by R. K. Thorne
Jenny choked, even though she’d swallowed the last bit of fruit minutes ago. “What?”
“Does that sound like a plausible request?”
“I don’t do performance-enhancing substances, Commander. And everyone knows that. It was highly publicized. I’m a poster child for the anti-augmentation community.” To her parents’ chagrin.
“I never saw you on any Puritan posters. They’re really missing a wonderful promotional opportunity.”
“I’m not a Puritan.” She spat the word out with a bit too much disdain, but Capital was a neutral planet. Neither Union nor Puritan. That was one rare piece of her home planet she wasn’t ashamed of. “Look, it’s just a sports thing. The anti-aug community doesn’t turn down therapeutic or life-saving treatments. Or even cosmetic ones.”
“Well, we don’t have to publicize it. We may not even need to say why we’re trying to meet with her to anyone but her. We just need an excuse ready. You can deny it all as vicious rumor. Is it plausible? Vaguely?”
She fidgeted. “Sure, it’s plausible… I guess. They’ll say I am getting older and all that shit. It’s excellent tabloid fodder. But I worked for years to prove I wasn’t like—” She stopped short.
“Like what?” Ryu asked gently.
“Like… my parents. My mother’s damn near an android by now. And my father… Well, let’s just say it’s not something we agree on.” Jenny ran a hand over her face. “Oh, this is going to be a circus, isn’t it? What if we can’t convince her to join us? What if she jumps right on the net and tells everyone this bullshit story?”
“Commander, if I may?” Xi’s voice chimed in from above.
“Yes, what is it, Xi?”
“I can furnish you with a Capital-appropriate legal secrecy agreement you can have the doctor sign before disclosing this. We may not wish to enforce it in Capital courts, but it might be enough to keep her and others from contacting news services before we can divulge our true intent.”
“Good idea, Xi. Would that ease your mind, Jen? We want to use your reputation; the rest of us will play the part of your security team.”
The urge to groan returned. “My… security team?”
“Simmons is hoping we can justify carrying around more than your average muscle and firepower by capitalizing on your celebrity on Capital.”
That was fairly smart. And sounded like it would work. But… Jenny swallowed. “My ‘celebrity,’ huh?”
“Does that part seem plausible?” The slight lift of Ryu’s eyebrows told Jenny her commander knew the answer as well as she did.
Reluctantly, she nodded. “Not my usual style, but it is very plausible.” Jenny had always preferred to lay low, keep a low profile. Blending in when she could and knowing how to defend herself were better security strategies than strutting around like a peacock. And it kept the cameras away—and the god-awful pressure. But lesser-known athletes from lesser-known families kept entourages in the dozens. Jenny’s preference to lay low had been more bizarre than standard behavior on Capital. In fact at times, it had backfired, as her lack of bodyguards, assistants, and trainers had served as its own fascination to the wealthy masses. “He didn’t sign me up for a competition again, did he?”
“Nope. Sounds like a security nightmare, so thank God. His suggestion is that beyond the commission, we’re vacationing on the side.”
She snorted. “As if we’d pick Capital for that.”
“We’re in the minority there. Lots of people love Capital vacations.” Ryu’s eyes twinkled.
“His plans are improving. He needs to work vacation into all of them.”
“So you’ll do it?”
Ryu’s words pulled the knot in her stomach to near snapping and sent a little jolt of familiar anxiety into Jenny’s veins. “You don’t understand, Commander. I’m getting older. I’ve stopped competing. Even visiting some brain scientist might be construed as something if the press gets word of it.” She sighed, running a hand over her face.
Ryu came over and sank down beside her on the bunk, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Does it matter what they think?”
Jenny looked up and met Ryu’s intense, dark gaze. Her eyes were soft now, softer than usual anyway.
“Did it ever matter?”
Jenny smiled and blew out a breath. “No. You’re right. It never did.”
“It takes a long time and a lot of wisdom to learn that lesson.” Ryu took her hand away.
“Thanks.” Jenny stood and straightened, turning to face her commander. “All right, I’m in. A little Capital bullshit is not going to scare me.”
Ryu nodded curtly, and a glimmer of a smile flashed across her lips. “Great. I’ll have more details at the briefing later.” She stood, patted Jenny on the shoulder once more, and strode out through the hatch.
Jenny sank back onto the bunk, lying down this time, and tried to let the tension drain out of her.
It only half worked. Headlines were flashing through her head. How many times had they questioned her purity, her augmentation? How many fanatical Puritans had become huge fans just because of her stubborn insistence alone?
Jenny was no Puritan. But drugs, augmentation… it was a slippery slope. It was all about money. Who could afford something better. Who could pay to win.
Everything on Capital was like that.
If she’d been pushed into competing in the first place, at least she had always competed on her own terms.
Those days are over, she reminded herself. You have a new mission now. A better one. A life that means more than record times and gear sponsorships. A life you chose for yourself.
Still. The tightness remained in her stomach. Maybe it was time to head to the mess, get something more than a little fruit to eat.
Ryu was right. It didn’t matter what they thought. And it never really had.
“Adan, we need to talk.”
Adan spun his pilot’s chair around. Josana stood in the hatch, wearing her short red velvet robe, her high leather boots, and her sternest expression.
Uh-oh. This couldn’t be good. That outfit meant business.
“ ’Bout what?” He laughed nervously. As if he didn’t know. And things had been going so well.
“Surely you heard about our next stop before I did.” She folded her arms as her lips twisted into a crooked smile. Her eyes laughed at him. “Aren’t you the first one to hear about our next destination?”
He dodged answering that. She had an uncanny knack for picking at operational details he didn’t care for anyone to know. It wasn’t that he was paranoid, but…
Well, no. He was definitely paranoid. He wouldn’t have survived outsystem without a fair amount of paranoia to watch his back. But he also wasn’t stupid. He was realistic. Josana might have finally warmed to his longtime flirtations a few weeks ago, but he hadn’t stopped looking for her ulterior motive. She was wealthy, connected, gorgeous, young.
And he was… also young?
He wasn’t turning her away. But he certainly hadn’t stopped pinching himself.
“Capital, I hear,” he said as he swiveled back toward the controls. He might not tell her if he were the first to hear their next destination—he wasn’t—but she was definitely one of the last, so there was no harm in discussing that.
She clapped her hands. “I know, isn’t it wonderful!”
He pursed his lips and tried not to scowl.
She must have caught his expression reflected in the view screen. “Oh, can’t you be happy for me? You know how long I’ve wanted off this dump.”
He rolled his eyes. “The Audacity is not a dump. But of course I’m happy for you.” It was self-pity he was drowning in. “What am I going to do without you, though?”
She strode over and dug her fingers into his shoulders, massaging hard. “Well, that’s just what I wanted to talk about.”
Adrenaline flew through him. He ought to be excited at words like that combined with physical affections—unless she was breaking up w
ith him—but that wasn’t what coursed through him now.
It was fear.
Why? He had no idea.
That same nervous laugh escaped from him again. “Whaddaya mean, Jos?”
She bent so her lips brushed his ear. “I’m staying. Why don’t you stay with me?”
“On Capital?”
“Obviously.”
He winced. This was a discussion he didn’t want to have. “It won’t work.”
“Sure it will.” Her fingers dug in harder, deliciously. Determinedly. She didn’t like taking no for an answer. “We can play Red Dwarf Commander—on the beach.”
“I don’t know if the holos work when sand gets blown into them.”
“One way to find out, eh? So you’ll stay?”
He sighed even as his cheeks warmed. He’d tried to avoid talking about this with her. But there was no avoiding it now. “I can’t. I’m from the outsystem, Josana. I don’t have any citizenship. It won’t work.”
“So?”
“Nada. You get me? None at all, let alone a compatible one. No visa. No permission to work. Or live.”
She waved that off. “Tell me. Do you want to stay with me? If so, there are… ways to work out the details.”
He rolled his eyes again. Sometimes he forgot she was so young—and the naïveté that came with that. “You can’t just work out that detail.”
“Assuming we could.”
He sighed, then shook his head at her. “Spoken like one untested by the cruelties of the world.”
She laughed and bent down close again, catching his eye in the reflection of the darkened view screen. Her eyes were twinkling like the stars shown in the space beyond. “I am the cruelties of the world, my dear.”
His eyes widened. What the…
No. She was a seventeen-year-old who wanted to go home to her friends and go to classes and prep for tests for med school.
Wasn’t she?
Her grin broadened, a cat hunting its prey. “Leave this ship and its pathetic notions of grandeur. Come with me,” she whispered. Her breath sent a shiver through him. “All the machismo and the optimism and the starry-eyed ideals? It’s all nonsense.”
“No, it’s not. You don’t know what you’re asking.” Leave Audacity? Ryu and Xi? Flying?
The stars?
“Sure, I do.” Was her grin a touch wicked? Was it his imagination?
“And what would I do while you’re off in classes?” he said, immediately regretting it. He shouldn’t lead her on.
“Do whatever you like,” she said, laughing. “Lie around my apartment and wait for me to come home.”
“Sounds so…” Boring as hell? Domesticated? He settled for sarcasm. “. . . intellectually stimulating.”
“You name it. Play Red Dwarf Commander, for all I care. I know people, just like you do.”
He frowned at that. He couldn’t imagine who she thought he knew. He was a nobody from a dust ball that was lucky it had a name and a single hospital and police station. Ryu was the most influential person he knew. Or maybe Patron Simmons.
“Look, we can find something ‘intellectually stimulating’ for you to do. Promise me you’ll think about it?”
He nodded. Apparently finished with her massage—and her request—she patted his shoulders, squeezed one last time, and turned to go.
He listened to the thudding of her boots down the hall until he lost the sound. Then he let out the breath he’d been holding and loosened his shoulders.
He couldn’t really leave the stars… or any of it.
But Capital. Many considered it the cultural and financial center of the galaxy.
His mother would laugh if she could see him slumped in his chair now. Oh, big problems, kid—the pretty girl you’re in love with wants you to stay on her fancy home planet with her. And not work. You could just play Red Dwarf Commander all day. Sometimes, with her, because she likes it too. Of course, it’d mean you’d have to give up flying your swanky space ship. She’d be happy he had better problems these days, even if she’d laugh. He’d grown up with his bare feet in the dry, red dirt of Bantilla, and never would he have imagined he’d have a chance to see Capital, let alone live there. Island after island, all water and sunshine.
It was impossible, of course. But it was a nice dream.
A drop of sweat slid down Kael’s forehead and dropped through the cargo bay grating below his feet. The gravity bar was already set nearly as high as he could manage it, but he jerked the settings a notch higher and heaved again. He managed the lift just barely, then sent it crashing down with more force than the gravity bar alone was exerting.
Well, he might not be a Theroki anymore, but tossing heavy things around still felt good. Old habits died hard.
Ryu’s voice came from the catwalk behind him. “I’m sure the repair bots will be glad to have something to do, but what did the Audacity do to deserve such treatment?”
“Sorry, Commander.” He winced. “She’s the only home I’ve ever known. You don’t think she’ll take it personally, do you?”
“I know I won’t,” Xi chimed in.
Kael snickered.
Ellen slipped down the ladder behind him, quiet as a cat. “Something bothering you, Kael? I got your message.”
If her eyes lingered at all, he didn’t spot it.
And that was fine. Completely fine. He didn’t care. Not anymore. He took a deep breath, the musk and oil of the cargo hold mixing with sweat. Okay, that was a lie. But he was working on it.
He tried to center himself like Dr. Taylor had been coaching him. The chip modifications Dremer had made had eased some of the ebb and flow of wild emotion inside him, but not all of it. He hadn’t dealt with any of it for so long. Taylor had him doing meditation.
Mostly that just made him more frustrated. And more eager to throw things. But, you know. He was working on it.
Just like he was working on accepting his new very platonic and unromantic working relationship with Ellen. And her reasons and all. Praise the Almighty, he’d escaped the Theroki. A lifetime conscription and basically a death sentence. He should be counting his blessings. It was a work in progress.
He turned and faced her, leaning against the nearby wall. “Just a couple questions about the upcoming mission. Ma’am.”
“All right. Shoot.” She had stopped at the bottom of the ladder. The dim cargo bay lights cast velvety highlights across the curves of her black armor.
He might as well have out with it. “Have I done something to jeopardize your trust?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“Have I slipped up somewhere and I didn’t realize it? I assume if I had you would tell me, but—”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Without a second thought. What’s this all about, Kael?”
“Staying on the ship, Commander? Really?”
“That’s not a question.”
“What did I do to get benched?” She hadn’t stationed him on ship-guarding duty on any of the missions since he’d signed his contract.
Until this one.
She tilted her head and propped a hand on one hip. “What, you want to see Capital? It’s not going to be a fragging vacation.”
“You said you needed the best unarmored combatants. But you’re sending Zhia instead of me.”
“So?”
He couldn’t take standing still anymore. He started pacing, staring at the floor as he spoke. “Look, I would be perfectly happy to guard a potted plant of your choosing if you so desire. Your wish is my command. But I stayed alive as a Theroki by trying to understand orders, asking questions. And you told me yourself asking questions is critical to mission success.”
“Figures you’d be paying attention.”
“And it’s… well…”
“Spit it out, Kael.”
“You’ve never left me on guard duty before.”
Her gaze pinned him to the wall, unreadable for a long moment. “Everybody does guard du
ty sometimes.”
“Is that it? Or…” He stopped his pacing and took a step closer. Then he took another, until they were barely a foot apart, so she could hear his quiet words. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
Surprise flickered over her features and then vanished, and he couldn’t tell if that had been exactly the right thing to say or exactly the wrong one. “I should have known,” she muttered. She continued louder, but still hushed. “Let’s discuss this further in my cabin. Get cleaned up and meet me there?”
“I can go now.” Not like she cared how he looked, she’d made that clear enough. He snatched a towel off the railing to mop his brow. “I’m good.”
One eyebrow raised, she ran her gaze over his sweaty form. Hmm, perhaps he should have taken the hint. Just because she wasn’t interested in him didn’t mean she wanted him dripping sweat all over the floor of her cabin.
“Fine.” She climbed back up the ladder. “Let’s go.”
He followed her, throwing the towel over his shoulder and feeling more like an overeager puppy than a professional soldier. Her cabin was on the opposite end of the ship. She stopped by the door as he stepped past her, keying in a code to the lockpad as the door slid shut behind them. “Xi, mute this box for me, please.”
“Yes, Commander,” came Xi’s smooth voice from overhead.
“What does that mean?” He frowned, glancing around him. Ryu’s room was sparse and neat as always. The desk, the bunk, the holochess, the bookshelf of what appeared to be actual paper books. Someday he’d get a closer look at the titles. The punching bag was stored away today, somewhere in the floor or ceiling.
Ellen strode to the holodesk, not looking at him. “It means she’s turning off recording to the ship’s databanks for this room. Cut this part out too, please, and delete it.”
“If you’re going to beat the shit out of me, Commander, at least let me put my armor on.”
She let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, right. As if I’d have a fair shot if I gave you any warning.”
“Is that supposed to ease my worry about an imminent beating?”
“No.” Face blank, she started punching commands into the desk. Always as old-school as possible in her tech, it seemed.