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Reading Room
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Reading Room
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Epilogue
Captain Orris was terribly tired. He had spent several hours with Captain Collis and Joan d'Arc's navigation officer, considering all the options for their return path. Collins had informed them about the routes Admiral Garil's had been following during his operations, and some of them could be used for the return path. Trailblazer's navigation officer had been very imaginative, to say the least. But when they finished a terrible headache made him remember how many hours he had gone without having any sleep. Now his crew could do just fine without him for a while. He sat on the narrow bed and started to remove his boots when the door chimed. Oh, no, can't they do anything on their own if I'm not on the bridge?
"I hope you've got a good reason," he said while he put the boots on again.
"I wanted to drop off my report - I'm sorry, I can wait until a better time-" Lieutenant Commander Schroeder said hesitantly.
"Of course you could, I can think of quite a few better times, but since you're here already, enter."
"Thanks, sir." Foxfire took a seat and put it in front of the Captain, who'd sat down again on the bed. "I didn't have a chance to talk to you after all this, you know-"
"Please, Lieutenant Commander, save the introductions and go directly to the point."
After the time she'd had, Foxfire was ready to stalk out of the room before she started yelling, but something in Captain Orris told her that he wasn't really angry, nor being rude- from his particular point of view, at any rate. Well, if she had to work with the man, she had to try and understand him.
"All right- First, our mission was to stop Admiral Garil at any price whatever, as long as we could keep him from attacking any more civilians. Then, all of us wanted to rescue those prisoners, specially after learning what had happened when they were captured, but-you had something more in mind, didn't you?"
Captain Orris observed her in silence for a long moment, so long than Foxfire thought that the Captain would never reply. "Yes, there was something. You were there, on that bridge, beside the Admiral. You could see him better than I. He was a good soldier, but there was nothing left of him when we caught up - consumed by hate and desperation, something all of us have experienced some time. You, I, everyone could become as mad as the Admiral if pushed hard enough. I wanted to run away from there when their crew had been transferred to the Joan d'Arc. We were risking the loss of more lives than the ones we were trying to save, it would have been the most logical thing to do but-"
"You had given him your word, is that it?"
"No, and you know it. Keeping promises is one thing, but I can break them if I think that I'm getting something more important, like saving others' lives. It's not that different from disobeying an order, you know, if you are completely sure that's the right thing." Foxfire blushed when the Captain said that, but he continued talking, discipline was not his point this time. "No, Lieutenant Commander. In this case there was something else." He paused, as if thinking how to express what he had in mind, then just shrugged and said it as best he could. "We had to save the soul of a good man. By doing so, we could save the part of him that is inside all of us."
Foxfire didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure if that was the answer she had come looking for, but she had to think about it. During the last weeks, the memories of her last mission with Praying Mantis Squadron, when they had to fight to return home, losing friends at every step of the way, had been ever-present in her mind. In some way, she had thought that she could understand the Admiral; she had felt that same desire for death more than once on that mission. In the moments before the battle, with the fresh vision of what the Imperials had done to that woman, she had even thought about shooting a couple of missiles against Harrier when everything ended, and kill whoever was on board. But when she had the chance, just when Barris took off from the Corvette, that thought had been left behind. Finally, the damned ship was destroyed, like some kind of poetic justice, but that didn't matter. She wondered if Captain Orris was right, if all they had something like Admiral Garil inside, one that needed to be saved from what blind hate could do with it.
"Are you going to stay up there much longer, Lieutenant Commander?" the Captain asked with a look that was equal parts tiredness and impatience.
"No - sorry, sir." She started to leave, but stopped when she was at the door.
"Sir?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think we did it?"
"Did what, Lieutenant Commander?"
"Saved him."
Orris thought about the people they had rescued, the woman who had been tortured, and Captains Sera's and Collin's expressions when they took the floating stretcher themselves to the medical facilities. He wondered if the Admiral had been able to hear Collins' last message, but he decided that one way or another, he'd received it. Orris nodded slowly.
"Yes, Lieutenant Commander. We did it."
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