by HR Ringer
The Illusive Man stubbed his cigarette out as he thought about this dilemma. “If Lang just happens to die while in Alliance custody, there’d be suspicions raised, uncomfortable questions to answer. Since he’s an independent contractor and not a Cerberus member, I’d prefer for him to be eliminated after he’s free.”
“How do you propose we spring him from custody, Sir? As you said, he’s a damned civilian, who just happened to assault an Alliance Service member. General Chandler is not going to let that go.” Sutton had actually come up with a solution. “But… it may be possible for us to arrange a transfer – get Traynor off this station, back to Vancouver. The R&D people there are always crying about how understaffed they are… two problems solved with a thumbprint on a datapad.” Sutton chuckled. “It may take a couple of weeks to make it happen, but once she’s gone, she can’t testify against Lang. He goes free, only to be killed in a horrific accident at the docks.”
“What about Winters… or that former Marine?”
“Winters can go back to her day-to-day – she’s been compromised for so long she won’t think twice about getting her job back.” Sutton’s smile diminished as he thought about the former Marine.
“As to that former Marine, he’s a free-lance merc for hire; I believe it would benefit all of us if you would transfer him into a Cerberus ground unit.”
“That still leaves us with an unacceptable risk, Lieutenant Commander.” The Illusive Man lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Samantha Traynor doesn’t strike me as the type of person to simply walk away from this situation. She knows there are some Cerberus personnel on the station, such as Lieutenant Winters, wearing Alliance uniforms.”
Sutton was still attempting to project an image of a man totally at ease. “Traynor has no friends on this station, Sir; she keeps to herself, does what’s required of her and doesn’t make waves. Her presence here presents no real problem.” Sutton frowned as he thought of what transferring the specialist would entail. “I can start the process of getting her transferred to an R&D unit on Earth, but Alliance HR may ask for a reason, since she’s been here such a short time.” After a pause to collect his thoughts, he finished with, “She may have to stay on this station for some time yet, Sir. If I cannot get her transferred off, I can get her transferred to a different section. I’ll let you know when I succeed.”
The Illusive Man took a drag on his cigarette; blowing out a cloud of smoke as he replied, “See that you do,” before touching an unseen control to close the connection, causing his image to disappear in a swirl of colored pixels.
* * *
* ARCTURUS STATION · SPECIALIST TRAYNOR’S RESIDENCE *
It had been six days since Xiùlán had returned to the Tokyo – five since the cruiser had made the jump for the Exodus Cluster. Traynor didn’t know where Xiùlán’s ship would be going from there, as fleet movements beyond Exodus were never public knowledge.
She had spent the ensuing time working on the QEC upgrade project she’d been tasked with completing; at this point, Traynor projected that all the work would be finished in less than a week. She was beginning to wonder what her next assignment would entail and where it would take her when she had received a message on her desktop terminal.
She remembered disappointment at seeing Lieutenant Commander Garrett Sutton’s grim-faced visage on the terminal. Without preamble, Sutton got right to the point. “Specialist Traynor. I need you in my office at 0845 tomorrow.”
Sammy had barely been able to say ‘Yes Sir,’ before the connection was severed by Sutton. ‘Wonder what that’s all about,’ she thought. ‘Oh well… I’ll find out soon enough. Probably going to find some kind of crap job for me to do,’ she thought grumpily. ‘Whatever it is, I hope it takes me as far from this station as possible, especially if it’s someplace without Cerberus. She finished her dinner, cleaned up the dishes then crawled into bed.
* * *
* ARCTURUS STATION · OFFICE OF LCDR GARRETT SUTTON *
Traynor arrived at Sutton’s office a full ten minutes early; after checking in with the ensign behind the counter, she took a seat and waited. With one leg casually crossed over the other, she sat back in the chair and waited. At the appointed time, a door beside the counter opened to reveal the lieutenant commander, who pointedly looked at her boots and asked, “You keep those knives on you all the time, Specialist?”
Sammy stood immediately and rubbed her hands down her thighs, smoothing the legs of her duty slacks so the cuffs hid the sheathes strapped to her calves. “Ever since I transferred here from Vancouver, Sir.” Sutton motioned her into his office as she continued, “Been armored up ever since I discovered Michael Moser Lang on this station.”
Sutton waved her to a chair in front of his desk as he took his own seat behind it; picking up a datapad, he scrolled though it for several moments, then set it down and looked at Traynor. “Specialist, your work since you arrived has been exemplary… so much so, that it appears you may have worked yourself right out of a job here.” If he was expecting Sammy to reply, he must have been disappointed by her silence. Saying, “Yes, well, that creates a dilemma for me. Even if I had a regular comms position open for you here on the station, your training and knowledge would be completely wasted, and I expect you’d be bored out of your mind within a month.”
He picked the datapad up and looked through it again. “Also, it appears you have a personality conflict with Lieutenant Kelsey Winters…” he raised a hand to stave off the protest he could see forming on her lips. “… a conflict that placed her in the hospital with some rather serious injuries.”
“Did you happen to listen to the recording I made of our last meeting, Sir? She intended to put a bullet in my chest after her goon squad failed to kill me. Is self-defense not permitted on this station, Sir?”
“Recordings can be falsified, Specialist, and I expect doing so would be a simple task for someone with your talents.” Sutton steepled his fingers as he leaned back in his chair. “As it is, you are lucky her injuries weren’t more severe, and fortunate she has declined to press charges against you for assault.”
Traynor’s hackles went up at that. “Press charges? Has everyone on this abominable station taken leave of their senses, Sir?”
“Careful, Specialist. You’re going to be transferred out with a statement in your jacket that you have a difficult time getting along with the other people in your unit.” Sutton’s face took on a grimly satisfied look, akin to the expression of a wolf just before the kill. “Don’t force me to add insubordination to that statement.”
Traynor had to immediately clamp down on the nearly overpowering urge to go for the man’s throat, but realized his death, no matter how satisfying, wouldn't be worth the loss of her entire career. “So, where are you going to send me, Sir?”
Sutton thought he had seen a hint of barely controlled anger cross Traynor’s features; it was only for an instant, gone as quickly as it had appeared. ‘Son of a bitch!’ came the sobering thought; his smug expression faded with the realization that, if she truly wished to do so, she could most likely kill him before he could even blink. ‘I wouldn’t be able to do a goddamned thing to stop her!’
Pretending to have seen nothing out of the ordinary, he looked at the datapad and replied, “The turians are assisting Alliance R&D on a radical plan for a new class of frigate – if these new design elements prove their value during space trials, the ship will become the prototype for more of its kind across the Alliance and turian fleets; I’m going to provide you the opportunity of a lifetime, Specialist. As soon as you finish the last of the mods to this station’s QEC array, you’ll be granted five days of leave, at the end of which you’ll report to the shipyard, where you’ll be assigned to part of the research project the Alliance is working on. While you may not work well with others, you have demonstrated an aptitude for working well in an unsupervised position… I cannot imagine you performing any less than exceptionally on this project.”
Sutton looked surprised, but decided he had covered everything, so stood and reached out his hand. “That’s everything, Specialist. I’ll cut your orders and transmit them to your new posting.”
Traynor took the hand Sutton offered and applied a bit of extra pressure to her grip, knowing full well that he couldn’t begin to match the strength in her forearms. The look of surprise that crossed his face was quickly followed by one of relief when she released his hand; without a word, she turned on her heel and left.
* * *
* ARCTURUS STATION · SPECIALIST TRAYNOR’S QUARTERS *
“Yóu wǒ zūnjìng de zǔxiān, Sà mǐ, [由我尊敬的祖先，薩米 – By my esteemed ancestor(s), Sami,] it’s a miracle you’re not sitting in a cell next to Lang!” Traynor was starting to regret her call to Xiùlán on the Tokyo. “When are you going to learn? No, forget that question, because you never will learn, will you?”
Traynor could endure a dressing down from anyone… except when it came from her inamorata; she could feel the tears filling her eyes as she attempted to explain what had transpired in Sutton’s office. “Please don’t, Xiùlán. I’m sorry. The sonovabitch is going to black mark my service record! What the hell should I have done? I’m being punished for defending myself, and now you’re taking his side against me?” she finished, voice hitching as the tears finally overflowed to run in rivulets down her cheeks.
Xiùlán had never been successful at convincing Sammy that losing her temper only played into the hands of her enemies, whether they were batarian mercs or Alliance LCDR’s with an ax to grind, and now she had wounded her by seeming to take their side. “Sà mǐ! Stop it! I said nothing of the sort, so shut off the waterworks!” Xiùlán waited for several moments, feeling her heart clench in her chest as she watched Sammy weeping. “Dammit, Traynor! You need to get ahold of both your temper and your tears, or so help me I’ll cut this connection!”
Traynor did something then that completely surprised Yuán… she brought her hand down on the haptic control and cut the connection herself. Unable to get her emotions under control, she ran to her bedroom, flung herself across the bed and cried herself to sleep.
* * *
Traynor wasn’t ready for the 0530 wakeup chime from her bedside chrono; she flopped around a bit until she could reach the shutoff that silenced the alarm. Rolling over on her back, she realized she was still fully dressed. ‘Damn you, Xiùlán! Why can’t you ever see things from my perspective?’ As she sat up and dropped her legs over the side, she thought she could hear the comm terminal softly trilling from the next room.
Checking her omnitool, she saw that it also held a number of messages in the ‘unread’ folder – checking the source for each confirmed her thought that all of them were from Xiùlán. Getting to her feet, she stripped off her SDU and armor before moving to the small bathroom to relieve herself; after walking to her living area, she spent the next half-hour exercising, being mindful of her form for each movement. By the time she had completed two reps, it was 0625 – time enough to bathe and have a light breakfast before she had to go to work.
Deciding to shower and dress before breakfast, she stripped out of her underwear; after turning the water on in the shower, she eased herself under the stinging spray to stand unmoving as the warm water cascaded down her body. After several minutes, she began washing, starting with her hair, then continuing on down with her face, torso, legs and feet. Shutting the water off after a thorough rinse, she toweled her hair and body off, moved back to her bedroom and pulled on clean underwear, her underarmor skins and her SDU.
After an inspection of the message log on her comms terminal confirmed the five attempts to contact her all came from Xiùlán on the Tokyo, Traynor resolved to not reply to any more of Xiùlán’s text messages or her comms calls. ‘If she’s gonna take an opposing view of every action I take, perhaps it’s time to cut ties’, came the thought. She loved Xiùlán with all her heart, but was tired of having her opinions and actions being questioned and ridiculed every time they spoke. ‘If she can't love and accept me for the person I am, it might be better to just go it alone.’
Chapter 38: To Suffer A Fool Badly
It is eerily terrifying that there is no sound when a heart breaks. Car accidents end with a bang, falling ends with a thud, even writing makes the scratching sound of pencil against paper. But the sound of a heart breaking is completely silent. Almost as though no one, not even the universe itself could create a sound for such devastation. Almost as though silence is the only way the universe could pay its respect to the sound of a heart falling apart. – Nikita Gill
* * *
Inamorata – A woman with whom one is in love; a female lover (Italian)
NDA – Non-Disclosure Agreement, signed by Yuán and Traynor at termination of the O7 program
SDU – Standard Duty Uniform
VI – Virtual Intelligence
XO – Executive Officer
* * *
* ALLIANCE CRUISER SSV TOKYO · EXODUS CLUSTER, AT LARGE *
Staff Lieutenant Yuán Xiùlán felt totally broken inside. She was able to compartmentalize her feelings – separate her personal self from her professional – but it wasn’t an easy task. It had been a mere fifteen days since her loving relationship with Samantha Traynor had seemingly imploded during a comms call to her residence at Arcturus Station.
Sammy had terminated that call in a fit of grief-stricken anger; now, she was refusing to respond to any of the text messages Xiùlán sent via omnitool, and calls to her personal terminal on the station, after going unanswered for eight days, were disconnecting before completion, which could only mean that Sammy had moved out of her quarters on Arcturus to take up residence at the nearby shipyard, where she would be working on an R&D project for a new class of frigate.
Xiùlán felt as if her heart had been ripped from her chest; she had never loved another person as intensely as she loved Samantha Traynor; to think that the specialist would simply toss that love aside in a fit of anger hurt more than she would have believed possible. Xiùlán was completely at a loss about how to proceed; if Sammy wouldn’t even speak to her, how could they possibly resolve their differences?
Lieutenant Olivia McKenzie, returned to light duty after recovering from her head injury, had tried to help Xiùlán work through her heartbreak, until Xiùlán made her feelings known in no uncertain terms – it was her personal life, and as long as her job performance didn’t suffer, she wasn’t interested in talking about it with anybody.
“You can’t do this alone, Yuán,” McKenzie pleaded. “You need to vent… tell someone what you’re feeling inside.”
Xiùlán’s expression was a bit daunting; she barely opened her mouth, as if to speak any louder would create fractures in her porcelain complexion. “There’s nothing to talk about, Olivia. Sammy has made that quite clear, and I don’t know how to get through to her.”
“If you truly are unable to speak with her, how do you know there’s nothing to talk about?” Olivia was having a difficult time understanding Yuán’s motivation. “I don’t know what you’re going through, Xiùlán, but don’t you think Sammy is going through the same thing?”
“Sammy hasn’t been attempting to get in touch with me, Lieutenant. I’ve texted… repeatedly. I’ve called at every free moment. She’s changed her residence, and she didn’t bother to place a forwarding ident on her previous comms system.”
McKenzie placed a gentle hand on an upper arm. “I can see she’s hurt you… worse than anything you’ve ever had to endure.” Olivia gently stroked the muscular upper arm. “That’s why you need to talk to someone… you need some help in dealing with this, Xiùlán, or it will eat you alive.”
“No! She’s completely shut me down, Kenzie… She won’t respond to texts, and without a terminal ID, I can’t even call her. She knows I’m on the Tokyo, and she knows I’ll be taking a weekend here and there on Arcturus. I don’t understand what happened. She’s done this before, but she’s always calmed down and listened to reason.” Xiùlán took a sip of tea from the mug she had cupped in her hands. “She’s unhappy there’s a reprimand in her jacket – a black mark – basically stating that she doesn’t play well with others, but that’s only because she beat Kelsey Winters half to death, and only then, after the woman took a shot at her.”
By this time, Olivia had guided Xiùlán to a table in the rear corner of the small dining area for this section’s officers. Having Yuán sit with her back to the rest of the compartment, McKenzie quickly brought her a mug of tea, than sat across from her and asked, “Why did Winters attempt to kill Traynor?”
“Telling you the entire story would put me in violation of the NDA I signed before I received my commission – you had to sign one as well, so you know what I’m talking about – even Captain Anderson couldn’t get any traction with General Park when he attempted to gain some insight into my capabilities.” Xiùlán heaved a heavy sigh as she thought back to that day. “Traynor gained a really nice promotion from the deal – as did I – but she was pissed at Alliance brass for giving Cerberus a free pass.”
“Cerberus? What the hell does a black-ops group have to do with Traynor… and you?”