Pathways - Jeri Taylor [125]
In horror, Tom turned his ship back to the point of impact. “Paris to SAV team . . . Charlie . . . Odile . . . Bruno . . .”
No response, as he’d known there couldn’t be. A burning debris field clustered just over the surface of the asteroid, no chunk of which was more than a meter long. There was no sign of his friends, who would have incinerated in the violent explosion.
A terrifying silence enveloped him as he stared at the drifting remnants of the SAV ships, already spreading into space, dispersing among the asteroid field that had become his friends’ graveyard. For a moment nausea enveloped him and he thought he would throw up, but he took some deep breaths and regained control.
Tom wondered what their last thoughts had been. Were they of betrayal, of the awful perfidy of their friend? Did they die hating Tom for what he’d done?
These were the questions that ate at Tom as he flew his lone ship back to Earth. He didn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. He sat at the controls, frozen in place, imagining the last moments of Charlie, Bruno, and Odile. He fantasized every possible emotion, felt the panic and the terror they must have experienced as they realized they were going to die, the anger they must have felt that Tom Paris had been the cause.
By the time he got to Earth he felt like a dead man himself. He was gaunt and hollow-eyed, devoid of emotion, unable to feel anything. He thought he would probably never sleep again, and that seemed entirely reasonable. He was in a state of suspension, almost noncorporeal, a consciousness in near total shutdown.
He could live like that.
The faces of his family swam before him, his mother radiating concern, holding him tightly, crying with relief that he was alive. His father was pale and quiet, his eyes reflecting a pain Tom had never seen there before. The admiral put his arms around Tom, enveloping him, squeezing hard as though to make absolutely certain he was there. His sisters couldn’t keep their hands off him, tears in their eyes, love and empathy shining from them.
But Tom himself felt nothing.
“So this was nothing more than routine target practice?”
“Yes, sir. There was nothing extraordinary about it at all.”
Tom’s jaw was beginning to ache. He’d held it so tightly clamped since the hearing began that little rivulets of pain were spreading from the hinge of his jaw toward his ears. In a way, the pain was comforting. It gave him something to anchor himself to this reality, because otherwise, he might believe himself to be in an alternate dimension.
Admiral Brand sat at a table before him, flanked by Admiral Finnegan and Captain Satelk. Aides to the admirals sat to one side of the small, windowless room, paneled in old wood from another era, a close, boxy room that reminded Tom of a cell. It felt difficult to breathe, as though the air weren’t being circulated.
Tom sat alone, on a chair facing the array of admirals. The room was stark and unadorned, devoid of any humanizing touch, its walls gunmetal gray, the carpet a similarly neutral hue. Tom imagined that a tomb might look like this on the inside.
Behind him sat his father, Admiral Owen Paris, the sole spectator. Tom couldn’t see him, but his presence was charged, as though he emanated some kind of potent forcefield, his eyes drilling into Tom’s back like tiny phaser beams.
They’d been here for about twenty minutes so far. Tom had given a painstakingly detailed description of the relationships between himself, Odile, Charlie, and Bruno. The latter three had been solemnly remembered in services at the Academy and then privately in their home cities. Their bodies were now among the stars, whose exploration they would never experience.
“If you were the team leader, why was Cadet Katajavuori leading the strafing run?” This from Admiral Finnegan, a friendly-looking man with once-red hair now shot with gray, and kindly blue eyes.
Tom clamped his jaw together once again and took a deep breath. He would tell them what he had told everyone informally, what he had told