“Lee,” whispered Alice in his ear. “Is it time to go?”
“Not yet Princess,” he said. “Not until morning.”
He turned in her arms to face her. She was bleary eyed with sleep and looked as though she was letting him hold her up rather than embrace her. As the two met each other’s gazes, they leaned closer to touch lips gently. Lee pulled back to look into her eyes again.
“Alice,” said Lee. “I wanted to ask you something.”
Alice’s eyes suddenly got much larger and she pulled away from him. Lee started to reach for her, but she walked away too quickly. She stopped by the door to the quarters that they had just came from and turned to look at him. She had a mixture of love and fear on her face and Lee didn’t know which one made her seem more beautiful to him.
“Lee,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. “I can’t…”
“Can’t what?” Lee asked innocently.
“You know about Alan,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “You know what I have been going through these past two years.”
“Yes,” he replied. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, Lee that I do love you,” she said, finally looking up at him. “But I can’t marry you.”
“Well that’s good,” he replied. “I was just going to ask if you wanted to transfer over to Resolute with the rest of the Demons.”
Alice was stunned. She stood perfectly still for a moment, staring at him open-mouthed. He looked back with a blank expression. She stepped forward and they met in the middle of the corridor. He smiled at her. She slapped him.
“You son of a…” she started.
“What?” Lee asked. “I talked to Aztec and the rest already. I just wanted to be sure the whole team was going to stick together!”
She threw her arms around him again, this time pressing him back against the wall that was still projecting stars. Their lips met in a long, deep kiss that made Lee feels as if it might last forever. When they parted, they were both breathless, but still holding on to each other tightly. They stayed there for a long time, leaning against the cold metal projection and looking out at the stars.
“I’ll come with you, Lee,” she whispered. “I will always be there for you.”
Lee looked at the woman he held with compassion. She had come a long way from the damaged soul that had dragged him into a passenger shuttle in the engineering bay. He realized that he had also grown during the last few weeks. He felt ready to take on the challenge of command.
“What are you thinking?” She asked. “What do you see when you look out there, Lee?”
“I see the stars, Alice,” he replied in a soft whisper. “I look for Earth and all that we have lost.”
Alice looked at the man she realized that she loved. His strong features were shadowed against the stars. His eyes stared at the dark planet and the vacuum that surrounded it with such passion. He always seemed to be searching those stars, though, for something that was always beyond his reach. She reached up and touched his face, turning it towards her.
“Is that all you see?” Alice asked.
“It used to be,” he said, looking back at her. “Now I think I see a path. Now that the fleet is together and I have Resolute under my feet, I think I might just see a way to reclaim what the galaxy took away from us.”
“How?” She asked.
“Somewhere out there, Alice is the fleet that got away,” he said, his jaw set. “I was on Zeus as it fled from Earth. She’s still out there, somewhere. I intend to find her and all the forces that the Ch’Tauk scattered.”
She pulled away to look at him full in the face. There was something there that she had not seen before. She was almost scared at the determination that she now saw in his eyes. He was truly a leader of men now and she saw how well it suited him. She also knew that he needed her more than ever if he was going to succeed.
“We will take back Earth, Alice,” he said. “And this time, I’ll make sure we keep it.”
About the Author
James R. Prosser, Jr. lives in Palm Bay, Florida with his Wife and several felinoid children. He is a full-time high school Theater and History Teacher. Resolute Command is his first novel. He is currently hard at work on the sequel: Resolute Stand.
The War for Terra 1: Resolute Command Page 24