Cally's War by Ringo John & Cochrane Julie

Author:Ringo, John & Cochrane, Julie [Ringo, John & Cochrane, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9781416520528
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2004-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Cally left the women's room and walked past Gra—the other cleaner, wishing him a nice day. The purple vinyl seats and purple and oatmeal carpet of the departure lounge showed the influence of a decorating fad that had been current seven years ago. Makepeace had left the laptop next to her seat. Her eyes scanned the lounge for a few seconds. There it was, next to the clumsy bald man, bless his heart. He was looking at her, and she tugged her right ear gently before looking away, dropping the hand.

As she walked, her left hand came up and brushed at the side of her hair, as if she wasn't used to wearing it up. The seat had empty seats on either side, even though the lounge was starting to fill up with outbound passengers. She sat down and opened up her laptop. Getting into that now while she had a few minutes was the first thing. The clumsy bald guy got up and walked away.

Booting it showed her it had an old operating system. Good. First thing to try is to see if it'll boot from the cube reader. She powered it down and back up with a test cube. Nice. It didn't fry it. Time to go for the cracker cube.

As she was rebooting again a guy came up and stopped by the chair next to hers, clearing his throat nervously. Not now, you loser. I am notin the mood for pick up attempts. Aha! Right to the cracker cube window.

"I—Is this seat taken?" he asked.

"Unless you can lick your own eyebrows, it is," she snapped, using the cube utilities to reset the laptop's password and file permissions.

To her great annoyance, he settled into the seat anyway and she had just turned her head to tell the pushy jerk off when he interrupted her.

"How do you think I do my hair?" he said.

Her mouth hung open for a minute before she snapped it shut, returning his salute a little dazedly. He was a slight man with straight dark hair. A lock of it looked like it would tend to fall down into his forehead. He had warm brown eyes you could fall right into, and he was way too young. But what really surprised her about him was that he was the kid shown in her briefings as General Beed's aide. She kept the recognition out of her eyes with an effort.

"I'm sorry I was so crabby. I guess I'm a little nervous. Can we try that again? I'm Sinda Makepeace." She offered her hand.

"Joshua Pryce. Is this your first time off Earth, ma'am?" His hand was warm and dry.

She realized abruptly that he still had her hand and that she was staring. She snatched her hand back, flushing. A blush? Me? What the hell is that all about? I haven't blushed in years.

"Uh . . . why yes, it is. My assignment's on Titan Base. I suppose I'm a little uncertain about flying in space. You know, all that space around you and no air to breathe.

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