She gripped back. “We both do.” Stephanie stared into his eyes, they were so familiar, his gaze was so steady. Since leaving the colony he was the only man she trusted, and he believed in her. He had never demonstrated that more than when they took the Triton. It had never occurred to her, how important it was to be trusted, to have someone with so much confidence in her. At the same time he seemed so much more approachable, whatever it was that kept everyone around him at an arms' distance, kept her at an arms' distance, was gone.
She brought her other arm up around his neck and drew his lips down to hers. At first there was surprise, his lips were unmoving, before she could pull away, tell him it was a mistake and run to a quiet, out of the way place to lick her wounds he was kissing her back enthusiastically.
Price couldn't believe his eyes as he stood silently in the stairwell, looking on in dumb struck shock. When he heard the yelling he had to go see what it was all about, ensure that everyone was all right. By the time he was up the stairs it had stopped and when Jake and Stephanie came into view they were far too distracted to notice him.
He started backing down the stairs quietly and was almost all the way out of sight when he heard a loud clang on the deck. Agameg peeked up as a reflex and saw that Captain Valance had roughly drawn a flat gurney for the stasis pods out of its storage slot and was lowering Stephanie down onto it as she hurriedly opened the front seam of Jake's vacsuit.
Agameg hurriedly ducked out of sight and ran down the stairs then down the embarkation ramp leading off the Samson. The pair he left behind seemed distracted enough not to hear him fleeing, but he'd still worry, wondering if he'd been spotted for days.
The Morning After
Stephanie woke up early the next morning in the Samson's Captain's quarters only to discover that Jake was already awake. His bed wasn't made for two, she had slept face down on top of him and when he saw her eyes were open his hand caressed up and down her back.
“Good morning,” she said as she got more comfortable.
“We still have a couple hours before the morning briefing. You should go back to sleep.”
“Morning briefing?”
“Alice and I are meeting all the senior staff members once a day again. It worked better than a once a day audio brief.”
“Smart,” was all Stephanie said. She wanted to stay there, to avoid the complications she saw coming, the decisions she'd have to make, and she didn't want to say what needed to be said. “But you're wide awake.”
Jake's hand stopped moving just south of her shoulders. “Wide awake,” came his quiet confirmation.
She sighed. It was never like her to avoid her fears. “It was a mistake.”
His hand started moving again, stroking her bare back felt more like a gesture meant to comfort than the caress of a lover. “I wish it wasn't.”
Stephanie shifted so she could put her chin down on his chest and look into his eyes. He seemed more himself somehow, looking back at her calmly, a little sadness in his gaze showed through the dim light of the compartment. “You know Ashley thought we'd get together for months after the Teralin run. Eventually I had to tell her to stow it though, couldn't have that kind of thing turning into rumour.”
“Think you'll tell her about this?”
“Probably, unless you don't want me to.”
“It's up to you, but warn me before telling Frost.”
She turned her head and put her head back down on his chest, absent mindedly tracing shapes on his arm with her index finger. “I'm not telling Frost. We'd be in for a hell of a row and then finished. He'd probably try to shoot you and leave the ship.”
“He makes you happy,” Jake asked as much as concluded.
She nodded slightly, listening to his heart beat under her ear. “I don't know how, but for the past few weeks it's been good mostly. Worth hanging onto.”
“This was a one time thing then.”
“A one time thing,” she whispered back. “Are you okay?”
“Surprised, amazed, maybe a little lost but okay? I have no idea,” Jake chuckled.
For the first time since they boarded the Triton Stephanie was glad to hear something from the new, more expressive Jake. The old one she knew from the Samson would have given her a one syllable response like; 'sure,' or 'yup,' or maybe deflect the question entirely by asking; 'are you?' She couldn't help but chuckle with him. “If it were a one nighter with anyone else and they told me it was all right if I didn't come back I might be insulted,” pressing her lips to his chest and leaving a kiss there felt like just the right thing to do before getting up and retrieving her vacsuit.
“If-” he started but stopped himself.
Stephanie looked at him, her vacsuit half pulled up.
He ran his hands down his face and sat up, reaching for his own clothing.
“What?” she asked as she pushed one arm into the shoulder of her uniform.
“Nothing.”
“No, really. What were you going to say?” Stephanie pressed.
“Let's keep this simple for now.”
“But you don't want them simple.”
“No, I think it's a one time thing, like you said.”
“But you said if, and that doesn't sound like a one time thing, it sounds like a many time thing, or a big thing.”
Jake put his hand over his eyes and sighed; “Can we rewind and keep it simple?”
Stephanie brought the opening together with her fingers just above the waist of her vacsuit and ran them up to her collar in one swift, abrupt motion. The seam came together and disappeared. “Don't worry, things are simple,” she spat as she snatched her long coat from the floor, popped the sealed door open with a clang and a creak then left.
Captain Ashley Lamport
There were at least twenty rivers and streams named after the Thames of Earth scattered on planets across the galaxy. The one that ran through Sheffield was much smaller, only fifteen or so meters across where the old stone bridge crossed it. Ashley and Finn stood against the rail at the highest point in its arch. They looked down the stream, at its bricked banks, the cobblestone streets that ran along and deeper into the city to either side.
The architects had accomplished their goals in that section of the city, the buildings looked like they were stolen straight out of a period film set in Earth's twentieth century. The crumbling bricks on some of the brown and red buildings looked their age, at least three hundred years. The colony wasn't as old as many on the core worlds, but it was one of the oldest terraformed colonies either of them had ever seen.
The green trees standing straight out of planters on broad street sides were each a statement of success. Sheffield's history was that of survival, struggle as the land around it, even the very air, was slowly made liveable, breathable. Over the two centuries after initial settlement the toxicity of the land was reduced, the atmosphere thickened, and finally farms began to grow edible food that didn't require complex post-processing.
The museum at the center of town, built to look like an ancient Abbey, detailed the whole struggle. Finn and Ashley had taken a walk through the complex the previous day. He was genuinely interested in how the terraforming engineers, of which there were several generations, had surmounted the various barriers to modifying the conditions of the world while Ashley wandered about, trying not to look bored or tired.
She spent as much time as she could speaking to Leland March who was working with the Port Authority and Employment offices to finalize the list of recruits they were taking on to the Cold Reaver for transport to the Triton the following day. Ashley didn't think that Finn noticed much as she tried to help using her command and control unit, reviewing files for different departments, putting in specific requests for pilots, system analysts and deck crew or knuckle draggers as Paula and Angelo called them. People who had mechanical knowledge, maybe even just space faring experience but would be used to perform the tasks on the hangar decks that required the fewest qualifications.