“Shut up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Shut up with your lies, you prick. I’m done with you.”

  That was it. She disconnected, and I was left in the dark.

  When Wendy showed up at my door about an hour later I was distracted, but she didn’t seem to notice. I was still thinking of Galina and the weird situation with her dad. That was unusual for me. I generally only thought about the people in my immediate vicinity—unless I was worrying about family members.

  Galina had sounded a little hurt, and I didn’t want to think about that. I hadn’t meant to hurt her. I argued with myself that she’d shown up out of the blue and put me on trial and then put me on the spot and everything.

  Still, I knew the fact I’d impressed her daddy had pleased her, and she’d been in a romantic mood. Now I’d gone and blown it.

  Around midnight Wendy started to gently snore, and I finally managed to push everything out of my mind and go to sleep by her side.

  -29-

  The next day went by without anything horrible happening. I led my troops to the shooting range, ran them a dozen kilometers, and dismissed them early just after 1600 hours. That was met with shocked looks and a ragged cheer.

  Unlike everyone else, Leeson tagged after me instead of disappearing before I changed my mind.

  “What is it, Adjunct?”

  “What’s the deal, McGill?” he asked me. “Have you got a hot date?”

  “Always and forevermore.”

  “Right, right… is it with Turov? I know she’s aboard.”

  I shrugged. It was best to keep the guys guessing.

  Most of the people in my unit didn’t much care who I was courting at any given moment, but Leeson always seemed to take a special interest. He liked to watch me and keep score.

  “Come on, tell me,” he wheedled. “You’re not still chasing that ball of fluff from Blue Deck? Wendy-something? Hasn’t it been a full week already?”

  I frowned at him. “Maybe. Now, why don’t you go find something that’s your business and pay attention to that?”

  He laughed again. “Well, sir, maybe it’s because I know something you don’t.”

  We eyed each other for a second. I could tell he was enjoying himself. That was generally a bad sign. Leeson wasn’t like Harris, he wasn’t hoping I would die at his feet every hour, but he still liked to see a little pain in my eyes—I swear it.

  “How’s that, Adjunct?”

  He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner, lowering his voice. “Did you hear that a certain bio named Wendy Stinson got reassigned to Earth?”

  I blinked once, then twice. “What?”

  “That’s right. I heard it from a dude I know on Blue—”

  That was as far as he got. My big hand came up and pressed against his chest, sending him staggering backward.

  I left him cursing in my wake while I marched for the lifts. I was already fuming mad because I knew exactly what had happened.

  Galina had done some digging and found out who I was seeing. Like the conniving snake she was, she’d concocted some kind of bullshit to ditch Wendy back on Earth. That was going too far, and it really pissed me off.

  Reaching Lavender Deck, the hog patrol tried to stop me, but I dropped a few names and one of the hogs recognized me.

  “He was with that Public Servant guy the other night, Sam. Better let him through.”

  “That’s right, Sam,” I said. “Time to step aside and look the other way.”

  The guards moved out of my way, and I marched to Turov’s apartment. The door was damned nice, with a fancy metal lamp that looked like flowers on either side of it. I hammered on the door, waited a second, then hammered some more. The fancy lights rattled and flickered during this process.

  Finally, the door opened—but it wasn’t Galina who stood before me. To my surprise, it was Alexander Turov, her father.

  “To what do I owe this intrusion, Centurion?”

  “Oh… hello, sir. I thought you’d gone back to Earth. Sorry.”

  He looked me up and down oddly, and I had no idea what he was thinking—but right then, I didn’t much care, either. I was steamed at his daughter.

  “I was just leaving for the gateway. My daughter is inside. I assume you wish to speak with her?”

  “Yessir. Sorry, sir.”

  “Never apologize if you don’t mean it.”

  My face went slack. “Is that the way you’re supposed to do it? Damnation, I guess I should never have made an apology in my entire life.”

  For the first time since I’d met him, the old buzzard seemed amused. He even smiled at me. “I will leave you two in that case. Good day, McGill.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Servant, sir.”

  I stepped aside, but I didn’t let the door swing shut. I kept my hand on it so it couldn’t lock itself. After he walked on by, I pushed the door full open the second he was out of sight.

  “Galina!”

  There was no answer, so I barged into the place, looking for her.

  She finally came out of the bedroom, and it seemed like she was in the middle of changing her clothes. Most importantly—her pants were missing.

  “McGill?” she said in a sweet voice. “What a surprise. What are you doing here?”

  “Sir, I’m here to protest abuse by a superior.”

  “Oh? What is it this time? Has Winslade beaten you at arm-wrestling again?”

  “No, sir. You found out who I was dating, and you turfed her back to Earth.”

  Galina had the gall to tilt her head inquisitively to the left. She did that sometimes when she was feigning disbelief. “You’re dating someone? I had no idea.”

  “Come on, Galina. Bring Wendy back.”

  “I’m afraid it’s out of my hands. Budget cuts and all—you understand. We don’t need all that many bio officers on Blue Deck these days. They’re very costly, and they don’t do much besides watch those revival machines.”

  Fuming, I walked to her couch and flopped on it. “That was rude, girl, and you know it.”

  “Was it?” she asked, walking lightly over to her mini bar and pouring two drinks. She still wasn’t wearing any pants. Her panties were purple and silky-looking. I tried to look away, but I failed. Glancing around the luxury cabin, I couldn’t see any pants of any kind anywhere.

  “Were you walking around half-naked when your dad was in here? What’d he think of that?”

  “No, no, I just removed them to be cleaned, you see. I must have forgotten to pack a spare uniform.”

  I snorted, taking the drink she handed me and downing it in a gulp. “Yeah, right...”

  I knew full well that this woman never left her home without a dozen spare outfits of every variety and description.

  Galina sipped her beverage and eyed me like a cat with a canary in her mouth. “Were you extremely attached to this Stinson woman of yours?”

  “Uh… I liked her, if that’s what you mean. She was sweet and all.”

  “She killed you just to win a bet a few days ago. Did you know that?”

  I winced. Galina had done her homework. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “Is Wendy all right? You didn’t, like, have her permed or something, did you?”

  “Of course not. I’m no barbarian.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, I let out a sigh. “You have to stop doing stuff like this. It’s just not right.”

  “Stuff like what?” she asked.

  “Like getting all jealous and abusing innocent people.”

  This last accusation finally seemed to land. She became irritable. “Quit whining. I didn’t even kill her. She’s fine. Do you want me to arrange a date for her with Gary?”

  “What? No, I don’t want that.”

  I checked my tapper and found out that yes, Galina’s father had left the ship. That brought the tension level down a notch or two right there, knowing that he wasn’t going to walk in and catch us.

  I considered leaving. I really did… but as some women knew, an overvaluation of beauty was a weakness of mine. A character flaw, if you will.

  Instead of storming out like I should have, I sulked on her couch while she fed me another drink.

  Now, don’t go thinking that I don’t know when I’m being played. I was very well aware of what Galina was up to. I’d done similar things a hundred times myself, and I’d been the recipient of such bullshit on nearly as many occasions. Still though, Galina knew her business. She was smooth, seductive, and very tempting.

  After a while, we went out to dinner. Not a single hog-boy tried to throw me off Lavender Deck this time, seeing as I was being escorted by yet another VIP. That was a nice change of pace.

  We ate some fine food and drank some fine wine. In the end, I spent the night with her—I’m not proud about that, but there it is. I’m a deeply flawed man, and I know it in my heart.

  The sex was good, but our peaceful re-acquaintance didn’t even last all the way to the next blissful morning. Instead, at around 3:00 o’clock in the morning, alarms rang all over the ship. Flashing lights began to spin. Being legion officers and accustomed to emergencies, we rolled out of bed and dragged on our uniforms. Her pants seemed to come out of nowhere.

  “Is this some kind of bullshit drill?” Galina demanded.

  “I don’t think so, sir. My tapper says… it says there’s a hull breach.”

  “What sector?” she demanded.

  “Uh… aft. Near engineering.”

  “Go check it out and report back to me.”

  After hustling to pull my gear on, I managed to stumble out into the passages. Every private luxury cabin had a nose sticking out of it.

  “Centurion?” asked an old lady wearing a yellow pantsuit. “What’s going on?”

  “Uh… I don’t rightly know, ma’am. Just stay in your cabin until the sirens stop blowing.”

  She didn’t like that much, but she didn’t argue. I left Lavender Deck and headed down to engineering.

  Graves found me using the magic of tappers and location services. “Centurion? What are you doing outside your assigned battle station?”

  “I’m following orders, sir. A certain imperator sent me aft to check things out.”

  “A certain…? Oh. Seriously, McGill? Turov is aboard for two days, and you all but go AWOL immediately?”

  “Think of it as a special assignment, sir.”

  He sighed. “Fine. Do whatever you want. I’m giving your unit to Leeson until you return to duty.”

  I didn’t much like that, but I couldn’t argue.

  Hustling down to engineering, I found about a thousand damage control spacers were climbing over the decks, working on everything. They’d turned off the gravity so they could reach everything at once. The technicians looked like ants swarming all over a soup can.

  I found a chief and hooked his arm.

  “What’s up, Centurion?” he asked, frowning at my big hand.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Sir, I don’t have time—”

  Lifting my tapper, I touched the record button and aimed it at him. “The imperator sent me down here for an eyewitness account. Make your statement.”

  “Uh… the imperator? Well... sir… maybe I should find an officer.”

  “No, no. You’ll do fine. Start talking.”

  “We don’t know everything yet. There was an explosion down here near the engines.”

  “Is the warp drive damaged?” I asked sharply.

  “No, sir. It’s our system drive that’s wrecked. The one we use to get around in normal space after—”

  “I got it. How bad is it?”

  “Bad. The explosion blew out part of the firing chamber, making a hole all the way through to the external layers of the hull.”

  “That’s why I got a hull breach notice...” I said, thinking it over. “I get it. Okay Chief, what’s your best estimate?”

  The poor guy looked even more flustered. “For repairs? Sir, I don’t have the authority—”

  “Listen, I just want a number of hours. A guess will do.”

  “Okay… forty hours to get underway again—warp only. Five hundred hours to do the full repair on the system drive. That’s assuming that we’re at a dry-dock station all that time.”

  “Five hundred…? Holy crap. Okay, get back to work.”

  He scurried off, and I relayed the report to Galina, but she had already listened in through the live feed on my tapper.

  “This is sabotage, McGill. Who would do such a thing?”

  “Uh… lots of people.”

  “Yes of course, but which one among the assholes who are aboard?” she asked.

  “Well sir, you can’t count out the nerds your daddy just fired.”

  “No, I suppose we can’t. There’s also that pushy squid we just put in charge of Legion Varus. This is vexing. I’m going to have to return to Central immediately, before anyone realizes I’m still aboard this smoking wreck.”

  “Uh…” I said, realizing she hadn’t quite understood the situation. “I don’t know if you can do that, Imperator.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well sir, you do realize that we keep the gateway posts down here in engineering, right? I mean… in this very sector of the ship?”

  Galina did some quick checking on her own tapper, and she learned the awful truth. The gateway posts had been toasted.

  She began cursing something awful. I had to mute her after a while, as people walking by kept craning their necks and giving me weird looks when they heard what was coming from my tapper.

  When she’d gotten all that rage out of her system, she talked to me again through gritted teeth. “Are you certain all the gateway posts aboard were destroyed?”

  “It sure looks that way to me, sir. Sorry.”

  Her eyes, normally pretty and seductive, took on an insane light. “This is entirely your fault, McGill!”

  “Huh? How do you figure that?”

  “If you could have kept your dick in your pants before I got here I wouldn’t have stayed last night. I would have left with my father and been fifty light years away by now!”

  “Hold on right there. It seems to me I wasn’t the only one having trouble keeping my pants on last night. You took off yours first, if I do remember correctly.”

  She didn’t like that much, especially because it was true. She cursed again for a long time, so I muted her once more. When she’d finally settled down and noticed I wasn’t listening, she overrode my mute on her microphone and ordered me to meet her upstairs.

  “Where upstairs?”

  “On Gold Deck, of course. I have to assume command of this shit-show before anyone screws it up any further.”

  “But won’t that assign the blame for this disaster to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m stuck here on this accursed ship, and I’ve got the highest rank aboard. No matter what happens now, everything is going to be my fault from here on out. Damn it, I wish they hadn’t hit the gateway posts!”

  I thought about her predicament for a moment or two. “Maybe you could purloin a teleport suit or something. To sneak away, I mean.”

  “Maybe… but I hate those things. For now, you will come here to escort me. That’s an order.”

  I did an about-face, leaving engineering. The hustle and bustle of damage repair bots and men was noisy and desperate, and I was just as happy to leave it all behind.

  -30-

  Galina walked onto Gold Deck like she owned the place. The two gold sunbursts on her shoulders silenced everyone who got in our way.

  I trudged along behind her like a guard dog. I’d picked up a combat rifle, which wasn’t a cool thing to carry onto a starship’s bridge—but I did it anyway.

  I could tell the ship’s marines were bristling at the very sight of me. But Galina’s rank kept them quiet. I had to admit, owning the chain of command was a big advantage when it came to making things go your way.

  “Ah…” Captain Merton said when we walked up to him. “Glad you could take a break from your busy schedule to visit the crew, Imperator.”

  “Captain Merton, I’m here in an official capacity. I’m relieving you of mission command—effective immediately.”

  Merton blinked once, then twice. His eyes traveled from the small angry form of Imperator Turov up to the rifle-toting ape-man she’d brought with her. “I see… very well. I’ll be in my quarters if you need something else.”

  That impressed me. Was he actually going to pull a James McGill style walk-out? Yes, he was. He marched toward the exit resolutely without another word.

  “Halt, Captain,” Galina called after him. “You haven’t been dismissed yet. Give me a full situational briefing.”

  Reluctantly, Merton returned. He gave her the long-winded version of the story the chief had provided down at engineering. I was bored before it was half over.

  The basics went like this: we were screwed. We could fly in warp once we patched the outer hull, but when we reached Mintaka, we wouldn’t be able to cross the star system normally at sub-space speeds.

  “Hmm…” Galina said. “How close can you get to the target planet? What if we warp directly into orbit?”

  Merton frowned and shook his head. “That wouldn’t be safe, Imperator. Especially with a damaged engine room.”

  “How close?”

  Merton waved for his navigator, who’d been listening in. She stepped forward to deliver her answer. “I can get you as close as one hundred thousand kilometers—but it would be better if we move to two hundred thousand out.”

  “What? Is this a warship or a space station? Cut that range to fifty thousand, and we have a deal.”

  The navigator shook her head. “Can’t do it, sir. A hundred thousand is already pushing the margin of error when everything is working perfectly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I select any set of destination coordinates and go into warp, our computers should take us back out within one hundred thousand kilometers of the target. But if we cut it any closer to the planet, there’s a chance we’ll end up merging with a mountain range or something.”