Nowhere to be alone, then. Of course, given her mood, perhaps that wasn’t so bad.
The pub was both overcrowded and more subdued than she was used to seeing it. All the tables were filled, and soldiers stood in groups, drinks in hand, some talking in low voices, others just looking around or staring down at their feet. The pub’s wide windows faced into the stars, the view uninterrupted by planets, space stations, or other ships. Greg would have done that deliberately: positioned them so the most popular common space on the ship would not be overlooking the wreck. He was always so careful about such things. How many hours since she had spoken to him? She could not remember. She could not remember much of the day, now that she was thinking of it. That numbness, more familiar than it should be.
God, I need sleep.
Instead she scrounged a cup of tea from the bar and wandered toward the windows, letting her eyes rest on the stars, willing the tension out of her body, trying to relax, muscle by muscle. But the stars were letting her down: all she could see, every time she blinked, was burned corpses, disintegrating filament, and the last Syndicate ship escaping into the dark. She closed her eyes, and she saw the dead woman again, and in her ear Farias whispered, “No help …”
“Songbird?”
That familiar voice, so hesitant. For a moment she felt something that was not despair. She opened her eyes and turned to face him. “Dee,” she said, and almost smiled.
Even while shifting debris with him on Exeter, she had noticed how little he had changed over the years, although she supposed her memory was selective. Apart from his formerly shaved head—now covered in half of a tight-curled centimeter of black hair—and the utter exhaustion on his face, he could still have passed for twenty-six. His face was unlined and unscarred, despite his battle experience, and his broad shoulders were still well-defined enough to show through his thick uniform shirt. She remembered wondering, when she had first met him, if any of it was fat; and then she had seen him training, half-dressed, his dark skin stretched over nothing but muscle and sinew. She remembered how his skin felt under her hands as she traced those muscles with her palm: smooth and cool, except when he woke at night, when it felt clammy, her palms sticking as she tried to soothe his nerves. The nightmares had lessened before she left, but they had not disappeared, and she wondered if he still had them.
She did.
Part of her wanted to embrace him again, just to prove to herself that he really was all right; but he was not on his own. Jimmy Youda stood next to him, looking less exhausted, but far more drunk. She gave him a nod, and a smile, and he waved his glass blearily at her. Uninjured, at least; she wondered where he had been during the battle.
He had aged less gracefully than Dee, although he had started out more handsome: lean, chiseled, striking—almost as head-turning as Greg, although without the sharp wit in his eyes. But he had more lines on his face than she remembered, more than men she knew who were older, and she wondered how his career had gone after she left. Dee had become second-in-command; not the youngest in the fleet, but still recognized earlier than most. Jimmy had acquired his M.D., and was a lieutenant commander on Exeter’s medical team. An average promotion run: not exceptional, but certainly nothing to be ashamed of.
He’s in charge of Exeter’s medical team now, she thought, remembering the quick look she’d had at the casualty list.
Jimmy had always handled his drinking impressively well, she recalled; anesthetizing himself at night seemed to leave him fit for duty during the day. She suspected he was close to numb by now. She couldn’t blame him. If she were capable of drinking, she would have taken the same approach. Of course Jimmy always got angry, she recalled, before the anesthetic took proper effect. On this day she was not inclined to blame him. “How are you holding up?” she asked him.
Jimmy snorted something that sounded like a laugh, and stared into his glass. “Is that a joke?” he asked, tossing back the remains of the drink.
“No,” she said, “but that sounds like an answer.”
His eyes shot into hers, angry and resentful. “Still judging, I see.”
“Come on, Youda,” Dee said.
“But that was always your thing, wasn’t it?” Jimmy went on, as if Dee had said nothing. “Tell us all what we should feel. How we should handle it. You going to tell me how I should handle this?”
His rage was palpable, and it felt strangely personal. “I’m not going to tell you anything,” she replied, as gently as she could. Why would she try to tell anyone how to process something like this?
Jimmy fell silent, mollified, and Dee risked looking away from him. “I heard you got Farias out of the brig alive. Have you talked to him yet?”
She shook her head. “I just got back.” And she suspected it would be some time before the man would be ready to talk to anyone. Still, while she had Dee’s attention, she risked doing some fishing. “Dee, the way we found him—was there someone in your brig when you were attacked?”
“Why do you want to know?” Jimmy asked her. His tone was just short of being openly hostile, and she remembered, then, how he had behaved after Canberra, where they had lost only one man. Jimmy’s usual, somewhat forced charm had disintegrated into prickly hostility, the reality of what they had been through removing most of his desire to get along with anyone. Canberra had knocked his legs out from under him; she could only guess what this incident had done.
She decided to be as honest as she could. “I was wondering about the dead raider I found outside,” she said. “If he was the prisoner. If they might have been trying to break him out.”
“Did a pretty shitty job of it if they were, didn’t they?”
Jimmy had always been a good medic, and she had no doubt he was now a good doctor; but when he wasn’t dealing with a patient, he could be tiresomely cynical. “Actually,” she pushed, “it occurred to me they were executing him. It’s possible he got caught in that alcove by accident, but I doubt it.”
She had expected curiosity at that remark, or even defensiveness. Instead, Dee and Jimmy exchanged a quick glance, and she brought her chin up. “What is it?” she asked.
Dee said, “Nothing,” just as Jimmy said, “None of your business, Shaw.”
Shit. Like hell it’s none of my business. “You know something.” Her eyes went to Dee, who was looking away. “Both of you.”
“We know it was a waste,” Jimmy snapped.
“Shut up,” Dee hissed at him, and shot her an apologetic glance. “He’s drunk,” he explained.
“Yeah, but he’s talking to me,” she said, turning back to Jimmy. “What was a waste?”
“He shouldn’t even have been prosecuted, if you ask me,” Jimmy declared, his thick tongue loosened. “He was following orders. He was a patriot.”
Elena began to wonder how long he had been drinking. “The raider was a patriot? What are you talking about?”
Jimmy ignored her interruption. “They hung him out to dry because they didn’t need him anymore, thanks to you. You never could mind your own fucking business, Shaw.”
“Shut the fuck up, Youda. That’s an order,” Dee snapped.
“Fuck you, Keita. I’m the fucking chief of medicine now. You have no authority over med.”
Elena ignored their squabble, her head spinning with blind confusion. “My fault? How could an attack in the Third Sector be my fault?”
“Youda,