Dry, No Lube Ch. 07c: Afterlife

"I'm all yours, Chief," I smiled. Senior enlisted guys, long-service veterans, didn't often come see me. "Have some coffee?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice." He watched as I poured. "So it's like this," he began, "I'm having a problem with two of my sailors. They're, like, weird around each other."

My heart fell. I knew the answer before I asked. "Where do you serve?"

"Battery 15. Short rockets." He tossed it off as though it didn't matter.

"No need to be that specific, Chief," I sighed. It was the expected answer. "I was just curious whether you were on the guns, in the engine rooms, the magazines... whatever."

"Right. Well, like I say, I think one of my guys is depressed, and I think it might be tied to one of my other sailors."

"Mmhmm," I nodded. Free association: it works.

"And I'm, well, I'm close to that other sailor."

Uh-oh. "Closer than you should be, Chief?" I tried to say it without judgment. Fleet doesn't like sex between superiors and direct subordinates, though it wasn't against the Directives. "Some people can handle that kind of thing, some people can't..."

"I wouldn't say closer than we should be," he demurred. "I mean, we're fucking, but it's not emotional." He sniffed. "She likes it that way. Unemotional."

I nodded. "Some women do." This was already thorny, and if a Chief Warrant Officer was involved on the drug side... "I should remind you, Chief, that I'm obligated to report violations of Fleet Directives to the skipper. And, you know, she's back on the job, so there's no grey area."

"Okay." He seemed fine with that, which was the reaction I was hoping for. If he'd been cagey, I would have had to press. "We're just fucking, Father."

"Rabbi."

"Oh. Rabbi." He shrugged as if it didn't matter, which it probably didn't really. "Nah. It's nothing against the Directives. I mean, I beat her up, but it's consensual."

I nodded. "I've seen this sort of thing before," I pointed out, going for the male-bonhomie route toward rapport. "Dry, no lube, right?"

"That's the same thing she says," he nodded, laughing.

"So what's the issue?"

"I think he knows I'm doing her, and I think he's jealous of me."

"This is Fleet," I pointed out evenly, "and you're the Chief. Does his jealousy matter?"

"I kicked his ass the first time he mouthed off to me," he agreed, "so I know he'll follow orders. But it's just annoying, you know?" He slurped his coffee. "I don't like to lead that way."

"Good for you." Fleet is full of bullies, but most of them are weeded out by the time people make Chief. Still, you never could tell. "Well. You could always stop fucking her..."

"I would, if I didn't think it might cause bigger problems down the road." He cracked a smile. "She's a better gunner than he is. The last thing I want is for her to lose motivation?"

"I gotta say," I went on warmly, "apart from anything else, it speaks very highly for your professionalism that you came to talk to me about this. I hope I can help out."

"Yeah. Like I said, I'm sort of just needing to talk it out." He looked down at the deck, brooding. "I'm glad the Captain's back, sir."

"Are you?" I hoped it didn't sound as suspicious as it might, but he didn't react as though it did. "Me too. She's a strong leader."

"It's a happy ship." He looked at me. "You been in Fleet long, sir?"

"About seven years. But I was a Marine before that, so."

"Oh! Well, then, you know." We nodded at each other. "It's about the right kind of leadership. That's why I'm worried about this. Talking it out with you."

I waited while he finished his coffee, and once I was sure he was done, I spoke again. I put every ounce of compassion and patience into my voice. "You know you have to stop fucking her, Chief."

He half-smiled. "Obviously. I see that now." He nodded decisively. "Thanks, Father."

"Rabbi."

"Oh! Yeah. Sorry, Rabbi. And thanks."

* * *

"Is it weird," I asked her a week later, "scarred face, unscarred body?"

"Actually," she sighed, "I do have a scar." She got to her feet, much more nimbly now, and pulled her trousers down while she showed me her hip. I was glad she was wearing underwear, but this was Fleet; people saw each other naked all the time. I peered at her, seeing a pale white mark up by her waistline, toward her ass. "I found that just the other day."

"It's an old scar," I observed, nodding. "Not very big. Your clone must have bumped into something. The genetic speed-up sometimes makes them clumsy during childhood."

"I'll be honest, Rabbi, I sort of miss my old scars." She twisted from side to side and pulled up her trousers. "No pain. I had a gruesome lower back, until a couple weeks ago."

"Yeah?" I waited. If she wanted to bring this up, I was content to listen.

"My first battle. I nearly got cut in half on my own damn bridge." She gazed off into space. "Know what I remember most about that?"

"Pain?"

"Of a sort." She sighed. "My friend Amber got hit by the same burst." She raised her slow eyes up to mine. "There are days, many of them, when I wish I'd have died instead of her."

I nodded, my face carefully neutral. I did not like this line of thinking, but if this was where she was going, that was okay.

"The scar, the injury, the stiffness. The pain? It has always reminded me of that day."

There were two ways I could go with this, pastorally: closure, or remembrance. I sensed she didn't want closure. "She's no more gone this week than she was last week, Captain. You can remember her with love and respect, still." I waited to see how she was reacting, but she was a tough read today. "You miss your scar. A lot of people won't understand that, but look at the bright side."

"Yeah?" She sounded wary.

"The way you live? You'll gain a lot more scars in short order."

She did laugh at that, which I thought was an excellent sign. "Makes sense." She sat back on her bed, legs dangling, and flicked her eyes down my body. "Did the same thing happen to you? Any surprises when you got your new body?"

"I wasn't all that old when I died," I replied; I'd internalized all this long since. It wasn't weird to talk about. But I'd decided to push her a bit today, to emphasize what had happened to me, and how remembering it had helped me integrate. "I didn't notice any real differences, except that... well." I grinned. "I was horny as hell."

She laughed. "Relatable. Know anyone you can set me up with, Rabbi?"

I raised my hands, glad that she was in a joking mood. That was an excellent sign. "Look, you're the captain. You can order someone to fuck you, surely."

"Not my style." She glanced down at me. "Want a fuck, Rabbi?"

She didn't mean it. "I'm good." I was, too; Li and I had done it twice last night. She'd almost kissed me again. The thought made me a little bit sad, not because of what it represented for Pearl, but because of what it meant for me and Li. "Find someone nice," I recommended. "It's not my business to pry, but, well... you'll be eager. You don't want someone who's just out for themselves."

"Yeah." This was not something she felt a need to talk about, obviously.

"It's fine, ma'am," I told her briskly, "you can talk about anything with me. I talk about peoples' sex lives a lot more often than you might realize."

"Right. But I might not want to, Rabbi." She sniffed. "Unless I have to. You need to certify me, I know. For full return to duty."

Well. Of course, she'd done her own research. She'd been back on the job almost two weeks now, reminding herself she could run the ship again. "I don't certify, Captain," I replied evenly, "I just recommend."

"But your recommendation carries weight," she pointed out.

"No more than Dr Reilly's does." I shrugged. "It's not an issue, ma'am. Honestly, you've said all the right things." Except one, I didn't add, but I was almost sure she would. Or that she'd say something I could chalk up in the close enough category. "Did you make any progress? Remembering?"

"Nope." She rubbed at her neck, where the scar itched. There was no way to hide a head transplant, but Diallo and Reilly had done pretty well, I thought. "Just... I passed out. Next thing I knew, I was on the Hospital Barge with Doc working on my legs, drugged all the way up. It was hours before Crazy Jack could even tell me what I'd done." She smirked ironically. "Another one for the galactic record books for Firehole Pfeiffer," she grunted. "Highest rescue-bag descent ever, by about fifteen percent. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Yet, you said it was the right call," I reminded her, "no second-guessing."

"A lot of my decisions are like that."

"I didn't make any of the decisions when I died," I went on. Her legs went abruptly still. "I was a staff sergeant in the Marines, a section chief."

"Infantry?"

"No, I ran a detachment that did space systems coordination. Observing." She frowned. "Like, I was one of the guys who'd be down below? Directing the Tirving's bombardment?" She nodded, her face clearing. "But on the Marine side. Low-budget. Not like the Army does it with us."

"Got it."

"I was out forward, I remember, trying to get some munitions placed." I scowled. "Prox fuzes, the worst kind. That's why I was there. I wasn't really in charge of that observer team, but they'd needed help."

"Do you think about that?" she asked suddenly. "That you weren't supposed to be there?"

"But I was there, Captain," I shrugged. "You can't live your life over again. What happens, happens." I found her gaze. "You say you're not philosophical, so that might make some sense to you? Some call it fate. I'm a bit more religious than that."

"God?"

"Not in so many words," I smiled. "But the point is that I was there, just as you were in that shuttle. In the Cone." She was nodding. "Or like that time you attacked an enemy dreadnought with a GP ship. Or when you were on the Flasbard homeworld and blew yourself up. Or doing that EVA out in the Cathos Vremein drone field." I snickered. "As your pastoral counselor, ma'am, I'll tell you I think you should avoid shuttles."

"Noted."

"So. I was out there, and I remember I was trying to figure out my angle-p," I sighed. It had been a difficult target, the supporting spacecraft pilot obviously inexperienced. "It was like the third or fourth run at the target. I remember being really angry at the pilot, but even angrier at my lieutenant. For not calling off the mission: it was obviously not doable."

"Did you tell him that?"

"I was a Marine, ma'am," I explained, "and it wasn't the kind of unit where anyone felt comfortable questioning things."

She nodded, reflecting. "I hate a ship like that." She stared at me suddenly. "If this ship ever gets like that, I'll fucking airlock myself."

I waited for her to laugh, but she didn't. "That seems extreme, ma'am."

"This is an extreme business we're in."

"Yeah. Well, so the mission wasn't coming together. And the squad sergeant was having trouble maintaining our perimeter, since he'd already lost three people." It bothered me that I couldn't remember whether all three had died. "I was talking on the mid-beam, making my third correction, when... wham."

She seemed intrigued, as only someone who couldn't recall their own death could be. "Wham?"

"I felt like the earth had opened up underneath me, and that what came out of the hole was a thousand spikes." It was the only way I could explain it. "I think I felt every one of those spikes. I had a sensation that I was weightless, because I was. I was flying through the air."

She put her chin in her hand. "Did you know what had happened?"

I turned it back on her. "Did you know you were dying?"

She didn't hesitate. "Yes."

"Yes, Captain," I sighed, "I knew. Right away I knew."

She read something in my voice, or my face, and all at once she gasped. "Oh. Fuck. It was friendly fire!"

"Not officially. Not according to the Stellar Marines," I said with a grim little laugh, "but yes. It was."

"Well." She pondered that, her hand drumming her cheek. I wondered whether she was even thinking about the juxtaposition, the cloned new hand touching the old face that had been through so much. I knew the doc had offered to let her do a traditional TCR, the same simple brain transplant I had gotten: she'd have gotten clean, fresh face, and no itchy neck. I was intrigued that she'd opted against that. "That must be weird."

"Nah. I made peace with it right away, mostly because the pilot got wasted about two days later." We giggled, the gallows humor of people who had seen dangerous things. "But yeah. I remember all of it. I knew I was going to die. I felt the impact, outside the perimeter. I remember who dragged me back, everything, even though one of my eyes was gone." I couldn't resist, suddenly. "Why did you keep your head, ma'am?"

She rocked back, stunned by the sudden question. "What?"

"I'm just curious." I smiled warmly. "I'd have done the same, Captain, but I wasn't sure why you didn't just opt for a full TCR."

Pfeiffer nodded. "My clone was deaf, you see." She smiled. "I already had her cochleas, from before." She looked back out at the stars; she seemed to do that a lot. "I used to feel weird about that, about leaving her deaf."

"That's very empathetic."

"Not usually one of my strong suits." She looked down at her hand, flexing it a few times. "It was a pain in the ass, breaking in those new cochleas. I figured I should just keep them, instead of going artificial, and then? Just made sense to keep the head." She looked at me again. "When did you realize you were dead?"

"You don't, ma'am, as I expect you know." She nodded soberly. "You know you're in danger, then you know you're going to die, and you wait for it, but when it actually happens?" I spread my hands. "You don't know. Because there's nothing to know."

"So, by that definition," she nodded, "I died when I hit the ionization layer."

"When you lost consciousness." I'd read her medical file, as I'm sure she had. "But you never really did die, ma'am. Not properly."

"I was pulseless when I was found," she pointed out.

"Your brain was fine, though. As it still is." We both sighed. "Look, these things are complicated. I don't understand them all, and I don't expect you to either. That's why people get philosophical about them."

"Some people."

"Some, yes." She was close, so close. I could almost recommend her for full RTD, unrestricted. "But, like you, next thing I knew I was conscious on the hospital ship. The Laurus." I reflected. "I'd been dead for three months." Her eyebrows rose. "Yup. Three months in cryo, disembodied."

"Shit."

"It was an odd time in my life," I understated, "or, you know, in my death. So? Now you know about me. See, I know a little about where you're coming from."

"Thank you, Rabbi." She said it a bit stiffly, clearly not used to having these kinds of conversations. "Do you talk about this much?"

I laid my 'slate on the table. "I'm better at listening than talking, ma'am."

"Speaking of which," she sighed, "tell me. Have I talked enough?"

"To get my recommendation, you mean?" Of course that's what she meant, so she didn't answer. "Captain, Fleet just needs to know you understand clonal integration. Well, no, not so much understand... more like internalize. It should be in your soul, not your brain. If that makes any sense."

"Yeah, little bit." She was pondering, still looking at me. "Where did you die?"

"Where?" I blinked. "What do you mean? I mean, I remember the mission order, the grid zone designators, the astral-plane readings... How do you want me to put it, ma'am, in a way that would be meaningful to you?"

She smiled. "What planet, Rabbi? What campaign?"

"Oh." That was easy. "On Secundus, during the Severus Offensive."

"Yeah." She stirred. "I was in Service Fleet back then, doing GP runs all along the Arm there." She cocked her head, as if unsure whether to go on, so I put on my most open and earnest expression. "During the latter part of the Offensive, we made about fourteen runs to the Clone Farm. That's fourteen total, during and after." She looked down. "I was acting Second Officer on the Jezail at the time. Lots and lots of limbs at first, but later? We grabbed shipments of whole clones."

I nodded, my heart quickening. I knew where she was going.

"We made some of our runs just about three months after the Offensive." She stared at me. "We might have met before..."

I wanted to screech at her at the top of my lungs, No! more emphatically than I'd ever said anything in years. Because if she thought this, I might have to downgrade her recommendation... but she was already speaking again, slowly. Steadily.

"No." It was as if she was talking to herself, looking inward. "Wait. Even if I hauled your clone, we didn't meet. You are not your clone. You are you. And I am not my clone, either." She nods. "That's right."

"Yes, ma'am," I smiled widely, "that's right."

She sighed, then sat straight up on her bed. "So. I'm good to go?"

"Captain," I grinned, my heart light, "it is with great joy that I can tell you I'm going to recommend you fit for certification for Return To Duty in Federal service, effective this date." I passed her my 'slate. "Need a signature, ma'am."

"You know," she nodded, signing, "I've never had much use for chaplains. But you're okay, Rabbi."

"Just doing my best, Captain." It was a good day. I felt triumphant. Tonight, I knew, I'd fuck Li Millipet like an animal.

"Your best is good."

"I try." I knew we were done, so I started packing my tabslate away. "In my faith, ma'am, we have these things called mitzvot. I like doing them."

"Doing them?" She blinked. "What are they, a type of whore?"

"No, Captain. Basically, they're good deeds. We do them because they have worth. It's a big part of why I came back into Federal Service after my TCR." I rose. "I have good deeds to do, I think."

"Yeah?" She arched an eyebrow. "Is that what I've been? One of these mitzvot?"

"You? No." I gathered my stuff. "You're my captain. I owe you support, regardless of whether it's a good deed or not."

She nodded as I moved toward the door, and when I looked back at her she was scowling. "Damn straight, Mr Bermudo," she snapped, "and don't you fucking forget it."

* * *

Yep.

She's back. Thank you for reading, as always.