Flashes From the Past, Part Two

I lay resting in bed, my head against the pillow.  There is not much else that I could do, seeing as how I was sans legs and only had one arm-which was broken.  Still, I was luckier than most of my team; they were all dead.  The hospital smelled of antiseptic and cleaning agents and recycled air, which only served to highlight the smell of the cologne of the man standing next to me, my fiance, Alexi.  He smiled at me again, his teeth white as snow, but I could tell it was forced.

“You’re looking good, Mel,” he said.  Which I suppose made him just like any other guy.  Out of a list of things to say, they will inevitably pick the worst one to say.  I looked like hell.  Aside from missing three limbs, I had several bruises and cuts on my face, bags under my eyes and not a iota of makeup on.  Oh, and my hair had been scorched off in places.

I kept myself from rolling my eyes.  “Thanks,” I replied with a forced pleasant tone.  “I’ll be better soon, though.  The doctor said that in my case, if they don’t just full out clone me, then I will get new limbs and neural grafts.  Good as new.”

My fiance took another breath, “that’s good.  Kelli misses you, a lot.  She needs her mommy.”

“Why didn’t you bring her?”

He hesitated.  “I didn’t-” another pause “-know how you were going to be.  I didn’t want to scare her.”

I turned away and frowned.  “That’s a good point,” I managed to choke out before the tears came.  My own daughter afraid of me.  The thought alone caused me to sob.  I shook gently as the tears rolled down my cheeks to drop onto my pillow.  Alexi reached out a hand to touch me gently on my shoulder.  His touch was timid, even he was having difficulty seeing me like this.  A moment later he left, leaving me still crying and sobbing.  In that moment, I have never felt more alone.

*****

“You’re very luck, Nova,” said the captain, smartly dressed in her slate grey service uniform.  She was right.  The new recon suit had self sealing irises at strategic places on the limbs.  If it detected major damage, it closed one of them, effectively applying a tourniquet on the limb.  Which was the only thing that kept me from bleeding out.  “It was touch and go; they weren’t sure if you were going to make it.”

I had been in the hospital six days.  Six days of absolute boredom, with nothing but the constant news holo to keep me occupied.  I turned to look at the captain, with her soft face and chestnut hair pulled back into a severe ponytail.  “Any word on when I’ll get fixed up?  Oh, frack, even if I can get a remote for the holo?”  I could finally move the fingers in my left hand, my only hand, again.

“I know they’ve submitted the paperwork.  Bureau of Medicine and the Medical Review Board should give their decision and release the funding and resources here soon,” she replied.

“Decision?”  The last thing that I wanted to hear was that there was some doubt that I would get fixed.  I could not go through life like this.  I couldn’t even feed myself, with my arm in a cast, a nurse had to do it.  

“Don’t worry.  In your case it’s a formality.  They’ll fix you.”  Captain Vea pulled out a sliding chair and swiveled it around and sat.  “The Marines take care of their own.”  She sighed.  “I’m sorrie, Nova.  Your op was not supposed to go down like it did.”

“Yeah,” I said with a hint of acridity in my voice.  “Simple extract.”

“Dammit, that’s what G2 said.  I know we didn’t do a proper debrief when you got back, seeing as how your life was hanging by a fraying thread, but if we had known of the actual OPFOR strength, it would not have been your team.”

“Yeah, a heavy infantry company, or two.”  I was more than slightly bitter.  Men and women that I had been with through a liberation of an entire planet getting killed because someone on high had messed up was not something that I could just get over.  Nor was this corporate VIP worth the life of one of my Marines.  “Or we could have just left the VIP to rot.”

“We’re the sheepdogs.  The sheep go astray, we go get ‘em.  That’s what we do.”   So help me, she believed the crap she was spouting.  That the navy was the defender of the State.  She didn’t see that we were used-used for political purposes, or corporate profits.  The State didn’t care about the grunt, the Marine on the ground, the navy rating in the gun batter or the worker on the assembly line.  All it cared about was that we did our jobs and and that we didn’t rock the boat.  I was, quite literally an expendable asset.  So, when some vice manager or something or other for NOH goes missing, kidnapped by Angels, the slimy scumbags at the top look at their ledger and see that the ransom demand is worth more than one squad of recon Marines and tell us to go get him back.  As I laid there in the bed, I envied the Gallente, the Matari.  They had something worth fighting over, a true cause.

I snapped back into Marine mode to respond.  Don’t rock the boat, just get fixed.  Go from there.  “Yes, ma’am.  Sorry just stress.”

“You’re a good Marine, Nova, and a good woman.  You’ll get better and be back to normal in no time.  I’m still looking forward to being your maid of honor.”

“If there is one.”  I rolled my head to look her square in the eyes.  “Aliza, I’m worried.  Alexi is acting strange.”

“Don’t,” she replied.  “I’m sure it’s just the stress.  He was afraid he lost you.”  She stood up.  “I’ll talk to him, though.”  Alizabeth took a second to straighten out her uniform before continuing.  “Take care, Mel.  Honor before glory.”

“Death before dishonor,” I instinctively responded.

Flashes From the Past, Part One

Bhaalgorn after Bhaalgorn exploded in fiery death, tiny suns as their reactors went critical, or their capacitors overloaded.  Lasers streamed across the blackness of space, brilliant violet beams.  The battle was taking it’s toll, but the Imperial Navy task group simply had more ships-the way the Amarrians always won.  The last of our Bhaalgorns took a broadside from the remaining sole remaining Imperial battleship, an Apocalypse, amidships and simply broke in two; fire and bodies and derbies spewed out of the split in the hull.

My executive officer turned to me and simply said, “Command devolves to you, captain.”

“Acknowledged.  Message to all ships: Commander Dieudonne has command.”  I quickly ran my eyes over the tactical holo.  We were dead as long as that Apocalypse was still on the field.  And even after that, the odds were bad.  “Message to all ships:  Target!  Sierra 64.  Enemy battleship.  Focus fire on the port side, overload your guns until target is destroyed.  Fire at will.”  I turned to my XO.  “Kick the microwarp on, get to seven klicks and switch crystals to conflag.  Heat the guns until they melt or that ship-” I thrust my finger to the Apocalypse on the tactical holo “-does.”  It was a gamble, a huge one.  There were all sorts of nasty things that a battleship could do to a cruiser that close.  God is in the roll of the dice, I thought and then silently prayed it came up six.  The Ashimmu rumbled as the microwarp drive engaged and we sped towards destiny.

*****

BRS Pride of Alen limped into port on her own power.  The tugs gave her that, despite having to be towed through three systems, due to the fact that her warp drive no longer worked.  Under other circumstances it would be a pitiful sight, huge gouges, holes even, in her armour and hull.  Chunks larger than shuttles had been blown away and wisps of atmosphere trailed out.  Several of the laser mounts were simply not there, blown away by Amarrian weapons.  Beneath the hull, repair and rescue efforts were continuing even now.  But she was returning a victorious champion.  Of the twenty three Amarrian battleships, not a single one survived.  Of the seventeen cruisers and battlecruisers, not a single one survived.  Of the eleven frigates, not a single one survived.  The losses to Covenant were no less staggering, but we had managed to kill off the last battleship and out maneuver and destroy six battle cruisers and 6 frigates.  My crew was already calling it a miracle.  

The docking clamps locked into place and the ship shuddered.  My XO turned to me and said, “Ship secured, ma’am.”  

I nodded and pulled the helmet off of my suit.  The first thing that hit me was the smell.  Smoke and charred flesh, burnt electronics.  The bridge had taken a hit, a hard hit.  One of the Harbinger’s lasers burned through seven decks, and had finally run out of energy at the deck above.  Chunks and fragments of bulkhead and deck plating had ripped though the bridge like flechettes.  The armoured combat suits we wore stopped most of it, but my com officer and eight other ratings were killed.  They still laid where they had fallen.  The scene on the bridge was mirrored in other compartments across the ship.

“Tell DC teams to be ready for relights when the O2 starts to flow again.  All station DC teams have permission to board.  You have the bridge.”  I tucked my helmet under my arm and headed to the lift.  “I’m going to take charge of the DC teams.”  Now that we were safely in dock, the reasons keeping me on the bridge were gone.  The lift doors opened and I stepped in.

I had just enough time to hear the XO say, “Aye, ma’am, I have the bridge,” before the doors closed.  I ran my gloved fingers through my short cropped blond hair and took in a deep breath.

*****

Deck 5, bulkhead 30 was a wreck of twisted metal.  The compartment beyond had been sealed off due to a massive hull breach and a fuel cell fire near the end of the battle.  Lined up outside the hatch was a DC team in firefighting gear, ready to go, simply standing there.  I strode up to the ensign in command of the team and he stiffened seeing me, the gold trim on my combat suit identifying me as an extremely important person.  He downright turned to stone when he saw my rank.

“Captain!”  He nearly shouted at me in the crispest parade ground voice that I had heard in quite a while.  But I was having none of it.

“Why is your team just waiting out here?  There’s crew trapped in there.”  I snarled at him.  

He stammered back, “it’s still hot; there could be flare ups if we open the hatch, ma’am.”

My first strike impacted his nose, causing it to splinter and break and shards of bone to go into his brain. There was no second strike; with my enhanced body, one was enough.  The Blood Raiders were not very tolerant of failures, which worked out well.  Neither was I.

I turned to the DC team, “Come on men, do you want to live forever?”  I slammed my helmet into place and, with the amplification servos built into the suit, ripped the hatch off it’s fittings and charged into the inferno.

*****

I strutted in the bar like I owned the place, in my dress uniform, a finely tailored, sharp looking outfit of red and black with gold trim.  I knew that I was not going to be buying my own drinks tonight.  My bridge officers were already there, at a booth, talking amongst themselves, similarly dressed as myself.  My XO stood and raised his glass.

“Skipper!” he yelled.  I smiled in response and took my seat.  The bartender had a glass of beer already waiting for me and I raised it.

“To victory,” I said.  We all took a drink.  My XO, Lt. Commander Verrue offered the next traditional toast.

“To those with God,” he said, more somberly.  

“Allet,” I responded with my bridge crew.

My OPS officer, Lieutenant Caprasio, asked, “What’s the final number, skipper?”

I sighed lightly, “twenty seven confirmed dead, thirteen more missing and presumed dead.  Ninety wounded.  One executed.”

“Who’d you shoot, skipper?”

“That new ensign, Trappe.  Too afraid to breach a compartment for DC.  Worthless piece of amphibian shit.”  My bridge crew nodded their agreement.  I continued, “Harvester teams rescued a good part of the crews from the rest of the fleet, which is good news.  The also rescued-” this was greeted with a light chuckle “-a decently large percentage of the Amarrian crews.  And since we have no other ships to share the prize money with.”  I trailed off, smiling.  It was promising to be a good week for all of us.  “The bad news,” I darkened, “is that there were no clones aboard the enemy ships.  So no pure blood”

The man in the booth behind me snorted, loudly.  I whip turned my head to see an older man in the robes of a clergyman, but not a Blood Raider, that much was clear.  I snapped, “You say something, old man?”

He turned and scoffed again.  “Pure blood, from clones?”  He sounded dismissive.  “Next thing you know you’ll be offering up synthetic blood packs.”  He chuckled derisively.

“And just who the frell are you?”  The anger within me grew, raging.  “Do you know who the frell I am?  Blood Raider.”  As far as things went in Delve the Blood Raiders were at the top of who’s who.  

“Easy skipper, he’s Order of the Chalice,” said Verrue.

I turned back around, “And that means frell all to me.”

My XO continued in a much steadier pace, “Sabik clerics.  Well respected, devout.  They used to be a part of the Covenant.”

I fought to control my rage, to keep myself from turning around and breaking the priest’s neck, and took deep breaths.  My rise to my current rank had been meteoric, a full commander in less than a year.  The Sani Sabik were very rewarding of success.  And after the battle today, captain’s stars were most likely in the near future.  But a side effect of that rise was that I did not know as much as some of my crew about the inner political workings of the Sani Sabik.  Executing an ensign for cowardice, would not be a blink of an eye for my superiors.  If I killed this priest, the response from my superiors might be anything from me being chewed out to serious repercussions.  

“Alright, priest, leave us the frell alone and keep your opinions to your self.”  My mood soured, I turned back to my officers and finished the evening drinking with them.  But I could not help but think about the priest’s words as I lay awake in bed that night.