6. Dux #3
“Dux,” she says, voice low and dangerous.
I look up at her. “Roma.”
Her palm remains on the console beside my hand.
She is close enough that I can see flecks of gold caught in the green of her eyes, close enough to smell soap beneath machine oil and the faint iron trace where her lip split earlier.
She looks tired in the way soldiers look tired after they have survived too much and still have to write the report.
“You will not test my systems for entertainment,” she says.
“I am testing the boundaries.”
“They are not theoretical.”
“Good. Theoretical boundaries are boring.”
Her mouth firms with displeasure, but she does not give me the satisfaction of anger spilling loose. “Every system on this ship has been placed, locked, and limited according to mission necessity. Your curiosity does not outrank my design.”
“No, but my survival might.”
“Your survival is included in mission parameters.”
“That is generous.”
“It is practical. Corpses are inefficient in confined spaces.”
I laugh. “You say the sweetest things.”
Roma withdraws her hand and steps back, but her attention stays fixed on me. “You think rules are cages.”
“Some are.”
“Mine are not.”
“We’ll see.”
“No,” she says. “We will not see. You will follow them.”
I hold her stare. The cockpit hums around us, alive with low power and waking systems. Beyond the viewport, the fueling tech hurries back with the correct lines, moving like a man determined to survive her customer feedback.
“You hired me because I do well when plans stop behaving,” I say. “If you wanted a button-pusher, you would have hired someone cheaper and prettier.”
“I hired you because my options were limited.”
“Same thing, less flattering.”
“I am not here to flatter you.”
“You noticed my charm earlier.”
“I noticed your utility.”
“Liar.”
Her eyes sharpen. “Careful.”
“There it is,” I say, smiling. “That word gets passed around when people run out of arguments.”
She leans closer, and her voice drops into something smooth enough to cut cleanly. “I have arguments. I also have an airlock.”
“That is more of a punctuation mark.”
“For you, perhaps.”
I grin despite the warning, because she means it enough to be interesting and not enough to be stupid.
She turns away before I can enjoy that too much and straps into the pilot’s chair.
Her hands move over the controls with ritual precision, waking the Lamplight piece by piece.
Screens bloom. Coolant flow steadies. Docking feeds align.
The deck begins to vibrate beneath my boots, a deep, restrained tremor that travels up through bone and scale.
The ship answers her touch like it knows her.
I do not say that aloud.
Roma opens the comm. “Fueling control, confirm deuterium mix three and seal all external lines.”
The tech’s voice crackles back. “Confirmed, Lamplight. Mix three loaded. External lines clearing now.”
“Run contamination scan.”
“Already ran it.”
“Run it again.”
A sigh begins on the other end, then dies a coward’s death. “Running again.”
I fasten the harness across my chest and tug it into place. It fits poorly, but not disastrously. “You always make people this nervous?”
Roma keeps her eyes on the display. “Only when they are incompetent.”
“That must be exhausting in public.”
“It is.”
The contamination scan clears. She confirms it, logs the result, and sends three more commands before the fueling tech can escape the conversation. I watch the sequence, noting what she checks twice and what she trusts once. Her caution is not random. It has architecture.
That makes testing it more useful.
I reach toward the external camera selector.
Roma speaks without looking. “Do not.”
“I want to see the clamps.”
“Ask.”
“May I view the clamps?”
“No.”
I press the selector.
The display shifts to an exterior view of the docking clamps locked around the landing struts. Massive, scarred, and very much worth seeing. Roma closes her eyes for one long inhale, the kind of controlled breath a person takes before deciding whether murder would be inefficient.
When she opens them, her voice is calm. “Why?”
“To see how you react.”
“That is not an acceptable reason.”
“It is an honest one.”
She turns her chair toward me. The cockpit light catches the bruise on her cheek and the loose red strands that have escaped her braid.
“I am not one of your bar fights, Dux. I am not an officer you can provoke for sport. I am not some fragile little genius who needs chaos taught to her by a man with more scars than sense.”
“No,” I say, keeping my voice quieter than hers. “You’re a woman flying into the core with all control routed through her hands because trusting anyone else feels too much like losing.”
Her face goes very still, but her eyes do not empty. They burn.
“Do not confuse insight with permission,” Roma says.
“I won’t.”
“You just did.”
“Fair.”
That answer surprises her. Her lips part slightly, then close as she reassesses. I like watching her recalibrate. It is almost enough to distract me from the fact that she is right to be angry.
Almost.
I lift both hands from the console and rest them where she can see them. “I will respect the ship.”
“And the rules?”
“The ones keeping us alive.”
“All of them are intended to keep us alive.”
“Then we will have fewer arguments than expected.”
“I doubt that.”
“Good instincts.”
The docking clamps release with a heavy mechanical shudder that passes through the hull and into my chest. The Lamplight rises smoother than I expect, lifting from the bay floor with controlled grace.
Outside the viewport, maintenance lights slide downward across the canopy, and the launch corridor opens ahead like a throat lined with cold stars.
Roma faces forward. Her voice over comms is crisp, stripped of every private edge. “Docking Bay Twelve, Lamplight departing under private clearance. Confirm vector.”
Dock control answers through a wash of static. “Vector confirmed. Safe travels, Lamplight.”
Before Roma can respond, another voice cuts into the private channel.
“Safe travels?” Loklo says. “That is what people say to grandmothers visiting a market. Dux, if you die, I am selling your good liquor first.”
Roma’s head turns slightly toward the comm display. “How did he access this channel?”
I settle deeper into the harness. “He has hidden talents.”
“He should not.”
Loklo’s voice crackles with offended dignity. “I can hear you, terrifying red-haired lady.”
Roma’s hand moves across the console. “Good. Then hear this clearly. If you interfere with my communications again, I will route your inventory records through station tax compliance.”
Silence floods the channel.
Loklo finally replies in a hushed voice. “Dux, I approve of her. Bring her back too.”
The line cuts.
Roma stares at the dead channel as if it has personally betrayed several principles of order. “Your bartender is a menace.”
“He grows on people.”
“So does mold.”
“Some mold saves lives.”
She gives me a sidelong look. “Do not compare your employee to medicine.”
“I was comparing him to fungus.”
“That is worse.”
“More accurate.”
The Lamplight slides into the launch corridor, and the station falls behind us by degrees.
Panels curve away outside the viewport. Guiding lights flash in ordered sequence.
Past them, space waits vast and black, pricked with distant suns that look peaceful because distance makes liars of beautiful things.
Roma’s hands remain steady on the controls.
I keep mine visible, for now.
Boundaries matter.
Mostly because the important ones tell you exactly where the fight will be.