The computer translated the telemetry into visual stimuli they could process. Swirling energies flowed around and over the ship while it was at warp.
Aaron flexed his fingers into a fist a few times. Whatever he seemed to be wrestling with, he finally broke the awkward silence.
“Rachael . . .”
“I didn’t betray you!” She spit it out before she could stop it.
Aaron looked down at the table. “I know.”
“Back on Atlas,” she continued, “I know I should have done something sooner, but I was torn. I kept thinking, if I saved you, we would forever lose the chance to identify those other so-called ‘associates’ of Ben James.”
“I get it,” Aaron said.
“No you don’t, let me finish.” She drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I didn’t have forever to decide between you and the consequences. If Ben and his people escaped this time, how many more would die? I knew in the end I couldn’t let you die. Just before the room exploded . . . before Lee came . . . I moved to strike him from behind. You couldn’t have seen it.”
“I believe I did. It’s just everything about that day is a blur. Something crashing through the window, the pain I was in . . . I was really out of it.”
“What’s changed?” she asked. “Why did you shun me these past few days and since you awoke? Why are you here now?”
“A mutual friend convinced me to confront the elephant.”
“What does a mammal creature have to do with anything?”
He looked at her as though she should understand. “Confront the elephant in the room? No relevance to you?”
“Drawing a blank. Should it?”
Aaron smiled. “I guess it’s one of those old metaphorical idioms lost to time—”
Rachael held up her hand. “Clearly. Lee and Max might get it, but I certainly don’t take the context.”
“Well it basically means—”
She held up her hand. “Stop. You don’t have to explain it. I’m pretty sure I can work it out.” He looked strange without his scar. Why had he removed it? “So a mutual friend compelled you . . . I won’t even try to guess who. How much do you know about my mission? Particularly before we left Earth together, for Rigel.”
“I know everything.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. If he knew everything, then he knew what happened to Trident. When Trident was ambushed near Orion, she’d sabotaged the attacking ship which just happened to be the ship they were on now.
Phoenix was operated by Ben James’ people. It’d taken a huge effort to infiltrate them. By that time, it had destroyed many ships along the Border Worlds frontier.
After she sabotaged it and it withdrew, they couldn’t repair the ship and abandoned it. She’d signaled Shepherd the location.
She leaned forward to force him to look directly into her eyes. “So, what are you feeling?”
He held the gaze. “Panic.” He grinned. “But mostly, ashamed at the way I’ve treated you.”
“Technically, you didn’t speak to me for six months.”
Aaron furrowed his brow.
She giggled. “Ha, you should see the look on your face.”
“You watched me sometimes didn’t you?”
She gave him a blank stare. “Maybe”. She paused. “Maybe not.”
“Should have given me a kiss, maybe I would have woken up.”
“Oh?”
He was shaking his head. “Never mind, old story. Was kind of the other way around, anyway. But know what? I’m going to give you something to read. It’s really a big reference to all kinds of things you can find in the history databases. Makes it easy having it in one place. I think you would have liked the twenty-first century.”
“Not if they all talked like you do. I barely understand you half the time.”
He snickered. “That’s the fun part.”
“So what now?” she asked.
“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
She nodded. “It’s a small ship.”
“Indeed.” He laid the huge paper book down on the table in front her and left.
She looked at it.
A Comprehensive History: Twenty-First Century Earth.
Chapter 12 – Heart of a Lion
“So you think you’re some kind of ultimate warrior or something?” – Yuri Miroslav
Hangar Deck
Phoenix
Ensign Yuri “Flaps” Miroslav slammed the personnel device into the deck.
He’d like to smash that tough guy marine sergeant dickhead with it. Who’d he think he was, anyway? Dawes was lucky the Commander was there or Lee would have cracked his smug face in two places.
Then where would poor Lee be? Yuri would just have to shove Dawes out the airlock and pretend he didn’t exist.
But he did exist. People like Dawes would always exist. Society could progress in many ways, but no amount of science, technology or time could fix negative human traits. Everyone from old Earth must have believed the future would fix everyone and everything. That it would be some utopia. It was no utopia where he was raised.
Life on a tech-2 world bored him. Yuri had barely made it off. His parents said he’d never amount to anything. He’d struggled through that hopeless time in his life. If not for his older brother Dimitri, he never would have left.
They all ridiculed him when he talked about flying a space ship someday. Everyone except Dimitri.
Their great grandparents had migrated to that lousy tech-2 world—New Wyoming. Yuri knew from early he just didn’t belong there. That it wasn’t for him. Sometimes, it seemed he was destined to be stuck there forever. It wasn’t easy to hop on some passing freighter and relocate. Some outlaw freighter captain would swallow you up and you’d have to work off some insurmountable debt, living in the dirty lower decks, just to pay off your passage. Then they’d think up all sorts of ways to add to your debt. It could take years.
Then he got a big break. When he was sixteen, a deadly outbreak of triple “E” thinned out the horse population on several worlds in the United Systems. Although New Wyoming was blessed with a healthy horse population, demand exceeded supply.
The first year Dimitri used the income to purchase a personal computing device for Yuri. They’d befriended a cargo ship captain who was planet-side six months out of every year. He showed them how to use it. Dimitri wasn’t really into it.
Yuri studied that thing until his eyes bled. It surprised him as much as anyone, but he had a natural gift for physics, orbital mechanics and warp theory. Then, by the next year Dimitri had saved enough to buy passage off world.
He loved his brother, but Dimitri was content with life on New Wyoming. He’d settled down, found a wife. Good for him. It was hard to leave him behind, not knowing when he’d see him again.
But Dimitri bought him his future. And he intended to live it.
Yuri eventually arrived at Rigel, bouncing around from one cheap lodging to another, and doing odd jobs to keep busy while continuing personal studies. At eighteen he aced a Fleet recruiter’s random aptitude test. Apparently, his score was off the charts.
A year later his joy came crashing down. Raiders struck New Wyoming looking to cash in on the surging value on the demand for horses. They killed his brother while he tried to defend his livelihood. The bastards. The loss overwhelmed him. He couldn’t focus on his studies, and his grades dropped. He almost dropped out the Academy. But he persevered despite his disadvantages.