Chain Reaction (7 page)

He stared at her, shocked.

“It’s just…” She struggled, as if piecing together each word. “If this was just hero worship, it wouldn’t be so…unsettling.”

“It isn’t hero worship,” he said.

“
That
, I know how to deal with. But I see it in your gaze, the way you speak to me, the way you…kiss me.” Her voice roughened. “I’m more than Stainless Jur to you. I’m…a
woman
.”

He rubbed at his jaw, trying to digest this stunning revelation. “And that scares you.”

She laughed without humor. “What a damned joke—Stainless Jur always wanting someone to see her as a woman, and then when someone finally does…” Her gaze was bereft. “I don’t know what happens afterward. And that scares me too much to take the chance.”

He felt equally mystified. How could he reassure the strongest person he knew?

A trilling sound came from the tracking device, drawing his attention. As he silenced the tracking device, he felt the moment between him and Celene crumble away like so much stellar dust. He had nothing to grasp.

“We’ve found our traitor,” Nils said. Too much distance stood between them and Marek’s location to have visual confirmation. But Nils had calibrated the tracking device to alert them the moment the signal became fractionally stronger. At the least, it gave them an even more precise direction toward which to fly.

“How far out are we?” Celene leaned close, gaze fixed to the tracking device.

“Still difficult to know.” He forced his attention on the screen in front of him, yet her nearness threatened to throw him out of alignment.

“Hazard a guess.”

“Flying straight, a matter of solar hours. However, between us and our target are several of the regions Gabela advised us to avoid. We’ll have to fly around them.”

“Assuming the turncoat’s at the other end of this journey,” she said, grim, “I don’t care how long it takes to reach him.”

On that, Nils had to agree. With their target so close but millions of miles between them, conversation in the Phantom died. Tension filled the small ship. Whenever he glanced over at Celene, he saw her mouth compressed into a line, her hands tight on the controls.

Think of something to say.
Anything to bridge the chasm between them. What she’d revealed to him, about her fear, her uncertainty… It took a lot of courage to admit that. And he admired her for it.

Instinct directed him now. She needed patience, distance. But not too much distance so that they lost sight of one another. She had to know that he was there, with no plans to leave.

“They kept it quiet.” He broke the silence. “Your being taken prisoner.”

She frowned. “Not like 8
^th
Wing to keep personnel uninformed.”

“A few knew. Most didn’t. I didn’t.” And he was glad too. Had he known, he wouldn’t have slept or eaten until she’d been rescued. Gods, he would’ve volunteered to lead the extraction mission himself. Given his lack of combat experience, it was probably best that Commander Frayne and Mara Skiren had been the ones to go.

“Why wouldn’t Command tell anyone?”

He entered coordinates into the navigation system, allowing them to skirt the edge of a PRAXIS-heavy zone. “My guess: it would be bad for morale. If Stainless Jur could be captured, anything might happen.”

“My stock should have dropped after Kell and Mara brought me back.” Her mouth twisted cynically. “The fallen idol.”

“You were raised up even higher. Nothing you could’ve done to prevent the capture, and after Commander Frayne’s report circulated, everyone heard how you fought like a
siyahwolf
.”

“Wondered why I got an even wider berth than normal when I got back.” An echo of loneliness hollowed her gaze.

If he’d known… What? What might he have done? He wasn’t the same man he was three solar months ago. He wasn’t the same man he was since leaving the 8
^th
Wing base.

“I went to work as soon as you returned,” he said. “All of my other duties, my assignments, I put them all aside so I could find whoever had done that to you.”

“Making sure it never happened to another Black Wraith pilot.”

“To ensure that
you
would be avenged.”

She stared at him, something like yearning in her gaze. Then it shuttered. At least now he knew why she shut him out. So he let the subject go. For now.

In silence, they continued to follow the tracking device, pushing through corners of the galaxy little traveled by 8
^th
Wing. Unknown solar systems gleamed off their wings.

“Maybe PRAXIS is out here too,” he murmured to himself.

To his surprise, she answered. “Little surprise if they are. Their greed doesn’t stop.”

The megacorporation consumed the resources of every planetary system it could find, using them up like so much energy cells, and discarding them once they had sucked the planet dry. Leaving a wake of chaos. One could easily chart PRAXIS’s progress by the path of ruined worlds, peaceful, orderly places that degenerated into anarchy after PRAXIS had taken everything of value.

“Everyone in 8
^th
Wing knows PRAXIS’s M.O.,” he said. “Not just training, but from firsthand experience.”

Celene nodded, likely thinking, as he did, of the pattern. PRAXIS approached a planet, offering technological advancement and plentiful employment in exchange for mining the world’s resources. Almost every planet welcomed them eagerly. And for a few solar cycles, life on the world did get better. More work, more wealth. But the moment PRAXIS decided the planet had nothing more to offer, they pulled out. And a world that had grown dependent on a single industry collapsed. Poverty. Crime. War. Entire global populations wiping themselves out.

If a planet declined PRAXIS’s generous offer, as many had tried to do when word spread about their tactics, they met the full brunt of PRAXIS’s military might. No world could match them. The moment a planet fell into PRAXIS’s crosshairs, it was doomed.

“They almost got my homeworld,” Celene said quietly. “But the 8
^th
Wing beat them back, and we were safe. That’s when I decided to join. To protect other planets and solar systems who can’t protect themselves.”

The trouble was that PRAXIS was far bigger than the 8
^th
Wing, and better equipped.

He stared at the glint of stars and planets shining in the distance. Even now, these places might be collapsing beneath the weight of PRAXIS’s crushing demands. Nothing he could do about it, however much he wished it otherwise.

“All we can do is continue on this mission,” he said. “Keep the 8
^th
Wing strong and combat-ready.”

“Ready to kick some PRAXIS ass,” she said with a little smile. He smiled, too, and the tension between them loosened fractionally.

Something drew his focus. “Visual confirmation established.” He pointed to the viewscreen. There, barely more than a shimmering gleam, hung a small planet.

“Marek definitely found himself a good place to hide,” Celene said. “We’re on the edge of nowhere.”

Their position didn’t match any 8
^th
Wing starcharts, which meant that they were far outside the reach of any assistance. If he and Celene found themselves in a bad situation, the only way they could get out was on their own. No one would be coming to help them.

Moments after first visual confirmation was established, the tracking device shrilled.

“Pull back.” Nils fought to keep himself from lunging at the controls. “Pull back
now
.”

Celene didn’t question him, but banked the Phantom sharply, doubling back.

“Marek has a tight sensor net all around this sector.” He studied the tracking device’s readings. “We get any closer, he’s going to know we are coming.”

“Let’s try and break through the net, or disrupt it.”

“This ship doesn’t have the capabilities. Not enough power to generate a disruption pulse.”

“What about concealment?” Her voice tightened with urgency. “I didn’t come all this way just to stare at him.”

Nils continued to scrutinize the screen, his mind clicking through myriad possibilities. He understood her frustration. With the traitor so close, he’d accept nothing less than total reprisal.

“There’s a way,” he said after a long pause. “With some adjustments to the Phantom, I can rig up a suppression field around the ship. We’ll still be visible, but his sensor net won’t be able to detect us.”

“When we approach his planet, we can do it from the other side so he can’t get eyes on us.” She nodded. “Do it.”

“The ship has to be completely powered down for me to make the necessary adjustments.”

“We’re going to need to find a place to put her down.” She peered through the window at the unknown stars and planets twinkling nearby. “Can you find us a good location?”

He moved to another set of sensors. “Picking up good readings for an adjacent moon. Breathable atmosphere, climate within tolerance levels.”

“Populace?”

“Minimal. Animal life, but few signs of civilization.”

She grinned viciously. “The perfect spot to gear up for war. That
sipkaswine
won’t know we’re coming to drag him to the Ten Hells.”

The mission was truly about to begin. And so was the danger.

As the site of a future colony, the nameless moon did not look promising. From up high, Celene saw rocks, some bodies of water, barely any flora. Anyone attempting to settle on this moon would find it a hard, unrewarding task.

“I’m putting the ship down in that valley.” She guided the Phantom over the surface of the moon, her gaze constantly scanning for signs of sentient habitation. As they drew closer to the surface of the planet, she could make out more details. Dull blue rocks covered its surface, and the bodies of water she’d seen from higher up were merely gray ponds filmed with weeds. A few stands of short, scrubby trees comprised the plant life.

8
^th
Wing hadn’t made contact with any of the planets of this system, which would make her job much more difficult should she and Nils encounter actual civilizations. First contact was always handled by Diplomacy Division, not fighter pilots and engineers.

Nils grunted a response. Slanting a look at him, she saw that he’d retreated into his thoughts, his expression abstracted.

The moment the landing gear touched the surface, Nils leaped out of his seat. She barely had time to power the ship down before he began pulling open panels.

“Need a hand?” She went to stand behind him as he crouched on the floor. He did not answer.

Was he ignoring her? He had every right to, the way she had shut him down earlier. “Hey.” She nudged him with her boot.

He glanced up, startled. So he wasn’t giving her the silent treatment. It was clear he’d forgotten she existed—a marked change from his earlier confession. She took no offense, however. The fixed, alert sharpness of his gaze reminded her of the look other Wraith pilots wore during combat.

“Can I help?” she offered.

“My tools. In my kit.” Then he bent back to his work.

She went to get his tools. Articulate he might be, except when his attention was fixed on an engineering project.

She grabbed the kit and brought it back to him. He grunted again when she set the kit down beside him, but that was the limit of his conversation. Seeing that there really was nothing for her to do inside the ship, she decided to take a look around outside. The moon might not make for a good colony, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to learn from it. She knew a few people in the Research Corps who’d appreciate a few samples of new life forms.

“Going out for a survey,” she said to Nils after taking a science kit.

This time, she wasn’t even graced with a grunt. He merely made a vague gesture over his shoulder—the only sign she had that he’d heard her.

She double-checked that her plasma blaster held a full charge before opening the door. Stepping out, she caught the faint, acrid smell of sulfur borne on a weak breeze. Rocks crunched beneath her boots. Spindly trees reached their branches toward the yellow sky. Thin air made her work harder to breathe, so she kept her pace easy as she rambled in slow arcs away from the ship. Tiny rodents and lizards scuttled over the rocks, but there was nothing substantial with which to make a meal.

After snapping on a pair of thin deltex gloves, she bent to pluck a few blades of red grass. The grass released a sticky pink sap, and she collected both in sample tubes. She did the same with the sawtooth-edged leaves from the nearby trees. It seemed unlikely that any of these plants could prove to be a good food source for possible farming, but she wanted to be sure. PRAXIS had a bad habit of decimating planets’ ecosystems, robbing the soil of valuable nutrients so that none of the inhabitants could farm. The Research Corps constantly searched for sustainable agriculture in order to help post-PRAXIS worlds recover.

A chirp made Celene look up from her collecting.

“Don’t need supervision, thanks,” she said to the curious little rodent watching her. Small, furred and speckled, it looked like a hybrid between a squirrel and a moth, and it tilted its head in blank-eyed bafflement when she spoke.

She laughed when it burbled a response in a language only it understood, tail dancing. It scuttled forward, inquisitive. Clearly it had no experience with humanoids, approaching her without fear. But she held back and simply watched it, keeping her hands to herself. Cute though the squirrel-moth might be, she never forgot that it was an unknown variable. It might have a mouth full of needlelike teeth or spit a toxin that carried a paralytic. Too many explorers had crossed to the heavens because they’d been misled by appearances.

“Go on, now.” She made a shooing motion. “Get back to your den or hive and tell stories about the hideous beast you saw collecting plants. It’ll impress the females. Or males.”

As if taking her advice, the animal chattered at her before scampering away, disappearing between the cracks in a pile of rocks.

The creature had been better conversation than Nils.

Who was busy making the necessary alterations to the ship, while she played at Research Corps. Well, she had to make herself useful. Simply sitting back as someone else did the work felt foreign and uncomfortable. So she continued on with her gathering of samples, keeping her senses alert should anything happen.

Yet as she worked, filling tube after tube with collected specimens, her thoughts drifted back to what Nils had revealed earlier. She still processed the knowledge that he had been the stranger who had kissed her on the Night of Masks. It was like playing at blaster tag as a child, only to discover that the toy weapon she held contained live ammo.

No, that wasn’t true. She never saw Nils as a harmless toy. He held far too much capability—and she responded to him with an intensity that surprised even her.

It was more than surprise. It was fear. And she had even admitted that fear to him.

All of her protestations, all of her wishes. She got what she wanted, finally. But she had no idea how to proceed. She could shoot down a PRAXIS fighter in the middle of a meteor shower. She had taken down three of the biggest brawlers in the 8
^th
Wing during SimCom. But she didn’t know a damn thing about actually letting a man get close to her emotionally.

Nils might be NerdWorks, but the truth was that he had far more confidence than she did.

“How’s that for irony,” she muttered under her breath. Her fingers were less than gentle as she plucked a spindly weed from the soil.

Her confession to Nils… She had never been so honest, so…exposed. Unguarded. Admitting a weakness countered everything she wanted to believe about herself. And it left her open to attack. Or rejection.

But Nils hadn’t attacked her, hadn’t turned away from her. And instinctively she had known that if there was anyone to whom she could admit her fear, it would be him.

It had been difficult, though. Even now she felt a residual tremor of fear. A fighter pilot guarded her weakest point. Lessons she had learned at the controls of her ship, and from the men who’d passed through her life. Could she undo those lessons? They were all but hardwired into her heart.

She almost dropped the specimen tube when she heard Nils shout her name. Shoving the sample into the kit, she pulled her blaster and took off at a run back toward the Phantom. Her pulse hammered as she crested a low ridge. He could be hurt or in danger. They had done a scan and found no viable threats, but scans could be wrong.

Please don’t let it be wrong
.

Coming up over the ridge, she collided with a long, lean body. Broad hands came up to grasp her arms as she took up a fighting stance.

Nils stood before her, his expression tight with worry.

“Hells,” she said on a growl, holstering her weapon. “Thought you were being eviscerated.”

“I looked up from making the modifications, and you were gone. I couldn’t find you anywhere near the ship.”

“Told you I was going to collect some specimens.”

He shook his head, and the tension from his body lessened slightly. “If you did, I didn’t hear.”

“With your head buried in circuit boards, that doesn’t surprise me.” She eyed the sonic blade in his grasp. “Planning on doing some whittling?”

His cheeks darkened as he shoved the blade back into its sheath on his boot. “If you were in trouble, I wanted to be able to protect you.”

Warmth uncurled within her. “A blaster has better range.”

“The knife was the first thing I thought of. I’d use it, if I had to.” She saw it then, how he was growing into the fullness of himself, gaining confidence, trusting his strength.

If only she had the same courage.

“Nothing but the finest for the 8
^th
Wing.” Celene stared down at the warmed sustenance-pak. She tore the top off the foil and squeezed its contents onto her plate.

She and Nils sat at the tiny table in the main cabin of the Phantom, a chamber that also served as the galley. Over the course of the mission, they had been steadily going through the stocked rations, and were now confronting the horror that was supposed to pass for midmeal.

“Calling this
food
is an exercise in wishful thinking.” Using his fork, Nils prodded at what was supposed to replicate Nivalian stew. Aside from the name, and perhaps a few protein configurations, the substance on the plate had nothing in common with actual Nivalian stew, which was normally a delicious combination of long-braised
rindroast
and early-Solstice root vegetables.

Against her better judgment, Celene took a bite of the “stew.” She shuddered at the flavor, but forced herself to swallow. “We’ve got to eat this stuff, though. Nutrients are nutrients, no matter how appalling they taste. We need as much energy as our bodies can produce, now more than ever.”

Nils’s expression darkened. “Getting to the most dangerous phase of the mission.”

“Junior cadets make their mistakes right about now.” She took a drink of filtered water to get the taste out of her mouth. “They think the finish line is closer than it really is, get overconfident and wind up blown to asteroid dust.” Memories flickered like vids, far too clearly for her liking. She wouldn’t mind a little static when it came to watching some of her comrades cross over into the heavens. It usually wasn’t a pleasant and easy crossing, either. Fighter pilots met violent, messy ends. The best one could hope for was instantaneous vaporization. The worst… She’d seen the worst. And even years later, it still made her skin clammy and her throat close.

“There are times for confidence,” Nils said. “Not arrogance. Not when lives are at stake.”

“Your own,” she noted.

“And others’.” He frowned down at his plate. “So many are counting on us to complete this mission. If I fail—”

“
We
will succeed.”

His gaze held hers. “Is it always this way with you?”

“What way?”

“As if the galaxy’s already yours. All you need to do is reach out and grab it.”

She snorted. “We already know my swagger only goes so far.”

His hand covered hers. The feel of his skin against hers sent warmth along her arm and spreading through her. “You can overcome anything. Even your own fear.”

Her breath came quickly. She felt as though she were struggling to climb one of the towering cliffs of Zevi Lo. But the fall seemed so much greater.

Then he turned her hand over, so that they were pressed palm to palm. Trailed his fingers along her wrist, and he had to feel her pulse stuttering beneath his touch.

Her gaze moved from this sight to his eyes. Intelligent eyes, revealing more than brains, but strength, courage. And a depth of emotion that nearly robbed her of all air. He held nothing back from her.

He wanted her.
All
of her. And she wanted him.

They were on a distant, barren moon. The most dangerous phase of the mission loomed. It was time for her to jettison fear.

Wrapping her fingers around his wrist, she pulled him near. His eyes widened briefly, but his surprise didn’t last. She felt the coils of tension and power in his muscles, the fact that he had enough strength to resist her, but he didn’t. At her tug, he yielded, moving close. They leaned over the table, and their mouths met.

She could’ve been dining on a meal prepared by the celebrated Aurelian master chefs, drinking the finest
roxowine
. Nothing tasted better than Nils. She sank into the kiss, his flavor filling her mouth, exploring the new territory of their shared desire and her unfettered heart. Keeping one hand pressed to his, she wove the fingers of her other hand through his hair, holding him close. Yet he wasn’t pulling away. He seemed to want only one thing: to take her mouth as she took his.

His lips shaped hers, and mutual need deepened the kiss. Full and hungry, they learned taste and heat and energy, their tongues stroking against one another.

This
kiss was unmasked, not shaped by the excitement after battle. It revealed need and desire, the pull of two bodies. More than bodies, for she felt a greater yearning beneath physical want. As Nils brought his free hand up to cup the underside of her jaw, as she leaned into him, she sensed their release, two constrained souls breaking free of gravity and wheeling amongst the possibility of one another.

She wanted more. Shedding the armor of Stainless Jur and her own trepidation lightened her. Her limbs felt buoyant, capable of flight. Abruptly, she stood, breaking the kiss.

His fever-bright gaze burned, and he reached for her. With an agility born from years of training, she evaded his grasp, sliding from his hands. He made a growl of protest, but the sound cut off when he saw her shove the remains of their meal off the table. Nimbly, she perched on the edge.

He was an intelligent man. He rose and positioned himself to stand between her legs. The harsh light within the Phantom carved his face into even sharper angles, and the fire that blazed in his eyes was directed not at an engineering challenge or logic problem, but
her
. He might be NerdWorks’ finest, but he was also a man. A man who wanted her.

“Lucid dreaming,” he rumbled, his large hands clasping her waist. “I uploaded texts about it to my digitablet, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never shape my dreams.”