ë Archer - Chain Reaction

If a planet declined PRAXIS’s generous offer, as many had tried to do when word spread about their tactics, they met the full brunt of PRAXIS’s military might. No world could match them. The moment a planet fell into PRAXIS’s crosshairs, it was doomed.

“They almost got my homeworld,” Celene said quietly. “But the 8^th Wing beat them back, and we were safe. That’s when I decided to join. To protect other planets and solar systems who can’t protect themselves.”

The trouble was that PRAXIS was far bigger than the 8^th Wing, and better equipped.

He stared at the glint of stars and planets shining in the distance. Even now, these places might be collapsing beneath the weight of PRAXIS’s crushing demands. Nothing he could do about it, however much he wished it otherwise.

“All we can do is continue on this mission,” he said. “Keep the 8^th Wing strong and combat-ready.”

“Ready to kick some PRAXIS ass,” she said with a little smile. He smiled, too, and the tension between them loosened fractionally.

Something drew his focus. “Visual confirmation established.” He pointed to the viewscreen. There, barely more than a shimmering gleam, hung a small planet.

“Marek definitely found himself a good place to hide,” Celene said. “We’re on the edge of nowhere.”

Their position didn’t match any 8^th Wing starcharts, which meant that they were far outside the reach of any assistance. If he and Celene found themselves in a bad situation, the only way they could get out was on their own. No one would be coming to help them.

Moments after first visual confirmation was established, the tracking device shrilled.

“Pull back.” Nils fought to keep himself from lunging at the controls. “Pull back now.”

Celene didn’t question him, but banked the Phantom sharply, doubling back.

“Marek has a tight sensor net all around this sector.” He studied the tracking device’s readings. “We get any closer, he’s going to know we are coming.”

“Let’s try and break through the net, or disrupt it.”

“This ship doesn’t have the capabilities. Not enough power to generate a disruption pulse.”

“What about concealment?” Her voice tightened with urgency. “I didn’t come all this way just to stare at him.”

Nils continued to scrutinize the screen, his mind clicking through myriad possibilities. He understood her frustration. With the traitor so close, he’d accept nothing less than total reprisal.

“There’s a way,” he said after a long pause. “With some adjustments to the Phantom, I can rig up a suppression field around the ship. We’ll still be visible, but his sensor net won’t be able to detect us.”

“When we approach his planet, we can do it from the other side so he can’t get eyes on us.” She nodded. “Do it.”

“The ship has to be completely powered down for me to make the necessary adjustments.”

“We’re going to need to find a place to put her down.” She peered through the window at the unknown stars and planets twinkling nearby. “Can you find us a good location?”

He moved to another set of sensors. “Picking up good readings for an adjacent moon. Breathable atmosphere, climate within tolerance levels.”

“Populace?”

“Minimal. Animal life, but few signs of civilization.”

She grinned viciously. “The perfect spot to gear up for war. That sipkaswine won’t know we’re coming to drag him to the Ten Hells.”

The mission was truly about to begin. And so was the danger.

As the site of a future colony, the nameless moon did not look promising. From up high, Celene saw rocks, some bodies of water, barely any flora. Anyone attempting to settle on this moon would find it a hard, unrewarding task.

“I’m putting the ship down in that valley.” She guided the Phantom over the surface of the moon, her gaze constantly scanning for signs of sentient habitation. As they drew closer to the surface of the planet, she could make out more details. Dull blue rocks covered its surface, and the bodies of water she’d seen from higher up were merely gray ponds filmed with weeds. A few stands of short, scrubby trees comprised the plant life.

8^th Wing hadn’t made contact with any of the planets of this system, which would make her job much more difficult should she and Nils encounter actual civilizations. First contact was always handled by Diplomacy Division, not fighter pilots and engineers.

Nils grunted a response. Slanting a look at him, she saw that he’d retreated into his thoughts, his expression abstracted.

The moment the landing gear touched the surface, Nils leaped out of his seat. She barely had time to power the ship down before he began pulling open panels.

“Need a hand?” She went to stand behind him as he crouched on the floor. He did not answer.

Was he ignoring her? He had every right to, the way she had shut him down earlier. “Hey.” She nudged him with her boot.

He glanced up, startled. So he wasn’t giving her the silent treatment. It was clear he’d forgotten she existed—a marked change from his earlier confession. She took no offense, however. The fixed, alert sharpness of his gaze reminded her of the look other Wraith pilots wore during combat.

“Can I help?” she offered.

“My tools. In my kit.” Then he bent back to his work.

She went to get his tools. Articulate he might be, except when his attention was fixed on an engineering project.

She grabbed the kit and brought it back to him. He grunted again when she set the kit down beside him, but that was the limit of his conversation. Seeing that there really was nothing for her to do inside the ship, she decided to take a look around outside. The moon might not make for a good colony, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to learn from it. She knew a few people in the Research Corps who’d appreciate a few samples of new life forms.

“Going out for a survey,” she said to Nils after taking a science kit.

This time, she wasn’t even graced with a grunt. He merely made a vague gesture over his shoulder—the only sign she had that he’d heard her.

She double-checked that her plasma blaster held a full charge before opening the door. Stepping out, she caught the faint, acrid smell of sulfur borne on a weak breeze. Rocks crunched beneath her boots. Spindly trees reached their branches toward the yellow sky. Thin air made her work harder to breathe, so she kept her pace easy as she rambled in slow arcs away from the ship. Tiny rodents and lizards scuttled over the rocks, but there was nothing substantial with which to make a meal.

After snapping on a pair of thin deltex gloves, she bent to pluck a few blades of red grass. The grass released a sticky pink sap, and she collected both in sample tubes. She did the same with the sawtooth-edged leaves from the nearby trees. It seemed unlikely that any of these plants could prove to be a good food source for possible farming, but she wanted to be sure. PRAXIS had a bad habit of decimating planets’ ecosystems, robbing the soil of valuable nutrients so that none of the inhabitants could farm. The Research Corps constantly searched for sustainable agriculture in order to help post-PRAXIS worlds recover.

A chirp made Celene look up from her collecting.

“Don’t need supervision, thanks,” she said to the curious little rodent watching her. Small, furred and speckled, it looked like a hybrid between a squirrel and a moth, and it tilted its head in blank-eyed bafflement when she spoke.

She laughed when it burbled a response in a language only it understood, tail dancing. It scuttled forward, inquisitive. Clearly it had no experience with humanoids, approaching her without fear. But she held back and simply watched it, keeping her hands to herself. Cute though the squirrel-moth might be, she never forgot that it was an unknown variable. It might have a mouth full of needlelike teeth or spit a toxin that carried a paralytic. Too many explorers had crossed to the heavens because they’d been misled by appearances.

“Go on, now.” She made a shooing motion. “Get back to your den or hive and tell stories about the hideous beast you saw collecting plants. It’ll impress the females. Or males.”

As if taking her advice, the animal chattered at her before scampering away, disappearing between the cracks in a pile of rocks.

The creature had been better conversation than Nils.

Who was busy making the necessary alterations to the ship, while she played at Research Corps. Well, she had to make herself useful. Simply sitting back as someone else did the work felt foreign and uncomfortable. So she continued on with her gathering of samples, keeping her senses alert should anything happen.

Yet as she worked, filling tube after tube with collected specimens, her thoughts drifted back to what Nils had revealed earlier. She still processed the knowledge that he had been the stranger who had kissed her on the Night of Masks. It was like playing at blaster tag as a child, only to discover that the toy weapon she held contained live ammo.

No, that wasn’t true. She never saw Nils as a harmless toy. He held far too much capability—and she responded to him with an intensity that surprised even her.

It was more than surprise. It was fear. And she had even admitted that fear to him.

All of her protestations, all of her wishes. She got what she wanted, finally. But she had no idea how to proceed. She could shoot down a PRAXIS fighter in the middle of a meteor shower. She had taken down three of the biggest brawlers in the 8^th Wing during SimCom. But she didn’t know a damn thing about actually letting a man get close to her emotionally.

Nils might be NerdWorks, but the truth was that he had far more confidence than she did.

“How’s that for irony,” she muttered under her breath. Her fingers were less than gentle as she plucked a spindly weed from the soil.

Her confession to Nils… She had never been so honest, so…exposed. Unguarded. Admitting a weakness countered everything she wanted to believe about herself. And it left her open to attack. Or rejection.

But Nils hadn’t attacked her, hadn’t turned away from her. And instinctively she had known that if there was anyone to whom she could admit her fear, it would be him.

It had been difficult, though. Even now she felt a residual tremor of fear. A fighter pilot guarded her weakest point. Lessons she had learned at the controls of her ship, and from the men who’d passed through her life. Could she undo those lessons? They were all but hardwired into her heart.

She almost dropped the specimen tube when she heard Nils shout her name. Shoving the sample into the kit, she pulled her blaster and took off at a run back toward the Phantom. Her pulse hammered as she crested a low ridge. He could be hurt or in danger. They had done a scan and found no viable threats, but scans could be wrong.

Please don’t let it be wrong.

Coming up over the ridge, she collided with a long, lean body. Broad hands came up to grasp her arms as she took up a fighting stance.

Nils stood before her, his expression tight with worry.

“Hells,” she said on a growl, holstering her weapon. “Thought you were being eviscerated.”

“I looked up from making the modifications, and you were gone. I couldn’t find you anywhere near the ship.”

“Told you I was going to collect some specimens.”

He shook his head, and the tension from his body lessened slightly. “If you did, I didn’t hear.”

“With your head buried in circuit boards, that doesn’t surprise me.” She eyed the sonic blade in his grasp. “Planning on doing some whittling?”

His cheeks darkened as he shoved the blade back into its sheath on his boot. “If you were in trouble, I wanted to be able to protect you.”

Warmth uncurled within her. “A blaster has better range.”

“The knife was the first thing I thought of. I’d use it, if I had to.” She saw it then, how he was growing into the fullness of himself, gaining confidence, trusting his strength.

If only she had the same courage.

“Nothing but the finest for the 8^th Wing.” Celene stared down at the warmed sustenance-pak. She tore the top off the foil and squeezed its contents onto her plate.

She and Nils sat at the tiny table in the main cabin of the Phantom, a chamber that also served as the galley. Over the course of the mission, they had been steadily going through the stocked rations, and were now confronting the horror that was supposed to pass for midmeal.