Duty, Honor, Planet

“Get over here!” she ordered. “We need to get this man to the infirmary!”

The RSC soldiers slung their rifles and rushed to load Vinnie into the open groundcar, while Ari Shamir and the Marine medic climbed out of the pod. Jason limped away from the uncomfortable heat of the escape capsule and slumped to the ground, stretching his injured leg out in front of him.

Shannon watched the jeep head back toward the control center with Vinnie, the Marine medic and Kristy, then she walked over to Jason and sat down beside him. They sat there together for a moment in silence, not looking at each other, not touching, before Shannon finally spoke.

“You’re hurt,” she said, nodding toward his leg.

“Yes, I am,” he sighed. “But I’m alive.”

“Is this everyone?”

He shook his head. “There’s another pod full of Marines—don’t know where they touched down.” He looked her in the eye. “Gunny Lambert’s dead.”

Shannon hissed a breath through her teeth and closed her eyes. “He was a good man.”

“They’re all good,” Jason replied, his face stone.

“And we’re all expendable,” she said, remembering the pain she had felt and imagining it transferred to Lambert’s wife, or mother, or child…

“Well hey,” Jason barked a sharp, humorless laugh. “We saved the world, didn’t we?”

“Well, what do you say, Captain McKay?” Shannon levered herself to her feet and offered him a hand. “Wanna come let someone take a look at that leg?”

“All right, Lieutenant Stark,” he assented, taking her hand and letting her pull him to his feet. He chuckled hoarsely. “As Supreme Commander of all Republic forces, I make it a point to listen to the suggestions of my loyal minions.”

He tried to take a step, but his leg collapsed out from under him and Shannon had to catch him before he fell on his face.

“Come on, Supreme Commander.” She got his arm around her shoulders, and Tom Crossman stepped up to take the other side, half-carrying him away from the grounded pod. “Let’s get your Supreme ass to the medics.”

“No respect,” Jason muttered hazily. “Us Supreme Commanders don’t get no respect.”

* * *

Glen Mulrooney awoke suddenly, feeling the touch of a hand on his arm. He sat up straight in his chair and saw Valerie’s eyes on him. She had rolled halfway over in bed, and he could see the pain in her eyes from the motion.

“Lie back,” he cautioned her, putting a hand on her shoulder and gently pushing her back to the bed. “You don’t want to strain yourself yet.”

“What’s happening?” she asked, her voice hoarse and whispery. “Where am I?”

“You’re fine,” he assured her, stroking her hair. “You’re going to be okay, Val.” He reached to a night table and retrieved a cup of water, guiding it to her lips.

She didn’t look okay. Her face was pale, her hair matted with sweat, and there were lines of pain around her eyes and mouth. Her skin was cool and clammy, and she reminded Glen of a fresh corpse—but she was going to be all right.

Pushing away the water, she looked around at the darkened confines of the barracks room where she lay on a military bunk, eyes squinting at the gloom lit only by chemical ghostlights. They were alone. She looked into his eyes and he saw the realization in her gaze.

“I lost the baby,” she said, her voice like a ghost sighing.

Glen nodded, hand clenching hers. He hissed out a long breath, not knowing what to say. A day before, he had told himself that he no longer cared if Val lived or died, but it wasn’t so easy to be dispassionate now.

“They did the best they could,” he told her. “But their first priority was to save you.” He shrugged. “Considering the conditions they had to work with, they did a hell of a job.”

“They should have let me die,” Valerie muttered, letting her head fall back to the bed.

“Don’t talk that way, Val,” Glen adjured her. “You have everything to live for. You’re intelligent, you’re beautiful, you have a great career ahead of you—your whole life’s ahead of you.” He shook his head in exasperation. “What’s happened to you, Val? You always used to be the one who was in control of everything, the one who’d never let anything rattle her. What made you give up?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, licking her lips hesitantly.

“I mean,” Glen went on, “it can’t just be this thing with Jason.” Val’s head snapped around and her eyes narrowed, but he pretended not to notice. “I know you must still have feelings for him—you decided to have his baby, after all, when you could have avoided it. But how can you let it mess with your head like this? So he loves someone else, so what? Is your self-image so weak you can’t take one Goddamned rejection in your whole life?”

Her mouth dropped open. She’d never heard Glen speak this way to her before. And how had he known about Jason? She was so dumbfounded, she answered him without thinking, without trying to conceal the truth behind comforting words.

“Everyone I know is fake,” she blurted. “Their words are fake, their clothes are fake, their houses are fake, their lives are fake. They live for the camera, for the politicians or professors or lovers they want to impress. Jason…” she trailed off, seeming to regain her control, but past caring. “Jason was a real person. He didn’t care who my father was, or whether I was going to be a Republic Senator in ten years, or what media personality I’d been associated with.” She closed her eyes, mouth in a tight line. “And, in the end, he didn’t care about me.”

“Mirror mirror on the wall,” Glen murmured with a wry smile, “who’s the fakest of them all?”

She glared at him, her depression beginning to give way to anger.

“Leave me alone,” she said.

“Sure, I’ll leave you alone, Val.” Glen laughed, standing. “But first I’d like to tell you something I’ve been holding back for a while. You know, you’re right—everyone we know is fake. And you and me are no different. Damn it, Val,” he exclaimed, “people have died for you! Real people with real families and real lives. They gave up everything to save your life, and now you’ve decided, shit, they may as well have not tried.” Glen paced back and forth across the room in agitation, hands thrust in his hip pockets.

 “I’ve learned a lot from being around these people, Val.” He nodded at the room’s door. “And the main thing I’ve learned is that unless you think about more than yourself and your petty little problems, you’re just wasting your life. I don’t know about you, but I’ve wasted enough of one life.”

  She stared at him closely, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

“You’ve changed in the last few months, Glen,” she said. “I don’t think I know you anymore.”

He laughed softly, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Well, darling, is that a good or a bad thing?”

She slowly reached out her hand and took his.

“I think you know,” she said, biting her lip like a schoolgirl on her first date. “Glen, I’m sorry. I can’t apologize for my feelings for Jason, and I won’t. But I wasn’t honest with you, and all you ever tried to do was be there for me. Can you forgive me?”

“The old Glen,” he mused, staring thoughtfully into space, “would have walked out of this room and never spoken to you again. But that’s not me anymore.” He looked her in the eye. “I forgive you, Val.”

“Glen, I know this isn’t fair to ask, but…” she faltered, the words not coming. She paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be alone. Not now. I know we can’t go back to the way things were, and I don’t expect you to go through with the engagement. But can we…” She shrugged helplessly. “Can we still try?”

Glen swallowed hard. He’d thought she might ask that, yet still he was unprepared.

The door to the room burst open, the inrushing form of Daniel O’Keefe granting him a reprieve.

“Glen!” he exclaimed, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Glen, we just…” He trailed off as he saw Valerie. “Honey!” He rushed over to her bedside, kneeling down and embracing her gently, as if she were a china doll. “Oh, God, I’m so glad you’re awake! I almost died when I saw you in the infirmary, darling.” He stroked her hair, burying his head in her shoulder. “Oh, God, Val, I couldn’t stand to see anything happen to you.”