by L S Roebuck
For most in the small group, Trigs was hard to read. He didn’t seem today like a crazy member of a utopian terrorist cult, but just like a normal man who got caught up in the wrong cause, remorseful and full of regrets — but resigned to his fate.
Trot Wilder nodded and a pair of Marines approached Skylar.
“Wait,” he semi-shouted. The Marines stopped. “May I have a vape smoker before I have to go?”
Midas, standing in the back of the group, fingered his smoker and frowned. “He can have mine.” Amberly walked over to Midas and took the stick device.
“Thank you, Midas, truly,” Skylar said.
“I hope your utopian dream was worth it,” Amberly said, as she gave him the smoke stick. At the same time, she slipped the shard ring off her finger and handed it to him. “I would have chosen to love you forever.”
He held onto her hand for a fleeting moment that seemed like a blessed eternity, then released before she had a chance to withdraw it.
“Really? You would have loved me?” Skylar asked, with a bittersweet desperation in his voice. “Or are you just saying that so I’ll feel better the last few moments of my life?”
“Does it matter?” Amberly asked, no longer able to hold back her own tears. She reached out and ran her fingers ever so briefly though his golden hair. “Goodbye, Skylar.”
Amberly turned and walked away. She didn’t have the strength for what was coming next. “It wasn’t worth it, Amberly Macready,” Skylar called out after her. Amberly paused, but didn’t turn around. She continued walking.
“It wasn’t worth it!” he shouted again.
Amberly rounded the corner and slipped out of sight.
The Marines guided Skylar into the airlock. Standing near the interior door, Ramos offered a brief, quiet prayer.
“Thank you,” Skylar caught the eye of the preacher, the last human he would see, as the interior door closed.
The airlock was cold and dimly lit by stars through small window on the exterior door. Skylar turned away from the window out of fear, then he briefly panicked because he was worried he would not have time to light the smoke stick. He powered it up, and put the filter end to his lips and began to inhale the tasty fumes. He calmed himself, controlled his breathing, took a few more drags, and then held the smoke stick in place with his lips only.
Skylar turned from the windowless interior door to face the vastness of space on the other side of the exterior window. A VI voice was offering warnings, but he had tuned that out. Instead he focused on the symbol of love he held in his hands. He held up the ring and smiled as the shard crystal caught and refracted the light from the stars.
In seconds, he imagined a full life with Amberly, conjuring up a farmstead on Arara, playing with their children, a boy with curly red hair and a girl with straight blonde hair. They had brilliant green eyes and innocent smiles, and they loved him and their mother.
Amberly was older now, but still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She looked up from the children, came over to Skylar, and gave him a brief, sweet kiss. She took his hand, and they both watched the children playing in the grassy fields.
“I love you, Skylar.”
“I love you, too, Amberly.”
He looked down at her hand and saw her wearing the ring. Then realized he was just holding the ring. And Amberly wasn’t there.
He saw the stars, closed his eyes, took another pull from the vape, and waited patiently for oblivion.
A second later, the exterior door obliged him, opened, and Skylar Trigs was sucked into space.
Amberly lay quietly on her bed, trying to clear her mind from her grief, letting her heart decompress. She had to pull herself together to complete the mission. Her greatest fear was that all she had sacrificed, all that she had lost, the pain she had suffered through, would be in vain if Chasm were to win.
The door chime rang. Amberly knew it was her sister.
“Verne, let Kora in,” she instructed her VI.
She heard the front door open, and her sister call out. “Hello? Amberly?”
“Back here,” Amberly replied.
Kora entered the bedroom, holding her son, and looked at her sister with compassion. She sat beside Amberly and set Alroy down on the bed. Amberly saw her nephew and smiled. She remembered what she was fighting for.
Alroy looked at his aunt and crawled over to her, and started pulling at her short hair.
“It’s okay to be sad about Skylar,” Kora said. “In the end, I think he was undercover so long, he had almost forgotten that he was Chasm. Some of him was real.”
“Maybe,” Amberly said. “I remember when we spaced Johnson. He was spewing venom and swearing allegiance to Chasm to the very end. Not Skylar. He showed regret. Remorse. Almost like he wanted to become what he pretended he was. When other Chasm defectors were facing the end, they kept blathering about the common good and how their lives didn’t matter. Not Skylar.”
“It’s okay to forgive him, you know,” Kora prompted. “In fact, I’d say it’s for the best.”
“Somewhere, somehow, Mom is laughing at me. She’s mocking me from the other side,” Amberly closed her eyes and pictured her mother’s face and dark raven hair. “She would have been horrified that I was engaged. It’s like she planted Skylar to lead me on, and then break me, so she could say, ‘That’s what you get for falling in love with a man.’”
“You should forgive Mom, too,” Kora said.
“Have you?”
“Sure,” Kora smiled at her sister and took her hand. “I can’t afford to be bitter when I have to show this little man all the galaxy has to offer.”
“Mom would have said that it was wrong for me to want a family,” Amberly mused. “She would have said that I am selling myself short. Distracting myself from becoming the smartest scientist in all the waypoints. Is it wrong for me to want someone?”
“You know what I think, sis,” Kora winked. “So, now Dek is back in the picture. He’s gotten really built. And he’s a charismatic captain. Quite a catch.”
“Oh, Kora,” Amberly rolled her eyes.
“Too soon?”
“Too soon,” Amberly smiled. “Owwwww!” Alroy had gotten a grip on a tuft of Amberly’s hair and yanked hard.
“Well, I just wanted to stop by and remind you that I love you,” Kora said as she scooped up her toddler. “Trot and I are having dinner with Skip and Lydia at the mess. You want to join?”
“Thanks, but I think I just want to be alone for a while,” Amberly rolled over on the bed. “And Kora, I forgave Skylar.”
“Good for you,” Kora said as she moved for the door. “May God rest his soul.”
When Amberly heard her sister leave, she rolled on her back and looked out the viewport at the symphony of space rocks with which Fuentes Station orbited Spencer Minorum.
I still have my friends, Amberly thought. Lydia, Skip, Trot, my dear sister, Midas, the Dinos. So many people here, now, to support me. But I don’t have North. He left us all, and has no one.
Amberly sat up and ordered her personal display panel on. “Verne, show me pictures of North.”
The first image that appeared was a snapshot at Rick’s at her birthday party. She looked at her 18-year-old self, with her arm around North’s waist, and on his other side, Kora. Skip stood next to Kora, with his normal sour expression. Lydia had jumped behind them, sticking her tongue out. She wanted to go back to this day, before Chasm, with her friends living halcyon days keeping Magellan running between deep space ship visits.
She did some quick math in her head. Magnus had been running silent for more than two years now. North would be at Marquette now. Amberly wondered what was going on, what adventures and dangers North was facing. And assuming Magnus was heading on to Arara, would he stay there, find himself a kind woman, settle on the family farm and have the life Amberly didn’t know she wanted?
If I can forgive Skylar and even Mom, maybe North can forgive me, Amberly thought. Maybe. O
nly one way to find out.
Amberly rummaged through a keepsake box and pulled out her encryption key. She didn’t know the exact location of Magnus, so using the tight beam was not an option. But she could broadcast the message on an encrypted channel. The Magnus would already be at Arara by the time North received the message, 1.5 light years from Magellan. It would probably take years for someone to decrypt the message without North’s key.
I’m going to risk it, Amberly thought. What’s the point of being Mission Commander if you can’t bend the rules a little? Amberly knew Skip would be more than willing to help her send this clandestine message when he knew it was for North.
“Verne, begin voice recording.”
“Yes, Amberly,” Verne said. “I’m sure North will be pleased to hear from you.”
“Hello North, it’s Amberly,” she spoke sweetly as she stared at the photo of her friends at Rick’s. “There is so much to tell you, and so much I can’t say, because you know, Chasm could eventually get this.
“But first, I want you to know I think you must be praying for me, because when I was all alone, looking at Viapos, after you left, I thought I could feel you. But I didn’t want to believe it, because you hurt me so. You shut me out when you left. And then I met someone.”
Amberly relayed the events of the last year to North. Alroy’s birth. The fight with Wong. The rescue of the American Spirit. A secret mission of which she couldn’t relay the details. Dek’s return. Her engagement. Skylar’s betrayal. His execution.
“So, I am alone again,” Amberly recorded. “And that feeling that I haven’t felt in so long, that somewhere between Magellan and the shiny star Viapos, my friend North was praying for me.
“I better wrap this up. Give my half-crazy, so-called sister Sparks my best. I sort of miss her, too.
“Through it all, I guess I wanted to tell you that I’ve learned two things since we were last together. First, I’ve learned to forgive. I’ve forgiven Sparks. I forgave Dek, even Skylar. I’ve forgiven Mom. And I’m hoping – and asking – that someday you’ll to forgive me, too.
“Besides that, I realize that there is nothing I want more than for you to come home. Do you hear me? If you have a choice, please come home, North. I’ll be waiting.”
EPILOGUE TWO
U.S.S. Magnus, in flight to Waypoint Magellan, June 2, 2605, six months after the Battle of Marquette.
Rhodes smiled, took a bite of protein ration and chased it with a swig from her bitter caffeinated drink that tasted nothing like coffee. She reclined back in a booth table at the Officer’s Lounge with her favorite three people: North, Sparks and little Nora.
“Nora is getting pretty proficient with that spork,” Sparks observed. Her rescuers on Magnus didn’t know her actual age, but the pediatrician estimated she was approaching three years old. Dr. Hershey believed that Nora Ryder-Olana would eventually catch up with the other children her age, but her development was retarded from the malnutrition during her desperate escape from the destruction of Waypoint Corez onboard the Ironman with Ryder, and the now deceased siblings, Arvin and Olana.
Not knowing if Nora had a family name or not, Capt. Obadiah gave Nora the last name Ryder-Olana, in honor of the women who saved her. After Ryder’s betrayal, some wanted to scrub the Chasm’s officer’s name from Nora’s, but Obadiah noted that you shouldn’t try to erase history just to make oneself feel better.
Sparks also stood up for the memory of Ryder. She did save Nora, after all.
Nora’s care responsibilities had been passed around for many months until a pair of engineers who had married somewhere between Waypoint Balboa and Waypoint Coronado, Linda Navarro-Smith and Inon Smith, adopted her. Rhodes adored the girl, and often babysat, taking Nora on outings.
Nora scooped a glob of green vita-paste and took a bite. She set the spoon down, pushed her messy brown hair out of her face, wrinkled her nose and looked like she was going to cry. Then she spit the vitamin rich foodstuff out onto the table.
“Don’t do that, Nora,” Rhodes said loud enough for everyone in the lounge, and some people down the hall, to hear. “Eat it. It’s good for you.”
“Yucky!” Nora shouted, and threw her spork down. She grabbed a sippy cup of artificially-flavored orange drink and tipped it to her mouth.
“Looks like she is picking up your temperament – and volume,” North joked. Sparks considered the girl.
“Do you think we’ll ever be moms?” Sparks asked Rhodes. Sparks took in Rhodes visually, nearly 19, almost jealous of her youthful beauty. Rhodes had grown her dark brown hair out, and it reminded Sparks of Raven One’s dark mane.
“I’m too young to think about that,” Rhodes replied as she looked up from Nora to Sparks. For a while after the Battle of Marquette, Rhodes found it hard to look at Spark’s burn-scarred face, but now Rhodes was accustomed to the slight disfigurement. “Besides, I am busy enough running comms and trying to get this little monster to eat something healthy.”
The medical team did their best to cosmetically salvage Sparks’ attractive mug, but Magnus did not leave with the advanced skin regenerative technology available on Earth. Even worse, Sparks had several cancers develop from the radiation exposure of from the nuclear blast.
The cancers were removed, but the treatment left Sparks unable to walk more than a few steps. She had lost about a third of her muscle mass, but had been recently been focusing on therapy to rebuilt her strength and stamina.
“Well, after seeing how cute Nora is, I think I’d like to be a mom,” Sparks said. “No reason I shouldn’t bless future generations with my sexy genes.”
North rolled his eyes. After the blast, he had temporarily lost his sight, but his burns were much less severe and eventually his skin healed itself, replacing the damaged cells with new ones.
“We’ll, I’m stuffed,” North said, and turned to Sparks. “You ready to go on our walk? Let’s get out of here before Rhodes makes me try to eat my vita-paste.”
Sparks started to gather dishes from the table.
“Oh, don’t worry about those,” Rhodes pressed. “I’ll take care of them. You guys enjoy your walk.”
“Thanks,” Sparks said.
“Do you have watch duty tomorrow?” Rhodes asked North.
“The morning shift,” North said.
“Well, I’ll see you in then,” Rhodes smiled.
North slid the hoverchair that Sparks was sitting in out from the open end of the booth table, and pushed it towards the door. Using the inverse technology that powered the artificial gravity, the chair could be self-propelled, but Sparks liked the intimacy of being pushed around by North, and he obliged her.
Magnus had one garden spot, a greenhouse observation deck in the deep aft of the ship. The corridor to access the greenhouse was narrow, and Sparks’ wheelchair could not fit through the door. This was not unexpected, and true to his routine, North gently lifted sparks from the chair, and carried her broken body in his strong arms through the greenhouse, and sat her down on bench that faced the viewport into space. Even though they were a light year away, the brightest star was still Viapos.
North sat with Sparks for several hours. Sometimes they had engaging conversation, but sometimes they just sat silently. Sparks had been thinking about her maternity discussion with Rhodes, and it made her wistful and pensive.
“I’m glad to be headed back to Magellan,” North broke the silence as he studied the star around which Arara orbited, “but I am sad we’re getting further away from the beaches of Lewis Island. I’d like to go there again.”
“That would be nice,” Sparks said. “Nice and boring.”
“Oh, you know you’d love it,” North returned the tease.
“Well I guess it would be peaceful,” Sparks admitted. “But who am I to complain. I’m a survivor, and I’m alive. And this peace right here isn’t bad.” She patted North’s muscular arm, then rested her head on North’s shoulder.
After a few moments, Sparks lift
ed her head. “North, I’m tired. Would you mind taking me home?”
North placed one arm under Sparks’ torso, and the other under her knees and lifted gently.
North set Sparks down so that she was sitting on the edge of her bed in her studio quarters.
“Would you mind handing me my sleeping gown?” Sparks said. North grabbed the gown off of Spark’s vanity, and also, knowing she would ask, grabbed an oral cleanser for her.
“Oh, and would you grab my toothbr–”
North smiled and handed her the cleanser.
“Can you start the zipper for me?” Sparks glanced over her shoulder.
North pulled the zipper on her black jumpsuit down to her lower back, and then faced away.
Sparks struggled a bit to complete the change, but was able to slip into her sleeping gown.
“Okay,” she said. North turned around.
“Goodnight, Sparks,” North flashed his perfect smile.
“North, stay the night,” Sparks blurted, then spoke more slowly. “Please be with me.”
“Sparks, I’m sorry. I don’t think –”
“It’s because I’m ugly now,” Sparks blurted again. She knew North wasn’t that shallow, which is one of the reasons she desired him. But she felt ugly. And she wanted to believe she could still be loved. And if not North, there wasn’t anyone. “I’m sorry, North. I shouldn’t have–”
“Shhh…” North sat down next to Sparks and leaned in and kissed her with a gentle passion for several moments. For those moments, Sparks felt like the most beautiful woman on Magnus.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you more,” North said. “I wish I could. It’s because of–”
“Amberly. My sister. It’s okay, North, I understand.”
“She’s not–”
“Really my sister. I know, I know. Look at us. We’re finishing each other’s sentences. How disgusting is that?” Sparks back peddled with levity.
“You’re alright, kid,” North winked at Sparks as he stood up to leave.
