Seven Days - A Space Romance (9 page)

“Well, maybe one or two things,” she said in a teasing voice. Her hand trailed over his tattoos. “A very small thing.”

He growled. “You didn’t think it was so small earlier.”

Her eyes opened wide, mock-playful. “I didn’t?”

“Guess I need to show you again if you forgot, huh?”

“Guess so.”

And Kaden kissed that impish smile off her face.

#

Day 5

Zoey rested her bare feet on the nav panel and curled up in her robe, a cup of coffee in hand as she stared out the starboard viewport. One of Titan 34’s rings covered one entire side of the window, and she could see a fraction of the blue planet behind it. Off to the right, she stared at the wreck of ships that made a ship graveyard.

The
Yokohama
. And the
Cephalon
. Very close. She sipped her coffee, staring at the wrecks with an odd mix of anticipation, disappointment, and reluctance churning in her gut.

Anticipation, because they would soon be heading out to the wreck to salvage what they could and repair their own ship.

Disappointment, because this should have been an archaeological expedition, and she wouldn’t get the chance.

And most of all, reluctance. Reluctance that they might get out to the
Yokohama
and find her stripped of parts thanks to a space pirate. Or worse, that the parts were somehow unusable and Kaden’s diagnostic had been incorrect after all. And, she admitted to herself, reluctance to move on from their cozy pairing.

Even though she’d been initially a little wary of sleeping with Kaden, she’d quickly found that they... matched. Very well. It wasn’t just the desperation talking, the knowledge that her life would be ending in two short days. It was that they laughed at the same jokes. Enjoyed the same vids, the same books. Shared the same views on so many things. That he didn’t seem to mind when she had a melancholy moment due to their situation. That he was unfailingly optimistic, even though she knew he was fighting real terror at the thought of the spacewalk, and was fighting it for her sake.

They just... fit.

In bed, he was amazing. It seemed to bring him just as much pleasure to make her come as it did to climax himself. She’d never had a partner so fascinated with getting her off—her previous relationships seemed to pale in the intensity of the last few days. And when he pulled her into his arms and held her close, stroked her skin, her heart did funny little things. She’d been attracted to Kaden before, in the way that anyone would be attracted to forbidden fruit, but now that she’d had a taste of their illicit affair... she regretted the last two months of celibacy. Deeply.

It seemed a shame that certain death had been the thing to bring them together. She would have liked to have had more time with him, she thought sadly. Maybe they’d vacation on Mars IV or Ceres 13. Go skiing on the slopes of Astra. Sunbathe on the beaches of Europa 13. Kaden had said he’d wanted to go there.

Or just cuddle up in his arms, in his quarters, content with the knowledge that no one had to go anywhere for days and days on end.

She would have liked to do a great many things with him.
Definitely felt regret
, she said to herself, and cradled her coffee mug in her hands. Zoey stared out the window at the wreck of the
Yokohama
. It seemed forbidding and ancient. The old ship was a thousand years old. To think that the technology they needed could be found in there was mind-boggling.

After a spacewalk, of course. She eyed the unwelcoming rings of the distant planet and decided she’d let Kaden sleep a little longer.

They had time enough, she supposed. If this didn’t succeed, it wouldn’t matter how much time they had left.

#

Time to go. Zoey feigned a calm she didn’t feel, ignoring the anxious twisting of her stomach, and smiled at Kaden.

“It’ll be an easy in, easy out,” she told him, double-checking the fastenings on his spacesuit again. Zoey kept her motions calm and easy as if this were a jaunt in the park. As if this was one of their practice runs in Zero-G, and as soon as he finished his drills, she’d give him his reward—a hot, wet blowjob. As if their lives didn’t depend on salvaging this wreckage.

She felt anxious. Tense. But she couldn’t let that show—if she did, it was sure to add to
his
anxiety, and Kaden was anxious enough.

He stood in front of her, his big body stiff as he adjusted his airtight gloves over and over again, trying to get the fit just right.

“You have the schematic downloaded to your helmet, right?”

He tapped it and gave a short nod.

She gave him a thumbs-up and double-checked her own helmet. A slow, focused double-blink of her eye prompted the motion-sensitive computer to pull up the interactive schematic, and it began to scroll down one side of her visor. Her target was highlighted in red.

Piece of cake.

Zoey turned and the quick movement made Kaden’s entire body tense. Oh, no. They hadn’t even gone out the airlock yet. She turned and gave him another bright smile, tugging on his belt. “I can go by myself.”

“You can’t,” he said, his voice tight. “The engine is enormous, and the compressor has to be unlocked in tandem on each side. It’s designed to be maneuvered by at least two people. We’re going to have a hard enough time with just the two of us.”

Well, wasn’t he just sunshine. But she ignored it, moving to him and clipping a loose belt around his waist. She didn’t like a tether in deep space because it removed a bit of control, but she didn’t want Kaden to feel alone out there. So she hooked it around his waist and an identical one around her own and fastened the rigging line between them.

“I’m ready,” she said when they’d double-checked their preparations one more time. “You?” The
Yokohama
waited, and every moment they spent here was another moment they might need to repair the drive.

He gave her a tight nod, his helmet bobbing.

Zoey pushed forward, moving to the cramped airlock. Normally space-walkers went out singly, but she was going to be extra-cautious with Kaden. So they crammed both of their bodies into the small portal room. She sealed the door to the interior of the
Alcestis
behind them, then looked over at the airlock in front of them. “Ready?” she asked again.

He gave her a thumbs-up.

She typed in the sequence that would open the airlock to space. The computer droned a warning. Thirty seconds passed and she forced herself to be calm, to not look over at Kaden. That would just send him in a panic.

The airlock hissed open and sucked them out with the depressurized air.

Zoey always enjoyed the little burst of speed that the depressurization gave them, the feeling of sinking into the cool nothingness of space, the wild tumble into the open. But Kaden’s hand clenched her gloved one, and she pulled him close. There was nothing to fear, and she’d show him that.

She loved the empty, open feel of deep space, of knowing that only her thin suit separated her from, well, the cosmos. It was a job requirement for all astro-archaeologists to be proficient in deep space. With so many wrecked ships (alien or otherwise), she was bound to complete many a salvage run in space. And she was a pro at it.

She blinked hard, twice, and the schematic zoomed onto the screen of her helmet again, directing her. They were on the port side of the broken
Yokohama
and needed to zoom in starboard. She gestured at her boots, then waited for his nod. When his hand grasped hers tighter, she turned on the thrusters of her boots, reversing their slow spiral into deep space and setting a course for the
Yokohama
. She felt the cord tense between them as the propulsion caught up and then snapped forward, tugging Kaden along with her.

 She mentally winced. He had probably hated that.

But when she glanced back at him, he seemed calm. His hand clenched hers tightly, but he didn’t seem pale. That was good.

The
Yokohama
was a cruise ship. Or it had been, a thousand years ago when it had gone off course and on the edges of known space had careened into an asteroid. No one had made it back alive from her ill-fated voyage, and it had always been a dream of Zoey’s to participate in an exo-archaeological run to the infamous ship. It was a famous stop for many new astro-archaeologists looking to build their resume a little, as long as they didn’t mind a trip out to fringe-space.

Now, staring at the broken hull, she wished she’d picked something closer to home. Like, say, Pluto. Ah well.

With her boot-thrusters chugging, they moved along the outside of the miles-long hull at an easy pace. There was no sense in rushing, as overshooting their goal could cost them just as much as taking their time. A slower pace would keep her partner relaxed.

“The hull breach should be just up ahead,” she told him.

“Sounds good,” he said, and his voice was calm. She’d clearly made too much of his fear. With that in mind, she boosted her thrusters just a little, eager to get inside the wreck.

With the
Yokohama
being an archaeological mecca, it didn’t take long for Zoey to start to see signs of former teams’ visits. Chalk taggings and measurement inscriptions written on the hull. Flagged debris. And she looked for the inevitable, tiny red flag that would indicate that a corpse had been tagged by an archaeological team.

“Here we go,” she said in a light voice as they came to the gaping, broken maw of the ship. A sea of debris floated around them. Thirteen flight decks lay scattered, broken, cut in half.

A sea of red flags filled the debris, and Zoey stared. Bodies were everywhere, mixed with broken dishware from one of the ship’s restaurants. A fork floated past her visor, carelessly tumbling through the depths of space. Nearby, she saw the body of a woman clutching a bundle to her chest, and two red flags waved there. She turned away, swallowing hard. Somehow when she’d pictured the excitement of heading out on an expedition, she’d forgotten that this was the scene of a tragedy. One thousand years ago, people had died here.

It suddenly didn’t seem like such an exciting mission, given their own circumstances. Looking back, she had been so very naïve.

“Asteroid, huh?” Kaden asked as she slowed her thrusters, reversing the direction so they’d slow down. “How the hell did they manage that?”

“Someone destroyed the records,” she replied cheerfully. “Happened sometime between the time that they went off course and when they hit the asteroid. Because it was deliberately destroyed, history suspects sabotage. They think it was an anti-terraformation league, and the terrorists took down one of the heads of the league when they took down the ship. Others speculate that the captain was drunk.”

He chuckled at that, but it was a bit strained. “Option B sounds a little ridiculous. No one else was on deck at the time? The captain piloted this big old ship alone?”

“Who knows? It’s one of the great historical mysteries,” she said and couldn’t help the wistful note in her voice. Someday she’d come back and have time to study the
Yokohama
. Today, though, she just needed to strip it for parts. She blinked hard and moved her chin, directing the schematic with the subtle motion of her head. The compressor was lit up on her screen, but the reality of entering the broken, debris-filled
Yokohama
was a little overwhelming, even for her. “I don’t know as much about ships as you do,” she said to fill the void. “So what does a dark matter compressor do?”

“It cools the sprint drive,” he said. “The sprint drive overheats and becomes almost nuclear over time. Once it hits the maximum, it shuts down and over the course of about a week or so, the compressor cools it down enough that we can utilize the particle accelerator again. Right now, ours is still on the verge of nuclear meltdown. If we push it, our ship will explode. Of course, if we don’t push it, we die anyhow. So that’s why we’re going to steal the compressor from the
Yokohama
and attach it to the sprint drive from the
Cephalon
.”

“Sounds good to me. Why don’t you lead the way?” She stepped to the side to let him take the lead since he seemed to be relaxing.

Kaden moved past her, taking his time as they dodged scattered debris. Navigating in the clutter of the broken
Yokohama
was nerve-wracking. In between the mess of personal items floating free, she’d occasionally see a part of a body slide past, reminding her that this was a grisly tomb. It was one thing to read about a disaster in a book and another entirely to be fighting for your life, only to have a dead woman drift past.