Tempted by Celestial Bodies

Chapter 6

chapter six

kerian

For four more days, I kept Gen warm.

When the cabin’s climate system began malfunctioning two days from Ymar II, my body heat became a matter of not only comfort and pleasure for her, but also survival.

The power to the food preparation unit went offline the next day. More of the ship’s systems failed one after another as Nebula ’s condition deteriorated. Some of the light faded from Gen’s eyes. The damage to the ship was clearly far worse than we’d originally thought. The odds of her being able to repair it for any amount of money were dwindling.

Whatever she thought about the ship and its future, she didn’t share it with me. She simply asked for more warmth. At least beneath me and in my arms she seemed happy and content.

Twelve hours from our destination, we lost communication with the ship’s maintenance robot in the cockpit. Not long after, three loud rumbles rolled through the ship. We didn’t know what the silence from the cockpit or the shaking meant. In a way it didn’t matter. They could not signify anything good. I suspected more of the ship had started to break apart under the strain.

With six hours to go, as our breathing made puffs in the air, Gen stopped looking at the screen above the bunk that gave our location and time to destination. I switched it off. We lay in near darkness now except for the starlight outside the cabin’s window. The only lights still glowing were those by the door, a few on the control panel above the desk, and the ones by the vents that still feebly pumped air into the cabin.

On her bunk, under our pile of blankets, I drew Gen to my chest and tucked her head under my chin. “What can I do?” I asked.

I expected her to ask for warmth, as she’d done so many times. Instead, she said, “I need to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth, no matter what it is.”

It disturbed me that she didn’t move so she could see my face. Gen always looked me in the eye. “I will never lie to you,” I promised.

“If we get to Ymar II, what are you going to do?” Her tone was deliberately flat, as if she thought she knew what my answer would be and had already begun the process of pulling away.

My uneasiness increased when I realized she had said If we get to Ymar II instead of when . I had been so careful to never let on that I doubted we would survive this journey. Maybe it was she who had stayed hopeful up to now, for my sake.

I had long since decided what I would do if by some miracle we reached our destination. My focus then became Gen’s pleasure, warmth, and well-being. And I had never wavered in my choice—not even for a moment.

“If we get to Ymar II,” I said, “I want to go with you, wherever you go.”

“What about finding out how you ended up on my ship?” Now she sounded incredulous. “If I’d woken up in a stasis pod with no memory of how I got there, I’d tear the universe apart to get the answer.”

Of that, I had no doubt. “I do want to know those answers,” I told her. “But now there’s something more important.”

“What could possibly be more important?”

“Keeping you warm, Gen Drae.” I pressed my lips to her hair. “I never want you to feel cold again.”

She raised her head. Her eyes had deep shadows and dehydration and hunger had taken their toll, but she was as beautiful to me as the moment I’d first seen her.

“That’s a good line, Kerian Nos,” she said with a ghost of a smile. “But I’m immune to lines. Do better.”

“How about this, then.” I kissed her forehead. “I am addicted to how you look covered in the dust from my wings and the sounds you make when you come for me. And it’s an addiction I have no intention of recovering from.”

She tried to laugh, but it came out as a kind of strangled half sob. “Well, that’s definitely better.”

Another rumble shook the ship. A light on the ceiling began flashing and the air vents sputtered. We were still hours from Ymar II. The colony might as well have been a galaxy away.

She snuggled closer with her face against my chest. “That was the emergency life support starting to fail.” Her voice was muffled.

“Yes.” I tucked the blankets more tightly around us. “I will keep you warm, Captain Drae.”

“I know.” She kissed my hot skin above my primary heart. “I’m glad I got to know what that feels like.”

“Me too,” I murmured.

I had been a soldier and fighter all my life. I would have battled any foe who tried to harm this woman. But a disintegrating freighter and the heartlessness of space itself were not enemies I could defeat.

Even so, I lay facing the cabin’s doors, ever on watch, with Gen wrapped in my arms. My own body temperature began to drop as the cabin grew colder by the minute. I tried not to shiver, afraid that would alarm her, but after a while I could no longer keep still. She let me hold her so tightly that our body temperatures almost matched, and I lost track of where my body ended and hers began.

For a long time we drifted in and out of consciousness, murmuring words to each other that neither could really understand but that were still comforting.

Some hazy time later, I hallucinated that the ship jolted sharply and alarms sounded. The life support system seemed to power on with a blast of breathable air and the cabin grew noticeably warmer.

This is a good dream to have just before the end , I thought, and closed my eyes again.

Not long after, a series of urgent beeps roused me once more. The doors to the cabin groaned open, revealing a familiar robot with six arms. Behind it stood three uniformed Ymarians carrying medical kits.

“Captain Drae and unidentified passenger,” the ’bot said, in the same tone I imagined it used for everything, including apparently to announce miracles. “We have reached Ymar II.”

Was I alive? Was I dreaming? And most importantly, did Gen still live? I almost feared looking at her—but when I did, her red-rimmed eyes blinked blearily up at me. The slow beating of her heart and her raspy breathing were the sweetest sounds I’d ever heard.

I took her face in my hands and kissed her. What the Ymarians thought of me and the sparkling dust that had spread to every surface in the cabin, I had no idea, and I did not care.

“Captain Drae,” the ’bot repeated. Was I imagining it, or did it sound impatient? “The commanding officer of the Ymarian rescue team requests a report.”

“Mechabot.” Gen’s weak voice still carried the undercurrent of deadly danger that made my hearts race. “If you don’t give us a damn minute to celebrate the fact we’re alive, so help me I will sell you for scrap.”

“Understood, Captain.” The robot retreated hastily, along with the Ymarian medics. Even if they hadn’t understood her words, her tone needed no translation.

Gen and I stared at each other.

“What you said—” she began.

“Nothing has changed,” I told her. “I meant what I said. Wherever you go, I go, if you will have me. Maybe we can seek the answers together.”

“Okay.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “My ship isn’t salvageable, is she?”

“I don’t think so.” I rested my forehead on hers. “I’m sorry. But we are alive.”

“One out of two ain’t bad.” Gen looked up at me with defiance and tears shining in her beautiful blue eyes. “I am going to get emotional about this for exactly forty-five seconds. And if you ever tell anyone , especially that damn robot, I will?—”

“I know.” I kissed her again and sucked gently at her lower lip, which trembled. “My bloody, twitching corpse goes straight out the nearest airlock.”

“One hundred percent,” she said.

Before the Ymarian medics and Mechabot returned, she’d already let me kiss her tears away.