Queen & Commander (Book One of the Hive Queen Saga)

Chapter Eleven: The Passenger

“I am appalled. Appalled!” The man put his arm around Rhiannon’s shoulders.

Luciano growled. The man didn’t notice this reaction to the over-familiarity, but Victor and Gavin gave him panicked looks. Victor and Gavin! Why weren’t they upset at this treatment? What kind of Hive was this, anyway?

“I’ve been couriered on the Ceridwen’s Cauldron before, under the previous crew. I knew the ship had changed hands, that it had become a training ship. But such disrepair in so short a time? The shabby floors clank when you walk. And you brought me to the mess hall in order to meet more children? Children! Are there any adults on this ship?”

Luciano leapt towards the man’s back. He’d pull that offending arm off his Queen’s inviolate person. She shouldn’t be subjected to this. She shouldn’t have to deal with such disrespect.

He never reached the man. Gavin tackled Luciano to the hard, cold floor just as the passenger and their Queen departed. The Devoted pair banged off it together, soft flesh and springy muscle.

Luciano hit the floor again on the bounce, the back of his head blooming with sensitivity.

“Fuck.” Please forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. He lay still, breathing through the pain.

She hadn’t even looked at him.

His eyes swam—just from the knock on the head—but he could see the fuzzy outline of a hand proffered. He took it and let Gavin pull him to his feet. Muscles screamed in his shoulder socket, and he swallowed against a wave of vertigo.

Gavin held his hand for a moment longer, helping him steady himself. “Sorry,” Gavin said. “But we were supposed to make a good impression.”

Victor snorted. “I don’t think we succeeded.”

Luciano extricated his hand. “Is this going to be a trend?” Twice now Gavin had knocked him over for his own good.

Gavin clapped Luciano on the shoulder. “We didn’t kill our first passenger. That’s a start!” He held up three fingers. “How many?”

Luciano shrugged. He saw the digits, no doubling or continued fuzziness. He’d be fine. Besides, Gavin was right about not attacking passengers, particularly passengers who could report their activities. No one wanted to get sent home with a black mark on his records for striking out too soon.

He needed to be up in the pilot house if this ship was going to go anywhere.

As he departed, Gavin called out. “We’ll be in engineering if you need us.”

The morning wasn’t a total wash. They were getting along.

***

Thirty minutes later, he was alone in the pilot house. The chair was firm and unforgiving beneath him. It encased his legs in its implacable embrace and offered a hard surface to bang the back of his head against. The chair was probably designed for someone taller, or with their own padding.

He skimmed the relevant manual chapter one more time—Even You Can Plot A Course Through A Crowded System. The section’s last words read, “Good luck.” Was that a friendly encouragement or a disparaging remark on the skill of a pilot who needed to read this particular manual?

Regardless of the authors’ intentions, the Manual Pilot Manual had helped. He’d correctly requested permission to release docking tethers. He’d acquired a position in the departure queue. He’d filed a flight plan from the spaceport above Dyfed to the diplomatic station on the system’s edge. Hopefully, he’d even managed to keep them from looping through English space, but the border was shaky near the diplomatic station. God willing, whoever approved that flight plan had actually checked it.