by Mark Tufo
“You cannot be that naïve.”
“Naïve? That’s just a word. Want to know what I see? I see a fully functional ship, with a motivated crew ready to go deal the Prog home world a crushing blow, and all of it, every little bit, is due to that man that you felt the need to save. The man you shielded with your own body so that he would not sustain any more injuries. Even you, with your doubts, knew the right thing to do.”
“Hate arguing with you. Ever lost one?”
She softened a bit. “I let Mike win once, just to make him feel better.”
“How did it feel?”
“Worth the experience, I suppose, but I’m not going to let it happen again.”
“How is he?”
“Bit of pain I’m sure, but he’ll be fine. Doc just set his leg.”
“Saved the damn ship. How can I be pissed?”
“You can’t.”
“I want to be.”
“You have no idea how many times he has built up that mix of feelings inside of me, BT. Part of me wants to throttle his head, while another wants me to wrap my arms around him. I’ve never known anyone that can be so frustratingly right. He comes at answers from such severe angles that it makes no sense when you first look at it, but he’s so damned sure of himself that you have no choice but to go along.”
“I think you might have nailed it.”
“Excuse me, Colonel, it’s his turn now.” A nurse had come out to wheel BT into the surgery room.
“Good luck,” Tracy said to BT.
“Got a feeling you need it more than I do,” he replied.
Chapter 14
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 11
It was about eighteen hours after my battle. I was lying awake, looking at the ceiling. My leg was a sharp throb, but not the mind-numbing pain it had been. I saw the morphine drip and the one filled with the alien repair elixir. Given the volumes of that concoction I had used thus far, I was surprised I had not built up an immunity to it. The fire it caused throughout my system was uncomfortable, but a constant reminder that I was on the mend and not dead. I looked to either side where there were rows of the injured, some in better shape, others far worse. It would have been impossible for me not to recognize the large lump of person in the bed next to mine.
“You awake?” BT asked.
The room was sufficiently dark enough I could not tell if his eyes were open.
“I am.”
“I’m conflicted, Mike. Part of me wants to wheel my bed over there and crack you on the side of the head.”
“What’s the other part want to do?” I asked with concern.
“Not crack you on the side of the head.”
“I like that part better,” I told him honestly.
“Did you know?”
He left it like that. I thought he was starting a story. Like did you know blue whales can communicate from up to one-thousand miles away or, did you know that penguins mate for life? That kind of thing. I had no clue where he was going with this.
“Your silence speaks volumes.”
“You’ve got me at a disadvantage here, man. I’m on morphine and while the pain isn’t all-consuming, it’s definitely taking up some of my resources.”
“The Progs. Did you know the damned Progs were building a bomb?”
Wasn’t the most difficult puzzle I’d ever encountered but it took me longer than expected to put the pieces together. “You want to know if I had us attack the Progs because I knew they were building a bomb?”
“Yes, Mike. That’s exactly what I’m asking.”
“What if I told you no, that I had absolutely no idea. I hate them. I hate them with every fiber of my being, and sometimes yeah, maybe that clouds over my thought process. But I guess a part of me knew they’d planned that escape for a reason, BT. They destroyed their hangar, then one of them, only one of them, is functional enough to talk? Something smelled bad. I didn’t care if I was right or not; that suspicion made me hate them even more. We thwarted them with the Rodeeshians, whatever the hell those things are, so it goes without saying they were going to try and do something else. I heard it in the desperation of the guy who asked twice if I touched the damned things. I didn’t know what they had in mind, and I didn’t and still don’t care. All I knew for sure is they needed to be stopped. Nothing worth doing doesn’t come at a price, and I was willing to risk my life and all of the lives in this room to accomplish that goal. We are but a handful of pieces in the grand scheme of things; the others on this ship and the millions at home– what’s left of our race are of much more value.”
BT sighed. He was quiet for what seemed like an hour. I thought he had fallen asleep, and then he spoke. “I had so much anger, Mike. So many dead and injured and I didn’t know what for. I miss your big, green friend, too.” He was doing his best to mask his crying.
“I know, buddy. He was a unique individual, we were blessed that our paths ran alongside his, however brief it may have been.”
“I wasn’t going to ever tell him this, but I’m pretty sure he would have kicked my ass in the arena.”
“He knew.”
“Your wife was right. Knowing you is like being on a carnival ride; one second you’re loving the thrill of it the next you want to get off the damn thing before you lose your lunch.”
“She said that?”
“Something along those lines.”
I don’t know how long I slept. It had to have been for hours, as I dreamt I was on a huge receiving line meeting with and having a few words with every person that had died since this entire journey had begun. Lined up single file they disappeared into the horizon. Some were a brief handshake and a heartfelt thank you for their service, others, like Debbie and Stephanie were tear-filled embraces. There were the embraces with Paul and Dennis that were no less tear-filled, but also mixed in with bittersweet laughter from some of the good times and hijinks we had done as kids. On and on the line went; it didn’t seem that it would ever end. I was dreading coming across the being that I absolutely knew would be the anchor to this beautiful nightmare. Finally, I could see him coming closer, one person at a time, until he stood in front of me.
“Michael,” he said as he looked down upon me.
I wrapped my arms around his waist as best I could, I felt like a little kid watching his father going off to war.
“This is so much harder to do without your words and guidance, Dee.” I sobbed. “You were the rudder that kept me from spiraling out of control.”
“You are doing fine, my friend, do not let hate dictate what you do or who you are. Be strong. If you let the negativity take hold it will burn through you, leaving remnants of your true self behind, irrecoverable. You will become a hollow man.”
“I already feel that way. Like a stiff breeze could pick me up and take me away.”
“There will always be a piece of me in here,” he pointed to my head, “whether you like it or not. My words and my teachings have found a way to carve themselves into the ripples of your mind. You could no more get rid of me than you could your soul.”
He seemed so at peace I didn’t want to let him know that I thought my soul had fluttered away a long time ago. I was crying in my dream and I was crying when I awoke. It was dark and when my eyes opened and I felt Tracy’s hand upon my cheek I thought perhaps I might still be asleep and this was her spirit departing. There was the briefest of moments where I thought my heart would explode from the loss.
“Shhh, it’s alright…just a bad dream, Mike, that’s all.” She helped me to sit up upon my request.
“Where am I?” I winced. The pain in my leg had subsided but it wasn’t anything I could easily push to the side.
“Brought you to a private room, and before you go on and on about not wanting preferential treatment, you were having night terrors. We thought it would be better for the injured if they could get some sleep, uninterrupted by their commander yelling at phantoms that they all must die.”
“Shit. What about t
he Progs?”
“The last fifty or sixty are holed up in a maintenance closet.”
“Why?”
“Why are they holed up or why haven’t we killed them?”
I nodded. “Mike, we’ve already lost more good men and women than we can afford to. We’re about to take this bucket into battle understaffed; I’m having a hard time justifying risking any more lives.”
She probably did have an idea of how much I wanted to toss my covers off and go down there my gimpy self.
“Don’t ever play poker, Mike. Relax, at the moment, they are heavily guarded and under video surveillance. If we have to, we can go in. For right now, it doesn’t look like they’re doing anything.”
“They have blasters?”
She remained tight lipped.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Maybe right now they’re doing nothing.”
“I’m in command at the moment, or did you forget you tried to get yourself killed?”
“In terms of me nearing death, this hardly even qualifies.”
“I have five minutes before my next shift; do you want to spend it losing an argument?”
I opened my mouth, had something stupid to say. Smartly, I swallowed it. “No. Did you find out anything about the Rodeeshians?”
“We transported them to the hangar and are an order away from sending them off into space. The only reference on the ship’s computer is that they are a biological threat.”
“What the fuck does that mean? They have something on board that they were willing to fight and die to get a hold of and the only mention is a vague one?”
“I don’t know. I was waiting on you. I just want to launch them. Pender is close to solving his own mystery. Says he just needs another couple of days.”
“He does realize we are completely on our own schedule, right? That nobody is expecting us. We’re so early the host doesn’t even know they’re having a party.”
“He doesn’t see it that way. Started talking about cosmic holes and how they can fill up. I left when he started using words I was convinced he made up. Funny, he began to sound a lot like you.”
“You’re a good one–don’t make me replace you,” I told her.
“As if I’d let you.” She kissed me gently on the lips. “Doc says your bones are healing well and you can get up whenever you want. He suggested a wheelchair and help to get into it. Don’t be a stubborn ass and hurt yourself again. Going to need you in the game real soon, my love. In theory, I’d be better off handing the controls over to our son than you; in reality…” She shook her head maybe trying to reconcile the thoughts she was having. “I’ll leave it at that. My mom always used to say if you don’t have something nice to say, say nothing at all.”
“I call bull. When have you ever left anything unsaid? Good or bad?”
“I could fly circles around anything you could do with this ship. But soon you are going to ask me to do things with her that I would never think she could do or was capable of doing. Somehow your ignorance of her tolerances is going to be the key.”
“Tolerances?”
“It’s a good thing you’re a handsome man, Michael, with your brains, you’d never get laid.” She smiled as she left.
“Hey, I don’t think your mother would appreciate that.”
“She probably wouldn’t appreciate what I’m thinking about right now, either.” She looked at me seductively. “Get better and get out of that bed, win us a war, and I’ll let you know.”
“Oh, is that all? I thought it was going to be difficult. I should have found me a good Catholic girl with strict parents. They’re always up for a good time.”
“What?” she asked from the doorway?
“I was thinking about going to a church service,” is what I told her. She’d been gone for a few minutes; I couldn’t get the damn thoughts of the closeted Progs out of my head and all that I figured they were doing right now to thwart my plans. I mean, if I had any. I had a large overview of what I wanted to happen, but how the hell I was going to get there was anyone’s guess. I asked for and received help getting into the chair, which was, thankfully, motorized. I hadn’t done much more than sit there and I was a bit tanked in terms of energy. Wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but lying in bed didn’t seem like the right answer.
“What the fuck you doing?” BT asked as I scooted by his room.
“Going for a walk.”
“Got to use your legs to go for a walk.” He slurred the words a bit, I was thinking he had a fair amount of pain meds in him. I gave him the finger as I went past. He laughed before falling back asleep.
“No hot zones, General,” Doctor Baker said as I left the area.
I may have grunted something but it wasn’t a yes. Of course, I found myself heading there, but for what reason? I wasn’t in fighting condition. I could order the men to attack but I’d have a hard time living with myself if I just sat on the sidelines while others fought and died. No, my best bet was to avoid the area completely. That I would do something stupid was beyond doubt. I looked over to the comm.
“Bridge, this is General Talbot.”
“Hello General. You calling from the infirmary?”
“Captain Fields, is the colonel on deck?” I asked.
“Not yet, should be soon though.”
“What hangar were the Rodeeshian pods put in?”
“Uh….” He was searching his memory. “Thirty-nine, why?” But I’d already left the intercom.
No clue why I wanted to see them; they were basically ordinary green canisters, strange shape, but no markings, no clue as to their origin or what was in them. With that thought, I went back to the comm. “Yo, doc.”
“General Talbot.” He sounded like I might be bothering him as he prepped for surgery.
“The Rodeeshian capsules–did anyone bring them down to have you take a look inside?”
“It was deemed too dangerous.”
“Okay, thank you,” I told him. Made sense. Couldn’t risk destroying the only facility we had for making sure we could fix people. More than curiosity had me going down there; I felt what? A connection, maybe? But that made no sense, so I discounted it nearly as quickly as I thought about it. I decided it was for curiosity’s sake after all, though that never seemed to work out too well for the cat. Probably it was that intense desire for something you never knew you wanted until you realized you couldn’t have it. Wasn’t expecting to see the heavily armed platoon guarding the entrance to the hangar, should have. They came to attention as I motored my way to them. I wondered if I was instilling any confidence in them as I drove up in my Walmart scooter.
“Good afternoon sir,” Sergeant Mulligan saluted and said to me as I approached the door.
“Hello Sergeant. Could you let me in, please?” I returned his salute though it hurt to do so.
“Sir, I’ve been ordered by the colonel to allow no one in.”
I was thankful I’d had the foresight to have my uniform put on me before I began wandering around. “You see that Gold Star, Sergeant?”
“I do, sir.”
“Last I checked, Gold Star beats Silver Leaf any day of the week. Ever watch the Olympics? What kind of medal are the athletes vying for?”
“Sir, are you ordering me to open this door?”
“How about strongly suggesting?”
He smiled. “Sir, permission to speak freely.”
“I get that a lot. Don’t let me be the one that impedes free speech, considering they’re your first amendment rights, Sergeant.”
“Sir, with respect, the colonel, your wife is much scarier than you. I am going to need a direct order from her superior officer before I feel that my own head will stay attached once they start rolling, if that makes sense, sir.”
“Makes complete sense, Sergeant, that was why I was asking you to open the door and then I could have told her that it was already open so I mistakenly rolled my way in. Now I guess we’ll go the traditional route and I’ll just tell her
I was so drugged up I didn’t know what I was doing. Sergeant, I am ordering you to open that door.”
“Aye, aye sir.” He nodded to a private that keyed in the code, it opened noiselessly inward. “Escort, sir?”
“No, I’d like to be alone with my stupidity, Sergeant.”
“As you wish, sir, though I don’t think this is such a good idea. We really don’t know what is in those things. I told the colonel we’d be better off just tossing them off into space.”
“What did she say?”
“She was all for it; she just wanted to make sure she wasn’t getting rid of something that could help us first.”
I was wondering if she felt something too. “Shut the door behind me.”
“Sir?”
“I’ll be alright.”
“No matter what you tell me, sir, I’m not telling my man up in the tower to take his eyes off you. You’re my commanding officer and it’s my duty to make sure you stay alive and well.”
“Fair enough,” I told him. I rolled through. The four canisters, cylinders, eggs whatever they were, were as close to the vacuum of space as they could be without being outside. I thought one might have rocked as I got closer. More likely it was the pain meds I was on. “What are you?” I reached out with my hand, not quite touching the surface, taking heed of the words the Prog had said when we were locked in the room with them. He’d been mighty concerned whether I had touched it. Why?
“Sir!” came over the speaker. I looked up to the tower. “It’s glowing!”
Where my hand was hovering, the greenish color had taken a golden-reddish hue. Fuck me. Had I inadvertently activated a bomb? I backed up, the red glow dulled considerably, but did not go away.
Sergeant Mulligan came in the door. “I think maybe we should get you out of here, sir. I’ve contacted the colonel and told her what is happening she wants to jettison them immediately.”
“How long have I been in here?” I asked as I reeled my arm in. My shoulder ached like I’d been holding a salute for an extended time; my eyes burned and my throat was raw.
“Nearly an hour,” he answered. There was no hiding that he was worried.