by Joe Vasicek
“In orbit around Zarmina. Captain Elijah renamed it after seizing control from the pirates. They’re currently being held on the Revenge, until the details are worked out for their resettlement.”
“Resettlement? Who—what happened? The pirates—”
“Easy there. Don’t worry, it’s all over. We won. The pirates have surrendered, and we’ve taken control of the system. Everything is going to be fine.”
Jeremiah felt a slight pinch in his arm and glanced over to see the medical bot injecting him with a light amber serum. It burned like fire, but the pain in his muscles slowly diminished until he felt only a slight ache.
“As I was saying,” Doctor Andreson continued, “you’re in one of the medical bays on Zarmina Station. It was easier to transfer you here, and the facilities are stocked just as well as the Hope of Oriana. Now, if you’ll sit up …”
He put his hand beneath Jeremiah’s back and helped him into a sitting position, turning him so that his legs dangled over the edge of the bed. He was in an off-white room, with a curtain partition on one side and a row of modular cabinets on the other. The light came from a string of bright LEDs in the ceiling. Though he and the doctor were alone, he could hear other people through the partition, walking quickly and talking in hushed tones.
“There,” said Doctor Andreson. “Now, let’s run through some tests. If you’ll—”
“Noemi,” said Jeremiah, his heart skipping a beat. “Where is she?”
“Your wife? She’s back on the Hope of Oriana. The battle put quite a strain on her, but—”
“How is she? Is she alive? Is she well?”
“Yes, yes, she’s doing well. Last I heard, she was put on bed-rest until she recovers.”
Jeremiah sighed in relief, but his hands still shook with nervous energy. “What’s her condition? Who’s taking care of her?”
“Don’t worry. The midwives are attending her. If you’d like, we can ask them how she’s doing right now.”
“Yes—that would be good.”
The doctor raised his wrist and checked his console. To Jeremiah’s dismay, he narrowed his eyes and frowned.
“Oh my,” he said. “It looks like—”
“What? What’s going on?”
“Her condition is still fine, but she appears to have gone into labor.”
Jeremiah leaped to his feet, swooning a little as he steadied himself against the wall. He paused for a moment to gather himself, then dashed through the curtain partition and out toward the main doorway. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, giving him strength and clearing his head, while his patient’s gown flapped against his knees.
“Jeremiah!” shouted Doctor Andreson. “Jeremiah, come back here!”
But nothing in all the Outworlds could have stopped him just then.
* * * * *
The corridor outside was full of people coming and going. Jeremiah stopped to catch his breath and gain his bearings. This wasn’t a part of the station that he’d seen—the walls were white and well-lit, with a long, narrow window running along the ceiling. He didn’t recognize any of the people, but none of them were pirates: either they wore the dark blue jumpsuits of the Hope of Oriana’s crew, or they were dressed in decidedly more civilian clothes. Some of them carried bags or dragged pieces of luggage. A few glanced his way as they passed, but no one stopped him.
After regaining his balance, he took off against the flow of traffic. If most of these people were carrying bags, that meant that they were offloading—which meant that Noemi was in the opposite direction. He knocked shoulders against a number of people, drawing some heated words. Fortunately, the airlock wasn’t far.
The Hope of Oriana was even busier than the station. The control rooms were packed, while the crew practically ran on their errands down the narrow corridors. Those who weren’t working were busy celebrating, as Jeremiah found when he stepped into the mess hall.
“Hey, you!” a young man called out. “Star wanderer! Come, share a drink with us!”
“Not now,” said Jeremiah, hurrying past. “I have to—”
“Haven’t you heard the news? We’re free men! Zarmina is ours!”
“That’s great!” he called out over his shoulder.
A cluster of old women had gathered next to the hatchway at the other end. He shouldered his way around them and dashed through the narrow opening. The door to the medical bay was just a short distance down the corridor. He slammed his hand against the access panel and waited impatiently for it to open.
A high-pitched scream made the hair on his neck stand on end. He recognized the voice at once.
“Noemi!” he shouted, jamming his head through the opening. He no sooner did so than a hand pushed him back outside.
“Stay back!”
Noemi lay on the examining table, her face contorted with pain. Two middle-aged women in white smocks and face masks attended her, while a third one blocked the door. They all stopped to wave him away, as if his presence could only do more harm than good.
“But she’s my wife!”
“There’s nothing you can do—now get out and let us do our work.”
“But—”
“Out! Out!”
He started to protest, but Noemi arched her back and let out another scream, making his knees go weak. As much as he wanted to help her, he saw that there was nothing he could do. The midwife shoved him out into the corridor, and the door hissed shut on his face.
For several moments, he stood there without knowing what to do. Another group of colonists came down the corridor toward the airlock, but he hardly noticed them as they passed. All he could think about was Noemi, lying in pain on the table—everything else seemed cold and distant. He clenched his fists, but his arms and legs felt like water. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he sat down on the floor.
“Ah, Jeremiah!” came a familiar voice. Captain Elijah strode into view, grinning broadly beneath his freshly groomed beard.
“Captain?” said Jeremiah, blinking as he rose to his feet. Through the door, Noemi’s scream turned into a pitiful wail.
“Jeremiah Edeni—it’s good to see you. Doctor Andreson told me you were on the run, so I figured I would find you here.”
“What’s going on?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Quite a lot, quite a lot. When we arrived at Zarmina IV, Noemi hacked into the pirate’s network and took control of all their assets. She locked down both of Captain Helena’s warships and depressurized the front half of the Hope of Oriana, allowing us to seize their weapons and storm the station.”
“But what about the hard-link? Did she come out all right?”
“That’s just it,” said Elijah. “At first, her brain patterns were all across the map. She started to get feverish, and for awhile, we feared we’d lose her. But then, things eased up, and her symptoms disappeared. The doctor said it’s almost as if she found some resource on the network to relieve her.”
Jeremiah nodded. He remembered taking her hand as a bolt of pure energy surged through him. At the time, it had seemed like little more than a delirious dream. But what if she really had come to him? The sound of her voice, speaking to him in Gaian—real, authentic Gaian—
The wailing behind the door turned to sobs. His arms tensed, and he gripped the hem of his gown so tightly that his fingers went numb.
“How is she now? Will she be all right?”
“Probably,” said Elijah. “Though the stress probably put her into labor.”
“When? How long ago did it start?”
“Oh, about an hour ago. To be honest, I’m not quite sure. It’s been a busy upshift for all of us.”
Jeremiah’s cheeks went pale, and Elijah slapped him on the back. “Don’t worry, my boy—I’m sure she’ll be all right.”
How can you be so sure? Through the door, Noemi coughed and moaned.
“In any case, I’d better go. Helena and her men are still in orbit, and I won’t rest safe until all of th
em have been repatriated to the surface.”
“The—the surface?”
“Don’t worry; we’ll put them down as far from our colony as possible. The mountains on the other side of the planet need mining, and I’m sure they’ll be willing to trade with us once things have quieted down. On our terms, of course.”
“Of course.”
Elijah nodded. “Until next time, then.”
He turned and walked off, joining a group of colonists that had gathered at the far end of the corridor. Jeremiah watched him go, then collapsed again to the floor.
“Jeremiah?”
He looked up again and saw Mariya walking toward him, hand in hand with a young, blond-haired man. There was something familiar about him, though he didn’t look like any of the other colonists. Jeremiah stood up to greet them, and Mariya ran over to give him a friendly hug, her smile radiant.
“Jeremiah—you’re alive! When they took you away, I feared the worst. But Doctor Andreson is worried sick about you. Why did you run off?”
Before he could answer, Noemi let out an awful wail. “Oh my God,” said Mariya, covering her mouth with her hands. “Is she—”
“Yes,” said Jeremiah. “She’s—she’s having the baby.”
Her eyes lit up like a pair of novae, and she looked as if she were going to pounce on him. A high-pitched squee escaped her lips, and she began to jump up and down.
“Stars of Earth—you’re going to be a father! This is so exciting!”
“Indeed,” said the young man at her side. “Congratulations, star wanderer.”
He offered his hand and smiled. As Jeremiah took it, things suddenly clicked, and he realized where he’d seen him before.
“Lucca?”
“That’s right,” said Lucca. “We met at Gamma Oriana some few weeks ago. Your talk of Zarmina intrigued me, so I chose to come and see it for myself.”
“Lucca rescued me from the pirates,” said Mariya, putting her hand on his arm. “We didn’t know where you were, otherwise we would have come for you.”
“Wait,” said Jeremiah, frowning. “How did he find you? How did he know we were in trouble?”
Lucca put his hand around Mariya’s waist, pulling her gently close to him as she began to rub his back. “Before I made final jump into system,” he said, “I caught strange transmission broadcast across local space. It was woman who said something about holding your wife in airlock. From this, I could tell that your colony was in trouble.”
“So why didn’t you run away?”
He grinned. “And miss opportunity to be hero? No, I have dealt with pirates before. They aren’t so dangerous if you know how to play their game. I pretended to be envoy from another rival group, and they told me to keep on station until their captain returned.”
“It’s kind of a long story,” said Mariya, giving Jeremiah a guilty look. “Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, but …”
As her voice trailed off, Jeremiah looked at them both and put two and two together. Their eyes told a tale of serendipity that had repeated itself across countless generations of starfarers. A young man leaves his birth world to seek his fortune across the stars, not knowing where he’ll go or when he’ll get there. Light-years away, a young woman bides her time, wondering when she’ll find her man and how she’ll know him when he comes for her. They come together, and like stars forming deep in the heart of a nebula, all the clouds of doubt and uncertainty are blasted away before them.
“Of course,” he said, his lips turning up in a smile. “The best of luck to both of you. After all, a strong family shines brighter than all the stars.” He winked at Mariya, whose cheeks blushed deep red.
At that moment, a high-pitched wail came from behind the door. Jeremiah froze, and his blood turned to ice. It wasn’t Noemi this time—it was the cry of a newborn child.
“Stars of Earth,” he whispered, adrenaline coursing through every vein in his body. Mariya’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped almost to the floor.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Is that—”
But Jeremiah was already rushing through the door.
* * * * *
The medical bay smelled thick with perspiration, only partially masked by the biting scent of chemical cleansers. Noemi lay on the table against the back wall, her head propped up with small cushions. Her cheeks were drained, her skin pale, her face so much a picture of exhaustion that Jeremiah hardly recognized her. One of the midwives dabbed a wet towel against her forehead, but her eyes barely fluttered in response.
“Noemi,” he said, hurrying to her side. “Are you—is she all right?”
“She’ll be fine,” said the midwife. “The worst is over.”
Noemi looked up and gave him a weak smile, as if that was all she could manage. He took her hand and squeezed it ever so gently. She seemed so fragile, like the barest touch could break her.
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me. She’s a woman and an outworlder—she’s stronger than she looks.”
He nodded. That was certainly true.
The cry of a small infant made chills shoot down his neck and spine. One of the other midwives came out of the washing room in the back, cradling the newborn in her arms. Its skin was red, its eyes clenched shut, its tiny arms and legs flailing about at random. Jeremiah’s heart fell through the floor the moment he saw him.
“Is that—is he—”
“Congratulations,” said the second midwife. “You’re the proud father of Zarmina’s first baby boy.”
A boy, Jeremiah thought, the word striking him like lightning. The baby opened its mouth again and let out the most beautiful wail, so loud and strong it seemed it would never end. The midwife placed him on Noemi’s chest, and Jeremiah watched in reverent awe as mother and child began to bond.
A father, he thought to himself. Stars and constellations of Earth—I’m a father!
Noemi held the baby close and glanced up at him again. The smile on her face completely disarmed him—she looked so happy, so satisfied, that he knew that everything they’d been through together had been worth it.
Her smile will warm you in a way the stars never could, his father’s words came back to him. And your feelings for her will fill a void in your heart you never knew was there. The memory brought a lump to his throat—only now did he realize how true that really was.
“He’s—he’s beautiful,” he said, running a finger along the baby’s tiny head.
“What’s his name?” asked the first midwife.
Jeremiah paused for a second, trying to remember. “Isaiah,” he said. “We’ll call him Isaiah.”
“Isha’rah,” Noemi whispered. She rocked the baby gently. “Isha’rah.”
“Would you like to hold him?”
Before he could answer, the midwife reached down and lifted the baby, placing him in Jeremiah’s arms. His knees shook, and his legs went weak. His son looked up at him with those tiny, innocent eyes, and his heart all but melted.
This is your son, he told himself. This is another human life that you’ve helped to bring into existence. He stared in awe at Isaiah’s tiny, delicate features. Now he knew why the Deltans believed that their children were gods and goddesses incarnate, and how they could stare at the unblinking face of infinity and see a reflection of themselves. To him, it seemed as if he had stepped out of space and time, where he could see both his past and his future as clearly as a cloudless planetscape. He stood at a cusp, the end of his old way of life and everything he’d known. Whatever else would come, as he looked into his son’s dark brown eyes, he knew that his life would never be the same.
Is this how my father felt when I was born? He imagined what it must have been like, to settle down at Edenia after so many long and lonely voyages. The Ariadne had once been his father’s after all—and his father’s father’s before that. And one day, when Isaiah grew old enough, the time would come for the boy to take command of the old starship and venture out across the stars on his own.
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The thought made Jeremiah’s throat constrict and brought tears to his eyes. His arms began to shake, and he held his son close as if to never let him go. But one day, of course, he would have to. He knew what it was like to feel the call of the stars—to look up at the sky and feel that they held his destiny. If he hadn’t listened to that call, he never would have met Noemi, never would have started a family with her. Instead, he would have spent his whole life wondering what would have happened, had he listened. So no—as much as the thought pained him, he would not hold onto his son forever. Instead, he would do as his father had—prepare him as best he could to venture into the starry deep and take control of his own destiny.
Noemi reached up and put a hand on his arm, bringing him back to the present. “Jerem-ahra sad?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m not sad.”
“Scared?”
He took a deep breath. “Are you?”
She nodded, then laughed. “Scared happy.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling. Little Isaiah gurgled in his arms, and he knew that the real adventure was only just beginning.
Author’s Note
One of the questions writers get asked the most is ‘where do you come up with your ideas?’ Honestly, that’s probably the hardest question to answer. Orson Scott Card said that everyone runs across at least a thousand story ideas each day, and a good writer will see maybe three. To that, I would add that it might take years before you realize that you’ve seen them.
The idea that eventually grew into Star Wanderers probably came to me the first time I saw Serenity. At the beginning of the movie, there’s this long continuous shot that shows the space ship from the hangar bay doors to the cockpit. I don’t even remember what the characters were talking about, I was just mesmerized by that shot. For weeks, I dreamed about having my own starship like the Serenity, where I could escape the stresses of college and lead an adventurous life out among the stars. I still daydream about it to this day. Having my own starship and piloting it to places where I can be free and independent is one of my greatest recurring fantasies.
