by S. E. Smith
“That sucked,” she muttered, zipping her headset in its pouch. “It really, really sucked.”
“It was supposed to suck. I believe the scenario was weighted against us. No matter what we tried, it would fail. Perhaps it is to keep us from getting too confident.”
“If that was the goal, they succeeded.” The last terrible minutes of the battle kept replaying in her mind—Rornn in a death spiral, hurtling toward the rings in his broken starfighter, and there was nothing she could do to save him. Losing him for real would devastate her. “I’m just glad you’re alive, okay?” she mumbled with a sideways glance. “That’s all I have to say.”
His gaze sparked with surprise and delight. “That’s all you need to say.” He leaned one shoulder against the wall, arms folding, his mouth kicking up into his trademark cocky smile. Danger, danger. Her mind had an annoying tendency to go blank when she met his golden eyes. Yeah, a blank mind and a chest filled with butterflies. Often, he could be found in Nimbus, the station’s all-ranks club, enjoying his status as the station’s most-eligible bachelor. Trysh was used to seeing him surrounded by women hanging on his every word. It was one more reason he belonged in the “friend zone”. That way His Royal Hotness could go through women like locusts went through cornfields back home, and it wouldn’t bother her a bit.
Nope. Not at all.
If ever a person lived in a state of denial, it was her.
“Have you heard the breaking news?” Rornn announced as other starpilots climbed wearily out of their simulator pods. “Trysh Milton is glad that I am alive.”
“Seal it, Charming.”
“You are upset with me,” he said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
“The Dragaar used me to lure you away from the jump gate. You came back for me.”
“I would do so again and again.” He sounded unrepentant.
“We were ordered to save the station at all cost. That was our mission. You were supposed to unload the R-bombs.”
“I would never leave you in danger, Trysh.”
At the sudden seriousness in his voice, the use of her first name, she glanced up. Her insides contracted at the raw look in his eyes. “Never,” he repeated roughly, his golden eyes defiant.
Actual lives hadn’t been at stake, but their grades were. Rornn was as devoted to doing well as she was, yet he had prioritized her over passing the evaluation. That was enough of a surprise. Now his expression revealed his actions were about much more than even that. It was about protecting her—in the virtual world and the real one—no matter what the cost.
She almost pulled him into a kiss. Whoa. This after going rogue with him on the Encke Gap mission? That was her problem with Rornn B’lenne. He made it too easy to abandon her common sense. Did he possess alien powers she didn’t know about? Sometimes she wished that were true. It would explain her behavior around him because nothing else made sense. Like the crush she had on him that wouldn’t quit.
Crush? Talk about denial. It was more than a crush, it had been more than that for a long time. But he was off-limits for anything but friendship. The reasons were obvious, or at least she kept telling herself that. She was a commoner. He was a royal prince. She was raised by a single mom barely scraping by on tip money. His father was a king and a trillionaire. When Rornn looked at Earth women he didn’t see a romantic future; he saw his next hookup. “It seemed like a fairy tale to a girl pouring coffee for a handsome flyboy in a small-town greasy spoon, but it wasn’t,” her mother cautioned her. “I lived in a broken-down trailer with my grandpa. Zeke was military royalty. When he said I was sweet and refreshing and not like the rest, he wasn’t saying forever. It was great while it lasted, but he was never going to settle for a girl like me. That’s the difference between real life and Cinderella, sweet pea.” Exactly. Cinderella got the prince and a glass slipper. Mama got a DNA test, a man’s name on a birth certificate, and a few guilt checks in the mail.
Trysh turned away to unfasten the last of the VR sensors from her uniform. “I was more than capable of handling those Dragaar.”
“You are more than capable, yes. But I will always protect you above all else.”
“That’s not the way it works,” she protested.
“That’s the way I work. When we stop caring about each other as individuals, our galaxy is doomed.”
She sighed. Touché. Who could argue with such a profound statement? “Your ancestry is showing again.” His people, the Vash Nadah, saved civilization from certain destruction eleven thousand years ago. If not for them, the Eight Clans, of which Rornn’s family was one, humanity could have become extinct. “You can’t help yourself. Chivalry is in your DNA. You’re an officer and gentleman to the core.”
“An officer, yes.” His cheek dimpled. “But not always a perfect gentleman.”
The bad-boy heat in his eyes scorched her. She deflected it with laughter. “Half the women on the station would agree with that fact. The other half you haven’t taken out yet.”
With that, their conversation veered back to familiar territory.
He feigned outrage. “I will not listen to your insinuations that any females other than you interest me. You are an amazing woman. Why would I want anyone else?”
“I bet you tell all the girls they’re amazing. Wait—you do.”
“Rumors!”
“Sure they are,” she said dryly.
“If I am guilty of such an offense, which is entirely possible, I do not recall it. What I do know is that I did not mean it in the way I mean it when I say it to you.”
“So, there are varying degrees of amazing.”
“Indeed. You are on the farthest end of the amazing spectrum. There is no room for anyone else on the other side.”
She gave him an amused sideways look as she shoved her gloves in the locker. “So, I’m your one and only.”
“Finally! You have come to your senses.”
“I think anytime I let you rope me into conversations like this I’ve actually lost my senses.” Her body tingled, warm all over. It had nothing to do with her still pumping, post-simulator adrenaline and everything to do with their banter. She and Rornn had both been honor graduates upon completion of flight training in Texas. Since arriving on Bezos, they just as passionately jockeyed to be “top gun”. But even on a purely personal level, they competed. He relentlessly tried to get her to admit she wanted him while she continuously pretended she didn’t. “I don’t know why you waste your breath, Charming. I’m not your target audience.”
“How’d your ride go, Rornn?” A pretty maintenance attendant with mountains of strawberry-blonde hair waved as she walked by with an armful of equipment. Her eyes twinkled from under thick, perfectly curled lashes while Trysh stood there, her lip tint long gone, her plain brown hair damp from perspiration and plastered to her head.
Rornn answered with a wink and jaunty thumbs-up. The attendant touched her finger to her lips and blew him a kiss.
Exactly the kind of target I’m talking about. Trysh slammed her locker shut and started walking away. “I need tacos.”
He caught up to her in a couple of long strides. “Allow me to buy you a real lunch up on the observation level. We will talk without interruption about how glad you are that I am alive.”
She held up her index finger. “Was glad.”
“We can visit that restaurant you want to try, the new one overlooking the Terra-park.”
He remembered she said that? “Moon Shot? We’d need reservations, and—”
“Reservations are not needed for lunch.”
“It’s way too fancy and expensive for just lunch.”
“Are you not worth it? To be pampered and pleasured—”
“Charming…” she warned.
He raised his hands in the air. “Friend zone. I know this. I will abide by it. Albeit sadly.” Only he could make the term “friend zone” sound so endearing. Basic was the official language of the Federation. Fluency was mandatory for getting any
position in the Space Forces. But on Bezos, English was used. Rornn spoke his own version, sounding a little Scottish (smooth and lyrical), a little Vash Nadah (oozing with privilege), with more slang words mixed in than the Urban Dictionary.
He pulled his flight cap out of his flightsuit leg pocket and snapped it against his open palm. Then he waited for her to exit first through the hatch into the simulated sunshine of Deck Five. At the same instant, as if they were still flying in formation, they slipped on their flight caps and sunglasses. By order of the commander, the common area was treated as if it were truly outdoors. Sometimes she could almost believe that it was. At least she knew what a real sky looked like, unlike those poor people who lived under the dome down on the surface of Barésh, the impoverished frontier mining colony that Bezos Station supervised. The people there lived and died without ever experiencing what she and the rest of the Earth personnel used to take for granted.
“If not lunch at Moon Shot, what about dinner?” Rornn asked. “Then afterward, we can go to my most favorite of spots—the observation cone.” She knew he loved to sneak up there. He called it his sanctuary, his place to think. It was a restricted area, but that didn’t seem to stop him—or trying to talk her into coming with him. For Rornn, rules were meant to be broken—or at least stretched severely. “We will sit and gaze out at the infinite stars,” he said. “You will make your wishes, and I will grant them, one by delicious one…”
“Charming!” She couldn’t help laughing. “You’re such a—”
“Alien monster!” Shouts and chanting drew their attention to a large screen displaying news programming from home. “Earth first!” protestors shouted. “Go home! Go home!” If they could wall off Earth from the rest of the galaxy, they would. Despite everything the Vash Federation had given them—like cures for diseases, including cancer, which would have saved her mother’s life, and the ability to travel at faster-than-light speed all over the galaxy—Earth First hated them. Hatred that ran so deep that that Earth First terrorists destroyed Glenn-Musk Station, Earth’s pride and joy—their first home-built, galaxy-class space station. Hundreds of civilians and military were killed in the terror attack. When Earth First claimed responsibility for the bombing, it shocked many. Most thought the anti-alien movement was fading. But the senseless attack on the space station seemed to have emboldened the group. The Federation kindly gave Earth a replacement, an even bigger and better home in space. Bezos Station.
Bristling with weapons, a group of Interplanetary Space Marines the size of mountains carried to-go boxes out of the mess hall. Many others like them patrolled the station and down on the surface of Barésh, where there they manned a forward operating base, helping to protect both the local populace and a Doctors Without Borders group that set up shop to provide aid until permanent medical care arrived. Baréshtis were wild, unpredictable, with a moral code that defied logic, but they had welcomed Earth with open arms. They were the polar opposites of Earth First sympathizers.
“Monsters go home!” the protestors chanted. “Earth first! Earth first!”
A group of men stood watching the big screen. They wore baggy gray jumpsuits and tool belts. Cargo rats. Civilian contractors assigned to the supply squadron. “ET, don’t phone home—go home,” one of them joked, causing the rest of the group to snicker. “Frikken’ bug zappers.”
“Bug” was an extremely derogatory term for the Vash. A reference to the old belief that aliens were wide-eyed and green like bugs. Seeing Rornn walk past, one of the men elbowed a buddy. Then the entire group turned to look. Even though Rornn wore an ESFF starpilot uniform, his height, tawny skin tone, nutmeg-brown hair, and pale golden eyes marked him as a Vash Nadah, one of only a few serving aboard Bezos.
Trysh took Rornn by the elbow and urged him to walk faster toward the mess hall. “Let’s go.”
“I do not mind,” he said. “They have the right to express their opinion.”
Earth First, maybe. But the men who gave her pause were forty-three light-years closer and in the position to express a lot more than their opinion.
Two
Rornn
He couldn’t help smiling at the fierce way Trysh gripped his arm as they passed a group of surly cargo handlers. He could more than defend himself against such misguided souls, but if their behavior resulted in Trysh’s hands on him, well, he intended to enjoy every minute.
It wasn’t the first time he had experienced resistance to his presence on Bezos Station and it would not be the last, but he had learned to ignore it. Some had even disagreed with his selection to attend ESFF starpilot training in Texas too. “He’s stealing an Earth officer’s slot,” they said. “He fucking bought his way in. He’s rich enough.” Several classmates jumped him one night in Texas, looking for blood. He defused the situation before anyone got hurt. He vowed that if he was to change anyone’s minds about the Vash, it would be on the strength of his character and performance, not with his fists.
I sound more like my father every day, he thought with some dismay. The king was a staunch pacifist. It wasn’t just the B’lennes who were anti-war; the entire Federation was famously averse to conflict. They went eleven thousand standard years between wars. It took Earth stepping into the picture to convince them to fight their first war in millennia, but it was a necessary war, defeating a sadistic cult leader. Inspired by the stories of bravery and battle, Rornn left home to seek a commission in the ESF Forces and become a starpilot—much to his clan’s chagrin. They would prefer that he spent his days hanging out at the palace on S’aharr, their homeworld of scorching sands, attending dinners, being fitted for new outfits, making small talk with beautiful women who did not interest him, and perfecting his bajha game. He did not expect his Earth friends to have sympathy for his upbringing. But he was glad to be free of it. It was a luxurious cage, but a cage nonetheless.
“They let you go only because they think it will help get this quirky desire out of your system,” his eldest brother, the crown prince, had told him. Keirr and the entire family fully expected him to return to the palace after his “little adventure”.
Talk about misguided.
Luckily, as neither the heir nor the spare to the throne, he enjoyed options his two elder brothers didn’t have. Becoming a starpilot was the realization of his dearest dream. Only he never anticipated he would live that dream in the company of Trysh Milton, far and away the most fascinating woman he had ever met. She was bold, bright, beautiful. She challenged and stimulated him on every conceivable level—intellectually, emotionally, physically—in the cockpit and out. It was unexpected and exhilarating. She also supported him. Of all his friends, she was the one who was always there. Their saucy banter left him feeling more alive than he ever thought possible—it was also one hell of a turn-on, as his Earth friends would say. Alas, the moment they entered the mess hall, she released him.
“You do not have to let go,” he said and offered her his arm. Yanking off her cap and sunglasses, she gave him a sarcastic look and walked away, her sights set on the serving line, her ponytail swinging. His hand twitched with his urge to wind that length of hair around his fist to steer her mouth to his.
What a woman. He marveled at her as she selected a tray and eagerly accepted a plate of tacos. If only she would direct that kind of open and unfettered hunger at him. He wanted to feel her, to taste her, to hear her moan as he moved inside her. As a people, the Vash were not prudes. In his culture, sexuality was celebrated, often with religious zeal. But, Great Mother, with Trysh he had not come close to a simple kiss. He was used to being the best at most things he attempted, at getting any woman he wanted, but she was immune to his charms. She only had to aim her blue eyes in his direction to make him weak in the knees. But not so weak that he would let her pluck top-gun honors from his grasp again this quarter. No, not without a fight. Well, a small struggle anyway. He may have studied Earth customs with far more vigor than he did his flight manuals, but when it came to winning over a woman he
really wanted he was clueless. In his culture, mates were prearranged. Luckily, as a third-born son, he was safe from having to ascend to the throne. It saved him from having to be promised to anyone, leaving him free to seek his own choices.
Trysh Milton was his choice.
But he was stuck in the dreaded “friend zone” with no way out.
“You’ve got that look again, my man.”
Rornn turned to his good friend Declan—call sign Danger—who joined him going through the food line. Not everyone in the squadron was willing to be his friend, but what bonds of friendship he had forged were strong. Earth men like Danger were as honorable and loyal as any Vash Nadah. “Look?”
“I can’t explain it, Charming, but you’re wearing it. If you want her, go after her.”
“Trysh, you mean.”
Danger groaned. “Who else? Women fall at your feet, but you don’t take any of them out. Not anymore. Not even for a fuck. All you do is make goo-goo eyes at Firefly.”
Goo-goo eyes. Just when he thought he had all the slang words committed to memory, new ones were thrown at him. “I don’t want those women. I want her.”
“Then go for it. What are you waiting for? Tell her how you feel.”
