Was it irony then that the problem wasn’t magically fixed by the change in personnel? It was certainly painful to have Lovelace ask her about it at their next meeting. “Took fifteen days for you to get it moved up the chain,” the woman said. “And now it’s been another five and it’s still not fixed. Is this problem significant, Forrest?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why didn’t you escalate it faster?”
“I… I have no excuse, sir.”
Lovelace had eyed her and said, brisk, “You have the very temporary excuse of your youth and inexperience. Are you going to make this mistake twice?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I’ll let it pass. Don’t let any moss grow under your feet next time.”
“Yes, sir.”
It had been an uncomfortable discussion, and it had been followed up with a grueling shift at her station, trying not to watch the Naysha and Pelted engineers running through yet more tests and finding yet more nothing while Felix hovered and dropped lessons, assignments, and quizzes on them at intervals that were only predictable because he always chose the most awkward times to trot them out. She was grateful to escape.
At the skullbash that night, Serra cornered her over the coffee pot. “You need cream?”
“No, I like it black.”
The Tam-illee nodded. “I heard you were having some trouble with Beringwaite.”
Alysha glanced at her and flicked her ears back. “From whom?”
“The human specialists got traded out for a Pelted team on that issue in the water environment. People talk. You know how it goes.” She glanced at Alysha past the pitcher of cream. “They couldn’t handle the work, I’m guessing.”
“No,” Alysha said. “Nothing like that.”
Serra faced her now, frowning. “What was it, then? These are people I have to manage too. I want to know what the issue was. It might smack me in the face next time, not him.”
“You could ask him,” Alysha said, cautiously. At the skeptical look, she clarified, “Beringwaite.”
“No one asks him anything. He doesn’t share.” Serra prodded her forearm with a fingertip. “But you’ll tell me. Right? Here, pass me the honey.”
“I really don’t know what happened,” Alysha said, handing it to her. “Beringwaite and I agreed if the first team couldn’t solve the problem by the end of the week, we’d give someone else a chance. It’s been a week, so he assigned new people. But they haven’t figured it out either. I don’t think it’s about the first team being able to handle it or not. It’s evidently a very hard to fix problem.”
“Huh,” Serra muttered. “Seriously? He talked to you.”
“Over a beer,” Alysha couldn’t resist saying. “He has good taste in beer.”
Serra eyed her. Then guffawed. “All right. I get the message loud and clear. If there’s a problem here, it’s on both sides, right? If I give up on it, then that’s on me as much as it is on him for making it so bleeding hard to stick with it.” She eyed Alysha. “But he really does make it hard.”
“Sometimes the things you work hardest at are the things you end up proudest of?” Alysha offered.
The foxine barked a laugh and couldn’t stop. Turning Alysha to face the rest of the skullbash, she said, “Admiral in the making! New betting pool! She makes the grade first!”
“Not taking that bet,” Valery said, unruffled.
“I will,” Alysha said. “I think Jae’en will get there first.”
The tigraine considered, much to the Aera’s amusement. “All right. Good point. I’ll give you my dumpling recipe if you win.”
“I’ll be sure to check back in twenty years,” Alysha said.
The meeting concluded early and dispersed, leaving Alysha in her chair, wondering about the shape of her life. The routine of being in Fleet—hadn’t someone said it was mostly tedium punctuated with moments of extreme terror? She looked at her coffee mug and the plate full of crumbs and smiled. Would it ever bore her?
“So what was that all about?” Jae’en asked, dropping to a seat across the table from her. At her quizzical look, he elaborated: “Serra.”
“Oh!” Alysha flicked her ears outward, embarrassed. “She was just….”
“Making trouble, and you called her on it,” Valery murmured.
Both of them looked at him, surprised. It inspired the tigraine to blush and look away. “She can be overbearing. It rubs people the wrong way.”
“Engineers sometimes see situations as problems that can be solved as neatly as formulas, you mean,” Jae’en said. “Most things aren’t.”
“Why isn’t Beringwaite here?” Alysha asked him directly.
In the following silence, Valery’s soft chuckle seemed to echo.
“Calling you on it, now,” the tigraine said.
Jae’en winced. So did Alysha. “I didn’t mean…”
“You did,” the Aera interrupted. “And you’re not wrong. He’s not here because he’s a pain to manage and as Serra would be the first to point out, I’m not an admiral yet. I don’t have infinite energy to devote to personnel issues.”
Alysha wondered if Brighthaven had felt he had infinite energy for anything, much less personnel issues. But then, he’d taken an interest directly in her, hadn’t he? And who was she? “The more we shut him out, the more shut out he’ll stay. It’ll become part of his identity: the one who got shut out and didn’t need anyone. But you’re right about us needing to talk, Jae’en-alet. Why haven’t you made more of an effort?”
“Why is it his effort to make?” Valery murmured.
A pause. Then they all burst out laughing. Pointing at her, Jae’en said, “He’s calling you on it this time.”
Grinning past her blush, Alysha said, “All right. I’ll own it.” She rose and bowed to Valery. “Alet. Thank you.”
The tigraine muttered something under his breath, looking pained.
“I forgot,” Alysha said, “that it’s all of our responsibilities.”
Jae’en made a ‘so-so’ motion. “You didn’t want to step on my toes. Yes? It’s my meeting, and you know it. Beringwaite has never come when I’ve invited him, but you’re welcome to try. If he does come, though… he’s gotta feel like someone here has his back. Otherwise, why would he stay? Who stays in a room where everyone hates you and no one wants to help you accomplish anything?”
“Does everyone really hate him that much?” she asked, ear flattening.
“Probably not,” Jae’en said. “But it feels that way to him, I bet. So you’re going to have to make him believe otherwise. You’re going to have to be on his side.” He quirked a brow. “Think you’re up to that?”
Several answers floated to mind, ‘no’ and ‘I can try’ being foremost among them. She thought of Beringwaite failing the ensigns on the leadership retreat… and then of him trying to protect the second chances of the humans on the Songlance, who needed them. “I’ll do it.”
“You’ll have to protect us from him too when he gets too abrasive,” Jae’en warned.
Valery murmured, “Shouldn’t have said that…”
Alysha’s mouth twitched despite her best effort. Jae’en sighed and ruffled up the tigraine’s hair. “All right, fine, we’re adults, we’re supposed to be able to handle ourselves if we’re attacked. Especially us.”
“But we do need to hang together,” Alysha said. She picked up her mug and plate. “I can’t say it’ll be easy. But I’ll work on it.”
“All right,” Jae’en said. “You bring him, we’ll give him another chance. Several of them, as long as you vouch for him. Who knows, maybe it’ll do some good.”
* * *
Saying she was going to handle the situation and approaching it were different things, she thought in the morning as she herded her Flitzbe clod to the Medplex. Would the best thing be to invite him to the club and do it there? On one hand it was a relaxed setting, conducive maybe to him agreeing to return to the skullbash. On the other, it gave him enough time to argue. Maybe it would be best to just drop by and ask him? Give him less time to react? But then his reflexive response might be to turn her down. She paused to let the Flitzbe roll past her into the Medplex, counting them as they went past to make sure they were all present. When the door closed on them, she turned into the corridor and paused.
A quote floated to her from her reading: Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold. All her ruminations were just a way to put the work off. She could waffle over the best way, the perfect way… or she could do something, and if it didn’t work, try again. She had twenty minutes before Felix was expecting her. That was enough time. She checked the computer for Beringwaite’s location, found him still in his cabin, and headed that way. Shift change had been underway for an hour, so the corridors were busy. She turned into his and found him exiting his cabin.
They both stopped.
“Forrest,” he said, wary.
Only now, staring at him, did she realize she had no idea what he wanted to be called. Did it bother him to be addressed the way all Pelted talked to one another? “Mister Beringwaite,” she said instead of ‘alet,’ feeling her way through it. “Do you have a moment?”
Another pause as he evaluated her. Then he said, grudgingly, “Beringwaite’s fine. Otherwise my name takes forever. What is it?”
Be bold, she reminded herself. “You should come to the skullbash.”
“I should, should I,” he said, emphasizing the command. He started walking down the corridor. “Why’s that, Forrest? So the rest of you can get new material to use when my back’s turned?”
She followed him. “That’s not why I asked.”
“You didn’t ask,” he pointed out. Angry now, she thought.
“You’re right. I started that badly. I’m starting everything badly because—Beringwaite. Stop.” She stepped in front of him. “We have history and I let it control how I feel about you. Can we talk about this?”
“What’s there to talk about?” He was definitely angry now, eyes burning cold. “We went to Quickwater. We had a fight there. We already know we don’t like each other. What is there to discuss?”
“But I don’t know if I don’t like you.”
That stopped both of them. Beringwaite’s patent incredulity was no more definitive than hers. Did she like him? Of course she didn’t. But: “I barely know you.”
He stared at her as if she’d gone crazy. “Yeah. Why don’t we keep it that way.”
As he walked on, she called after him, “Why? Do you think one of the Pelted could never like you?”
“For God’s sake, Forrest, give it up.”
“Come to the skullbash,” she said again.
“Stop telling me what to do—“
“Please come to the skullbash?”
He stopped and slowly looked over his shoulder.
“I said that right, right?” Alysha said, unable to help a grin. “I assume it’s the same language, at least. Please come to the skullbash?”
“What is it,” he said, exasperated, “with you and your savior complex, Forrest? I am not a drowning puppy you need to haul out of the water.”
The metaphor was so exact she asked, “Did you? Have a dog?”
He paused again, for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then, grudgingly. “Yes.” And more clearly, “I thought you people didn’t like to hear about pets from us. Aren’t you worried we’re going to turn you back into them?”
Alysha joined him. “See, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes people not want to talk to you anymore.”
“So it’s all my fault.”
“I… well…” Was it? “Yes. You’re angry, I get that. Maybe I get it a little better now that you’ve explained to me some of what it’s like on Terra. But how is taking it out on people who could help you going to help anyone? You? Them?”
He squinted at her. “Back to lecturing. You’re big on that, aren’t you.”
“Stop that!” Alysha said, exasperated. “You don’t have to turn everything into a weapon.”
“You don’t have to turn everything into a learning experience, either.”
“I do if I don’t know enough.” She flicked her ears back and met his eyes. Be bold. “Not knowing enough got us in trouble on the reserve.”
“Us.”
“Us,” she repeated. “I made mistakes too. Not the same ones, but my errors compounded yours. Look, can’t we just agree that we messed up? All of us. Even the people following our lead.”
“My lead,” he muttered.
“If it was your lead, then it’s all yours. The responsibility. Was it?”
He grimaced. “Look, maybe your superior’s not into punctuality, but mine will blister my ears if I show up late. I’ve got to go.”
“All right. But can we talk about this more?”
He hesitated.
“Please?” She smiled. “See, I know the word.”
Beringwaite sighed. “Why the hell are you so persistent? Fine. We can meet after shift.”
“Another beer?” she suggested.
He eyed her. “I didn’t know you liked beer.”
“I didn’t know either until I had what you were having,” she said. “Maybe you can introduce me to a few more?”
This long pause was more considering, and something in his face didn’t loosen, precisely, as much as… fail to be rigid. In that moment, she saw him: Mike Beringwaite. Not someone who could be saved, but someone she might like. With work. Maybe a lot of work, but hadn’t she just suggested to Serra that sometimes the reward was commensurate with the effort?
“We’ll see,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the club.”
“Done.”
At her bridge station—which she’d had to jog to, to reach on time—she found herself satisfied with the encounter, and that satisfaction inspired her to revisit the memories of the retreat where she’d had her disastrous meeting with Beringwaite. In some of their correspondence, Taylitha had reminded her not to take everything on herself. ‘Followers,’ she’d said, ‘have a responsibility to be good at following. That means we think about how we carry out our orders before we go down a bleeding unmarked trail in a leaky canoe.’
Beringwaite was right, though. She did want to save everyone. She wanted to put herself between everyone and the suffering she’d gone through as a teen. Was that insecurity on her part? A feeling that there was no safety unless she was eternally vigilant? Or was that just a part of her personality? A good one, worth nurturing? She watched Hood rippling in the navigation chamber through the camera at her station, her mind elsewhere. Felix would probably call her on her distraction, but she was all right with that.
It wasn’t Felix who snapped her attention back to her board, though. It was Hood’s abrupt cessation of movement, and then a flood of data as their navigational coordinates abruptly changed.
“Catch that, ensign?” Felix was saying to the Asanii felid sitting at the station slaved to the comm board.
“Ah, yes, sir. We’ve received a distress call from a contractor replacing one of the repeaters.” The felid tilted his head, listening. “Engine failure. They don’t sound desperate. Just glad to see us.” He grinned. “We’re heading to them now.”
Hood had resumed swimming at a much reduced pace. Alysha glanced at the scrolling text alongside the navigation chamber’s view and saw the Naysha discussing the course change.
“How long will we be en route?” Felix asked Alysha.
“Nine hours,” she said. “It’s the stop after the one we were supposed to make today.”
“Nine hours,” one of the other ensigns said, disappointed. “That’s after shift change. We won’t be here to see it.”
“It’s going to be a long shift,” someone else muttered.
“Sounds like an excellent time to do some simulations on search and rescue ops!” Felix grinned. “Then, tomorrow, when we go over the logs of how we actually performed, you can produce your own after-action reports based on your observations of how it went down.”
Not only did the crew on the auxiliary bridge not groan, some of them grinned back at the Seersa. People could get used to anything, Alysha thought, amused. She kept an eye on her console, just in case something came up about the forthcoming rescue, but to her surprise, the simulations interested her—and the others too, if their questions were any indication. Felix had participated in four such operations and based his sims accordingly, and the delta between procedure and reality, particularly with first-hand descriptions, was fascinating. “Real world ops,” he said, “are almost always thornier than what the book tells you.”
“Our fix for the repeater went well,” someone pointed out.
“A problem of minimal complexity,” Felix said. “It’s when you start adding variables that it trips you up. And nothing adds variables like an entirely separate crew and a broken ship. You watch. When it’s all over, someone will have broken a leg, or misplaced a spare, or forgotten to file a report.”
“Not a missing report!” the ensign at comm exclaimed.
“Missing reports are the worst of all,” Felix promised. “One day you’ll see.”
* * *
Leaving the bridge after her shift, Alysha could feel the current of energy running through the corridors. The Songlance had maintained communication with the ailing ship, enough to prepare the teams who’d be Padding over to help them with repairs; all they needed now was to arrive. Waiting gave the air in the ship a shivery feel, one that translated into her body. After weeks of routine, some excitement, a chance to do good! She regretted not being there to see it. Maybe she could find a place to watch? Less than an hour now, she judged. Hood had made good time.
The hum of conversation in the Officer’s Club also communicated the ship’s anticipation, higher in pitch, louder, and more rapid. She paused at the threshold to orient herself. Beringwaite hadn’t arrived yet, so she picked the table they’d shared before. Strange notion: the table they’d shared before!
He didn’t keep her waiting; a few minutes later, he pulled back a chair and sat on it, radiating his wariness. But he’d come, and that was a beginning. Maybe they could make something of it. “I bet Engineering was busy today,” she said.
Another of those hesitations, as if he couldn’t quite decide that they were colleagues able to have a normal conversation. Then: “Yeah. This ship we’re heading for, they blew out the bleed-off system for the Well drive. The components list was about twenty items long. Not cheap either. If we were closer to civilization we’d probably tow them to the nearest port. As it is… we’ll end up billing them.”
“I never really thought about how that would work,” Alysha mused. “Where the money comes to recoup the costs we spend on rescues.”
“Well, we can’t run on fumes.” Beringwaite scooped up a handful of the peanuts in the bowl in the center of the table. “Even the almighty Alliance with its rivers of money needs to pay the bills somehow.”
So easy to take umbrage to his casual disdain. Now she looked at him and wondered at the conditions in the Sol system. What must it be like, to live somewhere with such want? And to never feel like you could pay it back? “You know,” she said slowly. “We need humans.”
His face grew more set. “This should be good.”
Her conversation with Brighthaven by the sea, after her graduation… it was still so vivid. The cool, damp wind on her face. The piercing brilliance of the stars over that dark horizon. His baritone, so clear and so bitter. And the feel of his fingers on the insides of her ears. She flicked them back, feeling the earrings shift against her hair. “We know how to be Fleet. But Fleet doesn’t know how to be a military.”
“True,” he said. “What makes you think they’re ever going to change, though?”
Her answer was reflexive. “Pessimism?”
Beringwaite blurted a laugh. “You? Really? I would never have thought it, furry.” He caught himself. “Excuse me. Forrest.”
It was hard not to react to the slur, even though he’d apologized. “You could try my name.”
“Forrest is your name.” He cracked one of the peanuts, ordered a beer from the table. “You serious about beer?”
“Maybe?” She glanced at the list. “What should I ask for?”
“You like it sweet or hoppy?” At her blank look, he frowned, but thinking, not angry. “More like chocolate or more like green tea?”
“I don’t like sweet things much. I like chocolate that’s earthy?”
“Right. Pick this one.”
She shrugged and tapped it. “I thought you’d learned your lesson about calling us names.”
Beringwaite looked away. “Yeah. Bad habit. Sorry.” At her stare, he said, “It’s the company I keep. You talk like the people you’re with most. Which is why I don’t really believe you and the pessimism claim. You’re not a pessimist, Forrest. You don’t hang around enough miserable, disenfranchised people.”
Her voice grew quieter. “You’re making assumptions about me without any basis.”
Whatever he saw in her face—the shadows of Rispa and Angel and the Harem Rose, maybe—made him flush and resume building his pile of peanut shells. “Fine. I still think you’re an incurable optimist. So why do you think Fleet’s ever going to become a real military?”
“Because,” Alysha said, thinking of the journals she’d been reading since leaving the Academe, “I don’t think it matters how good your tools are if you use them badly. We have tools, Beringwaite, but I don’t think that’s going to matter to the Chatcaava if they decide they want what we have.”
“Practicality about violence from one of you Pelted makes me suspicious,” Beringwaite said with a snort. “What makes you think the Chatcaava are coming?”
“Maybe they won’t,” she conceded. “But if they don’t, we still have other problems.”
“Like what?” he said, unimpressed. “Pirates?”
The ship shivered under them. They both looked up at the ceiling, then down at the floor, in time for their chairs to buck them off. As the table crashed alongside them and they rolled out of the way, the lighting flickered and a second set of lights began to strobe.
“Battlestations. Battlestations. The ship is under attack. This is not a drill. Battlestatio—“
The words cut off as the ship shook again, and this time when the lighting flickered, it didn’t come back.
“Rhack!” Beringwaite hissed.
Alysha jumped to her feet, gave him a hand up. He took it, too, and she felt a moment’s surprise at it, and then they were both running for the exit along with everyone else. As first shift on the auxiliary bridge, her battlestation was there, at secondary nav; that put them both in the same corridors for most of the way, and having him at her side felt… strange. In the dark, with only the low red lights lining the corridors to prick him from it, she could hear him breathing and it was quick but strong.
What could have gone wrong? Had someone come to prey on the ship they’d come to rescue? But what pirate would tangle with a battlecruiser? It made no sense. It continued to make no sense when they rounded the corner into a group of people out of uniform.
“BACK!” Beringwaite yelled, throwing her around the corner. Palmer fire streaked the space they’d vacated. “Armory!”
“This way!” She pushed herself off the wall and ran back the way they’d come, heart pounding. Boarders? Boarders here? How was that possible? Their palmers hadn’t squeaked: illegal, then. She wouldn’t know they were about to hit her until she was down.
The halls were chaos. Shouting—the strobe of the emergency lights, the sirens, the dashing of personnel, the sound of people falling. They reached the armory and darted inside.
“Boarders,” she hissed.
He handed her a chest plate and palmer, his motions jerky as he pulled them off the racks. “Bet the “rescue” was a ruse. It was an ambush.”
“Who ambushes a battlecruiser?!”
“Someone who thinks they can take it.” Beringwaite strapped the palmer on. “Any news?”
Alysha had already tried the panel by the wall. “Comm is either on lockdown or compromised. Here,” she tossed him a telegem. “Better keep it local.”
He fitted it to his ear and inhaled, meeting her eyes. “Well. What the rhack now.”
“We get out there and neutralize them.” Her body was trembling. Fear? Adrenaline? Anger? “If they want the ship, they have to head for places they can use to control it. The bridge, engineering.”
“Good luck there.” Beringwaite checked the wall panel, looking for external camera views. “Engineering’s a hard target. No way they’ll get into it before we fix whatever damage is keeping us from firing back or running away.”
“Running away,” Alysha murmured.
“Sure. Mobility wins engagements.”
And Hood could move the ship. “If they cripple Nav…”
He looked at her sharply.
“What’s the corridor look like?”
“Clear now.”
She nodded. “Let’s go.”
They stole out into the dim red halls. She didn’t question that he was following. Their differences fell away before the threat.
“Quiet,” he observed over the telegem. “Even with their palmers silenced, I would have expected more people down this way.”
Her ears twitched at a noise. “Wall!” They flattened themselves against it and saw fifteen pirates jog past.
“Rhack,” Beringwaite cursed. “Remind me to shut up.”
She cautiously checked the corridor. “Gone now.”
“They’re heading toward the water environment, aren’t they.”
“I know a different way in.” She peeled herself from the wall and started back, glad of the hours she’d spent memorizing the layout.
He grabbed her arm. “In?”
“They either want to claim the chamber or sabotage it,” Alysha said. “We’ve got to stop them.”
“By doing what?” he asked. “There are two of us, Forrest.”
She met his eyes. “I know a way. But we don’t have much time.”
He might have objected in that moment. He might have told her he was a better leader, and that he needed to be in charge. He might have insisted she explain, even. All those possibilities flickered between them, quick as punches to the gut, and they both felt them.
What he said was, “Let’s go.”
Alysha led him out. No one had cleared away the extra supplies in the corridor with the second hatch into the water environment, which gave them more than enough cover, had there been enemies. They saw no one. Switching channels on her telegem, Alysha heard the staccato of orders passing back and forth, the haze of static when the pirates found and cut off that channel, and the switching to new ones. Aloud to Beringwaite, she said, “We should keep the chatter minimal. They’re jamming everything they find.”
He nodded.
This hatch led directly to the water, the way the machine room’s second hatch did. They donned the masks in the airlock, then passed through. Did he find it strange, the thickness of the water? She had no time to ask. The Naysha were gone, hidden behind the emergency bulkheads that had dropped throughout the habitat to protect its denizens from any loss of integrity. The emptiness struck her, harsh as an amputation. Even here, the emergency lighting was in effect, and everything around them was a dim red murk. Difficult to get her bearings… she pointed finally, and sailed toward the hatch into the machine room. They swam past the enormous doors into the navigation chamber’s currentlock, and Beringwaite glanced at them.
The masks also had a comm channel, short-range. She used it. “We need to get them into the machine room. You think they’ll come on their own?”
“If they know how the system works, yeah. They’ll want to disable or control the room.” He drifted to a halt alongside the hatch. “Doubt we’ll know if they do.”
“We could bait them.”
“Dunno if two lieutenants are going to interest them.”
She looked through the window into the machine room. “Two lieutenants probably won’t. Two wet lieutenants running to a room that says authorized personnel only?”
“Good point.” He shoved the lever up and pushed the door open. “Should we warn the aquatics?”
“The Naysha are sealed in.” She checked the panel alongside the hatch. “They’re good. The Platies are with them, except Hood. Hood’s in the nav chamber.”
“Right.” He pulled himself into the lock. “Let’s go be tempting.”
Emerging from the water environment made her realize how poorly her uniform was suited to being in it. It clung to her, sopping, as she jogged to the external hatch and opened it on the corridor. Beringwaite looked over her shoulder, slid past her. They’d barely stepped toward the junction nearest them when a clot of pirates appeared at it. As one they dove back through, closing the external door before rushing through the second inner door.
“Think they’ll wonder why this is an airlock too?”
“Not before we use it on them, I hope,” Alysha said, diving for the second hatch.
“They’re trying the outer door.”
“Good.” She glanced toward it as he jumped in. “Be ready.”
He had his hand on the lever. “Martyr complex at work, Forrest?”
“Shut up, Mike.”
Did he laugh? Was that a joke? She was shaking. She didn’t think she was capable of feeling anything. He was so steady. She was too, more than she’d believed possible. The lever on the door into the machine room started to rise. As it swung open she dropped into the airlock and dragged the hatch closed behind them. “Go.”
The moment they were ejected into the water environment, she went to the panel and brought up the visual feed. Pirates. In their ship. In her part of the ship. Five. Six. Nine.
“Looks like that’s all of them,” Beringwaite said, watching. “For now, anyway. And they’re working at the panels, not shooting them.”
“Let’s test their reflexes.” She flipped through the controls. Hit the one to flood the machine room, authorized it as the liaison to the water environment. A hesitation. Then water surged into the camera view. The pirates started shouting. Some of them grabbed the masks in time. Two of them went under and didn’t come back up.
“Seven,” Beringwaite said. “They’re going to drain the room.”
Her heart was pounding, but she felt very calm. She started keying in the sequence. Behind her she felt the tides shift. “Not in time.”
“Forrest—“
“The currentlock’s opening. There are harnesses in it. Buckle in, now.”
“What about—“
“I’ll be back in time. Go!”
He backed away, then twisted in the water and swam to the enormous doors. She turned back to the panel, breathing slowly. The engineers hadn’t isolated the error in the alarming system. Had she thought she’d ever be grateful for it? Because there would be nothing to warn their enemies what was coming, not even the flash of a light. She queued the procedure. Nothing checked her, nothing flagged. As far as the monitoring system was concerned, the currentlock was closed, and no one had entered a command to change that.
“Secure?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She nodded and started the countdown, then lunged for the machine room hatch. She opened the first door, shoved it wide. Started work on the second.
“Forrest, what the rhacking hell—“
“Hang on,” she said, and pushed the door into the machine room open. One of the pirates spotted her; she grabbed the edge of the hatch and propelled herself back into the water, swimming strongly for the navigation chamber. She reached the edge of the currentlock just as the water shivered near them.
Her fingers shook as she flew through the harness’s buckles. The memory of Sar’s calm instruction, and the repetition, steadied her; even so, she almost didn’t finish before a thin, dark line crackled the seam between the navigation chamber’s giant doors.
“Rhack,” Beringwaite whispered.
The doors began to part, and with it brought a terrible suction.
Had she thought herself prepared for it? That thin mouth had barely opened and abruptly the current was tearing at her, bruising her against her harness. She didn’t even think of it; she reached for Beringwaite, found him already grasping for her, and they clasped one another as the doors continued to grind open. Even through the thickness of the water the roar battered her ears. She squinted, saw three shadowed shapes fly past her, then another. And still the doors slid, gaped, until at last they had irised fully open and there she saw Hood in the flow, spotlit by the few remaining lights bright enough to see by. The great Platy was rippling in place as if the shift of the water was nothing, and the strength implied in that muscled blanket of flesh was inconceivable. The thought that their enemies were screaming as they flew past the navigator… she couldn’t hold it in her head. She was glad the water was too dimly lit for her to see if their bodies had been excreted through the filtration system as fine dark clouds.
“My God,” Beringwaite whispered, and the telegem brought it to her ear as intimately as if he’d spoken it against her skin. “Look at that. Oh God, how are we going to get out of this.”
“We’re going to,” she answered, hoarse. “They won’t. That’s the point.”
And then a body smacked into them, tearing them apart. One pirate, face frozen in a rictus of terror and hate, caught the straps of Beringwaite’s harness.
He had a knife.
She hadn’t popped her claws in so long. It hurt like a burn, the breathnache slicing her flesh and the water environment stinging at the edges, sucking the blood from the thin cuts. She grabbed for the pirate and her fingers went through his clothes, his flesh, his body armor, without resistance. He howled, mouth contorted and no sound issuing from it, and turned on her, knife up. She dodged as he swung, and Beringwaite’s fist tore him free of her. The suction yanked the pirate away.
Alysha swung after him, seized by the current.
She clutched her harness, found it cut from the miss with the knife. Before she could panic, Beringwaite seized her by the back of her uniform, jerked her back. The strap began to part.
“Hang on!”
She wrapped her arms around him, felt his around her. The remaining straps dug into her ribs, her shoulders. She could feel the tremor in Beringwaite’s arms as he fought the current. There would be bruises under the fingertips he had dug into her back and hip.
She’d only programmed a two minute exposure. It lasted forever. She was sure she would die, and knew Beringwaite would never let her.
The doors began to close. Their bodies lost their strained diagonal, drifted downward. The harnesses grew loose around them. Hood vanished behind battlesteel, and all the pirates with him.
“All right?” he asked, voice husky over the telegem.
“In one piece, because of you.” She managed a smile. “Thanks.”
He glanced toward the doors. “Rhack. And I got you angry at me once already. I can’t believe I survived it.”
The pressure in her chest was a laugh. She choked on it, on the inappropriateness of it. “We should see if that got them all.”
“Right.”
Together they passed through the airlock into the machine room. Dragging out of the water was so hard… her body felt heavier, not lighter, and her side hurt. Alysha reversed the flood while Beringwaite checked the consoles. “They were trying to isolate Nav from the bridge. The job’s still running.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Yeah. Brute force attack.” His fingers glided over the console, paused to push the mask up now that the water level had fallen. “That should take care of it. Ship’s still fighting them off.”
“Stay or go?” she asked.
He glanced at her.
“You think they’ll try the chamber again?”
“Good question.” He grimaced. “Let’s see if there’s someone to give us orders.”
Alysha wrung out her uniform tunic, trying not to twist her torso, waiting as he ran the console through the available comm channels. Then, abrupt into the empty, dripping silence of the room: “This is Lovelace. Report.”
“Beringwaite here, with Forrest. We’ve secured the navigation chamber. Nine hostiles came in. We presume they’re dead.”
Sharply: “Presume?”
“Forrest put them through the nav chamber.”
Lovelace didn’t pause. “Understood. Remain where you are. We’re mopping up, but we’re not done yet.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lovelace, out.”
“She didn’t sound very concerned,” Alysha said, slowly.
“She wouldn’t,” Beringwaite said. “She’s a senior noncom. They never show fear.” He grinned crookedly. “It’s surgically excised during the promotion process.”
She inhaled slowly around the ache in her chest, wondering that she felt so calm. “Do you think they’d come in through the water environment?”
“I doubt it, but the moment we decide they aren’t, they’ll do it.”
She made a noise. Maybe a chuckle, but it was too strangled for her to tell. “I’ll take this door. You take the one to the hall.”
“Done.” He paused. “After you check that cut.” At her blank expression, he touched his side, under his arm. “Here. You’re bleeding. And you’re moving badly.”
Was she? It had seemed unimportant next to the pain that reminded her not to twist toward the right. How had he noticed? Except there was a gap in the chest armor and her uniform was ripped, exposing the gray fur and the dark line through it. She spread it with her fingertips. “It’s superficial. I don’t think it would be bleeding like this if it was dry.”
He ducked under one of the consoles and came out with a kit, shoving it across the floor at her. “Then dry it up. Last thing we need is another exercise thrown because of your ribs.”
“Are we talking about this now, then?” she asked, opening it.
“Hell,” he said with a sigh. “It’s been coming, hasn’t it. And I’m not feeling it anyway after living through that.” He crouched alongside the outer door. “So, you want to tell me that I was a bastard?”
“That seems rude, since you just saved my life.”
“Funny, I think it’s fair, since the last time we talked I called you a bitch.”
She looked up from the kit, fingers frozen on the lid. “You remember.”
“‘Fleet is not a contest,’” he said—quoted because she knew the words, had heard them come from her mouth. “‘Fleet is about protecting its charges. Fleet is not about tyrannical officers sacrificing their units on the altar of their own vanity.’” Beringwaite was staring at the door, expression a mask. “The altar of their own vanity. That was an exact quote.” He paused, added reflectively, “You also called me a failure.”
What could she say? She hadn’t expected her words to mean anything to him. That scene in the mess while they’d been awaiting judgment for their catastrophic mistake at the leadership retreat… she’d taken a stand for the others around her, who’d needed it. And for herself, because she’d finally been pushed too far. She hadn’t believed it would penetrate his self-righteous armor, his bitterness, his anger. She’d been sure of it when she’d followed him outside, with Taylitha, and tried to talk to him only to be dismissed.
“You called yourself a failure too,” Beringwaite continued. “For not stopping me from abusing everyone. That’s the part that stuck with me. You felt you had to protect them from me. And I was angry about that for a long time, because everything you people do is supposed to be so much better than what we do. I joined your military because it was the best, only to discover that it’s only the best in some things.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, his eyes unreadable. “I’d already heard all my life that the Pelted were better than humans. And I knew that was wrong, and it didn’t matter that I knew because no one cared. But to get to Fleet and find out that everyone said it was the best and it also wasn’t?”
“Mike—“
“Shut up, Alysha, and listen.” Said without heat, and she shut up, and did. “I didn’t know what to think anymore. It’s like there’s no future that’s not infected with this… this story that everyone’s telling everyone else, and that no one can contradict. And nothing at that retreat taught me any different. Until you said you were just as bad as I was. We were both failures, by your standards. Me for buying into the story and hating it. You for letting me.” He shook his head, shoulders rigid and eyes tightly closed. “But at least, you’d admitted that Pelted could fail.”
When that pause drew on long enough, she offered, hesitant, “Of course we can.” And then, because it was true, “I can’t imagine what it’s like. To be human, and to be… here.”
“No.” He inhaled slowly, ribcage expanding and the light shifting over his wet uniform. “I don’t think I’m handling it well. But the fact that you thought I’d been abusing everyone… I didn’t even trust you to tell me water was wet, and that stuck with me.”
Could this even be a dialogue? Interrupting his confession seemed rude, and yet. He hadn’t been the only one there, and the only one failing. “You had something to prove. I should have seen it.”
He snorted. “You’re not stupid. You did see it. And you’re right, I did. I couldn’t figure out how to succeed in Fleet, if I couldn’t succeed the way I understood. I even thought of quitting in favor of the Navy. But I wasn’t wrong to call that a step backward, too. This is where all the action is. It’s where it’ll always be. Earth is… Earth is yesterday.” He glanced at her. “That cut’s not going to patch itself.”
She hastily applied herself to it. “Terra isn’t yesterday, Mike. I meant it when I said we needed you.”
“You’re the only one who thinks it—“ He twitched. “No. That’s hyperbole. You’re the only person who’s told me that. The only Pelted.”
“I might be the only one who’s told you, but I’m not the only one who thinks so.” She closed the kit and pushed it out of her way before taking her station alongside the hatch into the water environment. She sighed. “I guess there was no way to have this conversation until now.”
“I don’t know. Almost dying together made it easier, certainly.”
Her mouth tensed into a near-smile. “You know what the funny thing is?”
“Do I want to know. Shoot.”
“Before this afternoon, I spent several days wondering if I could count on you. That’s what you asked the Ciracaana lieutenant at the retreat when he was dressing us down. You remember?”
“Almost. I think it was ‘what do you do if you can’t count on someone.’”
She nodded. “And he said—“
“That Fleet was a family and if you couldn’t trust your brothers and sisters then why were you here, or some schlock like that. Or maybe it was your friend Miss Commendation with the Red Hair who said it. My memory on that part’s hazy.”
“But we found out, didn’t we,” Alysha said. “When it finally mattered.”
They met one another’s eyes across the room.
“Yeah,” Beringwaite said, returning to his vigil. “I guess we did.”