NightPiercer

by Merry Ravenell

  “So tell Tsu,” he repeated.

  “You know I won’t do that, because if I do, it’ll rip this ship apart, and I’m not dragging however many thousands of people down with us, Commander. Look the other way on things that don’t hurt anyone, trading favors and pulling levers are how some things get done. I’m not a naïve moron. But you’ve gone straight to abuse of power, and you got your own mother involved. You have no limits.”

  Rainer scoffed, voice rough. “No limits is how this ship got built. You don’t think my grandfather had a private army? You don’t think my grandparents ignored the pleas for help from the desperate? You don’t think they had to do horrible things or face extinction?”

  “I’ve read Exodus accounts,” she said roughly. “It’s required training for Crèche.”

  “You’ve read some of them. There are more required for senior officer training. Anyone who doesn’t believe Exodus was sent by an angry goddess is as deluded as you think I am.”

  “And if you’re right, there’s no home to go to.”

  “I can build a faster than light drive. We can colonize—”

  “FTL? Let me just manifest a spacedock so you can get to work on that. That retrofit should only take a few months, right.” She rolled her eyes. FTL had always been a theory. If anyone could cultivate that seed of an idea into a plant, it’d be Rainer, but they were sorely lacking in spare parts and a spacedock.

  “I have a theory,” Rainer said darkly. “But I also trust Tsu. It’s the other senior staff that are obstacles. I have to give my Captain enough to make him confident in whatever drastic path we take. And we need to make a choice. We’re running out of time.”

  “You make it sound like the only choices are go back to Earth or stay here. There are others. Terraforming and colonizing a moon, planetoid, or Mars.” Even Pluto might be a good case, dim and cold as it was. At least it was geologically active and may have an active core. Mars had more of an atmosphere and more sunlight, but was a dead hunk of rock.

  “Which is why we have to start now. We’re only getting one chance at whatever we do, and we need years to prepare. By the time NightPiercer falls apart it will be too late. We aren’t repeating Exodus. We start now,” Rainer snarled. “And you know I’m right, and you will help me because that is who you are.”

  “And I’m still angry with you,” she said. She was stuck with him. But he was telling her the ships were dying, and even if she didn’t want to believe him, she knew all about LightBearer.

  “So be angry. I’ll weather that storm too.”

  She said, quietly, “And I’m afraid of you.”

  The confession stilled him and smothered his rage, like a flame starved of oxygen.

  “I’m afraid of you,” she repeated.

  “I only want—”

  “It’s not what you want. It’s not even what you’re capable of.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “Then what frightens you?”

  “That you’re so convinced that you’re right.”

  His face flickered with a frown. He didn’t need to say anything. His expression and scent said everything: but I am right.

  Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. He didn’t get to decide the fate of a civilization. “So what was your original plan anyway? Sweep me off my feet, whisk me away to NightPiercer and then expect me to not be pissed?”

  “Bring you to NightPiercer, then wait for you to realize we’re mates, and tell you the truth about how you got here,” he said.

  She blinked. “Wow. You are an idiot. And this is why you don’t get to decide the fate of a civilization.”

  “We’re mates, and I did what I had to do for us to be together,” he said, brow furrowing. “It’s romantic.”

  “Excuse me, did you just attempt to justify taking me from everything I’ve ever known and drawing me into your crazy, deluded Sunderer 2.0 because you thought it was romantic?” She coughed and wheezed. That was a word that never got used. Romance. It’d practically been banned. “Who told you that romance was a good reason for anything! There’s a reason nobody is supposed to have relationships. Crèche makes everything like that impossible.”

  Rainer raised a brow. “So you think true love went extinct.”

  He was not saying he loved her. She’d chew his arm off if he had hit that level of crazy. “No, love is in cryostorage.”

  “You’re my mate, Lachesis,” he said. “I wasn’t going to ignore Gaia’s voice. This was the only way for us to be together, but if you’d prefer to deny what’s between us, this ship still needs a navigator, and you as my wife was the only way to make it happen. I’d thought you’d understand all of this.”

  The first moment she’d met him she’d felt his pull, she’d wanted to kiss him, touch him, bite him and taste his skin. And as maddening as he was, he kept pulling her in, like Jupiter’s gravity tugged on all of them. His argument about a navigator was even stronger than his maddening argument about her being the other half of his soul.

  “If I’d told you all this and given you the choice to get on the shuttle, would you have accepted?” Rainer asked.

  “Stop it.”

  “You’d have told me I was crazy, but you’d have gotten on that shuttle.” He cupped her cheek in his hand. “You’d have done it. You’d have come with me.”

  She brushed his hand off her. Her skin burned with the imprint of his palm, and something delicate tore when their skin broke contact. “This is why I’m scared of you because you’re always so convinced you’re right.”

  “Because I am right?”

  “No, because you decided to lie from the start.” His scent clouded her senses and made her dizzy. Anguish pooled under her breastbone. She was married to a liar. “Go away, Rainer.”

  He pulled back once more, scent confused and disturbed. “I can’t leave you alone. You’re too sick.”

  Because there was no one else on the ship to look after her. No family. No friends. “Then leave me alone. Go do something else. I’m done talking about this with you.”

  He hesitated a few moments, then decided a tactical retreat was in everyone’s best interests.

  Useless Honesty & Important Lies

  She sat on the other end of the couch and glared at the counselor. She didn’t trust that Medical badge as far as she could throw it. Marriage therapists were always pocket friends with Crèche, even if they were officially Medical. Medical and Crèche were very close friends.

  Rainer, on the other end of the small couch (technically called a “love seat”), looked even less enthused.

  Once she’d recovered enough to walk the decks without risking tearing her heart to pieces, Counseling had summoned them, and they both had to humor the process. She’d had to speak to Rainer, but she didn’t know what to say to him, so she just worked on the Telemetry data and tried to keep her head above water.

  He wasn’t sorry.

  He claimed she was his mate, but at least he’d shut up and not brought it back up again. He was a confusing, jumbled knot of not-the-strongest Emotional skills, and she wasn’t exactly Counselor material herself. He was brilliant, and his level of brilliance often came with some pretty serious compromises in other areas. He didn’t seem opposed to learning how to not step all over her toes, it just seemed like he had to stomp all over them before he realized she had toes.

  He had torn apart Medical to save her life. That said something.

  Yeah, it said he had no sense of proportion. He’d have thrown away his career to save her? Idiot. She grumbled to herself, angry at his selfishness, and angry his devotion touched her.

  Why had he lied to her from the start? If he’d had such faith in her pragmatism, he should have just told her.

  The therapist told them with a warm smile, “Let’s start by each of you writing down three things you like about the other one.”

  “Can I say his ass?” she asked sarcastically. Because Rainer was a prime physical specimen.

  “You noticed,” Rainer
told her.

  “Personality traits,” the therapist clarified. Her name was Kells.

  Lachesis tapped her tablet awake. She had to humor this stupid process. She fiddled with her stylus. Rainer, of course, was done first.

  She flicked her tablet at the therapist once she was done.

  Brilliant

  Durable

  Loyal

  Because hey, those things were true. For her, Rainer had chosen:

  Clever

  Survivor

  Sense of humor

  “What? Would four be bathes regularly? Sense of humor is the best you could do?” she said with a sigh.

  A grin teased the corner of his lips. “I enjoy knowing that a shuttle is trying to explode all around us and you’re making jokes. Breaks up the monotony of things exploding. I noticed you said durable. I’m flattered.”

  “Now three things you don’t like,” the therapist interrupted.

  That didn’t take long.

  Entitled

  Is always convinced he’s right

  Thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room

  “I am smarter than everyone else in the room,” Rainer said mildly. He held his tablet towards her.

  Martyr complex

  Shells up

  Jumps to conclusions

  “Do you agree with what she wrote about you?” the therapist asked Rainer.

  Rainer shrugged. “The third is a statement of fact. The second is usually more true than it isn’t. The first? I can understand why she’d think that. Maybe it’s true.”

  “I’m so glad you’re using your words. Maybe you should have started with that,” she retorted. She’d chosen entitled when she’d really meant liar, but for whatever reason, she was still protecting him.

  “Do you agree what he said is true about you?” Kells asked.

  Martyr complex? If that’s what he wanted to call it. Shells up? Damn right she did. Not everyone was made of arrogant ice like Rainer. And jumping to conclusions? That was just a low fucking blow. But fine. She’d let him have it too, because she wasn’t going to squabble. “I don’t jump to conclusions. I make decisions in high-pressure situations based on the information I have. I don’t suffer decision paralysis. Part of that survival wiring you like so much, husband.”

  “I wasn’t going to kill you. We have firmly established that.”

  “And at the time I had no reason to think differently because you had told me you didn’t want me in your life,” she said. Liar, liar, liar.

  Rainer gestured with one hand. “More like I didn’t make myself well understood.”

  “If that’s what we’re calling it,” she said with a sigh.

  The rest of therapy was Kells prodding them gently. Rainer played along, but she couldn’t. This wasn’t something therapy was going to help with. The truth was too toxic. Turmoil warred inside her. Why was she protecting him?

  Because the thought of betraying him to Tsu hit her in the stomach and everything inside her howled no! No! No!

  Therapy couldn’t end fast enough.

  “Lachesis.” Rainer’s voice captured her as she fled into the corridor.

  “What?” She hugged herself across her breasts, trying not to shake, and trying to hold in the howls. She’d just lied for him. Why was she protecting him? Why?

  He extended a hand towards her. “Are you sure you want to storm out of here?”

  No, she wasn’t, because this was supposed to be helping and they were likely being watched so Counseling could analyze their behavior after the session ended. She reluctantly slid her hand against his. Shivers shot up the nerves of her arm and right into her abused heart.

  He stared at her, strange eyes full of knowing and dangerous truths, his scent clouding everything. His body braced hers, and distantly she marveled at how every line and curve of his body fit against hers. How everything about him felt right.

  “Not what I had in mind, but I’ll take it,” he murmured, fingers splayed across the small of her back and pressing her against him. “Do we have the comfort of a mutual enemy now?”

  “You have your comm in,” she said, aware of the weight pressing against her own ear. Tech may or may not have been listening in on them.

  “And they know we don’t like Counseling,” Rainer said.

  She pulled out of his grip, but kept her hand in his, squeezing her fingers around his. His skin was calloused and rough, with thick callouses on the pads of his palm and fingers from lifting weights and holding tools. But there was something strange about his fingers too, the same thing she’d noticed during their ill-fated Supervision. He had the hands of a musician or artist. Her father had been Crew, so he’d had those same rough callouses, but his Dying Art had been music. Specifically, violin, and he was so talented he’d earned one of the original violins from Earth, not one of the ship-built ones, which gave a different sound.

  They didn’t speak until they were back in their quarters. Rainer also didn’t let go of her hand. He turned to her, and with his free hand, pulled off his comm, and then removed hers. He set them aside.

  She moved against him. Her uniform felt rough against her skin. His dense body’s shape fit against hers, from the way her breasts felt perfect against his chest, the lines of his torso, even his cock pressing against her through the fabric. The air swam thick around them.

  She moved and turned her back to him. “It’s not true. It’s not.”

  Rainer said nothing.

  She stared at the paintings, then said, “I feel stretched to breaking and small and confused all at the same time. Everything you say sounds insane, but I don’t know if I’m just making excuses for it because I’m trying to stay alive and because my brain is still messed up from AGRS.”

  “Do you want to tell Counseling?”

  “You and I both know what their solution would be. I don’t want anyone making that choice for me. All these choices got made for me. I choose.”

  He nodded. “Fair.”

  He was still a puzzle she wanted to solve. Rainer intended to go back to Earth in his lifetime. He’d do anything to make it happen. But did that make him dangerous? His grandfather had been called a cruel, unfeeling, selfish monster by his contemporaries, and a lot of other unflattering things by people who hadn’t wanted to believe the truth.

  The back of her throat felt dry. Rainer said civilization teetered on a knife’s edge. Hade had said much the same thing. “Do you swear to me you’ve told me the truth? That we’re done with the bullshit games and nonsense and you pulling strings to make everyone around you dance?”

  “I promise I’ve stopped pulling your strings, and you know everything,” he said. “No more games between you and me. I can’t promise that I won’t keep pulling everyone else’s strings.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, unable to believe him completely. “Trust takes time, and you killed ours right from the start. And you’re asking me for… you’re asking me for some things that could get us both thrown out a spacelock.”

  “Especially werewolves like us,” Rainer said. “I know it’s dangerous, Lachesis, but I need you at my side, no matter what.”

  That’s what worried her. That no matter what part. Rainer didn’t ask permission, he just begged forgiveness, and that’s what he was doing now. Hell, he wasn’t even begging. He just expected it to show up one day if he was patient enough.

  It Is Small

  “The Biomes?” she asked, noting the signage on the wall as they stepped off the lift.

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “You smell smug.”

  “I am. This way.”

  He led her through several sets of heavily guarded doors, and she tried to quell the excitement brewing in her chest. As long as her heart rate didn’t get too high, she felt fine.

  The final massive double doors before them had FOREST BIOME #2 painted across them.

  The air of the Forest Biome hit her. Tears sprang to the corners of her eyes.

&n
bsp; “Steady,” Rainer said, catching her arm as she swayed.

  Her knees weakened, and she sank onto the brick path. The Biome greeted her with a blue (fake) sky with rendered clouds and an early morning sun. Dampness clung to the air. Around them were sheds and structures for the business of the Biome, and the Biome’s groomed herb gardens and flower paths, but ahead was rolling grass and rocks and beyond that, trees. If it was like typical Biomes, it was fifty acres. The horizon disappeared beyond the rolling terrain.

  Rainer began to unbutton his collar. “Get undressed. Wolf form.”

  “What are we doing here?” She climbed back to her feet.

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  She folded her clothes and forced herself to stay silent. He wouldn’t tell her anything until he was damn good and ready.

  He wagged his tail as she padded over to him. “Are you feeling well?”

  She lifted her head away from his snout. “I’m fine. Just excited.”

  “This way. We walk.”

  “I’m fine for more.”

  “No reason to strain your heart.”

  She grumbled. “You don't need to mother me.”

  He was bad at it anyway. Overbearing and underfoot.

  “It’s a long walk. We should enjoy it,” was his response. “You want to rush through our time here?”

  No, not really. But being in wolf form was so intimate. She walked at his shoulder, and his scent couldn't be avoided, and without her human brain, her control wasn’t as good. Urges and sensations ran closer to the surface, the drives less controlled. The sensation of the tips of his pelt brushing hers, and the scent of him that told her he was vaguely hungry, that his scarred shoulder hurt a bit. Most of the scent that coded as “Rainer” was a crackling scent that communicated his busy mind. Laced over the scent that was “him” were more primal scents her lizard brain wanted to rub itself upon: his health, his strength, his virility, and sex.