Chapter 33
TASK
SFS POLARIS
Voss is sitting in Task’s room when he returns from his early morning jaunt around the ship.
Task hasn’t been sleeping well, so he’s taken to wandering about the floors in the wee hours when everyone else is asleep, when the darkness streaming in from outside his window changes from pitch black to slightly purple.
He didn’t expect to find anybody at the mess this morning, but then he hasn’t been tracking Kit’s schedule this week.
He’s trying to detach, care less about what she’s doing, care less about her overall.
She’s fucking up his mission, which he reminds himself is critical to keeping his uncle alive, to keeping Nexarium functioning.
He should have known the ship would be too small for any sort of casual distancing. He rakes his hands through his hair as his door slides shut behind him, then leans back against it. “Can I help you?”
“You need to weave,” Voss says. “You’re behaving strangely.”
“I am not behaving strangely,” Task retorts, though he can see how Voss would think that. He’s doing things that are out of character for him, things that Voss has probably not seen him do in ten years.
Voss raises his eyebrows. “You’re wandering around the ship at all hours of the night. You’re lashing out in our Council meetings. You’re…uneven.”
Task is quiet. Voss knows him better than anybody, even Draven. He shouldn’t be surprised that Voss has noticed his volatility, though it’s not for the reasons Voss thinks.
Task avoids making eye contact with Voss, instead turning his head to look out the round window in his room. The dark galaxy stares back at him, though the purple streaks are turning more turquoise now, which indicates it’s nearly sunrise, somewhere.
“I’m fine,” Task says, though he’s lying. He’s not fine. He’s conflicted and confused and feels like he is connected to this woman he’s known for only two months in a way he cannot put into words.
“You want to try that again?” Voss asks, standing up and walking towards the window so he’s in Task’s direct line of sight, forcing Task to look at him.
Task closes his eyes and sighs. Voss has always been good at pulling things out of him, but he can’t share this. Instead, he says, “It’s not because of the pain.”
Voss tilts his head, studying Task. “So you admit you’re behaving strangely?”
Task breathes out, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, annoyed that Voss is needling him. “No.” He says it to be contrarian, mostly.
Voss raises a dark brow, ignoring Task’s denial completely. “Well, come on. What is it then?”
Something that Task could have never predicted, never asked for, didn’t want.
Something that he keeps trying to desperately push away.
Every time he thinks he’s gotten his walls back into place, that he’s sufficiently detached, she’s there, unbuilding them brick by brick.
He doesn’t know what he’s going to do or how much longer he can stall.
His uncle has been more agitated than ever, and he looks worse every day.
Task objectively knows that Kit is the key to saving his uncle’s life, but the more he thinks about having to hand her over, the more he’s not sure he can do it.
And then Voss has a little smile on his face. “It’s her, isn’t it?” He says it softly, as if he might spook Task. But Task is already spooked, thank you very much.
“Of course not,” Task retorts, but it’s weak. He’s not sure why he’s putting up such a fight with Voss, when Voss is the only person who’s ever really seen all of him.
“You like her,” Voss says this definitively, and Task finally moves from the back of the door, swiftly putting Voss in a headlock before he can say any more.
“Putting me in a headlock is not going to stop you from having this conversation,” Voss says, from where Task has him bent over, arms wrapped around his neck.
Voss turns his body inwards, moving his shoulders and hips to break Task’s hold.
Task grips him more tightly, feeling pricks of pain at every place where his bare arms touch Voss’ neck.
“It might,” Task says snippily, widening his stance and shifting his left arm to try to keep Voss still.
Voss surges upwards, knocking Task off balance, and grabs his left arm, twisting it behind him.
Task is breathing heavily, pain shooting up the front of his arm where Voss has twisted it.
If Task could see Voss’ face, he thinks Voss would be rolling his eyes at Task’s dramatics.
“I was the one who taught you how to break that. Don’t be an idiot. ”
He’s not wrong. Voss taught him how to fight.
They taught each other how to fight, really, but Voss has always been a little bit better.
Quicker, more agile, which counts for a lot in battle.
When they manifested, Task was stronger, more powerful.
His pain echo trumped Voss’ time warping, but together, they were usually unstoppable.
“If I let go of you, are you going to come at me again?” Voss says, pulling Task’s arm behind his back more tightly, and Task winces.
Voss’ hand is on his bare arm, so in addition to the pain of having his joint yanked backwards, he’s also now feeling Voss’ pain seep into him, even though he can tell Voss is trying to shield.
“Only if I don’t like the direction of the conversation,” Task says sweetly, though he’s gritting his teeth.
Voss drops Task’s arm and steps back, out of his reach. “You know you’re allowed to like people, right?” He walks to Task’s desk and leans back against it, crossing his arms.
“I don’t like people,” Task says. “And before you go there — I tolerate you. I don’t like you.” He’s lying, of course, but he can’t have Voss getting a big ego now, can he?
Voss hums noncommittally. “Could have fooled me.”
Task huffs. He would like to be done with this conversation, but he doesn’t think Voss is capable of letting anything go. He’s like a dog with a bone. “Can we discuss something else? Perhaps we should prepare for the meeting with the High Council this afternoon?”
“Of course, major,” Voss says, smirking at him, “once you admit that you like her.”
Task wants to throw his coffee at Voss, but he restrains himself. They’re adult men, and yet sometimes when he’s with Voss, it’s like he reverts to being a teenager.
“Just say it,” Voss presses him, “then we can talk whatever strategy you’d like.”
“Voss, I’m tired,” Task says, moving from his perch near the door to his bed. He sets the coffee tumbler on the built-in nightstand beside it and lays face-down, burying his head in his pillow.
“Say it.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m not leaving until you do.” Task can hear the grin in Voss’ voice. God fucking dammit. He wants Voss to leave him alone to stew in peace for an hour, before he has to actually be awake and functional.
“I might like her a little bit,” Task admits into his pillow.
His neck warms, and now he really feels like he’s thirteen again.
He reminds himself he is a major in the Nexarium Force, that he commands an entire wing of the Force and the Security & Intel operation aboard the Polaris, and that he is the most powerful weapon Nexarium has seen in decades, something to be feared, a force to be reckoned with. It bolsters him a little bit.
“I knew it,” Voss says, triumphantly. Task is glad Voss doesn’t make him repeat himself, though he’s sure it was muffled, and Voss definitely could have used that to prod him further. “She’s the reason you’re off-kilter?”
“I suppose,” Task says. “Now leave me be.”
“As you wish,” Voss says. Task hears his footsteps move toward the door, the door sliding open, and then Voss is gone, leaving Task alone with his thoughts again.
Later, Task sits in the conference room adjacent to the bridge, flipping through files in his Prism.
In spite of the interrogations, they’ve not been able to find out much more about the Revs on board.
In two cases, Task had let his rage get the best of him and pushed too far, locking the criminals in a painful cage until they’d died.
At a certain point, he’d lost track of what he was rageful about — his uncle’s lies, the hoops he’d continued to jump through for him, the fact that he was falling for a woman he shouldn’t be, or that the Revs were far more sophisticated than any of them had believed, threatening the tentative peace of the Consortium.
It's left the Guardians uneasy, the trust between them broken. Task’s men are agitated and have been quicker to turn on each other.
Caden has been more ruthless than usual in his quest to undermine him, and every day, Task worries that Caden will discover their excursion to Aquidium.
Caelinus has been stalking the ship like a predator, his eyes a little wild.
And although Voss remains externally steady, the consummate general-on-board, Task can sense his anxiety — the lines on his forehead a bit more pronounced, the way he constantly checks for his lumi-daggers at his thighs.
And there’s no real solution, no way to know they’ve rooted them all out. All they can do is watch their backs, hope that they’ve managed to scare the rest of the Revs into hiding.
His Chronogram buzzes, and he sees it’s Draven.
He feels relief as he accepts the hologram call, and Draven appears in front of him, a slightly wavy image given the fidelity of the comms out here.
He’s at least out of bed today, sitting in his office, his coronet atop his head.
He still looks ill, face hollow and gaunt, but Tasks knows so much of what ails his uncle is internal.
It impacts his magic, his ability to use his power, and that is what scares Draven.
It scares Task too. As much as the pain echo is a constant source of agony, it is a part of him in the most integral of ways.
If he were to suddenly lose it, he thinks he might also begin to unravel in the way that Draven is.