Grand Cross

by Merethe Walther

  Like Kragg.

  Like Caden, her inner voice spat.

  She clenched her hands together. As much as her physical body hurt, it was nothing compared to the agony of losing two of the people that she loved most in the universe. Kragg could never come back, and Caden… She’d been confident that she would get Kragg back, and now? Now he was a box of ashes. Tears came, but she tried to wipe them away before they could fall.

  “Are you okay?” Torgvald asked.

  She nodded. “Just more tired than I thought. Can you take me to my room?”

  They turned from the rec room and went to a long bridge between the factory area and another building with two flat, moving belts along the floor between a huge length of windows on either side that looked out at the aurora and the veiled night on the opposite side. The moving belts escalated them along at a swift pace until they reached the other building and he waited for the doors to open before pushing her through.

  “Our apartments for the workers. They stay here while they take their shifts, and some go home to families in Aliena or other small settlements around here, while others stay permanently,” said Torgvald as they passed rows of identical doors.

  He finally came to stop beside one doorway that read only Guest Room B in holo-letters along it. Her grandfather pressed a small panel on the wall and the door slid open revealing a room that Aralyn could easily assume would make any five-star hotel jealous. An enormous king-sized bed took up the far back wall behind a white and black paper screen. There was a large living room in the center, a table that could have fit six beside a full-size kitchen, and a bathroom off to the side, and a large projection panel on the wall to their left, which was showing randomized photos of galaxies, native stations, and some distant nebulas and stars.

  “Wow,” Aralyn said, in awe. “I didn’t… Are you sure this is right?” She laughed, but the sound was rigid and felt like it had gotten stuck leaving her throat.

  “Your bedroom at your father’s house was about this size,” Torgvald reminded her.

  “I was… rarely there,” Aralyn said with a shrug. “We had to bunk with other girls at the school on Mars; the barracks were built pre-terraform under a bubble dome, so everyone had to double up for space… Plus my living quarters have been… less than ideal for some years now.” She didn’t have the heart to say the word “Tartarys” to her grandfather, but he picked up on it anyway.

  “Yes… the prison… so I’ve heard from your friend,” he replied.

  Aralyn winced. Of course Kita had managed to spill the deeply personal details. That girl had no sense of privacy.

  “Speaking of that,” Aralyn said, “where are the UDA agents now? Shouldn’t they be here to arrest us for… I don’t know, breaking into the safe house?” She almost mentioned Kragg, but couldn’t bear to talk about it.

  “From what I understand, when the man in charge―Taav?―came around, they simply didn’t seem interested in pursuing the issue. Oh, he’s going to want to talk to you, now that you’re awake.”

  Aralyn stifled a groan. Of course he does. She tried to hold onto the fact that Eladia was stuck on this rock with her and reassured herself that Taav’s help had actually proven invaluable. Still… She pressed a finger against the crook of her elbow where the tiny rice-sized tracker rolled under her skin.

  “By the way,” her grandfather said, cutting into her musings, “I had my assistant bring that here for you.” He turned her chair and pointed to the dining table where a small wooden box sat.

  Without his prompting, she knew what it was and stifled a sob.

  “Do you want to be alone for a while?” Torgvald asked.

  Speechless, Aralyn nodded. He squeezed her shoulder, turned, and left the room.

  Once the door had shut behind him, Aralyn released the soul-wrenching cry she’d been holding in ever since she’d watched Eladia put a bolt through her father’s gut. She pressed the manual control panel and the chair floated forward until she was close enough to lean forward and pull the box to her, with a little bit of effort. Crying wordlessly, she cradled the box to her chest and held it tight, trying desperately to see anything except the blood on her hands and the strange metal eyes he’d died with.

  For a long moment, she was worried that she’d already forgotten parts of him. His laugh, did it really sound that way? What about his smile? Was the dimple one-sided, or on both? Did he have a dimple?

  The only thing worse than holding the cremated remains of the man who’d saved her life and practically raised her was that all she wanted was to cling to Caden for comfort. With both of them gone… Aralyn made her way over to the bed, placed the ashes gently on the demure bedside table, and then began the arduous process of pulling herself onto the bed with only two good arms and half a working leg going for her. With some huffing and puffing, she finally slipped out of the chair and practically threw herself down onto the bed, panting for a long moment before grabbing her legs and pulling them into a fetal position on her side.

  “I’m sorry,” Aralyn whispered. “But I’m not strong enough to wait until later to mourn you, Kragg.”

  She took hold of the box of ashes, pulled it to her chest, and wept.

  ****

  Aralyn had spent a good portion of the evening massaging her legs and straining to get them under control, and since sleep evaded her, she’d had some time to get things in order. Her steps were still somewhat halting, like a robot’s, but she had managed to make it back onto her feet. She headed to the cafeteria at six a.m. when it was clear that sleep wasn’t happening, clutching the small box under her arm. The puffiness and swollen areas around her eyes hadn’t really receded much, and her back ached both from her injury and from crying until she dry-heaved into a waste bin.

  “Ari, you’re walking!” Kita exclaimed as she entered the kitchen.

  Aralyn gave her a small smile. “You could say that,” she panted. “But I’m still a runner who can’t run.”

  For the time being, it was only the two of them in the room, but there was a small breakfast spread on the metal bar containing vat-grown sausage and scrambled eggs as well as fresh fruits and vegetables: Tomatoes, salted edamame, some apple slices, oranges, and even bananas and strawberries to make their own smoothies if they wanted. Aralyn started to make her way over but ran into a table and winced.

  “Can’t walk properly yet, but can experience all of the pain,” she grumbled. “Super good to know.”

  Kita waved her comment away with her robotic arm. “Sit down, I’ll get it. This thing works like a charm; I’m sure you’ll be back on your feet in no time―uh, no offense.”

  “None taken,” Aralyn said, sitting down gratefully.

  Aralyn placed the cremation box beside her on the table, and when Kita returned, she put a piled-high plate in front of her and pointed with her chin. “That what I think it is?” she asked.

  Aralyn nodded, picking up her utensils. Leaving the box behind had felt wrong, but it also felt wrong to parade it around like she was broadcasting her own personal grief. She didn’t know how Kita could just stay so chipper no matter what happened to her―and Aralyn knew well enough that she’d been through the wringer more than enough.

  “I heard about Dror… last night, your grandfather came to talk to us about him staying,” Kita said, clearly sensing the need to change the subject. “I think he wanted to stay with us, and well, I mean… I kind of wanted him to stay with us…”

  “It’s so dangerous though,” Aralyn said between forkfuls of egg. “We can’t―”

  “I know,” Kita said. “I told Dror he’d have to stay behind… He wasn’t very happy about it.”

  “Yeah, I was wondering how he’d take it…”

  “You’re probably gonna have to promise to come and visit him. It was the only thing I could say that calmed him down at all, you know,” Kita said.

  Aralyn smiled. “Yeah, if we make it through this alive, I plan on spending a good amount of time here later, so tha
t won’t be a problem.”

  “Oh yeah,” Kita said, picking up her cup and draining it. “Taav’s been trying to call in all morning.”

  Aralyn narrowed her eyes. “What?” She looked at her wrist module. “I haven’t gotten any calls. And besides, it’s 6:15 Terra Standard. The hell is he doing up?”

  “I routed your calls to my tablet a couple of days ago when you were in the coma,” Kita said matter-of-factly. “I haven’t had a chance to switch it back.”

  “Helios,” Aralyn muttered. “What did he want?”

  “Just to talk to you, I guess,” Kita answered with a shrug. She pulled her tablet off of the table and pressed a few buttons and then swiped her finger along the length of the screen. The pages collapsed and Aralyn’s module beeped haphazardly several times in a row, indicating several missed calls or messages.

  “Dammit,” she whispered, pressing the button to elevate and magnify the screen. On the wrist module, Taav’s angry glare met her before the sat-call connection could even beep. “Hey, I―”

  “Don’t want to hear it, Solari,” said Taav before she could explain. “I need you and your people down at the docks outside of Aliena as soon as possible. We’ve got…” He looked around before turning back to the screen, “…word that a few UDA agents have recently―and suddenly―abandoned their posts at several stations around Ganymede.”

  “Fantastic.” Aralyn frowned. “So they’re making a move, you think?”

  “I think it would be wise for you to get down here. Sooner rather than later.” He sighed, and Aralyn caught the shouts and directions of some of the men in the background. Taav must have been pretty worried if he’d stayed to spearhead things himself. “I’d rather talk in person.”

  Right. He’s not at his fancy expensive protected line.

  She nodded. “We’ll be down there as soon as we can.”

  Taav nodded and turned to shout at another UDA agent before the screen went black.

  “He did not sound happy,” Kita mused, picking up Aralyn’s fork and eating some of her sausages.

  “Eladia’s trying to escape,” Aralyn said, snatching the fork back and eating as quickly as she could. “We’ve got to go.”

  Kita sighed and stood. “I’ll wake up Rio.”

  Aralyn’s stomach was practically doing somersaults up in her chest, so she soon gave up trying to eat. Eladia couldn’t escape. Not this time. Not after what she’d done to Kragg and Caden. Aralyn tried to get up from the seat but her left leg didn’t respond, and she fell to the ground, cursing.

  It was like her legs belonged to someone else and just so happened to sprout from her torso; at least, that’s what it felt like when Aralyn had to actively consider how to move her legs, willing her nerves to pick up on the signals. She pulled herself up onto her knees and then up into a standing position with some effort, then took the ashes. When she turned and headed for the doorway, her grandfather was there, watching her with sad eyes.

  “Hey, I was just coming to find you,” Aralyn said, making her way over to him as gracelessly as a newborn giraffe. Directing her legs was basically manual; she was already exhausted.

  “You’re going,” he said.

  There was resignation in his tone that made Aralyn feel ashamed for reasons she couldn’t name.

  “Yeah,” she said after a moment, staring down at the floor. “But nothing big. Taav… he uhm…” She fell silent, not wanting to lie, but certainly not wanting to tell the truth, either.

  When she looked up at Torgvald, his knowing gaze cut through her. For years, Kragg had been the only one that could look at her and send all the lies scurrying, but caring for her had done nothing beneficial for him. She clutched the ashes tighter.

  “It’s probably best I don’t know,” he said with a sigh, offering an arm to help her move forward. Gratefully, Aralyn accepted and fell into step beside him as they moved toward the elevators at the end of the hall. “Can you make me a promise, though?”

  Aralyn bit her lip. “I’ll do my best,” she said, thinking of the look on Kragg’s face when he thought she’d gotten them both back to Earth. “But I haven’t been the greatest at keeping promises lately.”

  The elevator doors opened and they stepped on, Aralyn a little wobbly as it began its descent.

  “Just come back here again―in one piece this time―okay?” He avoided meeting her gaze, likely for the same reason Aralyn was avoiding his. “I missed out on everything with your life growing up, and I know I don’t have the right to ask that you promise to stay, but it’s killing me not to.”

  Aralyn forced a smile. “I’ll do my best. Really.”

  She patted his arm and considered how strange it was that this man cared so much for her and she hardly even knew him. Anger flew through every thought when she realized that her father had ruined yet another relationship with a stable person in her life. Even though she hadn’t seen him in years, he was still somehow finding ways to destroy her. Eladia had the candor to shoot Kragg right in front of her, but Wyndam Solari had chosen instead to create a slow burning death between the two of them. He’d made her think her grandfather hated her; that he wanted nothing to do with her. He’d taken away the only connection they’d had to her mother―and each other.

  Her grandfather gave her a grim smile. “That’s all I can ask.”

  They stepped off of the elevator and met Riordan, still bleary-eyed, rubbing the sleep from his face and sending his glasses clattering to the floor at Kita’s feet. Beside her, clutching her hand so tight his own was pale white, was Dror. There were big tears running down his face and he launched forward to hug Aralyn’s legs the moment she got out of the lift.

  Aralyn hugged him back as well as she could and tried to reassure him that she’d be back to visit soon, but he kept crying until Torgvald took his hand and gently pulled him back. Then, after explaining the situation to Riordan in as cryptic and unrevealing sentences as she could, she had to turn around and promise the same thing to her grandfather. Once they’d gotten all of their things together, the three of them waved goodbye as they headed out to a waiting hover car, Torgvald and Dror holding hands as they disappeared behind the double doors of the airlock.

  Riordan barely spoke two words to any of them, choosing instead to help Kita with the supply bags Aralyn’s grandfather had sent. Aralyn had no idea what was inside other than parts to help maintain and clean Kita’s arm, as well as some medications, ointments, and tinctures for the both of them.

  “You really think you’ll make it back here someday?” Kita asked, voice wistful below her oxygen mask as she waited for the depressurization chamber to finish. “I’d like to see Dror again, actually.”

  “You two really had a connection, didn’t you?” Aralyn asked, adjusting her own mask. “He likes you a lot.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “We’ve both been… like that. Orachal slaves. I’m just doing for him the things I wished someone would do for me in those moments of levity when they forgot to maintain the dosage.”

  Aralyn winced. “This orachal that Eladia has… This is bad. What do you think Caden―” Aralyn found herself too choked up for the moment to speak, like trying to swallow a golf ball made entirely of her own sorrow. “He, uh…”

  She shook her head, unable to go on. She’d often avoided these conversations with Kita when Kragg had been taken because it was easier than wondering what was really going on with him. But this was Caden. What would happen if she lost him, too? The thought sent a gnawing ache through her that she didn’t want to contemplate.

  “He shot you,” Riordan spat. “You saw him, Aralyn. He would have shot everyone else, too. Why are you crying for that asshole?”

  “He was under orachal, Rio,” Kita reminded him with a glare. “Something I hope you never have to experience firsthand to know how shitty what you just said was.”

  Riordan held up his hands and took a step back to show he wasn’t contesting her argument. The bags under his eyes suggested that he hadn
’t slept well, and his cheeks were sunken. He didn’t appear to have any actual fight left in him since their run-in with Eladia.

  They stepped outside and got into the waiting car, which had an “auto” driver rather than a flesh and bone one. It was somewhat like one of the ‘veen droids Aralyn had seen sweeping stations around Sol, but its lower half had been melded into the car “seat.” Its cabbie look was complete with a small newsboy cap perched on its metal head. It politely asked where they wanted to go, then started driving. On a screen on the back of the holo-field between them and the seat in front of them, the numbers for “mileage” and “fare” began to tick up and Kita stared at it a moment before throwing her arms up in irritation.

  “Really? We have to pay for cab fare to go and save the friggin’ system? Puh-lease.” Kita reached forward with her left arm and pressed it against the screen. Soon, a command input console popped up and she pressed a few buttons on pages as she went.

  “Kita, you can’t just backdoor every system,” Aralyn said to her, low under her breath even though the “cabbie” wouldn’t hear them. “We can afford the creds for a taxi. My grandfather put a crap-ton of hard creds in here for us.”

  “Pssht. As if,” Kita said. “Since when do heroes have to pay for shit?”

  Aralyn rolled her eyes and shrugged. “I guess not today.”

  “That’s right.” Kita withdrew her arm and the screen shivered once before the “mileage” portion continued to increase but the “fare” allotment had dropped to―and stayed at―zero.

  Kita leaned back against the seat, satisfied, and stared out of the window. “I wanted a chance to try this baby out, anyway,” she admitted, flexing the artificial limb. “I, uh, uploaded a few helpful programs last night during the movie.”

  “Why am I not surprised,” Aralyn said, leaning against her elbow and staring out the window. “I’m sure it will come in handy for whatever Taav has planned.”