Accelerating Universe: The Sector Fleet Book One Read online

  I agreed, but survival was a powerful motivator. All of the mercs on consoles started tapping away frantically. Sooner or later they’d break in. Pavo wasn’t in the ship’s systems to thwart them. He’d simply locked them out and left. And no lock was unbreakable.

  I wished I could speak to Pavo and ask his opinion. Warn him. But I had to trust Jameson. I had no choice. Which meant I had to let Pavo down.

  “Will you promise me something,” I whispered.

  “I will if I can,” Jameson said.

  “Not good enough.”

  “Ana,” he murmured. “This is a military-run ship.”

  In other words, I had to obey him.

  I reached up and started to undo my pip. The pip that proved I was a second lieutenant.

  “Ana,” Jameson whisper-snapped. “That makes no difference.”

  “It does to me. I’d rather pay for my berth washing dishes than disobey my captain.”

  He stared at me.

  Then he reached up and placed a hand over my own on my collar.

  “Stop. It’s OK,” he said. “I promise.”

  I stared into his eyes. He held my gaze unwaveringly. He meant it.

  “Besides,” he added with a grin, “Anderson Universal didn’t write a procedure for the leaseholder going nuts. We’re in new territory. I think I can make some new rules up.”

  “Like allowing a second lieutenant to tie your hands?”

  He smirked.

  “Any time you want, babe.”

  I snorted.

  He leaned forward…and kissed me.

  Just like that.

  I was so surprised; I did nothing. I lay there, on my side, in the cramped confines of a maintenance tube, overlooking a psychopath on the bridge and in a precarious location which could at any time be compromised. I just lay there while Jameson kissed me.

  Eventually he pulled back. His cheeks were slightly flushed. His eyes alive. His lips wet.

  “That didn’t go how I imagined,” he mused.

  “Sorry,” I said on a squeak. “You took me by surprise. I didn’t mean…I thought…I wasn’t sure…”

  “Relax. Bad timing.” He grinned again, but this time the smile didn’t reach his eyes. I’d rejected him. Hurt him.

  Damn it.

  “We could try again,” I offered.

  He stilled.

  “What? Now?” He didn’t sound convinced.

  “No. Maybe later. Afterwards. You know, once we’ve captured Archibald, disarmed his men, found Aunt Mara, and put the ship to rights again.”

  He looked at me and for a moment I had no idea what he was thinking.

  Then he said, “You’re amazing.”

  “Because I’m offering to make out with you?” I asked.

  He smiled. This time it did reach his eyes.

  “I like you, Ana,” he said, sounding like Pavo.

  I huffed out a laugh. “I like you too, Jameson,” I said.

  “So,” he murmured. “Later, then.”

  I nodded.

  He looked back through the grille, but nothing had changed. Archibald and his men were still locked out of the systems. But lights were flashing. Hands were moving. Eyes were darting over screens.

  “OK,” Jameson said. “What do I need to promise?”

  I looked at him and decided if I was prepared to kiss him, I had to be prepared to trust him.

  I just hoped Pavo would understand.

  Thirty-Four

  Yes, Sir

  Jameson

  I looked down at the datapad in Ana’s hands. The datapad that she’d just pulled out of her uniform top, giving me an enticing flash of her lace covered breasts.

  A man could get distracted quite easily with that.

  “Huh?” I eloquently said.

  “This is Aunt Mara’s,” Ana explained, but I was still stuck back on her beautifully rounded breasts. “I don’t know why I picked it up before leaving the cabin this morning, but it was just sitting there beside her bed.”

  I’d seen it the night before, but datapads were a dime a dozen, and I’d not thought at the time that it would have more success than me of touching Ana’s breasts.

  “But when I picked it up, a message came on the screen,” she said.

  “Huh?” I managed. Still thinking of breasts. Obviously.

  She glanced up at me and bit her lip. The lip I’d just tasted.

  Not helping.

  “OK,” I offered, because saying ‘Huh’ again had been a valid concern right then.

  “You have to promise that you won’t take this from me,” Ana eventually said.

  “Of course, I won’t. It’s your aunt’s.”

  She let out a soft breath that conveniently made the gap in her uniform top widen; as she’d not yet done up the top button. I was going straight to hell for what I thought of then.

  “No matter what,” Ana added.

  Quite frankly, I would have promised her the moon, the stars, the whole fucking universe about then. So nodding my head wasn’t at all difficult.

  “Say it,” she said.

  “Say what?” Yeah, my intelligence was lowering exponentially with the widening of her shirt.

  “That you won’t take it from me, no matter what.”

  OK, I needed to get my head on straight. Something was happening here.

  I let out a frustrated breath of air and ran a hand through my hair.

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at Ana and we don’t have time for this,” I said. “So, I promise, I won’t take the datapad, no matter what. There. Satisfied?”

  She nodded her head, but she looked worried. Desperately so.

  I wanted to reach for her. Reassure her. But I had the feeling I’d just signed a contract with the devil. Sold my soul. Cashed in my retirement fund. You name, I’d done it, and I was going to regret it.

  “The message was from Pavo,” she said.

  “What message?” She was losing me.

  “The message on the datapad when I picked it up.” Oh. “He and Aunt Mara hatched a plan.”

  “What?” I said very, very slowly. What the hell?

  “Well, I’m not sure whether it was conscious on Aunt Mara’s part. I certainly don’t think Pavo would have chosen this datapad if it had been. I mean, at the time the message came up, Archibald already had my aunt. So, if she did know about it, then she could potentially have compromised him. I’m guessing they must have had a talk, though, like I talk with him all the time, and Pavo came to some conclusion on his own that meant he chose this particular datapad.”

  “Ana,” I said. “I admire your intelligence and your moral fibre. I’m even impressed with the way you conduct yourself as a medic and an officer. And I might just be a little in love with you. But I gotta say, babe, you’re making absolutely no sense.”

  She stared at me. I nodded at the datapad.

  “Show me the message,” I said.

  Ana pressed her thumb to the screen and the message appeared.

  TAKE ME WITH YOU, it read.

  “Huh,” I managed.

  “It was just a normal datapad until Archibald took the bridge,” she said. She looked down at it and then started typing.

  The letters were upside down, so it wasn’t exactly easy to read. But I got the gist.

  I had to tell Jameson.

  IT IS ALL RIGHT, ANA

  I TRUST YOU

  What the ever-loving hell was that?

  “Ana?” I whispered.

  “He’s in here. Pavo. He downloaded himself to Auntie’s datapad, the moment he realised Archibald was taking the bridge. He shutdown all command systems, leaving only the most basic running, and then disconnected the datapad from the ship’s net.”

  “It’s isolated,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “He can’t see what’s happening?” I queried.

  “No. I have to tell him. But he knows the ship inside out. He’ll know if we can get on the bridge via other hatches. Ones L
ieutenant Chan’s men can use as well.”

  I stared at the datapad. Such an innocuous thing. Everyone had one. Everyone.

  “And afterwards?” I asked carefully.

  “I know how to put him back.”

  I stared at the datapad. Again. If Ana thought that alone would protect Pavo, she’d be sorely disappointed.

  “We can’t let Archibald get this,” she said.

  I looked up at her. She knew. The datapad was not secure. Only insomuch as she could secure it. By hiding it. By keeping Pavo’s location to herself.

  “You told me,” I said, stunned.

  “We need the bridge,” she offered.

  No. We could have found another way. But this was Ana meeting the requirements of her duty as an officer. And still trying to stay loyal to Pavo.

  “No one will know he’s in there,” I promised.

  Nothing could happen to Ana. To that datapad. They had to stay safe. She had to stay safe. Stay alive. Get Pavo back where he needed to go without dying.

  Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them away. And then she rapidly tapped out a message to Pavo.

  The captain promises to keep your secret, too.

  THANK YOU, CAPTAIN

  Ana slowly lifted her eyes from the datapad’s screen and looked at me.

  I would have given anything to have been able to hold her right then. To kiss her. To let her know she could trust me. It went against everything I knew as an officer. As a captain of a ship. I didn’t have a current 2IC; Torrence was dead. But if I did, I would have felt obliged to share this knowledge with them. To ensure at least one other person on my flight crew was aware of where Pavo was and how to get him back into the ship’s systems.

  We needed that AI.

  But Commander Torrence was dead. And there already was one other person aware of Pavo’s current location. One other officer, currently signed on with Anderson Universal as a second lieutenant.

  I’d told Ana that the situation was unique and therefore I could make up the rules as I went. That had been a lie. I was subject to reprimand on arrival at New Earth like any other captain in the Anderson Universal fleet. My pension would be stripped if it was deemed I’d acted outside of acceptable parameters for an officer-in-charge. I could even be imprisoned.

  But I knew how to solve both our problems. Whether Ana would go for it, though, was another matter.

  Tough. Times of war and all that.

  “Second Lieutenant Kereama,” I said. Her eyes widened at my formal tone. “I’m promoting you to First Officer. Congratulations, Commander.”

  She blinked.

  I leaned forward, as much as I could in the small tube we were in. “This is where you say, ‘Thank you, Captain,’” I whispered.

  “Are you mad?” she whispered back.

  “I don’t think so. You were discharged honourably from the NZ Army. You’ve performed admirably since you received your field commission of second lieutenant. Both in the medbay during an emergency and on the bridge afterwards. I believe you are well qualified for the position.”

  “You are mad,” she said, as if coming to that decision suddenly. “There must be others in your flight crew better suited.”

  “No others have a direct connection to the AI.”

  I reached over and took the datapad from her hands before she could object and tapped in a message.

  I have just promoted Second Lieutenant Ana Kereama to First Officer. Please update the log.

  OF COURSE, CAPTAIN

  A WISE CHOICE

  “I’ll need to voiceprint confirm it when Pavo is back online, but for now, it’ll do,” I said.

  “I…I don’t know what to say,” Ana whispered.

  “Say nothing. Get us out of this mess.”

  She stared at me for a moment longer and then nodded her head.

  The datapad slipped back into her capable hands and she started tapping.

  Need more locations to access the bridge. Going to take it back from that psychotic scum.

  I liked her style.

  THERE ARE THREE MORE HATCHES YOU CAN USE

  A diagram of their locations and how to get to them emerged on the screen.

  “Let’s get back to the head and see if Chan has found his missing crewmen,” I suggested. Now we had a plan; I wanted to get on with it.

  “Yes, sir,” Ana said.

  I could get used to that, I thought, as I made my way backwards towards the toilet hatch. Ana followed behind me, crawling along as quietly as we could manage. Her still unbuttoned uniform shirt gaped wider with every inch of forward progress on her part.

  It wasn’t until we were about to climb out of the hatch and into the bathroom that I mentioned it. And received a scowl for my troubles.

  Yes, having Ana permanently on the bridge and in a position where she could constantly challenge me was more than acceptable.

  Now we just had to get out of this mess.

  Thirty-Five

  I Do Not Know

  Ana

  Lieutenant Chan was waiting in the bathroom with four of his men. That meant we had seven against eleven. But we would have the element of surprise.

  “How long do you think it will take for you to get into position?” Jameson asked Chan.

  “This one is the farthest,” he said, indicating the hatch on the far side of the bridge.

  We hadn’t told him Pavo was in the datapad, just that it was a datapad that happened to have had a schematic of the main deck on it before the systems went down.

  I was sure he hadn’t believed the captain when he said it, but he also knew not to ask.

  “It’ll take the longest to get there,” Chan added. “Possibly ten minutes at least.”

  “Send your most able men out now, then,” Jameson instructed. “And for star's sake, don’t make a noise and ruin our advantage.”

  Chan nodded at two of his men. They looked fit and able, and also small enough to make the swiftest progress in the small tubes we’d all be using.

  “Yes, sir,” they both said in unison, their voices low and steady.

  I watched them both crawl into the hatch Jameson and I had just crawled out of, as the captain and his chief of security went over the schematic again.

  “Sir, if you don’t mind,” Chan said, “I’d like to stick to your six.”

  “That works for me,” Jameson said. He eyed the two remaining midshipmen and then pointed to the life support hatch in the ceiling on the diagram. “This is the trickiest,” he said. “Sound could travel up there. You’ll have to tread carefully.”

  “We can do it, sir,” one of them said.

  “You won’t be able to see when we’re in position,” Jameson added. “So, you’ll have to be ready to act as soon as Chan and myself exit. We should be able to signal the others and time our attack together.”

  They nodded.

  “Off you go,” Chan said.

  They watched as the last two midshipmen entered the hatch and then Jameson turned toward me.

  “Commander,” he said. Chan arched his brow. “Lieutenant Chan and I will go through the hatch. You’ll stay in here.”

  “With respect, sir; no,” I immediately replied. Chan’s eyebrows went even higher. “I can’t offer assistance from in here.” I meant Pavo couldn’t if I wasn’t able to type in what was happening. And I wouldn’t be able to tell what was happening from in the head.

  “Point made,” Jameson conceded.

  A rush of relief coursed through me. I’d been worried, of course. That…incident in the tube when he’d kissed me had left me wondering if he’d now become overprotective. Sam hadn’t, but I’d also seen the battle with himself he’d undertaken on occasion. The need to protect me weighed against the need to treat me as a soldier. As a capable and competent addition to his squad.

  Jameson wanted me to be his 2IC; he had to treat me like a 2IC.

  “You’ll observe from the hatch until we have the situation resolved,” Jameson ordered. “D
o not, no matter what transpires, reveal your location.”

  Chan’s mouth opened as if to say something, but Jameson and I were too busy having a staring match to care. He wanted Pavo protected. I understood. But standing back while shots were being fired was not something I was good at.

  “Sir?” Lieutenant Chan finally said, winning his own internal battle to challenge his captain. “I’m not sure I understand. Lieutenant Kereama is seconded to security. She is more than qualified to join us. And we need the numbers.”

  Jameson spun to look at Chan; a brief flash of surprise crossing his features. I was sure he had forgotten the security chief was even there.

  “I have promoted Kereama to my First Officer,” he said. “She now carries the rank of Commander.”

  Chan hesitated and then said, “Yes, sir.”

  Jameson reached forward and placed a hand on Chan’s shoulder. “You’re going to have to trust me, Jason. There are things I can’t explain right now. But I have my reasons and they are valid.”

  Chan looked at me and then slowly nodded his head.

  I realised then that no matter what had transpired inside that maintenance tube, Captain Jameson and I would never get to kiss again. We couldn’t. Not now I was his second in command. I wondered if he realised that yet, too. Or if it wouldn’t hit him until this was all over.

  A part of me was relieved. I wasn’t sure I could fall for another man who put himself in front of danger just like Sam.

  And part of me was breaking. If only I had stayed a pay-for-passage.

  Jameson turned to look at me. “Stay hidden,” he said, and then climbed through the hatch.

  Lieutenant Chan met my eyes and said quietly, “Commander.” He may not have liked it, but he was an officer who followed orders.

  I watched him climb in the hatch and then pulled out the datapad. I wouldn’t get to use it in the tube as Chan could see what I was doing and I wasn’t risking Pavo even that much.

  We’re going in, I typed. Stand by.

  STANDING BY, ANA