Parallel Lives: Six Glimpses: The Alliance Officer
Parallel Lives is a crossover AU (Dragon Age:Origins characters in a Mass Effect setting) that has spiraled into a major series. Six Glimpses introduces the six "Wardens" (one from each origin) and their place in the galaxy circa early ME2.
Lieutenant Alexia Cousland gritted her teeth as she swept her assault rifle across the group of mercenaries overrunning the squad. That was not how this mission was supposed to go.
Rolling, she ducked behind cover and continued picking off the mercs as she tried to get a clear grasp on the situation. The Nairobi was her first posting out of the Academy, and she assumed the captain had included her in this shore party to assess her in a low-risk situation. It had been a fairly routine patrol at first. Then they’d stumbled into an ambush and all hell had broken loose. Right now, she was too busy taking down targets to try and figure out what had gone wrong.
Cousland pulled back to switch out her clip, and when she peeked out of cover again, the firefight had died down a little. She had a clear view of the major, distinctive in his sleek, flashy armor. Head turning, he surveyed the situation, appearing to have it well in hand. Cousland heard a click across her commset and prepared to respond to orders, anticipating likely scenarios for a tactical retreat.
Then the door behind the major hissed open and the krogan shock troops flooded through. She couldn’t see if it was biotics or a shotgun blast that slammed into the major’s back first, but his mangled body was on the floor in short order, blood spattered across that shiny armor. Cursing, Cousland took aim and began firing at the new wave of mercs, hoping to blunt their charge.
The commander clearly had the same idea, stepping out from cover and taking aim. The krogan leader vanished from her sight in a blinding flash of blue-white sparks as his shields overloaded, and a couple of the mercs behind him fell to the ground with half of their faces missing. But the krogan were still coming in, and the commander’s position was too close for effective use of his sniper rifle. Cousland continued to fire into his assailants, but there were too many of them and they were too well armored. She watched in horror as the commander was overrun.
A sudden explosion tore through the room, deafening in its intensity. Most of the krogan mercs were flung backwards by the force of the blast, and few of them got up afterwards. Echoes ringing in her ears, Cousland picked off the ones that did. She whispered a blessing for the commander. The wiry old campaigner must have rigged something to blow, taking out most of the mercs. But there was no way he’d made it through a blast that flattened a dozen krogan. So Cousland was now the ranking officer in charge of this disaster.
Once her hearing returned to normal, the sounds of crackling flames and scattered gunfire creeping back in to her awareness, Cousland thumbed on her commset. “Squad, report! Status?”
The seconds ticked by, and there was no answer. The armored mercs were starting to regroup after the blast, too, and as she continued firing, Cousland began to panic. There was no way she was getting out of this alone. “Positions?” she barked, hoping desperately for a reply.
Just as she had decided there wasn’t going to be one, a single voice came back across the channel. “Cowering?”
Cousland tried to get a grip on the relief that flooded her at the scrap of human contact. “Sitrep?”
“Cowering, bleeding, and trying not to get shot again.” There was a slightly disconnected edge to the voice, and she couldn’t place which of the privates it belonged to. She tried to get more information from him about his location, but there were no specifics forthcoming.
Eventually, Cousland caught sight of what was apparently her sole surviving ally, hunched over behind some crates. It was completely the opposite direction from the exit, but there was no way she was leaving him behind. Pulling out her shotgun, she stood from cover, drawing attention and blasting back the vorcha that charged her on sight.
Her shields held long enough for her to run to the other marine’s position, putting down all of the remaining vorcha on the way. Ducking into his cover, she smiled grimly, hoping she’d bought them a little breathing space. With the krogan and vorcha out of it, the rest of the mercs should be more wary about approaching a heavily armed position, despite their superiority of numbers.
She spared a quick glance down at her squadmate, identifying him and becoming rapidly alarmed at the amount of blood seeping out of his armor. “Dammit, Theirin, why didn’t you tell me you were that badly injured?”
Given his condition, she didn’t expect a response, so she wasn’t surprised when he remained silent while she dug for medi-gel.
Apparently he’d been considering the question, though, because after a few moments he responded groggily. “Poor judgment due to blood loss?”
Cousland smirked in spite of the situation, a tiny huff of a laugh escaping. Before she could frame a suitable reply, there was a sound of footfalls behind her.
She whirled, coming face to face with a batarian who was either more brave or less intelligent than his allies. Cousland’s hand twitched, and she realized that she had set down her gun to pull out the medi-gel. There was no way she could reach it before the batarian got a shot off.
The batarian seemed to come to the same conclusion, and a wicked grin twisted across its features as it leveled its weapon on her. Then suddenly a hole blossomed where most of its face had been, and it collapsed bonelessly to the ground.
Cousland turned back to see her squadmate holding a pistol, all he’d been able to manage one-handed. His arm wasn’t completely steady as he lowered it, and his breathing sounded more strained than it had before.
“Nice shot,” she said, revising their odds of survival up a tick. If he could shoot that well while seriously injured, they might have a real chance of getting out of here once he was back on his feet.
Before anything else could go wrong, she quickly applied the medi-gel to his lower torso, wincing as he hissed with the pain of her less-than-gentle treatment. “It won’t be perfect, but this should hold you together long enough to get back to the Nairobi. Your armor and body are both going to be weak, though. Don’t do anything unnecessarily stupid and try not to get shot again.”
Cousland stopped, realizing she was rambling out of nerves. Her companion didn’t seem to mind, focused mostly on the fading pain as his injuries mended. His shallow breathing deepened and then sped up as adrenalin joined the endorphins flooding his system. She waited until his eyes cleared and his attention focused externally instead of on the changes taking place in his body. “Ready?” she asked.
He nodded affirmatively, picking up his assault rifle and stowing the hand cannon.
“Let’s go then. Stick close. Stay focused. And do whatever I tell you.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.” He sounded amused. “Have you noticed you’re giving rather a lot of orders?”
“I’m your commanding officer at the moment. The commander and major are both down. Hell, I think the entire rest of the squad is down. We’re it, and I’ll be damned if we join them.”
Cousland checked her clips in preparation for storming out of their cover. Her companion was oddly silent, and she realized belatedly that she’d been an idiot. She was new to the Nairobi, but he wasn’t. Those marines she’d barely known were his teammates, his friends - hadn’t the major been his cousin or something? - and it was heartless of her to treat their deaths so casually.
Wincing, not quite able to meet his eyes, she tried to mend her thoughtless words. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that. They were good marines, and they deserved better. We’ll grieve for them when we get back to the ship. But first we need to make sure we get out of this so no one’s grieving us.”
“Of course, ma’am.” He sounded subdued, and she almost didn’t hear what followed. “Although I doubt anyone would much care about losing a second Theirin.”
Cousland couldn’t let that pass. Defeatism was not an option if they wanted to survive this. “Belay that, marine,” she snapped, staring him down. “If nothing else, I would care. This is my first command, and while it sure as hell isn’t what I pictured or wanted, there is no way I am coming out of it without my squad. Since you’re it at the moment, I will be doing every damn thing I can to make sure you get back to the shuttle safely. You are not allowed to die on me, Theirin. That is an order. Understood?”
“Understood, ma’am.” His head was up now, shoulders set. Cousland nodded briskly, satisfied. She’d worry about making sense of that look on his face later, once they were back on the ship.
Cousland poked her head out, ducking back quickly just before a crater appeared in the wall behind her. “Looks like they took advantage of the time to get snipers in place,” she said briskly. “Once we get out there, we keep moving. Never hold still long enough for them to get a fix.” She reached for a grenade. “I’m going to cause some confusion out there. Then we use the distraction to get as far out of here as possible. Cover my six.”
“With you, ma’am.”
He nodded, she armed and threw the grenade, and they ran.
The next few minutes were utter chaos. Slugs flashing off of shields or burying themselves in walls. Mercs screaming and bleeding. Running, ducking, dodging. Cousland almost couldn’t believe it when the shuttle hatch sealed behind them. She slid behind the controls and fired up the engines. “Let’s get the hell off this God-forsaken rock.”
“No arguments from me.” He winced as he fastened on the restraint harness, evidence the medi-gel hadn’t been able to fix all of the damage to his abdomen. He was going straight to the doctor when they got onto the Nairobi, regardless of what he or anyone else said.
As they broke atmo without pursuit, Alexia finally relaxed, pulling off her helmet and shaking out her sweat-matted hair. Something had gone very wrong back there, and she wasn’t entirely convinced it was an accident. None of the intel they’d been given had suggested anywhere near that level of resistance. Either someone had gotten very sloppy, or that was a set-up. There were people in various diplomatic and intelligence offices who would take her calls out of respect for her father’s memory. Once she was debriefed, it was time to start pulling some of those strings and finding out exactly who knew what about Ostagar.
Over two hours later, Alexia was in her shipboard quarters, toweling dry her hair. After a painfully thorough debriefing with Captain Dryden and the ship’s remaining senior officers, she’d felt the need for a shower to wash away some of the physical and emotional debris from the mission. Showers on a ship were short by necessity, but at least they were hot. Especially on a day like this, Alexia would gladly take whatever little comforts were available.
She pulled on her shipboard uniform and slicked her damp hair back into a tight knot. Feeling somewhat more civilized and together, she headed to the medical bay to check on the injured marine she’d brought back.
As soon as they had gotten back to the Nairobi, she’d ordered Theirin to report to sickbay, wanting someone with proper medical training to follow up on her field first aid. Alexia wasn’t sure she’d had the authority to give that order, but the captain hadn’t chosen to countermand it. Since Theirin had logged into the medbay under Alexia’s direction, it was her responsibility to follow up on his progress. Truthfully, she was relieved to have that excuse to check in. After running through a blow-by-blow of the ambush with the senior officers, she needed a tangible reminder that she’d managed to salvage something from the disaster.
As Alexia entered the medbay, the Nairobi’s doctor, a man she’d barely met in her short time on the ship, looked up from his terminal. “Lieutenant,” he greeted her with a crisp nod. “You’ll be here to check up on my work, then?”
“Not at all, sir. I’m sure you know your job far better than I do.” Alexia squared her shoulders and dropped into a formal stance out of habit, deferring to the doctor’s seniority. “All the same, I would feel better knowing how well my field patching held up.”
The doctor’s brisk demeanor thawed somewhat, and he favored her with a hint of a smile. “You did a nice job, given the circumstances. I had to pump several units of blood into him and mend some internal damage, but I’ve seen a lot worse. Especially from a shot like that. He’ll have a scar to show off, but you saved his life, lieutenant.”
Alexia sighed with relief, feeling her shoulders sag as she released tension she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Thank you. I’ll let you get back to work now, sir. Tell Theirin I asked after him.”
“Tell him yourself.” The doctor gestured toward the sickbay door as he turned back to his terminal. “He’s awake and would welcome the company.”
Alexia hesitated, unsure if she should intrude when she only really knew the man from patching him up and bullying him back onto his feet afterwards.
The doctor huffed impatiently. “Go on, lieutenant. Let him talk your ear off for a while instead of mine.”
Alexia nodded and walked towards the indicated door, mentally chastising herself. Theirin had been through a traumatic experience, and he was trying to process it while confined in a sterile, impersonal environment with extremely limited human contact. The doctor’s comment suggested that he needed someone to talk to, and even if she didn’t know him particularly well, it ought to be her responsibility - as an officer, a fellow marine, and simply a decent person - to give him a sympathetic ear.
When the sickbay door hissed open, Alexia was relieved to see Theirin dressed in casual uniform and sitting upright. He looked a little pale from the blood loss, but otherwise there was little indication of what he’d been through. Except for the shadows in his eyes. His face lit up with a smile as she entered, and Alexia knew she’d made the right choice. He didn’t need to be alone right now.
She waved away his attempt at a salute. “This is a purely social visit. I came to see how you’re doing.”
“Surprisingly well, given the large hole someone opened in my side. So, you know, thank you for that. For the me doing well, I mean. Not the large hole, obviously. I’m pretty sure you didn’t shoot me. I remember that being someone much uglier and scalier and with more eyes.” He trailed off awkwardly.
Alexia stared at him, trying to work her way through that to find an appropriate response.
Before she got to one, he spoke again, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Anyway, what you probably actually want to know… I would be cleared for duty except I’m still low on blood.”
“Not surprising given how much of it you were sitting in when I found you.” Alexia tried to relax more visibly, leaning her weight back against the adjacent cot, hoping to put him at ease. “But I’m not here about your medical condition; the doctor filled me in on that - somewhat more succinctly, I might add.” She flashed him a quick smile to take the sting from her words before pressing her point. “I’m asking about what he can’t tell me: After everything that happened down there, how are you doing, Theirin?”
“All things considered, lieutenant, I think you can call me Alistair.”
Alexia raised an eyebrow at him. “While you address me by rank?”
“Yes, ma’am!” His crisp military response was too exaggerated and immediate to be sincere, and Alexia couldn’t help but be amused. “I wouldn’t dream of referring to a superior officer by her first name. I mean, I might literally dream about it, but only after being discharged from the sickbay so I can get access to your records and find out what your first name actually is, so I don’t have to make something up… And that got really weird. Um, can we pretend that I’m on some sort of pain meds and not usually this much of an idiot?”
Alexia gave up on holding in her laughter, hoping that it came across as friendly rather than mocking. “I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up,” she offered. “My name’s Alexia.”
“Is that for information purposes, or can I…?”
She laughed again. “You’re welcome to use it in informal settings. Or dreams, I suppose, when relevant.”
He looked at her oddly for a moment, as if absorbing that, and she wondered if he really was slightly addled by a combination of pain medication, shock, and fatigue. Which brought her back to the purpose of the conversation. “You still haven’t answered my original question.”
A slightly guilty look flickered over his face, followed rapidly by resignation. “And you’re going to keep bringing it up until I do.”
“I’m known for my persistence.” Alexia took a deep breath, forcing herself to drop the light, playful tone. She let her guard down and looked him squarely in the eyes. “And maybe I need to talk about what happened as much as you do.”
Alistair flinched away from her sincerity, his humor replaced by bitterness. “What’s there to say? A lot of people are dead, and I’m trying to figure out why I’m sitting here with nothing worse than a new scar. Ostagar was supposed to be simple, and it all went to hell, and I have no idea why I’m still breathing.”
“Leaving you to bleed out wouldn’t have helped anyone.” Alexia tried to phrase it as a neutral observation, but she had too many of her own emotions tied up in the day’s events to keep her distance.
“Why me? Most of the corpses we left down there were better marines, better men. How did I deserve to walk away?”
“It’s not about what we deserve. It never is. No one deserves to die like that. No one.” She leaned forward, gripping Alistair’s forearm to hold his attention. “And it isn’t always about skill or training or any of that, as much as they try to teach us in basic. Sometimes it’s just luck and timing. There isn’t a reason or meaning in it, but you have to try and make one after the fact. You have to make your survival count for something. Make it worth their deaths.”
Alistair’s eyes were wide, fixed on her face, and Alexia knew she was ranting like a madwoman. But she couldn’t stop, couldn’t bring herself back under control. Not after she’d been telling herself these same things every day since she started at the Academy to find meaning in her family’s deaths. If she couldn’t get him to believe she meant it, how could she convince herself?
Stubborn anger twisted Alistair’s features. “Worth it? How? What’s a life worth? All those lives? How can I make that up?”
“Maybe we can’t. Maybe there’s no way you and I can ever live up to the potential that was lost down there. All we can do is spend every day of the rest of our lives trying.” She realized that she was still gripping his arm, probably tightly enough to be uncomfortable.
Awkwardly, Alexia let go and tried to even out her ragged breathing, slow her pulse. “Deal?” She held out her hand for him to shake, pleased she was able to keep it steady.
Alistair looked slightly dazed by her outburst, but he took her hand. “Deal.”
“Good.” His hand was callused and warm. She tightened her grip slightly, light pressure for emphasis. “For now, your part of it is resting until you’re recovered enough for the doctor to discharge you. I should go so you can get started with that.”
As she started to pull away, he held on to her hand, face turned up and eyes seeking hers. “Thank you. No matter how ungrateful I sound, I’m not blaming you. I… appreciate everything you’ve done for me, ma’am.” She looked at him expectantly, and he corrected himself. “Lexia.”
She smiled, surprised by how welcome it was to hear someone use her name. Gently, she slipped her fingers free and moved towards the door. “We’ll talk later, Alistair.”
Lieutenant Alexia Cousland gritted her teeth as she swept her assault rifle across the group of mercenaries overrunning the squad. That was not how this mission was supposed to go.
Rolling, she ducked behind cover and continued picking off the mercs as she tried to get a clear grasp on the situation. The Nairobi was her first posting out of the Academy, and she assumed the captain had included her in this shore party to assess her in a low-risk situation. It had been a fairly routine patrol at first. Then they’d stumbled into an ambush and all hell had broken loose. Right now, she was too busy taking down targets to try and figure out what had gone wrong.
Cousland pulled back to switch out her clip, and when she peeked out of cover again, the firefight had died down a little. She had a clear view of the major, distinctive in his sleek, flashy armor. Head turning, he surveyed the situation, appearing to have it well in hand. Cousland heard a click across her commset and prepared to respond to orders, anticipating likely scenarios for a tactical retreat.
Then the door behind the major hissed open and the krogan shock troops flooded through. She couldn’t see if it was biotics or a shotgun blast that slammed into the major’s back first, but his mangled body was on the floor in short order, blood spattered across that shiny armor. Cursing, Cousland took aim and began firing at the new wave of mercs, hoping to blunt their charge.
The commander clearly had the same idea, stepping out from cover and taking aim. The krogan leader vanished from her sight in a blinding flash of blue-white sparks as his shields overloaded, and a couple of the mercs behind him fell to the ground with half of their faces missing. But the krogan were still coming in, and the commander’s position was too close for effective use of his sniper rifle. Cousland continued to fire into his assailants, but there were too many of them and they were too well armored. She watched in horror as the commander was overrun.
A sudden explosion tore through the room, deafening in its intensity. Most of the krogan mercs were flung backwards by the force of the blast, and few of them got up afterwards. Echoes ringing in her ears, Cousland picked off the ones that did. She whispered a blessing for the commander. The wiry old campaigner must have rigged something to blow, taking out most of the mercs. But there was no way he’d made it through a blast that flattened a dozen krogan. So Cousland was now the ranking officer in charge of this disaster.
Once her hearing returned to normal, the sounds of crackling flames and scattered gunfire creeping back in to her awareness, Cousland thumbed on her commset. “Squad, report! Status?”
The seconds ticked by, and there was no answer. The armored mercs were starting to regroup after the blast, too, and as she continued firing, Cousland began to panic. There was no way she was getting out of this alone. “Positions?” she barked, hoping desperately for a reply.
Just as she had decided there wasn’t going to be one, a single voice came back across the channel. “Cowering?”
Cousland tried to get a grip on the relief that flooded her at the scrap of human contact. “Sitrep?”
“Cowering, bleeding, and trying not to get shot again.” There was a slightly disconnected edge to the voice, and she couldn’t place which of the privates it belonged to. She tried to get more information from him about his location, but there were no specifics forthcoming.
Eventually, Cousland caught sight of what was apparently her sole surviving ally, hunched over behind some crates. It was completely the opposite direction from the exit, but there was no way she was leaving him behind. Pulling out her shotgun, she stood from cover, drawing attention and blasting back the vorcha that charged her on sight.
Her shields held long enough for her to run to the other marine’s position, putting down all of the remaining vorcha on the way. Ducking into his cover, she smiled grimly, hoping she’d bought them a little breathing space. With the krogan and vorcha out of it, the rest of the mercs should be more wary about approaching a heavily armed position, despite their superiority of numbers.
She spared a quick glance down at her squadmate, identifying him and becoming rapidly alarmed at the amount of blood seeping out of his armor. “Dammit, Theirin, why didn’t you tell me you were that badly injured?”
Given his condition, she didn’t expect a response, so she wasn’t surprised when he remained silent while she dug for medi-gel.
Apparently he’d been considering the question, though, because after a few moments he responded groggily. “Poor judgment due to blood loss?”
Cousland smirked in spite of the situation, a tiny huff of a laugh escaping. Before she could frame a suitable reply, there was a sound of footfalls behind her.
She whirled, coming face to face with a batarian who was either more brave or less intelligent than his allies. Cousland’s hand twitched, and she realized that she had set down her gun to pull out the medi-gel. There was no way she could reach it before the batarian got a shot off.
The batarian seemed to come to the same conclusion, and a wicked grin twisted across its features as it leveled its weapon on her. Then suddenly a hole blossomed where most of its face had been, and it collapsed bonelessly to the ground.
Cousland turned back to see her squadmate holding a pistol, all he’d been able to manage one-handed. His arm wasn’t completely steady as he lowered it, and his breathing sounded more strained than it had before.
“Nice shot,” she said, revising their odds of survival up a tick. If he could shoot that well while seriously injured, they might have a real chance of getting out of here once he was back on his feet.
Before anything else could go wrong, she quickly applied the medi-gel to his lower torso, wincing as he hissed with the pain of her less-than-gentle treatment. “It won’t be perfect, but this should hold you together long enough to get back to the Nairobi. Your armor and body are both going to be weak, though. Don’t do anything unnecessarily stupid and try not to get shot again.”
Cousland stopped, realizing she was rambling out of nerves. Her companion didn’t seem to mind, focused mostly on the fading pain as his injuries mended. His shallow breathing deepened and then sped up as adrenalin joined the endorphins flooding his system. She waited until his eyes cleared and his attention focused externally instead of on the changes taking place in his body. “Ready?” she asked.
He nodded affirmatively, picking up his assault rifle and stowing the hand cannon.
“Let’s go then. Stick close. Stay focused. And do whatever I tell you.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.” He sounded amused. “Have you noticed you’re giving rather a lot of orders?”
“I’m your commanding officer at the moment. The commander and major are both down. Hell, I think the entire rest of the squad is down. We’re it, and I’ll be damned if we join them.”
Cousland checked her clips in preparation for storming out of their cover. Her companion was oddly silent, and she realized belatedly that she’d been an idiot. She was new to the Nairobi, but he wasn’t. Those marines she’d barely known were his teammates, his friends - hadn’t the major been his cousin or something? - and it was heartless of her to treat their deaths so casually.
Wincing, not quite able to meet his eyes, she tried to mend her thoughtless words. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that. They were good marines, and they deserved better. We’ll grieve for them when we get back to the ship. But first we need to make sure we get out of this so no one’s grieving us.”
“Of course, ma’am.” He sounded subdued, and she almost didn’t hear what followed. “Although I doubt anyone would much care about losing a second Theirin.”
Cousland couldn’t let that pass. Defeatism was not an option if they wanted to survive this. “Belay that, marine,” she snapped, staring him down. “If nothing else, I would care. This is my first command, and while it sure as hell isn’t what I pictured or wanted, there is no way I am coming out of it without my squad. Since you’re it at the moment, I will be doing every damn thing I can to make sure you get back to the shuttle safely. You are not allowed to die on me, Theirin. That is an order. Understood?”
“Understood, ma’am.” His head was up now, shoulders set. Cousland nodded briskly, satisfied. She’d worry about making sense of that look on his face later, once they were back on the ship.
Cousland poked her head out, ducking back quickly just before a crater appeared in the wall behind her. “Looks like they took advantage of the time to get snipers in place,” she said briskly. “Once we get out there, we keep moving. Never hold still long enough for them to get a fix.” She reached for a grenade. “I’m going to cause some confusion out there. Then we use the distraction to get as far out of here as possible. Cover my six.”
“With you, ma’am.”
He nodded, she armed and threw the grenade, and they ran.
The next few minutes were utter chaos. Slugs flashing off of shields or burying themselves in walls. Mercs screaming and bleeding. Running, ducking, dodging. Cousland almost couldn’t believe it when the shuttle hatch sealed behind them. She slid behind the controls and fired up the engines. “Let’s get the hell off this God-forsaken rock.”
“No arguments from me.” He winced as he fastened on the restraint harness, evidence the medi-gel hadn’t been able to fix all of the damage to his abdomen. He was going straight to the doctor when they got onto the Nairobi, regardless of what he or anyone else said.
As they broke atmo without pursuit, Alexia finally relaxed, pulling off her helmet and shaking out her sweat-matted hair. Something had gone very wrong back there, and she wasn’t entirely convinced it was an accident. None of the intel they’d been given had suggested anywhere near that level of resistance. Either someone had gotten very sloppy, or that was a set-up. There were people in various diplomatic and intelligence offices who would take her calls out of respect for her father’s memory. Once she was debriefed, it was time to start pulling some of those strings and finding out exactly who knew what about Ostagar.
Over two hours later, Alexia was in her shipboard quarters, toweling dry her hair. After a painfully thorough debriefing with Captain Dryden and the ship’s remaining senior officers, she’d felt the need for a shower to wash away some of the physical and emotional debris from the mission. Showers on a ship were short by necessity, but at least they were hot. Especially on a day like this, Alexia would gladly take whatever little comforts were available.
She pulled on her shipboard uniform and slicked her damp hair back into a tight knot. Feeling somewhat more civilized and together, she headed to the medical bay to check on the injured marine she’d brought back.
As soon as they had gotten back to the Nairobi, she’d ordered Theirin to report to sickbay, wanting someone with proper medical training to follow up on her field first aid. Alexia wasn’t sure she’d had the authority to give that order, but the captain hadn’t chosen to countermand it. Since Theirin had logged into the medbay under Alexia’s direction, it was her responsibility to follow up on his progress. Truthfully, she was relieved to have that excuse to check in. After running through a blow-by-blow of the ambush with the senior officers, she needed a tangible reminder that she’d managed to salvage something from the disaster.
As Alexia entered the medbay, the Nairobi’s doctor, a man she’d barely met in her short time on the ship, looked up from his terminal. “Lieutenant,” he greeted her with a crisp nod. “You’ll be here to check up on my work, then?”
“Not at all, sir. I’m sure you know your job far better than I do.” Alexia squared her shoulders and dropped into a formal stance out of habit, deferring to the doctor’s seniority. “All the same, I would feel better knowing how well my field patching held up.”
The doctor’s brisk demeanor thawed somewhat, and he favored her with a hint of a smile. “You did a nice job, given the circumstances. I had to pump several units of blood into him and mend some internal damage, but I’ve seen a lot worse. Especially from a shot like that. He’ll have a scar to show off, but you saved his life, lieutenant.”
Alexia sighed with relief, feeling her shoulders sag as she released tension she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Thank you. I’ll let you get back to work now, sir. Tell Theirin I asked after him.”
“Tell him yourself.” The doctor gestured toward the sickbay door as he turned back to his terminal. “He’s awake and would welcome the company.”
Alexia hesitated, unsure if she should intrude when she only really knew the man from patching him up and bullying him back onto his feet afterwards.
The doctor huffed impatiently. “Go on, lieutenant. Let him talk your ear off for a while instead of mine.”
Alexia nodded and walked towards the indicated door, mentally chastising herself. Theirin had been through a traumatic experience, and he was trying to process it while confined in a sterile, impersonal environment with extremely limited human contact. The doctor’s comment suggested that he needed someone to talk to, and even if she didn’t know him particularly well, it ought to be her responsibility - as an officer, a fellow marine, and simply a decent person - to give him a sympathetic ear.
When the sickbay door hissed open, Alexia was relieved to see Theirin dressed in casual uniform and sitting upright. He looked a little pale from the blood loss, but otherwise there was little indication of what he’d been through. Except for the shadows in his eyes. His face lit up with a smile as she entered, and Alexia knew she’d made the right choice. He didn’t need to be alone right now.
She waved away his attempt at a salute. “This is a purely social visit. I came to see how you’re doing.”
“Surprisingly well, given the large hole someone opened in my side. So, you know, thank you for that. For the me doing well, I mean. Not the large hole, obviously. I’m pretty sure you didn’t shoot me. I remember that being someone much uglier and scalier and with more eyes.” He trailed off awkwardly.
Alexia stared at him, trying to work her way through that to find an appropriate response.
Before she got to one, he spoke again, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Anyway, what you probably actually want to know… I would be cleared for duty except I’m still low on blood.”
“Not surprising given how much of it you were sitting in when I found you.” Alexia tried to relax more visibly, leaning her weight back against the adjacent cot, hoping to put him at ease. “But I’m not here about your medical condition; the doctor filled me in on that - somewhat more succinctly, I might add.” She flashed him a quick smile to take the sting from her words before pressing her point. “I’m asking about what he can’t tell me: After everything that happened down there, how are you doing, Theirin?”
“All things considered, lieutenant, I think you can call me Alistair.”
Alexia raised an eyebrow at him. “While you address me by rank?”
“Yes, ma’am!” His crisp military response was too exaggerated and immediate to be sincere, and Alexia couldn’t help but be amused. “I wouldn’t dream of referring to a superior officer by her first name. I mean, I might literally dream about it, but only after being discharged from the sickbay so I can get access to your records and find out what your first name actually is, so I don’t have to make something up… And that got really weird. Um, can we pretend that I’m on some sort of pain meds and not usually this much of an idiot?”
Alexia gave up on holding in her laughter, hoping that it came across as friendly rather than mocking. “I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up,” she offered. “My name’s Alexia.”
“Is that for information purposes, or can I…?”
She laughed again. “You’re welcome to use it in informal settings. Or dreams, I suppose, when relevant.”
He looked at her oddly for a moment, as if absorbing that, and she wondered if he really was slightly addled by a combination of pain medication, shock, and fatigue. Which brought her back to the purpose of the conversation. “You still haven’t answered my original question.”
A slightly guilty look flickered over his face, followed rapidly by resignation. “And you’re going to keep bringing it up until I do.”
“I’m known for my persistence.” Alexia took a deep breath, forcing herself to drop the light, playful tone. She let her guard down and looked him squarely in the eyes. “And maybe I need to talk about what happened as much as you do.”
Alistair flinched away from her sincerity, his humor replaced by bitterness. “What’s there to say? A lot of people are dead, and I’m trying to figure out why I’m sitting here with nothing worse than a new scar. Ostagar was supposed to be simple, and it all went to hell, and I have no idea why I’m still breathing.”
“Leaving you to bleed out wouldn’t have helped anyone.” Alexia tried to phrase it as a neutral observation, but she had too many of her own emotions tied up in the day’s events to keep her distance.
“Why me? Most of the corpses we left down there were better marines, better men. How did I deserve to walk away?”
“It’s not about what we deserve. It never is. No one deserves to die like that. No one.” She leaned forward, gripping Alistair’s forearm to hold his attention. “And it isn’t always about skill or training or any of that, as much as they try to teach us in basic. Sometimes it’s just luck and timing. There isn’t a reason or meaning in it, but you have to try and make one after the fact. You have to make your survival count for something. Make it worth their deaths.”
Alistair’s eyes were wide, fixed on her face, and Alexia knew she was ranting like a madwoman. But she couldn’t stop, couldn’t bring herself back under control. Not after she’d been telling herself these same things every day since she started at the Academy to find meaning in her family’s deaths. If she couldn’t get him to believe she meant it, how could she convince herself?
Stubborn anger twisted Alistair’s features. “Worth it? How? What’s a life worth? All those lives? How can I make that up?”
“Maybe we can’t. Maybe there’s no way you and I can ever live up to the potential that was lost down there. All we can do is spend every day of the rest of our lives trying.” She realized that she was still gripping his arm, probably tightly enough to be uncomfortable.
Awkwardly, Alexia let go and tried to even out her ragged breathing, slow her pulse. “Deal?” She held out her hand for him to shake, pleased she was able to keep it steady.
Alistair looked slightly dazed by her outburst, but he took her hand. “Deal.”
“Good.” His hand was callused and warm. She tightened her grip slightly, light pressure for emphasis. “For now, your part of it is resting until you’re recovered enough for the doctor to discharge you. I should go so you can get started with that.”
As she started to pull away, he held on to her hand, face turned up and eyes seeking hers. “Thank you. No matter how ungrateful I sound, I’m not blaming you. I… appreciate everything you’ve done for me, ma’am.” She looked at him expectantly, and he corrected himself. “Lexia.”
She smiled, surprised by how welcome it was to hear someone use her name. Gently, she slipped her fingers free and moved towards the door. “We’ll talk later, Alistair.”