Angeleyes - eARC

by Michael Z. Williamson

  There were ships there, though, older and in need of refit, and the work was cheap because it took effort to go there. Their economy was a mess, too, and we’d done that one ourselves. One of our scientists had collapsed the point from inside. He was assumed dead, scattered across two levels of space.

  I had a large bank balance, and there were ships. I found one a bit newer than the Pieper, similar class and capabilities, and then had a dealer help me put out a request for venture capital.

  The problem was, I wasn’t an astrogator, so I was going to have to hire crew I didn’t have. I put out word for that, and juggled the request for a ship for a crew I didn’t have with the request for a crew for a ship I didn’t have. The dealer didn’t seem thrilled, but I had enough money to interest him so he kept sending requests.

  I had no idea how to interview an astrogator, and I didn’t even have a ship type to tell them, or even a drive type. That would matter to engineers as well. Cargo handling was less of an issue, and I figured I could fake purser duties if I had to.

  Two weeks later I suddenly had backing.

  “Ms. Kaneshiro:

  I am delighted to be able to return, in some small part, a favor you did for us. I was able to assure the investors of your sound judgment and determination to succeed. I wish you well in your endeavors and hope you will remain in contact. Juletta, especially, would like to see you again.

  —Mark Parkerson.”

  I had to wonder at “Sound judgment,” but I appreciated the favor more than a lot of things. I still wasn’t sure what context to put money in next to torture, impending death, and dead friends. Juletta, though, was alive, and I missed the little weasel. I’d have to plan to go in-system as I went across to an active gate, and at least drop down to visit. I made sure to stash funds aside for that.

  Yes, I plan to continue spacing. It’s what I do. The system is a mess, but it’s free and I can haul stuff for us and others. Phase drive makes it cheaper and easier to travel and the prices were coming down. As soon as I could, I should see about funding one.

  I named the hauler Teresa Kusumo. I’m captain owner, but not master, because I don’t astrogate. I don’t trust myself to even try to learn. I found an engineer. He’d crewed on one of our destroyers way back, and was a tattooed, cursing longhair who was actually really educated and nice under the asocial outside.

  Astro was going to be the tough slot. Anyone who can do that can get their choice.

  I own my own ship. Well, with the investment firm. So few people, so few spacers can say that. I have the freedom to go anywhere I can make a heading, and leave when I wish. All I have to do is make it profitable.

  But I’d trade the awards, the money and the ship to have her back, snuggling me, or in the rack next to me, or just in the back of my own ship, keeping things together. And the rest of them. They felt like more than family, like the only family I’d ever had.

  But I have to look at the future.

  I had Teresa fitted out. I even had some potential connections for cargo. I was trying to find someone for astro, and knew that would be my biggest expense after fuel and dock fees.

  I roomed aboard, since I had no reason to waste money stationside, and I had a very comfy captain-owner’s stateroom.

  I bought a loader that had once been on Mad Jack. I’d start with one and run it myself if I had to. Even that large amount of money was shrinking fast. I had usually managed to budget enough to keep me moving, but this was entirely different. I didn’t dare run out of funds. I sat in my cabin cutting items to fit the budget and allow for some wiggle room.

  I got a chime from the lock, and rolled out to see what it was. I rolled the station shield open.

  The woman standing there said, “I understand you need an astrogator.”

  It was Mira.

  “Please come aboard,” I said. I was amazed at how calm I was.

  I needed a drink. I knew she liked vodka, but I had rum, and fruity mixes for me. I just poured us a snifter each and invited her to sit in my cabin.

  “I’m glad you’re alive,” I said. I was, and that was the most important thing.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I can’t tell you what I did, but I did survive my mission. As far as I know, none of the others did. We weren’t expected to.”

  “I still hate that. Wasn’t there some way to end it without us losing our best and Earth losing . . . everything?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. I guess the historians will tells us in a few years. For now, I’m just glad we’re here.” She raised her glass in toast. “To the guys,” she said.

  “The guys,” I agreed, and felt them again, ghostly, sexy shivers that were happy tinged with sadness.

  She added, “And to us. And to Pieper.”

  “It took them days to figure out where the backup log was,” I said, and told her about it.

  She said, “I guess I should make sure they do that with all files.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “How many other ships?”

  “One that I know of and mentioned,” she said. “I couldn’t talk about others if I knew, and I don’t anyway.”

  I figured she’d give that same answer if she did know.

  We finished our glasses and I poured one more.

  “Thanks,” she said. “So you came out well ahead.”

  I flushed.

  “I honestly never thought I’d live to see it, and never figured the prize money would pay off.”

  “Oh, it’s fine,” she said. “We couldn’t have done it without you, and you took more than your share of it.”

  I had compared to some, but not against their tally. It wasn’t fine, either. She was jealous and bitter and should be.

  I wished all the money could go away. All the pain. All the destruction.

  Amidst the rum, I rummaged in my cabinet and handed her her decorations.

  She looked them over.

  “Ah, they still don’t have my real name,” she commented.

  “No?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m Mira now.”

  She kept staring at them.

  “I guess I earned them,” she said. “They just don’t seem to mean much, with everything else, you know?”

  “I do know,” I said.

  “I found you because you named the ship after her.”

  “Yeah.” I figured.

  “You know she had a crush on you, yes?”

  “I figured that out eventually,” I said. “If we weren’t crewing in wartime, I’d have said yes.”

  Mira said, “She was always shy. Even in training.”

  “How well did you know her?” I asked.

  “We were the equivalent of bunkies for several weeks of hard training. Pretty well.”

  We were so calm, even after everything.

  “Yeah?” I half-asked.

  “Very good at math. She was an emergency backup for me. You still don’t know how good she was with tools. She could make or wreck anything, while being stressed to the extreme.”

  I said, “Heck, I watched you wreck a ship and a station with cargotainers. The ship’s awards are mostly yours.”

  She shrugged.

  “I prefer flying them to smashing them, when I can.”

  “Then I guess I better let the crewdogs know, and start calling for cargo.” A moment later I added, “Oh, you’re hired. Lead scale plus twenty percent.”

  It was the least I could do.

  EPILOGUE

  Our shakedown cruise was interesting.

  Honestly, if I hadn’t had Mira astrogating, I don’t think I could have done it. She took us mid-system of Caledonia on our first transit, and we were in planetary orbit in eighteen days, not twenty. She was that good, when she was allowed to be.

  There was a dark irony to taking relief supplies to Earth, after we’d helped destroy the entire system. I guess some of it was survivor’s guilt, some of it was embarrassed self-righteousness, and some of it discomfort over taking money for the purpose of h
elping refugees. Still, we had to be paid for work.

  I just wished we didn’t, and it wasn’t us doing it.

  The accounts stayed positive, though, even with huge fuel costs.Mira did an amazing job of plotting routes to save time, fuel and distance.

  It was almost a year later, when I actually put foot on dirt. I met with the families of the crew, and felt guilty all over again for being alive. None of them showed it, but I was sure there was a feeling. Why was I here, and their men and women not?

  I checked in with Mom. She hadn’t seen Dad since before the war started. He’d skipped out with a woman a decade younger. I wasn’t going to take sides in that. They’d had issues for several years. I was glad she was alive, and she was happy I had a ship. Then she tried to tell me how to run it.

  Mira went to see her family. I have no idea what went on there. I wasn’t going to ask.

  I’d been invited to be a guest speaker at a memorial service.

  There are memorials all over the place, and there’d already been a mass award, but there were a lot of little teams who hadn’t been mentioned, because they’d been that clandestine. We were one of them. I hoped anyone else who showed up got taken more at their word than I had. Being accused of lying had hurt more than torture, or almost-death.

  This presentation was just a plaque with names, including my crew. Two other people spoke about elements who’d been insystem in gunboats. Two crews had provided a lot of our intel, and taken out two warships and some remote unmanned stations. Reactor explosions don’t leave much question of bodies, though.

  I sat back and listened to the others. They were very heartfelt, and I knew all the things they wanted to say that wouldn’t fit in words. Some of the audience did, too. A lot were in uniform.

  I’d have survivor’s guilt my entire life. But I knew what I’d say when it was my turn. I’d worked really hard to turn my words into actual prose.

  That was when my escort touched my sleeve.

  “It’s time, lady.”

  It was my turn.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I mounted the podium, still feeling unsure about the uniform. In seconds, complete attention was on me. I took a long, deep breath. This was almost as tense as combat. I didn’t want to say anything wrong. I’d run the finished speech past Mira, who’d approved it with damp eyes.

  She was listed there, too, officially dead, and I wasn’t going to deny her that. Her past was her own, as was her future.

  I took a deep breath, and glanced at my notes.

  “Ladies, men, Soldiers, Blazers, good evening. I am Aonghaelaice Kaneshiro. I am honored to be here this evening. I am here to speak about an element who crewed a clandestine ship they acquired under mysterious circumstances—,” there were a few chuckles, “—the Henri Pieper.”

  “We all served in some way, some more than others. I was proud to serve my system, and have been rewarded for it. Despite that, there is a hierarchy to heroism. It’s not one we seek, or that can be bought. It usually happens by accident, and someone is called upon to do more than they ever thought they could.”

  “But there are those who know they can. They don’t seek to pay the ultimate price, but they know, quietly, confidently, that they have that strength. Few of us ever meet anyone that strong. I had the opportunity to know nine of them well, and to meet several others.”

  “None of us can ever repay what they did for us during the war, and during the terrible final battles that freed us. We are here now, and our system exists, because of their unmatched courage, dedication and determination. We’re here in memorial to them.”

  “I would like to mention those nine I served with and supported.

  “Seth Jonathan Schulman

  “Robert Andrew Dupree

  “Peter Isman Tchayo

  “Marcus David Pond

  “Thor Eric Kessman

  “Astrid Iliana Venkov

  “Zev Theodore Ramovich

  “Evangeline Casey Laksa Spencer

  “Addar Benton Falk.”

  I only knew their real names from the awards I’d transferred, and Mira said hers was still wrong. Those sounded so odd to me. Yet I knew the real people underneath, and they were the kind you trust with your life, and I had.

  It seemed tragic that they were only known after death. And Dylan . . . Actually Karl Jensen . . . was not mentioned. He’d been as brave in his own way. He was as honorable an enemy to us as we’d been to him.

  “Oh, my friends. I will always miss you. What we had in those months can be had by no one else.”

  Tears rolled over my cheeks, but there was still complete silence. So I forced control into my voice.

  “But I read something in a history text that applies now, even more than it did then. I choose not to mourn that these heroes of our system died.”

  “Instead, I’m going to celebrate that men and women of such character lived. And, that for a brief time, I was allowed to know them.”

  I shivered and cried in thunderous applause. It wasn’t for me. That was how it should be.

  END