Stars of Blood and Glory (18 page)

“
Perhaps,” said Katsuichi,
thinking of his sister. “But if we die, what good are we to those
we love?”

“
The true warrior fights as one
already dead, Katsuichi-sama.”

He sighed. With Hikaru still missing, there
was little doubt that she had been kidnapped or killed. It pained
him to think about it, but perhaps it was better to embrace this
truth than to grasp for something to live for.

“
You’re right,” he said, staring
back out the window. The stars shone back at him, their light
beautiful but cold in the depths of space.

* * * * *

Hikaru tip-toed down the corridor, thankful
for the ever-present hum of the ship’s ventilation system that
masked her passing. She came to the door with the letters MSG
spray-painted in black with a crude stencil, and hesitated only a
second before ringing the chime.

“
Enter,” came a deep, gravely
voice from the other side.

Her stomach fluttered, and she palmed the
access panel to open the door.

“
Hi there,” she said, stepping
gingerly inside. Roman rose to his feet from a chair against the
wall, walking over to greet her. “Is this your, ah, private
quarters?”

“
It is. How can I help you,
Princess?”

The door hissed shut behind her, leaving them
alone together.

“
I’m sorry,” she said, batting
her eyelashes at him. “I didn’t interrupt anything, did
I?”

“
No, Princess. Please, sit
down.”

She stepped into the middle of the room,
holding her arm behind her back. He motioned to the wall-chair, but
she held back, holding her arm nervously behind her back.

“
Can I see your
scars?”

He raised his eyebrow and gave her a funny
look. “Why do you wish to see them?”

“
I—I’ve never seen a man with
scars before,” she stammered.
Not someone as big and strong as you.

He grunted and reached up with his natural
hand to unbutton his faded gray uniform. When he was finished, he
pulled it off of his left shoulder to reveal where the flesh of his
chest merged with the brace for his metal prosthetic arm. His skin
was tough and wizened, covered with curly white hair.

“
That one is from almost fifteen
years ago,” he said. “It was same battle that took my eye and my
face. We took job from a young man—your age, in fact—and it was our
first time fighting Hameji.” His voice became somber. “It nearly
killed us all.”

Hikaru looked up into his face and saw a
weight of sorrow that she could barely comprehend. Even the
prosthetic half of his mouth seemed to frown at the memory. She
reached up with her slender fingers and gently lifted the eye patch
from his left eye. It glowed red, but did not frighten her. He
flinched a little at her touch, but offered no resistance as she
pulled it off and let it fall to the floor.

“
Why do you wear this?” she
asked.

“
So that you will not be
disturbed by my ugly face.”

Ugly?
she wondered, her lips only a short
distance from his.
How could you call a face like that ugly?
Especially one that
had seen so much.

She thought of the way he’d rushed onto the
Hameji ship, bursting through the door like an unstoppable force.
If it weren’t for him, she’d probably be a slave to the Hameji for
the rest of her life. She owed him so much, and yet he hadn’t even
mentioned it. Then again, he’d probably made dozens of harrowing
rescues, if not hundreds.

“
What other scars can you show
me?”

His natural eye narrowed at her, and he
pulled the uniform off completely, leaving his chest fully bare. An
old wound the length of her hand crossed diagonally across his
muscular abs, just above his navel.

“
This one is from Tajji
revolution,” he said, “long before you were born. I got it in close
combat, when we tried to capture Imperial ship.”

“
Were you successful?”

He chuckled. “Yes and no. The Imperial
bastards could not escape, so they sabotaged their engines to send
ship into nearest planet. They surrendered to us very quickly, but
we could not recover the wreckage.”

“
I see,” she said, caressing his
abs just below the wound. She tried to imagine what he must have
looked like when he was her age. The image in her mind wasn’t
nearly as fascinating as the man sitting in front of
her.

“
What else can you show
me?”

His mouth parted in a lopsided, almost boyish
grin, and he rose to his feet. He unclasped his belt, and for a
heart-stopping moment, she thought he would drop his pants.
Instead, he pulled it down just enough to show a stretch of dark
and pitted skin running along his inner thigh.

“
This was from gun battle,” he
said, “also in the revolution. Some Imperial bastard tried to run
off with my family jewels.”

Her eyes widened. “Did he—are they—”

“
Still there?” He grinned and
hooked his thumb around the edge of his belt, as if to show her.
Her legs went weak, and blood rushed to her cheeks, but he only
laughed.

“
Do not be afraid, princess. I
assure you, this old cyborg is still fully functional.”

Hikaru took a long breath as he refastened
his belt, still chuckling to himself. With all of his scars and
prosthetics, when she looked at him, she saw a man more experienced
than anyone she had ever known. It made her want to run her fingers
through his hair, to feel his sinewy muscles as his chest rose and
fell against her own. What did it matter that he was old enough to
be her grandfather? Here was a man who could give her things that
she would never experience in the Imperial Palace.

“
Are we alone?” she asked
softly.

He cocked his head and raised his eyebrow.
“Why do you ask?”

“
Because,” she said, stepping
lightly into the center of the room, “there is something I want to
show you.”

Heart pounding in her chest, she
unzipped her jumpsuit and let it fall to her ankles, so that she
stood naked before him. She shook her hair loose and took a deep
breath, her whole body quivering with anticipation.
Take me,
she thought,
mouthing the words silently in her native language.
Take me, and don’t
hold back.
She closed her eyes and imagined the feel of his rough,
calloused hands on her skin, running them down her legs
and—

The harsh sound of his laughter snapped her
out of her thoughts. Roman was laughing uproariously—laughing at
her.

“
What is this? Do you think I
have not seen tits before? Something to show me—ha!”

Hot blood rushed to Hikaru’s cheeks. “I—I
just—”

A bolt of rage surged through her, drowning
out all her other emotions. She clenched her fists as if to lunge
forward, but pulled up her clothes instead.

“
You—you pervy old man.” She
slipped her hands through her sleeves and made for the
door.

“
Wait.”

She stopped, her hand almost to the access
panel, and slowly turned around to face him.

“
You are young and full of fire,
yes? Too much fire for this old cyborg. But I do not mock you. If
you wish to show your gratitude, there is better way.”

“
There is?”

He gestured for her to come closer. She
hesitated for a moment, more out of obstinacy than anything else,
but he only smiled at her until her resolve broke down. She took a
few tremulous steps toward him and suddenly felt like a fish
swimming into the mouth of a shark.

“
Give me kiss.”

She swallowed. “A kiss?”

He grinned and nodded, pointing to his
half-cyborg mouth. He leaned forward and she bent at the waist,
heart pounding once again though she didn’t know why. A moment
later, she closed her eyes, tilted back her head—

—
and all at once, she felt as
clumsy and inexperienced as a child on her first swim. Their lips
touched, but she barely registered it until the metallic taste of
his prosthetic jaw tickled the tip of her tongue. In that moment,
she feared more than anything that he would think she was too
young.

But then, her legs slowly turned to water.
Time stopped, and sudden awareness of him flooded her senses: the
thick, heady smell of his musk; the roughness of his jaw with the
soft, fleshy texture of his lips. She felt as if she were receiving
some small part of his vast experience—something new, something
sensual. No longer angry or embarrassed, she wished that this
moment would never end.

Inevitably, he pulled away and leaned back in
his chair again, leaving her standing slightly off balance in front
of him. She stepped back clumsily, nearly falling over. Though
they’d barely touched, she felt as if there wasn’t any part of her
that he hadn’t known. He smiled, and she couldn’t help but smile
weakly back.

“
Thank you, Princess.”

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but
after what they’d just shared, words seemed woefully inadequate.
She turned to leave, then stopped and turned back, then walked
awkwardly to the door and palmed it open before the dizziness
overtook her.

* * * * *

Sweat streamed down Rina’s face as she pulled
her chin over the bar and let herself down again. Her arms ached
from exertion, but in a good way—a way that left her satisfied,
that confirmed her own strength. She sucked in a breath and lifted
herself up again, then dropped to the floor at the end of the
rep.

Elsewhere in the gymnasium, the clanging of
weights and the pounding of fists against canvas told her she
wasn’t alone. About seven other soldiers, all grunts, occupied the
benches and equipment around her. They were all at least two or
three times larger than her. As they went about their workouts, her
eyes flitted back and forth across the room, gaging them even
though they ignored her.

I assume nobody trusts me.

As she moved toward the mats to do sit-ups,
the door hissed open, and the cyborg Roman stepped through. All but
a few of the men stopped what they were doing to greet him.

“
Hi there, Sarge.”

“
Come to keep us in line,
eh?”

“
How’s the shoulder?”

Roman’s mouth turned upward in the hint of a
smile. His gaze fell on Rina and lingered for a second. She
pretended not to notice, but he stepped over to her.

“
Lieutenant,” he said. “It is
surprise to see you here. Most officers wait until their own hours
to use these facilities.”

She stopped and sat up, frowning in alarm.
“I’m sorry, Master Sergeant—am I in the way?”

“
No, not at all. But why are you
here?”

Should I tell him?
With the other men
watching, she didn’t seem to have much of a choice.

“
I do come during officer hours,”
she said, “but … well, they aren’t long enough.”

Roman clapped his hands together and
laughed—not in a malicious way, but one that gave the other men
permission to laugh with him. Rina bristled a little, but kept her
cool.

“
You must work out very much,” he
said. “I am impressed.”

She said nothing. He shrugged, and the men
returned to their workouts.

For the next half hour, Roman went from
machine to machine. Rina watched him from the corner of her eye,
monitoring him. Where the other men lifted two hundred pounds, he
lifted two eighty. Where the others did thirty one-handed push-ups,
he did fifty—with only his good hand, not his prosthetic. Sweat
streamed down his face and massive chest, staining his shirt, but
he seemed perfectly in his element, as if nothing could stop
him.

Men like that could be dangerous.

As she cycled through the machines, she
realized that he was watching her as well. It wasn’t obvious—most
of the time, he did it with his prosthetic eye to hide it—but she
could see it in the way he moved, and the way he never turned his
back to her.

He doesn’t trust me,
she thought to
herself, taking a deep breath as she pushed herself to do one extra
curl.
None
of these men trust me.

After cycling once through all the machines,
Roman stepped onto the mats and went through a dynamic stretching
routine. One by one, the other men finished what they were doing
and began to gather around him. Some of them went through their own
stretching exercises, while others simply stood with their arms
crossed, watching. Not wanting to seem out of place, Rina joined
them, standing behind the crowd with her back against the wall.

When he was finished, Roman walked over to
the weapons lockers on the far side of the room and brought out a
pair of black, foam staffs. “Time for pujilion!” he bellowed, and
the men greeted the announcement with heady cheers.

Roman walked to the center of the mat and
stood with his legs apart and knees slightly bent, his weight on
the balls of his feet. He raised one of the long, thin staffs in
the air and shouted: “Do we have first challenger?”

One of the younger men leaped onto the mat,
and Roman tossed him the staff. The challenger bounced from foot to
foot, circling the old cyborg, but Roman simply held his staff at
the ready and waited for his opponent to attack.

From the corner of her eye, Rina noticed
several other soldiers enter from the door on the other side of the
room. Soon, it felt as if half the ship was there, cheering on the
fighters. Some of the new men wore exercise gear, but most of them
wore the faded olive-green fatigues of the old Tajji
revolutionaries.