by Rick Graham
The inquisitor lowered his rifle and took a moment to think about the events that had unfolded. He looked at Lilly who was intently watching the fire blaze on with her one good eye. The orange-ish glow illuminated portions of her face even this far from the town. Her bruises were more obvious in the glow of the flames below. He shook his head in disgust and activated his comm system again.
“Inquisitor Varius to operator”
“Go for operator” came back the familiar female voice.
“Tell the fighters to fire bomb the town. Burn it all down.”
“Roger that.”
Varius and Lilly watched as the town continued to burn for several more moments before the roar of approaching aircraft could be heard. The four fighters flew overhead and dropped several bombs on Alachua and her citizens. Tremendously bright fireballs exploded throughout the town. Each fire bomb was filled with a sticky liquid gel that would explode and splash the liquid gel on everything nearby. The explosion would cause the gel to simultaneously ignite as it spread in the affected area causing an intense and hard to extinguish fire.
Even from this far away from town Varius could hear the screams of the citizens who survived the initial explosions but now were either trapped by or covered with flames.
Looking down, Varius noticed Lilly was holding his left hand, and that his daughter’s bracelet had slid out from under his sleeve. The heart shaped charm reflected the glow of the fire.
For a brief moment he wondered if this was symbolic for anything but shook his head. Those people chose their fate when they slipped into madness. He looked up in time to see that the fighters were swinging around to make another pass and drop more bombs on the town. The two continued to watch as the next wave of bright fireballs ignited and consumed what remained of Alachua in flames.
“Sometimes a man has to make hard decisions to provide for his family. I know you’ll do the right thing…”
- Henry Tarvus on his sickbed 433 ANE
Family Man
Cycle: 434
Prefecture: Siimon
Planet: Destiny, Corre Republic space
Location: Small town called Largo
As the large transport spacecraft nicknamed Only Hope touched down on the soil, its jets blew tan colored dust into the air. The observing crowd covered their eyes from the harsh gusts and sand as their clothes were covered in a shade of tan. Three large landing “legs” for the transport class Goto made contact with the soil and adjusted to the weight of the ship as it settled into place.
A small woman walked up to the port (left) side of the ship and waited as the blast doors opened and a ramp extended down. Half of the ground crew waiting on the ground instantly got to work attaching tubes for refueling and checked the spacecraft for damage.
The woman smiled as several of the ships crew exited the transport down its ramp. “Captain Tarvus, how was your trip?”
Captain Mikhail Tarvus, a tall muscular man with a short scruffy black beard, greeted the woman with a slight smile. “We all returned safely, but the haul wasn’t as bountiful as it has been in the past. Thankfully, we did secure enough for our immediate needs.”
One of the other crew exiting the spacecraft, a average sized man with a very clean cut appearance and a strong jaw line, approached on the Captain’s left. “I’m sorry to interrupt Captain, but I just received a call about my youngest son…I guess he is really sick” Riko Hahn said as he looked down at the ramp.
Tarvus placed his hand on his companion’s shoulder and gave him a firm stare. “Go, tend to your family. We have plenty here to take care of our cargo.”
“Thank you, Captain” the somber Riko said before he turned and left the makeshift space port.
Mikhail Tarvus walked off the ramp with a bit of a bounce in his steps. While his latest venture didn’t bring much back, he believed that the food they did bring would be enough to feed his town for at least another 30 rotations.
Suddenly a small excited shriek fought to be heard above all the commotion of the ground crew hard at work. Mikhail turned around and smiled with sheer joy at the sight of his young son rushing up to meet him. His little arms opened wide and a face shining with happiness to see his father. Tarvus scooped his son up and bounced him in his arms.
“Oh, I am so happy to see you Coral!” Mikhail said. He kissed his son on the cheek and bounced him two times.
“He has not stopped talking about you” Leesa Tarvus said as she caught up to her son.
“Oh yeah?” Mikhail said. “Have you been good for your mother?”
The small boy put a finger in his mouth as he averted his eyes of his father. “Yeeeeah…”
Mikhail looked to his wife for her approval of their son’s answer. She reached up and rustled his hair. “Yes, he has been very good.”
The Captain leaned in and gave his wife a kiss on her lips. “I missed you.”
She looked back into his eyes with a great love and affection. “I missed you too. So, how did it go?”
Mikhail began slowly walking towards a group of crates and his wife followed. “It went well. We thought things were going to get a bit rough for a little while, but Riko was able to take care of things with his WarMech. He just told me his son is sick.”
Leesa looked away to not show the pain in her eyes. “Yeah, he’s sick again. Fourth time this cycle.” She made eye contact with her husband. “We really need medicines. Our supply of pain relievers is good, but so many others are very low including anti-biotics.”
“I am hoping that our next trip out will be able to yield us some medicine. I will make sure I keep an eye out” Mikhail said as he set Coral down.
“Thank you” Leesa said as she watched two of the Only Hope’s crew offloading a large brown and yellow striped plastic crate.
“How long do you think we will have to do this?” Mrs. Tarvus asked. “I wish there was another way.”
Mikhail observed all of the crew and ground team members rush this way and that getting everything sorted and organized. He nodded his head in agreement with his wife. “Maybe one day the Republic will step in. Until then, this is necessary.”
“I know, I just wish…” Leesa didn’t finish her sentence.
Her husband knew the struggle and grief she fought. She was one of the most vocally opposed to her husband and his crew leaving Destiny in search of supplies.
Seeing her internal struggle Mikhail placed his hands on her shoulders. “I know Leesa. I know.” He hugged her deeply then released her. “Why don’t you both head back home and I will finish up here. It shouldn’t be much longer.”
Reluctantly Leesa nodded and lead Coral away from the landing zone.
“Captain! Captain!” the ground chief called out as he spotted the superior officer. The older man briskly walked up to Mikhail and handed him a clipboard with a printout on it. “I have done a rough check of the cargo you brought back. How much do you want to send to the mercs up in the capital?”
Mikhail scanned the cargo list. He knew their last trip didn’t yield much, but things had been so crazy he didn’t have time to really look over the crates. He shook his head in disappointment at his own failure to properly estimate what they acquired.
“If your list is accurate then we only really have enough food for 14 rotations.”
“Aye” replied the ground chief.
The Captain let out a long sigh as he thought things over. “Alright, well, send the mercs 15 percent.”
“That isn’t going to make them very happy Captain.”
“They will just have to deal with it, just like we will.”
The older man stood up straight. “Aye, aye Captain.”
As the ground chief disappeared into the chaos to continue organizing the food supply, Captain Mikhail activated the radio on his left shoulder.
“This is Captain Tarvus to Jax.”
“Jax here Captain” the other man said over the radio. His voice crackled from slight interference.
“Call me if you need me. I am going to have dinner with my family” Mikhail said as he stretched his neck.
“Will do.”
The Captain left the landing zone and made his way to his home by foot. He walked through his small town, taking time to admire the quaint and faded look of the dusty planet. Largo had seen much better cycles, but it was still home. A hovercar drove by as he walked down the sidewalk and kindly honked at the Captain. Mikhail waved back and smiled.
Destiny was known throughout the Corre Republic as being one of the mining and industrial planets that helped keep the machine of the Republic as a whole, moving onward. When it was colonized generations ago it was selected for its abundance of natural resources. It was the only world in all of the Siimon prefecture to have hydrol, the main resource needed to form the powercells for spacecraft to move about the stars quickly. Before the discovery of hydrol humankind struggled to invent any sort of space travel that wouldn’t require a hundred cycles to get from planet to planet.
While walking along the sidewalk Mikhail kicked a small dark gray rock. It skipped down the sidewalk and stopped several steps away. Without even thinking the Captain kicked it again, but this time it flew further and went off the sidewalk and into a group of flowers in Mrs. Denson’s yard.
Mikhail looked up to see Mrs. Denson sitting in a rocking chair on her porch with a perturbed face. He smiled nervously and placed his hand behind his head.
“Uh, sorry about that Mrs. Denson.”
She continued to scowl at him as he awkwardly walked away.
After making a left through the last intersection he finally was on his own street. He took in a deep breath and enjoyed the dusty smell of Largo. A small uptick of joy filled his heart at the sight of his old wooden home. He walked up the short stony driveway and double stepped up the steps and onto his porch. His steps echoed under the wood as he excitedly reached for the front screen door. He went to open the thin door but instead yanked the doorknob right off.
His wife couldn’t help but chuckle when she opened the front door to see her husband holding the screen door’s piece in his hand.
Mikhail looked at his wife and enjoyed a laugh himself. “I uh…guess I’ll need to fix this.”
“Not until you have a home cooked meal” Leesa said as she helped push open the screen door and then disappeared inside.
The thin door creaked as it opened to allow the Captain inside and then slammed behind him loudly. He jumped from the sudden noise but before he could comment he heard his son shout, “Hi Daddy!”
The smallest Tarvus came running up to his father and wrapped himself around his leg. Mikhail patted him on the head. “Hey buddy. You would think you didn’t just see me a little while ago.”
“He is always happy to see you” Leesa called out from the kitchen.
Mikhail reached down and lifted his son up. “And I am always happy to see him too.” He leaned in and nibbled at his son’s neck which made the small boy squeal with happiness.
“What’s for dinner my love?” the Captain said as he pulled a dinner table chair out and set his son down. The table had already been set with utensils and napkins.
“Your favorite!”
While chuckling to himself the man shook his head. “I doubt it.”
Leesa came out from the kitchen carrying a casserole dish. She set it down on a warming pad in the middle of the table and sat down in her chair.
Mikhail did his best not to make a gross face in front of his son. “Mmmm…dehydrated jorbat casserole. You shouldn’t have…”
“Have to make do with what we have” his wife said as she smiled up at him.
“Maybe next time I am out I will be sure to get something a little more…edible.”
“I love Mommy’s food Daddy” Coral said as he put his hands up on the table in anticipation of devouring his meal.
“That makes two of us son.”
Mikhail pulled out his chair at the head of the table and slid down. Leesa put a scoop on everyone’s plates.
The Captain looked around at his home from his table. Even though he hadn’t been gone that long his near-death experience on his last mission made him feel a new level of appreciation for what he did have on this dust ball of a world. Just as he was considering to tell his wife about what happened, Leesa said, “Mik, are you okay?”
Her husband shook his head to bring himself back to the here and now. “I’m fine. Just missed you both.”
Mrs. Tarvus smiled lovingly and took a bite of her food. Her eyes got wide as her tongue tasted the food and wanted to reject it immediately.
“Problem Lees?” Mikhail asked trying to hold back a laugh.
Leesa brought her hand up to her mouth to not be too impolite. “It’s…delicious.”
“I love it! Mmm, mmm, mmm…” Coral chimed in while humming.
Suddenly Mikhail’s communicator rang. Leesa gave him a sad look but he didn’t respond. He withdrew it from his pocket and put the device up against his ear.
“Yes Jax?”
“Captain, I’m sorry to interrupt, but our long-range scanners out in the asteroid fields detected a shuttle.”
“Oh?” Mikhail said as he took a bite.
“Looks like it might be heading for Starspin or Eon. Would you like me to ready the crew?”
Leesa couldn’t hear the conversation, but her eyes begged him to not go.
“Yeah, get them geared up.”
“Yes Captain” Jax said as the call went dead.
Mikhail placed his communicator back in his pocket and began to eat his food quicker.
“Do you really have to leave so soon?”
The Captain chewed his food and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry Lees. You saw the haul from the last trip, we barely brought anything back. And like you said, we need medicine.”
“Don’t we have something else the town could sell to buy the medicines we need?”
“We’ve been over this dozens of times Lees. We have to do what we have to do. The Republic deserted us.”
Mikhail devoured the last remnants of his food and stood up. He walked over to his son who swayed back and forth as he enjoyed his food.
“I love you Coral.”
“I love you too Daddy…”
“Be good for your mother. I will be back in a rotation or two.”
As Mikhail headed for the door his wife followed behind.
“Why Mik. Why do we have to live this way? I wish you wouldn’t do this.”
Mikhail stopped just before he reached the door and sighed. He turned back to his wife and shrugged. “What would you have me do? Stand around while our town starves to death?”
“Well, no…” Leesa said as she grabbed her left arm. “I just…there has to be another way.”
“I truly wish there was Leesa. I really do. But the Republic left us to rot. You heard about what happened to that town on Assembly. The people there got so desperate that they resorted to terrible things to survive. That Inquisitor had the entire town firebombed after he discovered the truth. I will not let things get so bad here that people feel there is no other option.”
Leesa walked up to her husband and gave him a hug. “Let’s just leave this place. We can go anywhere else. I don’t want you to be a pirate anymore.”
Mikhail embraced his wife and kissed the top of her head. The few stray hairs sticking out from the bun she formed her hair in got caught in his straggly facial hair. “This certainly is not the life I would have chosen. But you know that things are bad all over the Republic. We don’t have the credentials to move to one of the core worlds, and the border worlds aren’t safe enough for me to move us there.”
“What about Carbin or Nativity? There has to be someplace not too far that is better off than Destiny.”
Even though he didn’t want to, Mikhail released his wife. “I have to go. We can discuss this later. I love you dearly. If anything were to happen…”
“Don’t talk like that again” Leesa begged.
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“…if something does happen, take Coral and go for the capital. I have some cuso and some gold stashed away in a hollow book behind my desk. Take it and use it to get a shuttle off of this world. If we get caught I don’t want you and Coral to get tossed in with everyone else here.”
The married couple shared a touching kiss, then Mikhail left.
The Only Hope’s bridge was not very large. Terminals and buttons seemed to cover every square inch in the small boxy cockpit. Being originally designed as a transport vessel the pirate’s spacecraft underwent a number of modifications to assist them on their raids.
Mikhail entered the bridge and settled into the captain’s chair. While he buckled himself in he made his routine visual inspection of each of his people to make sure they were ready for the coming mission. Before the economy crashed on Destiny, Mikhail was a simple cargo transporter. He knew of or personally knew each of his crew in their previous lives, not one of them was in a profession quite this despicable. He found that some people simply could not handle the hardships of being a pirate. If that was the case, they found themselves as part of the ground crew. While they all knew what they were doing was wrong, they had to take care of each other for survival. The Republic certainly wasn’t in a rush to help them, so they took matters into their own hands.
Nina Fo manned the navigation and communication console, Hernando Troy was the team’s gunner, and Karl “Joker” Higgs was the ship’s pilot. Each of the others looked stern and ready for the next raid. Good enough for Tarvus. He made sure his harness was tight and waited for Karl to commence the liftoff sequence.
Liftoff was as peaceful as could be asked for, and they had quite a bit of time before they would intercept their target. Mikhail’s mind began to wander into remembering just how things broke down to bring him to accepting the life of a pirate captain.
Two cycles ago the planetary economy on Destiny fell in on itself. Billions and billions of the Corre Republic’s currency, cuso, caved in. Within seven rotations Destiny fell into economic peril. The locals did the best they could, but when inflation took over and many families went hungry things continued to break down. Seeing as how the Republic had cycles ago pulled the garrison forces to move them to the front defense line, replacing them with mercenaries to maintain the peace, riots and other violent demonstrations filled the streets across the planet. Political groups that had for cycles fought against one another struggled to secure control and it only made matters worse. Instead of uniting and working together, the people of Destiny fell into one of humankind’s biggest weaknesses, selfishness.