Ebony paused, startled by a flash of white light flooding everything in the transporter. Right after the flash, we heard the sound of an explosion. The front view force field collapsed and the three of us were torpedoed through the gaping hole into the vacuum space.
And then - deafening silence.
My headgear immediately flashed a “catastrophic environment failure” alert, and I tumbled like a rodent on a rubber string accelerated by the shock wave of the explosion. Trying to overcome the vertigo, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a wide horizon and myself, firmly standing on the ground, although to no success, because I repeatedly received new jolts from debris and secondary explosions that changed my vector and velocity. The vertigo was so strong that I could not open my eyes.
What the hell had gone wrong?
Did Ebony get distracted and the bastard started the self-destruction sequence?
Were we hit by an enemy ship?
Seconds later, the emotional awareness of the situation kicked in, and panic hit me like a tsunami. In order to conserve my scarce oxygen, I struggled to control my heart rate and breathing, largely to no success.
The only good thing in the whole situation was that, by the time of the explosion, we had already reached escape velocity and left the planet’s orbit, so we were not going to burn up in the atmosphere. Or maybe this was the worst news?
Because under the present scenario, I likely was going to painfully suffocate, when my uniform ran out of the water that it used to synthesize breathable oxygen.
Then, for a short period of time, the organics in my uniform would work at breaking down the CO2, but the filters would rapidly clog with carbon sediments. I would get lightheaded.
If I got particularly lucky, I would pass out before I started suffocating.
Moments later, I still was tumbling, but at a consistent velocity; I guess I had made it far enough from the source of the explosion. I dared to open my eyes and access my life support parameters.
Crap.
The system had already processed the CO2.
I had, what, ten minutes? Less so if I couldn’t handle my heart rate and stop hyperventilating. I started thinking about my life. If I ever was to make peace with it, it had to be now. I saw my life laid before me in film frames, scrolls of them, all at once.
There I was, asking my grandpa why other kids in the kindergarten had mommies, and I had only him and grandma. That was because my mom had had to go to the sky when I was born, told grandpa. Then I said I wanted to be in the sky too.
There I was, at age seven or something, accompanying my grandma to a beauty salon. She had an appointment for a manicure, and I remember bursting into tears because she did not sign me up as well. A class act as she was, my grandma asked the beautician to paint my nails as well. That was it, she did not comment on it, did not talk about it, we both had our nails done - hers in a tasteful peach, and mine in bold red.
There I was, applying to the Fleet Academy. I wanted to be a pilot. By that time, I knew that it wouldn’t bring my mother back, but the idea of flying was firmly ingrained in who I was. Sky was all that mattered to me.
I remember packing my suitcase for the Academy and considering if I should pack my concealer and eyeliner, but decided against it. My reasoning was that the fellow Cadets probably would not care about my dark circles. Instead, I packed a six-month supply of weight gainer supplement.
There I was, after the second year of the Academy, bulked up, with broad shoulders and not an ounce of fat, opening my test results. Ten points shy of the threshold, I was not cutting it for a pilot. It was still a high score, but not high enough for the pilot position. The ratio of pilots to other officers in the fleet was one to forty-seven, and even that was considered too high, because, well, we commuted in space with large crafts that required five pilots max for the up to 2,000-passenger vessel. I could go to the charter company and haul cargo barges between the colonies, but that was hardly piloting.
I ended up in the combat operations track.
Then was Desiree’s funeral. A lot of beautiful black dresses and flowers. I wanted to wear a dress as well, but did not dare, although Desiree knew, and she wouldn’t have minded.
There I was, five years after graduating from the Academy, receiving the orders to show up in the Moroccan Fleet HQ on the demand of General Parietti. I knew the name only passingly, having no interest in military politics. I arrived in Rabat the next day and waited in the entryway, talking to the General’s administrative assistant Private Garret Hur. Amazing what your memory can produce sometimes. After all these years, I remembered this random guy’s name.
Private Hur showed me to the General’s office.
The General was standing by the window when I walked in; I saluted. Once we passed the formalities, the General informed me that my file had caught his attention when he was recruiting for a new special forces unit, of which he could not tell me much due to the high clearance that evidently I did not possess. If I was interested, I must pass the qualifying tests. I told him that I don’t do too well with tests. He responded that it was a different kind of a test.
Sure enough it was. The test was aimed at discovering two things: my will to live and my loyalty to humanity.
I scored through the roof on the first category. When it came to the second one, I thought that I scored high, likely due to a sloppy test construction. Sure I was loyal to humanity. I was willing to die for humanity if it came down to it. But I thought the test underestimated my regard for life in general. When it came down to it, I did not believe that humans had any more right to exist than other species.
Then, about three years ago, after the reassignment surgery, I called up my friends, Mike and Sater, to meet in the local bar for a beer. They didn’t know yet, but I decided to tackle it head on. I had hair implants, a blue dress and shoes on, and some basic makeup. They narrowed my nose, raised the eyebrows, and removed the facial hair. Before leaving the house, I looked in the mirror and smiled. It was still me, the same me, but even more me than I used to be, if it makes sense.
When I walked into the bar, I was a bit late, and the guys were sitting there, guzzling the beer and watching some game on the screen above the bar. I walked in and moved straight towards them. I took a seat. Sater, a charmer as he was, immediately offered me a “martini or whatever you girls are into these days,” but Mike kept his gaze firmly fixed on me, and finally whispered:
“Reinsford, is that you?”
Sater spilled the entire pitcher of beer on the bar counter and his pants, and we started throwing napkins in the pool of beer all over the table. Meanwhile a cute waitress, one of the new ones, walked over and helped us mop the mess. When she leaned over the counter to reach the far end from her side, her breasts dipped in the beer puddle, and her tight white tank top was soaked with beer in that particular area.
All three watched the girl cleaning up the mess, fixated on her hard, big nipples under the wet tank top. Mike saw my reaction and pointed to Sater. They both burst out laughing. Sater concluded: “it’s Reinsford alright.” The awkward moment faded away. I realized I still had my friends.
The memory frames were getting clouded. My eyelids were getting heavy; I could not keep them open any more. The last conscious memory I had was amusement. I was amused at seeing the light, realizing that I was not tumbling anymore (at least that’s what it felt like, because I knew that any movement was relative, and in empty space with no frame of reference, it is all the same if you are stationary or moving, as long as you move in uniform motion, without acceleration and change of vector, that is). From my perspective, I could not tell whether it was me approaching the light, or the light approaching me, but I knew:
This is it; this is how it happens.
The proverbial light at the end of a tunnel.
15
SHE IS A LOONY KITE
&
nbsp; The smell of cherry pie was the last thing I expected in the afterlife.
“Wake up, sleepy head.”
A gentle woman’s voice rolled through my head like an ocean tide.
“Would you like some coffee? I’ll make you some. Or maybe a glass of milk?”
The voice floated in the sky like a kite. Then I saw the kite, and the kite saw me. I smiled, the kite smiled back. What a strange kite, I thought.
The kite and I floated above the waves for some time without saying a word, although I suspected that the kite did not speak because its mouth was busy sucking on a lollipop.
I realized that my toes poked holes through my socks. Don’t you hate when your toes stick out of holes? The sensation was annoying, as if someone was tickling my brain with a feather.
The kite retrieved the lollipop from its mouth, dipped it in the feathers sticking out from the torn pillow and shoved it right in my mouth. Moving my head away, I pressed my lips together as tight as I could. Covered in goose bumps, I broke into a sweat. My entire body was shaking. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. At first. But then, I finally managed to clear my throat and open my eyes. “Who is here?” I asked in the darkness.
“Oh, you are finally awake!” said the woman’s voice, but everything around was black. “Have a glass of milk.”
I felt something smooth and cold pressing against my lips. It could very well be a glass of milk, but before drinking it, I needed to know: WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON!
“I can’t see anything. Why can’t I see?”
“Your optic nerve is damaged. We can’t do anything for you at the moment.”
“We? Who is we? And stop sticking this thing in my mouth.” I protested and realized that I could not move my hands. They were restrained behind my back. I also realized that I was on my side, on a surface that conformed to the shape of my body. That made me feel even ickier. Right now, I rather preferred the hard floor. This whole situation messed with my senses to the point of making me nauseous.
“One step at a time, sister. First, we need to get you well.”
“Untie me.”
“That I cannot do.”
“Why?”
“Such are my orders. They know you’ve been using the device on your wrist and that you will try to cause problems.”
“You bet my ass I will cause problems! More problems than you can imagine!”
“See! That’s what I am talking about. Humans are so … tumultuous.” The last word was uttered with a dramatic flare.
“I will not tell you anything until you start explaining what is going on.”
“Well, ok. As you wish. You are a prisoner of the Unkari. More so, you are a criminal. You’ve committed a capital offense. And you will be brought before the court. Soon. For now, you must get well. You almost died from asphyxiation.”
“Yes. I remember. The ship exploded. I was tumbling in space.”
“You are extremely lucky. The Unkari didn’t intend to keep you alive. But they are not murderers, not like you. When they saw you on their scanners, they showed mercy.”
“Who are you?”
“I am She.”
“You mean, a woman?”
“Well, yeah. But it is my name. My name is ‘She.’ I am your liaison for the trial.”
Now that’s a strong gender identity! I thought.
“What kind of name is that?” I asked out loud.
“It’s the standard female name. Why?”
“Ok, if you say so. So you are my lawyer, is that it?”
She paused for a second as if considering the meaning of the word “lawyer.”
“Hmm… Not really. A lawyer would mean that we would engage in an adversarial process. This is not what is going to happen. There is no need for such a process because the facts of your crime are well established.”
“What crime?”
“What crime? Ok, I’ll play your game. Let’s see. You and your people invaded Unkari space with a military vessel. When the Unkari ordered your people to surrender, you opened fire. When your people were finally captured, you continually attempted to escape and kill Unkari warriors.”
“I am a soldier. This is my job, just like interrogating me is your job.”
“Your job does not remove your responsibility for your actions. However, let me finish first. The facts that I just recounted only describe the general pattern of your behavior, but do not incriminate you directly. You are guilty of murdering one Unkari warrior with exceptional cruelty. Remember? You set him on fire. I’d play you the footage of you and your fellow arsonist, captured by the transporter’s security system, but you can’t see it anyway. Such a pity!” The last sentence was said with explicit fake compassion. She continued. “That’s one charge. Your second charge is that you led another warrior to commit treason. Remember? Because of your threats, the noble warrior surrendered his vessel to the Earth Nations. That we also have on record. And on top of all that, you managed to destroy an entire moon. What did you expect to happen when you exposed a highly flammable world to fire?”
“We had no time to think that far.”
“By the way, it is our estimate that the moon will be on fire for several thousand years. Right now it looks like a miniature sun from space. You cannot even begin to fathom the chain reaction of events that your foolishness triggered in that entire system.”
“Was it habitable?”
“Would you care?”
“Of course I would!”
“No, it was not habitable. But it was an important transportation hub for the Unkari, which is none of your business, by the way. So, does any of that have factual errors?”
“Wait, the Unkari have transportation routes in our space? This is not what we agreed to in the First Contact Memorandum!”
“I told you, it is not your business. Just answer the question. Are there errors in those facts or not?”
“No, no factual errors. But the whole thing is misinterpreted. The Unkari are preparing for a war against humans. They were testing some kind of super weapon, in their own words, ‘an ultimate solution,’ capable of destroying humanity. We were only gathering information. That is why we were on Erinozhan.”
“Look, this may be your way of telling a story. If you want my opinion, the way you spin it does not make any difference. But I will be respectful of you, because your hours are numbered. And you better get something to eat. Who knows, it may be your last meal after all.”
“I have so many questions. What is going on, where am I, who are you, where is River?”
“No more questions. You either eat, or I leave. So what’s it going to be now, Desiree Mazula?”
“Is that cherry pie I smell?”
“Yes it is. At least in terms of chemical composition. Or close enough. But it’s not bad. Try it.” She pressed something to my lips that smelled like almond pastry. I realized that I was shaking with hunger. What the hell. I scooped the stuff with my lips. It had a puree consistency, resembling mashed potatoes, only with a cherry-pie flavoring.
“You Unkari are terrible cooks.”
“Oh, but I am not an Unkari. I am a human, just like you are, my sister.”
16
CONTACT
Left to my own devices, I wondered if the General had figured out by now that his spying mission on Erinozhan had failed. I wondered about it more out of curiosity than out of any realistic hope for a rescue mission. Even if the Royal Moroccan Fleet had already figured out that the mission had failed, there was no way they could possibly expect anyone to survive, nor would they know where to look for the survivors. Heck, I had no idea where I was myself.
Without the B5 access, and being blind as I was, the situation was fucked.
I’m fucked. The explicit thought formed in my brain.
I know, I heard in
my head.
River! Goddammit, you are alive! I straightened up on my ’bed.’
***
Some say that it was the Unkari’s fault; that they lacked the “social skills,” landing on Earth without prior notice. We still have no idea how they could bypass the planetary defence shield and land in the Atlantic without anyone noticing. Others speculated that the Unkari could not have passed the shield unnoticed, which meant that they had had an observation outpost in the ocean for over 300 years, even before the planetary defence shield was installed. Of course, this theory stirred all the abduction believers, as a result of which Hollywood made billions on spinning old science fiction tales in the 5-D format.
One way or another, in 2275, Liberia witnessed the sight unlike anything in human history. Oddly it was my ancestor who first spotted the capsules that popped up on the Atlantic horizon. Eleven dome-like bubbles floated on the surface several hundred meters off the Liberian coast. The news spread fast. One of the domes eventually beached on the shore, where a small crowd of the most reckless headline chasers were contained by the paramilitary, while the rest of the locals rushed to their homes to prepare for the end of the world. As the dome emerged from the water, the eyewitnesses differentiated tentacles with multiple joints akin to a daddy-longlegs spider, but the size of a small condo. When the pod settled in the sand, the tentacles folded themselves above the pod in what was described later as a praying position.
The coastguard tightly surrounded the perimeter, pointing their weapons at the shored object. They speculated that the tentacles above the pod assumed a defensive position, but the orders were clear: to contain the situation until the arrival of special forces.
329 Years Awake Page 27