Susan took a seat next to him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah…”
Being a doctor herself, she’d seen Jung’s Disease firsthand. While no disease was pleasant, this was the daddy of them all. She hated to think how painful Keene’s last days were.
“Do you remember that time we had his birthday at Vega Station?” she said, remembering.
Nicolas raised his eyebrows. “He actually thought the woman who jumped out of his cake was real.”
“You were in a lot of trouble after that.”
“He didn’t talk to me for days.”
They both laughed. Susan had many fond memories of the chief when she’d served on the Vanguard. But what she loved most of all was the friendship he shared with Nicolas. It was almost a father-son relationship. One that Nicolas hadn’t enjoyed when he’d been a child.
“I just wish I’d been there,” he said, watching the stars go by.
“There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I know. It’s just…”
“Believe me, I understand.” Susan pulled out a small flask from her jacket pocket and shook it about. “I thought perhaps it might be the right time for this.”
Nicolas’s eyes widened. “Is that McKinley Oak?”
“Of course.” For whatever reason when they’d divorced, she’d ended up with a bottle of the fine liquor. All that was left was in the small flask. “I think the chief would have liked us to have it.”
She detected a slight smile on Nicolas’s face.
“You know where the glasses are,” he said.
Susan walked over to the quaint old-fashioned liquor cabinet and took out two square-sided glasses. She poured one each and took a seat beside Nicolas on the sofa.
She held up her glass. “To Lewis.”
Nicolas nodded solemnly and they both drank the scotch down in one mouthful.
“Another?” Susan asked after letting the burning sensation finish tingling her throat. He seemed amused. It was a stupid question and she filled the glasses. They sipped at their drinks and reflected.
Being the doctor she was, she couldn’t help but notice the fatigue in Nicolas’s eyes. “When was the last time you got a decent sleep?”
He closed his eyelids and sank back into the sofa. “I wish I could remember.”
“You know you can talk to me?”
Nicolas’s eyes shot open. He nearly laughed, doing his best to hide it.
“I am a doctor, remember?”
“I have my own doctor should the need arise.”
“Well, the offer’s there.”
Nicolas grunted and took a taste of his drink. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Always.”
Nicolas opened his mouth and closed it a few times, as if trying to find the right words. “At the end of the war, if I’d taken that job at HQ, would we still be together?”
Susan nearly choked on her scotch. They’d said so little to each other since leaving Earth, particularly on the subject of the breakdown of their marriage. She guessed the passing of Keene had made him think. “I…”
Nicolas held her gaze.
She took a mouthful from her glass to build up her courage. “You didn’t want a desk job. If we’d stayed together, I’d have felt guilty for the rest of our lives. We were on different paths, Nicolas. You know that.”
At that moment, however, she began to wonder. Susan’s heart raced and perspiration beaded above her brow.
“Command Deck to Captain Marquez,” a junior officer interjected over the comm.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” Nicolas said, grumpily.
“Captain, you wanted to know when the evening readiness reports were in. I’ve downloaded them to your quarters.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Susan stood, believing the time was right to make a getaway. “I think I better call it a night.”
He raised his glass, blushing from their deep and meaningful. “Thanks for the drink.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.” Susan exited his quarters into the corridor, and leaned back against the bulkhead. Her heart beat fiercely.
What the hell just happened in there?
Decium Ore Mining Facility - Orion V
“Thanks, Gene.”
Erik Koeman licked his lips as the attendant behind the food counter handed him a large bowl of steaming hot chicken soup. He hurried to the side with the queue behind him getting greater with each passing second. He plied a nice thick layer of pepper on top and found a table in the facility’s grand mess hall.
It’d been his first meal of the day after skipping breakfast, and with the climate-control network having issues in the past couple of days, he was looking forward to a nice hot meal. Erik stirred it around and brought a large spoonful to his mouth.
“Operations to Koeman.”
He closed his eyes in frustration and fought the temptation to throw his spoon across the table. He activated his commband. “What is it, Bloch?”
“There’s an anomaly on our scanners up here,” his assistant told him from the operations center.
I can’t even get something to eat anymore.
“Fine. I’ll make my way up.” Erik got up from his seat and headed to the door, throwing his soup in the garbage.
When he arrived, he found Bloch sitting at the scanners of the operations center.
Erik undid the top bottom beneath his collar. “Why’s it so warm in here?”
“The techs downstairs got the climate-control back to capacity again, but they can only do it a few sections at a time. I may have told them the operations center was top priority,” Bloch said, with a cheeky grin.
“Of course you did.” Erik couldn’t complain. At least it was up and running again. The malfunction was among a litany of faults that had reared their ugly heads throughout the facility.
“What was it you wanted to show me?”
Bloch pointed to one of his monitors. “Look at this.”
Erik grabbed an empty chair from the adjacent station and took a seat next to him.
“These readings have come through from our satellite in orbit to Orion VIII.”
The tracking satellite was the facility’s quasi-early warning system to incoming ships entering their area of space. But the question was: why was he looking at it? Erik only saw an empty screen. “And?”
“Watch this.” Bloch pressed in a few keys,
