by J. J. Green
Then the smuggler began to show signs of throwing off the effects of the Enthrall. He blinked and appeared to try to focus his eyes.
“Hmpf,” said Cadwallader. “Time for him to go back to his cell.”
“Yes,” Carina agreed. “I’ll take him.”
She told Lomang to go with her.
As she walked with him en route to the brig, she asked softly, “Are you hiding something, you old crook?”
Lomang only blinked.
Chapter Three
After returning Lomang to his cell, Carina encountered Bryce again in a corridor.
“Are you stalking me?” she asked teasingly.
Bryce smiled. “You’re an irresistible attraction.”
“So, what’s this news you want to tell me? You clearly can’t wait.”
“Well…” He put his hands on her waist. “Mmm. You really are irresistible, you know.” He pulled her toward him and they kissed.
Carina utterly relaxed in his arms. She loved these moments they stole together, which were too few and far between.
Some time later, Carina heard Atoi say, “Ewww. For stars’ sake, get a cabin.”
She was watching them, hands on hips, shaking her head.
Laughing, they broke their embrace.
“We have a cabin,” Bryce protested. “It’s full of kids.”
“Then do it in the mission room during the quiet shift like any other self-respecting crew member.” Atoi strode away, still shaking her head.
Pulling Carina close again, Bryce said, “As soon as we’re aboard the inter-sector ship we’ll be able to have our own cabin, right? I’ve seen how big it is. The living quarters must be huge.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they are,” Carina replied. Then she added, with regret, “but I guess Darius and Nahla are still going to want to sleep with us.”
Ever since escaping the Nightfall and their mother dying, Darius had always preferred to sleep near Carina. She’d never had the heart to discourage him. He was so young and he’d been through so much, it felt wrong to force him to sleep in his own bed.
And poor Nahla had been a mess of anxiety ever since witnessing Stevenson’s death and being trapped in the pilot’s cabin with his dead body. The little girl had lost all the bright cheerfulness she’d developed since escaping the control of her eldest brother, Castiel.
Bryce heaved a sigh. “I guess so. Still, we should be able to get some privacy sometimes, right?”
“Yeah, we should.” Carina added, with concern, “Do you think Atoi was serious about the crew using the mission room for their trysts?” She’d begun to feel icky.
“You would have a better idea about that than me,” said Bryce, pointedly.
A flicker of tension passed between them.
Was he going to bring up her history with the Black Dogs again? She thought he’d gotten over his jealousy.
“Anyway,” he continued, “with all that space available, we should manage to finally get some time together. Just you and me.”
“Yes, we should.” Carina agreed.
The corridor was empty.
She leaned in for a kiss.
“We’ll need to after we get married, after all,” he murmured.
She paused. “What?”
“That was my news,” Bryce said, his face centimeters from hers. His eyes were warm and happy. “I talked to Jace about it. He says he can perform the ceremony. He can marry us, mage-style. Isn’t that great?”
Carina put her hands on his chest and moved her head back. “You talked to Jace about us getting married?”
“The subject kind of came up.” Bryce chuckled and turned a little pink. “To be honest, I brought it up. That was what the Matching was for, after all, wasn’t it? To find romantic partners. I thought to myself, mage tradition has to include a next step after the Matching. It turns out a mage wedding ceremony is pretty much the same as a regular one. You make promises to each other and then do some other stuff Jace said he would explain later. The best part is, he can officiate. He said he’d be happy to. Who would have thought, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Carina. “Who would have thought?”
Bryce was studying her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She forced a smile. “I’m just a bit surprised. I hadn’t really thought about us getting married yet.”
“You hadn’t?” Bryce asked. His arms fell to his sides and he took a step back. His happy expression had faded to unease. “Hadn’t the idea even crossed your mind? I mean, I don’t understand why not. We love each other. It’s only natural we should get married.”
“I do love you,” said Carina. “But…”
Bryce’s eyes grew serious as she struggled to complete her sentence.
Eventually, he said, “I thought we were on the same wavelength but clearly I was wrong. I’ve really sprung this on you, haven’t I? But I don’t understand, Carina. What is there to think about?”
She didn’t have an answer. She didn’t know if her reluctance was due to the days she’d spent as a merc, when no one got too close to anyone else, knowing the dangerous lives they were leading. Or perhaps it was Nai Nai’s warning never to get involved with non-mages, which the old lady had drummed into her from as far back as she could remember. Or maybe it was a fear of what Bryce would be getting into, that he would be snatched from her and murdered, like Ba. She didn’t know what exactly was holding her back.
“I guess there’s a lot to think about,” Bryce said, his expression a mixture of sadness, hurt, and disappointment.
She tried to think of something to say to reassure him, but nothing suitable sprang to her lips.
She felt like shit. After all Bryce had done and given up for her, she wanted to make him happy, but she also couldn’t lie to him. The thought of the two of them getting married filled her with anxiety.
He went to say something, but an alert suddenly blared from the shipwide comm.
The Duchess was under attack.
“Crew to battle stations,” ordered Cadwallader, his voice resounding along the passage. “The destroyer that severed us from the Zenobia is approaching. Prepare to engage.”
They stared at each other. Carina wanted to hug Bryce before they parted to perform their duties. If the Duchess didn’t survive the battle, they might never see each other again. But she hesitated. Their brief conversation had thrown a barrier between them.
She saw the same indecision in Bryce’s eyes. Abruptly, he turned and strode away, heading for his station.
Hurt seared Carina’s chest. She swallowed.
However, like Bryce, she also had a station she had to get to.
Unfortunately, it was on the other side of the ship. She set off, jogging toward the docking port, where she had to prepare to repel any boarders.
Damn Lomang’s wife!
She’d been the danger the smuggler had managed to avoid mentioning. His wife had known the coordinates of his inter-sector ship, and she been waiting in the vicinity, perhaps in case Lomang managed to make it there, or in case the Duchess turned up.
Cadwallader had asked him, What else is there to prevent us from assuming control of the Bathsheba?
Not who else.
Chapter Four
Carina had almost reached the docking port, when—
“Brace for acceleration,” ordered a voice over the shipwide comm.
It took her a moment to recognize the speaker: it was the former co-pilot, Hsiao, who had taken over from Stevenson.
She scanned her surroundings for somewhere to prop herself against or something to hold onto before the Duchess sped up. Only the hand bars that lined the corridor just above head height—for use if the ship lost a-grav—were available.
She reached up, but just as her hand touched a bar the full acceleration force hit, flinging her along the passage and into a wall. Her skull and back smacked into the hard surface and air whooshed from her lungs.
The ship continued to move so fast she didn�
��t slide to the floor but remained pressed against the wall.
Hsiao was really gunning it.
Struggling to breathe and trying to ignore the pain radiating from her head and spine, Carina hoped neither the kids nor Bryce had been hurt.
What was Cadwallader’s reasoning behind the massive acceleration?
The last time the Duchess had faced Lomang’s wife’s ship, the fate of the battle had seemed sealed before it had even begun. The destroyer carried a particle lance, a weapon the mercs’ vessel had little defense against. Pulse cannon fire could disrupt the particle beam somewhat, and a well-aimed shot could take out the lance, but at close quarters and unimpeded, a particle lance was deadly. A single direct hit, or rather ‘slice’, of a lance’s beam would breach most ships’ hulls.
Decompression would be fast and fatal to anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the path of the escaping air. Unlike the last time the Duchess had been hit by the lance, its occupants were not wearing EVA suits.
Had Cadwallader ordered Hsiao to try to outrun the destroyer? But the mercs’ vessel didn’t have the capability.
Then it hit her. The lieutenant colonel was trying to reach the Bathsheba. If the Duchess moved between the destroyer and the inter-sector ship, Lomang’s wife might hesitate to fire, reluctant to risk damaging the larger vessel.
It was a smart move. In the circumstances, it was the only move.
Carina also had an idea what Cadwallader’s end game was. If she was right, he would need her at her station.
She was pressed against a wall where the corridor turned around a corner. Grimacing at the effort, she twisted herself around and reached for the nearest handhold. Her fingers closed around the bar and she pulled herself forward against the force of acceleration, in the direction of the docking port. She gave out a grunt as she reached for the next bar, and the next, hauling herself hand over hand along the wall.
At the far end of the corridor, another merc appeared from an adjoining passage. He was also crawling along the vertical surface toward the port.
Cadwallader’s voice barked from her ear comm, “Where are you, Lin? Why aren’t you at your station?”
“On my way,” she replied with some effort. “I’m trying, but—”
The lieutenant colonel cut her off. “Never mind. I need you there ASAP. I want you to lead a boarding party.”
“A party to board the Bathsheba?”
“Unless you had somewhere else in mind?” Cadwallader’s tone was sharp and sarcastic. “We’ve taken out the lasers defending one of the airlocks. ETA four minutes. Make it.”
The comm went dead.
Shit.
Why her? Why not Atoi? As a captain, her friend was the obvious choice for the job.
Carina hoped Atoi hadn’t been hurt, and that it was only that Cadwallader had another task in mind for her.
She grasped the next rung and pulled with all her strength. To run the distance to the port from her position would have only taken thirty seconds in normal conditions, but at the Duchess’s current acceleration she would be lucky to reach it in ten minutes.
Cadwallader had said she only had four. It was an impossible task.
She groaned as she dragged her body forward. By pushing her toes into the bars behind her she could propel herself onward a little and lessen the strain on her arms, which were already in agony. The sweat oozing from the skin on her hands also made gripping the handholds difficult.
The ship shuddered. It had been a hit.
Yelling echoed down the corridor. Someone was issuing orders, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. The Duchess must have received some damage.
How long had it been since Cadwallader had comm’d her? It had to be thirty seconds or even a whole minute.
The docking port remained frustratingly far away.
The merc ahead of her seemed to be barely moving too.
Another problem popped into Carina’s mind: she wasn’t in armor or carrying a weapon. According to Lomang’s responses while Enthralled, the Bathsheba carried no crew, but his wife would probably also attempt to board the ship. If that happened a fight for control was a given.
An armory was situated near the port but reaching it would take additional time—time she didn’t have.
Then she realized the flaw in her thinking. She’d been imagining the acceleration would continue, but if the Duchess sped up, that meant the ship also had to—
“Brace for braking,” instructed Hsiao.
Carina quickly clutched two bars with all her might and scrabbled her feet around, trying to hook her toes under another bar.
The deceleration hit—hard.
When the reversal in forces came, her slippery hands couldn’t hold onto the metal bars. As she flew down the passage, she lifted an arm to try to protect her head.
Her elbow took the full force of the impact.
She screamed as its bones shattered.
The deceleration was pushing her into the wall but it wasn’t sufficient to hold her upright. She slid to the floor. Her right arm was strangely bent and blood soaked into her sleeve.
The other merc who had been trying to get to the port hit the wall beside her, but he was wearing armor that protected him.
He lifted his visor and pulled a face when he peered closer at Carina’s wound. He slipped a knife from a sheath on his thigh and slit her sleeve open.
Bone shards were poking through her skin at her elbow.
“I’ll comm for a medic.”
“No,” she gasped. “It’s okay. Just…” she ground her jaw to prevent herself from crying out, “…just take the flask from my hip and pour some of the liquid into my mouth,” she finished through clenched teeth.
The merc’s eyebrows lifted but he did as she instructed.
The flavor of elixir was usually disgusting, but at that moment she didn’t think she’d tasted anything more delicious.
She closed her eyes, forcing away the agony from her arm that threatened to consume her mind. She wrote the Heal Character in her mind’s eye, and sent it out.
A second or two later, the pain began to fade.
She opened her eyes and looked at her elbow.
The bone shards had withdrawn into her skin, and the wound was closing up. Within a few beats her arm resumed a regular shape. Soon, all that remained of her injury was rapidly drying blood.
“Stars,” breathed the watching merc. “I knew you could do magic but I didn’t know you could do that.”
“It isn’t magic,” said Carina irritably.
“Shit,” she added, recalling Cadwallader’s command. “We have to get to the docking port.”
She screwed the lid onto her elixir canister, replaced it in its holster, and leapt to her feet.
The Duchess had continued to slow with brutal force while she’d been Healing herself, and the braking continued. Good. It meant they still had time before the ship attempted to dock with the Bathsheba.
She began to run, pressing her hand against the wall to counteract the rapid deceleration.
The armory appeared ahead of her, the doorway open. She ran inside, snatched one of the few remaining suits, and hastily put it on. Only two rifles remained. She grabbed one from its cradle.
As she’d been suiting up, the deceleration had eased.
“Lin,” blurted Cadwallader from her ear comm, “where the hell are you?”
It was a rhetorical question. The lieutenant colonel knew exactly where she was. Her armor would have identified her from her bio signatures and logged her position in the ship’s system.
“Nearly there, sir,” she replied.
Sir? Where had that come from?
She’d automatically slotted back into merc mode, but there was no time to ponder it.
Carina sprinted out of the armory and headed for the port.
As she was running, the Duchess jerked violently, throwing her to her knees. Had the ship taken another hit?
Or maybe they hadn’t be
en hit—maybe they’d clamped onto the Bathsheba.
She rounded the final corner and ran directly into a bunch of ten or more mercs in armor. The men and women were checking their weapons and lowering their visors.
Names appeared on her HUD, identifying the soldiers. Bryce was not among them, which wasn’t surprising—his battle station was at the Duchess’s airlock. Yet she found herself wishing he was there.
The mercs turned to face her, awaiting orders.
Chapter Five
Parthenia opened the door to her cabin and peeked out. Mercenaries in full armor and holding pulse rifles across their chests were running past, all heading in one direction.
“What’s happening?” Oriana asked, peering over Parthenia’s shoulder.
“Oh!” She drew back as she caught sight of the soldiers. “Where are they going?”
“To the docking port, I think,” Parthenia replied, annoyed. She pressed the button to close the door. “No one’s told us anything. They’ve forgotten we exist.”
“They have better things to do than give battle updates to a bunch of kids,” said Ferne. He was lying on the bunk he shared with Oriana, his hands behind his head and his legs splayed out, taking advantage of having the entire bed to himself. “I’m just glad all that horrible accelerating and braking is over.”
“We aren’t just a bunch of kids,” said Parthenia. “If there’s a fight going on, why didn’t they ask if we could help, like we did at the mages’ mountain castle on Ostillon? It’s as if Carina and the rest of the adults have forgotten all about everything we did.”
“That was pretty awesome.” Ferne grinned and sat up. “I reckon I Transported at least five Dirksen soldiers.”
He mimed a throw. “Pow!” And then another. “Kerpow!”
“It was exciting,” Oriana said, “until Darius got hurt.”
“Oh, yeah.” Ferne’s face fell. “I forgot about that.”
He looked at his little brother, who was sitting on the bunk opposite, playing a game on an interface with Nahla. “But you’re okay now, right, Darius?”
