by M. D. Cooper
“You are the lie, you are the soulless sham. A persona created for the sake of survival in a brutal society that saw everything and everyone as a tool or servant to be used and disposed as pleasure dictated.”
Her eyes were filled with pity, but she looked down her nose at the gleaming, cruel Lumin Katrina. “You were shed in fire without regret, and now you only seek to find revenge in destroying the peace she has found on the other side of a terrible struggle.”
“Struggle?” came a sardonic voice to Katrina’s right, and as she turned, an icy fear began to spread from her sternum outward.
Walking toward the other two versions of herself was the Warlord Katrina. The familiar mask of disdain mixed with anger and pain was in her eyes, but not expressed in the armored skin covering her face and body.
“There was no struggle for either of you.” She made a dismissive gesture with her arm, directing it toward the Lumin Katrina. “You are a child who played at being a spy and enjoyed the romantic notion of rebelling against a powerful father. And you,” now she flicked her hand at Matrem Katrina, “you are the pathetic result of all that romanticizing. Sitting in your tower like a living tombstone for your departed husband. Did you even realize that it was I, I, who pulled her out of that fog of useless sentiment and got her off her ass and aboard the Voyager? If it had been up to you, she would be dead and buried under a memorial to the past, down with the dust and bones on Victoria, long forgotten.”
Her vitriol against the Matrem spent, the angry metal woman turned to the Katrina under the tree. “Will you run away and close your eyes again? Recite your mantra to convince yourself that none of us are you? That none of us are Katrina?”
“You aren’t me!” Katrina screamed at the Warlord. “You are just a persona I had to adopt to survive! I put you away from me because I am not you! I won’t be you! I won’t be any of you!”
But her eyes turned to the Matrem Katrina, and she felt a tug in her heart for Marcus. The love she had felt burst out of the box she had put it in, and all the sorrow of loss came with it. She saw a faint outline of him behind the Matrem, and couldn’t breathe from the pain that speared her chest.
“Nothing for me?” said a soft voice, as Juasa’s figure stepped out from behind the Warlord.
The fear in Katrina’s chest exploded, pushing remembered love to the forefront of her mind. One hand was reaching for Juasa, even as her feet moved to back away. Her mouth opened, but she did not know what to say.
Katrina felt the grass twisting around her bare feet, holding her in place, as the three versions of herself slowly walked toward her, chanting, “We are Katrina, the despot, the pathetic, the killer. We are your conviction. We are you and you are us.”
Katrina struggled to back away, shaking her head in denial, and tripped in the tangled grass, falling into the lake as the harsh sounds of accusation only got closer. She saw them reaching for her, the sad faces of the ghosts of her lost loves looking on as she sank down. She was drowning in the sound of their recriminations, and they followed her down.
She couldn’t breathe; she was going to die. It would be a relief. She would finally be able to escape them.
She felt the lake’s sandy bottom at her back, and it folded up around her. The voices were persistent, but no longer distinguishable. Now she could see Markus and Juasa reaching for her.
Markus!
He was calling her, but so was Juasa. Which one of them was she reaching for? They spoke, but she only heard one voice, and she couldn’t tell which of them it was.
“Katrina wake up! You’re dreaming. It’s alright, you’re safe.”
Two different hands were reaching for her, one masculine and one feminine. She wanted them both, but could not move to reach back.
“Katrina!”
Awareness came to her with a dizzying shift; she was tangled in the blanket of her bunk in her cabin on the Voyager. Markus was dead, Juasa was dead. The weakness and guilt of her sorrow brought tears to her eyes.
She sat up and angrily pulled the blanket away from herself.
Stop it. They are both gone, and this is useless emotion.
Just like that, she snapped the lid on it and moved on. Her mouth felt sticky, dry, and she was desperate for the san. She shook off the last bit of sleep and put her feet on the deck, kicking one of her boots.
“Ow!”
She bent forward to rub her bruised toe, and noticed the mess, and the smell, she had left between her door and her bunk.
“And that is what you get for being a lazy pig, Katrina, m’girl.”
The irritation, fear, and determination not to talk about that very thing caused her reply to come out in the form of an order.
Before Troy could reply, she walked into the san closet and closed the door with an audible click, effectively signaling an end to the conversation.
* * * * *
Katrina felt uneasy. The dream had left a sour feeling in her stomach, and although the details had begun to fade, as dreams always do, the discontent feeling was interfering with her concentration.
With a frustrated twitch of her shoulders, she picked up the coffee she had brought back to her cabin and settled into a chair. Forcing her mind to think of something else, she smiled down at her cup. Coffee reminded her of Tanis; she had never had it before the Intrepid came to Victoria.
Sipping the hot liquid, she focused on the screen in front of her. She began to sift through all the daily log information left by the captain of the Kessmar, and put together a report of all the Orfa shipping intel she had found. If the three routes could be verified, then they would have a rare opportunity that could not be missed.
Orfa Shipping had become the number one enemy of the Cavalry, and her personal nemesis. Ten years ago, the Castigation and her accompanying ships had been challenged by an Orfa corporate military escort vessel demanding to be allowed to inspect the freighters for stolen cargo. Jordan had rightly refused. Mostly because one of her freighters was carrying a load of Streamers recently ‘liberated’ from a holding yard on Calibri station, and Jordan was taking them to Armitaj.
The captain of the Orfa escort had threatened to fire on the Castigation, and Jordan had been forced to use Sam to disable the enemy ship’s AI and shut down their defenses. It was a dangerous thing to do, since there was no way an intelligent leader would not realize that the Castigation had an unshackled AI, which was just as illegal in this region as stealing slaves—if not more so.
However, the Cavalry ships had dropped into the dark layer as soon as the Orfa vessel was disabled, and no harm had come to anyone.
The incident had caused Orfa’s executives to issue a bounty on the Castigation, and over the next thr
ee years, Sam and Jordan only went out four times. The last run had ended in a battle with bounty hunters, who managed to get onboard the Castigation. The conflict had almost cost Jordan her life. They all made it home, though, and after a week in a medtube, Jordan had been whole again. The result was that both she and Sam had agreed to stay in Sanctuary until enough time had passed to cool off the hunt.
For the next seven years, Sam never took the Castigation more than a single FTL jump, and always toward empty space, to, as he put it, ‘study the stars and stretch my space legs’.
Katrina had not been idle during that time. She had taken up a vendetta against Orfa Shipping. Members of the Cavalry had been placed in the company’s employ to gather information on Orfa’s modes of operation; who they did business with, who they paid bribes to, where they obeyed the law, where they broke it, and especially what type of corporate military they kept. When the time was right, the Cavalry would take their revenge.
Now she was looking at that opportunity.
Shipping routes were the hardest bit of intel to come by, and only one Cavalry operative had ever gotten clearance that would allow them to verify information of that sort. Now she had three routes not more than two months old. Once Choopa came back with the verification, and Gavetts confirmed that Caru Stedd would be able to harbor their frigates coming in after the raid, they would be ready—and the Castigation would not be left at home this time.
Here it comes, she thought with a heavy heart. I can’t avoid this conversation forever. He has a say in his own life. I can’t expect him to just follow me, he is an independent being.
Katrina squared her shoulders and relaxed her clenched fists.
There was a slight pause; Katrina wondered if Troy was that angry, or if he was just considering the best way to open the conversation.
Troy’s question came into her mind like he had pushed something at her.
So right to the heart.
Katrina sat back with a heavy sigh.
Were they? She had avoided that question in her mind for years, always telling herself she was doing what she had to in order to survive while they waited on the Intrepid. Now it was time to answer that question for both of them.
Silence.
Katrina knew he was calculating the percentages and trying to determine where the good outweighed the bad. Her nightmare brushed against the back of her mind, but she pushed it away with an impatient shrug.
She had to convince Troy, or she would be totally alone. She would not be able to bear it if he chose to leave her now.
The silence grew. Her eyes became moist, and her heart screamed for the people of the Intrepid. So much had been left behind by both of them for this one goal. Katrina had practically sold her soul for it; she would carry the burden of a single precious young life from now to her last breath because she had not been willing to leave Victoria when Tanis had asked—no, pleaded— her to go with them.
Troy finally replied.
Her avatar smiled at Troy’s, and his smiled in return.
Now Troy sounded more like the AI she had come to count on as that one being she could trust without reservation during this insane interval between Victoria and the Intrepid.
* * * * *
Katrina stood on the Voyager’s small bridge, watching the forward holodisplay track empty space. Her nails made a tapping sound as she rolled them over the edge of the console.
“Deceleration completed, Captain.” Ensign Deluca turned in her seat to look at Katrina. “Ready for new coordinates.”
Katrina nodded and entered the information from where she stood.
Xavia had given her the coordinates to the planetoid, and from the Cavalry’s first raid, no one ever took the exact same route home. Either the captain or the ship’s AI plotted a new course for every trip back in—another precaution against possible security breaches. Even if a spy managed to get on a ship headed for Sanctuary, they would have no idea where they were or how to get back to their superiors.
“It’s all you now, Deluca. Take us home.” She forced herself to smile and sound calm.
Deluca nodded, and her posture relaxed. Everyone had the same moment of relief when the final jump was coming. Next stop was the safest place in three thousand light years. Next stop was home.
Real sleep had eluded Katrina for the past sixteen days. When she had managed brief periods, she had suffered through variations of the nightmare argument with her alter egos. She had finally started using her mods to avoid dreaming altogether. Now her body was rested, but her mind was exhausted. She needed natural sleep to be fresh and aware. She considered a rejuv treatment as a shortcut, but it had only been a couple of years since her last one. She needed to think of something else, get her mind off herself.
A single quick stride brought her to the captain’s chair, where she all but threw herself into the seat. Pulling a holoscreen in front of her, Katrina called up the manifest of goods being taken into Armitaj by Gavetts and Choopa.
Cargo was always split between freighters to avoid attention by port authorities that would notice a single large shipment. The cargo was valuable enough to interest Mi’Igma Prell, their main business contact for this type of trade. He was the one person in the black market underground who knew that Katrina’s public persona, a variation of Verisa, was a cover and that she was actually the Golden Age Woman. He had admitted his knowledge to her in their first meeting, but Mi’Igma despised the Lumins in Bollam’s World, and told her he would rather do business with her than make her his business.
That had been over twenty years ago, and their relationship had only grown more solid with time. She did not like having to send merchandise uninspected, but she also knew Mi’Igma would not cheat her…too much.
Katrina flipped through the manifest, and an entry caught her eye; a single crate of Marsian silk in shades of blue, green, and violet. Before she realized what she was thinking, her mind’s eye pictured Juasa wrapped in a variety of styles made from such silks. Katrina smiled at the thought of how beautiful her lover would look, and how fun it would be taking them off.
Then she remembered.
Juasa was not there to be seen in beautiful silks.
For years, she had not allowed such thoughts to enter her waking mind, and now, without effort, the idea of Juasa was there, alive, making it hard to breathe.
Katrina jumped to her feet, causing the display to
swing wide and bang against the arm of her chair. Startled crew turned to stare in surprise at the usually cool and collected leader of the Cavalry.
“Captain?” said the ensign to her right, a perplexed look on the woman’s face.
Katrina gave her a hard stare and froze. Standing in front of her was the spectre of Juasa with a question on her beautiful face. She could not think. The image of Juasa’s face became worried and touched with fear.
“Lady Katrina, are you alright?”
Katrina closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, Juasa was gone, and the ensign looked as she should.
“Yes, Carlie, I’m fine, just tired. I think I will catch some shut-eye before I finish reviewing these reports.”
She moved toward the ladder that led to the deck below and turned to smile at the ensign. She noticed that the blonde woman’s face did not resemble Juasa’s at all.
“Yes, ma’am. If we need anything, we’ll just pester Troy.” Ensign Carlie smiled back, but the look of worry did not really go away.
Katrina had to get a grip; these people saw their security in her confidence.
“You do that. The curmudgeon is getting lazy, with so many humans running the ship for him.” With a forced chuckle, she disappeared down the ladder.
As she climbed down through the decks, she admonished herself. And that, my dear, is how a person goes insane. Stop modding away your dreams to go to sleep. If you have nightmares, wake your ass up. The past is what it is, so stop this cowardly hide-and-seek with your imagination, or whatever the hell it is, and get on with your life!
Troy’s acerbic presence broke into her thoughts.
Katrina was laughing and forcing her mind to any thought that was not related to the one she just had on the bridge.
