Heart of the Nebula (11 page)

“
Have you kept in touch
since joining the Corps?”

“
Oh, we keep in touch as
best as we can. It’s hard, though, with my military duties. I
barely had a chance to say goodbye to my parents before we
left.”

She nodded as if thoroughly enraptured with
him. His collar suddenly felt too tight.

“
Do you mind if I excuse
myself for a moment? I, ah, need to use the bathroom.”

“
By all means.” She smiled
to set him at ease, but it had the opposite effect. Gorgeous women
had a way of doing that to him.

Out in the hallway, James let out a deep
breath and wiped his hand across his forehead. He didn’t really
need to use the restroom—he just needed an excuse to get out for a
moment. The way Sara looked at him made his heart race and his
hands feel sweaty. He could only take that for so long before
making a tactical retreat.

He palmed the access panel next to the
bathroom, and the door hissed open. Before he could step inside, a
high pitched scream split his ears. A dirty, ragged girl sat on the
toilet, her pants piled around her ankles.

“
Aiee!!”

“
Sorry!” James shouted,
quickly palming the door shut. His cheeks burned, and for several
seconds, he struggled to process what he’d just seen.

“
James?” Sara called from
the lounge. “What was that noise?”

Someone’s in there,
he realized, coming back to his senses.
Someone who doesn’t belong on this
ship.

“
Hold on,” he said, pulling
out his pistol as he turned to the door.

“
I’m going to count to ten.
If you don’t come out with your hands up, I’m going to take you out
forcibly. I have a weapon, so don’t try anything
stupid.”

“
Lieutenant?” Sara asked,
walking up behind him. “What are you doing?”

He motioned for her to stay back, holding
his pistol at the ready.

“
One
…
”

* * * * *

Sara frowned as James counted slowly up. If
he didn’t have a pistol in his hand, the whole thing would have
seemed ridiculous. With the weapon out and ready to be fired,
though, the whole affair had an air of seriousness that left her
thoroughly annoyed.

“
Six,” he counted, pointing
his pistol at the door. “Seven—”

“
Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”
came a young girl’s voice from inside. “I-I’m coming!”

“
Who is that?” Sara asked,
softly enough for her voice not to carry. James motioned for her to
be quiet, focusing all of his attention at the task at hand.
How typically male,
she
thought, rolling her eyes.

The door hissed open, revealing a
ratty-looking girl in oversized pants and an old dirty shirt, her
head bowed and her hands in the air. She glanced frantically from
James to Sara and back again with wild, frightened eyes. Her
clothes were soiled and torn, her raven-black hair knotted and
unkempt. Her face and hands were filthy, covered with grease and
God knew how many germs. But the worst thing about her was her
smell—stars, how she stank.

“
Step out into the
corridor,” said James, leveling his gun at her. She opened her
mouth as if to scream, but nothing came out but a
squeak.

A stowaway,
Sara realized coolly.
So
much for our dinner date.

“
Who are you?” James
asked.

“
Kyla,” said the girl. She
seemed too terrified to say anything else.

“
How did you get on the
ship?”

Silence.

James glanced at Sara over his shoulder.
“Sara, take my gun. I’m going to pat her down.”

Before Sara could object, he handed her the
pistol and stepped forward. She looked at the weapon in her hand
and pointed it slightly away, hoping that it didn’t go off. Her
hands started shaking, so she stiffened her arms and tried very
hard to stop it.

With uncommon deftness, James ran his hands
over the stowaway’s disgusting clothes, feeling at her pockets and
patting down her arms and legs. Sara did not want to think about
where those clothes had been, and the fact that James was touching
them made her squirm. Thankfully, the girl didn’t make it go on any
longer than it had to.

“
Nothing,” he said,
evidently satisfied. He brushed off his hands on his uniform and
took back his pistol.

“
James, can you tell me
what’s going on here?”

“
To be honest, I don’t
know.” He holstered his weapon, much to Sara’s relief. “I went to
use the bathroom, and found this girl sitting on the toilet. She’s
obviously a stowaway of some kind, but—”

“
Don’t take me back,” the
girl blurted. Her body trembled with fear, but there was a fire in
her eyes that made her seem unbowed.

“
Take you back? You mean to
the Colony?’

“
Yes—I mean, no,” she
stammered. “Just do what you want with me, but don’t send me back
to that place!”

Well, throw her off
then,
Sara wanted to say.
Drop her off at the nearest port, and be rid of
her.
She knew it was more complicated than
that, but at the moment, she didn’t care.

“
Why?” James asked. “Are
you a criminal? What are you running from?”

The girl’s eyes widened even further. “I’m
not a criminal! I swear, I’m not!”

A likely story.

“
I believe you,” James
said, much to Sara’s consternation. “Don’t worry—no one’s going to
hurt you. We just have some questions, that’s all.”

“
Why should I trust you?”
the girl snapped. Cornered, the little rat seemed ready to strike
out at the both of them.

“
Because you don’t have
much of a choice,” said Sara before James could give her a gentle
answer. “This is not your ship—you don’t have any right to be here.
Whether or not you—”

“
Sara,” said James, putting
a hand on her arm. “Stand down.”

Who are you to tell me to
“stand down?”
Sara wanted to say. Instead,
she took a deep breath and smiled as graciously as she could
manage. The way he held her with the same hand that had touched
those filthy clothes, though, that was quite a
challenge.

“
Lieutenant, this girl is
an illegal stowaway, which makes her a criminal by default. Whether
or not you agree, I think that she should be treated as
one.”

“
With all due respect, this
is not in your domain,” said James. “I’m the officer in charge of
security on this mission, and it’s up to me to see how this girl is
to be treated.”

Hot blood rushed to Sara’s cheeks. She
clenched her fists in frustration, but he was right: this wasn’t
her area of authority. Though why he found it advisable to show
such pity to the miserable vagabond, she didn’t know.

“
Very well, Lieutenant,”
she said, taking a deep breath. “I’ll go inform the captain of
this.”

“
Please do. And
Sara—”

Before he could finish, she shot him a
venomous look that shut him right up. She left them both without
another word.

* * * * *

Kyla followed the soldier at a distance,
arms tightly folded as he led her deeper into the ship. They passed
no one, but she still glanced over her shoulder occasionally,
afraid that someone was watching, even though it hardly mattered
anymore.

“
This way,” said the
soldier. They entered a fantastically luxurious dining room,
surrounded on all sides by magnificent windows. A crystal
chandelier hung from the ceiling, while the tables that ringed the
edges were all draped in pristine white tablecloths, smooth as
silk. A serving bar sat at the center of the room, its panels made
of polished wood. Above all else, the smell of food—real food, like
fruit and bread and steamed vegetables—filled the air.

She hesitated at the stairs leading down
from the hallway. Something about this place unnerved her.

“
Well?” said the soldier.
“Are you hungry or aren’t you?

Once again, Kyla felt the urge to run away.
The ship was too small for that, though—now that they knew she was
here, she had no place to hide. Whether or not they put her in a
cell, she was their prisoner now.

Without a word, she followed the soldier to
a table. Her eyes naturally gravitated to the view outside the
window. She’d never seen so many stars in her life; they looked
like shimmering glass dust spread out over black velvet. Off to her
right, the delicate tendrils of a magnificent nebula glowed orange
and red.

“
What would you like?” the
soldier asked as she sat down across from him. She stared
uncomprehending for a moment before she realized that he was asking
her what she wanted to eat.

“
Beans,” she
answered.

“
Beans?”

“
Yes. Without synthetics.”
She couldn’t stand fake pork.

The soldier shrugged and pressed a few keys
on an access panel built into the table. A whirring noise sounded
from the serving bar, followed by a low hum.

“
There,” he said. “Should
be ready in a few minutes. In the meantime, do you want something
to drink?”

Kyla smacked her lips. “Water,” she said.
“No—apple juice.”

“
Two glasses of apple
juice, then.”

A white spherical object rose up from the
serving bar and drifted toward them, hovering in the air. Kyla
yelped and shielded herself with her hands, making the soldier
laugh.

“
Don’t be afraid. It’s just
a serving bot.”

The object extruded a pair of long, spindly
arms, making it look like an overgrown spider. Still floating above
the table, it pulled out two glasses of clear amber fluid from its
tray and set them on the table.

Kyla gingerly picked it up and smelled it.
The sweet, fruity scent almost overpowered her, making her tongue
water in anticipation. Still, she waited until the soldier drank
from his glass before tentatively taking a sip.

The taste of apples exploded in her
mouth—real ones, not the synthetic insta-blend or the more
expensive stuff from concentrate. She gulped it down as fast as she
could, unable to get enough. It was heavenly.

“
Whoa, there,” said the
soldier. He was too late—she’d already chugged the entire glass.
Gasping for breath, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand
and let out a loud belch.

“
That good,
huh?”

Her cheeks reddened, and she glared at him
for making her blush.

“
Where’s the
food?”

“
It’s coming, don’t worry.
In the meantime, let’s talk.”

He wants to fuck
me,
Kyla thought to herself. There was only
one other time a man had fed her this well, and that was what he’d
been after. Part of her was too hungry to care, but the part that
still remembered crying in dark corners saw what was happening and
wanted out—now.

“
I don’t owe you
anything.”

“
I never said you did. I
just wanted to give you a chance to eat before we figure out what
to do with you.”

She stared at him for several moments. He
seemed sincere enough—certainly more than any of the other men
she’d known. She didn’t know if she could trust him yet, but at
least he wasn’t beating her.

“
Who are you?” she
asked.

“
Ah—sorry, I forgot to
introduce myself. I’m Lieutenant James McCoy, of the Civil Defense
Corps.” He extended his hand, but she stared at it until he pulled
it back.

“
Where is this ship
going?”

“
You don’t
know?”

She shook her head.

“
We’re on a diplomatic
mission to Gaia Nova. There’s an interstellar conference happening
there, with representatives from several of the Hameji occupied
worlds. We’re hoping to set up a council to represent our
interests, which sounds kind of crazy, but my friend Lars thinks
it’s crazy enough to work.”

Her expression must have been blank, because
his face fell. He glanced away for a moment before turning back to
her.

“
Basically, you stowed away
on the richest ship in the Colony, headed on a highly important and
sensitive mission. A lot of people aren’t going to be happy when
they find out you’re on board.”

And let me guess,
Kyla thought.
You’re the
one who’ll protect me? The only one who’ll look out for me, so long
as I do what you want? No, thanks.

“
Look,” she said, “I don’t
care about your mission, and I don’t care about you. All I want is
to get off at the next port.”

He frowned. “By yourself? Are you sure?”

“
I can take care of myself.
I don’t need anyone like you to look after me.”

“
But you’re a citizen of
the Colony, right? That’s where you were born?”

“
Yes,” she
admitted.

“
Then why do you want to
run away? The Colony is one of the last free and democratic
societies in the inhabited universe, and as a citizen, you’re
entitled to all of the rights and protections that come along with
it. Why throw all that away?”