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Simon padded silently through the underground corridors of Tanery Base, nodding to the occasional sentry on duty as he passed. Moving on autopilot, he reached the door to Aral's quarters and pressed his hand to the palm-lock.
Aral was a shapeless mass on the bed. He stirred and muttered something indistinct when Simon entered.
“Just me,” Simon said, shedding his boots and jacket without keying up the lights.
He stripped down to his uniform shirt and boxers with practiced speed. Aral made no move to get up but watched him lazily in the dim ambient glow of the room.
After a quick visit to the washroom, Simon crossed over to the bed and climbed under the covers.
“Thought you weren't coming,” Aral murmured, shifting over to give him room and settling his arms around Simon.
Simon closed his eyes briefly.
“I wanted to make a start on those packets of data we got from the agent at Negri's training camp,” he said, shaking his head. “Mistake. It's all triple-encrypted. Took me hours just to break the code on the first one. The others went faster, but I still have two to go. Not to mention actually reading and absorbing them once they're deciphered.”
Aral's arm around him tightened slightly.
“Take care of yourself,” he rumbled.
“I know, I know. There's important information on them, though, I'm sure there is. If it helps us...”
Simon flattened his hand against Aral's chest, trying to calm his own nervous energy. Aral pressed a kiss to his temple and Simon’s eyes fluttered closed again. He reached up and kissed the side of Aral's jaw in retaliation. Aral made a frustrated noise and tilted their mouths together, meeting him in a much deeper kiss, still exquisitely gentle. Simon sighed and returned it, letting his whole body relax.
They traded kisses back and forth, neither having the energy to pursue matters further. Simon could have wept for how soft Aral was being, and how much care he was allowing Simon to show him in return. It was unusual for him.
I love you. The thought came unbidden to Simon's mind, as he cradled Aral's face in his hands. He'd never said it aloud. Aral already had his heart's oath, and Simon rather thought his love and devotion were obvious in every action he took for Aral's sake. Now is not the moment, he told himself.
Simon leaned forward and brushed their lips together again. Between one breath and another, he was asleep.
Hours later, when it was morning but only if one were being technical about it, Simon woke and slipped out of bed. Aral made a noise of complaint, but Simon smoothed his hair and kissed his forehead.
“Go back to sleep,” he whispered.
Aral subsided with a soft grumble.
Simon dressed in his uniform from yesterday. He was losing count of the number of days since he'd last washed it (four, his chip unhelpfully reminded him), but no one else on base was in any better condition, so he pushed the thought aside to join the crowd of other worries he could do nothing about.
He took the long way back to his office, stopping in to talk to the third shift sentry team at Security Control.
“Same old, same old,” reported the man in charge, Sergeant Ravalle. “Nothing to report, Chief.”
He gave a huge jaw-cracking yawn, which Simon was hard-pressed not to imitate.
“Well, good. Carry on, then,” he told the men.
He exchanged salutes – proper ones, not the analyst's casual wave he was used to – with the men on duty, and took himself off in search of coffee.
Simon had just put on a fresh pot of coffee to brew in the shared kitchenette and sat down to start tackling the last of Negri's encrypted data packets when the first orbital drone strike hit Tanery Base.
The whole room shook, as if a giant had taken up Simon's office in his fist and started squeezing. Dust filled the air. Simon was on his feet and running down the hall before he'd formed any coherent thoughts.
Earthquake? kept insisting the part of his mind that remembered a childhood of being taught to run outdoors or take shelter under the sturdiest points of a structure when the ground shook. But his chip was adamant that earthquakes didn't happen in Vorkosigan's District, that was why Ezar's surveyors had been willing to build an underground base here.
So, it must be an attack. Aral, was his next panicked thought, and it pounded in his head along with his heartbeat as he ran even faster, navigating by chip-map through the dust-filled halls towards the sleeping quarters.
He never reached them.
The second impact was worse than the first, probably because the first strike had destroyed their shields and left the lower levels of the base exposed and vulnerable, or so Simon's chip deduced for him based on the pattern of destruction. Absently, the chip began to draw a schematic of the explosion as Simon himself spun to face the wave of heat and noise coming towards him. There was no time to do anything but throw up his arms to protect his head, and pray.
Aral, he thought again, this time in grief. I'm sorry.