Refugee

        It was dark in the shuttle's cramped interior.  Seats were removed to
accommodate as many as possible.  The ride up was rough, and I had a few new 
bumps and bruises by the time we reached orbit.  Amid the engine roar, darkness,
sweat, stench, and cries for help, I found myself sitting next to a woman.  From
the tone of her sobs, her gasps for breath, her clogged sniffles, she sounded
young.  She worked to conceal her distress, as if ashamed to appear vulnerable.
I sensed a quiet courage in her.  She had probably lost loved ones, maybe
children in the smoldering ruins.  I reached out to her with my one good
arm, resting it upon her shoulder.  She jumped with surprise, so I leaned over
and told her simply, "I'm here.  We're going to be okay."  She gripped my hand,
blunt nails pressing into my flesh, numbing my fingers.
        She rested her head on my shoulder.  Long, moist hair plastered my face
as I struggled to breathe through hair smelling of engine exhaust, dirt, sweat.
Her tear-soaked face drew near mine, acid breath invading the rotten air.  I 
repeated my assurance, to calm her.  When she clung to me tight as velcro,
I wanted to leave her, find some other corner of the shuttle in which to hide.
I held my breath when she coughed.  When I moved my shoulder away from her, she
gripped my arm.
        "Please, don't go," she said between her tears.  "I need your help."
She whispered into my ear, so I heard her clearly despite the noise in the
shuttle.  Her glistening, dark eyes hovered inches from my face as I turned
to reply.
        "I thought women and children had gone first.  This was one of the last
shuttle loads,"  I said.  Perhaps she was trying to act macho, by waiting with
the rest of us on the planet surface.
        "I felt guilty about leaving with them.  I don't have children.  Hey,
you have a family?"
        My hard-ass attitude softened after her explanation, but we were all
in a life-or-death struggle, and I didn't want the responsibility of another
life in addition to my own.
        "No," I said.  "I'm here alone.  I'm a biologist.  Been here for
three years.  How about you?"  Something told me she was a computer scientist.
        "I'm a technician.  Or was, until the attack.  I've only been here for
a month.  I'm going back to Earth.  The next time I get the crazy idea to try
an off-world adventure, I'll remember this and not sign up."
        "Just one month?  But the last personnel changeover was five months
ago.  New staff arrive and depart only once each year, unless it's a medical
emergency."  I noticed three men, staring at her from across the width of the
shuttle.  I could make out the shapes of their faces, the aim of their gazes.
All were focused upon the woman clinging tightly to me.  Her skin was sweaty,
cold.  She reminded me of a sucker fish, attaching herself permanently to me.
        "Well..."  She turned her head from me, looked around the shuttle, 
her glance shying from the men staring at her.  We shuddered as maneuvering
rockets fired.  The main engines came to life, and we rolled hard as the
shuttle decelerated, probably on final approach.  We wound up in a heap, she
gasping for breath, limbs flailing.  Her breathing slowed, so I felt her neck
for a pulse.  It was shallow and irregular.  We didn't have a medic onboard,
so I prepared my last air tank.  Fumbling in the darkness for the breathing
tube, I uncoiled it and strapped the mask to her face.  She trembled but
offered no resistance.  I opened the valve and heard the thin hiss of air.  I
told her to breathe deeply, and she responded.  In a minute or two, she came
around.  I removed a stimulant capsule from my bag and held it to her lips.
I slid my fingers between them and slipped the capsule into her mouth.  After
some coaxing, she bit down on the capsule.  The tank was now empty, so I
removed the mask and tucked it into my bag.
        The men were watching me suspiciously, as though they associated me
with her.  I wonderered why they continued to stare at us.  She was obviously
harmless and in distress, yet no one else had moved a muscle to help her.
She lay calmly against my side, her breathing strong and regular.  The shuttle
thrusters continued to fire, and I closed my eyes for a few minutes, thinking
back on the last several days.
        For three years I called the desert world home.  It was a forbidding
place, life there providing only the barest of necessities.  Most colonists
lasted for one tour, then fled for the comforts of Earth.  I was on my third
stint, an established researcher with no family ties and a passion for biology.
Together, the colonists formed a community of terraformers, slowly
transforming the planet into a garden paradise.
        Then enemy forces broke through the defensive frontier, and we were
the first world they attacked.  Because we were colonists, not soldiers, our
most powerful weapons were pistols and rifles.  They didn't stack up well
against the enemy's brilliant weapons.  Their arsenal included a nuclear
warhead, strategically planted in the power station, evidently by a spy among
us.  Troop landings followed the bombing phase.  Some colonists fought back,
and thousands perished.  My ears still ring from the firefights.  Then came
the roundups, interrogations, and group executions of those who had resisted.
I shiver every time I see their faces, jostling across the desert in the backs
of trucks, their hands and feet shackled.  One poor bastard in particular
haunts my sleep.  His round, pale face and huge eyes recede into a dust storm
every time I close my eyes.  His wife watches him disappear, unable to call out
to him, lest she too be hauled off for extermination.
        The commandos and their soldiers dress in neatly pressed, olive
uniforms, emblazoned with the red fire eagle.  This became a symbol of our
hatred, since they herded all the survivors and interred us in a makeshift
concentration camp.  While our conquerors converted the planet into a military
base, transport vessels from a purportedly neutral government arrived and
airlifted us to safety.  The journey to freedom would take months.  The first
step was leaving our unfinished garden world for the cold of space.
        Women and children were evacuated first.  I watched the rescue shuttles
arrive, fill, and depart by the dozen.  Some colonists bullied their way to the
front of the line, but I waited my turn.  Many feared dying from anoxia.  We
were at a high elevation, and our rations of supplemental oxygen tanks were
dwindling.  
        I was among the final 300 on the planet surface.  We were a motley
bunch.  Some wore tourniquets, two had severed limbs, most had blood-stained
bandages made of towels, t-shirts, and any other form of makeshift dressing one
could imagine.  Though many refugees recognized each other, there was a
mentality of every man for himself.  We feared for what lay ahead.  Near sunset,
on the third day in the prison camp, I and several dozen other men and women
climbed aboard a shuttle and lifted off.
        The shuttles were ferrying refugees to a ship supposedly bound for a
neutral planet.  Rumor had it that the transport ships were freighters, not
hospitals, and that we shouldn't expect immediate medical attention.  For all
I knew, we were flying right into a trap.  It's not like we had a choice. 
        The shuttle jerked to a halt.  The lights turned on, and I could finally 
see her.  She was stunning, with long brown hair, brown eyes.  Her skin was pale
and smooth, cheeks, chin and lips perfectly formed.  Her nose was pink, her
eyelids puffy from crying.  She was slender and appeared to be in excellent
shape.  The hatch cranked opened, and cool, dry air poured over us.  I roused
her, then slowly lifted her until she stood on her own.  She smiled, slowly
placed her arms around me, and leaned on me.  Refugees cried with joy and pain
as they erupted through the hatch.
        We inched our way forward and stepped cautiously through the hatch into
a crowded, brightly lit corridor.  A throng of injured people from the latest 
shuttle convoy limped further into the ship's interior.  She hugged me, her 
hair in my face.  I returned her embrace, then felt her lips against my neck.  
The crowd was thinning, the noise subsiding.
        "Thank you," she said.  For a moment it was just me and her, our wounds 
forgotten, eyes connecting like we had lost and then found each other through 
the catastrophe.  "You saved my life," she whispered into my ear.  Her voice was 
soft, her breath hot.  She eased back and fixed her eyes on my lips... my eyes...
my lips.  A voice squawked over an intercom, urging everyone to leave the
docking area.  More shuttle flights were about to arrive.
        "Come on," I said.  "We have to get moving.  Maybe we can get some food
around here."  Her eyes sank as we separated.  She slung her arm over my
shoulders again, and I helped her along.  She was limping badly on her left leg.
Blood had clotted into a large, stiff patch just below her knee.  At the end of
the corridor, a group of relief workers watched our approach.  Behind them,
several doorways led to other corridors.
        "Are you related?" a relief worker asked us.
        "He's my husband," she said, expressionless.  I was about to dispute
her claim, but I saw the lost look in her eyes.  I had saved her life once, and
she would need me again if the situation arose.
        "Hey, can we get some food and medical attention," I asked.  "Her leg's
banged up pretty bad.  We haven't eaten in two days."  The man turned around
and pointed to the leftmost doorway.  Ahead, there was a loud, crowded room.
        "Go down there.  You'll get a bunk, but it might be a while until a med
tech can reach her.  It doesn't look severe, so she'll get lower priority.  When
you're assigned a bed, you'll receive food rations and water."  She thanked the
man as we passed through the doorway.  I stopped, to ask her why she had told
them we were married.  She moved toward me, nudging my back against the wall.
She placed a hand against the wall, beside my head.
        "I had to do that," she said.  Her lips were full and pink, revealing
perfect teeth with every word.  "I'm Leona," she said.
        "I'm Scott," I said.  I longed to hold her.  She closed her eyes,
stepped forward, her lips enveloping mine, drawing them open.  Her hot breath
filled my mouth.  I breathed it in, and she withdrew.
        "Nice to meet you, Scott.  I'm hungry."  She sandwiched me between
herself and the wall.  Her kiss had left me trembling, and despite my
injuries, I was getting excited.  She stepped back, put her arm around my
shoulder, and we continued forward, entering a bright room, where dozens of
aid workers handed out blankets, food rations, and water.  A woman holding a
clipboard met us at the door.
        "You're in 12-B.  Get your food and water, and eat there.  We're trying
to get people settled in.  Are you injured?"  I nodded.  "Describe your
problems, please."
        "I sprained my right shoulder," I said.  "Some cuts and bruises, too,
but nothing major."
        "I have a deep cut under my left knee," Leona said.  "I sutured myself
back on the planet, but I think it's infected."
        "We should be able to get to you within about twelve hours," the woman
said.
        Further ahead, we each got two cans of food rations and a jug of water.
Leona handed me her provisions, and I balanced them atop my own.  We entered a
huge room, divided up into a rectangular grid of thin hallways and private
cubicles.  It was slow going, since people were crowding access throughout the
area.  Soon, we found 12-B.  We closed the door behind us, and the noise
lessened.  We had a cot to sleep on.  By the size of it, I knew it would be a
tight fit.  She sat down on the mattress and leaned her back against the wall.
        "Can we eat?" she asked.
        I handed her two cans of rations, and she pried both of them open.  I
sat down next to her and opened the jug of water.  Several cold swallows revived
my parched throat, washing away the dust from the desert we had left an hour
ago.  She had already finished her two cans, and she was looking hungrily at
mine.  I opened one and handed it to her, then opened the second.  We ate in
silence and drank half our water supply.  At last we sat and faced each other
on the bed.
        "Rest with me, please," she said softly.  She removed her boots and
socks, and I did the same.  We lay down on the bed, me on my back, she on her
side, her head propped up on one elbow.  Her face glowed, and she smiled.
My stomach came alive with butterflies, and I was at a loss.
        "Tell me what happened to you," I said.  Her cold, hard look stripped
away the veneer of romance.  Then her gaze softened, and I wanted to kiss her
again.
        "I served as an electronics technician for the engineering division,"
she said.  "I was asleep in bed when they came.  The first explosions were
miles away -- they sounded like thunder, back on Earth.  There were flashes of
light, like lightning.  Then I remembered there weren't thunderstorms on the
planet.  The window went blazing white, and I was blinded for a while.  The
building rocked to one side, and the ceiling collapsed.  Deafening sound.
Then heat upon heat, wind tearing out walls and sucking them into the sky.
Thank God I was pinned under the fallen ceiling, or I would have been carried
away, too."  Her voice trembled near tears.  She swallowed hard.
        "I was testing the soil in one of the plantations, when I got hit from
behind by a brick wall," I said.  "I stood up, dazed, stumbled around.  I fell
and looked up into the sky.  There was a glowing mushroom cloud.  This might
sound crazy, but it was beautiful.  Dust and rocks fell from the sky, so I
jumped into the truck and drove away from it as fast as I could.  At first, I
didn't think of an enemy invasion.  I was too afraid, confused.  Some said that
a spy, or a group of spies, were living among us.  Recent arrivals, who
smuggled the nuke in their belongings.  No one would have thought to check.
Who would nuke a colony like this?"
        She hugged me as I stained her shirt with tears.  In a while, I calmed
and drifted off to sleep in her arms.  I had a nightmare that the enemy attacked
our transport ship.  The hull ruptured, and Leona was trapped in a room
undergoing decompression.  The airlock doors closed automatically, trapping her
inside.  I tugged at the door, beating it until my knuckles were broken,
bleeding.  All the while, I watched her turn pale and lifeless.  I awoke,
shivering cold and sat up in bed.  Leona had left our quarters.
        I got out of bed and put on my shoes.  The hallways were quiet, except
for teams of medics, wheeling carts filled with rations and medical gear, from 
one cubicle to another.  I saw the woman who had given us our room assignment 
earlier.  I asked her if she had seen Leona.  When I described Leona's 
appearance and her limp, she told me she had seen Leona walking toward the
observation area.  I followed her directions and found a long hallway, with
windows along one side.  The harsh orange planet rotated thousands of miles beyond
the glass.  Other transport ships hovered near ours, against the stars.
        Leona was leaning against the glass, staring into space and crying.
When I put my hand on her shoulder, she turned and hugged me.  She squeezed me 
tightly and placed a line of kisses along my neck, toward my cheek.  I kissed 
her forehead in turn.  Then our lips met, gently, tenderly.  The kiss ended, and 
I wiped the tears from her eyes.
        Heavy boots suddenly clomped through the hallway -- several pairs, in
unison.  These weren't the footsteps of refugees or medics.  I hugged Leona again
and closed my eyes, the footsteps growing louder until they ended in a shuffle.
        "Myers?" a man said, his voice deep and booming.  Leona's eyes shifted
to the side, her arms dropping from my shoulders.  Two uniformed soldiers stood
behind her.  One of them was smiling, the red eagle burning on his shoulder.  I
shrank back into a wall.  I remembered the slaughters, the collapsed buildings,
public executions.  I couldn't speak as her face melted.
        "Baby, I thought I'd never see you again.  You're safe now," he said,
his eyes glistening.  She turned into his engulfing embrace and cried.  He eased
her face back, and their lips met in a deep kiss.
        "Who are you?" I asked.  The other soldier rested his hand on the butt
of a pistol, holstered at his hip.  His closely set eyes twinkled angrily.  I
felt he might kill me on the spot.  She turned her face toward me briefly, her 
lips outlining an apology.  "Who is she?"  I shouted, flashing with rage.  Her 
man grinned, showed his sharp white teeth, then laughed cunningly.
        "She led the way to victory," he said, his gaze locked to hers.  I
crumpled to the floor as they walked off together, their guard close behind
them.  Then the guard stopped and turned back toward me.  He puffed up his
cheeks and mimicked the sound of a huge, swelling explosion, his hands turning
round and round, rising upward as he outlined the shape of a mushroom.  He burst
into laughter, turned, and walked away.  Her kisses cooled upon my neck.