Read Online Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri - Free Book Online

danced on a screen as wide as twenty Earths lined up in a row. Even with such a difference, the shimmering light here appeared, oddly enough, more similar to the aurora borealis than she had expected.
    Aki was pulled from her thoughts by a noise from the other side of the bundles of cables and air ducts. Mark , she thought. By now, she was able to tell which crewmember was coming out of his cocoon by the sound of his footsteps.
    “Am I interrupting?”
    “Not at all. Please come in.”
    Aki pushed herself back to share the tiny twenty-centimeter wide window.
    “I was afraid we took a wrong turn at Venus,” he said, staring out at the Ring. “You wanted this for your wedding band?”
    “I do not think it would fit on my finger, with the flab I have gained in the last six months.”
    Mark laughed heartily. He always tried to encourage witty comebacks from her. After a pause, he returned to staring out the window. She expected him to come on to her because it seemed like the perfect moment, but he did not. If it came to it, Aki was pretty sure a cocoon was large enough for two people. During the past six months, Mark had flirted with her often. Once he was even blunt enough to say, “If it’s a matter of contraception, we have some on board.”
    Mark was always honest, considerate, and even able to show a sensitive side when he wanted. The line about contraception had not been his shining moment, but he did have moments that made Aki wonder about the possibilities. Physically, his face could not have been more handsome if it had been chiseled from marble. No matter how hard Aki looked, she could never find flaws in Mark, even though she wondered if he would give her the time of day if the world had been different, if the era of organic life’s dominance on Earth were not limping to a close.
    Despite all that he offered, Aki had turned Mark down multiple times. She kept her sexual self so bottled up in the name of pursuing her research that she feared what might happen if she were to unleash herself on any man, especially in this environment. She wanted nothing to interfere with the long-awaited encounter with the Ring. The Ring was out there, finally right outside the window. She knew that they talked about her behind her back—man talk—saying that she was “married to the Ring.”
    Neither Aki nor Mark could turn away from the window.
    “Looking after nuclear subs with missiles, I was in charge of enough power to torch the world,” Mark said. “Now I’m on this ship. It’s my job to deal with these reactors, but my work always seems linked to the end of the world.”
    “It hasn’t ended yet, Mark. We are not here to end the world.”
    “If we destroy the Ring, humanity gets to live. Unlike any war we’ve ever faced or simulated in doomsday scenarios, this one isn’t humanity turning against itself. There has never been a war with such clear-cut objectives and there has never been a war with such perfect moral clarity. We win at all costs.” Mark attempted a comforting smile.
    She knew that his last sentence could have included the phrase, “even if we end up martyrs,” but they shared that sentiment without saying it. For a second, they both looked away from the window.
    “That’s why I applied,” Mark said. “I thought, ‘Here’s a job where I can finally use the craziest thoughts that run through my head. All I need is to figure out how to destroy that thing.’”
    “Our mission’s about that for you—the joy of morally acceptable mass destruction?” Aki asked.
    Mark gazed at Aki for a moment. “I love what goes through that pretty little head of yours.”
    “If you were at war with Italy, could you bring yourself to bomb Florence, to ruin the Uffizi Museum?”
    “If the artwork inside it were a threat to me and mine? Then, yeah, I could bomb it to hell and sleep like a baby.”
    “I guess you are lucky that your head can overrule your heart.”
    Aki felt her excitement for the Ring