~ * ~ * ~
Camille YAN was not a woman who was used to being on the wrong side of military command. She was the Girl Scout who could only do right and an enforcer of the rules. After her chat with Rafian about her feelings and his surprising acceptance of both his guilt and his unwillingness to let her go, she decided that a few drinks were in order.
However, the celebration went a bit too far when she took too many shots of Cenelagine, and before she knew it, she was waking up in a puddle of her own vomit. A flirty crewman who had tried to get too close to her was lying on the floor with a smoking hole in his chest from her side arm. Camille was arrested and taken to the brig, but after some evaluation, she was immediately released to a psych ship in order to be treated for her mental condition.
Upon learning all of this, Rafian felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He had so many questions about the process. Why hadn’t he or Tayden been alerted? What sort of treatments was she to receive, and was she going to get prison time?
He didn’t know what to do, especially after learning that she was not allowed to have visitors. He stood at attention in front of the brig warden, his only show of emotion his knitted brows from being upset and confused.
He knew she had not been herself since the jumper situation, but he assumed that with time and healing, the old Camille would be back to defeat her demons and rejoin the world. He was wrong, of course, and he knew that the doctors could help her. But the question about the shooting still remained, and he had to have an answer.
Wheeling around to march out of the jail, Rafian noticed a young cadet running his direction. Upon catching up with him, the boy bowed deeply and took a knee, and Rafian swallowed some saliva to wet his dry throat before addressing him. “What is it, Cadet?”
“Sir, first let me say it is an honor to speak directly to the commander, sir! I apologize for disturbing the commander’s stroll but wanted to let him know that Captain Camille YAN will be scheduled for release after getting an all clear from the psych ship, Lauren. The unfortunate death of crewman Sole Sirn is ruled a result of the Captain’s poor medical condition, and he will be air locked with high military honors as a soldier of war.”
Rafian regarded the young man closely and then looked around to see who might have sent him.
“Thanks, Cadet,” he managed to say, but as he nodded at the boy he realized that it was the brig warden who had saved Camille, shipped her off, and then sent the messenger to him.
He made an oath to reward the man for looking out for her, but first he needed to take care of much more pressing matters. Rafian summoned the twenty Phasers onboard and they assembled on the dock. He told them of the situation with Zynec Prime and then lied about Camille, telling them that she had been shipped off on a private mission.
His command was simple. They were to send one solitary ship into the hell zone and have it infiltrate Zynec Prime to decimate her defenses. Once the defenses were down within the war zone, the pilot would drop a crystal for the other Phasers to teleport onto the ground and commandeer the area from within. They would quickly set up a base city and then silently operate from behind enemy lines.
Upon hearing this, the Phasers were excited. They could finally test their mettle at home instead of jumping off to other planets. High spirits were all around until they learned that the pilot volunteering for the drop was none other than their commander, Rafian VCA.
Marian looked ready to object when he announced it, but she saw the look in his eye and knew that he was committed to it. She was uncomfortable with it, but if her assumptions were right, confronting him would be the worst thing she could do. She let it play out and prepped herself to be one of the Phasers deployed whenever the crystal beckoned.
When Rafian dismissed his men and women, he avoided Marian and chose instead to do the one activity he always did to clear his head. It was late in the hour when she found him atop his Zero fighter, polishing it as if he were going to be presenting it in an aerial show.
“I brought you some Vlorian ice cake,” she said, smiling at him through the side of her mouth, the way she always did, hoping a friendly demeanor, a tasty dessert—which he always seemed to order—and some civil conversation would walk him back from the dark precipice she assumed he was teetering upon.
“You’re a sweetheart,” he said in a dry, aloof manner.
“Look, Rafian, this mission,” she began, and she could see him preparing to dismiss her as if he did not want to hear anything she had to say.
“Why you?” she whispered. “You’re the supreme leader. The only time people do things like this is when they feel no confidence in their people to get a job done successfully, or when they want to go out in a blaze of glory. Is the Camille thing really that serious? For you to consider suicide?”
Rafian hopped down from his ship, threw the dirty cloth under its wing, and walked towards Marian.
“Suicidal? How many of these Phasers do you know to be trained as ace pilots? Outside of Camille YAN and Tayden Lark? How many other war-proven ace pilots do we have in our number, Rhee? How many?”
Marian knew the answer but pretended to think about it at length. She got the point. There was no other pilot like Rafian VCA to make the crystal drop. They had pilots who were good enough to be drafted in as Phasers, but none as good as the man and woman who commanded them.
Tayden was in decompression after commanding her rangers to find Zynec Prime, and Camille was missing in action. Rafian had to be the one to do it, and though it hurt her to see the man she loved attempt a mission so dangerous, she knew that as a soldier and a wife, she had a duty to support him.
“I don’t mean to upset you, husband, but we’re mere hours away from your lethal mission, and me wishing upon every god’s name that you will make it through. We have a few more hours together and I could lose you forever—” She bit her lip and looked distracted as she focused her eyes on the discarded rag.
“Rafian, it’s your hatch kitten,” she said and she stood staring at him, trembling, ready to fight as the anger and hurt came to the surface.
Rafian’s mouth fell open as he processed everything she said, and his heart melted from the realization of how selfish he had been. Camille’s arrest had soured his mood, and while he felt no different towards Marian than the day he had proposed to her on Tyhera, he had allowed his temper to punish her for something that she had no knowledge of.
“I am such a thyping fool,” he said under his breath, and then scooped her up into his powerful arms and took her home.
Memory 26 | Man of Vestalia
When Rafian awoke to the alarm, he could see the dried tears on Marian’s face as she slept soundly on his chest. For some strange reason, it strengthened his resolve as he arose, prepped his uniform and mission details, and then stopped by the same cafeteria for a shot of espresso and some friendly conversation.
An hour later, he walked out to his ship and was very surprised to find all of the Phasers there. They were assembled in two long lines leading to the stairs that ran up to the cockpit of his fighter. The soldiers were standing at attention, saluting, and a few had faces filled with emotion. It felt as if time had slowed down for him as he walked towards his ship, and the flashbacks of that first mission to Geral came to him.
Back in those days, he was unknown, unproven, and largely disrespected. Now he was a commander, and as he glanced around at all of the men and women he had trained, he felt a certain accomplishment that made him know that if death was his fate, he would be ready for it.
Marian swung down from his cockpit in a red 3B suit, his las-sword strapped to her back and war paint streaked across her features, trying hard but failing to mask her beautiful face. She ran into his arms and kissed him before giving him a long hug. The Phasers all looked away in respect and allowed him time to say good-bye to his wife.
Marian leaned into Rafian’s ear and whispered, “Come back to me.” It was a Tyheran custom that the wives of the
enlisted would do on the day that they feared their husbands would die. What it meant was that in the afterlife, the husband was to still come back so that they could truly be together forever. It was a morbid farewell but very Tyheran and Rafian nodded at her with the promise in his eyes.
He then swung up into the seat of his ship with one arm, a trick he and Camille had mastered back when they spent all of their time on that very dock.
The engines of the Zero-Tolerance phantom came to life, and Rafian’s vessel rose above the cheering Phasers before shooting out of the port towards his mission and what would be the beginning of the first assault on the planet.