Grenville

by JC Hay

  Unbelievable. And yet how typical of military intelligence. They just made the assumption that a ship was a ship, and a pilot was a pilot. Two parts of a machine they could swap out as they saw fit. No one appreciated how the connection could be so much more organic.

  Sure, she’d be able to fly it. Simple missions, certainly. She’d probably even be able to make it perform better than other pilots in her unenviable position. But there was a damn vast gulf between being able to fly a ship and being comfortable enough to pilot her into a planetary ring. To take a vessel safely into an ever-shifting labyrinth of tidal eddies and gravitational currents, surrounded by random debris and with a planet-size blind spot on one side of the ship? The pilot needed to wear their vessel like a second skin. Needed to understand every inch of the ship, how it behaved, what its individual lags and idiosyncrasies were. She excelled as a dropship pilot because sliding into the pilot’s seat was coming home. If she was blinded, she could fly it by sound alone, and if her ears failed, she was reasonably confident she could pilot it by sense of smell.

  But this thing? Imee felt like she needed to have her tetanus shots updated just from looking at it. "It'll never work."

  "Lieutenant, you’re paid to make it to work. The Joint Forces are counting on you to make it work, for the safety of—"

  "Save that rah-rah bullshit for the rangers,” Imee snapped. “They're all about that gung-ho thing." She took another look through the airlock window. Pockmarks from micrometeors and carbon scoring from stellar radiation covered the hauler’s mismatched surface. Some of the panels appeared to have come from an entirely different ship and had been cut to fit. "I’m saying I'd need weeks to have a good handle on how that ship flies before I could take it into a belt."

  Tyler leaned against the far wall, fingers laced behind her head. Her civilian, undercover attire looked out of place onboard the otherwise pristine military vessel. "Then you're in luck. My math says it’ll take you eleven to twelve days to reach the shepherd moon. It’s not weeks, but it’s plenty of otherwise-empty time. Fortunately, your file says you're a quick study."

  Imee didn’t let her annoyance show. If she was honest, two weeks at the helm would give her plenty of experience. Extra acceleration up front, maybe borrowing a slingshot around Tyler, and she could work in some maneuver tests and get an idea of the hauler’s blind spots and foibles. Not that she was about to give Tyler the satisfaction of being right. "Fine. Let me aboard, and I’ll stow my gear and start getting familiar.”

  Tyler leaned across the hall and placed her hand against the airlock's access code. A moment later the light turned green and the door cycled open. “Help yourself. One warning—this is a clandestine mission. Civilian gear only. The TJF cannot afford for something to reveal that we’re snooping about in the area."

  There was a commotion up the hall, and Imee turned just in time to see an umbra wolf barreling up the hall toward her. In the polarized light of the ship's hallways, the wolf’s fur was ebony instead of its typical blur. His lean, narrow face and long legs were a mismatch compared to the thick ruff and long ear tufts. She knelt and scrubbed her fingers into the coat. “Hey, Djehuti. What are you doing here?”

  “Ah. Your mission partner has arrived." Tyler smiled. "Lieutenant Lewis, Ranger Grenv—"

  "We've met." Her hand stopped petting the wolf, and she looked at Grenville standing just a few feet away. His normally casual features floated somewhere between amusement and horror. She understood how he felt. She’d been doing her best to avoid the temptation of him for the past week. Two to three weeks with no one else around felt suddenly terrifying.

  She didn’t take her eyes off him as she talked to the operative. “Wait a minute. You don't want any evidence the TJF is involved, but he gets to bring his damn wolf?"

  “There’s likely to be resistance on Castulus’s surface, which means you’ll need a skilled combatant as well as a communications expert. Ranger Grenville is both. Wolves and rangers are a package deal." Tyler checked something off on her omnidevice. "Besides, there's no polarized light on the ship, so the wolf will have no trouble hiding in case you’re boarded."

  Which was no help at all if they clipped a rock or got shot down, and their corpses vented into space. But saying so out loud felt like asking for trouble. She looked at Grenville. “You and Hootie finally get a chance to prove how amazing you are, eh?”

  “Don't call him that. You know he hates it.” Despite the proclamation, the wolf was in fine spirits, tail wagging and tongue lolling at her attention. His cocky grin lit up his face. “Besides, two weeks gives me plenty of time to buy you that drink.”

  Her roommate would never let her hear the end of it if she found out she was locked on a cargo hauler with Grenville. "Not while I’m piloting. Or thinking about piloting. Which is always. Rack in. We’re leaving in ninety." She had to go back to her quarters first. No way she wasn't taking a full tool kit with her. The ship looked like it could come apart at any moment.

  Plus, in the worst-case scenario, she could use the tools to build a wall and lock Grenville in his berth. She reached down to pet Djehuti one more time. She’d let the wolf stay out though. She’d always had a soft spot for dogs.

  Four

  Imee pushed open the door to her stateroom, which was one of the few benefits of being an officer on a small corvette like the Hunting Cry. She still had to share, but the officers’ rooms afforded to pilots had considerably more space than what was allocated for enlisted troops like the rangers. Even better, she had her own bathroom and shower. Or at least one she shared with her roommate.

  She tossed her bag onto the top bunk and pulled out her drawer. The few civilian clothes she had were tucked in the back corner, and she could practically carry them all in a pillowcase and still have room for the pillow. The thought made her glance at the rainbow-colored bed set that adorned her roommate’s bunk. Akomi Nikao used the most garish personal sheets she could find, rather than using the plain white ones provided by the fleet. According to her, it meant her sheets always came back from the laundry, and she never had to think about getting someone else’s by mistake.

  The washroom door opened behind her. "You’re slamming stuff around. That's never a good sign." Akomi padded across the floor in bare feet, her hair pulled back into a short ponytail that jutted off the back of her skull. After casting a longing glance at her brightly colored bunk, she flopped down in the single desk chair and crossed her ankles. "Want to tell me what's going on?"

  "Not especially." Imee tugged her flight suit out of the ditty bag, began yanking the patches off their hook and eye, and tossed them in the drawer. "You going to keep asking?"

  "It's like you know me." Her roommate smiled and spread her arms wide. "You might as well tell me, because I'm just going to keep being annoying."

  "Too late.” She grinned and shook her head. Akomi was one of the few people she’d consider a friend in the competitive world of pilots. After massaging her forehead, she said, “It's an undercover mission." At the end of the day, that summed up all her problems in as few words as possible. She folded her denuded flight suit back up and stuffed it in the ditty bag. Her civilian clothes went in on top.

  Akomi rolled her eyes. "So, which offends you more? The ship they're making you fly? Or the crew you're having to fly it with?"

  "Yes?" She looked back at the drawer, unsurprised that Akomi could get to the heart of the matter so easily. It was practically a superpower. What else did belt miners wear? What would sell the lie if someone boarded the ship? The only piece of jewelry she had was the necklace her parents had given her when she’d completed officer school, and she was hesitant to put it on. Besides, she needed to come off as desperate enough to head into a ring. "They stuck me with Grenville."

  “Good-time Grenville? The cute Ranger whose life you saved?” Akomi knew the story well. “The one you’re always flirting with?"

  Imee's cheeks burned, and she studiously remained facing away rather than r
isk Akomi jumping to conclusions. "We aren’t flirting. He tells lousy jokes, and I indulge him."

  Akomi snorted. "Keep telling yourself that. Also, I note you didn’t debate his being cute.”

  "His looks don’t figure into it. It’s a covert operation." Three weeks was a long time to be trapped in the presence of temptation. She’d made worse ideas in shorter times—like Arnulf. “Try and be professional for once.”

  "You know what they say," Akomi said with a grin. "Two people go into deep space. One couple comes back."

  "I'm trying not to think about it," she lied. If she were being honest with herself, Grenville was exactly the sort of man who ignited her afterburners. And that was the problem—he was the same as her former fiancé. Arnulf had the same joie de vivre, the same wiry build. The same desire to be the TriSystems’ equivalent of Casanova.

  Imee gritted her teeth and shoved the rest of her civvies into the ditty bag. Thinking about Arnulf and his inability to be faithful for even a month made her want to hit something. The embarrassment, the helplessness of the feeling, twisted in her gut like a blade. Even barring a possible court-martial for fraternization, that memory was enough to keep Grenville decidedly off-limits.

  Far safer to keep her mind on ships. A spaceship only broke your heart if you mistreated her first.

  “He looks like he knows his way around, if you catch my meaning.” She could actually hear Akomi’s smile.

  “I do, and that’s the problem. I’m not interested in being a tally on someone’s scorecard.” She grabbed her personal tool kit out of the corner and threw the strap over her shoulder before hefting her ditty bag.

  "I'm just saying... In space no one can hear you cream.”

  "Oh my God! You're horrible." Imee buried her face in her pillow to smother laughter and hide her eyes.

  "I may be," Akomi said. "But when you get back, you have to share the details."

  "It's a classified mission. I can't share them."

  "You know what I mean. I don’t want what’s classified, just what you do under covers. Or on top of them. And don't think you can hide it from me, because you know that I will know."

  That much was certainly true. And all the more reason why this mission was so dangerous. "There won't be any details to share.”

  Perhaps if she said the words enough, they would act like a magic spell. Or a prayer against temptation. She’d accept either.

  Five

  She found Grenville in the tiny cubicle that served as the belt miner’s mess and galley. The opaque drink pouch in his hand gave no clue as to what he was drinking, but given the doldrums of the first three hours and the mess that was the ore hauler’s control systems, she hoped it was booze. Imee leaned against the corner of the entrance. "Your dog is in my cabin.”

  The shock and annoyance that crossed his face was well worth the mental effort it took her to slur the beautiful animal. She fought to resist a smirk as Grenville fixed her with an amber-eyed glare. "He’s a wolf."

  "What he is, is shedding all over my pillow."

  His low chuckle rumbled along her nerve endings. She had a soft spot for a great laugh, and Grenville’s had always been spectacular. He gave her a half-hearted shrug. "On the plus side, you won't actually see the hair."

  That much was true. With no polarized light fixtures on the ship, there was nothing to counteract the wolf's natural invisibility. She'd only known Djehuti was on her bed because of the divot the wolf made in her pillow and sheets. "That’s not going to stop it tickling my face while I’m trying to sleep."

  "I’d offer you my rack, since he’s so taken with yours.”

  That conjured an image she couldn’t allow herself to entertain. She forced herself to bury it away. “No good. Your sheets are probably covered in his hair too.”

  “It’s a fair cop.” He chuckled. "Djehuti's hair gets into everything. Hell, so far the best thing about this trip is these sealed drink packs. I have yet to have one that has his fur in it."

  She moved to stand at the galley’s tiny, square table, opposite him. The tall chair had been set in deck locks to keep it from floating around. The ship was too small to have any artificial gravity systems and had to rely on thrust to create a fake sense of being pulled down. "Sounds delicious. Got one of those for me?"

  "I assumed you'd be hiding up on the bridge, doing pilot things." Even as he said the words, he reached behind him into the chiller unit and unhooked a drink pouch from the rack. He slid it across the table to her. “What brings you down here?”

  With a practice born of endless repetition, she grabbed the pouch and bit into one corner. Not so much as to tear the corner off; that would create debris that could get lost or slip between the plates and find its way into the wiring. She’d have enough issues keeping this bird flying without adding in random, garbage-based short-outs.

  Her eyes widened in surprise at the taste. "Stabilized orange juice?" Even on big ships, fresh fruit juice was a rarity. Easier and more space effective to have a bio-fabricator synthesize a close approximation from sugar, citric acid, and water.

  The look on his face indicated that he understood the rarity as well. "Apparently it was a favorite of the previous owners. There are three full racks of it in the chiller. If only we had champagne. Or vodka." He pushed his hair back and rested his cheek in his hand, watching her.

  “I assume you checked for that.”

  “You really think military intelligence would leave liquor on a ship, where we might get tempted?” He shook his head.

  “I assumed you brought your own.” He hadn’t earned his reputation for nothing. “Or were you not actually planning on buying me that drink?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’ve got a little rum. Kanaloan.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course you do. And Rumdrivers are fine with me. Later.” Behind her, she heard the telltale sound of claws on deck plates as Djehuti ambled into the small space. To her surprise, the wolf bumped his nose into her hand for attention instead of going directly to Grenville. She sank her fingers into his coat, massaging the wolf’s broad shoulders. After a few soothing moments of canine snuggling, she turned back at Grenville. "Okay, I'll bite. What's up with you?"

  His eyebrows raised in surprise. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean it's been, what, three hours? You haven't been up to the bridge, or told a joke, or anything. For you, that’s probably a record.” The absence of his banter only highlighted how cold and small the ship felt. It turned into a phantom itch that she wanted to scratch, which was what had led to her seeking him out in the first place. Ideally, the autonav could handle a simple slingshot maneuver. “You’re clearly not yourself."

  He shrugged. "You don't feel it? How different all this is?"

  “I do feel it. That's the problem. You've gone and made it different. You’re hiding away instead of sitting up on the bridge.” Her disappointment stung and it flavored her words.

  “I’m not the only one. Where’ve you been the last few weeks? It’s not like you to be avoiding me.”

  Actually, it was exactly like her, but he didn’t need to know that. Avoiding temptation beat the hell out of risking the pain. Now that they were together on the ship, she realized how much she’d missed his easy demeanor. She stroked her fingers along one of Djehuti’s ears. “We’re the same you and me we’ve always been.”

  It wasn’t. At least not entirely. Away from the Hunting Cry, she felt a little like a teenager left with her date unchaperoned, a fact that she blamed on her roommate.

  “Maybe. But this time we’re stuck together." He finished his orange juice, crumpling the foil pouch in his fist. "There's nowhere to hide when shit goes wrong."

  She knew that was his MO; that as soon as a relationship got difficult or stopped being fun, he disappeared faster than an umbra wolf in the dark. But to know he was already thinking about his exit plans for a them that hadn’t even happened? It stung and left her looking for a way to plaster over the wound. Fortun
ately, petting Djehuti dulled the pain with warmth. She scrunched her fingers down into the wolf’s coat, and he grumbled his appreciation. “See? Your dog knows it's the same me." He started to say something when he caught sight of her grin and clammed up. Imee smiled broader. "Gotcha. Seriously though, if you're worried about screwing things up, don't."

  "Don't worry?" He gave a quiet snort.

  "No," she said. "Don't screw things up. You be you, I'll be me. That's worked pretty good for us so far." The chime on her omnidevice sounded. She stood up. “We’re about to burn a loop around Tyson, so I can put some extra speed on. I can finally open this tortoise up and see what shakes off."

  His amber eyes wrinkled at the corners as he laughed. "Hopefully, about ten years’ worth of corrosion."

  "You’d better pray not," Imee said. "I’m pretty sure the rust is all that's holding the ship together."

  GRENVILLE PULLED HIMSELF up the short ladder that divided the ore processing unit and the cargo hold from the main floor of the ship. Like a lot of small spaceships, the ore hauler had been built with its decks perpendicular to the direction of travel. The thrust of movement created a welcome sense of pseudo-gravity, but after so much time on the Hunting Cry, it felt odd to think of the front of a ship as “up.”

  Not that there was much ship to think about—it had looked small from the outside. Inside, the reality was mining, processing, and storing ore took up the majority of the space and left little room for the crew.

  At the top of the ladder he leaned forward, and Djehuti jumped off his shoulders to the main deck. At least the cargo deck was mostly empty space, which gave the wolf plenty of room to run around for daily exercise.