by Paul Grover
There was nothing for any of them to say.
Reece Murphy, a Martian street kid who would never grow up, never fall in love or raise a family of his own. Somewhere there is a girl or a boy he would never meet, a life he would never have. My fault…
Mira stole a glance in Tish's direction and swore never to take what she had for granted.
She turned her attention to the tiny body in the airlock. She blinked and drew a breath, steadying her emotions.
“Clear skies, little man.” Mira punched the outer lock control. Orange strobes flashed in the airlock as the hatch opened. The kid's body was carried away by the escaping air to become one with the proto-planetary ice and rock. Reece Murphy would orbit the sun for eternity. He would be out here long after humans were gone, long after the sun expanded to consume the inner system. He would continue his journey when the sun became a cold, lifeless core of fused heavy metals.
She had wanted to save the kid, needed to save him. She wished she could explain it to Tish or understand it herself. Reece had been a nobody but to Mira he was someone. She swore she would never forget him.
Mira rested against the bulkhead. Meyer stepped forward and kissed her forehead before walking forward to the upper deck.
“Promise me you won’t die,” Mira said.
Tish took her in her arms. “I promise.”
Mira’s com-link beeped.
It was Hofner confirming the status of the ship.
“Get us out of here,” she whispered.
Mira buried her head against Tish and cried until she had nothing left.
Vanessa Meyer was sitting on a couch, nursing a glass of brandy, when Mira returned to the upper deck. Tish squeezed her hand before heading for the flight deck. Mira’s eyes were damp and sore. She sniffed and took a seat opposite the senator.
“Thank you for joining me, Mira; I hope you don’t mind me helping myself to your booze supply.”
“I didn’t know we had one. I drink little these days; it has a bad effect on me.”
“Since your rebirth?” Meyer asked. “Call me Vanessa.”
Meyer poured Mira a drink and handed it to her. She took it realising she needed it. It burned her throat and worked the secret booze magic that skewed perspective and made the bad shit seem okay.
“You know about that?” Mira did her best to conceal her shock.
Meyer refilled her glass. “My son told me about your adventures with the Ark of Souls.”
Now Mira was confused. Meyer’s son knew about the Ark?
The senator gave a smile; it was soft and easy. “Xander.”
“Rhodes is your son?” she said. “You are shitting me? Sorry that was crude. I never saw that coming!”
Mira could see the resemblance in her eyes; they were kind, mischievous and intense. Her mood brightened, just enough to feel human.
“I had him when I was young. My career just taking off… He was inconvenient. My sister and her husband raised him as their own. He went off the rails for a while, most of his adult life if I am honest. He came good in the end.”
Meyer spoke at length about their plans for the Alliance of Free Worlds.
“Ben has been busy drawing up a draft constitution. With the right mix of worlds we can bring prosperity to the Frontier and break free from the Core Systems for good. We approached Xander to act as interim President.” She paused. “We could use someone like you, an icon.”
Mira gave a bemused laugh. “Icon? How much have you been drinking?”
Meyer’s face was enigmatic. “After you crashed, you were headline news for a while. They never named you, but the image of the emergency crews pulling you from your ship was flashed all over the Federation. It turned public opinion away from the war. Okay, icon is a little strong, but you should believe in yourself more.”
Mira shuddered as the image on the giant banner crossed her mind. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” she muttered. “I don’t see how I changed anything.”
“What wins wars, Mira?”
She responded with a lop-sided shrug. “Violence?”
“It is the result, but no. Soldiers, weapons and starships are all tools but it is money that wins wars.” She took Mira’s hand. “Your image brought home what was happening every day on Mars. Young people dying in a war no one wanted or even understood. It soured the public’s appetite for the conflict. After all, who wants to see a pretty girl with her skull caved in over their breakfast?” Meyer shook her head. “I’m sorry that was insensitive. After your picture hit UniNet, Von Hagen’s financiers realised they were betting on the losing side and withdrew their support. With no funding Martian Dawn’s access to weapons, ammunition and personnel dried up. We found out later that the Dawn were reliant on mercenaries for their field work; without them Von Hagen’s insurrection was little more than a few thousand fanatics. Trust me it’s money that fuels the war machine.”
After a pause Meyer waved her hand. The senator reminded Mira of her own grandmother, a woman with a ferocious sense of humour and a love for life the teenaged Mira Thorn had embraced. Homesickness again dulled her thoughts.
“Enough politics, tell me what happens now?”
Mira explained her plan. “We resupply at Baikonur and fly on to Miz. I’m hoping it will be straightforward but nothing else has been.”
There was a pause, short, comfortable. The events on the Orbiter seemed to recede with every light-year they travelled. Reece Murphy became just a memory.
“And what about you and Tish? How do you see your future?” Meyer asked.
Mira started, roused from her melancholy. She paused before answering, gathering her thoughts.
“I don’t know… I wanted to go home but now…” She paused. “I don’t want to go to war; people die for nothing. We pretend to learn the lessons and a few years later we do it all again… but what if this time we have no choice? Fight or die?”
“Whatever you decide you have already played a huge part. Reece and Zoe Sinclair will be remembered as part of this too.”
Meyer fixed her with an intense stare.
“Mira… with war there is always a choice, but it is not binary.”
“If it falls to a choice between war or extinction, it becomes no choice…”
“Unless you can prevent it.”
Mira thought for a second. The Amy Construct had made war between human and Blackened seem inevitable. Events on Mizarma and Mars had already brought humanity to the brink. She wondered if the Federation would tear itself apart long before the Blackened returned. They had already sown the seeds of unease with their attacks on the Outer Frontier.
Is there another way? Can we avoid the bloodshed we are all so hungry for? Maybe no one has to die…
She knew there was a naivety to the thought. People always died. Yet the idea lingered.
“The Blackened are so powerful, it will take all of humanity to defeat them,” Mira said. “We can’t fight a civil war at the same time.”
A smile danced on Meyer’s face. “That’s why you are important. You have an unstoppable spirit Mira Thorn. I can see it; Tish sees it and so does Xander. We might not be able to avoid war with the Blackened but we might be able to avoid a human conflict. I hope the Alliance will be a beacon of hope, more so if I have the right people.”
Mira made no reply. The Senator’s words made a certain sense. Meyer’s gaze remained fixed, her serious expression broke into a half smile.
Meyer waved her hand and sipped her drink.
“Enough of an old woman’s ramblings,” she said. “You must be exhausted.”
Mira stood, wished the senator goodnight and left her alone in the lounge.
She checked her watch. It was close to midnight. She thought she should check the flight deck, but decided neither Tish nor Hoff would appreciate her trying to micromanage them; she would be lousy company, anyway. She yawned, wincing as pain bit her shoulder.
Mira made her way through the Kobo’s corridors toward the state
room. It had been almost two months since she had walked the corridors of a similar ship, feeling tired, lost and lonely. It had been a different life, a different body. Right now she felt the same as she did the day she lost the Berlin.
It was as if she were slipping into her old self; insecurity and fear hovered in a dark corner of her mind, waiting to pounce like ambush predators.
Her Shadow Sister was stirring. The bitch had been quiet for so long; now she was making her presence known.
I’m back Mira, find some pills, find a blade, let’s have a party… I can make you feel better for a while.
No, I will fight you and win. I’ve already made a start.
Mira opened the door to the stateroom.
Tish was sitting on the bed. The enviro system made shadows dance across her bare skin.
“Hey,” Mira said. “I thought you were on the flight deck.”
“I wanted to see you, on your own. The ship is too busy now,” Tish said, a hint of sadness in her tone.
Mira undressed and slipped onto the bed with her, her arms encircling her waist.
A shiver ran through her as her hands brushed against Tish’s smooth alabaster skin. Her breathing quickened as she pulled her close.
“I know, Tish. It won’t be for long. We always have our space here.”
Tish ran her fingers over Mira’s hand.
“What happened out there, on the station?”
Mira told her everything, the whole sorry truth.
“Today I got away with it. I was stupid. I underestimated the threat. I was lucky.”
Reece wasn’t so lucky so stop being a whiny bitch.
A cool breeze played across Mira's body. The light in the room was changing. She could hear the sea. Tish had programmed the enviro system with Mira’s favourite simulation. She reached out and freed Tish’s hair; it tumbled forward. Her eyes sparkled beneath the freckles, bluer than any sky and deeper than any ocean.
“What did you ever see in me? Back on Double T? I had one eye, scars and a skeleton made of titanium.”
“Scrap value.” Tish turned serious. “The way you walked through the Medina; you were trying to look tough. I saw the real you, the lonely lost you. I wanted to fix you, I guess.”
“So I’m a sympathy case?” Mira moved forward, kissing Tish’s lips.
“No, you were different… good different… you had a story… and boobs. If I’m honest it was mostly boobs. I should have said so first, but I didn’t want to appear shallow.”
Tish was outwardly so confident yet sometimes her facade would fall away and she would be just as lost and vulnerable as she was.
Mira knew there was more to Tish, secrets buried in her past; it was of no consequence. Sometimes Mira saw a fleeting sadness in her eyes, but it always passed as quickly as it came.
We're just two lonely souls trying to find our way in a hostile universe.
She was humbled by Tish’s semi flippant words. When you wore your scars so visibly people only saw the injury; in their eyes it defined her.
Mira had worked out there were three types of people, each had reacted differently on meeting her. The first and largest group would do all they could to ignore her; save they be confronted by the ugly side of life. The second group would treat her with sympathy, compliment her on her bravery in facing life with a disability. The final group were the smallest, but most significant; they would treat her with faux equality and go to pains to avoid any mention of her scars or her missing eye.
All Mira saw in all their eyes was uncertainty, pity and disgust.
Tish had seen through her injuries, seen her for who she was and treated her as a human. It was why she fell in love with her.
“I hope Hoff can manage on his own, because right now I need fixing. Take me away from this shit for a while,” Mira whispered.
Tish giggled and pushed her onto the bed. Mira ordered the lights out.
Mira awoke several hours later. Tish was beside her sleeping, her skin bathed in a faint sheen of perspiration that shone like silver in the stateroom’s synthesised moonlight.
Mira lifted Tish’s arm from across her chest and stood. She walked to her kit bag and found her tactical knife then continued to the bathroom. She placed the knife on the counter top and flexed her shoulder. It was sore, but not as sore as it should have been. She turned her attention to her thigh. The skin was smooth bereft of any mark relating to an injury.
That wound should have rendered me immobile…
She closed her eyes and breathed; leaning on the counter top, she opened them. “One way to put this to the test,” she whispered to her reflection.
Mira found a box of sanitary pads in the medicine cupboard. They had been a semi-humorous leaving present from Monica. She had not needed them since the crash but the new body was sure to. It was an idea she was yet to reconcile. Right now she had a more pressing need.
She unsheathed the knife. The blade was curved with a serrated edge on one side. It was old and had been a gift from Rich Barnes. Monica had confiscated it a year ago when Mira’s cutting was at its worst.
Mira held the blade to her palm.
She shivered.
What are you scared of? You used to be good at this…
She drew the blade across her hand; the sharp edge did its job with deadly efficiency. Blood spilled from the wound and ran along her arm.
“Oh fuck!” she hissed. She pressed the pad into her hand and closed it.
The lights went to full brightness. Tish stood behind her.
“What are you doing?”
“Tish… it’s not what you think… I can explain.”
Tish ran to her. Her eyes darted between the knife and Mira’s bleeding hand.
“Mira, why?”
“Tish, something happened today, something weird… I need to try this.”
Tish paced, her hand holding her head. It was how she got when the world was too much to handle.
“No, Mira. I know how this works, you cut once, then again and again. In the end all you know is the pain… Don’t make me watch you do this.” She was crying.
Mira’s history of self-harm had hurt more than just herself. It echoed in the faces of those who loved her, yet never like this, never in the eyes of the one person in the galaxy she would never set out to hurt.
“Tish… look.” Mira opened her hand and peeled the pad away.
Tish shied away, but eventually turned. She took Mira’s hand and used a cloth to wipe it clean.
“There is no wound. Mira?”
“I know. It’s what I wanted to find out… I had a lump of metal in my thigh.” She held her hands 20cm apart. “This fucking big. There is no sign of a wound.”
Mira reached for the dressing on her shoulder and pulled the tape away, yelping as she did so.
The wound was still there, smaller and with good skin growth.
“What the fuck am I?” she whispered.
Mira wondered to what extent this fast healing would affect her. She was certain the blow to her arm had broken it and the bones had meshed together. What if she lost a limb? Would it grow back like a lizard’s tail? She did not want to find out. Injuries still hurt.
Tish stepped forward. “You are you. It doesn’t matter about this; it’s no big deal.”
“No big deal? Tish… come on!”
“No, listen, you came back from the dead. They gave you a new body. Maybe it’s a side effect or an upgrade.”
“They don’t know me. Fast healing is the last thing you give a bleeder.”
Tish glared at her.
“Joking! Right now I don’t need to do it any more…”
“But?”
“Sometimes… I sense the darkness. I’m beyond its reach but it is there, looking for a way back.”
Watching Reece die and blasting his body into space had let the darkness draw in, gathering like smoke on the horizon. Tish had driven it away. Mira knew it was wrong to depend on her in that way; the strength to slay
the demon had to come from inside herself. Tish had an energy; she made Mira feel alive. With her, behind her, Mira knew she could do it.
“It’s okay Mira. I have your meds. They are on the bedside, next to your medals. I cleaned them.”
Mira moved forward and slipped her arms around Tish, feeling the warmth of her body against her, her soft skin and softer curves. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed her. Their tongues found each other as Tish kissed back. When the embrace broke Mira led Tish to the bed, laying her on the jumbled sheets.
“I’m sorry,” Mira whispered as she nipped Tish’s ear. “I’ll make it up to you.”
Tish giggled as she made herself comfortable. Mira kissed and nuzzled her neck. There was a soft glow in Tish’s cheeks.
“I’m sorry about the knife. I should have told you,” Mira whispered as Tish trembled.
“It’s okay. I love you, Mira Thorn. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
Mira tensed. Unable to speak as relief mixed with excitement. Her heart was pounding.
Eventually the words tumbled out.
“I love you Tish. I wanted to tell you so many times, but I was too scared.” A smile broke over her face, it had been easier than she thought.
Tish pulled her close.
“Don’t be scared, Mira, never. I’ll take every part of you, the light, the dark and even the part that leaves her clothes all over the floor.”
She ordered the lights down and they lay together in the darkness, waiting for sleep to claim them.
CHAPTER TEN
ADMIRAL Jon Flynt stood on the gantry above the Valhalla’s primary hangar deck. He watched as the crew assembled. Steams of blue and green uniforms filed into the vast steel space from all six entrances.
At Flynt’s side stood Alex Kite and Jason Lambert, the ships Executive Officer. Sam Clark joined them; she was the only member of the crew who knew what was to follow. Her face was stoic and unreadable.
While he waited Flynt’s eyes darted across his datapad, re-reading the message from Admiral Foster.
Attn. Commanders of all Vessels
