by Drew Avera
Chapter 13
“Guilty.”
The word hung in the air around her, lacing its way around her neck and choking the life out of her. She knew before taking her first step that morning that she would be found guilty, that she was guilty, but the sting of it almost brought her to tears. She fought them away, swallowing the knot in her throat, and stood as tall as her weak knees would allow her. Calibri felt a small amount of relief as the ship came out from under thrust and the gravitational forces on the ship were at a minimum. If not for the mag-boots, she thought she might float away.
“Do you understand the sentencing against you?” Captain Tyrone asked.
“Yes, sir,” she said through her teeth, barely capable of opening her mouth fully because fear made her keep her jaw clenched.
“Very well. Master at Arms, will you place the EVA helmet onto her head?”
“Yes, sir,” the man barked behind her. Calibri couldn’t help but feel there was a sense of satisfaction in the man’s voice as he slapped the helmet into the place, the loud popping sound hurting her ears as it locked into place. Her first response was to ask the man who he thought he was dealing with, but her sentencing effectively demoted her from having any authority in the Navy. She was no one at all anymore. “Done, sir.”
“Thank you,” the captain replied, a grim look etched on his face as Calibri looked at him. “Take her to the airlock.”
Calibri felt the man tug at her upper arm, dragging her backwards. She stumbled at first, before falling into step next to him. She could hear her mag-boots clacking against the deck with each step as the sound reverberated through her EVA suit, echoing in the small space between her ears and the liner of the helmet. The sound distracted her as she walked, giving her something to focus on other than the airlock looming ahead. When she finally looked up, she noticed the gaping opening was large enough for small vessels to be transferred from ship to ship. As she recalled, it wasn’t the same airlock used when she first boarded the Krylex. The captain could have put me in the maintenance airlock, she thought, but this is the only space large enough to have the crew watch. I’m assuming that was his plan.
The Master at Arms shoved her across the blue-painted line of the deck that correlated with where the airlock doors would cycle closed. The paint was fresh and easily identifiable. She wondered if it was a coincidence, or if it was freshly painted for her sentencing. She doubted any of the crew would want to clean up the remains of a human body crushed by two-tons of steel clamping shut. On her side of the line she watched the crew close in on her position. The captain stood in the center of the semicircle, his dour face showing nothing more than the sense that he wanted to get this over with and move on with life. Strangely, she felt the same way, though her life would slowly come to an end as the EVA suit ran out of air. That was perhaps more cruel than sending her out with nothing at all.
“Do you have any last words?” Captain Tyrone asked.
Surprised at being given a second opportunity to speak, she glared at him through the scratched up windscreen of her EVA suit. Of course they wouldn’t send me to my death with a serviceable helmet. “I’m not ashamed of what I did and I think anyone else in the same position as me would have followed their hearts and done the same.”
“Really? I happen to know many people in the same position as you who obeyed orders, obeyed policies, and obeyed the laws of our society. Your sentiment of following your heart is a poison to our people. Relationships were not issued to you by our military. We have regulations regarding that because it is what’s best for the people we serve. You may believe what you are saying, but what you believe is wrong, and that is why we are here today.”
Calibri heard the crew muttering amongst themselves as the captain spoke. She wondered how many of them felt the way she did, wishing for someone to love to counteract the loneliness of military life. In the end, it didn’t matter what the rest of them thought, her life was forfeit regardless. “One day, I hope that isn’t the case,” she replied.
Captain Tyrone nodded. “It’s a day none of us will ever see.” He cut his eyes to the Master at Arms and she immediately felt the whirring of a motor under the deck as the airlock doors cycled. The opening between her and the rest of the crew slowly closed as she stood there in the large void, the outer airlock, still latched behind her. The safety of being on the ship would soon be gone, and she would be thrust into the darkest beyond, outside of inhabited space. The only thing she could hope for now was a beautiful view as her life faded away, floating in vacuum for eternity. Calibri looked out at Captain Tyrone, noticing his eyes were closed for a moment before he opened them and stared at her. There was a small nod, she noticed, before the giant doors fully closed. She had no idea what the nod might have meant, but it was the least of her worries and the lighting inside the void changed from green to red. The pressure inside the airlock changed, lowering to the point she felt her ears pop. Calibri knew what was about to happen and unconsciously lifted her hand and pressed it against the inner airlock door, feeling the hum of the engines gyrate inside the hull, sending the vibrations through all of the surfaces of the ship. She took a deep breath, inhaling the artificial air pouring into her helmet. It was cold, and breathing so deeply gave her the beginnings of a headache. The red lights flashed—once, twice, three times—and then the difference in pressure tore Calibri away from the Krylex and out into the darkness.
She screamed, and her hands clamored for something to hold onto, a wiring harness, a lip in the bulkhead, a light fixture, anything, but it was all for naught. By time she could think to reach for anything, she was hurling away from the ship, spinning counterclockwise to the ship’s position and watching it grow smaller as it left her behind. Her voice echoed in her head, and she was thankful there was no radio in her headset, because her screams falling to an uncaring ear would make things worse. After several seconds, she stopped, her voice hoarse and her breathing ragged. The logical part of her mind thought that her unregulated breathing would make her run out of air faster, causing her to panic more; her broken heart urged it to happen because she knew she would die anyway and she might as well get it over with. As she spun slowly in the dark void, she looked at out the great expanse and saw the stars and celestial bodies for the first time when not confined to a gravity well or from a monitor. She knew the distant star still possessed enough power to kill her despite her being able to cover it up with her thumb when she placed her gloved hand in front of her face. This is why we are insignificant, she thought between heavy, self-damning breaths.
Calibri finally grew tired of intentionally draining her oxygen and quietly waited for the darkness to consume her. I’m ready—just take me now so I don’t have to wait. With that thought, she felt the tug of something pulling her backwards. It felt like falling, but there was nothing to make her move in the vast nothingness of her existence. She closed her eyes, reaching mentally for a prayer to say goodbye to her short life, but she came up empty. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe God could exist, but she felt so defeated she had no reason to justify why he or she would care that Calibri’s life was over. Her thoughts moved away from what she did not know and to the one thing in her life she thought really mattered.
Luke.
Why did I let myself fall for him? Why did I do what I knew was wrong in order to be with him?
That’s easy. Because I love him and it’s genuine. I just wish I could have lived the rest of my life with him. The irony that she actually had done so, since she was about to die, was not lost on her, but it felt a cruel joke in a life where very little of what she had done was because she wanted to. How many of my life decisions were my own?
Calibri closed her eyes and waited for the stale air in her helmet to run out. She no longer felt the cold rush of generated oxygen moving past her face and tickling her nose. Now, the air was warmer and unsatisfying. That’s because I’m poisoning myself each time I exhale.
The harder she thought of Luk
e, the more she imagined his arms wrapping around her. She felt his arms close around her arms, his hands gripping her shoulders and the warmth of his body pressed against her back. She felt his chin rest on her shoulder as he squeezed her tightly in his grip, but it wasn’t passion she felt in those arms. It was desperation.
“Calibri?”
She heard his voice. It was distant sounding, but it sounded as real as it ever had.
“Calibri?”
She wanted to answer, but she didn’t want the disappointment of allowing herself to have hope that she would not die alone.
“Calibri?”
She turned, but not by her own power. Was it God?
Before her, she saw the harsh, bright light of an EVA suit’s flashlight burning into her visor. Her eyes teared up as the miniature sun scorched her retinas. The warmth of human contact flooded through her body, and it no longer felt like her imagination, though she knew it was impossible. Perhaps I’m already dead.
“Calibri?”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m dead, so I don’t know.”
She heard the voice say something else, but she could not make it out. She realized it was because the other person’s helmet was no longer pressed against her own. Why would God require an EVA suit?
Calibri felt herself being pulled by the entity before her, but the farther they moved in the darkness, the more light she saw, despite heading away from the star behind her. Through the fluttering of her eyelids as she fought to go to the eternal sleep, she realized she was inside an airlock, but it was not the one on the Krylex, it was a different one, smaller, less intimidating. She sensed the chamber pressurize, her ears wanting to pop, but instead she felt as if she was holding her breath and was closed off from the world of the living. She gave into it, closing her eyes for the last time. “Calibri?”
She heard her name spoken in Luke’s voice. It sounded like an answered prayer.
“Calibri?”
She barely opened her eyes, canting her head towards the sound of the voice. Before she was aware of anything else, she noticed she was no longer in her EVA suit. That startled her more than anything. She startled up in the bed she was lying on and looked around desperately. “What? Where am I?”
“Calibri?”
She turned and saw him. “Luke? Oh my God. What are you doing here?” She realized at that moment she had no idea where “here” was.
“I’m saving you,” he said.
“What? How?” She looked around more and realized she was in a medical bay on a transport ship. She had no idea which one, but she was relieved to no longer be in the darkness.
“I gave up my commission and asked for transport off the Krylex. Captain Tyrone didn’t seem very happy about it, but he had to let me go. Civilians aren’t allowed on naval vessels. I was able to secure a transport and convince the crew to follow the Krylex until your sentencing was carried out.”
Calibri heard every word he said, but she had trouble making sense of it. She was supposed to be dead, and this felt like a miracle.
Luke took her hand in his and inched himself closer to her, his lips inches from hers. “I gave it up for you because I love you,” he said, his lips touching hers in a gentle kiss. She gave herself over to him, reaching her hand around his neck and pulling him closer. Luke collapsed his body onto her bed, wrapping his arms around her just as she had imagined while waiting for her oxygen to run out. But she no longer had to worry about dying. She was too busy thinking about the life she wanted to live and the man she wanted to share it with. For the first time in her life, she was going to choose for herself.
The End
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Chapter 1: Anki
Each step drew her closer to war, but it was better than waiting for death to kiss her lips and take her breath away with the fiery exhale of a Greshian war vessel. Anki grew up under a regime of fear, not of her own society, but the one coming for them. A childhood wrought from propaganda and secondhand hate formed the woman she would become, but Anki thought of it as strength forged over years of vilifying the Greshian populace. She had never met one of their kind before. The only images she had seen were constructed from pieces of newsfeeds spread across the Alorian stars. Muddled and grainy, those images showed a ghostly flesh-bound entity with seemingly god-like power. Physically, the Greshians did not appear to be much different than her people, but the seeds of contempt painted them as devils nonetheless. Was she prepared to stand face-to-face with the killers of worlds? It was what she yearned for, to stop the enemy in his tracks and proclaim herself the hero. It was not a romanticized notion of bravery that led her to enlist, but the realistic threat of annihilation that made her want to ship out on the next vessel towards the other side of the Alorian Galaxy and give her life to protect Luthia if necessary. Anki was not naïve enough to romanticize death, but she did not fear it either. As the old idiom went, it was what it was.
The moon started to set over Port Carreo, the largest naval port on Luthia. The area was surrounded by water, with giant pillars reaching towards the sky where the ships mated with Luthia to transfer goods without needing to enter the atmosphere. Where the pillars ended was an optical illusion, but Anki often wondered what it would be like to stand on the umbilical and look down upon the world she had never stepped foot off of. It was a dream of hers to take off and look out at Luthia as it grew smaller, less significant to the naked eye than it was when her feet were planted firmly on the ground. But the appeal of seeing the beautiful sphere of her world against a black canvas dotted with stars was pale in comparison to the reason she would ultimately leave her world behind. There was little doubt that she could behold beauty with a war going on, so she buried that desire deep inside and fought the urge to think about it again.
The political climate was evolving every day, and the latest news from the front lines sent a chill down Anki’s spine. The video feed portrayed a world afire, one so far off in the distance that its burn could not be registered without the aid of telescopes and graphic generators despite the perpetual night this time of year on Luthia. Still, there was a sense of doubt that such horrors could be displayed, even for the misdeeds of the hellish pale demons of the Greshian Empire. Luthia had been on the fence about standing up to the Greshians in the beginning, but doing nothing eventually led to choosing sides and with the loss of so many worlds during the Alorian Wars, it was only a matter of time before Luthia felt the burn of indecision.
Sweat poured from Anki’s black hair as she continued her run, her heart beating in her chest hard enough to cause her ears to ring, but she still had several meters to go before she finished her training for the day. She couldn’t afford to be seen as weak, not with her job in the Luthian Navy. Professional killers were as numerous as the stars, but ones with her specialty were a much rarer gem. Luthia had invested in a living weapon, training Anki to take the fight to Greshia or some outlying system, to end the massacre before it spread across the rest of the Alorian Galaxy. It was take the fight to them or worse, having the war in the Luthian system, threatening the lives of every soul on their solitary world. Even with all of her training nothing was guaranteed. If she had any hope for deployment, then she needed to be at the top of her game. War was coming one way or another, but Anki wanted to meet it halfway. The thought tended to bring a smile to her face.
A smaller version of her com-unit, a black and silver band strapped around her wrist, chirped to let her know she had an incoming message. Without breaking stride, she accepted the message swiping her finger across the acrylic glass and a holographic image of her superior, Sergeant Malla
ra, greeted her. “Good evening, Sergeant Anki Paro. You are receiving this message to let you know there will be a briefing in the morning and your presence is required. Please arrive with a travel bag in hand.” The message ended abruptly and Anki suddenly realized she had stopped running and instead was standing on the track panting for air. She didn’t know if it was nerves about her potential deployment, or if her attention span didn’t allow for physical exertion and life-changing news to be processed simultaneously. It was frustrating either way and she silently chided herself for relenting with the exercise regardless of how brief it had been.
She closed the connection on her com-unit before the message started playing again. This was the fourth mandatory briefing in as many weeks and each time she thought she would be sent out on a vessel to put her skill set to proper use. Each of those times she was sent back to her dorm, disappointed. Still, it stood to reason that eventually she would get the call she had been waiting on ever since she arrived at Port Carreo. A girl could hope, at least.
Anki started running again, this time with a second wind and thoughts about what it might mean to finally deploy. Her thoughts drifted to her father, the only member of her family still talking to her. She knew that the stress of her joining the Luthian Navy was a burden threatening to send him to an early grave. But she also knew he was proud of her and knew what she was capable of. It was the Paro blood in her veins that made her compete so aggressively with herself, and others. If he was honest, her father knew it was his fault that she took after him. It was a bond that could never break. No matter how far out in the Alorian Galaxy she might find herself.
The moon crept up the sky and a chill formed around her. There was a storm brewing and the cold front was pushing it inland. If she was lucky she would have time to get inside before the rain began to fall. Anki ran another five steps before the first drop touched the top of her head. That single drop was followed by a torrential downpour. If the weather was any indication, then luck wasn’t in the cards for her anytime soon.
