“You’ve given me a lot to think about. Serina… Grand Admiral, how do you see this arrangement working?” he asked. Wren started to speak, but he cut her off. “I’d like to hear this from her, if you don’t mind.”
“I… we need help. This has been going on far too long.” Serina’s hand went to her face, and Wren saw the tired woman nearing fifty before her. “We can’t keep bleeding year after year, never getting ahead, never able to manufacture enough ships to gain the upper hand. If we had Caliban, maybe, but even then… we’re running out of supplies, Shadow. We’re running out of capable officers, and pilots, and food. We need to pivot to change the outcome. That’s where you come in. We work together, you and I, and see this through. We stop this ongoing incursion in the coming months, or we die trying. There can’t be a middle ground any longer. There just can’t be,” she said.
Shadow fell silent, leaning back in his chair. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Serina.” His hand went to his hood, and he pulled it back, revealing a head of blond hair. He had sharp blue eyes, and when he pulled the scarf off his face, Serina gasped. His forehead had a scar above his left eyebrow, just like her brother Beck had had from falling as a toddler. And those eyes… they were his.
“How?” She was crying, and Wren was left clueless to what was transpiring.
“It’s a long story,” Shadow said, grinning at the Grand Admiral.
“But you died. You and Dad died!” Serina shouted. The two of them stepped to one another, and Serina beat her fists against the man’s chest.
“I didn’t die, sister.”
Ace
Charles opened the door after Ace knocked, granting him permission to enter the laboratory. He’d only been inside once or twice, and beheld everything with awe. This was where Wren had created the deadly virus. That thought brought his gaze to the cage where Larspen now sat inside, the same cage where their previous captive had died.
“Good afternoon, Ace. I’m glad you could make it,” Charles said, closing the door behind him.
“Anything for you and Wren. You know that. Are you sure… you know… that we should be doing this?” Ace asked. He was all for finding Flint, but he also didn’t want to get in trouble with Serina any more than possible.
“Captain Barkley is on board, and she wants to leave it to us, since we have formed a bond with Larspen,” Charles said quietly. Ace assumed Larspen couldn’t hear them speaking from the other side of the room.
“Good. I sure hope Wren comes back with an army,” Ace said, curious to see what kind of fleet this Shadow group had accumulated. He’d been there thirty years ago when they’d assaulted the Fleet, and at the time, had been glad for the distraction. He might not have escaped with the Watcher and Charles otherwise.
“I hope for the same thing,” Charles said as he crossed the room to where the female enemy sat behind the glass and the blue energy field. “Hello, Larspen. We were hoping to discuss something with you,” Charles said in English.
Larspen met Ace’s eyes before fixing her stare on the android. “We can talk,” she said.
Ace took over. “Good. Has everything been okay? I mean, are we feeding you well enough and stuff?”
She nodded. “The food has been adequate, and I’ve been able to sleep well.”
“Perfect.” Ace had to ease her into comfort, but she was doing a good job already. “What’s your planet like? Are the skies big and blue? Big beautiful bodies of water?”
Larspen took the bait. “Aalamar is pleasant. Far more pleasant than the other worlds we’ve taken.” She paused, as if considering her own comment. “Perhaps Quazel Three is a little more scenic overall. But Aalamar has better weather.”
“What’s Aalamar like?” Ace asked, as if he were interested in heading there for a vacation instead of fishing for details. He was sitting down beside Charles, facing the cell.
She looked at the ground wistfully. “It’s home. We lived in the mountains and could see the seas stretching toward the stars. There wasn’t a moment growing up when I couldn’t hear the lapping water splashing against the cliff’s rocky face below. Our twin moons would rise from the horizon each night, reflecting until there were four of them.”
“Did you have a family?” Ace asked. He was working from the script they’d created the night before, but asking about family still stung him inside.
“Yes, I had a family. We aren’t so different, you and I. We’re born to two parents, though our males aren’t obligated to stay to help rear the child. My Donsel did. He was a good and righteous Faithful,” she said. Ace still hadn’t heard her call them anything but the translated word, and he didn’t know who or what Ober was. He was supposed to find that out, but not before the most important details were dealt with.
“When did you end up leaving?” he asked softly.
“My boy wasn’t old enough to join the warriors yet when we left Aalamar. As my people traversed the stars, things got worse at home. The world was losing too many of us to wars and expansion, and I had no choice but to get hired onto a colony vessel, heading far away. I had to leave Danslin, my son, behind. We were bringing necessary supplies to keep our ways alive on a desolate world. You seem to be familiar with this world, if Wren has spoken honestly with me.”
“The world across the Rift,” Ace said.
“The same. It took over a year, even with the Jumpers to arrive,” she said. Jumpers? Ace thought she must be referring to the Shift drives, using a slang word from her culture.
“That’s a long time,” Charles said.
“The colony ships are intricate; the drives take time to renew. We arrived there years ago, then came through two Rift cycles ago. I wanted to stay on the planet, but I wasn’t given a choice. Here I am,” she said. “I didn’t want to be part of this war. I only wanted to provide for my son and family. I realize there’s no chance I can see them again, or that I’ll get out of this cage alive, but I want to believe I’ll see little Danslin somehow, if he hasn’t been sent to his death on a warship yet.” Larspen leaned back.
“We can make you a promise. I don’t know how long you live to be, but if you help us win this war, we’ll get you home when it’s over,” Ace said. “Or at least, when the Rift reopens, you’ll be able to go through.”
“You would give me a ship?” Larspen asked slowly.
A thought occurred to Ace. “Do they know how to find us without the use of the Rift?” he asked. “Can you get here the long way?”
Charles’ eyes brightened as he asked, giving away his interest.
“I don’t think so. They don’t have the ability to determine where you are in relativity to their maps. They might be able to, once they compare the information, but no Faithful ship has left this system for years, unless they recently did so while I was on the red planet’s surface,” Larspen said.
“They were preoccupied when it opened,” Ace said. “You’ll have to wait thirty years, but we can promise you a safe trip home when it is open again. I know it’s asking a lot, but we need your help.”
“What you’re asking is a lot. While I don’t condone the violence of my people, you’re requesting I disobey Ober directly.”
“I don’t think you truly believe in your own god,” Ace said, hoping it struck a chord.
“I suppose I don’t, not in the same way my people do. I believe him to be a construct of the Faithful, used to justify their actions,” Larspen said with conviction.
“So you’ll help us?” Ace asked.
She closed her eyes, as if ashamed of her answer. “I’ll help you.”
Ace’s heart fluttered in his chest, and he took a deep breath. Flint. They needed to know where Flint was. “Tell us about the camps at Titan and Europa. Are there any humans there?”
She nodded. “That’s how we were able to learn so much about your kind.”
“And if we lost a friend, but thought he might still be alive, where would he be?” Charles asked.
“Europa,” Larspen said w
ithout hesitation. “He’d be on Europa.”
14
Flint
Flint couldn’t believe that after all this time, he was in one of the Earth Fleet brig cells on Europa. It had been about sixteen years since he’d last seen this same row of confined cubbies, often used to keep drunk and disorderly Fleet members from causing a ruckus.
One of his closest friends in the Fleet had drunk about five too many shots of Mars whiskey and came back to the base reeking like he’d been on a week-long bender. He’d pinged Flint to come get him, but when Flint arrived, the guy was passed out on the long bench that straddled the stale cell. He’d left him there to sleep it off.
As Flint lay on one of the benches, he stared at the dirty ceiling, recalling how his friend had died that very same year. He was doing a standard trip to Pluto when his sensors malfunctioned, bringing him in direct contact with an asteroid. That had been a bad year in Flint’s career.
How long were they going to keep him in here without talking to him? It had been two days already, and they weren’t bringing him food. He did get a murky bowl of water each day, and apparently, that was all he could expect. Still, he was alone with his own thoughts, no longer needing to be concerned about a room full of people who didn’t care if they lived or died. Now he could just worry about his own welfare again. That was what he was best at.
Eventually, the silence began to fester around him, clouding his ears until he could hear nothing but his own pulse. It was unnerving, being so alone. His thoughts drifted to Wren: the confident way she walked and spoke; the way she took charge of situations. He liked everything about the woman. He especially remembered kissing her with a fondness he hadn’t experienced before. She was great, and as he lay in the cell hearing nothing but his own heartbeat, he knew that was going to be one of his biggest regrets.
Maybe in another life, they could have explored what they might have had, but in this one, he was destined to be killed at the hands of the enemy. Maybe they’d write a story about him one day.
He spoke out loud, whispering in a telecaster’s voice. “Flint Lancaster. Parents killed by terrorists sent by the same Earth Fleet he later worked for. The crass pilot had skills, but when push came to shove, authority would never beat the man fated to fight the biggest threat mankind had ever seen. When the Fleet came calling again, the situation was dire, but he was a big enough man to look past their wrongdoing, because Earth needed him. They all needed him.”
He sat up, grinning at his own stupid story. They didn’t need him any longer. He was going to die. He’d never see Ace grow into the man he was heading for, or be with Wren to watch the Earth’s sun set and once again stare at the calming ocean.
“Flint Lancaster. Maybe he needed them.” His head turned at the sound of a tumbler and pin lock clicking open. Footsteps approached the cell, and he strained to see who was coming down the almost pitch-black corridor. A muscular Watcher neared the cell, holding a gun up, and it took Flint a second to see there was a second figure behind him. She stepped to the side and opened the cell. Flint considered attacking, seeing if he could steal the weapon away from the eight-foot beast, but he hadn’t eaten in days, and his head swam at the very thought.
“Lancaster, follow me,” the female Watcher said in English.
Flint couldn’t believe his ears. “Excuse me? How do you know my name? And since when can you talk in my language?”
“I’ll be asking the questions today, Lancaster. Follow me. It’s not a request.” The woman was almost seven feet tall, thin, and wearing a white robe, not armor like the other Watchers Flint had seen before. This wasn’t a warrior. But she might be in charge, and that meant there was a chance he could barter his way out of here.
Flint suddenly felt self-conscious in his sweat-stained t-shirt and ratty pants. His bare feet slapped against the smooth floor as he followed the woman away from the cell, fully aware there was a Watcher pointing a large gun at him the whole time.
Serina
The room was emptied out. Even Shadow’s guards were asked to leave and wait in the hall. Benson and Wren had argued they wanted to stay, Wren giving Serina an expression on the way out that said “don’t mess this up.” But things had changed. Serina’s little brother Beck was alive, and somehow, he was the mysterious Shadow.
“I don’t understand,” she said, wrapping her arms around the stranger with her brother’s unmistakable eyes.
“I didn’t know until this year,” he said, as if that answered all her possible queries.
“What do you mean, you didn’t know? Didn’t know what?” Serina prodded, unable to let him go.
“I just found out who I am. I swear I didn’t know,” he said tenderly.
Serina’s head was reeling. “You went missing when I was thirteen.”
“And I was only five, right?” he asked, genuine curiosity in his eyes.
She nodded. “You were my little Beck. Always following me around, annoying me to no end, and I loved you to death. You and Dad were coming home to see us when you disappeared. The vessel was never heard from or seen again. Mom went ballistic, using far too many Fleet assets to search for you, until a year later when Jish told her to stand down. She said that you were both dead, and there was nothing to be done about it. Clearly that woman was wrong. Maybe Mom could have found you if she’d kept looking.”
“I don’t think so. From what I know, I was heading back with our father, and our vessel was boarded. There were a few families on the commercial transport ship, and the adults put up a fight and were systematically killed. The kids were… taken.” Beck sat down, and Serina joined him, their knees touching. Normally, she would have pulled away from contact with a stranger, but with him, it didn’t seem weird or pressure-filled. It was just being.
“And you don’t remember that?” she asked.
“No. I was so little, Serina. As I got older, I recalled some things, like Mom’s voice, and you… I always remembered you, but I didn’t know why. They kept us at a facility in the middle of nowhere, a station where we could go to school and train to be whatever they chose for us,” Beck said.
“They sent you to school?” Serina asked, surprised by the revelation.
“I showed great aptitude, so they gave extra attention to me. I was also one of the youngest they reared there, and that meant I had fewer barriers. I took it all in, their methodology and ideals. I was malleable, and Shadow saw that. By the time I was twelve, I was on supply runs with the older ones.” His eyes went distant.
“Where you killed people and took their possessions?” she asked.
“Sometimes. We didn’t always kill. But when they fought back, we did,” Beck admitted.
Serina didn’t blame him for anything. She herself had done a lot of things she wasn’t proud of during the last thirty years. She was no saint and certainly wasn’t in a position to judge others’ actions.
“Where did you think you came from? Who did you think your parents were?” Serina asked him, imagining her little baby brother being whisked away to a terrorist station at such a young age.
“I didn’t know. There were fifty other kids like me, so we were all in the same boat. A lot of those kids didn’t make it to twenty years old. Missions gone wrong, malfunctions on our old crappy ships, things like that. My closest friends went on runs and never came back. It hardens you quickly when you’re a teenager, and makes you even more brooding than you’d normally be.” He smiled at that, and Serina thought she caught a glimpse of his former self, the mischievous five-year-old always getting in trouble.
“How did you go from that to… well… this?” She pointed at his hood and scarf, which no longer surrounded his face.
“I worked hard. I bought in to what Shadow was selling and proved my worth,” he said.
“And just what was she selling?”
Beck rested a hand on her uniform, his eyes lingering on the Earth Fleet insignia. “They were selling a future without Earth Fleet. One where people could
have free will. Where the old cities could be reborn and have a chance at life. A future with colonies that thrived instead of dying. Where there was other industry besides manufacturing ships for an invasion that wasn’t coming… until it did.”
“Did she change her tune then?” Serina asked, a little shaken by the accusations toward the Earth Fleet, not that any of them were inaccurate. The Fleet had built itself up on the oppression of the everyday person, and he was right to think that was wrong. Unfortunately, Serina wasn’t in a position to make changes to the system. She’d been preoccupied for the last thirty years, trying to keep as many humans alive as possible so they could deal with that other stuff later.
“No. She blamed you.” Beck crossed his arms. “Well, not you specifically. She mostly blamed Jish Karn.”
Serina blamed her predecessor for a lot of things in the early years too, but after filling her boots for so many years, she now understood the woman perfectly. Hell, she’d basically become the woman.
“You were ten when the invasion occurred,” Serina said.
Beck nodded. “I was there. At the secret Fleet headquarters,” he whispered, referring to the attack Shadow had played on the Fleet at Benson’s behest. Benson claimed he’d only intended a distraction for the Eureka to go through unimpeded. Serina didn’t buy it. The man always had ulterior motives.
“I was there too. Imagine if we’d known we were both there at the same time. I would have found you, Beck. I would have protected you,” Serina said, feeling foolish. It was obvious the man didn’t need her. She needed him.
Beck’s gaze softened, and he grinned. “I went on for years not knowing the truth. We went into hiding after those first couple years. Things were too hot out there, and Shadow lived up to her name once again, tucking us away far from the conflict. She said we’d get stronger while both sides got weaker. If humans won, the Fleet would be in disarray, and we’d swoop in to save the day, forming a new government. She had big plans.”
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