by Sam Coulson
“You’re going up before he’s ready?” I asked.
“Critical mass is key in aerial combat,” she responded. You need every available ship when the first clash hits. Barely over a minute now.”
She looked at me expectantly.
I’m certain that my face flushed red when I realized what she was waiting for. My palms immediately began to sweat.
“I won’t be far behind you guys,” I said as I took a step toward her tentatively. “Loid will need a gunner.”
“Uh-huh,” she responded as she leaned forward slightly.
We sat looking at each other for several agonizing seconds before I took a breath, leaned down and kissed her. It was sweet and gentle, but all too brief. I smiled at her as I pulled away, she slowly pursed her lips and then curled them into a crooked smile.
Her console buzzed and blinked green.
“Your systems are set,” I broke the silence, nodding toward her console.
“Mm-right.”
I turned to leave, then stopped, “Good luck.”
“You too,” she answered.
I whirled through a wave emotions as I left the ship. Happiness was there, but also fear. Fear for her, fear for myself, fear for the thousands of lives on the planet’s surface. My legs felt rubbery as they carried me across the landing field to the hangar where they had brought the wounded after the firefight. I found Chen just as Ju-lin’s Falcon’s engines fired, rocketing her into the air to join the others.
When I told him that Lee needed to see him, Chen immediately handed his Slate to the nurse, grabbed a medpack, and followed me to the hanger.
“I told him not to get up out of bed,” Chen muttered as we crossed the airfield. “That Draugari poison is nasty stuff.”
“Poison?”
“Didn’t you notice?” Chen asked. “Well, no you probably wouldn’t. He’s had me pump him so full of stims that he could probably run a marathon in a half hour. No, the hit he took fighting the Draugari when they leveled New Haven. That one in the shoulder. It wasn’t a clean wound. Did he say why he needed me?”
“No, just to get you,” I answered. “Maybe he needs some pain meds so he can fly.”
“Fly?” Chen asked, incredulous as we neared the hangar. “You mean pilot something? If he thinks he’s going to be piloting anything in his condition he’s lost his damned mind.”
As we entered the hangar we saw that Lee was there, leaning heavily on a table, waiting.
“I haven’t lost my damned mind,” Lee repeated with a gruff chuckle. “Well, maybe I have.”
“Governor—” Chen’s voice was forceful and urgent as he approached Lee and took his wrist, feeling for a pulse. “I told you last time, your body can’t take any more stims, I shouldn’t have given you that last dose.”
“Yes well, hindsight,” Lee said dismissively.
“I’m serious,” Chen persisted. “Whatever that Draugari hit you with got in your bones and is spreading like a hyper-aggressive cancer. What you need is rest, not running around with a laser pistol or piloting an Eagle!”
“Falcon,” Lee corrected him. “If you knew what it was that got in my bones could you have reversed it?”
“Reversed it?” Chen asked. “I doubt it. Contained it? Possibly. But I would need a proper hospital. We just don’t have the facilities for this kind of thing. That’s why I tried to convince you to go back to petition the Protectorate for protection instead of sending Marin. They may have treatments for this on the core worlds.”
That answered the question of where Marin went. I wondered how long ago he’d left.
“Your ship will be set in two minutes,” Loid said as he entered the room behind us. “Teigan says they are about to engage. I’d best get moving.”
“Close the door behind you,” Lee said. “No, Burns, you stay too.”
Loid closed the door and leaned with his back against it.
“So, what was it?” Lee asked, leveling his gaze at me. “What was it that the Draugari fired that splintered into my bones? What is it that is that’s slowly killing me?”
Loid and Chen looked at me, puzzled.
“You’re asking him?” Chen asked.
The forgotten memory had been swimming in my mind since Chen had mentioned the poison. I took a breath.
Lee held my gaze. His eyes were intense, but tired.
I delved into my memories.
“It’s a biogenically developed cancer tied to a slow-decay radioactive agent.” I said slowly. “The radioactivity infects all neighboring tissue and creates a cascading effect.”
“Treatment?”
“The Draugari don’t have any,” I answered as I drew upon Lor’ten’s memories. “I don’t think they developed it, they just know how to create it. Once it’s set, it is irreversible. But then the Draugari don’t really focus on coming up with a cures, sickness is weakness. Lee, please believe me that until just now, I didn’t know. I didn’t remember.”
Lee nodded his head slowly, satisfied.
“Oh, so now he’s a doctor?” Chen asked. “I don’t see how he could possibly know that.”
“Oh,” Lee said as he slipped his weight onto a bench. “He knows.”
“I hate to interrupt this very strange and confusing moment,” Loid broke in. “But I need to get my ship prepped for a fight. Can I go now?”
“I suppose it’s time,” Lee replied as he slowly got to his feet. “Eli, I have something of yours. Growd’s guys had it locked up.”
He reached behind him and pulled out my blade, still in the sheath.
“Chen, Loid, you’re here to witness this, and let me apologize in advance for that. The law says I need a medical expert and an unaffiliated third party,” Lee said slowly. “Eli, this thing in my shoulder is going to kill me. Chen’s right, I shouldn’t be out of bed, and to be honest I’m on enough stims that I’m having trouble seeing straight. Back there in the fighting I couldn’t see shit, didn’t even take a shot.”
“Then how are you going to fly?” I asked.
“I’m not,” he said flatly as he held out my blade to me. “You are.”
It took a few seconds for the weight of his words to sink in.
“The kid?” Chen looked from Lee to me. “No offence, but you don’t know how to fly one of those things, do you?”
I shook my head softly, my eyes locked on the knife in Lee’s hand.
“He will,” Lee said softly.
Somewhere behind me Loid took a steep intake of breath followed by a curse.
“I won’t do it,” I said flatly.
“Yes, you will,” Lee answered. “I can’t fly that last bird, and we need all twelve in the air. We’re out numbered. One ship can well be the difference between life and death for us all. And I wasn’t kidding, this shoulder is killing me anyway. You know that, Eli.”
Despite my best efforts to maintain control, a tear ran down my cheek.
“Eli, I think now is the time for you to explain,” Loid said softly from behind me.
Again there was silence as I struggled with the words.
“I am the last Thar’esh,” I said softly. “I was on this world when the terraformers came, we were living here. And I somehow survived.”
“A Thar’esh,” Loid whispered with an air of finality that sent a shiver up my spine. “And what did Growd find out there?”
“Charons,” I responded. “Memories. The collected memories of the history of the Thar’esh. I looked into them, I saw some what they held.”
“Memories? You ‘looked into’ memories?” Chen asked. “This is all nonsense.”
“No, it’s not,” Lee approached me face to face. “I saw him with the Draugari who shot me. Eli killed him, stole his memories, and saved our lives.”
“Stole his memories?” Chen echoed.
“So,” Lee continued, facing me. “Thar’esh is it? And I thought those were just fairy-stories. Shadows and darkness. I’m glad you found some truth out there.”
&n
bsp; “Wait, you’re telling me that when we found you, you were recovering from somehow surviving the terraforming event?” Chen asked as he put it all together. “It turned you from what did you call it? A Thar’esh? What is that? It turned you into a human? That’s not possible.”
“Forget that it’s not supposed to be possible,” Lee answered. “Does it fit?”
“Fit?”
“Does what he just said make sense against what was wrong with him when we found him?”
Chen was silent, “Well, maybe. Maybe theoretically! But not seriously!”
“Take the knife,” Lee held it out to me.
I didn’t.
“Dammit boy, my daughter is up there, I can’t help her, but you can.”
I reached out and took the blade by the hilt. My hand shook. Lee pulled the scabbard, laying the blade bare.
“Chen Kerber,” Lee said quietly. “As my attending physician, I want you to verify that my condition is terminal, and bear witness that I am asking Eli to perform my legal euthanization in accordance with the method I choose.”
“You’re insane!”
“I am sound of mind and failing body.”
“Sound of mind? You’re asking the boy to stab you to death?”
“Just say yes,” Loid said, putting his hand on Chen’s shoulder.
Lee turned his head from me, met Loid’s eyes, and nodded.
“I witness,” Chen said, his voice weak. “But I cannot condone.”
“Loid Burns,” Lee continued.
“I witness and verify,” Loid answered. “I will take care of them. Both of them.”
Without another word, Lee stepped forward, wrapping his hand around my own, and positioning the blade against his gut.
“Elicio the Thar’esh,” he said quietly in my ear. “People’s lives are at stake. Lin’s life is at stake, and I’m dying either way. This gives all those people a chance.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
“No boy, I am,” he drew a breath. “I don’t want to make you do this, and I don’t want to saddle you with the burdens I already carry. But there is no other way. Maybe if you live through this day you will succeed where I failed.”
Before I could ask what he meant, his grip over my hand tightened, and with a powerful yaulp, he screamed as our hands together thrust the blade up beneath his ribs into his chest.
Chapter 36.
I paced.
Endlessly paced.
My eyes traced along the floor, looking at the grout where the ceramic plates were fused to the walls. Every time I walked passed my eyes lingered on one small notch where the grouting was missing, a shadow, an imperfection. The workers probably had to switch to a new batch at that point. It was nothing. It was irrelevant. Six millimeters of grout amongst miles of corridors on the ship. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. Every time I passed, my mind fixated on that one little notch.
“Lieutenant?”
I spun to see an orderly. She looked young, far too young to be here.
“Lieutenant Lee McCullough?”
“Yes, that’s me,” I wiped my sweaty palms on the pants of my uniform and straightened my lapel.
“Your wife is fine, as is your daughter,” she said with a slight smile. “Please, follow me.”
My feet carried me lightly down the hall behind her. Halfway down the hall she stopped, opened a door, and gestured me inside.
My heart jumped as I saw the empty bed, but I caught my breath when I saw Linaea in the rocking chair by the window. The chair a dark wood, synthetic I was sure, but a reasonable facsimile. For all the rough living, the fleet took pains to make the hospital facilities on carriers as comfortable as possible.
“Lee,” Linaea’s voice was soft. “Everything is fine. She’s fine. I’m fine. Where is Marin?”
“With Corporal Graves,” I answered. “I figured you would want some quiet. I will bring him later today.”
“Thank you,” she said without looking up. “Come here, hold her.”
She shifted the little bundle of cloth that she was cradling, a small arm poked out from between the folds. Five little fingers, I quickly counted. I reached down and took her without hesitation. My right hand could almost reach completely around her. So tiny. So fragile. I gently pushed aside the blanket. Her skin was pink, eyes closed, on the top of her head were a few rogue strands of dark hair.
“How do you like the name Juliette?” She asked.
“Eli,” Loid’s voice was distant.
I kept my eyes clenched shut, fighting through the waves of memories. Sixty four years, two hundred fourteen days and twelve hours and eighteen minutes. The number came from somewhere within. I knew of worlds I had never seen, space stations, children, Ju-lin toddling across the floor, a wife, there were waves of crippling sadness, fleeting arrows of joy, and a heavy pall of guilt and regret. I pushed them aside. Searching. I recalled stars, ships, engines. My mind raced through my knowledge of ships, shuttles, hovers, and the layout of a Dreadnaught.
“Elicio,” Loid called again, his voice seemed more near.
The Falcon? I questioned myself, and the thoughts came. Platform Dynamics Falcon Mark II. Fusion engines, ten ton cargo capacity. Power by one class seven fusion thruster, and fourteen XL9 maneuvering jets.
“Hey kid,” I felt Loid’s hand on my shoulder. “Breathe.”
“Um, yeah,” I said softly as I finally opened my eyes. “I’m here.”
I was on my knees, Lee lay in front of me. His face was ashen, but somehow looked restful in death, despite the blood pooling beneath him. I still held the hilt of my blade, which was still lodged in his chest.
“Are you alright?”
“She’ll never forgive me for this,” I whispered hoarsely, looking up at Loid.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted him to say, if anything. He just looked back with sympathetic eyes. It was just as well. There was nothing to be said.
I took a deep breath and pulled my knife from Lee’s chest. The sound was sickening. I didn’t look back down as I stood up. My arm was covered with blood up to my elbow. I wanted to wash. I wanted to cry. I wanted a drink. I wanted the last five minutes to be erased and reset. I stared down at his body, feeling empty. He had taken me in, given me a chance, put faith in me. Faith right up until the end, he had faith.
“Did it work?” Loid asked as he looked at me hesitantly.
I nodded.
“They will have engaged the Collegiate by now.”
I looked around and saw my scabbard lay a few feet away where it had fallen from Lee’s hand as he died. I stepped over, took it, wiped my blade on my pants, and sheathed it.
When I was done, Loid wordlessly turned and headed to the hangar door. When he got there, he stopped and waited for me. I heard Chen say something as he moved toward the body. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t look back.
With nothing else to do, most of the colonists had left and returned to their homes. The few that were left froze as we walked out onto the field. Jager and Boils finished unhooking the fuel lines from Tons-o-Fun and stopped to stare. I had no idea what they thought. Had they heard Lee’s final scream? Surely they saw the blood on my clothes and the knife on my belt. I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact with any of them.
“Eli will be taking the last Falcon up,” Loid announced matter-of-factly.
Maybe it was the look on his face, or the smeared blood on mine, but nobody questioned us.
“Are both ships prepped?” Loid followed up.
Jager looked from Loid, to me, and back to Loid, “Yeah, the Falc is ready. So’s the Scotsman.”
“Why are you two still hanging around here?” Loid asked.
“Eh,” Jager shrugged. “Most of thems got families around here to go back to. I’m on my own, aside from ugly over there.”
“Up yours,” Boils grunted jovially.
“Well, if it’s all the same to you two I could use a few extra hands,” Loid called back. “Know your
way around ship’s weapons systems?”
“I was a trained as a fleet gunner before I washed out,” Boils answered.
“Naw, not me. But I spent a few years working power systems on a Domari tanker, I know my way around a ship.”
“Interested?” Loid asked, nodding toward Tons.
“Though I’d prefer dying in a soft bed next to the warmth of a few beautiful ladies, I don’t think that’s in the cards today,” Boils answered. “So blaze of glory sounds like a decent second.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Loid smiled. “Get her prepped.”
He turn to me.
“Are you okay?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. My eyes scanned across the makeshift airfield. The rest of the colony stood in the distance, behind it the hill with the cave where I had found myself, alone and naked a few months ago.
“Eli?”
“Yeah, I think I am,” I met his eyes for a second, but couldn’t hold them. I glanced away and my eyes found the communication station that Lee had been using. I remembered him standing there fiddling with a rusty bolt just moments ago. I glanced down and saw the blood on my hand. The sight brought on a flash of his last memory. I saw myself holding the blade as he pulled it in toward his chest—
I pushed the memory away, shaking my head forcefully. As I did, I saw something else.
“The table,” without knowing why, I turned and walked over to the coms station.
Loid followed.
I looked down at the table. Lee had taken a grid and drawn up a map showing the world. There was a mark for the location where the Celestrial haulers waited to come in and terraform the world. A pile of rocks representing the debris field. Halfway between the haulers and the planet was a handful of stones, representing the fighters and where he thought they would clash and where the battle was currently raging. Teigan and Lee had figured that the Collegiate pilots would be tired from the battle with the Draugari, and possibly low on fuel, so they decided to push the battle to the debris field, hoping to use the wrecks as cover, and to hopefully push the Collegiate pilot’s into making mistakes.
“Come on kid,” Loid said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “They’re outnumbered up there.”