Chain Reaction

Chapter Four

They had been following the tracking signal for three solar days when the com shrilled to life. Nils manned the controls as Celene slept in the single bunk in the sleeping chamber at the rear of the ship. The Phantom came equipped with autopilot, but the safer option meant having a live human at the controls, and he needed to keep readjusting the tracking device.

Now alone in the cockpit, he started when a man’s voice crackled through the line. It came in faintly, pops and hisses cutting into words.

“Any ship within range—can you hear me? This is a distress call. Anyone?”

“Reading you,” Nils said into the com. “Identify yourself.”

“Akash Gabela, Galactic Registry number 473-Beta-Rho-229.”

Nils ran the name and registry number through the ship’s database.

“Who is he?”

He glanced over his shoulder to see Celene coming into the cockpit, strapping on her plasma pistol. As always, he needed to hide his reaction to her. It didn’t matter how many times they changed shifts, seeing her made his pulse accelerate, his breathing quicken. She might have been asleep moments ago, but her silver eyes were alert now as she stood beside him and scanned the readout.

“Smuggler, pilot for hire.” Nils focused on the information scrolling on the display rather than Celene’s hand braced on the back of his seat. “He has a few outstanding subpoenas for trafficking black market goods.”

“Untrustworthy.” She narrowed her eyes.

“Not an upstanding citizen, no.”

“Hello?” Gabela’s voice came fainter now. “Unknown pilot, you still there? Situation critical on this end.”

“What is your situation?” Nils asked.

“Ran into a debris storm. Took out propulsion systems, life support on emergency power. I’ve got maybe four solar hours left. You going to help, or what?”

Nils clicked off his end of the com. “His ship’s a standard hauler. I could get him up and running in less than a solar hour.”

Tension resonated through Celene’s posture. She balanced on the balls of her feet as if ready to fight. “Could be another ambush.”

He remembered the debriefing report he had read. She had been on patrol when she responded to another distress signal. And went straight into a trap that nearly cost the 8^th Wing a Black Wraith, as well as Celene’s freedom. Easy to see why she would be wary of making the same mistake twice.

These past few days had taught him well: Celene Jur had earned her reputation. Nothing had been given to her.

“Mara Skiren used to be a smuggler,” he said now. “She would know him.”

Celene nodded. “Let’s get her on the line.” They would be breaking com silence, but 8^th Wing never ignored a distress call.

Quickly, Nils patched them through an encrypted line to base. “Trouble already?” Ensign Skiren asked.

“Akash Gabela’s giving us a distress signal,” Nils said. “Says he’s drifting and solar hours away from life support failure.”

“Can we trust him?” Celene asked.

“Gabela’s a terrible geluk player,” Mara said, “and he’ll drink all your Lulani rum the second your back is turned. But he doesn’t run bait and switch. If he says he’s in trouble, he’s in trouble. Besides,” she added, “that grizzled bastard knows the darker sectors of the galaxy. He could give you some valuable intel.”

“Then you vouch for him?” Nils asked.

Ensign Skiren’s laugh was rueful. “As much as one former scum can vouch for another.” A deeper, masculine voice sounded behind her, and her response was another husky chuckle. “Oh, you get off on having a shady lover. What? Going to give me a spanking?”

“I don’t think she’s speaking to us,” said Nils, dry.

“Save the dirty talk for later,” Celene said into the com. “If you say that Gabela’s trustworthy—reasonably trustworthy—we’ve got to help him out.”

“Tell that son of a dirtroach that he still owes me for that case of Lulani rum,” answered Skiren. “And stay safe.”

After signing out, Nils cut the com line. He glanced at Celene, seeing the wariness that tightened her mouth, the nervous energy that made her tap her fingers against the control panel.

“There’s a difference between what happened last time and this,” he noted.

She raised one neatly arched black brow.

“This time,” he said, “you aren’t alone.”

“By the ten demon lords, I never thought you’d get here.” Akash Gabela trundled toward Nils and Celene as they stood in his loading bay. After responding to Gabela’s signal, their ships had linked, and, with plasma pistols ready just in case, they had come aboard.

“We didn’t know if we could trust you,” Celene answered.

Gabela wheezed a laugh. He had the short stature and green skin of a Dejanian, and he hobbled around on a sherica-powered artificial limb. It wasn’t the newest in tech, hissing a little with each step, but the smuggler seemed unbothered by it.

“You’re 8^th Wing.” Gabela shuffled closer. “So I know I can trust you. Bunch of galactic do-gooders.”

“If you want PRAXIS running the galaxy,” Nils said, “controlling every aspect of your life, and death, by all means, we’ll gladly step aside. I hear the PRAXIS prison barges are particularly brutal.”

“Fine, fine.” Despite the smuggler’s grumbling, his skin paled. “We going to stand here all day, using up the last of my oxygen, or we going to fix my damn ship?”

“We’re fixing your damn ship,” Celene answered. “Take us to the damage.”

Nils was already striding down the passageway toward the systems room. “I know the way.”

“Want some tools?” Gabela shouted after him. “Mine couldn’t do shit to fix the damage, but you might have better luck with ’em.”

“Brought my own.” He hefted the satchel slung over his shoulder.

Celene was at his side, her long legs matching his stride. “You studied the ship’s schematics before we linked.”

He shook his head. “Haulers usually follow the same configuration. I take what knowledge I already have and extrapolate the rest.” He glanced over when he heard her low laugh.

“Most people are either attractive or smart. Seldom both.”

He almost stumbled. “You think I’m attractive too?”

“Assuming I already consider you smart.”

“That’s a given.”

They reached the door to the systems room. The control panel wouldn’t respond to his fingers on the keypad, so he had to pry the heavy door open. Celene provided assistance, tugging on the thick metal until it opened with a groan.

Inside the systems room, the atmospheric temperature soared, a symptom of the failing life support. Torn wires and ripped-out panels lay on the floor, and a huge gouge ran the length of the external bulkhead. The blackness of space showed through the gouge. Fortunately, the ship had enough power left to generate an electrical shield over the tear, or else everything would have been sucked out into the void.

“Let’s get to work.” Celene bent to study one of the damaged panels.

He rummaged through his tools until he found the sonic welder he needed, then began his repairs on the life support systems. Gabela had spoken the truth. Only a handful of power remained, and soon the hauler ship would be dead—including anyone who was on it.

The heat in the chamber made it feel like a small sun. But the flush in his cheeks came more from what Celene had said moments earlier. These past two solar days had been extremely strange. His awe of her hadn’t lasted more than a few solar hours, for it had become clear to him that, despite her reputation as an utterly untouchable hero, she was no different from any other sentient being in the galaxy.

She left her used kahve cups in the galley without cleaning them, and her clothes were thrown all over the small sleeping chamber in the back of the Phantom. When hungry, she had little patience for anyone and anything, including herself. She liked to eat Qivani sugarcakes, but she only allowed herself half of one, saving the other in a heat-pouch for later. She knew a surprising amount of racy Uilan poems, but she was the one who looked surprised when he joined her in reciting the last stanzas.

And she was lonely.

“Stabilized life support,” he said over his shoulder. “We don’t need to worry about running out of oxygen.”

“Good work, Calder. Now toss me the sonic cutter.”

He smiled to himself, knowing he could not expect excessive praise for doing his job. “We’ve been sharing a tiny Phantom for days now. You can call me Nils.”

“Fine. Nils, toss me the sonic cutter.”

He lobbed the tool across the small chamber. She caught it with a quick grab, her reflexes precise, then flashed him a smile before returning to her work.

Getting back to his own labors, his mind processed both what circuitry needed repairing, as well as the more complex systems that comprised Celene. Over the past three solar days, with time to fill, they’d had many conversations: about life before joining the 8^th Wing, what life meant after joining. She’d recounted dangerous missions, and, at her urging, he’d talked of some particularly difficult engineering challenges. She asked enough questions to let him know that she was actually interested, and it eventually occurred to him that she knew very few people outside of the Black Wraith Squad. Not by choice, but circumstance.

He joined two ruptured circuits. It was far easier to connect wires than people.

A woman with her reputation, idolized by many, possessed elevated status within the 8^th Wing. But it also isolated her. She mentioned only a handful of friends. Never a lover. No one truly close to her. Not even Commander Frayne, though it was clear that they did have a friendship.

“Did you ever think about becoming a pilot?” she asked Nils now. “Maybe even Black Wraith. You’ve got the sharpness for it.”

“Gods, no. I’m happiest elbows-deep in a ship’s guidance systems, not a ship’s cockpit. Recruiting?”

She shrugged. “I always need a good man—the squad needs people, I mean.”

“NerdWorks, through and through.” He watched her as she deftly spliced power cables. “Perhaps you should consider joining Engineering.”

She chuckled. “Pilot, through and through. Flying is what I do, what my parents did and their parents. And it’s damn satisfying to blow PRAXIS out of the sky. Besides,” she added, “I’m too much of an egotist to work behind the scenes.”

“So you do like the attention.”

“A little.” She shot him a glance. “Am I not supposed to admit that?”

“Engineering isn’t all grunt work and crawling through service tubes. We take our share of the bows.”

“Even you.”

He pointed to the numerous patches on his sleeve. “When they gave me these commendations, I had to stand in front of the whole Engineering Corps on base and listen as my superior read a speech about me and my contributions to the 8^th Wing. And I stood there trying not to grin, though gods knew I wanted to.”

She smiled. “I won’t feel so badly next time I polish my medals.”

“You should never feel badly about what you’ve achieved.”

“Believe me, I don’t.” She turned back to her work, half-burying her next words. “It’s other people who have a problem with it.”

Was that the cost of prestige? He had his own reputation in Engineering, but no one outside of NerdWorks ever came up to him and slapped him on the back, congratulated him for his incredibly innovative plasma-conversion processor. No one whispered about him in awed tones as he walked down the corridors of the base. No one expected him to be better than everyone else—except himself. He always held himself to a high standard.

Not Celene. She was Stainless Jur. Flawless. Except she wasn’t. But rather than disappoint him, it made Nils appreciate what she had accomplished that much more.

Could he even say that to her? And would she want him to?

Yes, Lieutenant Celene Jur was far more complicated than the most arcane computer system. But if he had to choose between simplistic and complex, he would choose complex, every time.

The work in the systems room was not difficult, not for him, in any case. Though he had stabilized the life support, the climate controls required more repairs, keeping the temperature at a blistering level. Soon, he soaked through his uniform. Celene had already peeled off the top of her uniform, so that she wore her tank top and uniform pants. He couldn’t help but stare as sweat gleamed on the sleek muscles of her arms and in the valley between her breasts.

“Analyzing my systems?” She turned, putting her hands on her hips. Seeming to dare him to look at her.

He would have blushed if he wasn’t already overheated. “I might be a fellow 8^th Wing officer and I might be NerdWorks, I’m also a man with perfectly good vision.” He turned away to adjust the torque on a valve. “The only way I wouldn’t notice you was if I had already crossed to the Starfields of Eternal Bliss.”

“You want an inspection? Go ahead.”

He studiously avoided glancing at her.

“Come on,” she chided. “Consider it a research and discovery mission.”

“Mission accepted.” He turned back to face her. And swallowed hard.

She stood with arms wide, her chin tilted up, daring him to look. And he did, because once he caught a glimpse of her he couldn’t look away. Her dark hair had come loose from its sleek ponytail and damp tendrils clung to her neck and her bare shoulders. Back in SimCom she had also worn a tank top and uniform pants, but he’d been too busy fighting for a place on this mission to truly see the tight, lean wonder of her body. His gaze followed the lines of her collarbones to the hollow of her throat, and lower.

Gods, he couldn’t believe he was staring at Lieutenant Celene Jur’s breasts, but by the Ten Hells, how could he not? For such a slim woman, her breasts were surprisingly full. His hands were the perfect size to cup them, feeling their silky weight as he lowered his mouth to hers…

“Thorough inspection.” Her voice cut through his thoughts, and his gaze snapped back to hers. He expected to see anger or amusement on her face. Instead her dark, wide pupils nearly eclipsed the silver of her irises, and her breaths came shallowly.

Was she…aroused? He certainly was. And, as a pilot, she had excellent vision. She couldn’t miss the fact that an erection tented the front of his uniform.

He almost groaned when she ran her tongue over her lips, moistening them. “The Laws of Galactic Equality state that in all transactions, reciprocity must be observed.” She eyed his uniform. “So…”

“You want me to disrobe?” He stared at her.

“It’s hotter than the two suns of Lamia Zed in here. This way, you can honor the Laws of Galactic Equality and get more comfortable.”

Impossible for him to get comfortable in these circumstances. But he saw the gleam of challenge in her eyes, and that goaded him on.

“The 8^th Wing is all about equality,” he murmured, and began to undo the fastenings to the top of his uniform. He never took his eyes off of her, observing her as she watched him slowly undo the gray material.

He didn’t consider himself a prude. Though he hadn’t participated in the fertility rites each Green Solstice, which involved sexual acts performed before a crowd of celebrants, he had seen the rites and found them…very enlightening. He might not be the most daring lover, but he had never been given complaints, and, in fact, received a fair number of compliments. An engineer’s mind could be very creative, given the proper motivation.

But he’d never undressed in front of anyone—not deliberately, leisurely. Yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself from carefully undoing each fastening beneath his collar and then along his shoulder and down his side. Celene’s gaze followed his every move.

The front of his uniform gaped open and he pulled his arms free from the sleeves, then let the whole top hang from his waist, as she had done with her uniform. After cleaning himself in the UV stall earlier in the solar day, he’d put his uniform on, but in his haste to get back to the tracking device, he’d neglected to don the tank top he always wore beneath. Which now left his upper body completely bare.

“Great Lady.” Celene sounded breathless. “That’s not what comes to mind when someone mentions NerdWorks.”

Self-conscious, Nils glanced down at himself. He knew what his body looked like, but he tried to see it through her eyes. Though all members of 8^th Wing had to do PT, most in Engineering got by with the bare minimum. That wasn’t enough. You never knew when PRAXIS might come calling, which meant you had to be ready to fight. When others in Engineering spent their off hours watching vids or playing crypt-marauder games, he was in the training chambers, listening to tech journals on his headset while boxing or practicing H2H combat maneuvers.

“Seems like my time in the training chambers paid off.” If the look of pure feminine appreciation in her gaze was any indicator.

“Oh, yes. Yes, it did.”

He was a Xalian, which meant the males of his homeworld did not have hair on their chests, as some other species did. So she could see every ridge of musculature on his chest and abdomen. He would never be thickly muscled like Commander Frayne, but Nils could take care of himself. The round he had gone in SimCom showed that.

“Turn around,” she said.

“What?”

She made a spinning motion with her finger. He took a breath. Why not? Besides, there was something acutely…exciting…about having Celene command him. He didn’t have to obey, yet he chose to. A deliberate handing over of control—something new for him, who liked to be in control of all parameters at any given time. Now he purposefully let go, and a visceral flare of arousal jolted through him.

He turned to face the bulkhead. Her soft, appreciative curse ran like a silk glove down his spine.

“Are those tattoos?”

“No—pigmentation. When people on my homeworld reach sexual maturity, the anahita markings appear.”

“Does everyone have the same kind?”

“They’re different from person to person. Some anahitas are more numerous and thicker than others.”

“You’re very sexually…mature.”

Even his father had been surprised by the thickness and darkness of the anahitas that had appeared on Nils’s back. He then bragged to the neighbors about his son’s virility, which had made Nils want to find the nearest ice cave and never come out. He’d been self-conscious about the markings ever since then, despite the 8^th Wing’s tolerance for all shapes and colors within its forces. When training, he made sure to keep his back covered. Now, hearing the husky excitement in Celene’s voice, he wondered if his shyness was truly necessary. Perhaps not.

“Do they go all the way down?”

“Only one way to find out.” He couldn’t believe he said that. Yet he was rewarded with her husky laugh, and if his cock hadn’t been hard before, it surely was now.

He debated for a moment whether or not to turn back around. Even amongst his colleagues in Engineering, he had a reputation for being reserved, focusing more on his work than on socializing or flirting. He wasn’t in Engineering now. This ship drifted in deep space, free from expectations or past behavior. If a time existed to remake oneself, that time had arrived.

Straightening his shoulders, Nils turned. Celene’s eyes widened as she saw the clear evidence of his arousal. Instead of moving back, however, she took a step closer. Nils did the same, drawn forward by an instinctive pull.

The distance between them narrowed. Dimly, he had awareness of stepping over debris on the floor, the tangles of wires and circuitry, but all he saw was her. She stared back.

Until only a few inches separated them. They were close enough that he could see the tiny scar at the corner of her mouth, like a beacon guiding him to precisely where he wanted to be.

Slowly, she lifted her hand, and he fought a groan as her fingers skimmed the line between his pectorals and drifted down to rest lightly on the flat of his stomach. He twitched beneath her touch.

Gods—need to touch her.

He curved his hands over her shoulders, the sensation of bare flesh to bare flesh a live current of electricity. She was both resilient and soft under his palms, the texture of her skin finer than Hazada silk, but she had a strength of muscle and will that exiled rational thought.

She tilted her face up, another challenge.

I shouldn’t do this. He narrowed the distance between their mouths. I have to do this.

In a moment he would taste her, and he wanted nothing more.

“You two gonna play docking bay and cargo in there,” Gabela snapped from the door, “or you gonna fix my ship?”

Nils and Celene spun around, releasing each other. They stepped apart.

She scowled at Gabela. “An overflow of gratitude, smuggler.”

“Drifting out in this sector makes me nervous,” he shot back.

Nils suppressed the urge to put his boot in the smuggler’s plentiful stomach. “Your ship will be operational in twenty solar minutes. A patch job, but you’ll have enough power to get to a station for comprehensive repairs.”

“Setting my chrono now.” Gabela lumbered down the corridor, his artificial limb making almost as much noise as the smuggler’s grumbling.

Several moments passed as Nils and Celene stared at one another. He was torn between wanting to lunge for her and jettisoning himself into space. There were arenas in his life in which he was bold and took risks—women had never been one of them. And now he’d done just that. Would he ever have the balls to make another move on her?

She scowled at the space where Gabela had been standing. “Mara didn’t mention that her old friend was an ass.”

“He could teach the Okenial Trick Flying Squad something about timing, as well.”

She let out an exasperated breath. “We should finish here so we can pick up where we left off.”

“The mission, or…?”

Her answer was an inscrutable smile. “Puzzle it out, NerdWorks. Let me know your findings—after we fix this ship.”

With that enigma buzzing through him, he quickly got back to work. He repaired the climate controls, allowing his inner and outer temperatures to come down from nuclear levels, and then restored functionality to the propulsion and guidance systems. He welded a panel in place to cover the rupture in the external bulkhead. In less than fifteen solar minutes, the ship became operative.

“And five solar minutes to spare.” He pulled on the top of his uniform, but did not miss the gleam of disappointment in her gaze as he did so.

“Leaving us enough time to get some intel from Gabela.” He felt a similar disappointment as Celene refastened her uniform, as well. “Maybe he—”

The alarm blared.

They bolted from the systems room and stared out a porthole. Three fighter ships sped toward their position.

She cursed. “PRAXIS.”