by M. D. Cooper
“Good, then I can stay up for it.”
“I did plan it that way.” Joe smiled.
Tanis leaned an elbow on the table and locked eyes with him. “You know just how to use that smile of yours, don’t you?”
A look of innocence crossed his face. “I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no pre-meditation in any of my actions. I’m a natural, go-with-the-flow sort of guy.”
Tanis cocked an eyebrow. He was serious; it was one of the things that drew her to him. There was nothing faked about Joe; his behavior wasn’t artificial, no looking in the mirror to examine smiles and expressions. Every action, every look from him was totally natural and in the moment.
Tanis envied that. Nearly everything she did was crafted—all of her actions, responses, everything. Well, except for her repartee with Angela. That was the one place she got to be herself. Maybe she could learn something of that from Joe.
Of course, she wasn’t always like that, not before Toro. Tanis stopped that train of thought, Toro was the last thing she wanted to think about right now.
“So what do you have planned for the next thirty hours?”
“Well, that bath sounds good. Is it a double?”
“Do you really think I would go to all the trouble of putting a bath unit on this ship if it wasn’t big enough for two?”
“Good point.” He chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Then I suppose we should give it a test-run. Once we reach our target set of possibilities, it’ll be all work.”
“Hurry up and wait, eh?”
Joe nodded. “Pretty much.”
“Sounds a lot like everything in the service.”
“Oh, sweet stars above, this feels great,” Tanis said as she slipped into the water. She hadn’t realized until they were done eating how weary she was. It had been over twenty-four hours since coming out of stasis on the Intrepid; plus a full day’s work back in the Sol system—which was mind-boggling—before that. Stasis provided no rest and she felt it.
Joe was at the edge of the tub, stepping out of his ship suit, his back to her. She watched the muscles on his shoulders ripple beneath his skin. A slight sheen of sweat made the light brown flesh look delicious.
Tanis stretched out, arms above her head and toes pointed—just barely touching the far side of the bath. She draped her arms over the edge of the tub above her head, waiting patiently. Joe hadn’t watched her undress, he’d faced away the entire time, she wondered if he wanted to see the whole package at once.
“Hurry up, slowpoke.” She flicked some water at his back with a foot.
Joe chuckled, his shoulders rising and falling gently. “Just give me a second, getting all these ports disconnected from the suit and closed up. They don’t really help the mood.”
“Pfft. You saw me with my arm blown off and my lung flapping on the ground. I can handle a few fluid transfer ports.”
“All set.” He stepped out of his ship suit’s legs and turned, his bemused smile shifted somewhat as he took in the sight before him. Tanis arched her back and took a deep breath.
“What are you waiting for?”
“No idea.” Joe grinned and bent over the tub, planting a long kiss on her lips.
Tanis returned it, her arms draping over his neck. A tremor raced through her body, a thrill that started in her loins and radiated outward, her breath caught at the wonder of it. She opened her eyes to look into his, her nose wrinkling with a smile.
“Get in here, mister.” She reached up and pulled him sideways into the tub; gently, so as not to send all the wonderful hot water into the air—a serious problem in low gravity.
Joe’s shoulders bunched up as he lifted his body on the edge of the tub and swung his legs over the side.
She moved toward him and ran her arms down his chest. He released a long, trembling breath, not removing his eyes from hers. Wordlessly, Tanis slid around his body and wrapped her legs around his torso from behind. With deft fingers, she began to massage his shoulders, his arms, his back.
“You have the most amazing fingers.” Joe stroked her calves with his fingernails.
“I’m not objecting to that, either.”
He moved forward in the tub and then spun around; fast enough that she didn’t move and they were now facing one another.
“You’ve finally lowered your shield, Miss Richards.”
“It’s at least on low power.”
His hands slid down her torso and held her waist gently. “Who knew such a fragile thing was under those crisp uniforms and battle armor?”
“I’m no one’s fragile thing.”
Joe’s eyes drew up, worried at first, and then smiling as he realized she was joking.
“But I’ll make an exception for you,” Tanis whispered.
Their lips met again; it was gentle at first, but passion took over and, before long, they were pushing and pulling at one another, as though they wanted to become one being. Then Joe’s hands were in her hair, pulling her head up, and he ran his lips under her chin, tracing the outline of her jaw. Without warning, his hands dropped to her breasts, first cupping and then tracing outlines around her swollen nipples.
Tanis was in heaven, she had always secretly worried that Joe was attracted to her only because she was a firm, commanding woman—worried that he wouldn’t take charge in lovemaking. She was wrong, happily, joyfully wrong.
He wanted to possess her as much as she wanted to be possessed.
She could see it in his eyes, feel it in the way he held her body, know it in the way he dug his fingers into her back.
When they joined it was beautiful. He opened his mind to her and she to him. Their thoughts and emotions co-mingled in a way Tanis had never experienced before. For a short time they became one being.
Afterward, they lay in the tub not moving, basking in each other’s presence.
“You’re absolutely amazing,” Tanis said as warm thoughts of love and satisfaction suffused her.
“You’re not so bad yourself.” Joe’s patented grin filled her vision. “I think I’ll keep you.”
Their lips were nearly touching, Joe’s weight was pressing down on her, skin sliding gently against skin, hands idly tracing patterns on one another.
Tanis’s eyes locked with his, wide with entreaty. “Promise?” Her voice quivered with a vulnerability she didn’t even remember having.
“Guaranteed.”
They didn’t part right away. He held her for some time, stroking her hair and randomly kissing her lips, cheeks and neck. Eventually, he slipped out and rose from the water, his skin glistening. He bent and lifted her out of the bath, aided by the fact that in the current gravity she weighed less than thirty kilograms.
She sighed contentedly and reached for a towel, handing one to Joe before wiping herself down.
“That was… unbelievable,” Tanis sighed.
“Glad you think so, I’ve been waiting to do that with you for some time.”
“If I had known you were that good, I don’t know that my resolve would have held out so well back before we left.”
Joe laughed. “Ready for round two?”
Tanis’s eyes widened. “Already?”
As it turned out, they both fell asleep within moments of laying down in the double bunk. Angela set the temperature just a touch warmer in the room and dimmed the lights before striking up a conversation with Troy about the best way to net more than one of the asteroids.
25:04 hours to asteroid group
-0:42 hours to Intrepid escape maneuver
Tanis woke first and reached out to feel the slumbering form of her lover.
Her Lover.
How long had it been since she had last been in love? Eleven… Twelve years now? Well, she had been in love. As it turned out he hadn’t felt exactly the same way. Not something Tanis was worried about with Joe. It was obvious he was completely committed to her, the fact he had pursued her for nearly a year was ample evidence.
Though it wasn’
t entirely true. She had found him damn attractive when they first met back in that sector chief’s office on the MOS. The next day—had it really been only one day later?—when he saved her life in the VIP corridor, she knew she could love him.
Of course, there was no way they could have a relationship while in the TSF with her being his commanding officer; so she had stuffed those feelings down deep and pretended they didn’t exist. But the longing slowly forced its way to the surface, and now those feelings were front and center, no chance of going away.
Thank the starlight.
Joe stirred beside her.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
“It’s morning?”
“I really have no idea; we didn’t really establish a ship-time.”
“Close enough, I guess.” He rolled over and looked at her, his eyes warm and smiling, if a bit bleary and sleep-laden. “You have no idea how completely awesome it is to wake up next to you. It’s unbelievable.”
“I believe it.” Tanis grinned. “I am completely awesome, after all.”
Joe laughed and hugged her to him. It was the best wakeup Tanis had experienced in years. They had sex again, another slow, sensual episode, the kind that she loved to have in the morning; apparently so did he.
“I promise some acrobatic events in the future.” Joe said afterward. “But this just feels like slow and relaxed time.”
“I have absolutely no complaints, mister.” Tanis smiled, pulling the covers off and stepping gingerly onto the cold deck. She began her morning stretches while Joe watched from bed, head propped up on one arm.
“You do this every morning?”
“Of course, don’t you?” Tanis touched her toes, and then wrapped her arms tightly around her legs, folding double and looking at him with her head between her calves.
Joe whistled, admiring the view. “Not really, but I heartily endorse you continuing the practice.”
Tanis laughed—something that looked and sounded odd in her current position. “Get up and get dressed you lazy man. There’s breakfast to be had, I could eat a buffalo!”
“Did you stock buffalo?”
Joe dressed and left to get coffee brewing while Tanis finished her stretches. She slipped into a fresh ship suit and followed a few minutes later. The small wardroom was down a short hall and the smells of cooking oatmeal greeted her. She stood in the entrance watching Joe prepare two bowls, heaping brown sugar on them.
“Oh boy, oatmeal,” Tanis said.
Two things that grew really well in hydroponics: sugarcane and oats, in space you had to like oatmeal.
“And coffee, the most important meal of the day,” Joe said as he set the cups on the table.
“Thanks for the joe, Joe,” Tanis grinned.
“You’re welcome and you have no idea how much I love that joke.” Joe’s sardonic tone took a moment for Tanis to parse.
“Ah, not down with the Joe-jokes. Noted. So what’s on the schedule for today?”
“Well, the AI let us sleep long, as I’m sure you noticed.” Tanis nodded as she chewed and he continued. “So we’re fifteen hours from the slowdown burn and then ten hours from there until we reach the A group.”
Tanis nodded as she continued to spoon the oatmeal up. “So what else do we have to eat?”
Joe laughed. “I guess we are a bit behind on the meals.”
“The extracurricular activities did help in the hunger department too.”
“Well, we could do waffles, bacon—I think there’s sausage.”
“Bacon and waffles! I stocked some great syrup.”
An hour later they were on the bridge, studying charts and updated scans, looking for the spectral lines that would indicate lithium. There were a few good candidates and Tanis was lancing laser beams out at the rocks, looking for the right type of reflection.
The Intrepid had passed the time of its escape burn nearly two hours ago, but at just over fifteen AU from the star, the Excelsior would not receive confirmation of its success for another twenty minutes. Tanis found herself worrying about it more than she expected. Normally she didn’t stress about things she couldn’t control, but there were a lot of people she had come to care for on the ship.
If all went well they would be back onboard the Intrepid in forty-five hours.
Joe reached out and touched Tanis’s arm. “I’ve got a pretty good candidate here,” he said and put the asteroid up on the bridge’s holo display. “Looks to be in one piece and has some good amblygonite deposits, maybe even as much as forty percent by mass.”
The rock was just over a kilometer in diameter and massed a hair under twenty-three trillion tons. Tanis calculated the rough amount of thrust it would take to bring the object up to the required velocities.
“It’s kinda big.”
“Yeah, but see here and here…” Joe pointed at the display. “That’s all dust, we can knock that off and probably shave almost ten trillion tons.”
“That’s a lot more manageable. How do we knock it off?”
Joe brought up another display. “We use a thumper. We shoot it at the object right where the dust is. It breaks apart into smaller projectiles that slice through the dust, and then balloon right before they hit the solid part. They essentially shove it quickly and it gets it away from the dust. Once on each side, with some repositioning in between, and we’ll have a much lighter load.”
The plan looked good to Tanis. The one rock would give them all of the lithium they would need and would be much easier to haul in than several smaller asteroids.
“Sounds good. Doesn’t look like we’ll need to alter course much to reach it.”
“Yup, easy peasy.”
“Speaking of peas, I’m hungry!” Tanis gave Joe a quick kiss and dashed off to the galley. What she really wanted to do was take her mind off the Intrepid and its escape burn.
Twenty minutes later they were completing a dinner of grilled cheese and tomato soup when Angela interrupted their discussion about beam rifles.
“That’s not terribly descriptive,” Tanis said.
Tanis felt her heart jump and saw a look of panic cross Joe’s face.
“What do you mean it’s not there?” Her appetite fled and Tanis put the remains of her sandwich down.
Angela’s worry was palpable; Tanis could feel it bleeding into her, amplifying her own fear.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Tanis looked at Joe. They both knew what that meant.
Estrella de la Muerte was a red dwarf, and, like most red dwarfs, it was prone to solar flares. The flares were no more violent than a flare from Sol, but because the Intrepid was passing much closer to the dim red star than it ever would to a hot yellow star like Sol, flares were a much larger concern. Even without the heat, red dwarfs had another danger when they flared: X-Rays.
Estrella de la Muerte had been recorded to emit x-ray bursts over 10,000 times greater than Sol during flares. If such a burst hit the Intrepid, the ship would be turned into a lifeless husk.
“Sweet fuck,” Joe whispered.
“Do we have readings on the x-ray intensity?” Tanis asked.
Tanis was a bit surprised to hear him offering comfort. Maybe she had misjudged him, or maybe he didn’t want to think about being lost in this system for eternity either.
“Finish up,” Joe said. “We’re going to be hard at it for some time.”
> They wolfed down the rest of their food and then ran to the bridge. The two humans and two AI deployed a relativistic probe to get a view of the far side of Estrella de la Muerte while carefully examining the entire spectrum of the star.
The red dwarf had a rapid rotation and, before long, an angry blotch came into view. The sunspot the Intrepid had been using for magnetic repulsion had erupted.
“It went up…” Joe said softly. “It didn’t read as being that volatile, it should have held.”
“Or during,” Joe said.
“We’ll know more shortly.” Tanis brought up the data on the probe’s trajectory—the ETA was twenty minutes.
No one spoke in the intervening time. The probe was racing to where the Intrepid should be. It was traveling at 0.8c and would fly past before arcing around the star and back toward the Excelsior. An alert flashed on the holo display as the data came streaming in.
No sign of the Intrepid.
“It’s my fault.” Joe put his head in his hands and Tanis rose to sit beside him.
“It’s not. Everyone had the same data you did. They knew what flares are like on red dwarfs. We don’t have any evidence that the Intrepid’s magnetic repulsion caused the flare. Red dwarfs may be small, but that sunspot was still larger than Earth. It’s unlikely that the ship caused it to go up.” Tanis laid out a rapid-fire series of rationalizations.
It was bad, not quite 10,000 times the x-ray level of Sol, but close. A major flare. Plasma detection from the probe indicated that the flare went two million miles out into space, well beyond where the Intrepid would have been.
No one spoke for several minutes. Tanis forced the thoughts of the colony ship’s destruction down, refusing to consider them. She could tell that Joe was doing the same, while Angela was running math on possible alternate vectors the Intrepid could have possibly taken.