Mother enraged.
Mother enraged.
She had spent her whole life with anger, pent-up energy.
And now she was looking her mother in the eye.
“I'm sorry it didn't work out, mother,” she said, quietly.
She glanced up at the starry night, and the stars twinkled one by one, like silent song, one that sang of love and forgiveness.
She had never felt more at peace in her life.
MACALESTERN
Eddie steadied his garbage ship as he entered the atmosphere of Macalestern. Instead of the planet’s usual rain, there was bright blue sky, and the ocean around the living platform were surprisingly calm.
He swung out over the western edge of the circular platform, far away from the bustling city.
Ever since he’d moved the family to Macalestern, he’d developed a dislike of the city. He missed the desert skies of Refugio, the wide expanse with no people. But he’d gotten used to it.
He turned on his radio.
“I’m back,” he said. “Coming in about two minutes.”
Delfino responded. “Good to have you back. How did it feel to make a garbage run after all that time away?”
“Easy,” Eddie said, grinning, “like making pancakes on a Sunday morning.”
Mama Tonia interjected on the radio. “Did you say panqueques, mijo? How many do you want?”
“As many as you got, Mama Tonia,” Eddie said, laughing.
“Good, mijo,” Mama Tonia said. “Your mother and father didn’t have the heart to tell you this, but you lost a little too much weight on your journey. I’m going to have to feed you six meals a day to make up for it.”
“I don’t think I can handle that,” Eddie said. His voice softened. “Mama Tonia, how are you?”
Silence.
And then Mama Tonia spoke. “I miss your grandfather. But some things are just as well. He would have hated this planet. Too much water.”
“I miss him, too,” Eddie said.
“But you’re going to honor him, right?” Mama Tonia asked. “Right?”
“We haven’t decided on a name yet, Mama Tonia,” Eddie said.
“Well, if you don’t name it after your grandfather, name it after me,” she said. “I just hope I’ll be around after it happens. You know what they say: every time a baby’s born, somebody in the family dies.”
“Mama Tonia!”
“Don’t get mad at me,” she said. Eddie knew she was grinning devilishly. “Blame the old wives that started the tale.”
Eddie circled a hangar next to the ocean. Piles of neatly recycled materials ringed it. The roof in the hangar opened and he brought the ship down square in the center.
He ran through the airlock and into the plant, where his family was waiting.
Alma was standing with her hands on her stomach. Dylan waited next to her, resting his head on her stomach.
Another baby.
A child that would be born into a world of peace. And Eddie had played a small part in it.
He kissed Alma.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Aside from brutal kicks, pretty good,” she said.
Xiomara entered the room carrying a grocery bag full of takeout food.
“Just in time,” Eddie said. “I’m starving, Mamá.”
Xiomara kissed Eddie on the cheek.
They followed Xiomara into a small canteen where they took their meals during the day.
Everyone sat at the table and held hands.
“Let’s say grace,” Xiomara said. “We were downtrodden, and we lost our home and the leader of our family, but it turns out we still have each other. Our new home has been a blessing, and we can continue our family business. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your benevolence, for your blessing, for our new little one, and for all that you do to watch over us.”
“Amen,” Eddie said.
He glanced around the table. As everyone ate, he told himself that he didn’t need anything else.
A man could go halfway around the galaxy and come home, and this was enough.
“Nice job, Cristobal,” he whispered to himself. “Nice job.”
He reached for a hamburger, smiling.
ZACHARY
Bulldozers tore down the royal palace. Ren stood on the bridge of a cruiser ship, watching the walls crumble.
The terraced platforms of the sunken city were filled with people watching the rubble fall.
“Today is the first day in a new era,” she had said on national television. But she didn’t know what that meant.
She had ordered all traces of the empire to be destroyed.
The people weren’t going to be drones anymore.
They were going to be people.
Humans.
With lives.
With aspirations.
No barriers.
No stupid emergences.
The population cheered for her when she announced the disbanding of the scientific weapons department. No more Tavin Miloschenkos or Lissa Grubecks.
Never again under her watch would she ever let anyone tell a citizen how to live their life.
No one had been as controversial as her.
And of course, Arguses had tried to retaliate against the empire for abandoning their agreement, but…she was the empress of the strongest army in this part of the universe. No pig would ever set hoof on her soil again as long as she was alive.
The last wall of the imperial palace fell, and she sighed with relief.
A quiet applause occurred across the bridge.
Soldiers.
They followed orders, but they weren’t much in the way of friends.
She didn’t have anyone to share her victory with.
But maybe that was okay.
“Let’s fly over the rubble,” Ren said.
And she got one last look at the pile of heap—a tall pile of evil history—before she bade the ship’s pilot to take her home, back to her hive parents.
SOMEWHERE IN THE ZACHARY GALAXY
Smoke leaned against the wall in a dark alley outside a theater. Shadows enveloped him.
A crowd of people passed by on the street outside.
A gentle rain fell from the cloudy sky. He wasn’t wearing a coat.
He gripped a flyer and stared at it. An advertisement for a musical. A man and a woman dressed in red and white pinstripe suits and straw hats, posing in front of the camera in showman poses, with a marquee behind them.
He concentrated on the woman. She had long brown hair, a petite frame, and an athletic build.
Seeing her made his head hurt.
He glanced at the name.
Award-winning Broadway 2.0 Actress Josie Ballfort.
He stared at the image. Her face. It wasn’t the face he remembered. Or was it?
He stuffed the flyer in his pocket and walked out into the bustling city street full of people and cars. He stuffed his hands in his trench coat pocket and put sunglasses over his eyes. A line of people were exiting the theater, a tall metal building with a giant bulb light marquee. Smoke ignored the name of the musical.
Smoke went to the box office window. A young girl was on her phone, texting.
“You. Give me a ticket,” he said.
The girl looked up. “Show’s almost over, sir. You should come back tomorrow.”
“Give me a damn ticket.”
The girl gave him a disgusted look as he paid. She handed him a white ticket and directed him to the stage.
Smoke walked through the sumptuous lobby of the theater, full of red carpet and golden drapes over the windows, and an usher opened a mezzanine door for him.
He entered in the middle of a song.
The stage was arranged like a barbershop. Josie was circling a chair, singing a sad song as a spotlight followed her.
She belted a high octave, and the crowd stood to applaud her.
Smoke watched for half an hour, not really watching.
He only watched her.
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How she moved.
How beautiful she was.
Josie.
Josie.
Smoke thought about himself.
His name had been Gino…he thought.
Gino Mariano.
Josie.
Josie Mariano.
Josie Ballfort.
Ballfort…
That wasn’t her fucking last name!
He couldn’t remember her true last name. It pained him to think about it.
He thought about the transcript he read about the experiments that Miloschenko did on him.
System update to ocular nerves and central nervous system via cybernetic implants, which are switched on. Breakthrough in our in-house memory construction and deconstruction. Product can no longer speak without synapses activating preprogrammed responses. Product able to predominantly perform head nods, shrugs, and shakes. Unless access code of [purged] is administered, product will be quiet and emotionless. In the event access code is administered, product will experience extreme chemical imbalance unless careful medication is applied. Destroy if activated.
There was an access code in the galaxy there that might unlock his memories. Somewhere.
Or not. Eddie said he had it, but that it would have been destroyed when the Planet Eaters ate Refugio.
In other words, his life was one big question mark. Constant headaches, constant wandering around.
The music ended and the curtain closed. The cast, dressed like barbers, took the stage and everyone gave them a standing ovation.
The curtain parted and Josie exited. Everyone cheered. She had tears in her eyes as the orchestra played a bouncy song.
Then the cast waved, and exited the stage.
The crowd rose to exit the theater, and Smoke wandered into the lobby, snuck down a hallway when no one was looking, and pushed into the cast area.
He followed a long hallway around the building toward the stage.
He walked into darkness, seeing the backstage area, full of props and crew members moving around the area, picking up flowers that had been thrown onstage.
An orange light caught Smoke’s attention.
A side door.
He entered it, and entered another hallway full of green rooms.
He stopped in front of a door that had Josie’s name on it.
He listened.
She was inside.
He entered.
Josie was in her barber outfit, in front of the mirror, warming down her voice.
She saw him and jumped.
“Oh my god. Get out—”
Smoke shut the door and put a chair in front of it, angled at the knob.
She screamed.
Smoke approached, getting a good look at her.
She reached for her cell phone, but Smoke took it and stomped on it.
He stared at her.
She put her hands to her face and retreated, striking the dressing table.
He wouldn’t let her run away.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Smoke blinked.
“I said what do you want?” she asked, frantic.
Smoke grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up, staring at her eye to eye.
She choked, and beat his arms.
He fixed his gaze on her. He tried to remember. Tried to feel something other than anger. Hell, he didn’t even know why he felt anger.
He squeezed.
She gasped, and in her struggle, she knocked off his sunglasses.
When she saw him eye to eye, she gasped again.
“G-Gino?” she asked.
Smoke squeezed harder.
And then he let go.
She fell to the floor, clutching her throat, breathing in heavily.
He stumbled backward against the wall, staring at the floor.
“What happened to you?” she asked. “Y-You’re…different.”
He jammed his hands in his pockets, wrapped them around a handcoil.
Soon, this would all be over.
She approached him, head tilted, and reached out her hand to touch the scar on his face.
He grabbed her hand, and then let it go. She brushed her fingers across his skin, touched the scar. She explored his albino white hair, parting it on the side to feel another raised scar on the site where his lobotomy occurred.
“Oh my god,” she whispered.
He pushed her away gently.
“You’re mad at me,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just…I had to do what I had to do.”
Smoke glanced down at a wedding ring on the dressing room table.
Anger rose within him.
She said something to him, but he couldn’t hear her. All he could focus on was the ring.
What did it mean? What did it mean? What did it—
He whipped out the handcoil and aimed it at her forehead.
Tears welled in Josie’s eyes.
“Please don’t do this,” she said. “Gino, please.”
She began to cry and dropped to her knees.
Her stared at her, jamming the handcoil further against her forehead.
His finger inched toward the trigger.
He dragged the gun away and fired at the floor.
Then he put the gun away.
Josie lie on the floor, curled into a ball.
He removed the chair and opened the door, taking a final look at her—at his past.
He just couldn’t remember why he should be so angry.
“Goodbye, Josie,” is what he wanted to say. But he didn’t. He just shut the door, jogged up a flight of stairs and broke free into the dark alley where he had started.
It was raining harder now.
He flipped up the collar to his jacket and walked several blocks in the rain to a spaceship lot, where he climbed into a ragged green corsair.
He punched in some coordinates and blasted off into the wine-dark sky.
PROVENANCE
Grayson bought a bouquet of flowers—daisies, roses, baby’s breath—and he carried them out of a flower shop into the bright sunlight.
Provenance was sunny, full of blue sky and brown earth. Wispy clouds scudded across the horizon as a gust blew, flapping the collar of his baby blue button up shirt. The plastic wrap around the bouquet rustled in the breeze, and he got a whiff of the flowers. Smelled airy and light, just how Ma liked them.
Grayson whistled as he walked down the street. He nodded to several strangers that passed him. Above, on a bridge that stretched over the street, a rail tram sped by, filled with people coming home from the afternoon commute.
He took in a breath of fresh air…
Galaxy was saved.
The Arguses retreated to their galaxy after the Zachary Empire left them hanging.
Galactic Guard benefits had kicked in, he had galaxy-wide recognition from his work with the Galaxy Mavericks, and he was a galactic hero.
He'd gotten his old job back as a swim coach, coaching high school and college men.
He was home.
He would be with his Ma.
Will and Beauregard retired from active duty and they had lunch with Grayson once a week.
What more could a guy ask for?
A car horn beeped at him.
Keltie leaned out of the driver’s side of a pink convertible.
“Ten thousand years later,” she said. “Meter’s going to run out.”
Grayson hopped into the passenger seat.
“Funny,” he said.
“Pretty flowers,” she said. “Did you let the florist pick them for you?”
Grayson pursed his lips. “Ma’as favorite. It's not every day I take you home to meet my mother for the first time, you know.”
Keltie pointed to a shiny gift bag on the backseat. It was stuffed with tissue paper and had a red bow on the side.
“Whoa, when did you grab that?” Grayson asked.
Keltie shrugged. “You're way too slow.”
Keltie stomped on the accelerator and tore
into traffic, which was steady. She followed the road to a t-intersection and turned left into a suburban thoroughfare. She accelerated, and the wind took her hair, blowing it about. Her blue sunglasses reflected the road. She was smiling. Not fake. Not pretend. But genuinely smiling, like this was the only place she wanted to be, like Grayson was the only person in this giant galaxy that she wanted to be with at this very moment.
He smiled. He wouldn't have been anywhere else but here, with anyone else but her.
The way her hair shone in the sunlight, the way she spoke to him, the soft, deep tenor in her voice…
He couldn't have found anyone better than her.
And now that Keltie was living on Provenance, selling residential real estate for a while until the Macalestern do not compete clause ran out, with the goal of one day opening her own interplanetary real estate firm, he loved having her near.
“So talk to me about the pink convertible,” Grayson said. “Out of all the cars they had in the car lot, you had to pick this one.”
“First impressions are everything,” Keltie said.
“Does a bright pink car send a good first impression?” he asked.
She gave him a mean glance.
He shrugged. “Just playing devil’s advocate. Honest.”
“By positive first impression, if you mean that I'm a strong woman who's successful and did it without any guy’s help…then yes, it's a very freaking positive first impression, thank you very much. Assuming your mom is okay with that.”
Grayson laughed. “All right, all right. She'll be cool, trust me.”
He directed her into a subdivision of glinting metal home pods. His home. The same curvy bend that he would never forget as long as he lived.
He reached over and held her hand.
“Do you find it odd that I'm taking you home and haven't kissed you yet?” he asked.
“Nope,” she said.
“Oh,” he said.
“And don't even try,” she said.
“This delayed gratification thing is going a bit far, don't you think?”
“Nope.”
“I mean, I'm not a horn dog or anything, but—”
“But what?”
“I’d’ve kissed anybody else by now. Even my dog. And I don't have a dog.”
“That's too bad,” she said. “Should I drop you off at the rescue shelter?”
“Should we make a pit stop at a psychologist on the way?” he asked.
Horizon Down (Galaxy Mavericks Book 9) Page 20