Hold Fast Through the Fire

by K. B. Wagers

  “Not at all. My life is, mostly, an open book. You get used to it. Anyway, I just want to tell you this: it’s going to work itself out, whatever it is.”

  “I’m slowly starting to believe that.” Jenks looked in the mirror and wiped the remaining tearstains off her face. “I should probably get back out there before he thinks I ran off.”

  “At the risk of being weird, would you mind terribly taking a picture with me?” Asabi asked, and pointed at the cluster of plants in the corner. “I think if we do it over there it won’t look quite so much like I waylaid you in a bathroom for a selfie.”

  “Only if I get a copy. Otherwise no one will believe me.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll probably put it up on the SocMed, if that’s okay.”

  Eight photos, a genuine compliment on her pants, and a flashing notification in the corner of her DD later, Jenks went back to the table in a bit of a daze. Their food was already served, but Luis wasn’t eating and Jenks felt a twist of guilt as she slid back into her seat. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not gonna lie, I sort of thought you had taken off.”

  “I mean, I ran into Asabi Han in the bathroom and may have thought about it? Not to get away from you, but to be with her, obviously, though I suspect her girlfriend would have objected.”

  He whistled low and laughed. “Well, I’m relieved that didn’t happen.”

  “You should be. She’s apparently a big fan of mine.” Jenks reached across the table for his hand. “I’m sorry I freaked a bit. It’s just that thing about people leaving me and—well, you know.” She sighed.

  “It’s okay,” Luis said softly. “I know the timing is kind of shit. I think maybe I should have done this at the apartment.”

  “No, you’re fine,” she insisted. “It’s not that much different than now, right? We’ll still see each other. It’s fine. I’ll deal with it.”

  “You want to hear what else I was going to say before you ran off?” he asked.

  Jenks knew he was teasing her, so she stepped hard on the panic that tried to surge back up and stuck her tongue out. “Go on.”

  “Stephan also gets to request a few Interceptor crews for permanent Trappist detail. A detail that would be specifically attached to Intel. We’re kind of hoping that Zuma will be up for the move. This task force focused on smuggling is the first step.”

  “Wait, you—” The knot that had been slowly tightening itself again in her chest released with such force that Jenks couldn’t stop her loud exhale. “You want me to move to Trappist?”

  “Zuma’s Ghost, but yeah. With Nika back—”

  “Nika’s back? Why the hell am I just hearing that now, from you?”

  “Dai, you’re adorable when you shift from panic to sadness to fury, but I need you to please—please—just listen. First, I didn’t know you didn’t know. But, to be fair, you’ve been here, and Stephan just got the official refusal from him about the job he’d offered. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you himself yet, but yes, Nika’s taking Admiral Hoboins up on the request to come back to Jupiter and head up Zuma when Rosa leaves.” Luis tapped on the table with his free hand. “Anyway, Nika worked with us for a year and knows the ropes. And Max is smart as a whip and would have ended up in Intel if she hadn’t been so focused on the Interceptors.”

  “And you need some muscle.”

  “Don’t do that.” Luis sobered.

  “Do what?”

  “Sell yourself short as just ‘some muscle.’ You’re amazingly competent at everything you choose to do and I’ve never known anyone who’s as good at piecing things together out of thin air as you when you really get focused on something. Rosa put together a hell of a crew, and the rest of the team is also well suited to the work we plan to do out there. We’re hoping the other three teams will work out, but we want to see how you all mesh together on the task force first. The actual move to Trappist probably won’t happen until after the prelims.”

  He paused, and her brain was scrambling to keep up. “Can I ask a question?”

  “Yes,” he said, laughing. “I’m done.”

  “So . . . we’d be working together?” She felt Luis’s fingers tighten around hers.

  “A good chunk of the time. Not every day, though. I promise you won’t see my face so much that you get tired of it.”

  “I’m reasonably sure that’s not something that will happen.”

  He grinned at her, a bright flash of a smile that lit up something inside her, and Jenks leaned over. “I love you,” she murmured, and cupped his face, kissing him. “I’d say let’s go back to your apartment and I’ll show you how much, but Max will kill us both if we don’t eat this dinner first.”

  “Fair enough.” Luis wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I love you, Dai. Today and tomorrow and always.”

  Four

  “. . . the banana in my split. Yooooooou!” The off-key singing turned into a piercing shriek and Max swallowed back the laughter that threatened when the man in front of her groaned. Jenks actually had a lovely singing voice, but when she chose to she could make it sound like someone scraping paint off a freighter hull.

  “This is cruel and unusual punishment, Carmichael. Make her stop.”

  Max pushed the drunken prisoner ahead of her down the hallway toward Jupiter Station’s brig. “She warned you, Riggs. I’d think the threat of Jenks serenading you would be an added reason not to drink and fly, but that’s on you. Hey, Pablo, one for detox.”

  “Riggs again?”

  “Yeah, D and F. He was piloting his shuttle outside the station.” She leaned in, sniffed, and winced. “And as you can smell . . . he couldn’t be bothered with an anti-inebriator.”

  “Those things will rot your brain,” Riggs said. Or probably said; it was difficult to tell through his slurring.

  “Drinking and flying rots your brain, you ass.” Jenks slipped around Max and for a moment the lieutenant thought Jenks’s temper had gotten the better of her. But instead of slapping Riggs in the back of the head, she reached up and grabbed his face, tugging him down to her level. “I get it, man, you’re hurting. But flying yourself into an asteroid or hurting someone else isn’t going to bring your wife back, and I can’t keep bailing you out of trouble. You promised, Riggs. You said you’d clean up your act. You lied to me. Do you know how mad I get when people lie to me?”

  Max watched as Riggs’s face crumpled. It was a tough call as to who was more surprised—her or Jenks—when he started crying.

  “Ah, shit,” Jenks muttered, catching the man when he fell into her. “Riggs, it’s okay.” She braced herself, somehow holding up all 120 kilos of sobbing man by herself until Max could get under an arm and take some of the weight. “Listen, buddy, go sleep it off and I’ll see you in therapy next week, all right?”

  “You’re too good for this world, Jenks.”

  “Stop flying drunk, asshole.”

  Max handed Riggs off to Pablo and let the larger Neo maneuver the man toward the holding cell bunks. “Nice going, Chief.”

  “‘Chief.’” Jenks laughed. “That still sounds fucking weird and I keep looking around for Ma when you say it.”

  “It’s just as weird for us to say it, trust me.” Max nodded to the guards at the hatch of the brig as she stepped through into the busy hallway. “Jenks—are you always going to deflect compliments? Or will you just say ‘thank you’ one of these days?”

  “And now you sound like Ma.” She paused for a second. “I miss him.” Jenks’s confession was almost too low to hear over the din of the crowd.

  Max glanced at her friend. “Me too.”

  The retirement of Master Chief Ma Lěi hadn’t been a surprise, but his absence spelled the beginning of the end for their two-time Boarding Games championship team. And, more important, it felt like the dissolution of their family. Rosa had left yesterday to take up her new post at the academy. Nika and their newbie spacer would be here in just a few days.

&nbs
p; And in a few short months they’d be packing everything up and heading to Trappist-1d.

  Change happens, Max. You can’t fight it.

  “We’re gonna be fine,” she said, as much to convince herself as Jenks.

  Jenks predictably deflected again and Max resisted the urge to sigh out loud at her friend’s next words. “I like winning, Max. I don’t want to go back to losing.”

  Because she could hear the pitiful whine in Jenks’s voice, Max let her shift the conversation to the Games. “You never know. Maybe we’ll continue our streak.”

  “With a wet-behind-the-ears noob and my brother?” Jenks snapped her mouth shut and then muttered a curse. “That sounded shitty, even for me.”

  “I’m going to let it slide because I know what you meant,” Max said. “But don’t say it again, Jenks.” She saw Jenks’s lips twitch and the chief petty officer slanted a look in her direction. “What?”

  “Calling me out on my shit twice in as many minutes. You’ve grown into this officer thing, LT. I’m proud of you.”

  Max laughed. “Well, thank god for that. I expect to see the same growth from you, being the senior NCO around here.”

  “You know expectations lead to disappointment.” Jenks was grinning, but Max spotted the flash of worry in her eyes and stopped at the entrance to the zero-g tube with one hand on the rail.

  “What is it?”

  “What if I do fuck this up?” Jenks whispered. “You know I’m prickly and rude and shit. What if I keep violating rules or break our newbie, and do I really have to give up bar fights for good—”

  “Chief Petty Officer Khan, you know how to do your job.” Max smiled as her words had the intended effect of shaking Jenks out of the spiral she’d started on, and her friend automatically stood straighter at the sound of her rank. “So I’m not worried about that. And you’re not going to break our new spacer. For one, you have more sense than that. For two, I won’t let you. As for the bar fights, can we keep them to a minimum?” She tapped her fist to her heart. “Got your back.”

  The worry vanished from Jenks’s face as she tapped her own heart and swung her fist out, hitting it on the back of Max’s before grabbing her by the forearm and pulling her down so she could press her forehead to Max’s. “I’ve got yours.”

  Jenks lay on the floor at the edge of the sparring mats, her head pillowed on Tamago’s stomach as she split her attention between the fight going on and the three-way chat with Luis and Tivo:

  Jenks: Why are both of you so far away? I need someone to save me from this slaughter I’m watching.

  Luis: What’s going on?

  Jenks: Trying to teach Sapphi how to fight.

  Tivo: *whistles* For the cage match? No offense, Jenks, but she’s not going to last long if you’re thinking of putting her in Ma’s slot.

  Jenks: I know. But until I get a look at our new spacer this is the plan.

  There was a thud, a curse, and Jenks sighed. “Sapphi, if you don’t watch the captain’s feet she’s going to dump you on your ass again.”

  The ensign’s grumble of protest mixed with Captain Evans’s laughter. Jenks tipped her head back to look at Tamago.

  “You knew this would be a challenge when you started it,” Tamago said. “Sapphi’s hell on the computers. Getting her to punch someone when her life isn’t on the line is a lot harder.”

  “I know.” Jenks rolled onto her side and got to her feet.

  “This is not going to work,” Sapphi said. The ensign’s shoulders were slumped and Jenks reached out to slap her in the back of the head, but restrained herself. Need to start working on my anger sometime—might as well be now. She took a deep breath.

  “Two years ago we thought it wasn’t going to work, and look what happened. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” She pointed at the captain of Burden of Proof. “Bliss, stop going easy on her.”

  Kelly grinned and lifted her hands in surrender. “Whatever you say, Chief. Sorry about this, Sapphi.”

  “Fight or die, Saph,” Jenks said, and headed back to Tamago with a grin.

  “She’s going to give you another virus,” Tamago said, watching as Sapphi yelped and tried to defend herself against Captain Evans’s renewed—and invigorated—assault.

  Jenks laughed, thinking about the last time, when everything had looked blue for a week until Rosa had made Sapphi undo whatever weird filter she’d put on Jenks’s DD. “It’s worth it. She’s been slacking anyway, too comfortable with her spot. She needs to step up some.”

  “Whew! Listen to you, Chief.”

  Jenks reached over and socked Tamago. Okay—still a work in progress. This time it’s warranted, though. “Don’t call me that.”

  “She’s not the only one who has to step up.”

  Jenks groaned, rubbing a hand at her purple hair in frustration. “Whose bright idea was it to promote me anyway?”

  “Pretty sure that was the NeoG, which means it was your fault to begin with. Stop being so good at your job.”

  “Punished for succeeding. Figures.” Jenks winced as Sapphi got swept and hit the mat hard. “You should probably go make sure she’s okay.” Tamago walked over, and Jenks couldn’t help muttering to herself, “God, I hope our new spacer is better at fighting, or the Games will be over before they start.”

  “How are you doing?”

  Nika looked away from the spread of faces and data on the wall as Scott Carmichael joined him. “It’s a lot.”

  “It is.”

  “How long have you been involved?”

  “A little over two years. When my sister—Patricia—contacted the NeoG with her concerns, Admiral Chen decided that Navy also needed to be involved to keep us from tripping over each other’s feet.” The quick grin reminded Nika of Max.

  “But I haven’t seen you around.”

  “You would have asked questions if you had. We went out of our way to not run into you.” Scott leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “Comes with the territory.”

  Nika looked across the room to where Tivo and Luis were having a semiheated discussion, their heads pressed together as they examined something on one of the screens on the long wall of the conference center. “You’ve been involved since before the Games two years ago?”

  Scott frowned at the seemingly random question, but then he saw who Nika was looking at and it clicked. “Ah. Yeah. They can’t say anything to your sister without raising a lot of questions.”

  “There’s going to be more when she finds out. Questions or, more likely, punches.”

  “It’s Stephan’s problem,” Scott replied, tipping his head.

  “She’s not going to find out,” the head of Intel said, joining them, “because no one is going to tell her. Right?”

  Nika turned around to face Stephan. “You want me to lie to my sister.”

  “Of course. You’re going to be lying to everyone who’s not involved in this op, Nika,” Stephan said. “If I’d thought it was an issue, I wouldn’t have brought you in. But since we’re on the subject, this is to keep your team—your sister and Max included—safe. The people we’re after have killed plenty and they won’t hesitate to kill more in service to their greed. You have a chance to do some good here.”

  Nika glanced back at the wall of information he’d only started to process, but what he’d seen showed him the rot went all the way to the Coalition of Human Nations government. A sitting senator was using his power and influence to steal supplies meant for the Trappist habitats and his people were bent on starting a war between the military and the separatists on Mars as a way to distract from their operation. It was a vicious and bloody plan, and the NeoG would be on the front lines of the conflict when it exploded.

  He took a deep breath. “I’m in. What do you want me to do?”

  Interstitial

  The slight blond woman paced along the wide bank of windows, the stunning ocean view in front of her forgotten. She turned at the sound of footsteps. “We have a problem.�
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  The burly man raised an eyebrow but didn’t speak.

  “Correction: we have multiple problems,” she continued. “I can’t get Tieg to listen to me. He seems to think that the NeoG didn’t take Carmichael seriously simply because he doesn’t take her seriously. But they’ve set up a fucking task force for the Trappist shipping lanes.”

  “Use your NeoG contact.”

  “They’ve gone dark.” She pinned the man with a fierce look. “You were supposed to stop Marty from talking.”

  “I vented a lung. How was I supposed to know he’d stay alive long enough for someone to get to him?”

  “It’s your job to take care of these things.”

  “What do you want me to do? I can’t go after the senator, she’s too well protected.”

  “I know.” She waved a hand in irritation. “But if my freighters get tagged, it’ll expose my role in this whole mess, and I have gone to a great deal of trouble to keep us out of it.”

  “Do you want to run?”

  Even without the bite of sarcasm in his voice she knew he’d asked the question to make her focus. Neither of them was willing to run until they’d seen this through to the end.

  “No. Damned if I’ll run now. This may have been Tieg’s idea originally, but it’s our hard work. It’s our money. You get back to Trappist, tell those TLF bastards that if they won’t cooperate with moving the shipments you’re going to make sure their kid comes back to them in pieces. I’ll talk to our contacts on Mars, have them hit the NeoG and make sure it hurts. If we cause enough trouble they’ll have to turn their gaze away from Trappist.”

  “Mixing business with pleasure, my dear?”

  Her smile was cold. “I want the NeoG bloody, Grant. I want them so tied up chasing shadows and licking their wounds that they don’t have time to focus on us until we’re out of here. Tieg can twist in the wind after, for all I care.” The senator had been a useful cover with his dismissive hatred of the habitats and obsessive need to make them pay for every scrap of assistance they got from Earth, but she could see the writing on the wall and it was time to finish this.