Killbox (Sirantha Jax 4)

I’ve notified the rest of the Armada. They’ll meet us on New Terra.

Ready? Argus asks.

But he’s not talking to me, so I keep silent. This is his show. I’m just along for the ride and to bail him out if things go wrong. I keep that thought to myself, behind my walls. He doesn’t need outside anxiety added to his first jump.

Ready. March offers the kid steady confidence and nothing more.

The phase drive powers up, but there’s a different feel to it now, darker and more dangerous. In my blood, the cations fire to life, and I shudder at the pull of the grimspace link. Whatever Dina did, it changed things profoundly. The nav com knows what’s expected of it now.

How strange, I haven’t felt anyone else do this since we shared time in the sim, back at the Academy, but today, I piggyback on Argus. He’s calm and cautious, exploring the new component to the phase drive. Soon he realizes he can direct it. Perhaps someone who wasn’t subject to my genes could do so as well, but it wouldn’t be as natural. Since we don’t know how the Morgut interface with it, my mutation is grease to the gears.

Smooth as s-silk, he opens the way for us. I ride his elation all the way into grimspace. The kid can’t shield himself; he isn’t experienced enough to manage that along with navigation, but I don’t mind sharing his delight. It’s fresh and clean, wonderfully untainted by ambition or self-interest.

Grimspace, filtered through his mind’s eye, is glorious. Because they’re new to him in this perspective, they seem different to me as well, jewel-bright and fluid as fire. He wants to sing; he wants to dance amid the souls of the stars, for that’s surely what we find here: the beginning of every galaxy, scintillating and refracting light into poetry.

Ah, he has an artistic soul, this one. This is good for me, pleasure without pain. I share it with him gladly, and the feeling redoubles between us. It’s oddly like the pilotjumper bond, but I’ve never had it with a fellow navigator before because they didn’t train this way in the Academy.

But he’s not lost in it. After a few jubilant seconds, he sets himself to finding the beacons. Like any good navigator, he locates the right ones quickly and relays that information to March. Then Argus gives himself over to the beacons; I don’t have to teach how to use them to twist. For him, it’s instinctual. His first solo jump—a direct jump. Truly, the kid’s making history today.

And for these moments, I am free. Home and . . . free. I savor them. Nothing can touch us here.

I sense my apprentice’s reluctance to bring us out, but I’ve hammered home the danger of lingering. He knows the stories of ships lost forever because their jumpers fell prey to the seductive pull. Argus focuses his thoughts, then the phase drive powers up again. When we push through, we’ll be a few thousand klicks from New Terra.

He does it perfectly. There’s no fear or uncertainty in him, only enjoyment. This young man was born to jump, just as I was. I take a certain bittersweet satisfaction in realizing I’ve trained my successor. If something happens to me, my gifts will not be lost. Argus can carry them on.

Smiling, but with a heart full of melancholy, I unplug. I’m not surprised at all to find New Terra rising before us. From this distance, the world shines aquamarine, with paler hues indicating land. This is the jewel in the crown of human achievement. When we set off from our wrecked and wretched homeworld, we didn’t even have faster-than-light travel.

That, we found along the way.

“Good jump,” March says.

Argus flushes, practically glowing with his achievement. In another ten minutes, March interfaces with their SDIs and receives clearance to proceed into the atmosphere. I’m not needed here any longer, so I push out of the chair. The commander is busy talking to the port authority, receiving landing vectors, but he dismisses me with a gesture, making it official. I can go.

To my surprise, Argus follows. He stops me with a hand on my shoulder, practically vibrating his pleasure. He’s so jacked, it’s not even funny. “Thank you, Jax. I never felt whole before now.”

I know the feeling, but I don’t tell him the pleasure also comes with an ache that only gets worse, the longer he jumps. Grimspace is a bitch mistress who carries unearthly delight in one hand and a crop in the other. We bear the latter to receive the former. He’ll learn that soon enough—and maybe he’ll hate me for the subterfuge. Maybe he’ll judge me no better than Farwan, who parceled out their truths like niggardly coin.

“I had to train you,” I tell him honestly. “You have the genotype and the drive. Otherwise, that inexplicable need would’ve driven you mad.”

Then he surprises me by kissing me on the mouth. His lips are firm and knowing, still charged with the thrill of grimspace. Shock holds me still, but it’s over too fast for me to protest. The heat of it lingers after he raises his head.

“That’s for letting me jump on my own.” Argus flashes me a roguish grin.

I try for a severe expression. “That was inappropriate. I didn’t do it for sexual favors. You were ready.”

“You’re ready, too, Jax. You were wide open in there.” He tilts his head toward the cockpit suggestively.

I don’t feel threatened, but for the first time, I’m aware of him as a young, healthy male animal. Like the majority of the Dahlgren clansmen, he’s tall and fit, more than moderately handsome. I shouldn’t be remotely tempted because he’s too young, and I’m his superior. I can’t have him for the same reasons March can’t have me. Yet there’s a spark of the old Jax in me, who wants to be touched. She wants the uncomplicated pleasure he offers. It’s been a long damn time since I had sex, and my body is hungry.

I also know he’s not looking for an emotional connection. For him, this is about burning off the high he got in grimspace, and sharing it with someone who knows exactly how it feels. That’s the danger of the pilot-jumper bond, extended through the training capacity of our dual nav chair. So I get where he’s coming from. This won’t be a big deal: total wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, and honestly, I’m a little flattered that he’d look my way even in passing.

But things will never be the same between March and me if I do this. I know that.

“Go find your blonde,” I manage to say. “I know you have excess energy. I remember my first jump well enough.”

As a matter of fact, I stayed in bed for three days. The idea of doing that with Argus—forgetting the world and all its troubles—kindles a knot of pure desire in my belly. Mary, how I’d love to be young and carefree, but I’m not, and I never will be again. For good or ill, I’ve moved beyond such simplicity.

He flashes a smile. “She won’t understand how I feel right now, but Esme will do.”

So that’s her name. I watch him go, knowing I’ve done the right thing. Argus offered oblivion, but I couldn’t stop thinking of the consequences. I really have changed.

“Jax.” March’s voice comes gravel-rough from the cockpit, calling me back.

He’s not calling me LC now. I don’t know what that means. How much did he hear?

Nervous, I retrace my steps. I thought he was too busy with the port authority to pay us any attention. Over the past months, he’s given a fair approximation of being indifferent to me. Deep down, I’d begun to wonder how much of it is true.

And yet I turned away days of pleasure for the mere hope of him. I don’t know whether that’s lovely or pathetic.

“I always know exactly where you are in a room,” he tells me without looking round. “I know how many times you run your fingers through your hair. I know when you look at me as well as the precise instant you look at anyone else. So I certainly know when one of my crew propositions you six meters away.”

“I turned him down.”

“I know,” he says softly. “That’s why I called you in here, against my better judgment.” At that he stands, the ship on autopilot. We’re still waiting for the final clearance before we can make our approach.

Something tells me to close the door.

CHAPTER 45

His eyes are molten. I let myself look my fill for the first time in months, and I note he’s thinner, cheekbones jutting like jagged rocks, and his face holds a weariness that no sleep can assuage. He’s letting me see it. The shields are down. No longer does he play the role of commander with me.

I take a step toward him. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that he put the good of the ship ahead of us. Would he be the man I love if he had chosen differently?

His arms go around me, and he buries his face in my hair. I can hear his heartbeat, thumping too fast beneath my ear. I wind my arms around his waist.

“I love you,” I whisper. “It won’t go away because I can’t have you in my bed.”

Maybe he had a flicker of doubt. Maybe he thought because I fell for him—though I didn’t want to—after Kai died, that I’m still the woman who loves the one she’s with. But it was never like that between us. It’s more that March proved himself the man I didn’t know I wanted but always needed.

He breathes, “I need you. It’s killing me.”

The ache blazes to life in me as well when I remember how he took me in here on this very ship. We could do it again. Nobody would know.

Against the door, in his pilot’s chair. I don’t care where.

Long tremors shake through me. It’s too much, being this close to him. No wonder he’s been avoiding me. I didn’t know until this second just how much I had shoved back and compartmentalized, and it’s threatening to break me in two.

“Me, too,” I whisper.

March lifts me, as if he can’t control himself. We’re not supposed to, bad for morale, but I don’t have any self-denial left. He rocks against me through our clothes, and I’m utterly undone.

“We’re not going to,” he murmurs. I don’t know if he’s trying to convince himself or me. “I just need to feel you.”

I guess he hasn’t noticed; I’m not exactly fighting him off. Instead I curl my fingers into his waist, pulling him closer. Searching under his jacket I find a strip of hot, silky skin. He shudders at my touch.

Helpless, he mirrors the movement, his fingers skimming my bare belly. These touches are tiny, almost innocent, but I’m so hungry for him, the contact leaves me reeling.

“I’m sorry for the delay,” the docking officer says over the comm. “We’re working on some things with Chancellor Tarn on our end. We want everything to be perfect when you arrive, Commander.”

With little sigh of loss, he pulls away and goes to answer. “It’s not a problem. Just keep me posted.”

When he returns to me, I sense he’s taken a step back from completely unprofessional behavior. But he puts his arms around me again, and I take comfort in it.

He rubs his cheek slowly back and forth across the top of my head. “I just keep pushing you. Testing you. I’m not doing it on purpose . . . Circumstances dictate my choices, but deep down, I’m afraid I’ll hit your breaking point. That you’ll decide it’s more trouble than it’s worth—and I’m not worth waiting for.”