Anaz-Voohri (15 page)

A familiar dread coursed across her shoulders. Why did the very idea of space make her so uncomfortable? How would it affect her? Tia wasn’t afraid to die and she feared no enemy, but she found the idea of infinite emptiness disturbing.

The platoon went off base to celebrate that night. When offered a glass of champagne, Tia drank thankfully. She had mixed feelings about the mission and wanted to share her doubts with Zack, but not in front of the rest of the crew. Unfortunately, from now on, there would be no privacy until after the mission.

Among Cuban music rhythms, the noise of the celebration escalated, and Tia accepted a few shooters of Tequila with lime and salt. As the party went on, she spotted Zack sitting at a table by himself and went to him. “Not much of a party guy? Neither am I." Her words sounded a little slurred, and she wondered how many shots she’d had. She never drank, so it wouldn’t take much to affect her.

As she sat across from him, she grabbed the table to steady herself. He looked so handsome and mature compared to the rest of the platoon. “You know, you never asked me out!" She smiled, surprised at her own comment.

Zack chuckled. “Are you drunk?”

“Don’t know.
Never been drunk before.
I feel good, though." Tia wondered whether that qualified as drunkenness. “Seriously, did you ever want to? Ask me out, I mean.”

“That’s for me to know." Zack smiled, his turquoise gaze fixed upon her in pure fascination.
“Why the question?”

Tia sighed.
“Because if you want to kiss me, it’s now or never."
She shuddered. “We could die up there, you know? Or worse...”

He laughed then took her hand across the table. “Tia Vargas, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say you are afraid.”

“Nope.
Never been afraid in my entire life."
She squeezed his hand in return and realized she didn’t want to let go of him. “But you, my friend, are afraid of a simple kiss.”

“Are you challenging me?" Zack straightened in his chair, all playfulness gone from his face.

Tia winked at him. “If it looks like a challenge, sounds like a challenge, feels like a challenge...maybe be it is a challenge.”

Zack shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you in that state.”

“Excuses, excuses."
Her voice rose over the surrounding buzz. “I feel fine and you, sir, are a chicken.”

The celebrating soldiers nudged each other and approached the table.

Zack’s cheeks flushed as he glanced at the expectant faces surrounding them. “No one calls me a chicken to my face.”

“Chick, chick, chick, chick, chick..." Tia loved to see him squirm in front of the platoon and hoped he would break his damned cool and kiss her.

“You asked for it." Zack rose and pulled her to her feet then took her face in both hands.

Tia stared into his eyes and her heart beat faster as she tilted her head and opened her lips slightly. Would he really kiss her? Would it be hard or tender?
Imperious or submissive?
Would he make her legs weak?

His face approached slowly, and she felt the warmth of his lips and the sweetness of his breath even before they touched. He smelled of Margarita and lime. The loud encouragements from their comrades drowned in a roar that faded away from Tia’s mind. She blocked out everything except the soft contact of Zack’s full lips on hers and the gentle insistence of his tongue.

Tia’s legs weakened, but Zack’s arm somehow caught her waist. She leaned into him. He nibbled her lips. When she responded, he lost his cool demeanor and dove into a passionate embrace. Finally, his fierce nature took over, and Tia rejoiced. He was wild, just as she suspected. But now she wanted more than a kiss. She craved his touch and she could feel Zack’s desire as well. Her heart beat so fast her head spun. Then she collapsed slowly into his arms and blacked out.

*****

Tia awoke at dawn with a shattering headache and swore never to touch Tequila shots again. The end of the party remained fuzzy in her mind, but she remembered a mind-blowing kiss like a faraway dream. Did it really happen or was her subconscious playing tricks on her memory?

Zack’s attitude as they took the bus to the restricted area for their flight briefing revealed nothing out of the ordinary, until he asked with a little smile, “Feeling all right this morning? You were pretty smashed last night.”

Tia groaned in response. “Sorry. Did I make a fool of myself? I never drink.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you did just fine." His mysterious smile fueled Tia’s worst fears.

“Did
we
really..." Heat rose up her neck.

“Kiss?"
He looked so smug, she wanted to slap him.

“Well, did we?" She wasn’t sure which answer she wanted to hear.

Zack turned to the other four in the bus. “Hey guys? She’s asking if we kissed
!“

The friendly guffaw told Tia they had, but to make matters worse, they were making fun of her.

”Did you guys ever!” a soldier exclaimed.

Tia clucked her tongue. “Must not have been so great if I can’t remember it,” she railed, making light of it. She wouldn’t give Zack the satisfaction of knowing she’d delighted in his embrace. Had they done more than kiss? Tia rejected the thought. Although she didn’t remember returning to their living quarters, she’d woken up in her own bunk, mercifully, with all her clothes on. Besides, the living conditions in the dorms allowed no privacy.

*****

As the flight briefing went on in the small room and the experts explained the procedures on the white board, Tia couldn’t help wondering whether any Shuttle crew would ever present a real threat to the Anaz-voohri. A few Shuttles hastily equipped with light torpedo tubes and lasers seemed futile against such a powerful enemy as the Anaz-voohri.

She’d trained hard, but the fitting of such weapons for space didn’t go smoothly. There was no guarantee that they would work, or any way to foresee what kind of danger they might present for the crew and the Shuttle itself.

Tia had always felt invincible in a combat situation, and she usually trusted her training. But no matter how she looked at this particular fight, it seemed like a losing battle.

That night and the following nights in the pre-flight Shuttle crew quarters, Tia didn’t sleep well. The closer she came to the launch, the worst the nightmares became. In the dream, she floated into space, helpless, locked in some kind of water bubble, like a womb, forever lost to the human race.

Then she saw faces she didn’t know, young people like her, strong, brilliant, perfect in every way, and they beckoned to her, but Tia didn’t want to go. What did it all mean? Since when did Tia reject perfection? She’d always thrived on her quest for perfection. But something about these perfect people bothered her, and she couldn’t figure out what.

In the middle of the third night in the pre-flight quarantine quarters, the buzzer rang calling the Shuttle crew to get ready for the final hours of the countdown. They prepared their emergency air rescue packs and made sure the communication equipment worked properly.

Brimming with anticipation, Tia boarded the special van that drove the team to the launch pad. The crew remained quiet, including Zack. After the three-mile ride, they stood at the base of the launch pad and looked up to see the Shuttle looming above, coupled to the solid fuel tank. They could only go two at a time. When their turn came, she walked with Zack along the yellow-brick road, the egress route painted walkway. Then they took the elevator up the pad structure to the dizzying height of the arm level.

When Tia looked down the one-hundred-ninety-five-foot drop along the fuel tank, the world already seemed smaller. As they walked the length of the arm, like a gangplank, strange loud moans startled her.

Zack smiled. “It’s the reaction of the metal framework from the contact with the chilled tanks of super-cold propellant."

“I know." Tia’s heart pounded wildly. No turning back. She glanced at Zack. “This is it.”

Zack winked. “Be careful what you wish for.”

They reached the small white room, where a Shuttle-closer-crew helped them get into their suit. There was barely enough elbow room for the three of them. Zack offered to braid Tia’s thick tresses so they wouldn’t get caught into the suit collar. She accepted, grateful for the soothing contact of his hands on her hair.

In return, she helped Zack with the straps of his parachute pack.
A perfect example of the futility of it all.
If anything went wrong, they’d probably not need a parachute, but it was regulation.

Tia found herself wishing she had more training. After checking and rechecking all the parts of the pumpkin outfit, they crawled through the open hatch and into the Shuttle, impeded by the clumsy suit. And all the time the countdown trickled.

Still in Earth gravity, Tia’s movements felt clumsy, due to the weight of the bulky gear. Because of the vertical position of the Shuttle, she had to lie down into the seat, and although she had strapped herself many times in practice, she found it surprisingly difficult.

Tia rejoiced at the fact that Zack would be sitting next to her. She could not stay mad at him for joking about her folly the other night. She’d observed him for months now, and she’d learned to appreciate his natural kindness. Curiously, his compassion didn’t sap his strength. On the contrary, it made him stronger and gave him the kind of charisma soldiers would follow into battle without question. Today, even though they weren’t going to battle, the dangers were real, and she found his presence comforting.

The inside of the Shuttle had been modified for their specific mission. The six passengers fit in the front cabin, and the weapons had been secured with the payload in the cargo bay. For the first time in human history, as far as Tia knew, torpedoes would be launched from orbit. Of course, secret experiments never showed up in any official records, so this might never make the history books.

As the minutes ticked by, Tia tried to remember the basic Russian vocabulary they’d learned during training to communicate with their Russian counterparts on the space station. Her mind went blank. Not a very good start.

The rest of the crew slowly took their respective seats. The pilots went through the complicated checks. Would it ever end?

Tia almost choked up at the enormity of what she was about to do. Who in their right mind would want to escape our mother planet? But if the scum of the universe threatened Earth and abducted babies, Tia must fight that evil. Zack looked sober, as if suddenly realizing the dangers of their mission. His half smile looked strained.

Tia chuckled. “Having second thoughts?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been dreaming of this all my life. I just can’t believe it’s finally happening.”

“Really?"
Tia wished she felt the same.

“I hope they don’t scrap the flight at the last minute." He looked so calm, so focused.

Tia couldn’t help thinking of Zack as hero material. His courage in front of impossible odds had made him the government’s best asset against the Anaz-voohri. He showed unusual qualities as a leader of men. Tia only had to look at the crew to see how much they respected him. So did
she
.

She wished Zack had returned her inebriate advances since the celebration three nights ago. But he probably wasn’t interested. To think of it, she’d never heard him talk about a woman. Could he be gay? She rejected the thought. Absence of sex life didn’t make someone gay. She was the living proof of that.

As the countdown progressed, Tia caught herself hoping the flight would be scrapped. Her heartbeat refused to slow down. Finally, when only a few minutes remained, she took a few deep breaths in a last attempt to calm herself and condition her mind for the ordeal to come.

When the countdown reached zero, Mission Control gave the go ahead. The firing of the booster rockets shook the monster assembly like an earthquake. Tia gripped the sides of her seat as the rocket lifted in a deafening roar. Pushed against the backrest, Tia feared the seats would come loose from the vibrations. She braced herself for the G-force as the rocket gained speed. Soon she was unable to close her lips as the seven Gs threatened to pull the skin off her face. Busy closing eyes and mouth, she thought of checking on Zack, but couldn’t turn her head.

After lengthy seconds full of apprehension, the Shuttle separated from the booster rockets and the tank. Then the three main engines kicked in. The G-force eased and soon, Tia knew that without the harness securing her to the seat, she would be flying away from it. Weightlessness...

The voice of Mission Control came loud and clear. “Congratulations on a successful launch. You have reached orbit.
Permission to open the cargo bay doors.”

On the monitor, Tia saw the huge top half of the cargo
bay open
slowly, exposing the secured cargo. This maneuver would cool off the whole Shuttle from the scorching heat generated by the rocket boosters, a critical procedure. If it failed, they’d have to get back down immediately.

“Bay doors successfully open,” announced the pilot.
“Rendezvous with the space station on schedule.”