“Who was he, Orion?” Preacher asked a second time. Knowing. Demanding the answer I was supposed to give. The Strange Company answer.
Stinkeye came to stand over the boy and drink from his flask. He said nothing and then turned away, muttering, “Damn shame. Damn, damn, damn shame.”
But I couldn’t because I was choking. Couldn’t say the words that needed to be said. I knew if I said another word, then…
Being a bastard about the truth. That was Preacher, who only showed up when they were dead. Our dead. We. Us. Always the truth when no one else cared to listen anymore. No one cared about the truth, I wanted to scream. The Monarchs got rid of that or we gave it all up a long time ago.
We don’t believe in it anymore.
“Who was he, Sergeant Orion?”
“Just some kid!” I shouted at our company holy man. Beginning to sob because I didn’t care anymore. “Just a boy. A boy who loved a girl who didn’t love him anymore so he became a soldier because he thought… hell, he thought he might make a difference like all the young who don’t know nothing about it. Like that might mean something to someone who doesn’t care anymore.”
In the distance the guns of the Spider could be heard echoing titanically through the atmosphere. Thundering out against those who would try to stop the company from reaching another world as we departed atmo. They didn’t stop. And neither did death.
“Who was he, Sergeant Orion?” asked our holy man, gently. And I could hear how tired and old he really was. As old as the galaxy. As old as war itself.
I hated Preacher. Hated the universe and hated the whole damn mess we’d become.
But Preacher was right.
And I hated him for it all the same. Because this is what we do when we die. When one of ours goes down on some foreign world in a fight no one’s ever gonna remember.
“I just looked over and some bullet had caught him near the landing gear,” Punch had said, beginning to cry. And then gone away, slamming his hand into a bulkhead because that was all he could do. Grieving. The Kid had held his position when it got close. Too close. We needed him there. And he did what needed to be done. Died next to a landing gear on a bad LZ so the company could go on and fight other wars for the Monarchs on other worlds.
Or maybe that would change now. Who knew.
“Who remembers him, Sergeant?” whispered Preacher in the red-lit cargo deck of a hijacked ship. Docking connectors coming online as we approached our salvation, the Spider.
We do. We will remember who he was. Who they were. Even if no one ever does. Even if some young girl doesn’t care if you died both bravely, and badly, on a foreign world. For your brothers. Even if you were brave at the last, when it was most needed.
Who was he, Sergeant? asked Preacher for the last time.
“He was Strange Company. He was one of us.”
The End
Epilogue
Two weeks out from Crash, we’re heading into the coffins aboard the Spider for the long cryosleep to Blackrock. The Monarch took the dropship after we docked. Disengaging in the middle of a running fight with Monarch interceptors swarming all quarters. Her job was done.
She took the Little Girl.
On purpose? I don’t know.
Or just because everyone had forgotten our youngest and tiniest company member in the mad dash to disembark and get the wounded onto the Spider during hard dock.
I guess she, the Seeker, didn’t want to stick around and find out how disappointed we’d be when it turned out our mem was worthless now that she’d uploaded the doomsday algo that had destroyed the Monarchs two thousand years from now. Decided to get it done sooner than later. For freedom, or something…
Or maybe she had other things to do.
We’d find out in twenty-five years.
We already knew our mem was worthless. The markets were collapsing while we were still under boost thrust away from war-torn Crash.
I got a letter while I was planetside during the whole war on Crash. Came to me, but I usually don’t forward mail down-planet so I can focus on what needs to be done while we’re operating.
It was a reply to one I had written before we were planetside. A letter I had written and sent before the war.
I’d written the Falmorian party girl I’d spent the evening with. The one who had asked me if there were regrets.
I told her my answer because I’d been thinking about it ever since.
Told her yes, there were regrets. And that somehow, she was a regret to me. That I wished I’d stayed. Gotten to know her. I told her I knew I was being silly. And I understood if she didn’t even remember me. I was no one. Just some tired soldier who had felt something that evening. Something missing. Something much needed.
She wrote back.
One line from across the stars.
Yes. I remember you, estrangier.
