Starshine

by G. S. Jennsen

  He responded with a winded laugh. “You say that now, but if I had then, I might still be tied up on the ship.”

  His accent had again faded, she noticed in some disappointment. “You said I wouldn’t be able to get you back in the restraints.”

  “I did, but that was before I knew you. Now, I’m not so sure.” He kissed her, long and slow, then sighed in contentment and rolled the rest of the way onto his back. “This is going to be complicated, you know.”

  She propped up on an elbow and regarded him curiously. “What is? I assumed this was merely a one-time stress reliever, or maybe a ‘thank you’ for getting you out of confinement.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched, as if uncertain of which direction to curve. A shadow passed through his eyes as they darted to her then away, darkening them to the color of the ocean depths where no light reached.

  She quickly smiled, broadly enough to get his attention. “And the look in your eyes tells me it isn’t.”

  His face scrunched up in disbelief as realization dawned. “I thought I was supposed to be the devious one.”

  “Oh, you are, you are.” She placed a soft kiss on his lips; he didn’t respond. She pulled back to meet his gaze. “Forgive me for being wary.”

  A chuckle escaped his throat, but it had a sharp, pained edge to it, reinforced by the shadow lingering in his expression. “You still don’t trust me.”

  She coaxed his eyes to meet hers. “I trust you with my life.” And she did. She kissed him more deeply, and after a pause this time he did respond.

  I just don’t know if I trust you with my heart.

  It was several relatively blissful minutes later when he sank into the bed and she settled onto her stomach beside him. “So about this ‘complicated’ part….”

  “I’m from Seneca, you’re from Earth. We’re practically Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Nah, as I remember it Romeo and Juliet gave a damn what everyone else thought. Hell, we’ve got more pressing concerns anyway. The galaxy has embroiled itself in an idiotic, pointless war, and any day now a massive alien force is going to show up and crash the party.”

  She groaned and rolled over to glare at the ceiling. “And even if we get somebody to listen, who says we’ll be able to counter them? I have a sneaking suspicion their weapons will be a tad more powerful than ours.”

  His fingers drew idle circles along her stomach, tickling the damp skin and momentarily drawing her into the rather pleasurable present…but only momentarily. “Maybe if we presented a united front—but no, instead we’re busy blowing up the ships and weapons and defenses we’ll need to fight the aliens on each other.”

  At the sobering reality they both fell quiet for a while. Finally she took a deep breath and exhaled audibly to break the silence. “So I was thinking. We should go to Pyxis. I know it’s a bit far, but it’s the closest independent world to Seneca other than Pandora, which I’d really prefer to avoid. You can leave from there and hopefully find a way for your government to end this war, since we failed so impressively here.”

  He rose up on one arm to stare at her. “Come to Seneca with me. You can explain the Metis data better than I can and help convince them of the severity of the problem. Like you said, two voices are better than one.”

  “Oh, you’re not seriously going to use that argument on me now?”

  “What? Other considerations aside, it isn’t a bad point, and we need every advantage we can get.”

  She flinched and rolled away. “I don’t…I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “It’ll be fine. I promise you won’t get arrested.”

  “Yes, because your government is a pillar of right and justice and good.”

  “Of course not. It just so happens you’re not an enemy combatant.”

  Why couldn’t he let it go for the moment? Give her a little time to come to grips with the idea? A few hours earlier she had been defending the Senecans to her mother and the Board. Now she was recoiling at the notion of visiting their damn planet, as though it was somehow a corporeal evil all its own. Which of course it wasn’t, but….

  “I said I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  He exhaled in obvious frustration. “Come on. Help me make them listen.”

  She refused to meet his gaze this time. Goddammit. “I need to take a shower.” She started to get up, but he reached out and grabbed ahold of her arm.

  “Look, I know you hold no particular love for Seneca or its government. I know you blame them for your father’s death. I get that, I do. But I also know you want—”

  Stop! Stop acting as if you can stare into my soul so easily! The detached, untethered sensation washed over her once again. She had thought perhaps she might hold onto him as an anchor, but now he was pushing and prodding and behaving as if it were all so simple…she yanked her arm out of his grasp.

  “You think a week together and a quick roll in the sack means you know me? I realize you’re cocky, but please. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  She shot him a withering glare and stalked off to the bath, lightheaded to the point of dizziness from whiplashing emotions. No, it wasn’t simple at all.

  Caleb banged his head against the bedcovers. In a rush of frustration he grabbed a pillow and threw it angrily across the room; it bounced ineffectually off the wall and tumbled gently to the floor.

  With a harsh, bitter breath he squeezed his eyes shut…then climbed off the bed and collected his clothes from the laundry port. He’d steal a skycar from one of the residents and get to the spaceport. He’d use another ID to catch a transport to Pandora or Romane.

  Two hours and he’d be gone.

  After all, his mission was complete, if a failure in the purest sense of the term. The war had everyone spinning in circles chasing their tails, but he was determined to make Division, the government, the military and whoever else mattered understand they had been fooled. They were wasting precious time and resources on the wrong target, when the true threat loomed hidden on the horizon.

  He pulled on his shoes and headed down the stairs. There were things he needed to do, and they did not involve getting entangled with an Alliance Admiral’s daughter in the middle of a war and impending alien invasion…even if the peculiar tightness in his chest proclaimed otherwise.

  He had done everything in his power to get her to trust him; done everything her way even when it went against his better instincts. That path had taken him away from where he needed to be, put Senecan citizens at greater risk and gotten him arrested and imprisoned. True, it had also gotten him outstandingly laid—only to be turned on in a fit of spiteful anger he did not deserve.

  Dammit she was infuriating! And bullheaded stubborn. Quick to flare in temper. Ridiculously private and emotionally closed-off—

  He felt his attention drawn to the wall of spacescapes once more, found himself pausing in front of the panorama.

  She had somehow managed to capture in frozen images the sense of wonder and awe one experienced in deep space. The vastness and the beauty. It was as if he was looking into space through her eyes, seeing it as she must see it…and thus glimpsing a mirror into her soul.

  —also intriguing, even captivating. Exceedingly talented, capable and independent. Fiercely determined and unafraid. Vulnerable and strong in equal measure. A damn revelation in bed. All in all, kind of remarkable.

  His gaze rose to the balcony above. Never have anything you can’t walk away from. Especially a woman.

  “Shit.”

  He grimaced and dragged a hand down his face…and went back upstairs, dropping his clothes in a trail across the floor to the door of the bath.

  She stood in the shower, eyes closed and head bowed as the water cascaded over her. Before she realized he was there, he had slipped inside.

  Her irises flared in outrage, sparking a pure bright silver. He thought there may have been a glint of tears in them…but it may have just been the falling water.

  “Wh
at are you doing?”

  “Invading your privacy. Sorry, I didn’t want you to have any more time to get angrier at me.”

  She shoved him into the glass. “How dare you! Get out—”

  He smiled, ignoring her attempts to extricate him from the shower. “Listen, you’re right—I don’t know you, not really. But I’d very much like to, if you’ll allow me.”

  She stared at him furiously, but at least she stopped trying to shove him out. Her features could be so expressive when the mask fell away. He saw anger, then suspicion, confusion, doubt and perhaps even fear in the shadows crossing her face, in the quirking of her lovely mouth. He wondered what his own eyes were showing her, and whether it was more than he wanted to reveal. Ah well, too late now.

  He recognized the softening in her expression before it manifested in the relaxing of her shoulders and dropping of her chin. It took another several seconds for her to roll her eyes in exasperation and step forward to rest her forehead on his.

  “You’re infuriating—and entirely too clever for your own good. You know this, right?”

  He chuckled lightly and reached up to run fingers through her soaking wet hair. “Back at you.”

  Her face tilted up and supple, moist lips met his. Hesitant, tender, gentle. She tasted of warm spice, like nutmeg in mulled cider. Her skin had felt amazingly smooth earlier; here, softened by the steam of the shower, it was silk beneath his hands.

  One arm coiled around her until his palm came to rest at the small of her back. Her body was quite slender; he would have called it delicate but for the long, lithe muscles gracing her frame. It reminded him of a dancer’s body, though after watching her spend three days repairing her ship he knew the work which had actually shaped it.

  Her hand in his hair tightened, the other grasped his hip and in a flash any hesitancy in her kiss vanished. Urgency was bleeding out of her and into him, and he gathered her fully into his arms as desire battled with and quickly overcame sentiment.

  The water flooded over them as he pressed her to the opposite wall. His hand slipped along wet, soapy skin, desperately seeking her toned thigh. He gripped her leg and coaxed it up to his hip…then he was engulfed within her.

  She gasped in response but pulled him yet closer and deeper. Demanding, needing all he had to give. As before, she was a force of nature, a whirlwind to which he could do little more than hang on for dear life. The spirit, the fire he had first witnessed in the hold of her ship blazed to life in his arms.

  Still, he tried to draw it out, to tease her and prolong her pleasure, and his. But she was so damn intoxicating and it was all so overpowering—the deluge of water enveloping them, the steam filling the air, the silk of her skin pressed to his and the incredible, perfect heat within her. The look of wild abandon in her eyes was like staring into a nova at the moment of its explosion.

  She clenched around him, her eyes squeezed shut—and he let himself go, following her over the edge into the rapturous abyss.

  They very nearly tumbled to the shower floor as they lost control of everything…bodies, thought, breath, time and space. He fell deeper into her as his legs threatened to collapse beneath him.

  An aeon passed before the world began to regain detail and, eventually, clarity. His lips had found hers, and she grinned into them. “Less than an hour and we’ve already had our first make-up sex.”

  He laughed haltingly, still struggling to catch his breath. Reasonably confident in his legs’ capability to now marginally support him, he leaned back enough to gaze at her.

  “It isn’t going to be boring, is it?”

  He was leaning against the windows and contemplating the wall of spacescapes—again—when she descended the stairs.

  Alex frowned to herself. Either he was playing at manipulating her on such a deep and meaningful level as to be reprehensible…or he was like her in such a deep and meaningful way as to be extraordinary. She was a bit shocked to realize how much she wanted to believe it was the latter, and how terrified she was it could be the former.

  He turned his attention to her as she reached the landing, smirking in that endearing, annoying, dangerous, boyish way which was so immensely kissable. So when he met her at the bottom of the stairs, she did.

  Her arms draped over his shoulders; his encircled her waist. “I have a question.”

  “Mmhmm?”

  “Earlier, your accent….”

  He cringed and retreated slightly. “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t altogether, um, in control for a while there.”

  “Is that how you really sound? When you’re not on the job?”

  “You are not a job to me.”

  Maybe. “You know what I—”

  His hands rose to grasp her face as he drew her into an impassioned embrace. The sheer fierceness of the kiss sent her reeling. The world spun in one direction, her head in the other, her heart in a third as his hands, his mouth, his tongue and the press of his body asked everything of her, and offered everything in return.

  She was left utterly breathless as he pulled back a trace.

  “Tell me you believe me.” It was a throaty, desperate whisper against her lips.

  “Ya veruyu….”

  He smiled softly and at last gave her space to breathe. “Then to answer your question, when I’m home, around my family? Yes. It is.”

  “You don’t need to pretend for me.”

  “I was concerned you might have negative associations with a Senecan accent.”

  She shook her head almost imperceptibly. “I like it. And now I’m going to associate it with—” her gaze drifted pointedly up the stairs “—spectacular sex, so….”

  He laughed, but his eyes were serious as they seemed to search her face. “Okay.” And with a word, his voice regained its full melodic timbre…and his smile shifted indefinably. “‘Spectacular,’ huh?”

  “Don’t get cocky—” Her grumble was cut off as his lips met hers yet again. Softer, less urgent than before. Nevertheless, the kiss was rapidly becoming more when she sucked in a deep breath and reluctantly stepped away. “We need to go soon.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  She went to double-check her pack, then remembered she never had made it to the storage closet. She ducked in, ostensibly to grab a few things. Alone in the shadowy recesses of the room she exhaled slowly, closed her eyes and made a choice.

  “I’ll go with you to Seneca—on one condition.”

  She emerged to find him regarding her rather intently. “Lay it on me.”

  “That you can absolutely and completely guarantee the safety and security of my ship while we’re docked there.”

  His mouth opened to respond, then closed. His eyes dropped away from her. She could only guess at what transpired in his mind as he stared at the floor, hands resting on his hips. When he looked up his expression was distressingly solemn. “Honestly? I’m not sure I can. I mean I think it would be safe, but there’s a war on and it’s going to be making people crazy.”

  She ran an agitated hand through her hair in frustration. “Dammit, Caleb. I’m trying, but you’re not making this easy.”

  He began pacing behind the couch. “But I can guarantee its safety and security on Romane.”

  An eyebrow arched in question.

  “I know, it’s not quite perfect. But it’s convenient enough, not too far from here and a quick trip to Seneca. We’ll take a transport from there, or we can rent a ship if you want more control. However long we need to be on Seneca, the Siyane will be safe on Romane. And when our—” he paused, and his voice dropped in tenor “—or your business on Seneca is concluded it will be waiting on you. I promise you.” He frowned a little. “Unless Romane gets blown up by the invading aliens. I can’t do a thing about them, and I hope like hell you don’t expect me to.”

  Her gaze roved across the loft…out the windows, where the night sky had barely begun to lighten, and back to the wall in front of her, finally coming to rest on the visual hanging at eye level: she and
her dad standing atop Mammoth Mountain. They had hiked it for her thirteenth birthday. He was killed in action two months later.

  Caleb was right, it wasn’t perfect. But it was a surprisingly decent alternative. Off Earth, on an independent world—which arguably was better than Seneca and the safest place to be given the war. Romane enjoyed the solidest reputation of any independent colony, and the location would give them at least some degree of flexibility.

  He had leaned against the couch to await her decision. She nodded. “Okay…okay. You can tell me why you can guarantee its safety on Romane on the way to the spaceport.”

  His expression blossomed into a relieved smile. “It’s a deal.”

  She couldn’t help but return the smile as she picked up her pack and tossed it over her shoulder.

  “Let’s go.”

  PART IV:

  ACCELERANDO

  “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

  Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

  The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

  The ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

  — William Butler Yeats

  49

  ROMANE

  Independent Colony

  * * *

  White gold swirled around hammered chrome, weaving again and again until it formed an intricate knot. Red dollops of plasma appeared to emerge from the chrome and glide through the gaps in the knot to orbit it, though it was an illusion. In reality the plasma merely hovered in a deceptive shimmer so as to imply motion.

  “In my opinion, this is one of the artist’s most powerful pieces. It speaks on multiple levels: how we are prisoners to our own weaknesses, how we inflict far greater damage and pain upon ourselves than anyone else is capable of, how we cannot escape who we are or a prison of our own creation. Some believe it also asserts that emotions themselves—our metaphorical heart—are a flaw dooming us to failure and despair. I myself tend to view it with a bit more optimism.”