“Josey,” said NOCK.
“She helped me get through a very rough patch way back when. After the invasion. My family, they were. . .all gone, you know.”
Killed by the sceeve. NOCK completed the thought. It wasn’t uncommon. Only a small percentage of humanity had survived the initial attack on Earth.
“I knew Josey, too,” NOCK said. “But I guess you’re aware of that.”
And used it for your own damn purposes, NOCK thought.
“Human-servant liaisons. Word gets around.” Leher smiled crookedly. “But I’ll come clean. And Josey and I stayed in touch. We wrote the occasional letter. Actual letters on physical paper that had to fly through space to get delivered. I miss those letters.”
“You knew who I was,” said NOCK. “And it was you who had my IP recusal request overridden, wasn’t it?”
“Afraid so.”
“Bastard.”
“Afraid so.”
“I still don’t get it. What were you trying to do?”
“Not sure,” Leher said. “I figured I was going to point you out to those MILINT tinpot gods that you were ARROW class just like POINT and then maybe shock everyone with the startling and completely obvious realization that no two people are ever alike, no matter how similar they are and no matter what form they come in.”
“So, lawyer tricks.”
“Lawyer tricks.”
“Kind of got away from you, didn’t it?”
Leher gave his beer mug a half turn in its own moisture on the table, but didn’t yet pick it up. “Not quite what I planned, but I did win the case.”
“And you almost got both of us killed. . .why?”
“I was trying to keep our dear and precious service, the Extry, from bumbling into a massacre of the ARROW class. And maybe firing up the kind of servant insurrection POINT wanted.”
NOCK shook his head in mock sadness. “Another NR-lover, that’s what you are.”
Leher frowned. “Hell no. You servants, you’re just a bunch of people. And, let me tell you, I have my problems with people. Most of you are assholes, like everybody else.”
Tug, tug, tug on the beard.
NOCK leaned back, engaged the new relaxation app with which the Twelve had come equipped.
“We didn’t have that long together, Josey and me,” he said. “She was into my being who I was. She liked me being…not real.”
“She knew you were real,” Leher said. “She wrote me about you just before she got killed. Got her letter after I’d gotten the news of the hit on Ceres. When I read the letter, I already knew she was gone.”
“No shit? What did she say?” asked NOCK.
Leher seemed far away for a moment. He gazed down at the table. Then he shook himself and looked up at NOCK again. “She said maybe she’d found the one.”
“The one what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
NOCK considered. “Yeah.”
“She kept her letters to me kind of light, joking, that sort of thing.” Leher pulled his beer toward himself – which was good, because NOCK had been waiting for the commander to take the first drink of the new round and he was beginning to get impatient despite the fact that the Twelve’s relaxation subroutine was still running. “I never got her own story out of her. Where she really came from, who she was.”
“She told me about it, some,” NOCK said. “It wasn’t good.”
“I suspect not.”
“But she didn’t let it take her out of the fight,” he said.
Leher leaned forward and, in his jerky way, raised his glass. NOCK followed suit.
“To a damn good woman.”
“I’ll drink to that,” NOCK said.
Their glasses touched, clinked.
“To Josey.”
Grayson Navy Letters Home
by Joelle Presby
(artwork by Thomas Pope)
[Post to Tester’s Blessings on the GSN private forum.]
[October 1921]
Everyone, Ladies, and Whoever,
My sister, Ensign Cecelie Rustin, Grayson Navy sent this. Cecelie just got her Grayson Navy commission, and our whole family is super proud of her. She’s quick to point out to us that she isn’t the first at anything, but she’s the only woman I know in our Navy. Sure, I did see Rear Admiral Mercedes Brigham at a lecture once, but that was because Cecelie brought me along with all of our Moms in her campaign to convince the family that she should be allowed to apply for the Academy. Of course Admiral Brigham charmed the Moms and left them absolutely convinced that we all had to go fight what with the threats to the families of Grayson from Masada before and Haven now. The sentiment didn’t last all that long, but it was enough to get the Moms’ support in convincing Father to let her apply to Saganami Island. Her very first ship is the GNS Manasseh, a Joseph-class destroyer, and Cecelie is one of two female officers assigned there. Before she left, she promised our Moms to write every week, and she promised to tell me what is really going on. She really does send the messages on secured comms like she threatened, but I know you’ve all been wondering what it’s really like out there. With Haven finally beaten back, with so many star systems so close by through the Manticore Junction, and with all those interesting counter piracy missions or security patrols possible, maybe you are thinking about trying to join too. At least, I’m thinking about thinking about it. So anyway, I’m just retyping this up for you and uploading.