Returned to Life, Epilogue

[jeriendhal]

About the only pleasure Leeza could say she got from this interview was the sight of her father's face turning utterly dark shades of crimson as he read through her report. Admiral Blake then set down the reader pad on his desk and then took in a deep breath before speaking to her.

“This has to be the most utter and complete disaster that has ever fallen on the GSA.”

“You blew up the ship that destroyed the Earth five centuries back and took out an entire Varn battlefleet and weapons depot? Ace job, Leeza, an absolute corker,” she said, smiling tightly. “Why thank you, Dad. Glad I could help out.”

“That is not what I am talking about, Leeza,” he said. “After five centuries one of the Three Children is practically dropped into your arms and you let her die.”

“We didn't 'let her' do anything. According to the scans we made of her body, she'd already suffered a myocardial infarction just prior to that plassteel shard penetrating her lung, never mind the third-degree burns on her legs. The medical supplies we found on the Varn shuttle weren't enough to stop the bleeding in time. By the time we'd gotten back to the sickbay aboard Rufus' yacht she'd been dead for a half-hour.”

Admiral Blake didn't look sympathetic. “If you'd simply had the sense to head back to GSA territory after you'd found her, instead of haring off like knights-errant looking for trouble, Rachael Namatjira would be alive and well and receiving the honours she deserved.”

“Probably,” she agreed blandly. “I'm sure she'd be looking forward to a long life of eating rubbery chicken dinners while people who's great-grandparents hadn't been born yet while she was alive gave speeches praising her bravery and hand to her awards she never wanted nor asked for.”

“How can you talk about a national hero like that?”

Leeza shook her head. “Rachael wasn't a hero, Dad. Or at least she never thought of herself as one. She was just a bright kid who won the Golden Ticket up to Unity Station, then had the bad luck to die a martyr's death, and then the worse luck to be held as a souvenir by the Gene Mage until her had some use for her. You know what really scared her though? Not the Gene Mage using her as bait for a trap, not all the danger we exposed her to, or the idea that her friends and family were all long dead. It was the idea of her coming home and getting treated like some plaster saint, when all she'd ever wanted to do was lead a normal life.”

“At least she'd be alive,” her father growled. “As it is, nothing good came out of this once you began interfering, as usual. When the Galapados captured you we lost the remaining proto-Ferin and any chance to be able to examine one under close scientific scrutiny. Unless you're about to come to your senses and agree to let us look at the boy.”

“Why don't you ask him yourself? I'm sure his answer would be very... colourful. Anyway, I believe most of the blame for losing the proto-Ferin could go to the poor Major you had assigned to the operation. I certainly hope you don't intend to use Gunny as a scapegoat for that particular failure. Dead men tell no tales, but I can imagine a living Vulpine would have a hell of a lot to say at the court martial proceedings.”

“Sgt. Nightwind has been placed back into Admiral Stovensky's command structure.” Admiral Blake looked rather dyspeptic at that turn of events. “I have no direct control over what happens to him now and have been advised that pursuing legal action against him would not be politic at the moment.”

Leeza allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. “Good.”

“You're being remarkably flippant about all of this, Leeza. Doesn't it bother you in the least that the Varn have found a substitute for their Ferin, allowing them to re-power their Dominion?”

“Do they?” Leeza asked him. “According to what Terinu saw briefly before we had to evacuate, the Gene Mage had to stack those poor mutants like cordwood to try and match the power of a pure-bred Ferin like himself. Further, their output couldn't be as regulated as easily as Teri's energy can be. Once the Gene Mage lost direct control, their Bion output went completely wild, like an old fission reactor that had its control rods removed. Not very useful for a ship in space that has to worry about damage to its engine room. When we scanned the asteroid before we left the system, the interior was so hot it was molten, from the destruction of the Mantel Cracker and the power cores cooking-off from the smaller ships they'd stored there. If you head back to look yourself you'd probably find a nice little Cole habitat waiting for you. I imagine the Gene Mage is spending a lot of time rethinking his strategy right now.”

“One can only hope,” her father said in reluctant agreement.

Leeza stood up from her station chair. “Now if you'll excuse me, Dad, I've got to get back to Rufus' yacht. I promised him I'd help repair the damage to the airlock that the Galapados inflicted.”

“Very well.” As the door slid open to allow Leeza to leave, he asked mildly, “What did you do with her body?”

“I'm sorry?” she said, turning back towards him.

“Rachael Namatjira's body. You didn't say what you did with it after you got back to the yacht. At minimum she deserves a state funeral for her recent actions, don't you think?”

“I think a state funeral would be the last thing she'd have wanted, Dad. Anyway it's a moot point. We gave her a funeral in space and set her remains on a rapid deterioration orbit around the system's sun to be cremated.”

“You always think you know what's best for others, don't you, Leeza?”

“Better than you at least,” she answered stiffly. “Anyway, if it bothers you so much and you want to waste valuable GSA resources, feel free to send a ship to the system to try and find her body. If you hurry, you might be able to catch it before it comes too close to the star to safely retrieve.”

“I can't imagine that would be worth bothering with. Goodbye, Leeza,” he said.

“Goodbye, Dad.”

Comments

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Why don't you ask him yourself? I'm sure his answer would be very... colourful
Yep. :))

I like seeing loose ends tied up.

I guess I have to ask elsewhere, as it's canon, but... Why is Leeza's father such a... cruel creature? I was going to write cold-blooded, but that doesn't describe him. But he doesn't seem nice enough even to remotely go along with his daughter, and she's good natured enough to... occasionally try. I know there is the responsibility of command thing, but it cannot account for all of it, I don't think...

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Well, for one thing I think he's scared to death for her, deep inside. Remember, one of the things driving him is a need to keep her safe, despite whatever damage it might do to their relationship. I suspect if we could ever find out what exactly happened to Leeza's mother, it would explain a lot about Admiral Blake's attitude.

As for the cruelty, I think he's a lot like Ser Galen from LMB's Brothers in Arms. He's so focused on his mission of protecting the GSA, it's blinded him to the human consequences of his actions. As Duv Galeni put it: "The anguish of making the hard choices has always appealed to the romance in his soul."

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

I don't think he can protect her. But I think he will try. I am also curious about Leeza's mother.

I hadn't reached the point of believing him as insane as Ser Galen was. But although he isn't that deranged, I think, he is as ruthless in the "goal justifies the means" as Galen was. Hmm. He does seem one of the bad guys, up to a point. I'm glad the other admiral got Gunny Nightwind out of his reach.