Several decades ago, we would have had to exchange instructions and argue about which game to play, but now, with people traveling more, sharing their customs, we each know a few of the others.
Arguing takes place anyhow, though it seems to be good-natured in origin. Eventually, we settle on poker, because Tess is the guest. Bets are made with a mishmash of currency, both paper money and coins, from every end of the known universe. No one appears to keep track of the value in any official manner, though Tess makes a show of scribbling things down on a napkin for a while before she gives up the charade and joins in with the haphazard way in which everyone else is participating. There is laughter, there is drinking, and of course, there are more stories. I expect such a thing has been a tradition among warriors for as long as there have been warriors to fight.
“How did you two meet?” Boxdon wants to know, eyes darting between myself and Tessie.
Tess shrugs, managing to slip me a half smile. We are thinking of the same moment, and she no doubt doesn’t want to tell it for fear of casting either of us in a bad light. Despite her own disregard for propriety, she respects the fact that I may not want to share everything with the soldiers under my command. “In the military,” she says. “During the disaster on Mahdi.”
“Yeah,” Jeyal says, the alcohol making him more familiar with his superiors than he would deign to be otherwise. “But how did you meet?”
I give her a nod.
She grins, wide and open, and I feel it, as I always do, like a kick in the chest.
“I was just a lowly recruit,” she begins. “Had just been bumped up to Corporal, though at the time, I was sure it wouldn’t last. Brass saw fit to send us as support troops to Mahdi when the eruption hit.” It was a lone planet, just past where the edge of the lines for Federation space were drawn, and therefore, not technically reliant or deserving of their help. “Turns out, your people had showed up to help as well, and we had, of course, ignored your warnings that it was taken care of. Long story short, we show up, we save a few people, and I shot your commander, here.”
There are chuckles, raised eyebrows, and questioning looks.
I break in with a frown. It requires a great deal of effort to keep it from becoming a smile. I have missed Tessie’s antics more than I realized.
“Making a long story short is nice for brevity’s sake,” I say. “But I still think some context is necessary.”
“Fine,” she sighs. “’I’ll context.”
At this stage, she is very clearly on her way to being drunk. While there were human rations aboard the ship, the same could not be said for human alcohol, and to my knowledge Tess had not once entertained the idea of returning to her ship for some of her own.
“We had been briefed to expect alien hostiles taking advantage of the chaos and looting. No specifics given—just aliens. My squad and I were in charge of the evacuation of a village close to the blast zone. We came across some civilians that needed assistance.” She pauses here for dramatic effect. “We could tell they needed assistance because this huge … thing was standing in front of them, very obviously threatening them. I did what any well-trained soldier of the Federation would do when confronted with such a sight. I stunned him. Keep in mind of course that the setting was in the middle, which is like, I don’t know, being flicked to a Velorian.”
The soldiers laugh right on time.
“The thing turns around, and now I can see that it’s fairly humanoid, all things considered, and very, very pissed off.”
I steal the story from her, just to watch the look on her face as I do. “We didn’t consider that there might be other people there helping. The Federation didn’t communicate with us and we didn’t communicate with the Federation.”
“It was a shit show,” Tess elaborates eloquently.
“It was a tough job. We knew at that point that weren’t getting everyone out in time to avoid the eruption. I wasn’t in the best of spirits.”
“You fucking growled at me,” Tess says.
“What’d you do?” Vakkon asks.
Tess shrugs. “I shot him again.”
She finishes the story with a flourish, explaining the way in which I stalked toward her, my blaster trained on her all the while, and demanded an explanation. I knew she wasn’t a common looter, even then. She was dressed in military attire, and once I allowed myself to see past my anger and really look, I recognized Federation colors. My feelings, however dampened they had been by the circumstances, shifted toward morbid amusement. Translators had been prone to lags and glitching in those days more so than now, and between the two of us, we managed to fill each other in and establish that we were planetside for the same purpose.
“And then,” I say, “This cocky human corporal invited herself and her squad onto my patrol. I couldn’t shake her the entire mission.”
Tess smirks. “He still can’t shake me,” she says, and tosses back another drink.
The soldiers laugh, not at all surprised now that they have had a few hours to bask in the presence of Tess Owens. We end the story there, neither of us surprised that the other chooses to forgo further elaboration about the mission itself. It does not have a good ending, but for the lasting friendship between Tess and I, and the fact that it began a small sense of cooperation between Velorians and human soldiers (even if the politicians in the Federation had yet to catch on).
It is Vakkon who suggests that the soldiers get some shuteye. He says so without being prompted, giving me a meaningful look that states he has done so for my benefit. I sincerely hope that my feelings toward Tess aren’t quite so obvious. We are friends, but since our first meeting and our first parting, a part of me has always wondered if perhaps we’re meant for more.
A few of the more biased soldiers head down without saying a word, while the majority stay behind for a moment to tell her goodbye and that they enjoyed her company. A few even mention that she has positively colored their view of Federation soldiers to which she replies:
“Not a soldier anymore,” and then, as though realizing how unnecessarily defensive that sounds. “But thanks.” There is a smile pasted on for the last set of words. I can tell that it is counterfeit, because no part of her face but her lips is affected and even they can scarcely hold the lie for long. When they all file downstairs to their quarters and their work on the engines, we are alone in the dining area. A pilot, not Ashir or Boxdon, is in the cockpit, but even he is only barely within earshot, what with the many sounds on the ship overlapping, carrying throughout the box of echoing metal.
“You’ve been waiting this whole time to yell at me,” she says, bracing herself with another drink. She waves a hand in invitation. “Go ahead, commander.”
“I don’t want to yell,” I correct. “Just talk...”
She snorts.
“What are you doing on this run solo?” I ask.
Tess shrugs, and seems to have expected this line of questioning. “Nothing better to do.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Fine,” she says. “I need the paycheck.”
I don’t ask what for. She won’t tell me. Not now.
“Your leg then,” I say, and she flinches just a bit. “Why aren’t you looking after yourself?”
“I…” She pauses. “I don’t have an answer. You were supposed to just lecture me and make me feel like shit. I wasn’t looking to get all introspective.” She goes to pour herself another drink. She tilts the bottle incorrectly. Half of it misses the glass and sloshes onto the tabletop. I move the bottle back to my side of the table, out of reach of her shorter, human arms, which she is too far to gone to even notice. “Congratulations,” she says. “On having your own ship to run. Have I said that?”
I shake my head.
“Anyway,” she continues. “Your soldiers probably won’t tell you this, but they think a lot of you, Jari.”
“How can you tell?”
“I used to be a grunt, remember? I know how we act, when we
don’t like an officer, and this isn’t an example of that.”
This statement makes speaking easier. For the most part, we steer away from sensitive topics. There is no more mention of Tess’s leg, and the eruption on Mahdi stays far from our thoughts and our tongues. We discuss the situation with Veloria’s attempts to enter the Federation, the latest terrible action films released to the vid-stream, how exactly one manages to cook decent scrambled eggs, and the problem Prince Takkan is facing in his rule. There is attraction between us, but it is nothing new. I have noticed hints of it in the past, planted like seeds that grow stronger with each chanced upon meeting. If anything, it seems to have grown stronger during this last separation. As we speak, and as the night passes us by, I have to stop myself several times from reaching across the table to touch her. When my eyes land on the quick blur of her smile, the urge to kiss her appears.
Instead of acting on any of these impulses, instead of explaining them to her, I tell her that I have missed her company despite not being a proponent of bounty hunters.
She smiles again, as though that is a great compliment to receive.
“Have one more with me?” she says, nodding at the bottle, having finally discerned its whereabouts again after a good half hour of searching.
“One,” I sigh, “And a small one.”
Her lips jut out in a playful pout, but she allows me to take her glass and pour enough for a final mouthful, before doing the same to my own. Velorians don’t experience drunkenness with nearly the same severity as humans. Rather, we seem to experience all of the benefits and few of the consequences, even when drinking our own alcohol. Tess has always proclaimed this to be enormously unfair. Personally, I think it’s enormously entertaining.
We each hold our glasses, choosing not to down them just yet.
“Remember the last time we bumped into each other; when we were both on leave?” she begins. “On Sylvan 9—that little moon in the orbit of Tressor?”
“I remember,” I say. “Are you referring to the bar fight itself or to the aftermath.”
“Both,” she laughs. “But mostly the aftermath.”
We stop speaking, and I have the feeling that both of us are picturing the same jail cell on the moon, with cracked floors and mold propagating in the tiled walls. I could have avoided the entire predicament but Tess had been a combination of too drunk and too concussed to successfully pull off any sort of sprinting or subterfuge. We stayed in the cell until the morning, paid our fines with military credits, and left with Tess walking only a little unsteadily and calling it a great escape.
“I can’t believe it’s been three years,” she says, a little wistfully, and I nod my agreement.
Three years is a long time for a human, I have to remind myself. And for me, Velorian lifespan considered, it is a long time to have been separated from Tess.
“Infuriating though you are,” I say, softening the words with a smile, “I’m glad we ran across you.”
She lifts her glass. “Likewise,” she says, and together, we toss back the last drink and put it behind us.
It has grown impossibly late as we have talked, close to morning. I push back my chair from the table. “Come on,” I say. “You should get back to your own ship.”
“I’m staying until morning, remember?”
“With the state you’re in now,” I say, “you won’t be fit to walk the length of the ship in the morning, and I doubt you’ll be awake before midday.” Midday was likely a generous assessment.
She frowns. “I thought fire Velorians were supposed to be the fun ones?” she asks.
I answer her with a playful flash of teeth. “We are fun. I assure you. Now come on.”
Tess straightens up in her seat and begins the arduous process of slotting her prosthetic, left off since Hadar returned it to her during dinner, back into place. I do not offer to help, already knowing that she won’t accept anything of the sort unless it is absolutely necessary. I keep to my own side of the table until she appears to be finished, and then cross over to help her stand, as I would do regardless of the leg due to her level of sheer drunkenness. She is tall for a human woman, but still too small for me to assist her in the manner of an arm across my shoulders, even if we could find a good spot for her to slot it between my spines. We walk instead with my arm around her waist, her body pressed against mine.
“Don’t get too friendly there, commander,” she says, a little breathless, her feet swaying in front of her.
“I wouldn’t dream of compromising my honor in such a way,” I answer, half seriously. Her head tilts back and her laugh bounces off the ceiling.
“I’ve missed you, Jari,” she says, when the sound has faded and our footsteps lead us near the bridge that connects our two ships.
I wonder if her thoughts will change when she wakes and finds that we have left without explanation.
“And I you,” I answer back. It is not something I would normally say, albeit in such a warm, tender tone of voice. The alcohol is affecting my own inhibitions as well, though thankfully without such detrimental effects on my coordination.
We cross the bridge, Tess’s head resting against me, her arm doing its best to loop around my waist as if to return my current hold on her. We cross back to her ship via the docking bridge, and it is not until I see it from the inside that I realize what a small vessel it is. There are only three rooms aside from the cockpit—a main room, a bathroom, and a tiny room with a single bunk tucked into a corner away from the rest. I steer Tess in that direction, feeling like a traitor all the while. She agreed to leave the mission herself, but I know her well enough to know that she only said so to buy herself more time to convince me otherwise. She strips off the top layer of her armor clumsily, waving off my hands when I attempt to assist her. When she is just in her space suit (boots still on—an old military habit), I guide her carefully toward the thin mattress, where she more or less collapses on it like a toppled building, lying on one side with her face pressed into the pillow. I reach forward, and settle for pushing a lock of dark hair from where it has fallen across her face.
I head to the cockpit then, already wondering how livid she’ll be when she wakes and finds that I’ve programmed in an autopilot route to take her as far from here as she can get. Just before my fingers touch the control pad, the air outside the ship, the bridge that connects the two vessels, goes up in flames.
I am thrown to one side of the cabin as the two ships are ripped apart. As the blast sends us spinning, hurtling into space untethered, I can see my own ship being left behind, a gaping hole visible in the hull. In front of us, the smuggling ship belonging to the cult uncloaks itself, revealing that we have vastly underestimated their capabilities.
5
Tessie
My brain has been stuck in a blender.
That is my first thought upon waking, and it seems an accurate description of the pain in my head. My mouth is dry as cotton and I can scarcely do so much as clear my throat. The air feels too thin, and I cannot catch my breath. I open my eyes, and am spared the feeling of light searing them. I am in complete darkness, and my head is pillowed on something broad and warm.
I sit up abruptly, panicked and disoriented, as the room spins in sickening circles. “Easy,” a voice says, and there is a large, warm hand on my shoulder as I reach for my blaster. The ever-present gun is nowhere to be found, and I feel the loss of it as though it were another phantom limb. Nausea twists in my stomach, almost too overwhelming to ignore. It’s the pervasive sort that overtakes your thoughts until you allow it to win.
“Tess,” the voice says. “You’re fine. Relax.”
“Jari,” I say in recognition. My hands are locked behind me with a somewhat flimsy pair of handcuffs. I flail about in the dark with them as best as I can manage, finally settling on the warmth of him behind me. I soon realize that the rather comfortable object on which my head had been resting when I awoke was likely the expanse of his lap.
I force
down the rising fear and inject as much false bravado into my voice as I can manage. “You didn’t tell me you had handcuffs.”
The chuckle this wins me is halfhearted and brief, but genuine in its relief. I count it as a victory and sit up a little straighter, eyes adjusting to the blackness just enough to make out his outline.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“Other than the monumental hangover, I don’t think so. You?”
“No,” he answers, but his voice is tight enough that I know it is a lie.
“What happened?” I ask.
“What’s the last thing you have a recollection of?”
“Drinking with you. Maybe some walking.”
“I was returning you to your ship,” he answers. “I left you in your bedroom and was programming your autopilot to return you to the last system you left.”
I snort at this, not surprised in the least. It was a very Jari thing to do—tricking someone for the right reasons and then not bothering to hide it afterward. I imagine that the sense of honor ingrained in an ice Velorian would keep them from doing such a thing, but fire Velorians seem to keep to a code with less rigidity. “Asshole,” I say and that is it. I cannot be truly mad at Jari, who I understand so well—not when I know the motivation behind the action.
Primal Planet Captive: SciFi Alien Fated Romance Page 4
