Excelsior (38 page)

Almost four minutes later, Wilson reacted to that request with a grim frown. “There are messages waiting, but not many. Channels of communication were cut soon after the fighting broke out on Earth, but I’ve taken the liberty of anticipating your request and locating all of the crew’s surviving family members. I’m not sure what will be better for morale at this point—the desire for revenge or, in a few cases, the comfort of knowing that there’s still something left to fight for. I’ll send what messages there are and let you share them at your discretion, Captain. Should any of you choose to correspond with living family members, you will be allowed to do so.

“Since you’ve chosen not to respond to our current tactical situation, I will assume that you have no further input to provide, which means that this conversation has reached its end. I’m sending an updated flight plan to your helmsman along with a tactical map of currently-known ship positions. I encourage you to consult that map with your crew and see what we’re up against.

“Something else—you’ll need to choose a new executive officer. Ordinarily I’d leave that to you, but you’re short-handed as it is with Williams riding in the brig, and there’s a ready candidate that you probably haven’t considered. As a favor to the president, he has requested that you promote Maximilian Carter to the position. Carter was once a Commander himself, so he is the perfect choice, and yes, before you ask, Baker is already here with the fleet, but please keep that to yourself. Given our positions relative to the enemy it should be all but impossible for them to intercept this conversation, so they will remain safely unaware of Baker’s location until it’s too late. Were they to locate him now, they might realize we’re going to relocate the seat of government away from Earth.”

Alexander frowned. He could read between the lines. They were abandoning Earth, and along with it, everyone who was still living there. It almost didn’t matter if Catalina was still alive. She wouldn’t be for long.

“One last thing, Captain—don’t forget to shave. I can hardly see you through that beard.”

Alexander gave a stiff salute. “Yes, sir.”

 

Chapter 35

After his virtual meeting with Admiral Wilson, Alexander remained seated in his chair, anxiously checking and rechecking his inbox for the private messages that Wilson had promised to send from the crew’s family back home. After waiting for almost twenty minutes, he was in a bad mood. He was just about to contact Hayes to remind the admiral to forward the messages when his comm band chimed with a new message alert. It was from the admiral. Alexander opened the message and saw all of the attached video recordings. There was one archive for each member of the crew, but some archives were much bigger than others. Alexander hurriedly scanned through the list for an archive that bore his name.

7. ENS Beseler, Sara

8. LT Cardinal, Guillermo

9. LCDR Crespin, Diego

10. LT Davorian, David

11. CAPT De Leon, Alexander

Alexander stopped there. He tapped on his name and scanned the list of files in the archive. Inside was another archive that bore Catalina’s name. He opened that one, too, and his gaze immediately settled on the dossier file. He opened it and was greeted by a heart-wrenching hologram of his wife’s head and shoulders. Blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes, gaunt cheeks, lips cracked and bleeding, dark circles under her eyes… She wasn’t smiling, and she didn’t look well, but she wasn’t scarred beyond recognition with radiation burns either. How old was that photo? He could only hope it had been taken after the fighting had broken out on Earth. To the left of the hologram was a list of known details about her.

Personal Data:

Name: Catalina Abigail

Surname: Castillo de Leon

Date/Place of Birth: 2 April, 2761

Guadalajara, Mexico

Current Residence: Sacramento, California

Status: ALIVE

Alexander’s eyes hovered over that line, his eyes blurring with tears, his heart instantly pounding. A smile sprang unbidden to his lips, and he shook his head. This data wasn’t old. It was current. His eyes skipped down and read the date stamp at the bottom of the file. Last updated April 10, 2792. Alexander’s brain buzzed, trying to process that. It had been updated two years into the future? Then he remembered time dilation.

Grinning now, Alexander closed the dossier and scanned the contents of the archive. The remaining files were all video recordings, six of them. They were dated two years prior, one for each of the days between when he’d left and when—he assumed—the fighting had broken out on Earth.

He opened the first message and watched. It was heart-wrenching to see her holding back tears and speaking hopefully about his return. She injected little updates from her life, her studies, and her job as a museum curator. He wondered how life had changed for her since the war. Given her current address was in Sacramento, Alexander had to assume that LA had been wiped out. Subsequent messages were much of the same, alternating between the sad and the mundane, but Alexander could have sat there listening to his wife make small talk for hours.

Her last message was more urgent. Rumors had reached Earth about the fighting in space. She hoped he was okay and that he’d made it away before he could be dragged into the conflict. By the end of the message she was sobbing and begging for him to be alive.

Alexander swallowed past a hard knot in his throat and let out a deep sigh. He wiped his eyes and thought about how he should reply. Two years had passed since she’d last heard from him. What could he say now?

He considered sending her a message right away. If it were sent directly, it would take about ten minutes to arrive on Earth, but there was no telling how long it would take to be parsed through Navy censors before they relayed it to her on Earth. Alexander sat absently stroking his beard as he considered the matter. Feeling that long mop of facial hair reminded him that he needed to shave. He wouldn’t want Caty to have to struggle to recognize him.

After a long encounter with an electric razor and a quick shower, Alexander was back at his desk—now shaved, his hair cropped short. Feeling more himself, he decided to pass along the other message archives via Lieutenant Hayes, along with instructions to temporarily downgrade the Lincoln’s readiness from yellow alert to condition green. It would be nearly a day before they left the wormhole and joined Alliance forces on the other side, so they could afford to take some time off.

Additionally, he gave instructions for his crew to take some personal time and compose replies to their loved ones wherever possible. A large number of them would have Status: DECEASED or Missing and Presumed Dead in their dossiers, but Alexander felt that the crew had a right to know. They’d waited long enough.

Hayes responded to those orders with a date and time update from Earth along with the tactical maps and updated orders and flight path for the Lincoln. Alexander checked the date.

August 4th 2792.

Just over five months had passed for the Lincoln and her crew since leaving Earth, but time dilation due to wormhole geometry and their cruising speed meant that those five months had become more than twenty-nine back on Earth. Alexander grimaced. Almost two and a half years.

He wondered what that meant for him and Caty. He had no way of knowing what had happened in the past two years. Had she moved on? Was she still grieving him, having given him up for dead? How was she making ends meet? He had so many questions, but he would have to wait for her reply before he could answer any of them. The good news was that she was alive, and in spite of everything else that had happened, that had him smiling from ear to ear as he recorded his message.

 

Chapter 36

August 5th, 2792

(Shared Frame of Reference)

Catalina awoke to the sound of her comm band trilling with an incoming call. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and whispered a command to turn on the lamp beside her. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, the first thing she did was check to see if Dorian was okay in his crib. Seeing that he was still fast asleep, she relaxed somewhat. On the other side of the bed David groaned and rolled over, mumbling something in Spanish about turning the light off. Her comm band trilled again, and Caty answered it with a whisper before the noise could wake Dorian.

“Hello?”

“Caty. It’s Muros. Sorry to call you so late, but I thought you’d want me to wake you.”

Catalina blinked. Muros? Where did she know a Muros from… then it came to her: NAS Lemcroft. Lieutenant Muros was her contact there. She hadn’t heard from Muros in more than a year. If the lieutenant was contacting her again now, it had to be something to do with Alex. Caty glanced at David, suddenly nervous.

“What’s going on?” she asked, still whispering.

“I have a message here from Alex. Do you want me to send it to you?”

A message from Alex. He was alive? It took a moment for her sleep-clogged brain to process that. She’d moved on. She couldn’t keep doing this to herself. But there was this other part of her that needed to hear from him, to see his face and hear his voice. That part of her made her heart pound and her palms sweat.

“Yes, please. Thank you, Muros.”

“You’re welcome. If you want to reply, just let me know.”

“Reply?”

“To Alex. I’m sorry I guess I wasn’t clear. He’s within comms range. This message was sent two hours ago.”

Catalina blinked, her eyes widening slowly. He really was back. “I’ll let you know,” she said, unable to think clearly. This was a dream. It had to be.

“Roger that. Take care, Caty.”

“Bye,” she whispered. She sat on the end of the bed for a long moment, watching her comm band, waiting for the blinking red light of a message alert to appear. She didn’t know what to think. Her mind raced. What would this mean for her and David? She couldn’t get back together with Alex, even if he landed on Earth tomorrow. She had a son with David—baby Dorian. He was about to turn five months.

But hearing news from Alexander stirred to life feelings she’d thought were safely buried. She still loved him, but did he still love her? Had he moved on, too? Even if he hadn’t, Alexander wouldn’t want her now that she’d been with another man and had a son by him. Who could forgive that? Alexander had given her permission to move on, but she doubted that he’d meant for her to move on temporarily and then get back together with him when he returned.

“He’s back.”

Caty jumped and turned to look at David. He was sitting up in bed, his eyes darkly shadowed in the low light of the room. His expression spoke volumes. He was angry. Maybe he had a right to be, but he needed to understand—this was not easy for her. Alexander had been… he’d been the love of her life. Not that she could tell David that. He’d lose it.

“Are you going to reply to him?”

Caty flashed a sad smile and shook her head. And say what? She wondered. Just then, her comm band chimed with an incoming message. It was from Alexander.

“Entonces?” David insisted, nodding to her comm band.

She shook her head. “I haven’t even watched his message yet. How am I supposed to know if I should reply?”

“Como vas a saber…” he muttered, repeating her question like it was the most ridiculous thing she could have asked. David climbed out of bed and began pacing the room. Catalina watched him with a frown. An acid rush of adrenaline began buzzing in her veins. Fight or flight.