by Tony Healey
"So the worse they are, the better," Banks said.
Clayton nodded. "Something like that, yeah."
Commander Chang looked over to Rayne. "Anything coming in from command? Orders to turn ourselves in and the like?"
"Not yet. But there will be."
"What about that weather formation?" Selena asked, pointing to a region at the bottom of the viewscreen.
"Some kind of storm, it'll be a few hours before it reaches them yet," Chang said.
Storm on the horizon. Sky full of portents. Trouble coming, she thought. Don't I know it . . .
46.
Silence.
Kingston regarded her with a relaxed expression, seemingly at ease with her fingers steepled in front of her mouth.
"So," Jessica said, breaking the quiet. "You know why I'm here."
"You've learned the truth," Kingston said. She sat back in her chair. "I thought it may happen one day. But, although it goes against my better judgement, I decided to push the matter to the back of my mind."
"Well, here I am. In the flesh," Jessica said.
"Indeed. And . . . dare I say, it is good to see you."
"All these years I thought I was an orphan. Then I learned Andrew Singh was my biological Father. And now . . ." she looked away. "Clayton told me."
"I never wanted to be a Mother," Dr. Kingston said, showing emotion for the first time since they'd met. "I wasn't made for it. And in my line of work . . . I couldn't have a daughter to worry about. Couldn't have you exposed to what I do."
"You're my Mother. You should have been there. I grew up thinking I didn't have parents," Jessica said.
She couldn't help it. The tears were there. Flooding hot, down her cheeks. She wiped at them absently, not caring what it looked like. Self respect seemed a long way away when you found yourself face to face with a parent you didn't know existed.
Kingston offered her a box of tissues. "Here. Wipe your face. Please."
She took them grudgingly. "How could you do that to me?"
Her Mother closed her eyes, sighed heavily as though she couldn't answer her with her eyes open. It was easier to not have to look at the little girl she'd abandoned decades before. Abandoned – and forgot about.
"Jess, there is a lot you don't understand. It was a dangerous time. The work I did for the Union . . . one of many projects of ours I believe Andrew and yourself came into direct contact with. An awful device. But not the worst by a long shot. I did not want my offspring around that lifestyle. And unlike you, I am an orphan. I had no family to fall back on," Kingston explained.
"Did Dad know all along?"
Kingston opened her eyes. There were bloodshot. "Not straight away, no. How did Clayton learn the truth?" she asked.
"Dad told him. But the Doctor kept it from me until a short while ago. Apparently he swore not to tell me. He said –"
"Go on," Kingston urged her.
"He said you were a bad woman. A monster."
"And I was. I've lived a life of mistakes and cruelty in many ways," Kingston said. "Many of those things I cannot make amends for. But now, perhaps . . ."
Jessica shook her head. "You will never fix what you broke when you left me to continue your work. Never. Clayton's right. You're some kind of monster. I couldn't abandon any child of mine."
"I'm sorry," Kingston said. "Truly, I am."
Jessica daubed at her eyes with a ball of tissue. The tears had stopped for a moment, replaced by the anger again. "I could have lived my whole life and not known."
"Would it have been better if you had?"
Jessica's voice lodged in her throat. She couldn't think of any way to answer her. None at all.
"I chose your name, you know. Your Father didn't have a say in it. Though I knew the Kingston part was far too easy to trace. So I shortened it to King."
Jessica took a deep breath. "I have wondered how I got my name."
"There you go. Mystery solved."
"You know what they say about mysteries. They're like hydra. Deal with one and two more pop up in its place."
"You must have a lifetime of questions," Kingston said.
More than you could know, Jessica thought. The thing is, do you have the answers?
47.
"How did you even end up in this line of work? You're obviously a talented scientist," Jessica said.
Kingston shrugged. "I just did. You know yourself, sometimes your vocation chooses you and not the other way around. Andrew pursued a military career. I went the other way and buried my head in books and papers. It wasn't until later that I was talent spotted by the science division and offered employment on their latest project."
"I take it you were pregnant already at that point," Jessica said. "Why didn't you just terminate me?"
"It wasn't something I could consider. I am responsible, in an indirect fashion, for the deaths of a great many people through my work," Kingston said. "However I have never murdered anyone. There's no way I could terminate an unborn child. Especially my own. I'd never have lived with myself."
"I have to admit, I don't think I could either," Jessica said.
"Conscience. It's a fickle thing. The difference between the things we can live with and the things we can't is not always so glaringly large. It's a thin line, but not one that I was willing to cross. Not then, not ever. A person should have to live with, and deal with, their mistakes."
Jessica's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, so I'm a mistake now? You're actually coming out in the open and admitting it."
She got up. Kingston waved her hands. "No, no, no. That's not what I meant. Please sit back down."
Jessica considered for a moment, then slowly lowered herself back into her seat. "Go on."
"I meant, you were my responsibility, planned or not. But I wasn't cut out for motherhood. And I was about to go and work on top secret projects for the science division. I was not naive, Jessica. I knew the kind of things I might end up getting involved with. So I hid the pregnancy until the time was right, then had you in secret. That was when Andrew got involved," Kingston explained.
"He didn't know all along?"
"No. I was always going to tell him, but I couldn't find a way of breaking the news. However, when I started to show too much, I requested a leave of absence. Thankfully it was granted without question. I waited out the last few months of my pregnancy, then made contact with him. He was very understanding," Kingston said.
"He was a good man."
"The best. And he understood what I was telling. The lab is no place for a child to grow up . . . nor is the bridge of a starship. He agreed it was in your best interest to seek another home for you. So that's what we did."
It had been enough knowing Singh kept his true identity secret from her for years, but to know he'd played a part in her growing up without parents all seemed too much for her to handle. At least for the time being.
She cleared her throat. "So how did you two meet, anyway?"
Kingston got up. She walked to a cabinet on the other side of the room, opened it up to reveal bottles of drink. "I don't know about you, but I could use one of these right about now."
Jessica watched her pour two short glasses with a light pink liquid. She handed her one, then held her glass out for a toast.
"To the ghosts of the past," Kingston said.
"I'll drink to that," Jessica said.
The pink stuff didn't burn as it went down, but it had fire. Soon she felt as if her insides were going to start smouldering. It left a distinct aniseed aftertaste on her tongue but was not unpleasant. Far from it. The liquor of an academic.
"Another one?"
"Sure," Jessica handed her the glass and watched her Mother fix them another. "So did you ever think about me over the years?"
"I did. And I eventually looked you up," Kingston said. "I have to admit to feeling pleased you take after your Father more than I. He always said he had command in his blood."
Kingston handed her another glass f
ull of the pink liquid, then sat back down on the other side of the desk.
"You were going to tell me about him," Jessica said.
"Yes," Kingston said. She took a sip of the liquor. "He had thick black hair back then . . ."
48.
Clayton wandered through the ship, hands in his pockets. He'd felt like a spare tire on the Command Deck. Now, without anything to do in a medical capacity, he walked the corridors of the Defiant deep in thought. Unhindered by passing crewmen, by the hustle and bustle of the ship when she operated normally. Now it was quiet as a tomb, the perfect environment for considered thought.
But as he knew all too well, sometimes it was better not to think at all.
"Doc?"
Clayton nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around, searching for the body to accompany the voice that had spoken out of nowhere. There on the floor, sitting behind bulkhead was the Chief.
"You scared the life out of me!" he said. "A man my age . . . what're you doing, sitting there like that?"
Gunn shrugged. "What's the problem? The ships' empty. Anyway, what're you doing walking around like that? You looked like a zombie."
"I was just . . . walking."
"Yeah I could see that. What, are you bored?" Gunn asked.
He noticed she had a cup of coffee next to her on the floor, and what looked like the remnants of a ration bar.
"You know they're not good for you," Clayton said, pointing to the ration bar wrapper. "They're extremely high in fats and sugars. They're meant for survival, not for snacking with your hourly coffee."
"Don't lecture me right now, Doc. It's the last thing I need. Here, fetch a pew," she said, patting the floor next to her.
Clayton plopped himself down.
"I take it we're kindred spirits," Gunn said. "Wandering the ghost ship, lost in thought."
"Looks like you gave up on the wandering part," Clayton said, indicating her coffee.
"Well, we're both surgeons. I fix ships, you fix people. But without either to tend for, what do we have? Our own thoughts. Our own rubbish," Gunn said with a sigh. "All stuff we'd rather not have to think about."
"Amen to that."
"So what worries you, Doc?"
He sighed. "Jess and I . . . we had words," he said.
"When?" the Chief asked, shocked.
"Before we arrived," he said regrettably. "It wasn't pretty."
"What about?"
"I'd rather not say," Clayton told her. "If you don't mind."
He thought back. Jessica in his face.
"You have kept this secret all these years? Why?"
He stammered. Took a step back from her. "Jess. I was sworn to secrecy. Your Father didn't think you needed the trouble in your life. You'd done fine on your own."
"No, I got through. I managed. There's a difference," she said bitterly.
"Jess, I'm sorry," Clayton said.
"So Doctor Kingston's my Mother, and you spring this news on me now, when we're inches away from knocking on her door," she said. "You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Jess –"
He tried to touch her. She shrugged him off. "You disgust me."
*
Clayton's heart ached from the memory of it. He'd so wanted to have it all over, to restore what they'd had before. But now she'd never trust him again. Not in the same way. Perhaps she was right. He should have told her the identity of both parents when he diagnosed her MS. But he didn't.
"I'm sure whatever it was, Doc," Gunn said in a soft voice. "It'll all sort itself out. Though I can't say I'm not curious."
Clayton smirked. "You know what it did to the goddamn cat, don't you?"
"All too well."
49.
"He was a good looking man, your father," Dr. Kingston said, her eyes bright as she remembered Andrew Singh as she'd known him. "Of course, we were both very young."
"And you were in love?" Jessica asked. She thought about her own love affair years ago with Will Ardai. How the two of them had bumped into each other, purely by chance, to find that old fire still burning. As if nothing had happened between them, no time had passed. What should have been a gulf felt, in fact, like a hiccup in their relationship with one another.
"Very much so. But he had his work . . . and I had mine, of course," Kingston said.
"So tell me about the Enigma."
"What about it?"
Jessica told her the story. How they were sent to dock with it, board it. Make a survey of the interior. And what they found in there. Or didn't find.
"That was years ago," Kingston said. "I've not been in a space suit for a long time."
"Yes I know. But still, you can't have forgotten. Tell me about the first rendezvous with it," Jessica said firmly. "I think you can understand how it would interest me."
Her Mother rubbed the tired corners of her eyes. "Fine, if that's what you want," Kingston said, "I'll tell you."
50.
"I served aboard the Demeter as science officer. Kerrick had recently been placed as Captain of the vessel. It was all pretty routine, at least at first. The Enigma had been located almost by luck. An anomaly on the readings of a passing probe that prompted Union cartographers to go back through the data to ascertain what had caused it.
"That's when they found the cylinder orbiting the planet. The Demeter was secretly assigned to investigate and, if possible, get inside. I voiced my concerns about the mission to Kerrick, but he wouldn't hear any of it.
"We drew up in front of it, matching velocity and pitch, as you can imagine. Then we exited in EVA flight suits, using our thruster packs to draw slowly closer and closer to the front end.
"I'm sure you're familiar with the rest. We found an opening, dead centre of that huge disc, and used that to gain entry. Inside . . . well, I think you'll agree, it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. We trod carefully, not wanting to disturb too much. We were in there days before we arrived at the aft section. That's when we found them. The crew. All in hibernation. All very much alive.
"Captain Kerrick waited for further instructions from command. In the meantime, we noticed the vessel had activated some kind of response to our entry. One of the pods, in particular, had begun to cycle through a thawing process. Kerrick took it upon himself to order a withdrawal. As we left, we noticed the lights going out behind us. Everything returning to the state it had been before we arrived. We assumed that the occupant of that hibernation pod would remain in stasis with us out of the way.
"Kerrick received word from command that we were to remove specimens. I was outraged, told him it contravened several conventions and directives. But he wouldn't listen. He went over there himself, with six others, and together they removed some of the crew from their pods. Pretty soon I had a station set up in the sickbay so that I could monitor the Namar as they woke. Kerrick had them chained to the tables, and a good thing too. When they came around, the first thing they did was to try and get up. You could see the fury in their eyes. If they'd got out . . .
"As we left the Enigma behind, Captain Kerrick sat us all down. 'This whole mission is now classified at the highest level. D'you understand? If any of you breathe one word of it, you'll find yourselves doing hard time on a penal colony somewhere. I'll make sure of it,' he warned us.
"So we forgot we were ever there. They didn't post a ship to watch over the Enigma, because it was so well hidden, out of the way. Let's face it, it'd remained undisturbed for over a thousand years at that point. What were the chances anyone would come find it? So they left it out there. Apparently, at some point, they planned to return and empty it of weaponry. See if they could use the technology to advance our own military. But obviously, the Defiant got there before they could get around to it. A good thing too. We don't have a good record when it comes to using Namar technology."
*
Jessica shifted in her seat. "So what became of the specimens?"
"They lived. At least at first. I was brought on as a consultant to Proj
ect Prometheus some months later, at which point the Namar had been killed and dissected," Kingston said.
"And Kerrick was in charge of Project Prometheus?"
Kingston nodded. "Professor Dajani ran the project itself. Kerrick oversaw Dajani to ensure he was doing what needed to be done. It was Kerrick who suggested me to Dajani."
"And what was your work there? What did you do?"
"I was tasked with breaking their genome. It took months of work. The most complex genetic code I've ever encountered. But we managed it."
"What was the lure?" Jessica asked.
Kingston folded her arms. "The Namar were ahead of the game in many areas. One of which was the embellishment of the organic with technological advancements. A meld of natural and artificial. It's long been thought that humanity will, eventually, make such adaptations ourselves. We'll have to. So there was lots to learn from them. That, and they were seen as the perfect template for future soldiers. At that point, the Draxx war was still ongoing. And with no end in sight."
"The greater good . . ." Jessica said with a shake of her head.
"I'm not proud. Not one bit. But we did as we were told. The same as you," Kingston said.
"It's easy to see why Cessqa is so angry. Why she wants to destroy us. She wages war against us, because we gave the first shot."
"True enough," Kingston said. "But at the time, it was to serve another purpose. It was to give us whatever edge we could get. Unfortunately, it soon got out of hand. Dajani was tasked with blending human and Namar DNA. That was all Kerrick's plan, though I feel he too answered to someone higher up. They sent the hybrids to different locales to be nurtured, trained, tested. Through the use of incubation chambers they were able to shorten the length of time it would take for them to reach adulthood to a mere nine years. Anyway, later on, the war ended and there was no point in continuing. But Kerrick wouldn't stop the project. It was at that point I left."
"What happened?"
