by Adams, David
"Mother of God." James reached up to touch the wound. "You did this?"
"It's… hard," she said, her voice cracking. "You don't understand. Out of all of us—Knight, Anderson, de Lugo, you, me—I'm the one that's been the tip of the spear. It's always been the Beijing and me at the head of everything. Kor'Vakkar, Cenar, Belthas IV… It was my ship that bore the worst of the fighting, my crew that bled the most. That means I'm the most responsible for what happened to Earth. All those dead people, James. They're my fault."
"Is that what you think?"
"Fucking hell, how could I think anything else?"
"What about fleet command and your orders? Do you hold yourself responsible for their commands as well?"
"No," she said, struggling to keep her voice even. "But it's not just them. It's me. I started it… back in the Sol system. Back when the Toralii scout ship, Saara's ship, appeared near Jupiter. I attacked them. I could have let them go. Sheng said—"
"Sheng was wrong."
"Sheng might have been right. We don't know. That was a Telvan ship. They wouldn't have taken their knowledge to the Alliance. And even if they did, there might have been time to dismantle the Pillars before they attacked. We could have given up the jump capacity. We could have all lived."
"What kind of life is that?" James thumbed the magazine release, pulled back the slide, and put her pistol down on the table. "What kind of life would that be? Living under the heel of the Toralii, too frightened to do anything in case our benevolent masters decree it to be too much? What other restrictions would they put on us?"
"It couldn't be any worse than the death of our species."
"Or it could have been the same, but with no ships to carry away the survivors." A pleading edge grew in James's voice. "You can't blame yourself for this, Melissa. You can't. It's not fair. You're not blameless—nobody is—but this isn't your fault. The blood of humanity isn't on your hands."
"It is. It is, it's my fault, and—"
"Stop." James held up his hands. "Stop, okay? What do you want me to say? That it is your fault? Great! So you killed everyone. Good job. That's in the past. We're in the present, Melissa. All we have is how we're going to deal with this."
How would they deal with it? What words could make this better? "I know, but I don't think I can do that."
"How can I help?" Sincerity flowed out of James's every word. "You need it, you get it."
Liao laughed, a long, genuine laugh that came from a place within her she didn't quite understand. The pain had helped her forget her misery; she needed more of that. More immediate dramas to break her out of her apathy. Her lethargy.
"I need to kick someone's arse."
Liao felt like a schoolgirl skipping out on classes as James lead her by the hand into the lower decks of the Beijing. The crowds thinned out, and they had to step over the occasional pile of debris or route around a damaged section.
The further they got into the bowels of the ship, the dirtier and grimier everything became. Disused. Damaged. They occasionally passed a section breached by Toralii weapons fire, where soil had poured in and fungus was growing. The juxtaposition of natural and synthetic was fascinating to her, even though seeing her ship so damaged was disconcerting. These sections were shut off for good reason.
"Where are we going?" she asked, stepping over a collapsed beam.
"The gym." James twisted around to smile at her. "You said you needed to kick some arse, so we're going to."
"But it's sealed off."
"Pretty sure the captain can go where she likes."
That was a good point.
James stopped outside the door to the ship's lower gym, the portal sealed with yellow warning tape. He twisted the handle and put his shoulder to the metal, grunting as it slid open. "After you."
Liao stepped inside. The gym slanted to one side, and dust covered every surface. Hand weights and bars lay scattered all over the deck, and the floor dipped in places, melted from the ship's fiery re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. The boxing ring, a roped square in the centre of the room, was clear of debris.
"You seriously want to do this?" asked Liao.
"Sure," said James. "I need the exercise, and you yourself said–"
"I know what I said." She didn't want to talk anymore. Words were annoying. Actions were better. Stepping over fallen workout equipment, Liao moved to the lockers, their metal frame broken and their contents disgorged onto the ground. She picked out two pairs of gloves, tossing one to James and putting the other pair on.
The moment her gloves were on, she was empowered. She was a warrior again; she had agency in the world, however small her world was, and she lifted the ropes of the gym and stepped inside with a sudden fire in her heart.
James climbed over the ropes then clapped his gloves together. Liao put her fists out; James tapped his to hers.
"Ding ding," he said, and it was on.
Liao moved around him, hands held high, defensive at first. James, too, sized her up; she dragged her feet across the dusty floor. James made the first move, a short lunge, and Liao blocked. He swung again, out wide, and Liao blocked again.
"Just going to sit there?" James's words stoked the fire in her. She jabbed out, hitting his block.
James swung his fist out and hit her in the side of her face, splitting her lip and swelling shut her eye. She staggered under the force of the hit, reflexively touching her face, holding her breath.
It wasn't fair. She'd been hurt enough, physically and emotionally. Her body had scars from the attack on Sydney, from her various wounds in combat. She'd been injured. She'd bled. She'd given her youth, her very life, for the service.
Her pain turned to anger. The air returned to her lungs.
Liao leapt forward, leading with her right hook. James blocked it, but she was ready for that. She stepped into James's reach, slamming her forehead into his face. His nose cracked under the impact. With a roar, she jammed her knee into his gut, almost knocking him over.
James held his arms out, letting her strike. And strike she did—a fist into his solar plexus, a series of strikes directly to his face, the force of her anger, her frustration, her grief flowing out of her fists and her feet. She punched, kicked, kneed, elbowed and attacked over and over. All of her emotions, her pain that she'd kept inside since the loss of Allison—the loss of Earth—came out at once.
She attacked until her body was limp and exhausted then collapsed on the floor of the ring, crying and gasping for breath. James's face was bruised and bloody, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He slumped over beside her, and the two of them lay on the floor, fighting to breathe.
It took minutes, but finally Liao could breathe again. She wiped away the blood from her lip, and then used her sleeve to wipe away some of the blood on James's face.
"You're a goddamned mess," she said, smiling despite the pain and the blood.
James returned the gesture, his lips puffy and bruised. "You are, too."
She laughed, something that she immediately regretted, the pain in her bruised ribs pulling her up. "Ow, ow, ow."
"Hey." James spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "I think I got the worse… of us both. You have a mean right hook."
"Yeah. It used to be better. I haven't sparred since… well, a long time. And I got rusty after I had Allison."
For the first time, she was able to say the name without experiencing a mental stab, a pain in her mind. The physical pain helped drown out the emotional pain, helped her keep her mind in the here and now.
With a pained groan she tried to stand, propping herself up on her knees, then pulling herself up to her feet. She offered James a hand, but he waved it away.
"Give me a moment," he said, wheezing. "You really got me good."
"Sorry about that." She meant every bit of it. It had been necessary for her on some level—she didn't claim to understand why, but it had certainly helped her. Something about the physical pain was anchoring.
Or
maybe it just felt good to do things with James again, things that weren't related to command.
"Let me get you a towel," she said, "or maybe two." A glance around the gym, though, and she realised that offer would be hard to follow through on.
They spent some time cleaning each other up. Liao's whole face had swollen up, the flesh of her cheeks puffy and bruised, and her lip bled something fierce. Her ribs were bruised, her scalp ached, and blood stained the front of her uniform.
James was right, though. He had gotten the worst of it. As Liao dabbed away the blood, she inspected her handiwork with a guilty grimace. "You might have to see Doctor Saeed," she said. "You might need some stitches."
"He's busy." James shook his head. "He's got his hands full at the moment with all those civilians with the runs. I really don't want to bother him with this." He gave a playful grimace. "Besides, what am I going to tell him? I got my arse kicked by a girl?"
"I can kick your arse any day," she said. "I think we've established that."
He rubbed his bruised ribs, chuckling. "Yeah. Ow."
A few moments later, using a few dusty towels scavenged from the change room, Liao had them mostly respectable. She pulled off her uniform top and, after helping him stand, eased James out of his. They needed to be laundered, but that was a problem for later.
She stripped James down to his underwear, rubbing her hand over his bruised chest. "Jeez," she said. "I really did you good."
"It hurt like hell," said James, wrapping his arms around her and giving her a fond squeeze, standing unsteadily on his feet.
"Yeah." She smiled. "Anything else you needed to tell me?"
"Not really," he said, "especially if it's going to get me beaten up again."
"Good."
"Anything you needed to tell me?" James asked.
"I slept with Captain de Lugo." Liao threw James a meaningful grin. "In my wilder, younger days…"
"Ha."
They stood there for a long time, just holding each other, and Liao kissed his shoulder. "We should get going. It's a long way back to civilization."
"It's already three a.m.," said James, but he smiled. "Why don't we just stay here?"
Staying the night sounded appealing to her. "We can try some of the stuff from the book," said Liao. "Rowe had it digitised. I can pull it up on my tablet right now."
"If you want," said James, but winced. "Nothing too fancy, though… nothing too fancy."
The ruined gym wasn't an ideal location but it was an intense relief to have sex again. They were both quite badly beaten up, so it was slow, gentle, and awkward—but she had missed the physical intimacy with James. Their duty had taken them so far apart from each other that such pleasures seemed impossible, but for a brief moment they forgot their problems and—aside from the aches and pains of their mutual beating—their lives were happy, and they were together.
The morning came far too early for Liao, and with it, a profound stiffness over her whole body. The day after was the worst, after all. She nudged James, but he was already awake.
"Ow," he said.
Liao winced. "Couldn't sleep?"
"Yeah," he admitted. "I'm going to have to go see Doctor Saeed."
Liao propped herself up on her elbows, careful to avoid touching any of James's bruises. "What are you going to tell him?"
"I walked into a door, I suppose."
She laughed then grimaced in pain. "He's never going to believe that."
"Well, he's going to have to. I'll help you up, then I'll head back later."
Slowly, and with faint groans of pain, James eased himself up into a sitting position. Together they worked on getting him standing, and Liao helped him out the door.
James's eyes lingered on her as he stood in the doorway. "I can leave you alone with that thing in your quarters, right?"
"Yes," said Liao, and meant it.
James, after some consideration, walked slowly down the hall.
"Take care," she said, waggling her fingers as he left.
As he disappeared, a profound silliness overcame Liao. After everything that had happened, sincere happiness made it hard for her to dwell on the pain. Somehow, James had known exactly what she needed… to fight an enemy in front of her and win, so she could rediscover the person she was inside. To reclaim some control of her fate.
Liao made her way back to her quarters. She changed out of her sweaty, day-old clothes and threw them into a corner, then put on a fresh uniform. Then she sat in front of her laptop. Her report was still open.
She considered deleting it all, just erasing the whole thing and pretending that she'd never written it, but it was an important document. In her previous mind-set, she said things she would otherwise never say—laid bare the truth of the matter, and this truth would be important to their future.
It was as James said. She needed to keep looking forward. They could not change the past, but she could at least learn from it. As could others.
So the document stayed. She cleaned it up, and then she considered herself satisfied. She arranged for one of her junior officers to print and bind the document then distribute it, along with several electronic copies, to the Madrid, the Washington, and the Tehran.
She was about to leave for her duty shift in Operations when a knock on the door interrupted her. She opened it to reveal Iraj.
"Commander," she said, smiling. "Come in."
"Ya ilahi, Captain, your face!"
"Oh," said Liao, shaking her head and beckoning him inside. "Don't worry about it."
"How in the name of Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla did you manage that?" He stepped into her office. His gaze lingered on the sleeping bag and then, as he turned to ask about it, fell upon her old uniform, stuffed in the corner.
The blood. Liao felt incredibly sheepish.
"You hurt yourself so badly… that you bled all over your uniform and didn't see anyone about it? Have you been here all night?"
"Yes," she said. "I was working, and… look, please don't worry about it."
Iraj stepped up to her, touching her cheek, frowning darkly. "Melissa, this is a serious bruise. Your eye socket might be swollen. You should have Doctor Saeed check this out at once."
"I'm fine," she said, reaching up and cupping his hand in hers. "It was just James."
His eyes went wide. "Captain Grégoire did this to you?"
She shook her head, firmly. "No, it's not like that. Trust me, he got the worst of it."
"You fought?"
"We went boxing. It was my idea; I wasn't in the right headspace. I was thinking bad things, stupid things, and he got me out of it. The point is it's not a problem anymore. I'll be okay."
He didn't seem convinced. "Melissa, I'm going to be honest… you look awful."
"I feel awful," she said. "My face hurts like shit, but believe me, I feel fine. We broke into the lower decks—it sounds so stupid now I'm saying it, but we did—and we boxed. I needed to get to that place so that I could push through to this place. It's fine, Kamal, really."
He did not seem to agree. "If you say so."
"Please don't mention this to anyone else, okay?"
Kamal reluctantly nodded his head. "If you're sure that you are okay, and that Captain Grégoire is not harming you, then whatever you crazy kids do is your own business." He managed a smile. "As long as you turn a blind eye to what I do to that cute little transfer from the Madrid."
She laughed. "You, jeez." Then a memory stirred. This wasn't the first time Kamal had taken an interest in someone. "I'm sorry about Peng, Commander."
"I miss him," he said. "But we weren't… dating, not properly. I know he couldn't have escaped the destruction of Cerberus station. I've accepted his death."
Liao turned to organise some of the papers on her desk. "How? How can you just… do that? Move on from someone?"
"It is not easy, and the weight of recent events has been weighing on me, too. But when things like this happen, I try to think of the stories from t
he Koran, of the words Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla left for us through his prophets."
Although she was feeling much better, Liao could use some words like that. "How do you mean?"
"Well, take the story of the hairdresser, for example. An example of how Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla tests us."
She raised a swollen eyebrow. "A story about a hairdresser? Is this because I shaved my head?"
"Hah, no. The holy Koran tells the story of Firaun and his daughter's hairdresser. Firaun, whom Mohammad the Prophet alayhi s-salām had described as the zalim; the tyrant of all tyrants, the greatest tyrant to ever walk the face of this Earth."
"You keep saying those things," she said. "What does subhānahu wa ta'āla mean? Or alayhi s-salām?"
He smiled. "They're honorifics. For example, subhānahu wa ta'āla means 'Peace Be Upon Him'. Islam assigns honorifics to be added when speaking the names of Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla, the Prophet Mohammad alayhi s-salām, and the names of saints, angels and archangels. They can sometimes make a story hard to understand for those who are not used to such things, but to me it's perfectly natural. They're said in the same breath, almost as though they were part of the name."
Islam, it seemed, much like the Toralii, was fond of titles. She was not.
"So," she asked. "If you don't mind me asking… how do you explain being a gay Muslim?"
"Not easily," Kamal said, laughing. "It's complicated, but I think books like Christian Bible, the holy Koran, and the Jewish Torah… religion itself… is supposed to serve an uplifting purpose. It's supposed to make you better than you are, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. It's never designed to hate, especially not to hate yourself. We are all the creations of Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla. Hating yourself is to hate the handiwork of our God, and that strikes me as particularly blasphemous."
"I can't fault your logic on that front," Liao said. "But you know I don't believe all that stuff."
"Of course. I know that. I am a Muslim only because I was lucky. It was an accident in geography. If I were born in the United States, I would be a Christian. If I were born in India, I would be a Hindu. You were born in the People's Republic of China, and so you have no religion. It is not a slight of your character to not believe. We mortals cannot really, truly know the will of Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla, and he judges us in a complex, deep way far too intricate for us to understand. This is why I do not judge non-believers or those with different faiths, because I know that but for the grace of Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla I would be one of them. I am not special."