“I don’t think that phrase actually applies here. In no way will it be a piece of cake. We have no idea how damaged the ship is beneath the bulge.”
He shrugged. “That’s the fun stuff.”
“I’m a different kind of engineer. I want to know what’s wrong before I start to fix it. I can allot a proper amount of time and be sure I’m ready to do the job. I’m not an innovator. I’m a fixer.” My uncles could invent things. I never wanted to have to.
Judge banged on the side of Artemis. “Takes all types, Di. I hate the minutia of keeping up systems when I could be planning how to make them better. If I’m not wrong, you fixed up Artemis a bit. I saw your upgrades.”
“Yes, but I hated it.”
He’d called me Di. My family sometimes did that. It rolled off his tongue like we were long-term friends. My heart jumped, and I made myself breathe to calm down. I couldn’t have a repeat of the day before, when everything they did made my hormones go crazy.
He shrugged. “Yeah, but you did it.” He banged the hull again. “Come on. Let’s get busy.”
His energy was up again. Judge had been relatively still this morning. Not anymore. He burst toward the ship, pulling a monitor out of his pocket. “We’ll start by checking on the pressure. Can you go measure where the outside is buckling up?”
“I can do that.” I’d always taken direction really, really well.
We worked for two hours and hadn’t taken any of the siding off the ship yet. Judge examined everything. He gave me polite orders, and I took them without complaint. I didn’t even understand why he wanted to know some of the things he did. From experience working with C.J., Wes, and even my father, I knew I shouldn’t interrupt with questions when engineers were busy. Even Dane, when he was busy, could snap. Cooper was a bear in his hydroponics bay. Only Nolan took the time to explain. Mostly, it was better to wait.
Judge blew out a loud breath. “I think that’s it for today. Still have to work on the regular stuff I do.” He grinned at me. “Was that awful?”
I stretched my arms over my head. “Not even a little bit. You give clear-cut instructions.”
“Really? Most people find me confusing. Thanks, I’ll take the compliment. Di, um, listen. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the wind. I should have thought of it.”
“Oh.” His apology surprised me. I’d moved on. Working the last two hours, I hadn’t heard the sound at all. Since he’d brought it up, the noise whooshed back into my consciousness. I didn’t react. Judge, I was pretty sure, was being kind. Should I say something else? Sometimes it was hard to know.
He nodded once. “Well, I can stay with you if you get scared. Or you could come to me. Okay? You don’t have to be alone. Damian showed up, and that’s good. He’s a great guy. Like a brother to me. You never have to be scared. You’re safe here.”
“Thank you, Judge.” I couldn’t imagine crossing the long distance of the pod to find him. By the time I got there, I’d be utterly humiliated from needing to be comforted. I’d have made it through the night under my covers. Not as warm as having Damian. I would have made it.
He brightened at my thanks and nodded toward the hallway before he took my hand. “Let’s go.”
I could walk by myself. I didn’t need him to hold my hand. Only, I didn’t pull away. Judge was nice, and I wouldn’t mind having a friend. I had to try to not make things weird or uncomfortable. Not until I ran away.
****
“What’s the pressure gauge say over there, Di?”
I stared down at the number on the device I held while I knelt next to the two-way window where we could see the Infected. They couldn’t see us … but they could smell us. I shuddered. “The same as before. Within normal limits.”
“I believe you that it says that, but it’s wrong.”
He knew the pressure in the window better than the gauge?
“Don’t mind him. He’s a perfectionist.” Sterling knelt next to me, seemingly coming out of nowhere. “Just keep telling him what it says, and he’ll eventually work out in his head what’s bothering him and fix it, or he’ll get over it. I’ve been the one holding the gauge. I give you credit. Most of us lose it a lot earlier than you have.” He held out a bar. “Lunch?”
I took it from him, grateful for the offering. My stomach growled. “Thank you. I guess I’m hungry.”
“Forget to eat?” His blond hair fell over his eyes, and I had the strangest urge to reach out and push it off his baby blues.
“Not usually,” I shook my head. “Guess I’m just distracted on my first day.”
He sat stretching his long legs out in front of him. “You can sit. He’ll never know you sat if you pop into a squat when he calls instead of already being there.”
Judge worked two rooms over. He spoke into a mic when he wanted my attention, and I answered the same way.
“He told me to squat here and be ready. I don’t want to start breaking rules right away.” Not when I was lying to all of them right off the bat by planning an escape while acting compliant. I had to be myself as much as I could, and I was a rule follower.
Sterling lay flat on his back. “Suit yourself. My knees hurt looking at you.”
I doubted that entirely. Sterling was a giant muscle. I could see them through his pants and his shirt. He could probably squat for hours and never notice. He seemed different than last night, easier-going, and not angry anymore. Still, what I’d said to Damian remained true. Anger eventually went away. To make things hurry up and get back to pleasant times, I let things go. It appeared Sterling did too.
Still, an apology might help. I was sorry I’d upset him right off the bat. “Last night, I made you angry. That was not my intention. I’m sorry.”
I went back to looking at the gauge as the number stayed exactly where it was, not budging at all. I felt more than saw Sterling lean up on his elbows.
“I’m touchy. It’s one of my worst flaws.” He lightly nudged me with his foot. “I’m sorry, too. I don’t want you to think I’m not approachable or you can’t touch me. We’re all like family here.”
I was getting that impression. They all said it. Even as Judge worried about Sterling and Damian being company men, he cared about them. These guys were on the edge of their universe, doing good work and getting through every day laughing together. It was, in its own way, enviable.
Sterling hadn’t explained why he got so upset, and I wasn’t going to ask. They were family. I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to pry to satisfy my own curiosity.
He rolled over until his head was on his elbow, and he stared at me. I finally had to look at him. “What?”
“Tell me about Mars Station where you grew up. Is it really exciting?”
He looked like a little boy, his eyes bright and questioning. I smiled, his enthusiasm enticing. “I grew up there, so I don’t know if it’s exciting or not. It was a good option, considering the other places we could have ended up. My mom immediately got elected into politics, so we were treated well by everyone there.”
“Were there lots of kids?”
I nodded. “Yes, a big school and an indoor playground. I was never much into socialization, and I tended to stick by myself.”
“You can’t eat and squat. Seriously.” He grabbed the mic from my hand. “You’re going to give yourself indigestion. Judge, Diana is going to eat. She’s taking twenty minutes.”
A moment later, Judge answered. “Sounds good. Have a good lunch.”
“See?” He shook his head. “He’d never expect you to eat like that.” Sterling patted the floor next to him, and I sat down.
My legs immediately thanked me for stretching them out. I took a bite of my bar. It was sweet and tangy. The side of the wrapping said Protein and I was glad for some. I needed to keep my strength up.
Sterling tapped his foot. “How many floors is your station?” He watched me chew, and I wished he was eating something too. Consuming food when no one else ate always made me feel like I was eat
ing really loudly.
“Twenty.” I swallowed the last bit and rumpled up the wrapper in my hand. I didn’t see a garbage can in the room.
Sterling extended his hand and took the wrapper from me before putting it back in his pocket. He furrowed his eyebrows. “Hard to keep order on a place that big.”
“There is lots of help. Well, there’s external, space, security, and internal, station, security. Keeping an eye on the ships coming and going is a different thing entirely. Inside? They have hundreds of officers.”
Sterling whistled through his teeth. “That’s too many. I mean, ignore me, I’m not there. I’d rather have a smaller amount of well-trained people who can cover large distances. Easier to run, better to quality control. If eighty of those guys can barely fire their weapons, it’s a total waste of time. You spend more time worrying about getting shot by the guy next to you.”
Okay, I could mind my own business, but if he was going to say something that interesting, I needed more information. “Do you have experience in a scenario like that?”
He let out a loud breath. “Walked right into that one.” His grin was huge. “Yes, I’ve been in many battles. I grew up in Evander Corporation. I was bred to be a soldier. A fighter. I am what I am.”
“Bred?” What did he mean by that?
“Evander thought for a while they could solve the ‘girl problem’ by making babies in labs. The girl babies never lived long. They couldn’t make that work. Then they decided maybe they didn’t have to entirely lose money. They made really strong boys with high likelihoods of turning out to be aggressive and war-like. We were their perfect security force.”
I touched his arm and tried not to overthink my action. He didn’t flinch or push my hand away, so I left it where it was. “Excuse me for saying so, but you don’t seem overly war-like.”
He smirked and shook his head. “I can be. I’ll just say, maybe you aren’t the only one who’s glitchy.”
The wind let out a loud burst, and I jumped. It sounded like thunder. My heart leaped into my throat, and Sterling yanked me against him, embracing me in his strong arms.
“I—I’m not usually afraid.”
“Don’t worry. The winds are really horrendous. They don’t last forever. Couple weeks. We forget them. They start again. It’s like … life. I don’t know. Ignore me.” He tightened his hold. Sterling smelled like soap, clean and fresh. “Sometimes thunder rocks through the wind.”
As my heart stilled, my current foolishness made my cheeks heat up. I pulled back a little and rubbed my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I got to protect you for three seconds. Did my ego a world of good.”
I snorted, which quickly turned into outright laughter. Soon he joined me, and we were both belly-laughing. When we finally stopped, it was to see Cash standing in the doorway, staring at us with his mouth open. “I’ve clearly missed something.”
Sterling wiped at his eyes; he’d laughed so hard tears had started. He stood. “Yeah … hard to explain.”
“I …” Cash grinned. “I was wondering if I could borrow Diana. I need some repairs on my console. It keeps shutting off and on. Judge is so preoccupied with window pressure he can hardly hear me when I ask. He finally said Diana could fix it. So can you come take a look?”
“If Judge is okay with it, then yes, I can.” I rose and crossed to him. “Are we going to your lab?”
Sterling shook his head. “I’m going to go check on our Infected brethren. They’ll roar at me. But it’ll be okay today because I haven’t laughed that hard, well, maybe ever.”
“Me neither. I’m not really a laugher.”
Sterling’s face fell. “We’ll change that. You weren’t a laugher. Now you are.”
“I don’t find I can change much. I kind of am what I am.”
He leaned forward. “Then you are a laugher.”
Cash took my arm. “Much as this is a fascinating argument, I have a console that needs fixing. You can argue with her about her personality attributes later.”
“Always in charge, Cash?” Sterling winked at me before he walked toward the window to stare down at the Zombies.
Cash and I walked together, and after a moment he spoke. “I’m not always in charge. I have no interest whatsoever in running things around here. I’m sorry if I interrupted some fun. I ...”
I interrupted him. “It’s fine. We’re working right now, aren’t we? Fun later? Or at specific times? I shouldn’t have been fooling around in the middle of the day.”
Cash sighed. “We tend to have fun when it comes. Out here in the middle of nowhere? Some days we have to be off schedule. I do tend to want what I want when I want it. Sterling’s right.”
“I don’t think he meant to hurt you. I think he was teasing you, like he was me. I’d had a freak out a second before because of the thunder and the wind. He hugged me till I calmed and then joked me out of my scared mood.”
He stopped moving. “Has anyone explained to you about the winds?”
“Three people. I’m having an unusual reaction to the wind. I’ll get over it. I think through my fears eventually.”
He started moving again, this time more slowly. “What you say, about thinking through the fear, I get it. I do the same myself.”
We walked together until we reached his office. I could see what he meant about the console. The second I walked in the room, I could see the console blinking on and off. I put my hands on my hips. “This is a power surge.”
The console was wireless, which meant it was its own malfunctioning power source. Unless …
“Do even the wireless devices draw power from the central power source? Pull from it wirelessly, too?”
Cash laughed. “I think so. Don’t hate me. I’m really stupid about engineering.”
“I can’t save anyone’s life, so we’ll call it even.”
A sound caught me up short. A roar. Like the ones I’d heard with the other Infected. I jumped back, and Cash placed a hand on my back. “He’s secured. Don’t worry.”
A smaller version of the containment center was attached to the back wall of the lab. A man—or at least he used to be—banged on the glass. Unlike with the other containment center, I was quite certain this one could see me. It wasn’t two-way glass. He banged on the glass, his eyes red, his face grotesque. How long had he been this way?
I inched toward him. The longer I stayed in this place with these five men, the more I’d get used to them, I supposed. I wasn’t sure I should. They were dangerous. I should never stop being afraid of what was genuinely scary.
“How did this happen? How did it get this bad?” I forgot about the console for a minute. The Infected took all my attention. He looked at me like he wanted to eat me, and I believed he would if he actually got the chance. Starting with my brain.
Cash, who clearly didn’t share my terror of him, strode until he stood right in front of the glass. He placed a gentle hand on it. “I don’t know when this one changed. From the look of the decomposition, this could have been thirty years ago. Although some of them go faster than others. It depends on the planet, too. Orion keeps them looking human longer. The cold weather. To answer your question, from what I understand, when that mad, mad woman set off those bombs, she meant to take over everything. What she did was destroy most of the livable planets and leave them uninhabitable. Slowly, some of the people who survived the blast mutated. By the time anyone realized what happened, we were behind the eight ball.” He shook his head. “Now it spreads with a bite. Or a scratch. It can’t be contained. Some of the planets simply can’t be managed, even by corporations. We have to cure it. Or vaccinate for it. I can’t fail.”
“You won’t then.” I could hear it in his voice. He wasn’t the type to lose his way. If he declared he would do this, he would. I knew what drive could do; I’d seen it my whole life. Drive opened black holes after they’d been sealed.
He didn’t turn around. “I wish I had your certainty.”
>
“Why are you unsure?” I found the courage to stand next to him against the sealed off enclosure.
“Because they keep dying. Nothing I’ve done so far has worked. Lewis is the smartest doctor I know. He’s as confused as me.”
“You only have to be right once. Failure just means you haven’t gotten your one-off correct yet.”
The room looked just like Lewis’ had. The labs had been built to look the same. The only difference as far as I could see, was Cash was less orderly than Lewis. He had things strewn everywhere, and yet I could see the room remained clean. He was disorganized, not dirty.
I walked over and picked up his orange hat, which sat on a chair in the corner of the room. “This is the hat I saw you in outside. I used to think of you as Orange Hat.”
He turned, an eyebrow raised. “It’s so much warmer than the other stuff. I don’t care that it’s not protocol. I like it better.”
“Right.” I set down the hat. I’d told Lewis, too, about my personal nicknames. What was the matter with me? Why was I talking so much?
I made my way over to the console. Cash was right. The power source came from the same place as the wired in machines. I stared at the wires on the ceiling. It would just be a question of finding the power source itself. I could easily find where I needed to go.
I turned on my heel, and, staring up the ceiling, I made my way out of the lab in the direction of the wiring.
“Diana!” A shout behind me made me stop short. Cash ran to catch up with me. What was wrong? “Where did you go?”
I pointed at the wires. “Going to find the power source. And I can also check to make sure there aren’t any breaks on the way, too.”
“I turned around, and you were gone.” He took my arm like before. “Come on; we’ll go together. I can show you where the power comes from. That much I know. We’ll check the line together.”
His words confused me. He had a lot to do. “Is there a reason you were worried about me doing this alone?”
“No, not particularly. It’s just that … I don’t know. You were there, and then you weren’t.”
Okay, I wasn’t going to make sense of this until I was alone. Cash was really handsome; his olive skin and piercing eyes reminded me of the romance novels I used to sneak sometimes when I’d finished work. Eventually, I’d stopped reading them. I wasn’t going to have that kind of love. Why break my heart over and over with fiction?