The Tribari Freedom Chronicles Boxset

by Rachel Ford

  What in the heck? In all his time here, he’d never seen all the mines shuttered. He’d rarely seen a wing or two sectioned off for maintenance or stabilization. And there’d always been hell to pay then. So how had the entire complex gone dark?

  He trudged on toward the barracks. It was now, at last, that he caught a glimpse of another living thing. A child peered out at him from one of the squalid communal homes, disappearing a moment later. But it was long enough for Brek to know that he was not alone.

  A moment later, a voice hit his ears. “Sweet daystar, it is you.”

  Brek glanced toward the speaker. It was Dugal Ens, one of the hands from his shift. At least, back when he’d been a machine specialist – not a missing-presumed-dead former employee. “Dugal. What the hell’s going on here? Where is everyone?”

  The other man, though, ignored the question, racing out to clap him on the shoulder. “We thought you were dead. They said you were in the tunnels when they collapsed.”

  “I was. I found a way out.”

  “You mean…you were underground all that time?”

  “Most of it. I ended up in the mountains. Had to find my way back here.”

  “Son-of-a-”

  “But what’s happened here? Why are the mines shut?”

  Dugal frowned. “That’s right. You wouldn’t have heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “There’s been some kind of trouble on Central. Riots. An uprising. We don’t know for sure. We’ve been locked out of the interplanetary grid.”

  “What? Why?”

  Dugal shook his head. “No idea. I guess they don’t want us knowing what’s going on down there. But the brass – they all took off, in a quick hurry back to Central. Days ago now.”

  “You mean…they just shut the mines?”

  The other man’s eyes darkened. “That’s right. And shut the power station down too. Took all the employees. Said it was temporary, but that was a week and a half ago. We’ve been losing people to the cold. Food’s getting scarcer – there’s been no shipments.”

  Brek’s own brow was creasing. “You mean, that son-of-a-bitch Daj left us here to die?”

  Dugal nodded. “It’s sure looking that way.”

  “Well to hell with that,” Brek decided. “I didn’t survive a godsdamned collapse to freeze to death up here. If they shut the power down, we’re going to turn it back on. And then we’re going to find out what the hell’s going on.”

  Dugal’s eyes widened. “We are?”

  “You’re damned right we are.”

  “Nik,” Giya said, “I need you on this call. It’s – well, it’s a strange one.”

  She yawned, pulling the house jacket over her. “Alright,” she said. “Conference me in.”

  A set of projections appeared in her office – more accurately, in Dr. Kel’s living room. He’d insisted that, given her state, she should not be alone, or far from medical help. In the end, Mrs. Kel had suggested she stay with them. She’d been too tired to argue. Anyway, she was saving her fighting spirit for more important matches with the good doctor. Like when his solicitude interfered with her work.

  So they’d made a room ready; and she’d taken up temporary residence. For the moment, she was hijacking his empty living room.

  Several familiar faces from the interim parliament appeared on the peripheries of the room, but it was the haggard visage of a stranger that occupied her attention. He was a youngish man, with deep, dark ruts under his eyes. He had the look of someone who had lived a hard life; but there was an alertness, an intelligence, in his eyes that exhaustion could not diminish.

  “Nik,” Giya said, “this is Brek Trigan. From Theta colony.”

  “Theta?” she repeated.

  “Yes,” Trigan said. “And now I’ve waited until you’re all here. I need to know what’s going on.”

  “I told him we were waiting for you,” Giya explained quickly.

  “Oh. Okay. Um, well – what do you mean, what’s going on? Do you receive the broadcasts on Theta?”

  He shook his head. “Not since there was trouble on Central. Not since the Consortium left.”

  “Wait, the Consortium left?” Nik frowned. “You mean, they’re not on Theta anymore?”

  His apparition frowned at her. “No. They left for Central – well, almost a week and a half ago. In Thetan days.”

  Nik shook her head. “For Central? No, they’re not here.”

  “They’re not?” It was his turn to be confused. “Are you sure?”

  “Quite,” Giya put in. “We have a fleet overhead monitoring incoming traffic.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s what they said they were doing before they left. I don’t know where they were going, then.”

  “Why haven’t we heard from you before this, Mister Trigan?” Davis’s projection wondered. “I assume you are the leader of the colony?”

  “I could ask you the same thing, Mister…?”

  “Telari,” he answered. “Davis Telari.”

  “You haven’t heard from us,” she put in, “because we couldn’t get through. Our signals were blocked. We assumed – well, we thought the Consortium was refusing to allow our traffic in.”

  Brek Trigan shook his head. “No. They powered everything down before they left.” Then, he glanced at her. “Who did you say you were, again, miss?”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “Sorry. I’m Nikia Idan, one of the members of the interim parliament.”

  “Idan?” he repeated. “Are you related to Grel Idan?”

  A stab of pain shot through her chest. “He’s my husband. He was.”

  “Was?”

  “He’s dead. Murdered.”

  Whatever answer he’d been expecting, it clearly wasn’t that. “Murdered? Gods, I’m sorry. I didn’t – I didn’t realize.”

  “Did you know him?”

  He shook his head. “No. I – I met him, sort of, in the markets. On Central. There was a rally. We…well, we argued. Before the riots broke out.”

  “On Central?” Nik felt her heart sink anew. The riots had been the beginning of the end for Grel. His peaceful rally through the market had been attacked. The protectors came that night. It seemed an eternity ago, but the truth was, it was just a matter of days now.

  “I was on vacation. I’m sorry. I know it’s not relevant. I’m just – surprised he’s dead. Sorry that he’s dead. He…he made a lot more sense than I realized at the time.”

  She nodded, unsure of her voice in the moment. He might have been describing her own first meeting with Grel. They’d argued too; but his ideas had stuck, long after they parted ways that first time.

  He continued. “You keep saying the interim parliament. What is that?”

  “You have been out of the loop,” Ven smiled. “The old parliament has been disbanded, and a new one elected.”

  “We’re the interim parliament,” Nikia explained. “But there’ll be elections, soon.”

  “Within six months,” Giya added. “Once we’ve established contact with all the colonies, so they all have a chance to participate in the process.”

  Brek seemed stunned. “And Supreme Leader Velk? He’s…sanctioned this?”

  “A lot has happened in the past week and a half, Brek Trigan,” Giya answered. “We will send you the full logs. But Velk was deposed too.”

  “He was?” Trigan’s jaw sagged. “The supreme leader?”

  “He murdered two Grand Contributors in cold blood, and broadcast it throughout Central,” Ven answered.

  “He did?”

  “Yes,” Nikia said. “My parents.”

  He blinked now. “Your parents? I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  For a moment, he seemed to have lost his train of thought. “Then you,” he said in a minute, “are the ruling body of the empire?”

  “We are. Temporarily.”

  He nodded. “Then I appeal to you: Theta is starving. We’ve been able to restore power, but we don’t have enou
gh fuel to last too much longer. Inside a week, we’ll have run through it. Our food rations are low. We’re out of purified water. We’re going to die.”

  Focusing on his words, Nikia pushed aside the thoughts that had been swarming, oppressing, her senses. “No you’re not,” she said. “We’ll send aid. I’ll contact Captain Elgin-”

  “Who?”

  “The commander of the fleet. We’ll make sure you’re supplied.”

  “We won’t be able to pay you,” Brek cautioned. “I know the Consortium ordered the supplies in the past, and handled the payment. But we have nothing to pay.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Brek Trigan,” she said. “This is the new Tribari Empire. Tribari lives matter more than profit.”

  He seemed really confused by that. “You mean, you’ll send the supplies anyway?”

  “Of course. Tell us what you need. We’ll get them shipped out as soon as possible – tonight, yet, if we can.”

  “And what will we need to do in return?”

  She smiled. “Stay alive until the ships get there. Please.”

  “Well,” he said, “we’ll definitely try that.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll get you the list right away.”

  “Excellent. I’ll contact Elgin now, so that the fleet is ready. You’ll have what you need by the end of the day tomorrow, if not sooner.”

  He shook his head. “This really is a different Tribari Empire, isn’t it?”

  The smile returned to her lips. “It is, Brek Trigan. It is.”

  “Welcome to the new world, my friend,” Ven added.

  Absolution

  Tribari Freedom Chronicles, Book Four

  By Rachel Ford

  Part I

  Chapter One

  “I vote we send Brek,” Dugal Ens said. “He’s had the most dealings with the provisional government.”

  “He got the supplies coming again,” someone else added. “He saved all our lives.”

  “Aye, and it was his thinking that got the power station back up.”

  “We’d all be dead,” Dugal nodded. “If not for him. He’s the best choice to represent Theta in that parliament.”

  Brek Trigan held up a hand to stem the tide of undeserved praise. “I didn’t do anything, except put our case to them.”

  “And they listened,” Dugal persisted. “If they listened to you once, they’ll do it again.”

  Dugal was one of the laborers from Brek’s shift – back before the Consortium suspended operations and pulled out of Theta Colony, leaving the miners to starve to death. He was a good man, with, the Machine Specialist felt, more faith in him than was probably justified. “Look, I’ll go if that’s what you want. But I’m no politician.”

  “Daj was a politician,” Kareli Vinar said. Head Daj was the mining Consortium’s man on Theta, and he’d fled with all the rest, as soon as the first sign of trouble on Central appeared. “And he left us to die. I’ll take one of us talking to the bigwigs instead of a snake like that any day.”

  “You’ll look out for us, Brek. You’ll make sure they don’t forget us.”

  “Of course I will. But if they don’t listen…”

  “They will. You made them listen once. You’ll do it again.” Now, Dugal turned to the rest of the group. “Let’s put it to a vote. What do you say, free men and women of Theta? Who do we send to sit on the provisional parliament for us?”

  “Brek,” Kareli nodded.

  “Brek,” Dugal echoed, and soon the whole room was repeating his name.

  Machine Specialist Brek Trigan nodded and drew in a resigned breath. It was a bit surreal, standing in that makeshift council room and hearing his name on the lips of so many. It was one of the communal bunk houses, commandeered for the purpose, and it was only just large enough to fit the Thetans who had chosen to attend. And, for better or worse, they were calling on him to represent the mining moon on Central, to stand among the parliamentarians and revolutionaries, and argue for the rights and liberties of the forgotten miners on this frozen world.

  He’d only just crawled out of the belly of the mines, and it seemed already the gods were sending him to a new doom. Still, someone had to do it. And, for whatever reason, his peers believed he could do it. He hoped they were right. “Alright. If that’s what the council wants, I’ll go.”

  Dugal clapped him on the back, and he winced as the sudden lurch forward put pressure on his sprained ankle. “Good man. It’s a damned good day for Theta.”

  “Oh, bollocks. You’re just excited to kick me off the planet,” he grinned.

  “Like I said,” Dugal shot back, “a damned good day for Theta.”

  Nikia Idan sighed, rubbing her eyes. In her past life, prior to the revolution, she’d been a contract review specialist for a construction company. She’d never imagined anything could be more boring than that, much less the work of a parliamentarian. And yet, here she was: a provisional MP, with her eyes glued to legalese that made the old contracts from Gulan’s Construction seem riveting by comparison.

  “Something wrong with it?” Giya asked. Giya Enden was a fellow MP, but he was more than that. He’d marched in the streets alongside Nikia. He’d marched with her husband, Grel, before he’d been murdered.

  She shook her head. “No, Gi. It’s all good. Just…so boring.”

  He laughed. “That’s the law for you.”

  “I know…I just…shouldn’t this be more approachable? Should you really need legal training to read and comprehend the law?”

  “It’s the nature of the beast. None of this can be open to interpretation. It has to be absolutely clear.”

  She snorted out a laugh. “Well, then we’re definitely failing.”

  He laughed too. “Maybe we should take a break, Nik.”

  “I need to get up and stretch my legs, anyway,” she agreed. “Walk with me? We can talk about it, and I’ll feel a little less guilty about ignoring the work for a bit.”

  Giya smiled. “Of course. How are you doing, anyway?”

  “Fine.” She shrugged. “I’m tiring more quickly than I used to. I’m hungrier than I used to be. I randomly ache. But, Doctor Kel says it’s all part of the process.”

  “The miracle of pregnancy,” he added wryly.

  “It doesn’t feel very miraculous from my end.” She ran a hand down the bulge in her midsection. She was just starting to show, but she felt huge and ungainly. “Although I guess I’ll probably say otherwise, when it’s all said and done.”

  He nodded. “People usually do.”

  They were walking down one of the halls of parliament, among the offices of the MP’s. Their footsteps rang loud against the floor, echoing up and down the way. For a moment, her mind took her to Grel. It usually did, when she remembered that soon she’d be a parent.

  She’d never imagined herself in the halls of parliament, or writing laws for the Tribari Empire. But none of that seemed as surreal to her as going through life without Grel, as raising their child without him.

  “Nik?”

  She started. “Huh?”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I was just thinking…”

  “Of Grel,” he finished.

  She nodded. “I can’t think of the baby without thinking of him, Gi. I…I wanted to have a child so badly.” Her voice caught. She couldn’t say it out loud. But the fact was, the prospect of this particular child filled her with so much sadness it was at times almost unbearable. She wanted it. She’d wanted it from the first. But there were times when she wasn’t sure anymore.

  Giya put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay to be conflicted, Nik. It’s okay to hurt.” His tone was soft, and his eyes had turned a sad blue. “We all miss him.”

  “I miss him so much,” she admitted. “I can think of the work, and that keeps me sane. But when I’m not busy…when I think too long, I think of him, and then I think of der and mer, and how they’re gone too…” She was trying hard
to keep her voice from wavering, to keep her eyes from watering. She succeeded with neither.

  “It’s okay,” he repeated. “It’s okay to hurt. But this baby? It’s going to be Grel’s only son. Or daughter. It’ll be your parents only grandchild.”

  “I know,” she nodded.

  Giya paused now, and she did too, glancing up at him. “It’s more than that, though, Nik. This baby is going to be a symbol for the Tribari people. Already, it is, and he doesn’t exist yet. The idea is powerful enough. It was powerful enough to get people to march with you on Hemsgate Park and the cemetery. It was enough for them to rally to you, to defy the protectors. The idea of that child, of Grel’s child, was enough to start a revolution.

  “When there’s an actual child…” He shook his head. “He’ll remind us what we’re fighting for. He’ll remind us where we came from. He’ll remind us of where we can never go again. I know it’s hard…but we need this baby.”

  She frowned. “Gi, I’m…I’m not saying I’m not going through with it. The thought of being a father, it meant the world to Grel. This is his only chance at it. Of course I’m going to keep the pregnancy. I’m just saying, sometimes it hurts, more than I can stand to think.”

  He studied her, as if trying to ascertain the truth of her words, then nodded. “You’re a good woman, Nikia Idan. Grel couldn’t have picked a better wife, nor the people a better representative.”

  She shook her head, and they started walking again. “Gods, Gi. We both know that’s not true. Politics is just about my least favorite thing in the world.”

  “Which is why I trust you, more than anyone else in parliament,” he answered. “Politics is a blood sport. I don’t trust people who enjoy it.”

  Despite herself and all the weighty topics they’d been discussing – or maybe, because of them – the comment made her laugh. “What a pair of miserable cynics we’ve become.”

  “Realists,” he declared sagely, but his eyes twinkled as he said it.

  “I hope not. I’d rather believe the problem lay with us.”