As Sam stared at the bar, a pinkish drink with a festive umbrella slid into view, settling directly under her nose. The ice tinkled as it came to rest.
Sam looked up. Phira, naturally, was the point of origin.
“But…” Sam began.
“It’s been thirty days and then some. And you were fine ten days in anyway, somehow.”
“And…” Sam continued, looking back down at the drink.
“Damn right, it’s something fruity and girly. It’s summer. Cheers,” Phira finished with a stupid grin, holding up one of her own.
The bar was much quieter now. Most of the patrons had filtered out not too long after the musicians finished their last number; it was late on a weekday night and the only holdouts were the grizzled veterans of the scene, including a few on the graveyard shift knocking one back before starting their day in the dead of night. Olivia was still trying to tame and pack the rat’s nest of cables and speakers hooked up to her keyboard on stage.
“Sam?”
“What? Oh, cheers.”
They clinked. Sam drank. It was not especially remarkable. It was sweet, and even someone as large as Sam could probably have a bit too much without noticing if she tried hard enough.
“Alright, admit it.”
“What?”
“You don’t like jazz. It’s okay. Nobody wants to be like Ash. But together we’ll get through it.”
Sam smiled. “No, no, the performance was great. I’m just…”
Sam picked up the glass with her right hand. The myoelectric fingers—tiny titanium articulated segments bound up and moved by EAP bundles—closed clumsily, but acceptably, on it. “… you know.”
“No,” Phira said, shaking her head. “You’re not thinking of rehab right now.”
“I’m thinking of rehab right now,” Sam admitted.
Phira sighed. “Tell me it’s because Olivia offered to teach you the saxophone or something.”
“No, I just want to get back in the rotation.”
“Damn it, Sam!” Phira said.
Sam shrugged.
“Listen,” Phira said. “You’re an unstoppable super soldier, I get it. But there’s someone underneath that. I worry you’re repressing that someone.”
Sam shrugged again, not knowing what to say.
“I thought,” Phira said, rolling her neck and thinking. “I thought when you went off on Paven and his guys… I mean, that was a pretty big deal, right?”
“… yeah. Dominioners don’t do that. Breaking honor in a duel like that is… suicide. Suicide to your honor, and usually also normal suicide.”
“Yeah. That was a tough twenty minutes. When Lun told me an entire air brigade was on our asses, too, I thought we were going to die. Then when we got you dusted off to the hospital and I finally got a really good look at your arm, I thought… well, you had erased any chance of going back to the Dominion, if that had ever been a thought, and you should’ve said goodbye to your days of fighting here on Volga.”
“You know prosthetics are pretty good these days. And you don’t even need prosthetics in power armor.”
“Yeah, but, seriously, Sam. Come on. That was the moment I was sure that we had to find the non-super-soldier Sam. Someone who does something other than train and fight all day.”
“I am blessed with a unity of purpose,” Sam said, drinking her sugary cocktail.
“Jesus,” Phira said. “Where’d you get that one?”
“My mother said that about me, once. It was meant to be patronizing. I was supposed to go to the academy to become be a staff officer, doing politics and building the family, not to chase frontline commands. Anyway, I liked the line.”
“Building the family, huh. Like Jair?”
“A little bit like Jair,” Sam said.
“Will he be a problem, anyway?”
“He won’t forget the snub. I’m a black mark against him; others will talk about it behind his back: his sister, the defector. But Volga is hard for him to get to, and everyone’s eyes are wide open to it now. So he gets to fume about it back on Bosporus.”
“Until he goes a-conquering.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
Phira sighed again. “Please. For me. Promise me you’ll do something other than just rehabbing for the next five years until he shows up with an invasion fleet?”
“I have some good books to listen to during rehab.”
Phira looked up, hurt. Sam snickered. “Sorry, sorry. Yes. I will. I’m not used to having a home that’s more than a bunk and a backpack.”
“You still have a home that’s basically just a bunk and a backpack,” Olivia said, sitting down next to Phira.
“That’s just the bunk and the backpack. Home is New Hope,” Sam replied.
“I’ll drink to that,” Olivia said, as the bartender slid something strong and neat her way.
“Cheers. Good show, by the way.”
“Thanks, Sam. You ever thought about jamming with us?”
“I’ve got no musical talent.”
“Everyone has something. All else fails you can play the bass.”
(“I heard that,” someone—the bassist, presumably—shouted from behind the stage.)
“If you insist, guess I’ll find something.”
“I insist,” Phira said.
“Wednesday nights?” Olivia said.
“Sure.”