| |
Jaxan leaned against the lip of the hatch of the Skyuza and watched the Initiates unload onto the tarmac of Prysma City spaceport. Security teams in armor still scuffed and blackened from the fight on Zadomir helped the more fragile ones, or monitored the crowds massing at the landing field’s edge, thousands strong.
Raker had given the Council little warning and had broadcast the nature of what Tenacity brought back from the pirate world on open channels, including all the names of the Initiates they’d rescued. Jaxan could only presume the nature of their imprisonment was being circulated, too; there was an element of fury, as well as relief to the mobs pressing in upon the port.
Initiates began to drift from the vessels and clots of onlookers broke through the thin screen of Chrome Guards. Jaxan heard no names called—figured the telepathic Morvena already had so some sense of their own. But the sounds of sobbing were impossible to miss. The first reunions happened as collisions, out on the heat-shimmering tarmac under a brilliant midday Morvenan sun.
“My father is out there,” a small voice said at Jaxan’s side.
She turned to find Vetai, the girl squinting in the brilliance as she lingering halfway in the transport’s shadows. The Morvenan seemed almost unwilling to move on.
“What will I tell him?” she asked.
Jaxan grimaced, understanding—even feeling, just a little—the kid’s pain. Dad had seen plenty of abuse situations, and the families were always the most difficult. “Tell him you love him and missed him,” she told her at last.
A tear rolled down her cheek. “He was so proud that I was to be Initiated.” She sniffled. “I had always been...different. He was pleased there was a reason for that. Now...”
When the young woman trailed off, didn’t seem able to continue, Jaxan set a hand upon her shoulder. “Start with love and move from there.” She looked at the crowds now fully spilling onto the field. “The rest of it...” she shook her head “...I think everyone is going to be working out what it all means, together.”
“Without Shala...” Vetai choked a little, cupped her face in her hands.
Jaxan pulled the young woman into her arms and squeezed, let her sobs shake her for a time. The kid was probably only half her age, but in that tally, wiry way of her kind, was nearly Jaxan’s height. It lent the moment a hint of the comical.
“Without Shala,” Vetai resumed, pulling back slightly, “what are we? We have no Unity. We have nothing.”
“Why without it?” Jaxan asked. “Doesn’t it still exist without all the rest?” She shrugged. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”
“But so spoiled,” Vetai moaned.
“Only if you let it be,” Jaxan replied.
The girl started to reply to that, but a twinge crossed her face, then a smile. “He is close,” she said tremulously. “My father.”
Jaxan released her and smoothed some imagined imperfection from her ragged attire. “Go to him, then. It’ll be alright.” She touched her cheek. “Fathers are always happy to see their daughters.”
Vetai flung herself into her arms once more and then was carried away with the rest of the flow of Initiates out of the ship. Jaxan watched her cross the hot pavement, weaving between clumps of reunited families. She seemed for a moment lost, then almost frightened, as though she’d bolt for the edge of the field, couldn’t face these moments.
But a tall, stern-faced Morvena stood before her suddenly. By his features, Jaxan knew he was Vetai’s father. The kid stood before him a moment, opening and closing her fists, her shoulders quaking. Even across the space, even with her only-human mind, Jaxan felt the torrent of relief and anguish and more.
Vetai’s father lunged forward and swept his child up into his arms.
And Jaxan saw her own father in the flicker of heat-mirage at the tarmac’s edge, grinning at her approvingly. Another good piece of work, hon. She grinned back and muttered, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome!” an annoyingly cheerful voice boomed from behind her.
Jaxan rolled her eyes and turned. “Sounds like you’re feeling better, Commander.”
Varley joined her on the loading ramp, moving with some stiffness. His left arm hung in a sling and a patch of bio-sealant spray-bandage covered his right cheek. The last moments of the fight on Zadomir had been desperate, indeed, and he in the thick of them. Still, that arrogant smile of his showed no wear or mellowing.
“Think I’ll be ready for another sparring bout soon,” he declared.
Jaxan snorted. “As usual, you overestimate yourself.”
“I’m told that confidence solves many problems.”
Jaxan laughed again, softly. A small frown tickled the edges of her lips as she again found Vetai and her father in the bedlam of the reunion, now fully seizing the landing field. “I’m hoping we didn’t just create a thousand new problems, here.”
“I’m sure we did,” Varley replied, voice going serious. “But better those than leaving the bigger one to continue.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
He shrugged. “I’m not really sure of anything, Jaxan, except that I’m ready to get back to Tenacity and get the hell out of here.”
“I’m sure of one other thing.” She turned fully towards him. “I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again; thanks for being there with me, Commander.”
“I wish I could say there’s no place I’d rather be,” he quipped back, “but next time, why don’t we pick someplace quieter for a date?”
Jaxan groaned and rolled her eyes at him, again.
But she didn’t stop smiling.
***
YLURA STOOD IN HER Uncle’s Council office, alone, watching the holographic feed of the landing of the Initiates at the Prysma City aerodrome. It was the public channel, the Council deciding not to block the transmission. Besides, Dath had announced he’d be monitoring and rebroadcasting from Tenacity with the implied threat that to stop him, the Unity would have to fire on a Republic ship.
He'd similarly informed the Council he was escorting the transport to and landing the Initiates on Morvena, whether they like it or not.
The door to the office whisked open and Ylura turned to face Count Arrakka, who stepped in and waved off staffers who started to follow. The door shut once more at his back and left him facing his niece in silence. More than silence—his aura was a featureless darkness to her. Ylura grimaced, knowing what that meant; her uncle on guard against her. He’d known she was waiting for him, having shuttled down from Tenacity with the request to address the Council of Colors.
“Well,” he said out loud, “the Republic has left quite the mess, my dear.”
She grimaced. That he addressed her vocally and not mind-to-mind was as much of a sign of hostility as a slap. Gulping back the hurt, she replied, “I’d say the mess was already here, Uncle.”
He worked his jaw a moment, then stepped past her to his desk, sat a holopad and stylus there. Eyes flicked momentarily to the reunion hologram playing on his wall screen before he touched a desktop control and deactivated it.
“The Chrome Guard is moving to seize all Gray Ring assets,” he said, turning back to her. “And the Order is cooperating. Voadd is arrested, as I’m sure you heard, and his victims are being returned to their families.”
“I hadn’t,” she answered, “but that’s a good start. I’ll want to bring the rest before the Council. They’ll need to know the full nature of the conspiracy.”
“We also have reports of rioting and widespread hysteria on several worlds and even an uprising on Tydara,” Arrakka went on without addressing what she’d said. “Someone attempted to overthrow the local government there. That probably won’t be the last. The Defense Force has remained remarkably stable, though, and with them on our side, I suspect the initial crisis will pass.”
“The Council?”
“I said, the initial crisis will pass.” His eyes flared momentarily to yellow-white. “It must be given time to do so.”
Ylura flinched at the iciness of his voice, at the fact that the Morvena before her bore almost no resemblance to the man who’d brought her back, confused and hurt, after her earlier career with the Fleet. “I see.” She pinched her lips together and nodded once. “What will happen with House Red?”
Arrakka folded his arms and let his gaze wander to the curve of his office windows, stare out at the sunlit dazzle of the city’s skyline, lingering a moment on the monotonous, comforting ripple and drift of the Orb of Infinity at its heart. “We must have all the Colors,” he said gravely. “Krazmyb and Gorrod are through, of course. The former was lucky to survive the destruction of his little fleet and the crippling of his flagship. He has joined the latter in house arrest.” He sighed. “But a member of their family must lead, otherwise there will be no legitimacy. And that family will not forget this.”
“They were going to break up the Unity!” Ylura gasped in outrage.
“Shame often curdles into vengeance, as you know,” Arrakka rasped with briefly unmasked fury. He pinched his eyes shut a moment, pinched his whole self back into control, by the look of it. “But they will be watched. And in the short-term, at least, their power is smashed.”
“Then the Unity is preserved.”
“Not the way I had intended,” he replied without looking at her, “but yes.”
Ylura’s nostrils flared and her lips stripped back from her teeth. How could he be so cold about this? “The way you intended would have only meant a greater convulsion when these matters grew too weighty to ignore.”
“I won’t be lectured by you again, Ylura,” he answered in a weary, exasperated tone. With pain naked on his pinching face, he turned to her again. “Where is Tahna?”
Ylura let out a sickened breath, drew a fresh one in; it brought no comfort. “We buried her on Zadomir.”
“You what...?” His gaze flamed once more and he jabbed a finger vaguely into the air. “On that pirate rock? Her soul will never have rest there!”
“You really think it would have rest in the soil of this world?” Ylura snapped back. “After everything that’s happened?”
Arrakka winced and looked suddenly very old, in a way only the very aged Morvena did. “We are her family,” he said mournfully. “You had no right—”
“You had no right!” she barked. “No right to drag me into this, no right to let her suffering go on.” She shook her head and stalked a stop closer to him. “By the ancestors, Uncle, how dare you lecture me?”
“I brought you back here,” he snarled, counter-advancing a step so that they were nearly nose-to-nose, a decidedly human exchange of tempers. “I accepted you into my household, taught you your lineage. I opened your mind to its greater potential.” He clenched a fist, shook it. “Certainly, I have earned some right!’
Ylura stood her ground, but pressed no further. Drawing air through her nostrils, a cleansing, calming breath, she said with formal coolness, “You have been my Master. For that I give thanks.” She held up her chin. “But I am the student no longer.”
“No, you’re certainly not,” he growled and turned away from her. Taking a few steps over to his window, he folded his hands behind his back. “And, I’m afraid, you are no longer welcome here. The Council would prefer your incarceration, after your antics. But the galactic scandal of it all...” he shook his head, snorted bitterly “...everyone would simply prefer you gone.”
A jolt like a knife-stroke went through Ylura’s gut. A sickening wave of cold rippled out from it. “I’m...ostracized?”
“You are encouraged to return to your duties as an officer of the Republic of Sanctuary Fleet,” he replied and pivoted to his desk, touched a control to pop open a drawer. He reached in and pulled out the slim, glassy pad the SRA had provided her. Tossing it onto the desktop he gestured disgustedly after it. “And, I understand you’ve acquired other responsibilities as well?”
Ylura looked away, couldn’t face the accusing simmer of his eyes, nor the vaguely triumphant note of his revelation. She bit her lip, looked down, and nodded. “I accept the Council’s judgement, then.”
“I fear there will be no official alliance with the Republic anytime soon, though we will remain on friendly terms.” He pivoted to face her fully again, unfolding his arms, then refolded them before her, looking officious, imperious, and cold. “I’m empowered by some on the Council to extend thanks for uncovering and helping foil this treasonous plot of House Red and the Gray Ring. And rest assured, the Unity will not soon forget Golgotha’s meddling in our internal affairs.”
“So, things remain as they were.”
“I think they’re rather different than that.” He blinked once. “Perhaps for the better.”
“I’m not going to apologize for what I’ve done, Uncle.”
His eyes narrowed. “Neither am I.”
“Then that’s that.” Sickened and tired—so damned tired of everything—she crossed her fist over her chest, the salute of the only people, now, she apparently had. But her words were those of the half she still was, and couldn’t really leave behind.
Not ever.
“We are nothing alone,” she began the Shala recitation.
Arrakka turned away from her, stared out at the sky line of Prysma City into the vast distance where it blued into the Sea of Thardu. His mind opened slightly to her, a crack in the door through which blew a gust of anguish, of regret, of mourning so powerful it nearly crumpled her to her knees.
And the words came as thoughts, one Morvenan to another; one Shala to another.
We are always alone.
***
“ALRIGHT, EVERYONE,” Rougan announced to the spacers crowded into Main Engineering, “just hang tight and let’s see if twenty hours of work got it done!”
Turning to the workstation by the Reflex Furnace, Rougan held his index finger over the blinking holographic key to re-route power and glanced momentarily at Vekkla, lingering to one side. The cephalopod gave no indication of it, but he could somehow tell the creature was as tense as he; if they hadn’t done this right, not only might the labor have gone to waste, the power surge might cook Tenacity’s remaining shield banks.
Hell with it. Rougan tapped the key. Overhead lights flickered for a moment and streaks of pixelation rushed briefly over the workstation. But a hologram sprang up over the console and green lights lit up in a chain throughout the schematic of the ship, pulsing at a series of nodes depicting shield generator coils.
“That did it!” he announced.
Cheers bawled back at him, so much sound it nearly knocked him back on the station. Everyone was exhausted and punchy as a result. The tight space jostled with exuberant spacers and someone was starting up a song.
“Styx!” Rougan hollered over the din to the officer at the Power Distribution station. “Do we have an even dispersal?”
“No power spikes!” he replied at a shriek to be heard. “Smooth transition, all the way through!”
More cheers erupted at that, some of the crew likely unaware of what they even celebrated. Someone had a bottle out and was passing it around. That was blatantly non-regulation, but everyone knew Rougan wasn’t the sort to bust anyone for it—not after driving them to get the work done in so short a period of time. The regs said you had to be fit to serve on duty, not be sober, after all!
And I sure as hell wouldn’t be the one to judge.
But it was a good moment. After the horrors of picking through the ravaged ship for survivors, turning to the work had been a relief. And necessary, too. With part of Tenacity’s guts still exposed by battle damage to the void, getting her full shield arrays back into at least semi-functional state was a top priority.
And Raker had been driving it hard, too. He didn’t sound exactly certain that Unity space was going to continue to be all that friendly to them.
Vekkla was accepted a flask passed over to it by Spencer who was red-faced and looked like he’d already been liberally sampling. The Xokan paused and held it up to Rougan.
“Nah,” he waved it off, “you go ahead, though.”
“You are certain, sir?” the cephalopod asked. “Or is it that you prefer your homebrew?”
Rougan chuckled. “Maybe I’m giving it up.” A ping sounded like the beginning of a headache from his mastoid implant. For a moment, he expected it to be Raker, checking after the task. But it was from Communications, a long-range signal packet arrived and sorted, now that Tenacity was standing down in orbit over Morvena and receiving relays through the system’s galactic communications networks. He frowned to himself, then stiffened as he saw the sender.
“Sir?”
“Give me a couple minutes.” Rougan waved the Xokan off as he stepped into a corner away from the general bustle.
A blink keyed up the communique and the image of his son filled a quarter of his vision. Rougan could see the expression on Kevin’s face and knew without having to hear his words what the kid was going to say.
“I know you’re not going to understand, Dad,” the recording said hurriedly, “but this is something I’ve got to do. I’ve asked to have my seat at the Academy suspended and I’ve signed my enlistment papers. Word is, they’re letting people with credits skip straight to Ensign, in light of the war. I don’t have an assignment, yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”
“God damn it, kid,” Rougan muttered and felt like he’d melt against the bulkhead. God damn it youthful idiots, everywhere.
“Mom won’t even answer my transmissions,” Kevin was saying, “and while Regina will, it’s just to scream at me. But I know this is the right thing to do. You’re out there. So many of my friends are. You need all the help you can get.” He smiled uncomfortably into the holographic pickup, looking very young and very uncertain. “I’m going to be with you, Dad. Hell, by the time you’re back from your pleasure cruise in the Unity, I’ll probably have my own ship!”
Rougan tapped his knuckles against the wall in a plaintive pattern that suddenly exploded into a slug against solid durasteel. Hissing, he put them to his mouth and sucked blood-taste from abraded skin.
“I love you, Dad,” his son—his greatest achievement that wasn’t named Tenacity—said from the hologram. “You’re probably pissed. But, please, when you get this, send me a line of text, at least.” He worked his mouth once into a grim expression. “I’m not scared of anything, except not hearing from you.”
The transmission cut out.
Damn. Rougan shook his throbbing fist once. Damn-damn-damn, that kid.
Behind him, the spacers that he’d treated better than any family he actually had hollered and sang and drank, glad to be alive, glad to be a part of this ship’s crew. Rougan loved it. He loved them and this stupid, damned ship. But thinking of his son’s decision, he wondered for the first time if he’d picked the wrong love.
“Vekkla!” he bellowed, turning to the party and finding the cephalopod half-draped over the workstation and arguing over the bottle with Spencer. Both the Xokan and the human looked his way as he stomped over to them.
“Give me that danged thing!”
The engineering crew cheered as their Lieutenant Commander downed half the bottle.
But its contents soured instantly in his guts.
***
“FIFTY-SIX,” IMLISS grated from a hologram transmitting from sickbay to the conference room. The side of her face was a pasty sheath of spray-bandage and her right eye was a black ball of bruising. Dath had had word she’d kept working half-aflame, even after the explosion had gotten through to her compartment. “That’s how many lost in action, sir,” she went on. “It took some time to confirm, with the state of the ship.”
He grimaced, knowing she referred to the work after the battle, piecing through wrecked compartments for the dead, and sometimes just pieces of the dead. “Understood.”
“And another sixty who will never be the same again,” she added, unmistakably placing venom into each word.
“Again, understood, Doctor. Thank you.”
“And one more thing, Captain,” she stepped very close to the holographic pickup and lowered her voice. Her unhurt eye was glassy and quivered with fury. “I’ll be requesting a transfer upon our return to Sanctuary.” Her nostrils flared and her teeth looked narrow and sharp in her mouth. “I thought you should know, so that you might start screening possible replacements.”
Dath frowned and glanced at Ylura, lingering out of sight of the holocamera on his end, and leaned by the window, staring out across the curve of Morvena. “Thank you for letting me know, Doctor,” he replied in a formal, cool tone.
“That is all.” Imliss’ image cut out.
Dath grunted and sagged back in his seat, pinching a finger and thumb to his brow. Headache gnawed behind his artificial eye. Imliss’ hate of him lingered in the air like smoke after a pyre has burned out. He looked over his shoulder at Ylura, ginning ruefully. “I suppose you’ll be making the same request, soon. Or is that even necessary in your...” he smirked “...new role?”
She snorted bitterly and stepped away from the window, drifted over to one of the empty chairs around the table. “I’m not even sure I know where I’d transfer to. Or to whom.”
“Garrasta was impressed with you.”
She laughed out loud. “The Grakan Merchant Fleet might be about the best I deserve!”
“Sorry,” Dath chortled. “Well, for what it’s worth, it’s been good having you aboard again. And with a whole galaxy of trouble, you’d be more than welcome, if you stayed.”
“Thanks,” she replied softly, and slipped into the seat before her. “And thank you for...everything else.” She folded her hands before her on the tabletop and looked him in the eye. “I put you in a lot of bad spots, this time, Dath.”
He grinned back at her. “Bad spots seem to be our specialty.”
The desktop control pinged and Dath touched it to open the line.
“Yes, Clemmens?”
“Unity Control is signaling,” she replied. “We are clear to depart. Ensign Regal confirms all heads accounted for.”
Dath smirked humorlessly and muted the communicator for moment. “Can’t wait be rid of us,” he muttered to Ylura, got a scowl in return. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he resumed to Clemens. “I’ll be up shortly. Have Ensign Zovga plot us a course back to Sanctuary space.”
“Aye sir.”
The line broken, he leaned back in his seat and eyed Ylura, who’d half-turned away. The light of the room glinted in the corner of a glassy eye.
“Did we do any good here, Dath?”
He started to reply, then stopped himself when he nearly offered a platitude, one she knew him well enough to take as false, even dismissive. Instead, he considered his response, weighing her pain against his need to be honest. A dull memory flitted from the corner of his memory, became words murmured into the quiet of the room.
“‘Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality’,” he said, “‘and to accept it’.”
Ylura grimaced and wiped her nose. “That’s dreadful.” She met his stare with a grimace. “What is it?”
“Don’t actually remember the name,” he replied with a shrug. “It was a short work, ancient, just post-Exodus, I think, from Terra, herself. I read it in Primary. I think it’s been banned a couple times. But it’s a simple thing. About some fantastical society of towering beauty and power, but who retains that through a terrible bargain” he leaned forward, put his elbows on the table as he thought of the twist of the tale “they keep a single child locked away, neglected, abused, in exchange for their prosperity.”
Ylura’s brow wrinkled down the middle into a stern, horrified line. “You’re saying that’s what’s been happening in the Unity?”
“I’m saying I’ve been thinking about that story,” he answered hurriedly, “after all we’ve been through here. I’m saying some people made a choice; accept a terrible thing, for a greater good.”
“And it rotted them, Dath,” she retorted. “House Red saw the Shala Order’s corruption and used it to make a deal with our Oldest Enemy!” She worked her mouth a moment, biting back something hateful. “And the rest were too complacent to see.”
Dath let his smile smooth into something more unpleasant, even menacing. He thought of that transport unloading on the Prysma City landing field. “Well, it’s going to be damned difficult to remain complacent now.”
“Maybe.” She dabbed at the corner of her eye. “Or maybe they’ll just find a way to forget. Isn’t that what your story’s about?”
“No. Not exactly. The difference between the Morvena and the people of the story is that in the story, the people knew the secret, and accepted it. The Morvena have only just now learned what the leaders have kept from them.”
“You said the fantasy people’s tears dried,” she pointed out harshly, before he’d gotten the last words out. “You said they accepted.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” he replied gently. “The story is about that, yes, but it’s also about the ones who learn the truth and cannot bear it, as the others do. And they turn their backs on their paradise society. They leave.” Inspiration became a flash in his skull and he snapped his finger. “That’s the name! The Ones that Walk Away...or Leave...? Something like that.”
“You’re saying that maybe the Morvena will walk away,” Ylura asked, “will demand reform?”
“Maybe some. Maybe enough.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up into a dreary half-smile. “I’ll have to look this story up.”
“You do that,” he told her and brightened his voice. “In the meantime, we are the ones who have to leave now. We may have kept the Golgos from getting a toehold around here, but I’m not sure how happy the Admiralty is with me.” He chortled, not entirely happily. “Perhaps you’ll be up for Captain of Tenacity by the time we’re back?”
“I don’t think so.”
She stood up precisely and, smiling, crossed her fist to her breast in salute.
“Tenacity only has one Captain.”
THE END