Ayan looked at him out of the corner of her eye for a moment before chuckling to herself and shaking her head. “You didn't pass this by Laura or Jason or even Oz for that matter, have you?”
“No, why?”
“They would have told you there's no way I'd turn you down. I have to get a few things sorted, you understand, but I've practically already started.”
“So you'll work with me?”
“On this ship? You can count on it,” she giggled at him, catching a crew member who was just passing by surprise. Instead of simply walking on he smiled at Ayan and bowed as he let her pass.
“But only after you tell me why that keeps happening,” she whispered. “Eyes follow me everywhere and I'm not that pretty, regal or important.”
“All right, we're coming to the highlight of our tour so I'd say it's time. I don't know why, perhaps in part to grieve you and Jonas, maybe because she missed her own husband, but Laura added the files of the First Light senior staff to the ship records. She also entered a history of that voyage and a documentary from the Hart News service.”
“There was a documentary?” Ayan boggled.
Liam nodded and went on. “In the wake of Jonas Valent and your passing aboard there was a lot of mystery. It was a confusing time for everyone. Many people were killed during the taking of Triton and the Eden Fleet had just decimated the Enreega system, leaving many people homeless, hopeless. Word spread that Jonas sacrificed his life for the sake of the ship and that your former self had come across the stars to see him only to find Jacob, who carried all of Jonas's memories.”
Ayan swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded. “Go on.”
“I know this isn't easy to hear, but he was with her in the last moments, according to Laura it was a good passing. We had a service for all those who had lost their lives in those first days on the Triton. We lost a lot of people in the fighting and when the Holocaust Virus first struck. We sent the fallen towards a stellar nursery, a whole nebula of stars that were just forming. As time went on people passed on the story of Jonas and Ayan, and in the eyes of the crew you became the woman that the Captain had lost. The story the crew tells new hands about how Triton was taken includes you and Jonas. In fact, the story is so widespread that when they built a monument to honour the people who originally lost their lives aboard they spoke to Laura about contributing something.”
Her eyes went wide as they passed a tree leaning into the path and the monument Liam was telling her about came into view. It was a solid block of granite, brought to the center of a circular converging point of five pathways from somewhere else in the garden she assumed. Into its broad surface were carefully chiselled more names than she could count at a glance. Atop the broad, meter tall stone was a holographic image of Jonas holding her in his arms. He was dressed in his long coat, and she was in a white gown. She stopped and stared for a long moment, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“Jake, his daughter and you are all legends here. You look so much like your predecessor that they recognize you immediately. There's really no need for you to do anything but be seen here, that's enough to bolster morale on the ship more than any words or extra leave time ever could,” Liam put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “This place is the Triton's heart.”
“This image was taken at the Pilot's Ball,” she said quietly.
“Laura wanted to tell you all about this herself, but, using her words, she thought she'd be a blubbering mess.”
Ayan laughed and wiped away her tears. “And then I'd be a blubberin' mess, an' the onlookers might get drawn in, and then you'd have a ship full of weepers and wailers.”
“You're almost getting me started,” Liam chuckled as he handed her a tissue from a pocket in his sleeve. “She was right, when you cry your whole face falls into it.”
“Oh, don't you dare,” she said before blowing her nose.
He sighed and looked into her eyes. “Now you know.”
She looked to the monument then back to him. “What do I do about this? No one can live up to a legend.”
“In this case, the truth really will set you free. Just let the story of your origin leak out and people will either get used to you more quickly or they'll have even more respect for you. In command that'll be very important. Other than that, just be yourself, in the end that's all you can do.”
“You're right. I'm still not going to be able to walk past that without nearly bursting into tears.”
“Maybe next time you can come with Jacob. He hasn't been down to see it since he gave his permission to have it built.”
Ayan stared at the granite stone for a long moment before nodding to herself. “I know Jake is so much like Jonas, but he's not, so I don't know how things will go with us, not really, but I have to be there when he wakes up.”
“We're all just at the beginning of our journeys, Ayan. No one can say how things will be, we can only do our best to make sure we're moving down the right path.”
Ayan looked to Liam and smiled. “Thank you Liam, I've got to be in the infirmary.”
“There's a lift at the end of that path, do you know the way from there?”
“I'll grab a security officer along the way and have him walk me.”
“I'm sure he'll be honoured, now go,” Liam grinned.
Beginnings
It was a sound Jake hadn't heard for a very long time. Irritating, loud, like a constant slow sawing. “Minh, stop snoring, willya?” he muttered, half asleep. His last memory returned to him then, collapsing in the hallway after rescuing Alice from the bridge. He sat up.
It was a hospital room, the decking and bulkheads looked like the Triton medical center, but he hadn't seen the room before. The offending noise was coming from his right, where Minh-Chu Buu had turned two chairs so they faced each other so he could stretch his legs out and nap. His head had fallen back so he was snoring open mouthed straight up into the heavens.
Jake couldn't help but laugh, groggy or not it was the most hilarious thing he'd seen in years. Add to that how amazing it was to see his long time friend alive and well, once he started laughing he couldn't stop. When Minh woke with a start and looked at Jake, smacking his lips due to dry mouth all he said was; “I was snoring?” The laughter was contagious and soon they were both in stitches.
Minh stood and offered his hand.
Jake took it, their grips were strong, both their hands were more calloused and hardened than they were years before when they had last spoken on the First Light. The hand shake turned into a brief embrace before Minh stood back and shook his head. “You scared us for a while there. Iloona says you have some kind of recharge mode, where you regenerate cell damage and well, I missed the rest,” Minh said with a shrug. “Alice is in recovery, you managed to get to her in time. They repaired some older brain damage when they were treating her and it'll take her a while longer to wake up, could be a few days, but she'll be fine.”
“Best news since I heard you and Ayan were alive.”
“That had to be one hell of a bomb. Wish I had seen your face.”
“It changed a few things,” Jake replied. “I still can't believe you're here. If I had known you were out there somewhere-”
Minh waved the sentiment away with a hand; “Regret is a wall made of sorrow mortar and history bricks, a house built in such a way is destined to collapse. I thought I was as good as gone until I lucked my way out of that mess. I'm just glad to be here. If you want to make it up to me, you could put me back in a cockpit.”