Chapter 11

I was slightly amused at the look on my sister’s face as she tried to process what I had just finished telling her.

She looked at me skeptically, “So you want me to believe that you fell into a cavern, stumbled onto an alien spaceship, was made their Captain and have spent the last six months or so in space with a bunch of cat people?”

I shrugged and said, “Yeah, because that is what has happened since the trip, whether you believe me or not.”

I felt the phone in my pocket vibrate and saw another notification from Tali, this time just saying for me to place the phone on the table screen up. I did as she suggested, and, a moment later, a one-foot version of Tali appeared on the surface of the screen.

“Good evening, ma’am,” Tali greeted with a bow. “I am Tali, the artificial intelligence that resides in the ship that your brother found. Everything your brother has said is accurate, even if you feel that it is impossible. The ship that your brother is currently in command of is sitting at the bottom of Pennesseewassee Lake.”

Her image disappeared and was replaced with an image of the Obsidian, before returning to that of Tali.

Eva leaned in and asked, “Do all Mac ... Masc...” I could see her struggling for the word, “Mac’skarians,” I volunteered with a laugh.

“Yes, them,” she retorted with an eye roll, “do they all look like you do? Or is your design different from the general look of Mac’skarians?”

“Yes, we do,” Tali answered with a laugh. “We are designed to look like every other Mac’skarian so that they are able to interact with us more easily.”

“So it is true,” Eva said in astonishment, “because the only holographic images I see are on TV and even they weren’t this good.”

I smiled and said, “Yes it’s true sis, I just wanted you and David to know that I am okay, but that I wouldn’t be coming back.”

I watched as her eyes teared up again and I wondered what I had done to make her want to cry. I had hoped that knowing I hadn’t died would bring her some peace and ensure she didn’t wallow in grief.

“Why are you crying?” I asked, unsure of what to do. “Was it something I said, or did that made you upset?”

“It’s both, you fucking dummy!” she screamed. “It would be so much easier if you were dead. I know your heart was in the right place, Derek, but if you wanted me to have some kind of peace of mind, you should never have come back. At least then, I would be able to grieve and there would be some finality to it. Instead, I am stuck knowing you’re alive and that I can never see your face, hear your voice, or hug you again. All because you’re in another part of the fucking galaxy, light years away, trying to help a people rebuild. I love your intentions, but I hate what you’re doing, because you are doing the worst thing imaginable to me.”

I looked at her with a confused look on my face, but I couldn’t understand what it was that was upsetting her.

“You are so dumb sometimes, but you are a man, after all.” She sighed and looked like she was collecting her thoughts before she continued. “I have loved you since the day mom and dad brought us into the delivery room. From that day on, I spent as much time as I could with you, which is why we were so close growing up. When we hit puberty, that changed, and, as a result, I began to push you away, but not for the reasons you think. You believed that I had grown past spending time with you and that I wanted to hang out with people my own age, correct?”

I nodded in response, but I wasn’t completely sure where she was going with this. We had grown apart once we hit our teens and the divide only increased as we got older.

“That wasn’t the reason, little brother,” she said softly, the sound of her words barely a whisper. “I had started seeing you as something more than a brother, in a way a sister shouldn’t, and I had to get away.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I asked, my mouth dry. “This isn’t something you joke about Ev!”

She nodded slowly, as a single tear tracked down her face. I sat there, feeling numb as the meaning of her words hit me. My sister didn’t just love me, she was IN love with me.

“Derek,” she muttered, staring at me with eyes red from tears. “Say something, Derek, say anything. Say you hate me, say that I am disgusting, but say something.”

I scratched my head, “I don’t know what to say, Ev. I never even had a clue you felt this way about me, and I don’t know exactly what to make of it. I can say that I neither hate you, nor do I find you disgusting.”

“Okay, that is something, at least,” she replied with a small nod, “but that doesn’t change that you will be gone, and I will be here. I will be stuck here alone knowing you are out there and never coming back. You could die, alone with no family or humans there.”

“So, what are you trying to say?” I asked, slightly agitated at the singular focus on how it affects her. “Are you saying you want to come with me?”

She shrugged her shoulders and continued looking down at the floor, quietly crying.

I turned her eyes to me, “If you did come, I might never return the affection you have for me, which would put you near me but still out of reach.”

“I know, dammit!” Eva barked, “I have gone through this countless times in my head, though the whole aliens and outer space thing never factored into my imagining this moment.”

“Say you did decide to come with me, what about school, your job, the house, David?” I asked, hoping she would realize the futility of that decision. “How do you explain disappearing forever to your friends and our brother?”

This time she shrugged, “I only went to college to try and be away from you, hoping the time apart would make the feelings go away, but they didn’t. My job was to pay for luxuries while I was at school because I had a full ride. I put all that on hold due to grief and set things up to return in the fall. I don’t care about this house, and I only took care of it in the hopes that you would return and be surprised at what I had done for you. I know you loved this house more than either David or I did.

“I didn’t really have friends here before college, none that I kept in touch with, anyway, and the same with the people I met in college, so there is no one to tell anything to. The people here will think I am in LA and those in LA will assume I chose to stay home. I will just put in the notice that I don’t intend to return and leave it there. As for David, he will be happy to know you’re okay and he wouldn’t really care either way if he never heard from us again. His career is everything to him, so I don’t see him pining to see us or anything. I heard from him once to say he had been informed that you were missing and to see if I heard anything? He then asked if I thought about selling the house.”

“So, what is it you’re saying, Ev?” I asked, shocked at how this was going. “That as long as you are near me, even if we are nothing more than brother and sister, you would give up your life on Earth to come with me?”

She took a moment and then looked up at me. Her entire body language had changed, and I could see the determination in her eyes. I could tell without words that the answer to my question was a resounding yes.

I turned my focus to my phone, “Tali, if she were to join us, would she have to go through the same preparations that I did in the medical pod?”

Tali shook her head, “Those preparations were to get you fit for command, via the Omega Protocol. I’m not sure that this situation calls for it, Captain.”

“We had the Mac’skarian survivors use pods to learn the jobs we needed,” I replied. “Those were jobs they chose for themselves. Couldn’t Ev learn what she would need from a pod to become a member of my crew?”

Tali thought for a moment and said, “Yes, she could, Captain, but you also went through extensive physical changes that allow you to speak and understand our language. It also gave you both the knowledge and muscle memory to work right away.”

I nodded and asked, “Couldn’t I use my authority and command code to authorize you to perform that process on Ev?”

She thought about it for a few seconds and replied, “I honestly don’t know, sir. We have never needed to do it in the past, so there has never been a reason to attempt it.”

“Very well,” I replied with a nod. “Tali, begin pod preparations for Eva to receive training and upgrades via a pod. Security command authorization code: Alpha-Bravo-One-One-Zulu-Seven.”

Her tiny eyes flashed, “Code accepted Captain, processing request, orders accepted under Omega Protocol. I will begin preparations for the pod immediately, what position would you like to learn ma’am?”

“Hmm,” Eva muttered as she became lost in thought. “Does your ship currently have an engineer?”

“Currently there are four individuals that are training to be an engineer of the Lionel command cruiser. No one has been chosen yet to be the lead engineer, would you like to take up the position, ma’am?”

Eva nodded vigorously and said, “Yes please, Tali, but please don’t call me ma’am, it makes me sound old. Eva is just fine, thank you.”

Tali nodded and turned to me, “Very well, I will begin preparations as you have requested, Captain. Is there anything else, sir?”

I shook my head, “No that will be all for now, but I will let you know if we require anything else from you.”

Tali gave a little nod and her form disappeared from the phone. I picked it up and put it in my pocket and locked eyes on my sister.

I turned to my sister and said, “If you’re serious about this, you will need to at least let David know that you are planning some kind of change of lifestyle and plan to go where you won’t be able to be reached. Like maybe volunteer work in the Amazon or something like that, or, better yet, you found out I had decided to go on such an endeavour and decided to join me.”

She nodded and said, “It could work, we both were up for volunteering for various charitable events when mom and dad were still alive.”

“Okay, well, you need to figure out what to tell him and soon,” I stated, lost in thought, “because I don’t want to stay longer than I have to.”

“What is so urgent that you need to leave?” she asked, “You only just got here, Derek.”

“First, I don’t know if our systems are one hundred percent undetectable by Earth’s various modes of tracking,” I replied, walking to look out a nearby window. “We did create a trail when we entered the atmosphere but used the cover of night to make our way here. There is no telling if it had been tracked, so I worry about the risk. Second, there are currently over twenty-two hundred Mac’skarians that are depending on my leadership during this time of uncertainty for their people. I could return to find everyone fine, or I could return to find that the enemy that had nearly wiped them out, returned to finish the job. There are too many variables that could be trouble for me or the Mac’skarians.”

Eva nodded and smiled, “Okay, I will do that now, then. Do you want something to eat or something?”

“No thanks,” I answered with a shake of my head. “I only caught a quick nap after being awake for twenty-three hours straight, then I waited for an hour or so after sunrise before walking into town.”