by Nate Johnson
He let out a long breath, he had been so worried. More than he had realized.
At last, remembering Kaylee, he smiled weakly and said, “Excuse me, Your Honor, this is a friend of mine, Kaylee Williams. Kaylee, this is Judge Carol Simpson.”
The two woman shook hands. The judge studied Kaylee with a curious frown. Logan’s stomach turned over. He hated when different parts of his life overlapped. Nothing good came of mixing boxes.
Sighing, he asked if he could go get his things.
The judge smiled and said, “Of course. As I said, they are where you left them.”
Logan turned to Kaylee and said, “I’ll be right back.” Before she could object, he turned and hurried up the stairs. Turned to the right and then into the first room.
There, in the back of the closet was a small leather bound suitcase up on the shelf.
Pulling it down, he laid it on the bed and held his breath as he popped the top. A thousand memories washed through him. Just as he had left it. Everything of any importance was in this case.
Removing the top layer of clothes, he held up a blue cotton shirt. He’d grown four inches and gained forty pounds of muscle since he wore it last.
Pushing aside the rest of the clothes, he found what he was looking for.
His father’s shaving mug, his mother’s jewelry box, and his brother’s toy spaceship. The only things he had saved from his home before he had to hide in the sewers to escape the roving gangs searching each house for food and playthings.
At the bottom of the case, a small pink ribbon. His friend Jenny’s. He’d gotten it from her stuff after he had learned she was dead.
These four items were the most important things in the world to him. When he’d gone into the Navy, he had to leave them behind. It had almost been enough to make him want to stay.
Now was the time to retrieve them, he realized. He was far enough away from the memories so that he could touch them, handle them, without becoming lost.
Sighing, he sat down on the edge of the bed and let the memories wash over him.
.o0o.
Kaylee watched Logan run up the stairs. Turning, she examined the woman next to her.
“You were the judge that sent Logan into the Navy,” she said.
The woman nodded with a slow dip of her head. “Yes.”
Kaylee smiled, “Thank you, I think it saved him.”
The woman’s shoulders relaxed as she examined Kaylee closely then smiled. “Would you like something to drink? tea perhaps. Corona is known for its teas.”
Kaylee watched the woman place three mugs into the kitchen machine and then select a button.
“What was he like then?” Kaylee asked. She knew she shouldn’t really be discussing Logan with this woman. It was the kind of thing that would upset him. But her curiosity was eating away at her. She needed to know more.
The woman smiled sadly. “Wild,” she said. “They all were.”
Kaylee kept quiet, silently urging the woman to continue.
“I was one of the first in after the quarantine was lifted,” she said. “We didn’t know what to expect.”
The sad eyes let Kaylee know just how bad it was. “The experts estimated,” the older woman continued, “that at the time of the plague, thirty-eight thousand people survived. All between the ages of ten and eighteen.”
“Yes, Logan told me,” Kaylee said.
“Did he tell you, that when we came in two years later. Only six thousand were still alive. Out of a population of two hundred and eighty-one thousand. From before the plague. Only six thousand remained.”
Kaylee’s jaw dropped open as she brought a hand to cover her mouth. She hadn’t known.
“I was placed on the judiciary. It had been what I was trained for. But nothing like this. Everything was gone, any semblance of civilization, courts, hospitals, civic government. Nothing remained. We had to rebuild everything from scratch.”
The woman looked off into the distance as she remembered. “Logan was one of the first brought before my court. He refused to go to school, constantly breaking the rules. He’d broken into the food stores and taken supplies. What was crazy was that we were giving the food away. He didn’t need to steal. But I really don’t think he trusted us.”
“I’m surprised he has done so well in the Navy,” Kaylee said. “I would have thought the rigid rules, authorities. That it would have been too confining.”
The woman shrugged her shoulders. “A small ship, a tight crew, in the middle of nowhere. It was exactly what he needed.”
Kaylee stared in shock. “You arranged that?”
The older woman smiled and dipped her head in acknowledgment.
“There was something about him,” she continued. “A wild, yet very intelligent young boy. It was such a waste. All of them. The lost generation of Corona, we called them.”
Kaylee swallowed hard as she imagined Logan then.
“But, like I said, there was something about Logan. Something worth saving. He had helped a lot of the younger children during the quarantine. He hadn’t preyed on them like the gangs did. Instead, he shared his food, protected them. Of course, he was big for his age, I think that helped. He’d gotten a reputation. I don’t know how I never asked. But they called him ‘The wild boy of Tenth Street.' The gangs left him alone. They had enough other victims to prey on.”
Kaylee nodded as she forced herself not to cry. No wonder he wanted to be a farmer. Always in control of his own food supply.
“Anyway,” the judge continued. “By the time he was seventeen, I really didn’t have a choice, I could see where he was headed. I thought the Navy was the only thing that could save him.”
The heavy clomp of Logan coming back down the stairs made both women glance towards the doorway.
“Talking about me?” Logan said as he stepped into the kitchen with a small suitcase in his hand.
Kaylee held her breath until he gave her a quick smile, letting her know that he wasn’t upset.
“Just gossiping,” the judge said as she set a mug of steaming tea in front of both Kaylee and Logan.
Logan laughed as he blew on his drink.
The judge studied him for a long moment then said, “So, are you going to tell me what is going on?”
Logan raised an eyebrow. Kaylee saw that innocent, ‘who me look’ and almost laughed out loud.
“Don’t pretend with me. You never were a good liar,” the judge said. “You show up here, out of the blue. In civilian clothes. I know for a fact that there are no Navy ships in the area. You are in the company of an Imperial Ambassador’s daughter. What is going on?”
Kaylee gasped and almost dropped her mug.
The judge smiled slightly at her. “You don’t remember me, do you? We met, you were about twelve. I had traveled to Azortha to make a report to your father.”
Kaylee’s brow narrowed as she concentrated, fighting to bring up a vague memory from long ago. There was something. She had been visiting her father in his office. He had seemed disturbed, his mind off on some other problem. Something other than her. Several people had been shown into the office. Kaylee had been introduced to them, as she normally was. This woman had been one of them.
“Yes,” she said, “I think I remember,”
The judge smiled.
“What kind of report?” Logan asked innocently as he studied his drink.
The judge slowly shook her head. “We were there to convince him to lift the quarantine. We wanted to show him that everything was in place.
Kaylee froze.
“What?” Logan demanded as he glanced over at Kaylee and then back at the judge. “What did you say,” he asked again, his voice lowering an octave as he slowly enunciated each word.
The judge looked back and forth between the two of them, her brow narrowing in confusion. “I thought you knew. In fact, I thought that might be why you two were here on Corona.”
“My father was involved with the quarantine?” Kaylee asked
.
The judge hesitated for a moment then said, “He wasn’t just involved. As the closest Imperial Ambassador, he was the one who was in charge of all aspects of the quarantine.”
Kaylee felt her world fall away. Her father? Logan? The pain, the suffering. And her father had been the person responsible.
She hesitantly looked over at Logan. The look of pure hate in his eyes broke her heart.
Chapter Fifteen
Logan stared at the blank screen, lost in thought. For two days he’d done nothing but wallow in anger. He’d fixed the primary gravity generator, then abandoned his to-do list and sank into a deep depression.
She should have told him. He’d bared himself to her, and she hadn’t said a word about her father.
Sure, she said she didn’t know. But how was that possible?
Touching the screen, he brought up the readings. They would be entering Valerian space within the next few minutes. He needed to make sure things would work.
Deliver her to Taurus, he thought. That was his orders. Then he could walk away. Of course, there was every chance he would be spending the next half of his life in jail. Either way, he wouldn’t have to deal with her.
Sighing, he bit down on the anger bubbling inside of him and concentrated on the readouts.
Everything appeared normal. But with this ship, you just never knew. He ran a quick diagnostics on both the life support and the weapons system. Again, things looked good.
“Logan, we need to talk,” Kaylee said from behind him as she entered the bridge.
He ignored her and tried to focus on the numbers on his screen.
“Logan, I mean it,” She said again with an exasperated tone.
He swung his chair around to face her. Fine, if she wanted to have this out. Let them do it now.
“What?” he barked. “I’m sort of busy now.”
She sighed heavily. “Logan, I’m sorry,” she said. “I promise you. I didn’t know about my father. And even if I had. Those were his decisions. Not mine. I don’t know if what he did was the right or the wrong thing. But ...”
“Right or wrong?” Logan said. “We weren’t sick, remember. We weren’t contagious. They died because of him.”
“I’m sure he didn’t know that. You have to believe me. You don’t know him. He would never have ordered the quarantine if he had known the truth.”
Logan shook his head. She didn’t understand. No one who hadn’t been there could ever understand.
For two days, they had been having this argument. She defended her father. He refused to forgive. There was no way to resolve it.
“Don’t worry, Princess. I’ll get you to Taurus safe. Unlike some, I know the difference between right and wrong.”
Her eyes sparked with pain at his words. It was as if he had physically struck her. The shock and hurt on her face was intense.
Logan’s insides tightened up. He had obviously gone too far. It wasn’t her fault, he reminded himself. She wasn’t the one who had issued the orders that resulted in the death of his friends.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Even to him, his words sounded weak and ineffectual. “We are getting ready to enter Valerian space. I need to concentrate on this for a bit.”
Her shoulders slumped as she nodded and started to turn away. Then she turned back to him.
“You know Logan,” she said with a tender tone to her voice. “Not all problems can be fixed. Not everything can be made perfect again. Sometimes, we just need to accept people and their pasts the way they are. Especially if we care about the person.”
Logan bit down to stop himself from a nasty response. The pain in her eyes pulled at his heart. Oh, how he hated seeing that hurt. Knowing that he had caused it only made it worse.
Shaking his head, he turned back to his screen and tried to focus on the ship. But his mind drifted to decisions he had made. Action during the quarantine.
He thought of Jenny, how he had failed her. If he had gone after her, perhaps she would have lived. But he’d decided to help Little James in his scavenging to the south. The boy had to learn. Jenny had gone north and been trapped.
The guilt that ate at his stomach pushed and pulled him in a dozen different directions.
It had been the right decision at the time. He hadn’t known that Jenny would be trapped. No one could predict the future. He had acted on the information he had in front of him.
Like he did with all problems.
Had her father acted the same way? Made his decisions based on the information in front of him. How could he, Logan Miller, second guess an Imperial Ambassador for doing the same?
Shaking the thought out of his head, he watched the ship pass the beacon and line itself up with the wormhole.
He tightened the muscles in his gut and held his breath. The blank, empty space seem to swallow the ship as the star field on the screen changed.
They were through.
In the distance, the small blue planet hung in the blackness of space.
The ship’s impulse engines fired as the AI realigned the ship with the next jumping off spot. One more out of the way. Only five more to go.
Letting out a breath, he jumped out of his chair and headed back to Kaylee’s cabin.
Her door was open, she was sitting on her bed, reading her tablet, her back up against the bulkhead. She glanced up at him, her soft blue eyes locking him in place for a moment.
He cared about this woman he realized. It was more than simply seeing her safely delivered to Taurus. It was more than her personal safety. He was worried about her happiness.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She grimaced and nodded.
Taking a deep breath, he said, “You are right. I wasn’t there, I don’t know all the facts. But you have to understand. I can’t forgive, it would be as if I betrayed them. The ones that died.”
A small tear formed at the corner of her eye.
“I do understand,” she said. “Really, I do. And, you are right, neither of us were there to know why decisions were made. But Logan, you have to understand. You will never find happiness until you can come to some kind of acceptance.”
Logan nodded slowly. “There is one thing I know,” he said. “I know you aren’t at fault. And I’m sure you didn’t know about your father. I’m sorry for accusing you.”
The tear spilled over the edge of her eye and slowly rolled down her cheek.
Sighing heavily, she stood up and walked towards him slowly. The look of mixed emotions flashing across her face shook him to his very core.
“Thank you,” she said as she reached out and pulled herself into a deep hug. “That means a lot to me.”
Logan’s arms naturally wrapped themselves around her. It was as if they had a mind of their own. They pulled her in tight as he leaned down and took in her soft scent. His eyes closed and he allowed himself to become lost in her.
For a moment, everything else fell away, the race across the galaxy. Being abandoned by the Blackthorn, the loss of his funds. Even the memories of Corona. Everything fell away, and it was just the two of them.
Something inside of him shifted. Some primeval emotion rose up and took control. His hand slowly drifted to her lower back as he lowered his head and kissed her long luscious neck.
Kaylee moaned and pulled herself in tighter, burying her head in his chest as if she wanted to crawl inside of him.
“Oh, Logan,” she whispered.
Her voice pushed him over the edge, and he knew this was going to go lead to the nirvana he had dreamed about.
The speaker on the wall crackled, pulling him back to reality.
The A6127 said, “There is a contact on a steady bearing and decreasing range.”
“Damn,” Logan muttered as he pushed himself away from her.
“What?” Kaylee asked as she looked up at him, her eyes glazed and confused. Obviously upset at the loss of his closeness.
“It means if nothing changes. Eventually, two ships will be occu
pying the same point in space.”
Her eyes didn’t leave his as she tried to process what he said.
“It means, I have to go. To the bridge,” he added.
She swallowed hard, and he swore he saw the disappointment in her eyes was enough to match the feeling of loss inside his gut.
At last, she nodded. But her hands remained locked behind his back as if she was refusing to let him go.
He smiled down at her then lowered his lips to meet hers. The kiss was tender and filled with potential. She melted into him. Sinking into his embrace one more time.
But they both knew it couldn’t last.
“Still, no change in bearing.” The AI said for the bulkhead speaker. Logan swore to himself that the damn computer was jealous and purposely ruining his life.
“I’ve got to go,” Logan said as he gently broke from her hug.
Kaylee’s eyes remained closed as she nodded her understanding. He looked down and smiled. The woman was locking in the memory of their kiss. The thought made his chest swell with pride and a sense of power.
Nothing would ever hurt this woman, he swore to himself, nothing.
Turning, he reluctantly left her and hurried to the bridge.
“Show me the details,” he said to the AI as he settled into the command chair.
The computer brought up the two tracks. Logan traced them out and saw the two tracks converging within about an hour. Damn, things hadn’t been as critical as he thought. They had plenty of time to adjust.
He tracked the other vessel’s path backwards and frowned. The ship had been sitting in empty space. Not on any normal course to or from anything of importance. It didn’t make sense.
As he examined the screen, his stomach began to tighten.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath.
“What is it?” Kaylee asked as she stepped onto the bridge. She’d put her hair up in a ponytail, he noticed. As if she were preparing for action. A smart move, he realized, as it looked like they were going to get it.
She stepped up next to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. The smile she shot him, was different than normal. It was as if she had saved it just for him. His chest tightened, and his mind whirled.