Atlas (22 page)

When she answered, her voice sounded so far away: "I can't believe it's been two years. Feels like a lifetime."

"It didn't have to be this way. We had so many chances to meet up. Maybe we should have taken them."

"But you know how I feel about long distance relationships..."

I felt my face flush as I remembered our last chat session on Earth, when I'd told her how I felt about her. A strange mix of emotions bubbled up inside me. Anger, embarrassment, disappointment. "We're not long distance anymore, are we?" I said, a little bitterly.

She didn't answer.

"Tell me about this officer dude you're seeing," I said into the uncomfortable silence that followed.

"Um, he's not an officer."
Shaw fidgeted with her utility belt. "That would be fraternization."

"Oh, then how did you get assigned to the
Royal Fortune
then?"

She looked up at me, the shock clearly evident on her face. "Is that what you think? That I slept my way into this post?"

I remained quiet.

"Well, if you ever bothered to look at my profile, you'd find out that I graduated top of the class. I got the highest grade possible in every course I took. I got to where I am today because of my determination, not my sexual activity, or my looks."

"You're right," I said. "I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't mean that, not at all. I know you better than that." I paused, reflecting on what she just said, and then I gave her a mischievous smile. "But your looks helped, you have to admit."

Her scowled deepened for a moment, but then she let out a small laugh. "I suppose my charm helped sway a few people, yes."

"Well who is this mystery dude of yours, then?"

She hesitated.

And then suddenly I knew. "There's no one, is there?"

She sighed, staring at her fingers. "Not now, no."

"Why say there was, then? Why throw away everything we had? Everything we
could have
had?"

She didn't meet my gaze. Just stared at her hands, twining and untwining her fingers. "No one could ever measure up."

"To what? Your breathtaking, put-me-on-a-pedestal beauty? Or maybe your awe-inspiring personality?"

She didn't look at me.

"Well, maybe it's about time you got over yourself and came back down to live with the rest of us mortals."

She shook her head. "You don't understand." I couldn't believe it. She sounded like she was crying. "My expectations are high because of you." She finally met my eyes. Definitely tears. "No one could ever measure up to
you
."

I stared at her, open-mouthed.
"I'm such a jerk, Shaw."

I leaped down from my rack, led her to a storage closet, and took her right there.

* * *

The bulk carrier that held the
Royal Fortune
headed straight for the SK-owned Gate,
Tiàoyuè De Kǒng
, which led to Tau Ceti. The Gate name roughly meant "Leaping Hole." The transport time to the Gate was estimated at fifty-five days.

A whole lot of time for me and Shaw to get reacquainted. It was almost like old times. In the enlisted mes
s hall, Tahoe, Alejandro and I normally ate with Snakeoil, Fret, Manic, Lui and Bomb, and we folded Shaw and her friend Benjamin "from engineering" into our group readily enough. Benjamin didn't like me too much—I was pretty sure he'd been angling to bang her before I came on board, despite Shaw's insistence that he was "just a friend." Or maybe he was a previous flame of hers. I didn't know, and I didn't ask. I was the one who was banging Shaw now, and that's all that really mattered. Who was I to hold any ill-will against the dude? I don't think he even knew what was going on between us, though I'm sure he suspected. Just as my closest friends suspected, though so far I hadn't admitted to a thing.

"So what's it like banging the hottest girl on the ship?" Manic said one time after Shaw and Benjamin left early. He scratched the
moth-shaped port-wine stain on his temple with one finger. "Bet she does some amazing things between the sheets. Speaking of which, man, that reminds me of this one stripper back home, what's her name, RPG Tipper, that's it. You guys remember her? The one who poses with the rockets on her animated poster? She has this special bra she wears, looks like gun barrels on the tips of her nipples. Anyway, she sure could give it. Mmm. Sometimes I wish I could just lie with her every moment of every day and just bang the crap out of her, the service be damned. But it wasn't meant to be. I'd probably get bored after a few weeks anyway. So what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, Rade, you and that girl. Man!"

"Yeah baby!" Bomb interjected quickly, before Manic could say more. "Lucky bastard. What I wouldn't give for a piece of that right now." Bomb's short mohawk was dyed red these days, which, combined with his dark-skin, gave him kind of a punk look.

"Stick to your virtual women, guys," Alejandro said. "You touch his
mamacita
and Rade will castrate you both, I guarantee it. This one time in the barrio—"

"Not another barrio story!" Lui threw up his hands. "I've had it up to here with those." He raised his hand far above his head. "To here!"

Tahoe was wolfing down his fifth serving of ham. "They're actually right, Alejandro," he said, calmly. "Rade is a very lucky man. I know if Tepin were here, I'd be rushing back to meet her at the end of each day. But there's a warning in that. Back on Earth, when Tepin had finally come to live near the base, I found myself constantly distracted. It was hard to focus on the training, because I'd be thinking about her all day, and my kids. For all I whine about not seeing my wife when we're on deployment, it's probably better for the mission, for the
team
, that she is very far away."

I nodded. "Point taken, Tahoe. I'd never put any of you in danger because of her." His words reminded me of the admonishment RDC Bowden had given me way back in Basic, about love and war not mixing.

"So you
are
banging her!" Manic said. "I knew it!"

"I never said that."

And so it went.

To be honest, I was training as hard as ever, and didn't think my performance had declined. In fact, I felt more alive than ever because of her, and excelled at everything I did as far as I was concerned. I'm sure my friends saw it. I worked out harder. I trained harder. I did everything to the best of my ability. It was like I wanted to be the best possible man for her.

She made me want to be my best self.

Still, she kind of ruined the little dream life I was living a few weeks into our fling. Shaw, she was good at that.

"You know there's no future for us," she said, after we'd had our fun in one of the supply compartments during a mutual break. "You know how I feel about long distance relationships."

"Yeah, I know." I pretended not to care, but it felt like she'd slapped me.

She must have sensed my lie, because her face softened, and she said, "Maybe when our terms are up..."

But my term wasn't up until twelve years from now. Hers ended in
ten.

No, after this mission we'd go our separate ways.

Again.

"I wish I could say that this was more than just fun," she continued. "But I can't."

"I know."

"See, right here, right now, this is why I didn't meet up with you these past two years. This feeling, right now, knowing that it would all have to end."

I smiled sadly. "Okay, Shaw."

"What I'm trying to say, Rade, is... don't get your hopes up."

I exhaled. "Shaw. You've already fulfilled my every hope. If the mission ended today, if I died now, I could say I lived full. I'd die a very happy man."

"Good," she murmured softly. "Good." I saw her eyes move to the upper right as she accessed her Implant.

"What, looking for a quote more suitable to the moment?" I said.

"No." She smiled sadly. "I'm archiving what you said. So I can replay it
in the deepest, darkest hours."

"There won't be any deep, dark hours again, not while I'm
around."

But not even I believed that.

* * *

Eventually the starship reached
Tiàoyuè De Kǒng
Gate. The "Leaping Hole."

The ship was on Condition Zebra, which was the highest possible state of readiness. The
Royal Fortune
, like most starships, was subdivided into many smaller airtight compartments, and Condition Zebra ensured that all hatches and scuttles were sealed tight so that in a breach scenario (ie: combat) the entire ship wouldn't implode. The spread of fires and fumes was prevented as well, because valves in the pipes and ventilation systems would activate in damaged sections, completely sealing those compartments off from the rest of the ship. The bulk carrier that harbored us was set up the same way.

Condition Zebra also meant that almost everyone was at their duty stations, or in the case of my
platoon mates and I, locked-down in the berthing area. No portals to the outside were available in that compartment, so all of us tapped into the hauler's main view screen courtesy of our Implants.

There was a lengthy line of starships queued before the Gate, but my eyes were drawn to the long, sleek SK Customs vessels hovering alongside. Black, triangular-shaped corvettes. Definitely fast. Definitely deadly. I counted at least twenty gun turrets on each of them.

The customs vessels moved forward in pairs, pausing beside each ship, probably sending over a slew of questions to the respective Captain. "What's the purpose of your journey?" "When was the last time you visited Sino-Korean space?" And so forth, topped off with an invasive scan of the cargo holds.

I was surprised at the number of merchant ships of Franco-Italian design that were turned away, those bright, polished hulls limping away from the Gate like dogs with their tails between their legs. Other ships, SK and Franco-Italian alike, were pulled to the side for further inspection via boarding.

I had a bad feeling about this.

I felt like I did two years ago when I was an illegal trying to sneak across the border into the UC. Except back then I wanted to get caught.

Today I definitely didn't want that.

"Is the LC going to give us an in on the back-and-forth?" Facehopper asked Chief Bourbonjack.

The comm system of the bulk carrier had been diverted to the bridge of the
Royal Fortune.
Our Captain would be doing the talking when SK Customs opened up communications, rather than the bulk carrier Captain. Lieutenant Commander Braggs was on the bridge, and would hear every word.

The Chief held up a hand as if to say, "let me check," then he shook his head. "That's a negative. The LC will give us an update on his return"

I called up Shaw on my Implant.
Hey girl.

Hey
, she sent.
Kinda busy now
.

Figured that. Can I get a cochlear feed on the bridge today? Pretty please?

For answer, I heard the characteristic beep as she switched me to speaker, and the ambient noise of the bridge flooded into my head as perceived from her perspective. I heard the shuffle of feet on the deck, the persistent beep of some soft alert.

Shaw could have given me a retinal view too, but I thought if I asked for that I'd be pushing my luck.

I merged the call with the platoon circuit. "We have an in," I announced.

On the view screen already overlaid atop my vision, I watched the two SK vessels pull up alongside our own.

"Stay calm people," I heard Captain Drake say. "We're just a bunch of SK merchants off to sell our batch of legally procured Flame." That was the cover story. There was a huge demand for Flame in SK colonies these days. It was a type of perfume manufactured from a rare strain of bacteria that flourished in zero-G.

"Tap in," the Captain said.

I heard static for a second, then silence. A voice came over the comm, speaking Korean-Chinese. "Captain and vessel name?"

"If it pleases you," Captain Drake answered in perfect Korean-Chinese. "This is Captain Chan Sung of the
Fàn Shāngrén
, devout and forever the servant of the Great Empire." A speaker of the language always said "if it pleases you" when addressing someone considered a superior. I learned that in my Korean-Chinese course, though I'd forgotten almost everything else. Luckily my Implant was subtitling the conversation for me.

"Destination and purpose?"

"If it pleases you, we head for Orbital Outpost Yue-Lao V, Tau Ceti III. We have a haul of Flame to drop off."

"Switch to vid, please."

I heard a bump as Shaw shifted, then a small beep. I knew that she or someone else had switched on the broadcast overlay system: the live feed from the bridge would be adjusted by the computer in realtime to make it appear that the broadcast originated from a typical bulk carrier bridge. Captain Drake and the bridge crew would be "adjusted" too, their clothing and features transformed to match SK expectations.