The Lifeline Signal

by RoAnna Sylver

"He..." Shiloh hesitated. Xie hadn't talked with Indra or Annie about this part, and never really expected to with anyone. Somehow this didn't seem like xir message to pass on, but it also seemed important. "Regan said he loves you. You and Rowan."

  “Okay.” Jay's single-word answer was bland, seemed intentionally neutral. That alone told Shiloh xie wasn't seeing, and didn't know, even the very tip of this iceberg. Jay let out a long, slow breath but didn’t move or speak for a few full seconds. For the first time, he looked at a complete loss for what to do next, either in the future or in the next moment. “Well, if you see him again… just tell me if you see him again. We got a lot to talk about.”

  Shiloh had never seen the heavy, bitter look in his downcast eyes before, not on Jay or anyone else. Xie never wanted to see it again, especially once the hard realization hit of exactly what to call it. Haunted. “You don’t trust this Regan guy at all, do you?”

  Jay swiveled his chair around to face Shiloh, then back away again, shaking off eye contact and his strange reverie. “Hey, remember those stories I told you not to ask about when you first came on board?”

  “Yeah. So—”

  “Don’t ask about them. Safer.” He started typing again, an off-rhythm accompaniment to his too-flat voice. “Stories are just stories. In real life, good people die. One just did. And he’s lucky, we actually knew his name. I’m not trying to bring you down, Nibling, I’m just making sure you know exactly what you’re walking into. There’s normal life and then there’s life down here, where we all might as well be wearing red shir… God, never mind, I’m depressing myself.” Jay sighed, head hanging low. The two of them fell silent. Suddenly the small room felt even smaller, as if the walls were pressing in under the weight of the chaos outside. For several long seconds, neither one spoke.

  “Kirk or Picard?” Shiloh finally asked in the light, conversational tone Jay had used so often before but couldn’t seem to muster now.

  “What?” He looked up, but it was slow, hesitant, as if the simple question had to be some kind of trick or trap or hidden snare.

  “You were going to say in this story we should all be wearing red shirts,” Shiloh continued, surprised by how difficult it was to stay upbeat while even half-thinking about these terrifying realities. How did Jay do it all the time? How much energy did it take? “Well, I know what happens there. So if we’re all wearing red shirts, who’d you pick to get us out of this mess in one piece?”

  Jay just stared with his mouth open but no sound came out. Shiloh had the feeling this was not a reaction anyone commonly received. Somehow that felt like a good sign. “I know everyone’s gonna basically automatically pick Picard, because… of course they will and, yeah, there’s probably some diplomatic solution to all—” Jay actually laughed, though he still looked stunned. Shiloh had to smile at the interruption xie’d absolutely hoped for. “But Kirk beat the one-and-only Kobayashi Maru, a situation designed to be impossible, no positive outcome, total death and destruction the actual only ways out.”

  “He cheated,” Jay murmured, stare unbroken. He didn’t move, blink, or seem to breathe.

  “Yeah, Kirk cheated, because surviving is more important than following the rules. If the rules say you die, you change the rules and live, right? So is he your pick?”

  “You first,” Jay said, voice still very faint, and sounding a mixture of wary and impressed. “So I know you’re not just telling me what I want to hear. Kirk or Picard?”

  “Neither.” Shiloh’s smile was tired but genuine. “The Sisko, of Bajor.”

  “He’s not one of the choices.”

  “I didn’t like the rules.”

  Slowly, Jay’s face lit up into one of his smiles that resembled Maureen’s triumphant grin that beamed out at them from the wall. “Wow. We might actually survive this after all.”

  “So, Kirk?” Shiloh asked in the casual tone they both knew wasn’t casual anymore.

  “No.” Jay’s smile turned sharp, almost wolfish. “You need somebody to rise to the challenge, do the things that can’t be done, save the Kobayashi Maru—and Parole, which has to be even tougher? You need me!”

  “You can’t pick yourself! You’re not even in Starfl—”

  “Rewriting the rules, remember? Sure, James T. had the right idea, but CyborJ is better than he’ll ever be!” He actually laughed and Shiloh felt weak with relief, as if somehow xie’d passed some impossible challenge as well. “Hey, how did Enterprise end? That’s about the time Parole got cut off from—no!” Jay shook his head, but with renewed energy. “Don’t spoil me. Some things are worth risking a torrent for. Especially now I actually got someone to discuss with. Trek and everything else. I’ve been dying to catch up with you, honestly. See what I missed.” He faltered, eyes dropping. “I’m—listen, I’m sor—”

  “Don’t apologize,” Shiloh said firmly. “My mom always said you were the reason Parole still existed at all. And you got us out, we got to Meridian, we were safe there. And we did fine. It was never home,” xie had to admit, but didn’t much feel like going back there, even in xir mind. “Not without you or my dad, or… Parole was home, that’s all. But my mom never let me think for a minute that we wouldn’t get back there, or see you again, or that anything we did was for nothing.”

  “Thanks. You, uh—you did great.” Jay nodded a few times, before his face dropped into an expression as close to defeat as he’d been to triumph moments before. “Nibling—Shiloh, can you just kind of, insert an inspiring parental thing here? I’m trying to think of what your mom would say if she was here and if our lives were normal, ‘cause I’ve never been good at saying the right or responsible thing, that’s Maureen. Getting you guys out of Parole was pretty much the one right and responsible thing I’ve ever done. And then I wasn’t around for the rest of—anything.” His fingernails rapidly drummed against a nearby metal tower; he cracked a knuckle on his other hand. “So, I’m trying, but I’m not great at this and I want you to have a normal life and that’s basically impossible by now, and—”

  “Uncle Jay. You’re doing fine.” Shiloh spoke quietly; suddenly xir chest felt heavy. “I miss my mom too. But seriously, don't worry about it. You don't have to be her. Or my dad. We’ll find them and then… it’ll just be different. Better. We’ll all catch up together.”

  Not for the first time since they’d met face-to-face or even in this conversation, Jay was looking at xir with a mixture of surprise and respect. “That sounds perfect. I mean, not sure how well I’ll fit in with the whole normal-family picture but it’s a nice thought.”

  Before Shiloh spoke next, xie took a moment to check the math. Numbers didn’t lie, but some answers were hard truths to process. “The first ‘Icarus’ run was ten years ago, right? When you dropped the barrier and let us escape?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You would have been what, seventeen?”

  His eyes flicked away. “Yeah, so?”

  “You stayed behind. You let my mom and me escape so we could have a normal life and you stayed in Parole to help.” For one of the first times Shiloh had known xir uncle, he didn’t say anything at all. “Sounds pretty—what’d you say? Right and responsible?”

  “Well, then I guess I have de-responsibled nicely.” Jay’s smile came back, almost too quickly, and just as quickly he turned away, re-orienting himself in front of the disk’s stubborn encryption screen. “Anyway, I should probably get back to it. Haven’t tried that Radiance message you gave me yet, figured your mom’s info was the priority. Might have better luck there. Pretty sure Lakshanya actually wants me to open it.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you work.” Shiloh stepped over a pile of cables toward the door, figuring that was what passed for a subtle signal to wrap things up. “It was really great talking to you though.”

  “Yeah, it was.” Jay stopped typing and looked up. “Uh, door’s open. If you want, tomorrow or whenever—I mean, it’s not gonna be much fun, just me banging my head against a wall until this thin
g’s open, but…”

  “Sure.” Shiloh smiled, feeling that xie’d just gotten an invitation not many people ever did, even on this ship. “See you tomorrow.”

  Jay cracked his neck again and settled back in front of the keyboard, looking much more serene and less drained than he had before Shiloh’s visit. He inserted the thumb drive with Radiance Technologies logo, and as predicted, it opened with none of the difficulty he’d had up to this point.

  A moment later, a recorded voice issued from the computer speakers.

  Jay replayed the message. Twice. Three times. He grabbed a pair of headphones from a tangle of cords and strips underneath the console and jammed them onto his ears, then replayed it several more times. Each time, his eyes widened in equal parts shock, panic, and recognition.

  Then he scrambled out of the cramped room like it was on fire.

  * ☆ *

  Annie was right where Jay expected to find her but he wasn’t about to disturb her. Not even after the shock he’d gotten from that recording. The hammock swung gently from a thick lower branch in the huge tree in its dry water tank and from here he could see the top of her head and tightly curled hands. She slept with them balled into fists and covering her face, but she looked peaceful, maybe even smiling a little.

  "I haven't even told her how brave she was yet," Rowan said quietly, eyes on her sleeping face and slow breathing. They leaned against the tree below the hammock, sitting on the large, curving roots. They hadn’t moved when Jay had stumbled up and he got the feeling they’d been there for some time. “We asked too much of her to begin with. She must have been so scared. And then it turned into more than... any one person should ever..." They trailed off, watching her sleep and sway.

  "She did so good. But she wasn't alone." Jay knew it was a risk. He said it anyway. "Not on the way there, or back. And she's home now, she's safe and sound." The unspoken hung between them. Jay had never been good at enduring that, or any kind of silence, so he continued. "I figured you'd still be in the infirmary."

  "Indra's doing much better." Rowan hadn't looked away from Annie, sounding so far away they might as well be the one lost in a dream. They didn't look over when Jay shifted uncomfortably and scratched his face, as if he'd suddenly remembered something unsettling. "Stable, recovering, the antitoxin's doing its job. I'll check on him again soon, but he's going to be fine."

  "No, I mean I thought you'd be with, you know." He gave an awkward shrug, hands spread, then closing as if he could pick the words he wanted out of the air. "The jars? The new one. Figured you'd just want to hang onto that for a while."

  Rowan didn't answer right away. Finally they did turn to face Jay, though it seemed to take some concentration and effort. He hadn't expected to find them down here at all and he didn't expect them to look this tired when he did. “I had to get out of there for a while, that's all. And I wanted to spend some time with her. Even if we haven’t gotten a chance to talk much yet.”

  “I hope you get some quality time.” He made himself turn, made himself take a step away, but stopped at the rustle of grass and soft sound of hooves behind him.

  “Wait. You don’t have to leave.” Rowan kept their voice down and Annie didn't move in the hammock overhead, but suddenly they seemed more present, more engaged, focused. Any chance Jay had to make a clean exit was quickly disappearing. The really inconvenient thing was, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. “We haven’t gotten much time together either. I’m sorry, I’ve been…”

  “Hey, we’ve all been busy.” Jay knew what would happen if he turned around. Rowan would immediately see the struggle surface in his face. Emotional turmoil and futile resistance. And he’d see Rowan’s painful exhaustion again and everything beneath it. And then his arms would be around them, and it would be such a relief he’d forget why he’d come down here in the first place, and both of them would be a hopeless mess instead of getting anything done, and this was important, this was serious, dammit. “And it’s a big ship.”

  “Not that big. And we haven’t been that busy. Even back in Parole, with everything falling apart every day, we made the time. And it’s much quieter out here.” Especially on an empty ship, in the middle of a deserted wasteland. They seemed to have nothing but time and not much to fill it. Somehow the vast water tank was starting to feel as claustrophobic as Jay’s small room.

  “I just wanted to ask Annie something.” He just wanted to go to sleep and wake up to find all of this had been a bad dream or distant memory. He wanted to see Rowan smile. “But she needs the rest more than I need answers."

  “She’ll probably sleep for another few hours at least. Can I help?”

  "No, it's nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Jay knew what would happen if he turned around. Knew it. But the thought of going back to his room full of screens and not enough resolution was more than he could stand. And now so was being alone. Usually that was all he wanted. Everything was different now, even him.

  "It must be important to get you away from your work. Especially now." When Jay didn't answer, they tried again, lowering their voice and stepping closer to still be heard. "I know how much you need answers, Jay. At least... I think I'm starting to understand. As much as anyone can."

  "You mean Regan." Jay turned around. Warning lights went off in his head. Soon there'd be no getting out of this conversation. He ignored them and looked up anyway. “And Zilch."

  "Yes." Rowan nodded after a small pause, their face a calm, enigmatic neutral. Jay recognized that look. It was the same one he was focusing most of his attention on maintaining. "I'm hoping when Annie wakes up, and has had some time to recover, obviously, she can tell us more. Anything might be helpful to figure out where they are, even if she didn't realize at the time." They took a breath, spent a half-second to ensure their composure hadn't slipped. It mostly hadn't, except for the last sentence speeding up with excitement or maybe desperation. "Is that what you were going to ask?"

  Jay hesitated, holding very still. He held his breath too. The only way out of this now was to lie. Simple, fast, this would be over and he'd be back in his room before he knew it. Annie would still be asleep. And Rowan would still be here. Under this tree, waiting and keeping the fear out of their face, just like him. "No, not exactly. It was more about Ash."

  Rowan didn't respond right away. Their face remained relatively blank—but now it relaxed somewhat, tension fading and, for a moment, Jay was happily surprised. He'd expected something much worse. Anything would have been worse, really. But his relief didn't last long, because he soon realized where else he'd seen that face. Jay had only been in the library's infirmary once or twice when someone had come in with a terrible injury. Usually a burn. Rowan defaulted then to a calm, compassionate, professional mask that revealed nothing. It let both of them, Rowan and whoever looked on, function through a crisis. Reaction, emotion, even a breakdown—that all came later. And it almost always did.

  "Oh." Rowan's voice sounded as serene as the rest of them. Jay felt sick. "What about him?"

  “I wanted to ask her where he died,” he said as casually as he could, hating the words and hating that his voice sounded anything like Rowan’s unnatural calm. “Get an idea of everyone’s position while they were out.”

  “Oh,” Rowan said again, then paused and, for a moment, Jay thought that somehow, mercifully, that might be it. He’d just started to half-turn away when their voice stopped him again. “Why does it matter?”

  “I just want a clear picture,” Jay said, trying not to clench his teeth. “When and where.”

  “Because we know how.”

  The words hit like a punch to the center of his chest. Jay shut his eyes for a second. “Yeah. Yes we do.”

  “It was outside Meridian.” Rowan’s voice wasn’t calm anymore. It was flat, almost a mechanical monotone. People sometimes had a hard time telling where Rowan’s all-black eyes were focusing. Jay never really did and now was no different. They stared past him, maybe through him. At something
he could only guess at but didn’t really want to. “That’s what she said. They were almost there.”

  “Meridian…” Jay murmured. “That doesn’t make sense…”

  “What doesn’t?” Rowan asked, much more sharply than he would have expected from their near-trance.

  “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Jay realized his mistake much too late and quickly made a second one. The moment he took a step away, a flurry of hooves followed him and suddenly Rowan was in front of him instead of behind. Kicking himself inside for forgetting how fast Rowan could move—even, apparently, after looking near-catatonic with grief—Jay stopped and looked them in the eye. “You’re worrying about it, aren’t you?”

  “What doesn’t make sense about Meridian?” Rowan’s expression hadn’t changed much from its tight control from before but now their voice was just as tight. “We knew that’s where it happened already. Did you figure something else out?”

  “I’m not trying to get a position on Ash and Annie,” Jay said slowly, determined not to make a third mistake. For the first time, he found himself wishing Rowan wasn’t quite this quick, in several ways. It would make this a lot easier. They’d never had to match wits on anything before, and almost any reason would be better than this. “I’m trying to track Sharpe’s movements. So I needed to know when and where, that’s all.”

  That stopped Rowan for a second. Now Jay saw a change. They lowered their head very slightly, as if they wanted to charge something with their huge horns. Their jaw worked, as if they were clenching their teeth. Jay didn’t move. “We knew he was in Meridian too. Since they were. He’d have to be.”

  “Yeah,” Jay said quietly, wondering how in the hell he was going to get out of this. “So I just needed to confirm his starting point. So from there I could—”

  “You were going to ask Annie,” Rowan actually cut in, very quietly. “If Sharpe was really near Meridian?”

  He didn’t answer. His eyes went from the tree, the gently swinging hammock, Annie’s fingers curled around the cloth edge, back down to Rowan’s unbroken stare.