Conversations on the Fortune's Fist: Sixteen

"I've fucking seen him," Erin Tan snapped, "And don't you go saying I haven't!"

Helmi Alpassi didn't sigh or roll her eyes, although it took fairly heroic self-restraint. Ancestors spare me. 

Not that they ever did, in Helmi's experience.

"Erin," she said reasonably, scraping the last forkful of beef-flavored protein off her plate. "You saw your grand-dad in the engine room and some woman made of fire down by cargo. Maybe - "

Erin turned sharply enough to set her sleek black hair swirling out around her shoulders. "Yes! I did see them. And I saw the Chief too! Clear as I see you, Helmi, clear as I see you right now!"

"All right."  Helmi leaned forward and rested her elbows on the mess table. "Say you did see the Chief. What was he doing?"

"He was adjusting the enviro controls."

Helmi grinned.  "Well, that explains why it's been so spirits-damned cold around here lately, anyway."

"No!" Erin dropped onto the bench opposite Helmi and leaned forward. "He was turning them up. You know, it's cold because Pilot's always telling us to set them down further. And the Chief was putting them back to normal!"

Helmi pushed her plate away. "Uh-huh. So ghosts can change the settings on things?"

"Sure! Like, there was that one on that ship, the frigate, that kept setting the autopilot to the old pilot's home world? And the one that - "

"Erin."  Helmi rubbed her forehead. Ancestors and spirits spare me from superstitious fools, if you would be so fucking kind. For once in your afterlife. "Those are just bar stories."

Erin folded her arms and set her chin. "You don't believe me."

"I've never seen a ghost, I've never seen any proof of a ghost, I - "

"What about the ghost ships, the - "

"It's a big black Deep out there, Erin. You don't need ghosts to have a reason for strange stuff happening."

"You believe in spirits, though, don't you?" Erin asked. "Dead people, protecting you?"

"It's not exactly the same thing," Helmi said.

"Well, why not? If your ancestors can watch over you, why can't the Chief be watching over the ship?"

"Well, they don't follow me around fiddling with enviro controls, for one thing!"

"Then what do they do?"

Helmi thought about the low table in her quarters, the little figurines worn featureless and smooth with years of handling. "You know what? I'm not going to get into it. Religion is religion, and it's private."

"Well," Erin said stubbornly, "What I believe is private too."

Helmi shook her head. "No, not so much. Not when you're going around telling people that dead people are hanging around. Then it's ship's business. And - " Helmi held up her hand as Erin drew an angry breath to reply "And, if you think I'm wrong about that, then just think about what the XO would say if she heard about it."

"I'm not going to pretend that - "

"Don't be a fucking fool!" Helmi snapped, and got wide-eyed silence from the engineering ensign at last. "You can't be stupid enough not to realize what's happening to this crew! Sarge is gone. The Doc's gone. The  Chief's dead. Pilot's in medical every day and she never was exactly proactive, was she?"

"So?"

Helmi sighed. "Ship's more than steel and engines, Erin. Maybe being engineering makes that hard to see? But look around. Hear what people are saying. Place is coming apart at the seams.  You think telling ghost stories is going to help that?"

"Um ..."

"Um is fucking right."  Helmi picked up her empty plate and stood up. "So do us all a favor, okay?"

"What?"

Helmi tossed her plate in the 'cycler and turned to the door. "Keep what you see to yourself."

"Don't you think it would help?" Erin asked.  "People knowing ... that the Chief was still looking out for us?"

Helmi stopped at the door. "The dead don't look out for us, Erin."

The dead look out for themselves.

In that way, at least, they're just like everybody else.

Four Bells

Luisa shuffles the cards.

She can't send them shooting from hand to hand in a flashy waterfall like Nerila, can't cut them one-handed or flip them over her fingers. Can't palm an ace the way Nerila did.

Wouldn't if I could.

She shuffles, unfancy, precise, no Spirits-lost Gallente foolishness.  

Deals in a circuit, two cards, one, two more.


Five cards face down in front of her.


Five face down at each of the three empty places around the table.

You're a stupid, sentimental old woman, Lulu Kamajeck.


Fisk Hurun wasn't about to pick up the cards at the place to her left, his big hands dwarfing them, handling the squares of pasteboard with the exaggerated care of a man whose augmented strength could rip a door from its hinges in a moment of inattention.

No, he's off somewhere in that fancy battleship he flies these days, or living the highlife with that little Vherry girl he's taken up with. 


Nerila Janianial wasn't reaching for the cards to Luisa's right, either, long dark fingers deftly rearranging them and maybe slipping in a high card as she did it. Gone, without a word. I told Pilot not to hire a fucking junkie, but no. 'Everyone deserves a second chance, Luisa.'


Well, shit. Only people asking for second chances are those already proved themselves untrustworthy.


As turned out to be true. 


And Michael Mitcheson wasn't sitting across from her, playing footsie with his wife as if none of us noticed and watching the bottle go around the table with just a little bit too much interest.

And one thing you can say for that over-sexed, over-charming Gallente son-of-a-bitch, he's the only one of 'em hasn't left the ship.


No. Downstairs, is where Mitch is.  Cold and stiff in one of his wife's morgue drawers, waiting for someone to track down his junkie bride so the decencies could be done.

Luisa sweeps up her own hand and tosses it face up. Two acorns, four leaves, six and seven of hearts, ten bells.


Handful of trash, is what I got. 


Handful of trash.


There's still an inch left in the bottle of Invelen's fine Pator vodka. Luisa hooks it out of the cupboard and pours herself a careful quarter of that last inch, caps it and puts it back.

Better than I'll ever afford, that's certain.


And when it's gone, that'll be that.


Gone.


She toasts the empty chairs around the table and tosses the vodka back. The burn makes her eyes water and she blinks hard as she sweeps up the cards and begins to deal them out again, seven stacks in front of her this time, one, one two, one two three.


Five of acorns on the six of bells. Nine hearts on ten leaves.  Turn over eight acorns and move it over.

You can fool yourself into thinking poker's your game, Lulu. But in the end ... 


In the end, it's always solitaire. 

The Lighthouse

In the months they were together she mapped his body with a surgeon's knowledge and a lover's touch.


The serratus anterior originates on the surface of the upper eight ribs at the side of the chest and inserts along the entire anterior length of the medial border of the scapula.

Bones, muscles, ligaments ...  the machinery of the human body, her expertise, her specialty, the one thing she can always rely on. She knew every joint and every hollow of his body, from textbooks, from a thousand operations, before the first time she lay down beside him.

Discovered them anew, in the miracle of Michael Mitcheson stretched out beside her.

The levator scapulae arises from the transverse processes of the first four cervical vertebrae and inserts into the vertebral border of the scapula.

"You have a beautiful sternocleido mastoid."

"A what-which-now?" Mitch asked, grinning.

"Here." Nerila ran her fingers along the muscle. "From the medial portion of your clavicle to the mastoid process of your temporal bone."

"That's a fancy way of saying neck, then?"  He wrapped his arms around her and rolled them over, bent his head to kiss her throat. "You have a beautiful stern-cled-mast-thingie too, sweetheart."

She giggled. "That's my hyoid bone."

"And a very pretty hyoid bone it is."

"Like you care what it's called!"  She tangled her fingers in his hair, her other hand flat against the smooth plane of his left latissimus dorsi. 

"Like you care if I care..." 

The pectoralis minor arises from the third, fourth, and fifth ribs, near their cartilage and inserts into the medial border and upper surface of the coracoid process of the scapula.

"From the pectoralis minor to the biceps brachii ... " Her fingers found the small nub of bone on the hollow of his shoulder. "That's your coracoid process.  We call it the Surgeon's Lighthouse."

"Why?" He turned his head to grin at her. "It flashes on and off in the dark?"

She smiled back. "A lot of nerves and blood vessels in there. This little bone tells us where they are, if there isn't time for a scan. Shows us where to cut, to be safe."

"Keeps you off the rocks?"

"Exactly." Nerila traced the fragile wing of his clavicle with one finger.  For whole moments of time she could forget that body beside her, warm and strong and by a process no science could explain containing a mind and soul unlike any other, was as fragile and as vulnerable to steel and blast-caps as any other bleeding on her table. "Exactly."

On the lateral angle of the scapula is a shallow pyriform, articular surface, the glenoid cavity, which is directed lateral and forward and articulates with the head of the humerus.

She is up to her elbows in blood, which makes it an ordinary day for her, now.

No scans, no fancy equipment. Those who can, go to station medical. Even here, in the heart of the Syndicate, there's quality medical care - for those who can afford it.

Who can afford to answer the questions that come with it.

Who want doctors who can afford to answer questions themselves.

Nerila has no scans, no machines. She has scalpels and sutures and bandages. She has a table scrubbed with disinfectant in a dingy back-room that's as clean as she can make it.

She has two steady hands and a knowledge of the human body that no scanner could match.

There is blood everywhere, sharp red arterial blood pumping from the jagged hole in the shoulder of the man sprawled on her table. His friends are standing by the door, big men with hard faces, and Nerila is under no illusion that her life depends on how well she does here.

There's too much blood to see the bleeder, and she has no med-tech to suction out the wound.  She feels for it with fingers slippery with blood, knowing where it has to be, the dorsal scapular artery just where it emerges from the superior angle of the scapula ... there.


She pinches with two fingers, follows along them with a clamp.

The bleeding stops.

Now her time is measured in seconds, before she has to choose between saving this man's life and saving his arm.  The round is still in the wound, she can tell.  No way to get a grip on it with forceps - she'll have to cut.

There's a lot that can go wrong for her patient, if she cuts into the mess of nerves and blood vessels in his shoulder, without a scan to guide the knife.

There's a lot that can go wrong for her personally, right now, if she doesn't do what the men by the door want and fix him up, fast.

Nerila puts her thumb in the hollow of his shoulder, by the wound, finds the hook of bone that she knows will be there, measures by eye from the Surgeon's Lighthouse.

Cuts.

The flesh parts beneath her blade.

Her hands are steady, and fast, but her eyes don't see a bloody wound, ragged flesh, clean incisions.

She has relearned her anatomy, and every body on her table is the same body, now.

Nerila cuts, stitches, bandages.  Takes the money and the threats designed to keep her mouth shut. Scrubs blood from the table and from beneath her nails.

Afterimages linger on the inside of her eyelids, even though she knows the table is as empty as her bed.

The coracoid process, a small hook-like structure on the lateral edge of the superior anterior portion of the scapula ... serves to stabilize the shoulder joint ... palpable in the deltopectoral groove between the deltoid and pectoralis major muscles.

In her dreams, she traces the spot, leans over to press her lips to it.

The lighthouse that used to keep her from the rocks.

Conversations on the Fortune's Fist: Fifteen

Nerila didn't hear him the first time.

The thoughts that raced and crowded and tumbled through her head, pushing each other aside before she could bring them in focus, Pilot's tests - Crew - pod maintenance - need to make that bed - hire new medtech - stove needs cleaning - check Alpassi's scans - inventory assessment, drowned out Mitch's voice until he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him.

"Talk to me. Sweetheart. Please."

Her heart did a little double thump at what she saw in his face, and her thoughts went straight to the glass vial tucked down at the bottom of her pocket. Hidden. Hidden well enough? Safe? "Nothing, nothing's wrong, I'm just distracted. Too much to do, you know?"

"Sweetheart," Mitch said softly. "Don't take me for a fool."

The lie was ready on her lips, rehearsed. Hells, rehearsed. Because she'd been ready for this moment, not knowing who it would be, but knowing it would come. Like it always does. Like it had last time, time and time over. She knew how to handle it, had handled it a dozen times before. 

First denial. No, of course not. Perhaps with a touch of outraged anger. How could you think that of me? If that didn't work, carefully calibrated admissions. I did try it. I know it was silly. Or I do occasionally, yes. Not more than once a month.

All of it, tried and true strategies.

She looked into his eyes and realized there was nothing in her that could lie to this man, not this man, not Michael Mitcheson, not her husband.

"I'm sorry," she said, instead. "I'm sorry."

"How much?" he asked. "For how long?"

How much? Enough. Isn't that the only answer? "Too much," she said at last, looking away from him. "Too long."

"Sweetheart." He tightened his grip a little on her shoulders. "You have to deal with it. Get clean. Time off, whatever."

"I know, I know.  When I get this last lot of tests through for Pilot, I'll - "

Mitch shook his head. "No. It won't ever be the right time, sweetheart. There'll always be something else. Another reason."

Nerila bit her lip. "I can't, not yet, not right now..."

"You can. You have to."  He folded her in his arms, whispered to the top of her head. "I'm here, sweetheart. We'll get through this. We will."

Then she could lie to him, look up and meet his gaze and smile and say "I know. I know."

Because there was no we. In everything else, maybe.

Not in this.

After that, it was easy, so easy it felt inevitable.  I'll put in for leave. Today. This is it. 

It'll be hard. I'll need you.

She watched him leave for his duty shift.

She packed a bag.

Not with much. A couple of changes of clothes.

She left her wedding ring on the dresser.

The transport hub was crowded. Old men walking with sticks, children clinging to parents' hands and gazing around wide-eyed, sullen teenagers with too much makeup.

Everybody trying to get to somewhere that isn't where they are.

She picked a destination. Pochelympe .  Nowhere she'd ever heard of. She liked the name, liked saying it over to herself as she waited in line to buy a ticket. Pochelympe. Pochelympe. Pochelympe.

Pochelympe.

A simple transaction, which she found a little disappointing. Moments like this should have some sort of complicated rigmarole attached. Maybe a ritual.

No ritual. Just pushing her bank chip across the counter and the clerk pushing it back with a ticket, not even looking up from the holonovel he's watching beneath the desk.

And then she's taking the short walk to the Interbus, pushing her way through the mass of people, all trying to be somewhere or someone they aren't.

The crowds close around her.

And she's gone.

Conversations On The Fortune’s Fist: Eleven

Luisa Kamajeck cursed the twenty years of riding out grav-fluxes on unforgiving cargo-hold deckplates as she bent her aching knees to peer into the cupboard in the officer's mess. No fancy new joints for Ishukone's cargo-jockeys, she thought sourly.Not worth the expense. Not a 'hazardous job'. No matter that a snapped safety cable at full thrust can take off an arm as easy as any plasma charge.

It was an old complaint, worn thin and familiar with repetition, one that she'd kept on the inside of her teeth for forty years and would for forty more  if the spirits give me that long.

It seemed unlikely.  Still, there was a time I gave up on seeing twenty-five. Days on the Sapphire Star towards the end that I didn't think I'd see the next morning, let alone the next birthday. Luisa found the bottle she was looking for, hooked it out along with a glass to go with it, and straightened, barely suppressing a groan. Never can tell, Lulu, what's around the corner. Never can tell.

Spirits know I never saw  this job coming.

The mess door opened, the lack of a knock telling Luisa, if not who it was, then at least that it was one of the other three people with business here, this time of night.  

"'lo," Michael Mitcheson said, letting the door hiss shut behind him.  

Luisa grunted an acknowledgement and poured herself exactly one finger of vodka.  Invelen's gift, podder largess, better than I've ever had or will again.

Mitch grinned. "I see you missed me, then."

"Yeah, but one of these days my aim will get better," Luisa told him, recapping the bottle as Mitch pulled a chair out from the table. "Hope you came back ready to work, Chief. Didn't put your back out or anything."  

"Well, I had the best medical care," Mitch said, straight-faced.  

Luisa snorted. "Is that what you decadent Gallentes call a double-enten-whatsit?"

He let the smile show then. "Possibly."

"Well, cut it out," Luisa told him. "Don't think you'll be getting any extra leeway around here because you're a married man, Michael Mitcheson."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Mitch assured her. "Although, thanks for the new quarters."

"Don't thank me," Luisa said. "Pilot's idea."  

Mitch rocked back on his chair, balancing it on two legs. "Pilot's idea, your work orders, right?"  

"Maybe," Luisa admitted. She glanced at him, sipped the fine Pator vodka. "So you happy with how your little plan worked out?"

" My plan?" he asked. 

She shrugged. "Wasn't Nerila's, was it? Doesn't take eyes like Fisk's to see the only way you'd get a ring on  her finger is with a gun to her head. Metaphorically speaking." Luisa sipped her vodka again. "What are you going to do? If your wife finds out she's not the only one on this boat who knows how to deal from the bottom of the deck?"

Mitch shrugged. "Tell her the truth." He let the chair settle square on all four legs again and grinned at Luisa. "That it was your idea."  

She gave him her best and blankest noncommittal stare, the one that usually saw her walk away with the pot  in any game that doesn't have Fisk and Nerila in it. "Can't have senior officers flouting regs, can I?" Luisa heard more of an edge to her voice than she'd meant as the words came out and couldn't think of a way to soften it, waited to see if Mitch'd take offence. 

No. He kept grinning. "Oh, so that was why, was it?"

"Well, and I'm a soppy romantic at heart, of course," Luisa said, dry as vacuum. "Like the rest of us from the State. Let nothing come in the way of true love, all that stuff? Very Caldari, you know." 

"Oh, sure." Mitch reached out to open the cold storage without getting out of his chair. "Fortune, we're not short of left-overs, are we?" He tugged out a plate of pastries and set it on the table. "But, you know, I wondered. Why  that way. At the party. You could have just reported us, would've worked out the same."

"Yeah, I could've." Luisa selected a pastry and peeled off a flake of crisp sugared dough.

"So why? Why the scene?"  

"Knew she wouldn't let it go," Luisa said. "That girl ... she  is a romantic. Wasn't going to see the mean old XO sacking two crew for falling in love, was she?"

He studied her. "Pilot calling you on something in front of the whole crew, wouldn't have thought ..."

Luisa looked at him levelly. "It's  her boat, Mitch. Not mine." 

"Well, I  knew that."

Luisa shrugged. "Now  she does." She contemplated the pastry and peeled another flake. 
"Not going to be here forever, Mitch. There'll be day Pilot's got to say no to her XO and mean it and there'll be more at stake than, excuse me for saying, the over-heated nether regions of couple of Gallente fools." She shrugged again. "Better she practice when it doesn't matter than fail when it does. I've seen that, I know where it goes." Goes real bad. Real fast.

She shivered at the memory, looked up to meet Mitch's gaze and could tell she hadn't entirely managed to hide it.  Don't ask,her stare said, best XO tool she had, that stare, flat and cold and promising a short,cold walk to anyone who crossed her. Don't ask. Don't presume I'm going to indulge you further than our interests run in common. Don't push your luck. 

Don't think for a second we're friends.  

For one long moment she thought Mitch was going to ignore the warning, and then the door opened and he closed his mouth on whatever he had been going to say.  

"Hope you brought  folding money this time," Nerila said, pulling a deck of cards from her pocket as she slid into a chair. 

"You feeling lucky, then, I guess?" Luisa asked.  

"One way of putting it," Nerila said. She cut the cards one-handed and began to shuffle as Fisk followed her in. "Gonna share that, Luisa? Or you getting stingy or something in your old age?"

"Or something," Luisa said, sliding the bottle down as Fisk fetched two more glasses and took his seat.  

"Yeah," Mitch said, watching Nerila's hands as she fanned the cards and gathered them up again. " Or something is right."

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Ten

Nerila shuffled the cards. "Ladies high, deuces wild, bent and skip straights." She grinned. "Everybody got that?"

"Shall we just give you our money now?" Luisa asked dryly, pouring herself a little more vodka.  

"If you like," Nerila said, beginning to deal. "Certainly save time."

"N-n-n ..." Fisk said. He flushed as the other three looked at him, waiting, and found a word that didn't lock between mind and mouth. " Earn it."

Mitch picked up his cards. "Think you can make Nerila  work for a winning hand?" he said. "You really are brain-damaged, Fisk."

Fisk caught Nerila's quick shift in her chair and Mitch winced.  

"M-m-m ... could be," Fisk said, studying his cards.  Three, five, seven acorns. "Still t-t-take your m-m-m ... cash."

"Oh, you want a side bet?" Mitch said. "How much?"

"Mitch," Luisa said, a warning note in her voice.

"Pilot pays well, Luisa, but not so well I can afford to pass up the chance to take candy from a baby," Mitch said. "Fisk wasn't so good at cards before he put his hand up for the experimental brain-dice-'n'-slice." He studied Fisk. "Two bits a point?"

Fisk nodded.  

"Your funeral," Nerila said, flipped a card over in front of Luisa and then fumbled the next. "I mean - "

Fisk took a breath, and made himself smile. " Had that," he said. "D-d-didn't we?"

There was a pause, and then Nerila spluttered with laughter. " Hells, Fisk," she said, dealing him the nine of acorns, and turning the jack of bells over in front of Mitch. She flipped up the ace of leaves in front of herself and tapped the cards together in her hand. "Ladies and gentlemen and Michael Mitcheson, place your bets."

"Fold," Luisa said.  

Fisk pushed a marker into the centre of the table, followed it with another.  

"The CTO raises," Nerila said.  

"See that," Mitch said, matching the action to the words.  

"And me," Nerila said. She turned the ace of acorns over in front of Fisk, the Jack of acorns in front of Mitch, and dealt herself the queen of leaves. "Possible flush for the CTO, pair or more in the engineer's greasy hands and the doc might just have a royal-high flush."

Fisk pushed another two markers into the centre of the table.  

"Idiot," Mitch said, matching him.  

"Man's got a right to lose money," Nerila said, adding her own bet.  

"On a low-high flush?" Mitch said as Fisk bet again. "Man, don't know know enough to quit while you're behind?"

"N-n-n.." Fisk said, watching Mitch and Nerila add their bets. "N-n-n ... st-st- strongest suit."

Luisa sipped her vodka. "Obviously."  

Mitch matched Fisk's raise. "Anything further from Ami?"  

"I'd have said," Luisa said.

"You don't always." Nerila tossed her own chips into the pile.  

"Some things are operational," Luisa said, watching as Fisk raised again. " Someone's got to pay attention to procedures on this boat."

Mitch kept his gaze on his markers as he matched Fisk's raise. "You got nothing in that hand, soldier boy, to beat a pair of jacks."

Fisk shrugged. "G-g-g ... s'pose m-m-m ... luck's r-r-un out."

Mitch snorted. "Only  now you realise that?"

"Slow.  Learner." 

Nerila studied her hole cards and then bet again. "Let's see your cards, Fisk."

Stronger than he used to be, Fisk's fingers closed a little too hard on the cards and he opened his hand reflexively before the pasteboard crumbled, scattering the ace, three, five, seven and nine of acorns across the table.

Mitch shook his head, turned up three fours and reached for the pot. "Full house beats a flush."

Fisk reached, faster than he'd meant to, faster than he'd been  able to, a week ago, and covered Mitch's hand with his own. "C-c-can't count." he said. "N-n-n ... g-g-g ... bad f-f-for engineer."

Nerila grinned. "He's right, Mitch. Man's holding a skip straight flush. The money's his."

Mitch paused, then swore.  

"P-p-p ..  and side-b-b-bet," Fisk pointed out. "P-p-p .. hand it over."

Mitch swore again, and then smiled. "Guess I was wrong about how scrambled your brain was, eh, soldier boy?"

"G-g-g ...  suppose so," Fisk said, raking the chips toward him.

Nerila reached across the table to gather up the cards. "Guess you were wrong about running out of luck, too," she said.  

She glanced at Luisa, and Fisk caught her give the XO a tiny nod, looked at Luisa and saw a faint smile twitch the corners of her mouth.  

"C-c-could have  asked." he said. 

Luisa leaned forward. "Could have asked what?"  

"D-d-don't n-n-n ... have to  rig g-g-g ... cards." Fisk watched Nerila's long fingers turn and ruffle the cards, able to see now the flick and turn she used to disguise breaking out an ace, the deft, almost imperceptible movement as she palmed a queen. "T-t-test. C-c-c-could have j-j-just asked." He pointed at Nerila's hands. "Th-think you m-m-m ... lost one."

Nerila went still. "You saw that?"

Fisk nodded.

"Well," Nerila said, dropping the hidden cards back into the pack and starting to shuffle again. "Guess those optional extras Captain Vikarion gave you really do work as advertised."

Fisk tapped his chest, smiling. "N-n-n .. a'  improved."

"Matter of opinion," Mitch said. "No offense, solider boy."

"N-n-n ...  wasn't m-m-m .. of a talker," Fisk said. "Even b-b-before."

Mitch snorted. "Well,  that's true," he said. 

"Thought about how you're going to give orders to your marines when you can't get a sentence out?" Luisa asked.  

Fisk raised his hand, extended two fingers, tapped them on his forearm and jerked his thumb to the door.  

" Mime?" Mitch said incredulously. "You're going to give orders in mime?"

"C-c-c-combat.  Code." Fisk said. 

"And over coms?" Luisa asked.  

Fisk concentrated, and Luisa's com buzzed. She raised an eyebrow, and flicked the switch.  

"Squad two, left," Fisk's voice said from the device. "Squad one, with me. Watch your fire and - "

Luisa flicked it off. "So, straight from your brain to their ears?"

Fisk nodded, tapped his head. "Inside. C-c-com."

Luisa looked at Nerila, who nodded. "All right," the XO said. "You're cleared for return to duty.  Provided you pass the physical."

"Th-th-thank," Fisk said.  

"Don't make me sorry," Luisa warned, her gaze level.  

"N-n-n ..." Fisk shook his head. "Won't. Will d-d-o  better. N-n-n .. future." He tapped his chest again. "N-n-n ... a' improved."

"Yeah," Mitch said. "New and improved."  

Conversations on the Fortune’s Smile: Eight

(This story is also part of the Into the Dark series, co-authored by Silver Night, the first story of which can be found here)

It ought to fit. Mitch turned the gasket a millimeter to the left, turned it back. It ought to fit.

It didn't.

He held it under the worklamp bolted to the side of his bunk and considered whether or not to file another fraction off the rim. Too much more and we'll be dealing with lateral movement when she spins up.

Maybe one more pass with the file ...

The door chime interrupted his thoughts. "Yeah," he said. "S'open."

Nerila.

She stepped inside, breaking  rule one , tapped the keypad by the door to close it behind her in violation of rule two, tapped it again to engage the privacy lock in flagrant and direct contravention of rule three.

Never be in each other's quarters. Never be alone together in any place either one of us might be known to expected to be. Never do anything that might make Luisa suspicious.

"Sweetheart ... " Mitch said. His quarters were so small he would only have needed to stretch a little to touch her. He resisted the temptation. "This is asking for trouble from the XO."

Nerila folded her arms and hunched her shoulders, shot one quick glance at him from red-rimmed eyes, and stared at the floor. "I don't care," she said to the deckplates. "I don't care."

Mitch put it together then: her hair still damp from the shower, the false-floral scent of soap that eddied around her every time she moved, her long surgeon's hands reddened by scrubbing, the note of sour alcohol on her breath.  

"Autopsies?" he asked gently.  

Nerila nodded.

It turned out he didn't need to stretch at all, or perhaps she was already moving towards him as he opened his arms to her. She pressed her face against his shoulder, clutching at him as if she were drowning.  

As if we both were.

" Six!" she blurted, heaved a shuddering sigh, and was silent for a long time. 

When she finally let go of him and lifted her head, Mitch asked: "Were they all .. in Significance?"

Nerila nodded. "Yeah. So tomorrow, or the next day, or next week ... " She shrugged. "It'll be like it never happened. For them, anyway."

He brushed his fingers over her cheek, erasing traces of tears. "That's good."

"It  happened, Mitch." She sighed, slipping her arms around his neck, more loosely this time, and leaning against him. "But yeah. It's good. Mitch?"

"Mmm?" he murmured against her hair.  

"When did you have your last scan?" she asked.  

"Dunno, exactly." He thought about it. "Couple of weeks after the first one? Maybe ... three months?" He shrugged. "Got busy, you know?"

"Me too," Nerila said. "If I got shot in the head tomorrow, I'd wake up ... none of this would have happened."

He ran his hand down her back. "It would have happened."

"Not to  me," Nerila said. "Mitch, let's go tomorrow, let's get the scans done. I don't want ... I don't want this not to have happened. I don't want to forget. Tomorrow, Mitch, I don't care how busy it is. Please?"

He tightened his arms around her. "Yeah," he said. "First thing."

Nerila sighed in relief. "Okay," she said.  

Mitch hesitated, and then asked: "Do you ever think about it?"  

 "About what?"

"About ... about what it'll be like. In the long run. Once, twice, three times ... losing a week here, a month there. Who we'll be, ten years in the future. What we'll keep."

Nerila shook her head. "Ten years? I don't think about ten days, Mitch. Day at a time." She laughed without humour. "Had a future, once. Traded it for a glass vial. No. Ten years? No-one can plan that far ahead."

"You never think about it?" he said, smoothing his hand over her hair, gently so the callouses on his palm wouldn't snag the strands. "What you want?"

She sighed. "You know, if Pilot doesn't ... if Ami can't find her, if she's too late ... you know where she left her money to?"

"Camille, right?" he said. "And her family. If anyone can find them."

"Mostly. Enough, for the kid to live out her whole life in luxury, that's for sure. But not all. The rest ... to the crew. To  us." She drew back a little, looking up at him. "That's how life is, Mitch. Someone can just stop, a pilot even, a pilot inside her own security. And people like you and me can wake up richer than we ever dreamed. What kind of plans can anyone make in a universe like that?"

Mitch shrugged.  

Nerila narrowed her eyes. "What, you have plans?"

"Some," he admitted.  

"Like what?" When he hesitated, she poked him in the chest with one long finger. "Like  what? And so help me, if you say anything that involves marriage and babies and a fishing lodge on some backwater planet ..."

He smiled down at her. "Marriage and babies such a bad idea?"

"With me it is," she said seriously.  

"Not what you want?"

"What I want ..." She shrugged. "This ship. This job. My licence.  This. Today, and tomorrow."

"And the day after?"

"Worry about it then," Nerila said. She studied him. "That a problem?"

"No," Mitch said. "No. It's not a problem."

"Good," Nerila said. She yawned suddenly. "Can I stay? Tonight?"

"Bunk's pretty small," he said.  

She grinned. "I'll fit."

"Sweetheart ... " Mitch said. "Asking for trouble."

"Not if Ami can't find Pilot," Nerila said sadly.  

"She'll find her," Mitch said.  

"Let's blow that bridge when we're on it," Nerila said. "Mitch. I can't be - let me stay."

He couldn't say no to her.  I couldn't ever say no to her, not from the first time she sauntered into the engineroom with that smile.

And I knew we were asking for trouble, even then.  

The bunk  was small, and neither of them were built on the petite scale. Nerila fell asleep almost immediately, her drop into oblivion one Mitch remembered from the days when he was still drinking his way down the ranks, one he envied her now. 

No, it's not a problem.

Not yet, it isn't.  

He shifted her a little, not needing to worry she'd wake, trying to stretch the cramp out of his arm.  Marriage and babies ... He wouldn't have put it that way, exactly, but he couldn't deny that some idea of a life where he and Nerila could eat together without worrying about rumours, could talk about the day ... Could wake beside each other, every morning. Could lie like this, every night ...

Maybe in a bigger bed,  he thought, trying to stretch his arm again. 

Blow that bridge when we're on it, he thought. Won't be today, or tomorrow.

Or the day after, even.

He lay and thought about the uncertain future, about  bridges and trouble and somewhere there might be a bigger bed and shared breakfast, listening to Nerila breathe, staring sightlessly into the dark. 

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Six

“No help for the XO,” Nerila Janianial said. “Possible pair for the engineroom, and the doctor sits ace-high.” 

Fisk Hurun, Chief Tactical Officer of the  Fortune’s Smile, hesitated and then rapped softly on the open door of the Officer’s Mess. It was usually closed this time of day, unneeded for meals for either main or alter-day crew, the unchallenged preserve of the three officers who’d been with Pilot Roth for longest. It would take a hell of an emergency to get me to open that door under normal circumstances. 

But he had been summoned, by XO Kamajeck herself.  

Three heads turned at his knock: ‘Mitch’ Mitcheson, unshaven, a smudge of engine oil on his forehead, jacket off; Nerila Janianial, making her uniform look like  haute couture as always, sleek dark hair pinned up; Luisa Kamajeck, hair gone more grey than brown, her eyes clear and steady in a face papery with age and pale with a lifetime’s worth of ‘spacer’s tan’. 

“Fisk,” the XO said. “Come in. Pull up a chair.” She paused, and then one corner of her mouth twitched up slightly. “Not an order. You might have better things to do.”  

Both by training and by inclination, Fisk was not a man to spend longer in a doorway than necessary. Even so, he hesitated a bare second before stepping forward and pulling out a chair at the table.  

“Born in a barn?” Nerila asked, not unfriendly, with a glance at the door.  

“Sorry,” Fisk said, and shut the door before sitting down.  

“Oncer-ante, aces high, nothing wild,” Mitcheson said, pushing the cards of his unfinished hand across the table to Nerila. “You in, Fisk?”  

Fisk glanced at the XO and she gave a tiny nod. “Yessir, I am.”  

“No ‘sirs’ in this room,” Nerila said. “Nor m’m, either.  Fisk.” She gathered the deck together, her long dark fingers flicking the cards into tidiness, and began to shuffle with the precision of a surgeon and the flash of a card-shark. "Not while the door's closed."

"Yes - " He hesitated.

" Nerila," she supplied, cut the cards one-handed and jerked her thumb towards Mitcheson. "Mitch." The deck cascaded between her hands, reformed itself and divided again with the barest movement of her fingers, and she gestured with her chin toward the XO. "Luisa."

"All right," Fisk said. He looked around at the three of them, Nerila's dark gaze steady on his as she split and ruffled the deck by touch, Mitch seeming to watch Nerila but, Fisk noted,  looking in the same direction as the polished steel cabinet doors that reflect me like a mirror, and Luisa with her head tilted a little bit, studying Fisk like a sergeant sizing up a new recruit.

"You're new to the ship, Fisk. Newish," Luisa said.  

"Yes'm. I mean, Yes. I am."

"Liking it so far?"

Fisk nodded.  

Nerila flipped a card over, seemingly at random, face up in the middle of the table.  Eight hearts, Fisk noted automatically. "You can tell the future by cards, you know, Fisk," she said, holding the card for a moment before shuffling it back into the deck. "Eight of hearts is an unexpected invitation."

"Then that deck is telling my past," Fisk said.

Mitch snorted. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe not."

Nerila dealt another card and held it for Fisk to look at.  Five Acorns. "Five clubs," she said, reminding Fisk again that this was a mixed crew and two of the people in the room were Gallente. "Alliances."

"Few things happened on Pilot's ships before you came on board, Fisk," Luisa said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table, hands folded. "One or two."

Fisk nodded. "Everyone knows there's history," he said. "Same everywhere, isn't it?"  

"The three of us have been with her, oh, five months?" Mitch said.  

"Seems like five years, sometimes," Nerila said.

"We were with her when she lost the first Duty's Call to a swarm of mercs," Luisa said. "Made it to the escape pods."

Mitch nodded. "Heard her on comms saying she'd come back for us. That she wouldn't leave us behind."  

"And she didn't, neither," Luisa said. "You going to deal those, Nerila, or just play with them?"

" Lot of pilots wouldn't have bothered," Nerila said, sliding the cards to Mitch to cut. 

" Lot of pilots wouldn't bother checking empty blooder wrecks, ship by ship, either," Mitch said, cutting the cards and sliding them back. "Ours does."

"As you'd have reason to know, Fisk," Nerila said, beginning to deal. " Personal reason. Wouldn't you?"

Fisk watched Nerila's hands as she flicked down the cards,  one, two, three, four, thinking personal reason covered a lot of things he didn't plan to ever think about again if he could help it. 

One, two, three, four. 

"Yeah," he said at last.  

One, two, three, four. 

"Guess we all owe her one," Mitch said, gathering up his cards.  

"Guess we do," Fisk said, picking up his own and looking to see what the doctor had dealt him.  

Three of a kind. Fisk wasn't the Cluster's best poker-player but you don't need to be to know that holding three Jacks is a strong hand.

His best poker-face wasn't a patch on Luisa Kamajeck's normal expression, but he tried to keep his face blank.  

Nerila dealt Fisk a show card. "Queen of Hearts," she said. "My gran'mama'd say there's a good-natured, soft-hearted blonde in your life."

"I could be so lucky," Fisk said.  

"Card don't mean she's in your  bed, Fisk," Nerila said. She finished the round, ten of hearts to Mitch, seven bells for the XO, four bells for herself. "Are all men the same?"

"Vile slander," Mitch said. "Vile cards, too."

"Let's see if we can make it all better for you," Nerila said. "Club jack to our newest player - soldier for your queen there, Fisk, fighting her battles and keeping her safe. Ace of hearts for  you, Mitch - if you can't make a flush at least you can rest assured the cards promise you true love. And for you, Luisa - "

"Don't tell my fortune," Luisa said, and it was an order even in a room where there were no ranks.  

Slightly deflated, Nerila laid the last card of the game face up. "Four hearts."

Fisk pushed a marker into the centre of the table, trying not to move either too quickly or too slowly. "Raise one."

Mitch followed suit. "See and raise again."

"And me," Nerila said.  

Luisa glanced from the doctor to the engineer. "I see you both," she said quietly.

Fisk raised again, and the bets went round, and round again, all of them still in.  

"You know Nerila got arrested once for cheating at cards," Luisa said.

"Bad old days," Nerila said. "Long time ago, before, you know, I reformed. And got better. Raise."

"Raise," Luisa said. "It's on you again, Fisk."

"Raise," Fisk said. As the bets circled the table once more he lifted the corners of his hole cards, reassuring himself that he hadn't imagined his hand.  Jack of hearts, jack of bells, jack of leaves.

And face up, one more jack -  soldier, Nerila had said - beside the queen.

An incredibly lucky, unlikely hand.  

Dealt to him by a self-confessed cheat.

He looked up and met Nerila's gaze.  

She dropped one eyelid in a sly wink. "Your call, Fisk."

Four soldiers and one fair-haired woman.

"You in or out, Fisk?" Luisa asked.  

"Make up your mind, man," Mitch said.  

Fisk checked his cards again, then pushed his stack of markers to the centre of the table, betting everything he had on four of a kind.  

"I'm in," he said. "All the way."