Hope's Folly Read online

  And he was not about to put something like that in writing.

  He was stuck with Sub-Lieutenant Rya Bennton, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. So he might as well torture himself a bit longer and go stand next to her in the chilly cargo bay, so that her smile could warm him, so that the touch of her hand on his arm would heat him. And so that Con Welford and Will Tramer would stop staring at his subbie’s chest.

  Goddamned Fleeties. They were all animals. He should know.

  “Let me take that, Admiral Guthrie, sir.” A tall—

  well, they were all tall—young Takan stepped up to him, pointing to Philip’s duffel. Corvang, the tag on his gray coveralls read, but Philip could have guessed that anyway from the almost devoted, wide-eyed expression on the young male’s face.

  Another subbie.

  “I have a number of valuable weapons in there, Lieutenant,” Philip said. “This doesn’t leave your sight until you put it in my quarters on the Folly.”

  “It won’t leave my side. Promise, sir. Admiral, sir.”

  Philip grabbed the duffel’s wide strap and passed it to Corvang’s eager hands. Honestly, other than Rya, Corvang was the only one he’d trust with his duffel. Rya because she shared his passion for the weapons. Corvang because, once a Takan took hold of something, it was damned near impossible to get it away.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. Good to have you here. Captain Bralford spoke very highly of you.”

  “Yes, sir. You have no idea, sir. The pleasure is all mine.” Corvang’s long face bobbed, sharp teeth bared in a typical Taken exuberant grin. “With your permission, sir.” With one more nod, he loped away toward the airlock.

  Things—people, baggage—were progressing in small, chaotically organized clumps out the shuttle’s airlock and toward the Folly, berthed two levels down. Prospective crew and their baggage first, to be cleared by those crew already on board who’d been cleared by Adney. After that, Philip and his key people, which, yes, now meant Martoni, Holton, Tramer, and Rya.

  Speaking of the latter, Con Welford was holding her hand. Philip put a little more force behind his limp and joined the group quickly, restraining himself from knocking Con on the knuckles with his cane.

  She was his subbie, but she wasn’t his. Get your libido in line, mister.

  But Con wasn’t for her either. He was, what, thirty-seven, thirty-eight? Okay, built solidly, with a face Philip knew woman found “ruggedly attractive.” All Philip saw was a broken nose and scar on the man’s chin, but that wasn’t his area of expertise.

  Con was almost ten years her senior.

  And Philip had been ten years older than Chaz and was sixteen years older than Rya.

  Stow it, Guthrie.

  But he had his silent promise to Cory to look after her. He’d fail if she fell into Con’s clutches.

  “Admiral.” Con acknowledged his presence with a grin and released Rya’s hand.

  Good. Won’t have to make your knuckles bleed. “Welford,” Philip said. “I hear helm’s computers are a nightmare.”

  “She’s Stryker-class.”

  Well, yes. That said it all.

  “But I have some ideas,” Con continued.

  “Report on my desk in the morning?”

  “Already there.”

  Not surprising. He’d been as efficient on the Loviti.

  “Ready to leave this bucket?” Philip asked Rya. He hadn’t originally intended to have her accompany him. He was fully aware he needed a breather from her, until the drugs were out of his body and he was more in control. But he wasn’t going to let Con Welford or Tramer escort his subbie to the Folly, and with the operation here on the shuttle winding down, the options for escorts were dwindling. At least if she went with him, he knew she’d be safe.

  He caught that train of thought. Safe? Most people would need protection from her. She was ImpSec and had two laser weapons he knew of on her body. God only knew what else she had, and where. Though Philip would love to—

  Down, boy.

  “Ready,” she said, her face and her beret decidedly jaunty.

  “If we’re lucky,” he said as she fell into step with him, “no one will shoot at us between here and the Folly.”

  They were lucky.

  The adrenaline rush that had kept Rya almost supercharged and hyperfocused since Kirro suddenly flagged as she stood in her cabin. Part of it was relief, and part of it was exhaustion. But a lot of it was reality.

  She’d won, yet she’d failed.

  She’d won because she was on the Folly, her father’s old ship, having been through two hours of processing, identity clearance, and the typical military datalogging.

  She’d failed because her cabin was not next to Philip’s, not even on his deck. She knew the Stockwell’s—the Folly’s layout intimately from hours of sitting at her father’s desk, or in his lap, as he explained his ship’s schematics to her. She was in Crew 3—crew’s quarters, Deck 3 of the Folly’s six decks. One deck below the captain’s—now admiral’s—quarters and private office, as well as the first officer’s quarters, where the private executive mess and two auxiliary cabins were located, on Deck 2 Forward. Either one of those auxiliary cabins would have suited Sub-Lieutenant Rya Bennton just fine. Philip was injured. He needed protection. He needed her.

  But she was in Crew 3, Cabin 8—a small bedroom with a two-cushion brown couch in the sitting area and a workstation with the ubiquitous deck-locked swivel chair. And a tall, narrow rectangular viewport, where she perched now—jacket still on because Crew Deck 3 was like a fucking ice cube—watching Seth’s moon blot out the twinkling of lights peppering the big, wide darkness.

  She sniffed.

  Oranges. The scent came and went, stronger in some areas of the ship than in others. Though she’d not been through the entire ship yet.

  “Cannot find them anywhere,” Con Welford had told her as she followed him to her new quarters, her duffel slung over her shoulder. “Commander Adney and I searched the whole damned ship, day one. We can smell ‘em. But we can’t find ‘em.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, leaning her head against the viewport’s frame. It had been one fucking hell of a day. She was bone-tired, should be stripping down to get some sleep.

  She couldn’t.

  Philip wasn’t married. He had been, but he wasn’t, and his ex was happily married to someone else.

  Rya knew it was ridiculous for her to even care about such things.

  But she did.

  Maybe come shipmorning she might not. Maybe this insane crush that had blossomed full bore on Kirro—somewhere between “My leg thanks you, but my ego is severely deflated” and “Subbie, on three, ready?”—was just a temporary aberration. It would settle down to good old-fashioned respect for a charismatic senior officer. Admiration for the man who was going to set things right, punish those who killed her father.

  Right now, though, it didn’t feel like it.

  She pushed herself away from the viewport, the cabin’s chill closing around her as she peeled off her jacket and headed for the lav. A hot shower and a few hours’ sleep were what she needed to clear her head.

  Her heart she’d deal with later.

  Philip had no idea how long he’d been awake or when he’d last slept. First was two and a half hours with Adney while the prospective crew that came in on the Kirro shuttle were processed, accepted, or rejected, and while station stripers vied with Alliance Legal over custody and interrogation rights of the two Farosian agents. The attack had been made on an Alliance officer but on a civilian ship.

  Then another hour and a half at the shipyard’s sick bay—the very tall Corvang and the short and rotund Mather his escorts—while the doctors there swapped charts and his med-stats with Doc Galan on the Nowicki through a top-priority deep-space transmit link. There was a lot of frowning, head shaking, and grunting. Though he couldn’t hear her, he could well imagine the usually mild-mannered Christine Galan swearing. He’d managed to
undo most of her best work.

  Then back to the Folly, where Adney met him with the news that they had a working and cleared crew complement of seventy-four, not including Sparks and his three subbies arriving soon. Tomorrow. Today. Whenever.

  And he hadn’t even yet officially read himself on board, taking legal command of the Folly via formal ceremony in front of Adney and the crew. There hadn’t been time.

  A Stryker-class heavy cruiser usually shipped out with a crew of one hundred forty. One twenty, maybe one fifteen if times were desperate.

  Times were desperate. He had seventy-eight plus himself.

  “I’m still waiting for some callbacks,” Adney said, sitting in one of two low-backed black chairs across from his desk. Like most of the Folly’s officers and crew, she was in gray fatigues, pants tucked into dark boots secured by cross-straps. Her sleeves were rolled up and, as she spoke to him, she absently ran long fingers through her thick dark curls. “Another ten, maybe fifteen. As for the rest, well, there’s always Ferrin’s. It’s a much larger station and, after what happened on Corsau, more people may rise to the call.”

  “Or run away.” Tage might be a despot, but he was a known despot in a sector with jobs, security, and— Philip sniffed—clean air. “You really can’t find the oranges?”

  Adney sighed. “It comes and goes. I think it’s that we’re sitting still. Once we get moving, systems working, air-recyc and all … ” She shrugged.

  “It could be worse,” she added, biting back a grin, giving her face an almost impish quality that made her look younger than the forty-two years he knew she was. “They could have been hauling manure.”

  He couldn’t stop himself. “No shit.”

  “Captain Bralford said you were bad.”

  Philip grunted.

  “That too,” Adney said.

  He tapped his deskscreen. “Welford has the helm computers cooperating now.”

  “Mather still has problems with encryption on outgoing priority communications, so I’d work through archivers until he tells us otherwise.”

  “Saw that too.” He rubbed one hand over his face.

  “Get some downtime, Admiral. We’re not leaving until Sparks gets here, and that’s not for,” she turned her wrist, glancing at the square black metal watch, “eight, ten hours yet.”

  Philip frowned. “Did I lose a day?”

  “One of his subbies freed up early.” She shoved herself to her feet, her movement showing both grace and power. Not unlike his rebel. “With your permission, I’m ordering you to bed. Most of your recruits have tucked in. We’ll all get a fresh start in a few hours and have your formal change-of- command once Sparks get here.”

  “Permission granted.” He rose too, grabbing his cane. Adney slipped out into the corridor. Her cabin was on the other side. Philip hit the palm pad for the door leading to his quarters. His office shared a wall with his main salon, smaller than he’d had on the Loviti but not dissimilar in layout. On the left, a couch and matching padded chair. On the right, a dining table with four chairs framed by the large double viewport. At the eleven o’clock position, a short hallway, then the door to his bedroom and private lav.

  “Lights,” he said, entering the dark bedroom. The small viewport, of course, offered no illumination. Decklights and overheads flickered on, revealing his duffel where he’d had Corvang leave it on the edge of his bed. Still locked, secure.

  But that wasn’t what had Philip frowning, mouth opening slightly in surprise.

  It was what else was in the middle of his bed.

  He slapped intraship, knowing Adney couldn’t be far. “Guthrie to Adney. My quarters, now!”

  Seconds later his door chimed. He opened it remotely.

  “Sir?”

  “Here!”

  “Sir?” she said again, stepping into his bedroom. “Is there a problem?”

  “Damned straight there’s a problem. What in hell’s fat ass is a cat doing sleeping in my bed?”

  The cat—and a damned ugly thing it was, lumpy and white, except for one black ear and a black tail— chose that moment to raise its large head, open one golden eye, yawn, and put its head back on its paws again.

  “Apologies, sir. I had no idea. That’s Folly, sir.”

  “Folly?” He took his gaze off the cat and stared at Dina Adney.

  “Folly. Hope’s Folly. The little girl, Hope. Her cat’s name is Folly.”

  “But she’s”—and he hesitated, aware the cat’s eyes were now open—“dead,” he said softly. Maybe the beast didn’t know.

  Guthrie. It’s a damned cat. It doesn’t care.

  Adney looked troubled. “He’s part of the deal Bralford made with Pavyer.”

  “He?”

  “Folly.”

  “Folly’s a he?” Folly was not a name for a male cat, especially not one that looked like that. Damned thing should have been called Bruiser. Or Hellspawn, with its wide face, thick legs, and body that looked like a bag stuffed with old socks.

  “Actually, he’s Captain Folly. Bralford didn’t tell you about him?”

  “He did not.”

  “I guess if you don’t want him in here, you can put him in the corridor. But this,” and she hesitated just long enough for Philip to glimpse a nervous smile on her lips, “is the captain’s cabin.”

  “Adney, don’t. It’s been a long, goddamned miserable day.” But he snorted. “Maybe I should be reading my change-of- command orders to him.”

  That got a laugh out of Adney. She walked over to the bed and clapped her hands. “C’mon, Folly. The admiral doesn’t want you in here. Let’s go.”

  The cat turned its face away.

  Adney looked at Philip.

  “Let me guess,” Philip said. “The last time you picked him up, he bit you.”

  “I dropped him before he could draw blood.”

  Philip eased himself down on the edge of the bed under the cat’s watchful eye. He didn’t dislike cats. He just had no desire to share his bed with one. He nudged the cat’s ample belly with the head of his cane. “Move, cat.”

  Folly growled—a low, menacing sound.

  “I can get gloves, a towel,” Adney offered.

  “You’re telling me no one’s been able to touch this cat since you came on board?”

  Adney nodded. “That’s about the size of it. And I’m really sorry, Admiral. I had no idea he slept in here. He shows up on the bridge. He has a dish in the main mess, where the ship’s previous owner always fed him. When he’s not around … well, it’s not like Welford or Mather or I are much interested in looking for him.”

  No, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to spend time with something that ugly and unpleasant.

  Philip ran one hand through his hair. It felt gritty. Rolling around on the decking of Kirro Station and then the shuttle’s cargo bay hadn’t helped. “I need to shower and sleep. If I make enough noise, he’ll probably leave.”

  “Probably.”

  “I will pay you and Jodey back for not telling me.” He shot her a smirk to take the sting out of his words. A reprimand from an admiral, even a limping one with no working fleet, wasn’t something someone as by-the-book as Adney would take lightly. “But you will do me a favor and, shipmorning, contact Pavyer and have him come get his daughter’s cat before we ship out to Ferrin’s.”

  She smiled back. “Will do, sir.” She saluted him—or maybe the cat—and left.

  He pushed himself up, then opened his duffel. “I’m taking a shower,” he told the beast. “If you want to make yourself useful, unpack this while I’m in the lav.”

  He swore the cat grunted at him in answer.

  When Philip came out of the shower, towel around his waist, his duffel wasn’t unpacked. And the cat hadn’t moved.

  “Not much help, are you?” Philip shoved his few pieces of clothing in the closet drawers. He was too tired to care what went where, other than his weapons. His spare Carver-12, power pack, and an L7 went into his nightstand.
For now, the Norlack and the rest went into a locked closet. He’d find or build something more secure over the next few days.

  He left his cane by the side of his bed. The room was small enough that he could use the bulkhead to keep his balance as he limped around the bed. He threw back the covers. Sheets and blanket seemed clean. He almost reconsidered sleeping as he usually did—naked—as the beast had teeth and, he was sure, claws. But Folly had edged down toward the bed’s lower corner by then. His toes might suffer, but they’d be shielded by the blanket and sheet.

  He told the room monitor to wake him in five hours, told the room’s light to shut off, with decklights on low. He pulled the covers up. The pillow was fine except for one thing.

  Everything on this goddamned ship smelled like oranges.

  Philip woke, as expected, five minutes before his cabin monitor announced the time and started increasing the bedroom illumination. Yellow eyes, inches from his face, stared at him, unblinking.

  “Coffee would be nice,” Philip said, his voice rough with sleep.

  The cat leapt gracefully off the bed and disappeared.

  Philip sat up. If the beast brought coffee, he’d rescind his order to Adney

  He grabbed his cane, rifled through the closet drawers for underwear and a pair of gray fatigue pants, and headed for the lav. When he came out, the cabin lights were at full brightness. Shirtless, he limped for the main salon. The cat was sitting on the galley counter. A sliding cabinet door was open and he could see three white mugs decorated with—God help him—images of fruit.

  He looked at the cat.

  The cat looked at him.

  “I’m guessing you take cream,” Philip said, reaching for a mug. Then he gave a self-derisive snort. The drugs had to be out of his system by now, but he was having a conversation with a cat. One-sided, admittedly, but a conversation.

  The beverage dispenser, an original twenty-year- old model, was set into the galley wall. He shoved the mug in the opening, selected black coffee, and only then wondered if the thing even worked.

  The coffee came out, sputtering and splashing, but it was hot and more than decent. He sipped it gratefully as he found a shallow bowl in the cabinet, then cadged some creamlike substance from the unit.