The Price of Paradise

by C. S. Johnson

  “I doubt I know anything important about it,” Merra replied breezily. “I don’t have the specifics.”

  “You’ve been in Chaya for a long time. Surely you know enough to guess,” Exton said, trying hard to have patience. He kept his gaze forward, determined not to let Merra distract him.

  “Hey, Cap,” Jared called. “Come over here and talk to Kamalo. He’s got some news you’re going to want to hear.”

  “What is it?” Exton asked as he hurried over. “Anything good?”

  “Ag, good news and bad news, I’m afraid,” Kamalo said. “We were able to get a partial emergency transmission from the ship called the Freedom. It said it was blown off course due to equipment failure, and it was looking for a port.”

  “So the ship’s okay,” Exton clarified. “Were you able to find out what they were carrying or who ordered the shipment?”

  “I was told it’s military,” Kamalo said. “I was given a comm address to talk with the commanding officer, but I wasn’t able to connect with him. It’s classified, though the governor here assures me it’s likely just supplies.”

  “I was hoping for more,” Exton said. “We’ll try to establish a firm connection with them from up here. Thora, can you handle that?”

  Thora nodded as she stepped up beside him. “Absolutely,” she said, jotting down notes on her report screen. “But we’ll have to wait on that.”

  “What? Why?”

  “There’s the bad news,” Kamalo reminded him.

  “What’s the bad news?” Exton asked.

  “They’ve also been picking up warning signals on their radar.”

  “Which we can confirm to be accurate,” Thora said. Holding out her reports, she pointed to the Eastern Caribbean Sea. “From the flight patterns and the jetstream currents, we’ve been able to see that the there’s another Craftcarrier headed to meet the ship.”

  Merra came up next to the screen. “Greetings, Kamalo,” she said cordially. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Always nice to have the Redbird call,” Kamalo replied with an easy smile. “They’ve been telling me stories here about you.”

  “I’ll have to refute them later,” Merra said with a small chuckle. “So there’s a Craftcarrier headed over to attack the ship?”

  Thora, standing on the other side of Exton, cleared her throat. “Yes. The ship is now heading up toward the Panama Canal.”

  “Excellent,” Merra said. “I’ll be happy to lead a small force and take out the Craftcarrier myself.”

  “How exactly would that be helpful?” Exton asked, irritated at Merra’s interference.

  “Well, for one, it would get me off of the Perdition, so you wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore,” Merra said.

  “Unlikely,” Exton muttered.

  “And it would also help distract the Craftcarrier while we can get a shuttle or two to load up the crew.”

  “There’s no telling how many people are on the—”

  “Chaya’s settlement is relatively small compared to the other camps,” Merra said, cutting in. “I doubt there’s more than a skeleton crew on there.”

  Exton studied the innocent expression on her face for a long moment. “You wouldn’t happen to know the details of this? Or have anyone down at Chaya who could give us more insight?”

  “Of course I do,” Merra said. “I can direct them to Kamalo immediately, if you like. But that won’t change the fact that there are people onboard who will need protection from the URS and their Craftcarrier.”

  Thora sighed. “She has a point. The Craftcarrier has been picking up speed since the ship passed Puerto Rico.”

  “If we move quickly, we can get to the Craftcarrier before it reaches the Northbound Canal,” Merra said. “There’s a port there.”

  “A state-occupied port,” Exton reminded her. “Panama might be far from New Hope, but they still have connections.”

  “If we can take down a Craftcarrier, surely we can protect a small ship like the Freedom from the States’ reserves.” Merra smirked. “Besides, isn’t that your calling card? Protecting ‘freedom?’”

  Before Exton could reply, Kamalo interrupted. “I can send some fighters from here. Ali has been eager to fight again.”

  “He’ll get himself killed with that kind of attitude,” Exton grumbled.

  “He considers you one of his heroes, so it’s on you, boet.” Kamalo laughed.

  The sound, rich and full of joy, sounded distinctively and absurdly out of place. Exton had to force himself to remain stoic.

  “What do you think, Exton?” Merra asked. “Let me go and help them.”

  He nodded. What other choice did he have? Chaya, even long before the United Revolutionary States officially annexed large parts of the western hemisphere, had been a freedom-loving ally. They had fought off MENACE, the real one, before the URS began to encroach on their territory and sovereignty. The small, stubborn nation of Chaya had drifted off the record the same time the URS began pushing their national narrative, the one which focused so much on surviving that it forgot about living.

  Exton even remembered his parents discussing the rumors that the URS wanted to capture Chaya’s settlement.

  “Alright,” he said. “We can send some fighter pilots and a shuttle, too, to get the passengers off the ship.”

  “I’ll head to Petra immediately, then,” Merra declared. “I’ll see to the arrangements myself, and I’ll chat with Director Ward about seeing to the new arrivals. Kamalo, how many fighters can you send out to meet us?”

  Exton was only half-listening as Kamalo and Merra discussed troops. He watched as Thora slipped back to her station, while Jared asked Merra if he could pilot a fighter as well.

  He recalled an older conversation down at Petra, one in which Emery had informed that the URS had a significant number of troops in Panama. It was the largest area likely to attack Petra.

  There was no way that ship just left Chaya, either. It would have to have left port at least three days ago.

  Merra, working with his aunt and Petra’s resources, would have been able to maintain her contact with Chaya.

  What is she up to?

  Did she purposely put citizens of Chaya at risk in order to establish cause for an attack?

  He glanced back at Kamalo and Merra, still talking stats and available resources. He wasn’t going to be able to verify things here. He would have to check the comm logs at Petra.

  “Merra,” he said, interrupting them. “Count me in. I’ll join you on your way to Petra.”

  He was gratified to see her face fall, ever so slightly.

  “You don’t have to go,” Merra said. “I can handle this.”

  “No, you’re right. We need to do something, and I can coordinate our forces. It’ll help to have the Perdition on standby.”

  “Can’t you just do that from here?”

  “The Perdition is not just about war; there are other activities here which are monitored, Merra. It’s better to have my aunt ready to step in and advise, too.”

  “I don’t think that really justifies—”

  “We need to do what we can to help Chaya,” Exton pushed, glad that it was his turn to interrupt her. “Not to mention to protect Petra. That means I’ll want to interview the ship’s crew myself, to see exactly what happened.”

  “Alright then,” she replied.

  “I’ll start the transport prep,” Exton offered, before he headed toward the exit. “I’ll meet you down in the hangar in two hours. That should give us enough time.”

  “Fine. See if you can get there sooner.” Merra nodded brusquely and then turned her attention back to Kamalo. Before she said anything, she glanced back at him. “You might want to go and tell Aerie,” she said. “She hates to be left out of these sorts of things.”

  I can’t imagine why, he thought, keeping his sarcasm to himself.

  “I know,” Exton replied. “I’ve got to call Henry anyway, if Jared’s going to be leaving the P
erdition. Never a good thing to leave a ship without a pilot.”

  ♦9♦

  Aerie sighed against the window, letting out a partially squashed giggle as her cloudy breath obscured a small portion of the window in the Captain’s Lounge.

  There were no windows in her room. It was a shame, she thought. Aerie remembered her time in the med ward, when she first came aboard the Perdition. There, up on Level 1, the room had plenty of small windows, allowing the patients to look up into the nearby surrounding space.

  Perhaps that was what compelled her to come and visit the Captain’s Lounge, she mused, feeling like a child again, with her legs crossed and her forehead pressed against the steel-enforced glass. There was some comfort in feeling younger, feeling less burdened with the responsibilities of adulthood.

  More likely, she admitted to herself, I came here because I wanted to feel close to Exton again.

  Even if she was angry at him, she still loved him. And this was his room, the one he’d claimed for himself as captain of the ship.

  He’d never had a problem sharing it with her. The Captain’s Lounge was where she first felt him kiss her with that devastating passion, where she allowed herself to admit to him she’d wanted to kiss him as badly as he’d wanted to kiss her, where she first felt the strange mixture of vulnerability and braveness as she faced him.

  Aerie stared down at the world, remembering the day she’d spent in this same room with Exton as they worked on getting to know each other.

  We still only barely know each other, she thought. Of course, there were some days when she barely knew herself.

  “Knowing an entire person entirely is likely a difficult thing,” she told herself.

  But at what point did knowing someone lead to love? And from what point did love allow for trust? Or were they all separate things, or things that all worked together in different ways?

  “I don’t know what to think,” she murmured, looking once more down at the world.

  The world was full of mystery and beauty, but it held no certain answers for her. When she thought about God, about what she had heard from Emery and even Exton, and others in the Ecclesia, she wondered if it was the same with him.

  Probably, she thought. God was, after all, immortal. Getting to know him would take a literal eternity.

  But loving him? Trusting him?

  Those were harder questions, she decided. It was easier to answer that question when it was about Exton.

  Of course she loved Exton. There were so many things about him she loved, so many good things inside of him she wanted to bring out, and so many bad things she wanted to protect him from. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment that she knew she loved him, but when she recalled the entirety of their relationship, it was impossible to say when she had not loved him. Even as she pictured him in his pirate’s costume, with his chainsaw sword ready to cut down her Memory Tree, she could only sigh wistfully.

  Another round of her breath blocked up the window. She smiled. Using her finger, she started drawing little squiggles in the foggy mist. She barely registered the sound of the door as it opened.

  “I thought I might find you here.”

  Exton’s voice sent shivers up her spine. It was soft and gentle, but still strong. If there was any trace of anger in it, Aerie couldn’t find it.

  She slowly turned to face him. “Why were you trying to find me?” she asked. He might not be angry anymore, but she still felt the last singes of her fiery temper. “I thought you’d prefer to be alone.”

  “I’ve already been alone for a very long time,” he told her.

  “Is that an excuse for why you’re not good at being around people like me now?”

  He shook his head. “Not an excuse.” He shrugged. “I suppose it’s more of an explanation.”

  “An attempt at one.”

  “It’s vague enough to work,” he said. His tone was still light as he came into the room, shutting the door and leaning against the wall opposite of her.

  “You might as well tell me what you want,” Aerie said after a long moment of silence. “I can’t imagine that you would come here just to enjoy the view.”

  “I’ll admit, I enjoy any view when it comes to looking at you,” he teased, “but I came to see if you wanted to make another deal with me.”

  At his words, she felt herself stiffen ever so slightly. He always was good at charming her, she remembered. “I don’t want to play any games with you.”

  “It’s not a game. You know I don’t do that.”

  “You’re treating our deals like they’re some kind of game.”

  “Believe me, if they were games, I wouldn’t play them. There would be too much at risk. And I couldn’t bear to think of losing.”

  “Losing what?” Aerie snapped. “Your pride? Ego? Control?”

  “No. Losing you.” He straightened. “And everything that comes with you that I no longer want to live without—your respect, your compassion. Your love.”

  Aerie still felt haughty, but she said nothing. Remembering their earlier arguments, a sense of wariness took hold of her.

  “I know it’s been a while since we’ve made a deal,” Exton continued, his eyes holding fast to hers. “It seems we’re about due.”

  Aerie felt the coolness of the window glass behind her. “What is it?” she asked. “What kind of deal do you want?”

  “If you forgive me, I’ll forgive you,” he said. When she didn’t move to reply, he added, “Or I will promise to apologize, if you promise to apologize. What do you think?”

  “It’s too hard to tell if I have to apologize first,” Aerie replied. “Besides, you already broke our other deal.”

  “What do you mean?” Exton frowned. “I didn’t break any of our deals.”

  “You said you wouldn’t lie to me.”

  “What did I lie about?”

  “You don’t trust me.” She shifted, jumping down from the window seat to stand before him. She immediately stepped back against the wall, but she met his gaze boldly, daring him to contradict her.

  “I do trust you, Aerie.” He sighed. “I don’t trust your father.”

  “What about before? Why won’t you tell me what happened when you first went to go meet with him?”

  “Because,” he said, “it’s ... it’s something that would be really hard to explain without going into detail over some of the more unpleasant parts. It’s been more than ten years, Aerie, since my father died, and I can still step into that moment like it just happened.”

  She felt her anger begin to wane. She watched as he clenched his fists, leaning further into the wall behind him.

  “That’s part of the reason. There are others, too. I don’t want to share some of that with you because it is quite terrible, and I don’t want to scare you or burden you with that sort of thing.”

  “I married you so I could do that,” Aerie reminded him.

  Exton glanced down.

  “Maybe if you tell me, you’ll be able to feel better about it,” Aerie added. “Emery told me once that joy that is shared multiplies, and grief, when it’s shared, divides.”

  “There’s always an exception to prove the rule,” he replied.

  “I don’t care. If you trust me, tell me. Tell me the whole story. That’s a deal I’ll take.”

  For a long moment, she wondered if he was just going to leave. But then the moment passed, and he nodded. “Alright.”

  Aerie felt her breath rush out in relief. She didn’t even realize she had been holding it in.

  Exton uncurled his fists and looked down at them. “There were a million moments that led up to that one,” he said. “And I—”

  “Wait.” Aerie reached forward. “Come and sit with me,” she said. With the smallest hint of a smile, she added, “It’s a little cold in here.”

  He came over without question, but there was a visible veneer of happiness in his eyes as he glanced down at her. As they sat down on the floor, Aerie moved his arm so
it wrapped around her shoulders, he leaned over and pressed a small kiss on the top of her head. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Well, go on,” Aerie muttered, angry that she felt her face flush over with embarrassment.

  “I was fourteen when it happened. As you know, St. Cloud had been acting as a mentor to me in addition to teaching his class and working under Osgood,” he said. “Osgood hadn’t been the dictator long. There were rumors that he’d killed the previous one, but there was no proof. Some said it was poison.”

  “I can believe that,” Aerie decided, thinking of the man who ruled over the URS as its dictator. She hadn’t seen him since her graduation day—the day she met Exton—but the more she thought about him, the more he seemed like the perfect person to murder someone and then try to convince other people that it was only a natural phenomenon of some kind, and that people should rejoice that it happened.

  “St. Cloud knew about the Paradise. It was almost complete. My father was obsessed with it and kept requesting changes or asking for more contractors to work overtime. One day I saw the blueprint for what he had, and I, as an engineer under his direct tutelage, noticed that he was making a lot of changes on his own. I knew of his requests, but the transition from paper to actuality held vastly different results.”

  “What did he say when you asked him about it?” Aerie asked.

  “I didn’t ask him about it, not really,” Exton admitted. “My father and I didn’t get along all the time. As much as I liked working with him and his team, which included a lot of members from the Ecclesia, I didn’t care about him or his life that much. He was angry at me, I think, for choosing the military over engineering, and preferring St. Cloud’s agenda to his.”

  “Emery told me that you didn’t want to join the Ecclesia like she did.”

  “No, I didn’t. I wanted fame and advancement opportunities,” Exton said. “I grew up surrounded by religion and community and informality. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I even agreed that there were a lot of good reasons to hold to those beliefs. But seeing that it was outlawed, and that there was no usefulness in it when it came to my career, I really only played along, going through the motions when I felt like it.