Magnet Omnibus I (Lacuna)

by David Adams

  Slowly, almost painfully so, the cockpit came to rest, a sea of hot debris thumping in behind me, partially covering the shattered cockpit. Battered, bruised and concussed, I just lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, my helmet and mask keeping air in my lungs. If I had taken them off when Iron had told me to I would have suffocated.

  Air crept back in as the flight deck was pressurised, and with it came the screaming of alarms, the groan of settling debris, and the pounding of my heart in my chest.

  I couldn’t move. The crumpled cockpit kept me pinned and I couldn’t hear any sound in my headset. The radio was in the crumpled side of the cockpit. I could smell burned electronics, spilt fuel, and blood.

  Figures clad in red spacesuits ran to the fallen aircraft. The crash and salvage crew, and firefighters. Their magnetic boots hummed as they stuck to the deck. They had a recovery vehicle with them.

  “Lieutenant Williams, can you hear me?”

  A female Australian voice. It was so far away. I didn’t say anything, I just lay there in the broken shell of a borrowed space fighter, as thin wisps of smoke danced in front of my vision.

  The debris shifted as a mechanical crane on the recovery vehicle started pulling away the debris, followed by a flash of light. Giving air to the debris had ignited something, but the crew were faster than that. A spray of foam smothered the flames before they could take hold.

  A tube of metal, long and thin, slid into the wreckage like a snake. The tip pivoted to look at me, a tiny camera on the end.

  “Lieutenant Williams?” Now the voice spoke through the device. “Wave for me if you’re okay, mate.”

  I gave a weak, feeble wave with my left hand. My right was pinned against the side of the cockpit. Judging from the pain it might be broken. Or just twisted.

  “How are you doing for air?”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that so just nodded. I could breathe.

  “Are you hurt?”

  More debris shifting. The crane’s mechanical whine seemed too loud to me. I pointed to my right side.

  The snake slithered around, shining a white light somewhere I couldn’t see.

  “You’re going to be fine,” the voice said. “There’s an exterior fire but it’s contained. Don’t worry, we’re working on getting you out of there.”

  Professional as always. I’d never been in a flight deck emergency before but I’d been through countless simulations. The trick was to let the trained professionals do their job and obey their every word.

  I tried to speak but the words just came out as a cough.

  “Don’t move,” said the voice. “We’ll be with you shortly.”

  Another woosh of spray as foam flooded the interior, and then with the crack-snap of breaking metal the debris was lifted. The harsh lights of the flight deck streamed in and strong arms grabbed me. Using industrial scissors that looked like shearing tools they cut me from the ejection seat. They laid me out on something. I felt very lightheaded.

  “Got a head wound,” said the same voice as she lifted off my visor. A heavy set brunette woman was silhouetted against the ceiling lights.

  “Penny?” I said, squinting in the light.

  “No, it’s Petty Officer Alexandra Stephenson. Do you know where you are?”

  I thought so. “I’m on a stretcher.”

  “Good answer.”

  She said more—just words, words, words really—but I wasn’t listening. She got curious, then worried, but I didn’t care.

  Everything was quiet after that.

  10 hours later

  I floated in and out of awareness for some time. It was my first time with a severe concussion and it was an interesting experience. They gave me some of the Bundeswehr morphine. It took away the pain but made the fogginess in my mind worse.

  Nobody came to visit right away. The only people I saw were the marine medics who administered various fluids. They chatted amongst themselves in German and, for some reason, I felt it was inappropriate to directly question them. Fortunately Stephenson visited at some point and we had a long chat. She told me I was severely concussed and confined to the medical bay. Nobody was supposed to tell me anything. The language barrier was clearly deliberate. I tried to pull rank but she wasn’t having a bit of it.

  So I sat in an uncomfortable, Toralii-sized bed, counting the dimples in the ceiling, doing nothing except thinking, over and over, about what had happened. About the people I’d killed. About how this might compromise the mission, the ship and all its crew.

  Finally the door to my room opened. Cautiously, as though expecting to be attacked.

  “Hey,” said Shaba, sitting on the end of my bed. Her face was a somber mask.

  “Hey.”

  “We’re in orbit of the ice moon. We sent down a salvage team to the Scarecrow impact site. We only found debris.” She took a breath, hesitating. “And remains.”

  Remains. That was an interesting way of saying what’s left of a human body after it’s enclosed in a metal box and speared into the ground at mach 4.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Certainly not survivors. I had seen Scarecrow explode into debris with my own eyes. I’d replayed that sight a hundred times; watching a whole crew instantly flash and die before me. I’d seen so many Toralii die at the other end of our guns, but this was the first time I’d killed human beings.

  “How’s the hanger bay?” I asked.

  “A mess. The debris’s been swept up but there’s a substantial amount of damage to the deck. We can land, but the living quarters underneath are decompressed.”

  Living quarters? My chest tightened. “Was there—”

  “No.” Shaba was firm about that. “They were empty. We were going to store fuel in them, remember? But we never got around to it.”

  I had vague memories of such a thing. It seemed like so long ago. “Right. Well, that’s good.”

  Shaba folded her hands in her lap. “Yeah. Look. Don’t worry about the crash. The damage to the Rubens is superficial at best. Repairing a Toralii vessel is going to be difficult, but the principles are the same. It’s metal and we have other bits we can salvage. The main thing is what we’re going to do about our CO.”

  Now it became obvious why she was coming to see me. The CO of a ship is supposed to present an infallible wall of strength and calm; they were Gods amongst men, someone to look up to and be inspired by. What had happened to me, what I’d done, was completely unacceptable. I’d shattered the illusion of strength for my small crew. “Yeah. No kidding.” I shuffled in the bed, trying to get comfortable. “So. What are you going to do?”

  “Well, we haven’t figured out all the Toralii technology yet and the medical staff don’t want to test it on their CO, out in the middle of space with no backup or support, so they’re doing the best they can. The docs told me, however, on no uncertain terms that you will need surgery. As the XO, I’m in charge for the moment, so I’m still deciding what to do about it.”

  “Don’t go back.” I tried to keep as much strength in my voice as possible. “The Toralii are out there. They might not have attacked us yet because they might be tracking us. Looking for weaknesses in Earth’s defences. If we jump back to Earth, they might follow. They could work out a gap in our defences.”

  “They might,” said Shaba. “But Cerberus station still guards the Mars Lagrange point. We have a choke point, we have static defences, we have the defenders advantage.”

  “Don’t,” I said again. The risk was too great. I would be fine.

  “I’ll think about it,” said Shaba, and then she got up and left.

  Later

  A faint hum, lasting no more than a second or two, told me everything I needed to know.

  The ship was jumping. There were no prizes for guessing where.

  There was no docking as there usually was post jump. We’d been gone for five months, and we slipped past Cerberus station without so much as a good morning to the crew. I knew why. Shaba was getting
permission to jump straight to Earth. Another risk, but justifiable. Nobody else could know what had happened; the presence of the Scarecrow was too confusing and important to relay through anything but personal meetings.

  The fewer people who knew we were here, the better.

  Anger. Confusion. Guilt. A swarm of emotions ran through me, all complicated and conflicting and screaming for attention over their brothers, competing for my attention. They were just a chaotic mix to me; a mishmash of horrible feelings that coalesced into a tsunami of negativity.

  What were we thinking? That we could just hand over command of an advanced alien warship to a fighter pilot? Who’s decision was that anyway? Why were we out here all alone, anyway? No escorts? No support?

  I threw blame anywhere I thought it could stick, especially on Fleet Command, but the more I tried to rationalise away what had happened the more the truth revealed itself to me.

  This was a failure of command.

  My failure.

  Every cyclone had a silver lining, of sorts. The jump back to Earth wasn’t just about me. It would answer our many questions about Scarecrow. What was one of our ships doing so far away from Earth? How had we run into them? Why hadn’t they identified themselves?

  Questions turned over in my mind. I was full of them, so many that I couldn’t organise them in my stupor. They were feelings salad, a tangled mess I doubted anyone could unravel.

  Finally, though, the doors to the medical bay opened.

  Shaba, flanked by two marines. Australians. Not the Bundeswehr we had on board. Behind her came a bald man whose face I instantly recognised.

  Vice Admiral Jordon Kane. Head of Task Force Resolution and executive officer for Fleet Command. The top dog. This was the guy in charge of everything.

  Well, this was it.

  “Mister Williams,” he said, standing directly at the foot of my bed like a tombstone. His face was a dark, sour mask. Kane was not a kind man. One did not become the leader of a multinational warfighting force by being a nice guy. That was okay, though. I was hardly the most pretty, charming man myself. “Lieutenant Kollek has debriefed me about the loss of the Scarecrow.”

  I nodded understandingly, looking directly at him. It was time. “Of course, sir. I accept full responsibility.”

  Kane narrowed his eyes. “I understand your feelings, but this is war, and war is chaos. Errors occur in the best of circumstances. She assures me that you followed protocol. The target was engaged and destroyed according to the rules of engagement you were operating under. Fratricide has been a factor in every major battle ever fought for as long as mankind has existed. There is no technological, psychological, procedural method to resolve it. It is a regrettable, to be certain, but it is essentially unavoidable.” All of this was true. None of it made me feel any better. I went to thank him, but he continued, and a faint almost-smile found its way to Kane’s mouth. “Besides. Lieutenant Kollek spoke at length at your skill in avoiding the majority of the debris field, and in landing your damaged craft on the flight deck. Your survival is a testament to your skill and courage.”

  I didn’t look at her, but I could feel her eyes on me, staring at me, confirming what I suspected to be true.

  She’d lied to Kane to protect me.

  “Understood.” I swallowed the foolish, dangerous words that threatened to bubble out of my mouth and replaced them with far more palatable ones. “Sir. What were they doing there? Why was the Scarecrow operating so far away from home?”

  Kane seemed, for a moment, as though he would tell me, but his face returned to iron. “That’s classified, Captain.”

  “Understood, sir. And it’s just Lieutenant.”

  He placed a Manilla folder over the blanket covering my ankles. “Not according to my paperwork. You made Air Force Captain four weeks ago. We had no way of telling you.”

  Murder seven Frenchies, make Captain. Bewilderment took over. I had no way of processing this that didn’t seem insane.

  “Thank you, Admiral.” It was all I could manage.

  He said nothing, but turned and left, his men with him.

  Shaba patted the envelope. “You should read this.”

  I could honestly not be bothered. “Why?”

  “They’re giving you another Purple Heart.”

  “Another one?” The idea was unpalatable to me. A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive. My collection was growing at an alarming rate. My luck pool was going to run out some day. Soon the pretty little medals would turn into stone crosses. I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And you’re getting shore leave.”

  Leave. Just for me. Given the circumstances this was a polite way of saying get the fuck off. Kane had assured me that what had happened was not my fault, but his actions spoke differently.

  “Great.”

  Shaba squeezed my ankle. “Hey. It’s not like that, okay? You’re injured. The Rubens is damaged. We’re going to resupply, bolt down some steel plates over the flight deck, and we’re going to go back out there. We’re going to continue the mission, keep up the hunt, and you’re going to get better. When you are, then you can come hang out with us again. This isn’t blame. This is you taking time to heal. If you’re not at your best, you might make a mistake; we don’t have a lot of budget for those out here in the black. We’re gears in a machine, Mike, and you know it.”

  I knew it. Words from basic floated back into my mind. A slipping gear could let your grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit.

  We could afford no mistakes. Scarecrow, and my inability to cope with it, had been a serious mistake. I accepted it.

  “Thanks for covering for me.”

  Shaba smiled, but it wasn’t a genuine smile. It was only with the mouth, not the eyes, and there was some genuine sadness there. Something painful and subtle that I had only just noticed, right in this moment, as everything around me seemed broken.

  Sadness.

  “No worries,” she said. “Soon as you can, go spend some time with Penny.”

  Finally the ship docked. Shaba coordinated that, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  Not a place I wanted to be right at that moment.

  Fortunately, the drugs took away most of the pain. I could walk, but I felt drowsy. I stumbled my way into the bathroom, tugging the IV-drip along behind me, its wheels squeaking as they ground against the metal.

  The sound conjured a lot of memories, picking at scars that hadn’t yet healed. I stuffed a sock around each of them and just dragged it.

  Pissing felt good. I imagined the guilt travelling down my body, pooling in the bladder and being ejected from my body in a yellowish stream of bad emotions.

  It didn’t help much. As I was washing my hands, I saw something though, something that made me remember.

  An electric razor.

  Gutterball, one of the original Piggyback crew, had broken up with her husband. She’d shaved her head soon after. Nobody knew why, not even her ex when I asked him at her funeral.

  We’d had her funeral. We’d said her goodbyes. But, right at that moment, I felt closer to her than I had in a long time.

  I ran the electric razor over my head. I cut away every strand of hair, cutting myself down to the scalp. I cleaned off everything. The stubble from my chin. Top, back, sides. I made it as smooth as I could, and then I went over it with a disposal razor.

  I had done some research on why she might have done it. It turns out that, sometimes, Hasidic Jewish women shaved their heads. This practice was not based on a religious commandment, but was a custom derived from a number of possible origins. There was no absolute requirement to do it. More often than not it would happen on the wedding night. This was because women went to the mikveh, or ritual immersion, just before her wedding, and every part of her—every single hair—must be submerged simultane
ously. Naturally, it is easier to do this if the hair is short and cannot float on the water.

  A woman starts to cover her hair after marriage, and some women prefer to keep their hair very short because it is more comfortable under a wig or a scarf. Even after it grows back, no matter the season or temperature, Orthodox Jewish women would cover their hair. Modesty, or tzniut, is the primary reason: when a woman gets married, her hair supposedly has a certain sexual potency to it. So a woman's hair should be saved specifically for her husband. A Jewish woman can cover her hair with a hat, a snood, a kerchief (known in Yiddish as a tichel) or even a baseball cap.

  But Gutterball was already married. My research found no real justification for why she’d done this. Originally I thought it was something deeply personal and symbolic; now that her husband had left her, she was remarrying herself. Making a deeply personal statement that her life was now her own, to be lived in whatever way she saw fit.

  I thought this for a long time. Months and months. I’d discussed it with Shaba and Mace and the others, Israelis all, and they all seemed to think that it was plausible. Not exactly Orthodox, but certainly understandable. It made sense, of a sort, but it had always bugged me that I’d never really figured it out.

  But as I stared into the mirror, looking at my freshly bald scalp, trying to peer back into the past and see the world through Gutterball’s eyes, comparing it to how I felt right at that moment.

  When they came to take me away for surgery I was still standing there, surrounded by a pile of hair, the electric razor buzzing away on the steel sink top. I had no idea what they made of the scene—my memory of the moment was blurred by painkillers, dulled by concussion and marred by guilt—and I barely remember anything except being wheeled into the makeshift surgical ward and hearing German voices prattling incessantly all around me, but it was clear they were talking about my new haircut. What it might mean. Various theories, all thrown around in a language I didn’t speak. Keller, the marine head, observed the proceeding and I could see her face contort as she struggled to understand what I had done.