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After a meeting so long it should have qualified for its own ecological naming convention, Crash was as done with a work day as she had ever been. Give her a ship and throw her into the maw any day; it was better than hashing out details of a new mission. Upon coming home to the Seraphim with Grant, she had snagged his arm and hauled him off to their special place.
Batta knew it existed but respected their privacy. Crash could imagine the sorts of things Batta thought they got up to in the tiny space, and she didn’t correct him. He was wrong, however. She and Grant Stone did not canoodle, cavort, or even just fuck.
The entrance to the space was invisible unless you tore apart every deck plate on the bottom ventral level of the ship inside the secondary maintenance tube. Some enterprising worker realized there was a void in the design of the ship and, instead of doing his duty and reinforcing it, added a door totally off the main network and fitted it with a bar.
A meter and a half high and two on a side, the space was small unless you were sitting. Crash and Grant had stepped down through the hole in the deck and closed it after them, flipped on a battery-powered light and begun to drink.
After half an hour of dedicated effort in that direction, she put down her glass of whiskey and settled back on a pile of cushions purloined from one of the empty crew quarters. “So we’re really gonna do this? Go into the Freehold just because Iona and Dex think it’s a good idea?”
Grant finished a long sip of excellent Proximan vodka and shrugged. “You went along with it. Sharp seemed more convinced by you than me at the meeting.”
Crash let out an exasperated breath. “Of course I tried to convince him. You told me it was what you wanted. For all of us to get away.”
“I do,” he said, though there was a slight hesitation in his voice. It wasn’t that she was against the idea; it actually seemed like a good way to allow for time so tempers could cool. Not just for Iona, either. A lot of people were furious at them for their mission to the rogue planet right on top of hate by association because Iona was part of their crew.
“But you’ve been away from your family for a long time and we won’t get a chance to visit,” Crash guessed. Batta had made the same complaint when they came to him with the proposal. Spencer and Krieger were still out of the system, but she suspected both of them would choose to go to the Freehold. Neither had much holding them here. If there were any complaints among Fen or the others, none shared them. And any of them could have broken contract if they wanted—Grant would never force crew members to stay against their will.
So few of them had any family left, or at least family they cared to speak with.
“Just feels like we’ve had to be the job for so long now,” he said. “I’d like to go home and see my folks, spend some time with everyone. It grounds me, you know?”
Crash had lost that feeling a long time back, when her mother made it clear that no number of successful missions would ever smooth away the terror she felt every time Crash had to go back on duty at the end of leave. One final cataclysmic fight in which she was given a choice between flying ships or having a relationship with her mother, and it was all done.
She knew that fence could be mended. There was no doubt in her mind that her mother still worried all these years later, still loved her. Crash simply chose not to. Any person who would give an ultimatum like that wasn’t someone she wanted in her life. It hurt less and less every year, but the wound was still there.
“Then tell Sharp you’re going anyway,” Crash said.
Grant blinked. “Huh? You mean disobey and go. Just like that? You know he only got permission to let us leave on the condition that we go as soon as we resupply, no other stops.”
Crash gave him a flat look that said, man, you can’t be this dense. “Your parents own a fucking asteroid. My understanding is that they specialize in custom fabrication and refueling.”
Grant smiled. “My dad said if they were on Earth a few hundred years ago, they’d be running the nicest gas station in the world. You think we could use that as an excuse?”
Crash grinned, and it was not a kind expression. “Grant, I’m saying we shouldn’t give a fuck. Look, the Ghost Fleet is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong. The work is important and necessary. But it’s as prone to the same old bullshit the Navy always is. The same shit that made us leave. There’s politics and personal grudges and ass-kissers will inevitably fail right up the ladder so they can piss all over the rest of us from the heights. I’m saying that once we’re gone, we’re gone for a year at least and I don’t think they’re going to send a cruiser after us for deciding to take a few weeks for ourselves first. We have to rearm and do some minor repairs anyway. You really think Sharp is going to broadcast that tiny mutiny to anyone who will do anything about it? They sent us to fucking die, man. The least we’re owed is some time to ourselves on the way out of Alliance space.”
She could actually see him agree with her before he even nodded his head. The tiny expressions that you only learn when you’ve known a person for a long, long time all spoke to her at once. There was tiredness, too. A weariness that reached deep into him and refused to let go. The details of the mission were as yet vague; they would only learn more upon meeting with their local handler in the Freehold itself. That was a good way off. She could afford a night of not thinking about it.
Instead she lifted her glass and gave him a half-mock salute. “Cheers, man. Fight the power.”
Grant chuckled as he brought his own glass up for another drink. The devilish gleam in his eye was the same she’d seen back when he stood up for her in their service days. The guy had iron at the middle of him. Cut him too deeply and you risked running across it.
“I’m just glad I’ll have something to do, finally,” Crash said.
Grant’s brow furrowed. “Are you kidding? You handled the ship while we were down in that shit show.”
“Iona did,” Crash said. “I’m not saying I didn’t do some work and contribute where I could, but she did all our jobs and then some. Except for maintenance, I guess. I wasn’t useless, but it was close. At least with something as long and complicated as going undercover in the Freehold, there’s bound to be shit for me to do.”
Grant nodded. “Sharp said we’d be doing a lot of surface ops, and plenty of long-term infiltration. There ought to be something for everyone.”
Crash thought back to the complex ballet of movements Iona had flown the ship through during their time in the nebula. The way she’d effortlessly avoided death over and over again while raining it down on their enemies. The sim woman liked to put on a brave face, but Crash had seen the cracks begin to form. The mind—any mind—could only handle so much stress and fear and having to operate perfectly just to survive before it started to take damage. The strongest metals would shatter under the right conditions.
“We need to figure out a way to keep Iona on the ship as much as possible,” Crash said, her voice as solemn as she ever got. “I don’t want to think about what would happen if she had to stay away for long.”
She’d been there. The naked, exposed feeling of not having weapons and steel surrounding you was common among fighter pilots of all types. It was unnerving to think of those reactions forming in someone who could mentally control Crash’s ship, but she didn’t let that show on her face. Iona was a friend. This mission could be good for her.
Sometimes you just had to get away. Even if where you ended up wasn’t better, just that it was new could make all the difference.
That was her hope, anyway.