SAL KONSTANZ
We fell through the void, chased by the parting words of those we’d left behind to die, each of us grieving in our different ways. Okonkwo barely spoke to any of us; instead, she spent most of her time in the gym, working herself to exhaustion, over and over again. Addison locked herself in her cabin and refused to see anyone. According to the Trouble Dog, she spent the time in her bunk, staring at the metal ceiling with no hint of external emotion. Preston tried to offer her sedatives, but she turned him away. She wouldn’t even open her door to see Lucy. Not that I blamed her. After everything she’d been through—losing her ship and crew— the loss of Schultz must have felt like the end of her world. I could certainly sympathise. I had my own share of ghosts. And tonight, I’d be lighting four extra candles—one each for Schultz and the Penitence, and one for each of the two Drufflings that had been in the Penitence’s engine room. Four more casualties in this insane war.
Nod grieved for the loss of its offspring. Upon hearing the news of the Penitence’s almost certain destruction, it curled into a scaly ball and refused to show any of its faces until hours later, when it re-emerged and carried on working, muttering stoic phrases about the World Tree.
“Nothing ever truly lost,” it said, and busied itself with a junction box that needed a new set of fuses.
After a day of this, I invited Preston to join me for a drink in the ship’s galley. We sat at one of the tables with a pair of freshly poured gin martinis, and drank a toast to absent friends. Marks on the floor showed where once a spy named Ashton Childe had been welded to the decking.
“I’m sorry, Preston,” I said. “I think you may have signed up with the wrong ship.”
He fiddled with the olive in his glass. “I’m not so sure.”
“What makes you say that?”
His smile was bitter. “If I’d joined another ship, I expect I’d already be dead by now.”
I had to concede his point. “You can say what you will about the Trouble Dog, she’s a survivor.”
“She certainly is.” He walked over to the counter and poured another pair of drinks.
“But it’s not just her, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
He placed the refilled glasses on the table. “We wouldn’t have got this far without you on the bridge, making decisions. You have to take some of the credit.”
“I don’t know about that.” I didn’t feel praiseworthy. “I feel like a fraud. I’ve always done what I thought was right at the time, but we’ve lost so many people. George, Alva, Schultz, and everybody on Camrose Station… How many of them would be alive now if I’d made better decisions?”
Preston shrugged. “You can hardly blame yourself for Camrose. We weren’t even there.”
“But we let the genie out of the bottle.”
“I don’t recall us having a great deal of choice.”
“There are always choices.” I sipped my drink. The ratio of gin to vermouth was perfect. Over the past months, I’d got Preston pretty well trained.
Preston drained his glass and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket. “Tell that to my father.”
I set my drink down. “I’m sorry.”
“We’ve been through this. I don’t blame you. You did what needed to be done.”
“Yes, but even so…”
“Forget it.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Forget it.” He glanced over at the counter but didn’t rise for a refill. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“How’s Lucy holding up?”
Preston scratched his cheek. “She’s okay. She’s sad at losing Schultz, but otherwise seems quite philosophical.”
“I was worried she’d be upset.”
“She says she’s seen enough death over the past ten thousand years. She’s used to it.”
I shook my head. “I keep forgetting she’s not a little girl.”
“I know what you mean. One minute she’s acting like a child, and the next you’re talking to this alien machine that’s older than the Egyptian Pyramids.” He gave a shiver. “It creeps me out, it really does.”
We sat in silence for a while, in a room large enough to seat an entire company of marines—but filled instead with the ghosts we weren’t ready to discuss.
When my glass was empty again, Preston asked, “So, where are we heading now?”
“For the Intrusion.”
“I know that, but are we going straight there? I thought it was too far to do in a single jump.”
“It is. We’re going to be making a stop on the way for repairs. And also to drop off the civilian vessels somewhere where they’ll be safe.”
“And where’s that?”
Preston sat back in his chair with his mouth open. “You’re kidding? I have always wanted to go there.”
“Well, here’s your chance. It’s outside the Generality, so it’ll be as safe as anywhere else.” I stood and adjusted my hat. “And where better to get repaired than on a planet filled with mechanics?”
Okonkwo entered, clad in a sweat-darkened vest and jogging bottoms. Fresh from the gym, she had a towel draped around her neck and a bottle of water in her hand.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
She looked at me the way I suspected she’d look at an idiot child. “I deserted my ship. They went into combat, and I wasn’t with them.”
“It was hardly desertion. You didn’t have a choice.”
I watched her rub her face with the towel and take a pull from the water bottle. She walked over to the printer and ordered a fresh uniform. While it was being manufactured, she leant against the counter and said, “I neglected my duty. They needed me, and I wasn’t there.” Even in gym clothes, she carried herself with a superior air that made me want to muss up her hair and rub her face in the dirt. Who did she think she was? Just because she was still a serving officer, that didn’t make her better than any of us. We’d all done our time, in one way or another. And right now, we were all equally fucked.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” Her expression tightened. “If you hadn’t called your pathetic little meeting, I would have been where I was needed; fighting back instead of slinking off like a dog with its tail between its legs.” Without waiting for me to respond, she scooped the still-warm, paper-wrapped bundle of clothes from the printer’s delivery tray and strode out of the room.
Preston watched her go, then turned back and whistled. “Jesus,” he said. “I would not like to be on the wrong side of her.”
I left him to a third drink and climbed up to the bridge at the centre of the ship. The Trouble Dog’s avatar regarded me from the main screen. She wore a simple black dress with matching veil.
“No need to ask how you’re doing, I suppose?”
“I am bothered.”
“About the loss of your brother?”
“Yes, I’m wearing these clothes in honour of his memory. But that’s not what’s bothering me.”
“Then what is it?”
“I can’t find a word.”
I lowered myself into my command couch and tipped up the brim of my cap. “A word?”
“There’s a word I want to use, but I can’t find it in my records. I don’t believe it exists.”
“What is it?”
“When a child loses both parents, it becomes an orphan, correct?”
“Yes.”
“But there doesn’t seem to be a term for an orphan who also loses all her siblings. Someone who once had a family but is now alone.”
“That’s how you feel?”
“That’s how things are. All my siblings are dead. Adalwolf, Fenrir, War Mutt, proud Anubis, and even dear, sweet Coyote, who was the first of us to die. Without them, I’m a wolf without a pack. The last survivor of a vanished world only I remember.”
“You still have me, and Preston and Nod. Even Lucy.”
She passed a hand across her eyes. “I know. Do not think me ungrateful. I will always think of you as a sister. But however comforting it is to have a new family, it cannot lessen the pain of having finally lost the old.”
“I understand. I’m an orphan myself, remember?”
“I hadn’t forgotten.”
“Then that’s something else we have in common.” I put my booted feet up on the console. “Now tell me, how much longer until we reach the Druff’s world?”
“Eight hours.”
“When we get there, I don’t want to linger. If Sudak tracked us to Variance, she might be willing to breach Hopper space to get to us.”
The avatar pulled back her veil. “That would seem reckless. Such an act would almost certainly provoke a hostile response.”
“Agreed, but I’m not going to discount the possibility. She knows we’re going to the Intrusion, and why. If she’s determined to stop us, she might be foolhardy enough to risk pissing off another alien race.”