by Dale Musser
“Why can’t Nano-biotics be used to treat his synthetic nerve rejection?” Kala asked.
“Because it’s a chemical problem that Nano-biotics can’t manage or resolve,” replied A’Lappe.
“Tib, how long do you think you can keep hiding this from Admiral Regeny and others?” Kala asked as she turned to face me.
“As long as I possibly can,” I said. “I’m hoping you and Marranalis will be able to help me keep this secret. It’s important.”
I knew that Kala’s reaction to the remedy would be a lot more dramatic than her reaction to the disease – and I was right. As the medication was infused and I began to react to the searing pain that coursed through my veins, I could feel Kala’s grip tighten around my hand. I fought to maintain control over the pain, thinking more about the trauma that Kala was experiencing than the actual pain itself. I struggled to open my eyes, getting only brief glances at her face, which remained distorted with silently tearful shock, concern and empathy. I heard her ask A’Lappe at one point, “Is he like this every time he has a treatment?”
“Yes, I’m sorry to say he is, Kalana. I wish there was some way to prevent the pain or at least minimize it, but I’ve not found one so far.”
Kala periodically wiped the sweat from my forehead. At some point the experience became too harrowing for her to endure silently and she began to sob.
“How long has he been struggling through these treatments without me?” she asked.
“Once a week for about eight years now,” replied A’Lappe.
“How is it possible that he’s been able to hide it this long – this hell he’s been going through?!” Kala exclaimed through her tears.
“You must be prepared to see him suffer like this for several hours, Kalana, after which he must withstand a long period of persistent and severe nausea and illness. The benefit is that Tibby is able to maintain peak mental and physical performance for several days before there is any measurable decline, as I’m sure he has explained to you. Even when he begins to feel compromised again, it's not usually enough to really be noticeable to most people. But given your close daily interaction, I’m surprised that you didn’t catch on earlier that something was amiss with him,” said A’Lappe.
“There were times when I found his moments of mental lapse peculiar; but then he would suddenly have a few days when he would be extraordinarily strong and quick-witted, and then another few days when he would seem to be his normal self. So I just assumed it was just some strange quirk related to exhaustion or his erratic eating habits of late. But you’re right; I never suspected anything like this.”
“I think that’s what he was hoping for – that no one would really become suspicious, because none of the phases of his condition or treatment last long enough for anyone to catch on to the pattern.”
By the time the treatment was completed, I was soaked in perspiration. Kala helped me through the tunnels back to our suite. I wanted to go to the unoccupied crew quarters that I had been using to shower and change before returning, but Kala insisted it was silly to do so, now that she knew my secret. I protested that I was afraid the twins would see me and I didn’t want them to know. Kala assured me she would distract both Lunnie and Reide until I was fully recovered. Fortunately, the treatments were timed to take place late in the evenings, so I could count on the twins being asleep when I got back.
“I see why you take so many showers after your treatments,” Kala said as she helped me to undress. “You really do reek of the chemical smell, now that I know what it is.”
“It’s worse right now because you’re with me right after the treatment,” I said. “In the past, I drank lots of water and showered before coming home. Even so, the odor will always take 12 to 16 hours to go away.”
“Well I think I can put up with it,” said Kala. “It’s not obnoxious, just distracting.
“Tibby, I need to tell you, you look terrible right now. You’re so pale and you’re shaking,” she said with concern as she looked at my face and pushed my hair back with her hand. “Here, let me help you into bed.”
I faintly remember my body slowly descending onto the bed as darkness enveloped me.
The next morning, I woke up feeling better – and hungry. I quickly showered again to remove the chemical sweat and then headed to the dining area, where Lunnie and Reide were having a discussion about our impending visit to Alamar-4.
“Dad,” Lunnie exclaimed, “Reide says all the women on Alamar-4 were forced to walk around naked and they were all sex slaves. Is that true?”
I looked at Reide, who sat opposite Lunnie, trying to conceal one of his mischievous grins. I gave him a scowl.
“Yes and no, Lunnie. Yes, a lot of women were held as sex slaves, but the climate on Alamar-4 most of the year is too cool for people to go without clothing. The Brotherhood may be cruel, but their slaves were no good to them if they froze to death. So no, they didn’t make people go naked in the cold.”
“But the sex slaves on Goo’Waddle were naked, weren’t they Dad?” Reide asked as he tried to vindicate himself.
“Well, yes, most of them were. But the climate on Goo’Waddle is a lot warmer than that of Alamar-4.”
“Dad, is it true that Jenira was a child sex slave on Goo’Waddle?” Lunnie asked in a serious tone.
“Where did you hear that?” I asked, just as Kala entered from the kitchen.
“Jenira told us that when we asked her why she hated the Brotherhood so much and why she was so protective of children. Is it true?”
“Yes, it’s true,” answered Kala before I could say anything. “Jenira doesn’t ever want anyone to experience what she did on Goo’Waddle. That’s why she became the warrior she is today and why she wants both you and Reide to be well-trained in self-defense. It’s her life’s mission to prevent honest, innocent people from being forced to do things against their will.”
“She doesn’t want anyone forced to do things against their will, but she forces us to exercise and drill when we don’t want to. That doesn’t make sense,” Reide quipped.
“I hardly think that’s the same thing Reide, and you know it,” I said. Reide looked back at me with a sheepish grin.
“It was worth a try,” he added.
“Is it true that Shydak threw Jenira’s brother off a building and killed him?” Lunnie asked.
“It wasn’t off a building; it was off a high walkway platform inside an abandoned building. But yes it was Shydak who did this and Tanden died from the fall,” I said.
“That’s when the android saved Jenira’s life, isn’t it?” Reide asked with his mouth full of food.
“Yes,” I said. “It sounds like Jenira told you a lot about what happened at Goo’Waddle.”
“Tib, you seem to be feeling pretty good this morning,” said Kala, breaking the topic of conversation. She appraised me head to toe as she asked, “Would you like anything special to eat this morning?”
“Yes, I’m starving. How about one of those rolled up things with the ground meat and grated cheese,” I said.
Kala laughed. “You mean a Palan Roll?”
“Ah… yeah, if that’s what it’s called. Better make it two. I’m really hungry. Oh and some foccee.”
“Dad, is it true that you and mom were slaves on Goo’Waddle?” Reide picked up where he had left off.
“We pretended to be slaves,” I answered. “Kerabac pretended to be our master. Captain Marranalis, as well as Padaran, also pretended to be slaves. It was our cover identification while we were on the planet searching for stolen solbidyum,” I added.
“Wow, dad, how come you and mom never told us about this?”
“I don’t know. I guess we thought you were too young to understand it and then we just sort of forgot about it when you got older.”
“Dad, Jenira says you’re the greatest hero that ever lived,” Reide said.
“Well, Jenira is wrong. I’m not a hero, I just happened to be very lucky at the right times. Jenira
is far more of a hero than I am. What I have done has been more or less by accident. What Jenira has done she has deliberately set out to do.”
Kala returned with a plate of food and a cup of foccee as I finished my explanation.
“I hope you two aren’t expecting to see anything like that tomorrow on Alamar-4,” she said to Reide and Lunnie. “I think you’ll find it’s a lot different situation than Goo’Waddle.”
After breakfast, I took the twins with me and we convened with the senators and troopers at the Cantolla Gate Hub aboard the MAXETTE. Once everyone was properly attired in body armor to protect us in the event of an encounter with an errant sniper somewhere along our route, we were led by a squad of troopers through the gate to our guides waiting at Alamar-4. All total, there were thirty senators, approximately twenty reporters, my two kids and two squads of armed trooper bodyguards, one of which was already on the planet. The conditions were bleaker than even I had anticipated – and it wasn’t made any better by the weather. The first site we visited was overcast, cold and damp. The buildings and streets were in disrepair. Windows were broken out of shops and other buildings. Some spaces were boarded up, some burned out and gutted. Potholes peppered the streets and roadways. A temporary field hospital had been set up to treat citizens for all sorts of ailments – from wounds received during the siege to malnutrition and disease. It was possible to distinguish the sex slaves from the rest of the population, because their captors tended to look after and feed them a bit better. But they, too, were deeply damaged, staring blankly into the distance, moving or eating only when told, seeming to simply go through the motions of living until they were killed or cast off to starve. Walking among the remainder of the population was even more terrifying. I wondered at how they could even still be alive, as I tried not to visibly react to their frail, gaunt, skeleton-like frames and tattered clothing.
The senators were allowed to interview many of the locals. They were shocked and appalled to hear men, women and even children recount the years that they endured long hours of forced physical labor just to receive one poor meal a day. They heard how the Brotherhood members had lorded over them, how their homes and possessions were taken away and how they struggled to find shelter for their families anywhere they could. Food supplies in the towns quickly vanished. Farms were taken over and anyone wishing to eat had to perform hard labor or other services or starve. Brotherhood troopers molested and raped any woman they wished, and if a husband, brother or friend tried to intervene, they were beaten at best or simply killed outright. In the end, their late and feeble attempts to protect their own made no difference. The enemy troopers had their way.
If there were any senators or reporters who thought the first site was selected for dramatic effect because it was the most devastated, they learned that they were sorely mistaken when we advanced to the second site on the list. This city was every bit as bad as the first, as far as the decimation of buildings and streets, but here we stepped out of the transports and into a foul stench that choked the air, making it almost unbearable to breathe. Power sources still functioned in small sections of the city where buildings were maintained as residences and entertainment establishments for the Brotherhood troopers. Brothels lined these streets, interrupted only occasionally by cafés and clubs that catered to the Brotherhood troops.
One of the senators requested that the tour include an inspection of the interior of a brothel. With some trepidation, the rest of the group agreed, so the guards guided us through one of the nearby buildings that appeared to be a typical representation of the brothels in the area. Within seconds of walking inside, everyone in the group was traumatized. Room after room was fitted with torture devices and walls were covered with pictures showing female victims being sexually tortured. I was most immediately concerned with my children, and I turned my attention to them. Reide stood stone still, wide-eyed and pale, before he broke into a sweat and ran out of the building and into the streets where he threw up. Lunnie, too, stood stone still. But unlike her brother, her face hardened into a cold-steeled expression that reminded me all too much of Jenira and her resolve to see an end to this kind of horror.
Reide wasn’t the only one to get ill after viewing the brothel. Several senators joined him at the curb.
“Dad,” Lunnie began, as she made her way to my side when we turned around to leave, “Was it like this on Goo’Waddle? I mean with Jenira and… well… you know?”
“I don’t think it was quite this bad, but I don’t know for sure. Jenira never talks about it and your mother and I never ask her about it. I can tell you, though, that whatever was done to her back then is the reason why she can never have any children of her own.”
Lunnie’s eyes flooded with tears at this revelation. Her lips quivered as she gasped for air, “I… I didn’t know that. I didn’t know any of that. Is that why she won’t bond with Padaran?”
“I don’t know, dear. That may be part of it, but I think there’s more to it than that,” I answered as gently as I could. At this point we were approaching Reide a short way down the street.
“How are you doing there son? Are you feeling better now?”
Reide leaned back against the wall of one of the burned out buildings, which to Reide probably seemed like the least vile place in the city. He rolled his eyes upward to look at the sky. “Dad, how can people do stuff like that?”
“I don’t know, but now you know why I fight the Brotherhood the way I do. If we don’t fight them, every planet in the Federation will be like this in a few years.”
“Admiral,” I heard behind me. It was one of the senators. “Would it be possible to visit a location across town? My sister and her family lived there. I have the address. I have no idea what happened to them or even whether they’re still alive.”
“I think we can arrange that,” I answered. I called over the commander of the trooper guards that accompanied us and said, “Commander Stiggnon, this senator has an address he would like to visit on the other side of town. Please take us there next, if it’s possible.”
“Yes, sir. I will need a few minutes to dispatch a few air transport units,” explained the commander after the senator gave him the address. “Several bridges are down between here and there and many of the streets are still blocked by debris. I should have the transports available in about ten minutes.”
While we waited, a man suddenly came running out of one of the derelict buildings. He was covered in filth and shabbily dressed in clothing that appeared to be several sizes too big for his frame. He ran directly toward me and, as the guards moved to stop him, he halted and stood in the street, shouting at me with tears streaming down his face.
“Where have you been?! What took you so long?! Why didn’t you come sooner?! We were suffering and dying here, waiting and waiting for you to come to our aid – and no one came! No one! My wife and children are dead because of you! Why didn’t you come?! Why?! Look at this!” he said waving his arms about. “This was once one of the finest cities in the Federation. And what is it now? All gone, nothing but ruins. Where were you?! Why did you let this happen?!”
He dropped to his knees in front of me, sobbing with the little bit of strength he had left. I noticed the news vid crews were recording the entire event. I turned to the senators, who stood nearby with astounded looks on their faces.
“Does any one of you senators care to explain to him why we didn’t come to help them sooner?” I asked, knowing full well the news crews were focusing in on me, on the faces of the senators, and on this broken and desperate man. In one way, I felt dirty and cheap for using the situation in such a dramatic way to make my point. Yet, at the same time I felt relieved that the citizens of the Federation would finally see the horrid truth so the realities of this war would begin to sink in.
Several medics moved in and raised the man to his feet. They were about to take him away for treatment when I stopped them. “What’s your name?” I asked the man.
“Leema
rac,” he answered.
“Leemarac, I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner. The war against the Brotherhood is widespread and the military resources are spread terribly thin as we simply try to keep them at bay in direct battle. Please know that we didn’t forget you. I didn’t forget you. We just couldn’t get here quickly enough.”
Leemarac stared at me a minute. I could see the rage that he harbored for me, as the personification of Federation strength, melt from his face as he trembled through his tears. He then collapsed into my arms, crying, “My family is all gone. They are all dead now. I’m all alone. Why am I alive? Why did I have to live?”
The transports were landing in the street as the medics led Leemarac away. I knew he would get proper medical care and the food, clothing and shelter that would help his body mend. I also knew he would suffer mentally and emotionally, probably for the rest of his life. I could only hope that some of this man’s tragedy would sink into the minds and hearts of the senators and reporters and ultimately to the so-far unaffected citizens when they witnessed the event by way of vid news.
On the way across town to locate the house of the senator’s sister I noticed that both Lunnie and Reide sat rather quietly, clearly mulling over what they had seen. Reide was the first to speak.
“Dad, maybe it would have been better if you had just blown the planet up and killed everyone here,” Reide said with anger.
“You think I should have killed millions of innocent people along with the Brotherhood?” I asked.
“Yes. Letting these people suffer like they have… and now, even though they’ve been rescued… being alive now is only making them suffer longer. They will always be suffering, long after we’re gone, no matter what we do to help at this point. Even when their homes and towns are fixed up again, they will still suffer inside. How will they ever really recover? They would all be better off dead!”
