by Jo Zebedee
A lance of fear stabbed Lichio. They’d talked about this for years – the day when he would be no longer in such a high-profile position, and free to choose his own route. He nodded to one of two seats facing the desk and dropped into the other. Did Josef know that their relationship would not have derailed his role? He was an ambassador: did he know Kare would never have let it affect things? Lichio faced him, the lies through the years circling, and feared Josef did know. That he had always known.
“What happened to you?” asked Lichio. “Where have you been?”
Josef paused, perhaps deciding whether to pursue his own question first, but gave a slight shrug, one that said he’d play along.
“Getting out of Abendau wasn’t straightforward,” he said. “I had to detour to the Nova hub – and what a hell-hole that is, it needs some serious investment – and then back to Mersor. You had disappeared. I took the first flight to Ferran when I heard you were here.”
“You could have contacted me first,” said Lichio. “I was worried.”
“I wanted to see you face to face,” said Josef. “I didn’t want any deflections.”
Lichio ducked his head. Josef had a veneer of politeness that made him appear malleable, but he rarely gave ground on anything that mattered to him. He faced Lichio, his shoulders straight. Whatever he wanted to address – in person – wasn’t going to be left unheard.
Lichio should be saying something, about his relief, about his worries, about how much Josef’s return mattered, but in the face of his lover’s calm assurance, the words wouldn’t come.
“I have an office lined up on Mersor,” said Josef. “It includes a role for a new ambassador to the republic.” His eyes didn’t stray. “It’s yours, if you want it.”
Lichio pulled at his collar. The room was too warm. “I have a role here. Kare has not dismissed his army yet.”
“But he will.” Josef leaned forwards and put his hand on Lichio’s knee. It was warm, and heavy. He squeezed slightly, a promise of something more. “This is what we’ve been waiting for, Lich. A chance to be together. A chance for you to go to your sister, to Kare, and tell them who I am.”
“It’s not the time.”
Josef removed his hand. “When is it the time?” He ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back and revealing the dark pools of his eyes. “Is there ever going to be a time? Are my family right – that you don’t care for me the way you claim to? They asked to meet you, to get to know you, and I had to tell them that I didn’t know if you would.” His voice caught. “I had to tell them I didn’t know that you would commit – that you never had, so far.” He crossed his arms. “And that’s what I want. You know that. I want that commitment. I want to know that you aren’t going to piss what we had away.”
As he had over the past four years – pulling back at every increased intimacy, using excuses to hold Josef at bay and yet crawling back, every time, to find the solace only he gave. The room went dark, closing in.
“I…” What could he say? He’d spent his life avoiding a commitment like this. He swallowed the bile that rose in him. “I can’t.” He spread his hands, half-reaching over the desk, wanting what he would not give himself. He looked down at them, as if they might hold the answer.
The silence lengthened; Josef would not help him out, not this time. Lichio raised his eyes and met Josef’s calm stare.
“I have spent my life avoiding what you’re asking of me,” he said. “I watched families ripped apart in the Banned. The pain of the people left behind—” He’d seen it happen to his father, had felt the pain of loss himself. It never went away. “I swore I’d never allow it to happen to me again. That I would never put myself in that position.”
Josef touched his outstretched hands. “Lich. You already have.” His eyes softened. “Don’t you see? It isn’t commitment that hurts. It’s love.”
Love. A word so casually used, it was easy to dismiss. Love couldn’t be something that could rip a life apart. He pulled his hand away, denying Josef’s words.
“I can’t,” he said, and his voice held. He ignored the tight breaths that told him he was wrong, and that he should listen. “You should go.”
“I hoped,” Josef said. He looked at the ceiling, as if for inspiration. When he looked back at Lichio, his eyes were bereft, their darkness deeper than ever. “No matter who you slept with, who you so casually turned to, I hoped.”
A chill settled in Lichio. “You knew?” But of course he did – Lichio had never tried to hide his lovers, even if he didn’t flaunt them openly. He hadn’t thought about what they might mean to Josef – he hadn’t dared to, knowing the answer – but used them as a way to stay free, as another excuse not to commit.
“You weren’t discreet. Presumably, you didn’t want to be.” Damn Josef, who’d always seen through him. Lichio remembered the first day Josef had found his scars from cutting himself. He had never believed they were anything other than what they were. How he’d insisted Lichio stop.
“Why?” said Josef. “Didn’t I matter to you?” He was tense, as if ready to walk out at any moment. “Don’t you see the chance you have?”
“You mattered,” said Lichio. He gripped Josef’s arm, his hand closing on his wrist, the familiar smooth skin over bones. I love you, he wanted to say. You were – are – the centre of my world. He hated himself for not. “You mattered more than anyone.”
“Then come with me.” Josef put his other hand over Lichio’s, held it tight. “We can put Abendau behind us. Start afresh.” He gave a short laugh. “It might not be as terrifying as you expect.”
There was no further answer, except what Lichio couldn’t say – that Josef hadn’t mattered more than the wall he had built to protect himself.
Josef gave a curt nod. “I’ll let myself out.” He stopped at the door, his hand on it for a long moment, before he turned back once more. “You can duck if you want to, Lich. But it’s not going to go away. That’s what love does – it arrives when you’re not looking and it doesn’t let go. Even if it hurts.”
He left, and Lichio didn’t stop him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The ship dropped from space, hurtling towards Belaudii. Kare held himself in the co-pilot’s seat with little more than gritted teeth and bloody-minded determination. Last time he’d been on a landing like this he’d been curled up with Karia, trying to ignore his father’s worried eyes shifting from control panel to viewing window.
Beside him, Farran whistled but his eyes were intent on the planet below, his level of focus far from reassuring. Belaudii grew bigger and took on its familiar orange tinge. Kare clenched his fists as its features became clearer, much quicker than he’d have liked. The landing had to be a quick in and out, but gods he hoped Farran was even half the pilot his father was. Ealyn’s intensity may have been alarming, but at least he’d been virtually guaranteed to get any ship down.
Three flanking ships pulled away, each focused on a section of Belaudii’s great desert. An alarm sounded as the planet’s space-control tried to make contact, but Farran flipped it to silent. The communicator flashed an angry red.
Kare leant forward. He could make out the green of the palace’s gardens, and the port and palace, just visible as white dots. Already, ships would be mobilising in the port, to be followed by those based in his desert compound.
The ship screamed in protest at the speed of descent. Kare swallowed nausea and kept his focus on the sky, which grew lighter as they streaked through the atmosphere. New alarms sounded, altitude and speed warnings. The velocity regulator threatened to burn out for good measure. They plummeted, the ship shaking, his teeth rattling.
The first fighters emerged from Abendau’s port: a small fleet, two ships targeted on each Roamer ship. Kare pointed; Farran nodded. The reverse thrusters started to slow the descent, and the freighter pulled out to streak across the blurred desert. Kare clenched his hands around the armrests and ordered himself not to scream. He was King of the Roame
rs, he couldn’t get freaked out over a little vertical drop from space. The ship’s speed, carried from space, outpaced the fighters, but it wouldn’t be long until the distance closed.
“Salyn, Tarn, cover me.” Farran’s voice carried an edge of worry.
“Coming round.”
Two of the Roamer freighters broke from their flight path, drawing behind Farran and picking up the pursuing fighters, their progress plotted on the HUD display. Laser-bolts flashed against the freighters’ shields. Farran pulled away, leaving the dogfight behind.
“I’ll have to set down a little off-plan,” he said. “We need to do this quickly.”
Kare nodded. A desert-survival would be needed, then. Damn. The ship banked and slowed; nothing for it but to get on with it. He checked his pack straps were tight and looked at his boots, his fatigues – anything other than the planet still coming at them much too fast.
“Brace.” Farran’s voice was calm, but Kare could feel his tension. “Touchdown in ten.”
Kare pulled the brace restraints across his body and crossed his arms, letting the seat pull him against it. The ship passed over the desert, churning up the sand. Farran leaned forwards, not whistling now but watching, watching, his eyes as alert as Ealyn’s had ever been.
“Nine.” The countdown started from the control panel. The ship slowed, stalled, and dropped, sending Kare’s stomach somewhere into orbit.
“Eight, seven, six.” Oh, gods, get this over with. “Five.”
He should have listened to Lich; this was a bad idea. Even his dad wouldn’t have tried this landing. He put his head down, and went back to concentrating on his boots; they weren’t much of a distraction in the midst of the alarms.
“Four. Three. Two.”
Farran hit the landing command and thrust himself back, into the brace position, his brow beaded with sweat. “Hang on!”
The ship hit the ground, landing repulsors absorbing the impact with a jarring crash. More alarms sounded, lights flashed and blared; Roamer ships might be equipped for such landings, but they didn’t have to like them. The ship shuddered to a halt and Kare was already unclicking his restraints, fumbling with shaking hands. “How far to the rendezvous?”
“About five miles. Best I could do.” The Roamer hit the hatch command and jerked his head back. “Go. Before they pick up my position.”
Kare was already on his feet and moving down the access corridor. He skimmed out as soon as the hatch lifted, and darted down the gangway, hitting the desert at a run, not stopping to check the sand-cover; if Farran didn’t take off, the fighters would have him just as quickly as any clutterback.
The sky was empty of pursuit, for now. The freighter’s engines were whining and the hatch closing. Kare sprinted across the sand, weaving, to the dunes. His feet slipped as he ran. He’d never get used to the desert. He sped up, feeling Farran’s impatience, his need for Kare to go faster and get into the safety zone so the ship could lift off.
He jumped a scrub of grass and dived for the dunes, hitting hard with his shoulder, but it was soft sand beneath. Not clutter-nest territory, thankfully. He was as close to the ship as when his father had left him as a child, hunched against the fence of the old yard. The sky filled with a familiar roar as the ship lifted off, leaving the burnt smell of the engines in its wake.
Kare turned his head away. The roar became distant, and his teeth stopped rattling. The Roamer ship was already far in the distance, but a volley of distant specks, their pursuers, had picked Farran up. Most broke after the ship, but one – a desert-seeker, judging by the flashing along its fuselage – bore down on Kare’s position.
Damn. He stayed flat, heart pounding, and crabbed his hand to the shield command, hitting it with a clumsy, clawed finger.
The air around him changed, becoming heavier. An artificial tang made his nose twitch. He stayed down, the shield doing little to reduce his sense of being exposed, his head turned just enough to track the sky above. The ship appeared, following a search trajectory, hazy through his shield’s field. If he stayed quiet and still, they should not pick him up.
The sand moved in front of him. It cracked, breaking in a thin line. He barely stopped himself scrambling back. Had he read the sand wrong? If it was a clutter-nest, he was in trouble. Fuck that: he was dead, either from the ship if he ran or the spider if he stayed. Carefully, he put his hand on the sand, double-checking. It was soft, not compacted. This shouldn’t be spider territory.
Still the sand shifted and he watched, transfixed, as a snake emerged, its tongue flicking from side to side. A baroda, and a big one, as deadly as anything in the desert. Its red stripes practically had danger stencilled on them. It whipped across the sand towards him.
He stayed still, his attention shifting from the snake to the ship, coming closer, then fading, closer, then fading. The snake drew near, tongue flicking. Under Kare’s hand the sand drummed, making his fingers tingle; the shield’s energy was drawing the snake. He stayed still and told himself the snake couldn’t get through the force-field.
No, but it could burrow under the shield and come up within the shield’s parameter. Not good.
“Go away, big girl,” he murmured. The ship had come closer again. The snake hissed. Its tongue flicked at the shield, probing. It pulled back and started to burrow.
Oh, shit. Kare looked around, hoping for any sort of cover, but there was nothing but sand stretching in every direction.
The searching ship moved away, and he killed his shield. He’d take his chances with the ship before the snake; at least they’d ask questions before they attacked. Maybe. He scrambled back as the sand broke, inches from his right foot, and the snake emerged, fangs bared, ready to strike.
Kare slipped in the soft sand, sprawling backwards. The snake sprang at him, quicker than he’d imagined. He yelled, managing to roll to the side, and fumbled for his blaster. He pulled it from the holster in one move.
The snake lunged for another attack. Kare got a shot off, but it was wild. His boot caught the serpent and its fangs sank into the heavy material. He took aim, taking his time, even as the snake drew back again. He wouldn’t get another chance, not against its speed. He squeezed off a shot.
The snake flew through the air, tail snapping. Above, the ship had turned back towards his sector. Kare hit the shield activation and flung himself flat. He didn’t dare breathe, sure they’d had long enough to fix his position. The engines roared closer. A bead of sweat trickled between his shoulder blades and he waited, sure they were above him, circling, ready to take him.
After an age, the sound of the ship grew more distant. He forced himself to wait a little longer, alert for movement in the sand, or the sound of pursuit. After several minutes he sat up. The ship was gone from the sky and the snake lay dead a few feet away. His breaths were jerky and small, but still counted. He was alive.
He deactivated the shield and got to his feet, shaky as hell. Snakes were only one of the creatures to watch for. There were lizards, big and lumbering, so well camouflaged he’d be on them before he’d see them; the spiders with their buried nests, the sand above crusted and invisible, but thin as an egg. The number-one cause of death in the desert. Not a helpful thing to remember.
Stop thinking about it and get going. He unclipped his direction-finder from his belt, activated it, and set out for the team waiting for him, taking his time to check the sand-cover; being late mightn’t be a disaster, but being dead would be.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Baelan entered the main entrance hall of Ferran-V’s port, his squad practically stuck to him. Another of the Ferrans’ educational days for him and Kerra, and he’d been bored by the end of the second one. It made him think he should do something, bring down a wall, perhaps, and have le Payne confine him to his room.
This trip sounded somewhat better than the others had been, however. Already, through the viewing window of his room, the port was busy with tourists and their fire forest guides, even though the su
n was barely up. In one corner a kiosk sold t-shirts and holo-holders with pictures of cute fire-sprites and slogans proclaiming the purchaser had survived the fire forests. Posters showing the indigenous plants of the forest and their uses hung beneath, as well as a holo-player showing the history of the Empress’ raid on the forest, and how the survivors had made it through. It was a mythology impossible not to come across on Ferran – it was in their books and their culture and in their anecdotes. Baelan half-smiled at that – they’d be better waiting until the return leg to purchase anything; at least five tourists each year didn’t come back. The foolhardy ones, who didn’t believe they needed a guide, or who misjudged how quickly night could fall in the forest.
He hopped from foot to foot. He’d already been waiting half an hour for Kerra. The entrance to the planetary hangars, as opposed to the sprawling annex which serviced the hub, remained closed and would do so until her security team checked in. Hence the milling tourists, some of whom must be starting to wonder why they were being delayed in joining their flights.
“Can you check where she is?” he asked the lieutenant in charge of his team.
“She’s en route.” The lieutenant’s voice was bland, uninterested, and Baelan scowled.
Finally, a clatter of footsteps announced the arrival of Kerra, dressed in a casual sweat-top and light trousers and wearing expensive boots ideal for a forest trek. Baelan looked down at his own sneakers and short-sleeved top. He always got it wrong, damn it. On the plus side, his clothes were far from entitled. Man of the people, him.
“Are you ready?” asked Kerra.
“Yeah.” He didn’t point out he’d been the one kicking his heels. “I’m not missing this.”
The security door slid open and they passed through. Kerra must be used to the wave-through – everywhere she went, people let her pass, knowing who she was – but he had to fight the urge to empty his pockets and hold out his arm for a DNA sample.
