Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder) (36 page)

He picked up his martial-arts bag
and badged into the locked dojo on the lower level. She was waiting in her
flight suit, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Lock the door,” she ordered.

He did so, setting his bag down.
“Trina told you about my promotion.”

“
You
should have,” she
countered.

“Yes,” he said, handing her the
captain’s bars.

She stood beside him. “You want me
to put them on you the first time?”

“I’d like that.”

She opened the pin and slapped it
into his chest.

“Damn,” he complained.

“It’s military tradition. The
extra’s for not telling me about all of Kaguya’s love letters.”

“Sorry,” he said, removing the pin
from his chest and taking off his T-shirt to look at the wound.

“Now that that’s out of the way, I
want what’s mine,” she said backing him against the wall.

“Excuse me?”

“Nope, you’re not leaving here till
you give it to me. Music: on.” The speakers played the same song as when he
first saw her in a bikini.

She swayed to the music as she
unzipped the front of her flight suit and dropped it to the floor. The only
thing she was left wearing was a pair of frilly, sheer, black socks.

He was so captivated that he didn’t
ask questions, just stared in disbelief. She rocked to the beat as she
gradually pulled the one sock down and launched it at him playfully. Then she
slid the second sock down with a sultry smile. Hidden behind the first few
centimeters were the symbols: “M+CZ” with their wedding date.

He grinned until he saw the rabbit
beneath. His heart skipped a beat and his breathing grew ragged. The tattoo was
the same as Kaguya’s in all respects, except this one was ears up. When the
second sock was gone and the music ended, she said, “Isn’t there something
you’d like to give me, Captain Zeiss?”

When the medics knocked on the door
to check on his spiking heart monitor, Zeiss panted, “Go away.”

“Confirmation code, sir?” asked
Alistair.

“Aardvarks, Antelopes, Armadillos .
. . and especially Rabbits.”

Alistair nodded and waved the
others away. “Good night, sir. Congratulations.”

They couldn’t help hearing giggles
and animal sounds coming from the workout room.

The club celebrated Zeiss’s promotion and their own status
as an official team. Red signed her name ‘Lt. Mira Zeiss’ with the official
call sign ‘Red’.

As promised, Lou and Pratibha, the
female graduate working at NASA, came to the party. Pratibha was from southern India, small and burnished brown. Zeiss was discussing the tetra-engine prototype schedules
with Pratibha when Mira stroked a stray hair behind her ear. He stopped in mid-sentence
to gaze at his wife. When their eyes met, Mira blushed. She snuck over beside
him and slipped her fingers between his. Pratibha said, “The alien economic
flow-analysis can be applied verbatim to the construction of a large-scale
science project.” Suddenly, the manager wavered and sat down. “Doctor, could I
have a word with you?”

Auckland ran over, and Yvette
followed. Pratibha said, “I may have brain damage. I’m suffering from vivid
smell hallucinations. I experienced these once before after a blow to the head
during Extreme Environments training. Don’t laugh, but I could swear I was
swimming in a sea of those little sugar-covered, marshmallow rabbits children
get at Easter.”

The doctor turned to Zeiss. “Get a room,
you two. You’d make a bottlenose blush.”

Yvette and Sojiro snickered as the
couple excused themselves for a few moments. The artist explained, “Red
broadcasts food smells when she has strong emotions.”

Pratibha blinked. “That’s strange;
my brother experienced the same effect when he met—”

Trina swooped in before she could
finish the sentence. “Have they won you over?”

“The food is divine. The infamous Mr.
Zeiss is not very talkative, but the rest of the team is unparalleled,” the
Indian woman admitted.

“In addition to being a newlywed,”
Trina said with a smile, “Z is planning a Collective Unconscious reading for
Sonrisa and Rafael so they can pair-bond before Mr. Herkemer receives his
Override training. He’s also trying to solve a fuel problem for the prototype
his wife designed, surprise thirty freshmen at paintball, and schedule
attendance for a Fortune Aerospace board meeting without missing any course
work. We’ve appealed to the board to delay the meeting to the week between semesters,
after the Herkemer wedding.”

The NASA employee raised an eyebrow.
“There’s a poem about burning a candle at both ends.”

Trina nodded. “How soon could you
join the team for training?”

“I would need time to wrap up my
current project and get back into shape.”

“Mr. Zeiss can arrange a salary of—”

“Shut up,” Pratibha said, smiling.
“We both know I’m going to sign, even if I had to pay you. I’ll be training in
space on the fastest ship ever made with the most talked-about crew this island
has ever produced.”

Trina shook her hand. “Welcome
aboard. I’ll have documents for you to sign before you leave.” The professor
departed.

Sojiro filled the gap with, “Tell
us more about your likes outside of work.”

“So you know how to draw my character?”
Pratibha asked.

“Yeah,” Sojiro said, looking at his
smitten friend, Auckland.

****

Herk and Risa didn’t take to
bonding quite as well as the others. Instead of the mellow melding of the other
couples, the engineering-oriented pair bickered more, especially when one
looked at the other judgmentally. After talking to both of them, Yvette told
Zeiss, “Risa may have a mouth on her, but she actually filters 90 percent of
what she
wants
to say to people. Now Herk’s getting it with all ten
barrels. Mainly, she’s worried about the Rex procedure.”

“And what’s his problem?” asked Red,
talking for her husband.

“Herk says he’s out of sorts from
the beating he took in the test. He can’t take his usual pain meds or Marsh
might bounce him from the Override reading,” the nurse explained.

Conrad whispered, “He can borrow
Risa’s cramp medicine. It’s approved.”

“I want a video of that conversation.
They could make a commercial out of it,” Mira giggled. “You were careful to
separate what Herk
says
from the true cause. What do you think is behind
his grouchiness?”

“He
really
wants to have sex.
Being around you guys exacerbates it. He even stared at my chest,” Yvette said
casually.

“I’ll talk to Risa. I’ve been
neglecting her lately. Z can explain to Herk about lifting weights. You got the
Ethics page early, didn’t you?” Red guessed.

Yvette replied, “Yes, there was no queue,
so I decided to get more practice before we resumed training. How could you
tell?”

Red laughed. “You’re normally
blunt, but that last comment could get Herk killed if the wrong person
overheard.”

“It’s a natural thing, nothing to
be ashamed of,” Yvette countered. “I trust every man on this team and I’ve
worked hard for this body.”

“That could get
you
slapped
or worse,” Red warned. “Dial back the volunteered comments to ‘need to know’.
Even helpful information has to be managed carefully in front of others.
Telling Herk
and
Sojiro that Risa’s period was this week was over the
line.”

The French nurse blushed. “I don’t
know how to stop the honesty side-effects.”

“Pretend the other person has a
tape recorder and is working for a newspaper,” Red suggested.

Yvette replied, “That’s
surprisingly helpful and perceptive of you. How did
you
know?”

Mira had formed the word “Mom” on
her lips when Zeiss interrupted. “She learned a lot about Alien 101 because her
teacher thought she was cute and liked to talk to her every chance he got.” The
couple smiled.

Red added, “Also, edit your use of
adverbs like ‘surprisingly’ or you’ll offend people.”

After the nurse apologized and left,
Zeiss told Mira, “The labs tried out the last of the new fuels yesterday. I
just got the reports.”

Mira read his pad over his
shoulder. “The more complex atoms and molecules generate radiation when the
Cassavettis field rips them to pieces.”

Zeiss nodded. “They’re increasing
the shielding on the hull to compensate; however, shielding will add to our
mass, and radiation still leaks through at full throttle. Long term, we’ll need
a new Calabi Yau shape for the resonance chamber. In the short term, it’s close
enough that oversight has approved the design for brief test runs.”

“Meaning?”

“In six months to a year, we get to
take
Tetra-1
on her maiden voyage.”

His wife cheered, jumping up and
down. “It’s all coming together. That calls for a celebration.”

“I can do you one better. Lou
convinced one of the experts in plasma physics that Kaguya snatched to defect
to us. He hadn’t been to any of her special parties yet, so he should be safe. That
makes fifteen. We only have three more selections left until our team is
complete.”

She hugged him. “Our
family
.
I’ll be so excited when I don’t have to hide secrets from them anymore.”

****

The whole team flew to Panama City the day before the wedding. Mira, Conrad, Herk, and Sojiro drove to the hotel
in an armored limousine. Zeiss was dressed in his interview suit, while the
rest wore bulletproof flight suits. Herkemer sat in the front, eager for some
excuse to use his new strength and burn off nervous energy. Sojiro wore
mirror-shade goggles. A satchel full of art supplies and videogames lay next to
him on the seat facing the couple; his head was tipped back. “Keep turning the
lights green,” Mira ordered him.

“I don’t like this,” Zeiss
complained, fidgeting with his suit lapel in the car. He looked for snipers on
every rooftop.

“We have to be there,” she
countered. “I’m the matron of honor and you’re the best man, in addition to
being my arm-candy.”

“Someone could recognize you.”

She shook her head. “Mary’s here as
me already. I saw her on the TV at the airport. She looks sharp. We made a good
choice.”

“Who’s Mary?” Herk asked.

Zeiss whispered to Mira, “He should
know. He’s team security and his wedding could be affected.”

Mira turned on her media blocker,
causing Sojiro to snap back to his body. “Ambush?”

“No, need-to-know information,”
said Zeiss.

Slowly, she said, “Mary Smith is
one of several aliases for Miracle Hollis.”

“Arguably the richest, most-reclusive
woman on the planet?” asked Sojiro. “How do you know her?”

“I . . . um . . . went to school
with her.”

Zeiss radiated dissatisfaction but
said nothing.

“Why is she coming to my wedding?”
asked Herk.

“Yes, dear, you never told me,
either,” Zeiss noted.

“I . . . forgot to invite her to
mine, and she’s on the Fortune Aerospace board. When I went to ask for a board
signature for something, she . . . reminded me.”

“I still don’t see what that has to
do with my wedding,” Herk said.

Mira floundered. “The . . . signature
permission for you getting two pages a week apart. This was thanks. It’s the
under-twenty social event of the season.”

Zeiss sighed. “The truth is: Red
wants to tell her how she should vote in next week’s board meeting so the
school gets the funding it needs. This was the only way she could think of to
bump into her casually.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?” Herk
said. “It’s for a good cause. Hell, Risa’s father invited enough cronies so he
could write this event off as a business expense. Are the professors going to
make it?”

Sojiro answered, “Daniel couldn’t.
But his getting a new assistant freed Trina up to be my date. She’s coming on a
later plane.”

“Why should that matter to Horvath?”
Herk asked.

Seeing Mira struggle with another
miserable lie, Zeiss said, “They’ve been sharing a pod since I convinced him to
ask her out at the faculty gym one day. The dean doesn’t approve, so don’t tell
anyone.”

“Good for him,” Herk laughed. “It
makes sense now that you mention it. Damn, that makes me wonder what else has
been going on at Sirius that I haven’t paid attention to.”

“Have you finished rewriting your
vows in Spanish yet?” asked Mira.

“Crap. I need vodka,” Herk moaned.

Mira shook her head. “No. You need
help, and we’re here for you. Your wedding day should be one of your clearest,
happiest memories, unclouded by alcohol.”

Herk raised an eyebrow. “You’re
clearly not European or Catholic.”

****

As they dressed for the rehearsal
dinner, Zeiss admired his wife’s knee-length dress. The smell of angel food
filled the room. “We have to leave in five minutes, Taz,” she said with a
wicked smile.

However, when she put on a pair of
heels, his smile vanished. “You’re not going out like that, are you?” he asked.

“Do I have toilet paper on the
shoe?”

“Other men would be able to see
your ankle,” he whispered.

“And?”

“I’m the only man who’s ever seen
your
ankle
,” he nodded to the tattoo.

“This?” she said, flashing it his
direction.

His breath caught. “Yes.”

“I’ll tell you what: for tonight,
I’ll put on a pair of black hose. No one else will know the tattoo is there
unless they’re standing within a foot.”

“But I will.”

“Uh-huh. We’ll let that simmer
during rehearsal, and tonight when we’re alone, you can take them off.”

“Okay,” he agreed quickly.

The entire evening, he stayed as
close to her side as he could. On the drive from the church to the rehearsal
dinner, Mira wanted to ride with Risa and the ladies, so Conrad rode with the
men. When they passed an upscale mall, Zeiss made them stop the car. He ran
into a jewelry store and came out moments later with a bag.

At the restaurant, he rushed over
to Mira. “I saw this and had to get it for you,” he told his wife, wrapping a
thick, braided, tri-color, gold anklet around the rabbit tattoo.

“Thank you?”

“You’re so distracting that I didn’t
know how I was going to make it through the meal if I didn’t put a little more covering
on you.”

Risa’s mother tapped her daughter
on the shoulder. “This one is a good example for Rafael to learn from.”

“Yes, Mama. Mira says it’s all in
the training.”

Back at the hotel, Trina met them
in their suite in a dark mood.

The couple went from giggling to
serious. Red asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The island’s military escort was
called away today—an NCIS investigation in Tonga involving Navy personnel. I
had Sojiro keep an eye on the satellites for me.”

“I wondered why he was so
distracted,” noted Red. “He barely touched his calamari.”

Trina was pacing. “Five suspicious
cargo ships drifted into the island’s projected path. I pulled in a favor and
had them boarded by someone else’s Coast Guard.”

“More rockets?” asked Zeiss.

“No weapons; barely any people.
They were hauling large, portable generators to Tasmania.”

He shrugged. “Tell them to keep at
least a kilometer’s distance, arm the missiles, and double the watch.”

“Something’s wrong,” Trina said. “I
should be home with Daniel.”

“The wedding starts in about twelve
hours,” Mira said. “It’d take you that long to fly home and the ships will be
long gone by then.”

Trina looked more distraught than
they’d ever seen her. Zeiss took a deep breath. “Would it help if you slept in
the same bed with Mira? You used to sleep with her during storms.”

Tears leaked from her aunt’s eyes.
“Yes, it would. You really are a saint, Conrad.”

“I should take Herk, Auckland, and Sojiro out for some kind of party. But I’ll make sure Sojiro keeps an eye on
the school. Rob Roys for him.”

After she blew her nose, Trina
said, “Those have caffeine.”

“Yes ma’am,” admitted Zeiss. “We’re
breaking all the rules.”