Chapter 27: What It Means To Be A Captain [III]

Leo walked to the first door on the left.

...Jin-Ah’s room.

He shifted both trays onto one arm, raised his knuckles and rapped softly against the panel.

KNOCK, KNOCK.

"Jin-Ah," he said, keeping his voice quiet and even. "It’s Leo... Brought you some food."

There was a five-second pause, then a soft rustle of movement and slow careful footsteps clicking across the floor.

The door hissed open.

Jin-Ah stood in the doorway in her dark form-fitting base layer, her geometric black bob rumpled and her sharp dark eyes ringed with red.

She had washed her face, and a few drops still clung to her hairline, but the hollow exhaustion in her expression was impossible to hide.

She looked down at the steaming tray in his hands, then back up at his face.

Her throat clicked as she swallowed.

"You... you cooked?" she murmured.

"Real flour and cured pork," Leo said, holding the tray out with a faint reassuring smile. "Eat it while it’s warm. Your brain burns glucose when you run diagnostics, remember? Don’t let your sugar drop."

Jin-Ah reached out and her fingers brushed the edge of the tray... and his fingers along with it.

She didn’t pull back right away.

As the buttery smell reached her, her lower lip trembled for a fraction of a second before she clamped it down hard.

"Thank you, Leo," she whispered, her fingers tightening around the tray. "Truly. Thank you..."

"Get some rest, Jin."

She nodded once and stepped back, and the door slid shut with a quiet click.

Leo turned to the second door on the left.

...Camila’s room.

KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Camila."

The door opened almost instantly, like she had been sitting right on the other side of it.

Her bronze face was blotchy and her curly hair had come free of its yellow bandana, tumbling over her shoulders in a wild mess as she clutched a damp washcloth in one hand.

When she saw the flatbread, her hand flew to her mouth as fresh tears welled along her lashes.

"Leo..." she choked out. "It smells... it smells like home."

"Eat up, Camila," Leo said gently, handing her the tray. "You held the line in the cargo bay today... You earned a full plate."

She took it and held it against her chest like something precious and fragile.

"Gracias, Leo... thank you so much."

"Sleep well."

Next was Harper’s room, right across from the kitchen.

Leo didn’t hesitate. He knocked twice and hard which was the way he’d been knocking on her bedroom window since they were nine.

KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Harper. Open up..."

A loud exaggerated groan came from inside, followed by the heavy thumping steps of someone rolling out of a bunk.

The door slid back.

Harper leaned against the frame with her dirty-blonde hair sticking out in three directions and her freckled nose bright pink, her usual loud grin looking forced around the corners.

She took one look at the tray and let out a low whistle.

"Damn, Cap," she chuckled, her voice gravelly from crying into her pillow. "You actually know how to use a skillet...? I thought your cooking skills stopped at boiling water for instant noodles."

"I have hidden depths," Leo said dryly, pushing the tray into her hands. "Eat the eggs before they go cold, Bell and stop punching your mattress. I can hear the springs from the hall."

Harper flinched and her freckled cheeks went pink... but she didn’t deny it.

She looked down at the food, and the fake humor slid off her face, leaving something quiet and soft behind.

"Thanks, Leo," she said, looking up at him. "You’re a good friend. Really..."

For a second it looked like she wanted to say something else but she didn’t.

"Just do your job tomorrow," Leo said with a faint smile. "Goodnight, Harper."

"Night, Cap."

She stepped back and let the door seal, and Leo stood there a moment longer than he needed to, looking at it.

He grabbed the next two trays from the galley and crossed the hall as he stopped outside Chloe’s door first.

KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Chloe? It’s Leo. I brought you some food."

For a moment there was nothing... then the door slid open just a crack.

One wide green eye peeked out at him through her dark bangs, landing on the tray, then on his face... then on his neck, right where her teeth had sunk in.

Her throat moved in a slow hard swallow.

"It looks really good..." she whispered, taking the tray with both hands without looking at him.

Her fingers were ice cold as they brushed his.

"Thank you, Leo."

"Eat it while it’s warm," he said gently. "You need it more than anyone after today."

She gave a tiny nod, and the door slid shut as he stopped outside Elena’s door.

He half expected her to scream through the panel that she didn’t take handouts from peasants.

KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Elena. Food..."

Silence.

Leo waited. He was about to turn away when the latch disengaged with a sharp hiss.

HISS!

The door slid open ten centimeters and Elena Sterling stood half-hidden in the shadow of her doorway.

She had stripped off her flight suit and was wearing a simple white undershirt that left her porcelain shoulders bare.

Leo’s eyes went there before he could stop them, and he dragged them back up to her face so fast it was almost a twitch.

Her icy blue eyes were bloodshot and a wet towel hung from the sink rack behind her... She had clearly spent twenty minutes scrubbing her face raw to hide that she’d been crying.

"What is this?" she asked stiffly, her voice tight and formal but missing its usual razor-sharp venom.

"Dinner," Leo said, holding the tray steady. "Scallion flatbread, cured pork and bean spread... I made it myself."

Elena’s lips pressed into a thin line and her chin lifted a centimeter, her instincts trying to put the armor back on...

And then her stomach betrayed her with a long unmistakable rumble that echoed in the quiet doorway.

Her cheeks flared scarlet.

"I... I did not request room service, stray," she stammered, looking hard at the opposite wall.

"You spent two hours crawling through a grease tube for my turret," Leo said calmly. "Take the plate, Elena... You need the calories."

For three long seconds she searched his eyes for any trace of mockery.

She found nothing... only the same quiet calm he’d had when he grabbed her wrist over the open void.

Slowly, she reached out with both hands and took the tray.

Their fingers overlapped on the edge of it, and neither of them moved them right away.

"The presentation is... passably civilized," she murmured, barely louder than a whisper, her eyes dropping to the plate.

She swallowed, her fingers tightening on the tray before she looked up at him through her lashes. "Thank you, Leo..."

It was the first, perhaps second time she had ever said his name without spitting it like a curse.

It landed somewhere in his chest, and he didn’t know what to do with it.

"Get some rest, Elena," he said softly.

She gave him a tiny, barely visible nod and the door hissed shut... and on the other side of it, very faintly, he heard her take the first bite and make a small sound she would have died before letting him hear on purpose.

That left two plates.

Leo carried the last pair down to the end of the hall and stopped outside Ms. Tachibana’s room.

His heart did that familiar quiet hitch against his ribs.

He remembered her crying, the deep shuddering wails coming apart in the dark two meters from where he stood.

He took a slow breath, squared his shoulders and knocked gently.

KNOCK, KNOCK.

"Sensei," he called softly. "It’s Leo."

The door slid open.

Ms. Tachibana stood in the doorway.

Her raven hair was loose around her shoulders and she’d changed into a high-collared dark sweater that made her neck look long and slender.

Her glasses were off, resting on the desk behind her, and without them her dark eyes looked bigger than he remembered... heavily bloodshot and swollen from tears.

Her cheeks were flushed pink and her breath still carried a faint trembling catch.

...She had never looked less like his teacher and Leo forgot what he was going to say.

"Leo..." she murmured.

"Brought you dinner, Sensei," he managed, keeping his eyes on hers and very carefully not looking at the tear stains on her cheeks. "Scallion bread and pork... You skipped lunch, and you carried the targeting for the whole fight so you have to eat."

She looked down at the steaming bread, and a fragile wistful smile touched the corners of her mouth, so full of sorrow and gratitude that it made his chest tighten.

"You made scallion bread..." she whispered, her fingers touching the edge of the plate. "It smells... just like the market stalls near Kyoto Station in the autumn."

"Hope it measures up," Leo said softly, holding the tray out to her. "Eat while it’s hot... Don’t worry about tomorrow yet. The ship is safe."

She took the tray with both hands.

Her dark eyes lifted to his and held them with something heavy in them that he felt all the way down to his boots.

"Thank you, Leo," she said. "You are... a very kind boy. Truly. Thank you."

...Boy? It stung a lot actually.

"Goodnight, Sensei."

"Goodnight, Leo."

The door slid shut, and he was left alone at the end of the hall.

Leo looked down at the last tray in his hands... his own dinner.

He touched the scanner on the door with the blue crest, and the panel read his pulse, chimed softly and slid back to let him in.

The Captain’s quarters were clean and plain, a wide charcoal bunk under a small round viewport full of stars, a desk with a terminal slaved to the bridge and a washroom behind an accordion door.

He set the tray on the desk, dropped into the swivel chair and tore off a piece of flatbread, dragging it through the bean spread.

It was incredible.

Flaky layers, the sharp bite of scallion, the smoke of the pork... It was Earth.

A kitchen with sunlight pouring through the blinds and morning traffic outside the window.

He chewed slowly, staring at the blank wall, and with every bite the silence of the room seemed to swell and press against his temples like deep water.

The memories he’d held off over the hot pans came back anyway.

His mother’s garden, five years of fussing over hydrangeas in stubborn clay and laughing when they came up pink instead of blue.

His father on the porch steps on summer evenings with a grease rag in his hand, explaining the timing of a manual transmission while Leo leaned into the engine bay of the old sedan.

...And Maya again.

Two weeks before the world ended, she’d walked into his room in his frayed grey college hoodie with an empty coffee mug, thrown herself across the foot of his bed and demanded he explain transfer orbits for her physics homework, laughing as she bounced a crumpled paper ball off his forehead when he threatened to lock his door.

’You won’t lock it, Leo,’ she’d grinned. ’Who else is going to keep you from turning into a boring old engineer?’

Leo lowered the bread to the plate.

His throat closed into an iron knot and his vision blurred hot at the edges as his fingers dug into the edge of the desk until the composite groaned.

There was no house in the valley, no hydrangeas, no sedan in the driveway, no grey hoodie hanging in the closet... Billions of lives, cities, songs and oceans, all of it snuffed out like a match dropped into a frozen lake.

The loneliness was deeper and colder than the vacuum outside the viewport.

He breathed through it until his fingers finally uncurled.

’I can’t bring them back,’ he thought. ’Grieving won’t put air in our tanks...’

He opened his eyes and looked at the door.

Behind six other doors sat six women who had lost everything too.

Harper cracking jokes while her hands bled on the guns, Jin-Ah blasting a worm’s throat open through her own terror, Camila holding the cargo bay, Chloe tearing steel apart with her bare hands, Elena crawling through grease and fire to bolt his turret down... and Sensei, carrying all of them while the sky fell.

’They’re my family now...’

If the universe wanted to chew them up, it was going to have to get through every centimeter of Graventhal, every tungsten slug in his turret and every drop of blood in his veins first.

He finished every scrap on the plate, drained the water and pushed the tray to the corner of the desk.

WHIRRR!

A small jointed arm slid down from a ceiling panel, clamped the tray in three rubber grips and carried it back up into the duct toward the galley.

The panel clicked shut.

Leo stood and rolled his sore shoulders, reaching for the lights...

KNOCK, KNOCK!

It was tiny... barely a tap against the heavy door. He crossed the room and pressed the release, and the panel slid back with a quiet hiss.

Standing alone in the amber light of the corridor, looking smaller than he had ever seen her, was Chloe.