by M B Panichi
Morgan grinned. “Thanks.” All she could smell was chocolate. The display counters near the checkout had every kind she could imagine. The shelves on the sides had colorful collections of suckers and treats and gifts. Another counter had popcorn, caramel corn and cheese corn.
Morgan peered into one of the chocolate displays. There was a place on Moon Base that had candy, but not a whole store. This was pure sugar heaven. Shaine came to stand beside her. “What’cha gonna get?”
“Not sure. It all looks good.”
The woman behind the counter said, “The nut clusters are always a favorite.” She paused and stared for a second. “Shaine Wendt?”
Shaine looked up.
The woman smiled widely. “Wow! I haven’t seen you in years! Cathy Denner. We graduated together.”
Shaine smiled. Morgan noticed that it didn’t go to her eyes. “Hello. Good to see you,” Shaine said.
Morgan jumped in, intending to take the focus off Shaine. “I think I’d like a half dozen of the dark chocolate nut clusters. Shaine, you want anything?”
“How about a half dozen of the coconut ones?”
Cathy said excitedly, “That was really incredible, what you did, Shaine. You’re a real hero!”
Shaine’s face flushed and she shrugged uncomfortably. “It wasn’t a big thing, really,” she said. “But thanks.”
Morgan handed the woman her credit chit, and Shaine took the opportunity to drift away to look at other things.
The woman looked from Shaine to Morgan. Morgan could tell she was put off by Shaine stepping away, but she started putting the candy in a package. She focused on Morgan as she finished ringing up the sale. She saw recognition in the woman’s dark eyes. Morgan kept her expression neutral as she pocketed her credit chit, inviting no further conversation. Morgan took her candy and she and Shaine quickly exited the store.
Shaine opened Morgan’s car door for her, then got in behind the wheel. She started the engine and glanced at Morgan.
“That was awkward,” she muttered. “Thanks for jumping in.”
Morgan shrugged. “She recognized me too. Did you remember her?”
“I recognized her name. She wasn’t anyone I hung out with. I don’t think I really knew her.”
“You were tense. I’ve never seen you that way around people.”
Shaine frowned. “Yeah. I hate that hero crap. Let’s drive a bit. I’ll show you around town.”
“Okay.” Morgan settled into the soft leather of the passenger seat. “I want to see where you used to hang out.” She smiled at Shaine. She’d been curious to know what kind of place had created such a complex woman as Shaine Wendt. Certainly, she’d had a good stable home life. But Shaine had never talked much about school or her friends.
As they drove slowly down the main street, Morgan thought it would have been hard for someone with a restless spirit to grow up in such a small town. Granted, it was bigger than the closed environment of either Moon Base or a mining facility in the Asteroid Belt, but it was so quiet. Even Moon Base felt more crowded and bustling than this small town.
Shaine seemed to relax as they drove. She pointed out her favorite restaurants from when she was a teenager, going out with friends on the weekends. They drove by her senior school and a small shopping center that had a busy parking lot and people milling between stores.
Morgan took it all in. It was like places she’d seen in vids, almost unreal to her, and so incredibly different from her own experience. She felt no jealousy or envy—only an odd sense of the surreal that she couldn’t quite place.
Shaine said, “There’s a place I want to show you.” She took a turn that brought them to a park on the edge of the main part of town and pulled into a small, empty parking lot. “Come on.”
Shaine popped her door and came around Morgan’s side, taking her hand as Morgan stepped out and shut her door. Shaine gestured ahead. “It’s a little way in,” she said.
Morgan was glad to get out and walk. The park was filled with huge old shade trees—maples and ashes and oaks. As they walked further into the trees, the sunlight shifted into thin beams of dappled brilliance filtering through the leaves, rather like having a loosely thatched roof overhead. The grass underfoot was short and thin. Shaine led Morgan into the small woodland, through a narrow clearing to a cluster of gnarled oak trees.
Morgan studied the trees and thought if she were a kid in books she’d read, they’d be great for climbing.
Shaine said, “This is where we used to come when we cut school.”
“You cut school?”
“Didn’t everyone?” Shaine grinned at her. “Come on, I’ll boost you up.”
Morgan looked up a little uneasily. In space, without full gravity, falling wasn’t nearly as big an issue.
Shaine pointed. “See the second fork, where there are three branches going out? Climb up to there. I’ll give you a boost and I’ll be right behind you.”
Morgan nodded. Shaine cupped her hands, and Morgan stepped in and took the lift, grabbing a sturdy lower branch and pulling herself up into the tree. The bark was scarred and rough under her fingers. There were plenty of hand- and footholds, and she made her way up to the wide crotch where the gnarled trunk split three ways.
Morgan pulled herself up to stand among the branches, leaning against the thick trunk and hanging onto a couple of small branches to keep her balance. She watched Shaine haul herself onto the lowest limb and clamber quickly the rest of the way. She wondered if her partner was part monkey and grinned at the thought.
Shaine pulled herself up beside her and pointed up. “See that flat branch, just over your head?”
Morgan kept a hold of the trunk and looked up. “Sure.”
“That’s where we’re going. I’ll go first and help you up.”
Morgan eyed the flat branch. It was quite thick—nearly as thick as the trunk itself—so likely it would support their weight. She glanced toward the ground, which suddenly seemed a long way down.
Shaine leaned in and gave Morgan a gentle kiss. Morgan closed her eyes and felt tingles run down her spine. Shaine whispered against her lips, “I won’t let you fall.”
Morgan took a breath.
Shaine murmured, “Don’t move.”
Morgan felt the branch under her feet bounce a bit and opened her eyes to see Shaine reach to a handhold above her head and simply swing herself up to the flat limb above them. She hooked one leg around the limb and settled herself, straddling the limb with her legs wrapped around it. Grinning, she reached a hand down to Morgan.
“Take my hand and I’ll pull you up.”
Morgan clasped wrists with Shaine, got a solid grip, then grabbed for the branch above her as well.
“Up we go.”
Shaine hauled her up. Morgan also pulled with her other hand. In a second, she was seated next to Shaine. She shifted to get more comfortably settled and kept one hand on Shaine’s thigh.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” Shaine said. “This was our favorite place to hang out.” She traced a group of initials carved into the rough trunk at head height.
“SW, JM, LT.”
“Me and my two best friends,” Shaine explained. “Jill Monson and Laney Thoms. We’d come up here and drink on the weekends, sometimes score some weed.”
Morgan twined their fingers together, feeling a closeness, a commonality, though she wondered if Shaine’s teenaged idea of drinking and scoring drugs was as wild as hers had been. She said, “We hid out behind the air circulators. There was a break in the fencing and an old maintenance shed they didn’t use any more. We sat in there and smoked synth and drank beer, or whatever we could get our hands on.”
“Guess we both sowed some wild oats, huh?”
“I was out of control,” Morgan admitted. She had three years filled with foggy memories of drunken and drugged up binges. She had no count of the number of times she’d been so fucked up she barely even knew her name. She spent those three years fallin
g into a dark, spiraling, aching sadness that nearly swallowed her whole. She remembered blood dripping slowly from the carefully spaced cuts along the inside of her left arm, hoping that oblivion would make the wrenching ache go away.
“Morgan?”
She shook herself, took a quick breath and blinked away the darkness. “Sorry. Memories.”
Shaine squeezed her hand. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Morgan smiled at their hands together. “I am now.”
They were silent for a long time and Morgan slid a little closer, leaning lightly against Shaine, feeling the comforting heat of her body.
After a while Shaine said, “Got my first kiss in this tree.”
“Who from?”
“Laney. On a dare. We were both drunk. Lucky we didn’t fall out of the tree. We ended up dating most of our senior year.”
“Was she your first?”
“Yeah.”
“Shaine, you’re blushing,” Morgan teased.
Shaine blushed all the more and Morgan laughed. “So, kiss me and add my initials to the tree,” Morgan said.
Shaine chuckled and captured Morgan’s mouth, sliding her tongue inside, one hand cupping Morgan’s cheek, the other on Morgan’s thigh to steady her. Morgan moaned into the kiss, feeling the passion pulse straight to her groin. Her free hand covered Shaine’s on her thigh, clinging on as Shaine’s mouth moved down her neck, nibbling on her pulse point, sending shivers along her skin.
Shaine slowly eased back, resting her forehead against Morgan’s. “Mmmm.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s not fall out of this tree.”
Morgan snickered. “Necking in null grav is much safer.”
Shaine grinned. “Hang on, okay?” She released Morgan’s leg and fished in the pocket of her cargo shorts, coming up with a small laser cutter and flipping it on. Twisting around, she carved Morgan’s initials above her own and added a heart around them. The air smelled of burnt wood. A puff or two of smoke wafted between them. The original carvings had been done with a knife, but Shaine was willing to forgo tradition for execution. After a couple minutes she flicked off the cutter and pocketed it, smiling at the results.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Morgan grinned. “Perfect.”
Shaine smiled. “Yes, you are,” she agreed. “Come on, let’s get down.”
Morgan sighed. “S’pose we better.”
They clambered down the tree, Shaine going first and helping guide Morgan’s feet into the right step holds. They ambled slowly across the park, holding hands.
“Seems like a nice place to grow up,” Morgan said.
Shaine shrugged. “It was okay. Kinda slow. I wanted to get out, get away. I felt a little lost here, bored most of the time. The EG was the easiest way out, so that’s what I did. Sounded exciting, right? I wanted to do something worthwhile. School wasn’t my thing, so I didn’t want to go to university.”
“I just expected to do what my parents did,” Morgan said. “Be a spacer like them. It never really occurred to me to want anything else.” Shaine gave her a warm one-armed hug and she leaned into it. “I guess now I have a chance to consider other things.”
“If you want to,” Shaine said. “You have the means, that’s for sure.” She kissed Morgan’s head. “You need to do what feels right for you. You don’t have to decide until you’re ready, and you don’t have to do anything different at all if you don’t want to.”
“The hardest part is I don’t even know what I’d want to do, or what I’d be any good at.”
“The right thing will fall your way,” Shaine said. “Not like there’s a time limit or anything.”
Morgan shrugged. “True. I guess I don’t need to worry about it right now.”
“Nope.”
They strolled through the trees, taking a roundabout path back out of the park to where they’d left the car.
Morgan sighed. “You know, it’s going to be hard to go back to Moon Base after all this. I never realized how lifeless it is there. I never knew what I was missing.”
“We could move back here,” Shaine offered.
Morgan shrugged. “I’m not sure I want that. Not sure what I want, really. I never realized that there was anything so wonderful as all this. You can watch all the vids you want, but until you experience it, it’s just not real.”
“Guess I never thought about that before,” Shaine admitted.
Morgan grinned. “Well, no matter what we decide to do, this has been great, staying here with you.”
“I’ve liked it too.”
Morgan swung their arms. “We better get back to the farm, huh?”
“Yeah. Come on, I’ll show ya the back roads home.”
Chapter Thirteen
Shaine wasn’t surprised that Toby and Chelsea decided to go to the protest with their friends. She figured they would succumb to the lure of being part of a civil protest, so she knew it was her job to do what she could to keep them safe. It was also an excuse to check out the power plant site in the daylight since Grey and Mia would be returning later that afternoon.
The morning had dawned bright and sunny, promising midday heat. Shaine and Morgan woke reasonably early, had breakfast and showered. Shaine finished dressing and stood in front of the mirror on the back of her bedroom door, running a comb through her short red hair.
Morgan sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on a pair of socks. “You think it’d be easier if we just went with them to the protest?” she asked.
“It might be easier, but it would mean outing ourselves again, and I’d just as soon avoid notice. Better for both of us to keep a low profile. Besides, if anything goes down, I don’t want to be in the middle of a bunch of civilians. I want to be on the outside where we might be able to do some good.”
“I get that.”
Shaine grinned, feeling the beginnings of low-key mission adrenaline.
“What do you expect to happen?”
“Not sure, really. Since it’s daylight, my guess is that if there is an attack, it would be from a safe distance, or they’d have to scream in, do something and get out before they could be stopped. Thing is, though, there’ll be council and GGS people there, so it can’t be indiscriminate. Maybe a sniper, maybe someone planted in their midst or someone in a vehicle that can make a quick getaway. There’s only the one road to the front gate, so their options are limited. Most likely nothing will happen.” She flopped down on the bed, leaning on the pillows propped against the headboard. “I figure, we creep in, stay low in the grass, put up a telescope camera that feeds to the pads. I’m going to bring a sniper rifle and a compact long-range automatic.”
Morgan frowned. “What about local police? Or territory authorities? Won’t they be doing the same thing?”
Shaine shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how serious they’re taking all this. I imagine there will be a fairly heavy police presence. I was going to give Kyle a call before we leave, see if he’s heard anything.”
Shaine glanced at the chron on her nightstand, then patted the bed beside her. “Come and sit with me.”
Morgan crawled over the bed, settling beside her. Shaine shifted to straddle Morgan’s legs, putting one hand to either side of her head on the headboard. She dropped a playful kiss on Morgan’s mouth, and Morgan wrapped her arms around Shaine’s neck, parting Shaine’s lips with her tongue and turning playful into passionate. Shaine sighed into the kiss.
Morgan pulled Shaine’s body down over her own, capturing her mouth hungrily. Shaine returned the kiss, reveling in the taste of Morgan’s mouth and the slick feel of their tongues dueling. Blood pounded through her veins and pulsed between her legs. Good thing they weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere.
* * *
They took two all-terrain air bikes from the machine shed and followed ground-level back roads to the fields surrounding the power plant. The roads quickly deteriorated into narrow overgrown tracks. Kids on dirt bikes or all-terrain v
ehicles were probably the only people coming out here.
They tucked the bikes into a stand of tall grass, covering them with brush, and hiked toward the spot where Shaine thought they’d have the best chance of seeing what was going on.
For once, Shaine was glad of the old combat fatigues she’d left in her closet at home. She had enough for her and, with some rolling of sleeves and pant legs, for Morgan, too. Dressed in camouflage head to toe, including hats, they crossed the fields relatively hidden from plain sight. The fields that Shaine remembered being just open grassy areas had grown up into the beginnings of forestland. Thick copses of brush and clusters of young maples, poplars and quick-growing ash scattered throughout the fields. They didn’t provide any real cover, but it did break up the landscape.
Shaine led the way to a slight rise about two hundred meters from the nuclear plant’s front gates. They bedded down in the tall grass, creating a small blind. Shaine set up the tiny three-sixty degree vid camera at the top of a finger-thin telescoping stake. The video feed played back to both Morgan’s comp pad and her own. She removed her high-powered laser sniper rifle from its case, snapped on the scope and slapped in a power cartridge. She checked the safety and set it between them.
She broke out her compact laser machine gun. Probably serious overkill, but it was identical to her old workhorse from Earth Guard. Not long after she’d been discharged from service, she’d gotten the gun through a friend of a friend who knew a dealer. After all those years in the military, there was no way she was going into civilian life unarmed. She shook her head. Damn, she’d been paranoid back then. Smiling, she checked the power pack and the safety and set the machine gun beside her as well.
Her comp pad lay on the ground at her knees. Shaine glanced down at the video feed. The protesters were starting to gather in front of the still-locked gates, circling with their signs. Some carried plain paperboard signs, others had high-tech holo signs that flashed with multiple messages and images. There was a single police hover-van immediately to the right of the gates. The two officers remained in the vehicle.