“Planning,” she repeated. One hand reached for her tunic, threatening to pull it open to reveal her breasts. “Isn't there something else you would like to do?”
“I’m not a young man any longer,” Kurt reminded her, embarrassed. “I need time to recharge my batteries before doing it again.”
Rose smirked. “And there I was thinking that you were behind the stimulant shortage,” she said. She went on at his questioning glance. “Someone — probably more than one person — has been talking the doctor into issuing stimulants. The doctor won’t say who.”
“Not me,” Kurt said. There were warnings about using stimulants for sexual pleasure. In the long term, they could create dependency or reduce potency. But if someone believed that the entire ship was doomed, they might not care about the long-term effects. “I still need to recharge naturally.”
He looked down at the flight rosters, although — in truth — they’d been over the same thing several times already. It provided an excuse to meet in private, yet it had long since worn out its usefulness. But the only alternative was to draw up new training simulations, which they would then have to fly out with their pilots… angrily, he scowled down at the list of names. Surely his life hadn't been so complicated before he'd started an illicit affair?
Rose leaned forward and placed her hand on his knee. “Thinking about your children?”
Kurt flushed. He hadn't been thinking about his children… but now she’d mentioned them, the guilt flooded back into his mind. Whatever happened between Molly and him was one thing, yet he would always be the father of Penny and Percy. His affair, his betrayal of their mother, would hurt them badly. He knew that for a fact. And yet he couldn't stop himself from touching Rose, now she’d broken the barrier between them.
“I miss them,” he admitted, partly to cover his real thoughts. “And I may miss the rest of their lives.”
The thought overwhelmed him. Penny would walk down the aisle… and he wouldn't be there to escort her. Percy would grow up, perhaps join the Royal Navy to be like the father he’d started to admire… and then marry himself, without his father to watch and advise him. And Molly… what would Molly do to make ends meet? Maybe she would marry again, even though her best years were past. Or maybe she would just work longer hours to keep the kids in their private school.
“You’ll see them again, I’m sure,” Rose said. She withdrew her hand and stood up, pacing around the cabin. “Tell me something. Where do you see us going?”
Kurt blanched. It was the question he had studiously refrained from even contemplating, as if refusing to think about it would make the question go away. But it hadn't and it wouldn’t.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, finally.
Rose made him feel young again, he admitted, in the privacy of his own thoughts. He was old enough to be her father, just about; there was no denying that the thought of making love to her was a hell of a turn-on. And the danger, the looming threat of death or discovery, added a certain kind of spice to the whole affair. But afterwards, assuming they made it home, where would they be?
It wasn't fair on Rose, he knew, to tell her that he would leave Molly. Even if he wanted to leave his wife, he wasn't sure what he could say to the children — and he didn't want to walk out of their lives. It was bad enough that his current job could end his life in a split-second leaving them alone. He knew it would be worse if he walked away from their mother, leaving them even though he was still alive. Or would he wind up competing with Molly for their affection?
“Neither do I,” Rose said, practically. She walked forward and sat down on his lap, wrapping her arms around him. “I don’t expect to survive the next few weeks and neither should you.”
Kurt blinked at her. The feel of her body pressing against his was hellishly distracting, but he didn't want to forget what she’d said. “You don't expect to survive?”
“We’ve lost fourteen pilots so far,” Rose pointed out. There was an oddly dispassionate note to her voice. “I had someone in the analysis section run through the numbers for me. The odds of any of us surviving any given battle with the aliens are terrifyingly low. Sooner or later, our luck is going to run out and the aliens will kill us. Don’t you know that to be true?”
Kurt nodded, wordlessly. The fewer starfighters Ark Royal could deploy, the greater the number of alien pilots that could be vectored onto each starfighter. And the aliens, damn them, didn't need to worry about watching their ammunition. Rose was right; sooner or later, a lucky shot would blow them into flaming debris, ending their lives before they even knew what had hit them. And the odds of the carrier making it back to Earth were very low.
“So here’s my idea,” Rose said. She shifted position until her breasts were pressing into his chin. “We enjoy ourselves now, between duty shifts. If we die, we die; if we live, you can go back to your family and I won’t say a word. This isn't… this isn't a normal situation.”
“I know,” Kurt whispered.
It was a troubling problem. Would he have cheated on Molly — and he knew that was what he was doing — if he hadn't felt trapped by the aliens? Or would he have remained untouched by her blandishments? His hands reached up, almost of their own accord, to pull at her tunic, letting her breasts bounce free. He felt himself stiffen as her hand reached into his pants…
…And knew he was lost.
The Captain, according to Royal Naval regulations, was the sole source of authority on any given starship. There was, James had learnt at the Academy, plenty of case law to back up the assertion that the Captain had a wide range of authority to reward or punish his crew, even rewrite the specific words of orders as long as the intent remained in place. But, by the same token, involving the Captain in a disciplinary matter meant that it would be recorded in the ship’s log. If the matter was not serious, XOs preferred to handle it off the record and ensure that nothing was ever written down.
He sighed as he studied the three crewmen facing him, both trying not to look guilty and failing miserably. It wouldn't have been a problem, he knew, if they’d kept their wits about them, but they’d been stupid enough to let rumours spread out. Crewwomen Sally Fletcher had lost a bet with Senior Crewman Daniel Meyer and Shuttle Technician Abdul Richardson and, as a result of the terms, had had to perform a striptease in front of a dozen crewmen. Gambling was bad enough — it wasn't technically forbidden, even though there were limits — but the striptease was a definite no-no. Luckily, the Boatswain had caught wind of the plot before Sally found herself humiliated in front of the entire crew.
“It's at times like these,” James announced, carefully not looking at each of them, “that I wish it was the lash tradition that we'd kept, rather than alcohol and sodomy.”
All three of the crewmen flinched. The Captain’s Mast might be official punishment, but there were limits. James had a far wider range of authority to issue punishments, provided he didn't do anything that was brought to the Captain’s attention. Whipping the three of them through the ship was permitted, if someone took a careful look at regulations, but it was normally reserved for thieves or idiots who endangered their fellow officers.
“I confess I have great difficulty in understanding what you were thinking,” James added, sweetly. “Please. What were you thinking?”