Ch. 12

The Ball

"Ugh, damn it all!" Krystal shouted, and slapped the table with the palm of her hand hard; it caused her palm to sting which in turn caused her to shake her hand a few times. She then used her other hand to brush through her long blue hair.

She took a deep breath and looked at the communicator in front of her, finally after two months she had gotten it to work, however the signal appeared to only be short range. Without her Arwings satellite the signal won't be strong enough to leave the Sol system.

The realization of being stuck on the planet for the rest of her life started to sink in, Krystal let out a frustrated/tearful groan and laid her head on the table.

"Looks like I'm stuck here." She said. Suddenly the thought of being able to stay with Josh came to her mind; she sat up and rubbed her forehead.

"It's not all that bad I guess." She said and smiled, Ever since Amanda's funeral five weeks ago she and Josh had grown much closer, she would admit that she had grown to care about the human very much as a friend, and even a little more than a friend. She had caught herself thinking about him a lot and enjoyed his company and couldn't wait for him to get off work so they could hang out together, a part of her wasn't even that upset about staying on Earth because she knew he would take care of her.

She looked back down at the communicator and sighed, she reached over and picked it up and stuffed it into her duffle bag, along with the tools she had been using. She stood from the table and made her way to the bed room where she placed the duffle bag under the bed, after that she plopped down on the bed and stared at the celling. Krystal closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep, being so close to finishing the communicator had forced her to miss out on a lot of sleep, she was exhausted yet couldn't sleep.

She laid on the bed with her eyes closed for what felt like an hour, yet sleep had not come like she hoped it would, another groan escaped her mouth and she placed her hands over her eyes, she dragged her fingers from her face all the way down to her abdomen and rested them there.

She moved her feet to the left and then to the right while making clicking sounds with her tongue, she then gently started to tap on her belly with her fingers.

"I hope Josh is having a better day than I am." She said and continued her tapping and clicking.

Josh had finished editing the award ceremony video and sent it to Col. Ryan's email. He turned his gaze to the clock telling him he had half an hour left of work. He leaned back into his chair and rubbed his hands across the armrests. He had thirty minutes left of work and had nothing to do; he finished all his assignments for today and tomorrow, and now he was left to boredom, he started to tap his fingers against the edge of his desk and tapped his feet on the ground.

Suddenly he started to think about Krystal and a smile appeared on his face, he placed his hand on the dog tag she had gotten him for his late birthday a month ago. He had grown very attached to her, every time he was feeling down, the thought of her eased his pain. Without any warning he had fallen in love with her, he didn't think she could feel the same way about him, hell the last thing he ever thought was that he would have fallen in love with her, yet he did. One morning he woke up and saw her making breakfast for the two of them, and then realization of it had hit him.

'Ding' His computer rang out. Josh moved the mouse to a little mail box icon and noticed at the top of the page there was the closed letter symbol with a '1' next to it. He moved the mouse up and clicked on it, a message popped up from Col. Ryan.

9-11-2035, Message from Col. Joseph Ryan.

Meet me in my office ASAP.

Josh exited out of the message and put his computer on sleep mode; he stood from his chair and made his way to Ryan's office. The door was closed and the blinds were down so he knocked a few times and waited for a response.

"Come in." Ryan said, Josh reached for the door knob and opened the door. He walked in and noticed Ryan standing behind his desk wearing a formal ceremonial military uniform, He noticed Josh entering and beckoned him over. Josh closed the door behind him and approached the desk.

"You wanted to see me sir?" he asked, Ryan nodded.

"Yes…There is a Military ball, and I want you to come along with me." He said, Josh tilted his head a little and raised an eyebrow.

"Why?" He asked.

"Because it's expected of me to show up, I'm newly divorced and would just be standing there by myself with nothing to do." He said, "I have better things to do than spend a Saturday night by myself at a ball room dance…And as you're superior, I order you to go." He finished and placed his hat on his head and started to walk out.

"Wait are we going now?" Josh quickly asked as Ryan pushed him out of the office.

"Yes we are, why?" He asked. Josh took a few steps backwards away from Ryan.

"We'll, first sir I'm not even dressed for a Military ball…" He started to say. But Ryan cut him off.

"Your standard Military uniform is good enough." He said and started to walk on, Josh quickly followed behind.

"But sir, I have to at least let…" He was cut off once again.

"Do you have a lady friend?" He asked.

"A lady friend sir?" Josh asked, Ryan rolled his eyes.

"A girlfriend son." He said, Josh took a deep breath and shook his head.

"No sir…But I do have a girl who's a very good friend…" Once again he was cut off.

"Good, we'll stop and pick her up." He said and walked out of the building, Josh sighed loudly and quickly punched out of work, He grabbed his cell phone and called home. The phone rang for a few times before.

"Thank God you called, I've been board all day." Krystal said.

"Krystal listen up, Ryan is taking me to some Military ball dance thingy and he's asked you to come as well, we are on our way to the apartment so hurry and get your disguise on." He said, there was a pause for a few moments.

"Alright, bye." She said and hung up. Josh placed his phone in his pocket and walked outside, he noticed Ryan standing next to a black Jeep. Once he noticed Josh he waved to him, Josh quickly approached Ryan.

"Get in." He said.

"Get in? You're driving us there?" He asked, Ryan's only reply was a nod which was followed by him getting into his Jeep, Josh sighed again and got into the passenger side.

"Isn't this where you live Grant?" Ryan asked as they pulled up to the apartment. Josh scratched the back of his head and nodded.

"Yeah…She's staying with me for a little bit." The Jeep parked at the driveway and the two men got out.

"So, what does this friend of yours look like?" Ryan asked, Josh reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys.

"Well, she has brown hair and green eyes and…" He was cut off when the front door opened and a Blonde haired, blue eyed girl walked outside wearing a yellow dress. Josh was completely baffled.

"Who the?" He started to say.

"Well, Josh are we ready to go?" She asked and winked at him.

"Ugh…Yeah…how? Ugh" He started to mumble.

"Well hello my dear, I'm Joseph Ryan." Ryan said and brushed past Josh, he gently held her hand and kissed it.

"Hello to you too, I'm…Alice." She said with a smile and pulled her hand back.

"Well we don't want to be late do we?" Ryan asked and walked to his Jeep, Krystal walked up to Josh and placed her left arm around his right one.

"How did you change?" He asked, Krystal smiled.

"I just scanned some girl walking by who was wearing this and took her form as a disguise." She smiled and turned her attention back to the Jeep.

"You…You don't have to go if you don't want to." He told her.

"I want to though…Do you want me to go?" She asked, Josh looked at her and smiled.

"Of course I want you to go Krystal, I don't want to have to be stuck there with no one to dance with, and you said on the phone that you were board."

"Yeah…Todays been kind of stress full."

"Why? What happened?" He asked and looked deep into her disguise blue eyes. She turned her gaze away from him and frowned.

"Let's talk about it later…For now let's just have a fun evening."

"Okay, sure." He replied and opened the door for her; he started to get a bad feeling about what might be bothering her.

The drive was more or less normal; Ryan talked to Krystal a little bit, trying to learn more about her. He asked simple questions like how long has she know Josh, how much longer she would be in town and what she thinks of the area, then he started asking other questions like where was she from and stuff like that, she tried to answer his questions as best as she could and Josh had to answer a few for her.

'He certainly asks a lot of questions.' She thought, Josh smiled.

'Yes he does indeed.' He thought back to her. Soon they noticed they were pulling up to a large mansion with a few vehicles parked out.

"Big place…Who owns it?" Josh asked, Ryan parked the Jeep an unbuckled his belt.

"I do." He said and got out of the car, Josh's mouth dropped. Not only was he good friends with a Col. He was good friends with a Col. who was rich.

"I wonder if he has a secret underground cave, and goes out fighting crime." He asked out loud, Krystal raised an eyebrow.

"Do what?"

"Oh…It's just a comic character reference…Well, let's go dancing." He said and got out of the Jeep and made his way to Krystal's door opening it for her, she couldn't get over how much of a gentleman he was. She smiled and got out wrapping her arm around his again. They made their way up to the front door where there was a fancy red carpet and body guards.

The two made their way to Ryan who was waiting by the door talking to a man who was dressed in a suit and tie; he was an older man, just like Ryan. Josh took a moment to look at the man and then it hit him.

"That's President Rushford." He said, Ryan noticed the two and waved for them.

"Ah, Marcus this is the young man I was talking about, Joshua Grant." Josh quickly held out his hand to shake the President's.

"Mr. President, it's nice to meet you." He said, President Rushford smiled and shook Josh's hand.

"Likewise, Ryan has told me much about you."

"Oh well I'm sure he's exaggerating a bit, I just film stuff, nothing to important."

"How modest." Ryan said, "This young man was to be given the bronze Star and promotion in rank, yet he refused to take the medal and promotion." Krystal was now curious.

"What's a Bronze Star?" she asked. Ryan was the one to answer.

"It's a medal given to Soldiers for heroic valor during combat." He said and then smiled, "However our hero is too modest to take it, I sure as hell would have taken it in a heartbeat."

"I'm no hero sir; I shouldn't be getting praise for doing what anyone would have done." Josh quickly replied. Ryan chuckled.

"What'd I tell you, modest." He said and then patted Josh's shoulder, "Well lets go inside and get this damn ball over with, can't believe they had it here of all places." He said and the group walked past the guards and into the mansion.

Once inside they made their way into the first room area, which had the classic looking mansion stairway leading upstairs, a door to the left and right, and a door straight ahead. They turned to the left and walked through the opened doors to a wide open room, it had tall windows, three large chandeliers and a large unlit fireplace, the room was filled with Men dressed in ceremonial military suits and Women wearing fancy dresses. Ryan placed his hands on Josh and Krystal's shoulder

"Well, you two have fun…I'll be doing something…Somewhere." He said and walked off. Josh watched as Ryan left the room and made his way up stairs, he turned back to Krystal and held out his hand.

"May I have this dance?" He asked her, Krystal smiled and took ahold of his hand with her own.

"Why yes you may."

Josh and Krystal held each other's hands and started to dance in the ball room dance fashion, his right hand held her left, and his left was placed on her waist and her right hand was on his left shoulder.

Luckily they had similar dancing styles in Lylat, so Krystal didn't need much coaching as they danced, she did step on his feet a few times, and each time she did the two laughed and continued dancing. While they danced Krystal started to get curious about what Josh did to be awarded a medal, she knew it would bug her the whole night if she didn't ask him, so she did.

"So how did you exactly get awarded the medal Ryan was talking about?" She asked, Josh sighed a little and Krystal quickly shook her head.

"Don't answer, I'm sorry for asking." She said, Josh looked away from her while they danced and then turned his attention back to her.

"Well, it happened three years ago, in a small town in the middle east…"

Ah damn you! A cliffhanger... is probably what some of you are thinking. I know I'm an ass that way.

tune in next week to find out what happens, obviously its an action packed filled with shooting and killing.

as always please review and tell me what you think about the story.

until next week.