Past Grief
"What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief." The Winter's Tale
“The R2 unit is getting snippy with me.” Vett’s sardonic drawl rasped out like gravel, as he glanced over to where Cody was reading a monitor screen. “Fucking droids. Someday, they’ll rise up against us and take over.”
“Happened on Earth, a long time ago.” She chuckled at the old man’s distaste for the mechanical being. He would have loved flying Earth airplanes, she bet. Cody Jean tried to tell Vett about the movie about Top Gun flyers, once, but something got lost in the translation.
“Remind me to kick the Emperor’s privileged ass when we get back.” His calloused hands moved over the controls with ease, and he brushed his long hair back out of his eyes to keep view of two ships escorting them. The Ambassador’s shuttle generally flew with two escort fighters, but this long trip had them with four. “This is a long goddamned flight, kid. Out past the satellite feeds. You must have really pissed off the Royal Dick, honey.”
“Vett, you really have to stop calling him that.” Her hands were smooth, forever young, and in contrast to his on the controls. “It’s disrespectful.”
“Would you prefer me calling him a puffed up, pompous, ungrateful, self absorbed, arrogant, petty, whore mongering piece of over inflated, gold plated, bantha shit?” The man’s voice was like tires over a country driveway, and Cody couldn’t help but giggle.
“That falls under the heading of disrespectful, too, Vett. Behave.” Her amusement was tempered by her instinctive loyalty to her friend, lover and teacher.
The grizzled old man shook his head, running his large hand through the gray hair that hung unstyled to his shoulders. “Little girl…”
“Don’t ‘little girl’ me, Vett. I happen to be over three hundred years old, which is at least a few years older than you.” One eyebrow arched in his direction, not really annoyed, but amused at the argument they had been having since leaving Boukun many days before.
“You’re a kid. Don’t care how old you are, or if you are the Royal Ambassador. You’re a damned kid, and that sombitch needs to start appreciating you more. Asshole sends you across the universe, and for what?”
“Diplomatic mission.”
“Bullshit. I’d bet my left nut that this is some made up trip to get you off the planet, hoping you and Danny Boy cool off your horny hots. Fucker’s jealous, sweets. You know it.” His grin would have been a leer, had he not known her so long.
“I’d rather not hear about your left nut…or the right one.”
”Ambassador, we’re picking up readings of ships.”
The crackle of one fighter pilot’s voice broke through the argument, and both Cody Jean and Vett began to pull up monitor screens for readings. “I’m not seeing anything. Nothing.” Cody frowned, her eyes telling her one thing and her instincts screaming to her another.
“Vector 4-OH- 7.” Vett spun his pilot’s chair, and strode back to the rear computer, hitting a few buttons before returning. “There. Two. No…three. Formation to the…five. I’m now reading five.”
Electronic blips suddenly were heard as one, and then two, then groups of targets showed on the screen. Suddenly, in the twilight sky, they could see the outline of a larger vessel, a ship that now showed on radar. Cody saw it, and visibly stiffened in her seat, reaching to push several buttons. “R2, boost all shields, and open a line of communications with the vessel.”
“Weequays.” Vett’s mind was calculating the data of ship shapes, as well as the sudden appearance in this remote area of space. They must have been lying in wait. It was unlikely that they would have been just passing through.
The droid beeped and clucked, advising that they had connected the communications to the approaching vessel. Cody took a deep breath, calming herself, before speaking quietly. “Greetings. This is the Royal Ambassador Vessel of the Planet Boukun.”
The voice returning was harsh, even in the grating language of the war loving people. “You will surrender and prepare for boarding.”
“I am the Ambassador to the Emperor, and I am on a diplomatic…”
“The Weequay people do not recognize the diplomatic status of rogue states.”
“Nontheless, the Intergalactic Treaties…”
“You may argue your case before the Council. In the meantime, you will submit to detainment on our vessel.”
There was no room for discussion. Cody glanced over to the package that Hsu had entrusted to her, remembering his admonitions of secrecy. Obviously, for him to have sent her this far, with all that was going on, it had to be of the utmost urgency. To allow it to fall into the hands of an enemy would not be acceptable. For a moment, Cody gave thought to the four pilots escorting them, all young and their lives her responsibility. But this was their job, and what they trained for.
Cody looked back to Vett, who nodded grimly. They could not be taken. They were too far out for a direct feed to the security forces in Boukun, though Vett was already sending relays of distress signals to friendly planets, and those would be bounced back to their own forces. Cody tried to buy a few minutes to maneuver in, with a calm acquiesce, which was nothing more than a ruse. “Of course. I’ll prepare the ship.”
When she flipped off the communicator to the enemy, she spoke to the four fighters with them. “Roll on my mark, head to coordinates sent. Keep your heads down, stay together and watch your flank for more fighters.”
In seconds, everything lit up with movement and noise, and they rolled their ships in an attempt to escape. Unfortunately, the superior numbers of the Weequays overrode the element of surprise. In minutes, the four young pilots were dead, their ships blown to flaming debris, and Cody’s own ship shook with a sudden jolt, as the mother ship locked a tractor beam on it. Cody opened a channel, a secure feed to allied planets, and spoke rapidly.
“This is Ambassador Cody Lane of Boukun. Our diplomatic ship is under attack from the Weequays, and we are instituting Provision V-429, in response, as a protection for secure and secret diplomatic materials. Please advise command of our decision, and assure the Emperor that his security has not been breached.” Grimly, she keyed into the computer, knowing that the information would reach MacDonald hours after their demise, but that it would give him the events for debriefing, so that they would know who the enemy was. At the end, she simply typed, ’Take care of each other. ILUA’. It was the most that she could tell them.
While she had been preparing, Vett had been looking around for the one thing, the one way to escape. The plan was to let the Weequays pull the ship on their own, then blow it with charges set within the system that would not just kill them and blow the ship, but also destroy the enemy ship. Cody and Vett would die, part of the job of protecting the empire and the man who had sent them there. Vett could deal with his own death. Hell, it was probably long overdue. But for the Immortal to die this way, after surviving more than three hundred years, that boiled his blood. Ever since he had begun to fly with her, he looked at her as a surrogate daughter. It was that emotion that led him to the rear of the ship.
It wasn’t much of a shot. For the most part, escape pods were tricky fuckers. Few mortals ever survived ejection. Mostly, they were for jettisoning cargo or droids, sometimes for escape if you could see the surface of a planet with a lot of water. Landings were rough, and there wasn’t much air in there. But Cody was Immortal, and if she died of suffocation, oh well. She would revive.
“Come on.” He reached over to unsnap her heavy harnesses.
“What? What are you doing?” She struggled as he pulled her aft, to the small chamber door. Realization dawned in her brown eyes, both of his plan, and the fact that he was going to die there, alone, trying to save her. The weight, and grief, tore through her as she shook her head. Vett threw Hsu’s package, and a box of survival gear, into the small tube, before pushing her towards it. Her flight suit wouldn’t give her much shield, but the pod had some protections, though limited.
“Get in there.”
“No. I’m not leaving you.”
“We’re both going to die, kid, if you don’t. You have a daughter, and a fucked up love life to get back to.”
“Vett, no.”
There was no time for her protests. He grabbed the blonde, pulling her tightly to him in a fierce, painful hug. She was sobbing by the time he pushed her back, shoving her head down and nearly throwing her into the pod. No words came, no sounds except the beeps and bells, as well as the grind of metal as he locked the pod door. Cody pressed her hand to the small oval glass in the door, and he put his against it, for a second, and both tried to smile.
Then the old man turned, and went to the pilot’s seat. If he timed it right, the backwash of the blast would send the pod farther, perhaps even into a gravitational pull of a planet that would give her a chance of survival. There was no other hope. The pod might well be vaporized in the explosion, or hit something. It might land on a planet she couldn’t survive on. But there was a chance, however slim, that one of them might go home, and he had to take it.
Vett waited, patiently, as the ship pulled the smaller vessel in to dock. He thought about that Earth movie that Cody had made him watch once, with the cop and the terrorists, and he grinned, looking back to the pod, and then back to the screen, as he saw the Weequay troops massing in the dock.
“Yippee Cay Yay, motherfuckers.” Two buttons were pushed, seconds apart, as the pod released, shooting out the opening into space, as the tractor beam shut down. Then he hit a red button, closing his dark gray eyes for the last time, and thinking of a redheaded girl from his youth who had borne him two babies. He was pretty sure she was waiting just beyond a star, and he began to walk towards it, as the fires of hell tore apart both ships with a force so great, the echo spread across the galaxy. The fighters from the Weequay forces not vaporized in the blast were so mesmerized by the sight of their massive destroyer disintegrating, they never noticed the tiny pod that flew past them, out into the inky darkness of space.
In a matter of hours, the chatter was heading back. It bounced from one secure channel to another, until it arrived in the most private communicator of the Security Chief of Boukun.
The Ambassador’s convoy has been destroyed…no survivors…self destruct…security unbreached…
It would be a few days before Cody’s own messages would reach her dear, beloved friend.
ILUA
It was the shorthand message she had begun to text them, back in the days on Earth, whenever she was traveling far from home.
I love you all.
Should be past grief." The Winter's Tale
“The R2 unit is getting snippy with me.” Vett’s sardonic drawl rasped out like gravel, as he glanced over to where Cody was reading a monitor screen. “Fucking droids. Someday, they’ll rise up against us and take over.”
“Happened on Earth, a long time ago.” She chuckled at the old man’s distaste for the mechanical being. He would have loved flying Earth airplanes, she bet. Cody Jean tried to tell Vett about the movie about Top Gun flyers, once, but something got lost in the translation.
“Remind me to kick the Emperor’s privileged ass when we get back.” His calloused hands moved over the controls with ease, and he brushed his long hair back out of his eyes to keep view of two ships escorting them. The Ambassador’s shuttle generally flew with two escort fighters, but this long trip had them with four. “This is a long goddamned flight, kid. Out past the satellite feeds. You must have really pissed off the Royal Dick, honey.”
“Vett, you really have to stop calling him that.” Her hands were smooth, forever young, and in contrast to his on the controls. “It’s disrespectful.”
“Would you prefer me calling him a puffed up, pompous, ungrateful, self absorbed, arrogant, petty, whore mongering piece of over inflated, gold plated, bantha shit?” The man’s voice was like tires over a country driveway, and Cody couldn’t help but giggle.
“That falls under the heading of disrespectful, too, Vett. Behave.” Her amusement was tempered by her instinctive loyalty to her friend, lover and teacher.
The grizzled old man shook his head, running his large hand through the gray hair that hung unstyled to his shoulders. “Little girl…”
“Don’t ‘little girl’ me, Vett. I happen to be over three hundred years old, which is at least a few years older than you.” One eyebrow arched in his direction, not really annoyed, but amused at the argument they had been having since leaving Boukun many days before.
“You’re a kid. Don’t care how old you are, or if you are the Royal Ambassador. You’re a damned kid, and that sombitch needs to start appreciating you more. Asshole sends you across the universe, and for what?”
“Diplomatic mission.”
“Bullshit. I’d bet my left nut that this is some made up trip to get you off the planet, hoping you and Danny Boy cool off your horny hots. Fucker’s jealous, sweets. You know it.” His grin would have been a leer, had he not known her so long.
“I’d rather not hear about your left nut…or the right one.”
”Ambassador, we’re picking up readings of ships.”
The crackle of one fighter pilot’s voice broke through the argument, and both Cody Jean and Vett began to pull up monitor screens for readings. “I’m not seeing anything. Nothing.” Cody frowned, her eyes telling her one thing and her instincts screaming to her another.
“Vector 4-OH- 7.” Vett spun his pilot’s chair, and strode back to the rear computer, hitting a few buttons before returning. “There. Two. No…three. Formation to the…five. I’m now reading five.”
Electronic blips suddenly were heard as one, and then two, then groups of targets showed on the screen. Suddenly, in the twilight sky, they could see the outline of a larger vessel, a ship that now showed on radar. Cody saw it, and visibly stiffened in her seat, reaching to push several buttons. “R2, boost all shields, and open a line of communications with the vessel.”
“Weequays.” Vett’s mind was calculating the data of ship shapes, as well as the sudden appearance in this remote area of space. They must have been lying in wait. It was unlikely that they would have been just passing through.
The droid beeped and clucked, advising that they had connected the communications to the approaching vessel. Cody took a deep breath, calming herself, before speaking quietly. “Greetings. This is the Royal Ambassador Vessel of the Planet Boukun.”
The voice returning was harsh, even in the grating language of the war loving people. “You will surrender and prepare for boarding.”
“I am the Ambassador to the Emperor, and I am on a diplomatic…”
“The Weequay people do not recognize the diplomatic status of rogue states.”
“Nontheless, the Intergalactic Treaties…”
“You may argue your case before the Council. In the meantime, you will submit to detainment on our vessel.”
There was no room for discussion. Cody glanced over to the package that Hsu had entrusted to her, remembering his admonitions of secrecy. Obviously, for him to have sent her this far, with all that was going on, it had to be of the utmost urgency. To allow it to fall into the hands of an enemy would not be acceptable. For a moment, Cody gave thought to the four pilots escorting them, all young and their lives her responsibility. But this was their job, and what they trained for.
Cody looked back to Vett, who nodded grimly. They could not be taken. They were too far out for a direct feed to the security forces in Boukun, though Vett was already sending relays of distress signals to friendly planets, and those would be bounced back to their own forces. Cody tried to buy a few minutes to maneuver in, with a calm acquiesce, which was nothing more than a ruse. “Of course. I’ll prepare the ship.”
When she flipped off the communicator to the enemy, she spoke to the four fighters with them. “Roll on my mark, head to coordinates sent. Keep your heads down, stay together and watch your flank for more fighters.”
In seconds, everything lit up with movement and noise, and they rolled their ships in an attempt to escape. Unfortunately, the superior numbers of the Weequays overrode the element of surprise. In minutes, the four young pilots were dead, their ships blown to flaming debris, and Cody’s own ship shook with a sudden jolt, as the mother ship locked a tractor beam on it. Cody opened a channel, a secure feed to allied planets, and spoke rapidly.
“This is Ambassador Cody Lane of Boukun. Our diplomatic ship is under attack from the Weequays, and we are instituting Provision V-429, in response, as a protection for secure and secret diplomatic materials. Please advise command of our decision, and assure the Emperor that his security has not been breached.” Grimly, she keyed into the computer, knowing that the information would reach MacDonald hours after their demise, but that it would give him the events for debriefing, so that they would know who the enemy was. At the end, she simply typed, ’Take care of each other. ILUA’. It was the most that she could tell them.
While she had been preparing, Vett had been looking around for the one thing, the one way to escape. The plan was to let the Weequays pull the ship on their own, then blow it with charges set within the system that would not just kill them and blow the ship, but also destroy the enemy ship. Cody and Vett would die, part of the job of protecting the empire and the man who had sent them there. Vett could deal with his own death. Hell, it was probably long overdue. But for the Immortal to die this way, after surviving more than three hundred years, that boiled his blood. Ever since he had begun to fly with her, he looked at her as a surrogate daughter. It was that emotion that led him to the rear of the ship.
It wasn’t much of a shot. For the most part, escape pods were tricky fuckers. Few mortals ever survived ejection. Mostly, they were for jettisoning cargo or droids, sometimes for escape if you could see the surface of a planet with a lot of water. Landings were rough, and there wasn’t much air in there. But Cody was Immortal, and if she died of suffocation, oh well. She would revive.
“Come on.” He reached over to unsnap her heavy harnesses.
“What? What are you doing?” She struggled as he pulled her aft, to the small chamber door. Realization dawned in her brown eyes, both of his plan, and the fact that he was going to die there, alone, trying to save her. The weight, and grief, tore through her as she shook her head. Vett threw Hsu’s package, and a box of survival gear, into the small tube, before pushing her towards it. Her flight suit wouldn’t give her much shield, but the pod had some protections, though limited.
“Get in there.”
“No. I’m not leaving you.”
“We’re both going to die, kid, if you don’t. You have a daughter, and a fucked up love life to get back to.”
“Vett, no.”
There was no time for her protests. He grabbed the blonde, pulling her tightly to him in a fierce, painful hug. She was sobbing by the time he pushed her back, shoving her head down and nearly throwing her into the pod. No words came, no sounds except the beeps and bells, as well as the grind of metal as he locked the pod door. Cody pressed her hand to the small oval glass in the door, and he put his against it, for a second, and both tried to smile.
Then the old man turned, and went to the pilot’s seat. If he timed it right, the backwash of the blast would send the pod farther, perhaps even into a gravitational pull of a planet that would give her a chance of survival. There was no other hope. The pod might well be vaporized in the explosion, or hit something. It might land on a planet she couldn’t survive on. But there was a chance, however slim, that one of them might go home, and he had to take it.
Vett waited, patiently, as the ship pulled the smaller vessel in to dock. He thought about that Earth movie that Cody had made him watch once, with the cop and the terrorists, and he grinned, looking back to the pod, and then back to the screen, as he saw the Weequay troops massing in the dock.
“Yippee Cay Yay, motherfuckers.” Two buttons were pushed, seconds apart, as the pod released, shooting out the opening into space, as the tractor beam shut down. Then he hit a red button, closing his dark gray eyes for the last time, and thinking of a redheaded girl from his youth who had borne him two babies. He was pretty sure she was waiting just beyond a star, and he began to walk towards it, as the fires of hell tore apart both ships with a force so great, the echo spread across the galaxy. The fighters from the Weequay forces not vaporized in the blast were so mesmerized by the sight of their massive destroyer disintegrating, they never noticed the tiny pod that flew past them, out into the inky darkness of space.
In a matter of hours, the chatter was heading back. It bounced from one secure channel to another, until it arrived in the most private communicator of the Security Chief of Boukun.
The Ambassador’s convoy has been destroyed…no survivors…self destruct…security unbreached…
It would be a few days before Cody’s own messages would reach her dear, beloved friend.
ILUA
It was the shorthand message she had begun to text them, back in the days on Earth, whenever she was traveling far from home.
I love you all.