“She won’t accept that.”
“Yes. You have twisted that girl around your… well, not your finger, exactly,” Janus said. “You were in a position of authority, which you exploited. So you will tell her that you were wrong, and that it is over. You do not have a choice in this, Atlas. You are facing a court-martial and a dishonorable discharge. I will waive both if you go quickly and quietly.”
“I don’t care what happens to me,” Atlas said.
“You should. If you do not do what I am requesting, you will be forcefully removed from the ship. As will Tessil. She will be court-martialed, humiliated, and publicly disgraced, not to mention dishonorably discharged. She will be ruined in the eyes of the Authority. And it will be your fault. She has a future here. She has talent. You know her presence here saves lives. It has saved your life and mine. You can take her from here, turn a few weeks of sex into her ruin, or you can do the honorable thing and let her go. If you refuse, you’ll be imprisoned on a penal colony for at least thirty years and then banished from Authority space regardless. Let me make this very clear. I am not offering you choices. I am telling you what will happen, and I expect you to obey.”
This was the cold, hard reality of living in the construct of the Authority. When he’d agreed to serve, he’d agreed to these rules. But there had never been any real agreement. It was all coercion in one way or another.
“If you choose to make this hard, she will suffer,” Janus said coolly. “Much more than you will. I will make sure of it.”
“Very well, Captain.”
Janus nodded. “You need to make her believe you are ending it, understand? I don’t want her making any hapless attempts to reconcile with you.”
“So it’s not enough to agree to end the relationship, accept a transfer, and never speak to her again. I also have to break her heart.”
“Yes.”
Jerri laid on the bed in the brig sobbing her heart out. This could not possibly have gone worse in any way. Their affair had been publicly exposed, and the chaos on the bridge would be the talk of the ship for months, if not years to come.
She’d been incarcerated for three days now without hearing anything further, besides whispers of Captain Janus’s absolute fury at the whole affair.
“Jerri.”
She couldn’t believe she was hearing Atlas’s voice. She sprang from the bed, wiping her eyes and nose as she went. She did not want him to see how wretched she’d been this entire time.
“Oh, my god. You’re okay! Thank god you’re okay.”
She ran up to the barrier and caught a harsh zap from the shielding that kept her inside. She didn’t care. She’d have taken a hundred shocks to be close to Atlas again. He was no longer wearing his Authority uniform. Instead he was wearing plain beige overalls. The kind they put prisoners in for transport. Her heart sank.
Atlas nodded slowly, lifting his feral red gaze to her through the forcefield.
“Why did you not tell me you had mated with Taylor?”
She took a deep breath. “Because it’s something I did once, a long time ago, and I try my best to forget about it most of the time.”
“It sounds like something you have turned to your advantage here on the Audacity. For example, refusing to follow orders around being banned from the holobay?”
Jerri could feel her past biting her in the ass hard. How could she explain to Atlas that yes, she had taken advantage of her one-night stand with Taylor without sounding like a manipulative wench who fucked men and then used sex to get what she wanted, one way or another?
“It’s not what it looks like. Taylor’s an asshole. And I only slept with him once…”
“You should have told me, Jerri. I assaulted a fellow officer because I thought he was impugning your honor. I lost control of myself. There are consequences for that. For all of this. For you. For me. For us.”
Goddammit. Taylor’s barb about her fucking her way up the chain of command had stuck in spite of it not being true.
“Atlas, it was never like that. You know how it was between us.”
“How it was,” he agreed. “I am very sorry to have led you astray, Jerri. You deserved better.”
“Bullshit I did. I got what I deserved. More than that. I got what I needed.”
“You’re getting emotional, Tessil. We knew this would not be tolerated. It was inevitable.”
“So you’re just giving up. You’re leaving me.”
“I’m not giving up. I’m following orders.”
“No. Atlas.” Tears ran down her face. “Please don’t end it like this. Not like this.”
He looked at her and there was nothing in his face to suggest any kind of remaining emotion. “I’m sorry, Jerri. For everything. But it’s over.”