Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars

by Melisse Aires

  He stood. "Allysha…"

  Her mouth twisted in disgust, her eyes glistened. "Bastard. Lying, murdering bastard."

  She fled.

  Her feet clattered on the stairs. She’d gone to their room. Her room, after this. Saahren’s heart was a lump in his chest. The look she’d given him skewered his soul. Revulsion; deep, bitter loathing. Worse even than he had imagined. Murderer?

  He glared at Roland. "Why couldn’t you keep your mouth shut?"

  Roland’s eyes flickered and he took a half step backward. But he recovered his composure quickly. "Well, well. I always thought rank was a leg-opener. Seems I was wrong. In this case." He sniggered.

  Saahren only just avoided knocking the bastard out. His fist itching, he banged down the stairs, strode over to the door of the cabin he’d shared with Allysha and slapped the release. She’d locked it, of course. Damn and blast Roland to all the hells of Karadesk.

  He whirled and called up to Roland, standing in the doorway to the lounge. "Get this door open." He made the words an order.

  Roland didn’t even hesitate. "Open the door, Editor. Override authorized."

  The door swished aside. Saahren took a deep breath and stepped inside. She lay rigid on the bed, her face shoved into a pillow.

  "Allysha?"

  "Get out. Leave me alone."

  Emotions fought for dominance. Embarrassment at being caught out, foolishness for not confronting her at a time of his own choosing. He closed the door. For a moment he toyed with the idea of sitting on the bed next to her and decided on the chair instead.

  "Allysha, talk to me. I’m sorry you found out like this but now you know at least do me the courtesy of telling me what I’ve done wrong."

  "Wrong?" She levered herself up and turned to him, furious eyes brimming with tears. "You murdered my father."

  Her bitterness, her hatred lashed at him. Anger flared. Righteous anger at being accused of an impossible crime, being judged for an absurdity. He forced himself to keep his voice even. "I don’t remember murdering anyone. I’m sure I would have. Tell me what you’re talking about."

  "Jossur."

  He hadn’t expected that. "What was your father doing at a Ptorix military planet?"

  "He was a professor. Head of the human engineering faculty at Ullnish University. He went to Jossur to give a lecture to Ptorix officers." Her throat worked and she looked down at the floor. "He asked me to go with him. I refused."

  "He was there? When the planet was devastated?" And she could have been? That last twisted his gut more than the death of some professor lecturing to the Ptorix military.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, arms rigid. "When you ordered the planet bombarded."

  "Bombarded? From space?" He shook his head. "No. That’s not true."

  "Don’t lie. I saw the images. I’ll never forget them. Bodies, blood, craters, smoke. Males, females, children. Stacks of bodies." She pushed her fingertips against her forehead, her eyes closed.

  Saahren let some of the tension drain. This was just an awful misunderstanding, something he could explain. "Allysha, the planet was not bombarded. I sent two of my ships to Jossur from Forenisi. Anxhou had two battleships stationed there, ready to throw into the mix at Forenisi. Each of my ships targeted one of the battleships. They launched their missiles, destroyed the two Ptorix warships and came back to Forenisi. They didn’t even make planetary orbit."

  She opened her mouth to argue but he raised his hand. "Yes, the planet suffered massive destruction. Because one of the Ptorix battle cruisers collided with the planet’s space station. The ship blew up, destabilized the station’s orbit and both of them—the battleship and the station—came down onto the planet."

  "So you’re telling the story, right?" she sneered. "The winners always get to tell the story." She leaned toward him, jabbing a finger at his chest. "That’s not what they told us at home. And this wasn’t the press braying ill-researched propaganda. This was Professor Xanthor, my father’s friend and a professor of Ptorix-human relations at Ullnish U. He gave a public lecture, denouncing the Confederacy’s base act. He said two Confederacy battleships bombarded the planet. He showed pictures of them, firing their weapons. We saw the craters, the bodies." She blinked away tears. "No more lies, Saahren."

  She said his name as though it was an insult. "I’m not lying. It’s the truth. Ask Roland. Or Tyne."

  "I will. I’ll ask Grallaz, too. And now get out. Get out of here. Leave me alone." Her voice broke, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

  He stood, his heart shattered. But this would pass. She was wrong. "We still have to go to Brjyl."

  She closed her eyes and sighed. "Yes." She snapped her eyes open again. "But not for you. I’m not doing it for you."

  He walked out. The door whispered shut behind him.

  Roland stood, arms folded, at the foot of the stairs. "Did she tell you why?"

  "Yes. It will pass. Her father was at Jossur. She believes the Ptorix line that I ordered a bombardment of the planet."

  He trudged up the stairs and flung himself on the sofa, thankful that Tyne and Grallaz were no longer there to witness his misery. Roland, who had followed him, went over to the bar, poured two large measures of brandy and handed him a glass.

  "You think it will pass, do you?"

  Saahren swallowed a large mouthful of brandy, feeling the liquor warm his throat. "It isn’t true. You would know that. She’ll come to her senses." Of course she would. Truth would out.

  Roland sat down. "You don’t know much about women, do you?"

  "And you do, I suppose."

  "You’ll have to win her confidence back. You’ve lied to her twice in as many hours. Yes, you have." He leaned forward. "You were a sergeant, then you were a senior commander. They were both lies."

  "Necessary lies."

  "Not to her. You share her bed, tell her you love her… Has she been married before?"

  Saahren scowled and drank another slurp of brandy. O’Reilly. He hadn’t needed a reminder.

  "I’ll take that as a yes. If he was a lying asshole…" Roland lips quirked. "And judging by your expression, he was… don’t expect it to be easy."

  "Thanks for the lesson."

  Roland sat back and crossed his legs. "You know, she was the reason I went along with you not being Saahren. Everybody’s got a look-alike on some planet, fair enough. And the body double on Ceres is good, no doubt. I wondered, though; but then, you with a woman?" He grinned. "I actually wondered about your preferences when you knocked back Serena Priestley."

  Good grief. "Why?"

  "Well… she’s easy on the eye."

  He winced at the memory. Serena Priestly, golden-haired siren of the holovids, whose naked image was plastered over every male locker room in all his ships. She tried to flirt with him for the cameras. He’d virtually had to peel her off him.

  "Just easy. I didn’t particularly wish to be another trophy in her ‘men I’ve had sex with’ collection. Do you think she would have been interested had I been Lieutenant Saahren?" He slammed down the rest of the drink. "This isn’t anybody’s business."

  "Yes, true. So Brjyl is still on?"

  "Yes."

  "And she’ll go along?"

  "Yes." But not for him.

  "Would you like another brandy?"

  "Yes."

  ***

  The door swished behind Brad. No, Saahren. Chohzu. Allysha squeezed her eyes shut as a fresh load of tears threatened to spill onto the pillow. A shroud descended over her, enveloped her in darkness. She’d been used; betrayed; lied to. Again. Just like Sean. Just like Jarrad.

  More tears bubbled. She forced herself to her feet and stumbled over to the washroom, pulling off her clothes as she went. Might as well stand in the shower, let her tears mingle with the water. She squeezed shampoo into her hair and lathered, massaging her scalp, concentrating on the simple, mindless task.

  He’d used her; used her skills to find out about van Tongeren’s oper
ation. Anger fought with misery. He’d said he loved her. But so had Sean, once. She’d come so close, so pathetically close to falling in love with that man, with Saahren.

  In her mind the spires of Shernish University beckoned to her, vivid as a picture. Home. Bright sunlight shining on Port road, glittering on the sea. Her house high up on the hill overlooked the port where fishing boats tied up next to wooden jetties. She longed for a warm summer night, sitting in a chair on the patio, a frosted glass of wine in her hand, listening to the tinkle of a fountain while a salt-laden zephyr slipped past her face. No Sean, no Saahren.

  She ducked her head under the water to rinse away the soap and her tears. Feeling sorry for herself wouldn’t help. She was fit and well, that was always positive. She still had her career. At home, she had friends and a house. And plenty of work. And no Sean. That was definitely a positive. Her lip curled in disdain at the thought of him. And Saahren; he would go back to the Confederacy, out of her life forever. What happened on Tisyphor would recede into memory and she could get on with the rest of her life. Oh, buckrats. That’s what she’d thought when she left Carnessa with Sean not so many weeks ago.

  Why did she feel so empty? She bit at her lip to stop it trembling.

  For goodness sake, she’d thought she was in love with Sean. For ages. Yet this feeling of loss, this physical ache had nothing to do with Sean. She’d been happy with Brad Stone; happier than she had ever been, than she ever would be again. Tears pricked but she blinked them away. No more crying.

  She switched off the water and reset to the dry cycle, turning around in the warm air current. All clean, all dry. Time to get on with life.

  How long to Brjyl? A few days? Probably. Go down and get the backup and go home and have that glass of wine on the patio. Find some way to refill the hole in her heart.

  She threw herself down on the bed and listened to Braunsweger’s symphonies, drifting with the music, back in time, back in space, back to Shernish without Sean, without Brad Stone. She dreamed of the beach below the port on a summer’s day. Boats floated on an aquamarine sea, birds drifted on the breeze, small waves slapped lazily onto the sand and shifted the shells from one place to another. She could almost feel the sun’s warmth on her skin, taste the tang of salt air.

  A knock on the door interrupted her reverie. She struggled up onto her elbows.

  "Who is it?"

  "Preston, Madam. I’m Master Roland’s major domo. I’ve come to collect Admiral Saahren’s things."

  She stood and opened the door to a compact older man with the look of a butler; neat, restrained and polite.

  She stepped aside. "Help yourself. Where’s he going?"

  "He will share with Mister Tyne.’

  There wasn’t much to collect. The door closed behind Preston and the tears welled again.

  Allysha poked her head around the door to her quarters and checked out the corridor. This was the ‘night’ part of the ship’s cycle. The only person on deck should be Roland, who had the roster. Nobody around, the only sound the soft rumble of the life support systems. She padded aft down the passage past the other three double rooms and down the rear stairs into the bowels of the ship.

  She slipped into the galley. A conical form rested in a corner. Grallaz. His eyes glinted in the soft light and his ever-moving tentacles swayed as if in a gentle breeze.

  "Are you all right? Where have they put you up?" she asked in Ptorix.

  "I rest here in the galley and I share the crew washroom," he said. "It is enough."

  "It’s disgusting. Just because you’re Tor."

  "Peace, Allysha." He laid quivering tentacles on her arm. "I cannot use their beds, they have no resting platforms. Friend Tyne has made sure I am comfortable. And you must know I need little rest."

  "True. It’s just…" she waved a hand. "I don’t know. I just wish we could all get on."

  "Roland is not comfortable with Tors but few humans are. It does not matter." His eyes swirled green, interested but tranquil. "Why have you come?"

  "Jossur."

  The color of his eyes darkened to deepest red. Sadness. "Terrible. A terrible tragedy."

  "What do you think happened? Who caused the destruction?"

  "Think? I have heard it said that Admiral Saahren ordered his two ships to bombard the planet."

  Yes. Savage glee surged through her. He’d heard the same as her. At least she wasn’t deluded.

  His tentacles swirled, like seaweed in a slow swell. Thoughtful, evaluating. "But I have also heard it said that the battleship Xeveres collided with the space station and both crashed."

  Damnation. "Blast it, Grallaz, which is true? Which do you believe?"

  "What is true is that many died, that Jossur is many, many years from recovery. That the devastation was the result of war."

  "So you’re saying it doesn’t matter if he… if Admiral Saahren ordered the destruction?"

  "The end result is the same. But yes, it matters if he matters to you. And he does. But I’m sorry, truly sorry, little one. I cannot say."

  "He doesn’t matter to me."

  He passed his tentacles over his speaking mouth. "Then the answer would not matter."

  Damnation. Even a Tor could see through her.

  "I do not understand why you will not talk with him. But then, I am Ptorix."

  "What is there to talk about, Grallaz? It comes down to did he deliberately bombard Jossur or not?"

  "He says he did not. And you do not wish to believe him."

  Her shoulders sagged. She couldn’t just believe him. She’d gone down that path too often. "Thanks, Grallaz. May your cave glow with light." She twined her fingers in his tentacles.

  She slipped back up into the passage, by-passed the stairs to the lounge and opened the hatch to the bridge. Roland sat in the captain’s chair, feet up on the console, listening to music. He swung his feet down when she came in.

  "Well, hello. Sit down, do." He waved a hand at the engineer’s work station. "I trust you’ve recovered from your disappointment?"

  She ignored the jibe and the solicitous look on his face.

  "I wanted to ask you about Forenisi and what happened at Jossur."

  "Ah." He pulled his lip between his teeth. "Well, Admiral Saahren told you the truth, darling. No planetary bombardment. The battleship Xeveres had only just dropped its tethers from the space station and was underway when the missiles struck. The ship veered off course and collided with the station, forcing them both down into the atmosphere. The rest, as they say, is history." He brought his hand down sharply on the arm of the chair. "Splat."

  Allysha winced. Her mind filled with images of bodies, burning, carnage, hurrying figures, flattened houses, smoke. "That’s what the Confederacy Fleet told you?"

  "Yes. But don’t imagine I believe everything they tell me. I have my sources amongst the Ptorix. It’s the truth."

  He leaned toward her. "But even if it wasn’t… you don’t want to be stuck with a Fleet officer, do you? They’re away from home most of the time, off in space. You’d be at home in some fancy barracks with the rest of the wives, playing paddle bat or bounce ball or discussing your kids or wondering who he was having it off with on his next planetary visit. Somehow I can’t see you in that role."

  Neither could Allysha. She hadn’t thought about that aspect of marriage to him. She hadn’t thought about marriage at all.

  "No. But… I’d still like to know the truth." If only to put to bed the ghosts of the past, the whispers of guilt, the regret.

  "Yes, he lied to you rather a lot, didn’t he?"

  "Thanks for your time." She pulled herself out of the chair. A father confessor figure she didn’t need.

  Roland’s face became serious. "Look, if you ever want a job, come and talk to me. You have incredible skills. I could use somebody like you."

  "Could you, though?" She grinned. I’ll bet. "Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind."

  He must have noticed the curl of her lip. "It doesn�
��t have to be physical, Allysha. I’d pay you wonderful money for your ability to speak Ptorix and your amazing computer skills. I’m an investigative journalist, remember? I want information wherever I can get it. You can get it so many ways."

  "Goodnight, Mister Roland."

  "Marius. Call me Marius," he called after her.

  Hell’s teeth. That makes three of them. Sean, Saahren and Roland.

  Hardly aware, she walked back to her quarters. And stopped. A tall figure stood outside her door. Saahren, bare to the waist, the soft light casting shadows that accentuated the curves of his muscles.

  "What do you want?" she said.

  He smiled. Seductive, predatory and very, very sexy.

  Her legs turned to water, her insides to mush. "Excuse me. It’s late."

  He didn’t move. "It is. You’ve talked to everyone but me."

  "I have nothing to say to you." Her heart beat faster.

  "I can prove my ships did not go into orbit around Jossur. The ships’ logs will—"

  "Ships’ logs? You’re talking to me." She pointed at her chest. "You want me to believe in the sanctity of ship’s logs? I won’t believe anybody except the people I trust on Carnessa, back at home."

  He stared down at her, his eyes impenetrable as black holes. "And if I am vindicated?"

  "That’s for the future, isn’t it? Better get this Brjyl thing done first." She tried to sidle past him.

  "Allysha, do not mention the virus. Not to anyone."

  She stopped. "Why?"

  "Because even knowledge of it is dangerous. It is a deadly weapon and there are those – like van Tongeren and the GPR – who would do anything to have it in their hands."

  "Trust no-one, right?"

  He nodded.

  "I can manage that." Starting with him.

  He stood aside.

  Inside her room she leaned against the closed door, eyes shut to press back the tears. Damn and blast the man. Why couldn’t he have been Sergeant Stone? Even Senior Commander Stone?

  Sean pushed through the crowd of tour operators waiting to meet holiday makers in the arrivals area at Tau Ceti. Van Tongeren waited at the exit, dressed in a blue business suit, very different from his attire on Tisyphor. Although the mine manager looked outwardly calm and controlled, Sean noticed the tension around his eyes and his mouth, which made him even more nervous.