Chapter Two
The captain stood onthe catwalk above the main deck and addressed everyone. “TheCandiruis being decommissioned,” Captain Benares announced, his voice flat.
Allie sucked in a breath. She’d known it had to come, but still she couldn’t quite wrap her brain around the idea. They were losing theCandiru. They were losing each other. Allie looked toward Shank. He had his hands at the small of his back as though standing at parade rest, but his left hand gripped his right wrist so hard she could see the flesh turning pale.
“But where will they transfer us?” Becca Dary called out. Allie closed her eyes and sent up a quick prayer for Becca. The woman was a gunner. With the refugee camps overcrowded and constantly on the verge of riot, gunners would be sent to guard them. Guard. That was such a nice term for having your government order you to open fire on your own people. As a navigator, Allie would escape that hell, but Becca couldn’t. Shank couldn’t.
Allie’s chest ached at the thought of Shank being ordered to open fire on rioting civilians. He wouldn’t survive it. Yeah, everyone else saw Shank as the good little soldier, and a few even knew he’d grown up on pirate ships, stealing and preying on the weak. But for all that, he had a code he believed in so deeply that it was part of his soul, and killing hungry civilians would never fit into his worldview.
Allie couldn’t breathe.
Ben took a step closer and wrapped his hand around her arm. “Breathe in and hold it, Grah,” he said, his voice gruff.
Allie did, and the darkness around the edges of her vision started to clear. Ben. God, he’d be ordered to do the same. He was a ground pounder, a Nicve marine, so they’d stick him in some really shitty situation and expect him to do the work of five soldiers. Still, he stared off into nothing while Captain Benares made placating noises about them being the finest crew he’d ever worked with.
Bullshit.
Most of the crew were straight out of boot camp.
The captain finished with a few words about the fallen—Drake Wright and Schreiber, Honshi Quin and Petrov Bolson. Allie closed her eyes and remembered Honshi’s tentative touches and her slow smile. Bolson...Bolson had been horrible in bed, a puppy dog of a man who wiggled, but he’d been so intense.
Finally the captain talked about Jacqs Glebov and Zeke Waters. The crew stopped looking at him. Their gazes slipped away. Allie had been on nav when the captain had argued with Command about going back. He’d even threatened to turn theCandiruaround and go back himself the minute the refugees were off the ship. Command had threatened to shoot theCandiruout of space rather than risk restarting the Ba’kel war. The captain had finally retreated into silence and copious amounts of whiskey.
None of that stopped the guilt.
“I hope to serve with all of you again one day,” the captain finished. His cheeks were bright red, but Allie honestly didn’t know if that came from emotion or alcohol. He turned on his heel and strode away, leaving the crew gathered together. Ben walked to Becca and caught her up in a hug. She clung to him.
When Allie looked over, Shank shifted his own gaze to her. She knew him well enough to know he wanted to gather her up in his arms and promise to never let go, but it would be a lie. The promise of safety and love would be the cruelest lie he could offer at this point. Allie turned and headed for the women’s bunk room.
Hiding in her bunk with the curtain drawn, she could hear the whispered voices and the shuffling of feet, but she closed her eyes and tried to deal with the fear that crushed her chest. Fewer ships meant fewer navigators, so she was likely to be in the first round of service people returned to civilian life. She could go home to her family, her horses, her huge collection of holos, and the suitors who had all crept around her house mournfully when she’d been drafted.
She could go home and tell her father about the beautiful pirate she’d bedded, how he insisted that his people were called Wichiyena, not Sioux, and how he’d gone on a vision quest when he was fourteen, taking off in a small shuttle and floating in space as he tried to find himself.
She could describe Honshi Quin, and how she’d spoken everything in a whisper, and how her touch was the same—whisperlike and hesitant. She could tell everyone how the bashful and delicate Honshi had been burned by incendiary fire trying to protect a batface ambassador.
She could tell them how she’d been the one to navigate the ship that carried the ambassador after too damn many people had already died and the tinyCandiruhad been the last chance to complete a disastrous mission.
Or she could avoid all of it. Her parents wouldn’t understand the woman who said all that. They would look at her and wonder where their daughter had gone, and she wouldn’t have an answer. Most days she looked in the mirror and didn’t know anymore. Allie Grah had died sometime after seeing a camp full of refugees riot for food, sometimes after watching kids she’d rescued get left in the dust to cry, sometime after her own government had ordered her back into space instead of allowing her to help, sometime after she’d left friends behind on an alien world.
She wanted to cry, but her eyes felt dry and scratchy like she had lost the ability to make tears at all. She should get up and write a report on herself to psych services, but she was too damn tired.
“Allie?”
“Oh God, please, not now,” she begged, recognizing Shank’s voice.
A new voice answered. “Hey, kiddo, we need to talk.”
“Ben?” Allie pushed the curtain aside, and found most of the ragtag little crew gathered in the women’s dorm.
Ben Aluino gave her an encouraging smile. “What’s up?”
“We’re having a meeting,” Shank said. “Come on. Let’s talk.” He held a hand out toward her, and the gentleness in his expression made her irrationally angry. She wanted to stop being in love with him, and he made it so damn hard.
“If we’re meeting, why aren’t we in the main room? And why didn’t the captain comm anyone?” she demanded. The anger was easier to deal with than the fear.
