DARKEST BEYOND (CHANCERIAN Book 1)

by Drew Avera

  Chapter 3: Anki

  The sun rose as a sliver of golden light while Anki made her way to Dispatching. The prior evening’s training mission kept her up most of the night, but it was invigorating. The feel of a weapon in her hands, the cool steel against dark flesh, was what separated her from her prior civilian life. Her father had approved of this life, if for no other reason than because she wanted it. Enlisting because I wanted to be was enough of a reason, she thought. Anki walked sunward, the light causing her eyes to tear. It was a good sign to see the sun this time of day. It was a temporary day, but evidence that perpetual night was finally going into hiding for the year. The sun brought life, and with it a peace as new beginnings fell into step while the circle of life spun its way across the universe. Anki liked mornings, solar tears and all.

  Ships landed as she passed the landing area. Makeshift units were constructed for expedient life support as the wounded men and women found their way home to Luthia. Many of them were unconscious or dead when their bodies were carried off the war-torn transport vessels. Those who could move under their own power were the lucky ones, at least as far as life was concerned. Anki had seen enough desolation during her stay at Port Carreo to know she would rather return a corpse than endure the life some of these soldiers would lead with torn limbs and fractured minds. It was morbid curiosity that made her look out and witness the latest toll of war. She watched with expectancy in the back of her mind: this could be me, but not yet. She wondered if the thoughts were healthy or not, but it didn’t matter, all of this was inevitable one way or another. Every day ushered in the same scale of injuries, just different names to associate them with. The burden of war was carried by those lost and torn asunder, crippled by misfortune. Anki didn’t believe in God, but it didn’t stop her from saying a silent prayer as she moved past the landing area and closer to her call to deploy. She had learned to pray from her mother, too many years ago to recall. Praying was the thing she did when nothing else made sense. It would seem old habits were hard to break.

  She found her way to Dispatching and found it was crowded and smelled of body odor. It wasn’t bad enough to make her feel sick, but neither was it a comfortable place to wait around for orders. All around her were men and women like her, junior sailors and marines, fresh from various forms of training waiting for the call to arms, eager to set out across the expansive galaxy to a region where the Greshian Empire was spreading like a virus. If the newsfeed was any indication, the virus had spread into their sector, into the galactic reaches that brought a more realistic threat to Luthian society. Screens showed more of the devastation as the newsfeed regurgitated the same old news in a different sector of alien stars and how the latest attacks would affect the world in the coming days. It seemed that the threat of annihilation was growing and everyone was distracted by something else instead of looking that threat dead in the eye and resisting. Maybe the distractions were other people’s way of comforting themselves, to stave off the fear building beneath their skin and inside their hearts.

  Anki forced herself to look away. Instead, she fumbled with her com-unit, scrolling through her list of contacts until the screen stopped on her father. His face filled the screen with the prompt to contact him along the bottom. She looked at the image; the graying of his hair and the darkening around his eyes betrayed the memory she had of him when she was a child. For Anki, her father would always be the younger man of her youth, powerful and kind. Age didn’t affect her memories of him in any way. She wondered if other adult children looked at their parents through the same filter, the historical lens of how things were when they were children. Childhood wasn’t that great for Anki − she had endured the loss that a child should never have to suffer − but her father had brought her through it. Maybe that was why she remembered him the way she did. As she drifted into thoughts of him, her heart began to ache. She couldn’t help but regret not speaking with him more regularly. She knew he understood, but she also wondered if he felt the same pain from not hearing from her. That thought didn’t help ease the hurt of feeling like she was failing her father’s love.

  “Anki Paro,” a voice said behind her. It was a woman, but sounded more electronic than organic. Anki turned to see a dispatcher standing with a file in her hand, a vocal modulator protruding from her throat where bare skin would have been visible above the uniform’s collar. “If you could please come with me,” the woman said; her lips never moving.

  Anki stood and walked towards the woman, her breath caught in her throat as she struggled to take her eyes from the vocal modulator. She had seen injuries before, but this one affected her in a way she hadn’t quite expected. “Good morning,” she said as she approached the dispatcher.

  “Follow me,” the electronic voice said as the woman started walking. Anki followed her into the maze of corridors. An industrial glaze of beige paint made each wall look exactly like the last as they turned corners until they arrived at the dispatcher’s office. It was quant in the way four walls of a military facility could be, meaning not at all. Anki had a hard time figuring out how the other woman could bear to be confined within the tight room all day every day. The feeling of claustrophobia she was beginning to feel in the waiting room was exponentially worse in the office as she took a seat. Even the chair was restraining in a way that was uncomfortable. “You’re a Marine, recruited into the recon and infiltration division, you’re designator is that of a tactical assassin. You have also received training in welding and salvaging before enlisting. Do you have experience with the latter?”

  “Only a few months as a salvager. It was seasonal work to help with the finances.”

  The woman scribbled some notes on a tablet, the words transcribing from script to typeface seconds later. “We like to combine skills with our crews. Not many people have experience salvaging on the ships. Would you be willing to ship with a smaller crew to take part in residual missions as deemed fit by Luthian Naval Commanders? It might take you longer to reach the frontlines, but with so many lost vessels we need to salvage as much as we can in support of the war effort.” The dispatcher never looked up when she spoke. She merely scrolled her fingers across the screen.

  Anki took in a deep breath; salvaging was hazardous work, not that fighting in a war was not. Still, she expected to do what she had been trained to do, infiltrate and kill, not clamor around on a dead spacecraft and steal parts off it. “I suppose I can do that,” she said reluctantly. The words were bitter as they escaped her lips. “I was kind of hoping to ship straight to the frontlines, though.”

  “Very well, you will depart Port Carreo in four days via umbilical conveyance to a personal transport carrier. You will muster aboard the Seratora which is in route to the latest disaster. Don’t worry, Anki Paro, you’ll get to the frontlines soon enough, and wish you hadn’t. Until then, I suggest you take some leave and visit family. You wouldn’t want the next time they see you to be with a handicap like a vocal modulator.” The dispatcher’s words cut like a knife. She hadn’t meant to stare, but she realized the other woman had noticed and was offended.

  “I’m sorry for staring,” Anki said. Her face grew red and she felt ashamed.

  The dispatcher, finally looking up at her, said, “Don’t be sorry, just don’t let this happen to you. No matter what people say, you’ll never be who you were before the Greshians destroy a part of you. They only took my voice and my dignity, but some days it feels like they took my life too. Keep your head up and don’t turn your back during a fight. Trust me on that one.” The dispatcher stood and Anki followed suit. There was an awkward pause and then the dispatcher spoke again, “Be safe out there, Anki Paro. Luthia would like for you to come back in one piece.”

  “Thank you,” Anki replied and turned to leave. As she made her way through the beige maze she could see others like herself, receiving orders to ship out and defend Luthia against an empire the entire galaxy was growing to hate. She noticed with each passing of an office, that there was a scrip
t the dispatchers used before sending their people out to war. “Luthia would like for you to come back in one piece.” It was a kind of condolence for someone who might not return, but it was cold to hear it pronounced so mechanically. Anki thought she might be reading too much into the phrase, surely it was meant to be harsh and cutting against the morale of a soldier set to ship out. That was the problem with interpretation, it was too easily molded into something it was not, and then remolded again.

  Anki shook the thought from her mind and reached for her com-unit. There was one thing the dispatcher was right about. She needed to say goodbye to her family. Or at least the only family she had left. Her father.

  She initiated the call, listening for the deep voice of her father to answer, but instead she was transferred to a message collector. She always felt foolish leaving a message, but this time it was important. “Hello, Father. I hope you are well. I have received orders to deploy and the Navy is giving me a few days to visit before I depart. I’m going to schedule a transport home. I look forward to seeing you. I love you,” she closed the connection and continued her way to Port Carreo’s transport station. When she arrived the line was already long. It was clear that many of the people had received the same departure orders she had and Anki couldn’t help but feel these were the people she would be going to war with, to give their lives to defend Luthia, or better yet have their enemies die for their planet.

  It took almost an hour to arrange transport from Port Carreo to Surda. Even though it was half the world away, the transport time would be short and had no layovers. She could at least be thankful for that. She received her ticket. The departure time scheduled for early morning. With nothing better to do other than wait, Anki made her way back to her dorm. It was odd not having any friends on station, but even growing up she had been an oddity, not socially awkward, just reserved and enjoying her time alone more than being surrounded by distractions. Maybe that was why joining the Luthian Navy seemed like an easy choice, she thought as she lay on the bed and closed her eyes. Anki had no regrets in life, and she hoped she would leave none behind if she was to die, but loose ends had a way of becoming frayed. She knew more than anyone else, that she needed to see her father before stepping foot off Luthia. It was something on her heart she just now was willing to admit. And as her thoughts drifted home to Surda, to her father, she fell asleep to a place where dreams often haunted her with the same images as the screens depicted each day. There was no rest from the images of war, only a small reprieve from the action depicted.

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