Megalodon City Penitentiary, Tundra, Standard Year 403 after founding

  James opened his eyes, blinking at the unfamiliar dim light of a Tundran prison cell. It was a strange place for him to wake up. Alanna’s slim form left a line of warmth along his side. He shifted carefully, pulling the second sleeping bag up over her shoulders.

  Awakened by the unexpected movement, Alanna shot up in bed, grabbing onto the blanket as she tried to orient herself in the unfamiliar surroundings.

  “Hey.” James said carefully, holding out his hands to appear harmless. “It’s all right. It’s just me.”

  “Just you.” Alanna rubbed her eyes, trying to get her brain to function. “Right.” And that was exceptionally reassuring.

  “I have to go to work.” James said.

  “Ok.” Alanna nodded, trying hard not to imagine what going to work meant for James. She watched carefully as he got up and walked over to the sink, turning on the water. Her eyes widened as he took off his briefs and splashed the water across his body, before putting his head under the stream and letting it run over his head. “How long does frostbite take?” She asked somewhat breathlessly.

  “In above freezing temperatures?” James asked with a laugh, pulling the bar of soap from the sink and using it on his hair. “It’d take a while.”

  “So like, an hour?”

  “For frostbite? Like forever. Temperatures have to be below freezing for the frost to bite.” He grinned over at her. “But I need to bring a towel.”

  “You can use the sweater.” Alanna said, moving to take it off.

  “I’ll be fine.” James shrugged and started getting dressed.

  “Did they go home?” Alanna asked suddenly, watching him put on his shoes. He was about to leave.

  “Who?”

  “The crew, D12. Did you send them home?” She asked, her eyes searching his.

  “I did.” James replied. He left the rest unsaid, but it hung between them. There was no way to know if he told her the truth. And even if he had, there was no way to know what Saraya would do with the crew of D12 once they returned. They weren’t exactly coming back as war heroes.

  “Thank you.” Alanna said quietly, trying to swallow her fear. She had tried so hard to save her people. But too many things were outside her control.

  “You did more than anyone else could have done.” James said, sitting back down on the bed next to her. He reached out and carefully traced the bruise along the side of her face. “I get what you tried to do. It was a good plan.”

  “Tried?” Alanna asked, her voice strained from the tension.

  “I just mean…”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “I sent them back Alanna. I did what we promised.”

  “Ok.” She nodded. “All right.” And then, for some reason, when James put his arms around her and pulled her close, she let him.

  “Do you want me to come back?” He asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I’ll try to come back tonight, unless something comes up.” An insistent buzzing sound came from his wrist comm. “Damn it. I have to go. I will try for tonight. Go back to sleep.”

  Alanna watched him walk out, noting the sound of the lock falling back into place as he shut the door behind him. Right. Frostbite was not possible in above freezing weather, and she had soap and running water. She had learned important things, and she was not at all looking forward to the natural outcome of this newfound knowledge. Alanna gave the sink a baleful look and pulled the sleeping bag more closely around herself. It was gloriously warm. She would work her way up to the rest of it.

  A while later, she heard the sound of footsteps down the concrete hallway. “Good morning.” Dev called out cheerfully. “I brought coffee. And I see you’re settling in nicely.” He noted, letting out a low whistle.

  Alanna accepted the coffee gratefully. “Look, if any of this is a problem, just take it.”

  “Sure. James Hawk is going to bring you things and I am going to take them away. That’s some career making advice right there. Thanks, lieutenant.”

  “You can call me Alanna.”

  “Thanks, lieutenant.” Dev repeated firmly.

  Alanna frowned, drinking her coffee. It wasn’t quite the quality they had on the Black Hawk, but amazing nevertheless. “I don’t have any more information about Simon. I did what we talked about and James said he would think about it.”

  “I know. If you hear anything more just… let me know, ok?”

  “Is the timing important here? Why?” Alanna asked curiously.

  Dev shrugged. “Gotta let him know, don’t I? It’s his choice.”

  “What’s his choice?”

  “Whether to run.”

  “Ah.” Alanna nodded. That made a lot of sense. “Do you think that’s likely?”

  “With Simon? No. Not that likely.”

  “Would you run?”

  “Me? Nah.” He shrugged. “Would you run?”

  “In retrospect, yeah maybe I would.” Alanna said somewhat glumly. Somewhere along the way, dying for the glory of Saraya had lost its appeal.

  “That’s kind of what you did, isn’t it? With surrendering?”

  “Yes, that’s kind of what I did.” Alanna agreed.

  “You get scared?”

  “Why are you here? We’re not going to be buddies.”

  Dev shrugged. “I’m here all day. No one to talk to, really.”

  “How many other prisoners are on this floor?”

  “Thirtyish.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got options.” Alanna said pointedly.

  “Nah, they’re not real people.”

  “They are Dev, they are real people.”

  “Agree to disagree.” He said easily.

  “You know, lying to yourself takes a lot of effort.”

  “Sure it does. And yet we all find it worthwhile.”

  Alanna considered this prison guard gem of wisdom. And drank her coffee.

  “So did you? Get scared?”

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  “Ok.” She shrugged.

  Dev’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s say you didn’t. Why the hell’d you do it then?”

  “Forty civilians.” Alanna said shortly.

  Dev nodded. “I guess I can see that. Why didn’t you go back to Saraya with the rest of ‘em? They that pissed you surrendered?”

  “We’re not buds, Dev. I’m not doing chit chat.”

  “Sure. I respect that. We do not have the means to make you talk here. Not that kind of a place. However…” Dev stretched, getting more comfortable against the wall. “As it just so happens, I know a lot of things about Captain Hawk. Not that you care so, no benefit there. I’m just looking to share some completely irrelevant information. Want to see his fiancé’s photo?”

  Alanna paused, trying to ignore a shiver going down her spine. It wasn’t her business. “No.” She said shortly.

  “Right. Sure. Just tell me why you can’t go back, out of the kindness of your heart, lieutenant.” He gave her his best winning smile.

  “Practicing your interrogation technique?”

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  “How am I doing?”

  Alanna sighed. “You’re mostly just wearing me down by not going away.”

  “That is a time honored technique, lieutenant.”

  “Fine. I killed my commanding officer.”

  “Well damn.” Dev let out a low whistle. “This technique is working out better than I expected.”

  “That’s because everyone but you already knows.” Alanna pointed out. “This info’s cheap.”

  “So, you killed him? Like, personally? ‘Cause let me tell you, not with your bare hands you didn’t.”

  “It’s done.” Alanna said shortly.

  Dev nodded, carefully studying the wall across the hall. “So. Did he have it coming?”

  “Is that relevant?”

  “It’s relevant.” Dev grinned cheerfully. “To my quest to become buds. Also, here.” He held out his phone with a photo on the screen. “The one and only Captain Thea Emerson. Not bad, right?”

  Alanna’s shoulder twitched. “I don’t want to see…” but of course, when he held out the photo, it was hard not to look. She was the female equivalent of James Hawk. A perfectly formed female version of the model soldier, in her perfectly tailored black uniform. Her intense blue eyes gazed at the camera with cold, unwavering confidence. It made Alanna feel awkward. An oath breaker and a homewrecker. This had been one hell of a week. “So what?” She looked away from the photo. “It’s not my business.”

  “Sure.” Dev looked pointedly at her newly appointed prison cell. “Not your business at all. But… seeing as we’re all here, I will tell you one more thing about Thea Emerson. All you have to do is tell me why you didn’t negotiate your own asylum.”

  “What? I didn’t even know that was an option.”

  “Of course it’s an option. Sarayan traitors get asylum. Well known fact.”

  Alanna wanted to say she wasn’t a traitor. A mutineer, perhaps. Well all right, there was nothing ‘perhaps’ about that. But being a mutineer had a nice adventurous ring to it. Being a traitor – did not. Thanks to James Hawk, that denial would ring very hollow indeed. “It didn’t come up.” She said shortly.

  “So, your negotiation skills, not so great? You gave us a diamond the size of a small island and couldn’t get asylum thrown in?

  “I wasn’t trying to get asylum. I just wanted to get all the civilians on D12 back to Saraya.”

  “We trade back civilians.”

  “For a ten to one exchange?”

  Dev paused, his eyebrows shooting up. “No.”

  “What no?”

  “You did not negotiate that. No one gets that.”

  Alanna shrugged.

  “Seriously, did that really happen?”

  “Yes, that really happened.”

  “Damn. He went soft on you.”

  “Well, the island sized diamond was part of the deal.”

  “Yeah, but we were gonna take that anyway.”

  “We can’t both be incompetent negotiators, Dev.” Alanna said with a laugh. Oddly enough, Dev was starting to grow on her. She preferred talking to him to being left alone with her own thoughts.

  “Nah, with the ten to one numbers, the win may belong to you, lieutenant.” Dev shrugged. “Still, everyone acts like Captain Hawk came home with another victory for the ages, so what do I know? Anyway, I owe you one more fact about Captain Thea Emerson. But don’t be mad, ok? I’m just practicing my technique.”

  “Fine.”

  “They haven’t been engaged in over five years.”

  “Were they childhood sweethearts?” Alanna asked, thinking back to the story James told her, which in no way matched the story Dev was telling her this morning.

  “Huh? No. They met in the navy.”

  “Fine. What was the point of all that?”

  “That was a brilliantly executed plan to draw out information.” Dev said cheerfully.

  “Uhuh.” Alanna yawned and waited for Dev to leave. Only he didn’t. “What?” She asked after a while as Dev continued to stand under her door.

  “Are we buds?” Dev asked

  “What? No.”

  “A little bit?”

  “No.” Alanna said with a frown. “Not even a little bit.” She thought somewhat guiltily about the coffee Dev brought her. But then she thought about the screams she heard the night before and the guilt vanished.

  “Ok, no problem.” Dev shifted from one foot to another.

  Alanna sighed. “You’re not actually leaving, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fine. In that case, tell me how getting asylum works. You said other Sarayans did this? Are any of them here?” She asked curiously.

  “Yes, a few. But if you end up here after negotiating asylum, something went wrong. The way it works is, we agree to give you asylum and you agree to do something for us, right? Like maybe you agree to hand over an island sized chunk of diamond with no shots fired. And if you do your part, we’re all good. You don’t end up here. You get some cush apartment somewhere and someone does some hand holding to get you Tundra acclimated. Probably a support group somewhere. The way you end up here is if you screw it up. ‘Oops, I thought I was going to give you the big diamond but ended up blowing it into tiny little pieces and killing some Tundrans in the process.’ Or once in a while you end up here if you did everything right but we still think you’re a double agent.”

  “So, if you agree to asylum ahead of time, you usually get asylum? Even if someone’s in the military?”

  “Lieutenant, they’re mostly in the military.” Dev said cheerfully. “You just didn’t play your cards right. If you really did what you say you did, they’ll work it out. That’s why you’re people and the rest of them aren’t.”

  Alanna frowned. “So, you’re saying this asylum thing – it might actually happen?”

  “Didn’t captain Hawk say it was happening?”

  “Well, yes. He said that.”

  “Then it’s happening.”

  “I… did not foresee this.” She said honestly, drinking the last of her coffee.

  “You sound unprepared.” Dev said smugly.

  “I…” Suddenly she really wanted to change the subject. “Fine. You want to tell me what happened to the engagement?” She frowned. “And why the hell do you have a pictures of Captain Hawk’s fiancé on your phone?”

  “Ha. Not the reason you think, I promise. As to why the engagement was called off, well of course that is a mystery. No one knows.” Dev raised his eyebrows suggestively, clearly enjoying the theatrics.

  “But you are going to baselessly speculate at length anyway, aren’t you Dev?”

  “Of course I am.” He tipped an imaginary hat, shamelessly relishing the gossip. “So, there are a number of theories. First, the obvious – she cheated. But the timeline doesn’t quite fit. See, they both get promoted to Commander in the same year. Both were in special forces before, so they’ve had some command experience but this is the big one, right? They each get their first big mission and when Thea comes back, the day she comes back, he freezes her out. And I mean ice cold. I don’t think they ever spoke again. Now if she cheated, how would he find out the day she gets back? Did someone say something? You see her photo, you know she sure as hell didn’t confess out of guilt. And afterwards – no one. If she was already screwing someone, you’d think she would end up with them, right?”

  Alanna studied Dev curiously. “You don’t like her.” She noted. “Why not? Does it matter so much if she cheated?”

  “No one likes a cheater.” Dev shrugged, but he didn’t seem particularly invested.

  “What else don’t you like about her?”

  “Lady’s ice cold, that’s all.”

  Alanna nodded, thinking of those confident, arrogant blue eyes. “What are the other theories?” She asked.

  Dev shrugged. “Nothing concrete. Philosophical differences, whatever the hell that means.”

  “Hmm.” Alanna said noncommittally.

  “Do you know what it means?”

  “I understand the basic concept.”

  “You know what you are?” Dev asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re the anti-Thea.”

  “Oh I don’t know, James and I likely have some philosophical differences, as well.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as I don’t want Saraya to become a nuclear wasteland.”

  Dev winced. “There you and I have some philosophical differences too. I wouldn’t lead with that at your asylum interview, if I were you.”

  “Why am I the anti-Thea, then?”

  “You’re not ice cold.”

  Alanna frowned. “I would actually rather like to think that I am.”

  Dev laughed. “Sure, you can think whatever you want. You’re softer than a newly hatched baby penguin. No idea how you survived this long. Look at you, ‘oh but Saraya’.” He mimicked. “They want you dead, don’t they? Time to move on, I’d say.”

  Alanna shrugged. “Some on Saraya may want me dead. There are about eighty million people on Saraya. Some of them like me. Most of them don’t have a view on me one way or the other. And you, Dev, are doing some seriously shady things to save one of your people from what is, based on your own words, an honorable death for the benefit of Tundra.”

  “Huh.” Dev paused, shifting uncomfortably. “Are we still buds?”

  Alanna sighed, and gave in. “Are you still bringing me coffee tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine.” She said, without being especially gracious about it.

  “I’ll check in at the end of my shift. And lieutenant?”

  “Yes?”

  “I say this to you as a friend. Whatever game you’re playing, keeping James Hawk waiting is not the way to win this.” He tipped an imaginary hat once again, before walking away down the hallway.

  Alanna’s eyes narrowed, watching his retreating back with deep suspicion. How had Dev known what she was or was not doing with James? She could hear footsteps coming down the hallway. The only way for someone to listen in on their conversation would have been for someone to take off their shoes and… she shuddered. There was no privacy in prison. That was a given. And Dev had indeed been willing to do some seriously shady things to protect one of his own. On the bright side, Dev was not likely to return any time soon. Reluctantly, her eyes fell on the large sink and the barely used bar of soap. This was going to actually, physically hurt.

  She started off by doing an intense round of every exercise she could think of, from pushups to jumping jacks. Once the freezing cold air started feeling downright refreshing, she took the plunge and took off her prison greens. Fortunately, her head fit into the sink and she managed to actually wash her hair as well as everything else. Dev’s words didn’t matter, really. She was alone and she didn’t need James’s goodwill to protect anyone but herself. This choice would be entirely her own.

  Teeth chattering, she pulled the sweater back on and huddled under the blanket, wondering if she would ever get warm again. Her wet hair felt like a crown of ice sitting on top of her head. Having no experience at all with the cold, she hadn’t realized the impact of having wet hair. James made it look effortless, soaking his hair with no hesitation. In retrospect, she had entirely underestimated how insane they all were. Carefully extending one hand from under the covers, she pulled over a ration bar and started eating. Completely, and utterly insane. She sighed, feeling the familiar thirst. The ration bars were dry and always left her craving water.

  A few hours later, Alanna looked up to the sound of footsteps walking down the hall.

  “Hey there, lieutenant.” Dev said cheerfully. “I’ll just be headed out. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Will you?” Alanna asked sharply. “Be sure to keep your shoes on as you go.”

  Dev ducked his head, an implicit acknowledgment. “I really am headed out. You kids have the place all to yourselves tonight.”

  “Other than the other guard on shift.”

  “Other than the other guard on shift.” Dev nodded.

  “He’ll be keeping his shoes on.”

  Dev grinned. “Privacy is so important here, isn’t it, lieutenant?”

  Alanna sighed, ignoring the last comment and the suggestively raised eyebrows. “Hey Dev?”

  “What?”

  She hesitated, hating to ask. “Can I get some water, before you go?”

  Dev stared at her. “Alanna.” He said, for some reason defaulting to her name rather than military rank. “You have water. It comes out of the faucet, see? Also, you look like you managed to figure it out.” He motioned to her still damp hair, trying to keep the grin off his face.

  Alanna looked at the faucet doubtfully. “That’s not drinkable water, is it?”

  “I drink it.”

  “Just – from the faucet?”

  “Want to hand me that cup so I can show you?”

  Alanna hesitated, picked up the metal mug James brought earlier and filled it with water from the faucet. The idea of unlimited drinking water was unthinkable. She handed Dev the cup.

  With a bemused look, he drained it. “See? It’s all drinking water far as I’m concerned. We don’t get fancy here.”

  “Yes but…” She stared at the empty cup Dev handed back to her.

  “No drinking water from the faucet on perfect green Saraya?” Dev asked with a laugh.

  “Water is poison.” She said out loud. A constant reality that had shaped her entire life. Water was poison. Always. The entire ecology of Saraya, whose largest predator was half the size of a human being, was defined by that simple truth. Animals on Saraya never managed to develop immunity to vibrio angerona, the deadly bacteria infesting Saraya’s water, and neither did the humans. Smaller animals survived by eating fruit, the water drawn from the earth filtered by the trees before it made its way into the fruit. Humans drank carefully filtered water but even then, if left out in the open for too long, the bacteria would find its way in, multiplying. She shuddered. It was a nasty way to die and the thought of drinking water from the faucet was causing her some very serious doubts.

  “This is Tundra, lieutenant. Just one giant ball of icy, drinkable water. Enjoy.” Dev said before walking away.