DT 2022: Noodle Night

Simon felt like a body out of time and place. But the port visit to Fell Justice seemed the deliverer of a nostalgic night.
It was Cassandra’s idea. Something completely out of her usual withholding and overly cautious character. It seemed in time her reservations only grew and her dissatisfaction with the universe even more so. But between running and fighting the usual shadows always trailing them from one frontier colony to the next, there was very little room for the innocent careless fun of their youth.
Spartan trainees dealt with many near-death experiences back in the day, but they learned to take them in stride. The worst they received was a physical or verbal beating worth nothing more than terror and bruises. Not even the jealous and petty hazing from the drill instructors, many of them past Spartan-III washouts, could really put them down.
Death wasn’t real. Training accidents were improbable.
Surviving on the frontier was a different experience entirely. Government black ops assassins, Syndicate bounty hunters, and esoteric agents of greater galactic orders. Rogue Spartans were their prey all the same. And death was very real out here.
And yet Simon and Cassandra dared to survive out on the edge of civilized space. Two strays running under the cover of the black night.
Of course, he was the only stray between the two of them. Where she found some purpose of good to create in the dregs of society, he moved from one necessary evil to the next until her checkered sense of morality guilted him into uprooting his killing from one profession to the next.
At the local equivalent of four in the morning on the melting pot colony, a bouncy Cassandra pounded down Simon’s door. It took her six door frame punches and then simply overriding his in-room privacy key to rouse her former teammate. Gingerly, he made the lengthy trek from his toasty sleeping-closet to the big door separating his larger personal quarters from the common-ways of his crew.
She continued from the exterior hallway, “Simon, mind waking up please. I need a ground team for a short port visit tonight. I figured you might come along.”
He offered her his usual disinterested groan as the doors parted and their eyes met. Really, he wanted to go back to sleep.
“I’d rather not at this hour. I can get someone to round up a few warriors if you insist.”
Her usual fierce or tired brown eyes seem to sparkle in the low hallway lighting and the warm inflection in her voice was a mild surprise. Funny, he recalled her being only cordial the day earlier.
“I think I would prefer the Shipmaster himself on this trip.”
Cassandra didn’t command like Simon did, but their shipmates seem to take her words with the weight of his own. Her nightly raid on his personal deck probably seemed normal to his graveyard shift guard detail.
A glance at the stoic Sangheili warrior in the hallway told him the night guard had nothing to offer at Cassandra’s ruse and Simon’s plight.
“Alright fine. How many others? What is this little trip of yours?”
Cassandra shook her head, offering a soft bounce of her short brown hair. “You and me. We’ll be back before you call formation.”
Simon felt very much against this idea once more, offering a tempting glance back at the dark cavern of his quarters.
“Please…” she asked again, catching his clear apprehension.
Looking at her inviting and excited eyes, he found himself convinced like a more naïve boy from five years before. He twisted his lips and nodded. “Fine, let me grab my gear.”
“Just a magnum, or two if you’re so nervous.” Cassandra suggested sweetly. She slid aside her light jacket to reveal a slinged machine pistol if danger did come up. Simon also registered she was out of her SPI armor. It was normal for her of course as someone so comfortable out of military regs but Fell Justice wasn’t known for easy strolls through the neighborhood.
Simon complied and the pair went on their way into the eternal, decedent skyline that seem to define the distant colony world so far from Earth’s dominion.
Streets twisted by Simon as he let Cassandra guide him along. He jumped a little in surprise when her hand reached back and encircled his own, bringing their strides closer together. Had her gesture not register a second earlier, his free hand would be on his suppressed pistol.
“Simon. Lighten up a little. It’s just a little bit further.”
The Spartan deserter tried but of course didn’t manage it. Cassandra’s relative, unusual ease set Simon more on edge.
“Let’s just make this quick,” Simon grumbled back to her. His companion didn’t look back at him but offered his hand a tough but meaningful squeeze.
Their trip took them to an unfamiliar side street in their host Fell Justice undercity lined by several open-air service booths. A few Japanese eateries in one part, some Neo-American and East European on the other side. At the late hour, very few customers sat on stools beneath low glow lights and the simmering sounds of tiny pop-up kitchens.
“Midnight snack then?” Simon inquired.
Cassandra nodded, letting go of Simon’s hand and invited him into an unnamed noodle shop. The salty aroma from the noodle broth hit the Spartan deserter like a speeding truck and he found himself guided along onto a bench to Cassandra’s right.
Simon noticed Cassandra eye the street kitchen’s evening crew as he did the very same. She also set down a pair of spare HUD glasses on the table, a subtle way for her to watch the alley behind them without glancing back.
The Spartan deserter whispered to his companion, “I thought you said to lighten up.”
“You know this kind of stuff best. Don’t lecture me,” Cassandra warned. “We haven’t had a chance to sit down and just be friends in a long time. And it’s been chaos over the last year. We could all use a break, including you.”
“There were more than a couple times we were willing to kill each other.”
“Times change,” Cassandra explained, nudging Simon twice with her elbow before attempting to lean her head on his shoulder. “I missed this. Just us.”
“You mean on Talitsa, or Reach? Or do you mean Genesis?” Simon whispered back. While a little perturbed by the physical contact and memory lane walk, he did feel his shoulders droop down an inch.
“All of it, even if there were a lot of bad times. The threat of dying still sucks, but I still had good memories from that time. We could use with making a few more.”
“So, we’re here to make a good memory?”
Cassandra hummed her affirmation, nodding at the plastic menus resting before them.
Simon handed Cassandra one of the menus and took one for himself, scrolling through the options for beef lo mien.
“Grab a beer too,” Cassandra ordered from the nook in Simon’s neck.
“I’ve never met a doctor who told me alcohol was good for me.”
“Oh, chill out. This doctor says so. You’ll sweat it out quick.” Cassandra chuckled.
Simon watched the assistant chef set aside his apron and prepare to take their order. The Spartan deserter looked away however as he felt Cassandra’s hair shift off his shoulder.
“Something the matter?” Simon asked, turning towards his friend.
Cassandra shook her head, leaning in. She pressed a light kiss to his cheek and pulled away.
“I mean what I said. I’m glad you’re back.”
Cassandra’s words implied more. Back at her side. Them, facing an unforgiving galaxy together once more.
Or at least that’s what Simon assumed she meant.
“I missed you too,” Simon replied, considering whether to match her small act of affection. He raised his chin and planted a light kiss on her forehead. An act he recalled long ago but it might not have been Cassandra then.
Time passed them both by a long time ago. But tonight, it seemed like they both felt a few years younger. Their shared bouts of laughter grew in intensity as the early morning wore on.
Even as they ended their sudden nightly escapade, Simon found himself guiding Cassandra through vacant streets with her pressed to his chest. The half-embrace brought back golden days. Of a couple runaway child soldiers hiding in a dingy hostel, reading illegal history books by one-window moonlight. A wary survivor duo plinking chopped logs in an ancient alien forest with a salvaged rifle.
A new memory joined them. Two old friends sharing noodles and beer in a no-name bar, able to forget the world around them for one more night.
Category:Short stories
Category:The Weekly