by J. M. Page
He couldn’t stop imagining the teasing smile she gave him, the defiant cant of her hip when she challenged him, or the soft lilt of her voice, when she accepted him without judgement.
It was impossible to clear her from his mind, but he had to try. At least her absence was a small mercy. Miniscule, really.
He heard the hiss of the door and swiveled in his seat to find Delta and Sande walking in together, each with a look of determination. He should’ve known this was coming.
“Sir, I’m afraid we—” Sande started.
“What is wrong with you?” Delta cut in, red rushing to her face.
“Excuse me?” Torak said standing up to his full height. He dwarfed Delta, but she didn’t flinch, blink, or recoil even a little. She held her ground and glared at him.
“You heard me!”
“Uh, Delta, perhaps a bit of diplomacy coul—” Sande tried to say, but Delta shot him a glare for his trouble.
“Diplomacy, shiplomacy. You’re being an idiot,” she said, turning back to Torak.
Heat rushed through his veins, anger clouding his vision. How dare she speak to him like that. How dare she speak to her Captain, in such a way. He’d have her thrown in a holding cell for mutiny. Strand her on the next barren rock they found. He’d—
“What Delta is trying to say, sir, is that we think you’re making a mistake with Mara,” Sande said, sending a pointed look of his own at Delta. She had the decency to shrink back a little at that, but furious energy still rolled off her in unmistakable waves.
“I don’t remember soliciting opinions,” Torak said, folding his arms in front of him. Here were his two most loyal crew members, turning on him. Because of this woman. How could they not see how desperately they needed to remove her from the ship?
“I understand, sir,” Sande said, his voice still even and calm, musical and soothing. “But we implore you to reconsider.”
Torak grit his teeth together. “Why should I?”
Delta rolled her eyes, letting out a big huff. “Because, you big dummy, you love her. That’s why it hurts so much when you’re fighting. We’ve never seen you as happy as you are with her, or as distracted. Clearly, she’s good for you, even if you’re too thick-headed to realize it on your own.”
“Watch it,” Torak growled, her insults needling him. Delta never was afraid to speak her mind. She never shied away from the truth, even an unpleasant one.
He turned his gaze to Sande, seeking confirmation from his most trusted friend. “You agree with her?”
Sande shrugged. “Not in so many words, but yes. I think Mara helps fill a hole in your life that you’ve forgotten is there.”
Torak’s chest tightened and his heart jumped to his throat, closing off his airways. He knew that hole was there, alright. He’d felt it even stronger ever since the incident with Mara’s father. He didn’t know how they saw it too, but he knew it was there. He’d just accepted that life would have to go on, even with a gaping hole in his heart. Even if it felt like all happiness and peace was sucked into it, eaten and destroyed.
“It’s too late,” he said. “It’s already done.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mara
Mara couldn’t bring herself to leave her room. It was too much. Too hard. She didn’t want to see Delta or Eddi or Sande. She definitely didn’t want to risk seeing Torak.
She couldn’t believe him! Arranging transport on another ship, just pawning her off on some other crew. What kind of coward did a thing like that? She’d tried to go to him, to apologize, to talk to him like rational adults would, but nothing worked. Nothing got through to him.
He was impossible, ridiculous, and infuriating. Maybe it was for the best that they went their separate ways. There was no chance of anything ever working out between them.
Especially not now.
But the really devastating part of it all wasn’t Torak, or her friends, or leaving the Affliction, it was the end of her quest. She’d never found any more information than she started with. That crazy old lady made her think there was something, but what, Mara couldn’t begin to fathom.
Soon, she’d be back home with her father, back to being treated like a child, not trusted with important decisions, never getting the full truth when she asked for it.
Mara sighed, picking at the edge of her blanket.
There had to be something, someone who knew what happened to her mother and their homeworld. Mara couldn’t bear the thought that this was the end of her hope. The end of her chances to learn the truth.
She couldn’t bear it and refused to accept it.
As she sat there, wallowing in her own copious amounts of self-pity, Mara had a sudden thought: her father wasn’t the only one that knew about her mother. His friend, her ‘Uncle’ Rooney, was there when everything happened, too.
There had been times when she was a kid, that Mara asked him for details, and Uncle Rooney would always tell her ‘when you’re older.’ But before she ever got older, Uncle Rooney and Dad had some big fight. Mara only remembered hearing them shouting, hearing Uncle Rooney saying ‘you can’t keep it a secret forever,’ and her father saying ‘watch me, she’s my daughter.’
Mara always wondered what secret they were keeping from her, but she never saw Uncle Rooney again. And of course, Dad was never all that forthcoming.
But who was to stop her from calling him now? Dad wasn’t there to stop her. Torak hadn’t restricted her comms, as far as she knew.
Why hadn’t she thought of him sooner? Could she have known the truth all along? Since her first day on the Affliction?
There was only one way to find out.
Drying her eyes, Mara pulled out her tablet and set to work finding contact information for Uncle Rooney. With all the trillions of people in the galaxy, it was no minor feat. But what else did she have to do while Torak and his crew took her to the other ship? She certainly wasn’t going to leave her room. She couldn’t even think about eating and there was no way she could face her friends or be helpful at work.
This was all she could focus on, so she poured herself into it, hoping for a miracle.
After hours of searching, she found her miracle. Stationed on a refueling base in a far-off quadrant of the galaxy, Uncle Rooney was no longer a surgeon. According to their directory, he was now Chief of Medicine and had been there for almost seven standard years.
It had been probably close to fifteen since she’d seen him last. She wondered what he did, where he went, for all those other years. She wondered if he ever found a family of his own. If that’s why he settled on that base.
But besides all those wonderings, the question at hand was still the most prominent thing in her mind. With a deep breath and shaky fingers, she pressed the button that would call him.
The comm took longer than usual to connect — he was very far away — but eventually it did, ringing and ringing. It might be foolish of her to expect an answer. He wouldn’t know who was calling him, she didn’t know if he was available or sleeping, or what. He was probably a very busy man, being Chief of Medicine, even on a small base.
Mara considered hanging up, but as soon as the thought entered her mind, she dismissed it. This was her only shot, she’d let the comm ring for hours if she needed to.
Finally, the screen changed and Uncle Rooney’s familiar face appeared. Familiar, but different. His dark skin had taken on a grayish pallor in his age, and his face was much more wrinkled than Mara could recall, but he still had the same violet eyes, sparkling like amethyst.
“Hello? Who’s this?”
Mara picked up the tablet, hand trembling, and struggled to find her voice. “U-uncle Rooney? It’s Mara.”
His eyes went wide, clearly surprised, then they narrowed, picking up on her features, trying to discern if it was really her or not. She squirmed, feeling uncomfortable being looked at so intently. She remembered the way Torak had looked at her so thoroughly and how it made her feel liquid and pleased. But he was diffe
rent. And that was in the past.
“Mara? Is that really you? My goodness you’ve grown up!”
Mara smiled despite herself and nodded. “It’s me, I’m glad I found you.”
“Does your father know you’re calling me?”
Mara frowned, irritation springing to the forefront of her mind. Why did it matter if her father knew or not? She was a grown woman. She could handle things herself. Why wouldn’t anyone ever give her that credit?
In his defense, Uncle Rooney probably still thought of her as that little girl he knew, not the grown woman she was now.
“No, I’m not with him. It’s a long story, but I’m not calling to talk about him.”
Rooney’s ghost of a grin faded into a frown. “What are you calling about, then?”
Mara took a deep breath, steadying herself. “Mom. I want to know what happened. I want to know where I belong.”
Rooney sucked in breath and shook his head. “You know your father asked me a long time ago to never tell you these things. For your own protection, Mara.”
“And I know that you never spoke again because of it. I’m all grown up, now. I think I deserve to know, don’t you?”
He looked conflicted, but finally nodded. “Yes, I do. I think you deserved to know before, but it wasn’t my place. How about I call you back in a little bit when I’m back in my office and we can have a chat?”
It was then that Mara realized he seemed to be walking as he talked, making his way through hospital halls, past patients and healers.
She nodded, hoping that he meant what he said, that he wasn’t just trying to come up with some excuse to get her off the call. “Okay,” she said, accepting that she just had to trust him.
Rooney disconnected the call and Mara sat there staring at the blank screen for a long time, her blood fizzing with excitement. In only a short time she’d finally have the answers to questions she’d been asking her whole life. It was kind of unbelievable.
She paced back and forth in her room, thinking of what she’d do with this new information. Maybe on the new ship she could talk them into taking her to her homeworld instead of her father. They’re being paid either way, right?
It was a long shot, but maybe.
She couldn’t help but be excited by the prospect of seeing her home planet for the first time. She’d seen other planets now, and been awed by them, but Mara suspected nothing would compare to home.
The tablet sprang to life again and Mara tripped over herself diving to answer it.
“Hello again, Mara,” Rooney said, a warm smile gracing his lips.
In the background now, she saw an office, filled with accolades and pictures of Rooney at award ceremonies. She didn’t see any family photos or personal items. Had he been alone and lonely all these years? Mara was suddenly angry at her father all over again.
“So, you wanna hear about the homeworld, do you?”
Mara nodded. “More than anything.”
He frowned and shook his head. “It’s not a good story, Mara. Have you heard of the Asanin Plague?”
It sounded familiar to Mara, but she couldn’t place why. Then she remembered Sande translating the message from the distressed aid ship. The ship that was carrying medicine for the doomed planet, stricken with the Asanin Plague.
She nodded.
“It’s a nasty disease. Almost a 100% mortality rate if it’s not treated immediately. But the first planet it struck, Asan, was decimated. No survivors. When crews came to check for anyone alive, anyone at all, they were all stricken too. They carried it to their base, and it’s been causing massive devastation, wiping out entire planets in between long periods of dormancy.”
“Is that…” Mara tried to speak, but now she had a sinking feeling in her stomach, a tight lump in her throat. She coughed, her head starting a dull throb. “Is that what happened to my planet?”
Rooney’s expression turned impossibly grimmer. “Mara, your homeworld is Asan. There was no treatment at the time, there was nothing anyone could do except quarantine the whole planet.”
Mara’s entire body turned cold and she shivered, tears springing to her eyes, falling fast. Her whole planet. Her people. Everything, destroyed by a disease named after them. For a moment, she thought she might be sick.
“But… How… I mean, what about me and Dad?”
Rooney didn’t even look at her now. He stared down at his desk, and she thought she saw his own tear drip to the table top.
“Your father and I were on a route when the disease struck. Your mother was still pregnant with you, due any day, when people started to get sick. No one knew how severe it was until whole swaths of the population started dying. Your mother took herself to a stasis pod and waited. None of us knew if it would work, but they loved you so much, they had to try. The pod kept her alive long enough for us to return. For me to deliver you. Your mother…”
Mara was crying in earnest now. She couldn’t imagine the sacrifice her parents had gone through. Her mother gave up her life. Her father lost everyone he ever knew and loved, his whole planet laid to waste.
“We didn’t even know if you would be okay. It was a brand-new disease; we didn’t know if it could infect in utero. It was all such a gamble, but you survived. Your mom would be so happy about that. I know you’ve always wanted to find your homeworld, Mara. But there’s nothing to find. Asan is gone, long dead, nothing but a cold empty planet now. I’m so sorry.”
She couldn’t even bring herself to say anything. It was too much to take in. A lifetime of wondering, of questions, of dreaming, all for nothing. There was nothing to dream about any more. Nothing to hope for. It was all dead.
Somehow, they managed to end the call and Mara let her sobs come freely then. She always thought that finding her home would magically fix all her problems of not belonging. She never thought she’d find somewhere else that felt like home.
But she had. The Affliction felt like home. She felt like she belonged here, but now this home was being taken away from her too. She couldn’t deny that Torak was a big part of her despair. The thought of never seeing him again, never hearing his rough growl say her name again, never seeing that smile he reserved just for her, it was all too much.
Asan was dead. Her dreams were too. Her relationship with Torak was over, destroyed by her own short-sightedness, and now, the only place she’d ever wanted to belong was ripped away from her too.
She’d fought so hard, for so long, but now it seemed inevitable. Mara would have to do the one thing she swore she’d never do. She had to give up.
Chapter Seventeen
Torak
No matter how hard he tried, Torak couldn’t stop thinking about what Sande and Delta had said to him. Was he being an idiot? Was he acting too rashly? Was he letting his fear guide him?
The more he thought about it, the more he thought about Mara and her amber eyes and mahogany hair, her musical laughter and engineering skill, the more he started to think that yes, he was an idiot.
But what about that other thing Delta said? The thing about loving Mara? He didn’t even know if a Son of Basniel was capable of love. Love was a foreign concept to his people, but was that by nature, or by conditioning?
He thought about the way his pulse sped up when she was around. How he couldn’t stop thinking about her, even when they weren’t together. How he worried about her when she went missing, and how ready he was to destroy anything and everything that stood between them that day. He remembered how upset he’d been when he realized she was angry at him. How guilty he felt for being the root of that anger, even when he’d thought he was doing the right thing.
Was that love?
Was it love to want to spend every moment with someone? To want to make all of their dreams come true, even if it meant sacrificing his own along the way? Was it love to want to impress her, even at the expense of his reputation?
The more he thought about it, the more Torak started to see the wisdom in Delta’s words.
But now it was too late. He’d already made arrangements on another ship. He’d already told the crew — and Mara — about those arrangements. He’d already hit the detonator and he could only sit by and wait for the explosion.
Before all of this happened, that first moment Torak saw Mara, he wanted her. He wanted her just to have her. To strike fear in the hearts of his enemies. To make everyone see ‘this is what happens when you cross Torak of Basniel.’
