Confessions, Part 3

(Confessions, cont'd)

        “Good advice," I said. "It’s time I followed it. You got anywhere you need to be right now?”
        Christian shook his head. “Just right here.”
        “Then it’s time I told you something. It’s only fair, considering what I dragged out of you tonight.” I sighed and put my feet on the deck, and straightened in my chair. “Mike told me once that secrets kept too long tend to fester, that you can hold yourself apart only so long before people stop knocking on your door. I’m tired of keeping secrets, Christian, and I’m tired of being alone. You told me that when I trusted you, that when the time was right, to tell you. It’ll never be right, it will never be perfect--perfect doesn’t exist. There’s only now. So, quid pro quo.”
        I took a deep breath and began.
        “When I said that Mike and I met during the war, I wasn’t being entirely truthful. We did meet, yes. But we weren’t friends. We were enemies.”
        Christian sat and listened and kept his eyes on mine.
        “I was his prisoner.”
        I quit my chair and paced to the door and back, trying to find the words to say it. How much to tell him? How much to hold back? Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been...eleven years since my last confession.
        “I’m .... I’ll start from the beginning.”
        “Okay,” Christian said, his tone encouraging.
        I grabbed my chair and straddled it and crossed my arms on its back.
        "I joined the Navy when I was seventeen. I was going over my test results with the recruiting officer when the word came in: the Alliance had declared War on the Independents.I’d tested off the charts. They wanted me in and I wanted away from home and all the petty restrictions of where to live and work and what to think that the Feds slapped on me and...” I paused and focused. “Let’s just say I had to get out and the military was the only avenue I had left, the one loophole the Feds couldn’t close. Not with a War on.
        “So they accepted my application and satisfied the age requirement by sending me to Specialist School until I turned eighteen. Nine months, three promotions, and one birthday later, they put me on a ship and sent me to the Front. My family was convinced I’d lost my mind and I’d lose my life doing it. They were wrong.
        “I found my calling and took back my life. I had my ship and I made her mine. Mine, Christian. Can you understand what it’s like to hold your breath for seventeen years and finally breathe free? Can you imagine how it feels to find the one thing you love and do anything, anything, to keep it safe, to keep it close? Have you ever fallen asleep with a song in your head and know it was what you loved singing to you? Have you ever had a dream and actually been fortunate enough to live it?”
        “I was lucky,” Christian says, “I always wanted to be exactly what I became. I’m glad you found that, too.”
        “Then you know what it’s like to lose it.” I regarded the deck for a moment. “Mike knows some of what happened next, but not all of it. He didn’t ask and I didn't say.
        “There was a war on. Danger. Combat. Mechanical failures. Everything was uncertain. Some cracked under it. I thrived. After almost two years, start to finish, I’d hit the wall in spec ranks and the Chief had me tapped for Warrant Officer. Then our Lieutenant took a bullet in the chest at Bradford’s Run and got mustered out on medical. His replacement arrived a week later and when he stepped aboard, everything changed.”
        Christian nodded, listening, and I spoke to the deck.
        “Rape’s an ugly business. It’s worse when it’s between officer and enlisted. The deck is stacked against the low ranker from the start. I don’t know why he singled me out. He never said and I never asked. I pressed charges anyway. The Brass refused to hear my case. There was a war on and they had more important things to do than listen to some idiot girl’s unsubstantiated whining after she’d changed her mind, they said. At the time, I didn’t have the complete picture. I only knew that they’d let me down--the first time ever--and that the Lieutenant told me afterward that if I made any further trouble, he’d bust me so far down I’d never set foot on a ship again. And that’s when he made his mistake.”
        I looked up.
        “Nothing was taking me off my ship. Nothing. I was a lifer, I was going to reenlist til I died, and no one was going to stop me. It didn't matter what he did to me. It didn’t matter how many times he took me, or where, or when, or how hard or how soft. Which he did. Repeatedly. For three weeks. He wanted to break me. I wanted to win. I knuckled down and I bided my time. For all I know, we’d still be at it if the war hadn’t intervened.
        “We were ambushed. I was in one of the cannon bays when he locked the door and started in on me. The first volley distracted him enough that I got out of there, but not before he misfired his weapon into a cannon round and everything went up. I managed to get the compartment sealed and the halon going, but the rounds were cooking off too fast for it to work. There was a hull breach. He got sucked out. And we got shot down.”
        I closed my eyes and saw it, and heard my voice go thin.
        “Everything was on fire. We had breach on both decks and we were trapped in engineering. Our captain was screaming for more power, trying to shave our vector, and we gave it to him. He got us down in three pieces. That’s how I got these.” I ran a hand down my shin. “Broke ’em on landing. Girder got me. I managed to lever the damn thing off and drag out before the rest of the ordnance blew. By then I was past caring—I’d accomplished what I’d sworn to do. I saw the bastard dead and I’d outlasted him. For about thirty minutes. And now my ship was gone and I was going with her.”
        I dared a glance at Christian and his face was calm, but I didn’t miss that flash behind his eyes. He was angry. I went on.
        “I thought that was the last of it, and of him. I was wrong. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” I closed my eyes again. “What happened next is a bit fuzzy. I don’t think I was thinking too clearly at that point. When Mike’s squad found me, I was almost gone. I fought them. I tried to, anyway. I didn’t get far, not with two broken legs showing bone, I didn’t. They slapped a patch on me and I went down. And it was years afterward when Mike told me this, but on the ride to the field hospital, I kicked it. Dead as a doornail. For about two minutes. Mike pulled rank on the squad sergeant and used the last of the meds to bring me back. Had I been able to, I would have told him he needn’t have bothered. Everything I wanted was already gone.
        “So, there I was. Two bum legs, a prisoner of war, and squirreled away somewhere with a stranger I expected to nail me the minute I let my guard down. I already knew what my own side could do to me, thanks to the Lieutenant, and I had no hope the enemy would do any less.
        “Mike had been tasked to get me to defect. He had a rough job ahead of him. Nothing he said worked. I refused to listen. Not that I was entirely loyal to the Alliance at that point, but if there was one thing the Lieutenant had taught me, it was that men were liars. And surviving my ship taught me that I was tougher than I believed possible. I didn’t know what I’d do or where I’d go or even who I’d trust besides myself, but I knew I had to escape, that I had to resist, that I had to keep saying no until the enemy either killed me or let me go. They did neither. And I went nowhere.
        “Do you know what it’s like not knowing if today would be the day they’d rape your brains out and drag you out back to be shot? What it’s like to find out that your own side not only gave you up to the enemy, but declared you a saboteur and a collaborator and sentenced you to death for treason? That if you actually did manage to escape you couldn’t go back because they’d shoot you on sight? That everything you wanted and endured so much fucking shit for would never be yours, because some raping bastard’s family had the political pull to burn all your bridges behind you? Do you know how it feels to stand on the ground and hear the Black calling you, and be too damned broken to fly? It’s hell, Christian. It’s nothing but hell and if I died tomorrow, hell would be nothing new when I got there. I’ve already lived it.
        “And Mike was the man who pulled me out.”
        I raised my head and opened my eyes and finished it.
        “He stood by my side from the moment they’d scraped me off the crash site to the night I’d hit absolute bottom. You can’t do something like that and come away not knowing someone inside-out. Not even if you’re only half-awake. More than anyone, Mike knows what makes me tick, what gives me joy…and what makes me run.”
        “It builds a bond,” Christian said, nodding.
        “It does. One strong enough to stand ten years of being apart more than together, and allows me to compartmentalize what he does on the job and off it. I’ve got no real illusions on that score, Christian. He’s a spy. He’s killed people. He’s a wanted man and a war criminal. He’s also the one person I trust completely with my body and my life, the one person I don’t have to keep secrets from or wear a mask. Not to insult your or anyone else on this ship, but that’s how it stands.”
        “Everyone should be so lucky,” Christian said with a small smile.
        “Sometimes luck is too damned expensive. I’ve paid a high price for mine, and I don’t think I’m done paying it.” I sighed and raked a hand through my hair, and got a grip. “He’s up to something, Christian. I know it. I just don’t know what.”
        “Revenge?” Christian shifted on my bunk and continued delicately. “He was…in way…raped. He had much of what he was taken away.”
        “Don’t think I haven’t missed that.” Eyes narrowing, I turned the thought over in my head. “Revenge is as good an explanation as any, and would be something he wouldn’t want me around to see. Or horn in on. He’s not the only one suffering the consequences of what they did to him.”
        “It could be a combination. Making sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. And revenge. He might think it’s a suicide mission and doesn’t want you there.”
        “No.” My head snapped up. “He wouldn’t have said he’d be waiting for me if he’s going off to die. He wanted to spare me pain, not give me more of it. He’s not....” I stopped, frustrated, and searched for the right words. “He’s not suicidal. I’d stake my life on it. There’ve been too many places in the past three months where he could have just thrown himself on his sword and no one could have stopped him. He didn’t do it then, he’s not going to do it now. No. He’s got a plan in place, he’s going to carry it out, and all I can do is stay out of his way. I'll leave him word as I’ve always done, and hope he leaves word back.”
        Christian didn’t try to convince me otherwise, or offer platitudes for a favorable outcome. He simply sat back and considered it.
        “You know him better than I do,” he said, finally. “If that’s what you think, then that’s what it is.”
        “It better be, or I’ll track him down and haunt him through his next three hundred incarnations.” I laughed then, short and sharp, and felt lighter inside. I’d been keeping too much bottled up for too long. Mike had been right…as usual, dammit. “Don’t worry about me, Christian. I’ll be fine.”
        That got a grin out of him.
        “At that?” he said. “I have no doubt.”
        “Good. Then you’ll know better than to die on me, either. I can haunt two idiots as easily as one.”
        “Me? I’m too pretty to die,” Christian scoffed archly.
        “Don’t be so sure. You’re tempting enough to make even the Devil look twice.”
        “After I get my license back,” he shrugged. “If she’s willing to pay and has good references…”
        I laughed again.
        “That would be an interesting night. Make sure you don’t end up losing your soul when you get that call.” I sobered. “It’s damned hard to get it back.”
        “Yes.”
        “So…” I looked up through my lashes at him. “How much would you charge a client to do nothing but talk?”
        I’d finally caught him off guard. He stared at me a moment before he found his tongue again and answered.
        “A client? About four hundred credits.”
        “Then don’t take this the wrong way.” I stood up and before he could move, I hugged him hard, and held him for a beat. “Spasiba, Christian. I owe you one.” I let him go and withdrew a step. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s late and I’d like to turn in now.”
        “I should get some sleep, too.” Christian returned the hug and didn’t resist when I stepped back. He rose from my bunk and nodded. “Good night, Rina. Sleep well.”
        He left as he came, upright and elegantly, and I thought I saw something else in the line of his shoulders before he closed the door behind him: Satisfaction. As I readied for bed, I reviewed what I’d said and seen, and I realized as much as he’d done me the favor of listening as I unburdened myself, I’d done him the favor of letting him help me do it. I checked my watch. I would have to go back on the clock in another five hours. I had to sleep, and sleep fast. I turned out the light and put off thinking about missing lovers and reinstated Companions.
        Everything was quiet inside my head. And for the moment, it was enough.



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