by Greg Dragon
They had excelled and won, and the bad guys had been routed, their leader now in the capable hands of the Shrikes. But did she care for the future and what would happen to them? Did the Alliance really matter to her, the same way it did to Cilas? All that fire he exhibited when explaining his pride as a Vestalian, and Raileo too, with his anger at leaving those hostages behind, where was her burning fire? Did it not exist?
Staring into those weary brown eyes revealed a mystery about herself. Helga had come a long way in her recovery from Dyn, but deep in her soul there was still this loneliness. She gave up on quieting her mind, it just wasn’t possible, and chose instead to focus on one of her toughest subjects. Normally the word family was but a word that she applied liberally to her closest friends, but when it came to blood and relations she drew a blank.
Her parents were dead, one from the war, the other from suicide over the first, and her twin brother Rolph, who had been separated from her, was somewhere else unknown. Her memories of him were vivid. He was very Casanian in his features, despite them being born the same time, and he was the apple of her mother’s eye, just like she was to her father. There was love, lots of love, so much in fact that she didn’t have to remember; it was fused into her DNA.
It was no wonder her mother chose to follow her father to the afterlife; she and her brother just couldn’t fill the massive vacuum left inside her heart. Helga hated her mother for a long time, blaming her for the harsh life she was dealt when she came onboard the Rendron. The bullying, the trauma, the locked doors in her mind that protected her from their memory, Helga put it on her mother for being selfish, and choosing to leave her to a universe where she’d never fit in.
Over time her stance did soften, however, and when she first experienced love, she understood. Her hate morphed into acceptance, but she didn’t realize that she’d shifted it to herself. Now the memories were faded, and all that remained was a blurry image of her mother on a field of grass, watching Rolph fly a kite. She didn’t have a photo of her family, just murky images inside her mind. Her father was a Marine from the Rendron, and was known by the captain, but she had never thought to ask him for an image or token of his memory for her berth.
For the first time in over 92 cycles, they were back in the same system as the Rendron, her known home. Some of the crew were excited, some were numb, and some like Cleia Rai’to didn’t know what to expect. She had asked Helga no less than five times how she felt about living on the starship, but the Nighthawk would never give her details, only riddles before quickly changing the subject.
Helga hadn’t felt any positive emotions about the return, but she did have a knot in her stomach. The last time she was on Rendron, a Geralos had robbed a child of her mind, and both Quentin and Cilas had been in healing tanks from wounds sustained in action. She had been given a bigger role, mostly due to Cilas’s absence, which gained her a promotion to lieutenant junior grade and all the perks that came with it.
She should have been happy to return, but all she felt was sadness for their adventures coming to an end. There would be more, but there’d be more crew members, and Nighthawk recruits, whose personalities she would have to learn. This alone stressed her out, though when she’d met Quentin and Raileo, it had been as easy as meeting long-lost cousins. Cilas had assured her that she would have a say in who came aboard, but this still didn’t serve to calm her nerves.
Rendron was home, but it hadn’t felt that way since BLAST, where the hardships of that trial forced her to look inward and accept who she was. Helga had been a half-alien cadet in an academy made up of mostly Vestalian children. They had prodded and teased her, pulling her into fights, but that wasn’t the problem. The questioning of her lineage was what hurt.
When Helga recalled those days, she would feel proud of herself for being a natural fighter, never backing down despite the odds. She was small, but she was a spitfire, vicious with both her fists and her tongue, and if it got truly violent, she had the foresight to arm herself during her rounds. From spikes to knives, she was rarely without something sharp tucked away inside her socks. In time, she’d even stolen a gun and kept it secured inside her berth.
Being an orphan with barely a memory of her parents, Helga would often question whether or not the things she recalled about them were even real. Toss in insults from the other cadets insinuating that her father was a war criminal and she the product of something awful, and her world had shrunk to the size of a cockpit. The first time she’d heard it, she denied it easily, but after twenty times it had managed to sink in. Helga had never truly believed it, but the teasing created a lingering doubt. Rendron brought back those memories, and the feeling that she didn’t belong, and not even Cilas’s reassurances could do much to remove that doubt.
She recalled something that Joy had said to her before one of their biggest fights.
“You need to be careful, Helga,” she had said. “Girls like us have a void that needs filling, and no spacer or Nighthawk will be enough. Though I don’t expect you to listen, the way you carry on with the boys, it’s a wonder you haven’t gotten yourself into trouble yet. There will never be a man perfect enough to replace that image in your head, girl. Not the captain, certainly not Cilas, and not that big lug of a Marine, either.”
Helga had heard her but disliked her words since they made her feel juvenile and foolish. Not to mention they were offensive. Though Joy was an orphan like most other spacers, she disliked her talking about her father as if she knew anything of him or her memories. For ten cycles she didn’t speak to her after that conversation, until Joy being Joy, forced her to forgive her on the spot when she showed up at her cabin door drunk, refusing to budge until Helga let her in.
The memory of that cycle brought a smile to her face. Oh, how she missed her friend and their constant spats. Joy was her big sister in every way except blood, but they fought, argued and loved one another as if they shared parents and a childhood.
“There she is,” she heard Raileo say, and she opened her eyes, uncrossed her legs, and inhaled patience to help exhale the negativity she had been focused on.
“Laser Ray,” she said, as she walked to the edge of the Thundercat. She looked down to find him shirtless but for his cross-holster, with his dual pistols hidden in the small of his back.
He reached up to help her, but she fanned him off. “I got this, Nighthawk, but you’re sweet for the attempt,” she said, then rolled forward, sliding off the wing and landing skillfully on the deck. “What’s on your mind, killer?”
“Not a whole lot, really. Killer?” He laughed. “Can you slow down on the nicknames? I think I have enough to last me for the rest of my career. I was about to go expend some old rounds when I looked up and saw the top of your bushy little head.”
“Bushy, you say? I’m willing to bet I have more up here than all of you Nighthawks combined,” she said. “Are you allergic to shirts now, Chief? I’m seeing a little pattern when you’re down here, and I’m starting to wonder if this has anything to do with—”
Raileo laughed. “You made it, what? Two minutes before you gave me schtill about Cleia?”
“Who mentioned Cleia? I know that I didn’t mention Cleia,” Helga said. “Before you stuck your face into it, cutting me off, I was going to ask if this had to do with your little scene inside CIC.”
He stopped and placed his hands on his hips and guffawed as if he wanted the entire ship to hear. “You are so full of it. Nice dig at my embarrassing outburst, by the way. Nothing gets past you, but we both know that you were referring to Cleia, who does like my muscles. But no, I don’t dress like this to impress her. She doesn’t come down here.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Helga said. “Can you tell me why?”
They were in front of a cell that had been converted into a range, and Raileo handed her a pistol, then stepped inside to access the computer. Helga thought that he didn’t hear her, but waited patiently for him to get the space set up. After a minute of this he shru
gged, and she could see that his delay was due to him puzzling over the answer.
“This stays between us, Ate, but she gets nervous around Tutt. It’s nothing he did to her or anything like that; it’s just that she’s so tiny,” Raileo said. He started gesturing wildly as if the right words wouldn’t come out.
“Uh-huh,” Helga said, crossing her arms. “So, our little Traxian is a speciesist?”
“No,” he almost shouted. “It’s not about him being a Genesian. It’s about him being a huge Marine that can crush her tiny frame with barely a thought. Cleia has a past, just like all of us, full of tremendous thypes that deserved the open end of a barrel, and Tutt reminds her of someone from her past, so she limits her time on the dock.”
“Poor thing,” Helga whispered, rubbing at her chin. “But Ray, she’s our ship’s physician, and we’re bound to get several more Tutts joining our little crew. What is she going to do then? Stay holed up inside medbay? I have my own issues the same way, but we rely on her, so this cannot go on. Plus, it’s not fair to Q, and I simply won’t have her hesitating if he gets sick, hurt, or worse. I like Cleia, I really do; in fact, I consider her now to be a friend. Between the two of us, we now have a mission, to get her pretty blue posterior in to see a psych. I’m being serious, Ray. If Cilas learns about this, he will switch her out as soon as we dock. Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”
“Solid copy. I agree. If it makes you feel better, though, she’s made great strides. You remember the passengers from that satellite op? The two of them worked together on setting things up, and that did a lot for her. I think it was brave,” Raileo said.
“Yeah, well I think you’re in love,” Helga said, rolling her eyes. “With the galaxy working overtime to pull itself apart, the last thing we need right now is a physician dodging a Nighthawk. I won’t say anything, Ray, you have my word, but get her straightened out before I do.”
“How much do you like this woman, Ray?” Helga said after he had fired off thirty consecutive shots at virtual targets that had no chance against his immaculate aim.
“I like her a lot, Ate,” he said, and motioned for her to take her turn.
“Like her enough to quit the team if she asked you to?” Helga said.
“She wouldn’t ask that,” he said, and she stopped firing to square up with him, knitting her brows.
“She’s a doctor, of course she will. Think the next time you return from a drop busted up and barely sucking air that she’ll just be okay with patching you up? Come on Ray, think with this head,” she said, jabbing two fingers at her skull. “Do you like her that much?”
“No. Hell no, not enough to go soft and let everyone down. We’re into each other, alright, and I know what you all think of me, that I’m some chiern-chasing playboy, alright, but Cleia’s different and I’m not some fool. If she asks me to do that, I will tell her no. Ate, I’m from a schtill hole where we shared bathwater recycled from a drain, and plenty of people lost a lot just to get me out of there. This isn’t some job to me. This is life, and for every lousy lizard I kill, I know my father is out there, smiling at me, proud. Cleia will just have to understand. If not, then that’s life, isn’t it? Either you ride or you get left, and I don’t intend to stop.”
Helga aimed down the sights of her sidearm, and dropped fifteen Geralos holograms out of seventeen.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, and that’s why you missed them,” Raileo said. “But you’ve come a long way, Ate. I have to say, you’re built for this.”
“That’s what I keep hearing. Though it’s not the kind of feedback that makes me feel better about all this schtill,” Helga said, switching places with him. “You excited about Rendron?”
“Oh, hell yeah. I get to sleep in my berth on Aurora deck again, possibly with a bit of company. Man, and the meal dispenser on Nero with the snacks. I’m going to totally empty that thing. Look at me, I’m getting goosebumps,” he said, grinning. “What about you, Ate? You excited?”
Helga shrugged. “That’s the thing Ray, and it worries me. It doesn’t feel like home. Isn’t that strange?”
Raileo stared at her for a long time, then reached for her weapon and checked it. “Wanna know why I’m so good at shooting?” he said, though it was a rhetorical question and he turned away from her to give his attention to the targets.
“Before Rendron and the Alliance, I was a runner for a gang. They were spice suppliers on the hub, keeping the people numb and damn near enslaved with all the favors they ended up owing for a thirty-minute high. I always knew it was wrong, even as a boy, but they had rescued me from … from some thyped up schtill back home. The boss, Kaszis Han, he brought me in and showed me how to fight. Man was an ace with any weapon; he had to be a former ESO or something.
“Anyway, he took me under his wing and became like a father to me, showing me how to fight. Got in a lot of situations with that gang, and each situation was kill or be killed. So, I learned how to shoot straight, along with a lot of other skills on that chart called survival. It made me different, and I didn’t realize that until I became a cadet. Kaszis said I had the skills of an assassin, but that my heart was too good for me to realize my potential. It was him that paid for me to get on the big ship. Sent me off with a one-way ticket and a bear hug. I remember that he called me son.”
He stopped and collected himself, clearing his throat loudly.
“Thype, but that’s heavy isn’t it?” he said. “My own parents were such trash, yet this cold-blooded gangster showed me nothing but love. If I was to quit this team I would schtill on everything that he sacrificed for me to make it. You have nothing to worry about. I’m a Nighthawk for life.”
“Where’s Kaszis Han now?” Helga said.
“Dead. He vanished off the grid and I couldn’t get in contact, even when I had the means to get it done. Old friend from the hub, serves on Helysian now, well he reached out to me. Told me Kaszis died in a heist gone wrong,” Raileo said, coughing out a laugh. “Damned fool. Get this: he smuggled on board a cruiser full of Marines delivering supplies and aid. You know the drill. Well, he chose the wrong compartment to hide in. The cruiser came under attack and they lost atmosphere in that particular area of the ship. Said he suffocated from the loss of oxygen. What a way to go. Guess the old man wanted to see more than those crates before he punched it.”
“He was right, y’know,” Helga said, handing him her pistol. “About your heart. You have compassion, and that makes you better than many of the spacers who would dare to judge you for anything.”
“I always enjoy our talks, but this one was awful,” he said, smiling at her ruefully.
“We’ll have better ones later, over a drink or two, eh?” Helga said. “All we have is time left until we dock with that big beautiful starship. Thank you, Ray.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, for always being honest with me, even when I’m giving you schtill. Cleia won’t compromise who you are, if she knows what’s good for her.”
“Now you have me worried,” he said, laughing.
29
Helga Ate stood, staring at her reflection for a long time, scrutinizing how she looked in her freshly pressed dress whites. The fun was over, that brief bit of existence under a commander as easy going as Cilas Mec, and they were back to the reality of salutes and chain-of-command.
She teased up her hair, once a defiant Mohawk but now a bald undercut, or bush, as Raileo had called it. Everything was tight and in order, and she looked every bit the officer, though no amount of dressing up could mask the look of disappointment plastered across her face. She forced a smile, using her fingers to drag up the corners of her mouth, which caused her to laugh.
“Suck it up, cruta, it’s the job,” she whispered, reaching for a bit of cloth to dab at her sweat.
There was a chime at her door, and she closed her eyes to summon patience, exhaled slowly, then collected her hat and crossed the compartment to open it.
“Re
ady?” Raileo said. He was standing in the passageway with Quentin, both of them clean-shaven and dressed to the nines.
“About as ready as I’ll ever be. Lead the way, you great big thrusters,” she said. “Where’s the commander?”
“Still in his cabin,” Quentin said. “But we’re about to head up there to approach the gangway, so I came to get you. Figured it would look good to have us exit as a united front. The commander, then you, followed by Ray and me, then Sunny, followed by the doc. It will make for quite the feed for the reporters. We’re tight, but this makes us look professional and together.”
“Love it, but I docked us into the captain’s private hangar. What reporters?” Helga said, and Quentin exchanged glances with Raileo Lei.
“There’s um, a crowd of cadets and news reporters with flobots waiting for us to deplane,” Raileo said. “I heard from Cleia just now, and she says that you can see them from the bridge. Looks like we’re heroes for the day. News got out that we helped rescue that prince.”
“News got out? How? We’re ESO operators,” Helga said. “What am I missing?”
“Word from A’wfa Terracydes, Alliance-wide, praising the aid of our forces,” Quentin said. “I saw some of the feed. They mentioned Rendron by name, so naturally, the crew did the math. What surprised me is the captain allowing them on this deck. Guess the lines must have loosened up in our absence.”
“Great,” Helga said sarcastically. “Can’t wait for the, ‘how does it feel to be the only female Nighthawk?’ questions, or the ‘what do you have to say to all the Casanian children watching this feed?’”
“Heavy is the crown, eh Lieutenant?” Raileo said, and Helga laughed despite herself.
They walked to the lift and rode it up, and Helga took a moment to take in the bridge. She wouldn’t be back inside that seat for quite some time while the Ursula was serviced, and a wave of sentimentality nearly crippled her.
“You alright, Ate?” Quentin said.