Tiera's Earth (Andromeda 9 Book 1)

by Ethan T. Marston

  “I can do that,” Tiera said, looking out the window at the white wasteland that separated the WG station from the city.

  “Oh, and of course there was a fine, but Daven Theo has already paid it for you,” Leon added.

  Not again. Tiera gave an internal groan. How am I ever going to catch up if he keeps doing all these things for me? She hated feeling indebted to anyone, even when the currency was kindness.

  “Speaking of the conditions of my release,” Tiera said, turning away from the window, “will you tell me now why I was in prison for 16 days instead of 10?”

  “Well we still haven’t figured out what Kert Yematoro put inside your head, and it’s an issue of galactic security. I thought that if you interacted with Kert Yematoro, you may have uncovered whatever secret he put into your mind, but when you were cleared for release you had hardly even spoken to him.” Leon paused to stifle a yawn. “So,” he continued, “I asked for permission to have you stay until I had reason to believe there was nothing to gain from your interactions with Kert Yematoro. The judge saw no problem with it.” Leon said all of this as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

  “You mean to tell me,” Tiera began, fighting to keep her voice steady, “you were going to let me stay locked up with all of the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals, because you wanted to see if I’d talk to a convicted terrorist?” A small voice in Tiera’s head tried to remind her that if Leon hadn’t done this, she never would have learned of Kert’s plan to save the Earth, but the angry voice in her head was much louder just then.

  “You’re upset?” Leon had the gall to look confused.

  “Of course I’m—” Tiera clenched her jaw and closed her eyes. You’re about to yell at a cop. A cop that just testified for you in court. She took a breath, then continued, “You could have clued me in at least is all. I would have talked to him sooner.”

  “I didn’t want Kert Yematoro to be suspicious—and I wasn’t sure how good you were at acting. I’m sorry for upsetting you.” Leon looked through the front window and at the looming capital ahead. “Though as long as we’re talking about this I may as well ask, what did you and Kert Yematoro talk about on the beach on Wednesday? We managed to isolate the audio of your conversation, but you weren’t speaking in a recognizable language.”

  “Are there more languages here than just Original?” Tiera asked, both because she was curious and because she wanted to avoid talking about Kert’s plan. She wasn’t quite convinced that Kert wasn’t crazy, but his plan was the only chance she had of saving Earth.

  “All of Origin’s citizens speak Original—and it’s exclusively spoken on a few planets—but there are a few other languages, yes,” Leon answered.

  Tiera kept talking before he could get back to his question. “Just a few? Earth has thousands of languages. Though I only know bits and pieces of anything other than English.”

  “English? Is that the language you and Kert Yematoro were speaking?” Leon was apparently very talented at getting conversations back on track.

  “Yes, it was.”

  After waiting in vain for Tiera to continue, Leon asked, “So what did you two talk about?”

  “I—” Tiera still wasn’t sure what to say. “It’s hard to talk about.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Well, it was just so awkward, so . . . it makes me uncomfortable to talk about it.” Tiera wasn’t sure where she was going with this. I should have planned something!

  “What made it awkward?” Leon asked, waiting intently for any new information.

  “He just—I mean—he’s an insurrectionist and I was kind of afraid of him this whole time, so it was hard to talk to him. And I didn’t even know he was there on the beach with me until he was right behind me.”

  “We saw that . . . but we also saw you hug him,” Leon said carefully.

  “Well, I hugged him because he apologized.” Just make something up. It’s impossible for him to know what I really said.

  “He apologized?”

  “Yeah. And that’s what was so awkward, because I thought he was so awful and then he was actually very kind.” Tiera tried to keep eye contact with Leon as much as she could. She was pretty sure she had heard somewhere that liars have a hard time maintaining eye contact.

  “He was . . . kind?” Leon looked like he wasn’t sure what to make of this information.

  “Yeah, he said he was sorry for the mess he had gotten me into. That it wasn’t my fault. And he had a few nasty things to say about Parliament, which made me a bit uncomfortable too, but I tried to ignore that.” Tiera decided to stop talking before she started rambling.

  Leon just looked ahead, frowning and running his hand over his short, black hair. “He apologized.”

  “Yeah, it was confusing for me too,” she added.

  “Why?” Leon turned to look at her again.

  “Well,” Tiera decided to throw a bit of her true feelings into this part. “Can I trust him? Was he telling the truth? Why should I think he isn’t the bad guy that everyone and everything else has painted him to be? And what’s in it for him? Why does he want me to trust him—to like him?” Why does he want me to save the Earth? Tiera looked down at her hands. “It all seemed real at the moment, but what if he’s just playing me? Or what if he’s trying to get me in trouble?”

  The car went silent for a while, and then it went dark as thick, autumn woods sprang up on either side of the road. Now the only source of light other than the car’s front monitor was the red warning light of the road itself.

  “Those are some very good questions. Questions I don’t know the answer to,” Leon said, finally breaking the silence. “But I don’t think you’d lose anything by distrusting him.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. What would it benefit you to trust what he told you? What do you have to lose by trusting the faithful government institutions that judged him to be dangerous? That decided he should be locked up?”

  My entire world—my entire way of life. That’s what I have to lose, Tiera thought glumly, but instead she said, “Nothing. There’s nothing to lose.”

  “That’s right,” Leon said. “Besides, he may just be trying to use you. He may be trying to get your defenses down in case you run into another insurrectionist.”

  “Really?” Tiera had never considered the possibility of running into another insurrectionist—or revolutionary. She wasn’t sure what to call them anymore. She wasn’t sure that her distrust of the Original government meant that she somehow sided with Kert’s revolution, or if she was just in her own lonely and misfit group.

  “Tiera,” Leon said gently, and Tiera looked up from her hands to meet his gaze. “I know this has been a hard experience for you. I know that it seems unfair.” They finally broke through the woods and entered the suburbs, which provided enough light that Tiera could clearly see Leon’s pleading expression. “But please promise me that you won’t do anything drastic. Promise me you’ll stay away from terrorists and from violence. You can make a good life here—you have a good head on your shoulders.”

  Tiera looked at Leon, seeing him not just as the man sitting before her, but as the chief of Faroa City’s police force. As a symbol of the Original government. As the institution that had so spectacularly failed her. “I promise,” she finally said.

  As soon as she said it, the phrase made Tiera inexplicably sad. Not because she knew it was a lie, or because she had already even broken her word by collaborating with Kert. No, Tiera was grieving because that broken promise represented something bigger. It forced her to fully acknowledge what she was about to do, and everything that could go wrong. It made her realize that she could never be completely honest with Leon again, or he would just stop her plans. It was a wedge. A wedge that would persist between her and Chief Leon Uedent—a good, trusting, and misguided man—forever.

  Chapter 21

  “Tiera Jasperson, the Milky Galaxy woman who attacked Parliament and assaulted several poli
ce officers at the last third Tuesday hearing, was finally released from Hyran’s maximum security prison today. Those of you who followed her court case know that her dangerous behavior was claimed to be the result of an intense panic attack, but Parliament clearly sees it as a sample of what might come should other Earthlings come into contact with our peaceful way of life.”

  “What?” Tiera asked angrily, though of course she didn’t expect the recording of the newscaster to respond.

  “As you may already know, the main reason Parliament has delayed the passage of the Galactic Defense Bill was because of the Humanist Party’s ethical concerns. However, after Tiera Jasperson’s attack, only a handful of Humanist Party members still opposed it, which gave the bill enough votes to pass. Humanist Party leader Aneet Mongery is here with us to explain what effected this change. Aneet?” The view shifted from the male newscaster to his guest, a woman with a bald stripe shaved into either side of her fluffy white hair.

  “Thank you, Chaz. As far as explanations go, I’m afraid the risks simply outweigh the benefits. It took us a while to see that, but you saw what the Earth woman was capable of, and she’s been described as peaceful!” Aneet shook her head sadly, and Tiera wanted to rip the smart glass display off the living room wall.

  “Yes, and if you consider the report—”

  “Exactly. The Earth woman said herself that her planet is in a constant state of civil war—we’ve all seen the police reports. We simply aren’t equipped to step in! Our police force hasn’t received formal combat training in nearly one million years, and it was considered an obsolete practice long before that. We would have to revive weapons manufacturing, draft and train soldiers—and what would that do to our society? If it weren’t for the old records our people wouldn’t even know the definition of war; I’m not about to make them witness it firsthand.”

  “Of course,” Chaz replied. “But what if we just left the Milky Galaxy alone? As a Humanist, wouldn’t that be a more palatable solution?”

  “It would!” Tiera exclaimed, and Xana shushed her.

  “In the short term, yes, it would,” Aneet began. “But is that really a solution? This all began because of our researchers’ forecasts for Andromeda. It might all look well now, since we’re so far away, but eventually our galaxies will collide, and there’s not even a 10% chance all of our planets will come out of it unscathed. Besides that, their projection shows the most favorable results if we remove the Milky Galaxy within the next millennium, otherwise the rebalancing of our group’s galaxies would cause a catastrophe even sooner than the Milky-Andromeda collision.”

  “Yes, yes,” Chaz said, waving his hand like he’d heard it all before, “but can’t we wait to remove the Milky Galaxy and give the Earthlings a chance to reform? We have 1,000 years after all.”

  “That’s what I’m saying!”

  “Tiera, please,” Xana complained.

  “As Parliament, we have considered that. But then we come back to the risks.” Aneet sighed. “Only a handful of scholars study as far back as Origin’s war days, but it took much longer than one millennium to completely eradicate violence once the peace laws were put in place. It’s simply unlikely that the people of Earth will reform in time. And besides that, what if they ignore our terms? What if their technology advances further while we wait? What if, upon learning that interplanetary travel is possible, they develop a wormhole generator of their own and try to invade our galaxy? The risks of war still outweigh the benefits of preserving life, even if they’re the lives of descendants of Original citizens. We all wish there were another way.”

  Xana turned the video off and leaned back on their living room couch. “After that they just start gossiping about aristocratic drivel.”

  It took a while for Tiera to be able to say anything—she was just so indignant and angry at Origin and Aneet and Parliament and everything else. As soon as her emotions started to translate into words again, her volume made Xana jump. “But that’s so unfair! They talk as if it’s all inevitable but they don’t know anything! They don’t know that people will get violent! They don’t know that Earth won’t reform! Ugh!”

  “They’re going to spend the next month or so double-checking—” Xana started, but then Tiera bowled right over her.

  “And then they talked about me like I’m some loose-cannon axe-murderer and that I’m only under control because I’m heavily medicated now! They don’t even know me—I wasn’t on regulators this whole time and all of you still vouched for my character!”

  “Tiera, if they thought all of that fighting was premeditated you’d still be in prison.”

  “But it wasn’t! I was just going to talk—to plead my case—but then they cut me off,” Tiera complained.

  “Of course. Whenever someone cuts me off I punch them in the head too. It’s a natural reaction.”

  Tiera had never been at the receiving end of Xana’s sarcasm, and she definitely didn’t like it. “Are you defending them?”

  “No! I would have done the same thing,” Xana assured her. “I’m just saying it might be wise for you to play up the anxiety-made-me-do-it theory. But like I was saying, they’re going to spend the next month double-checking all of their models for the black holes and the galaxy group, and on day 3 of 11 they’re going to get rid of the Milky Galaxy.”

  “They’re going to try to murder everyone on my planet, you mean.”

  “Yes, though that’s a bit more dramati—wait. ‘Try’?” Xana cocked an eyebrow at Tiera. “What do you mean?”

  Crap. Tiera hadn’t decided whether or not she wanted to tell Xana about Kert’s plan yet. “Um. Poor word choice, I guess,” Tiera said, but she could tell she took too long to respond when Xana’s other eyebrow shot up to join the first.

  “What are you planning? I want in on it this time,” Xana said, her tone conspiratorial. She sat cross-legged on their red couch so that she could turn and face Tiera.

  “You want in on it?” Tiera decided not to waste time by pretending she didn’t know what Xana was talking about. “Even if that means you’d go to jail? Because, whether or not it works, if we’re caught we’ll definitely get in trouble.”

  Xana leaned forward. “What are we gonna do, murder somebody?” Her tone made it sound like she’d be perfectly okay with murdering somebody.

  “Of course not! But I’m sure it’s all kinds of illegal.”

  “I have a good lawyer.” Xana absentmindedly ran her fingers through her wavy black hair. “So what’s the plan?”

  “Even just knowing my plan could get you into trouble, Xana. Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Yes!” she said impatiently. “Now what’s the plan?”

  Tiera’s heart hovered strangely, heavy with her guilt for involving Xana and light with her pride for having such a loyal friend. She took a deep breath. “Okay. We’re going to move the Earth to orbit a star in the Andromeda Galaxy.”

  “Well that probably isn’t illegal since nobody’s done it before,” Xana said, leaning back. “But it’s also impossible—or it is with our current technology. How are you going to do it?”

  Taken aback by how anticlimactic Xana’s reaction was, Tiera just blinked. “Uh. Kert had his students study a way to make wormholes bigger—apparently he had figured it out. He even found a good star for the Earth to orbit and told them about it. I just need to convince a few of his students to help me—they still have access to their old lab, so the plan’s execution shouldn’t be a huge problem.”

  “Is this wormhole amplifier a piece of hardware or a program?”

  “I’m not sure,” Tiera said with a frown. “I think hardware. He said it was a machine.”

  “Okay, well if they have to build something they’ll probably have to steal parts. That’s illegal, but it’s still not murder.” Xana pulled out her smart glass and started messing with it as she talked. “And do they still have permission to use the lab, or do they just have access?”

  “I . . . I don’t kno
w.” Tiera was beginning to realize how little she knew about this project’s details, and that made her nervous.

  “We’ll have to work around the lab’s schedule and hack the lab’s surveillance then. Oh! That’s what I never told you about.” Xana looked up from her smart glass. “I know the details of the plan to get rid of the Milky Galaxy because I’m a hacker. You know what a hacker is, right?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Tiera said slowly. Why did I ever think it was a bad idea to tell Xana?

  “Anyway, hacking is somewhere between ‘illegal’ and ‘against school policy.’ Do you care about being expelled? I mean, it’s not your university, but the Technological University is still a part of your university district.”

  “Am I not already expelled?” Tiera hadn’t been back on Faroa for an entire day yet—and it was the weekend—so she didn’t know for sure. She had just assumed that missing two weeks of class and assaulting the police would put her out of the running.

  “Has the University of Humanities told you you’re expelled?” Xana asked like it should have been obvious.

  Tiera thought of the messages that she had read that morning—she had received a lot since she was arrested—but couldn’t remember any from the university. “Ugh. That means I have class on Monday.”

  Xana smirked. “So you don’t care about being expelled. Good. That leaves one more thing: which of Kert’s old students are you going to ask to help you? Other than Daven.”

  “Darshy and Byrani. I don’t really know any others.”

  “And how are you going to ask them all?”

  Tiera looked around their white-walled apartment, but her mind was just as blank. “That’s a good question.”

  ***

  From the frantic rhythm beating in her chest, you’d think Tiera was about to face Parliament again—but that wasn’t it. Stepping out of her car and onto the glowing sidewalk, Tiera looked at the rich neighborhood around her and steeled herself for what she was about to do: ask Daven for something.