Gunmetal Dark
By Angelina Vansen

RATING: NC-17 for sexual content and death.
CODES: Uber J/7
SUMMARY: In this chapter, we return to Colonel Filer, who has just had an Orgbrain implanted. That will make no sense to you unless you start at the beginning, however.


17.

Voices.

No, not voices. Music, maybe. Maybe. Lights?

Filer opened her eyes.

The Cleanlab was dark and quiet. Only two soft benchlights glowed on the far wall, and she could hear nothing, not even sounds from the corridor outside.

She lay on a recovery cot, wrapped in a warm cocoon of blankets. Her hand on the pillow by her face, a monisticker on her finger. Checking her.

She was totally alone, despite what Leemann had promised.

She pushed the blankets off. Peeled off the monisticker. Sat up. She was wearing her underwear, her briefs and a vest. Bare feet.

She touched her temple, where she knew they would have inserted the Orgbrain. Three neat lines had been shaved out of her hair, each about five centimetres long. They were tender to the touch. Bruised.

She got off the cot. Teetered slightly on her unsteady legs. Her head felt weird: full of noise. Static and something that was almost music.

She tried to listen to it. Failed. Tried to walk. Had more success. Bent to pick up her boots.

In the far corner of the lab, by the desk, something clattered to the ground.

"Colonel?"

Filer jumped. Turned, clutching the edge of the cot.

Shar. Shar was here. Sitting at the desk, rubbing her eyes because she'd been asleep.

A flood of gratitude washed over the Colonel. Shar had stayed here. Waited for Filer to wake up.

The Sergeant checked the chronometer on the wall. Picked up the comset she had knocked to the floor.

"How do you feel?" she asked. She walked tentatively to Filer's side. Her green eyes searched Filer's, and she reached for her. Took both her hands. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Filer's throat was dry, but her voice worked. It even sounded like her own. "I ... I feel fine."

Shar nodded. Smiled a little. "Leemann said the procedure went well. There weren't any problems."

"That's good," Filer said.

Shar's eyes still probed Filer's. Uncertain.

"How is it? Can you feel it? Is it working?"

Filer wrinkled her brow. She wasn't sure. Her head felt like a hazy, alien place. Full of something that wasn't right at all.

"I ... I don't know," she admitted. "Something ... there's something ... but I don't know how to ... use it, I ... oh!"

There it was. Instantly. The moment the thought popped into her head, something inside her came to life.

ACTIVATE:
TENKATECH ORGBRAIN v1.09
NO SERIAL # PRESENT: EVALUATION VERSION
ENTER REGISTRATION CODE FOR FULL ACCESS TO TENKATECH

White letters, bold and bright, printed across her field of vision. Across Shar's face. Filer reached out with her hand as if she could touch them.

As soon as she had finished reading, the words disappeared.

Shar took a step backwards. She must have thought Filer was reaching for her face. Her eyes held alarm.

"Yes, it's working," Filer said, breathless. "It just activated!"

Shar's eyes widened further. "What ... what is it like? What's happening?"

Filer gasped again. The Orgbrain ... moved! Wriggled. Reached out, like white tendrils unfurling from her head. Seeking. Querying.

A terrifying sensation. As if her thoughts were being pulled from her mind and spread across the room. As if her brain was four metres wide.

She gasped and grabbed Shar; she had not thought it would be like this. So strong. So vivid.

"What?" pleaded the Sergeant. "Sparta, what's happening?"

In a rush that took Filer's breath away, all the instruments in the room spoke to her. A prickle at the back of her neck, then clamouring signals rushing into her head.

TENKATECH GARYWRENCH v6.9.02
305-2503-430-607

TENKATECH ACIDTOUCH 20ml v45.6
08830-602414
WARNING: CAUSTIC TO SKIN

OSYTH SNC. #KK400
FINITE USE! HEAD UNITS ONLY CARRIED WITHIN.

Hundreds of them. Every device in the room, all the tools in the drawers, all the equipment on the benches. Her nails dug into Shar's jacket. It was incredible.

She found that if she focussed on these signals individually, her mind was led to their location in the room.

They could be activated, too. A simple thought, a switch in her head.

ON/OFF?

In the drawers, instruments sprang to life. Screens in the walls turned on.

Shar jumped, practically leaping into Filer's arms.

"That's you?" she gasped. "You're doing that?"

Filer nodded. She grinned maniacally at Shar, giddy with it. This wasn't so bad. No. It was easy.

"It's amazing!" Filer told her. "It feels like ... like ..."

She trailed off. There were no words. No way to make Shar understand.

It was a secret world. Like finding fairies at the bottom of the garden, like discovering you could hear the dead.

Signals pulsed in the walls - idiot droning from the simple systems like the lights and the heating, sophisticated chatter from the computers.

She pushed her mind into the noise and joined in. Closed her eyes and let the Orgbrain follow a single stream of data around the room.

Just a security stream, nothing more; a beam sent from one panel to another to check for intruders. She followed it, danced with it, and wrapped her mind around it. Felt it detect the warm bodies in the room, hers and Shar's. Heard it ask Truestar A for confirmation of their identities.

All in a heartbeat. In the blink of an eye. Then it started again, one panel to another. One wall, another wall. Her and Shar. Asking Truestar A. Again and again.

"Incredible ..." she breathed.

"What?" asked Shar, frantic.

"I can feel everything in the room ... every machine. Every computer, all the tools in the drawers ... outside, too."

"Feel them? How?"

"Yes ... like another sense. I can interact with them. Find them, or activate them, or ..."

She turned to Shar, full of life. Rich and full and excited. Her heart beat hard in her chest. She felt like another person, like somebody totally new. She was out of control. She was huge. Powerful. She could have anything she wanted. Nothing was out of her reach.

She cupped Shar's cheek in her hand. Brought her close. She could ... she could ...

Shar stepped backwards. Out of Filer's reach. Dropped her eyes to her boots.

"You've just had a brain operation," she said. "You need to rest."

Filer dropped her hand to her side. The tendrils from her Orgbrain went quiet. Stopped listening. Came back into her head.

"Are you off duty?" she asked.

Shar shook her head. "I shouldn't be," she replied. She looked at the chronometer. "Not for another half-hour."

Filer nodded. "I could meet you. Come to your quarters? After?"

Shar looked uncertain. Maybe she wanted to refuse.

"I'll rest," Filer promised.

"Leemann should look at you," Shar admonished. "Make sure everything is all right. He said he'd come back."

Filer nodded. Chewed the inside of her lip and looked at the floor.

Shar lingered. Shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"As you were, Sergeant," Filer sighed.

"You shouldn't be alone. That thing ..."

Filer laughed. "Are you afraid it will suddenly take over my brain?"

"Yes," said Shar. She did not laugh.

"It won't," Filer snapped.

"But ..."

"Thank you, Sergeant. You are dismissed."

"Yes, Colonel," Shar bristled. Pursed her lips. She turned smartly and marched from the lab.

Filer watched her go. The door sealed behind her and the CleanField sterilised the space she had occupied. The security system outside twitched as it picked her up. Heat and movement.

Filer closed her eyes and let the Orgbrain watch Shar, too. Part of the panel on the wall, recording. The shift of her hips as she walked. The swing of her arms by her sides.

She watched until Shar went into the Truestar Guestbay, in search of Leemann.

Filer dressed, quickly. Trousers and shirt. Jacket, left undone. Boots. Cap, on top of hair left loose.

She wasn't going to stay here. She did not want to rest. All around her, the bunker had new life. New voices, new things to explore. She did not want to waste time.

She wanted to see what was inside Menendez.

She left the lab and almost ran down the corridor to the Infirmary. The security system watched her, too. Identified her. She felt it send the information over to Truestar A. Felt the answer come back.

Inside the Infirmary, it was dark. Her medics, Gallard and Sander, were both off duty, and there were no injured or sick to attend.

Filer reached out with the Orgbrain and turned the lights on. Already it felt natural. Part of her.

The bodies of those killed by the Softsuit lay packed in cold storage boxes. Not recognisable as human corpses now. Each box gave off a constant blue smoke that drifted in the air system. Filer walked between them slowly, reverently.

At the back of the room, General Menendez lay in his Softsuit, his position unchanged from the last time Filer visited.

She went to him. Leaned over him, palms flat on the frame of his stretcher.

She wondered if she should be afraid. She thought of Kins, her brother. Of Ols, Shar's husband.

When she went into Menendez's Orgbrain, she would see what Tenkatech had done to the people she loved. To all those people Missing In Action.

After all this time, she would finally know.

He was there. She could feel him. His Orgbrain, reaching out to hers. A tingle at the back of her neck, a pulse of recognition in all her nerves.

TENKATECH ORGBRAIN v1.09
SERIAL # UNAVAILABLE:
CONTACT TENKATECH FOR VERIFICATION
ALWAYS USE GENUINE TENKATECH PRODUCTS!

It told her. White letters printed over her field of vision.

Her Orgbrain pushed deeper. The sensation made her breath catch in her throat. Part of her was no longer Colonel Filer, standing in the Infirmary, her boots on cold concrete. Part of her was white light and had no body at all.

This part wriggled inside Menendez, through a port that called itself

MAINSTEM PHYSICAL PORT
MODE: RECEIVE
WALL: !NONE!

She needed no specialist knowledge, no operating language. Her Orgbrain was powered utterly by her thoughts. It was beyond easy.

Menendez had no programs, nothing like the level of defence that a proper Softsuit's Orgbrain would have, but that didn't matter. She wasn't here to crack him. She was here for answers.

What did Orgbrains do in the dead? How did they work? How exactly did they bring them back to life?

Most importantly, what was left? Were the troopers truly dead, their thoughts and identities lost to them forever? Were they puppets? Or were their real minds trapped inside by the Softsuits, desperate to be saved?

These were questions Filer had hoped Doctor Sigg would be able to answer. Now, she would find out for herself.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. That white-light part of her fed through pathways, light and free.

Commands passed her.

8F-94-59-81-D2

F0-16-0F-14-A8

B7-14-8D-E1-5A

85-70-D8-D7-28

Code. Thousands of strings of code, numbers that meant nothing to her. The sound reminded her of insects, chittering in a hive, busy and brainless.

Her Orgbrain traced the signals, followed them to their destinations. Her white-light mind spiralled along the pathways, through junctions and offsets and orgrons, finally plunging into the spikes the Orgbrain had burrowed into his brain.

They discharged like sparks. Electric. Filer could almost taste the static in her physical mouth.

Every time a spark was released, Menendez's heart beat. Blood moved around his body. Sometimes his eyes were told to blink.

She realised that her Orgbrain had begun to decipher the codes for her. Instead of numbers, she was given crude translations:

HEART BEAT NOW

and

BLINK NOW

and

TENSE MUSCLE TO PREVENT ATROPHY NOW

Billions of them. Everywhere. The Orgbrain did literally everything for him. Maintained his body perfectly.

Of course, there was no way for white-light Filer to travel further, into his physical brain. Her Orgbrain could only communicate with machines.

She needed to find the system that suppressed him. There must be something in place to stop him having his own thoughts, his own feelings and desires.

This, Filer thought, would be the answer. Finding this. Shutting it down. Releasing him from the slavery of the Softsuit.

SEARCH DEVICE?

White letters on the blackness of her closed eyelids.

Her Orgbrain, responding to her thoughts. Offering to search the device she was currently attached to. Menendez's Orgbrain.

She was uncertain how to respond. A thought? Speaking aloud?

It was nothing so conscious. The merest flicker of her mind in the direction of the positive was enough to trigger the message:

SEARCH FOR?

Almost as if it knew her thoughts before she did.

SEARCHING DEVICE FOR MEMORY ENGRAM SUPPRESSION COMMANDS

It told her.

She held her breath. Bit her tongue. Waited.

SEARCHING ...

Waited.

SEARCHING ...

Her teeth clenched. Eyes screwed shut so tight they hurt.

NONE FOUND

She opened her eyes. White letters printed on the infirmary wall. On the black mesh chest of the Softsuit Menendez wore.

NONE FOUND

"Nothing?" she said aloud.

NONE FOUND

said her Orgbrain again.

"No, there must be ..." she muttered.

SEARCH AGAIN?

asked the Orgbrain.

"Yes!" she cried.

SEARCHING DEVICE FOR ENGRAM SUPPRESSION COMMANDS

SEARCHING ...

SEARCHING ...

NONE FOUND

She pressed her lips together. Swallowed the lump in her throat.

Perhaps that was not the way it worked. The Orgbrain was a symbiotic device; a couple of her people had postulated that constant suppression commands would be inefficient.

Perhaps her own computers were a better analogy. Truestar A was host to Truestar B, yet the latter was far more powerful. When operational, Truestar B's needs came first. It overrode drive space, power consumption, almost every function that Truestar A was capable of. Perhaps that was the way an Orgbrain worked in a dead man: a simple master/slave relationship between the two brains.

Filer closed her eyes again. Concentrated on her white-light self, sitting dormant inside the General's Orgbrain.

SEARCHING DEVICE FOR SLAVE CHANNEL CONNECTION

said her Orgbrain. Again, Filer held her breath.

NO SLAVE CHANNEL FOUND:
SLAVE DEVICE NOT PRESENT

"No ..." she said aloud.

NO SLAVE CHANNEL FOUND:
SLAVE DEVICE NOT PRESENT

Her Orgbrain repeated.

Filer bit her lip. Thought frantically. So she had been wrong. Her scientists had been wrong. It was not surprising; this was highly advanced, top secret technology.

Perhaps she was looking at it from the wrong perspective. So far, she had only examined the Orgbrain to see how it interacted with the General's biological systems. Maybe the answer would lie in seeing the input his brain returned to the device.

SEARCHING DEVICE FOR ELECTRICAL INPUT PATHWAYS

her Orgbrain reported.

Yes. That was good. All she wanted was some hope, a little spark of life, something to show that they had a reason to keep fighting the Softsuits.

7052 PATHWAYS FOUND

came back.

Filer swallowed.

"Subtract prompted pathways," she whispered. Throat dry. She wanted to eliminate all brain activities that had not been initiated by the Orgbrain in the first place.

NO PATHWAYS FOUND

White letters. Darkness behind her eyelids.

NO PATHWAYS FOUND

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No independent brain activity at all.

She did not want it to be true.

The Orgbrain was not using Menendez's brain as a slave device. It was not suppressing any of its natural activities. There were none to be suppressed. It simply did everything for him.

It was plugged into a piece of meat. There was nothing left of General Menendez at all.

The inescapable truth was that he was dead.

Her white-light self pulled out of his head, and Filer opened her eyes again.

She stared at him. At his fixed gaze. His slack lips.

How she hated him. Commander of her enemy, lover of the detestable Doctor Sigg. His bronzed skin, his well-muscled physique. How different he looked from her pale, miserable soldiers.

She had watched him for months, even before she had realised who Kaine Sigg was. He was the commander of the closest enemy base to her bunker, and it had been her job to report on his every movement.

Hours of security footage, hacked into by Truestar B. Every time he had gone on patrol. Performed inspections. Every report he had received.

Then, twice a week, off base with his lover, the small redhead who was definitely not his wife. The motel room in Ghow.

Not bothering to hide his face or his uniform. Laughing. Smiling. Shameless.

She had hated him for that. Envied him.

Oh, yes. Sticking that syringe in his neck and filling him with poison had been very satisfying.

"Colonel?" A soft voice, from behind her. Leemann's voice.

She turned to face him. He stood by the door, obscured by the vapour rising from the packed bodies.

"Colonel, you shouldn't be out of bed yet," he admonished gently. "I wanted to run some tests, make sure everything's working properly."

"It's working," she told him. Turned back to Menendez.

"Yes. Sergeant Shar told me. Nevertheless, it was a major procedure. You shouldn't push yourself."

"I know. I just had to ..." she trailed off. Not ready to say the words out loud.

"Later, Colonel," he told her. Crossed the room to stand at her side. "You have plenty of time."

She nodded, vaguely. He didn't think she had explored Menendez's Orgbrain yet. He hadn't asked. "Maybe a little sleep would be a good idea," she granted.

"Yes ..." he agreed.

"Where is Sergeant Shar?"

"Off duty, ma'am. Her shift finished fifteen minutes ago."

So long? She had not realised how much time had elapsed. She wondered briefly what the time was, and her Orgbrain responded instantly.

WORLD REGION 7
TENKATECH NETWORK OFFICIAL TIME:
23:17:54

"Thank you, Leemann," she said. Buttoned her jacket. Put her cap on.

She straightened her back.

"Dismissed," she told him.

"Yes, Colonel," he nodded.

She followed him out of the room, but turned in the opposite direction, headed for the living quarters. Headed for Shar.

All the way there, she felt the machines. The security system, watching her. The power systems, feeding energy to the lights, the heating, the air intakes. Truestar A's drives, backing themselves up. Truestar B's damaged laserboards, attempting to reroute. Failing.

She knocked on Shar's door. Waited for her to answer.

Shar answered, still in uniform. Weary-eyed. She looked at Filer. Looked at the floor. Held the door open.

"I was just going to bed," she told the Colonel.

Filer nodded. "So was I. But ... I need to talk to you."

She went inside Shar's quarters. Already the lamps were lit and the bed turned down. Already, the Sergeant had laid out her nightwear on top of her bedclothes.

She closed the door.

"Yes?" Shar said. All business, then.

Filer opened her mouth. Closed it again. Took a shaky breath. How could she do it? What words could she use?

"Is it frightening?" Shar asked in a soft voice.

"Wh-what?"

"Hearing the thoughts of machines all the time?"

"Oh. It is strange," Filer admitted.

Shar nodded. "I thought it would be."

Neither woman looked at the other for a long moment.

"If it was me, I think I wouldn't like to be alone," Shar whispered.

Filer said nothing.

"Maybe you should stay," Shar said. Voice barely more than a whisper. Eyes not looking at Filer's eyes. "Here. With me. I could make sure ..."

Filer sighed. A long breath. Nodded slowly.

"Yes," said Shar.

She moved close to Filer, reached for her with gentle hands. Undid the dull, smart buttons on her Colonel's jacket. Stood up on tiptoes to pull it off.

Filer stood passively. Watched the movement of Shar's hands, the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed.

Shar undid Filer's shirt. Turned to fold it neatly on the back of her chair with her jacket.

"Would you like something to drink?" she whispered. Undressing herself.

Filer shook her head. Stepped out of her trousers.

She saw them both in the mirror on the wall. Her own pale skin taut on her lean frame. Her athletic legs. Her dark eyes. Shar, smaller and rounder. Her full breasts. Her curved buttocks. The dimples of fat on her thighs.

Filer sat down on the bed, her palms flat on the sheets beside her. Trying not to listen to the power systems that supplied this room. Trying not to hear beyond them, the devices in the corridor outside.

The computer drives ran the length of the bunker, in crawlspaces above the living quarters. Filer heard them, counting and recalibrating and defragging.

Shar turned off the lamp on her desk. Moved to the table by the locker and turned that one off, too. Came to her bedside table.

Filer knew what was coming next. She knew.

Shar put one hand on the switch of the lamp, prepared to turn it off. The other she brought to her lips.

Kissed her fingertips. Moved to place the kiss on the still of Ols. On his smiling face.

"They're dead," Filer told her.

Shar froze. Hand halfway between her mouth and the still.

Green eyes flashed to Filer's. "What?" she asked.

"They're dead, Arden. All of them. All the Softsuits. All the people that are Missing In Action."

"What?" Shar said again. "How ... how do you know?"

"I went into Menendez's Orgbrain. There's nothing there. Nothing but Softsuit."

"No ..." Shar breathed. She let her hand drop. "No, that can't be right ..."

"It is."

"No!"

"We've been kidding ourselves. There's nothing left to save."

"But ... they're alive! Their hearts beat, they breathe ... they walk, they talk, their eyes are open."

"The Orgbrain does it all."

"No, it controls them. You said yourself that was the way it worked!"

"I was wrong. There's no engram suppression. It doesn't even treat the human brain as a slave device. There's nothing there."

Shar sat heavily on the bed. Mouth open. Face grey. She looked at her stills. Then back at Filer.

"No ..." she begged. "Please tell me that's not true."

"I can't."

Shar closed her eyes. Let out a slow, shaking breath. "Ols ..." she whispered.

"I know," Filer said.

Shar's hands clenched into fists on her lap. "No ..."

"I know," Filer said again.

Shar put her hand to her mouth. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

"We did everything we could think of," Filer told her.

"I know," whispered Shar. She took her hand away from her mouth. Bit her lip. Her eyes lingered on the three shaven lines of hair at Filer's temple. "More than everything."

Tears spilled silently down her face. One shaking hand reached up to Filer's face. Touched the three bald strips cut into the side of her long brown hair.

"Thank you ..." she whispered.

Shar was beautiful. Shar smelled sweet. Filer took Shar's face in her hands and kissed her.

Kissed her. She had never kissed Shar. But here she was, lip against lip in a shock of warm breath. Nose pushed into her cheek and tongue plump and wet like overripe fruit.

Shar kissed her back. Jagged and desperate, nails on Filer's face and neck. Maybe she understood. Maybe she just wanted someone to kiss her.

They were dead. They were all dead. Everyone they loved was dead.

Their teeth clashed, Filer's lip caught between them, soft meat. Pain. The taste of blood.

Sweet, soft, organic. Around them, in the walls of the room, the machines went about their business. Data streams passed. Energy flowed. Machines in Filer's mind and flesh beneath her fingers.

Somewhere, Shar groaned. Somewhere, Shar said "Yes ..."

Filer held her. Pawed her breasts. Clutched her buttocks, pinched handfuls of flesh and underwear. Kissed her. Actually kissed her.

Above them, the air system whined and blew. One of the drives in the crawlspace ran a diagnostic, checking for errors; sector after sector.

CHECKED

CHECKED

CHECKED

The word like a peck on Filer's brain. Again. Again. Her hips fell into its rhythm, grinding against Shar's hips.

Tore her lips from Shar's and buried them into her breasts. Her own breath hot in her face, intense and urgent. Yanked her bra down. Shar gasped sharply as her nipples popped out and bounced in front of Filer's face. Filer kissed them. Bit them. Hard.

CHECKED

CHECKED

CHECKED

Shar pushed Filer off the bed. Knees on the cold concrete floor. Hands urgent. Breathing quick and loud.
An unspoken plea in the urgency of her hands.

Shar leaned back on her elbows, on the sheet. Spread her legs.

One of the drives above them sent a query to the control bay.

TESTFIG ERROR?
LASERBOARD 50169580513030017998 ERRREAD?

Bold white letters across the pale soft flesh of Shar's belly. Filer kissed it. Embraced it. Dragged her tongue in long, slow circles around every letter. Beautiful. So beautiful. So beautiful and alive.

Filer groped her. Her thighs and her bottom and her belly. Squeezed them; kissed them. Buried her face, open mouthed, in it all.

She lifted Shar's bottom and tugged the Sergeant's briefs off. Threw them to the floor.

"Oh, yes ..." hissed Shar. Her scent rich in the air, musky and strong. "Oh, please yes ..."

TESTFIG ERROR?
LASERBOARD 50169580513030017998 ERRREAD?

said the drive again.

Filer was teeth and tongue against every centimetre of soft flesh on Shar's body; she was gusts of breath, drawing that heady scent deep into her lungs. She buried her face between Shar's thighs and lapped.

Shar's voice cried out in pleasure among the chattering machines. A gasp. A cry. Begging for more, for Filer not to stop. Her hand, its little, short fingers, knotted in Filer's hair.

There was nothing else. The universe was here, between Shar's legs. Filer was gone; there was nothing more than the pulse of her own blood loud in her ears, the shift of muscles in Shar's belly as she thrust her hips against Filer's mouth. Nothing more than

CHECKED

CHECKED

CHECKED

and

TESTFIG ERROR?
LASERBOARD 50169580513030017998 ERRREAD?

and

OBLIQUE DATA CACHE WARNING!
072-51216-5393

and

ERROR REPORT FILED: BOTHY 9
COTY-6030-61

and

CHECKED

CHECKED

CHECKED

Again and again in her head. Shar's foot banging repeatedly on the bedframe. The wet sound of Filer's tongue. Filer's hot breath.

The beating of her heart. Both their hearts.

Shar's throat, whimpering. Shar's voice, gasping. Crying. Shar's hands, handfuls of sheets, white at the knuckles.

Shar climaxed. Her hand clutched Filer's head, a fist in her hair. Tighter, then tighter still. Then it fell away, and Shar collapsed onto her elbows. Head back, neck a white curve.

Filer kissed her belly. Shar cradled Filer's head against her. Bent to kiss the top of the Colonel's head. Filer wrapped her arms about Shar's waist and clung to her.

TESTFIG ERROR?
LASERBOARD 50169580513030017998 ERRREAD?

The drive said again.

Shar's breathing slowed. The sweat on her skin cooled. Filer did not move. Shar stroked her face with maternal fingers.

Filer listened to the sounds of Shar's belly, food being processed within. She closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Shar said softly. A murmur. She looked at the stills on her bedside table.

"I'm in love with you," Filer replied. Looked up at Shar's big green eyes.

Shar gazed back at her. Her mouth twitched. "Shhhhh ..." she whispered, as if soothing a small child.

She stroked Filer's hair. Tidied it. Tucked it behind her ears.

Filer buried her face back into the soft flesh of Shar's belly. Kissed it. Pressed her forehead between her breasts.

"What are we going to do now?" Shar asked, eventually.

She stared, her gaze strong and bold, down at her Colonel. Ready for duty. Waiting for orders. "Our people are lost. Dead or worse than dead. You say we've as good as lost the war. What are we going to do now?"

Filer returned her gaze. Wanting to have an answer for her. Wanting to have a plan, a set of tactics. Anything. Instead, she buried her face in the warm flesh of Shar's belly. Kissed. Kissed again.

"I guess we just have to survive," Shar whispered. Her hand stroked Filer's hair, rhythmically. "Don't we."

It wasn't a question. Filer could not respond. The silence lingered between them for long moments.

Eventually, Shar reached out and turned her lamp off. "We should get some sleep," she said wearily. She held the sheet back for Filer to join her in the bed.

Filer lay back, ramrod straight on the pillows. Seeing nothing in the room but pitch-blackness. Hearing Shar breathe. Hearing the sheets shift as she moved in the bed beside her Colonel.

She draped an arm over Filer's stomach, tentatively. Not a sexual move. A need to hold something. Someone.

Filer sighed and rolled towards her, taking her in her arms. Traced the line of Shar's spine with her fingertips. Rocked her gently in her arms. Listened to the sound of her breathing.

Long moments passed. Shar's breathing slowed. Her embrace relaxed. She snored softly in Filer's arms.

Filer kissed the top of her head. Stroked the soft skin of her back with light fingertips.

Her breathing fell into rhythm with Shar's. Slow. Slower. Deeper. Her eyelids closed. In the morning she would think about it. In the morning, she would make plans. No need to think about it now. Now, she needed sleep.

"Hello?"

said a voice, from inside Filer's head.

"Hello? Can you hear me, too?"


CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 18 ...


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