Page 30 of Under His Heel

The two of them were the last to arrive on the bridge. It was crowded with most of the ship’s population. Pillows and gym mats had been brought in for people to sit on, and a rolling tray Alex thought he recognized from the medbay was set up by the door holding snacks and drinks. It was all a bit awkward, with the navigational equipment blocking some of the view. The angled screens along the sides of the bridge would be visible from any angle, at least.

Tracht walked to the front, where Strobel was already standing.

“Captain! Glad you could make it,” Strobel said.

“No, thank you for organizing this,” Tracht responded. He smiled at the crowd. “I know that the long months outside of comm space can make everybody a bit lonely, so it’s nice to have a once-in-a-lifetime event like this to make up for some of it. Please, enjoy.”

Wow, Tracht could put on a real act when he tried. Too bad he never acted that nice to Alex.

“Mr. Strobel, since you’re the expert, please explain some of what we’ll be seeing.” Tracht stepped aside there and made his way back to Alex’s side.

Strobel started up with the explanation of rarity and probabilities and other stuff Alex didn’t care about. What Alex did care about were the snacks on the trays. He was itching to grab one of the small cakes.

“Don’t eat anything,” Tracht whispered into his ear.

Sh—shoot. “I wasn’t gonna,” Alex complained, just as quietly. He got a light squeeze on his still tender ass in response.

The small presentation finished with Strobel pointing out the main viewing window. “This is the area to observe. We’re about 1,300 kilometers away from the impact zone, so it’ll be small. The screens above will show the same area, magnified several hundred-fold.”

It all looked like a bunch of black space to Alex. When he and Nick had done their station and solar-system hopping, they’d barely ever seen what they were traveling through. Cheap tickets meant cheap ships without outside views. And on stations, you had the artificial sky blocking out most of the solar system.

“We are recording this,” Espinosa said, “and we will send everybody a copy. You may share with your friends and family, but you may not upload it to public forums or attempt to monetize it.”

Somebody on the crew boo’ed at that statement, eliciting laughter, and Espinosa’s expression turned bitchier. “I understand that it’s disappointing, but unless you would like to go through the mess of IP litigation...”

The original boo-er gave an emphatic no, which drew out more laughter. Alex didn’t get the joke. What the f—what was IP litigation? Didn’t seem like anybody else had to wonder.

Most people had settled on the mats, though a few had grabbed the chairs in front of the navigational equipment. Alex spotted Parsons sitting next to a muscled chick, the two talking to each other in low voices.

Parsons wasn’t that bad looking, Alex thought. Hotter than the chick he was sitting next to, that was for sure. Nine times out of ten, Alex would go for a chick, but if he had to choose between these two he’d take Parsons. Parsons looked a bit softer than his companion, with a rounder face and a rounder nose. They both had hair cut extremely close to their skulls, but that was a trend on the ship in general. Either the hair was short, or it was tied back in a pony-tail or braid. Alex was one of the few dudes on board with longer hair, with it hanging a bit past his ears.

Tracht moved to what Alex thought of as the “captain’s chair,” where he usually sat when they were hanging out on the bridge. He motioned for Alex to sit next to him on the floor.

Alex’s cheeks heated, hating this small, public humiliation, but he wasn’t actually out of place for once. Everybody was on the floor.

“Why didn’t anybody bring in chairs?” Alex asked. He got a light rap on his skull in response.

“Have you seen any free standing chairs around?” Tracht said, his voice dripping with condescension. “All furniture is bolted down.”

Alex scowled and averted his gaze. He happened to catch Parsons watching him. He was tempted to flip him off again, but considering what had happened last time... yeah, definitely no.

“Look how close these two are!” Strobel pointed to the small dots through the large window at the front of the bridge. Everybody else in the room got visibly excited, and the chattering got louder. “We’re going to have impact in about a minute.”

It really was just two dots when viewed from out the bridge’s window, but the screens were showing large rocks. Alex wasn’t that keen on it, still didn’t get it, but he found himself getting caught up in the energy of the room.

“You going to send this to Meilin?” the muscled chick asked Parsons.

Parsons grinned widely. “Of course! She’s going to love this.”

Seemed like everybody was looking forward to sharing this with somebody. Alex tried to imagine how Nick would feel about it. He didn’t think Nick would care. He, like Alex, would think they were just rocks. It would be kind of neat to see something almost nobody else got to see, maybe.

Alex leaned his head against Tracht’s knee, and Tracht started stroking his hair in response. Maybe it would be an okay evening, even if the rocks colliding was disappointing.

“Here we go!” Strobel shouted, and then—

Wow. Alex sat up, completely rapt. Yeah, two big rocks colliding with each other, but the impact was massive. The screens showed an explosion of rocks, spreading out in all directions. Of the two big asteroids, one was split into two, while the other seemed to disappear, nothing left but a lot of smaller rocks floating around.

The crowd in the room cheered. Some people stood up to get a better view, and Strobel launched into another explanation of the science behind things.

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