Tymber Dalton - Out of Bight, Out of Mind

“We get onto our next rock,” Donna said, “I’m throwing us a girls-only picnic.”

“Deal.” She picked Bucky up and made his rubberized legs wiggle. She couldn’t help playing with the rubber spider.

To Emi, the Robards Alpha space station looked nothing like the one at Kal’moran, or the one they’d docked at on Earth before they headed to Mars. It reminded her a lot of the Martian base, only a lot slummier.

Had it been a person, she would have described it as rode hard and put up wet one too many times, to use the old idiom.

As they walked toward the dockmaster’s office, she felt Aaron’s nervous tension thrumming through him even stronger than before. He’d borne a tense wave of energy ever since receiving their change in orders. As they walked he stroked her knuckles with his thumb the way he always did when he needed to soothe his own nerves.

“You okay, Aar?”

“Yeah, just…” He blew out an aggravated sigh. “Like I said, I don’t like them interrupting our mission like this. Look what happened the last two times.”

She opted for levity, even as her free hand sought out Bucky’s comforting presence in her pocket. “Think positive, right?”

He cast a glance at her but didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. She felt his worry washing off him in dark waves.

“So why is this space station so important?” She indicated a line of dark scuff marks along the other wall. “Doesn’t look like housekeeping is on the job.”

“Everyone loves this station.”

“But why?”

He slowed, then stopped. “Aw, what the hell. They called us here. They can wait on us.” He looked rather pleased with himself as he turned without releasing her hand and headed in the opposite direction.

Emi followed, feeling his mood lighten somewhat. “Where are we going?”

He grinned. “I want to show you something.”

He wouldn’t tell her what. After winding through several dingy hallways, they took a lift down several levels. The car opened onto an opulent lobby. Emi was almost afraid to step out of the lift car.

Aaron had to coax her. “Come on.”

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Even the ornately sculpted and painted ceiling had been decorated to resemble a luxurious old-Earth palace. “This doesn’t even look like it’s part of the same station. Is it a sim? It’s not a sim, is it?”

“It’s not a sim. And we’re in the right place.” He led her over to a check-in desk, where three smiling women in immaculate uniforms greeted them.

“Welcome to Robards Alpha Luxoria.”

Emi snickered and bumped Aaron with her hip. “Tripletspeak,” she whispered.

Aaron smiled at Emi as he removed his security pass from the plastic sleeve and handed it across the desk to the woman in the middle.

She scanned it and returned it to him with a smile even larger than before. “Thank you, Captain Lucio and Dr. Hypatia. Will you be needing a room, or just a day pass?”

“Day passes. And two for Bates and Caliban as well. Three days.”

“Of course, Captain.” She typed into a computer terminal. Emi heard a whirring noise. The woman reached down behind the desk, then handed over four plastic cards to Aaron. “If you change your mind about a room, you can access our reservation system through any terminal in the station.”

“Thank you.” Aaron handed one to Emi, slipped one into the sleeve holding his security pass, and pocketed the other two.

Emi looked at hers. A purple logo for Robards Alpha Luxoria on one side. On the other, a magnetic stripe, a bar code, and a small thumbnail of Emi’s pic from her crew roster file. She tucked it into her security pass sleeve.

“Thank you,” Aaron told the ladies before leading Emi from the desk and down a hallway to the left.

“What is this place?” Emi asked in hushed tones. The lush carpet and wall coverings made her nervous.

He grinned. “Why are you whispering?”

“Seriously? Where are we? And can we afford this?”

He shrugged as they stopped before a closed door. “This is one of the best five-star resorts in the known treaty space.” Aaron held his day pass up to a scan pad, and the door opened with a whoosh that even sounded too rich for her blood. “And we don’t have to pay a cent for it.”

Emi hurried to follow him. “Huh?”

He looked down at her. “This is on the DSMC’s tab. There aren’t any approved R&R planets around here. We get credits based on mission lengths and locations.” He laughed. “You didn’t read all the fine print?”

She did remember something in her contract about paid R&R, but she didn’t realize that meant they paid for it. “I thought it meant they paid for our time.”

Aaron let out a snort. “Hell, no. They pay for our vacation. We haven’t even used up a fraction of our time yet based on how long we’ve been out and the shit we’ve gone through already.”

“Oh. Oh! Cool!”

They stopped before another door. Aaron opened it and they walked into a short tube that led into a huge room where…

Emi gasped. “Is that a swimming pool?”

He smirked. “Yes, Em. That is a swimming pool.”

“It’s…huge!”

The water and pool lights reflected the light blue of the pool’s bottom up into the rafters of the enormous facility. Far larger than the pool dome at the Martian facility, at least a hundred people were in the pool and scattered around the edges on loungers, underneath personal sun lamps, but it still managed to feel uncrowded between the pool’s unusual rounded L-shape and strategically placed vegetation. Some of the pool had a traditional deck, while part of it resembled a lush tropical beach.

Aaron swept an arm across the expanse in front of them. “And now you can see just one of the reasons this space station is kept quite busy. The resort takes up six full levels, and portions of two others. They have a deal to provide food services and facilities to station personnel, in addition to paying a hefty fee for the privilege of being here. In return, they make a buttload off visitors from all over the place who stop in for a little fun.”

“Wow.”

“You haven’t even seen the full facility yet. It’s a complete top-notch spa with all the amenities. And, yes, unless they give us a direct order to ship out immediately, we will be spending a full three days here.” He took her hand again and brought it to his lips. “And you haven’t even seen the clothing-optional section.”

She laughed at the wicked glee in his eyes.

Until she realized he was serious. “What do you mean ‘clothing-optional’?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and headed out of the pool area.

She hurried after him. “Aaron?”

He wouldn’t elaborate, delighting in keeping her in suspense. He led her out of the resort and back up to the level they’d left before.

It looked like even more of a dump after seeing the resort level.

“Then why don’t they make an effort up here to make it look presentable?”

He shrugged. “It’s just cosmetic. This is a working space station. Cargo and freight services, passengers, repairs and retrofits, the works. They get an average of over twenty thousand souls a day tramping around here, and that’s not including staff or resort visitors. Some of the passenger tour services use this station and others as stopovers, since they can’t always let passengers debark planetside. So they make good money that way, too, at the resort.”

They had to step to the side to let a hover cart towing a trailer overflowing with cargo crates pass. “See?” Aaron said. “That’s a small cart, and look how big it was. This is a service throughway. The residential and commercial sections are better.” He shrugged. “The theory likely is, if we paint it, it’ll just get scuffed up again.”