“Well? What did you think?”
He wasn’t taken with the music. It was just OK. “I can see why you like it,” he answered diplomatically.
She didn’t miss the snub. “But you didn’t.”
“Maybe it has to grow on me,” he said, smiling and shrugging.
“Done.”
She turned the volume back up and laid down on her floor. “This is how I listen to music. I get lost in it. I absorb it. Oh, wait.” She stood suddenly, and flipped off the light. “In the dark.”
She sat down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he said. Not at all.
9
Watson hadn’t been prepared for how long the journey would take.
He had been, mentally, but it seemed an eternity when combined with his other duties. It was like he could never fully relax.
That was something he knew would happen—losing count of the days due to the malleable nature of time and how perception altered it. He’d spent many months on ships over the past ten years, but this was different. This journey was like the proverbial trip as a child, heading into the unknown. Distances always seemed elongated back then, whenever he’d traveled with his parents, especially when the landmarks were unknown and the way was unmapped.
Are we there yet?
He snorted to himself as he stood in his cabin, gazing out at the darkness.
He was the one to ask. No one else could tell him, except maybe the Centaus. He knew what they’d say, however.
We’ll get there when we get there.
Which was completely unhelpful, just like that answer his parents had always given him.
Finally, today they were about to enter the wormhole that would take them to the 6 Moons solar system.
He was as nervous as he’d been the first time he’d boarded a ship.
His crew on the bridge had explicit instructions to call him down when the entry procedures began, the first of which would be orders delivered after a quick video call from the Centau fleet.
Despite all the Centau education about what it would be like to enter a wormhole, Watson’s hands trembled slightly as he ran his fingers through his wet hair. He’d showered moments before, it just seemed right. Marking the occasion like a first date. A first date with a wormhole. It sounded weird once he thought it. Probably shouldn’t say that out loud.
A high-pitched tone alerted him that someone was at his door.
“Come in,” he said, wondering who this unexpected visitor would be. Probably Brand. He prepared a response—you could have just called me on the comm.
The door opened. He turned, opening his mouth to say it.
“Sally,” he said, tripping over his words, her countenance immediately setting his cabin on fire.
Or maybe that was him. Maybe he was on fire.
“Please. Ms. Anders,” she said, striding in. The door closed behind her.
“Tough,” he answered, pacing to dispel the energy suddenly coursing through him.“Sally it is!”
“I’ll tame you someday,” she said.
“Impossible.”
She sat on the chair at his desk. “I understand we’re about to enter the wormhole.”
“Yes, you nervous?” he asked, then regretted it. He shouldn’t lead her like that. He ought to let her sort her own emotions out and then communicate them to him. The fact that he asked her simply betrayed that he was nervous.
“Should I be?” she asked.
She was too clever. “Not at all. Everything’s under control.”
“Strange. I wasn’t nervous, till you asked if I was nervous, then I realized, if Watson is asking me if I’m nervous, then maybe I should be nervous.”
He could lie or he could just be frank with her. “I admit, I’ve never been in a wormhole. So, there’s just a sliver of me that’s concerned. But it’s going to be fine.”
She nodded. “Well, if we don’t make it out of the wormhole, I just want to say the journey was lovely. I’d hoped to see this new world with you, but who knows now.”
His heart leapt, reflecting on the past five months and the experience of getting to know her. She’d been the best sort of distraction. The journey would have been drab and colorless without her.
“You will.”
He’d been cautious so far about letting her into his cabin. A self-imposed boundary that prevented him from getting too swept away in her, where she might become a distraction that drew his focus far from his duties. This was only the third time she’d come to his cabin—the other occasions had been oddities, and he wasn’t sure what brought her here on this one. Maybe apprehension about what awaited them?
Most of their alone time had culminated in her cabin to listen to her music. He’d begun to joke that she was giving him an education in her musical taste. She’d wanted him to share his musical preferences with her, but he’d never really paid attention to music, until now.
As he watched her in his cabin, he realized that it had been wise for him to keep that boundary—he liked the way she looked in it far too much. He never wanted her to leave. Not in a crazy, madman sort of way, but in an I-could-get-used-to-her-being-near-me-always, kind of way.
“Will I?” she answered, her voice taking a cheeky tone. “The captain is anxious about entering a wormhole. I suppose I took it for granted that all would be well.”
“Ms. Anders, it will be well. All will be well.”
“Oh, now you call me Ms. Anders. Interesting choice. Why the change in tack? None of this is reassuring me. In fact, you’re behaving very oddly, Captain. It’s making me doubt the whole journey.” She rose and took a step toward him. “But, let’s just say that it better be. It better be well. You see, I have a library of records that you’ll need to listen to before you’re allowed to die in a wormhole, or anywhere, for that matter.” She gave him a sly grin.
“I prefer digital,” he said, knowing that would get a rise out of her.
“Words like that mean you deserve to be forced to listen digital, and to have other terrible curses befall ears.” She cocked her head, her curls falling over one shoulder. “Well, I’ll just be heading back to my cabin, I guess. Or one of the many bars. Or the entertainment lounge. Anywhere, to find a distraction during the wormhole journey.”
He took a few steps toward her, crossing the Persian rug, “Why not stay a few more moments?” The words came out before he could stop them.
She watched his movements, unperturbed. This dance had been going on for some time now. Despite all the want, the desire, the hunger for her, he’d put his duty first. He couldn’t let her cloud his thinking—he couldn’t let all the possible paths they might take together overtake his reason. What if she broke his heart? She would. He knew it—she was fire and he was air. Together he perceived that a union between them would result in an explosion that burned the rafters down.
She waited, submissive, unflinching, a smile in her eyes. Her red lips invited him. Everything about her exerted a gravitational pull on him. It was only Watson’s willpower that had managed to deny that force.
How had he gone this long wanting her, wanting to take her, yet never doing it? He should feel strong for having denied it. Instead he felt weak, vulnerable, stupid.
A sound in his ear announced an incoming message.
“Captain,” the voice in his ear said. “Lead vessel is onscreen. We’re being instructed on wormhole entry procedures. Janessa will be ordering all personnel to their wormhole positions.”
He hesitated. Sally wouldn’t have heard it. She would see his actions now as rejection if he shuffled her away and that would mean apologies and explanations later.
And what if there was no later?
Watson closed the distance.
He slipped one hand around her waist, his hand fitting into the small of her back like the space was made just for it, and pulled her body into him. The fingers of his other han
d slid around her neck and up across her skull, weaving through her hair.
She cocked her head back, lifting her mouth to him. His lips completed the soft collision, inviting her body into his, completing months of longing in one gesture that sparked the roar of a fire. The song of longing swelled in his ears, drowning out the sound of his crew notifying him of the Centaus waiting for him.
Blood pulsed in his ears, everywhere, the screaming pitch of need flushing through him. He’d imagined this precise event a thousand times over the past months, but he’d never gotten it right.
It was better than he’d dreamed.
She tasted like honey. The breath that left her body flooded him. He inhaled her in ways he’d never been able to imagine, absorbing the fragrance of rain across a desert. That was the strange image her scent awoke in him.
He’d never be able to stop this kiss.
He bent his knees and moved both hands to her waist, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her against him as hard as he could without crushing her, forcing himself to restrain, to not overdo it.
Her arms circled his neck as her fingers moved through his hair and across the back of his head.
Finally, he pulled away. It had to be done, it had to be good enough for now. He couldn’t ignore his officers any longer.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He groaned inside, irritated at himself. Terrible thing to say after such an amazing kiss.
“What a thing to say, Watson,” she answered, breathlessly. “I’m not sorry.”
“I’m sorry it has to end,” he explained. “You need to go to wherever you’ve been instructed to stay during the wormhole entry.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, adjusting her hair.
He took her hand and stared down into her eyes. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
10
A strange sort of violet lightning flashed outside the ship. It snaked through the white walls of the tunnel through which the fleet passed, illuminating the darkness. The Centau ships led the way ahead of them, their large vessels small against the massive walls, exterior signal lights flickering in strobing patterns that echoed the lightning in the perimeter of the tunnel.
Watson gripped the armrests of his seat and leaned back into it, feeling sweat break out under his clothes.
“This was supposed to be kind of a Zen experience, I thought,” Brand said from beside him in a low voice. “Back in our solar system, then bam, in the next. Not this endless tunnel full of energy. Seems like, I don’t know, one false move and we’ll be burnt to a crisp. And I’m getting claustrophobic. How long do we go on like this?”
“You watched the videos, didn’t you?” Watson asked.
“No.”
Watson risked a sidelong glance at his second in command.
Brand noticed and scoffed. “Did you?”
“No,” Watson admitted. “But I should demote you for that. Did Janessa?”
“You know Janessa,” Brand said in a tone that suggested they both knew what kind of person Janessa was.
“Then yes.”
“Of course it’s a yes.”
“I should demote you and put Janessa over you.”
“Sounds like a sexy good time to me,” Brand said.
Watson thought of several choice rebuttals to that, but swallowed all of them.
“Not going to snipe back at me, eh? You must be more nervous than you look.”
“Captain’s specialty—looking unruffled even under extreme pressure.”
“What was that? Did you see that?” Dan asked from the navigation console. He pointed, but no one needed it. They would need to be blind to miss it.
Brand sat up straight in his seat.
Watson leaned forward, muttering a prayer to the talisman on the front of his zeppelin. That was what she was for—to protect them from the behemoths of the deep and dark. His figurehead angel.
Ahead of them and ahead of the Centau escort, a dark shadow slithered around the perimeter of the wormhole.
“Captain, you’re seeing this, right?” Cortez asked, pointing.
Watson bit his lip. Deliberate and measured responses were just another reason Watson excelled as the captain of a large vessel like Fortune’s Zenith.
“Appears to be something in our path, Cortez,” Watson said. He pursed his lips and leaned to one side, resting his elbow on the armrest. “Not surprising. The Centaus warned us about this.” Sort of.
In all honesty, Watson’s heart was pounding as his sympathetic nervous system shrieked for him to run. He laughed internally. Run? To where?
“Your orders, Captain?” Dan asked.
“Not much we can do. Wait and see,” he said in a level voice. He hoped his response conveyed that he wasn’t worried, though his heart raced and he had to quell the tremors passing through him. What the hell was the shadow? It was getting closer. Though they’d been given vague instructions that something like this might happen, he’d not been given a primer on all the monsters out there. “No, I’m afraid our only option is to continue on. The Centau ships are equipped for battle. Unfortunately ours isn’t.”
“The railguns and aether weapons?” Brand asked.
“According to the Centau, not rated for use in the wormhole,” Watson said.
“When did you plan to spring that one on me?” Brand sank back into his chair and crossed his arms.
“Honestly thought it would never come up,” Watson said. “The Centaus swore to protect the colonists.”
“You trust them?” Brand asked in a derisive tone.
The question took Watson by surprise. “I trust them, yes. And if you don’t, I wonder why you chose to come on this journey.”
“Nothing better to do. Janessa wanted to. I came along.”
“Two reasons, both lies.”
Brand ignored the jab. “They damn well better do something about whatever that monster is.”
“They will.” Watson hoped, but that was part of his job—to hope, to never give up, to rally his crew.
The sinuous shadow was now very close to the lead Centau ship in the wormhole.
“The Centaus have charged their weapons,” Cortez said.
Suddenly the creature emerged from the walls of glowing energy that surrounded the ships. Lightning flickered, connecting with it but the beast seemed unaffected by the burst of energy. The collective gasp from the bridge sucked the oxygen from the air. Watson bit his tongue as he tried to clench his jaw and hold back a fearful scream. An acrid metallic flavor filled his mouth.
The massive creature was iridescent blue and green, covered in scales that flashed just like the walls of the wormhole. The eyeless creature glowed. Its thick body was easily as large as the tunnel through which the fleet passed. It moved in undulating motions. A maw full of lightning and shadows opened up before the fleet, seeming to wait for them to fall directly into the impossibly vast body.
“It’s—it’s like a snake. A—a worm!” Cortez cried.
“A creature of the wormhole,” Dan said.
The Centau fleet unleashed a volley of aether weapons at it. Their formation widened, spreading out to cover the space within the area. The creature shivered in response, as though it had been damaged. It recoiled and then writhed toward them. Again the Centaus opened fire.
And once more the behemoth responded physically to the violence.
Watson caught himself wincing, as though he felt bad for the stupid monster.
Suddenly more shadows appeared in the walls of the tunnel. Damn, he thought. This wasn’t good. Watson didn’t have time to count all of them, but it was enough to overwhelm the entire convoy.
He thought about Cassandra on the front of his ship. And though he wasn’t a gullible idiot, he’d always been slightly superstitious. It was wise to know that there was more than he could explain always going on in the universe. Proven theories led to more questions. Nothing was ever truly settled—for that he only had to look at the theories the Centaus blew out o
f the water. Adaptation was a necessity if one needed answers.
And so, he’d put some kind of stock in Cassandra, his charm against the void.
The captain touched his lips. Before, he might have waited for the Centaus to save them, trusting in them to know and do what was required to defeat the monsters. A man like Watson only violated orders from his superiors in extreme circumstances, when he sensed that he must do so to survive.
His mind went back to the kiss that had changed the metaphysical course he was on. Sally’s mouth—warm and alive—had breathed into him. I’ll see you on the other side. Her bright eyes looked up at him, trusting him.
Damn her.
He owed it to her to get them out of this with or without the help of the Centaus. Which might mean breaking the rules.
Would he be using those weapons after all, despite instructions that they were not intended for wormhole use?
11
The Centaus hadn’t been clear about what would happen if Watson used his weapons in the wormhole. Something to do with attracting the wrong kind of attention. That didn’t seem like an issue now, unless there were other creatures waiting to attack if they used weapons. But there were already more of the eel-like beasts than their flotilla of ships could handle even if all of them were warships.
“Brand, prepare the weapons,” Watson said.
Brand stared at him, his face paling as more shadows appeared outside, filling the glowing walls with menacing shapes. “You said—”
“I know what I said. But we’re not going to be sitting ducks for those creatures.”
“What happens if we fire the weapons in the wormhole?” Brand asked.
Watson caught Cortez and Dan exchanging anxious looks.
Watson pursed his lips and looked back out at the scene continuing to unfold. “I don’t know. They said firing would attract the wrong kind of attention.”
The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material) Page 150