The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance (Mammoth Books)

by Trisha Telep

  And heard piano music. Light, tinkling, jaunty piano music.

  I’m dead. And someone in hell plays the piano.

  He rolled over on one hip, sat up.

  Hell is a desert. Legends said the afterworld had seven hells. He didn’t know which one this was. But he did know deserts. He had spent three months on Nas Ramo teaching a dirtside survival course for the Alliance. It was just before the Alliance gave him his captain’s stars. Winnie was part of his team, but she was only a lieutenant.

  Only a lieutenant. As if Briony Winn could be “only” anything.

  He looked around. This desert in hell was less mountainous than Nas Ramo’s. The scrub cacti were taller, the sand almost pure white.

  And someone was playing the damn piano!

  He wrenched his head to the right. A two-story wooden building stood ten feet behind him. The architecture was unfamiliar. It was painted red – fitting, he thought – and had a wide porch with a criss-cross-style railing. Three slatted chairs waited, empty, on the porch.

  Perhaps hell has a check-in point?

  He pushed himself to his feet, then wiped gritty hands on his pants. He felt a gust of hot wind ruffle through his hair. The sign hanging over the porch entry swayed slightly.

  Second Chance Saloon.

  The boards creaked under his boots as he climbed the three steps to the porch. His mouth was dry. He could remember the thick insulation dust filling his lungs, the shuddering of the star-base in its death throes.

  He coughed again, his fist coming up to cover his mouth as he stepped through the open doorway. And for a moment he saw nothing. The white sands and the bright sun had bleached his vision.

  His eyes adjusted. The piano music reached a crescendo and halted. A metallic-skinned ’droid pushed back the piano bench and stood.

  Light applause rippled through the saloon.

  “Your kindness is appreciated.” The ’droid snatched a tall, wide-brimmed hat from the top of the piano and shoved it onto its bald head. Then it ambled with a swinging gait over to the bar and leaned against the counter.

  A dusky-skinned woman stood behind it, polishing a widemouthed drinking glass. Mac could see her face in the mirror behind the bar. Her eyes were dark, slightly almond-shaped. Her hair was a deep magenta color, like rich Trelgarian wine. It was braided and wrapped with strips of patterned cloth that matched the flowing tunic covering her tall form.

  “Two fingers of premium-grade synth-lube, Jezebel,” the ’droid said.

  The woman turned. “Sure thing, Tex. And how about you, Captain Macawley? Need something to wet your whistle?”

  “You know me?”

  She chuckled. “Know you? Why, child, we’ve been expecting you.” Her voice was a rich warm contralto, as thick as the lubricant she poured into the short crystal glass. She slid it towards the ’droid, then looked at Mac, folding her arms across her chest. Rows of metallic bracelets in a rainbow of silvers and golds jangled. It was a pleasant sound.

  “Double shot of Pagan Gold?” she asked.

  He didn’t realize hell kept track of his drinking habits. He nodded, stepped up to the bar and leaned his elbows on it.

  Both elbows. Somehow the one he’d donated to the Duvri was back.

  He glanced at his leg. Same gray uniform pants he always wore. But the material – and his thigh – was intact. No shredding. No blood.

  Hell evidently liked its occupants in one piece. He sipped his drink, watched Jezebel pour another one. But it wasn’t a double shot of Pagan Gold.

  It was a pale-green liqueur in a tall, slender glass. Starfrost.

  Jezebel thumbed open a small container, took a pinch of dark granules and sprinkled them on top.

  Nightspice. Starfrost with a touch of nightspice.

  Winnie’s drink.

  He whirled around. If she was here . . . then she was dead. Which he didn’t want, Gods, no, he didn’t want her to be dead. He’d died so that she could live, damn it!

  But if she was here, if she was . . .

  He scanned the tables. The saloon was full. There was a trio of pretty women, all humanoid, at the table closest to him. A voluptuous brunette with shoulder-length hair popped open a sof-screen ’puter on the table. The other two leaned closer. Petite, both of them, one platinum blonde, one a deep auburn. They seemed unaware, or uninterested, in his scrutiny.

  At another table, a man and a woman, more felinoid than human, sipped something frothy from squat mugs. They wore commercial freighter uniforms, though neither bore any insignia he recognized.

  Then there was movement at the back stairs. A round-faced young woman sauntered down, her curls bouncing with each step. The light from the candles in the wall sconces caught the mix of colors in her hair: honey blonde, amber red, russet brown. She held a handful of her long, lace-trimmed dress in one hand as she descended, careful, it seemed, not to catch her heels. She smiled, but Mac knew she wasn’t smiling at him. She wiggled her fingers towards a young man sitting alone in the corner.

  Mac turned, caught the man’s answering nod.

  He didn’t know any of them. He didn’t see Winnie anywhere.

  He heard Jezebel slide the tall glass in his direction.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Now, that’s a strange question.” Jezebel leaned over the counter towards him. “Most folks first ask, ‘Where am I?’”

  “I know where I am. One of the seven hells.” He never had any illusions about going to heaven.

  “Wrong. You’re in the Second Chance.”

  “Semantics. I’m in a bar in hell. I’m still—”

  “You’re not.”

  The intensity of her tone startled him into silence.

  “You’re in the Second Chance,” she repeated. “Which is exactly as its name implies: a second chance.”

  “A second chance at . . .” Okay. I’m not dead. I’m dying. Hallucinating as I die. Still, he had to say the word. “ . . . at life?”

  “No. At love.”

  At—?

  “Love,” she repeated. “The one thing left on your to-do list. The one most important thing. The one thing you couldn’t bring yourself to do, until you were just about out of time.”

  He closed his eyes, swallowing the lump in his throat. He knew what he’d done, what he’d said, just as Delta Five turned into intergalactic debris. “I didn’t tell Winnie.” His voice was raspy.

  “Tell her what?” The flickering light from the candles in the chandelier overhead danced in Jezebel’s dark-brown eyes.

  “The last thing on my list. What I never told her.”

  “And what did you never tell her?”

  He stared at the bartender. It was clear from her tone she knew what he never told Briony Winn. Why in hell was she being so obtuse?

  Frustration tinged his voice, made him narrow his eyes. “You know damn well—”

  “Yes, Raphael Macawley, I do. Know damn well. But that’s not at issue here. What’s at issue is, do you know? And can you tell her? Because if you can’t, there’s no sense in our sending you back to her, now is there?”

  “You can send me back to my ship?”

  Jezebel made a tsk-tsking noise with her tongue. “Not if you can’t tell her, we won’t.”

  Tell her. Tell Commander Briony Winn he loved her. Loves her. He nodded his head vigorously. “I can.”

  “Good. Let’s hear it.”

  His eyes widened. “Now?”

  “No time like the present.”

  “But she’s not here.”

  “For good reason. You need to practice first. You weren’t born a starship captain, you know. You had to work your way up to that exalted position.”

  He picked up his glass, let the last shot of Pagan Gold burn down his throat. Then he drew a deep breath. “I love her.”

  Someone in the saloon behind him made a rude noise. Loudly.

  Jezebel slapped her hand on the bar. “None of that, now! Man’s a virgin here. You got to cut hi
m some slack.”

  Virgin? He’d rarely lacked bed-partners. Mac almost burst out laughing, but sobered quickly as Jezebel’s eyes narrowed.

  “Raphael. Now, listen up.”

  He flinched. No one ever called him Raphael – and remained standing for very long.

  “You go say ‘I love her’ to Briony and she’s going to be looking left and right for whoever this ‘her’ is. You’ve got to say what you’ve got to say to her. Understand?”

  He nodded.

  “Well?”

  He closed his eyes, saw Briony’s quick smile. The way she wrinkled her nose. The way she fiddled with her hair when she was tired.

  The way she chewed on the end of her lightpen when puzzled over incoming data, or some glitch the sensors couldn’t unravel.

  The way she shared high fives with the crew when a problem was solved. And that little hip-bumping victory dance he caught her doing once, down in engineering.

  And more than once, a compassionate hand on a shoulder, when things were less than victorious. When just being there said more than kindly words.

  He opened his eyes but still saw her, and not the rainbow of colors dancing through the rows of etched crystal glasses, or the warm tones of the ornately carved bar.

  “I love you, Winnie. I love you, more than you’ll ever know.” His voice became thick with emotion. “More than I can ever explain. I’ve loved you, and always will.” He looked down at his empty glass, turned it around in his hands.

  Jezebel sighed softly. “There’s hope for you yet, Mac.”

  “So how do I get back to the Intrepid?”

  “You don’t.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said you get a second chance at love. I didn’t say you can pick up your life right where you left off.” Jezebel drummed her fingers on the bar. “Listen up, now. You screwed up, you admit that?”

  He nodded.

  “That has to be undone. Or else all your pretty words are for naught. She’s convinced you’re heartless, you know.”

  Because she knew him well. Most of his crew saw only his competence, his unflagging dedication. “A tireless compulsion towards perfection,” one division chief’s review stated early in his career. “A true Macawley.”

  But Winnie knew his compulsions were a facade. And she didn’t give a damn that he was a true Macawley.

  “How do I undo all that?”

  She held up her hand, splayed her fingers in his face. Jeweled rings glistened. “My people have a story. It says that fate has five fingers. But we always start here, first.”

  She touched the center of her palm. “From there, we have choices. We say, five choices. But each choice we make only once.”

  She wiggled her index finger. “This was your choice, many years ago. From there, you made your next choice.” She touched her index finger to the center of her other palm. “That gave you five more choices.”

  He understood. Each finger, each choice, was a path. A oneway street. Every decision he made – or didn’t make – led to the next one.

  “There was a time, a point at which telling Briony Winn how you felt about her would have mattered to her. But you didn’t make that choice at that time. So it doesn’t matter to her now.”

  Something hard constricted in his chest at her words. He’d loved Briony for so long, it was almost second nature to him. And he assumed if he ever told her, she’d respond in kind. He loved her so damn much!

  But she didn’t love him. Couldn’t love him. He’d been a fool. In his selfishness, in his cowardice, he’d let the moment go by.

  “Then why even bother with all this?” he asked harshly.

  She waggled a finger in his face. “Temper, temper, Raphael. We’re bothering because what is now isn’t the only reality. You will get a second chance with Briony. But not with Commander Briony Winn of the Alliance ship, Intrepid. With Lieutenant Briony Winn, junior-grade drive tech on the Versatile.”

  The Versatile! Hellfire and damnation, he’d just made XO, been transferred to that damn rust bucket, and let everyone on board know he was damned unhappy about it. Including one still-wet-behind-the-ears-and-straight-out-of-the-academy Briony Winn.

  He was a Macawley, after all! Of the Radley’s Station Macawleys. His uncle was a senator. His grandmother, an admiral. His father took the millions his own father had made with Radley Intergalactic and made another billion on top of that.

  The Winns were nobody in particular. And nobodies in particular got assigned to derelicts like the Versatile. Not Macawleys.

  If Briony Winn hadn’t been so damn good at her job, he probably wouldn’t even have noticed her. Third-shift drive techs were not his usual fare.

  She had been good; brilliant, in fact. And she had had a mischievous smile and a sparkle in her eyes to go with that brilliance.

  By the time he’d realized just what a priceless gem she was, she had been lost to him. Or rather, she had been totally unfazed by his pedigree, his money, his rank, and his infamous attitude.

  The last of which she’d taken great pains over the years to rattle every chance she got.

  Which was why he loved her as much as he did.

  Because she didn’t give a damn that he was Raphael Macawley.

  “It won’t work, Jezebel. She made it clear a long time ago that our relationship was purely professional.”

  “Then you’re going to have to change her mind, aren’t you?”

  “You don’t understand. At the point I met her, on board the Versatile, I—” He stopped as if a blinding light were suddenly flashed in his face. “I’ll know it’s possible for her to love me. That’s it, isn’t it? You send me back ten years, and I’ll know—”

  “You’ll know everything at the moment you return, yes. But minute by minute, Raphael, you’ll forget. Your memories of the past and what had been your future can’t coexist. By the twenty-four-hour mark, you’ll forget everything.”

  “Twenty-four hours?” He straightened abruptly. “Gods damn it, that’s not fair! The first twenty-four hours I was on that damned ship were a bloody nightmare. It was chaos! The captain was stinking drunk, half the crew’d been left behind on shore leave, the sani-facs only worked on alternate decks . . . I was thrown in the middle of that and then told to expect an admiralty inspection. If I didn’t get that ship at least functioning my entire career was at stake!”

  “Sounds like you pissed someone off royally on your previous posting.” Jezebel’s deep chuckle returned. “But be that as it may, child, you’re going to be here again.” She pointed to the middle of her palm. “You can pursue the fame and glory of your career. Or you can pursue the woman you love.”

  He clutched the edge of the counter. “If you could just return me to the point where I got command of the Intrepid. The awards ceremony, right before that. My grandmother was there. Winnie and I—”

  “No.”

  His heart sank. “It has to be the Versatile?”

  “Yes.”

  He slowly relaxed his grip on the bar. “And if after the first twenty-four hours, I can’t change her mind?”

  “Then you have ten years to deep-six the plans to use an X-7 to get off Delta Five. Take the shuttle, instead. At least then you’ll be there when Commander Montalvo asks Briony to marry him.”

  Monty? His chief of engineering?

  “And you’ll be there to hear it when she says yes.”

  “I’m dying and she says yes?”

  “Death has a way of making some people face their priorities.”

  He understood that. It pushed his love for Winnie right to the top of the list. Then the station exploded. And she said yes to that slime, Monty.

  He balled his hand into a fist, nodded at Jezebel. “I don’t have any choice, do I?”

  “You always have the option to turn down our offer.”

  “That would be abysmally stupid of me.”

  “You’ve shown a certain flair in that area before,” Jezebel said dryly. Chuckl
es came from the trio of women behind him.

  Mac bit back his comment. “The Versatile it is, then. How do we do this?”

  Jezebel retrieved a new glass from the rack behind her, pulled out a bottle of clear liquid from under the bar. “Drink up.”

  He didn’t even hesitate.

  It took him a few seconds to get his bearings. The corridors weren’t quite as filthy as he remembered. Maybe the years had added more grime and stench to the memory of his first hour on board the ageing destroyer.

  But those years and all his future mistakes would be gone. He was alive, damn it! And Winnie was around here somewhere.

  He turned the corner, caught his reflection in the cracked mirrored wall as he passed by the ship’s gym. The wide doors were open. Stuck as usual. The man who stared back was in his thirties.

  Not forty-two. Thirty-two. He took his position as XO when he was thirty-two.

  He hesitated for only a second, grinned, trudged on. Damn, it felt good to be alive. Young and alive.

  Gray-clad crewmembers saluted stiffly as he strode by. Not one smile, not one friendly greeting called out.

  That was just as he remembered.

  Of course, it was only his first day. He’d do things differently this time. Get to know the crew, slovenly bastards that they were.

  Get to know Winnie.

  He stepped into an empty lift. “Engineering deck.”

  It shuddered and jerked for fifteen seconds, then stopped, the doors squealing open.

  He heard the low rumble of voices as he headed down the short corridor. Then a laugh, a throaty laugh that belonged to only one woman.

  He wiped his palms down the side of his uniform pants. They were slick. His heart hammered in his chest and he regretted not stopping longer in front of the gym’s mirror. Did he look okay? He ran his hand through his short-cropped hair. Everything felt normal.

  He stepped over the wide hatch-tread, immediately looked left towards her station.

  Briony Winn. Lieutenant Briony Winn. His Winnie. Oh, Gods, she was there and she was alive and she was even more beautiful than he remembered. All of twenty-four years old. Impulsive. Animated. Sassy. Downright sexy as—

  “Commander Macawley, is there a problem?”