Wanting Forever

Part 4

Captain Trace Fortis did not like to be late. Late was for rookies.

He grimaced at the mirror and tried to get his hair to calm down. A mile run in a cold wind with a loaded pack on one's back made for a less-than-impressive presentation.

The clock had refused to slow down that morning as the ship docked in the SCION yard. When the call came from SCION Fleet Admiral Fosk asking him to attend the training, he'd tried to talk his way out of it. The ship was due in for repairs and updates, and he was hoping to make some personal repairs of his own. Mostly in the sleep deficit department.

"Admiral, we're coming in at 07:00. There's no way I can make a start time of 09:00."

"It's fine. Get here as soon as you can. The first day is just overview. If you miss anything your ASPECT partner will share whatever you need to know," Admiral Fosk told him.

Well, that would be great—except he had the impression that most of the captains in ASPECT were a bunch of assholes. Not that he knew from personal experience. He'd heard from colleagues who'd been out on co-ops that airship captains were usually very high-strung. Or they were adrenaline junkies. Getting information from a high-strung adrenaline junkie was low on his list of fun things to do.

His own need for adrenaline highs was in the past. Now, it was enough to have the entirety of 100,000 tons of displacement at his command. There were plenty of adrenaline-high inducing events that came with commanding an ocean-going carrier for SCION. Pirates were always a threat—a threat he knew too well. So was weather. Trace liked to tell people they simply hadn't lived until they'd been on a freighter being tossed like a toy in sixty-five-foot seas. He'd done that and hated every minute.

This morning the adrenaline high would come from the need to run. When he walked into the solar train station to find it closed for maintenance, it was almost comical the way his duffel slipped off his shoulder. It slid down his arm to the floor as if it also wanted a few days of vacation. Trace blew out a breath, picked up the wayward bag, and stepped back out into the chilled morning.

Despite the lack of proper running shoes, he made good time and arrived with minutes to spare. The warm bathroom in the hotel's entry hall gave him a moment to thaw his face and prod at his hair. Professional appearance was important. He tugged at the hemline of his navy blue jacket and then rubbed a couple of the buttons to bring back their shine. Hiding the fact he'd just run a mile with a duffle on his back: also important. He liked to be able to put forth the impression that nothing bothered him. Calm, cool, collected. If Trace had his way, that'd be his epitaph.

Passing the breakfast spread, he snagged a banana. On the ship he'd stuffed a bagel in his mouth and washed it down with an acidic cup of coffee, but that alone wouldn't get him all the way to lunch.

The meeting room was predictably boring, filled with men he'd known for years—at least on the SCION side. A few of the people on the ASPECT side he knew from competitions held between the schools back when he was attending SCION Academy. He trailed his gaze down the table, matching names to faces and wondering which one of them was going to be his ASPECT partner.

The mild competition between the two companies didn't come from the fact they both operated in the shipping and logistics arena. There were jobs that each was better suited for. Obviously, SCION couldn't float ships inland as ASPECT could. It was among the respective academy graduates that the tensions appeared. The two schools played various sports against each other, but it was the engineering teams that really caused friction. Each year the top commanders from each company would set the challenge—anything from energy efficiency to mechatronics. The final showdown between the two teams was better attended than any other game.

Trace's progress toward the only available empty chair stopped when he nearly tripped over his own feet. There was a woman at the table. Not that it was a bad thing, or unwelcome in the least, but it was so unexpected he had to take a moment just to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks. The number of women graduating from SCION Academy was low, something like fifteen percent. The numbers for ASPECT Academy were lower. She had to be damn tough to be in this room.

He dropped his duffle against the wall behind his chair and reached for the nameplate. That would explain why the seat was empty. It was his. Just as he lifted the paper, he noticed that the woman, seated directly opposite him, was reading his list of credentials—credentials that, in any other room, would've been impressive. In this room, it was just another list.

Their eyes met over the top of the paper and he slowly lowered it back to the tabletop. He hadn't seen eyes like that...ever. Light brown, with flecks of burnished copper, they seemed almost too big for her lightly freckled face. Then there was her hair, the color of warm caramel with a streak of blonde at her left temple that continued all the way down. At the moment she had her hair tightly braided, the streak weaving in and out like a tiny snake.

Trace cleared his throat. "Sorry, were you reading that?"

Her shoulders lifted in what seemed to be an unconscious move for her, and she said something he couldn't quite make out. Why the hell couldn't he hear her? What was that rushing noise in his ears? When had it become okay for him to stare at a colleague's mouth?

"You were studying the competition." Trace hoped his voice didn't sound as strangled in reality as it did to his ears.

"That too."

Damn. This was bad. He worked with women every day. There were many on his crew. They helped run his ship with extreme efficiency. But put one with—he took a quick count of the number of commendations on her nameplate—more awards than he had in the same room and he lost the ability to hear? Great, this was going to be the longest two weeks of his life. Maybe she could put a pair of sunglasses over those eyes. Or maybe he needed to take a breath and grow up.