Damage Control (Valiant Knox) by Jess Anastasi Read Free Book Online

get used to.
    At the opposite end of the locker room, down past the showers, was a small laundry room. It was divided down the middle with a fat yellow line, one side for dirty, the other side for clean. The dirty side had an overflowing, wheeled container of soiled towels sitting next to a chute that went into the ship’s automated washing system. The clean side had another chute where the washed and dried items got spat out into another container.
    Captain Alphin stopped and pointed at the dirty side. “Feed the towels in one at a time or the chute will get jammed. And let me tell you, the maintenance crew does not like crawling in there to fix it. In a few minutes the towels will come out on that side, and then they need to be folded and put away.”
    He turned to look at her.
    Laundry duty?
    She’d pulled stinking laundry duty her second day here because she hadn’t followed the doctor’s orders? Technically she hadn’t even started training yet. She clenched her teeth over the tightness in her throat, because more than anything, she wished she had followed that advice instead of keeping her promise to see Penny off.
    Except she got the feeling this might be more about what had happened between Captain Alphin and her in the ER. She’d seen his weak side and now he would do everything in his power to shove her away, make her fail, because they’d crossed a line. A very small infraction, but it had happened. If the truth came out, it would be bad for both of them. So she would suck it up and take whatever he threw at her.
    “Sir, yes, sir.” She moved past him to the overflowing container and picked up a damp towel off the top. Really, she didn’t want to think about where it had been before it got here.
    She fed it into the chute, waited a beat, and then followed it with another. Captain Alphin crossed his arms and watched her. She felt the weight of his stern regard all the way down to her toes. In a few moments, clean towels puffed out into the container on the other side. She went over and started folding, her back aching as she bent down to grab the cloths from the deep bottom of the container.
    Captain Alphin nodded. “Very good, recruit. Carry on.”
    He spun on his heel and strode out of the laundry room, leaving her alone with the slight vrooming sound of the chute. And just how long was she supposed to keep this up for? Until the container of dirty towels was empty? She glanced at the towering pile. How long would that take?
    A female soldier ducked in and tossed a couple more on the heap, shooting her a sympathetic look. With a sigh, Mia got to feeding the chute, blanking her mind of everything but getting through the task one sopping towel at a time.

Chapter Four
    L eigh stepped out of the transit on alpha flight deck, glancing around to see the maintenance crew getting things back into order after the previous day’s chaos, while a few medicos packed up the last of the deck triage.
    He spotted his intended target standing next to an armed personnel carrier, facing off with Lawler.
    “Cam, were you really going to leave without saying good-bye?” He clapped the colonel on the back as he stopped next to him, but his buddy shot him an annoyed glare.
    “Yes, I was trying to leave before you made it up here, but Lawler wouldn’t get out of my way.”
    “Just following orders, sir.” Lawler shot Cam a bland smile, then gave a salute that had a definite edge of sarcasm to it.
    “I already told Yang, I don’t need an escort to the ground. I got here by myself just fine yesterday.”
    Leigh clasped his hands behind his back and shrugged one shoulder. “Like the sub-officer said, we’re just following orders.”
    “When it suits you,” Cam muttered in resignation.
    He grinned and sent Lawler a nod, who stepped aside from blocking the hatchway to the personnel carrier.
    “Don’t consider us an escort, just pretend like we happen to be running a routine patrol on your exact trajectory. Either