T-Minus Two

by K. G. MacGregor

  Jancey cleaned her dishes and set them back in the bin with their galley supplies. “It’s always easy when we agree. The real test is how we’ll deal with it when we don’t. We need to challenge each other. It makes us work harder to think things through. What will you do when we disagree?”

  “I’ll make my argument and try to convince you. That’s what you did to me with the poi. I still gag just thinking about it, but what you said was irrefutable. Isn’t that what you would do?”

  “I suppose. You convinced me to choose you instead of Marlon. You made some very good points, especially about the committee not wanting to select a pair of Americans. That was persuasive.”

  Though it wasn’t as compelling as the realization that both of them likely would have been shamefully disrespected as colleagues had they gone with one of the men. As much as she’d tried to dismiss it, there was little doubt she’d have been miserable sharing the rest of her life in a small space with a man, even one as honorable as Marlon Quinn. She had Grace to thank for sowing those doubts.

  “What if we disagree and neither of us wants to give in?” she asked.

  Mila shrugged. “I can’t imagine that happening very often. We both look at things through a scientific lens. Besides, I made you a promise. You’re the commander on this mission, and for good reason.” She held up her hand to ward off the protest that was already on Jancey’s lips. “I know what my job is. I’m as responsible as you are for everything we do together, and I don’t plan to follow you blindly off the cliff. Ultimately though it comes down to trust. Once I’ve gone through training and actually experienced what it’s like to live in space, I might—might—trust myself as much as I trust you, but we both know that won’t happen for quite some time.”

  Jancey appreciated her honesty as well as her confidence, but was more worried about personal differences than professional. “What I want to know is do you fight fair or dirty?”

  “Oh.” Mila smiled slyly. “So this is about fighting. Like when you get angry and won’t speak to me.”

  “What makes you think I’d do that?”

  “Because you don’t strike me as the type who goes ballistic and starts screaming and slapping. You’re too cool for that. I’m the same way. I listen quietly and think about everything that’s said. Even if I don’t agree with it, I usually modify my behavior to avoid having to hear it again.”

  Jancey shook her head. “No one is that reasonable.”

  “I am. I’ve had a great deal of practice with Frederica. Mind you, my goal was to avoid her criticism, and I discovered many ways to do that, including ways that didn’t involve changing the offending behavior at all. Like coming home when she was already in bed, or putting on my headphones and pretending I was listening to a lecture. Or agreeing to meet her only when there were other people around because I knew she wouldn’t criticize me in front of them.”

  “That’s passive aggressive. Very uncivilized.”

  She shrugged. “It worked. But you won’t have to worry about it.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I won’t give you anything to criticize, at least not more than once. If there’s something about me that upsets you, tell me what it is and I’ll change it on the spot. We don’t have a lot of room for disagreements, Jancey. Literally. We won’t have enough space to pull away, nor the luxury of me doing it my way and you doing it yours.” By her businesslike expression and methodical tone, she could have been talking about propulsion systems. “The moment we selected each other as partners, we began a relationship where the only way to break up is to die. The way I feel about you, I’m certain I’ll make the changes you need me to make.”

  “The way you feel? You’ve only known me for a month.”

  “Not true. I’ve known you since I was thirteen years old. Dreamed of you, adored you, loved you. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even be here.”

  “That isn’t love. It’s hero worship. All thirteen-year-olds do it, but they usually outgrow it when they step into the real world.”

  “Not if the real world they step into is the same as their fantasy world.”

  Jancey shook her head vehemently. “No, you can’t put that on me. The Jancey Beaumont you knew when you were growing up is a media creation, not a real person. All those hero stories were meant to sell newspapers and magazines, and to get more funding for NASA. The real me was just someone doing her job, someone who was pretty pissed off about having her mission interrupted by a couple of bumbling Cossacks.”

  “You were someone who actually accomplished something I only dreamed of. And all because you set your sights on it and followed through. I read your personal story. Princeton, air force, NASA. You showed determination. Tenacity. What part of that wasn’t real?”

  “I’m saying it’s not realistic for you to call it love.”

  Mila’s fingers rapped the table and her knee began to bounce. Unmistakable agitation. “There’s no other word for it. To me, it’s the most powerful, all-consuming feeling I could possibly have. When being with someone makes me deliriously happy, I call that love. When that happiness is so great I’m willing to shape my life around having it and keeping it, that’s love. When I care about someone else more than I care about myself, that’s love.”

  The last one landed like a slap across the face. There hadn’t been a single time in Jancey’s life when she cared about anyone more than her own ambitions. She always chose the same thing—whatever got her closer to going into space.

  What made being with Mila different was not having to choose between one or the other.

  “All I’m saying, Mila, is the hero you know…the one who inspired you, the one you think you love…that isn’t all there is to me. It’s only the good parts, and you’ll be disappointed if you expect to find that person all the time. You have to let me be myself.”

  Mila folded her arms and tipped back on two legs of her chair, her face just short of a scowl. “Whatever gave you the idea I expected you to be perfect? This conversation started with you asking how we’d handle something when we disagreed. I would have thought we’d handle it with honesty but now I’m not so sure. Should I have kept my feelings to myself?”

  An excellent question, Jancey had to admit. As she knew from Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, there was nothing honorable about hiding the truth. “No, the truth is always better. If I have a problem with it, that’s on me.”

  Ironically, their entire discussion had been a disagreement of sorts, which they’d managed by putting everything on the table and working through it on the way to a conclusion they both could live with. Except Jancey hadn’t confessed her own feelings. She hadn’t told Mila how she looked forward to growing closer. How she wanted to let go of her reservations. How she was waiting for her emotions to catch up with her libido because she wanted Mila to mean more than anyone in her life.

  “Mila…I appreciate everything you said. Really, I do. And believe me, you have my attention now. I’m flattered you feel that way about me, but it’s also unnerving to know I’m under your microscope.”

  “I don’t want you to be flattered. That’s condescending.”

  “I don’t mean it to be. I enjoy the feeling, and I’d be very disappointed to lose it.” That was the closest she could come for now to admitting how she felt. “Just keep in mind that you’ve had many years to develop your feelings. I haven’t. But I know this much—I don’t want to be on a pedestal. I can’t respect someone I look down on, and I can’t love someone I don’t respect.”

  With her chair back down on four legs, Mila rested her elbows on her knees and stared blankly at the floor. Chastened. “That will be very hard for me to do.”

  “You can start by taking stock of your own accomplishments. I don’t deserve credit for those. You’re the one who followed through. You put in the hours and the brain power. The propulsion system—that was brilliant. And you’re the one who shot up to the top of the candidate list without any prior training whatsoever. If o
ne of us should be in awe…” She tapped her chest.

  A scarlet blush crept from Mila’s cheeks to her neck as she struggled in vain to suppress a smile.

  “I’d say that’s how we’re going to handle differences,” Jancey said. “We’ll work them out. But let’s not forget why we’re here. Our priority for the next three weeks is to finish on top. If we don’t do that, nothing else matters.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eight lettuce leaves, four pea pods, a chopped green onion and one tiny carrot created the most mouth-watering salad Mila had ever seen. The fresh, crisp display had been plucked directly from their hydroponics garden. Jancey also had boiled pasta and covered it with meat sauce from a vacuum-packed pouch. It was by far their most elaborate meal of the analog.

  “It’s too beautiful to eat,” Mila said, salivating with anticipation.

  Jancey took a photo with her tablet. “I’m sending this to Mission Control so they can see how well we’ve done. It’ll take at least another week to grow enough for another one like this.”

  “Too bad we don’t have a nice merlot to enjoy with it.”

  “I don’t see us producing a lot of wine on Mars. Grapes aren’t a very efficient use of garden space…though I suppose we could make it from something else.”

  Mila shook her head. “No, I’ll eat poi if it happens to be on my plate, but I draw the line at drinking wine made of watermelon or sweet potatoes.”

  Since their revealing talk the week before, there had been a marked change in Jancey’s demeanor. Softer, more personable. She’d talked of her upbringing in Charlottesville, where she’d been the only child of a bitter divorce. Her father remarried a fundamentalist Christian, and together they maligned her career and faith in science over God until she no longer wanted them in her life. Her mother’s new husband was a businessman. Once Jancey became famous, they’d pressed her relentlessly to endorse his company’s arthritis cure. Snake oil, she called it.

  It was little wonder she held the world at arm’s length. The women who were smart enough to be interesting to her weren’t willing to take a back seat to her ambitions, and if they did, they were no longer appealing. Her closest friend—her only true friend, she said—was Grace Faraday. Grace supported her unconditionally, understood her dreams and wanted for her what she wanted for herself.

  With their futures now inextricably bound together, Mila knew the day would come when she’d be all things to Jancey, perhaps sooner rather than later. Friend, family, lover. A partner in every way. Every day, she moved further past the thrill of realizing her fantasy to embracing it as a responsibility. Jancey deserved the best.

  “Give me six months in the garden on Mars, we’ll eat like this every night,” Jancey said. “With fresh fruit for dessert.”

  “Remind me to pack some of those fake candles that flicker. A meal like this should always be a sensual experience. Don’t you agree?”

  She studied Jancey’s face for the answer, hoping to add another expression to her list. A narrowing of her eyes was skepticism. A tilt of her head was curiosity. When her mouth curved upward at one corner, she was trying hard not to smile.

  This time, her eyebrows arched and she lowered her chin to glare at her sternly. Mila had no clue what that meant.

  By now, Jancey had to know her intentions. While she hadn’t explicitly commented on any of Mila’s flirtations, she hadn’t pushed back either. Just this look that probably said now was not the appropriate time. So the only real question was when.

  As Mila cleaned up their dishes, Jancey took out her clarinet and began to play the scales, something she did two or three times a week. A warm, mellow timbre. Rounded notes, each giving way to the next.

  “That’s a lovely sound. Were you serious about teaching me to play? I don’t know the first thing about music.”

  “Nonsense. Complex diaphony? Dissonant harmony? You know plenty.”

  Mila studied Jancey’s fingers and tried to copy their movements as if playing an imaginary instrument of her own. “Or maybe I should learn something else—like a saxophone or French horn—so we can play duets.”

  “Oh, no. Brass is deadly in small spaces. Besides, there are plenty of duets for clarinet. Mozart loved them. Telemann, Rossini. Here, give it a try.”

  Mila looked at her warily. “It looks hard.”

  “It is. Are you afraid you won’t be able to do it?”

  “No, I’m afraid wild animals will begin throwing themselves off the mountain in a mass suicide ritual.”

  “It’s all about the lips, Mila. You’re good with those, aren’t you?” She punctuated her question with an overt batting of the eyelashes.

  “My lips are superb, but this isn’t the demonstration I had in mind.”

  “Always an innuendo, Todorov. Have you forgotten we have more important priorities?”

  “I’m pretty sure that was your innuendo, not mine. And I know for a fact my lips won’t interfere with our priorities. If you and I had met six weeks ago under other circumstances and spent this much time together, you would know very well by now how truly superb my lips are. I seriously doubt any of the married couples have hit the pause button during the analog, and they have the same priorities as we do.”

  Jancey shuddered and shook her head. “I make it a point not to think about what other people do in their bedrooms…or in their solar flare chambers, as the case may be.”

  Taking the plunge, Mila spoke the unspoken: “You know as well as I do we’ll become lovers eventually. We’re just postponing the inevitable. Suppose we win first place and we’re set to launch for Mars in four years. How will that affect our priorities? Do you really expect to hold off until then? Or what if we come in fourth and our launch is seven years from now?”

  “Oh, please. I couldn’t stand to wait that long.”

  “To go to Mars? Or to sample my superb—”

  A sharp blast from the clarinet cut off her final word. “You’ve convinced me of one thing for sure. You have what it takes for this mission. Tenacity.”

  “Thank you. I think so too.”

  “And so humble.”

  At no time had Jancey’s face or tone suggested she was genuinely uncomfortable with anything she’d said. Yet Mila’s goal wasn’t to win her over by wearing her down. As much as she wanted a hug, a kiss—any physical sign of affection would do—she didn’t want her giving in because she was tired of the pressure. What she wanted was for Jancey to realize her feelings and act on them instead of shooing them away.

  “I’ll try not to do it anymore…the innuendo. I’ll say this though. The more time we spend together, the more I get to know you…the more I want to show you how I feel. And not just with my lips. I want to hold you while you sleep…feel your skin next to mine. I’m not able to stop those feelings, but I’ll try not to talk about it if you find it annoying. Just know if you ever get to the same point, I’m already there.”

  “So they’re feelings, not just urges.”

  “They’re both, but I can control the urges.”

  “Interesting. I find it much easier to control the feelings than the urges.” Jancey stood and raised the table into its notch against the wall.

  Mila had only a split second to ready for Jancey’s next move—a full-on kiss. The suddenness of her actions, the force of her lips, the tug of her hand on the back of Mila’s neck. It left her disoriented. Not once had she thought Jancey would make the first move.

  Which was utterly ridiculous, of course. Women like Jancey were used to being in charge. That was fine as long as it happened again. And again. And again.

  “Not bad, Todorov. A little practice and you could be pretty good at that.”

  Seriously? Mila didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. “I’m willing to put in lots of practice.”

  With her arms around Jancey’s waist, she held her in place and initiated another kiss. Slow and easy this time, gently teasing with her tongue until Jancey’s lips parted and took her in. Ex
quisite.

  Then sharp teeth tugged at her lip and she remembered who was boss.

  * * *

  Not bad. The words had tumbled out instantaneously, a defense mechanism against admitting her true feelings. Jancey had been overwhelmed to feel another woman’s power.

  Then again, Mila wasn’t just another woman. More than anyone she’d been with, she was very nearly her equal in all the ways that mattered.

  It was unsettling.

  The air inside their dome was suddenly steamy despite the falling temperature outside. Under any other circumstances, she might have unzipped her flight suit to cool off. Then Mila would unzip hers. Then chaos.

  Self-control. Concentration. Priorities.

  “We need to focus,” she said, though her tepid tone left even her unconvinced.

  “I am focusing,” Mila murmured as her warm lips nuzzled Jancey’s neck.

  “On our analog.” It took every ounce of willpower she could muster to extricate herself from the embrace. “We can’t let ourselves get distracted.”

  It had nothing to do with distraction and everything to do with feeling out of control. Her urges, and yes, her feelings—they were nothing compared to Mila’s obvious hunger to have her inside and out. She wasn’t ready to lay herself bare like that. She had to be the one in command, the one doling out pleasure, the one setting limits.

  She’d start by dictating the terms. No fooling around until they’d taken care of business. No matter how much her body disagreed.

  With both hands on Mila’s shoulders, she held her at arm’s length. “Rest assured, you have my attention now. When we finish this—”

  “We’re never going to finish this, Jancey. There will always be a mission, a reason we have to focus on our work. We can do both.” Mila leaned back against the wall of the dome and dropped her hands to her hips, no longer posturing for an intimate advantage. “I already told you. I won’t keep pushing you if it’s something you don’t want. But after the way you just kissed me, I think it is what you want. In fact, I think you want it even more now.”