by Zoë Archer
Everything about her excited him.
He couldn’t let himself think of that, of what he wanted.
“That was a surprise.” In the confines of the small cockpit, his voice sounded too low, too gravelly. “The combat, I mean,” he added when she raised a brow.
“Surprise attacks tend to be unexpected,” she said drily.
Oh, hells, of course she would know that.
“We handled the situation well enough,” he said. “But I’m talking about being in an actual fight. The combat was definitely alarming but also…exhilarating. A lot more than SimCom or training.”
“Nothing like live plasma fire to get the heart rate up.” She grinned. “You weren’t scared?”
“Definitely,” he answered.
She chuckled at his ready response. “Didn’t show it.”
He shrugged. “Why should I? Panicking wouldn’t help either of us. Had to direct my concentration toward defeating the enemy and getting us out alive.”
“But you liked it.” A statement, not a question.
“You know, I did.” He was thoughtful. “Operating in pristine harmony with someone else. Fighting side by side. Anticipating each other’s needs and fending off attackers.” His muscles burned just thinking about it again. “Still, I don’t want to go into combat with anyone else but you.”
He fought the urge to close his eyes. Gods, he had not meant to say that. Not out loud, at least.
Her silver eyes widened. “Tell me about the Night of Masks,” she finally said.
“I’d rather not. We could talk about the other kiss.” Much easier for him to rationalize it as the heat of the moment.
But she looked distinctly uneasy at the mention of their most recent kiss. “I’d rather not,” she echoed.
What made her so uncomfortable? Was it the idea of kissing a NerdWorks engineer? Or something else? Something that made her…uncertain.
“Was it spontaneous,” she pressed, her voice gaining confidence, “or did you plan it?”
Prevarication seemed unlikely. Her tone refused argument, and her eyes told him that she’d see through any dissembling.
“Planned,” he answered. “I’d known of you for a long time. Actually, we met almost two solar years ago. I was making some mods to your Wraith after a sortie. We talked about piloting systems for a while, then you went to a squad debriefing.”
“I remember,” she said, then added, “vaguely.”
He battled an automatic wince. Why would a Black Wraith Squad hotshot truly notice NerdWorks?
“I remember you vividly,” he said. “You left an impression.”
Her expression grew distant. “Stainless Jur.”
“Best of the best. An untouchable combat record. And,” he continued, deciding that he might as well be completely candid, “you were—are—so beautiful, you stopped my heart.”
Her aloof expression slipped a little. She seemed genuinely surprised that anyone might notice her as a woman rather than a series of combat statistics.
“Should have said something,” she noted.
He gave a rueful chuckle. “Every scenario I ran for that conversation resulted in the same outcome. None of them involved you and I sitting down for a cup of kahve, let alone me getting you back to my quarters.”
Her cheeks turned pink, illuminated by the light of the control panel.
He shook his head. “I can hardly believe I’m saying these things now.”
“You just survived a firefight with PRAXIS.”
“So it should be easy to get through this…confession.” Would her dismissal hurt more than a plasma blast to the chest?
“Without actually testing your theory, that’s all it remains—theory. You’ll never know unless you try.”
“Let’s not mislead ourselves,” he said. “Honestly, if I’d suggested we watch a vid together and have dinner by simu-candlelight, you would’ve said yes?”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Her gaze became thoughtful.
“Your silence is my answer.” Nils returned his gaze to the tracking device.
“There are different kinds of engagements.” Her voice was weighted with experience. “Not just combat, but engagements between people. And I’ve learned from all of them. Including the fact that when a man looks at me with stars in his eyes, he’s going to be disenchanted when the daylight comes and the stars fade.”
“It would have been different with me.”
“Maybe, but I’d seen that look too many times to want to see it again.”
The weariness in her voice made him look up from the display. Her eyes gleamed with a rare vulnerability. How had no one seen her isolation? A reputation like hers had its benefits, yet it must also keep her in seclusion. How frequently she had been disappointed by her lovers? He didn’t particularly want to dwell on the image of Celene in bed with another man, but however often she encountered that disappointment, it had most assuredly left a lingering mark.
She wore her reputation like armor, shielding her.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She shrugged, though the gesture was not as careless as she likely intended. “I fly forward. I’m very good at it.” Turning a curious gaze toward him, she said, “So you meet me once, lose your nerve to ask me out and then…kiss me on the Night of Masks years later. A long stretch of time for you to formulate a plan.”
“Not all of it was spent contemplating how to kiss you.” For much of the intervening months, Nils had tried to put her from his mind. Compartmentalization came easily to him, as well as the logical means by which he could resolve dilemmas. “I went about my duties in Engineering. Trained. Studied.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Went on a few dates.”
“Here I was, thinking you were some kind of Llinanian monk.”
He gave a self-deprecating snort. “I wasn’t a priest of the love goddess Oshun, either.” He hesitated. “But when you’d come back from missions, I’d run extra diagnostics on your Wraith. Even if I wasn’t assigned to do so. Making sure your ship wasn’t harmed.” It was the closest he would ever come to looking after her.
Beautiful, strong, capable. He would go over her Wraith carefully, and thoughts had filled his mind as his hands were busy running the tests. What would it be like to get close to her? To feel the lean length of her body against his? To taste her mouth? Or, gods, even simply talk with her?
He could say that the scientist in him wanted to know—the spirit of intellectual inquiry compelling him to pose a question and then answer it. That would be a lie. He was a man, and it was with a man’s desire that he dreamed of her, distant and brilliant as a star.
“Even if you weren’t thinking about kissing me all that time,” she pointed out now, “you certainly picked a prime opportunity to do so.”
“It’s foolish to waste a promising prospect.”
A corner of her mouth turned up. “That’s either very rational, or a supreme example of justification.” Her smile turned into a frown. “But everyone was wearing masks. How’d you know it was me? There are plenty of women in 8th Wing with hair the same color and length as mine, whose height and build matches mine.”
“Maybe I kissed them too,” he countered.
“No, you didn’t.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I didn’t.” He hoped she might let the question pass, but she continued to hold him with her incisive gaze. Her reputation for tenacity was also well earned. “I just…recognized you.”
“Recognized me,” she said, her voice heavy with irony. Clearly, she did not believe him.
He sighed roughly. “Something about you…I could always find you in a crowded room. Even if I wasn’t looking for you, even if I didn’t know you’d be somewhere in particular, my gaze…went straight to you. Instinctively.”
Frustrating to attempt to explain something for which he had no explanation. He, who dealt in specifics and known quantities, found himself utterly at a loss. Because the truth was that he truly didn�
�t understand how it was he could find or recognize Celene in a crowded room full of people wearing masks. He simply saw her and knew.
She looked at him now across the cockpit, her eyebrows raised in surprise. It seemed that had not been the answer she had expected.
“I never knew.”
“Why would you? A sun isn’t aware of orbiting planets, especially the ones furthest away.” He looked at the stars surrounding them now, distant and shimmering. “I hadn’t planned on finding and kissing you on the Night of Masks. Wasn’t even intending on going to the celebration.”
“Everyone loves the Night of Masks.”
He shook his head. “Too noisy, too chaotic. I only went that night because some of my Engineering colleagues dragged me from my quarters. They shoved a mask into my hands, insisting I come with them.”
“And you had a great time.”
“Had a terrible time.” He sighed, recalling that night. “The evening played out pretty much as I’d anticipated. Hovering at the periphery of the festivities, feeling tense and ill at ease. It’s just…not an environment I enjoy.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“I almost did. I was moments away from retreating back to the shelter of my quarters—when I saw you. Dancing.” With three men.
He’d been profoundly aroused, as well as raked with jealousy. Then he didn’t know himself or his actions. Only that he had been standing at the edge of the dancers one moment, and the next, he had moved through the crowd with the intent and precision of an ion knife.
He had seen his hands on his shoulders, felt the curve and warmth of her, watched himself turn her around. She, of course, hadn’t recognized him. But she had stared up at him with a smirk, challenging him. He’d been unable to resist the challenge.
Five solar months had passed, yet the memory of her kiss hadn’t faded. She’d been hot, spiced and sweet, guarded at first and then, at careful coaxing, lushly responsive. Her kiss had lit something within him, a long-buried charge that exploded at the feel of her. The deepest hunger had ripped through him. Within moments, he’d wanted to drag her away from the dancers, learn every part of her and explore her body with his own.
The need had been so strong, it had alarmed him. He’d been unable to recognize himself. Not Lieutenant Nils Veit-Rigel Calder, author of five digitablet monographs about high-velocity guidance systems, who spent all his hours either in Engineering or in the training chambers.
He had felt himself transforming into something basic and instinctive, something radically different from the cautious, rational man he believed himself to be.
So he’d run.
But not far enough, because here he was, sitting in a small cockpit with Celene, and instead of feeling embarrassment about his past actions, he only wanted to do them all over again. Let them spin out to their natural conclusion—he and Celene, naked, their bodies fitted close as interlocking parts. No, that wasn’t right, for he couldn’t think of them as predictable, controllable machines. They were made of flesh and muscle and need.
“When you came into the briefing chamber a few solar days ago,” she said, staring at him, “we shook hands.”
“You’d prefer if I’d I pulled you into my arms? Kissed you until our uniforms burst into flames?” He raised a brow. “Not precisely protocol, especially in front of Admiral Gamlyn.”
“The Admiral has done ten combat tours. I’m sure she’s seen it all.”
“Not two officers making love on a briefing chamber table.”
She pursed her lips. “Pretty bold assertion. That one kiss would lead to making love.”
“We can test that hypothesis.” Another shock from his own mouth. Only a solar week earlier, he never would’ve spoken so boldly, or with such naked hunger. And yet the words came from him naturally now, coaxed forth by a new confidence. “Just a few minutes ago, we kissed again. No one was wearing a mask. It was only you and me, undisguised. Let’s try again, see where it leads us. What we learn about ourselves.”
Heat flared in her gaze, and her cheeks turned pink as a hanaflower. But then a look he would almost describe as apprehension crossed her face. She looked away.
“I…can’t.”
“Because I’m NerdWorks and you’re Black Wraith Squad.” His sudden anger startled him, but, damn it, he wanted to believe that he and Celene had moved past the designations keeping them frozen in place.
“That’s got nothing to do with it.”
“Illuminate me.”
“It’s…” She tried to speak, but nothing came out. Her hand curled into a fist, and she knocked it against the bulkhead. Then she spoke in a rush. “I’m scared, all right?”
He stared at her, shocked.
“It’s just…” She struggled, as if piecing together each word. “If this was just hero worship, it wouldn’t be so…unsettling.”
“It isn’t hero worship,” he said.
“That, I know how to deal with. But I see it in your gaze, the way you speak to me, the way you…kiss me.” Her voice roughened. “I’m more than Stainless Jur to you. I’m…a woman.”
He rubbed at his jaw, trying to digest this stunning revelation. “And that scares you.”
She laughed without humor. “What a damned joke—Stainless Jur always wanting someone to see her as a woman, and then when someone finally does…” Her gaze was bereft. “I don’t know what happens afterward. And that scares me too much to take the chance.”
He felt equally mystified. How could he reassure the strongest person he knew?
A trilling sound came from the tracking device, drawing his attention. As he silenced the tracking device, he felt the moment between him and Celene crumble away like so much stellar dust. He had nothing to grasp.
“We’ve found our traitor,” Nils said. Too much distance stood between them and Marek’s location to have visual confirmation. But Nils had calibrated the tracking device to alert them the moment the signal became fractionally stronger. At the least, it gave them an even more precise direction toward which to fly.
“How far out are we?” Celene leaned close, gaze fixed to the tracking device.
“Still difficult to know.” He forced his attention on the screen in front of him, yet her nearness threatened to throw him out of alignment.
“Hazard a guess.”
“Flying straight, a matter of solar hours. However, between us and our target are several of the regions Gabela advised us to avoid. We’ll have to fly around them.”
“Assuming the turncoat’s at the other end of this journey,” she said, grim, “I don’t care how long it takes to reach him.”
On that, Nils had to agree. With their target so close but millions of miles between them, conversation in the Phantom died. Tension filled the small ship. Whenever he glanced over at Celene, he saw her mouth compressed into a line, her hands tight on the controls.
Think of something to say. Anything to bridge the chasm between them. What she’d revealed to him, about her fear, her uncertainty… It took a lot of courage to admit that. And he admired her for it.
Instinct directed him now. She needed patience, distance. But not too much distance so that they lost sight of one another. She had to know that he was there, with no plans to leave.
“They kept it quiet.” He broke the silence. “Your being taken prisoner.”
She frowned. “Not like 8th Wing to keep personnel uninformed.”
“A few knew. Most didn’t. I didn’t.” And he was glad too. Had he known, he wouldn’t have slept or eaten until she’d been rescued. Gods, he would’ve volunteered to lead the extraction mission himself. Given his lack of combat experience, it was probably best that Commander Frayne and Mara Skiren had been the ones to go.
“Why wouldn’t Command tell anyone?”
He entered coordinates into the navigation system, allowing them to skirt the edge of a PRAXIS-heavy zone. “My guess: it would be bad for morale. If Stainless Jur could be captured, anything might happen.”
“You were raised up even higher. Nothing you could’ve done to prevent the capture, and after Commander Frayne’s report circulated, everyone heard how you fought like a siyahwolf.”
“Wondered why I got an even wider berth than normal when I got back.” An echo of loneliness hollowed her gaze.
If he’d known… What? What might he have done? He wasn’t the same man he was three solar months ago. He wasn’t the same man he was since leaving the 8th Wing base.
“I went to work as soon as you returned,” he said. “All of my other duties, my assignments, I put them all aside so I could find whoever had done that to you.”
“Making sure it never happened to another Black Wraith pilot.”
“To ensure that you would be avenged.”
She stared at him, something like yearning in her gaze. Then it shuttered. At least now he knew why she shut him out. So he let the subject go. For now.
In silence, they continued to follow the tracking device, pushing through corners of the galaxy little traveled by 8th Wing. Unknown solar systems gleamed off their wings.
“Maybe PRAXIS is out here too,” he murmured to himself.
To his surprise, she answered. “Little surprise if they are. Their greed doesn’t stop.”
The megacorporation consumed the resources of every planetary system it could find, using them up like so much energy cells, and discarding them once they had sucked the planet dry. Leaving a wake of chaos. One could easily chart PRAXIS’s progress by the path of ruined worlds, peaceful, orderly places that degenerated into anarchy after PRAXIS had taken everything of value.
“Everyone in 8th Wing knows PRAXIS’s M.O.,” he said. “Not just training, but from firsthand experience.”
Celene nodded, likely thinking, as he did, of the pattern. PRAXIS approached a planet, offering technological advancement and plentiful employment in exchange for mining the world’s resources. Almost every planet welcomed them eagerly. And for a few solar cycles, life on the world did get better. More work, more wealth. But the moment PRAXIS decided the planet had nothing more to offer, they pulled out. And a world that had grown dependent on a single industry collapsed. Poverty. Crime. War. Entire global populations wiping themselves out.
