Tiera's Earth (Andromeda 9 Book 1)

  Xana brought her head up to look Tiera in the eye, and Tiera held her gaze. Finally, Xana gave Tiera a shaky smile. “Let’s go get my dad drunk.”

  ***

  It was just after 20 when their car arrived at the glowing tower of white cement and steel that housed Pit and Tana Seeli. Tiera and Xana climbed out of their magnet car and into the brightly lit car port under the building, and they wasted no time in getting to the elevator. They had already discussed their rough plan in the car, so Tiera was expecting a relatively silent elevator ride, but then Xana turned to Tiera with a question.

  “What were you going to tell me? When you came home?”

  “What? Oh!” It took Tiera a moment to process what Xana had just said—she had been concentrating on not fidgeting as the elevator sped upward and toward the man that could decide the fate of her planet. “It’s something I learned at my exam review. Are—” Tiera dropped her voice to a whisper. “Is our conversation being recorded?”

  Xana shook her head. “No, elevators only record video, not audio. Privacy laws and all that.”

  “Great,” Tiera said, and she smiled as she felt some of her excitement returning. “I found something that could keep Parliament from sending Earth away! It’s not much, but it’s in every planet’s charter—and that means it’s law.”

  “What is it?” Despite her naturally occurring bored look, Xana sounded genuinely curious.

  “Well, the Republic of Origin is supposed to rule and defend all Andromedan life. Once the Earth is in Andromeda, it’ll be considered Andromedan life!”

  After considering for a moment, Xana smiled. “They’ll have a hard time arguing themselves out of that one.” She turned toward the clear elevator door and watched as floor after floor of the building’s attractions flew by. “They might try to say that Earth’s life didn’t originate in Andromeda though, which would mean they’re not responsible for it.”

  Tiera took a second to think about that. “Well, isn’t the Earth a lost Origin colony? That means the Earth’s life started in Andromeda. It just grew somewhere else.”

  “That’s a good point,” Xana said, and their elevator slowed as it reached floor 87. “They’d either have to agree with you or admit that the Origin Right is false—which they’d never do. It would completely unsubstantiate their empire.”

  “Don’t you mean republic?” Tiera asked with a frown.

  “No, I don’t,” Xana said curtly.

  Before Tiera could pry any further, their elevator stopped in front of a door marked 87B-3: the home of the Seelis. A chime sounded as Xana opened the door, and the two of them stepped into the grand entry room of the high-rise mansion.

  “Hello? Mom? Dad?” Xana yelled, leading Tiera underneath the two-pronged grand staircase and into the hallway.

  “Xana? I’m in the parlor, honey!” Tiera heard Pit respond from somewhere ahead, and Xana marched farther into the hallway than Tiera had ever been before. After passing the dining room, they reached a corner, and the wide hallway cut to the left. While Tiera saw that the left wall of the hallway had the same coral coloring as the entry, the right wall was all window, offering them a dazzling view of the surrounding skyscrapers—which Xana ignored. Soon they were entering the parlor, a dimly lit room with several lounging chairs and an entire wall of shelves. Tiera wasn’t at all surprised that those shelves were full of alcohol.

  “And you brought Tiera too! How charming! Please have a seat.” Pit, dressed in a creamy orange nightgown and swirling something in a short glass, gestured toward the unoccupied chairs opposite his with a smile. He was seated next to what Tiera could only call a fireplace—except it wasn’t. Set into the wall was an elaborate iron sculpture of a large flower, its points and petals glowing an angry red just like a burner on an electric stove.

  “Yes, I—I thought Tiera could use a drink,” Xana said very seriously, and Tiera tried to make her expression as forlorn as possible.

  “Oh!” Pit turned to Tiera, and it didn’t take long before he adopted a look of concern. Tiera didn’t think she was that good of an actor, but she supposed it didn’t hurt that Pit had already been drinking. “Sit! Sit! I’ll get the glasses.” Pit gently pushed Tiera and Xana into empty chairs before walking over to the wall of alcohol.

  “Cry,” Xana whispered to Tiera once Pit’s back was turned.

  My one true talent. Tiera jostled the cage where she kept all of her most depressing and disparaging thoughts, and she tried not to brace herself.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Xana, why didn’t you just take Tiera to a bar?” Pit asked over the sound of clinking glasses. “Not that I don’t want you here, of course.”

  “Well . . . ” Xana trailed off, and Tiera faked a sob to buy her some time to come up with something.

  “Oh. I see.”

  Tiera hid her face in her hands—so far she had only managed to make her eyes water. Great. When I want to cry it’s hard. She was having a hard time focusing on the eventual deaths of everyone she loved—for some reason she was more nervous about whether or not she was convincingly sad. Determined to do her part, Tiera tried to make her breathing irregular, adding little whimpers every now and then when she exhaled.

  “She’s just really upset about, well . . . Earth,” Xana told her father, and Tiera peeked through her fingers to see his reaction.

  “Don’t you worry, darling. I understand completely,” Pit said, returning to them with a tray of glasses and a large bottle of frighteningly blue liquid.

  “No you don’t,” Tiera snapped, unable to stop herself, and Xana shot her a surprised look. Oops. “My whole family, Pit,” she moaned. “They’re all going to die!” Tiera decided to play it up, hoping that by evoking pity she would undo any offense she had caused with her outburst. But then she actually started thinking about her family, and real tears started to flow.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t understand,” Pit said gently, pouring Tiera a drink. “My family left Zura behind, but at least it’s still there.” He handed her a pungent glass of blue booze. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you.”

  After wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Tiera looked up and took the glass. Pit actually seemed sincere about what he had said. Maybe he isn’t that bad a person after all.

  Xana coughed, and both Tiera and Pit looked at her. She was staring at Tiera.

  Oh! Look who’s learning to be subtle! “We have a custom on Earth,” Tiera began, returning her attention to Pit. “I’m not sure if you do anything like it here, but when we have a reason to celebrate or mourn, we drink together. Will you two drink with me?”

  “Of course!” Pit said, just as Xana said “Sure!”

  “Well,” Tiera gave Pit a weak smile, “we have an entire planet to mourn, so I hope you don’t mind drinking a lot.”

  Pit grinned like he still thought his alcoholism was a secret. “Anything to make you feel at home, dear.”

  Back on Earth, Tiera would only drink every now and then, but she had never actually gotten drunk before. That changed as she spent the next hour drinking, crying, and reminiscing about Earth with Xana’s father. She hadn’t really liked him much the last time she saw him—especially since he was drunk then—but now that she was drunk too she thought he was amicable enough. Not Xana’s mom though. She’s so rude. Tana had poked her head in at one point, made a face, and then left. And for some reason that bothered Tiera.

  Finally, when it was clear that Pit was drunk enough that he probably wouldn’t remember anything that was about to happen, Xana asked him flat out to look up the date the Galactic Defense Bill would come into effect—the date the Milky Way Galaxy would begin to be erased from the black backdrop of the universe.

  “Oh no—I can’t. I can’t,” Pit refused, shaking his head.

  “Aw,” Tiera pouted for the second time today, and she obviously wasn’t the type to pout. When she was sober. “Please, Pit? For me?”

  “You’re not government em—emplor
yees.” Pit blinked hard several times in an attempt to improve his speech. “Can’t.”

  “But Dad, her whole family is about to die,” Xana piped in. She was still sipping her first drink, and Tiera wondered if she shouldn’t have followed Xana’s example—but then she thought about her family and started crying again. “Her whole planet will die, Dad. Her whole way of life,” Xana pled. “Doesn’t she at least have a right to know when it w—?”

  “That’s so sad!” Pit wailed. “But I can’t! If anyone found out—oh I can’t can’t definitely not can’t.”

  Pit went on like this for a while, but every time Xana or Tiera asked him again his resolve seemed to crumble just a little bit more, and then he would drink just a little more, until finally—

  “Oh alright I’ll show you I’ll show you—but don’t tell anyone!” Tiera held her breath as Pit fumbled around his robe pocket for his smart glass, until he finally pulled it out and unlocked it. “Connect to government interface, um . . . Galactic Dense Bill. Date.” Apparently that was coherent enough for his smart glass, because when he turned it around to show Tiera and Xana it showed the bill’s timeline.

  Tiera had a hard time finding the right date on the list of the bill’s checkpoints, but it only took Xana a few seconds before she pointed it out to Tiera with a gasp.

  “23-10-6027 09:00,” Tiera read slowly. She stared at it for another moment before she realized it was a date and time. “No.”

  They only had five days, and that was counting tonight.

  Tiera shot up from her chair, then wobbled so much she had to sit back down. “Sorry, Mr. Seeli—we need to go!” She struggled to get back up again, and this time Xana stood up to help her.

  “Pit, Pit—only my Tana calls me Seeli,” Pit said with a chuckle. “I mean my wife!” he corrected himself, but Xana already had Tiera halfway to the door. “You sure you don’t want to stay?”

  “No thanks! Bye, Pit!” Tiera called over her shoulder. Gotta tell the others.

  “Oh fine,” Tiera heard him say just as they stepped into the hallway. The lights were off, but the hallway’s window let in more than enough light from the glowing city. Trying as hard as she could not to stumble, Tiera kept her eyes on her feet as they headed right, but when they reached the bend Xana froze—and Tiera almost fell over.

  “I know you’re up to something. Something to do with her.” Tiera looked up to see the dark silhouette of Xana’s mother.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Xana said, stony-faced.

  Tana let out a humorless laugh, stepping toward the window so that the light of the city illuminated her—a light that Tiera had always thought of as warm, but it fell cold as soon as it touched Xana’s mother. She stood in the middle of the hall with her arms folded, her slender frame draped in a silken gown to match her black-and-lavender hair. “Your father may have played along with your silly games last time,” she began, her tone frigid, “but if anything like that happens again, don’t expect us to come to the rescue. Your primitive little friend has cost us enough already.”

  “I can pay you back. I already told Dad—”

  “You think I’m talking about money? I’m talking about our reputation!” Tana closed her eyes and sighed. “You never think of the family, Xana. You’re always so concerned with your own selfish interests that—”

  Tiera had heard enough. “Hey, Xana is the most selfless person I know, alright? You can shut up!”

  Xana’s mother gave Tiera a look that ranged somewhere between confusion and disgust. “What is she even saying?”

  “I don’t know, Mom; it was something in English,” Xana said, readjusting the arm that Tiera had draped over her shoulder. “Now if—”

  “I said,” Tiera began, this time in Original, “that Xana is the most selfless person I know! Or can’t you understand such a primitive language?” She bobbed her head at Xana’s idiot mother, then waved as she started walking again, towing Xana along with her. “Mm bye! So nice to see you.” Tiera wasn’t sure how well sass translated into Original, but Tana looked so offended that she figured it translated well enough.

  Tana didn’t say anything else as Tiera and Xana made their way out of the apartment, but Tiera could feel her glare on the back of her head until they reached the elevator and shut the door behind them. As they began traveling down the hallway and toward the building’s vertical shaft, the pair stood in silence. Finally, Xana turned to look Tiera.

  “You really think I’m selfless?” she asked.

  “Of course!” Tiera said, smiling at her friend.

  “Thanks,” Xana said, and then she smiled too. “And thanks for being rude to my mom.” Her expression took on a more mischievous cast. “You should teach me some English sometime. That would really make her angry.”

  Tiera laughed. “I’ll try to squeeze a few lessons in. We have at least five days before I’m thrown into jail—that’s twice as much time as I had to learn Original, you know.” She turned away from Xana to look out the elevator window. They were plummeting toward the car port below, and, as reality set in, Tiera’s mood descended just as fast.

  “Well,” she sighed, “let’s go tell the others.”

  Chapter 26

  “I don’t understand,” Byrani said from across the room.

  “What?” Tiera asked, looking away from the hallway long enough to see that she and Darshy were frowning at the simulator screen. But Byrani just ignored her, so Tiera sighed and returned to her lookout duty.

  “Let me run it again,” Byrani told Darshy, and Tiera could see her grabbing for his smart glass out of the corner of her eye—but he lifted it out of her reach.

  “It will have the same result,” he said. “There must be something wrong with the software. It didn’t fry, it didn’t explode—it just didn’t do anything.”

  “Are you sure there wasn’t a problem scanning it?” Byrani asked, clearly annoyed that Darshy was criticizing her programming skills.

  “The engineering box creates a digital replica as you build, Byrani. It couldn’t have missed anything we did.”

  “Anything you did.”

  “Is that why you’re so upset?” Darshy asked, and at that Tiera sneaked another peek into the simulator room. Darshy and Byrani were still seated in front of the wide display, but their body language was much tenser now: Darshy was clenching his jaw and Byrani had her arms folded tightly against her stomach. The screen in front of them showed lists and lists of calculations and reports, all set over the image of a spherical remote WG floating in a simulation of space, surrounded by a normal-sized wormhole.

  “I’m upset because it isn’t working—it’s supposed to be so much bigger!” Byrani tugged at her cerulean coat in agitation. “I just don’t get it! I followed my notes exactly. Did Yematoro set us up to fail?”

  Darshy’s shoulders fell as he let out a long breath. “His instructions weren’t exactly step by step,” Darshy said gently, standing up and pulling his own rust-colored jacket off of the back of his chair. “Let’s look at it again after dinner. Give it some time.”

  “We don’t have any time,” Byrani grumbled, but she stood up and followed Darshy to the door of the small room anyway. Tiera let them pass her, and then she followed them into the hallway of this unfamiliar building.

  She’s right. We hardly have two days left. It was Thursday, and the black holes were supposed to start on Saturday morning. Tiera tried not to think of that as she followed Darshy and Byrani through the bleak white hallways of this engineering building, keeping her head down to avoid detection. They didn’t have Xana’s phantoms and surveillance loops to hide behind anymore, and that made Tiera feel uncomfortably vulnerable. She just tried to take solace in the fact that they hadn’t done anything illegal since they lost Xana’s protection.

  Tiera didn’t say much on the car ride back to her friends’ apartment—she didn’t know what to say. She just stared out the window and watched the city pass by. Every now and then Dars
hy or Byrani would bring up a suggestion for how to fix the remote WG’s amplifier, but otherwise they shared Tiera’s silence. We’re running out of time and energy.

  Once they were back at their cluttered basement base, Tiera and Darshy chopped vegetables as Byrani flitted around the kitchen, and everything almost felt normal again.

  “You know, if circumstances were a bit different I probably would have asked you out on a date by now,” Darshy told Tiera matter-of-factly as they worked on a couple heads of cauliflower, and his booming laugh filled the kitchen as soon as he saw the look on Tiera’s face.

  “You liar,” Byrani accused from behind him. “Daven’s had his eye on her since before she got here. You’d chop your own dick off before you did anything to jeopardize that friendship.”

  “I said if circumstances were different!” Darshy quipped, and he cut dangerously close to one of his fingers as he did so.

  “Be careful!” Tiera warned him, trying to ignore her embarrassment. “Or you’ll chop a finger off instead.” Darshy looked at her expectantly, probably waiting for her to say something else, but she didn’t want to. Tiera wasn’t sure how to respond to this new information—to Daven being interested in her—so she didn’t. The worst part was that she wasn’t surprised. Why didn’t I realize sooner that he liked me? She thought of all of the curt exchanges she shared with Daven via smart glass since the day they fought—and the only reason she still talked to him at all was because she was legally required to check in with him. Poor Daven.

  “Are you guys done yet? I have everything else in the processor already.” Byrani gestured toward a piece of machinery that looked more like a giant egg than a food processor, but Tiera didn’t argue.

  “Almost,” she said simply, trying to get her mind off Daven. It wasn’t like Tiera was romantically interested, but she still cared for him—even if she’d been ignoring him for weeks. “Isn’t there some sort of machine that can chop cauliflower for us?” she asked as she cut the last floret, trying to get away from her thoughts. “Why don’t you guys just let robots run your kitchens?”