“He could,” I said. “I don’t think he will. If he shoots my transport, he’s going to answer to some angry Marines.”
“Does he know that?” Ava asked.
“He’d better.”
After my shower, I dressed and went to the mess. We had hundreds of MREs stowed by now, but we would save those meals. I brought back a tray covered with food—two steaks, two bowls of soup, two potatoes, and an oversized salad.
Ava mostly ate salad and picked at a potato. I ended up eating both steaks, which was just fine.
After dinner, I dropped off my dishes and went to the officers’ club to grab some bottles of beer. Ava preferred wine to beer, but she would need to make do. No one paid attention to off-duty officers walking around with a beer, but a bottle of wine would attract all kinds of notice. So far no one had asked me if I had a Hollywood starlet hidden in my quarters, and I wanted to keep it that way.
I stepped through the door. Silence. Always aware of her precarious situation, Ava never called out my name when I came back. She waited for me to identify myself, then came out of her hiding places—usually the shower.
“Ava, I’m back,” I called softly.
She came out from the bathroom, very much the confident woman of the house. “Why do I feel like I should be bringing you a pipe and slippers?” she asked.
I laughed as I placed the bottles on the nightstand. She came and sat across the bed from me. She poured her beer into a glass. I drank mine from the bottle.
She took a sip of beer, and asked, “I know you’re excited about going on a mission, but don’t you ever get scared? Do Marines get scared?”
“Sure we do. The Avatari scare the hell out of me,” I said. “A little fear is a good thing; it keeps you from making stupid mistakes. Scared is another thing. I’ve seen good men freeze under fire.”
“But that’s never been a problem for you, Harris,” she said.
“The Avatari are eight feet tall. You can’t hurt them. Their guns cut through shielded bunkers as easily as they shoot through the air. I saw a man get hit by a bolt in the shoulder. He went into convulsions and died a miserable death.
“Yes, I get scared.”
Ava laughed softly and touched a warm finger to my cheek. “I’d be worried if they didn’t scare you,” she said.
I did not like this conversation. I did not like discussing my fears. “Once we liberate Terraneau, you will be able to move into a mansion or maybe even have a whole damn hotel to yourself. I bet you’ll be glad to have a place to yourself.”
“I suppose so,” she said, and sadness filled her voice. She didn’t cry, but her mood turned melancholy, and she seemed to withdraw.
“You don’t want your own hotel?” I asked.
“Not to myself,” she said, looking down at the food. She would not meet my eyes. “I thought maybe …I thought maybe we could share a place.”
I had just downed a large mouthful of beer when she said this. I nearly choked on it. I coughed, which she must have taken to mean I was laughing at her. She looked up, and I saw anger in her eyes.
“Are you laughing at me?” she asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I thought you’d be glad to be rid of me.”
“Why would I want to get rid of you?” she asked.
“You haven’t let me touch you since we landed on the ship,” I said.
“And you’ve been wonderful about it,” she said. “Ted and Al never took no for an answer.”
“Al?” I asked. “Al Smith?” I knew she had dated General Mooreland, but she could not possibly have meant who I thought she meant. “You don’t mean General Alexander Smith?”
Looking like a scolded child, she silently nodded, her beautiful green eyes fixed on mine.
“You slept with Al Smith? That fat old bastard has to be twice your age,” I said.
“He’s almost three times my age, thank you,” she said. “I’m twenty-three, he’s sixty-five.”
I had a brief, chilling vision of Smith, his body as white and round as an egg, sliding into bed beside Ava. She would not have let him touch her for money. She had to have made millions. She sure as hell wouldn’t have slept with him for love.
“What in the world were you doing with that old man?” I asked.
“Faking it mostly,” Ava said. “He needed a lot of encouragement.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“The Senate hearings set off a witch hunt, and I was the galaxy’s most famous witch. Ted dumped me before the hearings even ended. We were living together, and he kicked me out of the house.” Ava sat silent for a moment.
“Was he good to you before the hearings?” I asked.
“Was he good to me? Honey, I hope he knows more strategies in battle than he does in bed.”
“No shit?”
“Even good things get boring when you do them the exact same way every time.” She paused, thought, and said, “I will say this for the boy, he’s got a lot of energy …a lot of energy.”
I could not help but feel a little jealous. Maybe she read me too well. She reached over and squeezed my hand. “He liked it more than I did, Harris.”
“So how did you end up with General Smith?” I asked.
“I moved in with Al after Teddy kicked me out. He said he would keep me safe until things calmed down. That lasted for about a month, then he dropped me off at Clonetown.
“So what do you think, Harris? Does that make me a whore?” she asked, her voice defiant, almost daring me to condemn her.
“It says a lot about Smith’s negotiation skills,” I said.
She moved toward me, her hand still over mine. Her touch was warm, and the air in the room was slightly cold. I wondered how she might describe me to the next man. It made me nervous.
“What about me?” I asked. “Am I energetic?”
“You took care of me, and you never forced yourself on me,” Ava said.
“I think I’d rather have you think of me as ‘energetic,’ ” I said.
“Do you want to hear you were the best lover I had?” Ava laughed. “Men.
“Teddy showed me off like a trophy, like one of the medals he wears on his chest. That’s why he introduced me to you at the New Year’s Eve party; he wanted to show you he had something you couldn’t have.”
“He’s got a lot of things I will never have,” I said.
“He doesn’t see it that way. He’s scared of you, Harris.”
“Scared of me?” I asked.
“Scared to death. They were all scared of you. Al, Teddy, J. P. Glade, all of them. They knew you won the war. They were scared Congress would find out who was a hero and who was a fake.”
“Even Mooreland?” I asked.
“Especially Teddy.”
“But he fought. He was the only officer who stood his ground.”
“He said he didn’t fight in the last battle, the one that ended the war.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“But you did,” Ava said.
“Herrington, Thomer, Freeman, and me,” I said, more to myself than to Ava. Ray Freeman was a mercenary, a ruthless freelancer who knocked down a billion-dollar payday for helping win the war. Thomer, Herrington, and I were clones. The only men to survive that final battle were three clones and a mercenary, no wonder the Pentagon kept a lid on the story.
“You were the real heroes,” she said.
I didn’t respond.
Ava slid closer to me. She fixed her eyes on mine, a strange smile playing on her lips, and she ran her finger along the open neckline of her blouse. She moved slowly and her eyes never left mine. There was nothing unusual about the way she undid the first buttons. Her eyes stayed on mine; her smile remained gentle. There were seven buttons on her sailor’s tunic. As she undid the buttons, she peeled back the material, giving me a glimpse of breasts and bra. Just that glimpse of satiny material got my pulse pounding.
She leaned toward me until our lips met. We had kissed before, but those other times had been mechanical and infrequent. Kissing had been part of a ritual, just another step toward having sex. This time it seemed to take on its own significance.