Five days after Lucas placed his order with Lazlo he returned and picked it up. He also stopped by The Firing Line in the midlevels of Hyperion in order to pick up a couple different guns for Elena to try out.
Contrary to popular belief, tiny pocket pistols were usually underpowered, hard to aim, and physically hurt one’s hand when firing, definitely not suited to a novice. And the problem with extremely large pistols wasn’t that they were so powerful as to be uncontrollable, but that their weight made them unwieldy. Even though guns had been in an almost constant state of evolution since their invention, humans unfortunately had not.
After the advent of gene-repair techniques, humanity had plateaued or peaked depending on which experts you listened to. Humans today were no stronger, faster, or smarter than ones from a few hundred years ago, and not much improved over the gene pool of Earth at the start of the colonization period.
Because humanity hadn’t really changed, there was a limit on how powerful a firearm could be, that held especially true when it came to handguns. They had to be under a certain weight in order to be capable of one-handed operation – two kilograms was generally the heaviest pistol one could find – and that small amount of weight had to be enough to tamp down on recoil or provide enough mass for heatsinks in the case of a laser.
Sure you could design a pistol that fired a full power rifle round, caseless or cased, but the recoil would likely make follow up shots a futile effort, if the gun wasn’t sent flying from your hand. And the same applied to a laser, except the diode would probably fuse after the first shot or two due to there simply not being enough mass to make a large enough heat sink.
With those thoughts in mind, Lucas purchased a very pedestrian medium-sized GundS pistol and a common American Combine AR111 rifle for Elena. GundS had been two separate companies from pre-spaceflight Austria who had eventually banded together after several hundred years of competition, while American Combine was a conglomeration of a bunch of gun manufacturers from historic North America.
Both guns were rugged, had room for improvements or upgrades, and would do a great job of teaching her the fundamentals. It wasn’t that he only had Lazlo’s guns in his armory – they fired proprietary ammunition after all, so he carried a good amount of normal fair too – but even all of his ‘normal’ guns had been customized by him for his own use.
His thoughts were interrupted by the blare of an emergency call coming from his wristcomp. He had barely stepped out of the flow of foot traffic and inserted his earbud when Amber came on the line.
“Lucas, what is your current location.”
“Just left Hyperion and headed back to the compound. What’s the problem?”
“We received a deep-link SOS from the Bhadra, the ship Prince Gregory is serving on. The Navy is already scrambling, but Empiral Intelligence just commed me and asked me if we had any assets to spare.”
“I can be back at headquarters in a little under half an hour; if you preflight Errand for me I can probably translate in just over an hours’ time.”
“Not soon enough. I am preflighting your ship now. Get to a landing pad, I’ll pick you up there.” And then Amber cut the call. She probably had a lot of other things to take care of, and she was the only other person on the planet who was authorized to fly his ship.
Ten minutes later Lucas made it to the nearest and emptiest rooftop landing pad he could find. Chest heaving, he dropped the two crates that he had picked up from Hyperion, thankful as always for Lazlo’s unceasing work ethic.
He didn’t even have time to catch his breath before he spotted his ship, clearly breaking several traffic violations, coming in for a hot landing with the rear cargo ramp deployed. Amber flipped the ship end for end and applied the main engines for braking thrust, a highly illegal act in populated airspace, before all but slamming the ship onto the pad on its landing jacks.
Wincing internally at the possible damage, he muscled both crates up the ramp and into the cargo bay, ignoring the gawkers who had also been waiting at the edges of the pad for their rides.
Before the ramp was even shut and the cargo bay sealed, he felt the deck of the ship tilting underneath his feet as Amber applied main engine thrust again and shot the plucky little freighter into the sky.
“Situation update,” he called out as he finally stepped onto the bridge and stumbled to a halt as his train of thought was immediately derailed.
Amber was wearing her usual pencil skirt and blouse combination, although she seemed to have added a touch of subtle makeup, and her silver hair was braided and running down her back. Kharlie was wrapped in a white summer dress with a blue floral pattern that touched off her eyes. And Elena. He only guessed it was her by process of elimination. She still had her wavy chestnut hair and emerald eyes, but he couldn’t even see a shadow of the girl from the Wastes anymore.
She was a few centimeters taller and definitely curvier, but it was her face and skin that had undergone the most dramatic transformation. Before, he would have said that she had the features of a teenager, and an average one at that. But now, she had a slender nose and finely arched eyebrows, he couldn’t tell if they had been enhanced with makeup. Her eyes remained the same fiery emerald green, and they contrasted wonderfully with her now full red lips. And her skin was now several shades darker, with an exotic red undertone that somehow managed to naturally highlight her chestnut hair.
He came out of his daze and noticed everyone was staring expectantly at him. “Um, where was that update?”
Amber gave him a cool, dissecting look before replying, “I haven’t given it to you yet.”
“Right. Well. Where are we going? What’s the situation?”
“The battlecruiser Bhadra was attacked responding to an SOS beacon. She took heavy damage but was able to escape. However, due to battle damage they were forced to translate down and go into hiding in an uninhabited system in Radeon March. It will take us a little over six days to get there. What do you think of my new outfit?”
“That sounds like the sort of thing we ran into. Do we have a status on the prince?” And then he paused and replayed her statement to make sure he hadn’t imagined her question. “And, your new outfit looks nice, the colors really suit you.” Now that he was paying attention, he noticed that the colors were designed to play off of her hair color. That was new; she usually stuck with for a cream-colored blouse and black pencil skirt.
“No status on the prince. Thank you for purchasing it.”
“Wait, I didn’t give you that money to spend on yourself.”
“You should have thought of that. I was forced to spend valuable personal time escorting these two as they went shopping, so I compensated myself with several new outfits at your expense.”
Lucas almost snorted as he thought about her so-called personal time, it was a concept he knew was foreign to her.
“And what about my outfit?” Kharlie asked excitedly.
“The blue matches your eyes nicely. But more importantly, why are you on my ship?” He said brusquely.
He understood Amber and Elena being there, but he didn’t understand why Amber had decided to let Kharlie tag along instead of cooling her heels while they responded to this emergency.
His straightforward question seemed to confuse her for a moment, and he took note of that for future use. Her noble upbringing had probably included lessons on circumlocution, and while she was stepping out of that habit with her own words, she still seemed thrown when it happened to her.
“Amber said that there was an emergency and I asked to come along and help.”
“Very well. Amber, did you finish your interview?”
“Affirmative. Both Kharlie and Elena would make valuable recruits for the Order. However, there are some security concerns when it comes to Elena, and she would need someone senior to vouch for her.”
“I see. Elena, what do you think, still up for being my apprentice?”
“Yes, but I want to know what you think of my outfit first.”
Her outfit… He looked and she was wearing some sort of sky-blue wrap that revealed tantalizing flashes of her belly and thigh. He didn’t know how he could have failed to notice it, and he didn’t miss the fact that all three were wearing blue.
“Honestly, I didn’t even notice it,” Lucas said to her.
Kharlie looked incensed, but there was a soft smile playing upon Elena’s lips as she grasped the meaning behind his statement.
Amber turned back to the helm, and a few moments later there was a bright flare of light through the large bridge canopy as the Night Errand translated to h-space.
“Amber, just how many traffic violations did you rack up? It felt like we just translated too close to the planet.”
“There was no significant danger posed by Fribourg’s gravity well.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“There was a message indicating that the pilot of the Night Errand would be detained upon our next visit.”
He just shook his head and, after giving Elena a head nod indicating she should follow, strode to the cargo bay.
Once there he hefted the heavier of the two crates he had brought aboard earlier and Elena picked up the lighter with no instruction from him. They carried the crates in companionable silence to the armory.
As he pulled his weapons from the crate, he gave them all a quick function check. He took great care with his gear, but Lazlo always insisted on checking over his creations. The slide on Stinger now felt like butter and the Storm’s action cycled like it was brand new.
“Elena, would you please put on your shipsuit?”
Once she was suited up, he pulled the brand new yellow and grey chestplate from the crate. Lazlo didn’t make female chest plates with the ridiculous individual breast cups that were in fashion these days, but the generous upswell on the upper chest, as well as the narrower proportions made it easy to identify the wearer as female.
“This is your chestplate, it looks like it might still be a touch big, but it should fit well enough for now,” Lucas said. “This will be your toughest piece of armor, there are trauma plates we can attach to your arms and legs. Lazlo also makes helmets, but you’ll need to go in for a custom fitting.” And then he clipped the plate to her shipsuit and began to check the fit.
The plate was a little too long, and would affect Elena’s ability to bend over until she grew another few centimeters.
“What do you think?” He asked as he clipped on his own plate to check the fit.
“ Why don’t I just wear something like that?” She asked as she gestured to the Marine combat armor standing in its rack in the corner.
“Well, combat armor is more complicated and takes more time to get in and out of. It also has to be custom-fitted and then you need training on the different systems built into it. This will do for now.”
The loose-fitting shipsuit and chest plate muted her attractive figure, and the upper arm and thigh plates he clipped on next only more so. Her head was still exposed, and distracting, but her visual appeal was muted for the moment.
“Elena. I think it’s time we had a serious talk.”
There was a momentary flash of hesitation on her face at his statement before she said, “And what, exactly, do we need to talk about?”
He shifted uncomfortably for a moment before deciding to take the plunge. “I need to apologize to you. I was… wrong… when I threatened you and Kharlie. There were better ways to go about that, and I chose the fastest and easiest one, even though it damaged the trust between us.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “I’m sorry that I hurt you.”
He knew that she could sense that he had more to say, so he wasn’t surprised when she simply said, “Go on.”
He took her hand, and even through the both sets of shipsuit gloves he felt it tense. “I like you, I think you have what it takes to be my apprentice and eventually, my partner. I don’t want this bump in the road to derail wherever the future leads. So from here on out, no secrets between the two of us.”
There were tears in her eyes, but she refused to shed them. “I forgive you,” Elena all but whispered. “But I’m still hurt.”
Lucas felt an odd urge to lean in and kiss her in an attempt to make it better and he quickly stomped it flat. Putting aside the fact that she might be barely half his age, or possibly manipulative, that wasn’t the type of relationship he wanted.
“I understand that, I’m not young enough to think that apologizing is going to magically make things better. I just needed to clear the air so to speak.”
Again, she knew that he wasn’t finished yet. “Developing a working relationship isn’t going to be easy for us; I’m slow to trust and you’re afraid of trusting at all. I’ve seen the way you subtly steer conversations and it worries me.
“I’ve put some thought into it, and I understand that these abilities are just a part of you, but they make it hard to believe that you aren’t manipulating me when I see it happening to someone else. I’m not going to do something stupid like ask you to stop or not act on the things you feel, but I think that I have a way to for us to start trusting each other.”
“I’m listening.”
“What can you tell me about the compound you were held in?”
She rolled with the non sequitur, probably sensing that he had something specific in mind.
“What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with where it is, how big it is, and who’s inside of it.”
“It was in a desert, I think it was fairly big, and there were nine others when I left.”
“A desert on what planet, how many guards were there, what were they armed with? Those are the things we need to know.”
She seemed frustrated that she didn’t have the information he required, so he explained. “I know you want to rescue them, but that information is critical to even making the attempt. So this is what we’re going to do. You’re going to sit down with Amber and tell her everything you can remember about the compound and where it was, what color the sun was, how long the flight was to New Pittsburgh, everything.
“Then she’s going to take that information and find the compound for us. Once it’s located we can start trying to figure out how to break in or assault it. All of this is going to take time, time you and I will spend getting you combat ready.”
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously and said, “I take it your idea of getting me combat ready is going on missions for the Order with you?”
“No, not really. Bringing you along would endanger us both. Training means just that, and maybe some low priority stuff at the end as a test. But the key to all of this is that you will be working towards a goal out of self-interest. At every step of Amber’s investigation, I’ll give you updates, I’ll even let you read the reports yourself if you want.”
“Why would you let me do that?”
“Because we want to find this compound almost as badly as you do. Think about it from our perspective; a Chet’ir scientist is dabbling in transhumanism, and is not only successful, but seems to have added clairvoyant and empathic abilities to someone. We need to know what he knows, for either nefarious or benevolent purposes depending on your point of view.”
“So it’s in both our interests to train me and rescue the others from the compound.”
“Exactly. It isn’t perfect, but I think if we keep that in mind, then it’s a good place to start building a partnership.”
“I agree.” Elena said before turning and asking, “So what’s in this other box?”
***
Elena practiced moving in the cargo bay. Lucas had set up a few faux corridors with the crates in the cargo bay, and tasked her with navigating through them in her armored shipsuit. He had also given her a rifle loaded with paint pellets and occasionally ambushed her with his own paint rounds.
So far she had yet to tag him. And every ambush as she crossed through a ‘hatch’ or a junction, or just from behind had left her covered in paint splatters and small bruises. But she was getting closer, faster.
Her return fire was no longer a wild and inaccurate spray, she had learned how to properly navigate around corners and through hatchways, and she was already moving in the shipsuit like it was a second skin.
She approached the final ‘room’ in the mockup, certain that Lucas was hiding inside. Carefully, she ‘sliced the pie’ as Lucas had called it, and seeing no sign of him, assumed he was in one of the room’s two blind corners. She wanted to guess that he was on the right, because he seemed to prefer firing his rifle right-handed, but he was devious enough to have picked the poorer position just to trick her in the name of ‘teaching her a lesson’.
Take a deep breath, she threw herself into the room, already facing the left blind corner and firing before she even had identified a target.
There was a burst of three rounds in reply followed by the immediate sting of the marker rounds impacting her belly, just below the protection of her chest plate.
Lowering her rifle, she searched the room for Lucas, only to seen him lying on his back in the left corner, right where she had predicted he would be. And judging by the unbroken string of paint marks on the crate above his head, he had once more avoided any of her return fire.
“Excellent!” He called out. “You’re learning this so much quicker than I ever did.”
“For some reason I think they don’t try to teach Marines all of this in one afternoon,” Elena replied caustically.
“Exactly,” he replied in an annoyingly chipper tone, “and that’s their loss. In one afternoon you’ve learned to fire your rifle and clear a ship just as well as most Marines leaving boot camp.”
She could feel waves of pride rolling off of him, and it warmed her like a bonfire. She enjoyed the sensation for a few moments before realizing that she actually felt good about her situation, about her apprenticeship. She was going to sit down with Amber later in the evening and tell her everything she knew, which would be the start of the road to freeing Railyn and the others. And shooting at Lucas had been a great way to relieve her stress towards him.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Although… she hadn’t actually hit him. And he shot her dozens upon dozens of times in return. She checked and saw that he was walking back towards the mock setup with a pallet mover, clearly about to start dismantling it.
Almost on its own, her rifle floated up and let out a quick three-round burst at Lucas. Before the third had hit him, his body was already moving sideways to the nearest piece of cover as his rifle snapped into his hands.
Lucas’ rifle fired a quick burst at her just before his body disappeared behind a large crate, and incredibly, only half of them hit her.
“Got you!” Elena called out in a sing-song lilt before she burst into laughter and dropped her rifle to hang from its sling at her side. She didn’t even care that she had been hit once more.
“What the hell was that for?” He shouted, still behind his crate.
“I realized it would make me feel better.” She managed between gusts of laughter.
There was a moment of silence and she could feel his anger, but then he let it go and a sense of chagrinned annoyance replaced it. “It had better have been worth it.” He called out in a mock threatening tone.
She pitched in to help him take put away the crates and took the opportunity to ask him some questions.
“So how long were you in the Marines?”
“I joined up when I turned twenty and stayed there for the next twenty years.”
She blinked. He was much older than she had initially guessed.
“How old are you now?” She asked as she steered the pallet mover.
“If you must know, I turned fifty a few months ago.”
Fifty, she mused. His life was already a third over then.
“And how did you end up with the Order? They don’t seem like the type to have a recruiting center.”
“I tried out for the Commandos,” his voice was even, nonchalant, but there was a world of pain behind that statement. “I didn’t make the cut. Amber approached me afterwards while I was recovering in hospital and I jumped at the chance.”
Elena didn’t know how to react. On one hand he was uncomfortable with her abilities, but on the other she felt the need to give him some comfort, even though he had clearly buried the pain.
She settled for putting a hand on his shoulder and asking, “What, are you telling me that the Empirial Commandos are somehow even better than you?” He didn’t seem ready for sending just yet, and she hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with that aspect of her abilities.
The flare of burning hot rage that roiled off of him caused her to instinctively drop her hand and step away. But he only said, “They’re supposed to be,” with a weary voice.
Then he noticed her movement and sighed. “I guess there’s no point trying to hide it from you. Did you read about the selection process when you were studying up on the Marines last week?”
The only thing the article had said was that the Commandos were the best of the best, equipped with the best gear, and given the best training, nothing about the selection process. It had had the ring of propaganda about it. So she shook her head in a negative.
“Right, then let me enlighten you. There are prerequisites to taking the selection test of course, but the test itself is quite possibly the most demanding thing humanity has ever devised. No one has passed it. Ever.”
“Ever? Why would they make a test too hard for anyone to pass?”
“Because the test is designed to break you. First physically, then mentally, and finally spiritually. They only consider the best ‘failures’. The trick is, the test isn’t over once you’ve broken; they wait and see who can pull themselves back together and then they take the best failures that managed to pull themselves back together.”
“Then how did you fail? I don’t think a test could break you that badly.” Her statement elicited a heady mix of grim humor and bittersweet yearning with undertones of the rage from a few minutes before.
“The Marines have grown large enough in the last century that there are always a few dozen qualified applicants, so they all take the test together.” He sighed before continuing. “The instructors and the drones are supposed to keep an eye on everyone and everything, so that they can better evaluate those that make it to the final selection. Somewhere during the fourth or fifth day I dropped my guard and one of the other applicants managed to take me out while making it look like an accident.
“I woke up in the hospital, minus most of one leg,” he said as his hand unconsciously rubbed his left thigh.
She had been meaning to hold back, to wait, she really had. But the depths of pain dredged up by Lucas’ story overwhelmed Elena and without thinking she wrapped her arms around him and began sending him comfort.
He noticed of course, there was no way he could miss it. He stiffened, and for a few moments she feared he would be upset, but he simply relaxed in her embrace and she felt a tiny kernel of gratitude amidst the storm of emotions pouring off of him.
After a time, he said, “I was wondering if you could do something like that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But to be fair, I didn’t not tell you, I mentioned it when you were questioning Kharlie and I.”
“I know, but it still feels a little dishonest. No more secrets.”
“I understand. No more secrets,” she said as she rested her head against his back.
***
Elena leaned her rifle against the table’s edge and readjusted the pistol holster on her hip before sitting down. Lucas firmly believed that one of the best ways to train was to force her to all but live in her shipsuit, constantly carrying her weapons. He claimed that the extra time spent now would help her move more comfortably and naturally later, but it was annoying to say the least.
He also refused to let her use the safety on either weapon, although they were only loaded with simulation rounds. Every time she asked about it, he would crook an index finger at her and say ‘this is your safety’. She had managed to accidentally fire the rifle twice now, once when putting it down and once when picking it up. And the pistol was even worse; her finger seemed to naturally find the trigger every time she pulled it from the holster and her leg was liberally coated in paint.
Amber looked up from her wristcomp and watched with detached interest as the rifle slowly slid sideways and clattered to the deck before loosing a single round. The report from the simulation rounds was notably quieter than live ammunition, but still enough to cause her ears to ring for a few moments.
“It’ll be interesting to see if your shapeshifting abilities extend to repairing damaged hearing. Lucas needs to have his eardrums repaired at least once a year,” she said as Elena picked up the rifle and chose to lean it on her leg instead.
“Why is he trying to train me so fast?”
“I would guess he thinks he’ll need your assistance once we reach Bhadra.”
She thought on that for a few moments. Although the idea of helping Lucas was attractive, she couldn’t do much beyond blasting every target in sight, which admittedly was an improvement from her previous abilities.
“ Do you really think I’ll be ready?”
“Yes. Lucas’ greatest ability isn’t actually fighting, it’s training. The Marines were very sorry to see him go and I had to fight them quite hard to release him. Everywhere he went the soldiers around him would perform better.”
“How does he do that?”
“A combination of many factors, and those in charge of the marines know to watch for soldiers with his abilities. He used to be so social and approachable, those he gave advice to never thought he was talking down to them. And the way that he constantly worked on improving his own skills inspired others to follow his example. But then there was the accident.”
“Lucas doesn’t think it was an accident,” Elena said.
Amber smiled sadly. “There really was no way to tell. But what’s important is what he believes. And Lucas believes Long pushed him onto that mine. The drone footage was inconclusive of course, it could have been either malice or an accident, and Lucas chose to believe it was the former.”
“Doesn’t that say a lot about his view of people in general?”
“It does. After the accident he withdrew, he was still brilliant and learned everything we had to teach him, but he was… colder and no matter what I did, I couldn’t draw him back out.”
She straightened and briefly shook her head. “But we aren’t here to gossip about Lucas. What can you tell me about the compound where you grew up?”
“What should I start with?”
“Let’s start with the Chet’ir. You mentioned one named Inq’ul, where there any others with him?”
“No, he was the only one of his kind.”
“He had to have assistants of some kind right? Were they human? You were there for years, did any of them ever come or go?”
She paused and thought about it for a few seconds. Memories of half a dozen of Inq’ul’s helpers came to mind, but she couldn’t remember there ever being any new faces. “He had six human assistants, but there were never any new ones. Although, one of them was getting pretty old.”
Amber jotted down a quick note on her wristcomp before her next question. “The compound was in a desert, was it above ground or below? Could you see any stars, the sun, or moons?”
“The compound was above ground with a wall on the outskirts. The only time we ever saw the outdoors was when we were moved between our living quarters and the one where they tested us. The sky was a darker blue than New Pittsburgh or Fribourg, and the sun looked extremely white.”
“Excellent,” Amber said as she continued taking notes. “How was the compound supplied?”
“Supplied?”
“Where there ships or shuttles that flew supplies in? Perhaps trucks? Or was everything grown or made at the compound itself?”
“Oh. There was a shuttle that came once every two weeks. It would land for a few hours and then leave again.”
“That’s good to know.” She said briskly before moving on. “You mentioned guards? How many were there and how were they armed? Did they ever have to defend the compound or were they there to guard you?”
“I think there were ten guards. Occasionally there would be some shooting from the walls around sunrise or sunset. And there were always two guards escorting us as we moved between the two buildings. They had caseless rifles, sidearms, and full-face helmets with two small eye lenses instead of the clear face shield like Navy helmets.” She continued, anticipating Amber’s next question, “And they did change every once in a while. It was hard to tell because we rarely heard them talk and they always wore their helmets, but sometimes we noticed a new one.”
“Hmm, their helmets, did they look anything like this?” Amber said as she tapped a few keys on her wristcomp before tilting it to display an image towards her.
The helmet was a different color and its wearer was clearly dead, but the shape was the same, down to the strange reflective gold lenses over the eyeholes. “Yes, theirs were dark brown instead of green, but it’s the same.”
“The Nauvoo Legion,” Amber said with pursed lips.
“The who?”
“It’s too complicated to get into right now, let’s just say they’re a group of religious fanatics and leave it there for now.”
“Okay. Is there anything else you need to know?”
“No, that’s more than enough to get me started. And now I need to go check on how Kharlie is doing with her assignment.”
***
Lucas flipped the sizzling pork chop on the skillet. One of the underrated things about working for the Order was the food. He almost always had fresh meat and vegetables in the ship’s refrigeration lockers, and he only had to eat field expedient mealpacks when circumstances forced him to.
Next to the skillet, a golden rice pilaf simmered in a saucepan. The smells of cooking food circulated and mixed in the air in a tantalizing manner. Truthfully, he wasn’t much of a chef, but he could follow instructions easily enough, so it wasn’t too hard to throw together something tasty. And a good meal on the first night of their mission would do wonders for setting up camaraderie and teamwork.
Kharlie was the first to arrive. She had been practicing her hacking – or information systems skills as a more polite term – and it seemed that it had been going rather well. Kharlie’s implants were top of the line and she had apparently spent an inordinate amount of her free time learning hacker tips and tricks.
Lucas was broken from his thoughts by the sight of Kharlie’s short blond hair swaying as she sauntered into the galley. He wondered how she managed to keep it at the perfect length to move like that. As always, her too-blue eyes seemed to draw him in, but he shook those thoughts from his head. He had enough problems on his plate in that regard; the direction Elena’s shapeshifting was taking, Amber’s presence on his ship, and even the sleeping arrangements. There were only two cabins after all, and four people to sleep.
“Mm, that smells great!” Kharlie seemed to be her bubbly self, but Lucas didn’t trust it. Sure Elena might have been able to offer her some sort of ‘comfort’ to ease her problems, but problems they remained. He reminded himself to keep an eye on her state of mind; he had seen people who went through less break.
“Why are you staring at me?” She said as a faint blush tinged her cheeks.
“Sorry, I was just lost in thought.” He deflected as he turned to check the food. He flipped the chops once more as he turned up the heat to give them a final sear.
“You were thinking about me weren’t you?” She said as her mood visibly fell. “About how you… found me.”
Lucas couldn’t stand seeing her like that, so he decided to lance the boil rather than wait for it to possibly fester. “Yes, I was,” he said.
Tears formed in her eyes as she said, “That’s all you’re ever going to see when you look at me, isn’t it. It doesn’t matter if I ever put it behind me; whenever anyone looks at me, that’s the only thing they’ll see.”
The smell of caramelizing pork chops tickled his nose, so he flipped off the burners without breaking eye contact before taking a step closer to her. “That’s not what I see when I look at you though.”
“Yes it is! How could you see anything else?” Kharlie cried as she clenched her hands. “He took everything from me! Everything! I’m the daughter of Landgraf Engels zu Centauri and all anyone will ever care about is that I’m a damned rape victim!” she shouted as she shook her fist threateningly
He paused for a moment to be sure her outburst was finished before saying, “But you’re so much more than a rape victim.”
“Exactly! And I don’t need anyone, especially you, looking at me with pity in their eyes. I’m Kharlie Engels and I’m not just a victim dammit!” She punctuated her statement by slamming a fist into his chest as she erupted into tears.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she continued sobbing and ineffectually pounding her fists against him. “You’re not just a victim, and you are so much more than what happened to you.” He started counting with the fingers of his free hand. “You’re a beautiful young woman, a talented hacker, daughter of one of the most noble of nobles, and a member of the Empire’s preeminent secret society.”
Kharlie’s tears slowed after a minute and he watched as she lifted her tear and snot stained face from his chest to meet his eyes once again.
She asked, “Do you really think I’m beautiful?”
Her red rimmed eyes and tear-streaked face to the contrary, he still thought she was beautiful. “Yes, you are,” he said with a laugh. “Did hear anything else I said?”
“I sort of stopped listening after you called me beautiful.” He thought she was blushing again, but it was hard to tell at the moment.
“Lucas, Kharlie, am I interrupting? I can return later if you require time to consummate your relationship.” Amber’s said from where she had been silently observing from the hatch.
As Kharlie stiffened and buried her face in his chest once more, he gave Amber a mock glare.
“That was a joke.”
“It wasn’t very funny Amber.”
“I never said it was a good one. How am I supposed to improve if you never let me practice?”
Their banter seemed to be exactly what Kharlie needed to snap her out of her mood because she started giggling as he held her. Soon, her giggles turned into full-fledged laughter complete with a fresh round of tears.
Elena chose that moment to join them in the galley and he thought she would have been confused by what she saw. But her empathic abilities came into the fore once more and she seemed to read the mood and instantly understand what was going on.
Once Kharlie finally calmed down and started wiping her face with a towel, he plated the meal and served everyone. Elena busied herself getting everyone drinks, and Amber just tapped absentmindedly at her wristcomp.
Soon everyone was seated at the round table that dominated the room and tucking into the food.
“Lucas, why do you never cook like this for me?” Amber asked from her position directly across the table.
She was definitely going out of her way to tease him now. Their past… liaisons were always brief and almost awkward affairs; afterwards they would both pretend it hadn’t happened. Now though, she almost seemed to be staking a claim on him. He would need to nip that in the bud; he wasn’t interested in Kharlie that way, and while he wasn’t sure what he felt about Elena he definitely didn’t want to feel that way about her.
Almost every time he looked at her he felt a surge of what was assuredly lust. And that definitely not okay. He almost sighed as he realized he would have to carve out some time to have another conversation with her about her shapeshifting. Maybe there was a way she could be less distracting.
“You were the one that said my hands were only good for two things,” Lucas shot right back. “What were they again? War and… love wasn’t it?”
Amber’s face reddened at his blatant reference to their love life, such as it was. While Kharlie seemed fascinated with the growing tension and Elena amused by it.
Then it hit him. Amber wasn’t just staking a claim on him. She was showing and expressing emotions. As far back as their first meeting in the hospital, she had always been cold, aloof, and business-like. Even in the bedroom – before, during, and after – she never let her guard down.
He glanced at Kharlie and Elena, seated to his left and right respectively. “In the interest of full disclosure, teambuilding, building trust, and all that good stuff, Amber and I have something a little bit more than just a professional relationship. I trust her completely and I follow her orders, but this is my mission. You three are teammates and I’ll listen to any advice or opinions you have, but I’m the one who knows what the Errand can and can’t do, as well as the most combat experience.”
Amber took a sip of water before saying, “I agree. Lucas has never failed at a task I’ve set for him, but out here he is in charge. Also, any talk about our relations outside of a professional environment is inappropriate,” she added as she sent him a frosty glare.
“But you were the one that brought that up in the first place. All Lucas did was confirm it to defuse some of the tension,” Elena said matter-of-factly. He noticed she had already cleaned her plate and was eying the rest of the food still sitting in the pans on the warmer.
“My intention was not to bring the topic to the forefront of our conversation.” Amber protested. He found it interesting how she reverted to speaking in a more educated manner the more flustered she grew.
“No, your intention was to subtly warn the two of us that he’s taken, wasn’t it?” Kharlie chimed in as she shot him a glance that seemed almost predatory.
“That is patently absurd! I’ll have you know…”
Lucas broke in before the argument could devolve any further. “That’s enough. Now you see why I brought this up. Let me clarify. Amber and I occasionally find comfort in one another’s bodies, but our relationship, pardon relations,” he corrected as Amber inhaled to speak, “never proceed past that point.
“She has no claim on me, and I have no claim on her. And no, that does not mean that I am open to anything with either of you.”
Amber seemed mollified, Elena amused, and Kharlie looked crestfallen.
“If you two aren’t together, then why was she trying to give us that warning?” Kharlie all but whined.
“Because she thinks one of us could threaten the arrangement she has with him.” Elena answered her. Amber was looking increasingly upset at being cut out of the conversation at this point.
“Exactly. And that’s why nobody is going to be sleeping with anybody on my ship. There will be no relations, no late night rendezvous, no walking in on anyone in the head, nothing of the sort. I’m going to take my field bag and sleep on the bridge, we really should have a watch up there anyways, and the three of you can divide the two cabins however you see fit.”
All three women were giving him looks that were equal parts frustration and something else. And then, almost as one, they opened their mouths to speak.
Only to be cut off by the urgent beeps of the Errand’s proximity alarm. Except, those tones only came from the navigation console, which was on the bridge, and he had clearly heard them issuing from Amber’s wristcomp.
He glared at her as she twisted her wrist and a repeat of the navigation console flashed into existence from the holographic projector built into it. He continued to glare even as Elena’s rifle slowly slid sideways from its position leaning against the table. He didn’t even flinch when the rifle fell to the floor with a clatter and the report of a round being loosed.
Finally, Amber sensed something amiss and turned to meet his gaze. “It seems we are about to overtake the Pitschen and her sister. We’re making good time.”
“Amber,” he started in a tone that he thought sounded patient, “why are you receiving nav updates from your wristcomp?”
“Because I reprogrammed it to do so.”
He stared at her, expectantly.
“Lucas, this mission is vital to the Empire. I determined the consequences of failure to be too high, so I inserted myself into the control loop.”
His shoulders tensed at her admission. He knew what could happen if he or any of the others responding to the distress call failed. But he didn’t intend to fail.
“How many missions have I undertaken?”
“Over two hundred and fifty.”
“And how many times have I failed to secure a satisfactory outcome?” He wasn’t completely successful every time. His assignments were often vague and had wide-reaching objectives. And then there were times when a situation fell apart or changed in the time between when his orders were given and he arrived, such things were outside of his control though, and thankfully the leadership of the Order agreed.
“Only seventeen times,” Amber replied succinctly.
Their exchange had slowly been building to a conflict, Lucas could read the flow of a conversation well enough to predict that much, but he wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted out of it. Amber’s nigh hijacking of his ship’s systems pissed him off. He was used to being in control on his own ship. Sure he had his missions, but it was always his choice how to go about completing them; Amber’s interference was both unprecedented and completely unexpected.
Just as he opened his mouth to give reply though, the building argument was cut off at its knees.
What happens if we don’t rescue the Prince?” Elena asked innocently.
Kharlie and Amber turned to stare at her with surprise. They had assumed that everyone knew the stakes, but forgot that Elena was something of a blank slate.
Kharlie was the first to find her tongue again. “Emperor Gustav only has one legal heir right now. His second-born, Prince Gregory, hasn’t met the legal requirements for inheritance yet. If something happens to the Emperor, the crown automatically falls to Princess Shareen.
Lucas could see that the explanation gave more questions than answers so he added, “While the succession of the crown is assured at the moment, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with Princess Shareen, only having one legal heir puts the Empire in a more unstable position. If Prince Gregory dies, then it will be several years before the third child, Prince Nico, meets the requirements for his inheritance. And if the Princess ascends to the throne in that window, her opponents will accuse her of assassinating her brother to weaken her starting position.”
He never thought he would be grateful of an interruption to talk about politics.
“Monarchies tend to be extraordinarily stable and capable of long-term planning, however the inherent weakness comes with the transfer of power,” Amber said. “Empress Stella sought to mitigate this problem with the laws on inheritance and the encouragement of having multiple possible heirs.”
He gave Elena a smile to show her gratitude. He knew what her question had been designed to do, and doubtless so did Amber, but either way it gave him an opportunity to rethink and have this discussion under more private circumstances.
Amber’s wristcomp beeped, and both Lucas and Kharlie turned their attention to the sound of an incoming message.
Thankfully she tilted her projector to show everyone at the table the message. It still rankled him that she had basically written his out of the system, he wouldn’t be nearly so mad if she had simply added herself alongside him in the notification schema.
The massage displayed the same captain from before, this time however his uniform seemed even more sharply pressed. The delay in their message and the time of detection had probably been used by the watch officer to wake the captain.
“Night Errand, that’s one speedy ship you have there. We see you responding to the distress call, but would welcome a conference call to coordinate plans.” The message was professional, but Lucas could see the tension in the Pitschen’s captain. Technically he couldn’t compel the Errand to cooperate, but a random ship from Empirial Intelligence – as he believed the Errand to be – going off half-cocked could make the situation worse.
At least Amber looked to him before she made a decision.
He had seen the distress call himself now. Bhadra had sustained heavy damage in the ambush, and there was no doubt that the forces arrayed against her had been much heavier than the medium freighter and single frigate he and Elena had taken on.
Taking out a ship the size of a battlecruiser would leave a serious hole in the Empire’s patrols, and the PR coup from killing the ship that everyone knew the prince was serving on could go either for or against the pirate’s interests.
In the end, he could rush ahead alone, or slow down and arrive in force. The question was what the pirates would be likely to do. If these were the Claret Coins again, it didn’t fit their pattern, which made it especially hard to read the situation.
Everyone looked on as he pondered, and he soon came to a decision.
Lifting his wrist, he keyed the recorder and spoke clearly. “This is Lucas Nite, captain of the Night Errand. I agree, it would be better to consolidate our forces rather than rushing off piece-meal. Whoever hit the Bhadra is likely going to be hunting to finish her off.” Then with a flick of his fingers, he sent the message Amber, so that she in turn could send it to the Pitschen.
She nodded in assent to his decision before she sent it off. Teambuilding and hashing out their command issues could wait till later.