by V. K. Ludwig
After five days of rain, the soggy moss bubbled underneath my shoes. The wind carried traces of wet wood and decomposing needles, and a promise that summer was almost over.
“Your planet is very beautiful, very lush.” Hands clasped behind his back as always, Torin cleared his throat as if he’d just realized Earth wasn’t mine anymore and gave a distracting nod toward where we’d come from. “Never leave an airlock unless you’re certain you remember the code, or you’ll lock yourself out.”
“I prefer locked out over locked in.”
He picked up on my grin and returned it with a fleeting twitch of his mouth, not lasting long enough to be worth calling it a smile. “You know full well you’d just end up in my arms again if you ran.”
Though the message was clearly Torin, he’d abandoned the rough edges on his tone the night he’d woken in terror, leaving a gentler one behind.
The morning after, I’d asked him if it always happened when the lights weren’t on. He’d responded by showing me the cargo dock in silence. On Wednesday, I’d asked if he’d had those terrors as a child. That was when he’d taken me for a wordless walk outside. Thursday, I’d asked if he wanted to talk about it. He’d said no. And that was that.
“Maybe.” I watched him intently when I added, “Or maybe you’d end up in mine.”
Whatever fears he battled stiffened his jaw, letting the frown lines turn his features into a landscape of tension. Stature and muscles aside, Torin could no longer pretend he was that strong, impenetrable Commander. It shifted our energy. He was less of a jerk. In return, I was a little less of a bitch.
His combat boots thumped against the paved walkway, splattered with mud from how I stepped into whatever small puddle lined the grass edge. I acted as if I were a child, cooped up too long, needing to reconnect with nature.
“You’ll ruin your shoes.”
“Should have gotten me rain boots then.” Another stomp into a puddle, this one deeper, sucking on my heels. “What’s with all those dress-augh!”
Mud slurped the flat ballerina right off my foot, making me sway and hop on one leg.
Torin reached his arm around my waist. He pulled me against him and offered more than enough balance so I wouldn’t fall face first in the dirt.
“You are unbelievable, Eden.” His rough tone still carried a hint of amusement. “Hold on to my shoulder.”
He grabbed my shoe from the mud and positioned it beside the puddle. But when I slipped back into it, both feet firmly on the ground again, he didn’t let go of me. Torin held me, his gaze one of longing.
We mated once a day now.
Simple, lie-on-your-back-and-count-ceiling-flowers sex with no kisses, and no sweet nothings whispered in each other’s ears.
He pretended it wasn’t boring.
I pretended I felt nothing.
But the more time we spent together, the more he threw me off balance. Just like he was doing now, with his gaze on my lips again, making my heart drop to my kneecaps.
I had to get pregnant.
Had to get rid of him.
Stop that familiarity between us from growing.
“Is that the building?”
My voice jolted us both back into motion toward the Vault, which grew with each step. Windows stretched high between walls of metal and melted into the shape of an ellipsoid.
Two guards, posted to each side of the airlock, saluted, bowed, and remained at attention.
I let Torin lead me into the building, where my eyes immediately trailed up the high ceiling. “Now I get why you’re calling it the Vault.”
“The official name in your language is TRIC,” he said, guiding me down a set of stairs. “Short for temperature regulated incubation chamber.”
My stomach churned. “Incubation chamber?”
Moist and saturated, a certain sweetness clung to the air, bringing back memories of the maternity ward over at St. Sebastian’s.
In the background, a subtle ba-boom… ba-boom… ba-boom resonated the Vault, and the walls lit up matching each beat.
With a pained frown lining his forehead, Torin swung his hand toward one of the rows with transparent spheres clasped between two metal arms.
One moment I told myself that churning in my stomach came from skipped lunch. The very next, I spotted the pink fetus submerged in yellowish fluid. That’s when I let oblivion take hold, pulling me into a heartache that threatened to crack my ribcage.
I swung my palm onto my mouth, my words coming muffled from underneath. “Are these…”
“Vetusian males,” Torin said, pity resonating in his deep voice. “They are at, um… thirty-three weeks gestation I believe. Time passes much slower on Cultum, so we decided to bring them to Earth with us, where they can mature faster. It’s our very last crop.”
“Crop? Why… who would call babies —” I rasped in a breath, stabbing a finger toward one of the spheres. “Were you born like this?”
“I wasn’t born, Eden.” He gave a vacant shake of his head, making me hold my breath with the way shame seeped from his eyes. “I was harvested. Conceived through artificial insemination using eggs our females allowed us to harvest. Grown inside an exowomb for thirty lunar cycles.”
I forced out my breath and let that void expand at the center of my core, before it filled with a sympathy I shouldn’t possess for his kind.
“I guess it makes sense since your females went extinct so long go,” I said. “Never really thought about how you managed to sustain your numbers. But this… Everything is so artificial.”
For half a minute or more, I just stood there.
I couldn’t cry. Wouldn’t.
Why would I care about their problems?
And yet, Torin rummaged through his uniform pockets, the tissue he retrieved stuck to my wet cheek a moment later. He stared at me from a cocked head, pupils tracking over me as if he counted my tears.
“Nifal hopes you will agree to work here with him,” Torin said. “And if I’m honest, then… I’m hoping for the same. You’ll receive Imperial Credits at the rate of a rank-three healer. Since you have experience with babies, you would be of great help.”
My eyes grew hot, boiled over.
I stepped toward a sphere and placed my hand against it, reminding myself this wasn’t a baby. It was a Vetusian. Warmth spread through the transparent membrane, bleeding into my flesh. It rushed through me, growing warmer, hotter, itchier, unbearable.
“It’s like asking a chicken to hatch a fox,” I hissed.
I did a two-step pace in front of the fetus.
My heart lodged somewhere.
I slammed my palm against my chest, trying to free it.
W-why would he… oh shit, I couldn’t breathe. My chest had too little oxygen because it was so fucking stuffed with god damn compassion — shit shit shit.
“Why would you even bring me here?” I ripped my hand off the sphere, shaking it by my side as if I needed to rid it of that heat. “You want me to feel sorry for you? Is that it?”
A calming hand settled on my shoulder, heavy, but not rough. It pissed me off. I could have dealt with rough. But the way he tried to calm me? It was wrong.
“Eden…”
“What?” I shouted.
The fetus beside me startled, sending the slightest vibration through the amniotic fluid. His head jerked, and he grasped for the umbilical cord, slowly rotating his body. He kicked with one leg. And perhaps he would have kicked with the other…
God, no…
A new wave of tears settled behind my eyes, turning my vision murkier than the liquid they’d submerged him in. “What happened to him?”
I stared at his right thigh.
Or what was left of it anyway.
A metal plate gleamed underneath the floating particles of the amniotic fluid, attached to where his leg should have continued.
“I didn’t mean to yell at you,” I said under sniffles. “I’m sorry.”
Torin’s hand wandered from
my shoulder to my cheek, brushing wild wisps of hair behind my ear. “One of our ships had a defective fusion panel. During a negative matter jump, the vessel ended up at the center of the asteroid belt which quickly tore the ship apart. One of the docking stations detached and started to spin, making its way out of the belt where it crashed into the vessel transporting these fetuses.”
My next exhale came out entirely stuttered, quivering at the back of my throat where I all but choked on post-nasal drip. Then, as quickly as that heat built up inside me, it dissipated, leaving me behind cold, numb, drowning in tears and pity alike.
“This mission, Garrison Earth, almost failed before we even arrived. We lost more than engineers and healers that day. We lost a part of our future. Our ability to adequately protect those who rely on us.” He brushed his lips over my temple, not daring to kiss me, but he couldn’t stay away either. “We left Cultum with seven-thousand fetuses.”
“This isn’t seven-thousand.”
“Indeed.”
I stared at the fetus, wondering how I could have missed his scars when I first saw him. They traced along his sternum, took a sharp left, and cut through a male nipple. Where Torin’s scars were rubbery and dark, the baby’s were swollen pink, red-lined at the center. They were still fresh, aching.
I gazed over the rows and counted, but quickly told myself to stop. “This probably isn’t even a thousand.”
“Six-hundred-and-thirty-one,” Torin said. “We lost all others at impact or shortly after as they succumbed to their injuries. Some we needed to… free of their suffering. After sun cycles of war we need to replenish our warriors, so we’re doing everything we can to heal those who are left. Many carry bionic organs, such as this one.”
I followed along the row, my stomach clenching at each leg cropped at the femur. Each arm with necrotic skin bunching against metal plates. Each unborn face disfigured by torn flesh.
“What happens to them once they’re… harvested?” I asked, that last word tasting rancid on my tongue.
Torin followed behind me, managing with one step where I had to take two. “Droids raise them from harvest to what will be age four on Earth.”
“You let robots raise children?” My mind turned dizzy at the thought.
“I’m afraid most Vetusian males have grown disassociated when it comes to the upbringing of children. Most of them have never even seen a child.” He swiped over the holographic control panel hovering beside a metal arm. “I’ve only seen them because the First Brigade is responsible for their protection. And yet, I wouldn’t know how to raise one.”
Why I felt concerned the way I did, I couldn’t say. After all, Torin wouldn’t be part of my child’s life.
“And what happens when they turn four?”
“We’ll assign them to a stratum based on their physical and cognitive abilities,” he said. “Warriors, healers, scholars, engineers, and so on. Until they reach maturity.”
Bile rose at the back of my throat. “At least it explains how you seem to have no trouble invading another planet. Can’t expect much compassion from something grown in a plastic bag.”
“Our species is dying, Eden.” Torin took a deep breath and leaned against the metal rail beside us. “We didn’t come to Earth for resources or to claim its soil. Several decades without females changed who we are, and it isn’t sustainable anymore. Our males are lonely, idling with no satisfying purpose in life.”
“Are you lonely?”
Did I ask that?
Why would I care?
I swung my arm up to take my question back just a little too late, unable to stop the way he stared at me from soft eyes, gleaming around the edges. “Not anymore.”
That compassion in my chest again.
Now that it was out, I couldn’t figure out how to shove it back into that cranny where it belonged. It turned my innards dense, like a rock sitting at the center of my stomach.
What Torin said made sense.
And sense was an inconvenience when you tried to sustain hate.
“I take it you went to the warrior stratum,” I said, trying to get back on the fact-train.
“My upbringing was slightly different since I was born to be a Warden,” he said. “Nifal taught me until age eight. Interstellar war history, diplomacy, many languages, including yours.”
“But you have an accent when you talk, whereas Melek and most Vetusians at the common area don’t.”
“That is because they carry language chips, which allow them to imitate your language perfectly. But I studied it.”
“How many languages?”
He raised a brow as if he knew full well I had to ask all these questions to distract myself from those uninvited, inappropriate emotions. Like the one urging me to take him into a hug. Especially that one.
“Twenty-seven, not counting Vetusian.”
That Torin was educated wasn’t exactly news to me. He was articulate when he wanted to be, knew how to conduct himself whenever he wasn’t hunting women down.
“And do all Vetusians grown from an exowomb sleep with their lights on at night?”
Why did I even ask that?
Because I hated how he saw me weak? Crying?
Wanted to remind him of his own weakness to distract from mine?
He shoved against the rail and crossed his arms in front of his chest, his gaze dropping to the ground. “Only two.”
“You and…”
Fiddling with the sleeves on his jacket, he ignored my question and jutted his chin toward movement at the back right corner of the chamber. “Nifal will ask if you’ll agree to work here.”
I once more glanced over the many rows of fetuses: skinny, plump, lots of hair, only a few wisps. If not for the occasional missing limb, these babies would have seemed normal.
But I saw infants crying for a mother they’d never meet.
Saw them toddle without someone holding their hand.
Pictured them drawing anything but a stick family.
Nothing about them was normal; everything about their upbringing went against nature.
“How good of you to come.” Nifal walked up to us, the end of his cane dragging over the metal floor. “Has Torin explained what your duties would be?”
“We have not gotten to that point yet,” Torin said.
“Dry your tears, child.” The old man wiped the sleeves of his white robes over my cheeks. “A great many of them require additional care. Scars need tending. Dying skin tissue needs trimming. Severed nerve ends need stimulating.”
“I’m not sure if I can do that. You’ve got medical equipment I’ve never seen before. I can’t read anything in here.”
Better excuses refused to materialize. If I nursed Vetusians back to health, what would that make me? Where would that put me in the big picture of this invasion?
Traitor.
“Ah!” Nifal took my hand and placed it onto the one holding his cane, patting the other on top. “Child, answer one question for me. Look inside this exowomb and tell me what you see.”
A glance over my shoulder revealed Torin a few steps behind us, giving me a nod of encouragement.
“Mmm… a baby?”
“Torin,” Nifal said. “How many times have you heard the word leanaihb, our word for baby, in the last, let us say, ten solar cycles?”
“Not once.”
“Not once,” Nifal repeated. “For most healers, these babies are a number. A code. A percentage indicating their chance of survival after harvest.” He placed his hand onto my shoulder, a sad smile lining his grayish lips. “They hear us speak. They will never know the love of a mother, but with you, they would at least hear what she would have sounded like.”
Chapter 14
Torin
Did I just negotiate myself into a corner? The question made my palms slicken, forcing me to adjust my grip on the drill bar.
With the metal cold against my knuckles, I strained my ligaments against the force of gravity, joints crackling in
side my shoulders. Sweat covered every part of my body, no matter how loud the heat extractors blared above me.
Fifteen suns with Eden, and the female interfered with everything true to me. Instead of traveling across galaxies to meet with Jal’zar and Dunai diplomats, I remained on Earth as if its gravitational forces had somehow increased since we first mated. When was the last time I had my troops lay out their gear?
Since bringing her to the Vault, she gave me a glimpse of the woman behind the fight. There was so much more to this red-haired creature than her alarming refusal to shrink away from confrontations.
If you peeled back the layers of her strength, you’d find a core of compassion. One so deep-seated, she’d cried for my kind. A discovery so unexpected, it did little to still my obsession with her. Though the signs had been there when she’d first asked me to issue the other females leave. What I’d thought was a provocation then, had turned out to be kindness reaching beyond her own borders.
It touched me outside a point I could allow because my time with Eden would end the moment she accepted my seed. A childhood filled with instructions on diplomacy and mediation. And what for? I had negotiated myself out of my mate’s life.
I bent my elbows and pulled myself up, every muscle fiber screaming along my arms. Two hours inside this room, and my thoughts kept circling back to this female as if —
“Hey!”
Her voice leached my strength.
A squeak above my head and my hands had nothing left to hold on to. I hit the black training mats hard, their gravity sucking me against them, pain riding up my spine.
“Don’t step on the mats!” I shouted and rolled onto my stomach, finding Eden still at the door. Hand held to her mouth, she didn’t hide her grin with the way her cheeks bunched against her eyes. “Oh, so this is funny?”
“Only the part where you exhaled with a moan when your ass hit the ground.”
I got up and grabbed the towel from the hook on the wall, rubbing the fibers over face and head. “How was your day at the Vault?
“I accidentally drained an exowomb. Again.”
I scrunched my face into one of surprise as if I hadn’t watched it when it had happened. Standing outside the Vault, I’d leaned against the window and observed her for longer than could have been considered appropriate or sane.