Escape Velocity

by Jess Anastasi

  She started backing toward the doorway. “I’ll come by in the morning and make sure you get a real breakfast.”

  “Thanks, Sacha,” he murmured, though considering his tone, he might as well have said whatever, Sacha.

  She exhaled tiredly as she left his room and resumed the trek to her apartment. His despondency worried her, but pushing him wouldn’t get her anywhere. His recovery was bound to be full of ups and downs, and she couldn’t get herself into a panic every time he hit the slightest bump.

  But the notion that he might try to push her away had lodged itself into her brain and refused to budge. He obviously hadn’t wanted anything from her after coming out of that nightmare, a total reversal from last night, when he’d asked her to stay with him.

  Had he been ashamed about her seeing him in such a state, or just determined that he’d deal with his demons on his own? Or perhaps he thought to shield her from the worst of what he’d been through. She’d seen it happen with other returned POWs. They felt guilty that they weren’t the same person they’d been before and weighted under the pressure to be that person for their loved ones. Often it resulted in the person simply closing themselves off and ending up isolated.

  Whatever the case, she wouldn’t be so easily deterred, and Kai, of all people, should know that about her. It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t be the same man he’d been before he’d walked off the Knox and not returned.

  The only thing that really mattered was that he was alive, and he’d come back.

  Chapter Six

  Sacha dropped down onto one of the fancy circular couches scattered about the large, airy anteroom outside the command center. She picked up a mediapad and absently scanned through the choices of newspapers and magazines on offer from the sub-space link-up. The news all looked depressing like usual, so she tabbed on a gossip mag, filled with celebrity stories that were probably all made up.

  Officers and command staff came and went as she skimmed the contents of the rag. Every time the huge, gleaming, matte-silver double doors across the anteroom opened, she took a quick glimpse to see who was coming through. Only high-ranking military personnel got to go through those doors. Or someone with an escort of aforementioned high-ranking military staff. Most people didn’t get to see the cushy high-end bar and restaurant that the top-notch service people of the Knox got to hang out in. Or the recreation facilities that lacked for nothing. A far cry from the measly cafeteria, gym, and TV room the doctors had.

  As soon as Kai had been ranked high enough to get in to the sacred space, he’d often taken her and Elliot in to hang out with him. Most of the higher-ranking officers had been cool about it, and they’d all had some seriously fun times. She hadn’t been through those doors since the day he’d disappeared.

  The doors whooshed open again and this time when she looked up, she spotted Kai walking out toward her. His stride was still slightly uneven, and despite the fact he’d spent over twenty-four hours with the BMC on, the damage had been too great. In the end, she and Macaulay had both agreed unless he had surgery, he was going to have a small limp for the rest of his life.

  She put the mediapad back on the chrome and glass table next to the couch and then stood as he reached her. In casual jeans and a plain navy colored T-shirt, he looked good, great actually.

  The past few days of multi-jelly, plus a nutritional, and white blood cell treatment had brought him back to 100 percent health. She’d discharged him from the hospital a few hours ago and hadn’t found the chance to talk with him since she’d walked into his room late last night and found him having that nightmare. When she’d stopped by earlier that morning to see how he liked the special breakfast she’d ordered up for him, he’d seemed determined to pretend like the night before hadn’t happened.

  “What are you up to?” Kai asked, bending to sit on the couch with a slight grimace. He rubbed a hand over the knee on his right leg.

  “I just got off-shift and heard you’d gone to the meeting with Commander Emmanuel and Captain Phillip. Thought I’d come up here and wait for you to come out. Is your leg still hurting?”

  He grinned at her, though the expression had a pained edge to it. “Don’t pull that doctor crap with me, Sacha. You just said you were off-shift.”

  She crouched down and grabbed his ankle. “Still, it shouldn’t be hurting too much. I told you, we can go in and operate—”

  He wrapped a hand around her upper arm and pulled her up. “And I said it’s fine. I don’t want surgery. It’s just a dull ache. Nothing I can’t live with.”

  “In this day and age, you shouldn’t have to live with it.” She crossed her arms and sent him an annoyed look as she sat down next to him.

  “Change of subject.”

  She huffed a sigh. “Fine, how did your meeting with Emmanuel go?”

  He avoided her gaze. “Uh-uh, not going there either. Pick a different topic. I know, how about dinner? You have plans?”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder and waited until he looked at her. “Kai, come on. Tell me what happened. You are getting your post back, aren’t you?”

  He shoved a hand through his hair, jaw clenched in obvious tension. “They have no idea what to do with me. Hell, they don’t even have anywhere to stick me now that I’m out of the med-level. They offered me a bunk in the cadets dorm, but I told them I’d rather pay my own way in one of the ship’s hotels. That’s assuming I even have any money I can access. Who knows what happened to my accounts and savings?”

  Her heart clenched and she tightened her fingers on his shoulder. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re coming to stay with me.”

  He glanced at her sharply, several emotions crossing his face too fast for her to make sense of them before he blanked his features. “I don’t want to put you out—”

  “I said don’t be an idiot. I’m your oldest friend. Who else is going to help you when you need it?”

  “You’ve already done so much…”

  “As your doctor. Don’t make me slap some sense into you. Besides, I’m offering for my own convenience. This way I can monitor your recovery more easily.”

  A ghost of a grin lightened his features. “Only if you’re sure.”

  She started to reply, but Kai’s attention had shifted somewhere past her shoulder, as a perplexed look briefly crossed his face. Across the anteroom, Colonel Cameron McAllister was just stepping out of the transit-porter, along with a group of other highly ranked ground soldiers and military guards. The colonel oversaw the military post on the ground, but was technically still under the command of the Valiant Knox—for now that meant Commander Emmanuel, but of course, not that long ago, Kai had been his superior officer.

  His expression closed off. Would this reminder of his old life drag down his already flagging spirit?

  “Everything okay?” She tried to keep her tone conversational, with no concern whatsoever, but wasn’t sure she’d made the mark as Kai snatched an unreadable look at her before standing.

  “Yep. I just want to catch Cam before he goes into his meeting with Emmanuel.” He stepped away from the couch she sat on and walked over to intercept the colonel.

  McAllister looked happy to see him, and they did that manly back-slapping hug thing guys always did, before backing away from each other again. While they spent a few moments talking, she intently studied Kai’s features to see if anything about the conversation was upsetting him. However, all she could read from his expression and manner was he seemed genuinely thrilled to be reconnecting with an old friend.

  After a few moments, and some parting words about catching up, Kai moved back, allowing McAllister to continue on, his entourage following in his wake. Once they’d passed through the highly guarded doors into the command center, Kai returned to her side, a thoughtful look on his face, though it was definitely edged in uncertainty, as if he was trying to figure something out.

  “Everything okay?” She swore at herself as the words popped out of her mouth again. If she kept this up,
she was going to start sounding like a worried, nagging wife who couldn’t leave well enough alone. And she’d never been one of those women, not even when Elliot had been alive.

  “Yeah… It’s just…when you see someone and you can’t work out where you know them from?” He crossed his arms, gaze distracted inward as he obviously tried to jog his memory.

  A spurt of worry erupted through her. Had his mind been affected more than they’d realized? Kai knew Cam almost as well as he knew her. “That was Colonel Cameron—”

  He focused on her, an exasperated look crossing his face. “I’m not talking about Cam. I meant one of the military guard soldiers he had with him.”

  “Oh.” She breathed a silent sigh of relief. Talk about immediate overreaction. She had to get a handle on jumping to the worst conclusions every time Kai seemed to present with something relating to his captivity. “Well, you probably just met him once, before you were captured.”

  “Probably, although I never dealt with many ground soldiers, apart from Cam and his higher-ranking officers.” His brow creased, as if he was thinking even harder.

  “If it was important, it’ll come to you. Don’t melt your brain trying to work it out in the meantime.”

  He stared down at her, one side of his lips lifting in a half grin. “Is that your medical opinion? I didn’t realize brain melting was an actual risk of thinking too hard.”

  “Ha-ha, very funny.” She pushed to her feet and leaned over to wrap her arm around his bicep. “Come on, you said something about dinner. If you’re going to stay with me, take me out to Assez Plaque in return for lodging.”

  “That fancy French place? Did you just forget the earlier part of the conversation where I said I had no money?” He let her drag him over to the transit-porter, his reluctance obvious.

  She rolled her eyes as she let his arm go to tap at the control panel for the transit. “Fine, dinner is on me. We’ll go to Knox Steak and Grill instead.”

  He patted his stomach. “I could do with a juicy steak or two. Real steak, not the protein imitation stuff. And after that, I want to go to the movies and eat a huge tub of popcorn.”

  The transit-porter arrived and they entered, heading down to commerce level, an entire tier of the ship that doubled as a trading stop when the Valiant Knox wasn’t stationed in a war zone, and offered everything from shopping to restaurants, bars and entertainment for the Knox’s staff who lived permanently on board.

  “Looks like you’ve got the whole night planned.” A flutter started in her stomach, as if she were a fifteen-year-old again. Like a date. Except not a date. Just two old friends catching up.

  “While Emmanuel and Phillip try to work out what they’re going to do with me, I might as well attempt to enjoy myself. If I tell myself it’s a holiday, it won’t seem so depressing.”

  Without thinking, she reached down and laced their fingers together. His words were casual, but she could hear the bleak tone underneath.

  “Don’t worry about it tonight. I think relaxing and enjoying yourself is a great idea.”

  He looked down at her with an intimate smile. She had to glance away and concentrate on the transit’s display as a rush of warmth spread through her. She couldn’t consider what tomorrow would bring, she just wanted to enjoy being with him.

  …

  Kai shoveled the last handful of popcorn in his mouth and set the empty container aside. On the cinema screen at the front of the room, the two main characters of the movie embraced in an emotional scene.

  He looked down at Sacha, her head lolling against his shoulder, eyes closed, her breathing soft and even. He’d gone with her choice of a romantic comedy, not able to even stomach the thought of some hardcore action film, let alone sit through one. Except Sacha had fallen asleep not even fifteen minutes after the movie had started.

  So he’d eaten the popcorn, slurped a sweet icy beverage all on his own, and gotten lost in the on-screen couple’s comical problems standing between their relationship, instead of dwelling on where he knew that soldier from. Such a tiny detail shouldn’t have mattered so much, but for some reason his mind had snagged on the man’s face and left an unsettled sensation in the pit of his stomach. Like Sacha had said, if it was important, surely his brain would supply him with the information?

  Maybe he’d seen or met the soldier the day he’d gone down to Ilari, where his patrol had been attacked and he and Amos had gotten captured. The soldier might have been part of the patrol, one of the injured soldiers they were able to save following the vicious fight. Kai swallowed down the chilling recollections and forced his focus to the story on screen.

  When the credits rolled and people started getting up to leave as the lights brightened, he sat for a few seconds, enjoying the simplicity of the moment. Once the room had cleared, leaving him and Sacha alone, he shifted a little and ran a light touch over the side of her face.

  “Time to wake up, Doctor Dalton.”

  Her breath hitched, her eyes rapidly blinking open as she straightened. She grimaced and wiped at some drool on the corner of her mouth. Kai clamped his jaw over the urge to grin at that. She’d always been a drooler when she slept.

  “Did I miss the whole movie?” She glanced up at the screen and then around at the empty rows of seats.

  “Looks like.”

  She frowned at him. “Why didn’t you wake me up? I could have slept at home and not wasted twenty-five credits on a ticket.”

  He shrugged and pushed to his feet, forcing himself not to wince over the dull ache in his bad leg. She would just harass him about getting surgery again. Maybe one day he’d consider it. Right now, he couldn’t stomach the thought of getting knocked out for the procedure, not after enduring the CS Soldier’s game of randomly-spike-the-food.

  “I was the one who wanted to stuff myself with popcorn and forget about everything for a while. Besides, you looked like you needed it after spending all day in surgery yesterday and going home so late last night.”

  Crap, that was the closest he’d come to mentioning their little midnight interlude, when she’d found him curled up on the floor and whimpering like a baby, not to mention the whole nearly-puking thing when he’d remembered what he’d done to Amos. He’d been cold to her afterward. Part of him had worried he might hurt her feelings, but it was the only way he could have gotten her to leave before giving into the burning urge to beg her to climb in bed and stay with him again.

  And he refused to succumb, not after he’d woken up alone the morning before to find she’d left him sometime during that first night. It signaled her intentions loud and clear—she might be willing to look after him, to be the friend she’d always been, but anything else would be pushing it. Understandable, considering she’d buried her husband less than a year ago.

  Still, as her annoyed expression melted away to regard him with something too close to tenderness, the smoldering urge to kiss her intensified. What was he doing? Even if she’d happened to indicate she felt the same way about him, the last thing he wanted was to give her ideas about anything between them.

  He didn’t know where the hell he fit in life anymore, so it wasn’t like he was in a place to be starting anything. If he wanted to start something.

  All the separate factors of his life were about to collide and make one hell of a mess. He needed to get that cleaned up before he worked out where he stood with Sacha. Except, that logic didn’t stop the low burn of pure, carnal lust spreading through his veins and punching him hard in the guts every time he looked at her.

  For about the hundredth time, he told himself staying at her place would be a bad idea. But the only other option was that damn bunk in the cadets dorm. He didn’t need to lie awake at night while the infants tiptoed around him because they’d heard of badass Commander Yang and were terrified of putting a foot wrong.

  She stood and stretched before rubbing her lower back with a cringe. “Ow. Cinema seats don’t make for good sleeping.”

  She shuffled pa
st him and he fell into step behind her when she led the way out of the empty room to the lobby where other movie-goers were milling. Sacha cut her way through the crowd ahead of him, saying hello to people here and there. Most people cast him wary or amazed looks, then spoke in hushed tones to one another. No prizes for guessing the topic of their discussion. He sighed with quiet despondence. Better get used to that, soldier. He’d become the topic of the decade: The Commander Who Returned from the Dead.

  Sacha seemed too sleepy, so he didn’t try to make small talk with her as they went down into the residential levels of the ship. As they approached her door, which slid open at the remote sensor, too many memories crowded his mind. They all smashed together and congealed into one giant ball of stuff he didn’t want to think about. He’d only been gone a year and a half, yet so much had changed. Despite longing for the simplicity of how things used to be, they could only move forward from here. However, reminding himself of that didn’t lessen the moment of awkwardness at crossing the threshold into what had once been Elliot and Sacha’s home.

  He paused just inside the door as Sacha sighed, the sound relieved, and shrugged out of her light coat. She emptied her pockets onto a hall table and then kicked off her shoes. He caught sight of her toes wiggling against the carpet before she crossed to the sofa. For some stupid reason, the sight of her bare feet rammed home the intimacy of being alone in her apartment.

  Her ottoman doubled as a storage chest and she bent to lift the lid and pull some blankets out. “You’ve slept on our couch before. Or should I say, passed out drunk. Either way, it’ll probably be as uncomfortable as you remember. Sorry, Elliot and I never got around to applying for a bigger apartment with a spare room or two.”

  He walked forward and took the pile of blankets she held out to him. “Why would you need a bigger apartment?”

  A strange expression crossed her face, part guilt, part ruefulness, a good dose of regret.