Captain Cosette

by R. Bruce Sundrud

  Dyson is a fighter pilot. Should I let him take over?

  Don’t change horses in the middle of a stream, a voice drawled in her head.

  “Those fighters are following us,” said Dyson.

  And yuh know, the voice continued, if yuh have to walk into a gunfight, always keep the sun at yer back.

  She spun the fighter and changed course again, this time at an angle that would put them between Sorine’s sun and the oncoming fighters.

  Behind her, she could hear Rasora emptying his stomach into the sickness bag.

  “Are you going to try to outrun them?” asked Dyson.

  “Can’t. They’ve got the same acceleration we do, and we can’t outrun their missiles. Get ready to fire chaff and decoys.”

  “Then shouldn’t you be dodging? You’re flying straight.”

  “I’m lining them up where I want them. Drop chaff and two decoys, now!”

  The fighter shuddered as two decoys, broadcasting signals and heat, blasted out of the hold, along with a cloud of micro-thin aluminum strips to confuse the missiles.

  “Now give me control of the missiles and cannon.” She continued accelerating for a moment longer, and then pivoted the ship 180 degrees.

  That’s the ticket, said the slow-talking voice. Now they’re looking into the sun.

  “What are you doing?” said Dyson sharply. “They’ll hit us!”

  She fired a pair of missiles and a heavy burst of slugs from the nose cannon. Then she spun the ship back towards the sun and opened up the engines again.

  Rasora moaned.

  On the rear screen she watched it play out. As she expected, the oncoming fighters ignored the decoys that Dyson had released, and they were able to pick out her missiles from the background of solar radiation and lead them astray with their own decoys. Unfortunately for the Union ships, they could not sense the volley of slugs coming out of the sunlight. One fighter exploded in a fireball, and the other one went dark and began to drift.

  Cosette rolled their fighter and circled back towards the main battle.

  “Good work!” said Dyson, slapping her on the knee.

  “We’re going to live?” asked Rasora.

  “Yes.”

  “Too bad.” He moaned again.

  Cosette pointed to her forward screen. “It will be over soon. One battleship is gone, either destroyed or escaped. See there?” The red dots began disappearing. “The Union ships are shutting off their transponders. It’s over.”

  “Then can we land?” begged Rasora. “Gently? The last time I was this sick was when I took a bet on….aw, just get us down. I’m never going into space again.”

  Messages shot back and forth as they descended towards the base at Toulouse. The other Union battleship had surrendered and was now in Alliance hands. The rest of the enemy ships either jumped into folded space to escape, or surrendered and headed down to the planet under guard.

  “I apologize for not having you take charge,” said Cosette, touching Dyson on the shoulder. “I was supposed to be your copilot.” Her heart was still pounding, but with exhilaration. There was an adrenalin rush to battle, a feeling of power that she had never before experienced. She had fought the enemy and she had survived.

  “Nonsense. I was worried for a moment when you stopped accelerating, but you knew what you were doing. That’s twice you’ve saved my neck. No, three times. I’m a proud man but I know enough to let someone competent take charge in an emergency.”

  I have to learn how not to blush every time he says something nice to me.

  She blushed.

  The base and the training center at Toulouse had been taken with little resistance. By the time Cosette brought her fighter down to the base, it was safe and secure.

  They opened the fighter’s storage bay, and Spinner emerged. “I’m very happy to see you again,” the little robot said, clattering along beside her.

  “You have your EM chip back?”

  “They put one in me back at the Alliance headquarters. It’s not the same EM chip, but Major Dyson says you and I used to be friends, and I work better if I have friends.”

  She smiled, and dared to include Dyson in her smile. “So do I.”

  Cosette hauled out her personal bag, and Dyson carried his and Rasora’s. When they entered the training center, Rasora collapsed onto the first empty bunk they passed. Dyson dropped Rasora’s bag at his feet.

  The Training Center was still the same yellow and gray that she remembered from before. She found the women’s barracks, but before she could enter, Dyson pulled her away.

  “You’re an officer now, Cosette. There should be a private room available for you.” They walked along the halls, looking for the officer’s area. “I travel constantly, as you know, and there are always some private quarters set aside for people like me. Especially in my assignments, I need privacy to code and send material. I’m sure they’ll have a space for you.”

  They ran into Raimy, the clerk who had paid Rasora the two gold coins for Cosette’s “recruitment.” He noted Cosette’s Alliance rank with surprise, looked nervous, and quickly led them to a pair of private rooms. “You know where the mess hall is,” he said to Cosette. “Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you. Anything at all.” He ducked his head and hurried off.

  The rest of the day was uneventful. They ate dinner, and Dyson told stories to the troops and bought them drinks. The two of them joined the Alliance officers when they met to plan the orderly transition of power and then brought in the community leaders, the ones who had rebelled against the Union. The Sorine rebels were enthusiastic about the freedoms the Alliance offered and pledged their support.

  Before they retired to their rooms, Cosette pulled aside Dyson and Rasora for a short conference. “Tomorrow, if you’re both free, I would like to visit my home.”

  “Are you sure?” Dyson looked at her thoughtfully. “There’s no need to do that. You have a new life here.”

  “He’s right,” said Rasora, leaning against the wall. “After I saw the scars on your back, I was glad I took you away from there, though I’m not proud of doing it for gold.”

  “I do need to go back. I think seeing where I grew up will make my own memories real again. Right now I feel like I’m only a couple of weeks old, and my childhood is just a myth stuffed into my brain like everything else.”

  “If that’s what you want, I’ll make myself free tomorrow,” said Dyson.

  “I’d appreciate that. My stepfather and my two half-brothers are bigger than me and used to, um, pushing me around.”

  “All the better then. We’ll take our fighter and fly out there, if there’s a space where we can land.”

  “There’s a clearing in front of the house. Scorching the weeds won’t matter. Rasora? I could use you, just to be sure.”

  He shrugged. “My time is yours. I desire nothing.”

  “For someone who desires nothing,” said Dyson, “you downed those beers pretty fast.”

  “Well, I didn’t say I wouldn’t accept gifts.”

  “Thank you,” said Cosette. “It will mean a lot to have you both with me.”

  They separated towards their different quarters, but Cosette took the route by the door marked TRAINING CENTER, where she paused and looked inside. There sat the throne-like chair, with wires and leads and straps. As Renée Chevalier might say, the components of the teaching machine huddled around the chair like executioners waiting for a condemned man to arrive.

  She shuddered, and went to her room for a fitful night’s sleep.

  *

  “Down there is the tavern where Imsami died,” said Rasora, pointing out his window. Their fighter was being serviced and so they had taken a smaller craft instead, a light flier. Its large windows allowed them to view the city, the countryside, and the distant highlands where Cosette had been raised.

  High puffy clouds dotted the sky, and the air had not yet warmed from the sunshine. Vehicles moved slowly on the roads benea
th them, and factories belched smoke from their crude coal furnaces.

  “I was so sorry after Imsami died,” said Cosette to Rasora. “I could tell you were torn apart but I didn’t know what I could do.”

  Rasora rubbed his chest as though trying to ease an ache. “You were my prisoner. You did what you could and more than anyone would expect.”

  “I’ve been in some rough places like that tavern,” said Dyson. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

  Rasora nodded solemnly and looked out the window.

  “Follow that road,” said Cosette to Dyson. She remembered huddling in the back of the van, crying inside, as it carried her away from her home.

  Strange. I had been whipped and abused, but I was frightened to be taken away from my home. I would have stayed if I could. And I would still be cutting vines and getting whipped. And being betrayed by Gregory, that wretch who kissed another girl instead of me.

  The road wove through the dark green trees and past some ramshackle homesteads. A dirt path cut away from the road, crossed a stream, and arrived at a clearing in front of her house.

  Dyson landed the flyer and cut the engines. He opened the hatch and helped Cosette climb down. She stared at the house that had been her home.

  “It’s small,” she said. “I don’t remember it being that small.”

  The roof was made of patched wooden shakes, and peeling brown paint covered the outside walls. One of the posts holding up the front porch had been replaced with a metal jack.

  Cosette straightened her uniform. She was in her finest, with a disruptor pistol holstered on her web belt. She had done what she could to look military and efficient, but being back at her old home made her feel young and vulnerable again.

  Your body is young, but you are older than your body, a woman’s voice murmured inside her. We will always be with you.

  She lifted her chin.

  “I don’t see anyone,” said Major Dyson. “Should I knock on the door?”

  “No. It’s… not clean inside. Come around back. They might be out tending the vineyard.”

  As they walked around the corner of the house Auguste appeared, with Lucas and Claude trotting behind.

  Auguste was unshaven and sweaty, his workpants held up by a pair of leather suspenders. Lucas and Claude’s dark curly hair was dusty from the fields, and their patched work clothes were stained with sweat. They stopped and looked at Cosette, Dyson, and Rasora with suspicion. “What do you want?” Auguste asked. “What are you doing here?”

  Good old Auguste, rude as usual.

  Cosette took a deep breath, her heart pounding. “I came to visit my property. I’m going to show my friends the fields.”

  Auguste stepped back and stared at her, his eyes narrowed. “Cosette?”

  “Yes, Father Auguste. It’s me.”

  “But…” He blinked and looked at her closer. “You went off to war.”

  “We won the battle and took back this planet. Now I’m back.”

  Lucas and Claude looked at each other, the way they always did before starting a fight. Cosette held still, conscious of the gun on her hip and Major Dyson and Rasora beside her. Rasora pulled a large knife from his waist and casually began to clean non-existent dirt from under a fingernail.

  “But the farm is mine now,” said Auguste. “You’re just a soldier.”

  The fear she had felt began to dissipate. Auguste had whipped her and his sons had harassed her, but never again. They would never have the chance to torment her again. “I didn’t transfer the property to you. You just assumed I wouldn’t be coming back. Shall we go down to Toulouse and check the records?”

  Auguste growled and shook his head.

  Lucas cursed and pointed a dirty finger at Cosette. “You can’t come back here and take our farm away. You never did a decent day’s work while you were here and if you think…”

  Cosette casually let her hand rest on the butt of her gun.

  Auguste raised his hand in front of Lucas, stopping him. “Shut your mouth, Luke. They’re armed.”

  “Now if you don’t mind,” said Cosette, “I’d like to show my friends the vines.”

  Auguste opened and closed his mouth but couldn’t come up with anything to say. He turned and pushed his sons against the house, and Cosette led Dyson and Rasora around to the back.

  There lay the rows and rows of ambrosia vines. Many days she had spent tending and pruning and harvesting them, even when she was too small to reach the top branches. The vines thrived under the knife, not neglect. A petty part of her was pleased that Lucas and Claude had more work to do now that she was gone.

  She stopped at the shed and grabbed a sharp pruning knife, and then walked along a row just as she had done for as long as she could remember, looking for a branch with ripe fruits. Ambrosia vines did not come ripe all at once – the harvest was continual once summer was underway. Dyson and Rasora walked with her, and a short distance behind them followed Auguste and his two sons.

  She found a ripe vine and cut off three of the best fruits, hearing Auguste gasp in anger. She ignored him and carefully sliced each fruit in half. She gave one to Dyson and one to Rasora. “Try the juice. See if it isn’t the most wonderful thing you’ve ever tasted.”

  Dyson lifted half of a fruit and squeezed it, letting the dark red juice trickle into his mouth. Rasora pressed his half against his lips and sucked it noisily.

  Auguste groaned as Cosette slowly devoured her fruit, his hands opening and closing in impotent anger.

  Before I left, you would have whipped me for this until my back bled.

  Just as you had before.

  The fruit was as sweet and fragrant as she remembered, exquisitely delicious and refreshing.

  “Ah, yes, I’ve tasted the wine they make from this,” said Rasora. “It takes some gold to buy a bottle. Now I know why.”

  “Wonderful,” agreed Dyson, tossing the husk aside.

  They heard a murmur of voices, and Cosette saw that the neighbors had come to investigate why a flyer had landed at Auguste’s place. They stood back on the edge of the property, intimidated by soldiers wearing guns.

  “Those are some of the other farmers,” she said to Dyson and Rasora. “I would introduce you, but none of them were really my friends.”

  And there, in the middle, stood Gregory. Gregory, who had kissed another girl right in front of her. The girl whom he had kissed stood beside him now, clutching his arm possessively, looking darkly at Cosette.

  Gregory, however, was smiling at her.

  He always smiles. No matter what.

  With a start, she realized that Gregory was slow, slow in the head. No wonder he had always smiled at her! It wasn’t love that made him smile, like she had thought, no tenderness of heart, just the dull-witted happiness of a backwards country boy.

  Gregory was never hers to begin with. The girl he had kissed was welcome to him.

  She turned back to Dyson and Rasora, a smile on her face. “That was it. That was what I needed.”

  “What?” asked Dyson.

  “I’ve got it settled in my head now, finally, who I was and what I am. I can leave now.” She led them back down the row and tossed the knife in the direction of the shed.

  “You’re leaving?” asked Auguste, confused.

  She turned to him. He was taller than she was, and yet she felt as though she was looking at a weak little man. “Yes, I’m leaving. I won’t be back. You can have this field, you and your boys. I don’t want it.”

  He looked at her with narrowed eyes, as though trying to see what trick she was playing on him.

  Have you no affection at all, I asked him before I was taken away, but he said no, it was all about business. But I am bigger than he is and I have a heart. My mother used to love him, once, or she wouldn’t have married him.

  “Here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of Rasora’s gold earrings. “You need better equipment if this farm is to prosper. And your sons should get some
schooling.” She pressed the gold into his sweating palm.

  “What? What’s this?” He stared at the thick gold ring.

  “Pure gold,” said Rasora. “Worth more than a dozen of these farms.”

  Auguste’s hand closed, gripping the gold as if Cosette might take it back. “I…I…”

  “Goodbye, Auguste.” She turned and left him standing at the edge of his field, his sons trying to pry his hand open.

  Rasora gave her a sideways hug as they walked away. “I’m proud of you. See how powerful that is, to not desire things? You couldn’t have beaten him better than if you’d hit him with a club.”

  “I didn’t beat him,” said Cosette. “I… I dismissed him. It’s behind me now, all of it. That part of my life is over.”

  They boarded the flyer, but at Rasora’s request, they stopped at the clearing overlooking Toulouse and the tavern where Imsami had been killed.

  They climbed out, and Rasora shook her hand. “Now, my little friend, I have to say goodbye.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “Yes.” He looked at peace with himself. “I took care of you, as I promised.” He glanced at Dyson and back to her. “You don’t need me anymore. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to walk down to Toulouse and I don’t know what I’ll do after I get there, but Imsami will guide me.”

  Dyson shook Rasora’s hand, but Cosette caught Rasora’s wrist before he could leave. “Will you do something for me?”

  He nodded. “If I can.”

  She pulled the other gold ring out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Will you take your…I mean, my ring with you? And whether you start a center for enlightenment or a home for lost children or whatever Imsami inspires you, will you use this to help you get started?”

  He looked at the ring thoughtfully, and then took it and put it in his pocket. “I’m wearing your underclothes,” he said, “so I might as well use your gold.” He laughed, hugged her again, and walked down the hill in the direction of Toulouse.

  Dyson raised his eyebrows. “You really do need to explain that to me.”

  “I’ll tell you the details later, but he refuses to own anything anymore, so it’s not like it sounds.”

  She opened the door to the flyer, but Dyson held back. “I’m done here,” she said. “We can go.”