Zoë Archer - Chain Reaction

She blew out a breath. “Oh, when you say it like that, I don’t know why I should be worried.”

His chuckle held low warmth. “No pressure.”

She couldn’t stop her answering smile, but when she glanced over at him, his laugh faded and he looked…stunned.

“What?”

He shook his head, and returned his attention back to the tracking screen.

“Calder, tell me.”

“This is strange,” he finally admitted. “Me, sitting here in a Phantom cockpit with the famous hero Lieutenant Celene Jur.”

Oh, gods, this again.

“No one can outfly you,” he continued, “or best you at shooting. They say you once took out six PRAXIS Wasps on your own.”

“Seven, actually. It would’ve been eight, but the fucker crashed his own ship into an asteroid as he tried to get away.”

He shook his head. “You’re legendary. Idolized. And here I am, your partner on a maximum-level priority mission.” His laugh was rueful. “Never thought that when I finally talked to you, it would be under these circumstances.”

“You thought about talking to me?”

He blushed again. Celene had never imagined she’d find a man who blushed attractive, preferring to keep company with men who were just as outspoken and brash as she, fellow hotshot pilots who bragged and liked to show off. Practically everyone in the Black Wraith Squad fit that description. A bunch of loud-mouthed swaggerers. Her included. They boasted to one another about being in command at all times, dominating any situation. At least among her fellow Black Wraith pilots, no one considered her to be a living legend. She was a friend, and they were her friends.

Which didn’t translate to satisfying romantic relationships. Kell was proof of that.

She now looked at Lieutenant Nils Calder. There was something endearing about his flushed cheeks, as if he couldn’t control his response—to her.

“Perhaps once or twice,” he muttered. “I can’t remember. It isn’t important.”

“Seems pretty important to me.”

“The tracking device needs further enhancement.” He surged to his feet and moved out of the cockpit, into the main body of the ship. Leaving her alone and bewildered at the controls.

Gods, did Calder have a crush on her? If he did, that might explain his blushes, his awkwardness when they came into close contact. She didn’t know whether to be amused, flattered or horrified. He wasn’t unattractive; far from it. And if he could solve complex engineering conundrums, imagine what he might do if he set his inventive mind toward seduction.

But it was another case of someone wanting Stainless Jur. Not Celene. She was just as fallible as any organic creature.

At some point on this mission, just like all the men with whom she had tried to get close, Calder was going to discover that the hero he venerated was only a woman.

By tacit agreement, neither of them spoke about their earlier conversation. When Calder returned to the cockpit, sliding his long body into the seat beside hers, she made sure not to stare at him—though it was something of a challenge. Something about the way in which he inhabited his physicality, as if learning and testing its limits, captivated her attention. He reminded her of a siyahwolf raised in captivity, finally released into the wild. What might he do, when he learned the full measure of his strength?

Right now, all his energy was focused on tracking the power signature. “It’s getting stronger. Still too far away to calculate its exact position, but we are headed in the right direction.”

“Distance?”

He shook his head. “Unknown. Could be a matter of a few days, at least.”

Terrific. Nervous energy hummed along her body. She didn’t realize that she was tapping her hand against the controls until Calder placed his hand over hers. His touch came as a surprise, the feel of his large, warm hand covering her sending a visceral jolt through her.

“Throttle down, Jur,” he murmured, “or you’ll burn your engines out too soon.”

“Tough for me to sit still if I’m not on patrol or in combat. Bad habit.”

He raised his brows. “Stainless Jur doesn’t have any bad habits.”

Damn, it was starting already. Soon he would discover she was not the paragon everyone imagined her to be, and then he’d be another man looking at her in angry disappointment.

“Stainless Jur has none.” She tugged her hand free. “I have plenty.”

He shifted back, his expression distant, and then he returned his focus to the tracking screen.

They flew on in tense wordlessness. He did not look at her with veneration. He did not look at her at all.

Celene knew silence. She’d flown enough patrols to grow used to it. Chatter between ships had to be kept to a minimum in case the frequencies were monitored. A Wraith usually held a lone pilot, but it could also be configured to accommodate a gunner. Even when her ship contained herself and another, they talked infrequently, for security purposes. It was an easy silence.

So she understood long stretches of utter quiet, when it was only her, her Wraith and the deep, jeweled infinity of space.

This silence, however, between her and Calder… Nothing familiar or comfortable about it. It pulled tightly until she thought she might crack from the strain.

“Tell me what you know about Marek.”

The illumination from the display traced the contours of his face. His high cheekbones, the straight line of his nose and fullness of his mouth. Again she felt a strange flicker of memory, a far-flung sun glinting across light years of distance.

“He had almost two decades with the 8 thWing. Career. Or so I thought.” Though his voice had been toneless before, now it held a sonic blade’s bite. “There were discussions, ongoing debates. If we had a shift together, we’d talk of circuitry arrangements, the best way to make ships faster, more responsive. The whole time he sat drinking kahve in the mess, listening to stories about sweethearts on homeworlds, he was plotting. Planning.” His tone hardened with self-recrimination. “None of us in Engineering knew.”

“Nobody blames you.”

His mouth curved, sardonic. “The fact that you immediately try to absolve me causes me to believe that I do actually shoulder some responsibility.”

“I don’t shoot down every PRAXIS ship I face. I try, but sometimes even my best effort is not always enough.”

She waited, wondering what he might make of this admission of imperfection. Denial, perhaps. It often went that way, when the fissures in the cation armor began to show.

He stared at her. Then, slowly, nodded.

She didn’t know who was more surprised: her, from his acceptance, or him, for offering it.

“But Marek did keep himself aloof.” He returned to the subject as if eager to put the strange, tenuous moment behind them both. “Didn’t take criticism well. Whenever review came around, he’d be sullen for solar weeks. If he thought he wasn’t getting enough recognition, he’d get angry.”

“Violent?”

Calder shook his head. “He never kept up with his PT. If he wanted to hurt someone, he’d find another way to do it.”

“So he might not be a threat.”

“Physically? No. But Marek knows his tech. Wherever he is, he’ll have systems in place. And the leash will be off.”

“Leash?”

He stared out through the front-facing window as planetary systems slid past, and it surprised her now, how such a lean man could fill the cockpit with his presence. Rather than growing less aware of him as time passed, she had somehow developed a new sensitivity to him. She had seen him in combat, so that now, with each shift of his body, she had a precise knowledge of his muscles, and how he moved.