Becca

by Mima

  Long hours later, she and Gage still sat in the security office. He was bruised and cuffed, and she kept her hand on his thigh while she sipped hot tea.

  Catching him watching her, she tucked her hair behind her ear. “What?”

  “I warned you. I knew it gets like this just about everywhere.”

  She returned his tired gaze. “You did warn me and I insisted.” She leaned forward and kissed him gently. “I’m not eager to repeat that, but I’m not sorry. I like you, Gage. I’d like to get to know you. And I don’t appreciate anyone telling me who I can have interest in.”

  He rubbed his cheek against hers. “I’m glad to have met you, Becca. Will you go walking with me again tomorrow?”

  She nodded. Maybe the walking would lead back to his narrow bed, and maybe it wouldn’t. But her decision would be about Gage, not about fear. “I’d like that.”

  ALL HAIL! You have found the ending called Kick Ass. Click on this link to return to the Choice Index. Dare to decide again!

  Becca drew in a deep breath. Her body felt full and relaxed, while adrenaline hummed in her veins. This was real excitement, with real outcomes. It was also edgy, but she relished the adventure. For the last five years she’d listened to stories of Rex’s exploits in the navy, eavesdropping on his visiting friends as they recounted incredible missions while on leave.

  So this wasn’t a noble naval mission. The loot had already been in transit when she found it. If she walked away, it would still go to its destination. She couldn’t change Darnell’s death, but he’d known the risks better than she. Thinking about the person in cryo gave her the heebie-jeebies, so she’d just stay away from it.

  It would be suicidal to go against the captain. And she was not calling her brother. She would do this for three months, and she’d get a fresh start with another, sober senior chief. She’d have a nest egg and she’d know more about the way the world worked, instead of just fiberline on a ship. No one in her family would know of her adventure beyond the fact she’d taken a managerial side trip. Uncle George would be so proud. Now that she thought of it, he’d probably been Syndicate too, and he’d lived to a delightful old age, always up to hijinks.

  She caught some sleep and went below to oversee the transition of watch from Joe to Cal. Joe had rebuffed all her attempts at conversation, so she was leaning against the bulkhead when Cal came down the stairs. He sauntered up to her, and this time his stare stayed fixed on her face.

  “Hi Cal.”

  “How does it feel to have killed a man?” He stopped in front of her.

  Her heart skipped. She frowned. “I wouldn’t know. Are you referring to the fact Darnell is missing? Do you know what happened to him?”

  “Pretty, lying bitch. I always told Darnell his way with the ladies would be the death of him.”

  Becca stood. “Watch your mouth. I’m your overseer and I told you, I had nothing to do with Darnell’s death.” The words were easier to say than they were to think. “If he’s even dead. It’s only been a few hours.”

  “What did Don say?”

  “He hasn’t answered my message.” That was true. “I figure I’ll ask him at poker.”

  Joe snorted from his place watching them at the monitor. “Can’t wait.” His rheumy eyes were cold.

  She asked, “Why would someone want him out of the way? Do you think someone is making a move on our invisible cargo?” This was the riskiest thing she’d said yet. It was a lie on two levels, and she could get caught on both.

  “Good question,” Joe said. He stood from the monitor stool with a groan, rubbing his butt. “It weren’t her, Cal. You think Don’s angling to cut us all out one by one and take this sweet pot at the end?”

  Cal continued to stare hard at Becca. “I dunno. I just know a new set of tits comes in and Darnell’s dead.”

  Becca raised her chin. “And what about Tony? The prior overseer. The one who just up and left the job open without explanation. Did he run from this mess, or did he disappear the same way Darnell did, while the Cider Pot was underway?”

  “Tony was different—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Joe!” Cal turned on the old man, fists clenched.

  He and Joe stared at each other, then Cal’s hand flashed out and grabbed Becca’s upper arm. She squeaked and twisted, but he was strong.

  “I think you should know something.” He pulled her toward the refrigerated bay.

  “Take your hand off me!” She struggled, suddenly convinced she did not want to go in the bay with Cal the strong, angry, suspicious ex-con.

  He pulled her through the bay doorframe and sealed it again, then surprised her by letting her go. “Darnell stayed behind in the room with you yesterday. What did he say to you?”

  She told him the truth. “He warned me against you.”

  That seemed to stun him. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “That sumbitch! Lord, as if he ever for one second didn’t think with his cock.”

  “Why did you take me in here?”

  He banged on the cargo box next to the one she knew to be the cryo, and a door opened. It was cut so precisely in the side of the crate she hadn’t seen it, and she was standing an arm’s length away. The bed-size crate was hollow inside. He ducked in, motioning her to follow.

  “I’m not going in there with you. You’ve breached a seal, Cal! I’ll have to report this!”

  “This is the captain’s cargo, and he already knows about the seal—he cut it himself. Try not to be stupid. Just look over there.” He gestured toward the cryo.

  She stuck her head in and peered at the side of the crate adjacent to the cryo. She’d been right. They’d removed the whole end of this container and the cryo’s, linking the two and revealing a complex medical panel.

  “Is that a cryo?” she breathed. Some poor soul was frozen in stasis in there. They could have been frozen for a century or more. Could the person hear them right now? Or were they insane from the pain of every nerve ending being frozen yet functioning?

  “Yeah. And I’m telling you because I think you already know. I think the captain put you on this assignment and I’m thinking you’re not as innocent as you look. I’m thinking you’re a spy, and I—”

  “Here’s the truth.”

  He stopped. Crouched in the dark container, lit by the med lights, he looked dangerous.

  She took a breath. “I’m in. I’ll be helping to unload all the invisible cargo, including this cryo, and I’ll keep my mouth shut. I want the money and I’m on your team. I didn’t know about this cryo, but it doesn’t change anything.” The lie flowed easily and she plowed on. “I thought it was dangerous when I agreed to help the captain and now I know for sure. We can still do this.” Nausea churned in her gut. That poor person . . . What had Cal called Darnell? A sumbitch. That’s what her sexy captain was. A sexy sumbitch who’d seduced her into this.

  “I can do this.” Hearing the words out loud made her feel braver. She struggled to swallow around a dry throat. Damn Cal for forcing her to witness this. For forcing her to face her cowardice.

  Cal considered her, then checked the med panel. He tapped a few buttons and came out, replacing the wall panel perfectly.

  Facing her, he said, “You’re slick. Something’s off. Darnell’s out and you’re here, and if Don’s leaving you here, then so far you’re safe. But we’ll see how you do at London Moon customs. I’m watching you.”

  She crossed her arms and cocked one hip. The provocative pose wasn’t quite as effective in a baggy blue flight suit. “I’ll watch you, too. You’re hostile and you blab. I didn’t need to know about that cryo. You need to calm down.”

  Cal rolled his eyes and left the bay, settling into the monitor’s chair. She walked past him and headed toward her room.

  Coming down the stairs was Djetivoch. Again she worried what the captain had told whom.
r />   “Joe said there were words between you and Cal.”

  “We settled them.”

  The security master’s height and thin face made her think of an evil shadow. “You know about the cold package.”

  Oh, he was good. She had no idea if Joe, Cal, or the captain had told him.

  She nodded. “It’s not a problem.”

  “And you know about the reduced team.”

  She shrugged. “Unpleasant.” Her stomach shrank to the size of a pea.

  He stepped closer. In his quietest whisper he asked, “Are you fucking the captain?”

  She had to tell the truth, because it could be a trap. She looked into his beady black eyes. “Best of my experience so far.”

  His strange grin came slowly. “Poker at shift change in the cargo hall.”

  Adrenaline flooded her veins with energy. Her smile was wide and toothy. “I’ll be there.”

  When she needed to prove herself, to keep from screaming over Rex’s perfection, or school, or her parents’ social structures, she’d climb the rocky cliffs near their home. She’d curl her bare toes over crumbling earth and watch the surf below until it mesmerized, until her lungs flowed with the same rhythm. And then she’d jump.

  The fall was long enough she had to breathe, long enough for her brain to process beyond fear. If you missed your angle, you broke bones or knocked yourself unconscious. If you did it right, you felt like a creature of air and sea, wild and dominant. Becca had no illusions. She’d taken the jump and was in freefall. The landing would need to be perfect, or it was going to hurt.

  Becca didn’t always win at poker, but she did hold up her end of the bargain at each and every docking point. As the Cider Pot continued its three-month starcourse through the system, she helped take the manifests through customs and rearranged the remaining cargo to keep the ship balanced. She avoided learning about the stasis readings on the cryo, which had to be adjusted every three hours since it was in travel mode and not docked to a smart-MD. If left alone with it, she thought her nightmares about her brother meeting her at a customs exchange would morph into something much darker.

  She met Senior Chief Walters a few times, and indeed, he smelled of whiskey. Since every time she saw him, he was pawing at his skinny, preening intern, she marveled at how lucky she was that the captain had offered her this chance.

  It had been her intention to stay away from the captain. The fact he was capable of ordering a murder while having sex was freaky-scary. But he was so charming, smart, and handsome. He was the first man who’d ever gone after her, and when he gifted her with an exquisite fiberline welder and assured her she was safe with him . . . well, she believed him. Worse, she liked him.

  The memories of Darnell’s fate faded with the sense of imminent danger. She was proud of how she handled customs, and by the third port, the captain had become Jake. They were well suited in bed. She enjoyed him, despite the fact that when Cal found out about their relationship, he became sullen and even more aggressive. And she never got used to Feor’s silent slink ways.

  But every time they landed at a new port, she took on a swagger. She lied with her eyes and smiled like crazy. Each port required a fake manifest to be delivered to the customs agent and a second to a dock worker in on the transfer. She became very good at scoping for cameras and sliding the real data over in a casual way. It was like being one of the cool kids, playing pranks on the teacher in the back of the room, laughing when the teacher remained clueless.

  Afterward, there was free time in port. Blood running hot, she’d explore the new halls, shopping easily with her plush new budget, taking in different music and trying new foods, chatting up other travelers. It was just what she’d always dreamed of. Then she’d come back to Jake’s cabin and fuck him hard and wild.

  When the Cider Pot docked in York’s upper atmosphere three months later, empty of cargo, Jake kissed her out of her office, stripped her across the cavernous bay, and took her against the wall. Their gasps and cries echoed in the huge metal room, amplifying the edgy knowledge they could be walked in on. Leaning against her, pinning her hands above her head, he held himself still as she trembled on the verge of her second orgasm. Her core was molten, and the metal against her bare back iced her spine. His mouth on hers was frenzied, and her ankles locked around his hips at the small of his back.

  “Captain,” she panted. “Don’t stop!” She always called him Captain during sex.

  “You liked it, didn’t you, Becca.” He pressed his chest against hers, the crinkly male hairs chafing her nipples, making her head thrash between her raised arms. “You liked the thrill, the challenge. You’d be an asset. The Brotherhood would take you on.” He bit at the front of her throat. “I’d put in a referral for you.”

  “Jake, not now. I can’t think! Move!” She strained, struggling to get him deeper.

  “Yes, now. This is good-bye for us, beautiful. You’re going to be wasted as a technical worker bee. You belong in the thick of action, playing the game.” He kissed along her jaw, then withdrew and slammed forward.

  “Ah! Yes!” His cock filled her, stretched her insides.

  “That’s what I want to hear. I want you to join. The danger pays off. It’s a better life for ordinary people like you and me, who don’t get the breaks.” He ground his hips in a circle.

  “I can’t! My family!” He still didn’t know about her brother, but if she joined the Brotherhood, they’d learn of him quickly. They’d never let her in, or if they did, they’d probably use her to go after him.

  “They’d be protected. Becca, you earned seventy-five thousand credits in three months. It would take you six years or more to become a senior chief on an elite ship and earn that kind of salary. In the Brotherhood, you work for a few years, and then you’re out. You could retire to Xclesio-o.”

  She’d told him of her dream to travel there. The credits he’d already given her earlier that morning were indeed dazzling. Even after thinking on it all this time, she still wasn’t sure what she’d do with the money. Maybe buy her own ship. His fat erection stroked in and out of her sensitive cleft. She panted, so close.

  “Becca, can you really go back to being an underling, to focusing on power relays, when what you truly love is the power of the play?”

  This time he drove deep and held himself totally still. Her wrists pulled at his grip, and her thighs strained. His chest abraded her flattened nipples as she panted. He’d been wonderful with her, interesting and kind and sexy and accommodating, but he’d also been the ruthless killer of Darnell, someone willing to transport someone bound in the nightmare of cryo. Was that the life she wanted? Would she risk her parents and brother?

  But wasn’t he right? Could she ever go back to being a systems engineer? Could she be a simple crewman on a nice, boring transport? These three months had ignited a woman who thrived on sex twice a day, dangerous companions, complicated calculations, and daring bluffs.

  With a groan, he began to pummel his hips into the spread, open cradle of hers. She moaned, and the sound ricocheted down the walls she’d patrolled so often these last few weeks. He thrust into her with all his weight and her body rejoiced.

  “Say. Yes.” He grunted with each stab upward. “Say. Yes.”

  The chant built in her head and her core, in her lungs and her heart. She wanted this. She knew she shouldn’t, but she did. She opened her eyes to watch the orgasm roll through his slitted hazel stare. Brotherhood? Or home?

  “Go ahead, Joe.” She nodded to the old man, and he drove the first vehicle into the station. She would do this exactly the way the captain expected, and then she would get her brother’s help. Relief that she’d soon have an ally lowered her tense shoulders.

  Cal climbed into the second loader and she walked along behind him, nodding to Feor in the third one, loaded with a smaller set of crates. He stopped after exiting the ship to cl
ose the doors. They’d need to go through a whole level of security to seal it back up, but in the meantime, no one would be able to wander into the Cider Pot.

  Just as she’d been told, she walked right past customs in the wake of Cal’s loader. At the loading docks, workers swarmed up and began removing crates from the three loaders. They seemed to know her team. A woman pushing a solar-wiper came a bit too close and Becca looked hard at her. Her shoulder badge read WAREHOUSE: JOLENE.

  An official bustled up to her. “Cider Pot overseer?”

  She nodded.

  “Present your manifest.”

  She pulled the plax-page with a dent out of her pocket and handed it to the official. Her heart galloped frantically around her ribs.

  “Thanks.” He started tapping immediately and hurried away.

  Turning, she palmed the undented complete manifest and walked close by Jolene. The woman turned as if stretching the small of her back, and Becca tucked the plax-page into her hands. Jolene pocketed it and went back to wiping.

  Becca’s face was icy, while sweat poured down her back. She’d done it. The captain’s invisible cargo was on its way. Her blood bubbled like it was carbonated. She headed toward the moon’s public exit, watching as Cal vanished through the doors, laughing with another worker. Feor slinked out too, but turned in the opposite direction. She would go into the first tavern she found and call her brother.

  “Excuse me, Overseer.” A security guard stepped up to her.

  Her heart squeezed down the size of a grape. She continued past him.

  “You. Overseer. Stop.” He swung in front of her and shoved her shoulder.

  Stricken, she stared at him, way past being able to bluff.

  “The manager has found some irregularities.” He frowned at her. “Let me see some identification.”

  She handed him her plax-page.

  He glanced at it and looked at her quickly. “Becca Sharpin.”

  She nodded. He looked over at the cargo manager. She followed his line of sight to see the manager glaring at her, arms folded. Another security guard stood next to him. Her gaze flashed to movement on the far side of the large room and she saw two burly guards wrestling Jolene to the ground.