Heart of the Nebula

by Joe Vasicek

  “Contingency letter? Stars, no. That was mine.”

  “Ah.”

  He buried his head in his hands and leaned heavily on his knees. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot.”

  Deirdre hesitated, unsure what to say. But as his shoulders started to shudder with quiet sobs, she realized that that didn’t matter. She sat down next to him and rubbed his back until the moment passed.

  “We can all be idiots sometimes,” she said softly. “I know how you feel.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Oh yeah? Have you ever lost someone only to realize how thoughtless your last words to them really were?”

  Deirdre didn’t answer.

  “Do you know what I wrote in my contingency letter to her?” James continued.

  “No,” she whispered, meeting his frenzied gaze.

  “Neither do I! Can you believe it? I wrote the letter moments before I went under the ice, and I can’t even remember what I said in it. So careless! So stupid!”

  He turned away and bit his lip. Deirdre scooted close to him and gently massaged his neck. The tension in his body slowly leaked out under her touch.

  “You’re not as careless as you think you are,” she said. “Do you remember a girl named Kyla Stewart?”

  James frowned. “You mean Kyla Jeppson?”

  “Jeppson? Oh, her maiden name. Of course that’s how you’d remember her.”

  “Lars married that stowaway girl?”

  Deirdre laughed. “That’s probably how you’d remember her too. After you went into cryo, she married Lars and became like a mother to the new generation of colonists. Almost every family has some story about her. And guess who she had stories about.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said James. The shock on his face made her wonder how much he’d heard

  “Well,” said Deirdre, “if you think that’s weird, consider this: I’m her great granddaughter.”

  James’s jaw dropped, and his eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”

  “That’s right. And if it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.”

  For a long while, neither of them said anything. James blinked a few times, but couldn’t bring himself to say anything until he rubbed his eyes and shook his head.

  “This is too weird.”

  At that, Deirdre couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “It’s just—”

  “No, you’re fine. I probably look like an idiot right now.”

  “Hey,” she said, putting an arm on his shoulder. “Go easy on yourself, James. There’s no sense in beating yourself up.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I just wish I could go back and fix things. Set right the things that I did wrong.”

  That’s exactly the sort of thing I’d expect you to say, Deirdre thought quietly to herself. She felt just as drawn to him in the flesh as she had in the pages of Kyla’s journal—perhaps even more so.

  “What was Sara like?” she asked impulsively. The question surprised her almost as much as it surprised James.

  “She was gorgeous,” said James. “Gorgeous and smart, with a mind as sharp as a laser-blade. She always seemed so far above me, I’m still kind of shocked that I had her at all.”

  “She saw a lot of good in you,” Dierdre remarked.

  “I don’t know. To be honest, I never had much experience with women until her. The Hameji conquests happened when I was fifteen, and I spent the next five years after that with the military in one capacity or another.”

  “So she was your first really serious relationship?” Dierdre asked. It felt a bit like prying, but her curiosity was so strong that she couldn’t help but ask. Besides, talking about it seemed to help him.

  “Yes,” James answered. “And it happened so quickly, it almost feels like a dream now. If I could have that time back…”

  She sensed that his thoughts were becoming destructive again.

  “How did you two get together?” she asked.

  To her surprise, James chuckled. “You know how many times I’ve asked myself that question? I honestly don’t know. She always had such poise and grace—it always seemed that a guy like me didn’t have a chance.”

  “Is that what drew you to her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. For a second it looked as if he were going to say something, then he sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  It doesn’t sound like they were together for very long, Deirdre couldn’t help but think. He’s obviously still torn up about his feelings for her, but it’s not like he’ll never get over the loss.

  Her eyes strayed to the envelope with the contingency letter—the one that Sara had written for him.

  “Have you read the letter she left for you?” Deirdre asked.

  James shook his head. “No. Not yet.”

  “Why not? It’s right there.”

  His cheeks paled ever so slightly. “I can’t. Not now—not so soon.”

  His wounds will never heal until he reads that letter.

  “Well, sometime later then, hopefully,” she said, offering him a smile. “Though not too much later—I mean, I hope you can bring yourself to read it soon.”

  Why did she have to be so awkward? He probably thought she was an idiot—not at all like this Sara.

  “Captain Carlson briefed me on the situation with the Good Hope Flier today,” James said as he picked at the tray of food. “There’s a lot of work to be done. I doubt I’ll get a chance to read Sara’s letter until then.”

  “Right,” said Deirdre. “Well, I’ll set up my hammock and get ready for bed. Shift’s almost over.”

  “Three shifts,” James muttered to himself as she pulled out the hammock. “I’ll never get used to that.”

  Not much longer and you won’t have to, Deirdre thought. But whether things would be any easier for him once they arrived—that was something she very much doubted.

  * * * * *

  James lay awake, listening Deirdre’s soft, rhythmic breathing in the darkness. It felt odd to have her sleep in the same quarters as him, but he appreciated the company.

  She was a smart girl—as smart as he expected one of Lars’s descendants to be. She knew exactly how much to explain to him to give him a clear picture of what was going on without overwhelming him. When he’d complained about the tightness of their shared quarters and the strictness of the schedule that required them to vacate the room for someone else, she’d told him about the debates that the second generation had about population control, and why they’d ultimately opted not to impose any hard limits—that it had essentially come down to the fact that they weren’t going to be on the ship for more than a few generations. Everything that she said made sense, and she was careful not to try and explain everything all at once, which James appreciated.

  More than that, though, it felt like she genuinely understood him. When he needed help, he often didn’t have to ask because she’d see the need first, sometimes even before he did. While there was still some of the hero worship in her—he could see it in the way her eyes sometimes gleamed—they were still able to talk with each other as equals. In the darker moments, when his regrets threatened to consume him, that was crucial. It could get very lonely, being the legend that everyone looked up to.

  He sighed and stared up at the starlit ceiling. If he tried, he could almost imagine that she were Sara—but no, that would be a mistake. Deirdre was her own woman, not a substitute version of Sara. And pretending otherwise would only make things worse.

  His thoughts strayed to what she’d said about Sara’s contingency letter. I hope you can bring yourself to read it soon. Was it really that obvious to her that the only thing holding him back was the pain? She’d been rather timid in her attempt to encourage him to read it, but he could tell that she considered it important that he read it. And he would, eventually. But not now.

  I’ll read it when the pain is gone, he told himself as he rolled onto his side. That way
, her last words won’t hurt so much. Though inwardly, he feared that the pain would never go away.

  Chapter 23

  “Sir, we’re receiving a transmission from the Freedom’s Flame,” said the officer at the bridge’s comm station, a twenty-something girl by the name of Mary. “Analyzing. It appears to be text-only.”

  “Bring it up,” said Captain Carlson.

  James looked at the bridge’s main display, which showed the transmission in yellow words on a black background.

  ACKNOWLEDGED RECEIPT OF PREVIOUS MESSAGE, it read. ASSEMBLY VOTES OVERWHELMINGLY TO RECOGNIZE CMDR MCCOY’S LEADERSHIP. NO ONE LEFT BEHIND HERE.

  Applause filled the bridge even as the weight of command grew heavier on James’s shoulders. The Freedom’s Flame was the last of the three friendly ships to formally declare allegiance to him as leader of the colonization mission. Of course, that was the easy part—the problem would be the rebels.

  “Any more sign of communication between the three rebel ships?” Carlson asked.

  “No, sir,” Mary answered. “Only silence.”

  Carlson sighed and looked down. There was a brief moment of silence before he turned to James.

  “Well, Commander, the mission is yours. What are your orders?”

  James rose to his feet and surveyed the room. All of the officers were present; every chair on the bridge was filled. They looked at him as if he had some idea or insight that would solve the crisis instantaneously.

  I don’t.

  “Let’s discuss our strategy,” he began, putting his self-doubts out of his mind. “As I understand it, we have three rebel colony ships that broke off communication with the rest of us decades ago. Have they been communicating with each other?”

  “Yes,” Carlson answered. “Though their transmissions are encrypted well enough that we can’t crack them.”

  “Then it’s fair to assume that the secessionists are unified. The fact that they’ve all altered course to one of the inner planets would seem to confirm that. Am I missing anything so far?”

  No one answered. Outside the forward window, the nebula gave the starfield an eerie glow.

  “The crux of this crisis isn’t the secessionists, though—it’s the fact that they’re holding the diplomats from the Lady of Karduna hostage. That’s why you woke me, isn’t it? To figure out how to rescue these hostages?”

  “No one gets left behind, sir.” James didn’t see who had said it, but it might as well have been any of them.

  “All right, then. Let’s start by mapping out possible scenarios, starting with the best case and moving on to the worst. What’s the best way this could turn out?”

  There was silence for a few moments as the officers considered. One of the women raised her hand.

  “Wouldn’t the best case scenario be that the rebels decide to come back?”

  “Let’s assume that the rebels are going to secede and that there’s nothing we can do to convince them otherwise,” said James. “Can we stop them? Do we have that capability?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” said Carlson. “None of the colony ships are equipped with any sort of weaponry, and we haven’t detected any modifications on the rebel ships that would change that.”

  “So we can’t shoot them, and they can’t shoot us.” Yet.

  “Well,” said one of the officers, “if they’re going to secede anyway, the best case scenario would be that they release the hostages.” He was a heavy man with a thick red beard. James recognized him as the chief engineer.

  “Good,” said James. “We’ll stick with that as our best case scenario: that the rebels release the hostages and continue on their course. Now, what’s the nightmare scenario? What are we working to avoid?”

  For several moments, no one spoke. A few of the officers glanced nervously at each other, clearly disturbed by the fears that were left unspoken.

  “Anyone? Come on, let’s have it out. We can’t avoid this thing by ignoring it.”

  “The worst case scenario would be that the rebels keep the hostages and refuse to open contact,” Carlson said. “That appears to be the scenario that’s currently underway.”

  “So what happens after that?” James asked. “What about that scenario makes this so bad?”

  “Well, if they take the diplomats hostage, that’s an act of war,” said the chief engineer. “We can’t ignore something like that. We’d become two colonies, each one working to destroy or subdue the other.”

  James nodded. “If the rebels do that, they’ll probably combine it with a pre-emptive attack to attempt to cripple us.”

  “Wait,” said Mary. “I thought we agreed that they don’t have any weapons?”

  “You don’t need guns to launch an attack,” said James. “When we rescued the girls from the Nabattan pirates, we used simple tools to club the guards outside the airlock. What’s to stop the rebels from launching a rocket full of scrap metal into our trajectory?”

  “If they tried anything like that, we could stop it,” said the chief engineer. “All we’d have to do is find a way to clear the debris field.”

  “Good—let’s get a team on that. I’m assigning it to you.”

  The chief engineer nodded and scribbled something hastily on his notepad. The other officers, clearly shaken by the thought that the rebels might strike first, sat in uncomfortable silence.

  “If I may, Commander,” said Carlson. “What if the rebels detect our preparations and consider it an act of aggression? Wouldn’t it precipitate the nightmare scenario we’ve discussed?”

  “I agree,” said Mary. “What if we tried to find a diplomatic solution first?”

  “Well, what would you suggest?” James asked.

  Again, the room fell silent. Someone in the back raised a hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Just because they aren’t responding to our transmissions doesn’t mean that they can’t receive them,” the officer said. “We could try to persuade them to negotiate that way.”

  The chief engineer shook his head. “I doubt that’s going to work—the Lady of Karduna has been pleading with them almost non-stop since the hostage crisis began.”

  “But it’s the only option we’ve got.”

  James clenched his fist and resisted the urge to slam it against the nearest bulkhead. What did these people expect of him? That he had the magic answer that would solve all their problems? He couldn’t help but think that Sara would have been better suited for this—diplomacy was her area of expertise, after all. Instead, they had turned to him, a warrior, to somehow make peace.

  “Let’s prepare the countermeasures just in case,” he said. “As for sending them a message, let’s order the Lady of Karduna to stop with their attempts to hail them. From now on, every transmission we send will come from this ship, the Chiran Spirit. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the officers chorused.

  Mary raised a hand.

  “What message do we send them, sir?”

  “I don’t know yet,” James admitted, “but I’ll work on it. If any of you have any suggestions, let me know.”

  “May I suggest that we move quickly on this, Commander,” Carlson said. “At our present course, we have only three days before the distance between us and the rebels is too great to send the hostages back.”

  James took a long breath. “Thank you, Captain.”

  Three days to war.

  * * * * *

  Deirdre rested her chin on her hands and glanced across the table at the star-filled window on the far side of the study hall. Half a dozen young men crowded the library’s computer terminal, chattering excitedly in hushed tones, while the printer kiosk hummed furiously as it serviced a growing line of patrons. The library had gotten a lot busier of late, with mounting excitement over their impending arrival. Even though the noise made it difficult for her to concentrate, she enjoyed being around other people. If it got to be too much for her, she could always escape among the shelves of titles waiting to be recyc
led.

  As she returned to her screen, a hand came to rest on her shoulder. She looked up and saw James standing over her.

  “Oh,” she said, a little surprised. “I didn’t know you were coming down here. You need my help?”

  He nodded. “Is there somewhere more private we can go?”

  It’s a good thing most of these people don’t know James by sight, she thought to herself as she rose to her feet. Once it became common knowledge who he was, there’d be no peace for him anywhere on the ship.

  She led him out into the main hall and through a door marked AUTHORIZED STAFF ONLY. Her study was at the far back of the hall, behind a cozy section of honeycombed cubicles. The small administrative staff buzzed back and forth, too busy to pay either of them any mind. She guided James into her study and motioned for him to sit down.

  “What’s up?” she asked, sitting cross-legged on the desk as the door hissed shut behind them.

  “It’s the hostage crisis,” said James. “We have three days before it blows up into a war, and the only thing we can do is hail them repeatedly and hope that they listen. Since you’re the ship’s historian, I was hoping you’d have some insight on what we could say to persuade them to do the right thing.”

  Deirdre frowned and scratched her chin. “I see. Well, I don’t know if I have any insight, but I can run over the history with you and see if anything comes to mind.”

  “That would be great.”

  She slipped off of the desk and knelt in front of the keyboard. The lights in the room dimmed as she toggled the holoscreen display, bringing up a timeline of the voyage from the departure at Zeta Nabat to the present time.

  “The roots of the crisis began about twenty standard years after you and the other colonists went down into cryo,” she said. “That’s when the first two rebel ships cut off all communication with us.”

  “I see,” he said, nodding.

  “At that time, we had regular contact with the Good Hope Flier. For five years, we tried regularly to hail the rebel ships, always with no response. After that, we gave up, but the Good Hope Flier kept trying to reestablish contact until they were successful.”