Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3) Read online

  “Exactly why I’m asking.” April produced a brief grin. “We’re bored.” She indicated herself and Doug, who was listening in silence. “Besides, this is the big roundup. Some of our elders are going to be there and I thought I’d take the op to say hello.”

  “Fair enough,” Jess said. “Figure we leave in five days, late afternoon.” She picked up another fish roll and bit into it. “Spend a day or so at Drake’s Bay, then go to the conclave.”

  April nodded. “Sounds good. Thanks.” She finished eating and got up. “Let’s go, Doug. We’ve got sims in ten.”

  They left with brief waves, and Jess waited for them to go before she turned and regarded her tech partner. “We need to leave a little early,” she said, lowering her tone, even though most of the tables around them were now empty.

  “I see.” Dev was chewing her seaweed salad with intense concentration. “To go to your birth place first?”

  Jess nodded. “I’ll try to keep them from being assholes to you.” She sighed. “But they’re not going to be happy to see me, that’s for sure.”

  Dev made a face and reached over to put her hand on Jess’s. “I’m sure it’ll be okay, Jess. It’s really not your fault what happened. I mean, you said your father did all that. Right?”

  Jess chewed her roll, giving Dev a wry look.

  After a moment, Dev returned her attention to her tray, picked up a little cake and bit into it.

  “Yeah, it’ll probably be okay,” Jess said, after the silence had become awkward. “They know I’m likely to shoot people if they piss me off. That’s what usually keeps the peace. I’m just in a down mood.”

  Dev eyed her. “I have a swimming session scheduled for after lunch. Would you like to attend?”

  Jess’s lips twitched.

  The mess door opened and a squad of bio alts entered with re-supply. They were walking a gyro and as they passed the two of them, they gave a nod of acknowledgment. “Agent Drake, Tech NM-Dev-1,” the bio alt in the lead said, a comms link settled over his left ear. “Greetings.”

  “Hello, Geebee,” Dev responded. “Is that from the shuttle today?”

  “Yes,” the bio alt responded. “Some of the boxes were from the crèche. Some went to distribution, NM-Dev-1, I think one was for you.”

  “For me?” Dev looked and sounded surprised.

  “Bet it’s from the Doc.” Jess stood and picked up her tray, holding a hand out for Dev’s. “Gimme. Let’s go gear up and do some gym.”

  “Thanks, Geebee.” Dev handed her tray over, aware that the bio alts were watching Jess take it, and go to the disposal. She picked up her helmet and joined her at the door, and they moved from the quiet of the mess into the busy hallway beyond.

  At the end of the passage past Centops were the ops quarters. The last two in the hall were theirs. Jess’s was the first and they entered using her doorway, remaining silent until the doors slid shut behind them.

  Jess went to her work desk and sat down behind it, while Dev went past her to the inner door that separated their quarters. It opened at her approach and she went inside, going to the gear locker and stowing her flight helmet.

  She stripped out of her pilot’s jumpsuit and put it on it’s holder, then she turned and made her way into the sanitary unit, already looking forward to the hot blast of water hitting her skin.

  A soft bong sound made her stop and reverse her course. She looked back over at the stores locker and saw a faint glow behind one section of it.

  “Provisioning complete,” the mechanical voice said.

  Dev walked over to the locker and opened it again, glancing briefly at the mirror in the back that reflected her slight, yet muscular body in her under wraps, and the metallic illuminated collar that went all the way around her neck.

  In the suit it wasn’t visible. Even in the light off duty jumpers she wore it wasn’t, unlike all the other bio alts in the base. She was one of them, and not. Born from an egg on a space station like the rest of the biological alternatives, and yet, she held natural born status in the base.

  Complicated, and somewhat disturbing to them, and occasionally to her. The rest of them designed and programmed for specific tasks, to fly shuttles, or fix machinery, or to clean and maintain the base.

  Dev wasn’t like them in that regard. She’d been designed to fill the role of an operations tech, and that meant she lived and worked, not in the dorm downstairs on a regulated schedule, but like all of the other techs who had a more conventional origin and were natural born.

  A more than successful experiment that now had the administrative section of Interforce in a tailspin because not only did Dev perform the role of operations tech, she excelled at it. That meant the future of their recruitment program was now in question.

  Along with throwing into question the difference between bio alts and natural borns.

  With a faint sigh she turned her attention to the package in the locker, lifting it out and examining it.

  Thoughtfully, she went and put it on her workspace, then returned to the sanitary unit and continued with her shower. “First things first,” she said to her reflection, as she removed her under wraps and turned on the shower.

  Steam and mist filled that end of the sanitary space and she stepped under it, breathing in the now, to her, familiar scent. She felt the water heat her skin and took a handful of the soap, that smelled a little spicy, and scrubbed her body with it.

  The air in the room compressed a little and she faintly heard the door opening. “Jess?” she called out.

  Jess’s dark, shaggy head appeared in the entryway to the sanitary unit. “You were expecting someone else?”

  “No.” Dev applied some of the soap to her head. “But you never know really. In the crèche everyone but us had the keys.” She stepped under the water and let it rinse her off. “You couldn’t really tell proctors not to walk in on you.”

  “Hmph. Well, no one but me better be coming in here without your say so.” Jess said. “Is that your box on the table? Can I look at it?”

  “Of course.” Dev turned off the water and got a towel to dry with as Jess disappeared back into the outer room. She wrapped herself in the towel and poked her head out of the opening. Jess was seated behind her workspace idly twirling the box in her fingers.

  Dev dried her hair off and exchanged her towel for fresh underthings, then she emerged into the main room and went to her locker. “You can open that.” She got a lined jumpsuit out and put it on, running the fastenings up as she walked over to where Jess sat.

  Jess pushed it over to her. “Nah, it’s your box.”

  Dev sat next to her, ignoring the box. “Are you upset?”

  Jess’s pale blue eyes flicked to her alertly. “Me? Why?”

  “You seem...uh...” Dev searched her memory, “ticked off.”

  Jess scowled engagingly at her. “I am, a little. Pissed off all this stuff with the Bay is cramping me.” She regarded the neutral expression on Dev’s face. “Everyone else gets to go out in the field and I’m stuck here,” she clarified to save Dev the need to look up the slang.

  “Oh.” Dev took her hand. “I’m sorry, Jess. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Jess sighed. “I wish.” She stared dourly at the table. “All this legal garbage. By the time they sort it out I’ll be retired and they won’t need to.”

  Dev absorbed that. “Excellent,” she said. “Then can we go on a boat and see seals and dolphins again? Or maybe a whale?”

  It forced Jess to laugh and she did. “Ah, Devvie. I guess that might not be a bad thing, huh? I’ll end up not croaking and you and I can have some fun together.” She pulled Dev’s hand over and kissed the back of it. “What would I do without ya?”

  Dev smiled at her. “I wish all this legal stuff was done, too. My contract’s in question and that’s a little uncomfortable.” She picked up the box. “I’d rather have that sorted out.” She undid the catches on the box and opened it, noting the origin. “It’s
from the crèche.”

  Jess scooted her chair up to watch. “From the doc?”

  Dev removed a square translucent piece and put it on the table. “Oh! It’s so pretty!” She found a bit of plas inside as well and opened it. “It is from Doctor Dan!”

  She put the plas down where they could both see it, it’s surface covered with an untidy scrawl.

  Hello, Dev!

  We’ve worked out a new process here on station and it let us create these little squares of compressed gas with star images inside them. I thought you might like one to remind you of us.

  Hope you and Jesslyn are well.

  DJK

  Jess picked up the square and peered into it. Though it seemed clear, when she got her eye up close it turned into a silky black with pinpoints of light in it. “Wow.”

  Dev got next to her and peered inside. “That’s amazing,” she said. “It’s so nice of him to do that, isn’t it?” She moved her head a little. “I think that’s the back view from station, opposite from downside. I remember looking at those stars there, with the hook shape.”

  Stars. Jess inspected them intently. Something she’d never seen in her life. The view of them from planet side blocked by the impenetrable layer of clouds that covered the earth. “Nice.” She sighed. “The doc’s a good guy.”

  “He is.” Dev smiled in delight at her present. “I miss him.”

  Jess bumped her on the shoulder. “Bet he misses you too. But listen. We’re leaving a few days early because ops caught a mini transport landing near the Bay.”

  Dev’s expression went serious. “From the other side?”

  Jess nodded. “So I get a little action.” She smiled wryly. “Either they’re trying to get into the processing center or they bought one of my family.”

  “Oh, Jess.” Dev had no idea how to feel about that, having no family, but she had to assume it must make Jess feel bad. “That’s terrible.” She paused, seeing the noncommittal expression on Jess’s angular face.

  Jess shrugged. “Peh. Anyway, we get to use the council as an excuse to root around, and maybe draw out whatever it is.” She stood up and ruffled Dev’s hair. “Swimming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then maybe surfing?” Jess asked, in a hopeful tone.

  “Yes,” Dev answered firmly, repressing a shiver. “Absolutely.”

  THE GYM WAS busy, all of the operational teams getting in some extra time since they weren’t out on assignment. Jess and Dev made their way into the changing room and Jess exchanged her jumpsuit for an exercise one. “One good thing about being stuck here, I got time in this place and got my ass back in shape.”

  Dev paused in the motion of sealing her own suit and regarded Jess in a moment of reflective silence. Then she cleared her throat. “Was it supposed to be a different shape than it is?”

  Jess put her hands on her hips. “You’re such a little punk sometimes.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “You make me laugh. That’s always good.” Jess bumped her toward the entry. “I’m going to go into the pit. Come rescue me if you hear me screaming. I’ll meet you at the pool when we finish our warm-ups.”

  Dev followed her into the main area and watched her as she ambled off toward the hand-to-hand combat arena, where there were already a handful of agents sparring with each other. It was Jess’s favorite exercise, even though she often came out of it with lurid purple bruises, and once, a broken finger.

  With a faint shake of her head Dev moved purposefully toward the exercise machines, stopping at the first empty one and setting it to conform to her body. She settled into the support surface and positioned her arms and legs. “System, start.”

  “Ident?”

  “Dev.”

  The machine considered that. “Starting.”

  Dev nodded in satisfaction and felt the pressure come against her grip. She closed her eyes and started the exercise, a core strength routine she was very familiar with. At least now the machine didn’t argue with her when she asked for more contracting weight than it thought she should use.

  JESS PAUSED AT the edge of the sparring area and looked back over her shoulder to watch Dev in her routine, a look of intense concentration on her face. She chuckled and undid the catches on the heavy net that surrounded the sparring area and walked inside.

  The net sealed behind her, and she walked along the rock wall toward the warm up line. She paused to pick up a pair of gloves and slip them on her hands, the magnetic closures tightening around her wrists.

  She approached the heavy, old style, hanging bags of beach sand and started a rhythmic tattoo on one of them, alternating punches and kicks to get her body warmed up.

  It also gave her a chance to see who was in the pit and might be up for a match. Jess worked her way around the bag, looking past it to the floor. Three transplants, an old buddy of one of her long time adversaries, and Mike Arias, one of the recently graduated agents.

  Mike was fighting Harrison, and two of the transplants were going at it, which left her with the other one, Jorge, as a potential opponent. He was currently just standing around, waiting for one of the other bouts to finish.

  Jess recalled his history as she continued her warm up. Jorge and his tech partner, Sal, had come from the west coast. He was a little older than she was, a little shorter, with a body that looked like he spent a lot of time keeping himself in shape.

  He was neutral, stayed out of the politics like April did, and so far he’d kept his mouth shut. His partner had been poking warily around Dev, having heard about this odd prodigy, but reserved judgment about her so far, at least in public.

  Jess felt her body loosen up and she finished her drill, then walked down the steps to the lower level where the rest of the agents were, pausing to make eye contact with Jorge and raise an eyebrow.

  He held up his hands and nodded, then they both sidestepped into one of the padded rings and faced each other.

  Jess gave him a little nod of respect and then dropped her arms, moving her center of balance over the balls of her feet, giving him first go.

  He didn’t hesitate. He came forward and engaged her with fast, rapid punches, one going right at her head.

  Jess moved with him, shifting and avoiding the blows with a peculiar, sinuous grace as she stepped closer and tapped him in the ribs, moving past him as he turned and snapped a fast kick at her.

  He was good. Jess smiled, aware that she was likely going to enjoy herself this bout. She ducked the kick, then uncoiled from the slight crouch she’d taken and came right up off the ground, tucking her legs up and then launching them out to hit him in the chest.

  He flew backwards, eyes opening in surprise, then tumbled and came back up again and back at her, with a grin of his own.

  Jess landed and came to meet him, exchanging punches in a crack of glove against glove. She opened her left hand and let him target it, then blocked a roundhouse from his right hand, hopping backwards just in time to miss a kick to the ribs.

  She felt her breathing slow, and the color leach out of her vision, batting aside his powerful right hand and getting her left in to impact his chin.

  She saw the madness rising in his eyes and knew in a moment they would both go past the line, and it would move from a friendly spar to something else. She savored that as she felt the change, and then they were going at each other in earnest.

  Someone, in the distance, yelled in alarm.

  Jess shifted into high gear, her hands moving with flickering speed as she got inside his defenses again and again. Then she was in the air again, one foot hooking his knee, the other slamming him in the gut, the combination dumping him on his ass.

  She dropped into a crouch, aware of the low growl issuing from her throat. He paused, went still, and lifted his hands palms out toward her.

  “Smart,” Harrison spoke up. “Don’t mix with the animal.”

  Jess straightened up, staring steadily at him.

  “No problem.” Jorge got
up and smiled. “I like a good mix up. ”˜Specially with a captain in the ass kicking business.” He blinked a few times, clearing the haze, and extended a gloved hand out to Jess. “Hai, Drake.”

  Jess’s body relaxed and she returned the bump. “Back at you,” she said, after a brief clearing of her throat. “Go another round?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jorge shook himself and took up a position again. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey, I’m next,” Mike Arias said. “I want you to show me how to do that kick.”

  Jess flexed her hands and smiled, dismissing Harrison with a brief twitch of her lips. She went back to the center of the pit and cleared her mind, considering she might have gotten a point or two out of the exchange.

  Heh.

  Animal?

  DEV WAS HALFWAY across the pool, swimming with careful, determined motions that abruptly became a flail when a large body landed in the water next to her, ducking her under. She scrambled for the surface and shook her hair out of her eyes, spluttering. “Whoa!”

  “Devviie!” Jess warbled under her breath. “Whatcha doing?”

  Dev dog paddled, keeping her head above water, and looked around. “Swimming?” She watched Jess roll lazily over onto her back. “Was your session successful?”

  “Yes.” Jess hooked one hand around Dev’s bicep, then she kicked her legs in a scissors motion, pulling both of them effortlessly through the water. “Ended up in a two on one the other two regretted.”

  Now in the shallows, they both stood up and let the water sheet off them. Dev saw new bruises on Jess’s body and a long scratch down her left thigh. “Are you injured?”

  “Nah.” Jess didn’t even look down. “Felt good.”

  Dev eyed her doubtfully. “Well, that’s excellent then.”

  Jess chuckled. “I know you think I’m nutty. It’s okay.” She raked the dark, wet hair off her forehead. “They train us to like being kicked around.”