Jaym Gates - War Stories

Now Derik was dead and I was back. White scars marred my skin and offered mute testament to countless brushes with death. What made it so that one of us lived and the other did not? We were both children of these mountains, who’d breathed the same air and whose bones had sprung from the same river and soil. Brave, loyal Derik, who’d followed me into the wasteland of space to fight a war for people to whom we were nameless. Three thousand dead on Deimos Base. A troop carrier hits an interplanetary mine between Jupiter and Saturn. A gate collapses on a jump ship out from Proxima Centauri. Numbers, objects. Not people.

Krommedrif was home. My childhood loft bedroom with its A–shaped ceiling and exposed beams where I used to dry bunches of herbs had endured, diminished somehow, but mercifully familiar. Did I dare to withdraw here like a snail into its shell? Would this house nurture me the second time ’round so that I might emerge somehow healed and ready to face the world again?

My letter of resignation in its creamy envelope with the official AF watermark was the only object I placed on the desk by the window. Though we moved between the stars—folded space, even—and warred against other nations for resources on moons and asteroid belts, some customs endured—like simple, archaic paper and ink.

“Keep it with you until the end of your leave,” Magister Oroyu says.

“My mind is made up. I’m done with this. I want to go home. There is nothing for me here.”

He places his dark hand over mine, and I can’t break eye contact. “No, little falcon. Listen to me. Keep the letter. When you change your mind, you can always discard it and come back once your leave is over.”

When. Not if .

I was not going to change my mind, but something in Oroyu’s implacable dark stare had me obey. I’d humour him. That was all. After six weeks I’d make the trip out to Clanwilliam, where I’d mail the letter and then go enjoy a celebratory pint at the pub.

My personal effects were pitifully few once I’d unpacked them. My civvies consisted of two pairs of denim jeans, five T–shirts (white, non–labelled AF inventory), and a fitted charcoal flight jacket with the winged lion flashes that marked me as AF Special Ops, among a few other sundries. Everything about me screamed off–duty military.

The only other item that bore any stamp of my personality was the digital picture frame that I had bought at the Saldanha Space Port seventeen years ago and that had now come home with me. It was an outdated thing, made to look like a small, baroque gilt frame complete with cherubs and scrollwork. My seventeen–year–old self had thought the hideous device to be precious back then and had squandered a week’s allowance purchasing it.

Over the years the gold had worn to grey, and at one point I’d dropped it; a hairline crack ran diagonally from the top left–hand corner. And still I couldn’t bear to toss it away and transfer the data back down from my virtual drive onto a new frame. All my family photos were stored here: Mother, Father, my brother Johan… pictures of the farm, of the mountains. My favourite places… even old Broekgat, the pony I used to ride, though he had been dead for nine years now, according to Johan.

There were pictures from the academy days too, and those years of service that I’d seen, but I didn’t want to look at those now. I’d see his face, and that’d hurt too much.

“I’m resigning,” Michael tells me.

My heart stutters and I stare at him, unable to form the words. “Why?”

“I need to spend more time with Saskia and the kids. I’m through with active duty, and besides, what use is a cripple?”

He offers his usual self–deprecating laugh but it rings hollow. His eyes tell the truth—there’s enough pain lodged there to power one of the jump ships’ Gibson drives.

I followed that man into space. I could have stayed behind, perhaps even had a life on Earth and found a cushy job in admin on one of the orbital stations. Instead, I trekked after a married man I knew I could never have. Love made fools out of all of us. Oh, we’d been lovers, but Michael was never in love with me, and I’d been a fool to think I could convince him otherwise. I’d been doubly a fool to ignore Derik, who’d waited patiently all those years for me, for nothing.

Michael left without saying goodbye. Ten years of me playing the dutiful mistress, and all I got was an empty officer’s suite and a cleaning assistant’s terse explanation that Captain Michael Louw had caught the morning shuttle to the Callisto Base en route to Earth.

I tried to hand in my resignation two weeks later.

Even now I could look Michael up on the social networks. It wouldn’t be difficult to find him; we both have friends in common. I don’t bother making contact. Obviously. Over the years we’d been nothing but discreet. For me to go blundering into his life now like some inconvenient spectre of his infidelity would not be right. Two beautiful, blond children. An erstwhile supermodel wife who ran an NGO that supported war veterans. They were picture perfect.

Who was I to shatter these perceptions?

I was small, brown–skinned, and decidedly native , so far as Michael was concerned. While we’d been serving on board assorted vessels, these differences had not been so apparent—our crew consisted of a melange of other races and nationalities. Back on Earth, we were reminded of the people we’d been when we first left the planet behind us.

Like I was reminded now, in this tiny bedroom. Muted scuffling and chittering in the roof told me the resident population of serotine bats were still here. How many nights I’d watched them from this very window as they squeezed out through the gap in the eaves and hurled themselves into the star–speckled sky. How many nights I’d stared at the stars and wondered if I’d ever take wing myself.

If I’d been able to have words with my wide–eyed sixteen–year–old self who’d blithely filled in the AF application form on the sly…

Sandra was in the kitchen by the time I went downstairs, fussing with the clean dishes. Poised. Perfect. Not a bronze–tinted lock out of place.

“Hey,” I said.

She paused, about half a dozen side plates grasped firmly. “Oh, hi.”

“I don’t think we’ve met, at least not properly. You weren’t in this morning when Johan brought me.” I’d spoken to her via a few long–distance family conference calls in the media lounge, but even a screenwall offering the illusion that folks were in the same room as you didn’t quite make up for meeting someone in the flesh. Sandra was much taller than me, though for some reason she gave the impression of cowering the moment I’d entered the kitchen. My brother’s white trophy wife.

Sandra shook her head. “We haven’t, now that I think about it.”

We stood awkwardly, saved only by Johan thumping in. “Where’s the vaccine ampoules for the cows? They’re not in the store room,” he growled at Sandra, who looked as if she’d drop the crockery.

“How should I bloody know?” Her mouth pulled in a tight line, and she slammed the plates on the kitchen counter.

“I told you to have Essie bring them down.”

“They’re probably still in the deep freeze,” Sandra said.

For a moment I thought an ugly argument would erupt but then a child yelled from deep within the house and Sandra darted out of the kitchen. I doubted whether my younger relative needed help but it seemed like Sandra was only too happy to abandon me to my brother’s ire.