Present

I woke up struggling to breathe, crawling out of a bed that was too small. The cold floor did nothing to cool the memories burning through my skin. Tearing off my shirt, I kneeled in the dark, gasping and scratching as if the nightmare left blisters needing to be drained. Maddy’s voice ran over and over in my mind, the phantom coming alive, yet continuing to haunt me.

The commlink blinked at 0100. Resting my head against the edge of the bed, the sheets were damp from sweat. I hadn’t the energy to remove them, to do more than lay there and breathe. But the dark played tricks. Maddy manifested among the umbra, her head cocked to the side, eyes lifeless and directed at me. The apparition instilled a pointless fear in me when I knew I could walk across the habitat and find her sleeping perfectly well in bed.

Rather than lay in the vicious dark, I left the barracks to dig through the kitchen for booze. All of us cracked into it as a “celebration” for the survey team’s arrival. Corporate never sent a lot, seeing as that was technically drinking on the job, but we portioned it out to last the trip. I was taking a bottle, though.

The alcohol burned my throat and did nothing for my head. Not yet. In the communal area, I considered turning on the viz but being so close to the doors of the lab made me ill. She was right through day, a set of doors separating us, somehow heavier than anything else.

“What are you doing… Ethin! Ethin!”

Pathetic.

If I left her, I can leave anyone.

“You’re disgusting,” I whispered, cracking my neck to the side before stepping outside.

I froze and the booze fell to soak into the soil. The world should have been dark but it wasn’t. There were stars, millions upon millions lighting the night sky. Galaxies cut across the horizon in shades of blue, purple, and maroon. There were stars seen from our ships, from my speeder, but nothing like this. Nothing compared to standing on a planet’s surface and looking up to be reminded how very small you were.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

I jumped. Roys stood in the threshold. His pants barely clung to his brawny waist and one arm poked out of his shirt. That got a laugh out of me, more while he blushed and tugged the clothes on properly, depriving me of the glorious view of his toned stomach.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He presented his commlink, the light blaring red. “I was woken up by an alarm indicating the habitat doors were opened after lights out.”

I ran my hand over the back of my neck. “Ah. Shit. Didn’t think about that.”

“Let me repeat, what are you doing out here at night and,” he clocked the booze leaking on the ground. “Drinking, apparently.”

“I had, like, two sips. The rest spilled, so save the lecture.”

“My lecture is about to intensify because you wasted perfectly good alcohol.”

“I’ve never seen you drink,” I countered, giving him a slow once over. The thought of him drunk put a smile on my face and I made a mental note to get the bastard wasted before the end of this trip.

“I drink. Sometimes.” His lip curled in feigned disgust. “Never around you.”

“Why not?”

He narrowed his eyes teasingly. “I don’t trust you.”

“Me?” I gasped, placing my hands on my cheeks. “Why not?”

Rolling his eyes, he said, “And you haven’t answered the first question. What are you doing?”

I waved my hands above us. “Looking at the stars.”

“Why?”

“They’re pretty.”

Roys made the sound of the most exasperated man in all the galaxies. Hand on his face, he held it there, steadied his breathing, then pointed at the door. “Get inside. We’re waking up early tomorrow.”

“We always wake early. I’ll be fine, but you can go. Shoo.” I wiggled my fingers in the door’s direction and walked ahead.

Roys caught my hand. His weren’t soft. Mine weren’t either. They hadn’t been most of my life and I wondered if he was the same, or if he was one of those rich earthers dining on the most pristine dishes of the galaxy. Did he fall far or had he always been as low as the rest of us?

“You are not staying out here alone in the dark,” he said, squeezing my hand.

“Baby, you are so sweet to me,” I mocked, tugging uselessly.

Roys didn’t relent. “Come inside. I am not paid enough to babysit you.”

“Then do what I said and shoo. I’ll be fine. I’m getting a little further away from you, that’s all,” I yanked harder to no avail.

One tug and Roys had me pivoting into his firm chest. An arm fell around my waist, trapping me against him where his eyes reflected the sky. There were more stars than I could count, all captured perfectly by him.

“Does it look like this on earth?” I asked, not entirely sure why. The question slipped out. Mentally, I blamed it on the booze, ignoring how I had so little.

He didn’t want to talk about earth. That had been made abundantly clear, but I had questions. He was the only one who could answer and I wanted to think about anything else. Somewhere far, far away with nothing and no one I ever knew, a strange place to outrun a past that found me lightyears away. I ran most of my life and the current events told me I would run until the end of my days. Such somber thoughts wouldn’t put me at ease, wouldn’t help me sleep, but a tale of earth, a world my people came from but never knew, might.

Browns furrowed, Roys wet his lips and spoke carefully, “Ethin, if you’re on something—”

“What makes you think I am?”

He gave me a slow once over. “You’re acting strange.”

“Haven’t I always been?”

“Annoying and unbelievably horny, but not this level of strange.” 

I pursed my lips. “Hmm, I’ll have to work on that.”

“Ethin.”

That name made my teeth grind; Madlyn calling it, screaming and holding out her hand. I could see her, could hear her and there wasn’t enough space between us. Her and me. Me and Roys. For a second, Madlyn wasn’t on my mind but he went and ruined it. Always ruined it.

“How can you call me annoying when you can’t get a damn name right? It’s Lucky, for fuck’s sake.” I shoved against his chest. He didn’t let go. “You need to stop. I need… I don’t want to hear that fucking name. I was better for a moment and you—”

“You can’t see the stars on earth,” he interrupted.

My struggles ceased, so surprised by his admission that my anger bled away. I laid against him as he looked up, enraptured by the expanse of space.

I was too, the first time I saw anything outside of The Colony. There were no portholes, nothing to view the world beyond our barren rock. The first time I had a moment to look outside, I could not dare explain what I felt. Words were too fickle to express beauty expanding into eternity. My eyes searched and searched, wondering how so much could exist, how we could exist among it all, and how sad it was that I would never dream of seeing the edge of every world.

“There’s cloud cover, deserts where homes once were, an ocean threatening to devour, and the humans who ruined it all,” Roys whispered like he had seen each of those deserts and crossed those turbulent oceans.

“Why did you leave?” I asked.

“Because it’s a shithole of festering disease, the worst kind; greed. Anyone with half a sense would know anywhere is better.”

I thought of The Colony, of rust and grime and death. Of bodies on street corners, miners crushed under rocks, synthetics that passed from my hands to dead ones. “I don’t know about that. They say earth is for the richest of the galaxy where they live in ivory towers.”

“Yes, the rich do, but the cost of those towers was everything and everyone that ever made the planet any good.” His hands strayed to my back, eyes remaining skyward, darkened by the deep creases in his expression. “We called them High Risers, the rich who live in those ivory towers.”

“I’m taking it you didn’t live in those towers then.”

“Would I be here if I did?” He snorted and set his eyes on me. They were cold, light years away, lost in a memory that deepened his voice. “The May family began the construction of those towers centuries ago.”

“Like Ambassador May?”

Roys offered a surprised smile that made his eyes thin into crescent moons. “I’m surprised you know the name of any ambassador.”

I pinched the back of his neck. He winced, but kept quiet when I spoke, “I guarded his ship when he was attending one of the Intergalactic Court’s soirees, so don’t ask me to name any other. I know, like, two more.”

Roys chuckled. The sound rumbled between our chests. “I don’t know many of them either. I don’t really care because they’re horrendous pieces of shit bent on destroying everything they deem lesser, which is practically everyone. People like them built towers to hide what they perceived as filth. We didn’t even see the cloud cover through their streets. We lived in the shadow, below where they could pretend they didn’t thrive over our bones.”

Not so dissimilar from The Colony where the rich preached of profits and new job openings without mentioning the lives lost, how no profit could ever bring those lives back, and sometimes not even their bodies home.

He stepped toward the door, bringing me with him. “Now that your curiosity is satiated, will you go to bed?”

I wasn’t tired, especially not after hearing that. He got me distracted far better than anything else. And I liked the way he looked under the stars, the blue of his eyes made brighter, his expression caught under a fair light.

“Will you join me in bed?” I draped my arms over his shoulders. “My promised reward for good behavior.”

His fingers twitched against my waist. “Starting trouble and being forced to stop isn’t good behavior.”

I put my hands on his chest and pushed. “Then I’ll stay out here. It’s a nice night and I’m not going back to bed.”

His grip only tightened. “Lucky.”

“Wow, you used my name. I’d say a reward is in order, but apparently, you aren’t that interested in good behavior, so I’ll spread my good graces elsewhere. Maybe Zavir will be up for another round. Having four hands makes for an exceptional experience and, as you know, I am quite flexible.” I laughed at the scowl that put on his face. His lips pursed like a petulant child.

“You look jealous,” I declared, worsening his sour expression.

“Annoyed because I suffer from a lack of sleep already. I don’t need you to make it worse.”

Shrugging, I pointed at the door. “Then go to bed.”

His pout remained, though he certainly wouldn’t admit to it. “I can’t with you out here. It is against protocol.”

I kissed him, short and quick, savoring the surprise in his eyes. “And you’ve never gone against protocol.”

His attention strayed to my mouth where I knew I won. “You’re a horrible influence.”

I ran my fingers over the shadow of a beard forming around his jaw. “I love it when you talk dirty to me, Captain. Keep going.”

We kissed under the stars where every breath allowed me to see them in his eyes. Grabbing his collar, I tugged him away from the habitat, further into the field, away from the doors so it’d only be us and endless sky.