by Lance Berry
Oh my god, oh my god, I need to shake his hand! She shoved her hand into his and shook enthusiastically. “Sorry.
I’m a big fan. Nice to meet you,” she said, and was mortified to feel her cheeks flushing with excitement.
“It’s alright, that’s fine,” Christenson replied, and now waited for her to stop shaking his hand. She did and withdrew, trying to not be too obvious as she wiped her now sweaty palm on the side of her jacket. He was staring at her now, and the silence seemed to stretch out as their eyes locked. He seemed to be taking in every facet of her face, studying every last inch of it…but why…
“James has told me a lot about you, about your accomplishments as second officer. It’s all very impressive… although I must admit to being a bit peeved that he didn’t prepare me for how beautiful you are.”
Mara could feel her mouth dropping open, but could no longer control the muscles of her jaw to prevent it. Did David Christenson just make a pass at me?!
“Uh…uh-huh…” she stuttered nervously, then ran a hand through her dark, silken hair as she said “thank you”.
Oh, Jesus! Did I actually just do that stupid ‘hand through the hair’ thing, to show interest? What am I, fourteen?!
Stubbs and Tamamura shared a knowing smile, then the captain turned to Christenson. “Well, our work is done here, David. Looking forward to seeing you at dinner.”
“Your work—?” Christenson said in surprise.
“We’ll see you both at dinner,” Tamamura told Mara, with a light pat on her shoulder. “Nineteen-thirty hours, the Sunrise Ballroom.” She leaned close to Mara’s ear. “Have fun.” With that, she and Stubbs headed around the bend in the corridor, back to the main auditorium where the banquet was in progress. Both Mara and Christenson watched them go in some bewilderment, but Mara was seemingly the first to realize it:
Ohmygod! We’re being set up!
She spun around to face David Christenson, who looked down at her with a raised eyebrow, an appreciative expression on his face. Apparently, he had also realized what the two officers had plotted all along.
“Hi,” she said in a soft, little-girl tone as her voice unexpectedly caught in her throat. David couldn’t help it; he shook his head and laughed in pleasant surprise. To Mara, it was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.
Interim Two
(Destiny)
David led Mara down the corridor, in the opposite direction Stubbs and his first officer had gone. The duo made a couple of quick turns, then exited through a rear door and to Mara’s surprise, came out at the far end of the hotel’s garden. It was a beautiful sight: various types of roses, carnations, tiger lilies and others all in full bloom. Both larch and quince trees stood within only a few feet of one another, the health of each one regulated by specific temperature and water regulation grids set beneath them. When the Mars stations were built, the engineers decided to transplant several varieties of trees, plants and flowers from Earth and maintain them here, in order to make certain their genomes would live on. The added benefit, of course, was to have such a wide variety on display in the garden and psychologically give the inhabitants a much-needed mental buffer from the reality of war and death which occurred on a daily basis and which was reported on the news almost constantly.
David stood only a few feet in front of Mara, staring upward at the curve of the geodesic dome as it looked out onto the dark rise of the Silpher crater and the stars above. There were no Heavy Cruisers visible from this view, and David sighed lightly…in contentment or sorrow, Mara couldn’t be certain.
His shoulders slumped ever so slightly, and he turned to her with an apologetic smile. “Sorry for the rush-through…although
I’m not comfortable with my so-called ‘celebrity status’ among our fellows, I’ve learned how to avoid unwanted attention and maintain a certain degree of privacy, when necessary.”
Mara nodded in understanding, and felt a pang of regret for leading the ovation earlier. She had never realized that with every victory he had achieved, every enemy routed from Earth space, there was a personal cost to him as a man. Having gained such renown, it was probably hard for him to live up to the expected ideal of what David Christenson should be, rather than just being allowed to be David Christenson.
“It is hard, isn’t it?”
David nodded. “There’s no way to say this without sounding bourgeois…but I know that I’m good at what I do. I come from a long line of soldiers, stretching back to the old British navy, so I was born to do this. But I never was told it would be so hard to be good at what I do, and maintain a sense of self.”
Mara didn’t know how to answer at first, but then a thought came to her. A light smile creased her lips as she said, “Well, maybe you could try losing once in a while. Then we’d forget about you and you could have some peace.”
David laughed in appreciation. “I never said I wanted to be forgotten. Maybe just a day off here and there to sit around in boxers and enjoy tiffin.”
Mara’s nose crinkled as she tried to unravel this last.
“’Tiffin’—?”
“Sorry. ‘Brunch’ to you Yanks.”
“Oh.”
Unwittingly, they had moved closer to one another. The silence stretched out once more, and before she knew it, her fingers were entwined with his. For years to come, neither would know whose hand had reached out first, but the deed was done, and both could feel an electric moment hanging in the air, charging rapidly, waiting to be ignited.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you have beautiful eyes,”
David offered in a soft, eager whisper. “Very expressive.”
“Thank you. You’re more handsome in person than in vid-clips.
And trust me, you look very handsome in clips.”
David smiled bashfully. “Thank you, Mara.”
Mara’s eyes widened at the way her name rolled off his tongue. She hesitated for a second, then asked, “Could you say my name one more time?” He nodded. “Mara.”
“Wow.”
“If you’d return the favor—?”
“David…”
And then his lips were upon hers, and she pressed to him eagerly, lost in the embrace as his strong arms wrapped about her waist, holding tightly to her. Their tongues greeted one another, touched tentatively, explored, melded. Her hands reached up, clutching onto the back of his uniform jacket in an effort to hold on forever. Suddenly, without warning, he stopped and drew back just slightly. “I’m sorry…that…I find you so beautiful, but…that was terribly inappropriate of me…”
She looked at him in disbelief, uncertain at first whether he was joking or not. She then realized that he truly was a gentleman, embarrassed by his own brashness…and this was something she had not encountered in all her life. The thought of being with someone who might actually care for her feelings, her emotions, the privacy of her own body…placing all of that before his own needs…nearly moved her to tears.
She looked up, holding him in a firm, unwavering gaze. “It’s only inappropriate if you stop.”
He looked at her in surprise, yet nodded his understanding.
A sly smile crossed his lips. “Old James…what a plotter he is.”
Mara snickered in agreement. “Yeah. I never saw it coming.”
“Neither did I. Your captain may very well be the wisest man in the universe. We’ll have to be sure to thank him later.”
“Much…”
And they held each other, kissing amidst the lilacs for a very long time…
Chapter 22
After the surge of unexpected passion between them, Mara and David finally came up for air. They sat on one of the benches at the rear of the garden, holding hands and talking about various topics for what seemed to them both as a wonderfully endless time. David explained that he was born and raised in Blackpool, a seaside resort village in England. In the past, the history of the town was linked to the poorer blue-collar workers that lived there, and had been looked down upon b
y the majority of English society, caught up as they were in the trappings of class and stature. Yet as the years passed, the town grew and became known as a good haven of higher learning, thanks primarily to the building of the King Harry Institution, a branch of the UEF academy.
David graduated from there near the top of his class, surpassed in academic scores only by his best friend Malcolm ‘Panther’ Edwards, who signed up with him for a tour of duty in Her Majesty’s Royal Star Force. Due to a few happenings, David actually managed to become flight commander first, but there was little resentment on Malcolm’s part…Panther became flight leader once David was further promoted and became captain of his first ship, the Victory.
Mara couldn’t fully understand why, but she felt as if she could tell David anything. She readily talked about many of her life experiences—although omitting the parts about Tallworth and Brad—and came clean about her strained relationships with her father and sister. Strangely, when David offered advice, she didn’t shy away from it. She had to admit to herself that she wasn’t certain she would follow his advice…but it was still solid, nonetheless. Although he was only a few years older than her, he possessed a worldliness and insight far beyond his years.
Finally, David thought to check the time. He pressed down on the left sleeve of his uniform, and a display lit up at its edge, showing the time, date and temperature of the room. “Huh”,
David said in mild surprise. “We’re nearly twenty minutes late.
We’d better hurry along I guess, or James and Nikki may very well have our entrails for dessert.”
Mara nodded in compliance. He took her hand in his once more and rose with her. He offered his arm in gentlemanly fashion, and she placed her own in its crook. Arm-in-arm, they strolled out of the garden together into the more populated areas, uncaring of the surprised stares they acquired from other officers along the way.
Soon enough, the pair arrived at the Sunrise Ballroom. A maitre d’ showed them to the table where Captain Stubbs and Commander Tamamura were seated. A busboy was in the process of clearing two empty salad plates from the table, even as a waiter offered a bottle of wine for Stubbs’ approval. There were already wine glasses set before each place setting. Stubbs nodded his assent, and the waiter placed the bottle in the center of the table as David pulled a chair out for Mara, which she accepted with a broad smile.
“Sorry we’re late,” David told the duo as he took a seat beside Mara. “but you have only your own wiles to blame for it.
If your security chief weren’t so engaging, we could’ve made it on time.”
Tamamura shook her head as she looked at Mara. “You couldn’t have been just ten minutes later? I had twenty Unicreds riding on you being a half hour late. Some friend!”
There was pleasant laughter all around. Mara wagged a stern finger at Stubbs and his first officer. “You didn’t tell me you knew him!”
“Again, it would’ve spoiled the surprise,” Stubbs said. “Plus, we figured if you met David, it would get you out of this groupie phase you’ve been in for so long.”
“I am not a groupie,” Mara said, covering the side of her face visible to David, so that he couldn’t see her turn beet red. “It’s not like I had posters of him up on my walls.”
“Yes she does,” Tamamura said in mock seriousness.
“Shush!” Mara laughed as she playfully swatted her friend’s hand. She shook her head as she looked at David once more.
“Please don’t listen to anything they say.”
“Sorry, love…it’s already been recorded for posterity.”
“’Love’—?” Stubbs repeated, with an eyebrow raised to his friend.
David cleared his throat uneasily. “It’s…just an expression.”
And now he averted his gaze from Mara, caught off-guard by his own embarrassment. Mara smiled shyly, her eyes darting between her own lap and him.
A thought came to her, and she looked up at Nikki Tamamura. “What’s this ‘good news’ I heard mentioned earlier.
Did you get a promotion or something?” she asked, nodding toward the wine bottle.
Stubbs and Tamamura shared a knowing look, then the commander leaned forward slightly in her chair, her gaze focusing more on Mara as she said, “James and I have been keeping something a secret from the crew for quite some time.
When we’ve had down time, when we’re off-duty, whenever we can see each other privately…well, we’ve been dating for the past year.”
Mara’s eyes widened and her mouth went agape. She stared at Tamamura a moment, then looked at Stubbs, who was nodding in agreement. She then looked back at Tamamura.
“Wha—? How’d you manage to keep something like this secret from over seven hundred people?”
“Believe me, it wasn’t easy,” Stubbs answered. “But after serving together for so long, Nikki and I finally had to admit how we felt about one another. We decided to try out a relationship on the q.t., so as to avoid speculation, rumors and have the brass come down on us.”
“You really think Command would have objected?” Mara asked, surprised.
“There’s a reason they don’t always place opposite genders as captain and XO,” David chimed in. “They worry that situations such as James and Nikki’s might arise, and lead to a distraction for the center seat. What good is a captain if he or she is too busy worrying about their partner aboard ship during battle, after all?”
“So we went the covert route,” James continued. “As far as we were concerned, it was nobody else’s business anyway.”
Mara nodded in assent.
“So anyway…” Tamamura said, “everything’s been working out wonderfully between us. We’re very much in love. And just a little while after we arrived here, James asked me to marry him.”
“What!” Mara exclaimed, then realized her cry had drawn attention from a few tables around them. She grimaced.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Tamamura said as she gently patted Mara’s hand. “I had the same reaction. What we’re going to do is tell just the senior staff when we return to the ship. We’ll have a private ceremony on the bridge, and once the announcement we’re officially married is made, the brass shouldn’t reassign either of us. They won’t be happy we kept it from them, but they’re still big fans of their ‘new families’ stipends.”
Mara nodded in understanding. Only a few years earlier, UEF initiated a financial incentive for married couples to have more children. Publicly, it was to ensure the continuance of the human race; but most people realized it was simply a type of bribe to ensure more soldiers to the cause. However, the stipend was extremely generous, and most people didn’t mind having future sons and daughters unofficially consigned to the military life, if it meant keeping Earth free.
Stubbs turned to David. “Anyway, the reason we asked you both here tonight. David, you and I have been friends for umpteen years now. Hell, you’re more like a brother to me than either of my own. I want you to be my best man.”
A broad smile spread across Christenson’s face. “James, there’s no way in the universe I could ever decline such an invite. You’re one of the finest men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, and it will be my honor to stand at your side.” He offered his hand as he said this last, and the two old friends shook on it as Nikki turned to Mara. “And I hope you’ll feel the same way, Mara…’cause I’d like you to be my maid of honor.”
“Oh my gosh, of course,” Mara answered, and the two women hugged joyfully. David took the corked wine bottle and held it close to him, turning the bottle in order to pull the cork loose steadily in the proper manner. It came undone with no fuss and he began to pour the wine as he said to all, “Well then, now that that’s settled, I suppose a few toasts are in order.” He set the bottle down and held up his glass, an expectant look on his face as he eyed the engaged couple. “If you don’t mind—?”
