She motions to Morton. “If you trust him so much, why can’t he use the gun?”
“First…” I hold up my index finger. “He’d probably shoot himself in the foot.”
“It’s true,” Morton says. “I’m a horrible shot.”
“Second…” I hold up my middle finger. “Future Nazis. Doy. All that compute?”
Her jaw clenches before saying, “Yes.”
“Are you going to try to kill anyone if I don’t lock you up?”
“Only if they give me a good reason,” she says.
At least she’s honest.
I turn to Morton. “Try to steer clear of this one for a bit. Let the others know.”
“How many others are there?” Carter asks.
“Two,” Morton says. “I’m Morton. The others are Burnett and Porter.”
“And…try not to frighten Porter,” I add.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because big man pisses himself.” Drago has a good laugh at Porter’s expense.
“Except he doesn’t piss himself,” Chuy says. “Those suits they’re wearing spray sudden evacuations all over the damn place.”
“Okay, now that you know everything worth knowing about the future…” I turn to Chuy. “Show her to her quarters?”
Chuy rolls her eyes, but says, “Sure.”
“Don’t let period cycles sync on way to quarters,” Drago says with a chuckle. “One woman with PMS is bad enou—”
“Que te folle un pez!” Chuy shouts.
“Chtob u tebya hui na lbu vyros!” Drago replies in the Mother Tongue.
Chuy flips him off. “Que te la pique un pollo.”
“Idi na hui,” he replies, grinning. Neither knows what the other is saying. They never do. It’s entertaining as hell for me, because after five years of just Chuy to confide in, I’ve learned a lot of Spanish, and being proficient in Russian helped fast track my career with Uncle Sam. Would have been on my way to general by now, had the universe not boned my life in the keister.
Given the hint of a smile on Carter’s face, I’m pretty sure she can speak Spanish or Russian, if not both.
“Great,” I say. “Now that you both got that sexual tension aired out—” Chuy reels on me. “Allow me to make the coolest exit ever.” I rush the words out as Chuy winds up to slug my shoulder. Before she can swing, I activate my Slew and rotate into the fourth dimension.
Just as the white light of the 4D envelops me, something goes wrong. Pressure wraps around me. Squeezing. A body. When the rotation finishes, I see Carter’s dirty face looking up at me. She took hold of me as I slipped out of the third dimension and made the journey with me!
“Are you insane?” I ask her, irritated.
“Is this dangerous?” she asks, and she tries to step away.
I wrap my arms around her and hold her against me. “Dangerous? It’s un-fucking-heard of.”
That sobers her a little bit.
“Best case scenario, we rotate out of here intact and in the right place. Medium case scenario, we rotate out of here and exchange a few body parts, or we become conjoined.”
“Worst case scenario?” she asks.
“We rotate out, intact or conjoined, into open space.” I pat the Slew Drive on my hip. “I have no idea how this will work for two people.”
“How does it work for one person?” she asks.
I give her the quick, layman’s version of Slew Drive functionality—which is the only version I know—including the fact that they were designed for starships, not people.
“So…that—” She points to the Slew. “Is one of a kind.”
“And just recently got a firmware update that increases the number of times I can use it, but also bumps up the chances that overuse might make it go kaboom.”
“Kaboom…”
“Thermonuclear kaboom.”
“Oh… So, we might…rotate out of…”
“The fourth dimension.”
“…and explode?”
“Destroying the Bitch’n and killing my people. And that will really piss me off.”
“Then…” Her hands wrap around my back. “We should probably make the most of our time while we’re here.”
I’m revolted. “Are you insane?”
Her hands slide down to my ass.
And now I’m erect.
Godamnit.
“I’ve been alone for three years,” she says, squeezing.
“Five.”
She smiles and kisses my chest.
“You’re dirty,” I say. I don’t know when her last bath was, but she smells like the jungle…which isn’t horrible.
“You don’t care,” she says, and she turns around, pressing her ass into me.
I don’t know if anything lives in the fourth dimension. For all I know, this could be where God and His heavenly hosts live. If so, they’re about to get a show.
“No,” I say. “I don’t.”
Fifteen minutes later, we rotate back into the third dimension, inside my quarters. When nothing explodes, I sigh with relief.
“Now you owe me fifty bucks.”
I jump in surprise. Chuy is sitting on my bunk. Can’t tell if she’s amused or pissed. She stands up and gives Carter a once over. Then she delivers the punch she’d intended to land before I rotated away. “There’s a goat that still needs fuckin’, and it ain’t a bitch. You copy?”
She doesn’t mean a literal goat. Because…also extinct.
It’s a military expression. A mission that needs finishing. The bitch part is self-explanatory. “Copy that.”
“Take a shower,” she says to Carter. “You smell worse than Drago.” And then to me, she says, “Captain Dark Horse, single-handedly bringing STDs back from the 80s. Well done, sir.” She gives me a middle-finger salute and a smile before exiting.
“Shower in here?” Carter asks, heading for the bathroom, shedding clothing.
“Uhh, yeah,” I say, seeing her fit body for the first time.
She smiles. “Ready for round two, Marine?”
This is a bad idea. Carter is an unknown element. Of all the people I’ve spent the past five years looking for, I know and trust her the least. And the first thing she did upon stepping foot on my ship was hold a gun to my crewmember—a gun she tried to fire at my head.
Really bad idea.
“Hell, yes,” I say, pulling down my boxers and hopping toward the bathroom, as I yank them over my feet.
9
I’m generally not a ‘pillow talk’ kind of guy. My history of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am tactics is as infamous as Russia’s gulags. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in something long term. I just had a hard time finding a woman who wanted to settle down with someone who was MIA for a good part of the year and could end up KIA every time I went to work. It’s a big ask, and it takes a special kind of lady.
I suppose I could have just given up, but a man’s got needs. Doing the deed with a woman is a quick way to assess if they’ve got what it takes to…
God, I’m sexist.
I’ve been told that on a few occasions.
More than a few.
But that’s who I was. Past tense. I’ve spent the past five years in space, avoiding having feelings for Chuy, and spending time with a little lady I like to call Harriet Palmer. This future version of me is more mature and interested in deeper relationships.
“Why ‘Dark Horse?’” Carter asks.
“Because I’m black, and I have a big dick,” I say.
She stares at me, and then deadpan she says, “But you don’t…have a big dick.”
I burst out laughing. She joins in, lying her head against my chest. We’re wrapped in blankets, squeezed onto my meager cot, with the view of the planet that has been her home.
“Seriously, why? Is it just supposed to sound cool?”
I adjust a bit so I can see her face better. “That’s part of it. For some operators, that’s all of it. Usually there is a little hidden meaning.
A personality trait.”
“Like Brick,” she says. “He was big.”
“Is big, but his father was also a mason. The callsign reminds him of home. Of family.”
“Oh,” she says. “So, Dark Horse?”
“In Miriam Webster terms, a dark horse is a competitor about whom little is known, but who unexpectedly wins.”
“You see yourself as an underdog?” She sounds dubious. And I get it. I’m a tall, dark, and handsome badass. But…
“I was a black man in the U.S. military who wanted to lead armies, not just serve in them. My parents survived the civil rights movement, but we all felt the sting of racism. It was everywhere, even in the military. Sometimes especially in the military. It wasn’t impossible, though. Colin Powell was a lieutenant general when we were yanked out of the past, and he was on track to his fourth star. He was a dark horse, too. An inspiration.”
“And now you’re the only black man in the galaxy,” she says.
Hearing the words still stings. Fills me with a limp kind of rage—anger with no outlet. So, I squelch it, and I say, “But hey, I’m not getting stopped by the police just for walking down the street now.”
She huffs. “That’s only because people outside of this ship don’t know about you.”
“Uplifting. Thanks.”
“People are people,” she says. “Always will be. Fear of the unknown—that’s you—drives people to do and believe stupid things.”
“People are people,” I say. “So why should it be…”
She grins. “Depeche Mode. The best.”
“God, I miss the 80s,” I say.
“Wouldn’t have taken you to be a Depeche Mode man.”
“Mmm,” I say. “Maybe racism isn’t dead after all. You had me pegged for a Run D.M.C. man, right? LL Cool J, maybe? Grandmaster Flash?”
“I’d hoped,” she says.
“Yeah, ‘It’s Tricky’ is one of my favorites. Classic D.M.C. I’m an equal opportunity music fan, but…this is depressing. I told you all that history is gone, right? The music. The movies. Everything from our era has been washed and sterilized from the history books. There are more than three hundred billion people, but not one of them has seen Terminator or remembers when men wore shoulder pads. They just look at me funny when I say, ‘I pity da foo!’ or ‘Watchu talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” They usually just say, ‘Who’s Willis?’ or ‘You know Willis?’ The world as we knew it doesn’t exist. Not the people, the cities, the culture, and not a single animal anyone would want to see. Earth belongs to the insects and the rats now. Remembering…just hurts.”
“Are there no musicians in the future? Maybe we can hire someone to recreate the tunes, and we can belt out the lyrics ourselves?”
“First, future musicians are like nails on a chalk board. The instruments are all digital. The concept of rhythm has been forgotten. And singing is monotone—and that’s pretty much just for the Union anthem.”
“Sounds like the future is horrible,” she says, a little depressed.
“It’s not great.”
“Have you ever considered going full Union? Maybe no one in the future is racist anymore. If they can’t remember black people… Sounds like your crew adjusted to you pretty well. Maybe there’s a place in the Union for you. For us. There must be something a man with your experience can offer.”
“Already doing it,” I say. “Exo-Hunter is the most dangerous job in the galaxy.”
“Is there a compelling reason to not just bow out?” She turns to the view of the planet she called home for years. “Life wasn’t easy down there, but it wasn’t bad, either. There’s a whole world to discover.”
“Once you get used to the giant monster trying to eat you.”
“Beatrice? She didn’t want to eat you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Looked like it to me.”
“She wanted to kill you.”
I lean up, taking in the view, imagining a long life lived like an Ewok. “Not sure I see the difference.”
“Beatrice’s species is herbivorous. But they’re also fiercely territorial.”
“Like supersized dinosaur hippos with turtle heads.”
“Uhh, yeah, that’s about right. Once they get used to you, they don’t bother.”
“Still. Hard pass. I’d rather go to Elysium.”
“The final resting place for heroic and pure souls?” she says, impressing me with her knowledge of Greek myth…and just about everything else. “Think they’ll let you in?”
“Well, no one lives there, no one knows about it, and it’s basically my retirement home. But that can’t happen yet.”
“Because you need to find your crew?” She sounds doubtful.
“I found you, didn’t I?”
“You might spend the better part of your life trying to find them. That’s a long time to spend in…” She frowns at the dark metal room around us. “…in this shithole. No offense.”
“Better to live in a shithole with purpose than paradise knowing I’d failed because I didn’t try.”
She smiles. Leans back. “That’s why I picked you for the Antarctic mission. You see things through.”
“You chose my team for the mission?”
“Not your team. You. I needed someone who wouldn’t quit, even if I never told you what it was really about.”
“An alien artifact frozen in the ice…” I turn to her. “Did you know what it was? What it could do?”
She shakes her head. “All we knew was that it was emitting serious energy waves across a myriad of bandwidths, it was locked in ancient ice, and—”
“It was in the Soviets’ backyard. Hence the rush. Hence a Rapid Reaction Force team.”
“No one knew where it was from.”
“Or when,” I add.
“There’s no evidence the object was from the future, only that the resulting…event…propelled us into the future.”
“But why?” I ask. “Something like that doesn’t exist without a reason. How’d it end up on Earth? And of all the times and places it could have sent us, why here and now?”
“Questions without answers,” she says. “And we’re not going to find them while chasing your people around the galaxy.”
Good point. But it doesn’t change anything. People before answers. I can live with never understanding the why and how of this shitshow, if I’m able to get my people back. I suspect that Carter, who has no allegiance to my team, doesn’t share my point of view. “It’s not like I can head on over to Union Command and start asking questions. I’d stand out, and I’m not ready to put the non-existence of institutional racism to the test.”
“I wouldn’t stand out,” she says.
Her brown hair and eyes don’t scream Aryan master race, but they’re not unheard of. Uncommon, sure, but Porter and Burnett both have brown eyes. Then again, maybe that’s why they were given the illustrious task of salvaging the ruins humanity leaves behind when a planet is spent.
“You want your own ship,” I guess.
“You have your mission. I have mine.”
“Again. No Uncle Sam. No CIA. No evil empire.”
She raises an eyebrow at me.
“Okay, maybe an evil empire, but there’s nothing to be done about it, and no one to save or liberate. We have no enemies here.”
“Not yet,” she says.
“Please tell me you’re not going to stir up trouble,” I say. If she’s planning on exposing us and causing some kind of interplanetary ruckus in the pursuit of old-fashioned life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I might have to keep her locked down. Worst case scenario, I have to put her back where we found her until we find everyone else. And that would be a shame, because, damn, it’s nice to not sleep alone.
She smiles at me. “I would never—”
An alarm blares, making both of us flinch into seated positions. It sounds like a ragged honk. Definitely has my attention. I tap my comms. “Chuy?”
“Almost to the bridge,�
�� she replies.
“Morton? What’s the alarm for?”
“Proximity alarm,” he replies.
“Proximity to what?” I ask.
“I’m not on the bridge, but generally…to another ship.”
“Another ship… Who is on the bridge?”
“Drago,” he says.
“Drago, what the hell is going on?”
“Dark Horse!” he says, laughing. “Have been waiting for this day for five years.”
“What day?” I ask, tugging on my clothing. “The fuck is happening?”
“Enemies!” he says, like he just opened a Christmas present and got everything on his list. “Prepare for battle!”
10
I arrive outside the bridge at the same time as Chuy. She gives me a once over. “You got dressed this time. So that’s an improvement. Have fun last night? Anything itch yet?”
“Funny,” I say, and then I glance back, as Carter races to catch up with us. She’s dressed in a form fitting, black BCS. I’ve looked upon the suits with scorn since I arrived in the future, but Carter makes it work. She could probably dress in the entrails of some alien creature and still look nice.
Good looks or not, she’s still a wildcard and not really a part of this crew…yet. “You can’t come in.”
“The hell I can’t,” she says.
“You don’t exactly outrank us anymore,” Chuy says.
I don’t enjoy denying her access, especially after a night of boinking. But I haven’t ruled out the possibility that all the sexy cuddle time was a psy-op technique employed to get information.
“I won’t say a word,” Carter says. “Please. I’ve been alone in a damn alien jungle for three years. Whatever this is, it’s something you’ve never encountered before, right? Let me do what I do. I’ll observe and see the things none of you do.”
I turn to Chuy.
“Don’t look at me,” she says. “Lady isn’t my lover, cabrón.”
I sigh, hand on my forehead.
“Let me help,” Carter says. “Let me earn my keep.”
“You know all the right things to say,” I observe aloud. She’s not fooling me, but she’s not wrong either. Before her arrival, our crew was composed of two types of people: nerds and soldiers. Neither group has a firm grasp on the human psyche or big picture strategies. Her insight could be valuable.
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