Taking my seat III
11 Apr 2020Maggie Oz
The rest of the day was a blur.The meeting with Holden was, predictably, a long list of "who's who in the zoo" and the do's and don't's of hob knobbing on Aztalan.
Then more time than was necessary with a hairstylist, doing their best to turn my shoulder length bob into something acceptable.
Then a fitting of my Imperial Navy (Auxiliary) Formal Unifrom. A Navy white, off the shoulder cocktail dress with cut-outs where there shouldn't be and stars where there should and a whole lot more cleavage than I knew I had.
Roy and Sir Richard arrived, resplendent in their Dress Whites as well and we 3 cut quite a swath through the assembled "names" of Aztlan System. I met a hundred people I'll never remember but appeared to know them all thanks to a comms implant with Holden on the other end coaching me through.
A flurry of speeches and thanks and hopes for the futures, a toast to the Emperor and the night was done.
Roy and I returned to the palace and shagged each other senseless until the wee morning hours.
Night and Day on Tannhauser Gate are determined by the orbital period around Nexus737. The station is in a geosynchronous orbit above the planet and the umbra of the planet provides the night so the station day and night is the same as the planet below.
The first weak light of dawn was beginning to make its way across the transparent roof of the ring when it came to me.
I was lying awake, nestled against Roy listening to his slow deep breathing. My thoughts turn to Joe, our last cell mate so horribly taken.
A tear, one of so many I have shed, rolled down my face as I remembered him and the times were had. All lost, like tears in rain.
My thoughts turned to death, so much of which I have caused in my lives.
In my first life, I massacred Pirate vessels without a second thought not sparing even a passing thought for the souls within.
In my second life I had largely avoided the casual killing so prevalent in the Galaxy until I was called up again to serve the Emperor in a pointless war trying to stop a system seceding to the Alliance. It was on one of the final missions it happened. The ship was clearly marked as a Federation Military Supply Vessel, hauling weapons or supplies so I rolled in as usual and shot out its engines.
Usually, that has the desired effect of the crew jettisoning to cargo and letting the ship drift until they are rescued, no needless deaths and the objective of interdicting supply is achieved ..... it was an unwritten agreement we had with the "enemy", we were all pretty jaded by the war by that stage.
Problem was this wasn't a ship manned by a Fed Navy crew, some civilians had jacked it and were using it to try to break the blockade, once the drives went they panicked and long story short they blew themselves to pieces. The wreckage was appalling. Children, the children of the families on the besieged system were being flown out in the hope of escaping the random planetary bombardments.
OH GOD
If the fools had just let us know on the grapevine what they were doing we could have turned a blind eye .... but no, they blundered on in and condemned their little ones to the void ...... or rather I did ... I killed them.
I turned my ship around, docked it back on the carrier and went and confined myself to quartets. I refused to leave them.
They arrested me and tried me for cowardice and disobeying orders and a range of other stuff I didn't listen to, I didn't even speak at the trial.
I was condemned to death ... a kind of pointless exercise. I had already died days ago, the moment the first frozen little face looked at me through my cockpit canopy. I still see it sometimes, the downside of an Engrammic Backup Implant.
The execution was, perhaps appropriately, by space locking. I had the Naval Surgeon remove my EBI just before the execution was carried out and bequeathed it to Joe. As it was a last right wish the Navy couldn't refuse. The last thought I had before it was disconnected was a vow to never again take up arms... never.
But now though, in that early morning time, between the day just gone and the one about to begin. That moment when there comes a sudden clarity.
There's something about watching a new dawn, it always feels like you are the only one witnessing it and it becomes a time for self reflection.
I sat, dressed only in a long Tshirt, hugging my legs to my chest, resting my chin on my knees and watched.
I saw the first ray of sunrise burst out from the terminator and the same sunbeam glittered off Tannhauser Gate.
Such a beautiful sight ..... And then it came to me. How ... fragile all of this was.
I knew right then what I had to do with this life
If we don't stop the Thargoids, all will go to oblivion, the same as Joe. I have to fight .....