Seven Days - A Space Romance (12 page)

Well. He might as well get to work. While the sprint drive powered up, he assessed his own pod. The wires and life support systems seemed to be fine. The thick, temperature-regulating glass had multiple fractures through it, though. He pulled out the ship’s first aid kit and taped both sides of the glass where it was fractured, trying to reinforce it. He fixed the wiring, cleaning off any corrosion on resistors. And he had the computer run another diagnostic.

“Functionality at seventy-one percent.”

Fuck. “Likelihood that passenger will survive full stasis for two months?”

The computer paused for a moment. “Forty-two percent.”

Not great odds. “Likelihood that passenger will survive full stasis for two years?”

“Eight percent.”

Damn. He looked over at Zoey’s pod, touched the glass, wishing he could touch her face again. There was time to record a quick goodbye, at least, before he had to get into his own pod...

And then just hope for the best.

Sitting in the only chair in the small pod, he undocked from the
Cephalon
and shuttled away from where the
Alcestis
was anchored next to her. He gave a salute to the screen, his last view of the small ship that had been home for two months.

Two long, boring months... and the best and worst week of his life.

Sighing heavily, he leaned forward and began to plot out the course for their lifepod. The sprint could warp them light-years in a matter of seconds, and he carefully mapped out the trajectory, mindful of planetary rotations and asteroid belts. Any modern computer’s AI would be smart enough to correct and avoid, but of course, he was dealing with an ancient one. Better to hedge their bets. Their course would take them on the fringes of the closest nearby star system, and then begin to send a distress signal. Just out of range of the solar storm, to be safe.

The problem with a distress signals was that it could take months and months on end before it got picked up.

And once again, he was finding he didn’t have the time.

Course plotted, he felt the tiny craft hum, shivering with the dark matter engine firing up. It was nearly deafening, and when it was rocketing full blast, it’d go on for weeks. Time to record his message now. He plugged in the micro-messenger that he’d smuggled in when Zoey hadn’t been paying attention. A screen lit up in the open air, and he watched the screen.

It flashed a light. Recording. He ran a hand down his face, then turned to face the camera. “Zoey. If you get this message and I’m not standing right next to you, well... I knew when we got in the stasis chambers that this was a one-way trip...”

Day
390

Fuzzy red light shone behind Zoey’s eyelids.

“Science Officer Maldonado. Can you hear me?”

“Is she responding?” Another voice whispered.

Through the muddy haze of exhaustion, Zoey shifted, her muscles protesting. Why did her entire body ache so much? Her ass felt like she’d been sitting on it for ages, and her feet tingled as if asleep.

“Increasing oxygen levels to normal. Her vitals are good, unlike the other. She should come around in a minute. We’ll give her time to wake up.”

Waking up was the last thing she wanted to do. But she yawned, forcing her eyes open. A doctor in a sterile plas-uniform, mouth covered with a sanitation mask, hovered over her pod.

“She’s becoming alert,” he said, his voice tinny from the filters. “Science Officer Maldonado, your vitals are good. Are you in pain or feeling any numbness?”

Zoey raised a hand to scrub at her eyes—they felt so gritty—and realized she was still covered with wires and sensors from the chamber. “I’m fine,” she told them slowly. “Just stiff.”

Her mind was disoriented, and she was having a hard time thinking straight. That sort of thing always happened after waking up from a stasis sleep, though. Of course, at the moment, she couldn’t remember why she was in stasis...

“Emergency team to chamber four,” someone said in a rush. “He’s flatlining—”

The two doctors turned away, replaced by a nurse that began to pluck the sensors off her skin. “Science Officer Maldonado, I’m going to get you free of this and then we need to head to the sick bay. Once you’ve been cleared by the medical team, you’ve been court-martialed for an appearance in front of the tribunal.”

Tribunal? Something must be wrong. “Of course,” she said, still foggy. When her arm was freed, she rubbed her face. Nearby, the other doctors rushed to unhook the other chamber. Someone was griping about the primitive technology while another worked, pumping at someone’s chest. She couldn’t see who it was—the chamber was laid flat. The glass of the door had been shattered, it looked like, covered in tape and striated with cracks. How odd.

Her mind twinged and a nervousness began in her gut. Something was wrong. But what? “I can’t think straight,” she admitted to the nurse.

“You’ve been in stasis for thirteen months, honey. It’s going to take a bit to wear off,” the nurse said, all practicality as she plucked off more wires. “Just give yourself a moment and remain calm. We’re doing everything we can for your friend.”

My... friend?

A rush of memory flooded through her mind. A smile. A warm mouth on hers. Making love in the pilot’s chair in the cabin. His laugh.

“Kaden,” she choked, her mind full of him. With horror, she turned to pod four, where the doctors hovered. What had they said?

He’s flatlining
—

“No,” she cried out, jerking out of the pod and struggling free of the nurse. “Kaden! What’s wrong with him?”

“Science officer, you need to calm down—” the nurse began, trying to push her back down into the pod. “Remain still for a bit longer.”

Zoey pushed free of the woman’s grabbing hands and leaped out of the pod. Kaden’s pod... it had been shattered? Somehow? Hot tears gathered but she pushed them back, scrambling forward to look at him. She had to see him for herself, had to know...

Inside his pod, a dark figure lay crumpled, sensors dotting tattooed arms. One leg was dark, seemingly withered. His torso was pale, striated with the same black lines, as if he’d somehow been sick. His mouth was blue around the edges, his cheeks sunken.

“He’s flatlining again,” one of the doctors said. “Lay him out. Clear!”

“Kaden!” she screamed.

“Someone get her out of here,” a doctor shouted even as she pushed to his side.

He’d held her so close. Loved her. Comforted her.

I love you, Zoey.

And she hadn’t had the balls to tell him back.
Maybe I’ll tell you when we land
, she’d teased, momentarily taken aback by his seriousness.

“He’s not going to make it,” one of the doctors said.

“Kaden!” she screamed again. No, no, this wasn’t happening. They were going to do this together. Go on a long vacation on the beaches of Europa 13 together. He was going to hold her again and kiss her.

Strong hands tackled her and dragged her away. “Please come with us, Science officer Maldonado,” a man said in a crisp voice, and she barely glanced at the dark uniform of the Tribunal Military Police.

“He’s not responding,” one doctor said, just as they dragged Zoey away through a door.

This wasn’t happening. Not to Kaden.

They were supposed to get out of this
together
.

#

They wouldn’t tell her anything at the lab. Classified, they’d say. Everything was classified. Instead, they ran a barrage of tests over her, both physical and mental, to assure themselves she was fine.

Oh, she was fine, all right. But she was frantic with worry, her heart rate accelerated. Eventually, they’d had to dose her with a sedative and taken her to military police quarters.

Her story—and the records they’d brought from the
Alcestis
—directly conflicted with the records given to them by Dr. Ian Nevis, who had declared the
Alcestis
lost in space many months ago. Zoey and the crew had been declared legally dead, the officer in charge of the investigation explained, and she was going to remain quarantined from all outside influences until the truth of the matter was determined.

He’d left her with a small package on the foot of her bunk—her things that she’d brought with her from the
Alcestis
. She’d been so anxious and tense that the nurses on duty had given her a sedative. Zoey had stared off into space, drugged, for hours on end.

Kaden
, she thought, over and over again.
Kaden
. What had happened from the time she’d gone into stasis that had caused it to all go so wrong?

Eventually, the drugs began to wear off, and she tried to open the door to go out, see if she could get some answers.

Locked.

Restless and trapped, she went through the motions. She brushed her teeth, showered, and readied for bed. Her room was devoid of vidscreen or reading materials; they hadn’t been joking when they said they were going to keep her quarantined. Quarantined from everything, it’d seem.

The small package of her things sat at the foot of her cot and she idly picked it up. Her clothes that she’d worn in stasis, the research notes she’d scribbled in her paper journal. A small vidpic cartridge. She picked it up, frowning. She didn’t remember this. Zoey clicked on the button to activate it.

“Zoey.” Kaden’s beautiful, strong face loomed in the screen, his unshaven jaw so sexy. His hair was tousled, and he looked exhausted. And sad. “If you get this message and I’m not standing right next to you, well... I knew when we got in the chambers that this was a one-way trip...”

No.

“I ran a diagnostic on the stasis pods on the lifepod. Only one of them was working at a hundred percent, and I didn’t want us to argue over who was going to live and who wasn’t, so I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry. It was a shitty thing to do.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “But I’m just a big dumbass meathead, and you’ve got so much going for you. And hell, I didn’t want to see you die. Nearly losing you in space, well, it killed me, right here.” He put a hand over his tattooed pectorals and made a fist. “I couldn’t let that happen again. So I made the choice, and I’m not sorry. I love you. I know it’s crazy to fall in love in six days, but I fell in love with you two months ago, when you got on board the
Alcestis
and gave me that prim, disapproving look. So really, not so ridiculous, is it?” He grinned, and her heart flipped.

“I didn’t get the chance to tell you everything I was thinking. I regret nothing about our week together, Zoey. If I had to die in seven days, there was no one I’d have rather spent it with. You sent this old soldier off with a bang, and I love you for it. Now,” he said, looking a bit rueful. “The computer tells me that I have a forty percent chance of surviving in that chamber, and I’m going to take it, because even a forty percent chance to see your beautiful face again is one I have to take.”

He looked backward, and she knew he was staring at her stasis pod. Tears washed down her cheeks as he glanced back at the camera, then smiled slowly. “But if I don’t see you again, well... This meathead loves you, Science Officer, and every minute I spent in your arms was worth it.”

Zoey broke down and sobbed.

#

They kept her court-martialed for four weeks.

The first week, it drove her insane. They would tell her nothing about Kaden’s condition. Had he died as they’d pulled him from his stasis pod? Had he recovered? Every time she inquired, they told her the information was classified. The angry-faced medical officer assigned to monitor her at first took her questions with clipped efficiency, but after a few weeks, when she’d asked, the woman had flat-out ignored her.

And Zoey knew what that meant.

He’d died.

Otherwise, they’d have simply told her he was recovering and let her have peace of mind. That they wouldn’t tell her anything meant that it would upset her.

She’d cried for days when she’d realized it—huge, heaving sobs that had shaken her entire body. She regretted that she hadn’t insisted that he stay in her stasis chamber with her. She regretted not telling him that she loved him. She regretted not checking the viability of the chambers herself before trustingly climbing into one.

She regretted so many things. And she cried, because she was left all alone after everything they’d endured together. It wasn’t fair.

She still wasn’t permitted outside materials while under court-martial, so she had no access to news, or phones, or books. She replayed the vidpic over and over again, pausing it when he smiled, just so she could see the sweetness of that boyish expression. Her fingers longed to touch him. Her heart ached so much that she knew she’d never recover.

How had seven days changed her life so much? No, she amended. Six. They hadn’t even gotten to spend the seventh one together. Right now, she wanted that last day back, damn it. One more day with him would be worth anything.

Zoey sank into a depression as she waited for news. Over and over, she was forced to go before a panel of investigating officers and give her testimony as to what had happened on the
Alcestis
. They would target a certain section of the records salvaged from the ship and ask her questions about them. Who had created this record? Had it been tampered with? Had they influenced Garcia into killing himself? Over and over she’d had to replay the details of that week for the tribunal. Over and over, she relived everything about those days.

And at night, she dreamed of Kaden, his arms around her, holding her tight. When she would wake up, her face would be wet with tears, her heart a black ache in her chest.

#

Eventually, the military tribunal met, considered the evidence, and decided: Dr. Ian Nevis was found guilty of sabotage of an expedition vessel and willful negligence. The information had been delivered to her via a personal vidpic. Dr. Nevis would be detained by the tribunal for further investigations into his crimes.