by K. B. Wagers
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. She turned off her locator again. I hate it when she does that; it makes me feel alone.”
“Me too. Good job, Doge.”
Max was out of her bunk and tugging on a sweatshirt when the emergency call came in from Petty Officer Piper. “Carmichael,” she answered.
“Hey, LT, sorry to wake you—”
“I’m up. Is it Jenks?”
“Uh, yeah. How’d you know? We’re in the bar. She’s trying to get someone to fight her.”
“I’m on my way.” She didn’t waste time waiting for Nika, but sent him a priority message as she ran out the door, Doge on her heels.
Max made it through the station in record time, skidding to a stop outside the bar and then slipping through the crowd. Jenks was in the middle of the room, one hand pressed to her side and the other raised as she desperately tried to get someone to fight her.
But everyone in the bar, even the Navy personnel, were well out of reach, their hands up or at their sides.
“Damn it, Jenks,” Max muttered. She knew exactly what was going on: her friend was looking for something, anything, to take the place of the pain that was choking her.
“Hey, LT, how do you need us to help?” Piper asked when she found him.
Max took a deep breath. “First, nobody intervene. Even if she throws a punch at me. She’s looking for a fight; don’t give her one.”
“Nobody wants to, LT,” replied a burly naval warrant officer by the name of Seaux. “But we don’t want her to hurt herself or you, either.”
“I know, but let me handle this. Doge, you sit and stay.” She stepped into the empty space. “Jenks.”
The whole bar held its breath as Jenks turned.
“What do you want, Max?”
“Come with me, please.” Max held her hand out.
“I don’t want to.”
“I know, but you need to.”
Max knew that belligerent set to her friend’s jaw all too well, but the wobble was something new and it nearly destroyed her own carefully crafted composure. “You going to throw a punch at me if I won’t, LT?”
“No.” Max shook her head, attempted a smile.
“Fuck.” Jenks blew out a breath and winced as she shoved both hands into her hair. “Why won’t anyone fight me?”
“Because we all know you’re hurting enough.” Max took another step closer. “This won’t make it better, honey.”
“I don’t want better. I want this feeling gone.” Jenks slammed a fist into the space above her heart. “Make it go away, Max. Please.”
“You know I would walk through fire for you.” Max shook her head once, tears in her own eyes. “But this? I can’t fix this. All I can do is sit with you while you grieve.”
“I don’t want to grieve,” Jenks whispered, the rage washing out of her face. “Grieving means he’s gone.” She stumbled forward, crumpling into Max’s arms with a wail that broke the heart of every person in the room.
“He can’t be dead, Max! He can’t have died thinking I was still mad at him.”
“I know, honey. I’m so sorry.” Max sank to the floor, rocking Jenks in her arms, oblivious to the rest of the bar.
Nika was suddenly there, wrapping his arms around them both. He pressed his cheek to Jenks’s, murmuring words of comfort.
“Let’s get her back to quarters,” he whispered after a moment, and between the two of them they got Jenks back on her feet, ushering her through the silent crowd. Doge followed behind.
“I’m sorry.” Jenks’s whispered apology was barely audible. Max could only watch as Nika closed his eyes, the pain overwhelming him.
“I know, my sister, I know.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Come on.”
They got Jenks back into her bed and Tamago crawled into the bunk with her, wrapping their arms around Jenks and crooning softly until she fell asleep. Doge lay down on the floor next to her bunk, his head between his metal paws.
Max didn’t argue with Nika when he ushered her into his room and closed the door. “You’re about two seconds from cracking,” he said, sitting next to her on the edge of the bed and rubbing her hands between his.
“I can’t fix this,” Max whispered. “I want so desperately to fix it and I can’t.”
“I know, none of us can. All we can do is be there for each other.”
Max let out a shuddering breath and leaned into him. “Do you mind if I stay?”
“Not at all.” Nika stood and pulled the covers back, lying down, and Max crawled into bed next to him, curling against his side. She closed her eyes as Nika turned off the light and lay there, listening to the thumping of his heart in her ear. The steady rhythm had almost lulled her to sleep when he spoke.
“How did you know what was going on with Jenks?”
“Doge woke me up, said she’d left. He was worried.” A curious thought about the ROVER’s emotions wandered through her head, but it lost the battle with her exhaustion and Max dropped into oblivion before she could say any more.
Chae rubbed both hands over their eyes as they sat at the table in the common room of their quarters. The last few days had bled together, a haze of grief and pain they still couldn’t quite believe was real. You couldn’t go anywhere on the station without stumbling upon someone in tears.
Jenks was a ghost, drifting through the crew quarters with Doge at her heels, spending most of her time working on the ship in the repair yard. All her laughter and jokes crushed into dust under the weight of her grief.
They rotated who was with her by some unspoken agreement, trying not to leave her alone. If she realized it, she didn’t protest, which was worrisome in itself.
Cascade failure, been and gone. Can’t fix anything now.
“Chae,” Tamago said, and they froze as their crewmate put a hand on their shoulder. “How are you?”
“Not great.” The truth came surprisingly easily, as did the apology that spilled out after. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
“I know.” Tamago squeezed their shoulder and sat down. “I know you weren’t involved in this. Whatever happened before, you wouldn’t do something so terrible. I’d been thinking a lot about what happened, Chae, and then this . . .” There were tears in their eyes. “I saw you helping our injured. I saw you finding our dead. You didn’t stop, even with the grief and exhaustion pressing you down.
“I’m no Buddha,” Tamago continued with a sad smile. “It’s going to take me a while to trust you the way I did when you first joined us, but I’ll try.”
“I want to earn your trust,” Chae whispered. “You had every reason to be angry with me. I deserved it. There’s a voice in my head telling me this could have been avoided if I’d told someone what kind of trouble I was in when I first got here.”
“I think you should realize you weren’t responsible for this. Really let it sink in. This was part of their plan from the beginning,” Nika said from the doorway. He crossed the room and laid the jammer on the table. “Max and D’Arcy are on their way. Do you have the detonator?”
Chae caught their breath, their heart rate skyrocketing as their adrenaline spiked in anticipation. “It’s in my trunk.” They hopped up and crossed the room to retrieve it, noting that at the same time Tamago got up and took their sword off the rack by the beds.
D’Arcy and Max came into their quarters, the LT closing the door behind her. Nika got up and took the detonator from Chae, holding the bag up for D’Arcy to look at.
The big man frowned when Nika didn’t hand it over and glanced at Chae. “You found this in the bay? Where?”
“Edge of what was left of Flight Control’s big window.” Chae shook their head. “I don’t know which edge.”
“Bottom left, most likely. It would have been out of sight. They couldn’t have put it there more than an hour before the explosion, though. Hiding the explosives themselves would have been slightly easier, but an inspection sweep would have caught
this.”
“Unless someone on the inspection team was convinced to look the other way.”
He looked up at Nika. “There was supposed to be an inspection that morning.”
“We know, I have the list,” Max replied. “I remembered yesterday that I’d said something to Nika about maintenance just before we saw Hoboins’s office explode and I narrowed my search. Petty Officer Uileg was out sick.” She took a breath. “Paul took over for her, D’Arcy. We didn’t tell you, but he’s on the list of suspects Stephan gave me.”
Chae held their breath. Warrant Officer Paul Huang had always been nice to them, and the thought that he was involved was a kick to the stomach.
“That’s why Stephan sent the rest of my crew back to Jupiter.” D’Arcy looked at the ceiling. “And you didn’t tell me because . . .”
“We weren’t entirely sure you weren’t involved,” Nika finished.
“I see.” D’Arcy laughed bitterly. “Was Jenks defending me after the memorial just for show?”
“You think she would do that?” Max replied. “Jenks didn’t know about our suspicions.”
“You’re right,” D’Arcy said, dropping into a chair. “She would have just kicked my ass. Is that why you’ve been like a shadow the last few days, Max?”
She nodded and D’Arcy sighed. “So, what’s changed?”
“What changed,” Nika said, sitting next to D’Arcy, “is we got a partial fingerprint match back this morning on the guts of this detonator. I have your schedule, D’Arcy, and surveillance puts you across the station that morning when Paul was setting these detonators in the bay during his inspection walk.”
D’Arcy surged to his feet, making Chae jump. Max and Nika had been expecting it and neither reacted as the commander headed for the door.
“Get out of my way, Lieutenant,” D’Arcy said when Max didn’t move from in front of the door.
She smiled and shook her head. “When you’re calm, we’ll go get him. I’ve got station security on standby. But this door doesn’t open until I know you’re not going to do something rash.”
“He killed Akane. He killed Hoboins.”
Chae’s eyes filled with tears at the pain in D’Arcy’s voice.
“I know. He killed a lot of our family, and I’ll be damned if I let him take you down, too.” Max held her hand out. “You do what you need to right here to get it out of your system, and then we go.”
It had taken D’Arcy less time to calm down than Nika had expected, and the four of them headed through the station toward the Interceptor bay where the locator said Warrant Officer Huang was working on Dread with Lieutenant Commander Locke.
Max was talking quietly with station security and with her brother, the force they’d assembled a combination of people Max had personally cleared.
Nika was on edge. The anonymous message he’d received this morning had simply said: Your sister is in danger. Nika had wanted to put an armed guard with her, but they were too shorthanded as it was. He had to go with D’Arcy, so he’d sent Tivo to the repair yards where Jenks was working on Zuma.
Surveillance records had shown that Tivo was exactly where he’d claimed to be in the aftermath of the explosion, and Max hadn’t found anything else that would implicate him. Even with that intel, though, Nika had to hope he wasn’t making a mistake.
Sapphi was also with Jenks—neither of them knew about Paul or what was about to go down. Max had agreed with him that it was for the best, and thought having Tivo there as well would make things easier all the way around.
“She needs him,” she said with a sad smile. “Even if she won’t admit it to herself.”
Nika agreed. His next concern was in front of him. “Are we going to be able to get Paul back out of here without a riot?” he murmured as they hit the far door to the bay. Cleanup was well under way, and the area was teeming with Neos.
“Maybe,” Max replied. “Scott’s got people on all the doors. D’Arcy, you may want to walk a little less like you’re ready to kick someone’s ass.”
“Hard to do.”
“Try harder.”
D’Arcy slowed down and shifted the snarl on his face into a more neutral expression.
“Hey, D’Arcy,” Locke said as they approached. “We got the rest of the components in on yesterday’s freighter. Ship should be up and running in a few days.” He spotted Chae. “Especially if the spacer there can help me out again. Lupe’s been busy putting the station back together and I just sent her to quarters to sleep for at least twenty-four hours.”
“Sounds good,” D’Arcy replied without slowing, and Nika couldn’t stop him from grabbing Huang by the shirt front and propelling him hard into the side of Dread Treasure. It was a little surprising there wasn’t a dent left behind. “You son of a bitch.”
“Damn it, D’Arcy,” Nika muttered.
“I expected it,” Max said, shrugging at his exasperated look. Locke was staring at them in shock, but Nika was more interested in Paul’s reaction.
The warrant officer was smiling.
“Five years,” D’Arcy said, fists tightening in the man’s shirt. “We’ve been friends for five years.”
“We were friends for two years,” Paul countered. “Then I found out the man I admired was nothing more than a fucking habitat terrorist and the Guard I respected had allowed him into their ranks like he belonged there.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Locke demanded.
“Take a step back, Steve,” Max replied.
“You murdered our people,” D’Arcy snarled. “For what?”
“The greater good.”
Nika heard Max ordering security to move in even as Locke put everything together and launched himself at Paul. D’Arcy was faster, letting go of Paul to catch his lieutenant commander and propel him away.
“You stay right there,” Nika said to Paul. A crowd was gathering, but Nika leaned in as the security forces cuffed the warrant officer. “I want you to know, the people who convinced you to help—they lied. This wasn’t for some lofty purpose. You betrayed your friends. You betrayed the ideals of the NeoG for a bunch of criminals looking to get rich. That’s all.”
He stepped back, watching the confusion and horror flash through Huang’s eyes. “Get him out of here.”
Interstitial
Luis—
I know you’re dead and you’re not reading this, but fuck it I’ll keep sending these emails for as long as I can because otherwise I will completely lose it.
I almost walked out an airlock yesterday. I ditched Max, everyone’s been following me around worse than Doge, and stood there for a solid two minutes staring at the panel. It was so fucking tempting. Just me and the black and some peace. Over and done. You know I’m not a believer. There’s no afterlife where I get to see you again. You’re just gone.
Obviously I didn’t do it, but I wanted to. I should probably tell Nika about it, or Max. Or my therapist, who’s pissed I keep skipping my sessions. Someone. I just don’t want to put this on them on top of everything else.
Damn it, I know I fucked it up breaking my promise. I know I’ve got a terrible temper and I should have let you apologize. Why does this shit world not allow for happy endings?
I’m trying, but it’s hard to find reasons to keep going.
Your Dai, always.
Thirty-One
Jenks felt, rather than saw, someone stop at the engine room door, but she didn’t react and instead kept fighting with the bolt that refused to screw down correctly.
“How much of this work have you done yourself?”
It was Tivo. She slid out from under the pipe and looked up at him. “You haven’t been paying attention, have you? This is the NeoG. We don’t have people to do our work for us, Lieutenant.”
Tivo smiled and leaned against the doorway. “Fair enough.”
Jenks eyed him. “Are you here as my bodyguard or to keep an eye on me?” She gestured with the wrench. “I haven’t had a minute to myself,
except for yesterday, since the fucking explosion, but Sapphi’s on the bridge and so is Doge. He’s still mad at you, so fair warning, you might get shot.”
“Do you want me to go?”
I want Luis back. Which even I know is an awful thing to say to you of all people so I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Look at me, growing up and shit.
He was trying to help. They all were. Ma had sent her four messages she hadn’t answered and Jenks knew that he would likely fly all the way out here to kick her ass if she didn’t reply to him soon. She also knew that Luis would have told her to stop fighting everyone every step of the way, but she couldn’t seem to do that, either. She took a deep breath and rubbed at her forehead with the back of her hand.
“No, you can stay. I’d say make yourself useful, but Navy lieutenant and all.”
“Ouch. I’ll have you know I haven’t gotten lost on a ship in at least two years.”
“Yeah, but are you any good with your hands?” She hadn’t meant it like that, but Tivo’s raised eyebrow and wicked grin made her laugh.
It hurt, but it also felt kind of like relief. Jenks choked on the feeling. “Damn it, you asshole. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I do, but Luis told me the easiest way to get on your good side was snark and innuendo, so here we are.” He approached, carefully, like she was some kind of wounded animal who might bite.
Aren’t you?
“You two talking about me, then?” She refused to speak in the past tense. Couldn’t make the words leave her mouth even though she knew she should accept it.
“At the risk of inflating your ego, we did, a bit.” He reached out, paused. “Can I touch you?”
“No.” She shifted away, tried to ignore the pain in both her heart and her side. Touch was comfort and she didn’t want comfort. She wanted to hold this fury close.
It’s going to burn you up, Dai, staying closed off like this. You need to let people in.
Jenks flinched from Luis’s voice in her head. Words she didn’t remember hearing kept flashing through her brain. She’d woken up that morning with Hoboins’s voice telling her he was proud of her, a strange echo of the words Admiral Christin had said at the memorial.