In Her Name

moment, he recognized. It was a human face.

Nicole.

He tried to speak her name, but somewhere in the complex chain of physical operations that made speech possible was a breakdown. His lips, feeling swollen and numb, parted. The tip of his tongue curled toward the roof of his mouth, behind his teeth, to its accustomed position for making the “n” sound. But that was all he could do. His lungs were too weak to force enough air into his larynx to make the sound of her name. He tried again, hard.

“Ni…cole,” he breathed faintly.

“Please, mon ami,” she said softly, placing a finger gently against his lips, “do not waste your energy trying to talk. We will have plenty of time for that later.”

She smiled, and Reza saw tears brimming in her eyes. It took him a moment, but it finally struck him that she looked exhausted, haggard. Her face was pale and drawn, her normally flawless ivory skin creased and sallow. Her eyes were bloodshot, with dark rings beneath them.

She mourns, he thought absently. But that was at odds with the light that shone in her eyes now. They were joyful, relieved.

“You will be all right, now,” she said. It sounded to Reza as if the words were more to reassure herself. “We were very worried about you for a while. You were hurt very badly.”

“How… long?” he asked, ignoring her pleas to conserve what little strength he had. His range of vision began to constrict, the periphery of his world turning to a dull, featureless gray until all he could see was Nicole’s exhausted face.

She hesitated for a moment, and Reza sensed a general feeling of unwillingness to tell him the truth. His senses were terribly dulled, blunted like a rusty sword, but they told him that much.

“Six months,” she said finally, her eyes questing, hoping the news would not send him into shock. When she saw that he was not fading on her like he had so many other times over the last months, she went on, “It has been six months since we left Erlang. After you got Eustus and Jodi to Gneisenau – however it was that you did it – the surgeons worked on you for many hours.” Her smile faded with the remembrance of how agonizing that time had been. She herself had to be anesthetized, to shield her from the pain that Reza was feeling as the surgeons worked on him, trying to reconstruct his shattered body. “You never came out of the anesthesia, never fully regained consciousness,” she went on. “Until now. You have been in a coma all this time.” Her own recovery from the psychologically-induced trauma had taken two months, and the news that she was being forcibly retired from combat duty sent her into a bout of depression that she had still not entirely recovered from.

“You… all right?” he whispered.

“I am… better, now. I know I must look awful, but I have not been able to leave you.” She looked down at her hand holding his. “I had a great deal of leave built up, so I decided to take some. To be here for you, when you woke up.”

Reza’s heart ached for her. He sensed the long, lonely hours she had spent at his bedside for months, wondering each moment if the next he would be dead, or would never wake up at all. “Thank you, my friend,” he sighed.

“I could not leave you here alone,” she whispered. Tony had understood, and had supported her after Gneisenau had returned to Earth on Fleet HQ’s orders. He himself had spent many hours beside her, beside Reza. The two men had not seen each other in a long time, since the wedding that had made Tony and Nicole husband and wife, but there was a bond of trust between them that went far beyond the measure of their acquaintance.

“Erlang?” he asked as his strength began to wane, his range of vision narrowing again.

“The Mallorys, and what few Raniers are left, are well,” Nicole said, still marveling at how that was possible. While the cities and major townships had been totally destroyed with grievous losses among the population, the vast majority of Erlangers – almost exclusively Mallorys – had survived. The Kreelans, after retrieving whatever it was that they had come for, had mysteriously departed without inflicting further harm. “Several convoys of ships have taken them the things they need to help rebuild. Ian Mallory sends his hopes for your recovery, and his thanks.”

She did not add that he had also petitioned to be a witness in Reza’s defense at the court-martial that had long since been planned for him. He was charged with multiple counts of murder, including those of President Belisle of Erlang and Chief Counselor Melissa Savitch, as well as high treason against the Confederation.

Reza sensed that there was something deeply wrong, something that she was not telling him, but his body demanded that he rest. “I am glad that Ian lived,” he said quietly

The last thing he felt before his eyes closed was the gentle warmth of Nicole’s lips pressed to his.

* * *

Tony Braddock was a troubled man. Someone to whom he owed his own life and that of his wife was in a dire situation, and there did not seem to be any way for him to help. While he had told Nicole that Reza had been charged with murdering President Belisle, Counselor Savitch, and an Erlang Territorial Army soldier, plus what he took as nothing more than a gratuitous and hate-inspired charge of high treason, he had not told her how extensive was the evidence against him. Not only did Colonel Markus Thorella claim to have been a witness (by remote, naturally), the man had also produced an especially damning piece of evidence in the form of a recording of the soldier’s and Belisle’s murders. The holo had been validated by the court in the last months, meaning that it had been declared devoid of tampering, was genuine, and would be admitted as evidence in Reza’s court-martial. The alleged murder of Counselor Savitch was based entirely on Thorella’s say-so, but considering the other evidence in hand, Tony Braddock knew that almost any military or civilian court would convict Reza out of hand. Politically, as the war went on and worsened, they could ill-afford not to. The public wanted a scapegoat for the pillaging of their civilization, and they would have one. And who better than Reza, who was caught between two worlds?

Worse – How could it be worse? Tony asked himself – since so much time had passed and no one was sure if Reza would ever come out of the coma, they had dispensed with the pre-trial preliminaries that might have given him some sort of due process, at least in terms of technicalities. Most of the witnesses for his defense had been released to fleet duty, their sworn testimony recorded for the proceedings. But it was not the same as in-person testimony, Braddock knew, especially when Reza’s chief accuser, Colonel Thorella, had conveniently been ordered to a posting on Earth after he had somehow explained away the annihilation of his own regiment on Erlang.

While Tony had no proof, he had no doubt that there were some dark forces moving things along. He suspected Senator Borge and his increasingly large and vocal militant following of having a hand in it, but there was no way to prove it. And even if that were true, what could he do? Go to the president and accuse Borge of subverting the legal process in the military?

He smiled bitterly. Even with evidence as solid as Kilimanjaro, that would be foolhardy, at best. Borge had few remaining political enemies except the president and a few older and more powerful senators who still remembered what democracy was like, and who cherished the ideal above the rhetoric of their office.

And there were still a few young fools like Tony Braddock.

He rolled over, careful not to disturb Nicole, sleeping beside him. She seemed so much better now, after the months she had spent recovering from whatever had come over her, all the while distraught over whether Reza would survive. Tony had found it maddening sometimes, but he had done everything he humanly could to be there for her, to comfort her and try to lighten her burden. He knew she had been, and still was, deeply depressed at being assigned a non-combat position, but he was relieved that she had finally been taken out of harm’s way. She had done more than her share, and it was time for them to have some time together as man and wife, and perhaps to ask themselves again if they were ready to become father and mother.

He heard her whisper Reza’s name in whatever it was that she dreamed. His heart used to darken out of jealousy, wondering if perhaps she did not really love Reza more than she did himself. But over time, his fears had subsided. She loved Reza, yes, but as a sister might a brother or close friend. Perhaps there had been a time when she had wanted it to be something more. But he knew, from both Jodi and Nicole, that Reza would never have accepted anything more than platonic love from her or any other human woman; Reza’s heart lay elsewhere, deep in the Empire.

Braddock had also listened to Jodi tell him of her suspected “psychic link” between Nicole and Reza, but he had never believed it until Admiral Sinclaire himself had told him of what had happened to Nicole on