Chapter Seven
The next morning, Bit was awake well before she heard any sound from the crew.
She had stayed in her room as long as she could the day before, working on the clothing donated to her, until she had to emerge for dinner, as per the captain’s order, but the minute that was over she went back to her room. She was long depleted of strength.
Thankfully, sewing had been a necessity of her life as an indentured. Most of her clothing back on Earth had been hammy downs. This was not a new experience for her—altering the clothes of others to fit her slight frame.
Now, though, after a night of sleep, she felt better able to face the men of the crew. Still, she wasn’t much interested in meeting them all in the corridor on her way to breakfast. She took Oden’s suggestion and slipped out of her room.
Bit stopped in her tracks, aware she wasn’t the first person up. David knelt next to the airlock, a tool bag at his knees. He smiled at her and waved his screwdriver in greeting. She waved back before turning toward the staircase.
On light feet, she glided down to the mess hall. To her amazement, Oden and another man already sat with plates of food.
She stopped in the doorway and stared.
The two men smiled and waved her over.
“I got caught,” Oden said with a sheepish grin.
Bit recognized the other man as one of the security team members—the one with hair just long enough to seem odd compared to the military haircuts.
“Have you met Blaine yet?” Oden asked.
“No. Nice to meet you, sir,” she said, shaking his offered hand.
“Well don’t just stand there, girl, get yourself something to eat,” Oden ordered, walking with her to the row of food laying across the steam tables.
“You’ve got to eat more, girl,” he said, piling more food on her plate, just as he had done the day before.
She looked back at her plate, wondering how she could possibly eat that much food. Bit followed the pilot over to the table and took the seat next to him. He was grinning ear to ear as she chose her seat.
They ate in silence for a few minutes before Oden spoke.
“I’ve got duty in a few, but I’ll meet you after for that for training,” he said to Blaine.
The fighter grunted around his bite of food.
“Um,” began Bit. “What about me?”
“I don’t think Cap meant for you to get trained,” Oden said after swallowing his food.
Bit glanced at Blaine. Whatever his thoughts on the topic, he was willing to let her deal with it. She wanted to leave it be, but an image of the pirates boarding the freighter gave her the necessary courage to speak up.
“And if we get boarded?” she asked.
“We’ll protect you,” offered Blaine, sounding a little condescending; his tone stiffened her spine.
“You can’t promise me that.”
Blaine glared at her, no doubt amazed that she was talking back. After all, until that moment she had been as timid as a battered puppy.
“I don’t mean no disrespect, sir, but you leaving me ignorant and unable to defend myself leaves me vulnerable on this ship, and if you all think that you have to worry about me, then you’re not focused on your job, and I become a liability.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Oden shaking with silent laughter.
“Do as the girl says,” Jack ordered from his position in the doorway.
She looked up at him, her voice suddenly stuck in her throat. She hadn’t realized the captain had been listening when she began her speech. Had she known, she might not have said anything.
“No one on the ship is to be unable to defend themselves, including her. Especially her.”
With this final statement, Jack went and got his own food. He took the seat next to Bit, blocking her from anyone else who might want to join them. It wasn’t long before the other crew members trickled in. From the looks they gave Oden, he was quickly becoming the traitor of the group.
“Thought of any brilliant schemes to use against those pirates, Cap?” Oden asked.
“Nope. You?”
Oden shook his head.
“Can I ask a question?” Bit asked hesitantly, instantly regretting opening her mouth.
“Sure.”
Bit looked down at her food, desperately wanting to backpedal out of the conversation.
“Um… I remember r-reading about the ships on Earth’s seas, specifically the-the submarines. They c-could launch countermeasures that would make enemy torpedoes blow up before they got to the ship. C-can we do something like that?”
Jack shrugged. “Not really. Those worked when the enemy could only shoot one or two shots. Ships nowadays, in space, can shoot loads and loads of shots.”
“Oh.” Bit felt stupid, now that he had spelled it out.
“They also dropped those depth charges, essentially bombs to shake the submarines to bits,” said Oden.
“You suggesting we drop bombs on the pirates?” chuckled Jack.
“We could release bombs, keep them chasing us, and then blow the bombs when the pirate ship is near,” countered Oden.
Jack stopped eating, thinking through the possibility.
“They’d shoot the bomb before they got near enough for it to do any damage.”
“Then we disguise ‘em,” said Bit before she could stop herself.
“As what?” scoffed Blaine.
Bit grimaced, once again kicking herself for speaking out. What had gotten into her?
“D-don’t you dump your t-trash into space, especially if you n-need all the speed you can get? Ocean vessels d-did something similar way b-back when,” Bit said to her half-finished breakfast.
The three men looked at her as though she’d suddenly explained nuclear propulsion.
“We make the bombs look like trash?” asked Oden, his frown suggesting the idea was slowly taking shape in his mind. “How small could the bombs be?”
Jack shrugged. “I think we’d have to get Dirk in on this to say for sure… but we might have something. Good thinking, Bit.”
“Earning her keep already,” said Oden as he patted her on the back. “I’ve gotta get to the bridge. Come hang with me, Bit, when you have the time.”
She smiled at him as he climbed to his feet.
Before Bit could figure out what she should be doing next, Blaine waved Randal over. The leader of the security team stopped at their table, taking the last seat available at their table, his plate already empty.
“Cap wants the girl trained. Who you want doing it?” he asked, glancing back at the other security team members.
Thus far, Blaine and Randal were the only ones she had met. By the looks of the others, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know them.
“You train her, with me overseeing. Start with firearms when the crew disperses. This good for you, Captain?” Randal asked, glancing at Jack who was just scraping his plate of the last of its food.
He nodded as he took the last bite and got to his feet, all in one smooth move.
Long before Bit could prepare herself for a one-on-one training season with this comparative stranger, the crew scattered, leaving them alone. Blaine grabbed her plate as he rose and dumped them in the dirty bucket just as Vance and Nolan began dragging the trays of uneaten food back into the galley.
“Come with me,” Blaine said as he licked the last of the grease off his fingers.
Bit followed him out into the hallway. He led her past the staircase into the part of the level she had yet to see. At the very end of the hall, she spotted a single door on the left. On the right, though, there were five narrow doors, evenly spaced.
Blaine stopped at the first door and punched in a code.
On further examination, Bit realized each of the five doors had keypads. She poked her head past the open door and blinked. The walls were lined with special trays and pegs, holding various weapons and weapon-related items—mostly handguns
, holsters, and vests.
“I take it you do not prescribe to the ‘overkill is underrated’ mindset,” she murmured as she scanned the various weapons, shocked into speaking.
Blaine let out a single chuckle that sounded more like a grunt as he selected one of the smaller pistols, along with a few other items.
“Is this all for our ship?” she asked when he didn’t respond.
Blaine glanced around. “These are just the handguns.”
“You mean there’s more?”
She glanced down the hall, suddenly realizing each of the five rooms were separated armories.
“Yep. And a secondary armory on the same floor as the bridge. We have Kevlar vests, helmets, rifles, etc.”
“Expecting to fight World War Four?”
Blain laughed again. “Just prepared for all eventuality.”
Bit smiled up at him. She had found him tense and reserved around her when she first joined him and Oden for breakfast, but the longer he was around her the more he seemed to relax. Bit was beginning to suspect the fighter was slow to warm up to people. She also suspected anyone he did like would have his fierce loyalty.
They returned to the mess hall and pushed the tables back to the corner. Bit glanced at the hole in the wall leading into the galley and found a door had been rolled down to block it. Blaine pulled a curtain across the far wall before moving to a nearby closet. Bit realized the curtain was made of some strange, thick material. It already showed signs of being struck by something small and metallic. From the closet, Blaine dragged a human-shaped target out and placed it in the center of the far wall.
Blaine motioned her to sit across from him on the one table still available. He placed the gun and the clip on the table, the muzzle pointing toward the empty wall.
“You understand that this kills?”
Bit swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. There was no laughter left in Blaine’s eyes. He was all business now.
“Good. First lesson about handling a gun: Never point it at anything you don’t intend to kill.”
Bit swallowed again. While she had been advocating for her right to learn, she had never actually thought about killing someone. Suddenly, the truth of it all was very real and very present. She nodded again.
“All right. Now let’s learn how to take it apart, clean it, and clear jams.”
Thirty minutes later she was barely able to put the gun back together with his step by step instructions. Bit stuck out her tongue as she struggled to get the last piece in place. She hated struggling with a new task and felt a new determination to conquer it.
With the last piece back in place, she set the gun down, careful to keep the muzzle pointing to the wall, and looked up at her trainer.
Blaine’s face was carefully neutral.
“That bad?” she asked, seeing the neutral expression as an effort to hide his frustration.
“Well… it obviously doesn’t come naturally to you, but that’s okay. We haven’t worked on it long. We’ll work on it more later. I have others coming for training and I want to see how you handle firing it before we quit for today.”
Bit swallowed again. Until now, she had mostly managed to look at the weapon as a tool, or broken piece of a gadgetry, rather than a killing device. Blaine handed her the gun and the clip before standing up. She followed him to a spot as far away from the dummy as they could get.
“Put the clip in.”
She obeyed.
“Take your stance. Legs a little further apart. No, here, like this.”
Bit felt her breath catch in her chest as he took up a position directly behind her and adjusted her body. She knew she needed to be focused on what he was doing so that she could remember the right position, but her brain froze. To her amazement, he didn’t step away.
“Now squeeze.”
Bit obeyed, her eyes blinking as she pulled on the trigger.
“Gotta keep your eyes open,” he said, humor making his voice lighter than it had been.
“Right,” she breathed. “Knew I forgot something.”
“Breathe, Bit. The gun’s not pointed at you.”
Bit tried, but her breath would only come in small gasps. Finally, Blaine stepped back, giving her the space she needed. He was staring at her, but she couldn’t worry about anything beyond breathing and the gun in her hand.
After a short eternity, he spoke. “Take your stance.”
She obeyed, once again.
Instead of lining his body up with hers, he adjusted her elbow with the barest touch. Bit felt her face burn with a blush, not because he had touched her again, but because he had realized the problem.
“Go ahead.”
She fired two rounds at the target, hitting the back curtain and grazing the dummy’s shoulder.
“Okay. You need to squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it back. It takes a tender touch.”
Bit turned to look at him as he spoke, unwittingly bringing the gun with her. In a split second, Blaine had the gun out of her hand and had somehow taken her to the ground, her arm pinned behind her back. She winced as her shoulder took the brunt of the fall.
“What the hell?” demanded a voice from the doorway. “Let her go!”
“Pilot Calen, how I train Bit is none of your business. You are dismissed,” Blaine growled, still pinning her to the floor.
Bit heard footsteps and the bang of the door shutting. Before she could realize Calen had left, Blaine set the pistol on the floor, the muzzle pointing away. Bit absently noticed that he had already flipped the safety on.
“Do you know why I took you to the ground?” he asked softly in her ear.
“Don’t point the gun at anything you don’t intend to kill,” she parroted back to him.
“Exactly. You point the gun at me, you go down. Do you understand?”
Bit nodded, her cheek rubbing against the metal plating.
With that, Blaine jumped up, reached down, and dragged her to her feet. Before either of them could say anything, the door to the mess hall swung open. Jack appeared with Calen on his heels.
Jack glanced between them before speaking. “Calen seems concerned you’re being too rough on Bit.”
Bit wanted to speak out but wasn’t sure how to start. She glanced at her trainer. He was already glaring at Calen.
“I take down any man who stupidly points a gun at me. Hell, I took Calen down three times in our first training session.”
“She’s not a man,” snapped Calen.
“Excuse me!” she yelled back before she could censure herself. “My breasts don’t negate the fact I need to learn. If this is how Blaine teaches then that’s how I want to learn. And trust me, one takedown and I don’t think I’ll be forgetting again.”
The three men stared at her. Bit felt her cheeks burn as she realized she had just yelled at the captain and the man who held her debt documents.
“Well, I think that’s settled,” said Jack. “Blaine, while remembering that Bit is not up to fighting weight, to begin with, proceed as you see best under Commander Randal’s supervision. Calen, in the future any concern you have with the security team will be taken directly to Randal, not me. Also, from a legal standpoint you might be her employer, but as far as this crew is concerned, your only relationship to Bit is first pilot on the same freighter. Understand?”
Bit watched as Calen seemed to chew on his own teeth. Finally, he nodded once and stomped off.
Bit worried she had offended him. She didn’t want to be making enemies, especially on her second day aboard the ship.
“Carry on,” Jack said as he glanced at the uninjured dummy.
With the bang of the door shutting, the room went silent. Bit couldn’t bring herself to look up at Blaine.
“You okay?” he finally asked.
She nodded, her eyes still glued to the floor.
“Bit?” he called, drawing her name out. “Are you lying to me? Did I hurt you?”
To her s
urprise, a sputter of laughter escaped her tightly pressed lips. While she suspected she might have a bruise on her shoulder come morning, it was nothing compared to the beatings she had taken from other employers.
“Was that funny?”
Bit shook her head, wiping laugh tears from her eyes as she worked to control herself. “I’m fah-hine. S-sorry, sir”
When she finally looked up, there was laughter in his eyes too.
“So we’re okay then?” he asked.
This sobered her jocularity. He was truly concerned that his actions had upset her.
“Sir…”
“Blaine.”
“Blaine, I’m not upset. I want you to treat me like everyone else.”
“I’m not sure I can entirely keep that promise, but I will try.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Never mind. Get going. I have a lesson with Calen next.”
“Ah. Uh… good luck.”
Blaine chuckled and motioned for her to leave. Bit obeyed and jogged up the stairs, feeling a weight lift from her shoulders. She couldn’t tell if it was from standing up for herself or from making a new friend. Either way, she felt happy.
But one look at Calen standing in the hallway outside her little room washed away whatever joy she had found. Bit stopped a few feet away and crossed her arms. She had defended her perspective twice today, she could damn well do it again.
“What?” she asked when he didn’t say anything.
She wanted to cringe at the harshness of her own voice but wasn’t ready to give away her proverbial footing.
“I was just standing up for you,” he said, his voice a perfect mixture of hurt and anger.
Bit felt her righteous indignation leak from her as her shoulders dropped.
“I know, Calen, but I need you to let me defend myself sometimes. Besides, I did accidentally point the gun at Blaine. He needed to correct me.”
“He didn’t need to throw you to the ground,” grumbled Calen.
“If he needs to do it to you, then he needs to do it to me. We have to learn.”
Calen closed the distance between them. “You’ve been through so much. You shouldn’t have to be beaten cause you made a mistake.”
Bit felt her anger surge back.
“What do you know of my past?” she demanded. “Nothing, that’s what. Check your facts before you go accusing him or me of anything.”
She lowered her eyes, the fight suddenly going out of her. She was putting a wedge between them and she didn’t want it there. She liked Calen, and she wanted to keep his friendship.
Despite the warning her body gave her, she reached out and gripped Calen’s hand, forcing her gaze up to him.
“I’m sorry, Calen. I shouldn’t have said that.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to fight with you. Blaine did nothing wrong. Please don’t fight with him because of me.”
Slowly, Calen nodded, squeezing her hand in return.
“You better get going. Blaine’s waiting for you. Be nice,” she added before he could reach the lower level.
Bit took another deep breath. Her battered mind was ready for a rest from navigating the new people in her life. Before she could open her door and disappear, Randal appeared. Bit’s shoulders slumped. Was he angry at her too?
“I hear there was a little conflict over Blaine’s training.”
She nodded.
“You want to rethink getting trained?” he asked.
Bit glanced up at him, his question taking her completely by surprise.
“No, sir. I made a mistake. Blaine corrected me in a way that I won’t soon forget.”
Randal gave her one nod, as though he was pleased with her answer, and headed up the stairs to the upper level.
Bit stumbled into her room and collapsed on the hammock.