LotS/The Story/Puny Human Birthdays/TheCenturianLieutenantsWoman

The Centurian Lieutenant's Woman

"You've requested a day's leave?" Colonel Rahn asked. He glanced up from the screen.

"Yes, colonel." Lieutenant Rautha replied.

"For..." He looked back at the display. "Extracurricular combat training?"

"I believe my close-quarter fighting skills could be improved, sir."

"According to these records, your instructors have consistently rated your proficiencies as 'superior'."

"I intend to be evaluated as 'exceptional' next time, sir."

"An admirable goal."

The colonel's face betrayed nothing, yet there was something in his eyes and tone that Rautha found perturbing.

"Thank you, sir."

Rahn turned his attention to the screen once more, releasing the lieutenant from his scrutiny. Rautha exhaled.

"What an interesting coincidence..."

"Colonel?"

"Your date of birth..."

Rautha gulped.

"Lieutenant, are you aware of the recent directive which cautions active military personnel against the celebration of birthdays? It used the terms 'excessive hedonism', 'appalling inebriation', 'frivolous merriment' and 'unbecoming behavior'."

"Y... Yes, sir."

"Then you wouldn't request leave under false pretenses, so you could engage in activities that your superiors would frown on."

"Of course not, colonel!"

"Good. Your request for leave is granted."

"Thank you, sir."

Rautha swiveled before his grin could betray him, and made for the door with a rapid stride.

"Oh... Lieutenant Rautha?"

He froze in front of the doorway, suppressed a groan, composed his features, and turned back.

"Sir?"

"Happy... morning." Rahn's lips twitched.

"Thank you, colonel!"

Rautha waited till he was in the corridor and the thick, soundproof door had closed behind him. Then he thrust both fists up into the air.

"Rautha's on leave, bitches!"

There was a small cough from his left. The lieutenant lowered his arms and looked round. A woman with a captain's markings on her uniform stood there, an eyebrow raised.

"Captain..."

Rautha saluted.

"Lieutenant."

She returned the salute.

Rautha strode off down the corridor.

• • • 
      

The building ahead throbbed with the beat of trashy music and the promise of intoxication. Rautha grinned.

Some of his friends at the base had recommended this club. It was supposed to be a place where the staff knew how to keep their mouths shut. And no high-ranking officer was likely to be out in this rundown part of the city. Not unless rumors about a certain colonel's sexual habits were true...

He crossed the narrow street and walked up to the doorman -- a big lump of muscle with a bald head and a black top. The latter had the words "I'll Break Your Spine" written across it in big glowing letters, above an animation of a red stickman repeatedly snapping a blue stickman over his knee.

Rautha pressed a hard credit chip into the bouncer's hand. The big man glanced at it, before nodding and waving him through the door.

The inside of the club reminded the lieutenant of a battlefield. Multicolored lights flashed across the dance floor like blaster fire, and the music resembled a series of cataclysmic explosions more than any kind of melody. That might have been why most of the dancers looked as though they were convulsing in a series of painful upright seizures.

It wasn't a place to be enjoyed sober. So he walked over to the bar, which lurked in shadows at one end of the room -- like a vampire glaring from the darkness at the gaudy dance floor and its inhabitants' gyrating flesh. A ghostly face hovered there, illuminated by the soft glow of a datapad's screen.

The barmaid rolled her eyes as he approached. She set the device aside, banishing its phantasmal light from her pretty face.

"What?" she asked.

"Vodka and coke."

She sighed, as though she'd hoped he might have said "nothing" and simply wandered off again. But she mustered up the energy to pull down a bottle of vodka and splash some into a tumbler. Then she grabbed a small plastic packet from under the bar, unzipped it, and poured white powder into the liquor. She stirred the mixture with air of one performing a Heraclean labor. Rautha decided to seize the moment.

"It's my birthday."

"So?"

He decided not to tip. Instead he picked the drink up with one hand and slid its price across the bar in hard credits with the other. The barmaid snatched the creds without looking. She was already lit up by her datapad again.

Rautha took a long gulp. The back of his mouth burned. His eyes widened. Screw her! It was his birthday, damn it -- and he felt good! Thus fortified by potato-based liquor and chemistry, he let out a comfortable sigh, leaned back against the bar, and swept the club with his gaze. Drinking was great, but it'd be more fun with a little company...

And that was when he saw her.

A group of women came into the place in the same giggling gaggle. His eyes fastened on them, scenting fresh meat and studying it in the manner of lecherous club-goers across the galaxy. Most of them were garbed as flamboyantly as the club's lightshow, their low-cut, high-hemmed dresses riots of blaring color that looked as if they'd cornered fashion and good taste in an alleyway and stabbed the pair of them to death. Some were attractive in a trashy sort of way, their faces plastered with the counterfeit beauty of heavy makeup and cheap cosmetic surgeries. At another time they might have held his attention. But not when the garish host parted and he glimpsed the woman in their midst.

She was as out of place as a Cytheran hooker in a nunnery. Instead of the skimpy dresses the others sported, she wore a blue jumpsuit -- not unlike Rautha's own. It hid her flesh, made her into a beacon of modesty in a sea of pale and tanned skin, but couldn't quite conceal her curves. Veiled as it was, her figure put the others' to shame. And she must have avoided whatever cosmetics factory explosion had splattered her companions. Her face held a soft, alluring beauty made even sweeter by its hint of trepidation.

The others surged towards the dance floor like a pack of hyenas in search of carrion. A couple of the pack leaders had already latched onto men, ignoring the murderous glares of the women they'd previously been dancing or chatting with. One of those at the back grasped the girl in the blue jumpsuit by her arm, and tried to pull her along. But she gestured at the bar, and the harridan released her -- perhaps believing alcohol would help loosen the girl up.

Rautha took another burning gulp as she approached. Heady exhilaration flashed through his brain. He didn't know if it was the drink.

The girl leaned over the bar.

"Excuse me..."

The barmaid sighed and set aside her datapad. Whatever thrilling piece of literature she was reading, it was destined to go unresolved for at least a few minutes longer.

"What?"

"Orange juice, please."

That brought a laugh and a smile from the dour woman. Rautha wondered if it was the choice of drink or the unaccustomed politeness with which it had been requested. Perhaps both.

The barmaid turned around, and started sifting through the veritable arsenal of hard liquor in search of the desired soft drink. The girl in the jumpsuit leaned against the bar as she awaited its arrival. Rautha made his move.

He slid towards her. She turned to him.

"Hey, how-"

The lieutenant didn't quite know how he managed to stumble. After all, he'd been trained to keep his footing on rocking spaceships and in all manner of other battlefield environments. But it happened. And when he tried to recover his balance, a stream of spiked vodka splashed across her face.

"Sorry! I-"

His cheek stung with the force of her slap.

At that moment the barmaid placed a glass of orange juice before her. So the girl snatched it up and dashed its contents in Rautha's face. Then she turned to storm away.

"Hey!" the barmaid said. "You still have to pay for that!"

The girl turned back.

"I'll get it!" the lieutenant said. He reached for his credits.

"Get lost, creep!" She glared at him out of the corner of her eye, before looking to the barmaid. "I'll get a refill as well please."

The girl pulled out a card and swiped. Rautha glanced over the bar in time to see the name flash upside-down on the display: Melissa Williams. With the transaction completed and her glass replenished, she carried out the forestalled storming off.

"Real smooth," the barmaid said.

Rautha drained the remains of his drink.

"Shut up and get me another."

The lieutenant stood there, propping up the bar, and watched Melissa. She was in the opposite corner, sipping her orange juice and looking as if she wanted to be anywhere else but in the club. After some minutes, a couple of her friends came over, grabbed her arms, and ushered her onto the dance floor by main force. There they shouted boisterous encouragement, until Melissa surrendered and started dancing.

She put the rest of them to shame. Perhaps it was the laced vodka he'd drunk, but to Rautha her every movement was perfect and sensual -- wonderful in spite of the crashing, inharmonious music she danced to.

The lieutenant wondered what would happen if he went up and danced next to her. Would she slap him again? That would be embarrassing... He ordered another vodka and coke. Perhaps he'd think more clearly with more of the stuff inside him...

He carried on watching Melissa dance while the grumbling barmaid mixed his drink. And then his eyes narrowed.

A group of men in grey jumpsuits were moving across the dance floor like sharks, pushing aside the trashy women who populated it without so much as a second glance. Their eyes were fastened on Melissa.

When they were close, one of them leaned towards her and said something. The lieutenant couldn't hear his words. They were drowned by the terrible music. But the girl shook her head, making her hair ripple in silken waves. Then the man grabbed her arm.

"Here's your..." the barmaid began, as she set his drink down. "Hey!"

Rautha grabbed it, downed it, tossed the empty vessel aside to smash on the floor, and stormed over to the garish battlefield.

"Get off me!" Melissa cried.

She tried to tug her arm from the man's grasp. His fingers tightened, pressing deeper into the blue fabric.

"Just one dance!" he said.

The other men in grey glared at Rautha when he drew near. But glares weren't going to scare him away.

"Get off her," he said.

Melissa and the man holding her arm both turned. Her eyes were wide, his narrow.

"Piss off!" the man said.

"Wrong answer."

The lieutenant punched, and the man went spinning. He twirled around for several paces, in rotations which through some quirk of fate happened to match the current strain of hideous music, before falling hard. His head bounced against the glowing dance floor.

Rautha grinned. Maybe he really was 'exceptional' after all...

The rest of the grey jumpsuit wearing men hurled themselves at him.

His other fist dropped the first of them. Then two more were on him. They grabbed his dangerous arms, wrapping their limbs around his, leaving him struggling and grappling as the one who'd gone spinning got to his feet -- his mouth bloody, his eyes gleaming with murder.

"We've got him!" the man holding his right arm yelled. "We've-"

The top of Rautha's forehead smashed into his face, breaking his nose and his hold. The lieutenant span round to the enemy on his left. But that one's grip was already loosening, as Melissa's hands were clawing and gouging at his eyes. She looked even more beautiful when she was angry...

Rautha kneed him in the groin and tossed him aside. Then he whirled round in time to launch a snapping front kick with his other leg. The man who'd gone spinning before made a more orthodox flight this time. He careened straight backwards, his boots kicking at the floor as he tried to recover, until he crashed into a table and went down along with it.

"Look!" Melissa said.

She pointed towards the doorway, where the hulking bouncer and a couple of other men in black t-shirts bearing similarly brutal slogans were gathering. The barmaid was yelling to one of them, and pointing in Rautha's direction.

"Come on!" Rautha said.

He held his hand out to Melissa. She took it. The lieutenant's gaze darted around the room until he saw the fire exit sign. Then he ran for it, and pulled her along with him.

The lieutenant glanced over his shoulder as he knocked the door open, letting in a gust of cold night air. The bouncers and the men in grey were all charging towards them.

"How fast can you run?" he asked.

"Fast enough!" Melissa replied.

They both laughed as they sprinted down the alleyway, leaving the angry shouts far behind.