Solfleet: The Call of Duty (57 page)

* * *

After two
weeks of spending every day and most of the nights in thick, sweat-absorbent
field socks and heavy combat boots, the smooth, cool plasticrete steps that led
from the basement gym and locker/shower facilities back up to the first floor
felt like blocks of soothing ice beneath his bare feet. But regulations
prohibited going barefoot in the barracks’ common areas, so as he reached the
top of the staircase he paused to pull on his old, worn leather sandals.

* * *

No sandals,
socks, or anything else would cover his feet this morning, old and worn or
otherwise. He did have an old pair of wool-lined house slippers kicking around
somewhere, but he never bothered to put them on anymore, now that Carolyn wasn’t
around to nag him about it. He’d never liked them. They made his feet sweat. He
preferred to go barefoot.

He took out
his favorite coffee mug—the Military Police/Security Forces black and gray
ceramic one with the United Earth Federation banner emblazoned on one side and
the royal blue, gold, and silver Solfleet insignia badge on the other, which he’d
been given upon his first ever reenlistment as a token of his service—and
filled it nearly to the brim with the rich dark brew that he preferred, then
sauntered back into the living room. He threw open the curtains and had to
shade his eyes against the bright sunlight that suddenly flooded the room. As usual,
the faded house plants seemed to perk right up.

Faded? Yes,
he noted, inspecting a few of the plants nearest to him more closely. The
colors in their leaves were substantially more faded then he’d ever seen them before.
In fact, they were dull. Some were even turning brown and withering at the
tips. He’d have to remember to water them soon. He hadn’t done that since...when?
He couldn’t even remember. Oh well. What did it matter, anyway? Perhaps when he
finished his coffee. Speaking of which...

He sipped
gingerly—it was still too hot to gulp—savoring its pure flavor and rich aroma.
He didn’t care what the manufacturers of their field rations claimed regarding
the quality of their product. In his opinion, even an average fresh-brewed
coffee beat their instant concoction any day of the week. He swished it around
in his mouth for several heavenly seconds before he finally swallowed.

He opened
the sliding glass door and walked out onto the deck, stepped up to the railing
and gazed down into the garden.

* * *

Except
for Marissa, it was the most beautiful sight that he had seen in the last two weeks.

Short as
it had been, the FTX had
seemed
like one of the longest, most grueling
ones he’d ever been a part of. Two weeks, bivouacked high up on the barren,
hard, dusty gray-faced slopes of the western range. The nights had been
bitterly cold, the days almost oven-like. But now, finally, he was home, breathing
in the minty, pine-scented air and gazing down at the lush, living garden,
enjoying some much needed peace and quiet.

“You’re
home early,” Carolyn said as she stepped out onto the deck behind him, pulling
her bathrobe on around her. She made it sound as if it were some kind of
miracle.

“We
cleaned most of our gear in the field as soon as we broke camp last night,” he
told her. “All we had to do when we got back to the base was put everything
away. We knocked out our leadership debriefing and got released by about
four-thirty this morning.”

A kiss to
greet her, failed.

“In that
case you should have been home over two hours ago, shouldn’t you?”

Accusation.
Another argument, about Marissa of course. Then...

“Want
some coffee?”

Empathy?
Surprising. Why?

What had
she just asked? Did he want some coffee? He nodded.

She went
inside. He stepped away from the railing and stretched out on a chaise lounge.

He sat in
silence and waited for his coffee.

* * *

Sounds of
the world around him broke the silence and intruded on the realm of memory,
pulling Dylan back to the here and now. One of those sounds, the wheels-on-rail
squeal of a poorly maintained sliding door, briefly drowned the others out. He
looked up to see who it was who’d inadvertently encroached on his solitude.

Across the
courtyard the young woman who had moved into the apartment directly opposite his
about a week ago stepped out onto her deck and let the door slide closed behind
her. She was wearing the tan utility jumpsuit of Solfleet’s naval personnel,
which surprised him. He recalled catching a brief glimpse of her in the parking
lot the day she arrived, but she’d been wearing civvies then and he’d thought
she was a teenager—the daughter of colonists perhaps, or of a fellow service
member newly stationed in the area, a high school senior at the oldest—even
though he hadn’t seen anyone else with her at the time. He certainly hadn’t
thought her old enough to be in the service herself.

But she
obviously was in the service, and that presented some interesting
possibilities. Perhaps he hadn’t seen anyone with her that day because there
was
no one with her. Perhaps she was single and unattached and lived there by
herself. And perhaps, if he played his cards right, she might just share his
bed and give him the companionship he was yearning for.

Curious, he
ducked back inside, took his binocs from the shelf where he kept them, and held
them to his eyes for a better look.

Yes, she did
look young, but not quite as young as he’d remembered. She had to be at least
nineteen or twenty. Still barely more than a girl, but old enough to make a
move on without having to worry about any moral or legal ramifications. And she
was very pretty—a fact that had not escaped him that day in the parking lot—with
long blond hair and sapphire blue eyes.

She was wearing
the insignia of Communications on her right collar and the chevrons of a crewman
first class on her sleeves, but her hands looked soft, her nails manicured and
polished to a high gloss. Certainly not the hands of someone who spent her duty
hours setting up remote field-communications sites. Probably a clerk of some
sort. Her belt hung unfastened and loose at her waist and her Solfleet insignia
badge was noticeably absent. Apparently, she had a little time to kill before
she had to leave for duty.

Peering past
her into that small portion of her apartment’s interior within his field of
view, Dylan saw no signs of anyone else’s presence. Of course, that didn’t
necessarily mean that she lived alone. She still might have a roommate or even
a husband who simply wasn’t there at the moment. Or one who
was
there
and was just somewhere out of view. He’d have to keep an eye on things for a
while to be sure.

She leaned
forward and rested her elbows on the railing, then sipped from the tall
ice-filled glass of dark amber drink that she was holding. She gazed down into
the garden, just as Carolyn had so often done before.

Carolyn
again. How long was her lingering specter going to haunt him? Longer than the
demon of his nightmares, he was willing to bet.

A thought
suddenly occurred to him, and as mean-spirited as the idea seemed on the
surface, he had to wonder if there might not actually be some truth to it.
Perhaps that creature was nothing more than a subconscious representation of
his x-wife.

* * *

She was
just standing there, leaning against the deck railing with the breeze blowing
gently through her auburn hair and the early morning sun shining through her
thin white nightgown, silhouetting her athletic body. She was a vision of
beauty—a vision that served to remind him of what it was that had attracted him
to her in the first place.

He
approached her from behind. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and
gently pressed against her as he kissed the nape of her neck. “Good morning,”
he said as warmly and pleasantly as he could. To his surprise she responded in
kind, resting her hands on his and welcoming his loving touch. But when he
kissed her again, she grasped his wrists and gently freed herself.

“Don’t
get carried away,” she said as she stepped away from him. “Just because we had
a nice dinner and I let you fuck me last night, doesn’t mean I’m not still
upset.”

He’d
thought that he and Carolyn had gone a long way last night toward finally starting
to heal their ailing relationship, and he’d decided then that no matter what,
he was not going to say good-bye with another argument.

 “Besides,”
she continued, staring down at the garden. “You don’t have time for that. You
have to go.”

“I still
have a few minutes.”

“You don’t
want to be late.”

“I’m not
going to be late!”

“Don’t
you yell at me!” she snapped back, glaring at him. “I’m not one of your little
tin soldiers you can scold whenever you want to!” She turned her back on him
and said, as if to dismiss him from her world completely, “See you when you get
back.” She sounded disappointed at the prospect.

He shook
his head in disgust again, waved her off, and went back inside without another
word. He huffed at his own stupidity. He’d thought they’d made love last night.
She obviously had her own way of looking at it. He grabbed his shirt and beret
off the back of his chair and headed out.

Minutes
later, as he tore down the road in his sleek red sports car on his way to the
base, he glanced at the bright gold band on his left ring finger and made a
mental note to take it off and secure it in his locker when he arrived at the
barracks.

He
sighed. Despite their problems, he’d never taken his wedding ring off before.
Come to think of it, he’d never even thought about taking it off—at least not
seriously. Not even in combat, when he probably should have. Did the fact that
he’d decided to do so now necessarily mean anything significant? Had he also
decided, perhaps, without even realizing it until this very moment, that
Carolyn just wasn’t worth the effort anymore? Was his rocky marriage finally
coming to an end after almost eight years?

* * *

Yes, it was.
Or rather it had been at the time, although he’d had no idea then just how soon
that end would come. Or under what circumstances. But it had come and now he
was a single man again.

A ring of
skin so pale that it looked almost white by comparison still circled his finger
where he had worn his wedding band. He stroked it with his thumb, unconsciously—a
habit he’d formed without even realizing it, as thoughts of Carolyn slowly faded.

He picked up
his binocs again and looked back across the courtyard. The girl was still
there, still leaning on her railing and sipping from her glass, which she had
nearly emptied. She’d stripped off her uniform and had folded the bottom of her
tight black tank top up nearly to her breast line, baring her slender midriff.
When he’d spotted her a few minutes ago he’d figured that she was getting ready
for duty. Obviously, he’d been wrong.

He gazed
longingly at her. Thoughts of Marissa and Carolyn might have faded to their
place in the back of his mind, at least for now, but the mood they had invoked within
him hadn’t faded at all. He felt anxious, filled with sexual tension, and the
sight of this beautiful girl wearing nothing but her fleet-issue underwear only
compounded that anxiety.

She tossed
back the last of her drink then grabbed up her clothes and went back inside. “Nice,”
Dylan mumbled, staring at her backside until the door closed behind her.

He lowered
his binocs and wondered what her name might be, where she came from, and what
her assignment was. Assuming that she did in fact live alone, should he go over
there and introduce himself? Welcome her to the neighborhood? If he did, how
would she react? Would she just smile and thank him politely or would she
invite him into her apartment for a little while? Or would she tell him to get
lost and leave her alone? That was always a possibility as well. But if the
former, might he stand a chance of coaxing her into bed?

He let his
imagination wander for a few more moments, then scolded himself for doing so.
Wanting to take a beautiful girl to bed was exactly how his relationship with
Carolyn had begun, and he certainly didn’t need to end up in that situation
again. Yet finding another woman to share his bed was the very thing that had occupied
his mind—his
conscious
mind—for weeks. Might he have the one without
risk of falling into the other?

His stomach
rumbled with hunger, so he set his binocs aside and went into the kitchen to
fix something to eat. Minutes later, with his plate in one hand and a tall
glass of iced tea in the other, he headed back out onto the deck and sat down. He
gazed across the courtyard as he ate and thought some more about going over and
introducing himself. After all, he stood little chance of ever seeing Marissa
again and Carolyn was gone for good—may the bitch finally find happiness in her
formerly adulterous relationship—so assuming the girl was in fact single and
lived alone, what was there to stop him? If he handled it right, and if he
decided that having someone to sleep with was worth the risk of another
relationship after all, maybe he’d get lucky.

One thing
was for certain. He’d never know for sure unless he tried.

He
considered the possibilities, but by the time he finished eating he’d finally
decided not to act on the impulses of his flesh, and he berated himself once more
for allowing his mind to wander in that direction. If he was going to meet her,
he would do so either by random chance or by God’s own design, which given his
intentions was no doubt highly unlikely. Then, if the two of them did happen to
hit it off—or at the very least get along well enough—he’d wait, take it
slowly, and see how things developed.