“You jez! I knew you two would bunk up someday! How was it? I mean…”
Stephanie laughed, turning beet red; “The whole night was fantastic. It think we traumatized Price though.”
“He caught you?” Ashley burst with shrieking laughter.
“I checked the security recordings for that night in the service bay and saw him running from the ship around the time things started. I've never seen him move that fast,” Stephanie said through an insuppressible giggle.
A peal of Ashley's laughter filled the room.
“Okay, get it out of your system,” Stephanie said, crossing her arms, still blushing furiously.
“You'll-” she gasped for air, “you'll have to show that to me some time. Did the receivers on the Samson catch anything?”
“Oh yeah, the whole thing. I deleted the footage.”
“Smart, I would have kept a copy though.”
“Oh no, the last thing we need is that kind of footage floating around.”
“Good point. How'd you leave things?”
“Well, things were fine at first, we were going to just leave it as a one time thing but then he said something and it just left everything wide open.”
“Oh no, what'd he say?”
“'If,' and then he just stopped. I tried to get him to spit the rest out but he just shut up.”
Ashley's mirth was replaced by sympathy. “I'm so sorry. What'd you do?”
“Well, we said we'd keep it simple, and I don't know why, but I was pissed, I just got out of there. He came by the security office and made sure things had cooled down, told me not in so many words that he still trusted me before he left.”
“So things are okay.”
“Nooooo,” Stephanie said emphatically, shaking her head and waving her hands in front of her. “Things are not okay, I'm screwed! ”
“Frost,” Ashley concluded.
“Exactly! He respected me before we got together, now it's impossible! He lost his foot because he didn't listen to me right in the middle of a crisis! His people and mine know he doesn't follow my orders and whenever I bring it up he just pats me on the head and changes the topic! He's great when it's just the two of us but everywhere else he's been an ass.”
“And Captain is well, Captain,” Ashley nodded.
“That's just it. Jake's different, better, he's been easier to be with since we ran into that slave barge. I think he's just starting to see it for himself too. Whatever he's getting from Jonas is just helping it along, he's changing like anyone else when they have a crisis, the only difference is his crisis has a name,” she sighed, looking out the faux window, a section of bulkhead a few meters wide that showed an image of the view outside. “I keep thinking about him, I can't stop.”
“So you and Frost are-”
“Done! We have to be! I hear his name and I cringe! What's worse is that I told Captain that I'd be sticking with Frost to 'see where it goes,' I can't believe I said that, see where it goes. What the hell was I thinking?”
“Um, you thought Frost would start listening to you?” Ashley offered with a shrug.
“You're right, I actually did but his cock up on the gunnery deck and how he treated me in medical in front of everyone,” she threw up her hands, “it just won't work.”
“What do you think Captain will do when he gets back and finds that you and Frost have split?” Ashley asked quietly.
“Well, Cap, I mean Jake took it pretty well when I told him that I'd be sticking with Frost, but I could tell there was something. He was worried about me, that's something.” She sighted and shook her head; “And he said 'if” and I still want him to finish that sentence!”
“Are you sure?”
“I don't know, yes, but it might be complicated if that 'if' leads to something…” Stephanie said as she started pacing. “… something more.”
An impish grin started to make an appearance on Ashley's face. “Like you and Frost wasn't complicated? I mean, the gunner and security crews are on the verge, you two barely get along, and he's a mess. Well, not just a mess, a public mess.”
“Yeah, that was a mistake. I'm going to tell him next time he comes by my place. He'll probably be by to show off his new foot.”
“And Captain?”
“We'll see I guess, I hope I didn't do any real damage. Hopefully we can get in touch with him so Triton can pick him and his passengers up. If not that question will have to wait a long time.” Stephanie sat down and picked up her chopsticks again. “God, I'm hungry.”
“We'll be coming out of hyperspace into some kind of mission then looping back to the rendezvous point in about ten hours. Alice hasn't posted the info yet,” Ashley said after finishing a mouthful of dim sum.
“I like her, she's as tough as Jake and knows what she's doing.”
“So do I, she's easy to talk to off duty too. Maybe she'd have a good bearing on what Captain's thinking, maybe she could even finish his sentence for him.”
“Maybe. I'd still rather keep it between us though. Well, us and Price. I'm going to have to talk to him.”
“I don't think he's told anyone, that's not like him.”
“I know, still, I'd rather tell him it's okay he knows, just not to spread it around.”
The pair finished eating in relative silence. They were just relaxing; Ashley slurping her lychee soda and Stephanie sipping a second cup of tea when she laughed quietly to herself. “How did we get here? I mean, you giving me advice, I'm usually the rough girl whose been through it giving you the wise word.”
Ashley shrugged. “What comes around and all that I guess.”
Rising
The cold steel table beneath the side of his face was a little wet. He was about to open his eyes and stopped moving. Jake wasn't in his vacsuit, but some kind of flimsy plastic jumpsuit. There were restraints around his ankles and wrists.
“…actual medal? I thought they just awarded those digitally now, you know, like on your file as a commendation,” said a female voice very close to his ear.
“Nope, they're actually giving all three of them medals, blue and silver things with three spikes on them. They say they managed to organize a couple platoons worth of military bots and clear an entire island,” said a male voice just a little further off.
He was in a small room, the chair beneath him was hard, and his wrist restraints were dangling free. All this he could tell easily without opening his eyes, without letting on that he was concious. Hell no! He thought to himself. They are not going to put me in a God damned cell, not again! I won't spend weeks running on the spot and putting up with some cocksure interrogator breathing down my neck doing God knows what to me and anyone they set me up to feel sympathy for. The rage building up in him increased his heart rate, threatened to increase his breathing, overtake the calm that made thinking at all possible. There were too many familiar things, the flimsy plastic suit, his bare feet on the hard, cold deck, even the smell of chemical disinfectant was exactly the same as he remembered from the Overlord II. The ship that held him captive in the Gai-Ian system so many years before as Jonas Valent.
The woman used nimble fingers to feel the metal restraints around his wrists and trace the hard cords up to the other end. There were loops under the table that he was about to be fastened to. He opened one eye a crack and saw her waist, her belt where all the tools of her trade hung.
“Hey, I think he's awake,” said her male counterpart. He was standing just behind her.
Without a thought Jake grabbed the young woman's wrist, pulled down as hard as he could, slamming her head down against the metal table. His other hand snatched her sidearm out of its holster. The database of military hardware imprinted on him when he was first made included the VCD Standard Issue sidearm and he knew the safety was deactivated using the thumbprint of the user.
In the next instant he pressed her thumb down on the small pad, and the efficient biometric reader was able to take her print through her thin gloves. He dragged her into his lap and shot her in the knee before pressing the gun against her temple and partially pulling the trigger. “Don't move sweetheart, I already have every reason I need to kill you,” Jake whispered into her ear through gnashed teeth.