Dremiks (44 page)

“I guess I deserved that.”

“You did.” Swede shook his head as if trying to shoo away a bothersome fly. “My ear is still ringing.” He watched his captain for a minute before taking a deep breath, and a chance. “You know it would be easier on everyone, and especially my face, if you’d stop treating her like a glass doll.”

Brett yanked with his teeth on the strap to his left glove. “You’re treading in dangerous territory, Lieutenant.”

“Well, Captain, since you just knocked out the hearing in one ear and did your best to beat me black and blue, I’d say I’m already in the thick of it.” He watched as the captain stopped pulling off his gloves. The senior officer’s body language betrayed nothing of what he was thinking. “At this point, the commander’s ego is more banged up than her body. The last thing she needs is the feeling that you won’t let her do her job anymore.”

“She has you carrying water for her?”

Swede’s nostrils flared. “Damn it sir!” He sucked in a breath, then another, as he tried to calm himself.

Not used to loud outbursts from his usually placid engineer, Brett glanced over his shoulder and took note of the empty room. Whether the other personnel had sensed the coming storm and beat a hasty retreat, or simply finished their workouts, he’d never know.

“She’d kick what’s left of my ass if she knew I was having this conversation, and you know it, sir. Do you think she doesn’t notice you jumping down Tony’s throat every time he ribs her? Do you think she’s not going to notice my bruised cheek and your split lip?”

Hill grabbed a towel off the rack and ran it over his face. He winced when his torn lip pulled against the cloth. “She nearly died. Mangoda is barely out of his coma.”

“She gets
paid
to fly. She enjoys the challenge. Commander O’Connell isn’t anything like her reputation in ISA, and we both know it. She’s a stone cold professional who won’t last long with you tying her down. Let her get back to work before she really gets hurt. As it is she’s killing herself trying to sneak around behind—” Swede immediately realized what he was saying and clamped his lips shut. The look on the captain’s face told him he’d let the cat out of the bag. “I’ve said my piece. With your permission, sir, I’ll go shower. I have watch this afternoon.”

Captain Hill shook his head in the negative. “Get some rest. I’ll take your watch.”

“Sir?”

“Is your hearing that damaged?”

Swede laughed for the first time that day. “No sir, but I’m wondering if I hit your head too hard.” He backed up when Hill’s lips compressed into a straight, slightly bloody, line. “But I won’t turn down a few extra hours of sack time. Thank you, sir.”

“Thank
you
, Lieutenant.” Captain Hill walked out the opposite door. He nodded in passing to a female petty officer who did a double take at his swollen lip.

***

Lieutenant Price pulled off his flight helmet—required for flights in and out of Dremiks atmosphere thanks to O’Connell’s ill-fated sortie—and swiped at the grit on the face plate. This was his third trip to the crash site. The first visit, he’d been too preoccupied with the injuries to Mangoda and O’Connell to really look at the damaged craft. The second time, he’d flown by without authorization, supposedly to avoid a meteorite. Seeing the crumbled wreckage for the third time wasn’t any easier. His fists clenched.

It could just as easily have been me on that thing. That she managed to land the damn thing at all is a bloody miracle.

He’d thought that bringing O’Connell the flight recorder data would clue her into the stark realities of the accident. He had no idea why the captain was so keen on keeping the truth from the commander. Price didn’t care if O’Connell took the blame for an accident that clearly wasn’t an accident. What he did care about was that, by keeping the act of sabotage a secret and failing to hunt down the culprit, the life of every pilot in the solar system was endangered. Price flew two sorties a day between Dremiks and the
Hudson
. If someone was blowing up lander engines, O’Connell needed to know about it and stop it
immediately.

This is bloody ridiculous. I’m going to flat out tell her and the captain’s orders be damned.

Price snapped a few pictures before returning to his own lander.

***

“Sir, I’m not sure I can do this. I think you should find someone else.”

Captain Hill’s expression was no more or less rigid than normal. He sat behind his desk, hands resting lightly in front of him. He stared at her. She stared back, knowing she would lose this particular battle. He waited. She, finally, broke.

“Sir, please. This is a bad idea. I can’t play this role.”

Some, unknown, emotion flickered across his face. “You
can
, Commander. You can and you
will
. I expect you to give this assignment the same dedication and precision of execution that you have previously demonstrated. The Dremikians have graciously offered to help the colony by providing new spacecraft for shuttle duty. You will set up the simulator program to train the civilians.”

“I
crashed
my lander, sir!”

She was expecting cold derision, perhaps even a flash of anger. She wasn’t expecting him to suddenly break eye contact, clench his hands, and shift in his chair as if he was uncomfortable.

He still wasn’t meeting her eyes when he said, “My decision is made, Commander. Get with Dwax and learn all you can regarding the specifications of these ships. Dismissed.”

***

On the surface far below the captain, Ryan Hill found himself in the midst of yet another tense, whispered, argument with his wife.

“Tell me you didn’t do this. It has to be the most hare-brained stunt I’ve ever heard of.”

Ryan glared at her. “And yet you think I had something to do with it? How loving,
wife.
“

“Don’t lie to me, Ryan! If you tried to murder that idiot girl, and her father ever traces it back to you, we’ll be finished!”

Glancing over his shoulder to confirm that their door was shut, Ryan stepped closer. “Lower your voice,” he hissed. “I had nothing to do with it. I
wanted
us to land, remember? It was a stroke of genius, though. If anything, O’Connell crashing made my brother even more motivated to proceed with settlement without waiting for authorization. Maybe that was the bomber’s intent all along.”

Marissa snorted, but looked speculative. “Someone who doesn’t fear Admiral O’Connell’s wrath?”

“I’m not sure such a person exists, except, of course, for the Admiral’s daughter and my brother. It is entirely possible that the man, or woman, who placed the explosives didn’t know who would be flying. I heard a rumor that Brett had decided to send Price instead of O’Connell. Perhaps our mystery saboteur was aiming to stop the landing, rather than assassinate O’Connell.”

Marissa’s back ached. She rubbed it absently. “Do you have any idea who could be behind this?”

“One or two, but I don’t have the time, or the means, for an interrogation right now. If their purpose was to stop the landing, they obviously failed. I don’t think there’s much danger to the colony as a whole, now. Brett still hasn’t bothered to investigate that abandoned mine. We need to be prepared for what will happen when he starts asking questions about it. Our one-time allies cannot be too happy about losing their lorga supply.”

She paled. “If they know our plans?”

“No one knows our plans. Unless you’ve been talking?” Her glare answered him. “Still, we need to keep you and the child safe. How many more weeks, now?”

“Seven to full term, but anything more than three will be safe.”

Ryan kissed the top of his wife’s head in a rare show of affection. “Soon darling.”

***

“You two are idiots. Complete, unsurpassed in the annals of humanity, somewhere there are villages missing you, idiots.”

They were both superbly trained men in their physical prime. They did not jump in shock or react in any such comical fashion. Instead, the captain and lieutenant went preternaturally still, tensed to fight or flee, or both.

“Commander, the sign on the door says
male
locker room. You are, demonstrably, female.”

Swede turned to glare at her. “Ma’am! What if we’d been naked?”

Leaning against the door, arms crossed under her breasts, Maggie smirked. “I’ve seen it before, Swede.”

The man in question narrowed his glacier blue eyes and took one menacing step forward. The captain’s hand on his arm stalled him.

“This couldn’t have waited, Commander?” The captain practically drawled the question. It was a tone of voice that his officers knew to fear. O’Connell had heard it before—the last time she’d confronted the captain.

“Nope.” She popped her lips on the “p”. Then, she added insolence to her sins by giving the captain’s shirtless chest an assessing leer. “So much the better to catch you together and off-guard.”

Captain Hill quirked his eyebrow and let go of Lieutenant Guttmann’s arm. A smirk tugged his lips to one side. He wondered if she’d thought this plan through. How did she expect this to end? Watching her expression as Swede crossed the locker room to loom over her, the captain detected no sign of uncertainty. In fact, when her head tipped back to look at her much taller friend, she looked positively cherubic.

“Idiot, am I?” Swede was doing his best to intimidate her physically. He hoped his behavior would raise her hackles. The lieutenant wasn’t sure he would make it through this confrontation if Maggie showed how hurt she was by his betrayal.

“You should’ve known better.
You
should have—”

He cut her off. “I went along with this because I
did
know what you would do. What you’re hell bent on doing now.” His words were fiercely enunciated.

“See? Idiocy! You two,” she shot a pointed look at the captain, “decided all on your own that A+B=C without even considering that your variables might be wrong. No one is trying to kill
me
personally! Your protective cave-man antics, while adorable, are pointless.”

“Adorable?” Looking severely offended, Swede grabbed her upper arms.

The captain cleared his throat. “Hands off the superior officer.” He waited until the engineer complied. “Shower, Swede, you have watch in less than thirty minutes. I’ll deal with this.”

Swede dipped his head, and his voice. “I’m not done with you.”

Maggie’s green eyes twinkled. “Promise?” She watched her friend stalk off, grumbling, to the shower area. Another broad, naked, chest blocked her line of sight. This time the captain
did
catch her fleeting look of panic.

“I ought to make a note in your record for this. I’m just not sure there’s an appropriate category of offense for accosting your commanding officer in the locker room.” He saw her suck in a breath, no doubt in preparation to launch into a defense of her actions. “Not here, Commander. Quarters, fifteen minutes.”

“Afraid I’ll make a scene?”

He shook his head. “You’re standing in the men’s locker room. I cannot imagine how you could make
more
of a scene.” Captain Hill immediately looked horrified. He even shuddered. “Never mind. Forget I said that. That was not a challenge. Out!” Careful not to touch her, he reached past her and shoved open the door. When the door closed behind her, he groaned and leaned his head against the cool metal.

Damned woman
. Now, instead of keeping her in the dark about this latest act of attempted murder, he’d have to spend valuable time making sure she took the threat seriously.
Although, if she doesn’t think it was a personal attack, she might be less focused on killing the culprit. She might even be more help figuring this out, now that she knows what to look for.
Keeping track of all the strange, and deadly, occurrences during their mission was certainly a job requiring more than one person.

Chapter 26

Ensign Chi finally admitted to himself that the communications buoy on the far side of the solar system was not going to come back online. He’d spent at least fifteen minutes convinced the buoy was simply glitching. An equal amount of time was, then, spent running diagnostics on the
Hudson’s
relay panels. It was 0400. If he could get the problem sorted before the 0800 shift change, there would be no need to call Commander O’Connell to the bridge.

Except that the damn thing wasn’t just glitching, the
Hudson’s
own systems where working fine, and he couldn’t get around the fact that the commander
had
to be notified. To his surprise, and relief, O’Connell did not comment on the time when he called her. She obviously hadn’t been sleeping and seemed to be in a better mood than previous days. Her auburn brows slanted together in a frown as Chi explained the problem. He dutifully explained all of the steps he’d taken to diagnose the malfunction.

She grunted and tapped his shoulder. “Budge, Ensign.” She took the man’s seat and began typing commands into the terminal. Chi very much wanted to point out that she wasn’t trying anything he hadn’t already tried, but decided he was better off being mute on the subject.

“Damn.” O’Connell stood and walked to her pilot’s chair. The ensign noticed that she no longer limped or held her arm protectively against her chest. The rest and recuperation were obviously beneficial. Too bad he’d had to drag her to the bridge for this.

O’Connell hadn’t been asleep—Chi was right about that. When his call came through, she’d been curled in her bunk reading a mystery novel. It wasn’t a particularly satisfying read; she’d fingered the culprit by the end of the eighth chapter. The mystery with the communications buoy was proving to be more of a challenge.

“Well, Ensign, I do believe the damn thing has crapped out on us.”

“I was afraid of that, ma’am.” Shoulders slumped in defeat, the ensign returned to the communications station. “Do you think maybe Nate could get it working?”