by Tony Healey
"Banks, get us out of here. Set course for Station Six and step on it," King ordered.
"Aye."
"Jess . . ."
Captain King looked up.
"Chief?" she called out, loud enough the audio pickup would hear it. Gunn hardly ever called her by her first name, and never over the internal communication system. "Everything all right down there?"
There was a long pause, then, "Jess . . . get down here."
It turned her stomach to jelly. She stood, glanced around her. "Commander, you have the bridge."
She left. At a run.
40.
He was almost dead before she got there.
Jessica's first instinct was to rush forward, get down to his level and speak to him. Get him to acknowledge her presence there. Give her some kind of signal that he knew she was nearby. But it didn't feel right.
Commander Greene lay on his back, outstretched sideways across Chief Meryl Gunn's lap. She had his head propped up on one arm, and with the hand of the other she gently stroked his face.
Jessica stopped short. It was all she could do to stand there, helpless.
"Stay with me, Del," Gunn said. "Stay with me."
Dr. Clayton appeared next to Jessica. She looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood.
"Doctor?"
Clayton shook his head. His eyes were rimmed red and sore. "No."
Gunn turned at Jessica's voice. "Jess, come over. Del, Jessica's here."
Her feet carried her there, and she didn't remember getting down on the floor but now she was there, next to the Chief.
Commander Greene looked up at her, his eyes pleading for something he couldn't vocalise. Something she couldn't give him.
Life.
He reached up, his hand fell to the centre of her chest. As close to her heart as he could manage, she supposed. She held it there, tears spilled out of her eyes, her vision blurred.
"Del . . ." she said, managing a smile.
His eyes were glassy, barely focused. "It's been an honour," he said.
She squeezed his hand.
"You were like a brother," she said in a broken voice. "And I loved you like a brother."
Del squeezed her. "Your Father would have been proud."
It was almost too much for her to take. He looked once more at the Chief, his face growing pale and waxy. Jessica let go of his hand, let it fall down her uniform where it left a red streaked handprint.
She got up, stepped back to give them some space. Only now did she notice the puddle of blood that surrounded where he lay. The Chief was in that blood, covered in it.
Del Greene's face lost its colour and vitality. His eyes clouded over, though still locked onto the Chief's. Jessica realised with shocking clarity that Gunn's would be the last face her friend ever saw.
Meryl cradled him, and from where she stood, Jessica watched as his lips moved, formed soundless words.
I love you.
"I will always love you," Gunn said. "Always."
And with that, he was gone. The Chief closed his eyes and sat rocking him back and forth, sobbing. "Don't leave me . . . don't leave me . . ."
Jessica turned away, unable to watch any more. For a handful of seconds, she found herself unable to catch a breath. It was only when she started to move, with the exit in sight that she drew in deep breaths again. She found the nearest head and threw up in it.
41.
The peach and violet hues of the Chimera Cluster drifted past. Cessqa was eager to return to her people, eager to feel almost realistic gravity of the giant cylinder under her feet.
"There it is," Risa said.
Cessqa studied the readout. Ahead of them, a bank of nebula gas roiled about a huge, looming shape. A black tube.
"We are home," Cessqa said. "This isn't done. There will be other battles. Other conflicts. This is not over. It has only begun."
42.
The secondary command deck was in a state of chaos, though all systems still functioned. Jessica almost expected to see Commander Greene there – which made things all the more raw and painful to bear.
"Captain . . ." Lisa Chang said, rising from her seat. The Commander's eyes fell to the bloody smear down the front of Jessica's uniform.
She looked down, felt a rush of nausea at the sight of it. Numbly, Captain King looked back up though she didn't say anything. By now everyone else had turned to watch her as she walked slowly to the front of the bridge.
Banks eyed her warily, seemingly in disbelief King was actually up there. The viewscreen showed the receding Mobius Formation, almost reduced to a silvery speck against the backdrop of the cosmos.
"Time till we arrive at Station six?" Jessica asked, her voice dry and cracked. She was only now aware of the heat in her cheeks, the dried tears around her eyes.
The hanging weight of grief around her heart.
Banks cleared his throat. "Approximately thirteen hours at our present speed."
She nodded weakly in acknowledgment, then turned and headed for the exit.
Chang's voice did not conceal her worry. "Captain . . ." she said again.
Jessica stopped, turned about. "Not now," she said then left.
*
In her quarters, the Defiant underway, she sat and cried. The tears were hot, full of salt and they ran down her face in rivers. Her chest heaved, and when she tried to drink the vodka she'd poured, Jessica found herself entirely unable. The pain was immense. So much so, her hands trembled.
She forgot her drink, stripped out of her filthy uniform and climbed into bed. There, with the covers up to her chin, she finally felt some modicum of comfort.
Safety.
"Star of wonder . . ." she whispered in the dark. The Defiant hummed around her, a steady harmony of power and strength.
Captain Jessica King closed her eyes. She could still see him, face losing its colour and vitality. Eyes clouding over as he looked up at Meryl, her cradling him to her in his last moments. His lips had moved, formed the words.
I love you.
No voice. It wasn't needed, in any case. Watching that, it had hit her right in the gut. Meryl had closed his eyes after the light behind them was extinguished, and sat there on the deck, rocking him back and forth as she sobbed.
As Jessica was now.
Why do we always lose in the end? Our friends . . . our family . . . we lose everything . . .
The grief made her ache all over. She drew a deep breath and, shaky as her voice was, she found it within herself to sing the rest. Because it was for Del. His memory of his Mother lulling him to sleep with that hymn was now bestowed upon her. By repeating the words, it was like he was still there. Like he no long ceased to exist. Because that awful truth was all too real.
So she lay on her bed and her thoughts remained on Commander Del Greene, her friend of more years than she could remember. She thought of his one-liners, his hot temper, how he'd been prone to accidents. All of it. And though she hurt, inside and out, it made her smile nevertheless. He had held onto his own memory of his Mother. Well, now she had her way of remembering him. Hadn't someone once said that the dead are not dead so long as we remember them?
She hummed the tune, her voice husky and cracked. "Da dee da da, da dee dee . . ."
VENGEANCE
PART I
The Hymns Of Childhood
1.
She could still see his face in her dreams, every night.
. . . Greene looked up at her, his eyes pleading for something he couldn't vocalise. Something she couldn't give him.
Life.
He reached up. His hand fell to the centre of her chest. As close to her heart as he could manage, she supposed. She held it there; tears spilled out of her eyes; her vision blurred . . .
Jessica clenched the bed sheets, writhing back and forth. "No . . . no . . ."
. . . His eyes were glassy, barely focused. "It's been an honour," he said.
She squeezed his hand.
"You were like a brother," she said in a broken voice. "And I loved you like a brother."
Del squeezed her. "Your Father would have been proud . . ."
Now she stood on the bridge, the lone occupant of the entire vessel. Everything still around her. The only sound, the constant hum of the engines, the reactor core. The deck shifted under her feet, the front of the bridge broke away and she went flying out into the vacuum. Jessica tumbled out toward the darkness, an inky black canvas populated by a billion tiny lights as she cart wheeled uncontrollably.
"NO . . . !" she yelled, using every last breath of air in her lungs –
*
– her eyes snapped open. The dim lights of her guest quarters aboard Station 6 allowed Jessica to regain her bearings in seconds. Her heart threatened to jackhammer out of her chest. She sat up, panting.
I'm on the station. Calm down.
Hard to do, especially when you'd been having the same dream over and over again for weeks. A subconscious cocktail of the same rotten memories, regurgitated by her psyche every night – doomed to relive the same memories.
And the more it happened, the more she suffered . . .
Jessica got up, stretched, unsure of the time and similarly lacking the concern to check. She felt clammy. A glance back at her bunk and she could see her sheets soaked through with sweat.
She ran a hand over her face, took a deep breath. Her heart slowly returned to its normal rhythm.
What's wrong with me?
*
The steaming hot water washed the fog of sleep away. She took her time in the shower, less than willing to leave the steamy cocoon of the cubicle. She'd always found that no matter how bad a time you were having, the solitude of a hot shower could work wonders. Cleansing the body and the soul.
Jessica got out, towelled herself off, and dressed in her uniform. Checked the time. Not even four. Too early to catch breakfast on the station. It wouldn't be up and running for another hour at least, she knew.
She left her quarters. It felt liberating to walk the labyrinthine corridors of Station 6 and not end up jostled left and right by the ever-present surge of the crowds. That early in the morning, people were either finishing up on night shifts, or just waking up. It happened to be a golden hour for walking unmolested.
Jessica headed for docking bay eleven. The cooks on Station 6 might not be so willing to rise early and feed insomniacs, but those aboard Defiant could always be called upon for an impromptu plate of pancakes when needed. And that could be just what the doctor called for.
2.
It had been a difficult time. Directly following their battle with Cessqa, Jessica directed the crew from the Emergency Command Centre. She ordered the ship to return to Station 6.
The Defiant limped home, shutting down twice along the way. The Chief, for what it was worth, didn't stop working the whole time. Full of grief, yet still able to perform in her role and hold herself together. From what Jessica had heard, she'd still had Commander Greene's blood on her hands as she repaired vital systems in order to get them home. She didn't have the heart to tell Meryl to stop, knowing it was probably the only thing keeping her together.
And sure enough, when they got back, Gunn still didn't stop. Keeping busy was preferable to sitting around. Sitting around meant you started to think, and clearly that wasn't something Gunn wished to do.
If she stops, who knows? She might find herself reliving it all, over and over, Jessica thought as she stepped aboard the Defiant.
The old ship was still in bad shape. At the climax of her titanic struggle with Cessqa, Jessica had ordered a collision course. The Defiant ploughed into the Jandala. The Union ship's front end had crumpled like a tin can from the collision. That specific damage remained untouched by the repair crews.
The Chief had focused on getting the worst of the internal damage fixed before she turned her attention to the Defiant's bow. For now, those decks were sealed tight. An entire section of the Defiant lay in darkness, open on one side to the extreme temperatures and pressures of the void.
Not that we're going anywhere right now.
Jessica took a slow stroll through the ship, taking her time getting to the Mess Hall. Inside, it looked a lot different to how it had immediately following the battle. Pieces of hull, shrapnel, wires and cables had lain everywhere. Now it was clean and tidy in there, everything in its right place.
A far cry from the chaotic state in which they'd returned.
*
Ordinarily, a return to base would be a triumphant affair. A positive occasion. It meant rest. It meant downtime for all concerned.
Not then. They'd limped home with their tails between their legs . . . and the morgue full of fresh cadavers.
I hate to think of them like that, Jessica thought as she watched the station appear. But that's what they are now. The people they were – the friends they were – are gone now. All that's left is . . . a shell. The spirit's fled.
"Approaching station six," Banks reported groggily. He'd been at the helm for more than a day at that point, defying her every order to leave his station. He got up from his seat only for refreshment and an occasional trip to the head after which he slumped back into his chair, hands carefully controlling the Defiant's flight back to base.
Now the station loomed into view and he shifted, sat up straighter. More alert.
He knows he's at the end. Soon as he's docked, I'm having him escorted to his quarters. There's one thing he needs, and that's sleep.
"Ensign Rayne, please contact station six and tell them we are about to dock at number eleven. We are in desperate need of repairs."
"Yes Ma'am," Rayne said.
"Slow to one fifth, Mister Banks."
"Aye," he said.
Jessica couldn't help it. She looked to her left, as though she expected to see the Commander there. But of course there was only empty space where he might have been. Her heart sighed in her chest.
"Matching orbital rotation," Banks told her.
"Good. Easy does it," Jessica said. "Nice and smooth. This old girl has had enough knocks, I think. We should at least be able to park her straight."
"Amen," the helmsman said. The Defiant slowly rounded on Station 6 and Banks lined her up. He increased the Defiant's speed to match that of the station itself. The broken ship edged closer and closer to the dock. A soft judder echoed throughout the Defiant. "Soft dock," Banks said.
"Equalize pressures, run all environmental control checks you need to," Jessica told Chang. "The sooner we get everyone off, the better."
"Understood Captain," Chang said.
Jessica got up, looked around. "You've all done me proud. You've done us all proud . . . but most importantly, you have done so to yourselves. Despite who we lost on this mission, don't let it detract from your own exemplary performance."
She headed off the command centre, eager to be doing something with herself. On her way, she slapped Banks on the shoulder.
"And you will get yourself to bed. This is a direct order now. Don't try to argue it."
Banks looked up, broke into a weak smile. "I will. I promise. Now she's back safe."
"Good," Jessica said and left for her quarters. "Good."
*
She slumped into one of the chairs in her quarters, her whole body aching. She spotted the glasses on the side, and her thoughts turned to the open bottle of Galactic Core Vodka in her freezer unit. Jessica was soon back on her feet, fixing herself a stiff measure of neat vodka. She'd left it so long in the unit, the Vodka had turned slushy. Ice cold.
The door chimed.
"Come in," she yelled across. The door parted to show the Chief, miserable and exhausted."Chief."
"Captain, if it's a bad time I can always . . ."
"No, don't be absurd," Jessica said. She showed the Chief Engineer to her sofa, told her to sit. "I was just about to have a drink, would you like one?"
"I've not had a better offer all day," Gunn said. She seemed quieter, de
flated. As if the guts had been kicked out of her. "Was it a good dock? No problems?"
"No. Did you think we would?" Jessica asked. She poured them both ice cold vodka.
Gunn shook her head. "Not really. I did wonder if some of the damage we took from the collision might impede our docking ops, but obviously I was worried over nothing."
"Drink up," Jessica handed her the glass. They both threw it back. The vodka went down too easily, with barely a sting of heat. That was the difference between slinging vodka and scotch. One made itself apparent from the get go. The other snuck up on you, knocking you on your arse when you least expected it.
"Don't you usually drink scotch?" Gunn asked as Jessica took her glass to pour them both refills.
"I do," Jessica said as she poured the vodka. "However, this time it felt right to drink this. Del gave me the bottle not so long ago. Told me to drink it ice cold."
The Chief bit back tears as they clinked glasses in a silent toast, then drank the spirit in one go.
Gunn put her glass to one side, eyes red.
"Hey, Chief . . . you okay?"
"I will be," Gunn said. "Maybe. After a while."
Jessica looked down at her own empty glass. She turned it in her hands, as if the empty vessel held all the answers. All it had to offer was a reminder of what was gone. Of what had been there. "I guess I know what you mean, Chief," she said quietly.
Gunn didn't say anything. She stared off into space.
"I can't get his face out of my mind. His eyes," Jessica said. She fought back the grief, the hurt. "I miss him already."
"He loved you like a sister," Gunn told her, looking up.
Jessica reached out, took the Chief's hands in her own. "Thanks Meryl. I know he did. And he was like a brother to me. Close as I'll ever get."
Meryl drew in a breath. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "Do you think it gets easier over time?" she asked between sobs.
Jessica shrugged. She was crying herself now. She looked up at the ceiling of her quarters, searching for something. Anything to give a reason to events. To anchor what had happened to something a human could comprehend. Death always had a way of being such an elusive mystery.
