Supernova (23 page)

Was Rian
blushing
? “You watch it, too!” she crowed.

“I’ve
watched a few episodes when I felt like turning off my brain for a half-hour.”

“I bet
you watch it for the same reason all the other guys do.”

“To
criticize its inaccuracy?”

“No, for
First Officer Kila Devo,” Lily teased. The half-Kurran actress was tall, with
light greenish-blonde hair, and her uniform highlighted her best assets, which
weren’t her acting abilities.

“She
wouldn’t make it past basic training. She can’t even hold a laser rife
properly. She’d put a charge through her foot in real life.”

His comm
badge pinged, interrupting him, and a disembodied voice said, “Rikk to Marska.”

Rian
tapped it. “Captain here.”

“The
transmit sensor modifications have been completed, if you want to check them
out.”

“Be
there in five.” He tapped the off the badge and stood. “I’d like to kiss you
goodbye, but...” He gestured around the mess.

“I know,”
said Lily. “What time are you off-duty? You could kiss me then.” She rose to
her feet, too.

“Twenty-one
hundred hours.”

“Your
place or mine?”

The
teasing tone evaporated from his voice. “Mine. I have to have my comm badge
with me all the time, and if I’m in yours—well, you know.” He looked at her
apologetically.

“I do.”
She touched her fingertip to his sleeve. “See you tonight.”

Chapter 13

Rian
left the bridge promptly at 2100 hours, to the surprise of his crew. He
returned to his cabin and had changed into his civvies when his computer screen
blinked an incoming message. He checked the transmit address: Nalia.
Of
course
. His sister swore up and down that she could sense his whereabouts,
and she was right more often than not. He also knew she would keep transmitting
until he answered.

He
pressed the accept tab, and Nalia’s face filled the screen. “Make it quick,” he
said by way of greeting. “I have company coming.”

“Hello
to you, too. Who’s the company?”

“A
friend.”

“Oh, the
ladyfriend. Well, well, well.” She grinned triumphantly.

“Don’t
you have a husband to pester?”

“I do,
and he’s watching the fight in the lounge with his brother.”

Rian
knew there was some kind of zero-g boxing match happening; a few crew members
were watching it on the small vidscreen in the mess. “Uh-huh,” he said. He left
the transmitter and went to his kitchen, where he found last night’s half-full
bottle of wine.

“Where
did you go?” He heard the irritation in Nalia’s voice.

He
returned to the screen. “Getting supplies for my company.”

“What’s
her name again? Just tell me truth, and promise you’ll sit down for a proper
talk in the next couple of days.”

“Lily,
and yes, she’s coming over. And I have a lot of work to do and some other
issues have cropped up, as they tend to in the military. But I
promise
we’ll get caught up very soon.”

“So you’re
still seeing her?”

Gods
help him. Rian could have told his sister that the Nym were slicing through the
Defiant
’s hull right now and his personal life would still be at the
forefront of her mind. “Yes, and I hope to continue to,” he said finally.
Knowing that answer wouldn’t placate Nalia, he told her the truth. She’d guess,
anyway. “I can see this being serious,” he admitted. He hoped it would be.

But he
wanted it to continue. Lily was smart, inquisitive, and cared about him and
Fleet. She was understanding of their situation, but didn’t mind—at least thus
far. An image popped into his mind: stepping down to commander and settling on
a station as an executive officer to an admiral or senior captain. He had been
offered that before accepting acting captaincy on the
Defiant
. He could
have Lily with him, and she could work in the station’s clinic. No one would
know exactly who she was, and they could share an apartment and take furlough
together and be a real couple. He had never thought of anyone in those terms
before.

Nalia
was staring at him. “You just completely zoned out there for a few minutes. You’ve
got it
bad
.”

“Just
thinking,” he said. “And probably getting ahead of myself.” Definitely getting
ahead of himself.

There
was a chime at the door. “She’s here,” Rian said. His fingers hovered over the
disconnect tab. “I have to go.”

“Can I
meet her?”

“Another
time.”

She
pouted with childish gusto but waved. “Have fun.”

Rian
groaned and ended the transmit. “Enter,” he said, and the cabin door opened.
Lily walked in, in her usual black pants and blouse, dark pink this evening. He
kissed her in greeting and palmed the lock on the door.

“I got
my exam results back,” she said excitedly. “Ninety-four percent. Only three
more to go.”

A tiny
shard of pain sliced through Rian. Only three more exams for her to write
before she left him. He pushed that thought away. Whatever he had with Lily
wasn’t a military operation. He wasn’t even sure if he had the right to ask her
about how he fit into her plans.

Too
soon. He didn’t want to frighten her off. There had been too much upheaval in
her life already, with more to come.

“Besides
all your conferences, what happened today?” she asked. “Some security grunts
were talking about a smuggler being picked up.”

“Not a
smuggler,” Rian corrected. “Just a freight ship with illegal weaponry and
communications upgrades that showed up on our sensors. That indicates potential
criminal activity, but they didn’t have any cargo or known criminals aboard.”

“So what
happened?”

“Their
modifications were disabled and their illegal torpedoes confiscated. We fined
them, too, and now we have their ship on our watch list.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t
a big deal.” He poured two glasses of wine and held one out to her.

She
tasted it. “So not a lot happens here, then.” She sounded disappointed.

“That’s
a good thing, Lily,” he pointed out.

“I’m on
a spaceship for the first time. I was hoping there would be more action.” She
barked out a short laugh. “I mean, seeing aliens besides the Nym.”

“There
aren’t a lot of non-humanoids in Commons or Kurran space. If we were on a
battleship closer to the Sorkan border, maybe. Sorkans are tall and scaly.”

Lily
waited for an explanation. “The Sorkans have been pissed off at the Commons for
years,” he continued. “Border dispute. It’s a long story, but they don’t invade
our space, they just take shots at any ship that shows up on their sensors.
Patrols along that border use battleships just in case. I spent some time on
one when I was a lieutenant.”

“And?”
She sat on one of the chairs around the kitchen island and leaned forward
expectantly.

“And
nothing. The shields deflect their cannons and we don’t fire back. They do it
just to remind us they’re there.” He sat down next to her and changed the
subject. “We’re docking at Kevnar Station in fourteen days, after we drop off
the science team.”

“What’s
at Kevnar?”

“Fuel
and fresh water, and we’re swapping a few officers. Not Steg, unfortunately.”
He was babbling. When the hell had he turned back into an awkward adolescent?

She
caught it and was looking at him like she knew something. He reached for her,
fighting his impulse to crush his mouth against hers and drag her off to the
bedroom like an animal. But there wasn’t a scary vid playing, just the two of
them in his kitchen. He was out of ideas.

She
framed his face with her hands, a small smile quirking her lips. She leaned up
and kissed him gently, no more than a light brush of her lips against his, and
that did him in. His arms locked around her waist and pulled her off the stool
as he stood up.

He knew
he was in trouble, that Lily was trouble. She was becoming an addiction,
someone he could never get enough of.

She
arched into him as he kissed her neck, her breath hot in his ear, urging him
on. His hands slid under her shirt and drifted over the bare skin of her lower
back.

An alarm
wailed through his cabin, and the lights began flashing red. He let her go
abruptly. “Shit!” he yelled.

“What’s
happening?” she shouted over the noise.

“Red
alert. I have to get to the bridge.” He saw fear in her eyes and, despite the
din around him, a corresponding ache at the sight of her.

His comm
badge trilled at his collar, and his first officer’s voice sounded. “Kostin to
captain!”

He
slapped at it and strode for the door of his cabin, Lily behind him. “Marska
here.”

“Get on the
bridge!” Rian could hardly make out the commander’s voice over the alarm’s
blare.

“Status?”
He rushed into the corridor and saw a few other off-duty officers heading for
the lift.

“Unfriendlies.”
The officer’s next words were muffled as Rian ran under a screaming speaker for
the lift. The lights along the corridor flashed the same ominous red as the
ones in his cabin. Lily ran alongside him, and he grabbed her hand and pulled
her into the lift. More red lights, but the alarm was marginally quieter.

“What is
it, godsdamnit?”

“Nym!”
Kostin repeated.

Damnation.
What the hell was a Nym ship
doing there? Blood pounded in his ears, and his stomach turned over.

Were
they looking for Lily? Had they figured out she was aboard a patrol ship? He
gripped her hand tighter, not caring about the other crew around them. They
were barking into their own comm sets.

The
doors opened at the bridge. His office was off it, down a small corridor. “Go,”
he ordered, and pointed to it. She obeyed and took off.

Commander
Kostin, on bridge duty for the night, moved over at the command console. The
enhanced viewport at the front of the ship showed a distant outline of a sleek
rectangular box of a ship gliding straight for them. He didn’t need to check
their coordinates to see that.

Rian
took the helm. “How far out are they?”

“Eleven
minutes, sir,” replied the commander.

“Why
wasn’t an alarm raised when they showed up on the long-distance sensors?”

“They
didn’t. We didn’t pick up anything until they were fifteen minutes out.”

“Six
minutes,” said a voice from behind them.

Rian
could see that, and their increase in speed actually scared him.

“Advisory’s
already been sent out,” Kostin said. “
Bishop’s Pride
is twenty-nine
minutes out, going at top speed.” Rian knew Captain Jena would be double-timing
her ship to make it in time, but he wasn’t going to count on their help.

So the
Defiant
was on her own. “Shields,” Rian barked and pulled up their status as someone
yelled across the bridge.

“Shields
at one hundred percent,” Kostin confirmed.

Rian
pulled up the weapons array and saw that Kostin already had the torpedoes
primed and ready to fire. The sensors told him that the enemy ship’s weapons
were inactive, but he didn’t trust that. A green light flashed in the corner of
the console. They were hailing the
Defiant
.

The Nym
never did that. They didn’t explain or negotiate.

Everyone
else had picked that up, too. “Sir?” Kostin asked.

“Open
our link,” Rian ordered.

“Are you
sure? This could be a trap.”

“They
can see our torpedoes are ready. Open the link, Commander.”

Kostin
gulped but did so. Another beep on the console indicated that
Bishop’s Pride
was now twenty-two minutes out. They would never make it in time.

Terror
flowed through Rian, but he kept himself steady. The viewport’s image changed from
a rapidly-growing ship in deep space to the Nym, standing on its bridge. There
was a group of them, all with deep-set black or green eyes, bulgy heads,
wearing grey coveralls topped with black coats.

“Commons,”
barked one, showing its jagged teeth. Its accent was thick and nearly
indecipherable. “Patrol ship. You are captain?”

“I am,”
said Rian, in a voice that sounded far calmer than he felt. “Your presence here
is unacceptable. Commander.” He nodded discreetly to the executive officer, who
was ready to fire a torpedo.

“No,”
said the Nym.

“The
Pride
is nineteen minutes out,” Kostin said quietly.

“We want
Commons,” said the Nym.

“You won’t
get it.”

The Nym
captain turned away and said something in his language to one of the others,
his thin lips barely moving. The
Defiant
’s sensors couldn’t pick up the
muttering. “Fleet has what we want,” the Nym finally said.