Frontier's Reach: A Space Opera Adventure (Frontiers Book 1) by Robert James (beach read TXT) 📗

Aly peered through the engine room door at him. She went to say something, but Jason raised his hand. He wasn’t in the mood for people feeling sorry for him. He activated the elevator and stepped out onto B Deck.

He entered his quarters and fell backward onto his bed, his head throbbing. He couldn’t tell what it was. Guilt? Anger? Sadness?

Dragging himself up, he pounded his fist against the frame of his bed. He’d failed. He’d failed himself, and he’d failed Nash.

From the corner of his eye, he caught something shining in the light. It was his bottle of Blue Jacket bourbon sitting on the bedside table.

He reached over to the bottle and raised it in the air.

“Here’s to you, old friend.”

Aly approached the slightly ajar door of Jason’s quarters and knocked. Nothing. Going against her better judgment she pushed it wide open.

Jason’s eyes lit up at her as he was about to neck the bottle of bourbon in his hand. His glare burned through her. “What do you want, Aly?”

“Well, you didn’t answer, so I figured there might be something wrong.”

“You got that right.”

Jason drew the bottle closer to his lips.

“You realize that stuff doesn’t help, right?”

Jason chuckled, then his mood again darkened. “More than you could know.”

“May I come in?”

“You know, Aly, this really isn’t the time.”

Regardless, she stepped over the threshold and took a seat at the end of his bed. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to find anything out here, Jason.”

“So am I.” He swished the bottle around in his hand, staring beyond her.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked.

His eyes closed. “I…” The weight of the world seemed to be on his shoulders.

“Tell me, please.”

Jason sighed. “Okay.” He put the bottle down on the bedside table and opened his eyes. “When Nash’s pod exploded inside the nebula, the Raptor was still crippled. We did however have the ability to take scans.”

“That’s when you discovered the Iota particles?”

“Right. It wasn’t till a few hours later that we recovered some wreckage.” He turned away. “By the time we’d got there, there wasn’t a single Iota particle on anything we salvaged.

“It’d dispersed?”

Jason shrugged. “There was the theory that other particulates inside the nebula may have broken down the Iota particles to the point our scanners no longer recognized them. We just didn’t know. I guess now we do.”

“So, you put everything on the line knowing we might not find anything at all?” She tried not to sound judgmental, but it came out that way, regardless. She put her hand on his and he turned around. “I think Nash would’ve appreciated the lengths you went to. Unfortunately, in life, we have to know when to let go.”

“Since when did you become so philosophical?”

“I’m no Socrates, but I know what it’s like to lose someone.”

He furrowed his brow.

“Your father.”

“My father?”

“You realize we were close, don’t you? I didn’t call him Uncle Ben for nothing,” she said. “In the later years before his death, he showered so much affection on me. I think when you left there was a void.”

“He always wanted a baby girl. I guess you were the daughter he never had.” Jason frowned. “How did you let go of Dad’s death?”

“I didn’t.” Aly bit her bottom lip. “I’ve told no one this, but not long after you left for the academy, I was having trouble sleeping. On a job near Aquaria, I bought some stims off a shifty merchant. Got hooked bad.” She remembered back to how they’d made her feel. “They really screwed me up.”

Jason’s jaw dropped. “What did your old man say?”

She smiled, though she was, in truth, ashamed. “He never knew.”

“You sly bitch.” A grin appeared at the edge of his mouth. “So, what changed? How did you stop?”

“Uh, well, that’s not one of my finer moments.”

Jason sat forward. “What happened?”

“I nearly blew up the ship.”

“What?”

“Well, I had planned to do a clean out of the plasma waste exhausts, and uh, well, I didn’t do it, for months. The stims made me more alert most of the time, but it messed with my brain. I forgot stuff.” Aly gazed down at her shoes. “Dad was at the helm and noticed a spike in radiation coming from the Argo before we jumped to FTL. He decided to abort. If he hadn’t, we would’ve been blown to bits.”

“What did he say when he found out?”

“He didn’t say much at all. I think he assumed I’d just forgotten.” She pushed a lock of hair from her face. “The bonus was that Althaus didn’t speak to me for at least two weeks.”

Jason chuckled. “Well, they say there’s a silver lining to every dark cloud.”

She tried not to laugh. “So, yeah, it was at that moment I stopped. I threw the last of the stims out the airlock. It wasn’t worth killing all the other people I love aboard this ship because I wanted to feel sorry for myself.”

“Is that what you think this is? Me feeling sorry for myself?” Jason sneered.

“No, I didn’t mean—”

“Aly, I lost my best friend, all because I should’ve been the one to go out in that pod. I was in command. It was my decision. And I messed up. Instead, he dies, and I get left behind to—”

“Feel sorry for yourself.” Aly winced, knowing she shouldn’t have been so blunt.

“I think it’s time you left.”

“Answer me this: would your friend have wanted your life to end up the way it has? Drinking it away in some hole on Odyssey Station, or would he have wanted you to make something of yourself?”

Jason’s mouth quivered.

“Lieutenant Nash is dead, Jason. Your father’s dead. Your mother’s dead, and if you keep doing that to yourself,” Aly said, pointing to the bottle, “you’ll die, too.”

She’d hit a nerve. But she was sick and tired of seeing what had become of him. He’d changed so much. He was a shell of the person who had left the Argo ten years ago. Perhaps she’d been too harsh.