Chapter 7
SEVEN
JETT
SIX WEEKS TO CHARON
Dim emergency lights flickered while barricades and debris rose out of the floor and locked into place. A subtle buzz filled the air as holographic enemies appeared in digital doorways while a timer ticked down with a soft, metallic voice.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
Jett rolled his shoulders, checked his plasma knife in its sheath, and settled his pistol in his hands.
This was the final stage of the simulation Quasar asked him to test and perfect.
Six long weeks had passed since then, and the testing had pushed his mind and body to their limits.
He’d spent more nights tending aching muscles than he had over the several previous years.
And slept better than he had since Eddie left him.
Jett was satisfied that the program would offer a new trial to keep Security in shape should anything happen aboard the Neo-Tokyo once Jett was gone.
“Seven, six, five, four…”
Jett spread his legs, counted the doors that glittered at the edges of the range, scanned the debris in front of him, his emotions stored in the tight places of his heart only accessed during therapy.
The Techies had done a good job with the scenery and enemy variations.
The simulation gradually grew harder, with stronger and more varied enemies and less cover to hide behind.
It would test the members of Security like they hadn’t been before.
And though it wasn’t quite like a real combat situation, most Security officers were blissfully unaware of that. And hopefully it would stay that way.
“Three, two, one. Simulation begins now.”
Jett leapt forward, tucking his body into a roll, and landed with a twist so his back was pressed to a broken table. Electric charges pounded the wall where he’d been, absorbing back into the simulation. More hit the table, vibrating against him.
There was a moment of silence and Jett popped his head up to observe the enemies. His eye counted nine total, with two advancing on his right flank. Sliding behind another barricade, he stood and fired. Two beeps sounded as the enemies despawned. Yells echoed as the other seven advanced.
Jett pressed himself into the ridges of the irregular structure he leaned against, and felt vibrations in the floor and a crackle of electricity that accompanied the simulated enemies.
Jett holstered his pistol and unsheathed his knife, waited with eyes closed while the vibrations approached.
They flared beneath him, white-hot and crackling across his bare skin.
He slid to his left, hugging the corner, and flipped into a kneeling position.
Crouched there, Jett turned his right shoulder to the object and waited.
When the first enemy was close enough, Jett attacked.
A button ignited the plasma core, purple-blue climbing up the edge, a buzz accompanying it.
A trail of light burned in his peripheral vision as Jett stood, twisted his body, and slashed upwards across the first target’s torso.
It despawned as soon as the knife made contact and his swing continued into the second attacker.
Jett felt a tiny blip of resistance, then it was gone too.
Four down, five to go.
Jett crouched, clicked the plasma off, and resheathed his knife. He drew his pistol and stood. Enemies ran forward, exactly what he was expecting them to do. He stepped back, brought the pistol up, and fired. Precise shots took down four before they could react.
Jett dodged an electric shot from the final enemy and slid behind a new barrier. Sweat tickled his brow.
Soft vibrations indicated where the final enemy stood. Jett leaned out from behind his cover and ducked back. Three shots hit the barrier an instant later. Moving left, Jett dived behind the next obstacle. The vibrations were less intense, less distinct now.
Good. I’m moving away.
He continued, creeping from cover to cover around the battlefield. The enemy hunted for him, but he was a small, highly trained target. And he’d done this dance dozens of times before.
Jett peeked around a corner. The final enemy stood, back to him, on the far side of the room. Jett stood, aimed, fired. The enemy never even saw him. It just despawned.
The simulation beeped, signaling that it was over.
Returning his pistol to its holster, Jett took a deep breath.
Being on the Range cleared his head. The last six weeks had cemented for him the truth that he’d abandoned Eddie when he needed it most; that he’d held himself back just as he’d accused Eddie of doing. If he’d only realized sooner. If only—
“Jett?”
Jett looked up from where he stood, staring at the nothingness beyond the Shooting Range walls.
He didn’t recall when, in the process of his thoughts, he’d found his way into the control booth, but there he was.
His breath was steady, his skin cool but not clammy.
Perhaps being on the Range had only been a memory, a conglomerated dream of the last six weeks.
Ell stood there, concern plastered on their face. “We’re ready to start the testing.”
Jett nodded. “I was lost in thought.”
Ell understood. They, like his other friends, had seen Jett through the worst of his grief: the breakdowns, therapy, and recover from self-harm.
He’d talked through the bulk of his feelings with Ell and Jack before moving on to his therapist. If anyone on this ship understood how he was right now, it was Ell.
Jett shook his head and pulled up the roster on his tab. “Hargrave is first, then Rodriguez and Biggs.”
Ell nodded and headed out of the office.
Jett stood by the tab console and loaded in the day’s participants. Outside the walls of the office, he heard Ell giving everyone an overview of what would happen in the new simulation. Jett could have done the task, but this was Ell’s domain and he was just a corporate consultant now.
He walked to the door and watched the gathered crowd of Tech and Security personnel.
Some Engineering officers were also present, but Tech and Security shared the same level below the streets of Neo-Tokyo, and were most likely to participate in or observe each other’s events.
He scanned the crowd, knowing that Eddie wasn’t present, but hoping against hope.
Disappointment followed him back to the console, where he waited for the first run through to start.
Ell returned to the office and settled on the stool next to him, their cane propped between their legs. “He’s all ready to go when you are.”
“How do you think he’ll do?”
They chuckled. “Poorly. Especially compared to you. But he’s got that youthful energy. I think he’ll have fun.”
“This isn’t meant to be fun,” Jett muttered. He scrolled through the desktab to start the program.
“No, but it will be fun for them. And educational! You gotta give them that.”
Nine different scenarios with a random mix of enemies played before their eyes.
Hargrave took down the holographs easily during the first four instances, then his performance went steadily downhill.
And by the time Hargrave finished scenario nine, his uniform was charred from the low-voltage energy blasts.
But he had a smile on his face as he returned to the crowd.
“Better than I expected,” Jett muttered. “This kid is probably gonna fly up the ranks despite having no CDF training. He just needs to settle down and focus on his work. He’s very distractible.”
At the door, Ell yelled for Hargrave to join them.
“How long have you been with Security?” Jett asked the fidgety young man once he’d pulled himself away from his group of friends.
“A year, Lieutenant Valla, sir.” His voice quivered as he spoke. Jett didn’t know every officer previously under him as Head of Security, but he knew that he gave off intense vibes.
“You did well, despite your youth. But your focus could do with some work.” Jett had noticed the boy getting distracted by cheers from the spectators when he landed good shots on the enemies.
The boy flushed with the praise and fidgeted more. “I’m waiting to get approved for ADHD meds, sir. They did the final blood and neurological tests yesterday.”
Jett nodded. “That will help, but you also need to take this job seriously. What you ran through today is based off of my own experiences in the CDF, and something similar could happen on any ship. The Neo-Tokyo is large and well-protected, but you may find yourself on a smaller ship one day, with fewer experienced officers to guide you.”
The kid sobered, his grin falling. “I will do my best, sir.”
Jett nodded to him. “You can go. And, rest assured, you did very well.”
Hargrave scurried out of the room, smile back on his face.
“You’ve mellowed.” Ell’s voice was soft against the outside din.
“Consider me chastened by life,” he responded, before his tab filled the room with a repeating alarm.
Whoop! Whoop!
He pulled it out and opened it, silencing the alarm, but all relief was dashed when he saw the message.
ALL HANDS TO THE brIDGE
The message was red on a black background and it filled his tab’s screen, waiting for acknowledgement.
There’d never been an emergency in his time on the Neo-Tokyo.
And, beyond that, he wondered why he was being summoned.
He was no longer a crew member, and his access to anything but Security had been rescinded. He shouldn’t be allowed on the Bridge.
Whoop! Whoop!
Jett tapped his acknowledgement. “Gotta go, Ell, see ya later.”
He left before they had a chance to respond. Weaving around people in the crowd, Jett made his way across the room and outside into the cool, dark hallway. And ran into someone.
“What the fu—” Jett started as large hands grabbed his shoulders and steadied him.
“I did not mean to startle you, Jett.”
Jett’s heart skipped several beats as he looked up at the person he’d run into and found Eddie. His soft voice was music to Jett’s ears. But shame quickly replaced his relief and Jett stepped away. He had no right to any form of intimacy, accidental or otherwise. Not anymore.
“Ollie’s in the office today.”
Eddie shook his head, his sad green eyes were stars in the dark. “I was not looking for Ollie,” he responded. Another moment passed as Eddie searched Jett’s face, emotion unreadable. “I thought—hoped—that maybe we could talk on our way to the Bridge.”
Jett ground his teeth to keep himself in check. He didn’t deserve intimacy or sympathy. “How did you know I would be summoned?”
A small, sad smile crossed his freckled face. “The captain messaged me before the alarm went out, and told me to ensure that you did not ignore the summons.”
“Oh.” Jett nodded and gestured down the hall toward the elevators.
They walked in silence, not quite beside each other, but close enough that Jett longed to reach out and take Eddie’s hand in his.
But that was impossible. Eddie had ended their relationship, and Jett had dashed their chance to reconcile into the dirt.
They were nothing now: not lovers, not friends, not even coworkers.
The distance between them felt like an impassable gulf of space, time, and heartache.
Jett felt that was what he deserved.
He remembered the words he’d spat at Eddie, and nothing he said now could make up for that kind of intentional hurt.
He’d implied that Eddie allowed himself to be a continued victim to his narcissistic family when, really, Jett should have been protecting him, standing up for him, supporting him.
He should have been the shield behind which Eddie stood.
They stopped in the lobby as Eddie called an elevator that would take them from the bowels of the ship to its heights. The heavy silence between them, once comfortable, made Jett’s skin crawl.
He longed to say something: to apologize, to return to their snarky, loving banter.
But before he could find the right words, the elevator before Eddie arrived with a soft hiss and ding.
A press of Tech and Security workers emerged, filling the Void between them.
Eddie entered and settled against the right wall as Jett followed.
As the doors hissed closed and Eddie tapped them access to the Bridge, Jett decided to make the first move.
“That night…” Jett didn’t think he needed to specify which he meant. “That night, you were going to apologize, weren’t you?” He kept his eyes on the floor, on the guts of the ship outside the glass walls. Anywhere but on the man he loved.
“Yes. That was my intention.” Eddie’s soft voice was not just sad, but devastated.
“I saw you there and hoped you would come running back into my arms. But I know that I did not then, and do not now, deserve that.” He spoke slow when he wanted to get something across clearly, enunciated every word, avoided contractions.
It was as if they’d broken up years ago and only just saw each other again, as if the wounds weren’t raw and bleeding beneath surface scabs.
“I’m sorry.” Jett wanted to say it over and over again. He wanted to beg, to plead for Eddie to forgive him, but it wouldn’t get anywhere. The things they’d said couldn’t be erased.
“I am sorry, too,” Eddie replied. He opened his mouth to say something more, reaching out across the gap between them.
“No, Ed.” Jett didn’t want to be tempted, not when there was so much more at stake now.
Jett stood in silence, watching Eddie lower his arms. Jett’s lackluster apology drifted between them as the city of Neo-Tokyo disappeared below their feet.