Icarus (12 page)

   “Not that I’m aware of. They just took a walk around the ship, peered
into the hold for a second, then left. It was pretty quick.”

   “Good,” Shawn sighed, then nodded approvingly. “We’re going to hit level
three and get a bite to eat before we take off. Care to join us?”

   Trent dismissed Shawn with a wave of his hand. “Nah, I’m good. I made
a peanut butter sandwich with some stale bread I found in the fridge.
Considering it’s sitting like a brick in my stomach, I’m either full or I’m
about to die. I think I’ll hit the casino for a quick game of bak-tula.”

   Shawn chuckled, remembering the last time the two had played that
particular game together. “Beating me four hands in a row doesn’t compare to
playing against the house. Be careful in there…and watch your wallet.”

   “I’m always careful, and this sweet little baby is going to stay right
where she is.” He then patted his rear pocket. Not immediately sensing any
contents, he continued to pat down the remaining six pockets on his coveralls
to no avail. He gave Shawn a quizzical look, and only then did Melissa hold up his
missing wallet.

   “This was on the hangar floor,” she said with a smile.

   Restraining embarrassment, Trent gingerly took it with a reluctant
half-grin. “Thanks.”

   Shawn could only shake his head. “We’ll meet back here in an hour.”

* * *

   At the same moment Shawn and Melissa exited through the doors of the
landing bay, a large crate was being delivered via a magnetic dolly to the
security office in Darus Station’s upper administrative complex. The officer
receiving the crate, a well-fed human male named Wilkins, signed the electronic
manifest and dragged the box into the security office lounge.

   “What is it?” the officer’s immediate superior, Sergeant Tate, asked.

   “I don’t know, but it’s pretty heavy.”

   “Where did it come from?”

   The junior officer who’d dragged the crate into the lounge gave the
large container a once-over and frowned as he scrutinized the shipping label.
“Lower levels. It’s addressed to this space, with attention to ‘Station
Security.’”

   “What are those holes for?” his superior asked, referring to the two
palm-sized holes that had been burnt into the crate’s top.

   “Huh,” the fat junior security guard pondered as he scratched at his
balding head. “I’m not sure.” The officer tried to peer into the box, but could
see nothing in the darkness.

   The second officer pulled him away. “Hey, be careful. You don’t know
what’s in there.”

   “It’s probably just a shipment of food or supplies that got
misrouted.”

   “Strange,” the superior officer mumbled.

   The crate thumped once, then twice. The two officers jumped back in
surprise and reactively withdrew their sidearms.

   “Food doesn’t move!” Wilkins shouted, his pistol shaking uneasily in
his hand. “Open it…I’ll cover you.”

   “Oh no,” his superior shot back. “
You’re
the junior man here,
Wilkins
. You
open it and
I’ll
do the covering.”

   The crate thumped again, then rocked itself from side to side.

   Tate repeated his command. “I’m the Sergeant and I’m in charge. Now,
open that box, Corporal!”

   Wilkins cautiously leaned his round frame in and unlatched the top of
the crate. He glanced over at the sergeant, who took a deep swallow and nodded
to the corporal with haste. With one hand on his sidearm and the other on the
lid, Corporal Wilkins flung the top of the box open at the same instant he
jumped back, sure that whatever was in the box was going to jump out at them.
Instead, nothing happened.

   The two men peered into the crate and gave its contents a bewildered
look. It appeared to be a man, bound in magnetic restraints, his mouth gagged
with heavy, transparent packing tape. His gray eyes were wide with terror as he
strained to speak.

   Wilkins reached in and grasped a note that had been pinned to the
man’s chest.

   “What does it say, Corporal?” Sergeant Tate asked, his weapon now
lying limply at his side.

   It took Wilkins a moment to locate his holster around his girth. But
once his sidearm was holstered, he gave the note a vexed expression before
reading it aloud. “It says ‘Hi, my name is Cal Vross, and I have an illegal
depot of weapons on deck 10, section 24, compartment 5-J. I’ve drawn you a map,
just in case I forget how to tell you. On the off chance that you think I’m
lying, one of the illegal weapons is lying beneath my body.”

   Sergeant Tate brought his pistol up, this time leveling it at Vross
with confidence. “Get him out of there, Corporal. And do it very slowly.”

   As the fat man extricated Vross from the crate, a Unified Marine pulse
rifle, slightly scorched and unloaded, fell out of Vross’ bound hands and
tumbled back into the box.

* * *

   “So are you going to tell me what that was all about back there?”
Melissa, seated across from Shawn and leaning slightly over the illuminated
table, asked softly.

   Shawn took a sip from his drink, then gingerly set it back down. He
and Melissa had retired to a small restaurant on the uppermost level of Darus
Station’s toroid. The expansive, curved overhead was lined with windows that
looked up into open space, and from where Melissa was seated, she could see the
Rhea
hovering motionless several miles away.

   “What do you mean?” he asked, not looking at her.

   “I mean you just about went crazy with Vross over whether there were
any survivors on Second Earth or not.”

   Shawn’s voice was distant as he scrutinized the condensation forming
on his orange drink. “I wouldn’t say that.”

   “Well, what
would
you say, then?”

   He shuffled his hands for a moment before speaking. “Someone I know
was supposed to be there. I just…it’s just that I never—”

   “—got to say goodbye?” She tried to search his eyes for answers, but
he continued to avoid her gaze.

   Shawn reached for his drink, then placed it back down on the table
without taking a sip. “Something like that.”

   It didn’t take a great deal of logic to deduce his forlorn expression.
Melissa smiled down at her own drink, a bubbling pink concoction of Aldeberan
glow water and Gamma IV whiskey. “Who was she?”

   This time, when Shawn reached for the glass, he imbibed heavily. “What
makes you think it was a woman?”

   “We women can tell these things, you know.” This time her eyes caught
his.

   “It’s never been scientifically proven that women are mind readers.”

   “Be that as it may, I’d still like to know if I’m right or not.”

   “I’ll bet you would.” The words were meant as a joke, but they came
out with a razor-sharp edge to them. Shawn watched as her smile faded, and then
she began to bite at her lips as if she were fighting against saying something
that might further aggravate him. She ran a hand through her dark auburn hair
for no particular reason, appearing to Shawn that she was slightly
uncomfortable with the silence.

   “It was my wife,” he finally offered, not wanting to see Melissa
further torture herself.

   She hoped her mouth wasn’t gaping wide open. “You were married?”

   “What, you don’t think a guy like me can be married?” he shot back
defensively.

   “Oh, no. It’s not that. It’s just—” She caught herself before she
continued, and risked reaching out to lay a hand over his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to—”

   Shawn felt a twinge of guilt cross his heart, although he wasn’t quite
sure why. “It’s okay. Really.”

   When he didn’t pull his hand away from her, Melissa took it as an
encouraging sign. “I don’t suppose you want to talk about it?”

  
Of course I don’t want to talk about it.
Why would I want to
recount the story of the loss of the love of my life?
It was painful
enough when it happened, and I’d rather not relive it.
She meant
everything to me; we had a life plan for the future, maybe even kids someday.
We had dreams and aspirations for a future that was cut tragically short. Why
should I want to bother you with the details?
He asked himself those
questions in the split second before he opened his mouth, not realizing he was
telling her the story out loud until he was halfway through. It wasn’t until he
was finished that he noticed his drink was empty. Shawn held his glass aloft,
jiggling it in the air and getting the attention of the waiter in the process,
who promptly brought him another.

   During the next few minutes of uneasy silence, Melissa mulled over her
words before pressing Shawn for further information. “So she was supposed to be
there? I mean, on Second Earth?”

   Shawn harrumphed. “Trying out those OSI interrogation tactics on me, I
see.” He instantly downed his new drink.

   Melissa scowled. “That’s not fair, Shawn. And that’s not what I was
trying to do.”

   He half-shrugged. “I guess it really doesn’t matter anyway. It’s all
in my personnel file, which I’m sure you’ve read by now.”

   Melissa pulled her hand back coldly from Shawn. “You’re aiming
dangerously close to below the belt.”

   When the waiter again brought Shawn another drink, he sipped at it
cautiously, then set it back down on the table. “Supposedly,” he finally
replied. “She was
supposed
to be on Second Earth.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “She was a civilian, on a Sector Command transport—against my wishes,
mind you—that departed the research station on Drakkus.”

   Melissa nodded in understanding. “The one that was near Corvan?”

   “That’s the one,” he snapped his fingers, then took another long sip
of his ale before he continued. “Anyway, she departed Drakkus and was on her
way to Second Earth when her ship disappeared. Not long after, the Kafarans
destroyed Drakkus and then they moved on to Second Earth.” Shawn stared at his
half-empty drink for a moment before speaking again. “Because our carrier was
on the far side of the Grix system, I didn’t hear about it for nearly two
months.”

   She again reached her hand across the table, surprising herself by grasping
Shawn’s hand. When her fingers closed around his, she lowered her voice and
stared into his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Shawn. That’s…that’s terrible.”

   He took another drink. “Tell me about it.”

   “What did you do then?”

   “What could I do? The war was over, Second Earth was sealed off, and
Drakkus became a very disgruntled planetary system. By the time I’d gotten
halfway there to look for her myself, the Drakins had separated from the
Unified Collaboration of Systems, and I wasn’t allowed within a light-year of
the planet. Case closed,” he said with finality. “Game over.”

   “Is it? Is it really? Because now that I’ve witnessed how you treated
Vross and what led to it, I have to wonder if it’s really closed for you.”

   He took a final sip. “She’s gone.”

   “But you don’t know that for sure…or you don’t believe it.”

   “I believe what I like,” he said, using anger in an attempt to put a
stop to her line of reasoning.

   She looked around, checking to see if anyone was watching.
Fortunately, they were quite segregated from the rest of the restaurant patrons
and had their corner completely to themselves. “Nevertheless, whatever you
believe, we’ll be leaving for Second Earth first thing in the morning, and I
don’t want your reservations or hesitations clouding the mission.”

   “My reservations?” he spat back, pulling his hand from hers and
leaning over the table to glare at her. “My hesitations? Let me tell you something,
lady. I’ve
never
let them affect whatever mission I had to do before.”

   “Shawn, quiet down. Your voice is carrying.”

   “No, I won’t quiet down. You know, I’ve had it up to here with your
questions and your bossy attitude.”

   “Well you’ll just have to deal with it, mister, because I
am
the boss here!” Melissa instantly regretted saying the words.

   Shawn jumped from his chair, so quickly that the piece of furniture
ejected behind him. “I don’t even know why I bother. Seriously, can you tell me
just what in the name of all that is holy gives you the right to—”

   A large hand put a firm grip on Shawn’s shoulder and spun him around
in midsentence. The hand was attached to a rather imposing Jidoian, so muscular
that he seemed to have muscles on top of his muscles. “Calm down, mister, or
I’ll have to throw you out,” the apelike bouncer grumbled.

   Shawn had no idea what came over him, or why he said it, but the words,
“Who’s gonna make me?” came out before he knew what had happened. The burly
Jidoian placed another hand on Shawn’s shoulder, then used his third hand to
poke a finger into Shawn’s chest.

   “I will, little man.”

   Shawn, with all his might, reached back and tried to punch the
Jidoian. Despite his imposing bulk, the alien moved far faster than he had
expected. Caught off balance, Kestrel flew helplessly as the bouncer tossed him
across the room, and he landed squarely on his backside.

   Melissa rushed to his side and attempted to help him back to his feet.
“You’ve had too much to drink, Commander,” she whispered just loud enough for
him to hear. “We need to get you back to the ship.”

   “Not before I teach this guy a lesson,” Shawn yelled, tearing free of
Melissa’s grasp, then lurching headfirst into the Jidoian’s stomach.

   That was when everything went black.

   When Shawn regained consciousness, he had no idea where he was, nor
how he’d gotten there. Through foggy eyes he could see that the lighting of the
room was different than the restaurant he’d been in, and he briefly wondered if
he’d been pulled into a closet somewhere off to the side of the dining area. It
wasn’t until he saw Trent’s face come into view above his head that he tried to
speak. “Where am I?”