Devil to Pay: A naval military science fiction series (The Devil and the Dark Book 1) by R.M. Olson

Author:R.M. Olson [Olson, R.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

GRACIE

Gracie frowned, blinking her eyes hard against the exhaustion.

Despite the damage from the solar flare, they were making good time. Whoever the Admiral had sent out after them was probably still sitting out the flare, if she recalled proper naval protocol.

She sighed, and pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

Damn that boy for bringing up Jenny. Damn him, and damn her that even after all this time, she couldn’t simply let it go.

So much had happened, back then. So much hurt, and so much betrayal, watching the institution she’d given her life to turn on her. So many years after where she’d lived on the bloody edges of survival, where she’d finally drop from sheer exhaustion at night not knowing if she’d live to wake up.

And she’d managed to put all that behind her, somehow. She’d learned to live with those memories, like she lived with the scar on her forearm—something that would never heal, really, but that she could put out of her mind. She could make her decisions logically and rationally, put the well-being of herself and her crew over her own aching, desperate need for revenge.

But losing Jenny? She’d never managed to put that behind her. The best she could do was shove it out of her mind, make it clear to whoever tried to bring it back that that was one subject she’d not brook opening, not from anyone.

And then Silas had come, with his documents and his questions and his talk of revenge, and the cold fire of hatred, at the navy and at Admiral Usher herself, that she’d thought she’d long since banked, was flaring back to life.

She shook her head.

She was tired. The whole crew was tired. She’d only given them three days shore leave, and it had hardly been a leave—every moment filled with resupplying the ship and repairing the damage from their last voyage.

They’d need a long leave when she brought the Sweet Jenny in this time. And they’d have earned it.

Even Silas.

She allowed herself a small, reluctant smile.

Despite everything, the boy had done better as pirate crew than she’d expected. She knew he’d know how to sail a ship. He’d never have been recommended to the Academy if he hadn’t. But the fact that he took the crew’s hazing with as good grace as he had, without either complaining about the bum jobs that she knew would have left him exhausted and sore at the end of every day, or doing a poor enough job of them that they’d have to be redone, spoke to his self-control.

She’d seen his hot temper, back on Blackrock. The fact that he could control it was admirable. She’d known far too many otherwise promising sailors who couldn’t.

It was possible she’d make a pirate out of him, sooner or later.

She shook her head wryly.

Assuming they all survived the next couple of days, of course.

There was a tap on the door—Ari, she recognized the woman’s footsteps.

“Come in,” she called.

Ari ducked through the door and stopped in front of Gracie’s desk, legs apart and hands clasped respectfully behind her back.

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