Heretics (Stars Edge: Nel Bently Book 4)

by V. S. Holmes

  “Not at all.” Lin’s smile grew. “But I like to see you.”

  Nel fought the anxiety climbing up her throat. She couldn’t name desire when she didn’t even have words for her fear. “I think I’d like you to not see me. Just for a bit.”

  She draped the fabric over Lin’s eyes, tying it loosely, fingers smoothing satin over her cheekbones. Satin and skin; she didn’t know which was softer. “It’s a good color on you.”

  “I know.”

  Nel kissed the hubris from the other woman’s lips, catching her hands when they rose to unzip her suit. “Let me?”

  Lin relaxed into Nel’s touch. “I’m all yours.”

  That’s what scares me. Nel pushed the suit open. Faint ridges in the woman’s bronze skin marked where electromesh pressed too tight. Samsari scars scored her flesh, now dappled with goosebumps. “I think you’re more beautiful every time I see you,” Nel confessed. “Each time I learn a little more.”

  Lin’s cheeks pinked, and Nel was sure she was blushing too. Romance wasn’t her strong suit, not unless one referred to the old-fashioned synonym with lying. “It’s been a bit.”

  “Since before—”

  Lin’s fingers pressed on Nel’s mouth. “Just here. Us. Now.”

  “Here. Now,” Nel echoed, callused hands sliding Lin’s sleeves off until she could wrap fingers around her wrists. With the electromesh a lump on the floor, Nel backed her up to their bed, pressing softly, insistent, until she lay naked on the rumpled coverlet. Nel’s gaze roved over her skin. New marks, old scars, the mole, the faint wave to her long hair in Earth’s humidity. Her archaeologist’s eyes catalogued every dip. Every swell. Each edge and freckle. Downy hair invisible, almost, but a caress against Nel’s hands. “Should have been my first clue,” Nel whispered, “that you weren’t from here.”

  “What’s that, the tattoo?”

  Nel traced the black lines. “No. Your perfection. From peach fuzz to beauty marks to that one crooked eye tooth. It’s like something divine mimicking imperfection. God, you’re fucking beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful too, Nel. And I don’t need a blindfold to think that.” Anticipation turned every word into breath. Each time Nel’s hands ghosted Lin’s brown nipples she squirmed.

  Self-consciousness was rare for Nel. But faced with Lin’s grace and assuredness in this strange world that used to be hers, and hers alone, her every move felt awkward. “I could drown in you,” she whispered, “and I’d welcome every drop.”

  Lin’s aroused twisting stilled. Nel chewed on her lower lip. The words balanced on the knife’s edge of confession. Breath rattled in the expanse of her ribs, her thumbs tracing circles in the hollows by Lin’s hips. Satin saved her from the dark orbs of Lin’s attention. Under their full weight Nel would bolt back to Bakjeeri, begging for the next starship anywhere else but where someone might glimpse inside her heart.

  Lin’s fingers found hers and laced them together. “You don’t have to drown tonight, Nel Bently,” she promised. “Why don’t you just dip your toes in the waves?”

  Nel pulled away long enough to undress. Returning, she crawled up Lin’s body to drop kisses along her cheekbones and on the tip of her nose. Their skin pressed tightly together, until both were so warm and familiar they could have exchanged tawny smoothness and freckled tan. Lin’s fingers slid up Nel’s sides. “Mind if I look with my hands?”

  “No,” Nel chuckled, as much from the tickling touch as from the question. Her fingers delved between Lin’s long thighs, parting black curls. She dipped her head to the length of Lin’s neck as the other woman gasped, nipping at the delicate lines of ligaments.

  Their bodies collided. Nel devouring, Lin succumbing. Her hands raced across the topography of Nel’s back, cupping the nape of her neck. Nel pressed closer, wringing cries from the woman with every flick. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

  Lin’s eyes fluttered open in surprise when Nel ripped the blindfold off.

  “I want to see your face when you come for me,” Nel rasped. Desire flooded her body.

  “Soon—”

  “Now,” Nel commanded, thumb circling as her fingers curled up.

  Lin obeyed. Her body shuddered beneath Nel’s. Passion still glazed her eyes when one shaking hand slipped between her thigh and Nel’s core. A moment later fireworks exploded red across the backs of her eyelids. A groan tore from her throat.

  Nel flopped back on the pillows, panting. Every breath carried the echo of a moan. “Woah.”

  “No, you,” Lin mumbled, resting her head on Nel’s strong shoulder. Emotions flooded in the wake of orgasm. Whatever complicated beginnings they had, Lin had saved her life. Unquestioningly followed her into the core of a killer planet. And the woman in the belly of Bav’s rickety flying trash heap had been the real Lin. Someone Nel hadn’t seen before. Or since. Maybe she just hadn’t looked long enough to realize Letnan Nalawangsa was as guarded as Nel herself.

  One alien elegant finger traced lines between the faint brown freckles dotting the archaeologist’s heaving chest. Are they her constellations or mine?

  EIGHT

  Wheels screamed on rails. Nel’s brain flung itself into bleary consciousness a moment before the train slammed to a halt. The force threw her to the stiff berber. Stars splashed across her vision as her head smacked into the corner of the tea table. “Fuck!”

  A thump sounded from the bed behind her and Lin hissed. “Damn shelf… You all right, babe?”

  “Think so. You?”

  Lin muttered something, her frustrated tone a relief. If she was frustrated, then she wasn’t injured. “Computer: lights—right. No audio.”

  “Or computer,” Nel remarked. She staggered to her feet and palmed the switch by the door. Darkness remained. Against her sweaty palm, the train’s walls were still. The hum of high-speed travel absent. “We’ve stopped. And the lights aren’t working.”

  “Probably just something on the rails,” Lin hoped.

  “Right.” Bullshit. Nel yanked the curtains back, peering into Jordan’s high desert. The landscape was cast in bright moonlit relief. And still. She peered closer, eyes narrowed on the dark mass of rocky hills. Lights flickered from the cover of Jibāl ash Sharāh. “Lin, I think—”

  “Get down!”

  Gunfire erupted. Lin leapt from the bed, tackling Nel to the rough carpet for the second time that night. Seconds later shouts went up from farther down the train.

  The gunfire stilled for a moment, perhaps waiting to see if there was an answering volley. Nel stared into the depths of Lin’s face, as if the answer might be found in the ridges and valleys of Lin’s black irises. “I’m going to see what’s going on,” Nel whispered after another moment of quiet. “You get geared up. Surely they’ll need all gloves on deck.”

  Lin’s nod was tight. “Be careful.”

  “C’mon, Letnan.” Nel flashed her a wink she didn’t feel. “This is hardly my first firefight.” She staggered up, yanking an A-shirt and boxers on before slipping into the dark hallway. Emergency lights flickered faintly. Enough to mind her feet, but too dim to see anyone’s movement from outside. Was that by design? Shouts no longer arced from the rear of the train. Burnt plastic drifted on the air. Closer, she caught the bright bite of spilled blood.

  At the next door she paused, pressing herself to the wall and peering through the thick bulletproof glass. Scratches marred the gleaming metal, and her hand found the new sharp hole punctured in the train’s side. It fit three fingers. That’s a big gun.

  Drawing several deep breaths to bring oxygen to her sleep-fogged brain, she counted down from three before slamming open the door, trowel held out, useful as a child’s Nerf. It was one of the cargo cars. Fist-sized holes peppered one whole wall, the gaps smoking with burning electrical systems. Murmurs rose between the sizzling electronics and the pounding feet from the officers’ car. Whoever had been on guard duty had shitty luck.

  “Everyone okay
?” she called. “It’s Dr. Bently.”

  “All accounted for,” came a low voice rose from a shadowed corner on the far side of the car. “But I took a hit, along with our generators.”

  “Medic!” Nel tossed the shout over her shoulder before stepping into the embattled car. She knelt by the man with a grimace. “Anything I can do?”

  He snorted. “Maybe if you’d brought more than a Calvin Klein underwear ad for clothes.”

  “If you’re well enough to joke…”

  “Bently,” Emilio barked from the half-open car door. A second later he pressed something soft into her hands. “I’m going to talk with IDH. The rest of us are trying to determine the damage.”

  “Just the generators, sir,” the guard responded. Despite his assurances that he was fine, pain strained his voice. “Shot up the whole cargo section. Passengers?”

  “Not sure.” Emilio’s focus shot to Nel. “Got this?”

  “Ah, yeah.” Nel fumbled the fabric over the gash in the guard’s head. Her words faltered with unfamiliar concern. “You’re gonna be okay.”

  His smile was wan. “I know. Just hurts like a bitch. Honestly hurts more than the arm.”

  His elbow bent in entirely the wrong way. She was used to shattered bones being dry, aged to a russet patina under centuries of soil. Not bright and glaring with sinew and clotted with brown fat.

  She forced her tunneling vision back to his face, only for it to snag on the blood coagulating in his stubble. Instead she stared at the numbers painted on the generators’ crate, repeating them to herself. “So, ah, first time on Earth?”

  He snorted. “Founder. So, no. Grew up in Detroit. Mom’s from the Egyptian headquarters, though. It’ll be nice to see her.”

  “If she’s anything like my mom she’ll be pissed that you’re arriving with injuries.”

  “Oh, I’ll get a full lecture on how not to get caught in…” He trailed off with a wince. “Whatever this emergency qualifies as.”

  “Honestly, I’m just lumping them all under ‘IDH business as usual’ at this point.”

  He chuckled. A second later the lights flickered again and Nel started. Instead of more gunfire, however, the train hummed back to life, emergency lights dimming as the main power returned.

  “Guess the generators are fine.”

  “We draw power from the rails, actually. Any surge or dip and the lines are cut until the fault is found. Generators are just for backup. And when we get to Headquarters.”

  Nel scanned the surrounding mess of mechanisms. “Why shoot up powered-off generators?”

  He met her eyes, but didn’t respond. Either he didn’t know the answer or decided she wasn’t privy to it.

  “You needed a medic?” Jem shoved their way into the car, kicking aside debris until they could crouch on his other side. Teera followed a few steps behind, disappearing into the ruins of the cargo cars without a word.

  “Head, elbow,” Nel explained.

  Jem peered at his head wound and pupils dismissively before turning their attention to the elbow. “Possible mild concussion. This though,” they sucked air through their teeth in a hiss. “Dominant hand?”

  He nodded. Jem’s lips thinned. “I’ll do my best. Gotta get a doctor to look at it when we reach Headquarters.”

  “Where’s James—Dr. Mackey?”

  “Critical condition.” Jem’s eyes remained fixed on the shattered elbow. “I’m sorry. Soon as I’m done you can see him.”

  Blood drained from his cheeks and his head rocked back. “Fuck.”

  Nel knew enough to recognize intimate fear. She sat back on her heels. “Need me still?”

  Jem shook their head. “Thanks. You did great.”

  It was a stretch, obviously, but Nel’s nerves appreciated the lie. “Did you see—”

  “Officer’s car.”

  “Thanks.” She rose, embarrassed now that she saw her dingy gray boxers and tank under the stark, unforgiving main lights. After an awkward “Good luck,” she stepped back into the bullet-riddled causeway.

  Adrenaline seeped from her body, leaving shaking weakness in its wake. She drew a breath, then another, faster, chest panting, heaving. Her ears still rang with blasts, her thoughts seizing the press of Lin’s body in the dark, looping the stench of cooling blood. She scrubbed the stickiness from her hands to her bare legs, teeth chattering in panic. The blood just smeared further.

  “Bently.” Harris’s face loomed in the far end of her tunneled vision. A warm hand landed on her shoulder. “In through your nose, out through the mouth.”

  She obeyed, rewarded as her sight widened with each slowing billow. He was still dressed, his black outfit and unmarked robe splotched with dark stains. Hopefully it was just oil. “Sorry.”

  “Panic needs no apology.” He slid the door to the car’s side exit shut behind him.

  Another flicker of the lights made her flinch. “The shooter?”

  “Three of them. Dealt with.” A shred of sympathy shone in his hard face, but she knew it was not for their attackers. It was limited and conditional, and she was grateful that, for now, it was reserved for her. “They only hit the rear of the train, thank God.”

  “Someone else was hurt. Dr. Mackey?”

  “Should be stabilized,” he reassured. “Barring any further interruption, we’ll be at Los Pobladores Headquarters by midmorning. He was smoking off the caboose deck, caught a round in his side. I doubt they even knew he was there.”

  Teera emerged from the cargo cars with a soot-stained mechanic Nel didn’t know. “Two of the generators are useless. The third can get us limping once we’re in town. Few repairs should do the trick, assuming they have the tech. Think it’s Reapers?”

  “You’re telling me this was over a generator?” Nel asked. Already, with a new problem to face, her panic was subsiding. Her heart still raced, but surely that was normal after getting caught in a firefight. Or raid. “What’s a Reaper?”

  Harris sighed. “Our tech is valuable, even more so now. Reapers were a problem before the attack. People targeted, then kidnapped. But that wasn’t what happened tonight,” he promised. “Whoever attacked knew what we carry with us. Simple raid, is all.”

  Dealt with. Moral discomfort weaseled through Nel’s chest. “Right. Anything I can do?”

  Teera shook her head. “Try to get some rest. We’ll be moving soon, I imagine.”

  As if triggered by her words, the train shuddered, power ramping up with a hum a second before they lurched back into motion.

  “You all right, Bently?” Harris asked. When she nodded, he motioned for Teera to follow him and disappeared down the corridor.

  Their room was deserted when Nel slipped back inside. Numb, she jerked the blankets into order, fidgeting with the thin pillows until they were in some semblance of order. Next, she stowed the clothes and belongings scattered from sex or their sudden stop. Her box of Mikey’s ashes lay beneath their bunk, lid several inches away. Its contents were sealed safely within a clean artifact bag. She fished both box and lid out, cradling them against her bloodstained shirt.

  Nel’s legs trembled beneath her and she sank to the floor. The hard plastic ridge of their doorframe bit into her back, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Instead, she sat back, head bobbing with the train’s sway, and stared out the window. Outside, pre-dawn skies silhouetted black mountains. No sign of gunfire. Or lasers. Or anything beyond stillness and starlight. Did they just leave the bodies out there? Perhaps their ruined cargo cars had been repurposed into a makeshift morgue.

  She did not move as they picked up speed. Or when the sun burst into dawn. Even when the announcement of their impending arrival at Qena flickered above her discarded comm, she still stared at a distant, unseen place, unmoving.

  NINE

  Nel raised her nose, drawing air like a drowning sailor. Egypt smelled of stone and heat and sesame. Her thoughts tumbled over one another, screaming and snar
ling with confusion and more than a little righteous rage. Even the cacophony of new world meeting old seemed quiet by comparison.

  She slid the window open wider as they downshifted, electric brakes humming high and insistent. Despite scant hours of sleep, her body mimicked the train’s energy. Pressing forward, she caught her first glimpse of Qena.

  The classics hadn’t interested her as an undergrad, and her graduate focus was set well before she got much digging abroad under her belt. Mikey, however, had visited every tourable monument in Cairo years before they ever met. His stories around their campfires or bar tables about the heat and sand and lush riverbanks had drawn her into their imagery in a way her studies hadn’t. Now she teetered on the edge of her first step into his shoes.

  If only she wasn’t numb.

  The train trundled over a switch in the tracks and curved, a silver eel, sinuous and strange among the cement blocks and rebar. While most cities were known for their gleaming industry and modern luxuries, it seemed the Founder’s Headquarters was not.

  As the train hissed to a halt at the corrugated aluminum shelter that served for both arrivals and departure, Nel caught sight of a soot-stained mess of engineering looming over the rooftops. Wires waved gently in the wind whipping off the ocean Nel smelled to the east. A few cables, taught and embedded in the ground, served as perches for oystercatchers.

  A dozen Quonset huts labeled with alphanumeric designations surrounded a single larger one with double doors currently propped open. Several musclebound people in jumpsuits carted equipment from the cargo cars to the only permanent structure. Nel didn’t see any gleaming cases of personal effects, but she wondered if she and Lin would be put in the same room.

  No one seemed to be spilling from the exits yet, so Nel took her time packing up her belongings. She froze in the doorway of the tiny bathroom. A ball of stained gray fabric was shoved in the corner by the shower spigot. Her teeth clenched. The blood had dried to brown now, though some smears on the floor were still bright and bold. Steeling herself, she scooped the clothes into the incinerator chute, stepped back, and slammed the door.