Fighting Chance (11 page)

The next week and a half flew by for Mahoney. When she
wasn’t hanging out with Jessica and teaching her self-defense lessons, she was
in the training room working with Mikael’s warriors. He had been right about
the older warriors being reluctant to learn from her, but the younger ones were
not only eager, but begged for individual lessons. With Felonia’s help, she arranged
to have Jarvis scan at dozens of different demonstration videos from Earth’s
internet and download the techniques into their android training bots. She
began by focusing on katas and warm-up exercises for Wing Chun and Krav Maga,
rightly guessing that the older warriors would be interested in the brutal
Israeli martial art. Some of the warriors were even curious about learning
tiger and dragon style Kung Fu, but she had explained that she had not studied
those styles and would be of little use to them in their quest.

The warriors challenged
her
with each lesson, as
well. Lieutenant Andreus, the warrior she had stabbed with the broom,
introduced her to the T’Kalan art of knife throwing in exchange for lessons on
using a bow staff. They quickly became unlikely friends and spent many hours
tossing friendly insults as they traded blows with a staff, or hurled knives at
a moving practice android. Even Zandar, her first sparring partner, reluctantly
agreed to participate when she held a session on evasive maneuvers and
counter-attacks with swords. She had made such progress with the warriors that
few, if any, even looked at her with lustful eyes when she walked into the
training area wearing her sports bra and training pants. Instead, they greeted
her with friendly calls and ribald laughter, much as they did with one another.

Of course, the change in attitude had as much to do with
their commander’s watchful eyes as it did with their growing respect for the
female warrior. When he wasn’t needed on the bridge or for a briefing by one of
his officers, he was there in the training room learning alongside his
brethren. He took quickly to Krav Maga, and even seemed to surpass Mahoney’s
skills, as he devoured videos and manuals about the art. By the end of the
first week, he had already destroyed half a dozen training bots before Mahoney
called a halt and refused him the use of the remaining ones that she had
earmarked for other training.

The nights, though, were spent in each other’s arms learning
how to give each other ultimate pleasure. She thought that their passion would
wane soon enough or that his company would lose its appeal, but the exact
opposite was true. Even during the day, they would sneak away from the others
for a hurried coupling in an empty meeting room or in his quarters. In the
evening, they would spend hours talking about their childhoods, family,
friends, and accomplishments while they lay in bed naked and illuminated by the
stars. She also introduced him to Earth movies, starting with the
Thor
franchise in deference to his grandmother’s stories, and he was riveted by the
action sequences.

One evening, she asked him to watch her favorite movie with
her and he readily agreed. They snuggled on the bed and watched
Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon
with a bowl of popcorn. He was politely interested at first,
but when the fight scenes started, he sat up and took greater notice and
peppered her with questions.

“Katsuko, can you do this flying over rooftops such as this
girl?” he asked incredulously.

She laughed lightly and replied, “I wish! No, that’s all
just clever special effects using wires and pulleys.”

An hour later, one of her favorite scenes was on where Jen,
the wayward politician’s daughter, runs away and is approached by gangsters at
an inn who are looking for a fight. By the time it was over, she had destroyed
the inn and defeated dozens of colorfully named fighters with the powerful
Green Destiny sword.

 His eyes were dancing with merriment when he remarked, “She
is very fierce. She reminds me of you when you first trounced my warriors and
sent them complaining to the medical ward.”

He was amazed with the fight scene between the young girl
and her female opponent, Shu Lien. With each new weapon that Shu Lien picked
up, he became more engrossed and fired off questions about each one that was
unfamiliar to him. He even ordered the computer to replay the scene several
times before she convinced him to finish the movie. At its conclusion, he
agreed that it was a wonderful entertainment movie, but was thoroughly
disgusted with the hero’s lack of action in claiming the woman he loved until
it was too late. When Mahoney tried to explain the Chinese code of honor and
religious practices, he still was not convinced. “There is no honor in not
fighting for the one you love,” he told her, his words cutting her with their
double meaning.

She refused to think about how quickly time was passing
before she had to go home. She was determined to make the best of her situation
and enjoy what time she had with Mikael. There was no way that she could leave
her entire life on Earth behind, not to mention her parents, for an existence
on an unknown world with strange customs and people. What if she chose to stay
and then her and Mikael drifted apart? What if he grew tired of her when the
fascination with her fighting skills was no longer so intriguing? She couldn’t
risk it; she couldn’t wager her entire life on such a gamble.

The evening before they were to land on T’Kala, Mahoney
found herself in Jessica’s quarters. They worked together to pack up all the
replicated clothing, toiletries, and accessories that she had accumulated over
the two week journey. They chatted amiably about their experiences over the
last few weeks and swapped gossip about the ship’s crew.

Jessica grew quiet when their packing was completed and
nervously chewed her thumbnail. “Mahoney, do you ever think about what our
family and friends are going through on Earth since our absence?” she blurted,
her expressive blue eyes filled with anxiety.

Mahoney collapsed back onto Jessica’s bed and considered her
answer carefully. “Honestly, I try not to think about it too much,” she
confessed. “There’s nothing we can do to change our situation right now, and we
will be returned to Earth at the end of our month. Hopefully, we will have a
convincing cover story to account for where we’ve been.”

Jessica sucked her lip for a thoughtful moment. “Do you
think the commander would let one of us send an email through Kitt for our
parents? At least they would know that we’re alive and well and will return
home soon.”

Mahoney smacked herself upside the head and exclaimed, “God!
Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll talk to him about it tonight. If he refuses to
allow it, then I can use some leverage against him.”

Jessica laughed lightly, but sobered again quickly. “You do
realize that my month of captivity doesn’t even begin until we reach T’Kala,
right?” Jessica clarified. “Mikael explained that since the king was the one
who ordered me taken, that the law doesn’t go into effect until I’m actually
under his protection physically.”

Mahoney’s eyes darkened, but she jerked her head in the
affirmative. “Yes, Mikael explained that to me the day after our date. He had
to make another trip to see his mother in the medical ward afterwards.”

Jessica grasped her friend’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
“I want you to know that I won’t blame you if want to go back early. The
commander has assured me that I’ll want for nothing and will be treated like
royalty, so there’s no need for you to stay longer just because I have to.”

Mahoney sprang up into a sitting position and turned her
friend to face her. “Jessica MacGregor, if you think for one minute that I will
leave you behind, then you don’t know me as well as I thought you did. I
will
not
leave you alone on a strange planet among beings you don’t know. I will
be right there beside you every step of the way and watching your back. That’s
what friends do for each other.”

Hot, salty tears streamed down the young woman’s face and
she threw her arms around Mahoney for an impromptu hug. “Thank you, Mahoney. I
am so sorry that you got dragged into this because of me, but I don’t know how
I would have survived this without you.”

Mahoney patted her back awkwardly, making soothing noises
until her friend calmed and her tears dried. As was usual for the mercurial
redhead, though, she was smiling and teasing her friend mercilessly about her
and the commander within minutes of blowing her nose.

“Who would have thought that big, bad Mahoney would finally
meet her match with an alien, of all things?” she crowed. “If someone had told
me a month ago that you would be in a relationship with a muscled warrior from
outer space, I would have called Bruce to escort them from the property!”

Mahoney frowned as she picked up Jessica’s bags to move them
closer to the door for a crew member to pick up. “We aren’t in a relationship,”
she scowled.

Jessica’s deep auburn eyebrow arched at her tone. “Oh,
really? What do you call it when you spend all your time with someone fighting
during the day, and having hot monkey sex at night?”

“Stockholm Syndrome,” Mahoney snapped.

“Riiiight,” her friend drawled. “You may be able to fool
yourself, but you can’t fool me, or the rest of the crew for that matter. That
man is head over heels in love with you, and you’re not that far behind him. Even
the crew has noticed the change in him since you boarded. They say they’ve
never seen him laugh until you came along and he smiles all the time. His mom
is amazed by the change in him and says that she hasn’t seen him this happy
since his father died. That’s all because of you, Mahoney.”

The athletic woman shifted her feet and fidgeted nervously.
“It’s all because of the regular sex he’s been getting, nothing more. You can’t
fall in love with someone in less than two weeks’ time. It’s ridiculous. He
only wants me to stay because he’s fascinated by a woman that knows how to
fight. The novelty will wear off eventually, and then where would I be? Stuck
on a strange planet with no family, no friends, and no way to get back home.
Fuck. That.”

Jessica studied her shrewdly. “Methinks the lady doth
protest too much. I’ve been watching you with him, too, you know. You get this
sparkle in your eyes when he walks into a room and your face softens with a
smile when he speaks to you. Not to mention that you two spend so much time with
your legs wrapped around his waist that I’m surprised that you aren’t walking
bow-legged. Why do you think that you can just up and walk away from all that
without even a memory to keep you warm at night?”

Mahoney’s face hardened into determined lines. “Because I
don’t have a choice.”

Her conversation with Jessica haunted her all the way back
to Mikael’s quarters. She had given up all pretense of keeping her own room
days ago and he was more than thrilled to have her in his bed every night. Now
that she had heard what Jessica had to say, though, she wasn’t so sure it was a
good idea anymore. The closer she got to him, the harder it would be for both
of them to say goodbye when the time came. And it would come, she had no doubt
about that. She didn’t belong here, and these weren’t her people. Real life was
not a fairytale, and no one knew that better than Mahoney. She had traveled the
world as an Army brat first, and a competitor and stuntwoman after that. She
had seen enough of life to know that happy endings didn’t exist, and even the
couples that remained together had to work hard and struggle just to make it
through life together without divorcing or ending up hating each other.

Even her own parents, though they were still married, had
been through hell together. The constant moving and being away from her native
country had made her mother resentful and bitter. Her parents had fought
constantly, when he was actually home on leave, and teetered on the brink of
divorce for years. It wasn’t until he retired from the service and agreed to
move back to Japan with her mother that their lives had gained some measure of
peace. She didn’t see them often, usually about twice a year, but she kept in
contact with them regularly through phone calls and email. While she loved her
parents dearly, she wasn’t especially close to them thanks to the years of her
father’s absence while serving on active duty and her mother’s vocal
disapproval over her only daughter’s desire to learn to fight, and later, her
career path as a stunt double.

When Mahoney reached Mikael’s quarters, she had also reached
a decision. It would be foolish to continue on this path with him. It would
give him false hope of a future together, and give her nothing but heartache
when she had to leave him. It was better for her to focus on Jessica now and
helping her get through the next month safely so they could go back home to
their lives. To that end, she replicated a duffel bag and began stuffing her
scattered clothing into its depths haphazardly, uncaring if they were clean or
dirty. She wanted to be back in her old room before he returned for the
evening.

Her plans were foiled when the doors slid open and his now
familiar form strode into the room. His face was wreathed in a smile, and his
long legs ate up the distance between them until he was able to pull her into
his body for a rough kiss. “I have missed you today, Katsuko. I am sorry that I
have been away from you all day. We spotted an unknown vessel trailing us that
would not respond to our hails. It has disappeared now, so I made haste to come
find you so that we may take our evening meal together.”

When she didn’t respond or meet his eyes, he took a step
back and noticed the bag swinging from her hand with clothes spilling out of
its top. “There’s no need to rush in packing, little warrior. Our ship will not
enter T’Kalan airspace for another 20 hours,” he stated, his tone cautious.

She broke away from his strong embrace and continued
stuffing her clothes in the duffle and retrieved her hairbrush to throw it on
top. “I’m not just packing for T’Kala, Mikael. I’m going back to my room.”

His silence weighed heavily on her, but she dare not look at
his face for fear that she would waver in her resolve. Finally, he broke the
tension and asked, “What have I done to anger you, Katsuko? Just speak your
truth and know that I will do whatever is in my power to make it right between
us.”

Mahoney rubbed a weary hand over her face. She hated
emotional confrontations. Usually, she was able to walk away without a backward
glance, but this was different. This time,
this man
, had changed her and
it scared her to death. “I’m not angry with you. I just think that we need some
space from each other. All of this,” she gestured helplessly around them, “Isn’t
going to lead to anything. I’m still going home in a month, and I don’t want to
make our parting harder on either of us than it has to be.”

His lips thinned in anger, and his pale eyes darkened with
his temper. “What if I do not want space from you? Why do you get to decide
what is right for me, for us? I want you in my rooms and in my bed. I want you
every minute of every day, and even in my dreams. I am asking you to stay,
Katsuko.”

She could tell that it was hard for the proud warrior and
commander to bend enough to ask, but her racing heart sent adrenaline coursing
through her blood to ignite her temper. “You mean like when I asked you to take
us back home? Or like when you got to decide that you wanted me, so you took me
from everything I knew with no thought of how I would feel about it? What about
what I want, Commander? I want to go back home to a time and place where
everything made sense and there were no such things as alien kidnappers and
replicators and talking computers that drive me insane!”

His face was stricken by her harsh words. “Are you sorry we
met, Katsuko? Do you really wish that you had never laid eyes on me or shared
your body with me? Have I treated you so terribly these past weeks that you
refuse to even look me in the face when you tell me that you wish to leave me?”
he demanded, his voice full of reproach and despair.

“That’s not fair, and you know it,” she snarled, her eyes
filling with hated tears. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I tried to make the
best of a bad situation, and you have been more than kind to me. That still
doesn’t change the fact that you took me against my will and continue to force
me to remain here because of your stupid laws. They aren’t
my
laws,
Mikael! I am a human being, an American from the planet Earth, and I don’t
recognize your barbaric and backward laws!”

He reared back as if she had slapped him. “Barbaric? You
think me and my kind are barbaric?” he hissed, his tawny skin flushing with
anger. “I have seen how your kind treats each other, Katsuko. I have seen your people’s
indifference to suffering, children starving in the streets, your elderly
housed in squalor, and entire nations warring and killing each other over whose
deity is the correct one. You have no right to judge our laws when your world
pays no attention to their own!”

Mahoney was vibrating with rage and she embraced its
familiar heat as it warded off the chill of his cold words. “You just said it
yourself, Mikael. We have nothing in common. It was a mistake for you to bring
me here, it was mistake to allow you into my bed, and those are mistakes that I
mean to correct.”

With those parting words, she whirled away from her lover
and stalked toward the door. Her body was shaking with suppressed emotion and
she felt as if she would explode if she didn’t make it to her room to fall
apart in privacy. However, she didn’t take more than a handful of steps before
her momentum was stopped by Mikael’s firm grip on her arm. She whirled and
lashed out, striking him a blow on the cheek that snapped his head backward
with its force.

His expression was one of stunned disbelief that mirrored
her own. They froze within their fraught tableau, he with his hand to his
cheek, and her covering her mouth to contain the horror of what she had done.
Never in her life had she ever struck someone in anger outside of competition,
training, or threat of harm to herself or others. Her stomach heaved,
threatening to upend its contents, and she held a shaking hand out toward him.

“Mikael,” she whispered raggedly. “I didn’t mean to-“

“No,” he stopped her. “I brought this on myself. I allowed
my greed and desires to force you to this place. I wanted so badly to take you
for my lifemate and see you bear my children that I never stopped to question myself
if that was what you wanted, too. I see now that I was wrong in believing you
were growing to care for me as I do for you.”

“No, Mikael! Please, let me explain,” she begged him, tears
streaming down her face and choking her with their bitterness.

He turned his back to her and continued, “I have done you a
great wrong, Katsuko Mahoney. When we arrive on T’Kala tomorrow eve, I will
petition the king for your immediate return and that of Jessica MacGregor, as
well. We will find another way.”

Mahoney struggled to close the widening gap between them,
but her feet refused to cooperate. “I’m so sorry, Mikael. Please forgive me,”
she sobbed, her heart ripping in half with a physical pain.

He never turned to look at her when he replied, “I know you
are, Katsuko. I am sorry, as well. You have no idea how much.”

Then he walked away from her and left her to her tears.