“You look like you could use some sleep yourself.”
Jennifer looked up, startled – she hadn’t heard anyone approach. “James!” She flew out of the seat and wrapped her arms around her husband tightly. He finally pried her off, and Jennifer hugged Troy and Michael in turn. “The news has been reporting about the raid on Titus. I can’t begin to describe how awful… how terrible…”
“It was fucking terrible,” Michael offered, a pained expression creasing his handsome features as he rubbed the back of his head. Despite being only a half-brother to James and Troy, the only major variation in his appearance was his fairer hair and icy blue eyes, traits inherited from his mother, Patrick’s first wife. “I’ve never seen anything like it… and I never want to see anything like it again, ever.”
Troy nodded in agreement, but was silent. He looked haunted – there were bags under his reddened eyes, and he was squinting, as if the lights around him were too bright.
“We’ll let you two catch up,” Michael said, patting Troy’s elbow. The two men headed off, no doubt in the direction of one of the many bars that frequented the port.
“You’ve been promoted,” she said, fiddling with one of his epaulettes. “Full Commander?”
James shrugged casually. “The Englewood will be needing a First Officer soon, so I put my hand up. I didn’t think I’d actually get it.”
“That’s great, hun,” she said, trying her best to be happy for him. She was, in her own way. “What’s the matter with Troy?” Jennifer asked, guiding James back to her seat. “He was rather subdued.”
James was silent as he smiled at Samantha, and then gently picked her up and nursed her, cradling her sleeping head on his shoulder, and battling to keep her flowing blonde hair out of his face.
“Nothing physically,” he said as he levered himself into the seat. “But I think he’s matured more in the last week or so than he has in the last forty years.” He shuddered. “‘Fucking terrible’ doesn’t quite capture the tragedy that Titus was… I don’t think any words can.”
“You wanna wake her up?” Jennifer asked, nodding at the still-sleeping Samantha. She hadn’t stirred at all, and Amanda had likewise bombed, snoring softly to herself.
“Nah,” James said softly. “I’m happy to just sit here for now. The Eisenhower isn’t due to depart until tomorrow night, so I’m using up some of the leave I’ve accrued.” He reached out and grabbed her hand. “I am happy you’re here, though,” he said, his penetrating gaze eying her longingly.
“Happy enough to come home?” Jennifer didn’t know what had come over her to ask the question that had been bursting inside of her for months. Years, even.
James blinked at her, then looked away awkwardly. “Jen –”
She held up a hand. “No, it’s okay, I shouldn’t have said that.” Her lip started to tremble. “I’ve been thinking that maybe I should move here.” At his alarmed glance, she quickly elaborated. “It’d be easier for you to get leave, we’d see you on a more frequent basis…”
James shook his head adamantly. “No, absolutely not.” He looked about uneasily, then lowered his voice. “Elysium is too close to the war.”
“It’s dozens of light-years away, James!” Jennifer snapped. “And it’s defended by an entire battle fleet. We’d be as safe here as we would on Bastion.”
“For the moment,” he muttered. “Wars tend not to have fixed lines… and the lines that do exist get ignored whenever possible… But if the powers-that-be ever decide to launch a counter-offensive – I mean a proper one, not that mangled mess Ansara tried – than the ships defending this place will be redeployed… and if the offensive fails…” he shook his head. “I’m not taking that risk with you.”
“It’s my risk to take.”
“And if we were just talking about risking your life, I wouldn’t stop you… but what about the girls?” He gestured to the girls. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to them.” He paused. “Or you.”
Jennifer ran through the things she wanted to say – including some rather nasty things regarding his career choices and selflessness – but bit her tongue. His reasoning was sound – and was the same as it was when she’d first suggested moving to Elysium a few years ago.
I hate how rational he can be. Paradoxically, it was also why she loved him so… and yet, there was always this latent anger whenever she thought of him. I hate this stupid war. I hate being a single mother. I hate being a wife-by-correspondence. Sometimes, during moments of her greatest despair, she wondered what her life would have turned out like if she’d never met James. Not the greatest question to be stewing over, especially now.
There were times she could just scream from her frustration, but she didn’t want to show weakness in front of the twins… or Troy… Or James. There would come a time, she realized reluctantly, whereby this stoicism would disintegrate. But now is not – cannot – be that time.
“Neither could I,” she admitted, after taking a calming breath. She nodded at Samantha. “We should really wake them up or they won’t sleep later.” She pointed with a thumb in the direction of the bar Troy and Michael had retreated to. “Wanna grab lunch?”
James smiled, then pulled a face. “As long as they aren’t serving military-grade rations, sure.”
They each scooped up a girl – James cradling Samantha, Jennifer carrying Amanda – and ambled along slowly, allowing the flow of pedestrian traffic to move around them as they steadily lost ground to James’ brothers. Brilliant white sunlight streamed through the glass ceiling above them, and despite being in an enclosed space, there was the slightest breeze from the environmental systems, rustling the blue-tinged trees that lined the centre of the wide boulevard; every few seconds the smell of heavy industry – solvents, grease, smoke – wafted through.
“So, how have you been?” Jennifer asked. “I mean, really. The news broadcasts are keeping details about the raid pretty vague, but word is getting around… and not being denied, I might add.”
James considered his response for long seconds. “I’ve seen worse, Jen, believe it or not.” Pain washed across his face for an instant, and then it was gone, though it was even longer before he said anything further. “There’s nothing in the Academy course that can prepare you for this…” He shrugged. “Or so I’m told… I didn’t exactly spend much time at Officer School.”
“Something that is occurring more and more frequently, or so I’m told,” Jennifer murmured. “My cousin, Brian, enlisted into the Officer Training Program last month, and he’s already been posted to a warship for on-the-job training.”
“Sign of desperation but then, these are desperate times…” James murmured. He was looking around, his eyes darkly suspicious. “Is it just me, or is this place a little quiet?”
“The tourism industry has suffered a huge drop, especially on Elysium.” Jennifer nodded sadly. “I suspect most of the people here are on official business… not that there’s much of that going on,” she added quietly, almost to herself.
“What do you mean?”
Jennifer waved his question away. “Nothing, forget it.” She thrust her chin down the wide corridor that Troy and Michael had disappeared down. “I don’t want to spend our time together talking about politics or economics… or this fucking war.”
James smiled at her as Samantha began to stir. “Good idea.”
*
Jennifer woke up the next morning in a bed that was, for the first time in a long time, not empty. James was spooning her firmly, one of his hands cupping her breasts, her legs trapped under his. He was snoring softly, and the snores coming from the other bedroom in their hotel suite told her at least one of her daughters was still asleep.
“Are we right there?” she whispered, more to herself than anything. She’d still be asleep too if he hadn’t cozied up to her, his nose right in her ear.
“Yes,” he said groggily, his hand squeezing her. “Was my snoring keeping you awake?”
<
br /> “Oddly, no,” she laughed. “But it should have. It’s been so long since I slept with someone in a bed, after all.” She reached up with her hand and stroked the hair out of his eyes. “Did you sleep well?”
He nodded, finally opening his eyes. “Absolutely. Best sleep I think I’ve had since I signed up.” He rolled onto his back, pulling her in close to him. “My shuttle back to the Eisenhower in twelve hours… what do you want to do between now and then?”
“You’re lying.” James looked at her askance, arching an eyebrow. She held his look, and waited for him to say something. “About your sleeping. I know you woke up twice during the night, grunting and moaning.”
“It’s nothing.” The look she gave him was all the admonishment he needed. “The nightmares have started back. Nothing I haven’t handled before. I’m just not used to waking up other people.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She nestled her face under his chin, hand on his chest and watching as he breathed in and out. It was enormously gratifying to be next to him again after so long – the time apart hadn’t diminished his prowess in the bedroom, either. Thank god – I wasn’t cut out for a life of celibacy. She nearly winced at how much like her brother-in-law she sounded.
“Jen, there’s something I need to tell you.” There was something off about the way James said that… a trace of bitterness, or regret…
“What is it?”
James looked into her eyes for long seconds, getting lost in her soul, before he blinked, shaking his head. “Nothing.” He smiled reassuringly. “It’s nothing.” With his free hand he pushed her onto her back and leaned in for a kiss. “Any idea how long until those girls wake up?”
Jennifer smiled even as she bought up her virtual-vision, locking the door to their room. “As much time as we need.”
*
“What’s this?”
James Hunter, leaning up against the window sill in his hotel room, jolted awake. He’d actually dozed off for a moment! A night of copulating will do that to you, he thought sagely, smirking at the myriad of memories he and his wife had made over the course of the previous night.
It almost made up for all the years I’ve been absent, he thought, his right hand tracing the air in the shape of her breasts – he’d certainly missed those during his time away, though he missed the woman they were attached to even more. It was just as well their daughters had gone to sleep in their rooms on the other side of the hotel room – the noise their parents had made – primal, primitive – would have woken the dead.
It was nearly lunch time now, and James had been staring out of the window, out at the spires of the capital city on Elysium, for some minutes when his wife’s question broke him out of his reverie. He turned, and found her handling the kli’nat that he’d been holding onto since his scrape with the Hegemony on Tartus.
“And why are you traveling with it, James?” she continued, not even hiding her bewilderment at the presence of the weapon among his belongings. Having not been up much longer than James, she was scantily clad from the waist down – he at least was wearing pants – and completely topless, her flawless skin basking in the Elysium sun.
“Among the N’xin, it is standard field equipment,” he explained slowly, stepping over to her and reaching over for the hilt. Jennifer passed it to him, looking at it as if it was poison, crossing her arms over breasts. His thumb brushed over the jewel-encrusted hieroglyphs as he gripped it firmly, and pressed the activation button. “It’s called a kli’nat… they prefer to use that weapon – or brute strength – rather than firearms.”
“Doesn’t look like –” The metal blade – measuring roughly eighty centimetres – extended out from the hilt with a sharp twang, the light from the ceiling glistening off its polished silver surface. “Oh… is that blood?” Her finger probed over the red stains near the apex of the blade.
James nodded. “Yes.” He saw her alarmed look. “Relax, it isn’t mine.” He realized how terrible that sounded, but couldn’t think of anything to say to amend his thought.
“Hardly the point,” Jennifer said, her gaze fixated on the stains. “Why haven’t you cleaned it off?” She frowned as another question dawned on her. “And why do you keep it, travel with it? It’s not like you can use the bloody thing, is it?”
He regarded the blade evenly for a long moment, slowly turning the hilt around in his hand. Meant for N’xin appendages, it had never felt quite right in his hand, appearing to be both a little too bulky, and a little too heavy, to be wielded properly with any semblance of skill or grace.
“I keep this on me, Jen, for the same reason that I haven’t cleaned the blood off… It reminds me of why I am herem what I am doing… and it helps to serve as a reminder that all things end.” He sighed dramatically. “As for why I’m travelling with it… I don’t know. I just… wanted it with me.”
“That’s more than a little morbid, James,” Jennifer said archly, but before she could continue with a lecture there was a knock on the door. James threw a top at Jennifer, who hastily threw it on as he swiftly retracted the blade and instructed his VA to open the door. “Just a moment,” he called, and stashed the kli’nat in his bag as the door opened. “Good morning, Amanda.”
“How’d you know it was me?” his daughter squeaked as she stepped in. The girl wasn’t even nine yet, and already she tall enough to reach James’ chest, keeping her hair – which was midnight black these days – much shorter than Samantha did.
James smiled. “There’s no way Samantha would just knock once, Mandy.”
“Don’t call me Mandy, I hate that,” Amanda whined, and James looked at her mother, who shrugged – this was news to them both. Mandy had always been her preferred name since she was four years old. “Sam and I are hungry, can we go out and get something to eat?”
“We can all go,” Jennifer said before James could even open his mouth. She cast a furtive look at him, and he shrugged, having already decided that they’d go out for a final meal together before he departed. “Can’t we?”
He smiled. “Of course.”
2435: Lacrimosa
“Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?” – Epicurus
“Medically speaking, they all seem to be fine… mentally, however, that’ll be up to you, Bec.”
Rebecca Gold smiled mirthlessly as her gaze flickered over the various screens set into the wall behind her office chair. Across them scrolled streams of medical data, a dazzling display of information… information that pertained to people who had been dead for ten years… or more.
“How long until…?”
“We’ll begin bringing them out of their comas tomorrow morning, starting with a… Mr. Anwar Singh.” Sarah said. As a neural specialist, she was currently in charge of the re-lifing process of these people. “We’re aiming to do no more than thirty patients at a time, so your staff don’t get overwhelmed with the… extreme reactions we’ve come to expect.”
Rebecca smiled ruefully, vividly recalling the rather chaotic atmosphere that had surrounded the first batch of re-lifers she’d been here for – six months on, many of them were still in need of frequent clinical treatments. It wasn’t all that surprising – it was shocking enough knowing you’d missed years while a new body was grown for you… and the gravity of the situation would be amplified even more as they came to grips with the world they were entering into.
And that didn’t even factor in the complications resulting from the process itself – cloning a human body was relatively simple, in theory, but replicating a person exactly was not. Imprinting the clone with a neural profile was also a completely different matter, and despite the best efforts of the industry, the process wasn’t always perfect or without fault, so there was always a good chance that a revived individual would be susceptible to some idiosyncrasies or personality quirks.
Often, these problems – whether physical or psychological – coul
d be corrected with some form of therapy… but not always, and it took up more time that staff usually didn’t have. The Commonwealth medical community hadn’t yet adapted to the demands placed upon it.
“That’ll be slow going,” Rebecca murmured, doing the maths in her head. It would take months to revive the number of patients at the Bethesda clinic, which was currently home to nearly three thousand patients waiting to be woken up. “But preferable. Keeping on top of all these patients was seeing my staff in need of therapy themselves. Including me.”
“It sounds like you should make an appointment to see yourself, Bec,” Sarah said, smirking, and Rebecca waved her off with a chuckle.
“Oh, I’m much too important a therapist to see someone as lowly as myself.”
Despite only being a half-sister to Rebecca’s twin boys, Sarah looked enough like them – tall, lithe, with long hair as dark as the night sky and intense, intelligent eyes that glowed softly as her cybernetics whirred away. She was missing the cleft chin, though, and her nose definitely came from her mother.
Ironically, although Rebecca had been the stepmother in the relationship, Sarah was actually the older of the two women, being born just a few months before Rebecca, in 2346. Sarah’s mother, unsuited to the life as the wife of a billionaire, had filed for divorce two years after having Sarah, and hadn’t really been in the picture since.
Thankfully, the nearly non-existent age-difference hadn’t affected their relationship, both during Rebecca’s marriage to Patrick, and in the years since Rebecca had left the Hunter estate, choosing not to renew her marriage contract.
“Is there anything else worth noting?”
Sarah nodded. “Not much more. The clinic on Outpost 16 has gotten a head start on us, but they’re making good progress with a reduced case load.” She tapped a screen, and a scan of a human brain appeared. “There is some more good news, though, and our neural implantation procedures are much improved over the last generation, so instances of psychosis and other debilitating mental problems seem to be radically reduced.”
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