Wild Space Pt. 04

"Don't, just shhh. Don't talk. I don't want to lose you. I can't lose you. I already lost somebody."

"Where are we going...?"

"Time for that later. A lot of time, it's a long hop. Now rest." Sita heard Edge crack open a medical pak, a needle in her thigh and that was the end of that.

Her days were reduced to a few hours of fitful wakefulness, lots of medication, ointments. The nanos were doing their thing but the burns took the longest to heal. On her face was the worst: raised scars much darker than her milky pale skin. She thought they were fearsomely ugly, and they were all over her body. Getting rid of them would be a largely cosmetic procedure, one that couldn't even be undertaken right away, and likely not for a long time, given her current predicament. She was fervently glad that the Horizon didn't have many mirrors, but her fingers seemed to constantly find the ugly, painful scars all the same.

Edge was also suffering from multiple injuries that had accumulated not only over the past few days but a veritable lifetime of hard use on her body. When Sita's injuries were relegated to cosmetic she insisted on caring for the other woman.

"I am not used to...someone else." Edge said in a voice that was both characteristically shy and characteristically stubborn. "I can take care of myself."

"I know you can, but I'll be here until we get where we're going. Might as well relax."

On the fifth morning of their journey Sita was awakened for the first time by Edge slipping out of her bed early. She had been warned that the captain of the Horizon was an early riser, that she liked to exercise first thing. But instead of heading to the Horizon's tiny makeshift gym space, Edge went to the cockpit, far at the end of the vessel. Curious, Sita slipped from her bed roll and followed quietly.

Edge sat in the captain's chair, one muscular leg thrown up on the armrest, wearing her physical training gear. She tilted her head, her long black hair sliding with the motion, and sniffed heavily. Then tilted to the other side and repeated the performance. Finally she watched the stars in their endless formations. Her chin drooped a few times, heavily, until she caught herself and awakened with a few grunting sniffs. Finally, she stood, still staring out the viewport and turned.

"What are you doing?" Sita asked.

The muscular brown skinned woman wasn't startled. She coolly appraised the situation and crossed her arms. "You spying on me, Ranger?"

"Well," She replied, suddenly realizing she had been. "You said you wake up early to exercise."

"I don't exercise, lady. I train. The difference between training and exercising is the difference between a real soldier and a Barrens Ranger."

"No need to be rude," Sita said, annoyed, feeling distressed. For a moment there Edge had sounded like Ensign Alla, with her constant attitude. "I didn't mean to pry, I just was wondering why you weren't training like you said you would be."

"How is that any of your business?"

"It's not, I just..." Sita faltered, then spoke up, a bit more bravely. "Edge, look. I knew what you were doing."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"Because I don't want you using vibrants!" She had enough. Edge was stringing her along like a smart mouth perp who knew they were going to be bailed out any minute.

"Don't fucking worry about me, Sita. It's none of your damn business. Just stay out of my way for the rest of the trip, got it?" Edge shoved past her, hitting her with her shoulder just a bit to get her message across.

The incident apparently set Edge off for days. Sita saw her frequently, as that couldn't be avoided on a ship the size as small as the Horizon, but its captain took to sleeping in other areas, even on the cold deck. Whenever she happened to pass the other woman in the passageways there was an unspoken anger, a black cloud that quickly drove Sita away. Nights she would perform her ablutions, look at her now hideous reflection in the mirror, the bumpy dark burn scars, and have herself a good cry before turning in.

By the second night of that Sita had become so exhausted from the entire routine that she resolved to do something about it. Edge now took her meals and slept in the cockpit. After the latest round of bland rations Sita made her way up there and braced herself for confrontation.

The look she received upon setting foot in Edge's new private area was nothing short of scorching. Sita felt her face flame up. I've already lost, she thought. But she sat down in the copilot's seat, anyway.

"I thought I had made it clear that I didn't want to see you," Edge said flatly.

"You did," Sita replied carefully, trying to control her voice. "But I want to see you."

She saw the words have an effect on the other woman. Edge turned away to look at the stars.

"Now, how could you possibly still want to see me?"

She couldn't have been sure, but Edge almost sounded as if she truly wanted to know. Sita dared to speak up again.

"You saved my life. Twice."

"I spared it and then I saved it," Edge said with a smirk. "And that first one is contingent on me not killing you now."

"I am not in the mood to joke," Sita replied back, although she wasn't entirely sure that the other woman was truly joking. "You're hurt."

"So are you. Thanks to the nanos we'll both be healed by the time we get where we're going."

"That's not what I meant," Sita frowned. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Little spot I know," Edge said smoothly. "There is a transport every two weeks. You can hide there and then stowaway to leave."

"That's against the law."

"So is the commando mission we just undertook."

"I guess you got me there," Sita said with a ghost of a smile on her face. "What will we do there?"

"I know people." Edge said simply.

*****

The Horizon ended its hop into the isolated star system. As she had so many times before Edge entered a standard orbit the small world.

"No comm? And that's the smallest planet I've ever seen," Sita commented.

"Only a few hundred people live here," Edge replied as she maneuvered her vessel down through the planet's heavy cloud cover. "No authority, but it's safe. Quiet. An automated transport arrives every 14 days to haul off garbage and drop off supplies."

"Who lives here?" The Ranger asked.

"Vets," She told her. "The government takes care of 'em with pension, housing, education, from the lowliest, latrine sweeping private to the loftiest lady admiral. Most choose to live with their families but there are always those that don't want to or can't go back home. The brass and the nobles find planets, either too small or far too big, and start doling out land. I have a friend on this one. He can hide us until we can slip away, wait for the heat to die down."

They landed in a prefabricated Capital spaceport, the kind a Navy dreadnought could drop directly from orbit, complete with a garrison, but it had grown old, worn. It consisted of a single landing pad that someone had painstakingly maintained with fresh glowplates. Edge caught Sita's eye.

"My work," She said as the Horizon touched down. "You should have tried landing here before, especially at night. It was like trying to thread a needle while traveling faster than the speed of light."

"That doesn't sound too hard."

"Blindfolded."

"Ah."

There was no activity in the spaceport when they stepped out of the Horizon, but a pleasant breeze stirred their hair. The sun was close to setting, sending an amorphous but pretty orange blob across the sky. Edge had a rucksack across her back. Sita wondered aloud if there was any way she could help.

"No, thank you. Our ride should be arriving here soon-ah, here he is."

An old fashioned wheeled transport was bouncing over the featureless plain. An antigrav skimmer would have been quicker, but more prone to breaking down, not an issue on even an everyday backwater world, but this planetoid was practically uncharted. Much better to have a sturdy, all-terrain solar powered buggy with big, nitrile rubber wheels that could go years without maintenance. Edge watched, it ease its way into the temporary spaceport. When it stopped the driver merrily honked its tiny horn, which sounded buzzy, high pitched and comical.

The man that stepped out of it had ginger hair with streaks of iron, watery green eyes, and a face that was an exhausted wrinkled mask. His forehead and cheekbones were very prominent, as was his beak of a nose. One of his legs ended in a cheap bionic limb, making it awkward for him to step out of his vehicle. He was armed, however: across his still broad back was an X1 rifle and shoved into the waistband, just to the side of his prominent belly, was the same powered fighting knife that Capital Army soldiers seemed to favor. When he caught sight of them he frowned through his rust and silver beard and began to go for his weapon.

"Hevik!" Edge shouted. She raised her hands to him. "It's me, Matha!"

"How do you know those names?' The man demanded to know, his voice tight. He was no longer awkwardly reaching behind his back for his rifle.

"It's me, old friend. I had to come disguised. Not now, before. I know all about the rocket that took off your leg and killed your squad. I'll explain more." She squinted at his vehicle. "Is that old buggy of yours still got the third seat ripped out?"

"Yeah," Hevik said carefully. "And why did I rip out the third seat?"

"You spilled liquor on it and forgot about it for a week, ended up stinking up the whole buggy and there was no cleaning the seat." Edge smiled. "Believe me now?"

"I'm getting there. You want to tell me why you look so different, Matha?"

"Later. For now we have to get away from the spaceport." Edge told him crisply. She waited. Her friend hadn't pulled a gun on her so she walked towards him, her own hands far away from her carbine. "This is Sita. She needs a place to hide out for a week or two. We were hoping you would be hospitable."

"I suppose I don't have to shoot you right away. Thanks for bringing a friend. If she doesn't want to ride on your lap then we've got the trunk," Hevik said, squinting and pointing to the empty back seat of the buggy.

"Don't worry. She's small."

***

She ended up declining the offer of sitting on Edge's lap. They rode a long, flat way over the plains, the three of them squeezed together in the front. Hevik had plenty of room to open up the engine, gun the buggy through the featureless plains. Sitta could see for miles in every direction, and the ride was not bumpy in the least.

On the way, Edge had explained her past to Hevik, most of which Sita already knew. The necessity of deceiving him in a small way. The older man took it surprisingly well.

"I know your kind," He yelled over the noise of the engine and the wind. Ordinarily a soft spoken man, his voice strained to reach such a volume. "Cloak and dagger type. Intel. It's a damn dirty game, full of dishoney, doublecross and not one bit of honorable combat. Surprised that you're one of them!"

"I'm not anymore. I am officially retired, in more ways than one." Edge shouted back. "I'm sorry, old friend. I couldn't risk your life."

"It's not that big of a risk. Not that much of a life."

"Stop."

After they had reached the prefab buildings that Hevik used as a homestead he began to make a fire and Sita offered to help, but the gruff man told her to sit down and enjoy a drink while he got to work. He likes being self sufficient out here, she realized. Besides, she likely would have only gotten in the way when it came to setting up a camp. She accepted a glass when Edge passed it to her. The liquid was iridescent and amber in the growing firelight. Whatever was inside smelled surprisingly smooth, not at all like the rotgut she was expecting. Sita raised a delicate brown eyebrow at the other woman.

"All the vets get the very best. They don't require much, so what does the government care?" Edge said. "Go on, don't let it evaporate."

The whiskey hit her right in the chest like a fiery punch, and the pain of the impact grew headier and deeper before passing. Sita felt the first smile in days pass her lips.

"Not having any?" She asked Edge. The bottle was between her feet as she reclined on her chair.

"No. No, I had better not." Came Edge's reply. She sounded uncertain, awkward about the refusal. Thankfully they were interrupted.

"Fire'll be going all night. I'm going to retire to my bedchamber, ladies." Lit by the glow and wreathed in smoke, Hevik gave them each a small nod and then locked glances with Edge. "You and I need to have a talk tomorrow."

"I know it."

"Fine. Goodnight, all."

"Goodnight." They said together.

"So how many people live here on this world?" Sita quietly asked Edge after they had spent a few minutes staring into the flames, listening to the crackle of wood.

"Few hundred, I said. Remember?"

"All vets like you and Hevik?"

"That's right." Edge gave the smaller woman a level glance. "Why, thinking of running off?"

'That wouldn't make much sense," Sita replied, surprised. The thought had occurred to her. She covered it with another sip of whiskey.

"I don't think it would either, so don't do it."

"I don't have anywhere to go anyway."

Edge's dark eyes had miniature flames in them. Her hair was wild still from the windy ride and the way she sat in her chair, powerful form hunched, elbows on her thick thighs, she looked like the statue of a war goddess in repose. The expression on her face was hard and grim, like an animal.

"I'd say you're right." The stocky woman finally said.

"I've not been wanting to say it aloud or even think it since that rock fell on Alla," Sita studied her glass of whiskey. It was a nanofactured material, perfectly shaped but it felt sterile in her hand, not at all like the drinking glasses and steins back on the base at the Cloud Nine Qwik Dine. By Ana, it felt like a million years since she had shared that last glass of whiskey with Yomp. "They're not going to take me back, are they?"

"They're not." Edge admitted after a long moment of consideration.

"They can't," Sita told her. "If they do they'll be wiped out. Right now, in addition to your and Crobe's people, my own will be hunting for me, too. Well, on the look out for me, we don't hunt anyone in the Rangers. It's not like your Army or the Naval Militia or EDG or any other high speed unit. It's just a group of men and women who for no reason at all decided to band together and protect poor people and one another. They aren't vicious or power hungry. They just wanted to help out. I wanted that too, and I wanted to make things work with my husband, but now that's all gone. As good as they are, the Rangers can't stand up to Centralia, to their destroyers and fighter platforms and interdictors and the Piranhas and the Osprey gunboats. My lieutenant, Chiugo, will know that I haven't aided and abetted a fugitive but he would be first in line to arrest me. He knows if the Capital Worlds can destroy all the Rangers, the base, all of our families in a heartbeat. And they'd do it, too, over someone as insignificant as me. I don't have anything left, I-"

Edge moved quickly, as befit a woman of her skills and her profession. In a flash she was on her feet, then kneeling before Sita, wrapping her arms around the other woman's neck, and giving Sita the softest kiss either of them had ever felt. It was hesitant at first, and then each of them sighed and melted into one another. Edge took Sita's hands and helped her to her feet. When they were both standing Sita hugged her fiercely, accidentally wiping the tears on her face against Edge's old uniform jacket, but she didn't seem to mind. The woman holding her was solid and immovable, and Sita found herself draping her smaller form around that big frame, the strong shoulders and narrow waist. Sita looked up, mouth slightly open, her gorgeous hazel eyes alive with the fire and the stars above. Edge cupped her pale cheek with her darker, callused hand, thumbed away all the tears. They kissed again, and there was nothing hesitant about it at all this time, only hungry.

Later, after their passion had been spent, Edge dropped a kiss onto Sita's brunette curls, inhaled the scent of woodsmoke from them and breathed out, "You have me."

******

The next few days passed slowly, as they tend to do with a new routine. Slowly her body seemed to reach homeostasis. The work outdoors, fresh air, and better food than ration paks did wonders. Soon Edge was feeling stronger than she had in a long time.

She had never visited Hevik with a friend, but after their big talk and a few hours he was treating Sita like a long lost sister who had finally come home. It was his way with everyone, stranger or not. He had experienced far too much pain and suffering to have a mean bone in his body any longer.

He confirmed as much to Edge as they chopped wood. Sita, fit but unused to such work, had decided to take the buggy out onto the steppe and have some time for herself. Hevik and Edge each had an old fashioned long hafted ax and were soon swinging and thunking steel into wood, each of them taking a trunk of their own. The planetoid was like that. There was plenty of everything for everybody.

"You could do this with a mechanical log splitter or some other powered tool, you know," Edge said. She had taken off her uniform top and tied it around her waist, her brown skin slick with sweat over the muscles, her torso bare except for a single restraining garment that kept modest and let her move freely. "Maybe even a laser. Make it a lot easier."

"Suppose I could use a thermal heater, too. Not have a fire at all." Despite his missing leg and belly Hevik was in his element, outdoors and at work.

"That's true."

"That'd be too fast," He said, slamming his ax soundly down into a log, making it stick. "Too easy. I'd have nothing to do but feel warm and think. Thinking can be the enemy and sometimes its a damn sight deadlier than the actual enemy. You know?"

"I do," Edge said laconically. Balancing precisely, she stood on her toes and split a thick log with enough ferocity to send the halves flying aside and her own ax sticking up. Hevik whistled.

"Good one. I'll have enough firewood to last me until your next visit."

"I don't think there is going to be one," Edge told him. She hadn't been looking forward to this moment, but she faced it head on. He deserved that. "I've told you who I really am, what happened with all of this. It was dangerous of me to even come this time, all the times before."

"I get it," He said woodenly. Hevik didn't like it either, but he saw the wisdom in it. "Just means we'll have to make the most of this...the last time I'll see you, I guess?"

Edge wanted to tell him she could come back, or take him with, but none of that would be true or fair. She could only nod. He hissed, softly.

"All the fucking shit," He said philosphically. "It's for the best. I know it, I know it. Still, I'm gonna miss you."

"I'll miss you too," Edge said softly. She chuckled and circumspectly wiped a tiny tear when the older man put a big arm around her. The friends embraced briefly.

"You don't mind that Sita and I are..." She continued, unsure how to frame it.

"Fucking?" Hevik said helpfully. "Hell, no. What, you think because you and I done the deed a time or two before I'd get jealous?"

"Well..."

"Pft. Nothing wrong with your ego, Sergeant."

"Hevik!"

"No, I am happy for you. And her, too. She seems like a good kid." His smile faded. "I mean, damn. With all you and I have been through, and you know how much that is...now I know even more about you, shit. You deserve all the happiness and pleasure you can get. Just promise me one thing...Vinjula? Or do you prefer 'Matha' still? Edge?"