Choosers of the Slain

32

The weather-deck hatch slammed shut, locking out the night and leaving the interior passageway crowded with sodden, snow-encrusted figures too weary to move.

"Well, that was a bit of a chore," Arkady commented, leaning into the grab rail. "Think she'll be okay out there, Chief?"

"Probably, just as long as we don't get crossways to the weather again. Sorry about having to leave her topside, sir. Trying to hog her down on the elevator tonight just wouldn't have been such a good idea."

"Yeah, I know. You guys did good work out there, Chief."

"Thank the Lady. She figured out how to get you down. Speaking God's honest, Lieutenant, I had you figured as turning up missing next muster."

"Me too."

Arkady lifted one hand from the rail and studied it judgmentally. Yep, he was going to have a real good case of the shakes here presently. Probably at least as good as after that dogfight the other day.

"Get these people thawed out." Amanda Garrett was leaning back against the bulkhead a couple of feet down the passageway. Her eyes were closed, her voice hoarse and a little unsteady. "Forget water restrictions and get them under a hot shower for as long as it takes. Guelette and… the other guy who was knocked down out there. Go to sickbay and get checked out. Let's move."

The recovery teams began to disperse, shuffling back down toward their berthing spaces. Gus Grestovitch was sitting on the deck, his head cradled in his arms. Arkady reached down and pulled him to his feet.

"Come on, buddy. You heard the Lady. Up off your ass and fly."

Grestovitch managed a wan grin as his pilot aimed him down the passageway.

After a few moments, only he and his captain remained in the corridor. The day had turned full circle. Only now they were wet, half frozen, and trembling on the edge of collapse. What hadn't changed was that Arkady found himself thinking that she was still one of the most desirable of women. As for what Amanda thought, he wasn't quite sure.

She was watching him now with that same look of almost fearful wariness that he'd seen outside of sick bay.

She turned away from him and started forward. As she reached the passageway ladder up to the next level, her legs nearly buckled.

"Hey, are you okay?" Hell, his own weren't all that solid as he hurried to her side.

"I'm all right," she said thickly, clinging to the ladder railing. "I just need to get to the bridge."

There was an unfocused haziness in her eyes that spooked him, and a pallor to her skin that went beyond mere exposure to cold.

"Captain, you'd better obey your own orders and get under a hot shower for a while. You don't look so good."

"I'm fine and I am needed on the bridge!" She tried to pull herself up the ladder, but slipped and went down hard with one knee on the riser.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I think you're going into hypothermic shock!"

"Leave me alone, Lieutenant!"

Something cracked inside Arkady. Reaching out, he grabbed the hood of her parka and literally shook her by the scruff of the neck. "Jesus, Lady, will you please think about yourself for five goddamned minutes!" he roared, groping for words that would reach her. "What happens to the ship if you go down? Who's going to get us out of here?"

That did it. A degree of awareness snapped back into her eyes. "All right, all right! Help me to my cabin!"

With his arm around her waist, they made it up the ladder and forward to her quarters, moving as unsteadily as if they'd split a full bottle of bourbon. Once inside the door, he yanked down the zips of her parka and peeled the mass of wet fabric off her shoulders, letting it drop to the deck.

She jerked away from him. "I can manage for myself, Lieutenant!" she said tightly.

"Fine! Do it!" He started to leave but found himself turning back to meet her gaze head-on. "And I'm not Lieutenant! I'm Arkady!"

The cabin door slammed behind him.

He stood out in the passageway for a few moments, riding with the pitch of the deck, and then looked up toward the overhead.

"Now, why in the hell did I say that!"

He slammed his flight helmet against the opposing interior bulkhead, producing an oilcanning boom and leaving a considerable dent in the sheet metal. With his forearm tingling from the shock of the blow, he stalked down to his own quarters.

Amanda made her way to the cabin's head. Without attempting to undress, she kicked off her sea boots and climbed into the shower, turning on the hot water full force.

It was almost a minute before she even began to feel the steaming warmth.

She held her hands up to the flow from the shower spigot and worked her fingers until they eventually began to regain a degree of their flexibility. Then, slowly, she began to undress.

Now that she was starting to recover, she could realize just how bad a shape she'd been in. Arkady had been right about her physical condition. How right was he about the other things?

Since Annapolis, many of the men she had been involved with had been fellow naval officers. With some, she'd developed friendships. Others, she'd dated. With a select two or three, she had had affairs. What she had never done was to allow herself to become drawn to anyone in her chain of command. That was dancing on the edge of professional disaster. She had sworn that she would never leave herself so vulnerable.

Unfortunately, along had come one Lieutenant Vincent Arkady, quietly demanding the right to care for her.

In the cold environment, Amanda had been wearing one of her leotards under her uniform. Peeling out of this second skin, she dropped it to her feet. Her bra and briefs followed. Sinking down to the bottom of the cramped stall, she let the hot spray play over her shoulders.

The overt answer was easy. She needed to end this, right now, before they both made fools of themselves.

Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work on easy answers. This was going beyond a simple tug of physical desire. Out on that deck tonight, she had felt fear for him. Not just the sense of responsibility she felt for everyone under her command, but a deeper, personalized fear. One that radiated up from the core of her being. One born out of the realization of all the lost possibilities there would be if this man was taken from her.

She kneeled on her discarded clothing. "Damn you…damn you…damn you…"

Only, this time she couldn't say if it was aimed at Arkady or herself.

The Cunningham scissored steadily ahead through the storm rollers, the repetitive explosions of spray around her bow showing up as the faintest of pale flashes in the night.

"How's she doing, Ken?"

Hiro looked around to find Amanda standing at his shoulder, clad in fresh work khakis and with her still-damp hair pinned up on the back of her neck. She waved away the traditional call announcing her presence on the bridge.

"We're doing okay, Captain. She's running tight and all boards are green. The helo looks like it's riding all right too."

"Good enough. Let's take a look at the course."

They stepped across the darkened bridge to the glowing surface of the chart table.

"Still steering two nine oh, and we have resumed full blackout and EMCON. I've also bent on turns for a couple of extra knots. It'll eat into our fuel a little, but I figured that we'd want to get well clear of that last contact point before first light."

"I concur." Amanda drew her nail across the surface of the chart tank. "We'll hold this heading and get back into the center of Drake Passage. Hugging the pack just isn't going to work for us."

"Yeah. There's more drift out there than we were told to expect."

"That, plus it gives the Argys a fixed geographical line they can hunt along for us. Going out into the Passage will put us closer to the Argentine air bases, but we'll just have to live with it. How about the weather?"

"Latest metsat download indicates that we should be through the worst of this heavy stuff by about zero four hundred."

"Good. We'll call up a work crew and strike the helo below just as soon as the seas moderate." Amanda straightened from the chart table. "Sorry about taking so long to get back up here," she said, rubbing the small of her back. "After that session on the helipad, I had to defrost a little."

"No problem," Hiro replied sympathetically. "It didn't look like much fun on the monitors. Want me to keep an eye on things tonight?"

"No, I'll take it for a while. You can have the middle watch. Go get some rest and be back up here at twenty-four hundred."

"Aye, aye. Good night, ma'am. Captain has the con!"

Amanda made the circuit, checking with each of the duty watch and with the rows of data repeaters. That done, she settled into the captain's chair, wincing slightly. She'd just discovered a few aches and bruises that her shower had failed to erase. Deliberately, she kept her eyes away from the glowing screen faces, letting her natural night vision develop.

"Earl Grey, one creamer, two sugars," a voice said quietly.

The cup materialized from over her shoulder. After a moment's hesitation, she accepted it.

"Thank you, Arkady."

"No. Thank you." She felt his weight come onto the back of her chair as he leaned against it. "I never would have made it to that Russian base tonight. I was running scared because I couldn't figure out anything else to do. You did. Gus and I are alive because of it. I owe you, Captain."

"No, we're even," she replied, looking out into the night. "If you hadn't shaken some sense into me, I wouldn't have made it up to this bridge. And my only excuse would have been that I'd started to buy in to the myth that a commanding officer is supposed to be all-enduring and indestructible."

"Yeah, well, I guess we all have our moments. Tell you what, though. If you bale me out of any further bonehead stunts that I might get involved in, I'll do the same for you."

Amanda sipped the tea. It was just as she liked it, and its comforting warmth began to radiate through her. She closed her eyes and let her breath trickle out in a protracted sigh.

"Deal," she said.