Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [65]
Face pulled the terminal chair around and sat wrongways in it so he could lean forward against its back. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“She wasn’t interested, Face. In me.”
“Lara?”
“Yes, Lara. Well, actually, at various times, Falynn, Tyria, various ladies on Folor, Borleias, and Coruscant, then Shalla, Dia, and most recently Lara.” He tipped the bottle up and took a long pull from it.
Face snorted. “Maybe you need to work on your technique. What sort of invitation did you make her?”
“Ah, that’s just it. I didn’t make any sort of invitation. I just sat with her, and talked with her, and read her eyes. She thought my jokes were funny. She was interested in my stories about the campaign we waged with Admiral Trigit. She liked me, I think she did. But … other than that … nothing. I held no other appeal for her. And that’s the way it’s been for quite some time.”
“Look, Ton, being at war kind of limits all our social lives. I’m sure you’ll find someone—”
“Finish that idiotic gesture of reassurance and I’ll be obliged to put your face through this wall,” Phanan said. His tone was mild, but there was no mistaking the seriousness in his words. He wasn’t even looking at Face, he hadn’t moved or tensed, yet something in his tone made his threat very real. “You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
Phanan looked up at the low ceiling of the cargo module as if seeing through it, as if staring at a starry sky in the hope that it could provide inspiration. “A long time ago, back at the Battle of Endor, the frigate I was working on as a doctor was hit by an Imperial barrage. Blew out whole sections of the hull, sucked crewmen out into hard vacuum. I was hit by a falling beam superheated by laser fire. One minute I’m helping a pilot with a concussion, the next minute that pilot’s been dead for two weeks and I’m just waking up with a mechanical half a face and a mechanical leg.
“Ever since then, no woman has looked at me with any sort of serious interest.”
“It’s not the leg or the face, Ton.”
“I know that, you moronic nerf.” Phanan glared at him, the glowing optic that served him as a left eye making the expression malevolent. “But something died when I was hit in that medical ward, and I think it was my future. I think people, maybe only women, can just look at me and say, ‘There’s no future in him.’ ”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“There’s no mechanical replacement for a future, Face. And every time I take a hit, and they have to cut away another part of me and replace it with machinery because I’m allergic to bacta, every time that happens I seem to be a little further away from the young doctor who had a future. He can’t come back, Face. Not all of him is here anymore.”
“Ton …”
“Don’t give me some line about my not knowing what I’m talking about because I’m drunk and morose. I know I’m drunk and morose. But the truth of what I’m telling you is around me all the time, even when I’m not drunk. Even when I’m enjoying everything about my life. No future, and no one in my future.”
“You have your friends, Ton.”
Phanan nodded. “Yes, I do. And I’m grateful for them. But my friends are my present. And when I try to look from where they are to where my future is, there’s just no one there. No future.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I wish you didn’t feel this way.”
“Me either.”
“Give me the bottle.”
“I know. Mission tomorrow.” Phanan handed over the bottle, two-thirds of its contents gone.
“If you’re not right for the mission tomorrow morning, I want you to tell me.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
Face wanted to say more, but the sudden formality of Phanan’s last reply had somehow propelled him out of the conversation. He just shook his head and left.
10
Tyria entered the bunkroom module she now shared with Lara and waved the datacard she held. “Mail from home.”
Lara gave her an uncertain smile. “Should I leave so you can watch it in private? That’s not a problem.”
“It’s not for me. Most of my family is gone, and what’s left is on Toprawa—and no mail comes