"A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are for."
John A. Shedd - Salt from My Attic, 1928
Sarah 'Sparks' McFarlen
Bruchsal's medical bay shuddered with the whispered mumbling of the wounded, like some great beast twitching in its sleep. White-suited nurses moved between the clustered beds like phantoms, checking a pulse here, administering a drip there. There were no doctors in sight - most all of them had boarded a Dromedary for Zwickau a little over a day ago, probably around the last time Sarah had allowed herself sleep. Most of the people here were low-priority cases, those lucky few whose wounds were light enough that they could be expected to survive the journey from Zwickau's overcrowded medical bays. Similar makeshift wards had sprung up aboard Eltmann and Bielefeld, struggling to cope with the influx of wounded. Sarah curled her nose against the harsh stench of antiseptic and wove past a sea of rough beds to a sealed door at the room's rear. Isolation.
The triple arcs of the ancient biohazard symbol rested on the door, lights comprising it half-buried in the steel. They weren't switched on today, which was good. Activated lights meant a yellow symbol, which almost always meant the station was not somewhere you wanted to be. At least, that was what Meier had told her. Her own brief experience of a few months aboard Bruchsal had so far failed to present her with that sort of warning, and she sincerely hoped things would remain that way. The door slid open at her touch, a firm voice following the rush of cool air. Another white-suited figure stood with his back to the door, graying hair blending with the scrubs. In the hospital bed beyond him, propped up by three pillows, was a face she recognised.
"I'm sorry, Herr Fuchs, but this is a serious condition." The doctor spoke like a father addressing an errant child, his tone alone enough to summon the unfortunate feeling of being found alone with an empty cookie jar. "Departure cannot be an option until you've been properly treated."
Sarah stepped around him, half-raising a hand in greeting. The doctor paused as he noticed her presence. If he was surprised, it didn't show in that weathered face. He gave the bedridden figure a confident's nod, an unspoken we'll resolve this later. before sweeping from the room in a flurry of antiseptic that made Sarah's eye's water.
"Alex. Hey." Sarah swallowed. This was going to be even more awkward then she'd imagined it being. The last time they'd spoken, Alex had been overcoming the trauma of his first combat kill. His finger had slipped, and he'd fired on Donnerkind. Sarah had thought he'd tried to kill her. Now, watching the pale figure stretched before her, she realized that she had inadvertently returned the favor by way of an unshielded transport reactor. The universe had a sick sense of humor. She took a step forward, cursing her own stupidity. It had been such a simple mistake... "I'm sorry." The two words slipped out, ancient, meaningless platitudes. It felt wrong. Sorry was what you said when you gave someone the wrong tea, or attached the wrong colour tail light. No words existed for the near-murder of a friend. She tried anyway, despite the shaking that threatened to steal her voice away. "I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. Any of this. I was so caught up in trying to help, I never though-"
Her voice cracked, and all of a sudden it wasn't the antiseptic that forced water from her eyes. She stood there for a moment, a statue trying to regain control. Sorry? She had come within a hair's width of ensuring the man before her never saw another day. Another death. Isn't that what you do, Sarah? Isn't that what you're good at? Why should he forgive you? Wouldn't it be better, so much easier, to simply vanish again? You've done it before. The accusing voice drifted through her consciousness, yet, she didn't move. Fear and shame tied her to the spot as surely as the root of any tree.
"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."
- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.
Alex hated being in medical. He really did. Before Sarah had entered the room he had been arguing with the doctor, attempting to get him to agree to discharge him. He wanted to be back in space and escorting the Arsenal, not sitting here like a lemon.
Now Alex was sitting there with a floundering Sarah apologising to him and he wasn't sure what it was about. Nothing could've been more annoying. He stared blankly at Sarah and said:
"Sarah, what are you talking about? You haven't done anything. Are you ok?"
He thought over the events of the day, attempting to figure out just what Sarah was talking about. He then realised that it was Sarah who was using the VWA Arsenal earlier that day. There was no missing pilot, the autopilot was being run by Sarah back at Bruchsal and Alex had nearly died looking for someone that wasn't there to begin with.
"Oh. I see. So it was you who decided to remotely control the Arsenal without telling anyone." He laughs softly. "I suppose it's payback for shooting at the Donnerkind, heh. Remind me not to get on your bad side"
Alex decided that this was probably not the best time for jokes. Here was Sarah, the girl who never seemed to be afraid of anything, standing here looking as if she had just seen a genocide. It wasn't a laughing matter at all.
He motions to the space next to him on his bed. "You look like you need to sit down"
Sarah nodded stiffly, settling into a space next to Alex's foot. He didn't know? It took her longer then it should have to realize that no-one besides the Oberst and herself knew who had really been driving Arsenal on the run that had nearly killed three people. Three of her friends. She prodded Alex's toe through the sheet, half-expecting her finger to glide right on through. None of this felt real. The whole ward had a strange air of disconnection about it, a scene glimpsed through a smoke-obscured mirror, the nurses little more then actors on a stage. Only the gentle click of the fans and chirp of the heart rate monitor beside the bed, reminiscent of the bing of a ship's map, seemed real; seemed normal.
Alex had laughed. Sarah didn't know what to make of it. When the world threatened to collapse around you, and you met it with a smile? It showed a strength in the young revolutionary that Sarah hadn't expected. She tried to return it, a frail, watery smile, but a smile nonetheless.
"I-" She caught herself, started again. "Yeah. It was me on Arsenal. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were anywhere near it, I would've-"I would've stopped it from pumping you full of enough radiation to start your own power plant? Yes Sarah, well done."I would've done something. With Zwickau and everything else, I was just trying to find a way, Alex. I thought that maybe, if I could fly Arsenal remotely, we could save people. I never meant for this to happen. I'm sorry." Those two words again. She twisted on the bed to face Alex. "How bad is it? The nurses wouldn't speak to me outside. Will you be okay? I mean, I know people in Liberty. They've got clinics there that can help with this, and you said you wanted to go earlier. It'd be sort-of like a holiday."
"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."
- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.
Alex wanted to be mad at Sarah. He really did. After all, she nearly killed him and managed to get him away from his fighter for a while. Really he should be ripping her out a new one right now. But he wasn't angry, he couldn't be. Sarah was obviously distraught, and he couldn't bring himself to make it any worse for her.
Alex had suffered from bouts of severe nausea, and he had radiation burns. He also had a splitting headache from all the radiation that he was exposed to on the Arsenal. One thing was for sure, this was way worse than feeling slightly sick after being in Munich a bit too long. He turned to Sarah, and kept his left arm behind his back, hiding the burns.
"Well it isn't -that- bad. Just not feeling too great." his fake smile turned into a frown. "But the doctor did say that I won't be able to fly for a couple of days. I'll convince him to let me fly before then thought"
Alex then thought about going to Liberty. He hadn't really been there. Well actually he hadn't left Rheinland before, and ever since meeting Sarah had been itching to go somewhere else. He was only 19 years old, and he wanted to go out and see everything, but a small voice in the back of his head told him that he should really be patrolling with the Bundschuh. You can't leave now! People are still recovering on Zwickau, and it's obvious that the Rheinwehr have stepped up their presence in Dresden. You're still needed here!. Alex's curiosity, however, got the better of him, and he simply couldn't refuse a trip to Liberty.
"Ja.. I guess I would like to go to Liberty. I mean, it probably wouldn't look too good to the Oberst or Kommandant Freya, but Liberty sounds nice"
Alex sat up and decided to ignore his symptoms. He really wanted to get out of here.
Sarah blinked. She hadn't expected him to agree that readily, not after what had happened. She had entered the room expecting anger and blame, but had found neither. She felt some of the guilt lift from her shoulders like a physical weight at his assent. Perhaps she could repair the damage yet. "You'll come then?" She grinned, genuinely this time.
"We can't leave right now. It'll probably be a couple of days before everything's ready anyway." The trip wasn't strictly speaking leisure. Sarah's contacts in Liberty had grown quiet lately, and she had to replenish old friendships or slowly let them die. No, she might have signed on with the Widerstand, but she wasn't about to let her old life go. Not yet. And there was Schatten to consider... But she didn't need to worry Alex about it. Her plans had already done him enough damage to last a lifetime. "Don't worry about the Oberst. He gave me the okay a while back, and I'm sure we can smuggle you aboard or something. I mean, assuming he doesn't revoke it for-"For almost killing you. She trailed off, exhaustion tugging at her eyelids. She was sure she didn't remember hospital beds being this soft.
"Anyway, it'll be a bit before I can get Donnerkind ready to go. And I'd like to visit Axel and Steve, too. I'm...Er... Is Axel mad about it?" Meeting Alex had been awkward enough, and she'd known him for almost a month now. As far as she knew, Axel had only recently signed on, and she'd never met him in person. That was sure to me a fun conversation. Hi, I'm Sarah. Yes, that was me who nearly baked you alive. Nice to meet you too.
"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."
- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.
A trip to Liberty. Alex was just about ready to leap out of his bed and run out of Medical, but then decided against it once he realised he'd be down as quick as he got up. He didn't really feel like embarrassing himself in medical. But still, Alex simply could not wait to go.
His eyes lit up. "Well, I'll be here once you're ready. Either that or I would've escaped from medical and be flying around the Taunusfeld for a while"
He then remembered that he wasn't the only one present on the VWA Arsenal. He was there with Steve Harlow and a guy who referred to himself as Axel. He didn't really know the pair too well, and Axel and him didn't have the greatest meeting. Hey! We're gonna go find a missing pilot. Oh whoops we're dying now. From what he could remember, Axel was a lot more sensitive to the radiation than he was, and ended up passing out on Zwickau. Though as to whether he was mad at Sarah or not, he had no idea.
"Axel? Umm.. I don't really know him that well. I don't think he would be mad, but just to be sure I'd make note of every throwable object in the vicinity. You look -really- tired though, and I think you need to rest before making the trip out to Zwickau"
Sarah did look really tired, and Alex had first-hand experience with what could happen when people were tired.
"I'll be fine, Alex. If we were meant to sleep, we'd be born with beds attached or something." She slid off the bed, rising to her feet. Sarah wasn't a person who stood so much as unfolded, lanky limbs somehow disentangling themselves from the hospital bed until she, somehow quite fluidly, ended up standing alongside it. Some of the exhaustion nesting in the back of her skull seemed to fade with the motion, though she knew that it was only waiting to re-emerge later, when she let her guard down. She could bring herself to ignore it for now. There were things to do, after all. "I'll drop around in a couple of days when Donnerkind's squared for departure. In the meantime, try and get some rest, okay?" She gave a knowing grin. "The Taunusfeld'll probably still be there when we get back. Asteroids don't tend to go anywhere. Well, they do go somewhere. Orbits and so on. But, you know, relatively speaking, they're not going anywhere in relation to Bruchsal. More or less.
I should go see-" She paused, correcting herself. "Meet Axel. Take it easy, alright?" Then she was gone, the steel door of the isolation ward hissing shut behind her, leaving Alex alone with the beat of the heart rate monitor.
Noise assaulted her ears as Sarah floated free of Donnerkind's ramp, flattening herself against a wall to avoid being crushed by a pallet pushed aboard by two men wearing the impossible triangle of the Vagrant Raiders on their shoulders, maneuvering jets at their feet and hands carefully arresting their cargo's motion. Zwickau was a hub of activity at the best of times, the base serving as the headquarters for the Widerstand's small team of mechanics and engineers, and the equipment of their trade. Now though, it was busy for an entirely different reason. Medical teams, most of which looked as exhausted as Sarah felt, stood guard over the flotillas of stretchers flowing to the freighters that hung suspended in the hangar, gravity disabled for the sake of efficiency.
Her feet locked to the ground as she drifted to the hangar airlock, magnetic boots fastening her to the floor, yet leaving her upper body unsecured, like a strand of kelp in the Manhattan sea. As she watched, a jet of air puffed out of Donnerkind's nose, maneuvering jets firing as the freighter slowly backed out of the dock with her fresh cargo. That was the cost of coming to Zwickau these days. You either bought cargo or wounded, or left with them. The hangar, its second external airlock rendered inoperable in the fighting, had neither room nor time to spare for an idle ship on a social visit. She couldn't help but smile as a hundred and forty tonnes of spacecraft vanished into the exterior airlock, pivoting as freely as a leaf in the autumn wind. Over three thousand years of human achievement, encapsulated in the green glow of a thruster, the freighter a tiny world all of its own, bearing the atmosphere of a planet long since left behind. Sarah thought there was a certain poetry in that. The smile lingered on her lips long after the ship vanished from view.
Bruchsal's medical bay had been packed, but Zwickau's made it look positively sleepy by comparison. Sarah had to step over mattresses bearing the injured in the hallway as she approached the doorway, doing her best to ignore the desperation-laced eyes that looked up at her. Some pleaded. Some simply made no sound at all, staring blankly at shrapnel wounds and stumps as if the wounds were nothing more then an interesting curiosity. Beds carrying the wounded lined all four walls, and blankets, hastily re-purposed from the accommodation wards, served as stretchers for those who had arrived too late. Others still leaned against the beds. A woman, stained bandage wrapped around a stump at the end of one arm stood with her good arm around a blind man, the wounded supporting the wounded.
Sarah waved down a passing nurse who, in an exasperated tone that told Sarah exactly what the nurse thought of social visits at a time like this, directed her towards a bedridden figure tucked away in the room's corner. An old-fashioned paper chart hung carelessly from a fluorescent light alongside the bed, the name etched across it the only recognisable letters in a sea of German: Axel Eichel. The man underneath it looked like a ghost, pale flesh standing in start contrast to the dark lines that sagged under his eyes. A mop of blond hair sat splayed atop the pillow, like hay leaking from a scarecrow. In the uncertain light, it was impossible to tell if he was awake or asleep. Sarah crouched beside the bed, careful to avoid standing on the sleeping man already leaning against it.
"Axel?" She whispered. "Axel, my name's Sarah. Alex told me about Arsenal. I... I'm not sure if you can hear me, but it was my fault. I'm so sorry. The ship was meant to fly automatically, without a human pilot, but... I made a mistake. I should've seen it. Instead-" She glanced along the supine body. If she ignored the exhaustion that hung in his frame, he didn't look that far off her own age. Instead I did this. Just talking about it again bought all the guilt she'd felt at Alex's bedside surging back. This time, though, she bit her lip, willing her shaking hand and voice to still, as the silence stretched on into what felt like eternity.
"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."
- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.
Being in the corners of Zwickau's Med Bay was pleasing. The constant smell of death seemed to drift away and the warm interior of the station relaxed the body. The only sound Axel could hear was the small chatter from nearby nurses, usually brief. Despite the atmosphere, Axel couldn't sleep.
He had been told many times to 'shut his eyes and pass out for a bit', but this didn't help. Not when he was fine and laying in a bed when others were strewn across the floor, hopeless and limp. Death loomed this place and Axel needed to get out of there, but the nurses were about as stubborn as the Oberst. So a bedridden, drugged Aktivist he remained.
But something was pestering him, a voice perhaps? Axel listened reluctantly, wondering if it was a strange, radiation sickness side effect.
"Axel?" She whispered, her voice sang with a Liberty accent. "Axel, my name's Sarah. Alex told me about Arsenal. I... I'm not sure if you can hear me, but it was my fault. I'm so sorry. The ship was meant to fly automatically, without a human pilot, but... I made a mistake. I should've seen it. Instead-"
It took a moment to sink in. A person was right beside him and claiming to have been the cause of the Arsenal going haywire. Was this some form of prank? A sick joke? Axel's eye's shot open with an angry start and his head turned to meet the perpetrator.
"So." He said, a flame of aggressiveness in his voice. "You're the one who did this. You're the one who made my first patrol a wild goose chase. You're the one who threw me into the dangers of the Arsenal. You're the one who radiated me to the point of where my breakfast, lunch and, eventually, tea, evacuated through two points of my body, at the same time. Let me tell you, Sarah, that your first impressions aren't the best."
Axel took a breath, reciting what he said over in his head. After a moment of deep breathing, he responded again.
"I -no, we- were put onto the brink of death, Sarah. Death may not be scary for someone like Alex, but it absolutely horrifies me."
Axel finally turned back onto his back, with his armed folded, and stared at the ceiling. Painfully taking in the radiation poisoning and the silence.
There was no forgiveness in those eyes. Each word Axel spoke struck home like a hammer blow. She didn't try to argue, didn't object. She simply sat there, the bed's steel railings growing warm in her hands. He was right, and the worst part was that she knew it. Arsenal has been her responsibility, and hers alone. Erich had trusted her with the ship, and she had betrayed that trust. She hadn't checked her systems. She had, for now at least, robbed the Widerstand of the largest transport they had, and very nearly taken three lives with it. She closed her eyes as Axel rolled back to face the ceiling, breathing in the heavy air.
This wasn't what she'd meant to do. Plugging in that database atop Arsenal's control panel had been something new, something exciting. Something that could have bought some measure of hope. But here, surrounded by the ill and dying, what she had meant to do no longer mattered. What point was there in arguing a point you knew to be false? Deep down, she knew it had been naive to hope for forgiveness, for a simple 'sorry' to repair near fatal damage. Axel knew the truth of things now; though, and surely that had to count for something. What, she wasn't sure, but something.
Slowly, she crept to her feet. She couldn't leave, not yet. Somehow; she felt that would have been more cowardly then not arriving in the first place. This was a storm of her own making, and she would stand before it. "I know." What more was there to say? "I'm sorry. I never meant to do this, for Arsenal to go anywhere near people in that state.
I don't expect you to forgive me. I just thought you should know why." She told him, just as she had Alex, in stilted sentences. Each decision, each mistake. How she had tried to fly Arsenal by remote in the vain, stupid, hope that maybe it could help save lives. How she had only ended up nearly taking more lives. As she finished, she fished around in a pocket, retrieving a slim matte plate. A datapad. She placed it on the bed beside Axel like a monk leaving an offering. "My access codes. For Arsenal." She added. "She's just about cleaned up now, and someone needs to fly her. I... After today, I don't think I'm that person. I betrayed your trust, I never meant to, but I did. Arsenal deserves a better pilot then that. Then me." She turned to leave, stepping over the prone figure at her feet. "Please treat her better then I did."
"This is really sort of a personal project of mine."
- James Arland, on single-handedly engaging an enemy regiment.
Axel Eichel
Axel heard the dreaded silence flood the medical bay. What had he done? He ranted about first impressions, but he wasn't a star student himself. What kind of a person sits from a medical bed and shouts at other people? A monster? A tyrant? No, a fool.
Yet, when those words stumbled out of her mouth and the datapad left idle by his side, it hit him. His words were knives into her life and each knife cut open wounds she had obviously been trying to heal. She was probably looking for a second chance, like he was within the Widerstand.
Second chances. That was something rare, especially to Axel. What he would have done for a second chance in politics, in university, in school and at home. Second meals, second attempts, second tests. Seconds are so valuable, so who was he to dictate as of who gets their 'second serving'?
"Sara-" He tried to call, but his voice was weak. "Sarah, damn it! Get back here! Sarah!" His voice became corrupt with coughs and splutters. He still tried to call out, but every sound was inaudible and seemed to get the attention of the nearby nurses rather than the woman in distress.
"Sarah!" he screamed at last, hoping to grab her attention.
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