Hours

‘You’ve started smoking again?’ remarked Peters with a frown, as she pushed the last tray of instruments into the steriliser.

DJ paused and glanced down at the unlit cigarette he’d just pulled from his flightsuit pocket. He considered it for a long while, then lit up and turned away, busying himself with the various stacks of vacuum-packed supplies waiting to be stored. Peters watched him, the words ‘Fine, don’t tell me,’ hovering just behind her lips. The ship’s intercom bleeped, however, before she decided whether or not to voice them. She looked again to DJ, but when he didn’t move, she sighed and left her box of painkillers un-inventoried on the floor.

‘Medical,’ she answered.

‘You done yet?’ asked the voice at the other end.

Peters ran her fingers through her short, dark hair and looked around the medical bay, whose high tech equipment lay mostly hidden behind grey plastic boxes. Each of the lozenge-shaped stasis booths ranged around the edge of the section, lay open, some with wires already pulled out of their instrument panels, others scratched and dented and awaiting repair. The ship had never looked particularly neat, but after their last venture, she seemed barely able to hold herself together.

‘You kidding, Smith? We’ve got four crates still to check and put in stores before we get started on replenishing everything in here. And I thought Justin was going to come down here some time and check out the grav couches?’

‘He will, only he’s in the middle of something up here. So how much longer d’you two need?’

Peters glanced across at DJ, who returned a disinterested shrug and went back to work. ‘At least another two or three hours,’ she replied. The intercom fell quiet, hissing to itself. ‘Why?’

‘Computer’s still fucked. We’ve been at it for a couple of hours now, but it looks like it’s a hardware problem after all. I’m going to have to take out the primary power for a while so they can get in and gut the circuits.’

‘When do you need to do that?’

Smith paused again. ‘Well, now would be good, you know, before the ship decides it’s going to crash something like environmental systems next. You can work in the dark if you like, but you’d be better going on station till it’s done.’

Across the medical bay, DJ threw down his clipboard with a clatter.

‘So how long is it going to take?’ Peters asked.

‘We’ll give you a call when it’s done.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘What can I say?’ said Smith. ‘Could take five minutes if all it needs is a few replacements, or it could take six hours if the core’s fucked. Go back to the station. We’ll call you when it’s finished.’

‘Great,’ muttered Peters.

‘Look, we’re all in the same boat. I wanted to get the checks done and dusted and get my arse down to Earth like everyone else. But now I’m stuck here, counting the hours of leave I’m losing. So I’m not that fucking happy about it either.’

‘Fine.’

‘Just tell DJ not to get too rowdy down there. You know what he’s like.’

Peters laughed dryly and switched off the intercom.

‘Just great,’ she muttered. DJ glowered and headed out. Peters grabbed her rucksack from the floor and went after him.

‘Why do I get the feeling we’ll be spending this week on board station?’ she muttered. ‘Should’ve gone with the others when we had the chance.’

‘It’s got to be ready to go,’ DJ replied flatly.

‘I know.’

They passed through to the ship’s airlock bay and lowered the platform to gain access to the airlock itself.

Peters hit the controls and heard the inner hatch wheeze shut behind her. She glanced through the outer window at the brightly-lit docking port beyond. The computer screens meanwhile counted down the seconds until the outer hatch opened. She felt the urge to race out onto the station as soon as the doors allowed her, just to look at a different environment. As much as she appreciated the familiarity of the ship, as the weeks wore on with nothing but emergency calls, she had started to resent every bulkhead and hastily repaired console. She kept a postcard-worthy image of her condo at the front of her mind and it called to her from the planet below, along with her half-memories of open gardens, fresh air and the noise of bustling crowds.

Beside her, DJ folded his arms, pushing his thumb against his wedding band to twist it around. He watched the screen with a dark glower, as if willing the numbers to move a little faster. All the while, Peters stood a pace or two behind him, observing. A few fragments of potential small talk sprang to mind, but she stifled the urge, still trying to figure if the unusual tinge of emotion in his blue-green eyes, though barely discernible, was something to worry about. Even if it was, she thought, DJ never gave in to interrogation. He might even have stood up to her old girlfriends back home, she decided with a silent chuckle. Even Martha, the one who could glean an entire life story with a few carefully placed prompts.

When the inner hatch finally opened, however, he sighed and took a moment before stepping out onto the ship’s gunmetal grey umbilicus and then onto the station’s docking corridor, lined with soft beige panels. At the end of the short walk, they came to the final hatch and waited as it slid tiredly open.

‘Think I might find a com link to Earth,’ Peters mused aloud. She tried to infuse as much enthusiasm into her voice as she could, telling herself that the clinical interior of the station was at the very least a change from the Lewis and Clark. ‘Let them know I’ll be late. What about you?’

DJ shrugged again and folded his arms, staring at the floor as he walked. ‘Sleep, probably. Though I want to go over the manifest again.’

‘You don’t want to have a drink or something when I’m done? DJ?’

He paused and turned, thinking on her question. ‘All right,’ he replied finally, with an air of reluctance. They came to the end of the first corridor within that part of the station. Peters slipped ahead before the passageway branched off and stood in his path, reaching out to touch his arm. He flinched slightly as though she had roused him from a light sleep, and regarded her with a faint look of surprise.

‘So, I’ll come find you, soon as I’ve had a chance to call home,’ she told him. She waited a moment for an answer or some confirmation of their plans, but his face remained a mask. ‘Suppose this is a good thing in a way. Gives us a chance to talk before we go to Earth.’

DJ glanced at the floor, then brushed past her. A little surge of irritation rose up through Peters’ insides, coupled with the usual burst of frustration that came from conversations with DJ. There was something there, she had decided, if only she could get him to lower his guard. She was so busy wondering if she would ever do more than chip at him that she almost missed his mumbled comment as he walked away.

‘I’m not going to Earth,’ he said quietly.

He headed off along the next beige corridor, one that seemed to stretch off indefinitely, every section of it identical to the last. For a moment Peters simply stood, her brow slightly furrowed, but then she hurried to catch up.

‘What d’you mean you’re not going? DJ, we’ve got a week’s leave. After everything…after that last trip… We get our asses pounded into soup by meteors and you don’t want to get your feet on home soil, even for a little while?’

They came to one of a series of narrow windows in the corridor. The Earth below seemed close enough to touch, bathed in sunlight and swathed in fluffy cloud. The station sat in low orbit over the Middle East at that point, the measureless sapphirine ocean gleaming brightly compared to the colourless interior. DJ would have walked past without a second glance, but Peters hurried and caught the sleeve of his flightsuit. He paused and leaned against the wall beside the window. Peters bit her lip and came closer, setting her hand on his shoulder.

‘You really want to stay here instead of down there?’

‘Looks pretty from a distance,’ he answered under his breath.

‘Green hills, wide beaches with white sand, great blue ocean…’

‘You’ve never been to Dublin, have you?’ he asked dryly.

‘No matter how bad it is, it can’t be worse than being stuck here for God knows how long.’ Edging slightly nearer, she nuzzled into his shoulder and smiled. ‘Feels like ten years since I went home. It always surprises me when I come back and my son still knows who I am.’ For a moment, Peters closed her eyes. She breathed deeply, remembering. ‘You wonder sometimes if it’s worth it.’

‘Saving lives isn’t worth it?’

Again she fought the flash of annoyance that came as a natural reaction to his unnatural calmness. She suppressed the urge to leave him there to wallow in whatever misery he had found for himself, if he was determined to keep it hidden. But then she reminded herself that misery for DJ was unusual. For her, it was just something to keep track of.

‘Sounds heroic put like that,’ she replied at length, forcing a laugh. ‘Instead of saying that we’re leaving everyone behind to go chasing off around the system, too late to do anything other than salvage the scrap half the time, and then we spend the rest of our time filling in forms and counting boxes.’

‘There’re other jobs,’ remarked DJ.

‘Yeah, there are other jobs,’ Peters whispered. She squeezed his shoulder. ‘DJ, why don’t you want to go home? What’s happened?’

He nudged her away subtly and left the window. ‘I have work to do.’

‘And what about Sandra?’ Peters pressed, following him to the next section of the corridor. She waited for his reaction, but he didn’t even pause or lose the rhythm of his stride.

‘What about her?’

‘You’ve been away for months, and you don’t want to see her?’

‘No,’ he replied, turning sharply to face her. Peters’s eyes widened as she saw the crack in his façade. Although he quickly stifled it, a flare of something pained and weary crossed his face. ‘I don’t.’

~*~

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, what now?’ whined Smith, screwing up his face at the computer screen.

‘What is it?’ asked the blonde female officer at the next console.

‘Starck, I’m going home. This station is fucked.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Starck asked again, coming over. Smith, feet on the console, nodded towards the blinking monitor and then battered a few of the controls.

‘Bloody thing’s frozen up again. No response on any channel, look.’ He punched a set of random buttons then shook his head. ‘Nothing. I’ve tried four times to get an uplink to the station computer and download the stuff we need to get our main computer up and running, and every time it’s died. First time it told me there was a conflict with this ship’s operating system, which there isn’t. Then it said the link was terminated unexpectedly, shame, too bad, start again. Then it said it had an interruption issue in its free ranged protocols or something and I don’t even know what the fuck that meant. Now it’s frozen, won’t tell me why, not doing anything, not moving and I’m starting to get pissed off.’

Starck sighed and swept away from Smith’s chair. ‘Justin, could it be our hardware?’

The young engineer crawled out from beneath one of the bulky consoles and held up his hands in surrender. ‘It could be our interface, I suppose, but after the pounding we took in the shower, I replaced more or less everything, right down to the main hard drive. It should work. But I can try replacing the circuits.’

‘I’m just going to remind everyone of the conversation twenty minutes ago,’ said Smith, ‘where I believe I said, ‘are we sure the bloody thing’s plugged in properly?’

‘Shut up, Smitty,’ muttered Starck. ‘If that’s what it’s going to take, then do it. We can’t afford any more downtime. How long will it take to install a new interface?’

Justin, still on his back on the floor, tapped the underside of the console as he thought. ‘Say, an hour to swap over the hardware, then if that solves the problem with the uplink, another four or so hours to download the protocols and applications from the station to the new hard drive. Then another hour, say, to test it…’

‘Oh fucking fantastic,’ sighed Smith.

‘Get to it,’ ordered Starck. ‘Smith, tell Central Engineering what we’re trying to do and see if they can trace a fault at their end, just in case.’

‘We’ll need to get the components from Daylight,’ said Justin. ‘We don’t have any more spares.’

‘I’ll get them,’ Starck answered with a faint smile. ‘You get to work on hauling out the old stuff.’

‘Right,’ said Justin, already ducking beneath his console once again. Smith, meanwhile, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms sulkily.

‘So much for shore leave. You know I haven’t had sex in four weeks?’

‘That surprises me,’ mumbled Starck, on her way out.

‘I know, best looking boy on the ship and all…’

‘No,’ said Starck, ‘I meant that you’d had sex at all.’

~*~

‘So what did Sandra say?’ asked Peters.

DJ shrugged and wandered a little farther through the station. He slipped off his ring and fidgeted idly with it. Peters noticed that he slowed his pace slightly, perhaps to let her catch up, though he would never admit it.

‘Not much,’ he replied.

Her heart stung a little as she looked at him, resolutely denying any hurt he might have suffered. Perhaps it was the mothering instinct within her, which her shipmates were so quick to spot, but she felt like grabbing him and hugging him until everything was fine.

‘You should still see her,’ she advised. ‘I mean, one communication…people say things they don’t mean sometimes. Maybe she was drunk. Maybe she was tired or upset. You need to see her. You need to find out what’s going on.’

‘I know what’s going on,’ DJ answered plainly. ‘It’s been going on for years. This is nothing new. Nothing unexpected, anyway.’

Peters nodded, recalling the rare glimpse she caught of Sandra once on the station; a tall, fine-boned Englishwoman with a stare as unflinching as the vacuum outside. Having only just met DJ at the time, Peters had thought they were well suited, both ignoring the other with nonchalant ease. Perhaps sometimes opposites needed to attract, Peters thought.

‘Yeah, but…I know if someone told me something like that in a communication, I’d want to see them. I’d want to hear them say it face to face, not on a screen.’

‘No point,’ said DJ.

‘Don’t you want to try and talk to her? I mean, isn’t there any way you can work this out?’

‘If we work anything out, it won’t be by my going down there in hysterics and turning up on her doorstep. I’ll contact her, find out what she wants to do, what the lawyers have said. The house is in both our names, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Simple split. With no kids involved, it makes it even easier.’

Peters stared at him, trying to find the motivation to disagree with him. What, after all, was the point in a partnership like that? Although she flinched at the thought of seeing Ed again and could hardly mark their marriage as a fantastic success or a great example, Peters at least could remember a time when there was something between them. A long, long time ago, Ed had cared.

‘And you got this from her two weeks ago and never told anyone?’ she asked.

‘Miller knows.’

-Was there anything Captain Miller didn’t know? Peters thought dryly. ‘But you never told anyone else?’

‘It’s no one else’s business.’ He softened momentarily as soon as he spoke, and Peters took that as an apology. He could stand up to any interrogation, she mused again, so whatever was given, she should appreciate.

She caught his arm as he made to walk away, then drew him into a tentative embrace. Ignoring his impassive expression and stance, Peters hugged him and stroked his hair. ‘DJ, I’m so sorry.’

For a moment he stood there, enduring her attempts at consolation, or so it seemed. But after a moment, when Peters refused to let him go, he laid his hands lightly on her shoulders.

Well, Peters sighed to herself, at least that was a start.

~*~

Justin crawled out from beneath the console and frowned. ‘Think that’s done it.’

‘Right,’ said Starck. ‘Reconnect to the station servers and try again.’

Smith swivelled his chair to face his computer bank and fiddled with the controls. ‘Central still haven’t got back to us. Taking them a hell of a long time to check for faults. But this could all be a waste of time, if it’s at their end…’

‘Smith…’

‘Doing it. Connected to the station servers. Estimated download time…two hours. Call Elaine on the station, tell her to put the champagne on ice and to keep the sheets warm.’

‘Someone needs to stay here and keep an eye on it,’ muttered Starck.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ replied Smith with a sly smile. He made to stand, but a look from the other officer brought him slowly back to his place. ‘I’ll stay, shall I?’

‘Very kind of you,’ said Starck with a smile. She picked up her rucksack from the floor beneath her station. ‘I’m going to find Miller. Call me if there’re any problems.’

‘Will do,’ answered Justin.

‘What problems? We don’t have problems,’ mumbled Smith, watching the status bars and numbers on his screen sit practically immobile. Just to make sure, he reached up to the crucifix hanging above his station and gave it a brief caress. ‘We only have obstacles, all of which are between me and a good sleep, a good pint and a good shag.’

‘Maybe if you didn’t think about it twenty-four hours a day?’

‘I just want something more satisfying than one of Coop’s dodgy Japanese comics and my left hand.’

‘You and me both. How long?’

Smith folded his arms and put his feet on the console. ‘Two hours, fifty-five minutes and forty-five seconds. Forty-four…forty-three…forty…’

With a doleful whine, the console went dead and the screens black. Smith sat upright and scowled, trying a few of the controls. The monitor ahead of him flashed blue, a string of incomprehensible code flickering across.

‘What the fuck?’ he muttered.

A second later, the bridge lights faded with a mechanical sigh. Justin rushed to his station and stared at it.

‘What the fuck happened?’ shouted Smith. ‘Come on, sweetheart, don’t do this to me.’

‘I don’t know,’ Justin called back after checking his panel. He threw himself off his chair and disappeared beneath the console again. ‘What did you do, Smitty?’

‘I never touched the bloody thing.’

‘It’s shut down main power,’ Justin announced.

‘Er, how? We checked the interfaces to ship’s systems. Everything was working fine.’

‘Has to be a bug on the station’s server. Get onto Central again.’

Smith glared at the dead screen then punched the console.

‘Stupid bloody stupid fucking thing!’ he growled.

~*~

Peters switched off the video screen at the public communications console and cursed under her breath. She stood for a moment, ruffling her hair to help her think, and listening to the inert silence in the station’s observation lounge. The ubiquitous beige was becoming nauseating, but it drew her gaze towards the large window on the far side of the section and its spectacular view of the planet. For a while she simply stared at it. She still felt able to step out of that window and onto home soil, but at the same time, she suddenly realised just how far away from home she really was. The postcard condo was rapidly fading. After all, there would be no one home when she arrived. Then Denny would come to stay for a few days, until he had to be bundled off again as she shot off to be a hero. She glanced across at DJ, who had settled on the soft couch facing the window. Easy to believe, she thought, that they were the only humans for a million miles.

He ignored her totally, a small book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Even as she came over and sat on the chair beside him, he barely glanced up.

‘My ex isn’t too happy,’ she announced. ‘But he’s okay to keep Denny for another couple of days if necessary. Hopefully it won’t be. I hate to be this unreliable, but…’

‘It’s not your fault,’ DJ told her, without looking up.

‘I know,’ said Peters. ‘Just sometimes I wonder if I wouldn’t be better earthside. Get a job in an office somewhere.’

‘You’d be stir crazy within a week,’ DJ replied, almost smiling. ‘Once you’ve been out there, you can’t go back to ‘ordinary’ work. Or an ordinary life.’

Peters threw her head back and closed her eyes momentarily. ‘God, DJ, I’m tired. I don’t know if I can keep this up. Maybe I wasn’t meant for USAC work.’

‘We all think that,’ he answered. ‘But if we weren’t up to the job, USAC would never’ve employed us. Short and simple. We’ve had a long haul. Three missions with barely any rest in between and very little earth time. You’re bound to feel exhausted. Not the best time to make decisions.’

Peters considered him with a half smile on her lips. ‘Physician, heal thyself.’

‘What?’

Peters nodded towards the gleaming Earth.

DJ sighed, tossed the book down on the low table in front of him and got up, stubbing out his cigarette as he went past. ‘Peters…’

‘Even if you’re right about Sandra and there’s no chance you can work things out, staying cooped up on this station or worse, on the Clark isn’t going to do you much good. You need to get away. Have some human contact.’

DJ turned to reply but paused as the lights flickered. Peters too sat upright, listening to the background hum from the stations many instruments and systems. Everything settled again for a moment, then the lights dimmed altogether, leaving only a faint glimmer from a few red emergency bulbs around the place. With a groan, the bulkheads on either side of the deck slid downwards and clanked into place.

‘What’s going on?’ Peters mused, crossing to the communications panel once again.

‘Power failure,’ answered DJ. ‘Maybe a hull breach.’

‘I’m just getting an error message on this,’ Peters told him, shaking her head at the communications screen. She strode over to the nearest exit and tried the controls, but the mechanisms simply wheezed and the hatch remained closed.

‘This whole section’s on secondary systems,’ she decided. ‘I’ll try to get Central Engineering on the intercom. That should still be working.’

~*~

‘Do you want the bad news or the really bad news?’ asked Justin, climbing back up to the bridge. Smith stared dully at the black monitors.

‘I don’t give a shit. This day is already fucked and cannot get worse.’

‘Would you care to bet on that?’

Smith spun his chair around and looked wearily at the younger man. ‘Now what?’

‘I’ve just been down to the airlock,’ Justin told him. ‘Just to see if I could get out onto the station.’

‘And we’re stuck. No power to the hatches. I could’ve told you that without looking.’

‘Worse,’ said Justin. ‘Other side of the hatch is dark. Daylight Station’s on emergency power too. What did you do Smitty?’

‘What did I do? What the f…’ He turned as the panel beside him bleeped. ‘Lewis and Clark, go ahead.’

‘This is Central Engineering,’ said the crisp, officious female voice at the other end. ‘To whom am I speaking?’

‘Smith, ship’s pilot. Go ahead, Central Engineering, we’ve been waiting bloody hours...’

‘Lewis and Clark, we have detected a major computer fault in module OS04, resulting in emergency system shutdown. This fault has been traced to the umbilicus interface in docking port 4. I believe your ship has been using the interface.’

‘We have, and we’re in shutdown at the moment as well, Central. Have you any information on the fault besides blaming it on us?’

‘Our computers are registering a general protection fault in station module OS04. All systems will be in shutdown until the computers check the system for errors. I suggest you run a diagnostic on your own computers, Lewis and Clark.’

‘But is the fault on your side or ours?’ asked Smith.

‘We’ll know that when the system check is over.’ The voice hesitated slightly. ‘But we have been experiencing some technical problems on this…’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ mouthed Smith, glancing over at Justin. ‘I told you!’

‘We are doing everything we can to isolate the ultimate cause of these errors, Lewis and Clark, and in the mean time our engineers are on their way to the module to lend assistance…’

‘And what if your computer decides it wants to shut down environmentals next…?’

‘The computer core on module OS04 has been isolated and our engineers are maintaining environmental systems using a backup interface. We would advise you to do the same until the problem’s been found. Rest assured, the safety of our personnel and all ships patronising the station is our highest priority…’

‘Yeah, yeah…’ Smith sighed deeply. ‘Well, thanks a lot Central. Lewis and Clark out.’

~*~

DJ leaned for a moment against the bulkhead, then drifted back to the window and sat down resignedly. He retrieved the book from the table and leafed through, a faint sneer poised on his lips. Peters, sitting on the edge of the dais on which the couches were placed, cradled her head in her hands.

‘If Smith did this I’ll kill him,’ she breathed.

‘A system diagnostic shouldn’t take too long if it’s only this module that’s affected,’ DJ told her. ‘Still, it’ll set them back on board ship.’

‘Exactly. Now how many hours is it going to be before we can finish prepping Medical and get off this station?’

‘As long as it takes, Peters.’

‘You’re okay. You don’t want to go down there.’

‘Look, if it’s a problem, you go down as soon as the power’s back and I’ll handle the inventory myself.’

Peters sighed deeply. ‘No, that’s not fair. Besides, you’re still not going home?’

DJ shook his head. ‘Not worth it. We said all there is to say before I left. All that surprises me is that she waited three weeks before she sent that letter. I’d expected it to arrive on the station before we set off for the Moon.’

‘You had trouble for a while?’

He laughed dryly. ‘Since the start,’ he muttered quietly to himself. Peters believed him. The way Sandra kissed him on the cheek that time as she said goodbye…Peters remembered thinking that if ever they tried to get intimate, the pair of them would shatter like icicles.

‘So why’d you get married?’

DJ shrugged. ‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? You meet someone, you get along, you marry them.’

‘Little thing called ‘love’s’ supposed to come into it somewhere.’

Again he let out a short, humourless laugh. ‘Well, I’m not capable of it, apparently.’

‘That’s what she said?’

He turned one of the book’s yellowed, fuzzy pages with a sharp, abrupt movement.

‘Everybody feels something, DJ,’ said Peters. ‘Even Smith and Cooper have a heart somewhere buried beneath their libido. Some people just hide it deeper.’

‘Level two psych?’

Peters laughed. ‘Something my mom used to say.’

She got up stiffly and moved to the couch, nudging him over a few inches so she had room to sit down. Setting her arm around his shoulders, this time she pulled him in close and refused to let him shuffle free.

‘I wanted to scream when Ed left me,’ she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. ‘But then I had no idea…we’d had fights, but everybody does. I never knew he wasn’t coping. I never saw it. That’s what hurt the most. Feeling like such a grade-A fool for not knowing what went on in my husband’s head. I thought he had it in him to stay put. I thought he could cope with looking after Denny. I mean, neither of us thought it would be easy, but we agreed that we’d stick together for Denny’s sake. We’d stay strong for him. Then one day I brought him home from the hospital from his check up, and we found Ed’s message on the machine. He couldn’t even wait to tell us in person. Just let us head out that morning and packed his bags as soon as we were out of the driveway.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said DJ coldly. He glanced up briefly from his reading. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘He said, ‘looking after a crippled kid wasn’t how he saw his life turning out’. I felt like strangling him. I mean, my God, as if any of us thought that would happen, but you can’t just walk away! Then he had the nerve to blame me, said I was off world too often, leaving him to cope alone. God, DJ, if you’d heard him at the hearings. How he’d been forced to walk out because of the pressure, how he couldn’t rely on me and neither could Denny. He sat there in that courtroom and let his lawyer tell them all how rotten a mother I was. But then that suited him. He got the custody deal he wanted. Couple of weeks a year, when he can play at being ‘dad’, then leave the rest of it to me. He sees him over the summer or over Christmas, while I get the joys of school and homework and medical treatments…’

She trailed off with a faint sob, rubbing her eyes and inhaling deeply until she steadied herself.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, turning to give him a hug. ‘Last thing you need is to hear my problems.’

She felt him straighten and squirm slightly as she touched him, but he let the book drop onto the seat beside them and patted her lightly on the back.

‘It’s all right, Peters.’

Peters nodded and smiled, but she kept her hold on him. ‘Well, maybe now he’ll see what it’s like,’ she went on. ‘For once he’ll have to see the whole picture, not just the edited highlights. It’s almost worth staying here for the week and letting him see what I’ve had to live with.’

‘You don’t mean that. You can cope, you always do.’

‘You don’t know me well enough to say that.’

‘I know what I’ve seen.’ He looked up, deeply serious. ‘And I took level two psych.’

Peters sat back, studying him with a slightly incredulous expression, trying to fathom it that really had been an attempt at humour. DJ turned away uncomfortably.

‘You need the fight, Peters,’ he said. ‘If ever you let yourself give in, you’d be finished.’

A faint shadow of annoyance crossed Peters’ face. ‘And you?’ she rejoined. ‘Can you keep going after you’ve given up?’

‘I gave up a long time ago and I’m still here.’

DJ sat back and folded his arms, contemplating the Earth’s slow-moving clouds with a deeply thoughtful expression. Peters glanced around, then wandered to the hatch again, tapping it lightly as if to make sure it was still there and still sealed. She watched him for a while without him noticing. She wondered if he even had something to give up. Maybe, she thought, that was how he could stay so cool, because he didn’t realise just how much he was missing out on. Or, on the other hand, she could be making this all up to justify her intruding on his privacy. But it seemed such a waste. She noticed how much he had softened in the last few moments alone. Given enough time… She ran her hand through her hair and shook her head. There was something so fascinating about his intensity, something that had drawn her in ever since she came aboard, and that made his disinterest and closed nature bearable. He just needed the right antipode to bring it out.

Returning to the seats, she picked up the book he had discarded, hoping it wasn’t just a ship’s manual or some medical textbook, but then she frowned at the cover.

‘Our Lunar Love?’

‘It was on the table.’

Peters opened the book at random and smirked at the page. ‘Her heart pounded as he peeled off his bulky spacesuit and revealed his trim and supple body. ‘Oh Lieutenant Sebastian,’ she whimpered, ‘we can’t succumb to our passions! We are from two different worlds. You will never give up your commission in the Space Corps – you can’t give it up! You were born to save lives! You’re the best pilot, doctor and engineer in the Corps and I…I’m just a Martian miner’s daughter…’

She raised an eyebrow and regarded him over the top of the book. DJ shuffled in the chair and frowned. ‘It’s not mine.’

‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

Peters sat back, chuckling quietly as she read a few more paragraphs, then she let out a beleaguered sigh. ‘Wish we’d made it at least as far as the recreation area before the place shut down. There’s not even a coffee machine in here.’

‘More you think about it, the more you’ll want it,’ remarked DJ disinterestedly. ‘Best to sit down, enjoy the quiet.’

‘Get about enough quiet in space, thanks. Eugh, thought I’d be home by now amongst people. A big crowd of people and all the noise that comes with them; even if they’re strangers, it doesn’t matter. Just the feel of them around…other humans.’

She went over to the window and stood in front of the glass, stretching her arms.

‘I mean, don’t you miss it?’ she went on, turning on him. ‘Sure, everyone on board is great and they’ve made me feel part of it all, but don’t you miss real human contact? Just sitting around with friends or family and chatting about something other than past missions or Smith and Cooper’s conquests? Don’t you just want a hug sometimes? Or better still…’ She trailed off and stared at the carpet.

‘Is that a rhetorical question?’

‘Just being stuck here,’ Peters answered, shaking her head. ‘I just want out. Just want to be back home amongst people who don’t know me. People who don’t rely on me.’

‘It’ll be a few hours at most,’ DJ told her, settling back into his chair. He rested his head against the cushions and closed his eyes.

‘You’re going to sleep?’ Peters asked.

‘What else is there to do?’

‘Thanks.’

With a sigh, he sat up slightly. ‘I’m not much of a conversationalist, Peters.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she laughed. ‘Saying that, I suppose it could be worse. Could be stuck here with Cooper.’

‘Then you wouldn’t have to worry about passing the time. Sure he’d come up with something.’

‘I don’t know,’ sighed Peters. ‘Even Cooper’s looking like a good bet these days. Don’t look at me like that. You try living in a tin can with a group of guys who think of nothing else all day, and feel the need to share their obsessions every rest period. You try watching them swagger around Moonbase, or the Mars colony, or this station, working their way from girl to girl, knowing your only companion in the near future’s likely to be battery powered. They just don’t seem to realise we have urges, we have needs too. And Starck doesn’t help. Rumour is she’s as bad as they are, man in every port. I don’t need a man to run my life for me, but I’m human, damn it. I need a little warmth, a little contact now and then. A little fun. And you can stop looking at me like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like I’ve gone insane and you expect me to draw an axe out of my flightsuit.’

DJ glanced away with an apologetic frown. ‘If it’s that much of a problem, I can give you something to reduce the urge…’

‘I don’t need you to drug my coffee every day, DJ, I need to get home. Or at the very least to get laid.’ As soon as the words escaped her lips, Peters blushed and threw an embarrassed scowl his way. DJ made a great show of not making eye contact.

‘You’ve got someone down there?’ he asked tactfully.

Peters scowled, then sat on the floor beside his chair, hugging her knees to her chest. ‘No,’ she said with a pout. ‘And unlike Starck, I can’t just walk up to a guy and drag him back to my place.’

‘You shouldn’t have any trouble…’

‘And I don’t need platitudes, DJ. D’you know how long it’s been since a man told me I looked good, and didn’t just say it to shut me up?’

Still looking decidedly uncomfortable, DJ shrugged and shook his head. Peters bit her lip.

‘Well let’s just say it’s been a while. I mean, how the hell do you do it, DJ? How d’you shut off from it all?’

‘Shut off?’

‘Well, you never bother with Smith and Cooper. You never care about being away from home for months on end. Damn it, why aren’t you as insane as I am?’

‘You get used to it,’ he replied, and she noticed he did not argue with her assessment of her mental state. ‘Just a matter of keeping calm, learning not to think about it.’

‘So you’re never tempted to go with them down to Moonbase, just to scratch an itch?’

DJ shuffled in his chair and stared at the window. Peters allowed herself a slight smile. So the thought had occurred then. ‘Even if I did decide to find some company, Peters, I’d hardly go with those two.’

‘Be hard keeping up,’ Peters muttered. ‘If you believe their ‘mission reports’.’

‘Why don’t you ask one of them?’

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Do you really have so low an opinion of me?’ She laughed and slapped his knee lightly. ‘Besides, shipboard liaisons…bad idea. And believe me, if I did decide to sleep with anyone on board ship, it wouldn’t be those two.’

She opened her mouth to say more, but checked herself at the last minute. DJ didn’t notice and continued to gaze darkly at the window, the earthlight giving his eyes a subtle glitter. Bad idea, she told herself again. He seemed so tired, almost to the point of looking haggard. But one thing Peters had always hated was the way ideas burrowed into her brain, and once there, never left until she had pursued them as far as she could.

She smiled faintly at him, her hand still on his thigh. ‘When…’ she began quietly. ‘When was the last time…you know?’

He looked away. ‘A while ago.’

Peters slid up off the floor and sat beside him on the chair. ‘D’you think you’ll try again? If things really are over with Sandra?’

‘It’s not worth it,’ he replied quietly with a shrug.

‘What about short term?’ She edged a little closer.

‘I don’t know.’

Bad idea, she thought again and swallowed hard. ‘What about a one-off?’

He studied her for a long moment, wearing a shadow of a frown. Peters inhaled deeply and moved close enough to feel his body brush against hers. DJ froze.

‘We’re stuck here,’ Peters went on, keeping her voice low. ‘I don’t know about you, but I don’t think ‘Our Lunar Love’ is going to keep us amused for very long, and we’re likely to be here a good few hours.’ She ran her fingers slowly down his arm and took his hand. He remained absolutely still and gazed at the floor. ‘I need…something, DJ. I’m tired of feeling like a machine, and only having machines for company. You forget, I think, how much there is on Earth, how much stimulation there is all around. Lack of it can drive you mad. Lack of something so basic as human touch…’

Before he could protest, she caught hold of his jumpsuit collar and drew him towards her, ignoring the slight resistance she felt from him. After the last flicker of doubt faded from her eyes, she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. He straightened and pulled back from her, but Peters moved nearer and curled her hand around the back of his head, pressing him into a deeper kiss. She thought she felt him reciprocate slightly, his stony muscles relaxing just a little, but after a moment he pushed her back.

‘Peters…’

Peters shivered, her pulse thumping past her ears. Lowering her gaze, she held his hand once again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I wasn’t thinking. Of course you’re not interested…I’m sorry.’

She got up and walked to the window, folding her arms, and cursed under her breath. She closed her eyes and listened to her inner voice as it chanted ‘bad idea’ in an extremely smug tone.

After a few moments, however, she felt DJ step up behind her and place his hands tentatively on her shoulders. He paused there for a long while, simply holding her. There was nothing very encouraging in his manner, but she smiled to herself all the same. Just the feel of his breath on the back of her neck prickled her nerves and started to wake her body up. She turned to face him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He looked down at her mournfully then glanced away.

‘This isn’t the place,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper.

Peters breathed deeply. ‘There’s no one here. The place’ll be sealed for a while. Environmentals are still working, so there’s no danger to us...’

She rested her forehead against his chest, trying to think of something that would persuade him, and at the same time feeling the guilt well with every heartbeat. His expression remained austere and she wondered if she was imagining the spark of indecision in his eyes. Maybe, she thought, she wanted to see a touch of longing there.

Peters hugged him closer and reached up to touch his face. ‘DJ…’ Her voice faltered as a scrap of honesty broke through. ‘I really want this.’

She let her fingers trail over his cheek and lips, glad that he didn’t resist, then she pressed into him and kissed him again. She squeezed him gently then let her hands wander over his back, enjoying the warmth of his mouth on hers even though his body remained tense. He cupped her face, drawing back to study her. Peters guided him closer, until their hips touched. The feel of him against her sent sparks through her body and she closed her eyes, nuzzling her face against his. For a moment she didn’t care who or what he was. She just enjoyed his touch. It seemed so long since anyone had been that close.

With a wide smile, she took hold of the lapels of his flightsuit and traced the line of his collar until she hit the first button, which she ably teased out. Brushing her lips against his in the beginnings of a kiss, she slipped her hand inside and caressed his skin with the lightest touch.

‘The power could come back,’ he whispered.

‘Not for a while.’

‘They’ll have engineers on the way.’

‘If you don’t want me, DJ, all you have to say is ‘stop’.’

For the first time, Peters saw him really falter. She tried not to laugh. Instead she prized his hand from her hip and led him to the couch, mouthing, ‘Come on,’ with a smile.

~*~

Smith stroked the console and frowned, whispering ‘Come on.’ The monitors, however, remained dark, save for the small, portable computer unit sitting on the floor, tracking the progress of their diagnostic.

‘As pain in the ass problems go,’ remarked Justin, ‘this isn’t bad. Couple of hours and we’ll be back on schedule.’ He leaned back in his chair and turned his attention back to the comic book he’d been scrutinising.

‘You can do what you want,’ mulled Smith. ‘Take as many precautions as you like. All it takes is some wanker who hasn’t a clue what he’s doing and we’re all fucked.’

‘Cheer up, Smitty.’

‘And you should not be reading that,’ Smith went on, pointing wearily towards the comic. ‘You’re too young, Baby Bear. You’ll turn into an old lecher like Coop.’

Justin chuckled. ‘I don’t even understand half of it.’

‘Course not, it’s in Japanese.’

‘Wonder if Coop’s made himself comfortable over there?’ Justin asked aloud. ‘Stuck somewhere cosy in the dark. Probably hasn’t even noticed the computer’s down.’

Smith scratched his nose. ‘Suppose at least we’re here. I mean, we’re used to being stuck here. Got things to do. Better than being sealed up in some tiny little module with nothing to look at.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Justin with a sigh. ‘Lucky us.’

~*~

Peters tossed her flightsuit onto the floor and returned to DJ’s lap, throwing her arms around his shoulders. He shuddered as their skin touched and looked up at her, deeply serious. She offered him a chaste but teasing kiss on the lips then let her gaze wander over him. Though the standard issue, lifeless grey underwear they both wore did little to enhance anything, Peters wasn’t unimpressed. He was skinnier than Ed, and a little pale, but not unattractive. She leaned closer and kissed his neck, feeling more confident as his resistance lowered. He ran his fingers through her hair, barely touching her at first, then he placed his hand on her shoulder as if he wasn’t entirely sure how far he was allowed to go. He toyed with the strap of her vest and she obliged him by pulling it off entirely and throwing it down with the flightsuit.

Hardly much to look at, she thought as she glimpsed her own body, but as she glanced up, she caught a quietly appreciative smile gracing his lips. She guided his hand from her shoulder to her breast, unsure if he was out of practice or just didn’t know anything. Somehow she couldn’t picture Sandra as the erotic sort. Cursing mentally, she pushed Sandra from her mind and attacked his mouth once again. She caressed his thighs and chest, kissing him deeply all the while, then eased him down onto his back.

With the earthlight beaming brightly through the dark of the module, they lay together on the couch, embracing and exploring each other’s bodies for a long while. Peters slipped off her shorts and straddled DJ, her fingers moving lightly over his chest. Naked save her dogtags, she breathed deeply and let her hands move down to his hips, before she teased down his briefs.

It has been so very long, she thought shakily. No one had touched her in so long.

As she lowered herself onto him, her body seemed aflame, dancing with renewed vigour. She rocked her hips and closed her eyes, holding his hands at first, then she arched her back and leaned towards him until their faces almost touched. DJ raised his head and tried to kiss her, but their lips barely met. She felt him writhe beneath her as they made love and her pulse quickened. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she sensed the steely coldness fading from his body. But that was the last thought she gave the matter, as her own desire took over. She ignored the station’s bland surrounds and even the glowing scene beyond the window, so that she could simply feel something again. She rode him steadily, revelling in every wave of pleasure that coursed through her.

‘God, DJ,’ she breathed, but only heard him rasp in reply. She grinned. Finally she would have something to smirk about in the next ‘conquests’ conversation.

~*~

Justin wandered in a circle around the airlock bay and checked the racks of EVA suits once again. None of them had deteriorated in the ten minutes since his last inspection, but the activity filled a few seconds. He had just reached his own suit, however, when he noticed the slight flicker beyond the airlock. He jumped down to the lower level and headed over to the hatch, peering through the filthy window. Beyond, in the station’s docking corridor, the lights blinked, then with a stutter, came on fully.

Justin grinned and hurried back to the bridge. ‘Looks like the module’s got power again. Try switching back to primary systems?’

Smith glanced up sleepily from his console, then studied the instruments for a while. ‘Well there’s no fault showing up on any of our stuff.’

Justin nodded and headed off.

‘I’m not touching the bloody interface again though until Central get back to us,’ Smith called after him.

‘If they don’t know what’s wrong,’ said Justin, pausing by the ladder off the bridge, ‘then they’ll have to trawl through their whole system and check everything. Could be days before we can link up again.’

Smith raised an eyebrow. ‘So you telling the rest of ‘em that? Sorry folks, no leave this time, because we’ve got to sit here and play noughts and crosses till Central pull their finger out?’

Justin shrugged. ‘Oh, I think it’d sound better coming from you, Smitty, I mean they trust you more. You’ve got age and experience…’

‘Get the fuck out of here,’ muttered Smith, turning back to his console with an irritable sigh.

‘And charm and good manners…’ Justin went on, laughing as he climbed down from the bridge.

~*~

Peters draped herself over DJ’s body with a deep sigh. Catching her breath, she rubbed her eyes and smiled to herself. She lay for a while, idly brushing her fingers over his hair. She could easily have stayed there for another few hours, but she knew better. She caressed DJ’s cheek and kissed him one final time before she sat up and grabbed her clothes from the floor. Dressing with her back towards him, she was aware of him watching her and smiled, but only for a moment.

When at last she faced him, DJ looked awkwardly up at her and rubbed the back of his neck. He seemed to debate whether to speak to her or not for a long while, then fixed his shorts and silently began to dress. Peters folded her arms and watched him button up his flightsuit with his habitual precision. Part of her still trembled from the shock of feeling pleasure again after so long. Yet she found her brain faltering every time she tried to think of something to say. Oddly, she didn’t feel guilty, but at the same time, she couldn’t quite pin down what she was thinking.

DJ adjusted his belt and gave his clothes a final tug till everything was in its proper place, then he came to her side, folding his arms as he looked down on the Earth. Peters glanced up, then slipped her arm around his waste and gave him a gentle squeeze. It took a great deal of resolve to push back the stream of ideas rushing through her head, ideas she knew were inappropriate and impractical. Glancing up at him, she knew there was nothing between them, even now. In a few days’ time they would be back onboard ship and neither of them would mention this. Neither of them could mention it if they were to serve together. But all the same, she wished she didn’t have to let him go, at least not for a while.

‘DJ,’ she began, ‘if you’re not going home for shore leave, how about…’

She cut short as the module lights flickered on, the view shrank away and their own reflections stared back instead. Behind them, the hatch opened noisily and two of the station’s engineers stepped through. Peters quickly released her hold on DJ. He turned away from her, folding his arms.

‘About time,’ he said quietly. Peters couldn’t be sure if that was meant as a joke.