by Amanda Rose
Dr. Murakami had been a therapist for over 20 years. Over that time, he’d seen a staggering number of members out of the military in his office. The structure, the rules, and sometimes the fallout of situations gone bad, had brought people to him.
While the Saisei was an incredibly peaceful ship to live aboard, at least up until the insurrection, everyday happenings lead to emotional strife. Pilot error in training missions, dealing with the public, firearm malfunctions; despite the lack of war, inevitably challenging situations arose. Since the insurrection however, his schedule had been booked solid by military personnel and civilians alike, coping with the aftermath of the terror and loss.
Today in their session Gin spoke, albeit minimally. He made small talk and asked about the Bastion. Adonis had told him about what his visit had been like and had tried to describe the experience in as much detail as he could, all while studying Gin’s responses to the information he was receiving. Adonis was thrilled to note Gin’s interest in the Bastion when Gin had asked about it; to him it indicated progress, and a desire to move onto something new.
Dr. Murakami had been telling Gin about the agricultural features aboard the Bastion when he saw Gin’s gaze suddenly become distant. “Gin, what is it?” he asked, hoping to gain some insight.
Gin sat there silently, sitting in his thoughts. After several minutes, and with great effort, he found the words, “Rei… Private Davis, when I first met her she… she said she always wanted to be a botanist. She loved plants, but she just never had a green thumb. She said she killed every plant she ever tried to care for,” he smiled, and laughed awkwardly, but was clearly pained and his eyes welled up with tears. “She would’ve loved to have seen the Bastion…”
“I’m sure she would have,” Dr. Murakami said compassionately. “Tell me more about Rei.”
“We were on shift a lot together. Almost everyone who signs on to the military applies to be a pilot, but she was like me, she didn’t want to fly. She wanted to help people. And she was funny as hell, had a real great sense of humor… did the best impressions…” Gin trailed off.
“She sounded like a great person,” Adonis said kindly.
“She was,” Gin said, feeling flat.
“You know, it’s entirely normal to feel how you’re feeling,” Adonis said in all seriousness.
Gin looked at Adonis and felt angered, “Normal?” he asked, his voice venomous.
“Quite,” Adonis said nodding, “loss of life is one of the most challenging things to live through, it’s hard for our minds to accept that something that was always there is no longer here. Even more so when we felt a sense of obligation to protect the person who died.”
Gin said nothing. He felt guilt weighing heavily on him. Waves of anger, grief, and regret washed over him. He felt his saliva thickening, making him feel sick, and his eyes felt the string of encroaching tears.
“The hardest thing to accept,” Dr. Murakami continued, “Is that it’s not our fault. Our minds can accomplish the most brilliant things in life; even after all our technological advances, our brains are still the most advanced computers we know of. But like computers, our brains have an uncanny ability to process information. When we look back on an event, a trauma, something we ‘compute’ to be an error, our mind will go over and over it again and again in an attempt to see a solution to the problem. We mull it over again and again seeing all of the possible ways we could have changed the situation for a better outcome. But the problem and the outcome are done already complete and we can’t ‘reset’ our lives to try it again. It’s already happened, there’s no going back to change it,” Adonis explained.
Gin felt fear creep up on him at the thought of living like this endlessly, “How do I stop it?” he asked, his voice weak.
“We have to accept what’s happened to move on,” Adonis said simply.
“And how do I do that?” Gin asked, desperation in his voice.
“Forgive yourself, because it wasn’t your fault, and even if it had been, you can’t go back and change it. What’s done is done. If we don’t learn from the past then it was in vain, but if we can use what’s happened, no matter how hard it was to live through, we can create a better future. If we refuse to move on, that’s when we become doomed to repeat our mistakes.
“The only thing matters is right now, this moment. There’s a quote by an old philosopher: If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the moment. We have to choose to be present, to pull our thoughts back from drifting to the past or the future,” Adonis explained.
Dr. Murakami had a tendency to go on tangents, and it left Gin’s head spinning. His thoughts felt heavy, like trying to see through a thick fog. He tried to digest what Adonis had said. Create a better future… those words had jumped out at him, and he held onto them while the rest of what Adonis had said drifted away from him.
Gin looked Adonis dead in the eye, feeling as if a new life, a new purpose, had been breathed into him, “I’m ready.”
|
Raiden entered the Bastion’s docking bay, on his way heading back to the Saisei after yet another shore leave came to an end. He found himself continuously drawn to spend more and more time aboard the station. As he walked casually down the walkway towards the Saisei he noticed Captain Xan a few hundred feet away and began to head towards her. He hadn’t seen her since she’d first met him on the Bastion, and he felt compelled to thank her for her kindness.
As he drew closer to Xan, he noticed she was having luggage brought off of her ship. She was also out of her captain’s uniform, wearing causal fatigues. Her sleeveless top revealed her arms, beautiful hues of blue shimmering skin under the passing light of ships coming and going.
“Hey, Xan!” Raiden called when he got close.
She looked up to see him waving at her, “Oh, Raiden, hello!” she said, pleased to see him.
“I never got a chance to thank you for all of your help,” he said, a bit winded from his quickened pace to reach her.
She smiled, “Just part of my job. But in any case, you’re welcome.”
“I haven’t seen you since we first met,” he said, probing for more.
“My job was in the skies, helping the traffic. Travel here is, well, I’m sure you’ve seen just how busy it gets,” she said, indicating all of the ships that flew past them.
“It’s a wonder anyone can stay on top of it. Taking a vacation?” he asked, pointing to her luggage.
“Hmm? Oh, no. I’ve been accepted into the elite Black Shadow,” she said, a hint of pride in her voice.
“Black Shadow?” Raiden asked.
“I keep forgetting how new you are here. The Black Shadow are handpicked soldiers for the Conclave. They are selected as the best of the best and granted special privileges and resources. Essentially, they are the eyes and ears of the Conclave. There are less than 100 Black Shadow soldiers at any given time,” she explained with excitement in her voice.
“Wow, that’s amazing. Congratulations!” Raiden said, extending his hand to shake hers.
She stared at his hand, unsure what to do, “What are you doing?”
“Oh, uh, haha, sorry guess this is a human thing. We shake hands, sometimes as a greeting, other times to relay thanks or best wishes. May I?” He asked, looking to her hand.
“OK,” Xan said, her curiosity aroused.
Raiden took her hand in his, squeezed it firmly, and then began to shake. She picked up on his rhythm and shook back. He smiled at her, “Yup, you got it”
“Interesting. I think I liked it,” she said, and they released their grip.
“So, are you moving onto the Bastion then?” he asked.
“No, well temporarily I will, but I’ll be assigned my own ship. We serve the Conclave, and in order for the Conclave to serve the people best, they need to have sight beyond that of the station,” she said.
Raiden nodded, “That makes sense.�
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“I’m sorry I can’t stay to talk longer, but I’m due to report in shortly,” she said.
“That’s OK, I need to get back to my ship anyways. Congratulations again, you deserve it,” he said, and began to walk off.
“Goodbye,” he heard her call front behind, and he turned to wave goodbye.
As Raiden walked back to the Saisei he couldn’t help but let his imagination run wild with thoughts about the Black Shadow division. It seemed so secretive, powerful, and seductive. It was also an incredibly prestigious honor to be chosen to join the ranks of them. He wondered what kinds of missions they went on.
After boarding the Saisei, and signing onto the system, he headed towards the army barracks to change his clothes. The hallways along the way were teeming with excited visitors. He passed by a group of Veick who had just come out of the concourse, each carrying shopping bags full of treasured items. Raiden smiled at them as he passed by, but they were so enraptured by their experience they hardly noticed him. Somehow that made Raiden even happier, This is incredible, he thought, loving every second of intermingling with new races.
Once Raiden opened the door to his quarters he felt his fatigue catch up to him. How long since I slept? He wondered. He remembered he went aboard the Bastion 2 days prior in the evening, and he’d stayed at a hotel the first night. But last night he had been too excited to sleep. He knew how fast the shore leave time slipped by and didn’t want to waste a second. It made it easier to avoid sleeping when the Bastion never slept either; shops stayed open and people walked around at all hours.
He looked at the clock, and it was only mid-afternoon, but he could feel his bunk beckoning him to come to it. He took off his jacket and flung it onto the floor as he walked toward the bed. He thought about taking his pants off, but he was so tired, he just ended up crawling into bed with them on. It normally took him a long time to fall asleep, but in that moment, under the warm sheets, he drifted off quickly feeling pure contentment.
A few hours later Raiden came to, and while it hadn’t been long, he felt fully rested. He went to the bathroom, stripped of his clothes and got into the shower. The warm water was invigorating. He had gotten used to long showers aboard the Bastion and luxuriating in the experience. While the Saisei’s water reserves were full, aboard the ship he could never bring himself to take a long shower.
As he got out, and toweled off, he could feel his stomach grumbling. He checked the time, and it was almost 1800 hours. He quickly finished drying off, and got dressed in fresh clothes, then left his quarters to head down the hall to ask Freya to come to dinner.
The past few weeks they hadn’t seen much of each other. The duty shifts were constantly changing, and fervently kept full staff to keep an eye on the visiting aliens. On top of that with regular shore leave, and Raiden maximizing his free time on the Bastion, their schedules had rarely lined up. He wasn’t sure if she was on duty, but her room was on the way to the mess hall, and he never enjoyed eating alone.
Raiden walked up to her door, “Hey, Freya, you home?” he asked, giving a quick knock on the door, and then tried to open the door to let himself in as usual. It was unlocked, and he felt happy knowing she was home. As the door opened, he kept talking, “I thought we could grab dinner…” he stopped dead in his tracks.
Koji and Freya had been in the middle of having intercourse on her bed, and Freya was clamoring to pull a blanket over them. “Raiden, what the hell? Get the fuck out!” she yelled at him, red faced. She was clearly angry about the intrusion and slightly embarrassed.
“I, um, shit, sorry,” Raiden said and stumbled back out of the room awkwardly, closing the door. Raiden just stood in the hallway staring dumbfounded at the door for a moment. After a few people walked past and gave him strange stares he shook it off and started to head towards the mess hall.
He had known Koji and Freya had been seeing each other, and while he knew that had meant they’d been having sexual relations it was entirely another thing to see it firsthand. While he’d only seen the naked entanglement for a second before Freya had hastily covered up, it was as if the image had burned into his mind.
Freya had been upright on top of Koji, her body blocking him from view. Freya’s back faced Raiden when he’d walked into the room, shiny with sweat, and contorting as her body moved. When she’d heard him and turned briefly to see him her face was full of shock, and he’d seen her breasts for an instant, luxuriously pale cream with pink nipples. Her sling had been off, and the bandage as well; the healing gunshot wound bright red and painful looking from the heightened blood flow.
Raiden had seen Freya naked before plenty of times in the locker rooms as they’d prepared for missions. But to see her with Koji, he felt a tug-of-war between lust, disgust, and jealousy. It’s Freya for fuck sake’s, what’s wrong with you? She’s like your sister! He could hear his rational mind yell at him. But she’s not your sister…
By the time Raiden walked into the mess hall his appetite had completely vanished. He thought about going back to his quarters but didn’t feel like being alone. So instead he kept walking to try to clear his head.
Eventually he ended up in the atrium. He took a seat on a bench that faced the expansive windows. Groups of people walked by, many alien visitors marveling at one of the most prominent visually alluring spaces on the whole of the Saisei. Outside of the window he could see the docks and the vast amount of people coming and going from the station. It was strange, after a lifetime of this room facing nothing but open space, to feel so confined. But despite the lack of a celestial view, he felt at peace.
It dawned on him that this was one of the few times in his life he hadn’t felt gripped with concern on some level. As the last harbor for humanity, a single ship drifting through what seemed like endless space, their very existence had always seemed to be teetering on a knife’s edge. Why’d they only send one ship? Was a question he always asked himself. Wouldn’t it have been safer to send multiple ships? Wouldn’t humanity have had a better chance to survive?
As a child in school he’d remembered asking his teachers about it. He never got a concrete answer, although one of his teachers had conjectured, “I think it came down to time and resources. Building this ship was a monumental task on a planet on the brink of collapse. It’s a wonder they were even able to build the Saisei.” It was the only well thought out answer he found acceptable, though it did little to allay his concerns.
Now sitting here in the atrium, knowing human beings were moving aboard the Bastion, and a few travelling to other worlds, he felt like he could finally breathe deeply. Now, even if the Saisei fell to some calamity, humanity would live on. He let out a long exhale.
Raiden had always felt the need to take responsibility for the ship. It was one of the reasons he tried so hard and applied himself without reserve. As much relief as he felt knowing humanities future was secure, he also felt at a loss. Now what? He asked himself. I don’t know…
|
“…with so much commotion some minor theft was to be expected. Thank you for handling it so swiftly, and for keeping me updated,” Norita spoke into the comm.
“Not a problem,” General Takeo Yamamoto’s voice responded over the speaker. “Honestly, I’d expected it to be worse. Things have been rather smooth overall.”
“Any other updates?” Norita asked.
“We got the report from the Conclave in response to our query about Link Rose’s ship, about wormhole activity for the time period’s we requested.”
“That’s great!” Norita exclaimed.
“Well, not really,” Takeo responded.
Norita heart sunk, “What do you mean? What did they say?”
“The wormhole never opened,” he said.
“What?!”
“That’s what I said. They have dedicated logs and sensors over this entire region. The wormhole never opened, and no ship ever came through,” he told her.
“It just doesn’t seem possible,” Norita sa
id, sounding defeated.
“The only thing that their sensors picked up on were some temporal anomalies around the wormhole during that time. It’s not much to go on, and maybe it’s nothing, but I’ve forwarded the information to Dr. Takei and his team to investigate further,” Takeo informed her.
“Thank you. Well, I need to get going, I’ll be in touch for our next check in tomorrow. Goodbye,” Norita told him, and clicked her comm off.
Just then a knock came to the door which startled Norita out of deep thought. She walked over hastily and opened it to find Merrick standing before her.
“Oh, Councilor Uda,” she said, surprised.
Merrick stood before her, his calm energy emanating, “Please, you know I’m not for formalities any more than you are.”
