A Light in the Dark

by A. K. DuBoff

  Kaiden shrugged. “Well, if we hadn’t had this something-isn’t-right realization, I expect a party would have been in order.”

  I still wasn’t thrilled by the idea of having to be social while I was working through what kind of problem we were up against, but I did have to agree with Kaiden’s logic that we should try to recreate the circumstances as much as possible. The more similar we could make it, the more we might be able to jog our memories about the alternate reality from which we had potentially reset.

  “Something in the Mess, maybe?” I suggested.

  “Oh, now you’re in the mood for a party?” Maris cast me a sidelong glance.

  “I think other-me would have been, that’s all.”

  “Trying to guess what we would do under other circumstances is a recipe for madness,” Toran cautioned. “We shouldn’t try to overthink this.”

  Maris got a devious glint in her eyes. “I know one surefire way to help you relax.”

  16

  Not surprisingly, bartender Maris’ solution to our worries revolved around shots. However, we soon learned through various inquiries that, being a military starship, the Evangiel’s booze selection was limited to a single bottle of whiskey in Colren’s quarters, which was a rare vintage and declared to be strictly off-limits.

  With that plan thwarted, we instead found ourselves gathered around one of the tables near a viewport in the Mess. We’d each taken extra helpings of the least offensive variety of gruel on the menu, the orangey-brown one. When I didn’t think about it too much, I could almost convince myself it was proper chili.

  “Really festive, guys. Definitely pulled out all the stops with this one,” Maris muttered as she gathered a portion of the paste onto her spoon and dribbled it back into the bowl.

  “Okay, so we didn’t take into account that everyone else is still on duty,” Kaiden said.

  “Think the original celebration was like this?” I asked.

  “I can’t imagine significantly different circumstances,” Toran replied. “After all, the rest of the crew remains unaware of our situation.”

  I set down my spoon. “You know, that’s a good point. Do you think anyone other than us is having the déjà vu thing happen?”

  Toran nodded thoughtfully. “True. If we keep this to ourselves, we won’t know if the phenomenon is limited to us.”

  “Some subtle question-asking might be in order,” Kaiden said. “Wasn’t that the plan anyway?”

  “It was.” I pushed my mostly empty plate away. “Sitting around here isn’t exactly festive, as Maris said. Why don’t we go mobile?”

  Maris raised an eyebrow. “Bring the party to those who can’t leave their stations?”

  “That’s good thinking.” Kaiden smiled. “See people in their element where they’re comfortable, find out if anything feels off to them.”

  I nodded. “Precisely.”

  “This would be way better with a party tray.” Maris sighed.

  “Booze isn’t necessary to get people to talk, Maris,” Kaiden said.

  “No, but it certainly makes things easier.”

  I stood up and grabbed my meal tray to bus it. “We’re not trying to get people to spill their deepest secrets here.”

  “Okay, so maybe I want the drinks for me,” Maris admitted. “Come on, it’s been a rough day! We were almost eaten by a dragon.”

  I placed my leftovers in the receptacle. “Well, we weren’t eaten, so there’s that.”

  Kaiden laughed, joining me at the bussing station. “My list of ‘things to be thankful for’ has gotten incredibly strange.”

  “Best not to think about it too much.” Toran rose to take care of his own plate.

  While the others finished clearing the table, I scoped out the rest of the Mess. Only three other tables were presently occupied. The diners at two of the tables were completely absorbed in their own conversations, but those at the third kept glancing over at us. I decided they might make a good warmup for our planned investigative discussions.

  “Let’s start over here,” I said, leading the way to the target table with the two men and a woman.

  “And these are…?” Kaiden whispered.

  “People who seem to have an interest in us.” I whispered back. “Hopefully that means they’ll talk.”

  I plastered on what I hoped was an approachable smile as I neared the table. “Hey, I couldn’t help but notice you watching us. What’s up?”

  “Real subtle, Elle,” Kaiden said under his breath behind me.

  The first of the two men, a crewman in his late-thirties with dark hair and amber eyes, folded his hands on the tabletop and tilted his head. “Why might have we taken an interest in you?”

  “We are the heroes around here, after all,” I replied in a smug tone. “I’m actually surprised no one else wanted to join us in our celebration.”

  “Oh, that’s what that was?” the red-headed woman asked. “Looked like any other meal.”

  “We had hoped for some company, but everyone is busy,” Kaiden chimed in.

  Maris squinted. “Not to mention, how do you get by without a stocked bar?”

  The fair-haired second man raised his water glass. “Cheers to that!” His two companions cast a stern glance in his direction and he lowered the glass.

  “Some of these days really start to blend together, you know?” I continued. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “You have no idea,” the dark-hair man replied. “Sometimes, I could swear I’d already processed the same readings.”

  “Oh, is that so?” That sounded remarkably like the situation we were presently facing, but his phrasing made it sound like it was an ongoing situation, not a recent development.

  “I’ve been doing practically the same thing for seven years. You’ve got to expect the days to run together now and again.” He cracked a smile, though it didn’t seem heartfelt.

  “Already happening to me and I’ve only been here for two weeks,” Kaiden chimed in.

  The blond man snorted. “I don’t know how anything could feel routine for you while you’re off galivanting on those planets.”

  “It’s usually more ‘trying not to die’, if we’re being honest,” Maris corrected.

  “Sure, whatever you want to call it,” the first man replied. He swirled the purple contents of his glass. “In any case, we were wondering what’s going to happen to the rest of us when you do get yourselves killed.”

  The breath left my lungs like I’d been kicked in the chest. “Pardon?”

  “You heard me. It’s only a matter of time your lack of experience catches up with you and you don’t come back from one of your little missions,” he continued, sweeping a lock of dark hair from his eyes.

  The woman at the table crossed her arms. “Sorry, does it come as a surprise to you that everyone on the ship doesn’t worship the deck plates you walk on? The commander has put his faith in you for whatever reason, but some of us would prefer to place our trust in seasoned soldiers who don’t play dress-up and play with swords.”

  I had half a mind to draw my blade and see what she thought of it up close, but Kaiden placed a calming hand on my elbow.

  “Why were you watching us, then? Taking bets on which one of us would die first?” he asked the three crew members.

  “More or less. We were wagering a weeks’ worth of dessert about which one of you would crack under the pressure first,” the blond man said. “My bet is on her.” He nodded toward Maris.

  While I didn’t disagree with his assessment that she was the potential weak link on our team, I wasn’t about to let anyone get away with talking about my new friends that way. I glared at him. “None of us asked to be placed in this position. No, we don’t have a lot of experience, but so far we’ve already accomplished things no one else has been able to do. If we end up dying on a planet, at least it won’t be for lack of trying—for stepping outside of what’s safe and familiar
. This isn’t a conventional enemy, so maybe an unconventional team is exactly what’s needed.”

  He inched back in his chair as I spoke, fear evident in his wide eyes. It surprised me that I could come off as so intimidating, but I realized that the attack glove I normally wore on my right hand had started to glow even though it was only hanging at my side rather than on my hand. I suppressed my concern about the remote activation; right now, I was busy defending the honor of the Dark Sentinels.

  “I told you not to bet against this one,” the woman said to the dark-haired man, seemingly unfazed by the magical item clipped to my belt.

  Kaiden rounded on the man. “What happened to make you so hostile?”

  “What happened?” The dark-haired man laughed bitterly. “Our worlds have been destroyed, and yet we’re chasing down so-called ‘legendary artifacts’ and letting a handful of kids call the shots.”

  “I’m not as young as I appear,” Toran spoke up for the first time, his booming voice grabbing the crew members’ attention.

  “Doesn’t matter. Why aren’t we fighting back against the Darkness?” the blond man said, leaning forward in his chair. “Why haven’t we done anything to reclaim our worlds?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “We are. We’ve done nothing but try to find a solution for the last week. Just because you don’t know everything we’re up to, don’t assume nothing is happening.”

  The woman shook her head. “I work in Communications. I know exactly what you’ve done, and it amounts to sealing the Archive—the thing we need to restore the worlds. You haven’t made any progress, it’s just been a giant step backward.”

  “That’s not an accurate assessment,” Toran said, his voice still level and calm.

  The dark-haired man downed the remaining contents of his glass. “The Hegemony is doomed if they truly believe in placing their faith in the likes of you. The sooner you aren’t around, the sooner they’ll get back to solving this problem with soldiers like they should have all along.”

  Acrid annoyance welled in my chest as I thought about how much was wrong with his statements. The Hegemony had tried a direct physical approach and all those people had died. Even though it might look like we hadn’t accomplished much, we’d made sure the records of our worlds were safe. Without that, there never would have been a hope for a reset to fix everything. We’d made a tangible contribution for the better, even if these people didn’t want to see it.

  I wanted to yell at the three crew members and set them straight, to show them that I wasn’t a helpless teenager who didn’t have the guts to fight in a war. I was putting my life on the line, and they needed to see that I took it seriously. My friends and I were a formidable team, and we would stand together to the end.

  But I held my tongue. These people didn’t want to have their opinion changed; escalating the conflict wouldn’t solve anything.

  “I guess we’ll just have to show you why we’re the best team for the job,” I said as calmly as possible. “Oh, and for the record, swords and capes are awesome.” I spun on my heel and stormed out of the Mess.

  I didn’t turn back to see the reaction on the crew members’ faces, but a snort from Maris suggested that they were at a loss for words.

  Once in the corridor, I took a slow, deep breath. “Okay, so maybe talking to people outside the inner circle was a bad idea.”

  “Yeah, no way around it, that could have gone a lot better,” Kaiden said.

  “I had no idea anyone had resentment toward us,” I continued. “Tami and Colren have been so welcoming, I thought that carried through to the rest of the ship.”

  “High-tension times aggravate people’s fears,” Toran replied.

  Maris frowned. “They weren’t just afraid, they were angry.”

  “I’m angry, too,” I admitted. “This is a terrible situation. Our worlds might be lost, we don’t know what to do, and now we might be stuck in a reset loop without knowing it.”

  “Our very presence here asking questions has changed things,” Toran said. “Perhaps it is better we return to our quarters as we would have otherwise.”

  Maris stifled a yawn. “Fine by me.”

  “Yeah, we can do more investigating in the morning,” I agreed.

  We took the lift to our area and moseyed down the corridor. As we neared the common room, I slowed my pace. “I’m not quite ready for bed. I think I’ll hang out for a bit and enjoy the view.”

  “Mind if I join you?” Kaiden asked.

  “Of course not.”

  Toran gave us a knowing smile. “Stay out of trouble, you two. See you in the morning.”

  “Good night,” I bid him and Maris, then wandered into the lounge.

  The planet of Crystallis was just visible out the viewport, approaching the leading edge of dawn. White light flared from behind the planet’s shoulder, creating a dramatic aura above the purple-hued atmosphere.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of viewing a planet from space,” I murmured while taking it in.

  Kaiden came to stand at my left hip. “Even having grown up on starships, I still haven’t.”

  I turned to look up at him. “Are we really just foolish kids in over our heads?”

  “Oh, Elle, we’re definitely in over our heads, but to be foolish I think we’d need to not recognize what we’re up against. I have no doubts that we each understand what’s at stake.”

  “That’s true.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, and I laid my head against his chest. The embrace had the same familiarity and comfort I’d experienced during our kiss before. If there had been a reset, whatever bond was developing between us seemed to transcend our other memories. I couldn’t help wondering where we might have left off with things in the alternative version of our future.

  “It feels right, doesn’t it?” Kaiden murmured into my hair. “I don’t know how, but I feel I know you more than I should.”

  “For all we know, we could have been together for years before the reset.”

  “No, there’s still something new here.” He pulled back slightly to look into my eyes. “I can’t explain it, but I somehow sense that we’re still figuring things out. It’s like we went through something that brought us closer, but the amount of time together hasn’t caught up with the closeness of experience.”

  “You’re right, there’s comfort to a point and then… the unknown.” If that instinct held, we weren’t an old married couple. I found myself strangely relieved as I processed the half-memories, realizing that there were still unexplored elements to our relationship. The happiness worried me for a moment as I thought it might stem from second-guessing the romance, but then I realized it was rooted in a desire to have a natural progression uncolored by echoes of another path. There was still a chance for us to have firsts together—proper new experience, not re-creations. I would hate to think that important moments in my life could have been erased without memory. When those moments did happen, I wanted to have it forever as a part of myself.

  “You still with me?” Kaiden asked softly.

  “Sorry, just thinking.” I traced my hand down his chest.

  “About what?”

  “You. Us. That maybe despite everything going on, there’s a sliver of a chance that we can still get to know each other like a normal couple.”

  He gave me a light kiss. “I’d like that very much.”

  I kissed him back, longer and deeper. “But I don’t want to forget any of it. How can we move forward when all of this could go away again?”

  “We’ve been resetting for our whole lives.”

  “Always with our memories. This isn’t the same.”

  He studied me. “I think I know what you’re hinting at.”

  “Are you okay taking things slow?”

  “Considering we just had our first kiss, I had no expectations.”

  I looked down. “It’s probably way too soon to bring that up, sorry.”r />
  “No, never apologize for being honest. We need to be able to be open and trust each other.”

  “I do feel I can trust you.”

  “Good. You can.” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “And after seeing you take on a dragon single-handed today, I have no doubts about being able to trust you with my life.”

  “Heh, yeah. Let’s hope battles like that aren’t an everyday occurrence.”

  “This, on the other hand,” he gave me a kiss, “I’d be happy to have as a regular thing.”

  “I was just thinking that.” I closed my eyes and shut out the world around me, happy to be there with him.

  When we eventually parted, I linked my arm through his and we watched the sun rise over Crystallis. There was so much light… I was filled with a sense of hope that we still had a chance of defeating the Darkness.

  “We saved this world, and there will be others,” Kaiden said, holding me close.

  “I believe that, even if everyone isn’t on our side.”

  “Those people in the mess hall didn’t know what they were talking about. They don’t know us or what we can do.”

  “As petty as it is, that makes me want to try even harder to prove them wrong.”

  Kaiden laughed. “I appreciate that about you.”

  “I suspect you’re much the same way.” I leaned against him,

  He kissed the top of my head. “Having a little fighting spirit comes in handy.”

  As we stared down at the light-bathed planet, my mind drifted to the Darkness I’d seen consume other worlds. It took this kind of vantage—being in orbit—to appreciate the scale of what we were up against. Entire planets, systems, a civilization… Images of the Darkness tore through planets in my mind’s eye, twisting tranquil landscapes into corrupted, savage environments and morphing native creatures into vicious killers. But as I thought about Erusan, Wantu, and the horrors of the Valor artifact world, new visions began to surface of a place I’d never seen before. I saw myself in the environment. Felt it. It was like I had experienced it myself and the memory was only now surfacing.

  “No.” I pulled away from Kaiden, heart pounding in my ears.