by Hana Starr
Eban’s Command
By Hana Starr
Copyright © 2016 by Hana Starr – All rights reserved.
The author holds exclusive rights to this work. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the publisher.
WARNING: This book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language. It may be considered offensive to some readers. This book is intended for adults 18+ ONLY. Please ensure this book is stored somewhere that cannot be accessed by underage readers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are used in a fictitious manner and not to be construed as real. Similarities to real people, places or events are entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
About the Author
Prologue
Ever since she was a little girl raised by a hippy mother, Saffron has had a love of plants and nature. Because of that upbringing, she became an agricultural scientist and has created a serum that can make plants grow several times their natural rate.
Eban is the captain of the Icari, a species of humanoid, low-gravity dwelling aliens. Their planet was doomed years ago and the survivors have wandered the stars ever since, in search of assistance. When they happen upon earth and hear broadcasts of a brilliant woman who just might be able to help, Eban knows that he has to descend and ask her to come with them.
Life moves in circles, Saffron knows. The time has come for her to move on, and so she accepts Eban’s offer. But, will she really be able to assist such a laidback group of aliens? And what will happen when disaster strikes?
Chapter One
“You’ll be the death of us all,” some wingless fool said. They laughed at him, and his face darkened with rage in the instant before he turned around and stormed away, back to the fields he was tending. And the rest of them? They only gathered their wings tighter around them and admired their feathers, danced with gravity like there was no tomorrow.
Eban remembered that day well. He’d been but a child on that day but it was ingrained in his memory. Fresh out of training with his own new-cast wings hooked over his shoulders, his laughter at the wingless fool with all the others. What an idiot, that man had been. The work would get done when it was done, not a moment sooner or later. And in the meantime, what was another couple hours play?
There was always tomorrow.
Until there wasn’t. That tomorrow never came, because the attack came in the night. None of them were prepared for it, because the night-guards were tired after a day of mindless flight. And the shields were down, because the technicians had taken the day off. And the apprentices were more loyal and determined to prove themselves than their adult counterparts, but the recent lack of food made them drowsy and they never woke again. In fact, the farmers had been abandoning their work for longer and longer breaks in the past month; truthfully, the only ones who were able to eat were those silly men and women who removed their wings and spent all day with that fool. And then, they were worn out from honest work and saw nothing before their deaths.
It was a massacre, just at that foolish man predicted. He neglected his gift for practicality and was shorn down as surely as the rest of them, but at least he had been smarter in the end.
His mind wanted to shy away from the memories as Eban stood there at the helm of his drifting vessel, but there was no pain involved and the action was merely habit leftover from a time when there was a great deal of pain. Now, there was merely want, a desire spurred on by those events. And so he let his mind wander after checking all his sensors for perhaps the fiftieth time that hour to confirm that there was still nothing within reach, no foreign satellites, no civilizations, no ships whether good or bad. The window showed only blank darkness, devoid even of stars or planets –or hope.
The night of the attack on Daeden, their home planet, it wasn’t alarms that woke them –they hadn’t been maintained and were broken. No, it was the screaming. Eban imagined something else had awoken the screamers. A clumsy attacker who failed to kill with the first blow, or perhaps it was someone who had been soundly sleeping but awoke abruptly at the splashing of blood across the tiled floors. Whatever it was, he knew that he himself had only awoken when everyone else started screaming.
He sat up, confused and disoriented, rubbing sleep-crusted drool from the side of his face. What was going on? A party, so late at night? Was there some sort of celebration he’d forgotten about?
Looking around, Eban saw through the darkness that the other male children of his age were also stirring and clamoring out of their cots. Reluctantly, he pushed away his soft blankets and put his feet down on the cold floor. A shiver ran through him as he turned to the boy next to him, who had already pulled on his foot-wrappings and was heading towards the door. “What’s going on?” he asked, confused and tired. He’d been having such a good dream, too. It was about flying. He always dreamed of flight, of physical feats that he wasn’t allowed to do yet because of his age, despite his talent. “Why are people yelling?”
“Dunno,” the other boy muttered, and shoved him away slightly. Eban didn’t get mad. He knew that was how the others liked to do things. They liked to tussle and fight and roughhouse in the air, when all he ever wanted to do was drift, circle, and enjoy himself alone. So, all he did was shrug and figure that he’d find out soon enough. Surely the adults had to realize how loud they were being? They wouldn’t be able to get mad at him and the others for being awake at such an hour when they were the ones making it impossible to sleep.
He fell into line behind the other boy, and they filtered out into the hallway. What he saw was total chaos. These nurseries where all children slept, from baby-age to those lank, scary teens who smoked engine fuel, all connected from various hallways to a communal area where there were playrooms and a cafeteria. The entrance of that led out to the rest of the building where their parents slept. And from there, that was outside.
Over the heads of his brothers, he could see the communal area from here and it stunned him into stillness and silence for a long moment as he observed that aforementioned chaos. Never before had he seen so many of his brothers and sisters in one place all at the time tame, and so evenly mingled. Normally, the boys and girls kept to their o
wn but now they flooded the playroom with its chairs, tables, books and cards, pressing up against each other and they moved and fled. Tall and short, they were all fleeing. Some held the infants, but still more were shoving to save only themselves.
Eban didn’t understand why they were running or where they were going. They weren’t screaming, just utterly silent. Then, someone bumped into him from behind and he whirled around to face the boy, an angry snarl on the tip of his tongue. Then, he saw the other boy’s eyes.
They were wild and white-rimmed, terrified.
Obviously, Eban was holding up traffic but even more than that he appeared to be simply missing something.
He turned back again and started hurrying to catch up to the boys in front of him. He didn’t feel afraid yet, didn’t know what there was to be afraid of. Daeden was a peaceful planet without even an army since there was no need. What was going on?
Then, he saw it. And once he saw it, he had no idea why it had taken him so long to notice.
Smoke. Thick, black, ugly smoke, pouring in from cracks on the roof that hadn’t been there when he went to bed. And as he saw it, the smoke flooded in even more because the roof was shriveling, curling up at the edges like burnt paper. He smelled it now, oily and terribly sweet.
A word of advice from his grandfather flashed through his mind. Poison. Anything so sweet that should not be was probably poison. Every other child either knew that too, or was following those who did.
Eban put his arms out in front of him and ran faster. He was smaller than a lot of the others his age, and slid easily through the crowd by ducking beneath arms and between legs while the others struggled and pressed, forming an immovable blockage around the only exit. But, he saw his opening between someone’s feet and dived through it, and rolled to his feet outside with his mouth pressed into the crook of his arm to keep from breathing in that poison.
It was night, but the sky was lit with an unholy hail of fire and flame from strange contraptions in the sky. There was smoke everywhere, shriveling everything it touched. His fellow Icari ran through the streets, but some of them were bleeding or turning black and falling apart from inhaling that poison. Bodies littered the street. Buildings were ablaze, roofs covered in slick fire that was tinged with strange colors. That was where the poison came from, Eban realized with horror, and started looking for a clear place to be. Something was happening, those weird things dropping from the sky were starting poisonous fires, and it was bad.
This was very bad.
He ran away from the throng of people all crowding together in the middle of town, shouting and screaming and trying to find their families. No, he turned east and bolted from there as fast he could, heading towards the outskirts of the neighborhood. There were only factories and dangerous metal places in this direction, he knew. They were on fire, but not as thoroughly as this part of town.
Maybe that’s on purpose, he thought half-incoherently, lowering his head into the run. They knew people lived here, but not at the factories where they make our wings.
But why? He didn’t know, but when he arrived at the first paddock, he found that the fence had been blasted open and mangled enough to allow a small boy to crawl beneath. He did, and then instinctively pressed himself closer to the ground while crawling. Strange, deep voices started to call, the odd sky contraptions lowering down and releasing dark, bulky shapes.
In hindsight, it was only the instinct to make himself small which allowed him to survive. Those attackers were the reason for the screams. This was the second wave of them, the first of which had started all this.
Eban burrowed deep into the side of the factory, pulling metal scraps around himself to try and block out the world. And he stayed there for three days, huddled in on himself, until one of the attackers finally stumbled upon him.
Blearily, he heard a voice and stirred. It had been a couple hours since he heard anything at all. The sound of other people started hope in his fragile, starving heart, and he sat up. “I’m over here!” he cried out, waving his arms.
Too late, he realized that he hadn’t understood the harsh language, and that the bulky shapes in the distance were too broad to be of his own kind. The attackers ran for him, both of them drawing weapons as they ran.
Suddenly, two shots of blue light thrummed through the air. Eban stared as the attackers stopped and fell, recognizing the energy as being fired from the guns crafted by his people –though he’d never seen one fired before.
A strange hand grabbed his wrist, and wrenched him away. His head snapped around, and he blacked out.
And woke up on this exact ship.
“Sir?” a soft voice said, wrenching him out of his memories.
Eban turned around and saw his first mate. Her eyes were drawn and weary, but she carried herself with practiced rigor. Ever since he rose up to command of this ship, he cracked down upon his people. Their idleness was what cost them their livelihood before. Now, though they were stuck on this ship and in an eternal limbo, he refused to let them fall into such habits again.
He glanced away, caught the time out of the corner of his eye, and nodded. She had just come off of the evening exercise hour, a trying period which sought to maintain upper arm strength. Later in the night, he would complete his own hour. After all, a good leader did not ask his people to do anything that he would not do himself.
“What is it, Karree?” he asked.
Karree came to stand up beside him. He admired her supple shape for a moment, though she’d grown up too close to him for him to consider her anything more than a sister. She looked at him too though, and he saw something shimmer in her eyes that wasn’t quite sisterly. “I was just thinking,” she started, and then stopped.
“What is it?” he encouraged, and then looked around his command room. “There’s no one else here, if you just want to talk.”
She immediately relaxed. “Eban, I just don’t know about any of this. It’s the same old doubts I always have,” she admitted. “I think that we’re going to die out here.”
He reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned in against him. She wore her flight harness, though not the wing attachments. Her back and shoulders were powerful from constant flights, comforting and solid against his body. “Karree, we will. We have to, don’t you know that?”
She sighed, and looked out the dark, empty window. “I know. And trust me, I let no one else but you know my inner doubts.”
I appreciate that, he thought, and squeezed her slightly so she would feel his appreciation. And it was true. Though this capable woman beside him often suffered from extreme fits of sadness and depression, she always kept the population uplifted with simple, encouraging words even if she did not believe them herself.
“Somewhere out there, there has to be a home for us,” he said roughly.
“And then what?” she countered, eyes blazing. From no one else would he have taken that tone of voice but this was different. These feelings needed expression, and so he let her go. “We struggle as it is! We’ve been struggling ever since we got here, you know that. And how many years ago was that and we haven’t gotten any better?”
Another truth. Twenty years he and the surviving few hundred from Daedan had been upon this ship. All they could ever want or need for survival were here. Food stores, jobs, relaxation, water recycling. This ship was a secret project, a last resort crafted by the government which lay in hibernation and nonexistence until the attack. And it was one of those government people who saved him that day. Only because of them had any of them survived, but it was true that their idleness in the past did not serve them well here.
To keep the food stores replenished, the ship was furnished with plots of land and a complete stock of seeds and animal embryos. Unfortunately, the animals did not live long and the plants did not grow beyond seedlings before wilting.
“That isn’t true,” he said. “We’ve learned a bit. Enough to start replacing what we’ve lost.” But, o
nly through trial and error –and mostly error.
Karree just shook her head. “It isn’t enough. You know this.”
Quietly, he reached out and took her hand. Her fingers were small but just as strong as the rest of her. “Please, Karree. At this rate, we will continue to learn. Even if we continue at a negative like this, we will manage to last longer than we would have before. We will do this. We will find a home where we can be accepted. I swore that in my oath when I took command, didn’t I?”
“You did. So would the commander after you, if only we had enough time for that.” All the fight was gone from her, her doubts not quelled but her strength lapsed too much to sustain it any further.
For now, anyway.
Gently, he patted her shoulder and then released her. “It is late. Why don’t you get some extra sleep tonight? No, no,” he shushed her, “it’s something that we all must do at some point or another. I will finish your nightly rounds myself and brief the morning guards.”
“If you’re sure.”
He bid her farewell, knowing that he’d done the right thing. If she wasn’t even going to argue with him, she really did need to rest.
