Tales from the Captain's Table

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Ahead of me, Mike fell to the ground in a heap.

  I resisted the urge to call out to him, instead scrambling up onto my hands and knees and rushing toward him. Pain shot through my foot as I moved, and I felt the new ache in my arm, but I ignored the hard sensations. I concentrated solely on reaching Mike.

  When I got to him, I found him on his back, his calves bent awkwardly beneath him. I quickly examined his body, and through rips in his uniform, saw his flesh in bloody tatters. A deep gash had been opened in one arm near his wrist, his hand now just barely attached. A narrow slit climbed from the tip of his chin up his cheek to his hairline, a crimson trail marking the path that a sliver of the destroyed phaser had taken across his face.

  He looked badly broken.

  I reached up to Mike’s chest to try to gently pull off his uniform, wanting to pinpoint his severest wounds and treat them as best I could. The fabric, already burned and torn from the blast, came away easily. Beneath it, Mike’s torso was shredded, his body pierced in a dozen places, his skin ragged, his blood flowing freely from his body.

  As I used scraps of uniform to wipe away the red pools from his wounds, somebody yelled behind me, from somewhere near the shuttle. The meaning was unclear to me, but I absently noted that I heard neither weapons fire nor the sound of another overload. Looking back now, my training should have had me utilize the lull as an opportunity to attempt escape, but I couldn’t leave Mike like that.

  As I worked over him, my hands becoming soaked in his blood, the ground around him covered by it, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to save him. Distraught, I peered at his face. To my surprise, he was looking back at me.

  I opened my mouth to say something, to somehow try to soothe him. Before I could, though, he took a quick intake of breath, as if gasping for air. Then he was still, and the light faded from his eyes.

  Behind me, near the tree, the brush rustled as somebody approached. I spun around from Mike’s body, my foot and forearm flaring in pain, and I realized that I no longer held my knife. I quickly scanned the path I’d crawled along to get to Mike, and looked around the base of the tree, but I didn’t see the blade anyhere. With no recourse, I tensed my muscles, preparing to attack the renegade with the only weapon left to me: my own hands. A moment later, somebody rounded the tree.

  It was the captain.

  He saw me first, and then Mike. “Dead, sir,” I said, my voice flat. The captain nodded, his features tensing almost imperceptibly.

  “And you?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

  “Wounded, but yes,” I said. “I have the intel.”

  He nodded again, and told me that we had to go. He helped me to the shuttle, explaining that the engineer had completed her repairs, but then had been attacked and captured by two renegades. The enemy had apparently tracked the frequency signature of our sensor veils from the shuttle, intending to capture or kill us, but the engineer must not have divulged the different frequencies of the captain’s veil. He and the other member of his jungle team had reached the shuttle just as the attack on us had been launched. Using their knives, the two had overcome the renegades, though too late to save either the engineer or Mike. The captain also confirmed that the other two members of our mission crew had been captured and taken to the renegade base.

  In the shuttle, I prepared the helm to speed us off the planet. I waited while the captain and the other crew member recovered Mike’s body, loading it into the aft section of the shuttle and raising a stasis field about it. Then I worked the controls, and the shuttle rose, crashed through the jungle canopy, flew up through the atmosphere, and headed us for home.

  All the way back to Federation space, sitting at the primary console, all I could think about was Mike’s family, and how much they had lost that day.

  Back on Sentik IV, I sat at the primary console of the Armstrong, the memory of what had happened on that mission as fresh as an open wound. I could not deny the value and importance of what our small crew had accomplished there. I believed then, and still believe now, that our actions, our retrieval of that critical intelligence, subsequently resulted in the saving of uncounted Federation lives—and ultimately, in the saving of renegade lives as well.

  But Mike hadn’t survived. I’d gone to him, had tried to minister to his mangled body, but had instead looked on as he’d drawn his last breath. He’d saved my life at the cost of his own, and I’ve carried that burden ever since. It went beyond survivor’s guilt, beyond the unanswerable question of why I had lived through our shared experience and he had not. What haunted me was the family to which Mike had never returned: parents who would have to wade through the misery of a memorial service for their child; a young boy who would grow up with ever-fading recollections of a father he’d barely known; an infant son who would spend all of his days with no father at all; and a wife whose lips would never again touch those of the man she loved.

  As I sat in the shuttle on Sentik, I told myself what I’d repeated in my head so many times before: Mike had understood the risks of the mission, and despite how much he had to lose, he’d chosen to participate in it anyway. I believed that, paradoxically, he’d done it for his family…for all the families. He’d given up his life so that the knowledge I’d learned at the renegade base could be used to prevent the deaths of others. I’d never entirely learned how to live with that, but as I considered what to do about Hana’s situation, one truth kept playing over and over in my mind: Mike had paid the ultimate price in order to help secure the continued safety of his family. Sitting in the shuttle on Sentik IV, I had to ask myself if I was strong enough to pay a much smaller price for the good of my own family.

  “What are you waiting for, Demora?” I said. My voice sounded strange in the empty shuttle.

  I reached forward to the communications panel, pressed a control surface there, and then turned to the starboard monitor so that my image would be recorded along with my words. “To Admiral Mahesh Bapu Ratnaswamy, Starfleet Headquarters, Earth. Admiral, this is Captain Demora Sulu of the U.S.S. Enterprise . As of today—” I peered at the chronometer on the console, then recited the time and stardate. “—I am requesting an indefinite absence from my duties, and I’m stepping down from my captaincy. Due to the needs of—” I paused, unaccustomed to the words I was about to utter. “—of my family, I cannot negotiate for this leave. If Starfleet Command is unwilling to accommodate my request—an action I can fully understand—then I withdraw my request, and instead immediately resign my commission.”

  I toggled the control on the panel, halting the recording. I then reached for the transmission key, but hesitated before activating it. I found that I needed to say one more thing, and I restarted the recording. “Admiral Ratnaswamy, this is not a decision I’ve made lightly,” I said. “My grandmother is dying. She might have a day left, or a month, or even a year. However long it turns out to be, she needs help, and I’m the only member of our family who can provide it for her.” I paused the recording, and thought about saying more. Instead, I reached again for the transmit control.

  This time, I didn’t hesitate.

  By the time I heard back from Starfleet Command, the Enterprise had already departed Starbase Magellan and begun its yearlong exploratory mission. A veteran captain had been assigned to the ship, a man I knew and respected, and who I thought a good choice for my crew. I’d hoped that my first officer would be given the position, but Command had apparently believed her not quite ready for the promotion.

  In his response to me, Admiral Ratnaswamy graciously expressed his concern and best wishes for Hana. Starfleet Command understood my situation, he said, and had elected to approve my request for an indefinite furlough from my duties. Aware of the conditions on Sentik IV, and taking into consideration that the Enterprise had left on its mission without the Armstrong aboard, the admirals had also chosen to allow me to retain custody of the shuttle until the Enterprise completed its current assignment.

  Finally, at the concl
usion of the message, Admiral Ratnaswamy emphasized that, when I was ready, Command wanted me back on the bridge of a starship. He also pointed out that he could offer no guarantee that circumstances would permit me to return to command of the Enterprise. He signed off by wishing me well.

  I felt more than a twinge of regret. I’d been aboard the Enterprise during its test runs and maiden voyage, assigned there directly out of the Academy. I’d served on the ship for more than two decades, and during that time, had worked my way up from ensign to captain, from the helm to the center seat.

  Still, I knew that I’d made the right decision to stay with Hana. I didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice in the matter. Quite simply, it was the right thing to do.

  The weeks I’d already spent with Hana turned into months, and with each month that passed, her physical condition deteriorated. On the day I’d chosen to stay on Sentik, she began staying in bed most of the time, taking almost all of her meals there, rising only to have me help her visit the outhouse. She also stopped changing out of her nightclothes, which I washed for her every couple of days.

  After a time, she could no longer walk, even with my assistance. I fashioned an antigrav chair from components I pirated from the shuttle, and while I’d steeled myself for Hana’s protest at my use of technology, she was either too weak or just didn’t care enough to say anything. I began to wonder how aware of her surroundings she actually was.

  Eventually, Hana couldn’t even make it out of her bed and onto the antigrav unit, and I had to employ the Armstrong’s transporter to get her to the outhouse. When even that proved too much for her, I was forced to improvise a means for her to relieve herself in her room. In effect, I’d become her nurse, seeing to all of her needs. I felt humiliated for her. No matter the quality of my relationship with her, no matter her lack of interest in my life, no matter her hard, unemotional manner, she had always seemed a strong, proud, independent person. It saddened me terribly to see her in such a desperate situation, so completely reliant on me for her very existence. I recalled my Great-Aunt Nori’s illness and incapacity, and how on my one visit to New Tokyo, Hana had appeared to pity her at the same time that she had cared for her.

  As the months marched on, Hana’s mind seemed to follow her body downward. As little as she had ever spoken to me, she began to do so even less. Once she’d become fully bedridden, her ability to enunciate diminished. Where once she might have offered a word to me here or there, she stopped speaking at all, apparently capable of producing only indistinct, guttural noises.

  For my part, though, I spoke to Hana more than ever. As I spent more and more time with her, I found the silences intolerable. And so as I served Hana her meals, helped her with her purgation, cleaned her, repositioned and massaged her failing body to avoid bedsores, as I did all of those things, I began to tell her about my life. She never gave me any indication that she heard my words, let alone understood them, but I talked to her anyway.

  I told her about my mother, a vital, enigmatic woman I’d loved and idolized, and who I’d watched die in an infirmary bed of Sakuro’s disease when I was seven years old. I told Hana about those first turbulent years with my father, and finally coming to accept and love him. I told her about following my father’s path, joining Starfleet Academy, graduating to a helm position, and then working my way up to starship command. I told her about various adventures and experiences I’d had while on board the Enterprise: my capture and apparent death at Alaskon V; my parts in the famed Coronado Mystery, both in the beginning and at the end; the ridiculous turn of events that had left me, for seven hours, as Absolute Ruler of the Universe; my fascinating and difficult first mission as captain of the Enterprise, when the ship had traveled to the Röntgen Wall. I even told her about Mike, and those horrible days on our mission to the renegade base.

  In the end, it didn’t matter whether Hana could hear me or not. I hoped that she did, but simply talking to her, telling her some of the story of my life, turned out to be something I needed to do for myself. At the same time, I wished I could have learned about her. I’d never really known her, and I realized at some point that I never would. But despite that, I decided to treasure as best I could those last few months with her.

  In the springtime, I woke early one morning to bright sunshine. I rubbed my eyes and yawned, then rolled onto my side and squinted toward the right-hand wall of the cabin. The blanket that I affixed over the window every night had slipped down on one side, allowing in the rays of the dawn sun.

  Knowing I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep even if I rehung the blanket, I got up, put on my boots, and headed in my nightclothes to the outhouse. Outside, the temperature was surprisingly comfortable so early in the day. On the way back to the house, I filled the water containers at the well, then hauled them inside. I then dressed, did my daily chores, and went out to the fields.

  I spent the rest of the morning digging furrows. During the fall and winter, I’d reaped some of the crops, but then had ended up plowing most of them under. The work, even with the animals Hana kept, had been exhausting, but the break from tending to Hana’s continual needs helped me get through that time.

  By late morning, I estimated that I’d covered half a hectare, perhaps more. I looked back over the neat rows I’d dug into the ground, and felt satisfied with the accomplishment. I removed the plow from Hana’s beast and boarded the animal back in its stall in the barn, then headed for the house. From the position of the sun almost directly overhead, I could tell that it was time for a meal, both for Hana and for me.

  After I’d washed up, I opened Hana’s bedroom door and looked in to check on her. She was still asleep, I saw. I started to leave, but then something caught my attention. I peered back over at Hana, and then stared as I saw something I couldn’t explain. Hana lay on her back, with her hands atop the bedclothes, resting at her sides. Beneath one hand, she held what appeared to be a small book.

  I’d seen the cloth-covered volume from time to time since I’d been there, but not for a long while. I hadn’t thought about it in months, probably not since the last occasion I’d seen Hana sitting on the chest below the back window, the book at her side. I wondered now where it had been, and assumed that she’d kept it in one of the chests, neither of which I’d had much call to open.

  What I really wanted to know, though, was how Hana had retrieved it. She hadn’t been ambulatory for many months. I gazed at her tiny, weakened form, and found it impossible to believe that she’d somehow gotten out of bed that day.

  As I regarded Hana’s tranquil visage, I realized something else: the bedclothes were not rising and falling with her respiration. Stunned in spite of the inevitability of the moment, I walked to the side of the bed and gingerly reached two fingers to the side of Hana’s neck.

  She had passed away.

  Carefully, I lifted Hana’s hands and folded them together across her midsection. I regarded her still features, and thought she looked more at peace than I’d ever seen her. I felt relief on her behalf that her plight of infirmity had ended. I also felt an unexpected melancholy.

  My gaze drifted back to the book still lying by her side. I picked it up and examined it. It was perhaps ten centimeters wide and half again as tall, and covered in a soft, floral fabric. It had no title or writing of any kind on the exterior.

  Curious, I opened it to the first page. There, several symbols marched across the white page in a handwritten scrawl put down in black ink. I recognized them as Japanese kanji, though I could not read them. Below these was a single word—Magomusume—presumably a transliteration of the symbols into romaji, which I could read.

  The word meant granddaughter.

  I gasped, realizing that Hana had left this for me.

  I turned to the next page, which was filled with paragraphs penned in the same jagged handwriting. The words were written in Federation Standard. I quickly flipped through more of the book, and saw page after page crammed with writing. I then went back to the
first page of text, and read the first line.

  I was born in 2200 on Earth, on the cusp of the centuries, on the island of Shikoku.

  I looked back over at Hana. I’d known her even less than I thought I had, but saw that would not continue to be the case. Unaccountably, she had left me the story of her life.

  I peered down at the book again, and reread the words there: I was born in 2200 on Earth…

  Below them, the first of my tears fell onto the page.

  Sulu finished her tale. Around her, the tavern’s patrons regarded her in silence. She couldn’t tell whether she had impressed everybody—or any body—with her story, but she was interested in its impact on only one person: Strolt. She looked over at him, and for the first time since he’d stopped to listen to her tale, she met his gaze with her own. For a long moment, the tableau remained frozen in place.

  And then the bartender said quietly, “Well done.”

  Unsure what Strolt was thinking, and not wanting to risk antagonizing him, Sulu broke their eye contact. “Thank you,” she said, turning in her seat toward the bar.

  “Another for you, Captain Sulu?” the bartender asked, holding up an empty wineglass. “You’ve earned it.”

  Sulu looked down at her own glass, which she’d emptied during the course of her story. “No, thank you,” she said.

  Around Sulu, the tavern seemed to come slowly back to life. People shifted in their chairs, stood up, moved about. Voices rose in conversation, softly at first, and then to more normal levels. Sulu glanced over again at Strolt.

  He was on the move, she saw, walking rapidly toward the front door. As he entered the vestibule, Sulu quickly pushed back from the table and stood up. Behind the bar, her stout host asked if she was leaving, and she told him that she was.