A Star Pilot's Heart Read online

  I hadn’t saved enough. My company mates who went AWOL were never seen again and were assumed captured by the Supremacy.

  I didn’t tell Dr. Hamal any of this. Though he had dredged up bad memories, there was something calming about his steady presence. I hadn’t felt comforted by another person since Orion left me. I didn’t want to ruin it by arguing.

  The scanner binged. “You’re as healthy as a newly minted cyborg,” Dr. Hamal said in that deep, rumbling voice.

  “Fantastic,” I said dryly and hauled myself off the table.

  “Are you so anxious to get away from me?” Dr. Hamal’s eyes twinkled like he was smiling with the top half of his face. He was so good-looking that he took my breath away. Before I could make my mouth do more than go “ah…,” an alarm blared from Hamal’s tablet. He stared at the screen, his dark eyes widened.

  My throat went dry. “What is it? Are we under attack?”

  His hands trembled. “I have to take this call. My apologies,” he said as he fumbled for the door. Before I could ask if he needed help he was already gone, the door hissing shut behind him.

  Six

  Finally, alone time before my mission briefing. I never tired of being on the Firebrand even after a two-month-long mission. It was home and my only reliable friend.

  The metal rungs of the ladder were cool and calming against my hands as I climbed to the main deck. I’ve only been back an hour and four men were giving me four kinds of trouble. That was why I worked and lived alone. So much simpler. Quieter. No wasting energy on people who would leave me anyway.

  I stepped into the cockpit and there he was. Again.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” The words shot from my throat almost against my will.

  Orion whirled. He had traded in his flight suit for a pair of jeans that were ripped on the left thigh, revealing a hint of skin. He held a rag in his left hand and a spray bottle in his right.

  But my gaze honed on the most unsettling thing about him: The polished green metal ring on his left index finger. It was green to match his eyes. I gave it to him that night on Zeepfer when the diamond sand glittered in the starlight. I had thought our time together would outlast the silver stars that lit the chilly night.

  It barely outlasted the charge on my fighter’s engine.

  Why was he wearing that ring now? To mock me? To trigger the memories and emotions that I’d long abandoned? To prove some point?

  “Why—” I stopped and shook my head. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to play this game.

  “Oh…I, ummm—” He tried to run a hand through his hair, but the spray bottle bopped against his forehead. He grimaced. “I had a speech for this…a whole thing ready about how I’ve missed—”

  “What are you doing here?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’m cleaning up, like you asked.”

  “Huh?” Those words were strange coming from his mouth. “Who are you?”

  He smirked like he just had a naughty idea. “Whoever you want me to be.”

  I didn’t smile back. He couldn’t be anyone but who he was, which was the problem.

  He coughed awkwardly, which I’ve never seen him do before. Orion had always been smooth and charming. “Um, well, that speech aside, I can’t remember a word of it now that you’re actually here…you steal the words right from my throat.”

  I said nothing and narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Well, anyway, I wanted to thank you. If anyone had to save my ass, I’m glad it was you, Cali.” He was so earnest.

  My heart skipped a beat and I inwardly cringed at it. I knew he didn’t really care. He was only glad I saved him because he didn’t want to look stupid in front of another fighter pilot.

  “I think I remember that speech.” He cleared his throat and drew his shoulders back.

  I couldn’t handle any more of his lies. I had to get out of this enclosed space with him. I turned to go.

  “What happened to your ring?” Orion said quickly. His words stopped me in my tracks. But why? He shouldn’t bother me anymore. I got over him years ago. “The one I gave you when we were stationed at the base on Rodit,” he said.

  I remembered. It had been under the flowers that grew as tall as trees. We looked up, together, and the sky had been a quilt of reds, yellows, and pinks.

  He had made the ring by shaping and polishing a piece of ship’s hull in the base’s repair shop. Every scrap of durasteel was worth a small fortune to The Uprising—we were always short on ships and supplies to repair them. He risked being court-marshaled for stealing that piece. I had been so angry with him and so touched.

  “I threw it down a drainage grate on Tarlaris 7,” I said. I glanced back, hoping to see his expression fall. But it didn’t, as though I couldn’t hurt him.

  “Oh,” was all he said.

  “Get off my ship.” I turned to go to my bunk, just across from the ladder.

  “Cali, I’ve missed you—”

  His words cut through me like a laser shot to the chest. I whirled on him. “Stop calling me that. That’s what my sister called me. That’s what you called me before—” My voice choked off. “You don’t have the right to call me that anymore. You had your chance with me. You don’t get another one.”

  He frowned. I had rarely seen him look so sad. “Calpurnia, I never wanted to hurt you.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, then decided nope, I was not letting him draw me any further into this drama. “I don’t need anything from you. I’m flying out tomorrow.” Though I didn’t know where yet. “See you the next time you get your ass stuck.”

  I stepped into the corridor and unlocked my bunk door. Orion didn’t say anything, but I felt him watching me like a puppy denied a treat.

  The bunk door whooshed shut behind me and I locked it. The room was dark and windowless. I didn’t turn on the light. No one could look in. I couldn’t look out. It was my safe little den.

  But it didn’t feel as calming and safe as usual. The back of my neck burned as though Orion had gently caressed it with his fingertips. Shit. I darted between heaps of laundry to reach the dresser tucked into my closet. It was the only piece of furniture in my cabin beside the bunk.

  The top drawer groaned open. It took a mere breath for my hand to close around the ring of cool metal. I wanted to fling open the cabin door and chuck the ring at Orion. Maybe then he would react with anger rather than that sad look. I choked down a scream and it turned into a muffled whine that sounded pathetic even to my ears.

  I should have opened the door and shouted at him: Why did you leave like my parents, my sister, and the rest of our company? Why did you leave when I needed you the most?

  The comms tucked into the pocket of my jumpsuit chimed three times. The summons to the briefing Polaris had warned me about. It reminded me of what mattered. This bullshit with Orion wasn’t important. Stopping the Supremacy from conquering planets was all that counted.

  I pulled my shoulders back and dropped the ring back into the drawer. Time to get back to work.

  As I opened my cabin door, an identical three chimes echoed in the Firebrand’s hall.

  My heart contracted. I worked alone. Nobody else should be called to my mission briefing. So why was Orion summoned?

  Seven

  I hurried into the meeting room with Orion and Antares on my heels. I fled before them like a pirate before a patrol ship, though they spent more time insulting each other than noticing me.

  There was nowhere left to flee. Like most rooms on a space station, this one was small with a ceiling so low I could touch it if I stood on tiptoes and stretched out my arm. The spotless white walls glowed with a soft, gentle light like stepping into a low-watt light bulb.

  We weren’t the only ones invited. Polaris sat at a desk, front and center, with his back straight as a stylus. Even more surprising was that Hamal sat near the door with his long legs stretched into the aisles.

  “Sorry,” he said in that low smooth voice as h
e pulled his feet in under the desk.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked him.

  He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which drooped at the edges. “It’s nothing that matters now. Thank you for asking.”

  I suspected he was lying but before I could ask, Orion sidled up to him. “Hamal, buddy!”

  The doctor chuckled, and a small copper pendant bopped against his chest as he stood to greet his friend.

  I sighed. If he was buddies with Orion, then he was another man constantly trying to prove something. Orion didn’t have another type of friend.

  At the front of the room, General Brison lifted her narrow chin high and stared down her long nose at us. The lines on either side of her mouth grew longer as she frowned. Her hair was pulled back so tight and neat that not a strand drifted free.

  She looked meaner than she was. I always liked her because she refused to accept bullshit. That was how I knew she would listen. “General,” I said, crossing the room to stand nose to nose with her. “I’ve been summoned to the wrong briefing.”

  “Please take a seat, Captain. We have little time to spare,” she said without even a twitch of a muscle to show that she understood something was wrong. “All will be explained.”

  It better be. Clenching my teeth, I slipped into the closest seat, the one next to Polaris. My arm brushed against his shoulder, and he let out a little puff of breath like a small sigh. I knew how he felt; this whole meeting mix-up was frustrating. There was no reason for him to be here, either. He was just the local tech guy and had nothing to do with smuggling missions.

  “General,” Orion said, “do you want me to toss out this enemy scumbag?” I glanced behind me. Orion was smirking at Antares, and it was an ugly look even on a face as perfect as his.

  Antares’s head sagged toward the desk so that his long hair hid his face. But I was in front of him and could see his downturned eyes and his lips pressed into a tight line. It was a helpless look that was strange to see on the face of a Supremacy agent.

  “Captain Orion, are you suggesting that I don’t know how to do my job?” the general said.

  Orion leaned back in his chair, lazy and languid. “I just thought—”

  “Are you suggesting that I don’t know what I’m doing?” she repeated, louder and colder.

  He sat up straighter, smug look vanishing. “No—”

  “Then don’t provide unasked for suggestions.”

  I remembered why I like her. It was great to see Orion put in his place.

  “Time is short. Indeed, we cannot even wait until the sixth member of the team arrives.”

  This was definitely the wrong briefing. “General—”

  “Thanks to Antares,” she said, ignoring me, “we know that our best spy’s cover has been blown.”

  I jerked, sitting up straighter.

  “And how does he know that?” Orion sneered.

  Antares lifted his head and glared at everyone, as though daring us to fight him. “I was hired to hunt down Agent Winters. I came here instead.”

  “Why? Did you hope we’d pay more than your masters?” I said.

  He met my eyes. His were haunted like the windows of an abandoned house that was once a warm home. I looked away.

  “I have issues with authority,” he said grimly, echoing my comment to him earlier.

  “Then why did you work for them at all?”

  “I don’t want to anymore,” he said. “That’s what matters.”

  I snorted mockingly. “That you helped conquer the galaxy matters too.”

  The general raised her voice. “Antares provided us with credible information that has saved rebel lives.”

  I blinked. His info might have been a ploy. He fed us true intel to win our trust so he could lead us into a trap. A Supremacy bounty hunter wouldn’t try to save The Uprising.

  But I remembered his constant look of sadness. He was running from something.

  “Antares knows Agent Winters’s last location, which is crucial. We believe that Winters has info that will allow us to destroy the Supremacy’s Northern Fleet.”

  I gasped. Orion swore.

  “It’ll be the first edge we’ve had on them for a generation,” I said.

  “A chance to do more than get shot down and flee,” Orion said. I flinched as though slapped. He didn’t mention the Battle of Sule, but he didn’t have to. I knew that was what he was thinking of. I knew he still blamed me for what happened that day.

  “That’s why they’ve mustered their entire Western Fleet to search for Winters. We need to find her first,” the general said.

  My stomach clenched. How could we find her when the Supremacy had a thousand ships searching for her?

  “It gets worse,” Antares said. “Castor Rigel is commanding the search party.”

  My breath stopped as though hands closed around my throat. I remembered Polaris’s warning: Someone else from my past was returning.

  Orion slammed his palm onto the table.

  “Indeed, that Castor,” the general said, her tone cool and calm. “Because we don’t have the forces to defeat him in direct battle, we need to get into and out of Supremacy space undetected. That’s why Captain Bellatrix, our best smuggler, will be leading this mission.”

  The general’s order couldn’t be right. Why would they trust me to lead a team after half my company went AWOL before the Battle of Sule?

  “You’ve each been chosen because you’re the best at what you do. Captain Bellatrix for smuggling. Polaris for tech support.”

  He nodded, but his hands clutched the desk. He had never been on a mission.

  As the general listed the men and their specialties, it dawned on me that she was serious. They were all going, and I was supposed to lead them. But she was making a terrible mistake that would doom this mission.

  Orion and Antares were already fighting, which would worsen once they were trapped on a small ship together. Instead of outsmarting the Supremacy’s forces, I’d be struggling to keep my own crew from hurting each other. That was assuming the best-case scenario where Antares wasn’t actively sabotaging the mission.

  After a week or two of constant danger, they would all start breaking down, and I wouldn’t be able to hold them together when they did. Even Orion, who I once believed was immune to fear and stress, cracked and left me. These men wouldn’t be any different.

  There was only one way to ensure this mission’s success.

  “General, there’s been a misunderstanding—”

  “And what is it that I misunderstood?”

  I swallowed hard under her glare. “I work best alone. With all due respect, this mission is more likely to succeed if it’s just me and my hardy Firebrand.”

  “You’ll be facing continuous danger deep in enemy territory.”

  “I call that Tuesday.”

  “Can you monitor threats for weeks straight without pausing to sleep? Can you fly for weeks straight without a bathroom break? Can you do that while also manning the guns —”

  “General, I do all that anyway. I’ve done everything for The Uprising and I’ve never failed, no matter what it cost me. Remember my run through the Enn blackhole cluster? Or Mission Blackhawk where I hid for a week, without food, to sneak a shipment of plasma guns out of Ril? Now you don’t trust me?”

  “Cali?” Orion said behind me as though worried.

  “It’s not a matter of trust,” the general said. “It’s a matter of ensuring the highest likelihood of success. This mission is more important than anything else you’ve done. We will not risk it by sending one person alone. What if you are injured? Or the ship is damaged and needs to be repaired in mere hours?”

  I chuckled. “Sounds like a normal day.”

  “Your confidence is noted, Captain Bellatrix,” the general said dryly. “But it changes nothing. This is a six-person job.”

  She wasn’t listening, I realized with cold horror. “General, these men will get in my way—”

 
; “As leader, it’s your job to ensure they don’t.”

  But that was the problem: I couldn’t hold a team together. I worked best when I didn’t have to worry about keeping others in line or keeping them motivated. I failed as a company leader and lost the only family I had since my sister died. But I had never failed as a lone smuggler, not even once. “I thought it was my job to get into Supremacy territory and recover Winters, not babysit these men.”

  “Hey, drop the arrogance, Cali,” Orion said.

  I ignored him. “Those two spent the entire walk here fighting with each other. Polaris has never been in battle. Orion and I don’t get along. This team is a joke.”

  “I’ll help keep them in line, Captain,” Hamal said. “You’re not alone in this.”

  “I don’t need your help. I need to be left alone to do my job.”

  “Enough with the snark, Captain Bellatrix,” the general said.

  I shook my head. “I won’t be part of a mission that’s doomed to fail. I go alone or not at all.”

  The general frowned, and her eyes wilted at the corners as though disappointed. “Then you don’t go, but we will be commandeering your ship.”

  My hands clenched the edge of the desk. “You can’t! The Firebrand is all I have.”

  “You don’t own that ship. It was assigned to you and if you refuse direct orders, you forfeit your right to it. The Firebrand has transponders for a hundred Supremacy systems. It’s recognized in ports across their heartland and has the best cloaking technology. We have nothing else suitable to this mission ready to go.”

  “What about Antares’s ship?”

  “It has no cloaking shields and there’s no time to outfit it.”

  I laughed, but it was a harsh, joyless sound. “A bounty hunter with no cloakers?”

  “I never needed it,” Antares said, mischievously.

  Everybody in an unsavory business needed cloaking shields. “What else are you lying about?” I snapped.

  “Captain, enough,” the general ordered.