by C. Gockel
Chapter Eleven
Noa stared out at the stars. There was no sign of Chavez and her crew yet. Their ether connection was strong, but they weren't communicating. They were just focused on getting home. Like James and Gunny were surely focused on getting out of the tramp alive. She could feel their connections in her mind.
Noa's breath caught at a sudden thought—Gunny was Fleet. He surely had an app that would transmit a final message if he was killed in combat, but James was a civilian. His open channel in her mind might just be an artifact of her connection to him. She wanted to reach out—to confirm—but held back. He was competent. That was why Gunny had wanted him on the away team. James didn't need the distraction of Noa “checking in on him.”
It was agony.
Her nails bit into her palms. “Oh, Timothy, what did I do to you?” she whispered.
“You completed your tour!” Timothy was shouting with such force Noa swore the walls were reverberating. He was beet red with rage. “We agreed, you were out—”
“I can't leave another team behind,” Noa said, her jaw getting tighter, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “I won't.”
Timothy waved a hand. “You didn't leave anyone behind! You were in medbay when your first crew—” He ran his hands down his face.
“Had their ship blown apart,” Noa hissed.
His eyes snapped back to her. “Which had nothing to do with you!”
Their cabin on the fighter carrier was small, but he began to pace, the asteroid field of Sixth just visible through the tiny porthole window behind him. Tim couldn't go more than three steps before he had to turn around. “You said you were done—that we were done with Sixth as soon as your tour was done.”
“That was before my first crew was shot down!” Noa said.
Every fighter crew was assigned a set number of missions in the Sixth Asteroid War, the deadliest insurrection in generations. On any given expedition into “the rocks,” Fleet expected one-third of its crews to come back. Noa had been injured during an early mission, her arm burned so badly the skin had melted and locked it into a bent position. She'd thought she might need a cybernetic arm, but in the end, intensive rejuvenation therapy and a few weeks off had been prescribed as the speediest option. The first time her crew went out without her they, and their entire squadron, had been obliterated. She'd completed her therapy, and joined a newer crew with not as many missions behind them. Now she was done. Her crew still had missions left to go.
“I can't quit,” Noa said. “They depend on me. We're a crew. You don't know what it's like.” She and her crew were in sync. In the Sixth Asteroids, without the ether connection to the ship, they had only each other's minds to tether them and keep them sane. They had gotten to the point where they were almost one mind and one body. Leaving them to face “the rocks” with someone else, well, that would be like leaving them without a limb.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. No, it was more than that. She was a great pilot—however, there were other great pilots in Fleet. But Noa was also, on some level, their lucky talisman. When she'd first joined her new crew, Jason Sood, her gunner, had said, “Lieutenant Sato, the only survivor from Lóngxing Squadron.” He'd nodded and said too earnestly, “As long as you're with us, we're good.” It was a mantra that had been repeated by him and others in her second crew after every near escape. She was their lucky charm.
“And your crew comes first,” Timothy said, his voice bitter.
“Their lives are on the line!” Noa shouted.
All expression seemed to wash from Timothy's face. “Right, and my life isn't,” he said, his voice flat and expressionless. Shaking his head, he said, “You said one tour.”
“I'm not signing up for another,” Noa protested. Just six more missions. She'd requested to stay with her current crew. Brass had approved it and commended her for her service.
“We talk things like this over, but you never talked to me about it,” he said, his voice inflectionless.
Noa drew back, her chest feeling tight. She hadn't told him because she didn't want to fight about it, and because she hadn't wanted to lose her nerve … she couldn't let her crew down.
Spinning away, Tim said, “I need to get out of here.”
“Tim—” Noa reached out and grabbed his arm, but Timothy shrugged out of her grasp and strode out the door. The mental connection between them blinked out as it whooshed closed. Their room that a moment ago had felt too small now felt too large.
With a snarl, Noa spun and kicked one of the metal storage cabinets set beneath their bed. The sound rang in the small room, and through an air duct she heard someone shout, “Hey!”
Noa cursed under her breath. Doubtlessly, other people had heard her and Tim's fight, too.
She remembered the words of Commander Ortega, her commanding officer, after he'd met Tim. “Good choice, Lieutenant Sato,” he'd said. In the past, on the “aircraft carriers” that sailed Earth's seas, fraternization among crew was not allowed. But in the twenty-fourth century, on fighter carriers with 8,025 personnel during deployments that lasted years, with months spent at lightspeed in regions out of gate range, Fleet chose to accept fraternization as long as it was off-duty and out of the chain of command. Ortega, so she'd heard, more than accepted it; he saw value in “stable, on-ship relationships.” It “minimized fraternization among fighter pilot crews” and curtailed “unnecessary drama.” Noa loved Tim, but more importantly, she liked him, and one of the things she liked was they didn't do drama. It gave them more time to focus on their careers.
Until now. She stared at the door. If she ran after him, it would draw more attention to their fight. She sat down on the bed and ran her hands over her short-cropped hair. And if she caught up to him, what was she going to say? She couldn't back out of her obligation to her crew. Dropping her head into her hands, she felt her stomach tying in knots and her mind reaching for Timothy's ether channel. Tim didn't respond. She felt suddenly cold, and as though she needed to weep, but her eyes stayed dry. A light in her mind pinged, reminding her that she had to be at a briefing in ten point five hours.
She wiped her nose and smelled grease and fuel from an inspection she'd gone on earlier. Tim hated it when those smells got on the sheets. She went to the shower cubicle. When she came out of the cubicle, Tim still wasn't back. She spun on her heel, went back into the cubicle, and took the standard-issue sleeping pill all the pilots received, and then crawled into bed. There was no Tim beside her, the light of his reader keeping her awake. She still slept fitfully, images of the members of her first crew and of Tim blending together in her mind. She was having a dream where she'd left Tim behind, and not the other way around, and the weight of her own guilt made her wake. Something was different—the dip of the mattress. Blinking in the darkness, she reached out a hand, and it connected with the heavy material of Tim's engineering uniform. She felt his upper thigh beneath the fabric, and knew he was leaning against the headboard.
“You came back,” Noa whispered, her voice cracking a little.
“Yes,” Timothy said, taking her hand loosely.
“Why?” she asked, not knowing why she was asking. Maybe she was still feeling the guilt from the dream? Or maybe she wanted to hear him say she was doing the right thing by staying with her crew, or at least for him to say he loved her.
“Because I made a vow,” he said.
It wasn't what she'd wanted to hear, and for a moment, her heart constricted. But then she remembered her mother saying to her, “There will come a day when love, and staying together, will be a decision, not a feeling.”
She didn't want Tim to leave. She still loved him, and now that he was back, the memory of when he was away felt colder and sharper than it had when she'd been living it, as though she'd been numb in the moment, but now could feel again.
“I'll take it,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. Tentatively, she reached to him with her mind. He opened the channel. She never filtered his emotions wit
h an app, and so was unprepared for the rush of anger that hit her. “Noa, I might not know what it's like to be out there in the rocks, but you don't know what it feels like to be left behind … and to feel so helpless.”
The pain James expected didn't come.
Gunny's thoughts cut through the ether. “All right, Briggs, we cleared 'em all out.”
Briggs's voice followed, a blinking mental light indicated Briggs was experiencing “pure terror.”
James heard noise and looked up to see Gunny step off the upper catwalk onto a large hook attached to a poly cord. A mechanical cranking sound began and Gunny lowered himself to James's level. He held an unfamiliar phaser pistol in his hand. He must have stolen it from one of the men above. He hadn't hidden it in his cartoon underwear, that was for certain. Gunny grunted to Briggs across the ether, “Kid, stay where you are. James and I will come get you.”
To James, he said aloud, “Take this,” and held out the plasma pistol. James took it, and Gunny clambered off the hook and over the catwalk guard rail. He looked down at the three men who'd fallen from above. “Lots of junk up there.” He panted. “What a mess. Didn't even see the third guy until I was up on 'em.”
He flicked on his CO2 converter and as it began to whir, he took a deep breath, and his eyes crossed. “Had to turn this thing off for a while. Good idea sayin' I was dead.”
Staring at the shorter, older man, James's processors fired faster than ever, and his hand tightened on the phaser pistol. Gunny had heard enough to know that James wasn't human.
Looking down, Gunny nudged Wren's head with his boot. The smell of burnt hair and flesh hit James first, and then as his eyes adjusted, he found himself staring at a rough edged, gaping hole in the man's cranium. Pointing absently to the phaser pistol James still held, Gunny said, “TS9 pistol's got shite for accuracy. Had to wait until I had a clean shot.” He spat. “This augment … judgin' other augments. He thinks Luddies would just welcome 'em with open arms? Lizzar brain.”
James felt his mind firing sparks even more furiously, even as his hand loosened on the pistol. Gunny had decided that James was an augment … maybe more augmented than most … but only that, only human.
“Let's clear this up, get Briggs, and get this boat home,” Gunny said, nodding at the men on the catwalk, and the stun charges that still remained.
At the word “home,” James's mind reached through the ether. “Noa.”
Noa stared out at the cluster that protected the Ark, feeling … helpless. “Is this karma, Timothy?” she whispered. The stars only blinked back at her.
Distantly, she heard Monica say, “With the crew administering oxygen, his heart rate should have stabilized by now.”
In her mind, James's channel sparked. “Noa.”
For a moment, her heart stuttered. “Talk to me,” she said.
“We're done here,” James said, “Just a little cleanup to do, and then we're coming home.”
Noa's lips stretched into a grin and she felt her chest grow heavy and warm. She tossed a ball of light, but managed to keep her thoughts professional when she replied over the general channel. “I'll leave you to it.”
“I've got a visual on Chavez's team,” Sterling said across the ether. Noa blinked. Her apps put him in his quarters, on sleep cycle … but obviously Manuel wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. Her eyes slid to the engineer. He was peering at a monitor. “Still not in this old hulk's view,” he muttered. His hair was rumpled, and there was the sheen of sweat on his brow, but still, Oliver's father looked more relaxed than he had moments before.
Monica turned to Noa. “Commander, what airlock will they be docking at?”
“I was going to assign them to 7,” said Noa.
Monica got up from her seat. “I need to assemble a team and get that boy to medbay as quickly as possible.”
Manuel bolted upright. “What's wrong?”
Monica's eyes slid back and forth between Noa and Manuel. “I don't know.”
Chapter Twelve
James knew that something was wrong as soon as he entered the airlock. Noa was there to greet Gunny, Briggs, and him even though it was well into her sleep cycle. That he expected. It was more than her being the commander … he'd come to realize that she could not sleep alone. He expected her to be professional at their reunion, but she was more than officious. Her smile was too tight, her hands clasped tightly behind her back, and the light she sent him over the ether smaller and dimmer than usual.
“Welcome back,” she said.
“Commander, is something wrong?” Gunny said, beating James to the question.
Noa took a deep breath.
“The little boy?” said Briggs, and Gunny exhaled.
“Is alive,” Noa said.
“But?” said James.
Noa took another deep breath and met James's eyes. “His condition is … not stable. Monica is running scans on him. She thinks that the extended period without oxygen may have been too much for his heart.”
Gunny patted James on the back. “But the professor got 'em a replacement, so he'll be fine.”
Noa looked down. “She needs to run some more tests before she operates.”
Hand still on James's back, Gunny said, “You go see 'em. I'll give the commander the full report.”
“Go ahead, James,” Noa said, her hands unclasping behind her. She looked like she was about to reach out to him.
James stood stock still. He did not want to go see Oliver, especially not in medbay with Monica. He'd thought he'd saved him but maybe he hadn't, and at this point, he couldn't. It was in Monica's hands now, and all he wanted to do was retreat with Noa to their quarters and put off a briefing until tomorrow. His memory was eidetic. It wasn't like he'd forget anything. Why would Gunny and Noa both think …
“You've done so much for that kid,” said Gunny, and James noticed his eyes were misty and bright.
They thought he'd done it all for Oliver—they didn't realize he'd saved the boy for Noa, and then because he was just rebelling against the injustice of the universe. Ultimately, in every case, he'd done it for himself. He felt a prickle of static and remembered the other James's mother going to visit a friend whose child was adapting to a new pair of augmented limbs. Going to see the boy was what a human would do, and he needed to appear human.
“Thank you,” he said. He nodded to Noa and tossed the light back to her, brighter than what she'd sent to him. He'd rather be with her, but she was trying to be kind.
As he went down the hallway, he heard Gunny say, “I just don't understand why they want James so much.”
James froze. On the way back, Gunny had asked him, “So this stun-resistance thing, is it top secret?”
“Yes,” James had said. “So top secret I wasn't even aware I had the ability until …” James had felt the bright light of connection behind his eyes, and swallowed. “Not even the commander knows; it's still experimental Fleet tech.”
Gunny had nodded earnestly. “I won't breathe a word.”
James's skin heated. Was Gunny going to “breathe a word” now? Why hadn't he just told Noa about his abilities earlier? The bright light behind his eyes, the automatic way he'd lied—the gates had pushed him to lie. Why had the gates compelled him to limit it to Gunny? Why had he obeyed? He blinked. He'd obeyed because it had seemed easier at the time.
“Eh,” Gunny said. “Why am I askin' that? The Luddies probably just want his augments for themselves. Hypocrites.”
The heat beneath James's skin cooled. Gunny would always find a way to excuse James's inconsistencies because … he wasn't sure why, but his lips wanted to smile, and not unkindly. The elevator dinged, and he remembered that he was going to the medbay to see Monica, and the urge to smile evaporated.
A few minutes later, he stepped into the doctor’s lair. The medbay was narrow, crowded with equipment and a few of the Atlantian Guard who now served as med-assistants. Raif was laying on a bed near the door. The boy’s eyes were open, but
as soon as James entered, he shut them tight. James blinked and walked past him, staying as far away from the medical equipment as he could. Manuel and Monica were at the far end of the medbay, their backs to him, their eyes on monitors above where James could only presume Oliver lay on a bed.
Running a hand down his face, Manuel turned as James approached. His gaze met James for a moment, and then he dropped his hand and nodded at him. James looked up at the monitor read-outs. They showed the augmented parts of Oliver's body in red outlines, and his biological parts in fainter blue. Numbers in red at the edge of the screen gave his heart rate and blood pressure. All of Oliver's augments were confined to his arm, and his chest, with only a small red light in his temple where his neural interface was. It hadn't been activated yet; he was too young. If he died, there wouldn't even be an ether backup of his thoughts.
“I don't think it is the heart,” Monica said. “It is too small, but the extra oxygen should have helped decrease the burden. It's something else … it's one or more of the support structures.”
“How long will the diagnostic take?” Manuel asked.
Monica sighed. “It should be done by the end of our sleep cycle.”
James heard a rustling on the bed, and Oliver made a soft cry.
“I'll stay here,” said Manuel.
Turning and pointing at a folded-up bed, the doctor said, “There is a bed over there that—”
Her eyes fell on James, and then she continued, “—you can roll over here.”
James's mind reached for the ether. Noa and Gunny were coming this way. Their path would intersect with his if he tried to bolt. There was no use leaving, even if he wanted to. He eyed the medical equipment apprehensively, and stepped backward.
Something caught beneath his heel, and an ear-splitting screech filled the medbay.
“Carl Sagan!” cried Raif.
James lifted his foot and looked down to see the werfle dart away and bound onto Raif's bed. James's eyebrows rose. The bed was elevated to be easier to operate on. He wouldn't have thought the creature could leap so high. Raif pulled the venomous creature to him, looked up at James, and gulped.