John Ringo: Cally's War

“Sir, we just received a short-range encrypted transmission from a neighboring ship. The message header said it was for you.” He handed Tommy a data cube.

“Thank you.” He set it beside the backgammon board, ignoring the man’s hesitation until he apparently gave up on the possibility of snooping and wandered off in the direction of the bridge.

“I think I’ll go check on Felicia, if you don’t mind interrupting our game.” She’d kill him if she didn’t get to see this message as soon as it was decrypted. Not that he blamed her. If it was Wendy down there, he’d be biting his nails, too.

The branch of the access tube leading to the shuttle’s cargo hold, which he was going to have to use instead of anything off of the main cabin, was absolutely frigid. His face and nose were all he’d left bare to feel it, but it was still damn cold. Less worn areas in the gray tube showed it had once been blue. It was probably damn near fifty years old, and reeked of leaking hydrocarbons from outside. Fortunately, he only had to put up with it for a minute or so.

“Diana, I’m going to add you to my case until we get up to the ship. I haven’t been sleeping as well as the medics would like, and I think an uninterrupted nap on the way up would do me a world of good.” He tucked the AID into the case among his uniforms.

“Certainly, James. Anything that will help you get well soon. I’ll see you on board.” She sounded almost like a mother tucking her child in.

“Goodnight, Diana.”

“Goodnight, James.”

He closed the case and tucked it into the cargo bay of his shuttle.

“Okay, here I am, back as promised.” Tommy stepped through the door balancing two trays full of food — and not a corn product on it.

Cally was obviously making good use of the necessaries bag he’d scraped together from somewhere, cotton between her toes and an obviously fresh coat of bright red nail polish on fingers and toes. At least she didn’t have any of that thick green goop Wendy sometimes used caked all over her face.

“I thought you might like some company for dinner tonight,” he said. “Should I set Sarah up for a two-player game? She does a pretty mean Space Invaders.”

“Sure. I’d like that. Truth to tell, I’ve been a little stir crazy today.” Her grin was infectious. “There’s so much to do when I get back to get all my affairs in order and, well, you know, start making plans.” She looked uncertain for a moment.

“You do think he meant he wants marriage, don’t you?” she asked worriedly.

“Back in ACS, despite being a real hardass when he wanted to be, he was as Catholic as you are. There’s no doubt in my mind his intentions are marriage. Hell, with the relatives you’ve got, girl? Not to mention being pretty formidable yourself,” he laughed. “Wendy and Shari will just be in heaven helping you plan it.”

They were halfway through the third game when it froze.

“Tommy, I’m afraid I have bad news,” the AID broke in.

“What?” he asked. Cally’s fist was clenched against her mouth.

“Ship instrumentation has detected an explosion in Titan’s atmosphere. Traffic control confirms it as the FS-688 bound for the Kick ’Em Jenny . Rescue crews have been dispatched, but… it doesn’t look good. I waited until I was sure. I’m so sorry,” it finished miserably.

“Cally?” Tommy looked over at her. Her hand had sunk back down to the table, and her skin was an awful mottled shade of gray. He tried hugging her awkwardly, but she might as well have been a block of wood.

“Cally?” he tried again. “Come on, honey, you’re scaring me. We don’t know anything for sure yet. Come on, snap out of it.” No response. He did the only thing he could do — left the cabin at a hard run to get Papa O’Neal, finally running him down where he was watching an old movie on his PDA.

“Tommy? What the hell is the matter? You look like you’ve seen a—” He stopped cold.

“There’s been an accident. Ca — Felicia needs you. Now,” the younger man said.

When they got back to her cabin, she had stacked the trays outside the door and was inside on her bunk, facing the wall, and nothing they said or did could move her.

Over the next few days, they took it in shifts to sit with her, trying never to leave her alone. She didn’t speak. It was all they could do to get her to eat a few bites and take fluids. They did their best to get the best options the galley offered, but for all the response they got it could have been sawdust.

Finally, on the third day, she picked up a towel and a change of clothes. Papa O’Neal made sure the way to the head was clear and stood guard while she took a sponge bath and changed into fresh clothes.

He took it as a hopeful sign and tried to talk to her, but she only shook her head.

That afternoon, while Tommy was spelling him for a bit, he went up to the bridge and bribed the communications tech to let him call Earth and download all her favorite music. Compressed, it didn’t cost all that much. Well, not really, anyway.

The rest of the afternoon and evening, he had his PDA cycle through everything he could remember her liking. She still wasn’t talking, but he didn’t think it was his imagination that some of the tension had left her body. That was, until it cycled through to that old war-time Urb band. When it hit their stuff, he heard a sniffle. His eyes shot to where she lay on her back, eyes closed. A tear leaked slowly from beneath one eyelid. Then another. Then another. Finally, when she broke into full-force sobs he sank down onto his knees next to her bunk and held her until she cried herself out. It took a long time. Then again, his granddaughter had a hell of a lot of her crying saved up.

When she was through she still didn’t seem to want to talk. He grabbed a box of tissues he’d tucked away more out of hope than faith and let her clean herself up.

As the weekend approached, her appetite had improved, almost back to normal, more or less.

She still wasn’t talking, but he’d managed to get her interested in playing a few old movies and holovids by the simple expedient of disappearing for awhile and leaving his PDA next to her on her bunk.

By early in the week, she was watching movies practically nonstop. Another massive download had gotten him the complete combined works of Fred and Ginger, along with an inexplicable smattering of old Three Stooges episodes. But hell, if she’d asked for 1970s soap opera archives he would have gotten them for her, and damn the cost.

Granpa’s PDA said they had reached the Moon. The schedule said they’d be here for a few days unloading and reloading freight from the hybrid Human-Indowy factories. Granpa was snoring on the floor of her cabin. He needed to reapply his depilatory foam. Badly. The red stubble looked downright strange after all these years of getting used to him smooth-jawed all the time.

This cabin was getting pretty rank, too, now that she thought about it. It would have been bad enough that they tried to feed her fish somewhere along the trip and the odor had lingered. Her sheets smelled. She wouldn’t have noticed the always-familiar air of Red Man in the mix, except that it was a bit stale. Still, there was something solid and a bit comforting about it.

The light blue of the Galplas in the cabin probably would have been okay if she hadn’t been staring at it for the whole trip. Somebody had come up with a green scrap of carpeting for the floor from somewhere and glued it down. She could see the bits of it that extended out past Granpa. The shade clashed horribly with his hair, but it was probably marginally more comfortable than bare Galplas.