by Isaac Hooke
Will studied her. “You have no interest in his claim on you? Considering he’s the leader of the free world…”
“He has no ‘claim’ on me,” Rhea said. “If I was seated at his table, as the mayor described, it would have been as a guest.”
Will frowned. “If that’s true, why do you sound so doubtful? I think what the mayor said about Khrusos keeping Ganymede prisoners for personal entertainment is more in line with reality.”
“Perhaps one day I will seek the truth of this Khrusos,” she said. “For now, I only want to go home.”
Will shook his head. “Why do you insist on this? There’s nothing there. Forget Ganymede.”
“It’s where I’m from,” she said. “It calls to me. Maybe when I arrive, more memories will return.”
“Is that why you’re going?” he said. “Because you want to trigger some memories? Hire a therapist instead, or a hypnotist: you’ll save a ton of credits.”
When she didn’t answer, Will sighed. “All right. You’re adamant on leaving. Fine. So how are you planning on getting there?”
“Renaldo has arranged a ride for me,” Rhea said.
Will smirked. “Has he now?”
“Yes,” she explained. “He put out a call on my SubverseTube channel, and my followers reached out to friends and family across the world. We found someone within a few hours: a generous space trader who saw my exploits on VidTube before I was banned has agreed to let me hitch a ride aboard his transport at no cost. He’s headed to the Europan colony of Centaar on Ganymede.”
“I’m coming with you, of course,” Will said.
“You’ve done enough for me,” she told him. “You don’t need to come to Ganymede.”
“I don’t need to, no,” he said. “I want to. So, tell me, will this trader of yours make room for Horatio and me, or do we have to hire our own transport?”
Rhea smiled, feeling suddenly teary eyed. “He’ll make room. Oh, Will.” She gave him a fierce hug. “You’re too good to me.”
Will patted her on the back. His voice seemed hoarse, as if he was holding back strong emotions himself. “Someone’s got to watch your naive back up there, Dude.”
He pulled away and averted his gaze.
Rhea smiled. “You’re a good man.”
He nodded. After a moment, he recovered enough to look her in the eyes: “So. When do we leave?”
“Soon,” she replied. “But first, there’s something I have to do.”
Rhea perched on a beanbag near the entrance of the rebuilt lean-to where Chuck’s parents lived. Horatio sat cross-legged on the floor to her left, Will her right. Chuck’s parents resided across from her, on a repurposed coffee table that had been made into a couch of sorts.
“I know you received a message already about your son,” Rhea told them. “But I just wanted to come here in person to tell you how much his sacrifice meant to me, and to Rust Town. He was instrumental in restoring the water to this city. Without him, I would have died in the Outlands, killed by an assassin. But Chuck gave his life for me, distracting the assassin long enough for the rest of us to shoot him down.”
“What happened to this assassin?” the mother asked.
“Have you heard of an X2-59?” Rhea said.
The mother nodded.
“That’s what happened to the assassin,” Rhea finished.
There was no reaction from either of the parents to those words.
“I’m so sorry,” Rhea continued. “For sending you a missive. I was too afraid to visit you in person. Too afraid to face you, and your accusing eyes. But this is my punishment for failing him.”
“You didn’t fail him,” the father said. “You restored our city’s water. I heard the announcement from the mayor earlier, but everyone knows you’re the one who changed his mind. I don’t know what you said to the mayor but obviously you can be quite convincing. We’ll always be grateful for what you’ve done, not just for getting our water back, or for bringing us together before and after the bioweapon attack, but for allowing Chuck into your inner circle. Whenever he spoke of you, it was with the awe of someone who was so very thankful to be a part of something bigger than himself. You’ll always be welcome in our home. Chuck would have been very proud of what you’ve done for our city.”
Rhea smiled, her vision blurring with tears. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
She stayed a half hour longer, listening as his parents regaled her with stories about Chuck as a child and young man, and at last hugged both of them and left.
“That was really hard,” she told Will when the lean-to was well behind them.
“It always is,” Will replied.
“It’s a suitable punishment, though,” Rhea said. “A reminder of why I can’t ever let something like this happen again.”
Horatio wrapped his polycarbonate fingers around hers. “Sometimes, I’m very glad I’m not human.”
She smiled at the robot.
The three of them reached the walls of Aradne. A crowd of Wardenites and other fans had gathered at the gates to see her off. She interspersed among them, shaking hands, posing for selfies. And then, finally, she was passing through the gates. The sentry robots allowed her, Horatio and Will to enter without issue, just as the mayor had promised.
The paved streets beyond were relatively empty. Though she did find a few Aradne fans gathered outside the launch terminal, and when she arrived, she paused for a final few selfies.
Inside the terminal, a space shuttle awaited, its nose pointed skyward. It was aerodynamic, and somewhat airplane-like, with a pair of wings curving outward from the rear portion of the fuselage. It was attached to a large, cylindrical booster rocket that would fall away once the vehicle attained orbit.
Other passengers queued to board the vessel, and robots loaded crates into the hold: the latter held goods that would be conveyed to the various space stations and other vessels waiting in orbit, which the shuttle would visit in turn. The transport that Rhea and her companions would be joining was last on that list.
Their weapons had been conveyed to the craft ahead of time by security forces and had already been loaded into the designated storage compartments. Rhea checked the manifest when she arrived and confirmed her X2-59 was aboard.
While she waited in line, she received a call from Renaldo, Miles and Brinks.
“So, this is it, huh?” Renaldo’s hologram said. “I can’t say I won’t miss you.”
“We all will,” Miles agreed.
“I’m sure you’ll all be fine without me,” Rhea reassured them.
“It’s been an honor, Warden,” Renaldo said. “I hope to fight by your side again someday.”
“I think my fighting days are behind me,” she said, not really believing it.
“Well, either way, we all knew you’d leave someday,” Renaldo said. “When you had solved all of our problems, we expected you’d move on, to help solve the problems of other cities and peoples. Like the true hero you are. We didn’t dare think we could keep you all to ourselves.”
She smiled. “Well, I’m not sure I’m actually going to continue solving the problems of other people. I’ve got my own to work on. I’d like to think I’m retired, to be honest.”
“Oh, the Warden can never retire,” Renaldo said. “Even we know that.”
“Maybe,” Rhea said. “I guess we’ll see.”
“Enjoy your ‘vacation,’” Renaldo said.
Because of the way he emphasized “vacation,” she wondered if Miles and Brinks had told him the real reason she was going to Ganymede. She decided that most likely, they had not. They were loyal to her, those two.
The trio loaded into the vessel, donned the prerequisite spacesuits, and sat with the other passengers in the designated section. Their seats were all oriented vertically, so that they sat with their backs to the ground while waiting for launch.
When the shuttle reached orbit, and the trio finally loaded into their transport,
after that it would be a few weeks to Ganymede.
She wasn’t particularly looking forward to the flight. She thought of an old proverb that went something along the lines of: “It’s the journey that counts, not the destination.” Well, in this case the reverse was entirely true.
She couldn’t wait to get to Ganymede.
She couldn’t wait to go home.
The shuttle that carried Rhea and her companions departed on time. It entered orbit, and moved among the space stations and waiting vessels, distributing its cargo of passengers and goods.
Nearby, a diamond-shaped craft kept close tabs on that shuttle. The craft was small, only capable of holding a single passenger. Designed for maximum stealth, it was equipped with specially designed fins that vented all heat in a single direction: the occupant kept those fins pointing out into deep space, masking his position from most in orbit.
After a few hours, the shuttle transferred Rhea to her waiting transport, and then the latter vessel left orbit.
The stealth craft gave the transport a good head start, and then pursued.
Soon, very soon, the occupant would be introducing himself.
Or rather, his sophisticated weaponry would.
BOOK 3: Rhea, Will and Horatio return to fight another day in Warden 3, available on Amazon at https://readerlinks.com/l/1054296
Or discover how Will and Horatio first met in the prequel novella, Salvage, available for free here: https://bookhip.com/WBMXLC
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Isaac Hooke holds a degree in engineering physics, though his more unusual inventions remain fictive at this time. He is an avid hiker, cyclist, and photographer who sometimes resides in Edmonton, Alberta.
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Copyright © 2020 by Isaac Hooke
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