The Starlight Fortress

by Fiona Rawsontile

  Now the most senior guard left his post and took a look at the bird. “Whatever it is, we should all get back to work.” As he was turning around, the hen suddenly jumped off from the tree and landed on his chest. “Shoo, shoo! Begone!” he yelled and tried to pull the bird away, but it must have grabbed his necklace tightly. “Ouch! This goddamn bird is pecking on my nose!”

  Everybody burst out laughing as the guard stumbled about and fought the bird. Geneva glanced at the gate. Nobody was there. She looked down at Kyle. He had fallen into sleep. Then without a second thought she sneaked out of the gate and started running.

  The palace was built on a small hill and surrounded by tall woods. She ran on the road for a while. Nobody seemed to be chasing her. She guessed they hadn’t found her missing yet; otherwise she would’ve been caught by now. She then left the road and ran down a small trail. This slowed down her speed, but she felt safer. Soon she heard traffic sounds and saw an elevated highway ahead. She crossed it from below, surpassed a pond, and entered a small town.

  * * *

  She took a break in a street park and nursed Kyle, who had woken up and started crying again. The townsfolk looked nice, but since it was too close to the palace she didn’t want to stay long. She walked through the town at a normal pace and tried to look relaxed. The metropolitan part of the capital stood in the distance, marked by a resplendent crystal ball rolling on top of the highest building. There must be cops on every street of the city. So she’d better stay in the suburbs.

  That night, she slept for a few hours in a deserted bus station. When the morning sun rose, she couldn’t even see the palace hill. Since she was lactating and hadn’t eaten for a whole day, she was overwhelmed by hunger and the baby weighed a ton in her arms, but she kept walking. In the afternoon when she passed by a house, a woman standing in front of the garage saw her and called her away. Geneva told the woman she left home last night because her alcoholic husband attempted to abuse her again; she came to find a friend here but must have gone to the wrong place. The woman asked her to wait in the yard and went inside to get her food and money. Then she heard the tickles of a slowing-down engine at her back.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  She turned around and saw a young cop sitting on a motorcycle. His expression was polite, but his eyes flashed with suspicion.

  “I uh …” She wrapped Kyle a little tighter and tried to sound calm. “I’m kind of lost …”

  “Where do you live?” The cop’s voice stiffened.

  As Geneva was trying to recall a town’s name she once heard on the TV, the woman came out of the house with a tote bag in her arms.

  “Mrs. Fielding!” The cop put on a smile and greeted the woman. “Do you know her?”

  “Oh, poor girl!” The woman stopped in front of Geneva and fetched a carton of milk from the bag. “Is whole milk okay with the baby? … She’s having bad luck with her marriage. Her husband—”

  A sudden roar from the street cut her words short. The three of them turned their heads and saw a red shadow passing by at a frightening speed. As the shadow turned around the corner down the street, Geneva could make out a muscular guy riding a red motorcycle with a red bandanna on his head.

  “Jesus!” the cop called in disbelief. “Did you see that?” He started his own bike and went on chasing.

  Geneva heaved a relieved sigh. She thanked the woman, who seemed to have more to say, and quickly left with the bag of stuff.

  * * *

  She felt much better after eating some food. There was quite a bit of cash in the bag, but she couldn’t stay in a hotel without a valid ID. At dusk, rain started falling and soon turned into a thunderstorm. She hid under the eave of a garage attached to a dark house and waited. As time passed, she felt colder and weaker. Several hours later the rain was still heavy, and the wind picked up. She was chilled to the bone.

  She loosened the blanket and took a look at Kyle. His lips had turned purple. Stupid! She should have thought more carefully before she ran out. Even if she survived tonight, then what? Stupid woman! Once the rain stopped, she should find the nearest police and turn herself in.

  Thinking of the police, she had a sarcastic smile. Since when had she started being afraid of police? A once powerful woman, she used to think she earned people’s respect with hard work, with her wisdom. Exactly how much was due to the fact that she was born in a special family? She remembered Rafael and their last talk. How was she going to free herself as a homeless single mother? Wouldn’t she do anything to raise her kid?

  Two beams of bright lights shot at her eyes. Feeling dizzy and losing her last strength, she slipped down along the garage door. Then she heard someone calling from above, “Hey! What’re you doing here? Are you all right?”

  * * *

  She dimly remembered being supported to the house and drinking something warm. When she fully came to herself, she was lying on a couch and covered by a blanket. She looked around the room. Kyle? Where was Kyle? She left the couch and stumbled inside the house. He was sleeping in a small guest room. Cups, spoons, and milk splashes scattered on the nearby bedstand.

  “You feel better?” A man wearing a T-shirt stepped into the room. “Sorry I don’t have feeding bottles. I tried the straw, but he didn’t like it. He’s probably too young for that. But the spoon worked.”

  The man in front of her looked a couple of years younger than she. He had short stiff hair, small and guileless eyes. The brawny arms and shoulders indicated that he either went to the gym frequently or had an occupation that involved lifting heavy items.

  “Thank you so much for helping us, Mr. …”

  “Call me Mason. What happened to you guys?”

  Geneva told him the same story she told the woman earlier.

  He nodded. “This is the only guest room I have. You think you can share the bed with him?”

  “Of course!” she said gratefully. It was a twin-sized bed, but so much nicer than the streets. “It’s quite late. Do you need to go to work tomorrow?”

  “Not until the day after tomorrow. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll see if I have clothes that might fit you.”

  * * *

  Since then, Geneva and Kyle were settled in Mason’s house. He worked in a freight transport company, and his branch mostly dealt with merchants from certain Thypholian colonies located on the same planet. Normally he worked two to four days straight, and then took a few days off. Every time he came home he would bring something for Kyle. Soon the house was filled with bottles and diapers and toys.

  Geneva felt sorry for all the trouble and expenses she caused, and tried to make up by helping with simple house chores. When he wasn’t home, she went on the Internet to learn floor cleaning, laundry machine operations, and cooking. It took all her will to refrain from sending a message to Harold. Although there was the Internet between here and the RC, Thyphol must be monitoring all the information inbound and outbound the system. She knew that because her country was doing similar things.

  As a smart woman, she learned the basic housework quickly, except cooking, which took practice even with all the recipes at hand. One day Mason came home and took a bite of the bread she made. For a few seconds he seemed to be paralyzed by a spell.

  “No wonder your husband is an alcoholic.” He pulled the piece out of his mouth and smiled. “Just kidding!”

  Geneva didn’t know how much he believed her story, but he never pressed on for more details or asked anything related to her past. Nor did he seem to worry about what was going to happen tomorrow. He lived in the present and cherished the present, and to her, that was a valuable personality for people to survive wartime. Among all the men she knew, he ought to be the least powerful. Yet his presence at home always brought her an ultimate sense of security.

  The only thing he wanted badly was a Taranis Sprit, a fancy motorcycle with adaptive wheels for running on sloping terrains. He said he’d been saving money, but she wondered how much of his savings h
ad gone since she came on that day unexpectedly.

  * * *

  One day after dinner, Mason fetched out a small piece of paper from his pocket and started working on it. Geneva knew he sometimes bought a ticket of lottery or sport prediction game, and that usually took a couple of minutes at most. But this time he read it over and over and didn’t write a thing.

  “What do you think?” he asked after she loaded the dishwasher and came back with a pot of tea. “Is the Briedon Conflict going to last for another week, two weeks, three weeks?”

  Briedon was a small country not far from the Platinum Valley. When Geneva prepared for her mission to the valley she also briefly studied that area. “Three weeks, at least.” She walked over to him and bent down to look at the ticket. “What’s this?”

  “A Battle Prediction Game … But I don’t think it’ll take three weeks. They said they’re sending more troops over. Nobody matches our Central Fleets.”

  “I heard Briedon is called the Country of Storm, and this is their storm season. That’s the worst weather for air-to-ground or amphibious assaults.”

  He looked at her doubtfully but took her opinion anyway. “Which part of the country is likely to give in first, the southeast or the midwest?”

  Geneva frowned. “There’s no other option?”

  “None-of-the-above?”

  “Choose that one.”

  “Which type of fighters is likely to be deployed first by Admiral Bobbins, the Aquila, the Scorpio, or the Libra?”

  She stroked her hair. “Did it say Scorpio?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hmm, I don’t think Scorpios are supposed to operate in the air. They’re pure starplanes. Maybe I remembered wrong? Anyway, I would choose Libras.”

  “You seem to know a lot about military stuff,” he said as he wrote on the ticket.

  Geneva went back to the kitchen and sat on a barstool. She needed a moment alone. Now that she was better with the housework, she had lots of free time at home. She kept telling herself being relaxed was good for her; she was having her maternity leave. Now it just seemed this maternity leave was going to last forever.

  The maternity leave … She thought of Sterling. Was it time to accept the fact that she would never see him again? That idea stung her heart like a needle. Of course there was no commercial flight between the RB and her home system. She would have to go to the RC first, but Thyphol checked the identity of every passenger going through Pathway Wintrail. Eyeballs and fingerprints. A fake ID wouldn’t work.

  And how about her relationship with Mason? Could it stay this way forever?

  “I know nothing about the military,” she murmured. “I’m just a manipulative woman.”

  * * *

  They almost forgot about the game until a month later, when Mason came home with a bouquet of flowers and a bag of food.

  “You got all the answers right!” he exclaimed. “That won us sixteen thousand dollars!”

  It took her a minute to figure out what he was talking about. “Really!” She gave him a broad smile and took over the flowers. “Now you have enough for a Taranis Spirit?”

  “Sort of, but I don’t want a bike any more. You know, people change after they have …” He swallowed the rest of the sentence.

  Kids? A moment of silence fell between them. He wasn’t Kyle’s father, but he had been playing a father’s role.

  “We should definitely get a stroller.” He sat down at the dinner table. “So you could take him to the town.”

  She couldn’t. She took Kyle to the backyard everyday, and occasionally to the nearby grocery stores at night through the self-checkouts. That was it. She couldn’t risk being seen by too many people, and she couldn’t tell him the reason.

  They had a wonderful dinner with all the extra food he brought home. He also had several glasses of wine, and a few more when he watched the TV later. He normally played with his computer for a while before bedtime, but tonight he came to her bedroom instead.

  “The moons are gorgeous,” he whispered as he glanced at the sleeping baby. “Do you want to take a look?”

  She put on a jacket and followed him to the tiny balcony on the second floor. There were two moons in the sky, both full and bright. She wasn’t quite used to this kind of scene yet since her home planet had no moon.

  “I know their orbits are close,” he said, looking up at the sky. “One is supposed to move faster than the other, but I don’t remember which is which.”

  “We’ll figure it out soon.” She tried to stay aloof.

  “Why don’t we take a guess?” He moved closer to her. “You think they’ll meet each other tonight, or keep running further apart?”

  She didn’t answer. She was looking at the stars. With the bright moonlight they looked so dim and remote.

  “You’re such a unique girl, Geneva,” she heard him saying at her side. “You’re different from any of the women I’ve met.”

  She stood still. A few minutes later, she felt his arms reaching out from behind and holding her gently. “See, the moons are getting closer … I like you, Geneva. I really do.”

  Her instinctive reaction was to push him away, but on second thought, she didn’t move.

  Chapter 21

  On Kyle’s first birthday, Mason brought home a train-shaped activity center. As the baby was busy exploring the tunnels and pressing the buttons, the two adults ate the cake and watched the news on the TV. Earlier that day somebody set a bomb under the Imperial Pride—the crystal ball that symbolized the capital, but fortunately the police found it in time. A freighter bumped into a passenger ship near Planet RB-3, with zero dead and seventeen wounded.

  “That’s our ship!” Mason said excitedly. “I mean, from our branch on Caninae Boulevard. This is their second, no, third accident in five years!”

  “I’m glad you don’t do inter-planet.”

  “We might do that, soon. Last time they had an accident, we took over some of their business. It’s better paid.”

  Then all of a sudden the background behind the news anchor switched to the emperor’s palace. The scene must have been taken from a distance, but one could clearly see the top of a roller coaster inside the royal garden.

  “Today Prince Terence had his one-year birthday celebration. According to a maid, His Majesty, the stepbrother, has built an amusement park inside the palace as a gift. Now that the mother, Queen Geneva of Sunphere, has been missing for nine months, the chance of re-capturing her is slim, although it is believed that she, as well as Prince Terence’s twin brother, is still in the capital or its adjacent areas.”

  A picture of Geneva holding Terence and Kyle, which must have been taken shortly after she delivered them, appeared on the screen. Mason turned to look at her, then back at the TV. “Oh my God …” He put down his beer.

  “The Yes-We-Care Association had another protest this afternoon.” With Geneva’s picture still posted at the front, the background changed into a parade. “They said if they ever find the queen, they would try to send her home.”

  “It’s disgusting!” a woman inside the parade said to the journalist. “First he sent our men to rob other people’s home. Now he steals babies from their mother. I’m shameful for being born as a citizen under his reign …”

  “Now let’s take a look at Prince Terence’s biological father, Captain Presley, the queen’s military assistant and owner of the fifth Medal of the Quadruple Heart in the Sunpherean history.”

  On the screen, Sterling and Oakley stepped out of a car and fought their way through the surrounding journalists. Geneva only had a glimpse of his face. He had notably pined away over the past year and a half.

  “I knew you were somebody,” she heard Mason saying. “But this is … Do you still miss him?”

  She sat beside him like a stone.

  “Well, of course you do. I’m nothing compared with him.” Mason rose from the couch and left the room.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, he was
already in bed. After Geneva put Kyle to sleep, she took a shower and put on a pink babydoll, a gift he bought her a few months ago. She hadn’t worn it, nor had she ever initiated sex.

  She walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed. His eyes were tightly closed, but she knew he wasn’t sleeping. “Hi!” She shook his shoulder. “Hi you …”

  He opened his eyes and stared at her blankly.

  “You got the wrong size.” She pulled the lingerie. “It’s too large.”

  “It wasn’t when I bought it,” he said. “You’ve lost your baby fat.”

  “Should I put on some weight to wear it then?”

  They smiled at each other.

  “So my girlfriend’s a queen.” He took a deep breath and sat up against the headboard. “No wonder you know nothing about house chores. Have you ever killed anybody?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, have you sentenced people to death? Like … got them hanged or something?”

  Geneva hadn’t had such a good laugh for a long time. “You think I ruled a medieval kingdom? I was bound by law! Although, once I did threaten somebody that I’d kill him if he didn’t come to see me. It worked.”

  “How did you become a hostage? Somebody turned you in?”

  Her gaze fell on her lap. “It’s mostly my fault. I learned my lesson.”

  His fingers picked up a wisp of wet curls from her shoulder. “Ever felt sorry that you have to live with me?”

  She looked back at his eyes. Those were clear windows that never denied her from reaching the soul underneath. Mason wasn’t an intelligent guy like Sterling, of course, but he had his own merits. He was passionate and straightforward; he didn’t come home everyday, yet she never needed to worry about his loyalty. Sterling was more reserved; sometimes a little too remote. She was sure he loved her when they stayed together but was less certain whenever he wasn’t around. Before she left Owlhidden she had tried to pry about his relationship with Larissa, and was quite surprised to find out how well he could keep a secret.