The ISS CV sat down in the aftermath of Ragnorok. If there had been any doubt in Shane's mind as to the success of their mission, the sight before her dispelled it.

"Oh, man. You guys have all the fun." Cooper pressed her against the hull as he leaned over her, face squished against the viewport with excitement. His cast was hidden by a flight suit at least one size too large for him. She found a second to wonder where there was a Marine actually tall enough to fit the suit before she elbowed him aside and picked up her helmet.

"Get off me, Hawkes. Grab your gear and get moving." Glad as she had been to know he and Vanessa, all the rest of her ship mates, were safe, she didn't have time for his bloodthirsty ebullience. They had to find the stranded Wild Cards and clear out before Chig reinforcements showed. If there was anything to find.

Nathan was already waiting at the cargo door, rifle ready. Shane grabbed her own rifle and joined him.

"Ready?" Coop asked as he seated his helmet. She nodded, and he slid the massive door open. "Good hunting, guys. Bring 'em back, OK?"

"One way or another," Nathan muttered as he and Shane moved out. They hadn't been able to get a lock on either beacon, the fountain of radiant energy from the dying weapon blotting out signals across the band. It showed signs of sputtering out soon, but they couldn't wait. They had quartered the ridge where Paul's plane had dropped until they spotted it, listing at an angle on the hillside. The flight crew had landed the cargo hauler less than 20 meters from their lost bird, but no suited figures had come running. It looked as if the ridge could have sheltered them from the final explosion; the plane seemed no more damaged than expected. So where were they?

She and Nathan reached the plane, inspecting it warily. "Queen to First Base. She's salvageable. Get the cables on her and we'll take her with us."

"Roger. Any sign of your MIAs?"

"Not yet, First Base."

"Less than 20 mics, Queen. That's all Home Base will give us."

"Yeah, I know," she whispered to herself, not really caring if it went over the com or not.

"Shane?" Nathan's quiet voice called. "Take a look at this." She came around to the ridge side of the SA-43 to find him standing over a pair of bodies. Chig bodies. One lay farther from the other, closer to a jumbled rock formation that covered most of the northern slope. Nathan was squatting by the second corpse. "Both of 'em done with a k-bar. And here: look."

She knelt and fingered one of the small, brownish lumps of sand spattered by the dead alien. It looked like human blood. "If one of them is injured, suit integrity breached, how long could he survive?"

"Atmosphere is breathable. Barely. It would hurt like a son of a bitch. Probably a good deal of skin irritation. Unpleasant, but survivable."

"They must have sheltered up there. Come on." The thin blood trail could be tracked through the maze of boulders for a distance, but then tapered off. A good thing, she thought. At least the bleeding had stopped, hadn't been too bad in the first place. "Colonel? Wang?" she called.

Nathan pressed his back to her's. "Let's try that way. Good as any" She shrugged. It was the widest path; they may have taken it out of expediency if one were hurt, and it did turn back into the ridge, affording more protection. Soon, they were in a real cavern that descended under the line of hills. "McQueen, Paul? Are you there?" she called again. And this time, there was an answer.

"Over here, Vansen." It was McQueen. They hurried around a corner into a small cave off the main trail. McQueen sat facing them, one hand clasped to his left bicep. Paul lay next to him on his side. "Come on, Wang," the Colonel said, nudging the other man with his foot. "Our ride's here." Paul groaned and sat up, holding his stomach.

"Are you two all right?" She dropped between them, patting Paul's shoulder and trying to pry McQueen's finger's loose. Nathan stood guard above them

"Huh? Oh yeah, we're fine. Just a scratch. Those two Chigs outside jumped us. I got one, the other tagged me, Wang took him out. Probably saved my life."

"So what's wrong with him?"

"Hmm?" He was paying an inordinate amount of attention to her fingers gently checking the shallow channel of the wound. "Oh. He'll be OK. Told him not to try the rations right after being pumped for coolant inhalation. The preservatives. Don't mix. But he must have been real hungry."

"Shane, can we go home now?" Paul moaned.

A stomach ache. She couldn't believe it. Nathan barked a laugh and she helped the sick man to his feet beside the Colonel, already up and ready to go. "Sure thing, hero. Sure thing."

It was late, between shifts aboard Saratoga. She should have been sleeping, not prowling, one intent and one purpose on her mind. Corridors were deserted; still, she stood for long moments before his door, hand raised to knock, yet afraid to make any motion, any sound. She was sure he must know she was out here. Surely pulse-pound and breath gave her away.

When she finally found the resolve to knock, the hatch swayed open slightly at her touch. Was that an invitation, or did he always leave it unlocked? How could she know, never having had the need or temerity to dare anything like this before? Cautiously, she pushed it wider and slid through, closing it at her back and waiting for her eyes to adjust.

The room was not completely black; there was a port, and faded starlight seeped through. It was too dim to make out much of his quarters. There were long shelves of books on two sides, and a bed opposite the port, recessed into the wall. The form within it stirred.

He was a pale ghost limed in starshine and shadow. He sat up, and she fought an urge to melt into the bulkhead. Instead, she gathered desire and nerve and walked to the bed, hands in her pockets to hide their jittering.

McQueen said nothing, simply made room for her at the foot of the bed, and Shane sat after a moment. Then she found she couldn't meet his eyes; she couldn't look away, either. He wore only a pair of loose, white drawstring pants. The scarring she had felt, that she knew so intimately, was almost invisible. Each muscle was traced in white, as if freeing his shape from the darkness, the fine hair of his body struck to silver. His dog tags glinted, an answering flash from the argent eyes. She shivered at the smooth expanse of his abdomen with no navel; it was an intellectual concept she accepted, a fact she knew with the touch of her hands, but the sight drove home the reality of his nature harder than she had thought possible.

"No..." her voice failed her and she cleared her throat, shook back her hair and met his gaze. "No regrets, McQueen."

He abandoned the shadow, leaning forward to stare at her, and the far light caught his eyes. "But?"

"But...you were right. Again. About some of it. I don't know if I can bear to be this close. To you, anyway. It's too much. What I'm beginning to feel for you is too much. You said you were afraid?" A harsh little laugh, full of self-condemnation, and now she found it easier to look at the furious night beyond the port then at his starlit eyes and smooth, hard body. "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm absolutely terrified."

He settled back into the dark and was quiet for so long she begin to think he was waiting for her to gather the shreds of her dignity and go. Then he spoke, so soft the deep, velvet voice was almost a whisper. "First time I saw you, I wasn't all that impressed. Looked more like a child's doll than a soldier. But so fierce. So determined. Not that I hadn't seen that before, someone who doesn't look capable of putting up any kind of a fight, who rises above to become one of the best of warriors. 'Trusty, dusky, vivid, true...steel-true and blade-straight.' Stevenson. That's what comes to me when I think of you.

"But you are more, too. It's in your eyes: the look of eagles. Pure Corps. It's your voice that takes the Wild Cards out, your voice the first I hear when your birds come home. It's your eyes I have to meet, the expectation there I have to equal and exceed. You understand things I thought no one else could, things about me. I couldn't resist that. I didn't know how. I have so little experience at any true emotion...what I feel for you, for the Five-Eight, all of them...I understand it here," he pressed fingers to his temple, "but here is harder." The clenched fist he held to his chest seemed to cup his heart in the darkness.

"I have told you more of myself than I have any one person all my years in service. I am closer to you than even I was to fellow slaves who died beside me in the mines. And it has...hurt like hell to give myself that. So much so, I have felt I cut myself and spilled blood to you to do it. And I would not take it back for all the love, and happiness, and every other human joy imaginable. But I will give it up. Because there is no other way."

Her throat had closed on her. She ached to say anything, but didn't want him to hear the tears she was sure would cry in her voice. Instead, she put out her hand, flat on his chest between the spring of his ribs. The flesh there shivered away from her touch. She found her voice then, rough and low. "In the hold...that was for me. If you'll let me, a last time, I want this to be for you. There's no hatred here, no regrets, no remorse."

He watched her skim her hand over his chest, beneath the chain of his tags, up to his shoulder, bring the other around him and take him into a slow embrace. Face pressed to his neck, she breathed the scent of him again, tasted his sweet-salt skin once more. She traced the hard line of his spine with her knuckles, felt muscles jump along his back. His arms cradled her, gentle now, a feather touch like a bird's wings, or an angel's. His fingers trailed through her hair, and as he buried his face in its thickness, she felt his breath, warm on her cheek. But he took her arms and sat back, pushing her reluctantly away.

"Tyrus --" she started to say his name, but he brushed his hand over her lips.

"No. Close as we've been, that's closer than I can take."

"If we didn't break before, we won't now," she murmured. The stars burned through the port, hard, beautiful light. It haloed them in white. She felt she held a marble statue rather than a man.

"No. What you're offering is a gift I haven't the power to accept. We've learned how foolish we can be. My fault. I should have been...should have taught you to be...stronger. I will give this up. You will give this up."

It was a dismissal this time. She stood to go, his refusal hurting more than she had thought possible. But this is better, she told herself. What I came here for in the first place. Better one of us puts a stop to this before any of the hard words, like love, get said. Once spoken, words like that couldn't be retracted, and neither of them was ready for anything like that. "Just remember," she said, not facing him. She didn't know if she could make it out of the room if she saw his face again. "I'm here. She's not. The Angels are dead; let them sleep. We're the Wild Cards, and we're better."

There was a rustle of movement from the bed. She felt his touch on her arm, his hand gliding down to take hers and hold tight. He caught a word in his throat as if choking on it. It might have been her name, or another's, or different words entirely. "Maybe," he whispered finally, his voice like the darkness itself. Still she didn't turn back to him. "Maybe." They gazed out the port together, neither willing to break this last, fragile spell they had summoned, and watched as the ship hove close passed another dim, distant sun.

She waited in silence, patient and still as stone.

The End

Spanky © 1996

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