The Battle of Hollow Jimmy

by Becky Black

  She hurried back across and took his other arm. He'd recovered from his run, his breathing more normal now, but the shock of their appearance, the relief of rescue, made him wobble on his feet.

  "Let's get you inside, Max," she said. "Have a talk."

  He shook off their support to walk up the gangway and the women followed him, then Maiga took the lead and led them all through to the dining area. Wixa at once started boiling water and looking for tea.

  Max sat down heavily beside the table. He ran a hand over his forehead to find it came away wet with sweat. At once, Maiga found a clean cloth so he could wipe his face and hands. His gaze kept flicking between her and Wixa, as if he didn't quite believe they were real, and if he lost sight of them they would vanish. To reassure him, she offered him her hand and he took it, cautious for a moment, and then stared down at her smaller, pale hand in his larger dark one.

  "You're really here." It was only a whisper, awestruck.

  "Yes. Can you tell me what happened?" Maiga's voice was quiet too. She didn't want to sound demanding, he'd been without other people for so long, perhaps had given up any hope of rescue. His mind must be in turmoil. A question to prompt him could help. "Were you part of the crew?"

  "No." He shook his head. "I was a passenger, on my way to a new posting. Four crew and six passengers on the run."

  "How did the crash happen?" Maiga asked.

  "Computer system failure started it. Ended up way off course, navigation systems problems. Then the failures cascaded, they had no control of the ship, not even propulsion. We strayed too close to this planet, caught in the gravity well and couldn't regain control of the engines to get us back out. The crew, I don't know how they did it, but somehow they got the ship down almost intact. But the impact was too severe, killed everyone. Everyone else. I was just lucky."

  He laughed with a hysterical edge to the sound, reliving memories he didn't want to. Maiga stroked his hand. It felt rough, like an infantryman's, not a starship officer. Roughened by the struggle for survival he'd gone through since the crash. Wixa moved over to the table, carrying three steaming cups and she sat down beside the two of them.

  "It can happen that way in a crash," Wixa said, handing over the tea. "Two people can be sitting right next to each other and one makes it, the other doesn't. No rhyme or reason behind it. Pure chance." She patted his arm again. Maiga wanted to roll her eyes. Just go ahead and feel his muscles, why don't you, Wixa?

  "I gave up trying to figure it out," Max said. "I can't keep asking why I was the lucky one."

  "I'm sure you've had other things on your mind," Maiga said, "trying to survive here."

  "Yes." His voice had grown more confident now, as he got used to talking again. "I suppose that was another lucky break. I could have ended up in the middle of a desert, but this place has plenty to eat. And there were enough rations on board to keep me going while I figured out what I could eat and how to find it, or catch it. I had to remember my old survival training. I'd forgotten most of it serving on a starship."

  "Looks like you managed pretty well," Wixa said. "You look healthy. In fact you look great!" She laughed and he did too, more nervously.

  "Well, so do you two," Max said. "I mean, after all this time alone here, and then to be rescued by two beautiful women."

  "Oh I like him," Wixa said, stroking his shoulder. "Can we take him home with us?"

  Maiga laughed. "I think that can be arranged. Max, you'd better collect together everything you want to bring along. We'll take you back to Hollow Jimmy with us and you can decide what to do from there."

  "Decide what to do?" He frowned. "Well, I guess I report back for duty. Do you live on Hollow Jimmy then?" He glanced at Wixa, as if that didn't surprise him about her, but it did that Maiga lived there.

  Maiga went cold suddenly and she saw Wixa staring at Max, then turning her gaze to Maiga.

  "Oh, hell," Wixa said, quietly.

  Oh hell indeed.

  "Max," Maiga said. "How long have you been here?" She'd guessed it had been months, but it hadn't occurred to her just how many, and exactly what that meant.

  "About, oh, I think it's a year and a half. It's hard to keep track sometimes, but I work it out and that's got to be right."

  "Oh bloody hell," Wixa groaned.

  "Is something wrong?" Max looked baffled, even alarmed.

  "Before the war," Wixa said.

  "Which war?"

  "Even before the recall order," Maiga said.

  "The what?"

  "He doesn't know," Wixa said, still staring at Maiga. "About Earth. He doesn't know any of it."

  "Would someone please let me in on what the hell you're talking about?" Max demanded.

  "Max." Maiga took both of his hands in hers, making him look at her. She didn't want to have to do this, tell him that his home planet was a smoking cinder; probably everyone he cared about was dead, and his people on the verge of extinction. How would he stand it? To feel the joy of rescue and then have his heart torn out all in the same day?

  "Max," she said again, still putting off speaking. "There's something very important you need to know about. I'm afraid it's bad news."

  Chapter 19

  Max took the news quite well. Which meant it hadn't actually penetrated, Maiga thought. Hadn't become real yet. After she and Wixa explained, he sat in silence for a while, then asked some questions, then silence again. After that he stood and said he'd go and fetch his things.

  Wixa helped him with his packing, while Maiga secured the rest of the ship, closing down any running systems. She closed off the distress beacon, and then called Wixa on her walkie-talkie.

  "Are you two off the ship?" she asked.

  "Yep." Maiga closed the connection, without commenting on the ‘yep' and turned off the last switches to shut down main power. The lights above her went out and the hum of the power plant faded. The ship rested at last.

  Using her flashlight, she found her way back to the airlock, securing the doors manually behind her. She found Wixa waiting at the bottom of the gangway, beside a few bags, one made of skins.

  "Where is he?"

  Wixa nodded over to the small burial ground. Max stood there among the cairns, his head bowed.

  "I'm bringing some of his food rations," Wixa said. "Since there are three of us and we're a couple of days behind schedule. Otherwise we'd be getting hungry by the time we got back."

  "Good idea."

  As they watched, Max walked back towards the ship, with a slow tread, looking around the landscape. Would he miss it? Maiga wondered. This planet had taken so much from him, but had it given back too? Had he found out what he could achieve relying on his own wits and ingenuity? And had it saved his life? Might he have died in the war with so many of his fellow humans, if he hadn't been stranded here?

  "I wonder if he likes older women."

  "Wixa!" Maiga hissed.

  "What? He's tasty. You think I don't notice?"

  "Oh I noticed you noticing."

  Max reached them, but looked not at Maiga and Wixa, but at the ship, a haunted expression in his eyes. Perhaps he was saying goodbye to it. After a few moments, Maiga took his arm, gently.

  "Come on, Max. Let's take you home."

  ~o~

  "How long has he been in the shower?"

  Maiga looked up from working on her Snapper. She sat at the small table in the living area, while Wixa stood by the food prep area clearing up from the meal the three of them had shared. After the meal, Max had gone into the miniscule bathroom behind the sleeping quarters.

  "About half an hour I think," Maiga said.

  "I suppose if you haven't had a shower in eighteen months you're entitled to linger."

  Maiga nodded. Max seemed clean enough, he must have been bathing in a river or something, but a proper shower, well that was different. "Hot water," she said. "I imagine a person could dream about hot water after a while." Maiga certainly had sometimes on the long treks in the wilderness with
Ilyan and his followers.

  "Water is the benchmark of civilisation you know." Wixa sat at the table opposite Maiga, with a glass of water in one hand and a small bowl in the other.

  "Okay," Maiga said, putting her Snapper down. "I'll bite. What are you talking about this time?"

  "Well, first, people discovered that hot water was great for bathing and for washing things. So hot water is the first step."

  "Ah, those great advances in human evolution. The bath and the laundry."

  "You can mock, but that's the important stuff. Anyway the next step is this." She held up the glass. "Clean water. First working out that you need clean drinking water and then figuring out how to get that to as many people as possible. Everything changed then."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. People stopped drinking beer for breakfast for one thing."

  Maiga rolled her eyes, but kept on playing the game. "Okay, go on. What next?"

  "This." Wixa tipped the small bowl over the glass and ice cubes splashed and clinked. She smiled and held up the glass as condensation started to form on it. "Ice for your drink. Sophistication." She put the glass of iced water down in front of Maiga. "And that is why Max has been in that shower for thirty five minutes now."

  Maiga took a sip of the water, the ice cubes bobbing against her lips, then said, "Well, thanks for that potted history of humanity's relationship with water."

  "You're welcome. Actually, he'd better get out of there soon. I need to use the facilities."

  Maiga gave him another ten minutes then she went into the sleeping quarters, Wixa following her, and knocked on the door. She could still hear the shower. The water recycling system must be running at full pelt.

  "Max? Are you okay?"

  The shower noise stopped and a moment later the door slid open. Maiga stepped back as Max emerged, a towel around his waist. Water droplets glistened like beads on his dark skin and his hair hung damp and heavy, pulled straight by the water's weight.

  "‘scuse me." Wixa hurried past the two of them and closed the bathroom door.

  "I'm sorry," Max said, moving over to the bunks, standing awkwardly, and hanging on to the towel. "It was just nice in there."

  Nice was a word Maiga wouldn't have thought to apply to the tiny shower, which made her claustrophobic if she lingered more than five minutes. But then, she took it for granted. Max looked at his wrinkled fingertips, then he opened his bag, which lay on the bed, and took some clothes out. They looked less ragged than the ones he'd changed out of.

  "I kept these aside," he said. "Something decent to wear the day rescue came."

  His voice was still subdued. He'd been quiet all through the journey so far. He's still processing it all, Maiga thought. It's still not real to him.

  "Max," she started, and then stopped as Wixa came out of the bathroom.

  "Ah, I'll go keep watch in the cockpit," Wixa said.

  "Thanks, Wixa." Maiga nodded and turned back to Max. "Get dressed, then come out and see me when you're ready. I have something I want to show you."

  She left the room, closing the door behind her. The ship felt crowded with the three of them. Not enough chairs, not enough bunks. They would have to sleep in shifts. Strange for that extra person on board to be a man as well. He wasn't a big guy, but somehow men just took up more space. Longer reach, longer stride. She felt as if she had to keep squeezing past him, bodies brushing by each other, the warmth of that momentary contact must be welcome to him after so long alone.

  She didn't mind it herself. In fact she didn't mind his presence on the ship and once or twice she'd wished Wixa wasn't here… That's quite enough of that, she chided herself. Don't forget about Chervaz. Who she'd made no promises to…

  Trying to shake those thoughts from her mind, she pulled a chair in front of a console on the wall, and brought up what she'd put together when Max was showering. A compilation of news broadcasts, pictures, video footage. Max needed this to be more than just a story told to him by his rescuers. He needed it to be real.

  When he emerged from the sleeping quarters about ten minutes later, he wore the clothes he'd shown her, black trousers and a simple white shirt. His hair was dry and once again tied back. He had no shoes on and he saw her glance down at his bare feet.

  "I only have the boots now. I think I had shoes, but I must have left them behind."

  "That's okay. Just mind what you stand on. Grab that chair and sit by me." Perhaps she should have added ‘please', as he had told them when the crash had happened when he'd been on his way to take up a posting with his new rank of Lieutenant Commander, and that meant technically he outranked Maiga. Well not on this ship he didn't. He didn't object to the order though, just grabbed the chair and sat beside her.

  She started to play the various clips and bring up the reports, talking him through them. How it all unfolded. How High Command had been too slow to see what was coming, had ignored Ilyan's prediction. She didn't mention anything about her own involvement with Ilyan.

  "How did they disable Earth defence grid?" Max asked, as he read over reports of the final attack on Earth. "It says the satellite weapons platforms went offline. That can only be done from inside High Command."

  Maiga shrugged. "They hacked the system apparently. They boast about it in fact. That they took control of our own defences."

  "Bastards!" Max hissed the word. "After everything we did for them!"

  Ah, had he not taken in the first part of the story? "You did understand the part about how we stirred up trouble between them? So we could profit from fighting their wars?"

  "Like we needed to stir any trouble!" He snorted. "I suppose now they've eliminated Earth they all live in peace and harmony?"

  "That's not really the point. We should never have interfered in the first place."

  He sat leaning forward, head hanging for a while, and then spoke again, voice quiet. "All the ships I ever served on, they're all listed destroyed or missing. Everyone I knew, everyone I called a friend is gone."

  "I'm sorry." She rested a hand on his back. "It's like that for almost everyone you'll meet on Hollow Jimmy. We just have to start over, make new lives. You'll find new friends."

  He turned to smile up at her. "Like you and Wixa." He sighed, nodded. "I… I guess that's the way it has to be. What else can we do? We're powerless. They've taken everything."

  His tone sounded so low, so despairing, that she rubbed his back to try to comfort him, unable to think of words to say.

  "Has anyone been back there?" Max asked. "Back to Earth? Since it…" They'd looked at pictures together, grainy distant stills from the aliens' own scanning systems. The familiar blue and green, turned black, grey and red. Like a cinder.

  "I've heard of ships going back there, to look for survivors. Some rumours say people were rescued from the moon colonies, a few from crippled ships. But none from Earth."

  Aside from the possibility of rescuing survivors, Maiga couldn't imagine why anyone would want to go there and look into that abyss.

  "I don't know what to feel." Max shook his head. "I can mourn my friends, but how do I mourn a whole planet?"

  What could she tell him, when she hadn't figured that out either? Sometimes she thought about places she'd known back home, the place she'd grown up, and imagined them gone. But it didn't help. She'd never expected to go back to those places anyway. Max would join the rest of the survivors in trying to work out how to mourn a home world that had not been home.

  His body started to shake under her hand, his face buried in his hands. She expected to feel awkward as he released the shock and pain, but no, she felt glad to be here to help him. It felt right to persuade him to straighten up so she could put her arms around him and hold him. And as his choking sobs died away it still felt right to let him bury his face against her neck.

  His voice came in a soft whisper. "You smell so good. You're so beautiful. So good…"

  Eighteen months alone, she reminded herself. He's desperate and hungry
and he smells so good too, and he is beautiful. And I've made no promises to anyone. But…

  "Max." He kissed her neck lightly, and his hands slid around her waist and pulled her closer. "Max, you're not ready for this."

  He was vulnerable. It would be irresponsible to give in to the response she felt. Had felt and denied from the moment she saw him. Pure desire that she hadn't felt for anyone in a long time. That desire, that urge thrilled her. It proved that Tesla hadn't left her so broken she could only be with a man like Chervaz, who treated her like spun glass.

  "I am ready," he said, moving back a little, so he could look into her face. "I think you are too."

  Cocky. He was handsome, and he'd probably always been able to get any woman he wanted. She wasn't doing anything to make him think any different. But he just had it. He made her body sing. When he bent his head to kiss her, she responded without another thought. She barely even noticed moving from the chairs through into the sleeping quarters.

  All she saw and heard and felt was him.

  Chapter 20

  "Are there usually this many people?" Jaff said looking around as the conference room filled up.

  "Definitely not," Chervaz said, the number of attendees amazing him. "Usually there's the council, me, a few of the business owners and a couple of people who are probably in the wrong place."

  He attended the meeting of the Human Business Guild every month. The guild council took questions from the floor and it was usually a pretty dull affair. But he'd picked up the rumour that it might be more interesting than usual tonight. Chullan, the coffee shop owner, had made no secret of the fact he intended to raise the issue of Bara giving away goods to station residents.

  Chervaz heard enough people defend Bara in arguments that he could guarantee someone would speak up in her favour here. And going by the number of people still arriving in the room, that might be a lot of someones.

  "What's that lot doing here?" Jaff nodded at several men and women who stood around the walls, wearing the badges of the newly formed volunteer watch patrol. "Think they're expecting trouble?"

  "Maybe," Chervaz said slowly. He'd run afoul of an MP or two in his day, and apparently this Watch had many ex MPs in their ranks. They wore that all too familiar unsympathetic look, that said ‘anything you say will be taken down and used to ensure you get into even bigger trouble than you already are.' He spotted a woman going around talking to each of the Watchmen.