by Laurie Bell
“Let me—”
“No, no, you’re gross right now. Go away.” She slapped at his hands when he reached for her. He pounced. Moments later, she was lying in his arms grumbling quietly beneath her breath. When he put her down at the campsite outside, he left large stains all over her shoulders and waist. “Look at this—it’s completely ruined!” she complained, gesturing to her silk shirt.
“I dunno, it looks fine to me.”
“With your handprints all over it?”
“Yup.” Grinning, he tore open a bag of dehydrated protein.
A white-hot heat flared in the center of her chest. She was not a plaything for his amusement. His disrespect made her blood boil. She was sure he wouldn’t treat a male agent this way. Her silk shirts were necessary to protect her skin. Like he cares about your sensitivities. Tears prickled and she turned her head, blinking rapidly to hide them. Calling a halt to their repairs only added to her frustration. “I wanted to get it done today.” The longer it took, the longer they’d be stuck on this rock. All he seemed to want to do was eat and sleep. And yes, her head hurt, yes a break to rest her eyes would be great, terrific even, but she hated appearing weak in front of him, and hated him for coddling her.
If he questioned her abilities again, she was going to explode. She clambered to her feet and limped into the jungle. Yeah, I need a break. From him.
“Hey?”
She didn’t look back. Living alone with only Mate and Zach for company for so long showed in her irritation. His constant presence was giving her hives. Everything he said either made her furious or unreasonably upset, and she couldn’t explain why her emotions were swinging so wildly. Well, you could. She told her brain to shut up as it wasn’t being helpful. Parting the bushes, she stared at the damaged Blackflame and realized her feet had brought her to the only place she’d ever felt safe.
He thinks I’m useless. Hopeless. She sank to her knees. Why do I even care what he thinks? She stared at her grubby hands and ran a fingertip over her chipped thumbnail. I miss Mate and Zach. Sniffing hard, she let the loamy smell settle into her chest. An animal cried out in the distance. She hadn’t seen what made the cry so she had no idea what to imagine but pictured something small and feathered. While she was here, she might as well pull the M-cable.
Climbing to her feet, she let her steps take her closer to the Blackflame’s hull. Touching the cold plasteel, she imagined Mate telling her they would find a way to repair the ship and not to worry. Her gut clenched. Oh Mate. She headed inside and slumped down beside her inanimate partner. He lay on a cushion near the wall closest to one of Zach’s dead monitors. The first time they’d come in here to strip the ship, Toni had been unable to focus until Dan moved her partner from where he’d fallen in the center of the room to the wall and made him comfortable.
She remembered the quirk of his lips as he’d struggled with the heavy C-bot’s weight, the way he hadn’t looked at Toni, his hand brushing gently against Mate’s fur to smooth it down where he’d messed it. “I think I like him, Mate,” she whispered. It was impossible. He was the enemy. No matter how often he gave her the last sweet out of his dinner bag or made her laugh with some stupid story, as soon as they got off this moon, she would arrest him. She couldn’t allow her feelings to get in the way of that. “I wish you could tell me I’m a fool.” She ran her fingers over his fur and contemplated, as she did every morning, trying to repair his systems.
Initially, she’d hoped it was only a loose connection that stopped him coming back online and that a reboot would be all it took to get him running again. The basic repairs she tried did nothing. His systems would require an investigation, and her priority had to be the emergency beacon on Dan’s ship. Her desperate need to fix Mate itched at her in a way that was almost impossible to ignore. She needed his calm, logical mind and comforting presence to help her focus. She’d never been without him before. No wonder she wasn’t coping. The tremble in the pit of her stomach reminded her that without Mate to watch her back, she couldn’t afford to lower her guard around the smuggler. A whisper in the back of her mind admitted it was already too late.
Stay here and fix him. She stood and hunted for her tablet. Her shoulders slumped when she realized it was back on the Renegade, with Dan. Why am I relying on him to get me out of here? She turned back to Mate. “Because I’m not an engineer. I can fix Zach probably. You too, in time. But I can’t repair the hole in the hull.” She stared around at the damaged cockpit. Lifeless. With no power it was as silent as deep space. She could smell coolant leaking; the acrid taste tickled the back of her throat. “Of course, you could tell me how to fix it if you were working.”
Nodding decisively, she decided to return to his ship to fetch her tablet. “Time to stand on my own two feet. I don’t need him.” She didn’t need anyone. Her eyes flew to Mate. “Except you. I need you, Mate. I can’t do this on my own.”
Mate didn’t reply.
The stillness of her ship was eerie. A tree branch cracked outside and her gaze darted to the open hatch. Her heart gave an uneven thump thump as it skipped a beat. That was why she stayed with Dan. I’m afraid to be alone.
Staring at Mate’s body, she made a promise. “I will come back for you. After I fix the Renegade’s comms and send out a signal, you’re my next priority.” Her stomach let out a grumble. A laugh burst from her lips. “Well, one of them.”
Reluctantly obeying the hunger call, she returned to the campsite. Dan didn’t say a word as he flipped whatever was cooking on the broken plasteel panel he had hung over the fire, only pointed to her spot. She ignored him and made her way to his ship then plodded back to the campsite. Sitting down she wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and poked at the tablet to run the simulation again. Red flashed up at her. Shenghi! What was she doing wrong?
After insisting she found programming simple, her face burned with her failure. Her tapping grew louder.
“Did you check the line count?” he asked.
“Yes, I checked the line count.” He thinks I’m a kheghing idiot. “And the relationship lines, and the memory conventions. I’ve checked everything.”
“Well, you missed something.”
She threw off the scratchy blanket and climbed to her feet. “Maybe it just won’t work,” she complained, stomping from the campsite toward the ocean.
“Where are you going now?” he called after her.
“To throw myself into the sea! Where do you think I’m going? For a walk. What are you, my mother?”
“You have one?”
“Cute, real cute,” she said and slipped in the fine sand as her anger took hold.
“Don’t go far.”
She climbed back to her feet, furiously spitting, “Yes, Mother.” He didn’t look at her as she continued. “I need to think and I can’t do that with you annoying me.”
“What did I say?”
“You didn’t have to say anything, just standing there is distracting.”
His laughter followed her all the way to the shore. She scuffed her feet through sand, kicking great swathes up into the air. She never should have opened her mouth. Staring out into the water, she focused on the movement of the waves, listening to the crest and tumble of it onto the shore. Her breathing slowed. Warm water brushed her toes. Why am I so angry? Who was she kidding, the answer was obvious. She wanted Mate back at her side and Zach snarking on every screen. She wanted normal food and a real bed. She didn’t want to be here … with him.
Scoring her feet along the shore, she twirled and swirled the sand beneath her toes. Why isn’t the code working? It should accept the combined segments she’d written. It made no sense. She stopped and glanced back down the beach at the random and beautiful patterns she’d created shining in the moonlight. The long lines were broken only by her footsteps and … I need to break the code into smaller sections! “Kheghing firepits!” She hobbled back to the campsite.
Minutes later, she ran the simulation again, and grinn
ed at Dan when the tablet flashed a happy green. He matched her smile with one of his own.
*
Toni scratched at her neck scars and silenced a moan. Her skin was red in patches where she’d dug her nails in. Dan noticed when she was tired, though she was sure she hadn’t complained. He noticed when she was hungry and always had a plate waiting or a container nearby to quench her thirst. Yesterday, she’d found him gently handwashing her shirts with the non-allergenic soap spray she had stashed on her ship. He even found an old pair of sunshades when he realized how painful the clear sunlight reflecting off the surrounding sand was to her eyes. He was everywhere she looked. He wouldn’t leave her alone. Her only option was to avoid him. But how could she do that without him chasing after her?
Now that she’d solved the problematic coding issue, she was at a loss. She could try to fix Mate, but for some reason she didn’t want him to know that’s what she was doing every time she snuck off on her own. His attentiveness had her hackles up. He knows. And she’d pulled too many switches to repair Zach. She needed a distraction. One that removed her from Dan’s sight. “I can try to fix your CII.”
He shot her a long look. “Can you actually rebuild a CII?”
“You think I can’t?”
“Well—”
“Seriously? Do you think a woman like me doesn’t have the brains for such work? Too delicate, maybe?” She rose and stalked toward him, the wrench in her hand wavered threateningly.
“No, I just—”
“Come on, you thought I would be completely useless out here, didn’t you?”
“You can’t cook.”
Her eyes widened. “So? I’m supposed to be able to cook instead of reprograming a fritzed CII?”
“No, I meant … damn it, you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Interrupting me. Putting words in my mouth and thoughts in my head. I wasn’t thinking that at all. Kheghing hell, you are so quick to jump on everything I say and twist it—”
“Well, what you say is so kheghing stupid!” she accused, turning away. The argument was over as far as she was concerned. Wait for it. Yup, the sound of his footsteps approaching. The itch beneath her skin grew as he came close enough to smell his musky body odor.
“You have no idea what I’m saying because you never let me kheghing finish!”
She raised her brow at that and, after a moment of silence, gestured with a broad hand for him to continue. He glared. But she was unaffected.
“No, I just figured, stupidly as it turns out, that a woman like you wouldn’t need to learn how to program.”
Toni’s body straightened. Always the same thing. Her voice was cold when she quietly asked, “A woman like me?” A freak, you mean?
“A beautiful woman,” he clarified. ‘You could get anyone to do it for you.”
Snorting loudly, she said, “Nice try.” What a joke. Does he think I can’t see through that?
He tilted his head at her reaction, his lips parting. “What does that mean?”
“You’re delusional, that’s what I meant. Are you trying to con me so you can order me to fetch you water or something? Maybe bake you a pie?”
“You can bake?” He shook his head and lowered the mallet. “You really don’t see it, do you?”
“See what? See that you’re trying to convince me to do something for you? No, I saw that pretty clearly.”
He prowled closer. When he took her hand, a huff of surprise burst out of her mouth. He raised it to his eyes, turned her arm inward and pushed her sleeve back. She watched, frozen, as he traced the red and blue veins that ran under her skin. His touch was gentle, and the calluses on his fingers tickled. “Beautiful. There is no one in the galaxy like you, Trina. One bat of those eyes and you could have any man begging to do whatever you want.”
Her mouth fell open. “Oh.” Warmth flooded through her body as tingles from his words raced over her skin. Her stomach flip-flopped. His sweat-soaked scent wrapped around her, making her dizzy. Stepping back, she snapped, “Don’t be ridiculous.” She cradled her wrist where she could still feel his fingers ghosting over her skin.
“I’m not being ridiculous,” he said. She could barely hear him when he added, “What do you want, Trina?”
“Nothing. I want nothing.” She fled back to the Renegade, still trembling. The lie she’d told followed her every step of the way.
CHAPTER NINE
Toni wasn’t hiding. She was working. Fortunately, her part of the repairs required her to be inside. Not only did it allow her to shelter from the painful midday sun, it also kept her away from him. It was a struggle to focus on repairing the glitches in D’ena’s software and patching the communication logs, but she was finally making progress. Thoughts of Dan and the touch of his fingers were pushed to the back of her mind as she concentrated on each fragmented line.
Lost in a long string of code, her body thrumming with beautiful numbers, a loud explosion shook the ground. It sent her racing from the Renegade with her pistol in her hand. “Dan?” she called when she didn’t see him. There was a smell of detonite in the air. “Dan?” Her heart pounded. Turning a circle, she searched for smoke, his dark form, footprints—anything. When she couldn’t find him, her breathing grew faster. “Dan!”
“What? Settle down. What is it?” He appeared out of the jungle like a wraith, holding a large dripping bag.
“What happened?” she asked, looking over him quickly, searching for injury. He seemed fine. In fact, better than fine. She tore her eyes from his bare chest. “What happened?” She tried to calm the fear in her voice and realized she hadn’t succeeded when he grinned at her.
“Worried about me?”
“Yes actually. You haven’t finished the patch yet.”
“Oh, so it’s my work you’re worried about?”
She glared at him. “Yes, but only because I don’t want to do it. I hate that burner.”
He dropped the bag he was carrying and held out his arms. “I’m just fine, see? You’ve been holed up inside so long I figured I’d have to come in there and resuscitate you.”
Toni rolled her eyes. “What were you doing? What was that explosion?”
Scratching at his neck, his face flushed. “Ah, I was hunting.”
“Hunting? Hunting what?”
He picked up the bag and stumbled under the weight of whatever was inside. “Dinner. And if my memory serves, it’s your turn to clean—”
“Oh, you know what? I’ve just had a crazy idea about a new line of code. I’ve got to go before I forget it.” She threw him a grin and took off for the ship. “By the way, your hunting technique sucks. You stink, buddy.”
Dan raced after her, chasing her all the way back to the Renegade. He stopped just outside the door. “Will you come out when dinner’s ready?”
It took her a moment to reply. Panting, she finally got out, “Yes.”
She stayed buried in the Renegade’s control center until tempted out by an incredible, mouth-watering smell. She started salivating. Dan had braced a network of branches over the open fire. Each stick held chunks of blackened meat close to the flames.
“Hey.”
“Smells good. What is that?” she asked, coming closer.
“Do you actually want to know?”
She spied a bloody pile of animal skins nearby and shook her head. “No, no it’s good.” The tattoo on his chest just above his left nipple caught her eye as it always did. White against dark skin. A pistol outline crossed with a knife.
He pulled on a shirt, much to her disappointment, and started to strip cooked meat off a large shank. In the back of her mind, she was thankful she’d crashed with him nearby. If he’d landed on another island or on the other side of the moon, she’d have been forced to feed herself. She’d probably have starved to death by now.
They sat in a comfortable silence while they ate. In deference to the fact that he’d cooked, she cleaned up their basic dishes and returned t
o sit next to him in front of the fire. For a while, they sat staring up at the slowly waking stars, breathing quietly. “What are you staring at?” he asked.
She didn’t move. Each night about this time, the silver lines in the leaves above them flared and then pulsed. “I’m waiting for the strobes.”
“The what?”
“The silver lights. It’s breathtaking.”
“What lights?”
She turned her head enough to catch his eye. “You’ve never seen them? Oh! My eyes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can see colors ordinary people can’t.” She fell silent. The briefest flicker above her nose signaled the start. “There it goes.” She watched in awe. The lights pulsed so fast it was like traveling in space. “I wish you could see it,” she whispered.
“So do I.” He rolled toward her. “So, you mentioned a mother. Any other family?”
She glanced at him curiously. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just making conversation. Xendia, it’s not an interrogation. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Groaning, she sat up and leaned back against one of the logs, stretching her legs out across the sand. “Yes, both parents, an older sister, two younger sisters, and a younger brother. What about you?”
“Only child. My mother passed, but Dad’s still kicking around somewhere. D’ena is named after her.”
Toni turned to him and asked the question she’d been itching to ask for a while. “Why’d you become a smuggler?”
His usually expressive face blanked. He climbed to his feet and paced in front of the fire. “It’s funny how things happen, you know? I hadn’t intended on it. It wasn’t part of the plan. Big house, pets, wife and kids, but life’s funny. As soon as you start making plans, reality tears them into little pieces, and then you’re stuck trying to put them back together again.”
“What happened?” She was afraid he would answer her this time. Instead, he slumped down onto the sand next to her and leaned against the same log.
