WHAT REMAINS Chapter 7: Thursday
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Indoc 4 Murphy-Meilin, October 2156
Sora slept hard. Probably had something to do with finally not camping out on piece of deck or hot-bunking in an eight-person bunkroom full of the loudest goddamn marines this side of Delta Pavonis… or maybe because Novak kept a circuit of stupid action movies going the entire night, drowning out the fake bridge noises above.
She opened her eyes with a snap somewhere around 0700, after snagging a solid eleven hours of sleep, to see Novak’s tablet still playing movies on his empty bed. Something from the Agent-Executioner series, a crazy spy thriller-grindhouse crossover she liked, had proceeded through half its runtime. Frowning, Sora leaned out over the side of her bunk and spotted Novak asleep on the floor. She couldn’t help but notice how brittle his sleep looked—shallow breathing, occasional twitches, like he’d fallen asleep fifteen times and only being bombed-out exhausted had finally kept him there.
Sitting up and tucking her legs close to her body, Sora examined the bunkroom on her lonesome. Even the temperature reminded her of space: cold, dry oxygen and nitrogen, just like the stuff piped in from life-support systems, weirdly dead sort of air. Just like good old Omacatl used to make. Out of habit, she grabbed her tablet like she would first thing on the Fenris, checking for intra-ship messages left while she slept, or for briefings, so she could decide if they concerned an enemy or ship system—and therefore important—or anything else, and therefore skimmable.
She had a message, alright, from Dr. Kalgari. Sora groaned a little.
From: Savin Kalgari, D. Psych
To: Sora [Patient No: SN-C1372]
Dear Sora,
Thank you again for preventing Jaesan from getting into an altercation. We should have had one of the ward orderlies on hand, but the first night is usually fairly good-natured. I trust you slept well in comfortable and familiar environs? Tell me if there’s anything I can do to make things more comfortable for you, within the program parameters and within reason, of course.
Breakfast begins in the ward caf at 0730. Perhaps you’d like to join me during setup for a cup of coffee? I believe it would be useful to debrief about your run-ins during dinner. Tet-a-tet would be preferable; I’d appreciate it if you didn’t advertise the matter to other patients.
If Jaesan is sleeping, it would be best to let him get what sleep he can. You should have the day’s program schedule by 0800, but rest assured that the first session will not begin until 1000. He’ll have plenty of time to sleep while we get better acquainted.
Dr. Kalgari
Sora rolled her eyes at the audacity of the man, tossing her tablet down onto the mattress with disgust. Kalgari was one of the few men she’d met who was deluded enough and smart enough to use the act of indulging himself as an element of strategy, instead of the other way around. She’d known from her quick rundown on this therapy that she’d be exposed to “simulations and stressors meant to provoke productive conversations,” and honestly she expected that shit from Science Directorate experimental psych programs… but this guy was certifiably A Lot.
She considered Novak for a second. The guy looked like he walked through hell dimensions in his dreams, and she wondered if getting him into his bunk would just make it worse. He’d definitely been restless overnight, and had even shaved at some point, and he looked far younger without the Misha beard, accentuating the hollows under his eyes and the thinness of his face. The clean shave made Novak much more identifiable as her old water polo buddy, the guy who used to drink and dance and play VRcade games with her, back when Sora had been a kid just out of high school.
The dude wasn’t exactly rocket science to understand, even seven years later; Sora knew he’d want to be woken up, that he’d want breakfast with her, a chance to size Kalgari up, and to stick together. Moreover, he sure as shit wouldn’t want Sora answering for anything from the night before, especially the thing with the jarhead, without him present. Shrugging and figuring it couldn’t be helped, Sora leaned down and tagged him quickly on the shoulder blade.
“Novak!” she called. “Breakfast, man. Go take a shower.”
Novak sat bolt upright like he’d heard the hull breach alarm go off, staring around a little wildly.
“Fuck,” he said, looking at the room for a couple seconds. “Kuromoto. Fuck. Tell me Fenris doesn’t put you on the Personnel Console, making announcements.”
“That’s Hayden’s hobbyhorse.” Sora massaged her scalp and put her hair up in a messy bun, only half her brain operating. “You awake enough to read a message from our favorite doctor?”
“Kalgari? Guy’s a piece of fucking work.” Novak reached out a huge hand over the edge of her bunk. Just the sight of it made her feel safe. “You mind showing me?”
“Looking forward to your take.” Sora grinned for a sec and handed it over. Novak read the message super quickly, showing off all his zoomy briefing-reading skills, and handed the tablet back with a glower.
“God, it’s like everything the anti-sexual harassment training tells us not to do,” he said bluntly. “He’s gotta be doing it on purpose. Pushing our buttons, seeing how we’ll react. I guess that’s what the briefing promised, but for Christ’s sake… I feel like a goddamn lab rat in here.”
Sora shrugged. “Think we should prove him wrong and send me in alone?”
Novak narrowed his pretty damn eyes, resting his back on the storage locker between the bunks, where the ensigns usually hid a bottle of booze or some stims. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’re still safer together, with a witness to everything. I doubt there’s much he can gather from us sticking together, other than the fact that we’re commissioned officers who think he’s skeevy, and that he has too much power over us. Which, to be clear, is all true.”
Sora smiled. “You sure you don’t want more sleep?”
Novak ran a hand across a light shadow of blond stubble, leftover from a rough shave in the middle of the night. She wondered why he did it. “Seriously, fuck this room. Help me up and shove me in the direction of the shower. I’ll be ready in ten.”
Sora made a small mock salute and swung out from the bunk, using the fake arm to help Novak to his feet. Maybe there was nothing decent to punch around here—except a jarhead or two—but at least the arm was useful for this much. Novak stood for a couple seconds before he had to catch himself on Ensign Wallace’s bunk, grimacing.
“Shit,” he muttered, not looking her in the eye. “Goddamn hip. It’s like I’m fucking ninety these days, I swear to God.”
“Anti-inflammatory wore off, I guess.” Sora spotted his cane, grabbing it for him. “Hip’s usually worse in the mornings? Especially on-ship?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Whether I’m on the floor or not. You still deal with that?”
“A little, even now.” Sora clapped him on the upper arm. “Cold air on the ship and hard mattresses and being immobile for hours, all that. Gets better, though, I swear—the muscles around it all get stronger, and the docs here at Indoc 4 usually do adjustments after you’ve had chrome for a year. Sometimes they have to remove scar tissue a few times. Might be better if you slept in your bunk, though.”
Novak shook his head, using his cane to lean over and turn off Agent-Executioner, allowing the godawful ancient Destroyer sounds to fill the air again.
“Couldn’t do it. Didn’t want to wake up and think I was on the Fomorian… not even for a second. Didn’t want the hope, and then the damn realization.”
Sora swallowed, embarrassed. “Yeah. Uh. Sorry if I made that like… worse or anything.”
She couldn’t bear to think about the half-crazy noise she’d been making when she woke up. Maybe it was a bad dream. Either way, stewing on it and feeling nuts with humiliation over it wouldn’t help anyone or make it go away, so she shoved the thought down and out of sight.
Novak stood looking at her for a few seconds, maybe thinking of something to say. When he spoke, he used his XO voice again.
“There are a lot of soldiers on the Titan who’ve been suffering since Delta Pavonis, and some of them for a really long time… since the Praezorian Wars,” he said quietly. It was the first time Sora realized he might actually be a good XO, on the other side of all his crazy. “You’re a soldier who’s suffering, Kuromoto. You don’t have to apologize for that.” He grabbed a towel and some scrubs, holding onto his hip but not using his cane to move, instead using the bunks as handholds and levering himself around like an arthritic Tarzan. “Don’t go to breakfast without me. I’ll be right back.”
~*~
When the two of them entered the ward caf, they found Kalgari pouring himself a cup of coffee meditatively; as he looked up and caught a glimpse of them, he smiled in a knowing manner, holding up his alipoline mug in a small salute.
“Ah, as I expected. You’re in fine form, Jaesan. And Sora—you’re better adjusted along this metric than I feared. Well done you.”
Sora stopped dead for a few seconds, allowing Novak to move ahead of her on his cane. He didn’t rise to the bait, even when use of his full first name kinda implied he was in some kind of trouble. Hospitality had set up part of breakfast already—oatmeal—and he went for a bowl and served himself a portion, with the typical uncaring fatalism of most officers in the mess.
Sora spoke from beside the door, keeping the exit at her back. “Look, Kalgari—can you stop fucking treating us like lab rats or something?”
“You’re not lab rats,” Kalgari said flatly, amusement edging his voice and dark eyes sparkling. “Lab rats have very simple psychology and a weak physiology. You’re officers with massive prestige, who operate the bridges of enormous war machines capable of destroying entire continents, and you’re not even thirty, to say nothing of the obvious psychological issues and killer cybernetics. Come join me at the table, please?”
Novak shoved the oatmeal ladle into the server with a pointed clatter.
“We’ve taken physical and mental injuries, even died, to protect your precious civilian ass from Murder Tuna and psychotic roaches.” His voice had grown hoarse, harsh and gravelly. “You’ve got no right messing around with us like we’re data sets in a model, just to see what comes out next.”
Kalgari paused, stirring his coffee for a moment. Sora went to the carafe and filled a mug for herself, wishing like hell she could pour a shot of bourbon into it.
“My intention is not to mess with you,” he said coolly. “We’re providing stimuli to trigger problematic behavior, so we can observe it and deal with it. A psych ward on Earth is not the habitat in which you operate, nor are these the conditions under which you took, as you say, your mental and physical injuries. Thus the ensign bunkroom, having each other as roommates, the military time, meals structured like a mess hall, and so forth. The only thing that must go is the hierarchy, the shield of power and mantle of responsibility, and the class difference that comes with it, which protects you from scrutiny and prevents you from getting help.”
Kalgari bored eyes like lasers into Novak as he spoke. Novak pointedly dropped his bowl of oatmeal straight down onto the table with a slight clatter, sat heavily with a cup of coffee, and hunched over his breakfast as he ate, resolutely not looking at the doctor. Sora began to get the feeling that Kalgari sent the message to tickle Novak’s ghoulies, not hers. She felt a little used.
“I see the ship’s counselor every week. And I don’t appreciate this shit. Okay? I know I did something that freaked everyone out, and I knew I was probably gonna end up somewhere… like this… eventually.” Sora paused,, a wave of terror hitting her like a hammer. What if she never get out of here? What if they locked her up forever? Determined not to drown, she shoved that shit to the bottom of her brain. She held onto Novak’s words and his presence. You’re a soldier who’s suffering. “But like… I don’t deserve to be played around with. Okay?”
Kalgari surveyed her, then nodded once, more respectfully.
“Good. Thank you for asserting that boundary, Sora.”
Sora let out a sigh of frustration. “You’re fucking welcome. I’m getting some oatmeal.”
She proceeded to the breakfast setup, and heard Novak speak behind her, in a low voice; she couldn’t tell if he intended for her to hear him or not.
“Don’t fucking pretend like you were gonna be 100% respectful and hands-off if she came in here alone, Kalgari. I know your type. You’re Science Directorate, right? We’re just fucking meat to you people. Blow us up on Monday, poke and prod at us on Tuesday, shove experimental cybernetics into us on Wednesday, make us give you a hand job in your office on Thursday, and remand us to a psych ward on Friday. Typical.”
Kalgari allowed a long pause of dead air to hang between them. “I’m intrigued by the order of that week.” He spoke casually, unruffled by Novak’s accusations. A spike of annoyance pierced Sora’s guts. “One would think I’d remand you to the psych ward and then extort the hand job out of you. But I catch your point.”
Suddenly nauseous, Sora avoided the food and snagged more coffee. She hated the feeling of a full stomach anyways, with all that oatmeal in the mix—the tightness against her armored plating, pressing on the enormous brace that helped her bear the weight of her cyber arm and protected her chest cavity from collapse. Like wearing a piece of power armor all the time, except she couldn’t fucking take it off. She’d give anything just to stand in the shower in her own skin… not hiding herself, not disgusted with herself, not a stranger to herself.
“No breakfast,” Kalgari observed when she returned—not a question, but a comment. “Your ship’s counselor included in her notes that you’ve been eating much less since the incident. You should get something to eat, Sora. Even if it’s small.”
“What are you, my mom?” Sora couldn’t hide her annoyance, even averting her eyes from him. She especially hated that reference, the incident, which the counselor had used as well. She had lots of incidents in her past; it was hard to know which one they meant.
Who was she kidding? She knew which incident he meant. Wyn.
Kalgari surveyed her. “You’re healthy, beautiful, young. Maybe you don’t think you need to, but you should take care of yourself and not plow your body into the ground as a form of punishment or protest. It might seem harmless, but it can get disordered quickly.”
Sora closed her eyes to calm herself, but Novak didn’t hesitate. Something about Kalgari made him raw and crazy, and Sora wished she knew what.
“You’ve got no right to tell her what and when to eat!” He spoke between gritted teeth, jaw hard and tight. “We get it, alright? You showed us how much you owned our bodies when you brought us back here to Indoc 4 and shoved us full of your experimental crap. Don’t push it, Doc!”
Kalgari blinked at Novak, the corner of his mouth twitching at his reaction. “I have the right as her doctor to advise her against punishing herself. As I do for you, Jaesan.”
“What the fuck do you know about officers and soldiers punishing themselves?” Novak’s voice rose, leaning toward Kalgari aggressively, eyes wide open green. “You know how this feels, Kalgari? Huh?”
Frowning at Novak’s escalation—not totally unlike last night, where he went from zero to two hundred in seconds flat—Sora managed to keep her voice calm.
“Novak, man…. Hey, listen—"
But he kept going, his voice rising further, eyes on Kalgari in unblinking fixation.
“What the fuck do you know about getting cybernetics bolted onto you without your permission, getting pumped full of drugs and painkillers, losing control over your own life, then having assholes in white coats order you to do everything—take this shot, sleep in this room, wear these fucking scrubs, eat this much and whatever we tell you and when we tell you?! You think we don’t know what you mean? Do what you say, or else we can’t go back to our ships, and our careers are fucking over. Even in the military, we’re allowed to eat or not eat, without you motherfucking scientists riding herd on us day and night!”
“Novak! Goddamn, man, I can fight my own battles here, okay?” Sora interjected.
“He’s fighting more battles than just yours,” Kalgari observed, sounding calm and unsurprised, not at all threatened by Novak’s anger or his strength. “He should have never been sent back to the Titan in the first place, but a doctor here signed off on his release. Was that on a Thursday by chance, Jaesan?”
“Fuck you!” Novak’s voice broke. He tried to stand, but Sora noticed now that he trembled violently, too much so to use his cane. He fell right back into his seat, hands shaking on the table.
Sora’s knotted up a mechanical fist, wanting nothing more than to put a hole in the wall… but she couldn’t stop thinking about the Fenris, about Nell and Hayden and Wyn, that room full of asshole laughing marines, and even goddamn helm-butterfingering Perkins. She thought about them all posted out in the Machine Sector, dealing with crazy-ass Tardek and machine modules and Wraiths, and they needed her to keep her shit together, not get thrown into crazy jail for ten years over some reference to a bad handy, if that’s even what happened.
“Novak,” she said in a low voice, catching his eye. “You wanna get out of here? Go back to our bunkroom?”
She tried to offer help without having to say it out loud—she could tell he would rather die than ask her, especially in front of Kalgari, but he trembled hard, and he needed it.
“You two aren’t going anywhere,” Kalgari said firmly, no nonsense, even as Novak’s eyes screamed, Yes, please, right now at Sora. “I meant it when I called this a debrief. What happened last night… we can’t have that sort of thing happening again. You’re both too powerful; the situation could devolve quickly, and people could get killed.”
“I know; that’s why I stepped in.” Sora looked down, trying not to come off as a threat. It was a thing she’d tried to master, so she didn’t scare the people she gave a shit about, even when it went against her nature to make herself small. The idea of Hayden looking at her with fear in his eyes, the way Wyn did the last time they saw each other, made her want to puke all over the fake deck in the hell bunks.
“And to save Jaesan here from himself,” Kalgari guessed, one eyebrow arched. Sora didn’t deny it, so he went on. “The rest of the group is enhanced, of course: scanner vision, positronic brains, a few armored bodies, several repair arms. But you’re the only two with superhuman strength and spine augmentation. You could rip people in half if you’re not careful—and you, Jaesan, are plainly not used to your physical power. I don’t want to post an orderly with a cybernetic arm to you day and night, and Sora here can’t save you from yourself around the clock. Are we gonna have a problem?”
Novak clenched his teeth, a muscle pulsing in his cheek, holding himself in a hunch with a hand pressed to his right hip, agony and rage both plain as day.
“No, sir.” He spoke to his empty coffee cup through gritted teeth. “I’ll keep a lid on it.”
“Good.” Kalgari spoke lightly, like he didn’t believe a word Novak said. “And your ship’s doctor would like to see you put on a few kilograms while you’re here. Are we going to have a problem with that?”
Novak let out a shuddering breath. “Probably.”
“Well. We can only do our best, can’t we?” Kalgari employed a voice that made Sora want to smack him, and she didn’t even know why. On paper, his words seemed kind, right? “And Sora… you know why we can’t have that kind of fight breaking out. Maybe you can let Jaesan in on the downside of failing to control your cybernetics and superhuman strength.”
Sora’s face and neck flushed, and her cybernetic arm started to itch. She hated that. It fucking couldn’t itch, and it would be like this now for hours or days, without a way to fix it, scratch it, or shut it off. She could feel Novak’s eyes even before she met them, the open and stunned expression cutting through his rage and unlocking his clenched teeth at last.
“Group at 1000 hours.” Kalgari spoke finally, in a clear dismissal. “Better run before the NCOs get in here. Wouldn’t want them to see you vulnerable before it’s absolutely necessary.”
He plainly meant it as a taunt, but Sora didn’t care. She stood and went around to Novak’s side of the table, but he’d already successfully stood with a wince, hand shaking on his cane.
“Perhaps you’ll have coffee with me tomorrow morning without your bodyguard,” Kalgari added to Sora, smiling rakishly. God, she wanted to smack that shit-eating little smirk off his handsome face.
Her old spy instincts almost told her she should have coffee alone with him, just to figure out his deal without Jase Novak to worry about, but she knew it would piss off Novak to no end—and she needed the ally more than she needed information.
“Keep dreaming, Kalgari. Time’s not a flat circle, okay? I’m not a stupid kid anymore.”
Kalgari’s face turned sober, smirk vanishing. “People don’t just have habits, Sora—people are their habits. Change is harder than you think. You’re taking very good care of Jaesan here, aren’t you?”
Someone’s got to, her brain immediately provided as she accompanied Novak to the door, not answering the doctor, because fuck him. Not like you assholes are doing it. It’s like you’re trying to make him worse.
“Not gonna ask about his Thursday bullshit?” Novak asked in the hallway. He leaned hard on his cane, whole arm shaking, pressing down on his right hip with the other hand.
“Nope,” Sora answered simply. “We all got shit we gotta do… shit we gotta handle. Reasons to get out of here. I don’t judge, and I ain’t interrogating.”
Silence fell for several thump-thumps of Novak’s cane on the hallway floor.
“I’m sorry I acted like a fucking maniac back there,” Novak muttered. “I feel like I’m gonna have to keep apologizing for this… but I can’t seem to keep a lid on my shit since they res’d my broken ass.”
“Like I said, man… no judgment. Can’t say I don’t relate.”
Despite his pain on the walk, Novak shot her a small smile with warm eyes. “We’ve got Group soon. You ever done group therapy? Sounds like a goddamn nightmare.”
Sora shook her head, opening their bunkroom door for him. “Can I ask you a favor, man?”
He paused for a second, fixing her with an indecipherable look.
“Sure. What’s up?”
Sora waited until the door shut behind them, leaving her and Novak in the dim, hellish soundscape of an ensign bunkroom on a Star Destroyer, in the deeps of the Praezorian Wars. Unknown contact on DAISS, some captain shouting muffled orders, going to battle stations. Sora pushed back on a wave of nausea and vertigo. God… fuck this place.
“I can’t get a message out. I know it’ll be weird and random… but can you send Hayden a message telling him I’m okay? I told him I would, before I found out I’d be on comms lockdown.”
Novak stared at her, silent for a several long seconds, that weird brain ticking along inside his blond head. “Yeah. We’ve been on briefing chains together for the COs and XOs—I think I remember seeing his name. It’ll be easy to pull up his inter-ship ID. You’re the only reason I can send messages out of this place, anyways.” He swallowed. “Any other message for him? Or just ‘Sora’s okay’?”
She sensed that he might be fishing, still wondering about her and Hayden—maybe wondering about her life in general, too messed up to ask. Sora considered the question earnestly, though. She wanted to get something to Cass too, but the Medusa was way out of range; Cass didn’t even know Sora was in Murphy-Meilin, so she wouldn’t be worried. Sora felt bad not getting anything to Hayden the previous night, especially after promising. Too goddamn weirded out and tired.
“I don’t want to worry him.” She walked to her bunk, voice pitched low. “I don’t know what to tell him about this place that won’t worry him, other than, you know… lying my ass off, telling him it’s like a day spa filled with shirtless guys and big-titted girls feeding me grapes.”
Novak snorted. “Fanning us with palm fronds, handing us cocktails by the pool.” He ran a hand over his shaven face, now smooth. Almost the face of Cadet Jase Novak, save the grim suffering and angry scars. “I miss the pool. I haven’t swum in years—I don’t even know if I can now, with these legs.”
Clearing her throat, Sora sat down, her stomach twisting painfully. “Uh. Yeah… they do make you a lot heavier. Your chrome ends… where? Thighs? With a brace and architecture into your lower spine, but your own hips still in place, right? That’s why they hurt so much.”
Novak sat down heavily on his bunk, picking up his tablet and starting a message… hopefully to Hayden.
“They’ve replaced both of my femurs, but not the pelvis or hips.” He typed quickly on the interface, obviously seasoned at writing up briefings like a good XO. “Wish they had replaced the damn hips, almost, but that’s a devolving process. You mind if I add a personal note?”
“It’s your message, man. Um…” Sora thought again. “You mind telling him that I miss him and stuff? Without sounding too soft or anything.”
“I already did,” Novak said quietly.
Sora blinked back some heat in her eyes, a sudden idea coming across her brain and entertaining her.
“Dear Barca,” she said, playfully predicting his message. “My roommate in Hell says she misses your manwhore ass. Hugs and kisses from the guy who thought he was hotter than you at Academy. Suck it—Novak.”
Novak laughed aloud. “How can you read my tablet from way over there, huh?” He shook his head. “You’re no judge of the hottest guys at Academy, not with your bizarro wingman being one of them. And you never set your cap at dating me, so I can’t have been that hot.”
Sora glanced at him, then flumped backward into the bunk, arms behind her head. “Yeah, well, don’t take it personally. I still remember how much you liked Cass. Me chasing after you back then would’ve gone against girl code. I noticed you haven’t asked me about her. Afraid of what you’ll find out?”
Silence fell between them, allowing the godawful bridge sounds to take over.
“I didn’t realize you remembered any of that,” he said softly. “So much shit’s happened since then…. Sometimes Academy feels like a past life. I heard Cassidy’s on the Medusa now. I thought… how great, the two of you being together again there. But I must’ve gotten mixed up.” He pressed his lips together, hard. “How’s she doing?”
“Dealing with some stuff,” Sora said, knowing she was stiff-arming him a little on the subject of Cass. She couldn’t help it; Cass’s shit nowadays ran deep and dark and classified. “But she’s not, like… married or something. In case you were worried.”
Novak smiled, looking away and flushing with embarrassment or chagrin. “I wasn’t… but thank you. She was always so focused, even back in middle school. Seemed almost like… some kind of sacrilege, interrupting all that focus to ask her to notice me and go on a date. I figured it was better to just, you know… worship from afar. I always appreciated how you went to bat for me, though. You were a good buddy about that.”
Sora snorted, remembering a failed attempt to get Cass and Novak to date during Academy with a pang of shame and old teenaged agony she didn’t investigate. She tried not to think about that year too much these days.
“Man. You’re adorable. I’m almost embarrassed to tell her you said that.”
Novak blew out a long breath. “I know I’m only speaking to one face in the great, amorphous human mass of Clan Barcamoto, and that you’ll all know what I just said by Christmas. That’s twenty-year-old me—a different person. It’s been a long time and a lot of wars since I thought that way.” He hit a button on his tablet with one long thumb. “There. Barca knows you’re alive and being fanned by girls with huge tits, exactly the way you deserve. He’ll know you’re awaited in Valhalla.”
Sora chuckled in pure delight. “Awesome. That’ll make him think. Thanks, Novak.”
He hushed, quiet again. “Yeah… no problem. We’ve got a while. You want to watch some more stupid action flicks? I think Agent-Executioner was going when we woke up. Know you like that one.”
Shooting him a grin, Sora sat up. “Hell, yeah. That series is one of my all-time faves. Can’t believe you remember that, man.”
Novak remained weirdly quiet, looking for the vid on his tablet, eyes downcast. Maybe thinking. One of the problems with being an XO—all the thinking they make you do.
“Yeah.”
They spent an hour and change rewatching the movie they’d fallen asleep to the previous night, drowning out the godawful bridge sounds and the alerts from a spectral DAISS Control. This entry in the Agent-Executioner series was a splatter-happy flick, a revenge drama with a couple female heroes in tight outfits and big guns, and Sora loved it. She’s made the marines watch it maybe ten times back on the Fenris. She just wished they had popcorn here.
“It’s twenty ‘til,” Sora reminded Novak as 1000 hours neared, after time totally got away from her. Novak slowly turned the movie off.
“Yeah. Guess we better face the music and go to Group. Want to get over there?”
“I mean, are you really asking if I want to?” Sora asked, sitting up. “I want to go find a lazy river somewhere with an industrial-strength innertube and a really big cocktail in a hurricane glass.”
Novak stood with his weight on his cane and extended a hand, which Sora didn’t need, but she took the help up anyways, realizing he needed to not always be the one getting the assistance onto his feet—at least for form’s sake.
“Something to look forward to when we break out of this place and go on a wild junket in a stolen groundcar,” he joked flatly, eyes sparkling as they met hers. “I’ll steal all the UltraMorph from the hospital; we can sell most of it, then shoot up the rest, get bombed out of our minds and raid the Joyplex for all their zucchini fries and shakes, until they send the Military Police after us with a net-cannon and a tranq gun.”
Sora doubled over laughing. “Hey, man—don’t threaten me with a good time.”
~*~
Earth Republic Star Navy
To: Lieutenant-Commander Hayden Barca
From: Lieutenant-Commander Jaesan Novak
Re: <Personal Communication>
Date: October 2, 2156
Barca—
Kuromoto wanted to get a message to you, but they’ve got her on communications lockdown—I can only send stuff because she got my tablet onto the nurses’ network. I’m guessing they’ll figure this out soon and shut us down, so I just wanted you to know she’s alright. She misses you and your sister, and I’m no substitute, but she’s tough. I guess you know that.
Anyways, I know this is random, hearing from me, and you’re probably not thrilled to hear I’m the one she’s locked up with, but I promise I’ll keep her safe. Whatever you would do to look out for her, I promise to do the same, man. Hope your crew and ship are well. You guys be careful out there. I’ll watch Kuromoto’s back, so don’t worry.
Novak
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