God, I’d just left her there. But she had the luxury of giving way to her feelings. I didn’t.
‘I need something to occupy my mind,’ she announced to no one in particular. ‘May I stay? Please.’
I pointed to the empty chair at the navigation panel that the commander had just vacated.
‘I could show you some of the escape manoeuvres I’ve programmed if you like?’ said Aidan.
Anjuli nodded gratefully. ‘Yes, please.’
‘In the meantime, Vee, you should go and get some rest,’ Aidan told me.
‘Not yet. I need to get to the bottom of all this,’ I sighed.
‘We’ll work on that. Your shift is over. Go and get some rest,’ said Aidan. ‘You can’t think straight when you’re tired. The rest of us can manage.’
‘Aidan’s right,’ said Nathan, standing up. ‘It’s been a long day – for all of us. You should get some sleep.’
Sleep? With everything that had just happened? But I was not just physically but mentally exhausted.
‘I’m not sure I can,’ I said, standing up. ‘But OK, I’ll give it a good try.’
Nathan and I headed for the exit. As we left, Sam and Hedda entered the bridge, with Sam giving me a look as if he was daring me to ask him to leave again. I said nothing. Neither Nathan nor I spoke until the bridge door hissed closed behind us.
‘Vee?’
I stopped outside my cabin and turned to face him. Nathan was frowning at me. Why? I waited for him to tell me what was on his mind but he just kept frowning at me.
‘Yes, Nathan?’
‘I . . . er . . . I don’t suppose . . .?’
Pause.
‘Never mind,’ he said at last. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You sure?’ I asked. ‘You look like you want to get something off your chest.’
‘Now’s not the time. It can wait,’ said Nathan. ‘Good night.’
‘Night.’ I pressed my hand against the security palmlock of my door. My skin was prickling. The door slid open. My heart was pounding hard against my ribs. I entered my room and turned to find Nathan still standing in the corridor watching me. ‘See you in the morning.’ My words tumbled out in a rush.
He nodded. My door slid shut, but not before I heard Nathan quietly curse to himself.
30
What the hell was I doing? Standing outside Vee’s quarters staring at her opaque glass door like a lovesick jackass. I needed to get my shit together and go let off some steam but I needed to be somewhere where I could do so in private. There was a gym on the mid deck but I didn’t believe for a second it’d be empty, even at this time of night.
The astrophysics lab . . .
Mei and Saul were the only ones assigned to that lab and now they were gone. Would I ever be able to forget the image of them and Jaxon being sucked out of the airlock? Somehow I doubted it. I needed somewhere quiet to be alone, to lose myself.
So the astro lab at the end of the corridor it was. I made my way towards it, forcing myself not to break into a run to get there. I entered the lab, relieved yet unhappy to find it empty. Workstations and equipment lined the perimeter of the room though the middle was strangely clear. Then I realized why. It was space left for the 3-D mapping of star charts. Only how did I activate it?
‘Er . . . Aidan, could you display a star chart?’
‘Which one?’ Hearing Aidan’s voice coming at me from everywhere and nowhere made me start. It was just the computer but I still wasn’t used to it. Aidan, Vee’s brother, was still on the bridge with Anjuli and the others.
‘Show me Earth’s star system,’ I ordered.
The star chart appeared around me at once, swallowing me whole. It wasn’t to scale of course. It just showed the relative positions of one planet to another orbiting around the Sun, but it was still chilling.
Earth . . .
It should’ve felt like home but it didn’t. Far from it. And there was Jupiter with its many moons orbiting around it, including Callisto. The sight of it made me feel sick, actually physically sick. There was nothing in this universe and beyond that would ever make me go back there.
I reached out to push Callisto away. When I removed my hand this particular moon moved back to its original position. Getting rid of it wasn’t that easy. I stepped forward to hold the Earth in my hands, slowly pushing my palms together to crush it. The holographic image was immediately displaced but reappeared as my hands dropped to my side. I glared at the Earth, the sight of it fanning the hatred I felt towards it and everyone on it.
I had to move on, let it go, but I wasn’t good at that.
‘Aidan, display another star chart.’
‘Which one?’
‘Show me a star chart of the furthest galaxy from Earth that has been mapped,’ I said.
Immediately the middle of the room was full of stars, planets, nebulae and asteroids which reached from floor to ceiling and the whole thing was at least four metres wide as well as high. I stepped into it, the static energy around me slightly raising the hairs on my skin. Suns and planets moved aside and were displaced as I walked into them, only to reappear beside and behind me in their original space and place once my body was out of the way. I stood in the middle of it, drinking it all in. It truly was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. I hadn’t appreciated until this moment just how much I’d missed this; being on a ship, food and drink whenever I wanted it, relative safety and security. Comfort. Vee was going to give all of us what we wanted, she was going to take us to Mendela Prime. I should be ecstatic.
But I wasn’t.
All I felt was . . . empty.
The deaths of my friends just reinforced that.
There was still something missing.
I’d felt like this on Callisto but I’d thought I was missing my old life. I’d felt like this on the transport ship even though it was supposedly taking us to freedom. I’d felt like this on Barros 5 and the feeling still hadn’t left me on board the Aidan.
Was this all there was or ever would be to my life?
Getting by? Surviving? Would I ever find a way to fill this void within me? Was this really how I was destined to spend the rest of my days, with this constant craving inside but with no idea for what?
Or maybe I did know and just didn’t want to face up to the truth.
Vee.
When I was with her, it felt like . . . home. I’d only known her for a short while but it felt like I’d known her for ever. And when I was away from her I couldn’t get her out of my head. I went to sleep thinking of her and woke up with her still on my mind, which was beyond pathetic. I was a drone. She wasn’t, and that was the end of that. She may have decided to help us but that didn’t mean she would want to hook up with the likes of me. I wore my drone status like a shirt of thorns, but it was mine. It was all I had and I couldn’t shrug it off even if I wanted to. It was as much a part of me now as my bones. As a drone, I may not have been on the winning side but I was on the right side. I was convinced of that.
Slowly, my fists clenched. I felt like I was going to explode out of my skin. I pulled off my jacket and threw it as far away from me as I could. My shirt followed. I unfastened my boots and threw them after my shirt and jacket. I wanted to feel, to reconnect with my body again. After all the death I’d seen today, I needed somehow, in some way, to connect to life. Slowly I turned, my gaze intense as I focused on the positions of the astral bodies around me.
Close your eyes.
Focus.
Control.
I raised my left leg close to my body before extending it higher than my head to place the ball of my foot in the middle of the closest star system. I remained perfectly still for a few seconds, feeling the energy of it flow around me. That’s how I knew I’d made contact. I drew my knee close to my body again, moving it in a different direction to make contact with a different star. My eyes still closed, I focused on my mixed martial arts kata training.
It was all about con
trol.
Control I was fast losing.
31
A few minutes in my room were all I could bear. I felt like I was about to climb the walls. At times like these I usually headed down to the gym on the mid deck and ran for kilometres or went through my fitness programme in the holosuite at one end of the gym until I was much too tired to do anything but fall in a heap on the floor and sleep where I lay.
But a quick check with the computer informed me that there were six people in there already. I wasn’t about to go let off steam in front of spectators. Even the cargo hold had a couple of people in it. Mike was still in the hydroponics bay on the mid deck. What in the galaxy could he be doing in there at this time of night? Had he moved his bed in there? I wasn’t going to head down to find out. After putting on my trousers and a T-shirt and pulling on my boots, I headed out of my quarters, only to stop abruptly in the corridor. Where could I go?
The astro lab.
That would be echoingly empty now. I still had some star mapping to do – a job which required total concentration – so maybe I could give myself over to that task for a couple of hours. The astro lab was the one place on board ship where I could truly lose myself amongst the stars and feel at peace. I headed along the corridor, but when I opened the door, I saw at once that I was not alone.
Nathan was in the middle of a 3-D star chart of the Tau system, if I wasn’t mistaken, and he was performing some kind of kata I’d never seen before – and I’d made an extensive study of the martial arts. He wore only his trousers, his chest and feet bare, and his whole body was wiry and ridged with muscle. I knew I should respect his privacy and just turn around and leave, but my feet were rooted to the floor. I’d never seen anyone move the way he did, with that degree of control and intensity. Each extended kick, each flick of his wrist or sweep of his arm made contact with a star here, a planet there or swept through an asteroid belt. I realized with a start that his eyes were closed, and yet he didn’t miss. Not once. Had he memorised the positions of each stellar entity in the star chart? He must’ve done.
Damn!
Nathan’s movements grew quicker but he never for one second lost focus. His arms flew out from his sides, his palms pushing against the star systems he came into contact with. He did a handstand onto one hand only, his left arm moving with precision to strike a moon close to a planet and his feet simultaneously made contact with the binary stars that had been above his head only moments earlier. Nathan fell into a crouch, his breathing only slightly faster, his eyes open at last and looking straight at me. I hadn’t moved during the whole performance, but I was the one having trouble catching my breath.
I opened and closed my mouth, struggling to find something apt to say. Nathan stood up slowly and held out his hand. I looked from it to him.
Turn around and leave.
My legs wouldn’t cooperate. Instead I walked over to him and took his hand. What the hell was I doing? Nathan placed the fingers of his other hand under my chin to tilt up my face. I swallowed hard. The next moment his lips were on mine and we were kissing, in the perfect setting. We were at the heart of our very own universe. At first it was just our lips tentatively touching. His eyes were open, as were mine.
But not for long.
With a groan, Nathan took both of my hands in his own, our fingers intertwining, his eyes closing only a moment before mine.
Then the tone of our kiss changed. Nathan’s mouth on mine became harder, more demanding. Heat began to spread throughout my body. My heartbeat quickened. Nathan’s lips moved on mine, coaxing my mouth open. His hands began to move slowly up and down my body, from my hips, over my waist, onto my breasts, along my shoulders, down my arms, all the while blazing a trail as they journeyed. My hands were doing some tentative exploring of their own. All this touching and contact after so many years alone was overtaking my ability to think straight. All I could do was feel, and this felt good, with the certain knowledge that Nathan could make me feel even better.
Moments turned into minutes of kissing and touching. Nathan peeled off my shirt before I even realized what he was doing. I didn’t want it anyway. I wanted to feel his bare chest against my naked skin. Now I was burning up, hotter than when I’d been in the Mazon engine core. Nathan was still kissing me, his lips making their way down – from my earlobe to my throat before he nibbled at the crook of my neck. An involuntary moan escaped from my parted lips. Nathan’s hands were still caressing wherever they landed and his touch against my bare skin almost hurt. He raised his head to kiss my lips again, his tongue darting into my open mouth. It was almost unbearably pleasurable. I wanted more. More of his kisses, his touch, his body.
Wait! What was I doing?
‘Nathan, wait. Stop,’ I gasped, pulling my mouth away from his.
Reluctantly, Nathan stopped kissing me. We were both panting like we’d been submerged under water for too long.
‘What’s the matter?’ he whispered.
‘Nathan, I . . . this is too fast. I want to but we’re moving at light speed.’ Were my words as jumbled out loud as they were in my head?
Nathan nodded and smiled ruefully.
This was madness! What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking, that was the trouble. I was just letting my emotions run away with me – something that had never, ever happened before. What was happening to me?
‘You’ll have to give me a moment to calm down, particularly one part of my anatomy,’ said Nathan.
Huh? I glanced down his body and blushed.
‘Aw, she’s embarrassed!’ Nathan teased.
‘How could you tell?’ I asked, surprised.
‘You don’t have much of a poker face, Vee,’ he said.
No. I didn’t. I looked at Nathan, scared to death by what I was feeling.
‘I’m sorry I stopped us but—’
‘Shush! You don’t have to apologize,’ said Nathan, before brushing his lips against mine once again. ‘My regions may take some convincing of that, but it’s OK. Really.’
‘No, it’s not. I want you, Nathan. I want to do this with you, I really do,’ I said, eager for him to understand.
‘Olivia, give me a break. You’re killing me here,’ groaned Nathan.
‘Not helping?’
‘Not even a little bit.’
All the kissing and touching we’d just done in the middle of this star chart had been mind-blowing. Good phrase that. Mind-blowing. I’d seen it used in a number of the films I’d watched but I’d never truly felt it until now. I still don’t know why I’d stopped Nathan from making love to me, having sex with me – whatever. God, we’d got close enough and I’d wanted so much more of him. All of him, in fact. So what was I waiting for? The Mazon could catch up with us and blast us to smithereens at any moment. A stray meteor could hit the ship and knock out the life support systems. Hell, I could eat some chilli and choke!
‘Vee, stop looking at me like that,’ he said.
‘Like what?’
‘Like you want to finish what we started.’
‘I do.’
‘I’m getting mixed signals here,’ said Nathan.
I sighed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just . . . you confuse me.’
‘Back ’atcha!’
‘Should we change the subject?’
‘That would help – but after you’ve put your shirt back on!’
Mortified, I scrambled to grab my shirt from the floor.
‘Hold on. What’s that?’ Nathan indicated the necklace I always wore. It was a platinum chain with the letter V set in an oval on the pendant at the end of it and with a bolt of lightning running from the top to the bottom of the oval.
‘Oh, that’s my pendant. It used to be Dad’s. He was wearing it when he died. Dad always said he’d give it to me for my eighteenth birthday.’ I would gladly have waited for it if Dad had been around to give it to me personally. I sighed. ‘It’s all I have left of him now.’ I looked at Nathan, surprised at his solemn expression. ‘What’s the m
atter?’
‘What was your dad’s name again?’
‘Daniel Sindall. Why?’
‘I don’t know that name.’
‘Why should you?’
Nathan pointed to my pendant. ‘Because that’s the secret symbol of the Callistan Resistance working against the Authority.’
I shook my head. One of us was confused. ‘No, it’s not. Dad designed it himself, he told me so.’
‘Vee, that’s the symbol of the Resistance. And only those in the Resistance know it.’ Nathan stretched out his arm towards me then turned his forearm so his hand was palm up. There, tattooed on his upper forearm, was the same symbol as formed my pendant. I reached out, my fingers stroking over his tattoo in bewilderment.
‘I don’t understand,’ I whispered.
‘Did your mum know about your necklace?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I always assumed she did. I thought the V stood for Vida, my mum’s name and for me – Vee. Was my dad a member of the Resistance then?’
‘It seems likely if he gave you that.’ Nathan pointed to my pendant.
‘But Dad wasn’t a drone.’
‘Not everyone in the Resistance is. There are Elites who understand that what happens to drones is wrong and work in secret to do something about it,’ said Nathan.
I took hold of my pendant to look at it again. I’d loved it because Dad had promised it to me and I thought it looked striking but that was about the extent of it. Once again, my ignorance shamed me.
‘Vee?’
‘Hhmm?’ I asked, still studying my pendant.
‘Could you put your shirt back on please?’ Nathan said softly.
My head whipped up to look at him.
‘I’m not made of stone . . .’ he said drily.
Picking it up, I pulled it over my head. Cheeks flaming, I suddenly found the floor fascinating.
‘She’s embarrassed again,’ teased Nathan.
‘Shut up!’
Nathan sat on the ground, holding out his hand for me to do the same. I sat next to him, cross-legged, still holding his hand.