CHAPTER ELEVEN

Six Years Later

 

Captain Reza Gard sat at a nondescript desk in the small cubicle that served as his company’s CQ and administrative office, trying valiantly to deal with the paperwork that he could not in good conscience leave for his adjutant, Corporal Alfonso Zevon. Zevon, who only recently had been transferred to A Company, 1st Battalion of the 12th Guards Regiment (Red Legion), had transformed the company’s paperwork, which Reza considered to be a small slice of Father Hernandez’s Hell, from an unqualified mess into a real system. It was a gift that Reza was endlessly thankful for, especially since Zevon also happened to be an expert marksman and a good fighter. What terrible thing he had done to earn himself a posting to the Red Legion, Reza did not know, and would never ask.

He looked up as his First Sergeant poked his head through the door. “Reza,” Eustus said, “there’s a message coming in for you on channel five. It’s from Nicole.”

Reza’s skin tingled at the sound of her name. It had been months since he had last heard from her, but he had felt recently that something was different in her life, something good had happened. He felt it in his blood, the blood he had shared with her. “Thank you, Eustus. I’ll take it in here.” Eustus smiled and ducked back out.

Reza shook his head as he thought about his friend. Eustus had insisted on staying with him in the bloody machine that was the Red Legion, despite receiving several offers to be posted to other, more “reputable,” regiments. He had also received several offers – strongly supported by Reza – to go to officer candidate school, but that, too, he had refused. “Why would I want to become an officer?” he would ask, seemingly perplexed. He had risen through the enlisted ranks on his own merit, and now served as the senior enlisted man in his company. He was honored to serve Reza, and Reza was equally honored to have him.

Washington Hawthorne, too, had joined the Legion – by choice, amazingly enough – two years after graduating from Quantico. He had survived long enough to become Reza’s executive officer, and would soon be up for command of his own company, an event that Reza awaited with anticipation and pride in his friend’s abilities.

As for Reza himself, his start in the Legion as a much-maligned rifleman who had spent nearly as much time fighting his fellow Marines as he had the Kreelans had changed five months after his arrival to the unit. At the Battle of Kalimpong, half of their battalion was wiped out in an ill-planned attack against a Kreelan mining operation that had been discovered in the system’s asteroid belt. Reza had managed to rally the survivors in time to beat back a fierce Kreelan counterattack that had come very close to destroying their ship, the old cruiser Pegasus (which not long after, Reza lamented, had been burned into vapor by a Kreelan battlecruiser). For that action, Corporal Reza Gard had won the Confederation Medal of Honor and a trip to Officer Candidate School, where Nicole pinned on his gold second lieutenant’s bars three months later. He had returned to his battalion to take over A Company’s 1st Platoon, and ten months later had assumed command of the company itself after the acting company commander and executive officer were killed in action. Four years ago, that had been. Four years. A lifetime…

Gratefully shoving aside the data pad that been monopolizing his time, Reza turned his attention to Nicole’s message. “Play,” he ordered the console. After a short pause, Nicole’s face appeared in the screen, and his heart warmed at the sight of her. She looked as beautiful as always, and was – he was not able to describe it exactly – warmer, somehow, more vibrant. Happy, he thought. For perhaps the first time since they were children, she looked happy.

“Mon ami,” she began, almost hesitantly, “I hope all is going well for you, that you are safe there on the Rim. Jodi and Father Hernandez are fine, and asked me to say hello to you; I am sure that you will soon receive messages from both of them, but I told them to wait until I had brought you the news.

“Reza…” she paused, unsure how to continue, and he found himself leaning closer to her image, as if he could somehow sense something from the electronics in the console, “I do not know how you will feel about what I am going to tell you. I hope you will not be angry with me for not talking with you about it before, but these messages are often delayed – I can only pray that you receive this one in time – and I could not bring myself to wait any longer to make a decision.” She looked down at her hands, obviously nervous. It was a state he had never seen her in before. She looked back up. At him. “Reza, Tony Braddock asked me to marry him. I told him yes.”

Reza felt his mouth drop open in surprise. Jodi had sent him a message some time ago, saying that Braddock had been medically discharged from the Corps after receiving a near-fatal wound in combat. He had then turned up on Earth as the Council Representative from Timor, of all things, and quickly made something of a reputation for himself on the Confederation Council. Nicole had met him through Jodi, and – Reza now surmised – one thing had led to another. Jodi had gone on to say that Braddock had asked Nicole out on several dates – with Jodi watching over them like a zealous parent – but that was the last he had heard over the last several months. Until now.

“Mon chère,” Nicole went on, “I can only hope that you receive this in time, because I want more than anything for you to be here, to be with me when I take the vows. It has been two years since you last went on leave, when we last saw each other for but two days on Solaris. I know that it may not be possible, for this is war, but if you can, my brother, please come. With my father gone, I would like for you to be the one to walk down the aisle with me, to give me away to Tony. Please.”

Reza’s chest tightened as he saw Nicole brush away a tear. She wanted so much for him to be with her. This is what he had been feeling in his blood for the last couple of months. It was the song of her happiness.

“There is a file attached with everything you should need to get here, transport schedules and so on. I do not know how, but Jodi found enough priority-one transit vouchers to get you from the Penlang La transit station on the Rim back to Earth.” She forced a smile, and he could imagine her fears that he would never receive the message, or get it late, or not be able to come back to Earth. Or be dead. So much could go wrong over distance and time, through bloody war. But his blood burned brightly, his spirit calling to her, to reassure her that her message had found its way to him.

“Take care, Reza,” she said. “Je t’aime.” The screen faded to black.

* * *

Jodi waited alone at the crowded spaceport terminal. Nicole and Father Hernandez had wanted to come, but Jodi had insisted that they stay and get ready for the wedding that was to take place this evening. She had arranged Reza’s transport schedule as well as she could, but getting people from the Rim to the Core Worlds on any kind of real schedule was impossible. Jodi was nervous, worried that Reza wouldn’t make it, because he had not appeared on any of the earlier flights today, and the shuttle coming down now would be the last one scheduled before the wedding was to start. They were cutting it awfully close.

To add to her consternation, the trash-hauler (a less-than-affectionate name most pilots held for the ugly little orbital shuttles) was late, as usual. To make matters worse, she had no idea if Reza was on it, or even if he had made transit aboard the transport the shuttle was now returning from. She had tried to find out two dozen times over the last week if Reza was on the rosters of any of the seven different ships he had to board to get from the Rim back to Earth, and she had drawn a blank on all of them. The harried transportation people had tried to be helpful, but it hadn’t changed the fact that she knew no more now than she had a month ago.

“Trying to track things down on Rim transits,” one of the agents had told her with a shake of her head, “makes finding a needle in a haystack look easy.” Jodi had no idea what a haystack was, but she’d gotten the picture. She decided to just go to the terminal and wait, because if Reza wasn’t on this shuttle he was going to miss the wedding, anyway.

Finally, the transport arrived, its squat shape heaving into view while it jockeyed for position next to the extending boarding tube. The repeller field shimmered against the ground as the gaily painted – in red, white, and blue, no less – shuttle settled on its seven landing struts.

After what seemed to Jodi to be an interminable wait, passengers began to trickle from the gateway. She tried to get closer, but a solid wall of babbling people prevented her from seeing anything more than bobbing heads.

“Goddammit,” she muttered in annoyance as a Navy commander pushed past her to embrace a squealing woman from the shuttle. The two of them, oblivious to the rest of humankind, solidly blocked the aisle with their wet and sloppy reunion. Jodi thought she was going to gag.

“Pardon me, please,” a deep voice said from among the debarking passengers trapped behind the commander and his bimbo. The request had been gentle, but was nonetheless the voice of one accustomed to being obeyed. The babbling among the nearest waiting friends, relatives, and others suddenly ceased as the man, now revealed as a Marine captain in dress blue uniform, stood silently, waiting.

The commander released his significant other and gave Reza a hard stare. “Aren’t you forgetting something,” the commander said, pointing to the three full gold rings around his sleeve, “captain?”

“Not at all, commander,” Reza replied, returning the man’s stare. He pointed to the single ribbon – a cluster of white stars set against a field of azure blue – that made up its own row above the seven other full rows of combat decorations, five more rows than the Navy officer could boast, that adorned his uniform.

The Navy officer stared at the ribbon for a moment, before slowly lifting his right arm in a salute. While he outranked Reza, centuries-old tradition dictated that a bearer of the Medal of Honor was entitled to a salute first by his or her fellow service members, regardless of their rank. In the war against the Kreelans, there had been many Medal of Honor winners; unfortunately, since most of them were awarded posthumously, pitifully few recipients survived to enjoy the courtesy that tradition granted them.

“Good day to you, sir,” Reza said pleasantly as he smartly returned the salute and stepped past the man and his open-mouthed companion.

“Reza!” Jodi cried, throwing herself into his arms, burdened as they were with his two flight bags. He didn’t even have time to utter her name before she covered his mouth with hers in an unexpectedly passionate kiss. Reza could not see, but behind him, Jodi made sure that the Navy man saw the three stripes on her sleeve as she put her arms around Reza’s neck. When they made eye contact, Jodi gave him a wink. A moment later, she drew away from Reza, who still stood there, stunned.

“Jodi!” he breathed, his face flushed with – mostly, he knew – embarrassment. “What are you–”

“Just welcoming you home, is all,” she said, a devilish smile lighting up her face as she took him by the elbow and led him into the main terminal.

“Commander Mackenzie,” Reza said with a smile as he sensed the Navy officer behind him fuming in embarrassment and not just a little bit of jealous envy, “you are a bloody liar.”

Jodi laughed. “No doubt. But hey, let’s get a move on – we’re late and we’ve got a long way to go.”

* * *

“So,” Jodi said when she had gotten him settled into her skimmer, “how was your trip?”

Reza grunted. “Long. Boring. And I am convinced that not one single galley in the entire human fleet – outside of my own ship, of course – can properly prepare meat for a Kreelan warrior.”

Jodi laughed. “Well, don’t get your hopes up here, either. Tony bought one of those silly barbecue contraptions not long ago. I guess he didn’t like the processor food, and now he’s convinced himself that he can cook with the thing.” She shook her head. “I guess you can eat anything if you put enough of that weird sauce of his on it, though.”

Reza made a face. “I will cook,” he said with determination.

The skimmer shuddered lightly as it pulled away from the ground. A moment later, the landing gear retracted and Jodi turned the craft southwest. Reza watched the ground fall away. The spaceport complex soon faded from view as the skimmer gained speed and altitude.

But his mind was not on the lush trees and velvet green landscape rushing by below. He was thinking of Jodi. The happiness that had bubbled from her at the spaceport seemed to have evaporated. Beneath the crumbling veneer he saw fear and, more than that, a growing mountain of loneliness. There was silence between them for a time, but Reza could feel her pain, and it reminded him of the wound that still bled within his own heart.

“What are you going to do, Jodi,” he asked quietly, turning to her, “after Nicole is wed?”

“I… I don’t know, Reza,” she said, trying to keep her voice even as she switched on the autopilot. “I know that three’s a crowd, but I haven’t had any brilliant flashes of insight as to what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Not after… not after she leaves me.”

“They would let you stay–”

“Yeah, right,” Jodi interrupted. “Come on, Reza, what am I supposed to do? Be the live-in nanny for the kids they want to have? How about Tony’s public relations rep? Or maybe Nicole’s manicurist. Yeah, I can see that one: Jodi Mackenzie, shoots down alien fighters by day, does nails by night.” She was silent for a moment, and then hammered a fist against the flight console. “Fuck it,” she shouted angrily. “Just fuck it all to hell!”

She made to pound on the unoffending console again, but her fist found only Reza’s palm, which gently enveloped hers. He drew her to him with irresistible strength and held her as the tears came.

“I know that she doesn’t want me,” she said as she fought against the painful tide in her heart, “but in my mind I kept thinking that, maybe someday she’d come around. I mean, not even to sleep with me – I knew from the first that that was always going to be just a fantasy. But I thought that maybe I could be her companion, someone she could share her life with.” She closed her eyes and buried her face against Reza’s chest, her tears streaking his uniform. “But now, it’s all over. Sure, we can still be friends,” she said bitterly. “And what the fuck does that mean, Reza? That maybe she’ll remember my name after the first tour we have to spend apart? That maybe we can squeeze in a quick lunch now and then – if we happen to be in the same star system – so she can tell me all about Tony and their oh-so-wanted kids? It’s not enough for me, Reza,” she choked. “It’s just not fucking enough.”

She shuddered against him, holding him tighter, and she could not see the tears in his own eyes as he thought of Esah-Zhurah. He had never stopped thinking of her. Never. The pain was not so great as it once was, but it ebbed and flowed like the tide.

After a while, her sobbing eased, then stopped. Her arms loosened slightly from around his chest, but only a little. “I doubt I’ll be lucky enough to grow old, Reza,” she whispered, “but if I get that chance, I don’t want to grow old alone.”

“Jodi,” he told her, “the loneliness you fear is what has filled my heart since I left the Empire… since I left behind the woman who owns my heart. The only things that have sustained me since then have been my memories of her and the friendship I have been shown, by you more than any other. You are right when you say that it is not enough, to just be friends when your heart cries out for something more. But sometimes it has to be enough. Fate is neither kind nor fair; it simply is. But no matter what happens, remember that I will always be there for you. No matter how many stars apart we may be, I will always be there…”

* * *

Tony Braddock did everything he could to resist the urge to pace back and forth before the altar. The patient beauty of the chapel that had been the gleaming centerpiece of the otherwise bland Ridgeway Military Reservation was in stark contrast to the anxiousness he felt. The chapel had stood on this spot for over four hundred years, silent witness to countless baptisms, weddings, and funerals. But to Tony, waiting for the remaining members of his tiny wedding party to arrive so he could finally marry the woman he loved, the last forty minutes had seemed every bit as long as the chapel’s four centuries.

“Where can they be?” he wondered aloud for what must have been the tenth time. He glanced yet again at his watch before looking out at the guests who now filled the many pews behind him. Neither he nor Nicole had many friends here, and they originally had wanted a small, private ceremony. But by the time they had invited their few real friends, Nicole’s squadron-mates, and finally made the obligatory invitations to members of the Council – plus the spouses of all of the above – the chapel had been filled to capacity, with nearly five-hundred people in attendance.

Such an event, of course, also drew the attention of the media. Nicole’s combat record, and her current score of nearly two hundred kills, was well known, and Tony was a member of the Council. While their wedding was not exactly considered the gala event of the year, there was a healthy interest in getting some shots of the bride and groom, plus any other notables who might pass before the lens. Besides, the editors had reasoned, there might always be the odd opportunity to gather a bit of smut in the process. In any event, two junior but competent reporters had been dispatched to take in the scene. One was from the Confederation Times, the other from the Navy Journal. They had already circulated amongst the guests for interviews and any tidbits they might pick up while people were still arriving. But right now the two were standing at the back (there was nowhere for them to sit), looking much like everyone else was at the moment: impatient.

Father Hernandez, too, looked around worriedly. While the people here seemed good-humored and were certainly willing to put up with certain inconveniences, there was always the question of how long was too long. Jodi was to be the maid of honor, and Reza was to play a dual role, giving away the bride as well as being Braddock’s best man. As such, their absence constituted something of a problem.

He sighed heavily. “Well, I will see what your bride wishes to do,” he said.

Braddock watched him disappear through one of the doors that let onto the dais that held the altar, trying not to feel silly as he stood there alone, waiting.

“Jodi,” he muttered under his breath, “I’m going to strangle you…”

Meanwhile, Hernandez bustled back to the room where Nicole had been getting ready. Knocking on the door, he called, “Nicole. They have not yet arrived. What do you want to… do…?”

At that moment she opened the door and stepped into the corridor. She wore a white wedding gown that made her look like a princess from a fairy tale. The porcelain skin of her face glowed beneath the veil she wore, and her eyes glittered like jewels, showing no concern, only joyful anticipation.

“They are coming now, Father,” she told him. She could always tell when Reza was near, always knew how he felt. “Trust me,” she said after he gave her a look of acute disbelief.

“Now, child,” he began, “I know you’re nervous on this magnificent day, but you should not let your imagination–”

A door swinging open at the end of the hall, followed by the sound of running footsteps, interrupted him.

“Oh, Jesus – oh, shit, sorry, didn’t mean to say that, Father – Reza’s shuttle was late and we…” Jodi’s explanation tapered off when she saw Nicole standing there next to the old priest. “Nicole,” she breathed. “God, you look so beautiful.”

“I only wonder if the good councilman will be able to properly appreciate such beauty,” Reza said with a smile from behind Jodi. “It is good to see you again, Nicole.”

They embraced, Nicole putting her arms around Reza’s neck as he lifted her from the ground, holding her tightly against his chest.

“Reza,” she breathed as she kissed his cheek, “I am so glad you could come. I knew you would.”

“All the warriors of the Empire could not have kept me away,” he told her. “I am so happy for you, Nicole. I only wish… that I had more time to be with you than we have had over the last few years.” Almost unwillingly, he lightly set her down again. “But–”

“Do not speak of it, mon ami,” she told him, putting a finger against his lips. “You are here now. That is all that is important. Nothing more.”

Hernandez cleared his throat. “Nicole,” he said, “I think perhaps that it is time to begin.”

* * *

The music was not traditional; Nicole’s concession to tradition had been her wedding gown. Nonetheless, the chapel’s ancient pipe organ – bringing to life a composition by Jules de Clerc, from Nicole’s native La Seyne – declared the occasion one of joy. Everyone was now standing, turned toward the rear of the chapel. The time they had spent waiting for this moment was forgotten as the moment of truth – and beauty – arrived. Tony Braddock stood nervously at the head of the maroon carpet that would guide his bride to him. Father Hernandez stood by the altar, his eyes beaming.

Jodi came down the aisle first, bravely holding back the tears that were at once a sign of joy and sorrow. Her dress whites sparkled in the sunlight admitted by the chapel’s two-story high windows as her feet made a precise seventy-five centimeter stride toward the altar. She took her place just to the left of where Nicole was to stand. She smiled at Tony’s happily anxious face, and the two of them waited for the bride to emerge.

The music changed tempo, slowing slightly, the major chords now as bright as the sun outside. As one, the guests turned toward the rear of the chapel, expectation plainly written on their faces.

Reza, his dress blues a vivid contrast to the regal white of Nicole’s wedding gown, led her arm-in-arm down the aisle. He ignored the sudden murmuring of those who noticed the Kreelan collar he wore and the length of his hair; in fact, he ignored everyone except the woman who walked beside him and his friends standing at the altar. He rejoiced at the happiness he could feel in her heart and in Tony’s, and the pride he felt in Father Hernandez’s. Inside, though, he wept at the pain he felt in Jodi’s heart, pain that was so much like that in his own. But on his face he wore the mask that he showed to the world when he did not wish to show the truth inside.

Nicole glanced over at him, a cloud of concern flashing across her face. She momentarily felt a pang of guilt at the pain she could sense deep inside him, a melancholy chord that ran through her blood. She felt as if she was abandoning him by marrying Tony. But she had offered herself to him long ago, she had wanted to love him, but he had gently turned her away. Their eyes met for a moment, and their minds linked for just that fraction of a second.

It is my Way, Reza’s eyes told her. Yours is upon a different – I pray happier – path.

Is it indeed, my brother? her own eyes replied, echoing the doubt in her mind.

Reza turned away. Nicole wanted to hold him to her, to force him to look her in the eye once more, but the moment was gone and the altar now stood before them. What had gone unspoken was lost now forever, she understood sadly. She could feel the rhythm of his soul in her blood like faint sighs in the night, but she knew that from this moment on he would never open himself up to her as he once had, would never let her look into his eyes like that again. Not because he was jealous or angry about the vows she was about to take, but because he loved her, and did not want to endanger the happiness she might find with another, with the man she was about to marry.

“I love you, Reza,” she whispered.

Reza stood in silence beside her as the music drew to a close; they had reached the end of their journey to the altar.

“Good people,” Father Hernandez said, standing before them, “let us pray.” Among the guests heads lowered and eyes closed. Reza, respectful of but untouched by Hernandez’s God, silently studied the figure of Christ hanging from the cross upon the wall over the altar as Hernandez offered a prayer to Him:

“Holy Father, we have come together this day to seek Thy blessing for this couple who would be married in Your house, with Your love. Father, dark are the times in which we find ourselves. The demons run rampant upon the field of stars that shine in the night sky. But we ask Thee to smile upon these two who stand before You now, to protect them and let their love grow in your heavenly light for all the days of their lives. In Jesus’ holy name we pray, amen.”

“Amen,” echoed the gathering.

“Please, be seated.” Hernandez waited until they had settled themselves in the pews before he continued. “Brothers and sisters, we are gathered this day to witness the ceremony that, among my priestly duties, has without exception been my favorite to administer. To unite two hearts, two souls, in the eyes of God is like presiding over a new creation in His Universe, playing a hand in the birth of something unique and wonderful.

“In the case of the man and woman who today have come forward to declare their love for one another through the bond of marriage, I must say that I am especially pleased. I have known Nicole Carré and Tony Braddock for years, not as warriors and servants of the Confederation, but as friends. And it is now with great gladness that I would ask them to step forward to take their vows before the Almighty.”

With a nod, Reza released Nicole’s arm, and she stepped forward to where Tony stood waiting. They turned toward each other, shyly, like children about to experience their first kiss, and Tony carefully lifted her veil and smiled at her lovely face. Together, they turned toward the elderly priest.

Reza took a place two paces to Tony’s right, mirroring where Jodi stood next to Nicole. He met Jodi’s eyes briefly, and they both tried to smile, but it was all either could do to hold back their tears: Jodi for what she was about to lose forever, and Reza for all he had lost long since.

“Anthony, with the Lord as your witness and the love of Christ in your heart, do you take this woman, Nicole Carré, to be your wife, to love her and nurture her, to entwine your soul unto hers, to become one with her for all Eternity?”

“Yes,” Tony said, his voice carrying through the chapel like a bell, “I do.”

“Do you offer this woman a token of your love, Anthony, and of your devotion to the vows you take this day?”

“A ring, Father,” Anthony said. He turned to Reza, who deftly placed a wedding band in his hand. But it was no ordinary ring, and this was the first time that anyone but Reza had seen it: it was made not of gold or silver, but Kreelan metal that Reza had fashioned for her. Sparkling like diamond but far stronger, it bore an intricate pattern that he had managed to fashion in the short time he had to work on it before leaving for Earth. The design was based on what Pan’ne-Sharakh had created for Esah-Zhurah’s tiara many years before; it was Reza’s homage to his old mentor, and to his love.

“Reza,” Tony gasped, “it’s beautiful.” He had a backup ring in his pocket that he would have used had Reza not made it to the wedding, but it could never compare to what he now held in his hand. The ring Reza had fashioned glittered and shone as if it were alive; and, in a way no human would ever understand, it was.

Reza only nodded, gratified at how wide Nicole’s eyes got when she saw it, sensing the surge of joy in her heart.

Smiling, Tony passed the ring to Father Hernandez, who held it in one of his age-spotted hands as if this, made of the strongest substance known, was but a fragile flower.

“And you, Nicole Carré,” Hernandez continued, “with the Lord as your witness and the love of Christ in your heart, do you take this man, Anthony Braddock, to be your husband, to love him and nurture him, to entwine your soul unto his for all Eternity?”

“I do,” she answered softly, her voice nearly gone from nervous anticipation.

“And do you offer him a token of your love, and of your devotion to the vows you take this day, Nicole?”

“Yes, Father, a ring,” she said, turning to Jodi and holding out her hand.

Jodi felt her face go slack. The ring! What did she do with it? Where could it–

She suddenly sighed with relief as she felt a small object pressing against her left breast. She had put it in the inside uniform pocket over her heart. With an embarrassed grin, she reached into her coat – after undoing two of the buttons – and got the ring for Nicole, who only smiled and shook her head. “I love you,” she mouthed silently.

She had no idea how those tacit words pierced Jodi’s heart.

Hernandez took the ring – a plain but thick gold band – and held both rings up so the well-wishers could see them. “The ring,” he said, his voice filled with wonder, as if this were the first time he had ever uttered these words, “is a symbol of life, without beginning, without end. It is a symbol of perfection to which we may aspire in our love for one another, and all the more so between husband and wife. It is a covenant of love between you; shall it never be broken or cast aside.” He handed the Kreelan metal ring back to Tony, the gold one back to Nicole, and they placed them on each other’s wedding finger, and remained holding hands.

Hernandez looked out upon the audience, his eyes beaming, yet perhaps with a trace of fire. “Is there one among you who would come forth to speak against this marriage, that it is unjust in the eyes of God?”

Jodi felt a sudden mad urge to scream, to shout, “Yes! Yes, damn you! I don’t want her to marry him!” But she held her tongue and smiled, and after a moment the giddy feeling passed.

Hernandez nodded, pleased. It rarely happened, but there had been times when objections were raised, and of course that had upset the course of the ceremonies in question.

“Very well, then,” he said. “May this union as witnessed by God and Man never be broken.” He looked down at Tony and Nicole, spreading his arms wide as if to catch the drops from a spring rain. “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” With a huge grin on his face, he leaned toward Tony. “Well, what are you waiting for, young man? Kiss the bride!”

The two of them embraced and kissed as if they were auditioning for a movie love scene, and the onlookers – even the two jaded reporters – whistled and cheered their approval…

* * *

Jodi was not sure how many hours might have passed since the end of the reception, since the new Mrs. Nicole Braddock had been whisked away with her adoring husband in a sky-limo to a week-long honeymoon on the beaches of the old French Riviera. Actually, now that she tried to think about it, the only thing Jodi was really sure of was that she was totally, utterly drunk.

“Drunk right off my little black ass,” she chuckled humorlessly to herself as she took another swallow from the half-empty bottle of champagne. Two empties already lay on the floor beside her like spent lovers. Which, she supposed in the hazy realm that had become her thoughts, was probably about as close as she was going to get to true love. “Too bad they don’t make ‘em with batteries.” She laughed at the thought until she cried, but there were no more tears to be shed. Her body had none left to give.

Jodi couldn’t recall much about what happened after the wedding, even when she really tried to. Nicole had been happy, smiling and chatty as a teenage girl after being asked to the prom by the school hunk, which was totally out of character for her. She was so happy. And Jodi had found herself drifting away to the far side of the room, trying to keep her pecker up, as they say, but also trying to shield the world from the fountain of jealousy that had sprung up within her. And that, of course, had only made her feel worse, because she loved Nicole and she adored Braddock. When the two of them had left the reception, Jodi knew that Nicole had been looking for her to say good-bye. But Jodi had hidden herself away in one of the hotel’s anterooms until Nicole and Braddock had finally had to leave. Jodi simply couldn’t bear to talk to Nicole just then, because she knew that she would do something, say something, that she would regret for the rest of her life. So she had made herself disappear. She had chickened out on her best friend in her hour of glory.

But not Reza, she remembered with sudden clarity. No, not poor Reza. She knew that he was trapped in his own little hell, letting himself be ripped apart by memories of whatever life he had known before, thoughts of the woman and the love he himself had left behind somewhere in the Empire. But he had let none of it show. No, not him. Not the Kreelan warrior priest trapped in flesh that was all too human. Jodi was sure he must have ground his teeth to nubs in his effort to mirror the happiness of his friends, dutifully playing out the role he had drawn in this particular play. He had even treated the two curious reporters with something like respect as they barraged him – this strange Marine who wore a Kreelan collar and had long braided hair – with questions, hoping to find some kind of interest angle in an otherwise smut-free VIP wedding.

No, she thought ruefully, Reza had been a pillar, while she had melted and flowed like sullen lead. At least he had been until Nicole and Tony departed and he had been left alone in a crowd of strangers, mingling like oil in water until the revelers headed home or to another stop on their party venue.

It was after they had all gone that Jodi had finally returned from her coward’s hideaway. She found Reza sitting alone in a corner of the great reception hall, with no company other than the cleaning bots that were disposing of the evening’s detritus. He was clutching a mug – no doubt filled with that evil brew he sometimes concocted – in his hands, and was staring silently into some other time, some other place. His face, which had never seemed to age since the first time she had seen him in Hernandez’s musty room in the church on Rutan, was now drawn, haggard. It seemed that he had aged fifty years in the course of an evening. His strong shoulders were rounded, as if he had been whipped, beaten into submission. Defeated.

He must have known that she was standing there, watching him, but he did not acknowledge her presence any more than he did the cleaning bots. Jodi was just about to walk over to him, to try to say something, anything, when he absently set the mug down and then staggered out of the hall. Jodi could not believe her eyes: Reza was drunk, or at least he acted like it.

After that, she surmised wearily, she must have gathered up some bottles of booze from a nearby table and wandered back here to her room. Fortunately, she and Reza were in the same hotel where the reception had been, so at least she had not had to publicly embarrass herself by finding some form of public transportation. Her private disgrace was quite enough, thank you very much.

She took another deep swallow, spilling champagne down her uniform, trying to make it all go away, trying to drown out reality. But her conscience was nagging at her enough now that the alcohol was no longer providing the yearned-for numbing effect. It just tasted bitter.

She slammed the bottle down in frustration, ignoring the fountain of foam that suddenly spouted from it like a gleeful ejaculation. She turned to the comm panel and ordered the ever-patient computer to connect her with Reza’s room.

“One moment, please, madam,” responded a pleasant automated female voice.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Jodi grated, not knowing how much longer her courage might last.

“There is no answer, madam,” the computer finally replied.

“Is Reza Gard in his room?”

“The room is currently occupied,” the machine answered, refusing to give out any other information on who might be there.

“Try again.”

“One moment…” There was a longer pause this time. Jodi figured the computer must have been programmed to try and accommodate idiots like her by trying longer the second time. Jodi wasn’t going to bother with a third. “There is no answer, madam. Would you like to leave a message?”

Jodi didn’t bother answering. She was already halfway to the door, a full bottle in hand.

She hadn’t bothered to check the time, partly because she wouldn’t have cared, and partly because she was too drunk to think of such a thing. But she was happy that it was late enough for the hallways to be empty. She knew she must look like hell – her uniform jacket gaping open, champagne spilled all over her blouse, her hair going wild – but she couldn’t have cared less. In fact, had she encountered someone who would have made so much as goo-goo eyes at her, she probably would have tried to whack them over the head with the bottle that she was working on even as she shuffle-staggered toward Reza’s room. They were on the same level, but in different towers, and it took her a while to realize that she had already passed his room twice.

“Christ, Mackenzie, you couldn’t find your ass with both hands and a compass,” she muttered to herself as she finally reached his room, number 1289. She pounded on the door, eschewing the more polite method of using the call panel. “Reza!” she shouted, heedless of the people in four adjacent rooms whom she had just succeeded in waking up. “I know you’re in there! Open this fucking door!”

She waited. Nothing. She was about to pound on the door again, when a sudden flash of inspiration brightened her alcohol-shrouded mind. She pressed her hand against the access panel, hoping that Reza had keyed her into his room’s access list.

Apparently, he had. The door hissed open to reveal nothing but darkness. Jodi staggered inside just as someone two rooms down poked his head out into the hallway to see what the fuss was about. The door whispered closed behind her.

She stood there a moment, leaning against the wall of the foyer, fighting against the sudden sense of vertigo that was a gift of the alcohol coursing through her system and the total darkness of Reza’s room.

No, she thought, it wasn’t totally dark. Toward the far side, through the ridiculously large – at least, it seemed that way to someone used to a warship’s spartan accommodations – living room suite, she could see some faint points of light: stars in the sky, showing through the sliding clearsteel door that led onto the balcony outside.

“Reza?” she called. No answer. The room was totally, almost unnaturally, quiet. “Reza, are you here? Answer me, dammit!” She groped forward in the darkness, not thinking to turn on a light. The silence in the room was unnerving, and she felt little pricks of fear along her spine. It didn’t feel as if no one was here, she thought. She just wasn’t sure who was, and suddenly she thought that she had made a bad move by coming here.

Her shin suddenly came in contact with something very hard-edged and quite unyielding, and she let out a yelp of pain that she was sure had somehow given her away, as if her earlier shouting had not.

She was just about to turn around and bolt for the door when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him. At least, she thought it was him: a dark figure kneeling in the middle of the expansive balcony. He was in his Kreelan armor, its black surface mirroring the stars in the sky above. But his head was not turned toward the stars; it was bowed as if in prayer.

“Reza,” she said quietly as she stepped onto the balcony, ignoring the throbbing pain in her shin where she’d hit the coffee table, “are you okay?” She still felt a tingle of fear, and she now knew why: the Reza she was looking at was a Kreelan warrior priest, not merely a captain in the Confederation Marine Corps. That is why she had felt so strange just a moment ago. Something inside her had known that he had let slip his human mask.

She shook the feeling off, trying to concentrate as she knelt beside him. “Honey, what’s wrong?” she whispered, tentatively reaching out to touch his arm. It was so hot that it was painful to her touch.

“I… I cannot go on,” Reza rasped through gritted teeth. “The pain, Jodi… I thought I had banished it forever with Nicole’s help, but the pain has returned. My blood is fire, my heart an angry wound, for I cannot clear the memory of my love’s face from my mind. I would rejoice for Nicole’s happiness, but it has brought back too many memories. Molten steel sears my veins… it is too much.”

It was then that she saw the knife that he held with both hands. It was the weapon he was most fond of, a beautiful but deadly dagger that she had never known him to let out of his sight.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked bluntly. “Just kill yourself and be done with everything? Is that how Kreelan warrior priests get out of tough spots – just ram a knife through their throats?”

Reza turned to glare at her, and without the booze she might have wilted under such a withering assault from his swirling green eyes, but not now. Not tonight.

“Let me tell you something, tough guy,” she went on, moving closer to him, their noses only a hand’s breadth apart, “you don’t have a monopoly on heartache. How do you think I feel after watching the only person I’ve ever really loved marry a good friend? And how do you think I feel about being jealous as hell of him, so jealous that I couldn’t even bring myself to say goodbye to either of them before they left for their honeymoon? And I was her maid of honor! What a fucking joke that is!” She tried to laugh, but strangled on a sob as she reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders, ignoring the heat that burned its way into her palms from the metal armor and his searing flesh beneath. “So I don’t want to be hearing any of this shit about how your heart is tearing itself to pieces, Reza, because mine is, too, and I need you now, damn you, I need you so much, you’re all I’ve got left. You promised me you’d be there when I needed you, Reza. You promised me, dammit! Don’t you leave me, too. Don’t you dare…”

Then she reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck as if she were drowning, just as she had when he had pulled her from the river on Rutan so many years ago, and he was honor-bound to save her. Careful not to tear her clothing or skin with the talons on his gauntlets, he drew her to him, shielding her with his arms as he commanded his body to cool while fighting a savage battle with the loneliness that burned in his blood. The knife he laid carefully beside him. He still longed for its cold metal touch, for the release from the hell that his existence had once again become. He was so happy for Nicole and Tony, but what he felt reminded him too much of his life with Esah-Zhurah, as if he had been forced to relive it. And with those thoughts, those feelings, once again had come the burning agony of loss that was as powerful as when he had first left the Empire.

Silently, he cradled Jodi in his arms as she cried, doing his best to isolate himself from the past, closing off the universe beyond this woman, his friend, to whom he owed a debt of love.

Jodi didn’t realize that she had fallen asleep until she noticed that she no longer felt the hot steel of Reza’s armor pressing against her. Instead, her body was nestled against something warm and firm, but made of flesh, not metal.

She opened her eyes to find herself still out on the balcony with him, but he had taken off his armor and gathered her up to lay beside him in a padded chaise built for two. He had one arm wrapped around her, holding her to him, with her head resting on his powerful shoulder. The night air was warm enough that she didn’t need a blanket, Reza’s body providing all the warmth she needed. Above her, the stars still shone, and she guessed – hoped – that only a little time had passed, and that the night had not yet begun to wane toward morning.

“Reza,” she whispered, “are you awake?”

“Yes,” he replied, instinctively holding her just a bit tighter. “I have not yet found… sleep.”

Peace, she thought he meant. He had not found the peace he was looking for, and probably never would. Just like her. A thought, quite alien to her way of thinking, began to uncoil in the back of her mind, stretching like an awakening lion. She reached out and touched Reza’s face, much as he had done to her on the day that he had first appeared before her like an unholy apparition in Father Hernandez’s rectory. How lonely he had been then; how lonely they both were now. “Tell me about her,” she said, gently turning his face toward hers, “tell me about the woman you love.”

Reza hesitated, but only for a moment. What does it matter? he told himself through the red haze that had settled over his mind like the acrid smoke that is all that is left after a fierce battle, one that leaves no one alive, no victors, only the vanquished. Telling her of his love was certainly no betrayal to the Empire. And, perhaps – just perhaps – sharing his pain with her might in some way help rejuvenate the emotional shield that Nicole’s blood in his veins had provided him over the years, that now had failed him in the face of an onslaught of memories that he could not control.

“Her name,” he said, forcing his tongue to work within the numbed orifice his mouth had become, “is Esah-Zhurah…”

Jodi listened intently as Reza wove the tale that had been his life with an alien woman whom he had once hated, yet had finally come to love with all his heart.

He and I have so much in common, she thought in the depths of her mind. There is so much in common between us, and yet so little in common with those around us. She realized then that she wanted Reza to heal her, just as she wanted to heal him. She wanted the pain to be gone, if only for a moment, for both of them.

In that moment she did something that she never thought she would do: she kissed a man. Not as a friend, or as a stunt, but with passion, with desire. She thought she could only want a woman, but Reza was so different from all the other men she had ever known, and that difference somehow made it seem right to her. She pressed her lips to his as she pulled him against her, wrapping her arms around his neck, entwining her fingers in the braids of his hair.

“Jodi,” Reza rasped as he tried to pull himself away, “I cannot…”

“I don’t want to have to explain this to you, dammit,” she sighed as she again pulled him to her, harder than before. “I need an escape, Reza, and you’re it. Just pretend… pretend that I’m Esah-Zhurah. I don’t want you to fall in love with me. I just want you to hold me, to be… a part of me for a while. To take the pain away. And let me do the same for you. Just for a little while…”

Reza suddenly shuddered against her, as if he were fighting off a terrible fever.

But then she sensed a change in him, perhaps a kind of acceptance of what was, what he wished could be. Their lips met again, but this time it was Reza who kissed her. Her body tingled as she felt his powerful hands touch her, tentatively at first, but then with growing confidence as they sought out the catches to her clothing.

Jodi sat up to help him, straddling his waist as she did so, and she could feel the heat rapidly building within her as she took off her uniform, throwing it carelessly aside. Her heart began to race and she bit back a sigh as Reza’s hands tenderly cupped her now-exposed breasts. She fought to pin him down, wanting to tear away the black Kreelan clothing from his body so she could feel his skin against hers, but her efforts had no more effect on Reza than if she had been trying to restrain a volcano. She gave up completely the instant that Reza’s mouth closed over one of her nipples, and she cried out in surprise and delight as an orgasm unexpectedly swept through her like a rogue wave upon the ocean, coming from out of nowhere and carrying her away. My God, she thought, just before her body went into convulsions of delight, he didn’t even have to touch me anywhere else…

Reza felt his lover climax, and sensed his own body soaring toward those heights as the woman he held – he knew it was Jodi, but in his mind, behind his closed eyes, he could only see and feel Esah-Zhurah – finished her own pleasure and had set about bringing him his. He felt her unsure but eager hands at work upon his manhood, stroking him, teasing him into involuntary sighs of pleasure. And then… and then he was inside her. In no time he felt himself tearing upward through the sky as his body suddenly melted away, dissolving in a geyser of passion that had come to claim him from the hard bitterness of reality.

Later, Jodi smiled at Reza’s sleeping form. Pulling up a blanket she had retrieved from inside to cover their nakedness, she thought that things had worked out just fine. Her eyelids grew unbearably heavy as she snuggled next to him, her head on his shoulder, and her last thought before sleep took her was echoed by her lips.

“Thank you…”

* * *

She awoke to the sun and a gentle morning breeze. She stretched her body, remembering the night before with a sharp but pleasant tingling between her legs. She suddenly wondered if Reza was up to another bout of lovemaking.

But that hope evaporated as soon as she opened her eyes. Reza was no longer next to her, and she knew that he would not be found in the suite behind her, either. His shuttle wasn’t due to leave until around noon, but she knew instinctively that he was gone.

That, however, was a disappointment she was prepared to deal with. Last night they had given each other something that both had desperately needed. It was something she could always feel good about, could always look back on to help warm her heart.

With a sigh of resignation, she rolled over, and was confronted with something she had not expected. A single red rose, the most perfect and beautiful she had ever seen, waited for her upon a small stand that Reza must have placed next to the chaise that had been their bed last night. Gingerly, careful to avoid the thorns, Jodi picked up the rose and smelled its fragrance.

“Be careful, Reza,” she whispered to the sun that was yet rising over the city. “And remember that I’ll always be there for you.”

* * *

Hernandez was waiting for him in the transit lounge, as Reza knew he would be. He felt a pang of guilt at not having spent as much time with the old priest as he would have liked, but the same could be said for all of his few other human friends, save Eustus, who served beside him. There had never really been enough time for friends in this age of war, and he knew there never would be, least of all for a warrior like himself. “Peace” as humanity fought and died for was a concept as alien to him as was the blue skin of the Kreela to them. And in that, he thought, perhaps they had found a higher purpose than he himself could ever aspire to, for the Kreela fought only to bring glory to Her, while the humans fought for their future, and the future of their young. It was a novel concept, but clearly one that he did not fully appreciate.

Father Hernandez, still as animated as ever, was nonetheless losing his battle with age. He rose unsteadily to his feet with the help of a walking staff – he had steadfastly refused anything so elegant as a cane, and certainly would not accept any “modern medical hocus-pocus” – and made his way from the chair where he had been waiting.

“Greetings, my son,” he said warmly as he grasped Reza’s outstretched hand with fingers that could yet make one’s knuckles pop.

“Hello, Father,” Reza replied, trying to ignore the sudden resemblance in spirit between this man and Pan’ne-Sharakh, now long dead, but not forgotten to Reza’s heart. “You did not have to come to see me off. It is much too early in the day for such a late sleeper to be roaming about.”

Hernandez scoffed at Reza’s light humor. Both of them knew full well that Hernandez had risen before the sun every day of his life, on Rutan or any other of the several worlds he had visited since leaving his old parish, no matter how many or how few hours were in their days. “Well, young man, I had to make sure that someone would be here to get you on the proper shuttle. The Lord indeed knows that even Marines need a shepherd, and most especially you!”

“Indeed you are right, Father,” Reza told him with a smile. In the background he heard the sterile female voice of the starport announcing that his flight would be boarding in five minutes.

Hernandez scowled at the voice. “She sounds like my mother,” he muttered. Then he turned again to Reza, seriously now. “You won’t be seeing me again, you know. I’m an old, old man, and by the time you get back from your next adventure, wherever it may be, I fear I shall be long gone.”

“Father–”

Hernandez held up his hand, cutting Reza off. “You know it is true, Reza, and that is the way of things; it is how things should be. And, believe me, after seeing the likes of this world, I cannot but yearn for the next.

“And that brings me to you, young man. While I haven’t learned everything about you that I would have liked, I do know that you are troubled spiritually, and even if you had never given me a clue in words, I could tell from your eyes. You offer the world around you the eyes of a hunter, Reza, but I see something deeper: I see fear. Not fear of anything living or dead, and not even fear of Death itself; you are afraid of what comes after, of what becomes of your soul when your body turns to dust.” From the suddenly haunted look on Reza’s face, Hernandez knew he had been right.

I only wish that I had had more time with this one, he complained to his God. Over the years they had never really had a chance just to sit down and talk, and for the most inane of reasons, it seemed to Hernandez now. But he could not turn back the clock, and his own time among the living was swiftly winding down. No matter, he thought, I will make do with what is given me.

“Reza, tell me. Let me help you reach for what lies beyond that threshold. If you are willing to open your eyes and your heart, Salvation awaits you.”

“Father, I have studied your God, and the gods of many other religions. But salvation for me lies with none of them, for I am merely a part – painfully separated – of a greater being, the Kreela. Perhaps the Empress answers to your God, for in truth I do not know if I consider Her to be ‘the Creator,’ as you believe of your God. All I know is that Her blood is in my veins, and for a short time I could hear Her voice, and the voices of the billions of Her Children, singing in my blood, in my heart. We were one as I never was before, and have never been since. She commands the living and the dead of Her people, Father – all who have ever lived and died with Her blood in their veins.”

That, indeed, was a revelation to Hernandez, but he had no time to contemplate its meaning. Behind him, the cool female voice announced, “Shuttle APX-954, now boarding for transit to C.S.S. Hera. All passengers are to report to Gate 73B…”

Reza gathered his flight bag and a smaller one that contained gifts – souvenirs and chocolates – for Eustus and his troops.

Time! Hernandez cursed. Would you not give me just a few precious minutes, Lord? No, of course you wouldn’t!

“Reza,” he said hurriedly, stepping closer and dropping his voice slightly so as not to be overheard by the passengers streaming by toward the gate, “in my profound ignorance, I once accused you of being the Antichrist, of being Satan’s instrument. I know that I was terribly wrong, but now I must wonder if you are perhaps the opposite. Many think of angels – even Christ Himself – as being always kind and peaceful, menacing toward none. But that is not really true. Some of the angels are warriors, Reza, and the Prince of Peace has powers of destruction that defy imagination.” He looked Reza in the eye, knowing this would be the last chance he would have in this life to try and understand this miracle/curse that had changed his simple existence forever. “What are you, Reza? What are you really?”

“I am no angel, Father, nor am I your Messiah. If anything… if anything, you may think of me as Adam without his Eve, cast out of the Garden with no hope of ever returning.” Reza smiled the best he could and extended a hand to Hernandez. “Take care, Father,” he said, “and may your God smile upon your soul.”

Hernandez watched him as he left, swallowed up in the slogging torrent of military and civilians who were still crowding onto the shuttle. “Goodbye, my son,” he said sadly. “You shall always be in my prayers.”

He stood there, alone, and waited until the shuttle lifted its squat bulk into the sky. As its contrail finally disappeared from the sky, it struck him that perhaps Reza’s words were truer than the young man had himself believed.

“An Adam without his Eve,” Hernandez muttered as he shuffled toward the far distant exit to the terminal. He stopped then, turning his attention again toward the sky and the invisible stars beyond. “Or the prodigal son who is yet to return home?”