“We don’t have time for this,” he says. “You need to go. Now. Find Tia. Stay out of sight until I comm you.”
“But what about Pol? Shouldn’t we get him some help?”
Her father pushes her to the front door and waves his scanner in front of the lock panel. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll handle it. Just go. Find Tia.”
Her father runs a hand across his face just as the door slides closed. Letta has never seen him so tired. She wonders if it will dawn on him, as it has on her, that she was also given the new nutritional vaccine.
She wonders where she should go now. But there’s only one place she feels like she needs to be.
❦
She stands in the exact spot her mother’s ashes stood when they tipped over and spiraled into space. Now she sits, laying her hands flat on the surface, as if she might feel her mother’s presence, or at least see her ghost one last time.
It had been easy to get into the evacuation chamber. Easier than Letta had thought it would be. For some reason her ID band still had authorization for this chamber. She even had the authorization to open the outer doors if that was what she wanted. She’d checked, scanning her arm against the metal frame inside the room. The override button had flashed bright red. It was blinking, still, by the doors behind her. That particular button was usually reserved for people who were accidentally trapped where she stood now, with no protective gear and a countdown slowly ticking down to when the doors would slide open and they would suffocate.
The doors to the main body of the ship hiss open. Letta doesn’t even bother to turn around to see who it is. She is thrown forward suddenly, pain radiating out from between her shoulder blades like she’s been stabbed.
“I saw you!” Tess spits at her. “I saw you on the cams. You killed my father. Do not try to deny it.”
Letta feels another sharp pain, this time on her thigh. She cries out and rolls onto her back. Tess stands over her, her hair loose around her head like a red mane. She looks feral, her face pale and her lips curled up in a snarl. She jabs her baton into Letta’s stomach and Letta curls in on herself, screaming. This was what Pol felt. This was the last thing he was aware of before he died.
Letta opens her eyes and sees Claudia, as regal and poised as ever, standing in the corridor looking over the scene unfolding in the evacuation chamber.
“You coward!” Letta screams at her. “Are you just going to let your guard fight your battles?”
Tess jabs the baton into Letta again and her words are lost in a tortured howl.
“Enough, Officer Pol.” Claudia is firm and commanding, every bit the captain she desired to be.
Tess lurches up, her legs spread wide in her earnest need to bend low and hurt Letta. She stands straighter, and in her moment of distraction, Letta kicks her feet from under her. Tess topples to the ground, her own baton stinging her as she falls.
The baton rolls away from Tess’ groaning body and Letta scrambles to her feet, gripping the handle carefully. In one quick motion, she brings the full force of the baton onto Tess’ chest. The thud is oddly satisfying to her.
Tess starts to shake and fear wraps its icy fingers around Letta, the memory of Pol’s empty body playing in her mind. She drops the baton, rubbing her eyes. When Tess finally moves again, Letta has never known such relief.
“You don’t understand,” Tess says. “Phell will not be able to handle this. He’s too fragile.” She tries to get to her knees, but she flops forward, her arms weak.
“I said, enough, Officer Pol.”
Tess rolls back. Letta sees a faint grin on her face.
“I can tell you that being ordered around by Hamiltons gets old real fast,” Tess chuckles, though her laughter sounds forced.
“What’s going on here?”
All three whip around to the doorway where Letta’s father now stands, his hand holding the door open. Tia hovers behind him, wringing her hands.
“I thought you’d be with Tia, Letta, but she thought you’d be with me,” her father continues. He shoves his hand into the pocket of his coat. “I brought something with me. To prove that Claudia didn’t kill my Leticia.” He pulls out the box Letta saw in the Med pod earlier, the one with the vials. He unzips it, taking out an empty vial, and holds it up for everyone to see. Then he sets the box with the rest, still filled with the orange liquid, on the floor just inside the door.
“I know you think this killed your mother, Letta. But it can’t have. I injected some before coming down here, and I’m perfectly fine.”
Claudia balks. “That wasn’t for you.”
“What do you mean? You said it was approved for the general public.” His smile wavers. “Right? Please tell me I’m right.”
“Approved to specific members of the general public,” Letta says, repeating the same words Rosa had said earlier. “You were only going to give it to certain people. Who were you going to give it to? Who else did you give it to?”
“Me.” Tess’ voice is so quiet it is almost impossible to hear. “She gave it to me when we watched the video. When she showed me you… hurting my dad. She said it would make me stronger.”
Letta goes to her father, who is leaning against the door frame now, breathing heavily. He drops to the floor and curls in on himself, his breathing becoming more labored by the second.
“Is it happening? Am I dying?” he gasps.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Claudia snaps. “You only just took it. It takes longer than that to take effect.”
“So you admit it. It’s not a nutritional vaccine after all.” Letta is relieved, but it is bittersweet. She walks over to her father, touching him lightly on the hip, before picking up the case of vials he discarded. Tia is still standing out in the hall.
“Did you take any?” she asks, but Tia just stares, silent. “Tia! Did you take any?” she repeats more loudly, and Tia shakes her head. Letta breathes a sigh of relief. At least there’s that.
Quickly, she shuts the door and locks it from the inside. Tia mouths something to her, and Letta turns on the comm on her ID band.
“What are you doing?” Tia sounds panicked. She tries to open the door, tries scanning her arm against it, but it won’t open now unless Letta opens it. She turns her back on Tia and throws the case to Claudia.
“Catch,” she says. It hits Claudia hard on the shoulder before falling. Claudia grabs it before it hits the ground and holds it tightly in her hands.
“You’re going to open that, now, Claudia, and you’re going to take some of your own medicine.”
“Or I could just wait until it kills all of you and every single other person I deem unfit to breed upon this ship.”
“You could do that. But I imagine I will have pressed the emergency release before then.” Letta points to the blinking red light beside the door. “Take it and I won’t. We can all go inside and you can find some way to get this stuff out of our system.”
“There is no way,” Claudia says.
“I’m still not budging until you take it.”
The comm crackles in Letta’s arm. “You would have been a better captain than her, Lett,” Tia says. Letta laughs, loudly, the kind of laughter that starts out forced, but eventually grows more real until you ache with it.
Claudia unzips the pack. “There’s no needle. How am I supposed to inject it?”
Letta shrugs. “I don’t care. Drink it,” she says. “Drink it or I push the button.”
“I don’t think you will. I don’t think you’ll force your friend to watch you die.”
Letta can feel Tia’s eyes boring holes in her back, and she knows Tia can hear every word that’s being said in here through the comm.
“Do you think I can do it, Tia?” she says, choking out another laugh.
“Don’t burn yourself out,” Tia begs. “Just come back inside. Please.”
“Stars burn out all the time,” Letta reminds her. She likes the sound of that. Stars die in a spectacular eruption of light. She
knows this, but she’s never seen it.
“You are not a star, Letta.”
“But I want to be.” She wants it so badly. To be outside with the stars, with her mother.
“I can see her,” she whispers. “She’s right in front of me.”
Her mother floats in front of the outer doors, her arms stretched out, waiting for the doors to open so she can go home.
Letta lifts up the case protecting the button and slams her hand down on it before Tia can try to convince her not to, or before Claudia can try to stop her. The doors slide open and her mother floats out on the ebb of invisible solar waves. Then Letta is sucked out into the vacuum of space, the infinite hands holding her so tightly she feels her body crushing under their touch. She’s tumbling, over and over, alongside the suffocating bodies of the others.
She catches a glimpse of Tia banging and banging on the glass, but Letta hears nothing. She walks among the stars now, and there is only blissful silence.
The Desperate Warrior and the Beast Who Walks Without Sound
❦
T. DAMON
“The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
Where I may not remove nor be removed.”
- SONNET 25
Wakiza crouched low, hiding his body behind a thick bramble bush deep in the deciduous forest he lived in with his tribe. He heard a branch crunch behind him, and whipped around to quiet his father, Siwili, who was creeping close on his heels. A short distance ahead, a lone buck grazed in a grassy clearing, unaware of the men who stalked him, though the recent crack of the branch under Siwili’s foot seemed to put the creature on edge.
As the buck froze, gazing around at the foliage surrounding him, Wakiza took the opportunity to tiptoe closer, readying his bow with a sharp, obsidian-bladed arrow. He motioned to his father to do the same.
“I’ve almost got the perfect shot,” he whispered, to which his father fervently nodded. “If I miss, fire before it figures out what’s going on.”
“I doubt I’ll need to. Take the shot, son,” Siwili replied, unconsciously holding his breath as he waited for Wakiza to release his arrow.
Wakiza took one more swift step forward, pulled his bow back, and shot his arrow in the buck’s direction. At first, it looked as though the arrow had not hit, as the buck flailed back and swung its head around to run in the opposite direction, but as it darted away began to falter, slowed significantly, then finally fell to the ground.
Wakiza jumped out of his hiding spot and rushed toward the deer, taking care to approach the buck from the back so as to avoid a potential stab from a swing of its antlers. But as the warrior grew closer, he found that his shot had been precisely true, as it normally was, and one mere arrow shot to the heart was all it took to bring down the enormous stag. Siwili cheered, and the two men dropped to their knees to pay their respects for the life of the animal who would now provide their ailing tribe with food for the next few days.
“I’m proud of you, son,” Siwili, whose name meant ‘long tail of fox’, said as the men trekked back to their village, each lugging a large half of the deer on their backs. “This will help take some of the pressure off of Chief Taima. He’s been worrying for days over when the tribe was going to eat next.”
“Glad I could help,” Wakiza beamed. “This war has been difficult on everyone. If I had one wish, just one wish at all, I’d want the fighting to stop. The Sun tribe should understand that resources are tough to come by these days, and we need to share this land so we can all reap the benefits of it.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple, my son. The Sun tribe is coming from a place of greed. We can’t allow them to step all over us this way. It’s bad enough that the Beast has begun to terrorize our tribe. We can’t do anything about that, but we do have the ability to fight against our human foes.”
“I don’t think they’re enemies,” Wakiza said softly. “And I’m not sure I even believe in the Beast. Seems like a bunch of old folklore to me.”
“Perhaps the Beast is unable to be defeated,” Siwili replied, ignoring Wakiza’s comment, “because he is being prayed to by the Sun tribe. That’s where he’s getting his strength.”
“We’d know for sure if Muraco were here. He is the tribe’s shaman, after all. Wouldn’t he be able to tell us if the Beast is a spirit, or a monster of flesh and blood? And couldn’t he sense if the Sun tribe was controlling him and sending his wrath upon us?”
“Indeed he could. But he is not here, and no one knows where he went, or when he’ll be back, if ever.”
“He probably left to escape the war,” Wakiza said. “I wouldn’t blame him. Even I have lost my taste for battle, and it has been my dream to become a warrior since I was a little boy.”
“That I know,” Siwili replied, glancing at his son with sympathetic eyes. “But you are a great warrior, Wakiza, and an equally exceptional hunter. Though you may not agree with this war, you still have a duty to your people.”
Wakiza watched his large feet take turns stepping across the pebble-riddled dirt, only able to look up for a glance at a time due to the oversized carcass draped across his back. He was tall, though not lanky in the least, and every muscle was visibly apparent on his tanned frame. His hair was coarse, dark, and long, and his eyes were a nearly-black brown to match. His name, meaning ‘desperate warrior’, had been given to him after the exceedingly long and difficult labor he gave to his mother, Bena, while being born. It had been a surprise to everyone in the tribe that she had survived that ordeal fairly unscathed. The chief declared that for a baby to put up such a fight, he must be destined to become a great warrior, desperate to assert his will in any given situation—an extremely auspicious prediction for such a new life. Thus the name stuck, and seemed to grow more and more fitting as each year of his life passed. He became revered among his tribe for his warrior and hunter accomplishments, the perfect son destined for chiefdom in a tribe where the reigning chief only had daughters, and whose wife was too old to produce any more children.
Perhaps Wakiza was a desperate warrior, but he lacked the desperation many had for power, and rather maintained his desperation for a life beyond what anybody in his tribe—even his parents—could understand.
The sun was setting behind the great mountain in the distance. By now, Wakiza and his father had nearly reached their home, the village of the Thunder tribe. He breathed a sigh of relief as the deer carcass was growing heavy upon his back, and quickened his pace to reach the commune before the sun dropped behind the mountain completely and darkness overtook the forest.
As the men approached their village, cheers rang out as everyone noticed the fresh meat being carried toward the chief’s house. Upon hearing the ruckus, Chief Taima, whose name meant ‘thunder’, stepped out of his home and greeted the father and son, thanking them for their contribution to the tribe.
“You have done us a great service, Siwili and Wakiza,” Taima said. “And for that, the two of you will get the first bites!”
“It was Wakiza who slew the animal,” Siwili admitted. “I just provided moral support.”
“Then it is Wakiza we will celebrate tonight,” the chief acquiesced. “And he will have his pick of any of my three daughters to spend the night with. Hopefully,” he winked, “it will end in a marriage!”
Wakiza shifted his weight uncomfortably, but managed to muster a smile at Taima. “Thank you, Chief,” he said humbly. “It is a great honor.”
“You bring honor to this tribe, great warrior,” Taima replied. “Now, everyone,” he called out to the gathering that had formed around his home, “we feast!”
❦
The tribe gathered around the roaring fire after all had eaten their fill of venison, and the chief’s wife, Ituha, indicated that it was tim
e for storytelling, a favorite activity amongst the members of the tribe. Wakiza sat alone; that is, until the chief’s three daughters emerged from their house after their meal, and upon seeing him swarmed around his body like a pack of ravenous wolves. Their names were Elu, Eyota, and Etenia.
The eldest, Elu, meant ‘beautiful’, and she was clearly so, and knew it well, always using it to her advantage—as if her status as the chief’s favorite daughter weren’t advantage enough. She always managed to avoid the tasks of everyday life in the village, spending most of her time doting on her father while her sisters did her share of the work.
The chief’s second daughter, Eyota, which meant ‘great’, was known for her intelligence, though she rarely had an opportunity to use her keen wits, since her father kept her busy weaving intricate baskets and forming delicate pottery for the tribe to use.
Taima’s youngest daughter was Etenia, whose name meant ‘rich’. She was neither pretty nor smart, but didn’t seem to understand that she lacked both brains and beauty. She was known as a spoiled brat within the tribe, and many wondered if she would ever take a husband—or, rather, if one would ever be willing to take her.
“Wakiza! Stay with me tonight,” Elu whispered in his ear, taking care to lean forward enough to allow him a glimpse down her dress. He blushed, and looked the other way, which left him eye to eye with Eyota.
“No! He’s staying with me. We’re going to have deep conversations.” Eyota sat next to Wakiza and scooted as close to him as she could. “A man as intelligent as Wakiza deserves nothing less than an equally smart wife.”
“Wakiza is handsome! He needs a wife as attractive as he!” Elu remarked.
“Ha! He doesn’t want either of you,” Etenia shouted, nearly rupturing Wakiza’s eardrum with her screeching voice. She had firmly planted her rear on the other side of him and leaned as close to him as possible. “He wants me!”
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