by Rachel Bach
“Because I used them before they were antiques,” he said. “Up until two decades ago, this was the standard console assembly for all Terran small crew vessels. I flew a ship with a flight deck just like this for fifteen years.” He shot me a mirthless smile. “You forget, I’m old.”
I had forgotten, but I didn’t like the bitter, self-recriminating tone in his voice when he reminded me. “Well, I’m glad,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Your experience has saved our bacon plenty of times now. And anyway, the only time you act like an old man is when you remind me that you are one, so just knock that off and we’ll be good.”
Rupert blew out a long breath. “It’s not something I can just forget,” he said as he turned our ship toward the ugly lump of Kessel’s jump gate. “You’re twenty-seven. I’m almost three times—”
I’d already opened my mouth to tell him to stop bringing up crap that didn’t matter, but I didn’t get a word out, because at that moment, four Republic battleships came out of hyperspace on top of us.
CHAPTER 6
For several seconds, all I could do was stare. I’d never actually seen a Republic battleship this close in person. The longer I looked, the more I wished I’d kept that record, because what I saw did not make me hopeful.
They weren’t nearly as big and menacing as the xith’cal’s ships or as beautiful and deadly as the lelgis, but what the Republic’s battleships lacked in size and grandeur they made up for in sleek, deadly efficiency. Every line of the long, tapering silver hull—the perfectly placed gun batteries, the arc of the command bridge, the frictionless doors of the fighter bays—fit together like parts in an exactingly crafted machine meant to do only one thing: destroy everything in its path as quickly as possible. But then, the Terrans had been waging wars in space almost constantly since humanity had first left Earth nearly a thousand years ago, so it was no wonder their tools would be so perfected.
“Rupert,” I said quietly as the largest ship passed between us and Kessel’s distant sun, plunging our tiny Caravaner into deep shadow. “You think they’re here for us?”
“Unless the Republic suddenly decided to enforce the law on Kessel, I would say that’s a safe assumption.”
I looked at him, clutching the blanket tighter around my shoulders. Suddenly, my bragging to the symbiont back in the trash heap sounded incredibly naïve. “What should we do? I mean, we can’t outrun that.”
Rupert blew out a long breath. “Maybe we won’t have to. You said you had a jump clearance already?”
I nodded, hopping out of the chair. I climbed over the bunk and grabbed my armor case. It was in the middle of its cleaning cycle, but I popped it open anyway, reaching through the foamy pink clouds of reparative nanite gel to pluck out my helmet. I wiped it clean on my blanket and put it on my head just long enough to send the ticket info the lady had given me to the ship’s computer, which I would have done before if I’d been thinking. As soon as it was sent, I packed my suit back in and started the cleaning cycle over from the top.
“Do you think they’ll let us through?” I asked, scrubbing my hair with the corner of my blanket to get any bits of gel I’d missed.
“The Terrans, no,” Rupert said, typing furiously on the console. “They’ve already instigated a blockade. But that clearance was issued before the travel ban was implemented, so I’m hoping the gate office will let us slip by.”
“Why would they do that?” I asked, climbing back into my seat. “We have no money left to bribe them, and they’re not going to do anything funny with four battleships breathing down their necks.”
Rupert gave me a wry smile as he sent the jump request. “Ah, but we’re not criminals. We’re a young married couple whose long-dreamed-of honeymoon is about to be ruined by the Terran Republic’s completely unwarranted travel embargo. Unless, of course, a brave gate officer comes to the rescue and lets us through.”
I gaped at him. “Oh, come on. That can’t actually work.”
“Never underestimate the power of sympathy,” Rupert said sagely. “Or how readily colonists who consider themselves independent will jump at the chance to undermine the Republic’s authority.”
I still couldn’t buy it. I mean, I could completely understand the appeal of sticking it to the Terrans, but it couldn’t be that simple. But not a minute later, our ship’s com beeped. “Caravaner, you are cleared for jump,” said a man’s voice. “Transmitting calculations now, and congratulations on the wedding.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rupert said humbly, starting the hyperdrive. “We are deeply in your debt.”
“Don’t let the bastards get you down,” the man replied, and then the com went silent.
I stared at Rupert in amazement as the ship began to shake. He smiled back at me, strapping his harness on over the blanket he’d wrapped around his shoulders as the ship’s little hyperdrive spun faster and faster. Once I’d recovered from my shock, I did the same, lashing myself in as our com began to blare an emergency signal.
“Unidentified ship,” a stern woman’s voice said. “All jumps are prohibited at this time. Power down now or—”
Before she could finish her threat, the jump flash washed over us, lurching the Caravaner sideways. Not surprisingly, our little junker took the bump into hyperspace like a barrel rolling down a mountain. As always, though, it was over in seconds, leaving only deep stillness as the menacing wall of battleships was replaced by the dull, purple-gray nothing of hyperspace.
I flopped back into my chair with a sigh that turned into a relieved laugh. “You sly bastard. I can’t believe you pulled that off.”
“Experience does have its advantages on occasion,” Rupert said, leaning back in his own chair.
I grinned at him, but Rupert didn’t see. He was lying still with his eyes shut and his mouth pressed in a thin line, breathing in shallow, quick gasps.
“Okay,” I said, undoing my harness. “Enough. We’re stuck in hyperspace for how long?”
“Nine hours,” Rupert said.
“Plenty of time,” I said, hopping up. “Now stop stalling and let’s see your back.”
“There’s not much left to see,” Rupert said as I tugged him out of his seat and ushered him to the bed. “The wound is healed.”
“Then why are you still acting like you’re dying?” I asked, sitting him down on the edge of the mattress.
“Blood loss,” Rupert replied. “I didn’t get my scales up fast enough, and it takes me a while to regenerate that much blood without food.”
I rolled my eyes and reached down, digging through his bag. “If that’s all, here,” I said, tossing him a large handful of the ration bars he’d taken from Anthony’s ship. “Eat.”
Rupert glanced down at the ration bars like I’d tossed him a pile of dead bugs. “That’s not food.”
“You’re the one who packed them,” I reminded him, grabbing the first-aid kit and crawling around until I was kneeling behind him.
“For emergencies,” Rupert protested. “I learned to cook so I wouldn’t have to eat stuff like this.”
“I thought you learned to cook to impress girls,” I teased him, pulling out a can of wound disinfectant spray.
“That only worked once.”
“What, you mean you didn’t make breakfast in bed for all your Eye ladies?” I asked, ignoring the barb of jealousy as I pulled the blanket off his shoulders.
He went stiff as the blanket came off, sucking in a pained breath. “There were none,” he said at last. “You were the first since I got my symbiont.”
I froze, blanket dangling from my hand. “You mean that night in your bunk was the first time you’d been laid in forty years?”
Even though he was about faint from blood loss, Rupert’s ears began to redden. “I didn’t exactly have many opportunities,” he said in a voice that was very clearly trying not to sound defensive. “And even when I did, I was too focused on work to notice women. At least, until I met you.”
I couldn’
t help leaning down to plant a kiss on the top of his snow-damp hair for that one. “And was I worth the wait?”
The utterly incredulous look he shot me over his shoulder was all the answer I needed. Honestly, I hadn’t needed to ask. I had Rupert’s memories of that night, which meant I knew exactly how hard I’d rocked his world. But knowing was nothing compared to having him confirm it in person, and I was still basking in the glow when I pulled off his jacket.
That sobered me up real quick.
“God and king,” I muttered, staring in horror at the burned tatters that had been his shirt. “Did they leave any blood in you?”
As he’d said, the wound was gone, but the aftermath was enough to turn my stomach. Dark, clammy blood coated his entire back. All his clothes were cold and sodden with it, the lining of the heavy coat I’d given him so soaked that the blood had actually started crawling down the stuffing in the sleeves. That was bad enough, but when you added in the blood he’d left on the ground, I was amazed Rupert had been able to walk, let alone fight.
“You should have told me it was this bad earlier,” I said angrily, dropping the disinfectant spray and grabbing the first-aid scissors instead to cut off his ruined shirt.
“We were in a dangerous situation. I didn’t want to distract you,” Rupert said as I peeled the bloody fabric away from his shoulders. “It was my fault anyway for not getting my scales up faster.”
“What stopped you?” I asked, cutting along the seam to his neck.
“The burn,” he said. “Disrupter pistols scorch you from the inside, which makes it much more painful to push the scales through. That slowed me down.”
I paused, looking down at the smooth, bloody skin of his back. “Does it hurt when they come out?”
“Yes,” Rupert said. “But you get used to it. Burns are the worst by far.”
“I’ll stick to my suit, thanks,” I said, peeling the shirt off him completely. I wrapped the blood-soaked rags and his bloody jacket in a towel and tossed them into the corner. Once they were safely out of my sight, I started looking for something to clean his skin. Since the blood had already started drying, I needed something wet, but this ship was waterless and like hell was I putting Rupert under the Caravaner’s chem shower. Those things were bad enough on modern ships. On an old rig like this, it was probably toxic.
Eventually, I grabbed my snow-soaked tank top. It wasn’t exactly sanitary, but Rupert’s wound was healed already, so I decided it would do. Though the snow had melted, my shirt was still freezing cold. I held the wet cloth against my stomach to warm it before folding it in half and sliding it across Rupert’s back, wiping the blood away in long, soft strokes.
Since Rupert wasn’t actually injured anymore, he could have done this himself, but I knew from experience how hard it was to get blood off your back by yourself without a shower. Anyway, it was nice to touch him, especially since I could feel his skin warming under my hands as he ate.
Though he clearly didn’t enjoy it, once he got going, Rupert ate all of the ration bars I’d tossed him. By the time I’d finished cleaning the blood off his back and dried him off with one of the Caravaner’s threadbare towels, his body was back to its usual near-feverish temperature, and though he’d never be anything but pale, he didn’t look like death anymore. But even though the blood was gone and Rupert was practically back to normal, I didn’t let him go.
Couldn’t let him go would have been more accurate. I’d gotten so used to thinking of Rupert as indestructible, an implacable, superhuman monster. Seeing him hurt had hit me like a slug to the chest, and I was still reeling. I’d had no idea just how seriously he’d been injured until his jacket had come off, and I was furious with myself for not paying more attention. Rupert could have died in that rusted out hull while I was dealing with the other symbionts and I wouldn’t even have known until it was too late. A bit more blood, that’s all it would have taken, and I could have lost him forever.
“Devi?”
I blinked and looked up to see Rupert staring at me over his shoulder. “What’s wrong? You’re shaking.”
I was, embarrassingly so, but I couldn’t seem to stop, or care. Suddenly, life felt very short, and I was so tired. Tired of being angry, tired of fighting this, and as I stared at the smooth wall of Rupert’s blessedly healed back in the Caravaner’s dim light, all I could think was, So what? So what if he made me weak, undermining my resolve and my reason. Whatever he did to me now, it wasn’t a fraction as pathetic as I’d be if I lost him.
I curled my fingers against his skin. That I was even thinking this should have been a red flag the size of a battleship. I’d let myself become hopelessly lost for Rupert despite every warning, and if I wanted to have a prayer of keeping myself together, I needed to retreat, right now. But even though the warning was pounding through my head, I didn’t move.
I didn’t want to fight Rupert anymore. I didn’t want to retreat, to keep myself back. It had been a losing battle anyway, a waste of resources right from the start, and if I kept stubbornly trying to press on, I was going to waste this moment now where Rupert was warm and alive under my fingers.
I glanced up at Rupert only to find him still watching me over his shoulder, his blue eyes wary. He must have known I was making some kind of decision, because he’d gone very still, holding his breath as he waited to see what I’d do. And as I watched him watching me like my decision was the most important thing in his world, my choice became obvious.
Slowly, reverently, I lowered my head to Rupert’s back, pressing my mouth against the fall of his long hair just below his neck. The soft strands were cool against my lips, still slightly damp from the snow, but the skin beneath was hot and flushed as he took a sharp breath.
Hearing how much my touch affected him only cemented my decision further, but then, everything about him did. His warmth, the wintry smell of his hair, the way his muscles rippled under my hands where I’d rested them on his shoulders, the sound of his breath, every little sensation added to my certainty that this was the right choice. I was utterly lost for him, had been for a long time now, and life suddenly seemed too short to be stubborn. The weakness he’d opened in me was here to stay no matter what, so why not enjoy the fall? Sliding my fingers over Rupert’s shoulders to his chest, I had to admit I couldn’t imagine a more enjoyable defeat.
I was about to start kissing my way down his back when Rupert suddenly moved away. I looked up in confusion to see he’d turned around to face me, the wariness in his eyes replaced by that same ravenous longing I’d seen back in the rain on Seni Major. “Devi,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I—”
I cut him off with a kiss, rising up on my knees to press my lips to his like it was the most natural thing in the world. And it was, because unlike every other kiss we’d shared up to this point, it wasn’t a surrender or a bad decision made in the heat of the moment. It wasn’t clouded by lies, wasn’t angry or desperate or pleading. It was just a kiss, the inevitable end that came when two people as attracted as Rupert and I had always been finally found their common ground.
Rupert froze when our lips met, his body going rigid. Then, slowly, he leaned into me, his hands settling on my hips softly as new fallen snow. His touches were gentle, like he was scared he’d spook me if he moved too fast. Given my record for running, I couldn’t blame him, but things were different now. I was different, because even though I’d loved him almost since the beginning, I hadn’t trusted him. Now I did, and it felt like coming home.
The kiss was long and chaste, but when we broke at last, we were both panting. Rupert got control of his breathing first, leaning in to rest his forehead against mine. “Does this mean we’re back on kissing terms?” he whispered, his accent thick.
I don’t normally appreciate having my words turned around on me, but this one time, I didn’t mind so much. “Yeah,” I said, laughing. “Yeah, I guess it—”
Rupert swooped in before I could finish, crushing me to his chest as his lips found
mine.
It was just like our first time in the Fool’s hallway. Now as then, Rupert was kissing me like he’d never stop, only this time, he didn’t. Instead, he slid one hand up to cradle my head while he locked the other around my waist, pulling me so tight against him you couldn’t have slipped a knife between us.
I was just as bad, digging my fingers into his shoulders until I was practically crawling up his body in my fight to get as close as possible. When Rupert finally let go of my waist to tear the blanket off my shoulders, I lurched forward, using my weight to send us both toppling back on the bed.
We landed with a bounce on the pile of towels and blankets with me on top, and I pressed my advantage immediately, sliding my hands down his hard chest toward the fly of his pants. But when I hooked my fingers under the button to pull it free, Rupert grabbed my wrists.
“Stop,” he panted, breaking our kiss. “We can’t do this.”
It took about five seconds before my lust-addled brain could process that. “What?” I cried, sitting up. “Why the hell not?”
Rupert lowered his arms to his sides, fisting his hands like he was desperately trying to keep them off me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t expect—” He broke off with a frustrated sound. “I promised myself we wouldn’t do this again without protection.”
I frowned, uncomprehending. I mean, I knew Rupert was old-fashioned and I certainly had a history, but with the mandatory adaptive vaccinations you had to get to enter Terran space, sexual diseases hadn’t been a problem in fifty years. Maybe he was worried about the plasmex virus? But I’d been infected the first time we had sex, and he hadn’t gotten it then. Anyway, I was pretty sure I was only contagious when the black stuff was showing, which was definitely not the case now. I was going to just ask him what the problem was, but Rupert was looking spectacularly flustered by this point, a very endearing thing for a man who never lost his cool, so I decided to wait and see where this was going.
