Dove Exiled

by Karen Bao

  The General passes through the open doors to Defense. The doors begin to close; at the rate everyone’s moving, Jupiter and Skat will pass through, but not Orion and I. I fire more frequently. The polymer composing our targets’ exhaust tube glows red and sags. Skat’s head twitches backward; for perhaps the first time in his life, he looks troubled. His hand fumbles at his utility belt, trying to find a Lazy, an Electrostun, anything.

  The space between the doors narrows—Jupiter’s Pygmette barely squeezes through. I clamp my forefinger on the trigger, firing a continuous stream of violet. Through the crack between the doors, I see the Pygmette’s blinking lights turn off. The vehicle slows down, gravity pulling it toward the floor. It bounces, flips over, bounces again, and wobbles on its belly as Defense’s doors slam shut.

  42

  THE GENERAL ESCAPES THROUGH THE HANGAR. With him goes the loyalists’ belligerence. In minutes, they fall apart, a scattered mess that Dovetail easily puts down.

  Leading our prisoners, Jupiter and Skat, by a chain attached to their ship, Orion and I cruise toward the Atrium, where our new leaders have called for a general assembly. People around us stare upward in bewilderment and admiration. Some cheer, which makes me squirm. Don’t they know that this victory marks the beginning of a long struggle?

  Callisto has partially recovered; I see her crying into her sleeve, and all I can do is pity her. After her electrocution wounds heal, accepting her mother’s choices and Jupiter’s rejection will take long, painful months.

  Jupiter. In handcuffs, the General’s son rambles to anyone who will listen—namely, Orion and me—about his father. “He’ll come back for me, blast it. They all will!”

  His voice has an undercurrent of doubt; he’s unsure whether he’s been abandoned. The Committee is not always loyal to its own.

  Even as I derive a guilty sort of amusement from watching this Militia bully in his weakest state, I catch sight of three people in the crowd. The stream of affection I feel washes away all else.

  “Orion, do the honors,” I say, pointing my chin at Jupiter and Skat. Orion grins and turns the vehicle toward Penitentiary, dragging our prisoners’ Pygmette along. He’ll put our prisoners in solitary confinement. I jump from our ship and run through the path made for me by the base residents. I nod at every smile or thank you directed my way, but there’s no time for more. Soon I’m there, and I gather Ariel, his father Atlas, and Anka in my arms.

  “Aieee!” Anka ends up in the center; she cranes her neck, searching for a place where she can breathe. Atlas cries tears of joy, or sadness, or both. Gray has invaded his dark, curly hair, probably a result of cracking tough cases in Law while contending with Caeli’s desertion and Umbriel’s absence. It’s strange to see him without his wife. Did she make it out? Or has she been taken prisoner?

  I decide not to ask.

  “Phaet, you couldn’t be a little louder when you got back?” Ariel says sarcastically. He’s lost weight, like everyone else on Base IV, and his long eyelashes have thinned, but otherwise he’s the same boy I grew up with. “If you wanted me or Dad to find you, you didn’t have to plow over half a hallway.”

  Anka laughs from her stomach and bares her teeth in a grin. It’s a relief to watch her girlishness resurface.

  Umbriel and Cygnus appear in my peripheral vision. Joy seems to be the only thing keeping my brother awake and vertically oriented. I’m sure he’ll fall into a deep sleep after this is over. I’m so full of love that my body feels like an inadequate vessel with which to contain it. For this brief, beautiful moment, our exodus is over.

  * * *

  Asterion, Andromeda, and a newly freed Sol Eta address us from the Atrium’s third-level balcony. Because the Committee always broadcast their public addresses while sitting at their conference table, the balcony hasn’t been used for its original purpose in decades.

  The solemn expressions of all three quell the base’s sense of celebration. Andromeda leans on a crutch, her left leg bandaged to the knee. Her skin is green under the lights. Asterion’s round face was made for smiling, but today, scratches crisscross his skin; stress and gravity pull downward at his mouth and eyes. Sol holds her bald head high, twitching every few seconds as if tossing back the chin-length mane she once had. My right hand twitches too, longing to slap her.

  She let my mother write her “Grievances” and die for them. A confrontation between us is long overdue.

  “Thank you for voting on my behalf today.” Asterion’s voice, though comforting, drills straight into my brain. “Thank you for voting at all. Participating in the democratic process isn’t only your right as citizens; it’s your responsibility.”

  Andromeda’s eyes fall on Callisto. She looks alarmed to see her daughter in tears, wearing clothes burned black, but she gathers herself and speaks to the base in ringing tones. “You, Base IV, have chosen your leader by majority rule. But before I cede executive authority to Asterion Epsilon, I declare Base IV to be governed by democratic principles—as a free and independent state.”

  I add a weak whoop to the raucous cheering. I’ve just watched the impossible happen. The bases were meant to coexist indefinitely. A hundred years ago, our founders considered themselves humanity’s last hope. Through scientific advancement, order, and frugality, we would endure even if the Earth became a puddle of pollutants, and we would do it together.

  Now Base IV is free, but alone, after a century of discontent.

  “Asterion will serve as your interim president while a Constitution is drafted.”

  “Thank you, Andromeda.” Asterion turns to the audience and gives us a warm smile. “With regards to the Constitution, we will arrange a nomination process so that you, the people, can choose who will draft this crucial document.”

  Hope buds within me, tender and green as a springtime shoot. If he’s as earnest as my interactions with him suggested, and as persistent as his scientific work has hinted, Asterion will keep promises in a way the Committee never did.

  Sol steps forward. She looks fifteen years older, and so sorrowful.

  “In the aftermath of Mira Theta’s death last August, I inherited her duties as leader of Operation Dovetail.” Her once-powerful voice has been reduced to a weak chafing. “I will continue to lead the struggle to change the situation of our brothers and sisters on the other five bases.” She pauses to cough. “Currently, we are alone. The Committee will order the Militia to invade us. They will remove us from the Moon’s energy grid and cut off our communication channels. They will make our existence as difficult as they can.”

  Nods from the audience. We’ve dived too far into revolt to surface now.

  “But I’m not without a strategy,” Sol says. “We have innovative defensive instruments”—could she mean weapons?—“in development, thanks to a collaboration between the Chemistry and Nanoengineering Departments.”

  Interesting. My gut tells me that Asterion and Yinha’s brother, Bai, are involved in this, and I tremble to think of what contraptions they could be building.

  “Within months,” Sol says, “we should be able to bring Base VI over to our side. Their researchers have been angry ever since the Committee cut their funding, and Wolf’s death means the inauguration of a sure-to-be-unpopular interim Committee representative. Rebellion will soon brew there in earnest. This alliance will provide us with bright minds, another supply of solar energy, and a hold over the equatorial region. From there, we will set our sights on Base II, whose citizens are tired of producing goods and energy for Base I functions and working long hours for little pay. Once we’ve liberated them, we will use Base II as a launchpad to attack Base I with all our strength.”

  Put like that, taking over the Moon sounds deceptively simple. Easy, even. But I know that allying ourselves with the other bases will require backbreaking work from Dovetail—and from me, the Girl Sage.

  Sol clears her throat, the p
ain evident on her face. “I understand that not all of you will support using our few resources to expand Dovetail’s base and fighting power. Please know that I will not abuse Asterion’s power or Andromeda’s knowledge for that purpose.”

  My anger dissipates as she begins coughing again. I won’t challenge her—for now.

  Andromeda pats Sol on the back and turns to address the audience once more. “Regarding our future, I feel obligated to share vital information with you, the people. These revelations may not be welcome, but they are true.”

  Umbriel gives me a glance heavy with worry. Can he and I take any more surprises? Can the new legion of Dovetail members?

  “Pacifia and the bases instigated aggression with Battery Bay, not vice versa, as the Committee has long led you to believe,” Andromeda says. No surprises there. “They have deployed nuclear weapons in orbit around Earth. With Pacifia, the Committee has been planning coordinated attacks on the city of Battery Bay, where the known fugitive and Dovetail-aligned agent Wesley Carlyle is stationed with his family.”

  My breath catches at the sound of his name. Wes, Murray, the whole family—in danger of being captured or shot or nuked. I can’t fight the familiar feeling in my gut, the tiny voice telling me I have to do something. But Battery Bay . . . what can be done? What can I do?

  Andromeda sighs. “All these actions point toward my former colleagues’ final goal. They have worked toward this end for decades.”

  I shake my head, tempted to put my fingers in my ears, as I did when I was little, whenever I needed to shut out voices, words, ideas I didn’t want to hear. Andromeda’s next words won’t surprise me, but they’ll still hurt.

  “The Standing Committee is planning to recolonize the Earth,” Andromeda says. “And achieve world hegemony.”

  It’s a shame the Moon wasn’t enough for them.

  43

  GASPS AND WHISPERS BREAK OUT ACROSS the audience, filling the Atrium with a threatening hum. But people should’ve known this was coming. The Committee’s collaboration with Pacifia, Earth Recon’s scrounging materials from Earthbound cities . . . Their love of power, a lack of lunar natural resources, and perhaps even claustrophobia would naturally drive them to thirst after humanity’s home planet.

  “Lady A has got to be making this up,” Anka says. “The Committee must be idiots to think they can take over the whole planet.”

  “The Committee are anything but idiots,” I say. “They’re addicted to power.”

  Around us, other incredulous and angry people are also debating with one another. “Earthbound,” someone next to me scoffs to his neighbor, a young woman with a Medic badge. “We have enough problems without worrying about their power plays.”

  “They’re so useless,” the medic says. “True, some of them are enemies of our enemy, but they’ll never be our friends. They’ll only bring their sewage up here and feed it to us for breakfast.”

  I wish I could chastise them. Battery Bay and Base IV share a common adversary: the Committee. The Batterers don’t have the resources to withstand the combined might of Pacifian numbers and Lunar technology, and neither do we. But Andromeda can’t propose an alliance without inciting disgust among Base IV’s citizens, whose prejudices—stoked by more than a century of propaganda—are still lodged firmly in place. I hold back a frustrated growl, realizing I’ll need to help Andromeda change their perceptions.

  “The Committee is confident that after thirty years of undisputed rule on the Moon, they can govern the Earth, even restore it to its former glory,” Andromeda says. The crowd falls silent again, filling the hall with a haunting hush. “Though they deny this fact, the Committee—Wolf Omega most of all—are . . . were orders of magnitude more arrogant than my dear friend Mira Theta or her daughter Phaet, whom they so often mocked.”

  From the balcony, Andromeda’s eyes seek me out. People are looking my way, cheering, but the claps and calls don’t bring me joy. I’m drained, burdened by today’s events. All I want is to rest.

  “Girl Sage!” the voices cry.

  Base IV’s people need me now. But my legs can hardly bear my own weight—how will I stand for them?

  “Phaet,” Asterion says, “you showed us your intelligence and skill when you ranked first in your trainee class. You demonstrated your moral strength on the day of Mira’s trial. And today, you proved that each and every one of us can rise from the brink of death—and win. In honor of your mother, and in service of the cause to which you have devoted yourself, will you join us?”

  His request astounds me, makes me shake my head. Why would they elevate a sixteen-year-old girl, place her beside the new leadership? I can’t do it—can’t draw attention to myself, forget my roots, act prideful. The greatest honor anyone could grant me would be a peaceful few days with my reunited family.

  But would I enjoy that peace? Someone’s still missing.

  Wes. Eri begged me not to forget him; she died with his name on her lips. His city is gone; his people are refugees. But I swear to myself that I’ll find them on Battery Bay and fight until their archipelago is safe again. If I’m still alive at the end of it, I’ll dig my hands into the soil and help rebuild the home they’ve lost.

  From the balcony, Asterion, Andromeda, and Sol stare at me expectantly. So do my family, and the crowd that surrounds us. It’s like I’ve sprouted hundreds of surrogate family members. Is there room in my heart for all of them?

  As Yinha steers a Pygmette in my direction, I remember the old myth she told me. The peasant girl’s ribbons of white hair, blowing in a lightning storm. The cruel landlord’s death, her provincial village liberated. Between the Lunar citizens here, and the Odans in Battery Bay, I have a planetary village to worry about.

  I climb into the passenger seat. The craft rises higher, higher, and the assembly below blurs into a dazzling wash of color. My family’s faces shrink, and then fade.

  It’s no longer appropriate to stare downward. I must lift my head.

  I near the balcony, cheered on from below, but I don’t feel as if I’m flying. I’m suspended on a chill gust of wind, a dove wandering into war.

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