by Wayne Basta
Saracasi nodded at him. “All right, I’ll start calculating a new course. Should take us about three days to get there. It’s going to get pretty stale in here, but we should live.”
Saracasi never would have thought she would miss prison. Despite being denied her freedom and the threat of eventual execution hanging over her head, she had at least had a moderately comfortable bed. Here, she had to sleep on a cold metal deck surrounded by hundreds of people while she faced the painfully real possibility of suffocation. It made her wonder how the long-term prisoners felt.
All of the ship’s beds had been given over to the injured. She had been both surprised and amazed by the number of wounded. During the brief time the breakout had occurred, dozens of people had been injured. There were also an unknown number of people who had been left behind. But it was also amazing how few people had been hurt, considering how many there were.
Their rescuers had brought along a collection of clothing, but it wasn’t enough for everyone. Saracasi had elected to remain in her prison jumpsuit until they met up with Maarkean; all of her clothes were onboard Cutty Sark. She had been relieved to get the tracking bracelet removed, however. They dumped all of those into deep space when they had stopped to change course for Irod.
She left the engineering section, where all of the people experienced in ship maintenance were sleeping, and made her way down the ship’s main corridor. This level was mostly empty. The corridors were too narrow for anyone to use to sleep and still allow anyone to walk down. Every room on the ship had been taken over by people looking to spread out from the cargo pod.
As Saracasi approached the stairs to the bridge, her attention was caught by a noise. Turning around, she recognized the noise as a giggle. She saw Zeric being led into a small storage room by a Terran female. The pair was barely able to keep their hands off each other.
At least someone was going to have some fun, she thought, assuming the storage room was not already occupied. It had been dubbed too small for anyone to sleep in, but she wouldn’t put it past someone to have beaten Zeric to putting it to a different use. There wasn’t a lot of private space on the ship.
Turning back around toward the stairs, Saracasi was startled to find herself face to face with a blue-carapaced Ronid female. The woman was staring past her at Zeric and the girl. Saracasi wasn’t able to gauge any emotions from the Ronid’s multi-faceted eyes, but the way the woman stared made her glad she wasn’t the target.
After a moment, the woman turned her gaze off the pair and on to her. She smiled a comforting smile at Saracasi, which was unusual, as no other Ronid she had known had ever smiled without creeping her out, though she admitted she didn’t know many. Doctor Istru had been the first one she had exchanged more than a few words with. This one lacked the dangerous-looking mandibles near the mouth that some Ronids had, which probably helped the effect. Saracasi returned the smile.
“You are Saracasi Ocaitchi, correct?” the Ronid said. Her voice was much clearer than that of most Ronids she’d met; it was mostly free from the usual heavy clacking sounds that most made as they spoke Galactic Standard.
Saracasi nodded, and the woman continued, “I am Lei-mey Darshawn. Do you have a few moments to talk?”
Curious, Saracasi replied, “Sure, I was headed to the bridge to run a systems check on the environmental systems. Care to join me?”
“Certainly.”
Saracasi led the way up the stairs. She recognized Lei-mey’s name. Meyka had told her that Lei-mey was the reason they had broken everyone out of the prison. She had been curious to meet the person who would inspire that kind of devotion.
“I understand it was your brother’s idea to stage the jail break.”
“So they tell me,” Saracasi replied, shaking her head.
“You doubt your brother capable of this?” Lei-mey asked.
Saracasi considered the question. When Meyka had told her that it had been Maarkean’s idea, it had surprised her. She had always known her brother as the loyal citizen and military officer. Taking her off Braz had been the only sign that he was more than a patriotic drone. She had been working on widening that first crack in his dogmatic belief in the infallibility of the Alliance, but she didn’t think she had been very successful. Still, capable and likely were two different things.
To Lei-mey, she said, “No, not at all.”
“I am curious what else he is capable of,” Lei-mey continued.
“Was this the act of a desperate brother or of a champion of freedom?”
The question took Saracasi by surprise, and she was not sure how to respond. Saved from making an immediate answer by their arrival on the bridge, she made a noncommittal answer and began running her check of the environmental systems. While the diagnosis ran, she considered it.
Maarkean was many things, but a rebel against his government was not one of them. He had resigned himself to being a criminal, but she always knew that if he were caught, he would accept it as justice. Every argument she had made about the evils their government was committing, he had dismissed as either exaggerations or necessities.
The frustrating thing was that, deep down, he did believe in all of the same things that she did. He believed in the value of democracy over autocracy, universal freedoms regardless of species, and despite being a military man, he was not a fan of military actions that weren’t primarily defensive. The problem, as she saw it, was that he had been brainwashed by their planet’s media and traditions.
Dissent against the government’s actions was not unheard of in the media. Even she wouldn’t go so far as to say that the government controlled the media. They were just ingenious at manipulating it. Or rather, those in power were. Democracy was not dead in the Alliance; it was just not well utilized.
Most of the population was content living comfortable lives with stable jobs. They bought into the fantasy that everything was just as wonderful out in the colonies. Trust in government was instilled in everyone from an early age, and few challenged the government’s actions. There were those who did so in the media, but that was little more than theater, in her mind. The opposition was always weak and never asked the important questions.
Those who did raise the questions were always cast either as rebellious youth who didn’t quite understand things yet or as ungrateful aliens who should go back to their own planet if they didn’t like how things were done.
The Alliance was trumpeted as a bastion of freedom, especially compared to every other galactic power, but few people ever looked at it closely. Places like Olan were clear examples that the Alliance did not practice what it preached, but she doubted many people even knew they existed.
Not sure how to answer Lei-mey, Saracasi instead asked, “Why were you in Olan?”
The woman replied, “Pardon?”
“You asked why my brother did what he did to get us all out. I’m just curious as to what kind of woman he broke out of prison.”
“I’m not the terrorist the news channels claim, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Lei-mey answered curtly. “I grew up with a Terran family. They were kind to me; they treated me like family. But outside of them, I was always an outsider, an alien.
“When I grew up and started to raise the issues we face to the public, my family turned away from me. They believed I was betraying their love by saying the government was responsible for all the prejudice I faced. All except my sister, but even she wouldn’t stand up with me.
“Fortunately, there were others who would. It took a long time and some less-than-clean tactics, but we were eventually recognized by the Sulas legislature. When the Kreogh Sector Congress was called, I was one of the delegates selected to represent Sulas. Naturally, the Alliance viewed this as unacceptable, and all of us sent were declared traitors.”
The story amazed Saracasi. Maarkean had never agreed with her political beliefs, but he had never abandoned her because of them, even when they were the reason he had fled his home.
Lei
-mey had lost the support of her family, but she had accomplished more than Saracasi had ever even come close to doing.
Lei-mey gave her a considering look. “Why were you in Olan?”
Saracasi should have known this question would come when she had asked hers. There was no particular reason not to tell the truth.
It was not like Lei-mey would turn her into the AIS. She didn’t like talking about it, though, as it had ruined not only her life but Maarkean’s as well.
“While at university I got involved with some groups. They made me aware that the Alliance government wasn’t as wonderful as I had always thought. We thought we could change things if we could only get people to listen.
“We decided to stage a protest over something idiotic. Some of the other students went a little overboard with their enthusiasm, and the AIS moved in. The protest turned into a riot. There was a lot of property damage, and at some point, a few AIS officers were swarmed and beaten. I wasn’t with that group, and I left as soon as things turned violent.
“The government declared that the leaders were traitors and were to be rounded up and executed. Unfortunately, I was caught rather prominently on a video feed of the initial stages of the riot.
“Plus, I had posted some rather harsh statements on the planetary Net. My name got added to the list of suspects. Before I was arrested, Maarkean got me off of Braz. We’ve been drifting around the sector ever since.”
Lei-mey stood there for a moment. Saracasi wasn’t sure what the other woman was thinking. Ronids were so hard to read. Compared to Lei-mey’s story, hers was rather pathetic.
“Your brother, he supported your cause?”
“Not exactly,” Saracasi answered. “He was an officer in the Alliance Navy. Still was in the Reserves until we left Braz. Let’s just say he saw things a little differently.”
“Then why would he take you away from being arrested? Why would he now break you out of prison?”
Saracasi shrugged. “Who knows why he does what he does? Family is important to him, but he strongly believes in the principles the Alliance is based on, even if he doesn’t see that the Alliance doesn’t always follow those principles.”
“Curious,” Lei-mey answered quietly. “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you get back to work.”
Lei-mey turned and went to speak with some of the others on the bridge. Saracasi wasn’t sure what to make of the other woman’s interest in her and her brother. Natural curiosity, most likely, she decided, and turned her attention back to the environmental computer.
To be fair, it had been a while, but Zeric didn’t think he had ever had sex that good. Ceta had been good before, but never that good. It must be the gratitude for saving her sister. That wasn’t likely to ever be repeated, but he’d remember it for a while.
He had gone down to the makeshift infirmary to look up on Lohcja and Pasha. While down there, Ceta had called him over to the bed of a Ronid. There, he had been floored to learn the Ronid was Ceta’s infamous sister, Lei-mey. He had never met Lei-mey, but the entire time he had assumed her to be Terran like Ceta. He had even pictured her as a blonde.
When Ceta introduced him as the man who had come up with the plan to save her, he had tried to downplay it. The plan had been Maarkean’s, after all. Ceta had not been at any of the planning meetings and had somehow assumed it had all been Zeric. She dismissed everything he said as modesty.
During the conversation he had started to catch on to the signals she was sending him. He usually tried to avoid flings with exes, but she seemed so eager. What had been unsettling was that he was picking up some of the same signals from Lei-mey.
He realized they were indeed sisters, even if different species, when he saw that they flirted the same way. He didn’t know how Lei-mey had come to live with Ceta, but he did know they couldn’t be biologically related, since Terrans and Ronids could not produce offspring. But they had definitely been raised together.
The whole situation had been awkward, and he had felt lucky when Ceta had followed him out of the infirmary.
Afterwards, Zeric had given Ceta his trademark wink and then slipped out while she was still getting dressed. The closet was definitely not the place to cuddle, and he preferred to remember her naked. A glorious sight it was. Some people frowned on stripping, but in his mind, keeping something that beautiful concealed was the bigger tragedy.
Making his way toward the bridge, he passed Lei-mey coming down. Clearly, she’d been released from the infirmary. He smiled at her, and she replied with an absent, “Captain Dustlighter.”
“If you must give me a title, I was a corporal.”
Lei-mey stopped a few steps below him and turned to face him, her expression curious. She had obviously not given what she said a lot of thought, because she seemed to have no idea what he was referring to. It hadn’t been his intent to confuse her. He just hated being thought of as an officer. “I served in the military years ago. Got out as a corporal. Never became an officer.”
“My apologies. I used it merely to signify your status on this vessel,” Lei-mey said guardedly.
“I prefer Zeric.” With a wink like the one he left Ceta, he continued his way up the stairs. If there had been any lingering jealousies about him rushing off to be with her sister, he hoped being his charming self would defuse it.
Once up on the bridge, Zeric noted that the room was unusually loud. The people who were camped out there were talking to each other excitedly. The other former prisoners had been relatively quiet; some were clearly in shock at the sudden change of circumstances, while others thought that not talking would conserve enough oxygen to get them to Irod safely.
Zeric dismissed the chatter and went to the command station at the front of the bridge. This was one area that they had managed to keep free of people, as it contained sensitive controls. He was not normally one to worry, but with a ship so overtaxed, he wanted to check in on the systems periodically.
Bringing up status reports on the command station’s displays, he read the power consumption and air consumption estimates. Neither was good, but both were well within the estimates they had made. He studied some of the data far longer than he normally would have, tuning out his surroundings to avoid distraction. There was very little to do while in hyperspace, but this was the only area, aside from the corridors, where he wasn’t elbow to elbow with other people.
A cough brought his attention back to the world around him. Gu’od and Gamaly had managed to get up right beside him without his noticing.
Smiling, Zeric clapped his friend on the shoulder. “You’re looking better. A good night’s sleep did you good.”
Gu’od smiled in return, but rubbed his shoulder. He was clearly still sore from the treatment he had received. Gamaly was practically clinging to him. Zeric considered telling them about that storage closet he had found, but decided not to. Gu’od could probably use a few more days rest before Gamaly got him alone, and the storage closet wasn’t exactly comfortable.
Gu’od said, his antennae moving as he spoke, “I hate to say it, but I had more free space in the prison. But even with less space, having Gamaly there beside me made it the most comfortable sleep I’ve ever had.”
Zeric wasn’t a fan of their mushy talk, but he smiled politely in response. “We’re en route to Irod, an unofficial colony, though that wasn’t our original destination. Just another few days, and we can be free of this crowd. We’ll have this whole ship to ourselves.”
Frowning, Gamaly gave him a stare. This was the second woman to have given him a dark look in the last few minutes. Unlike with Lei-mey, he had no idea what he had done to deserve this one.
“So we’re just going to dump these people on an undeveloped world and then abandon them, taking their only ship?” Gamaly asked.
Zeric sighed. He hated it when people assumed the worst about him. Especially when they were right. “Of course not. If this colony isn’t there like it’s supposed to be, we’ll go find them some help fir
st. Then we’ll take our ship. I did steal it after all.”
Even as he finished speaking, he knew his tone had been defensive. Gamaly had a way of zeroing in on his worse qualities. She was always right, but that only made it worse.
“Where were we supposed to go originally?” Gu’od asked. He was well versed in his role as mediator between Zeric and his wife.
“Kol. A small mining colony. Maarkean knew of some complex hidden in the desert where everyone could hide out for a while,” Zeric answered. “But from what I’ve read in the survey report, Irod is a much nicer place. Much higher moisture content than Kol, and I doubt the colony is in the middle of a desert, so double that.”
“What about that ship that was helping us?” Gamaly asked. “We didn’t decide where to go until after we’d entered hyperspace. Aren’t they expecting us on Kol?”
That thought had been nagging at the back of Zeric’s mind for a while now. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Maarkean and Lahkaba behind, but they had jumped before he was even aware their hyperdrive was fixed. Plus, Saracasi had been the one to make the decision.
If Maarkean’s sister was willing to leave, then he’d probably be happy she escaped. They had done enough in scattering the fighters and taking some of the hits. The corvette had still been a few minutes away, and if they’d been smart, their hyperdrive would have been ready for them to go as well.
“We can’t even be sure they made it away from Sulas,” Zeric said, trying not to sound defensive. “But, if they did, they would be heading toward Kol. They had no idea we had any trouble, and we couldn’t talk to them. Their communications were down ever since we left the prison.”
“Then we will have to take Saracasi to Kol,” Gamaly said decisively. Zeric cringed. On the surface, it seemed like a simple idea. Assuming there was a colony on Irod, they would be perfectly within their rights to take the freighter and leave them to their own problems. And going to Kol before they headed anywhere else wasn’t unreasonable. But he wasn’t sure what was going to happen with Maarkean when they no longer had a mutual interest. Though, bringing Saracasi to him might keep things civil. “Let’s just get to Irod and hope there are people there that are friendly to us and not the Alliance. We can worry about what happens after that, after that.”
