In Space, No-one Can Hear You Steam
"Fucking Earthers. Turn up late, get all the credit."
If Jan hadn't spent the last week or alongside Rico, he might have told the sergeant to shut his hole when they were brought aboard the UCN Dortmunder. If Rico wasn't still partly under the effects of Haka's sedative, if he hadn't spent the last month saving Vekta by killing every helghast he came across, he might have disciplined the trooper then and there.
But all of that had happened, and to top it off, Jan was just too damn tired to really give a shit what Rico had to say about anything. So when the parasite pod was brought aboard the UCN heavy cruiser, as they were greeted by the ship's XO and accompanying fleet complement, neither he nor Commander Xiang were looking to shut the sergeant up.
Still, Jan thought, as he sat in the quarters assigned to him, Rico had a point. He didn't know how history would record the Battle of Vekta, or if it would even be named as such. He suspected that history would have a lot to say on the subject of Adams's betrayal, of Vaughton's death, of Scolar Visari. He suspected, however, that history would recall the arrival of the United Colonial Navy as a turning point in the helghast's siege on the UCN's breadbasket, and that the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who'd given their lives in the weeks of combat would get far less attention.
He rubbed his eyes, and looked around the sterile white room – one reserved for VIPs, be they civilian or military. Captain Toshiro had sent Jan and his four musketeers (who was counting? He wasn't) a memo that he expected a debriefing at 0900 ship time, which gave them a good twelve to let the oblivion of sleep take them. Each had been assigned their own quarters (even if Haka's were under guard), and the expectation was that after having gone through Hell, RnR was in order.
Jan couldn't sleep. Despite the flight suit he'd been given in exchange for his old RRF gear, despite it not stinking to high Heaven, he couldn't sleep. The fridge was bereft of anything alcoholic, so drinking himself into oblivion wasn't even an option. He could try taking a sedative, but years of RRF wilderness and survival training meant that the damn things no longer worked on him. Sleep was hard for Jan Templar to find under the best of times, and under the worst?
He grunted, and looked out the porthole. At the blues and greens of Vekta. Chances were that this wasn't even the worst of times. Adams was dead, Lente was dead, but that didn't mean the helghast were going to up and leave, even after the UCN had established space superiority. From up here, the world lived up to its namesake of the Jewel of Alpha Centauri. A reminder of what Earth had once been like, rather than the overpopulated, over-exploited dirtball it had been for centuries. Simple fact of the matter was that without Vekta, Earth wouldn't be able to feed itself.
Maybe it was the thought of food that got Jan to raid his quarters' pantry. He wasn't a cook, he'd never learnt how to cook, but after a week of rations, both human and helghast, anything he whipped up had to be better, right?
Ten minutes later, his attempt at steamed dumplings had triggered a fire alarm, which in turn had triggered ship security. That was embarrassing enough by itself, but what made it worse was that as the smoke cleared, as the disgruntled deck crew filed out, complaining about colony bumpkins, Luger stood in the doorway, a rare smile on her face.
"What do you know?" she said. "Turns out in space, everyone can hear you steam."
Maybe it was her words. Maybe it was because she was dressed in the same flight suit he was, and as such, as close to civilian gear as Luger ever could be. Maybe it was some other reason as to why he just stood there as she walked in, investigating his attempt at steamed dumplings. Her smile turned into a smirk, as she gently prodded them.
"That bad, huh?"
"I think we can add this to the war crimes list." She looked at Jan. "Were you that desperate for food, or that bored?"
Jan, his gaze going from Luger's face to her chest, tried to answer but-
"Eyes up here, Jan."
There she was, he thought. Ice queen. Frosty bitch. Cold-hearted killer. There were any number of euphemisms that could be applied to the woman before him, or really, any shadow marshal. Becoming a soldier inherently took something out of you. Becoming a shadow marshal took out the remaining parts of your soul, shot them in the head, and incinerated the corpses. Even in RRF training, Luger had been cool, but seeing her now…
Well, seeing her now, he could still see the old her somewhere. Same face, same red hair, same hazel eyes, same everything. And she must have known he was seeing something, because she murmured, "don't read too much into things, Jan."
"What, me? Reading? You know I don't read anything else than Fury of the Twilight Stars."
"Yes, well, once you've moved beyond the classics of the twenty-third century, you might want to step into this one." She looked at the dumplings again. "Cooking. Really? Are you already in your mid-life crisis?"
"Well, I'm not in my sixties yet, so…no?"
"Hardy hah hah."
What followed was hard to explain. In the space of twenty minutes, Shadow Marshal Luger, real name classified, had raided the fridge, made some pasta, and done it without triggering any fire alarms. Few words were exchanged, and just as few glances. Luger had the same access to foodstuffs in her own quarters (or so Jan assumed), so why was she here?
Rekindling lost time? As appealing as the notion was, he couldn't count on it. Loneliness? Also unlikely – if you were vulnerable to that particular emotion, becoming a hyper-lethal assassin wasn't a good career path. Boredom?
"Here we are."
That was the most likely option, Jan supposed, as Luger put the plates in front of them. Spaghetti bolognaise, or something. A simple dish that originated from some place on Earth – some country he couldn't even recall the name of. Still, as he took a bite…
It was plain. It was simple. It was the best food he'd had in the last week by virtue of actually having taste.
"Did you learn cooking skills in the academy?" he asked.
"Oh, no, my mother taught me."
"Your mother…" The facts of life rolled over in Jan's head. "Your mother lived in Far Horizon, right? City on the coast of Aloy?"
"Yes." Luger took another bite. "She's dead now, like my dad."
"Oh." He blinked. "Oh, that…sucks."
Luger shrugged.
"You want to talk about it?"
"Not really." She looked up at Jan. "Come on, don't look at me like that. Last casualty estimate for civilians on Vekta is around nineteen million. Everyone's lost someone."
"Yeah, but…"
"It's nothing," Luger said. "My parents are dead, your parents are long dead, Vaughton's dead, Haka's never going to see his family again…people die."
Jan couldn't tell if Luger was really that cold of a fish, or if she was just presenting herself as one. She simply ate one piece of spaghetti after another, not a single fleck of sauce or cheese getting on her chiselled features.
She was like a machine, getting the requisite amount of fuel to keep her going. And yet, as he wondered if-
"I know what you're thinking," Luger said. "And the answer's no."
"What?"
"This. You, me, eating dinner…"
"I didn't say anything."
She sighed, still eating without looking at him. "You have tells, Jan. Everyone does. And as nice as it is you have some level of self-control, we're way beyond the 'I wuv you phase."
"I…didn't…"
"Then don't," said Luger, as she slid the empty bowl over to him. "Whatever happens next, you'll be in the thick of it. And when that happens, I need your head in the game because…"
"Because?"
"Because I don't want you to lose it." She got to her feet. "You can tidy it up. See you tomorrow."
He could have left it there. Clearly she wanted to. But as Luger approached the door, Jan said, "tells."
"What?"
"Tells. I've got tells, Rico's got tells, Haka's even got tells. Everyone's got tells." He paused, before saying, "even you."
Luger, after a moment, said, "and what are my 'tells' telling you?"
"That you're not as much a cold, frosty bitch as you want everyone to think you are?"
"Oh, everyone knows what I am. Your problem is that you can't accept it."
"Accept it?" He got to his feet. "You took off. You knew where we stood, where I stood, where-"
"God's sake Jan, I do not need to explain myself to you."
"Then why, Luger? Why are you even here? One moment you're cracking jokes, you're smiling, you're making fucking spaghetti, the next, it's all numbers and calculations."
She remained silent.
"Look, you want to talk? Then talk. I've got a seat at this table, and-"
"Jan, very soon you'll be sitting at a much bigger table," Luger said. "It's a table that I can't join you at. And when you're deciding who to send to die…I can't be involved in that process."
"Luger, what the hell are you on about?"
She smiled sadly. "You think after all this you'll still be a captain? You don't think the UCN is going to want you in the attack on Helghan?"
"Attack…what?"
"Read between the lines, Jan. You told me the war wasn't over. Not for a long time, if ever, I believe your words were."
They were, he reflected. He'd meant them then. He'd meant them now. Even if the helghast on Vekta were defeated today, that left Helghan itself. In galactic terms, a stone throw away. In military terms, the single greatest challenger to UCN hegemony. In local terms, a perpetual threat to Vekta for as long as Visari remained in power.
"Get with the program, Jan. And learn to cook while you're at it."
"Luger, I-"
The door closed with a hiss, and Jan Templar was left alone.