"They wanted Ethan to help them, but something has gone wrong, and can get worse?"
"I'm not sure how, but yes."
20
You say tomato . . .
I saw this coming , Paige thought when Hillary crept out of the forward hold. Her little sister looked well-tousled and had a half-dressed Rabbit trailing behind her.
On the way back from talking with the Hak, they decided to split up again. Mikhail took the notes that she'd salvaged from Ethan's workshop back to the Svoboda while Paige returned to the Rosetta. The plan was for her to move her boat closer to his ship. Her family was translating for his crew. His Reds were standing guard over the Rosetta while her family was gone. It made sense to have the two vessels together to eliminate the constant coming and going. Turk, of course, came with her to oversee his Reds, and Hillary made sure that Rabbit was included. Somewhere between paying off the charges for their old berth and reaching the Svoboda, Hillary must have snuck Rabbit down below to make love.
Hillary glanced toward Paige to see if Paige was watching and realized she'd been caught. After a blush of embarrassment, Hillary lifted up her chin in defiance. Her look said "he's the one I want."
Oh joy. It was her right to pick, since falling in love sometimes meant leaving your family and home behind for the rest of your life. Rabbit came with entanglements. Making arrangements was probably going to be more complicated than just deciding which boat was in a better position to take the newlyweds.
Paige had to admit that in some ways, Rabbit was a better choice than Mitch had been for Charlene. The little Red was genetically designed to be without defects, raised with expert medical care, and was proving to be quite intelligent. Mitch was a distant and not very bright cousin whose immune system had been slightly damaged by a brush with a killer virus. Mitch, though, had been freeborn on this world. Rabbit was property from another.
Turk was lounging beside her, close enough that they were actually touching lightly at the hips. Now and then, he seemed to become aware of the contact and move away, and then, as if subconsciously drawn to her, drift back. Yet another male with entanglements.
"Rabbit is a yearling?" She tentatively waded into that pool.
Turk paused to scan over the boat to find the said Red before nodding, as if her comment was a way to point out some problem. "He's been on active duty for six months."
Reds were given sixteen years to mature, so Rabbit was the same age as Hillary.
"He's your runt?" Runts were lowest rung on the dominance ladder, nicknamed that because they were also usually the smallest, like Rabbit.
"Yes, but he's my smartest. That's why I picked him out."
Well, if she had to pick a combat trained Red out of the creches, a runt who was used to taking orders from everyone would probably be best choice.
She took a deep breath and stepped deeper into the treacherous waters. "He's got a standard contract?"
Turk pulled away and turned to face her fully. "Why?"
No, he didn't like the way this conversation was going. She could table the subject and take it up with Mikhail, who probably could handle it with less emotional difficulties. Talking about it with Turk, however, might create openings to discuss their own impossible relationship.
"We want Rabbit. Mikhail said I could have any thing off the Svoboda. We're want Rabbit."
Turk shook his head, moving farther away from her. "Why Rabbit?"
"Hillary's taken a liking to him."
"Your sister is a cat fancier?"
"What's a cat fancier?"
"A sick, perverted little slut."
He meant like the woman that humiliated him on the datastick that Paige had found in his cabin. He was comparing her virgin baby sister to that? Paige punched him. Even as she swung, she realized it was a bad, bad knee-jerk reaction. She'd been brought up that if someone slurred you, it was one thing, but no one could slur your family. She also recognized that if she only hit him lightly, things could get messy fast, so she committed to it, and hit him with everything she had.
It was kind of gratifying to know that a Bailey could still bring down a full blooded, combat trained Red in one hit.
"Well, I knew our relationship was impossible." She rubbed the hurt from her
fist. "It just wasn't going to work out."
He wouldn't stay down for long, and when he got up, he was going to be pissed. Time for damage control. Thank God the bridge was high enough that none of his Reds saw what was happening. She wrestled his body onto his stomach, and got his arms levered behind him before he came to.
She expected him to come to fighting. He jerked once, realized that she had him pinned, and went still.
"Now you listen to me, and you listen well," she said. "I could have left you in that nest. I didn't have to help you."
"You were stuck." Turk growled.
She smacked him on the back of the head. "Wrong answer. You say 'Thank you,' and mean it."
He growled lowly.
"You do not come onto my ship and call my baby sister a slut. Not when Rabbit wouldn't be doing anything to her that you haven't already done to me. Or are you implying that I'm a sick, perverted, little slut too?"
She was tempted to hit him again. She was angry that he had pushed the issue when she tried to keep her distance. Hurt and furious that he might think her perverted for giving in to him. It was really hard not to punch him again, but she had to get control before things got totally out of hand.
Turk had stopped growling, though his breathing was rough with anger. She kept him pinned, aware that their bodies were close as they'd been when they made love.
"Do you even know what a Red is?" She asked him. "They're humans made faster, stronger, healthier—better. You do understand the word? Better? It
means superior in every fucking way that could be imagined. Reds are humans—only better."
The door to the bridge opened. Rabbit stood in the door. He reacted instantly to Paige pinning Turk down. Rabbit brought up his rifle and fired, hesitating only a moment because it was her, not the normal target he'd been trained on. It was enough for her to jerk out of the way of the bullet. She followed the momentum of her body, rolling off Turk and behind the cover of the map table.
"No! Cease fire!" Turk roared, surging up to throw wide his arms in an effort to block a second bullet. "Stand down and get out!"
"Sir?" Rabbit sounded all his sixteen years.
"Get out!"
The door slammed shut. Paige scrambled back more as Turk turned and started toward her.
"Easy." He put out his hands to show he was unarmed. "I need to see where you were hit."
"Paige?" Orin called from the other side of the wall. There was a clink of a gun being loaded.
"I'm fine! Don't do anything." She'd run out of floor space. Like it or not, she was going to have to let Turk get close to her.
"I thought he hit you." Turk's hands shook as his quick search found the burn of the bullet's path across her shoulder. "I thought he killed you."
"I'm fine." She could see that he wanted to hold her, be comforted by offering comfort.
* * *
Mikhail had been watching the Rosetta sail up to his ship. Everything had seemed fine as it paused to let a barge go by. At the last minute, though, a single gunshot rang out. Mikhail watched through binoculars as the focus of everyone on the boat turned toward the bridge. He scanned through the crowd and couldn't find Turk.
If Turk had been hurt, though, his Reds would be reacting. The Reds on the Rosetta, though, were alert but in stand down position.
Minutes later Turk finally appeared, coming from the bridge. Even at this distance, Mikhail could read his distress.
What was going on? Oh, please God, don't let it be that one of my crew hurt one of the Baileys.
One of the Rosetta's dories were lowered and Turk bullied his Reds into it. Captain Bailey came out of the bridge. She and Jones climbed down into the boat, but there was an obviou
s "us" and "them" going on in the cramped quarters.
Mikhail met the launch out on the dock. Turk was the first one off.
"What's going on?" he asked Turk.
"I don't care who they are," Turk growled lowly. "You're not going to give them one of my Reds."
Bailey stayed on the boat as Mikhail's pride unloaded. "If I had known you were such a two-faced bastard I'd never have slept with you."
Turk jerked around, his body stiff with anger.
"Secure your pride." Mikhail caught Turk by the shoulder before he could do anything.
Turk glared at him.
"Commander." Mikhail growled at Turk.
Turk worked his jaw, but his eyes flicked to Paige and sudden despair filled his face. He barked commands at his Reds and stalked away.
"Which Red?" Mikhail asked.
"Rabbit." Bailey said.
"Rabbit?" He could understand Turk's reluctance to part with the little Red. Mikhail liked the small tom. What he couldn't understand was why that particular Red.
"You put a sixteen year old boy on my boat with my sixteen year old sister. She might already be pregnant by him. I would like the father of my niece or nephew to be living with us, not locked in some Red pit getting the shit beat out of him because he's small."
How did I not see this coming? Once he actually considered it, Hillary's and Rabbit's courtship had been fairly obvious. He had no idea, thought, how it escalated to gunfire. He sat on the ledge of the hanger's door, and indicated that she should come join him. "Let's talk this out instead of shouting at each other."
She swung up onto the dock as he sat down at the edge. She kept her back to the piling.
"What does Rabbit think of this?" Mikhail asked.
"He's more than happy to sleep with my sister."
"And he wants to transfer to your ship?"
"You don't ask someone like him what he wants. He doesn't know how to choose. Your people have never given him the chance to pick anything in his life. He doesn't pick what he wears. What he eats. Even what he's allowed to say to most of the people he interacts with."
"So you just take him away from everything he knows?"
"Yes, it sucks, but that's how it is in this world. Everyone on one boat is usually related. To find a partner, you hook up with someone from another boat. Then one of you has to leave everything you know behind."
He rubbed his temple, wondering again how this led to a shooting. "You and Turk?"
"Was a mistake." She stood up.
"Because he's a Red?"
"Because he thinks any woman that would sleep with a Red is a sick, perverted slut."
That sounded like a quote, and a possible cause for violence.
Mikhail sighed. "I don't suppose you mentioned that you're a Blue mixed with Red?"
It was always bad when someone made their face completely neutral.
"I don't care what you are," Mikhail said. "All I care about is how you treat my brother."
"How did you know?" she asked, meaning her parentage.
"Eraphie told me about her cousins. She had no way of knowing I'd ever meet you. So how exactly are you and Eraphie related?"
"My grandfather had been a crèche technician. After the Georgetown crashed, he raised twenty Reds out of the same lot as his sons. All of his sons consider themselves brothers."
"Making you and Eraphie cousins."
She nodded. "Genetics is an odd lottery system. She came mostly Red. My brothers and sisters and I came out mostly human."
"And it won't bother you that your sister's children will be full Red?"
"As I told Turk, Reds are humans—only better."
Obviously not. Too bad things were not working out between her and Turk; her attitude towards Reds would probably be good for his brother. Normally he wouldn't even consider her request, even though he desperately needed the Baileys' goodwill. But all things considered, the yearling was probably better off with the Baileys. Runts lived a hard life and were usually the first to die.
"You can have Rabbit," Mikhail said. "Give me time to deal with Turk. I'm going to have to beat on him to see reason."
"Thank you."
* * *
Turk fumed the whole way down to Beta Red. He knew what was happening behind him and he was furious with both Mikhail and Paige. It was Mikhail's father, Ivan, all over again, doing what was politically good, and disregarding what was good and right for Mikhail and Turk.
It wasn't until he was tagging in his Reds that he realized that Rabbit had fallen behind. He found the little Red curled in a ball, sobbing.
"Rabbit?" He knelt down beside the Red.
The tom looked up, tears streaming down his face. He was furring over from stress. Turk realized for the first time that the tom had spent most of his time in Ya-ya shed down to bare skin. "I just realized—I'm never going to see Hillary again, am I?"
Turk sighed. "The Rosetta asked to buy your contract."
"Hillary said they would, but then I shot Captain Bailey. I shot a human! They'll probably want me put down."
Would they? He'd been so concerned about whether Paige had been hurt that he hadn't considered that Rabbit's actions might have changed the Rosetta's demands. Well, he wasn't going to give his Red up, for either reason.
Turk pushed Rabbit's head back so that the little Red looked up into his face—see Turk's level calm promise. "I won't let them hurt you. And Captain Volkov would never agree to it."
Mikhail might sell one of his Reds to the Rosetta as a sex toy to get continued help, but he wouldn't kill one of his own crew. He was sure of that.
Rabbit sniffed and scrubbed at his eyes. "Why—why does it hurt so much?"
Turk sighed. He'd never had this talk with one of his Reds before. There was never any need. With the exception of cat fanciers, Reds never interacted with women. "It's called love."
"No, Hillary taught me about love. Love feels all warm and soft and good. This feels like someone pushing something through my chest."
"Love is mostly about pain." Turk said. "What happened on the Rosetta?"
"I heard what sounded like a body falling, so I investigated and found Captain Bailey assaulting . . ."
"No, I mean with Hillary. When did all this start? How long have you been . . .?" And how the hell did I miss it? Scratch that, I know: I let myself be distracted by Paige.
"The first day, when Hillary was shopping, I felt so stupid and clumsy. But then she started to ask me questions. What space was like? How dark was it? Do stars actually twinkle? What's it like to be weightless? Were planets really balls? And I realized that we just knew different things. She knew her home and I knew about our home."
"I meant the love part."
Rabbit looked at him in confusion. "It is part of the love part. She said she liked talking to me and I said that I liked talking to her. We went to this place in the hold, where no one goes, and we talked."
"Just talked?"
"At first." Rabbit studied him. "Am I in trouble for doing more than talking?"
"No." Turk kept all anger out of his voice. He was no longer sure who all he was angry at. Rabbit, though, was the most innocent person on the list.
"The space in the hold was really small, so we had to be close together while we talked. And I realized that I liked being close to Hillary. And she said she liked to be close to me."
God, at this rate, it was going to take half an hour until he found out if they had had intercourse. Worse it sounded more innocent than any teenage fumbling that Turk had witnessed, meaning he insulted Paige's little sister for nothing.
"Did you make love?" And in case that wasn't clear enough, Turk added technical terms for body parts and used hand motions to make it obvious.
Rabbit gave a tiny nod. "Many times."
So Rabbit had lived up to his name while Turk wasn't paying attention.
"Commander?" Inozemtsev called down the hallway to Turk. "The Captain wants you and Rabbit in his cabin immediately."
Despite being just a kitten, Rabbit was a seasoned warrior. Heartbreak he couldn't understand, but walking into a warzone he knew how to deal with. He took a deep cleansing breath and stood, sealing away all fear and uncertainly behind icy calm. Turk envied the crèche-raised that sometimes; to be able to shut off all feeling except anger, because anger was useful.
It was the first time he ever dreaded stepping into Mikhail's cabin the same way he used to dread going into Ivan's office.
"Commander Turk and Private Rabbit here as ordered." Turk snapped a salute.
"At ease. There is something I need to show Commander Turk." Mikhail cued something up to his monitor.
Turk took a deep breath as he realized that the nearly naked woman on the screen was a Red. He wanted to ask Mikhail questions but not in front of Rabbit, who might repeat it to Hillary.
"Eraphie?" Rabbit asked.
"Yes, soon to be your cousin, Eraphie Bailey."
"Bailey?" Turk's stomach gave a sickening lurch. No, he must have misheard.
"What's a cousin?" Rabbit asked.
"It means Eraphie and Hillary's fathers came from the same Red lot," Mikhail said.
"The Baileys . . .are Reds?" Turk asked.
"What's a father?" Rabbit asked.
Mikhail studied Turk before saying, "Rabbit, report to the Rosetta. They've bought you. Ask them to explain father, since you might be one soon."
"Does being a father have anything to do with shooting Captain Bailey?"
"No. Go on. They're waiting for you."
Rabbit snapped a salute and left.
"They're Reds?" Turk asked again.
"No. They're not." Mikhail said quietly. "Reds are humans raised in the dehumanizing crèches, where they're mentally shaped into weapons and nothing else. The Baileys are all natural born humans, raised by loving mothers and fathers with a wide extended family."
"That." Turk pointed at Eraphie. "Is a Red. How more cat-like does she have to get before you see her as a Red?"
The comline chimed as Mikhail stared at him in amazement. Mikhail slapped on the intercom. "What?"
"Sir, I need to talk to you about . . .something." Tseytlin's voice came over the com. "You really need to see this."