by K. B. Wagers
“And your granddaughters are free to find their way to God rather than to be forced into it.” Rosa smoothed shaking hands down the sides of her legs. “If that’s not something you think you can support, there’s nothing else for us to discuss.”
She didn’t wait for her mother’s reply, but turned on her heel and headed for the changing room, grateful for the emptiness that echoed the sudden hollow space in her chest. With a shaking exhale, Rosa sank down onto a bench, buried her face in her hands, and cried.
“Rosa?”
She jerked at the sound of D’Arcy’s voice and his hand on her back.
“What happened?”
The story spilled out of her. D’Arcy listened without comment and then pulled her into a hug as she wound down. “Seems to be the day for family drama,” he murmured. “Carmichael apparently had a run-in with Chau about her brother this morning.”
“A run-in? Is she okay?”
“Yeah, not like that.” D’Arcy shook his head in amusement when Rosa pulled back. “She’s fine, and we’re talking about you right now. Though damned if I’m not glad for not having a family right this moment.”
“You do have a family, you jerk.”
D’Arcy’s grin was quick and sharp. “True, and it’s sometimes as messy as anything. But we’re talking about your mom here, not my startling lack of a past.” He cupped her face. “You’re doing the right thing, in case you need to hear that. It’s not the easy thing, but it is the right one.”
Rosa swallowed. His words eased some of the hurt in her chest. “It does help. Thanks.”
“Anytime.” He smiled.
Boarding Games—Day Three
It was a delight to watch someone fight who was the same caliber as she was. That was the first thought that Jenks had as she watched the cage match between Parsikov and Lieutenant Commander Locke.
The second was that Locke was not the same caliber.
Jenks muffled a curse. “Locke, move your feet before he takes your fool head off!”
“Too late,” Max murmured next to her and half a second later Parsikov’s kick slammed into the right side of Locke’s head. The lieutenant commander bounced off the cage wall and slumped to the ground.
“Hold!” the referee shouted.
“Get up, Locke!” Jenks shouted. He shook his head, managed to get to his feet, and then the ref blew the whistle. She scrambled around for the door, slipping through as soon as the ref had it opened and catching Locke before he face-planted.
“Fuck.”
“You’re telling me. When did you get so heavy?” she muttered as Max grabbed his other arm and helped him down onto the stool she’d brought into the cage.
He grinned at them both. “Jenks, you’re going to have to watch out for this guy. He’s good.”
“We’ll worry about me later.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Focus for me. You’re not allowed to let him knock you out, is that understood? You’ve got one more round to go, Locke. That means you’ve got to stop letting him kick you in the fucking head.”
“Any ideas for how to make that happen?” He coughed at the smelling salts Max held under his nose, recoiling and almost falling off the stool.
Jenks caught him, shared a look with Max, and then sighed. She knew how she would avoid those wicked fast legs Parsikov had, but how to translate that into something Locke could manage?
“Fighters, you have one minute.”
“Move in on him,” Max said, and Locke’s eyes opened wider than they had with the smelling salts. Jenks shot her a look and Max shrugged. “Staying out of range is begging for him to move in on you just enough to kick you. Move in, take that away. You’re going to have to grapple for five minutes, but you’re a wiggly little shit, Locke, you can keep him from pinning you.” She smiled. “Plus every hit you land on him gets us points.”
He looked back at Jenks and she lifted her hands. “It’s a better option than letting him knock you out. I’d do it, but it’s your ass out there.”
He took a deep breath and stood as the ref called for all crew to leave the cage. Jenks gave him a pat on the chest and followed Max to the door. On her way across the mat she felt Parsikov’s eyes on her, so she stopped in the doorway and looked at him.
The wink was slow, deliberate, and followed by a lift of her chin, and she saw the grin that split his face before she turned and bounced out of the cage, whistling her favorite old song.
“All right, fighters! Five more minutes. Keep it clean.” The ref blew his whistle and the fight started again.
There wasn’t anything else she could do for Locke as he moved in, disrupting Parsikov’s space. The move startled him enough that Locke landed several good body shots before Parsikov recovered and caught one of Locke’s arms. The lieutenant commander slithered free, ducking under a surprisingly wild swing from the Navy fighter and punching him hard enough in the kidney that Jenks saw his right knee buckle.
“See where you need to be?” Max murmured.
“Yeah.” The outcome of the fight was a foregone conclusion, they’d all known it, but Jenks was still startled by the cold-bloodedness of Max suggesting they throw Locke to the wolf just so Jenks could get a sense of how Parsikov fought when presented with an opponent up close.
It was a risk. Locke could have gotten caught, but he somehow managed to stay out of Parsikov’s massive hands for the whole final round, and when the ref blew the whistle both men were exhausted.
Jenks let Max slide an arm around Locke’s waist as he left the cage, tucking her hands behind her back as Parsikov came down the stairs. His black hair was plastered to his forehead and he sent it into further disarray when he scrubbed at his face with a towel.
“Good fight,” she said. The cameras were on them, jockeying for position in the air.
“You think? I let him get in a few too many shots there in the last round.”
“You should watch out for those close-range fighters. They slip inside your guard, cause all sorts of problems.”
Parsikov took a step closer, putting Jenks eye to—well, sternum, really—with him. She tipped her head back to glare at him. His lips twitched as he looked down at her. “Do I need to find you a ladder to stand on?”
Jenks bared her teeth in a grin, but before she could say anything Rosa and Scott both stepped between them. “Save it for the match,” Rosa said, and then added in a lower voice filled with laughter, “If someone lit a match between you two the whole place would go up in flames.”
“Believe me, Commander, I know.” Jenks waited until they were out of sight of the cameras to fan herself. “I do love the Games,” she said with a happy sigh.
Rosa laughed and pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Come on, you menace, it’s time for your fight with Ma.”
“Then we just slid inside like—whoosh.” Sapphi sliced her hand through the air as Garcia giggled. “They were so stunned that Garcia moved in on their stuff and had their files wiped before either of them reacted. It was awesome!”
Max smiled as the two women exchanged a fist bump and the others scattered around the living room lifted various glasses in acknowledgment. The hacking duo’s victory over the Navy team had been a breathless show that Max only partially understood.
Rosa, Ma, and Nika had retired early but some of Dread Treasure—including a worn-looking Locke—were still in their apartment. Max and Tamago moved around the small open kitchen doing prep work as D’Arcy cooked up something that was making her stomach rumble and her eyes burn.
“Sapphi, what do projections look like?” she asked. The hacker pointed at the wall, where a mass of scribbles and arrows and other assorted marks that made no sense to Max resided. Max gave her a flat look and the ensign grinned.
“We’re in the lead. Not by much. But Rosa’s win today against Lieutenant Commander Niochi and our victories in the piloting and hacking rounds were enough to offset the beast that is Parsikov.”
“He is a beast,” Tamago said,
poking their tongue out when D’Arcy snorted. “Did you see the video of him and Jenks after Locke’s fight?” They pointed over the counter at Jenks, who was sprawled on the couch with her head in Luis’s lap. “You two impregnated half the galaxy with that little stunt.”
“All we were doing was shit-talking. Hush, you.” Jenks elbowed Luis when the man snorted with laughter and rolled to her feet. “But Tamago.” She dragged their name out with a grin. “He’s fire.”
“I know, and you still have to focus on kicking his ass. But I’m free,” Tamago countered.
Max leaned in to press her head to theirs even as Jenks reached over the bar divider. “You fought good. Don’t stress about it. Captain Carmichael’s a hell of a sword handler. You managed to slow him down, that’s what matters.”
“What she said,” Jenks agreed, releasing Tamago’s hand when the door buzzer went off. “That might be Candy. They said they would stop by if they could get away.”
“You really did well,” Max murmured, going back to work on the carrots in front of her.
“I know.” Tamago sighed, forced a smile. “Losing sucks.”
“You’ve got some fucking nerve.”
Max looked up at the tone of Jenks’s voice and stopped chopping the veggies, setting the knife carefully to the side.
Luis was already on his feet, crossing to the door, but he stopped when Max stepped in front of him. Her brother stood in the doorway, facing down a very angry Jenks, who was all but vibrating with the need to put her fist in his face.
“Jenks,” Max said softly, and had to repeat her name a second time before it filtered through to the woman. “I’ve got it. Go on.” She pushed Jenks toward Luis, smiling when her teammate retreated with a poorly concealed snarl in Scott’s direction. Max stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind her.
Scott swallowed under the scrutiny, but Max was content to cross her arms over her chest and stare at him until he found the words he wanted.
“Chau told me he tried to talk to you. I wanted you to know I didn’t ask him to do it.”
“Okay.” Max nodded and turned for the door.
“Max—” Scott grabbed her by the shoulder, and then pulled his hand away at her sharp look. She glared at him, surprised by how miserable he seemed. His next words were a whisper. “We used to be—Max, what did I do?”
“What did you do?” She surprised herself now with the venom of her hissed reply. “You left me! You promised you wouldn’t and then you went to the Naval Academy just like they wanted and never looked back!” All the old hurt she’d buried came to the surface in a rush.
“I wrote you!”
“You didn’t. Don’t lie to me!”
“I wrote you.” His agonized words hit her like a punch. “Every day until you told me to stop, I—”
“How could I tell you to stop when I never got a single message?”
The door across the hall opened and Rosa stuck her head out, Ma in the background behind her. Curiosity turned to cool anger as her eyes flicked from Max’s face to Scott. “What’s going on here?”
Max squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment. “We’re fine, Commander. Captain Carmichael was just leaving.”
“Come in here, both of you.” It was Ma, not Rosa, who issued the order, and Max snapped her eyes open to stare at him. He waved a hand. “Come on. There’s something you both need to hear.”
Max dared a look in Scott’s direction, but he was as confused as she was. Rosa stepped out of the doorway and Max followed her brother into the other apartment. Nika came out of his bedroom, arms crossed and a frown on his face that didn’t vanish with Max’s attempt at a reassuring smile.
Angela was on the couch and she stood with a sympathetic smile, whispering something in Rosa’s ear before she retreated to the other bedroom.
“You know, I promised myself I wouldn’t get more involved in this than I already had,” Ma said, rubbing his hands together as he paced the living room. “But I’ve had my mouth shut for almost two decades now and I’m done seeing you two hurt because I put your parents’ feelings before yours.”
Max blinked. “Ma—”
She cut off when he raised his hand.
“You’ve asked me before what I fought with your father about. What we stopped speaking over,” he said. “It was about you two. It’s always been about you two. Your brother wanted to go into the NeoG, Max, because of me. Your parents objected. They threatened to disown him, and when that wasn’t enough, they threatened the one thing they knew would get him back in line.”
“Ma, don’t do this.” Scott’s protest was choked with desperation.
“She needs to know, Scott. She deserves to know what they did. I’ll tell her if you won’t.”
Max frowned, looking between Ma and Scott. There were tears in both men’s eyes. Scott’s jaw was flexing in a way that was all too familiar to her.
“What?”
“You, Max.” Scott’s voice was raw. “They threatened to disown you.”
“I was eight. They wouldn’t have.” Max could do little more than stare at her brother and then at Ma. Even as she said the words, she knew they were untrue. Her parents very much would have done it to her. They’d left her on Earth after that fight in the restaurant, after all.
She thought about how that fight would have gone if there’d been anyone younger than her, a sibling who needed protection, and her heart suddenly ached for her brother.
“They did, Max.” Ma’s reply was gentle. “He went into the Navy because the alternative was unthinkable.”
Memories of whispered conversations about the NeoG, plans to be the best in the service, came slamming back into her head. What had Scott given up for her? Because of her. “I can’t breathe.”
She heard Nika’s cursing through the rush of blood in her ears, felt Rosa’s hand on her arm lowering her into a chair, but couldn’t make the words make sense in her head.
“Max.” Scott dropped to a knee in front of her, cupping her face in his hands. “I am so sorry. I was trying to keep you safe. I swear to you, I wrote you every damn day.”
“Nothing,” she said. “I didn’t get a single message. I thought you’d abandoned me. Mom said you were busy and didn’t have time for me. That I needed to grow up and let it go.”
“Your parents didn’t let any of those messages through, Max,” Ma said, and Max whipped her gaze up to him. The older man shook his head, a grim look on his face. “I’m sorry about that. If I had known sooner, I would have—I don’t know, done something. Ai and I would have gladly taken you in. I would have done everything I could to keep you and Scott together. But I didn’t find out about it all until you started pushing about the NeoG yourself. I’d always thought Scott had just changed his mind. Your father slipped one day when he was ranting and I threatened to beat the story out of him. Still clocked him pretty good when he finally did tell me the truth.” Ma’s laugh was devoid of humor. “Scott, I know you got at least one message you thought was from Max. It wasn’t.”
There was anguish on Scott’s face and Max threw herself into his arms, knowing her face mirrored his. “I’m sorry. All these years. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out, didn’t try harder. I’m sorry I believed anything they told me!”
“Shh, it’s all right, Max. It wasn’t your fault, none of this was. I’m sorry I let them keep us apart. I should have been stronger.” His arms tightened around her. “I love you, kiddo. I’ve missed you so much.”
“I love you, too.”
Max heard the commotion at the door but didn’t move until she heard Jenks’s disappointed question. “Does this mean I don’t get to punch him?”
Max laughed and turned her head on Scott’s shoulder. “Not right now, Jenks.”
“Not ever,” Scott muttered. “I saw that video of the preliminaries.”
Max leaned away with a second soft laugh and pressed her forehead to her brother’s. “We have a lot of things to
talk about, don’t we?”
“Yeah.” He nodded and then stood, pulling her to her feet and into a hug. “After the Games, I guess.”
“After we kick your ass?” Her hands were shaking, but she still managed the grin.
Scott started to answer, then looked around at the room full of Neos. “Jesus, I’m outnumbered,” he said, and Max laughed.
“You’d better get out of here before Chau comes looking for you with the rest of your squad.” Max walked him to the door.
“Good luck tomorrow, Max. I mean that.”
“You too.” She gave him one last hug and then closed the door, pressing her head to the surface for a moment before she turned to face the eyes watching her. “I—” The tears started before she could control them. Tamago was the closest and wrapped her into a hug.
Max stood there for a long moment, lifting her head to meet Ma’s eyes. “I want to know everything,” she said.
He nodded. “I’ll tell you what I can.”
Boarding Games—Day Four
Murphy came sprinting over to Jenks, her face split by a wide smile. “She won, Jenks! Commander Martín beat Chau!”
Jenks looked up from where she was tending to Max in the cage. “Hear that, LT?”
Max nodded, winced, and rubbed at her chest. “This guy’s kicks feel like getting shot at close range by a rail gun, Jenks.”
“So stop letting him kick you.”
“I can’t wait to throw that back at you.”
“If you kick his ass here, we won’t have to worry about that, will we?” Jenks grinned. She patted Max’s cheek and helped her to her feet as the ref shouted out the time. “You’ve got one more round and you’ve kept him close. I know you’re tired and you’re hurting, but give me five more minutes of Max being a goddamned ghost.”
“Okay.” Max took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders, and held her fists out. “Let’s do this.”
