Home in the Stars Box Set

by Mason, Jolie

  His marm chattered as she dragged him. He went directly to stoke the fire that had been allowed to burn down under the cooking spit. She would want chan tea with cookies for her afternoon snack. They’d always eaten outside. The hut retained the heat of the cooking fire which was good on the rare cold day, but most of the time the hut wasn’t comfortable. Here in the foothills, the nights could grow chilly, though, and then the heat from the day’s fire was welcomed.

  The interior seemed much changed. Marm had new chairs and the floor was clay no longer. Rather, it was tiled in a mosaic of browns and blues. He’d been sending everything he could. It pleased him that she’d used it. There was a basket of knitting things by one chair and the odd book or two.

  “Marm, the house looks beautiful”, he said in Marm-marm’s preferred language. She really hated to speak Standard. She called it the slaver’s tongue, and she was mostly right. It had originated on their worlds with the Imperial slave trade and colonization.

  “Awk”, she squawked at him, then switched to Standard. “You have been too long from home. Your knowledge of the ancient is terrible. You speak like a slaver.”

  He dropped his eyes to the tiles. Likely, he did. He’d been so long among them, and they would beat slaves for speaking the ancient. His marm was old, and that wasn’t something she would ever know. “We all speak standard shipboard. There are so many worlds represented among the crew. It would be impossible to function without a common language.”

  She smiled, “Of course.” Marm puttered over to the big metal tea pot and prepared the tea, then she placed it in the rack over the fire. She moved to the cutting board and began to chop the vegetables she’d set aside for the evening meal.

  “Anessa, where is she? You said in your letter.... “

  “I know what I said, Mila.” She waved him off the subject. She sighed heavily as she chopped. Ra sat down at the rough table he’d made many years ago with his father. “There have been changes. Ness is not here.”

  “Not here? Where is she now?”

  “She is living down on the docks with the l’han she sleeps with.”

  His jaw dropped. He’d never heard his marm curse over anything. Yet, she’d just called a man the human equivalent of a goat’s ass. “She’s left you here alone, Marm-marm.”

  The idea of his sweet, kind sister leaving Marm alone was unthinkable. Again, the old woman waved impatiently at him. “I must not speak of it anymore, Mila.”

  “Yes, Marm-marm”, he answered obediently. Ra stood and walked around the table taking a knife and his own position on the other side of the cutting board. There was plenty of room for them both to prepare the meal. Just as when he was a child, he stood and chopped, while his Marm chatted away about the small community.

  With only the two of them to eat, the food took no time at all. They ate and talked, until he saw clearly that Marm grew tired as the sun went down. Her speech slowed, and her face turned paler.

  He gathered the wooden bowls and utensils. “You go to bed, Marm-marm. I will clean up.”

  Clapping her hands softly, she lumbered to her feet slowly. “Good boy, Mila. The galaxy cannot change you. You are always a good boy. We will talk more tomorrow.”

  He nodded at her, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “Tomorrow”, he agreed.

  Ra washed the few dishes there were, all the while fretting over the changes he saw here; his grandmother’s infirmity and age, his sister’s defection, the violence being reported on the Codex. Perhaps, he should try to get Marm to leave the foothills and the jungle. Perhaps, he should take them both off planet, somewhere settled. They would talk about it tomorrow, he thought finally, putting the last dish in the rack.

  Ra made his way to the small spiraled stair made of fallen branches from the forest floor. It needed reinforced, and he would do that tomorrow. He climbed up to the loft of the house, open on one side to let in cool night air. This loft had always been his sleeping place. He’d liked the breeze on his face. Loved the cool kiss of the small mountain to the west as wind blustered down from the slightly cooler mountain tops. Brin had no tall mountains like could be found on Starfall or Sensor Prime. There were only small ones, and a few volcanoes far away from here.

  He sensed that this trip would take a little longer than he anticipated. Tomorrow, he would get his bag from the ship, arrange the supplies delivery, get the produce loaded for Sensor in the Bell’s cold storage units and pay the docking fee so Luca can dock at the Array to charge. That would give him a couple days on planet to get his family business handled.

  Ra pulled off his uniform jacket and shirt, and kicked off his boots. Lying back in the hammock, he let the breeze brush over his skin and swing him gently side to side, while he stared off at the mountain in the distance.

  His mind drifted back to the days before the slavers took him. He’d been taken at fourteen, barely a man at all. Before that, he’d lived a charmed, rough life. He’d climbed trees, hunted in the jungle, and teased his older sister. They’d gotten him down by the shore. He could still hear the waves beating as a pirate dug his face into the sand with a boot.

  That was a moment that changed him. He fingered the lanai in his hair. He quartered his braids most often because his hair was thick and tinged yellow in the sun. Each braid on either side of his face held his ci’la lanai. The bead he’d selected to remind him of the day of his abduction was a small likeness of Brin. He’d lost his world that day and all the people in it. Below that was a blade, also in silver. He didn’t touch that one now, nor did he ever. It was a moment he tried to forget.

  He had few wooden beads to show joys and victories. He’d carved a likeness of the Carry Bell for his time there. He had a lanai for Aricka Badu, the Bell’s owner and the woman who’d rescued him from slavery and torture. He’d carved out precious few memories for himself in the world. Most of his had been carved into him by circumstances.

  Lying here in the breeze as he had as a boy, he thought could be another moment to carve. He felt different, but the world felt the same. It called to him, made him welcome.

  Tomorrow was a different day, but, tonight, he was home, and it was enough. He finally slept as apes called to each other in the trees.

  *****#*****

  Farms on Brin were up before the light spilled over the jungle. Ra’dan helped feed the stock before changing back into the Carry Bell uniform. He walked the long walk back to Naali, the port city, with his side iron hitting his hip.

  Marm said his sister lived and worked on the docks now, in one of the row houses, that lined the pier. He made his way through the city dodging citizens and hover cars. Closer to the docks, he noticed both the cars and the people started to look worn. He read the numbers on the little gray boxes attached to each door. Each house had two levels, and they were stacked next to each other like children's blocks.

  His sister’s nestled at the end of the row. Limply hanging flowers did their best to decorate the doorway, but, as he looked at the wilting, drying red buds, he thought they summed up the neighborhood nicely. It wasn’t a nice place to live, so what was his sister doing here?

  He pushed the button on the gray box and waited. Nothing happened. He wondered if it even worked, as he looked across the deep green sea at the other side of the harbor. There, craggy cliffs climbed up to meet the jungle. He heard the door hiss behind him and turned.

  “Annessa”, he breathed. She was lovelier than she’d been when he left. Her feline shaped eyes widened in shock at seeing her brother. She wore a kerchief over her tawny hair. “You’re short. I thought you would be taller by now.”

  She squealed indignantly. “Six years and all you say is I’m short?”

  He smiled and opened his arms. She threw herself into them enthusiastically. He returned the hug with fierce affection.

  Finally, he moved a step back, then followed her into the small house. It was nothing like Marm-marm’s cute little cottage. This house was utilitarian, and probably looked exactly the sa
me as every other house on the row. The furniture was all “built-in”. Shelves and cupboards, all recessed into walls lined different areas. Even the chairs were bolted onto the floor in set locations. A small round table of some white polymer material stood in the middle of the kitchenette. His sister had tried to make it homey with flowers and craft pieces and art, but it was more like a cell than a home.

  “You have seen Marm-marm, I assume”, Ness said petulantly.

  “Yes”, he answered.

  “She disapproves.”

  “Yes, that is true. Is that why you stay away?”

  His sister’s dramatic ways had never changed because she scoffed at him loudly. She would begin talking with her hands now and in the old tongue, as she’d always done when angered. “Stay away?”, she shouted. “I’m not welcome there, or did she neglect to tell you that?”

  Ra rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay. Why does she disapprove?”

  “So typical of our backwards society.” She threw her hands into the air. “Females who don’t do as they are told have some patriarchal male sent after them as if they were children.”

  “Nessa! Just tell me, so I can know what’s going on.”

  “I am with Ba’shan. He lives here, so I do.”

  “All right. That is simple enough. I can guess that Marm does not like Ba’shan. He is your bond mate? Then, why does Marmy dislike him so?”

  His sister pulled the short apron she wore up at the corner. Ra narrowed his eyes at her. She was lying or about to lie. That was her usual response when she lied to their parents.

  “Tell me the truth, Ness”, he warned.

  “Truth”, she said softly. “Things have changed here, Ra’dan. Your people suffer.”

  “Our people have always suffered. That isn’t new. What does that have to do with this?”

  “Bay wants to change all that. He wants our people freed. There is a growing resistance in the city, and...”

  Ra’dan sighed. This was so much worse than he’d imagined. “You have joined with him in this cause, and Marm-marm is justifiably frightened.”

  Nessa bowed her head over the table. Her fingers stilled before her. “Perhaps, it is frightening, but no more frightening than living this way for always. We are slaves on our own world, whether we are sold away or not.”

  He sighed again, stretching one leg out before himself. “It isn’t as if I understand, my sister. Do you really believe the Sor have a chance at beating back the Imperials and slavers? They have worlds at their disposal. They have armies. How can your Bay defeat that?”

  “He says we don’t have to defeat them”, she said proudly. “We must only make it too expensive to occupy our world.”

  Ra almost sighed again. It didn’t sound like the man was a total idiot, but could he possibly not understand what he was doing? Could he really be unaware of the consequences?

  “Do you know how many Sorian lives that will cost?”

  “How many do we lose to the slavers, Ra? How many will die if we do nothing?” Nessa gestured angrily at the door. “This is no life! We all wait here to see if we are next.”

  Ra really looked at his sister. Her complexion didn’t shine like it had when she was young. She was a bit thin, a bit pale. Her eyes, however, glittered with a righteous fire. She had given her whole heart to this man and his cause. Ra sighed, which was her choice.

  “I understand, Nessa”, he told her.

  “Do you, Ra? Do you understand?” The anger in her eyes began to find an echo in his. “How long have you been gone? Living amidst Imperials.” She spat the last word. Ra felt his own anger start low in his belly.

  “I didn’t leave on my own, Ness.” He said nothing else, just remained motionless in the chair.

  “Taken and sold by Imperials. Yet, you stayed?” Confusion darkened her bright eyes. His sister truly didn’t understand.

  “Rescued by Imperials, Nessa. Captain Badu saved me from that life.”

  “She was more important as a savior, than your family? Marmy?”

  He clenched a fist beside his leg. “It wasn’t that simple, Ness.”

  She turned darker in an instant. “Yes, it was. Loyalty is always that simple. Ra, you chose her.”

  He stood quickly. “Perhaps, I did, Ness. My years as a slave were not easy ones. I needed a haven. Ari gave me a place to heal. This place...” He looked over at his sister. “This place is where it happened.”

  She deflated, sinking into a chair by the door. “I can imagine”, she whispered.

  “You really can’t”, he whispered back. “I will tell Marmy that she must accept your man or let you go. She needs someone to check on her though, Nessa. She is too old for the work now.”

  “I know that,” she said. “She won’t see me.”

  He shook his head. “I think she is hoping you’ll give in as easily as when you were a girl. She wants you to be safe.”

  Hurt evident in her voice, Nessa replied, “I won’t give up till our people are free or I am dead.”

  He nodded. There really was nothing else to say. His sister was an adult who cared very much for her chosen lover, not a child to be ordered to her room. This man of hers had inspired her to revolution, but she embraced the cause. He couldn’t fault that.

  Ra walked to the door, but he took a moment to look back over his shoulder. “You will be careful?”

  She nodded, her flaxen hair falling forward in straight, silken lines about her face. His sister moved lithely toward him, then hugged him tightly. Her slight frame trembled in his hands. She wasn’t nearly as confident in her bravado as she appeared. He held her for long moments wondering what kind of life she’d lived here. Perhaps, he’d also been thoughtless when it came to his family’s suffering.

  After all, Marmy and Nessa had been here, while he’d remained comfortably healing on the Carry Bell. Guilt snaked its way into his heart. What had they seen? What had happened to them?

  “It will work out somehow, Ness. Marmy will bend.”

  “I hope so”, she said with a sniff in her tone.

  The block door opened then, and a large man stepped through. He wore waterproof clothes, and smelled of ocean water and fish. The man stood eye to eye with Ra'dan. He grunted a type of greeting and stepped in to close the door. His suspicious gaze fell over both of them.

  “Bay,” said his sister. “This is Ra'dan. He's visiting.”

  The man relaxed visibly, probably no longer concerned about being dragged away by Imperial Enforcers. He smiled tiredly and put a hand out. “Ra'dan. I'm glad to finally meet you. How long are you here?”

  Ra'dan took his hand. “I don't know. Marmy commed that I had to come right away, but I've been clearly told to keep my nose out of it.” He tweaked his sister's nose, making her squawk.

  Something in Ba'shan's expression told Ra that he didn't like the rift between Nessa and Marmy and regretted being the cause. At first glance, Ra'dan liked the man. Marm would not be happy to hear that. “I should head out if I'm going to make the purchase I came in to make.”

  Ra pulled away and said his goodbyes to this totally new sister he’d discovered and her mate. She grown into such a different creature over his years away. Ra’dan was a little overwhelmed. He hadn’t been sure for a moment or two how to talk to her.

  Her passion and dedication for her people were completely real. He’d half feared he would find her living with a man who mistreated her and controlled her, but it seemed clear to him she was her own woman in this. He thought about all he’d learned as he walked along the boardwalk bordering the water.

  The needled structures of the spaceport stretched in panoramic majesty at the end of the boardwalk. As far away as they were, the ships taking off and landing made a racket over the whole harbor, punctuated by the soft lap of waves under the wooden walkway. He walked over those boards distractedly toward the port, hands in his pockets. Crowds were thin at the moment, only a handful of school children in one of the parks, and a few old sailors wanderi
ng the dockside businesses.

  Side by side in a soldierly formation, the white and tan buildings led one to another all the way down the dock. Some had windows and some did not. It was one such windowless box that drew his attention as the shouts hit his ears. It was white with a big painted medical symbol on the front in wide red. It wasn’t a professional paint job. The door crashed open and two tattooed mercenary types spilled out shouting. Right on their heels was one of the most beautiful human women Ra'dan had ever seen.

  Her hair looked like gold in sunlight pulled back from her face softly, even though her features were held in a hard expression at the moment. Petite and round, she wore two small pink spots on her cheeks from high emotion, and she held a pulse iron on the men now gesturing wildly at her.

  “Do not come back here, do you hear me? I will end both of you.” Her voice told him she was in deadly earnest as she pointed the iron from one to the other. The two massive men thought about her threat, but Ra saw the moment they decided it was no real threat to them at all. The men advanced on her in unison. Ra'dan moved toward them quickly.

  There were only a few styles of fighting he hadn’t studied in his quest to work off his inner demons, but he generally had a mixed preference in actual fighting because stupid and untrained opponents couldn't guess your moves easily. Here he suspected he had the unique combination of untrained stupidity. He had been inching his way toward the woman since he'd seen the altercation. Now, he hurried between her and the two big criminals. He went for the quick take down, since the opponents were likely to be belligerent about getting beaten and possibly a threat to bystanders. The biggest one went down first to a quick tap of his kidney and lay moaning. The second man would have a headache when he woke up. Keeping an eye on the man still moving on the ground, he asked the woman, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine”, he heard her say softly.