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“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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January 3, 2363 AIA
Rising’s Home Base
The man reached over his head and clicked on the general message system. When he was done, his hand fell back to the control wheel. He didn’t speak. Thankfully, he didn’t have to. He could wait for them to find him. He didn’t know how long he had—
“Shuttle, identify yourself.”
Apparently, it wouldn’t be long.
He roused himself from his torpor and grumbled, “Is this the Rising’s central Home Base?”
There was a silence. It stretched on longer than it should have. The man forced himself to speak again. “Is this the Home Base for the Uprising?”
More silence.
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Then: “Shuttle, identify yourself. How did you get out here?”
It wasn’t easy. “I’m looking for former Sergeant Major Alix Reyer. Is she here with you?”
A new voice came over the speaker. It was deep. “Who wants to know? Identify yourself, or we’ll blow you out of the sky, shuttle.”
The man didn’t have the energy to smile, but his chest lightened. “Tell her that Major Anthony Tennama from the Supremacy would like a word with her.”
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Alix Reyer and Lieutenant Xu walked down the hall at a fast enough pace it was making Reyer limp. The lieutenant would have been happy to slow down, but Reyer was the one setting it.
“A shuttle?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How?”
“He was barely alive. He purposefully cut out the stasis setting and pushed on through velox without opening an emergency signal. He was running on partial oxygen the whole time. Frankly, it’s amazing he made it. We took him off ship and had our doctors look at him. He’s weak, but he’ll make it. We offered him food, but he said that he wanted to talk to you first.”
The former sergeant shook her head. “I don’t like this.”
Two men were flanking the door. They came to attention as the lieutenant approached and opened it. Alix Reyer hesitated on the threshold, but the pause was so slight that only someone who knew her well would have noticed it. She went in and stared at the man who’d traveled so far to see her.
Each arm was cuffed to the chair he was sitting in. He raised his head. Neither spoke. Neither moved.
Reyer turned back to the door. As she went to leave, she looked at the lieutenant and shook her head with a barely perceptible motion.
“It is me, Miss Reyer.”
Alix stopped and turned around.
The man didn’t look at her. “Miss Reyer who doesn’t like to be called Sergeant. A very unusual sergeant, weren’t you? Raised among generals and officers, but you never became one. The work was different. The officers gave the orders, but you made them happen. You were good at getting things done. That’s why I’m here.” He finally raised his eyes. “Shall I be honest with you, Miss Reyer? I need your help.”
She didn’t take her eyes away from his. “Lieutenant, I need a bot in here now.”
“A bot?”
“Just do it.”