by Drew Avera
Malikea canted his head and stared at Deis. The two of them had gone through so much in the ten years he had known him. Things weren’t easy in the beginning, and things weren’t easy now, but perseverance was something they had grown used to, even excelled at. He never thought an arranged marriage would have ended up being such a splendid thing. Maybe there is something to fate after all, he thought. "I'm not afraid of Farax, but of who we might find there," he replied after several moments of silence. Piracy was as common as a barkeep or store owner on Farax. The only difference was what each of them was trying to sell. A shiver ran down his spine as he fought to shake the thought from his mind.
"There is no one there who knows us," Deis rebutted.
Malikea inhaled sharply, the words coming from his husband's lips burned through his heart with the raging flames that only guilt could form, but he remained silent nonetheless. Maybe Deis is right, he allowed himself to hope. There was no changing what needed to happen, so all he had was the hope that their past wouldn't come back to disrupt the lives they had built together. It was a trip not unlike this one that thrust Malikea and his young husband towards a life of slavery. He still had dreams of their ship being overtaken, the wild-eyed men with large guns crowding the tiny ship where Malikea shivered in fear. They were naïve then, too stupid to not be afraid of the rumors circling that system. He could not even bring himself to utter the name of it. That was how far his fear had taken root, and now that they were heading to the same kind of place, the fear revealed itself to be anger, tinged with guilt and self-contempt. The fear he could handle, but the guilt was its own kind of punishment.
Malikea lay silently contemplating the decisions he had made to help bring them to this juncture in their lives. As Deis snored lightly next to him, Malikea rose from the bed and donned his robe, the silk feeling cool against his skin. He wasn't much in the mood for sleep and felt awkward sitting in the bed, wide-eyed in the dark. The Replicade sped quietly through the dark, their only company being the low hum of electricity emanating through the steel bulkheads and the soft churn of the air recyclers wafting conditioned air into the livable spaces. Malikea ran his hand along the cold bulkhead as he made his way to the bridge. It was something he always did when he felt afraid.
He found a seat in the corner at a place Brendle had said would have belonged to a Combat Control operator when the Replicade was used as a warship. Brendle also said that Combat Control had been his job when he had served the Greshian Navy; that it had been his fingers pulling the trigger that destroyed countless lives across the Alorian Galaxy. Malikea was appalled to be in the presence of such a man at the time, but Deis reminded him that Brendle had saved their lives. It wasn’t easy, but that was how Malikea justified the now-budding friendship he had with the man who may have been responsible for his and Deis' home being annihilated.
But that justification was only a half-truth. As vile as any Greshian was in Malikea’s eyes, there wasn’t much difference in how he viewed himself when the guilty thoughts of his past crept back into his memories. What reality shone behind Malikea's eyes was one much darker than even Deis knew. Guilt shadowed his life and was becoming ever-increasingly harder to shake. The sensation was now tainting his life in ways he never knew they could before, but he knew it was impossible to talk about it. Malikea's problem went much deeper than mere shame. He feared that, if Deis had known what he had done, it would destroy their marriage, and their relationship was the only stable thing in his life since Lechushe’ was destroyed.
Malikea ran his hands against the smooth console. Blue light illuminated under his hand, waiting for his command, but he had no desire to control any part of the warship. He just stared at the light penetrating through the darkness of the sleeping bridge, lost in the thoughts he hoped to escape.
"Can't sleep?"
Startled, Malikea turned to see Anki leaning against the bulkhead on the other side of the bridge. She was dressed in a gray robe tied tightly around her waist. She was an imposing woman, strong in stature and in resolve. Her dark features paled in comparison to her heart, though. Malikea thought her strength came from her heart, from the love she didn’t know she was capable of. Or perhaps that’s a romantic notion I attributed only to others, he wondered.
Still, Malikea had seen Anki during their escape from the massive Greshian ship as she struggled to find her place in the crew, to know what her purpose would be. He knew her now as a fighter and a nurturer. She is kind of an everywoman, Malikea thought, and he respected her profoundly. Especially how she coped with the loss of her own world and found comfort in the arms of a former enemy. He wondered how she found the strength to do that, and whether or not she viewed it as her strength the way he did.
Their cultures were very different.
"I have a lot on my mind," he answered, turning away shyly.
Anki moved closer to him and pulled up a chair. "Me too," she said, sitting within arm’s reach, close enough he couldn’t hide the shame he felt reddening his face. He knew she was reaching out, either for help or to help. He hoped it was for the former, anything to take his mind off what kept him up at night.
Malikea took her hand; the mocha color of her skin paled in comparison to the dark gray hue of his own. "What's on your mind?" he asked.
She looked away for a moment and he felt a tinge of guilt for putting her on the spot in such a way. He knew he was just trying to avoid the same question, to escape the truth he constantly denied. That fact did nothing to ease how he felt; it made it worse.
"I've been thinking a lot about my father," she said. "I can't help but think about all the times I should have called him, or visited, yet I was too hung up on training and becoming a marine that I essentially ignored him. Now, he's gone and there's no going back." She stopped talking for a moment and the silence nudged Malikea to say something, but the words weren’t coming to his lips right away.
He looked down at her and watched as she wiped a tear from her eye, but she didn't sob. She showed strength in her heartache. That strength reminded him of a time he felt he was going against the world. "Can I tell you a story?" he asked.
Anki answered with a nod.
"On my world we had arranged marriages for the priests. In order to be shown favor, families would dedicate their children to be betrothed. Only the boys could be offered because the priests were not allowed to procreate. Though the act of intercourse was not necessarily sinful, a priest’s creation of new life was considered an act of defiance against the order. The priest—along with the mother and child—would be executed. All of this is a dark part of the history of our culture. There would be instances still where a priest would fall into the arms of a woman and lie with her. Deis and I witnessed the execution of beauty on more than one occasion, and I grew resentful.
"I love Deis with all my heart, but if my life had not already been dedicated to be betrothed to him, I can't say I would not have found love with a woman of my kind. Knowing this, I came to hate my father for casting me into this world, for taking choice out of my life and forcing me to potentially act against my character merely to bring honor to his name. I've told this to Deis several times, and this is why we were off world when our home was destroyed. We tried to immerse ourselves into another culture, one that didn't shackle us together, but allowed us to be who we were. Because of this experience we fell in love organically, not because refusing to would have conflicted with the order of our religious society. Also, because of this we are still alive.
"I tell you this because I resented a lot of people, several of them in my own family, for putting me into a position that I've grown to love and hold dear to me. I could never choose another besides Deis, and for that, I am greatly appreciative of the life I live. But there is a part of me that regrets what I had to experience to get to this point. I can never say this to those I've lost, and I don't know why I'm telling you now other, than to let you know that I understand the pain of regret in not having closure with the peopl
e you love. It does get easier, and you honor them by remembering them, not by regretting what you failed to do by them."
Anki looked up at Malikea, tears streaming down her face. He could see he had struck a chord with her, pulled on her heartstrings so they were on the same plane of existence. He felt closer to her now, revealing the state of his heart to someone other than his husband, but he didn't reveal the truth of what kept him up at night. He would just have to hold on to the fact she knew he ached in much the same way she did. He hoped that planted the seed of trust. Malikea just hoped that trust didn't prove to be misplaced, again.
6
Crase
Sitting in the transport alone made Crase nervous. There was something about silence that made his skin crawl. He knew it harkened back to some distant memory suppressed by a childhood of abuse or something, but all of those memories were locked away, many of them removed by would-be-doctors in the badlands as some kind of fucked up experiment. Perhaps the silence and loneliness reminds me of a coffin, he thought. Maybe I have outlived death for too long, and this is the only way it can haunt me. His imagination conjured up many dark thoughts when he was alone like this, none of them welcomed, and hardly any of them worthwhile to any degree. It was just a part of his existence that he had no meaningful way to put into words other than to say it was what it was and nothing more. It seemed like such a trite way of looking at his world, but too many decades taught him not to think about it too much. The thoughts were poisonous if you let them in, and Crase had enough poison in his life already.
He had watched daybreak take place half an hour prior and yet he still had not heard from Neular. Is that Lechun injured, or killed? He wondered. Crase shook the thought from his mind, needing the quiet to concentrate on maintaining some semblance of sanity as he tried to contact Neular on his com-unit for the fifth time in as many minutes. Enraged, he closed the com-unit and slapped it onto the console. The connection was still just as dead as it had been minutes before, and it was driving him crazy.
“Damned solar flares,” he cursed, angrily grabbing the com-unit from where it settled on the console and shoving it back into his pocket. He usually wasn’t this jittery, but waking from another dream where he nearly died by being double-crossed had him on edge. This one was like the rest, just with different faces and different places. The outcome was always the same, though. Even after a few hours to settle down he could feel the anxiety choking at him, gnawing on his nerves rabidly. This isn’t like me, he thought, checking the time again. It hadn’t changed. He hated dreams; they tormented him more than anything else in the galaxy. That said a lot, considering how many years he spent in his current line of work, doing the things those dreams only scratched at the surface of.
Craning his neck to look from the tiny windows of the transport, he saw the winds kicking up another brutal dust storm. The pinging of grit and rocks pelting against the transport was a reminder of what a terrible time of year it was on Farax, not that there was a such thing as a good season, but all things were relative. Crase knew if they waited much longer, they might not make it off the rocky hell for another few hours, a day, worst-case-scenario, but he tried not to think that way. Simply put, being stuck on Farax was money burned sitting idle, something he wasn’t accustomed to accepting. His next payday was floating out in the dark, prey and not even realizing it.
His com-unit alerted him of an incoming call.
Finally a break, he thought, pulling the com-unit from his pocket. He answered more anxiously than he intended. “Hello!”
It was Neular on the other end of the call, speaking with a voice modulator that made him sound robotic. “They brought an army, Crase. I am hiding in the hills, looking at the soldiers surrounding the Lament, now.” It was hard to tell, but it sounded to Crase as if Neular was out of breath.
“Have they breached our ship yet?” Crase asked, his words biting the air as his anger flared.
“They are preparing to do so now.”
“Dammit,” Crase said. Nothing seems to be going my way today, he thought. He loved that ship, but he was a fool to grow attached to it. Not only was he losing money from the shipment, but losing the Lament was a setback he didn’t realize until now he wasn’t prepared for. “Are you free from the blast zone?”
“I believe so. I want to be close enough to pick off any survivors, though,” Neular said.
That was one of the reasons Crase admired Neular so much. He was as committed to the cause as Crase was. Everything was a team effort.
“Very well. I’m initiating blast sequence now. This will show Belwa not to cross me, that sonofabitch.”
Crase held the remote device in his hands, anger causing them to shake. He lifted the guard over the detonation switch and looked at the small device that would wreak so much destruction. He wanted to say a silent prayer for Neular’s safety, but not believing in any gods made the sentiment feel trite. Instead, he depressed the switch and felt the rumble of the ground shaking as the massive explosion took place on the other side of town. There was no need to look at the pluming smoke cloud building up from the blast. He’d seen the same thing many times before when other ships were detonated. The loss of the Lament was a great source of pain for him. Ironic, he thought, resting his head back in the seat as he waited for Neular to finish off any of the survivors. Crase would give him an hour, then he would evacuate this shithole of a planet and carry his revenge to the person who deserved it most: Belwa.
Time passed slowly, and Crase began to worry. He was on edge when Neular finally entered the transport, his face bloody from a cut and his clothing torn and covered with blood.
“Neular, are you all right?”
The gray man took a seat and hissed. It was at that moment Crase saw the shrapnel in Neular’s thigh. He knelt down and inspected the wound, a piece of metal bigger than his hand was driven deep into Neular’s leg. Blood oozed around the edges of the cut, and he knew if he pulled it out that the blood would pour from the cut and Neular might bleed out. He needed the medical bay on the Lament, but it was too late for that.
“Strap in. I’m taking off and we’ll find somewhere more hospitable to take care of your wound,” Crase said, having a hard time believing his own words.
Neular merely nodded and reached for the restraints.
Crase climbed into the pilot’s chair and initiated the drive sequence. He swore under his breath, fighting back the anger growing inside at just how bad things had turned. Maybe I’m not paying as much attention to what’s going on as I thought.
His fingers fumbled with the switches, but eventually the transport was ready to climb out of Farax’s grimy atmosphere and float steadily in the dark. At least off world, Crase could mend Neular’s wound without worrying about being captured. He knew time was running out for them after the Lament exploded in a fiery display. Once the locals found the bodies, the hunt would be on for who was responsible. Ships like the Lament didn’t just blow up.
All in all, Crase knew he was screwed, and even if he got out of this, he knew there would be hell to pay.
The transport climbed in altitude until gravity no longer pulled it towards Farax’s surface. Now free, he engaged the autopilot and moved to the back with Neular. He found his assistant passed out, his arms strung down across the armrests limply. Crase felt for a pulse and was relieved to find one, as faint as it was. He retrieved the sad excuse for a medical kit and brought it back to Neular. Crase cleaned around the wound, careful not to cut himself against the sharp steel.
Once cleaned, Crase gripped the metal with a pair of pliers and pulled it steadily from the torn flesh of Neular’s leg. As he suspected, the wound gushed blood, enough so that Crase wondered if the coagulant would be able to stop it sufficiently.
He didn’t have time to waste. Crase sprayed the emergency coagulant into the wound and watched as it hardened into a rough patch in Neular’s leg. It would stop the bleeding, but there was no way Neular would be able to use the leg witho
ut a doctor stitching the wound closed.
Crase felt for Neular’s pulse again and it felt stronger. That’s a good sign, he thought as he rose to his feet and made his way back to the pilot’s chair. The only good thing about the area surrounding Farax was all the keys in this part of the sector. He had options for finding another area in the galaxy to seek medical treatment for Neular.
He toggled through the different feeds on his monitor, looking for something that could help him find treatment for his lieutenant without having to spend days in the dark. What he found was a familiar line of code for a ship entering Faraxian space. It took him a moment to translate the code to reveal why it was so familiar. He recognized it because he coded it. It was the transponder code for the Replicade. The only ship he ever truly lost.
7
Anki
The view of Farax from the Replicade’s monitors made the planet look like a dull gray ball backlit by a cloud-covered star. The noxious gases surrounding the planetary body gave the illusion of the planet’s being gaseous, but beneath the blanket of translucent atmosphere was a world just as alive as Luthia—more so, now. The dense clouds surrounding the rocky terrain obscured most of the details of the landscape below, at least the portions partially visible behind the canopy of gases orbiting the world. It was Anki’s understanding that there was no shortage of rocky plains for landing the Replicade. According to Brendle’s account, most of the water on Farax was subsurface, leaving only small lakes open to the evaporating effects of their star. Precipitation wasn’t cause for concern, but the dust storms were another story. The one like they were about to land in the middle of now.