“One last thing, Captain—don’t forget to shave. I can hardly see you through that beard. Over and out.”
Alexander frowned. He could read between the lines. They were abandoning Earth, and along with it, everyone who was still living there. It almost didn’t matter if Caty was still alive. She wouldn’t be for long.
CHAPTER 35
After his virtual meeting with Admiral Wilson, Alexander remained seated in his office, anxiously checking and rechecking his inbox for the private messages that Wilson had promised to send. After waiting for almost twenty minutes, he was in a bad mood. He was about to contact Hayes to remind the admiral, when his comm band chimed with a message alert. It was from the Liberty, Admiral Wilson’s flagship. Alexander opened the message and saw all of the attached video recordings. There was one archive for each member of the crew, but some archives were much bigger than others. Alexander hurriedly scanned through the list for an archive that bore his name.
7. ENS Beseler, Sara
8. LT Cardinal, Guillermo
9. LCDR Crespin, Diego
10. LT Davorian, David
11. CAPT De Leon, Alexander
Alexander stopped there. He tapped on his name and scanned the list of files in the archive. Inside was a folder that bore Caty’s name. He opened that one, too, and his gaze immediately settled on the dossier file. He opened it and was greeted by a heart-wrenching hologram of his wife’s head and shoulders. Blond hair, pale skin, blue eyes, gaunt cheeks, lips cracked, dark circles under her eyes… She wasn’t smiling, and she didn’t look well, but she wasn’t scarred beyond recognition with radiation burns either. How old was that image? He hoped she was doing better now, and that nothing had happened to her since it was taken. To the left of the hologram was a list of known details about her.
Personal Data:
Name: Catalina Abigail
Surname: Castillo de Leon
Date/Place of Birth: 2 April, 2761
Guadalajara, Mexico
Current Residence: Sacramento, California
Status: ALIVE
Alexander’s eyes hovered over the last line, his eyes blurring with tears, his heart instantly pounding. A smile sprang unbidden to his lips, and he shook his head. This data wasn’t old. It was current. His eyes skipped down and read the date stamp at the bottom of the file. Last updated April 10, 2792. Alexander’s brain buzzed, trying to process that. It had been updated two years into the future? Then he remembered time dilation.
Grinning now, Alexander closed the dossier and scanned the contents of the archive. The remaining files were all video recordings, six of them. They were dated two years prior, one for each of the days between when he’d left and when—he assumed—the fighting had broken out on Earth.
He opened the first message and watched. It was heart-wrenching to see her holding back tears and speaking hopefully about his return. She injected little updates from her life, her studies, and her job as a museum curator. He wondered how life had changed for her since the war. Given her current address was in Sacramento, Alexander had to assume that LA had been wiped out. Subsequent messages were much of the same, alternating between the sad and the mundane, but Alexander could have sat there listening to his wife make small talk for hours.
Her last message was more urgent. Rumors had reached Earth about the fighting in space. She hoped he was okay and that he’d made it away before he could be dragged into the conflict. By the end of the message she was sobbing and begging for him to be okay.
Alexander swallowed past a hard knot in his throat and let out a deep sigh. He wiped his eyes and thought about how he should reply. Two years had passed since she’d last heard from him. What could he say now?
He considered sending her a message right away. If it were sent directly, it would take about ten minutes to arrive on Earth, but there was no telling how long it would take to be parsed through Navy censors before they relayed it to her on Earth. Alexander sat absently stroking his beard as he considered the matter. Feeling that long mop of facial hair reminded him that he needed to shave. He wouldn’t want Caty to have to struggle to recognize him.
After a long encounter with an electric razor and a quick shower, Alexander was back at his desk—now shaved, his hair cropped short. Feeling more himself, he decided to pass along the other message archives via Lieutenant Hayes, along with instructions to temporarily downgrade the Lincoln’s readiness from condition yellow to condition green. It would be nearly a day before they left the wormhole and joined Alliance forces on the other side, so they could afford to take some time off.
Additionally, he gave instructions for his crew to take some personal time and compose replies to their loved ones wherever possible. A large number of the crew would have Status: DECEASED or Missing and Presumed Dead in their loved ones’ dossiers, so replies wouldn’t be possible, but Alexander felt that the crew had a right to know. They’d waited long enough.
Hayes responded to those orders with a date and time update from Earth along with the tactical maps and updated orders and flight path for the Lincoln. Alexander checked the date.
August 4, 2792.
Just over five months had passed for the Lincoln and her crew since leaving Earth, but time dilation due to wormhole geometry and their cruising speed meant that those five months had become more than twenty-nine back on Earth. Alexander winced. Almost two and a half years.
He wondered what that meant for him and Caty. He had no way of knowing what had happened in the past two years. Had she moved on? Was she still grieving for him, having given him up for dead? How was she making ends meet?
He had so many questions, but he would have to wait for her reply before he could answer any of them. The good news was that she was alive, and in spite of everything else that had happened, that had him smiling from ear to ear as he recorded his message.
CHAPTER 36
August 5, 2792
(Shared Frame of Reference)
Catalina awoke to the sound of her comm band trilling with an incoming call. She mumbled a command to turn on the lamp beside her. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, the first thing she did was check to see if Dorian was okay in his crib. Seeing that he was still fast asleep, she relaxed somewhat. On the other side of the bed David groaned and rolled over, mumbling something in Spanish about turning the light off. Her comm band trilled again, and Caty answered it with a whisper before the noise could wake Dorian.
“Hello?”
“Caty. It’s Muros. Sorry to call you so late, but I thought you’d want me to wake you.”
Caty blinked. Muros? Where did she know a Muros from… then it came to her: NAS Lemcroft. Lieutenant Muros was her contact there. She hadn’t heard from Muros in more than a year. If the lieutenant was contacting her again now, it had to be something to do with Alex. Caty glanced at David, suddenly nervous.
“What’s going on?” she asked, still whispering.
“I have a message here from Alex. Do you want me to send it to you?”
A message from Alex. He was alive? It took a moment for that to filter through to her sleep-clogged brain. She’d moved on. She couldn’t keep doing this to herself. But there was this other part of her that needed to hear from him, to see his face and hear his voice. That part of her made her heart pound and her palms sweat.
“Yes… Thank you, Muros.”
“You’re welcome. If you want to reply, just let me know.”
“Reply?”
“To Alexander. I’m sorry I guess I wasn’t clear. He’s within comms range. This message was sent two hours ago.”
Caty blinked, her eyes widening slowly. He really was back. “I’ll let you know,” she said, unable to think clearly. This was a dream. It had to be.
“Roger that. Take care, Caty.”
“Bye,” she whispered. She sat on the end of the bed for a long moment, watching her comm band, waiting for the blinking red light of a message alert to appear. She didn’t know what to think. Her mind raced.
What would this mean for her and David? She couldn’t get back together with Alex, even if he landed on Earth tomorrow. She had a son with David—baby Dorian. He was about to turn five months.
But hearing news from Alexander stirred to life feelings she’d thought were safely buried. She still loved him, but did he still love her? Had he moved on, too? Even if he hadn’t, Alexander wouldn’t want her now that she’d been with another man and had a son by him. Who could forgive that? Alexander had given her permission to move on, but she doubted that he’d meant for her to move on temporarily and then get back together with him when he returned.
“He’s back.”
Caty jumped and turned to look at David. He was sitting up in bed, his eyes darkly shadowed in the low light of the room. His expression spoke volumes. He was angry. Maybe he had a right to be, but he needed to understand—this was not easy for her. Alexander had been… he’d been the love of her life. Not that she could tell David that. He’d lose it.
“Are you going to reply to him?”
Caty flashed a sad smile and shook her head. And say what? She wondered. Just then, her comm band chimed with an incoming message. It was from Alexander.
“Entonces?” David insisted, nodding to her comm band.
She shook her head. “I haven’t even watched his message yet. How am I supposed to know if I should reply?”
“Como vas a saber…” he muttered, repeating her question like it was the most ridiculous thing she could have asked. David climbed out of bed and began pacing the room. Caty watched him with a frown. An acid rush of adrenaline began buzzing in her veins. Fight or flight.
He stopped beside her and brought his face down to hers, a sarcastic smile on his face. His brown eyes flashed mere inches from her nose. She could feel the angry heat in his gaze. He was just about to boil over. Self-preservation kicked in and she looked away, not wishing to challenge him. He had a temper. She wasn’t stupid. It was best to let him cool down before they discussed anything.
“Let’s not deal with this tonight,” she said, turning away to put her comm band back on the night stand.
He caught her by the arm, his grip painfully tight.
“Let me go,” she said, her own temper rising to pour some heat into her words.
“You’re mine,” he said through gritted teeth.
That did it. “I’m yours because I choose to be. I’m not your property. Maybe I should reply.”
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. She saw his face contort with disgust, and a sick feeling crawled into the pit of her stomach. She’d seen him this way before.
In the time it took for her to blink, a loud slap rang in her ears, followed by an explosion of pain in her cheek. She tried counting to ten in her head, taking deep breaths, but it was too late. He’d awoken her temper now. How dare he slap her! Making things worse, Dorian was right with them in the room. Caty’s eyes darted to his crib, suddenly afraid for her son. If David even so much as breathed on him… She glared at David with all the hate she could muster. He stepped back, his lips twisting derisively, his head bobbing as if she deserved what she’d got.
No amount of behavioral adjustment had ever seemed to work with David. This wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. What he needed was for someone to stand up to him. To fight back. She stood straight up, her entire body shaking with rage, and she took a long step toward him. She tried to put coherent thoughts together to say something that would hurt him badly enough. All she could think of was, “You’re right to be jealous. Alexander is a thousand times the man you’ll ever be!”
David froze, a monument of rage. Then he screamed and came at her with a closed fist. The next thing she knew, she was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling through one eye, her other one shut in darkness, and feeling like it had been knocked out with a hammer. David went on screaming, but she wasn’t listening. She was too shocked. Too angry and hurt for words to express. What she did hear were baby Dorian’s cries. Their fighting had woken him up.
“¡Callate!” David screamed at their son.
Dorian screamed louder, and Caty felt another white hot flash of fury. She sat up, watching David through her good eye to make sure his attention didn’t linger on Dorian for long. David looked away from the crib, shaking his head. He began pacing around the room, muttering to himself in Spanish. Caty watched him carefully, quietly, this time knowing better than to speak.
Tears leaked in warm rivers down her cheeks. Her swollen eye felt like it was the size of a watermelon. Her head throbbed like there was a miniature drummer in there, pounding away.
Caty went to Dorian’s crib and picked him up, shushing him and whispering sweetly that everything was fine. That she was fine. Dorian calmed down, believing the lies despite the tears that dripped onto his face. She rocked Dorian gently in her arms until he fell asleep once more, all the while keeping an eye on David; he avoided her gaze, still pacing. Caty laid Dorian back in his crib and then went over to her bed and lay down, too. She felt dizzy and sick, staring up at the blurry ceiling. Thinking actually hurt. She rocked her head from side to side. Then she felt his hands on her again…
But this time his fists were open, and his were hands gentle—shaking. It was like being caressed by a snake. She shivered and cringed, but said nothing. She didn’t want to anger him again. He said something to her in Spanish, but she couldn’t understand him. She realized that was because he was sobbing. He was apologizing profusely, stroking her stinging cheek, fingertips tracing lines around her swollen eye.
He said something about hielo—ice—and his weight abruptly left the bed.
In his absence, Caty’s first thought was to run, to take Dorian and get as far away from David as she could. But right on the heels of that thought was cold, unfeeling reality. Where would she go? And how? She hadn’t worked for six months. She didn’t have a job waiting for her with the Waltons anymore, and getting a job that would pay enough for her to cover daycare and other childcare costs was simply impossible. She’d be lucky to pay for her own living expenses, let alone those of raising a child. There was government help, but too little of it, and there were simply too many mouths to feed. Now, in the midst of yet another arms race, the Alliance was even less charitable than usual, and if she decided to risk it and appeal for government aid, there was always the chance that they’d take Dorian away from her and give him to some rich gener family who could provide for him.
That was actually a very likely outcome.
She could always run back to the South and take Dorian to her family, but then he’d grow up in a bad neighborhood where half of the kids end up dropping out of school and joining the local gangs for a living. Given that as an alternative, it would actually be better for Dorian to end up with a couple of rich geners.
Her heart would never bear it. Losing him would destroy her. Dorian was all she had left.
David returned with a bag full of ice and applied it gently to her eye, barely touching her with it, but she winced and almost screamed from the pain. Fury boiled once more, but she clamped down on it, forcing herself not to react.
The last thing she wanted from David now was for him to try to make amends—or to hammer her with another blow. This act was getting tired. It was the same thing every time. He saw someone looking at her and blamed her for being too provocative, or he would feel she was being distant and cold, so he went out and got drunk. If he used her roughly when he came home, well it was just because he loved her so much. What were a few slaps between lovers? That was just part of the foreplay.
Caty cracked a bitter, self-deprecating smile. She was tired of asking him to get adjusted and tired of scanning line after line of adjustment reports that gave her hope where there was none. David was a broken, broken man, and no amount of tampering with his DNA or hormones was going to fix that.
Caty felt herself growing cold inside, shutting down and blocking him out. She pushed his hands away and sat up. “I need to be alone,”
she said.
“Caty, please… I am so, so sorry… Don’t do this. Focus on the good things. I’m human! I make mistakes.”
She took a deep breath. “We all make mistakes,” she said, thinking that hers was meeting him. Her gaze slipped sideways to her comm band as her thoughts went back to Alex—her way out.
“You are thinking about him.” She heard a bitter edge in David’s voice. “I get it. You want me to leave you alone so you can answer him. Well, I’m not going anywhere. We will watch the message together and we will reply to it together.”
Caty turned to him, incredulous that he could go from apologetic to jealous and demanding in a matter of seconds. He had no right. None. But from the crazy look in his eyes, she knew that if she said no he would fly into another fit of rage, and this time maybe he wouldn’t stop. Maybe he’d feel justified for hitting her, the unfaithful slut.
Self-preservation won out in the end. She nodded and wordlessly reached for the comm band. They watched the message together. Caty through one eye, David through two. Her heart almost broke when she saw Alexander’s face. He was so happy, so excited—talking about how he couldn’t believe that she was alive, how he couldn’t wait to see her again. Then his smile vanished and he became hesitant.
“I don’t know anything about your life right now… what you’ve been through… I don’t even know if I have any right to contact you anymore. I know I told you to move on. Believe me there have been many many days and nights that I’ve regretted that, and you should know that I haven’t moved on, but if you did, and you’re happy, then…” His brown eyes were bright and shimmering with tears, and his lips trembled ever so slightly, but he managed to smile again. “All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy, so that’s all that matters.
“I wish I could say I’ll see you soon, but I don’t know that yet. They want us to join the fleet to defend Alliance space, and my guess is that it could be another six months before we actually come home, but there’s also a good chance that things go bad. Really bad. Caty you need to—” The message jerked and suddenly Alex’s head appeared in a different position than it had been a second ago. “—be safe.”
New Frontiers- The Complete Series Page 27
