Back In Blue

by G R Matthews

  She sat without speaking and a glass of wine appeared in front of her. Only she got served at a table. The rest of us had to stagger to the bar to get a drink. When we couldn't even stagger, Tom sent us home. It was his measure of our sobriety, our state of mind. In many ways, he looked after us all. A watchful father to a group of drunken, broken children.

  "Well," she said without touching her wine.

  "Evening, Derva," I said, looking up into her beautiful eyes. It was there in their soft darkness. Not judgment, but disappointment and it cut at the few heartstrings I had remaining.

  "You can't avoid it forever." Her tone was soft, it almost always was.

  "You'd be surprised what I can avoid and for how long."

  "At the bottom of a bottle? That's just hiding," she answered.

  "It's worked for me." I took another swallow of the beer, just to prove my point.

  "No chaser," she noted. Score one for her team. I'd known her long enough now to realise a win was way beyond my wit. I always played for a draw and usually tipped my king in the first five moves.

  "I don't want to go back," I said after a pause. She sipped her wine, waiting. "I don't."

  "You know what you sound like?"

  "A whiny teenager who thinks the world owes me a living? I know."

  "It doesn't," she said.

  "I know that. Derva, I got into the military at the right time, the end of a war. The number of missions I actually went on, combat missions, I could count without taking my shoes off. Right now, I’m an old man and war's a young man's game."

  "You're not old," she said with half a smile. "And those young men need older men to keep them out of trouble. You know that the military has women in combat roles too?"

  "Young women?" I tried to match her half smile but the look on her face said all I'd managed was a leer.

  "In that case, you are an old man," Derva replied. "They might see you as a father figure, I suppose."

  My mood soured further and I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice. "I don't want to be a father again."

  "I'm sorry, Corin." Her manicured hand, warm and soft, reached across the table and took hold of mine. I didn't pull back, enjoying her touch. "I didn't mean it like that."

  I took a deep breath and exhaled in one long sigh of forgiveness. "I know you didn't."

  She left her hand on mine, her fingers curling around mine and holding them tight. "There's a war going on, Corin. There's fighting on the borders of NOAH and VKYN and it is escalating. If it is any consolation, I wish it wasn't the case, but it is. The Navy need troops and you've got that Fish-Suit from them on loan."

  "I could get killed," I protested.

  "There aren't many with your skills, Corin."

  "I don't want to go," and I heard the whine in my voice climb even higher. Grabbing the glass, I drained the last of the beer to cover my embarrassment.

  "You don't have a choice," she said, her tone had not changed. She was still a parent talking calmly to a recalcitrant child.

  "I know," I said. She was right, I didn't have a choice.

  Once they got really serious about having me back, they wouldn't come knocking in the middle of the day. They'd kick down the door and drag me out in my underwear. The longer I left it, the bigger chance I'd end up in prison for the duration of the war and beyond. My livelihood would be gone, my few friends and the last vestiges of my self-respect would vanish.

  At that point I might as well be dead. It wasn't a thought that scared me. There were times I'd welcomed those cold, skeletal fingers. When I'd wanted that last embrace and the release from the pain, but I'm stubborn. Every time, I'd escaped and now war was reaching for me.

  I saw Derva turn and gesture towards the door. Looking in that direction I saw the two Navy men who'd been knocking on my door and chasing me down the street. She'd brought them to me. Some would see that as a betrayal, not me. Since we'd met, Derva had been on the lookout for me, keeping me safe and saving me from myself at times. Here she was, doing it again.

  "Tom," I called as they came close, "keep my seat warm. I'll be back."

  CHAPTER THREE

  They were nice about it. No handcuffs and they gave me time to throw a couple of changes of underwear into a bag before they escorted me to the Naval enclave in the city.

  My cell was pleasant enough. It had a bed with a blanket and a thin pillow, a toilet which looked clean and didn't smell, and a small sink with a cold tap. As prisons go, it was comfortable. The door was not locked and the corridor outside had similar doors regularly spaced every few metres. At the far end was another door which led into the naval base proper.

  The transient quarters. Spartan rooms set aside for those who would only be here a night or two. Nothing fancy. Just enough to get you through the waiting. The navy was a practical organisation. It built to plans, unchanging and unaltered for decades. Their buildings were plain and functional. Every credit was saved for the subs, weapons and defences. Most of the navy were at sea. Only the admin staff stayed at home, coordinating the deployment and making sure everyone had enough toilet roll.

  I slipped my bag under the bed and sat down. It creaked under my weight, the springs were old, thin, and with way too much give in them. No window graced the wall and there was the distinct lack of a screen. Nothing to do and no entertainment. After two minutes laying down, staring at the ceiling, I got up and paced back and forth. When that failed to excite me, I opened the door and headed down the corridor to the exit.

  The handle didn't move. Locked.

  "Great," I muttered.

  There was a screen next to the door and I pressed the menu button. Instructions appeared and the outline of a hand glowed on the black surface. With no other option, and out of idle curiosity, I placed my right palm against it. A wave of light pulsed beneath my hand and spilled between my fingers. There was a click and the door opened. Unexpected.

  I'd been brought down this way but my guards, my escorts, hadn't spoken much and I hadn't felt the need for conversation. I knew to the left was, along a few corridors, the big bulkhead doors which separated the base from the rest of the city. There were security desks and checks all the way. Escaping, a desire I felt keenly, wasn't an option.

  There was a sub due in the morning which would take me, and anyone else they rounded up, to a forward base for retraining, the joy, and acclimatisation. I'd meet the rest of the troops there and we'd be taught to work as a team, to trust and rely on each other, before we were sent on a mission. None of it filled me with happiness. Working with others was low on my list of skills.

  Once it had been higher, but then I'd killed them all, the rest of my crew. An accident was the official report, but accidents tend to happen when you're half-drunk and half-high. It had been after Tyler was killed and just before my wife went away. I wasn't in a good place and should have known better, but I hadn't been thinking of work, just wallowing in self-pity, drowning in grief, and cutting every part of me away from everyone else who'd ever cared. It took a bucket load of psychiatric sessions to get me to that realisation, and a similar number of beers to hide it away again.

  A sign on the wall directed me towards the mess hall and without any better options that's where I headed. A few turns, the odd stare, and I found myself in a sparsely populated room with an ordered arrangement of tables and chairs. Nice neat rows all perfectly aligned. It was enough to make me lose my appetite. Almost.

  The self-service shelves and chill units housed a multitude of food. All high in calories, carbohydrates and proteins. For fuel rather than pleasure. I had fond memories of navy food. Which is to say, I fondly remembered the day of my decommission and the thought I'd never have to eat it ever again. Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

  I grabbed a bowl of fish curry, shoved it in the microwave and gave it a minute to heat up, and a cup of water. The base wasn't dry. There would be an officer’s mess and a bar for the enlisted troops. In both you'd be expected to wear uniform and pay
with your navy credits if you wanted a decent drink. Another reason to dislike the armed forces. You got paid in navy credits, not regular ones. When you left the base or the service, you could exchange them for real credits at a truly unfavourable rate, another way to tax your pay. On base though, they were the only currency and I had precisely none.

  When the microwave announced with far too much glee that it had heated my food to the temperature of the sun, I rescued the bowl and carried it to an empty table. On the way I snagged a chunk of bread to mop up the curry and a spoon to shovel it into my mouth. The best I can say for navy food was that it tasted. What it tasted of would be impossible to say. It left your tongue coated in glue, a lump of half chewed fish in the back of your throat and a heavy stone in your belly.

  Constipation or diarrhoea, the only two outcomes of a navy diet. Most new recruits prayed for constipation and in a Fish-Suit you prayed doubly hard.

  I forced the food down, following the chunks of mystery fish with the bread and then the water. After a few minutes of sitting still, hoping my stomach would settle, I grabbed a second glass of water and sipped at it.

  There were two other occupants of the mess hall, a young woman with her bright pink hair tied back into a ponytail and similarly aged man with blonde good looks and a uniform that looked a size too small for his muscles. I watched, out of the corner of my eye, as she collected up their trays, took them to the stacks and threw the waste into the bin. She nodded to me as she left, a look of confusion on her young face. Her companion ignored me. I get that a lot and, to be honest, I’m happier that way.

  I sat there for another five minutes and no one else came in. Bored of my own company and before my mood tipped over into irritation, I gathered up my bowl and cup, depositing them in the appropriate place.

  Back in my room, I laid down upon the bed and closed my eyes. The best thing to do after a navy meal was to try and sleep it off. Being awake while your stomach performed contortions that an Olympic gymnast would baulk at was never pleasant.

  In the dark behind my eyelids I saw her face, as I did most every night when the numbing embrace of alcohol was denied me. In the past, over the years, I'd tried to force it away, to blank it out, but nothing ever worked. Tyler wouldn't be denied and I stared right back at her. There was a challenge in her eyes and the set of her lips shouted it at me. She was always trying to tell me something, but I could never hear the words. We lay there, in the encroaching warmth of slumber, looking at each other with eyes that would never see each other again.

  A loud thumping on my door dragged me back to some semblance of being awake and the rough hand on my shoulder, shaking me further awake was, I feel, not needed.

  "I'm awake," I groaned. "For fucks sake, let me go."

  "On your feet." The order was barked in a tone that brooked no argument. So I didn't. I stayed exactly where I was, trying desperately to remember exactly where that was.

  "Get up, Hayes," the voice shouted again, this time in my ear. "Get your gear stowed, the sub is here and you're leaving."

  "Sub?"

  "Now," the voice said.

  I opened my eyes and saw the blurred shape of a man in blue. A navy uniform came into focus and my brain caught me up on the events of last night.

  "Shit," I muttered.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Transport subs are built for comfort. At least if you can afford first class they are. Military subs are built to get you to your destination and don't give a damn for the state of your ass, back, legs or head when you get there. You're alive, they seem to say, be grateful.

  The one the navy packed me onto was not a combat vessel. There were no crowds of eager seaman and officers racing back and forth. No hum of activity. No flashing lights to show the computers best interpretation of the sounds and currents around it. It wasn't sophisticated or new, but despite all that it had the feel of a trustworthy craft.

  However, the seats were murder. Moulded plastic which bent and twisted whichever way you sat in it. Barely five minutes into the estimated seven-hour trip and my back ached, my legs trembled and the less said about my ass the better. It felt as if each cheek was being forced through the small holes that the designer, a person I’ve no wish to talk to but every wish to punch in the jaw, had seen fit to put in the bottom. Weight saving, cost saving, but not flesh saving.

  There were no portholes to gaze out of as there might have been on a luxury sub. A single screen, up front, played old clips about an ocean-going ship carrying over a thousand people on its maiden voyage. No one watched it. You could, if you wished, take a sub tour of the actual wreck which was somewhere north of us. There were enough wrecks in the ocean, watching this one sink and all those people die was not the most inspiring choice to show a group of navy recruits and veterans on their way to war.

  I looked around, for the tenth or twenty-seventh time. Other seats were taken. Not all of them, but a quick count told me that there were over thirty others on this sub with me. Some looked barely out of school, wide eyed innocence and eager expressions. Others were like me. Old and weary. Recalled to the service at a time of their lives when they thought themselves safe from it all. With age comes wisdom, and disappointment.

  At the back, just over the tops of the chairs, I caught a flutter of pink hair. I hadn't noticed her when I'd boarded so she must have arrived later than me. An impressive feat in anyone's book. All the others might have been in rooms like mine last night, waiting for this sub. Then again, it was unlikely that all the others here were Fish-Suit pilots. If they lived in Tyler's city I would have known them and they me. Already there would have been insults, dirty looks and whispered mutterings of discontent, and that would have been just from me.

  "Sir," a timid voice said, drawing me from my thoughts.

  Looking up I saw a young seaman, the first fuzz of facial hair poking nervously out from his chin, staring down at me.

  "What is it?"

  "You're not permitted to sit on the floor, sir."

  "Why not? It's a damn sight more comfortable than the chair," I said, nodding towards the plastic torture device which I’d vacated a moment ago.

  "Regulations, sir," the seaman said.

  Back in the navy, back stuck between the book and the ocean as the saying went. The book of regulations which all navy personnel had to follow, and the ocean which had few rules and was ready to trip those who couldn't adapt. My old instructor had been a stickler for the rules, except when they failed and that was more often than not.

  "A cushion?" I said, clambering to my feet. "And a coffee wouldn't go amiss."

  "I'm not sure," the seaman began.

  "And at what point did you think that was a request, Seaman." I stressed his rank and ignored the little twinge of guilt I felt for playing the rank card. He could have called me on it, I wasn't in uniform and there was an absence of rank insignia on my shirt, but when you're the lowest of the low everyone outranks you. His eyelid twitched as the regulations battled with rank and took a sideswipe from irritation. Rank won out and he nodded, hurrying off only to return a moment later with a cushion.

  I plumped it in front of the other passengers, enjoying the looks of jealousy they directed my way. With a bright smile and a deep sigh I sank back down onto the seat, shuffling a little to get comfy. A few moments later he returned with the coffee, hot, dark and never having seen a real bean in its short existence.

  "Thank you, Seaman," I said, taking the drink from his hands. "What morsel of delight is the chef serving for dinner?"

  "Sir?" I saw the puzzled look on his face deepen. Probably never taken a holiday, never been on a passenger sub. Straight from school, straight into the navy. Guaranteed place to stay, food and wages. Life in the military was a good choice for many, as long as there wasn't a war going on. He'd picked the wrong time to be born and a worse time to join up.

  "Never mind." He'd brought me coffee, he could do no wrong now. "How long till we dock?"

  "Another few hours, si
r," he replied and I saw his eyes go to my lapels seeking the insignia that still wasn't there.

  "Thanks for the coffee," I said, dismissing him.

  "Yes, sir." He saluted, looked confused when I didn't return it, gaped for a second, and headed off about his duties.

  I sipped at the drink and tried hard not to think about the war. The harder I tried, the more I thought about it.

  After my last trip out of the city, life had been quiet and pleasant. Relatively so anyway. The mayor had ensured my retainer was being paid, that there were jobs enough to keep me employed and none were particularly taxing. I'd stayed out of trouble, a miracle which Derva couldn't stop herself commenting upon when she met me for drinks or the occasional dinner. For the first time in more years than I wanted to remember I did not have to worry about money or getting the crap beaten out of me.

  Four months ago the first incursions began. The whole business with the Silent City and the attack of the VKYN rebels had been on the clips. Well, not the Silent City nor the mention of my name, but the attack up north reminded everyone of that event. This time it wasn't the rebels, it was the VKYN navy flexing their muscles.

  In the space of two weeks, there had been five or six border confrontations. Stand-offs between sub fleets and during the last someone had actually fired a torpedo. We said they had fired first, and in their broadcasts they said it was us. Either way, three subs of ours were lost and seven of theirs. Of course, they claimed it was the other way around.

  No one seemed to know why VKYN had started to encroach on the borders and a visit from the Intelligence Services had me convinced to keep my mouth closed. All those little secret mines and research stations. Both nations nipping over the mutually agreed border in search of something; minerals, wealth, power, had finally irritated someone near the top of the hierarchy enough to try and put a stop to it.