Fierce Radiance Read online

  Then Mal hugged her tightly. “Please don’t beat up the other girls, Little One. Or the boys.”

  “I’ll try not to, Da.” They kissed, and he also saluted her.

  Aine watched them walk out the door and from her distant past she heard Aggie’s voice drift back to her.

  Boys are very brave…boys do not cry.

  She took a deep breath and turned back to the dean. “What do I do next?” she softly asked.

  * * * *

  Aine despised being on-planet. She hated the denser gravity. She hated weather—any weather—especially hot, dry weather that triggered ancient nightmares and reminded her too much of her long-ago escape with Aggie. She missed the comforting cocoon of the freighter’s reinforced deck plates and the familiar noises lulling her to sleep.

  She missed her dads and her crewmates, whom she considered family.

  The classes bored her. Aine spent most of them sitting in the rear of the classrooms, staring at her fellow students’ backs. She already knew all of the material they covered and would take quarterly advancement tests to hasten her graduation.

  Her four hundred-odd classmates bored her, too. She found herself ostracized and ridiculed by them, boys and girls alike. She wanted to talk plasma induction ratios while they wanted to talk arts and entertainment or sports. They all teased her about her hair and lack of make-up, said she looked like a boy.

  They teased her even more when she didn’t act like she considered that an insult.

  The other students had aspirations of higher education for lucrative professional jobs. Not a single one planned to attend the Academy and enter the Confederation military or merchant corps.

  In her fencing and martial arts classes, the only partner they allowed her to spar with was the teacher. Mal had spent many an hour with Aine in the cargo hold, teaching her multiple ways to defend herself. Now only the teacher could hope to stand up to her blistering attacks, which were as much an attempt to release her anger, anguish and loneliness as they were to silence her classmates.

  Upon hearing of her reputation with weapons, not a single boy would approach her.

  At least she didn’t have to share a room. With Captain Lorcan’s considerable fortune, he spared no expense with Aine’s education. She bunked on the “rich girl floor,” as less fortunate students snarkily dubbed it, but she was just as much an alien to her fellow floormates as she was to everyone else.

  She spent her spare time studying texts about new engineering and ship technology advancements and exchanging e-mails with Mal and Lorcan. She didn’t bother them with how miserable she felt, knowing it would upset them and still not change a thing. Instead, she opted to count the days until their first visit at the end of the term.

  Despite subtle and not so subtle urging from the faculty and school counselors, she refused to grow her hair longer. She learned about hair products and spiked it, giving it an even wilder look and earning her more nasty nicknames.

  She didn’t care. She eagerly counted down the days until her fathers returned to see her. She had her old knapsack, bear, and necklace to comfort her, and her picture and vid cards to keep her mind occupied. When the day came for the men to visit, she didn’t care who saw her when she flung herself at them as they walked through the front door. She stopped short of crying when they tightly hugged her.

  Boys don’t cry.

  They spent a month on the planet during a semester break so she could stay with them. When it was time to say their good-byes again she swallowed back the urge to cry.

  Service Before Self. Boys don’t cry.

  * * * *

  Eight months before the end of her forced tenure at the school, she received an unexpected vid message from the men instead of their normal e-mails. Mal’s face filled the screen with a beaming smile.

  “Guess what, Little One? We’re coming home! We’ve received our final orders and we’re coming home after one last run!”

  Home! She smiled, her first real smile since the last time she saw them in person almost five months earlier. They considered her their home. As much as she hated the planet, and as much as she wanted to be a captain, she was tempted to not join the Academy just so she could stay with her dads. She could always go to regular college and get a planet-side job there so she could live with them. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, but the thought of leaving her fathers to go to the Academy left a deep ache in her heart.

  She started another countdown, and more vid messages flew back and forth between them as their arrival day grew closer. When they dropped the Bagtopy Yau off at its retrofit dock, they sent a final message. They were close enough that it arrived only hours after they sent it. They would jump a transport and be there in three days.

  Her fathers’ smiling faces filled the vid screen. “We are so proud of you, Little One,” Father said. “You’ll be in the Academy soon, and I know our little girl will be kicking ass and making us just as proud there as you have at school.”

  Da agreed. “We love you so much! We’ve been bragging to everyone that you’ll be one of the youngest Academy students ever accepted, and with the highest grades, too! We’ll see you soon! I just hope you’re not too grown up now to hug us when we get there. We’re so proud of you, sweetheart.”

  Giddy with joy, Aine walked around school with a smile on her face, which puzzled and unsettled classmates used to her usual bland disinterest or piercing scowl. On the third day, she sat in the foyer in a chair by the front windows and anxiously waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  At sunfall, she nervously looked up when she heard footsteps echoing on the tile floors behind her in the foyer. The dean looked uneasy. “Aine, could you come to my office please?”

  “I’m waiting for my dads. They said they’d be here today. We’re going home.” She turned to the window again, her knapsack in her lap, and scanned the road for any sign of a vehicle.

  They had always come when they said they would.

  “Please, Aine. We need to talk.”

  Aine’s bland mask slipped back into place as she stood and followed the dean, her knapsack tightly clutched to her chest. The dean closed the door behind them and indicated Aine should sit on the sofa, not in a chair in front of her desk.

  When the dean sat next to her, Aine knew it was bad.

  Aine tuned out after, “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this…”

  Boys are fierce and brave and don’t cry. Service Before Self.

  “…asteroid…”

  Service Before Self…

  “…all aboard killed…”

  SERVICE BEFORE SELF!

  Grief took Aine’s sanity.

  * * * *

  The dean and the attorney knocked on Aine’s door before entering. For three days since hearing the news she sat in her room, refusing to talk, refusing to cry, refusing to eat. She drank water because the bottles brought to her by the medical staff were emptied on a regular basis even though her food went untouched.

  She stayed in bed, mostly unmoving and unresponsive.

  The attorney pulled up a chair next to her. “I’m Rolf Gregory. I’m the attorney your fathers hired to take care of their paperwork here locally.” He opened his satchel and pulled out a hand-held console. “I need your signature so I can transfer everything to you.”

  Aine stared at the wall. At first she made no indication she heard him. Then she slowly looked at him, sat up, reached for the console and stylus, and signed.

  He handed her a small bag. “Their personal effects. I already had their baggage transferred to the house they purchased here in town. The recovery crew retrieved their remains. Their ashes will be delivered by private courier later this week.”

  The transparent bag held Edmund Lorcan’s signet ring bearing his rune crest, and Mal’s matching necklace, the twin to the one she wore. She put the ring on her left thumb, the only finger it fit, and draped the necklace around her neck, kissing the pendant before tucking it un
der her shirt.

  “What do I do now?”

  He didn’t realize she’d spoken at first and asked her to repeat herself. “Well, you’re eligible to graduate and attend the Academy, if you wish. They have your placement test grades, which are, may I add, quite impressive, young lady. The highest scores they’ve ever received.”

  When she didn’t respond, he cleared his throat and continued. “I have their wills here for you to look at. Considering the circumstances and the fact that you were bonded crew, not technically a legislative minor, you can do whatever you want. You might only be sixteen, but you are, in the eyes of the law, an adult.” He handed her a vid chip and stood to leave. “I’ll give the other information to the dean. She’ll help you or put you in contact with me.”

  Aine waited until she was alone again to watch the video.

  She did not cry. Even though she really wanted to.

  Chapter Four

  One of the underclassmen snickered. “Ice Queen on deck.”

  Aine stopped beside the freshman’s helm chair. “Did you say something?” She was a stickler for the high protocol, ran her classes as tightly as any ship should be run. In her opinion, the grunts better get used to it.

  He shook his head, nervous. “Um, no ma’am.”

  “Sir.”

  He gulped. “Sir. Sorry, sir.”

  He was a year older than her, but she’d already graduated and worked as an Academy teacher. She’d been put on staff only because she couldn’t be given a full officer’s commission until she turned twenty. Her superior officers didn’t know what else to do with her, and they didn’t want to waste her talent, experience, and skill on a menial office job. She knew from scuttlebutt that the Academy brass couldn’t wait to get her out of their hair because students placed under her command faced the highest wash-out rate in the Academy—over seventy-five percent. She was ruthless, she was brutal.

  She was cold.

  Hence her nickname.

  She settled in her command chair. “Take us out of dock, Ensign.”

  “Yes, sir.” The freshman’s fingers flew over his helm board. They thought it was yet another real trial cruise, only Aine and the station crew knew this was a simulation, that they would never leave the space station’s dry dock.

  Two hours into the simulation, they faced an enemy party of raiders. She let her “crew” hang themselves with a series of bad situations that left them panicking in a matter of minutes. When she felt they had enough, she walked to the front of the bridge and pulled out the remote to stop the simulation.

  As pulse rates returned to normal and the students wiped sweat from their brows, Aine proceeded to inform them all of their mistakes, their shortcomings, and their probable time and manner of death had it not been a sim. She spoke in the same soft, cool tone of voice they struggled to hear.

  When she dismissed the class, all but one stampeded to vacate her bridge.

  Hector was tall, dark-haired, with golden amber eyes she imagined stole many hearts.

  “Was there something else, Ensign?” she coolly asked.

  He smiled. She knew he was a third year grad student sitting in on her class to take notes for a graduate class about teaching sim situations to underclassmen. “Yes, sir, there was.”

  “Well?”

  “Would you like to go out for coffee?”

  * * * *

  Even more surprising than Hector’s offer was her acceptance. She’d never been asked out before.

  Ever.

  She rarely spoke to anyone other than her students, teachers and superior officers, and usually only to teachers and superiors when spoken to first. She didn’t like to get close to people, didn’t want to let them in.

  That way, it wouldn’t hurt when they had to leave.

  “Why did you agree to go out with me?” he asked after they were seated in a quiet corner of the coffee shop.

  “I don’t know,” she softly replied, usually the only tone she spoke in. She learned people had to pay attention to hear her, it discouraged students from idle chatter in case they missed something vital, and it was all the energy she cared to expend on others. “I guess I wanted to find out if you made a bet with someone or are terminally curious.”

  “You do have a reputation, sir.”

  She nodded. “I don’t deny it.”

  “I looked you up. You have an interesting history.”

  She stifled her outrage at the invasion of privacy. “Get to the point.”

  “I think you’re pretty, and I’d like to go out with you. Direct enough for you?”

  Stunned, she stared at him for a moment. “What?”

  “I would like to take you out for more than just coffee. Dinner, maybe a movie, something. I’d like to spend time getting to know you. Talking to you.”

  “I don’t talk.”

  “I noticed that, too.” He didn’t shy away from her direct gaze. “I’m not saying I want to psychoanalyze you. I’m saying I’m tired of dating women who want to pretend they’re something they’re not just to try to get a ring on their finger. I want a real person. An honest person.”

  “A brutally honest one?”

  He grinned. “I’m a masochist. What can I say?”

  * * * *

  Three weeks later, she let him take her virginity. She found it enjoyable, a lot more fun than she thought it would be. She’d discovered vibrators and orgasms a year earlier and never thought it was worth seeking out a man for something she could easily and quickly do herself. So technically she’d still been a virgin, as far as men were concerned, until her night with Hector. She didn’t know if she could or would call her fondness for him love. She never told him she loved him.

  Her ability to love died with her fathers.

  On her birthday her captain’s commission came through, along with her first orders for her own ship. Hector took her out for a nice dinner and then to a fancy hotel for their farewell night together.

  “I am going to miss you, Aine,” he said.

  “I’ll miss you, too.” It was the truth, as much as she could say. She’d miss him, but she’d missed space more.

  She wanted to be where she could at least feel close to her fathers.

  When she left his bed that night, she kissed him good-bye one last time. He opened his eyes and stared at her. “Let me know if you ever want to let anyone inside that fortress of yours. I wouldn’t mind being that person.”

  It was the first time she almost cried since finding out about the death of her dads. “I wouldn’t mind if it was you, either.”

  It was the truth.

  But boys don’t cry…and neither would she.

  * * * *

  The Keenoipai Rawlins was a turbo-jump destroyer-class brigand, a fancy way of saying a pint-sized battleship. Fast, well-armed, and lightly crewed, Aine’s first mission was to accompany a group of freighters on a supply run to the sector where Apaphax 4 had recently been liberated. They reopened the mines, and with a heavy contingent of Confederation ships in the area it was an almost guaranteed safe journey.

  Despite being the captain she was the youngest crew member on board. Her nine highly experienced men had all specifically requested assignment to her command.

  Ironically, the three young graduating ensigns offered a chance to crew with her respectfully declined.

  She must have scared them shitless at their last sim.

  Weeks later, she stood beside the newly dug graves of her father, mother, and Aggie. When the mine had been reopened, her parents’ remains were finally recovered. She researched where they buried Aggie and had him moved there as well.

  All these years later they had grave markers and their long overdue final respect. Plus another marker, a dual marker like for her parents, for Lorcan and Mal. She had long ago mixed their ashes into the same urn, wanting them together in death as they had been in life. With a small hand trowel, she lovingly excavated a hole large enough to hold their remains and carefully tapped them in. Once
she covered the hole she sat back on her knees, closed her eyes, and took a deep, ragged breath.

  Later, she returned to her ship and didn’t look back.

  She did not cry.

  * * * *

  The helmsman called for her attention. “Sir?”

  Aine looked up from her command console. “Yes?”

  “Scanner signature indicates unknown presence.”

  She turned, her fingers racing over her board. Four years patrolling the outer sectors for raiders earned her a reputation on both sides of the conflict. At twenty-four, she’d already received more honors and commendations than most other captains in Confederation history. She’d scored more raider kills than any other captain.

  She’d also earned a huge bounty on her head, placed there by a raider coalition tired of her disrupting their operations.

  She considered that an honor.

  “Activate scatter shield.”

  “Aye, sir.” She used her technical skills to experiment over the years between skirmishes and came up with an electronic version of ancient aerial force radar chaff to confuse the enemy. When scanners hit them, they saw not one destroyer-class brigand but what looked like a fleet of slightly smaller ships.

  A moment later, the helmsman smiled. “They’re on the run. Pursue?”

  She studied the scanner. “No. Not yet.” The raiders changed tactics lately, experimenting, trying to draw Confederation forces deeper into the lesser patrolled areas. While the bounty on her head didn’t bother her personally, she wouldn’t foolishly risk her crew just to satisfy her disrespect for her own life.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later when the enemy realized they weren’t being pursued, three more small ships appeared from a nearby asteroid field.

  Aine grinned. That expression usually creeped her crew out and she damn well knew it. “Open fire.”

  Three hours later, all four raider ships had been destroyed. Aine ordered the navigator to return them to base. Aine’s Kee-Raw crew had developed quite the kick-ass reputation during her time in command. Her men proved fiercely loyal to their young captain, a tightly-knit group who would readily lay down their lives for her.