Tor (Women of Earth Book 2)

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  "Neither." She shook her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts. "Both."

  He did step back at that. His brows rose like eagles' wings. "Could you clarify that? Just a little?"

  "You do snore, but not badly." Should she tell him how much she enjoyed that comforting rumble beneath her ear? That she thought he would send her back to her own cold bed when his needs were met? Should she tell him how warm and secure it felt when he gathered her close to pillow her head on his chest? She turned in his arms. "And I don't regret sleeping with you. How could I? It was wonderful." She couldn't lie, not about something like that. "It was..."

  Mohawk saved her from folding under feelings that had nothing to do with her mission.

  "Ha," he shouted, much louder than he needed to. "Finally got the old meat whistle calling her tune, did ya? "Bout time. Bet she danced a jolly jig to it, too. The quiet ones always do once the ice is broken."

  Wynne ducked around Tor and marched toward the grinning Perithian who'd fanned the dying embers of her anger. He could tell all the off color tales he liked about his own sexcapades, but he wasn't adding hers to his repertoire. What she'd done wasn't a jolly jig. It wasn't something to be joked about. It had meaning.

  Mohawk must have seen it in her face, because he took a step back. "Oh-oh."

  "You bet oh-oh."

  Wynne had her finger up, ready to read him the riot act. Her sex life was not up for discussion. It was none of his business. What came out, however, was quite different from her intent.

  "Whose side are you on?"

  Mohawk blinked and looked past her to Tor. "What did you do to her?" he asked angrily. "You knew she'd never been danced around the pole. What the hell were you thinking, man? You've got to ease 'em into the more... um... catterwhumping stuff."

  Wynne had no idea what any of that meant and knowing Mohawk, she probably didn't want to.

  "I didn't..." Tor started to answer.

  "Don't." She turned her warning finger on him. "This has nothing to do with sex."

  Posy glided into the room, his long robe skimming the tops of his sandaled feet. "Everything has to do with sex. Isn't that right, Ish?" he said over his shoulder.

  "Fuck you." Ish followed him into the room.

  Posy spread his hands. "You see?"

  Wynne ignored him and kept her focus on Mohawk. "You knew Tor was going to abandon us on Celos."

  "I wasn't going to abandon you," Tor interrupted.

  "Don't interrupt." Those two words were much easier to say now that he was ten feet away. "I'll get to you in a minute."

  Mohawks face had become a determined mask. "The important thing is to get you to Mishra," he argued dutifully, though with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

  "No. The important thing is you didn't ask me."

  "One ride on the comet and you tell all? I thought I could trust you." At the dagger eyes he shot at Tor, Wynne sighed.

  "Will you please get your mind out of my bed? That has nothing to do with this. I have other fish to fry here."

  "Didn't sound like nothing last night." Posy winked at Tor.

  "Oh, my God," Wynne moaned. "Are you not hearing me? Do you not see the look on my face? Do you not get that I'm serious here?"

  Ish strolled over to the cook top, peered into the pan, and began eating with her fingers. "There is no fish in here." She curled her lip. "No meat either. So what does sex have to do with frying fish?"

  "It's a saying and it has nothing to do with sex. It means I have other things to talk about," Wynne explained. She saw Mohawk wink at Posy and the other man grin. Her patience plummeting to new lows. She threw up her hands in frustration. "I don't know why everyone is so interested in my sex life," she muttered.

  "Because you have one." Posy looked longingly at Ish.

  They were trying to distract her, just as Tor had tried in the escape pod. Did they think she was so dimwitted she'd fall for it? Wynne threw up her hands in. "Then you'll have to make one up because mine is off limits. Am I clear on that or do you need a translation?"

  Hands down on the tabletop, she leaned in and looked from face to face before glaring over her shoulder at Ish. She received a disappointed nod from Posy and an indifferent shrug from Ish. Tor's face had become a solid mask of...she wasn't sure what, but at least he wasn't grinning like Mohawk. That grin became the subject of her first attack.

  "And you can just wipe that smile off you face, mister. Don't think I'm finished with you or that you can shift the blame to someone else. I don't know whether it was your idea or Tor's, but here's a newsflash. Neither one of you has the right to make my decisions for me. Or for Truca. She has a right to have a say in her own future."

  She was surprised when it was Ish who spoke up.

  "With us, she has no future. She's better off with you."

  "How can you say that? You don't even like me."

  "So? I don't like most people. What's that got to do with it?" Ish looked at her as if she was stupid. She picked up the spoon lying next to the skillet and began eating from the pan. "Don't you want her?"

  "Of course I want her. That's not the point." Wynne said as she marched back around the counter to the cook top. She snatched the now empty spoon from Ish's hand and threatened her with it. "No food until you tell me what's going on."

  "It is the point, Wynne. With your connections, she's the easiest one to save," Tor said quietly.

  "Save from what?"

  "From life on a penal colony. Once you're in the hands of the peacekeepers, you tell them everything that happened until we got to the compound. You dealt with me and only me. Once here, you met Truca. She'd been abused. She helped you escape. Beyond that, none of you know where I'm going or what my plans are."

  "No," Truca said from the doorway. "I won't do it. I won't let them think you did this to me. I won't."

  "You won't have to," Wynne assured her.

  "She must," Tor insisted. "She has to be cleared of any involvement. You refused, Truca, and I beat you for it."

  "No. It isn't true and I won't say it. I won't." Truca sniffed loudly and clamped her jaws tight to stop the quivering of her chin. The tears spilled anyway.

  "You will. You have to. If Chubo and Nix are still on the Sky Hawk, they'll need your testimony that they had no choice. It's the best we can do for them. The peacekeepers have to believe Digger and I set up the whole thing. When Lusomo didn't agree, I killed him. Chubo and Nix knew you'd be next if they didn't cooperate."

  "But you didn't kill him," the girl cried. "I did. I let them in. I opened the door. It was my fault, Tor. You told me to keep the door locked. I opened it. Lusomo found us in the hallway when they were taking me back. He died because of me."

  Wynne was already moving toward Truca. "No," she said, so sharply that the girl's head jerked as if she'd been slapped. "You aren't responsible for any of this. It started long before you opened that door. I won't let you blame yourself. None of this was your fault, Truca, none of it."

  "But it is. All of it," Truca sobbed. Her eyes shifted from Wynne to Ish. "I lied to you and Posy. I told you I thought I heard Tor coming back to the room. I didn't. I was going out. I was angry with all of you for going out to have fun, for leaving me behind. I was going to show you I wasn't a child." She wiped her cheeks with her hands and her nose with her sleeve. "I wasn't going to do anything bad. Just go out. Alone. On my own."

  The crew was Truca's family, and like every family, she'd been assigned her place. Wynne knew only too well what that was like. And what it was like to have your one quiet moment of rebellion end in tragedy.

  As she gathered the girl in her arms, Wynne whispered the words no one had ever said to her. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault."

  "Why couldn't you save them?" her brother David had asked when the building collapsed from the air strike. He was only a little boy at the time and still thought grownups had the miraculous power to fix the unfixable.

  "I thought you were with them," Mira had said.<
br />
  Neither meant it as an accusation, but the words stuck with Wynne.

  Her father was tired, worn out with worry. Her mother was sick and weak. She needed help to use the stairs and the stairwell was where they died. Logically, Wynne knew there was little she could have done. There was no guarantee her being there would have saved them, but she wasn't there to try, and her guilt wasn't swayed by logic or reason. She couldn't let Truca's unearned guilt do to her what Wynne had allowed her own guilt to do to herself.

  "You had no crystal ball, sweetheart. You had no way of seeing the future." She looked up at the others, but her words were for Tor. "None of you did. This wasn't your fault."

  Tor ignored the hint. "She's right, Truca. None of this is your fault," he said stiffly, "But it doesn't change our current circumstance. I can use the credits we found here to buy Ish and Posy alibis to prove they left the ship before this happened. I can't do that for Chubo and Nix. I need a reason for their cooperation. I'll make sure they look like they were forced if they don't look that way already. It's the only thing I can think of to give them a chance."

  "Why me?" Truca asked. "Why not Posy or Ish? They got taken, too."

  Wynne knew why. Truca was young and innocent looking and she was the only one who showed obvious signs of abuse. Her battered face and body was bound to evoke sympathy. It would lend credence to Tor's lie, particularly if Wynne and Mohawk claimed the girl helped them escape.

  "And then what?" she asked before anyone could answer. "Everyone is taken care of but you, Tor. What happens to you?"

  Posy found something to look at on the floor. Ish's face hardened into a mask of stone. Even Mohawk refused to look at her. Wynne wasn't alone in her objection.

  Wynne raised her finger to Tor. "You're going to find the Sky Hawk, make sure everyone has the best chance of surviving this, and then turn yourself in and take the blame. You're not coming back, because you'll be in one of those prison colonies. You're asking your crew to perjure themselves to convict you. You're asking them to commit a crime to convict you of a crime you didn't commit. How does that make sense, Tor? And why are you agreeing to it?" she asked the others.

  "Because he's our Captain and none of us could come up with a better plan," Posy admitted.

  Mohawk's answer was no answer at all. "My job is to deliver you safely to Mishra. I have a duty to the First Commander."

  "If my safe delivery was all you were concerned about, it would have been cheaper and more efficient to box me up and turn me over to the Galactic Postal Service or whatever the hell you people call it. I'm not a package, Mohawk. I'm an adult human." Wynne gently turned Truca so that they were standing side by side. "We are adults," she said, including the tear stained young woman. "We may not be as experienced as the rest of you, but we're perfectly capable of making our own decisions when fully informed." This last was a jab at Tor who'd promised twice to let her know what was going on. "What do you say, Truca?"

  For a moment, Wynne thought the young mechanic wasn't going to answer, but after a moment of staring at her toes, Truca squared her shoulders and looked up.

  "I say if you're going after the Sky Hawk, then that meteoric mess of a moon hopper isn't going to get you there. You're going to have to steal a bigger vessel. If I had to guess, it'll be the one you showed me in the boneyard the first time you brought me to Celos and every time since. You said she was a beauty and I said she was a piece of flying shit."

  Tor worked hard to keep the straight line of his mouth solid and unamused. His eyes gave his feelings away. "I remember. I told you to clean up your language, no one wanted to hear that from a lady. You told me you weren't a lady. You were a mechanic."

  Truca wasn't smiling either. "I also told you that I knew a piece of shit when I saw one. I still do, and I don't suppose that ship's in any better shape now. You forget, I'm the one who picked her engines over while you were doing business. You're going to need me to keep her flying, Captain. Posy doesn't have enough mag tape. Celos doesn't have enough mag tape," she added as an aside to Wynne.

  "And who knows what shape the Sky Hawk will be in," Posy added. "We can use the extra hand, Cap. She doesn't have to leave the ship."

  Tor's eyes lost their amusement. "No. I won't risk it. I won't leave her alone and vulnerable again."

  "She won't be alone," Wynne told him. "I'll be with her."

  Ish snorted in derision. "Two zinnies to kill with one shoe. I feel safer already."

  Wynne knew an insult when she heard one. She'd never seen a zinny, but she knew what they were. Small animal pests about the size of a guinea pig, they were known for invading ships, reproducing rapidly, and consuming food stores by the ton. They were sometimes kept as pets by crew members because of their silky coats and affectionate nature once tamed. Pretty rats, Roark called them, but rats just the same. Mohawk promised to find one for the kids.

  She was about to protest when Ish continued.

  "To avoid all the tears and guilt when they get themselves killed, someone needs to show them how to defend themselves."

  "Are you volunteering?" Tor asked.

  "I suppose I'll have to. There'll be no peace for any of us if something happens to either one of them."

  "I didn't think you'd care," Wynne said, surprised by Ish's offer.

  "I don't," the woman responded with a curl to her lip. "But the Captain does. You've never seen him when he gets cranky."

  "Won't be necessary," Mohawk interrupted. "Wynne's going to Mishra."

  "You don't want to go to Mishra any more than I do, Mohawk. Whack 'em, shoot 'em, feed 'em to the carnars." Wynne shuddered with distaste at that last. "You're enjoying this back in action thing. I can tell."

  "Duty comes before pleasure," he insisted, "and my first duty is to the First Commander. My mission is to get you safely to Mishra and your sister. Her time is near. She'll be worried."

  Guilt slithered up from Wynne's belly. By now, word of the explosion and kidnapping aboard the Romer II had probably reached Mishra. She and Mohawk would be listed among the missing and presumed dead. Mira would be frantic with worry. Roark or his father's political influence would double the efforts to find the culprits. There had to be a way to contact them without giving up Tor and the crew.

  "Is there a way to send a message to them?" she asked, her mind racing to find a way to satisfy everyone's needs and wants, including her own.

  "Not in a way that won't alert the authorities to where we are," Tor answered. His face showed no emotion at all.

  Why should it? For him, their night together had been one of many he'd spent with women he barely knew. His letter had not been of love, but of a gentlemanly goodbye and a request for Truca's care.

  Wynne recognized that Tor and the night she spent with him were important factors in her wanting to stay with the Sky Hawk's crew, but she wasn't a naive child that might believe there was a future there. No, it was more than that. She needed this for herself, too. She needed, just once, to be free of the expectations of others and to follow her own course. It couldn't last and even if it could, she wouldn't let it, but it was something to hold on to. Once it was over, she could return to her obligations knowing that for a short time, she'd lived a life she chose and not the one laid out by fate.

  "Not if I'm careful," she said, thinking of all the times her sister had told the truth to their parents without revealing the whole of it. "I'll tell them that Mohawk and I are safe and arrangements have been made for our return. I'll say we're leaving immediately, and though it may take us a bit longer, we will make our way to Mishra. I'll send another message as soon as I can," she added, getting into the spirit of the deception. "And I'll end it with not to worry, I'm in good hands."

  "It could work." Mohawk puffed with enthusiasm for the lie that wasn't a lie and just as quickly deflated. "I'm duty bound."

  "You're duty bound to keep me safe. You can't do that if you're headed to Mishra and I'm headed somewhere else. If it makes you feel any better, I'll t
ell them you tried but I flatly refused. Mira knows how stubborn I can be. Just ask her how many times she tried to get me to do something I shouldn't."

  "You shouldn't do this either," he grumbled, "But I don't think they'd like it if I trussed you up like an unlucky thief, so we'll do it your way."

  "I call it settled. Come, zinny miku, we'll take a final look at our meteoric mess of a moon hopper while the rest of them settle the details." Posy offered his arm to Truca and, sensing her hesitancy, immediately withdrew it. "So sorry, Truca. I..."

  "No, don't. They took away...No," she said and reached for his arm before she changed course. "I won't let them take away this."

  Wynne turned her head so Truca wouldn't see her burning eyes. She caught Ish watching the pair.

  "Don't you ever call her weak," she warned the Osana woman.

  "I never have," Ish shot back. "Soft isn't always weak. You would do well to remember that."

  Posy and Truca were almost to the door when both Wynne and Tor called, "Wait."

  Tor ran his hand up over his bristly skull with a sigh that begged for patience. "More orders?" he asked. "More plans to remake?"

  "Oh, no, I think we're finished with that. I just wanted to say that before you get busy, you need to eat breakfast. Give me a few minutes and I'll fry up some of that meat."

  Everyone took seats around the table, though Tor was last.

  "If she's going to be a member of this crew, she needs to earn her keep," Ish said to the others. "I say we make her the cook. It beats the shit we usually eat and she'll be gods damned useless anywhere else."

  "Not entirely useless in one particular place." Posy blew a kiss to Tor.

  Pointing to the giant with the knife she was using to slice the unidentifiable meat, Wynne smiled sweetly. "Do you like my cooking, Posy?"

  "I do indeed. None of us have the talent for it."

  "Then if you expect to benefit from my talent, I'll expect you to curb your smartass remarks. Got it?"

  Ish surprised her again. "First lesson learned. Use whatever weapons you have at hand."