by Luigi Robles
Pycca had a hard time trying to adjust to life without Sodenia. It had been her life’s work, and now all of it was gone, or better said, taken from her. The constant political battle was all that remained of the rights and wrongs of the ship. It had been three months since the fleet had returned to Earth without Fain, Kya or Sodenia. Soon after, Pycca and the flight crew of Sodenia had been offered a voluntary and indefinite leave of absence.
Pycca had been among the first ones to leave Soden Island. She didn’t think about it twice when she was offered indefinite leave. She was desperate to find something, anything that she could hold on to. She didn’t want to think that the galaxy had once again taken everything from her. So, she headed to the only place she had ever known to go, aside from with Fain in Neo LA—her parents’ house.
She tried hard every day to just accept what had happened and move on, though it was far from easy. The memory of Fain was fresh in her mind, and so was the promise he had made to her.
Wait until I see you again, Pycca thought. You won’t even begin to know where to put the glorious amount of trouble I have for you.
There was a knock at the door that interrupted her thoughts.
She felt embarrassed for having such hopeful thoughts about seeing Fain again. If there had been a mirror in front of her, she knew that she would see a flushed pink version of herself.
“Yeah,” Pycca said as she shook her head, still embarrassed.
“Pycca, dear,” Mother said from the hallway. “Remember that your flight leaves in an hour from now. We should get going to the terminal. We don’t want to be rushing, right?”
“Right, I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Alright, your father and I are already ready.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
Pycca had been packing her luggage for over two hours now, though she hadn’t done much packing at all. The truth was that she was hesitant to go back to Neo LA. Even though she thought that she had made up her mind about going, her actions were proving otherwise.
Dammit, Pycca, you aren’t ever getting over this if you don’t face it head-on. You need to drag your ass to Neo LA and put everything to rest. You’re going to have to face it eventually.
The keys to Fain’s apartment had made their way into Pycca’s hands via August. But Fain didn’t leave a message with them or anything like that. It didn’t help that Pycca had been mad at August when he delivered the keys to her and didn’t want him to say a word. So, if there had been a message, anything at all, she still didn’t know about it. At the same time, why else would Fain have left her the keys to his apartment in Neo LA if not for her to visit?
In a moment of frustration, she threw away the luggage, grabbed a small nearby backpack and stuffed it with whatever clothes she saw first. If she needed anything, she could always just buy it in Neo LA.
Pycca grabbed the keys to Fain’s apartment and left her room without looking back. She had decided that from there on out, that was the way she would treat every situation until she found herself once again. She made it down the stairs and into the living room in no time.
“Hey, got the ticket?” Pycca asked as soon as she entered the living room.
“Hey,” Father said as soon as he saw her. “That’s all you’re taking?” He looked at her ticket. “Your return ticket isn’t until two weeks from now.”
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t want to lug around a huge suitcase. Hey, look on the bright side, I officially have an excuse to explore the city.”
Pycca had opened up about Fain and everything that happened on board Sodenia to her parents. They talked for days about it, though they were careful talks, with Pycca sparing the details of the battle. She knew that her parents still had PTSD from the first Acram attack, when a group of scouts leveled the city she had grown up in. But with each talk, Pycca found a small moment of relief. Also, her parents were the ones that encouraged her to go to Neo LA and see what waited for her there. They said it would be the only way to move forward. Pycca had reluctantly agreed.
“Alright,” Father said. “Well, we should get going.”
Pycca made it to Neo LA with relative ease within an hour of departing. Air traffic was unusually light in the afternoons, except of course for any major holiday. Though she knew that transporting the masses hadn’t always been as effortless and affordable as it was now. With the current transportation system, it was common for people to have jobs in another state and simply commute back home, either via Hyper Loop or airplane.
She took a deep breath as she stepped out of the airport, deciding to call a cab. She didn’t want to take a Hyper Loop to Fain’s apartment; she thought the memories would be too much for her to handle. The taxi got there in what had to be less than a minute. The cab’s door opened and she stepped inside, tossing her backpack on the empty seat next to hers.
“Ms. Evans, correct?” the automata asked.
“That’s me. Take me to Nereid tower. Please use the fastest route.”
“My pleasure.”
Unlike her past automatas, this one was eerily quiet, not saying a word throughout the whole trip. Usually, the automata would make small talk with Pycca, which she hated. But this time around, she thought that she could use the conversation to calm her nerves. Perhaps the cab company had had one too many complaints about the automatas’ small talk and decided to downgrade the feature.
It took Pycca only five minutes to get to Nereid tower and another two minutes to make it from the main lobby all the way up to the fifty-second floor. She checked Fain’s key block to confirm the apartment’s number: 5234. She saw right away that it would be at the end of the hallway. Her heart was beginning to thrum, and her chest clenched as she walked down the hallway.
She stopped in front of the apartment and compared the numbers on the key block to the numbers on the digital pad on the side of the door several times. There was no denying it; this was Fain’s apartment. She placed the key block next to the digital pad, and the door unlocked.
“Here goes nothing,” Pycca murmured as she took a deep breath and walked into Fain’s apartment.
Fain’s apartment was warm and homey, and as she examined it, she found that it was exactly how she had imagined it. Tears made their way down her cheeks, but what brought tears to her eyes wasn’t the apartment itself; it was that the smell of Fain still lingered. Even after all this time, she could still smell him. She would never forget his scent of clean, lime, orange and a hint of cedar.
She wiped her tears before removing her shoes and stepping onto the living room carpet. She took her backpack off and placed it on the floor, leaning against one of the couches. Pycca picked the comfiest-looking couch and went to curl up in a ball.
“Why am I here, Fain?” she muttered.
Before she knew it, she fell asleep on the couch, only to be woken up by a flashing red light coming from somewhere in the living room. Strangely, that nap she had just taken was one of the best periods of sleep she’d had in a while, or more precisely since they got back from the machine territory.
“What time is it?” she asked as she got halfway up and began looking for her phone.
The apartment was dark, and she realized that earlier the daylight was still coming through the shutters. She had a hard time getting around the living room, and she couldn’t remember where she had left her backpack. She knew that she had left it in an obvious place.
What the heck happened to you, Pycca, she thought as she stumbled around the living room. Wait, let me answer that for you, if you don’t mind. Fain happened to you.
She gave up trying to find the backpack and instead lay back down on the couch, thinking she might as well get a full night’s rest. Knowing there was a possibility that she would dream of Fain brought her comfort. Maybe when she woke up, he’d be right there next to her. She knew that thinking that way would be setting herself up for more heartache, but she didn’t care. Another small scar wouldn’t hurt her already wounded heart.
She closed her eyes but had a hard time getting to sleep. It was that stupid red light flashing every twenty seconds or so. Not even covering her face with a pillow seemed to help, as the red light still managed to find a way in. She got up, having had enough.
“Fain Jegga,” she said in an irritated voice. “You have what’s got to be the most irritating answering machine in exist—”
Pycca interrupted herself before finishing the sentences, realizing the reason why Fain would want her to go to his apartment in the first place. He had left a message for her. She wasn’t exactly sure, but the prospect of a message for her set off an adrenaline rush.
She stumbled across the living room as she hurried to where the red light was flashing. When she neared, she saw that indeed it was an answering machine, and it had exactly one unheard message. Her heart pounded in her chest, demanding to be let out. Though the message was from an unknown source, she knew that it could only be from him. She tapped on the play icon without thinking about it.
“Hey, Pycca.” Fain’s voice played from the machine.
Pycca took a deep breath, knowing that what followed would be one of the hardest yet most necessary moments of her life.
“If you’re hearing this, then I guess I didn’t make it back. Please don’t be mad at August. It was my decision. He tried hard to convince me otherwise, but it just wasn’t happening. You know me, trying to save the world and all.” He laughed nervously. “Though the real reason behind all this”—a note of sadness crept into his voice —“is that I thought I could do it. I thought I could make it back. It was never meant to be a one-way mission. I thought that with the help of Kya and by pushing myself to the limit without having to worry about endangering the crew and most especially you, I could really make it back. That was the plan all along. Sodenia seemed to have been made just for this. I guess that I was utterly wrong.”
Pycca couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. Fain sounded as if he was right there next to her.
“And if these indeed are my last words,” Fain’s recording continued, “I want you to know that it was you. It was always you. I had dreams about all of this being over, leaving ESAF and having a normal life next to you. Of course, if I should be so lucky. I knew that having you by my side was already pushing my luck. But it was you. Those last few days that led up to venturing into the machine territory were hard. I hope that you were busy enough not to notice how much those days sucked. And now that you aren’t around, I’m in pain. I miss you dearly. I wish, I wish…” He sniffled. “I wish I could call you from wherever I’m at, even if it was just to hear you breathing. One can dream, right? I don’t want to make this too long, or harder on you than it already is.”
Pycca sobbed as she heard the message would be coming to an end.
“So just remember me, OK? Go and live a happy life. Please give my regards to your parents. Let them know that I was really looking forward to meeting them. And know that no matter where I end up and how deep into space I drift away, I will be thinking of you until my last breath. Goodbye, Pycca.”
Pycca had half-expected to be crying uncontrollably by now, but she wasn’t. The last part of the message had triggered something in her mind, and the only word she kept thinking of was drifting. Then she dared to ask the question, knowing that the answer could possibly have the worst repercussions of her life.
Could it be that Sodenia is drifting away somewhere in space? Pycca thought. I mean, it makes sense. Maybe it’s just badly damaged and can’t make it back.
Pycca’s heart throbbed at the possibility. She began to see a faint glimmer of hope. The fact that the threat of the machines was gone meant that something, at least, had gone right.
Green had told Pycca that the search efforts for any remains of Sodenia were ongoing. But the problem was, Pycca hadn’t been involved.
“How stupid,” Pycca said as she got up and stumbled once again around the living room. But this time she had the determination to either find her backpack or a light switch.
She found a light switch, and then seconds later she found her backpack. She desperately dug through it, trying to find her phone. As soon as she found it, she looked through her contacts and found Mikey’s number on board the ISCO. She glanced at the time; it was 0330.
“Screw it,” Pycca said as she dialed his number. “He can sleep once we find his friend again.”
Mikey answered twelve rings later.
“Hello?”
“Mikey, it’s Pycca.”
“Oh, hey, Pycca, what’s going on? What time is it?”
“It’s 0330 something,” Pycca said, “but that’s not important. How are we looking for Sodenia?”
“Well, we’re looking for the ship’s signature and searching for any distress calls.”
“Wait, that’s it? Are you kidding me? Dammit.”
“Well, I’m not sure what else we can do.”
“Write this down.”
Pycca spent the next half-hour giving Mikey a long set of codes for every energy signal that could be related to Sodenia, including Kya’s. She must have given Mikey twenty additional ways to locate Sodenia.
“OK, that was the last one,” Pycca said.
“Besides punching them into the ISCO search beacons, should I send the list off to the allies? Want me to call Green or Truman? I mean, I’m sure they’ll say yes, especially coming from you. But I just gotta make sure.”
“If you can call them. I don’t think I can deal with that right now. Just make sure you send them out.”
“OK, so who am I sending them to?”
“Everyone we know, everyone that’s willing to help us search for the ship that saved their behinds.”
“OK, I’ll do that now.”
“Thanks, Mikey.”
“Do you really think we can find them?”
“I don’t see why not. Sodenia was fully packed with supplies, and there are many ways the ship can be sealed up if there’s any breach. If they are still out there, we will find them.”
“OK, I’m on it.”
Pycca hung up the phone and turned the light back off. She tried to lie back down on the couch, but sleep would be impossible, that much she knew. So, she went over all the code signatures she had given to Mikey a few more times, and before she knew it, the sun was beginning to rise.
Feeling her stomach growling, she decided to make herself a cup of coffee and try to find something to munch on. But as soon as she got up from the couch, her phone rang. It was Mikey. She quickly grabbed the phone and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Pycca! There was a match! No, wait, I should say there were a few matches.”
Pycca’s chest sank into her stomach, and her knees became weak.
“Are you sure?” Pycca asked, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to handle disappointment.
“I’m positive. I checked it a few dozen times before I called you.”
“Where?”
“It’s far away though, near the galactic core.”
“Have you told Green yet?”
“No one knows but you.”
“OK, I’ll call you back.”
She hung up the phone and searched for Green’s number. She knew that Green would agree to assemble a search and rescue fleet, and Truman would also back it up. Politicians wouldn’t interfere, as they too would want Sodenia back on Earth. A fiery hope began to burn inside Pycca as it dawned that there was a strong possibility that she would see Fain once again.
“Wait until I see you again, Fain Jegga,” Pycca muttered with a slight smile. “You’re going to be in for a whole world of trouble.”
Afterword
It took me a while to collect my thoughts and write this part.
To be honest, I didn’t want this series to end, which is why I chose to end it the way I did. I wanted the end to be satisfying and, at the same time, leave it open enough for the “what if.” Pycca needs to go out and search for Fain and Kaya, right? And, what else i
s out there, or still out there? Perhaps one day soon, I’ll pick it up and give it a definitive ending.
I took the writing of these three books seriously. I wanted to give you the best of me, which is why I took risks with the plot, did the research, crunched the numbers, and doubled checked everything. I just hope I got close enough to the actual science of things, to bring you quality Sci-Fi worthy of your attention.
And when it comes to Sodenia: Amongst the Immortals, I had a blast writing it, but I had an even better time re-reading it before sending it off to my editor. Out of the three books, this turned out to be my favorite.
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the readers, those brave enough to make it this far. Without you guys, and all those wonderful reviews, this trilogy wouldn’t have been possible. To you, my most sincere thank you.
Thank you for reading Sodenia’s War.
As always, if you liked this book, and want to see more of it, don’t forget to leave a review. Since it helps a ton to get the books seen and shared.
Before I go, I wanted to let you in on the things that I’m up to.
I’m currently jotting down notes for three more books in this series, as well as outlining an extension of Space Bound, the prequel to Sodenia. I’m also switching gears and jumping into the world of Fantasy and Hard Magic for a trilogy. It’s going to be good, I promise. If all goes well, I’ll be releasing the trilogy within a week from each other in the fall of 2020. Stay tuned.
Thank you for reading.
Also by Luigi Robles
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