That Distant Dream

by Laurel Beckley

  “Well, speak up,” the gruff voice added. Melin’s eyes adjusted. Someone sat a desk behind the office’s main issue point. “You lose your wristlet? It’ll come out of your wages.”

  “I, um—” Her wristlet clinked at her arm.

  “Got fired, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. The quartermaster kicked out a chair beside her desk. Metal clanged on metal. “Come over, sit down, and get a hold of yourself.” She flicked on the lantern above her desk, revealing the same short, stocky woman from earlier that morning. Her black hair was pulled away from her face, accentuating a large nose and two prominent bulges on her forehead.

  It had been a long time since Melin had seen a fleet sniffer—one of the soldiers modified for drug and contraband interdiction. She had never seen one out of uniform before, much less doing something as mundane as supply.

  Melin sat. “I’m fine.” She sighed. There was no hitch at the bottom of her chest that usually heralded another coughing fit.

  “You’ve got a far-away look in your eyes.” The quartermaster peered closer at Melin’s face. “Huh. Weird. You have special mods to make your eyes glow?”

  The question took Melin aback. “No. Why?”

  The quartermaster grunted and plucked out a mirror from the mess of tools and paper on her desk and held it up.

  Melin’s eyes flickered in the lantern light, and she turned away from her too-thin face. “Weird.” Weird didn’t begin to describe how unsettled she felt.

  Her eyes were yellow.

  Normally, her eyes were a dull green.

  Her stomach roiled.

  “I’ve seen weirder,” the quartermaster said. “Stay here long enough and you’ll see it too.”

  “I’m Melin.”

  The quartermaster grunted. “Trudi.” She peered again at Melin’s face. “You’ve got the shocks, don’t you? What happened, new girl?”

  “The usual.” Melin didn’t feel like explaining. She took another deep breath and let it out. Then another. Closed her eyes. When her mind was calm again, she opened her eyes. “This wasn’t what I expected.”

  “It never is,” Trudi replied, seeming completely unconcerned Melin hadn’t answered her question and instead spent several minutes going through a calming exercise. Trudi bent over her desk, focusing on a report of some sort. “So, you need a job?”

  Melin barked a laugh. “I guess.” What she needed was an explanation for her hare-brained decision to come to this planet.

  “I have no use for a nube.”

  “Seems like everyone here is a nube when the tech’s down. I’m ahead of the curve,” Melin pointed out.

  Trudi smirked. “Point. You can stock and fix things? Most of what we have is pretty old and broken down, but we keep using it over and over.”

  “I used to fix mechanicals at the family farm.” She doubted the ability to assemble and disassemble an AMREX 114 weapons system in under two minutes was an accomplishment here. Mostly because the AMREX 114 had been removed from service nearly fifteen years ago and also because there were no weapons in this warehouse.

  The quartermaster rummaged through her desk and tossed a gadget toward her. “Fix it.”

  It was an old cleaning robot. Melin smiled.

  She plucked a screwdriver from the desk, turned the robot over onto its side and disassembled it. The glow plug to the charger had burned out. She didn’t see any replacements scattered on Trudi’s desk, so she took a thin strand of wire and twirled it around the input socket, making her own version of the glow plug. She’d had to do it often enough on the farm and again when repair parts were few and far between during the wars for the runner bots. The work was slower going with her left hand only steadying the piece, but at least it didn’t cramp.

  Melin snapped the battery pack in and set the bot onto the desk alongside the screwdriver.

  Trudi ignored her like she had while Melin made the repair, nose-deep into a report. Curious, Melin glanced over the quartermaster’s forearm to see what had so engrossed her and was surprised to find a nonelectric copy of the property on her rolls.

  Growing bored when Trudi continued scribbling with no indication of stopping, Melin stood and waded into the mess of items. There were five storerooms, all in various states of disarray, and she wondered if the quartermaster had any assistants at all. She grunted in disgust and set about moving things off the floor, relocating them to the counters for organization.

  As if reading her thoughts, Trudi said, “I had two Saturans, but I caught them making off with uniform parts. That was three months ago. Pardon the mess. It’s been a bad pain month.”

  A cane with a hook was propped on the corner of the nearest counter, and Melin looked back at her new boss. Trudi sat in a hoverchair. Melin didn’t see anything wrong with her, but many disabilities could be disguised or were invisible. It was the same for everyone else who used a hoverchair on this planet.

  After gathering everything from the floor in the main room and moving it all to the countertops, Melin organized everything by type, size, and part number if it had one. Trudi continued poring over her papers, so when she finished that task, she set off to figure out where everything went.

  Each storeroom had a letter written above and on the door. Melin peeped inside each one since no description accompanied the letter, just the implication that one was supposed to know. With only one person and handful of assistants—currently nonexistent—descriptions were superfluous.

  Storeroom A held clothing articles, C repair parts, D office supplies, and E food stuffs. The food had more of the packaged, long storage type that could survive a supernova and be as passably edible as it was when created. Storeroom B was locked. Melin bet it contained the repair parts and ammunition for the space armor and weapons not kept in the garrison armory. Melin didn’t try the last door, unmarked and locked.

  “Make sure the count cards match the on-hand numbers,” Trudi called as Melin carried the first armload of clothing articles into storeroom A.

  She had finished her first run when Trudi stood up, sighing, and made her way toward the rear of the main stockroom. She moved with a heavy limp, every other step making a loud clink on the floor. A prosthetic leg. Prosthetics weren’t unusual since regen remained horrifically expensive, but usually they were synth skin and melded nearly perfectly to a person’s body instead of whatever clunky metal Trudi was using.

  Melin wondered if Trudi was a vet—and victim—of the Redelki Wars and the subpar medical treatment many soldiers received during and immediately afterwards. She appeared a couple years older than Melin—well, how old she was supposed to look. How would she view Melin—a soldier who had kept the appearance of youth and had had all the benefits of a top-notch rehabilitation center? Perhaps she’d think nothing of it. For all of Trudi’s outward disabilities, she still had her implant.

  “You can go,” Trudi said. “Day’s done.”

  “Uh—” Melin realized she’d been standing at the front of the room by the countertops, empty handed and staring into nothing.

  “I’ll put in a word with the ambassador,” Trudi said. “You should have been assigned to me in the first place, you know. All general assistants are until I reassign them to another area.”

  Melin leaned against a counter. “It’s because of who I am.” The bitterness seeped through. She made no effort to hide it.

  Trudi paused in front of the mystery room’s locked door. “Yes,” she said. “He didn’t want word to get out he was keeping a famous war hero as a common supply clerk, no matter her dubious qualifications for being on a class 5A planet.” She squinted at Melin. “But you have your reasons for coming here, I suppose.”

  “Well?” Melin asked, hoping to skip away from that topic. No need to have her new boss think she was a nutter because she was swayed by dreams. “Did I pass your test?”

  Trudi waved a hand dismissively. “Come back tomorrow right after breakfast. I suppose you’ll want to run or do something soldierly before work.�
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  “Thanks.”

  “It takes time.” Trudi stared pointedly at Melin’s left hand where it was tucked against her body, sleeve covering the baby pink skin. “Time will heal all things.”

  “I’ve had plenty of time.”

  Trudi rubbed her knee, adjusting her prosthetic. “You’ve had less than the rest of us.”

  Chapter Seven

  She was in a rock-hewn tunnel, recessed and underground. Melin turned, breathed in the stale, musty air, and coughed. No sound erupted, even an echo among the walls. She felt like she had a body in this dream. She glanced down and threw herself into darkness. She might have a body, but it was invisible.

  The only illumination came from a sconce far down into the depths of the cave. Its dim light beckoned. She walked toward it, trying to ignore the inconsistencies of her situation as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Her feet didn’t touch the ground although she moved past doors filled with darkness. The further she walked, the more the scent of decay, old air, and sharp chemicals assaulted her nose.

  The tunnel curved after the first sconce. It looked lighter down there. Melin had never had this dream before and was nervous about what she’d find around the corner.

  She rounded the corner and nearly ran into a guard positioned in front of one of the mysterious entryways.

  Melin shrieked at the sight of another person. He didn’t flinch, not even when she waved her hand in front of his face, and he remained just as impervious when she stepped inches from his face and screamed into his ear. She couldn’t even hear herself.

  A muffled sob came from the entry, breaking the silence.

  Melin checked the guard’s face. He hadn’t moved.

  The crying came from the cave.

  She stepped inside cautiously. It was a big cave, perhaps naturally formed and later carved until the walls and ceilings were smooth. Dying candles cast a dim light, and flowers littered the floor. Long stone blocks lined the walls. Each looked like they had someone asleep on the top. She crept closer to one. A shroud covered each form.

  Not asleep. Dead.

  This was a tomb.

  She gingerly tapped a cloth-covered foot, relieved to find stone and not a rotting body, surprised she could feel.

  The stench of embalming fluids and incense was stronger in here.

  Another sob, muffled as before. It came from the far end of the room where a shrine of candles surrounded two new-looking sarcophagi draped in sheer white cloths.

  The scarred man knelt before one of the coffins, one hand resting on a stone foot.

  Melin nodded. Now it was familiar. She knew this dream.

  But she’d never known how much time had passed between this and all of her previous dreams because that arm was the only one he possessed now. His other sleeve was empty, the black cloth pinned neatly at his shoulder. He appeared older, too, his face still gaunt but now lined with stress and grief. His dark-brown hair had heavy strips of white at his temples, but his body was still strong and lean and powerful.

  In all her other dreams, he was younger and had two arms.

  She hated this dream most of all. It was the most confusing—and the most frustrating. He always sat and cried and patted that sarcophagus and choked down sobs until she woke up.

  She took a step.

  He looked up.

  Stared straight through her.

  Not through her, at her.

  She froze.

  He saw her.

  “You again?” he growled. He didn’t look at all surprised to see her. His ice-blue eyes were bloodshot and puffy, his face weary. “You’re still too early. And your timing is awful.”

  She opened her mouth, realized he couldn’t hear whatever she said, and closed it again.

  “I don’t have the strength to send you back this time,” the man told her apologetically. Cryptically. “I’m saving it for revenge. I can’t spare it on you.” His gaze turned distant. “She will pay for this. I will end it once and for all, and then they will live in peace.” He noted her confusion and smiled. “Will you sit with me?” he asked. “Until you leave.”

  Melin crept forward warily. He wore formal military gear—green-and-silver baldric over a black tunic and black pants tucked into knee-length black boots. He wore the same two swords as before, one at his hip, the other on his back. He caught her gaze. “Ironic isn’t it? A one-armed swordmaster.”

  He unsheathed the sword on his back, awkward in his movements.

  Melin’s breath caught. She’d seen it before, of course, following this man across his lifetime in her dreams, but she’d never seen it this close. The blade was long and straight, the metal oddly multi-colored and glowing in the candlelight. Runes rippled down the blade in rainbow streaks. The handle was wrapped in plain black leather, with a blue stone set into the pommel. The sword hummed, then throbbed as it was exposed to the air, bass pulses rumbling like thunder deep in Melin’s chest.

  “Tallagorin,” the man explained. “It seems a waste to destroy her.”

  He let the sword rest in his lap and pulled out the one at his waist. Unlike Tallagorin, it had a slight curve, a plain blade and a black-wrapped, jewelless handle. It was bland, unobtrusive, until a catch of the light transformed the plain steel into a wave of green-tinted runes. Melin blinked, and the shimmer vanished.

  “Nevermore.” He placed it too on his lap. “Shame again, but we always favored each other more.” He ran a hand down the blade, smiling humorlessly. “What do you think?”

  There was a cough at the entrance, and the man looked up. A guard stood there, a perplexed expression on his face. “Um, sorry Commander, but I heard—uh, voices. Were you, um, talking to someone?” the guard asked, twisting his hands together.

  The scarred man shook his head. “Just ghosts.”

  The guard glanced about the room, his eyes darting about the room, never once landing on Melin as if he couldn’t see her.

  “Please wait outside the tombs. I will join you and the others shortly.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard stammered. He saluted and left, his boot heels clicking on the stone floor.

  The scarred man sighed. “Now rumors will spread that I’m seeing things. Wonderful.”

  With a groan, he rose to his feet and sheathed Nevermore with a fluid motion, then bent over and picked up Tallagorin. In the flickering light, the colors on its blade shimmered and swirled in a pearlescent whorl of pinks, oranges, greens, and blues. He reverently laid the sword onto the coffin he’d been touching, resting it lengthways alongside the statue. Melin couldn’t tell if the shrouded figure was man, woman, or nonbinary.

  “Her twin is in the hands of the king,” he said absently. “As he should be.” At Melin’s puzzled expression, he explained, “The sword. Tallagorin. Her twin is Thaddeus. My brother—” His voice choked and he caught himself, waving toward the next nearest sarcophagus where a stone crown perched on the white shroud. “—my brother used to bear him, but the king does now.” He patted Tallagorin. Melin reached out to touch his shoulder but hesitated. She didn’t know if she could touch him. If she should touch him. “Tallagorin is too temperamental for daily use. It’s fitting she stays here.”

  He left his brother’s tomb, limping badly, and Melin followed. He paused in the hallway, leaning a hand against the wall as if to steady himself. “I hope they see fit to put a placeholder here beside her when it’s all over.”

  Melin had no idea what the hells he was talking about and desperately wished she could tell him to stop being so fucking cryptic.

  He wiped his eyes and straightened. “Thank you.”

  He took a step and was swallowed by darkness.

  *

  Melin gasped awake.

  Another dream.

  The second since she’d arrived a week ago and the most confusing. Not that the dreams were ever clear or made sense, which made complete sense because all dreams were nonsense. That she tried to look deeper into nonsense meant she should find a shrink be
fore her dreams tried to take over reality again.

  She glanced at her chrono and groaned.

  The tech was down, so no telling what time it was. Judging from the darkness outside her bedroom window, it was well into the night.

  She groaned again. While she’d had little trouble adjusting to the day schedule, she didn’t sleep well at night. Then again, she’d always had problems with sleep.

  Melin plucked at her sweat-soaked shirt and sat up to change.

  The dirty nightclothes fell into the pile she kept semineatly at the end of the tiny dresser, next to the rumpled pile of her uniform that had been lying in the corner since the party. She slid into the bed, lit the gas lantern on her nightstand, and picked up one of the books—an actual paper book—Trudi had lent her earlier that week after Melin admitted to troubles sleeping. It was an innocuous history set thousands of years ago on the planet Earth about the trials and tribulations of the six wives of a narcissistic king. It was guaranteed not to trigger any of her memories, real or imagined.

  She settled down and tried to focus on her book.

  Anything to keep her mind off her dream.

  And from the knowledge that she was stuck on this island when her entire being wanted to move.

  Chapter Eight

  Earlier that week, Trudi decided they would conduct an inventory.

  It was time for her monthly inventory anyway, but she had been delaying it for a month. Melin understood why—judging by the state of constant disarray the quartermaster’s office had been in when she’d arrived with everything accounted for only through sheer memorization of where each item lay in its special pile near Trudi’s desk. The chaos made Melin’s eye twitch. Happily, things were now semi-organized—except Trudi’s desk, which remained a nonnegotiable controlled disaster.

  By midmorning, the inventory had brought Melin deep into the recesses of the office, moving stock about by lantern light and counting under her breath to keep the numbers straight. Trudi sat at her desk, writing down numbers as Melin called out the final count.