by David Adams
“Captain, I am German. We are a proud people with a long history. Some of that history is dark. History is a painful but accurate teacher. There’s one thing I’ve always kept close to my chest. When I was a teenager, my best friend’s parents moved from Essen to Frankfurt to be with their extended family. One day I was visiting my friend when her great-grandfather, a very nice man, told us, ‘Whatever you hear from other people from Germany about what went on before and during the war, don’t believe anyone who says they did not know. We all knew what was happening. We knew whole families were disappearing. People who were outspoken were gone in the morning. Anyone who tells you they were ignorant of what was happening is lying.’ If something’s happening to those prisoners, I want to know about it, own it, and never attempt to pretend that nothing was happening on my watch.”
Not on my watch. Important words for those with any kind of authority. “Very well, then. Out of consideration for your cultural history, I’ll lodge a request with Captain Anderson to permit either yourself or a trusted representative to inspect the welfare of the prisoners and their accommodation on Eden personally. In fact, when I get out of here, I’ll go see them myself as well.”
Keller relaxed, the tension flowing out of her. This was no show for promotion or praise—it was genuine concern. “Thank you, Captain. I appreciate it.”
“It’s important,” said Liao. She shuffled, sloshing the water. “Perhaps, then, you can do me a favour in exchange. Two, in fact.”
“Certainly, ma’am,” said Keller. “What do you need?”
“Firstly,” said Liao. “Tell me. What is Scarecrow?”
Keller stiffened. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that question, ma’am.”
Liao’s eyes narrowed. “On whose authority?”
“Captain Anderson, ma’am. He was specific that he wanted to tell you about it in person.”
“Well,” she said, “get him to come over here.”
“I will ask. What was the second request?”
“The presence of Toralii escape pods on Velsharn disturbs me. Those civilians down there are all we have left. There are too many weapons, at our disposal or theirs, which can end Eden in a heartbeat. I want to make sure these intruders are found and dealt with.”
“I can look into that personally if you wish, ma’am,” said Keller. “All I know is the Kel-Voran were concerned about the large number of escape pods jettisoned from the Seth’arak’s stern as it broke up in the atmosphere. They believe there may be more survivors on Velsharn than we know about. We cased the whole island and perform regular fly-bys, but we haven’t spotted anything.”
“Keep searching,” said Liao. The words came from her gut, a warrior’s instinct honed over years. “Avaran is stubborn. Strong. Dedicated. I can only assume his crew are as well. I think it’ll take more than a fiery fall through the atmosphere to kill him.”
Liao floated in the tank after Keller left to follow up on the Toralii prisoners. It was relaxing, in a sense, yet also confining—frustrating. It was time for her to get out. The universe had not stopped while she was in there, and every minute she spent in the tank, letting her body recover, was one during which her enemies continued to work against her and the rest of humanity.
Fortunately, she did not have to wait long before the next visitor, someone she’d been waiting to see, appeared in the Rubens’s med-bay. Her face lit up as James entered, his dark skin a pleasant contrast to the white, plain hospital room. Saeed and he had a brief conversation, and then he was permitted to see her.
Suddenly, the heart-rate monitor spiked, and her chest tightened. She had been badly burned. Her face tingled—it had been half melted, including her scalp, leaving her hair a freakish half head. Her right arm was a stump.
What would he say?
“Good morning, gorgeous.” James beamed as he stepped up to the tank, showing his white teeth. “How are you holding up?”
“So much better now.” His smile was infectious. Liao couldn’t help but return it. She squelched her insecurities and focused on his voice. “How are you doing, James?”
“Much better now that I’m off duty.” He reached up and unbuttoned the top of his uniform. He had a beard, several months’ growth. When last she had seen him, James was clean shaven. He was always clean shaven. “It’s just been one thing after the other.” He had heavy bags under his eyes, but his joy at seeing her was also equally plain. “I’m guessing Saeed and Saara have filled you in on everything.”
“More or less,” she said. “It’s just so weird… my instincts tell me it’s been only a few days, even now—as though the attacks were just yesterday. It feels like everyone’s pulling a huge prank on me, and some part of me is just waiting for everyone to jump out from those cabinets and shout, ‘Surprise!’”
“Honestly, after the last couple of years, I’m kind of appreciating a little boring tedium at this point.” He reached up to rub his right eye and then, refocusing, continued. “The rebuilding work continues. Civilian administration is turning out to be a large part of what I’m doing these days—Shepherd’s even talking about general elections. Sabeen’s got her own ship, damn her, otherwise I’d make her the CO and leave this whole thing behind, become the city mayor or something.”
Sabeen as a CO didn’t make any sense to her. “We… have a new ship?” There was no way it could have been built in that time, even if they had the shipwright’s facilities that had created the Triumph-class cruisers such as the Tehran and the Beijing. Even a smaller ship would take six months, minimum.
James regarded her curiously. “Before you were injured, we captured a Toralii scout vessel.” His face became playful. “Scouts arrive, and we steal their ships. Toralii fleet drops in, they get blown up. Now they know not to come here. We’re uncultured, unpredictable, violent kleptomaniacs. Velsharn is the Detroit of the galaxy.”
Liao remembered. She had seen the prisoners they had taken. It seemed like a lifetime ago. “What are we doing with it?”
“We’ve moved some crew over from the Washington and the Madrid. The vessel was lightly damaged in the battle, so it’s not fully operational yet. Repairs are continuing, and we’re preparing to press it into service. We need every ship we can get.”
That made sense. They absolutely did need more ships—taking them from the Toralii seemed as good a way to get them as any. “I thought it was too badly damaged to sail again,” she said. “Something about the reactor?”
“Damaged, but salvageable. Interesting side note: the name. Captain Williams named the Rubens after a slain crew member. We’ve christened this new ship the Knight.”
“I like it. I didn’t get to spend enough time with Captain Knight before he was killed.” Captain Knight had been the CO of the Sydney. More than the other things, his death seemed very recent. She had learnt about it only minutes before discovering Earth had been destroyed. Everything after that had just been a blur until the funeral, held months later. “I hope I’ll come to know his namesake a little better.”
James’s expression faded. He continued to smile, but something changed around his eyes that made his expression more serious. “As do I, but it was our second choice. Originally, after the battle, it was going to be called the Liao.”
How close she had come to being made into a ship. “I’m not dead yet. One day there’ll be a TFR Liao. Not today.”
Saeed spoke up from across the med-bay. “But for the grace of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, Captain. He has a purpose for you yet.”
She smiled, but there was no true joy there. “Thank you, but sometimes things happen with no purpose.”
“I know why you would say that, Captain, but you’re still here, aren’t you? Even if the reason why you survived isn’t clear to you just yet, it will be in time.”
Perhaps. Liao had no real answer to that. A vaguely uncomfortable silence fell over the whole room.
“I’m just going to check in on one of our other patients,” said Saeed, politel
y excusing himself. “I’ll be back later.”
Then it was just her and James.
“So,” she said, hope tingeing her voice. “How’s Allison?”
“Missing her mother,” said James, in a tone that pulled at her heart. “Penny is still taking care of her, on and off. Olivia, one of the American survivors you pulled off the surface, is helping a lot. The kids take care of each other.”
“Can I see her?” She couldn’t help a little pleading edge creeping into her voice.
“Not yet,” said James. “She doesn’t like being in space. Allison’s doing better on the surface… but Penny’s doing a really good job, trust me. She’s almost walking, which is scary.”
Liao understood the mixture of joy and terror that came with being entrusted with a tiny Human who could move around under her own power, especially in somewhere as child-unfriendly as a space craft. “I want to see her,” she insisted.
“Soon,” James promised, “when you get out of there. We don’t want to frighten or confuse her—and this ship is strange and upsetting for a small child. Next time Penny rotates aboard, we’ll see, but that might be some time. Especially now, a lot of her time is taken up with training.”
All those months Liao had spent grieving for Allison came back. Penny and her husband had saved Allison from the Toralii attack, a fact that only came to light much later. To miss her again hurt—far more than her wounds ever could.
Liao wanted to never be apart from her daughter again. Fortunately, she had learnt to deal with not seeing Allison as often as she would have liked. It was time to draw upon that strength.
Something else caught her attention. “Training?” Liao inclined her head. “What’s Penny up to these days?”
“Well, the Rubens is understaffed, and they need a dedicated communications officer now they’re officially part of the fleet. Penny may be blind for now, but Captain Williams believes that the more training they can accomplish now, the easier she’ll adjust when she gets her new eyes.”
“New eyes?”
James tapped on the glass of the tank. “There’s a bit of a queue forming for the use of this thing. Amongst the prosthetics Saeed discovered are prosthetic optics. They’re made for Toralii, of course, which is going to be harder to fit into Human eye sockets, but the technology presents some… interesting opportunities. Toralii can see into the ultraviolet spectrum, something which will be helpful if serving on one of their ships. Williams is going to give her an enlisted crewman’s brevet.”
“Giving your girlfriend a field commission is pretty dodgy,” she said, frowning a little. “Although that raises other problems—the CO married to an enlisted crewman on the same vessel. Better to bring her in as a junior officer. Not that it’s much better.”
“I’m not sure we’re in much of a position to talk about fraternisation guidelines,” James said with a vague smile, “but I actually advised him of the same. It’s going to be difficult to avoid a conflict of interest. No serious navy would ever allow this.”
“He’s going to have to deal with it, and so is everyone else. We don’t exactly have the opportunity to move people around to accommodate an ideal situation. Every ship is hurting for crew, as I hear it.”
“You hear right.”
They spent a moment in quiet reflection. The grimness of their situation cast a dark pall over everything. Her stump itched, her scalp hurt, and although important, none of that talk would help her heal. She tried to lighten the mood. “So,” she said. “How’s it feel having your girlfriend in a fish tank?”
“Pretty good,” he said, smirking. “How is it in there? Need me to drop a little food in the top?”
She laughed.
“How about that breathing tube?” asked James. “Looks pretty uncomfortable.”
“Mmm hmm. You’d be surprised at how strange having a long black thing in my throat felt. You’d imagine I’d be more used to it by now.”
He tittered. “Well, at least you have your sense of humour.”
“Hey, you’re lucky I’m in a good mood—and high on a million different kinds of drugs—because otherwise I’d smash my way out of here and beat you up again.”
“You did a pretty good job last time,” he said, the edges of his mouth climbing. “I was sore for ages.”
“Good.” She enjoyed that memory—even if it had come at a dark time in her life—breaking into the bottom of the Beijing with James, just like silly little schoolkids, and having a boxing match in the abandoned, derelict gym in the lower decks.
Such a little thing had restored her will to fight.
She couldn’t help but look at the flat stump of her arm. “Don’t think we’ll be able to do it again, though.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said James. “Saeed’s hopeful—”
“Yeah, yeah, the prosthetic.” She suddenly felt a little humourless. “It’ll be clumsy and awkward and the one thing everyone’s dancing around: ugly.” Her voice cracked, her fears returning. “You know, I was always told I was beautiful. It’s kind of a relief—a relief in a strange way—to not be that anymore. Now, people will hopefully just see me as an officer, a military woman, nothing more.”
“Melissa…” James leaned up against the tank. “I’m not going to say you’re as pretty as you ever were. That’s a transparent lie you’d see right through. Instead, I might say this: Parts of you I like are damaged. The part of you that I love isn’t. You’re still alive. That’s enough for me.”
Her heart hurt in her chest. “Is it?”
His answer was emphatic. “Yes.”
She tried hard not to cry, and although it would be difficult for him to know since she was surrounded by green-tinged liquid, she was glad that—at least probably—she succeeded. “Thank you,” she managed, her voice wavering. “I was… worried.”
“Don’t be,” James said. “The best part of you is on the inside. Your heart. You’ll be fine.”
Another polite silence fell over them, a welcome piece of quiet where they shared each other’s company with nothing but the faint whine of machinery and computers in the background.
“Anderson’s doing a good job,” said James. “You know, he’d be getting close to admiral rank now if the military still existed.”
“Well, he threw me some captain’s pips. No idea where he found them. I think we can probably manage to nudge him up a rank at some point.”
“Probably,” he said. “Although… heh.” He gave a rueful smile. “Serving under an American. Lovely.”
“They’re not so bad,” said Liao. “When I was younger, I didn’t like them, but I hadn’t met any at that stage. As I’ve come to be part of Task Force Resolution, I’ve changed my tune. Anderson, Shepherd, Jennifer… they’ve shown me that Americans are a strange, diverse, mixed bunch but they’re all right in the end. Loyal allies and quite inventive, too. Decent folk.”
“I’m inclined to agree. It’s fun to poke although I will preface that agreement with some reservations.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Want to know a secret?”
Liao smiled. “We have a child together. I’m not sure you could say anything that would shock me at this point.”
“People say it’s hard being black. I loved being black… in Europe, when there was a Europe. I mean, blackness had its ups and down, sure, but I felt like I belonged. I wasn’t Kenyan-Belgian—I was Belgian.” He ran his hand over his beard. “But when I visited America, it wasn’t like that. I felt like if I lived there, in the US, people wouldn’t consider me American, I’d always be African-American. That distinction came not from white people—they were nervous around me, sometimes, but when I spoke clearly and dressed sharply, I was treated as one of them. The issues came not from any institutionalised racism but because of other black people.”
That did surprise her. “There aren’t exactly many black women and men in China, I rarely saw them, growing up. A lot of what I know and feel about black
s comes from the media. And you, of course.”
“Well,” said James, a scowl over his face, “there’s a lot the media can tell you—a lot of it useful and helpful, and a lot of it… not so much. I can safely say, as a black man, that blacks as a collective were never going to be successful in the United States, not because of white people, but because of other black people. Any time a black person studies, learns, develops an intellectual skill, stays in school, does well at maths, science, literature; suddenly they are race traitors. They are ‘acting white’. There were plenty of exceptions, of course, but by and large if you were not a thug, not into that culture and that side of things, then you were not truly black. I felt as though blackness celebrated failure, applauded falling through the gaps of society and becoming less than we can truly be.
“I avoided the worst of it because I’m European, but I had spent enough time in the US to know that when a black man does anything worthy of success—not so much with sporting prowess, but especially in an intellectual capacity—then there’s a pronounced ostracisation that occurs from within their own community. It’s a dark part of the community and the culture there. If you’re arrested, that’s a compliment. They say you have ‘cred.’ What you really have, though, is a criminal record that further isolates you from society. It’s bullshit, frankly, how much American blacks venerate thug culture as something good, and because of it, they all suffer.”
“Interesting,” said Liao. “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve always lived in very homogeneous societies.” She paused. He seemed frustrated, as though despite his protestations, that was something personal for him. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just worried about this new melting-pot city we’ve created. We have Chinese, we have Brazilians, we have Iranians, we have Americans… we have some South Koreans, a handful of Germans, scattered people from all over the EU, we have a few Australians, we have Israelis. We have so many people, languages, cultures… What are the long-term products of this? What negative cultural kinks are going to express themselves over the coming years, and how can we work on fixing them before they start?”