Choices

©1995 Richard P. Nixon

“Alert! Alert! They came from nowhere! Zero five…”

Casvar screamed into his comms system as the routine test flight exploded around him. With weapon blasts slamming his ship, he struggled to deadeye the last of five Solian raiders that had all been in synchronous purpose: to destroy him…

With determination oozing from his pores, Casvar noted the sizzling of blown circuits behind him as he scanned the tactical readout. He had just enough time to punch the distress beacon release before maneuvering sharply to zero in on the remaining ship trying to outflank this new, and unproven, craft.

“You bloodthirsty murderers. No, you don’t!” he shrieked as his eyes fixed on the target. Clenching the fire-control trigger, he pulled round and lined up the shot, the point-charge emitter blazing continuously at the Solian. Blinded by the flash from his weapons and that of the enemy craft disintegrating, he didn’t see the plasma overload warning.

In an instant, the coolant regulator exploded, sending debris ricocheting throughout. Power couplings and control systems shorted and ruptured, spewing flames and smoke that singed his face and lungs in the small confines of the cockpit.

Squeezing his eyes shut to ease their incessant stinging, he registered a hissing sound, and as he tried to sort out what it was, his digits shuffled knowingly over the small dimples of the environmental control sequencers. One, two, three, and down one. Even obscured, he could see each clearly – in his mind. He knew this ship inside and out; every system, every quirk. Not fit for combat duty, they said. Countless stolen hours of intense simulation had put him level with the best of the best.

With the fires extinguished and the smoke vented, he saw the shattered equipment panels, wrecked systems, the destruction within. He also saw his cuts and burns, wincing at the tightness of scorched flesh on his face. The acrid stench of charred conduit and skin and hair hung sickeningly in his nostrils, yet there was no pain; only a strange sense of calm that drew his gaze to the stars swirling chaotically as the ship tumbled out of control.

His breathing became easier, but the moment of relief was cut short as another explosion ripped him into darkness.

A distant voice, then two, grew louder and more distinct, yet oblivious to his presence, as if he were a third-party observer and not really there. The darkness started to take form, and he recognized a familiar yet puzzling sensation. No longer was he seated, but lying, looking up at a sky peppered with small points of light that were the stars. A brighter light, a crescent moon, illuminated the scene with a subtle glow that made the memory complete.

“You look upon the stars and see beyond the points of light.” 

“What?” Casvar asked.

“You look upon the stars and see beyond the points of light,” the soft female voice repeated.

Casvar turned his head to Ilayne, his strength and love, savoring the rapid wondrous flicks of her eyes that quickened his heart in anticipation.

She picked up on his questioning look and pointed skywards. “Everyone else sees the stars as points of light separated by insurmountable distance. ‘Look inward and see the world instead,’ they say. You don’t want to see the world, but the worlds, and that’s what makes you…unique!”

Ilayne smiled, her dark glimmering curls falling about her shoulders, the sweet exotic scent of Malusa shampoo he gave her caressing the inside of his nostrils.

Casvar had always been shy around others, channeling his fear into his academics, goals, and dreams. Yet with Ilayne, he was different. He relished her company and, like an addiction, craved her presence when they were parted. Something about her was so comforting. Perhaps the unspoken language: the sparkle in her eyes that never failed to bring him to a smile, the warmth of her voice that was so alluring, or the softness of her touch that tingled the hairs on his nape; he didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. Like a half to his whole, she made his life complete.

“Ilayne? I want to ask a question. I’m certain of my thoughts, but…” He hesitated, trying to put the right words in the best order.

Ilayne reached out and tenderly cupped his face, her eyes glistening in the dim light. She said nothing as she leaned forward and kissed him, easing his trembling body as easily as she eased his trembling mind. As she slowly drew away, the torrents of anxiety twisting his stomach subsided, but still he had trouble finding the words. He was captivated by her presence. Her flicks scanned his eyes, expectantly, excitedly, drawing his mind to focus as if, with reassurance, he could do no wrong.

With the stars shining like glitters of approval, Casvar smiled and took a deep breath. He saw through her eyes into her heart and managed five words. “May I call you wife?”

A violent jolt crushed him forward as the proximity retros engaged mercilessly. In that instant, he heard his restraint pop and his ribs crackle, but he could not scream for lack of breath as his head slammed into the control panel, sending light streaking in his eyes and a fine mist of blood in all directions.

Dazed, he saw the stars swirling more slowly, as if something had reached out to steady his fragile vessel, but his attention was focused on something else.

A faint aura of color grew in the distance, devouring the specks of light in his path. He shook his head, then rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Am I hallucinating, or going mad? Unable to control the ship, Casvar realized in terror what awaited and reached under the seat for the self-destruct mechanism handle. For a moment he pondered how easily he could attain release, but something inside ushered his thoughts away. He rescanned his instruments, broken and smoldering as they were, for some sign of encouragement, but there was none. Resigned to accepting his fate, he switched the ship to automatic and slowly drifted to unconsciousness.

He awoke leaning heavily on a large, smooth boulder whose cool surface was refreshing. There still was no pain, no sound, not even clear thought, and for a while he remained motionless, inert. When his thoughts cleared and his awareness returned, he was clenching the platinum pendant hanging about his neck.

Pulling the pendant into view, he relaxed his grip and read the inscription repeatedly. “You look upon the stars and see beyond the points of light.” Tears blurred his vision as he traced over the pendant’s delicate engraving. Ilayne had given him the pendant on their first anniversary, when everything in their lives seemed so perfect.

He shut his eyes, trying to return to that wondrous night with her, but instead, his heart began pounding, not from fear but cold anticipation.

“Ilayne, I’ve taken the assignment,” he said matter-of-factly, gloating at his wife as if daring her to disapprove.

In ten years of marriage, their lives had grown with their careers – in different directions. Perhaps the Solian War was a convenience that allowed them to ignore their personal lives until it was too late, letting the intimacy between them fade to mere familiarity. They were no longer two halves joined in whole.

Her answer didn’t matter. The assignment, primary check pilot on the project, suppressed any residual shyness he had; the frontier promised separation from her, which he looked forward to as relief, not hardship. He no longer needed her reassuring strength.

He no longer needed her at all?

“So, you’ve decided. Well, at least there’s that,” she said, her eyes scanning him with those quick but assessing flicks he’d grown accustomed to over the past few years.

He hesitated, waiting for…expecting a more passionate reaction, but quickly averted his eyes from her cold stare, cutting sharply in enmity. Yet he thought he saw something else there, something she could not hide, a sparkle familiar but out of place. A tear?

Her comm-link clicked with chatter, and, without further words, she turned away to attend to more pressing matters.

He coughed, crying out as pain rippled through him. He tasted blood and bile in his mouth and could feel the clamminess of his uniform where his life was seeping out from a tear in his side. Looking to the shattered, burned-out hulk of his ship, he shook his head in disbelief. How long had he lain there, and how had he found the strength to pull himself free when now he was so weak?

Marooned an unknown distance from friendly space, what difference did it make anyway?

There was the beacon. He fought to quell the rising uncertainty. Yes, damn it, it had to be functioning.

His eyes stared up at the cerulean sky, watching in awe as a translucent, velvety curtain of light drifted before him like a resplendent aurora from his youth.  The colors, vivid pinks and violets interspersed with blues and oranges, were more exquisite than any he’d ever imagined.

The tranquil veil shimmered one final time before fading into the darkening sky, and as the sun sank low on the horizon, its long beams fought a losing battle against the chill of the shadows.

His breath, shallow and labored, hazed in front of him in the biting cold as he struggled to maintain consciousness. Just as he began drifting into the unknown, a twinge of sweetness tingled in his nostrils. Hard to distinguish from the noxious pungency of the burned hybrid carbon alloy, it gave him the strength to hang on.

Engulfed in sadness, he cradled the pendant again as emotions crashed over him, then receded powerfully as if to pull him under. What had gone so terribly wrong between he and Ilayne that he should seek refuge from their reality by accepting what no one else wanted – a mundane assignment to the far reaches of nowhere only he could be proud of? How ironic, he thought. He longed to be alone and sometimes even wished he were dead, and now, as the last rays of light exploded a distant peak into silhouette, he was slowly being granted that wish.

The answer seemed so clear. He squeezed the pendant and pulled the chain tight to rip it from his neck, but at the last moment he stopped himself. His problems were not of anyone’s making but his own.

With remorse came enlightenment.

He loved her, still.

Through a film of wetness, he tried hard to focus on the ship’s wrecked hulk, but the light was too dim now for him to make out more than the outline. It didn’t matter. Looking at the wreckage would not change the extent of the damage.

Sleep. That was all that mattered now. He was so tired. There was nothing left to do except wait for final freedom, and he took solace knowing he had finally confronted the question that had haunted him all his life. The doubts that had been his masters had been conquered.

His eyes, glazed like a soldier’s accepting defeat, began to fade with the darkness, yet he no longer fought to keep them open. The relaxation returned, a contentment that soothed the pain and reality of his wounds. He was smiling.

Sleep. He began drifting further into the comfort of the subconscious. A world where nothing mattered. A place where he could relive any or all moments of his time in peace.

Images of childhood friends and times long since passed cascaded about in no particular order. His parents, detached from all yet clearly present, watched from undefined sidelines while a young female cried mournfully at his side.

Sleep.

He was standing subdued at a gravesite. His father and mother, murdered by the Solians, buried side by side in a lonely place on a war-ravaged planet. In the distance, he could make out words, a voice, voices, calling to him.

Sleep.

The images were ripped away in a burst of light. He struggled to adjust to the sudden brilliance as he heard a vague yet familiar voice, but the words were indistinct again.

Panicked, he thrashed about, searching for some clue to his new existence. Then his thrashing stopped as his eyes widened at a shimmering figure that seemed to be hovering nearby.

As the light intensity lessened, he rubbed his eyes furiously, trying to wipe away the manifestation of his maddened mind. This cannot be! He yelled, but there was no sound. Only the silent form slowly advanced, its features shielded from view by a white aura that reached out, touched him, and tingled on his skin. Closer it came.

“Ilayne!” No, it couldn’t be her. The figure became clearer, gesturing him to shush once more. It was her! How could she be here? Why?

From above, the intense beam of light seemed to double in brightness, sending new shock waves through him, but seeing Ilayne illuminated in the beam, he became less frightened. The pounding in his ears eased enough for him to hear his thoughts, and as he reached toward her, tendrils of light crackled where they touched, and for a moment he felt energized. Quiescent

No, he wasn’t dead, not yet, but he knew he must be close. The light, quiescent and forgiving now, drew him toward it. Slowly, he rose from the ground, but not of his doing, and drifted toward the light. He looked back at the smiling form of his wife and felt a surreal reassurance, but there was a longing as well, and as the longing grew, so his ascent into the light slowed.

Ilayne seemed to be calling to him, pulling at him, but her grip alone was not enough to stop his transcendence into what lay beyond. He wanted to touch her whole, embrace her one last time.

Again, his ascent slowed.

In desperation, he lunged toward her, his face contorted with effort.

His ascent stopped.

With the last of his strength unleashed in one tremendous exertion, he broke free of the light’s grip, crashing onto the planet’s surface before her.

Smiling, she leaned forward and cupped his face tenderly, as if no time had passed since that precious moment so many years ago. Slowly, she drew him toward her. When his mouth touched hers, the tingle of electricity flowed through him, enhancing the sweetness of their embrace.

He held her tightly as if somehow they could stay this way forever, but the pain in his side increased until he cried out loud, collapsing against her.

The light began pulsing, changing color rapidly and no longer drawing him toward it. A roaring sound, neither the deafening rush of blood nor his imagination, reverberated through him, tearing at his senses yet dulling the nerves, crushing him under its weight.

Ilayne touched him, caressed him, in a calming way he hadn’t felt in so long. Behind her, he could see two more forms approaching as if in slow motion. He sensed the puzzling aromas of antiseptic and sweat, of burned flesh and circuits, of muskiness and that subtle sweetness.
Sleep.

No, he was conscious. The stinging of his wounds shredded his stomach in nauseating convulsions. Immediately, he saw an object he didn’t recognize come into view, contacting his skin with the sound of a whisper. At last, through the haze, he awakened to a new realization.

“He’s conscious.”

He heard and savored the soft voice that triggered a weak smile.

Dazed still, he opened his eyes slowly. Surrounded by sterile machinery that sustained his life signs, he looked upwards for a reference to his being. Beeps and lights were all he could make out.

And then she came into focus. Ilayne. Smiling down at him, he saw the love beaming in her eyes. Reaching out, he touched her skin to feel the comfort of her warmth, the pulsing of her blood. She was real. He was real. This was real.

As Casvar gazed into her eyes, he struggled to clear his throat to speak, but all he could manage was her name.

“He’s confused, delusional,” came a voice from beyond his view.

She nodded understandingly, both in agreement with the voice and in answer to his questioning look. Motioning him to cease his efforts, she said quietly, “Don’t talk. Save your strength.”

Despite her words, Casvar knew he had to say what needed to be said. He raised up as best he could and reached for her, but he hadn’t the strength to take hold, nor to speak further. Relaxing his muscles, he fell back, despondent at his failure. Then, remembering what she had taught him, he signed what he could not say, hoping his message would be clear.

“I do still love you.”

Then a stench wafted into his nostrils. Exotic and pungent, it was like urine left uncleaned and fermenting. Stronger it grew, causing him to gag and turn his head to one side as if to vomit.

Then he saw it, his eyes widening in shock, disgust, and surprise. Just beyond his reach lay a body, tattered and grotesquely disfigured. Strapped securely in place, it conformed easily to the intricate contours of the form-fitting medical bed. Its skin, where he could see it, was mottled and pale. Two long limbs, bent in the middle and ending in smaller lengths angled nearly perpendicular to the rest, extended down from the lower torso almost the length of the bed. Two shorter limbs, also bent in the middle, attached to its upper torso one on either side. At their ends were grapplers made up of long, thin multi-segmented manipulators that could wrap around a throat with ease.

The head, solid and rounded, was covered mostly with fine brown strands singed and in disarray. Where there was no covering, more puffy pale skin, scorched and mottled, seeped red tinges from cuts much like his own. Two fleshy parts between which was a slit he assumed was a mouth, gaped to reveal the white hard caps of teeth. Just above, a protrusion for a pair of nostrils. But the eyes, deep blue and vacant, stared out fearful yet defiant.

The body was enemy. Solian.

Human.