Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 56
On the plot, the icon for Minotaur disappeared off the edge. Aden let out a little puff of breath. He had come very close to being in the brig on that ship right now even as Zephyr went on her way with the rest of the crew, and he was still amazed at the completely unexpected act of mercy from the Rhodian commander.
“And of course we had to get the biggest hard-ass in the Rhody fleet,” Decker continued. “I was hoping to run into some patrol corvette. Some green lieutenant on his first tugboat command out of space warfare school. Instead, it’s a seasoned frigate crew, with a craggy veteran in charge. I had to really lay on the contrition.”
“That jug-eared asshole,” Maya grumbled.
“I don’t know, I thought he was kind of handsome,” Tess said. “Nice blue eyes.”
“Captain made the right call. So did the Rhody,” Henry said with finality.
Tess got up from her acceleration couch and walked over to the ladderwell.
“I’m going to check my stuff in the workshop again. I hate that those people had their hands all over the ship. It feels like getting felt up without permission while you’re asleep. I want to scrub all the bulkheads with antiseptics now.”
She climbed down the ladder and disappeared from view.
“If we don’t have any more zero-g adventures planned in the next hour or two, I want to throw together some dinner,” Tristan said.
“Go ahead,” Maya replied. “We’re going to stay at acceleration until we get to the turnaround point for Acheron.”
Tristan nodded and peeled himself out of his harness, then went over to the ladderwell and followed Tess down.
Aden stifled a yawn and got up to stretch his limbs. After the encounter with the Rhodian ship and the tension of being found out as a Gretian by the Rhody commander, he felt drained. The navigation plot was empty now, but he almost expected to see the icon for Minotaur pop up again on the fringes of their sensor range any moment, burning in pursuit at ten g because the commander had changed his mind. Whatever tint of romance and excitement the notion of the smuggling job had held was now thoroughly extinguished in his brain. Maybe he really wasn’t cut out for this new career, and this was the fates telling him to go home again. However hard it would be to build something new out of the bits and pieces of his old life, at least he wouldn’t have to look over his shoulder like a thief in the night every time a Rhodian warship popped up on the navigation screen.
He glanced up at the command platform to see Decker watching him.
“You look like you could sleep for a week,” she told him. “You all right?”
“I’m okay,” he said. It didn’t seem to convince Decker.
“Go get some bunk time before dinner. Half an hour of sleep. You’ll feel better. And maybe you won’t plant your face in the meal tray.”
Aden nodded and went to the ladderwell to climb down to Crew Deck B, where his berthing compartment was located, next to Tess and across the ladderwell from Henry.
His berth was as clean and neat as any room he’d had in the military. Other than a few sets of clothes and a comtab, he had brought nothing with which to clutter up the space. Even his locker was mostly empty. He had gotten glimpses of Tess’s berth whenever they got out or went to their bunks at the same time, and he knew that her space was personalized just like the workshop deck, drawings and sketches all over the bulkheads. As long as he felt like a temporary addition to the crew, it didn’t seem right to him to claim his space in that fashion. If they got rid of him again, he didn’t want to leave behind anything, least of all intimate glimpses into his personality. Unless he could be sure that day wasn’t likely to come, he wanted to be able to pack everything he owned into one bag and walk out with it. And as long as he kept his secret from the rest of the crew, he knew he could never have that certainty.
He took off his boots and crawled into his bunk. His tiredness was fighting it out with the residual adrenaline from their encounter, which seemed to refresh itself a little every time he thought about it. Aden closed his eyes to let the background hum of the ship calm his mind.
Enjoy your new life, the forger Henk had said when Aden had walked out with his new name and ID pass. But he hadn’t bought a new life, just a piece of polymer and a few database entries. A life was made of the thousands of little strings that tied people to each other and anchored them in their worlds. Those strings needed time and care to form. No ledger was big enough to buy any number of them, or hurry their connections along, not even all his father’s money. Seventeen years of Aden Robertson hadn’t managed to erase Aden Ragnar. Three months as Aden Jansen would not get rid of Aden Robertson.
“Come on up if you want to try the special,” Tristan’s voice sounded from the comms panel. Aden opened his eyes and tried to focus on the time readout above his head. It felt like he had barely closed his eyes, but forty-five minutes had passed since he had put his head down on the pillow.
When he climbed up onto the galley deck, everyone was already sitting at the table and talking over food. For a moment, Aden felt a pang of longing, as if he were looking at the scene from the outside. Then Tess saw him on the ladder and gestured to the empty chairs between her and Tristan.
“Grab a seat. Tristan has actually managed to turn the number eleven into something edible.”
“Really?” Aden sat down