“I’ll forward his text comm,” her mom said. “That way you can read it for yourself. But I thought I should tell you this live. Your father is already in contact with his superiors, demanding that the Armada get her off that planet immediately. I don’t know what luck he’ll have, but he’s putting all his authority behind it.”
After a few more parting questions about how Jenna and Jimmy and the kids were doing, Jenna’s mom switched off.
“What in the name of all the stars?” Jimmy asked, confused. “Did I hear that right? Your sister is alive and she has a daughter?” He had finally woken up enough to process what he had heard.
“I think so. I can’t believe it!” Jenna exclaimed, though she was careful to keep her voice hushed. The last thing she wanted to do was wake up Erik—then they would have to share their bed with a cranky toddler for the rest of the night. Her flipcom pinged, and she pulled up the forwarded text comm from Casey. Jimmy leaned next to her, and they read the comm together.
Dear Admiral and Mrs. Donnell,
I have some unbelievable news for you. I’m on assignment on Corizen and have discovered that Andie has been living here ever since she disappeared. She was shot down by some outlaws hiding in the forest in Zoria and then traded to Denicorizen smugglers. They brought her here. She is well but unable to contact you herself right now due to some complications. I am currently caring for Andie’s four-year-old daughter, Tiran. I can’t give you more details right now; my assignment is classified. I will send you more information as soon as I can.
With respect,
Casey Morten
“Well, your mom was right on. That doesn’t tell us much at all,” Jimmy observed when he finished. “Except that she’s alive, I guess, which is amazing!”
Jenna read it a second time through. “Why is he taking care of Andie’s child, though?” she said worriedly. “In what kind of circumstances would she need to hand over her little girl to a friend she hasn’t seen in years?” Jenna couldn’t imagine taking Berry and handing her over to Casey to take care of unless she were in some dire situation and she had no better option.
Hopefully, her father’s rank had enough pull to get some answers right away!
●●●
One year later, they were still waiting for answers. It was agonizing. It was like reliving that first year when Andie had been shot down and there was still hope that she was alive. Her father put all his weight up against the wall of Armada intelligence and came up with empty hands. He had only been able to confirm that Casey had reported the same information to his superiors and that the Armada had a general suspicion of where she might be but that they couldn’t confirm it. They certainly couldn’t get her out. No further information had come from Casey either; Jenna’s father had learned that Casey’s assignment was too sensitive, and regular communication could compromise him. Her mother had wanted to drop everything and travel to Corizen herself, but her father had finally convinced her that there was no point when they didn’t have the slightest idea where to search for Andie once they got there.
In the absence of other options, Jenna had spent the time digging up every scrap of information she could find on the feeds about what was being called the Denicorizen Revolution. There was little to find. There was some reporting from Roma, the capital city, so she was able to learn that the revolutionaries were led by a man named Morek-Li Damato, who was in favor of abolishing the monarchy and instating some kind of representative government. He also wanted to end the caste system. Jenna wondered if the Union was meddling in the revolution, and if so, on whose side? What exactly was Casey doing over there?
She rejoiced the day she learned that the king had been ousted from his throne; if the king had been deposed, surely the war would come to an end soon and there would be a way to find her sister. At the very least, Casey’s mission should soon finish, and they would be able to get some answers from him. However, the overthrow of the king didn’t stop the fighting; some Denicorizen noble name Jaory Kruunde named himself the new king and the war continued, though the area around the capital city began to settle back down. Luckily Jenna’s life was still filled with the busy routine of work and caring for three young children; she found that she had plenty to keep her distracted. Only occasionally would she lie awake in bed, wondering where her sister was and if she was all right.
One morning after a night of insomnia, Jimmy sat down next to her at the kitchen table and squeezed her shoulders. “Rough night?” he asked sympathetically.
Jenna swirled her spoon in her tea half-heartedly and gave a single lethargic nod.
“Worried about your sister again,” Jimmy commented knowingly. Jimmy had always known her well; sometimes, after seven years of marriage, it seemed like he could read her mind.
“If she was fine she would have gotten word to us by now. Or Casey would have. But I can’t give up hope. Not again. I thought my mom was crazy to hold on to her insistence that Andie was alive for all those years, and she turned out to be right. Yet sitting here hoping day after day with no word is killing me. It’s like someone designed a special kind of hell for our family.”
Jimmy didn’t say anything but took her hand and rubbed it gently, still looking at her with sympathy pooling in his eyes.
“The curse has taken a whole new direction this time,” Jenna grumbled. “It wasn’t enough just to kill off half the family. Now it has to torture the living ones too.”
Jimmy stiffened. Jenna saw him glancing over at the other side of the table where Erik was squashing his breakfast cereal into mush and Berry was slurping her milk while she danced a tiny toy pony across her eggs. Kendra had forgotten her food entirely; she was staring dreamily out the kitchen window, oblivious to the world around her.
“I wish you wouldn’t mention that curse in front of the kids,” he murmured. “You’ll scare them for no reason.” Jenna heard the meaning behind the words. Jimmy didn’t believe in the curse. Unfortunately, Jenna couldn’t share his straight dismissal of the scourge that had afflicted her family for three generations now. Especially after their own near deaths in the Red Zone six years earlier.
Still, there was no reason to alarm the kids. She lowered her voice. “Jimmy, the curse is real. I know you don’t believe me—you don’t have to pretend. But just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” She hesitated and then continued, “Remember how I told you that I overheard my mom telling a friend about it when I was a kid?”
Jimmy pursed his lips but he nodded. Clearly, he wasn’t happy about having this discussion.
“Well, when we were living with my parents in Dos Cientos, I asked her about that conversation.” She didn’t explain to Jimmy the constant anxiety she had felt about her baby when she was pregnant. Especially when Jimmy had left her with her parents and come to Tarentino to get the lab finished and their house ready, she’d had very little to do but obsess about all the things that could go wrong with the pregnancy or the delivery, or with her husband who was still far away (and who still had, for all she knew, assassins trying to take out him or his brother). Finally, she’d decided to grill her mother about the family curse she had learned vague hints about in her childhood.
“She told me it was time I knew everything she did, and she brought out a file of paper documents she kept locked in a safe in their suite.”
“Paper documents?” Jimmy asked, his tone skeptical. Jenna remembered her own surprise at the time. Paper documents were not unheard of, but for things that people intended to keep long term, they usually had only digital copies. If it was important enough to keep in a safe, why were the documents the fragile paper sort?
“My mother explained that the Armada intended the information in these documents to stay classified. If any digital records of what she had were found, they would have been destroyed.”
Jimmy still eyed her skeptically, but he was
listening. She took a deep breath and continued.
“The papers were all the eyewitness statements from the other officers who were part of my grandfather’s unit when he burned the Roran village. They were given to my mother by a colleague who worked in intelligence and told her to keep them safe and secret and to never let anyone know that she had them.”
Jimmy’s mouth dropped open. “Your mother keeps stolen Armada intelligence documents in a safe in her bedroom? When she lives on an Armada base?”
Jenna nodded.
“Your mother has some serious guts,” Jimmy said approvingly. Jenna frowned at him. He thought it was admirable that his mother had information that at best would get her fired and at worst would get her thrown into prison?
“Does your dad know about them too?” Jimmy asked curiously.
“I didn’t ask,” Jenna admitted. “I didn’t want to know the answer to that.” Her father had pretty high security clearance as an admiral, but she was pretty sure that knowing that his wife had purloined documents in her possession and keeping it a secret was a serious offense.
“So what do these illegal top secret documents tell us?”
“First, that the leader of the village my grandfather ordered burned was Konrad Roran.”
“Konrad Roran. So he was named after the people who started the uprising?”
“No, he was the reason the people called themselves Rorans. He was the leader of the uprising. Not just some local village elder. They considered him the direct link with the spirit of the planet, the only one who could tell them what the planet wanted to happen.”
“Always knew they were a little bit cracked,” Jimmy said. “It was kind of obvious when they started killing people who didn’t want to worship the planet. But I didn’t know they followed one particular guy.”
“Yes. My grandfather had orders to capture him at all costs. The Armada thought they could end the uprising if they had Roran in custody. My grandfather had good intelligence that Roran was hiding in this village. So he had everyone in the village rounded up, and when no one would admit where Roran was, he ordered the village burned to the ground. He believed Roran would try to escape the fires and they would be able to catch him. It worked.”
Jimmy cocked his head. “There’s nothing in this that seems particularly sensitive. Almost all it you told me yourself long ago. It wasn’t secret. Why was it classified?”
Jenna took a deep breath. “Because of what happened after they caught Roran. Anyone near him would get confused and find it hard to concentrate. Soldiers who had him bound would suddenly decide to let him go. Tree branches would crack and land on them as they marched past. All of a sudden a windstorm hit, blowing dust and debris into everyone’s faces. My grandfather, Captain Ridge, called for backup, but as the ships were trying to land, a lightning storm forced them to abort. In the end, my grandfather made the decision to kill Roran in hopes of ending the chaos and being able to get his soldiers to safety.”
“What?” Jimmy exclaimed. He glanced at the kids, who were still distracted by their food. Lowering his voice again, he asked, “Your grandfather just executed him?”
“Well, the witness accounts were a little vague about that part. Just that Captain Ridge shot him, and that it was deliberate.”
Jimmy leaned back in his chair. “Huh,” he grunted.
She could tell he didn’t like that part much. She hadn’t either at first—who wanted to find out that their grandfather was a murderer?—but she’d had years to consider it, and she wondered what his side of the story was. He’d never lived long enough to file an official report, or at least a copy of it had not been in her mother’s secret stash.
“So what does this have to do with the curse?” Jimmy asked finally, coming back to the original subject.
“Before Roran died, one witness said he told my grandfather that the planet had marked his genetic signature and that his family would face death and horror until they renounced the Armada butchers and left the planet in peace. Another witness said that Roran told Captain Ridge that he and all his descendants were cursed as long as they worked for the Armada. My mother put those together and decided that meant anyone in our extended family was cursed as long as they were connected to the Armada. That’s why she called it the Armada curse. But I think she might be wrong.”
Jenna bit her lip. “I think the curse is against all of us until we leave the planet. Not just my mom and her kids either. My grandfather had one brother living on Zenith. Uncle Lazarus and his wife Nadine took my mom in after her parents died. They had two children who died relatively young while serving in the Armada. That kind of cemented my mom’s view. But just after we moved here to Tarentino, one of her younger cousins that had never had anything to do with the Armada lost two of their children at the same time in a boating accident.”
Jimmy sighed. “A coincidence, Jenna. You know Roran couldn’t have cursed anyone, especially not kids that were born a couple decades after he died.”
“Couldn’t he?” she shot back. “So what were the wind and the tree branches and the lightning attacking the soldiers? More coincidences? That list is growing awfully long!” She shut her mouth with a snap, realizing that her voice had grown dramatically loud. All three children had frozen. Erik’s lower lip trembled. Berry’s hands covered her face, and Kendra stared at them in open-mouthed horror. Jimmy shot her a “now you’ve done it” look just as Erik broke into ear-splitting wails.
Once all three children were calmed down and Jimmy had herded them outside, Jenna reluctantly dragged herself into her office. Mornings were her usual time to get work done while Jimmy watched the kids; later they would switch while he worked in the evening when he could contact Jax’s clients (who mostly lived in the more heavily populated area near Omphalos and would be just starting their work days). However, when she pulled up her latest set of plans, she couldn’t force herself to focus. She ended up staring at the same section of the ground-floor layout, unable to remember what she needed to change.
Of course Jimmy didn’t believe her. She’d known he wouldn’t. That was why she’d never said anything about it to him all these years. Mostly she was able to forget it herself. What could she do about it after all? Persuade Jimmy to move to another planet? Jimmy had no desire to go back to Terra, and Jenna herself couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. However, every once in a while, the memories popped up and forced themselves on her. Especially after a night of worrying about her sister.
Oh, Andie, she thought, wherever you are, you have to hang in there! Come back to us!
4. Plotting with Mrs. Smitz
Once Jimmy had the kids happily distracted digging holes in a plot of dirt, he grabbed a garden claw and started waging war against the ever-present weeds that fought to overtake the empty land in between their house and the lab. It was a perfect opportunity for him to get out some of his frustration without directing any of it at Jenna or the kids. He had used the technique many times over the years; he had always considered himself an easygoing guy, but he’d never realized how much that depended on not having any serious demands made of him.
His kids made serious demands of him.
He’d had no idea what to expect from fatherhood. He was the youngest in the family, though Jax’s extreme inability to relate to people in general had often made Jimmy seem like the older brother, at least socially. His sister had never married or had any kids either, nor had he had young cousins underfoot. His first significant experience with taking care of children had been his own, and what a shock that had been. Of course, he and Jenna hadn’t made it easy on themselves. Kendra had been such an easy, pleasant baby that they’d eagerly jumped right into having number two—Beryl had been born only sixteen months after her sister. After that they’d given themselves a couple years as a breather, but now that Erik was two and twice as much of a handful as the girls had ever been, he wondered at time
s if they both hadn’t been just a little bit crazy to have three children on purpose.
Days like this it was extra hard. He was irritated with Jenna for talking about the curse so loudly in front of the kids—Kendra and Berry were old enough to listen avidly to “grown-up” talk, even if they’d only understand bits of it. He didn’t want them waking in the middle of the night with nightmares of trees chasing them and lightning strikes dogging the family. He sighed as he thought about it. It was also worrying. Jenna hadn’t brought up the curse for a long time. He thought she’d forgotten about it, or at least that she didn’t believe in it any more. It only caused her to stress and worry; once she had determined never to fall in love just for fear that this supposed curse would kill off anyone she married.
Laying down his claw and grabbing an extra-stubborn gristle weed with both hands, he yanked upward, the roots pulling from the ground and flinging pebbles and mud against his legs. His thin nypron gloves kept the spiky plant from cutting his fingers, but he gingerly held the whole monster away from his body and headed to dump it directly in the compost box. It was covered in minuscule needles capable of drawing blood. Not something he wanted to leave around for the kids to trip over. The needles could break off under the skin and stab for days without any way of getting them out. They were so small it was often difficult to pinpoint where an embedded needle was.
Just like this constant worry about Andie that was pricking Jenna. There was nothing to see on the outside. A sister who had been missing for many years had been found! It should have been joyful news, something that lifted Jenna’s spirits. Something that convinced her that the curse really didn’t exist since Andie hadn’t been killed. Instead, it was a little like those invisible needles, constantly pricking at Jenna. If her sister was still alive, wouldn’t they have heard something from her by now?
Jimmy had heard all the rumors about Corizen. For children of Terra, Corizen was a mysterious, awful place, somewhere parents threatened to send children who misbehaved.
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