by J. Naomi Ay
“Not yet.” Ronan raised his arms, blessing the people knelt in prayer.
“This is ridiculous,” I mumbled, peeking through my front window. “How many are out there now?”
“A thousand,” the serving woman replied.
“Not at all. I count fifty, no, sixty, but no more than that.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She sniffed loudly. “There, there, child. You need to gain your strength.” Pulling the blanket up to the boy’s chin, she tucked him in tightly, before running a hand across his shiny black hair.
I saw him yawn and he made a noise, a slight cough as he shifted upon the couch. For a fraction of a second, I saw a flickering in his eye.
No. It couldn’t have been. It was merely a trick of the light in this room caused by the swinging of the window shades. If not the window, then, the fire had reflected in the boy’s eye, for it was cracking brightly from wood too wet to burn. It shot up sparks and flames, even though a moment earlier it had nearly died. Anything else I had seen beyond this, was merely my imagination playing tricks.
That night, I lay in bed tossing and turning unable to sleep. If this boy was truly the MaKennah, our savior returned, what exactly would that mean? The Holy Books had said it would be a time of great strife, and indeed, it was for my people across the sea, but would it be worse than that? Were we at a point once again when our people faced complete and total decimation?
If that wasn’t fearful enough, I worried selfishly of my own legacy. Would I, the second Rekah, go down in history as the king who would have let our people die were it not for the boy who would save us from my ineptitude?
I heard a noise outside my door and immediately, reached for my gun. Always, I kept it at my bedpost, just in case. Once, my grandmother, as she slept in this same bed, was awaken by a bear who had wandered up the stairs. Of course, my grandfather had left the front door wide open after a night of celebration and hard drinking. He may have even invited the bear inside, thinking he was a friend.
My grandmother, upon gazing into the upstairs hall, discovered the hulking black form wandering from room to room. Rather than scream or attempt to shoot it, she merely went down the stairs and took the leftover supper from the fridge. Placing it out on the front porch, where undoubtedly the bear could find it, she returned to bed and my drunken grandfather, who remained fast asleep.
I, on the other hand, was now fully cognizant and wide awake. Wearing only my gun, for I slept with nothing else, I opened that same bedroom door to see a form entering my office across the hall. Fearing not a bear, but a would-be assassin, or at least a robber of the King’s gold, I followed him, announcing my presence with a shot.
I had meant only to scare the fellow, but he took me by surprise. Where I expected his arm to be, I found instead his chest. This was due to his small, thin stature, for of course, it was the boy who I just killed in haste, which I could only blame on my disorientation due to lack of sleep.
“Kari-fa! I’m sorry.” I cried, racing over to the lad as he collapsed upon my floor. Blood spilled quickly, pooling upon the wood, which the serving woman had dutifully cleaned. At first, I tried to staunch the flow by placing my hands upon his chest, but he pushed them away, placing his own hands where mine had been. “I am sorry. I thought you were a bear.” I tried to explain as the child coughed and heaved his last breath. Then, he lay silent. “Forgive me, little one. It was a mistake and nothing more. Kari-fa, the serving woman and all the village people will take my crown.”
I left him there in a pool of his own blood, but covered by my extra blanket, while resolving to inform my brother, Ronan in the morning. Waking him now would not bring the child back. No amount of prayers or atonement would absolve me of this murder.
Certain that my life was also about to end, I stumbled down the stairs to my kitchen, whereupon I proceeded to empty as many bottles of wine that I could find.
“Ay! Look at you!” the serving woman cried, a few hours later, after discovering my drunken self upon the couch. “What have you done with my little love, Amyr?”
“Killed him,” I muttered, although my words were probably too slurred to comprehend.
“Good that the child is finally up. I knew my soup would make him strong. Amyr!” she called, from the bottom of the staircase. “Amyr, come down. I will make for you some eggs.”
A moment later, to my great surprise, I heard footsteps slowly treading upon each stair.
“Let me help you, dear heart.” The serving woman rushed to the landing.
“No. I’ve got it,” the boy said, clutching the rail, as he took another step.
Now, I rubbed my bleary eyes and tried to focus as best as I could. Indeed, the child was alive and no worse for wear with neither a gunshot, nor a scratch on his body.
Perhaps, it had been a dream. Maybe, my addled brain had imagined the whole event. Clutching my aching head, I ran upstairs to check the bullets in my gun.
Indeed, I was down one and the barrel smelled of lead. In my office, faint traces of blood had dried upon the floor.
Returning to the kitchen where the boy was seated at my table eating fried eggs, I studied him again and once again found no trace of a wound. However, he had been in my office and for what was the question on my mind.
With spoon in the air, he turn to me and for the first time, I saw his eyes, a kaleidoscope of color, every shade in the spectrum of light.
“I was searching for something,” he said, responding to the question I had not yet come to ask.
“What, dear heart?” the serving woman cried, running a fond hand across his hair.
“This.” The boy reached into his pocket and produced a plain metal dagger with a well-worn hilt wrapped in leather and in need of oil. It fit perfectly in his left hand and the way he held it struck me as one who was accustomed to this weapon.
“Where did you find it?” I demanded, having never seen an ancient blade like this.
“It was in a cupboard,” he replied. “Behind the paneling on the back wall.” Then, he smiled in a patronizing way.
Briefly, I considered whether or not to demand he return it to me for all items in this house were certainly mine.
“It belongs to me,” he proclaimed haughtily, responding to my unasked question, while slipping the dagger back into his pocket.
“Would you like some more eggs, dear?” the serving woman asked.
“Yes, Ma’am.” The boy turned to his plate, but not before flashing his brilliant eyes at me.
Chapter 15
Lance
I got turned down for a promotion. After five years as a full commander and after having completed all requirements for the rank of captain, including the multi-species, multi-gender sensitivity training, I applied for command of the S/S Shuttlecock.
Granted, the Shuttlecock wasn’t exactly a Class A Battlecruiser like my current stomping ground, the Discovery, but it was respectable ship with a crew of nearly fifty heads. As a supply ship, a cruiser support vessel, it carried a small armory of laser weaponry for defensive purposes only, with two restaurants, one bar, and a small game deck for our entertainment.
“A supply ship is okay,” Wen remarked, when I was still contemplating throwing my hat in the ring.
We were in my cabin and Wen was on the floor with Sandy, who was beating him in a game of chess.
How Sandy became such a prolific chess player baffled me, as did most of the things about my daughter. I could barely manage a game of checkers, let alone strategically plan to capture the opposing king fourteen moves before it happened.
“Check,” Sandy said, eating Wen’s remaining rook with her white queen. “A supply ship is fine, Daddy. Would we be in this sector or another?”
“Phooey!” Wen cried.
“This one.” Sitting down at my desk, I studied the Shuttlecock’s flight plans once again. I had been stationed in the sector practically my entire SpaceForce career. I would have liked to go somewhere else, to explore another corner
of the Milky Way, but this opportunity was too good to pass up.
“Phooey,” Wen cried again, as Sandy stood up and came to peer over my shoulder at the screen. That old Imperial coin swung forward and hit me in the back, reminding me how fortunate I had been.
After Sandy had seen the coin and claimed it belonged to her, I took it to a guy in the machining department on board the ship. He put a ring around it so I could mount it from a chain, which she had worn around her neck ever since.
I didn’t know why it meant so much to her, why every time I looked at her, that ancient Emperor’s profile was hanging over her heart. She touched it constantly too, like a talisman or good luck charm. I figured if it made my teenager happy, who was I to argue? The old Emperor was dead, so what did I care if she loved him more than me?
Frankly, I thought the coin was my good luck charm too, for it had led me from a pretty lousy life back in The Armpit on Earth. Now, here I was exploring the galaxy and soon to be commanding a ship of my own. Not to mention, I had my best friends and my amazingly lovely young daughter by my side. I was pretty sure my old man hadn’t any clue that I’d reap all these benefits from his gift. Or, maybe, he did. Maybe, the old guy loved me a little bit after all.
“Go for it, Daddy.” Sandy patted my shoulder as if she was the parent and I was the kid. “If you want to be a captain, you’re going to have to apply for all these postings. Do you want to play again, Wen? I’ll let you be white.”
“Nope.” Wen pulled himself to his feet and stretched his back, rising to his full five foot four inches. “You need to go beat Noodnick now. My ego is so deflated, I’m not sure I can even go to my duty station.”
“Oh, Wen,” Sandy said with a sigh. “Next time, I’ll play without my queen. Will you change ships too if Daddy gets his own command?”
“I guess so,” Wen shrugged and headed to the cabin door, “if I want to have any friends. Nobody on this ship likes me except for you two.”
“And, Nood,” I added. “Although, who could tell.”
In all these years of knowing Noodnick, I had yet to hear a word escape his lips.
“His eyes are very expressive though,” Sandy always said. “You can look straight into his soul and see what a kind person he is.”
Kind or not, Nood was a good crewman and given my druthers, I’d trust him in my engineering bay over anyone else. There were a few others on board I would have liked to steal, but they’d need a powerful incentive to move from a battlecruiser to a supply ship.
As it turned out, I didn’t get the Shuttlecock. Politics interfered and I was passed over in favor of a Centipedean, who would become the first SpaceForce captain with eighteen legs.
“Command believes those additional appendages will make him more efficient at handling stock,” my commanding officer said. “But, keep trying, Lance. There’s a ship out there somewhere with your name on it.”
Right. More likely, the eighteen-legged dude was a better fit for the SpaceForce’s equal opportunity quotas. At any rate, I did try again a few more times only to be rejected over and over for some obscure reason.
Finally, after nearly a year of applying for every job, I was offered the command a hospital ship on the outskirts of the galaxy. Sandy, like all children, was prohibited from living aboard with me.
“Germs,” my commanding officer said. “We can’t risk exposing children to unknown space diseases.”
“But, it’s okay from me to contract the Andromedean eyeball flu or the Black Eye Galaxy’s version of the sleeping virus?” I had asked.
“Children are innocent. You signed up for this job, Lance. It’s your choice, the ship or your daughter.”
“Do you want to go live with your mother for a while?” I asked Sandy, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice. “She’s in command of a nice Class A battlecruiser with lots of safety shields.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me, Father?” Sandy was sitting cross legged on her bunk, her earbuds destroying whatever remained of her natural hearing.
At the age of fifteen, my daughter was going through her Goth stage, which involved dyeing her beautiful red hair black, except for a few purple streaks. This made a perfect complement to her entirely black wardrobe, her black lipstick, black eyeshadow, and thick black brows. The only color on her entire body, besides her brilliant green eyes and scattering of freckles, was the ancient gold coin which she occasionally wore around her neck. Most of the time, it sat on her bedside table top. Once or twice, I caught her fingering it before swearing at it, or tossing it haphazardly upon the floor.
“Are you dumping me back on her the same way she dumped me on you?”
“No! No!” I insisted, although the thought did cross my mind.
This might be the perfect excuse to send the girl to her mom. Perhaps, female companionship and guidance was what was missing from the child’s life, since no matter what I said or did, I was met with disdain.
If I said up, she said down, if I said left, she said right, and if I dared to suggest anything contrary to her opinion on any subject, it was met with a biting comment on my stupidity, or my inability understand.
“It’s a stage,” Wen informed me, as if he was an authority on teenage girls.
Noodnick nodded, which is about all the dude ever did.
“I’m staying with you,” Sandy declared, turning her back to me and cranking the tunes up another notch.
I had no choice but to refuse the hospital ship posting. Sandy dictated my life.
“Uh huh,” Wen agreed while Noodnick nodded his head.
“Teenagers.” I sighed, waving my hand for another bottle of beer.
We were sitting in a vinyl booth in a bar on spacebase 13-C, and I was lamenting my lack of professional advancement, whereas both Wen and Noodnick were apparently unbothered by the lack of theirs. In fact, the only interest Wen had, at that moment, was the peanut shells scattered across the floor and the snake-like thing that was crawling through them.
“I just want my own ship,” I moaned, the beer and my circumstances making me morose. “I want to be called Captain. I want to have the final word.”
“Then, you had better quit SpaceForce,” Wen replied. “Buy your own ship. Oh, look. It turned around and now, it’s heading back this way.”
Noodnick, without saying a word, climbed upon the vinyl bench, one beer in his hand, the other in his mouth.
“That’s a thought,” I thought, having never thought of that before. I could own a merchant trader, or a freightplane for hire. It wouldn’t be as honorable as defending the galaxy in a SpaceForce uniform, but I would probably make more money and I could be my own man.
“Now, there’s two of them,” Wen remarked, joining Noodnick on the bench. “Nope. I’m wrong. I see three, maybe, four.”
“My own plane,” I murmured. I had a little money saved away for Sandy’s college tuition. Probably, there was enough to get a decent ship, something used, a couple decades old. I could use the college money to buy my ship and when the time came, if I still needed to, I could get a loan to pay for the school. I might even get lucky and Sandy would get accepted into the tuition-free SpaceForce Academy. “I’d want something that could handle at least a hundred thousand dead weight.”
“Unless we get out of here, we’re all going to be dead weight,” Wen squeaked as something brushed against my leg, whereupon I joined my friends on the table.
I found an advert on the galaxy wide web, specifically on a site that catered to used spaceplanes.
“What do you think about this one, Sandy?” I asked, holding up my tablet with a series of freightplane pics. It was the right size and the right age, with cabins and bunks for half a dozen crew, and carried enough fuel to travel half a quadrant at lower light speeds. “It’s got a large galley and you could have your own cabin with a private head. There’s a large common area on the second deck where we can hang a huge vid. We’ve even got room for a small tender. That’d be cool, right Sandy? It’d
be great to have our own ship. I’ll name it after you.”
“Can I drive it?” Sandy grunted, narrowing her eyes as if my presence was infringing upon her personal space, even though I was standing in the doorway across from her bed.
“The plane or the tender? I think I could probably teach you to fly the tender. I bet that will look good on your SpaceForce Academy application if you already have a junior pilot’s license.”
Sandy grunted again, which might have meant that she had no intention of applying to the Academy, but because she wanted to fly the tender, she would humor me and pretend that she might.
At any rate, I pursued the freightplane advert, arranging to meet the ship’s owner at spacebase 41-B in two weeks, which conveniently coincided with my SpaceForce contract’s expiration.
Chapter 16
Rekah
I confessed to my brother, Ronan, of my attempt to kill the boy.
“It was an accident,” my brother whispered kindly, as we watched the boy prostrate himself upon the altar in prayer. “In the dim light, you thought him a bear and furthermore, he appears completely unscathed. You see, King-brother, I was correct, wasn’t I?”
Begrudgingly, I admitted he probably had been, for while there was convincing evidence that the boy was the MaKennah returned, in the back of my mind, I still held some niggling doubts. True, he had found a knife, hidden in a secret cupboard, and covered in dust that someone had placed there centuries before. And, true his face was a replica of the Great Emperor with eyes that were similar in their oddness, if not color.
Despite this, the boy annoyed me in all he did and said.
How could the MaKennah, the savior of our people be someone that I truly didn’t like? Wouldn’t his presence glow with goodness? Shouldn’t I feel blessed simply because he was around? Yet, I felt like strangling his neck whenever I heard his voice. Sometimes, it was almost as if I had to restrain myself from shooting him again.
“But, why would he come to us in such a weakened state?” I protested to my brother. “And, what of his parents, the shopkeeper and the seamstress?”