Hold Fast Through the Fire

by K. B. Wagers

  “Jenks, how can I help?” Tivo whispered.

  “By leaving me the fuck alone. I don’t need help.” I need Luis to be alive and for this whole thing to have been a terrible nightmare. She shoved to her feet and slammed the wrench into the bulkhead. “I don’t need anyone!”

  Metal clanged against metal, the reverb a shock to her hands, but she kept at it—again and again—and every swing dragged pain up past the grief. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I didn’t get to say goodbye, I didn’t get to tell him I loved him.” She collapsed against the bulkhead and slid, sobbing, toward the floor.

  Tivo caught her before she hit and this time Jenks clung to him. “Shh. I’m sorry, Pocket. I’m so sorry.”

  “If I tell you I thought about walking out an airlock, will you report me?” The words hurt coming out of her throat, but she made herself say them. She couldn’t have Luis back, but she could follow the orders she kept hearing in her head, no matter how hard it was.

  Tivo made a pained noise and tightened his arms around her, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “I’ll have to, Pocket, you know that.”

  “I want to make this all go away. I want to be gone so I don’t have to feel anything. Then I think about how it’ll hurt everyone who’s already hurting and I don’t.” She buried her face against his chest. “I just don’t think I can keep going like this.”

  “I appreciate you telling me and I’m here for you, whatever you need. Luis wouldn’t want this for you. He was so relieved you two had talked and—”

  “We didn’t talk,” Jenks whispered. “I didn’t get to say goodbye. I was too busy being angry.”

  “Jenks, how much of the day of the explosion do you remember?” He leaned back and cupped her face. It hurt to meet his gaze but she made herself.

  “Not much,” she admitted.

  “I have something I’d like you to read.”

  The notification popped into her vision. Jenks opened the email and all the air left her lungs.

  Tiv—

  Just got off the com with Dai. She let me apologize, after trying to break it off, because I fell in love with the most stubborn woman in the entire universe. One of these days I’ll get her to realize how amazing she is and that she’s worth every drop of love I can squeeze into the time we have together.

  I know you’re set to hit the station again. See if she’ll talk to you. I can’t guarantee she won’t take a swing first, but she did promise to listen and she might accept your apology. Just don’t fuck it up.

  Give her a kiss for me, if she’ll let you.

  I miss you both.

  Luis

  The world went gray around her.

  “Hey, hey, breathe for me.”

  Jenks dragged air into her uncooperative lungs and blinked until Tivo’s face refocused in front of her. “I don’t—I don’t remember talking to him.”

  “I know. I know. It happens.” He touched his forehead to hers. “But you did talk to him. I don’t know what was said, but from his message it seemed like good news. I was on my way to find you when the explosion went off.” She saw the composure finally crack and his own grief spilled through. “I came so close to losing both of you.”

  “I keep hearing his voice in my head. Words I don’t remember him saying, but maybe . . .” Jenks closed her eyes for a moment and then forced herself to meet Tivo’s gaze again. “Luis has always been on me about being more vulnerable, about letting people in. Especially the people I care about. All I want to do is shut everything down, but I can hear him in my head telling me not to and maybe those are the last words he ever said to me.” She swallowed and whispered, “I’m lying about not needing anyone.

  “I need you,” she said. “I need my brother and Max and Tamago and everyone else. I can’t do this on my own, but I don’t know how to ask for help. I’m no good at it. So please be patient with me?”

  “It’s okay.” Tivo shifted and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m here and I’ll help you however you need. Starting with finding someone for you to talk to.”

  “She’s got a damn therapist if she’d just talk to her.”

  Jenks choked on a laugh when Sapphi’s voice echoed from behind them.

  “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop—okay, maybe a little. But Doge wanted to zap the lieutenant and I thought maybe that was a bad idea, so I promised him I’d come check and make sure everything was okay.” Sapphi took a breath, dropping to her knees next to Jenks and wrapping her arms around her friend. “I know I’m babbling but I can’t help it. I’m sorry. I love you, how can I help?”

  Jenks pulled Sapphi into a hug. “I love you, too, and I don’t know. But thank you for being here.”

  “Promise you’ll go talk to your therapist.”

  “I promise, Sapphi.”

  “So you trust me now, right?”

  Nika glanced in D’Arcy’s direction as they headed for the low-g tube. “D’Arcy, I trusted you with my life before all this. I just knew other people wouldn’t. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t like the feeling rolling in my gut, Nika. This was too easy. They hit us without even a hint of what was going down. What happens when they do it again?”

  “I don’t know,” Nika replied, keeping his voice low even though they were alone in the corridor. “Max is working on something, but she doesn’t have enough of a plan put together yet.”

  “Do you think this operation is why Stephan wanted us all to go to Trappist?”

  “I know it is—he told me that before I left Earth. It all goes back to Trappist, D’Arcy, and they’re trying to start this war with Free Mars purely to distract from it.”

  “Sacrificing hundreds of thousands of people just to make money.” D’Arcy muttered a second curse. “At least the Free Mars leadership denied responsibility.”

  “We just have to hope that cooler heads in the CHN will prevail on that front, while we work as fast as we can to bring Tieg down.”

  They walked along in silence until they hit the tube and Nika followed D’Arcy down to the gym. D’Arcy grabbed the practice swords off the wall and tossed one in Nika’s direction.

  “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” D’Arcy said.

  Nika looked around. The gym was empty for the most part. There were a few smaller groups of Neos talking quietly, some seeking the solace of the weights or the treadmills to ease their pain.

  D’Arcy saluted with his sword. “I know what I’m about to say doesn’t seem important now, but it is.”

  “What’s that?” Nika saluted back.

  “This.” D’Arcy struck and Nika brought his sword up to parry. “Dread’s out of the running, Nika. Even if I wanted to bring in someone to replace Akane, and . . . Paul. It’s too close to the prelims.”

  “The prelims?” Nika spun sideways, his sword arm moving automatically, slipping under D’Arcy’s guard and scoring a touch with a midtoned buzz from the sword. “That’s the last thing on our minds at this point.”

  “It should be the first. Listen to me, and then when you’re out in the station, look around. This hurt us, Nika, and it was meant to.”

  They fought in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds their breathing, the slide of feet across the mat, and the dull chime of swords.

  “You and Flux have the best chance of winning the prelims now, and you’re the recognizable teams,” D’Arcy said, lowering his weapon. “They’re not going to add five teams from the waitlist, not with this short a notice and this grief hanging over everything. So the field will be smaller. If you all are at the top of your game, you’ll do fine.”

  “We’re not at the top of our game, though. Jenks isn’t in any shape to fight. I’m not sure she will be in a little over two weeks.”

  “I suspect you won’t be able to keep her out of the cage if she wants to go.” D’Arcy stepped back and dropped his sword. “I also wouldn’t put it past her and Max to fudge how badly she’s hurt, just as a heads-up.”

>   “That does sound like them.” Nika rubbed his free hand over the back of his neck. “Recommendations on how to handle it? I don’t want to put her at risk.”

  “Again, I don’t think you can stop her. I just don’t know if she wants to fight.”

  Nika thought of the hour he’d spent before this in the medical bay with Jenks, listening to his sister’s quiet confession that she’d been considering killing herself and the relentless ache that was causing in his chest.

  She was back in their quarters now, the doctor having agreed to release her provided someone was with her at all times. They didn’t have the room for her in the med bay with all the wounded still recovering from the attack, and whatever answers Jenks had given Dr. Shaylan and her therapist had seemed to weigh the balance in her favor.

  “I don’t know, either,” he finally said to D’Arcy. “I don’t know what losing Luis will do to her love of the Games. It doesn’t seem worth it.”

  “I know, but it is.” D’Arcy exhaled. “This is as much a political fight as it is just a game. If you’ve got a better way to show these bastards we’re not beaten, I’d love to hear it. But in my mind, getting out there and competing in the preliminaries is the best ‘fuck you’ we have.”

  Max stared at the images hanging in the air in front of her eyes. It was one thing to help Stephan with his investigation and quite another for her team to have to take it on themselves. She felt like she was starting from scratch and trying to piece together a broken mirror.

  Even with the information she’d gotten from Julia, Max wasn’t sure how to close that last gap and work up charges against the three people at the top that would stick.

  “I wish I’d thought to ask you what you’d already tried and discarded, Stephan,” she murmured to herself, reaching out to flick the photo of Melanie Karenina into the foreground.

  Sapphi had added to the bios on all the suspects over the last week, mercilessly exploiting her hacker contacts in (and, more accurately, out of) the system to build out fairly robust profiles. And the more Max learned about the woman, the more she disliked her.

  She’d had it all. A two-time winner of the sword competition in the Games, an excellent career with the NeoG, and none of it had meant anything to her.

  The problem, Max knew, wasn’t trying to figure out who was responsible. Stephan had put together a solid case on that front. It was figuring out how to make these very powerful people pay for what they’d done.

  “That’s a look I’m glad I’m not on the receiving end of,” Nika said, sitting down next to her. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Trying to remind myself why flying to Earth and stabbing a CHN senator and the CEO of Trappist Express would be ill-advised.”

  Nika lifted an eyebrow, seemingly unsurprised by the vitriol in her voice. “Probably a bad idea, yes.”

  “My name might keep me from getting killed,” Max said with a bitter smile. “The irony of it finally being worth something doesn’t escape me. God, I can hear my mother’s disappointed voice now.”

  “I’d rather you stick around here. We need you.”

  She ran a finger over the back of his hand with a soft smile. “Jenks is in one of the spare rooms with Tivo. I think she’s finally sleeping.”

  “Good.”

  “I feel like I let her down,” Max whispered. “I should have pushed harder, paid more attention. I didn’t even realize she’d wandered away from me to that airlock. When I think about what almost happened, Nika, I—”

  “Max, you were not only grieving like the rest of us but trying to figure out how to bring these people down. Don’t blame yourself for not managing to be everything to everyone. That’s why we’re a team.” He looked a bit rueful. “One day, we’re all going to remember we can’t do everything for everyone at once.”

  Max laughed, the sound a surprise to her ears, and she rested her head against Nika’s shoulder for a moment as the feelings overwhelmed her.

  “You okay?” he murmured against her hair.

  “Yeah, it’s been a hell of a week.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She lifted her head. “I’m proud of us, though, coming together when we could have splintered apart.”

  The moment the words left her mouth she realized how true they were and saw that knowledge reflected in Nika’s blue gaze. The members of their team had, in the face of this fire, pulled together even more than any of them expected to.

  Chae and Tamago had their heads together in Chae’s bunk and Max was relieved that Tamago seemed to have forgiven the younger Neo. Sapphi was sleeping in the other private room after Max had threatened her with a trip to medical if she didn’t stop and rest.

  They were working together and talking to one another, even with all the chaos of reconstruction and a new NeoG admiral thrown into the mix. Max knew Jenks would be struggling for a while, but she was trying and that was enough.

  “There’s something else, too. D’Arcy thinks we should make a push for the prelims. Show these people they haven’t beaten us.”

  “Dread’s out,” Max said, and Nika nodded.

  “Yeah, he told Admiral Chen. Green Machine lost three members. Sol Rising lost Shay, and Orbital Jam lost Commander Roussel.”

  “I liked Shay,” Max said, swallowing back the tears. “I’m going to miss sparring with her. It scares me how much I want to make them hurt for what they’ve done, Nika.”

  “I know.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “And we will, but not by flying to Earth and stabbing them, okay?”

  “Can we keep it as a backup plan?”

  He wondered if Max knew how much she sounded like Jenks at times. “Yeah, we can keep it as a backup plan. Now, I know you, so tell me what you’ve been working on.”

  Max shared out her DD view with him. “I was thinking about what Chae said to Julia about you. According to her she passed that message on before the explosion. How do you feel about using yourself as bait to get Melanie to come to Trappist?”

  Interstitial

  “Welcome, everyone, to TSN—The Sports Network—where we are starting the second day of the preliminaries for the NeoG. The fight to decide which two teams will go on to compete in the Boarding Games is already in full swing here. I’m Pace McClellan, and with me as always is Barnes Overton.”

  “Hey folx, as you all know we’re dealing with a decidedly different tone this year, as the attacks on the NeoG that happened just a few short weeks ago have made things very subdued.”

  “That’s true, Barnes. Our hearts go out to the families of those who were hurt and killed in the attacks. There was a lot of discussion over the last few weeks about whether these games were even going to happen given that multiple NeoG teams were effectively knocked out of the prelims.”

  “A lot of discussion, yes. But what we’ve heard repeatedly from the Neos themselves is that they wanted to compete to honor their fallen comrades, and I can’t say I blame them. Though what a rough thing to do, to put aside your grief and focus on the Games instead.”

  “It’s a hard choice to make.”

  “It is and it isn’t, Pace. I served in the Navy, and I have to say that if we’d been hit like the Neos, I’d like to think I’d be raring to go, too.”

  “From a former Boarding Games champion to your ears, everyone. So let’s take a look at where the action has gotten us so far. As we get things started here on the second day of competition, Zuma’s Ghost seems to be leading the field. In fact, if you’re joining us to watch Chief Altandai Khan step into the cage, that’s what’s coming up next.”

  “It’s interesting, because even prior to the attacks, there were a lot of rumors about whether Zuma would suit up given the major personnel turnover they had with the departure of Commander Rosa Martín Rivas and Master Chief Ma Lěi. However, so far it looks like the whole team is focused on taking the number one slot, and I’m here for it.”

  “Playing favorites?”

  “Hard not to like back-to
-back champs. I think they can at least defend their NeoG title for a third time.”

  “It’s not an unrealistic goal, Barnes, no matter how new this crew is. We’re seeing Chief Khan come out onto the floor now. Jenks, as I’m sure most of you know her, is a crowd favorite, and normally easy to spot even when she’s not competing. But she has been less visible for these preliminaries than previous ones. Why do you think that is?”

  “Well, we know she was injured in the attack on Jupiter Station, but the details on how are pretty sparse. I’m guessing she’s been trying to downplay any injuries to avoid giving her opponents an advantage. More than that, though, she’s undoubtedly mourning the loss of her friends.”

  “Undoubtedly. Jenks is stepping into the ring now—let’s see how she handles her first fight . . .”

  Thirty-Two

  “That’s match! Winner on points, Chief Khan.”

  Jenks grimaced at Avenging Heroes’ fighter, Petty Officer Daly Hunter. “Good fight, Hunter.” She meant it to be a smile, but wasn’t sure her mouth knew how to do that anymore. Daly didn’t seem to need it; he just nodded in return.

  She exhaled, touched her index and middle fingers to her mouth for a moment, and pointed them up. The cheers of the crowd fell silent at the tribute and Jenks headed out of the cage.

  News cameras were flying around, thicker than usual, but Jenks didn’t pay them much attention. At least until the sight of Asabi Han stopped her in her tracks.

  “That was quite the fight,” she said with a smile. The star was dressed in impeccably tailored pants and a deep blue shirt.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your email.” Jenks closed her eyes briefly with a muttered curse at the ridiculous words coming out of her mouth.

  “Oh no, don’t apologize. It’s perfectly understandable. I just wanted to let you know I was thinking of you.” Asabi glanced around. “Do you have a moment? Somewhere more private we could talk?”