What Does A Whiskey Bottle See? (Short Story)

clevercreator (57)in #story • 7 years ago (edited)

STEEMIT EDITION

PUBLISHED BY
Diamond Sutherland on Steemit

I wake up to a dull ache – suppose this is better than death. Doc is saying something about taking it easy for a few days. Slowly bringing my body to life is hard. What the hell? Wasn’t I just in goo?

Doc goes on yelling at me as I get dressed. I think he has already figured out that I am heading up to the bridge. Easy? He is yelling at me and then there is silence as I have made my escape from sickbay.

How easy am I supposed to take it when we lost our captain and 150 other poor souls because my dumbass best friend would not listen to me? I want to be angry – the most I can muster is numb.

The Daedalus is too damn big to only have 200 or so…fuck, I don’t even know how many of us are left. Alex is sitting in “The Chair” when I come onto the bridge.

He starts to get up, but I am not ready for this. Not even close. I mutter brief me later, going to quarters – as I walk to into my best friend’s ready room.

This is where I argued for two hours about my gut feelings. I knew something was not right, but did not have enough physical proof to get my god damn captain to listen to me.

The room is clean now. Just days before Ethan’s corpse was lying here. I never had the chance to see him dead – too busy dying all on my own, on the way to saving our ship and remaining crew.

Even though Alex said nothing, I know my best friend – Ethan may not have listened, but the moment he saw the writing on the wall, he would have left me a note. It was the only thing in the room that had blood splatter on it.

Opening his safe, I found the bottle of whiskey and his private journal. I gathered my death booty and headed to quarters as the unrealness of the situation was consuming me.

I wanted to cry, to scream, to laugh, to do something, but all I could do was sink into the couch and look at the stream of folded space move around my ship. At 29 years old – acting captain of a flagship.

Well, I am sure not for long. I am quite sure that Alex has been “deflecting” messages for us to rejoin the fleet maneuvers. Wise is that twin of mine. This whole attack feels wrong and my numbed mind is hoping Ethan’s journal will shed some light on the situation.

I stare at the bottle of whiskey. The proper officer in me is slightly making a protest because I shouldn’t be alive. My universe is hanging on several strings and being on the frontlines and losing my best friend…my husband’s brother…shit, shit, shit.

We can’t even send him a communique. That’s it – bottle opened and swigging commenced. Where is my bloodstained letter? I want it desperately to be an apology as the numbness gives way to the anger.

I clutch the letter and nurse the whiskey. My sense of time is gone as I stew in my anger. Alex comes in, but I barely notice him taking my death booty.

He says something about briefing me after I have slept some. Somewhere between Alex helping me get into bed and my eyes closing, I felt the warmth of the tears on my face.