Profit & Peril

by Charissa Dufour

  Bit wanted to go back to hear the rest, but she forced her feet to carry her to the airlock. Whatever Jack was saying—even if it was about her—wasn’t her business, or at least that’s what she told herself. She trusted Jack with her life, and therefore she didn’t need to know. I don’t, she repeated to herself again and again as she transferred from the airlock to the space station.

  She forced the worry to the back of her mind and headed down the long arm of the space station. Her position on the security team hadn’t afforded her much time to explore the enormous maze, especially as Forrest’s only bodyguard.

  Bit felt a smile spread across her features. Her, a bodyguard. The idea was comical.

  Even after three days aboard the space station, she hadn’t traveled to anywhere but engineering and the closest lounge, where the other crew members spent half their waking hours.

  She had heard Oden complaining of boredom and could easily relate. Other than Forrest and Jeremiah, no one had anything to do during the day. She was required to guard the engineers, but even that task was proving uneventful. Bit couldn’t imagine how ready she would be to leave the space station when Forrest finally finished the installation. The only entertainment she had was watching the engineer squirm under Zagiri’s flirtations. Well, that and the occasional call to act out the role of engineer.

  Occasionally someone would pass their little portion of engineering and Bit would jump forward, grabbing up some random tool and doing her best to look like she belonged. The rest of the time she just stood and watched, keeping her eyes and ears open to any threat. The problem was, the longer she watched the more she was certain no threat existed on the space station.

  All the same, Randal continually charged her to be vigilant. No matter how long she had to stand and watch, he feared someone would try to sabotage their mission. Bit didn’t like feeling as though the entire weight of the mission rested on her shoulders. She remembered falling asleep at the helm and getting caught off guard by pirates. What if she did the same thing?

  To distract herself, she focused on the budding romance of Forrest and the local.

  It was encouraging to watch someone else trapped in the clutches of amore. Funny, even. Bit began setting up situations as best she could where Forrest would be trapped with Zagiri. The engineer gladly took any advantage Bit could give her, but for some reason Forrest seemed hesitant.

  Bit took the turn onto the wide hallway with the big windows. Through the windows she saw one of the shipyards orbiting Ceres beyond the planet’s horizon. Bit forced herself to keep walking, despite her desire to watch the view. Within the central core of the space station there weren’t any windows to admire.

  As she walked, she noticed a man glancing at her. Bit did her best to ignore him as he dropped back a little in the crowd. She refused to glance over her shoulder. Instead, she looked at the window, seeking his reflection, but the light wasn’t right. She couldn’t even see her own mug in the glass, much less recognize the faces of the crowd around her.

  When it came time for her to enter the secure portion of the space station, she chose to keep moving to see if the man would continue to follow her. The crowd was beginning to thin as individuals turned into various compartments—some going to an education wing, a few more turning into a manufacturing wing, and yet more into what was designated as a hydroponics compartment.

  Just before the enormous lounge, Bit dropped to the ground, pretending to tie up her boot laces. When she felt she had waited as long as she could, she rose and headed back the way she came. Bit figured anyone trying to copy her strange path had to be following her. No one just walked up and down the corridor for fun.

  Bit casually worked her way against the flow of traffic. It was clear that most people were leaving their living quarters and heading to work. A few people glanced at her with a glare, but no one questioned her strange behavior. As she bumped into someone, she had an opportunity to glance behind her.

  Though she couldn’t see his features, there was a man walking back, against the flow of traffic like herself. During her entire venture out of the ship, Bit had never seen anyone fight the flow. Everyone seemed to need to go in the same direction depending on the time of day, and until now she hadn’t had a need to fight it. Bit refused to believe the man’s odd behavior was a coincidence.

  As she battled the flow of traffic, she began to veer toward the inside wall, where the various doors offered a way out. She reached the far wall and slapped the release pad for the first door. It slide open and she stumbled through it.

  Inside, she found a busy hydroponics bay. Workers swarmed the aisles between tall stands holding pipes. Various plants grew out of holes in the pipes, draping downward. Bit glanced up to find yet more green vines running along wires overhead. Never in her life had she seen so much green stuff.

  While living on earth, she had resided in Johannesburg—a desert city. The only people there to bother growing anything had been the very wealthy, and she was anything but wealthy.

  This, though, was a whole new world. Bit stepped forward, weaving through the workers as she admired the plants, some she knew, some she didn’t. In the distance she even saw miniature trees growing out of tanks. She turned down a cross aisle and jumped as she spotted fish swimming under a rows of some plant she didn’t recognize.

  What aren’t they growing in here? she wondered as she veered down another aisle, completely forgetting the reason she had entered the compartment.

  Bit glanced up at a row of up-side-down strawberry plants and caught a glimpse of a man through the foliage. It was him.

  Not a coincidence, she told herself as she picked up her pace once again. At the far end she found another aisle with thicker growth. She hurried down it, sweat trickling down her back in the climate controlled room. She picked up her pace, ducking past workers.

  “Hey, who are you? You can’t be in here,” one of the workers shouted.

  “Sssshhh,” she hissed as she streaked by and turned down another aisle.

  “Call security,” she heard the worker say as she ran away.

  Bit hurried until she reached a wall. She hugged the wall, looking for a door. At the far end, she found one and slipped through it as soon as it was open. The door slid shut behind her and Bit glanced up and down the corridor. It was empty. She pulled her switch blade out of her pocket and used it to pry open the control panel next to the entry pad. It cracked open, displaying an array of wires. She grabbed the bundle and tore them out. The light behind the entry pad pulsed once and died out. Bit shoved the wires back in and jammed the control panel back in place. It didn’t look quite right, but it would do.

  She just hoped that had actually busted the door.

  With that done, she turned in what she hoped was the direction of the windowed corridor. It was, and not nearly as crowded as it had been a few minutes ago. Bit slipped into the crowd, doing her best to act normal even though she was still pushing against the flow.

  By the time she reached the security check point, her heart was racing and her feet were itching to run. As she handed her I.D. badge over to the officers, she casually glanced back at the flow of traffic and saw no sign of the man in question.

  “Where’re you coming from?” the guard asked, glancing down the hallway.

  He was a regular and knew she normally came from the other end of the corridor, walking with the flow of morning traffic.

  “I zoned out and passed the door. Just not awake yet,” she said in the best approximation of casual.

  The guard grinned at her and handed the I.D. back before pressing his thumb against the pad. It opened and Bit stepped in, heaving a sigh of relief as the door hissed shut behind her. She hurried down the extremely long corridor and through the next check point, where she weaved through the maze of pipes until she reached the “little” closet they were using for the new reactor.

  “Bit, where have you been? What’s wrong?” Jeremiah added when he caught sight of her face. />
  “I was followed,” she whispered. “I had to lose my tail before I entered the core.”

  “We need to tell Randal,” interjected Forrest, having heard her response. “But we probably shouldn’t use the comm. system in case they’re monitored.”

  Bit pressed her hand into his chest as he prepared to take off. “Yes, we do. But not until the midday meal.”

  “What? No!”

  “Listen, Forrest. Remember, everyone moves together down the halls. It draws attention when you’re going the wrong direction. Trust me. I just got glared at more times than I can count for pushing against traffic. You stand out. We tell Randal at lunch, when we have a better chance of not leading the tail back to the ship. Besides, I lost my tail so they don’t know where I went. They’re left with nothing. We can wait until it is safe.”

  Forrest let out a long sigh. “You’re right. Dammit. Who on board would be interested in us?”

  “Only people I can think of would be the government, or that guy who followed Jack and me around Mars.”

  “Either way, not good.”

  “Not good.”

  A few hours later, Bit returned to the ship with Forrest and Jeremiah. Bit had taken a moment to pull Zagiri aside and tell her about the door she had ruined.

  The engineer smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Maintenance will put it all right again.”

  “Will someone suspect foul play though? It doesn’t look like an accident happened.”

  “We have people in maintenance. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thank you.”

  The few hours of waiting in engineering had been a torture to Bit. She kept thinking she was hearing something, which, of course, was ridiculous. Forrest, Jeremiah, and Zagiri were making enough noise to drown out anyone’s approach. Still, she found herself looking around a lot more than she had during the last three days of security detail.

  Before it had seemed impossible for someone to reach them through so many layers of security. Now, though, she suspected anything was possible.

  When she wasn’t looking over her shoulder, she was wondering how that strange man had found her. It seemed impossible on a space station with over twenty-five thousand souls that he would choose her out of random to pursue. She could only assume it had something to do with their mission.

  Finally, when Bit was ready to crawl out of her own skin, they left engineering and followed the flow of traffic back to the arm where their ship was berthed. They squeezed the whole group through the airlock in one shift, and stumbled out into the ship.

  “How’d it go?” Jack asked from the stairwell.

  “Not good,” Forrest said.

  “What happened?”

  “Bit was followed.”

  “What was that?” asked Randal from the staircase leading down to the mess hall.

  “I was followed. I managed to lose him so he didn’t see me enter the security checkpoint.”

  Randal frowned. “You’re certain he was following you, not just heading in the same direction as you?”

  “I led him on one hell of a chase. There is no way he just happened to show up everywhere I led him.”

  “Bit is off security detail. We’ll replace you with Reese or Blaine,” Jack said.

  “That’s not your call to make, Captain,” Bit snapped. “I’m under Randal’s jurisdiction.”

  “Fine… Randal?”

  “Randal, the same reasons for putting me on security detail still stand. I don’t look the part.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” barked Jack.

  “It was dangerous when you assigned me to Randal’s team. That hasn’t changed. Nor will it just ‘cause you take me off this detail. Let me do my job, Jack.”

  “Fine, increase security then,” Jack said.

  “We still have to be incognito,” said Bit. “The three of us are already a sight going into the secure section together. That’s why I went in after Forrest and Jeremiah. You add more, especially guys who look like security, and we’ll draw attention.”

  Jack glared at her then Randal.

  “She’s right. And the first thing I’ve learned about security is you trust the one actually on the ground. Bit’s seen the man in question and she’s seen the layout of engineering. If she says we don’t need more security, then we don’t.”

  “I’ll be fine, Jack,” Bit said, eyeing her captain.

  Chapter Twenty

  Bit headed for the airlock the next morning. She was heading toward engineering before Forrest and Jeremiah, still trying to keep a distance from them in case she picked up a tail again. Just as she worked to shut the door of the airlock, Blaine appeared, slipping in through the crack.

  “What do you want?” she asked, working the control to get out into the space station as fast as possible.

  At it’s usual speed, the airlock released them into the space station.

  “Bit, wait!”

  “Leave me alone, Blaine,” Bit yelled over her shoulder as she took the first turn she could find.

  “I just want to talk!”

  Bit picked up her pace, determined to escape him. “I know but I don’t want to talk.”

  Despite her efforts, she heard his heavy footfalls behind her. Illogical fear built in her chest as she made one last turn, only to find herself in a dead end running just a few hundred feet from the turn. She had been so focused on escaping Blaine she hadn’t been paying attention to her route. The pounding of his feet kept her from turning back. Bit continued forward, hoping to find a door leading to one of the compartments—any compartment that didn’t have Blaine.

  As she jogged down the short corridor, she quickly realized her mistake. There was only one door at the end of the passageway, and she suspected it was an airlock leading to an unused port. She was near the end when Blaine turned the corner, blocking what seemed to be her only escape.

  “Don’t, Blaine.”

  “We need to talk. You keep hiding from me on the ship, or using Oden as a bodyguard. But you can’t escape me here, so we’re going to finally talk.”

  “Oh like you wanted to talk last time?”

  “Just talk…”

  “I don’t think this is the place to have it out,” she said, still glancing around as she looked for an escape.

  Before he could say anything, a strange creak resounded in the small dead end, followed by a faint hissing noise.

  “What’s that?” asked Bit, her search suddenly changed to finding the source of the unnerving sound.

  Like her, Blaine searched fanatically for the source, his eyes quickly running to the bulkheads. “We need to know where the leak is.”

  “Leak?”

  “Yeah. I think we’re venting atmosphere.”

  “Venting…? Atmosphere?”

  “Yeah. But where?”

  Bit walked around the dead end, keeping her ears close to the walls. Before she knew it, the bulkheads halfway between the last turn and the dead end began to sink. Blaine spotted the movement and glanced between her and the end of the passageway. As the descending bulkhead reached the halfway point, Blaine leapt forward, ducking under the descending door and landing on his stomach at Bit’s feet.

  Before Bit could react, the bulkhead locked into place, trapping them at the dead end. Bit went up to the lone door and slapped the entry pad. A red light appeared, indicating the door would not open. She tapped on the tiny display that normally read the name of the ship docked at the port. The display remained blank.

  “Stop, Bit. That door won’t open if it’s not in use.”

  Bit continued to stare at the locked door, unwilling to look at Blaine. “Now what?”

  “Well, the hissing sound stopped, so I can only assume the breach was on the other side of the bulkhead.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we’re trapped here until they can either repair it or find a way to rescue us.”

  “Great,” Bit said, turning her back against the airlock. “Just great.”


  “Looks like we have plenty of time to talk now. Now here’s how it’s gonna go. I’m gonna talk, and you’re gonna listen. When I am done, it will be your turn to talk. Understand?”

  Bit just glared at him.

  “Right. I know that while I had that poison in me I did terrible things, and I’m sorry. For the hundredth time I’m sorry. But you need to realize one important detail—while not logical, everything I did while poisoned was in an effort to protect you, to keep you from harm’s way. Because I loved you… love you. I love you, Bit.”

  He stopped talking and Bit continued to stare at him, finally saying, “Is it my turn?”

  “Yes. It’s your turn. Say whatever you need to say,” Blaine sighed, disappointed in her response.

  Bit stepped up to the tall man, pulled back her arm, and punched him right in the face. Blaine’s head whipped back and he dropped to the ground. She stared at him, her eyes going wide. Bit hadn’t expected to do more than annoy him, but the security officer lay still on the floor. Begrudgingly, Bit reached down and checked his pulse. It beat steady and true against her fingertips.

  With a deep sigh, Bit slid down the wall to sit on the floor across from the door to the unused port.

  He loved her. As much as she wanted to deny it, he loved her. Bit squeezed her eyes shut against the sight of his unconscious body. What is really bothering you? she demanded of herself. Slowly, she realized it wasn’t what he had done that frightened her, or angered her. That she had forgiven a long time ago. Instead, it was the fact he loved her.

  Aside from her sister, no one had ever loved her. Bit wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. He cares enough for that poison to actually work, she thought. How dare he? I didn’t ask for his love. I didn’t ask for any of this.

  Jack wandered into the lounge where most of the crew spent their days. They were enjoying the ease of the assignment, while he itched to be underway again. He reached the large room where a plethora of tables and chairs sat. Jack gazed out over the field of tables, eventually finding his crew sitting at one of the largest tables with a crowd of locals.