by Glenn Smith
“Understood, Captain,” the helmsman responded.
“Tactical...” She looked over at the young man to her left. She’d met him earlier, but her mind was a complete blank. “I’m sorry, son. What’s your name?”
“Ensign John Packard, ma’am,” the slender, young red-haired man answered. Man? Hell. He was little more than a baby-faced boy fresh out of the Academy, the only new member of the bridge crew, young enough to be her son. Younger, even, than her own daughter, who had just made her a grandmother for the very first time. The previous tactical officer had been killed in combat during the cyberclone revolt when her console exploded right in her face—a tragedy that had no doubt been lingering in young Packard’s impressionable mind ever since someone in the crew told him all about it. It had been near the end of that same engagement, Leslie recalled, that the Sentinel had nearly been destroyed. She shook her head slightly, sorrowfully. So many young lives had been lost that day.
“Ensign Packard,” she repeated, committing his name and face to memory... she hoped. “We’ll be running at three-quarters standard cruising speed during routine patrol. I want you to keep your eyes on the long-range scanners at all times. Full three-hundred sixty degree spherical sweeps. Same protocol as astrogation. Don’t develop any predictable patterns.”
“Aye, Captain.” He dropped his gaze to his board, his face full of worry.
Leslie faced forward again and quietly sighed. So young. And in the years to come, she realized as she brushed that errant lock of hair out of her eye and swept it behind her ear again, they were only going to get younger.
Chapter 57
“Good morning to you, Eric,” Verdai said without looking up from his breakfast as Dylan went forward into the galley to prepare his own. The Naku was sitting at the far end of the table facing aft in shorts and a loose white tee shirt, his long black mane pulled tight and tied back behind his shoulders with a rawhide cord, eating from a large bowl filled with something tan and dark chocolate brown and creamy white and slimy looking that Dylan didn’t recognize as being anything that remotely resembled food.
“Good morning, Verdai,” Dylan replied, gazing at muscular man as he walked over to the cabinet, a little surprised to hear him greet him so politely after the way he’d given him the cold shoulder yesterday.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Not bad,” Dylan answered as he started rifling through the sealed ration packs, looking for something that he thought he might find at least a little bit palatable. The apparent change in the Naku’s temperament pleased him and he hoped that it, rather than the quiet, standoffish Naku he’d met yesterday, was the real Verdai. As he’d reminded Nicole when she first told him that there would be six people aboard, they had a long voyage ahead of them. This ship was too small for people to not get along with each other. “You?” he asked as he selected a pack and started to prepare its contents—artificial bacon and eggs and instant coffee.
“I slept like an infant child,” the Naku replied.
“Good.”
“I awoke many times throughout the night.”
“Oh. Then I guess that’s not so good.” A joke? Dylan looked over at him, but saw no obvious outward signs that the Naku had intended his words to be humorous. His gaze dropped briefly to the bowl again as Verdai plunged his spoon into the center of its stomach-churning contents, but then he quickly turned back to his own breakfast, not wanting to see him actually putting that disgusting looking gruel into his mouth. He was a little curious about it, however, so he asked him, “What are you eating, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“A sad excuse for boiled kreel muscle. Real kreel muscle used to be a breakfast delicacy on my world.”
“Used to be?”
“Until the Veshtonn came and polluted our seas and wiped all the kreel from existence. This muscle, however, like the Terran food you are preparing, is artificial, as evidenced by the disappointing weakness of its pungent aroma and its less than satisfying taste.”
Dylan took a tentative sniff. He hadn’t noticed any particular odor, but now that he was looking for one... “Smells pretty pungent to me,” he said.
“If it were real, it would be much stronger. Perhaps then you could appreciate it more.”
“Perhaps,” Dylan agreed outwardly, though he sincerely doubted that he would. His bacon and eggs were ready, so he fixed himself a large mug of coffee and, wanting to be polite, joined Verdai at the table, though he’d have preferred to retreat to his bunk and escape the aroma that the Naku was so disappointed in, and that he could smell more strongly now. “Have you seen the others yet this morning?” he asked as he began to eat.
“Nicole is still asleep.” Dylan had noticed after his shower that she had gone back to bed. “Geoff and Carlos are on the flight deck. Stacy is likely down in one of the observation bays. She spends a lot of time in them when she comes along on these trips, stargazing, or so she claims.”
Stacy. Dylan couldn’t help but wonder how things were going to go with her now, as well as with Nicole. Nicole might have told him that she didn’t blame him for what had happened between him and her younger sister, but how could she not... at least a little bit? How could he have let it go so far? He didn’t want to think about that now, he decided, so instead he pursued an entirely unrelated tangent of discussion, hoping to keep their friendly conversation going at least until one of them finished eating. “So, what made you become a pilot?” he asked.
The Naku sighed and raised his dark eyes to Dylan’s. For the first time, Dylan saw that they were old eyes, full of sadness and pain. “Do you know me so well, so soon, that you can ask me such a question?”
“I meant no offense,” Dylan told him, taken a little off guard. Apparently, there was a lot more to it than just a simple career choice. “I only asked because I’d like to take this opportunity to get to know you better. That, and I like to know who I’m travelling with.”
“Hm.” Verdai grinned slightly. “Very good. You are a quick thinker, Eric. I like that, so I will tell you my story, brief though it is. But when I finish, I will wish to hear yours in return. I, too, like to know those around me.”
Dylan nodded once. “Fair enough.”
“Very well. I am the only son of a tribal elder. I was a just a boy when the Veshtonn first came to my world. Perhaps thirteen of your years in age. They came to our village in the middle of the second night, searching out our leaders. My entire family was taken captive, dragged from our home, as were all our other leaders and their families. My younger sister was taken away, and my father and I were forced to watch as they tortured my mother and my two older sisters in unspeakable ways.”
Dylan lowered his gaze to the tabletop as images of Nikki being strapped to that metal contraption over the bar and then beaten and bottle-raped flashed through his mind once more, though he knew that the torture to which Verdai was alluding had been something far, far worse. During his time at the S.I.A. Academy, Dylan had been exposed to numerous classified records relating Veshtonn treatment of political prisoners of war, so he knew something of the horrors they were capable of inflicting on others. They made Sulaini Army regulars look like boy scouts by comparison.
Surprisingly, Verdai continued as though the floodgates had just been opened, though his voice rose only slightly in volume. “When my mother and older sisters finally died, the soldiers turned their attention to us. They held my father down and forced him to watch as they beat me. Then they forced me to watch as they tortured him until he pleaded for his own death to come.” His voice started growing louder. “And then, when it finally did, they turned to me again.”
“I’m sorry,” Dylan told him, wishing that he hadn’t brought it up.
“I was enslaved—confined to a work camp and denied a formal education, mocked for my religious beliefs!” Now he was not only growing louder, he was growing angrier. He paused for a moment to calm down, then continued. “I labored there in that camp for more than six of your
years. When I finally escaped, I found what you would call a resistance cell hiding in the mountains, a group of soldiers from your world training them in defense and combat tactics. It was they who taught me to understand and speak your language, and it was they who taught me how to fly.” He sat back against the back of his chair and focused on a point in space somewhere between them, then lowered his voice. “I have killed many Veshtonn in my life, but to this day I do not know whatever became of my younger sister.”
“I cannot even imagine what that must have been like for you, Verdai,” Dylan said after a moment. “Please, forgive me for making you think about it all again.”
The Naku looked at him again. “There is nothing to forgive,” he said. “It happened. You had no part in it.” He paused for a moment, and then, “And now it is your turn to speak, Eric. What is your...” His gaze shifted past Dylan’s shoulder briefly, and then he averted his eyes and just stared at the bulkhead right beside him. Dylan turned in his chair and looked back over his shoulder to find Stacy, still wearing nothing but the underclothes he’d watched her put on earlier, climbing out of the port-side observation bay.
“Good morning.” she said, smiling at Dylan as she approached the table. “What’s all the noise up here?”
“Nothing,” Dylan answered as he turned his eyes back toward Verdai, pretending not to have noticed how little she was wearing. “We were just talking.”
She stopped beside the table between them and faced Dylan directly. “Sounded more like you were arguing.”
“Not at all,” Dylan told her. Then, before he even realized he was doing it, he looked her over, drinking in every detail as his eyes made their way slowly upward to meet hers. Her milky smooth thighs, the subtle contours of her soft flesh that her little white panties barely hid from view, her curvaceous hips and bare midriff, her arms covered in goose-bumps, their fine hairs standing on end, folded under her firm, young breasts, her nipples stiff beneath her thin tank top. Her lips smiling down at him, her eyes telling him that she knew he liked what he was seeing. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked her, though the answer was obvious.
“Yeah, but I like the cold,” she answered. Okay, so maybe her answer wasn’t so obvious. “I was just enjoying the view out through the observation port. Space looks a lot bigger than I imagined.” She grinned mischievously. “I guess a lot of things turn out to be bigger than we first imagine they’ll be.” Through sheer force of will, Dylan kept his eyes locked on hers, and feeling the warm blood-rush spreading through his face, he felt thankful for his slightly tan complexion. He would have hated for her to see him blushing.
“If you please, Stacy,” Verdai said, still staring at the featureless off-white bulkhead to his right. Dylan looked at him, grateful for the diversion. “Go and get dressed. Your appearance is quite... distracting.”
“Thank you, Verdai,” she said, smiling even brighter while she continued staring down at Dylan. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
During their voyage from Mandela Station to Window World, Benny had told Dylan a lot about the Naku people. He’d explained that despite their warriors’ ferocity, they were generally a very religious people. In extreme cases they sometimes swore decade-long vows of celibacy as a means of penance for sin to demonstrate their devotion to their many gods. Last night Nicole had mentioned that Verdai was currently in his eighth year of just such a penance. Dylan understood all too well the frustration that the Naku must have been feeling, having been celibate for so long and having to remain that way even longer while Stacy ran around the ship half naked right in front of him. He sympathized. Hell, he was feeling that same frustration himself, and he’d only been celibate for an hour or two.
“What’s wrong, Eric?” Stacy asked him, looking genuinely concerned.
What’s wrong? Back on Mandela Station, back in 2190 where he belonged, as soon as the door to their guest quarters closed between them, he’d silently promised Beth that he would remain faithful to her. In a sense, he’d taken a vow of celibacy of his own. Since then he’d had sex with three women, if he counted Stacy, and had slept with two of them. For that he felt truly sorry. Had she seen that regret in his eyes just now, or even felt it emanating from his very soul if that was even possible? He looked up at her again. “Nothing’s wrong,” he lied.
She smiled, obviously pleased. “Good, that means you have no regrets.” Verdai looked at him as if to ask him what she’d meant by that. “So... do you want to join me down in one of the observation bays later on?”
“Don’t those bays only have...” He fell silent and left the question unasked. He already knew that each bay only had one chair and he realized that sharing that chair for purposes other than stargazing was the whole point of her invitation. He turned his eyes away from her a took a sudden interest in the bulkhead, same as Verdai. “I don’t think so.”
Stacy stepped over to his side and leaned over his shoulder from slightly behind him, resting one hand on the edge of the table and the other on the back of his chair, inviting him to look down the front of her top. “Please, Eric?” she asked him, speaking softly into his ear. “You can see a lot of beautiful things from down there.”
“Sorry, no,” he replied, shaking his head.
“Come on, Eric,” she entreated. “Don’t you want to finish what we started?”
He turned to her again, so quickly that he almost bumped her nose with his own, then leaned slightly away and asked, “What we started?”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, what I started,” she then admitted, “though you didn’t exactly seem to be an unwilling participant by the time we got going.”
“My failure,” he remarked.
Just then Nicole came forward, yawning and combing her fingers through her hair. Dylan and Stacy both turned and looked at her at the same time. She hadn’t gotten dressed yet either, Dylan noticed, but at least all the buttons her red satin pajama shirt were fastened, and when she finally dropped her arms to her sides its length proved sufficient to meet simple modesty’s needs. In other words, it was long enough to cover her underwear. As she passed behind Stacy on her way to the food cabinet she swatted her gently on the rear and told her to, “Go put some clothes on before you catch cold.”
“Look who’s talking,” Stacy replied as she stood up straight. She obviously wasn’t happy about it, but she headed aft into the sleeping cabin without having to be told again.
“You and I need to have a talk a little later on, Sis,” Nicole called after her as the door closed between them. She shook her head slightly and sighed, then threw together a simple, cold breakfast and took a seat on the couch, setting her food tray across her bare legs. “Sorry about that, gentlemen,” she said.
“You don’t need to keep apologizing for your sister’s behavior, Nicole,” Dylan told her. “It’s not like you’re encouraging her.”
“Maybe not, but it’s still my fault.”
“How so?”
“She’s been acting out like that ever since I started... well, you know... doing what I’ve been doing for a living. She started asking me questions about it almost immediately. I tried to answer her questions at first, in a roundabout sort of way, but after a while I got tired of it. When I finally told her to stop asking she started flirting with every decent-looking guy she met.”
“She calls that flirting?” Dylan asked sarcastically.
“She acts like it’s all a game to her. She’s been tormenting poor Verdai for months.”
The Naku finally turned his eyes from the bulkhead and looked at Dylan. “Glad to have you along for the ride, Eric,” he joked. On second thought, maybe he wasn’t joking. He certainly looked serious enough. “I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to resist her.”
“Verdai!” Nicole exclaimed loudly, glaring at him with surprise.
The Naku looked over at her and told her, “I am celibate, Nicole, but I am not dead.”
“I realize that,” she responde
d, “but I’m still surprised to hear you admit to such a thing. No wonder you spend all those hours in meditation every day.” Several seconds passed in silence before she suddenly appeared to realize that the Naku was only teasing her. “Oh, you... You’re bad!” she proclaimed.
Verdai laughed—Dylan couldn’t remember ever seeing a Naku laugh before—then said, “I do meditate daily, but I wouldn’t say for hours.”
“Oh no?” she challenged him. “You went on so long last night that you fell asleep in your clothes. You didn’t even take your deck shoes off.” She waited, gazing at him with anticipation, but when Verdai failed to produce a comeback to her jibe, she let it go. Then she looked at Dylan and said, “I really am sorry about this morning, Eric. I know you tried.”
“You tried?” Verdai asked curiously. “What did you...” He realized the answer before he even finished asking the question. “Ah! Have you failed to resist her charms so soon, Eric? Is that what she was referring to when she said the two of you had started something?”
“Not really,” Dylan answered, dropping his gaze to the tabletop.
“Not really?” Verdai asked him. “What does that mean, ‘not really?’ What happened this morning, if not that?”
“I was going to ask you that very same question, Verdai,” Nicole said, saving Dylan from having to answer his question and changing the subject, obviously deliberately. “What happened this morning? What was all the hollering about?”
“I asked him what made him decide to become a pilot,” Dylan answered for the Naku.
“Oh,” she replied, understanding. “You shouldn’t have asked him that.”
“So I discovered before he finally told me the story.”
