"A better time? What are you..." Hartman trailed off as a data entry pulsed into existence, a tiny flicker of a report glowing in Sius' hands. What on earth was he talking about? She took the datapad from him, navy-blue casing suddenly foreboding in the dim light of the restaurant. Sius stood behind it, expression grim as a man attending his own funeral, but Hartman barely looked at him, familiar words looming out from the page to snap and snarl at her peace of mind like hounds. Douglas and lost chief among them.

A familiar pressure clamped into place over Hartman's chest, left her feeling like she was on the verge of a marathon, energy coursing through her veins, the old animal need to fight, to run, to do something. To do anything. For someone to be responsible, for someone to pay. Once it had been sharp, visceral. Now, it was the same dulled emotion drifting down the same faded neurons – as faded and familiar as an old childhood shirt. Hartman had lost plenty of ships. Plenty of brothers and sisters. What was one more?

It had been years since she served aboard Douglas, a lowly Marine Lance Corporal, years before she met Sius, before Douglas's commanding officer became anything more than a distant blur and an amplified voice drifting over the parade ground, a distant figure representative of an even more distant authority. Somehow, the Republic had seemed like a very abstract concept out there in the black, drifting countless lightyears from home. The ship had been all there was. An island of safety, security, duty, in an empty universe. Something that held people together beyond the mere limitations of exotic alloys and armour plating. Years before Sius had become a human being to her.

But there had been other people then. Captain Tancher, a figure drifting between the ranks of the marines, as calm and collected and certain as the metal beneath their feet; Byron patient and impatient in equal measure, never quite sure if he'd flick between one or the other; Addy always rattling off an account of some ancient battle or another. Seiwyn and Barker and Newman and a dozen others, friends and enemies alike, but brothers and sisters all. Most had moved on, of course. With the Fourth or without it, much as she had herself. But there were always those who came back. As she read on though, it became increasingly clear that there was no-one coming back from this.

Douglas was as lifeless as the sky she had once powered through.

To her shame, she felt a kernel of relief untwist in her gut. Douglas was one less mouth to feed, one less ship stretching her already failing supply lines. One less source of endless repairs, one less drain on supplies of food, water, and materials that she could not afford to spare. One less problem. She tried to feel grief. She honestly did. To remember the hallways of the ship, the laughter and the sorrow, Addy's breathless account of Thresher or Byron's ceaseless critique of her uniform. She reached for it, scrounged for it, searched the deepest recess of her being – and came up empty. Those circuits had burned out long ago. You got comfortable with the idea of one man dying, it turned out it wasn't that big a step to a battle group. Like jumping squares on a hopscotch court, linking, closer than anyone liked to admit. Easier, even. It was like they said. A million really was a statistic.

All for a good cause, of course. All those deaths to save lives, somewhere down the line, on some distant world that'd likely never learn their names. It must have been a damn long way down, because Hartman had never seen a corpse save anyone. It was a steep price, without a doubt, but in the end it was one they all paid, one way or the other. Mourning never did anyone a drop of good. You paid your respects. You remembered. Of course you remembered, but tears made for clouded vision – and the last thing a commander needed was failing sight.

Hartman frowned and handed the datapad back to Sius, expression as still as if it were hewn from ice. Sius was a different story, the mask of careful composure he'd maintained – for the lieutenant's benefit, Hartman realised – slipping to reveal the wreck beneath. Little wonder he hadn't been talking, the captain was a mess, looking as though he couldn't decide whether to punch his way through the bar or collapse, sobbing, on to it. Eventually, he went with the second option, fists balled, regrets slipping from his lips like a dying man's last gasps. For a second, Hartman almost envied him.

Then she clamped a hand around his upper arm, painfully tight – or as close to as she could manage. Office work had done little for her physical condition. Dragged his attention back, the bartender staring out of the corner of his eye be damned. He'd seen it before, and if he hadn't than he would sure as hell see it again.

"Don't you dare, Sius." She hissed, fury in her voice. Real anger this time, she could feel it burning in her chest, a cold deliberate fury, each breath another pump of the bellows. Someone was responsible for this, and she knew perfectly well who it was. He was standing right in front of her. "You want to die? You really want to die, Sius?" For the second time that day she found herself pointing at the window, passing ships supernaturally clear without the intervening fog of an atmosphere. Weld marks and slight imperfections shone against the smooth bodies of spacecraft, more real than real. "Be my guest. Hard vacuum right there, just push the button and you can float until you find what's left of Douglas, if that'll soothe your aching conscience." Perhaps it was cruel. Perhaps it was too much. In that instant, Hartman couldn't have cared less. Self-pity was for animals. "But tell me, Captain. You tell me what good your death'll do to those people. It won't make it right, I'll promise you that. Death ain't some big book of checks and balances, adding one more won't make the scales swing right again. Not even close. Ain't a damn thing that can. So don't you dare tell me that you should have died."

Hartman watched him for a long while before she released his arm. "You're an officer, Sius. It's more than just a fancy uniform, you know that. Most folk earn their experience naturally, make an odd mistake here or there, burn their hand on the stove, learn from it and move on. Not us." Hartman let the hand drop to her side, searched briefly for a pistol that wasn't there. "When we stick our hands on that stove, it's some other poor bastard gets burned. We don't earn our experience, Sius, we buy it with the lives of good men and women. That's just the way it works. Ain't fair to them who paid their lives for a lesson to turn your back on it just because you don't like what it cost." Heaven knew Hartman had had enough of those lessons, paying for and learning them both. But they kept coming, bought and paid for, and she kept up as best she could. What else could you do? "Only thing for it is to use those lessons, save other folk where you can. Turning your back on them, don't pretend that's for the dead, Sius. That's for you. To make you feel better about it all, to make it all go away. It's selfishness, pure and simple." She glanced down at the datapad again, screen flicked to black. "And you gave up your right to selfishness the day you started wearing bars on the uniform."

---

OOC: (Highlight to read.) | Took a few liberties there with gripping Sius and the like. Let me know if anything's gone too far there and I'll edit it out. : ) Feel free to play out the interaction with Serviceman Kent however you like, John – or pop back in at an inopportune time, whichever takes your fancy. |