Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six
Connor fiddled around with his environment suit, feigning a problem with one of the joint seals, until Rudy finally excused himself. The hatch to the protection suit locker room had barely closed before Drew let herself in. The material of her suit rasped as she crossed to a locker, which clanged open with a rattle.
She pulled her helmet off and flashed an awkward smile, letting her stringy hair fall over her cheek. That had been where she’d scraped away a scab earlier. “Still here?”
“Yeah, giving this suit an inspection.”
“That’s enough excitement for a month. The reactor thing, I mean.”
When she unzipped her protective suit, a soapy smell escaped.
“Things are going to be bumpy for a while.” Connor looked away when she bent down to undo her boot covers and her T-shirt rode up on her back.
Her ribs and backbone protruded in clear detail beneath pale flesh.
During the Nyango Revolt, people had shown up looking like that. They’d slip through the Directorate perimeter, then stagger into the camp in tattered clothes. For some, their hair was falling out. For others, it was teeth. What they all had in common was the Directorate—an enemy that didn’t care about citizens starving to death while a small elite lived like kings.
Now, being in such confined space, it almost felt contagious.
Drew gave up trying to pull the boot covers off and sat on a bench, where she finally pulled the covers off. “You think they’ll come after us?”
“The Directorate? I don’t know. They wanted me.”
“That’s what Vicente said. What’d you do to get so much attention?”
“The Nyango Revolt.”
“That was eons ago.”
“Some people have long memories. And maybe they don’t want others to remember what happened.”
“That’s terrible.” She scratched her scalp, then stopped. “Sorry. Habit. I’m clean. I promise.”
Was she talking about drugs or lice? Lice, he assumed. “It’s good to have you aboard again.”
“It’s good to be here. I never thought in a million years…” She shrugged. “Y’know.”
“You gave Rudy a scare.”
“I did?”
Connor closed the locker on his protection suit. “He thought you might be having a problem.”
“A relapse, you mean? I guess he’s always beens scared of me.”
“Be careful.”
She looked up, the corner of her lips quirked somewhere between a smile and frown. “I’m going to be too busy for a relapse, if that’s what you’re worried about. You guys let Lucky fall apart.”
“Well, you signed on for an adventure—you’re getting one.”
Drew licked her lips. “I won’t let you down. I swear.”
“I know.”
He left her staring into her locker and headed down to the galley. With the Directorate ships no longer pursuing and the reactor coolant problem fixed, his body was shaky. It was well past dinnertime, and he’d skimped on lunch.
Voices floated out of the galley: Gregor and Aubriella Dumonte.
Connor waved at the communications expert, who was hunched over the table where the Moon twins had sat earlier.
Passing the table, the smell of alcohol became clear: whisky.
That wasn’t what they needed, especially heading into some dangerous and unknown No Man’s Land.
I’ll have to take to Gregor later, Connor realized.
The old communications expert’s deep, raspy voice was raised just enough to signal his excitement about whatever he was telling the young mercenary across from him. “And those ships pursuing us? This is not the normal thing, you understand. A ship with a fugitive flees?” He grunted. “This strangeness, it is exactly how it all started for me years ago.”
Aubriella sipped from a white ceramic cup. “Serious?”
She was a gangly kid, not yet twenty-two, and she looked even more scrawny in her green jumpsuit. Leaning forward in her chair, staring at the old communications expert with wide-eyed fascination, her moon-shaped face still had the innocence and softness of someone in school. Even her hair—a pale, wavy brown feathered back from her cheeks—was the sort of thing a student wore.
And Connor realized she was the one drinking, not Gregor.
That was an even bigger problem. The only mission she’d been on before the failed extraction of Dr. Litvinenko had been a simple escort job, providing muscle for a merchant convoy carrying goods between cities. She was still raw and inexperienced. Adding alcohol to her routine was trouble.
Connor heated up a cup of spicy stew and listened in to Gregor’s story.
The older man had a way of pacing things and emphasizing the right elements. It drew a listener in.
“So this mission?” Gregor shook his head. “Same as that one when I was young.”
Aubriella took another sip—a big sip. “You think there’s someone behind it?”
“Someone?” The older man rubbed the silvery stubble on his cheeks. “Thing.”
“Something’s behind it? Whoa!” Aubriella finished off her drink and wiped her mouth. “There’s, what, a force at work? Like magic?”
“This force, it is more like evil.”
The young woman pushed her chair back and scampered across to the refrigerator, where she poured a protein drink into her cup, then shielded the cup from Connor’s sight.
But he heard the splash of fluid going in.
He let his spoon rest in the savory stew. “Aubriella.”
She spun around, grinning. “Hey, Lieutenant!”
“Have you ever been trained on a Sandil AWS-5X?”
“Rudy’s gun? Oh, no way. He won’t let me touch it.”
“We’ve got a spare one in the weapons locker. Talk to Lem. Maybe the sergeant will let you hold one if it’s not his.”
“Wow!” She took a gulp of the drink, beaming with the excitement of someone used to getting by more on charm than hard work.
Connor pointed to the cup. “I don’t think you’ll want that on your breath.”
“Huh?” She looked down, then a deep blush bloomed on her cheeks. “Oh.”
“Toss it down the drain. Lem can get you something to clear your system.”
Aubriella’s blush grew darker. “You can smell it?”
“From the passageway.”
She backed up to the sink and emptied the cup, then rinsed it. When she glanced back at him, he nodded, then she pulled a small bottle from inside her jumpsuit and emptied the contents.
As she shuffled past, she kept her eyes glued to the deck. “Sorry, sir.”
“We all want the best for you.”
Once she was out of the galley, he grabbed his cup of stew and took her seat across from Gregor.
The older man took a deep breath. “Vodka does not leave a smell on you.”
“It’s alcohol, Gregor. We can smell it.”
“You can?” He chuckled. “No one ever said.”
Connor finished off the stew, letting the spicy mix of vegetable and meat chunks dissolve on his tongue before swallowing them down and setting the cup aside. “What you were telling her—this story about where we’re going?”
“No story—is truth.”
“I understand that. I’m just curious: What happened on this planet?”
Gregor chewed on his lip. He blinked nervously and pinched his nose hard. Then he swallowed. “If you want to know this thing, I will tell you.”
Connor leaned back and rested his hands on his belly. “I want to know.”