the desks that huddled in the room. On her other hand, though, chief engineer Hailey Kristoff seemed like a child in a candy store, completely ignoring the filth as she looked around, clearly still thinking about all the machinery and products they’d seen as they had been escorted through the plant. Sydney suppressed a smile at Kristoff’s reaction. The ability of engineers to obsess over toys that weren’t even theirs never ceased to amaze her.
Her attention was drawn to the room’s sole occupant as that person stood, then moved to intercept them. Dark of complexion and burly of build but of only moderate height, the man smiled broadly and extended a hand as he approached.
“Captain Chambers?” His brown eyes flitted between the three arrivals but settled on Sydney when she raised her eyes at his words. “I’m Sam Sellenberg, operations manager of AHI’s main plant. It was me your officer spoke to this morning.”
Sydney returned the man’s smile and accepted the offered hand-shake. “Good to meet you, Mr. Sellenberg. It was Commander Garvey you spoke with earlier,” she said, nodding toward her exec, “but I wanted to come along on this first meeting to reinforce both the urgency and the terms of our needs.”
“I understand.” Sellenberg nodded, his face now all business. “The commander did mention that you’d taken some damage....”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t have come if that was the only matter.” The captain put on her own all-business demeanor. “As it happens, we have a broader agenda than simply repairing the immediate damage that we’ve taken. We very much want to set up an ongoing supply of parts and expertise. Cahan Morrigan is here for the long haul, Mr. Sellenberg, and Arega Heavy Industries is apparently the only facility in the 16 Cygni trinary capable of meeting our needs.”
The manager’s smile subtly shifted from pleasantly businesslike into something that was only slightly less than predatory. “Yes, we do own the only large vessel facility in the sector,” he said, his voice verging on the annoying edge of ingratiating. “We’d be more than delighted to set up a long-term arrangement —”
“If you have what we need,” Garvey interrupted.
Sellenberg managed to look both offended and not at the same time. “Please don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, a gentle rumble from deep in his chest, “but I understand that your vessel is of an older type?”
“It’s a design that’s been around for a while, yes,” Kristoff said, joining the conversation for the first time. There was every indication from her tone that she was more than a little insulted despite the manager’s advance apology. “But it’s a design that’s still very much in use for current construction. Morrigan is not out of date.”
Sellenberg nodded in deference to the engineer. “I never meant to imply that she was,” he rumbled. “As it happens, the fact that the design is older is an advantage in this instance, ah....”
“This is my chief engineer, Lieutenant Hailey Kristo
ff,” Sydney said, providing the introduction she’d skipped before.
“Ah! Of course.” Sellenberg’s face lit up, clearly delighted to meet a fellow tech professional, and he offered the lieutenant his hand. “Good to meet you, Engineer Kristoff,” he said, then grinned as the two shook hands. “You may not be aware of this, but being so far out on the frontier has rather limited AHI’s contact with the Terran Space Military. As a result, TSM’s Central Engineering hasn’t thought it, ah, urgent to provide us with specs for the most recent ship designs.” He shrugged. “I imagine they presume we won’t see anything new for a long time, so why go to the expense of updating our data base?”
“Oh.” Kristoff frowned. “But you do have specs for the Morrigan?”
“We should.”
The manager turned and made his way to a computer terminal that looked as though it could define the term old. “I must apologize, but it’ll take me a few minutes to check — our computer systems are original to the installation of this facility, about ten years old now, but they were they best we could get at the time. I admit, it makes them a bit slow.”
“We’ll wait,” Garvey assured him, though the commander’s face reflected something quite different than patience.
“Thank you,” Sellenberg said as he sat and began pecking at the ancient machine’s input. “Upgrading our IT has been a low priority, budget-wise, since what we have still works. The money is far better used for facilities and operations than for processing power.”
Kristoff moved closer to the chugging computer, eyeing it doubtfully. “Are you sure that thing can even access a modern database?”
“Easy, Ms. Kristoff,” Sydney said softly. “A computer very much like that one worked well enough to get me through the Academy.” Kristoff opened her mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it as her captain touched her arm.
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