Baffled, Valerian eyed the object with new respect. “Where does it come from?”
“From Mül, a planet that was located in the constellation QN34.”
Valerian caught the usage of the past tense. “Was?”
“Yes. The planet has not existed for thirty years.”
Valerian leaned back in his chair, intrigued. “Let’s see what it looked like.”
“Of course.”
A magnificent blue-green planet came up on the screen. It was comprised of mostly water, but here and there lush landmasses jutted up out of the embracing ocean. Gentle wisps of clouds seemed to caress the tranquil world.
“Abundant vegetation, a few primal species, but of no particular interest,” Alex said.
“I don’t know about that. The one I saw in my dream was pretty interesting,” Valerian countered. He leaned forward. “Zoom in.”
The image started to enlarge, but was abruptly frozen. A message flashed up on the screen: access denied.
Valerian frowned. “Use our access codes,” he instructed Alex.
“I fear that won’t be enough, Major. Access is restricted.” This just keeps getting stranger. “To what rank?”
“General. Five stars.”
Five stars? Valerian reached for the pearl again, enjoying the smoothness of it as he held it in his fingertips. “The princess, in my dream… she wore a pearl just like this around her neck.”
“Noted, sir,” Alex replied properly.
Laureline entered, and she was smiling.
“How’s the converter?”
“He was in fairly bad shape, but the regenerator helped. He’s so cute! And a real charmer. I have to tell you, you have onboard competition.”
She smirked at him, hands on her hips, as she stood by his chair. Valerian reached up and took her by the hand.
“I’m fine with competition,” he replied, running his thumb over her fingers. “But I’m still waiting for your answer.”
“The mission is not over yet, Major,” she replied professionally, although she made no attempt to remove her hand. “There’s still the whole ‘top secret’ part to come. Or is your perfect memory failing you again?”
Valerian tugged gently on her arm, pulling her down into his lap. She settled in, draping her arms around his neck.
“Come on! Don’t keep me hanging like this,” he protested. “What’s going on?”
She regarded him searchingly. For a moment, she said nothing. “Valerian, you’re a great guy, and we make a good team.”
A knot developed in Valerian’s stomach. There was a but in there somewhere.
“But…”
Dammit, there it was.
“—Love isn’t just about being good partners. It takes a lot more than that.”
“Okay,” he said, then asked, very reasonably, he thought, “Why don’t you tell me exactly what it takes?”
The pause lasted precisely long enough to be awkward. Valerian was acutely aware of the warmth of her body against him, the curve of her throat, the fall of her hair as she glanced away, gathering her thoughts.
Then she spoke, in a calm, soft voice. “We spend our whole lives learning who we are, so we can be stronger, and able to defend ourselves. Then, out of nowhere, love comes along. And then all at once we’re supposed to just… open up, to lower our defenses. To let someone into our hearts, into our DNA even. Just like that.”
A shiver ran along Valerian’s skin, and his heart started to race. He’d never seen Laureline like this, not in the two years they’d been at each other’s side almost constantly. He’d seen her be cool, and then hot with a burst of anger; he’d seen her smart, professional, kind.
But not like this. Not… shy. Not fragile. He realized, with a humbleness that caught him off guard, that she was more exposed to him now than she had ever been while wearing a bikini or an alluring dress.
Laureline continued to look away from him as she spoke. “All of a sudden we feel vulnerable,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Defenseless. And we tell ourselves that’s why we never really fall in love. Because we’re afraid to be weak. But in fact, it’s the opposite.”
And then she turned her head, and he was startled anew by the intensity of her blue-gray eyes as he tumbled headlong into their depths.
“Love makes you stronger, because you have to learn to trust someone else, even more than you trust yourself.” Laureline paused, leaned in and whispered, her breath soft against his lips, her voice so quiet he had to strain to hear, “Valerian… do you think you can do that?”
He swallowed, hard, and then opened his mouth to answer her.
“Leaving exospace in one minute,” Alex announced. Valerian groaned in disappointment as Laureline eased out of his embrace.
The moment was lost.
“Saved by the bell!” the perfect woman quipped, and moved to sit at the console.
“Alex,” Valerian said through gritted teeth, “I hate you right now.”
“Do you want me to regulate your hormones, Major?” Alex asked politely.
“No, thank you!” Valerian snapped.
“As you wish. Leaving exospace in thirty seconds,” Alex counted. Valerian slumped into the copilot’s seat. Then, determined not to let the moment be completely lost, he turned to face Laureline sitting beside him.
“You know what?” he stated. “I’m gonna put in for ten days’ leave right now, and I’ll take you to the most beautiful beach in the universe. A real one this time!”
“Ten seconds,” Alex continued.
Valerian ignored him. “It would be the perfect place for a honeymoon!” he insisted.
Laureline eyed him. “The honeymoon comes after the wedding. You know that, right?”
Valerian regarded her, skeptical. “Really?”
She smiled. “Yep.”
Oblivious to their banter, or perhaps inured to it by this point, Alex continued, “Decelerating…”
The stars seemed to explode.
Time stretched out, simultaneously eternal and within a millionth of a heartbeat, as the Intruder XB982 winked out of exospace, the non-time, non-space where faster-than-light travel was possible, and dropped right into the midst of a traffic jam composed of tens of thousands of other transport spaceships. His heart rate rising not at all, Valerian casually steered past them with the expertise of nearly a decade of experience, just dodging a collision here, zipping over a line of ships there. Most of the vessels were large, bulky cargo ships, jostling to get ahead of everything else as they waited to dock at Alpha Space Station.
“Well, traffic didn’t get better,” Valerian complained. He swerved in and out of the cluster of cargo ships until the City of a Thousand Planets, as it had come to be nicknamed, seemed to burst onto their screen.
From the station’s humble beginnings in the 1900s Earth reckoning, it had swelled far beyond what anyone could have imagined at its inception. To an eye beholding it for the first time, it resembled an actual planet, albeit one hidden by shadows. But in reality, it was nothing as natural as a planet. It had grown, ship by ship, year by year, as millions had come to sightsee, negotiate, seek refuge, or ply their trades, docked, and never left. From small single-person crafts to vessels that could host thousands of individuals, nearly every sentient species had come to visit or dwell, linked together to form the greatest space station in the known universe.
It had been some time since the two agents had been asked to report to their home base, and Valerian was curious to know exactly how much the gigantic space station had changed during that time.
“Alex? Can you update us?” Valerian queried.
“I’d be delighted to.” Alex sounded like she truly meant it. This sort of thing was what she was programmed for. “Alpha Space Station has grown seven percent this year, and now has a diameter of twelve point four miles.” As she spoke, images on the monitors showed the station’s architectural evolution as more and more vessels became a part of it.