4 4
An hour later they were all back in the Admiral’s office, sitting around the conference table.
“I have not officially said yes yet,” insisted Clement as Captain Wilcock swept a series of papers in front of him, papers that would enlist him in the 5 Suns Alliance Navy again for the first time in over a decade.
DeVore sighed. “Just sign the goddamned paperwork, Jared. If you want out we’ll tear it up later,” she said.
“I have that option?” Clement asked. She nodded.
“Everyone enlisting in the 5 Suns Navy has three days to back out, the same as when you enlisted originally.”
Clement looked at the first set of papers. It promised him the full rank of captain, serving at the pleasure of the Supreme Admiral of the 5 Suns Navy and his fleet-level designates (that meant DeVore); he would have to take the oath again, etc. He scribbled his signature at the bottom of the page, imprinted his thumb for authentication, then flipped over to the next. At the top of the page it had his full name, rank, and assignment. The salary was substantial, one hundred sixty-thousand 5 Suns crowns per year, nearly four times what he was making as an independent pilot. The commission was for five years, and officially designated as the 5 Suns Alliance Navy Exploratory Gunship Beauregard.
“Wait,” he said, looking at DeVore. “You said this ship was one of the surrendered gunships—”
“I said it was a Rim gunship, not which one,” said DeVore. Clement got up from the table and started pacing.
“We scuttled the Beauregard,” he said plainly. “You were there.”
DeVore stood with him. “Yes, we did. But what I needed for this mission was an intact hull. Not the engines, not the gun batteries or the missile complement, and I needed a very specific captain. So I ordered the Beauregard to be recovered, and when we got her, we found she could do the job more than adequately. The repairs and refit took two years. Now, do you want her back, or not?”
Clement looked to DeVore, then over to Yan, and back again.
“I need to sleep on it,” he said.
“You have that option,” DeVore replied.
“Then I will take my leave of you, Admiral. You’ll have my decision at 0900 tomorrow.” With that Clement started for the door and Yan started to follow. Clement stopped her with his outstretched hand and looked to DeVore. “I would prefer to have this time to myself, Admiral. Certainly Miss Yan here can find something to occupy her time besides me?”
DeVore nodded to Yan, who returned to her seat at the table.
“Until 0900 then,” said DeVore.
“Until then.” At that Clement was out the door of the Admiral’s office, headed for The Battered Hull as fast as he could go.
The door chime buzzed incessantly for several minutes before Clement roused from his sleep. He’d been dreaming it was going off and remembered cursing it several times, though whether he did that in real life or just in the dream world he wasn’t really sure of. He sat up and felt surprisingly good considering how much he’d drunk at The Battered Hull. He hit the privacy call button and said “Just a moment” in what sounded to his ears to be a very gravelly voice. He got no response but the buzzing stopped.
He checked his watch, just past midnight, and wondered who would be visiting him at such an hour. He supposed it was Yan, trying to influence him to take the mission command. He unzipped his uniform tunic, checked his breath, which was foul, and quickly went to freshen up in the bathroom. Two minutes later he was at the door and hit the privacy com.
“Who is it?” he asked pleasantly enough.
“Just open the goddamned door. I’ve been out here for twenty minutes,” came a low, brusque voice. It sounded like Yan, but he couldn’t be sure, so he opened the door. A woman brushed past him quickly, her face shrouded in a hooded cloak, then turned to face him as he closed the door behind him.
She pulled the hood off of her head. It was Elara DeVore.
The cloak was definitely not duty standard, and she unzipped it to reveal a black unibody suit underneath. She filled the suit, as always, with a firm and fit body. The sight startled him more than a bit.
“Admiral—”
“Cut the bullshit, Clement. We’re not on duty and this is not happening.”
He opened his mouth for a second, but couldn’t think of anything to say until “I wasn’t expecting you” came out.
“Obviously,” she said. “I came here to give you something.” He looked her up and down, the cloak draping off of her shoulders . . . “Not that,” she said, frustrated with him.
He was confused now, a product of both his earlier drinking and the unexpected visit from the Admiral. “Then what?” he said.
She looked around and to his surprise she went to his bed and sat down at the foot of it. He went over and sat next to her, close, but not too close. She pulled a square, flat case out of a pocket in the cloak and handed it to him. It was padded, and he opened it from the top.
It was the commissioning plaque from the Beauregard. Not a new one from the 5 Suns Alliance Navy, but the original one from the Rim Confederation. He held it in his hands. It was battered and bruised, burnt from the obvious wear and tear it had endured: battles, fire damage, and finally the scuttling Clement had put it through when he thought he was destroying her forever. To Clement, it was a gift of unmeasurable kindness.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” he said, emotions welling up inside him.
“You don’t have to say anything, Jared. And I’m not giving you this to try and influence your decision in any way. I just wanted you to have it, to keep it with you if you take the mission, or to take home to Argyle if you don’t. You deserve to have it, and people deserve to know who you really are, not what they think you are now.” Then she kissed him quickly on the cheek and got up, zipping up the cloak again and heading for the door.
He followed.
“Elara, wait,” he said.
“No,” she replied. “If I stay we both know what will happen, and I can’t allow that. What was, was, and it can never happen again.”
He hung his head. “Is there someone else in your life?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, and there never has been, really. Bedmates, for sure, some short-term relationships that may have benefitted me in some way in my career, but no one like you, and there never will be again, I know that. Now I’ve got to go, Clement. What passed between us all those years ago is gone from my heart forever, and that’s just the hard truth of it,” she said with finality.
Clement watched her go, a mixture of emotions, gratefulness, and pain at her confession of their love and her gift to him roiling through his emotions. He set the plaque down on his coffee table and poured himself a drink from the bar, Argyle Scotch, the good stuff, and sat down to contemplate what had just happened.
More than a decade ago they had been intense lovers. She was a dominant woman, one that was hard to tame, in or out of bed. But Clement had never given in to her impulses to control things between them, until the last day they had been together. She had come over to his apartment, he thought to celebrate his new promotion to captain, but that wasn’t the case. She had paced around the room, explaining her reasoning, telling him how she would always treasure what they had, etc. He hardly heard her words and just watched her prowl the room like a caged cat that wanted to run free. In that moment, he had truly regretted taking the captaincy of the Beauregard if it would cost him DeVore. Once she was finished, telling him of her decision to end their relationship, he had accepted what had to be, the only time he had ever given in to her. Once done, she had leapt on him like a hungry predator, and they’d made love for hours on end. Precisely at midnight, she had left his bed without another word. And then today, at midnight, she had returned.
On his second taste of the scotch the door chime buzzed again. He got up and went to the door, hesitated a second, then opened it.
DeVore came through again, pulling him in with one hand and shutting the door behind her with the other. With a quick motion she unzipped the cloak again and let it fall from her shoulders to the floor. She pulled him in close and then took his hands, running them over every curve of her body. She kissed him passionately, their tongues flicking in and out together. After a long kiss he pulled back.
“But I thought—” he started. She put a finger over his mouth, shaking her head.
“I lied,” she said, “about everything,” then she kissed him again, pulling him quickly over to the bed.