by Glenn Smith
How many more lives did he have left, he wondered. How many more flagrant violations of Mirriazu’s trust was he going to be able to get away with before the time finally came to pay the piper? Not many, he guessed. Probably not any.
He yawned suddenly, then stood up, pulled on a handy pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt, and then headed outside onto his deck. It was almost noon, for God’s sake.
The day was a warm one—too warm for the sweatpants if he intended to stay outside for any length of time, but he’d change into shorts later if he decided to do that. For the time being he just wanted to stand out there on the deck and enjoy that warmth for a few minutes. That and the always beautiful view of the mountains that awaited him out there.
Fluffy, cotton-like clouds drifted slowly from south to north high over the front range and beyond, almost as though flying in formation, but they shone bright white and clear blue sky between. No threat of rain. And, unlike the last time he’d stood out there, no blanket of snow lay atop either Pikes Peak or the Spanish Peaks far to the south. Not even in the shaded crevasses or draws. Here and there, colorful hot air balloons drifted silently over the city, going wherever the winds might take them. The Colorado Springs summer was truly in full swing.
“Morning, Dad.”
Nick looked down at the pool to find Heather and her friend Rebecca stretched out on a pair of lounge chairs, sunbathing, pleased to see that they were actually wearing their colorful swimsuits rather than having discarded them. There wasn’t a whole lot to them, true, but at least the girls were wearing them. “Good morning, sweetheart,” he returned. “Hi, Rebecca,” he added when she looked up at him as well.
“Hi, Mister Hansen,” the girl replied.
He raised his eyes back to the mountains once more, but it wasn’t very long before his thoughts turned inward and what lay before him did so unseen.
His questions about O’Donnell had obviously been answered and no longer counted for anything, but the other lingering questions still remained. What, if anything, had Dylan Graves done in the past in the pursuit of accomplishing his mission? What if any changes had he made? Yes, Lieutenant Vandenhoven—Lieutenant Commander Vandenhoven, he reminded himself—had provided him with some answers, but nearly two months had passed since then. Any one of those answers, or even all of them, could have changed by now. So did the records still show that the Excalibur was destroyed sometime in late June of 2168? Was the Portal research facility on Window World still a nuclear wasteland? Was Liz still dead?
Had he ever been subjected to a memory-edit? If so, why?
Did any of that really matter anymore? Did any of it really matter? He was retired. He no longer carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Earth’s safety and security was no longer his responsibility. He was home, really home, building a new life with his daughter at its center.
His gaze fell to her once more—relaxed, talking and laughing with her friend, genuinely happy to see her again. She glanced up at him briefly and smiled, almost as though she’d felt his eyes on her, and then turned her attention back to their conversation. She was happy, truly happy, perhaps for the first time in her life. He couldn’t take that away from her. He wouldn’t take that away. His career was at an end. He’d fulfilled his final mission and achieved his final objective. Whatever had happened had happened. The war would progress as the war would progress. He had his daughter to care for... to be there for whenever she might need him.
The time had finally come for him to let everything else go.
Chapter 61
Star Eagle, Sol System
Earth Standard Date: Tuesday, 31 May 2168
Dylan pressed the harness release and allowed the straps to retract, then stood up, slowly, being careful not to put too much strain on his still sore ribs, and walked gingerly back toward the head. He was glad, not to mention more than a little surprised, to finally be underway again. Glad because tomorrow was already the first of June and he was running out of time. He had to find the Excalibur before she met her demise in ‘late June,’ an estimate which might have been as soon as only two weeks away, and Geoff had estimated that it would take them twelve days just to reach the area of space where Dylan had told him to take them. Surprised because he and his hired crew had spent a week and a half recuperating in Saturn Station’s medical facility and an additional three days on top of that assigned to visitor quarters waiting for repairs on the Star Eagle to be completed, and no one had come to arrest him. He’d spent nearly every waking hour of that time just waiting to be arrested, convinced that Major Hansen and the shipyard command staff would have received word of their encounter with the Naku warriors through channels and put two and two together. The fact that he was still free was, in his eyes, nothing short of a miracle. There he was, a fugitive wanted by Solfleet authorities for a whole laundry list of offenses convalescing right under their noses for two weeks, and they’d missed him.
He paused for a moment just outside the door to the head and gazed sorrowfully at Stacy, who lay there in her bunk buried to her neck in the blankets, silent, staring almost catatonically at the ceiling right above her. Physically, she’d sustained only minor injuries and had recovered in only a couple of days. But psychologically... that was something else entirely. He was no expert, of course, but he’d spent his share of time with shrinks—enough to know that on a psychological level Stacy had been victimized worse than he or any of the others had, because not only had she been roughed up, she’d also been held down while her clothing was torn off, knowing that her assailants intended to rape her mercilessly. That alone was enough to traumatize any woman, let alone one so young.
Which he knew did nothing to decrease the wrongness of what he’d done to her himself, the fact that he hadn’t initiated their brief liaison notwithstanding. No, he hadn’t initiated it. But he had allowed it to happen. That was bad enough.
He stepped into the head and came face to face with his semi-transparent reflection in the aft viewport. “It’s your fault, you know,” he accused the slightly distorted ghost-like image, even as it spat the same accusation back at him. The image was right. It was his fault. He’d hired them for this trip and had chosen to go forward with it despite having been warned that Cortan’s allies might come after him. If only he’d steered clear of Cortan that night in the bar and just waited for another stool, then none of it would have happened. None of his companions would have been hurt, and Stacy wouldn’t now be lost to them, trapped within the nightmares of her mind with no apparent escape.
So why hadn’t any of them said anything to him about it? They’d all been so tight-lipped about the whole thing. Why hadn’t they just blamed him openly and gotten it over with? For that matter, why had they even allowed him back onboard, let alone agreed to continue their voyage? He certainly wouldn’t have blamed them had they left him behind and gone home.
He finished his business and washed his hands thoroughly, then headed back toward the galley intending to give Carlos and Verdai a hand with preparing lunch for everyone. But as he stepped around the base of the gangway those questions continued to echo over and over again in his mind, begging to be answered. Why hadn’t any of them said anything? Why hadn’t Geoff and Nicole blamed him for what happened to their little sister? Why had they allowed him back aboard and agreed to continue on? He wanted to know why. More than that, for whatever peace of mind it might bring him, he needed to know why, and the people he needed to ask were right above him on the flight deck. He backed up, gazed up the gangway for a few moments, and then ascended to the upper level. “Nicole, Geoff, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Having just piloted them into jumpspace, Geoff was preoccupied with the flight controls and ignored him completely, but Nicole faced around and gestured toward the small table by the door to the machinery room with a nod, then got up and joined him there, sitting directly across from him. “What’s on your mind?” she asked as she loosened the collar of her flight suit.
&n
bsp; “I’m curious,” he replied.
“About?”
“You haven’t said anything about what happened... about the Naku attack. You or Geoff. Neither of you have blamed me for what happened to Stacy. Frankly, I’m surprised you even let me back aboard your ship?”
“We made a deal, Eric,” Geoff interjected without turning around. “We agreed to provide you with a service for a price. Legally speaking, we’re under contract with you, and unless I’m mistaken, if we took steps to cancel that contract you wouldn’t be obligated to pay us anymore.”
“What makes you think we’d back out on you?” Nicole asked him.
Dylan looked her in the eye, then lowered his gaze to a point in space between them and sighed. “What happened to us... to all of you... is my fault,” he replied. “If it weren’t for me...”
“If it weren’t for you,” she interrupted, “we’d still be in Red Gulch.” Dylan looked up at her again, but didn’t respond. She added, “I saw what happened that night at the club, Eric, and you told me yourself about what happened the morning after. Geoff and I both knew before we ever left Mars that you were in trouble with Cortan’s people and that they might come after you. We could have changed our minds about this trip, but we didn’t. So if you’re partially to blame for what happened, then so are we.”
Dylan could see that she meant every word of what she said, but he had his doubts as to whether or not Geoff, who had briefly glanced back at his sister when she mentioned his name, agreed with her, even though he hadn’t actually said anything one way or the other. “I appreciate the sentiment,” he told her, “but...”
“But nothing,” Nicole said. “Look, Eric. What happened to us was frightening as hell, especially for Stacy. But it happened and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that. As Geoff just pointed out, we have a contract, and although you might be willing to release us from that contract because you feel guilty about what happened...”
“I never said that.”
“Good,” Geoff interjected, “because I’ve never in my life taken money for a job and then not done that job, and I’m not about to start now. And we damn sure need the money.”
“You didn’t have to say it, Eric,” Nicole pointed out. “The guilt you’re feeling is written all over your face. Anyway, whether you said it or not or whether you were even thinking it or not doesn’t matter. We’re not willing to release you from our agreement.”
“I was not trying to back out of our agreement or suggesting that you should try, either,” Dylan told her, looking her right in the eye.
“Then what?”
“Like you said, I’m feeling guilty... particularly about Stacy. Don’t you think we should have left her behind and given the doctors more time to...”
“Stacy will be fine,” Nicole assured him. Then, after a silent moment passed, she added, “She just needs time. She’s been through worse.”
“Nicole!” Geoff hollered, whirling his chair around to face them both.
“On Europa,” she went on, ignoring her brother’s outburst.
“Nicole, that’s none of his damn business!” Geoff shouted angrily.
“I’m making it his business!” she finally shouted back at him over her shoulder. “He has a right to know that...” She dropped her gaze to the deck as if noticing for the first time that the hatch was still wide open. She got up and closed it, then finished saying what she had to say in a calmer, quieter voice. “He has a right to know that he hasn’t caused her any permanent damage... to know that she’s going to be all right.”
“And what exactly gives him that right?” Geoff asked her, also lowering his voice but still obviously angry. “He’s right about the attack being his fault, despite what you say! So why should we give a damn if he’s feeling guilty about what happened to Stacy?”
“Because he’s more than just our client, Geoff,” she answered calmly. “He fought by our side. Those warriors might have attacked us because of him, but when they did he did his best to defend us against them. And I like to think that over the past couple of weeks, he’s become our friend.”
Geoff obviously didn’t share in his sister’s feelings of friendship toward Dylan, but she’d known exactly what to say, describing him to her brother as a comrade-in-arms—someone who had fought by their side. That was something that Dylan certainly could understand, given his background, and judging from Geoff’s reaction he could as well. He dropped his argument and turned back to his console.
Apparently satisfied that she’d pacified her brother sufficiently, at least for the moment, Nicole drew a deep breath to relax, then explained the ‘worse’ to which she had referred. “When Europa broke loose from the Earth Federation two or three years ago, all hell broke loose there. Virtually every business that wasn’t headquartered there closed its doors and left. The economy all but collapsed and the crime rate soared. Literally hundreds of gangs took to the streets and terrorized our city. Our self-appointed new government had a brand new war on its hands. A war that it clearly hadn’t expected, and it wasn’t safe to go outside for months.
“But people have to eat, so the government assigned military guards to protect all the farms and grocery stores. If you could make it to one of them, which usually meant paying off the gangs for safe passage, you could get food, assuming you had enough money left over and could afford to pay the astronomical prices. We had very little money to spare, so we rarely got more than one decent meal every couple of days.
“Stacy was barely fifteen at the time, but she used to sneak out every chance she got and scrounge for whatever extra food she could find. I kept telling her not to do that, that it was too dangerous, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Then, one night, she got caught outside after dark by a gang of punks who decided to punish her for walking their streets and stealing their food without giving them something in return. She ran like hell, but they caught her less than a block away from where we were living at the time. When I heard her screaming I looked out the window to see what all the commotion was, but all I could see was that a gang had jumped someone, which at that time was an all too common, everyday occurrence. I couldn’t tell who their victim was and I thought Stacy was in her room, so I just closed the blinds and sat down and covered my ears, trying to block out the noise. Please, understand, Eric, that at the time it was very unwise to get involved in things that didn’t concern you.”
“I don’t mean to sound accusatory, but where was Geoff?” Dylan asked.
Geoff looked back at him and harrumphed but didn’t say anything, then turned back to his controls.
“He was in bed with a broken leg,” Nicole replied. “He’d been run down a few weeks earlier by someone who wanted his jacket.”
“My god.”
“Anyway,” Nicole continued, “I just sat there with my hands over my ears, waiting for the screaming to end and praying for the poor soul who was being hurt. Then she screamed my name and I realized...” She had to stop for a moment, to compose herself. Then, when she was able to, she continued. “I grabbed my baseball bat and ran outside, and saw the gang chasing her toward the house. They’d beaten her and torn off all her clothes. She was bleeding from her nose, her mouth, from... between her legs. I ran to her as fast as I could, but they caught up to her again before I could reach her and forced her to the ground. By the time I got there... I had no choice but to use their heads for batting practice.”
Dylan was taken aback. Even to defend her sister, he had a hard time picturing Nicole doing anything so violent. “You killed them?” he asked her.
“I never knew for sure,” she answered, shrugging her shoulders. “If I did, they deserved it for what they did to her. If I didn’t... well, maybe I stopped them from ever hurting anyone else. Either way, the point is that Stacy did eventually recover from the attack, psychologically as well as physically, and she’ll recover from this as well.” She looked him in the eye and assured him, “She’ll be all right, Eric. She just needs a little mor
e time to sort things out in her head.”
Dylan sighed. “I hope to God you’re right.”
“I am right,” she confidently assured him.
“Okay,” Dylan acquiesced. “Promise me that you’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do to help her along the way.”
“Coaxing her out of bed and walking her to the galley for lunch might be a good start. Do you mind?”
“Consider it done,” he answered as he stood up from the table.
Chapter 62
Mandela Station, Three Days Later
Friday, 3 June 2168
“Afternoon, Captain,” Commander Galloway greeted as Captain Leslie marched briskly in through the airlock.
“Commander,” she replied tersely without missing a stride.
He followed her into the corridor and actually had to pick up his pace to keep up with her, despite the fact that he was nearly half a meter taller than she was. “I take it the hearings aren’t going too well,” he surmised.
“The hearings are over... finally,” she answered, clearly agitated. “Why it took them two and a half weeks to come to a decision is beyond me.”
“What did they decide?”
“I’m here, aren’t I, Commander?” she snapped. Then, when he didn’t respond to that, she realized how she must have come across, and told him, “I’m sorry, Nate. The review board found that we... that I... was justified in firing on the stolen attack shuttle. They agreed that the Naku... warriors didn’t give me any choice. As captain of a Solfleet patrol cruiser I had an obligation, both legally and morally, to defend those civilians.”
“Begging your pardon, Captain, but while that sounds like pretty good news to me, you don’t seem to be too happy about it.”
“On the contrary, Commander, I’m thrilled to death about it. It means we can finally get the hell out of here and go back to work, such as it is.”
