Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [46]
Guitierrez grimaced. “Santa Maria! Must have taken you forever to get anywhere.”
Mayweather looked back on his growing-up years, when he’d spent endless hours exploring the ship and bedeviling its crew, and secretly plotting courses to all the star systems and planets that he wanted to visit when he was finally old enough. Back then it had seemed like forever.
He nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t realize it at first, but even our top speed wasn’t nearly fast enough for me. I wanted to see more than I could see going back and forth on those mining runs. The first time I heard of the United Earth Space Probe Agency, I figured that would be the path for me to take. But by the time I was old enough to leave the ship—against my family’s wishes—Earth’s Starfleet had been established as well. Starfleet seemed like the best way to see the galaxy, so that’s where I signed up.”
Guitierrez cocked her head to the side. “So, why an Earth agency? I mean, had you ever even been to Earth?”
Mayweather looked at her incredulously. Nobody had asked him that question since his own family had back when he was a teenager.
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m human. My great-grandparents came from Earth. They were some of the first humans to leave the solar system. Just because I wasn’t born on Earth doesn’t mean it’s not part of my heritage.”
“I know that,” she said, nodding. “I’m not exactly a bug-eyed alien myself. And I didn’t mean that to sound harsh. My father’s family comes from Rosarito, in the northwest part of Mexico. Even though I was raised in Pittsburgh, my abuela—my paternal grandmother—and my mom always wanted me to remember ‘the old village.’ I always thought that was weird. Sure, I’m Latina, but I’m not Mexican.” She laughed behind her hand for a moment. “Funny thing is, when I finally went back to ‘the old village,’ it was all high-end housing and gated communities, and the desert had all been landscaped. I doubt my nana would have even recognized it.”
“They always say you can’t go home again,” Mayweather said. He knew that well. When he had visited the Horizon immediately after his father’s death, his mother had welcomed him; his brother Paul, however, had been significantly less enthusiastic about Travis’s return. The old family dynamic had changed forever.
“Seeing the things we get to see, who’d want to go home again?” Guitierrez turned to smile at him, her brown eyes crinkled at the edges.
Mayweather smiled broadly, even as he realized that the distaff MACO might be a reasonable choice to ask for a date on a ship with limited options. His mind raced to see if he could recall having seen her sharing meals or recreation time on Enterprise with anyone in specific, male or female.
In a moment, he decided to ask. “I wonder if you—”
She spoke at the same time. “I think I’m going to—”
They both laughed at their mutual interruption.
“You first,” Mayweather said.
Guitierrez motioned toward the rear of the shuttlepod. “I was just going to say that I think I’m going to sack out and try to catch a few zees in the back. Might help settle my stomach.”
“Oh. Sure. Yeah.” Mayweather tried to keep the smile from slipping off his face like a blob of tetralubisol. “That’s probably a good idea. We still have about two hours left before we make a close approach to the blip the sensors say is at the end of the trail.”
She stood up. “What was it were you going to say a moment ago?”
Mayweather grabbed his coffee mug. “I, ah, was just going to ask if you had any more coffee. I need to stay sharp up here.”
“Oh, sure,” Guitierrez said, uncorking the canister again. She topped off Mayweather’s mug, and turned to go.
Then, she turned back, setting her hand lightly on his shoulder. “I enjoyed talking to you, ‘boomer.’ We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
Before he could stop himself, Mayweather grinned widely. Too widely, he thought belatedly. “That would be great.”
As the female MACO walked away from him, Mayweather felt his blood creep up to his ears and cheeks as he blushed. Am I that hard