Visitors

Diane was one of the few casualties of the battle. Friede and Alexis had sounded a full retreat when the Kapur rebels dropped into the system. A handful of ships were caught in the ensuing crossfire, but the integrity of the Sunless Fleet remained intact.

While recovering, I sifted through footage of the battle. Morgan’s defenses had held admirably against otherwise impossible odds. Her opening salvo lit hundreds of rebel ships ablaze, but Manhunter’s relentless assault flattened her Phalanx stations and orbital cannons and forced her to retreat to defensible firing lines near one of the local moons. I was impressed. This Manhunter fought like a Knight Captain.

The arrival of the Caerleon military was both impeccable and suspicious. I recalled the missiles from the Incorrigible dousing Nightwing and the surrounding sands in fire. The imperium had been the ones to kill Diane, but how had they responded so quickly to Hadrian’s distress?

I watched Manhunter turn his attention to Admiral Lance and the Incorrigible. He screamed something on the public broadcast, something about perfect beauty and knighthood, but the audio had been garbled and I could not make out his words. I stowed the footage and leaned back to rest. 

Diane’s crew visited me after I awoke. Caspian and Jeffries were the first, surprisingly enough. They brought some chocolates and some magazines.

“Sorry about your capitan,” Caspian murmured. “She seemed like a nice lady.”

“Don’t say that when you never even talked with her,” Jeffries growled. “But we really are sorry, miss, about it all. Just wanted to make sure you had everything you needed in here.”

“I’m fine,” I smiled. “If anything, I’m surprised you two remembered me.”

“You don’t usually forget someone who jammed their heels into your throat.”

“Right. Sorry about that.”

Stephen and Vladimir visited next. They held hands when they entered the medical bay. Stephen’s bloodshot eye told me everything.

“I’ve given you a thorough exam,” Vladimir explained, “with Emiko present of course. Nothing serious, just a minor concussion. It should heal up within the week.”

“Thanks Vlad,” I murmured. “Where’s Emiko?”

“In her quarters,” Vladimir replied. “I haven’t seen her in a few days.”

“I turned around,” Stephen whispered. “I fucking turned around when Ulysses boarded. I thought she was going to be right behind him. Right behind me.”

“We’ve been through this,” Vlad sighed. “We’ve even seen the security footage a dozen times. There was nothing you could have done.”

“I could have thrown myself off the ship and flung her back in,” Stephen sobbed. “Fuck. She just stood there. What happened, Elaine?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t know how to tell them about my encounter with Diane in Bridge Mode. “I’m just as confused as you.”

“Don’t worry about that for now,” Vlad pulled Stephen into an embrace. “Let’s all just get some rest. Everyone knows Ulysses has no intention of giving us enough of it.”

Emiko didn’t visit. I didn’t fault her. I wondered how much she blamed me for Diane’s death. After all, I had stood there and watched at the end.

After a few more days I heard a knock on my door. I looked up and saw Alexis and Friede stroll in.

“Hey,” Friede said.

“Hey,” I replied.

“We were just aboard Circe in the mess hall,” Alexis said. “We thought we would just drop by and visit.”

“That’s sweet of you two,” I said, “to visit an imperial dog, I mean.”

“That’s not–”

“Relax,” I interrupted Friede. “It was just a joke.”

“Former captain let that behavior slide?” Friede asked.

“She would have encouraged it,” I smirked. “Why are you two here?”

“Ulysses tells me that you know,” she said. “About us. About everyone in the Sunless Fleet.”

“That’s right, I do,” I nodded. “Alexis, is it true they found you in a body bag?”

“It’s not as morbid as they make it sound,” Alexis laughed. “It was supposed to be an escape. I had been sedated with a rather unpleasant poison. Tricky stuff. Makes you appear dead to just about everyone, including the coroner. They stuffed me in a casket and put me on a transport. When I awoke, I’d be a free man. Things obviously… did not go as planned.”

“And Friede?” I asked. “Ulysses said they found you in a jungle.”

Friede folded her arms.

“One of the first exiles of the imperium,” she said. “Shipped me off to a colony world and expected me to die there. It was a desert world. Nasty place. Right as I was about to run out of water, I’m transported to the middle of some bog, surrounded by predators.”

“You’re an imperial?”

“What? I ain’t fancy enough for you?” she snorted. “Look, being a self-hating imperial isn’t new. I did a lot of things that I regret. Ulysses and the fleet set me straight. And for a long time, I thought it was Caerleon that did that to me. It was society, you know, that made me who I was.”

“It can have that effect, I suppose.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Friede shook her head. “Nightwing joined after I did. There was an accident during a battle. I misfired and killed some of our people. As an imperial, I didn’t think much of it at the time. They were pirates, exiles like me. What life were they worth? You know who chewed me out?”

“It wasn’t Ulysses?”

“It was Captain Lunova,” Friede said. “She screamed at me for an hour.”

“I’m trying really hard to imagine it.”

“I hated her. I mean you hate anybody that yells at you like she did,” Friede sighed. “Alexis and I, we all picked up the wrong habits. Imperial dog this and that. But the captain never bothered with it. She was only ever angry when we made a mistake that jeopardized a mission.”

“I always wondered why she had let you off so easily,” I muttered. “Guess she always knew more than she let on.”

“She was a tough son of a bitch,” Friede cursed. “It’s a shame she’s gone.”

“We should get going,” Alexis said. “You probably need a few more days of rest.”

The two of them excused themselves. Friede stopped at the door and stared at me one last time.

“Elaine.”

“Yes?”

“No matter how I look at it,” she said. “During the battle, it was the imperials that killed her, wasn’t it?”

It took me a full five seconds to respond with the truth.

“Yes.”

“Then they put her down like an imperial dog,” Friede said. “Don’t let them do the same to you.”

Emiko finally visited me on the last day of my stay in the medical ward. She brought flowers and a tray of my favorite tea. She looked well rested.

“Sorry,” she said. “I wanted to visit you earlier, but I couldn’t stop crying.”

“No, don’t apologize,” I said. “I understand.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she shook her head. “I don’t blame you at all for what happened. I saw the pendant that she gave you. That tells me all I need to know.”

“What do you know?”

“That she entrusted the future of Nightwing to you.”

“I mean,” I said. “It feels like you should be the one to lead us. You’re faster at the terminal. Better than me at the simulator. If anyone deserves to captain Nightwing…”

Emiko laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Nothing, just remembering old times,” she answered. “I would have agreed with her assessment, Elaine. Vlad is better than you at monitoring the energy readings from the engine room. Does that make him qualified to captain Nightwing?"

“Well…”

“You have something the rest of us lack,” Emiko said. “Vision. You know where Nightwing will go. I certainly don’t.”

The next several words were excruciatingly painful to say.

“To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said. “I don’t know where to go. It feels like Diane left me knowing that I would find myself in the right place, but I don’t see anything right now. And what about you, Emiko?”

“Me?”

“Everyone aboard,” I said. “During the Siege of Caerleon…”

“That’s not what’s important,” she replied. “Almost everyone in the fleet is stuck somewhere in time. Even Diane was stuck, like me, in the past. There are others, stuck thinking about their future. People trapped like us can’t see the obvious steps forward.”

“I’ve never captained my own ship before,” I sighed. “And there’s of course Ulysses to deal with.”

“What about him?”

“I’m worried,” I said. “I think he’s desperate. He thinks he’s so close to finding the chalice that he’s blind to everything around him.”

“You’ll have to take things one step at a time,” Emiko said. “It’s okay that you don’t know. In fact, admitting it is better than pretending you know better.”

“Is that criticism for past behavior?”

“Call it whatever you want,” she shrugged. “Diane doubted herself too when she captained Nightwing for the first time. She even doubted herself when she recruited me.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Emiko gazed out the window. “The day she walked through my door.”