The Autumn War Vol. 03: Defiance

"It should be here when you get back," Xipa said in an attempt to reassure her, but the woman merely scoffed in response.

"Yeah, if they don't level the entire city. It survived one war, but I don't know about a second. It's a mistake if you ask me. I don't like the idea of being at the mercy of people I've never met."

"You've met me," Xipa replied as Chatli handed her a little parcel of herb that was wrapped up in cloth.

"I suppose that's true," she admitted, turning to pluck a bottle of wine from one of the shelves behind her. "I'll follow the Ensis anywhere - they've always led us straight - but I'd rather stay and fight for our home."

"Don't worry," Xipa added. "It'll be here when you're ready to come back. I'll see to it."

"I'm going to hold you to that," Chatli warned, sliding a pair of glass flutes across the counter.

They headed for one of the many unoccupied booths, choosing one far away from the rest of the patrons for privacy, then slid in behind the dividing walls. Xipa began to prepare the hookah, stuffing some of the dried leaves into the bowl, then set the heating element going. Fletcher uncorked the bottle, bringing it to his nose before pouring it into the two glasses.

He passed her one of the flutes as she took a long, deep drag from the hose, holding it for a moment before slowly exhaling. She settled back into the soft pillows, watching the smoke glide lazily towards the ceiling.

"So, how have you been?" she asked. "The last couple of days must have been hard for you."

"Hard for me?" he chuckled, picking up another hose and taking a puff. "I wasn't the one fighting through legions of roaches. Fucking BJ got his arm lopped off, and Gustave had his own private Thermopylae."

"I know how much you wanted to come with us," she replied. "I know that feeling of powerlessness, believe me. It can be worse than being in the thick of the fight."

"It definitely gave me plenty of time to brood and be unproductive," he chuckled, taking another puff from the hose. "Hey, I got to see the generators, though. That was pretty cool. The Valbarans installed these huge rubber pads on them to minimize the vibration they produce."

She could tell that he was trying to dodge the issue, so she pressed a little harder.

"Come on, Fletcher. You told me the last time we came here that your mind turns to dark thoughts whenever there's a moment of quiet. There have been a lot of moments of quiet for you lately. You can't even strike up a conversation with the survivors to keep yourself occupied."

"You want me to tell you that I was miserable the whole time?" he asked.

"No, but if you needed to talk about it...I'm here."

"I guess I've been feeling pretty useless," he replied. "My arms are busted, I can't fight, I can't go on missions. I wandered around the base seeing if I could help out to keep myself busy, but all I got were funny looks. Thought maybe I could help them catch fish or sort scrap metal or something, I dunno. I've mostly been reviewing combat data, helmet cam footage and the like."

"Learn anything new?" Xipa asked, taking a drink from her flute.

"Not really," he sighed.

"I missed you out there," she admitted, Fletcher glancing across the table at her. "You're so confident, you always know exactly what to do. For all my posturing, it was the first time I've ever commanded a team in a real combat situation like that."

"You did a great job," he insisted, pausing for a moment to cough. "You accomplished your mission, and you brought everyone back alive. Nobody can ask for more than that."

"When we first set out, I wanted to be in charge," she continued as she stared into the crimson fluid that filled her glass. "I was convinced that I should be the one leading the team, but now, I'm glad Vos gave you the reins. I don't know if we would have made it here without you."

"I have a lot of experience, to say the least," he replied.

"Have you thought about what Bluejay said?" she asked.

"What, that thing about cloning? Even if it were possible - which it might not be - I'm kind of locked in here," he continued as he rolled his shoulders. "If I went back to organics, I wouldn't be able to fight anymore. Not the way I do now."

"You seem pretty sick of fighting if you ask me," Xipa added. "Every time you talk about your life in the Navy, it's with regret."

"I can't undo the choices I've made," he replied with a shrug that made the motors in his arms whir. "I did what I did, and I have to live with the consequences. At least this way, I'm useful. I'm good at what I do, and I can make a difference in the Galaxy."

"Yes, but being good at something doesn't mean that you have to enjoy it," Xipa protested as she set her glass back down on the table. "What if, after this war is over, you just...stopped?"

"And go where?" he chuckled. "How would I make a living? I dunno if I mentioned it already, but I have a pair of weapons surgically attached to my body that violate several UN treaties."

"Sometimes, we become comfortable in our unhappiness," Xipa said as she traced the lip of her flute with a clawed finger pensively. "We tell ourselves that, even though we are unhappy, this unhappiness is preferable to uncertainty. We convince ourselves that it's not necessary to change because the imagined outcome might be worse, and that happiness isn't a requirement for survival. I've only recently started to recognize that much of what I thought of as my stoicism and persistence was actually fear," she added with a flutter of purple. "I pushed people away because I was afraid of losing them, not because I was focused on my work or because I was too proud to need companionship. You told me that you distanced yourself from us for the same reason - because you had seen too many friends killed, and you didn't want to make more."

"Yeah, that's what I said," he muttered. He paused to down most of his glass in one gulp, then reached for the bottle. "I guess I just couldn't keep that up with you guys. It's worth being your friend, even if there's the possibility of losing you."

"You never really told me what happened between you and your family," Xipa continued, taking another puff from the hookah.

"Why am I like this, you mean?" Fletcher chuckled. "Fuck it, I might as well tell you," he continued as he refilled his glass to its rim. "Who else am ever I gonna talk to about it?"

"Only if you're comfortable with it," Xipa added, Fletcher scoffing at her concern as he took a drink.

"No point stepping on eggshells when the eggs are already scrambled. The thing about me and my family is..." He paused, taking another generous drink from his flute. "It's not really about what happened, but what didn't happen. I'd already gone all-in on the Navy by the time I had my accident, and after that, I doubled down rather than retire. I figured that I wasn't really good for anything else, and I might as well hyper-specialize if it meant being useful. I got recruited by SWAR, and they sent me all over the Galaxy doing shady shit, stuff that I still can't talk about without some Ninnie spook breathing down my neck. We did a lot of good. Some bad, too. I lost a lot of close friends, and some who were more than friends," he added as he turned his eyes to his drink. "It makes it...hard to form connections with people."

"Because you were scared they'd die," Xipa said, Fletcher nodding. "I sympathize..."

"Being in the Navy, you get sent all over the place, and you rarely have access to superlight comms. You can go months without being able to get a message back home. I was already in sporadic contact with my family, and when I joined SWAR, it got even harder to stay in touch. SWAR became my family, because there wasn't anybody else."

"So, you had no falling out with your people?" Xipa asked, tilting her head quizzically.

"Not as such," he replied, shifting his weight in his seat uncomfortably. "I hadn't had an opportunity to get a message to them in years by that point, and I hadn't visited them for even longer. You just can't when you're doing wetwork and black ops shit. You can't exactly break radio silence while behind enemy lines so you can send a Christmas card to your folks."

"What happened after you left SWAR?" Xipa asked.

"I didn't like the culture the organization was starting to develop," he explained, reaching for his hose. He took a drag, Xipa waiting patiently for him to continue. "It wasn't what I joined up for, so I cut ties. I guess that was my last opportunity to get back in touch with the people from my old life," he sighed. "They probably didn't know if I was dead or alive, so I figured - why change that? What good would it do them to have me back in their lives? I was a beat-up old Marine with more baggage than a spaceport terminal. I couldn't just swap out my prosthetics and take up gardening. Besides, I was almost certainly going to die soon anyway, so why make them go through the grieving process all over again? I kept moving forward and decided never to look back."

"Do you regret it?" Xipa asked, seeing the answer in his face before he'd had a chance to reply.

"Sometimes, I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd just retired after my accident," he said. "The UNN would have given me some civilian-grade prosthetics along with a pension and sent me on my way with an honorable discharge. I could have gone back home, maybe met a girl, had a couple of kids by now. It's...hard for me to imagine being anything else," he added as he raised his prosthetic hands to examine them. "All I've done for the last twenty years is fight. I kept putting myself in more and more dangerous situations expecting my luck to run out, but it never did. Pretty much everyone I've ever known is dead, and I'm still here..."

"That's the line that you told me not to cross," Xipa mused, taking a puff from her hose. "Fletcher, why do you have such a low opinion of yourself?" she demanded.

"What do you mean?" he chuckled. "Vos picked me for this gig because I'm the best. If anything, I have too high an opinion of myself."

"I'm a better person for knowing you," she continued, the Earth'nay blinking at her in surprise. "You can be an ass sometimes, but only because you make a conscious effort to be one. As soon as I get you talking, you prove yourself to be wise and considerate. Ruza is right when he says that you're a good Alpha. You care about us, you've kept us safe. This whole time, you've tried to keep us at arm's length by being disagreeable, and it hasn't worked. You are wrong to assume that your family wouldn't be better off knowing you. You are wrong to think that no mate would tolerate you."

"What's with the pep talk?" he asked, still trying to brush it off as a joke. He downed half of his flute in one go, as if seeking refuge from her piercing stare at the bottom of the glass. "Did you smoke too much herb?"

"Can we both just...stop running?" Xipa blurted, her feathers flushing purple. "This evacuation is probably going to get us all killed tomorrow. If we survive, what happens next? Are you just going to go find some new war to fight? I don't want to be the way I am anymore," she added, gritting her teeth to stave off another purple flutter. "I don't want to go back to an empty office and pretend that being alone is a choice. It's not what my flock would have wanted, it's not what I want. I'm staying here - it's where I belong - and I'm going to find a new flock and make a new life."

"Xipa," Fletcher began, but she cut him off.

"Why don't you stay too?" she asked, practically pleading now. "You keep telling yourself that it's too late for you, but that's just another way of avoiding change. It's not too late. I can help you - we can help each other. We're going to need people to help us rebuild Kerguela, and I know that you can do that. Let's make something new rather than dwell on the past. You're the only person I've ever met who really understands me, and I want you by my side, whether you think you deserve it or not."

"You're gonna have to clarify what you mean, because if this is some Valbaran thing-"

"I'm saying I need you," she growled, growing frustrated with his evasiveness. She picked up her own glass, downing the liquid courage within. "You wanted me to be vulnerable and let people in? Well, here you go - the door's wide open."

"But...I thought you didn't like humans?" he asked, looking as flustered as she had ever seen him. "If I recall correctly, you said something along the lines of there is nothing attractive about a featherless, scaleless primate that walks on its ankles."

"Clearly I've come around," she grumbled, slamming her empty flute back down on the table.

"What about Bluejay?" Fletcher continued. "I thought you two were getting along pretty well?"

"I'd be robbing the incubator," she laughed. "Bluejay is sweet, and more innocent than he lets on, but he deserves someone closer to his own age to explore with. He doesn't need some bitter old woman tarnishing his youth. You and I are the same," she added, glancing up at Fletcher with her one good eye. "I've never been able to talk about these things with anyone before, and my burdens feel all the lighter because of it. I...I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not for you."

"If I wasn't used to hanging around SWAR chicks, I might be intimidated by someone coming on so strong," Fletcher chuckled.

"Well, that's how we do things where I come from," Xipa replied as she inhaled a calming lungful of herb to steady her nerves. "You might not be as small or as prissy as the boys I'm accustomed to, but it seems that I have to chase your tail just the same."

"Nobody has really given a shit about me in a long time," he replied, looking pensive as he leaned back into the cushions of their booth. "Not like you," he added, glancing up at her. "You really want to be around me after the way I treated you guys?"

"I think you got your comeuppance," she replied, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Unless you want me to fetch Bluejay and have him punch you in the head a second time for good measure."

"You realize that one or both of us could die tomorrow," he added, Xipa's headdress fluttering an impatient red.

"All the more reason to stop dancing around the issue," she replied, letting a hint of irritation creep into her voice. "So, what do you say?"

"Hanging out with you makes me feel...almost normal again," he admitted, a rare flash of vulnerability crossing his scarred face. "I've been looking forward to our little lounge visits more than I've looked forward to anything in a very long time. If you want to take that further, see where it goes, I'm game. If you want me to stay...then I'll stay. I'm not letting another opportunity slip past me."

"Good," Xipa replied, a flush of pink and yellow spreading through her feathers despite her attempts to appear calm and in control. With any luck, Fletcher wouldn't realize that it was a display of excitement and that her heart was pounding against her rib cage like a hammer. "Now, how much wine and herb does it take to put you on your back? We don't have all night."

Fletcher choked on the lungful of smoke he'd just inhaled, Xipa watching in amusement as he struggled through a fit of chuckling and coughing.

"You really don't beat around the bush, do you?" he finally sputtered. He paused to take another drink, tapping his chest with a polymer fist.

"I'd say it's a safe bet that you haven't been with anyone since you left SWAR, and I've been too focused on conquering planets to go lounge hopping," she replied. "I don't need to beat around the bush. I'm too old for games."

"Well, I'm high as fuck, and I've had enough wine to think that tangling with you is something I'm gonna survive."

"Let's go somewhere," she added, rising out of her seat a little in her haste. She settled again, suppressing a flush of embarrassed pink. "Somewhere private, where we can be alone together. Damn, this place is so densely populated..."

"The generator room," Fletcher suggested, Xipa glancing across the table at him. "There was nobody down there when I went to take a look around. With everyone busy packing, I doubt anyone will have a reason to disturb us. It's noisy, too. Nobody will hear us if we get loud."

Xipa felt like there was an electrical current coursing through her body. How long had it been since she had felt this way - since she had allowed herself to feel anything?

She picked up the wine bottle by the neck and downed the rest of its contents, Fletcher smirking at her as she exhaled a hiss.

"Follow me," he said, rising to his feet with an electrical whir. "I might not have a Valbaran memory, but I remember the way."

CHAPTER 2: NEVER TOO LATE

Xipa could hear the generators before they had even arrived, their low hum filling the carbcrete corridors. The path had led them into the deepest bowels of the base, likely to the lowest level, where as little noise and vibration as possible would reach the surface. They passed a few confused residents on the way, Xipa hoping that her pink feathers didn't give her intentions away too readily, but this part of the facility seemed to be deserted.

Fletcher led her into a more open room, this one lined with rows of green-painted generators, each one about the size of a truck trailer. She took a moment to examine them, momentarily distracted. These generators were similar to the portable one that had been used to keep the distress beacon active, albeit far larger and stationary. They ran on biofuel, which was produced by breaking down organic waste into ethanol that could fuel combustion.

"These must have been used as backup generators when the treatment plant was still running," she mused, walking over to examine one of the machines more closely. She noticed the thick, insulated cables that trailed along the wall behind them, carrying electricity deeper into the facility. "They must be running the whole place off these things. The lights, the ventilation system, the water treatment."

"They're pretty loud," Fletcher replied, raising his voice a little over the dull roar. It wasn't an irritating sound, however - more of a droning background noise. "They put rubber pads on the floor to minimize the vibrations," he added as he gestured to the legs that held up the generators.

"Clever," Xipa mused. "I can barely feel it from here, which means that the Bugs would have a hard time detecting it from the surface."

"Did you come down here to look at generators or to get off?" Fletcher joked, Xipa turning to give him a mock frown.

"You're awfully confident," she said, a flutter of excited yellow passing through her feathers. "Are you so certain that you can handle me?"

"I've been with women who could twist my head off, but I feel like I should still tread lightly with you," he replied. "Never been with a Valbaran before, and I wasn't planning on it before tonight."

"I know that we have very different cultures," Xipa began as she took a step towards him. "I'm sure that it would take even a Valbara'nay time to learn the intricacies of Earth'nay courtship, to learn how to express her desire in a way that respects your traditions and customs. I just want you to know that...I don't give a damn about any of that."

She reached out her tail like a tentacle, wrapping it around one of his wrists, and began to lead him between two of the nearest generators.

"Alright," he chuckled, stumbling along after her as he tried to match her bobbing gait. "I guess that goes both ways?"

"Unless you want to do a courtship dance for me," she replied, turning to glance at him with a flutter of amusement. "Without feathers, that's going to be a little hard."