Prologue
"I know you loved him Gail. Please stop trying to hide it."
The darkness of her quarters yielded no response, but he knew she was in there, probably face down on her bunk, brooding. He wasn't sure if the thought that ishe/i might be fighting tears was a comforting thought, an amusing one, or just disturbing, altogether.
Jared Panocha never fancied himself much given to just letting things lie; his time as a political liaison had given him plenty of experience in knowing what happened when loose ends were left loose. Having the personal adjutant of the ship's late Captain overwhelmed with grief was not an end Jared was willing to let dangle. The Dagger's future—more importantly, his own future—rested on the continued operation of their small mercenary unit, and he refused to let the personal feelings of the second-in-command get in the way of the fluidic machine he had helped forge.
"Driggit, Gail, I won't have you crying your eyes out over him. We all loved Sterling in our own way, and his loss has already cost us dearly. If the troops see iyou/i falling apart, morale will be shot. Neither of us wants that, now do we?"
Still no response.
iWomen./i
Panocha waved his cane a little to either side of him, gently tapping on the edges of the door before walking in. It didn't matter that she had the lights off; he couldn't see anyway.
He had balked at the idea of optical implants, when they had been offered. While it was true he missed his sight, he refused to feel like a slave to technology. The only artificial augmentation he had allowed himself was his cane, and that was mostly to tell other people he was blind; he'd been sightless long enough he knew how to take care of himself.
The Obsidian Dagger's Political Officer hadn't quite cleared the threshold when he heard Gail heft herself out of her bunk, and make for the door. While he had twice her mass, Panocha knew the adjutant well enough to know that even his hundred-twenty kilo bulk wouldn't stand in her determined way, and so he simply got out of it as fast as his obese frame allowed.
"Gail, look," he started again, as she strode past him and headed for the bridge, "We've still got some options, here. There's this… will you just istop and listen to me/i for Braton's sake?"
It didn't require his ultra-keen sense of hearing to know she was still walking away. Sighing heavily, he threw himself into a huffing, ambling jog to catch her.
"Gail, wait! Just…" but it was obvious she wasn't having it, and by the time they reached the bridge, a half-minute later, Jared found himself completely winded, and very glad he knew the ship's internal layout by heart.
Even before seeing her, the crew could ifeel/i the presence of Gail Silvestri as her long, athletic legs carried her into the nerve centre of the O.D.S iWildcard/i, and were on her feet before the deck officer even announced her. She waved them back to their seats with her characteristic professionalism, though some knew her well enough to detect the minute hint of impatience in the gesture.
Jared knew that now it was time to let it drop. It was one thing to confront a superior in the privacy of his or her own quarters; it was another to do it in front of the crew. He shook his head, and quietly faded off the bridge.
"I have the bridge," was all she said, as she gracefully slid into the captain's command couch. The deck officer repeated her statement, an acknowledgment that she was, indeed, now in command of the ship.
"Status report, Mr. Flezorn." It was not a request.
"Main engines have been restored to eighty-percent peak operational status. Hull breaches are fully contained. Shields are fully functional.
"We've still got some bald spots in the armour, the engine room is a mess, the air scrubbers are still offline, and Mauler One…" the Tamaran officer's voiced faded as he spoke of the late Captain's personal command vehicle. "Mauler One was irrecoverable. We just had to pull out too quickly."
A solemn silence hung in the pungent, un-recycled air. Sterling "Dagger" Lanza was only three days dead. Overwhelming and unexpected odds had caught the Dagger's square in a death trap.
While Lanza had garnered considerable respect, and some renown, for his brilliant and daring combat tactics, the situation had gone from bad to worse when, right on top of the Dagger's battle-weary ground troops, the enemy dropped a fresh regiment of their own.
The company-sized mercenary unit had been pounded mercilessly, and forced to flee to their drop shuttles, or face entire annihilation. Captain Lanza had bought the last, most precious minutes of escape time by running his beast of a hover tank straight into the enemy column, sowing untold havoc in a last-ditch suicide attempt.
The moment of silence passed. Gail forced her mind away, bringing the crew with her.
"Just tell me if this tub is still spaceworthy." The Tamaran made a quick check.
"All vital stations reporting greenboard. We are on standby for departure… Captain."
iThat almost hurts/i, she said, silently, to herself.
"Set course and heading for Peridon V. Ahead three-quarters."
"Course…plotted and laid in, Sir."
Gail slumped back in her chair, as if exhausted.
"Let's put some distance between us and this rock," she murmured. There was a silent and hearty agreement.
The next time she saw him was when she was in her cabin. She hadn't expected Sterling to be there, just sitting on the bed like that, but sure enough, he was; until she brought the lights up.
iWhat curse of which pretend gods have me trapped by illusion? It's not enough I still see him in my dreams; now I have waking nightmares thrust on me./i
It was obvious that the hour was late; that much was evidenced by the dark circles under her increasingly sunken eyes, and she had to admit that she was somewhat startled by what the small mirror in her quarters showed. She'd had next to no sleep since the night before that fateful raid, and it was beginning to tell. She had reached the point where the ship's doctor had forced her to resign her post and get some sleep.
Gail, of course, rebuffed him, saying that, as second-in-command, she was responsible for the ship—and the entire team, now—and that she would get rest when she saw to it that her duty had been fulfilled. Doctor Hall threatened to sedate her, if she didn't get some sleep, reminding her that she would be more of a liability, than an asset, if she were half brain-dead.
She offered only token resistance, after that, but she knew he was right, and—with a good nudge from the good doctor—made her way off the bridge and into the dim-blue lighting of the corridor. As she staggered into the cubicle she called her "private quarters," she had to admit, if only to herself, that she hadn't entirely been telling Brynn Hall the truth, when it came to her excuse for not getting any sleep. While it was true that she was now the ranking authority, and while it was true that she was the one primarily responsible for ensuring the surviving Daggers had gotten out of that hole, alive, there was more to it than that.
She needed distraction. iIntense/i distraction. Command was a convenient loophole through her deep need to grieve her lost love.
A sudden knock on the door broke her lack of concentration, and her mind reflexively snapped to full alert. She snapped a smart about-face, ready to receive her captain's orders, or, better yet, his warm embrace.
"You, uh, wished to see me, Captain?"
The basso voice of Commander Panocha was not what she had expected, even though some part of her told her that she had requested a meeting with him, just minutes before Dr. Hall shoved her off the bridge.
"Yes, um, please come in. Grab a seat. Just off to your left, there."
"Same place you always keep it?"
"Er, yeah. Yes. Sure. Sit. I'm not mad at you, you know. You can still call me 'Gail'."
"You're wasted, Gail."
Was it really so bad that even a blind man could see her fatigue? Somewhere, in her swimming thoughts, she figured it probably was, and somewhere else, a wee part of her brain had already recalled the fact that his hearing rivaled that of most Kitaran Trackers. He'd spent years on it, she knew, and it had even saved iher/i life, once.
She yawned out a "you're right," and dropped, heavily onto her fold-down bed.
"Feels as though I've got a Zallun darii beast running around in my head. I haven't felt this worn out since… since never. Could I get you to just hit me over the head with that cane of yours? You wouldn't even have to hit," another wide yawn, "hard. And probably no more than once."
Jared laughed, and Gail even giggled, drunkenly.
"So, aside from being smacked around by a blind guy, what was it you wanted me for? Oh, and before you answer, I needed to apologize for earlier. I promise, I wasn't thinking right. I just needed you to…"
She waved it away, as she swallowed yet another yawn.
"No, Jared, it's fine. I just needed to know what that… other…option… was."
His sightless eyes blinked, a carry-over reflex from his pre-blind days.
"Other…option," he queried?
"Yeah, that…thing you were… talking about…right before we le…left orbit."
"Oh, yeah, that. Well, there's this kid…" He paused, his attention caught by deep, rhythmic breathing. "Gail? You still with me?"
And she was, but only physically. Her lithe frame was now splayed willy-nilly on her bunk, dark-rimmed eyes very definitely shut. He could see none of this, of course, but the sounds of sleep were no stranger to him.
Wordlessly, he stood, made a brief, almost unnecessary sweep with his cane, and walked out, signaling the lights to cut out, and her door to lock automatically.
iShe needs it. She really does. I just hope that message was right, or this might be one of her last nights —of /iany iof our last nights— sleeping on this ship./i