Rick Partlow - Duty, Honor, Planet

“I look forward to working with you, Shannon,” he said. “Feel free to share any ideas you might have about the structure of the team.”

She cocked an eyebrow as she shoved off toward the door. “Well, I already have one idea.”

“Yes?” he encouraged, eyes following her as she moved into the hall.

A marvelously mischievous grin darted across her face as she hung in the doorway, only her face still visible, like a childhood image of the Cheshire cat.

“I think I should be in charge.”

And then she was gone.

McKay stared after her for a long moment, speechless.

“Damn.” he finally whispered. This, he thought, was going to be interesting.

“Wish they had passenger ships to the star colonies,” Mulrooney complained, unpacking his suitcase in the tiny cabin he and Valerie were to share. “Kind of takes the romance out of it, hitching a ride on a Goddamned warship.”

“We’re not on a pleasure cruise, Glen,” Val reminded him softly, stuffing clothes into a locker. There was no use folding them in zero gravity. “It was either this or a freighter—colony ships don’t do ‘grand tours.’”

“Just because we’re working”—Glen kicked off from the wall on his side of the bed and spun in mid-air to hang upside down over her—“doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun.”

He wrapped his arms around her from behind and began playfully exploring with them while he nuzzled at her neck.

“Glen,” she sighed in exasperation. “Will you try to control yourself? That Lieutenant McKay person’s going to be here any minute.”

“Let him get his own girl,” Glen said with a laugh, working at the fasteners on her blouse.

“Glen!” Valerie protested, but only half-heartedly.

But the moment was interrupted by the chime of the door intercom. Glen sighed and let Val go, floating sullenly back across the room. Valerie hastily refastened her shirt and kicked off toward the door.

“Yes?” She hit the door’s speaker button.

“Ms. O’Keefe?” A male voice answered. “It’s Lieutenant McKay.”

“Come in.” Val pressed a palm to the lock and the door obediently slid aside, allowing Jason and Shannon to propel themselves into the cabin.

“Hello, Ms. O’Keefe.” Jason extended a hand. “I’m Lieutenant Jason McKay, and I’ll be in charge of your security escort.”

“A pleasure,” she returned.

“This is Lieutenant Shannon Stark, my second-in-command.” Shannon moved up to grasp the woman’s hand.

“This is my fiancé, Glen Mulrooney,” Val said, motioning to Glen.

“Expecting trouble, McKay?” The Senator’s aide raised an eyebrow, nodding towards Jason’s sidearm.

“It’s my job to expect trouble, Mr. Mulrooney,” Jason fired back, trying to suppress a laugh at the campy line. Had to hold up that Intelligence image.

“Just what can I do for you, Lieutenant?” Val asked abruptly.

“I need to review a couple of items on your schedule,” Jason told her. “Specifically, the meeting you have with the Farmer’s Independent Council the first day. You have it scheduled for…” he snuck a look at the notes on his wristcomp, “1930 hours, local. That’s only three hours after our arrival, which doesn’t give my team enough time to secure the meeting hall. If you could delay it for another couple of hours…”

O’Keefe shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible, Lieutenant. That schedule was delivered by a message on a cargo ship over a month ago—there’s no way to reschedule it in time.”

“Ms. O’Keefe,” Jason protested, “we can’t insure your safety if you don’t cooperate with us in matters like this. Surely you can see…”

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to deal with it,” she declared.

“Ma’am,” Jason insisted, beginning to become a bit irritated, “my having to ‘just deal with it’ might result in not only your death but my people getting killed as well.”

“Look, McKay,” Glen interjected, moving between Val and Jason, “we’re both sick and tired of paranoid military fantasies. First it was those so-called ‘ship attacks,’ and now this bullshit! Why don’t you Fleet bully boys stop whining and do your jobs?”

“If you politicians would allow us to do our jobs…” McKay’s voice rose.

“Gentlemen, please!” Val put a hand on each of their arms. “This isn’t the time or the place for a political argument. Lieutenant McKay, I will attempt to contact the Council once we’re insystem and, if it is workable for them, I’ll try to delay the meeting. Is that satisfactory?”

“Thank you.” McKay took a deep breath, trying to relax.

“But from now on, I would appreciate if you would coordinate all security measures with Mr. Tanaka, my personal bodyguard.”

“Sure thing.” Jason smiled frostily. “I trust we’ll have a good working relationship. Ms. O’Keefe, I’ll leave you to get moved in here. Mr. Mulrooney, I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure meeting you. I’d like to say that, but I can’t.”

With that, McKay and Stark exited the room, leaving Glen with his mouth hanging open.

“‘It’s my job to expect trouble?’” Shannon repeated with a chuckle, cocking an eye at him as they propelled themselves down the corridor.

“Sorry,” Jason said. “I just couldn’t resist.”

Jason McKay woke with a shiver that rattled his bones, his eyes flying wide open as he jerked upright. It took him a moment to remember where he was, but the sight of row upon row of coffin-like sleep chambers lying open all around him brought him back to reality. He still had the bitter aftertaste of oxygenated biotic fluid in his mouth and the slimy feel of it on his skin. On a conscious level, he knew he’d been breathing the stuff; that it had filled his lungs and surrounded his body for the last two months, cushioning him and the others from the crushing acceleration and deceleration necessary to reach supralight speeds in a reasonable time. But he was still grateful that he’d been unconscious during the process, in a state of chemically-induced hibernation: the thought of breathing liquid scared the hell out of him.

He looked around, still trying to get his bearings, and saw Shannon rising from her chamber, clad only in the halter top and shorts that was twice what he was wearing. Her short hair was matted with dried biotic fluid and her eyes were squinty and half-closed, but he found himself staring at her in a most unmilitary way. Her halter top was plastered over her small, pert breasts, and suddenly Jason wasn’t feeling quite so cold anymore. Her eyes came up to meet his, and he knew he should have tried to look away, but he didn’t. To his surprise, she just smiled.

“Sleep well?” she asked, stretching her legs over the side of the cabinet.

“I really hate this shit,” he admitted, swinging himself out of the chamber, feeling the kinks in his back. He was grateful that the g-sleep machinery had electrically stimulated his muscles while he was in the tank, or he’d have been a quivering mass of jelly after a couple months of floating. Trying to locate the other members of his team, he saw Jock and Vinnie still sitting in their cabinets, doing crunch situps. Shannon followed his look, shaking her head. “Ah, youth,” McKay muttered.

Crossman, he noticed as his gaze swept the room, was already hitting on one of the ship’s crew, and getting nearly as frosty a reception as he had from Shannon. Maybe, he thought, there had been a mixup of the personnel files, and they were really supposed to get some other Tom Crossman.