Local Star, Aimee Ogden [ebook reader that looks like a book txt] 📗

Veling nodded, squeezing Triz’s fingers. Her strong hands ground Triz’s finger-bones together but Triz welcomed the pressure. “Hells if you’re picking up a wrench today, my heart. Quelian can work himself senseless down there if he needs to, but you don’t have to.”

Triz squeezed Veling’s hands back, if not as hard. She didn’t know whether she wanted the mindless release of work or not, but she did know she wanted more than just that. “I need to do something,” she repeated softly.

“They’ll let us visit her, if she’s in holding in the Hab.” Veling released her grip and straightened the silk wrap that smoothed her hair for the night. A tear dripped off the tip of her chin, and she ignored it. “We can take shifts, keep her company, bring her—I don’t know. Bring her whatever she needs.”

“Nantha.” That single word sucked the air out of the room faster than a hull breach. Triz struggled for the air to say it again. Guilt filled her lungs instead. Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? Visions exploded in front of her: a stone-faced Fleet clerical worker breaking the news through a brief port connection, or worse yet, a terse text missive delivered straight to Nantha’s fob. “I’ll call her,” Triz said. “Tell her what’s happening.”

“Thank you.” Veling folded her arms. With her chin lifted high, she looked more like Casne than ever. The space in the room shifted, Othine and Idha drawing closer together, standing behind Veling. Their positions made Quelian’s lone outpost by the far wall all the more conspicuous. “Now, we have some quad business to discuss amongst ourselves before Quelian goes anywhere. If you’ll excuse us, Triz.”

Nantha answered the call after the first ring. On the wallport in the wrenchworks, her face was porcelain-pale with dark smears under the eyes. “Triz?” Nantha asked, “Do you have any news?”

Triz stared up at Nantha’s bigger-than-life features on the oversized wallport surrounded by tools and parts hung on the walls. Veling told her not to go to work today, but a retreat to her own empty rooms was unthinkable. At least here the hulks of sleeping starfighters kept her company, and the dull throb of vacuums and cleaner modules filled the silence.

“Hi, Nantha,” Triz said. “Someone . . . already told you.” If only she could wish away the millions of miles between them and wrap Nantha up in her arms. If only she’d been the one to call Nan first—she shied away from that guilty thought. “Are you all right?”

“Not particularly.” Nantha looked away. Her dark hair was mussed, and so was her usually pristine uniform. By Fleet Standard Time, it was midmorning on Hask, the substation just outside Centerpoint where Nantha was billeted, but Triz suspected she’d woken Nan up. “I don’t think I’ll be all right until this all gets straightened out. Or I at least get to talk to her.” Nan folded over at the waist. Triz’s stomach churned as she watched Nan’s fingers twist through her close-cropped hair. When she spoke again, her voice was muffled by her knees. “They have footage, Triz! How can it be real?”

“I don’t know,” Triz said. She felt so useless. “I don’t know anything. I’m so sorry, Nan.” Triz gnawed the inside of her cheek. In the cozy picture she carried in her mind, Nantha was always laughing, always in the middle of some dreadful but cheery punchline. She found it hard to reconcile the woman in front of her with that image. But it wasn’t as hard as reconciling her conception of Casne with the woman hauled away in restraints the night before. “Did they call you last night after they brought her in?”

Nantha pushed out of her forward fold into a boneless slouch. “Kalo called,” Nan answered, her teeth digging into her chapped lower lip. “He wanted me to hear it from him before I got the Fleet’s official notice. Or saw it on the port. Have you been watching?”

“I’ve been trying not to. You shouldn’t, either.” Better not to pour pollution into her remaining reserves of strength. “They’ll tell us what we need to know.” Triz didn’t even know who they were. The Fleet? Justice?

“I hope so, because she didn’t. Even if it was an accident, a miscalculated firing sequence—why didn’t she just tell us?” Nantha’s voice broke and the edges were sharp. “Did she tell you?”

“No!” Triz pressed her hand to the wallport. It was faintly warm to the touch, and after a moment, Nantha mirrored the gesture. “Nan, did they take you off active duty?”

A rough laugh. “Of course. I can’t be plugged into Nav calculations right now. I’d probably accidentally point half the Fleet into the Cluster and chart a few courses straight through the heart of a neutron star.” Her voice steadied. “I know she couldn’t have told you anything, because there’s nothing to tell. I know Casne. It’s just all happening so fast and so far away—”

“I know.” Triz let her hand fall back into her lap. Nantha’s hand stayed on the port screen, a ghostly white afterimage left behind by Triz’s fingers. “I feel like I’m in shock, and I’m right here.” And whatever else might be between them, Triz wasn’t Casne’s wife. “I can’t imagine what it’s like, Nantha.”

“You are there, though.” Nantha’s fingers spasmed and she leaned closer to the wallport. “Be my eyes and ears. Keep an eye on her. And Triz, if you can get to the bottom of this—!” Her hand dropped away and she bent over her wrist fob. “I’m shooting you the names of some of the officers on the Dailos. People Casne knows, who know her. Maybe one of them can help you work through this.”

That sounded more like the Nantha Triz knew, but the sudden steel in her made Triz wilt. “If anyone’s going to get this straightened out, it’s whoever Justice assigns her as an Advocate. Not me. I’m just a wrenchworks jockey.”

“Advocates are Fleet officers.” Nantha’s blue eyes