by Drew Avera
He stepped lightly, careful to avoid kicking his husband as he walked on shaking legs. A day on Lechushe’ had passed, if it still existed, but Malikea saw the same image Deis did. Two halves of a sphere burning to ash as it evaporated into a clump of dirt and rock orbiting a dim star. Everyone's dead but us, he thought as he steadied himself on the bulkhead. He walked slowly down the passageway and tried to read what little was labeled. He soon gave up and resorted to opening doors to see what his behind them. He was relieved to discover several berthing spaces near the bridge and other spaces he didn't recognize further down the passage. He turned back, stepping into the berthing nearest the bridge and sat on the bed. He lay back, reveling in the comfort that was in stark contrast to the stone floor of their prison cell.
How much time did we lose there? Will we ever get it back or are we destined to live with the pain of our memories for the rest of our lives? Those questions muddled his mind, keeping him constrained to thoughts of where he'd been and not where he and Deis would go. His thoughts made him feel as lonely as the dark passageways of the ship.
"Mal?" Deis said from the doorway.
"Yes?" Malikea inhaled sharply, trying to maintain his composure. It was the only thing he felt he had left that he could control himself.
"Are you all right?"
The question sounded like an accusation more than anything else, but Malikea thought it was just his imagination running wild, like everything else that day. Malikea sat up and looked at his husband. “I’m alive. I suppose that’s something.”
Deis stepped in and placed his hands on his hips, looking down where Malikea sat. his face was grim and Malikea could see where tears streaked across his face. “It’s everything to me,” Deis whispered, his voice strained.
Malikea smiled. “And your life is everything to me.” He stood up and moved close to his husband, taking him in his arms in a warm embrace. It was the first time they touched lovingly since fleeing from their imprisonment, and it felt awkward. Thoughts ran through Malikea’s mind, not unlike the ones he’d contemplated ever since they left their world behind in scattering ashes. But there was no going back. There was no changing what happened. There was only the slow moving forward as they figured out their lives. It would be hard, but that was something they became used to ever since they left Lechushe’ the first time. In both instances they had each other.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Deis asked as Malikea pulled away from him, reclaiming his seat from before.
Malikea looked back into his husband’s eyes, patted a spot on the bed next to him and shrugged. "I will be," he replied. He just hoped he wasn't lying.
Epilogue: Neular
Cries for compassion lulled Neular from his slumber. Every part of his body hurt, reminiscent of the months of beatings and stabbing his body endured in the compound, but he knew upon opening his eyes that this place was not the compound.
"Please, give me another chance," a Lechun man in a dark uniform whimpered as a large man of another species stood over him. "I was distracted by the attack, sir."
Attack? What attack?
Neular felt nauseated as he came to. He strained to look down at his body, but the skin of his neck felt raw and sensitive. He lay his head down, trying to breathe normally as panic took root inside him.
"You were in charge, Kawal. How many chances should I give you? Need I remind you of the other escape?"
"That wasn't my fault, sir. Loris defected and stole from you. I had no control of that."
"No? Was it not your decision to put him on the transport to deliver the stock to my buyer?"
The man stammered, his voice weak. "We were short staffed and I didn't think I had a choice."
"There's always a choice, such as mine to not kill you on the spot; a decision that appears to have come back to haunt me."
"I can do better, sir."
Neular tried to swallow, feeling a knot in his throat before realizing it was a breathing tube. Where am I?
"I don't believe you," the big man said. "I gave you plenty of chances in a business where mistakes get you killed. Because of you, I've lost everything."
The man on his knees shifted forward, "It was the Greshian attack, sir. They took everything from you."
Neular watched from the corner of his eye, trying not to strain, but feeling he had to watch if for no other reason than whatever happened to the other Lechun was sure to happen to him.
The man standing backhanded the Lechun, spewing blood from the man's face before he collapsed to the floor. The man lay there, sprawled out and helpless looking. "Excuses. I'm done with you." The man took hold of a harness attached to the overhead before kicking the Lechun man closer to an airlock.
Neular realized he knew where he was. A ship.
“Please, no." The Lechun man pleaded sadly.
"I have to protect what's mine, and you're a liability. Perhaps you should not have turned on your own people." With those words, the airlock cycled open, removing all the oxygen from the space and sending the Lechun into the dark.
Neular gasped for air, but it was useless. He watched, eyes wide, as the man stood with his feet planted to the deck while holding onto a harness. The man moved slowly as he cycled the airlock closed. Almost as if he is enjoying this, Neular thought. I just watched him murder someone.
As the airlock clamped shut, the life support systems kicked into overdrive, pumping oxygen into Neular's lungs through the tube. Neular sucked it in, taking deep breaths while his eyes watered, not from pain or dread, but in relief.
"That man was responsible for what happened to you," the man said as he turned to face Neular.
"I owned the compound, but he oversaw the day to day functions. Any abuses you experienced at the hands of those under my employ were not ordered by me."
Neular stared, wondering what the man had in mind. Why keep me alive just to further harm me? It was a question he asked himself more than once during his imprisonment. He still had no answer for it.
The man approached, standing over Neular and allowing the Lechun man to relax and lay his head back without straining. "I wish there was an easy explanation for what all of this means, but life is rarely simple. Suffice it to say, the past is done, and current situations place us in one another's company. Lechushe’ has been destroyed by the Greshian Empire and you have nowhere to go and no one to take you in. Do you understand?"
Neular's heart beat rose as he thought about his world being destroyed. He never felt truly alone before. Even in captivity he had Malikea and Deis. Now all he had was a man whose name he didn't know and who he just watched kill one of his people. But Neular felt numb when he thought he should feel anger, or fear at a minimum.
"I'm going to pull the tube from your throat, since you should be able to breathe on your own. This will not be pleasant."
Neular groaned and gagged as the man removed the tube, scraping the inside of his throat as he pulled. Neular wanted to cry in pain, but the choking sensation overwhelmed him. Once free, he swallowed hard, but still felt constrained. He tried to speak, but nothing came out.
"I'm afraid they butchered your vocal cords. I doubt you will be able to speak again without assistance, but you can use this." The man placed a device against Neular's throat and strapped it into place. "Try speaking now," he said, taking a step back and folding his arms over his chest.
Neular did as he was told and was met with an incoherent garble.
"It takes getting used to."
Neular tried again, this time making the machine say three words. "Who are you?" The phrase sounded like one word spoken by someone without a tongue. It was clear why when Neular lifted his hand to his mouth. His eyes widened as he realized what those men had done to him.
"My name is Crase Tuin and the men that did this to you are dead."
He glared at Crase, not in anger, but trying to look through him to see if the man was lying. "Why did they do this to me?" His speech was robotic and void of emotion
despite the franticness of his thoughts.
Crase shook his head. "Why does anyone do anything? Because they can. But you have a second chance at life if you're willing to do what is necessary."
Neular hesitated, calculating his response. "What might that be?"
Crase smiled and pressed a button, moving the medical cart into a sitting position. "I'll show you," he replied, pulling a monitor close to Neular.
On the screen was a grainy image of two recognizable men. "Malikea and Deis. What about them?"
"Watch."
The screen moved, showing Malikea and Deis standing outside the room where Neular lay dying. He watched as they stood gawking for a moment before running away, leaving him behind. "Why would you show this to me?"
"Because I need your help reclaiming my ship."
"What does that have to do with them?"
Crase exhaled and leaned closer to Neular. "Because your friends stole it."
Neular's mind raced. They were his friends; why would they leave him to die? What part did Crase play in what happened to him? He could not reconcile what he'd seen with what Crase told him. None of it seemed to add up. "I don't know what to say."
"Say you'll join me," Crase urged.
Neular pulled against his restraints, realizing in his dulled state of mind that he was still a captive to Crase. "Why don't you let me go?"
"Because I haven't gotten my answer yet," Crase replied.
Neular tightened his jaw and looked straight ahead. "The answer is no."
Crase stepped in front of him with a frown on his face. "I was afraid of that," he said, pulling a syringe from behind him. "Fortunately, I have a means to get what I want. And the best thing is you won't remember any of this."
Neular tightened up, rigid as he struggled to snap his restraints. But it was futile. Crase lifted the syringe and inserted it into the wound on his neck. Everything burned as the fluid seeped into his body.
"Don't worry, the pain will subside eventually," Crase whispered, but Neular hardly heard anything over the sound of his own robotic screaming.
BROKEN WORLDS
1
Anki
Each step drew her closer to war, but it was better than waiting for death to kiss her lips and take her breath away with the fiery exhale of a Greshian war vessel. Anki grew up under a regime of fear, not of her own society, but the one coming for them. A childhood wrought from propaganda and secondhand hate formed the woman she would become, but Anki thought of it as strength forged over years of vilifying the Greshian populace. She had never met one of their kind before. The only images she had seen were constructed from pieces of newsfeeds spread across the Alorian stars. Muddled and grainy, those images showed a ghostly flesh-bound entity with seemingly god-like power. Physically, the Greshians did not appear to be much different than her people, but the seeds of contempt painted them as devils nonetheless. Was she prepared to stand face-to-face with the killers of worlds? It was what she yearned for, to stop the enemy in his tracks and proclaim herself the hero. It was not a romanticized notion of bravery that led her to enlist, but the realistic threat of annihilation that made her want to ship out on the next vessel towards the other side of the Alorian Galaxy and give her life to protect Luthia if necessary. Anki was not naïve enough to romanticize death, but she did not fear it either. As the old idiom went, it was what it was.
The moon started to set over Port Carreo, the largest naval port on Luthia. The area was surrounded by water, with giant pillars reaching towards the sky where the ships mated with Luthia to transfer goods without needing to enter the atmosphere. Where the pillars ended was an optical illusion, but Anki often wondered what it would be like to stand on the umbilical and look down upon the world she had never stepped foot off of. It was a dream of hers to take off and look out at Luthia as it grew smaller, less significant to the naked eye than it was when her feet were planted firmly on the ground. But the appeal of seeing the beautiful sphere of her world against a black canvas dotted with stars was pale in comparison to the reason she would ultimately leave her world behind. There was little doubt that she could behold beauty with a war going on, so she buried that desire deep inside and fought the urge to think about it again.
The political climate was evolving every day, and the latest news from the front lines sent a chill down Anki’s spine. The video feed portrayed a world afire, one so far off in the distance that its burn could not be registered without the aid of telescopes and graphic generators despite the perpetual night this time of year on Luthia. Still, there was a sense of doubt that such horrors could be displayed, even for the misdeeds of the hellish pale demons of the Greshian Empire. Luthia had been on the fence about standing up to the Greshians in the beginning, but doing nothing eventually led to choosing sides and with the loss of so many worlds during the Alorian Wars, it was only a matter of time before Luthia felt the burn of indecision.
Sweat poured from Anki’s black hair as she continued her run, her heart beating in her chest hard enough to cause her ears to ring, but she still had several meters to go before she finished her training for the day. She couldn’t afford to be seen as weak, not with her job in the Luthian Navy. Professional killers were as numerous as the stars, but ones with her specialty were a much rarer gem. Luthia had invested in a living weapon, training Anki to take the fight to Greshia or some outlying system, to end the massacre before it spread across the rest of the Alorian Galaxy. It was take the fight to them or worse, having the war in the Luthian system, threatening the lives of every soul on their solitary world. Even with all of her training nothing was guaranteed. If she had any hope for deployment, then she needed to be at the top of her game. War was coming one way or another, but Anki wanted to meet it halfway. The thought tended to bring a smile to her face.
A smaller version of her com-unit, a black and silver band strapped around her wrist, chirped to let her know she had an incoming message. Without breaking stride, she accepted the message swiping her finger across the acrylic glass and a holographic image of her superior, Sergeant Mallara, greeted her. “Good evening, Sergeant Anki Paro. You are receiving this message to let you know there will be a briefing in the morning and your presence is required. Please arrive with a travel bag in hand.” The message ended abruptly and Anki suddenly realized she had stopped running and instead was standing on the track panting for air. She didn’t know if it was nerves about her potential deployment, or if her attention span didn’t allow for physical exertion and life-changing news to be processed simultaneously. It was frustrating either way and she silently chided herself for relenting with the exercise regardless of how brief it had been.
She closed the connection on her com-unit before the message started playing again. This was the fourth mandatory briefing in as many weeks and each time she thought she would be sent out on a vessel to put her skill set to proper use. Each of those times she was sent back to her dorm, disappointed. Still, it stood to reason that eventually she would get the call she had been waiting on ever since she arrived at Port Carreo. A girl could hope, at least.
Anki started running again, this time with a second wind and thoughts about what it might mean to finally deploy. Her thoughts drifted to her father, the only member of her family still talking to her. She knew that the stress of her joining the Luthian Navy was a burden threatening to send him to an early grave. But she also knew he was proud of her and knew what she was capable of. It was the Paro blood in her veins that made her compete so aggressively with herself, and others. If he was honest, her father knew it was his fault that she took after him. It was a bond that could never break. No matter how far out in the Alorian Galaxy she might find herself.
The moon crept up the sky and a chill formed around her. There was a storm brewing and the cold front was pushing it inland. If she was lucky she would have time to get inside before the rain began to fall. Anki ran another five steps before the first drop touched the top of her head. That single drop was followed
by a torrential downpour. If the weather was any indication, then luck wasn’t in the cards for her anytime soon.
Anki opened the door to her dorm. It was one step above a barracks room and about twelve steps below what she grew up living in, but it was hers; at least for the time being. She was greeted by the usual AI voice, “Welcome home, Anki. I have maintained the room’s temperature to your preferred setting. You have arrived before your schedule usually dictates. Would you like to receive a cold beverage before your shower?”
The question accompanied the sound of her soaking wet shirt hitting the floor with a moist thud.
“Not yet. Please set the shower to coolness two,” she instructed. She enjoyed voice activated living quarters and preset settings for her day-to-day activities. She knew this type of living wasn’t going to last once she finally shipped out, but as far as she was concerned she could at least enjoy it while it lasted.
The cold water trickled down her body, slightly warming as it filtered through her hair and down her back. Most people enjoyed hot showers to help loosen the tightness in their muscles, but Anki had always been slightly left of the common crowd. Cold showers also helped regulate how much water was used. It kept her honest when it came to conserving water, whereas hot water was far too comfortable to step out of at times. Of course, it could all be in her head and she would spend the same amount of time in the shower regardless, but some truths were just lies you finally convinced yourself of.
Anki stepped out of the shower and into the common space wrapped in a towel. The news feed on her media screen showed more propaganda, more images of Greshian terror inflicted on worlds she otherwise would not have known existed. She was sure whatever world was engulfed in the flames of war had once been as peaceful as Luthia before the great expansion of the Alorian Galaxy. She hadn’t even been born the first time another species revealed itself to her world. Hell, her father, who was born at the time, was too young to remember it, but at least he had been alive for it. Now it seemed that what once seemed like the next step in evolution was devolution as everything burned down around them. This was why she joined the Luthian Navy, to preserve a peace that might otherwise never exist.