by Isaac Hooke
Shaw ran her eyes hungrily up and down his body.
“Whenever we fly into Sino-Korean space,” Shaw said. “I’m always reminded of our first mission aboard the same ship together.”
Rade leaned against the bulkhead opposite her, and crossed his arms, knowing that would make his biceps appear even bigger. “The clandestine flight to Tau Ceti aboard the Royal Fortune, a stolen SK privateer nestled inside a bulk carrier?”
“The very same,” Shaw said. “Stealing kisses in quiet corridors, and screwing in the storage closets.”
“Those were the days, weren’t they?”
“Yes.” Shaw looked away. “Too bad it all ended after that mission.”
“But we’re together now,” Rade said.
“Are we?” Shaw said. “Sometimes I wonder. We share the same ship, yes. But the excitement seems gone. Maybe it’s the fear of getting caught that made it such a high. I almost think we should have sex in some random places aboard the Argonaut.”
“And risk the crew catching us?” Rade placed his hands on his hips. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s the whole point,” Shaw said.
Rade shook his head.
“They know we’re an item,” Shaw pleaded.
“I don’t care,” Rade said.
She folded her arms sulkily. “What’s been going on with you these past few months?”
“What do you mean?” Rade said. “Nothing.”
“Oh yes, there’s been something,” Shaw said. “And I’m not quite sure what it is. I’ve been giving you time to cave out, so it’s not your PTSD.”
“I don’t have PTSD,” Rade growled.
Shaw smiled sadly. “Sure, you can say that. But you know you have it.”
“No, I don’t,” Rade said. He realized a moment later that he was squeezing his fists so hard that he’d drawn blood from the palms. He released the grip, and shook his head. “You’re just trying to cause drama.”
“No, I’m not,” Shaw said. “I care about you, whether you realize it or not. We’ve been through hell together, and apart. Though we look young, we’re old souls, you and I.”
Rade didn’t answer.
“All right, as I said, I’ve been giving you your alone time, as I’ve learned to do,” Shaw continued. “So I know that’s not the problem. So what I can’t figure out is, why have you stopped fucking me?”
“What are you talking about?” Rade said. “We’ve been making love all week.”
“And those are the key words,” Shaw said. “Making love. Ever since we got back from Kenzo’s palace, you’ve been treating me like I’m some kind of fragile creature made of glass. Like you’re afraid I might break. You’ve been handling me the same in the bedroom as you have on the sparring mat these past few weeks. I’m not going to break, Rade, I guarantee you. I just want you to fuck me like you used to.”
She gazed at him, the sheer want brazen in her eyes.
Rade stared at her dumbly, and didn’t make a move. Finally he lowered his gaze. “That last mission...” He swallowed. Why was this so hard? “When we were retreating from the surface under all that flak...” He shook his head. “I needlessly put your life at stake. I should have left you aboard the Argonaut.”
“Is that what this is all about?” Shaw said. “We’ve been over this before. I can take care of myself. And if something happens to me, I go down doing what I love best. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”
Rade nodded slowly.
“Besides, you’re leaving out the part about how I was integral to the plan,” Shaw said. “Who else among us would have been able to infiltrate the palace as a harem girl?”
“We could have hired an Artificial...” Rade said.
“Right,” Shaw said. “Like we could afford that at the time. Anyway, you know I was the best suited to the task. You know it, whether you’ll admit it or not.”
Rade didn’t say anything.
“Look at me,” Shaw said. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, he met her eyes. She had changed the color of her irises today so that they were deep blue surrounded by flecks of green. A portable cosmetic laser she kept in her kit facilitated that.
“You know I find it a bit unnerving when you change your eye color like that,” Rade said, trying to reduce the tension.
But apparently Shaw wouldn’t have it: “I love you, Rade Galaal.”
Rade was quiet for a moment. “I thought you didn’t believe in love?”
“That was the old me,” Shaw said. “The young, stupid me, who allowed us to spend our military years apart, wasting our youths serving in different branches of the navy. We lost those years because of me.”
“It’s not your fault,” Rade said. “I was just as stubborn as you. I could have left the navy just as easily, but I didn’t. I wanted to be a citizen of the UC, or United Systems I guess it’s called now. And completing my service term was the only way to do that.”
“We both wanted that.” Shaw laughed sadly. “And look how well we’re putting that citizenship to use now that we’ve got it.”
“Yeah,” Rade said, shaking his head. “If I had known then what I know now.”
“But I do love you,” Shaw insisted. She looked at him expectantly, as if anticipating him to return the sentiment.
“I...” He couldn’t finish.
I used to love you. But I’m afraid to, again. I lost you before and it nearly destroyed me. I don’t think I could afford to lose you again.
Her brow scrunched up. “You what?”
He stared at her, knowing full well that he did indeed love her, even if he couldn’t say the words. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. He wasn’t sure why.
“Nothing, baby girl.”
“Oh, Rade.” She stood up, the top of her head reaching to his chin. In the cramped compartment, their faces were only a few inches apart. “You can’t hide your feelings from me. You forget who I am.”
“I’ll never forget,” he whispered.
She launched herself at him, rising on her toes to mash her lips against his. He returned the kiss with equal passion. His mouth left hers for only an instant when he slid off his white T shirt.
As they kissed heatedly, Shaw ran her hands across the rippling muscles of his chest. Her fingers paused near the hardpoints on his shoulders, and massaged the protrusions; her lips slid down to one of them, and she sucked the metal.
Rade opened his pants and uncovered his member. Her hands found it.
“You hussy.” Rade threw Shaw onto the bunk.
She frantically unbuttoned the upper portion of her fatigues and slid down her cargo pants. She only got them to her knees before Rade was on her.
He grabbed her panties in the crotch area and slid the moist fabric aside, then shoved himself into her.
“Rade!” Shaw’s nails scratched his naked back.
Rade grunted in outrage. The pain made him thrust harder. He wrapped his hand around her neck and squeezed. As he pounded her, she gazed into his eyes the whole while, the desire obvious in them.
“Fuck... fuck... fuck...” she said in unison with his movements.
Rade felt his release coming. Shaw climaxed at the same time and he collapsed onto her.
When he had caught his breath, he said into the pillow: “That’s what I like about you, you’re always putting my needs above your own.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Shaw said softly. “Because what I did back there was pretty selfish.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Rade said. “And I meant in general. You didn’t have to do any of this. Yet you invested in my ship and mechs. Bankrolled me to the tune of a small fortune to help me secure the loan, using your family vineyard money. Came with me on this part of my life. You’re always doing everything you can to please me. That’s not something I’m ever going to forget.”
“You’re worth it,” Shaw said simply.
And that was all she needed to say. Rade felt wanted. Appreciated
.
Complete.
After a moment, she said: “You’re crushing me.”
“My bad.” He slid onto the edge of the bunk but lost his balance and fell onto the metal deck, landing on his side. He rolled over, hitting the opposite bulkhead of the cramped compartment with his elbow hardpoint. He grunted, smarting from the blow.
Shaw giggled. “Clumsy oaf.”
Rade glanced at her and couldn’t help but chuckle. He spoke toward the overhead: “Lights off.”
The compartment plunged into darkness.
He felt Shaw’s warm, soft body slide partially atop his. He slid a hand onto the crook of her lower back.
“This is my favorite part of you,” he said, brushing her lower back with a finger.
“What? My thoracolumbar fascia?”
“Err, yeah,” Rade said.
“Why is it your favorite?” she asked.
“It reminds me of your spirit,” Rade said. “Flexible in times of peace, and unbreakable in times of war.”
“You get all that from touching my lower back?”
He laughed. “I do.”
“I love you,” Shaw said.
Rade closed his eyes contentedly, and they fell asleep together on the hard deck.
eight
The two ships reached the Hóuzi Hǎi system at the dawn of the fifth week since entering Sino-Korean space.
“So, Lui, what do we have?” Rade asked shortly after they had passed through the Gate into said system.
“Well, we have a typical binary,” Lui said. “A white dwarf and a blue main sequence. They orbit fairly close together: the blue is losing a lot of mass to the white, so there’s an accretion disk emitting a lot of radiation. Several planets orbit the barycenter. Closest to the star is a hot Jupiter. After that, we got three terrestrials: an iron planet similar to Mercury, a greenhouse sub-Earth, and the Mars-like Lang. The latter’s magnetosphere is part natural, and part human-made, bolstered by the specialized satellites in orbit. There are a few automated defense platforms in orbit.
“After Lang, we have five gas planets: Two ice giants. A gas dwarf about twice as big as Earth. A Jovian that’s almost massive enough to be a brown dwarf. And a cloudless Class IIIb.” Gas planets of the latter class appeared as featureless blue globes due to the Rayleigh scattering of light in the cloudless atmospheres. “There’s a sparse asteroid belt between the Jovian and the first ice giant. After the cloudless giant, the system is rounded out by several terrestrial dwarf planets.”
“Ships and bases?” Rade asked.
“We got a Sino-Korean military outpost on the moon of the first ice giant with a couple of ships in orbit,” Lui said. “An automated mining facility on the moon of the second ice giant. And that’s about it. There are no other ships or space stations anywhere else in the system.”
“The typical quiet frontier territory,” Rade said. “What are the stats on the military outpost? You say they have two ships in orbit?”
“Yes, I’m reading two corvette classes,” Lui said. “As for the outpost stats, I don’t have a high enough resolution image of the habitation domes on the moon’s surface, but I’d guess they might hold about fifty in total within the barracks, using other SK bases we’ve encountered as comparables.”
“What about on Lang?” Rade said. “Is there a military presence there?”
“There’s another outpost adjoined to the colony dome on Lang, yes,” Lui said. “But no ships in orbit.”
Rade glanced at Fret. “Are we able to contact the colony?”
“Looks like it,” Fret said. “The system comm nodes are functioning normally. I’ve already received an automated ping from the colony on the surface and from the military ships at the SK base. Everything seems to be fine.”
“Send a welcome message to the colony,” Rade said. “Request their status.”
“Will do,” Fret said.
“By the way, Lui, what’s the Gate status?” Rade said. “Can you confirm that this is still a border system?”
“It is,” Lui said. “There’s only the return Gate leading to the previous system. The secondary Slipstream on the opposite side of the twin suns has no Gate. Leads to uncharted territory.”
“I just love border systems like this,” Manic said. “Nothing ever goes wrong in them.”
“Manic, did you take sarcasm courses in school or something when you were growing up?” Bender said. “Or were you just born a pussy?”
“Want to go?” Manic started to get up. “Come on.”
“Easy,” Rade said. “I don’t want to have to call in the repair robots again.”
The last time those two got in a fight, they’d wrecked the hatch in the cargo section. The combat robots had to completely replace the closure mechanism. Rade hadn’t been able to afford any of the newfangled repair swarm drones, which could 3D-print spare parts in realtime, so the robots had to do it the old fashioned way: first utilizing the 3D printer to create the part they required, and then manually replacing the mechanism.
Bender flashed Manic a toothy grin, his gold front teeth gleaming malevolently in the light. “You only challenged me because you knew the boss wouldn’t let us fight. We’ll continue this conversation later.”
“Oh we will,” Manic said ominously.
Rade shook his head. “If you damage anything it’s coming out of both your pays.”
“That’s fine,” Bender said. “It’ll be worth it to wipe the bulkheads with Manic’s pussy sweat. The only repair robot you’ll need is a Weaver, to fix his broken arms.”
Rade suspected it was just talk. While they fought occasionally, as evidenced by the hatch incident, rarely did the two come to blows.
Apparently he was wrong, because the next morning Manic had two black eyes. He and Bender were all smiles, however.
“You two seem happy today,” Rade commented.
“Manic and I had a little talk,” Bender told Rade. “Worked things out. No damage to the ship.”
“Good to know,” Rade replied. He noticed that Bender flinched whenever he sat up straight. “Do I need to have the Weavers look at the both of you?”
“Completely unnecessary,” Bender said, hiding another grimace.
Rade glanced at Shaw.
“Boys will be boys,” she said.
“Fret, did you get a response to the message you sent to the colony?” Rade asked.
“About that,” Fret replied. “Yes, I did. An automated greeting anyway, welcoming us to the planet.”
“Hmm,” Rade said. “An automated greeting. That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Fret said. “When you’re posted on some system out at the ass end of the galaxy, you tend to be hung over a lot.”
“You talking from experience?” Manic asked.
“Definitely,” Fret replied.
Rade glanced at Tahoe. “You think we should ping the SK corvettes?”
Tahoe frowned. “I’m not sure it’s worth attracting their attention. As the saying goes, let sleeping dogs lie.”
Rade pressed his lips together uncertainly. “I’m a little surprised they haven’t harassed our ships for traveling into the system in the first place. They can’t have all that many traders coming here.”
“If you want to contact them, shouldn’t you at least get the client’s permission first?” Tahoe said.
“Why do I need the client’s permission?” Rade said. “This is for their safety, as well as our own.”
Tahoe shrugged.
“Fret, ask those corvettes for an update,” Rade said.
Given the distances involved, it would be another day before any response was received.
The next morning, Fret informed him that the corvettes hadn’t answered.
“Well that’s somewhat disturbing,” Rade said. “Fret, tap me into Ms. Bounty.”
He informed her of the situation.
“I’ll admit, it is a little odd,” the CTO of Green Systems told him. “But we ca
n’t let that interfere with our delivery. As long as the route seems safe, I want to proceed toward the planet and make the drop off. We’ll send a communique back to the adjacent system, informing the local governor of the situation in the meantime. The comm nodes at the Gate appear to be functioning, so we’re guaranteed he’ll receive our message.”
“Well that’s all fine and dandy,” Rade said. “But you do know it could be up to two months before the SKs send a patrol ship here to investigate, right?”
“I’m well aware of that,” she replied. “But we’ll be long gone by then. Bounty out.”
When he was in his cramped office later, Lui called him from the bridge.
“Got some news,” Lui said.
“Go ahead,” Rade told him.
“I’m not sure this system is actually owned by the Sino-Koreans anymore,” Lui said.
“What do you mean? The system maps clearly denote this territory as belonging to them.”
“Maybe it changed hands since our maps were last updated,” Lui said. “Those corvettes out there? They’re the old Model 3As. The Sino-Koreans haven’t manufactured those in decades. They sold them off to other galactic nation states, with the majority going to the Persians. And now that we’re closer to the colony, I’m seeing signs of Persian culture underneath the dome, mostly in form of building design. Roughly half the buildings are of SK design, but the other half, the newer buildings, seem to be Persian.”
“Well, all right,” Rade said. “Systems switch hands all the time. It would have been nice if our maps were up to date, but hey, apparently United Systems spies don’t get out into the border territories enough.”
“Who says the United Systems government didn’t know?” Lui said. “You know how intelligence agencies work. They let on that they know less than they actually do. If the SKs haven’t officially announced it, why would the United Systems update the public maps and inform the SKs that they know? You get what I’m saying?”
Rade frowned. “Intelligence agencies. They claim they have the galaxy’s best interests in mind. Most of the time, it’s their own best interests they’re looking out for.”
