by Aidan Moher
I made the mistake of telling Rummage that I was among those whose fear was creating doubts. In my mind, my fears haunted me like malevolent spirits who knew my every secret. Nightly, I woke sweating, screaming. When she happened to be in bed with me, Rummage eased my fears, shouted down those demons with soft whispered nothings and fingers running through my hair.
But she would not be with me on Uwe'hhieyth. We would be alone, fighting against the shadowborn, unable to guard each other from the same death that had taken the loved ones of Uwe'hhieyth.
Rummage stood in front of my bed. She'd been in my cabin when I'd come back after showering, ready to collapse into my thin blankets and give into the exhaustion and anxiety that I'd been trying to drown in physical exertion, mindless combat drills, and the stubborn noise of my brain trying to tell itself that everything is okay, would be okay.
I didn't know where to go. Rummage made no move to let me move farther into my room. With slumped shoulders, she wrapped herself in a hug that made it look like she was trying to keep warm despite the perfect climate regulated by the ship's AI. Her eyes were red-rimmed and raw. Tears streaked her cheeks. Rummage bled vulnerability, and, despite my nudity—my own exhaustion and anxieties—I felt like the least naked person in the room. I'd never seen her like that, never seen her as anything but fierce and confident, funny, my rock in a life that needed all the stability I could find.
I hadn't seen her in the two days since I bared my fears among her pillows.
"In twelve days, Rum," I said. "Just twelve days to go, then we find all the answers we've searched for, cried for."
"Twelve days," she agreed.
"We were children then," I said.
"Adults now," she said. "And still you'll let your fears get to you, eat at you. What must she be thinking right now, watching her son hesitate on the eve of her vengeance. We will win this war, Sligh."
If she'd been anybody else, I'd have knocked her teeth out. Instead, I balled my fists, took a step forward. "What do you want, Rummage?" I stepped back, shocked at myself. I'd never raised my voice at her before. "I'm so fucking scared, Rum. So fucking scared."
"We're all scared. That's why we're here, Sligh. We're all scared little kids, with no one to help us with our problems. That's why we're on this ship, and why we're going to run screaming to our deaths in twelve days. We're scared as fuck."
She took a step towards me, then another. She shoved me back against the wall, not playfully but with enough force to make me stumble. I tried to tighten my towel around my waist, but it fell to the floor.
"What do you want me to say? I'm scared, the future is here, valour is on my doorstep, and I'm terrified of it."
"Don't say anything."
I had no idea how to respond.
"Just fucking hug me, Sligh."
01:23:36 until drop
My finger traced the curve of my cheek just below my right eye. The colour of a dying sunset trailed in its wake. I'd made the dye myself from henna I'd purchased from an Indian vendor just days before The Spirit of a Sudden Wind had left the last station on the edge of Unitarian space. It wasn't perfect, and henna was not a substance that had ever made its way to Uwe'hhieyth, but the effect was suitable.
The face that stared back at me from the mirror was ferocious, fearless, the face of a warrior that would take Uwe'hhieyth by storm.
Somewhere, Rummage was preparing in her own way. I thought of her smile, of the strength in her hands. I hoped I would see her again, feel her hands on my skin.
A feather lay before me, solemn and noble as the bird it had come from. Earthborn eagles were rare, and this feather had cost me dearly. The feathers of an Uwe'hhieyth eagle were impossible to get.
Bedecked this way, shrouded by the spirit of a warrior, I took a long breath and left my cabin. Assembly was twenty-three minutes away.
00:00:15 until drop
Each breath is visible as it fogs up the convex curve of my face shield. I should have cleaned it more thoroughly. Three years in space and at the very end, I'd forgotten even the simplest measures, so simple I'd done it a thousand times on the trip through the sea of stars.
I shrug my shoulders. Left. Right. Left. Right. Adjust myself on the narrow bench and look for a position to calm the anxiety and screaming adrenaline surging through me with every heartbeat.
Thump, thump, thump.
The devastated spirits of my home world, the ghosts of my dead family members, friends, and rivals fill the small combat pod. Seven soldiers sit among them—three to my right, four across from me.
Fidget, fidget. Triple-check your gear. Check it again.
The feather wound through my hair tugs as I lean forward, a sharp reminder of the house spirit watching over my shoulder. If I look at just the right angle, I can see eyes staring back at me in the reflection of my face shield. A stranger's eyes: milky brown and full of anger, fear, pride. My eyes. I blink.
Red light floods the pod. Landing imminent. Alarms blare.
T minus five seconds.
I glance at the soldier next to me. She doesn't look back. Small clouds of vapour cloud her face shield, too—the visible litany of her prayers. A brief thought of Rummage flits through the tension—her soft lips and the calluses where her palm meet her fingers.
T minus one second.
Impact.
Chaos.
“Tide of Shadows” (2013)
Story Notes
The first whispers of “Tide of Shadows” came when I was posed with a writing prompt that was totally out of my wheelhouse: military science fiction. Traditionally, I don’t write a lot of science fiction, and military narratives often preclude a level of intimacy and knowledge about combat and military organizations that I just don’t have. But instead of being brick-walled, I decided to take the challenge and approach it from a different angle—something that I was confident about, but not so much so that it felt routine or overly familiar. I turned my writer’s eye onto the hours, days, and weeks leading up to the conflict, rather than putting my narrator right in the midst of the action.
What are soldiers thinking about on their long journey to the front lines? What motivates people to militarize and act out violently against an external threat? How do you find comfort when you know you’re being dropped into a combat situation that will most likely be your last? These are all questions I asked my characters as I wrote “Tide of Shadows.”
All I learned, though, is that there are no definitive answers. If a thousand people are fighting, there are a thousand different reasons why. Sligh, Tsetse, Rummage, and all the other people of Uwe’hhieyth have their own reasons, and even now, some of those reasons remain mysterious to me.
Life is an ever-evolving series of defining moments: some huge, some small. So, I thought it would be interesting to consider this story not just a snapshot in the lives of these characters but many snapshots over an extended period of time. Throughout “Tide of Shadows,” readers glimpse some of these intimate moments in Sligh’s life. At once, he’s focused on both his lust for revenge and nurturing this new love that he’s found aboard The Spirit of a Sudden Wind. I needed a narrative structure that allowed those two passionate emotions to mix and mingle, to entwine themselves in one another in a believable and satisfying way.
“Tide of Shadows” misses many moments in Sligh’s life, but I think a few of the most important and interesting are there: snapshots of a passionate and loving life.
About the Author
Aidan Moher is founder of the Hugo Award-winning A Dribble of Ink. A regular contributor to Tor.com and the Barnes & Noble SF&F Blog, Aidan has been writing about science fiction and fantasy since 2007. Raised among the selkies and sirens of British Columbia’s Gulf Islands, Aidan now lives with his family in Victoria, BC, where he works as a web developer for the Royal British Columbia Museum. Visit him online at aidanmoher.com and on Twitter at @adribbleofink.
Notes
1. https://medium.com/@adribbleofink/let-s-unp
ack-grimdark-8aedb13a5e9f
2. http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/
3. http://wetranscripts.livejournal.com/45819.html