What happened was beyond her control.”
“Nobody would tell me anything.”
“She was wounded. Almost bled out. You can do the rest of the math, I’d imagine.”
“Yeah. Well, you’re right about the one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“This is frigging complicated.” Josh shrugged. He turned to rejoin the others, and was gone. Wallace was left to measure out his wretchedness alone.
۞
Maeve sat on a grassy patch next to a random stream in the midst of what was designated as a meditation area. She didn't feel particularly reflective, but it was better than sitting around staring at walls all day. Most of her free time had been spent looking for her friends, who had been nowhere to be found, so she'd given up.
She yawned and fell back into the pillowy green, thinking for the dozenth time how odd it was to have grass in the vacuum of space. Exhaustion wracked her body, she couldn't even think of the last time she'd had an uninterrupted stretch of sleep. If she closed her eyes for just a bit, maybe the sensation would let up a little. The ground was so soft. Maybe it was synthetic dirt. It was too nice to be real. It wasn’t real.
She sat up. The grass was something she had created. Her hands erased it as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind the scorched sands of the beach she had landed on. This too was a construct, but it was where she needed to be. She knew she could not let herself slip into false comfort. It was interesting that she had sought out the Nimitz as a place of refuge, though.
The ghost was still there, barely visible, until she focused on it. Gradually, it became more tangible. It was neither male nor female, though she knew that was because she had never cared to speculate.
“You were not to blame.” Had that ever been the question, she wondered? Must have been, at least for a bit.
“I know. I’ve got plenty of other issues to lay blame on myself for.”
“I know.” This wasn’t quite the discussion she needed. It was only just so productive to carry on conversations with oneself.
“I ought to go. There are things I need to look at.”
“Do not forget to speak to those whom you must.”
“Yes, thanks. Fly away now….” She saw her own smile in the hazy face, as small wings unfurled and carried the small figure up beyond the smoke and ruin.
She looked beyond the fires. It was time to deprive them of fuel. She walked through the flames, feeling the intensity of heat and pain, and came out on the other side. It was still night there, but the stars were out, and crickets sang. This was the place. It had been too easy to hide from that night for so long, to keep the memory contained on this burning atoll.
Her feet moved on their own, guided by her unspoken directive. There were other ghosts yet to be faced. These had been real men and women, who had crowded her dreams on endless nights. She moved through familiar landscape; wispy and dry prairie grass, ankle high pricklypear, loosestrife, and pigweed. The moon was full, as ever, as it had been. Gemini and Cancer were center in the northern horizon. She knew why she had noticed it then. It was a stupid detail to have clung to. She had already told Fergus to leave by then. One more regret. There was a long list.
۞
Julieta had been running for an hour when she’d seen the lone figure at the far end of the track. She squinted, seeing a female form with long black hair. Hmm. Not who she’d been hoping to see, but she slowed and stopped as she came around the turn anyway.
“You are Julieta?” The other woman was not human. Her skin was like alabaster, painted all over by lacey purple veins. “I apologize, my name is Sa’andy Madoc.” She held out her hand.
“You. You’re the one? I thought…nobody told me you were here, on the Nimitz.”
“Ah, yes. I asked to keep that quiet. Selective information sharing, you know. I thought it might be time for us to talk, however.” She smiled. Julieta felt a pang of loneliness roll through her midsection. How long had it been since someone had looked at her like that and meant it?
“Has any information come through? Mrs. Han started having trouble with her channel.”
“Sorry about that. My fiancé might be the reason for that. Rather, he’s had to put that into place after what happened with the doctor.”
“Right. I guess we should have figured that out. Who’s your fiancé?”
“Station commander.”
“Shit.” Julieta was suddenly nervous and pissed. She tried to decide what her next move would be, but Sa’andy held up a hand.
“Don’t worry. He doesn’t know everything, but he’s getting there. He will be on the right side of things once he does, though.”
“Yeah, sorry, I don’t have the luxury of waiting around to find out for sure. We’re going to have to get the hell out of this place before things get out of hand.”
“I think it may be too late for that. We have it from a reliable source that Warden has sent an operative. Here.”
“Damn it. How long ago?”
“This individual may have left Earth approximately when you did.” Sa’andy felt the other woman’s surge of alarm. It was palpable.
“Someone could be here, on the station…right now?” Julieta felt the exhilaration of logging seven miles fade away, leaving a sick pit in her gut. “How much do we assume they know?”
“The doctor sent a detailed message about everyone who was on that container. We can only hope that they don’t know about you and Wallace.”
“Like that’s any comfort? Jeez. Do we know anything about this ‘operative’?”
“The only thing I could pick up was that a cruise ship stopped here, and a day or two later, found a dead woman on board. She’d been killed in a way that suggests it was done by someone who’s done it before.”
“Oh my god….” Julieta sounded aghast. Sa’andy opened her mouth to elaborate, thinking Julieta was reacting to the news. Then she frowned, seeing Julieta looking off into the distance over her shoulder. Sa’andy turned. Four security personnel were walking up to them.
“Sorry, Dr. Madoc. Colonel wants you and the young lady here to come with us back to Ops.” A gunnery sergeant was the lead; unmoved by their questions, he and the others led the two women on their way.
۞
It was a long walk back to the operations forward deck. For everyone. Tark directed the others into a conference room, while he and Dmitry closeted themselves in his office.
“This is a charlie foxtrot of the highest order.” Tark hardly knew where to start in the process of unscrewing the situation.
“Ya think? What else did the general tell you, by the way? I know you’re holding out.”
“She’s still operating under the theory that this container story is a blind for something else. Those guys weren’t wrong about some shadow group maneuvering, though. The kinds of strings that would have to get pulled to erase an identity…wipe out a DNA record, I mean, that’s crazy on its own.”
“Mithraic Alliance, though? Have you ever heard of it?”
“No. Not that my lack of knowledge indicates anything. General also says that this Kun fellow is clean, but here’s the kicker. Mrs. Han is his sister.”
“Interesting. I suppose that explains a little, and creates about a million more questions. How the hell are we going to handle this? I know we said we’d shelter these people, but we’ve got a whole flipping station packed to the gills to think about.” Dmitry was pacing back and forth. He couldn’t help it. Too much adrenaline left unspent.
“I know. And you know that over half of this place is filled with men and women who took an oath to defend….”
“Yeah, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
“It’s the domestic part that’s giving me agita right now.” Tark rubbed his sternum. “Or it might be that I haven’t eaten since early this morning.” There was a sharp rap at the door, followed by the customary request to enter. It sounded like the gunny Tark had sent to track down Sa’andy. He unlocked the door.
Gunny Thabano was standing practically inside the doorframe. Dmitry choked back a chuckle; the guy must have had his nose to the door.
“I hope you had success, Thabano.” Tark shot a stern look over his shoulder to Dmitry, and mouthed to him; stop laughing!
“Yes, sir, we did. We located Dr. Madoc, and the other female.”
“Quick work. Well done.”
“It was no difficulty, sir. They were together at the running track.” Together? Tark was beginning to be unsurprised by anything, and was glad they were both in one piece. His fiancée, on the other hand, was still apparently declining to divulge everything. It was time to lay everything on the table. If he was going to help, he needed to know everything.
“Very well. I need you to send a detail to Mrs. Han’s theater, the guys there will need a relief. Hand deliver this to her as well.” He gave Thabano a tablet. The other man looked at the device dubiously. “Humor me. I’m going to be hard on the side of caution for a while.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Dismissed.” Tark returned the gunny’s salute. Thabano exited, barking out orders to his subordinates, and left with the kind of intense purpose that Tark loved to witness. “I guess we’d better get this dog and pony show organized.”
“What about Maeve?”
“I’ll leave that up to you.” The two men, longtime friends, stood face to face. Dmitry searched for something reasonable to say; Tark held up a hand. “Look, I don’t know what your long-term plans are with her….”
“Whoa, slow down.”
“Let me finish. I’m only trying to say that, whatever you decide to do, whatever she decides to do…she’s had a good effect on you. And possibly vice versa.” Tark decided not to mention that he thought his friend might possibly be in love. That sort of philosophizing usually only sent Dmitry into panic mode. Better to let him figure it out for himself.
Dmitry was trying to avoid the question of anything serious in his mind. The sensation of being gut punched on first seeing Maeve lying in a bloody mess had not gone away. He’d simply allowed undiluted rage to cover up the emotional reaction. The rest was left to sit and repeatedly remind him that he wanted to go and be with her. Possibly it would be easier to ignore this insistent voice if Tark had not just suggested the same thing.
“Let’s get it over with.” He followed Tark out the door.
They crossed the vast space of the operations deck. Dozens of men and women attended to the myriad of data, algorithms, communications traffic, and countless other details pursuant to the smooth functioning of the Nimitz. Not one of them had stopped to cast curious glances at the strange parade of unfamiliar faces earlier, nor did they interrupt their work now.
Tark breathed deeply, wondering how long this illusion could hold up. He and Dmitry walked into the conference room. In contrast to the tranquility without, everyone in the room was worked up. The noise level rose and fell, particularly when they noticed that the station’s commander had rejoined them. Leif sat on the far side of the room. Wallace was nearest the door. Probably best if those two kept their distance.
“Alright. We need to get everything out in the open.” He leaned on the large persimmon wood table running the length of the space. “I want to help. I can’t do that if I’m operating in the dark.”
No one spoke right away. Clearly something else was on their minds.
“We’re leaving. Forty-eight hours.” Julieta was grim, determined.
“Now, how the hell are you going to do that? That little skiff of yours will hold four, five max. You can’t do atmospheric reentry with an overload.”
“We’ll buy something. We’re prepared for that eventuality.”
“Give me a break. You might as well do low orbit parachuting. Which, I have to imagine, none of you is trained for.”
“Staying here is out of the question, you know that, Colonel. Don’t try to tell me