by T. J. Land
However, enough was enough. He had Thomas and Rick now, two warm, skilled lovers, and a quiet discussion at breakfast the morning after his tryst with Rick had confirmed that neither of them objected to the other’s presence in his bed. At some point, he’d need to get all of them in the same room so they could have “the conversation,” the one that would end with drinks and a threesome with any luck.
Two lovers. More than enough. From now on, he would control himself.
Chapter Three
It was easy to lose one’s sense of time on The Prayer. No day, no night, no weather. No browning leaves, no spring buds, no snow. No relatives whose birthdays they had to remember.
Not that Echo had any relatives. It pleased him to allow Thomas and the others to believe the reason he had no last name was because he’d been manufactured in a secret government laboratory. The reality was far more mundane; Echo had been born on the moon, shortly after a series of economic catastrophes had left the satellite’s infrastructure and public services in tatters. As a result of this spectacularly bad luck, he’d spent the first fifteen years of his life being circulated through a foster care system so inept and badly managed that he’d never been given a legal surname.
Which had never bothered him much. No, what had bothered him was not having a birthday. Not because he liked cake, balloons, and presents. (Although he did occasionally wonder whether he might have enjoyed such things if he had ever experienced them.) No, what he found perturbing was never being exactly sure how old he was. He was, in all likelihood, twenty-seven. But twenty-seven and what? How many days, how many weeks, how many months until he was twenty-eight? Such questions ate at Echo. Seven different foster parents had observed that he had an unchildlike fondness for precision. “Creepy,” they’d called it.
Still, one played with the hand one was given. He dealt with it and The Prayer’s current predicament by maintaining a rigorous daily schedule, carefully timing all his activities.
Getting up, getting dressed, completing his ablutions—because, contrary to speculation, he was not a robot—took him seven minutes. Walking to the mess hall, preparing himself a nutrient cup, and drinking it—ten minutes. Preparing breakfast for Moxie, the ship’s cat—three minutes. Filling up the captain’s cup with something that tasted like coffee and putting it on a tray with a bowl of something that tasted like oatmeal—eight minutes. Carrying the tray to the captain’s quarters and knocking on the door—four minutes.
That was where his schedule became fuzzy. Recently, the time it took the captain to respond would vary depending on whether he had someone in his bed with him, and what sort of thing they’d been doing when he knocked. Today, however, the door opened promptly.
“Echo. Good morning,” the captain greeted. He was wearing only white cotton briefs that were, Echo thought, a size too small. Perhaps Thomas had left them behind and he’d put them on by mistake. Or perhaps he just enjoyed the constriction.
Echo responded with a nod, carrying the tray into the room and ascertaining with a glance that the bed was empty. What wasn’t empty was the captain’s desk. Three holo-tablets lay open upon it, each one projecting a different three-dimensional light show. After putting down the captain’s breakfast, Echo went over to tidy up, as he did every morning. It was because of his willingness to tend to such chores that the rest of the crew thought his relationship with the captain was sycophantic. In all honesty, Echo had no idea whether or not they were right. There had been few people in his life who’d hung around for any extended period of time, a fact he had attributed to his alleged “creepiness.” The number of actual relationships he’d had—sycophantic, romantic, companionable or otherwise—was in the low single digits.
But if he was a sycophant, then it couldn’t be such a bad thing for a man to be. After all, the captain valued and liked him, and the captain was the finest judge of character Echo knew.
“Leave those,” said the captain, taking his not-coffee, just as Echo was about to clear away the tablets. “I promised Antoine I’d look over them.”
Echo very much doubted the exchange had been quite so civil.
“He’s still trying to convince me to authorise an exploratory mission to the Holy Trinity,” the captain continued, crossing over to the desk and brushing his fingertips over the tablets. The lightshow changed to three spherical objects, each a different size, hovering in space. “That’s what he’s calling them now.”
Echo made a face.
“Yes, I quite agree,” said the captain. Moxie, who had slunk in after Echo, twined about the captain’s ankles and received a rough stroke.
As the captain gazed at Antoine’s models, Echo, in turn, gazed at his briefs. He couldn’t decide whether or not they were doing anything for him—which wasn’t an uncommon problem for Echo.
The rumor he was a robot had begun when the rest of the crew had learned he didn’t like porn. Not the sort of thing his coworkers would have been aware of under ordinary circumstances, but in the last four years, porn had become one of their primary means of entertaining themselves. As a result, Echo’s preference for filling up the empty hours with laundry and cooking had been noted and remarked upon. No one had been all that surprised; Echo disliked conversation, music, gambling, and sports, so it made sense to them that he’d dislike sex too.
In truth, Echo didn’t dislike sex. Nor was he entirely disinterested in it, like Antoine. He’d had sex three times in his life, with men and women, and liked it very much. But the fact was—perhaps as a result of his apparent “creepiness”—he often felt disconnected from other people, even those he loved. He could register that a treasured friend was sexually attractive but still find the idea of having sex with them strange and unnerving. And watching the strangers in Rick’s film collection copulate made him ill.
So, although he admired the way the captain’s briefs clung to his buttocks and drew attention to his powerful thighs, Echo wasn’t sure whether today was one of those days when his body wanted to do more than just look.
“This one here—” The captain pointed to the central sphere, the largest. “—is apparently the likeliest candidate for conditions compatible with sustaining life.”
The captain’s expression took on that deep bleakness he never wore when any of the other crewmembers were present. “Which hardly makes the decision any easier. The whole point of landing on a viable world would be to terraform it so we could consider settling there in the long term. If the planet is already host to life—any life, even bacteria—we can’t contemplate such an action without violating the Planetary Preservation Convention. Do you remember when they first started terraforming Ganymede? Decades upon decades of red tape and environmental protests, and there’s nothing on Ganymede but rocks and ice.”
Echo didn’t proffer an opinion. He never did, which was, he suspected, one of the main reasons the captain confided in him so readily. He did, however, reach out and briefly lay a hand on the captain’s arm, his cheeks heating at the sensation of warm skin and solid muscle. It seemed as though today was one of those days after all.
The planets disappeared as the captain deactivated all three tablets and put them in a neat stack on the edge of his desk. “I received a message from Zachery a few minutes ago. No specifics, but apparently it’s ‘urgent.’ Do you know anything about it?”
Echo shook his head.
“That man is impossible to deal with,” the captain muttered, in a tone of voice bordering on sulky. “Why did I hire him in the first place?”
Impatient now, Echo took a step forward and pressed his fingertips lightly against the captain’s lower lip.
“Oh,” said the captain, catching on. “You…?”
Echo nodded and tapped his wrist. Much as he wanted to linger now that he knew what he wanted, he’d been here for eight minutes. He was falling behind schedule.
He lay a hand against the captain’s jaw, feeling the faintest trace of stubble, and their lips met, tentative at first, then hungry.
The kisses they shared were always a comforting reminder of how well they knew one another. Understanding there were several places on Echo’s body where he preferred not to be touched, the captain’s hands folded around the back of his scalp, never once straying below Echo’s shoulders. Echo appreciated his consideration and returned the gesture with a soft hum, a noise only the captain had ever heard him make.
And then, he’d had enough. Content, as though he’d eaten a pleasant but filling meal, he drew back and bowed his head in thanks.
“No, thank you, my friend,” said the captain with courtly politeness, his brief smile bright and fond.
After collecting the captain’s laundry, Echo left him to finish his breakfast. There was, after all, much to be done.
✩✩✩
Well, that didn’t really count, did it?
After all, Echo had been with him from the start. Long before his recent return to sexual activeness and their encounter with the aliens, Echo had been arriving at his door every morning with breakfast and, now and then, a kiss. Just a kiss, usually, and months could go by without his asking for more. The captain had never pushed him, understanding that for some, an occasional kiss was enough.
Still, a kiss was just a kiss. Echo didn’t count as a lover by any reasonable metric. A romantic friend, perhaps. Unless the word “lover” referred more to being in love than to making love, in which case, fine, he probably did count as a lover. But a platonic lover. Well, nearly platonic—that kiss did sometimes turn rather ardent.
Two sexual lovers and one nearly platonic lover wasn’t being greedy. Surely.
No more, the captain told himself, eating his oatmeal. This has gone quite far enough.
Chapter Four
As far as Zachery was concerned, the captain was just a bossy bitch.
“When did you first notice the problem?” the captain asked in his bossy-bitch voice while Zachery fantasised about punching him in the face.
“Yesterday afternoon, sir,” he said, loading up the sir with as much derision as possible.
“You mean to tell me our engines have been malfunctioning for twenty-four hours, and you only bothered to notify me now?”
Gritting his teeth, Zachery said, “Thought it was something I could take care of myself, sir. Our engines are old; they throw a shitfit every other month. Usually, I can fix it without bothering anyone.”
“Watch your language,” snapped the captain.
Asshole. Thinks he’s so high and mighty.
Zachery didn’t even know what the captain was doing down in the engine room. It wasn’t as though he knew the first damn thing about how The Prayer worked, or how much effort it took Zachery just to keep her running from day to day. And without a scrap of help from anyone, as there were only two other people on board who had the education to do what he did. One was Echo (who was just too fucking creepy for words), and the other was Antoine (who was, if anything, even more of a bossy bitch than the captain). Zachery didn’t want either of them on his turf. He’d only gone to the captain to ask if he could cannibalise some parts from the ship’s artillery, which was basically useless now, seeing as how the enemy was an entire galaxy away. The last thing he’d expected or wanted had been for the captain to demand to see the problem for himself. Playing tour guide first thing in the morning to a man he despised was not Zachery’s idea of fun.
“Regardless of your personal opinion on the significance of any one mechanical failure, it’s your duty to report all discrepancies to me,” the captain was saying. Whenever he got to lecturing, he would clasp his hands behind his back and lean forward a little, so it seemed as though he was looming over you. It didn’t work on Zachery, seeing how Zachery was one of the only people on board tall enough to look down on him.
You don’t scare me, you bossy bitch.
What really bit Zachery’s ass was the way everyone else fell over themselves trying to suck up to him. Thomas was the worst of them—the memory of the way his eyes had popped out of his head at the sight of the captain’s bare feet was downright embarrassing. But the others were almost as bad. Rick turned into a blushing schoolgirl in his presence, and Echo was basically his pet. And rumour had it all three of them were taking it morning, noon, and night from their mighty leader.
Zachery just didn’t get what all the fuss was about. It wasn’t like there was anything special about the guy. Zachery had been in this business for a long time, and he’d seen a hundred just like him. Unappeasable, petty, arrogant fucks who thought they were God’s best gift to man.
“Are you listening to me, Mister Halberstam?” growled the captain. His brow was damp with perspiration; the engine room was usually the warmest place on the ship, and right now, the air conditioning system was offline to save power.
“Sure am, sir,” Zachery drawled, flicking his hair out of his eyes. He’d been growing it out, along with a scrappy, half-assed goatee. And wasn’t that just the sort of thing old stick-up-his-ass would hate, with his neat beard and his tidily cropped salt-and-pepper?
The captain’s lips thinned, but he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he told Zachery to show him exactly where the problem was. Which, Zachery knew damn well would mean he’d have to break down the complicated workings of The Prayer’s fuel system into baby talk. Except, to his annoyance, the captain didn’t seem to have any trouble understanding what he was talking about, didn’t once ask him to repeat or clarify anything.
“And to fix this, you want to take parts from our artillery, am I correct?”
“That’s right. Only way.”
The captain shook his head. The gesture got on Zachery’s nerves, just like everything else the man did. They’d disliked one another more or less from the moment they met, but it hadn’t been a problem so far given they hardly ever saw each other. Zachery stayed down in the engine room, the captain stayed on the bridge, and they’d never actually been alone together before.
“Given that we are as yet uncertain as to whether or not there are any hostile life forms within this sector, I’m disinclined to start dismantling our only means of defence. Are you sure you have investigated all alternatives?”
“I know how to do my fucking job, sir,” Zachery spat out before he could stop himself.
He saw the other man’s jaw lock and knew he’d gone too far. But fuck it. What could the captain do? He needed Zachery. There wasn’t anyone else within however many millions of light years who could keep The Prayer going.
You can’t do anything to me. So Zachery smirked and folded his arms, letting the silence stretch. Watching the captain’s face, he could practically see his fuse burning down, inch by inch, his lips getting thinner and thinner. He had, Zachery noticed for the first time, a small scar just at the edge of his mouth.
Then he noticed the captain’s eyes gliding from his boots to his brows. They were, he realised, sizing one another up.
Okay, Captain Cunt, if that’s how you want it.
Zachery made one or two tiny adjustments to his stance, preparing himself. The old man had no idea what he was in for. Zachery had been born in one of the shittier Martian colonies, and he’d been fighting since he could walk. First, the mean kids who’d tried to steal his lunch money and then the gangs who’d tried to scare his mom out of her shop because they didn’t like immigrants. To pay for his engineering degree, he’d fought in the Pit, an underground arena host to some of the most illegal blood sports on the planet. Guys would inject themselves with any number of unhealthy substances and then go at each other until one of them was crippled or dead. By age twenty-five, when the captain had found and hired him, Zachery had made a name for himself on his home world by surviving eighteen tournaments, three more than his closest rival.
As for the captain? No one knew anything about him. Not even basic shit. Zachery had done some surreptitious snooping, and he’d found out exactly three things: he’d been born in Cairo, had doctorates in Philosophy and Astrophysics, and had never married. That was it. But if Zachery
had to guess? He’d wager “His Majesty” hadn’t done much real fighting in his time. He probably wasn’t nearly as tough as he made out to be. With big biceps, a pinched waist, and a regal nose that clearly hadn’t been broken even once, he looked like a bodybuilder, like the sort of airhead who spent his life in the gym making himself look like a badass.
Vain, bossy little bitch.
As far as Zachery was concerned, he had the captain all figured out. What he liked, what he really liked, wasn’t just being in command and ordering them around. What the captain really liked was being looked at. That was the reason for the body, for the immaculate fingernails and shiny boots. For all his pretences toward gruff military professionalism, the man was a filthy fucking exhibitionist.
“Apologise immediately,” the captain said in that commanding voice everyone was so afraid of.
Zachery wanted nothing more than to throw him down and…he didn’t know. Strangle him. Crush his windpipe. Crush his skull. Make him whimper, and beg, and moan, and…
“Go to hell,” he said instead.
He was expecting the punch. What surprised him was how fast it was; he ducked it, but only just.
He didn’t duck the next one.
Mother of FUCK. Zachery had taken a lot of hits in his day. Less than three had been able to knock him on his ass.
“We don’t have an official medical officer on board,” said the captain, shaking out his fist. “So I can’t break as much of you as I would like to. Nevertheless…”
Zachery hooked his foot around the captain’s knee and took him down.
Things happened fast after that. Zachery was on him the second he hit the floor, driving a knee into his gut. The next second the captain had him by the throat, which was actually kind of terrifying until Zachery headbutted him. They broke apart, and he saw blood spewing out of the captain’s pretty nose.