Chromium

Chapter 17.2

First draft

A few minutes later, Dia was in sickbay, trying to start a conversation with someone who didn't want to talk. Omen was pale, his face a bit gaunt, but he looked fine, all things considered. They looked at each other in silence, then Dia took a deep breath.

"This is starting to become a habit." She tried to joke to break the ice.

Omen, however, didn't laugh. "Yeah, well...sorry you had to deal with that. I shouldn't have lost my head like that."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Dia cast him a hopeful look. 

"No." His answer was firm, definitive. Dia was trying to hide her disappointment when Omen added, "But I have to." 

Dia waited on bated breath for him to speak, but he still looked conflicted. When she was beginning to think he had changed his mind, Omen released a long sigh. "Maybe it's better if you make yourself comfortable. This might take a while."

Dia didn't try to rush him while he put his thoughts in order. She just took a seat beside him and waited.

"This story starts almost ten years ago when I was still in the Navy." Omen started, speaking softly, slowly. "At the time my life seemed perfect. I had just gotten married and my career seemed to be on the right track. I was the first officer of the Seahawk, a Deumedon class battlecruiser. I was on the fast track to becoming captain when all of a sudden, I was transferred. My new assignment" A look of disgust came over his face. "was on a planet in the Pol system."

Dia raised a brow. "Pol System? Never heard of it."

Omen's mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "That doesn't surprise me. The only planet in the system, Sotilla, is a scrapyard, the sort of place where old ships go to die. A nasty hellhole: high gravity, low oxygen, and hot as hell."

"Ouch." Dia winced. "Did you step on someone's toes?"

A shadow passed over his face, a quick flash of anger distorting his features for a moment. Omen managed to shrug it off and his expression faded into neutrality. "I never found out, but it wouldn't surprise me. At the time, all I cared about was rising up the ranks." Omen sounded uncharacteristically bitter. "Anyway, the important part is that someone wanted me gone. That's why I was sent into exile."

Dia suppressed a grimace. "How long did you stay there?"

"Two years. They left me there to rot for two long years. Toward the end, I was so desperate I would've done anything in order to leave that hellhole. That's when someone offered me a way out."

"The ISS." She concluded for him.

Omen nodded. "Imagine my surprise when they told me that my first assignment was on Balora II, a planet in the Gaerius system. That's where my wife and son lived."

"You must've been beside yourself with joy." Dia said cautiously.

Omen gave her a curt nod. "I was. Being stuck in a junkyard was bad enough, but that wasn't the only problem. I was also worried."

Dia raised a brow, "Worried? Worried about what?"

"My wife. She..." He paused, his face tightening,   "...she had a rare genetic mutation. Just like the old Huntington disease, it affected her nervous system. It was milder and not progressive but it still influenced her life." 

Dia waited for him to continue, increasingly disturbed by Omen's distress and statements. 

"The new workplace was less than two hundred miles from home. That's why I was so happy." His voice became hoarse, and his good eye turned totally black. "Of course, that was just the beginning."