Dremiks (11 page)

Click, clack

Click, clack

“Holy shit, Commander, please!”

O’Connell’s fingers stilled. She looked up at the co-pilot with confusion. His glare still fixed pointedly on her fingers; she glanced at her hand, lowered it. “Tense, Lieutenant?”

Swede saw his roommate’s face redden and knew a very unwise outburst was imminent. “Come on Tony, let’s just finish so you can go sleep.” He held his breath, waiting to see if Price would take his advice.

After glaring one more time at the commander’s hand, which still gripped the pencil, Price put his head back in his hands and bent over his tablet. The finger-length device was docked with the table surface, displaying Tony’s calculations in larger forms for easier reading.

Price’s attitude towards her research project irked the commander. She seriously considered making a snide comment about his formula, but decided against interrupting his work in such an obvious manner. Watching her from his position on her left side, Swede saw Maggie’s nose crinkle. He braced for impact.

O’Connell waited a few minutes before very precisely starting to tap her pencil against her ring. Price’s head shot up. She blinked. “Oh, sorry, nervous habit.” Her voice held not one iota of sincerity. She grinned wolfishly at the lieutenant before bowing her head over her own work. Both she and the chief engineer heard Price’s teeth grate together. She waited and surreptitiously watched the man across from her. Just as the tension started to bleed from his frame, she began tapping her pencil against the table top.

Price surged out of his seat. He was intent on doing bodily harm to the pencil or the commander, whichever he reached first. Before he could move further, a large arm slashed between him and the smirking pilot.

Without raising his head or looking at either of them, Swede snatched the pencil from O’Connell’s hand, flipped it rapidly across the back of his fingers and shoved it down through the knot of hair on the back of her head. “Both of you get back to work. I don’t want to be at this all damn day.”

Maggie chuckled and nudged the big man at her side with a shoulder. “Get back to work,
ma’am
, you mean.” She smirked again at Price, who was seething, but seated.

From the doorway, Captain Hill observed the entire by-play without being noticed by his officers.

***

“How long has it been?”

The question, uttered in the captain’s softest tones, came from just over Swede’s left shoulder. The lieutenant was waiting for his superior to show for their boxing match and, in the meantime, observing Commander O’Connell working with the weight bag. He glanced down and pulled one of his boxing gloves into a tighter fit. Swede knew the tone of his response was as important as the words. He had to be very careful, for his sake and Maggie’s.

“About five years for me now. Before that, at the academy, it was a group of lads in her class. For her, everything is different, of course.”

Captain Hill grunted his understanding as he stepped up to stand beside the engineering officer. He watched the woman across the room without expression. “The concept of praetorians for female officers is something her father has always spoken against. I am surprised he allows it.”

Swede replied in a tense tone, “Thus the team of guys. Being a praetorian for the Admiral’s daughter isn’t the plum assignment it sounds like. She’s not exactly fond of the concept herself. Telling Maggie O’Connell that she needs a man to watch her back is only slightly less scary than telling her father that you spent your liberty weekend escorting her about town.”

Internally, Captain Hill wondered why any father would protest to a big-brother like figure, or figures, playing watch-dog to his daughter. He rolled his shoulders. “Are we going to have a problem?”

“You’re my captain, sir. You tell me. Is there the possibility of anyone physically assaulting her during this mission?”

The captain’s eyes narrowed. They didn’t so much change color as they changed temperature. A muscle in his jaw twitched once. “Over my dead body.”

“Then I don’t think there will be any problems, sir.” The larger man paused. He seemed to think carefully about his next words. “I’ve been as discreet as I can sir. How did you…?”

Hill laughed. The sound was unusual enough to make Maggie, across the room and absorbed in her workout, stop and stare. “I’m not oblivious to the interaction of my officers, Lieutenant. As a praetorian myself, once upon a time, I have some understanding of the difference between mere acquaintances and true friendship. It only took a glance to understand the nature of your relationship. Still, you are quite right to keep things discreet. The Admiral has a long reach.” He jerked his head sideways towards the empty boxing mats. “Ready?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

At the weight bag, the commander watched the two men throw a few warm-up punches at each other before settling into a rhythm. She rolled her eyes and returned to her solitary workout.

***

Four hours later, O’Connell turned her head and peered at her roommate. “Heya, Cass. Where have you been hiding all day?”

Cassie watched the commander grab a water bottle from the fridge, surreptitiously glare at the back of Price’s head as she passed, and slide into her own seat. “I doubt you noticed my absence,” she answered.

“Hmm? Missed you at lunch and in quarters. Stopped to take a nap... what the hell is your issue Price?” Her barked question came in response to the lieutenant muttering under his breath.

“Nothing at all, ma’am.”

The commander didn’t believe that for a second. She didn’t miss, either, how Cassie slumped against the counter. The normally perky doctor wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. While Maggie ran through an internal checklist of her recent interactions with the doctor, Price started his muttering again. This time no one in the room could pretend not to understand what he said.

“PMS from the both of you, just what we need.”

Swede was happily minding his own business. He looked forward to a quiet dinner and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. The engine inspections sapped his mental fortitude. Dealing with Price and O’Connell snapping at each other for most of the day was not helping. He saw the doctor lunge in Price’s direction just as he noted Fortunas entering the officers’ mess.

Fortunas reacted instinctively. He grabbed Cassie as she whipped around the table, bent on murdering Price. “Whoa there, little one.” His arm locked around her waist, Ben swung her around while he faced the co-pilot. “What the hell did you say now, man?”

Price jumped out of his chair. He backed against the wall, out of the range of the dangerous looking, but eerily still, commander and the still struggling doctor. He shot a glance at Swede and wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

Swede ducked his head down to the commander’s height. He whispered in her ear, “Breathe, Mags. He’s not worth the effort.”

Dr. Ben Fortunas felt as if he was wrestling a wet cat out of the officer’s wardroom. He glanced frantically over his shoulder.

“Mein Gott, woman, calm down!” He spied a doorway and backed into it. When the door clicked shut behind him he leaned against it and loosened his hold a bit. She shocked him—she hadn’t once insisted he let her go, put her down, or otherwise leave her alone. He felt her shudder slightly. Steeling himself for what he was sure would follow, Ben gently turned the petite woman in his arms and cradled her head against his chest. Her sobs began seconds later.

Cassie cried until she felt sick to her stomach. She sniffed and winced. Her nose always ran when she cried, and she never had a tissue handy. While many men were willing to overlook a tear stained shirt, she had yet to meet the man who found snot smeared across his chest an endearing keepsake. Feeling the scientist’s hand making small circular soothing motions along her lower back, she stiffened.

Fortunas stopped soothing her the moment he realized she was aware of what he was doing and where she was. He moved his hands to lie chastely atop her shoulders. “Feel up to a chat, now?”

Cassie sniffed. She glanced around. “Where are we?”

He chuckled, a rich deep baritone sound. “I would call it a broom closet, if the
Hudson
had brooms. I really have no idea what this room is used for. Come on back to my office, I’ll get us a drink.”

She giggled, then hiccupped. “What kind of drink?”

He smiled down at her and waggled his bushy eyebrows. “Anything you like, liebchen, now will you come quietly or do I have to drag you through half the ship?

Back in the mess, Price remained a safe distance from O’Connell.

Great, now that crazy bitch is going to get me in hot water with the captain. At least she can’t go running to Daddy, out here…

“Price! Are you
ignoring
me?” The captain’s tone indicated just how severe the lieutenant’s punishment would be if he was indeed ignoring his captain.

“Sir, no sir!”

Captain Hill resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. It wouldn’t have stopped the burgeoning headache anyway. “I don’t know what just happened in here. I couldn’t give a damn either. Price, you will apologize to Dr. Ruger, soonest. Commander!”

Still standing just slightly behind Guttmann’s broad shoulders, O’Connell turned her head to look at her commanding officer.

“Is there anything else I need to do to resolve this idiocy?”

She pulled her chair out and sat down with as haughty a manner as she could muster. “No trouble here, sir. I believe Lieutenant Price has a duty rotation to supervise.” She raised her eyes to look at the younger officer. Her bland expression and mild tone begged him to contradict her.

Captain Hill suppressed a sigh. “Off you go, Lieutenant.”

Price stalked out.

The captain looked to where Swede still stood behind O’Connell’s chair.

Is he protecting me from her or her from me?

“I believe the danger of Commander O’Connell decapitating anyone has sufficiently passed, Lieutenant. Let’s eat.” Captain Hill didn’t miss Maggie’s eyes narrowing or the violent way she chewed her food.

***

Dr. Fortunas did not have a true office. Half-walls separated a corner of the science bay from his tables and rows of experiments. His cubicle space did have two comfortable chairs and a modicum of privacy, which was all he required at the moment. He gestured to the chair beside his desk and waited until Dr. Ruger sat. The older man pulled out a desk drawer and sat a plastic jug on the top of the desk. Cassie looked at the jug and back to his face, her doubts evident.

He chuckled. “It’s fruit juice and honey, slightly fermented. A child couldn’t get drunk off this mixture.” Another minute of rifling through his desk drawers produced two remarkably clean drinking mugs. He poured a measure into each mug and slid one over to Cassie. Then he leaned back, stretched his long legs in front of him and nodded his head.

“So, what’s got you out of sorts?”

To her credit, Cassie didn’t try to deny that anything was wrong. She swallowed her first sip of the fruit juice then licked her lips. Ben tried to ignore his basic male response to that gesture.

“This is not how it is supposed to be. We are supposed to have one civilian physician and one military physician. I’m not supposed to be out here alone. This isn’t even my ship!” She blinked as if startled by her own outburst. A large gulp of the fruit juice followed the blink.

“I forget that you were supposed to be on the
Magellan
. You’re right, it’s hardly fair to jerk you from the crew you’d trained with for over a year and throw you on the
Hudson
with less than two months until launch.”

“Unfair and cruel,” she muttered into her drink.

“Or you could consider it an honor. Of all the fleet-ready civilian physicians available to fill Dr. Comb’s slot, they chose you.”

Cassie snorted. “They didn’t exactly have a choice. I was the next highest on the eligibility list with training on ship systems. And if they had such a large pool of candidates, why didn’t they replace Dr. Xai?”

It was a question that still troubled Fortunas, so he did not have an answer. When Dr. Comb, the original civilian physician for the
Hudson
, died of a ruptured aneurysm, the ISA re-assigned Cassie from the
Magellan
to the
Hudson
. The
Magellan
had not started her shakedown cruises, but Dr. Ruger had been on board the
Hudson’s
sister ship for nearly a year. She was, indeed, the most qualified doctor to replace Comb. That the ISA had not immediately replaced Dr. Xai, the
Hudson’s
original military physician, with another officer was troubling. There were at least four military officers qualified to take the position. Dr. Xai’s sudden, and severe, hyper-tension was just as troubling to Fortunas. One man dying of a previous undiagnosed condition was understandable. Having his colleague nearly die of yet another undiagnosed condition, just six weeks later, was too coincidental for the elderly German’s peace of mind.

“Perhaps it was decided we didn’t need another doctor. We don’t have a large crew. Also, Mangoda might as well be a doctor. You know he’s a qualified flight surgeon?”

For the first time that day, Cassie’s features softened into a smile. “Marty is a god-send. I think I would be truly overwhelmed without him. I don’t understand why he’s not an officer, or addressed as a “doctor”.”

“Eh, the whims of military designations. He seems happy as he is. A great many military men do likewise. They find a position where they are comfortable and respected and have no urge to advance in the ranks. To them, I suspect, the rank and titles are just words—things they don’t need to feel self-worth.”

Her eyes, a curious grey color, considered him over the rim of her mug. She still clutched it in both palms, as if the cool juice was a comforting cup of cocoa. She sat, silently, staring at him for several minutes. Just as he began to feel uncomfortable with her perusal, she lowered the mug. “Your knowledge of, and comfort with, the military is something of a mystery to me. How does a biologist turned university professor know so much about the armed services?”