by K. B. Wagers
“Does the safety of the habitats count?” The question slipped out before Nika could stop himself and he was grateful that not only were they alone in this corner of the room, but Stephan was out of earshot.
D’Arcy smothered a curse. “You know how to get right to what matters, don’t you?” He sighed. “I want to hear the rest of it, but fine, I’m not mad at you for trying to do the right thing. Not going to help you with Max, but at least I won’t kick you while she’s got you down.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“All right, people, gather around.” Stephan’s voice cut through the conversations and the room fell silent. “Intel has been on the trail of a decent-sized smuggling operation. What happened today was—” He sighed. “I’m sorry, things didn’t quite go as planned.”
“By that you mean I wasn’t supposed to avoid the EMP and take out the ship?” Max’s question wasn’t laced with any particular heat, but Nika was all too familiar with that tone now.
It was the same one she’d used on him in the Interceptor.
“Yes,” Stephan said. “We were hoping the smugglers would lead the Laika to their warehouses, or at the very least give us an opportunity to grab one of the crew when they got on the ground.”
“Now you’ve got the whole crew.”
“They won’t talk, not with the story that they were boarded and arrested all over the news.”
“They weren’t headed away from Trappist, were they?” Max asked.
“No, they were headed for One-d. We think that’s where their base of operations is.”
“You used us as bait.” Jenks’s voice was low.
“Controlled bait,” Stephan replied. “All they had was the EMP and the Laika was right there.”
“What if they hadn’t been right there?” Max asked. “If there had been other ships. If they had been armed. Any number of things could have gone wrong, Stephan. You sent us in there without a clue of what we were up against and I don’t see a single reason for it. Why the f—” She stopped and took a breath, seeming to suddenly remember she was speaking to a superior officer. “Why didn’t you just tell us all this when you assembled the task force?”
“It was on a need-to-know basis,” Stephan said. “The smugglers are getting their information from a lot of different sources. It’s hard to know what’s been compromised.”
Nika saw Chae’s almost imperceptible flinch. He didn’t think anyone else noticed, though it was probably only because Max and Stephan were currently in a staring contest.
“Then why tell Nika and not D’Arcy?” she said finally. “He’s the commander of the task force.”
“I’m also a man with past connections to Free Mars, Max,” D’Arcy replied. “And that’s an issue, isn’t it? Especially if you think the TLF is involved in the smuggling.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Chae blurted. “They wouldn’t steal from their own people.”
“The world’s a bit more complex than we may like, Chae,” Stephan replied. “What happened today was regrettable, but we’ve still got a good chance to hit the smugglers on their next run. As for the cargo we got off the ship, we’ll be moving the supplies from Trappist Control’s impound to the NeoG warehouse tonight so that we can get them where they need to go before they spoil. Zuma, we’ll put you on air coverage for the trucks with SEAL Team One. Major Carmichael, you’re fine with Commander Montaglione riding with you?”
It was impressive how easily Stephan had deflected D’Arcy’s concern without actually confirming or denying it and how he ushered the conversation along to the more mundane planning aspects of the cargo movement, and the meeting broke up. No one left the room, instead breaking into smaller groups, and Nika suddenly felt very alone.
“Nika?” Max put out a hand before he could head for the door. “Can you wait a moment?”
He looked up at her and his heart twisted. “Max, I—”
“I’m sorry.”
“What?” He stared at her in confusion. “Why are you apologizing?”
“I’m sorry for thinking the worst of you—for basically accusing you of being a smuggler. It was unfair of me.”
Oh, Saint Ivan . . .
“It’s fine. I get it. You don’t have to apologize.”
“I do, though. I was wrong. You are fit for command. I don’t like the decision Stephan made, but I get it and I get what you were struggling with.” She offered up a hesitant smile that cut him in two. “You were in a difficult position.”
“I appreciate the apology.” He forced out the words.
Max glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “Will you talk to Stephan about Chae? I don’t know if the smuggling is connected to what happened to them in the cargo bay, but it wasn’t an accident.”
“Do you have proof?” He hated the words, and hated the wince she couldn’t hide.
“I still have a lot of pieces that don’t make sense. I asked Jeanie Bosco to look into Julia, Nika. I was on Zuma when I talked to her. I didn’t know about the bug. Ria messaged me while we were on the Laika. Jeanie’s air car crashed. She’s in critical condition.” Max struggled for composure. “It was my fault.”
“Max, I’m so sorry.”
She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “Scott was there when I talked to Ria. Stephan could ask him if he has questions.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Nika promised. “Are you sure you don’t want to do it yourself?”
“No, I think I’m going to go lie down for a little bit. I didn’t sleep well and I should get some rest before the mission tonight.” She offered up another smile, this one even more wan, and then walked away.
It was all Nika could do not to follow and tell her everything.
Jenks watched Max walk away from Nika. Neither of them looked happy and she scrubbed at her cheek with the back of her hand in frustration. “I don’t get paid enough to be a relationship counselor.” She elbowed Luis. “I should make you do it. It’s your fault.”
“Do what? And how is it my fault?” he protested.
“Smooth things over between Max and Nika. They’ve been at each other’s throats for the better part of a month thanks to this shit—your Intel shit—which is why it’s your fault, Luis.”
“They’ll be fine,” Tivo said. “Let them work it out on their own.”
“You have no idea how hard it’s been to keep this team headed in the same direction with those two at odds. Should have just told us,” Jenks muttered, glaring at Luis again. “You Intel goons act like we can’t keep secrets.”
“Dai, you’re terrible at keeping secrets.”
“Birthday surprises and operational security aren’t the same thing and you know it.” She poked him, then sighed. “I’m worried about Chae.”
“Chae’s fine.”
Jenks tamped down her annoyance. Luis’s upbringing sometimes made him completely miss how hard other people’s lives had been and the reactions that came out of those challenges. It was obvious this was one of those times, but she didn’t have the energy to dig into it so she let it go.
“Anyhow, I didn’t get to do a postflight check on the ship when we landed, so I’m taking Chae and doing that now.”
Luis caught her by the wrist and tugged her into his embrace again. “Who are you and what have you done with my Dai?”
She laughed, annoyance fading, and leaned into him for a long moment, enjoying the feel of him and the way the familiar smell of coffee and spice wound around her head. “Didn’t you hear? I got promoted and now I have to be responsible.”
Luis’s laughter mixed with Tivo’s and Jenks heaved a sigh of regret as she stepped away. “Maybe I’ll get to see you both before we wrap this mess up tonight. I really do need to go tend to the ship, though.”
“Go on, Jenks,” Tivo said. “Come find us when you finish.”
“Chae, you’re with me.”
The spacer snapped upright at her call and Jenks muffled a second sigh at their bruise
d face. For a moment she almost went back to Luis to demand he look into whatever was going on with her Neo, but she’d promised Max on the ride over she’d let her LT handle it. So she just waited a beat for Chae to catch up and led them across the base to the hangar.
“I want you to do the interior inspection. You’ve done it enough on your own it should be easy, yeah?”
“Yes, Chief.”
The interior inspection didn’t really need to be done. Even though Sapphi had said they were clean, Jenks had spent the time headed to Trappist tearing apart the inside of Zuma to make sure there weren’t any more bugs, or worse, that someone hadn’t tampered with the ship itself.
By “someone,” you mean Chae, right?
Jenks muffled her sigh as they reached the ship and she climbed the ladder to grab her tool bag. She didn’t want to think about the fact that it was likely Chae who’d planted the bug. That this kid was working for the smugglers—either willingly or not. She had zero proof of this extremely coincidental suspicion and so had kept her mouth shut during the meeting.
But it lingered nevertheless.
“Get to work, Chae. I’ll come check on you in a bit.”
As Chae walked away, Jenks hoped that they passed this test. It would be easy enough for her to double check their work and Sapphi was going to do another sweep before the mission. Whatever the deal with Chae was, she didn’t think they were a willing participant, not if the bruises had come from fists like she thought, rather than the cargo bins. Jenks had been on the receiving end of a beatdown or two in her time. She’d also been in positions where she’d had to do horrible shit for other people in order to survive.
All of that made it hard for her to be angry at Chae. What she really wanted was for the kid to just fucking trust her.
“You are conflicted.”
She looked down at Doge as her feet hit the ground again. “A little, yeah, buddy.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She patted his head. “I appreciate that, but no. I can’t do anything about it right now.”
“Chae is scared.”
Jenks put her bag down next to Doge and went to a knee. “How scared?”
“More than when they first arrived. They are also conflicted. Everyone has been upset. I don’t like it.”
“Me either.” Jenks pressed her head against Doge’s. “I wish I knew what to do about it, but I don’t. So we’ll focus on the stuff we can fix.” She patted him and got to her feet, then started her walk around the outside of Zuma.
She noted a few new dings in her DD file for the exterior integrity. Damage from debris was to be expected, but she didn’t see anything that would tip them over into the red zone.
“You’re still in good shape, aren’t you, baby?” she asked, grabbing for a handrail and pulling herself up onto the tail section. She continued along the top of the ship, taking notes as she went.
Panels 227–247 need cleaning and rotation.
Rail gun will need to be cleaned and ammo replenished.
Crack in panel 399 just hit yellow zone, check with requisitions about getting a replacement. Again.
Check bridge seal during interior, outside looks good.
Jenks let the soothing routine ease everything else out of her mind. She’d worry about Chae and all this mess later. Right now her ship was her only concern.
Chae swallowed down the bile that kept rising in their throat. The sound of Jenks’s contented humming was wafting in through the open door as she did her walkaround, and it was like the soundtrack to their own guilt. Jenks hadn’t acted like anything was wrong; in fact no one had. They’d all been concerned about the supposed accident and visited Chae in the med bay on the trip to Trappist. If anything, everyone was united in being mad at Nika—and Stephan—for them.
They were treating Chae like one of the team and it only made them feel even worse.
It didn’t stop them from sending the email, though. Not with thoughts of Bean filling their head.
We’re moving cargo from the impound lot to a NeoG warehouse tonight. Coordinates to follow.
There was no answer. Chae didn’t need one—they already had their instructions.
“Make sure your ship gets grounded—or there’ll be worse things than this beating down the line.”
They moved methodically through their inspection, the words pounding in their head to the beat of their heart. They already knew whatever they did had to be enough to keep the Interceptor from taking off. They didn’t want to hurt anyone—not to mention they’d be on the ship, too.
They headed for the back, checking off each item on the list. The system was spotless. Jenks had apparently done a lot of work while Chae had been in the med bay.
Because she cleans when she’s worried. Not to mention that bug I planted probably had them all checking the systems over and over.
Chae stopped in their tracks as the memory of Jenks showing them how to clean the power conduit flashed into their head.
“It’ll send a live charge up to the bridge that will short out everything in the ship.”
They were on their back and had popped the panel before they even really comprehended they were moving. “The blue one,” Chae whispered, fingers finding the cable they needed. “And the green one.” They connected them with shaking fingers and scrambled back out from the space, fitting the panel in place as Jenks’s voice wafted from the doorway.
“All done, Chae?”
“Just finishing up.”
“Good. I’ll be outside.” There was a pause. “Hey, Chae, I’m not trying to be pushy, but we’ve got downtime until the pre-mission brief and I haven’t seen Luis in a couple of months, so if you could get a move on . . .”
Chae laughed, then clapped a hand over their mouth when it unexpectedly turned into a sob. “I’ll hurry, Chief.”
The heavy sigh from Jenks was their only answer, but the familiar banter sank like a body weighted with a stone. It dragged Chae down with it into the depths of misery.
Seventeen
Max had tried to sleep, but after she’d emailed Ria to check on Jeanie’s condition and tried to convince herself that all her unease was just a result of an adrenaline dump from the freighter incident, sleep refused to come.
She finally dozed off for an hour, waking with the same sick feeling in her gut. “I am so tired of this,” she muttered, rubbing at her eyes as she sat up. The narrow bed of the officers’ quarters on base was even less comfortable than her bunk on Zuma, and she stretched, trying to work the kinks out of her back.
She headed for the conference room where they’d met earlier in the day. Tamago and Sapphi were in the corner with Chae, and Max waved to them as she crossed the room and joined Stephan in front of the shifting wall of data. The others filtered in after her.
“You feel better?” he murmured as a greeting.
“Still angry with you.”
He nodded. “You should have heard D’Arcy after you left. He warned me the next time we get in the sword ring it would be painful.”
“Generous of him to give you a warning.”
“Foolish. I am sorry, Max. This is not always easy. That’s an explanation, not an excuse, by the way.” Stephan reached a hand out and touched the screen, which froze the movement and brought an image to the foreground. “What do you see?”
“A building project.” She leaned in, frowning at the screen. “Resolution isn’t good enough to pick out faces, but—”
“No, big picture, Max. You’re right—it’s a building project; more specifically it’s a drainage project that was supposed to help one of the outlying habitats with the massive rains that hit their area in the late summer.”
“D’Arcy mentioned working on a project. The area that had been flooded out. Is it the same place?” Max looked back at the photo. There were two women in the front of the shot, one partially hidden by the other. A memory chased itself around her brain, colliding with another. “There were issues with th
e project. Supply issues. Thanks to our smugglers?”
“Very good, Lieutenant.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Too long. We dropped the ball on this one and I’ve been playing catch-up. If your sister hadn’t contacted us, we’d probably still be in the dark.”
“Ria?”
“Senator Carmichael.” His smile was quick as he reached out and tapped the photo, sending it back into the shifting data. “She’s on the Habitat Committee, noticed some concerning patterns, and came to talk to me about it one day. If I’d snagged you for Intel before you ran off to join the Interceptors—”
“I get it, I’d be on your side of this instead of where I am.” Max shrugged. “But that’s not what happened. I’m here, and since you chose to bring Nika into this, the least you could have done for us and for him was to let him tell me. I could have backed him, helped him out like I’m supposed to do anyway.”
“I have my reasons for doing it this way, and I can’t change my decision. Honestly, I’m not sure I would. You’ve probably figured out by now I like keeping my ops small and under my control.”
“That’s one way to phrase it.”
Stephan laughed. “I suppose I earned that,” he conceded. “Let’s focus on what we can all do together: get these supplies moved so that the people of Trappist have what they need.”
The pre-mission briefing was quick and to the point. The supplies had already been transferred to a pair of trucks at the Trappist Control facility forty-five kilometers outside of Amanave. Zuma and SEAL Team One would provide air support for the convoy as it circled around the habitat to the warehouses on the NeoG base.
“Any questions?” Stephan gestured to the door. “Let’s roll out.”
“Okay, Optimus.” Jenks pushed away from the wall and Max choked back a laugh at his confused frown.
“Go on, you.” Max shoved Jenks playfully in the back and followed her out the door.
Max was halfway to the ship when the memory from earlier slapped her full force. Blurry photo aside, there’d been enough detail to pick out the faces. The woman in the foreground had been Julia.