Mission Mistletoe (5 page)

“Oh hell, I don’t need more of this,” said the captain, walking out into where the snow was piled up alongside the landing pad. “Listen, I just got out of a relationship with a clingy man, and you’re not doing yourself any favors telling me how I should behave.”

Ilin was too irritated to try to argue with him. He disliked arguments and was normally adept at avoiding them, one of the reasons he had become an ambassador. He let that conversation drop.

“You like Arctos,” he said instead, watching the captain gaze out into the snowfall, growing heavier now. They would have to leave soon.

“Not really,” said the captain, the smallest of smiles at the corner of his mouth. “This time of year, though…. It’s like Christmas.”

“Christmas,” echoed Ilin. He took deep breaths, thinking he should have brought his pills with him. But then, when they had left, his mind had been on the captain.

Something changed with Captain Pfeil, the calm vanishing, and he turned back toward the shuttle. He was frowning as he moved past Ilin.

“Yes, Christmas, Ambassador,” he said. “Look it up.”

“T
RANSMISSION
FROM
engineering,” stated the computer, interrupting his report.

“Pause,” said Archer, leaning back in his chair. “Connect. What is it, Foster?”

“Brace yourself,” she said. “More bad news.”

“And this time it’s what?” asked Archer, hearing the weariness in his own voice. He was resigned now. Everything was simply going to keep falling apart. It was like a low-level nightmare that just would not end. When Severs had received his update on how Jhex had taken the Arctos visit, she had not been pleased. The ambassador not having his medications on top of all else had led her to issue Archer a warning. No more mistakes, no more issues. Severs had just received word of a bad overall report from another Nler’sh’eh ambassador, and it was clear that there was no more room for dissatisfaction.

“Not a big issue, exactly,” said Foster. “Remember how we had a supply of special cleaning solution to go with the biofuel?”

“No,” said Archer, sighing. “But it figures, doesn’t it? What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, nothing. The cleaning solution itself works as it’s supposed to, only we don’t have enough of it.” When Archer said nothing, she spoke up again. “Captain?”

“What am I supposed to do about that?” he asked. “Do we actually need a special solution? Can we synthesize more with what we have lying around the ship?”

“We don’t technically need a special solution, no—but without it the entire thing takes even longer to clean. And I doubt we can synthesize more. Even if we were given more complete information about what’s in it, I don’t think we have everything we need in the right quantities.”

Archer managed a swear word or two.

“You want me to send some of it upstairs for testing, see if they can figure out how to clean the cleaning solution?”

The idea sounded ridiculous to him, but he nodded.

“Why the hell not. Nothing better to do.”

No sooner had he ended the call with Foster than his door buzzed. He had the computer let the person in without asking who it was, only to find Jhex entering, what looked to be paper in one hand. Archer had not communicated with him since their visit to Arctos over a day ago, but the ambassador looked as good as ever, dressed in gray gauze today, lips set more neutrally than Archer was used to seeing but nothing that looked negative.

“I am glad that you will see me,” said Jhex as the door shut behind him. Archer motioned with a hand to offer him the seat in front of his desk, but Jhex ignored the gesture.

“I can’t refuse an ambassador,” said Archer, only to see Jhex’s lips tighten.

“Apparently you can,” he said, and set the paper down on the desk while Archer was still trying to think of something to say to that. The Nler’sh’eh smiled a little. “Here are the colonies you can remove from our course, ranked in order of those I mind the least skipping. From the top.”

“I can see that,” said Archer, pulling the sheet of paper to him. Jhex’s handwriting was very neat, the print large, and everything was spelled correctly. “You could have sent this to me. Electronically.”

“I wanted to practice penmanship,” said Jhex.

“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to use more of these suggestions than I like,” said Archer, scanning the colonies Jhex had selected. “You don’t want to visit Utopia Gardens?”

“I will be open with you, Captain. I’m here to look at the worst, not the best, unless there is time. And there doesn’t seem to be time to show me the best.”

Archer looked up at him, examining his face. The ambassador seemed colder to him than before, and he began to worry that he had pissed him off. And if he had, well, he knew the unpleasant consequences of that. He sighed, leaned back in his chair.

“I understand,” he said. “Judge us by our worst to see if it’s worth it without the best outcome. You Nler’sh’eh are very….” He stopped, glanced at Jhex.

“What?” asked the ambassador.

Archer shook his head and stood. He felt strange, sitting while Jhex was not. The ambassador lingered, watching his movements. Eventually Archer shrugged.

“Precise. Calculating.”

“As though you are not? Or are you less comfortable with me now that I am not trying to persuade you to have sex with me?”

Archer was taken aback at the ambassador’s blunt way of stating it. He turned back to the desk and placed his hands on it, leaning over it so that he and Jhex were eye to eye. The last thing he needed was drama with an ambassador. Everything else had gone wrong; this would too. The only problem was that it was very arousing being so close to Jhex, who was attractive even when irritated. Maybe especially when irritated. Archer felt more in control then, over them both, and that made him want to do things. Unwise things.

“I am as comfortable with you as I ever was,” said Archer firmly, not pulling back when Jhex leaned forward, not about to back down.

The ambassador set his hands on either side of Archer’s so that their skin was not touching but the gauzy fabric brushed against the back of Archer’s hands. His mind pulled up the brief massage, and his heart sped up. It was stupid to remain where he was, but he did not want Jhex thinking he would be intimidated, sexually or otherwise.

“And you frustrate me immensely, Captain,” said Jhex, face barely an inch away, lips hovering near Archer’s ear.

He side-eyed the ambassador as best he could, tilting his head slightly. He was going to have to back down soon or end up pulling Jhex over his desk and kissing him until they both couldn’t breathe.

“How difficult for you,” he managed to say. He could almost hear Jhex smile.

“You too, from what I can hear. My ears are very good. Your heart has been accelerated since we got close. Your breathing is irregular.”

“If I wanted to know what my body was doing, I’d turn on the computer’s health monitor,” said Archer, but his words didn’t have the bite he wanted. Jhex was not moving.

“No need now,” said Jhex, the words a whisper. Archer could feel his breath curling around his ear, as though the ambassador was leaning even closer. “Are you going to move, Captain? I am unacceptably close, by Terran standards.”

Archer pulled away, heart pounding. Just when he felt in control, Jhex went and took it away from him. Shit, how many weeks did he have left on the ship with him? He turned away from the ambassador and ran a hand through his hair.

“You seem to still be trying to seduce me, Jhex,” he said, wanting the ambassador to have to defend himself.

“Please. Ilin.”

“I have work to do, you know,” said Archer, ignoring him right back.

“As do I. Although perhaps less now with less stops. When you figure out which ones you’ll be cutting, I would appreciate it if you stopped by my quarters and told me.”

Archer almost laughed at him.

“You think I’d come anywhere near your rooms after that?”

Jhex smiled.

“I was hoping you would come in my rooms, actually.”

This was too much for Archer. He needed to do something to regain control. He moved to sit in his chair, even though Jhex was still leaning far onto his desk. He hoped he would feel better able to give orders from a familiar position.

“So you were flirting with me before,” he said. Jhex merely looked at him. “You could practice on someone else.”

“Why do you think I am practicing?” asked Jhex. “Is it so difficult to think that I might actually know what I am doing?”

Archer swallowed. He hadn’t wanted to think that because it made all this too much to handle. He tried changing the subject again.

“What are you going to report about the delays?” he asked.

Jhex shrugged.

“Engineering will be contacting me again shortly, and I have to get a report out to my superior within…. Computer, how long?”

“Four hours, twenty-three minutes until Severs requires transmission. With delay, nineteen minutes until message must be sent.”

“Shit,” said Archer, getting to his feet again. He moved around the table and grabbed Jhex’s arm. “Now. I have to do this now. You have to go.”

To his surprise Jhex allowed himself to be led to the door and dismissed without issue. He did leave Archer with a parting smile, though, and far too much to think about.

I
LIN
SMILED
to himself as he left the captain’s office. Despite over a day of completely ignoring him, Captain Pfeil was indeed interested. Ilin went back to his room and pulled up his Christmas list, untouched since he had researched it.

“Computer, when is Christmas?” he asked, sorting through his selection of festive backgrounds.

“According to the Terran calendar, the holiday of Christmas falls tomorrow, the twenty-fifth of the month of December.”

“Tomorrow? Is this correct?”

“Correct,” answered the computer, and Ilin considered. He had enough of an idea what he was doing. The real difficulty would be pulling it together in time and convincing the captain to visit his quarters, which he anticipated would be no small feat. He set out to whittle down his list.

First he selected an image for his wall, choosing a cozy indoor scene lit by a fireplace with moving, crackling flames. Outside the window snow fell like on Arctos, and Ilin decided the stockings on the fireplace would have to do.

Some of the items he crossed off the list, knowing he would not be able to secure everything so late. But the tree he would borrow from the gardens, and the computer confirmed that there would be mistletoe there too. Ilin smiled to himself. He had already planned where that would go.

He selected some of his best works of art to gift the captain, pieces that were meaningful and had depth: a pot that he made while aroused, the sculpture he had shown Captain Pfeil earlier, and several paintings. He liked the idea of leaving something behind for the captain to remember him by when his mission was over.

Stopping by the mess was a must, but first he wanted to make ornaments for the tree. Ilin went to the art room, printed clay, and worked on a Nler’sh’eh interpretation of the curvy baubles. When he was finished he left them to fire and went in search of Nadine.

“No,” she was saying to an angry man just inside the door to the mess. “I had no idea.”

“You don’t look at the bottoms of your cookies?”

“I made hundreds of them, so no,” she said, scowling. “Come back tomorrow and I’ll see what I can give you.”

Ilin dodged the disgruntled man as he left and approached Nadine, who was on her way back to the kitchen with a cardboard box. He could hear her muttering to herself.

“Nadine,” he said, and she turned at his voice. She did not look pleased but gave him a brief smile that reached nowhere but her lips, and was hesitant at best. “Is something wrong?”

“Jhex,” she said, glancing around the mess. There were a few people eating, but after assuring herself they were not looking, she nodded him back into the kitchen. “I’m technically not supposed to allow you back here…”

“But I’m a persuasive ambassador,” he said, smiling.

She set the cardboard box down on a steel table and crossed to an industrial-sized food printer.

“Yeah. Apparently my printer’s been burning the cookies on the bottom. Blasted thing was just fixed a few days ago too. Can’t believe it’s busted again already.” She pulled out the trays currently in the printer and pried a cookie up with a spatula, swearing. “Damn! These too. I’ll have to get tech right on it. Shit. We already didn’t have enough dough.”

She tossed the tray down and had the computer page whoever was in maintenance and technical to come as soon as possible, then turned back to Ilin.

“Don’t worry, Jhex, you’ll get your cookies.”

“I was actually here for another reason,” he said. When she raised an eyebrow, he continued. “Tomorrow I will need a Christmas dinner of some sort too, I believe. Roast and potatoes? For two.”

She shook her head, smiling at him.

“You’re really going through with this, aren’t you?”

“Correct. Do you have any mulled wine?”

Nadine’s smile tightened to a frown. She hesitated before answering.

“One bottle. It’s supposed to be for the captain.”

“I’d like that too,” said Ilin.

Nadine hesitated again.

“You have to give it to me. I believe you’re instructed to see to the ambassador’s wishes above all else? Particularly on this assignment, correct?”

“Archer will be so pissed,” said Nadine, shaking her head. “Do you want it now or brought up with the roast?”

“Now,” said Ilin, thinking of the expression on the captain’s face when he discovered his mulled wine was gone. That should help persuade him to visit Ilin’s quarters tomorrow. He watched as Nadine disappeared, then returned with a bottle. She leaned against a metal counter, not giving it to him yet.

“I did something really nice for you, and now I’m not sure I should regret it if you’re going to take the captain’s wine.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a small data device. “Here. Christmas music. I know, I know—I wasn’t going to help, but I had some, and I figured you could use it.”