Sky Hunter (19 page)

Not ready for sleep, she wandered through the
corridors, finally stopping at the observation window overlooking
the open core of the orbiter. She watched a couple stroll through
the half-finished green space below her and thought about Djari, of
his perfect smile, his soft words and his hands on her body. She
wished for him now, here with her. When she let her eyes wander
pensively to the stars outside the dome she saw the terrace of the
administrative level still brightly lit.

What was going on behind those closed doors?
The investigators would be busy going over video recordings,
dispersal patterns, injuries, communications and hundreds of other
details that were part of the sabotage. None of this would be
shared with the pilots and, not for the first time, she wished she
were part of that larger view of their military. Those who really
understood the rebel factions and who planned for their elimination
fascinated her. Like her fellow pilots, she was merely a weapon
pointed at a certain target at a certain time. Working diligently
toward gaining rank and distinctions would perhaps someday bring
her up to that level below the skylight. Until then, she could only
wonder about what truly drove their mighty Union.

She continued around the promenade and
climbed up to the flight levels. Access to the lower tier of air
locks was cordoned off and she stood at the barrier to watch
workers in color-coded coveralls still comb through the site while
others were already working on repairs. Structural engineers were
busy with lasers and analyzers to determine the damage to the
adjacent fighter chutes and hangars. Someone was arguing somewhere.
Someone else was laughing. As out of place as that seemed, it
comforted her.

“
Almost bought the farm, didn’t you?” a
low voice rolled out to her left.

She turned to peer into the shadows. A
hulking figure leaned against the wall, one foot raised and propped
up against it. She gasped and took a step back. “Beryl.”

“
In the flesh,” he replied but his eyes
travelled down along her body when he said the last word, giving it
more meaning than it needed. Nova suppressed a shudder and took
another step backwards.

“
No need to run away,” he said with a
lazy wave of his hand. “Not scared, are you?”

“
Disgusted, maybe,” she said, aware of
the sudden pounding of her heart, unwilling to show the fear that
gripped her even here, well in sight of the ground crew and under
the scrutiny of the overhead security cameras. She wished for her
gun, just to feel its comforting weight at her side. But, unlike on
the ground bases, pilots did not walk around an orbiter fully
armed.

He snorted something like laughter. Nova
frowned and narrowed her eyes to study his shadowed face. His eyes
glittered in the dark and his voice had a hollow, dragging tone.
The body slumped against the wall was anything but
battle-ready.

“
You’re stoned!” she gasped. The
symptoms he showed looked quite clearly like the result of
ingesting a few pinches of
mince
. Likely, given his size,
more than a few pinches.

His sneer faded from his lips. Slowly, he
pushed away from the wall and rose up above her until she had to
tip her head back to look up at him. She refused to back off
another step.

“
You haven’t learned to mind your own
business yet, Lieutenant,” he said. “Others have, and they’re quite
healthy.”

“
Don’t you dare threaten me,” she said
in a relatively firm voice.

He looked over her shoulder when another
member of the security team strolled into the hangar entrance from
the hall. “Or what?” Beryl said. “You think it’s worth reporting
me? Again?”

She glanced over to the Centauri silently
smirking at her. Was it worth it? A drug-addled soldier who already
bore her a grudge? Whose equally ruthless squad would walk through
fire if he told them to?

“
Get out of my way,” she snarled and
stalked away without looking at either one of them
again.

* * *

The days that followed aboard Skyranch
Twelve were both a trial and a joy for Nova. The mood among the
pilots had not lifted. The station was on alert but the patrols
they flew were merely exercises and make-work and did little to
keep their minds from wandering. Every one of them ached to get
down to the planet surface where the chance of striking back at the
rebel was far more likely.

The leadership recognized their unrest and
there was talk about a rotation back to Rim Station to let them all
blow off some steam in active patrols.

Nova was torn about that. Nothing gave her
more joy than sitting at the controls of her fighter plane, feeling
it respond to her mental touch, watching her shadow race over the
planet surface. She longed for a deep space assignment but flying
within an atmosphere such as Bellac’s made the heart race.

But so did Djari. Nova did not see him on the
day following their first intimate encounter, almost glad as she
still brooded over both the loss of her wing mate and her ugly
encounter with Beryl. It would not do for her to fling herself into
Djari’s arms every time she needed comforting like a little girl.
She was stronger than that, she thought. Maybe not strong enough to
march up to the station commander and give him her view of Beryl
and his men. That felt more like suicide.

She came to him again the following day and
the one after that. He welcomed her into his quiet, safe place
where they made love and talked a while about nothing at all and
then perhaps made love again before parting ways. She reveled in
his attention and nearly craved the powerful body that lifted her
own to such heights. A rotation to the planet was little enticement
to leave his bed.

“
Djari?” Nova said when, at the end of
a far too long and uneventful shift, her soft knock on his door
brought no response. She checked the time to assure herself that he
would be expecting her now, at the end of his own day. He had given
her access to some of his files and when she checked his location
she was told that he was in his cabin. She knocked again and still
there was no response.

Likely, she thought, he was on his way here,
perhaps with a bottle of wine cadged from the lounge as he had done
before. She placed her hand over the access panel beside the door
and, once recognized, stepped into his room. It was a bit of a
tumble and Nova wondered if she could dare tidy up in here. Even
after just a few days together, his laid-back ways had made it easy
to feel unreservedly comfortable around him.

Deciding against housekeeping chores, she
pondered over some slides scattered beside an analyzer on the small
desk. Curious, she peered into the apparatus to see some cell
structures which told her absolutely nothing. Djari probably felt
the same about her navigational charts. She frowned when she
noticed his com band among the equipment, left behind here and the
reason why the station’s system thought him to be in his room.

No cause for alarm, she told herself. Djari
gladly worked long hours to ensure the success of this new ranch
but the thought of being so easily summoned by his superiors for
their never-ending emergencies and special projects irked him. She
had seen him without it before.

Soon bored with waiting for him, Nova left
the residentials and made her way to the upper grow ring. Security
had tightened since she had last come this way. She submitted to a
retina scan which, once her credentials were verified, exempted her
from having her pockets checked and motives questioned.

She asked a few of the workers and biologists
about Djari before she was directed to his supervisor, busy at a
small work station overlooking the long curve of the ring. He was
deeply immersed in whatever he was viewing on his screens and
apparently oblivious to the breathtaking view of the planet through
the transparent ceiling. She looked up at it for a while, feeling a
little vertigo and a lot of awe. The station itself did not spin
and the gray, cloud-swathed planet hovered motionless in the
distance.

It was a while before he noticed her standing
there. “Yes…” he squinted at her armband. His black hair was far
longer than what was currently fashionable among Centauri and was
caught up in a disorderly knot atop his head. “Officer
Whiteside?”

“
I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m looking
for Nathon Djari.”

“
He’s off duty.”

“
I know that. I thought perhaps he was
working late.”

The botanist shook his head. “A man’s got to
rest,” he said and, with another look at her, added, “or whatnot.
More to life than work, you know.” He returned his attention to his
screens.

“
Do you know where he might be?” she
said, amused.

“
I think he said something about taking
the shuttle down to the surface. Or maybe that was
yesterday.”

“
He was here yesterday.”

“
Well, then it was today.”

“
Did he say why?” Nova asked,
puzzled.

“
A man’s time is his own,” the Centauri
said philosophically. “I don’t ask.”

“
Of course. Thank you.” Nova left him
to his work and returned to the station, pondering. Civilians were
not often given the privilege of taking trips to the surface unless
whatever shuttles travelled there had the room to spare. Why would
Djari not have mentioned a trip to Bellac? They had spent so much
time together these past few days, surely something like this would
have come up.

She strolled to the pilots’ favored lounge
and found Rolyn staring into his glass of ale. He had kept to
himself these past few days, at a loss without Boker who had been
his constant source of entertainment and vexation. They chatted
quietly for a while, avoiding talk of the dead pilot in favor of
less painful subjects. Eventually, she coaxed him into joining her
for some dinner instead of another glass of the limpid, nearly
flavorless beer and then turned him over to Nieri and two Caga
squad pilots who preferred games of chance over alcohol.

Rolyn was an excellent pilot and she worried
about him. Although Dakad had eased up on all of them since the
explosion on the flight deck he would not put up with poor
performance because of hangovers.

The day’s shuttle from Bellac was due to dock
at the main gate and Nova took the lift there, eager for a few
moments with Djari before needing to turn in. Some of their recent
evenings together had stretched far into the night and the lack of
sleep was beginning to affect her in the cockpit. Then again, she
thought, he might have decided to spend the night on the surface
and she’d be getting all the sleep she needed tonight.

The passenger bay was already bustling with
arrivals when she stepped out of the lift. She scanned over guards
on a shift rotation, a visiting Caspian family with a gaggle of
children, grow ring workers, a few officers back from shore
leave.

Then she saw Djari leap down the ramp to get
ahead of a wheeled bin. He was casually dressed in a white shirt
that contrasted nicely with his deeply tanned skin and her breath
caught a little when he beamed a broad smile at one of the hangar
crew. He seemed more like someone taking a vacation than someone
returning to work. He chatted briefly with the woman rolling the
bin from the shuttle and then walked to the main corridor before
Nova could call out to him.

She hurried after him, hoping to catch him
before he got to the lifts. But he continued past them into the
main concourse, perhaps on his way to find a late dinner. The Green
House Eatery there was developing a terrific selection of Bellac
delicacies far beyond the usual list of interspecies mainstays
offered by the mess hall. She was about to call his name when he
stopped abruptly. A uniformed guard strode toward him. Nova groaned
when she recognized Captain Beryl.

She hung back, curious, while the two men
spoke. Djari’s back was turned to her and she saw little of their
exchange. The expression on Beryl’s face was as unpleasant as
always. There came a moment when he raised his hand and Djari took
a quick step back as if surprised by the gesture. A moment later
Beryl looked over Djari’s shoulder to see her walking toward them.
He sneered and left the corridor.

Djari turned. “Nova! How did you know I’d
explode if I didn’t get to see you tonight?”

She stepped into his embrace and kissed him
quickly. “I looked for you earlier. They told me you’d gone
down.”

He nodded. “Yes, I got volunteered to pick up
the swampers. Too fragile to ship up with the elevator. Very tasty,
though. They’ll grow like mad up here.”

“
You didn’t take your com
unit?”

A trace of a frown appeared on his face. “We
get the cheap toys. That unit is only good for up here. So I don’t
bother.”

“
Oh. Right.” She looked into the
direction that Beryl had taken. The concourse was now deserted
except for a few construction workers ambling to their dinners and
showers. “What did Beryl want?”

“
Just talking. Why do you have more
questions than kisses for me, Sunshine?”

She shrugged. “I don’t like that man.”

This time his frown was more pronounced.
“Have you had dealings with him?”

“
Not good ones.” She did not look at
him. “He’s… not a good soldier. That’s all. His ways are…
undisciplined. It’s not the way we’re meant to be.”

“
Well, as I’ve been telling you,
Lieutenant.” Djari softened this reminder with a gentle smile.
“What you’re meant to be and what some of you are... Well, they’re
not the same. I guess it gets the job done. Beryl seems…
efficient.”