Starbound (Shadows of the Void Space Opera Serial Book 0)

by J. J. Green

Sergei listened gravely as Jas’ story poured out. She didn’t know why she was telling him her about life, except that it felt right. He didn’t comment much, seemingly sensing her need to just get it all out, and she was grateful for that. As her story wound down and finished at the time she left for college, he put his hand on her shoulder. He was looking at her so intently, she wondered if he was about to kiss her.

  To break the tension, she asked, “How about you? How did you end up here?”

  Sergei put down his glass. “Well, I can’t compete with you in the interesting childhood stakes.”

  As he went to speak, Aaron folded his arms and leaned on the opposite side of the table, causing it to rock. Their glasses fell over, and beer splashed everywhere.

  “Krat,” Sergei exclaimed.

  A woman standing with her back to them turned round as beer splashed down her legs. “What the hell?” she said. She was with a man, and they were both locals, judging from their weather-beaten looks and oddly cut hair. The man peered over to see what had happened. A sly look passed between him and the woman.

  “Hey, you’re gonna pay to get her pants cleaned,” he growled.

  “What?” Terry said. “It’s only beer. It’ll wash out.”

  “You think I wash my clothes myself?” the woman asked. “Who the hell does that these days? I pay for all my cleaning, and these are genuine imitation sealskin. They cost me a fortune.”

  “Look, man,” said Aaron, “I’m sorry, but we’re students. We’re not rolling in creds.” Aaron’s words only caused the man and woman to scowl more deeply. “I didn’t mean to mess up your pants. How about if I wipe them down with something wet? That should get most of it off. It isn’t like this beer’s strong.”

  The man and woman were clearly taking advantage and trying to scam Aaron out of some money. But it was going to be hard to avoid giving them something. The man grabbed the front of Aaron’s coat.

  “Get his credchip, Marl. I got a reader here somewhere.” She felt inside large pockets in her jacket.

  Sergei gripped Marl’s arm. “Let go of my friend.”

  “Hey,” Jas said, raising her hands. “It’s okay. I’ll pay. Look, here’s my chip.” She held out her wrist.

  Around them, the chatter in the bar quietened. The bar’s patrons had noticed the dispute and were watching. The bartender was on an interface talking to someone.

  “No, Jas. Don’t pay them a cred,” Sergei said. “It’s only a little beer. They’re out of line.”

  Aaron looked down disbelievingly at the hand grasping his coat.

  Marl shifted his gaze from Aaron’s face to Sergei’s hand on his arm. Jas knew what was about to happen, even if Sergei was oblivious. He had less than a second. She could either say something to try to cool the situation, or stop Marl from punching him. She didn’t have time for both. She made her decision.

  As Marl released his grip on Aaron, she picked up one of the fallen beer glasses. As he drew back his fist, she got ready to throw. Marl’s punch was about to land on Sergei’s surprised face when the glass hit Marl on his forehead. It didn’t stop the blow from falling, but it lessened its impact.

  Sergei fell back, and Marl’s attention was diverted to a new enemy—Jas. His lip lifted in a snarl. But the students had worse problems. At that bar for locals, when it came to a dispute, there could be no doubt about whose side the patrons would take. They began to murmur angrily. Terry had realized the danger of their situation too. “Let’s go,” he shouted, and began pulling Aaron toward the door.

  A punch landed on the back of Jas’ head, and the table loomed up as she fell forward. She caught herself before she hit it and turned dizzily to face her attacker, but all she could see was Sergei’s back as he jumped on her assailant.

  It was a fight they could never win, and if they didn’t get out soon, they might never get out. Jas grabbed Sergei and pulled him off the man who had punched her. Blows and kicks began to rain down on both of them. Aaron and Terry seemed to have made some progress toward the door, and holding Sergei back as best she could, Jas edged over in their direction.

  A particularly hard kick landed on her right shin, and she cried out. Sergei had calmed down a little, but he became inflamed again and struck out at a local. “Stop it,” Jas yelled. “We’ve got to get out.”

  Somehow, they all managed to make it to the door and out into the street. As soon as they were outside, they ran. Jas and Sergei went one way, Aaron and Terry another. A few streets away, Jas and Sergei drew to a halt. The locals had given up their pursuit.

  Sergei began to laugh. Jas couldn’t understand why.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked. “We could have been killed back there. We were lucky to get away.”

  He controlled his guffaws. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It was kind of fun, though, wasn’t it? How’s your head?”

  Jas recalled the punch and put her hand to the back of her scalp. A painful lump was forming. “I’m okay. How’s your eye?”

  Sergei touched his face where Marl had punched him. “I don’t know. Can you take a look?”

  Jas went over and brought her face close to his to assess the damage in the dim streetlight. It was only when she was centimeters from him that she realized his ploy. He was gazing into her eyes. It was her turn to chuckle, a little nervously. She drew back. A silence stretched out, thin and tight as a drum skin.

  Tension knotted Jas’ stomach. “It’s weird, isn’t it? This...feeling we have.” Had she just made a fool of herself? She’d thought he was experiencing the same strange attraction as she was. What if he wasn’t? Had she misinterpreted the looks that had passed between them? Was she just another girl to him?

  “It is weird,” Sergei said. “When I saw you at Tamara’s party, it was like...” He paused. “It was like I’d known you all my life, only I hadn’t met you, until then.” His eyes were black in the darkness.

  Jas nodded. Neither said anything. They had stopped in a short alleyway, where the illumination from the street lights barely reached. The winter cold was biting Jas’ face. She wondered what would happen next.

  Was this how it was for other people? From what she’d seen of romantic relationships, she didn’t think so. On the other hand, friends had told her about meeting the one. Was there something she was supposed to say? Was there anything to say? As with many things, there seemed to be rules to the situation that she didn’t understand.

  Sergei touched her upper arm and stepped closer.

  Jas said, “Is this the part where we—”

  He kissed her.

  Chapter Eight

  The buzz about the bar fight between students and locals—which apparently had been started by a female student throwing a beer glass—died down after a while. The bar didn’t have cameras trained on its patrons, so no one could prove who had been the instigator, though verbal descriptions pointed fingers strongly at the only Martian on campus.

  Jas’ combat training instructor didn’t need anything like firm evidence to support his opinion on the subject. His prejudice against her increased to the extent that he virtually ignored her in class and routinely 'forgot’ to include her in sparring sessions. This was doubly annoying to her: combat skills would be essential in her job, and hand-to-hand fighting was about the only thing that she naturally learned quickly. Everything else she had to work for.

  Meanwhile, all the other students except for Tamara had started to keep their distance. People she thought had been her friends began to pretend they didn’t see her in the corridors between classes. If Tamara and Sergei were busy, she ate lunch alone in the cafeteria. She seemed to have gained the reputation of being aggressive from the combat class too, which didn’t help.

  Jas didn’t know what to do about it, or even if she should do something. Maybe she didn’t need friends who believed in gossip rather than finding out the truth from her. Tamara told her that she put straight anyone who talked about Jas within her earshot, but everyone knew they were frien
ds and probably concluded that Tamara’s judgment was clouded. Jas didn’t think there was any point in defending herself. Anything she said would seem like an excuse or justification.

  Her growing relationship with Sergei was the saving grace of the whole situation. As far as she could without slipping too far behind with her work, she spent every spare moment with him. After a couple of blissful weeks of having her room to themselves, another late transfer arrived and was allocated the empty place.

  Sergei also shared, so they couldn’t be alone in his room without inconveniencing his roomie. He solved the problem by persuading Aaron to help him build something vaguely resembling an igloo a little way out of town. It was a chilly setting for love trysts, and they couldn’t run a heater too long without the walls melting and ice-water pooling on the floor, but Jas didn’t care. Wherever they were, being with him was enough, and he seemed to feel the same about her.

  Yet Jas wasn’t so blindly in love that she couldn’t see they were very different. Sergei didn’t work as hard or pay as much attention to his studies as she did. He wasn’t the stereotypical 'bad boy’, but he didn’t care about his grades, or even if he would make it to graduation. He often missed class because he was working on something in his room. In fact, one of advantage of the igloo was that wires, transistors, silicon ships and other paraphernalia weren’t strewn around the place. In the igloo, Jas didn’t suddenly become aware that a part from a motherboard was sticking in her back.

  Sergei avoided Jas’ hints at questions about why he’d transferred from his previous college, but she had a strong suspicion it had something to do with flunking out. She didn’t press him for an answer. She didn’t really care. He was a good, kind person, and he didn’t have any addictions or vices, unless he hid them very well.

  The only thing that niggled her was the fact that, if they both continued along their current paths, it would be hard for them to be together. She was studying to work in security on a starship, he was studying to...well, Sergei had no particular ambition, if the truth was told, but whatever it was that he did, it would never be aboard a starship with Jas. He had a deep dislike of the idea of traveling in space. Airplanes, he could handle, he’d said. Maybe even shuttles, though given the choice he’d rather not travel by them, but he seemed to have an actual phobia of deep space travel. The idea of disappearing from the physical universe, even for the few seconds that most starjumps took, sent chills down his spine.

  It wouldn’t be fair for Jas to expect Sergei to wait the months or years a mission took, only to see her for a few weeks before she left again. As Jas could find no solution to this problem, she pushed it to the back of her mind and concentrated on enjoying the time that they had together. Decisions about their long-term future could wait. Maybe she would be content with an Earth-based job.

  ***

  Jas was a little late for her zero-g combat training class, and when she arrived, she was surprised to find no one had changed into their swimwear. Though starship gravity drives could create gravitational forces, no one had invented a machine that could turn gravity off. The usual training for zero-g fighting consisted of underwater training. The students used rebreathers and practiced by using the swimming pool walls and each other as solid surfaces from which to propel themselves. No actual swimming was allowed as in space or a gaseous atmosphere that wouldn’t work.

  The instructor—a man called Elba—had explained that water wasn’t much of a substitute for no gravity, but it was the best they could do for regular training sessions.

  Jas bypassed the changing rooms and went to the only remaining seats, which were at the top of the tiered benches that bordered the swimming pool. As she sat down, she realized the instructor was going over their scheduled real zero-g training exercise in space. Her shoulders sagged. The training trip was taking place over the next weekend, and all she knew about it was that it cost a lot—far more than she could afford. She hoped it didn’t count as a large percentage of their final grade.

  “And I have a little surprise for you all,” said the instructor. “Normally, this class would visit an orbiting space station for this training weekend. We’d be training in micro-gravity rather than zero-g, in fact. But I have a friend who runs an interplanetary import/export company, and it just so happens that this weekend she has a special consignment she has to take to Mars.”

  Elba paused for effect, scanning the students’ faces. “She’s agreed to let us all travel on her ship at a discounted price that matches the usual fee. We’ll complete a starjump and train in real zero-g for a whole day.”

  The students hollered and clapped, except for Jas. A trip to Mars would have been nice. The thought of returning for a visit there crossed her mind fairly often. Still, she thought, she would have a whole weekend with Sergei.

  Elba went over the details of the trip and what the students had to bring with them. Then he took questions. He spent the remainder of the class explaining the combat techniques they would be practicing, and what differences the students could expect when sparring in zero-g.

  Class finished a little early. Jas put her bag over her shoulder, ready to leave. She had to wait for most of the students to file out before she could make her way down the stairs between the benches. As she went past Elba, he stopped her. “Could I speak to you for a moment, Ms. Harrington?”

  He waited until the last student had departed, then said, “Can I ask, is something wrong? You looked a little down in class today. Aren’t you excited about our trip?”

  “It does sound exciting, and I hope you all have a great time, but I can’t come.”

  “Is there a problem? Do you have something planned for the weekend? If so, I’m afraid it’ll have to wait. The real-life zero-g training isn’t optional. It counts toward your final assessment.”

  “Yeah, I thought it might.” Jas sighed. “You see, I’m a scholarship student. I don’t have the creds to—”

  “Is that all? Then there’s no problem. Jas, you need to read your entitlements document properly. Any mandatory class materials, equipment, and other expenses—including class trips—are covered by your scholarship. It would be a little silly if they weren’t, wouldn’t it? What’s the point of awarding a scholarship if the student can’t complete a whole class and graduate?”

  “It’s all paid for?”

  “Everything’s covered. Everything. You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “You mean, I get a trip to Mars for free?”

  The man’s face fell a little. “I’m sorry, but we won’t be landing on Mars. There isn’t time, and if there were, Mars has far too many visitation controls. We wouldn’t be able to arrange visas and health checks. But you will get to experience a starjump and real zero-g. That’s something, isn’t it?”

  A tiny flicker of hope that had flared up in Jas sputtered out. She’d gone from expecting to miss out on a trip, to anticipating a visit to her birth planet, and then to the lesser delight of a space trip, within less than a minute.

  “Yeah, it is something,” she said.

  Chapter Nine

  Jas was with Sergei. They were on the sofa in her dorm living room, and Tamara was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Jas was leaning on her boyfriend, resting her head on his shoulder and stretching an arm around his waist. He was wearing a thick sweater that felt soft and comfortable against her face. His arm was draped over her shoulders.

  Sergei was telling her about something broken that he’d been trying to repair. Jas had forgotten what it was he was talking about. She was content to listen to the sound of his voice and feel the slight vibration of his throat and chest as he spoke.

  She’d spent the afternoon doing her fitness training, first on the all-weather track and then on the machines in the fitness center. Her muscles ached pleasantly. She wondered if Sergei would give her a massage later. Slowly, her eyes began to close.

  A kiss on the top of her head woke her up.

  “Am I that boring to listen to?” Serge
i asked. “You were snoring.”

  Jas sat up. “Sorry. But you fixed it, right?”

  “Yeah, I fixed it.” He smiled and held out his arm, inviting her to snuggle up again.

  Jas returned to her position, but immediately sat up again. “Hey,” she said. “I just remembered. We had weapons today. You skipped class.”

  “Yeah, I had to—”

  “Again.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “You’re going to fail if you don’t attend. You’ll get kicked out of school. Then how will we be together?”

  “Don’t worry,” Sergei replied, pulling her in for a kiss. “I’ll get a job as a custodian.”

  There was a cough. Tamara had appeared from the kitchen carrying two plates. She put them down as Jas and Sergei drew apart. She’d made avocado-boat starters. Jas wondered where she’d found avocados in Antarctica.

  Tamara sat down in an armchair across from the sofa. She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands as she gazed at the couple. “You two are so cute.” She sighed. “Come on. Eat up. The main course is almost ready.” She returned to the kitchen.

  Jas passed Sergei a plate. “I’m leaving early tomorrow for the spaceport.”

  “Huh? Oh, I forgot. Your Mars trip. That’s tomorrow, is it? How long will you be gone for?”

  “Only two days.”

  “Two days to Mars and back. How long did the first mission take? Two years?”

  “Something like that.” Jas wondered how long it had taken to get to Mars when her parents emigrated there. Had they been among the original settlers, or had they been part of the global warming rush? She’d been born on Valles Mariniers Five, scene of the worst colony disaster in the history of humankind’s expansion into space. A massive explosion—possibly originating in the oxygen storage tanks—had devastated the base. Only those at the periphery had survived the initial blast, and then only for the few seconds it took the fireball to reach them.

  Jas had never researched the disaster. A care worker at the children’s home on Mars had once offered to show her the records of the couples of fertile age who had died, but she hadn’t wanted to speculate about which of the twenty or so might have been her parents. She’d never been able to see the point.