Shalia's Diary #7

by Tracy St. John

  Something cold and wet swept over my face. I yelped and shoved it away.

  Resan sat next to me with what looked like a tissue in his hand. I recognized the antiseptic wipe he held, having spent far too much time in Medical.

  “Where did you find that?” I asked, taking the proffered wipe and rubbing it carefully over my face. It was soon covered in drying, sticky blood. I’d spouted a fountain, all right.

  He gestured to the first aid kit he’d brought over. “It was in the survival case I was pulling out to take to the escape shuttle I’m assigned to.” He spoke with an emotionless voice as he pulled out more wipes. He tried cleaning his hands, but they were still bleeding too much for it to do much good. He grabbed a spray dispenser and soaked his hands with the liquid inside it. I figured it must be an antibiotic coagulant.

  I continued to mop up the blood that covered my face, arms, and legs. Some of the cuts were deep, but most were not. I’d gotten lucky. I checked the bump on the back of my head. It didn’t seem to have bled, but boy was it ever big.

  “Two hits on the head?” Resan asked. He finished wrapping gauze around his palms and up to the first knuckles of his fingers. “Let me see.”

  I tipped my head forward to let him investigate. I knew he wasn’t doing it to be nice. Resan was in duty mode, being a fleet officer with a responsibility to the civilian in his care. The bored official tone said it all.

  “That’s big, but no sign of broken skin. Let me see your eyes. Double or blurred vision? Nausea?”

  “No,” I said. “It just hurts. Your eye looks terrible.” I was forced to look at the black and blue swollen mess in front of my face.

  “It’s just an impact injury. It doesn’t feel like anything got in it. How is my other eye? Is the pupil overly dilated? In this amount of light, it should be about halfway between slit and wide.”

  I peered at him. “I think you’re okay.”

  “Check your abdomen for signs of bleeding. I’m assuming nothing feels internally damaged?”

  “Nope.” I looked anyway. We were an official pair, cataloging how much trouble we were in physically. “I look okay.”

  “As do I. Let me see your back.”

  I turned away, trying to lift the back of my top. I hissed as pain doubled. Resan had to raise it for me.

  He sounded impressed. “That is a lot of bruising. You took a huge impact from a falling panel. I can’t believe it didn’t shatter your spine. At the least you should have a couple of broken ribs. Any shortness of breath?”

  I shook my head. “No. All the pain feels like it’s on the surface.”

  “You got lucky.”

  I turned around as he rooted in the first aid kit. “It could be we’re stuck in here for a while depending on how bad a hit the rest of the ship took. We’ll have to ration our supplies just to be safe. Take half a tab for the pain.”

  I did so, letting it dissolve on my tongue. Then we sat there and stared at each other for a few seconds. I have no idea what Resan was thinking. My thoughts were on how it was so Shalia-typical that I would be trapped injured in a room with the one person I despised above all others on the ship. A man who disliked me every bit as much.

  There were more important things to worry with, however. I spoke of the uppermost consideration on my mind. “My com.”

  Resan nodded and got to his feet. “Let’s find it.”

  He was the one who unearthed it several feet from where I’d regained consciousness. I clicked Betra’s frequency. Nothing. I tried Oses. Nothing. I tried Katrina, Candy, and Medical. Nothing.

  We were cut off from whoever was left on the ship. I was cut off from Anrel with no idea if she was all right.

  We spent a couple of hours clearing some of the floor space so we’d have a place to sit or lie down without danger of shredding our already torn bodies. We also cleared more of the doorway since we assumed that was where eventual rescue would show up. Resan was more careful and took his time now that he knew we had a wait ahead of us. I noticed how he winced as he used his bandaged hands. No doubt he regretted his rash actions before.

  There wasn’t much else to do besides catalog what was in the emergency case. In a room that focused on physical training equipment, much of which was trashed or buried under the wreckage, we had nothing but what that small case provided. There were little things meant for basic survival on a planet or moon: rope, a folded tarp, and a lighter. A lot of the rations were water, the most important thing one needed for survival. It was a safe bet that lunch had come and gone, so I was glad to see nutrient pouches. My stomach growled. I reached for one.

  Resan blocked my hand. “We need to ration this carefully. We don’t know when help is coming.”

  I counted the packs. “There’s enough for us to have decent meals for three days. If they don’t get us out of here in that amount of time, no one is coming.” The thought made my stomach twist.

  “No one from this ship, if it takes that long,” he grudgingly agreed. “But we need to be able to hold out longer if that’s the case. The Empire is sending more destroyers, which will reach us in three days’ time last I heard.”

  “See? There you go.” I shoved at his hand.

  He shoved back. “It could take them even longer to get us out depending on how many others are holed up like we are. For all we know, we could be in here a week.”

  A week alone with Resan? With no idea if Anrel was alive? I’d go insane.

  “So what are you proposing? Two meals a day? One? We have to eat sometime,” I snarled. My mood wasn’t helped by the fact that I’d worked out hard with the jerk before everything went to hell. I consumed calories like air these days. Remembering my huge breakfast that morning only made me hungrier.

  “Two. Morning and evening. Whenever they are.” Resan scowled at the bare metal wall that had once held a chronometer.

  “Great. We don’t even know when is when. How can we keep track of the time to eat?” I knew my rising temper wasn’t helping matters. It’s hard to be sensible when you’re scared, worried, and hungry. And hurting. My pain relief was wearing off, and my back screeched. The suckage meter had gone into the red and was on the verge of pegging it.

  “If I have to listen to you whine for days on end, I will cut my throat,” Resan griped. “Thank the ancestors I still have my knife. Even if we can’t hack our way through metal doors and walls, I can at least escape that way.”

  “Good. More food for me. I support your sacrifice.” I stomped away to the farthest clear corner of our little hellhole. The count of pain tabs had shown half a dose twice a day would see me through four days. I’d have to ration those too.

  We sank into sullen silence. We couldn’t even look at each other. Rescue needed to come sooner rather than later. Even if we didn’t ration, I didn’t think both of us would survive to finish off the pain meds or food.

  Sadly enough, we’re both sentient beings. I don’t know of a self-aware creature capable of remaining silent when there is someone else to talk to and nothing else to do. We started making comments to each other not because we wanted to hear our companion’s voice – but because it was of some comfort to hear our own.

  We started with obvious remarks:

  “Since everything is quiet, the attack must be over. At least for the moment.”

  “Life support is still on. That’s a good sign.”

  “We’ll have to listen for any signs of people outside the door. Medical is close by, so it’s likely we’ll hear some traffic.”

  “If we’ve been boarded, at least they’ll have as hard a time getting in here as we are getting out.”

  From there, terse interchanges began:

  “This section’s armory isn’t far off.”

  “I know. I pass it every day coming here.”

  “Climate controls are working.”

  “You think?”

  “If they weren’t, we’d know. The hull is all metal. This room would be a meat locker.”

  �
��Good to know. Resan, what are you doing?” I frowned at him as he picked at the shards of panels near him, tossing them in piles according to their sizes. “We have plenty of room to stretch out and sleep when the time comes. You’re going to cut yourself up again.”

  “As if you care for my well-being. Or is it that you feel sick at the sight of blood?” he snarked.

  “No, just your face.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re one to talk. What small amount of attractiveness you possessed is lost in the mess of your injuries.”

  I knew I had some swelling and bruising going on with my face, but that was true of my whole body. “As if I wanted to be attractive to you.”

  “Trust me, you’re not. Which brings me back to the question I asked before everything went to shit. How could you tell Weapons Commander Oses I desired you?” His lip curled to show me how repugnant he found the idea.

  My earlier hysteria was nowhere in evidence. I hurt too much to laugh about anything. “I never told him that. I told him you harassed me. That whole business of stroking yourself while talking about humiliating me – out of bounds. Strictly out of bounds.”

  Resan stared at me with his one good eye. “Why?”

  I stared back in shock. Was he kidding me? Apparently not, because his expression remained serious. “Have you not paid attention to anything about Earther women? Do you know nothing we went through under our former government?”

  He shrugged. “Tales here and there. Allegations of suppression. Unequal rights. Subservience. I don’t find your kind that interesting, so I can’t say I’ve taken much note.”

  I shook my head. “You’re on a ship transporting ‘my kind’ to your home world. How can you not take an interest in that?”

  Resan yawned, whether for effect or because he was genuinely tired, I couldn’t say. “My interest is in getting injured soldiers back on their feet. My interest is in keeping them in top condition for their next fight. I didn’t sign on to babysit weak Earthers who are stupid enough to blow up their own planet.”

  “That was my government,” I said. “A bunch of fanatical tyrants and oppressors with the might to keep the rest of us afraid. The typical Earther never would have done what they did.”

  “So you say. It still doesn’t explain why you take such offense to what I did.”

  “Have you ever been raped, Resan? Threatened with execution if you didn’t agree to have sex with a man who had the authority to make it happen? On a daily basis?”

  He went still, staring at me. His one good eye blinked a couple of times.

  With no change in his expression, Resan finally spoke. “I will not make such sexual gestures to you again. Which I already agreed to with the weapons commander.”

  That was it. No apology. No expression of sympathy. Just a matter-of-fact declaration. All I got was an ‘I have heard your complaint and am sorry you feel that way’ statement.

  Asshole. And through the conversation, he kept sorting debris. I hoped he’d cut his damned hands off. That would permanently cure him of making rude gestures.

  My temper was on the rise again. It wanted an avenue to spew down, and Resan’s cleaning was as good a route as any. “Does Captain Wotref give out good housekeeping awards to his crew?” I asked. “Will he be proud of your tidy chaos when we’re found?”

  “It’s something to do,” Resan said. “It passes the time. Besides, I prefer order ... and people who toe the line, do their duty, and don’t lay around goofing off.”

  I just happened to be lying down on my side at the moment, trying to take as much pressure off my back as possible. I took the goofing off comment personally. “What about conserving strength because we’re on short rations? Not to mention if a bunch of Tragooms come busting in here, ready to tear us apart. What about that?”

  “What about shutting up for two fucking seconds?” Resan threw a middling-sized shard of panel towards the wall and hissed. He shook his hand, apparently in pain. Just as I’d thought he might, the idiot had cut himself again. Droplets of blood flew from a couple of fingers.

  I managed not to smile. Somehow.

  I thought I might have a small part of the answer as to why I blindly detested Resan. He was too damned rigid in his thinking. The compulsive straightening he did for no good reason was a sign of his devotion to order.

  I thought about how things had gone between us from the moment I started physical therapy. Resan constantly harped on doing things a certain way, with no deviations allowed. Come to think of it, until the room turned to shambles he’d kept it in spotless order.

  I like to think I’m not a slob. I keep my quarters pretty tidy. But I’m not devoted to having things put away, my tables and shelves occasionally have a bit of dust, and I sometimes have to spend time locating items like my com or handheld computer.

  I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover Resan’s entire life was regimented, running on schedule. If I ran even just a few seconds late getting to his training class, I heard about it. Loudly. With lots of profanity. Let’s face it; I’m not the kind of gal who always obeys the clock. Especially not since Anrel came along. Babies make any routine a joke.

  I’m sure it’s not just our differing opinions on cleanliness and time management that keeps us at each other’s throats. No, there is a visceral hatred there that knows no logic. But I think I just discovered a major component of irritation.

  Along with the fact that Dramok Resan is a straight-up asshole.

  That’s why what happened a couple hours later is so un-fucking-fathomable to me. I must be insane. Feru needs to lock me up and throw away the key.

  How can I even admit to this? I should pretend it never happened. Except it did. Prophets help me, it did.

  Resan and I started arguing again. No surprise there. I wanted to eat and take pain medication. I was reasonably sure dinner time had arrived. My stomach felt hollowed out. My back shrieked misery. Asshole told me it wasn’t anywhere near time for either bit of relief. I accused him of being a sadistic shit bent on torturing me. And so it went, our voices rising louder and louder, the curses getting more brutal, the insults uglier.

  Resan started throwing nutrient pouches and pain tabs at me. “Here, you shrill little bitch! Take it all! Do me a favor and fucking choke on it!”

  I was out of my head with fury. I took the half of a tab due me and had a full one on top of it. “Damned straight I’ll take it all! Watch me, you hateful shithead!”

  I pulled open a nutrient pouch and swallowed its mealy contents within seconds. Any other time I might have compared it to wet sawdust, but at that moment it was as good as champagne and caviar. I tore open another pouch and consumed it too.

  The tabs performed their magic. For the first time in hours, my back stopped hurting. My head stopped hurting. Everything stopped hurting. Oh my gosh, it was such a relief.

  Not to mention shoveling a form of food into my gut. The reprieve from pain and being fed made me damned near giddy. I was high on rage as well. Resan had pushed me as he always did until I was recklessly infuriated and determined to fuck him over. I tore open a third pouch and squeezed a big portion of its contents into my mouth.

  Resan decided I might very well try to eat all our rations. He came after the still-full pouches littered all around my feet. “You stupid cunt! Stop eating all our food!”

  If there’s a ruder word to call a woman, I don’t know it. Was I angry before? Not compared to how pissed off I was at that point.

  The instant Resan got close, I spit the mouthful of nutrient in his face. Then I slapped his face, catching the undamaged side. What the hell, he might look better if he matched.

  As his mouth dropped open in a soul satisfying expression of shock, I put my training with Oses to use. I hooked Resan’s ankle and put him on his ass.

  Triumph lit me up like fireworks. Unfortunately, it was much too soon to celebrate. Resan had barely hit the floor when he grabbed hold of me and yanked me down on top of him with a furious
yell.

  It shouldn’t have been an even match. Actually, it wasn’t. But it was close. Resan had lost a lot of blood and was weaker than usual. His hands were lumps of pain under the bandages. Plus some remnant of duty kept him from trying to actually hurt a woman. Resan pushed, shook, and cursed, but he didn’t hit me.

  I no longer hurt, thanks to the pain inhibitors. I had no compunction about taking out on him the overwhelming anger and fear I felt. I punched and kicked at will.

  He was still a lot bigger and stronger than me. We wrestled and screamed, struggling against each other in an outburst of weeks-old loathing.

  I’m still not sure how it turned into – damn it, do I have to say it? My whole being wants to deny it. Yet I can’t lie to myself. One moment my fists were raining down on Resan’s shoulders, my feet digging at the floor in an effort to launch myself away from him. He sat on the floor, and I’d ended up sitting on his thighs. His hands had hold of my upper arms, trying to control me. We were nose to nose, shrieking wordless fury in each other’s faces.