by Juniper Gray
“I don't think that's the object of the game.”
He paused, looking across at Gen. “I need to tell you something.”
“Conceding already?”
But Therse wasn't in the mood for joking anymore. He fished his pocket-screen out and opened it, fingertips flicking over the display. He passed it to Gen. “I've been offered a position in Command,” he said, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible. He still wasn't sure how he felt about it himself.
He watched Gen's expression carefully as his words sank in; as the words in the letter hit home. “Congratulations!” Gen told him, but his smile was a little forced. “That's what you've always wanted, right? That's great!” He looked down at the screen again. “When did you find out?”
“The letter came through this morning.”
“Great!” He nodded, offering Therse a tight-lipped smile and handing the little screen back. “I didn't even know you'd put in...”
“Yeah, I didn't tell anybody, sorry. I didn't think my application would come to anything, so I didn't want to announce it if I was just going to end up getting refused anyway.”
Gen shrugged. “It's worked out nicely, really. You can step up after Carbera —”
“Gen,” Therse interrupted, “if I accept this, I won't be able to go to Carbera. I'll have my week of leave, and then I'll be off. I won't be going with you. It's Navy Central Command—I'll need to travel all the way back to Earth-Lunar Orbital.” He pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I don't know when I'll get to see any of you again.”
Gen just looked at him. “So you've accepted?”
“Not yet, no.”
Gen's expression seemed to soften. “Then what the hell are you waiting for?”
Therse was about to make a stab at an answer that wouldn't have betrayed his feelings when the lights flickered and then went out altogether, plunging them into absolute darkness. An odd noise, like a curtailed screech, sounded over the intercom. A second later, the lights came back on.
They were both looking upwards, as though that would reveal the mystery.
“What was that?” Therse wondered out loud.
“Dunno.”
“Ship?” he ventured.
“Apologies,” it said. The ship's voice seemed...different, somehow. He was probably just imagining things. “I was re-booting power in a number of sectors. Should have warned you first...there should be no further interruptions.” The apparent courtesy in its speech pattern certainly sounded off. Unless it had been rebooting some politeness subroutines.
“Maybe we should go and see what that was,” Gen said.
Aside from the obvious problem of how and why, exactly, they should investigate something the ship was already aware of, Therse saw an opportunity. “Running away from defeat?”
“Fuck you,” Gen said, focus renewed.
* * * *
The next day, and after two weeks of running around the same route since they'd first boarded, Therse decided he needed a bit of a change in scenery and had started his jog on one of the lower floors instead, hoping it might be invigoratingly different. It wasn't. Even the cleaning drone looked the same.
He had hoped a shift in routine might break him free of a couple of things, but it was obviously too much to ask for.
The dreams were still coming; he'd woken up sweating and tangled in the sheets again that morning, stuck through with that deep guilt he wished so hard he could forget. He wanted to swallow it down, to push it back under and never think about it again, but things weren't that simple. He couldn't understand why it was haunting him now, after nearly four years had passed.
He thought about Gen, about the shadow of disappointment that had registered on his face when he'd learned about the Command post, and how quickly he'd managed to hide it away. Therse hated the fact he knew Gen wanted him to stay. Of course he did; they'd been best friends for over three years and been posted together ever since they left military school. It just made it so much harder to leave Gen behind. At least he seemed to have taken it pretty well.
Therse thought of his best friend's face again—those strong boyish features and brown eyes framed by soft, mid-length blond hair.
What are you waiting for?
What indeed...
Something caught his attention and pulled him out of his depressed reverie.
There was a cup sitting on the windowsill just up ahead.
That wasn't unusual in itself. What was unusual was that it was on a level neither he nor, to his knowledge, Gen ever used. And even if Gen had taken a wander, it was unlike him to leave a cup behind rather than tidy it away. He frowned, making a mental note of its location so he could nag Gen later.
His footsteps slowed to a trot and then stilled altogether. His mouth hung slack as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
The cold silver of fear and adrenaline coursed through him.
Out of the window, a couple of floors up and a little way along the dull gray hull, a smaller, dark vessel was stuck knife-like into the flank of the ship. He'd never seen anything like it before: long and pure black, all angles and threat. It certainly wasn't Navy, and it certainly hadn't been there before.
There's someone else here.
“Ship, how many people are onboard?” he asked, staring out of the window.
“Counting two persons,” the ship replied. “One: Therse Bodan, Navy Lieutenant. Two: Genham Drisjic, Navy Lieutenant.”
“That can't be true. There's another ship docked to one of your ports!”
“Ah, you caught me, that was a lie. Sorry.”
Something was definitely wrong with the ship. In all his limited conversations with it it had been rude, evasive, and disinterested, but it had never actually outright lied to him before. “What are you talking about?”
It was almost as though he was talking to a different AI altogether.
* * * *
“Who the fuck are you?” Gen shouted, reaching instinctively for his bootknife. It wasn't there. It was back in his quarters where he'd left it, under a bunch of other things.
“Oh, looks like you've been relaxing a bit too much here,” the man said, hands clasped behind his back.
Gen knew he was someone not to be trusted, regardless of the fact he'd just appeared out of nowhere. Gen did the only other thing he could think of and raised his fists.
The man just laughed.
Gen took the opportunity to make first strike and launched at him, arm raised and ready to deliver one of the hard punches he was so well-known for in bar brawls.
The man was fast, moving only at the last second as Gen's fist met with empty air. He felt himself caught and twisted, rammed face-first against the wall with his arm behind him at an awkward angle. He tried to brute-strength out of it, but the man's hold on him was impressively tight. He protested as his arm was moved another painful fraction of a degree.
The comms unit in the wall in front of his face lit up. Someone was dialing through.
Therse.
“What's that?” the man said. At first Gen thought he was being spoken to and was about to respond with something abrasively vitriolic, but the ship got there first.
“That's the other one. He's figured it out too. Shall I connect it?”
“Eh, sure, why not.”
“What the hell,” Gen strained, the man's grip on him still unrelenting.
Therse's face came up on the screen. “Gen! Gen, I think there's someone else...” he trailed off.
“On the ship?” the man finished for him. “Yes, I think he already knows,” he said, releasing Gen to rub furiously at his almost-broken arm. At least, it felt that way.
“Nice to meet you both. I'll be staying with you for a little while.”
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* * *
3: UNINVITED GUESTS
Meitou seated himself calmly into one of the mess hall chairs, ankle of one boot resting over the knee of his other leg, fingers o
f both hands interlocked in his lap, and waited for them to begin their questions.
The blond one was pacing, looking like he was trying to decide where to begin. Almost territorial, Meitou noted. His own ship, the Imperial Heavy-class Interceptor Weapons Grade, had given him a short briefing of what to expect aboard the Terminal Regret. He'd been surprised (and rather disappointed) to learn that such a huge stellar cruiser only had two passengers on board. There wasn't even so much as a captain. But two men was better than no men at all.
Meitou was trying to remember the fidgeting man's name from the files he'd glanced at before losing interest and deciding to go see for himself. Something beginning with a harsh ‘G'. Gorin? Gangor? No, something that was smoother on the tongue. Gimran? Not it either...He wished he'd paid the ship's briefing more attention now. The blond glared at him firmly and it came to him at last. Genham
Meitou watched Genham a little longer, getting a measure of him. His presence was an incursion that challenged Genham's status, even aboard an empty ship carrying no women. Meitou studied him carefully, scrutinizing his every move, reading his give-away micro-expressions. Genham was a firecracker; an immature, impatient and insecure alpha male prone to impulse. None-too-interesting, from Meitou's point of view. Not many points of intrigue. Too easy to read, too easy to toy with.
Not that it wouldn't be fun to toy with him, admittedly.
It looked like Genham had finally chosen his starting point.
“So how about you begin by telling us who you are and what you're doing here.”
“Is your arm okay?” Meitou asked, faking concern.
“It's fine!”
He lowered his voice to a deeper baritone, leaning his head to the side. “You seem to be rubbing at it still is all. Sorry if I hurt you.”
“You didn't! Answer the question.”
Too easy. Just too easy. He smiled thinly and said nothing.
Genham was already aggravated and Meitou was barely even having to do anything.
“You can't expect to just sidle aboard and stick around when we don't even know anything about you, where you've come from, what you're doing here...”
Again, Meitou said nothing.
“Fine, don't tell us anything. We'll just have the ship kick you off —”
“The ship?” he interrupted, smiling inwardly that his interruption was instantly accepted. “You mean you haven't noticed the change in AI?”
Genham scowled back at him, doing his best not to nurse his arm but keeping it still by his side.
“That AI is your ship?” This time it was the other one who responded.
Meitou suddenly found himself wondering why he'd been wasting so much attention on Genham. On screen the second man had seemed flat and uninteresting, but in the flesh it was a different matter entirely. The name wasn't a problem to recall this time. Therse Bodan. Therse was tall, like Genham, and obviously toned even beneath his Navy fatigues. He was handsome to the point Meitou actually had to stop himself from looking him over. “Yes,” Meitou replied, allowing himself a small smile.
Therse's brown eyes flicked away then back, perhaps the hint of a blush forming on his cheeks, if that wasn't too much wishful thinking.
“The hell! You can't do that —”
Therse held out a hand and Genham silenced himself. “What's happened to ours?” Therse asked.
“It's fine, still there, just...sidelined...for now.”
“'Sidelined'?”
“That's right.”
“So that's what the power outage was,” Therse muttered to Genham. “When will it be brought back online?”
“When my ship no longer requires control of your vessel.”
“And why exactly does it need control of our vessel?” This was good, he decided. Better than expected. Therse was cool-headed, thoughtful and deliberate; a tactician. Exactly the kind of man it was fun to see lose control.
Exactly the kind of man Meitou liked to make lose control.
He smiled and said nothing. There was definitely a blush there, he was sure of it.
“What the hell are you?” Genham asked, straightening, broadening his chest and shoulders. “I've never seen that kind of uniform before.”
“Meitou.”
Genham looked shocked to have received a straight answer, even if it was to a previous question. “Surname?”
“Not something you need to know.”
“Rank?” Genham spat, apparently determined to continue his winning streak and establish his superiority.
“Un-ranked,” he told them. They both just looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I haven't earned a rank yet. I am part of the general rabble. A trainee, I guess. We have no title.”
“Wait—if you're un-ranked—and in black uniform—are you Imperial?”
Yes, Therse looked very promising indeed.
“Imperial?” Genham repeated, trying his best not to appear intimidated after learning that the man he was interrogating was part of an elite specialist force. His best wasn't nearly good enough to fool Meitou.
“Don't look so worried, I'm perfectly harmless,” Meitou lied.
“Who said I needed reassuring?”
“Some things you don't have to say out loud.”
Meitou found that his voice irritated Genham most when it was rich and honeyed. Genham seemed to fight it as much as he was able, at least figuring out that Meitou was playing him like a fiddle. “So if we're both Lieutenants, that makes us your superior officers,” Genham said.
Meitou allowed himself to show his amusement. “Navy and Imperial ranks are hardly equivalent. Didn't you figure that out from our little altercation in the corridor? Or did I misunderstand your Navy ‘welcoming’ customs?”
Genham ground his teeth, the muscles working in the sides of his face, but he pressed on, appearing to find his stride despite the probes and taunts. “How many more are on your ship?”
“It's just me.”
“You're on your own?”
“That's what ‘just me’ means, yes.”
He saw Therse stifle a giggle as Genham only grew more irate. Meitou was finding his buttons with increasing ease and regularity. It wouldn't be long before he tipped over.
Therse saw this too and stepped in. “What are you doing here?”
Meitou smiled back at him, fixing Therse's rich brown eyes again. He noticed Genham look at them both in turn. “I'm just stopping on the way to my next post. We decided we'd use your ship and hitch-hike for a bit, seeing as you're headed in the right direction for the most part.”
“'We?'” Genham snorted, folding his arms and wincing. “I thought you said it was just you.”
“I meant the ship.” Meitou pointed upwards.
“You decide things with your ship?” Genham said, looking over his shoulder at Therse as though he was expected to share in the ridicule. He just stared back at Genham blankly.
“Yes,” Meitou replied, dead-pan. Genham didn't quite know what to do with himself.
And then Therse came out with a question he honestly wasn't expecting; a question that, in Meitou's mind, sealed the man's fate. “Why are we going faster?”
He was impressed, but he didn't let it show. “My ship has made some modifications to the engines of this vessel, so they can run at greater capacity. You should now arrive at your destination at least a week sooner.”
“And I take it you'll be with us for most of that time?”
He couldn't see any reason to withhold information they'd come to find out anyway. “It's possible.” He smirked, and added, “Though I make no promises.”
An interesting mixture of things passed across Therse's face. Things that would need to be teased out, one by one.
Genham, though, had had enough. “This is bullshit,” he muttered to Therse and turned to leave.
“Gen,” Therse said, trying to catch him by the arm as he went, but it was yanked away. A very intimate gesture, Meitou thou
ght.
That left just the two of them. Therse looked awkward for a second or two, then peered back at him.
“Sorry about him.” He nodded his head in the direction Genham had taken. “Therse Bodan, Navy Lieutenant.” They shook hands. Therse had a good, strong grip. “Shall I show you around?”
* * * *
Meitou was one of those men gifted with a certain presence, Therse decided. The type who could command the attention of a room full of people when he walked in. The type of man you'd accept even the worst of orders from with a grateful smile. The type of man you could never forget.
He reminded Therse of Gen somehow, though the similarity was only fleeting before he dismissed it. Meitou was slightly taller, slightly broader, certainly more mature, and with an air of intrigue that spoke of plentiful experience doing interesting things. The Imperial was calm on the surface, like a mill pond. Composed and controlled and entirely self-assured.
It made Therse wonder if the surface was hiding turbulent currents underneath. Currents that might pull you in and suck you down if you weren't careful.
Then he realized why the similarity was bothering him: Meitou was almost Gen as Therse pictured him in about five years’ time.
Therse stole another glance over at Meitou as the man gazed out of the corridor windows into empty space. Meitou's uniform was matte-black from head to toe, made of sharp, deliberate angles, just like his ship, and trimmed around the collar and lapels with flecks of gold braiding. Therse would have thought they'd reserve that kind of embellishment for commanders rather than waste it on ‘un-ranked’ soldiers, but who was he to judge. He knew next to nothing about that wing of the military outside of their suspect recruit selection methods, secrecy, and occasional use of brutal military force.
His mind extrapolated the amount of gold on Meitou's jacket to what their highest commanders must wear when in full regalia, and conjured up images of gilt admirals blinding entire fleets with their uniformed magnificence. Gen would have liked that one.
But Gen wasn't here.
Therse couldn't stop staring. Meitou was stupidly, ridiculously attractive; fair skin and scraped-back blond hair, piercing blue eyes set in features best described by the cliche ‘chiseled'. A hint of stubble grew around the two tiny shadows of scar tissue along his jaw. Just enough rough to make him seriously intriguing.
