by J D Huffman
“They might if it served their goals,” Serim said. “Who knows?”
“Demeter knew,” Sasha grumbled. “And now I can’t find out what he knew.” She stared at William after that, in a way that made him particularly uncomfortable. What, does she think I know something? She should come out and ask, then. I don’t have anything to hide.
“The important thing is, you survived,” William said, trying to look at the positive side. “We lost a lot of people but we still have the ship, we have the weapons, and some people made it back. It wasn’t a clean victory but it wasn’t a total defeat, either.”
“I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the dead,” Sasha scowled. “And you damaged this ship, I noticed. I specifically told you to stay out of the combat zone and you didn’t listen. Since it was your disobedience that led to the ship taking damage, you will personally lead the repair team. I suggest you get started. We need to depart this place as soon as possible and I don’t want to do that with a compromised hull.”
“My ‘disobedience’ saved your ass,” William retorted, and not at all calmly. “You want everything to be neat and tidy with these missions. Haven’t you figured out yet that it’s not going to be? People are going to die. We’re going to take losses. Sometimes, we’re going to come away with less than we had before. It can’t be helped. That’s war.”
Before she could say anything else, he walked away to carry out her orders. I’ll do what she says because it needs doing, but I’ll be damned if she’s going to lecture me about how to do my job.
After spending some time gathering repair supplies, he suited up in the exterior access bay. Compared to the main cargo bay, it was less “bay” and more “compartment.” Meren and Serim joined him so he wouldn’t have to do the work alone, but this left very little space to move. “I’m handy enough with Totality tools that I should be of some help,” Serim said in his modest way. William suspected the man could handle all the repairs himself, and would likely end up doing most of the work anyway, but Sasha had assigned it to William and William would do his part. He wasn’t sure about Meren’s presence, at least not yet. What’s his angle? William wondered. He’d been one of the first to volunteer for the depot mission, and given that the tall fellow had come away from the moon without a scratch, he suspected Meren to be agile and tenacious. Definitely someone we want on the front line.
With the three of them fully ensconced in their environmental suits, they sealed the compartment’s airlock and opened the exterior hatch, using convenient handles just outside the hatch to guide themselves to the ship’s outer hull. Powered magnets in their boots let them walk upright across the surface. William expected that to make things simpler, but it led to some very curious sensations. Outside the influence of the ship’s artificial gravity, his sense of up and down evaporated. He stood on the side of the ship, lifting his head to gaze at the stars “above,” yet he couldn’t distinguish directions much at all. The thought of his boots becoming unmoored from the hull and letting him drift out into space produced a momentary panic, and he crouched down to grip the surface handles as an extra safety measure.
“Come on,” he said across the voice link. Meren and Serim shrugged and followed his posture, practically crawling along the hull to the damaged section. William examined the outside of the ship as he went, noting the gray-brown hue it possessed in the light of the nearby gas giant, which was itself reflected from the local star. Hull panels stretched out before him, attached to each other through unknown means. He expected rivets and welding as was the practice on Lexin, but he saw none. I’ll ask Fred later how these work. I bet if anyone around here knows, it’d be him. That guy’s a living knowledge mine.
They crept most of the way along the ship’s length until they came to some clearly warped and punctured areas. William positioned himself over one of the damaged panels and Serim approached with a repair kit. Adhering it magnetically to the hull, just like their boots, Serim unlatched the kit and pulled out a couple of tools, placing them in William’s hands. He then retrieved a sheet of light gray material which somewhat resembled the ship’s hull panels, but smaller and with no obvious wear or damage. He held it up then looked to William. “Use the first tool to prime the damaged areas, then I’ll place the patch and you can use the second tool—the sealer.”
Examining the holes, William followed Serim’s instructions and in a couple of minutes they had a cluster of punctures patched. He was glad to see none of the breaches had gone all the way through. We’d be in real trouble if they had. He had no idea how long such a seemingly flimsy repair would hold—to him, it looked comically inadequate. “How do you know how to do this?” he asked.
Serim cocked his head toward the repair kit. “Instructions are printed inside. Totality probably send slaves out here to do this most of the time, just so they don’t have to risk themselves.”
William figured it made sense. After patching a few more holes, they went to work on the larger areas that were simply warped but not punctured. “Just use the sealer on these,” Serim urged. All three of them had such a tool so they could make quick work of the long string of bent, dented, and twisted panels that stretched along a sizable portion of the hull. The sealer superheated whatever material it was aimed at, and could supply fresh sealing compound on top of it. A skilled welder could use the two to create an extremely strong bond. With the work well in hand, William decided to break up the silence with some conversation.
“I’ve been with this little uprising since it started but I spent a lot of that time in a medical bed, so I haven’t had a chance to get to know most of you. You in particular, Meren.”
“Not much to know,” the big man sighed. “I grew up under the Totality. I don’t know anything else. The rest of my mining unit sometimes talked about their old homes and I thought they were crazy. As I got older, I realized more and more what the Totality had denied me. When Sasha’s revolt came, I couldn’t think of anything to do but join.”
“What happened to your parents?” Serim inquired.
“I never knew them. One of my unit mates told me I’d been born at one of the other mining facilities on Actis. There’s a creche all the infants and young children are sent to. Once you’re old enough to pick up a plasma-blade, you’re sent to the mines. I don’t remember the creche at all, truth be told. That’s how young they send you away.”
William tried to imagine spending one’s entire life toiling in a Totality mine, knowing nothing else. Even if the Totality weren’t especially abusive—and from what he knew, that depended entirely on the individual overseer—the drudgery, the monotony, and the intensity of the work could surely drive a person mad. “I don’t mean to be indelicate, but how did you people cope with being enslaved?”
“What choice did we have?” Meren posited. “There was no life outside the mine, as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t do anything except try to be the best miner in my unit. I had more output, cleaner crystals. I won’t lie, the overseer gave me some special treatment because I was his best miner, at least in that unit.”
That piqued Serim’s interest. “Like what? I never got any special treatment.”
“He’d have me brought extra food, the good stuff from the kitchen. It’d be sent down to me when everyone else was asleep so nobody would get jealous or try to fight me for it.” Meren laughed as if he remembered something. “A couple times, he mentioned I was so good he’d have to stud me out to the stronger women in the facility, make some better slaves.”
“That’s kind of gross,” William said, making a disgusted face.
“Yeah, I suppose it is,” Meren admitted, his laughter dying immediately. “It never happened, as much as he mentioned it. I think he was teasing me.”
“Probably,” Serim nodded as he finished up another panel, crawling his way to the next. “I wouldn’t read too much into those rewards you got. He may have been grooming you for some
thing, but I doubt it would have been pleasant for you in the end.”
“He does bring up a good point. How do the Totality keep a steady supply of slaves?” William wondered aloud. “They always seem outnumbered, which is why they need slaves in the first place, isn’t it?”
“Fred’s told me bits and pieces,” Serim confirmed. “No one ever turns up pregnant, if that’s what you’re asking. Men are given an injection that prevents releasing viable sperm, according to Fred.”
“We had something like that on Lexin,” William noted. “It was for voluntary contraception, though, not… population control.”
“Indeed,” Serim said. “As for where children come from in the first place, it’s my understanding that the Totality receive a steady supply of slaves from the Hegemony.”
That name certainly got William’s attention. “What is the Hegemony? Do you know? I only know the name and that they’re near Totality territory.”
Serim shook his head. “Fred said they’re just another government. A human one, not Totality. He didn’t seem to think they were worth a damn.”
“I agree, if they’re in the habit of selling their own people to the Totality.”
“Scum,” Meren offered his opinion.
“What about you, Serim? What’s your story?”
“I’ve been with the Totality for half my life,” he offered. “I can’t say exactly, but it feels like half. I lived on a world outside the Fortress, like Sasha, but it wasn’t her planet. I’ve never known why there are so many inhabited worlds outside the Fortress, for that matter.”
I have a bit of an idea about that, William thought, recalling the mural in Lexin’s Vault, and the massive exodus of ships to myriad worlds that it illustrated. Strange to imagine that Serim came from one of those little circles so crudely painted on the inside wall of an old, dead ship. “You were saying about your planet?” William urged him to continue.
“Yes, I apologize for rambling. I grew up in a household that was… inhospitable, to put it kindly. Once I reached the age of majority, I petitioned to free myself from my family’s influence. I spent the better part of a year pleading my case. But I had a job, I’d obtained my own small home, and I was committed to building my own life, away from my family. On my world, children are essentially owned by their parents until they commit to a life partner, and I’d yet to even begin such a process at that time, so pursuing this emancipation by myself was fairly daunting. But I succeeded and I was set free to live my own life, free of the influence of my family. I was owned by none and accountable to none. I believe I owe that entirely to the advocate who represented me—for no fee, I might add—and he laid out the long history of abuses my parents had heaped upon me, and none too subtly implied that leaving me at the whims of my parents would lead me to self-harm, or worse. He may have exaggerated, but he got the job done.”
“I’m going to guess this happy ending takes a not-so-happy turn, next,” William snorted.
“Yes, it was quite a shock to wake up to my entire city being rocked by orbital weapons fire. It’s a curious thing, how the Totality precisely target your infrastructure in order to thwart emergency responders. They destroy major roads and bridges, knock out power sources, jam communications frequencies. Military facilities are leveled as soon as they’re identified. It’s an impressive strategy, or would be if it was inflicted on someone who deserved it. Totality were soon in my building, rounding people up. They grabbed me and dragged me onto one of their ships before I knew what was happening. I went to Actis from there. It’s… strange. I think about that world, and imagine going back to it, but I know that the way I knew it no longer exists. I can still see the city, bustling with activity, from the gleaming towers to the filthy slums. I can picture it in my head just like it was, and think about how I could one day go back there, but I know it can’t be like that. Everything I remember was annihilated. Everyone I knew—my family, as much as I despised them, and my friends, as much as I miss them—they’re all gone. This hunk of metal we stole from the Totality is the closest thing I have to a home now.”
“And here we are, patching it up like we care about it,” William added.
“Home is where your friends are,” Meren suggested. “And I’d like to count both of you among my friends.”
William smirked. “That’s a little trite, don’t you think?”
Chapter 23
The Gift
Sasha turned and squirmed and flopped around in her cot. It wasn’t a question of comfort—virtually anything was more comfortable than the rockbed she’d spent most of her life sleeping on. She kept thinking about Ian, the one who’d saved her at the cost of his own life. I didn’t even know his name until Meren told me. I should know the names of everyone fighting for me. I’ve been such a fool. I’m asking them to fight for their own freedom, but they’re also fighting for me. They wouldn’t follow just anyone, would they? My word has power—more than I realized.
She stared up at the ceiling of the former commander’s office, one hand under the back of her head. Angel hadn’t wanted to release her, but Sasha was adamant. “Someone else might need this bed soon and I’m strong enough to get around on my own.” That wasn’t entirely true: Sasha didn’t walk so much as hobble away from the infirmary. A tendon on the back of her right ankle had been grazed by a Totality shot. She knew she was lucky it hadn’t connected more directly, the way one of the projectiles went straight through her helmet and nearly killed her. She thought about the others who’d died, whose names she didn’t even know. They were volunteers, and she’d not had time to learn much about them back on Actis or while on this ship. She had other things on her mind, other priorities. But that’s just an excuse, isn’t it? I have a responsibility I’ve not taken seriously. I have to change that. Not just for Ian, but for all of them. And I need to reward Meren, somehow. He carried me off that battlefield when he could have left me. They could have all left me. He took on that burden without being asked. I need to think a lot more about things like this. The promise of freedom isn’t going to be enough, especially not when the “freedom” I’m able to give them so far consists of being trapped in this old, uncomfortable ship. It’s hot, it smells, and it’s vulnerable. It won’t be able to carry us around forever. We need more ships. More powerful ships. Bigger ones. Ships we can actively use against the Totality. I should talk to Fred. And William. They might have some idea where we could strike.
As if aware of her thoughts, her door chimed. She didn’t know what the sound was, at first. It was a high-pitched sequence of chirps, loud enough to catapult her from the bed at full attention. She went to the door and pressed the button to slide it open, and there stood Fred. His hands were behind his back and he smiled broadly at her. “Do you have a moment?” he asked.
She shrugged and turned away, stepping back into the office. “I’m not doing much sleeping.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” he breathed as the door slid shut behind him. “Perhaps I could prepare you an elixir to help you sleep.”
“I’ll think about it,” she sighed, sitting on the edge of the cot. She hoped everyone else was sleeping better in the other crew quarters. The commander’s large quarters, she’d had converted to another living area. It fit over a dozen people. She couldn’t imagine being able to accommodate more than one or two more people in this office, and it lacked the facilities of the other quarters, anyway. I can just use the common ones off the command deck.
“Is something else bothering you?” Fred inquired, noticing she was distracted.
“Sorry, I was just thinking about everyone else.”
“When are you not?”
“Not as much as I should,” she shook her head. “Did you want something? I don’t mean to be short, but I’m not feeling much like company.”
“I brought you a gift, actually,” he said, rotating his hands around from behind his back, and clasp
ing them together around a thick book.
Sasha stared at it for a moment, then looked up at him. “What’s this?”
He leaned forward, handing it across the desk to where she sat. She took it from him and opened it to the middle. “Blank pages,” she observed. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she demanded, impatient, putting her eyes on him again.
“You should start at the beginning,” he urged with a nod.
She did so, and saw that the first few pages had writing on them. It was Fred’s penmanship, that much she knew. She started with the first paragraph and read aloud. “On the first day of the New Era, we who have been abducted, subjugated, enslaved, and abused prove that we will submit no longer, toil no more, and never surrender to the whims of the Totality. They who have taken from us will now be denied. The Totality will fall before Human and Avalonian alike, and will finally be called to account for their transgressions. Sasha is our noble Adjudicator, our Leader, our Friend. She is our Star Mother. She is a source of wisdom, of justice, of righteousness. She is the rope that ties us together. She is the Sun that gives us life and the Moon that guides us in the dark.” She stopped and closed the book. Is this really how he sees me? She found herself deeply uncomfortable with the portrayal. Still, she was reluctant to challenge him. She knew it was a gift meant to flatter and soothe her. She also realized what he’d intended in giving it to her.
“This is a replacement for my childhood chronicle, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I know it is not exactly the same, and you may not entirely approve of my style. I simply wanted to give you somewhere to begin. It will be necessary to document our exploits. Even should we fail, our legend must endure. You may not wish to think about such a possibility, but I must.”
“You mean, because you’ll survive, no matter what,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but a statement of something she’d come to understand for herself only recently.