“Zantorian is doing the same thing as Vradiman,” Morvan blazed on, unperturbed. “And now we’re receiving reports that he’s pressuring the few independent lords to join the Regnum, too. Soon, he’ll have over a thousand systems under his rule. Over a thousand.”
“You sound a bit jealous,” Tahn said.
Riahn snickered before cutting himself off and clearing his throat.
Morvan eyed the Minister of Justice in deep offense. “What a childish thing to say. I don’t slander you when we disagree.”
“It wasn’t an insult,” Tahn said. “It was an observation. It sounds as if you’d like Carina to be just as aggressive and chauvinist as the Regnum.”
Morvan huffed and sat back, waving his hand. “I’m sorry. I won’t listen to this. And I doubt the people will either. They’re smart enough to know we shouldn’t stick our heads in the sand when attacked.”
“Enough!” Falco exclaimed, pounding his fist on his desk. He gave them a moment to let the tension subside. “Ulrich, do you have any concrete intelligence to suggest that Zantorian would target Earth?”
“Concrete?” Morvan said. “No. But the logic is there. He knows Earth is valuable to us. He knows billions make their pilgrimage there. To have it under his rule would be an indomitable trump card against us. In this situation, the one who controls Earth controls the galaxy.”
“What do you suggest, then?” Tahn asked. “Annex Earth? Declare war on the Terran Confederacy as well as the Regnum?”
“Lexar’s right,” Falco said. “Earth is an Orionite planet. We have no justification whatsoever to seize it.”
“I’m not talking about annexation,” Morvan said. “I’m talking about making it safe from Sagittarian annexation. We could work something out with the Confed, I’m sure. Establish it as a protectorate, perhaps.”
Falco shifted in his seat. “So the Confed is just going to give up their independence for free?”
“If given the choice between annexation by Sagittarius or partial autonomy under Carina, which do you think they’ll choose?”
Tahn shook his head. “It’s a false dichotomy. The Heathen King has given no indication he’s interested in Earth.”
“Would you prefer to wait until the Sagittarian armada has blockaded the Sacred Planet to act?”
Falco inhaled a long, thoughtful breath and turned to Riahn. “What do you think of this? I’m assuming you had a part to play in forming this coalition.”
Riahn shrugged. “Well, yes. An intermediary role, yes. The people are divided on what our response should be, but I believe they will unite behind a resolution of just cause for war on the condition that an investigation confirms the Sagittarians perpetrated the attack. This would give the Minister of Arms the wartime powers necessary to deploy the Space Force outside of Carinian space but would also give the Minister of Justice enough time for an investigation.”
Tahn shook his head. “That’s an overreaction. If we behave as if we are going to war, we make war inevitable.”
“The people want us to do something, Elan,” Morvan said, then softened his voice and locked eyes with the prime minister. “Sierra . . . truly was a national treasure. You feel her loss most of all, but the people hurt, too. They want us to react. They want us to defend Carina’s honor. Sierra’s honor.”
“Mister Falco,” Riahn said. “All we ask is that you approve whatever decision the Upper House comes to when the vote is taken.”
“That’s a broad request,” Falco replied.
“The coalition is already formed,” Riahn said. “And I’ve already told you the decision they will reach.”
Falco sighed, closed his eyes, and massaged the loose skin of his eyelids with a finger and thumb. Suddenly, he looked haggard and broken. Sleep-deprived, probably. And heartsick. Riahn almost felt sorry for the man, except that Elan had chosen to take up the mantle of prime minister. Every Falco prime minister had chosen it. In a way, he was born into it. No man in the Falco dynasty had ever turned down a nomination for succession. And of course, father kept nominating son on and on for generations. They’d hardly had to suffer for their nepotism. Until now. A grotesque thought, Riahn admitted to himself, but a truthful one. He wouldn’t wish such loss upon anyone, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t acknowledge just deserts.
Falco looked up and nodded. “I’ll think about it. You’re dismissed. Thank you, gentlemen.”
The Father
Chapter Fourteen
Elan found her in the most obvious place, the first room he should have looked but didn’t think to search. Sierra’s old bedroom. The sight broke him.
Darkened, lit sparsely by a few small lamps in corners, casting long shadows past Izowood coffee tables and plush, purple chairs. Wispy curtains hung at an angle by bedposts, veiling Sierra’s featherbed in lifeless gloom. Ivory blended with silver in her shimmering chandelier, hanging above the virgin white couches that formed a sitting area at the foot of her bed. A dim figure sat at her old vanity table, still as a statue. Still as Lot’s wife after looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah.
Elan stepped across Sierra’s velvety carpet and sat on a couch close to the vanity table. He let out a sigh and sank into the soft cushions. His wife stared off at nothing, eyes glazed and distant. The faint light revealed salty tracks streaking down her cheeks, the residue of a full day’s mourning. If Elan weren’t in his position, his face would be equally salted. But then, if he weren’t in his position, Sierra would have still been alive.
The two of them sat in silence for a long time. Maybe ten minutes, maybe half an hour. Elan wasn’t sure. His mind drifted in and out of the present, pulled back constantly to Sierra’s youth, her angelic face and playful demeanor. Hers was the image of a carefree childhood, unstained by the trials and troubles of the galaxy. How her girlish behavior annoyed him—interrupting meetings to present him with flowers she and the gardener had picked, redecorating her room with all this purple, starting a chapter of the Galactic Peace Coalition at university. Silly girl with her silly idealism.
His heart ached like a hollow cave on the verge of collapse. All the love he had refrained from showing her filled his chest. It burned to escape but couldn’t. All the attention he had given his sons, tending to their education and upbringing—how little he had spared for Sierra. Now he’d lost his chance. Elan forced his mind to quiet, pushed the thoughts away. Exhaustion gripped him from the thirty-some hours he’d gone since awakening to the news.
Rebecca’s eyes fluttered as she drew a quick breath. “Promise me,” she said in a quiet, firm voice. “You’ll make this right.”
Elan pondered, staying slumped on the couch. He felt his blood pulse sluggishly through his veins. “How can I make right what is irreparably wrong?”
“By avenging our daughter’s death,” she said through clenched teeth, trembling as new tears formed in her eyes, still staring off at nothing. “Promise me.”
“Rebecca, I’m going to do everything—”
“Promise me,” she whispered.
“You have my word, Beck. Whoever did this will pay dearly.”
Her eyes closed tight. Tears seeped through. “Make them hurt like I hurt.” Her chin wavered a moment as she struggled for control of herself. She didn’t win.
Rebecca stood in her loose black dress and collapsed onto the couch, letting her head fall against Elan’s chest. She sobbed into him as he stroked her hair. No words of comfort came. He didn’t think them possible considering the enormity of guilt pressing down on him.
“I loved her,” Elan said, grappling to understand his own desperate thoughts. “I hope she knew that.”
His heart crumpled like paper. His throat constricted. The long-delayed moment came. Floodgates opened. A hot sting built in his eyes as he wept, his whole body shaking in the grip of abject failure. Of utter, irreversible loss.
Elan cradled Rebecca’s head as they mourned their daughter together.
The Prima Filia and the Scavenger
/> Chapter Fifteen
Orion Arm, approaching the star Aldebaran . . .
Sierra drifted weightlessly from wall to wall in a closet-sized observation room, the dome-shaped window at the far end showing blurred lines of light whip by—stars passing their bubble of warped space. She had always found it mystifying and frightening to hurtle through the galaxy faster than light, a feat beyond her modest brain’s ability to comprehend.
No wonder most people had abandoned belief in God. What use were gods when humans had godlike power? Like the ability to bend space itself. To fly into a portal and pop out another one a dozen lightyears away in a few hours.
She’d spent the past hour or so in silence, praying for each of her crew by name, wincing with guilt at the faces she couldn’t put a name to. In death, they deserved to at least be prayed for by name. It was all Sierra could do to honor their sacrifice, if it could be called that. They had worked on a yacht, not a warship. They never imagined they’d be caught up in the brutality of war, a war that hadn’t even started yet. Or maybe it had.
A sunken feeling lodged in her chest. Sierra hugged herself, trying to will it away. Even in her own clothes, even relatively safe, she felt so alone, and so very far from home.
“Pretty wild, huh?” the pilot’s voice came from behind her.
Sierra maneuvered herself around in the weightless space to find a woman in her late twenties wedged in the entrance. Strands of sandy blond hair wafted in wisps out of her backwards baseball cap. A long T-shirt draped almost to her knobby knees, leaving only the edges of her sport shorts exposed. Rather casual attire for a pilot.
“Warp space,” she clarified.
“It is,” Sierra replied in a quiet voice, unable to summon much more.
“Still trips me up sometimes,” the pilot said. “Massive balls of burning gas, flying by like fireflies in the night.”
“That’s very poetic.”
The pilot tilted her head with a surprised smile. “Thank you. About time somebody noticed.”
Sierra tried to laugh. Couldn’t. It came out as a weak breath.
The pilot extended her hand. “Sydney Strange,” she said. “You can call me Syd. Or Strange. Or Sydney. I’m pretty flexible.”
“Sierra,” she said with another breathy laugh.
“Oh, I didn’t mean flexible, like, physically. Although I’m pretty flexible that way, too. But I get kinda stiff, cooped up in this tin can for weeks on end.” Sierra’s eyes drifted back toward the dome window. “You don’t care,” Sydney said. “It’s just, you know, we don’t have people like you on the Fossa all that often—or ever.”
“Where are you taking me?” Sierra asked, not in the mood for a lighthearted chat.
“To . . . Carina,” Sydney replied. “I mean, to the good Carinians.”
“The angle we went through the spacebend gate didn’t seem right—if we’re going to Baha’runa.”
“Yeah, we’re doubling back,” Sydney explained. “Going into Orion space to make sure we aren’t followed. Then we’ll go back into Carina, when we’re sure it’s safe.”
“Have you contacted the Carinian government yet?”
“Uh, no.” Sydney reached behind her head to the bill of her hat. “Cap was gonna ask you, but since you brought it up . . . we were hoping you would help us with that.”
Sierra turned her head. “Me?”
* * *
Private quarters on the Fossa were admittedly tight, which made overnight guests a bit awkward when they docked at orbital ports.
Davin had installed extra insulation into the thin walls of his room for that very reason. Then, one night, after Strange brought back a feisty babe in neon clothes from a rave, he decided to install extra insulation in each room. Now they were like recording rooms in music studios—soundproof. Or pretty close to it.
That knowledge made Davin pause as he reached Jabron’s door and heard muffled grunting from inside. Grunting? They were in a warp bubble, hurtling through space faster than light. Davin didn’t remember Bron bringing a girl onboard at their last stop. He had nobody to get it on with, unless . . .
Sierra?
Davin threw open the door and thrust himself inside Jabron’s tiny quarters. On one side, an unmade bed was lodged between a thin wardrobe and storage closet, both stretching floor to ceiling. On the other side, Jabron’s desk screen showed a muscular black man in a tight, spindly tank top. Jabron’s virtual trainer flicked his perpetually angry eyes at Davin. Jabron, sweaty in his sleeveless shirt, paused from pulling the bar attached by a line to a machine on the floor.
Davin sighed in relief, then grinned. Weightlessness wouldn’t prevent Bron from his workout routine.
“Who’s this scrawny-ass fool?” the AI trainer asked, jabbing his finger at Davin.
Jabron bounced his chin at the desk screen. “Hold up a sec. I’ll take my break early.” He released the bar and let himself float above the floor.
“Did I say you could take a break?” the trainer shouted. “Getcha hands back on that bar! You got another set!”
“I said hold up!” Jabron said to the screen. “I’m talking to somebody.”
The trainer’s face lit up. “Sounds like an excuse to me! Excuses don’t build muscle! You know what does? Hard-ass work!”
Jabron pushed himself to the desk, flicked off the screen, and shook his head.
“That’s about the point when AIs are too human for me,” Davin said.
“Whatcha need, boss?” Jabron asked flatly.
Davin drew in a long breath. “Uh, just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
Jabron huffed. “How I’m doing?” He shook his head again. “Boss, you didn’t go with my advice. That’s cool. Don’t always get my way. I can handle it.”
“Alright, good. But you should know I was this close to putting her in a suit and dumping her out the airlock.” Davin held up a finger and thumb, almost pinching.
“Whatever you say, boss.”
“You don’t believe me?”
Jabron wiped his face with a small towel. “You wouldn’t have done it.”
“Why not?”
“‘Cause you wanna get down with this chick.”
Davin rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. You think I’m that shallow? That I’d risk our lives so I can bed some pretty girl?”
“Remember that time you snuck the concubine outta the Trifids?” Jabron asked. “If we’d got caught, we’d all be in a Sagittarian prison right now, probably gettin’ our wanks chewed off by piranhas.”
Davin grunted. “Alright, there was that one time, but this isn’t like that. This girl’s not just a pretty face.” He paused and realized how sappy that sounded. “She could score us a shit ton of money.”
“I’d rather be a poor-ass scavenger than a rich-ass dead guy.” Jabron shrugged. “Don’t matter anymore.”
Davin gave his main man a friendly slap on his sweat-slick arm. “We’ll be rich-ass scavengers soon enough. I promise.”
With that, Davin wiped his hand on his pants and pulled himself out. The door shut behind him, and the muffled voice of the angry trainer resumed.
* * *
Out the windshield, the stars now stood still in a stable arrangement. A thick streak of light arced across the canvas of space, representing the unimaginable depth of the Milky Way. The sight made Sierra feel even farther from home. From her family. From familiar people and places. From the politicos who, at this moment, must have been scrambling to react. But what would they do? Sierra feared the sway the Dominionists might have with the people, especially those on the border planets. Those who thought they’d be the next victims of the Sagittarian heathens. That made this video message all the more urgent.
She hovered in the entrance to the tight cockpit as Davin and Sydney prepared the dashboard screen to record. Her blouse and linen slacks would be recognizable to anyone who knew her, a confirmation of the video’s authenticity.
Davin flipped himself around to face Sier
ra. “You ready, Princess?”
Sierra’s eyelids fluttered as she let out a sigh. Lydia, her tutor and mentor from her teenage years, appeared in the darkness of her closed eyes, exuding calmness and composure. How immensely patient she had been with Sierra.
“I have a name, Davin. It’s Sierra. I imagine you prefer it when people call you by your name instead of a slur like ‘pirate?’”
Sydney glanced over with a smirk.
Davin cocked an eyebrow. “Touché. Alright then, Sierra, in a minute Strange’ll have the relay ready. The message will be encrypted and sent through the nexus points to the ‘Runa spacebend gate. Should take about five hours total.”
Sierra drifted forward and positioned herself in front of the dashboard cam.
“But remember,” Davin said. “You’re not a prisoner here. We found you and rescued you, and we didn’t dump you to the bad guys. Rodge?”
Sierra nodded. She didn’t want to risk antagonizing the people who were her only hope of getting home.
Davin pulled himself to the side out of camera view, and Sydney pressed a few more buttons before pausing.
“And . . .” Sydney looked over her shoulder at Sierra and nodded. “Go.”
A red light flashed on by the camera. Sierra swallowed and stared at the small, black lens. Just the facts, she thought. The facts are enough.
“This is Sierra Loren Falco,” she said, keeping her voice steady. She sounded silly speaking so formally, but she needed to communicate the gravity of the situation. “The daughter of Elan Falco. About eighteen hours ago, on the outer edge of the Owl Nebula, my ship suffered several hits from large projectiles. My crew put me into an inflatable preserve bag, but no one besides me survived.”
She paused, feeling her throat tighten with the impulse of emotion. The image of floating bodies lingered fresh in her mind. Sierra swallowed and kept going.
“Only a few ships were in the surrounding area. Three of them were Carinian military frigates, and they did not identify themselves. The other was an Orionite scavenger ship.”
Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series Page 7
