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to have had you come here."

"Thank you," Gabriel said.

   Jhuun clucked politely. "I anticipate that we will need to repair the M-Alpha as soon as possible for further tests. Bianca, would you kindly assist?"

   Damn if
that
wasn't a wholly transparent way to have Bianca stay with them in the workshop.

   "Certainly!" Bianca said, retrieving the hydraulic screwdriver from her hair. "If we have time after this, we should go to the Specialty shop and get some candy to celebrate."

   Her enthusiasm was contagious. They managed to get some decent headway done in repairing the M-Alpha—changing the power generator, replacing much of the circuitry that had gotten damaged by the beam—by the time Xhani returned to the workshop.

   "How long until the M-Alpha is repaired?" she asked.

   "Perhaps another four hours," Jhuun said. "If we continue to work at this pace."

   "Excellent." Xhani clucked. "I have spoken to Ma'ma'li, the chief of engineering for Section 54. He is requesting for the M-Alpha and the kappaproton cannon to be transported over for further testing and implementation."

   "To Section 54?" Gabriel asked. The station was tucked away in the very middle of their station network and housed the largest science and engineering department. It was also a two-week

journey away.

   "He also requests that one of our team accompany the equipment." She made a motion, indicating Gabriel.

   He understood why,Section 54 was home to several alien races, including Humans, though its atmosphere was not suitable for Eunnoians. He would need to go. Alone.

   "Then I guess I'm getting re-assigned," Gabriel said, staring blankly at the M-Alpha.

   Xhani clucked again. "I will assign the order. You will be permitted to leave as soon as the MAlpha is repaired and we can arrange for a ship to take you there."

   Xhani did not seem to notice his crestfallen expression. Bianca did, judging from her sympathetic smile, but she most likely assumed he would miss the station and his friends. When he glanced at Jhuun, he could swear he saw the same devastation that he felt, though a moment later it was gone.

   Silently, Gabriel kneeled by the M-Alpha, staring at the open panel without paying attention. Leaving the station right now would probably be the best thing for him and Jhuun. Everything would be much easier if they didn't need to keep working together, or even live on the same station.

   The thought of leaving should have filled him relief. Instead, he had to keep himself from furiously punching the M-Alpha.

"You are some kind of idiot, you know that?"

"Kurt…"

   "After all your whining, you actually manage to make a connection with him, you manage to have sex—and I'll remind you that I've yet to get any details—and now you're ending things and running off."

   "I'm going to Section 54," Gabriel muttered, worriedly glancing around the airlock for fear of someone overhearing them. Two Eunnoians passed them, engaged in deep conversation, and an older Human man hovered at the end of the corridor, paying them no mind. "It's not my choice. The temperature there isn't hospitable for Eunnoians. Someone needs to go with the kappaproton cannon, it has to be me."

   The last few hours had happened in a blur. With the help of Bianca and Xhani, he and Jhuun had gotten the M-Alpha repaired after the successful test and loaded it along with the cannon into a docked ship that was ferrying others to Section 54. Gabriel had barely had the time to pack his things and inform Kurt of his departure. Time was of the essence, but…things were moving at an uncomfortable pace.

   To make matters worse, he hadn't had the chance to say goodbye to Jhuun. Xhani and Bianca had said their farewells back at the engineering office, but Jhuun had left before then and not returned.

   "Besides," Gabriel said. "This is really for the best. Now's obviously not the time for a relationship."

   Kurt shook his head. "I'm sure if you say that often enough, you'll end up believing it. And I'm sure your friend Jhuun will end up believing it, too. And then you can both be alone and miserable in your empty little rooms, parsecs apart."

   "Are you here to say goodbye or to kick me while I'm down?"

   "It's called multi-tasking." Kurt managed a smile, trapping Gabriel into a hug that paralleled their first reunion over a month ago. "I'm going to miss you, Gabe. Let's not wait three years to see each other again, okay?"

   "Who knows?" Gabriel murmured. "Maybe in a few weeks we'll be able to take a vacation back on Earth."

   
Or maybe I could've taken Jhuun up on his offer and
had a taste of lokun on the Eunnoian homeworld.

   "Nice dream," Kurt said as they pulled apart. "But I hope you're right."

   Gabriel was about to reply, only to notice that Kurt was distracted by someone walking down the corridor toward the airlock. Though Gabriel feared what he would see, he turned around and swallowed hard.

   It was Jhuun, walking toward them with quiet steps, as though afraid to be noticed. He didn't smile, though he nodded politely at Kurt.

   "You must be Jhuun," Kurt said. He gave Gabriel a look as Jhuun clucked softly in the affirmative. "I'm Kurt, Gabriel's friend. And I was just leaving."

   And once again, Gabriel found himself torn between relief and dread as Kurt patted him on the shoulder said his farewells one last time and walked away, leaving him alone with Jhuun.

   "I didn't think you'd come to say goodbye," Gabriel said evenly.

   Jhuun watched Kurt's retreating back, as though wanting to be sure the Human was completely out of earshot. Satisfied, he turned to Gabriel once again and asked, "Will you return to Section 27?"

   "I don't know," Gabriel said. "Probably not. They'll want me there for a long time. Weeks, maybe months. Chances are I'll stay there after. Maybe I'll come back here to visit one day."

   "Maybe."

   Gabriel winced at the tone, bitter and hurt, and he could hardly blame Jhuun.

   "I'm sorry," he said. "I really am sorry."

   "No apologies," Jhuun said. "No regrets, no attachments, no pain, is that correct? It's all understandable. I wish I were so strong."

   Yeah. Gabriel felt so strong at the moment he wanted nothing more than to scream. Truthfully, he wanted to kiss Jhuun, hug him, touch him a little, just to let him know it had all meant
something
, damn it, even though it couldn't last.

   But he only stood, his arms by his side, stiffly rooted to the spot in front of the airlock. "Take care of yourself, Jhuun," he said after a long moment.

   "And yourself."

   Jhuun made no move to kiss or touch him either. So this was the end then. With a nod, Gabriel turned and boarded the ship without looking back, with Jhuun's wide green eyes still burned to his memory.

   The airlock door closed behind him with a loud click. Gabriel didn't like the sense of finality present in the sound.

   If the layout of their station network could be thought of as an enormous sphere, then Section 54 would be at the core of that sphere. Gabriel peered out one of the large viewports as the ship approached the station—large, imposing, the brain of their nervous system.

   The journey had taken just over two weeks as the transport ship stopped at various stations along the way to pick up extra passengers. There were nearly thirty people on board, only a few were Human, the others from various races that Gabriel did not know. He ended up sharing his small room with a stocky and non-talkative alien whose body was covered in bony plates.

   Being ignorant of their languages made it easy for him to keep to himself. Though when he spotted a Wreeth female, he pretended not to

understand the language.

   He had other things on his mind. The M-Alpha and the counter-weapon ranked fairly high, and the only time he left his room was to check on the equipment in the cargo hold. The rest of the time, he sat on his tiny mattress and tried his damndest not to think about how much he'd enjoyed the last few weeks and how miserable he felt right now.

   When they arrived at Section 54, Gabriel was grateful, if only because it afforded a distraction and the opportunity to finally get to work. It felt almost like boarding Section 27 for the first time. Once again he felt grim and the change of atmosphere was striking, though in this case the frigid air almost instantly sent him into shivers. He hadn't realized how much he'd adapted to the heat of Section 27.

   The chief engineer of Section 54 himself, a very tall and very wide Pellissian with three spindly arms named Ma'ma'li, greeted Gabriel at the airlock with some very enthusiastic handshakes and immediately directed him to the purple-lined engineering wing.

   Gabriel was grateful for the whirlwind pace as it left him very little time to think about anything else. Ma'ma'li wasted no time in calling a meeting, introducing Gabriel to the engineering crew and the weapons specialists, plunking him in front of the eager crews to talk about the M-Alpha and its Glispex origin and his discoveries concerning the Fnorn cannon.

   Gabriel was thankful that the station crew understood the Human language. The engineering crew was largely composed of Pellissians, a single Nr'ln and a few Humans, most of which tried to catch Gabriel's eye, evidently pleased to see more of their kind on Section 54. One olive-skinned man in particular paid him quite a bit of attention, asking questions during briefings and thanking him profusely.

   The days flew by as Gabriel directed the engineering crew to test the cannon on larger scales, working with the team to modify and perfect the weapon. To his delight, the testing proved extremely effective, to the point that only a few weeks later, the engineering team was ready to bring in the weapons team to build the first fullscale version of the weapon.

   When his shifts were over, Gabriel was too exhausted to do anything but shuffle back to his quarters in the luxurious engineering wing and collapse into sleep, burrowing under covers to stave off the chill, with little energy to think of anything but the tests and the meetings that awaited him the next morning.

the many empty ones.

   Listlessly, Gabriel spooned at the protein mush, barely noticing when a shadow fell over the beigecolored dish.

   "Eating alone is bad for you, you know."

   He glanced up to see the olive-skinned engineer, the one who kept staring at him a little too longingly and smiling a little too brightly. Gabriel felt ashamed that he had to struggle to remember that the man's name was Tristan.

   He was smiling broadly, though a little shyly, holding his own lunch. "Mind if I join you?"

   "Um, sure," Gabriel said, shifting a little uncomfortably as Tristan took the seat opposite him, still smiling. He set his food down, but didn't begin eating.

   "I wanted to say thank you for the work you've done," he said. "We never would have gotten this far without your help. You must be really proud. I mean, figuring out that the M-Alpha was actually Glispex…that was brilliant. "

   "Thank you," Gabriel said politely. He set his spoon down and cinched his thick uniform jacket tighter around himself—he still hadn't adapted to the cold of Section 54. "But I wasn't working alone. I had some really valuable help back on Section 27. One of my colleagues was actually the one to recognize the origin of the weapon."

   "Of course," Tristan said. He tucked his chin in his hand, still staring at Gabriel. "So how come you're here alone, without your colleagues?"

   "They're Eunnoian," Gabriel said, opting not to lengthen the conversation any more than necessary. The man was nice, but he didn't exactly feel like company at the moment. "They wouldn't last long in this atmosphere."