Vitalis Omnibus (5 page)

“Kira?” Sharp asked, seeing her looking around.

“Sir, we’re still blind. Sensors are useless and our backup systems are passive, useless for navigation.”

“Tarn?”

Tarn abused his station’s buttons a few more times before he snarled and kicked it, leaving a minor dent in the steel panel. “Shot to hell…sir.”

“Our main external cameras are fried
, too, right?”

“The
Mule
wasn’t designed with redundancy in mind, Captain,” Eric said. “All the sensor feeds were in our main array.”

“Damn ship doesn’t even have a window I can look out,” Sharp muttered. “Figure out how we can fix that – all of you! In the meantime, fix what can be fixed. Airlock, hull, whatever.”

Eric left immediately, motioning to Jeff and Kevin to follow him. Tarn hung around a minute longer, staring at the back of Eric’s head until he disappeared. Then he, too, left the bridge. Kira glanced at her station, wondering what use she could be. She had dozens of skills but none of them seemed worth a damn on a transport vessel. Sure, she was a certified navigator, even though she didn’t remember what made her decide to enroll in the training program. She could pose for a videographer, too, or clean the ship until it sparkled. None of that did a damn bit of good, though. She punched her station and stood up abruptly.

“You too?” Sharp barked at her.

Kira glared at him, and then remembered her position and backed down. “Sorry sir, just frustrated.”

“Yeah, that makes all of us. Hell of a first run. You let Eric get some work done, you hear me?”

Kira felt the deck open up beneath her. Rather than swallow her entire body, it only took her stomach.  She nodded, refusing to look away even though the blush on her cheeks gave her away. “I’d like to go and see if I can help, sir.”

Sharp waved with his hand. “Can’t make it any worse,” he muttered.

Kira jerked as though he’d slapped her. Was it her fault? Had she screwed up something and not realized it? He’d complimented her a few minutes ago; now this? Or maybe the Captain was just as upset as the rest of them. She nodded and hurried past him, trying to make sense of his moods and wondering if any of it was her fault.

Kira cursed herself for how clueless she was. Falling for Eric was just making it worse for her. Normally she was reserved and careful because she knew a lot more went around her than she realized. Now she had that and an obsession with a man dominating her thoughts. She was lucky she’d managed to put her clothes on right!

Kira stumbled to a halt, nearly losing her balance in the process. She reached down and pulled the waist of her pants out just enough to let light in. “Oh!” She gasped, letting go of her waistline and slapping a hand to her mouth. She really was an idiot; she’d forgotten her underwear!

Chapter 7

The repairs were finished, or at least as much as could be done with the material they had. What remained to be done they figured they’d take care of once they docked at the mining station. That left time only for stewing on their situation and trying to pass the time. Kira and Eric enjoyed the latter far more than the former.

During a rare public appearance, both sat in the galley eating a mushy mess of reconstituted meal replacement powders. Kira’s had an orange flavor that was supposed to be reminiscent of an ancient Terran Chinese dish. It amazed Kira that after expanding to live on worlds hundreds of light years apart, humanity’s diet still consisted almost exclusively of dishes that originated on Earth. The lack of successful terraforming and crop migration was the main cause of the limited diet. Earth plants only wanted to live on Earth it seemed.

“Captain Sharp said he’d keep me on so long as I didn’t do anything stupid,” Kira said to him. She leaned a little closer and added in a hushed voice, “He was worried if he cut me loose he’d lose his engineer
, too.”

Eric snorted,
and then coughed up some of the paste he’d been shoveling into his mouth. “Figures he’d know. I bet the others suspect, especially my guys, but Tarn’s pretty stupid. Jon doesn’t miss much, though.”

Kira started at the name,
and then remembered Captain Sharp’s first name was Jonathon. She smirked at how easily she’d forgotten that and put him on a pedestal. “So, would he?”

“Would he have lost his engineer? Depends on whether you wanted me to come along or not
.” Eric pushed some of his mush around on his plate. “Would you?”

Kira took a deep breath and smiled. “Yes. I’d be scared, but yes.”

“Why scared?”

“What if I had another blackout and when I came out of it you were gone? Or worse, hurt? I don’t know what happens during those times. I’d be scared for you
, too. What if I left you and never came back? Promise me, Eric, if that ever happens, just let me go and move on with your life, okay? I couldn’t bear the thought of you trying to find me. I get around…trust me; it’s upsetting some of the places I find myself in.”

“So you have done some cold sleeps before?”

Kira shrugged. “I must have. Like you said, I look almost half my age. That only happens with hibernation.”

“Did you ever look back on what you had been doing to see if something happened?”

She stared at her plate, silent and embarrassed. She felt herself growing distant, almost as though she was trying to pull away. She jerked her head up, a gasp escaping her throat. “Oh my…Eric! No, no, I never did. I was just never interested in it. But that’s not it. I think I just beat it!”

“Beat what? I don’t understand.”

She shook her head, her bright red mane flying. “No, you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, I’m not making sense. Just now, I thought about your question and I felt shameful for never questioning myself. Never looking back, I mean. I just went with it because that’s what I felt I was supposed to do. There was always a feeling of fear of what I might find. But sitting here I started to retreat, to back away. It doesn’t make sense, I know, but I felt like I was retreating.”

Eric reached across the table and took her hand. She stared at it and smiled. Her vision blurred until she blinked it away. “Thank you,” she whispered, and squeezed his hand for emphasis. She swallowed and tried again. “Okay, so here I am feeling like I’m falling away and suddenly I realized I was about to have another blackout. I don’t know if it always happens like that or not, but I think I stopped it. I got scared! Really, really scared! I mean stranded
-in-a-chunk-of-steel-floating-through-space-without-eyes-and-ears scared.” She paused to share a chuckle with him. “Anyhow, I fought back. I pulled myself out of it and came back…I came back to you. For you, I mean. Or for me because of you…whatever—you’re the key here.”

He had a ruddy color to his cheeks that she found irresistible. She wanted to kiss him, but a sudden noise from the passage outside made her jerk her hand back quickly. Just in time
, Tarn walked in. He stopped, seeing them together, and then grumbled something about them eating all the good food before he turned to make himself a meal.

“I need to speak with Captain Sharp,” Eric said, nodding his head.

“Have you got an idea?” Kira asked, confused by the abrupt change of topics. She knew better than to discuss anything personal in front of the ex-Marine, but beyond that she was as lost as she claimed to be.

“Something like that. Come on, I might need some help with
astrogation.”

Kira grabbed her plate and scraped it into the recycler,
and then she stashed it in the dishwasher while Eric followed suit. He led the way out and up to the bridge, moving too quickly for her to ask him what he was going on about.

“Captain!” Eric burst into the bridge, making the man jump in his chair. “Sir, I— we, I guess, need to talk to you.”

Sharp scowled at them. “This better be about fixing my ship. We’ve been floating another week and nobody’s got a clue what’s going on. It’s Tarn’s shift on the hull, watching for the asteroid belt but still nothing.”

Kira looked at Eric and saw him looking back at her. “Uh,
sir,” she said, “Tarn’s in the mess hall.”

“It’s a galley
; this isn’t an army barracks,” Sharp snapped.

“Right, galley. Sorry,
sir.”

“Might make a space monkey out of you yet…or not
. Is that what this is about?”

“No, or not unless you decide it is,” Eric said.

Sharp stared at him, and then finally motioned for him to go on when Eric didn’t say any more.

“Sorry, just trying to figure out how to say this,” Eric said. He took a deep breath before plunging in. “Captain, when you hired me I wasn’t entirely truthful about my past.”

Sharp chuckled. “You think anybody on this boat is?”

Eric nodded the point. “All right, fair enough, but I think you really need to know this. There’s a bounty on my head. A big one.”

Sharp leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands in his lap. “What’d you do?”

“Does it matter?” Kira interrupted. “You’ve got Tarn on here
—ethics and morality can’t be too high on your priority list.”

Sharp turned an icy glare on her. “Loyalty is my top priority, young lady. I care about morality to a point, but with a proper sense of loyalty it doesn’t matter, so long as you’re not breaking any laws on my ship.” He turned back to Eric. “So, what’d you do? Kill somebody? Steal from somebody?”

“Nothing that impressive. I just slept with the wrong people.”

“People?”

He nodded.

“This sounds like a good story
. Go on.”

Eric sighed. Kira interrupted again, “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Captain.”

“It’s my ship; it’s my business. I’m judge, jury, and executioner here.” Sharp’s tone was exactly what his name implied.

“I spent time with both the wife and daughter of the
governor of Plentiful. When—”

“Wait! Both? Together? Like, at the same time?”

Kira rolled her eyes while Eric laughed. “No!” he burst out. “No, that would have been…awkward.”

“I bet,” Kira added drily.

“Awkward, hmm…”

“Anyhow,” Eric continued in an exasperated tone. “The governor found out and I was banished, legally. Off the record he put a contract on my head. Five million in Core Script.”

“Five million?” Sharp echoed. “You must have really pulled one over on him!”

Kira smirked. If Sharp only knew just how ruined any wom
an who’d been with Eric would be for another man, he’d think five million was a pittance.

“There were some medical issues,” Eric muttered. “But I decided you should know. I’ve been with you a few years now and it’s been smooth sailing, by and large. Sooner or later somebody’s going to find me. Doesn’t seem right me putting you all at risk because of something I done when I was a stupid kid.”

Sharp nodded. “No, it’s not right, and you should feel downright ashamed of yourself for hiding it from me. Matter of fact, if you’d have told me that when we first met there’s no way you’d be on the
Mule
right now.”

Kira saw the muscles tense in Eric’s jaw. She reached over and took his hand in hers, trying to coax some of the tension out of him.

“That’s a port we won’t go back to, though,” Sharp added. “You been a damn fine engineer for me and I don’t take that service lightly. You want to leave, I won’t stop you, but you’ve been taking care of the
Mule
for me and I take care of my own. Same reason I haven’t spaced Tarn for the dumb shit he’s done lately.”

Eric relaxed,
and then glanced at Kira. “You know about us?”

Sharp smirked. “Walls of this old bird don’t block as much sound as they used to.”

Kira wanted to die. She grabbed Eric’s hand and that alone kept her from running out the hatch and leaping into the airlock herself, especially now that it was fixed.

“If Tarn’s in the galley, doesn’t that make it your shift up on the hull, Mr. Sackman?”

Eric nodded and gave Kira’s hand a squeeze. They started to leave but were stopped by the Captain calling Kira back. With a nervous flutter in her stomach, she waved goodbye to Eric and turned to face the Captain.

“It’s been itching at me for a while and I just can’t figure it out. That’s unusual
. Most things I can’t figure I don’t let get to me,” he began and then paused to look at her.

Kira felt a weight press on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. Was the Captain making a pass at her? Or worse, was he going to extort her into doing something?

“I was contacted by somebody with no name and no face, you see. Someone that offered me a tidy sum to take you on. Quarter of it was just to agree to meet you; the remainder is released when we check in at the mining station.” Captain Sharp studied her, his eyes trying to pierce the skin from her face. Kira stood steady. She had no idea what he was talking about. She had no relatives or mysterious benefactors out there. Her parents had died when she was a child, innocent bystanders killed in an uprising over food.