by Tony Healey
Greene swallowed.
Jessica’s gaze was far away. “The balls of fire lasted longer than you’d think. The Earth was dark beneath them, and you know sometimes when I think about it, I wonder if anybody looked up and saw them falling. I wonder if they thought they were comets …”
After a moment of quiet, in which Greene watched his Captain wipe her eyes and pull herself together, he said “And what happened next?”
“I went to leave again. For the final time. I realised I couldn’t take it. I wasn’t cut out for it.”
“But Singh stopped you again?”
She looked up at him, a smile now on her face. “Yes. Yes he did.”
11.
“Can I come in?” a voice asked her. She didn’t have to look up to see who it was.
Jessica continued to throw her things into the duffel bag. She had her head turned so that he couldn’t see her face properly, couldn’t see the way her eyes were wet and misty.
He stepped into the room, turned the lights on.
“You don’t have to do this. Giving up isn’t the answer,” he said.
That was the spark to her fuel. She spun about, her face a tortured mix of anger and hurt.
“Yeah? Well I think I do. It’s not something I can just wash my hands of, is it?” Jessica said bitterly.
Andrew Singh laid a hand on her shoulder. She knocked it away.
“Don’t,” she snapped.
“I didn’t say anything about washing your hands of it. In fact you have to do the opposite. You have to remember the mistake that led to their deaths. Honour it by never allowing it to happen again,” Singh told her.
“And how do I do that exactly, eh?”
“By doing the best you can,” he said. “These things happen Jessica. Mistakes are made. Things go wrong. You’re not to blame …”
Jessica shook her head. In her minds eye she saw those men and women burning up in the atmosphere. Blazing lights in the dark of night.
“But you know that’s not true. You know I am to blame. That’s why I can’t stay.”
“You can’t run away,” Singh said. “It won’t solve anything.”
Jessica stopped what she was doing, stopped piling her belongings into the bag and stared off into nothingness. “I can’t sleep. I can’t shake their faces … the terror …”
Again, Singh put his hand on her, and this time she didn’t shake him off.
“I know. Believe me, I know,” he said. He pulled her in toward him, held her against his chest. She started to sob. “I don’t get this luxury anymore. To grieve for the men and women who’ve died at my command. Or died through my failings. Too many people rely upon me, for me to fall down like that.”
Jessica pulled away from him, wiped her eyes.
“Do you think I’m being a coward?” she asked him.
Singh shook his head. “No. You’re going through things we all do. The leaders of men and women more than others. Sometimes people die because of the choices we make, Jessica. It’s a part of duty, and it’s a part of life. You can’t go packing your bags and running every time it happens because eventually you find there’s nowhere left to run.”
Jessica nodded. Singh turned and walked to the door, stopped in the threshold with his back to her. He turned his head to the side slightly.
“Report to Captain Romero’s ship oh-nine-hundred tomorrow morning for duty.”
Jessica watched him go. She put the duffel bag on the floor, but not to leave altogether. This time it was packed for her next assignment.
That night she sat up for hours writing her condolences to the families of those who’d died. She didn’t go to bed until she was finished.
Only then was she able to sleep.
* * *
“You still have that support, Jessica. Even without Captain Singh around. Let us take his place. We’ll stand by you. We won’t judge you,” Greene said.
“I know you won’t, Commander. And you know what? I shouldn’t be in here putting this on you. I should keep it private,” she said.
“Well that’s up to you,” Greene said. “But never for a second think we’re not right behind you. You’ll always have a small percentage of the crew who don’t agree with your way of doing things. Your methodology. But that’s a way of life. For every nine people answering your orders, there’s one questioning them. Don’t pay much heed to people like Swogger.”
“But I sort of feel for him. He’s watched his crew die in front of his eyes. I know how that feels.”
Greene managed to sit up, and this time she didn’t stop him.
“Then maybe you should go talk to him,” he said.
“And what about you? He broke your jaw, Del. I can’t let that go.”
Greene waved her away. “I’ll take the broken jaw if you can get him back on track. If he’s committed to this ship and her Captain. It’s a package deal. If he can do that, then I’ll forget about it.”
“Well, I’ll let him cool down for a bit. We’ve got a memorial service anyway. You’re still coming?” Jessica asked him.
Greene shot her a look. “Who said I wasn’t?”
12.
Following the memorial service, there were some drinks and time for the crew to mingle and talk. The rest of the ship was set to automatic, with some departments operating on a skeleton crew where they couldn’t quite get away with outright automation.
Sipping a coffee, Jessica made her way through the crewmen and women, listening to snippets of their conversations. Eventually she bumped into Gerard Nowlan at the back of the room, fending off several women after his attention.
“I think Captain Nowlan wants to have a quiet drink, ladies,” King announced.
They hadn’t realised she was about, and dissipated at the sound of her voice behind them.
“Thanks,” Nowlan said with a sigh of relief. Jessica noticed that he, too, was drinking a coffee.
“No booze, Captain?” she asked.
“Not quite yet. The head’s still humming.”
King nodded. “I don’t know how you deal with that.”
“What? The hangover?” Nowlan asked, cocking his head to one side.
“No!” Jessica said with a chuckle. “The celebrity.”
Nowlan shook his head. “It’s new to me, I tell yuh. It’s all a bit of shock.”
King nodded. “I think I know what you mean.”
“People have this expectation of yuh …” Nowlan said with a shake of his head, then took several swallows of coffee. “But, I always have been good with the ladies.”
Jessica started to laugh. There was a pat on her shoulder. She turned to find a medical orderly waiting to talk.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Clayton said he’d like to talk to you,” the orderly said. “He’s been trying to flag you down.”
Jessica looked past her. About forty feet away, she saw Clayton chatting away with several crewmen. He glanced up at her. Something about it made her not want to talk to him. She sensed that he had news, something that perhaps she didn’t want to hear.
“I think he wants to talk in private,” the orderly told her.
“Okay, thanks,” Jessica said. “Tell him I’ll meet him later in sickbay.”
She turned back to Nowlan.
“A nice memorial, by the way,” Nowlan said. “Classy.”
Jessica shrugged. “The least they deserve.”
“Will you excuse me?” she asked Hawk. She went around the back of the room, avoiding Dr. Clayton as she walked out and headed for the brig.
* * *
The brig had three cells. Swogger was in the one at the far end.
“You can leave me to it,” Jessica told the guard. He acknowledged and left. She walked to the end of the holding cells and at the sound of her boots on the shiny floor Swogger looked up. He looked dishevelled and tired. He looked hung over.
“Lieutenant,” she said.
Swogger looked away.
“Lieutenant!” sh
e snapped.
Swogger looked back at her, then sat up.
“That’s better,” she said. “Are we more sober now?”
“A little. It wasn’t just the booze though, so it don’t really matter,” Swogger said.
“I hear you made some remarks. That’s fair enough. I have no problem with my crew questioning things. My orders. My decisions that have gotten people in harm’s way. I accept that. Everyone is entitled to their opinion,” King said. “But you bring your problems with the way I do things to me. You don’t shout about it in the mess hall in front of God-knows-how-many crew. Got it?”
Swogger didn’t say anything. This time Jessica ignored his rudeness.
“That I can put aside, but to physically assault your fellow crewmen is unforgivable.”
“I had my reasons.”
“I don’t care for your reasons. There is no excuse. None whatsoever, and you know it. I am very ashamed of you, Lieutenant.”
“I was angry,” Swogger said. “I was so angry.”
Jessica leaned up against the horizontal bars of the cell with a sigh.
“Go on,” she said.
“Seeing the members of my team die in that explosion. The Captain …” Swogger’s voice cracked, and he swallowed something back.
“I know how you feel …” she said.
“How? Whilst you’re up there making all the decisions, having all the bright ideas, we’re the ones feeling it. How can you know, eh?”
“I’ve known that feeling, and I still do. It doesn’t leave you. It gets worse, in fact. Every man or woman that dies leaves a hole that never closes, a scar that doesn’t heal,” she said. “I know that pain you feel when you watch someone you know die.”
Swogger was silent. She didn’t let it dissuade her.
“Years ago, at the Academy,” she said, repeating the same story she’d told Greene earlier. Only this time her mind went right back to the accident, as if she were back there experiencing it all over again. Really, she wondered if she’d ever left that moment. If it had ever ended for her. “There was an accident …”
* * *
Jessica gripped the platform as it struggled to maintain altitude. The others clung to the opposite side for dear life. Jessica peered down at the men and women in Academy training suits tumbling through the void against the dark blue of Earth’s nightside. They waved their arms and legs in panic. Their cries for help filled her helmet, and she struggled to keep her eyes open from the sheer volume of it. But she didn’t close her eyes, didn’t look away.
Even when the first one struck the upper atmosphere and began to burn up. Right up until the others joined the first by becoming a formation of falling stars over Earth. With one hand still on the platform, she reached out as if to save them, to pull them back. But before her eyes they faded away, though they would never leave her. She would dream about them falling for years to come. And sometimes she fell with them.
* * *
Lieutenant Swogger hung his head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled after several moments had passed.
That was enough for her. Captain King walked to the nearby security panel. In seconds the bars receded into the wall.
“So that’s it?” Swogger asked, looking up. “I’m free to go?”
“Not quite,” King said. “You will be on probation for the time being. One more act of aggression against the crew, and you’ll be stripped of rank.”
Swogger nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“You’re a good man, Lieutenant. I need you to work with me, not against me. If we’re going to get through this - whatever this is - then we all need to pull together.”
“Yes Captain,” Swogger said. He stood and saluted.
“And for what it’s worth, Lieutenant, I do feel responsibility for us ending up here. And I was starting to think that what I was feeling was guilt, but it wasn’t,” she said.
“What was it?” Swogger asked her with a frown.
“Regret,” Jessica said. “Regret, because I wasn’t able to make any other choice. Because given the chance, I’d make that choice ten times over if it meant keeping my crew alive. Regret because as the commander of this vessel, and her crew, I alone must make those kind of decisions.”
“I’m sorry I doubted your ability and your intentions, Captain,” Swogger said.
Jessica smiled. She extended her hand, and they both shook. “And I accept your apology. Boy, do I accept it,” she said with relief.
13.
King threw back her head with a sigh. She had just walked into her quarters and unbuttoned her tunic when her bell rang.
God, there’s never a break, she thought.
“Come,” she said.
She turned to see Dr. Clayton stood in the open doorway.
“Oh. Doctor,” she said. She buttoned herself back up, and welcomed him in. “Please, come in and sit down.”
Clayton nodded, perched himself on the edge of the sofa. Jessica sat down next to him.
“So what can I do for you, Doc?” she asked him.
Clayton studied her face before continuing. “Captain …”
Jessica looked at him with a frown. “What is it? Something serious?”
Clayton looked up, as if the words were on the ceiling waiting for him to pull them down like errant balloons. “What I’m going to say won’t be easy.”
“Doc, what is it?” she asked.
Clayton reached out and took her hands in his. They were old, but warm and smooth. Well cared-for hands of a man who relied on them to save people’s lives.
“Jessica, some months ago I had a visit from Captain Singh. He was concerned by a sudden numbness in his legs. He asked me to check it out,” Clayton said.
“Oh?” King said, taken aback. “He didn’t say anything to me about it.”
“Well, he wanted it kept private. I was the only person he could tell because I’m ethically unable to say anything and he knew his secret would be safe with me. Normally this code of conduct would extend to the patient even when they’re deceased … but in this case I’m making an exception.”
King urged him on.
“The numbness was only slight, but it was noticeable. Bothered him enough to have me check it out. We ran some tests …” Clayton said.
He looked down at their hands.
“What were the results, Doctor? Don’t close up on me now. You’ve started this.”
Clayton’s eyes met with hers.
“The tests revealed the early stages of Multiple Sclerosis. MS. One of the few ailments of the human body we do not have a cure for,” he said.
Jessica was stunned. Singh hadn’t said anything to her.
“My God … how did he take it?”
Clayton shook his head. “Well enough, I suppose. We agreed there was no reason to tell anyone until it became more pronounced. And as I told him, that could take months or even years. There was time. But there was something else …”
“Yes?” Jessica asked. She felt saddened by what Clayton had revealed to her. That Andrew had never revealed his illness to her broke her heart in a way that losing him altogether hadn’t. A new pain. She couldn’t imagine how he’d felt, alone in the knowledge of his own limits.
“I told the Captain that it was hereditary. But I said ‘You don’t have any children, so that won’t be a problem will it?’ to which he said ‘That’s what I wanted to ask you about.’”
Jessica searched Clayton’s face for what was to come next. For the truth that lurked behind his sad eyes.
“He told me he had a daughter. But it was a secret. She didn’t know. He asked me to run a check on her, see if she might be susceptible to contracting the disease at some stage. I told him I needed a name,” Clayton said. He squeezed her hands. “He told me it was you, Jessica. You were his daughter.”
She looked away, suddenly unable to process what he was telling her.
We can be your family …
I don’t have what it takes �
�
With my help you will have. If you’ll trust me …
Now she understood. He wasn’t trying to be her Father - he was her Father. And that was why it had pained him so to see her careening off into chaos. That was why he’d pulled her back. Her own singularity, making sure she didn’t stray too far so that he could keep a close and careful watch on her.
My Dad …
Clayton patted her hand. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t say. He made me swear not to tell you.”
Jessica looked at him. “Doc, did you -” she started to ask, but then the loud scream of the emergency klaxons filled her quarters, followed by a panicked announcement from the bridge.
“Captain! Red alert! Enemy vessel off the port bow and closing fast!”
Everything else fell aside. King got up and dashed for the door. Within seconds she was running down the corridor, headed straight for the bridge.
14.
“Report!” Captain King ordered as she strode onto the bridge.
On the viewscreen the image showed the swirling maelstrom of the nebula, and coming up on their left the huge bulk of the Inflictor.
“We are at red alert, hull plating polarised,” Change reported.
“Very good,” King said. “Boi, open a channel. Try to hail them.”
She sat down and strapped herself in. There was the sound of boots on deck plating, and she turned her head in time to see Commander Greene walk onto the bridge followed closely by Gerard Nowlan.
Before she could say anything, Boi reported that a connection had been made.
“Put it up, Ensign,” she said.
The front viewscreen changed to a familiar face. Prince Sepix.
“We meet again,” Sepix said with obvious relish. He looked dishevelled but very much alive.
“Your highness. What a pleasure. I thought you were dead,” King said.
“Reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated, to say the least,” Sepix said.
“I can see that,” King said. “Although the ship looks a little different this time around …”
Sepix made a show of looking around. “She is a little worse for wear following our previous encounter, Captain. But otherwise none the weaker. And now, allow me to introduce a long-lost hero of the Dominion. You may know him from your history books!”