28

Facing The Facts

Davidson stepped through the door into a crowded auditorium that had been hastily erected in the aftermath of the insurgents' invasion of the Kl'Deesius, a place intended to serve two distinct purposes. One was to provide entertainment functions from a communal perspective, such as holding musical shows, theatrical plays and the occasional pre-recorded production. It seems the entertainment industry of the old world was certain to make a comeback, whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing. Time would one day tell that story.

The other was to provide a lecture hall educational and briefing venue to keep everyone up to date on the state of human affairs. Those affairs would cover everything from the current state of society, to information briefings on their real enemy, those who were known as possessors.

It had been discovered through careful examination, that their troubles had all started when the enigmatic figure who called himself 'A' had made his presence known. Careful questioning, combined with analysis of surveillance data and eyewitness accounts, had revealed that 'A' was not only responsible for the Kl'Deesius intrusion, the prison break, the tortures, but he had also orchestrated the dissident movement from the very beginning, starting with some very carefully-worded statements to survivors as early as the day they were all picked up in the cargo hold of the Kl'Deesius during the rescue from Earth's surface. Further examination of the transporter records from the Earth's surface had revealed a tell-tale possessor influence in the brain stem of the man, but nowhere near enough to suggest he had been directly possessed, which was the only thing the Klankharis Realm was looking for at the time.

Davidson had suspected that the execution of the attack on the Kl'Deesius and on the guard station protecting the settlement with security forces had to have been carried out by someone far more intelligent, tactically-minded and aware of what was going on than any survivor on Earth could possibly expect to be.

As a consequence, their security would immediately be tightened, precluding such an individual from ever slipping past their notice again.

Still, it had caused an awful mess for them all to clean up, including the unintended consequence of Davidson, Helen and Mira all finding out the true origin of the Klankharis people. It caused him a great deal of consternation still, to realize that the entire ISS program was engineered to happen because the donor of the project was from the Tau Ceti system and made sure that the project would be green-lit by any means necessary, including providing a huge influx of cash and possibly influencing technological development on Earth to make it possible.

Mira was still angry at her own mentor, her predecessor, the man who was now Director of Fleet Intelligence, and a man tasked with keeping such secrets. She expressed it to Davidson once, and though she never mentioned it again, Davidson could tell it affected her trust of her own people badly.

Still, she would persevere, and he had complete trust in her. He continued to reassure her of his trust, his faith, his dedication, on a frequent basis as she expressed insecurity over his trust in her, and slowly, she began to accept that he was not just humoring her. While she would remain angry at those who had kept the secret from her, she and Davidson somehow had become even closer to each other.

That secret of theirs would be one mess that would remain for a long time, Davidson realized sadly. Maybe one day, the people of both worlds would be able to accept the truth of the matter, but not for a long time yet, possibly not in his lifetime.

The first step toward cleaning up the remaining mess was to hold a briefing, complete with sworn testimonials from survivors who had directly witnessed a possession, as well as video footage and telemetry from any ships in the area at the time a possession took place. Every human being in the settlement would now be told exactly how dangerous these Possessors were, and 'A' would be held as a warning of what can happen when people become complacent.

So, as he stepped in, he nodded to Mira, took a seat next to her at the head of the lecture area, and announced the purpose of their meeting that day.

Over the next four weeks, there would be further changes happening in the settlement. More residential units had been converted to allow for roof balconies, giving the residents more privacy. Reports had come in from Earth's terraforming project, and while the atmosphere was undergoing cleaning ahead of schedule, it would still likely be three years before the surface was habitable and the humans could return to the planet. As a consequence, the settlement was given the green light to expand, to allow more residential units, more space for people to live in, and more privacy. They would still be pre-fab units, but no-one would need to live in shared accommodation if they did not wish it.

The daily briefings had slowly started to achieve the objectives that were intended, that being to inform the settlers of their real mission, and to calm resentment and prevent any rioting. Eventually, this would lead to reform of government policy, rescinding of rigid milityary law, and the introduction of increased freedoms for citizens.

A military recruitment policy was drafted, and would shortly go into effect. Davidson and Miradima had planned everything carefully, and the beginnings of what would eventually be called EarthFleet had been drawn up. There would be a two-tiered division. The first would be the soldiery, the equivalent of the US marines or the Royal Marines of the UK back on Earth. Their rank structure would be similar, but not entirely the same as either of those organizations, but something entirely suited to the task of maintaining an armed services presence in concert with a specialist and technician presence within the Earth's dedicated space fleet.

They would be known as the Officer Division, dedicated to providing commissioned personnel for space operations on ships. Commissioned officer ranks equivalent to those in the various navies on Earth, would be the mainstay of the EarthFleet Officer Corps, and everything from Junior Lieutenant to Admiral-Of-The-Fleet would exist under this umbrella.

Soldiery provided working personnel for the ships and soldiers for boarding actions and planetary operations, while Officer Division provided specialized officers for shipboard operation and command-level functioning. It would of course be expected that a Soldiery level Sergeant-Major would accord the same respect as a Commander in charge of a ship, even if the Commander technically held a much higher rank (and a Junior Lieutenant was also a ranking officer).

It was not an intuitive command structure, Davidson realized, but it was the one he knew best, and so it had survived to become the mainstay of Earth's continued presence in galactic society.

Today was a day declared as a public day of rest. Much had been accomplished, and now was the time to relax and try to enjoy their new lives. No doubt there would be some who abstained from any festivities, either through ill health or because they did not wish to join, but Davidson was hopeful, as was most of the leadership, that most would want to let themselves relax for a while.

Mephicia stood alone, in her quarters aboard the Kl'Deesius. These had been her living quarters for nearly five years, and she had never simply stopped to examine the living space she occupied. There was always something to do, people to report to, or some minor crisis that required her attention somewhere on the ship, on the surface, or somewhere throughout the Realm.

Today was different. A day of rest had been declared on the settlement below, and every human was invited to take part. While Mephicia had insisted on working security aboard the ship during this time, the Fleet Commander had sternly told her that there was more than enough security on board the ship, that there were enough security at the settlement, that she had spent enough time working almost non-stop since the Kl'Deesius incident that she had accumulated several days of additional leave, and then sternly reminded her that she was being given an order to take the next few days off, and not to report back for duty within the next seventy-two hours or facean official reprimand in her military record.

This left her with time on her hands.

Time to dwell on subjects she had tried to keep her mind away from.

As she worked to clean up her quarters (which were already spotless as per rules), her mind wandered to events over the last months. Cleaning helped her expend energy that she might otherwise have kept stored for nervousness and a touch of anxiety, the kind of emotional responses that a security officer could not afford to have creep up on them at a critical time in their work.

Once she had finished making sure everything was in order with her living space, she found herself once again at a loose end for something to do, so she grabbed a spare uniform and headed for the sanitation hall.

The sanitation hall was a place on board any ship or in any guard house that was dedicated to keeping people clean. Unlike Earth based water cleaning techniques like bathing and showers, sanitation houses worked using subsonic frequencies to literally vibrate foreign compounds off of a person's skin. It often left a person tingling, but it also left them cleansed in a way no mere body wash could.

She stripped out of her current uniform and immediately set the sanitation unit to its task, standing with her arms and legs apart so that the frequencies could have the desired effect on her skin. As the accumulation of dirt from outside sources and the shedding of skin over the course of the day was sloughed off of the skin by the subsonic waves emanating from all three surrounding walls, Mephicia turned to ensure that all side of her were covered. As the foreign particles drifted off of her and down toward the floor, gravitic vacuum units sucked the matter out of the area and into a matter processing facility somewhere else on the ship. Mephicia lifted both of her feet to ensure the undersides of them were cleansed as well, then she repeated the procedure between her toes, and finally, splayed her fingers and thumbs to ensure those had been reached as well.

Finally, after a few minutes, her body felt cleansed, and she stepped away from the unit, ignoring it as it automatically switched itself off. She stepped toward her uniform, grabbing her dress slacks and underwear, and started to dress... Then she caught herself in the mirror.

She must have done this dozens of times since the day of the stabbing she had been forced to endure, but she had always been too busy to stop to think about it. Now, she didn't have that excuse.

She rubbed her fingers gently over the still sensitive scar tissue that raked down across the center-right muscle tissue of her chest, where muscle had been torn, where fat had been cut out so that medics could get to her lung tissue and fix the damage that was there. No doubt existed in her mind, this was disfiguring to her. She had never been a particularly vain person, caring little about appearances next to her accomplishments as a military officer in the Realm's Fleet Arm, and yet seeing a dent in her breast tissue was jarring to her. It made her feel...

Less, somehow.

It was never a question of what someone else may think if they ever saw such a thing. She was a career security officer, and one who would have been happy not indulging in any of the routine pleasures that others often indulged in. That wasn't to say she was immune to them. After all, she was only natural, like any other red-blooded person among her people. No, she chose to abstain because she had a great deal of self-control, and because there were other ways to ease the instincts and keep them in check.

Seeing herself like this though, was strange. She had gotten used to the fact that her body was a carefully-maintained, well-toned extension of her will and her desire to be an effective combatant. Sculpted, defined in sharp relief, her musculature rivalling that of any Earth woman.

She traced her fingers over the ugly scar tissue. It looked worse than it was, but it still gave Mephicia pause to realize that this would be a complication to have to explain to anyone she might see that ever saw her without any clothing on, and while she intellectually understood it was her business alone, there was still a part of her that felt a repulsiveness she was sure others would share.

She took a deep breath and sighed. This wasn't helpful, and would bring her mood down even further. It also wasn't the real problem for her. As she continued to dress, she thought more on what was really bothering her.

No, she realized. The problem was John.

She had fond memories of their time together since the rescue from the lunar complex that they had retrieved the survivors from, and what had started out as an exercise in cooperation and learning between the two, soon developed entirely on its own. Mephicia had never intended to get involved with the man, let alone to the extent that she did, because while they had kept their visits cordial and light, and their intimate relations strictly limited to avoid alerting anyone's attention, she did not take the same precautions with her own feelings.

The problem was that she had allowed the two of them to become too attached to each other. The problem was that something bad happening to either one of them would cause the other person to experience an anguish that would be excruciating.

Her solution was to put a stop to it, only she had realized almost as soon as she had told him they couldn't see each other any longer, it was no solution at all.

It was denial.

He had hurt her greatly, without meaning to, when he forced her to confront the reality that they were facing, that no matter how much they tried to stay away from each other for the other person's sake, it would not make it any less painful for them if one was to get hurt again.

It wasn't fair, she had understood, but it was completely correct.

The problem now was how do they deal with this from here?

Mephicia had not been ready to admit to herself that she had been completely wrong about the situation. Even the day before, she would have recoiled in denial at the fact that she would be just as broken if John were hurt tomorrow as she would be if they had decided to continue seeing each other.

And whereas yesterday, her thoughts had been occupied with how it was necessary to keep her distance from him... His easy-going attitude to inter-personal relationships, his ability to defuse a situation, his ever-so-slight hot-headed temper that sometimes got the best of him, his anecdotes...

His easy-going smile... That she hadn't seen in weeks...

His respectful distancing to give her time to...

Stupid fool!

Her thoughts were suddenly racing furiously through her mind at how she had wasted so much time that they could have been giving themselves the mutual support they needed, that they could have been healing together, that they could have been-

"Stupid!" she berated herself, surprised at her own unexpected outburst.

She had found herself back in her own quarters as she had gone over these thoughts in her mind.

Mephicia had found herself in total, rigid control of her own mind as she went about her life for most of the time she had been an adult. Now, she felt herself shake and tremble as her body flooded with anxiety at what she was about to do, but ruthlessly she suppressed the feeling, even if she couldn't completely eliminate the trembles, shucked out of her uniform, and quickly dressed in a loose flowing festivity dress that was appropriate for a day such as this one.

For the first time in her life, she found herself running toward the transport room when there wasn't an active emergency, and ordered an immediate transportation to the settlement.

It was time to face facts, she told herself. It was time to face John.