Micah Trace and the Shattered Gate

by Eric Swanson

  His true aim was to keep Lahm from joining the Wahadna. The Ansna-Wahadna existed officially separate from the Hybrid Secession Federation but operated as a militant extension of the latter. No one was allowed to (officially) be a part of both groups, but to think that there was no connection between the Hybrid Secession Federation’s words and the Ansna-Wahadna’s action was folly.

  “Depends on whose goals we’re talking about here, Lahm.”

  “You and I have the same goal, Po. We always have…” Lahm shifted in his chair and sat up a bit straighter. “You just can’t see that.” He finished with a hint of disappointment.

  “Right.” Po dismissed Lahm’s familiar refrain with a word and pressed forward. “So, talk me through the order of things, here, Phil…” Po held his left fist up a little over the table. He gestured at the fist with his other pointer finger. “You leave here and travel millions of lightyears,” Po’s right hand moved away from his fist toward nothing but air on his right side. “To what? A new home? Safety from our home?”

  “This has never been our home, Po,” Lahm pointed at himself then Po. “This is no more our home than a cage is home for some poor creature in a zoo. We live here, they feed us, they use us. That’s it.”

  “Ok, fine.” Po held up both hands, palms toward Lahm. “Let’s say I buy that, just for the sake of this conversation… let’s run down that road, Lahm.”

  Across the table, Lahm sat up straighter again after he bent over the steel surface a bit to inch nearer to Po while making his point. He shrugged and swept his left hand toward Po. It was Po’s green light to continue.

  “So, we’re trash to all Cerans and live precariously, perilously close to their entire race just up and deciding one day to freeze us all and thaw us one by one, as needed.” Po spoke faster as emotion pushed the accelerator on his mouth. “Is that about the way of it?”

  “You know what I think, ZC.” Lahm’s nickname for Senator Po was born on the Antisar court, where he needed something quick to scream that would grab Po’s attention. “Ziu Chin!” When screamed over the clamor of even a small school league crowd could sound like many other words. “ZC” was a more distinct sound and stuck long after they’d both left school and the Antisar court.

  “Right.” Po thought quietly for a beat before he continued. “So, here’s my issue with what I’m assuming is your plan: You’re proposing something that is so clearly much more dangerous than your present circumstance… Lahm, it’s the reason people started saying things like ‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire.’…”

  Lahm opened his mouth, but Po held up a hand and the former held his tongue.

  “Just… give me a second. You’ll get your moment, trust me.” Po said. “So you’re going to Earth to escape Ceres with no guarantee that whatever situation you encounter on Earth will be any better. In fact, in all likelihood, the Human response to you and any other Hybrid onthat ship will be to view you as an enemy, one to be killed and then researched. You won’t have a chance to ask for help or asylum or anything else. It’s--”

  “Crazy.” Lahm said in a whisper, his head dropped low to where it had sunk as Po was almost yelling at him. “I know, ZC. It’s insane.”

  “Yeah! It is!” Po cried across the table. He pointed to his friend with all four fingers, thumb up. Thank you! Don’t do this, Lahm! Not by-“

  “It’s insane, but I have to do it.” Lahm cut Po off with his voice quivering. “Even if I die before I see the Humans’ sun… In space, alone… It’s better than living under the heel of a race who thinks of you and me as supplies on a shelf rather than people.”

  “Fine.” Po said after a long, frustrated groan. “You might die in space before you see the Humans’ sun…” Po echoed Lahm. “But you won’t be alone.”

  “What d—”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “You can’t, Po, they already filled the crew. It’s locked in.” Lahm shook his head, an apology on his face.

  “I know.” Po said. He locked eyes with the Hybrid he’d long considered a brother. “They asked me last night, before they asked you.”

  “Wha-“ Lahm stopped and laughed in disbelief. “So what the hell has this all been about if you’re going?”

  “I asked for a chance to talk you out of it, Lahm.” Po shrugged. “I told them they’d either have both of us or neither. But I knew how this would go.”

  “I don’t know whether to thank you or punch you…” Lahm scoffed and laughed again, this time because no other response would come.

  “Well, you’ve got a couple years to figure it out, my friend. We’ll be in close quarters for a while.” Po stood and walked around the table to Lahm’s side. The Separatist stood and they faced each other at a short distance. “All I ask is that you decide fast, if punching is your choice.”

  Lahm laughed loudly and extended a hand to Po.

  “Haven’t punched you yet, buddy. Your mother would kill me… so would mine. Why start now?” They embraced quickly and their smiles faded to matched serious expressions. “To the end, Po. You and me.”

  “To the stars, Lahm.”

  Chapter Eleven

  What Meremoth Leaves Behind

  1440 Hours

  Word of the expedition to Earth and its unique crew spread across the Capitol in minutes. Before long, newsfeed carried debates about mission, Micah and the wisdom of sending someone like Garreous across the stars.

  An impassioned argument between newsfeed personalities Sallast and Xenophon blared from a screen to the left of Remy as she moved through a darkened corridor. One cried about the damage Garreous’s absence from the Ceran scientific community might do and the other bemoaned the first’s frightened, alarmist tone.

  Remy didn’t care enough for the argument to see which newscaster occupied each side of the dispute.

  Light from the screen shone against her white hair and it almost glowed in the ill lit hallway. Remy’s shoulders tensed a bit as she walked past the noisy argument but slacked once she was far enough from the screen to hear less of the debate.

  Burnt orange sunshine flooded the hallway as a door slid open a few paces ahead of Remy. She turned toward the entryway and left the dark, now bathed in auburn light. A small artificial sun hung in the center of the room and threw lifegiving light onto plants of all types. The plants were arranged in tight rows and marked with identifying information on small translucent cards.

  “Zaid?” Remy called into the greenhouse. She craned her neck around a pillar and found more unattended plants.

  A sharp metallic clink came from further into the greenhouse, under a plant-free table. Several pieces of equipment which would eventually grow plants were scattered about the silver surface.

  “Zaid?” Remy asked once more, quieter.

  “I…” Zadok’s voice came from under the same table, followed by a louder metallic clank. “Rem?”

  “Yeah…” Remy stretched out her reply as she tentatively walked toward the back of the greenhouse. “Are you…”

  “Fixing a table, yes.” Zadok said, frustrated.

  “I see.” Remy smiled a bit as she crouched down to join her husband near the floor. “And… Do you fix…” She surveyed the mechanisms about Zadok on the underside of the table, skeptical. “Tables?”

  “I…” Zadok began slowly. “Grow plants and this table… Grows… Plants?”

  They laughed together for a moment, kissed quickly and Zadok returned his attention to a tool he was using to tighten a bolt. The tool slipped and Zadok’s hand ran up into the protruded bolt.

  “Ah!” He cried out in pain and dropped the implement. Blood quickly began to pour from the wound.

  “Oh…” Remy stood and circled once in search of a medkit. “Zaid, is there…”

  “No…” Zadok laughed at his misfortune. “Though I do recall someone telling me to stash a kit here somewhere.”

  “I remember that too.” Remy smiled warmly as she grabbed a cloth and pressed it to he
r spouse’s blood-soaked hand. As they walked out of the subterranean greenhouse, a deep red stain bloomed through the towel over Zadok’s knuckle. “So,” Remy stared at the growing circle of color and sucked a faux-concerned breath in through her teeth, eyebrows raised. “You fix tables often in that greenhouse?”

  “I grow fruit and vegetables in that greenhouse, Rem.” While he walked with his arms crossed in defense of his wound, Zadok smiled then winced a beat later when his bloody hand bumped into his opposite bicep. He rolled his eyes and grunted in frustration. “The tables don’t malfunction often.”

  Husband and wife shared a smile and a quiet moment. Zadok’s grin began to fade and Remy’s followed.

  “How will I manage if this sort of thing happens while you’re gone?” Zadok asked his wife. Fifty feet down the corridor an elevator awaited, open. The soft green glow from a panel inside the elevator tossed the same glow into the hallway a bit and the pair moved toward it quietly.

  “You’ll be alright. Just leave a medkit or two in the greenhouse, maybe a couple at home…” Remy smiled but tears welled in her eyes. “You need me much less than you think, Zaid.”

  “Debatable.” He replied. “But many more need you right now.”

  “It really won’t be that long, Zaid.”

  “Two years. At least.” Zadok stared at the elevator’s rear wall as they stepped in. He turned around to face the doors as they slid shut. Zadok struggled to look at his wife as the elevator started to rise. “Probably more…Can’t your b--”

  “Ah!” Remy held a single finger up, her eyes kind and understanding as they locked onto her husband. “He can’t and you shouldn’t want him to, Zaid.”

  “I don’t want him to…” Zadok’s voice quieted and he shook his head slowly. “But I don’t want you to go either.”

  “The Crown asked if I could be a philosophical middle ground between…” Remy turned to face her husband and raised an eyebrow. Husband and wife nodded curtly in turn and Remy continued. “They—”

  “Never ask. I know.” Zadok replied then stepped nearer to his wife. He reached toward Remy and pushed some of her white hair behind her ear. “Garreous is a child and the other… I don’t know which rumor about him to believe. Though, I suppose if your brother and I didn’t disagree so vehemently about almost everything, perhaps one of us would have been selected in your place…” Shame made him hang his head a bit. “How do they propose to keep you safe?” Zadok’s head dropped further and his shoulders slacked. Nothing but a whisper came next: “I can’t lose you, Rem.”

  “You’ll never lose me.” Meremoth drew near to Zadok and pressed their foreheads together. “I’m just going to be misplaced for a while.”

  The couple shared another smile, this one dourer, nose-to-nose as the elevator rose.

  The First Steps Down the Path

  1645 Hours

  Atypically, Micah and the Twins walked from his apartment door in silence. The late-afternoon orange sun dropped light onto them and the copper-colored catwalk that connected the Blocks and the Twins squinted against the light as they moved toward Wes’s apartment. Micah’s hood shadowed most of his face, as always, and saved him from the sunshine.

  The trio arrived at Wes’s door and a sharp knock later, his door opened.

  “I always forget how big you guys are…” Wes smiled as he stepped between the twins and they returned his grin. Most Hybrids stood half a foot shorter than Rooman and Reeman, but Wes’s size made him more of a physical equal. Over the course of their time together (by way of Micah, of course), Wes and the Twins developed a respectful, though sometimes playfully teasing relationship.

  “You think because you’ve got great hair you can tease us like that, Wes?” Rooman asked as they fell into step behind the Hybrids.

  “My hair affords me many privileges, Rooman…” Wes joked as he ran a hand through his strawberry blond ear length locks. “Chief among them clearance to address almost anyone however I want…”

  “Except for me…” Micah’s first words in nearly thirty minutes brought him into the foursome’s joke. His smile spread on his face and matched Wes and the Twins’.

  “Right.” Wes said quickly a thumb pointed at Micah to his right. “I mean, Ahma forgive me for occasionally disrespecting an almost-Royal.”

  “Half-Royal is my preferred term, sir.”

  “Halfling, right.” Wes quipped without looking Micah’s way. “That’s what I said.”

  “I’m going to miss this.” Reeman said, quiet. His wounded tone disrupted their levity and all four fell quiet for a few moments. “I didn’t mean—" Reeman broke back in when silence ran too long for his taste.

  “Hey, it’s alright, Reeman.” Wes assured the Ceran as they rounded the corner and turned toward A Block. The orange daylight on the catwalk gave way to shadow as the sun was blocked by the massive statue in the middle of the steel path. Wes waved up at the huge polished representation of the King. “If you miss him too much, just come here. You’ll always have his statue.”

  “My statue?” Micah cocked his head slightly, a wider smile on his face.

  “Well, half yours.” Reeman and Wes said in the same moment.

  All four burst into a loud fit of laughter together as they passed the King’s statue. It stared out toward the blocks as they left. It had for decades but would only stand for another three more years.

  “At the risk of derailing comedy hour…” Rooman began slowly. “But I’ve wondered something about the voyage to Earth for a very long time…”

  “There’s a waste system, but it’s mostly clear bags and a vacuum sealer.” Wes said as a new smile crept across his face.

  “Gross.” Rooman replied quickly. He shook his head to clear a mental picture or two and pressed on. “If we haven’t figured out faster than light travel yet, how is the trip to Earth only two years? And aren’t we near enough to the Solar system for them to have found us? Or at least found that?” Rooman gestured behind them at the auburn star in the sky.

  “We use a series of slingshot maneuvers around various celestial bodies…” Micah said. He parroted a turn of phrase stolen from Pollai during a recent conversation. His voice trailed off and the Mimic hoped not to be called upon by his Sentry for more detail on the matter, as Micah knew no more.

  “Makes sense.” Rooman nodded and the matter was dropped quickly.

  As the four neared Kaymar’s residence, Rooman’s question weighed heavily on Micah’s mind. The sheer insanity of this undertaking dawned on him as Micah realized that he knew how they would reach Earth only in very basic terms:

  Get the King’s permission.

  Get on the ship.

  Launch.

  Float through the vacuum of space for two years.

  Land on Earth.

  “Both Kaymar and Pollai are coming, right Mike?” Wes asked as he glanced around the beginnings of the first Ceran residential complex beyond the Hybrid blocks.

  As the Ceran living quarters got further from the Hybrid blocks (and nearer the Pillar), the exterior of the structures became more aesthetically pleasing. Softer color palettes, large reflective windowpanes and inlaid designs in silver, bronze, gold and other metallic hues made the buildings almost works of art. Large, colorful banners hung from the top floors of some buildings and fell nearly halfway down, advertisements of the residents’ loyalty to their Antisar club. The banners stretched dozens of feet across and blocked most of the windows on that side of the living quarters.

  “They are…” Micah began to survey the Ceran blocks with Wes and his response came slowly, distracted.

  Rooman and Reeman exchanged knowing, bemused glances. The Hybrids were always awestruck by the Ceran apartments, no matter the number of times they walked past them.

  “Do we think…” Wes trailed off a little, unsure how to ask his question. “That’ll be ok?”

  “They’ve made the journey a bunch, Wes.” Micah said unemotionally.

  Both continued to take in
the increasingly impressive buildings around them, neither looking the other’s way while they walked and talked.

  “Right. Just them.”

  “And…” Micah responded, inquisitive. Micah’s hood flopped about a bit as he looked around more.

  “And… A floating tin can. Pollai. Two years.” Wes laughed a bit to himself. “That hasn’t crossed your mind at all? That guy, in an enclosed space with other living creatures who might also want to use some oxygen and maybe even speak every so often?”

  Rooman and Reeman both chuckled and tried at nearly the same moment to stifle their laughter in embarrassment.

  “No, it’s ok guys. Everybody knows what this guy is…” Wes said as their feet continued to click along the copper colored steel pathway. “But we’re the idiots choosing to trap ourselves with Ceres’s most renowned windbag.” He stopped midstride and turned back to the twins. “I’m legitimately concerned about the oxygen supply in that ship… Is there any way there’ll be enough for him and the other 11 people?”

  “No.” Micah quipped with speed. “That’s why you won’t be allowed to speak while he’s awake, Wes. We figured that would balance.”

  “Ah!” Wes cried and feigned clutching at his chest. “Kill me now.”

  “Nope. Gotta make it to Earth first.” Micah said as they approached Kaymar’s door. “Then maybe. We need both to manage the trip, space-faring anomalies and all.”

  All four smiled again as Micah reached toward the door and rapped on it several times.

  Susa and her Path

  1730 Hours

  “Do you have everything you require, Princess?” Shellai asked as steam danced around her.

  Shellai stood in the entryway of Susa’s private lavatory, a massive room with incredibly high ceilings, the peak of it covered in the same flicker-shining black granite as the Throne Room. Wrapped in a thinner purple bathrobe, the Princess laid on a bed of flat, heated stones. The slate gray stones were warmed by a heating element below them and the Princess had, moments before Shellai’s question, settled onto them and slid a small eye mask into place. The eye mask matched the color and material of the robe and completely blocked out any light in the room.