Killbox (Sirantha Jax 4)

Then I steel myself, though the weight of necessity threatens to drown me.

“I can’t stay.” I step back, reluctant to my bones. And he lets me go. “We’re shipping out tonight. March has orders from Tarn. Very hush-hush. He won’t talk about them even with me.”

Not like he talks about anything with me, these days.

Mary curse it, I hate good-byes. My eyes are damp when I part from Vel. The hug wasn’t enough, but I have no words for what he is to me. I permit a final wa to speak my heart, and I don’t even know what it said.

His reply offers infinite solace in a single word. Always.

Clutching that promise close, I turn and stride away without looking back.

The spaceport is quiet, unlike our departure on Emry. Most of our ships haven’t made it back yet, but that’s all right. Dina will take it from here. She has all the components needed to upgrade our fleet with direct-jump technology. I glimpse the mechanic from across the floor and angle my path toward her, dodging bots and the occasional human.

With the quiet hum of the lights and the droids going about their work, it’s hard to imagine that the Morgut are still attacking our settlements. People are dying. I want to believe this is the truth, not what lies beyond the stars.

But I know better.

Our R&R is over. For most of the crew it was too brief. I never thought of it as a vacation, though. We had too much work to do.

I reach her side, and she straightens from her work. Dina looks like she might lose it, and I’m not doing much better. That feeling I had a while back—as if I’m losing everyone dear to me—well, it’s back in force. Knowing she’s not coming with us, I feel completely alone. Tears trickle out the corners of my eyes.

“I understand why,” she chokes out, “but I don’t like it.”

They need her to train the other mechanics and quickly, so they can install the coupling that permits direct jumps without the need for the navigator to channel the power as I do. Never mind the fact that only Argus could survive it. There’s just no way they’d get enough volunteers for the gene therapy, because they can’t guarantee it’s safe. It has to be this way, and that makes Dina indispensable. She has to stay on the ground, get the other techs up to speed, and make sure the other ships catch up to the Triumph. It’s a bizarre fusion of biomechanics and alien tech.

I manage a smile. “You’re key personnel, one hundred percent irreplaceable.”

“So are you,” she says fiercely.

“Not anymore.”

For direct jumps, they have Argus. What he lacks in experience, he makes up in good mettle. Most people might think I’d mind that I’m no longer unique, no longer the sole warden of this strange gift. Instead I feel free. In the grand scheme, it matters less what I do now, and so, conversely, my choices matter more.

Our mission is clear: Wreak as much havoc as we can, disrupt the Morgut plans wherever possible, and draw them away from our preparations. We’re bait—the Conglomerate doesn’t want to tip its hand too soon. It’s better if the Morgut are hunting one ship—annoying but not worrisome on their end.

On our end . . . well, there’s a reason I’m saying good-bye to her.

She reaches for me then, angry in her tenderness as only Dina can be. “Not as a navigator, you dumb bitch.”

I hug her back, resting my head on her shoulder. She’s warm and solid, pure muscle from wrestling the myriad parts in engineering and cut from the hours in gunnery. As always, she smells of flowers.

There may never be another opportunity, so I ask, “I never took you for the perfume type. How come—”

“A gift to the royal family at birth,” she answers, anticipating the question. “A minor tweak to my apocrine glands.”

“So you sweat flowers?” Well, that explains a few things. I’d always wondered how she came out of a hot workout daisy fresh.

She steps back, ending the embrace. “Great joke, right?”

“Seems like it might come in handy.”

“It was supposed to be make me more majestic, more . . . pristine.” She shrugs, dismissing that. “I’ve trained Torrance. He’ll be my replacement in gunnery.”

“Can he patch the ship up, too?”

“Not as well as me,” she answers without false modesty. “But he’ll serve.”

Dina cups my face in her hands then. Her eyes search mine for a long moment, and then she kisses my lips. This is a tradition on Tarnus, so I keep still; she’s honoring me with a custom she has long since abandoned, sharing part of her past. There’s sorrow in the caress, not desire, but friendship and love, too. She whispers something against my mouth, too faint for me to make out, but I call it a royal blessing. I’ll carry it into battle proudly, no matter that she’s a queen in exile and always shall be.

When she steps back, tears spill freely down her cheeks. Mine, too. I don’t wipe them away. The salt should linger; it would be unworthy to act otherwise.

“Thank you.”

“I always secretly knew you wanted me,” she jokes.

I smile wanly. “Maybe I did.”

“I love you, y’know.” She doesn’t need to qualify it—I understand Hit is the great love of her life, but there’s always room in the heart for others, too.

There are shades of warmth from the sweet ember of possibility to the roaring fire that fills your soul. I’ve never loved any woman more. I remember how she dove from the top of the rover to save my ass, back on Lachion, when she didn’t even like me. In the bunker, I prayed to a goddess in whom I don’t entirely believe for her health and happiness. Parting ways from her is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

“And I, you,” I say softly.

“You’re not the woman we saw on the vids at all.”

My false, tremulous smile shifts, but I answer as I did before: “Not anymore.”

I turn and go up the ramp to the Triumph then, leaving her behind. Over the years, I’ve left so many people behind. It weighs on me, but there’s some small comfort that Doc will remain on board, and that I’ll serve with March until the end.

“LC Jax to the cockpit,” the computer announces as I come down the corridor.

I already had my orders, though. No need for repetition. I know we’re taking off at once, now that March has verified our intel to the summit’s satisfaction. Tarn will handle the muster of our ships from here.

Fortunately, I’m not permitted time to consider my losses. In the nav chair, the wider world goes away. New Terra is lovely, receding through the view screen. As the fields fade into gilt patches surrounded by cerulean seas, I regain my self-possession.

Argus isn’t here, I realize belatedly. It’s just March and me.

“I asked him to sit this one out.”

I glance over at him. There was no telltale warmth to indicate he read me.

“Your face,” he reminds me, glancing away from the controls.

Yes, he knows me that well by now. “You wanted to speak to me in private?”

He nods. “I made inquiries while we were on New Terra.”

It takes me only an instant to track the seeming non sequitur. I know him that well, too. “Did you find your nephew?”

“I found his trail. He’s not there anymore.”

My heart sinks. This is a bad time for a kid to be out in the galaxy. “What happened?”

This has to be killing him. His nephew is the last link to Svetlana, and he may need rescuing. I doubt duty has ever carried such a high price for March.

“He tested as level-eight Psi,” he tells me, as the ship pulls away from the planet’s gravitational field. “There was no facility on New Terra adequate for his training.”

“What does that mean?” I’m not familiar with Psi-Corp. Unless they’ve had a relative tested and placed, few people are.

“Level one means a minimal gift. They often skate unnoticed. It can be explained as intuition, so I suspect many people have at least that much.”

“What’s the highest rank, then?”

“Ten.”

“Sounds powerful.”

“You have no idea.” At my inquiring glance, he adds, “A person with TK 10 could start an earthquake that would level an entire city.”

“Mother Mary, and he’s an eight? What ability does he have?”

March looks uneasy. “I don’t know. The documentation in the file Tarn found was sketchy at best.”

“But you know where he is.”

“He’s on Nicu Tertius, where Farwan trained its most powerful Psi agents. The corruption on world made it perfect, as any official can be bought.”

It’s also where March went through hell. He’s bound to think it’s worse for the kid, based on his unpleasant associations.

“Do you plan to combine the search for him with causing trouble for the Morgut?”

He parries my question with another. “Would that be wrong of me?”

“That depends on whether you can do both effectively.”

“Now, that’s the question, isn’t it? I can’t in good conscience jeopardize on our mission for the sake of one child.”

I know that; we’ve covered this ground before. If he wants me to give him permission, that’s not going to happen. We all have things we’d rather be doing.

“You’re the commander,” I say. “You’ll have to make that decision.”

He sighs. “I knew you wouldn’t offer me the easy answer. If I see a chance to combine the two tasks, I’ll take it. Otherwise, our assignment stands.”

I hide a smile. His decision doesn’t surprise me in the least. “Yes, sir.”

He barely manages to control his flinch. “Don’t call me that. Not you. Not when we’re alone.” For a moment, he closes his eyes. “That’s all I ever am.”

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. The line comes to my head from somewhere, but I don’t speak it aloud. Part of me wants to yell at him because the distance between us, the separation, was his idea. I can’t bring myself to chide him for it because I understand the reasons. He won’t put his own needs first. March never does. And if his nephew dies in the hands of strangers while we’re fighting this war, he won’t rebound from that. Some losses even I can’t heal.

Rose interrupts, sparing me the need to reply. “I have a message for you, Commander. Shall I patch it through?”

“Please.”

It’s Tarn, and the significance is clear. “It’s begun. You have the coordinates.”

Ah, Mary. The Morgut have initiated the first phase of their attack. If the sequence of the numbers means anything, New Terra will be hit last.

March accesses the terminal. “Another mining outpost.”

“Uranium?”

He checks that quickly. “Looks like it.”

They must need it bad. I wish we knew for sure why, but we have only my best guess. While I ponder, Rose adds, “There’s a message for you as well, LC.”

“Go.”