Well, Lennier, I'm glad you and the others are still reading. I promised the other shoe would drop, and it's getting ready.
Thank you, RW.
-- -- --
He stood in front of the glass an hour later and everything melted from him.
It was always like this.
He liked to think that he had no past, except for this dead time a few days before liftoff, when he reached forward, touched the glass, and felt her presence in the cool brightness underneath his fingers.
He remembered the work, with Cara and the others, unlocking the glistening quantium-40 from the planet's underbelly. On Nesma, Sirkmorg, always with Cara, the days always the same, forgetting the stars existed, breathing into damaged lungs for months the toxic fumes snaking through porous crevices and forgotten caverns. The neverending darkness. The confining, neverending death of the interior, and Cara's eyes. Always returning to Cara's eyes and her body stretched beside him at night.
Standing here, he was not a Captain.
There were the desperate days during the Earth-Minbari war, in the bilges, scrubbing decks for pennies and passage, a lost and bleeding and half-dead child looking into the death-eyes of Minbari bloodlust and -
- the mines.
"David," he heard Cara say.
No, not Cara - she had been black-haired, darker than Q-40. The red-haired woman stepped up beside him.
"David - we need to talk."
He shook his head to free it of the cobwebs - and turned to meet the eyes of his weapons officer.
Thank you, RW.
-- -- --
He stood in front of the glass an hour later and everything melted from him.
It was always like this.
He liked to think that he had no past, except for this dead time a few days before liftoff, when he reached forward, touched the glass, and felt her presence in the cool brightness underneath his fingers.
He remembered the work, with Cara and the others, unlocking the glistening quantium-40 from the planet's underbelly. On Nesma, Sirkmorg, always with Cara, the days always the same, forgetting the stars existed, breathing into damaged lungs for months the toxic fumes snaking through porous crevices and forgotten caverns. The neverending darkness. The confining, neverending death of the interior, and Cara's eyes. Always returning to Cara's eyes and her body stretched beside him at night.
Standing here, he was not a Captain.
There were the desperate days during the Earth-Minbari war, in the bilges, scrubbing decks for pennies and passage, a lost and bleeding and half-dead child looking into the death-eyes of Minbari bloodlust and -
- the mines.
"David," he heard Cara say.
No, not Cara - she had been black-haired, darker than Q-40. The red-haired woman stepped up beside him.
"David - we need to talk."
He shook his head to free it of the cobwebs - and turned to meet the eyes of his weapons officer.