by Rick Partlow
"Shannon," he said, the sound of his voice breaking the idyllic spell of the moment.
"Yes?" She twisted around in his arms to face him, frowning at his serious expression. "What's wrong?"
"When it all happened, when we were at the mansion," he struggled for the words. "I was outside, taking a walk. I couldn't sleep---you remember, right?"
"Yes, Jason, I remember," she said.
"Valerie---Ms. O'Keefe---she was out in the garden, too. She was still upset about the attack at the Mendoza's, and we were talking when the pods came in. I saw one of the pods hit the mansion, saw it catch on fire. We were cut off, and I thought..." His voice trailed off and he had to look away, unable to face her. "We thought all of you were dead."
"You did the right thing," she tried to assure him, but he waved it off.
"No, you don't understand. I knew I had to get her out of there---I knew what my duty was. But we thought you were dead."
He looked up and saw understanding come into the clarity of her celadon gaze. Clarity, but---to his surprise---not anger or disappointment.
"You slept with her," Shannon finally put into words what Jason had been trying to say.
"Yeah." He let his head drop back against the pillow. "I slept with her."
"Do you love her?" Shannon's voice was calm and even, almost friendly---and that scared him.
He shook his head. "No. I mean, she's really nice, and I have a lot more respect for her now than I did a couple months ago. She's been through a lot, and she's handled it better than I would have. But we were just alone and scared. We didn't have anyone else to turn to, and we thought everyone else was dead. I...I didn't want to think about you---about all of you, Jock, Vinnie and Tom, dying on my command while I got away. I knew I did the right thing, but I still felt like shit, and I didn't want to think. She helped me not to have to think." He looked up at her pleadingly. "Do you understand?"
There was a look on her face that he couldn't quite read, something that might have been compassion or indecision...or relief.
"Yes," she answered, laying her head back against his chest. "I understand."
Jason wasn't sure if that also meant she forgave him, or whether she believed there was anything to forgive, but he didn't want to push his luck. So he just held her there in the darkness, listening to the quiet softness of her breathing, wondering if she were asleep, and wondering if sleep would come for him anytime soon.
* * *
"No!" Valerie snapped sharply, pulling away from Glen's grasp and rolling to the other side of the bed.
"Damn it, Val, what's wrong?" He threw up his hands, falling back against the pillow. "Ever since you got back, you've been treating me like a fucking leper!"
"I'm not ready, Glen," she said tightly, wrapped in shadows, facing away from him. "It's too soon."
"Too soon for what?" he demanded. "It's been over a week since you got here! What happened out there? What haven't you told me? Damn it, Val, I deserve to know!"
"What about me?" She turned on him, face coming into the glow of the ghostlights on the wall above them, venom in her voice. "What about what I deserve, Glen? Did you ever bother to think about someone besides yourself?"
"But, honey," he protested, shocked at the outburst, "You know I love you! I just..."
"Oh, you love me," she sneered, throwing aside the covers and sitting up, the frost-white of her bra standing out from the newly-acquired tan of her skin. "You always throw that around like it's some magic word that'll make everything all right. Well, everything's not all right, Glen!" She sprang out of bed and began feeling around for her clothes in the dark.
"Where are you going?" He shook his head. "It's the middle of the night."
She ignored him, stepping into her skirt and pulling on Jason's khaki overshirt---she'd never given it back to him.
"Val," Glen insisted, hopping out of bed. "You can't just run off! You've got to tell me what's wrong!"
"You," she declared, shaking her head. "You, Glen. You're what's wrong. And where I'm going," she said as she pulled the door open, "is none of your damned business." Then she was gone, the door slamming behind her.
Glen stood there in his underwear in the middle of the room, mouth open, wanting to follow her but knowing it wouldn't do any good. He chewed his lip in uncertainty, then suddenly made up his mind. She wouldn't talk to him, but there was someone he thought she would listen to. He turned on the light and hurriedly began to dress.
Jason's head snapped up and he peered into the darkness, uncertain if he'd really heard anything or if he'd just dreamed the noise.
Then it came again: a soft but firm knock on the door.
"What?" Shannon rolled over, abruptly sitting up in bed.
"I don't know." He rubbed sleep from his eyes as he slowly, gingerly made his way to the door.
When he pulled it open, he was surprised to see Glen Mulrooney standing behind it, looking worried.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Lieutenant," he said, amazingly cordial. "But we need to talk. It's important."
Jason regarded him silently for a moment, considering whether to tell him to come back in the morning---or, rather, later in the morning. But there was an earnestness in the man's tone that made him change his mind.
"Give me a second to get dressed," Jason said, shutting the door.
"What's wrong?" Shannon asked.
"Mulrooney's got a hard-on for something," McKay told her, locating his pants. "Try to go back to sleep---I won't be long."
Mulrooney was still waiting outside the door when Jason emerged, still bleary-eyed, into the comparative brightness of the hallway.
"So what's so important," Jason wanted to know, "that it couldn't wait till morning?"
"It's Valerie," Glen explained. "Something's wrong. I don't know if you've noticed it."
"I haven't talked to her much since we got back," Jason hemmed uncomfortably. Actually, he'd avoided her like the plague for the last week, not wanting to dredge up anything with her while he was trying to patch his nascent relationship with Shannon.
"Well, she's been withdrawn." He shook his head helplessly. "She's shut me out---won't talk to me about whatever happened. And..." he hesitated. "She doesn't want me to touch her. You know, in bed."
"Well, look," Jason said, running a hand through his hair, "if she doesn't want to talk to you about it, I'm not sure if it's my business to tell you."
"I don't want you to tell me anything." Glen raised a hand to halt the idea's progression. "I want you to talk to her. You went through whatever happened out there with her, so you understand. I think maybe she'd talk to you."
"I'm not sure if that's such a good idea," Jason protested.
"Please," Glen implored him. "She's outside, walking around---just outside the front entrance. I'm not sure if she's safe out there. I mean, there could be animals out there." His voice, his eyes, were pleading, and finally Jason gave in with a deep, hissing sigh.
"All right," he agreed. "At least I'll try to get her back inside."
"Thank you," Glen started to say, but Jason was already walking off toward the shelter entrance.
He snagged a flashlight from an equipment shelf on the way into the garage, bypassing the still-closed vehicle doors for a short set of stairs leading up to the small personal access hatch lying open to the side. He ducked out of the dim, chemical striplighting of the unoccupied garage into the brighter glow of Aphrodite's larger moon, an irregular captured asteroid. The reflected light played over the rocky surface of the plateau overlooking the access road, turning it into a landscape of shadows. Somewhere overhead, a local nightflyer cried plaintively, a haunting, hollow sound that made the hair on the back of Jason's neck stand up.
Jason switched on the flashlight, panning its beam across the plateau, looking for Valerie, but saw nothing but a few scrub bushes growing out of the weathered rock. He scanned back and forth again, starting to get concerned. She wouldn't have gone off the cliff, would she?
/> "Are you looking for me?" He heard her voice from behind him and turned to see her leaning, arms crossed, against the rock wall behind him, just to the right of the access hatch.
"Guess so," he admitted, extinguishing the light and stepping over to her. "Is everything okay, Valerie?"
"That's a funny question for you to ask, Jason," she said, cocking her head toward him. "Of all people."
"Yeah," he muttered, leaning back against the rock face beside her. "Look, I'm sorry if..."
"Sorry about what?" she interrupted. "Sorry you found Shannon alive again? I doubt that."
"No, I'm not sorry I found her alive," he told her without hesitation. "And I'm not sorry I still have feelings for her."
"And what about me?" she asked him softly. "Don't you have any feelings for me?"
Jason grimaced, feeling like a first-class bastard.
"I do care about you," he sighed. "I'm not saying I don't."
"But you don't love me," she finished for him, her voice resigned, her face lost in the shadows.
"You told me you weren't sure if you'd ever been in love," Jason reminded her. "Or if you even knew what it was. Well, I'm not sure I know any better than you. I can't tell you why things work between some people and not between others. I just know that I have something special with Shannon, something I'm not ready to give up. You and I..." he shook his head. "We couldn't have any kind of future. You have your career waiting for you back on Earth, and Glen."
"Glen." Valerie laughed sharply, humorlessly. "Oh, yes, I've got Glen, lucky me."
"He cares about you, Val," Jason told her.
"He doesn't care about anybody but himself," she muttered bitterly.
"He came to me," Jason told her. "He was worried about you---he wanted me to talk to you, make sure you were okay, since you wouldn't talk to him."
"Glen came to you?" Her head came up in surprise.
"It couldn't be too easy for him."
"No," she agreed, "especially with you."
"Give him a chance," Jason urged her. "God knows, none of us is perfect. And he loves you." Hesitantly, he put a hand on her shoulder, saw her look up at his touch. "Look, Val, what you and I had was special. We needed each other. We couldn't have survived without one another. I'll never forget it, and I'll never forget you. But things are different now. We both have other people who are counting on us to be there for them." He let his hand slide off her arm, shaking his head. "It just wouldn't be right."
"What if," she replied softly, "I don't care what's right? What if I don't care what anyone else thinks or needs? What if all I want is to tell everyone else to go to hell and just be with you?"
"I'm sorry, Val." Jason sagged back against the rockface, feeling helpless and very sad. "I just can't do that."
"I guess I'm sorry, too." She pushed away from the wall and stepped over to the entrance hatch, hugging her arms to herself. She took one final glance back at him, almost as if she held out one last hope that he might ask her not to go, and then she ducked back inside and was gone.
Jason stared up at the starscape, rhythmically smacking the flashlight against his palm. The mountain air was cool and clean, and the stars were painfully beautiful. He felt like staying out here for a while, clearing his mind of all the confusion and pain---but back inside, Shannon was in bed, waiting for him, and he didn't want to let her down. Not again. He headed back inside, shutting the door behind him.
* * *
Tom Crossman paced into the shelter's control room, hands stuffed in his pockets, boredom written in his expression. Nearly three months of unchecked growth had turned his hair from a barely-regulation cut to its more natural mass of wavy brown, and his mustache was a bushy handlebar beginning to droop over his jawline. If someone had told him when he enlisted that someday the military would allow him to wear his hair however he wanted... But right now, he would have willingly endured a high-and-tight just to get back to Earth---or anywhere.
Falling onto the couch, he saw Vinnie sitting in front of the commo panel, headphones hanging half off, chin resting on his hands. Somehow, he'd managed to retain his buzzcut---God knew how. Probably scraped it off with a Goddamned combat knife, the psycho motherfucker. Jock was at the small table, nose buried in an old-style hardcopy book.
"Whatcha reading, Jock?" he asked, not really caring but feeling he'd go nuts if he didn't talk to someone soon.
"Something I found in a closet," he said, sparing Crossman a glance. "S'about some bloke who deserts the army for a sheilla. It's called, ah..." He turned the book around and checked the title. "A Farewell to Arms."
"Any good?"
"Better than whacking my wanker, I guess," he muttered, settling back into his chair and his book.
Tom sighed, realizing Jock was a lost cause. Oh, well, maybe he could get a rise out of Mahoney.
"How long you going to sit there and eat static, Vinnie?" Tom asked him. "I mean, you been wearing those things for a month and you ain't heard shit yet."
"I don't want to spend one more minute in this Goddamned hole than I have to," Vinnie clipped off tersely, eyes still glued to the wall. "Got a problem with that?"
"Gosh," Tom said, shaking his head. "You guys are just a laugh a minute, aren't you?"
"Why aren't you with your sweet little senorita?" Jock looked back up from his novel. "She finally dump you?"
"Nah," Crossman said. "Rosie's okay. But she's spending a lot of time with that Mendoza lady and her kids---guess 'cause they can talk Spanish to each other. I hung out with them for a while, but I can't follow it when they start jabbering a hundred klicks an hour, and it gets kind of boring after a while."
"Hell," Jock grumbled, "I'll talk Spanish to her---I'll speak fucking Greek if she wants. I haven't touched a sheilla since we left Earth."
"It's good for you, Jock," Vinnie grunted. "Builds character."
"Thanks loads, mate," Gregory shot back, scowling at him, "but I've got plenty of character already."
"Y'know," Crossman said, rubbing the stubble on his jaw, "this reminds me of when my parents stuck me in military school."
"You went to military school?" Vinnie's eyebrows shot up.
"Oh, yeah, man, two whole miserable years," Crossman said. "I was what you might call a problem child. Anyway, this place was co-ed, of course, but it was about two hundred klicks into the middle of nowhere, right at the edge of the Rockies Preserve, and there was only two girls in the place---one of them was a lesbian and the other was a Muslim Fundamentalist."
"Ouch." Jock winced sympathetically. "So you had a pretty lonely two years, huh?"
"No way, bud." Tom laughed. "I studied the Koran for a whole semester and had that Muslim babe believing I was Mohammed's long-lost cousin."
"Damn, I am impressed." Jock tipped an imaginary hat to him. "Anyone who could..."
"Shut up!" Vinnie snapped suddenly.
Tom and Jock turned, frowning in confusion, and saw Vinnie's hands pulling the radio headphones over his ears, eyes wide.
"What is it?" Tom sat up straight on the couch.
"Shut the hell up!" he reiterated. "Jock, go get the LT---now!"
Gregory didn't question his partner---he knew that tone of voice. Before Tom could ask him what was going on, the Australian was off his seat and out of the room.
Jason shifted in his position, trying to get more comfortable against the rough surface of the plateau as he panned his binoculars over the narrow draw below them.
"Do you see them?" he asked Shannon, shaking his head slightly.
"Further north," she indicated, training her own glasses toward the mouth of the draw, shielding them against the midday sun with her other hand.
Jason followed her direction and finally caught a hint of movement through the glasses. He focused in on it and saw one of Lambert's Marines low-crawling from cover to cover, the rifle barrel of the man overwatching his move barely visible from behind a thick stand of brush. Somewhere ahead of them, at the other end of the draw, w
aited Captain Trang and his two men, serving as the opposing force. Jason and his team had held that honor for over a month, but the two units had become too used to one another and Lambert had asked Trang for help.
Another pair of Marines advanced up the draw, their camo fatigues blending in with the grey and brown rock around them. Watching them, Jason had a vivid flashback to his days as an enlisted man, running exercises like this in the North Dakota Badlands at the Marine Training Grounds with blank ammo and laser indicators. Everything was so much simpler when all you had to worry about was covering your buddy's maneuver and keeping your ass out of the line of fire.
"Lieutenant McKay!" He turned at the shout from behind him and saw Jock Gregory sprinting from the shelter's side entrance, waving his hands like a maniac, eyes wild. "Lieutenant McKay, come quick!"
McKay stood, letting his binoculars hang freely from the strap around his neck. Beside him, Shannon rolled into a sitting position, looking up with curiosity at Jock as he ran up to them.
"What is it, Jock?" McKay asked the Tech-Sergeant as the man skidded to a halt, panting with exertion.
"Sir," Gregory gasped, "Vinnie...the radio..."
"Shit," Jason breathed. Before Jock could elaborate further, Jason was sprinting for the shelter, Shannon at his heels.
"Tell Lambert," she shouted over her shoulder at Jock just before she ducked through the entrance.
Jason and Shannon raced through the garage and into the shelter control room, where a small crowd had already begun to gather around Vinnie at the communications board. McKay brushed past Governor Sigurdson and Carmella Mendoza and unceremoniously yanked the earphones off Vinnie's head. Hurriedly pulling the headset into place, he caught an explosion of static and a faint voice.
