Mila's Shift

by Danielle Forrest

  “Ah,” Luke said, waving her hand, “she’s just a free spirit. Your uptight military ass just can’t handle that much awesomeness.”

  Santos glared at her.

  Tristan settled into his office and pulled up the personnel files on all the pilots on board. Only one was female. May Trace. As he skimmed through the file, he got more suspicious. No demerits, no nothing. That he could tell, nothing made May Trace stand out. She’d never been in trouble, which didn’t mesh with the woman he’d glimpsed today.

  But, more than that, her file listed her as a mediocre pilot. Good enough for approval for interstellar travel, but unexceptional. His gut told him something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Trace was far too good a pilot to match her files.

  Chapter Three

  Luke greeted Mila at her bunk like a two hundred pound puppy dog. He wrapped his arm around hers and dragged her to the bridge.

  When they arrived, her gaze slid to the captain as he gave her an odd look. She looked away and relieved the pilot. All shift, that moment plagued her, taunting her with the potential inner workings of the captain’s mind.

  She couldn’t afford any scrutiny. She ducked her head, kept quiet, and resumed piloting the POS, as she liked to call the USS Orleans. The thing belonged in a scrap yard, not flying in sub-space.

  Mila tried not to show it, but anxiety was eating a hole through her gut. She couldn’t escape. She knew it. They would catch her, find out what she was, then dump her out the airlock, or shoot her. The scenarios rotated on an endless loop, tormenting her with the unknown.

  I talk too much, Luke thought as she chatted up the pilot next to her. Or maybe May’s just too damned terse. But that didn’t stop her from trying to engage her neighbor in conversation. Like a teenage girl, Luke couldn’t sit more than two minutes without words bubbling up her throat and spewing into existence like a bad case of food poisoning. Her mom called it “cute.” She often said, “That’s my Lucky,” with a soft smile on her face.

  Luke didn’t think it was cute, though. She thought it was a pain. She’d tried, honestly tried, but every time she kept quiet, all her insecurities rose up to choke her. Like voices from her past, they taunted her, tormented her, made her feel less human. If she kept inside her own head for too long, she would go mad.

  She often wondered if there was something wrong with her. She’d spent more time than she could count staring at that DSM definition, reading the signs and symptoms. But a diagnosis would be the easy way out. The military would pay for it then. “Only when medically necessary,” the policy read. Or, in other words, only when you were about to off yourself.

  Luke didn’t want to die, not even close. She loved her life, loved being in the NSS. Most of the time. Other careers would have been easier for someone like her. Other careers didn’t have communal showers or zero privacy. She shuddered at the very thought. Never again. She never wanted to be called a freak again.

  “Oh my God, look at that planet,” she said, distracting herself. She nudged May, but the other woman just glared at her. Luke shrugged. She would get her to warm up, eventually.

  After a few hours, Luke managed to drag Mila from her shell. She spent the rest of her shift half paying attention to flying and half paying attention to him. Mila could fly this ship through sub-space sleep deprived, with one eye closed, and with a lobotomy, so chatting wasn’t a problem.

  She liked Luke. He didn’t take himself too seriously, and was a tad loose with the rules. If she didn’t strangle him for talking too much, she could see them becoming good friends. He was a normal person in a sea of military uptightness.

  A constant litany of terrible outcomes flowing through her mind put a damper on the day, though. That and the captain’s intense gaze boring into the back of her skull.

  “Finally!” Luke said as he stretched. “That felt like forever.”

  Mila rolled her eyes at him. “Please, it wasn’t any different from yesterday.”

  She stood and headed to the door, but someone stepped in her way.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  He looked down at her name embroidered on her uniform. “Trace? We don’t take slacking lightly on this ship. You’re the pilot. You hold the lives of everyone on board in your hands when you’re at the helm. I expect you to give your utmost when on duty. Today was unacceptable. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mila grumbled.

  “Don’t let it happen again,” he said and stepped aside.

  After they’d turned a couple corners, she asked, “Who the hell does he think he is?”

  “Lieutenant Braddock. He’s directly under the captain. It would probably be best to stay out of his way.”

  Mila smirked at Luke. “Oh, I’m fantastic at staying out of the way.”

  He smiled back. “I get the feeling you’re gonna be very fun to be around.”

  “Always.”

  “What was that?” Captain Faulk said as his second in command came up to his shoulder.

  “Just reprimanding a wayward crew member, sir.”

  “For what?” he replied, trying to think of what mistake she’d made during the shift. Or maybe it was something he hadn’t seen, something she’d done behind his back.

  “Not giving her position the necessary respect and attention, sir. Piloting in sub-space is not an idle task, as you well know, and I won’t have pilots slacking off on shift.”

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Yes?”

  “Whose ship is this?”

  “Yours, sir.”

  “I suggest you remember that.” He stood up, and nodded to his second in command, wishing he’d had a better option. “You have the bridge.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  She kept shoveling dirt, but no matter how much she dug, it never seemed to be enough. Beside her, May kept saying, “I thought we were sisters, twins. I thought you loved me.”

  “I do,” Mila said, wanting to rub the tears off her face but compelled to keep digging.

  She had to do it.

  For May.

  She had to.

  “Why did you do this to me, Mila?” her friend said.

  Mila gasped awake, banging her head on the ceiling. “A dream,” she breathed, “It was only a dream.”

  She rubbed her eyes, wiping the tears away, but it didn’t make the heat abate.

  Or the pain.

  “Come on. We’ll be late. You don’t need two demerits in as many days.”

  “I’m coming. I’m coming,” he said, gasping as he raced after his friend. When did I get so out of shape?

  His companion let out a sigh of relief as they slammed through the galley doors. “Looks like we didn’t get caught. Head cook isn’t here.”

  “See? No reason to worry.”

  “Buddy, they already demoted you to cook. Next step is out of the service.”

  “With my history? Might be a better option.” He looked around. “I’m gonna go restock.”

  “ ‘Kay.”

  He turned and walked deeper into the galley area. The next room contained two doors for the walk-ins, a refrigerator and a freezer. He yanked hard on the lever to open the freezer. Like always, it fought him. “Come on, you stupid piece of shit.” He lost his balance when the door flew open. “Stupid old-assed ship.”

  He entered, turning his head back and forth. Not having memorized the layout yet, he suffered under the sadist who’d arranged the galley storage for this trip. He turned around the end of an aisle and stopped, stumbling over something on the floor. Odd. They had to strap everything down to prevent zero gravity from making a mess. Nothing should have been paired.

  The object was mostly shoved under a shelf and covered in a thin layer of ice, just like everything else. He scoffed. They had the freezer set too low. “Just my luck. I bet I’m gonna be the one freezing my ass off in here prying shit off the shelves.”

  He sighed and knelt, yanking at the obstacle, wondering who’d been too lazy to
put things in their proper place. For once, it hadn’t been him. He could enjoy someone else getting reamed out for a change.

  When the cloth-wrapped object gave, he screamed as recognition hit. He slammed into the back wall in shock, scrambling for the handle. He couldn’t take his eyes off the macabre visage. Where the fuck’s the door?! “Fuck.”

  His hand slapped over cold metal, but no handle. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” but he couldn’t get himself to look away, like a sick, twisted car wreck, it demanded he slow down and look.

  How could he not look?

  How could anyone not look?

  Chills raced down his spine and it had nothing to do with the sub-zero temperatures. The plastic button connected with his palm and he smacked it hard, the door giving way under his weight. He ran out, not looking back, not that it mattered. He would never forget.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” his friend asked.

  He tried to catch his breath, but he felt like he’d run a fucking marathon. “Buh, buh, buh,” kept coming from his lips, not quite forming the word. He bent over, sucking in great, big gasps that didn’t sting from cold. “Body,” he said, “Dead body.”

  Chapter Four

  “What have we got?” Captain Faulk said.

  “Well, a dead body,” the medical officer replied as he warmed his hands from the frigid air.

  The captain glared at him. “You know what I meant.”

  “Well, someone dumped him in a freezer, so I have no way of knowing when he died, at least not by normal means like liver temp and decomposition.”

  Tristan pointed to one of his security officers. “Have we got an ID yet?”

  “Yes, sir. He was last seen a couple hours ago.”

  “What?” the medical officer said, disbelief in his voice.

  “What is it?” Tristan asked.

  “Sir, I need to take the body back to medical, but I think it’s too frozen to have been in there only a couple hours. It’s hard on the outside. I don’t know how much of his tissue is frozen, but I don’t think that could have happened so fast. I fish back home, and it takes hours to freeze a fish whole.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re implying?” Tristan snarled.

  “Yes, sir. We may have a shifter on board. And it has no qualms about killing.”

  “You,” Tristan barked at another one of his security officers. “Find this shifter before it assumes a new identity.” He turned to everyone else. “No one speaks of this. I can’t have information about this body leaking until we catch this thing.”

  A chorus of “yes, sirs” echoed back at him.

  He left his station to run an errand for a superior officer. With any luck, it would give him an opportunity to take out Trace.

  As he walked down the corridor, an entourage of security officers pounded down the hall. He ducked around a corner as they passed, waiting. They ignored him as people often did. His eyes picked up everything. A cloud of tension hovered over them. Several men near the center of the grouping carried a bundle between them.

  Trouble.

  When they moved out of sight, he changed course. He had to check. He diverted to the mess hall, slipped in without a sound, and listened, waited.

  Dissonant voices bounced off the old industrial walls, chairs scraped, and no one paid attention to the assassin in the corner. There. May Trace sat at a table near the middle of the room. He could kill her, but it wouldn’t be a clean getaway. Not yet. He needed to get her alone.

  He focused again on his current goal. Tucking his chin and scrunching his shoulders, he made his way to the galley. Again, he listened, pushing the door ajar to hear better.

  “You would not believe what I saw.”

  “I know what you saw. I saw them taking him out of here.”

  “It’s no fair. They ordered me to keep quiet.”

  “Which clearly you’re incapable of doing.”

  “Hey!”

  “What? It’s the truth.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “No but. I’m amazed they haven’t canned you yet.”

  “Come on. It’s not every day you find a dead body in a freezer.”

  I knew it. They found the body. Now compromised, he needed a new identity. Fast.

  Mila followed Luke to the mess hall, only half listening to his idle banter. She hadn’t been serious when she’d joked about her encounter with Braddock. She couldn’t afford to be on Braddock’s radar. That could get her killed.

  Here, she didn’t know how to keep a low profile, though. Usually, she just found an abandoned building and cut off all contact with others. As a strategy, hiding worked well on the run, but not so well stuck on a ship with a bunch of people who carried firearms.

  She could stop talking on shift, like she had that first day. Keep her head down. Do nothing to draw attention. But was it too late?

  “Whoa, what’s this?” Luke said.

  Mila glanced up and into the eyes of Captain Faulk. A chill ran down her spine as he seemed to stare right into her, seeing her darkest secrets. He and his battalion of security officers continued to barrel forward as she stopped in place, slack-jawed and terrified.

  Oh, shit. They know.

  Chapter Five

  Luke grabbed Mila’s arm and yanked her out of the way. “Jeez, May, they almost trampled you there.”

  “Sorry,” she said when her voice finally worked and the captain and his men continued onward, intent on whatever mission wasn’t her. She let out a heavy breath. “God, he scares the shit out of me.”

  “Haha. Well, I’ve been watching him. Communications isn’t as intense as piloting. I think he’s attracted to you.”

  Her jaw dropped again. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  He shrugged. “Just calling ’em as I see ’em.”

  Mila shook her head. “Maybe you should stick to comms and idle banter. Matchmaking isn’t your forte.”

  Someone knocked at Tristan’s door.

  “Come in.”

  “Sir?” A familiar face peeked in through the gap. He walked all the way in, his stance, his demeanor, screaming civilian. “I’m concerned about the mission.”

  “I won’t allow it to fail. You have my word on that.”

  “But security on board. I have concerns. I heard one of your men was killed today.”

  Tristan frowned at the man intruding on his limited downtime. “I assure you everything is under control.”

  “If this mission doesn’t succeed…”

  Tristan stood, his chair grinding against the floor. “I know full well the ramifications if we were to fail. We won’t fail. We can’t.”

  “But…”

  “Is that all?”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “I have plans to capture this assassin.”

  “Assassin! Are you kidding me?! There’s an assassin on board?”

  “We believe so. The medical officer believes the man was dead long before he was last seen.”

  “A shifter.” The diplomat fell to the closest seat in shock.

  Tristan sighed. “Yes. And if we don’t find it soon, it will take another identity. It will kill again.”

  The civilian uttered a curse word Tristan had never heard before, then stood. “I guess I’m in the way then.”

  “It would be easier to do my job without repeated interruptions, yes.”

  “I’ll go back to my quarters.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good hunting, captain.”

  Mila didn’t say much at dinner. Luke, his ever-talkative self, didn’t even notice. Santos didn’t care. After a respectable time period, she excused herself. Tonight, it was just too difficult to pretend everything was normal.

  Too close. It had been too close. And she’d just stood there frozen in the hallway. If they’d actually been hunting her, they could have shot her, arrested her, anything and she would have done nothing to stop them.

  What’s wrong with me?

 
She wandered back to her room with a head full of toxic thoughts. Then someone grabbed her by the back of the neck and slammed her into an alcove, smashing her face into the metal wall. She flailed, kicked, punched, panic invalidating all her years of training. Her heart pounded away, making her stupid, jerky, useless. Her chest compressed with all she felt, most of it indescribable in the moment. But she never stopped moving.

  Don’t stop.

  Don’t stop.

  Just fight.

  A lucky knee found its target and he groaned, holding himself and bending over in perfect invitation for another hit. No longer on the defensive, her mind cleared. Don’t mind if I do. She slammed her elbow into the back of his head, sending him to the floor, where he groaned again, but didn’t move.

  She took off, convinced he would follow at a moment’s notice.

  Safety.

  Need safety.

  People.

  Anything.

  She turned a corner and stumbled onto a common room. Flying through the doorway, she erupting into a space filled with other personnel. Nobody noticed as she desperately caught her breath, sucking in great gasps. Nobody noticed the blood on her face, or the darkening bruise she felt forming.

  Relax.

  Be cool.

  Mila walked to the other side of the room, trying not to draw attention. She would be safe with an entire room of people separating her from her attacker. She sat down, shaking from adrenaline and fear. Her gaze stayed glued to the door.

  After a few minutes that felt like hours, the door opened and her foe stood there, watching her, waiting. He smiled, raised his eyebrows, and ran his finger over his throat before walking away.

  Oh, fuck.

  Chapter Six

  Mila headed back to her bunk when someone she recognized as living near her left the common room. She slipped behind him and never allowed more than a few feet between them. Her heart pounding in her ears, fear kept her from wondering what he thought of her following him. She tried to move smoothly down the hall, but her limbs jerked on her joints.