Maia's Memory: Darryl and Lily

## **From Part One, Chapter 5, Scene 2:**

It was a rare night off and Maia found herself kicking back at her usual table in the cantina. Feet up, a dangerously intoxicating beverage in her hand, she was enjoying the live music and people watching when her view became abruptly eclipsed by six feet of sinewy male perfection.

He possessed the sort of body that made a snug fitting Fleet uniform a thing of obscene beauty. The flexible material stretching and straining across his broad chest and shoulders, wrapping sensually around flexing biceps, and a taut waistline that would have made any laundress proud to scrub her delicates with it.

Allowing her eyes to causally tour the perfectly rounded globes of his behind, she uttered an admiring whistle at the thickness of his thighs, which quickly garnered his attention and changed her view to an entirely different thickness.

Lieutenant Darryl James’ piercing, pale green eyes twinkled in contrast against his dark complexion as he recognised her and promptly filled the remainder of the booth she occupied without waiting for an invitation.

Stretching those long legs out next to hers on the table, he signaled for the waitress and made himself comfortable.

“Seems they’ll let anyone in here,” she remarked, dryly, suppressing a grin at his amused chuckle.

“See, that’s why I knew I’d find *you* here,” he retorted, thanking the waitress with a smile that sent her tittering back to the bar in a flush.

Maia sighed, rolling her eyes at the entire exchange before smacking him in the shoulder when he turned and tried to flash the same smile at her.

“Don’t be tryin’ that voodoo on me, buddy,” she laughed. “So what’s got you hunting me down?”

“One day you’ll drink enough,” he winked, the smile slowly fading into a more serious expression. “I’ve taken a new assignment and report tomorrow. Wanted to check in and say good bye.”

“Good bye is an awful final thing to say.”

He gave a tight laugh, “It’s an exploratory. Brand new ship that aims to push past the border. You know the drill.”

She did. Too well.

“This a deliberate pick?”

He nodded and she failed to hide her shocked expression.

This time the laugh came more easily, “You remember our last shore duty together? When we were on Columbia station?”

Wincing at the recollection Maia nodded, “Parts of it…”

“We’d left the club and were at that greasy diner trying to sober up before heading back to the barracks. Got to talking about the future and the sorts of heavy shit that falls out of your brain after too many shots. You’d said you were getting bored, remember? That the cruisers and shit were steady and paid well, but you felt stale, like a cog in a wheel that nobody turned anymore.”

“I said I wanted to go down in history,” she nodded, grimacing, “Then I puked across the table.”

“You definitely went down in that place’s history.”

Maia dug her elbow into his ribs before turning to face him more directly, “So is that what you’re after? The history books?”

He nodded, looking around him before meeting her gaze, “Have you changed your mind, then? Happy in cog-dom?”

“You offerin’ me a job?”

“Maybe,” he admitted, casting her a sidelong glance, “but not the one you’re thinking. Not this time.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The crew of this mission is mostly seasoned old fucks like me who want more out of their lives than retiring to a colony and talking about their ‘time in space’ at the local bar. There are a few enlisted, and some researchers, but mostly it’s soldiers who have seen enough idle time and want adventure.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Maia studied Darryl’s shift in posture and laughed, “Mostly, but not all. Who’s pulling your heartstrings, old man?”

To her amazement Darryl blushed, confirming her guess.

“She’s just a kid, Maia. Barely out of basic, with a head full of romantic notions of the glory of space travel and boldly going where no man has gone before.”

“And you want me to set her straight, right? Tell her what a shit show it can be to spend weeks at a time in cramped quarters with crewmates who have questionable hygiene habits? Shit man, how long has she known you that you’re still showering on the regular?”

Shaking his head, Darryl laughed briefly, then sobered and looked her directly in the eyes, “I want you to do whatever it takes to make sure she misses launch tomorrow. She’s technically auxiliary engineering, we can operate just fine without her. She’s talented as hell, but she got a spot on the crew because her father knows the right people. She’s not ready for this, Maia.”

“You’re serious.”

“Like a heart attack.”

In another rare moment, Maia found herself speechless. Suddenly Darryl wasn’t the cocksure, womanizing hardass she’d known for almost a decade, but a weary soldier looking for his last hurrah. His blaze of glory.

The tinge of grey at his temples, the crinkle of skin around those always laughing eyes, the way he cringed just a little when moving his thrice busted knee…

“I never figured you for the daddy type,” she grinned, relaxing a little when he flipped his middle finger up at her. He might have been looking to save a kid’s skin, but he was still the same asshole deep down. Thank God.

Following him to the docking bay she gave another low whistle when she saw the ship he was joining. The Magellan: the Fleet’s premiere prototype exploration starship.

A brand new build, it was a thing of shining glory among the older boats surrounding it. He’d intended to take her straight to the crew quarters in order to lure their quarry out for the night, but she’d convinced him a tour of the engineering deck was required as payment for doing his dirty work.

She’d never seen anything its equal. Machinery she’d only seen specs of hummed along the walls of the corridors leading down to an utterly immaculate engine room, which itself was massive, but nearly bare of systems in order to make room for the ship’s hyperdrive. A piece of machinery Maia’d seen a prototype of, but hadn’t realised existed in production.

“It doesn’t,” came a quiet voice from a corner room when she’d stated as such.

Turning, Maia came face to face with their quarry, and realised distracting Darryl’s little bird was going to be a lot easier than she’d expected.

The girl was small, almost boyish in appearance, with her lean body and shock of amber hued hair. The curve of her hips, however, was anything but. Large, hazel eyes rimmed with long, dark lashes observed them both as she worried at her bottom lip under Darryl and Maia’s scrutiny.

Maia may have made a noise, she couldn’t remember, but she certainly recalled her instant agreement that the girl before them was far too wide-eyed innocent to be going into the unknown with a questionable chance of returning home.

She also remembered how impressed she’d been with the girl’s… with Lily’s talent. She’d started shy until they got to talking about the drive and other systems, then she came alive and the depth of her knowledge had imbedded itself in Maia’s brain.

The smattering of freckles across her nose and the way she’d constantly licked her lips before going into a deep description of something had imbedded itself somewhere entirely different.

After the tour they’d managed to convince her to join them for a bon voyage drink, succeeding in them all getting rip roaring drunk. When Lily’d awakened the next morning, her pristine, porcelain thigh draped over Maia’s tattooed back, Magellan was long out of port and well past the point of requesting retrieval of a single, non-essential crew member.

Maia still remembered the look of rage on Lily’s face when she’d realized she’d been left behind, quickly followed by utter betrayal as she learned they’d conspired to keep her from her post.

While she’d initially felt guilty, Magellan’s disappearance had quelled any regret she’d had for sparing Lily the fate of the rest of the crew. She was now doubly vindicated knowing exactly what that fate was. However, she’d always regret hurting her, and losing the opportunity to pursue something further. The angry tirade Lily had gone on after discovering she’d been duped indicated clearly that future contact was most certainly out of the question, and indeed they hadn’t spoken since.

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