by Ashley West
"Can't imagine why not," Abby muttered.
"Hey, I do alright," the man replied. "Anyway, she didn't talk to anyone all night. Just sat there in the corner with a drink she wasn't drinking, people watching. Thought maybe she was scoping out her husband while he was cheating or something, didn't want to make a fuss about it until they got home. But now I know she was one of them."
"What's the point though?" another man asked from across the room, keeping his voice down. "Why just watch us?"
"Who knows? All I know is that if they wanted to kill us, they could've done it already. They haven't done anything to hurt us, actually. We keep getting fed, and we've got all the comforts of home in a handy prison setting. They want us for something."
He had a point, Abby had to admit. She'd been waiting for their jailors to get tired of them and kill them already, but it hadn't happened. She would have said they were keeping them like pets, but the creatures barely spent any time with them at all. If they had been observing humans before, then they seemed to be done with that now. "We're hostages," she murmured, the idea occurring to her.
"There's an idea," the man agreed.
"But for what?" someone wanted to know.
"Bargaining, maybe?"
"With who?"
"I dunno. The government? 'Give us control of your planet or we'll kill these humans'. Something like that."
The man snorted. "Then we're screwed. What government would trade a handful of lives for a whole planet?"
"Hey," Abby said. "There's more than a handful of us in here."
"Whatever. It's not enough to warrant them turning over control of the planet or answering any demands. None of us are important. Not when it comes to something like that."
As depressing as it was to think about it, he had a point. They were all just people. They were sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and husbands and wives, but that didn't make them important enough to work as bargaining chips. It was hard to know if that was a good thing or not, especially considering the fact that Abby was sure the creatures who were keeping them weren't just going to let them go when their plan, if this was indeed their goal, didn't work. 'Sorry about that, won't happen again', and all that. It wasn't likely.
Which meant they would probably be killed once they'd outlived whatever potential usefulness the creatures were imagining.
"I don't want to die like this," whispered a girl in the back of Abby's cell. She couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. "I don't want to die here."
"None of us do."
"We need to find out what it is they want."
The man who didn't seem to be able to take anything seriously was named Nathan. He’d been a student before everything had gone up in flames. In medical school, which honestly shocked Abby right down to her center, because he didn’t seem like the type who would be able to focus long enough to make it through something like that. Apparently he had a serious side, though none of them had ever seen it.
In some ways, he was like a breath of fresh air. He kept them amused and from getting too serious when things seemed like they weren’t ever going to get any better. Abby was pretty sure one of the women who shared the cell with them had a crush on Nathan. It seemed odd that something like that could even still be happening when it felt like the world was coming to an end.
One night, when they were all settling down to sleep after being given their dinner, one of the guards came marching over to the bars of the cell. Everyone inside sat up, taking notice and trying to figure out what was happening.
“Quiet,” the guard snapped, but it wasn’t a harsh sound. “You.” He pointed to Nathan. “Will come with me.”
Nathan arched an eyebrow, but he unfolded himself from the cushion he’d been sitting on and got to his feet, walking over to the bars that kept them in. “What can I do for you?” he asked, lips twisted into a smirk.
“You can keep your mouth shut and follow me,” the guard replied, and he led him out of the cell and then out of the room entirely.
“What’s that about?” someone murmured, and Abby was just as lost as the rest of them. Nothing like that had ever happened before.
They’d been here for months now, doing nothing, learning nothing, and maybe it was finally time for this holding to stop.
Abby couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
Chapter Three: Engage
"You can't be serious."
"I can, and I am," Sorrin said, not pausing in his packing for a second.
"Alright, that's fair, let me rephrase. You can't do this."
"Same answer."
Poola groaned and dragged fingers through her long, red hair. "Sorrin, do you know what you're asking me to do here? Why can't you just take your own ship?"
He shook his head, finally glancing up at her. She was an old friend, one of the former members of the Queen's Men who had left before the Camadors had been able to destroy most of them in one single battle. Now she worked in private security, though Sorrin knew for a fact that she had kept all of her contacts in the warrior band and still sometimes had access to the resources of someone who served a Senator.
"It would never make it," Sorrin said shortly.
"Of course it wouldn't! It's Earth. Do you have any idea how far away that is?"
Sorrin gave her a flat look. As if he hadn't spent the last several days calculating the distance between here and there and how long it would take him to cross into a warp path that would get him there fast enough. As if he hadn't planned every single aspect of this trip already.
"Alright, stupid question," she said and then sighed, crossing to rest a hand on his shoulder. "Sorrin. Stop a moment."
"What, Poola? Either you're going to help me or you're not, and if you're not, then I need to go find someone who will. So I don't have time for whatever it is you're trying to do."
"I'm trying to get you to listen to me! I know you feel responsible for this--"
"I am responsible for this."
"You're not, though, but let me finish. This isn't your fight, Sorrin. No one's heard from any Camador in years. No one knows what they've been doing or where they've been hiding. They could have alliances, better weapons, or stronger shields. You have no idea what you're trying to walk into here. And even if you did, you're just one person! How do you expect to fight them when..." She trailed off, but Sorrin knew what she was going to say.
"When I failed the last time?"
"Everyone failed the last time. It wasn't only you."
He shook his head at her. No one understood. Very few of the people who had been there were left alive, and no one had the same drive that he had. His friends, his companions, his family had all been killed by these smiling monsters, and no one understood that he wouldn't be able to rest until they were dead.
"It's only me now," he said. "And I have to do this."
"No, you don't!" she insisted. "You can leave them to it. Whatever they're doing on Earth of all places is probably years in the making at this point. For all we know, they've been hiding there this whole time. And what are you going to do, shuffle in and tell them to stop? Get revenge on an entire race of people by yourself. You're not thinking clearly, and you know it. For years, you've been driven by this...this hate, this need for vengeance, and it's going to get you killed, Sorrin. I don't want more of my friends to end up dead."
There was a twinge of remorse from him at those words. The people that they had lost in the first battle had been Poola's friends, too. They'd been people that the pair of them had trained with, served with, fought with, and now they were gone. To tell the truth, Sorrin wasn't sure he was going to come back from this self-assigned mission, and to be even more honest, he didn't care. This wasn't about him or his survival. This was about finally settling this once and for all.
"Poola," he said softly. "I understand what you're trying to say."
"But it doesn't matter." It wasn't a question.
"No," Sorrin said honestly
.
She sighed again, tugging at her hair in her frustration with him. Sorrin let her do whatever she needed to, including punching him hard in the arm. He didn't even flinch, just continued to hold her gaze.
The noise of defeat she made had him smiling just a bit. "Fine. Fine, you stubborn-" Poola huffed. "I'll see what I can do. It won't be pretty or luxurious, nothing like what you were used to back in the day, but it'll get you to Earth in one piece. I can't vouch for you getting back, though."
"That's fine," he said. "I know someone who can help me make sure it's sound for the journey there, and I'll worry about getting back when the time comes."
"Right." She was clearly not convinced that he cared about getting back at all. Sorrin couldn't blame her for that. "Right. Give me two days. Or is that not quick enough, Your Impatience?"
Sorrin reached out and clasped her arm in his hand. "It's fine. Thank you, Poola."
"Don't. I'm not exactly thrilled to be party to helping to send you to your death." Poola hesitated for a moment and then spoke again. "Are you going to say goodbye to Halphia?"
That was the question he had been wrestling with for the entire time that he'd known where the Camadors were. It had been a long week and a half so far, full of scouring the news for any other information he could get and gathering the supplies he would need for the trip. A ship was all that was standing between him and making the journey now, and so he'd contacted Poola to see if she could help him. He hadn't expected her to show up on his doorstep demanding answers before she did anything to help.
He had, however, expected her to bring up Halphia. The Senator of Gollen Par had been more than just his boss and the political leader of the place he'd called home. Halphia had been...it felt odd to call her his best friend, but there wasn't another term he could think of that fit.
They had confided in each other in a way that Sorrin had never known before. She'd trusted him with her confidences, with her insecurities, and he in turn had done the same with her. Sorrin was her closest adviser, closer even than the people who were actually paid to advise her, and she'd consulted him for his opinion on nearly every matter of importance.
It had been Sorrin who'd told her they should attack the Camadors. He'd been hopped up on a cocktail of confidence in his squad and youthful arrogance born of the kind of surety that came with winning battles consistently. He'd been so sure.
And in the end, it had been the wrong call. It was the worst decision Sorrin had ever made, and the fault was his, even though the blame was rested on Halphia's shoulders. And she'd never complained about it. A burden of leadership, she'd called it. That was what had driven Sorrin away in his disgrace.
He'd prostrated himself at her feet and told her he had to leave, and she'd let him go.
And now...
Now he might never see her again.
"Sorrin," Poola said gently. "Don't leave without talking to her. You know how it would make her feel. And how it would make you feel, but I doubt you care too much about your own feelings at this point."
Poola always had seen him far too clearly.
"Alright," he said.
The trip to Gollen Par was a short one from the place he was staying. Just a day trip, made in his personal shuttle while Caldir looked over the one that Poola had secured for him for the trip to Earth.
It'd been four years since he'd last come here, and it looked much the same as it had when he'd left. Minus the smoke of still smoldering fires on the horizon and the charred remnants of buildings that had burned.
Instead, things were shiny and new, a testament to how the citizens of Gollen Par were dedicated to making sure their home was a good place to live.
The first sight of it through the window of his shuttle stole his breath for several seconds, and he stared. The bright crystal on the top of the Senate building was still cracked and smoky, an ever present reminder of what had happened, but the building itself was restored to its former glory. Triumph over adversity, but never forgetting that things could go bad. The kind of message that Halphia would want to send to her people.
It made Sorrin want to smile and cry at the same time.
The building had new carpeting and new windows and new wooden paneling, and Sorrin stepped inside and looked around. He felt like running away, like he couldn't get enough air, like he needed to be anywhere but here.
"Sorrin?"
In the middle of his crisis, a familiar voice cut through, and he looked up to see Donar, Halphia's aide standing there with his ever present tablet and a shocked expression.
Sorrin tried to arrange his face into something other than a pained grimace. "Donar."
"You're here."
"So it would seem." Honestly, Sorrin was as surprised as Donar sounded. When Poola had mentioned it, he'd thought it for the best that he just leave, but the more the idea turned over in his mind, the more he realized he couldn't just go without saying something to Halphia. If he died on Earth and never even let her know that he was going to try and make things right, he'd feel terrible. Worse than he already felt, honestly. "Is the Senator available?"
Donar frowned and then shook his head as if to clear it. He checked the tablet and then nodded. "She has a meeting in two hours, but she's free now. I believe she'll just be finishing lunch. You're here to...speak with her?"
"Yes," Sorrin said, nodding.
Looking like there was more he wanted to say, Donar settled for just nodding and then motioning for Sorrin to follow him.
Though the building had been remodeled in the last four years, the path to Halphia's office was the same. Sorrin didn't even need to follow Donar, as his feet remembered the twists and turns that led them deeper into the building and right to the center until they were in front of the handsome door, finished in dark wood, though it had the same sensors as the rest of the building save the outermost doors.
Donar pressed the button to bring up the speaker and then spoke into it. "Senator Halphia, there's a visitor." He glanced at Sorrin, seemingly torn over whether to tell her who her visitor was or not.
"Is it someone worth interrupting my break for?" Halphia responded, and even the sound of her voice over the speaker was enough to kick Sorrin's heartrate up a notch, making him feel ill. She was still the same, then. Bright and happy and irreverent. People had always said that she was an odd choice for Senator, young and carefree as she was when she was elected, but she cared about the people fiercely, devoting her time and energy and resources to making sure they had what they needed.
"I believe so," Donar was saying, and then the door was sliding open. Donar looked at Sorrin. "She will be surprised," he said, and then strode away.
Sorrin stood in the open doorway, almost afraid to move. His stomach was a mess of fluttering and rolling, and he clenched his hands into fists at his side, dragging in a deep breath. Four years and a tragedy stood between him and the woman inside the office, and he was aware that he didn't know her like he'd known her before. He wasn't the same man he'd been back then, and part of him was terrified that she would hate who he'd become.
He stepped in, anyway. One thing that hadn't changed was that he never let his fear control him.
"Halphia," he said, voice inaudible to even his own ears. And there she was.
One of the comments some of the more conservative members of the galactic Senate made was that she was too pretty to be a leader. She was beautiful, that was certain, though it had never affected her leading style. Her hair tumbled down her back in silvery curls, held back from her face by a headband that rested just behind the neat pair of small horns on her head. Her skin was dark and just slightly shimmery, and her eyes were a bright blue. Her pert little nose was wrinkled as she looked down at the screen embedded in her desk, and she looked to all the world like she was working on something important, but Sorrin knew she was really reading some mystery serial. Unless she was in one of her romance phases again.
She looked up when he stepped fully inside, and her eyes
went wide.
"Sorrin," she breathed, shock written all over her pretty face.
"Senator."
Halphia's eyes narrowed at that. "Don't."
"Excuse me?" Sorrin's heart was still racing.
"Don't call me that. Don't come in here with your deference like you never meant anything to me, Sorrin."
He blinked, confused. "I thought..."
"I know what you thought. I know what you think. I know how you think. If you remember, Sorrin, I am the person who knows you best. Or I was, at the very least." She averted her eyes, but not quickly enough for Sorrin to miss the look of pain that flashed through them. It only made him feel worse, and he was beginning to wish he hadn't come.
"Halphia." That was better, that was easier. He wasn't the same person he'd been before, but somehow being on the same terms with her as he'd been before felt natural.
"Better," she said, and she got to her feet.
She was much shorter than his seven or so feet of height, and her head would rest nicely under his chin if she hugged him.
She did not hug him.
Instead, she came forward and hit him right in the stomach with a small fist. It didn't hurt, really, not with the muscle he had there, but he staggered back anyway, letting her make her point.
"Where in the void have you been?" she demanded, stepping back and propping her hands up on her hips. "You resign from my service and then just disappear? Who does that?"
"I told you I was leaving!"
"You didn't say it would be forever!" she fired back. "Take some time to clear your head and come to terms with what happened, sure, but you never said I wasn't going to see you again."
"You're seeing me now," Sorrin pointed out.
Halphia gave him a look. "I know why you're here."
"You do?"
"Of course I do. I told you, I know how you think. You're here because the Camadors have resurfaced. If I know you like I think I do, then you're going after them."
Sorrin exhaled messily and nodded. "I am. I owe them after what they did here."
Something in Halphia's face softened at his words, and she sighed. "Sorrin, will you carry that for the rest of your life? It was a tragedy, yes, but you don't have to let it weigh you down. You don't have to do this."