Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3)

by Melissa Good

  “Something like,” Jess said. “You people seem to forget that I was the one who brought Interforce in here and gave them the keys.”

  Brion shook his head. “No. You just done what we wanted to. Jimmy was dealing with the other side. We knew he was.”

  “We knew,” one of the collections supervisors agreed. “Saw them come in twice. Saw him go dark. We knew.” He shifted a little in his seat. “No one had the guts to report it.”

  Ben folded his hands on the table. “Truth. But then you came in for council and we didn’t have to.”

  Jess studied all of them. “I felt it,” she said after an uncomfortable moment.

  Brion half smiled. “We know you did. You went to the mess. You were us, not them. Jimmy was so scared he sent his family out to Quebec, and then when you knew the scam he did with the scavengers you proved it. You were more Drake in that ten seconds than he’d been his whole life.”

  “Hmm.” Jess grunted.

  “Yeah,” Mike spoke up again. “Just one thing we need to square with you, Drake.” He stared hard at her. “You let them go, I saw it. That needs explaining.” He leaned forward on the table. “’Cause that, we’re thinking, we might need to kill you for.”

  Silence.

  “Suboptimal,” Dev finally said. “And not so interesting.”

  NOW IT WAS just Drake’s Bay in the council. Two remaining elders had joined them. They looked apprehensive and confused. Six more scarred and banged up fighters, with the biggest guns they could carry, stared at Jess to let her know they meant business.

  Jess ignored them. She rested her hands on the table, her brow furrowed, as she listened to the uncomfortable conversation around her.

  Dev leaned closer to her and lowered her voice almost to inaudible. “Jess. Is there something I can do? Do you need records or something from the carrier? I have my scanner with me.”

  “No,” Jess said, absently. “I’m not worried about this.” She jerked her head a little at the council.

  “You aren’t?” Dev murmured.

  “Nah. Wasn’t expecting their other pitch.”

  Dev thought about that. “That they want you here?” Jess nodded. “I actually understand that part.”

  Jess’s dark eyebrows lifted.

  “Of course,” Dev said placidly. “I always want you, so of course I understand that.”

  Jess covered her eyes and stifled a laugh.

  “Was that amusing?”

  Brion re-entered the chamber and put a pad down on the table. “Okay. I’ve got the cam output so let’s just review it, and then Jess can explain herself.”

  “Or not.” Jess rested her chin on her fist as they all stared at her. “Kids, you can have me be Drake or not have me be Drake. There ain’t no middle ground. I’m not a homicidal maniac only when it’s convenient.”

  The guards all shifted.

  Jess looked at them. “Let’s be clear,” she said. “I’m going to kill all of you before you kill me, so put those stupid things down before you drop one and it blows your foot off.”

  Everyone regarded her in reflective silence for a few minutes. Then Brion cleared his throat and started up the output, giving the screen a thump as it refused to focus.

  Dev got up and went to the display and adjusted the controls, bringing the picture into clarity. Then she went back and sat down.

  “Thanks,” Brion muttered.

  They watched the vid from the plant cavern twice. When it was over the second time, everyone quietly turned and focused on Jess. “Seems pretty clear,” Brion said.

  “It is. I let them go,” Jess responded. “I wanted them to take intelligence I gave them back home with them.”

  “What intelligence?”

  “That’s my business,” Jess said. “and Interforces’.”

  There was a truth to that, and they knew it. “Can’t have it both ways, Drake,” Mike finally said. “You were shooting at them. Now you say you were doing something for them at the same time? That’s crock.”

  “Sure I can.” Jess stood up to relieve the stress building in her body. “I’m active Interforce. Even if I was shooting the bastards, that didn’t change.” She leaned on the table. “You go in with an oath, y’know. You swear you’re going to act in their best interests, but the kicker is, it’s left in your hands to figure out what that is.”

  “What?” Mike and Brion asked at the same time.

  Jess straightened up again and folded her arms over her chest. “Yeah. There’s a twisted comedy to being in service. But you only know that after you go in.” She smiled.“It’s a game. You try to get one up. Sometimes that means you engineer what they’re supposed to think they found out from you.”

  “Oh,” Dev said. “Like you let them think there were those terrible weapons here.”

  Jess nodded. “And sidetracked them from focusing on bio alts by letting them think you weren’t one.” She regarded Dev. “They were sure the doc made a breakthrough.”

  Mike looked hard at her. “Dying wasn’t better than sending them back with that?”

  “Not that one. Brudegan goes back and delivers that message, they’ll all listen to him.” Jess shook her head. “Now he knows that cavern is a success, and it’s behind some catastrophic weaponry he knows I’d use on them in a heartbeat. Because after all,” she shrugged deprecatingly, “I’m Grandpappy Jack’s, in service, grandkid.”

  Brion now smiled a little. “And you blew up Gibraltar. There’s no weakness here.” He glanced around the council room and saw comprehension showing on the faces at the table. “You showed them the crazy.”

  “I did,” Jess acknowledged. “And tried to convince them they didn’t really want to buy the crazy and breed it.” She eyed them. “That’s the message I wanted Brudgan to deliver, and he will. He has no choice because he saw what he saw.”

  “They took a piece of that rock with them,” Mike said. “I saw it.”

  Jess nodded. “So did I.”

  Silence.

  “They replicate that, you lose big, Jess,” Brion said. “No more exclusive.”

  Jess half shrugged.

  Dev shifted a little and put her folded hands on the table. “Plants take a long time to grow, and you need the proto soil. That comes from station. They did a lot of damage to station, so I am not sure they will be able to get more easily.”

  “We heard that,” Mike said. “Kids said.”

  “Will we be able to get more?” Brion mused. “This could just be a one off, yeah? Besides, we don’t know jack about all of that, and you shot the only guy left who did, Mike.” He eyed the security chief. “Interforce don’t know how to grow plants any better than we do.”

  Ah, Jess felt a sense of relief relax her shoulders as she spotted a way out of the suddenly insistent desire of her birthplace to keep her around. “That’s true,” she said. She reached casually over to put her hand on Dev’s wrist when her bio alt partner looked like she was going to speak up again. “They’re sure not going to talk to me after what I did up there.”

  “Shit,” Mike said, after a pause.

  “But you know who they might talk to?” Jess said after a pause of her own and in a musing tone as if she’d just thought of it. “The doc.”

  The silence lengthened. “Kurok?” Mike said finally. “I thought he croaked.” He looked around the table. “That’s what ops heard, on the wire.”

  “Truth,” Ben said. “Blew his head off practically. We saw it.”

  Jess shrugged again. “Tough kill.”

  “Doctor Dan is recovering,” Dev said. “I spoke with him last night. In fact, I am looking forward to letting the sets here know he’s getting better.”

  There was an uncomfortable shifting around the table. “He’s all right,” Mike said. “What’s his gig going to be now? Back to Interforce? He’s reg. You could see it. He ain’t gonna go shopping for us, and by the by we need to talk about those bios you brought.”

  Jess sat down and folded her hands
on the table again. “I’m not going to stick around here,” she said in a flat voice. “Not now. Not yet.” She took a breath and let it out. “I can’t.”

  Silence.

  “I can’t,” Jess repeated. “I’m not ready for that. You’re not ready for me, and what I’d do here would only fuck things up worse.”

  “So what the fuck are we supposed to do?” Mike asked standing up. “We gotta live here!”

  “I know.” Jess stood up as well. “So here’s what I got. I’m going to put Kurok in here as my proxy because it’s the best thing to do for Drake’s Bay.”

  “Jess, wait—”

  “He’s smart. He knows how to mess with those plants,” she said over Brion. “And he’ll figure out what to do with those bios because they’re staying here.” She let her voice lift on the last few words. “We lost enough bodies for them to have space.”

  Everyone looked back at her. “Fuck yeah,” Mike said. “Straight out they’re staying here. Most useful fucking things to come in the place in decades. We like ’em. We want more.”

  Jess felt like a singing polar bear had just entered the council room and started dancing. “What?” She put her hands on her hips. “You’re the asshole who told me you wanted to shoot them.”

  “Yeah. Sucks to be me,” Mike said. “Never had anything to do with them before. What the hell did I know?”

  “None of us had,” Ben said.

  “So what the hell?”

  Ben shrugged. “They know stuff. They do stuff that’s useful like fix things.”

  “Screw that.” Mike waved them off. “They’re nice,” he said. “They’re not assholes like the rest of us and holy crap that’s a relief.” He put his hands on the table. “So yeah I was wrong, Drake. Sucks to be me.”

  Jess looked at Dev, who smiled a little. “Yeah. I was wrong, too,” she admitted.

  Brion nodded, and the two men next to him nodded, too. “That might work. Kurok, I mean. He knows all about those bios. And he knows the plant stuff. Yeah.” He eyed Jess. “And he doesn’t have the crazy. But what’s going to make him agree? He’s not stupid. He knows what this place is.”

  Unbelievable throw of the dice coming up right for a change. “I think he’ll be okay with it,” Jess responded in a mild tone. “He’s kind of over the station. Looking for a place to land.” She sat back down. “Don’t think he wants it to be Interforce.”

  “So, good,” Brion said. “You rig that, Jess? Make it happen?”

  “I will,” Jess said, having already done so.

  Dev cleared her throat. “The sets that came here. They have programming for the plants. We all do. They know how to work the systems in the cavern. We all took a turn on station doing that.”

  “Even better,” Ben said. “We done now? I’m hungry. Let’s let the outlanders know and we can get some chow.”

  “Done,” Mike said. “Good deal, Drake.” He paused and grinned. “Still want you here though. That’s gotta happen.”

  Jess grinned back. “Some day. When I’m a little less crazy.”

  Everyone stood and started to file out of the room. Dev got up and shook her head as if to clear it. “That turned out rather optimal. Did you expect that?”

  Jess just laughed.

  THE WERE IN the mess hall. The sets were gathered around Dev, intently listening to her while Jess relaxed at a table nearby with Cathy.

  “Doctor Dan is getting well, and soon he will be coming here,” Dev said.

  “Excellent,” a KayTee said. “NM-Dev-1, does this mean this will be our assignment?”

  Dev regarded him. “I am not sure if it will be like what an assignment has been, but you will live here and work with the natural born here.”

  All the sets nodded in agreement. “This is good,” a BeeAye said. “We like it here. It’s not like station at all. They gave us nice quarters, and the meals are excellent. “

  “We were given these coverings and also things to keep in our quarters,” a KayTee added. “We have a sleeping space to ourselves! And it’s always the same one.”

  “Yes. They do not have a crèche or space for a dorm here,” Dev said. “It is excellent to have your own space. I do have the same at the Interforce base.” She smiled. “One of the things I really enjoy about downside is the water showers.”

  “Yes!” a chorus of voices lifted.

  Ben took a seat next to Jess. “They took over guest quarters on five,” he said. “Holy crap. You would have thought we’d given them a million creds.”

  “Literally different world for them,” Cathy said. “It’s hard for them to believe they’ve been given so much. Honestly, this is an assignment most of them would only dream of.”

  “They talk funny,” Ben said.

  “We talk funnier to them,” Jess said. She straightened up a little as she saw the mess crew bringing in chow. “About time.”

  Dev could see the sets were happy. That made her happy. “Do you have the hammocks to sleep in? I found they reminded me of the crèche a little.”

  “Yes,” the KayTee said. “They are very comfortable, but they don’t move. And we can do many things here! There is a lot of equipment to fix, and we can use our pilot programming as well. It’s very good.”

  “It’s good work,” the BeeAye agreed. “And the natural borns like when we do things for them and help them in any way.”

  “They are not used to biological alternatives here,” Dev said. “It is new for them as well. You are new to them like I was new to Interforce when I started my assignment there. Biological Alternatives had never done the tasks I was doing before.”

  “You performed them with excellence,” the KayTee said, “and now we will do the same.”

  Dev smiled. “I know you will.” She spotted the mess crew coming in. “And now I think we can have a meal. I have to tell you that of all the places I have been downside, this place has the most excellent meals.”

  Everyone stood up to go to the dispensers, but the KayTee edged closer to Dev. “NM-Dev-1, may I ask you something?”

  “Of course.” Dev saw Jess approaching from the corner of her eye.

  “They wish to give us different names,” the KayTee said. “Is this permitted?” He eyed Jess with a little apprehension. “They want them...they want us, I think, to be different from each other.”

  “Yes.” Dev nodded. “It’s a special thing with natural borns. You would be surprised what they end up calling things. And people.” She cleared her throat a little. “At the base, I am referred to as Rocket Raccoon.”

  The KayTee stared at her in puzzled disbelief.

  “Doctor Dan will explain it.” Dev edged toward the line. “But it is fine, KayTee, really. If you want, you can give them your crèche name. That also will be fine, and I think some of us have done that already.”

  The Kaytee looked relieved. “Excellent. Did you have a crèche name?” he asked as he fell into line behind her. “I never heard if you had.”

  “No.” Dev saw Jess’s ears twitching. “I did not need one as I was the only instance in my set.”

  “One of a kind,” Jess said, as she passed back the rough edged, well worn, plas plates. “My one of a kind.”

  Dev grinned and considered the day proceeding well.

  “Devvie, I see shrimp on the line,” Jess said from her higher vantage point.

  Well, and getting better by the moment.

  Chapter Eighteen

  TIME HAD PASSED, and the launch bay had regained much of the loud and random noise common to it. On a pad near the entrance a carrier was perched, hatch open, several umbilicals attached.

  “I dunno about those new tunings,” Doug said from his position seated on the floor with a board in his hands. “It feels a little laggy when I turn starboard.”

  Dev was lying on her back, her head inside a panel in the carrier. “I did not find the same,” she said. “Would you like the diagnostic outputs from this vehicle to compare?”

  “Nah.” Doug tr
aced at silver lead. “April thinks I’m just a ditzball driver.” He picked up a tool and examined the surface. “Maybe I’ll ask Brent to take a drive in it.”

  Dev peeked out of the panel. “He would like to give an opinion, I think.”

  “He’s still bummed with no gig,” Doug said. “Sucks.”

  Dev considered that then just shook her head and pulled herself back inside the console, and they worked along in silent companionship for a while.

  She’d just finished installing the part when she heard footsteps approaching. She peeked out from under the metal grate and saw Jess through the open hatch, and she squiggled out and rolled onto her side as her partner climbed up inside. “Hello.”

  “Devvie.” Jess dropped into her seat, her hair a little windblown. “This crate okay to fly?” She was dressed in one of her standard on duty suits, but had her outdoor jacket with her. She tossed it onto the back shelf as she passed. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Doug picked up his toolkit and stood. “I’m gonna go put this thing back into my bus.” He winked at Dev then sauntered down the gangway whistling softly under his breath.

  “Yes, we’re fine.” Dev sat up and crossed her legs under her. “I was just making some adjustments to the new nav mod.”

  Jess’s pale eyes twinkled. “The one you designed?”

  Dev made a little face in response. “Yes,” she said. “Are we going somewhere?”

  “Yep, we’re up to take Doc to the Bay and then pick up Tayler and take him to school,” Jess said. “And when that’s done, I’m released to standard ops again.” She did a little dance in her seat to Dev’s muted amusement. “Hot damn.”

  “Excellent.” Dev got up and brushed herself off. “When will this take place?”

  “Now.” Jess glanced out the hatch. “Here comes the doc, so get the hamsters scrambling.” She settled into her seat. “I’ll plug into the coordinates for the school.”

  Dev went to the front of the carrier and got into her pilot’s seat. She heard a second set of footsteps and glanced in the reflector to see Doctor Dan entering.