Keshona Far Freedom Part 1

by Warren Merkey

testing her, or else we could be wasting some freedom."

  "Sorry to disappoint you, Olivier," the captain said, raising his pistol. He stopped when the broken ones also raised their weapons.

  "Didn't know you knew my name, Captain Sanda. What if I told you this lady saw the Titanic raid?"

  "What have you been drinking?"

  "She saw it! She described it exactly! You didn't bring enough Tough Guys, Captain. You shoot me, then all of you die."

  "So, all I have to do is wait," the captain said, holstering his pistol. "There are more of us coming. Yes, that's interesting, about the woman. And she's the one who disarmed the two sup-pushers?"

  "I don't know nothing about that, Captain. I do know she can sing. You ask any of the Broken here. We had a hell of a concert down in the mess hall. We all love her. You wait as long as you like, Captain. There are more of us coming, too. It'll be great! I guess we've found our Un Bel Di. Like the Fleet says, the day we die is a beautiful day. This is the day!"

  "Olivier, wait!" Fidelity was alarmed at the meaning of his words. Why was there so much violence in her life? Why was Samson always being exposed to it? She had failed miserably to imagine the consequences of any of her decisions in this place. Olivier was smiling as seemed normal for him, even as he calmly accepted death as his immediate future. She set Samson down beside Rafael. She squeezed between two of the broken ones shielding her and took the few steps to stand beside Olivier. "I can't allow you to lay down your lives for me!" she pleaded to the one-armed man.

  "It isn't just for you!" Olivier argued. "What's life if it's empty? You just filled it for me! From this point on, it's all glory!"

  "Glory is highly overrated! Please, take your people and leave!"

  "We can't! You don't understand! They won't let any of us live! We knew that when we brought you here! Use us! We're not worth much except for right now!"

  Fidelity could not believe Olivier's group of such spirited men could so easily offer up their lives in her defense. She was devastated to have their lives made her responsibility. She could sense from her brief experience of this world that its rulers probably used death as the standard punishment to control everyone. Even before she sang for them, she sensed a feeling of doom for the Broken Ones. In a short time she had found herself liking Olivier and his fellow workers. It hurt her profoundly to know they could be about to die.

  "Olivier, please do what you can to protect Samson and Rafael. Don't try to die - try to live! Don't worry about me. Let me speak to the captain."

  Olivier slowly stepped back to Raphael and Samson, leaving Fidelity by herself with the Fleet captain. The other soldiers now stood at whatever tactical positions they could find among the chairs and tables in the great room, their weapons ready.

  "You humbled two Fleet officers," the captain said. "We have witnesses, even recordings of it. Your actions were impressive but led to the brutal deaths of both officers."

  "I didn't know that would happen," she replied. "You hold me responsible?"

  "I think you did what you had to do. I'm doing what I have to do. "

  "What do you need to do?" she asked.

  "Find out who you are," the captain replied. "Arrest you for further questioning by my superiors."

  "Will you let the others go?" she asked.

  "I can't negotiate and I can't guarantee what the Fleet will later do," the captain said. "I can only insist that you accompany me away from this place as quickly as possible, before something bad can happen."

  The phrase lady in the mirror echoed from her memory, interfering further with her mental efforts to discover a safe decision. Most of the rest of her attention was captured by notices from a program running in yet another augment she didn't know she had. It was measuring distances, assigning attack vectors, and adjusting probability indices for every potential combatant in the room, while also increasing her metabolism, heating her muscles, and sharpening her senses. The hammering of her heart signaled both fear and preparation.

  When Olivier had spoken the phrase lady in the mirror she had seen everyone in the room stiffen in fear. This was her next decision: to learn why.

  "Who is the lady in the mirror?" she asked Captain Sanda.

  "You don't want to know!" the captain said in an intense whisper.

  Fidelity waited but the captain would not elaborate. Her next decision seemed dictated by the special combat augment, as it reached a state of planned preparedness and her body settled into hair-trigger anticipation. She was ready for an assault on the dozen soldiers nearest her. She couldn't believe she would survive the fight. She could believe she would kill most of them. Strategies were unfolded for her that were complex, involving scores of bodies in motion, multiple chains of cause and effect. It took a supreme force of will to brake the imperative to launch an attack rather than react to one. So conscious of the explosion about to occur in her body, Fidelity could still strain to keep a conversation going, to stall for time in a forlorn hope for some miracle that would stop the violence. Fortunately, that was also a tactical option her combat augment allowed.

  "What is your name?" she asked, intentionally trying to make her adversary more than just another anonymous fatality. She didn't want to fight. All the death she would cause could never make her own death more honorable or less futile.

  "My name?" the captain queried, adding confusion to his efforts to contain his anxiety and find some control of the situation. "Captain Kesre Sanda, Third Flight, Fleet Operations, Oz Station. What's yours?" It didn't look like he actually cared to know her name, but also only wanted to delay.

  "I am Admiral Fidelity Demba, Union Navy." This made the captain's eyes widen in surprise. She continued. "I was unaware of the existence of this place - Oz - but I think many Navy officers may have come from here. I assume it is not within the Union."

  "You know you came here through a gate?" Captain Sanda asked.

  "I assume that is what it was. It was our second such transfer. It brings a round piece of what you were standing on. If you are patient, Captain Sanda, we may depart by gate in the near future and save you from doing something dangerous."

  "Patience is not one of our traits," the captain said, his anxiety seeming to decrease, "and danger is what we live for. Do you have any guess about why you are here? If not, I have to act. Yes, I will die, along with you and most of the rest of the people in this room."

  Fidelity sensed the truth of the Fleet captain's words. She tried to match his calmness, even though the threat to Samson and Rafael terrified her. "I believe we are here because someone did not want Navy Commander Admiral Etrhnk to have us. To have me. I don't think he cares about the boy and the old man. Your two young officers were simply unfortunate because they did not understand what I could do, and I did understand what they would do. I regret their deaths, and not simply because of what may now happen."

  1-30 The Lady in the Mirror

  "You're not old!"

  "I feel old! Is this a marriage proposal? After all these years together, what does it matter?"

  "I feel like you think we're just friends, Ruby. But I love you. I've always loved you."

  "Why didn't you ever say so?"

  "I thought I did, perhaps not with words but..."

  "Men! I've known how you felt about me for years. I could have made you confess, but I couldn't bring myself to do it."

  "Because you didn't really love me?"

  "Because I did really love you. But..."

  "I don't understand."

  "Neither do I!"

  "Is something wrong?"

  "Something was always wrong with me! Something was always missing! I'm incomplete. I've lost something."

  "I still don't understand."

  "I'm beginning to remember things, Harry, but it's difficult to put them together. I think I've lived another life before this one, one in which I had a husband, and a daughter named Jamie. But I don't know why I should have even received rejuvenation, because I don't remember ever
paying my debt to the Mnro Clinic. And why do I suddenly remember these vital things, things I should never have forgot, things that, if I chose to forget them, I shouldn't ever remember?"

  "I knew you would eventually remember him."

  "Who? What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying you belonged to someone that no one should ever forget."

  "You know who he was? Why? How long have you known?"

  "Always, Ruby. I've always been your guardian, protecting you until his return. For most of that time I've been in love with his wife, so I couldn't tell you I loved you. But we've grown old together, shared an entire lifetime, and I don't believe he's alive anymore. I never doubted he would return, but surely it's been too long! So, I now put in my bid for you, my last small chance for happiness, my last chance to make you happy."

  "But you know who he was? Tell me! Tell me, Harry! I can't remember! I've spent months trying to hold onto these images and snippets of dialog leaking out of my brain, and he's always there, just out of sight, and I can't see his face or hear his name!"

  "I can't, Ruby!"

  "Can't, or won't? Harry, you're hurting me! This is tearing me apart! I think it was always there, just under my conscious thought, driving me to sing, keeping me from staying sober."

  "I'll lose you if I tell you, Ruby!"

  "You've already lost me, Harry!"

  "Ruby, you don't understand! It isn't just me! If I give him back to you, she will just take him away again. Ruby? Where are you going?"

  "Away! Don't try to follow me!"

  He