Roark (Women Of Earth Book 1)

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  Instead of answering, Mira turned to the smartassed kid. “At least you have the consolation of not being the dumbest guy in the room,” and back to Anthony Tomaselli, “As usual, thanks for nothing.”

  A door slammed at the back of the place. Mira might have ignored it if smartass hadn’t shifted his eyes toward the sound and snickered. She turned and headed out the way she’d come. She met her brother as he rounded the corner of the building.

  “Why, David, fancy meeting you here.”

  “Do you live to embarrass me?” he snarled.

  “Embarrass you? And here I thought it was the other way around.”

  “Hanging out at the Buzz isn’t half as embarrassing as working for the Godan.” If possible, her brother’s lip curled a little higher.

  Mira closed her eyes and prayed for some of her sister’s patience. Her prayer went unanswered, so she faked it.

  “What would you have us do, David? Our ration cards don’t stretch far enough to feed eight people. Black market prices are out of control. We’ve sold everything we can. If you can think of another way, I’m willing to listen,” she said and started to walk toward home. A breath of relief escaped when David walked with her.

  David gave a quick glance behind him before he answered in a loud and heated voice.

  “What would you like me to do, Mira? Be like you? Risk my life crawling through the rubble, searching for scraps? Or how about working for the enemy?”

  “It beats spending all your time playing cards.”

  “I don’t spend all my time playing cards. We do other things, important things.”

  “Like what?” She didn’t mean it to come out that way. The snarkiness just snuck in under the filter.

  “Like planning,” David snapped. “Planning for the future when these fucking aliens go home.”

  “They’re not going home, David. Who’s feeding you this garbage?”

  They reached their door and someone across the street called out, “Good night, Davey,” followed by a snicker of laughter, but when Mira looked, no one was there.

  David ignored the call. “It’s not garbage and if you know what’s good for you and those fucking kids, you’d better be careful who you say that to. Everyone knows you’re all for consorting with the enemy.”

  He pushed her roughly inside.

  Mira pushed him back. “I’m all for feeding my family, you ungrateful little snipe. I’m all for saving enough money to buy fuel for the winter. I’m all for buying shoes and clothing for the children. Children, David, not the enemy, children.”

  All of whom were now standing in the hall by the bedrooms watching the siblings argue as they entered the apartment. Mira took a seat on the recliner that also served as her bed, and beckoned them to come to her. She took a deep breath and moderated her tone.

  “The people I met inside the compound were very nice to me. Yes,” she admitted, forestalling David’s objection. “A couple of the guards hurt me. They were wrong and they were punished for it.” At least it sounded like they would be. “There was a human doctor there who checked my injuries and the two other doctors, healers they call them, were really very kind. They’re brother and sister, and they bickered just like Royal and Rashonda.

  “One of the healer’s names is Vochem. You know how we’ve talked about people’s skin coming in different colors, but it’s still just skin?” She waited for the nods from the younger kids and eye rolls from the older ones. “Well, Vochem’s skin is black, but not like Royal’s and Rashonda’s. I mean black like Royal’s hoodie. His sister’s name is Ahnyis, and, oh, how I wish you could meet her. She’s sweet and pretty, and a lot like Wynne.”

  “Is she black, too?”

  “No, she’s light brown.” Mira leaned in closer and whispered her secret. “You’re not to tell anyone about this because I’m not sure yet if what I saw was real, but I think she has a tail. I know,” she laughed, raising her hands in the air, “Surprising. I’ve never met anyone with a tail before, have you? It doesn’t matter. I liked her and I think you will, too.”

  “Did her brother have a tail?” Royal asked, not bothered at all by the prospect.

  “I don’t know. Healer Ahnyis was wearing a skirt and I only caught a glimpse of something that looked like a tail poking out from beneath it. Healer Vochem was wearing trousers and there was no way for me to peek, but it would make sense, wouldn’t it? That he would have a tail, too?”

  “You could have asked,” the boy reasoned.

  “Royal, that would be impolite,” his sister scolded, “Not to mention embarrassing. You wouldn’t like people asking what you hide in your jeans, would you?” She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes, expressing her opinion of her twin. “This new friend of yours, can we meet her?” she asked, and Mira was struck again by how accepting these children were.

  They were old enough to remember the time before the war, but they adapted so quickly to whatever this new life brought them. They didn’t seem to mind the loss of the toys and television that had been taken for granted in their early lives. They changed with the wind and were surprised by nothing.

  The only loss that affected them was that of their parents. Mira and Wynne had spent many a night holding one or another of them while they cried. That was what they needed most and Mira and Wynne tried their best to give it to them. They need to know that no matter what way the wind blew, someone would be there to love them.

  “No, you can’t meet her.” David looked at Mira over the heads of the other children, daring her to disagree. “You can’t meet her again, either. You’ve got to listen to me. You don’t know what’s going on out there. You could be putting us all in danger.”

  His eyes slid to the younger children and Mira understood that he wasn’t referring to himself or his sisters. He was worried about the children. It was the first time in a long time that she’d heard a concern from him that wasn’t for himself. Maybe there was hope for him yet. Mira decided to ignore his earlier angry outburst and go with this, more adult consideration.

  “I won’t put them in danger, David. I won’t let anyone meet them or tell them who they are until I’m sure they can be trusted. You said it yourself. We don’t know what’s going on out there. Maybe my working at the base will help us find out.” Mira placed her hand on her brother’s arm. “Please, David, let’s give this a chance. There’s a new Commander and Ahnyis swears he’s nothing like his predecessor. I’ve met him. He’s the one who saved me from a worse beating and punished the ones who did it. He’s not like us, but I don’t think he’s bad.” She hoped not, anyway.

  David, once more a petulant teenager, shook her hand off. “They’re the enemy and you’ll be seen as a traitor. What will people say?”

  What would his friends say was more like it.

  “They’ll say, ‘Poor David Donazetto, stuck with a dumb ass sister who won’t listen to reason’.” It didn’t get the smile she hoped for, so she fell back to arguing. “They came to fight the Hahnshin, not us. It’s not the Godans who send their fighters in the middle of the night to blow things up.”

  “They don’t do anything to stop it, though, do they?”

  As if on cue, the sirens began to wail.

  “Get your go-bags,” Mira shouted to the children, “Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

  They returned in seconds with their back packs and with Wynne in the lead, they hurried down the stairs to the building’s basement. Mira followed close behind the children until they reached the second floor and she realized one member of their group was missing.

  “Bitsy, tell Wynne I’ve gone to get David. We’ll be right down,” she called over the little girl’s shoulder and then turned and ran back up the stairs.

  David was probably stuffing his important belongings into his go-bag. While she and Wynne worked so hard to set an example for the children, Mr. I’m-Too-Cool went out of his way to do the opposite. His things were spread all over the corner they’d curtained off for him in the larger of the t
wo bedrooms, the one where the boy’s slept, yet when the sirens sounded, he wouldn’t leave anything behind.

  Running up the stairs, Mira’s footsteps echoed the pounding that had restarted in her head. She was so tired of his nonsense. If he wanted to be treated like a man, he needed to start acting like one. Her fury increased when she heard his footsteps far above her. He wasn’t in the apartment. He was headed up to the roof.

  She had half a mind to let him go. If the building was hit, or the upper two uninhabitable floors collapsed, so be it. It would be his own damn fault. But her feet kept moving.

  No matter how angry she was with him, David was and always would be her baby brother. As her mother lay dying in her arms, Mira had promised to care for and protect her mother’s accidental miracle and she meant to keep that promise as best she could.

  She reached the roof as the black shadows of the Hahnshin fighters silently slid across the night sky, the stars winking out and on again as they flew. Streaks of light flashed from their pointed noses. Explosions of orange fire erupted as each streak hit its target. Mira grabbed her brother’s arm and pulled.

  “Come away, Davey. Please come away to the basement. It’s too dangerous up here,” she pleaded, forgetting how much he hated the diminutive name.

  David turned to her with both fear and hatred blazing in his young eyes. “This is what they’ve done to us, Mira. This is what they’ve made us; cowards who live in dumps and hide in basements. They’ve turned us into rats.”

  “I know, Davey, I know.”

  She tugged again, but he was too strong now for her to force. He pulled his arm away.

  “I hate what they did to Mom and Dad. I hate what they’re doing to you and Wynne. You shouldn’t have to live like this. I shouldn’t let them.”

  “I hate it, too, but it’s not your fault, Davey.” The strikes were getting closer and her body shook with the thunder of the explosions. “Please,” she begged, and appealed to his manhood. “Take me downstairs. I’m frightened and I need someone to hold onto.”

  It wasn’t a lie. Mira was terrified as she watched the streaks of light, silent as the death they brought with them, flash across the sky.

  David started to turn and then stopped and pointed upward. “Look.”

  Six silver eagles were flying toward them from the airport on the outskirts of town. That’s what everyone called the fighters the Godans flew, because of the wide spread of the tail and the downward curve of the nose. They saw them all the time, flying overhead on their way to someplace else, but never had they seen them fly in defense of the city.

  Earning their nickname, like giant birds of prey they swooped down on the Hahnshin fighters. Two of the dark ships exploded immediately. Warned, the others maneuvered out of range, but the eagles weren’t satisfied with driving the crows away. They gave chase and the airborne dance began.

  Mira slid her arm about her brother’s waist as his arm slid around her shoulders. Together they watched the acrobatic ballet of streaking light and silver and shadow until the shapes disappeared into the darkness. There was another explosion of orange in the sky and another that streaked like a meteor toward earth. With one last angry flare, the battle was done.

  Mira and David stood, stone statues standing sentinel under the starlit skies. By unspoken agreement, they watched and waited until the silver eagles returned.

  “Count them, David. How many do you see?” Mira asked, hoping he saw what she couldn’t.

  “Five,” he whispered, the anger in his voice replaced with something else, something not so bitter.

  “Five,” Mira whispered back and she let him hear her sadness at the sacrifice. “One of those Godan warriors you called enemy died for us tonight. I think we should wait and see if Ahnyis is right and things will change. I think we owe the pilot that. Don’t you?”

  David didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue, either.

  Chapter 3

  Jaws clenched, eyes blazing, the new First Commander glared at the wavering figure seated in the middle of the com-unit. A decorative light source, Theresian glass goblet, and an open book sat on the table beside the prominent Council member as if this was a social communication and not an unofficial reaming. Roark fought the urge to slam the screen’s lid shut, metaphorically squashing the man it represented. He couldn’t do it.

  “You’ve been there less than one lunar revolution and we’ve already received several complaints, all anonymous,” the foot tall figure said in the full toned voice of the six foot man the figure represented.

  “How many complaints about Sector Three did you receive before I got here?” Roark asked angrily.

  “None.”

  “Good. You can take that to mean I’m doing the job I was sent here to do.”

  “Your job is not to get called before the Council before your mission is complete. It also does not include hurling expensive statuary at your officers.”

  Roark always wondered how the disappointed sag of such tiny shoulders could have such a huge impact on the viewer.

  “I didn’t hurl it at them. I hurled it between their heads,” he responded with an impatient sigh of his own. “Had I meant to hit them, I would have. They needed a reminder of who was in charge. Even if it’s temporary,” Roark added before the other could remind him of it.

  “That it is temporary is by your own request. There is nothing official,” the figure reminded Roark, refusing to let the subject pass. “It’s time you continued on with your life.” The Councilor offered him a small smile.

  “My life is not my choice. That decision was made for me ten years ago.”

  “Nonsense. You’re in complete control. You’ve more than proved it with the situations you’ve placed yourself in. Vochem and Harm will always be there if you need them.”

  Vochem and Harm, his trusted friends and watchdogs.

  “The Confederation Council offered you governorships in the past and rightfully so, but you cannot expect them to keep making the offers if you keep refusing them. We have enemies, Roark, and you’re not getting any younger.” The voice went on after the mouth stopped moving.

  It was a glitch that often happened over long distances when transmissions were relayed, but was usually less noticeable in secure communications with Council members or Supreme Command Headquarters. Today, it felt more annoying than usual.

  “You won this posting by a narrow margin. There were other applicants, some of whom had Council support. I used my influence to make sure the military had its way.” He raised his hand to stop the forthcoming protest. “Not because of who you are, but because of your skills as a leader. Unfortunately, my power does not extend as far as I’d like. You need the Confederation Council. Your mission should be to keep its members happy.”

  The First Commander, whose jaw had become further hardened with each word of the lecture, pounded the desk with his fist, hard enough to make the holoscreen shudder and blink out. He continued to speak as the column of silvery light rose from the center of the black platform and coalesced again into the figure of the man.

  “My mission should be to drive the Hahnshin out. I can’t do that with a pack of feather assed officers who treat this place like a leisure club. I’ve been here for three weeks and I have not seen a single squad drilling anywhere on this base. I have pilots who have not seen air time in months and we lost one of them last night because of it. If there is subterfuge here, I will deal with it in the same manner with which I deal with the Hahnshin.”

  Last night’s run was slow to muster and sloppy in their formation and execution of what should have been a simple tactical defense.

  “The raids are merely harassment and we rarely bother to answer them,” he was later informed by one of the officers in charge. “The base was never in danger.”

  That was when he threw the first small bust, shouting that townspeople had died as the thing shattered against the wall. He threw the second, a porcelain goddess figurine, when another officer expressed a lack
of concern for the pilot or the town.

  “It is a consequence of war,” the man said before his indifferent shrug.

  “Then you will face those same consequences when you fly with the next mission, Field Marshal,” Roark had ordered.

  He didn’t mention it now, nor would he if the officer in question changed his ways, but the incident report was written and waiting to be filed if necessary and the officer knew it.

  “I have machinery still packed in crates that were delivered years ago,” he added to his list of complaints to the seated holo-figure. “I have four tailors, but not a single biomedical engineer.”

  “Changes take time and diplomacy.”

  “Time?” Roark looked around for something to throw, but Harm had cleared the shelves of anything that might be useful as a missile. “I don’t have time. This sector has a higher casualty rate than any of the others. We’ve lost a third of our territory. A third, and why? Because,” he answered his own question, “the leadership here is nonexistent, because nobody gives a damn if warriors die as long as the bar is fully stocked and the proper wine is served with dinner.

  “You and your Council had better hope that incompetent bastard stays lost or someone else finds him twiddling his dick out there in space, because if I find him first I will kill him. Slowly.”

  The previous Commander’s small S-class transport had disappeared on a routine flight to join the much larger M-class starship. The M-class, commonly called a Mother ship was to carry him to his home world for a regularly scheduled leave. The Head Healer and four high ranking officers disappeared with him somewhere around the rings of Saturn. Six crewmen were also aboard. They were scheduled to return to the base immediately after the debarkation of their passengers. It was another sword in Roark’s side that officers were afforded this luxury of leave while common warriors were not. This reminded him of yet another sword in his side.

  “Diplomacy is your business. Mine is war. Speaking of which, where are my troops? They’re needed here.”

  The discipline on this base was in shambles. He needed his unit of seasoned warriors and their officers to form the core of military structure here and set an example of how things should be done. The roving eye of the com-unit followed him as he paced about the office.