Sister Rival Soldier Spy
This is chapter four, have you read chapter one yet?
This was a trap, she was sure of it. Estrella wanted Mariem alone, but why? Interrogation? Insult? Or did she just want to gloat about her shiny new Admiral bars? When they served in the Zentari-Neys Navy together, Estrella was always so competitive. And obviously jealous. Being the daughter of not one, but two admirals, Estrella had her work cut out for her. And Mariem? She was Carlos’s rescue case. So she had to just follow him around—like a puppy.
Her teeth ground together, her hands squeezed. Now she was following Estrella.
And the sister thing... was technically true. Carlos became her guardian when he bought out her contract, and Estrella never let it go. But she joined on the officer tract, and always outranked Mariem. So she just had to take it.
She didn’t have to take it anymore.
“So, who’s the new girl?” Estrella spun, still walking side-step down the corridor. Hands clasped behind.
Her tone was flat, matter-of-fact, authoritative. Mariem failed to ignore it.
Estrella didn’t flinch. “Simonee right? Bastien seemed to know all about her. Such a strange man. Spent the last two weeks in this hopper with him and still don’t know what he does all day in his cockpit.”
Mariem’s eyes tightened, but the heat drained into her neck—so this is how it’s gonna go.
“Cut the crap,” she spat. “Whatever Bastien knows, you know times ten. What do you really want to know?”
Estrella’s brow shot down and she turned back to the corridor.
“Always the cynic. Is it too much just to have a conversation? Nothing on the feed can be trusted, you know that, and you were right there in the action. I want to know what really happened?”
Mariem eyed the ceiling. “So you can update ZN on the power balance of Enceladus Station?”
Estrella stopped at a hatch. “You’re incorrigible.”
The hatch slid open. “Here we are, my luxury accomodations.”
“Seriously?” Mariem grunted. The room was practically empty. A two-bunks berth cut into the opposite wall. A single bag lay across the bottom bunk.
“One. Fucking. Duffel?” She spat.
Estrella shrugged. “Duh. I just needed to talk to you before my father smothers me with his guilt and pride.”
Mariem crossed her arms. “Fine. Let’s get this over with before I tuck that thing into my back pocket.”
“How is he?” Estrella blurted.
Mariem flinched and almost dropped her arms. “Wha? Who?”
The perma-smirk, the hard brow, the tightly-squared shoulders—gone. She peered up at Mariem like... like... never.
But that brow pulled the rest of Estrella back to attention. “My father? Your captain? How. Is. He. Do-ing?”
Where do I start? The drinking, the secrecy... those hollowed out eyes. “He’s... Carlos. He’s doing Carlos. I don’t understand the question.”
Estrella reached and backhanded her arm.
“Bullshit!” she shouted. “I saw that look. Seven years since the discharge without a word, then suddenly, Lan Adma is filing release and transfer paperwork for Syl to work with my father on a contract that has the kind of paper trail that makes me raise brows but my superiors in Intelligence button their lips. It took seven years worth of favors just to get the transfer assigned to me. And you’ve got nothing?”
The flush came fast, straight to her face—she didn’t know. She didn’t know! Seven years out here alone with the man and she... she tried—but learned quickly that Carlos wasn’t going to tell her.
But she saw the change after Ganymede even before the discharge. Carlos was her mentor, but rarely... friendly.
She confronted him after the hearing, told him she was going to resign, quit... follow.
He just smiled and told her not to. Everything would be fine.
But she did it anyway.
She tracked him down at a bar and plunked into the chair across from him. The half empty bottle of bourbon on the table told a different story than the smiling man in the courthouse.
“Well, shit,” he slurred. “Aren’t we just a couple of losers?”
“I don’t plan to be. Where are you heading?” she asked.
He just pointed out the window where moondust fuzzed into starlight.
“Meeting a man about a ship.” He said. “Says she’s reee-al sturdy.”
She grunted. “Asteroids are sturdy, just really hard to steer. Got a name picked out?”
He grinned wide. “Mm-Hmm.” He spread his hands through the air. “El Fénix.”
“Really… your luchador alias?”
“Why not? This is how I rise from the ashes.”
“Mm-Hmm, well, do you need a first-mate?”
“I need a lot of things. The pay will suck.”
“It always has.”
Carlos wiped a spare glass with a napkin and filled it—passed it to her.
He raised his in the air. “Here’s to the worst idea ever!”
Mariem tinked his glass and drank.
Estrella’s snort snapped her out of it. “I hoped you of all people... but it seems he’s not the only one lost out here.”
She shook her head. “I—I tried Estrella. He just...”
Estrella stiffened and her nose went up. “You could have had your own ship, you know?” She said. “But you just had to follow him out here... like a puppy on the heels of her disgraced master.”
The burn hit her eyes and her teeth came out. “Bitch!”
She turned—fists clenched. She turned back. “Those charges were bullshit! And I—”
“Of course they were bullshit!” Estrella practically screamed. “Who else but my father gets to keep his pension after a dishonorable discharge? And now I’m here, on thin ice, and I need to know who I can trust. If this contract turns south and Intelligence puts eyes on it, you’re going down with him.”
“If you think I’m going to help those ZN fucks then you can shove that duffle right up your hoo-ha.”
Estrella shook her head. “Not them. I need you to help me! My father!”
“You are them!” She barked. “All that shit went down and you turned your back—doubled down on being a good soldier for mommy.”
Estrella’s arms folded tightly over her chest and her eyes got small. “Someone had to stay behind. Do you think you’re the honorable one because you rage quit and indulged his fantasies of being a trader?”
She gritted her teeth. “I couldn’t be loyal to a company that tosses aside great men. It wasn’t right.”
Estrella’s shoulder’s dropped. “And how is our great man these days? I could smell the whiskey on him as soon as I stepped out of that airlock.”
Her jaw worked but she still couldn’t describe the man she’d seen last night.
“Still nothing?” Estrella turned; leaned on the bunk. “I thought... I thought you loved him too.”
Mariem’s chest locked—the burn threatened to spill. A moment—another—and neither said a word as the ventilators hummed through the silence.
She reached past Estrella, grabbed her duffel in one hand, and stormed out into the corridor.
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New to Simonee’s story? The Cannibal of Cloud Ball 9 is Book Two of The Girl with the Cybernetic Eye. Book One — The Ice Princess of Enceladus Station — is complete and free to read. Start here.