Part 15 (2/2)
”You already have my answer,” he shot back angrily. ”I'd rather we take our chances on our own.”
”I think Rave is right,” Vivienne said. ”We need protection. As strong as we are, we have our weaknesses, and they could be exploited again. We could find ourselves doing nothing more than running away for the rest of our lives.”
”I'm with you, Rave,” Fallon said. ”We have to trust someone while we get our feet wet. The IM is as good as any. Better because it isn't as much of an unknown.”
”I think I speak for everyone,” Domino said carefully, ”even Kith, when I say that you are our leader and always will be. You have taken care of us every moment since we were first brought to the temple, and you have yet to make a bad decision.”
”Except when it came to letting them take you prisoner,” Vivi said. ”I know you think it would have been wrong to hurt the villagers, but it was wrong for them to separate you from us. Whatever we do, now and in the future, we do it together. This won't work otherwise.”
With that, they all turned expectant looks to the dissenter among them. Ravenna had to give Kith credit for one thing: he knew when he was outnumbered and he knew that no manner of game he tried to play would work to make them doubt Rave's choices. In truth, he knew that she had never once made a selfish decision in all of her life. Everything she had ever done had been for them all. Including taking a beating that she hadn't deserved and could easily have avoided.
”Do what you want,” he said at last. ”But don't expect me to be happy about it.”
That said, he marched out of the room.
Several minutes later, Jet and Ender were on the bridge of the s.h.i.+p, allowing Justice to turn in her chair and join in. Bronse could no longer sit still, so he was pacing the deck before them.
”I have a few ideas, but I need to run them past you guys first. I know I've asked a lot of you all this trip, that I've done things I wasn't supposed to, acted out of the norm, made choices that weren't by the book. Until now, I've swept you all along with me. I don't want to do that anymore.”
”d.a.m.n. And it was such a fun ride,” Ender joked.
”I mean it. I should have been more up-front with you all. I can't change the past, but I can start being more forthright. Justice, can you make it so that we come in during the middle of night cycle on the station?”
”Sure.” She did a quick calculation in her head. ”All I have to do is slow us down a little. Why the night cycle?”
”Fewer witnesses for one. For another, it helps me put the debriefing on a different footing. I'm thinking of calling in a favor. I'm going to call my old commander, Chaser Abingdon. He's an admiral now, in the justice department. It's time we clued IM Justice in on JuJuren's activities. If we come in at night, JuJuren will be asleep. We can arrange a debrief without him and with Abingdon present. As I see it, it's the only way we can keep ourselves on that station and not chasing after JuJuren's next death trap.”
”And the downside to this is ...?” Justice asked leadingly.
”It could blow up in our faces. Or we could end up docked for a good long time while IM Justice court-martials JuJuren. You know how IMJ hates to lose its prime witnesses.”
”Ugh. I hate being mollycoddled,” Lasher groaned.
”So do I,” Bronse said. ”But it's important to expose the admiral for the backstabbing b.a.s.t.a.r.d he is. Our mission reports are the only thing we have so far to prove it.”
”Hopefully Trick has found more while he's been on bed rest,” Lasher said.
”We can't count on 'hopefully.' I have to act on what I have at hand. And that leads me to the next point.” Bronse cleared his throat. ”We're not hiding anything from our reports. Nothing. Am I clear? That includes whatever you have to say about ... about my behavior as far as Ravenna is concerned.”
Justice snorted. ”Look, Boss, as far as we're concerned, you've been a perfect gentleman. Besides, it would all be conjecture anyway. The only thing I've seen is a kiss or two. I don't see how that fits into our report.”
”It fits if it affected my decision making,” Bronse pointed out quietly. ”Staying at the temple last night was a bad choice. Any admiral worth his salt will see that. He'll wonder why. h.e.l.l, I wonder why.”
Lasher was dismissive. ”It's not the first bad choice you've made. At least this was for a good reason. But how are you proposing to introduce the subject of Rave and the others?”
”I think Ravenna has plans to introduce herself. She wants to protect her family, and she's willing to let the IM do it in trade for what the Chosen Ones can do for the IM. But I'm not comfortable with JuJuren ever finding out about what they can do. I don't even think she should approach IM until he's been excised.”
”But there's the time factor,” Jet mused knowingly. ”They're on board here and now, and they got here during a mission that you're about to be debriefed on.”
”Exactly. So I don't see how I have much choice in the matter,” said Bronse. ”None of us seems to have a real choice here. Not until we take care of this problem with JuJuren.”
”So make the call. After these past few days, I'll enjoy the downtime,” Ender said.
Bronse appreciated the gesture for what it was. If there was one thing that Ender despised, it was downtime.
”Okay, so I make the call.” Bronse looked at them all. ”One other thing. We need to share bunks. Justice, you can double up with Vivienne. Ender, you can have Fallon. Ophelia and Devan get one of the spare rooms, and Kith and Domino get the other.”
”And Ravenna?” Lasher asked with a troublemaking sparkle in his eyes. ”Is she sharing with you?”
Bronse didn't dignify the question with a response.
He didn't even know the answer.
It was nearly ten hours later before Bronse got up the nerve to leave the bridge. d.a.m.n it all, he'd faced down some of the scariest s.h.i.+t that the three worlds had to offer, but one woman had somehow managed to tie him into knots to the point where he was afraid to run into her. He didn't know what to make of her. She was a peaceful, nonviolent person, but she was willing to embed herself in the military? Just like a lot of things about Ravenna, it just didn't make any sense. It was as confusing as her naive fearlessness and as baffling as her effect on him.
Bronse stepped into his rooms but stopped immediately short after the threshold. The lights were on and there, sitting in the middle of his bed in a rather peaceful, cross-legged position, was Ravenna. She looked like she was waiting for him, as if they had prearranged to meet there.
”How did you get in here?” he asked as the doors slid automatically shut at his back. ”It has a secure lock.”
”Let's call that my little secret,” she said with a winsome smile that just about sucked the breath right out of him.
No, d.a.m.n it, no! He had to keep his head on straight these next few hours! He couldn't afford to be so easily distracted by her smiles and the exotic warmth of her scent as it filled his quarters.
”Ravenna, I have work to do,” he said dismissively, walking over to his workstation and sitting down as if he was going to start right then. But the truth was, he'd already written all of his reports. In fact, he'd been pretty impressed at how easy it was to avoid any mention of having been intimate with a civilian while on-mission. Too easy.
Too tempting, he thought as she unfolded her long legs from beneath her and pushed off the bed. She walked over to him in distinctly placed steps. If he didn't know any better, he'd say she was being coy. There was an almost blatant flirtation in the way she moved, oh so slowly, toward him.
”I thought you were working all this time on the bridge. What will you do here that you could not do there?”
Never lie to a Chosen One, Bronse advised himself. They were too hard to trick.
”That's not your business,” he said sharply, suddenly surging to his feet because he simply could not be sitting down while she sidled up to him. It made him feel completely off his mark. Almost subordinate. Like she was the one with all the power.
But she didn't have power and neither did he. Didn't she see that? Didn't she appreciate how much danger the worlds had to offer?
”Very well.” She paused for only a beat. ”I spoke with the Chosen Ones. We have all agreed that, for now, we will offer our services to the Interplanetary Militia. This solves both the problem of what to do with us and how to explain our presence on this s.h.i.+p. You found an excellent resource for the IM to use and brought it to them.”
It sounded so perfunctory, so coldly matter of fact. So simple when it was anything but.
”It also allows you and me to remain close so you can satisfy your desire to protect me,” she added.
That wasn't the only desire he wanted to satisfy, d.a.m.n it, and he'd bet big money that she knew it. Well, he had to shake that notion out of her head straight off.
”See, that just proves how naive you really are,” he said in hard bursts. ”I won't be around. I'm never around. I'm either on-mission or I'm training my troops for being on-mission or I'm being briefed on my next mission. I'm never, ever around. If you think we're going to play house together and have romantic dinners every night, you're sorely mistaken.”
Bronse reached out to grab her by her shoulders and shake her when she gave him a serene smile. Wasn't she listening to him? Didn't she understand? He was an ETF First Active soldier. The best of the best when it came to soldiering and the worst of the worst when it came to relations.h.i.+ps.
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