The exiled fleet, p.8
The Exiled Fleet, page 8
He gave a grim smile. “Really not sure, actually. Guess it’s just … encouraging to have something to live for, for once.”
The bottle sloshed as Rake set it back onto the counter. “Well, I’m glad you’re in good spirits, but you still look like death.”
“Thank you. I’ve been working on my figure.”
Her jaw flexed as she leveled a flat look at him.
“Rations keep going down, it just takes some getting used to,” he explained. “I wasn’t helping the transition with the overindulgence of epithesium either.”
“We need you strong.”
He shook his head. “Doctor Kellar already tried. I don’t want special treatment.”
“Kellar?”
“Ford? He and Jackin seem pretty chummy. I think they might have known each other, pre-war.”
She wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “Well, you need to get over your martyr complex. It’s not up for discussion. You can either take the extra nutrients willingly, or I can arrange to have it done by force.”
He smiled. “Kinky…”
The look she trained on him made him instantly regret every stupid comment he’d ever uttered. He frowned, eyeing the hard lines around her bloodshot eyes, her flushed cheeks, how she held herself slightly crooked like she had a hitch in her back. No matter how hard it’d been aboard the Typhos the last six months, he couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through restarting those generators over and over again. She’d lost a lot of people. It had to have taken a toll on her, one he couldn’t begin to understand.
“Okay,” he agreed quietly. “I’ll eat the extra rations.”
After a time, she cleared her throat, though her voice still came out crackled and dry. “I’m sorry, Cav. I really didn’t arrange this to rail on you. You don’t need to be babysat anymore.”
Cavalon caught her eye and pressed his lips into a thin smile.
“Just do me a favor,” she continued, “and try not to starve yourself to death.”
He gave a light chuckle. “You know, when you came and found me, I figured there was going to be a lot of railing, honestly. I assumed you were planning some big speech about honor and discipline and duty. Try to remind me what we’re fighting for.”
She scoffed. “Who do you take me for? That’s the opposite of what you need right now.”
His chest lightened, some of the strain giving way. He gave a short nod.
“If we get so caught up in survival, we forget to live…” She gave a rueful shake of her head. “What’s the point?”
His head bobbed up and down. “Damn. Yeah.” He looked down, gripping the edge of the counter as a thought careened out of the back of his brain. His mind raced so fast, he could hardly keep up with it. “Wait…” he breathed, the word dying out on his tongue.
Rake lifted a brow at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Forget to live…”
“What?”
He didn’t respond, eyes defocusing as he stared off, letting his mind lay out the plan for him.
“Cav?”
He pivoted to face her. “I’ve been so worried about containing it, I never thought about just exposing it. It’s damn old-school…” He scoffed a laugh. “But it might actually work.”
“Wait, what are we talking about?” she asked.
“The cryostat.”
“This is the thing you’ve been stuck on?”
He nodded fervently. “And it’ll be a cinch to implement—starfighter launch tubes run directly under that wing of the hangar. I just need to open a pathway below the divertor cassettes. So long as it’s a hermetic seal, it’ll expose the cryostat to hard space without exposing the rest of the components.”
“Exposing it to space is enough to cool it?”
“No, no, the supercritical helium does that.”
“Oh, well, obviously,” Rake deadpanned.
He pressed his fingers against his eyelids as a mess of jumbled ideas and schematics and computations fought for his attention. It didn’t take long for the thought-deluge to stagger and stall out as the mathematical implications made themselves known. Even on a day when his brain wasn’t a frazzled mess, he’d need a computer to run these numbers.
“I’ll need calculations, shit…” He glanced at his nexus-less wrist. “What time is it?”
“Probably around 2300.”
“Damn.” He really didn’t want to wake Mesa simply to theorize, especially if it didn’t pan out. He’d already presented her with a half-dozen duds over the last week.
“What’s wrong?” Rake asked.
“I need to run some simulations to make sure I’m right.”
“You need a coder?”
He nodded fervently. “Preferably one that knows their way around applied mathematics.”
“Not sure on the math part, but there’s a newbie we picked up along the way that knows her way around computers—was great with Viator systems, and has experience with the reactors.”
“Yes, brilliant, great, point me in her direction.”
“She should be offloading the Synthesis about now, in bay A5. Emery’ll introduce you.”
“Perfect, thank you.” He made for the door, then faltered. He spun and paced back, gripping Rake’s hand. “Thank you. Not for the idea, but for…” He swept his other hand out to the dirty dishes around the small galley. “This. I needed it. Really. And sorry to leave you with the mess.”
“No worries.” Rake held up her whiskey bottle in a toast. “It’s good to see you, Animus.”
His chest swelled. “Yeah, about that—I thought promotions were supposed to come with perks. When’s that part coming?”
She cast him a bitter smile. “Let me know if you find out.”
He gave a wary smirk and dashed out the door.
CHAPTER SIX
Cavalon skirted past a group of jogging soldiers as he half-sprinted down the corridor, filled with a rare assurdeness. Unlike the dozens of others, this solution fit. He felt strangely positive that this absurd plan of Rake’s would actually work, and the reactor would not explode, and the jump drive would suck up the solar power it needed, and they’d have unlimited jump travel to go wherever they wanted in the universe. Once they got the stupid thing through Kharon Gate, at least. If he didn’t truly think he was incapable of it, he’d call his current mindset optimism.
The Synthesis sat alone in bay A5, its cargo and personnel hatches open and bustling with oculi offloading crates and personal effects. The Viator-turned-Drudger-turned-Sentinel vessel reminded Cavalon of a time he at once felt nostalgic for, and yet wanted nothing more than to forget forever. A time he held accountable for forming him into a functional human being, but one marred by loss, death, and betrayal.
He approached the underbelly of the Synthesis just as Emery stepped out of the personnel hatch.
“Holy shit, boss!” A broad grin spread across her face as she half-jogged, half-skipped down the ramp toward him. She threw her thin arms around his neck, lifting up onto her toes to grip him in a fierce hug.
“You really are my boss now, huh? Mister Animus?” She dropped away and stepped back, crossing her arms and setting her jaw in a smug grin. “Though, ya know, I was promoted.”
His mouth dropped open. “You were?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I mean—you were!” he corrected. “Congrats, Em, really. Circitor?”
“Yep. Watch.” She spun toward an oculus standing beside a collection of crates on the far side of the ramp. “Hey, Landus! Go help Martinez with the warp drive assessment.”
The oculus nodded and scurried off.
Emery grinned back at Cavalon. “See? They gotta do what I say. Fuckin’ lemmings.”
He chuckled.
She jutted a thumb over her shoulder at the belly of the ship. “Rake let me fly this thing onto the Divide. Can you believe it?”
Cavalon swallowed, giving a shallow head shake. He really couldn’t.
“I’m ‘a natural’—her words.”
He smiled. “That’s great. We’re going to need more ace pilots.”
Emery beamed.
“I really wanna catch up, Em,” he said, “but I need a rain check—my brain’s onto something.”
“That saving our asses thing?”
“Yeah, that. Rake said you picked up a coder she trusts?”
“Computers?”
“Yeah. They know any math?” he asked.
“Oh, for sure. You’re gonna love her—she’s as big an entitled dick as you are.”
Cavalon followed as Emery led him to the open cargo hatch, bustling with soldiers clumped in various groupings, trying to figure out how to use the ancient cargo lift drones.
“Yo, Owen!” Emery called over the chattering oculi.
A woman stood up from the other side of a cargo lift mechanism, and Cavalon’s remaining levity melted from his face as recognition sunk in. Owen Larios.
Her hazel eyes regarded him evenly, a sheen of sweat glistening on her light brown skin. Her wavy dark brown hair had grown, now gathered into a braid that ran past her shoulders. Her duty vest hung open, a narrow sandy-brown oculus badge pinned to the left arm of her long-sleeved navy shirt. She strapped her vest closed as he followed Emery closer.
Cavalon’s gaze locked on to the only confirmation he needed—the white scar behind her left ear from when she’d lost her footing trying to climb over the southern wall of the manor.
His mind warred with it, trying to fit together two pieces of separate puzzles. He’d last seen her almost a year ago on Elyseia, in the stale dustiness of the relief bunker in the eastern wing of Mercer Manor. With a pained grimace of pity and probably a little worry etched into her normally soft features. Mere weeks before the Mercer Guard shackled him and escorted him out to the Divide to die.
He blinked a few more times, and she didn’t vanish, didn’t prove herself a time ripple or a figment of his addled mind. It really was her.
Owen gave a half smile, not looking nearly as surprised as Cavalon felt. She’d never worn her emotions on her sleeve quite like he did.
Emery shifted uncomfortably, her smile wavering. “Um, shit. Do you guys know each other?”
Owen nodded, then crossed the few meters and hugged him. He hugged back perfunctorily, still dazed. He didn’t think he’d ever hugged or been hugged so much in one day before. This one felt different than the first two, though. More tentative, more procedural, more packed with history and outright disbelief.
Owen stepped back, and Cavalon’s gaze darted furtively over her once again. With an effort, he shelved his hesitation. “Owen. Good to see you.”
He almost scoffed at his own asinine greeting. It lacked in every perceivable way, not even beginning to cover everything that needed saying. But with Emery standing there gaping and all the oculi padding around nearby, he couldn’t bring himself to let his full reaction loose.
Owen stepped back into a sweeping bow. “Your Highness.”
Cavalon pressed his fingers deep into one temple and groaned.
Emery gave a nervous half chuckle, staring between them, expression a blend of confusion and curiosity. “Uh, Cav here needs some computer help,” she said. “EX sent him your way.”
Cavalon gave a stiff nod as his cryostat realization resurfaced, flooding his chest with anxious relief.
He knew it could work, it had to, and now that he’d conceptualized it, he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d either disproven the concept or made it work. And he needed someone—someone who was apparently Owen—to get that proof.
“Computers are what I do,” Owen said pleasantly. “How can I help, my liege?”
“Void,” Cavalon cursed, clearing his throat. “Right, okay. Um, it’ll be easier to show than tell—reactor bay’s down the way.” He looked to Emery. “If your CO authorizes it, that is.”
“All yours, Animus. You kids have fun.” She gave Owen a bright, slightly tense, smile then started back toward the personnel hatch.
Cavalon stared at Owen, who watched Emery’s retreat with way too much interest. He clenched his jaw. He recognized that look.
“This way,” he prompted, tone stiff. He started the trek across the wide docking bay toward the main hangar and Owen kept pace beside him. Once they were clear of the ship, he maintained his brisk steps, turning a flat look onto her. “Owen…” he growled.
“Cav.”
“She’s way too young for you.”
Owen scoffed. “One: Fuck off. Two: Since when are you all judgmental?”
“Not judgmental. She’s my friend—and you’re an asshole.”
“Sure you aren’t just jealous?” She waggled her eyebrows at him.
Cavalon rolled his eyes.
“Because you know,” Owen went on, “she couldn’t do enough talking about you…”
“She told you about me?”
“She didn’t give your name, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Owen waited till they’d passed a group of chatting oculi before continuing. “But how many civilian astromechanical engineers too smart and snarky for their own good end up out at the Divide? That’s not hard math, even for a simpleton.”
Cavalon set his jaw. “I called you that once. And I was super wasted.”
She held a hand over her heart. “And to this day, the memory slays me.”
He threw a hard glance over his shoulder. “She’s a teenager, for void’s sake.”
“She just turned twenty, actually, so lay off it.” She gave a proud smirk. “See, I know more about her than you do.”
Cavalon pushed an aggravated breath out his nose as he continued marching toward the exit.
“Besides,” Owen went on, “I’m only five years older, or uh … wait, how old am I?” She scratched the back of her head, seeming truly unsure. “I honestly don’t even know the date right now. Can you believe that time dilation shit? Oh, of course you can, Mister Gravitational Tempology.”
He sighed. “I always forget you’re younger than me.”
“It’s because I seem so mature, right?”
“Mm-hmm,” he hummed.
“You certainly seem to have grown up in the interim…” She kept up with his swift pace as she drew her shoulders down, expression flat with mock seriousness. “With this whole-universe-on-your-shoulders glower and gray-ass beard. You’re looking more like your old man every day. I half-thought you were him at first.”
Cavalon swallowed past the bitter lump at the back of his throat. Just like Owen to mention one’s dead father as casually as giving an update on the weather. “Yeah, well,” he grumbled. “This shit’ll age you. I haven’t exactly been having a blast since I left the Core.”
Owen laughed. “I see what you did there—blast. Hah.”
His traitorous lips twitched at the corners, but before he could consider enjoying the accidental joke, his gaze darted to the vacant decking around them. He took Owen by the elbow and pulled her toward the base of a thick bulkhead column, tucking into the corner, shielding them from the traffic of the hangar.
He leaned in, voice barely a whisper. “Why the hell are you here, O? What’s going on?”
A fraction of her unmitigated snark faded. “Whoa, Mercer, relax. You think I’m a spy or something?”
“No, void. That’s not what I meant.”
“Damn, CJ…” She gave a wistful sigh, hazel eyes drifting over him. “You really need to get over this doom-and-gloom attitude.” She reached up, her cool fingertips pushing at the outer corners of his eyes, stretching the skin back against his temples. “It’s giving you wrinkles…”
He jerked his head to shake her off and her hands dropped. “I’m being serious, O.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I know it’s part of the whole Larios tradition to offer recruits for service,” he said, “but I thought that was just some ceremonial fanfare bullshit.”
“Ceremonial fanfare? Maybe. Bullshit? Definitely. But it does help to redirect attention from one’s galactic monopoly on munitions manufacturing to have some of us out actually using said munitions.”
Cavalon exhaled a heavy sigh. As with each of the five royal families who ruled the most populous systems in the SC, the Larios family had its own corporate exploits. Where the Mercers had a sweep on genetics and biotechnologies, Larios focused on military-grade weapons and defense tech of all flavors. And anyone who thought that made the System Collective a thinly veiled corporatocracy would be exactly right.
Owen nudged him, then pinched the collar at the base of her neck like she was tightening a necktie. “Besides, I think I fill out the Legion uniform quite well, no?”
“Please tell me that’s really why you’re here. And it wasn’t Augustus.”
Her eyes flitted to the deck, the smirk at her lips flattening with guilt. “Sorry, man. I can’t do that.”
He glanced at a group of passing oculi, then edged them farther toward the base of the column. “What the hell happened?” he hissed.
Owen lowered her voice. “What the hell do you think? Remember when I helped you build the fucking bomb you used to destroy your grandpa’s cloning facility?”
Only the command circuitry portion—but that seemed beside the point. “Two, actually,” he mumbled. Also beside the point.
“Well, guess who found out?”
“Shit. And he got you sent out here? How?”
“He told my mom some bullshit story that I organized a denuclearization rally on Cautis Prime. I don’t think she believed him, but what’s a middling Larios supposed to say to Augustus fucking Mercer? ‘Nah, man, I trust my kid more than you? Please go ahead and ruthlessly murder my whole family now’?”
“Void…”
“Anyway—he suggested I ‘learn to respect the family traditions’ with a couple-year stint in the Legion. I was supposed to do basic training at Legion HQ, but we flew straight past it, ended up at the Divide. I don’t know if my family even knows.”
“Well, shit.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m really sorry, O. Damn. I never wanted to implicate you. I really thought I covered my tracks with that.”
“Honestly, you probably did…”
“What?”
Her bottom lip jutted out and she hunched her shoulders. “It might have sort of, kind of, been my own fault. I told Gusty I helped.”
The bottle sloshed as Rake set it back onto the counter. “Well, I’m glad you’re in good spirits, but you still look like death.”
“Thank you. I’ve been working on my figure.”
Her jaw flexed as she leveled a flat look at him.
“Rations keep going down, it just takes some getting used to,” he explained. “I wasn’t helping the transition with the overindulgence of epithesium either.”
“We need you strong.”
He shook his head. “Doctor Kellar already tried. I don’t want special treatment.”
“Kellar?”
“Ford? He and Jackin seem pretty chummy. I think they might have known each other, pre-war.”
She wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “Well, you need to get over your martyr complex. It’s not up for discussion. You can either take the extra nutrients willingly, or I can arrange to have it done by force.”
He smiled. “Kinky…”
The look she trained on him made him instantly regret every stupid comment he’d ever uttered. He frowned, eyeing the hard lines around her bloodshot eyes, her flushed cheeks, how she held herself slightly crooked like she had a hitch in her back. No matter how hard it’d been aboard the Typhos the last six months, he couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through restarting those generators over and over again. She’d lost a lot of people. It had to have taken a toll on her, one he couldn’t begin to understand.
“Okay,” he agreed quietly. “I’ll eat the extra rations.”
After a time, she cleared her throat, though her voice still came out crackled and dry. “I’m sorry, Cav. I really didn’t arrange this to rail on you. You don’t need to be babysat anymore.”
Cavalon caught her eye and pressed his lips into a thin smile.
“Just do me a favor,” she continued, “and try not to starve yourself to death.”
He gave a light chuckle. “You know, when you came and found me, I figured there was going to be a lot of railing, honestly. I assumed you were planning some big speech about honor and discipline and duty. Try to remind me what we’re fighting for.”
She scoffed. “Who do you take me for? That’s the opposite of what you need right now.”
His chest lightened, some of the strain giving way. He gave a short nod.
“If we get so caught up in survival, we forget to live…” She gave a rueful shake of her head. “What’s the point?”
His head bobbed up and down. “Damn. Yeah.” He looked down, gripping the edge of the counter as a thought careened out of the back of his brain. His mind raced so fast, he could hardly keep up with it. “Wait…” he breathed, the word dying out on his tongue.
Rake lifted a brow at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Forget to live…”
“What?”
He didn’t respond, eyes defocusing as he stared off, letting his mind lay out the plan for him.
“Cav?”
He pivoted to face her. “I’ve been so worried about containing it, I never thought about just exposing it. It’s damn old-school…” He scoffed a laugh. “But it might actually work.”
“Wait, what are we talking about?” she asked.
“The cryostat.”
“This is the thing you’ve been stuck on?”
He nodded fervently. “And it’ll be a cinch to implement—starfighter launch tubes run directly under that wing of the hangar. I just need to open a pathway below the divertor cassettes. So long as it’s a hermetic seal, it’ll expose the cryostat to hard space without exposing the rest of the components.”
“Exposing it to space is enough to cool it?”
“No, no, the supercritical helium does that.”
“Oh, well, obviously,” Rake deadpanned.
He pressed his fingers against his eyelids as a mess of jumbled ideas and schematics and computations fought for his attention. It didn’t take long for the thought-deluge to stagger and stall out as the mathematical implications made themselves known. Even on a day when his brain wasn’t a frazzled mess, he’d need a computer to run these numbers.
“I’ll need calculations, shit…” He glanced at his nexus-less wrist. “What time is it?”
“Probably around 2300.”
“Damn.” He really didn’t want to wake Mesa simply to theorize, especially if it didn’t pan out. He’d already presented her with a half-dozen duds over the last week.
“What’s wrong?” Rake asked.
“I need to run some simulations to make sure I’m right.”
“You need a coder?”
He nodded fervently. “Preferably one that knows their way around applied mathematics.”
“Not sure on the math part, but there’s a newbie we picked up along the way that knows her way around computers—was great with Viator systems, and has experience with the reactors.”
“Yes, brilliant, great, point me in her direction.”
“She should be offloading the Synthesis about now, in bay A5. Emery’ll introduce you.”
“Perfect, thank you.” He made for the door, then faltered. He spun and paced back, gripping Rake’s hand. “Thank you. Not for the idea, but for…” He swept his other hand out to the dirty dishes around the small galley. “This. I needed it. Really. And sorry to leave you with the mess.”
“No worries.” Rake held up her whiskey bottle in a toast. “It’s good to see you, Animus.”
His chest swelled. “Yeah, about that—I thought promotions were supposed to come with perks. When’s that part coming?”
She cast him a bitter smile. “Let me know if you find out.”
He gave a wary smirk and dashed out the door.
CHAPTER SIX
Cavalon skirted past a group of jogging soldiers as he half-sprinted down the corridor, filled with a rare assurdeness. Unlike the dozens of others, this solution fit. He felt strangely positive that this absurd plan of Rake’s would actually work, and the reactor would not explode, and the jump drive would suck up the solar power it needed, and they’d have unlimited jump travel to go wherever they wanted in the universe. Once they got the stupid thing through Kharon Gate, at least. If he didn’t truly think he was incapable of it, he’d call his current mindset optimism.
The Synthesis sat alone in bay A5, its cargo and personnel hatches open and bustling with oculi offloading crates and personal effects. The Viator-turned-Drudger-turned-Sentinel vessel reminded Cavalon of a time he at once felt nostalgic for, and yet wanted nothing more than to forget forever. A time he held accountable for forming him into a functional human being, but one marred by loss, death, and betrayal.
He approached the underbelly of the Synthesis just as Emery stepped out of the personnel hatch.
“Holy shit, boss!” A broad grin spread across her face as she half-jogged, half-skipped down the ramp toward him. She threw her thin arms around his neck, lifting up onto her toes to grip him in a fierce hug.
“You really are my boss now, huh? Mister Animus?” She dropped away and stepped back, crossing her arms and setting her jaw in a smug grin. “Though, ya know, I was promoted.”
His mouth dropped open. “You were?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I mean—you were!” he corrected. “Congrats, Em, really. Circitor?”
“Yep. Watch.” She spun toward an oculus standing beside a collection of crates on the far side of the ramp. “Hey, Landus! Go help Martinez with the warp drive assessment.”
The oculus nodded and scurried off.
Emery grinned back at Cavalon. “See? They gotta do what I say. Fuckin’ lemmings.”
He chuckled.
She jutted a thumb over her shoulder at the belly of the ship. “Rake let me fly this thing onto the Divide. Can you believe it?”
Cavalon swallowed, giving a shallow head shake. He really couldn’t.
“I’m ‘a natural’—her words.”
He smiled. “That’s great. We’re going to need more ace pilots.”
Emery beamed.
“I really wanna catch up, Em,” he said, “but I need a rain check—my brain’s onto something.”
“That saving our asses thing?”
“Yeah, that. Rake said you picked up a coder she trusts?”
“Computers?”
“Yeah. They know any math?” he asked.
“Oh, for sure. You’re gonna love her—she’s as big an entitled dick as you are.”
Cavalon followed as Emery led him to the open cargo hatch, bustling with soldiers clumped in various groupings, trying to figure out how to use the ancient cargo lift drones.
“Yo, Owen!” Emery called over the chattering oculi.
A woman stood up from the other side of a cargo lift mechanism, and Cavalon’s remaining levity melted from his face as recognition sunk in. Owen Larios.
Her hazel eyes regarded him evenly, a sheen of sweat glistening on her light brown skin. Her wavy dark brown hair had grown, now gathered into a braid that ran past her shoulders. Her duty vest hung open, a narrow sandy-brown oculus badge pinned to the left arm of her long-sleeved navy shirt. She strapped her vest closed as he followed Emery closer.
Cavalon’s gaze locked on to the only confirmation he needed—the white scar behind her left ear from when she’d lost her footing trying to climb over the southern wall of the manor.
His mind warred with it, trying to fit together two pieces of separate puzzles. He’d last seen her almost a year ago on Elyseia, in the stale dustiness of the relief bunker in the eastern wing of Mercer Manor. With a pained grimace of pity and probably a little worry etched into her normally soft features. Mere weeks before the Mercer Guard shackled him and escorted him out to the Divide to die.
He blinked a few more times, and she didn’t vanish, didn’t prove herself a time ripple or a figment of his addled mind. It really was her.
Owen gave a half smile, not looking nearly as surprised as Cavalon felt. She’d never worn her emotions on her sleeve quite like he did.
Emery shifted uncomfortably, her smile wavering. “Um, shit. Do you guys know each other?”
Owen nodded, then crossed the few meters and hugged him. He hugged back perfunctorily, still dazed. He didn’t think he’d ever hugged or been hugged so much in one day before. This one felt different than the first two, though. More tentative, more procedural, more packed with history and outright disbelief.
Owen stepped back, and Cavalon’s gaze darted furtively over her once again. With an effort, he shelved his hesitation. “Owen. Good to see you.”
He almost scoffed at his own asinine greeting. It lacked in every perceivable way, not even beginning to cover everything that needed saying. But with Emery standing there gaping and all the oculi padding around nearby, he couldn’t bring himself to let his full reaction loose.
Owen stepped back into a sweeping bow. “Your Highness.”
Cavalon pressed his fingers deep into one temple and groaned.
Emery gave a nervous half chuckle, staring between them, expression a blend of confusion and curiosity. “Uh, Cav here needs some computer help,” she said. “EX sent him your way.”
Cavalon gave a stiff nod as his cryostat realization resurfaced, flooding his chest with anxious relief.
He knew it could work, it had to, and now that he’d conceptualized it, he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d either disproven the concept or made it work. And he needed someone—someone who was apparently Owen—to get that proof.
“Computers are what I do,” Owen said pleasantly. “How can I help, my liege?”
“Void,” Cavalon cursed, clearing his throat. “Right, okay. Um, it’ll be easier to show than tell—reactor bay’s down the way.” He looked to Emery. “If your CO authorizes it, that is.”
“All yours, Animus. You kids have fun.” She gave Owen a bright, slightly tense, smile then started back toward the personnel hatch.
Cavalon stared at Owen, who watched Emery’s retreat with way too much interest. He clenched his jaw. He recognized that look.
“This way,” he prompted, tone stiff. He started the trek across the wide docking bay toward the main hangar and Owen kept pace beside him. Once they were clear of the ship, he maintained his brisk steps, turning a flat look onto her. “Owen…” he growled.
“Cav.”
“She’s way too young for you.”
Owen scoffed. “One: Fuck off. Two: Since when are you all judgmental?”
“Not judgmental. She’s my friend—and you’re an asshole.”
“Sure you aren’t just jealous?” She waggled her eyebrows at him.
Cavalon rolled his eyes.
“Because you know,” Owen went on, “she couldn’t do enough talking about you…”
“She told you about me?”
“She didn’t give your name, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Owen waited till they’d passed a group of chatting oculi before continuing. “But how many civilian astromechanical engineers too smart and snarky for their own good end up out at the Divide? That’s not hard math, even for a simpleton.”
Cavalon set his jaw. “I called you that once. And I was super wasted.”
She held a hand over her heart. “And to this day, the memory slays me.”
He threw a hard glance over his shoulder. “She’s a teenager, for void’s sake.”
“She just turned twenty, actually, so lay off it.” She gave a proud smirk. “See, I know more about her than you do.”
Cavalon pushed an aggravated breath out his nose as he continued marching toward the exit.
“Besides,” Owen went on, “I’m only five years older, or uh … wait, how old am I?” She scratched the back of her head, seeming truly unsure. “I honestly don’t even know the date right now. Can you believe that time dilation shit? Oh, of course you can, Mister Gravitational Tempology.”
He sighed. “I always forget you’re younger than me.”
“It’s because I seem so mature, right?”
“Mm-hmm,” he hummed.
“You certainly seem to have grown up in the interim…” She kept up with his swift pace as she drew her shoulders down, expression flat with mock seriousness. “With this whole-universe-on-your-shoulders glower and gray-ass beard. You’re looking more like your old man every day. I half-thought you were him at first.”
Cavalon swallowed past the bitter lump at the back of his throat. Just like Owen to mention one’s dead father as casually as giving an update on the weather. “Yeah, well,” he grumbled. “This shit’ll age you. I haven’t exactly been having a blast since I left the Core.”
Owen laughed. “I see what you did there—blast. Hah.”
His traitorous lips twitched at the corners, but before he could consider enjoying the accidental joke, his gaze darted to the vacant decking around them. He took Owen by the elbow and pulled her toward the base of a thick bulkhead column, tucking into the corner, shielding them from the traffic of the hangar.
He leaned in, voice barely a whisper. “Why the hell are you here, O? What’s going on?”
A fraction of her unmitigated snark faded. “Whoa, Mercer, relax. You think I’m a spy or something?”
“No, void. That’s not what I meant.”
“Damn, CJ…” She gave a wistful sigh, hazel eyes drifting over him. “You really need to get over this doom-and-gloom attitude.” She reached up, her cool fingertips pushing at the outer corners of his eyes, stretching the skin back against his temples. “It’s giving you wrinkles…”
He jerked his head to shake her off and her hands dropped. “I’m being serious, O.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I know it’s part of the whole Larios tradition to offer recruits for service,” he said, “but I thought that was just some ceremonial fanfare bullshit.”
“Ceremonial fanfare? Maybe. Bullshit? Definitely. But it does help to redirect attention from one’s galactic monopoly on munitions manufacturing to have some of us out actually using said munitions.”
Cavalon exhaled a heavy sigh. As with each of the five royal families who ruled the most populous systems in the SC, the Larios family had its own corporate exploits. Where the Mercers had a sweep on genetics and biotechnologies, Larios focused on military-grade weapons and defense tech of all flavors. And anyone who thought that made the System Collective a thinly veiled corporatocracy would be exactly right.
Owen nudged him, then pinched the collar at the base of her neck like she was tightening a necktie. “Besides, I think I fill out the Legion uniform quite well, no?”
“Please tell me that’s really why you’re here. And it wasn’t Augustus.”
Her eyes flitted to the deck, the smirk at her lips flattening with guilt. “Sorry, man. I can’t do that.”
He glanced at a group of passing oculi, then edged them farther toward the base of the column. “What the hell happened?” he hissed.
Owen lowered her voice. “What the hell do you think? Remember when I helped you build the fucking bomb you used to destroy your grandpa’s cloning facility?”
Only the command circuitry portion—but that seemed beside the point. “Two, actually,” he mumbled. Also beside the point.
“Well, guess who found out?”
“Shit. And he got you sent out here? How?”
“He told my mom some bullshit story that I organized a denuclearization rally on Cautis Prime. I don’t think she believed him, but what’s a middling Larios supposed to say to Augustus fucking Mercer? ‘Nah, man, I trust my kid more than you? Please go ahead and ruthlessly murder my whole family now’?”
“Void…”
“Anyway—he suggested I ‘learn to respect the family traditions’ with a couple-year stint in the Legion. I was supposed to do basic training at Legion HQ, but we flew straight past it, ended up at the Divide. I don’t know if my family even knows.”
“Well, shit.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m really sorry, O. Damn. I never wanted to implicate you. I really thought I covered my tracks with that.”
“Honestly, you probably did…”
“What?”
Her bottom lip jutted out and she hunched her shoulders. “It might have sort of, kind of, been my own fault. I told Gusty I helped.”
