ë Archer - Chain Reaction

She remembered now that she’d been dancing with several men. The men could’ve been her squad mates or part of the regular personnel or medical staff. It hadn’t mattered. She’d lost herself to the music, allowing herself to feel and be free. One of the men dancing with her had been gently tugging on her hand, trying to get her to go with him to a shadowed corner, but she’d been resisting, enjoying the freedom of the dance far more than she knew she would enjoy a fast, frenzied coupling. Everyone in the 8^th Wing had the Xalina vaccine and the Tawaret chip, so she knew she’d be protected from any disease or pregnancy—but it felt far better to dance with abandon than have anonymous sex.

She had been just about to tell her insistent partner that he ought to find someone else for his night’s fun when a pair of strong hands had settled on her shoulders and turned her around. Even though she’d had more than a few mugs of rum, she had known she could take down anyone who tried to force himself on her. But she hadn’t wanted to use her hand-to-hand combat skills that night. She had just wanted freedom. Stainless Jur might toss an unwanted suitor to the ground, but on the Night of Masks, she could have been anyone, even a woman who let strangers touch her.

Facing the man who’d turned her around, she had gotten a quick impression of height and wide shoulders. The stranger’s mask had covered his upper face, but she had seen his mouth and its intriguing full bottom lip. He had stared at her for a moment, and she had smirked up at him, wondering just how far she’d let him take this before she decided to dislocate his thumbs. He had seemed to be steadying himself, as if he had been on the verge of jumping into a fission tank.

And then he’d lowered his head, bringing his mouth to hers. The stranger had kissed her.

If he’d been rough or too aggressive, she would have pushed him away. Shoved her elbow into his throat. Enjoying her freedom did not mean putting up with some nebula toad’s tongue and grabbing hands.

But the stranger had kissed her with…tenderness. As if she was precious to him. Yet he hadn’t been too weak, either. Just the right amount of strength, a balance between his desire and her power. In his kiss, she had felt she wasn’t Stainless Jur, and she wasn’t an anonymous woman perfect for a Night of Masks tryst. She was her, and he wanted her.

Desire had hit her, fast and hot. Whoever the stranger had been, she needed to know what it would be like to be his lover, even for a single night.

She’d reached up to thread her fingers through his hair, pull him closer, but as soon as she did, he’d ended the kiss.

He had stared at her, his eyes unreadable behind his mask. She hadn’t been able to even see their color. She had opened her mouth to speak. And then, the crowd around them had shifted. He’d vanished into it, as abruptly as waking from a dream. She had searched for him the rest of the night, but wherever her stranger had gone, he’d hidden himself well in the throng of masked celebrants.

For a few days afterward, she’d been haunted by that kiss. Thinking of what might have been. Walking down the corridors of the base, she’d stared into the faces of dozens of men, stared at their mouths, but none of them seemed right or familiar. She’d stopped looking, and chalked the whole experience as part of the Night of Masks’ mystique. Maybe in another solar year, her stranger might try again. And if he did, she’d pull his mask off.

Now she had her answer.

“It was you,” she said to Nils.

His voice was tight, his expression opaque, though color blazed in his cheeks. “Yes.”

A million questions flooded her mind, but she could not ask any of them. She still resonated with the kiss they’d just shared. It startled her to realize how much the kiss had rattled her, far more so than the combat.

They’d reached Gabela’s ship, and hopefully the smuggler had good intel about the safer routes in this quadrant.

“May the ten demon lords bless you,” Gabela said over the com as Nils returned to his seat.

“How about some reciprocity,” she answered. “Mara said you know this quadrant.”

“Better than I know my bastard children. I can tell you the best places to fly to avoid PRAXIS.”

Nils said, “I can strengthen the Phantom’s sensors to alert us if PRAXIS is anywhere within a parsec. It will make us run a little slower, but we’ll be safer.”

She gave him a clipped nod. If anyone could make the necessary modifications, it would be Nils.

“Transmit the coordinates,” she said to Gabela. “The best routes, the most dangerous ones. Everything you know.”

Immediately, coordinates scrolled through the Phantom’s display screen. Nils began entering them into the navigational systems, and she saw that he cross-checked them against the data records for known hotspots. Thorough, that Lieutenant Calder.

“Got it,” she said.

“May the gods speed your ship,” Gabela answered.

“Better find a port,” Nils advised. “I bought you some time with the repairs, but I wouldn’t take the scenic route.”

The smuggler ship raced off as fast as its antiquated engines could carry it. She didn’t wait to see the last of its hull lights before bringing the Phantom around. They still had a traitor to find and fight.

Nils continued to study the tracking device. They were getting closer to Marek, the signal growing in strength, but they were not close enough. It could be a matter of solar hours or days until he and Celene reached wherever the traitor had situated himself, and Nils burned with impatience to arrive at their destination. He wanted justice. He did not want to explain to Celene why he had kissed her at the last Night of Masks, nor why he’d waited so long to kiss her again.

His face burned at the memory—not just what had happened at the Night of Masks, but his kissing her after the fight with PRAXIS. Even more damning, his body tightened with arousal. Could he explain his actions to her when he himself couldn’t puzzle them out?

Fortunately, in the hours after parting ways with Gabela, she hadn’t spoken of either kiss. In fact, she hadn’t spoken at all. He studied her surreptitiously. She stared straight ahead, her gaze focused on the spread of stars and nebulae that filled the sky. Even though he told himself not to look, his attention drifted down to her mouth.

Heat washed through him, a strange and primal need. To mark her, claim her. Take her mouth once more. Take more than her mouth. He didn’t recognize himself in the depths of this savage hunger. His response to women had always been enthusiastic, but never this fierce, this demanding. It was as if he discovered a vital component missing from his blood, and there was only one way to make himself whole—Celene.

If he took her in his arms now, what might she do? Grip his shoulders and pull him closer? Or break his wrists?

He had to admit, there was something viscerally thrilling about not knowing. He didn’t want to hurt her, nor be hurt, yet when it came to the quantifiable variables of his life and the order to which he liked to assign everything, the unknown element of Celene excited him.

Everything about her excited him.

He couldn’t let himself think of that, of what he wanted.

“That was a surprise.” In the confines of the small cockpit, his voice sounded too low, too gravelly. “The combat, I mean,” he added when she raised a brow.

“Surprise attacks tend to be unexpected,” she said drily.

Oh, hells, of course she would know that.

“We handled the situation well enough,” he said. “But I’m talking about being in an actual fight. The combat was definitely alarming but also…exhilarating. A lot more than SimCom or training.”

“Nothing like live plasma fire to get the heart rate up.” She grinned. “You weren’t scared?”

“Definitely,” he answered.

She chuckled at his ready response. “Didn’t show it.”

He shrugged. “Why should I? Panicking wouldn’t help either of us. Had to direct my concentration toward defeating the enemy and getting us out alive.”

“But you liked it.” A statement, not a question.

“You know, I did.” He was thoughtful. “Operating in pristine harmony with someone else. Fighting side by side. Anticipating each other’s needs and fending off attackers.” His muscles burned just thinking about it again. “Still, I don’t want to go into combat with anyone else but you.”

He fought the urge to close his eyes. Gods, he had not meant to say that. Not out loud, at least.

Her silver eyes widened. “Tell me about the Night of Masks,” she finally said.

“I’d rather not. We could talk about the other kiss.” Much easier for him to rationalize it as the heat of the moment.

But she looked distinctly uneasy at the mention of their most recent kiss. “I’d rather not,” she echoed.

What made her so uncomfortable? Was it the idea of kissing a NerdWorks engineer? Or something else? Something that made her…uncertain.

“Was it spontaneous,” she pressed, her voice gaining confidence, “or did you plan it?”

Prevarication seemed unlikely. Her tone refused argument, and her eyes told him that she’d see through any dissembling.

“Planned,” he answered. “I’d known of you for a long time. Actually, we met almost two solar years ago. I was making some mods to your Wraith after a sortie. We talked about piloting systems for a while, then you went to a squad debriefing.”

“I remember,” she said, then added, “vaguely.”

He battled an automatic wince. Why would a Black Wraith Squad hotshot truly notice NerdWorks?

“I remember you vividly,” he said. “You left an impression.”

Her expression grew distant. “Stainless Jur.”

“Best of the best. An untouchable combat record. And,” he continued, deciding that he might as well be completely candid, “you were—are—so beautiful, you stopped my heart.”

Her aloof expression slipped a little. She seemed genuinely surprised that anyone might notice her as a woman rather than a series of combat statistics.

“Should have said something,” she noted.

He gave a rueful chuckle. “Every scenario I ran for that conversation resulted in the same outcome. None of them involved you and I sitting down for a cup of kahve, let alone me getting you back to my quarters.”

Her cheeks turned pink, illuminated by the light of the control panel.

He shook his head. “I can hardly believe I’m saying these things now.”

“You just survived a firefight with PRAXIS.”

“So it should be easy to get through this…confession.” Would her dismissal hurt more than a plasma blast to the chest?

“Without actually testing your theory, that’s all it remains—theory. You’ll never know unless you try.”

“Let’s not mislead ourselves,” he said. “Honestly, if I’d suggested we watch a vid together and have dinner by simu-candlelight, you would’ve said yes?”

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Her gaze became thoughtful.

“Your silence is my answer.” Nils returned his gaze to the tracking device.

“There are different kinds of engagements.” Her voice was weighted with experience. “Not just combat, but engagements between people. And I’ve learned from all of them. Including the fact that when a man looks at me with stars in his eyes, he’s going to be disenchanted when the daylight comes and the stars fade.”

“It would have been different with me.”

“Maybe, but I’d seen that look too many times to want to see it again.”

The weariness in her voice made him look up from the display. Her eyes gleamed with a rare vulnerability. How had no one seen her isolation? A reputation like hers had its benefits, yet it must also keep her in seclusion. How frequently she had been disappointed by her lovers? He didn’t particularly want to dwell on the image of Celene in bed with another man, but however often she encountered that disappointment, it had most assuredly left a lingering mark.

She wore her reputation like armor, shielding her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She shrugged, though the gesture was not as careless as she likely intended. “I fly forward. I’m very good at it.” Turning a curious gaze toward him, she said, “So you meet me once, lose your nerve to ask me out and then…kiss me on the Night of Masks years later. A long stretch of time for you to formulate a plan.”

“Not all of it was spent contemplating how to kiss you.” For much of the intervening months, Nils had tried to put her from his mind. Compartmentalization came easily to him, as well as the logical means by which he could resolve dilemmas. “I went about my duties in Engineering. Trained. Studied.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Went on a few dates.”