by Daniel Gibbs
“I need to look out for them. I promised I would when I asked them to come work for me. In return for tireless effort, I have their backs.”
“As long as you persist in thinking like this,” Korra said, her tone one of exasperation, “you’ll never have a life.”
Kenneth closed his eyes. “I’ve kind of accepted it.”
“Wow. That’s sad.”
He stood up abruptly. “Will you do something about it?”
“Yeah, Kenneth. I’ll do something about it.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled before turning around and walking out. Although he heard her voice call behind him, he kept on walking. Best to keep one foot in front of the other and not slow down. If I start thinking about this, it’ll send me into a deep depression. Can’t have that, not right now.
Taylor found himself within the same dream-like state, staring out across a lake. The woods were vibrantly green, while the sound of birds chirping filled the air. Everything had a sheen to it, like the view through a piece of foggy glass. A dock lay before him with a simple wooden dinghy tied up to it.
The voice of Rachel, his wife, broke the stillness of nature. “It’s time, Robert.”
He turned his head back to see her standing there in a simple white dress, her brown hair billowing in the wind. “Time for what?”
“To choose,” she said as she came up behind and reached her arms around him. They barely came together on his belly. “Life or death.”
“If I die, I’d get to see you again.”
“You’re seeing me now.”
“You know what I mean. All the time.”
“Heaven isn’t like that, Robert,” she said, her voice rueful. “It’s a wonderous place, but our spirits aren’t the same as a body. It’s different. I can’t explain it to you. It’s something a person has to experience for themselves.”
“Do you remember when we used to sneak off and row across this lake?”
Rachel giggled, her soft laughter rippling through the scene that lay before him. “Happiest days of my life.”
Taylor turned and hugged her as tightly as he could. “I’ve missed you so badly. I blamed myself for your death. I thought I should’ve been there. If I had joined the Marines instead of chickening out…”
“What if you had? What if you were a Marine just like your father? Maybe I wouldn’t have died if we’d been on the same mission together. Or both of us would’ve perished. There’s a possibility you’re not considering, though.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s possible what happened was God’s will. Even if it’s hard to see, understand, or accept.”
“Now I wonder if all this is happening inside my own head.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” she replied, again giggling. “Does it matter if you perceive this to be real?”
“I’d like to know for certain there’s something more after we die.”
“Science hasn’t been able to answer that question with thousands of years of trying. It’s unlikely to do so now. You, of course, already know this.”
Taylor grinned and kissed her. “I suppose we’re going to be rowing across the lake.”
“It does seem obvious, doesn’t it?” Rachel said. “A few more minutes together.”
“You said I had to decide.”
“The north shore leads back to the physical world. The south leads to heaven.”
He nodded as he bit his lip. What do I want? Do I even know? Taking a few steps, he maneuvered into the dinghy then reached up to help Rachel in. Once she was settled in, he loosened the knots and untied the tiny boat.
“You’re still trying to decide,” she commented as she pushed her hair off her face from where it had blown in the wind.
“Part of me thinks my shipmates need me.”
“Does Ruth need you?”
Taylor turned blood red. He couldn’t turn away. There was nowhere to go. “It’s not like that…”
“Robert, I’m dead. It’s okay to move on. I want you to be happy and not cling to the past as you do.”
“I loved you so much, Rachel. I still do. I would’ve gladly given my life for yours. If I could go back in time, I’d give it today.”
She reached out and took his hands into hers. “I know. I would’ve died for you too. But what’s done is done. You’re alive. Start living! Or give up on it and return to God.”
As he picked up one of the oars and slotted it into the divot on the right, he glanced up at her. “It feels wrong somehow, like I’m forgetting you, forgetting us.”
“It’s not wrong to continue living. You’re not cheating on me.”
Oh, but it feels like I am.
“Do you like her?”
“Who?”
“Who do you think, silly? The woman sitting next to your hospital bed right now, praying for you.”
“I guess I do.”
“You guess?”
Taylor again turned blood red. “Yes… yes, I do.”
“Now that wasn’t so hard to admit, was it?”
“No.”
Rachel reached out and squeezed his hands. “Maybe she needs you as much as you need her.”
He slotted the other oar in and began to row across the still water. The lake was as smooth as a sheet of glass, with little wind. The birds still chirped away, just like he remembered. It was always so peaceful here. “I don’t know, Rache. It would be so much easier to be done with the pain.”
“Since when have you been about easy? Mister-I-want-to-be-a-cryptologist.”
Taylor laughed, thinking back to when he’d told his father he wasn’t joining the Terran Coalition Marine Corps. “Valid point.”
“I think you know what you want. If you’re looking for my permission, you’ve got it.”
Biting down on his lip as he furrowed his brow, Taylor smiled sadly. “I’ll never forget you.”
“I know you won’t, dear. I’ll never forget you either.”
And then she was gone. There was no blinding light, no flash; she disappeared in the space of a moment. Taylor was left rowing across the lake. He found purpose and began to row harder toward the north shore. The closer he got, the easier it became to hear Ruth’s voice speaking to him.
As Ruth’s watch standing shift ended without further incident, the Lion of Judah had returned to orbit around Gilead. Feldt’s ship’s IFF had changed to “captured” and was in tow. Another eight hours down. Back to my quarters for one more day of bread and water. Joy. She cranked her head around toward the CO’s chair, still occupied by Hanson. “Major, my relief has arrived. May I visit the infirmary before returning to quarters?”
Hanson glanced up from whatever he was looking at on his tablet. “Of course, Lieutenant.” His eyes went back down to the computing device, but a moment later, he looked back at her. “Lieutenant, excellent job today.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I don’t see any reason to mention your actions on Gilead further. Consider yourself off restriction at 0430 hours tomorrow.”
Good ole O Dark Thirty. “Understood, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Ruth stood and nodded to Kelsey, the second watch tactical officer that waited in the back of the bridge. Without another word, she made her way to the gravlift, and from there to the medical bay. Taylor was in the same room as he’d been the previous evening, no noise except the quiet pulsing of the scanner and lifesigns reader.
Taking a seat next to the bed, she interlaced her fingers in his. “I still don’t know if this does any good, if you can hear me or it even matters… but if you can, please keep fighting. We all need you, Robert. I need you too,” she whispered, keeping her voice exceptionally low so no one would hear the personal nature of her remarks.
The lifesigns monitor started to beep, drawing her attention. It seemed to show, to her untrained eye, an increase in heart rate and respiration. Ruth reached down and pressed the emergency button to summon the nurse.
Only
a few moments later, a blue-smocked man stuck his head in the door. “Everything okay?”
“I’m not sure,” Ruth began. “His heart rate seems to be elevated.”
“Hmm. My chart says Lieutenant Taylor is in a coma. Let me get Doctor Bhatt.”
The nurse disappeared, and she found herself staring at the monitor, still clutching his hand. Please God, please let him wake up.
Taylor’s hand jerked, surprising Ruth so much, she jumped back in alarm with a small squeal.
“Lieutenant? Everything okay in here?” Bhatt said as he walked in. A middle-aged man with little hair, he wore a standard-issue CDF uniform with a white lab coat over it.
“I’m pretty sure Taylor’s hand moved.”
“Let me check.” Bhatt pulled out a small penlight, pulled Taylor’s eyelids back, and shined it in. “Aha. Nurse, get me an autoinjector, please, and two CCs of cortical stimulant.”
“What’s going on?” Ruth demanded, her tone one of alarm.
“Nothing to worry about. He’s having some fine motor responses to external stimuli. Doctor Tural developed an off-label drug concoction based on the medical data he received from CIS. I believe it’s working, and Mister Taylor is coming out of his coma. If so, the stimulant will fully revive him.”
Less than thirty seconds later, the nurse returned and passed a metallic autoinjector to Bhatt. “Pre-loaded with the cortical stimulant, Doctor.”
“Thank you,” Bhatt said as he leaned over Taylor and pressed the device against his neck.
Almost instantly, Taylor began to stir. His eyes fluttered open, and he slowly moved his head to take in the room.
“Lieutenant, can you hear me?” Bhatt asked, leaning over and performing the light test again. “Lieutenant?”
Taylor’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Water… please, water.”
Ruth jumped up and raced to the sink in the far end of the room to fetch a cup and some water. “May I?” At Bhatt’s nod, she leaned over and helped Taylor take a sip.
“Thanks,” he said with a weak smile. “Throat’s dry.”
Bhatt flashed a grin. “If that’s all you’ve got, we’re doing quite well, Lieutenant Taylor. I’m going to get the charge nurse and have some blood drawn for labs. If those check out, and you’re feeling up to it, we’ll get you some food afterward. Okay?”
Taylor closed his eyes and half nodded. “Sure, Doctor.”
Ruth collapsed back into the chair, smiling giddily as the medical professionals left. “I was so worried about you.”
“What happened?”
“You collapsed during the talks with the Gileadean government. Someone put Orbita into your water.”
“That’d explain the visions,” Taylor said, his voice trailing off as a frown appeared on his face.
“What do you mean?”
“You know my wife was a Marine, right?”
“Yeah. You told me once.”
Taylor stuck his left hand out of the bed’s covers, holding it up for her to see the wedding band still on his finger. “I never let go. I’ve been punishing myself for years.”
“I know,” Ruth said softly as she put her hands around his. “I do the same stuff.”
“While I was out, she came to me. At least, I thought she did. Maybe it was just the drugs. She wanted me to forgive myself and move on.”
“Maybe it was your subconscious, or maybe it was something from the in-between.”
Taylor closed his eyes again, and a tear slid down his cheek. “I thought I was going to die.”
“I did too,” Ruth replied, her voice close to breaking. “I can’t lose you too.”
“I heard you talking to me.”
“Oh?”
Taylor grinned. “It’s what drew me back.”
“For real?”
“Yeah.”
Ruth stared down at him for what seemed like ages, but in reality was only a few seconds. Then something came over her. A feeling she couldn’t explain, a sense the likes of which she’d never experienced before. She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. Her mind registered it as being shocked. She jerked back, a look of horror on her face. “I’m so sorry.” She sprang up and moved to run.
Taylor tried to reach for her, but his arm didn’t move as fast as mind instructed it. “Wait. Please. Wait.”
She turned around, tears pouring down her face. “I had no right… I’m sorry. It just happened.”
“I’ve felt the same way for a long time.”
“You have?”
He closed his eyes. “Yes, Ruth. I didn’t know how to deal with it, and the guilt I felt for feeling like I was cheating on Rachel—my wife.” He reached over and tugged the ring off his finger. “Now it’s time for me to move on. I don’t know what that looks like for us, but I’d like to figure it out. Together.”
Run. Run away. You’ll only hurt yourself and him. You can’t love anyone. You’re broken. Fighting down everything within her that said no, Ruth sat back down and took his hands into hers. “I’m all kinds of messed up.”
“It’s okay. I am too.”
“Together?”
Taylor smiled. “If you’ll have me.”
“We have to tell the colonel.”
“But we’re not in each other’s chain of command, so that won’t be a problem.”
“I suppose not,” Ruth said, wiping a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and using her uniform sleeve to dry her tears. “Right now, let’s just focus on getting you better and out of this stupid medical ward.”
The grave voice of Doctor Bhatt interrupted them. “Who’s calling my doc shack stupid?”
“Uh, sorry, sir,” Ruth said, a silly grin breaking out across her face.
“Visiting hours are over. Your friend here needs a good night’s rest. You can visit him in the morning.”
Ruth stood and smiled. “I’ll see you soon,” she said toward Taylor before scooting past Bhatt and out the door. As she made her way back toward her cabin, part of her was incredibly happy she’d finally let her feelings out. The other part was terrified she’d cause even more pain and suffering to someone she cared about. Someone I love. A shiver went through her as she realized that for the first time since her parents died in front of her, the emotion of love was present within her once more.
29
“Colonel David Cohen in the flesh,” Robert Sinclair, the Oxford’s intelligence chief, said with a chuckle. “You’ve got nine lives or something. Leaguers can’t kill you, drug dealers can’t kill you. Heck, crazed fascists back on that neutral planet the nuns liberated couldn’t kill you.”
David chuckled politely as he leaned back in his chair. Along with Aibek, they were in a classified communication space for a discussion with Sinclair, far away, they hoped, from prying ears. “I try not to make light of incidents I survive. Too many don’t… and I’m not interested in tempting God.”
“I always forget how devout you are. Well, I think it’s bloody hysterical how you’ve turned into the unkillable hero.”
“Still not a hero,” David said quietly. What part of it don’t they understand? The real heroes go home in a pine box.
Perhaps sensing his discomfort, Sinclair moved on. “So what can CDF Intelligence do for you today?”
“We were wondering,” David began with a glance toward Aibek, “if you’d come across any interesting intercepts from Gilead. The identity of the plant inside their government remains a mystery.”
“You think there’s only one? This Feldt guy had dozens of paid off civil servants. Hell, based on what Tamir pulled up, it looks like a good ten percent of the federal police force is on the take in some way.”
David closed his eyes. The idea is so utterly foreign to me. Don’t these people believe in themselves, in their own planet? “Needle in a haystack, as it were?”
Sinclair snickered. “Yeah, Colonel. That’s a rather anachronistic way of looking at it, sure.”
“Got anything to help us narrow down the susp
ect list?”
“Only this. I’d put money on Feldt’s real top people being civilians. It looked to us like the top tier military, and police commanders are clean. Or at least, by Gileadean standards.”
Aibek flicked his tongue, a sign of annoyance, David had learned over the years. “This dishonor offends me. Were I on Sauria, I would challenge all of these criminals to blood combat.”
“That’s the thing, XO. We’re not on Sauria, or Canaan, or even in the Terran Coalition. Our way of doing things doesn’t apply here.”
Aibek lifted a scale over his right eye. “Humanity once saw fit to intervene in the Saurian Empire. You forced us to take stock of how far our own dishonor reached and remove the stain. What is so different about this place?”
He’s got a point there. “What happened at the end of the war between our people came out of the surrender of the Saurian emperor. It was different. Had the Terran Coalition and the Saurian Empire continued to engage in war after war, it would’ve destroyed both of our peoples.”
“Why not adopt the Saurian methods, then?” Aibek replied, a wicked grin plastered across his face.
“Because wantonly imposing our will on other species, especially after deciding them to be inferior, isn’t acceptable. It’s morally wrong.”
Sinclair interrupted as a chuckle. “I think the point your XO is trying to make is that we’ve decided right and wrong before. The real reason we aren’t doing it here is politics. Gilead isn’t a real threat to the Terran Coalition. It’s not like they can invade us with slot machines and virtual reality brothels. They’re not worth the effort.”
David’s face twisted, his cheeks turned red, and his brow furrowed to the point his eyebrows almost touched. “Tell that to the people Feldt enslaved. The people he murdered, the millions living in misery and poverty because of a corrupt government more interested in lining its pockets than the rule of law.” It ought to matter. We should care.
“Perhaps,” Aibek began, his voice uncharacteristically soft, “when the League has been defeated, we can right the small wrongs inhabiting our region of the galaxy.”
