In Her Name

“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Tanya,” Thorella said with a blazing smile. His hand constricted around her throat to silence her. Then he began to saw the knife back and forth through her bleeding flesh, slowly.

Her mouth opened in a soundless scream.

* * *

“Where the fuck is she?” Jodi whispered to herself. The ship was powered up and ready to go at thirty seconds notice, the clamshell doors to the Pearl’s docking bay open to the cloud-flecked skies of what was once central France.

“We cannot wait much longer, Jodi,” Reza said from the cockpit ramp, startling her.

“How do you feel?” she asked, recovering quickly. She felt like her bare ass was sitting on a cushion of needles.

“I am alive… thanks to you.” He sat down next to her, his gaze seeing through her.

“What’s that look for?” she asked uncomfortably.

“You care for her, don’t you?” he said. “Even after all that has happened, after all this time.”

Jodi was silent for a moment. “I was in love with her once, Reza,” she said. “And that’s something that never really leaves you, I guess, no matter what happens.” She frowned. “I think that at one time she was a good person, before Borge and his son corrupted her, suppressed or destroyed what was good in her. I wish I could have known her then.”

“Perhaps,” Reza said thoughtfully, “you gave her the chance to restore her honor.”

Jodi was about to tell him of the news she saw when a voice interrupted them. It was Tanya.

“Jodi,” the voice said as a holographic image of Tanya’s face appeared on the screen, “if you’re hearing this now, then you’ll know I can’t be with you. I had an old score to settle with a mutual friend of ours, but things haven’t gone right and I won’t be able to make our rendezvous. You and your friend will have to go on alone in the old Pearl to wherever your final destination might be. She’s always been a good ship. She’s yours, now, and everything else that belongs to me: you’re the sole beneficiary in my will now.” The recorded image of Tanya’s face looked reflective for a moment before it went on. Tanya’s real face lay a few thousand kilometers away, contorted in mortal agony. “There are so many things I’d like to say, Jodi, but… the only thing that might matter now – for what little it’s worth – is that I’m sorry for what happened between us, for what I did to you. I can’t make the past right again, and I won’t have a chance to explain everything the way you deserve, but I wanted you to know.” A bittersweet smile. “Good luck, Jodi. And goodbye.”

The image vanished.

Jodi was silent, staring at the space where her one-time lover had spoken what she knew were Tanya’s last words. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Reza nodded solemnly. “I grieve with you,” he said quietly, his hand on her shoulder. Her hand covered his.

“Well,” Jodi said in a raspy voice, taking her hand away to the more familiar territory of the control console, “I guess we’d better get this tub moving before more trouble shows up.”

“Have you decided where we are going?”

“Yes,” she said decisively. “Erlang.”

As the Golden Pearl powered up for its first flight in years, Jodi told Reza of the son he never knew he had.

Forty-Six

She’s dying, Eustus thought as he looked through the force field screen and into the brig where the two Kreelan prisoners were being held. The warrior lay on one of the cell’s two beds that protruded from the wall, her massive frame overwhelming it. While her eyes were closed, Eustus was sure that she knew he was here, watching them. The boy-child, Shera-Khan, knelt next to her, gently stroking her hair with his red talons.

Eustus took in a deep breath. “All right, private,” he said to the Marine at the brig controls, “open the door.”

“Are you sure, gunny?” the commodore asked from behind him. “You don’t have to do this.” Eustus turned to the small knot of officers behind him. Without uttering a word, he only nodded his head.

Commodore Marchand nodded to the private at the door controls, who in turn exchanged a glance with the four other Marines who guarded the entrance. Their weapons snapped to the ready. The hum of the force field dropped away, and the force field warning light surrounding the portal went off. Inside, Shera-Khan stood up and turned to watch. The great warrior did not move.

“Okay, gunny,” the private said in a hushed voice.

Eustus stepped into the cell, the force field snapping up behind him just as his feet cleared the doorway. For a long moment, he and Shera-Khan regarded one another in silence. The fact that they had managed to get this far was nothing short of miraculous, Eustus thought. He would have given anything to have seen the look on the faces of the cutter’s crew and surviving Marines back on the planet in the mist when they opened the door, only to be faced with a giant of a Kreelan warrior holding a child in one arm and Eustus slung over her shoulder. According to the crew’s report (Eustus having been unconscious at the time), the warrior had simply leaped into the passenger bay like she belonged there, pushing people out of the way to make a place for herself and the injured child after she carefully set Eustus down on the deck. Everyone had been too shocked to even think of shooting, and the flight back to the Furious was spent in silent awe.

Once aboard the cruiser, little had changed. Commodore Marchand perceived the situation correctly and realized that the warrior wanted them to help save the young one’s life, just as she had saved Eustus. The two prisoners and the injured gunnery sergeant had been spirited to sickbay, where they had saved Shera-Khan. The boy’s recovery, Eustus had noted with little surprise, had taken astonishingly little time. He was on his feet just four hours after surgery, and then he and the warrior were escorted by a platoon of Marines to the brig.

Now, looking at the boy, Eustus could not shake the tingle of excitement that came from the realization that this was the son, the flesh and blood, of Eustus’s best friend. Looking into the boy’s fierce green eyes, Eustus could see the fire that he had known to be in his father’s, and an intellect that Eustus could not even guess at.

“I thought you might like some food,” he said awkwardly. The boy had eaten nothing since his recovery, despite the best efforts of the intel officers and the cooks. Eustus finally convinced the commodore herself to allow him to try. After all, he had explained, he was the only one aboard who had ever known the one real Kreelan expert: Reza. He slowly set a tray of food down on the shelf that protruded from the wall near the head of the warrior’s bed.

The boy’s eyes flicked to the food – two slabs of raw meat (syntho, of course) and two mugs of the alcoholic concoction Reza had taught him to make – then back to Eustus. Then back to the food. Eustus could tell that he was starving, and not just from the last two days. Something told him the boy had probably not eaten for a lot longer than that.

“Go ahead,” he urged as he stepped away. “Try it.”

Shera-Khan made no move to sample what Eustus had brought him until a single whispered word escaped the lips of the warrior lying nearby.

“N’yadeh,” she said. Eat.

The boy turned and bowed his head to her, and Eustus saw that her eyes, sparkling with silver, were open and fixed on Shera-Khan to ensure he obeyed. He saluted her with his left fist over his chest, uttering something that Eustus could not make out. The warrior said nothing, but closed her eyes as the boy turned away to regard the food more closely. Then, his decision made, he reached for one of the chunks of meat.