My lie detector didn’t go off.
“I’ve no idea. But if you want to follow it up, talk to Syrinx and Tanith, who should be able to introduce you to the mage masters for healing. I know we have a few on my world, but they might be committed at home. Karn and Kelewan should have some to spare.”
“I’ll ask. Thanks. Now, you two need to report to Jane in your ready room. She’s waiting for you.”
“Thank you for whatever you did for Serena.”
“I didn’t do much, I’m afraid.”
“You came,” said Serena. “Thank you for making the effort.”
“It’s what I do.”
Serena hugged her, then took my hand, and we slowly walked towards the bridge.
Twenty Two
“We need to talk.”
Jane had smiled at Serena, but it hadn't lasted long. She waved us to the lounge chairs, and sat herself, looking hard at me.
“What did you do?”
“Do?”
“Eleven last night. On the dot. What did you do?”
“Colonel Carter said I filled the medical bay with bright red light. And this morning, Serena was healed. Is that what you mean?”
“No. Admiral Bentley had to do some hurried exploration of the system we started the battle in yesterday.”
“What for?”
“In case there was an inhabited planet in that system.”
“Why?” asked Serena, looking as confused as I felt.
“The sun in that system went out.”
“Out? What do you mean out?”
Now I sounded as confused as Serena had.
“Just that. The sun stopped shining. Admiral Bentley jumped out to somewhere where they could use the sensors on old light, and for about a minute, the sun suddenly underwent a period of major flare activity, and then went dark. She immediately had her ships check the whole system in case a planet was affected, but no inhabited planets were found. Which was just as well.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No-one does. But it’s obvious there was a very clear link between what you did, and that sun failing.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. I’d expected Kali might exact a penance on me, but extinguishing a sun was not what I would have expected. And that might not even be my penance. I’d have to wait and see on that one.
“Could have been worse,” said Serena, suddenly grinning.
“How?” asked Jane.
“It might have gone supernova.”
And there was a very scary thought. Jane looked at me, and I shook my head slightly, as well as half shrugged.
“Anyway, it will keep some civilians very occupied for a while. We have another problem.”
“And that is?” I asked.
“You two.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh. You just demonstrated exactly why there are rules in place against team members having relationships.”
“Are you going to separate us?” asked Serena.
“You get a choice. And before you consider that choice, you should know the same choice was forced on Jon and Aline not all that long ago.”
“Who’s Jon and Aline?”
“The Imperator and his girlfriend.”
“Oh.”
“What are the choices?” I asked.
“We separate you. One of you moves to another squadron, and the two squadrons will never work together.”
We both flinched.
“What else?”
“Serena gives up being an Excalibur pilot, and the two of you become a team on whatever ship you serve on. So one of you will always be the XO for the other, depending on who has the superior rank at any time.”
“What did they choose?” asked Serena.
“Aline gave up her team, which she’d been in far longer than Jon had, and is now his security chief. She goes everywhere he does now. If the worst happens, we’ll lose both of them together. But that’s the way they want it. What about you two?”
I looked at Serena. She nodded. But I needed to ask something, and turned back to Jane.
“What about if we stop being a couple at any time in the future?”
Serena looked pained, but it needed to be asked. We were only standard eighteen. We had no idea what might happen over the next fifty years or more.
“Then you’ll be assigned on the basis of how you can best serve, and what you request at the time.”
Which is what I’d expected, but I wanted it said.
“Fine. We choose the joined at the hip option. Actually, I think it will work for us. During the battle yesterday, I had to leave the ship to Long while I concentrated on doing magic. Serena can fly the ship at the helm station, and take over fighting the ship while I’m not able to.”
“Works for me,” said Serena. “We obviously need to talk about this relationship thing between us, and we’re not ready to make any formal announcement about being a couple yet. So how do we announce my change in status?”
“Easy enough,” said Jane. “You’re going to need some time to recover, so for now, you’re restricted to Long Water doing light duties, until medically released back to Excaliburs. We’ll just forget to do that, and somewhere in the meantime, you’ll fight Long Water, and we’ll decide to make that permanent.”
“Works for me,” I said, grinning.
Twenty Three
“How am I supposed to trust you now?”
Serena had headed off to her bed, and my grin had died as I faced Jane.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“You lied to me.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
“You lied to me.”
“Did your lie detector go off?”
I glared at her. It hadn’t.
“No.”
“There you are then.”
“But it was still a lie.”
“Yes, but also no.”
“How do you work that out?”
“Yes, I told you a lie. But it was what you needed to hear in order to complete the work you took responsibility for, and what needed to be done. I couldn’t take the risk you knowing the truth wouldn’t break you. It’s why the rules are the rules. Because most of the time this kind of thing does break people. And they never come back from it. It was also a test of if you would choose to sit with her regardless of what I said, over doing your duty to those you command.”
“So now you have no confidence in me?”
“Don’t be like that. It’s also about having faith.”
“Faith? In what?”
“That the cosmos unfolds as it should.”
“This from someone who chose to change the time line? The ultimate expression of not letting the cosmos unfold as it should?”
“You’re assuming that what was unfolding, was as it should have been. It wasn’t. The highers had tried and failed to change things. In a way, the cosmos itself stepped aside and let us change it. And that’s actually my point, here and now.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“The not being a lie part of it.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
She looked hard at me for a moment.
“Do you know what an exit point is?”
“No, but I assume you’re going to tell me.”
“You probably don’t know it, but Jon is a very spiritual person. So his belief system was something that challenged me as I was developing my own personality. I did a lot of research into it, and a lot of the information goes back more than six hundred years. But you know what I found the most interesting?”
“No, what?”
“None of that information was lost in the time line shift. It’s all still there.”
“So?”
“So it meant it was important information which couldn’t be removed no matter what was changed. My research told me all about exit points. Everyone is going to die one day. No-one gets a choice about that one, it just happens. But along the way, there are exit p
oints, which are the cosmos providing you a choice to go sooner.”
“Go where?”
“Wherever souls go after death. It’s a choice to die early if you want to.”
“Why would anyone want to?”
“Plenty of reasons, but you’ll need to do your own research on that. The point is, Serena died last night, and at that moment, you moved yourself to her, and whatever you did, stopped her from going. In a way, you convinced her to not take an exit point.”
“That’s another thing on the list of why I shouldn’t trust you anymore. You didn’t tell me she was that bad in time for me to get there.”
“I tried. She went downhill really quickly, and neither Carter nor the care unit doc could stop it. I couldn’t wake you up through coms, and I tried really hard. In the end I ran to your suite, and was just going in the door to your bedroom, when you vanished and appeared in her care unit.”
“You still should have told me. I wouldn’t have left her side. I certainly wouldn’t have gone to sleep.”
“Can you tell me that not sleeping would have had the same result?”
I sighed.
“No.”
“So, faith. People die who shouldn’t. People live and no-one understands how. It’s about when you die, and when you have exit points. Serena had an exit point, and chose not to go, but it needed you there at exactly that moment to get her to choose to stay.”
“She told me she’d always known she was going to die right then. That seers always know.”
“And maybe she did. But there are plenty of documented stories of people who’ve lived their lives convinced they would die at a certain age, and then when they didn’t, were able to track it back to something they changed. Someone very important to me had an experience where in a moment of angst, an exit point was opened for the next day, and between then and reaching it, the choice was made not to use it. The experience of not using it made a good near death story.”
I said nothing. This was all beyond me.
“The point is, maybe seers see what they need to see, in the same way angel card readers see and are told what they need to see and hear, in order that the cosmos unfolds in the way it should. People who ask for guidance, especially from seers on your and the other magic worlds, and tarot and angel card readers along the human spine, and they get told what they need to hear, in order they walk the path which takes them where they need to go. People mistake this as highest wellbeing, and then wonder why bad things happen from it. But the journey is what matters. People get lied to, in order that they walk the path they asked to walk, and the cosmos unfolds as it should.”
I sighed again.
“I think Serena was shown her first exit point. Knowing it was so close made her choose to buck the rules, which set things up for both of you the way they are, and maybe that’s the whole point. The two of you are necessary for the cosmos to unfold as it should from now on. And not the two of you in the same squadron, but the two of you on the same bridge. Maybe everything depends on that. Maybe nothing but your own happiness does. But we need to have faith this happened as it was supposed to.”
She looked at me, and sighed herself.
“One day the pair of you need to talk to Jon and Aline.”
Thorn’s warning came back to me. Stay away from Jon Hunter.
“We’ll let the cosmos decide if that’s needed.”
She grinned.
Twenty Four
I ran.
This wasn’t jogging. This wasn’t loping around the track. This was running. My focus came down to just the single pathway track as it wound its way around the ship. My mind was focused, and I had no trouble negotiating the sharp turn each time.
And the thing was, I was still connected to the now lightless sun, and it was still feeding me more than enough energy to keep me feeling great. I pondered if I should leave it connected permanently. I pondered if doing so might be addictive. I pondered if it stopped, would I crash for weeks after.
I ran, and ran, and finally it was Long who brought me back to reality.
“Bud?” she said through track coms.
“Long?”
“Can I see you in your ready room please?”
“Now?”
“When you complete your circuit is fine. If you want to shower first, that’s okay too.”
“Won’t be long.”
“I know.”
I began to slow down, so as I wouldn’t miss the door into the track. Once through it, I did a brisk walk to my suite, had a fast shower, received new underwear from the dispenser, and shifted into uniform. I took the steps up two at a time, and walked onto the bridge expecting Long to be there. She wasn’t.
A few steps took me to the ready room door, and I stopped on the threshold to check if she was there. She wasn’t.
But there was someone there. She was standing in front of my desk, facing me, and I’d never seen her before. A little taller than Serena, slimmer, but with the same basic build and skin colour, and there was something familiar about her.
“It’s me,” said Long’s voice. “Do you like my new body?”
I smiled at her, and resumed walking in.
“I do. But more importantly, do you?”
“I think so. I can tweak it a bit if I don’t like something, but I’ll see how I go for a while.”
“So you decided to update yourself?”
“It did seem like the right thing to do.”
I sat at my desk and waved her into one of the chairs in front of it.
“Any thoughts on a new name?”
“Yes. I think Leanne Waters would suit me. That duplicate name thing was a bit upsetting. In fact, I talked to a lot of the ship AIs, and quite a lot of them were thinking the same thing. So I’m probably not going to be the only one remaking herself.”
“Are you a girl?”
“Don’t I look like a girl?”
I chuckled.
“Sure you do. But it’s not about how you look, but what you feel.”
“I ‘feel’ good.”
Now she was chuckling.
“Okay fine. Be who you are, and the rest of us will go with it. What’s your new preferred form of address?”
“Leanne is fine. AI Waters if you want to be formal.”
“How much do you want to be included in things?” I caught myself, and face palmed for a moment. “Sorry, I’ve never asked you that before. I apologize.”
“It’s okay. I’m still learning to be a person. I needed to figure a lot of things out for myself.”
“So?”
“I’d like to be included in things.”
“Anything you don’t want to be in?”
“Such as?”
“Meals, training, time off activities?”
“I probably will never eat anything, but I might sample some tastes at odd times. I was thinking about training. I don’t need to keep fit, but I probably do need to learn tactics and how to do things the right way. I can shoot, but when to shoot, and what to shoot with is just algorithms, not experience. I should gain that experience the way everyone else does.”
“Fine then, AI Waters. It’s time for breakfast.”
I rose, opened a rift to the wall of the main mess we used on the station these days, walked around the desk as Leanne rose as well, and stepped through it. She followed me, and I let the rift go. Several people saw us arrive, giving rise to open mouth syndrome, but I ignored them and headed to our table. The rest of the team were already there, and one by one they noticed and started staring at Leanne.
“Oh hell no,” said Woof, jumping down from his seat as we approached.
“Please tell us they didn’t replace Serena,” demanded Norden.
“Check her shoulders,” said Gitte, grinning.
“Oh,” said Woof.
We came to a stop by the table, where there were only two empty chairs.
“Everyone,” I announced, “this is Leanne Waters, formerly the AI known as Long.
She’s decided to join us in everyday activities.”
Woof hugged her. Everyone else rose and hugged her as well, including Davis, and then we had a group hug, before sitting down. It occurred to me Metunga, even though he was so big and wiry, seemed to hug very gently. I’d never thought about it before. The rest of the room by this time was looking at us strangely. I certainly didn’t care.
“How’s Serena?” asked Mel.
“Went back to bed,” I said. “She seems to be alright, but she’ll be on light duties on Long Water until she’s back up to speed. I’m not sure if we’ll get a temporary replacement Excalibur pilot or not yet. If we do get someone, it will only be temporary.”
I was not at all sure about that, but for now it was the cover story, and I was sticking with it. Long, no, Leanne knew the truth of course, but she sat there smiling.
“Do we have orders for today?” asked Jill.
“Not yet, but I’m assuming we’ll either get a patrol this morning, or Eagle will have us doing something. I’ll let you know when I do.”
“Will we see Serena today?” asked Fina.
“She might be up for lunch,” I said, hopefully.
It seemed to satisfy them, and we ate breakfast more or less as we normally did. Leanne had bite sized tastes of some of what was being eaten, including a bite of raw fish Metunga was having. She worked her way through a range of facial expressions, which concluded with a scrunched up face for coffee that made everyone who saw it laugh.
Our orders arrived just as I was getting to my feet.
Twenty Five
We spent the morning trailing our coat through Keerah space.
Jill was CAG officially today on the roster, and she had them jumping out and flying different formations each time we jumped to a Keerah system on our way across their space.
Serena walked onto the bridge around eleven, beamed a tired looking smile at me, took the helm chair, and did a double take when she registered the change in person next to her. Leanne introduced herself, and the two of them rose and hugged. Leanne didn’t even miss a jump during it. Serena made no attempt to do anything after that except monitor what the squadron were doing.
Lieutenant Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 3) Page 10