Semper Fi is heading back. Then the four of us follow Ellington, Maclin, and Conlan across the commons to the doorway leading through the abandoned hulk of the ship to the airlock where we first entered. “You have to watch it when you’re docking,” Dylan tells Parker as we walk. Both Parker and Shanley wear plastic ponchos that crinkle with each step, and Dylan keeps a hand on the small of my back, rubbing gently now and then. I’m glad we’re behind everyone else, so no one sees that touch.
Semper Fi and heading back to the carrier—I want to be able to sleep with my lover tonight. I want his hands and lips to erase the wrongness and doubt these colonists have so effectively made me feel with the way they look at us, the way they talk about us. We’re helping you, I want to say. But I don’t,
