by Celeste Raye
Jessica said, “I don’t want this. I know everyone thinks I am so hardened and so willing to war that I would be reveling in the chance, but this I don’t want.”
That made Margie pause. “Talon isn’t going?”
Jessica’s smile held sorrow. “Of course he is. He is the best captain in the universe, and everyone knows it. Where he goes, I go. I don’t want to die but…but if he dies, I will die from a broken heart or some such silly thing. I can’t believe I am even saying that. I am not at all that sentimental.”
Only she was, and she was that loyal to the being she had mated as well. Margie hurt for her, for all of them because she knew right then that they would all go.
I can’t go. I have this child to consider, and I can’t let it die. I just can’t.
Jenny said, “I will go too. I can heal—and I can kill. I can use the weapon Marik opened in me to help save them, if at all possible.”
Jessica said, “I’ll fight for them, and for us.”
Clare whispered, “I can’t go. I can’t. My child comes any day, and Renall has refused to allow it. He has refused to consider it even. He says we must survive and lead this planet. There will be those from our sister planet who come to help, but we must stay.”
Just then, someone stood. It was a young woman, and her voice shook as she cried out, “Are we not to know what goes on here?”
Renall and his siblings stood. Margie’s eyes filled with tears as she stared at the four of them. They were all so brave, and they would give their very lives for this place and these beings upon it, for a chance at real freedom, and she was stricken by the beauty of that, by the selflessness of it, so hard it was like a punch to the heart.
Renall spoke slowly. “Old Earth is no more. It has been destroyed by The Federation. We are to stop sending people back there and to cease our attempts to aid there at once as there is no further need. All who are on the way here from there will be welcomed with open arms. Any ships that were headed there have turned back toward here. That is all.”
The shock wave that went through the crowd was palpable. Jenny whispered, “He could hardly tell them the rest of it, I suppose, and I know that, but all he has done is make them even more afraid of The Federation.”
Jessica said, “With good reason. They can’t know the truth. It is not something they need or want to know and if they do know, they may talk, even if it is just amongst themselves. They cannot communicate beyond this planet but if they were to be questioned, not knowing would be a blessing.”
Margie toyed with the food. Hunger came back, and she felt a hard and powerful thrust in her midsection, a demand for food. She began to eat. The fish came away from the bone in succulent bits of pink flesh and oil that satisfied hunger in a way nothing she had ever had before coming to that planet ever had.
This was her home, and she had to do whatever was necessary to save it.
I can help. I must go. I can see far, and I know things. You must take me with them.
That voice came from within her skull. Margie wanted badly to believe it was her daughter speaking, but she was horribly afraid that it was not, that it was her own mind speaking and pretending away the grave danger that would face her child if she went.
Clare broke into her thoughts by saying, “Margie, will you go?”
Will I?
Her fork trembled in her fingers. She would not be able to hide her pregnancy much longer, especially not from Jeval, who would see her naked. She said, “I will but…but all of you must swear to say nothing about the child that I carry.”
Jenny asked, “Are you sure you want to hide that from him?”
She wasn’t, not at all, but she knew that if she told him, if anyone told him, he would not only refuse to allow her to go, but he would leave there angry at her. “I can’t tell him now. Not with this happening. I will tell him, but I want to do it when the time is right.”
Time.
There might not be any time, but she had to do whatever she could do to help save not just him, but the universe.
Chapter Eight
“No, I forbid it.”
Margie glared at him, her beautiful face puckered into lines of rebellion. “You can’t forbid me from anything. All who wish to go can go.”
His shoulders hunched and tensed. “Says who?”
Margie’s chin thrust forward. “Says me.”
How could she be so obstinate? There was no way he was going to let her go, not knowing if they would survive.
Jeval raked his fingers through his hair. “If I have to tie you to a chair to keep you here, then I shall.”
Margie gestured around the small cabin on Talons ship. “I am already aboard.”
He shouted, “Then I shall take you off the ship! Then I shall tie you to a chair, you stubborn, crazy woman!”
Margie said, “We’ve already lifted off and are in space.”
The smugness in her voice made his teeth clench. She had a point. There was no way to send her back, and he knew it. Which was exactly the reason why she had hidden for so many hours. His brow furrowed, and he asked. “Where were you hiding?”
Margie gave him a sheepish smile. “Right here. In your chamber. I knew you’d be on deck for several hours, at least long enough for us to hit the point of no return.”
If he didn’t love her so much he would’ve shouted at her, and his words would not have been kind. He did love her though. He knew that she was going with them because she had to. She was standing by him. That loyalty of hers seems to know no bounds. Not even death was enough to dissuade her from being with him.
He turned away, facing the small berth that served as a bed. His shoulders slumped. “Margie, I beg you. This is foolishness. I can find a small craft that will take you back home. Don’t do this.”
Her hand, cool and light, touched the back of his neck. Her voice was soft and low, and it swept across his emotions, tumbling them even further. “Where you go, I go. I choose this. I choose us. If that means we have to die together, then so be it. Isn’t that the pact that your own parents made? That they would fight against tyranny even if it meant their deaths? That they would stay together even if they had to die together? What kind of life would I have without you anyway?”
His voice held all his anguish. “A life. That’s what kind. I cannot imagine a world without you. I cannot imagine you sacrificing so much, and for me.”
She moved so that her body was nestled against his. She whispered, “Nor can I. I cannot imagine a life without you. If my life has to end, then I want it to end with you. I don’t want to spend whatever is left of my life knowing that you are dead and that you sacrificed so much for the peace of this world while I stood by and did nothing.”
He turned to face her. Her eyes looked deep into his, and he saw written there everything he had ever wanted to see in the eyes of someone that he took as a mate. But what kind of mate would he be if the only thing he would lead her to was death?
“You are the most impossible woman that has ever existed. I have lived for centuries, and I swear that I have never, in all my days and years, met a woman so determined to be so impossible. You are intractable, stubborn, and the most—dammit—you are the most magnificent thing I have ever seen. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I don’t know that I can allow this.”
Her raven hair shook from side to side as did her head. “This isn’t your choice. It’s mine. It is my life. I choose to be here.”
She had just used logic to box him in and cut off all of his protests. He knew that arguing with her now would serve no purpose. They were on their way, and there was no way to get her off the ship before they reached the outer ring of planets that they were headed to.
He said, “There is much to do before we land. It is a short trip to the solar ring. I just came in here to…”
What had he gone in there for? It completely slipped his mind, and that flustered him even more. “I have to get back on deck.”
He strod
e for the door, and she was right beside him. They entered a long corridor and headed through it. Talon’s crew was busy making sure that the weapons were ready and that everyone was armed. The ship was smooth and quiet, and he could barely feel the vibrations of the travel through the deck and into his feet. He said, “Have I told you how much I hate flight?”
She chuckled. “A few times.”
He said, “Well, I’m saying it again. I truly hate ships.”
She asked, “What do you love?”
The question threw him for a loop. What did she mean? Was she fishing for compliments? Was she hoping that he would say he loved her?
She must’ve read his thoughts again because she said, “I’m not asking because I want you to say that you love me. I’m asking because I want to know you. It seems like I know you, but I don’t. I know that doesn’t make much sense. I know so little of you is what I’m trying to say. I don’t know what your favorite color is. I don’t know what your favorite food is. I don’t know what you like to drink the most.”
His jaw sagged open in both amusement and puzzlement. “Why do those things matter?”
Margie said, “Because if we survive this war, then those would be good things to know, don’t you think?”
They would be. And perhaps they would be good things to know even if they didn’t survive. He pondered that for a moment. “I love the color of the sky right before the sun sets on our planet. I don’t have flowery words or phrases to describe it; I just know that I like it. I suppose if I had a favorite color it would be that color. It’s actually combination of colors and patterns swirling across the sky, but if I had to choose, I choose that. My favorite drink is clean water. As for food? I never really thought about it before, but I miss, very much, the taste of these little cakes that my mother used to make back before our original planet was destroyed.
“She made them from some sort of seeds and fruits that I’ve never seen anywhere else. She would pound them into this sort of paste and then she’d add in other ingredients and put them outside to harden under the sun.”
He’d never thought of that before. That small and slight loss. Cake. But that loss summed up everything that he had lost when the original Revant had been destroyed. Those things existed nowhere else in the universe and they never would again. He would never know the taste of that little treat, that special thing that his mother made when she knew that his father was coming home again from a long flight and could stay only a few days with his family.
His mother had made those things out of love for his father. Just like Margie had picked figs that she disliked and placed them on the table for him.
Everything in him broke open just then. All the things lost due to The Federation’s greed and far-reaching arms came rushing in at him, unbalancing him. He had lost much, and so had citizens of every planet in every system across that known universe. All in the name of The Federation’s betterment of themselves and their rank. It would never be enough either. The Federation would never have enough.
They would destroy any and everything in their path, and while this mission was not one he wanted to undertake, he understood exactly how important it was that he did. How important it was that they all did. Even Margie.
She too had lost so much under their rule. She’d been sold like a common possession but not before having been tortured and beaten in an attempt to get information from her that she had never possessed. She had seen family members die of starvation and thirst. She had seen them die from heat and lack of fresh air. She had lived a life devoid of sunlight joy because The Federation had declared that she was somehow less than others of its citizens.
So much hurt and so much willful destruction, and all of it stemming from The Federation and its cruel and tyrannical grip on the universe.
Margie said, “I miss the sound of the music that they would play on holidays. It was the one thing they allowed us to share with those who lived Above. They would send it down through the system, and we would all gather there in the center of the square in the middle of the Below. Nobody would speak. We would just stand there and listen to this music that was somehow so pure and so beautiful that made everything around us seem less awful.
“I imagine if I heard it now it would not serve the same purpose. I know there’s a better life now. I know there’s a better way now. I know there’s beauty and air and sunlight and love and family and food and I didn’t know those things then. But I think I would still like it. The music I mean.”
His arm came up and draped itself across her shoulders. He pulled her into him for a moment and then let his arm drop away from her as they entered the section that would lead them to the bridge. “Perhaps we should find you some music then.”
Her head lowered. There was a strain in her voice. “That was the music of Old Earth. I don’t imagine it exists anywhere else. I know there are some humans who came out into the systems, mostly slaves and the like, and maybe some of them remember it. I just don’t know if any of them can make it.”
He didn’t either. Maybe her music, like that cake his mother used to make, was something that would never be seen in the universe again. Maybe that was just one more small but incredibly vast loss that they would have to sustain.
The flight deck was crammed with people. Talon stood at the controls, guiding the ship with real confidence and talent. Jessica, his weapon’s chief, stood nearby at another control panel that allowed her to check the weapons ranged around the ship’s outer shell. Her face was tight and tense, and he didn’t blame her for being that way.
Entering the solar ring was iffy. The larger part of the armada at whose head they flew had taken a sharp bank toward the next set of planets. The last thing they needed to do was ride into outlaw territory with a Federation envoy right behind them, especially one that carried General Bates at its head.
After all, they were going to speak with his son.
The ship began to bank, its solar shields going up in order to offset the heat flares that rose from the first ring. Many a ship had attempted to make that journey without proper shielding and had burned up as soon as they had entered that space. A great wall of orange-red heat flamed toward them, churning and pushing against the ships outer shell. Margie said, “That’s scary.”
Jeval gave her a rueful smile. “It scares the hell out of me every time it happens.”
She said, “I can certainly see why.”
They made it past that first ring and then slid inward, riding space currents that eddied and drifted like waves of the sea. Those waves tossed them more toward the center, toward the four planets that lay within those rings. One wrong move and they would crash. If they made it past the space drifts, then they would have to contend with the asteroids that lay just beyond.
All those natural things were what kept the planets, three of them, wholly uninhabitable, from ever being used. The Federation avoided the place after having lost too many ships to its cranky atmosphere. As only one planet was even inhabitable, and it was a known desolate area The Federation had no use for it.
The Federation was often wrong, and they were completely wrong about that planet being desolate. On its far side, the side that never saw sunlight lay a vast city made up of criminals and fugitives. Space pirates often risked death in order to stop there and refuel and resupply. The most daring of them all exited through all of the lethal things around the planet in order to fetch in supplies and the like, and once they had them back on the planet, they charged a veritable fortune for them.
But space pirates and criminals and fugitives had credits. If they didn’t, they never would have made it there in the first place.
Those pirates and wreckers and other criminals that brought things they were to sell knew that they would get less of a price there than they would anywhere else, but they could also trade with other ships for fuel and printer food supplies, and any credits were better than no credits at all. Also, it provided a safe harbor, a place to do repairs on the sh
ips and rest. Or perhaps safe harbor was a misnomer. They were just as likely to be murdered by the other criminals and crews there as they were to be captured and killed by The Federation.
Talon knew the territory well enough to make it through there. Jeval could recall, with chilling clarity, the first time they had made that trip. He had been unable to stand on the flight deck and watch it happening. He had left, going to his room and praying to whatever old gods his race still held dear that if they had to die, they would at least meet their fate mercifully. That was something none of his siblings had ever let him live down either.
He couldn’t very well leave the flight deck then, though. Margie stood beside him, and it was clear that she was terrified. She was doing a good job of holding it together, but her face was white, and her entire body trembled as they made it past one asteroid belt only to have another come swirling and tumbling toward them. The rocks were shooting off solar flares large enough to crush the ship with one blow.
Finally, the planet came into view. Talon skirted around the uninhabitable front side. That side was constantly exposed to solar flare and burn from the incredibly vast sun that lay directly ahead of it. The planet they were aiming for was second in the little string of planets and on its backside were planets that were sheer rock and total ice. Impenetrable ice. Those planets were so hostile to life due to their frozen solid surface that nothing had ever grown there.
The backside of the second planet, where the city lay, was sheltered away from the solar flares and just far enough away from the other planets that the cold was not quite as killing. The solar flares warmed the front surface of the planet just enough to make the water that raged across it warm enough that it warmed the land behind. But it was a dark and dim place anyway.
They docked. Great drills piercing the planet’s surface and landmasses had cleverly constructed the docks. To dock, one had to duck, literally, right into a hole in the earth. The largest ships would never fit, and that was part of why it made such a good hideout. The little warrens, resembling those used by the giant rabbitlike animals of his home planet and the planet that he now called home, made sure that any Federation ship that somehow managed to get past and through saw nothing but emptiness in that system.
