Expedition 63 Book 3: Dawn

Chapter 1 Static filled the communication line. The never-ending hiss from the radio echoed through the PMA, a backdrop sound in his sleep at this point. If they made it down to Earth, he planned to stay as far away from the stupid radio as possible, because his commander would set one up at the earliest opportunity. Static was so much worse than silence, now. It hadn’t been the case for the first year after the world ended. In the beginning, static meant they still had the ability to reach back on the off chance anyone on the ground tried to find other survivors with radios. There must be others down on the planet, searching. Humans were notorious for beating the odds. Three years in and Yakecen wasn’t hoping anymore. He just wanted the constant noise to stop. The socket wrench in his white-knuckled grip was heavy enough to do the job. “Here,” John broke into his dark, annoyed thoughts. “I’ll deal with that.” Yakecen turned to his commander, folded up at the other end of the area, and nodded. John turned the speaker down, the silence pulsing for a moment in the absence of static. If Yakecen strained his ears, he could catch faint crackling from the cursed box mounted to the wall. John must have it barely loud enough for him to hear on his side. If that’s what his friend needed, so be it. The noise was hemming Yakecen in on all sides. He understood why John didn’t turn it off. It meant defeat if they did, an acknowledgement that no one was on the other end. That the six of them were the only ones left of a once vibrant, destructive species. “I noticed Turlach got his head out of his ass,” Yakecen began. Inane chatter was a hated pastime, but if that’s what it took to drive the dark thoughts in his head away, he’d lived through worse. “So I’m assuming he’s safe from your favorite problem-solving method?” “Sure looks like it.” Something banged on John’s side, and Yakecen flinched. John didn’t offer an apology. He wanted to be treated like everyone else and if his commander was constantly saying he was sorry to Yakecen, people might start asking questions. John caught his gaze. There was a glint in them, the same kind as Jason got when he meddled or started in with personal questions. “While we’re talking about couples, you and Eli doing okay?” Yakecen gasped around the urge to cower in the corner. Nothing good came from questions like that when most people asked, when he was a kid. This was John, though. It’d been a long time since he had a reason to watch his words and actions. His friend didn’t take back his question, but he did stop staring at Yakecen. It helped him gather his thoughts. “Eli and I aren’t involved in the way you’re meaning.” A petulant note roughed up the edge of his tone. He had thought about it, but for his own peace of mind, Yakecen decided a long time ago to leave his friendship with their biologist as exactly that. Friends. “Why does it sound like that isn’t the whole answer?” John teased in a whisper. “Is it ever the whole answer?” Yakecen grumbled and went back to the tricky section of wires inside the fuel compression chamber. The boosters were simple, in relative terms, so conversion shouldn’t have been difficult. How wrong he was. Such was always the case, and why he was still surprised by that fact of life, he had no idea. “I guess not.” John sounded thoughtful as he answered. The heavy silence descended and settled in a wool blanket over their workspace. It was almost as bad as the static. Yakecen felt the groan of dismay rumble in his chest, but he stifled it until the sound came out as a gusty sigh instead. He rocked his head back on his shoulders, the uninspired ceiling of dingy white more irritating than the overcrowded walls of plants. “When we get home, I’m going to splash around in the water, first thing.” The memory of water, enough to bathe in, enough to drown in, was teasing. He loved the strange weightlessness of swimming, different from the absence of gravity in space. On the Station, it felt like nothing pulled on the body, because there was almost no gravity. In the water, it was a battle between elemental forces of nature. John chuckled. “You’re going to have to take your suit off first, you know.” The flight suit was more streamlined than the EMU. Stripping out of the thick pieces was easy. The bigger issue when they returned to Earth, besides the possibility of radiation sickness, lay in the readjustment period. Quarantine had to be skipped, without facilities. Yakecen made a note to stuff every nook and cranny with all the medical supplies they had on board. Practical thought aside, Yakecen sent a pointed glare at John. “Fine. I’ll strip, then hit the water. It makes no difference to me.” “The first thing I’m going to do is roll around in the dirt.” John tapped at some piece of the interior wall, the schematic spread over the tops of his thighs. “I can’t wait to smell like something other than baby wipes.” “If you stopped washing, you’d get the same effect,” Yakecen grumbled. John snorted, eyes zeroed in on his portion of the work, instead of Yakecen. “And then Jason would find somewhere else to sleep.” Jason was fussy like that. Part of his job as second in command, before everything went to s**t, was to maintain a certain level of cleanliness. Such a job was difficult for anyone, though Jason’s neat freak tendencies were exactly what was necessary. Sometimes, in the old days, the bigwigs complained John’s lover took the task too far. “You honestly think he won’t do the same once we’re down?” A chuckle manifested from somewhere. Yakecen bit down on it. “You might have a good point.” “There’s no ‘might’ about it. Jason is really weird about that stuff.” He brought his attention back to the wires and circuits in front of him, hiding the automatic reflex of an eye roll. From John’s own account, he and Jason had been together for years. How did he not know these things about his own lover? On the other hand, maybe John was hoping Jason wouldn’t regulate him to some far off corner to sleep if their commander got a little dirty. Not likely. “Is there anything on Jason’s to-do list when we’re out of here?” Yakecen wondered. John hummed, but didn’t answer. Probably s*x, than. Such non-answers were about s*x, more often than not. It made sense. The mechanics of the act must be difficult to master in the weightless environment. If he was in the same situation, that would be his exact desire. Turlach and Saito hadn’t said anything on the matter. At least, they hadn’t mentioned any wishes they wanted to fulfill once they were on Earth once more. The sky was the limit with the things those two might want to do first, when he considered just how diverse their tastes ran. All he wanted was water. And the sand between his toes. The unmoored existence on the Station drove him to distraction if he let the sensation overwhelm him. Yakecen had joined the astronaut corps under the impression his stint in space would be just the one rotation. He had longed to see the great Earth in all Her glory from above, with his own eyes. Life never worked out the way he planned. On the other hand, all his old ghosts had died along with everyone else. He might have been able to live with that, if his brother and tribe hadn’t suffered the same fate. The O’odham were all gone, now, without a doubt. They lived too close to one of the first targets in a nuclear exchange. John cursed as tools clanged against the wall and pulled Yakecen out of his thoughts. When he looked over, John had his finger stuck in his mouth and a pained grimace pulling down the corners of his lips. “Stabbed yourself?” “With the flathead, yeah.” John’s voice came out in a mumble around his finger. There was no blood he could see from his seat, but if his commander had that reaction, blood was definitely flowing. Couldn’t let anything get into the panels or walls, especially something as sticky as blood. “I can get you a bandage?” It came out as a tentative question, rather than the statement he was trying for. He reached for one of the overhead compartments, little cubby holes built in the PMA not used at the moment for plants, and pulled down the small first aid kit. The Station was littered with the plastic boxes and held supplies for about any emergency. John’s pale brown eyes darted up and met his. The finger left his mouth. At least his commander had the smart idea to wipe his wet finger off on his blue pants before he held it out. Yakecen scooted closer, box clutched to his chest. The pale tan skin of John’s fingertip was split with a neat red line, bisected on the diagonal. Not real big, but ruby blood already welled up to fill the cut. Deep, since that was the case. The box popped open with a crack. Alcohol wipes were right on top, so Yakecen didn’t have to dig for the square packets. Acrid scent wafted past his nose as he ripped one open. His throat burned with the bile threatening to rise. If there was one smell he hated in the world, it was rubbing alcohol. It brought up too many memories of dark, too hot spaces and the burn of his ravaged skin after his father had laid into him with a belt. A couple of discreet gulps around the feeling settled his stomach. Ugh. What a pain in the ass. When would those memories fade away, like his counselor promised? Yakecen pressed the wet paper to John’s finger. The other man hissed, a glare thrown at Yakecen for good measure. Yakecen almost flinched under that look from his friend. Warning someone about the stinging pad was a courtesy he seemed to always forget. It went without saying, if an adult knew what the wipes were for, that it would hurt. Why was the reminder necessary? “A little warning next time would be nice,” John said, snide, possibly sarcastic. It was hard to tell when his expression was one of pain, while his tone was light. Maybe it was an honest request. “Warning for what? Yakecen would’ve jumped if he had anything under his ass to push off of. His head jerked to his friend instead, filling up the hatchway. Eli grinned at him, innocent. And why not? It’s not as though Eli had any idea Yakecen’s heart was rabbiting in both fear and longing. John pointed at the cut finger with his free hand and Yakecen’s hold on the pad. Was Eli slower to move his gaze away from him? “The sting from the rubbing alcohol.” “Oh.” Eli seemed to chew on John’s answer. “Well, you’re a grown man. What’s the point of telling you it’s going to hurt when you already know it will?” “It’s…” Then John’s mouth snapped shut. When he opened it a moment later, the answer was not what he was expecting at all. “You’re right.” “I know,” Eli came back with a smug grin. John scowled, but waved at Eli, a silent invitation for their biologist to join them. Yakecen’s heart picked up to triple time when Eli squeezed his stout frame into the small compartment. The intricate lines of tattoos banded around his wrists flashed a light-eating vanta black as he pulled the first aid kit out of Yakecen’s lap and planted it onto his own. “Just tell me what you need.” Eli flicked his fingers in the direction of his and John’s hands, blood droplets starting to saturate the white fabric Yakecen had pressed to the cut. Throat drier than the Sonoran, Yakecen nodded, head flopping on his neck. s**t. He got like this any time Eli gave him that happy smile, like an animated black-eyed Susan. Yakecen looked away and glued his eyes to John’s damaged finger. It was the only way he could sputter out anything in Eli’s presence. The split skin stopped beading up with blood after a couple more dabs of the wipe. Fantastic. He held up his hand in a blind move. “Gauze, please.” A slight tug at the back of his head brought his eyes up. Eli had the tip of his long braid between his left fingers and a dry pad of cloth held up with his right. “Here you go.” His stomach dropped and fluttered in a rollercoaster loop. Eli was touching him, had the end of his braid in a loose circle across his rose-gold knuckles. The hot flush of his face mortified him farther, but Yakecen plucked the gauze from Eli with shaking fingers. “So, what happened here, anyway?” Eli’s happy tone reminded Yakecen of a deep, fast brook. “You two get in a fight?” As if he had it in him to best John. Their commander was military through and through, a pilot in the Air Force, like every pilot before him. It was a requirement. The closest Yakecen ever came to a military base was Pinal Air Field. John had been trained in combat. Yakecen hadn’t, his father refused to let him learn out of fear Yakecen would be able to fight back one day. “I stabbed myself, if you must know,” John said, nose in the air from Eli’s question. That had to hurt their commander’s ego just a little. “Oh no.” Eli grinned through the fake tone of concern. “Should I get Jason in here to check you over?” John scowled and shot a glare at their biologist. “I’m fine without him in here.” “Maybe we should have a second opinion. What do you think, Yakecen?” Eli asked. “Uh,” and he froze up like some schoolboy. Holy s**t, how was this happening? In the normal course of his work, he had no problem dealing with Eli. Even when they were sharing some down time together, staring at the ceiling in Yakecen’s cabin while they tried to drift off to sleep, he wasn’t this awkward. It was only when Eli touched him, an accidental brush of fingers against his arm or a brief tug on his hair when Eli wanted his attention. If he wasn’t careful, Eli would stumble on that secret way his very being lit up when his friend was nearby. And then the questions were bound to follow. Questions, once asked, Yakecen was obligated to answer. Those gray eyes had him pinned to the spot, whether Yakecen was looking at Eli or not. He dug deep and forced out a light answer. “I think if he promises to tell Jason, we should let him patch up his ego first.” Eli’s sardonic chuckle tumbled out. It was what Yakecen imagined the distant waves sounded like when they broke against the unyielding shore. “I suppose we can let him off with that promise.” Eli wagged a finger at John’s slack exasperation, a second away from a cutting retort. John nodded, though his mouth pinched into an almost flat line. “Fine. I’ll let you poke fun at me. But only because I don’t think we can fit Jason in here when there are already three of us.” That was an understatement. The three of them were pretty good sized for astronauts, though Turlach was a bit taller than Eli. Jason wasn’t a shrimp, either. It might’ve been possible to squeeze Saito in with them, but that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. He was attached to ‘Lach’s hip after their bumpy courtship. “Sounds good to me.” Then Eli turned his attention to the rest of the PMA. “You guys still wiring the boosters into the Kosmos?” The question was directed at him, but Eli still had hold of his hair. John took pity on him and answered instead. “We’re working on the third one now. I don’t know how far through the process we are, since I’m not really an engineer, but maybe we’re halfway done?” Eli looked his way, so Yakecen nodded to add weight to John’s words. “About that,” he stammered. That too effervescent smile shone again. How Eli smiled so readily in the face of their situation eluded Yakecen. Maybe it was a matter of laughing because if he didn’t, he would cry. That made no sense. Why would anyone think such a reaction was good? However, it was possible Eli pushed the reality of their current life out of his mind as much as possible, like Yakecen had. There was nothing they could do, so no point in worrying. And Eli was a natural optimist. “Sounds awesome, guys. The faster we get the boosters finished, the better shape we’ll be in.” Eli propped himself against the wall, out of the way, eyes fixed on Yakecen. The gaze made his blood thump at his pulse points. The discomfort was minimal and easy to ignore, though not in the way somebody staring at him usually made him feel. It was easy to relax under Eli’s watchful presence; he was used to the scrutiny so long as he wasn’t surprised. For the first couple years they were teamed together for training, before he learned he could trust Eli, the staring made him sweat in unease. Yakecen snuck a quick, pitiful glance at John and returned to his work. Listening to his friends chatter soothed his nerves while he traced wire after wire to its source, clipping and reconnecting to other wires and boards as he went. The work was stuff he could do in his sleep. “So, how goes the food?” John asked. “This crop isn’t as robust as the last two, but I think Saito and I found a solution,” Eli replied. “We’re going to shred the organic waste from the last two harvests and add it back to the containers. That should give back a lot of diverse nutrients the vegetables need.” “Are we out of chemical fertilizer already?” John sounded worried and probably had a deep furrow across his forehead to match his tone. Eli hummed an affirmation. “We had three years’ worth of liquid nutrients for both shelf life tests and the defunct VEGGIE system. There’s no reason to worry yet. Our careful rationing has made sure we’ve got enough set aside for six months, if we need it.” “Are we going to?” Yakecen bit his tongue in silent reprimand. Why was he asking questions? Sure, Eli was a good friend, one of his best friends if he was truthful, but the enclosed space made him feel unsettled with Eli so much within his bubble. He kept his eyes firmly on the wires. “From what I can tell, we shouldn’t. It’s just a precaution right now.” The biologist didn’t sound worried, which was good. Eli’s knowledge of living beings was sound. If there was something wrong, Eli would tell them without hesitation. A sigh wasn’t what he expected to hear though. Yakecen gave a belated nod to show Eli he’d heard what was said. What a common social courtesy to forget. “That’s good news,” he added, to make sure his little slip hadn’t offended too much. Eli left after a few more pleasant exchanges with John. The warmth Eli seemed to carry around like a physical thing left with him. Wow, was he in deep. There was a part of him that craved his friend with a devouring hunger. But there was that other part, glottal and snarling and foreign to his soul, that pushed the desire away. The two halves of him had been a constant war over Eli for a long time. When it began, Yakecen couldn’t exactly place. At first, there were competing thoughts and rumbles of want or revulsion, ignored out of habit. Not anymore. Want was far stronger in his mind. The emotion was natural, and the s****l side of it didn’t bother him at all. It was the consequences he’d experienced from his attraction that caused the tear in his heart and left him bleeding. The fetid, scorching darkness and fear where it originated, where his life took a very wrong turn because of one man’s hatred of difference. Irony wasn’t his strong suit, but even he saw it. For one instant, Yakecen’s whole self wished he wasn’t the way he was. Such a wish was futile and pointless, but there was no one who judged him for it. “You should tell Eli,” John uttered in his quietest voice. He must have been aiming for discreet. Yakecen didn’t have the heart to tell John that his voice carried farther the lower it got. “When pigs fly and humans aren’t likely to turn on their own and you marry Jason, I will absolutely say something.” Was that him? He sounded so bitter, more than the sarcasm he aimed for. Bitterness was appropriate though. Eli was his dream, from the top of his tightly curled brown hair and gray eyes the exact color of the clouds heralding the monsoon storms, to his perfect dark rose-gold skin and delicate feet. From his relentless sunny personality to his stout and large heart. An unattainable, perfect dream of a man. John broke out in a rash of chuckles. “You might want to take that back. Pigs probably grew wings down there.” The retort drew a blank for a moment, and then it caught in his brain what John meant. He groaned, but it was rimed in a laugh. “That was so terrible, John. You need better material.” “You laughed, didn’t you?” John pointed out, with both the question and with the malicious flathead back in his hand. “So I did,” Yakecen demurred. “And I should’ve married him before we left.” The muttered words were wistful. “That’s another regret I have about this mission.” Yakecen scowled at the exposed guts he was working on. “You still can. While we’re up here.” “How?” John was skeptical by nature, but he sounded downright disbelieving. He couldn’t believe he was putting his personal business on the line like this, but John was his friend. He had the ability to help and he was honor bound to do so. “A cousin of mine wanted to get married in the ways of our people, but she was refused for some reason. I never asked her for the details. Since I knew the ceremony and wanted to help her, I got ordained as a Universalist minister and registered with the state. It’s still valid, as of the start of our mission.” “Wow.” Yakecen looked over as John scratched the back of his neck, eyes locked on the far wall panels, lost in thought. “You’d do that for us?” “Why wouldn’t I?” Yes, he didn’t like to be in the spotlight. However, marrying his friends in front of three other people was easy. John grinned and reached out to pat his shoulder. “Thanks.” He waved John off. “Just let me know when.” But a smile crept up on him as he thought about it. Marrying those two, in the middle of all this mess, was good. Well worth the effort. Especially when it gave John a goofy love-struck grin for the rest of their work cycle.