FORT LIBERTY: VOLUME ONE by M Orenda Read Free Book Online

stupid, we do it fast.”
    “Aye, aye,” Clara makes a mockery of the words, but she’s pulling up the final checklists, getting it done.
    “Colonel,” Petra says, distracted now, her gaze set on the screens. “Your people take crew cabin two. It’ll be cramped, that’s certain, but there are enough hammocks in there, some lockers, an itty bitty toilet and a spray tube. I’ll leave the explaining of those systems and their operation to you, since it’s not your first time in big sky, and I’ve got no patience for it either way.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    “Also, you are a now an AFC, an Accelerated Flight Comm team, hired directly by me, to fix the comm software which frequently restarts itself and leaves us deaf and dumb, and everyone knows it, and that is all you will say to anyone on this ship besides myself, and my pilot. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he says.
    “Then it’s time to go.” She punches her code into the console and reopens the access hatch. “Opening airlock one to Copernicus. You have five minutes to get your people stowed and not a second more… ”
    And, of course, he’s already moving, pushing away from the wall and reaching for the rungs lining the access tube. He’s focused on the task, but too big to simply glide by, and so he brushes against her, the solid feel of him suddenly warm, pressed up close. It’s accidental, impersonal, unavoidable, and just enough to make her turn her head, watch over her shoulder as he disappears down that access way.
    In zero G, there’s no feeling the weight of another body when it’s just near, no sense of physical closeness or separation. Everyone floats without sensation. Everyone lives without touch, save the slip of fingertips on cold screens, on plastic, on metal, the itch of uniforms or the embrace of hammock netting for sleep.
    The touch of a man is something she’s forgot how to miss, and Mr. Assaulter isn’t just some half -man either, he’s full man, guns, knives, tattoos, a beard and a big ass watch. Not one woman in big sky could put that thought down easy, and she’s no exception, even if she is a damn fool.
    “That a sparkle in your eye?” Clara asks without looking up, like she’s just aware of everything, no need to see it.
    Petra shakes her head. “Anger management, more like. Such Rhys Corp interference what we don’t need, being forced to take unnecessary risk when we’re brimming hatch to hatch with rare cargo, and risk what for we don’t even know… just so we can stare at his ass for weeks.”
    “Yeah,” Clara says, chuckling under her breath. “Isn’t that just the worst?”
    Petra scowls, turning her attention to the security screens and watching as three additional Assaulters gather inside the airlock… only they’re not dressed like Assaulters. They’re dressed in harbor tech uniforms, grey on grey, with pockets and zippers, and vests that glow inside dark tubes.
    Tricky, aren’t you?
    One of them is pulling a long bag, careful to keep it floating level, not bouncing off walls and corners. It’s big enough to be anything, though no hard shapes poke out from the fabric, no edges appear in its weightless drift. It simply floats where it’s guided, slipping with the Assaulters through the tubes and into cabin two, along with some bags, some equipment wrapped in tarps, everything lashed up with cords, hidden from prying eyes.
    The cabin hatch slides shut, nothing more to see.
    It’s full trouble, and she knows it, but it’s also too late to go back on decisions already made, what with big sky waiting.
    “Lock us down,” she hears herself say. “Get us out of here.”
    “Getting,” Clara says, disengaging the docking clamps. The pilot screens brighten, a dozen of them activated at the same time. Jets hiss portside. The Sparrow floats out from the dock amid the flash of amber caution lights.
    Clara’s done it more times that she can count, so she’s whistling one of her cheery piloting