by Emerson Fray
Chapter 25
Ren awoke to find the manor guarded by scow soldiers. None of them had entered her room but she could hear them marching below her window. She hadn’t expected them to arrive so quickly, or to bring as many weapons as they had. After a quick shower she peered overhead and saw the hull of a scow just below the high clouds. She needed to find Elian and figure out how they’d gotten here so fast, and figure out what to do next before all of Novae was destroyed.
After throwing on fresh clothes, Ren searched the manor for any sign of Elian or Naomi. The soldiers that passed by gave her nods, something she only ever saw them give Maks. They’d never really looked at her before, and they even ignored Sheridan behind her.
Naomi was in the garden ordering the soldiers to start patrolling the forest for any signs of threats. Human or otherwise.
“Naomi!” Ren shouted as she ran up to her old advisor. “What’s going on? Where did—how are they here already?”
Turning with a solemn expression Naomi just grimaced. “Garret sent out an emergency order before he disappeared yesterday—any soldier that had served under Maks came running. Your father was a very respected man. The Monarchy allowed it.”
Ren bit her lip. “Of course they would—they want to destroy everything that Novae is.”
A soldier passing by gave Ren a strange look, and Naomi ushered her towards the sitting area in the centre of the garden. Sheridan followed closely, her eyes on each and every soldier that came near. Naomi sat Ren down on the bench. “This is what Elian also ordered, Ren. Trust in—”
“I’m not going to let them attack Novae,” Ren said. Her words were quiet, but they were enough to make Naomi pull back.
“We aren’t attacking anything.”
“Then why bring so many weapons?” Ren questioned. “Why appoint the commander of the Scow Army to lead a place that was lost centuries ago? Why is the Monarchy watching us so closely, forcing the people to conform? I know they told everyone here to play stupid so we thought they were something less than human.”
Naomi squinted her eyes. “The Monarchy doesn’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to; why are you acting like this? What happened?”
“All I’m saying,” Ren went on, pointing her finger at Naomi, “is that it might be better if you and everyone that’s part of the Monarchy got off of Novae.” Because Ren had just thought of something that might buy them enough time to protect the planet, if only temporarily. But first she had to find Elian, and make sure it was possible. “Tell these people to get back onto their scows.”
Naomi shook her head. “I can’t do that; they have direct orders from the Monarchy—even if we could order them away, why? Don’t you want Maks to be avenged?” Her voice was quiet.
Holding her head high, Ren stared at Naomi. “Do you really think the rebels are to blame?”
Naomi blinked. “I think this planet is to blame.”
Ren licked her lips, trying to get through to Naomi without giving away everything. There was a good chance that everything they were saying was being recorded by Naomi’s watch, and transmitted back to the scow above them. “Do you remember what you told me yesterday? Right here?”
The scow moved higher into the air, clearing way to make the sun visible. The stained glass roof of the gazebo lit up in every colour, splashing a rainbow onto the women. Ren didn’t bother to shield her eyes from the harsh light.
“I do,” Naomi replied.
“Well…this is me deciding to fight. I hope you understand that.” Ren walked away, letting her hands shake as much as they needed to. Sheridan’s footsteps followed behind her, and for a moment Ren hoped that Naomi’s would too. She hoped Naomi would join her in separating Novae from the Monarchy, but it would never happen. There was never a chance that Naomi would join her…and she knew that, but she was still disappointed. Ren rounded a corner and then leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath.
“What are you thinking?” Sheridan asked. She was so calm despite her planet being overrun.
“That this is a really bad idea,” Ren replied. She put a hand over her heart, feeling it race against her palm. For once she didn’t want it to slow down, to relax; she needed that push. She felt alone against an entire army. An entire universe.
“What is?” Sheridan questioned.
Ren met his eyes. “That if we can’t cloak Novae, maybe we can shield it. Maybe the Husher device can be reworked to protect Novae rather than hide it.”
Sheridan studied Ren, her head tilted as she leaned against the wall as well. “Are you sure it’s best to do that? What if it fails again?”
Ren didn’t have an answer.
“Leaving the Monarchy means leaving everything,” Sheridan added. “The medicine, the technology—your family. We have a lot of things here but some things can’t be replaced.”
Ren jerked her head away and started walking. “I’ll have Elian.”
“But you won’t have Naomi.” Sheridan moved up beside her. “She’s important to you.”
“What’s important to me doesn’t matter right now,” Ren said. “The Monarchy is going to commit mass genocide across Novae and this is the one way to stop it.”
“You don’t know they’ll do that,” Sheridan argued.
And Ren didn’t know that for sure, but she knew it was most likely. It wouldn’t be the first time the Monarchy had stepped in on a rebellious planet and all of its inhabitants were slowly killed. It happened in uprisings and protests, in punishments and enacting new laws. Ren had read about it one too many times and she didn’t want Novae to end up in a history book; not like that at least.
“I need to find Elian,” she stated and hurried her pace.
Ren found her brother in his room, passed out on his bed. She hadn’t really thought he would be there, but apparently he’d done something similar to her and just fallen into bed last night. “Wake up.” She swatted at his leg and tossed the Husher power module onto the comforter.
Elian groggily pushed himself up. “What’s going on?”
“The Monarchy has arrived,” Ren huffed. “And we need to get to work.”
“I told you cloaking won’t work,” he mumbled, scratching at the back of his head. “We’ll get blasted until we’re a black hole.”
“Maybe cloaking it isn’t the answer,” Ren said. “Can we shield the planet instead? Create an impenetrable barrier that the Monarchy can’t get through?”
Elian wrinkled his nose. “You would need an insane amount of power for that, assuming something could even handle transferring that much energy.” He glanced at his closet. “Monica certainly couldn’t.”
“What about the Husher device?” Ren questioned. “Maybe it could—”
“Husher device? I’d have to see it,” Elian stopped her. “What’s this?” He picked up the little black box and opened it, his eyes widening. “Where did you get—”
“It’s what originally powered the device,” Sheridan answered. “Ren hopes it’ll be enough to shield the planet and deter the Monarchy.” Ren shot her a look, not liking the disapproving tone she took on.
Elian caught onto it as well. “You don’t want to shield the planet?”
“I don’t think it will solve the problem on the ground.”
“The soldiers have landed?” Elian questioned, jumping to his feet with the box in hand. “Why didn’t anybody wake me up?”
“Naomi’s handling it,” Ren mentioned. “Which means you have time to see the device.” She looked to his watch, and Sheridan’s eyes followed.
“You might want to leave that behind,” Sheridan said with a sigh. Ren winced at her attitude; was Ren really so wrong to want to do this? Was this a bad choice? It was the first time Ren had ever been so proactive about something and brought it upon herself to get things done. She didn’t want to admit if it was wrong, especially because she didn’t think it was.
Ren hopped into the crystal cavern, dragging Elian behind her while Sheridan trailed after him. “Enn!” she called.
She’d expected the Husher device to be hidden in the secret chamber with so many of the Monarchy’s soldiers around, but it was stuck in the centre of the room, pieces scattered around it as Enn leaned over it, ripping more pieces out.
“What?” Enn sniped back. “You here to take me away too? That way nobody can fix this thing!”
“No,” Ren said. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone in Mahendra and the villages is being taken away for questioning,” Enn explained. “I figured that’s what you were going to do.” She sent Ren a glare.
“I’m not here to do that,” Ren said. “We’re here to fix the Husher device, and maybe—”
Enn growled, “Cloaking won’t be enough now; there are too many soldiers!”
“We aren’t here to cloak anything,” Elian told Enn. He lifted the power module up. “Let me take a look.”
Enn lowered her eyes to Elian. She was suspicious, and had every right to be, but right now there was no time to waste. It didn’t take her long to realize that, and she soon nodded, allowing Elian closer to the Husher device.
Just before Elian started working on it he turned to his sister and said, “You should get back to the manor.”
“Why?” Ren asked. That was the last place she wanted to be.
“To give orders,” Elian said. “With me gone—for who knows how long…they’ll get worried when both members of the royal family disappear.”
Ren bit her lower lip. She didn’t know if she could give orders, or what orders to even give. But she agreed anyway.
Getting into the manor was much easier than getting out. Nobody batted an eye at the Princess returning except for Naomi. She stormed towards Ren as soon as she stepped through the front door, demanding an explanation.
“I went for a walk,” Ren said with a shrug.
“A walk,” Naomi repeated. She crossed her arms, staring hard at Ren. “And your brother?”
“I don’t know,” Ren replied. “We don’t talk much anymore.”
Sheridan’s eyes flicked between the women. Ren didn’t know what she was going to do now that she was here; ordering every member of the Monarchy off the planet wasn’t going to work.
“I looked into Garret’s communicator.”
Ren’s breath hitched and Sheridan inched closer. There was a chance Naomi was about to announce she knew everything that had happened, and that their plan to free Novae was pointless.
Naomi continued, “It seems he found the Absolution. But…”
“But?” Sheridan asked.
“He died trying to get aboard.” Her eyes softened on Ren and she never apologized for the death. “I just thought since the ship was such a large part of history you might want to see it—take a look around with the others.”
“Others?”
“The soldiers are going through it and preparing it to be brought back to the Earth Museum for study,” Naomi revealed. “They found…”
“They found?” Ren prompted. Her heart was smashing hard against her ribs with every word that came out of Naomi’s mouth. Why was she drawing this out so much?
“It seems there was a traitor on the ship,” Naomi said. “The Captain, Brackenreed, had tried to send reports back to Earth but they never made it. Do you recognize the name Dawn Husher?”
Ren shook her head.
“Dr. Dawn Husher was a brilliant scientist of her time but she was very secretive, I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of her.” Naomi uncrossed her arms. This conversation seemed strangely hard for her to go through even though Ren couldn’t figure out why. She noticed that Sheridan kept her hands loose in case she needed to grab her kamas. The nearby soldiers began their patrol around the manor again, giving them some privacy.
“She was on the ship then?” Sheridan questioned.
Naomi nodded. “It seems she was a radical of her time; she wanted the complete destruction of the Monarchy. And if she couldn’t make that happen she would create a place that was free, in her opinion at least. She did have a large following during her time on Earth—almost cult-like that helped her take over the scow.”
Most of this wasn’t news to Ren, but she tried to appear as interested as possible. It was hard to fake interest, she realized, and she wasn’t sure how much energy would be seen as over the top and what wouldn’t be enough. So she ended up nodding her head a lot and waited for Naomi to finish.
“She and her followers sabotaged the Absolution when Captain Brackenreed wouldn’t go along with her plan to land on Novae and escape Monarchy rule—there wasn’t much else recorded.” Naomi looked away, hiding the fact that Captain Brackenreed had been killed on camera.
When Ren didn’t say anything, Sheridan spoke up. “I don’t think now is a good time for the Princess to wander too far from the manor. With the rebels and—”
“I think now would be an excellent time for her to take a look at the scow,” Naomi interrupted. It caught Ren and Sheridan off guard. She gave Ren a stern stare. “I insist.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “There isn’t anything I can do here, or that I need to do?”
“No, not yet,” Naomi said, stressing each word. “You should go and take a look around the Absolution—see if you can dig up anything that might be of use to us. When you get there tell some of the soldiers to come back as well; the Monarchy is sending an archeology squad to really look into things.”
Ren and Sheridan exchanged a glance. When neither of them moved Naomi took a deep breath and said, “All the water’s been cleared out so you’ll have no problem getting to the bottom of things.” Her teeth ground hard against each other just as Ren realized there was a hidden message.
“Oh!” she said. “Great! I’m so excited; I love history and…”—her eyes darted to the nearby soldiers—“old things. That’s me. Old lover. Wait…”
Naomi rolled her eyes and grabbed Ren’s shoulders, turning her around and giving her a shove. “Just go.”