This Starry Deep (2 page)

I turned off the shower and grabbed a clean towel, rubbing myself dry in the steamy, ceramic-coated room. The air was thick and hot and I took long, slow breaths to fill my lungs. I started to stretch, extending every muscle while they were still warm, and then opened the door. Cool air slapped at me and I walked quickly to the closet, grabbing thin white slacks and a matching shirt.

I wandered into the kitchen, the stone floor piercingly cold against my bare feet. Working quickly and without much conscious thought, I tossed together two salads and set them on a black stone serving tray. I added a pitcher of iced tea and glasses and headed back out to join Shae.

The tray went on a table between us, and I eased myself into the chair across from hers. She took her salad and made a soft noise of pleasure at me, like a hungry cat. I nodded and poked at my own salad, the two of us eating in companionable silence.

“Heard from Mud recently?” she asked after a few minutes.

“Newt is fine,” I told her after swallowing.

“So that’s a no?”

“That’s a no. He’s a grown man, Shae. He’d call if he was in trouble.”

“Sometimes it’d be nice if he called when he wasn’t in trouble,” she said. She poured both of us some tea and gestured with her fork. “And you should start calling him by his name.”

“He claims I never say it right, anyway.”

“So learn,” she insisted.

“Newt is fine,” I told her with a grin. “Besides, what does it matter what I call him if he doesn’t get in touch?”

“Don’t start,” she said, shaking her head.

I poured myself a second glass of tea. Shae and I had met when we were both just kids. We would’ve each hit you rather than let ourselves be called kids, but the older I get, the more I realize how much of my life I spent being just a kid. “Just.” Ha.

Still, I knew the moment I saw her that I was in love. And what held true almost forty years ago is still true for me. I love her. Better yet, she loves me. We had spent innumerable days just like that, sitting and enjoying each other’s company. We both find it easy to enjoy the quiet times, considering that as much as the quiet days couldn’t be counted correctly as they blurred into one another, the noisy ones always outnumbered them.

We had saved each other’s lives, often. When I first met her, Shae was a slip of a girl. She lived with her father, Doctor Williams, at the time. I knew the Doctor through his work perfecting the adjustable gravity engine, the thing he’ll go down in history for. It was during a visit to test his engine that I met Shae, who brought us each a drink shyly before she slid back out of the room on whispers and silent glances. She wasn’t silent anymore, thankfully; I couldn’t have counted her as the most amazing woman I knew (though I admit to bias) if she were always quiet.

But regardless, we courted, she got kidnapped and I saved her, and we started seeing each other when I was on-planet. The Doctor found our romance agreeable, giving us his blessing easily. We grew old together, weathered adopting Newt and the passing of the Doctor as well as countless other things: wars, spies, abductions, supposed death, and long trips to the short end of the universe.

Which is why, even though I did it on a regular basis, I still smiled as I got lost in her eyes. I was sitting there, sipping my iced tea and doing just that, when the chirp of the house phone broke the moment. The glass clinked against the table as I put it down. I shifted out of my chair and took three quick steps to the nearest phone, grabbing the earpiece and pushing it around my ear.

“This is Jonah,” I said curtly.

“Captain Madison, this is Lieutenant Mills calling for General Hodges, sir,” replied a young voice. I knew his type instantly. A personal assistant, good at his job and efficient, but lacking the ability to go off-script.

“Just call me Jonah, son, I’m retired.”

“Captain Madison—”

“Jonah,” I repeated.

“Captain Madison,” he insisted, “I am calling to inform you that your commission is being reinstated.”

“Bull. I’m retired,” I turned to Shae and shook my head, the frustration in my eyes easy to read. “You can’t call me back up. What the hell is going on?”

“Sir, I am not at liberty to discuss that at length on an unsecured channel.”

“Then call me back on a secured line. My unit can handle it. I’ll wait.”

“Very well, sir,” he said, and he hung up.

I turned to Shae, throwing my hands up in anger. “They want to call me back up!”

“Easy, Soldier,” she said, rising to cross to my side. She rested a hand on my shoulder as the phone rang again.

I hit the side of the earpiece to activate the call and braced myself for the static tweet of a secure line. It came and I winced in spite of myself. Those things were loud.

“Captain Madison,” Mills started, without waiting for me to greet him this time, “the situation is grave.”

“It always is. Son, just tell me straight what’s going on and why Hodges didn’t call me himself.”

“General Hodges,” he said, stressing the man’s rank, “is busy, Captain.”

“Fine. What’s going on that you think it’s a good idea to bother an old man during lunch?”

“Captain Madison, sir, our entire system is about to be wiped out by an invading force.”

“Well now, that we probably should discuss,” I told him, raising an eyebrow at Shae.

Chapter
2
– Shae

JONAH KEPT HIS EYES on me while he started to pat down the desk near the phone. He grabbed the second earpiece and tossed it at me underhand–I snatched it out of the air, fitting it in place quickly. I flipped it to monitor-only so the mic would pick up no noise and stood, watching Jonah.

“Captain Madison,” I heard a young voice say, “we have credible reason to believe that a full-scale invasion force is moving in from out-system.”

“Define ‘credible,’” Jonah said. I could hear the sigh in his voice and reached out to touch his arm. The kid on the other end was obviously nervous. Besides having to deal with a Big Event, he’d gotten suckered into calling on the reluctant cavalry. Not a great place to be in that early in his career. Still, if it didn’t drum him out, it would help forge him into someone worthwhile.

“We’ve lost contact with King Seven, sir, all contact. As well as Bulk, Athena Fourteen, and Mast’s Prayer. All within the last three months,” the kid said. He was holding it together pretty well.

“They’re all far spun from things. That far out, can you discount natural occurrences?” Jonah looked to me and I shrugged. Both were possible. Planets that far from the center of things had gone dark before. Natural occurrences of all types can arrange for that, it didn’t have to be anything sinister.

“We think so, sir. We’ve had reports of brightly colored ships across a growing number of planets, and not long after each reported incursion there have been multiple missing-persons reports.”

“And they line up?”

“Excuse me, sir?” the kid asked with a growing agitation.

“The missing people line up exactly with these incursions?” Jonah asked.

“We think so,” I could almost feel his nod.

I wandered away from Jonah and grabbed up the remains of lunch. No matter which way this fell out, I knew from experience that lunch was over. We were either about to go back to war or we would solve it from here, but either way we wouldn’t be sitting down to relax again for a few hours, minimum. I kept the earpiece in to hear exactly how things fell out.

“You
think
so?” Jonah asked. I put the pitcher of tea away and glanced out to where Jonah stood, looking at the sky as he talked. He liked to stare toward whoever he was talking to.

“Captain Madison, sir, the data are listed as credible,” the voice on the other end repeated.

“In other words, you aren’t allowed to see the actual hard data.” I laughed at that. I remembered when we were younger and Jonah had been issued top-secret documents that I wasn’t cleared to see. Treason, they threatened, if it was known I stole a look at them. Except we were married and working on the case together. Sometimes they trip over their own feet making up rules.

“No, sir, I’m not cleared for that.” Exactly.

“Great,” Jonah groused. “And the ships?”

“We have not yet captured one, Captain. It’s only a matter of time, of course, but from their design, they are unknown to any records we have.”

“So let’s see,” Jonah said, “you have some planets out on the fringes who have stopped talking to you, and some new ships flying around on rare occasion. When those ships show up, you have an increase in missing-persons reports from the planets those ships scout near, and from all of that you draw
credible reason
for a full-scale system invasion?”

“Ye-yes sir,” the kid’s voice broke, but I knew something he didn’t. Jonah couldn’t resist a good invasion, theoretical or not. There were enough blocks in this one that stood up at a decent angle to make me interested. If I was interested, then I knew Jonah would be as well. I headed back to the bedroom and started to access the lock-closet that led to the weapons and supply stores. Time to start taking a current count of what we had on hand and what we would need to requisition. I knew, at the least, I would need new grenades. The ones downstairs were underpowered by today’s standards.

“Not interested,” Jonah said harshly in my ear, and I dropped my hand to my side, starting to turn back toward the outside of the house.

“Excuse me, Captain Madison?” the kid asked. Good question, kid: what the hell what Jonah playing at? I didn’t know, but I intended to.

“You heard me. This is thin. I’m retired. I don’t do
thin
.”

“But, sir—”

I stood in the doorway and glared at the back of Jonah’s head until he felt it and turned to face me. He shook his head at me once, curtly. It just made me angrier.

“No. Have Hodges call me back himself if it’s so blasted important. But this is flimsy and far from anything you need me for. I’m sorry to send you back empty-handed, son.”

“Captain Madison—”

“Don’t argue with me, son,” Jonah said, staring at me. That man did not know what he was playing with. Correction, he knew full well what he was playing with, which made it all the stranger.

“But sir, it wasn’t a request. I have orders from the General here and—”

“And he can come serve them himself,” Jonah cut him off, “with
all
of the data in hand, or he can damn well leave me alone. This call is terminated.”

He took the earpiece out and set it down. I grabbed my own and yanked it out, throwing it onto the table. We stood there and stared at each other for a moment, as if daring the other to make a move.

Jonah and I didn’t fight
that
much; we worked together better than anything. But still, in life, there are times when eyes don’t meet, and sometimes when that happens you need to hit at them until the swelling helps them line up again.

The thing was, under my anger was concern. This wasn’t like Jonah, not at all. I tried to think of another time he’d refused a commission. It had happened, sure, but over much bigger stuff than this seemed to be.

We were both retired. We had done far more than our share of time, and it was over. But that wasn’t exactly a new situation. Six or so years ago we got called back in. Goodness, was that really six years ago? It felt a lot more recent until I gave it some turning over.

Even so, I didn’t like this. We stared at each other and his cold blue eyes tightened as he considered what to do next. He ran a hand through his hair, stopping to rub his scalp for a second, thinking. I crossed my arms and just stood there, staring.

“Shae,” he said after a while, “I don’t know why you’re so upset.”

“Yes you do, Jonah. Yes, you really do.”

“Look, you heard Mills, too. They think they might have a problem.” He shrugged, as if that explained everything.

“Oh so now he’s ‘Mills’ and not just ‘son’?” I asked, giving him a light laugh.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jonah scowled down at me. His six-foot-four frame towered over my own five-foot-ten, but I could match him in attitude any day of the week.

“When he’s an annoyance to you he’s just ‘son,’ but when you need to suddenly puff him up a little bit, make him someone to listen to, he gains his name back. Jonah, it’s an old habit, and it doesn’t work with me.”

“I’m not playing any sort of game here, Shae,” he insisted.

“Whatever. Look, there’s no reason we can’t go check it out, anyway.”

I started to turn away, my arms still crossed, but he caught me by the shoulder and held me there. I didn’t resist, letting him turn me back to face him. His face grew solemn and he glanced up before looking back down at me.

“Yeah, there is. If we let them call us back at every dropped hat they find in the road, we might as well not have retired in the first place,” he said. I caught a note of sadness in his voice, but dismissed it in annoyance.

“And maybe we shouldn’t have!” I yelled at him. I was just a girl when we first left planet, together, and never looked back to wonder if it’d been the right move. Now suddenly he was looking back and sounding like he saw nothing but dust back there.

“We’re old, Shae! Look around you!” he yelled back. Then he took a deep breath and calmed down. “Damn, I’m not as fast as I was and I have to work twice as hard to keep in shape. It’s time to let them grow up and take care of themselves. We can’t have the entire military as our children.”

I heard the words, I realized the truth in them, but I didn’t like it. Not at all. Besides, my own anger wasn’t quite spent yet and he was pissing me off. “Not that we treated our actual child like one, either,” I shot back.

“You raised him, too, baby,” he said, as a slow grin spread across his face.

“Maybe we both did a shit job at it.”

“Maybe!” he said loudly, as the grin fell away fast. “Except you know damn well we did a great job, and Newt’s a great kid.”

“He really is, huh?” I shook my head. Mud was terrific and he might not have been ours by birth, but he was ours. And Jonah was right, the old soldier. Our little newt had grown into a strong man.

“Yeah, he is. And we’re old. And maybe we should act it for a change, not run off guns blazing for once, and let the people who do our jobs now do them. For a change. Just to see what happens.”

“I don’t like this, Soldier.”

“I know, baby. I know. No one wants feel old.”

“I didn’t until now.”

“I have for years.”

“Then why let it stop you now?” I asked. My anger was gone and that note of sadness in his voice was back. But the question was an honest one.

“I...because it’s time, Shae, all right?” he answered.

“All right,” I answered.

Except it wasn’t all right, it wasn’t even half right. He refused to go, felt old and unneeded. I knew better, and I wasn’t going to let him wallow in his own self-imposed uselessness, wasting away. It wasn’t right, not for either of us.

I patted his hand and left him outside to stare at the sky and think a while. I knew he would stay there, giving me space as much as needing it himself. I kicked off my gray slippers and padded around barefoot on the cool stone floor.

The thing of it was, I couldn’t just force him to go. Not directly. But if I left without him, well, that would get him going. I would need some time; pulling together an excursion package without being noticed by your own husband is a bit of work. But not the roughest work ever, it’d just slow me down.

That kid, Mills, would report back to his boss and it would take a few days before they thought to call again. And I knew Hodges would call again, this time in person, to try and talk Jonah into the trip. I also knew Jonah would say no, again. So I had to be ready.

When Hodges called, I would be ready to run a trace on the signal. That was crucial. If I offered to go myself, without Jonah, they would say no. It was an oversight, and a stupid one, but I held no rank. They couldn’t really call me in solo. With Jonah I was a freelancer, part of his team and accepted. But solo? Solo I hadn’t bothered accepting a rank. I hadn’t felt the need.

Now I did, but I couldn’t fix that right away. I’d get around to it. Probably once I was up on Hodges’ ship. Given the nature of his offer, I figured his command-class ship was nearby. No further out than Mars. I could rent a skimmer to get that far without worry. But the command ship would be cloaked, on principle, and guarded.

One did not simply walk in the front door of a command ship. Not without explosives and a secure force of at least ten people who knew what they were doing. The explosives I could drum up; the people would be a different problem. But, I reminded myself with a laugh, I wasn’t invading them, I was going up to offer my own help. Which meant I could go up to the front door and ring the bell. If I could get myself that far. But no.

Getting in the front door without asking always proves a point about your usefulness. They couldn’t say no once I did that. We’d both worked that game before. It was almost expected, I assumed. And I didn’t want to disappoint.

So that was it, that was the plan. Wait about a week and then sneak off, heavily armed and prepared, break into a hidden command-class cruiser and offer my services. Once I was signed up, Jonah would follow. And he’d see it had been the right move all along. Sometimes I had to drag him in into realizing his own needs. It worked out.

I grabbed a bag and dropped a few hand blasters into it. Little things, not much battery or punch to them, but they were worth lugging. I would have to find those new grenades and sneak them home, somehow.

I stood there, staring at a mirror and grinning at my own reflection, and started to plan in earnest.