Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2) (34 page)

A man on a date wonders if he’ll get lucky.

The woman already knows.
— Monica Piper

Noreen felt off balance around this mysterious bearded wonder who walked beside her, as they headed back towards her personal ground vehicle, after the most wonderful dinner of her life. He was a curious mixture of man-child, quite unlike anyone she’d ever met. On one hand, he was incredibly masculine… seemingly equally at ease with both the rugged, manly-man persona in ragged jeans and jump boots, and yet surprisingly sophisticated and debonair in a tailored Italian silk suit. On the other hand, when she’d finally quit needling him, she’d discovered what seemed to be a genuine sensitivity to the man… a shy, little-boy quality that,
if true
, she found quite endearing. 

He was also full of surprises. She’d intended to treat him to dinner, but his black
Alliance Express
card had trumped her corporate platinum one by a country mile. It boggled the mind to think of just how rich the baron must be, when even his employees carried a card which was the envy of mere billionaires… an unlimited credit card having a $1 million per year charge minimum. 

Be careful around this one, Noreen. You could easily fall in love with this guy, but it could never work out. You’re a CEO and he’s… well, he’s a glorified gopher. Different worlds don’t mix and at best, he’d just end up feeling like a successful woman’s boy-toy, and become sullen and resentful. You’ve seen it before. His macho side could never handle that kind of blow to his ego.

She’d always hated this part of almost every date that she’d ever been on, invariably walking to the parking lot, trying to formulate strategy on how to escape without getting pawed. Now she wasn’t sure which way she should jump when he made his inevitable move.

Yes? No? Later? 

At one point she’d about decided to go ahead and take “ah… John” to bed and grab all of the gusto she could wring out of him while he was still here, before he went back to wherever the mysterious baron was headquartered and he disappeared from her life forever. Now she wasn’t so sure that even
that
was a good idea… too much potential for emotional attachments to begin growing at a cancerous rate. 

Flipping a damned coin would be a little obvious.

Now they’d finally reached the door to her vehicle and she was still undecided about where she wanted this evening to go from here. As she turned to face him, she felt herself falling into his bright blue, bedroom eyes that sparkled in the outside lighting. 

He scooped both of her hands into both of his and leaned in close, saying, “I have really enjoyed this evening, Noreen, more so than any I can remember. I’d really, really like for us to do this again, very soon.” 

Noreen felt her eyes close in anticipation of his first kiss. Surprisingly, he merely kissed her fingertips and softly said “Good night, pretty lady.”

Her eyes snapped open again with the abrupt sound of a loud whistle, and she was stunned to see him half turned away and raising his arm. A taxi that had been parked unobtrusively across the street came to instant life… engine started, lights flashed on, and it made a quick u-turn to pull up adjacent to where Diet stood. As he opened the rear door of the taxi, he turned back and flashed her that endearing little boy smile and with a tiny wave of his hand, got into the taxi and zoomed away into the night.

Noreen stood there totally dumbfounded, with her mouth agape like a beached fish.

What the hell just happened? 

Whatever it was, it certainly hadn’t followed any script that she could have possibly envisioned for the end of this magical evening. Those same mixed emotions that she’d been feeling continued to churn, now amplified tenfold… relieved, yet crushingly disappointed at the same time. 

It really should have been a sunset that he just rode off into. That would have been perfect.

* * * *

“It’s truly amazing that the old girl actually stood up to all that,” observed Captain Dorothy Fletcher, as she and Admiral Stillman walked slowly around the entire circumference of the mighty battleship, CSS
Defiant.
Ostensibly,
they were on yet another inspection tour of the damage she sustained from the tens of thousands of 3-gigawatt energy bolts the massive Raknii fleet had inflicted on her, but actually they were just sightseeing. The fact that the old battleship was actually grounded on the planet’s surface afforded them a unique view, very rarely seen, of an interstellar warship. Virtually the entire ship’s company and all of the Fleet Marines made the same pilgrimage almost daily, during their off time. Even a few of the more forward Raknii had walked around her, gawking in pure awe at the magnificent sight, just as their human companions did. It was indeed a sight that few would ever see again in their lifetimes, as only the old battleships now retained sufficient structural strength to support their own weight under full gravity, without anti-grav generators running constantly.

“They surely built them good, back in the day,” observed Stillman.

“I know that it’s Fleet regulations to repaint everything periodically, so that ships always retain the appearance of being new, but God… it would seem like such a sacrilege to paint over
Defiant’s
battle scars,” opined Fletcher.

“They give her character,” said Stillman. “They’re a testimony to all she has endured and accomplished here. Future generations deserve to see her just as she is now… to know and understand her history, and theirs. In my mind’s eye, I can see her beached next to Fleet Headquarters in Rikmon someday… a lasting memorial, not only to all who served aboard her, but also representing every ship of every class that fought here. And those future generations should see her just as we do right now, so they too can marvel at all she withstood.”

“That would be wonderful, but not too soon, I hope,” snickered Fletcher.  “I’d hate to give her up to become a museum just yet. She’s still got a lot of life left in her.”

Ben laughed. “Agreed… I’ll clear it with Admiral Kalis. Perhaps we can find a transparent protectant that can serve the same function as paint, yet not cover over her scars.”

“Thank you, Admiral.  I’d greatly appreciate that.”

“Don’t sound so surprised. I loved
Defiant
before you did, Dorothy. I remember the many times I walked her empty decks when she was mothballed at Haven, reminiscing of the days when I served aboard her as Chris Rawley’s exec, back in the early 50’s. God, those were good days.”

“Were you close to Admiral Rawley, then?”

“Chris Rawley was as close to a best friend as I ever found in this life.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Admiral.  You must miss him terribly.”

“Sometimes I can still feel his presence when I’m aboard
Defiant
. Never more so than when we endured that initial monstrous hammering, when we first came into the Raknii weapons range. Somehow I just
knew
that Chris had been right there with us during all of that, and had somehow helped protect us during that moment.”

“God, I didn’t know that it was possible that I could ever be that scared of anything,” Fletcher confided. “It was all so surreal… I really thought we were dead.”

They’d never spoken of that moment. Ben still wasn’t sure whether he’d actually emerged from that fiery brilliance to find Dorothy Fletcher, out of her command chair and clinging to his arm, or whether he’d simply hallucinated it.

“I thought I’d been blinded by the glare of that incredible flash,” said Ben. “I’m pretty sure I was actually hallucinating a bit, as my vision first returned. It’s a wonder that I managed to find the comm switch on the arm of my chair to give the order to open fire.”

“It’s a wonder that I managed to hit mine, too… having to dive for it.” 

Ben stopped suddenly, as if unsure of what he just heard.

Dorothy Fletcher stopped as well, and looked up at him sadly and said, “No… you weren’t hallucinating, Ben. That really was Dorothy
‘Iron Ass’
Fletcher that you found clinging to your arm, when we finally emerged from that hell. Some heroic ship captain I turned out to be, huh?” 

“I thought I’d dreamed it.”

“God,” Fletcher shook her head disgustedly. “If there was one officer in the whole damned fleet that I definitely did
not
want to look bad in front of, it was Ben Stillman. So what do I do the very first time we take enemy fire? I embarrass myself every bit as much, as if I’d wet my pants, right there in front of God and everybody. It was very gallant of you to not mention it, Admiral.”

“I preferred it when you called me Ben.”

Tears began welling in Fletcher’s eyes. “I freaked, Ben… my first time under fire on the bridge as captain and I freaked!”

“Dorothy, that was nothing like normal incoming fire… that was just…
insane
. You can’t judge yourself by something that extreme. That was a once in a million-year event.”

“I couldn’t believe my good luck when you selected
Defiant
as your flagship… and then I go and look bad in front of you, clinging to your arm like a frightened child, the first time we come under fire. I’m not sure that I’m truly fit to remain in command, Ben.”  Dorothy was crying openly now. Ben turned and held her in his arms, as she sobbed.

“Of course you are! Do you think I’m such a poor admiral that I’d allow any of my ship captains to remain in command, if I had less than the utmost confidence in them?”

“No…” 
sniff
  “You’re a great admiral, Ben, and of all people, you’re the one I most wanted to impress.”

“Me? Why in all the worlds would you possibly want to impress
me?

sniff
  “You were Thorn’s second during
1
st
Ginia,
when the two of you attacked five times your number from point-blank range.”
sniff
  “And then you masterminded
Stillman’s Great Raid
that destroyed most of the Yankee carriers that made
2
nd
Ginia
so easy for us to repulse.”

“I…”

“No, just hush a minute and let me finish…”
sniff
  “Then you were the anvil at the
Battle of Maylan
, where we destroyed another Yankee fleet right on the doorstep of the Alliance capital city.”
sniff
  “Did you know that people started calling you
Stonewall Stillman,
after it became known how you held…”
sniff
  “and held… and held…”
sniff
  “against all of those massive Yankee attacks, until Admiral Kalis finally arrived and the two of you crushed their entire fleet?”

“Yes, I heard some of that nonsense, but…”

“HUSH, Ben!”
sniff
  “I know that Fleet Admiral Kalis is a legend and all that, but…” 
sniff
  “You’re the officer that I idolized and most wanted to be like, Ben.”
sniff
                

“I…”

“I SAID HUSH, GODDAMNIT, and let me get this out!”
sniff
  “And then on the bridge during that awful pounding we took… I took courage just watching you. You were so calm and confident… downright heroic! The whole bridge crew held it together because none of us wanted to disappoint
you
, Ben! That’s the kind of leader you are.”

“It’s amazing how closely ‘
desperately trying to not shit yourself’
can resemble ‘
calm and confident’
sometimes.”

Dorothy laughed through her tears, at that unexpected comment. “See there, I’m blubbering like a baby and you’re making me laugh, right in the middle of it. And if all that wonderfulness wasn’t enough, you’re such an incredible gentleman on top of it.”

“Gentleman?”

“My crew is the only group that calls me
Iron Ass,
Ben. But I’m well aware of what my
other
nickname is throughout the Fleet, and why.”
sniff
  “I’ve been ogled and leered at, hit on, pawed and snickered at since I was 13 years old, and I swear… you and Lance DeSalle are probably the only males in the entire combined fleet who have a
freakin’
clue as to what color my eyes are.”

Ben gazed down into her tear-filled eyes and said, “They’re turquoise… and they’re beautiful.”

They stood there in the shadow of the great ship, with Ben’s arms enfolding her as she clung to him and they gazed into one another’s eyes for some indeterminable minutes, until at last she said, “I’ve learned quite a lot from you, Admiral Stillman.”

She saw the flash of disappointment flash across his face at her unexpected return to formality and then smiled up at his concerned expression. “So I think it only fair that I pass a little bit of wisdom on to you, too.” She almost broke into giggles at the priceless look of complete bewilderment that he gave her… almost.