there, with a team to command, a mission to complete –
that was another entirely.
He made sure to give the kids, and Rosie too, an extra
big hug when they left today. “Thank you for everything,”
he whispered, sincerely. He didn’t know how he’d have
gotten through the last two years without them.
After they had gone, Up returned to his desk, and the
mission roster he’d been sent that morning. The team of
Rangers under his command was small, but one name stood
out above the rest, the one that had haunted him every day
since she’d left.
Taz.
She held the paper with the words on it, the words that
had brought her here. Reassigned to Starship 15A-2, she
read again. Peaceful mission to an uncharted planet,
accompanying several hundred civilian colonists.
Commanding officer -
Two letters.
“Up,” she said, looking at the hospital’s glassy facade.
She’d been standing here for a long time. This place, its
sunshine, the laughing afternoon seemed so alien to her
now that she’d grown accustomed to distance and darkness.
People hurried by in either direction, and they were a study
in contradiction. Worry and relief, mourning and joy,
sickness and health. Families reunited, and some torn apart.
None dared come close to her, for she was wearing her
mask, the one she’d perfected, the one that made people
take a step back, the one that made them leave her alone.
Precisely what she wanted them to do.
She stood now, twenty feet from the door, unable to take
a step further. She pretended to be a tough son of a bitch.
She was a coward.
“Taz?”