Naomi inhaled. “What do you want to know? I told you about the interface program.”
Jax nodded slowly. “Yeah. I got that part. You’re an Imperial—” He held up a hand to stop her impending interruption. “—Former Imperial agent of some type. Meant to counter the Indie’s use of droids and AI for hacking and intelligence gathering. What else?”
“Like my family history or something?” Jax nodded. She sighed, shifting again to find a comfortable position. “I mean it’s nothing overly exciting. I was born on Shinchaku Hokkaido. My parents, too. Gran and Papa emigrated from Earth when they were newly married. They wanted to worship as they pleased.”
“Religious pilgrims?” Jax asked, surprised.
“Shinchaku Hokkaido is more religiously tolerant than Japan on Earth. My grandparents—well, my family—are Catholic.”
Jax was silent a moment. “My Memaw was pretty religious. My folks weren’t, and I guess I’m even less.”
The Japanese woman smiled. “The joys of space: plenty of room for everyone.” She watched the man opposite her for a few heartbeats as he thought over what she’d just told him. “And you? I mean, I dug up a lot on Kelso, but that only covered the founding of the station, forward. Where’d your grandparents come from?” She shifted again, hoping to find a maybe less uncomfortable position in the tight space. A piston near her shook slightly as it adjusted to something the train car was doing.
“You know, I don’t know a whole lot. Memaw was never big on family history. I know she was a…” He tapped his chin, then shifted to a different lump of ore, then shifted again until he was comfortable. “…Protestant, I think. Never met my grandfather. He was out of the picture by the time Memaw helped found Kelso. She never talked about him. Not sure if he was dead or what.” He paused, remembering back to his childhood before the war. “Dad only talked about him a few times, usually to use as an object lesson: Don’t be like your grandfather. Brush your teeth. If you believed my dad, my grandpa had horrible teeth, never washed his face, and only took showers on days that started with W.” He grinned, remembering his father doing his best to coax a young and stubborn Jackson into the bath.
The train car rocked as it passed over a small rise. Pistons hissed at each end of the car. When the rolling was done, Jax wiped his hands on his shirt. “I think I’ll be burning everything I have on when we get back to the Osprey .”
Naomi nodded her agreement, then said, “I saw in the Kelso station computer that your parents were Independents?”
Jax nodded. “Yeah, pretty high up. Memaw and the other founders of Kelso were intensely staunch supporters of the Independent Systems Alliance and its core principles. She raised Dad to be a lot like her, and when the war kicked off, Mom and Dad signed up. Left me on Kelso with Memaw.” He rubbed his eyes, trying to make it look like he wasn’t wiping a tear away. “Stupid ore dust. Getting my eyes.”
Naomi snorted. “Yeah, dust.”
Jax gave her a look. “Anyway, they both died near the end of the war. Memaw kept raising me until she died. Cancer. By that time, I was old enough to take care of myself, and Kelso isn’t that big of a station, so folks looked out for me. Governor Singh was a good friend of Memaw’s so she looked after me early on.”
“I’m sorry.” She put a hand on his knee. “That sounds rough.”
He shrugged. “I’ve had a while to work through it.” He looked at her hand on his knee, and she withdrew it like she had been electrocuted. “What about yours? Parents, I mean?”
“They weren’t freedom fighters, that’s for damn sure. They were, are, programmers.” The look on her face told Jax a lot. “I haven’t seen them since I entered the interface program.”
“How come? Did they not approve?”
She sighed, closing her eyes. “They didn’t—probably still don’t—know. They’re AI researchers. Some of the best. When the war started, they were conscripted by the Emperor.”
Jax rubbed his ear. “I don’t understand. Why would that AI-hating Luddite conscript AI researchers?” She opened her mouth to answer, but he cut her off. “The purge?”
She nodded. “By then, of course, the war was over, the interface program had been scrapped, and most of us were dead.”
“Dead?” Both of his eyebrows were as high as physically possible on his forehead.
“Would you want a bunch of living intel gatherers wandering around? Especially ones that may not have exactly volunteered?”
“You were conscripted,” he surmised.
“Yup. I know now that he was planning the purge all along, whether he won or not. They told me my parents would be imprisoned if I didn’t join the interface program.” She inhaled deeply, coughed once, then said, “I’m sure they were told I’d be killed if they didn’t cooperate.” She shrugged. “I’ve been on the run since: odd jobs, lying low, like at the relief camp. Stuff like that ever since.”