At the Galatean jump point, the Phoboswas secured to her docking ring along the rapier-thin length of the Invidious'sdrive spine. Her crew and passengers remained aboard, though they had access to the slightly less cramped facilities of the aging freighter.
Grayson found Lori in the observation lounge. The slight but constant nudge of the ship's ion thrusters had ceased and the Invidiouswas in free fall toward the Galatean sun, a fiercely brilliant, barely discernible disk 10 AU distant. The sun was visible now that the ship's solar collector had been furled and stowed for jump. Around them, vast powers surged and thrummed, building toward a computer-ordained climax. Somewhere, an electronic voice gave warning of transit in one minute.
Grayson drifted into the small room, catching hold of a stanchion to arrest his movement. Lori hung motionless beside him, clinging to a handhold on the bulkhead. Weightless, there was no down or up. They looked out upon Galatea's sun, whose arc-glare banished the stars even across a billion and a half kilometers.
White light touched her blonde hair with silver. Grayson thought she looked tired. "Hello, Captain," Lori said, but she did not look up at him.
"I hoped I'd find you here." She sighed. "It's...beautiful."
"Lori, what's wrong? You're looking worn to a frazzle."
She did look at him then, twisting her body around the anchor of her handhold. There were circles under her eyes. "Oh, nothing, Captain. Trouble sleeping, I guess."
'Too much work?"
She didn't answer at first. "Captain..." She almost reached out.
"Gray...I don't know if I can face it again."
"You'll do fine, Lori." He hated the platitude even as it passed his lips. He didn't know that she would... and neither did she.
Grayson wasn't sure what had happened to Lori on Trellwan, except that it had been a deep, perhaps horrifying shock. He did suspect that it had to do with a critical moment during the battle when her Locusthad been sprayed with liquid fire. She'd called out to him over their combat frequency and he had heard her, kilometers away. He'd turned from his own battle, hurrying across rugged terrain to where Lori's small band of ‘Mechs and troops was holding out against the Red Duke's legions. His arrival had scattered the attackers and ended the battle. The fire on the Locustwas out, and Lori was safe.
But she had changed. Before that battle, they'd been so close. Afterward, she had become...had remained...distant. He'd approached her before their boost-off from Trellwan, and she'd asked him for time to sort things out, to heal.
The warning voice gave a ten-second alert. The power feed to the Invidious'sjump drive built around them. She released her grip on the handhold, the slight motion setting her adrift into Grayson's arms.
"Gray, I'm..."
Jump! Vision blurred, an inner twisting assaulted their senses. Time became timelessness, an endless suspension of now, as space opened around them, a funneling black maw...
"...afraid."
He moved apart from her, his hands still grasping her shoulders. Outside, the sky had changed, the diamond brilliance of Galatea's sun wiped away and replaced by the closer, dimmer glare of a sullen red dwarf. That would be Gallwen, first stop in a long chain of jumps that would take them to Norn.
Grayson swallowed hard, forced himself to draw a deep, even breath as his head cleared itself of the transit effects. Jump affected some more than others, but it was never pleasant.
"We all are," he said, when he could finally speak.
She looked away from him, her shoulder-length hair a swirl of gold in zero-G. Damn!he thought. I'm talking in platitudes again! But what is it she's afraid of?
He decided to risk confronting her. "Lori, was it the fire? You told me once your parents died in a fire on your homeworld...on Sigurd."
"I don't know." Red light illumined tears in her eyes, tears unable to fall in the absence of gravity. "I don't know. I have...dreams. I wake up and can't get back to sleep. Captain, I'm afraid I'm going to fold the...the next time. I'm just no good...."
His fingers closed tighter on her shoulders as he held her at arm's length. "That sort of thinking isn't going to get you anywhere, young woman! It's only natural that you get the wobbles after the close call you had. But you'll be fine, once you have your ‘Mech around you, once you're doing what you've been trained to do. Do you think the rest of us aren'tafraid?"
Gently, she broke free, drifting back until her hand found the bulkhead grip. "I'll...be all right, Captain. I just need...time."
Was she upset because he'd gotten too close? Perhaps she thought his coming here had been a romantic advance, a hope that they would get to talking, that she would come into his arms. Well? Hadn't that been why he'd come? He couldn't deny it. And she hadcome into his arms. But what had gone wrong between them?
Perhaps the best thing for now was to keep up this strictly professional wall. She needed time, and he needed an efficient second-in-command. The new MechWarriors, that's where their minds should be focused. How was he going to handle them, weld them together into an effective unit? Yorulis and Debrowski, young and inexperienced. Clay and Khaled, silent and secretive. McCall, a stark individualist unafraid of speaking his mind... unintelligibly. As the Legion's Exec, it would fall to Lori to help him bring those people together as a combat team.
"You need sleep," he said, all business. 'Talk to Tor's medic. He might have something that'll help you sleep." She started to protest and he sharpened his voice. "That's an order! I can't have my Executive Officer wandering around with circles under her eyes!" She shrugged and turned away. "Yes, sir. As you say." He watched her move from the observation lounge, pained by the dullness of her response, concerned that nothing was resolved.
Lovely as she was, as much as he would have liked to resume the pleasant closeness their relationship had held before Thunder Rift, the fact remained that he didneed her first as his Exec. Her depression worried him.
* * *
Lori returned to her cramped quarters aboard the Phoboswithout visiting Invidious'ssickbay. She had already tried various sleeping drugs, and now detested the dullness they imparted to mind and body, the false sense of well-being, the empty leadenness of the sleep they brought.
Besides, drugs could not change the growing ache she carried within her. She'd admitted to Grayson that she was afraid, but she had not admitted all. Let him think she was afraid of combat. She didfear death or injury, as any sane person feared the hell of BattleMech combat. Like the others, she had learned to submerge such fears; you acted, and you let your training and your mental preparation carry you past the numbing paralysis of fear.
She was afraid, but it was a fear of her own feelings and not a fear of combat. The hell of it was, she wanted to be able to confide in Grayson, wanted to recapture the closeness they once had shared, but somehow she could not. There was a barrier between them, and she knew that it was she who had changed, not him.
Lori did not know what that barrier was, though. She was afraid of her own feelings, because she dared not probe too deeply within to examine them. She caught sight of herself in the mirror on the cabin bulkhead, and it was as though she were gazing into the face of a stranger.