“Like males can control that,” she said dryly. “You can’t prevent a female from getting wet, and you can’t prevent a male from getting hard.”
“You don’t think male officers get training on how to keep our cocks obedient? You think I’m uninformed that females get special panties?”
She tried not to glare at him. “How do you know about the panties if I don’t know about whatever magical dick-training you get?”
“Because I’m an officer and I’m obligated to learn both sides of that conversation.”
“So males get special dick-restraining man-panties for horny days?”
“Yes, and to hell with our comfort. So did Bennett—or any part of his anatomy—act inappropriate?”
Something struck her as the whole thing being incredibly unnatural and strange, and this conversation just being wrong in a way that was hard to explain. “Of course Bennett didn’t act inappropriate, and no, I wasn’t monitoring Bennett Junior. But every wolf could smell it.”
Rainer relaxed again. “Not to make light of it, but you are very lovely and your hair is exotic. We can’t police scents anymore than we can police thoughts.”
“I know, I know.” She tried not to think about what his scent was telling her… or what her scent was telling him. That slickness between her thighs had started to dry (she did need to wash, ug), but her pussy still held out hope she’d risk a heart attack for a little fun.
“It can’t be the first time you’ve had a male harbor—”
“He was being an asshole,” she cut him off, not wanting to talk about Bennett, because she knew you couldn’t police scents because it was impossible to control your scent reactions, and no, it wasn’t the first time she’d experienced that, and yes, as a wolf she’d learned to tune out the way scent conveyed personal details humans considered strictly private.
“I don’t know much about the exam, but I’ve heard about that part of it,” he said. “He’s just rattling cages. They want to make everyone uncomfortable and de-center you. Spin you around, stress you out. Torture about half the students. This makes the other half afraid they’ll be next, while the tortured half wonders what they did to deserve it.”
“That’s just evil.”
Rainer half-grinned. “I don’t often give Bennett compliments, but he is a meticulous planner. He probably had planned exactly who he was going to rattle and how he was going to do it, and he was going to do it while seeming his usual genial affable self. There’s an old Earth fairytale about a princess who is so delicate she can feel a pea through a stack of mattresses and cannot sleep at night, she’s so uncomfortable. I’m sure he’s read it a thousand times.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That precious little creature wouldn’t have survived Exodus. How do you know these terrible stories?”
“Picked them up somewhere before my parents told me to stop reading about Earth.”
“That’s a human fairytale, I bet. No werewolf female would call herself high-bred if she was that genteel. I’m offended even thinking about it.”
Rainer drew his fingertips along her thigh. “You are salty. Bennett did a very good job unsettling you.”
She grumbled. “We got sent off in teams of three while Operations people act out these horrible trouble tickets and we have to do real-time conflict resolution and mediation.”
“Which you promptly failed in spectacular fashion, didn’t you?”
“Probably, but I did get one question right. It was a trick question. Bennett watched that one. I said the answer was to tell the complainers to go complain to someone else. My team freaked out, and one called me a dog, but I was right. Yay me.”
Now Rainer laughed.
She glared at him. “It’s not funny.”
“Now you know why I cannot stand that human,” Rainer said, expression full of mirth.
“Ug,” she said. “Is this what ‘grudging respect’ feels like? I have never understood that term before today.”
“I think so, yes.”
She chewed on her finger.
“You didn’t want to take Command Aptitude anyway.”
“I don’t like failing!” she snapped.
“Tsu knew he was giving you an almost impossible task.”
“Then why did he do it?” she asked suspiciously. “Just to kick me under the tail for my hubris that I think I deserve better than being your pet guppy?”
Rainer raised a brow. “Because it was almost impossible. He knew you’d rather have the chance, no matter how slim the odds. It’s not an opportunity he’d have given to anyone else. Nobody else would even have had a chance.”
“Knock it off with the flattery,” she muttered.
Rainer leaned back against the couch and put a foot up on the coffee table. “I’ve served with Tsu my entire life. He knows you’re not afraid of slim odds or failure, and in the end, you would want the chance.”
“I told him I didn’t want to take the test.”
“Really? Because according to you, you told him you didn’t want a career in Operations.”
She eyed him. “I’m still not convinced you didn’t have something to do with this. It would be very convenient if I somehow became Command staff. Or Operations and I could spy on Bennett for you. You don’t have any little ears in Operations, do you.”
“Why do you keep assuming you’re my pawn?”
“Who else’s pawn could I be?”
“Tsu’s.”
“He’s the Captain. Tsu doesn’t need more pawns.”
“You would make for a very interesting pawn. You would be a rook.”
“Oh really. Do go on.” A rook? That was the second most powerful piece on the board, second only to the queen.
“You’re not NightPiercer. So you are no one to this ship. No allies, no friends, no families, no enemies, no established politics or interests. You think for yourself, you’re brilliant, you’re not afraid of consequences or hard choices. You can be anything Tsu wants to make you.”
She brought her teacup to her lips but didn’t drink. She stared at him over the rim. She’d been thinking that Tsu had no idea about his First, Second, and Third Officers’ machinations and their respective little empires they had built and guarded, the struggles, and the secrets they all kept: Bennett wanting her for himself, Keenan wanting to get rid of her, Rainer who had trafficked her to get a navigator for the ship. And everyone suspecting everyone else of exactly what they’d done.
And absolutely none of them wanted to cross Tsu.
Tsu was not Captain because he was stupider than his three top officers.
Rainer’s eyes narrowed a bit further. “I’ve had reason to think about why Tsu offered all this to you when he knows how you’re perceived on this ship. Why put you through the added scrutiny and punishment? Why fast-track you? You accuse me of pulling threads, but then I realized that was exactly the answer. All of us have threads to pull or be pulled.”
“Except me,” she said.
“All your strings got cut the instant you came here.”
Rainer had brought her to be a pawn in his game. Bennett wanted to use her as a pawn in his game. Keenan wanted out of the game and wanted to cancel out Bennett and Rainer’s games. Forrest just wanted the final victor to emerge so he could stop patching up the casualties.
And because she was no one: she’d become the center of all the games.
She uncrossed her legs. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later.”
“How do you expect us to fix anything between us if you refuse to talk to me, and you walk out every time the conversation gets uncomfortable?” he asked, tone edged in steel.
That stung, and got her right in the Bennett-related guilt. “For someone of no value, I seem to have a lot of utility. I’ve always wanted to be useful, but I’m not interested in being used.”
Scraping By
Her tablet pinged.
She lifted her head off her pillow. It was still early evening, but nobody ever pinged her exc
ept Rainer, and she’d already seen him that day for lunch, although she’d stayed out of his quarters since two days earlier. Her Telemetry project had to wait while she sorted through her confusion.
Intense boredom had set in. Medical would have been pleased to see she was resting so dutifully and limiting herself to just pacing the corridors while she mulled over how she’d physically left Rainer, but never gotten very far away at all.
She sat up, pulled a tablet out from under her pillow, and rolled over to read it.
She gasped.
Loud enough Jevon shoved his head out from under the bunk and demanded, “You dying again?”
Shaky anxiety rattled her mangled heart.
“Shit, you’re dying again.” Jevon rolled out from under the bunk.
“No, no,” she waved him off. “It’s just…”
“You don’t look fine,” Marie said critically.
As if they’d cared if she dropped dead.
MESSAGE >> OPERATIONS ENTRY RESULTS
“Operations entry exam results,” she told Marie, looking the human square in the eye. She pushed the message and lowered her head to read it. “I wasn’t expecting them so soon.”
“They score pretty quick,” Marie said. “They don’t torture you with waiting.”
“You get tortured enough taking the test. Sweet small mercies,” Petey said.
The email had a blurb with the usual congratulations blah blah that such emails usually had. Then below it, the rankings of the three dozen of them that had taken the exam.
“What was the top score?” Marie asked, too lazy to reach for her own tablet.
“Composite of 87, PASS - OPERATIONS COMMISSION,” Lachesis reported, not recognizing the name at the top of the list. “Is that a good score? Does that mean they’re going to Operations?”
“Operations Commission means you’re now Operations? Sounds logical,” Petey said.
Lachesis gave him a withering look.
Marie said, “Nobody gets over a 90. 91 is mythical. Anything over an 83 is pretty much a guarantee of Operations wanting you.”
“Commander Bennett probably got a 91,” Jevon said with a smirk.
“Nobody’s ever gotten a 91,” Petey said.
“Yeah, what did Bennett get? You two were in the same School class, right?”
“He got an 85-something, I think. Wasn’t highest of the class.”
“Who had highest?” Marie leaned forward on her knees.
“They’re dead,” Petey said with a slight shrug. “AG-related heart failure about four years ago.”
Jevon changed the subject. “Think you passed, Lake?”
She laughed. “Hell no. I know I got one answer right, but I didn’t even have time to answer some of them.”
“How you know you got that one right?” Jevon asked.
“Because it was one of the skit things and Bennett was sitting in and told me I got it right.”
“At least you’re realistic,” Marie said.
Ouch.
She skimmed five more names.
LACHESIS (née ARK) 52.34 PASS - REPORT TO CAPTAIN TSU
“How badly did you fail?” Jevon asked.
“Did you break double digits, at least?” Marie asked.
“I—I… I passed.” How the hell had she managed that minor miracle?
“You passed?” Petey exclaimed. Marie practically fell out of her bunk.
Jevon snatched her tablet. “Holy shit. She did. Just barely. But…she passed. With orders to report to the Captain.”
“What does Tsu want with you?” Marie’s tone was sharp and bitter.
Everyone below her had failed. She’d passed by less than two points. No guarantee that Tsu would keep his word about Aptitude with a score like that.
Jevon took her tablet away from her again and pressed her name. The list of names unfolded, revealing her scores in each section.
Jevon skimmed the results until he got to one paragraph.
Lachesis shows a sharp, relentless mind and innate understanding of conflict. Her grasp of Crèche, Telemetry, and Shuttle procedures are superb, however given her prior seniority on Ark, this was expected and factored into her score. Her age and experience were also considered. Her knowledge of procedures and functions of other sections range from poor to passable. She is abrasive, confrontational, disruptive, and most crew take an instant dislike to her. Lachesis, overall, performed well above expectations but is far below the standard required by Operations.
Ouch.
“Accurate,” Marie said.
Double ouch.
“It’s not as bad as it could be, I guess,” Petey said reluctantly.
“I’m glad they graded you on a curve,” Marie said.
Bennett had no reason to pass her. It didn’t benefit him. He wanted her to marry him, and if people thought her score had been a gift, it’d look bad. Her passing and returning to Rainer only benefited Rainer too.
Nope, she’d passed on her own merits… somehow.
“I wonder how steep that curve was,” Petey said to Marie.
“Who cares? Some of us studied for months just to fail that exam,” Marie said coldly. “She doesn’t even care she passed without trying.”
“Pass?” Lachesis pulled her tablet back from Jevon. “Passing is getting a commission. Go tell the fourth-ranked guy with the 85.74 and no commission that he passed. The way I see it, only four people actually passed.”
Marie flinched, and Petey scowled. “You’re a bitch, Lake. Just shit all over everything that matters.”
She shut up before she shit on something else that “mattered.”
The community chatter channels began to fly with congratulations to the people who had passed. Nobody noticed her name, and if they did, nobody commented. They were too busy gasping in shock and horror about the fourth-place guy getting passed over.
Poor bastard. That was a raw deal.
She opened up a new letter to her family. Stared at the blank screen, then closed it, and dumped it in with the fifty-three others she’d started and quit. They probably had a nice fantasy that she was pregnant and overwhelmed with her new life on a new ship.
The anguish made her heartbeat unsteady. She pulled the comm off from behind her ear and closed out of the public channels.
Ding.
Marie cursed and punched her bunk. “Your turn, Petey.”
Petey grumbled and got up to open the door. “What do you wa—”
Rainer raised a brow at him. Petey shut up and shriveled into a little raisin of a man that crawled towards his bed under the Commander’s withering presence.
Lachesis almost groaned, except Rainer was wearing his dress uniform. “What are you doing here? You know you’re not supposed to be here.”
“I knocked.” Rainer ignored her bunkmates, leaned his shoulder against the door frame, and crossed his arms. “You passed Operations Entry. I figured since I am still your husband you deserve more than a mere congratulatory ping from me.”
Confusion broiled under her ribs. “This is awkward.”
“Is it? I can’t tell. That Poor-Variant Emotional I have.”
“Now you’re being a pest.”
His lips curled upward in a little grin, but it was his eyes that smiled the most. “Congratulations, Lachesis.”
It sounded amazing to hear her name, and not just Lake. “I barely passed.”
He shifted in a whole-body shrug to dismiss the statement. “You had weeks to study what whole teams devote six months to.”
The scent of resentment thickened.
He glanced around the bunk. “I also thought the description of your particular charms quite accurate. You never mentioned to me how your bunkmates dislike you.”
“Why would I mention it to you? You’re not in a position to fix it.”
“Did you mention it to Bennett?”
“As if I would choose to have a conversation with him.”
Rainer clicked his teeth. “So barbish. Be h
appy, you passed.”
“Would you be happy with barely passing?”
“Of course not. You would also tell me, if our situation was reversed, to stop being an arrogant jackass. Now, are you going to allow me to celebrate with you?”
Marie and Petey gave him an aghast, awkward look. Lachesis ran her hands over her face. “Holy shit, you dumb wolf.”
She fell forward on her bed and groaned again.
“I’m confused?”
“You never did live in the bunks, did you.”
“Very briefly. Why?”
“Because you just made it sound like you intend to come up here on this bunk and celebrate, and my bunkmates are clutching their pearls at their quiet evening being disrupted. This is a very private bunk, Rainer. We find somewhere else to be if someone has company.”
“Is that what I just said? Then I suppose it’s a good thing I am not Operations,” he said with a little wolfish grin. “And I do apologize for distressing your bunkmates.”
“At least you knocked,” she said dryly.
He glanced behind him. “Well, my security clearance for this particular door no longer exists, and Tsu told me if I put my claws through another panel I’m going to catch it, so I figured I’d try politeness. How am I doing?”
“You haven’t gotten thrown out yet.”
“Yet? That sounds very promising.”
*Ping*
She glanced at her tablet.
[Cmdr. Bennett - XO] >> Congratulations.
Her heart rate surged as adrenaline and cortisol dumped into her system.
“Lachesis?” Rainer’s amusement evaporated.
She flipped her tablet back over. “Nothing.”
“You know, you have this habit of telling me it’s nothing when it is absolutely something. I can read you better than that.”
“Fine. You want to see? Come over here.”
He shoved off the wall. Petey scrunched up towards the head of the bed, trying to get away from the Commander. Rainer ignored him. “Interesting. Can’t say I blame you for not expecting that person to congratulate you. I imagine they’ve been informed of your bargain with Tsu.”
Separated Starlight (NightPiercer Book 2) Page 7
