Chains of Redemption

by Selina Rosen

  "Where's the trust?" Jessica asked with a crooked grin. "See you in ten."

  RJ cradled the grenade launcher in her arms and jumped from her perch in the Ocupod carrier. When it didn't rain fire upon her head she slung the cumbersome weapon down and took off at a dead run. She jumped onto the wall, and as if on cue Jessica Kirk walked out the door onto the wall to face her.

  The irony of the fact that she was dressed in a Reliance issue uniform while her sibling was dressed like a Beta 4 humanoid didn't for one minute elude her.

  "Where'd you get the eye?" RJ asked, as she pulled the cube from her pocket. "I know where I got mine."

  "Guy named Shlerb, you would have hated him," Jessica said. She jerked the chain off her waist with a single tug, hit RJ's hand and sent the eye flying. "So . . . I'm ready to have this over with, what about you?"

  For answer RJ pulled the chain from her body and slung it into the side of Jessica's head in one movement. Jessica seemed to roll with the action as if expecting it. Then she jumped and her boot landed in RJ's face, sending her onto her back. RJ rolled quickly and jumped to her feet. She slung the chain out, it snagged Jessica's leg, and RJ pulled her to the ground. She quickly jumped astride Jessica and slammed a fist into her head hard. Jessica rolled her whole body till she was on her stomach, and then leapt up in a motion that sent RJ flying.

  RJ landed on her feet and slapped her chain out at Jessica at the same time as Jessica was slinging hers towards RJ. The two chains tangled, and RJ slung Jessica on the end of the chains into a wall. The wall crumbled and debris rained down. From where she lay in the rubble, Jessica pulled on her chain, and the two chains broke free of each other, but the backlash slung RJ into the rubble so fast that she found herself sprawled facedown in the debris. Jessica picked up a huge chunk of rubble and slammed it into RJ's head as she was working at standing up. Feeling she had the upper hand, and not wanting to lose it, Jessica abandoned her chain and dove on RJ, driving her to the ground.

  But RJ easily rolled out from under Jessica, jumped to her feet and slammed her Elite boot heel into the back of Jessica's neck so hard it made a snapping sound. She then jumped on Jessica's back and carefully wrapped her chain around her opponent's throat. She started to apply pressure even as Jessica squirmed.

  "Ah, Jess, this is just way too easy after all these years. That's the real difference between them and us, you know. They can't hold a grudge for a hundred years. Memories fade for them till they're like a sun-bleached picture you can barely see the image in. But not us, we remember everything that ever happened to us, everything we did, just as crisp and clear as if it happened only a minute ago. After all the years of pain, there should be some slower way for me to kill you. Something more inventive and painful. But you know what, kid? You've gotten damn good, and I'm just not sure that given another chance you might not wind up killing me."

  Choking sounds came from Jessica's throat as she continued thrashing around under RJ's weight, trying to get a hand around the chain.

  "Yep, this is sure a letdown . . ."

  Suddenly RJ felt something cold against the back of her head, and then a small but authority-filled voice ordered, "Let her go." Without releasing the pressure she held on Jessica's throat, and indifferent to the barrel of the weapon held against her head, she turned to face the man and for a second did a double-take.

  "Mickey?"

  "No, his son, Dax. President of the New Alliance. Now let her go," he ordered, as if he really thought that she would.

  "Shooting me with that laser will only piss me off, sonny boy," RJ said. "You know that. I'll take your gun away, and then I'll kill you."

  "And while you're doing it, she'll get away." He was shaking, obviously scared to death, but he wasn't about to back down. "Now let her go."

  He was willing to die to save Kirk. When had been the last time anyone had been willing to die for her? When they had even chosen her side in an argument?

  Her hand on the loops of the chain slackened, and her eyes were drawn to the eye in the cube sitting on the ground, staring up at her. She turned her head slightly, and over the bay in the distance she could see the lights of Alsterase starting to sparkle in the pre-night sky. She slowly released the chain in her hand, got up and walked back to sit on a section of the wall, feeling something like a blow-up toy with all the air let out. She sat there and just stared at the large city. Alsterase, the city by the bay, the city that rocks, the city that never stops, Topaz had said of it. And there it was. Again. Looking the way it had before David had betrayed her, and everything had gone wrong.

  Dax ran to Jessica's side and quickly removed the chain from her throat. She was coughing, trying to catch her breath and get to her feet at the same time, but her arms and legs weren't working right.

  RJ took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then she got up and walked towards Kirk. Dax moved between them, pointing his gun.

  "I broke her neck, I was just going to put it back," RJ explained.

  Dax nodded and reluctantly moved out of her way, though he kept his weapon on her. RJ leaned down and struck Jessica's neck hard, there was another cracking sound, and then she helped Jessica to her feet.

  Jessica looked at RJ. "Why?" she croaked.

  "I would have felt bad kicking Mickey's boy's ass. Besides," RJ walked over and picked up the eye. She brought it over and handed it to Jessica, who took it reluctantly.

  "The woman who destroyed my life only had one eye the last time I saw her. And that," she pointed at Alsterase, "wasn't here when I left, but his father was. And now he's dead, isn't he?"

  Dax nodded silently and lowered the weapon in his hand.

  "It's way too late to kill my enemy. Besides, why should I release you from the hell of living?" RJ picked up her chain and moved to sit on the wall, again staring at the city. "While I was gone you took out the Reliance." She started caressing the links of chain. "So now what?"

  Jessica didn't have to ask; she knew what her sister meant. Without even each other to fight, there was really no need for either of them in New Alliance space. She moved to sit on the wall next to her, though not too close. There was no sense pushing her luck.

  "Well, I thought—if you didn't kill me of course—that I might go off to Pete and kick a little Argy butt, see if I can't topple their government," Jessica said thoughtfully. "I could send for Pete after I got a stronghold there."

  "You could send for a planet?" RJ asked, thinking maybe the chunk of building Jessica had smashed into her head was taking its toll.

  "No, Pete, my son . . ."

  "Your son!" RJ shrieked.

  "Yes. Mickey had him made for me from my and my late lover's DNA. Pete's a GSH."

  "You must be so proud," RJ said with a laugh.

  "Actually, I am. So . . . what about you? What are you going to do?"

  "That's a good question. I've been in limbo so long, I'm not sure what I want, or that I belong anywhere. The first thing I've felt passionately about in years was killing you, and you ruined that for me." RJ shrugged. "Maybe I'll just hang here for awhile, get to know Dax, see just how the world's changed. Let Poley and his boyfriend do a little sightseeing."

  It was Jessica's turn to be shocked. "Poley, the robot, has a boyfriend?"

  "Yes, who would ah thunk it? Poley, a homosexual," RJ said.

  "Yeah, that's the issue." Jessica laughed, then added on a more serious note. "You could join me in my quest against the Argy," Jessica said, realizing how insane it sounded seeing as they were sitting in the rubble that had been created when they had been trying to kill each other just a few minutes ago. Her neck still hurt.

  RJ shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe I will after awhile. Still need to get over the whole hating your guts thing." She reached into her coveralls pocket, pulled out her kit, flipped it open and removed a pill from the tube inside. "Pronuses?"

  "Yeah, thanks," Jessica said, taking the pill RJ handed her.

  RJ took one herself and then replaced the po
uch in her pocket. "Did you go crazy?" she asked curiously.

  "Oh, yeah, more than once," Jessica said. "You?"

  "Oh, yeah. Father wasn't always there, either. Maybe it's hereditary."

  "Stewart was odd, but he wasn't crazy. I'm thinking we got it from Topaz."

  "Topaz?"

  "Yes, didn't he ever tell you? He was Stewart's father. He is our grandfather."

  RJ shook her head and laughed. "So that's what the crazy old shit was trying to tell me."

  They both seemed to realize at the same time that Dax was just standing, staring at them.

  "What?" they asked in unison.

  He nervously looked at his feet. "Well, I know you're clones and all, but . . . Well, you don't look that much alike to me."

  They looked at each other and started to laugh.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Baldor looked up at the sun and then spit in the dust. Digging and planting, planting and digging. Farming was no life for a warrior. He began to understand why his ancestors had listened to the priests when they told them there was to be a time of war. It broke the absolute, total monotony of living a normal day-to-day life on a third class planet like Beta 4.

  His people had been hunters and gatherers for the most part, farming and raising livestock just to help subsidize what the meager land had to offer. When there wasn't enough food, the priests would just insist that God had told them to fight, and so they'd hold a war until enough people had died that there was plenty of food for everyone else.

  Baldor didn't see why that was so evil, especially now when his days were filled with digging and planting, and planting and digging, and plants grew but they really didn't flourish, even with fertilizers and irrigation and a dozen other things commerce had brought to Beta 4.

  His sister had taken a mate, and they were raising children. She daily pleaded with him to do the same thing, but he knew that was no life for him. He stayed and helped them with their farm and bit his tongue instead of telling them just how absolutely dull and colorless their life was. That he'd rather die in a fiery pit in hell than copy their lifestyle and make it his own.

  He didn't really know what he was going to do or how. His mother's death had left him feeling empty and alone, but he didn't think taking up with the first willing female and having the state's suggested two kids was the answer.

  No normal woman was ever going to be able to take her place in his heart.

  He remembered what Mickey had told him as he looked up at the relentless sun. "You can never go home," he muttered under his breath.

  It had been good to see Pete, spend some time with his old friend, and catch up on what was going on back on Earth with RJ and Dax and his other friends. But Pete had returned to Earth too soon, and now he just missed his friends and his mother all the more.

  He bent over, stuck yet another plant in the ground and pretended like it was a land mine. They were on Urta fighting a ground war, just cleaning up a few straggling Argy who hadn't quite gotten the idea that it was time for them to go home. They were placing the mines to secure their perimeter. Suddenly he was surrounded; he raised his shovel like a blaster and started making blaster-firing sounds. When he swung around to check his rear flank he almost slapped his chuckling sister upside the head with his shovel. He lowered it to the ground, feeling the blood rushing to his face.

  "Hey, commando! Let the cabbage live. There's word from headquarters," Sandra said with a laugh.

  "Huh?" Baldor asked.

  "Two wants to see you at the palace," Sandra said.

  Baldor sighed. There was only one thing in this universe more boring than farming, and that was going to the palace, pretending to be interested and that you actually understood what the hell they were talking about. He certainly didn't see why they needed him there. Baldor was supposed to be in charge of defense, but the whole, "we must have a strong defense," thing was kind of a non-issue since there was no fighting in the whole system, much less on the planet. Which was of course why he, the head of defense for Beta 4, was planting cabbages.

  Still, there was always hope that some minor battle had sprung up somewhere that might need his attention. Maybe some Fourers fighting with some Earth-born settlers.

  "Did he say why?" Baldor asked hopefully.

  "No, just that he needed to see you," Sandra said, being her usual completely unhelpful self.

  Baldor sighed, threw down his shovel and started for the house, mumbling. Two had probably gotten his father's fake hands bronzed or some equally absurd thing. He was like a small child, always wanting you to see everything that he'd done and praise him for it.

  His sister moved up beside him and put her arm around him. "Baldor, you have got to find some joy in your life. You can't just go on living like this, feeling nothing," Sandra said in a concerned voice.

  "Don't you understand, Sandra? Everything is pointless; nothing really matters. You help win a battle, and when there's peace . . . You're obsolete and no one needs you. So what have you really done? Nothing."

  She sighed, no doubt because she was tired of hearing it, and mostly wanted to hear him say that he'd fallen in love with some ordinary woman and was ready to sit back and hoe the cabbage while she spit out those kids.

  Hell, he couldn't stand Sandra's kids; he sure as hell didn't want any of his own.

  He took a bath and dressed, then got in his solar powered vehicle with the mind-boggling top end speed of twenty-five miles per hour, and thought it was a good thing they were only ten miles from the Capital. If it had been any further the bronzed hands would have tarnished before he made it to the palace. He flipped some tunes on in the computer and took off. He sang along tunelessly with the music as he drove. For the moment at least, he was just enjoying the fact that he wasn't planting cabbages, and that there might actually be something wrong.

  He had a momentary flutter of excitement when he saw the skiff parked outside the palace. Then he sighed. No sense getting excited, it's most likely a shipment of cloth or some really exciting new fertilizer. If there really is some god living in the generator, please strike me dead right now if Two just wants to share some new agricultural product with me.

  He got out of his car and entered the palace without fanfare. He walked right to Taheed's throne room and stopped dead.

  "RJ?"

  "Hi," she said.

  He ran across the room and hugged her as tightly as he could, so glad to see her that he couldn't contain himself. She didn't hug him back, just looked at Taheed and said, "He certainly is a friendly cuss."

  RJ looked uncomfortably at the man who held her like she might get away at any minute.

  The king coughed, looking embarrassed and said, "He thinks he knows you. Ah, Baldor . . ."

  "Baldor?" RJ asked. She looked at the young man and saw her old friend's eyes looking back at her. She smiled. "You're David and Janad's son. He named you after Whitey."

  Baldor released her then, stepping back to arm's length. "My gods! You're not her, you're really . . . Well, you."

  "You knew?" Taheed asked.

  "Yeah, Pete told me." Baldor looked long and hard at her face, no doubt trying to see if she was exactly the same.

  Love, that's what she had felt in his embrace. He had loved Kirk. It had felt good to feel love again, even if it hadn't actually been for her.

  He looked around her at where Poley and Alan stood and he smiled. "That must be Poley, but this can't be Levits, he would have to be . . ."

  "He's dead, and he was human. Alan isn't either." She smiled. "You look so much like your father."

  Baldor laughed. "I'm a little darker."

  After they'd eaten dinner with the king, Poley and Alan had retired to their quarters and RJ had walked out to the palace gardens. They were even more beautiful than they were when she'd last been there. Of course there'd been all the shooting, bombs, and death then. When she introduced her plants to this world, it would finally really bloom.

  She both heard and f
elt him, so she wasn't too surprised when he started talking.

  "So . . . Why did you come here?" Baldor asked from where he'd walked up behind her. "I mean besides to bring us these miracle plants of yours?"

  "Truthfully?" she asked turning to face him.

  "Yes."

  "Because this world was the last place where I was ever truly happy. The last place where I seemed to know just exactly what my role in the universe was."

  "Kirk . . . did you . . . is she?" It was obvious what he was trying to ask, by the fact that he was afraid to fully ask the question. He didn't want to hear the answer if it was the wrong one.

  She sighed. "We fought, I won, and no I didn't kill her. I realized that taking her life away wasn't going to bring mine back. Kirk's halfway to a planet in the Argy quadrant by now, ready to whip a little Argy ass. She seems to know just exactly what she wants to do with her life. If you ask me, I think she just finds peace as boring as I do. I won't lie to you, I really, really wanted to kill her. But when it came right down to it, I just couldn't do it."