Chapter Eleven

Rain pattered on the muddy ground for what seemed like the whole week as Jim tried to find ways to keep himself occupied. Since his confrontation with Akmra and the children, he hadn't seen her around the docks, but he knew she must have been there. Jim had been spending his days helping with the Silver is whatever ways he could, and often he saw Akmra's brother, the sandy-haired boy watching him, before running off towards the garage. Jim knew he was spying for her. Why she didn't just come out and confront him he didn't know, seeing as arguing seemed to be her favorite pastime.

As his arm was still rather useless, Jim found it difficult to do much help, but while he couldn't assist with lifting the masts or patching the sails, he was steadily cleaning up the Stateroom, which was in quite the disarray. With the glass swept up and a few of the windows replaced, a slight breeze carried in a few raindrops through some of the still-bare window frames, and as Jim upturned the desk and started gathering the scattered papers, the breeze caught his hair, whipping it across his eyes.

"Really?" he said to no one, laughing slightly as he brushed his bangs back, and reached to check the desk drawers for broken or damaged items. Nothing but a few documents and pens, and the holodisk. Picking up the small black disk, Jim pushed the button, and up popped the image of him and Maya.

"Don't take my picture!" Maya had said bashfully on that day, trying to bury her face in Jim's shoulder.

"Oh, Maya, but you look so beautiful!" Sarah held the holocamera up, pleading with her new daughter-in-law. "Please? I'm sure Jim will always want to remember how you look today; oh, you two are so wonderful together!" Jim chuckled and took his new wife's hand, smiling down at her.

"Please?" he said quietly, and she peeked up at him through thick lashes.

"Only because you're asking, James," she replied, and reluctantly turned to the camera. Just before Sarah took the picture, Jim leaned down and kissed her cheek, causing her apprehensive, bashful smile to be replaced with a genuine one, and as she looked up at him, they both heard the 'snap' of the camera as it finished recording.

It felt like someone had improperly tied a slipknot with Jim's stomach as he looked at the endless loop displayed in front of him. It was like this every time he looked at her picture; the pain, the hurt, the loneliness. Even if he could convince himself to forget about it sometimes, whenever he saw the holodisk, it all came crashing back on him. She was so beautiful, so wonderful, so positively perfect, and yet she wasn't here. She was gone. And there was nothing Jim could do about it.

Jim didn't usually cry. He tried not to. He could count all the times he'd cried in his life on his fingers. When he'd fallen off his Father's solarsurfer when he was small, when his father left, when Mr. Arrow had been lost, when Maya had died, and when he'd left Evelyn on Montressor. But as he sat staring at his wife's face, smiling so lovingly up at him in the picture, a single tear slid down his cheek.

But as was usually the case in Jim's life, his misery did not go unnoticed.

"Who is that?" came a small, unfamiliar voice. Nearly toppling over from surprise, Jim's hand smeared the tear away from his cheek and his head snapped up, only to see that sandy-haired boy, leaning in through one of the open windows.

"Hey!" he said, scrambling to get to his feet. "What are you doing in here?" The kid set his elbows on the ledge and looked up at the captain, the same slightly bored expression donning his face as his older sister's.

"Is that your wife?" he pointed to the still played holodisk in Jim's hand, which he immediately switched off.

"None of your business! I'll ask you again, what are you doing?"

"Because you were crying." The boy completely ignored what Jim was saying, and in fact, started to climb in through the window. He sat on the ledge, feet dangling above the ground. "It seems like that might have been your wife, and you're crying because she's not here? Or maybe she's dead." Well, it seemed like being blunt ran in the Agre family. Jim was almost too shocked to be angry.

"Clever kid," he said bitterly, giving him a fake smile. "I wonder where you got it from." The kid just stared at him.

"Logic is a trait highly prized in the Imperial Navy. Many Academy attendees take classes in logic to learn the skill. I am just naturally logical. It is a trait that the Empire is squandering in me." Well, wasn't he the little anti-Imperialist. Jim let out a sigh laced with the ghost of a laugh as he imagined Akmra feeding this boy anti-Empire propaganda.

"I'm sure squandering isn't the right word," he replied, setting the holodisk back in the desk drawer. "Listen, if you don't answer me, I'm going to have you escorted off the ship. What are you doing in here?"

"I have been watching you. Akmra told me that you are a bitter, angry man and that picks needless fights. I found it interesting that she would describe you like that, because in her, I see the same traits."

"Uh…" Jim hadn't seen that coming. Of course he knew that the girl was very bitter herself, but for her own brother to say it? After all, he was her little tattletale.

"I can see on your face that you find it surprising that I would speak against my sister." Again, the kid hit the nail on the head. "But I am not speaking against her. Only of her. She acknowledges that fact that she is angry and bitter as well. She has reason. I've been watching you, to see if you have a reason as well." Jumping off the ledge, the boy nodded towards the desk, and by association, the holodisk. "I suspect if my assumptions are right, you do have a reason to be so angry. Though, why it's directed at my sister, I don't know."

Jim just stood, astonished at the boy. Not only was he speaking to Jim as if he were a kid himself, and was being chastised by a Professor or senior Officer, but with such an eloquent grasp on the English language. Akmra had told them English came easier to the younger generations, who could learn it alongside their native language, but this was bordering on ridiculous; Jim's English wasn't even that good!

"Jeez," he said, one side of his mouth pulling up in a half smile, half grimace. "Should have guessed you'd be this smart, seeing as you've got that girl as your sister."

"Her name is Akmra, and she is not a girl," the kid said. "Not anymore than you are just a boy."

"Okay, seriously, how old are you?"

"I'm ten." Jim couldn't believe it. Did everyone in this family just act and speak as if they were better than everybody?

"I can't believe that Akmra thinks you wouldn't be accepted into the Academy. You could probably just guilt the admittance Officers into letting you sign up." A tiny smile curled the edges of the boy's lips, but he said nothing. Jim could not believe that the empire would reject a kid like this. Smart, logical, condescending; wasn't that the perfect equation for a Command Officer? He certainly spoke with the confidence of one. "What's your name, kid?"

"Simkov," he replied, not braking gaze with the Captain.

"Okay, look Simkov. I don't care what you report back to Akmra, and I don't care what she tells you about the Empire. But if it were my decision, you'd be made a Cadet in a heartbeat."

"That's what Akmra said you would say to me. But I appreciate it anyway." This kid never gave up. Jim knew he'd have some sort of cynical retort for everything he said so, rolling his eyes, he turned back towards the mess in the stateroom. Simkov stood and watched him for a while, asking the odd question about documents hung on the wall now and then, but after a while left. Before he went though, he asked to see the holodisk again.

"Why should I?" Jim asked him, raising an eyebrow. It was his picture, after all, of his wife. What did this kid want to know about it?

"I want to see how pretty she was. Akmra told me that when she and Jeuk and bruskt saw it, she thought your wife was far too beautiful for you. I just wanted to-"

"Wait…she what?" Immediately, the boy's eyes widened a bit.

"I think I should go now." Before Jim could catch him, he hopped through the window and climbed down the side of the ship to the dock, where he hit the ground running and took off. Jim leaned out as he descended and yelled down to him.

"Get back here! Tell me what you meant! What do you mean they saw it already!? Those sneaks!"

Up on the deck of the ship, Jeuk and Bruskt asked Mr. Agre if they could take a break, and slipped off of the ship before the Captain could turn his attention to them instead.