Tears flow. Muscles tense and relax. Ejaculate spurts. When he was first returned to me, I would clean him and the bed while he lay limp and unresisting, not even conscious perhaps. Now, before I can move to him, his eyes open, initial confusion clears from them, and he waits in his stillness. A response of sorts, I suppose.
Only he knows who turned his beautiful body into a skin covered sack of broken bones and ruptured organs. But I know that it is my fault. My abuse of power. Power he gave me willingly, but I was the one who gave it to the others. One of them is the immediate cause, but I am the root cause.
"Fully recovered," the doctors say. No physical reason for the silence, the lack of self-motivation. Trauma or brain damage, they are unsure which. Not that it matters. At least not to those of us outside his brain. Perhaps it matters to him.
When he's told to, he moves. He can follow orders, take direction, even complex instructions. So he flies shuttles. Wait for cargo to be loaded and passengers to embark. Fly to the destination. Wait for cargo to be unloaded, passengers to disembark, new cargo to be loaded, returning passengers to embark. Return to shuttle bay. Repeat.
After his shift he follows the next routine: go back to our quarters, prepare the dinner I've preprogrammed, set the table. When I walk in he will be sitting, silent and still, waiting for his next direction.
***
Reese is dead. Shot through the heart with his own laser pistol just as he climaxed from a blow job. Commander Adama, Chief Opposer Solon, and I have been called to the lab by Colonel Tigh and Dr. Wilker who have been in charge of the investigation.
We listen to Colonel Tigh. The laser pistol was set on narrow beam kill by someone who knew of that unmarked setting. Someone who would have to be a warrior; Reese himself probably didn't know the "assassination setting", as we call it, even existed. "The angle of the death beam indicates the perpetrator was also the one performing the sex act." I love Tigh's ability to depersonalize a situation. Make it somehow less obscene.
Tigh looks straight ahead as the implications of his statement set in. Adama and Solon exchange glances and even I raise my eyebrows. To have done that, the killer would have had to change the pistol's setting by touch while it was still in the holster on Reese's hip, drawing and shooting at the instant of climax. Even I couldn't do that with any degree of accuracy or consistency.
The five of us now avoid each others' eyes. Only one warrior is - was - capable of that level of precision. Wilker quietly remarks that he should see to disposal of the body. He tosses the autopsy and weapons analysis report down and leaves the room.
Tigh clears his throat and speaks over the noise of the biological recycler to report that the murder weapon yielded genetic traces identifying the wielder. In passing, he mentions that there was a computer glitch and Wilker's hard copy report is the only documentation of the investigation. He stops speaking.
Adama puts his gloved hand out and Tigh places the laser pistol in it. Adama casually puts it down on top of the only documentation of the investigation. On the surface of an experimental matter disintegrator. Chief Opposer Solon bends to consider the evidence. As he leans over the equipment, his hand brushes a sensor. There is a flash and an acrid odor.
I watch as the Commander of the Fleet and the Chief Opposer destroy the only evidence that a crime even occurred. Adama and Solon. The epitomes of ethics.
***
Sound is my salvation. He murmurs in his sleep; sometimes I can make out a word or two. His dreams are no longer nightmares and his face bears a smile instead of tears. I reach reluctantly to awaken him for his shift, not wanting his voice to stop. His eyes open, initial confusion clears from them, and he turns to me, the smile remaining on his lips. Lips that open and speak my name.
End.