Then they tried to take her away, and she screamed and fought in panic all the way to another officer, a woman, by a shuttle. They made a circle around her, and tried to hand her over to another couple of marines, but she got an arm free, and managed to throw the one on her other arm to the ground. He scrambled away. They all did, with guns raised.
The woman shouted something about "just a kid!" The marines lowered their guns hesitantly. The woman took charge. Instead of fighting her, she made the men stand back. Emily was surrounded and unarmed, but the pause made her stubborn brain slow down. She saw dim faces behind their visors, human faces. A gust of wind showed the spooky shape of a figure through the grass, but it was made of canvas bags tied to a couple of stakes. It was one of her practice dummies. She was back in the field behind her home. A reflection in one of their visors showed a bright flash, and an explosion banged somewhere. She saw Mindoir. It was burning. Smoke rose into the sky, lit orange from below by the hundred small fires it came from. Many buildings burnt in earnest. Ash from one of the agricultural towers drifted on the hot night air like something out of a movie, and it was quiet. Each sound happened alone somehow. A shuttle took off somewhere. A few distant shouts and bangs came from the suburbs. She looked back at the woman soldier.
"You got it, kid. Take it slow," she said. After a long pause, she said, "No worries, we can use a breather anyway. Right boys? Rajit, why don't you boys get back to your patrol? Maybe you can find a four-eyed bogeyman to beat on? If you pass me a medigel for all the abrasions your brutes did to her arms, I'll forget to report that you and your men aimed assault rifles at a frightened human girl. Deal?"
The first officer passed a pack over, and his men left into the night.
Emily began to regain herself, and the remaining soldiers seemed relaxed. The woman tapped the side of her helmet and turned her head away for a moment. "Roger, Captain. It's not her blood. We're just letting her settle down, we'll be moving again in five." More listening. "Copy. Then, permission to send the shuttle on, sir? She's in shock." A pause. "No, sir. She's just not ready to board, not yet. I'll walk her back to point echo and monitor the flight zone from my HUD." A nod. "Thank you, sir. Call if you need me. Gentlemen, pack it up. They need Enrique. Nav is set. I'll walk her around to echo. Stay in touch."
Emily wondered who Enrique was. Then the soldiers jumped on the shuttle and left her with this woman in the dim light of the stars.
The woman approached cautiously, and Emily let her. She was a pilot, not a marine. "I'm Hannah, ok sweetheart? How about you hold onto me, alright? Let me worry where we're going. You just focus on keeping calm, ok?"
A gun went off somewhere, just three shots, but Emily dropped into the mud so fast she almost pulled the officer with her. Then she realised how distant the sound was. She put her forehead to the wet ground and screwed her eyes shut. What was happening to her?
Hannah crouched with her and held onto her arm. She waited for the poor girl to stand, but she didn't, and her breathing was unsteady. "I'm right here. Come on, we're ok." When the girl finally got up, there were pale streaks where tears had fallen from the bridge of her nose.
The blood stains all over this kid's vest gave Hannah the creeps as she imagined ways it might have got there. Rajit said one of the guns they found on her was batarian. Chances were, she'd killed to get out alive.
There was a pair of red scars from above her brow right down her face. She wore a soaked sports vest that stuck to her and left no doubt about the strength in her core. Her toned arms and shoulders glistened from the rain. Her feet seemed sure even in the dark. She'd thrown an armoured marine to the ground in style too. She was a badass, but whatever she'd seen or done to survive had destroyed her. Hannah suddenly noticed this poor thing never once called out for her parents. Out of pity, she put her arm around the girl's waist and gave her a slight squeeze. "You made it," she whispered over the muffled sounds from the colony. "You're ok."
At point echo, the girl clung to her. She quietly refused to be passed on again. So Hannah called the captain. "Sir, this kid isn't letting go of me. At this point I'm more use back on the command deck anyway. Permission to keep her with me until we lift out?"
"Sorry, Commander. Letting you take the walk was a concession, but you're getting personally involved. Send her up on the next medical shuttle. She needs a full medical, and I need my flight commander in the field to keep things sane with the marines. They're getting antsy about us not shipping their dead yet."
Hannah sighed. She'd seen the same reports. "Wilco, Captain," she replied reluctantly. She closed the channel and turned the silent girl to face her. "I have to go. Sorry, sweet. You'll do fine. The doctor will check you're really in one piece, and then you'll be able to clean up and rest. Alright?" She got no response, so she said, "You'll be alright, honey. I'll come and find you as soon as I get off duty, I promise."
The girl nodded.
After the woman called Hannah left, Emily struggled to keep her heart rate down. She sat on a crate and hugged her knees, watching. Gina's face kept haunting her when she blinked. She tried screwing her eyes up to hold the horror back, but the feel of the bloody mist made her scratch her arms. She counted her breaths, but all of them were tortured by her traitorous mind.
In the medical centre on the carrier ship, which felt more like a cramped metal maze than a ship, Emily sat in the chair she was led to with eyes full of tears and Gina's pale, horrified face staring at her through the haze. Then she blinked, and her dad gazed at her in that, frightened, empty way. Every knock, scrape, shout, and tap in the busy medical centre became the bang of the shotgun that blew dad's head apart. Her hands were filthy. She was filthy. She looked at herself and froze. Assault rifles deafened her and she fell to the floor. Blood filled the air. Alice and Fiona crumpled like puppets whose strings were cut but Gina stayed up. Emily wanted to grab her, but it was a man there instead.
He had a white coat. She heard him calling for something as she stood up. They tried to push her around but she got off a punch. Someone much stronger than the doctor grabbed her from behind and told her, "Easy, doll. Easy. War's over." She was sparring with her dad. She surprised him and managed to throw him to the ground. She brought up her fist and saw her dad's ghastly, empty eyes staring up from the floor. She blinked. This wasn't dad. He was a soldier. His eyes were like that officer's eyes. They were all Alliance soldiers. The emblem was on their... He moved and Emily jerked towards him. Where was his armour? This wasn't the jungle, but Emily couldn't banish the image of the marine patrol that found her.
Emily came around in a hard bed, looking up at a white ceiling. Her eyes focussed, and someone, the doctor from before, was standing over her.
"There we are," he said in a patronising voice. "Hello again." There were stitches in his brow and one of his eyes was swollen shut. "You got me fair and square back there. Let's start over shall we? I'm Doctor Zahim."
Emily's head and eyes ached, so she shut them as she tried to sit up.
"Whoa, slow down," someone said.
Emily was dizzy.
"Blood pressure's a little off. Shock I think," the doctor's voice said for someone else's attention. "Hey, sweetheart. Nod your head slowly if you can hear me."
Emily nodded.
"Good. Your head will be evil for a minute or so. Sorry about that. You're one hell of a boxer. Do me a favour. Can you open your eyes? Just look down at your hands to start, and show me one finger then two."
She did, rudely.
"Ha. So you're fully with us then. It almost seemed like you weren't in the room just now. That's not uncommon after a trauma. It's ok. Can you tell me where you are?"
Emily wanted to tell him to p*** off, but before she opened her mouth, a million other thoughts clamoured to be first past her lips, and they all jammed into a painful, weepy ball in her throat. That she couldn't even speak was yet another hot, angry fear, the last straw that made her lips quiver. She clamped her mouth shut.
The doctor grimaced. "Never mind. We'll finish off tomorrow. There's no concussion or anything, just shock and some bruising that will look much worse in the morning. We'll give you some pills to reduce the intensity and help you sleep. Alright?"
Emily said nothing until a small container of pills was held in front of her mouth. Then she recognised one of the pills. It was the same as the pills her dad took every morning to prevent trauma dreams. Her mom had once explained that they prevent recalling traumatic memories. No. She had to remember. She was the only one who could. She batted the pills away and shook her head.
"Come on, champ," the doctor said. "Now you're just being difficult. We're only helping."
Emily shook her head and stood up. She got away with her protest, and was shown to some sleeping quarters.
The flight officer called Hannah did visit, as promised. Nobody answered the hatch to the girl's quarters. Concerned, Hannah requested emergency access and hit the buzzer again while she waited for security to override it. The hatch slid open and Hannah looked in. The girl had her earbuds in and was stood on her hands with her back to the door. She didn't see Hannah enter. Her strong legs pointed straight to the ceiling as she pushed herself slowly up and down on her arms. She was watching her omni. It was charging, but it was also projecting something on the lockers at the other end of the small space between the bunks.
Hannah peered around the girl's legs, and saw a map of Mindoir. A cluster of red dots in the southern half of the map had ID numbers. Orange rings pulsed out once every few seconds from three points near the centre of the colony. With each pulse, a few white dots appeared amongst the red ones, and then turned red also. Next to the map there was a code window.
Intrigued, Hannah watched for a while. Suddenly, one of the orange dots blared blue, and the girl smoothly lifted one arm off the floor to cross her fingers behind her back while she froze in place on just one arm. Hannah's eyebrows jumped up of their own accord. The blue dot finally blinked off, and went red. The girl collapsed out of her handstand onto the floor with an angry howl, then leapt out of her skin and retreated to a corner of the room when she saw Hannah in the doorway.
"Oh! Sorry! I'm so sorry!" Hannah exclaimed. "I didn't mean to startle you."
The girl looked back at her, trembling.
"You remember me, right? I'm Hannah, the one who walked you to the pick up point?"
The girl's chest heaved slowly, and her defensive hands lowered.
"It looks like you're working on something," Hannah said. She was beginning to think the program on that omni might be exactly as illegal as it looked.
The girl glanced at the omni and back at Hannah.
"It's ok. I won't tell. Are you looking for someone?" Parents was Hannah's guess, and she feared the answer.
The girl closed her eyes for a few seconds and frowned. She opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came. She didn't meet Hannah's eyes.
"Is it important?" Hannah asked.
That got another involuntary frown out of the girl, but eventually she sat down by the omni and gazed at the projection. At length, so much so that Hannah almost didn't realise why, the girl nodded.
"Oh. Ok. Well, I can't sleep, and I can't face chatting with my room mates either. So may I sit on the other bunk and read while you do whatever it is you're doing? We can keep each other company until we're tired enough to sleep."
The girl's eyes flicked over Hannah's face and quickly dropped via the floor back to the projection. She nodded slightly, and then curled up on her bunk.
Hannah sat down, but before she started to read she sent a video of the projection to her friend in the electronic warfare department to make sure it was alright. Her friend replied about half an hour later. Apparently the girl had discovered the firewalls were down at the central communications hub at the colony, and had written some kind of software that used an ID verification ping and three signal towers to triangulate the location of every responsive omni in the colony. Then the ID responses were being decrypted one by one, in order of how close they were to a set location, to see if they matched the one she was looking for.
Hannah messaged her friend with the question, "Any chance you can forget you saw this? She's just looking for her loved ones."
Her friend's reply said, "She'll get spotted soon anyway. Field techs are gonna do forensic on colony coms 'cause their distress call was so delayed. Delete these messages/video. Can't court martial us for what we didn't see." Two minutes later, another message said, "P.S. tell the kid to download Sputnik's open source signal analysis package and copy its triangulation code. Hers sucks." Another moment after that, the last message said, "P.P.S. if this b**** tries hacking my ship, I'll space her. G'night Shep."
Hannah sighed, and looked over at the still nameless girl. She was staring at the projection and chewing her nails. Hannah softly said, "May I suggest something for your code?"
The girl looked straight at her, like a deer in headlights.
"It's ok. If anyone asks I'll say I didn't realise what you were up to. I sent my friend a video of your projection and she wanted to help you." After seeing the girl's eyes widen further, Hannah said, "Don't worry, she's not coming here. She just told me to tell you some company called Sputnik Software do a signal analysis package that has better triangulation code than what you're using."
She blinked, twice, and then she jumped to her omni and started working as though her life depended on it.
Hannah stayed for hours, until the girl's projection suddenly flashed green. The girl screamed in delight and started reading something. Then she shook her head violently and paced on the narrow strip of floor between the bunks, hitting out at the air. Sophia squinted at the readout on the target omni. It's distress beacon was active, but the wearer was deceased.
The girl came back to her omni and pushed a call through. Hannah listened almost as intently as the girl when the other omni somewhere on the planet below automatically accepted the call. It was very, very quiet, and the girl's breathing became more fraught with every second that passed.
Hannah got up and sat down by the girl on her bunk. She didn't touch her, but she was close, just in case. The girl eventually lashed out with her fist at the wall, and recoiled, nursing her hand. She got up and paced again. She seemed unable to scream, but it was clear that if she did, the souls of the dead would hear her. Hannah stood up to interrupt the pacing and just embraced the tall young woman. Hannah felt how hard and toned the girl was in her arms, but for all that strength she shivered like a leaf. The girl's breathing grew faster and faster until she started to sob silently, violently. Then she held onto Hannah for dear life.
After a while, the girl thought of something, and went to the omni. She stared at the green dot for a long time, and then started writing a message. Hannah saw it over her shoulder. It read, "Mom, please, if you can see this, just mark it received." The girl hesitated and took a long unsteady breath. Then she finished the message with the words, "I love you." Her finger hovered over the send button, but she couldn't do it. For the next hour, Hannah sat side by side with the poor thing and read while the girl's teary red eyes kept drifting back to that green dot.
It was the small hours of ship's morning before Hannah decided she had to get at least a couple of hours sleep that night. So she told the girl, "I'm done in. I think I finally read enough to make me sleepy. Here. Keep my datapad. The distraction might help you sleep too. I'll see you again, alright? If you need something, just ask for Hannah Shepard. Alright, honey?"
The girl nodded, and watched her go. The tears that perpetually clung to the rim of the girl's red eyes broke Hannah's heart.
In the morning, Doctor Zahim looked over the girl's scan before he brought her to the medical centre. Protocol said he had to check her physical recovery from her shock and the bruising inflicted when she fought the marines. Not that he needed to. His scan the night before said she was fifteen or sixteen years old, with textbook perfect health, stamina that matched most professional sportsmen, and the athletic power to match. Her mental wellbeing was another story. The episode at the med centre was severe. PTSD was not unlikely if she continued to refuse medication and more severe issues might follow if some sort of speech couldn't be coaxed out of her. The vivid, parallel scars on her face suggested previous trauma, probably in the forsaken jungle on the planet below.
What sort of life had this girl led? Even knowing her parentage would help, but the slavers had taken the data modules from the colony clinic, and that made him sick. No doubt a slave with a certifiable health history fetched a higher price, for all kinds of vile reasons that made Zahim shudder when he thought of it. Some of the soldiers said they found a woman in wheelchair who'd just been shot in the face, probably for being infirm. That may be a mercy, considering.
He shook off his reverie and decided to fetch the girl himself so he could try to break the ice on the move where she might feel less pressured than when he interviewed her at the med centre. He absolutely must get her talking. When he knocked on her bunk room door, he wondered if she'd answer, but she did eventually.
She obeyed and followed him to the med centre when asked, but she refused to speak, no matter what Zahim said to persuade her. So he settled for the next best thing. He did a brain scan, and asked a few key questions to see how she processed them. Then he sent her back to quarters while he looked over the results. From what he saw, the lack of speech was psychological, not neurological. That, at least, was a relief.
Hannah met the girl in the corridor, and immediately changed course to escort her. She promised to come over again when she could. It became regular, over the next couple of days, for Hannah to spend all her off hours silently reading in the girl's room. On the second night, the girl moved over and fell asleep on Hannah's shoulder. Doctor Zahim reckoned it was the first sleep she'd had since the attack.
Hannah stayed with the girl all through that night, so as not to disturb her. In the morning, Hannah suggested she could take her to mess at lunch. The girl shrugged, slightly.
At the mess, a few of Hannah's friends tried to fuss over her and fetch everything for her. She didn't seem to like that, and she still didn't speak.
That went on for days. The girl didn't seem to sleep unless Hannah was there, so Hannah temporarily took the opposite bunk.
Confirmation on the girl's identity came via a relative's response to the survivor's list. Emily Evelyn Court. Doctor Zahim confirmed the girl's identity, and pressed her on it, along with details of her surviving family. The girl took the datapad out of his hands and flicked through the consent form to be transferred to their care. She signed, and left. Doctor Zahim knew less about the girl than before.
When at last the Einstein rendezvoused with a supply ship, it was time for the girl to be taken back to Earth. Hannah came with her to see her off. In the cabin that would be the girl's home for two weeks, Hannah left a datapad with some books on it. "I'll remember you," she said. "But I'd like to remember you by name. Can you tell me your name so I know it's you next time we meet?"
The girl's brow furrowed. "Emlyn," the girl whispered. "My name is Emlyn."