While Making Other Plans:
Chapter 37

  Kathryn opened the ship wide channel.  “We’ve won the day,” she informed the crew as soberly as she could.  “But the losses were heavy, the costs high.  Take a moment to savour the victory but then we still have a lot of work to get back to.  You can all take twenty minutes to breathe and savour the moment but then we’ve all got to haul ass back to the rift to report in and assess our need to ready for a counterattack.”  She closed the channel, but after looking at the expressions on Tarsus and Byrne’s faces she reopened it.  “Moments like this…”  She wasn’t sure how to put exactly what she wanted to say.  “Victories such as this are never forgotten.  As long as there are people around to remember anything, this day, your bravery and heroism, all of our brave dead, all of the sacrifices will never be forgotten.  Nicely done people.  You’re all heroes, every one of you.”

  Kathryn stood and walked over to her office and disappeared for a moment before returning with the bottle of scotch and an unopened second bottle.  She held up the first opened bottle and toasted: “to the brave men and women we lost today,” then took too long a swig from the bottle before passing it to Brinkerhoff.  He looked over to Jaren and held the bottle up before offering: “to Kobol.”  Jaren nodded somberly as Brinkerhoff took his own long drink and passed it forward Jaren who said nothing, but held up the bottle for a moment while looking back at him before taking a drink and passing it along to Tarsus, who did the same before passing it to Byrne.  The more junior officers seemed hesitant at first, but seeing their commanders drink first and hand the bottle off to them alleviated their apprehension.

  Kathryn offered her hand to Brinkerhoff.  “Excellent work Admiral.”

  “Likewise, Admiral.  It’s been an absolute pleasure serving with you.” He answered as he gripped her hand hard and shook it firmly.  “We make a good team!  Hopefully we’ll never have to work together like this ever again.”

  Kathryn threw her head back and laughed, releasing some of her tensions as they gradually ratcheted down from the heights of the battle.  She pressed the unopened bottle into Brinkerhoff’s hand.  “Please see to it that anyone else aboard who wants to gets a celebratory drink.”  The man’s eyes glimmered and she insisted: “Only one pull each though Woody, we still have a lot of work to do.”

  “Of course, Admiral,” he acceded as he left and made his way for the elevator.  “Are they allowed glasses ma’am?” he asked with a laugh.

  Kathryn chuckled.  “I leave that to your discretion Admiral,” she answered with a mischievous grin as she sat back down in her seat, stretching her arms out alone the arm rests, further ratcheting her tensions down.  “Lieutenant Tarsus, can you confirm that there are still no signs of any activity out there whatsoever?”

  “Nothing at all ma’am.  Everything indicates we’re clear.”

  Kathryn stood again and came over to the forward stations.  “Then take your twenty minutes as well Malcolm.  You too Byrne, I’ve got this.”  As Byrne and Tarsus grinned and stood up from their stations and Kathryn sat herself down in the pilot’s chair she called behind her.  “That goes for all of you.  Away from your stations and shake it off.  Commander Snow, Bill, and I have the bridge.”

  While the rest of them pushed away from their stations and stood, stretched, hugged each other, and excitedly chatted, Jaren came over and sat down at the ops station with her and Bill stood between them.

  “How are you feeling Jaren?” she asked as she plotted a course out of orbit and towards the system’s star.

  “Honestly?” he asked, to which she nodded.  “The anger is dissipating, but… well it sounds so maudlin to say, but it’s only exposing a vast sorrow underneath.  Only now am I able to actually think about the Bobbins themselves, for what they’ve been through,” he looked over at Bill with an apologetic expression, “for what they’ve lost in all this… the misery of having to fight and kill their own kind.”

  “I appreciate it Commander,” Bill offered through his mirror ball.  “That’s big of you considering what you’ve suffered.  It is indeed a bittersweet victory.  Our partition was so recent.  Families were divided by the schism.  Brothers have had to kill brothers, it’s been…”

  After engaging the engines, Kathryn reached over and placed a hand on Bill’s torso and gently patted to console him.  “I can only imagine.”  She looked over her shoulder at the celebrating crew.  “But we won, it’s over.”  She looked back at Bill with a pang of alarm.  “It is over, isn’t it?”

  “I won’t know for sure until I contact Central Command whether or not those who were stationed elsewhere have been broken from the link.  As I explained, it operates in micro links which are synced with the central link facility as they’re able to.  Sadly, I suspect that many are still victims to it.  However, having destroyed this main facility I am confident that my people will be willing to devote the forces which had been left behind to guard the intergalactic portal to engage the remaining enemy forces.  Without the broader link they will be unable to coordinate and with our full remaining forces and our own anti-matter production coming online soon, we should have no trouble defeating them.  Where possible we’ll capture and disconnect them from their link instead of destroying them.”

  The alien rotated its torso towards her on his three taloned feet.  “We will never forget what you have done for us.  I will do whatever I can to personally ensure that we live up to all of our promises to your people.”

  “Always happy to make a friend, Bob.”

  “What’s up bitches!” Margaret exclaimed as she and Ralph stormed onto the bridge.  Her shadow matter had enveloped her body and taken on the appearance of an unusually thick, dark wet suit.  She snatched the bottle from Commander Sengupta and gulped from it for several seconds before shoving it roughly against Ralph, who obliged in taking it from her but his face screen projected a confusion as to what he was supposed to do with it which Margaret ignored.  

  The simulant sauntered over to her and when in front of them, her shadow matter left her body and formed a large comfortable looking chair underneath her which she flumped down onto completely naked.  Under other circumstances she might have done something like that just to make people uncomfortable for her own amusement, but Kathryn knew her well enough to tell that in the moment of excited self-satisfaction she genuinely just didn’t care.

  “Who’s got two thumbs and just saved the fucking day, hunh?” she exclaimed as she waggled both of her thumbs towards herself.  “Hunh?  Hunh?” She demanded as she laughed before taking another long drink as Felix and Patricia both emerged from the elevator.

  “HEY!!!” Felix and Margaret exclaimed at each with outstretched arms as Margaret’s shadow matter pushed her up back up to a standing position and wrapped back around her body.  Margaret hugged Felix roughly first, then Patricia more delicately after kissing her on the cheek.  “Your robot made good buddy boy,” she offered to Felix.

  “Thanks,” he answered.  “Now maybe I can get back to work trying to make a better body for him.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Ralph said.

  “Oh?” Felix asked.  “I thought you’d be eager for a more sophisticated model.”

  “I may appreciate functionality upgrades, but this is my first body.  It’s what I know, what I’ve come to understand myself as.  It’s who I am.  At least for now.”

  “I like your style kid,” Margaret said, surly with the simulated effects of alcohol.  “But talk to me in thousand years and we’ll see how you still like it.”

  Kathryn stood and hugged Felix first, then Patricia significantly longer.  She embraced her as long as she felt she could before it came to feel inappropriate.  As she pulled away it was torturous not to kiss her, even just on the cheek as Margaret had.

  To intervene on their moment or not, Jaren spoke up to re-inject some reality.  “Time’s up, Admiral.”

  Kathryn sighed.  “Right you are.”  She came back down to the captain’s chair and pressed the ship-wide button.  “Break’s over boys and girls, back to your stations.”

  “How’s the ship,” she asked as the bridge crew headed back to their stations.

  “Believe it or not New Horizon herself is in fine shape,” Felix answered from behind the command chairs.  “We’ve lost most of our shadow matter augmentation, but it very effectively protected our ship inside it.”

  “Fantastic.  Bill is there enough material out there to reform your rhombi, rhombicos…”  Ugh, she thought.  Scotch.

  “Rhombicosidodecahedron,” he offered.  “and I believe there is.”

  “Very good.  Byrne we’re on route back to the star, please divert as necessary to gather the material we need to replenish our reserves and reconfigure the ship.  I want to get back as soon as possible to deliver the good news.  We have a lot of anxious people back home who still have no idea how this has all gone.”

  

 

  

☼   ☼   ☼

   

  “Ow Mom, you’re hurting me,” Maggie croaked as her mother hugged her so tightly her ribs started popping.  The girl had been waiting at the Orbital One airlock for her when the ship docked, and Kathryn was the first to float through.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Kathryn exclaimed.  “I’m just so happy to see you, so happy you’re alright.”

  Jaren approached from behind and once free of her mother’s embrace, she pushed over to her father and wrapped herself around Jaren in a way she hadn’t since she was much younger.  He winced as he braced against the wall and absorbed her momentum which was much more than it had been the last time she’d done so.  He kissed her on her forehead and hugged her tightly for a while before letting her go.

  It’s okay sweetie,” he said as he pulled her away, “we made it.  We’re all okay.”  He pulled her into another hug as he started to cry after looking up at Kathryn.  “It’s all going to be okay.”

   

  The next few hours were a dizzying flurry.  Fortunately, she was able to debrief the different governing bodies, Star Fleet Command, and the Bobbin Central Authority at the same time and in the same room instead of having to repeat herself separately.  She was happy for Bill and how impressed his superiors seemed to be with him over his ability to generate his new ship design, and they informed her it was true that the remaining Link ships were still slaved to their local iterations of it, but that with the bulk of their forces destroyed and no way to synchronize their link with each other they would become increasingly fragmented and easier to capture and disconnect.  

  The Bobbins had resumed their preparations for their intergalactic expedition and had invited the humans to participate.  Kathryn couldn’t imagine what kind of person would want to forever abandon everything they knew on such a wild gamble, but at the same time she also remembered the kind of woman she used to be.  She could just barely remember what it was like for her ambition to adventure and discovery far outstrip her wisdom.  They were already preparing to open candidate registration and had asked her to participate in their selection.  Like all the other myriad demands they were making of her, her answer remained that she’d get back to them all after a long much needed vacation.  

  This included President Sato who was already working at her to run in the upcoming presidential election.  It was far too soon for Kathryn to seriously consider, she couldn’t see herself leaping directly into a presidential campaign like that after everything she’d been through.  But she was surprised how not entirely disgusted she was with the idea of running for some lower office first to get her political legs under her, and Emily seemed content that she was now willing to consider getting involved in politics in some way.  It was something she’d never expected of herself, but something about being at the forefront of the recent crises and having to manage all of the different party’s interests against each other which seemed to have awoken something in her.  Having to negotiate a wartime alliance, to manage the fallout of Kobol’s secrets being exposed, to be the tip of the spear in the eruption of violence resulting from politics failing gave her a new perspective.  She felt newly compelled to be involved in doing whatever she could to defray tensions as they arose, to prevent politics from failing again.  Her generation knew the horrors of war in ways others had not for centuries, and she needed to do whatever she could to prevent it from happening again for as long as was possible.  

  A formal Remembrance Day was declared across the remaining colonies for the loss of Kobol and the subsequent losses suffered in what became known as the Battle for the Link.  After a thorough examination of Kobol, a limited number of survivors were found, and the long difficult work of clearing the devastation and rebuilding began.  Jaren volunteered to lead the efforts and took a position as the director of the initiative to rebuild Kobol, largely financed and supplied by their new Bobbin friends as a kind of reparations.  Jaren kept saying that it would take generations, but that it took generations the first time too and you had to start somewhere.  He started smiling again sometimes when he talked about the new future he and the other survivors were building.  A colony isn’t the buildings, it’s the people who build it, he’d say.

  Later that night, Kathryn and Jaren were sitting on either side of Maggie while she fell asleep.  When they were satisfied she had, Jaren picked her up and carried her to bed.  They reassured her back to sleep from her groggy awareness of the move, and when they exited and the door closed behind them again, Jaren stated as sorrowfully as blunt: “So we’re done, right?”

  Kathryn hung her head with a heavy sigh and didn’t dispute it.  Jaren nodded with a distant, blank expression on his face.  “Alright… I’ll go pack up some things.”

  As he moved to leave, she grabbed his hand to stop him.  “I’m sorry,” she softly offered.

  He looked down at her hand holding his before looking up to meet her eyes again.  “I know.  Me too.”

  “It’s not—” she tried to say but didn’t know where to go with it.  “I don’t regret any of it, about us, I mean.  We were really great for a really long time.  We raised a wonderful daughter together, but…”

  “Things change,” he shrugged.

  “You don’t hate me?” she asked.  She considered it may have been unfair to ask him such a thing in that moment, but she was vulnerable and still trusting him with her heart even if it wasn’t his anymore.

  He back came closer to her and pushed some of her hair back behind her ear, such a casually intimate gesture he’d done countless times over the years as he looked at her.  “Nah… I still love you,” he assured her.  “That kind of thing doesn’t just… go away.  Some things don’t change even when other things do.”

  Raw, she nodded her understanding.  “I love you too Jaren.  Thank you.”

  He looked clearly into her eyes for another few moments before nodding decisively and leaving towards their bedroom to pack a bag.  Shortly afterwards he left the suite without another word.

  After he left Kathryn collapsed onto her bed and sobbed.  It was the anguish of the death of a relationship which had meant so much to her, been such a big part of her life for so long, but it was also just the first opportunity she’d had to really let go since leaving with the task force.  Now finally having the opportunity, she let whatever emotions needed to come pour out of her.  In a some real sense she still hadn’t had any chance to fully calm down from the heat of the battle, and for a moment she wondered if she’d been too rash with Jaren, if maybe she’d reconsider after recovering somewhat and coming back to herself.  But the more she exhausted herself with her sobbing, punctuated as it was with muffled screams into her tear moistened pillow, the clearer things became, and nothing changed.

  After she’d stopped and lain staring at the ceiling for who knows how long, she heard the soft trill of the night chime of the suite’s outer door and pressing a button on the screen beside her bed to see Patricia standing outside the door, her gorgeous large brown eyes looking up expectantly into the camera.  Her hair immaculate flowed over her shoulders and red flower print summer dress.  Kathryn then looked over at the mirror on the back of her bedroom door and almost started crying all over again at what a mess she was by comparison.  Her hair was a matted mess, her eyes were all puffy from crying, and she was pretty sure that when she got up and looked closer in the mirror she could see significantly more lines on her face than before she left on the mission to take out the Link.

  Knowing full recovery was a lost cause, she quickly did what she could to mitigate the worst damage.  She quickly brushed out the majority of the knots in her hair and ran a face cloth under some hot water in the sink to wipe her face down.  She wished there was something she could do about her bloodshot eyes and the massive bags under her eyes, but there just wasn’t time.  She dried her face with a clean towel and left to open the door and let her in.

  Instead of speaking or entering, Patricia merely held up her scroll with a message from Jaren which read: ‘She’s yours now.’

  Kathryn hung her head and sighed deeply before extending her arm towards the living area to invite her in without looking up.  

  “This is why I held you off,” she noted with a gently scolding sing song in her voice.  She sat down on the couch and smoothed the creases out of her dress.  Kathryn noticed that she seemed to have sprouted some new freckles across the cheekbones of her round face.

  Kathryn sat down in the adjacent chair instead of on the couch beside her, which seemed to surprise Patricia if not seem to bother her.  “It’s official,” Kathryn shrugged.  “Splitsville.”

  “So it would seem,” Patricia quietly acknowledged.

  There was an awkward silence before they both started speaking at once, and then they both spoke at once trying to defer to the other and making it somehow even more awkward.  Kathryn looked up to the ceiling and slowly stroked up and down the underside of her chin as she reflected.  “This hurts a lot,” she admitted, and Patricia nodded.  “I haven’t even begun to process what this means for me or how I really feel about it, or even—” she stopped short as she looked back up at Patricia momentarily before looking down again.  “Where I go from here.”

  The subtext was palpable, and even on her worst day Patricia was one of the most empathic people she’d ever known.  “I was going to express the same sentiment, I think,” she offered.  Kathryn couldn’t read Patricia anywhere near as she could read her.  She couldn’t tell if she was really on the same page or just letting Kathryn have what she needed.  She considered that it in the moment it really didn’t matter which.  

  “I could sure use a friend right now though,” Kathryn said as she extended her arm overtop of the chair’s arm rest towards Patricia in invitation, who reached out and took it without hesitation.  Her smile was warm but tinged with sadness.

  “Well I’m not going anywhere,” she offered through an amused exhalation.  “I mean where would I go?” she asked with a playful shrug and forcing a shallow laugh in a failed attempt to mask her eyes starting to tear up.

  When the door chimed again Kathryn reflexively withdrew her hand from Patricia, and immediately felt bad for it as she came to have some hint of the immense shame she felt around Patricia and the long road she had ahead of her to process it.  After seeing on the coffee table screen that it was Felix, his husband Taj, Margaret, Ralph, and Bill, she opened the door for them, but immediately put her finger to her lips to remind them to be quiet.

  “So, is that just your permanent attire now?”  Kathryn asked Margaret who was still wearing the thick matte black shadow matter wet suit.

  “May be,” she offered.  “I just have to get them to figure out how I can make it a different colour and I’m all set.”  The simulation of an old woman, who Kathryn noted with some dismay was growing less and less noticeably older than her in appearance by the day, withdrew a cigar from her shadow matter suit and popped it into her mouth.

  “We can actually,” Bill told her.   “You only have hull grade material, but we have others with different properties for different applications, some of which can change to different colours and patterns.”

  “Hunh,” she said as she popped open the tip of her index finger and fired up a small torch out its tip and lit the cigar with relish.  “Do appreciate these upgrades,” she said between puffs at the cigar to get it fully lit.  “You guys are alright,” she offered Bill as she closed her finger.

  Maggie rubbed her eyes sleepily as she stumbled into the room.  “Oh, hey sweetie, I’m sorry we woke you up,” Kathryn offered as the girl wordlessly approached her and climbed up to curl up in her lap on the chair like she used to.  She’d been through something which would take her far too long to recover from, as evidenced more and more by her continuing regressions.

  “We have so much to learn from you,” Taj offered Bill.

  “Yeah, oh man,” Felix exclaimed, “I can’t wait to dig into everything now that we have some more time.  It will take the rest of my career to just get started looking at everything.  The future is so… well big now compared to… well shit, it’s only really been a few weeks now hasn’t it since we ran into Ralph.  We have a whole galaxy to explore, all the portals and worlds in the Bobbin’s network, a whole galactic civilization to build, culture to exchange, it’s all just so… big.”  His excitement waned as he seemed to grow more overwhelmed than anything else at the immensity of it all.

  “Two galaxies,” Bill corrected him.  “And.   And you’ve only seen our established technologies, talked about the new research we’re working on, you haven’t even seen any of the newer current research we’re working on.  We’re working on some pretty big things you could get involved with once you’re up to speed.  Vacuum energy, reusable intergalactic rifts, smaller rift-based transporters you could walk through from one planet to another, faster than light propulsion…  For everything you’ve seen we’re still just getting started.”

  “There’s no telling what you’ll be able to come up with if working together,” Ralph added.  “Who knows, maybe at some point you will be able to create a new form I’d want to migrate to at some point.  It could spawn a whole race of synthetic beings.”

  “Now you’re talking!” Margaret exclaimed, clapping him hard on the back of his barrel chest, producing a hollow metal clang.

  “Day dawns bright with infinite possibilities,” Patricia offered with a warm smile.  Kathryn bent down to kiss the top of her daughter’s head and found herself wondering why families built on friendship were so much stronger than families built on romance or blood.