by Alma Boykin
“Commander, do you eat anything besides meat?” the Scottish general inquired as she cut into her second breakfast banger.
She shook her head, since her hands were full of knife and fork. “Yes, sir, but very little, and I cannot eat most Earth starches and grain products. I’m a near obligate carnivore.” I’d love to import kurstem and other grain from Drakon IV, but I do not need to be crossing cultures. I’d probably start speaking Azdhag in public and scare everyone.
“Interesting.” The stocky redhead returned to his own repast, and Rachel was not surprised to see an empty oatmeal bowl in front of his plate. General McKendrick seemed determined to bring the dour Scottish Calvinist stereotype to life.
She excused herself and took her tray to the washing-up window. As she deposited the dishes, Fr. Mikael caught her attention. “I’ve posted the vigil list,” he told her.
“Thank you, Father.”
Rachel walked at a brisk pace from the mess to the notice board beside the chapel. Indeed, the list for the Christmas Eve vigil took the spot usually reserved for the weekly schedule. Rachel rummaged around her jacket pockets, looking for a writing implement, until she noticed the pencil on a string hanging beside the page. “Right.” Sgt. Lee had already signed up for the first two hours following the Christmas Eve service, and Rachel wondered if he were taking home leave. No, probably not, she remembered. All leaves had been scrambled with the personnel shifts, and he’d probably opted to wait until Easter. Rachel considered the empty lines before her and signed up for midnight.
Logres’s shields held through the Christmas Eve lessons-and-carols service, or perhaps Logres left them in place until then. Rachel sensed them fading during the fourth reading and built her own into their place. Certain memories felt clearer, but she shunted them aside, concentrating on the text and on walling out the emotions around her. The soldiers all seemed to be doing well, and she caught no intensely bad emotions, but she did not care to sense everyone else’s favorite toy, Christmas pudding, or family celebration, either.
Sergeant Weber kept one eye on his hymnbook and one on the xenologist. She seemed to be doing better, and she’d appeared in the NCOs’ “lounge” at Sgt. Lee’s invitation, staying long enough to take part in a round of “I’m going to Afghanistan.” She’d done well in the memory game, but couldn’t beat Colour Sergeant “No Relation” Jones. Of course, no one could, given that Jones had perfect recall of anything he heard, which was why he worked in communications. Or miscommunications, as Weber usually thought of it. He leafed through the hymnal and wondered if any carol not from England or Germany ever appeared in the book?
He’d signed up for the two AM watch, after Cdr. Na Gael. He’d noticed that Major Monroe had taken the 2200-2400 space, but she had also drawn the short straw as Night Officer. Personally, Weber though the commanding officer should have volunteered, but as new as McKendrick was . . . and he’d taken New Years, which was apparently quite a sacrifice for a Scotsman. Motion caught his eye as the small choir stood up and Weber turned his mind back where it was supposed to be.
The service ended at 2000 hours, and Weber excused himself from the usual Christmas Eve gathering to get a little sleep.
He woke around 0115, dressed, and slipped out of his quarters without waking his roommate. Weber’s route took him past the Night Officer’s space, and he was not surprised to see the light on. He heard quiet music playing and recognized something in French, although the dialect was unfamiliar. Probably Canadian French, he decided.
To his surprise, it was Sergeant St. John from the Transport Section who looked around the computer screen, then stood and came to the door. She anticipated his question, sighing, “The major ate something off from Major Ngobo’s care package. I think it was bushmeat jerky.”
Weber wrinkled his nose and told his stomach to settle down. He refused to eat mystery meat, especially foreign mystery meat. “So you took over for her?”
“Not exactly, but I’m covering until the medic on duty decides if she’s finished being sick or if he calls in, ah, Capt. De Alba I think, once she returns from midnight Mass in Lincoln.”
“That is awkward.”
“Yes.” St. John rolled her eyes. “You’d think they’d have a back-up who was not a Christian or not observant, but . . .” Such was the GDF, as Weber well knew. “Are you going to the chapel?”
He nodded. He still had a few minutes before his turn began.
“I’ll come with. I need to stretch my legs, and there is nothing even vaguely resembling an alert anywhere between Labrador and Moscow at the moment. Yet.” He smiled a little at her careful qualification. She knew better than to tempt fate.
As they got closer to the chapel doors, St. John went on point like a hunting dog scenting a deer. She reached into her collar and pulled out a round silver pendant on a long chain, holding it in one hand. “Do you hear something? Something unusual, I mean?”
He strained his ears as they drew even with the polished wooden doors. The hair on the back of Weber’s neck stood up as he heard a voice, Commander Na Gael’s voice but also something more, rising in a strange minor melody, dark and haunting, full of wild anticipation.
“Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand. Ponder nothing earthly minded, for with blessing in His hand Christ our Lord to Earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.”
The words sounded like Advent but something more rose behind them, for lack of a better word. “I thought she was alone?” Weber whispered.
“Not exactly, that is, um, how to put it?” St. John rubbed the pendant with her thumb. “Rachel is alone but is not entirely by herself? I think you’re about to see why we never pester or distract her at the Solstice.” With some trepidation Weber and Sgt. St. John pulled open one chapel door. All the usual lights had been turned off and the two sergeants peered into the blackness.
As his eyes adapted, Weber saw one candle. It shone steadily from inside a cylinder of red glass. That gave him the location of the presence light beside the altar, and as he watched, he caught the small glow of two more small tapers that flickered on the other side of the altar, by the pulpit and Advent wreath. They cast just enough light to allow him to see a dark figure standing before the altar, arms spread, hands open with palms up. The song he’d heard continued, “King of kings, yet born of Mary, as of old on earth He stood, Lord of lords, in human vesture, in the body and the blood; He will give to all the faithful His own self for heavenly food.” Weber shivered despite himself. He’d never thought of the Eucharist in quite that way. St. John went still and he wondered what she was thinking, since she wasn’t Christian.
“Thanks be the chapel’s shielded,” she murmured, so quiet he could barely hear her. “I don’t care to imagine what she’d be calling—”
The rest of her words vanished in a vision of the end of time as Commander Na Gael’s gifts and that older, wilder something overwhelmed Weber’s shields.
“Rank on rank the host of heaven Spreads its vanguard on the way,
“As the Light of light descendeth From the realms of endless day,
“That the powers of hell shall vanish As the darkness clears away.
“At His feet the six winged seraph, Cherubim with sleepless eye,
“Veil their faces to the presence, As with ceaseless voice they cry:
“Alleluia, Alleluia Alleluia, Lord Most High!”
The words and the music together pulled Weber out of the chapel and into purple and blue and gold and blazing white clouds never seen on Earth, hanging against a background of space and stars. Figures he didn’t dare look at because of their power and holiness danced and sang, while something terrifying and so beautiful that he wanted to fall on his face and hide stood at the center of it all. Farther out, where the light and darkness touched, he sensed a war, and suddenly he saw St. Michael, sword in hand, facing something dark yet fiery that radiated evil. Above the swirling tangle of light and darkness he heard Commander Na Gae
l’s voice, full of a ferocious joy and repeating “Alleluia Lord Most High!” She knew who would win the battle, knew it in her heart and bones. And for an instant, he did too.
Then he stood, blinking, panting, as exhausted as if he’d run a marathon in full kit. St. John whispered something in a strange language as she held the pendant in her hand. Commander Na Gael turned to face them, her silver eye shining, radiating power Weber could feel even if he couldn’t see it the way St. John did. He should have been terrified, should have backed away. But he stayed, watching as Rachel smiled, Rachel despite the other presence. Dimly, Weber recalled the reading from the English version of the Book of Luke and the Annunciation, and wondered if that’s what the translator had meant when he wrote, “And the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.”
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Weber took a deep breath, counted to four, and exhaled silently. He bowed to the Presence, and to whatever else filled the dark chapel, and left, St. John at his side. He’d just go to the latrine once more, then come back and wait outside the door. Both sergeants blinked in the lights in the corridor. After gathering his thoughts, Weber asked, “Did you see . . .” he let the words fade as he wondered how to describe his vision.
“I saw. Not what you did, I’m certain, but the battle?”
“Ja.”
“Yes.”
“I.” He stopped, considering what he thought he’d felt. “I believe that Commander Na Gael will be fine.”
“So do I.” The two NCOs exchanged relieved and tired smiles, then went their ways down the dim, quiet hallways.