Page 16 of Clan and Command

Kila shook his head and fell back onto his chair, the last of the laughter dying off. “Fine, Chief. The next time you decide to defy me, at least do me the kindness of explaining it beforehand. That way I’m not disappointed over not getting to wear your ass out.” He looked the engineer up and down without bothering to disguise his appreciation. Lokmi did have a most delightful physique. That made two missed opportunities in one night.

Damn.

It looked like yet another date with his hand was in order. Kila sighed and waved the other man away. “Dismissed.”

Lokmi bowed and headed toward the door. Before stepping out, he turned and grinned at Kila. “So it wasn’t only a fight I missed out on? Damn, Captain. I might have waited to tell you the truth had I known how the discipline would have ended up.” He left with a wink and blatant leer.

Kila snickered again, shaking his head at the craziness of it all. He told the now-absent Imdiko, “You tempting bastard. Do me the favor of playing Dramok again and ignoring my orders. I’ll show you exactly what you missed until you scream for mercy.ThenI’ll throw your smug hide off my ship.”

Chapter 6

Two hours after throwing Kila out of his home, Piras had finally achieved some measure of real peace. It had started with slamming his fist into the wall. A few drinks had helped as well.

He thought he might even be able to sleep in a couple of hours, the time when he usually went to bed. All he needed to do was enhance his level of serenity. To that end, he contemplated doing something that would smooth the last of his tangled nerves.

Piras’s common room, the room for relaxing, was a close second to the balcony as far as favorite spaces were concerned. In that room, he had a vid system where he could watch the latest news, sports, or entertainments. A small but well-stocked bar took up one corner. In the middle was the ubiquitous firepit seen in numerous other common rooms, with a curved lounge. The space looked much larger than it actually was due to the lack of any other furnishings. After years of living in cramped ship’s quarters, Piras hadn’t quite figured out how to fill a room with possessions.

Behind the lounge was the best part of the room. A long, low table, surrounded by comfortable seating cushions, made up his hobby space. At the moment, the table’s surface was cluttered with the bits and pieces of his latest project, a model of a raider. Piras had started building it to commemorate the disbanding of that arm of the fleet’s forces. Regarded as a refuge for crews that were barely more than rogues and mercenaries, the raiders had long outlived real usefulness to the Empire. Spyships, destroyers and the swift single-man fighters had taken their place.

Still, there was some romance attached to the small but fast ships that had been used primarily to drive enemies crazy with their ability to strike quickly and do significant damage. The crews who flew them were known to be the most fearless of the fleet. There was an aura of lawlessness about them that uniforms and duty couldn’t mask. Unfortunately, they were also the men least able to bow to authority. Raiders had been near the chopping block for years. With so many of them defecting to the Basma’s side of the conflict, their fate had been sealed.

It had once been fun to contemplate being a part of the unruly, devil-may-care branch. Yet from the earliest days of his career, Piras had known he wasn’t cut out for crewing or captaining a raider. That branch had been largely the province of Nobeks and Dramok-Nobeks, a wild and untamed bunch of men who could fight each other until blood was drawn and then enjoy a drink together afterward.

Despite the disreputable nature of the raiders, Piras still felt a sad sense of nostalgia that their era had passed. Seeing the scrappy little ships decommissioned, knowing their future lay in repurposed scrap, had made him appreciate their history all the more. Thus, he’d begun building the model of what most considered a most unimpressive ship design.

He was contemplating the project, thinking he would have it halfway done before he retired for the night, when his home com went off. Since his portable was automatically linked to it when he was in residence, it went off too. He pulled it out of its belt pouch and checked the frequency.

Piras debated whether or not to answer. If he did, he could most likely forget about losing himself to model building. Or a decent night’s sleep for that matter. Then again if he didn’t answer, he would most definitely get no sleep. Calna would worry and com every hour until he gave up and talked to her.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love his mother. She was simply wearing with her fretting and how her overactive mind never shut off, never gave her a moment’s peace…nor anyone else within speaking distance.

Piras sighed, turning his back on his raider construction with regret. He clicked the beeping com on, setting it to vid mode. If he didn’t, Calna would think he was trying to hide something from her. “Hello, my mother.”

“Good evening, my son. It is evening there? I forget the time difference, but I know if I’m supposed to be sleeping, you’re probably still awake. I see you’re drinking?”

Piras smiled at her, letting the deluge of words pass over him. “A glass of dlas. How are you?”

She waved her hands, and he noted how the veins grew more prominent with advancing years. Piras had been a late-in-life baby, his parents’ only child. Calna’s knee-length curly hair would have been gray had she not kept it dyed the blue-black of her youth. Piras didn’t mind that one concession to vanity she made. Calna took far too little time for herself. She looked good for her advanced years, passing for at least twenty fewer than her actual age. A few creases had become deep, but most of the lines remaining fine and unremarkable. Her health problems were few and far between, thank the ancestors. To Piras, his mother seemed eternal.

She couldn’t be bothered to talk about any of her own cares. “Oh, I’m fine, fine. I’m worried about your father Jorawi, though. He’s not been sleeping as well as he should.”

Piras assumed an interested expression, the one he wore when Calna went into her latest litany of anxiety. He only half-listened however, feeling the somehow comfortable throb of guilt as he did so. Calna agonized over everyone and everything. She stewed even more when there was nothing wrong, reasoning that it was surely the calm before the storm.

Tonight was no different from any other time. Her gossip about those she cared about, including people he’d never met, ranged far and wide. She applied liberal observations about their lack of well-being, citing concerns and apprehensions that were both valid and ridiculous. Had Piras paid closer attention, he knew he would hear her zip from topic to topic, one breathless sentence piled on the next. Her occasional questions required no thought as long as he wasn’t the focus of her fears. He didn’t even have to do more than grunt. Before he could answer anything, she was off on another tale, her frantic mind working too quickly to slow long enough for a response.

At last her tone changed, warning Piras she was about to begin a caring interrogation into his affairs. He cleared his thoughts, which was a relief. That damned Kila kept trying to sneak into his ruminations, and Piras didn’t want to think about him.

He readied to explain himself when Calna asked, “But why are you drinking? Was work difficult today?”

No, just a certain Nobek. But then, Nobeks are always difficult.

“Work was fine. I just—”

“What?”

Calna, as usual, was so busy thinking about whatever she planned to say next that she had forgotten she needed to listen for his answer. Patiently, Piras kept his next attempt short. “Work was fine.”

“Good. You know, your Uncle Tebrok had such a high-stress job that he would drink until he passed out at the end of the day. I hope that’s your only glass tonight.”

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