Still, there was the fact that if given the same choice, confronted with the same circumstances, she would still have done the same thing. It was a burden none should have to bear and it was something she was stuck with. All that was left to her was to find some way to redeem herself in her own eyes, some way to counter the debt she owed to humanity.

Jeff was unable to sleep. His thoughts kept running back to the youngster he’d rescued from her makeshift spacecraft, worrying about her, obsessed with her. He’d done his part and was now stuck with the aftermath. It was something he found himself unable to handle. He found himself tossing and turning in his bunk, running down abandoned corridors in the night, trying to exercise himself to exhaustion. The tiredness came, but sleep remained elusive.

Mikhail had slept off the drugs and now found himself chafing at the fact that he was stuck in a damned hospital bed. Perhaps the worst part of things was the fact that he itched! Not just a small itch, it was the sort of itching that nearly drove him crazy, made him want to just scratch until the skin under his casts was abraded raw. The worst part was that he could do nothing about it. He knew that it was a symptom of the drugs that speeded his healing but it was truly maddening!

What was even worse was looking over at the young beauty who shared this cramped cubicle with him. He knew that she was awake part of the time but he could not manage to speak to her. He would have been astonished to know that the occupant of the other bed longed to speak to him, to speak to anyone, but he felt so alone in his bed, strung up with traction gear. He was lost, wondering who and what he was.

Stacy had never known what it was that was so different about him, what his father had hidden with such determination. Now he was beginning to get an idea, and it terrified him. He had heard the doctor tell the captain he was an hermaphrodite just before the drugs took consciousness from him. What did that mean?

He had always regarded himself as a male, but to find out now that he was on both sides of the battle of the sexes was a blow to his very idea of self. According to what the doctor had said, he was just as much male as he was female. Did that mean he could get pregnant? Just to think that to him(her?)self was terrifying. What was even more maddening at the moment though was the fact that he itched abominably and had no way to scratch.

Helen had a rare moment to herself, a bit of time to think and reflect on just what she was doing out here. There was the determination to make something new out of the dog’s breakfast she had been handed, to give something back to humanity after she herself had been the one responsible for such devastation, so much bloodshed. She didn’t have dreams like most people did, she had screaming bloody horrific nightmares with the faces of her child and husband figured foremost in them. There was no way to be sure, but she knew full well she had ordered their deaths along with the deaths of at least 1 Billion human beings, and the guilt threatened to grind her soul to dust. She was the butcher of Earth and nothing would ever change that. It was her voice that had given the order to launch the horrible strikes that had ended the war and no one else’s.

Still, there was the fact that if given the same choice, confronted with the same circumstances, she would still have done the same thing. It was a burden none should have to bear and it was something she was stuck with. All that was left to her was to find some way to redeem herself in her own eyes, some way to counter the debt she owed to humanity.

So the nightmares continued and she found some kind of odd solace in them. If she could still feel the horrible guilt, perhaps all was not lost. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope in the midst of despair and ruin, maybe there was something she could do to repair the damage she had caused. Maybe there was hope for humanity.

This thought alone kept her from just deciding to end it all. Somehow she would find a way to make things better, to build something worthwhile from the ashes. It was all that was left to her and she clung to it with a fierce determination, a will born of fire and destruction.