Esther didn’t look happy with that logic. Images flickered across her eyes as she looked something up on her ARCs. “The heavens will disappear with a great noise and the elements will melt in the heat—you’re suggesting that verses like that mean belief in a creator must go hand-in-hand with the belief that we’re alone in the universe.”
“I guess I am,” Alexander said.
“The mind of the Architect is unknowable. His ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. Maybe the predicted end of the heavens is a more local event. With so many translations between us and the original scrolls, it’s hard to say exactly what the original meaning was.”
Alexander inclined his head. “Touche, the ambiguous veil of faith wins.”
Catalina shot him a dire look. “I’m sorry, Esther, I’m afraid my husband has forgotten the cardinal rule of polite dinner conversation—never discuss religion or politics.”
Esther nodded her agreement, and the two women traded awkward smiles across the table.
“Speaking of politics, any idea how we’re going to choose electoral candidates for section councilors?” Alexander asked.
Catalina looked aghast, but Esther burst out laughing. Her laughter was contagious, and soon the rest of them were laughing along with her.
“Nice save, Mr. Lion,” Benjamin whispered.
Alexander winked back at him. “Me-ow.”
Chapter 4
Catalina woke up. Her skin felt warm, and she felt the bed shaking as if from an earthquake. For a moment she feared that was exactly what it was, but then she remembered she was aboard the Liberty—there aren’t earthquakes in space, she chided herself. No, she was shaking, not the bed. The vibrations and warmth disappeared, and she lay there blinking up at the ceiling, wondering what had just happened.
Strange.
She was about to roll over and go back to sleep when she saw the shadow standing at the foot of her bed. She stared at it, frozen with horror. Big head, bulbous, slanting black eyes, small mouth and nose... it was exactly the way Esther had described it.
Catalina tried to scream, to turn to her husband and warn him... but she couldn’t. She was paralyzed. Her heart pounded in her chest, and a cold sweat broke out over her entire body. The alien said something to her.
“Nek wa-ra.” That stuttering, warbling sound was like nothing she’d heard in her life. Utterly alien.
Again she tried to scream, but she couldn’t even whisper.
The alien smiled at her, revealing a row of pointy white teeth.
Catalina blinked—
And it was gone.
Finding she could move again, Catalina sat up and screamed: “Alex!”
He sat up beside her, arms and legs thrashing, eyes wide and darting around the room. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to look everywhere at once.
“I... there was something in the room with us. An alien. It was right there!” She pointed to the foot of the bed. “And then it was gone.”
Alexander rubbed his eyes. “It was just a dream.”
“It didn’t feel like a dream. I was awake. And I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move! I think... I think it did something to me.”
“A night terror then—a hallucination.”
“What if it wasn’t? What if Benjamin’s right? What if Proxima really is inhabited?”
Alexander smiled. “You know, usually it’s adults who give children nightmares, not the other way around.”
“Ha ha. I’m serious, Alex.”
“So am I,” he replied. Holograms flickered across his eyes as he checked something on his ARCs. “It’s o-six hundred hours already. Breakfast’s at eight. We may as well get up and get ready. Big day today. The itinerary says we’re supposed to pick our careers.”
Catalina let out a long sigh and swung her feet over the side of the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. Wait—they do have showers in space, right? Not some kind of high-tech, unsatisfying steam bath?”
“Yes, there are showers, but the water is all recycled.”
Catalina made a face. “Recycled... so what goes in someone else’s toilet...”
Alexander nodded.
“Yuck.”
He laughed. “You’ll get used to it.”
“I’m not so sure about that...” she replied, grimacing as she stood up. The sheets fell away from her, and she caught Alexander staring. She’d slept naked last night. They hadn’t brought any clothes with them, and she wasn’t used to sleeping in a jumpsuit.
“Mind if I join you in the shower?” Alexander asked.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“How big is it?”
“We’ve known each other for more than a century, and you don’t know how big it is?”
“I meant—”
He flashed a sudden grin. “I know. It’s big enough.”
“Well, in that case...” Catalina sent a salacious look over her shoulder as she headed for the shower. “Come and get it.”
* * *
Commander Audrey Johnson walked up to the ring, watching as Councilor Mikail Markov snuck a right hook past his opponent’s guard and sent him stumbling back against the ropes with a grunt.
Markov advanced while his opponent was still recovering and landed a quick one-two punch. The man slumped against the ropes, blinking big, glassy blue eyes. “You win this round,” he said in an inflectionless monotone.
Markov sneered and delivered a vicious uppercut that clacked the other man’s jaw together noisily and sent those baby blues rolling up in his head. Losing his grip on the ropes, the man fell over on his face with a bang! Markov kicked him in the ribs for good measure.
Sensing that it was over, Commander Johnson cleared her throat and said, “That didn’t look like a fair fight, Councilor.”
“It wasn’t,” Markov agreed, nodding to her as he ducked out of the ring and retrieved a bottle of water from a nearby table.
As Audrey watched, the councilor’s opponent picked himself off the floor. Part of his face dangled from his chin, revealing a metal skeleton underneath.
“I thought androids weren’t allowed on the Liberty,” Audrey said, crossing over to the councilor.
“They’re not. That model’s not sentient. It’s just a regular bot with realistic padding,” he explained as he removed his gloves. Underneath she saw that he’d grazed his knuckles on his right hand. He unwrapped that hand and flexed his fingers a few times to make sure nothing was broken. Silvery metal gleamed where the skin was broken.
He’d lost both arms on Earth, back in 0 AB when Benevolence had emancipated all the androids. Adding insult to injury, he’d been arrested and dumped into the Mindscape for correctional purposes. Overnight, owning a brothel full of sex bots had become a crime.
Audrey took Markov’s damaged hand in both of hers and raised it to her lips, kissing the broken skin.
“We need to keep up a professional appearance,” he reminded her.
“That’s not what you said when you came to my quarters last night,” Audrey mused.
“That’s different. What we do when we’re off duty is our business. While we’re on the job, that’s another matter.”
“True, but I don’t see anyone else in here, do you?”
“No, but—”
“Then shut your mouth, you big ox.”
Markov fixed her with a shallow frown—his version of a smile.
“What are you doing here, Audrey?” he asked after she’d kissed his knuckles a few more times.
She looked up with a sigh. “You don’t like to be doted on, do you?”
Markov grabbed both her hands and raised them above her head as he shoved her roughly against the wall. He pinned her hands above her head and kissed her roughly on the lips. “No, I don’t like to be mothered,” he replied.
“And why’s that?” Audrey replied, trying to look defiant, despite the fact that he had her pinned to the wall. She wasn’t used to being dominat
ed by a man. It made her heart pound and sweat prickle on her skin, adrenaline surging for a fight.
“Because you’re not my mother,” he breathed, his lips tantalizingly close.
She smiled sweetly up at him, doing her best to look submissive.
As he leaned in for another kiss, she kneed him in the groin and swept his legs out from under him. He fell with a thud and lay blinking up at her with a pinched expression, his face turning red.
“You’re going to pay for that,” he gasped.
“Mmmm, I’m counting on it,” she replied. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the time right now.”
Markov heaved off the ground with a grimace, bouncing lightly to his feet despite his size. Point three eight Gs was a lot less gravity than he was used to back on Earth.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” he growled. “What are you—”
“Doing here? You weren’t answering your comms. You’re needed on the Academy Level.”
“I know.”
“The new arrivals are about to choose their careers, and Mr. Jennings wants your help vetting the decisions.”
Markov sighed. “I’ve still got hours to wait before they finish testing. Jennings has had it in for me ever since I stuck him with that job. Tell him I’ll be right down.”
Audrey nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll be in the CIC if you need me.”
* * *
Remo Taggart withdrew a cigar and lighter from his duffel bag. He lit the cigar and began puffing spicy, fragrant smoke into the airlock. Then he produced a bottle of rum from the bag and passed it to his partner in crime, Desiree Dempsey. The squadron called her “Deedee” for short, which coincidentally also referred to some of her finest assets.
Deedee made a face as she took the bottle from him. “Rum? What the hell, Romeo? You couldn’t find champagne? Beer?”
Remo blew out a cloud of smoke. “That’s not just any rum. It’s Zacappa. Best of the best from Earth. Try it.”
Desiree cracked open the bottle and took a swig. Her frown melted into surprise. “Not half bad.”
Remo grinned around his cigar. “Told ya.” He yanked a pillow from his bag and placed it on the ground for Deedee to sit on. He sat beside her, and she waved away a cloud of cigar smoke, leaning away from him as she did so. “You’re going to get us caught with that thing.”
His grin vanished. He removed the cigar and held it up for her to study. “This thing is a Dominican. Best cigars ever made.”
“I thought Cubans were the best cigars.”
“Then you thought wrong. Anyway, there’s no smoke detectors in the airlocks.”
“So what happens when you open it?”
“We run like hell.”
Deedee shrugged and took another swig of rum. She passed the bottle to him, and he gulped a few shots worth.
“I can’t wait to get underway,” he said. “All this waiting has me feeling like a zit-faced kid before the prom—sitting around hoping we didn’t get all dressed up for nothing.”
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
“Me?” He placed a hand on his chest and put on a roguish grin. “I was the one beating up those kids for staring at my cheerleader girlfriend.”
“Sure.”
He took another swig of rum and passed the bottle back. “Anyway, besides all that, we’re a big ass target sitting up here in plain sight of Earth.”
Deedee appeared to consider that as she took a sip. “The bots don’t have anything to gain by stopping this mission.”
“No? If they did, maybe they wouldn’t have had to send their own colony ship all the way to Wolf 1061. Proxima’s a whole lot closer.”
“They might be planning to do that, anyway,” she said.
“It’d mean war,” he said, puffing out a cloud of cigar smoke. “First one there gets to stick their flag in the mud and stake their claim.”
“So you’re suggesting they might start a war now, before we leave Sol, so that they’ll avoid having to start one later?” Deedee looked skeptical. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Remo shrugged and placed a hand on her knee, running it lightly up along her thigh.
She glanced at his hand. “What are you doing?”
He withdrew his cigar and stumped it out on the deck. “This,” he said as he leaned in and kissed her. He could feel her pulling away, but he held her close, recognizing the difference between a pretense of resistance and the real thing. He laid her gently back on the deck, pinning her under him. Then he came up for air, and stared into her turquoise eyes.
“You taste like heaven,” he said.
“That’s the rum.”
“Then why’d I reach for you instead of the bottle?”
Deedee cracked a smile. “There’s the Romeo I signed on for. I was beginning to think your reputation had been exaggerated and you just brought me here to talk.”
He grinned and leaned back down to kiss her neck while he fumbled with the seals of her jumpsuit. Her hands grabbed him below the waist and squeezed urgently. “Not nice to keep a girl waiting,” she breathed.
When they were done, Remo waltzed out of the airlock with an insouciant grin on his face, his duffel bag slung over one arm, and Deedee hanging off the other.
“You two have a good time?” someone asked, stepping out from behind a bulkhead beside the airlock doors.
They both jumped with surprise. “Sergeant Torres...” he trailed off, feeling trapped beneath her glare. “What are you doing here?”
“Patrolling. How about you?” she asked, jerking her chin to the bag in his hand.
He shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “On our way to a sparring session with the rest of the squadron.”
“What’s in the bag?”
“This?” Remo’s mind went blank. “Uh...”
“Training props,” Deedee explained. “Padding, mouth guards, gloves—we’re brushing up on hand-to-hand.”
“I see. Mind if I take a look?” Torres asked, smirking.
“Not at all, Sergeant,” Remo said. “But we are running late...”
“It’ll just take a moment,” Torres said as she reached for the duffel bag.
Deedee grabbed it from the other side. “All right, you win. There’s no sparring session. The contents of the bag are private,” she said.
Torres eyebrows hovered up, and her eyes narrowed. “You want a safe trip to Proxima?” She paused a beat, waiting for a reply, and Deedee nodded hesitantly. “Then there’s no such thing as private.”
“Come on Torres, you know me,” Remo said.
The sergeant regarded him silently, her gaze so sharp it stabbed him repeatedly. “Exactly. Hand it over.”
Remo grimaced and released the duffel bag. Torres opened it up and rifled through the contents. “A pillow... half a bottle of rum, and... what’s this?” she withdrew a wooden box and opened it to find his lighter and half-finished cigar inside. “You were smoking in the airlock?” she demanded, shaking the contraband in his face.
He gave no reply.
“I’m going to have your wings for this, Remo. Hands behind your back.”
“Come on, Torres, who’s it hurt?”
She shot him an incredulous look as she took the cuffs off her belt. “There’s oxygen tanks in the airlocks, dumb-ass. All you need is a leak and an open flame, and you could blow a hole in the side of the ship.”
“Come on, Torres, you and I both know the concentration of oxygen you’d need in the airlock for that to happen is way higher than you’d get from a leaky tank.”
Torres slapped cuffs on him and grabbed him roughly by his arm. “I forgot to mention that you have the right to remain silent. And you—” she said, turning to Deedee. “I hope you had a good time.”
Deedee thrust out her chin and said, “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Sergeant.”
She shrugged. “Maybe not, but from one woman to another—a few weeks ago he was fucking me in that airlock. Now it
’s your turn. Pretty soon it will be someone else’s. You’re just the flavor of the month, girl.”
Remo watched Deedee’s eyes flash at that, but she held her tongue.
“The only reason I’m not arresting you, too, is because I’ve been in your position, and that’s punishment enough.”
Deedee glanced at him, then back to Torres.
Remo shrugged and offered up a guilty grin. “Hell hath no fury...”
“Shut up, Romeo,” Torres said, jerking his arm as if it were a leash. “Let’s go.”
In that instant, the lights in the corridor dimmed and flashed a bloody red. A battle siren roared to life, and the intercom crackled out with, “General quarters, general quarters! All hands to battle stations! All passengers belt in at emergency stations. This is not a drill. Repeat, all hands to battle stations! This is not a drill.”
Remo jerked out of the sergeant’s grip and shot her an urgent look. “Take ‘em off, Sarge! I gotta get to my bird!”
Torres held his gaze, hesitating. “Don’t think I’m letting this go,” she said as she hurried to uncuff him.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, mentally triggering a NanoCleanse from his adrenal implant to clear the alcohol from his system. As soon as his hands were free, he and Deedee sprinted down the corridor to the nearest drop tube.
Chapter 5
“Everyone please find your loved ones and take a seat,” Councilor Markov announced from the podium in the center of the auditorium.
Catalina mentally searched for Alexander with her ARCs. A split second later, a green silhouette appeared, highlighting him through the crowd. He was on the other end of the room from her. She walked along the bleachers, pushing through the crowd to get to him.
She was anxious to learn the results of his tests. What careers had he chosen? They’d talked about it over breakfast, but he hadn’t given her anything to go on, saying that he wanted to see what his options were and then he’d decide, which was completely unfair, because she’d told him right off what she wanted to be: section councilor or corridor prefect.
Exodus: Book 3 of the New Frontiers Series (A Dark Space Tie-In) Page 4