“James is going to be on the Chimaera?”
It wasn’t Elias who asked, but Alice.
“Yes, he’s hitching a ride with us to Earth.” Lauren cocked her head, the blonde’s interest in Captain Hunter piquing her curiosity. “Do you want me to pass along your well-wishes?”
“Please do,” Elias said, beaming – though there was something underneath his smile that made Lauren uncomfortable. The look Alice gave her, too, wasn’t readily identifiable, and before Lauren could ponder the situation any further the rear ramp of the Sanctuary shuttle whirred open. “Well, safe travels, Captain Carmichael.”
*
It was a sudden jolt that ended Troy’s slumber.
“Wake up, you!”
Troy was never easily roused though, even in an emergency. His arms had been covering his face, so with a slight movement he managed to peak through his fingers to the end of his bed.
“Come back later,” he said to his reflection, which was standing – arms folded– at the end of the bed, watching him intently, a scowl creasing his forehead. “Shop’s shut for the day.”
“Not anymore,” his doppelganger said, and the room was promptly flooded with light as the blinds retracted and the ceiling lights flared to life. “Get up.” There was a clapping sound, akin to thunder on the roof of a tin shed. “Up, up, up!”
Troy groaned as he rolled onto his back, instructing his virtual-array to turn the lights off. The light intensity almost halved immediately. He opened his eyes.
“James?”
“Who else has the code to your front door?”
Troy instinctively called for his virtual-array to compile a list – short though it would have been – and then realised the question was rhetorical. Blinking back against the light, he instructed his virtual-array to filter his vision, making it darker, and then ordered his kitchen to prepare his morning coffee.
“What are you doing here?” Troy asked as he threw his sheets off, not concerned at all about his lack of clothing. “Actually, when did you get in?” Last Troy had heard, James was still on board the Chimaera, sectors away.
“The fastest way for me to get home is to hitch a ride aboard the Endurance, which is in the middle of a return journey to Elysium from Sanctuary.” James threw Troy a used tank top. “Then I’ll catch a ride on the Farragut… but it’s still a day away, so I thought I’d come and annoy you for a bit. My shuttle landed an hour ago.”
“You should have called,” Troy said, slipping into the top and standing up. James was, surprisingly, not in military attire, having donned instead near-formal civilian attire (all in black, naturally), with a long overcoat completing the look of an age-old member of the mob. “I would have picked you up.”
James shrugged. “I didn’t mind walking.” The London spaceport was only a few kilometres away from the apartment Troy maintained in the ancient city; he’d only had it a few years, but Troy was finding that it was becoming his permanent residence more than his loft on Bastion. “It’s good to have dirt under my boots again… in fact, it’s good to feel normal again.”
“Still unimpressed with artificial gravity?” Troy asked mildly, to which James shuddered. “I suppose it can only compensate so much,” Troy offered in consolation.
Even before he’d finished talking, his eyes flashed to his hands, making sure they were clean and not soaked in blood – his first experience with military-grade artificial gravity had been aboard that fateful journey to Titus IV aboard the Eisenhower, and even after all these years, he still had nightmares about it – just last week, he’d woken up from a dream about that place that was every bit as horrifying as the real thing.
Snap out of it, you maudlin fool.
“You have no idea,” said James vexingly, returning Troy to reality. “What are you doing on Earth anyway? There was once a time you wouldn’t come within a parsec of this place.”
Troy had no idea what a parsec was, but otherwise the statement was true. Whereas their father had been born and raised on Earth – New York City, specifically – Patrick had made his home on Bastion since before his first marriage. All of his children had been born and reared on that world, and, at the turn of the century, their business empire had seen their headquarters moved there.
For many people, including Troy and much of his family, Earth wasn’t regarded with the greatest of affinities… save for the fact that it was the birthplace of their species. For Troy, home was Bastion; Earth was merely the homeworld.
“Earth is the capital of the Commonwealth, James,” Troy reminded him, though he doubted James had forgotten. “If you’re to become President of the Commonwealth, you have to start your campaign here.”
Troy watched as his brother digested that little nugget. As if on cue, after nearly two seconds, James’ right eye was twitching, and his lips were thinning as he contemplated the newfound ramifications.
“He’s finally doing it, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Troy nodded. “We’re actually going to announce dad’s running tomorrow. It’ll be good if you could be there.”
James scowled, blanching. “Not bloody likely,” he said gruffly. “I have no intention of being in the public spotlight. And I absolutely have no intention of being a poster-boy for the old man, or being used as an object of hero-worship to woo voters.”
Troy promptly shut his mouth, which had been opened to offer a series of retorts. The truth was, Troy had hoped on gaining at least peripheral support from James for their father’s campaign, but, after that spray, that clearly wasn’t going to be received well.
“I wouldn’t dream of using you that way, James.”
James studied him through narrowed eyes as Troy wandered past him and out of the bedroom.
“Yes, I’m sure,” James said slowly, falling into step like a hawk stalking a mouse. “Did you hear about the break-in at Elijah’s lab?”
“I did, yes,” Troy admitted, frowning. “I had to put up with forty minutes of Elijah venting to me last night… but I was drunk, and didn’t understand half of what he said… but then, I don’t really understand him when he’s sober.” James snorted, and Troy continued. “Have they worked out how they got into the labs? Or what they took? What the hell has Elijah been working on that’s worth stealing?”
“No to the first, yes to the second,” James answered.
“… And what did they steal?” Troy asked, when James offered no further information.
James shook his head, his hand moving to adjust his fringe. “I can’t go into specifics, I’m just grateful that they didn’t get what they were obviously after.”
“… And what would that be?”
“Our Plan C.”
Troy stared blankly at James for several seconds, exasperated. He hated things being kept from him, but he knew getting secrets out of James was next-to-impossible… especially if he’d been ordered not to divulge information. Which is probably the case.
“What the hell did you do with your hair, anyway?” Troy asked, desperate to change topics to something less inflammatory. James hair had been subjected to a crew cut, short, with no wave to it at all. It was so short, in fact, that it appeared to be several shades lighter than it was naturally, and gave James a more mature, aged look. “It looks like crap.”
“You’ve seen me with this cut before,” James opined. “It’s regulation. And now that I’m out, I can grow it back.” As Troy stood at the bench, reaching in to pull a steaming mug of black coffee out of the espresso machine, he felt a hand run through his unruly mess of hair. “Long enough for you?” James asked.
“Barely,” Troy said, taking a sip and blanching. As usual, the coffee was too hot – Troy had programmed his specifications into the blending machine on several occasions, but the damn thing seemed intent on defying its human master. “So,” Troy said, putting the mug down and heaving himself up onto the bench to face James, “You’re back for good?”
“I’m a civilian as of October,” James confirmed
, who reached over and, without asking, snagged Troy’s mug. “Full pension and everything.” He took a swig, swallowing and staring at the cup as if it had sprouted horns.
Not that you need a pension. Troy paused as he did the math. “That’s over six months from now, James.”
James shrugged, putting the cup back without commenting on it. “I managed to pull a few strings and get all the leave I’m owed in one hit. Barring an emergency, of course, my tour of duty is essentially over.”
“I suppose it’s been a while since you had any leave,” Troy said nonchalantly, thinking back to when he had last seen James (which was also the last time he’d had had any personal leave). “Let’s hope there’s no emergencies. How long are you on Earth for?”
“I have to report to the Farragut in a little over twelve hours,” James smiled. “So I couldn’t help you with your little announcement tomorrow, even if I wanted to.” He sobered, a sadness coming to his eyes. “How’s Jen?”
“Fine, as far as I know,” Troy admitted, a pang of sympathy for James stabbing into his heart. The last time James had seen his family had been a couple of years earlier, in 2438, when Troy had bought Jennifer and the girls all the way to Nagel III (as close to the warzone as was legally allowed). “So are the girls, as far as I know. I saw them all just before I came to Earth...”
James nodded, running a hand over his butchered hair. “Well, I may have been gone far longer than I had anticipated, but I’ll be walking in my front door soon enough.”
Troy smiled. “Welcome home, James.”
*
“How long have these protests been going on?”
James and Troy had gone to turn down Oxford Street – still one of the major shopping strips in London – to get lunch, but the imminent approach of thousands of marching protestors had forced them to about-face and keep walking down Orchard Street as the police continued to wave people on – they weren’t the only ones to do so, either.
The newsfeed scrolling down Troy’s virtual-vision suggested that over thirty thousand people were marching. Marching for what, Troy neither knew nor cared, and he rather suspected that the sheep themselves didn’t know for certain – it was a season for protesting, it seemed, and that was all that mattered to people under the age of sixty.
Not that he’d willingly admit that to anyone, lest it get leaked to the press. These days, Troy had to be very careful about what he said, and who he said it to. In a political minefield as cluttered as this, it wouldn’t take much for a single misspoken sentence to spell doom for a candidate.
“More to the point,” James added, practically shouting, stealing another look at the rowdy crowd a block away. “What are they protesting about?”
“Everything,” Troy muttered, picking up his pace before one of the news crews recognized him – their camera drones, little floating spheres of equipment – were already starting to swarm overhead, almost matching the number of pedestrians they were darting between in their frenzied quest to get a good camera angle. “Anything. It all started when the war ended. First people weren’t happy with the peace treaty, then the anti-war crowd got involved, and it’s just spiralled out of control.” He pointed with a gloved hand in the direction the protestors were headed. “You watch, in about five blocks, they’ll clash with the anti-protestors.”
“I didn’t realize things were that bad,” James said after a long moment of thought.
Troy shrugged minimally. “The war unified the Commonwealth, James, but it didn’t solve any of the problems that were starting to fester underneath it. Taxation, welfare… industrial relations… we’re living on regulations that haven’t kept pace with the changes in the Commonwealth. And now that the war is over, it’s just boiled over.” Troy made an explosive gesture with his hands as if to illustrate his point. “It’s why this election is so chaotic – every idiot has their own set of priorities on how to fix things.”
James looked at his brother in shock. “And our father decided to get involved in this lunacy?”
Troy positively snarled. “It was either run to win, or sit on the sidelines and watch the Commonwealth collapse around us.”
“Is Bastion like this?” There was a note of despair in James’ voice, but Troy shook his head.
“No, Bastion is relatively stable – I’d say most people on Bastion aren’t aware of the turmoil that’s engulfing Earth, or Elysium.” Troy sighed, wincing. “But that will change if this recession doesn’t improve… especially if our world is supposed to fund the rebuilding as well as the war.” Troy smirked wryly, the irony of what he was about to admit not lost on him. “In all honesty, James, you might have been better off staying in the Navy. This is going to get very ugly, very quickly.”
James was silent as they turned a corner, and sagged in relief at the lack of traffic in the alleyway. “You make it sound like we’re a third-world country,” he said, no longer having to shout to be heard over the protestors.
Troy had to look up the definition of the term, and was surprised at how appropriate it was in the current context. “Well, we may not be that ugly, yet,” he said, cautiously optimistic… and privately grateful that the need to use such a term had gone the way of the dinosaur. “But, well, give it time…”
Chapter Two
From orbit, Elysium was a beautiful world. Dark blue oceans covered about two-thirds of the planet, broken up only by three super-continents and a thousand archipelagos that contained hundreds of thousands of islands. The initial colony of Lesvos had settled on the continent of Acheron in 2142, but the world had moved its capital to the city of Corinth – now a sprawling metropolis – in late 2203.
Nowadays, there were six major cities on the planet, with dozens of satellite communities. Most of them were situated on Acheron, which was the largest of the super-continents; Ebenthal, the smallest continent, only had a few million people, and most of them lived in the fortified city of Brindisi, located at its southernmost point.
Originally intended as an agrarian planet – purposed to fashion both Earth and Bastion with food – the world had ushered in an industrial renaissance in the early 24th Century, and had enjoyed the highest rate of immigration in the Commonwealth ever since – helped in recent years, of course, by the N’xin conflict.
If you want to get out of the line-of-sight of the N’xin, go to Elysium, so the saying went, though in light of the battle that had raged here in the dying days of the war, that had obviously been a falsehood, no doubt employed to try and stave off a wave of emigration from the world.
Jayesh Khan was glad he hadn’t been there to witness it – surviving a N’xin raid on Titus had been taxing enough… so was living on Titus, come to think of it, he thought. Some would call him bitter, but Jayesh considered himself more of a realist: life on Titus had been hard, but it certainly beat being dead no matter how you looked at it.
His father, Aarush, placed a hand on his shoulder as the larger man leaned in to look out the viewport. In spite of his age – he was fast approaching 70 – he seemed to be just as keen as Jayesh at the promise of a new world. “What do you say, Jayesh? Is it home?”
Jayesh grinned boyishly, his emotions swirling around his head unchecked. “Home.”
*
“You’re a little young to be travelling on your own, aren’t you?”
Mackenzie Spencer shrugged, uncomfortable under the glare of the Customs official – a tall, domineering woman with dark skin, dark eyes and a dark expression. S
“The government seemed to think otherwise,” he said softly; he’d been declared legally emancipated shortly before leaving the camps on Titus IV. With no close family left alive, and an enormous backlog for foster families, it was easier – for everyone, really – for those refugees who weren’t quite adults, to be granted ‘adult’ status, given a modest sum of money in a secure account, and shipped out to start a new life.
“Yes, that’s been happening quite a lot, I’m afrad,” the official said, glowering in d
isapproval – at the situation, Mackenzie surmised, and not at him, personally. She handed back the datapad containing his ID. “Well, you’re cleared to disembark. Welcome to Bastion, Mr. Spencer… and good luck.”
Mackenzie thanked her and moved on. He’d had never been to Bastion before. He’d never been to a world like Bastion, for that matter.
It had taken more than a year for him to get his legal status sorted so he could get off Titus, and he’d spent the last month traveling – on a variety of different freighters – to get to Bastion, and now here he was, exiting the Citadel Spaceport, with no worldly possessions save for the clothes on his back – boring, unassuming slacks and a shirt – and the change of clothes in his duffel bag. Courtesy of the Commonwealth, he had a decent – if not top-notch – virtual-array installed, allowing him to access the quarter-of-a-million dollars all emancipated refugees received from the government upon their release.
And that was it. He had no purpose, no home… and no skills to offer. His education had been sporadic over the years... Titus IV had had more than a few teachers amongst its ranks, but they lacked many of the resources necessary to adhere to a proper curriculum that would be universally recognized, so completing an accelerated secondary education appealed to him, if only for the satisfaction of being able to say he had an officially recognized education.
“Could be worse,” he murmured to himself, glancing about him. He’d only ever seen so many people when lining up for food back on Titus… even after all those years of living in that hellhole, he was still a little unnerved.
Especially when the crowd was accompanied by buildings taller than he’d ever imagined; he’d only ever heard of these sorts of skyscrapers, he’d never actually seen them. As he looked about, spires – kilometres tall and seemingly just as thick – lanced up towards the sky, casting long, dark shadows over the rest of the city, creating wide canyons as they lined the streets. And no matter which patch of sky Mackenzie looked at, he could always find air traffic, whether it be skycars, or a freighter, or a yacht.
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