Chapter 11 — Listening
I didn't know jealousy had a sound.
I thought it would be loud—an argument, a scream, a slammed door. Something obvious. Something you could point at and say *there, that's what's wrong with me.*
But jealousy was quieter than that.
Jealousy was the hum of the comm panel when it wasn't speaking to me. The little pauses where Dack's voice came through—flat, controlled—and then *her* voice followed, bright and laughing, like the storm outside couldn't touch her.
Jealousy was me staring at my own hands and realizing I wanted to do something with them that wasn't tapping keys.
It started the morning after the duel.
Garnet Ridge woke up the same way it always did: rain dragging itself across the refinery yard, low cloud pressing down like a lid, everything smelling like wet metal and fuel. The salvage crews were still stripping the downed Marauder under floodlights that made the mud look like oil.
Marshal Holt had cordoned off half the yard and posted twice the militia. She hadn't slept. Neither had I. I could see it in the way her eyes kept darting to shadows like she expected them to grow teeth.
And then there was Jinx—Kiera Mallory—walking through the yard like she belonged there, like she hadn't tried to steal from us twelve hours ago.
She kept her hands visible. She followed instructions. She smiled at everyone as if smiling could be armor. Militia troopers didn't know whether to glare or stare.
And Dack…
Dack didn't stare.
He watched.
He watched her like he watched a firing line—measuring, waiting for the moment something shifted.
It should've reassured me.
Instead, something in my chest kept twisting when she talked to him.
Because she talked to him like she already knew him.
"Morning, boss," she'd said with a grin too wide, stepping carefully over a puddle and immediately slipping anyway. She'd caught herself on a fence post and pretended it was intentional. "I slept like a baby. A very stressed baby with war crimes in her dream journal."
Dack hadn't laughed.
But the corner of his mouth had moved.
Just a fraction.
And I hated that I noticed.
Not because I hated him.
Because I didn't understand why it mattered to me at all.
---
They let her keep the Highlander.
Not freely. Not without conditions. Holt had insisted on a tracker ping in the machine's transponder and a municipal kill-switch protocol—something Jinx had mocked with dramatic offense.
"Wow," she'd said loudly while Holt's techs worked. "You're telling me you don't trust the woman who just tried to kidnap a mercenary in a swamp? I'm devastated."
Holt had stared at her like she wanted to throw her into the pit.
Dack had simply said, "You'll follow the rules."
Jinx had snapped into exaggerated attention. "Yes, sir."
And then, as if she couldn't help herself, she'd leaned toward him and stage-whispered, "Rules are kind of hot."
Dack had stared at her until she backed up with her hands raised. "Kidding. Mostly."
He was used to dangerous people.
He wasn't used to… that.
Neither was I.
The contract work didn't stop because a new chaos gremlin had appeared in our orbit.
Two days after the duel, Holt had three urgent problems:
1. Convoys still had to run to East Pit, or the basin's extraction would starve.
2. Pirate remnants were still sniffing the perimeter.
3. Someone—someone—was still paying for instability.
Dack decided the best answer was movement.
Keep the convoys protected. Keep the routes unpredictable. Keep the raiders guessing.
And keep Jinx close enough that if she betrayed us, he could crush her machine into scrap.
I stayed in the control shack—because that was where Dack told me I was needed.
He was right.
That didn't stop it from feeling like being left behind.
---
The first time they rolled out together, I watched from the comm station.
The feed showed the Dire Wolf stepping into the mud like a walking bunker, its silhouette swallowing light. The Highlander followed beside it, taller than most machines on Garnet Ridge had ever seen—its stance steady, confident.
They looked like they belonged together out there.
Like a matched pair of monsters.
The convoy crawled behind them: three haulers, two militia APCs, drivers hunched forward like they were praying with their hands on the wheel.
I listened to their channel through a tight, encrypted relay—my slate patched in, silent, the way a shadow listens.
Dack's voice came first. Calm. "Keep your spacing. Don't cross my line of fire."
Jinx's voice immediately after. Bright. "Yes, dad."
A pause.
Dack: "Don't call me that."
Jinx: "You're right. 'Daddy' implies emotional availability."
I felt my face heat even though nobody could see me.
Dack's tone didn't change, but it got colder in a way I'd learned meant *stop.* "Focus."
Jinx made an exaggerated sigh. "Fine. Professional murder time."
There was a beat—just a beat—where Dack didn't answer.
And then he said, dry: "Better."
Her laughter cracked through the channel like it belonged there.
I stared at the comm panel and realized my hands were clenched.
I didn't even know why.
---
They did the work like they'd been doing it together for months.
Dack didn't talk much. He never did. He gave short directives, clean warnings, simple plans.
Jinx filled the empty space with noise—jokes, commentary, little observations that would've been annoying if she hadn't been so sharp with her timing.
She called out heat blooms. She marked possible ambush lanes. She pointed out places in the terrain where mud would swallow a foot if you stepped wrong.
And when Dack adjusted his approach based on her callouts, she didn't brag.
She just said, "Told you," like she'd been doing it forever.
That should've made me feel safer.
Instead, it made that twisting in my chest worse.
Because I wasn't out there giving callouts.
I was here, listening.
The convoy reached the refinery road junction without incident and looped toward a small surface station—a comm relay and fuel depot that served as a staging point for pit crews. Holt wanted it protected, too. If raiders hit the fuel depot, the whole basin would choke.
I watched their icons move on the tactical map, little green triangles in a sea of gray.
And I felt—quietly, painfully—like a useless extra piece on a board that had just gained a new queen.
---
On the way back, Jinx started talking about her "job" like she couldn't stand keeping it inside.
It began casually.
"You know what's funny?" she said over comms. "I didn't even get hired directly."
Dack didn't respond immediately. He rarely did unless he needed to. Then: "Who did."
"A handler," Jinx said. "Not Kess. Someone who wanted to feel important." She cleared her throat and dropped into a mocking, posh voice. "'Miss Mallory, your skillset is required for a sensitive procurement action.'"
Dack: "Name."
Jinx: "He went by Sable. Like that's a real name." A snort. "He wore gloves inside. Like the air might contaminate him."
I wrote it down.
Sable.... I think someone I knew fit that- I shook my head, now wasn't the time for this.
A real thread, finally—something with shape.
Jinx continued, more serious now. "I reported to him. Tight beam drops, time windows, nothing traceable. He fed me targets. He fed the Ash Hounds targets. Different packages, same poison."
Dack's voice stayed flat. "Why you."
"Because," Jinx said, and I could hear the grin in her voice even as it turned bitter, "I'm good enough to be useful and disposable enough to be denied."
The words hit me harder than they should have.
Useful and disposable.
That was… familiar.
Jinx kept talking. "He wanted you tested. Not killed. Tested. If you were sloppy, if you overcommitted, if you panicked—then I could bring you in. If you were too dangerous… I was supposed to call it in and retreat."
Dack: "And you didn't."
Jinx's tone softened oddly. "No. I didn't."
A pause.
Then she added lightly, like she was scared of letting sincerity live too long: "Also because fighting you was kind of my dream date."
Dack: "Focus."
Jinx: "Yes, dad."
Dack: "…We're not doing that again."
I found myself waiting for Dack to sound angry.
He didn't.
He sounded… accustomed.
Like she'd already found a way under his armor and he'd decided it wasn't worth wasting energy to shove her out.
That thought made something hot and sharp rise in my chest.
Jealousy, maybe.
Or fear.
Or something worse: want.
I didn't know what to call it.
I'd never wanted anyone to choose me before. Not really. Wanting felt like a luxury for people who had a place in the world.
Bondsmen didn't get places.
We got uses.
---
Later that afternoon, after they returned and Holt's people verified the fuel depot hadn't been touched, Dack sent Jinx and the convoy on another run—this time to a smaller outlying processing station.
I stayed behind, because Holt asked me to help dig through the ridge cache logs.
I could've refused. I could've insisted on going with them.
But what would I have done out there?
Stared at mud? Thrown up in a simulator chair? Been the soft target again?
So I stayed.
And I listened.
Jinx's voice floated through the channel between callouts and route checks, and I hated how easy it sounded when she talked about herself.
"So," she said, "I became a mech pilot the way most people become anything in the Periphery—by being too stubborn to die."
Dack: "Explain."
Jinx: "Oh my god, he asked for backstory." I could hear her grin. "Okay. Picture this: tiny mining colony, no money, no safety, lots of men who think girls are decoration. I was very angry about that."
Dack didn't respond, but he didn't cut her off either.
Jinx continued. "I joined the local militia because they had a simulator and I wanted something that wasn't a broom. Turns out I could sync better than anyone else. Turns out I liked the feeling of being bigger than my problems."
I swallowed, hearing the honesty under the humor.
Jinx went on. "Then a real pilot got killed. They needed someone to fill a cockpit fast. They threw me in like a joke."
Her voice sharpened. "I didn't die."
Dack: "So you stayed."
Jinx: "Yep. And then I got… noticed. Not by good people. By people who like buying talent instead of building it."
A pause.
Then she added, breezy again: "Also I read a lot of harem novels."
I blinked, sure I'd misheard.
Dack said nothing for a full second.
Then: "Why."
Jinx sounded delighted. "Because they're hilarious. Everybody's hot. Everybody's dramatic. Problems are solved by communication or by a sword. Sometimes both."
Dack: "That's not real."
Jinx: "No, but it's comforting." She laughed. "Also I like to take notes."
I felt my face heat again.
Dack's voice stayed flat. "Notes."
Jinx: "Like… what not to do." She paused, then added innocently, "For example, harem protagonists are always dense. You aren't dense. You're just emotionally constipated."
I choked on nothing.
Dack: "Focus."
Jinx: "Yes, dad."
Dack: "Stop."
Jinx: "Okay, fine. 'Captain Murder.'"
Dack: "No."
Jinx: "Fine. 'Boss.'"
Dack: "Better."
Something in my chest tightened so hard it almost hurt.
Because that exchange had a rhythm. A weird, irritating, *comfortable* rhythm.
Like they'd found a way to exist together that didn't grind.
And I—Taila, bondsman, passenger, whatever I was—was on the outside of it, listening like a ghost.
---
The skirmish hit on the second convoy run.
It wasn't a full raid like East Pit. It was smaller—two fast machines and ground vehicles trying to dart in, clip a hauler, and vanish into the slag hills before the Dire Wolf could pin them.
I heard it in the channel first: Jinx's voice going sharp.
"Contact left ridge—two—fast movers—"
Then Dack: "Convoy tighten. APCs inside the haulers. Keep moving."
Their voices changed when the shooting started—less joking, more clean and clipped, like the battlefield stripped personality down to bone.
Dack opened with a broad missile spread to flush the raiders off the ridge, then followed with autocannon bursts that chewed up the mud in front of their retreat line. When one of the raiders tried to cut low through a drainage channel, he caught it with a precise laser stroke that carved armor and forced it to limp.
Jinx didn't hang back.
She pushed her Highlander forward into the open like she didn't care about becoming a target, drawing fire away from the haulers. She took hits that would've made militia pilots panic, then answered with heavy, disciplined return fire that cracked the raider's confidence in seconds.
It was… beautiful, in a horrible way.
Two assault machines moving in storm and mud, controlling the field, protecting soft metal boxes full of people who would never know how close they'd come to dying.
The raiders broke and ran.
Dack didn't chase them into the hills. He kept to the contract: protect the convoy, don't get lured into a kill lane.
Jinx laughed after, breathless. "See? Teamwork. We're like a married couple with guns."
Dack: "No."
Jinx: "He says no, but his silence is flirtation."
Dack: "Focus."
Jinx: "Yes, boss."
I sat there in the control shack staring at the comm panel, my stomach twisting.
I should've felt relieved.
I did feel relieved—because the convoy was alive.
But under that relief was something sour.
A thought I hated myself for having:
She can be out there with him. I can't.
I didn't even know I wanted to be out there until I heard her doing it.
That was the worst part.
I'd spent my whole life telling myself I didn't need things other people had. That wanting was weakness. That I was safer being useful and unseen.
Now I was listening to Dack and Jinx joke between kill zones and realizing I wanted to be seen.
By him.
And that desire made me feel sick with shame.
Because who was I to want anything?
I was bondsman.
Cargo.
Passenger.
Not someone a legend like Dack Jarn would… choose.
I pressed my fingers to my throat, feeling my own pulse.
I'd never had these feelings before.
Not romance. Not jealousy. Not this sharp confusion that made my chest ache and my skin feel too tight.
In my world, nobody looked at bondsmen that way.
And I'd trained myself not to look at anyone that way either.
It was safer.
It was simpler.
It kept you from getting hurt.
So why did it hurt now?
---
When they returned at dusk, the storm had shifted into something almost gentle—still raining, but softer, like the planet was tired of violence for the day.
I met them near the hangar canopy, slate in hand, pretending I was only there to deliver intel.
Jinx hopped down from her Highlander ladder with the grace of a warrior goddess…
…for about half a second.
Then her boot hit a slick patch of mud and she slid, arms flailing, catching herself on the 'Mech's leg with a dramatic gasp.
"I meant to do that," she announced.
Dack climbed down from the Dire Wolf more carefully, steady, controlled. He didn't react much—just looked at Jinx like she was an unavoidable weather pattern.
"You're bleeding," I said automatically, eyes snagging on a cut at his knuckles.
Dack glanced at his hand like he'd forgotten it existed. "It's nothing."
Jinx leaned in. "Aww, she cares."
I stiffened.
Jinx's grin widened. "Cute."
"I'm giving him the cache logs," I said, voice sharper than I meant.
Dack took the slate without comment. His eyes flicked over the data, focused instantly.
Jinx peeked over his shoulder like she had no concept of personal space. "Ooo, numbers. Sexy."
Dack didn't look up. "Back."
Jinx stepped back immediately—obedient, but laughing. "Yes, boss."
The ease of it made my stomach twist again.
Dack read for a few seconds, then nodded. "This helps."
I waited.
I didn't know what I was waiting for. Praise? Acknowledgment? Anything?
He did look up then.
He met my eye.
And he said, simply, "Good work, Taila."
My chest did something stupid—tightened, then warmed, then tightened again like it didn't know how to hold the feeling.
Jinx immediately clapped her hands together. "See? He does compliments. Rare loot drop."
Dack's gaze cut sideways. "Go eat."
Jinx saluted. "Yes, sir."
Then she leaned toward me and stage-whispered, "He cares about you, you know."
I froze.
Jinx's eyes were bright, mischievous—but there was something sharp behind them, like she was testing me now.
Before I could answer, she added, "Also if you ever want tips on harem protagonist dynamics, I'm literally an expert."
"I—" I started, then stopped because I didn't know what to say.
Jinx winked and jogged off toward the mess hall, slipping once, catching herself, laughing like it was part of her personality.
Dack watched her go for half a second, then turned back to his slate and started walking.
I followed him, because I didn't know where else to put myself.
We reached the edge of the Dire Wolf bay. He paused near the ladder, eyes on the machine like it was a ritual, a place he went to be alone inside his own head.
I forced the words out before I could swallow them again.
"She's… comfortable with you."
Dack looked at me, expression unreadable. "She talks too much."
"That's not what I meant," I said, and hated how small my voice sounded.
Dack held still, watching me like he was waiting for the real meaning.
My throat tightened.
I didn't want to admit it. Not even to myself.
But the words came anyway, half-angry, half-confused.
"I feel… useless," I said.
Dack's brow furrowed slightly. "You aren't."
"She's out there," I whispered. "In a cockpit. With you. And I'm here listening like—like a—"
Like a bondsman.
Like cargo.
Like something nobody wanted.
My voice broke on the thought and I hated myself for it.
Dack's voice softened by one degree, which for him was like a warm blanket. "Taila."
I flinched at my own name in his mouth.
He continued, steady. "You helped stop a raid. You helped keep people alive. You pulled logs that matter. You're not useless."
"It's not the same," I said, and the jealousy finally showed its teeth. "She gets to be there."
Dack stared at me for a long moment.
Then he said something that made my breath catch.
"If you want to be there," he said, "then you keep training. Slow. You don't rush it because you're angry. You don't rush it because you're jealous. You do it because you want it."
Jealous.
He'd named it without hesitation.
My face went hot.
"I'm not—" I began automatically.
Dack raised a hand slightly. Not threatening. Just stopping the lie. "It's fine," he said. "Feelings aren't crimes."
I stared at him, stunned.
Because in my world, feelings were crimes if you were bondsman. They were weakness. They were leverage.
I swallowed hard. "I don't know what I'm feeling."
Dack nodded once, like he understood that better than anything. "Then figure it out. But don't turn it into self-hate."
I didn't know how to respond to that.
So I did what I always did when I was drowning:
I grabbed the nearest task.
"What's next?" I asked.
Dack's eyes dropped to the slate again. "We find this handler. Sable. We bait the pickup."
My stomach tightened at the word "bait."
Then I heard Jinx's laughter echo faintly from the mess hall and the jealousy returned like a bruise being pressed.
I didn't want to hate her.
I didn't even know her.
But I hated how easily she fit into the part of Dack's world I wanted so badly.
I hated that I wanted it.
And I hated that wanting made me feel alive.
Because alive was dangerous.
Alive meant you could be hurt.
Dack stepped toward the ladder, then paused and looked back at me.
"Taila," he said again.
"Yeah?"
He hesitated, then said something simple.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Sim. Again."
My throat tightened. "Even if I fail."
"Especially if you fail," he replied, and then he climbed into the Dire Wolf like he was climbing back into his own skin.
I stood there in the rain-hum of the bay, listening to the machine's systems come alive.
And somewhere inside my confusion, beneath jealousy and shame and fear, a new thought formed—small, stubborn, dangerous:
I don't want to stay on the ground forever.
I didn't know what that meant yet.
I didn't know what it would cost.
I only knew the feeling was real.
And for the first time in my life, I didn't immediately crush it.
Not even when it hurt.