by S. E. Smith
Chapter Two
Sheri followed Layth through a door at the back of the galley and down a short ramp into Medical. The doctor’s stiff posture radiated dislike, and it set her on edge. An exam was typically painless, but if the medic didn’t like you, there were a hundred little ways to make it miserable.
While she hadn’t been in a Frizzy’s medical suite before, she’d been in plenty of low-end clinics and set her expectations accordingly. Somehow, this managed to make her previous experiences look top rate. Makeshift and reclaimed supplies were crammed into whatever cabinets could hold them. Others were in boxes and taped to the casework. The actual table and bio-scanner looked like it was original to the ship some thirty-plus years earlier. The upholstery had been patched with hull-tape. As had the foot controls for the table.
A chair that had been commandeered from the galley stood near the omni-dock, where the doctor plugged in a relatively current omnidevice before turning his annoyance on her. “Oh please.”
She started. “What?”
“Your expression. Like I can’t watch you judging our facilities. Give me a break. I’ve seen the medical suite on Nobu Station. You’ve got no room to criticize.”
“Our med chief was on Ariadne’s payroll and had orders to keep people healthy enough to work but not healthy enough to revolt. What’s your excuse?”
The doctor shrugged and opened several displays in the holo above the dock. “Keeping the Sentinel flying. Turns out that if it’s a choice between a shiny new table and replacing the failing thermoshielding on the port engine’s power mass? You pick the one that doesn’t leave everyone losing hair and teeth.” Layth patted the bed. “Up.”
Sheri obliged, and noticed the youth in Layth’s features and the breadth of the doctor’s hips. “I apologize if this is offensive, but your pronouns...” She let the sentence trail off as a question.
The doctor’s expression softened. “Are he and him. Thank you for not assuming. And to save you trouble for later, April in engineering is they/them.”
Sheri knew that much from IntCom’s files on the crew. Except Layth hadn’t been in those files, meaning he was a recent addition. If “sometime in the year since the files had been compiled” counted as recent. “Thanks for the heads-up. So, since Mira didn’t say, what are we checking me for?”
He booted up the scanner and placed it at one end of the bed. “The captain prefers to do what she can to keep the crew healthy. So, I’m looking for the usual—vitamin deficiencies, lung fungus, parasitic infections.” Layth leaned around the holo-display. “STIs.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’d be keeping them to myself, even if I did.”
Layth snorted. “I wasn’t sure. The way Barr was hovering next to you, it seemed important to check. Hm. Your bone density is surprisingly good.”
Panic flared. Even after the time she’d spent undercover, brushing up against a flaw in her story made her pulse race. Not ideal when the person questioning you is doing a full-body scan. Sheri cleared her mind and reverted to the cover written in her profile. “Dock work is all weight-bearing exercise. And the gym on Nobu Station was required for all crew.” Microgravity, and even artificial gravity, could leach your bones over time. The fake identity IntCom had built for her also had regular trips to some of the higher gravity moons in the Three Systems in case someone chose to look into the discrepancy.
“Here too. I’m sure you’ll get the grand tour soon enough, but it’s on the secondary deck.” The doctor made a couple of adjustments. “You’ve got a Panbeset?”
“As soon as I could afford it.” Sheri rolled up her sleeve to show the bump on her upper arm where the implant had been installed. The slow-release systems were required by Intelligence Command for all staff, and protected against most infections and parasites, as well as providing birth control.
“Good. I don’t have to offer you one. The only ones I have are black market, but so far they still seem to work.” Layth pulled out a lancet. “It sounds barbaric, but I need a finger.”
She scoffed but resisted the urge to flip him off. Instead she held out an open hand. “Take your pick.” After he drew a few drops of blood, she quipped, “I’m going to want that back.”
“It’s destroyed as part of the testing process. Your secrets are safe with me, don’t worry.”
Even knowing the doctor’s response was generic, Sheri’s pulse sped up at the insinuation. She raced through one of the mental exercises she’d been taught to calm her heart rate, just in case the doctor was still scanning. “You don’t trust me.”
“The captain is giving you a chance.” Layth spoke without looking up from the readout on the scanner.
“That’s hardly the same thing.”
“Good of you to notice.” The system chimed, and he read the results to himself, mouth moving almost imperceptibly. “No blood-borne parasites. Look, it’s nothing personal. You’re new. New is a threat, and I take threats to my family very seriously.”
“I thought security was Barr’s concern.”
“Safety is everyone’s concern. And for whatever reason, Barr’s prickly where you’re involved. You should have heard him in the galley before he was sent to retrieve you.”
That made her pulse spike in an altogether different fashion, but one no less frustrating. She tried to feign indifference. “He’s always gruff.”
“Gruff, sure. But this was possessive.” As though he realized he’d said too much, the doctor clammed up. “You’re clear. You can get up.”
Interest abraded her nerve endings, and part of her wanted to hear more about Barr’s behavior. The operative in her said the knowledge could give her leverage, a weak spot she could use to turn him against the crew if needed. The rest of her felt dirty for having thought of it as a thing to be used. She stood and brushed down her coverall. “Since we’re done sharing stories, you have any advice, one new-fish to another?”
Layth stiffened, features caught between surprise and suspicion, and Sheri quickly added, “Your body language in the galley. And the incident with Barr correcting you. Clearly you’re the most junior after me.”
“That doesn’t make us friends,” the doctor muttered. “We’re not allies. If anything, that’s more reason for me not to trust you. I know what adding me to the crew did.”
That felt like a story she’d be interested in hearing at some point, but now wasn’t the time. “I’m not here to be a threat to anyone.”
Layth studied her, stroking his chin absently. “That’s not always your choice. Barr’s the captain’s right hand. Don’t try to insinuate yourself between them. That’s my advice. And my warning.”
“I hadn’t realized they were romantically involved,” Sheri said. Her stomach clenched, an annoying flash of petty jealousy that twisted at the thought of Rayan Barr being with someone else. She stubbed out the spark as viciously as she could.
“They aren’t. They might have been once—I don’t know or care—but what they have is tighter than sex. If you break it, the shrapnel will kill this ship faster than a plasma lance.”
“Fortunately, I’ve got no interest in getting between Barr and anything or anyone else. I just want to keep my head down and not take a vacuum walk anytime soon.” Barr might look like the perfect source for delicious sin, but there were already too many lies between them. Sheri knew from experience that sex on unequal footing ended up with one of the parties getting hurt. “You’re the doctor.”
“Field medic, technically,” Layth corrected.
“That only means you have skills to back up the book learning,” she said. The attempt to flatter a path onto the medic’s good side was less effective than Sheri had hoped. “Since you seem in the mood to give advice, what would you do with the ’Vax?”
Layth smirked. “Easy. I’d sell it to the first person I could find and restock this ship with useful meds and a top-of-the-line bio-scanner. And to cover the difference, I’d sell you back to the Spider Queen for whatever reward she de
cides to offer.”
Sheri looked at him, but there was no maliciousness in the man’s face. Just a quiet determination. “Best choice for the crew, eh?”
Surprisingly, that made the medic smile. “I knew you’d understand.”
“I do.” She donned her most charming smile. “Good thing the captain’s got a soft spot for me.”
“She doesn’t,” Layth replied. “But she does like handing people a noose and seeing who’s dumb enough to put their head inside.”
Darcy tensed on Rayan’s shoulder, the goanna’s hooked claws pricking through his shirt and into the skin beneath. He reached up to ease the lizard’s concern, cooing softly and trying to impart a level of calm he himself lacked. Getting pulled aside, especially in front of the crew, meant the captain wanted them to know she was giving him additional information. Or dressing him down. Either way, it gave him plenty to worry about, and the goanna responded to his stress.
He knocked on the hull beside her door, and she answered a moment later. Her twists had been drawn up into a messy ponytail, and she had her reading glasses on a line around her neck. He and Hicks were probably the only two people on the crew who knew she used the glasses in private, and the fact she hadn’t taken them off before answering the door indicated her mind was as jumbled as his own.
And that concerned him even more.
“Permission to enter?”
She rolled her eyes and stepped out of his way. “I wasn’t aware you needed my permission for anything.”
He needed it for a lot of things, he just didn’t ask for it when it came to keeping her—and everyone on the Sentinel—safe. She didn’t always like it, but Barnes assigned him to the jobs that might get messy, and she did it for a reason. He was efficient and managed to balance a line between ruthlessness and compassion in terms of how he dealt with problems.
When the door hissed closed, she flopped into the antique, wingback chair that dominated the corner of her cabin, all trace of the queen gone, except for the air of concern that dragged at her shoulders all the time. She took a deep breath, eyes closed. “I need to know you’re not compromised.”
The idea appalled him, and Rayan stepped back as though he could avoid having the words touch him. Darcy squawked in frustration and dug in, tail thrashing to keep balance. “If you’ve got concerns, I can go at any time.” The thought of leaving burned in his gut like engine-room moonshine, but if she ordered it…
Mira’s eyes opened, and her face softened. “Could you? Just like that?”
He almost said no but stopped. “It wouldn’t be easy, but if that was your order, I’d follow it. Same as always.”
She nodded. “This thing with the dockrat is just…unlike you. I need to make sure your judgment is clear. I’ve never seen you stick your neck out for someone about whom we knew so little.”
It was a fair accusation. While Mira had agreed to help steal the shipment, he was the one who’d made the decision to bring the woman aboard the Sentinel. But it hadn’t seemed right to abandon Sheri for the Spider Queen when he’d helped with the heist. It felt suspiciously like leaving a teammate behind.
He ran a thumb along his jaw. “Hodur’s a good place to solve problems. As cities go, Penumbra can get pretty lawless.” That was an understatement. Rayan knew of special forces troops who didn’t walk around in less than pairs. Then again, Penumbra wasn’t a city that much welcomed military oversight.
“Do you think she’s a problem?”
“I think she’s desperate. Right now, we’re the armor protecting her from Ariadne’s wrath, so she wants to stay in our good graces. That also means she’s liable to tell us anything she thinks can facilitate that.” He rubbed his cheek absently, feeling the stubble scrape across his palm. “The Night Market would be a victory if she can get us in, though.”
“That’s a big if.” Mira shifted in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. “It’s not like we haven’t been trying to crack the Market almost since we started.”
He’d actually been, once, but it had been a one-time visit to the traveling collection of illegal goods and services. An assassin had been sent after the captain over a perceived slight, and Rayan had gone to find out who’d ordered the attack. He studied the pale lacework of scars that covered his knuckles. Neither person was a problem anymore, and the captain had been none the wiser.
Rayan took a deep breath. “Who else are you sending with us?”
“No one.” A grin curved the corner of her mouth ever so slightly. “Why? Do you think you’re going to need a chaperone? Should I send Zion with her instead?”
Anger flared in his gut alongside something darker, more possessive. He growled out a “No” before he could keep it in check. A heartbeat later he managed to add, “If you sent Sanderson, you’d definitely need someone to watch over them.”
Her snort turned into a soft laugh. “Right. Because you don’t get involved.”
“If you’re talking about my needs, Mira, I’m perfectly capable of having those fulfilled without anything as messy as a relationship.” Lovers demanded too much loyalty and wanted too much truth. His family on the Sentinel knew the sort of man he was and accepted him in spite of the amount of blood on his hands. He’d happily throw himself away for any of them, even Sanderson. A one-time lover could see him as a fantasy, a one-off walk on the dangerous side of the moon, but a relationship would want to know the stories behind his scars. That history was written in blood and pain, and it sent fantasies packing. No one wanted to see it up close.
“I’m well aware of your needs, Rayan.” She stood in a fluid, graceful motion. “Probably better than you. And I know how you protect people, at the cost of yourself.”
He opened his mouth to interrupt, and she cut him off with a single extended finger.
“As the recipient of your protection, I’m not about to complain. But for whatever reason, you also made moves to protect this woman.”
He shrugged. “We’d made an agreement with her. Honestly, it seemed the best way to keep the ’Vax out of Ariadne’s hands.”
“I know how you feel about Spectrivax. It’s your biggest asset at the moment. Whatever else might cloud your mind, you’d fire that whole payload of ’Vax into the sun rather than let it be sold to someone who would use it to subjugate people.” She massaged one of her hands.
It was the uncomfortable truth between them. Long before they’d been smugglers, when they were just mercenaries on the inner edge of the Three Systems fighting for what they thought was right, she’d helped him through the worst days of his life. Coming off his addiction had made him a monster. That Mira brought it up now only reinforced that handling the mission properly was important to her.
“My mind is crystal clear. Until you give the final word, she’s not part of the crew. And that makes her expendable.” He’d done plenty of things worth regretting over the years, adding one more wasn’t going to break him.
Chapter Three
“Why did you bring the lizard along, again?”
Rayan chuckled, reaching out to stroke one scaled eye ridge. “Darcy goes where I go. Always has.” Most people wouldn’t comprehend. Hell, Mira was more inclined to consider the pet goanna one of his idiosyncrasies more than she actually understood it. He dug into the pocket of his parka and tugged out the bag of yellow orchid petals he’d brought. Instantly, Darcy focused both sets of eyes on the bag. Rayan offered him a single flower, held between his fingertips. Darcy watched it, judging the distance carefully by switching between primary and secondary eyes before leaning out into space to grab the treat.
“Besides,” he continued. “If I leave him behind, then Baker will just feed him the nasty carrion paste she prints out, and he’ll get spoiled.”
“Oh, of course.” Sheri rolled her eyes. “God forbid someone else spoil him.”
“Don’t listen to her. She can’t understand our love.” Rayan leaned against his restraints until he could run his fingers along Darcy’s spine. Despit
e his confident words, he made sure to only touch Darcy well clear of his head as long as he was eating the orchid. He and the goanna had come to an understanding long ago—Rayan didn’t look like he might be taking food away, and Darcy didn’t bite him for trying. It was a good, pain-free arrangement.
“You’ve got that much right, at least.” She checked their position on the Nav terminal, even though they were still a good hour from Hodur’s airspace. “Also, what’s with the flower? I thought goanna were carnivores.”
“They’re omnivores. Some people feed them straight-up meat, and they get big quick on all that protein, but it tends to cut their lifespans in half. Brighter candle, but half as long. In the wild, they eat all kinds of things. Fruit. Nuts. Insects. Birds.”
“Carrion.” She grinned.
“That too. I try to keep his meat serving a little slim. It keeps any rats that sneak on board from getting out of hand.”
“Charming.”
“Beats having them gnaw the insulation off the wiring.” Not that they’d had that problem since Mira, Hicks, and he and first purchased the Sentinel. She ran a tight ship.
Darcy finished the orchid, and Rayan gave him a second.
Sheri lapsed into silence, and he couldn’t keep from wondering what she was thinking. Or what he was thinking for that matter. Talking with her built a connection, whether he wanted one or not. The more he got to know her, the harder it would be to do what needed to be done.
If it came to that.
Not that it would stop him. But he’d carry deeper scars as a result.
Hodur’s ATC signaled the launch forty minutes later. After a brief conversation to authorize mooring fees, aerospace traffic control gave them a berth and flight path. He transferred secondary control to the ATC and let them guide the ship in.
