CHAPTER 3

Awkward didn't even begin to describe the first hours of their journey in the C-8. His suggestion to listen to music – vetoed. Witty repartee – vetoed. He was so desperate by the second hour of silence, he even offered up that he had some repair manuals on his player that they could listen to, hoping it might appeal to her engineering side. Vetoed.

He began to squirm in his seat trying to get comfortable in the uncommunicative torture chamber into which he was strapped. That earned him a loud, annoyed sigh, and a distasteful sideways glance. At least it was something. When he jokingly told her to keep her eyes on the road, he got the loudest sigh of the trip, yet. Perhaps, he thought, there was entertainment value in trying to see how loud and how often he could make her sigh. What held him back was the thought that she wouldn't hesitate to haul off and hit him at some point for being annoying. He was willing to bet that would be as painful as the silence.

"You don't like me very much do you," he finally said in his direct manner. He didn't give her a chance to respond, or shut him down, but kept on prattling.

"Yeah. I get it. Nothing I'm not used to. When you want something repaired, it's Ok for me to be seen in public. Otherwise, I'm shoved in the closet, out of sight, out of mind until the next broken item. I'm good enough to repair your expensive, delicate, engines, but not good enough to date your daughter…NOT, that I want to date any of your daughters. I mean I'm not saying they aren't good looking… not that I was looking or anything. I mean all guys check out women, right? Even John, I bet. I think it is built into our DNA or something. Like we need to look, just in case there is some huge disaster that wipes out the population and we might be called upon to repopulate it…or something like that. Not that I think we are remotely in a situation like that where your daughters would have to rebuild the world, though in a way if we never got off this planet, I suppose they would. Again, not saying they'd have to do it with present company, though contrary to your thoughts I have had all my shots and am not as rabid as you think…but probably as stupid as…," he let his voice trail off, once again having dialogued himself into a verbal corner.

She glanced over at him then back out the front windshield. Silence settled over the compartment again and Don decided to close his eyes and see if sleep would overtake him. He was usually pretty good at being able to nap in strange places. You had to be when you never had a real home. Sleep anywhere, at any time and be a light sleeper, able to wake fast and move out. Like a hunted animal, which, when you were sleeping were you didn't belong, was a true analogy. Just as he was about to drift off, she spoke to him.

"What were you doing on that Jupiter? And what happened to the family who was supposed to be onboard it?" she asked, her voice having a rather sharp-edge.

Obviously, it was something that she had pondered and already had a conclusion that painted him in the worse light possible. Not, that the truth wasn't pretty grim. He wondered if he could ignore her, pretend to be asleep. But he decided that answering her was probably no worse than not answering her. So, he opened his eyes and squirmed in his seat for a few seconds.

"Do these things have seat heaters? Cause I think mine is set to grill," he joked as he finally settled down. "My partner and I were suited up, answering a call about a hull breech that had to be repaired. You were there. You heard the announcement to evacuate the Resolute."

"Yes, for the Jupiter families to evacuate, as a precaution," she corrected him stressing the word families.

A small scowl settled in the corner of his lips. "Families. Always families. Tam and I were a family, of sorts."

"Your partner was a woman?" she asked.

Don detected a touch of condemnation in her tone. "It's not what you're thinking. Tam was a great mechanic. I taught her everything she knew and she blew me away at times with her intuition. But contrary to what you are insinuating, we were just good friends. Nothing more."

With grumpiness for having been caught, Maureen testily replied, "I wasn't thinking that."

"Yeah. You were," Don said with a smile, but he held no malice towards her. Everyone always thought the worst of him and sometimes, they were probably right. But not when it came to his dealings with women. He always treated them with respect.

"So," he went on with his tale, "people were running down the halls and we could see their injuries. Ones that were not caused by a hull breech, or tripping, or anything human. Tam and I came across a docked Jupiter and decided we'd have a better chance staying alive aboard it than on the Resolute. So, as we were working to open the hatchway…"

"The Jupiters are wired to transponders only given to family members," Maureen reminded him.

Don gave her a sideways look that was tinged with a hint of disbelief at her naivety. "I'm a mechanic," he annunciated slowly. "And I am very good at what I do. I can fix your toaster or hotwire your ship. Whatever the job calls for."

"I see," she said in her judgmental, non-approving Robinson tone. Don swore it was a genetic trait they all shared designed to make him feel like a low-life.

"Yeah, well if you ever get locked out of your precious spaceship, you'll be glad for my badass skills," he defended the slight.

"I didn't mean…well, maybe I did," she confessed, truthfully. "You are a rogue."

He shrugged off the word as if it were nothing. "It has kept me alive, so far. So, as we were working to open the door, Dr. Smith comes running up with an official transponder in her jacket, opens the door and invites us in. End of story."

"Didn't you wonder about the rest of the family members who were supposed to be on that Jupiter?"

"Lady, I am not that much of a monster. Sheesh." He paused for a moment to remember how the conversation had gone. "I asked her about the rest of her family and she said they wouldn't be coming. I thought she meant they had been killed, so I said I was sorry and she gave me a sad smile. She seemed kind of lost, dazed as if she had suffered a tragedy."

"And what happened to your partner, Tam?" she asked, glancing over at him when he didn't reply.

Don shifted his eyes to stare out the side window of the chariot. He hadn't let himself think much about Tam. Well, except when she haunted his dreams at night, making him wonder if she'd still be alive if they had chosen a different course of action; if he had chosen a different path for them. Finally, he said quietly, "She died. In the crash."

Try as he might to hide it, Maureen could hear the pain in the younger man's voice. "I'm sorry," she said sympathetically.

"She knew what she signed up for," he said crassly though Maureen knew he didn't mean it and was simply trying to hide his pain from her.

"John thought it was just a drill. Overblown." She sighed. "Now look where we are. Some drill. But we will get off this planet. We have to."

"And then what? Meet back up with the Resolute and head on your merry way to Alpha Centauri?"

"You say that as if it is a bad thing. There is no going back to Earth. We have cut our ties with that dying planet." She took a breath of recycled air. "Blue skies. Clean water. Unpolluted air. How can Alpha Centauri be so bad with all of that going for it?" she demanded of the mechanic.

"It's great. Now. The best and the brightest. No rogues. But how long will it stay that way? We had the best and brightest on Earth too and look what they did to the planet," Don sarcastically reminded her.

"We have learned from our mistakes. We won't repeat them on AC."

His snort said it all. "Please. You have pricks like Victor running the show."

"I didn't vote for him."

"Yeah? And how did that work out? He still won and is your leader. You may be the big kahuna right now, here on this planet because of the situation. But once you get to AC, Victor's the main guy, again."

"It's a big planet," she countered his negativism.

"Yeah. And so was Earth. But that didn't stop the inevitable," Don reminded her.

They rode for a while in silence that neither one of them minded this time. They had been driving for about three hours when, by mutual agreement, they stopped for a break. Maureen halted the Chariot near the edge of a ridgeline where they could look out on the landscape. It was not too pitched, nothing the vehicle couldn't handle when they started up once more.

Don finished up then stood under the open wing of the ATV waiting for Maureen to return. The woods, which offered privacy, were a couple yards away. She had gone there. He had ducked behind the rear wheel. Of course, he did have the plumbing advantage.

After finishing her business, Maureen began to walk purposely towards the vehicle, anxious to get underway again. She glanced at her compad and guessed they had another six or so hours of daylight, not that night would stop her. Her plans were to push onward until they reached the Resolute, load up and be on the way home ASAP. On the way back, they could take turns between driving and napping. She didn't like being away at such a volatile time and she didn't know how much time they really had left on this soon to be fried world.

She exited the edge of the woods seeing Don waiting for her by the ATV. When he saw her approaching, he climbed into his seat and began to reach for the harness. Suddenly, without warning, an explosion ripped through the air, knocking Maureen, hard, on her ass. As she struggled to catch her breath, she saw the Chariot flip over sideways and then roll over the edge of the embankment. Don was nowhere to be seen.