An hour later, Bit began to wonder why learning to fly had ever sounded like a good idea. Oden had gone over the long array of controls twice before she realized just how hard this would be.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she said as she inched away from him.
“Why’s that? Bit, I spent three years in flight school before I was ever allowed to fly an actual ship… and that had been a simplified, two-man skiff, not this monstrosity. I don’t expect you to get it all in one explanation, or even two.”
“Three years?”
“And three more after that without being allowed to fly solo. Trust me, Bit,” he said as he took hold of her shoulder and gave it a little shake. “You’re not behind the rest of the class.”
Oden waved his free arm to indicate all the other people in the empty bridge. Bit smiled, half amused with herself and half with his expressions. She was truly coming to like Oden, and the sensation made her feel guilty. Calen was the one, technically speaking, who had saved her from her past life. Shouldn’t he be her closest friend?
“All right,” continued Oden. “Why don’t you take it for a spin?”
He nodded to his own seat as he climbed out of it, as though he thought she should take the controls. Bit stared up at him, her eyes going wide.
“Teasing,” he added, giving her shoulder another shake.
Bit let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“Funny,” she said with a sarcastic sneer.
He just smiled at her, as though her grumbling was the best thing he’d heard all year. Bit was beginning to find Oden as an oddity, in the very best way. His tattoos and piercings suggested rough and hard, and yet she found him to be nothing but softness and kindness.
Bit pulled her eyes off of him, afraid he’d not like her staring. She felt a blush warm her cheeks as she realized she had been staring at a man. She couldn’t remember the last time she had enjoyed looking at a man, much less enjoyed being around one.
Before either of them could say anything, they heard the sound of footsteps climbing the steps outside the bridge. Jack appeared, his face taking on an expression she couldn’t translate, but it swiftly shifted, leaving Bit feeling uncomfortable.
“Just the woman I was looking for,” he said to fill the pause.
“Could you look for another woman on this ship?” asked Oden with a laugh.
“Excellent point. Bit, you good with putting small objects together?”
“I used to assemble toasters on Earth for one of my past jobs.”
“Perfect,” he said. “I pitched your idea to Dirk and he’s willing to give it a try, but needs some extra hands to get them all assembled as fast as we can.”
“You want me to help assemble bombs? My toasters never had the potential to blow up in my face.”
Jack and Oden laughed at her, or was it at her statement?
“The engineers will handle the actual explosives. You and the others will help make the bombs look like bits of garbage.”
Bit shrugged. “Not sure how much help I can be, but I’m willing to try.”
“Perfect. Head down to the mess hall.”
Bit nodded, waved at Oden, and left. Before she could reach a safe distance, she heard Jack speak to Oden.
“Careful, boy. You keep this up, you’re going to become hated by the other men.”
Bit hurried down the second case of stairs, afraid to hear any more. She had a sneaking suspicion that she knew what Jack meant, but didn’t want her fears confirmed.
She reached the mess hall and found it far from empty. To her relief, she knew everyone present. Bit was tired of meeting new people, though she suspected there were not many left that she had not been formally introduced to.
She knew the chief engineer, more from what others said than personal interaction. He was the oldest member of the crew and had flat-out protested the crew’s recent addition.
Bit recognized his first assistant, Forrest, as one of the men who had been at the poker game that had changed her life. His dirty-blond hair was unmistakable. Blaine stood next to him, blocking Nolan, the assistant steward who had messed with her when she first arrived, from getting any closer.
“There you are,” Blaine said as he shifted to stand next to her, his body still between her and Nolan.
Overall, she thought the crew was overreacting. Nolan had been aggressive, yes, but they didn’t need to keep them apart forever. She refused to be ostracized from one of the crew members. After all, the other men couldn’t keep this up indefinitely. Bit would just have to find peace with Nolan and prove to the others that there was no need for their protective behaviors.
Before anyone could say anything else, Jack appeared in the doorway.
“Right. Show us what we’ve got, Dirk,” Jack said, pushing them toward productivity.
Dirk glanced at his new crew for a moment, his gaze resting on Bit for an extra second before he stepped up to a table where an array of items had been placed.
“With Blaine’s help, we came up with this.” He picked up a device that was about the size of a woman’s shoe, with wires connecting different sections. “It is a small bomb that can be remote detonated and makes a rather large shockwave. We need to find a way to make it look like garbage and we need to find a way to mask its signal without blocking the signal from our remotes.”
The men stared down at the small device, no one daring to speak.
“Could we put the bombs on a timer, instead of remote detonated?” Bit finally asked when the silence had dragged out.
“Then we don’t have as much control over when they go off. They still need to be relatively close to the enemy ship to do any damage,” said Forrest
“Math’s never been my strong suit,” admitted Nolan, “but can’t we calculate, based on their speed and ours, how long to wait for the bomb to go off?”
No one responded.
“Would it be better or worse to have it go off a bit early or late, or risk the chance it never goes off at all?” Nolan asked.
Bit kept her mouth shut. She agreed with Nolan, but compared to the two engineers and Blaine—who dealt with this type of stuff regularly—she and Nolan were the least educated.
Finally, Blaine nodded. “I think we should try it as a timer first. If it doesn’t work well the next time the pirates attack, we can adjust.”
“Assuming we ain’t dead,” grumbled Dirk.
“Would you rather not try it?” Blaine asked politely.
“I never said that.”
“You’re the chief engineer, Dirk. I follow you on this,” said Blaine.
“And you’re the demolitions expert.”
“I say we try it on a timer,” said Jack, breaking up the polite battle taking place.
“Now the issue is how to cover them in garbage,” said Forrest as he rotated the demonstration bomb.
“Thing is,” began Blaine, “I don’t think we should be attaching anything directly to the bomb. It’s a stable concoction, but I wouldn’t want us using drills or hot glue on them. Too much of a risk.”
Bit frowned down at the small shape, an idea slowly taking shape. Without saying anything, she turned and walked into the ship’s galley. Vance was working away, preparing for the evening meal. He glanced at her, eyeing the row of men that had followed her silent retreat.
“Can I look around, Vance?” she asked in an effort to keep on the steward’s good side.
“Umm… sure?” he replied, his eyes more on the captain
Bit, barely waiting for an answer, was already head-deep into one of his storage cabinets. She searched and searched, finally finding what she was hoping to see. In one cabinet she found row upon row of enormous cans, filled with anything from fruit, to tomato paste, to pulled pork.
She used both hands to lift one up above the counter.
“Vance, you have any empty cans?”
He turned around and looked at the large can. “Nope. We’ve bee
n eating fresh so far. Haven’t dug into those yet. Why?”
Bit looked over at the captain.
“Well, we kinda need some of those,” said Jack with a big grin.
Vance glanced back at whatever he had been working on.
“Guess I can make a change on the menu. Bit, get six of the tomato paste out. Will six be enough?”
“We could start with six with the timers. Make more later?” asked Blaine.
Jack nodded. “Six will do, but get us more as soon as you can.”
“We’ll have canned peaches at breakfast.”
“Good.”
Bit wasn’t too impressed with the idea of canned peaches for breakfast, but she was happy that the captain seemed to like her idea.
“You saying we put the bombs in the cans? Will that really look like trash?” Dirk asked from the doorway of the galley.
“We don’t just put the bombs in the cans,” said Bit as she hoisted the last can onto the central countertop. “We can attach more garbage to the cans, disguising them.”
“Blaine already explained, we can’t have tools like drills near the bombs.”
Bit hesitated a moment, wondering where the breakdown in communications was taking place. There was nothing she could do but explain it again.
“We make the attachments before we put the bombs in. Then all we have to do is reseal the top, and we could do that with duct tape.”
Dirk glared at her for a moment before stomping back into the mess hall. With the men’s help, they quickly dumped the contents of the six cans into two enormous pots, rinsed the cans out, and returned to mess hall.
“What about the trash?” she asked as they lined up the cans.
“You offering to climb in the trash container?” asked Nolan in a rather grumpy tone.
No doubt Nolan expected he would be the one short-listed for the task.
“I’ll do it,” Bit said in an effort to smooth things out between her and Nolan and the rest of the crew.
“You don’t know what you’re offering,” smirked Forrest.
“It’s okay. So long as I can borrow a shower, I’ll do it. Trust me, I’ve had worse jobs.”
No one argued further. Minus Dirk and Jack, the small group wandered down to the lowest level of the ship—a place Bit had yet to see. The lowest level contained the seldom-used infirmary, the life support device, Vance’s enormous cold storage, the engineering department, and the ship’s two trash compactors.
They went into the infirmary, where the only access panel to the port-side compactor sat. The small hole was positioned on the wall just above Bit’s head. Blaine and Forrest undid the lock and pulled the panel free. A noxious odor escaped the hole, quickly filling the infirmary.
“I think I’m going to regret this,” Bit said, more to herself.
“Want a leg up?” Blaine asked.
“I think I’m gonna need it.”
Bit lifted her leg, placing her shin in Blaine’s laced fingers. He easily hoisted her up and into the hole. Bit rolled forward, landing on something squishy. Slowly, careful to not cut herself on anything sharp, she got to her feet. The men were already shining flashlights into the narrow hole. Bit took one and began searching the debris.
“Any suggestions of what we want?” she asked as she found a weird twist of metal.
Bit pulled the metal thing out and lifted it up to the waiting hands.
“That’s good,” said Blaine. “Find more stuff like that.”
“I’m trying but this compactor has a lot of mushy stuff. Eww, what’s thi… oh, gross.”
“You volunteered,” said Nolan.
“I know. I know. Oh, here’s something.”
Bit dragged another metal piece up to the window. In the dim light provided by the flashlights, she couldn’t quite tell what she was stepping in, but based on the compactor’s position, most of it was loose food, left to rot until they dumped the contents into space.
She suddenly stopped, working to keep her breakfast down as her bare feet slipped into something wet, the goo sliding between her toes.
“Bit, you okay?” Blaine called when she stopped making noise.
She nodded, only half aware that they couldn’t hear her nod. Slowly, she swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Bit?”
“Yeah,” she said, barely getting sound past her constricted throat. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
Bit rolled her eyes. Her annoyance with their over-protectiveness helped her work past the nausea.
“I’m fine,” she repeated, sounding more herself. “Just got some goo between the toes.”
She heard them muffle their laughter.
“Laugh it up,” she growled, feeling safe inside her garbage compactor; the feeling gave her the courage to say what she normally wouldn’t have. “Shine your light to the right.”
They did and she could see a little better. She began to dig through the piles searching for more metal or plastic bits. It took her a while, but eventually, she found enough stuff to attach to the six cans.
She was digging for one last piece when something sharp snagged her arm.
“Ow!” she cried before she could censure herself.
“Bit? What’s happened?”
“Caught myself on something sharp.”
“Come on out. This will do,” said Blaine.
“Just one more thing. I’ve almost got it cleared.”
“Bit, you get out here right now! That’s an order,” came Forrest’s voice from the small hole.
Bit froze, her breath catching in her chest at his angry tone. She took a moment, forcing her fears down. Her mind knew that none of them—even Nolan—would hurt her. There was no need for the fear that clenched her gut.
Of course, her mind telling her body this did nothing to help her relax.
From where she stood in her pile of muck, she heard the men talking softly. She couldn’t make out the words but sensed that Blaine was telling Forrest off. Bit grimaced. She didn’t want the men fighting each time one of them snapped at her or did something the others didn’t like. She needed to be strong, and she needed to prove her strength to them, all of them.
The thing was, standing in a pile of rotting mashed potatoes, with her arm bleeding, she didn’t feel very strong. In fact, she could already feel tears running down her cheek. Before she could turn and work her way back to the opening, she heard a door bang shut.
“Bit?” came Blaine’s voice from the opening. “I’ll help you down when you’re ready.”
“I’m coming,” she called, pleased to hear how calm her voice sounded.
She climbed through the filth and reached the hole. Despite the garbage she stood on, the hole was still above her head, but not by much. She reached up and tossed the flashlight out, trusting the others to dodge the projectile. Strangely, she didn’t hear it clank against the floor.
Bit reached up, intending to grab the edge of the opening and pull herself up. Before she could find a grip, two strong hands grabbed her wrists and began pulling. She let out a squeak of surprise—and a little pain—as he pulled her through the hole. Bit had a moment of fear as she began to slide downward, thinking the metal plating of the floor looked a lot harder than the pile of garbage she had rolled onto before, but instead of letting her fall headfirst, Blaine moved her hands to his neck and wrapped an arm around her waist. She slid downward, right into his arms, their chests pressed against each other.
Had she not been covered in trash, tears, and blood, she might have been worried he would do more. Blaine looked down at her, his hair sliding down until it fell into his eyes. Before she could panic, he released his hold on her waist, allowing her to step back.
“Let me see that arm,” he said, lifting her grimy arm up to see the gash.
Blood mixed with gunk plastered to her arm. Blaine led her over to an enormous sink, where he placed her arm. He flipped the water on and began cleaning
her arm.
“Where are the others?” she asked, glancing around the empty infirmary.
“I sent them up with the stuff you found.”
“Blaine…”
“Hm?” he grunted, his attention taken up by the injury to her arm.
“You didn’t need to send them away.”
Either her words or her tone caught his attention. He looked up at her, no doubt taking in the tear streaks on her dirty face.
“I thought you’d want some privacy,” he said, turning back to work on her arm.
“No. You thought I wouldn’t want to be around Forrest after he snapped at me.”
“He shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“Why’s that?”
Again, Blaine stopped to look at her.
“Whatever position I end up taking on the crew, it will be beneath everyone else. I was disobeying. Why shouldn’t he snap at me?”
Blaine didn’t answer.
“I need you guys to stop trying to protect me all the time, especially from each other.”
“Don’t expect that anytime soon,” he told her wound.
“Why’s that, Blaine?”
Finally, with a sigh, he looked up at her. “This crew is full of some very protective men. Don’t expect them to change on your account.”
Bit felt her lower lip begin to tremble. She bit down on it and stared at the man holding her arm, her red blood still dripping into the sink.
“If you guys don’t let me learn to stand on my own, I will be trapped as the victim for the rest of my life.”
Bit hadn’t meant to say that much. She stared at Blaine, afraid he’d be upset with her. Instead, he let out a sigh and nodded, looking as though her words had deflated him. She laid her other hand on his arm, drawing his attention again.
“I can’t be afraid forever. You’ve already helped me with that, and I think the more you teach me about fighting, the more I’ll feel like I can stand on my own two feet.”
“Fair enough. But for the record,” he said with a new smile, “I’m teaching you to defend yourself. I don’t want you to go pickin’ fights just ‘cause you know stuff.”
Bit felt a large smile spread across her lips. “Deal.”
Blaine took a few more minutes to clean the wound, stitch up the torn muscle and outer skin, and bandage the arm. When he finished, he wrapped the bandage in plastic, as though it was food he wanted to preserve.
“There’s a shower right through there. Forrest put some clean scrubs in there for you to change into.”
She disappeared into the shower and luxuriated in the hot water. When she emerged—clean and dressed—she found Blaine dressed in a matching pair of scrubs. Belatedly, she realized she had transferred plenty of the garbage and blood from her clothing to his. The scrubs fit him better, stretching across his muscled chest. She had to roll the pants up to keep from tripping and tie the drawstring to keep them from falling to her ankles. Still, they were clean and she wasn’t about to complain.
With careful fingers, Blaine removed the plastic wrap from her arm without ruining the pristine, white bandages.
“Give me your dirty clothing. We can pop them in the washing machine before we join the others,” he said as he took her dirty clothing and added them to his pile.
Bit followed him up the stairs to the level with the mess hall. They walked down to the end of the hall and through the only door on the right side of the hallway. Inside sat three dual washer-dryer machines. Blaine dumped their clothing in, adjusted the knob, and started the machine. They went back to the mess half and found the other men already hard at work attaching the trash to the emptied cans.
They looked up, eyeing her and Blaine in their matching scrubs. Belatedly, Bit realized what might be running through the other men’s heads and felt a blush darken her cheeks.
“Forrest tells me Bit got hurt,” said Jack as he walked over and lifted Bit’s arm to look at the bandages.
“Three-inch laceration. I cleaned and bandaged it. I don’t think more stitches will be necessary, but we will want to keep a close eye on it in case it gets infected.”
“I’m fine,” she said, annoyed with Blaine’s tone, though she couldn’t say why.
“Very well. You see her for training in the morning so I’ll leave it to you. Let’s get this finished up, boys,” Jack continued, turning to the men. “Randal will want this place for group training in less than an hour, and Vance is going to want to clean these tables before we eat on them.”