Big Damn Heroes Don't Exist, John.
“All right, remind me again of everyone we have this time.”
The ticking-off of fingers began. “There’s the dumb-looking herb salesman, the old woman, the ‘schoolteacher’” (air quotes used here) “… the one who looks like he fell in a vat of hair slick, and Dimmock.”
Lestrade sighed, rubbing his eyes as his chair swiveled to face his first officer. “Dimmock… Anderson, do you have to refer to them all with insulting names? Don’t they have names?”
“This is assuming that I’ve taken enough time to care.”
Lestrade pinned Anderson with his gaze as the younger man folded his arms across his chest defiantly. “Go find out their names or I’ll throw your plastic dinosaurs out the airlock.” He watched Anderson reduce to splutters.
“Those are from Earth-that-was! They’re ancient relics!”
“Oh, Anderson, nothing’s from Earth-that-was. It’s, like, a myth! You just don’t want to admit that some merchant at Ensy cheated you blind.” Lestrade kept up this staring match for another moment, but then grew impatient. “Their names, Anderson, now!” He watched the other man stomp off and, for a moment, relished his authority as captain, but that didn’t last long. Yes, it was nice to be able to order people around. But that also meant they were his responsibility.
*
“Their names, Anderson, nyehnyehnyeh.” Grouchy. Anderson was grouchy. Lestrade sometimes acted like he was so much older than all of them, somehow infinitely wiser and more in touch with life. Like he and Gregory hadn’t fought and bled side-by-side in the war that tore this ‘verse apart.
He was in the middle of gathering the passenger roster, but his steps froze as he was drawn back in time to memories he didn’t want to have of dirt and guns, explosions everywhere. Someone had already come to tell him his wife was dead from the bombings and all he had left were his brother and his sister. Though there could never be real blood relation between them, Gregory and Sally were as close as anyone could come. And he, the youngest of the three of them. He shouldn’t even have been there.
“Just keep running!”
He could remember the feeling of Gregory’s strong hand pushing him on, forcing him to safety.
“Where’s Sally? Where’s Sally?”
His boyish voice had barely been heard over the gunshots. His eyes had scanned frantically for the bob of dark curls anywhere. The way Gregory’s face had been etched out of pain and it was the only answer he could give because of course he didn’t know and, of course, he blamed himself. They’d finally been reunited that night. Sally had run up behind him and hugged him.
“Kao!” Anderson suddenly shouted in the here-and-now when a pair of arms replicated the familiar motion.
“It’s just me, Anderson. Lost in your mind again?” Sally. Still alive, still with them, still unaware of the dangers of hugging ex-soldiers from behind.
“No, I was just… I was just running an errand for Captain Lestrade.” He turned to face her and got her most skeptical eyebrow arched. “… All right, yes,” he admitted. She could see it in his face when he went out because she did, too. They all did. She took the clipboard from him.
“I’ll finish this up to keep him from lecturing you on duty and selflessness if you go check the cargo hold.”
“… Why?” he asked, clearly suspecting foul play.
“Because they’ve brought a lot of shit and I don’t feel like going through it. Fewer freaks than boxes.”
“Fine.”
*
The cargo hold was pretty packed. Dimmock had brought piles of absolutely worthless garbage. But at least this was a quiet job. So, Anderson picked through everything, sorting and noting. It was annoying, but, honestly, they couldn’t be too careful. They were on the edge of the law as it was, with their affiliations, they couldn’t afford to be caught smuggling anything illegal.
When everything was finished, he triple-checked the list, leaning against a large crate until his support suddenly gave out and he went crashing to a sitting position. Grumbling, he looked at where he’d slipped to find a piece of the crate had broken off, revealing a screen underneath, blinking in a very familiar pattern.
“Lao-tyen, boo.”
*
“Captain, I think you’re going to want to see this.”
Those were words Lestrade did not want to hear. As soon as he saw the crate, he recognized the panel. It was a life-support system. There was a person inside that box. “Whose is this?”
“The teacher’s.”
“Go and get her. Immediately.”
*
“Explain yourself.”
The schoolteacher was a dark-haired woman who looked altogether too unfrazzled for someone just caught trafficking an obviously unwilling human being in a crate.
“I don’t need to,” she said easily.
“And why is that?” Lestrade almost bit his tongue when she suddenly flashed a badge. Alliance. She was high-ranking Alliance on their boat; this was a really good argument for better background checks. Shit. “All right, but, excuse me for asking, but why would a member of the Alliance be flying unregistered? Why not… take your own expensive transport?” He watched as she suddenly looked uncomfortable.
“There’s… someone monitoring our flight paths right now.”
She probably wasn’t supposed to tell him that, but she had. Too late. Lestrade let the information sink in. So, someone had the Alliance running scared. It seemed almost impossible. Whoever it was must be more than human. “And he wants what’s in this box? What, is it… a prisoner?”
“Of a sort.”
That’s all he needed to know. “Anderson?” He nodded at his first officer. A blow to the head later, Miss Schoolteacher was on the floor. They always stuck to the law. But maybe it was time for a little misbehavior.
“I’m not giving the Alliance anything they want as long as it’s on my boat. Help me get this lid off.”
*
Light. At first, not sight of it. Just consciousness of its existence. There was such a thing as light that existed. Of course there was. Visible light, electromagnetic radiation between 405 and 790 terahertz. Red, orange, yellow, green - Visible light was about in the middle of the electromagnetic spectrum with radio waves on one end and gamma - Photons -- 299,792,458 meters per sec-
“Oh my god, it’s a man.”
Strange words, strange voices. Hands touching him. No. No! He tried frantically to fling his limbs out, but they wouldn’t move. It hurt, it always hurt. More light. His eyes were seeing it now, but nothing made sense. Everything was beige at once.
“My brother,” he heard himself saying. “Where is my brother?”