Editing The Best Revenge

<span style="color:#800000">'''Terri and I were both feeling a touch stir-ccrazy and this was our antidote. I feel so much better now. LOL! Thanks, Terri!--Maer</span> <br> <br> 



'''Thursday, 30 Sep 2523'''<br>
'''Durance class ''Exeter'''''<br>
'''En route to Columbia Planetoid'''<br>
'''White Sun (Bai Hu) system'''<br>
'''1335hrs, ship's time'''<br><br>

After a morning of enforced goldbricking and graciously being allowed to walk to the crew lounge for lunch, I was reluctant to go back to bed despite my injury. To be sure, my leg hurt like a ruttin' [[The Best Revenge#How To Speak Russian|''govniuk'']] but dammit, my back hurt almost as much from all that lying around. I scrounged up two mugs and a thermos to carry the coffee in and took everything with me to the bridge. I didn't know who would be on duty at that hour, it being a milk run to the Halo, but it didn't matter. Someone would be on watch and I would have someone to talk to. Bringing coffee was just the cover story I'd spin if Arden, Kiera, or Joshua caught me going in the opposite direction of my bed.<br><br>

I dodged through the cargo bay and the conference room, neatly avoiding med bay and hydroponics, and stuck my head in. As I'd hoped, Nika was sneaking time in the chair.<br><br>

"Hey," I said. "Care for some company while you're breaking doctor's orders?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

She was leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed. In the instant before she spoke, the expression on the blonde's face was ... peaceful. Almost as soon as the footfall registered, though, Nika's eyes opened and her expression resumed its normal mien. "Hey there," she replied with a bit of a smile. "I don't think you're supposed to be traipsin' all over yet, are you?" she teased, glancing back toward the hatch. "C'mon in. Pull up a chair."<br><br>

It was clear she would cover for Rina if someone came looking.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Thank you," I breathed in gratitude and took that seat. I got us settled with the coffee and handed her the creamer and sugar packets from my pocket. I leaned back and propped my foot up to spare my leg and took a sip. Bliss. I closed my eyes and put my head back, much as Nika had been doing when I arrived, and listened to the ship. Which was a touch harder to do because she had music softly playing over the speakers.<br><br>

''Huh. Been a while since she's done that. When did she start up again? Boros?'' I kept my eyes closed and thought back. This wasn't the first time I'd walked onto the bridge to hear music going since then, but being my usual pessimistic self, I'd held off pinning my hopes on it, expecting it to be a passing fancy rather than a continuing trend. Not that I wasn't glad to see it happen. Nika hadn't been herself since losing her eyes and in the months afterward, we'd all tried our best to bring her back with varying degrees of success. I knew things started turning around for her in the past couple of months. The truth in the clandestine vid of the Military Academy bombing, the diplomatic good will raised with Al Tabr, and our more recent victory in taking back Boros—all had done much to lighten the load she'd carried for so long. I wondered if she were sleeping better. She certainly looked better. Even as battered and bruised as she was from the plasma bombs, there was no hiding the peace and contentment on her face. As such, I was loath to disturb it and instead sat silent with my coffee, watching the stars ribbon by.<br><br>

---<br><br>

Nika took the coffee with a laugh. "No, thank ''you''. I didn't really wanna haul my arse out of here to go down to the kitchen. Soon as I walk past Medbay, Arden'll be on me like stink on dung about gettin' back to bed." She doctored her cup and leaned back again, just resting. "I can only lay down for so long before I get all stiff and sore. It isn't like sitting here's gonna be stressful." As she listened to the music playing softly her breathing evened out again, and Nika let a long while pass in comfortable silence.<br><br>

Eventually, though, she turned her head on the headrest and asked, "How're you feeling?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

"The usual. Banged up and bitchy." I shrugged and gave her a rueful grin back. "Joshua's treating me like glass, practically not daring to breathe on me wrong. Hence the bitchy. I love him but ... Yeah. Bitchy. You?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

Nika couldn't help the smirk. "You're almost always bitchy, darlin'," she teased lightly. "I'm okay. I hate burns, but eh... the lotion helps." She sipped her coffee and let out a deep sigh. She was decidedly content at this moment.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Damn right I am. The day I stop bitchin' is the day Hell freezes over from the heat loss." I snickered into my cup. "I'm sorry about that, by the way. The one time I bring a gun to a knife fight and I still wasn't fast enough to put the bastard down. I'm glad there was cover though. Christ, but it could have done the other way all too easily. Which I suppose was kinda the reason they'd been rigged to blow." I took another sip of coffee and said into my cup. "It's nice. Does it have a name?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Tyranny of Beauty," Nika replied. "It's done by Frank Christopher. I enjoy his work." She didn't offer more, but as she cradled both hands around her cup she smiled slightly. "It's difficult to play. I've been working on it for a couple of years, but I got derailed a bit."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"But back on track now?" I asked and went no further. I didn't want to pressure her out of her current good mood.<br><br>

---<br><br>

She pursed her lips and considered. "Maybe not back on track entirely, but .... I find that I can hear it better these days," Nika admitted. She glanced at Rina. "It's nice to be home." Though whether she speaks of the ship itself or the trip to Boros that they just finished is somewhat in the air.<br><br>

---<br><br>

I just gave her a slow smile and said nothing. She'd already said everything necessary.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"What?" Nika demanded, amused at the way Rina was looking at her. "You look like the cat that ate the canary," she accused. "Quit that."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"All right. You wanna have me open my mouth and ruin your mood, okay. Captain's orders and all," I said, putting my coffee down. I grinned at her. "I like you this way much better, though. You wanna reconsider?" <br><br>

---<br><br>

Nika rolled her eyes and admitted mildly, "I doubt there's much you could say right now to ruin my mood. It's been a good trip. If you're about to nose into my business, though... I ain't sayin' much." She grinned.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Fair enough. Though I'm glad you met him. His company was good for you." And I left it at that. I wasn't out to pry. I just wanted to acknowledge the change in my friend and give credit where it was due.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Wow," Nika snorted on a laugh. "Are all of you assuming that it's a guy that fixed my head?" she wondered.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Wouldn't dream of it," I said firmly. Not that the gossip behind the scenes at the ranch hadn't buzzed just that. At the time, I just noted the high points and moved on without comment. I wasn't about to undo that wisdom now. "I don't want to know the details. What happened, happened, and I'm glad it did. Or are you denying that he made your downtime nicer?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Nicer? Sure," Nika agreed. "But I think it was more... seeing what Nala's built, being able to get back to my roots for a while, that did it. Seeing Boros liberated. Hell, knowing that she's having a baby, that her life is still moving forward in spite of everything. It was hard to see 'forward' for a long time," she admitted, taking a sip from her coffee. "Now I can," she said simply.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Good." I picked up my coffee again. Looking forward was something I'd always done, but through the filter of paranoia. It made for some depressing viewing but I was stubborn enough to fight whatever outcome my paranoia insisted would happen. Nika's case was something very different, different enough that I still wasn't completely sure I'd been able to get my head around it. There was no doubt that she had, however, and was finding her way out of the quagmire that had gripped her for the past year and a half. "So what are you seeing now?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

It was an interesting question. And Nika wasn't entirely sure she had a complete answer. She thought about all that she'd learned and experienced over the past several years. "I still see a lot of darkness. This is not going to be like the first war. It's bigger, to start with. And a great many people have no trust any longer for a centralized government at all. But that is going create a great many difficulties throughout the Verse from what laws are put in place to what currency is accepted where, and so on." She paused. "But I see a lot of possibility for freedoms, too. And at the bottom of it all, the tyrannies and atrocities cannot be allowed to continue. So..." She looked at Rina. "I guess I just see life, finally. And living it."<br><br>

---<br><br>

There were any number of things I could say in response, but few had anything good to say. I had already decided long ago that any war following the U-War would be nastier, darker, more brutal, made so by the consequences arising from the actions during and after the conflict. Too much had been left unresolved in the last war. Too much had been allowed to fester, to run unchecked. The inhabitants of Persephone were just one example of many. And yet, people didn't give up being people: we fought and died, we lived and loved, started businesses and families. In short, we lived on despite. The trick was finding a reason that worked for you. I'd found mine. Maybe Nika had finally found hers too.<br><br>

"It's always easy to find a reason or a cause to die for. It's harder to find one to live for. Especially when you're alone in the dark."<br><br>

---<br><br>

It often threw her to hear something profound come from the engineer -- if only because the other woman was so paranoid Nika often did not attribute to her such depth of emotional understanding. Rina was brilliant, no doubt. Nika knew that her past had far more moments of darkness than most people's. And she looked over to nod slowly. "That," she acknowledged quietly. "Exactly that."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"You're not alone, Nika." I slid a look at her over the rim of my coffee mug. "It's hard to see the people next to you in the dark, but we're there." It was good advice, hard won, and hard to follow. ''But enough preaching to the choir''. "Where to, now? Got any plans?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

"We got some things to take care of," Nika pointed out. "I'm thinking we're gonna go take care of 'em and see where it leads us. Cuz so far.... it's taken us some gorram strange places where things we've done haven't looked like they were helping anything. I'm starting to realize that some of them have made a whole lot of difference."<br><br>

---<br><br>

My leg was starting to burn and I shifted to a more comfortable position. Experience told me that straining the sutures did me no good, especially internally where the damage was worse. To take my mind off the pain and to forestall any fussing from Nika in case she'd noticed, I asked the first thing that came to mind.<br><br>

"Which ones?" I had my own ideas as to which, but this conversation wasn't about me.<br><br>

---<br><br>

They might not be the ones that Rina thinks. Nika was quiet. "Breaking into a hospital and stealing Chempliant has had some pretty far-reaching consequences," she said slowly. "Not all of them are bad, being as they led us to be able to expose what they're doing. Experimenting on the population. If people aren't listening, we can't do a lot about that. Dealing with the epidemic on Boros brought Lem to us... gave what was happening a real face. And he may not ever be the person he'd have been otherwise, but he seems like he's doing gorram well. And we saved a lot of people from becoming "stitches." Losing Jake seems like a small thing; one person dies fighting. But it changed us and it brought the Åbergs to us. I like to think that's been a true friendship, mutual help." Her tone was thoughtful. "Valerie's actions weren't what I would have wanted, but... the death of the Member of Parliament caused quite a few ripples. Having Rick with us, which wasn't something we expected to do, turned a Blue-Hand agent to our cause. He seemed to really care for her."<br><br>

Nika hesitated. And then she smiled. "Guess that's sometimes all we get. Do it for the right reasons, and hold on tight for the ride."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Yeah," I said, raising my coffee mug in salute. "It's been one helluva ride so far. It hasn't been without its bumps, but it's been worth it. And that's the hard part--you're often going so fast you can't tell if it's the right thing, or if it's the right direction, or if it's the right hand on the wheel." I shook my head. "That's not for us to know, but for the history books to decide. So you have to let all that go and hang on, and try to do what you think is best. Enjoy the people riding with you as best you can. And flip the Universe the finger a time or two. I find it keeps things lively."<br><br>

---<br><br>

The blonde chuckled. "I think I got lost in it. But things are better," Nika admitted. Boros had been a positive influence on her mindset.<br><br>

---<br><br>

I laughed. I couldn't help it. I put my coffee aside lest I spill it and looked at my friend.<br><br>

"Now ''that'', I think I did a couple of times and not that long ago either." I sobered. "I wouldn't give up what I found on the way, though. I wouldn't even be here if I hadn't gotten lost. I'd have died and the bastards would have won." I picked up my coffee again and took a long pull on it, then tipped my head back and closed my eyes. Revenge was sweet and best served cold. "Here's to winning."<br><br><br>





=='''''How To Speak Russian'''''==
'''govniuk''' =''' говнюк '''= '''gov'''-nyook = shithead [http://translate.google.com/?hl=en#en|ru|shithead Sound clip]<br><br><br>

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'''Go to''' [[Nika Earhart | '''Nika's Crew Page''']] or '''[[Marina Kseniya Sebastien | Rina's Crew Page]]''' <br>
'''Go back to: ''[[Mutineers Timeline, Season Seven | Season Seven, May 2523 -- ]]'''''<br>
'''Go to [[EPISODES]]''' or '''[[MTimeline#2511-2518|TIMELINE]]'''<br>