Tag: romance

Distant Love (Part 30)

Derek lies fully dressed in his bed, staring at the ceiling. Hours have passed, and nothing from Maeve.

Was I just fooling myself? Why would a girl like her want anything to do with me? She could get someone who actually walks. I was a fool.

He turns to lie on his side.

No, there was a real connection. I didn’t just imagine it all.

A tear drops onto his pillow.

There is a knock on his door. It can only be Natasha. Everybody else would send him a voice message, but she’s old school.

Derek says, “Open door”. The door opens, and Natasha walks in. “What are you doing in here? Everybody is out here calling you a hero and saying what a great guy you are. It’s making me a bit sick, to be honest. They don’t have you tormenting them in the morning.”

“Maeve hasn’t contacted me, Tash. No chatter since she saw the chair.”

Natasha frowns. “It’s nothing to do with the chair, ya twat. She’s under investigation for safety violations. And even if she had a problem with it, lots of other girls wouldn’t. No reason to go all depressive.”

Derek feels a weight lift off his chest. His heart beats faster. “I’d better go see if she’s okay.”

Narasha shakes her head. “Well, it’s better than moping around in here, I suppose.”

Distant Love (Part 29)

Maeve glances at the digital clock over the door. It’s been two hours since she met Derek.

What did he say, 40 minutes? Talk about being overly optimistic.

She is sitting in an interrogation room. The walls are a cold, blue color; there is a table and two chairs at the centre.

Talk about having a strange day.

She is walking around the room, waiting for the next person to come in and ask questions.

The door opens. A petite woman dressed in a formal black suit enters. Her straight, long black hair reaches her shoulders. “Miss Maeve Garcia, my name is Atlanta Echez from the Moon Core Security. Please take a seat.

Maeve can feel her muscles tense. “I have already spent over two hours answering questions. Can you not talk to your colleagues?”

Atlanta sat down and put her hands on the table, “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation you are in.

“You have been involved in an emergency crash landing that endangered not only the lives of the people on your vessel but also thousands of lives on the lunar surface.” She leans forward with her eyes wide open. “This is a very serious matter. And not only that, the ship had not been receiving the required maintenance, and there is the small issue of tax owed to the Earth authorities.”

Maeve sits down opposite her, her hand shaking. “Mom looks after that stuff.”

Distant Love (Part 28)

And then she gone. Derek could feel a buzz going through every fiber of his body. She was beautiful and had not recoiled in horror at his disability. No, she had embraced him warmly. He thought of her long red hair up touching against his ear.

I am on top of the world.

And yet the world around him continued on as if nothing had happened. People continued walking back and forth, the station continued to rotate. Nothing had changed, and yet everything was irrevocably different. His life now seemed full of hope and possibilities.

But what next? Where should they meet when she makes contact? Ah Hartans.

Hartans was almost certainly the best place to go. The best hotdogs on the moon. True, the competition was somewhat sparse but they were delicious. And it was one of the places to go on a date, or even just have a meet-up. Derek had grown up hearing how his friend Mikey had taken girls there. Now it was his turn.

Derek began to roll towards the elevator. At no point, did the large grin fade from his face. She’d be a while so no harm him having relaxation. And maybe some computer games in case she had the audacity to challenge him later.

Distant Love (Part 27)

Maeve takes off her helmet and hears the hustle of the space station. A crowd gathers around her and her companions. Women stare and whisper to each other about what happened with her ship and how it landed.

“Maeve!” A familiar voice comes from behind her. Elated, she turns to face Derek.

And there he is with hazel eyes and short-cropped, black hair, sitting in a wheelchair.

That is what the comment was about.

She walks forward and throws her arms around him. As their faces meet, there is a pleasant smell of deodorant. “Thank you, Derek. Without you, a safe landing would have been impossible. You saved me and my family.”

She stood back up. He was smiling now. “I have to go do some sort of debrief?”

Derek’s eyes flittered. “Standard procedure after an emergency landing. It’s nothing to be worried about; it should take forty minutes or so.”

Maeve pursed her lips. “How do I contact you later?”

“Oh, now you’re on the moon, that’s really simple. You will be given a communications device that you wear over your ear. Just instruct it to contact C2222. It will put you straight through to me.”

“Ok, chat again real soon.”

Distant Love (Part 26)

Derek goes down the lift to the ground level and makes his way to the entry area. He looks out to see them getting closer with every rotation. Their entry is now imminent. He is waiting for the hatch to turn.

He goes over to the left, not wanting his chair to be the first thing she sees.

His heart is pumping now, and he reminisces about their first virtual meeting. It was in the game Swords of War about three years ago. Her army had seemed to come from nowhere and had cut a swathe through his. Then, the taunting had begun. Not what he had expected from a young woman on so many levels. Of course, a rematch was inevitable, and they grew close. Well, close for people thousands of kilometres apart. Meeting virtually was perfect. He could put his best foot forward. Not show his frailties. This was something else entirely.

Six foot, broad-shouldered, with strong athletic legs. That is what his avatars looked like. Five feet seven, with a thin frame, is the reality. And the chair, of course.

The hatch turns, and a crowd spills out into the atrium. He spots her long, red hair, which she had told him about, draped down the back of a uniform.

Distant Love (Part 25)

Maeve looks at the giant dome that is the moon station Sector C. It is a large, translucent dome with multiple levels inside, under a star-laden sky. She sees dots moving. Looking down at the grey regolith, she hopes to join them.

Thank God for Derek; everybody made it back safely. She shudders at the thought of what would have happened without him.

Feeling sweaty in the spacesuit, she wonders if he will find her attractive.

I hope so.

One of the rescuers had made a strange comment, though. When she had relayed the story of what had happened, she stated that Derek probably would have been there himself if not for the rocky surface.

What was that supposed to mean?

Her Mom talks over the communications. “Don’t forget to thank that, Derek. And thank you, Maeve. The two of you saved the ship and everybody on board.”

“I will, Mom.” Even after a near-death experience, Mom just keeps being Mom.

Another crater to traverse.

Just as well, I can hop over all these obstacles in the low gravity.

They are getting closer now, and she can see that the station is internally spinning to create artificial gravity close to that of Earth.

Distant Love (Part 24)

Back in his room, a million thoughts run through Derek’s head. He has just heard over the communications line that Maeve is alive. She is being brought to Moon Sector C right now. He is both thrilled that she is okay and terrified at the thought of meeting her.

He looks at the mirror. Combs his hair to the left, then back to the right.

“You can do this, Derek!”

Talking to myself. Has it really come to this?

Derek swirls his wheelchair to the left, then back to the right.

I look good, apart from the chair, that is.

He frowns, then looks up at the ceiling.

I promised I’d meet her; there’s no turning back.

Derek wheels out of the room, then down the lift, to the ground level, and over to entry point B. Looking out at the gray, cratered lunar surface, he ponders what is going through Maeve’s head. Some of the debris from the landing is still making its way back to the surface. It reminds him of a video he had seen of it snowing on Earth.

Bodies appear over the top of one of the craters. Then still more.

What should I say? Good to see you. Think, Derek, think!

Distant Love (Part 23)

Maeve’s hand trembles as she sees the ship is approaching the first marked point. Everybody she loves is on this ship, and their lives are now in her hands. This is not the extra responsibility she looked for from her Mother over a month ago. The manager of a section of the ship would have done.

Just some recognition, that’s all I wanted. Nothing like this.

She ignites the thrusters for four seconds. The ship’s descent is slowed.

The surface of the moon is coming closer now, and she can now make out its major craters along with various human settlements, including Sector C.

Once more, she fires the thrusters. Again and again. All she can do now is hope.

Derek and Nathalie look out through the window of their compound as moon ash is thrown up toward the darkness of space in the distance.

Nathalie put her hand on Derek’s shoulder. “I’m sure she’s okay. You did everything you could.”

A solitary tear rolls slowly down the side of his face. “I sure hope so. If anything has happened to her…”

“Don’t think like that, Derek. Nothing good will come of it. Be positive. You need to prepare to finally meet the woman of your dreams.”

Distant Love (Part 22)

Maeve hears Derek take a large breath. He speaks in a serious tone. “Your ship has no landing gear. To have a soft landing, you will need to initiate the thrusters at certain points as it descends. Even then, it would ordinarily be considered a crash landing.

“I’m going to change the holographic display. You will now see a much smaller ship in front of you and the moon in the distance. Your landing area is marked out, along with the different points on the trajectory you need to take action at.”

The new holographic display appears.

Maeve stares in awe. “I don’t know about. Can you not do it remotely, or maybe get an AI to do it?”

“I’m afraid not. Unfortunately, I will be unable to communicate with you as you near the surface. No AI has been trained on what you are about to do.

It’s up to you, and you alone.”

There is silence. Maeve says, “I understand.”

For the next ten minutes, she watches the ship approach the moon. She launches the thrusters at the first marked point. Then releases.

Derek speaks. She can hear the fear in his voice. “I’m about to lose communications. Best of luck, and I’ll see you soon.”

Distant Love (Part 21)

Maeve feels her heart beating, “I’m not sure I can do this, Derek.”

“Yes, you can. Remember when you thought you were a goner in Terminutus V? I messaged you that you could do it, and you did. And I’m telling you now, you have this.”

She grinned. “You always were my biggest supporter. If I do make it through this, we must meet up. You can show me the best places in Moon Sector C. What do you say?”

There is a pause for a few seconds.

“Yes, we’ll do that. I promise.”

The holographic display begins to flicker, and a red dot appears. Maeve purses her lips. “There’s something wrong.”

Back on the moon, Derek is trying to understand what has gone wrong and what can be done to rectify the situation. He bites his bottom lip as he looks at the timer at the bottom right of his screen. It shows fifteen minutes counting down. It denotes the time left before Maeve either lands safely or dies in a massive fireball.

You can do this, Derek.

“Okay, Maeve, we need to cut off the fuel to a thruster. Press the red dot three times.”

She did so, and the display stopped flickering.

Derek tapped his desk. “Okay, Maeve. Here comes the hard part.”