Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams (continued)

Scott opened the car door and mentally gauged the distances between the steering wheel, brake pedal, gear shift, and door frame. Of the four, the steering wheel was probably the least of his concerns, for he needed to mostly move straight ahead. The main trick would be to get the car actually moving. For the moment, all he could was to try, once again grateful that they did not own a two-ton pickup truck.

Leaving the door open, he sat down, and took a deep breath that might have been a silent prayer if he had carried any beliefs in that direction. With his eyes focused ahead on his goal of the empty parking space ahead and, silently praying that no one would suddenly decide to claim it as he coasted forward, disengaged the parking brake, shifted into neutral, and eased his foot from the brake pedal.

As he expected, nothing happened. He was both relieved and disappointed: relieved that the laws of inertia and momentum had not betrayed him, and disappointed that the vehicle had not begun to roll forward on its own. The latter would have made things a whole lot easier.

He eased his left leg through the doorway, but it was only reached out far enough for the toe of his shoe to scrape the ground. There was no way that he was going to be able to get enough of a foothold to put the car into motion that way. Resigned to doing it the hard—and more risky—way, Scott edged back out of the car, trying to keep one hand firmly fixed on the steering wheel.

Gripping the edge of the door frame, he pushed, leaning his weight into it. The car wiggled and creaked slightly, but it did not move forward. Scott looked inside to ensure that he had not reset the parking brake or gear setting. Both were as he remembered leaving them. He knew the answer: he was simply being too cautious, worried that he might not be able to slow it once it started down the slight incline.

Well, he decided, I can’t leave it here Madame Hassan back there wouldn’t like it.

He held no doubts that she would have it towed away if he abandoned it there for even a short time.

Kind of ironic, he considered, because if I can’t reach lover-boy and drag him away from his girlfriend du jour, a tow truck was probably next in line.

Something in his deeply controlled anger provided him with the additional strength he needed, and he did not dwell on that fact too much. The tires made faint rubbery crunching noises against the concrete and began to slowly rotate forward. Scott grunted a cheer and leapt back into the car.

He turned the steering wheel ever so slightly to more precisely aim for the vacant parking spot. His right foot pumped hard on the brake. The car slowed more abruptly than he expected and the car door slammed against his trailing left leg. He yelped more with surprise than pain, realizing that it really did not hurt—yet. There would almost certainly be a nice dark bruise there later, though, he considered absently, still more focused on ensuring that the car came to rest against the small concrete bumper and not the outer wall of the fast food restaurant.

The car coasted to a halt. The front tires connected with the squat cement barrier with a bit more force than Scott would have liked, but it did stop. He shifted the gear lever back to Park, pulled the parking brake back on, and lifted his right foot from the brake pedal. He was mildly surprised at just how far his foot moved. After breathing a long, slow sigh of relief, he then became aware of the sharp pain in his left leg.

He gingerly opened the door and looked down, but the shadowed light made it difficult for him to see anything. It did not feel like it was broken, nor did it feel like it was bleeding. He lifted it experimentally, feeling the muscles protest. The sharp pain increased somewhat, but did not grow any worse. Cautiously, he reached down and ran his fingers down the length of his left calf.

There.

Scott winced as he fingered brushed it about ten inches above his ankle. That must have been where the door smashed it against the bottom of the frame, he guessed. Removing the key from the ignition slot, he turned in the seat and tentatively shifted some of his weight onto his injured leg. It hurt, but did not scream out loudly with pain. He took that as a good sign.

Standing up fully now, and favoring his other leg, he looked out toward the street. He had considered walking home and making the call from there, as it was only about five blocks away. Now, though, he was not sure he was ready to test his leg for quite that far just yet—at least not until he got a better look at it.

He turned and studied the interior of the fast food restaurant through its large front windows. Between the garish advertising banners, he could see that it was fairly crowded inside; he also knew that they did not have a public telephone. He looked beyond it at the row of other business across the parking lot. The auto parts store, which would have been potentially the most useful option, appeared to be in the process of closing for the night. The supermarket was still open, as were the two restaurants.

Surely one of them would let him borrow a telephone once he had explained the situation. They were each about equidistant from the gas station. Making a somewhat prejudiced determination, he admitted to himself fully, he decided to start first with the Italian restaurant. If for some reason that option failed, he could still try the Chinese place.

He headed across the parking lot. Shifting what weight he could to his right leg, tried to not make it appear as though he was limping; he believed that he was at least partially successful. He huddled into his sweatshirt, noticing that the temperature seemed to have dropped a lot more than he had expected it to. By the time he reached the raised curb, his cheeks were sharp with chill; his hands felt numb, despite having been shoved deep inside his pockets. He walked the few remaining feet to the restaurant door and stepped inside.

A rush of warmth welcomed him and his cheeks immediately as though there were no longer on the verge of shearing away like ice floes. He rubbed his hands together and looked around. A deep frown formed as he realized that the restaurant was empty—empty of customers, anyway.

What time is it anyway?

He had no sense of how much time had passed while he had dealt with the car, or actually what time he had actually left the house. Looking around the interior of the restaurant, he located one and discovered that it was quickly approaching ten o’clock. That a restaurant of this time might be devoid of customers and preparing to close at that hour was not exactly unreasonable.

Scott realized that he was getting some curious looks from the crew working around the kitchen. One of the older men, probably the owner, Scott guessed, said something to the woman standing next to him and nodded in Scott’s direction. From across the dimmed lighting of the main dining room, he could not quite read her expression. If it had been him, he supposed, he would be less than pleased to have to serve a customer just a few minutes before closing time.

As the woman crossed the room toward him, Scott could see that she was younger than he first thought. Unless he was way off, she was something close to his own age. She approached him with a smile, one a good deal more genuine than he was expecting. There was still the barest hint of hesitation in her eyes, but Scott guessed that she was not about to lose out on the chance for one last tip before closing up and heading home.

She was dressed in dark pants and what he seemed to be a maroon or burgundy-colored shirt. It looked as though there was some kind of emblem or logo, possibly the one that belonging to the restaurant, embroidered above her left breast. That part of her anatomy, and its twin on the other side, Scott noted, were nicely rounded without being overly large. They seemed to fit her well without being overly noticeable. Overall, he decided, her body had nice curves.

Her hair was the color of dark mahogany and pulled back into a long ponytail that hung nearly to her waist. It was straight, with neatly cut bangs that hung just over her forehead, leaving her dark, perfect eyebrows exposed.

As she came nearer, Scott could see that her complexion held a tanned hue from an ancestry that he could not even begin to guess at. She did not appear to be wearing any makeup or, if he was, she did so with such a subtle touch that it appeared that she was not wearing any at all. Scott approved.

She stopped and looked up at him, being about two inches shorter than he was. For a long, awkward moment, it seemed as if she just stared at him with understated expectancy. There was no challenge in her gaze, to Scott’s relief, but something more than cordial curiosity. He guessed then that he might as well speak first.

“Uh,” he started out, not entirely, he thought immediately, giving the young woman the best first impression of his intelligence. What he was going to say next was not to going to help with that much either. “Do you have a phone I can borrow? I, um, left mine at home.”

The young woman appeared to consider this. She did not smile, but her eyes betrayed a sparkle of amused interest.

“My car broke down outside,” he went on, hoping that having a reasonable explanation might help.

“Sure,” she said, nodding. She gave him a renewed smile. It was even more sincere than her first one.

Probably relieved that I’m not some customer who’s going to make her have to work late.

She surprised him back into speechlessness by reaching into her pocket and presented him with her own phone. Scott stared at, feeling certain that his expression conveyed something akin to the one he might have were he being offered a venomous serpent. For an awkward moment, he wondered if he was having a completely bizarre flashback to early childhood, thinking that the proffered phone might have cooties because a pretty girl had touched it.

Pretty girl?

Scott tried not to shake his head. Now was not the time to go down that road. He had a broken car, a bruised leg, and was keeping these nice people from closing their restaurant and going home to their families.

“It’s okay,” she said, interrupting his line of thought. “I have unlimited minutes.” She laughed and placed the phone into his hand, gently closing his fingers over it. They were warm and soft. Then, as if trusting him completely with her personal property, she headed back toward the kitchen.

Scott stared at her departing back—more than just than her back, he realized guiltily—and then down at the phone in his hand.

He had a phone now. That left him with a new problem: he had no idea who to call. The period of free roadside assistance service that came with the car had long since expired. In any case, the telephone number for it was across the parking lot in the car. He did not have the telephone numbers of any towing services or mechanics memorized. There were two such businesses that he used regularly, but their numbers were stored on his phone. He doubted that he dredge their telephone numbers from his memory even under hideous techniques of torture.

For no reason that he could explain, Scott flipped open the phone. He blinked at the sudden burst of light from its small screen. On the background was a picture of two young boys. He felt something in his heart sink.

Her sons? His eyes darted in her direction and then returned to the phone. Sure, she was old enough. Hell, I’m old enough. Could be nephews, though, he thought, knowing it to be complete rationalization on his part.

Scott heard footsteps and looked away from the phone. The young woman was returning, looking more relaxed than she had when she first greeted him.

“All set?”

She stopped in front of him and waited. Although she made no gesture to indicate it, Scott knew that she was expecting to receive her phone back.

“”Uh,” he started off with once again. “No.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly and a suspicious frown formed on her lips. It was not, Scott decided, a wholly unattractive look for her.

Feeling his cheeks grow warm even as he spoke, Scott said, “Do you happen to know any good towing services?”

“Yeah,“ she laughed and all suspicion drained from her expression. It was not a derisive laugh, but one that told him that she completely understood. “I’ve got two or three in here,” she said, taking the phone from his hand. “I use them all the time,” she added with rueful amusement.

Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams (continued)

Scott drove down the main street of the small college town where he and his brother lived. Being late autumn and dark, there was little traffic. What little commute traffic their town experienced was gone; anyone else who had somewhere to be had already traveled there. Scott, on the other hand, had no particular destination in mind.

That was not entirely true. His first goal was to reach the gas station. As usual, his brother had left the car with just enough gasoline remaining in it to avoid triggering the low fuel alert. He slapped his hand against the steering wheel again, mumbling vague curses aimed at Thad and his thoughtlessness, all the while knowing the real reason that he was fuming.

He turned left and then eased over to the station at the corner. The first pump he pulled to was marked “Out of Order” with a hand-scrawled sticky note. He had just started to continue forward when a dark and expensive-looking coupe pulled into the spot ahead of him.

Scott sighed and watched as the driver, a slender woman that he guessed to be in her mid-thirties, climbed out and headed for the cashier window. She never looked his way, but kept her entire focus on whoever was on the other end of the conversation on her phone. From her expressions, he judged that she was not in the midst of an argument, but still was incredibly animated. That did not make him like her any better.

He was about to shift into reverse and choose another lane, when he decided to just surrender to the moment. Where else did he need to be anyway?

The woman returned from the small booth carrying a small brown bag in one hand and holding her phone up against her ear with the other. She fumbled with the car door, unable to easily open it with no free hands. It finally opened and she tossed the bag inside, closing the door again and walking over to the pump. She was a bit more adept with that, having one hand now available to work the controls. After inserting the nozzle into her tank opening—an act for which Scott forced away the possible phallic interpretations—she leaned against her vehicle and waited.

All during this time, not once did she even glance in Scott’s direction. She might have seen him, but if she had noticed his existence, she made no obvious sign of it. Her whole awareness appeared consumed by her intent focus on her partner at the other end of that digital signal.

Scott waited, at first watching the woman with fading annoyance. Her left leg flexed up and down at the knee while she talked. Her skirt fell well above her knees. The dark fabric rose slightly each time that she did this, exposing just a little bit more of her thigh.

She had nice legs, he admitted somewhat absently. The rest of her was not unattractive, he decided, but he did not find her particularly appealing. There was just something about her that did not reach out to him. That determination made him feel better that she had chosen to completely ignore his existence.

After what seemed to be an unreasonable length of time—her gas tank just could not be that large, Scott reasoned—she finally dislodged the fuel nozzle and restored it to its place on the pump. Scott gave her silent credit for accomplishing the task with one hand. For a moment, he thought she was going to return to the cashier window, but she instead wiped some speck from her front windshield and then slid back into her car. A few moments later, the rear lights of her car glowed crimson as she shifted gears and she was gone.

Scott looked carefully around before attempting to move forward. It was clear. In fact, he was now the only customer present. The rest of the pumps, most of which had been occupied when he had arrived, were now all empty.

Timing is everything.

Scott sighed and climbed out of the car. His breath frosted slightly as he went to the pump and slid his card into the payment slot. It chirped thoughtfully after a few seconds before announcing its approval of his current account balance. Scott found himself relieved by that. As with the fuel in the car, Thad did not always leave enough money in their account for a small cheeseburger and fries, much less a tank of gas.

As the gasoline gurgled into the tank, Scott stared off into the adjacent parking lot. There was a chain supermarket, a collection of several somewhat generic stores that sold a variety of wares from tween-age clothing to liquor. He knew that there a donut shop mixed in there that also sold bagels. Or was it a bagel shop that also sold donuts? It depended on the current health fads, Scott guessed. In either case, it appeared to be closed for the night, as the windows were dark where he thought it was located. There was a Chinese restaurant that he had not eaten at in years, preferring another one only a block further away.

A sharp metallic click broke him from his reverie. He turned to find that the fuel has finished pumping. Removing the nozzle, he replaced it on the pump, trying not to look at how much money he had spent. He knew the price had gone up again, but what was he going to do? Public transit was not really a viable option, for there were no direct routes either by bus or light rail to the warehouse they had rented. Twenty or so minutes in the car versus approximately an hour by bus did not seem a fair enough trade-off.

He accepted the receipt from the pump and got back into the car. He slid the key into the ignition, turned it and . . . nothing. A hollow sensation began to fill his stomach. Turning the key again achieved the same result: nothing. No grinding noise from the engine, no blinking lights on the dashboard—in fact, no lights at all.

Scott’s sigh was louder this time. Despite knowing the futility of the attempt, he tried again for a third time. His only reward was in being right. Reaching down, he pulled at the hood release, needing two attempts before he could get a good enough grip on it. He heard the metallic pop of the springs releasing. Not happily, he climbed back out of the car and lifted the hood.

Fortunately, the overhead lighting above the pumps cast plenty of illumination downward so he could view the engine compartment clearly. A quick survey of the interior revealed nothing obviously wrong. All of the cables seemed to be connected to something, as did all of the belts and hoses. There were no unusual odors, other than the typical ones that came of heated metal and warm fluids.

Scott attempted a more thorough inspection, poking at the hoses and looking for holes, running his hands along the belts and checking for them breaks. He found nothing obviously amiss. Automobiles were hardly his area of expertise, however. That fascination had seemed to skip everyone in his immediate family except their sister, Bits.

Heavens knows where she is at this hour.

Scott reached for his phone to call his brother, coming away from his waist empty-handed when he realized that it was not clipped there. He looked at the ground around him on the chance that it had fallen free while he was working the gas nozzle, but he did not see it laying there. Reasoning that it almost certainly would have heard it fall, he knelt and checked underneath the car anyway. He spied a few discarded snack chip bags, but no phone. He was also relieved to note that there were no large and fresh puddles of fluid dripping from beneath his car, ruling out one more cause for its sudden failure to start.

Crawling back inside the car, he checked the seats and the compartment between them for the phone, but again failed to find it. He could not remember picking it up and snapping it onto his belt, but then it had become one of those automatic actions such that on most days he probably could not consciously recall whether or not he had done so.

Scott took a look around the small structure. While it had a small convenience store, it did not seem to have a repair bay. While there could be one around the back of the building, it did not really look large to house one. In any case, there was no one there could help him out until morning.

Scott glanced toward the cashier window.

Maybe they have a phone I can borrow.

With a shrug, he headed toward the small booth.

Inside the thick glass was a dark-skinned woman, probably the wife of the owner of the station. Based on her dark hair and the color of her complexion, he suspected that she had come from one of the Arabic countries. Having not even a basic knowledge of those languages and accents, he did not even try to form a guess beyond that.

She looked up and stared at him as he approached the window. Automatically, she shoved the metal drawer out, assuming that he had come to leave his money or ask for a receipt. She seemed mildly perplexed when Scott did neither. Instead, he half-turned and pointed toward his car.

“It won’t start,” he said, making vague gestures involving the turning of an ignition key and steering wheel.

The older woman continued to stare at him, blinking almost expressionlessly.

Scott sighed and tried again.

“Do you have a phone I can borrow?” He held a clenched hand up to his ear. “A phone?”

Her eyes followed his hand as it pressed against his ear and then returned to his side.

“No phone,” she finally said.

Her voice was low and possessed a mildly grating quality that Scott suspected that he did not want to hear at higher decibel levels. Scott gave her a weak smile of understanding and headed back toward the car.

“Move your car,” came her voice from behind him, definitely increasing in volume.

Scott turned, ready to protest. The woman was just staring at him. He wanted to tell her, “It won’t start,” but suspected that such an explanation would like get him no further than had his request to borrow a telephone.

Fortunately, he thought, there was a slight downhill grade that led to the connecting parking lot. If he could get the car rolling, he should be able to guide it in Neutral into one of the spaces over there. The trick, he figured, lie in managing such a feat alone. He thought that he could handle it. If not, then he could try to find some help at one of the businesses that still remained open.

Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams (continued)

Hawkes entered the last of the reports from the security patrols and saved the log. He checked the clock once more before stepping away from his console. He moved toward the helm station. Pyrafox did not turn at his approach, but Hawkes could see the sudden tension in the helmsman’s shoulders as he approached.

“That was the Captain?”

Although it was clearly a question, it sounded to Pyrafox more than a statement, almost a challenge.

“Yes, sir.”

Hawkes looked over the Pyrafox’s shoulder at the helm station displays.

“We’re changing course?”

Pyrafox looked over this helm displays, hoping silently that he had not made any obvious errors in his calculations. To be fair, he was not quite finished yet, but the Lieutenant did not know that.

“The Captain,” Pyrafox replied, pausing a moment in order to calm himself, “just asked me to plot it. It hasn’t be locked in yet.”

“I see.”

Hawkes studied the helm displays more intently now. His forehead wrinkled in a frown.

“Did she give a reason?”

Pyrafox swallowed, fighting the urge to tap his hands nervously on the console. “No, sir,” he said. “She just sent me the coordinates.”

From behind Pyrafox, Hawkes made a sound that might have indicated interest or disapproval—or something else entirely.

Hawkes studied the coordinates again, memorizing them. He could recall nothing particularly significant about that region of space. There had been no reports of conflict or any engagements there. There was not, as far he knew, even much of scientific interest in that area. However, if he remembered correctly, it had not been extensively explored.

The sound of the main hatch opening sounded clearly in the otherwise quiet bridge. Hawkes and Pyrafox both turned to see Devereux enter.

She was dressed in her uniform. It new and freshly cleaned, not as though it might have been the same one from the day before or she had fallen asleep in it. Small areas of her closely cut hair looked as though it had not been dried thoroughly. That was unusual, Hawkes noted, but not entirely noteworthy.

In her hand she carried a large mug. Steam wafted faintly from it and Pyrafox’s keen olfactory senses caught the scent of something sharp and almost acrid. The additional aromas that followed told him it was a cappuccino, the Captain’s usual morning beverage—probably a double from the strong odor of the coffee.

She approached her two officers, cradling the mug between her two palms as though her hands were cold.

“Gentlemen,” she said, offering them both a mostly alert smile. “Good morning.”

Hawkes studied Devereux for a moment before speaking. It was indeed morning, by the reckoning of the shipboard clocks, but it should have been several hours before she had returned to duty.

She seemed to sense her Tactical Officer’s silent analysis.

“Our good friends at Fleet Command,” she said, “decided that it was time for some new orders.” She stifled a yawn. “It seemed pointless to try to go back to sleep.”

It was a difficult point to argue, Hawkes decided—particularly with one’s commanding officer.

“As you wish, Captain.”

Devereux gave a quiet laugh and then turned her attention to Pyrafox.

“Do you have that course ready, Lieutenant?”

Pyrafox turned back to the helm station and got busily working. “Almost done, Captain,” he said, wondering then if he had turned his back on her too abruptly. Nothing to do about it now, he decided, except to get the course calculated like she asked in the first place.

Devereux sipped carefully at her drink, licking the foam delicately from her upper lip. She appeared unaware of her Tactical Officer was still standing there watching her. Her eyes seemed to suddenly discover his presence. Devereux lowered the cup from her mouth. If she was at all unnerved, she did not show it.

“Feel free to knock off early, Lieutenant,” she offered, motioning with her mug as to the otherwise vacant condition of the bridge.

Hawkes continued to study Devereux critically. “Are you certain, Captain?”

Devereux laughed softly, giving Hawkes an easy smile. “I think I can manage the bridge for a few extra hours.”

Hawkes continued to hesitate, but discovered that he really had no good reason to remain if the Captain was there. Other for maintenance and repairs by Engineering teams and routine security patrols, there was nothing else of any urgency taking place. Except for these change in orders. The Captain appeared to be treating them as otherwise unremarkable, though. That reassured him somewhat.

“I’ll bid you good night then, Captain,” he offered, dipping his head slightly.

“Good night, Lieutenant,” Devereux replied with a soft smile and then turned her attention to the main bridge displays.

Hawkes returned to the Tactical station. Once there, he logged off and placed it into standby mode. After another quick survey of the status displays, he left the bridge.

Devereux placed a light hand on Pyrafox’s shoulder, shaking her head slightly with bemusement.

“Let me know when you have that course ready,” she told him.

“Yes, Captain.”

Devereux nodded, looked at the stars visible on the bridge displays, and then turned and headed for the command deck.

#

Elizabeth awoke in the dark, stretching slowly as she roused from sleep. She turned her head and blinked, forcing her eyes to focus on the clock display.

4:58 am.

It took a moment for her thoughts to process the information and recognize that it was still far too early to be up for her shift. Wondering what had awakened her, she moved languidly across the bed, relishing the feel of the sheets against her bare flesh.

Thank goodness we didn’t have to go to Battle Stations, she mused sleepily.

She had not usually slept bare since becoming First Officer, never certain when she might be awakened for some duty or another. Granted that unless some invading boarding party assaulted her quarters first, she would have enough time to at least pull on a uniform, even if not her underwear. In the case of an alien invader, it probably would not matter anyway. They were not likely to care whether she was naked or not.

Her hands glided over the curves of her body as she readjusted and smoothed the sheets again. Perhaps it was her mind was still caught in sleep, but she suddenly remembered that girl from the Academy. What was her name? Melinda? Melanie?

They had met over dinner one night in the cafeteria, both taking a break from studying for mid-term exams. Hers had been for . . . slipstream mechanics; the other girl’s was preparing for exobiology. The cafeteria had been crowded and one of the few available seats had been across from Elizabeth.

They might not have met at all had Melanie not spilled her grape juice on the table, nearly ruining all of Elizabeth’s notes. Not real damage was done, but Melanie had offered Elizabeth some additional notes for her upcoming examination for Comparative Literature. They had ended up alone in Melanie’s room and, somehow—Elizabeth could no longer clearly recall the exact sequence of events—they had spent the night in bed together.

She had not been Elizabeth’s first female partner. She had been one of the few, as Elizabeth preferred men, but she had been memorable. She had been intent, passionate and at no point during or since their encounter had Elizabeth ever regretted it.

Elizabeth found that she had one hand down between her legs as she remembered that encounter. Part of her ached, knowing that in her new position, every member of the crew was essentially off-limits. She had avoided shipboard relationships before, mostly by choice. She had understood that they were likely to be transitory, as junior officers were often transferred regularly between assignments with the current and urgent need to keep all of the ships and stations minimally staffed.

Her body trembled as her fingers continued their unsupervised motions. She considered withdrawing her hand, but instead allowed it to remain where it was. It had been so long since she had with anyone—and it was likely to be a long time before she would be again.

Now her body tensed, her breasts tightening into firm mounds. Her nipples tingled, becoming suddenly hard. She bit back a moan, afraid that someone might hear her. Suppressing her reaction only made it stronger. Her back arched as her climax overwhelmed her control. Her muscles locked, suspending her in that position for several long moments until they released her. She fell back against the bed, gasping. Her head and heart pounded.

It really has been a long time, she thought.

It took several minutes for her breathing to return to normal. As lay sprawled out across her bed, once more entangled in her sheets, Elizabeth had no trouble returning to sleep.

Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams (continued)

Devereux awoke to the sharp, steady pulse of an incoming message alert. She opened her eyes slowly, trying to force her eyes to focus on the clock display. They were slow to respond to her commands and she briefly considered court-martial. That seemed to motivate them and things jumped into focus.

3:33 am

What? Devereux thought with sleepy irritation. She peered at the blinking indicator. It was amber. That meant that it was important, but not yet critically urgent. She wondered how long it had been activated before its sound had managed to rouse her from sleep.

Better be damned important, she thought

She was more annoyed with herself for forgetting to turn off the audible alert before falling asleep than with the sender of the message.

She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to force the sleep from them. Shifting her position on the bed, she felt something slide down the sheet and land with a soft, but definitive whap onto the carpeted deck. She knew without looking that it had been the tablet she had been reading from when she had fallen asleep.

What time had that been?

She had no conclusive answer to that question. The last time she remembered looking at the clock display, it had shown 10:38.

Still groggy from sleep, she pushed the sheets aside and rose from the bed. She shuffled to her desk and fumbled for a moment to switch on its display. After a moment it glowed into life. She tapped it to receive the message and grew suddenly more awake when it stopped and prompted her for a security access code.

A small knot formed in stomach. Encrypted messages were rarely harbingers of a good day.

She entered her pass code and waited for it to be confirmed. A moment later, her authorization code was accepted and the message was displayed on the screen.

Devereux read it over carefully and then studied the details of it again—what few of them there were. She recognized the origination code as coming from somewhere in Special Operations. That alone was enough to raise alarm bells in her mind.

The rest of the message provided few additional details other than for a set of coordinates and a time specified for the rendezvous.

But rendezvous with what—or who?

The message provided absolutely no information about that. With increasing curiosity, Devereux checked the size of the data packet for the message. Her hunch was confirmed: it was too large to just have just contained this message and it associated encryption protocols. The odds were, she guessed, that was more data in there what might be released when they were closer to—or actually arrived at—the rendezvous point. That hypothesis did nothing to ease her growing apprehension.

Almost fully awake now, Devereux studied the rendezvous coordinates. They designated an area in space that, if she remembered correctly, had not as yet been heavily explored. She made a mental note to check the reports from any surveys that might have been done of that region.

She did some quick mental calculations and determined that they could easily reach the coordinates by the time requested without pushing the engines very hard. That would make Rusty happy, she mused with a thin smile. She reached over and tapped the intercom control.

“Bridge,” she said, finding that her voice had yet fully woken up. “This is the Captain.”

“This is the Bridge.”

Devereux was surprised at first to hear Pyrafox’s slurred tones before remembering that he and Lieutenant Hawkes had swapped to take the third shift that evening so that the crewmen who usually held those posts during that shift could participate in some kind of religious activity. Devereux tried to remember which one it was, but then comparative world religions had never been one of her deeper areas of expertise.

Other than for the occasional (and usually urgent) prayer for assistance to whatever deity one believed in during times of crisis, Devereux did not see much need for it aboard her starship. It was not that she was prejudiced against it; she simply had no use for it herself. Although, she had discovered that her stance on that subject appeared to have softened since her father’s death.

That did not explain why Hawkes had not answered, as he would be the senior officer in charge during that shift.

He’s probably busy chastising some poor security patrol.

His absence, or failure to respond to her call, did not cause her any particular concern. She could not imagine the old Tactical Officer leaving his post without a very legitimate reason. If she was still bothered by it, she could ask when he returned.

“Lieutenant,” she began, her voice becoming stronger. “I’m going to be sending you a set of coordinates and a scheduled rendezvous time,” she said. “Plot a course to those coordinates and let me know when it’s ready. I’ll inform Engineering.”

“Aye, Captain,” Pyrafox confirmed. “Standing by.”

Devereux copied the coordinates from her message and transmitted them over the comm’s data channel to the helm station.

“Coordinates received,” Pyrafox acknowledged a moment later. There was a long pause and then the helmsman’s voice came over the intercom again.

“Um, Captain?” The hesitation in the helmsman’s voice was clear even over the intercom.

Devereux’s eyebrows rose slightly in surprise. It was a rare occurrence for the vulpine helmsman to question her orders.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Captain,” he repeated with a little more confidence. “Can you confirm these coordinates?”

Devereux smiled and suppressed a quiet laugh. She completely understood the helmsman’s reluctance to accept the validity of the coordinates at first glance.

She transmitted the coordinates to the helm station again. “They’re copied directly from our orders,” she explained. “I’m sorry,” she went on “I can’t send you the entire message.”

“Understood, Captain.” A few moments passed before Pyrafox’s voice was heard again. “Coordinates received again and confirmed,” he reported. “Plotting a course now.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Devereux acknowledged, managing another small smile. “Captain out.”

Devereux ran a hand through the hair along the back of head. She could feel the small tangles in it from sleep. Glancing over at the clock, she tried to decide whether it was worthwhile to go back to bed. She could try to sleep for a couple more hours, but she knew that it would take some time for her mind to wind down again after the receipt of these new orders.

She turned to see the sheets of her bed pushed aside, leaving it open and empty. Without her volition, it brought forth from her memories another bed, one in which she had not been alone, shared with someone else in a time that was now long ago. Her body both tingled and ached with the memory.

One hundred and twenty-six years.

Now she knew that, if she did manage to get back to sleep, what her dreams would be filled with. That made the decision much easier.

She rose and turned on the shower.

Pyrafox was shortly going to have company on the bridge.

#

Rusty held up the small glass of the dark liquid. Although nearly all of the lights in his quarters were dimmed, the glass caught a beam of reflected light, giving its contents a rich, amber glow. He raised it toward the window and its view of distant stars.

“Here’s to you, boys.”

His voice was a murmur, just barely loud enough to be heard, had someone else been there in his quarters with him.

He downed the contents of the glass in a single swallow, releasing a muted grunt as the liquor burned its way down his throat.

His vision blurred and the stars began to shimmer, their edges sparkling with jewel-like spectra. His hand dropped, but the small glass remained caught in it, trapped in the palm of his large hand. The potent alcohol hit his bloodstream quickly, no doubt aided and amplified by the half dozen small pink and spherical pills that he had downed earlier that evening.

The room did not really begin to spin, but unless the ship’s artificial gravity systems had shut down, his equilibrium reported otherwise. He dropped into his chair, needing two attempts before he could land in it properly. Fortunately, it was oversized and non-regulation, so gave him a larger than usual target to aim for. Not for the first time, he muttered silent gratitude to that trader at the open-air bazaar on . . . on . . . what backwoods dust bowl of colony planet had that been again?

He closed his eyes and tried to focus his thoughts. The darkness kept his quarters from spinning before his eyes, but his mind still whirled with fragments of half-formed thoughts. Memories from the recent past and distant present flashed through his mind. Some issued forth with startling clarity, while others were lost in an indistinct haze.

Devereux’s face from earlier that day floated past, locked in the wounded look of sadness that it held when she had discovered his annual ritual with the engine cores. He had never intended to hurt her—never. It had been both serious and in fun—and he should have known how she might react.

Why didn’t I see it? Why. Didn’t. I?

Her frozen expression remained trapped in his thoughts, forcing to the surface his own feelings of guilty, betrayal, loyalty, and others that he refused to name. To name them would be to acknowledge them, to surrender to the truth of them. He could not; he would not.

Rusty hunched forward in the chair. The onslaught of emotions carried an almost physical pain. The glass dropped from his hand, falling to land with a barely audible sound against the padded deck plates.

He moaned, but not at all certain that he did so aloud. He heard the sound in his head, but did not feel it in his throat.

Devereux’s face faded, becoming a translucent haze before disappearing completely from his thoughts. What images that followed were vibrant and incoherent, flashes of darkness and color that held no meaningful form. His mind fell into it, was enveloped by it, and then torn apart by it, his consciousness clawed into shreds as if by some dark and unseen creature.

His psyche had shattered. Every piece of him that had ever been was dispersed across eternity. Each shard held a splinter of his awareness, but it quickly lost all knowledge all of the other parts, or that it had ever been part of a larger whole. The being that had once been Russell Rayna became the infinity that was time and space.

Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams (continued)

Colonel John Ransome rubbed at his eyes using the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, and tried to calculate how many hours of sleep he had gotten during the past three days. It was more than six, he determined, but not as many as ten. He had stopped drinking coffee earlier in the day, as it was threatening to burn a hole in his stomach as he had been relying on the caffeine rather than any real nutrition to keep him going.

He had a vague memory of Kelly—Lieutenant Palm, he silently corrected himself—bringing him a sandwich at some point. He did not remember it eating it. A small translucent container caught his eye from beneath a short stack of reports. That would be why, he admitted sardonically: he had not. He tried to remember how long ago that had been since it had been placed there.

Ransome glanced at the clock display on his desk. It was not yet midnight, but long enough past eleven that it made no real difference. His mind buzzed with facts and figures, from real-time tactical reports and proposed strategic operations, but they all refused to coalesce into something useful. He knew that he was beat. If he did not take a break and get some real rest soon then than someone, probably Kelly, would find him slumped over his desk, face-down in a cold puddle of spilled coffee.

He had served on the front lines during the first (officially declared) Earth-Orion War. During that time he had served many a double and triple shift on duty. But that had been twelve—no, almost fifteen, he corrected himself—years ago. Had it really been eight years since Erin had taken their two boys and left him? He still saw his sons regularly. The three of them had, in fact, just returned from a camping trip in Utah a month earlier. Or was it two months ago? No, he realized, five—almost six—months.

Damn.

It was so hard to get away—and being at war certainly did not help. Being assigned to the station did not make the logistics any easier either. It was not as though he could just grab a seat on the next available flight between his office and wherever the boys were. There were shuttles coming and going from the surface nearly every day, but most of those were supply ships. Fuel was just too scarce and expensive to spend ferrying personnel around on personal business. He had tried to get the boys to meet him here at the station, and they had been all for it (over their mother’s very vocal objections), but then the station was closed to all but essential civilian traffic and the discussion became moot.

He started to tap the control to contact the outer office to see if Kelly was still there before stopping himself. If she was being her usual conscientious self, then Kelly had the channel forwarded to her private line so she could be available if Ransome needed her. He hoped that she had long since gone home—to that asshole of a boyfriend that Ransome could not yet find a defensible reason for getting tossed into the brig. At some point, she would accept a ship-side posting—she certainly deserved one, Ransome acknowledged. Her boyfriend would be left behind, and that would be that. He would no doubt cheat on Kelly, she would finally call it off, and Ransome would be far happier for her.

Gods, I really am tired, Ransome conceded, surprised at the dull swell of anger he had felt.

Kelly was a good kid. She was sharp, efficient—and able to handle him with a potent combination of subtle humor and directness. She was also damned attractive, particularly when in uniform.

If I were twenty years younger . . . hell, ten years. . .

Ransome quickly derailed that train of thought. Heading further down that track led to a cargo hold full of troubles that he did not need. Regulations and good sense aside, he was old enough to be her father. Even if she were to express even a hint of interest, that could open a Pandora’s Box of issues associated with the names of ancient Greek mythological people that Ransome did want to get reacquainted with.

All of that aside, it would be nice to not have to eat dinner alone. Despite the late hour, he knew that he needed to eat before heading to bed or he would be miserable the next day. His metabolism was not what it used to be, he considered sourly.

Instead of using the communications channel, he tapped into the security feed that showed the interior of the outer office. It was empty and dark. Well, not entirely dark, he noted. Kelly had left on the single overhead light near the outer hatch for him. He smiled slightly, remembering all of the times that he switched off the lights in his office only to step out into outer darkness and, more than once, stumble over some piece of furniture or another trying to make his way to the door.

Good kid, he chuckled, shunting back the small flash of disappointment at finding her gone.

He was reaching to switch off the display when the incoming message signal flashed. The message and sender ID codes told him that it was urgent and coming from . . . the Special Operations division?

Great, he swore silently. Some upstart oligarch just sneezed and now they want to know whether to offer him a tissue or assassinate him and I’m the only senior officer foolish enough to answer his phone at this hour.

With a blossoming sense of annoyance and dread, Ransome accepted the call.

Ransome did not recognize the man on the other side of the display screen. He did not immediately identify himself and appeared, well, not exactly nervous . “Confused” might be the best word for it, Ransome decided.

“Colonel Ransome?” the officer asked tentatively, as if uncertain who he had called at this late hour.

If this was a misdialed call . . . Ransome grumbled inwardly with growing irritation.

“Yes . . .” he blinked to force his eyes to focus on the image, trying to discern the officer’s rank, “Major?”

‘Colonel,” the major began again, seeming more confident now that he had been reassured that he had reached the correct officer. “I have an encoded message for you. It’s designated equivalent to ‘For Your Eyes Only’.”

Odd, Ransome considered. Why hadn’t it been transmitted directly to him then? Were they concerned that Kelly might be reading his messages? Although she was assigned as his aide, her clearance only allowed her access to messages up to a certain security level, certainly nothing near the level required to view this message. Ransome spoke his concerns aloud.

“I don’t know, sir,” the major responded. Some of the uncertainty had returned to his voice. “I was only instructed to see that you received it.”

“I see,” Ransome replied quietly. He studied the major’s face, but saw nothing in its expression that betrayed that he knew anything more than what he had said.

“Accepted,” Ransome said and waited while the message was downloaded into his secure storage. A moment later, a status light blinked to indicate that the message had been received and verified.

“Thank you, Major,” Ransome said, not at certain that he should be feeling any gratitude toward the hapless officer. Security measures of this type rarely brought good news.

“Yes, sir,” the Major replied, paused a moment, and then disappeared from the screen.

Curiouser and curiouser . . . Ransome mused as he called up the message.

The subject line revealed nothing of its contents. It consisted solely of an alphanumerical code phrase. It would mean nothing to someone who might be looking over his shoulder or had managed to tap into his secure data stream. Hell, he thought with amused irritation, I don’t even know what it means.

The message body remained blank. There was a momentary delay and then it prompted him to enter his security access code. The screen flashed crimson.

AUTHORIZATION FAILED.

Below it, in a smaller typeface, followed a string of characters that Ransome assumed was meaningful to some security programmer or analyst somewhere.

The screen cleared and the prompt returned again.

Ransome frowned. He was certain that he had entered the correct passcode. Glitches happen, he considered with a mental shrug. Yet, he was growing increasingly uneasy.

He entered his passphrase again.

AUTHORIZATION FAILED.

A sequence of characters appeared beneath it again; Ransome assumed that it was the same set as before, although he had no way of being certain.

He sat back in his chair, studying the once-again blank screen with its patiently blinking prompt. If he remembered correctly, he was only allowed three attempts to access the file before it was wiped from his system and the security exception logged. The latter did not bother him so much, as he had not requested the message, but now he wanted to know what the contents of the message were. Someone had gone to a far amount of trouble to ensure that he—and only he—received it.

The security prompt continued to blink steadily, waiting for him to respond. He did not know whether it would eventually time out, but suspected that it might if he waited long enough. His eyes stared at the screen without focusing on it. He held no doubt that he had entered his passphrase correctly—both times.

A memory niggled at the back of his thoughts. There had been a secondary passcode . . . from long ago. It had been issued to him specifically for that mission. He had not used it in years and assumed that it had been revoked when that operation ended.

He stared at the blinking prompt again. He still had no idea how many attempts he had left. A smart security measure, he knew, but damned frustrating at times like this. He was certain that he had entered his code correctly the first two times. What other option did he have?

Pulling the old passcode deliberately from his memory, he entered it without looking onto another part of his desk display, relying on muscle memory to verify his [memory]. He looked down at the characters that his fingers had entered: they matched those that he held in his mind. Feeling a bit more confident, he took a slow, steady breath and then entered that same code sequence at the prompt.

There was a brief delay and Ransome waited for the screen to flash crimson again. Nothing happened for several seconds and Ransome began to wonder if the number of attempts had been exceeded after all, or perhaps the system itself had crashed. It did not happen very often, but it did happen, usually at the most inopportune moments.

The screen flashed, this time with a green hue.

AUTHORIZATION CONFIRMED.

Below this appeared his name, current rank, and service identification number. He found this of interest, as he had not held his current rank the last time he had used that security code. That meant that whatever systems it was associated with had access to current personnel security records.

He tapped the screen, still considering this, and the image faded. A moment later, the text of the message formed in its place.

There was a collection of both background and recent reconnaissance data, most of the details of which Ransome did not completely understand. What he gleaned from their summaries was this:

An unexplained gravitational discrepancy had been detected in one of the mostly unexplored sectors between Earth and the Orion fleets. Supported by both the data provided in the message and his own memory, there appeared to have been no engagements of any kind in that area. It even seemed to be off the usual supply or patrol routes for both sides.

Due to the distance, the scientific data that had been collected was inconclusive. This led a wide-ranging variety of probable causes. These ranged from the profoundly troubling—it was the “echo” of a large number of slipstream events, leading to the possibility that the Orion fleet was amassing an armada there—to the mundane—that it was a transitory natural phenomenon that would baffle interested scientists for decades to come.

Ransome liked neither of the two extreme options, for either would cause him to waste the resources of a ship at a time when every ship was needed on the front lines. The ship that would be assigned to investigate the phenomenon—and this was one of the particularly interesting sections, for it was specifically named in the message—would need to be capable of handling itself under a variety of possible situations. The ship it specified: Emerald Flight.

Although he had a general recollection of the vessel, Ransome still requested the dossier on it and its crew.

That’s right, he recalled as he quickly looked over the records. Devereux. She returned to service after a short leave of absence.

His eyes continued to scan the information. The ship itself was nothing special, a general-purpose vessel that the Fleet had acquired through some strange, and not entirely clearly explained, chain of events involving an independent trader and—if Ransome understood it correctly—an undercover operation that had gone sour. The details were either vague or missing and appeared to be classified.

The action required by the content of the message was quite clear: the Emerald Flight was to travel to the coordinates of the recorded phenomenon no later than a specific date and time. Once there, they were to await further orders, depending on what they found when they arrived. If necessary, they could take whatever action they felt was appropriate to maintain the security of the ship and its crew until those orders arrived.

Why that particular date? Ransome wondered. There were no operations planned during that time period that he was aware of, certainly none involving that region of space. He realized that he would probably need to read the entire dossier, as well as review the schedules for all of the operations planned during that period.

His earlier weariness, having been displaced by his interest in the unexpected message, suddenly returned. There would be plenty of time tomorrow to review all of the reports. He acknowledged receipt of the message, authorized it to be relayed to Captain Devereux, and switched off his desk display.

As he rose from his chair, his joints voiced their protests. He ignored them, flexing his shoulders and forearms, easing out the worst of the kinks, and headed for the door.

Maybe I will skip dinner after all, he considered half-seriously, and start right in with the drinks.

It had become that kind of day.

Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams (continued)

His eyes glanced at one of the small displays on his console. One minute remaining. He called up his security log and positioned his left hand over it, ready to enter data. The chronometer now showed twenty-eight seconds.

Hawkes performed one more visual survey of his status displays and then had to wait only a moment before an indicator blinked amber. Three seconds early.

Hawkes tapped the flashing light and the encrypted identification code resolved into a readable name.

Lenz, Hawkes noted with silent approval.

The security officer, despite holding a junior-level rank, was prompt, thorough, and had consistently demonstrated a high regard for Fleet Security regulations. Hawkes found few faults with his performance—none of which had been worthy of being reported in his daily security log.

Other indicators blinked on his console, most of them appearing within a few seconds of the end of the countdown. Hawkes cleared each of them in turn, noting the name of the security officer associated with each one. A moment later, a single light blinked.

Owens.

Without looking at them, Hawkes’ fingers entered the security lieutenant’s name into his log, along with a notation that his scheduled check-in had been delayed by eighty seconds. That was unacceptable—and far from the first time that such an incident had occurred. It was an improvement over his delays, but well over the expected thirty-second limit that Hawkes allowed.

Hawkes read over the terse entry in his security, confirmed that the time it stated was correct, and then filed it for later review. He then brought up Owens’ service record.

The lieutenant was new to the crew, having not served aboard the ship during her previous tour of duty. He had come highly recommended. His record showed that he had served on several prestigious postings throughout the Fleet. All of the former colleagues that Hawkes had contacted had reported Owens to be a highly competent officer. His background check, while not flawless, had revealed nothing that raised any significant concerns to Hawkes.

So what had happened? What would cause an purportedly exemplary officer to not perform to the standards of which rank and position?

Hawkes knew from his decades of experience that the answer—or answers—to that question could be either very simple or extremely complex and convoluted. The human psyche did not always respond according to rational principles of conduct. If they did, there would be a far lesser need for security personnel about Fleet ships and stations.

After reviewing the contents of Owens’ service record again, Hawkes found nothing that suggested a link to any probable cause for the security lieutenant’s unsatisfactory behavior. The problem was his performance was just inadequate enough to be noticed, but not serious enough to yet warrant formal and official action. It was possible, Hawkes considered, that it had not been recognized as an issue on any of Owens’ previous postings.

Hawkes knew that he maintained very high standards of performance for the members of the crew under his charge. Captain Devereux, despite whatever reservations he might hold over her style of command, had never even suggested to him that such rigorous standards might be unnecessary. He had taken that as tacit permission—and approval.

None of this helped him solve the original problem of Owens’ behavior. He could request that the lieutenant undergo a physical or psychological evaluation, if not both, but so far his lapses had been sufficiently minor that it could only be voluntary. His transgressions while on duty would have to become far more serious before Hawkes could formally require either test.

It was possible, he considered, that the medical officer might have access to records of such examinations, if they had been performed recently, or possibly conducted them herself when Owens’ had been assigned aboard. Hope was, Hawkes acknowledged once again, most efficient in conducting her duties.

On his console, he requested a report of the personnel access activity of Deck Four. Within a few moments, the data appeared. According to the security access logs, Hope had remained in the Infirmary of the end of the shift.

Hawkes had actually expected that. He would have been surprised had she not been there. Except to deal with urgent medical issues among the crew, or attend the occasional staff meeting, she tended to not venture out from what Hawkes surmised was her sanctuary aboard the ship. She had her own quarters, but rarely used them. Aerian physiology apparently demanded far less sleep than that of human beings. Hawkes had never heard mention that Hope had been found asleep at her post.

He checked the chronometer display.

Two minutes and eighteen seconds until the next required check-in.

He brought up his security log and prepared to make a new entry.

One minute.

He signaled Ensign Bayer to report to the bridge after completing his check-in. There was a brief delay before Bayer responded.

Eight seconds.

Status lights began to blink on his console. Lenz reported in first, but only three seconds ahead of Johan. Owens, Hawkes noted, was the last one to check in—after sixty-three seconds. Hawkes recorded the results in his log, checked it, and then filed it. Bayer arrived shortly afterward.

Hawkes formally turned the Tactical station over to Bayer and left the bridge, headed for the Infirmary. He was going to see what information the doctor might be willing—or able—to share about Lieutenant Owens.

#

Elizabeth sat before her computer station, neatly stacking the next set of reports on her desk. The Captain had warned her, nearly two years earlier, that part of moving higher in the chain of command was the mountain of paperwork that you had to climb to get there. Elizabeth had thought that she was joking at the time; she now knew just how true that observation had been.

Being assigned (and promoted!) as Devereux’s second-in-command had been both exciting and terrifying. She had not believed that she yet ready to serve in such a position—and on any other ship it would have been unlikely that it would have happened—but now she wondered more about how Devereux had managed without one who stayed in the position longer than one mission.

Part of her (the ungrateful part, Elizabeth had decided) wondered if Devereux deliberately dumped the most tedious—and seemingly pointless—administrative tasks on her. Elizabeth did not think that was Devereux’s style, but on nights like this she had to wonder. The promotion had been an unexpected reward, but at that moment she would rather have been somewhere on the Engineering Deck taking apart some piece of equipment with the Chief than . . . she blinked at the tablet in her hand, reporting on the crew’s typical consumption of various beverages that contained natural stimulants.

Coffee, she mused with renewed irritation. They couldn’t just say “coffee”.

She yawned, but more from the monotony of the task than from true fatigue.

I could use some right now.

She had been working on the reports, and their associated research, for some time without a break. She looked over at the clock and blinked before her eyes widened with bleary surprise. Three hours had passed since she had last checked.

No wonder my eyes feel like they’re ready to pop out on their own.

It had been more than an hour since her shift had been scheduled to end. She knew that, in reality, the captain of a vessel was never truly off-duty while they were in command. The same seemed to apply, to a certain degree, to the First Officer as well. Elizabeth had tried to make sure that her position did not consume her entire life, forcing herself to stop for meals and stop works on tasks that really could wait until the next day.

So far, Devereux had made any comments about her performance. She had, in fact, suggested to Elizabeth on a few occasions that she should end her shift early, telling her that the work would still be there tomorrow. Elizabeth had obeyed, but had felt mildly guilty about it each time. The next morning, though, she had approached the work with a renewed energy, so she had come to trust the Captain’s judgment—even more than ever.

She rose and began to lift off her uniform tunic. Her shoulders and elbows felt stiff, reminding her of just how long she had remained at her desk without a break. She turned her head, feeling a similar resistance in her neck, and pulled her ponytail free of her shirt. Her uniform was not uncomfortable, but it always felt good to be out of it at the end of the day. She folded it neatly, placing it over the back on her chair, and sat down to begin sliding off her boots.

Once her legs were free, she stretched them out before her, feeling their muscles knot, and then relax, as she flexed them in front of her. She sighed and leaned back into the cushioned chair.

I’m definitely treating myself to a piece of pie tonight, she told herself. I’ve earned it.

She wondered what the featured selections were that day. It would be easy enough for her to check, but that took the fun out of discovering what it was when she arrived at the galley. Besides, if it was something she did not like, she did not have to take it. Choosing the right dessert was not like getting all of the right proteins and carbohydrates with her meal.

Elizabeth looked at her reflection in the mirror, trying to decide whether she needed a shower before heading down to get some dinner. She decided against it, chiefly because she did not want to spend the extra time required to try to keep her long hair dry. In addition, her stomach had awakened from its earlier languor and was now making its own demands.

She quickly peeled off her uniform pants, folded them, and placed both them and her tunic into a drawer. From another drawer she removed a snugly-fitting purple shirt with dark inlaid piping. This was joined by a pair of leggings in a shade that matched that of the dark trim of the shirt. She checked her image in the mirror, brushing some stray strands of hair from in front of her eyes.

The outfit clearly revealed the curves of her body. It was not intended to be provocative, but it was likely to get her attention, at least at first glance. That was fine with her. She might be an officer, but she was still female. She saw no reason to discourage acknowledgement of that fact, at least when safely on board her own ship.

Slipping her feet into a pair of soft-soled shoes, she left her quarters with a satisfied smile and headed for the galley—and whatever dessert awaited her there.

Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams (continued)

The ceramic mug spun slowly on the turntable inside the microwave. Its speed was not quite enough to become hypnotic, capturing only the smallest part of his awareness. Some other part of his mind registered the time counting down on the front display. Neither activity was really enough to draw his attention. His thoughts just wandered to nowhere in particular until interrupted by the sharp chime that indicated that the heating cycle was completed. His hand had already begun to move toward the oven door a moment before, probably driven by an unconscious signal from the part of his mind that had been monitoring the countdown.

He touched the mug, finding it uncomfortably warm. Gripping it gingerly, he lowered it to the counter and waited a moment for it to cool. The milk inside it steamed lightly. He touched it gently and, finding it not to be as hot as the mug that contained it, stirred it slowly with his forefinger. After a moment, he licked the warmed milk from his finger, bringing back vague memories from childhood.

Maybe hot cocoa would have been better, he mused with a sense of renewed humor. But it’s not winter yet.

He sipped from the mug, finding it comfortable enough now to hold, and started back toward his bedroom. He slowed at a muffled, by sharp sound. It was followed by silence, and Scott could not be sure that he had heard it. A few moments later, though, it came again and this time Scott was certain.

It had been a giggle. Its noise had not exactly been cut off, but had faded out quickly. He shook his head slowly, increasing his stride again. His brother must have brought someone home. A girl this time, Scott guessed from the octave. At least it sounded like one—and only one—as both giggles had seemed to possess the same pitch.

The noise he heard next was equally recognizable. The steady rhythmic sounds that followed confirmed his suspicions. He forced his mind to not fill in the mental picture that it wanted to form. He felt mildly ashamed by his automatic physical reaction to the sound. He was a healthy, full functional, human male after all, but still . . .

How long had it been? Had there been anyone since . . . ?

Scott shut off that thought. There had been a few young women since Christine. He could even remember their names. A few of them had even been memorable, but his relationships with any of them had not lasted very long—almost entirely, he knew, through his own fault.

It never seemed to bother Thad, he considered with some envy. Ever since they were young boys, his brother had never lacked for friends or nighttime companions—of either gender. Thad seemed to revel in it, not truly using any of them solely for his own pleasure, but not getting any more involved than the occasional all-night dalliance. For Thad, it seemed to Scott, a long-term relationship was one where his partner from the night before stayed for breakfast the next morning.

But then, Scott remembered, the last girl that her brother had fallen hard enough with whom to even begin to consider the concept of monogamy had turned out to be someone with a specific goal to get close to both of them in order to learn what they knew about their prototype power generator. That had been how he had ultimately met Christine.

Scott sat down in the chair at his desk, placing the mug down without taking another sip from it. The volume and tempo of the sounds coming from his brother’s bedroom both increased. Their rooms were far enough apart that Scott could not usually hear the noises issuing from it, unless he was specifically listening for it. Tonight, though, the house seemed unusually quiet, and sounds particularly distinct. There was no doubt in Scott’s mind that next sound he heard was produced by a female throat.

He pushed himself away from the desk, his growing frustration fueled on several fronts. With an anger directed chiefly at himself, he snatched up his hooded sweatshirt from its hooks on the door and headed back out of his room. His warmed milk remained untouched behind him.

His car keys were where he expected them to be, where he had left them, hanging on the hook near the side door. That meant that his brother had not borrowed his car that day, so he probably still had plenty of gas in the tank. It was not that he was planning to travel far. The true was, he did not know where he was heading—he just needed to get out of the house for a while. The sounds that he had heard, that had driven him away, would probably not cease until morning. Before then, Scott hoped, by the time he returned, he would be too tired to care.

#

Hope turned away from the console. The readings indicated that Ensign would recover without lasting damage to her hand. The Ensign flexed her hand experimentally and winced. From her expression, Hope could tell that while the Ensign was relieved that all of her fingers were still attached and working, she still experienced some discomfort when she tried to move them. It would pass, Hope knew, but most humans lacked the training and internal awareness required for proper biofeedback control.

Until the bones completed their repair, and the damaged muscles and tissues regenerated, it would be difficult for the Ensign to fully perform her duties among the Engineers. She had suffered no other injuries, though, so Hope saw no other reason to limit her upcoming duty cycles. Finding appropriate tasks for the Ensign to perform while her injuries healed more completely was a matter for the Chief Engineer to handle, not her.

Walking over to one of the sealed cabinets, Hope opened it and retrieved a hypo. She checked it contents again and then adjusted the dosage. Satisfied, she pressed it against the Ensign’s arm, near her wrist. There was faint, barely audible hiss. A few seconds later, the Ensign’s expression relaxed as the medication took effect.

After checking the dosage setting again, Hope held it out to the Ensign.

“For pain,” she said. “Use twice. Only.”

The Ensign nodded her understanding, her expression was almost gravely serious as she accepted the hypo.

“Thanks, Hope,” she said with a slight, tentative smile.

Hope responded only by tilting her head slightly.

“Return tomorrow,” Hope told her. “This time.”

The Ensign nodded her understanding. “I will.”

When Hope added nothing further, she dropped lightly from the diagnostic bed and left the Infirmary. Hope watched her depart, performing one more mental assessment of the Ensign’s injuries and treatment before submitting her official report.

She had received an urgent message from the Chief Engineer that one of his subordinates had been injured. He was having her brought to the Infirmary for treatment. Hope was not wholly surprised when the Chief Engineer himself showed up guiding the damaged Ensign. His uniform had been streaked with blood. A quick scan confirmed that none of it was his, but all of it had come from the injured subordinated.

The Ensign had been nearly delirious with pain. The Chief Engineer talked constantly while Hope performed a preliminary medical scan. He continued as she administered a measured dosage of a mildly powerful analgesic, providing details of the accident that had resulted in the injury that she had not requested. Hope had considered requesting that he cease talking or, even more preferred, leave the Infirmary. From experience, she suspected that neither request would have the desired result, so she did not expend the energy.

The Chief Engineer had many subordinate Engineers that could have been assigned the task of bringing their injured peer to the Infirmary, but he had done it himself. It was, Hope had noted, an inefficient use of the Chief Engineer’s time and knowledge. However, she had observed that the Chief Engineer often demonstrated less-than-efficient behavior. Hope did not understand why the Captain permitted it, but it was not her place to inquire, and the Captain had never volunteered any explanation.

“. . . the secondary mounting brace sheared away and BAM! . . .”

Even through the Chief Engineer’s needlessly dramatic delivery, Hope discerned the necessary information.

When the mounting bracket on an energy flow monitoring system had failed, the module had snapped away from the bulkhead, trapping the Ensign’s hand beneath it. The other Engineers had quickly removed the module from the Ensign’s hand and the Chief Engineer had informed her of the need for medical services.

The data gathered from her scans of the injury supported the Chief Engineer’s explanation. The pattern of damage to the bone structure, the condition of the flesh and muscle, were all consistent with the kind of injury that the Chief Engineer described. Once she had completed her treatment, however, Hope would cross-reference her findings to verify that conclusion.

Now, she was once again alone in the Infirmary. The treatment area and diagnostic bed would have to be cleaned and sterilized. The data and samples that she had gathered would need to be cataloged and stored. Her official log and the medical records of the Ensign needed to be updated.

She had heard about the unusual celebratory gesture that the Chief Engineer had made on the Engineering Deck earlier that cycle. Hope wondered whether that event might have distracted the Engineer subordinates so that the accident had occurred. She would not mention such a supposition in her official log without proof, but it was a matter that might warrant some investigation. The Tactical Officer might find such a hypothesis of interest.

#

Hawkes studied the reports generated from the data gathered by the ship’s sensors. They showed nothing but the expected variations in background radiation and gravimetric fields. The analysis would be of as little interest to astronomical teams as they were to him, for they contained nothing even remotely unusual. So far, they had spent eleven days in this region of space, with each survey of the nearby areas returning the same results.

With each such report, Hawkes grew increasingly uneasy. Someone who knew him well enough to detect the subtle changes in his expression and posture might even say restive.

What’s that ancient saying? he wondered as he looked over a fresh collection of remote sensor data. It’s quiet—too quiet.

He surveyed the rest of the bridge from his station. It was lightly manned at the moment, as there was little for most of them to do except to monitor streams of otherwise unchanging data. Pyrafox sat at the helm station, making adjustments at his console, but Hawkes wondered how much of his activity was dedicated to helm control and how of it was of a less critical nature.

Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams (continued)

She was surprised by the ache that arose in her chest when she thought of him. There had been other men in her life, some of whom had meant almost as much to her. None of them, however, brought forth the same intense sense of something lacking within her. She had tried to tell herself, many times, that it was ridiculous and juvenile, but it rarely seemed to help. Her feelings had their own ideas.

She opened her eyes. The star-speckled darkness was still there before her. There was thing, she decided, that meant more to her. She had never imagined that she and Scott would have settled down on some planet somewhere. In what few fantasies she had allowed herself, he had explored the stars by her side. He would have, she was certain, wanted it no other way.

Part of her just wanted to lie down and try to sleep. Devereux knew that was her fatigue and [depression] talking. That part was apparently not on speaking terms with her stomach, which grumbled in protest. She could not remember actually having stopped for lunch. She remembered thinking about it, but had no memory of actually going down to the galley and getting something.

She breathed a quiet sigh and glanced around her quarters. There was no secret stash of chocolate or anything else edible tucked away that she could recall, having purposely moved it all to one of the auxiliary cargo holds for precisely this reason. She knew that if she did not eat something, she would wake up in the middle of the night ravenous. It was something she had struggled with since her adolescence. One of the side effects of her athletic background, she supposed.

Resigned to the need for a meal, she began unfastening her uniform pants. They slid free, requiring a little more effort than she expected. While still holding them in her hand, she stared critically down at her legs. She could still see the definition of the muscles there, but their curves were a bit smoother than she remembered. She gave another, more audible sigh.

Looks like more time in the gym.

Since they had headed back out into space, she had not been quite as conscientious about her exercise regimen as she had been during her previous tours of duty. Hope had not yet mentioned it as part of her ongoing medical evaluations, but Devereux could see it in the mirror. She had made excuses to herself for weeks now. There were always reports to be filed, repairs to be made—something that needed more urgently to be done than hauling herself down two decks to the ship’s exercise area. That, Devereux realized, needed to come to an end.

Tomorrow, she promised herself, with a little more conviction than usual.

She pulled on a pair of loose-fitting pants, more for comfort than because she was concerned that they also might prove to be a bit more of a tight fit than she wanted. For a moment, she considered just remaining in her tank shirt, but decided instead on a casual teal-hued tunic. It was not so much a matter of modesty, for she felt that the commanding officer of a ship should demonstrate some degree of propriety.

Although she had never experienced it herself, she could imagine having difficulty fully respecting a superior officer for which she had seen too much skin surface. She was particularly conservative in that regard, simply realistic. How seriously could you take the authority of some officers, she mused as she pulled on the shirt, when you have seen the size of their genitalia?

#

The galley was nearly deserted when she reached it. Two crew members, ensigns both, were engaged in close discussion at a corner table. They stopped in mid-conversation when Devereux, but she gave them a reassuring smile and they both relaxed. Devereux looked away, forcing herself not to smile even more.

I’d bet Rusty real money that one of those bunks will be empty tonight.

She tried not to think about the fact that she would be alone in her own—and of the person would not be sharing it with her. Instead, she studied the menu on the galley display. Although she could technically choose anything that was stocked in one of the supply holds, there were always Recommended Selections for each meal everyday.

Several years ago, some long-forgotten Fleet consultant had once reported that the stress levels among ship’s crews could be reduced if they did not have to make as many decisions each day, however minor. Recommended policy since then had been to provide the crews with simple choices on routine matters, such as meal selection, as a preventative measure. Devereux found no harm in it, but nor did she particularly endorse the notion. She might, she decided, even occasionally flaunt the recommendation by deliberately choosing something not on the menu. There were times though, she admitted, when she had been too tired to care, and just picked whatever was easiest. That was not overt support of the idea, simply pragmatism.

That evening, though, as she quickly surveyed the highlighted menu, she had to admit that a quiche actually seemed an appealing choice. It would be not too heavy of meal, with all of the right kind of proteins and other nutrients. (Except for the desserts, she knew, it was actually fairly difficult not to select a healthy option.) She went ahead and selected it and also requested a green tea flavored with honey. Telling herself that she was demonstrating great self-restraint, she decided to wait for a dessert selection to see if she was still truly hungry for it when she was done with her main meal. She could always come back to the galley later for it, she knew, but the effort of getting adequately dressed, and then making the trip from her quarters, was usually sufficient to deter her from such indulgences.

She surveyed the available seats, definitely not wanting to disturb the delicate mating ritual of the couple in the corner. The galley’s other occupant had finished his meal while Devereux was gathering her tray and had left the chamber. She chose a table at the opposite end of the room, almost as far away as she could reasonably get from the pair within the limited space, and sat down.

Poking at the contents of her plate with a spork, she was mildly relieved to find that it still looked appetizing once she had selected it. She tasted it tentatively with the tip of her tongue. It was the perfect temperature (hardly surprising) and actually quite good. She had once lived for nearly a week on survival rations and had promised herself that she would never again criticize the quality of preprocessed shipboard meals. With the quality of this particular dish, though, it did not require much effort for her to commend it.

Before she quite realized it, her plate was empty. She considered the dessert again, or possibly even another helping of the quiche, but compromised with herself to finish her tea first. It had cooled considerably, but she sipped at it slowly anyway. She was now alone in the galley. The two ensigns had left at some point while she was devouring the last of the quiche, probably too intent on each other to acknowledge their Captain as they left.

Or had they? Devereux wondered. Or had she been too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice?

She drained the last of the tea from her cup and then held the empty mug between her hands, allowing her thoughts free rein for a moment. She thought had come to terms with the end of her brief relationship with Scott, and had managed it well, until Rusty’s unexpected recognition event in Engineering.

Damn it, Rusty.

Devereux knew that she was more upset with herself than with her Chief Engineer. Although it had still been an odd thing for him to do.

One hundred and twenty-six years, she thought. Even if things had turned out differently, he would still be dead.

She found that the rationalization did not help. That he would have died from old age only a few decades ago, instead in an unexplained disappearance more than a century past, did little to soften the dull ache that had remained with her since that morning.

Devereux placed the empty mug on the table and stared at it for a moment. She considered refilling it; her appetite for dessert or a second serving of quiche had faded. Her thoughts moved to what awaited her that evening in her quarters.

She was essentially caught up with her administrative reporting. There was always more of it to do, she knew, but nothing that she could recall as being particularly urgent. She had started a book several weeks ago that she had not had time to return to, usually either falling asleep before getting to it, or too intent on other work.

This might be a good night for that, she thought, trying to remember what the book had been about, and whether she had even been enjoying it. That she could not even recall its basic contents was not a promising sign.

She considered walking the ship, as that often relaxed her and allowed her mind to sort through her thoughts from the day. The risk there was that she might find something of interest—and work-related—and she really needed to stop doing that. Breaks from the ongoing demands of being in command were essential if she was going to maintain her sanity, especially under the constant threat of combat.

That left her . . . where?

Devereux rose and placed her plate, utensils, and mug into one of the empty storage alcoves and flipped down the small hatch. They would be sterilized and ready for use again in a few minutes.

She left the galley, heading back for her quarters, to what she expected would be a restless evening until she finally succumbed to sleep.

#

Scott Raynes padded down the hallway toward the kitchen. His eyes felt raw with fatigue, but he had been so far unable to sleep.

Probably because it’s still too early, he chided himself silently. The clock back in his bedroom had shown 8:38pm, but he had been awake since 3:33am. He remembered the time exactly, for it been the precise time when he had been unable to go back to sleep. Now, it was catching up with him with a vengeance.

There was a small number of remaining prescription pills he could take. There was also Scotch or brandy, but he had promised himself that he would try something a little less drastic before resorting to either of those alternatives.

He removed a mug from the cabinet, and was prepared to curse with anticipated frustration, when he was pleasantly to discover that his brother had not, in fact, left only a millimeter of milk in the container. Scott had little doubt that Thad had probably drunk directly from the gallon jug, but any germs that might have remained behind were unlikely to be any more dangerous than those he had left there countless times before.

Scott filled the mug halfway and then returned the container to the refrigerator. He placed it until the microwave oven, closed the door, and punched in the heating time. While it whirred to itself, he stared at the display, not really focusing on it, wishing that he could conjure up a genuine yawn. That, at least, might indicate that he was getting close to sleep, but no such reflex was forthcoming.

Emerald Flight: Wildest Dreams

Elizabeth entered the main Engineering Deck to find a steady rhythm of activity, which was to be expected. What she found when she crossed into the main engine section was not.

Rusty was wiping a clean rag across the surface of the one of the main drive housings. It bore a sheen as if recently polished.

“I don’t think the Captain was planning a formal inspection,” she offered with a smile, laughing softly.

For all of his other shortcomings, the Chief was insistent on a safe and organized working environment. Granted that attitude was in sharp contrast to how he kept his office, but in there he was mainly risking his own life, not that of anyone under his supervision.

She watched as Rusty placed a small object against the casing and patted it gently. She was not certain, but she thought she also heard the Chief whisper something softly before straightening up to face her.

Some kind of Engineer’s Prayer? she wondered. The Chief was hardly what she would term a deeply religious or spiritual man, but he did have a way with machines. Probably asking Murphy or Morris not to glitch with his systems any more.

Elizabeth frowned, curious now at what new modification the Chief might have made to the engine cores. She leaned closer. Her interest shifted to disbelief as she realized what the item was.

She turned toward Rusty, her eyes opening wider with confusion.

He grinned back at her, as if daring her to openly give voice to her bewildered amazement.

There was a sudden hush of conversation behind them. Elizabeth knew without looking that Devereux had entered the Engineering section. She straightened almost to attention before turning to face the Captain. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rusty covertly toss the cleaning rag to a nearby technician, who grabbed it in the air and then pulled it behind him as he also came to attention.

“Chief,” she said, addressing her Chief Engineer.

“Cap’n,” Rusty smiled broadly in response.

Devereux’s eyes narrowed slightly with suspicion. She studied Rusty’s expression and then her gaze passed quickly over his body, pausing to give extra attention to his hands and equipment belt. When that revealed nothing, her eyes looked past him toward the engines cores.

They surveyed the equipment quickly, started to look away, and then refocused on a specific point. Even before she looked herself, Elizabeth knew what Devereux was looking at.

Devereux stepped forward, coming within a few centimeters of the drive housings before stopping. Her eyes never left the spot they had focused on.

“Chief?”

“Yes, Cap’n?” Both his expression and tone conveyed a attitude of utter innocence.

“While I suppose it’s a thoughtful gift,” she began, “it’s nowhere near my birthday—or any other holiday that I know of.”

When Rusty just blinked at her with expectant ingenuousness, Devereux went on.

“I assume there’s reason you have a bow on the drive core?”

Rusty nodded slightly, holding back a growing grin.

“There is.”

Devereux stared back at him expectantly.

It was difficult for Elizabeth to tell whether she was amused or not. She thought she spied the edges of Devereux’s quirk slightly with a suppressed smile, but she would not have risked any real money on that observation.

Rusty looked back at Devereux with a definite sparkle in his ice-blue eyes. Devereux said nothing, but it felt to Elizabeth as though the Captain and Chief held an entire unspoken conversation in those few moments. It was actually not all that unusual, but it was often disconcerting to watch. Neither of them, Elizabeth was certain, were telepathic. (Hope had told her so once when Elizabeth had idly commented on one of the Captain’s seemingly preternatural observations.)

“Well,” Rusty began, assuming an air of feigned humility, “I didn’t think candles would be a good idea.”

Devereux considered this for a moment, although not too seriously, Elizabeth thought. She did not quite understand why the Captain was willing to indulge in these little games with the Chief. With her, that was one thing, but Devereux was the Captain.

“A wise choice,” Devereux agreed. “And I’m reasonably certain that it’s not your birthday either.” Her eyes fixed on the brightly-colored bow positioned on the side of the drive core housing.

Rusty smiled. “It’s not.” His grin widened. “But, as Cap’n, if you wanted it to be . . .”

Devereux fixed him with a stare. It was evident to Elizabeth that the Captain was beginning to tire of the coy interplay.

“Chief.”

Rusty stared back with a look of exaggerated innocence. After a moment, he gave a brief chuckle and relented.

“It’s the engine’s birthday,” he explained, as if the fact should be obvious to anyone.

Devereux did not look amused, but neither did she look particularly angry. Elizabeth fought not to shake her head in amazement. She never would have dared to bait the Captain with something like this, particularly with something of so little importance. Not to mention that the idea itself seemed somewhat ridiculous. The slipstream cores had been upgraded during the ship’s repair and refit, so they were only a few months old by that measurement.

Maybe it was an anniversary of their original date of manufacture, Elizabeth considered, but so many of their components had been replaced or upgraded, that there were hardly the same units that had been originally installed on the Emerald Flight. It seemed an odd milestone to celebrate, even accounting for the Chief often skewed sense of humor.

Elizabeth started to respond, but Rusty interrupted her almost before her mouth began to open.

“One hundred and twenty-six years ago today,” Rusty announced, his tone taking on a surprising solemnity. “The first slipstream drive was tested in open space.”

Elizabeth saw a shadow pass over Devereux’s face. The “success” of that test flight was a matter of some historical debate. The ship had not been reported as having been destroyed, but neither the vessel or its pilot had returned from its jump to slipstream. No wreckage had ever been located. Countless searches had been conducted over the years in nearby space

Unless through some incredible fluke of superluminal physics—and Elizabeth knew from personal experience that these did happen—that early prototype simply had not possessed the necessary energy to send it very far into space. Hypotheses abounded as to the ultimate fate of the ship and its test pilot—all of them thus far unproven.

For the crew of the Emerald Flight, it was a matter of more than just theoretical concern. They had met Scott Raynes—that test pilot and co-inventor of the slipstream core drive—and his brother, Thad. Well, at least one of the sets of the brothers.

It had never been exactly clear which timeline, if not their own, the crew had encountered. What Elizabeth did know, though, was that Captain Devereux and Scott Raynes were rumored to have grown very close during their few weeks together. The Captain’s behavior after they had returned to their own timeline, and the expression that had just crossed her face, suggested to Elizabeth that there was some truth to those reports.

“I see,” Devereux responded quietly.

Elizabeth waited, uncertain how to proceed. She was here on the Engineering Deck at the Captain’s orders, having gone on ahead on a semi-fictional excuse.

Devereux stared with unfocused eyes toward the drive cores, while Rusty remained where he had stood. His expression, if Elizabeth could believe it, actually seemed to carry on it some chagrin at his somewhat whimsical gesture.

“Chief Rayna,” Devereux said, breaking into Elizabeth’s reverie.

Her voice sounded almost flat. It did not possess the cold edge that Elizabeth had come to recognize as reining in anger; it merely skirted the edge of being truly expressionless.

“I’d like to see your progress on the power flow modifications for the weapons systems,” she continued. “Lieutenant Hawkes has some concerns.”

Rusty appeared to study Devereux’s face for a moment before responding. He snorted softly.

“That old fossil always has ‘concerns’,” he said, heading to the far side of the Engineering Deck.

As she and Devereux followed him, Elizabeth relaxed slightly. The Chief’s casually disrespectful attitude toward their Chief Tactical Officer was familiar territory. Devereux made no comment as she followed him.

#

Devereux left the lights dimmed as she entered her quarters. She felt tired—and Rusty’s little stunt in Engineering had not helped her state of mind. As much as it might help her try to hide her true feelings about the event, she could not believe that he would have deliberately intended to be mean-spirited. Of all of the members of the crew, even those present at the time, only Hope knew the full extent of her relationship with Scott Raynes.

Well aware of the rumors that circulated throughout the ship about it, she had purposely neither explained nor denied any of them. Doing either would not only bring forth too many questions, but also force her to once again deal with her own feelings about that relationship and its personal consequences. She had managed to bury it during the past two years, knowing that there was no rational way in which it could be resolved.

She peeled off her duty tunic and tossed it onto the back of one of the chairs. She moved toward the window and stared out at the stars. They were currently moving at sub-luminal speeds, so it looked from the outside as if there were standing still.

One hundred and twenty-six years.

She wondered why Rusty had chosen that particular anniversary, or if it was something he now did every year out of some sense of respect to the original inventors.

Why not at one hundred and twenty-five?

It took her only a moment’s worth of memories to realize why. A year ago, they had been separated, their ship in dry dock under repair, and she had been back in Quebec caring for her dying father. It would have been a worthy milestone to celebrate, but there had been no one else here with which to share it. Devereux wondered then whether that might have been the date that Rusty had been involved in that bar brawl and narrowly avoided being taken into custody.

She stared out into the dark void, seeing a broad scattering of distant stars. Scott has been lost out here, mostly likely died, more than a century earlier. Yet, for her, he was a young man on the brink of realizing one of the humankind’s greatest discoveries. He was alive. She had heard his voice, felt his touch . . .

Devereux closed her eyes against memories, not certain whether she was trying to shut them out or focus solely upon them. Despite what history told her, she had trouble accepting that he was dead, for he had been very alive to her not so very long ago.