The Empress Capsule (Audacity Saga Book 1), page 20
“Inside joke,” Kael muttered. He reached them and stopped beside Ryu, whom he caught smothering a smile behind her wrist as she pretended to scratch her lip. Heaven forbid she crack a grin from time to time. Woman was as serious as a blown space suit—or wanted to be.
“You two are good, you know that? How did you spot a strip club when we’re not even docked yet?” Ryu asked.
“We researched ahead.” Zhia grinned.
“What about the rest of you?”
“I am getting supplies for my models,” said Dane. “Nearly completed a miniature LSS Galatea, and darn it if I didn’t run out of glue.” It might have been more words than Kael had heard him say the entire trip. And it was about model spaceship building. Odd man.
Nova jerked a thumb at Zhia and Jenny. “I’m going wherever they’re going. Although I haven’t researched it, so who knows what I’m in for.” Kael didn’t miss Josana rolling her eyes at that. Yes, as desperate as the girl appeared to be, she seemed uninterested in partaking, at least in the visual show. Too bad. How much went on beyond the visual show at those places, and was that the intent or not for these ladies? He had no idea. Hmm, eleven years around almost exclusively men on missions had left him out of some parts of life, hadn’t it?
“What about you, Jo?” Ryu said.
Josana straightened, her chin lifting. “Just shopping for a few personal items,” she said sweetly, smiling at Ryu before her eyes flicked to Kael. Their pale blue was colored with hope, and hunger too. Damn, he needed a way to really scare her out of this infatuation with him. At the moment, though, his brain was far more interested in imagining ways to answer that hunger than to discourage her for good. Damn him and damn his stupid chip too.
He looked away casually at the hatch as it started to withdraw into the floor. He tried to keep his face as blank as possible. Maybe utter apathy would do the trick.
The commander hung back and let the others off first, then started off at a slow walk into the customs gate and tube into the station. He followed beside her.
“Expecting any trouble with customs?” he said softly.
“They are more interested in our credits than our politics,” she replied just as quietly. “Which is why we’re here. There’s more than one deserter on my ship.”
That didn’t surprise him, and indeed it gave him a kernel of hope. Had she dropped that fact deliberately, trying to suggest, as she had seemed to earlier, that he might someday find a place among them? He said nothing as they waited behind the others.
He had to survive his mission first.
And, well, complete it. And then get away again without a new assignment. And then he’d need to find the Audacity again, assuming she’d have him. Chances of all that happening were pretty much shit.
He sighed and answered the terse questions from the agent, who pinged his chip, then waved him past. He scanned the dreary station as he tagged along by Ryu’s side, feeling dreadfully older than the others as they scampered on ahead. He might be older than Jenny and Nova, but Zhia was easily pushing fifty or fifty-five. Dane was not a young man, either, and he was the only one with a more leisurely stride. Guess he wasn’t concerned if the hobby shop was going to close. Josana, too, hung back, but more because she faltered uncertainly at the intersection.
Maybe she was just trying to figure out which way she was headed, but if the dirt smears on the wall, crumpled newspapers swirling in corners, and wilting hallway plants concerned him, Molyarch must look even worse to a girl who would prefer to be in Capital.
Hell, even he might have preferred Capital’s stifling pretentiousness to this unkempt hallway. Except Ryu was with him here, and he was quite certain he’d never be strolling side by side with her on Capital.
They turned left onto the outer ring of Molyarch, and Josana continued forward down the corridor, leaning toward the right. He hoped she knew where she was headed. Much as he didn’t want to bed her, he wouldn’t want to see her hurt either.
The dim corridor light was unusual for a space station, but he had to approve. It lent an intimacy and bit of wildness to the air, like one of the better streets back on his parts of Faros. Raucous and sometimes pounding music spilled out into the corridor, along with the occasional drunken patron from within, charging the air with that peculiar energy that belonged only to the night. The outer ring stretched on and curved out of sight, a chaotic pattern of bar after restaurant after casino after sim parlor.
Countrified twangs emanated from a bar called the Tin House Saloon, and he relaxed a little when Ryu turned toward it. He hadn’t realized he was tense, but many of these places were not ones he’d see talking over a beer in. Or doing anything in. He felt too old for pounding raves and crazed mosh pits. For most of this shit, really.
He was too young to feel this old. Perhaps that’s what happened when you stare down the barrel of death every day straight for eleven years.
He followed her wordlessly as she chose a booth facing the bar, thankfully large enough to fit into while armored. She tapped some quick commands into the table, and a timid waitress quickly delivered six bottled beers lined up to drink between them and a bottle of scotch.
He pointed at the bottle. “After-party?”
“It’s for Bri.”
“She doesn’t want to partake in shore leave?”
“She lived here once. In a not entirely voluntary capacity.”
“As a slave, you mean?”
“Indentured servant, technically. Bad memories.”
Pink neon light from behind the mirrored bar cast Kael’s armor in its warm, unnatural light. Well, that was certainly manly. He should just be thankful Ryu hadn’t preferred the stripper bar. That seemed like it would have been a decent hazing ritual. If these women had hazing rituals, and if they had a reason to subject him to one. Which they didn’t.
How ridiculous that the thought left him a little bitter.
As he opened the first bottle and handed it to her, then opened one for himself, he scanned their surroundings. No serious threats. His suit did a thorough scan of the beer and the air and gave an approving click, so he retracted his helmet. He’d wondered if his armor would draw attention in the dingy bar. While a few eyes seemed to catch on it, he didn’t know if they recognized him as a lone Theroki—with a woman in a bar—or if they were just eying how beat-up and rusted it was. It looked like it could cut you if you stumbled into it. And it could. People were naturally wary.
But overall he almost fit in too well. The whole place, except the luxurious wooden bar top, was made from corrugated metal the same dull, stony shade as his plating. He practically blended into the booth, aside from the grimy brown cushions behind and beneath them. A frail arrangement of strips of metal created a minor barrier between their row of booths and the one behind them. If someone had been trying their hardest while decorating this place, they should really try their hand at some other trade.
He’d probably have a hard time convincing her to turn this into a no-longer-nonromantic-between-colleagues beer if she couldn’t differentiate him from the wall.
She finished giving some more commands to the table and looked up, taking a drink. “So do you have a rank in the Theroki military, Sidassian? Then I can have something else to call you by.” Her voice was smooth, like her command voice but a bit more relaxed.
“You know, Kael would suit me fine.”
“We’ll see.” She took a swig.
“Eh, Theroki aren’t big on orderly things like hierarchy.”
“I would think with that many roosters running around crowing, one of them would want to be the biggest cock in the room.”
He damn near choked on his beer. “Heh, well, that’s true of any group, isn’t it?”
“Some are more subtle about it than others. Are you really telling me being a Theroki isn’t just one continuous dick-measuring competition?”
“Uh, well, the chips probably do help repress the need to compare dick measurements a little. Just a little.”
“Really? No rank? I’m disappointed.”
He smiled, chagrined. “No, I mean… It would probably vaguely correspond to… a senior enlisted in the Union maybe? Tridelphi third level was my rank. Is my rank.”
She pretended not to notice the slip, but he doubted she’d missed it. “Enlisted? Damn, I’m really fraternizing now,” she said, taking a long swig. The slight smile—that was as much of a smile as she ever seemed to allow—hadn’t left her face through all this teasing.
“Hey, you said you run a mostly military org. Don’t you get to pick and choose the rules?”
“I do.”
“Besides, I’m not in your chain of command. Or even your nation. Do you even have a nation? And aren’t I technically your employer, if I’m purchasing my passage from you?”
“You wish. Passage you’re paying for with your labor. That makes you my passenger.” She frowned playfully at him. “My enlisted passenger, apparently.” She almost smiled now.
“It’s not exactly the same as enlisted,” he said, trying to keep his voice from sounding tight and failing. “There’s no educational requirements at any level, which is good ’cause I didn’t have much when I signed up. I’m not one for books aside from operations manuals. Practical stuff. There’s no boundary between rank-and-file and command units. Some assignments can get you promoted multiple ranks. They got creative, I guess. For better or worse.” He shrugged. “And there’s also no painful surgery to sign up to be a Union private. Unless they’ve started giving them all titanium skeletons now?”
She grew serious. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of that.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but a deep voice spoke up loudly from the booth behind them, inches from his ear. “Hey, gorgeous, you’re all alone here tonight, huh?”
Something about the voice pricked at Kael’s ears. Funny, he didn’t think he’d have paid much attention before. But Ryu’s face had gone dark, her lips pressed in a flat line, and her fingers had tightened around her bottle. Whatever had caught his attention had caught hers too.
“Oh, ah, I’m working,” a woman responded. “People usually do that alone.” She tried to laugh it off nervously, like he’d made a clever joke. Kael glanced over his shoulder to see if he could see through the haphazard slats of corrugated metal. The waitress?
“How much do you make a night? I’ll cover it. Let’s get out of here.”
“Uh, no, I need this—”
“C’mon, I have a lot of friends around here. I’ll smooth it over. Your boss won’t mind.”
Kael twisted and peered through the metal barrier slats. His sliver of a view revealed a handsome, black-haired man in the brass and dusty blue of a Puritan flight jacket leaning toward the woman. Kael shifted to see more, following the pilot’s arm. He’d brought it to rest on the alarmed waitress’s hip.
The slight prick of anger in him flared unexpectedly. It would be so easy, just the slightest twist, to rip that arm out of its socket and send the bastard sprawling. Or rip it clean off. He had no intention of getting out of the booth—or even considering the possibilities of an attack—but in spite of himself, scenarios began springing up and playing out in his mind. Maybe smashing the pilot’s skull back into this ridiculous barrier of sharp metal pieces would be a more fitting way to handle the situation. Or maybe… a dozen different options began playing out in Kael’s mind, each increasingly vicious and final.
No. What was wrong with him? Those were all great ways to get kicked off the station.
Kael forced a deep breath. He needed to mind his own business. The guy hadn’t done anything wrong—except be a jerk. Yet.
But then why was Kael’s mind playing out such a creative array of murder fantasies? How good it would feel to fling that asshole over his shoulder, smashing the bar glass into thousands of beautiful, bloody, pink-tinted pieces…
Oh, hell. The chip again. It must be somehow overreacting, like it had with Nova. Not now, damn it. They’d just gotten here.
“Uh, no, thanks,” the waitress muttered. “Do you have a drink order?”
“Your boss might mind if you turn me down, though,” said the pilot. “Ziyar, right? We were in boot camp together, he’ll understand. How many good-paying jobs are there around this station, you think? Ziyar runs half of them. You wouldn’t want to lose this one, now would you?”
Kael felt something in his head hitch, some secret engine shifting gear. Like he was about to start smashing things. Like he was about to take all those violent fantasies and act on them all simultaneously.
Asha. If only I had known then what I know now, I could have protected you. Is this how it went down? I could have—
Why was this happening now? Why—
“Sidassian,” Ryu’s beautiful, hard voice cut through the bubbling rage. A familiar voice. At the very least, the voice of a friend. An ally. Someone he was much more interested in screwing than killing, if he was honest. “You all right?”
He brought his eyes back to Ryu without straightening. “Not particularly. You hear this shit?”
“Heard it myself a few times to be honest, but yes,” she said, glaring at the metal barrier between the booths.
That did not help. He gripped the table edge, searching for some semblance of control, trying to detach from his emotions, sink into his body. That was how to get grounded. How he might calm the rage. Deep breaths. He tried to focus on his breathing, his heartbeat, the bubbles in his beer. Her hair, those brown eyes that were solid and steady as granite. Anything. But studying her might make him do something else stupid, and he wanted to do that even less. Breathe in, breathe out. Observe your body.
Every physical symptom rebelled. Every breath said it was time to go eviscerate that bastard and leave a new stain on the station walls.
He was losing this battle. He caught Ryu’s eye, one last hope occurring to him. “Hey, uh, remember that conversation we had about not going nuclear, Commander?”
“Yes?” Her eyebrows flew up.
“It is… currently a risk.”
“Because of that ass?” She jerked a thumb at the barrier.
“Yeah.” Why, he had no idea.
She slammed her beer down, then stood up resolutely. “Read you loud and clear. That’s all the excuse I need. One sec, I’ll handle it.”
Where the hell was she going? Watching her stalk away provided an extremely useful distraction, funneling some of the spiraling rage into a different kind of intensity. Faint pink neon was more appropriate dancing across her curves than his. Where did these women find armor like that? And why? Did they intend for it to be incredibly hot, or did it only look that way to a Theroki who hadn’t had sex in nearly two decades?
“I’m not looking for trouble, sir,” said the waitress from behind him. Kael had missed some of the back and forth while trying to control himself. Sounded like things had escalated. The fear in the woman’s voice amped him right back up again. Whatever the commander was up to, he hoped she’d do it soon. “Just trying to feed my family, okay?”
“Oh, yeah? You got any sisters that could join in on this station?”
“Uh… three, sir. Four sons too.”
“How convenient, I—”
That was it. Threatening kids was over the line. He couldn’t take it anymore. He straightened, twisting his head and shoulders up above the barrier to look into the booth. He jostled the beers on the table with his hip, trying to maneuver in the tight booth in his armor. Luckily, the bottles clinking slowed him down just long enough for Ryu to arrive.
“Do we have a problem here?” said Ryu, stopping beside the waitress and folding her arms across her chest.
“What business is it of yours?”
“Do you have a drink order? She’s not interested in anything other than that. I believe the lady was very clear.”
The pilot rose smoothly to his feet, the waitress backing away. He had a good six inches on Ryu, and maybe ten years, and the formality of his flight jacket certainly looked more military than her nondescript, sleek red armor in the darkness of the bar. Kael gripped the top of the barrier, ready to rip it off and hurl it at him.
Except he wanted to see what Ryu would do. Hopefully, she’d pull off something less permanent than the dozen brutal murders Kael was still planning.
“You should mind your own business,” the pilot said, voice deceptively smooth. “You one of those hired mercs with the Puritan contingent that just flooded the station?” His words were slurred. He’d likely been causing trouble somewhere else before this.
“No,” she said coldly.
“Good. Cause you can’t screw me if we fight for the same side. I’d outrank you.”
“Well, that’s fortunate then, since exactly zero people here want to screw you. Nobody is impressed by your flyboy attitude.”
“Then again, I wouldn’t want to have to get you both fired. One of you is going to have to come home with—” He reached for Ryu’s waist.
The pipe beneath Kael’s gauntleted fingers groaned, but there was little time to process what damage he’d done. His eyes were too busy following the three rapid and efficient blows Ryu landed—one uppercut to the solar plexus, sending the man staggering, then a jab and a hook to the head, sending him sprawling into the saw dust on the floor.
Kael let out a bark of laughter in celebration. A woman at the bar to his left cheered and another man snickered and muttered, “Long time comin’, that.” High-tech armor was no match for unaugmented flesh, no matter the gender, not that most marines couldn’t have handled the average overconfident pilot unarmored anyway. Kael found himself imagining her trying it all without the armor. Surely that’d be a sight to behold…
The waitress stared down at the pilot’s groaning form, looking more terrified than relieved.
Ryu wasn’t finished. She bent down and whispered, “You harass her or anyone else here again, and I will personally hunt you down, cut off your balls, and force-feed them to you. Got it?”
The pilot gaped up at her in horror, blood starting to drip from his nose.
