The Ides of Matt 2017

Chapter 2

Chapter TwoUseless. There were times Karina would like to cut out her tongue.

Her parents were old-school Ukrainians—a distinction that had been meaningless even before her great-great-grandparents had lifted during The Expansion. It was an isolationist distinction that Mom and Pop had brought back to life in reaction to The Aftermath. It made her first responses dour and the ones after that worse.

And for some reason, Brody Jones brought out the truly horrid in her. But she couldn’t seem to stay away from him either. He was everything she wasn’t: blond, blue-eyed, and popular despite his chosen profession, a choice she’d never understood.

Her own Night Stalkers commanders and crew only tolerated her because she could outfly any of them. She’d been born to fly a Stinger-60; it was in her blood. Yet her one great weakness, she couldn’t resist poking at this particular Mod18 pilot.

“What is it about you?”

“Me? What about me?”

Karina tried to formulate some kind of a rational answer. Her mind was excellent at analysis—of everything except Brody Jones. She could master the most complex operation: deliver troops to Saturn’s Titan and extract another team off Jupiter’s Europa all with a minimum fuel burn rate and exact timing.

But understanding Brody was completely beyond her.

Launch detection! The alert blared out of both of the sleevepads in their flightsuits. It echoed around the hangar as well as over the PA system.

They tapped in unison and a quick holo of Earth formed above each of their raised arms with a first-approximation orbital track rising from the surface.

“Kourou, French Guiana,” Brody identified it faster than she could. Northeastern South America. “The old European Space Agency site.”

“Threat or Lifters?”

“Lifters,” Brody declared without hesitation. “Minimal military there before The Exodus. Most of it is underwater since The Melt and the sea-level rise, but someone found a way to lift.”

No threat. Stand down alert, her sleevepad announced. For a decision to be made that fast, the launch must not have been big enough to escape Earth’s orbit. If it couldn’t reach them, it was no longer her concern.

“Out of my way, Karina. I’ve got to fly.” But it most certainly was Brody’s.

For reasons that eluded her, she didn’t move, forcing him to push her aside. The globe projecting above his sleevepad came straight at her head and she flinched away.

“Oh, sorry,” Brody pulled back, tapped his sleeve, and the globe went away. He tapped again, “Felice where are you? We have a run.”

This time a big red cross projected above his arm for a moment before it switched to her face. “Hey, Brody! How are you, buddy?”

She sounded toasted. Actually, the hospital logo flash said drugged not drunk.

Felice raised a bound arm into the image area. “The Skyball game last night rocked. Too bad I’m sidelined until the bone reknits. You shoulda been there. Where were you? Probably off doing your usual: getting drunk and mooning over Queen b***h Rosto—” Jones slapped the disconnect.

“Crap!” He looked about the hanger helplessly.

Karina could only blink in surprise. Not about the “Queen b***h”—that one she’d heard a thousand variations on. But Brody Jones was attracted to her? Really? How had she missed that?

Before she could collect her thoughts into a question, the other two members of his crew came racing down the hangar past the long line of Stinger spacecraft.

“I need a copilot,” he declared to no one in particular. His arriving crew shrugged—Vetch and Warwick were a med and a gearhead, not flyers.

Was Brody too hyped to react to the end of Felice’s comment? No, he was blushing. First time for everything.

His eyes swung to her. His blush slowly turned into a smile.

“No way, Brody.”

“Are you on the first-call list?”

She wasn’t. Though a Night Stalker was always ready, she wasn’t on the alpha-alert team today. “There’s no way I’m going to copilot your crap Mod18 to go help a bunch of suicidal Aftermathers.”

Even as she complained, Brody wrapped a big hand around her arm and was easing her aside.

“But…” he ignored her protests, punched in the airlock code, and hustled her past the outer and inner hatches.

Once they were both resealed, he let go of her to tap his sleevepad. Moments later, a copilot’s pre-flight checklist popped up on her own.

“I’m not flying with you.”

“Sure you are,” his easy grin was infectious. “Do you have something better to do on a Thursday morning than go flying?”

“On a Mod18? Sure!” She hadn’t flown a Mod18 since basic training, and hadn’t flown copilot since very early in her career.

“Go,” he gave her a shove toward the engine inspection port.

For reasons she couldn’t unravel, rather than flattening him and departing back through the airlock, she went. It was only as she was signing off on the last items on the list that she spotted the date—it was Sunday, not Thursday—technically her day off, as much as a Night Stalker ever had one.

Karina watched Brody as he slid into the command chair and began systems startup. Thursday? Why had he said that? He had to know the day. Then she almost laughed. Brody had always been the one with the sense of humor—a skill she totally lacked. He’d said Thursday because it was the most boring-sounding day of the week—not mid-week and still too far from the weekend. Anything was more interesting than a Thursday and he was using everything he could to coax her into going along.

Well, Jones was right about one thing: there wasn’t anything better than flying.