A Promise Kept
“I remember….” The grizzled veteran rubbed the white fur along her muzzle, tracing the path of a scar with a clawed hand missing two digits. “I was a young lieutenant then; thought I knew everything.”
“Grenan, don’t start getting maudlin now.” Next to the warrior covered in white and grey fur sat another bipedal tetrapod. The similarities ended there, however.
Grenan stood over two meters with clawed hands that better served slashing than grasping, a muzzle that extended the size of both her mouth and nose, large, low-set ears that hung above sloped shoulders, and large, gold-rimmed eyes that were almost entirely pupil. The woman next to her, though, was one-and-a-half meters tall, brown eyes surrounded with visible, white sclera, an orthognathic rather than prognathic face, long, straight, dark brown hair with streaks of grey above golden-brown skin, and slender hands with grasping fingers capped with nails that served only as protection for the nailbed.
“Do you even listen to yourself?” Grenan gulped down her drink and signaled for a refill. “Determined to be the shining daystar always, Mei? Do I need to remind you that life is not always light and happiness?”
Mei downed her shot and rapped the empty glass against both of her prosthetic legs. “Nope, I’ve got plenty of reminders. But tonight isn’t about getting all weepy, you hear me?”
“What’s it about then?” Grenan took her refilled cup and sipped. “You call me and say rush down here to meet you at the bar and then ask if I remember when we met.”
“Well, I promised you something then, before we were so rudely interrupted by the war.” Mei chuckled at some internal joke.
“We met just in time to become siblings in arms,” the big veteran said.
“Not often a training exercise gets skipped for jumping into the shit, but god damn if I would want any other unit by my side in combat.”
Grenan sniffed on instinct and knew that Mei was hiding something she considered good. “I don’t like surprises.”
“Between your sniffer and how well you know me, it doesn’t matter what happens, it won’t be much of a surprise.” Mei picked up her chaser and took a swig of the cold beer.
Grenan looked down to where she could smell the plastics and electronics of Mei’s legs and guilt washed over her. Mei had never assigned blame, but Grenan blamed herself and had never been able to forgive herself.
Mei laid a gentle hand on the sloped shoulder of her furred friend. “Hey, Gren, it’s not your fault. Please, stop blaming yourself.”
“My brain knows,” Grenan said, “but I still feel guilty about it. If I hadn’t turned the safeties off—”
“We’d both be dead,” Mei cut her off. “You did exactly what you were meant to in the situation. If I’d been in proper uniform….”
“What? You’ve never mentioned that. But what does it have to do with anything?”
Mei let out an exaggerated sigh. “In the six years before the…,” she knocked her knuckles against her leg, “ …before this, how many times did you beat me to battle stations? In all the drills and actual emergencies, how many times?”
“Well, I… just that time.”
“Exactly.” Mei smiled. “I’d been dangling my bare feet in the hydroponics pond. I figured having my boots in hand was close enough to in uniform.
“When the alarm went off, I knew it wasn’t a drill. I shoved my wet feet into my boots and took off for stations. Just before the hull was breached, I stepped on my loose shoelace and face planted. I was just lucky that all my important bits were on the safe side of the blast door when it dropped.”
“Mei, it wasn’t your fault, it was—”
“A stupid accident caused by me not being in proper uniform in an unsafe area.” Mei smiled. “I’m over it, and I’ve had these prostheses longer than I had legs.”
“If anyone had known the whole story, you would’ve been called ‘Laces’ instead of ’Stumpy.’ Or would that have been even more cruel?” Grenan asked.
“Eh, if your nickname isn’t at least a little cruel or embarrassing, then your comrades don’t like you. It’s still better than—”
“Hershey,” Grenan cut her off. “When you explained what the name meant I thought maybe everyone hated him, but he seemed to take it in stride.”
“Well, yeah. He probably still wished he had a better nickname already. Still, when you’re piloting a fighter mid-combat, a stomach bug strikes and you fill your flight suit, you gotta’ know a name’s coming.” Mei snorted. “I talked to him at Whitman’s memorial. He’s still not retired; running the new pilot training program.”
“Oh, Whitman…. If Whitman hadn’t been on station, you wouldn’t have made it.” Grenan raised her glass. “To Marcus ‘Aftershock’ Whitman, may he rest in peace.”
Mei touched her glass to Grenan’s. “To Doc Aftershock.” She took a sip, then asked, “Now that he’s gone, are you allowed to tell me why that became his nickname?”
Grenan’s lip raised above her needle-like teeth, her species’ equivalent of a smile. “After he put the tourniquets on, pumped you full of synth-blood, and put you into a medically induced coma, he took care of you until you were in pre-op on the hospital ship.
“For eleven hours, he was calm, efficient, and meticulous. After he handed you off to the surgical team, and was no longer responsible, he began to shake. He couldn’t stop shaking for hours, and breaking into gasping sobs every few minutes. He kept it cool until he didn’t have to, then went into shock. Aftershock.”
“What about you?” Mei asked. “How did you handle it?”
“When Whitman told me not to look, I didn’t. I didn’t see you until after you came out of surgery. Cowardly, huh?”
“Nah, smart.” Mei stood. “I once promised you a human-style birthday party, now you’ve got one at your house to get to. Pretend to be surprised.”
prompt: Write a story with a character or the narrator saying “I remember…”
addendum to prompt: Our official contest guidelines are still 1,000 to 3,000 words per story, but we hope to see more stories than usual embracing the concise spirit of flash fiction. Return to a time of cultural maximalism — while keeping your word count to a minimum.
total word count in story: 1000
originally posted at Reedsy