by Michael Orr
“Oh, jeezis... I’m the pig at a luau!”
s’Okay, girl, another part of her intervened. They’re just guys. You can work this.
Private Duggan was deep in his playlist, tuning out everyone else and trying to manage his anticipation when there came a light tap on his shoulder.
“Um...s’cuse me. D-Do you know if there’s any empty seats?”
He didn’t look up. “Pretty much scattered.”
“Riiight...” The voice withdrew.
It occurred to Duggan that it hadn’t been a male voice and he sat up, discovering the tender flipside of a very good time tiptoeing into the main cabin.
Trish searched anxiously for somewhere to sit, but her fearful eyes couldn’t focus. Behind her, guys were rising out of their seats in shock and she glanced back to find herself the object of their commotion.
“Um...s-sorry ta crash yer party, gentlemen. I-I was wondering if there’s somewhere I can sit?”
They gawked.
“Over here, ma’am,” someone called out, gesturing to the seat next to him.
Thank you! she mouthed, scurrying over and slipping past him to shrink into the seat’s meager shelter. He was gawking at her like everyone else, but at least now she had somewhere to be.
“Um...thanks,” she meeped.
“N-N-No problem, m-ma’am.”
“I’m not really a ‘ma’am’,” she corrected, as innocuously as possible.
“Uh...”
“Miss?” She dipped.
The guy nodded, clearly whelmed. “Sure...”
“I’m–”
“Trisha Thierry!” He was wide-eyed. Now it was her turn to stare.
“There’s no one who wouldn’t know you, Miss Thierry. We all do.”
“Y-You... How?”
“The Zodiac Lounge.” He grabbed his head in disbelief, his words an exhale of shock. “OH... MY...GAWD!”
Trish searched him and everyone else for a clue. “I don’t understand.”
“I, uh...” He stood up and she clawed at him to sit back down.
“Hey, guys...” He faced the throngs of sailors encircling Trish like a meat fortress. “Give Miss Thierry some breathing room, huh? This’z pretty intense.”
Nobody moved until he began eyeing them one-by-one. Finally, they backed off, bodies returning to seats, but not eyes. Not hearts.
“Sorry ’bout that,” he offered. “We just...my god! You’re HER!”
“Um, I guess?” She shrugged. “I seriously don’t understand.”
“Every guy here’s in love with you! All of us. The whole fleet.”
Would she ever be able to stop staring?
“You’re...well... You’re our GIRL.” He fished something out of his gear and handed it to her.
Trish gaped at her own extremely topless image on a hardcopy holo — something she had no memory of posing for.
“Whaaat?” her voice failed. Came out as a scratch.
“You’re our girl. I mean, there’s guys who can’t get ta sleep without watchin’ you first.”
“Wuh...watching me?” What in god’s name was happening?
“The feeds,” he explained, looking around at all the nodding heads for support. “We get all your shows from the Zodiac.”
There were feeds?
“Um...” He ventured a glance at her not-really-clothed body. “Not sure how they convinced you, but...ya just can’t believe what it means to us. I mean, havin’ you here... In person!”
“In the flesh,” she twittered. Choked up. The knot in her forehead was in full bloom.
“You keep us goin’.” He paused, then added “Trish” as if to convince himself she was real.
The others joined in — murmurs of agreement breaking through their shock at finding her to be real...actually right here with them.
Heart galloping at the edge of her threshold, Trish could barely work her lips. “Wha^at’s your name?” she hiccupped.
“Oh crap! Um...I mean...um, Jesse Estoban. Corporal Estoban.”
“Thank you^ou...for being such a gentleman, Corp^ral Estoban.” She glanced around at the others, trying to stop her throat from overreacting. Something more was required.
Stand up.
She stood and faced the rest of the cabin. “Um...h-h^i guys.”
The cabin was at full attention, clapping and whistling, gleaming teeth all around. She tried not to tear up, but disbelief was dribbling down her face.
“Marry me, Trish!” someone in back hollered.
“Marry all of us!!!” shouted another. The ice broke at last and the cabin exploded in a ferocious male roar!
Trish erupted in a full-body blush. And more tears.
28
* * *
ONXX – GRENADINES OF HEAVEN – JUN 29, 2371
Three anxious sublieutenants stood watching a tortoise warp down through an amber sky.
“Think she’s alright?” Jaff Chapman worried.
“She’s her, man. Whadda you think?”
They held their breaths as the ship landed.
“Ladies first, huh?” Trish bit her lip as a transport full of sailors stood waiting. “You guys just wanna watch me walk!”
They chuckled as she settled into her role.
“A’right. See you in paradise.” She sashayed through the cabin and peeked out the hatch...
“Oh my...GOD!”
Onxx was way better than the brochure. A tropical beachside paradise smothered in red honey. From here, benevolent Betelgeuse ruled in a worshipful sky, lending his visage to the glassy waters wherever he found them. Pools and ponds dotted the jungled landscape like topaz gemstones under an eternal sunset, hinting at a ginger sea just beyond camp.
Beneath the rosy god of the Grenadines, EarthFleet’s temporary base sat nestled in an alcove among thick foliage where it would offer the least offense. And all around it, guys in skivvies and swim trunks milled about, drinking and snacking while busy launchpads welcomed latecomers.
Farther away, shoreline waters frothed with the antics of young men washing away whatever traces of EID they could after months of endless routine. Across all this, strange shadows drifted slowly through the scenery, and a curious eye traced their source to a school of muluus passing overhead in perpetual migration.
It was stunning! And here she was, marooned in this splendor with all these guys crushing on her.
Eager steps carried her down the rungs as balmy air and a gentle breeze showered her in Onxx’s unique perfume. Scents of pepper and jasmine — or their alien kin — smothered any concerns about her safety beneath the Grenadines’s seduction. But her decidedly non-regulation form and figure commanded all local attention, including a trinity of distressed sublieutenants.
“Ho-o-oly kripes!” Jaff bashed his head with a hand. “She did that!”
“For us!” his buddies Lanx and Jeo acknowledged.
Trish stepped onto the pavement and hovered near the tortoise, getting her bearings while smitten young men followed her down. A grin of amazement accompanied her glances — until three eager hosts caught her eye and unleashed the infamous Thierry storm clouds.
Jaff shook his head in apology. “Ohhh, Trish...”
“We had no idea,” the other two insisted.
“Uh-huh,” she frosted them. “Three dashing young officers invite me for a weekend in the most gorgeous place in the galaxy, and they couldn’t predict this?” She picked at her overexposure.
“We never thought you’d–”
“What?” Trish snapped, raising a frigid eyebrow. “Dress for the occasion?”
“Gawd, Trish,” Jeo shook his head.
Jaff eyed the transport with concern. “Did they...?”
“THEY were absolute gentlemen.” She waved to the chorus line of devotees behind her. “Especially one fine young corporal who, I have no doubt, would’ve taken on the whole ship ta protect me if he had to. Which he did not.”
“Es...”
“...to...”
“...ban.”
The three of them concurred.
“Jesse,” she trumped. “You could learn an awful lot from him. From all of ’em. I bet not one’a those guys would play me for a party favor without asking first.” She met her pilot’s eyes boldly. “You could’a told me I’m their ‘girl’.”
The knot in her brow made a brief cameo. A pouty lip. “You think there’s anything I wouldn’t do?”
Jaff ducked his head. “You’re everyone’s ‘girl’.”
“The fleet sweetheart...” His buddies ran interference. “Us included. We’ll make it up t’you.”
“Actually, since I’m here and there’s nothing I can do about this,” she gestured at her kinda-sorta clothes, “I’m gonna spend the evening boosting morale. ’Least you got that right.”
“And the rest’a the weekend?” The three of them were praying for a warmer forecast.
“We’ll see.” She carried her chill into the steamy surroundings, feeling a distinct pleasure in abandoning them for the group she arrived with.
“Jeezis...” Chapman sighed, hands in his hair.
Trish’s sublieutenants made amends late that evening by showing up with three skimmers and tantalizing reports of a quiet beach far from base.
“Guess I won’t need these.” Trish left her useless dress and heels behind, teasing everyone within eyeshot as the skimmers stole her away.
Stepping up onto the back of Jaff’s skimmer in the raw, she got a vivid flash of the Anita chick’s bare back while a different kind of machine whisked her down a busy highway. People and rolling ground-cars were everywhere in the sun-drenched scene.
The girl twisted ’round in the saddle to meet Trish’s eyes and all of Trish’s blank memories flooded back in a single burst.
Anita?!
Ho-o-oly...Fuckeddy!
It was all back...the Kuxxin, the chakras, her past-life self falling out of the sky into her desk at school, the shame and horror of being caught by the popular girl, the mad dash for safety — everything.
She gripped Jaff tight against the tsunami of emotions. Closed her eyes against the sight of Anita’s stark, bare back.
And now the misfit girl’s stringy, shapeless dishwater hair morphed into a mushroom of gorgeous 24-karat gold. The transformation was so dramatic that she could’ve been a movie star. Was it even possible? How could such a mouse of a girl be so bold? So brazen?
Trish wrestled with the incongruities as the skimmer swept her along Onxx’s shoreline, and the loveliness drowned out all reminders of a lifetime from centuries ago. After half an hour’s ride through the Grenadines’s staggering glory they arrived at an intimate beach, drunk with the jungle’s delightful aroma.
Their private cove clung to the base of a concave cliff stretching up into the mists, with vines and thickets of ginger shrubbery draping spectacular stretches of basaltic rock. Powdered sand tongued at the languid sea and the air stirred in momentary puffs that passed for a sporadic breeze. Occasional sounds of alien tree-life added mystery to the atmosphere. There were no predators in the Grenadines, and nothing poisonous, so sleeping in the open on pillows of sand was perfectly safe and a welcome remedy whatever the complaint.
They passed time splashing around like kids and teasing the lone girl into hysterics, but while the question of favorites came up in veiled comments, no one wanted to spoil the weekend for themselves or the others. Shore leave on Onxx was the rare reward for those in the right place at the right time. Most of the fleet never saw the Grenadines of Heaven, so the young lieutenants jealously guarded their time off against petty squabbles. But where there was a will...
“Well, lady and gentlemen,” Lanx interrupted a quiet moment as they sat gazing into the amaretto sea. “Idyllic as this may be, the spirit thrives on variation. And in my foresight I brought just the thing...”
He handed out tubes of a topical treatment and Trish read the label: “Insulot envirogel?”
A grin livened Jaff’s face. “Standard military issue.”
“We call it ‘skinsulation’,” Jeo added, admiring the tube and all it portended. “With this stuff on, you can hang out in the Sahara or at the top’a Mount Everest on a lounge chair sippin’ martinis.”
“It creates a barrier between your skin and the environment,” Lanx said. “Rumor has it, enough’a this stuff and your skin, at least, would be able ta handle brief exposure ta space.”
“Space?!” Trish studied the tube. “I coulda used this last voyage.”
“However,” Lanx bowed to the event in question before continuing, “in a bit of divinely inspired research, field testers discovered that if ya mix it with portions of this...” He brought out a tube of Insulot remover, “the effect can be customized. I’ve personally found that two an’ a half parts skinsulation ta one part remover only dulls the environment, so you still get a taste of it without riskin’ yer skin or core temp. All of which leads me ta ask the single most important question of the weekend.”
He got down on one knee and gallantly took Trish’s hand. “Lady Trisha, have you ever made love in a foot of powder?”
29
* * *
ONXX – GRENADINES OF HEAVEN – JUN 30, 2371
Nobody noticed the SkyRanger landing nearby for all their frolicking. Laughter and squeals bounded away across the snow like jackrabbits as the new arrival emerged into the cold and took in the festivities.
“Fall in!”
The SbLTs rocketed up out of the snow before the narrowed eyes of a section head.
“I’d like t’think this looked differently on paper.” He glowered at the naked officers.
“Huh?” Trish sat up at the new voice and everything halted as military eyes watched the splendid creature rise and brush the snow from her curves.
“Lieutenants?” growled the CO.
“We...uhhh...”
“Why’s this young lady here? And out of uniform?”
Trish slipped past her guys and boldly stepped up to the officer, admiring his rakish goatee and the dark crest of hair framing his olive complexion. He had a noteworthy presence.
“This is my uniform,” she countered.
“Lieutenants?” The CO’s growls took on new urgency.
Jeo cleared his throat. “We’re confident that under different circumstances, the commander would recognize Miss Trisha Thierry. Of Asherah fame?”
“Ah,” the CO leaned back, easing off as Trish smiled and lifted her hand.
“Enchanté, Commanderrr...”
“Lieutenant Commander Jerrett Nash.” He kissed her hand with sudden charm.
“Commander Nash.” She dipped her head with a genuine smolder, figuring him for thirtyish and every bit the romantic image of a chiseled officer. His air of authority beguiled a girl who’d never met a genuine career officer before. The difference between Nash and her three sublieutenants couldn’t have been more pronounced.
Finding himself the object of scrutiny, Nash redirected his attention to her companions — with some difficulty.
“Judging by Miss Thierry’s abundant warmth and the absence of frostbite, I presume ‘skinsulation’ makes a fifth?”
“Ahhh,” Lanx spoke up, “it’s my own, sir. Not fleet supply.”
“Enterprising,” Nash admitted. “And Miss Thierry, I was under the impression cruise line staff were forbidden to fraternize.”
“s’My personal time, Commander. Own discretion.”
“So ta speak,” he mumbled under his breath. “Lieutenants, how did Miss Thierry come to arrive at a fleet-only event?”
“Through a certain amount of plotting, petty bribery and subterfuge, sir.”
She glanced back at them. “Some of which has yet t’be reckoned.”
Nash eyed her, still puzzling about something he intended to keep to himself. “I was concerned that the glow irradiating my men back at base was due t’some unforeseen hazard. Perhaps those concerns were best applied in the reverse. You haven’t been ill-t
reated?”
“Oh not at all, Commander,” Trish insisted, feeling her nudity with increasing vividness. “They’ve been absolute gentlemen. Every last one.”
“I’m much relieved ta hear it. And in that spirit, I invite you to accompany me t’the Arctica.”
“The Arctica?” Trish didn’t understand, but her lieutenants were openly appalled.
“It won’t do for a young lady such as yourself ta brave the perils of shore leave undefended.” Nash steered her toward the shuttle with a careful hand on her back. It sent Trish’s senses into a tizzy and she broke out in goosebumps.
“Uh...carry on.” Nash remembered his men just before boarding. “If it seems appropriate.”
Jaff scowled. “So much for this career.”
“From ‘lieutenant’ ta ‘loo tenant’,” Lanx sighed as the SkyRanger whisked away their weekend.
Trish settled beside Nash in the SkyRanger’s rear seats, wondering what kind of trouble she was in this time. Fortunately, the commander had retrieved her party dress from the base, so she didn’t have to shuttle up to an EarthFleet cruiser with nothing on but envirogel. Now if only she had her shoes.
“I appreciate and share your concern for my well-being, Commander,” she broke the ice, “but your guys’ve been nothing but gracious. Even gallant.”
“And EarthFleet expects nothing less of ’em.” Nash took the opportunity to study the girl in more detail. A singularly pleasing exercise. “But, you met ’em early on in their leave, before liberty really set in. Those men back at base were still under the watchful eye of their own discipline, and I can assure you, by now not one of ’em’s the same man you met.”
“Oh.”
Nash caught his wandering eye and promised it a scolding later. “I urge you to trust my judgment where Arctica and her men’re concerned, Miss Thierry.”
“Of course.” Even with her dress on she felt excruciatingly exposed. “Annnd the lieutenants?”
