by A. B. Keuser
He stood in the doorway, watching as she splashed cold water splashed against her face. “Getting the last prickles from the space walk out of your system?”
She scooped more water from the square sink in the corner and let the icy liquid drip from her nose back into the basin. Glancing at him in the mirror, she smiled halfheartedly and the dark circles under her eyes told Osiris he’d been kind with his estimation of how much sleep she needed.
“Finding Oath Breaker took me three months and now, it seems, all I did was perform an alarm function for you. Honestly, I think the futility of my initial plan is part of what’s draining me.” She pulled the towel from the cabinet and dried her face. “Hell, I’d hop in a cryo capsule for a week if the chances of surviving a stay less than five years were higher – a lot higher.”
She pulled futilely at one of the bags under her eyes as she liberated a Denta-stick from its pack and set to work gnashing at the gum-like substance.
“They still haven’t gotten a quicker way to do that, huh?”
She looked at him as though he was a dentist with tools in her mouth and tossed him a stick. “You could do worse, cryo-breath.”
He laughed, chewing on the stick and she struggled to find somewhere to stash her little bag. She opened the top drawer and let out an irritated groan. The drawers were strewn with miscellaneous things, and the cupboards filled with rolled towels.
“Here,” Osiris shoved past her and emptied the top drawer into the second, leaving her more than enough space. “Never needed this much to myself anyway.”
“Thanks.” She spit out the Denta-stick and watched it dissolve in the sink before returning to the main room.
Osiris moved to clear out more drawers there for her as well. He did it to keep his hands and mind busy.
“Done in there?” he nodded toward the bathroom. “I’m about fifteen years overdue for a shower.”
Dani looked back at him, eyes darting to the drawer. “Yeah, all yours.”
He moved next to her, squeezing her bicep and brushing his lips over her hair. “Seriously, get some sleep, Yella. You’ll feel better when you do.”
He slipped in and shut the door behind him with a gentle click.
When she was out of sight, he pulled his shirt off, examining the garish track marks on his arm from the cryo fluids. Dani had packed them with some form of gel. It abated the itching, and dulled the pain, but each movement of his elbow ached. “I am never getting back in a cryo tube again.” He said, “Not that I’ll have much choice.” What Obie wanted, Obie got.
He turned back to the closed door between them and felt the same pain he’d always encountered with her. If he believed in ghosts, he’d guess it was Dan back from the afterlife there to shove a pistol between his ribs.
She had been so mad at him… for disappearing, for José. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness.
Showering quickly had always been something he’d done of habit. When he was finished, he hesitated in turning off the flow. It may have been fifteen years, but it didn’t feel like that to him.
“Osiris Bowlin, the Abolitionist’s most dangerous soldier… afraid of Yella.” If he was scared, no wonder her enemies had given her an S.O.S designation.
When he stepped out onto the cold metal floor, he realized he’d made a mistake: the folded pair of black sleep pants on the countertop were missing an accompanying shirt.
Old habits die hard, as they say.
He pulled on the pants and turned back to the door, praying she was asleep again. He slid it open slowly, checking through the crack.
Dani sat on the bed, hands working at her neck. She looked up at him tiredly as he emerged from the bathroom. Her eyes traveled down his chest and she turned away, jaw twitching.
“Sorry, I didn’t think.” He moved to the dresser, pulling on a shirt and nodded to her unchanged state. “You planning on sleeping in that?”
“What I normally wear to sleep isn’t appropriate given the circumstances, even if José was still here to crack jokes.”
“Here, you can wear this.” He tossed her a plain gray tee out of one of the drawers close to him.
“Great, we’ll match.” There was humor in her voice if Si searched for it.
He turned, to the couch, pulling a blanket from the storage bin beneath it, unfolding and folding it twice to give her her privacy.
“You can turn around, all covered up now.” She sat back on the bed, the shirt falling halfway down her thighs.
He forced the memory of José back into his mind to keep from thinking about what was under his shirt…
“Si?” She scooted her way under the covers, looking at him as though he was about to scold her.
“Yeah?”
“Would it be weird if I asked you to…”
He waited, watching her struggle with whatever she was getting at.
“I don’t want to feel alone, and it’s your bed…”
He tried to think of the least awkward way to broach the subject and only managed to settle on, “Do you want to share it?”
She pulled her upper lip between her teeth and looked as though she’d say no. “Yeah. I don’t want… I just… I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep if I’m alone tonight.”
Nodding, Si moved to the bed. Pulling back the covers, he stuffed a pillow between them, “Just in case,” he said with a small smile, hoping she’d find the humor in it.
She smiled back weakly as he flicked off the lights. Making an odd noise, she reached across him and set them at ten percent illumination. “I can’t do total darkness, sorry.”
Laying on his back, Si listened to her shift, the sheets moving over him. His eyes adjusted to the low lighting that lined the floor and he turned his head on the pillow, watching her toss fitfully.
His hand went to her shoulder and she flinched, staring at him as though she thought he’d hurt her. He fought for something to say, so he didn’t look like a total creep. “Stop fighting it. Sleep is something you have to let come to you.”
She turned on her side, facing him, her eyes dilated in the darkness, but a rueful smile touched at her lips. “You of all people should know I fight everything.”
“Not everything… at least you didn’t used to. What happened to your love of dresses?” He wanted to stroke her cheek, but he was certain that would make her pull away from him again.
“I grew up, realized how impractical they are… also, when you’re in a nuthouse all they let you wear is those weird shift things and maybe a bathrobe. You get to the point where you really just want a pair of pants.” She looked at him, her face folding into a frown. “I missed you, Si. I didn’t believe them when they said you were dead… then I did… then I hated you… but since the day you left, I’ve missed you. And I hated you a little more for that too.”
“I’m sorry if I’m a disappointment now that I’m back.”
“It’s not you… it’s the timing, the situation. It’s everything else.”
Somehow, he didn’t believe her. He risked slipped fingers through hers around gently squeezed her hand, “I missed you too.” He kissed her knuckles and let out a small sigh of relief when her hand tightened around his.
She fell asleep like, her breath lifting her chest in long rolling sighs. Closing his eyes, the scent of her hair heavy in his nose, he decided it was the only way he’d want to end such a catastrophic day.
A soft beeping woke him some time later and he slowly slid out of Dani’s grasp as she latched onto the pillow that had been between them.
He groggily followed the beeping to her jacket slung over the chair. He searched through the pockets until he found her pen comm and answered it. “Bowlin.”
“Where’s the captain?” Lyz sounded stressed enough that he didn’t bother teasing her about his rank.
“She’s asleep, I think we can both agree that she needs it.”
An exasperated sigh came through the comm before she said, “Yeah. You think you could get down her
e and help me out? I think the Breaker did something.”
“Is it bad?” Si pulled out clothes and started to dress.
“Maybe? How much do you know about these cryo capsules? Because there’s some strange readings and I’m not a whiz at this specific model, nor am I a doctor.”
“I’ll be down as soon as I get dressed.”
There was a pause and he realized what he’d said.
“Thanks.” Lyz sounded tired, though it could have been the pinched tone coming through the pen comm.
“It’s kind of my job.” He put the pen-comm back in Yella’s jacket pocket and finished dressing as quickly and quietly as possible. His eyes traveled over the bottles and then to Yella asleep with the dark swirl of sheets wrapped around her. As he palmed open the door, he hoped he’d get back before she woke up. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he’d abandoned her again.
Stepping out into the daylight settings in the corridor, he made his way quickly onto the lift.
“Obie, what are you doing with the Cryo capsules?”
“I’m being proactive, as I was programmed to be. I detect unrest in several of the crew members. Two have discussed the need to detain you in the brig until such time as the Mandalls can deal with you. I fear I may have chosen to place you in the care of the wrong band of outlaws.”
“Obie… what are you doing?”
“I’m providing you with the necessary resources to remove the threat on board.”
“Damnit, you’re defrosting them?”
“Yes.”
He stepped off the lift and into the hold; the thick foggy mixture resting on the floor came to his knees. “Yella’s going to kill me.”
EIGHT
Dani woke with her face buried in a pillow.
The room was still dim. For a brief moment, she wondered if it had all been a dream… then she saw the beer bottles and knew better.
“If it had been a dream, you would have done more than just sleep last night,” she reminded herself. That was what her memories of him had been relegated to… angry sex dreams.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and pulled herself out of the bed, trying not to remember the number of times her subconscious had led her down that particular rabbit hole.
Stepping into the bathroom, she sagging against the wall, her momentary energy draining out of her. She fished through her toiletries in the drawer Si had loaned her and pulled out the black plastic bottle.
The cap twisted off with a snap and she shook the contents into her palm. Sifting through the confetti colored pills, she pulled two bright orange capsules from the mix and poured the rest back into the bottle. Tossing it back in the drawer, she twisted her drug of choice between her fingers and Lyz’s normal lecture floated through her head.
The memories of José’s death punctuating her thoughts overrode Lyz’s concern.
She popped them in her mouth, swallowing them dry and then drank water from the tap to help them down the rest of the way.
Dressing, she tossed Si’s shirt on the rumpled bed behind her and left her coat over the chair. Dani glanced at the beer bottles, thought about cleaning them up and said, “Screw it.”
She picked up the pen-comm and headed toward the lift. “Where’s Osiris?”
“He is in the infirmary with Elyzabeth.”
Her gaze snapped toward the ceiling. “Is someone hurt?”
Oath Breaker paused, and narrowed her eyes.
“There is a situation.”
Gritting her teeth, Dani kept herself from grumbling that no one called her, Lyz would have hopped right on board the moment anyone suggested sleep was on the captain’s to-do list.
The halls were silent as she moved through them, her footsteps on the carpeted deck plating the only sounds she heard. Slowly seeping into her bloodstream, the pills compounded with the quiet had her head swimming with errant thoughts by the time she reached the infirmary.
When she opened the hatch, she watched the “situation” for a half a moment before she cursed under her breath.
“What do I do next?” Lyz shouted across the room as Dani took in the two forms on the beds.
“I don’t know. We need Yella.” Osiris’ back was to her as he looked at something on the panel and muttered a string of curses.
Lyz tossed an IV pack to him over the patients. “I don’t feel like being yelled at right now. In case you haven’t noticed, she likes to be told when something happens.”
“Damn right I do!” Dani still hadn’t moved from the door, she was too annoyed.
Two eyes swung toward her along with a near unison “Shit.”
“What is going on?”
Lyz pointed an accusing finger at Si. “Obie brought his friends out of cryo. I think she purposefully waited until you were out of it.”
Finally moving away from the door, she asked, “Status?”
“I – I don’t know.” Osiris looked down at the woman on the bed in front of him and grimaced.
Dani moved around the side of the bed Lyz stood next to and looked at the readings. “He’s not getting enough oxygen. Go to the cold storage, pull me out the IV pack for Trioxil—”
Lyz held up her hands, stopping her. “I’m not going to know what that is.”
“It’s a clear bag, blue fluid and there should be an orange band around it.” She nodded as Lyz held up the right one. “Better bring two in case the she needs it as well.”
Catching the tossed bag, Dani set up the drip, Si’s male crew member looked more like an ice cube than his captain had. “He’s got showing signs of cyanosis,” she pulled the needle out of its sterilized pack and moved through the motions of finding a vein. As the needle pierced the skin, she felt the pills taking effect, and she braced herself against the bed, forcing herself to stay upright as the floating feeling tickled her brain.
Dani looked at Lyz sternly and pointed to the bag. “Make sure this doesn’t back up in the line. If he gets worse, we’re going to have to get him in a lung. Obie has one of those, right?”
“Yeah.” Osiris’ eyes flicked from her to the woman on the table.
Dani’s gaze fell along her with a complete detachment of feeling. She’d forgotten how an adrenaline spike amplified the emotion-deadening powers of the drug. Her focus lingered on the holes gouged from the cryo unit’s needles, they weren’t as large on Si, or Richter’s. “She fought going in.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”
Dani paused, searching through the readout.
“What do you need me to do?” Si asked, verbally pushing her to work faster.
“Nothing.” She slid the chart back into the bed. “Lyz, you can put away the other IV, she’s doing fine, stable even. I’m going to give her a mild sedative so she can sleep through the worst parts of coming out of cryo.”
“Are you sure it’s not so she won’t kiss you, to?” Osiris smiled weakly.
“She’s cute, I’d be up for trying.” Dani shot him a tired look. “We’ll talk about how this happened later. For now, let’s stow the jokes. Is the drip taking?”
Lyz checked the bag and nodded. “Yeah, at least, it looks like it… He’s pretty cute too, you know. Did you pick your crew based on attractiveness?” she asked Si.
Dani ignored her, moving to the console next to Richter and letting her pulse slow as she watched his oxygen count rise. “He’s going to pull through. Lyz, go let Mopeña in on what happened. Everyone else, just tell them the machinery malfunctioned and we had to pull them out to save them… we’ll deal with the repercussions later.”
As Lyz left, Dani turned to Osiris. “You need to start explaining.”
His eyes went to the ceiling first. “Apparently, Obie felt there needed to be more people on the ship who had my back.”
“How long ago did you pull them out?”
“Two hours.” Si winced as he said it, and she fought the urge to slap him.
With an exasperated groan, Dani turned and went into the office.
She dropped into the chair and swiveled back to face him. “How are two more people going to help? Especially when they’re going to be dealing with the effects of an unsupervised cryo release. Si, do you know why you’re not puking your guts out right now? Why you were up and walking around within hours of coming out?
“If I hadn’t been the one to pull you out of that tube… if I’d waited the five minutes it would have taken to get José down to you, your brain would have started to decay. There are things that cannot be undone. Two hours…. It’s amazing they’re still alive. I can only guess that the prolonged defrost in stasis is part of what helped them out, but… your lieutenant commander—”
“He was my head weapon’s officer during the conflicts.” He interrupted her and she shot him a hard glare.
“Richter is probably going to have brain damage. Why didn’t you call me or at least come get me?”
“We thought we could handle it… and I didn’t want to leave Lyz here alone with them to get you.”
“You didn’t trust her?”
“It’s not that… I knew she didn’t know what she was doing. I at least knew the basic gist of the steps…”
“And you didn’t want me yelling at you either.” She sighed, getting up and punching him lightly in the chest as she looked up to the ceiling. “I have incentive to not be mad at you.”
Her eyes traveled past him to the beds. Adi would pull through, miraculously. His weapons officer….
“Where’s Richter?”
Si spun around as Dani moved out into the medbay that held one body. The hatch was left ajar and Dani had a sinking feeling.
“Obie, where’s Richter?”
“Lieutenant Commander Reagan is neutralizing a threat.”
“On whose command?”
“Yours. If you recall, you gave him charge to deal with any human threat as he saw fit.”
“What did you tell him that would make him get out of bed, sick as a dog, to go hunt down someone on board? He’s been out of it for fifteen years.”
“I informed him that two of Danielle’s crew were conspiring against you. They were openly considering ways they could turn you over to the Mandalls without having to involve her. They feel you’re too soft, Danielle.”
