Heart of the Nebula (10 page)

But not where she wanted to be.

Chapter 5

James nervously paced his small private
cabin, checking his wrist console about twice every minute. Even to
be punctual, 1749 hours was still too early. He turned and walked
back to his bed, covering the distance in two short steps before
throwing himself backwards onto the narrow mattress.

Why did he feel so damned
nervous? It was infuriating. He’d been on dozens of missions more
dangerous than this and had faced death itself without reacting
this way. And it wasn’t as if Sara was the first girl in his life,
either. He’d met plenty of others over the years. Like that cute
adjutant on the
Trident
Three
—what was her name?

Face it,
he told himself.
This is
the first time you’ve gone on a date in almost a standard
year.
Certainly the first time with someone
as gorgeous as Sara. The fact that she was the patrician’s daughter
only explained a fraction of his nervousness.

He watched the seconds tick down to 1755
hours and rose to his feet. Five minutes was acceptably early.

Sara’s room was only two doors down from
his, about fifteen paces. He straightened up outside the door and
hit the chime on the access panel. A couple nerve-racking moments
of silence passed before her voice sounded over the exterior
speaker.

“
Sorry,” she said, “I’m not
quite ready. Be out in a second.”

“
All right,” said James,
inwardly cursing himself for being so forward. She obviously wasn’t
as worked up about this as he was. To her, dinners like this were
probably as common as—

The door hissed open. Sara stood in the
doorway, wearing a sleeveless red dress that shimmered in the light
of the glowlamps, accentuating the slender curves of her body. His
breath caught in his throat.

“
Good evening, Lieutenant,”
she said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

James opened his mouth but suddenly found
himself incapable of speech. Sara cocked her head and gave him a
funny look.

“
Is something the
matter?”

“
No, no, not at all.” He
clumsily stepped aside to let her walk through her own
door.

As she stepped into the
corridor, she slipped her arm into his. His heartbeat immediately
jumped to about twice its previous rate. He stood rooted to the
floor, until he realized that she was waiting for him to lead
her.
Crap.
Blood
rushed to his cheeks, but somehow, his feet began to
move.

“
I like your uniform,” she
said, breaking the awkward silence without acknowledging it. “Do
you attend many formal events as an officer in the
Corps?”

Not if I can avoid
it,
James thought to himself. Something
told him that that wasn’t the right answer.

“
Sometimes,” he told her
instead. “I’m not a high ranking officer, though, so I don’t
usually get called out.”

“
Is that so?” she asked,
glancing over at him with her gorgeous eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t
know anything about military ranks.”

“
Well, it’s really quite
simple,” he said, letting her go as they reached the narrow
stairway. “Strictly speaking, we’re not a military force, but we
still try to go by the same system the Kardunasian Defense Forces
used—before the Hameji disbanded them, of course.”

“
That’s fascinating,” she
said, slipping her arm in his again as they continued down the
lower level. “So how did you come to command your own
ship?”

“
Well, the
Lone Spear
isn’t really a
‘ship’ in the proper sense of the word. She’s just a gunboat—she’d
be helpless if she were ever separated from her support
ships.”

“
Still, it’s quite
impressive. How did you become a pilot?”

“
Mostly by accident,” he
blurted—then, recovering, “I, ah, impressed a few people with my
performance in the simulations.” What he didn’t mention was that
that had been almost three years ago—if he hadn’t been docked so
many times for insubordination, he could have made wing commander
by now.

They reached the dining suite and stepped
inside. The splendor of the place immediately took James’s breath
away. All the walls and floors were set to full transparency, so
that the couches and dining table seemed to float amid the stars.
The lights were all turned off, replaced instead by three short
candles at the center of the table. A serving bot hovered off to
one side, as if expecting them.

“
Oh, I hope you don’t
mind,” said Sara, patting his arm. “I took the liberty of setting
up the room for us. If it’s too dark, we can—”

“
No,” he said quickly.
“It’s fine the way it is.”

She smiled at him again and slipped out of
his arm to stand expectantly by her chair. James almost sat down
before realizing she was waiting for him to seat her. His cheeks
flushed again, but in the milky, diffused starlight, she probably
couldn’t tell. Probably.

She sat down in one smooth, fluid motion.
The silky red fabric of the dress parted to reveal one of her
smooth, athletic legs. James’s heart leaped into his mouth, and he
struggled not to trip as he took his seat across the table.

“
I love the stars,” she
said, glancing around the room at the magnificent view all around
them. “They’re so much brighter out here between stars than they
are back home.”

“
Yeah.”

The server bot produced a pair of wine
glasses and filled them with a creamy pink liquid.

“
Oh,” said Sara, picking
her glass shortly after the bot placed them both on the table. “I
didn’t know strawberry daiquiri was your favorite drink,
too.”

“
Actually, it’s not,” he
said without thinking.

“
It isn’t?”

“
Not that I don’t like it,
of course. It’s just not my favorite.”

She frowned. “That’s funny. I programmed the
bot to serve us our favorite drinks. Are your preferences not
registered?”

James cursed himself again. She was trying
to be nice, and he was making her look like an idiot.

“
I never spend much time on
furlough,” he answered. “The Corps is always short on personnel.
Not enough new recruits these days.”

“
I see. So you must be one
of their best pilots.”

“
Well, I don’t know about
that,” he said, blushing again. “I just haven’t been killed yet.
We’ve lost a lot of…” His voice drifted off as he realized he was
straying away from comfortable small talk.

“
My father spoke very
highly of you,” she said. “He was very impressed with your
record.”

In a good way or a bad
way?
James nearly asked. Instead, he
coughed. “Thanks.”

“
I must admit, I haven’t
had much of a chance to look over it. But I’m sure it’s much more
interesting to hear your war stories straight from you.”

An LCD screen embedded in the tabletop lit
up, displaying two menus for the both of them. James quickly
skimmed it, but the only choice that looked remotely familiar was
grilled cheese and tomato soup. He didn’t want Sara to think he was
uncultured, but at the same time, he didn’t want to ruin his
evening with a meal he didn’t want to eat.

The third option from the
top, Gaian stir fry, caught his attention.
Shrimp and assorted vegetables, fried in olive oil and doused
with a spicy Gaian vinaigrette.
“Isn’t
shrimp expensive?”

“
Oh, you don’t need to
worry about that,” said Sara. “This is my uncle’s ship—he’ll pay
for anything the diplomatic committee can’t cover.”

Why is he stocking this ship with shrimp
while the General Assembly can barely afford to keep the public
hospital stocked with antibiotics?

“
What about this ‘veal
parmesan’? Is it synthetic?”

Sara looked at him as if he’d grown a horn
in the middle of his forehead. “Synthetic? Oh, you mean the
meat.”

“
Yes. Is it synthetic or
animal-grown?”

“
Animal-grown, of course.
Though it probably isn’t very good. All the meat on board comes
from cryo-frozen stores.”

“
So your uncle doesn’t grow
the animals himself?”

“
Ha!” Sara laughed, putting
a hand on his arm. “You’re funny.”

“
It must be
expensive.”

“
Yes, well, it’s better
than synthetic, that’s for sure.”

He nodded. It had been over three standard
years since he’d last eaten animal-grown red meat. Until just a
moment ago, he hadn’t been aware that there was any animal-grown
meat left in the Karduna system, cryo-frozen or not.

“
I’ll have the Gaian stir
fry,” he said. Better to pick the first one than to run tediously
through all the other options. The outrageous expense of it all was
just something he’d have to accept.

She smiled and keyed the items in the menu.
The LCD screen dimmed and retracted back into the table.

“
So how long have you known
Lars?”

“
As long as I can
remember,” James replied. “Our parents were both local merchanters,
so we saw each other a lot growing up.”

“
But he isn’t your age,”
she observed.

James shrugged. “He’s a little older than
me, but not by much. He dropped out of the academy and began his
astrogation apprenticeship around the time I first started
assisting my father on the long hauls. But it wasn’t until the
Hameji took over that we really became close.”

“
Interesting,” said Sara,
leaning forward with her hands beneath her chin. “Why was
that?”

“
Well, we both did a lot to
help with the rebuilding efforts right after the invasion. He took
the diplomatic course while I joined the militia, but back in those
days, there tended to be a lot of crossover between the
organizations. We saw each other a lot.”

“
You were part of the
general militia before it became the Civil Defense
Corps?”

“
That’s right.”

“
When did you attend the
academy?”

“
I didn’t,” said James,
taking a sip of his drink. “I went through a special officer
training program my second year.”

She frowned quizzically. “Second year? How
many years have you served?”

“
Four. I enlisted when I
was sixteen.”

Her eyes widened ever so slightly at his
answer. He realized that she was staring at him.

“
The Voluntary Recruitment
Act,” he explained. “It lowered the minimum age for new enlistees
to sixteen. I joined on my birthday.”

“
So you must be one of the
youngest officers in the Corps.”

“
I guess so,
yeah.”

Where was she going with all of these
questions? She sure seemed to have taken an interest in him. He
wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered or alarmed.

“
What about yourself?” he
asked, more to balance the conversation than anything. “How long
have you been in politics?”

She sighed and looked away. “Too long, it
seems sometimes. My father has been grooming me for this kind of
work all my life.”

“
You don’t enjoy it,
then?”

“
Oh, no,” she said quickly,
“I enjoy it fine. It’s just… Sometimes I get a little tired of it.
That’s all.”

She’s not being entirely
honest,
James realized. He had no reason to
believe that what she’d said was untruthful, but she seemed to be
holding something back.

“
Some people wouldn’t like
the idea of the patrician grooming his daughter for a political
career.”

“
Well, ‘groom’ isn’t
exactly the right word,” she said with a wave of her hand. “‘Steer’
is probably more accurate. It’s not like he’s setting me up to be
his heir.”

“
Perhaps.”

She eyed him for a second, her gaze
surprisingly penetrating. For the briefest moment, she almost
seemed to scowl—but then she shook her head and chuckled.

“
What can I say? Politics
just runs in the family, my mom’s side as well as my dad’s. But
even if he were setting me up for an executive office, I doubt I’d
be able to live up to his expectations.”

“
What makes you say
that?”

“
A lot of things. I’ve
always taken more after my mother, and she and my dad broke up
shortly after I left home. I think they stayed together only to see
that I was raised properly.”

“
Wow,” said James. “I’m
sorry to hear that.”

She shrugged. “It’s in the past. I have a
good relationship with both of them. But enough about me—what about
you?”

“
Me?”

“
Sure. What can you tell me
about your family?”

She leaned forward, resting her chin on her
interlocked hands. James took a deep breath.

“
Well, like I said, my
parents were merchanters back before the occupation. They still do
some local runs between mining outposts, but most of the time they
hire out the piloting work to my uncles or cousins.”

“
And that’s how you got to
know Lars?”

“
Yeah. The Stewarts have
always been close family friends.”
If it
weren’t for the Hameji, he might have even married my
sister.