Hold Fast Through the Fire

by K. B. Wagers

  Something she couldn’t pinpoint was eating at the edges of her nerves. The not-good kind of restless that used to land her in a bar fight before the end of the night . . . and the brig, after.

  “Now I’m supposed to set a good example,” she muttered into her beer. “Why did I agree to a promotion again?”

  “Stop, you’re scaring the newbie with your grumbling.” Tamago tapped her on the knee and pointed at Chae.

  “Ignore me,” Jenks said, mustering a smile.

  “It’s almost the midpoint,” Sapphi interjected. “Jenks gets itchy when it’s been too long since she’s punched someone in the cage.”

  “You fought that big guy yesterday, didn’t you?” Chae asked.

  Jenks grinned and rubbed at the bruise on her thigh that was already a wicked purple. “Master Gunnery Sergeant McGraw, yeah. He’s a Marine, but we don’t hold that against him. He’s on a joint duty tour with Wandering Hunter. But that’s not the same. That’s just sparring.”

  “She means fighting in the cage at the Boarding Games,” Tamago replied. “Or the prelims at least, which are still nine weeks away.”

  “Why is it different from sparring?”

  “Because our chief needs an audience to tell her how good—ow!” Tamago rubbed their shoulder where Jenks had punched them.

  “Of course, it’s possible she’s just snarly because she hasn’t seen Luis for too long.”

  “Sapphi, I just hit Tama, and I’m not above doing the same to you. I might not get in trouble if I fight one of you instead of one of these grabtastic pieces of amphibian shit, right?” Jenks grinned as a table of Navy officers near them heard her, but they all shook their heads when they realized who was talking and went back to their conversation. “The real problem is I can’t get anyone to fight me anymore. Not for real.”

  Tamago chuckled into their own beer. “Oh, poor Jenks, the trials of being undefeated.”

  “Careful. I’ll get in a fight just to spite you.”

  “LT’s not around to help you, and you just alienated everyone at this table.” Tamago sniffed. “You’d be on your own.” The sparkle in their brown eyes would’ve told Jenks they were lying even if she hadn’t known better. Yet Tama had a wicked sense of humor, and Jenks couldn’t put it past them to sit it out as she fought a table of spacers.

  “Did Lieutenant Carmichael really tackle some Navy guy in a bar?” Chae asked, breaking Jenks’s train of thought. “She just seems so . . . proper.”

  Jenks choked on her drink, nearly snorting beer out her nose, and folded over, coughing. “Oh, she is, Chae, but she’ll drop you faster than a high-g planet if you fuck up.”

  It was supposed to be a joke, but the real fear that flashed on Chae’s face wasn’t the least bit funny and Jenks wondered what in the hell would cause them to be afraid of Max.

  Sapphi lifted her glass before Jenks could say anything. “And one of the ways to fuck up is to put a hand on her team. Which now includes you, Chae. Welcome to the family!”

  Jenks lifted her own beer. “Family buys the next round.” She drained her glass and stood. “Come on, Chae, I’ll help you carry.”

  A second terrified look crossed Chae’s face and Jenks raised an eyebrow. She gestured and Chae scrambled to their feet, following her away from the table.

  “What’s up? If you have an objection to buying beer that’s all good, and I’m sorry for putting you on the spot.”

  “It’s not that, Chief.” Chae shifted, looking at the floor and then the wall, everywhere but at Jenks. “Well . . . it kind of is.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t have enough feds.”

  “We just got our basic and you’re tapped?” Jenks desperately wanted to ask the kid where their income had gone—something made her wonder if it went to their “girlfriend.” Julia had vanished pretty quickly rather than hanging around, and while Chae’s explanation that she had work to do was reasonable, it still seemed odd they wouldn’t want to spend more time together.

  Jenks shook her head. The middle of the bar wasn’t the place to have this conversation. “All right, I’ve got you. We’re gonna talk about this later, though. You can’t be spending all that right after payday.”

  Chae followed her to the bar. “I sent it home.” The whisper was almost too soft for Jenks to hear over the growing volume of the crowd, and she pretended she hadn’t for a moment as she ordered drinks from Abbott. The sweet-faced bartender fluttered eyelashes at her from beneath a fringe of bright blue bangs and Jenks grinned back.

  “You want to tell me why?” she asked, turning to Chae.

  “Why what?”

  “Why you sent it all home, kid. Your fathers are established doctors with basics of their own, plus whatever their practice brings in. Have you been sending them every single fed since you got here?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “I swear I’m going to give you a beatdown the next time we spar if you don’t stop calling me that.” Jenks closed her eyes for a moment. “So why?”

  “I’m just used to it from training—”

  “Not how you address me. Your pay.”

  “Oh. The habitat needs it more than I do.”

  There were eight million questions clamoring for priority in Jenks’s head. None of which were appropriate, again, for a conversation in the middle of Corbin’s.

  “Jenks, beer for your team.”

  She passed them to Chae, frowned at the count. “That one mine?” She nodded at the beer Abbott was still holding in her hand.

  “It’ll cost you.”

  The Navy spacer next to her at the bar protested loudly as Jenks used him for leverage to boost herself up on the bar and leaned toward Abbott.

  She slipped her free hand into the woman’s blue hair and kissed her until she whimpered.

  “Don’t be horning in on my action, Jenks!” There was laughter in the spacer’s voice, and Jenks was in a good enough mood, all things considered, to not want to start a fight now.

  “Oh, honey. Been there, made her scream.” She blew another kiss at Abbott and the woman blushed. Jenks climbed back down with the beer in her hand and patted the spacer on the cheek before saluting with it. “Let me know if you need any pointers.”

  Laughter echoed through the bar as she herded a shocked-looking Chae back toward their table.

  “Drink up, kiddo. We’re going to have a long conversation about this tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow came sooner than it should have, and Chae was reasonably sure that the chief had gotten them drunk so they’d be hungover on top of the misery already rolling around in their stomach.

  “Here,” Jenks said. She slapped a med patch onto their bare shoulder and handed over a metal container. “Drink all that water.” She lay down on the weight bench and started her warm-up.

  By the time she’d finished and had swapped out the weights, Chae was done with the water. They took Jenks’s place on the bench.

  “Okay, you’ve gotten enough of the hang of this that you can talk and bench press at the same time,” Jenks said, grinning down at them. “So talk.”

  The way Jenks said it meant not talking wasn’t an option.

  “Life in the habitats sucks. I should clarify that: life in the outer edges of the habitats sucks. The cities seem to do pretty well now.” Chae wasn’t sure why they chose that to lead off with, but there it was. They were surprised to realize Jenks was right; the lifting was easier. Between basic and Interceptor training, they weren’t soft by any means, but the schedule Jenks had both Chae and Max on for training was more brutal than anything the NeoG could come up with, and it was paying off.

  “Okay, but the CHN is supposed to be on top of that.” Jenks raised an eyebrow when Chae just sat up and stared at her.

  “When was the last time you got a full requisition for parts, Chief?”

  Jenks blinked and then her laughter echoed through the mostly empty weight room. “Reprimand duly noted. Okay. Help me load
this bar for some actual work.”

  The silence wasn’t as heavy as they swapped plates and Chae took their spot at the top of the bench, Jenks lying down and settling herself into position.

  “Do your fathers know you’re sending them all your feds?”

  “Not all,” Chae protested, earning a flat look from Jenks.

  The chief took a deep breath and did her seven reps before racking the bar. “What’s frustrating is you’re going to make me drag this out of you piecemeal, Chae.” She shoved a hand into the shock of purple hair at the crown of her head and scrubbed with a hissing exhale as she got up. “It’s punishment, I assume, for all the times I didn’t trust my team enough to help me deal with shit.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Jenks poked them in the sternum and Chae swallowed. “Refuse to answer, tell me to mind my own fucking business, withhold the information if you really have to. But don’t fucking lie, Chae. I can’t stand it.”

  “The habitat needs it more than I do.” That wasn’t a lie, but Chae was surprised how desperately they wanted to spill everything. They dared a look in Jenks’s direction as they swapped plates again.

  Please don’t ask me why. I don’t want to lie to you, but I will to keep them safe.

  The lieutenant, and everyone else, joked that the chief was unpredictable. And they were right, but she also showed a great deal on her face. Right now there was calculation, presumably as she tried to figure out what to say next. But there was also concern, genuine concern for Chae.

  It made them feel even worse.

  “Maybe they do. But not at the cost of neglecting yourself. So here’s the deal: you keep a hundred of it from now on. No arguments,” she said, leaning on the bar and looking down at Chae when they lay on the bench. “If you need some feds to get you through to next payday, you let me know. But from here on out you’d better take care of yourself also. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “I should drop this bar on your throat,” Jenks replied. “Then you couldn’t call me that anymore.” She winked when she said it and Chae found themself smiling back as they grabbed the bar to start their set. They were starting to suspect the threats of violence were nothing but threats.

  At least until she finds out you’re lying to her.

  “We’ve got something else to talk about,” Jenks said, leaning on the bar before Chae could unrack it, and the dread nearly stopped Chae’s heart.

  “You want to tell me what that shit was in the boarding action yesterday?”

  “I—” It wasn’t the question Chae was expecting and they scrambled.

  Jenks didn’t say anything as she stared down at Chae, content to wait as they looked away and chewed at their lower lip.

  “I fucked up,” they finally said.

  “You did. You’re not the only one, but you did,” Jenks agreed without any heat. “Tell me what went wrong.”

  “I wasn’t—” Chae dropped their hands from the bar and sat up, dragging them through their short hair. “At the beginning? I got distracted watching you and Max and forgot where I was. You stopped and I crashed into you and, well, you know the rest.” They made a half-hearted stabbing gesture.

  “Ah.” Jenks tapped her hands on the bar, the rhythmic sound oddly soothing as Chae waited for the mockery. They’d tried so hard not to let their hero worship get in the way, but apparently it was dug in for the duration.

  “I wondered if this would come up.” There was no humor in Jenks’s voice. It was even, patient, and made Chae want to cry. “You know we can’t walk outside without a suit, right?”

  “Chief?”

  “Max and I aren’t superheroes, Chae, no matter what the sports announcers and those jokers on the SocMed say. We get up, we do the job, we go to bed. Same as everyone else. I’ve fucked up.” She inhaled and looked at the ceiling. “Man, have I fucked up. Thankfully, I haven’t gotten anyone killed in the process. I really hope I never do.”

  “But you’re so good at what you do.”

  Jenks wiggled her hand. “I’m good in the cage, yeah, but the Games aren’t just the cage. And out there really isn’t about what I can do alone. We’re a team.” She smiled. “Which is why I bring this up in the first place. We are so painfully not a team right now. Whatever the issue is between the commander and the lieutenant, they’ll get it sorted.”

  “You noticed that?” Chae hadn’t known what to make of Nika and Max’s stiff interactions over the last few days.

  “The whole station is gonna notice before it’s done. Whatever.” Jenks waved a hand. “That’s not my point. Why didn’t you tell anyone what you were going to do with D’Arcy from the beginning? We could have formed a whole plan around it.”

  “I—” Chae turned around. Something told them it would be better to face the chief when they said the words. “I didn’t think it would work.”

  “Why on earth not? You smoked him. No one, and I mean no one, expected that from you.” Jenks rubbed both hands over her face and muttered something that sounded a lot like “Fucking LT all over again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Jenks said, dropping her hands, “just don’t do it again. At least, not without filling me in first. You tell me when you have ideas. I do not care how wild they sound. I will listen to anything, consider anything. I won’t always agree or approve it, but you have to speak up. You’re part of this team or you’re not. But if you’re not, then that’s something we need to figure out now.”

  “I’m part of the team.”

  Jenks leaned down, tapping her ear as if she hadn’t heard. “What did you say?”

  “I’m part of the team,” Chae said with a conviction they almost felt.

  “Good.”

  “We’re not going to win the prelims.” Chae couldn’t stop the words from slipping out.

  “Not with an attitude like that we’re not,” Jenks replied, then sighed. “Yeah, I know. Look, I’ve got a lot of experience at losing, and it sucks, but I’ll tell you what Commander Martín told me. We don’t lose out there.” She pointed at the bulkhead. “What you did during the exercise might be training for the Games, but the Games is training for our job. That’s what’s important, and that’s where I need you to be my teammate, more than anything. There’s a whole lot of nothing beyond that wall, Chae. Empty space. It’s overwhelming if you think too much about how alone we are in the universe.” She held her hand out and squeezed when Chae took it.

  “That’s why this is crucial. Us, right here. We know we’ve got each other’s backs. We know the job matters so much more than a fucking trophy.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  Jenks leaned across the bar and pulled Chae into a hug. Then she tapped the spacer lightly on the side of the head. “From now on, when you’re doing boarding actions you keep that sword point down and away from your teammates, got it? You get me killed in real life and I’ll haunt your ass forever.” She smiled as she pulled away. “You keep calling me Chief, and I might haunt you while we’re both alive. And I’m going to train you on boarding actions until you hate me, because I do not want you stabbing me in the back for real.”

  Maybe I can trust her. If I told her what they wanted me to do, what I’ve already done, maybe she could help?

  They were about to say something when another thought came into their head.

  You thought Julia was trustworthy, too.

  It was like a cold wind on the back of their neck, chilling them all the way to their core. There wasn’t anyone they could trust here, not when the lives of everyone at the habitat depended on it.

  Still, the weight of the new instructions they’d received was lying heavily in their stomach and Chae wished for all the world there was some way to keep both the crew and the habitat safe.

  Even though they knew there wasn’t.

  Thirteen

  “According to Stephan it’s just the two devices. One on the bridge of Zuma and
one by my doorway here on the station.” Nika counted himself lucky that the conversation he’d had with Stephan in his room had happened before Chae planted the listening device.

  “He’s recommending we leave them for now,” Admiral Hoboins said, steepling his fingers on his desk in front of him. “Thoughts?”

  “The one in quarters is easy enough to manage. There’s too much echo when everyone is in the main room and I can watch what I say otherwise.” Nika rubbed a hand through his hair. “The bridge is trickier, but thankfully we haven’t been back out since Chae planted it, so all they’ve likely gotten was Jenks grumbling about the lack of parts for the main console tune-up.”

  Hoboins grinned. “She’s been in the requisition office three times since you got back. I’m working on getting those parts, Commander, I promise. If only so Captain Rells can get a good night’s sleep.”

  Nika laughed, then sobered. “It will be harder to keep classified information secret when we head back out.”

  “The good news is you want them to overhear your next mission plans. It makes springing this trap easier.” Hoboins paused and studied him for a long moment. “How are you holding up?”

  “Fine.” Nika resisted the urge to shift under the admiral’s steely gaze.

  “Excellent.” Hoboins leaned his elbows on his desk. “Now you want to give me the truth?”

  Awful. Horrible. I’ve made a huge mistake and Stephan should have tapped someone else for this position. Even Max could do a better job than I have.

  All the words fought for prominence in his mouth, but none came out the clear winner before Hoboins sighed. “I know that look, Nika, even if you can’t find the words for it. Rosa used to wear it a lot early on, before she realized just how good she was at the job. And she wasn’t the only one. You get to be my age with this much time in the black, you see it a lot. What’s on your mind, son?”

  “Too much.”

  “Fair enough.” Hoboins nodded, then considered his next words. “Let me ask you a better question: What are you most afraid of right now?”

  “Getting people killed.” The words brought with them a rush of memory. The warehouse on Trappist-1e and the sick realization that he’d walked his team into a trap. The heat of the flames as the lab caught fire. The desperation in his throat as he’d shoved his teammates in front of him toward the door. The shockwave of the explosion hitting him in the back and then the crushing blackness of the building falling.