by Joe Vasicek
“Time to get the hell out of here,” Isaac muttered under his breath. He released the docking clamps, and the bulkheads groaned as the Medea pulled free.
“Medea, do you copy? We have not authorized undocking—repeat, we have not authorized undocking. Please stand by.”
“Sorry,” he told the controller.
With the Medea clear of the station and the load released from the cargo bay, he flipped the switch to initiate jump. A hum sounded from deep within the bowels of the ship, growing swiftly in pitch and intensity. The hum seemed to reverberate through his whole being, making his stomach turn and his hair stand on end. Behind him, Reva moaned and clutched at the chair for support. The stars outside the cockpit pulled away from them, and in an instant, the universe seemed to invert, the dimensions collapsing in on themselves. But then the feeling passed, the stars returned to normal, and Reva was left gasping for breath as the inevitable nausea swept over them both.
“Safe,” said Isaac, pulling up the nav-computer to begin triangulation. “No more bad men.”
“Bad men no?”
“That’s right. They’re gone. We don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
“Gone,” said Reva, walking on unsteady feet back into the cabin. Isaac took a deep breath and allowed himself to relax.
It had been ballsy of him to jump out in such close proximity to the station—ballsy and more than a little reckless. The flash from their jump had probably fried most of bay A9’s loading equipment and damaged the station’s sensors as well. He certainly wouldn’t be welcome there again, but with luck, he would never have to go back.
In his hand, he held the datachip that Aslan had given him, the one with the signal that would tell the pirates not to attack him. He plugged it into the nav-computer and brought it up through the comm system as quickly as he could. With the signal in place, any pirates that detected them would know not to attack.
That was the hope, anyway.
Tokens of Consolation
“Aaron!”
Isaac watched in horror as his brother drifted away from him, tumbling end over end. Without a propulsion system in his EVA suit and nowhere to attach his tether, he was falling helplessly through the void of space.
Isaac’s boots slammed onto the hull of the Medea, the magnetic clamps holding him in place. As quick as he could, he pulled out the tether and anchored it to the hull, pulling it loose to give him as much slack as he could. The Medea was set to make an FTL jump in less than a minute, and anything not attached to it would be left behind.
Anything such as his brother.
“I’m coming for you, Aaron!” Isaac shouted as he coiled his legs to jump. “I’m not going to leave you here!”
He deactivated the magnetic clamps on his boots and pushed off with all his strength. For a hair-raising moment, he feared that he was drifting to the side, out of reach of his brother. Once in freefall, there was no changing direction. But then he saw that his brother was getting steadily closer, just as he’d hoped. Only a few more seconds, and—
A wave of nausea swept over him as the all-too familiar disorientation of jumpspace began to build all around him. The Medea was about to make the jump. Panic seized him, sending sweat down the back of his neck and making his stomach turn.
“Come on!” he screamed. “Don’t kick me away, grab—”
But he was too late. With just an arm’s length between him and his brother, the universe turned inside out as the stars flashed out of existence. Isaac caught one last glimpse of Aaron’s face through the helmet, his eyes open wide in terror just as he disappeared. The cable went taught, yanking Isaac back to the ship, but Aaron was gone.
“No!” Isaac cried, tears streaming down his cheeks as the stars of deep space covered him with their soft milky glow. “No, no, no!”
A ship appeared, followed by another, and then another. They looked like freighters and cargo haulers, except with guns mounted on their sides. Isaac could barely make them out through the tears, but somehow he knew that they were the ships of the Flotilla. They’d been destroyed at Colkhia, in the battle that had followed the failure of his mission. These were apparitions, the ghosts of those who had died.
Why did you fail us? they asked him.
“I-I didn’t mean to,” he said, his body shaking in his suit. “I did all I could to—”
The Imperials have won. Our cause is lost. The Outworlds will fall.
“No! Please! There has to be something we can do. Just wait—I’m going to Ithaca, where I’ll meet up with the others for the next fight.”
There won’t be a next fight. The Imperials have destroyed us, because you failed.
“That—that can’t be true,” Isaac stammered. “We’ll rise up again, and I’ll make it back to you—I promise!”
Nothing can ever bring us back.
The ships disappeared, and a new one appeared out of jumpspace—the Starfire. Its menacing bulk filled Isaac’s vision, making his eyes open wide with fear. The battleship’s forward guns opened fire, and a bright cluster of missiles sped silently toward him.
“No—please! Spare me!”
But it was too late. In less than a second, the missiles struck home. There was a brief but overpowering flash, followed by an engulfing fire, then absolute darkness.
* * * * *
Isaac’s screaming woke Reva at once. Her eyes flew open, but her just-awakened body was too sluggish to respond. Instead, she lay still on the bottom bunk, trying to get her bearings as her heart thumped wildly in her chest.
Just as abruptly as it had begun, the screaming stopped. For a few moments, there was silence, broken only by a soft whimper. Then, she heard Isaac climb down off his bunk and walk across the cabin. The lights went on soon after, making her squint and cover he eyes.
It was a nightmare, she thought, her heart slowly calming. Just a nightmare. He’ll get over it soon.
She considered pulling the curtain shut and going back to sleep, but something made her linger. She turned and glanced at him, hunched over the tiny lounge table with his face buried in his hands. She realized with a start that he was crying.
It must have been a bad one, she thought as she slipped her legs over the side of the bunk. Is he all right? Is there anything I can do?
She dropped to the floor and walked over to the table. He turned away when he saw her coming, clearly embarrassed to be seen crying. To let him know it was okay, she put a hand on his shoulder, but the gesture made him pull away.
That was when she noticed that he was only wearing a pair of boxers.
She stepped back and frowned. How had she missed that until now? He looked so different—more open, less anonymous and aloof. Strangely, he also looked more vulnerable. Wispy tufts of dark black hair ran down the middle of his chest, but that was the only sign that he was any older than her. In fact, they seemed to be a lot closer in age than she’d first realized.
His cheeks turned red, and she realized that he wasn’t just embarrassed because he’d been crying. It was the lack of clothing—the feeling of being exposed—that made him so vulnerable.
Is that why they wear clothing? she wondered to herself. To build a wall around themselves? To close themselves off from strangers? Back at Anuva Station, there had been no strangers. The community had been small enough that every face was familiar. Here, everyone seemed to be strangers to each other.
Would he feel more comfortable if I put something on? It was his culture, after all—she was the one who was out of her element, not him. He’d tolerated her nudity for a long time now, but she could tell that it was awkward for him. As much as she felt that the clothing created an artificial barrier between them, so long as she refused to wear it, there was a part of him that would always be closed off to her.
She opened the wall compartment with her clothes and pulled out the gray slip dress. The feel of the fabric against her skin made her cringe, but she forced herself to ignore it as she pulled it over her head and let i
t fall over her shoulders. At least it wasn’t clingy. And as for her tattoos, the ones on her shoulders and arms were still visible. She didn’t like to cover any of them, but at least this was a compromise she could live with.
She returned to the table and sat down across from Isaac. He didn’t notice her until she reached out and touched his hand.
“Hello.”
The sound of her voice startled him. He glanced at her sideways out of the corner of his eyes, then turned and faced her directly when he saw that she wasn’t nude.
“Reva?”
“What is it?” she asked. “What bad?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head as he looked away. She squeezed his hand to bring him back.
“No, what is it?”
He sighed and gave an explanation that obviously went over her level of understanding. When that didn’t deter her, he stood up to leave, but in the tiny confines of the ship, there wasn’t anywhere he could go. He made as if to go to the cockpit, but stopped short, apparently rethinking it. His hands clenched, then relaxed. Turning, he walked over to the food synthesizer and pulled out an empty glass from the nearby compartment.
“You want?” he asked.
“Yes,” Reva answered.
A couple of minutes later, he returned to the table with two purple drinks in his hands. He set down one in front of her, and she sipped it quietly.
“Brother,” he said, using a word she didn’t understand. “My brother.”
She cocked her head and gave him a questioning look. “Bro-dher?”
“Brother,” he repeated, then hit the keypad on the table to bring up a menu. After scrolling through the options, the surface cleared, and by pressing his fingertip he was able to draw on it. Reva squinted to get a better look at what he was drawing, but it made no sense to her.
“Come here,” he said, scooting over and motioning for her to sit next to him.
When Reva came over to the other side of the table, she saw that the drawing was a diagram of some sort, with little stick figures arranged in a sort of pyramid. At the top were two joined by a double line, with little curls on the left one that probably represented hair. A horizontal bracket sat below them, connected to the double line and in turn connecting to three other stick figures.
“Me,” Isaac said, pointing to one of the hairless figures at the base. “Brother,” he said, pointing to the one next to it. “Sister, mother, father,” he said, pointing to all the other ones.
“You?” Reva asked, pointing to the first one. Isaac nodded. “Man?” she asked, receiving the same answer.
The ones with curls are women, and the ones without are men, she realized. All at once, the meaning was clear: the diagram represented a family.
But what did that have to do with Isaac’s nightmare?
“You are Isaac,” she said, pointing again to the stick figure at the base in the center. “I am Reva.” Then, pointing to the other male figure, “Brother what is?”
“Aaron,” Isaac answered. He buried his face in his hands again.
“What is it? What is bad?”
Isaac sighed and began to speak, the words pouring out of his mouth like light around the horizon of a planet during sunrise. Reva couldn’t follow everything, but from his tone of voice, she gathered that he and his brother were very close.
“Brother where is?”
Here he took a deep breath and made a cutting motion across his throat. He’s dead, Reva realized. Isaac’s brother is dead.
At first, it seemed odd to her that Isaac would have such strong feelings for his brother. Then she realized that there was a reason why the Medea had two bunks, why it had an empty chair in the cockpit. Had Isaac’s brother also been his copilot? Had he lost him just before she’d arrived? That would explain the strength of his emotions, and the ferocity of his nightmares. She’d heard about star wanderers who left everything behind in order to seek their fortunes among the stars. Their families might not be dead, but they wouldn’t ever see them again. And if Isaac was a star wanderer and his brother was the only family he had left, then losing him must have been just as hard as losing her own family was to her.
She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently. Isaac’s eyes reddened and he looked away quickly. Though neither of them said anything, the meaning was clear, even without words.
I should do something for him, Reva thought. If he misses his brother, the least I can do is give him some token of consolation.
“Stay,” she said, rising to her feet. Isaac made as if to stand up, but she put both hands on his shoulders and held him down. From her wall compartment, she pulled out the bag of henna powder and an empty bowl from the washer unit. The next part was a bit more complicated, but she’d already experimented enough with the food synthesizer to know how to get the right blend of juices. She dropped a spoonful of henna into the bowl and mixed it with some slightly acidic lemon tonic from the synthesizer.
Mixing the henna reminded her of the day her sister-in-law had painted her. The memory was still painfully clear, as if it had happened only a few weeks ago. How much time had passed since then? Reva’s hands trembled as she recalled the terrible images of her home from the video feed that Isaac had shown her, of her sister-in-law’s desiccated corpse draped over the cryotank that held her frozen body. The pangs of grief cut her like lasers, but she did her best to put that out of her mind. She couldn’t have her hands trembling when she applied the henna.
“Brother,” she said, returning to the table. With one finger, she drew the sigil for brotherhood on the holographic screen. Isaac leaned forward and peered at it. “Brother,” she repeated.
This is for your brother, so that he can be with you in spirit—as my family is still with me.
Pulling out the dropper she’d found the day before, she dipped it in the bowl and filled it with henna paste. Isaac drew back as she went to apply it to his shoulder, but after looking into her eyes, he nodded and sat back. He made no further move to resist her as she carefully drew the sigil.
“Good, good,” she said softly. It’s going to be okay. You’ll get through this—just like I will.
Perhaps they weren’t so different after all.
* * * * *
The shower felt like a soothing balm on Isaac’s skin. He chipped away the henna that had dried on the spot where Reva had painted him.
She seems to be opening up, he thought as he scrubbed off the last of the henna residue. It was hard to believe that only a week or so had passed since he’d retrieved her from the escape pod. She’d been so aloof and standoffish then, unwilling to even eat his food, much less talk with him. Now, she was picking up the language so fast that he couldn’t keep her from talking. More importantly, she was starting to wear clothes on her own. As much as he’d tried to accommodate her, he’d never gotten used to that aspect of her culture. And if she was willing to accommodate him now, that boded well for the future.
As the rinse cycle neared completion, an alarm sounded over the shipwide intercom. He brought it up on the shower panel’s tiny screen. Something up at the cockpit needed his immediate attention.
Frowning, he activated the dry cycle and set it to the maximum setting. Hot air blasted down on him, sucking up the precious moisture and sending it to the recyclers. Before the cycle had finished, he stepped out and pulled on a jumpsuit, clasping it shut as he rushed to the cockpit. Reva frowned as he ran past her, but when she saw that he was in a hurry, she let him pass by.
He slipped into the pilot’s seat and brought up the alarm on the main screen. It was an incoming signal, coming from the direction of … where? He studied the scanners, trying to make sense of what he saw. They were deep in space, light-years from the nearest charted system. Perhaps there was a rogue planet out here somewhere, but it wasn’t showing up on the maps.
Stumped, he turned his attention to the signal itself. It was a simple distress call, followed by a set of sidereal coordinates, no doubt the origin of the si
gnal itself.
Pirates, he realized. They must have caught someone who hadn’t paid for protection. Since it took several hours to recharge a jump drive, it was possible to set up an ambush in deep space. The signal emitted from entering and exiting jumpspace would alert anyone within a few light-hours, and the tightness of the rift meant that all the traffic would flow through the same narrow corridor. Of course, even in the rift, space was vast enough that it was possible to slip through completely undetected. But with the sector practically brimming with pirates, the risk of falling prey to them was significant.
Footsteps sounded behind him as Reva stepped into the cockpit. She sat down in Aaron’s chair, still wearing the gray slip dress.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Bad,” said Isaac. He pointed to the starmap, which showed a flashing point at the distress signal’s origin. “Pirates.”
Reva frowned. “Pie-rats?”
“That’s right. Bad men who raid stations and capture starships. They steal and kill.”
A look of confusion crossed her face, so he made a cutting motion across his throat. “Bad. Very bad. We leave now.”
“Brother?” she asked.
Isaac’s heart sank. If Aaron were still alive, they’d be arguing right now about whether they should try to rescue the survivors. Isaac never thought he would have missed any of their fights, but now he even missed their worst moments together.
Of course, it was only because of Isaac’s failure that they were in this situation at all.
“Brother?” Reva repeated.
“No,” Isaac muttered. “Not my brother. Go back into the cabin—I’ll be there in a minute.”
She hesitated for a moment, but when it became clear that he would ignore her, she turned and left. It was just as well. A lump formed in his throat as he imagined the argument he and Aaron would have had about the distress call. Yes, those people were in trouble. No, they shouldn’t go help them. Why? Because they had a duty to the Resistance, and it wasn’t worth the risk. Besides, what would they do even if they found any survivors? Was there any more room on the Medea? Yes, it was horrible. Yes, he wished they could do something about it, too.
