“No,” she told herself. “You cannot think such gruesome thoughts.”
“Bee bi bi bop boo boop bap,” came a noise from under her.
“That’s what I just said. I can’t think of such gruesome thoughts!”
Miranda paused. The rock she had landed on when she rolled into the ledge was beeping at her. She picked the baby sized thing up and rubbed off the dirt with a corner of her dress. Shiny metal and buttons looked back at her.
“Oscar!” she cried.
“Oscar, Oscar, Osscaarrrr,” the walls echoed.
“You stupid, stupid droid.” She couldn’t believe how happy she was to see the little monstrosity.
“Bee bop booo-p,” it told her back.
“Yes, you are stupid. Running away like that.”
“Bee bee bee boop,” Oscar responded.
“No, I’m not making a mountain out of an ors’ pile,” Miranda confirmed, “you got us stuck in a ravine.”
“Beep beep boop.”
“I get that life on the farm can get boring, but this is not an adventure, not a good one anyway,” she told the little droid.
“Beep beep beeeep.”
“‘Why not?’” Miranda sputtered to find an answer. “Because. Because I’m hurt and we got stuck. And yes, I know that I should have seen this coming and saved you and then we could be on our way home right now, but I didn’t and we can’t get out of here. That’s why not!” Miranda rubbed her arms with her palms. It was getting cold this high on the mountain without the sun on her. Soon it would be night and then getting out of this place would become twice as hard. She had to take control. For whatever reason rescue wasn’t coming. She would have to contend herself with getting out of this hole and then finding her way back home.
She just needed to think. Oscar might be old, but he wasn’t a completely useless droid. Miranda pressed a few buttons and voila! A side panel popped out, exposing a drop cutter. She angled it into the side of the ravine and fired. A beam of light cut into the side of the mountain.
“Beep bo beep!” the droid complained.
“Yes I know it’s going to drain your battery, but you can recharge in the morning.” she told the cantankerous droid. He was solar powered, so all he needed was a few good hours sunbathing to get back up to full power.
She stepped out and onto the newly formed stair she’d carved from the side of the rock. Once she was settled she fired again. Fire. Step. Fire. Step. On and on it went until she was at last out of the ravine. The sun crested the top of the mountain. Dark would fall for real in a couple of hours. She had just enough time to find shelter.
Droid in hand she trudged down the mountain, all thoughts of her missing rescuers shoved far into the back of her brain. She had a shelter to find or build and drive to return home.
Chapter 3
Everything ached. Her feet ached from the hike up the mountain. Her back ached from spending the night sleeping on the forest floor. Her arms ached from carrying the droid. Her head and side ached from falling into the ravine. It was so bad she couldn’t pinpoint any one pain. It was just a big ball of ouch from the crown of her head to the bruised tips of her toes. All because a little droid wanted to have a big adventure.
Miranda sighed.
“You need to start getting your priorities straight,” she told Oscar. “You are too old to be constantly running off. Little Michael still loves games. He has that fort in the woods where he battles rebels for the Empire. You could be his attack droid.”
“Beep beep boop,” the little monster cut in.
“No, imagining can be just as fun as the real thing,” she continued to say as they trudged through the wood. She could see the edge of their fields just up ahead. It was still a two or three hour walk, but at least she would be free of the gloom of the woods. The sun was still in early morning formation so the heat wouldn’t be that bad.
“Imagining means you can turn the wood into another planet and not have to travel galaxies to get back home for lunch,” she said.
“Bee boop,” agreed the droid. Miranda’s stomach had stopped growling last night and sat unhappily empty. She would be starving, but the thirst was worse. Her tongue had an unpleasant patina of grime that her saliva glands could not produce enough to get rid of. She hadn't needed to pee since waking up.
“That’s the first sign of dehydration,” she said to Oscar. When you imagine something like Mom’s lemonade was just a hop skip and a jump away. She imagined that lemonade in her mind. The tartness of the fruit mixed with real sugar. It all came out of the ration cans the Empire sent as thank yous for paid tributes. Mom would prepare it for Dad during harvest or for the kids when they were dehydrated from adventuring. “Better than water to rehydrate someone for hard work,” Miranda said with a sigh. “That’s what the can reads, anyway.”
Miranda, like all Empire children, had received three hours a day of mandatory Imperial schooling vid-tapes and testing for the past several years. She knew how to read and write in both common and Imperial. She also spoke Droid. She wished that she knew the language of the people that had built Oscar. Even if she could understand what he was saying, he couldn’t tell her exactly what the scratches and symbols on his body meant.
She had spent a whole season making up guesses. Finding every button and switch that he had. Fixing them up so they’d work right. She was in her scientific explorer phase. That’s what Mom had called it. She meticulously wrote down every experiment, every button combination, until there was nothing left to try. Of all the family, she knew the most about Oscar. Kept it all in her notebook she carried around.
She never left home without it. One year on Planter’s Day her dad had given her a brobanium necklace. It was the toughest metal in the galaxy. People made blaster guns out of it. She’d hung the notebook off of it to always keep it on her person.
She touched it now. Still there. It hadn’t come off in the fall or while she slept.
Oscar beeped out a bunch of nonsensical tones.
“Yes I know you don’t drink or eat, but you still need sunlight. If you fall into a hole and your battery dies you’d feel the same way I do now!” she told him. “Oh, wait. You did. And I had to come save you.” He grumbled in low beeps in her arms, but didn’t say anything else.
The long green branches of the trees gave way to the wheat fields stretching out for miles in front of her. She stood on the edge of the field. Her arms ached from carrying Oscar. The sweat she’d poured out had dried up. Her fingers had swollen to twice their normal size. She would start blowing tumbleweeds out of her mouth if she didn’t get water soon.
“Well Oscar, we have two options,” she told him. “I could let you down and you could charge your batteries in the sun for a few hours while we walk home, at which point I might pass out from lack of water and then you would have to go home and fetch someone to get me or I’d die.”
“Beep beep,” he responded cheerfully.
“Yes, you’d be able to go back on your adventure, but I wouldn’t come after you this time because I’d be dead,” she retorted.
“Beep,” he asked.
“Or, we can go to the mid water hole and I could get some usable water to drink. Then we could go home. Either way I have to let you down. And if you don’t promise to walk with me then I’ll have to turn you off and come back for you once I’ve gotten water and food.”
“Beep boop,” replied the droid.
“Yes, I am aware that you will be unprotected if I turn you off and that if the tractor runs over you or an upcycle unit find you that would be it,” she replied, her voice smooth.
“Beep beep!” Oscar said.
“No, I found you, so Mom can’t be mad if it was carry you or die.”
Oscar huffed through his vent holes.
“Well, I know my vote,” she went for his off switch. He tried in vain to shimmy out of her arms.
“Beep, beep!” Oscar cried. Miranda blew a piece of hair out of her eyes. It had fallen loose f
orm her braid in the struggle. She smiled, knowing she’d won.
“So we have a deal then. I put you down, you follow me to the watering hole then home.”
“Beep boop,” the poor dejected bot said. Miranda ignored him and trudged ahead into the field.
It was hard to see over the wheat. Her brother said it looked like a desert. The school tapes had described a desert as an ocean of earth. Miranda had never seen an ocean. There was one on the planet, of course. That’s where the capital was, and some of the higher ranking Creshie that oversaw the collection of the taxes for land ownership. Her father had seen it. So had her brother. Her mother had gone with them once, to make their ten-year balancing of records.
It was the way the Empire made sure their tax collectors weren’t overcharging the people. An independent auditor would check the books of the farmers against the books of the collectors to see if everything aligned. If a farmer thought to cheat the Empire they would be stripped of their land and their families would be sentenced to mining work for four generations. Whereas if a collector was caught with off books they would be hung publicly, all of their riches given to the Empire as tribute. It was important to have clean books. Ten years was a long time to keep the records. Miranda had been twelve for the last one. Too young to go. She was five years from the next one. She was more likely to see it as a married woman.
“Only time will tell,” she told the grass as she ran her fingers through the long grains. Oscar stopped to stare at her. She shook herself from the daze. The rising sun and the endless field must have been entrancing her because she barely heard Oscar’s warning to jump down before the tractor was upon her.
The thing was barrelling out of control. Left and right it went. Neither a straight line like her father liked to make, nor the back and forth pattern her brother preferred. It was fully out of control.
“Hey!” she called up at the driver. Nothing. “Hey!” she screamed at the driver again. The hovertrax kept harvesting, sorting and baling wheat. She ran to try and get his attention. It had to be her father or brother.
“Hey!” she said, banging on the cabin door. The vehicle swerved left away from her. She fell behind. She was so tired and out of breath. The thing shot a bale of straw at her.
She watched the craft shift away from her just fast enough that she couldn’t catch it. Watched it take a wide turn following the edge of the hill. Then back over again. A snake pattern unfolded from the cut ground.
She hung her head between her knees and gulped in air. This day was getting better and better. Just when she thought she might be able to try it again, it turned a sharp right, putting her right in its path. She jumped aside and then sprinted for the cab. She got one hand on the door handle and heaved herself up into the driver compartment. Her dad lay just out of sight, slumped over the wheel.
Hot air blew through the vents. The cooling must have gone out, Miranda surmised, and Dad passed out from the heat. She stuck her hand around him and felt for the off switch.
“There,” she said with satisfaction as the machine powered down and finally coasted to a stop. By then Oscar had caught up. She heaved her dad up and over onto her shoulder, then down to the ground. Then she looked around the cabin for some water. Or ever better, lemonade. His canteen was in its pocket. She grabbed it and then returned to look him over.
He was paler than usual, his skin gray. His eyes were closed and his breath was so shallow she swore it wasn’t there. It was worse than she thought; he’d gone into shock. She looked down to give him chest compressions. That’s when she saw it.
All exhaustion fled her. The thirst that had been driving her to the well evaporated. Her vision tunneled around her dad and the hole in his chest where his heart should be. No blood, just a black hole where flesh should be. She pounded on him, recalling the emergency resuscitation videos all kids were forced to learn before operating any of the farm’s equipment.
One. Two. Three. Tilt head and breath into his mouth.
One. Two. Three. He couldn’t be dead. Tears she didn’t know she had the water to cry coursed down her cheeks.
One. Two. Three. She breathed into his lungs again. No air movement. No breath. He was gone. The smell finally hit her nose. The stench of rotting human flesh. He’d been dead for hours and she’d been too blind to see it.
Oscar pulled on her, dragging her away from the body. Miranda let him, not wanting to remember her father as this lifeless pile of flesh. She tripped on something, her eyes not looking where they were going. It was her dad’s canteen. She was so thirsty and he wasn’t going to need it. A fresh wave of tears came pouring out of her as she took a sip of the water.
It cooled her throat and brought back some of her senses.
Mom. Someone had to tell Mom. Mom would know what to do. Miranda took three long drags on the canteen until the last of the contents were gone, and then she ran as fast as her tired legs would take her back to her home.
Chapter 4
The house looked deserted. Only the wind whipping the Imperial flag on the flagpole gave off the signs that a happy family lived in this place. The white trim looked shadowed, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Miranda shivered. A cold not congruent with the noonday sun stiffened her back. The cold drove her forward.
“You’ve run this far,” she told herself. “If you don’t tell, how’s Mom going to know about Dad?” She needed to find Mom. She raced across the porch and around the side to the kitchen entrance. The screen door clanged behind her; the only sound for miles. There was Mom. Standing by the kitchen stove. Her hand holding a cast iron skillet. The contents of which were pouring out black smoke. Miranda coughed. Covering her mouth with one sleeve, she pulled on her mother’s shoulder with the other.
“Mom, your hand!” Miranda cried. She pulled her mother back from the stove. Her mother, free from the flames, collapsed at Miranda’s feet. A pile of burning flesh and pink dyed cotton with daisy chains down in the hem.
“Mom!” Miranda cried again. Oscar poked the corpse, looking for life in the pile of flesh. Miranda’s mother didn’t stir. Miranda’s mind raced. If Mom had been shot in the kitchen, where were her sisters and brothers? She raced up the stairs, hoping to find life.
She flung opened the guest room door revealing her sleeping sister-in-law.
“Wake up,” Miranda screamed. “Wake up! Everyone’s dead! You have to wake up.” Anna lay there unmoving, as pretty as a cryo sleeper. Her eyes closed. A touch of a smile on her lips. Happy to be in a dream. Miranda pounded on Anna’s chest.
“Wake up!” she cried. Miranda lifted her hands to strike the woman again only to notice that they were red. Crimson was spreading out all over the sheets. Miranda pulled the quilt aside. Anna lay in a pool of her own blood.
This wasn’t a blaster fire. Anna’s neck had been sliced open with a blade. She would have bled out in seconds. Never waking from her sleep.
Miranda stood there, quilt in one hand, the cold dead neck of Anna in the other. She couldn’t will her mind to stop tumbling over the possibilities. Oscar had followed her up the stairs. He stood by the door, too scared to come inside.
“Beep bop,” he said in a hushed tone.
“The children,” she repeated.
“The children!” Her brother and sister, niece and nephew. They weren’t here. Maybe, just maybe. She turned and made her way back down the stairs, not stopping to waste the blood off her hands. Each step an extension of pure will. Her body pushed to its breaking point, her mind not far behind.
As she passed through the hallway she heard a loud beeping. The sound pounded on her ears. Part of her wondered why she hadn’t heard it coming up the stairs, but she chalked that up to the rushing sound in her ears. It was their tracker board. It was a map of the valley traced out in lights and other bits and pieces the family had stuck to it to make it look more three dimensional. Her emergency beacon was still transmitting her cry for help. No one had come for her. No one could come. They were all dead.
>
“Don’t think like that,” she scolded herself. There was still the children. Maybe they’d been playing and one of them escaped. And her older brother Micah. He could be protecting them all.
She shot out the door and down the super secret path back towards the base of the woods. No answer. Maybe they thought whoever did this was still here. Still out to get them if they left the safety of the forest.
A head of sandy brown hair tripped her three feet from the porch. She toppled onto the ground, dust and rocks digging into her palms.
She looked back at the body that tripped her. Her oldest brother’s wide eyed stares met her gaze.
“Micah!” She scrambled to her feet. “Please God let him be alive.” She knew that he wasn’t. Could see it in the blank gaze of his eyes looking up at her from the dirt. As she moved closer she could guess at what he’d been doing in the last few minutes of his life.
Micah had been coming back towards the house. He was surprised by someone he wasn’t expecting to see. Tried to turn around, only to get a blaster to the back of the head, sending him flying. The signs were written all around her. The kicked up dirt. The surprised expression of fear on his frozen features. The blaster mark through his back. The guessing came from why he’d been going towards the house. Had Mom screamed? Or maybe it was lunch time when this all happened. Miranda wanted to remember all the evidence.
Not that there was much to be had. This place she’d once called home felt like a cemetery. Miranda trudged on, making sure to step over her brother’s body. She didn’t want to disturb his peace, what little of it was left. If she touched him it would be real.
It wasn’t long until she’d left the safety of the fields to the weirdness of the woods once more. Oscared followed after lowering his speaker. Better not to bring attention to themselves. They had to find the kids. They just had to.
Imperial Edge Page 2