“Hah!” Aurora laughed with sparkling gray eyes and flicked her long brown hair over her left shoulder. “You’re a funny one. I like that. We need to laugh in times like these. No, it’s a cocktail. I’ll get you one,” she said, already busying herself behind the bar. “It’s my own creation.”
“Sure,” Atton nodded. While he waited to be served, he heard the doors open behind him and turned to see Commander Adari walk in. “Hoi!” Atton waved and the commander walked up to him, offering a sloppy salute.
“Sir,” he said.
Atton thought he detected a hint of sarcasm in Ithicus’s voice, but he decided to ignore it. “Pull up a chair.”
Ithicus hopped up on one of the barstools and sat down.
“How’s recruitment going?”
Ithicus snorted and turned to him after waving down Aurora and asking for a black maverick. “How do you think? It’s a joke. We can’t train pilots in two days. They’ll be lucky not to crash into the Defiant and accidentally kill us all on a routine fly by.”
Atton smiled as his drink arrived in a tall, fluted glass. Aurora winked at him as she slid it across the counter. The plasma grenade was swirled red and yellow, like a fiery explosion. Atton picked up the concoction and used the straw to stir it before taking an experimental sip.
He almost choked. It burned his throat, opening his airways as it went down, leaving him with watering eyes and a strong urge to sneeze. It tasted like pure alcohol mixed with fire and cleaning solvent. Not that he knew what that tasted like. Atton turned to Ithicus. “I’d like to sign up for the squadron.”
Ithicus raised an eyebrow. “You were already a pilot, Adan. Now you’re the XO. Are you just trying to confuse everyone, or did the overlord fire you already?”
Atton shook his head. “We’re all going to need to fill several roles to keep this ship flying in one piece. I’m a skilled pilot, so I can’t afford to stand around looking pretty on the bridge when there’s a fight.”
Ithicus snorted and gulped his maverick straight out of the bottle. “Well, you never were that pretty.”
Atton grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to take your command. I have no ambitions to lead the squadron.”
Ithicus nodded and set his beer down with a thunk. “I wouldn’t mind if you did have them. It’s just a lot of extra data entry if you ask me. More trouble than it’s worth, but welcome back, brua. I’ll assign you a bird tomorrow morning and you can help me put the new recruits through their paces.”
“I look forward to it,” Atton replied and raised his fluted glass for a toast.
Ithicus made no move to raise his beer, but his crooked nose twitched. “What the frek is that?” he asked, nodding to the deceptively delicate-looking drink.
“It’s a plasma grenade,” Aurora answered for him, and both Atton and Ithicus turned to her. “Want one?” Her gray eyes were laughing and held a hint of challenge.
Ithicus barked a laugh. “Sure, why not? If skinny here can take it, I don’t see what’s my excuse.”
Aurora smiled and winked at Ithicus. “Coming right up.”
Chapter 9
Brondi stood looming over his nav officer’s shoulder, staring with a gaping smile at the star map hovering above the console—at one bright point in particular. It was highlighted with a green diamond and there were colored dots around the icon to indicate attached data about the system.
“Are you sure this isn’t some sort of ruse old Dominic left to draw us out?” Brondi asked.
“I’m positive, sir. The records show no sign of tampering, and there’s simply too much data for this star system. Dominic wouldn’t have had enough time to fabricate it all. There are even holo recordings of meetings with the leader of the enclave—Admiral Hoff Heston.”
“Well, well, well!” Brondi clucked his tongue. “This is very nice!” A plan began to form in Brondi’s head. Between the holoskins of the overlord which he’d discovered, and this new bit of information, he was beginning to plot his next move. “What’s in that system?”
The nav officer responded by zooming in on the highlighted point, and Brondi saw that inside the highlighted area was the GCR—Gorvin, Clementa, and Rhodal—three systems which encompassed the three prime worlds for which they were named. In the very center of the three systems was an exoplanet called Ritan, which had been the subject of intense ecological and scientific study in the past. Ritan was a dark world, heated to a cozy equatorial temperature of twenty below by its active volcanoes. In between the steaming calderas and volcanic vents lay vast fields of ice which were populated by roaming herds of ice walkers. The walkers fed upon the luminescent moss which grew up in the geothermal marshes, while the perpetually dark skies were patrolled by a deadly species of giant bats that hunted the ice walkers. It was a short food chain—home to more strains of bacteria and fungi than anything else—and it was far from paradise. In spite of this, the Valiant’s star maps gave the planet great importance. Its planetary icon was brighter and bolder than all the rest, and the note that was attached under its name raised more than a few questions: Gor Academy & 5th Fleet Rendezvous.
Brondi frowned. “Gor academy?” he wondered aloud. “What’s that?”
The nav officer shook his head. “I’m not sure, sir. With your permission, I can submit a query to the ship’s computer. Maybe there’s something in the databanks.”
Brondi eyed the man. “If you needed to take a piss, would you ask for permission to do that, too?”
“Sorry, sir.”
Brondi stood watching as the corpsman at the nav submitted a verbal query to the Valiant’s databanks, soliciting a verbal response from the ship’s computer: “Gor Academy, population forty seven thousand Gors and four hundred humans.” Brondi’s eyes widened. “Center for training emancipated Gors in the operation and maintenance of human starships. Founded in 8 AE.”
“What the frek?” Brondi exchanged startled looks with the nav officer. Every eye on the bridge had turned to them and all the furious clicking and tapping at the bridge control stations had ceased, leaving only the steady hum of the ship’s air cyclers to break the silence.
“Who are the Gors?” Brondi demanded of no one in particular.
The computer answered with a second holo which appeared above the control station, hovering to one side of the star map. It showed a tall, muscular creature with pale blue-gray skin, a bony face and slitted yellow eyes. Then the ship’s computer went into a lengthy description of the Gors, their status as Sythian slaves, and their more recent role as part of the ISSF. By the time the computer finally shut up, a heavy silence fell once more.
Brondi just stood there, his chest rising and falling quickly as he stared into the skull-like blue-gray face of the Gor hovering above the nav station. After what seemed like an eternity, he spoke. “I’ll be in my quarters,” he said, and with that, Brondi turned and strode for the gangway which led off the bridge.
He needed time to think things through.
* * *
Alara sat in the shadows of Aurora’s, listening to the two men at the bar singing drinking songs and laughing loudly into the wee hours of the night. They hadn’t even noticed when she’d come in. She sat by herself in a deep armchair which faced the bar’s main viewport, bouncing her knees in a steady rhythm as she stared glassy-eyed across the Defiant’s long bow and forward beam cannons into the flashing gray nebula beyond. She’d snuck out of her parents’ quarters as soon as they’d fallen asleep, and she’d come straight here. A part of her wondered why here—why come to a bar if she didn’t intend to drink?—but the other part of her knew exactly why, and that knowledge sent her mind spinning away in tormented chaos.
She wanted so badly to join the men at the bar. Habit, impulse, desire, purpose, and needy insecurity were all mixing together to drag her toward them. She recognized both men, and both were handsome. More importantly, they were both likely to be very hungry. Officers always were, due to the higher percentage of enlisted men tha
n women in the ISSF.
The only thing which stopped Alara from heading their way was the fact that everyone around her kept telling her that her every instinct was wrong, and that she wasn’t who she thought she was. Her memories were warring with each other. She remembered countless hundreds of men, all the faces blurring together. And as hard as she tried, she couldn’t feel revolted by those memories. Her job, while not glamorous, was highly paid, and it made her feel fortunate in a time when people were starving to death for lack of employment. But besides that, she actually enjoyed what she did. It was all she knew, and she was good at it.
How could that be fake?
The medic had had to show her the brain scan. She recalled seeing the offending implant attached to her temporal lobe, and she remembered the sweaty feeling of unreality which had swept through her upon seeing it. That revelation had almost sent her drifting back into the cozy warmth of the abyss, but she’d fought to stay conscious. If what everyone was saying was true, then she couldn’t allow herself to be weak. That would mean losing her very self, her identity—everything that she was. . . .
Except that who she was now wasn’t who she’d been. They were like two separate people—identical twins—and wishing the old person back was like wishing herself dead so that her twin could live.
She couldn’t help feeling resentful about it. Was who she was so bad? Who were they to judge her?
Alara grimaced. She’d been told to fight these feelings, but it was so hard. When she tried to remember her previous life, it swam before her in an indistinct haze and gave her a headache. The memories were vague and only half-remembered, as if she were trying to recall a dream. But in her dreams those memories did occasionally surface. More than anything she remembered a man—he was tall and handsome, about forty years old, with salt and pepper hair, green eyes, and a grin which warmed her blood in a way that no other man’s ever had. . . .
Alara allowed her eyes to drift shut and she tried to bring his face into focus in her mind’s eye. At first nothing happened, but then she began to see blurry shapes swimming out of the void, and then words, half-remembered and muddled. Her breathing and heart rate began to slow as she concentrated on the blurry parade of memories. After an indeterminable amount of time one shape swam into focus, and there he was, his face sharp and clear like crystal. She felt a surge of joy.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’ll be back soon, Kiddie,” he said.
She watched him turn to leave, wanting to call out for him to stop, but instead she said, “I love you!”
Now he did stop, and he turned around to say, “I love you, too, Alara.”
Her eyes shot open as if loaded on springs. Her heart pounded in her chest. She sat up in the chair and looked around quickly to get her bearings. She was . . . where was she?
Then she remembered—Aurora’s. She must have fallen asleep in the armchair.
Alara closed her eyes again and tried to bring the dream back into focus, but she couldn’t. She opened her eyes and shook her head slowly. Whenever she saw that man in her dreams, she felt safe, happy, and at peace. Upon waking, however, those memories only brought more confusion. Who was that tall, dark-haired man? She could still hear the echoes of his words to her in the dream: “I love you, too, Alara.”
He loved her. Whoever that man was, he loved her. She tried to cling to that, to use it as an anchor about which she could keep herself rooted despite the swirling storm inside her head.
Her head began to pound again, and Alara pressed both hands to her temples and squeezed. Tears burned behind her eyelids, but she fought them back. She should just go to bed and bring an end to another awful, tormented day, but she was afraid to go to sleep and never wake up again, to have this other person, this stranger inside of her wake up instead and begin living her life.
Alara shook her head, her violet eyes springing open once more. No matter what anyone else said about who she really was, she couldn’t listen to them. She would have to pretend to listen just to shut them up, but she couldn’t let them try to “fix” her. If they succeeded, everything she knew would disappear. She would disappear.
Alara stopped bouncing her knees. She’d come to a decision, and with that decision she felt a measure of peace. She stood up from the chair and made her way over to the pair of men sitting at the bar, swaying to the off-key melody of their drunken spacer’s songs. One of them would agree to be hers, she was sure of that.
If she couldn’t sleep, at least she could make the best of the night.
* * *
Atton picked up his cocktail with a grin and snapped his fingers at the bartender. “Hoi, beauty!” The red and yellow mixture sloshed over the sides of the fluted glass as he accidentally tipped it first one way and then the other. “What say you join us for a round? I’m buyin’!”
Ithicus elbowed him in the ribs and gave him a mock serious look. “I saw her first, brua.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see who the lady prefers!”Atton said as the bartender walked up to them with a patient smile.
Aurora planted her elbows on the counter and leaned toward them, giving a teasing view of her cleavage. She was probably 40-something, but she looked like a young 30. “Don’t you boys think you’ve had enough?”
Atton deferred the question to his drinking buddy. “Have we—hic—’ad enough, Ithy?”
Ithicus was swaying on his barstool with a black maverick in one hand and a plasma grenade cocktail in the other. “There’s only one way to find out.” A slow grin spread across his lined face.
“What’s ‘hat?”
“Another drink!”
They both laughed raucously.
Aurora frowned at them, and her gaze slipped away to see a fresh face approaching her bar. “Finally, some intelligent company! What’ll you be having?”
Atton turned to see Alara walking lithely up to the bar, her hips swaying, her eyes finding first him and then Ithicus and giving each of them a long, up-and-down look.
“Hello, boys,” she said, ignoring the bartender.
“Hoi,” Atton managed despite a suddenly dry throat.
Ithicus just grinned. When she came close, he reached out and grabbed her by the waist. She smiled and squealed, allowing him to draw her into his lap.
“What are you doing, Lieutenant?” Alara asked in a coy voice.
“It’s Lieutenant Commander now.”
“Mmmm,” Alara purred. “A commander. I suppose that means you like giving orders . . . taking command . . . being obeyed. Very sexy.”
“That’s right,” Ithicus nodded. “Hoi! Aurora, get the lady a drink! It’s on me.”
“I like a man who knows how to give orders,” Alara went on.
“Well, you’re really gonna like me, then.”
Atton sat watching the exchange with a rising complaint stuck in his throat—at first because he’d imagined Alara sitting on his lap, but then because he remembered who Alara was. This was his father’s copilot, and she had a slave chip implanted. She’d have sex with anyone, do anything, and like it—if they had the Sols.
Atton felt a hot surge of anger building, but he clamped down on it. Ithicus couldn’t have known. He opened his mouth to explain, but Aurora was back. She frowned at the cuddling couple which had somehow taken the place of the old drunken pilot who’d been sitting at her bar a moment ago.
“Well, that was fast. You must be more charming than I thought, Lieutenant.”
He smiled thinly at her. “Get the lady a plasma grenade, would you?”
“I think the lady should order her own drink.”
“No,” Alara said, looking up. “I want him to order for me. That way it’s a surprise.”
“You sure?” Aurora asked, her eyebrows drawing together. “You look like you could use your inhibitions a while longer.”
Ithicus slammed an open palm on the bar counter, his eyes flashing at the bartender. “Just get the lady her drink, okay?”
Aurora’s eyes hardened. “I think you need to leave my bar, Lieutenant.”
“It’s lieutenant commander, and I’ll leave when I frekkin’ feel like it!”
“Then I’m afraid I’m going to have to call the ISF.”
Ithicus barked a laugh. “That’s a joke! There’s no such damn thing! You think we have ISF on board? We barely have a crew. Go ahead, call them!”
“It would be easier if you’d have some self-control and stop embarrassing yourself and the uniform.”
Ithicus glared at her. “You know what,” he said, rising from his barstool and lifting Alara off his lap as though she were a child. “I think you’re right. It’s time for us to go. Maybe we can continue this party where we have a little more privacy.”
“Sounds good to me,” Alara said, with one hand on Ithicus’s broad barrel chest as she looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes.
Atton finally managed to come to his senses enough to speak. He rose unsteadily from his chair and smiled at Alara before turning to Ithicus. “Could I have a word with you, LC?”
“Not now, Adan.”
“Yes now, and that’s an order.”
Ithicus glared at him, and the pulsing tongues-of-fire tattoo on his forearm seemed to flare a brighter blue. “We’ll talk in the morning.” Ithicus turned to leave, taking Alara by the arm.
She waved to Atton and blew him a kiss over Ithicus’s shoulder.
Atton grimaced and caught up to Ithicus in one quick stride, grabbing him by the arm to stop him. “Ithicus. Have you forgotten I outrank you now?”
Ithicus turned to him with a sarcastic gleam in his dark brown eyes, and Atton heard Aurora speaking in hushed tones into the comm at the bar.
”We’re all about to die, Adan. Everything we knew is gone—again—and frek it if I care anymore. You know how many people we lost aboard the Valiant? Do you even know their names? Does anyone know their names? They’re just gone. They’re not coming back, and neither are we. So frek your rank, Adan. It doesn’t mean krak. We’re all going to be space dust, so excuse me if I don’t give a flyin’ frek what you say. You want to give me orders?” Ithicus’s chest rose and fell quickly with pent-up rage. “You can give me orders in the netherworld.”
Dark Space- The Complete Series Page 27