by Dave Walsh
He had been keeping tabs on Sue from afar and was proud to see that she was having as much success in her fieldwork as she had always dreamed of. He couldn’t help but feel guilty for the way he had treated her. Much like him, she had never married, but unlike him, she seemed to have a support system and had moved on with her life. There were a few times he had reached out to her only to get no reply, but he felt compelled to try again, considering it was his last night on Andlios, perhaps ever. That reality had yet to really sink in yet, but he knew that the only way he was coming back was going to be if Katrijn returned. Otherwise, there wasn’t much left for him on Andlios—just pain and regret.
It was later in the evening, but still not late in Krigar. Without thinking, he ran a query on Dr. Brandis to make sure she was stationed nearby. For years O’Neil had kept tabs on her occasionally, but life had worn on and he had let that lapse. The readout said that she was working at the Levine Observatory in downtown Krigar, which meant that she was actually nearby. An observatory seemed like a tame job for someone who was as adventurous as Sue. She had initially been so excited to explore Andlios when they had first arrived and now she was in charge of an observatory in the capital, go figure. O’Neil straightened out his spine, fixed his shirt and adjusted his glasses before finally working up the courage to do more than just sit and stare at her name. This was an exercise that he had done countless times before, but it had been cycles since the last time he had dialed her only to hang up. This time would be like any other, he figured; he’d get no answer, leave no message. O’Neil took a deep breath and pressed the “CALL” button.
“Hello?” An unmistakable-yet-aged face appeared on the screen, short hair that was now mostly grey but that he had remembered as chestnut brown framing her face—Sue’s face. It felt like there was a frog in his throat. “Oh my,” she gasped.
“Uh, yeah.” He scratched behind his neck. “Hi Sue, it’s Peter.”
“Peter O’Neil,” she smiled, which melted his heart just as it had all those cycles prior. “Or should I say Prime Minister O’Neil? I was never good with keeping formality with you.”
“Just Peter is fine, really,” he said. “In fact, I’m no longer prime minister, so no more stuffy titles for me.”
“Oh, well that’s a shame.” She was still smiling, which made his mechanical heart feel jumpy. Even if it was a new heart, it still burned just the same as his old one did when he spoke with her. “You accomplished a lot, though. Everyone knows who you are and respects you.”
“Not the emperor,” he said. “But I guess I am an old man now, right?”
“We’re both older now, that’s for sure.”
“Anyway, I just…” He paused, unable to find the right words. “I appreciate you taking this call, Sue. The last time we spoke—”
“It was a very long time ago, Peter,” she said. “I’m sorry that was the last time we spoke, but you had hurt me, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
“It was a long time ago,” he said, keeping his composure, although the memory was playing back in his mind of her upset with him, telling him never to call her again. “I just couldn’t bear the thought of that being the last communication between us. I was a fool for how I treated you and I don’t expect forgiveness or anything like that, I just wanted you to know that.”
“It’s been so long, Peter, there’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“So I’ve been feeling this weight on me for years for nothing then?” A joke felt like the only way for him to hold it together.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought you would have moved on by now, I was just upset with you back then. I felt rejected and, well, I was so wrapped up in my work for so long. I never meant for you to carry that burden like that.”
“I never quite moved on, no. This job consumed me, as did a lot of guilt. I’ve done my best for the Andlios Republic, but sadly, I feel that it hasn’t been enough.”
“You are one man, you always have been and always will be. You were always so concerned about everyone else aboard that ship as well. I’m sure you got your garden out there, but not your cabin in the middle of nowhere. But then again, we didn’t exactly get what we had wished for, did we?”
“No, nowhere close to that. Just my garden.” He peered back through his window, taking a long hard look at the garden that in the morning would no longer be his.
“Well, it is getting late, Peter. We should meet for lunch sometime, I would like that very much.”
“I would as well,” he said. “But sadly I’m leaving in the morning for a while, so I guess I’ll have to catch you the next time I’m back planetside.”
“Oh. Where are you headed?”
“I have a new assignment as the steward of Helgun. It wasn’t exactly my choice, but it was assigned tonight and I’m to leave in the morning.”
“That’s awful.”
“It is, but this is my duty and my life, I suppose.”
“Helgun is so far away, out in the fringes, even. But I guess you’ll get your cabin in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll have to start my garden all over again, but I guess a forced retirement was in order. I wasn’t about to go anywhere.”
“No, that doesn’t sound like you at all.”
“Well, Sue,” he said. “I’m glad we got to catch up, but I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”
“Don’t forget you owe me lunch, Peter.”
“Of course,” he said. “Take care of yourself, Sue.”
He flipped the feed off, letting out a sigh. He sat in silence for a while, staring off into the distance at nothing in particular. If there was one thing he wasn’t, it was a fool, but right now he sure felt like one for waiting so long to talk to her. There was a faint glimmer of hope that maybe if and when he got back he could try to at least see her again, but something about this trip felt very final. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was heading to his impending doom.
There was a knock at his door, which after a day like he was having could actually be his doom, but he took a deep breath and picked himself up, tugging down his shirt and strode over to the door. The door opened with a creak to find Kara on the other side, looking more composed than he expected her to be at this hour, at least more composed than he was.
“Kara,” he motioned for her to come in, closing the door behind her.
“I guess this will be the last time we meet in here, huh?”
“That’s what it’s looking like,” he said. “Would you care for some tea? I just made a pot for myself, and I always have plenty to spare.”
“Why not?” She smiled up at him and held her hand out, accepting the warm mug in her hands. “I’ve never had your homegrown tea in all these years, can you believe it?”
“We haven’t always been this…” He paused, searching for the right words, “friendly, I guess, have we?”
“No, we haven’t.” She took a careful sip. “I was a bit blinded, I’ll admit.”
“I was a bit biased as well, Kara,” he said. “I saw you as a hindrance to what Jonah and I were attempting to build. After that stuff with your father and you shooting him and all, well, you can’t blame me if I thought you had ulterior motives.”
“I loved him, Peter,” she said. “I still do, I still miss him to this day. We were foolish before, yes, we had hurt each other and he did some reckless things, but at the end of the day, we were able to work through it.”
“Well, then there was the fact that you were closer to Cronus than Katrijn.”
“True,” she said. “I just saw how hurt he was by how much Jonah loved Katrijn and how he so badly wanted to be loved. It didn’t seem to work, though, did it? He’s shipping me off to Andal-3 and you to Helgun.”
“You’ll be okay, Kara,” he assured her. “I’ve sent a message to one of my good friends out there, Jack Dumas and his husband, Hideo. Jack was my first officer on the Omega Destiny and now he’s one of the planet’s community
leaders, and his husband Hideo is in charge of communications there. They’ll look after you and help you in any way they can; it’ll also be how we keep in contact, through them.”
“I appreciate that, Peter,” she said. “I’ve met them both a handful of times and I know how important they are to you.”
“They are.”
“What are you going to do on Helgun?”
“I had an operative on Cyngen who was heading for Helgun last time we spoke. In fact, he was pursuing the ship he was sure Katrijn was on. Cronus assumed that this would cut the legs out from underneath me, but if Loren can track down Katrijn and get her to stay put before I get there this might work out in our favor.”
“There’s no rest for you, is there?”
“There can’t be,” he said. “As long as the society I helped create is such a mess, I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep.”
Kara
Kara stood at the spaceport, surprised at the amount of pomp and fanfare there was for her departure. There were media and onlookers lining the spaceport and fresh flower petals strewn about the lush red carpet. She had always felt invisible compared to her husband and her son, but the people of the Andlios Republic did have some affection left for her, it seemed. O’Neil had explained to her that there was a group of citizens that had been pressing for her to take power afterJonah’s death, but Cronus had played his hand expertly and immediately took the throne, extinguishing those hopes of ever seeing Kara rise to power.
Power was something Kara had never really desired, either. She had always wanted to be a journalist, but instead, life threw her a curveball and made her the empress of humanity’s largest empire. In a way, she still didn’t have power, that much was clear by the fact that she was being shipped off to Andal-3 to be out of the way. That, however, did provide her with some comfort. Cronus and Giger had seen her as a threat to their power, which didn’t console her for having to leave her home, but it at least assured her that she was doing the right thing by working with Peter of late.
Her personal staff was coming with her, but there had been significant turnover since Cronus took power. Working in the palace was a difficult job, only made more difficult by how Cronus ran things with an iron fist. Some of her staff simply disappeared, which she didn’t think much of at first, but as time passed, the knowing smiles from Cronus made chills run down her spine and let her imagination run wild. There were some things about her son that she simply didn’t want to know about, although she figured it might come out eventually anyway no matter what she wanted to ignore. She had been living in the dark for so long and it felt like she was finally seeing her surroundings for what they were and it was maddening.
Since arriving on Andlios, she had only been off-world only a number of times and was always a bit nervous about the initial takeoff. The gravitational forces involved with taking off were very strong, regardless of the technological wizardry that had happened since their arrival on Andlios in a large, lumbering beast of a ship. She braced herself into her specialized chair that was decorated like a throne, letting herself settle into it and feel it wrap itself around her. This was her personal ship, after all, even if she seldom used it, so surely it would have a personalized throne. The countdown sounded off throughout the ship while she gripped the armrests of her chair tightly, her palms sweating. The word sabotage crept through her mind, the thought of her ship exploding on the pad, written off as a great tragedy and a way for him to be rid of her forever.
Cronus wouldn’t have her killed, especially not with this kind of fanfare and attention surrounding her departure. Then again, if it looked like an accident, he could wash his hands of it, just like he was able to wash his hands of Jonah’s death. A cold chill ran down her spine, followed by a feeling of crushing anxiety. The air was increasingly difficult to breathe and her chest was hurting. The ship had yet to take off, which meant it would only become more and more difficult for her to breathe.
“Stop,” she whispered. “Stop!” Louder this time, but it was too late, the ship took off, the force pressing her firmly against her chair and making it even more difficult for her to catch her breath, never mind shout. It continued for what felt like an eternity, her struggling to breathe in and out, to calm herself down, but she was waiting for something to go wrong.
The sudden halt of the crushing pressure felt like a welcome relief and much to her surprise, they were simply on their way, and nothing sinister had happened. Apparently, Giger was a bit more level-headed than her son was and saw no value in killing her off just yet. Kara knew Peter had gotten off-planet just fine, but he had his own operatives everywhere that reported only to him, not to the emperor, meaning that he had his own private police force of sorts to protect him. She felt foolish for not having something similar, but knowing that two of his friends were waiting for her on Andal-3 did make things easier.
The pain in her chest was starting to alleviate and her breaths were coming easier, but she still felt sick. This wasn’t the first time the crushing fear had taken hold of her, but admitting it to herself was always difficult. Jonah, her strong emperor, had complained about having anxiety problems throughout his adult life but she had never believed it. For a man who had done the things he had done, the idea of him suffering from similar attacks seemed almost comical. How could someone become an emperor and take charge of humanity’s future like he did while feeling like this?
He had always told her that he had a public face and a private one, which she foolishly scolded him for. “I mean it,” he had explained to her a few weeks before the hunting expedition that would be his last. “They still happen from time to time, you know that.”
“Jonah, that’s bullshit and you know it,” a younger Kara had said.
“You know you hurt me all of those years ago when you told me I shouldn’t have problems anymore because of you. I have always appreciated you, but these aren’t about you, darling.”
“I may have been insensitive,” she conceded. “But really, you are telling me that you could put an ax through two guards, get shot by me and go and deliver one of the most historic speeches in mankind’s history and it never bothered you, but for stupid, little things like having to make public addresses you have to calm yourself down before? I don’t get it.”
“I’m not sure I do, either,” he had laughed. He had aged by that point, obviously, but the man she fell in love with still shone through all of those cycles later. “I guess I can just shut down my mind and handle things when I’m not prepared for it, or when I’m in a do-or-die situation. But the mundane I have scheduled out? I’m a mess.”
Her lack of faith or understanding all of those cycles prior made her feel awful in retrospect, but knowing what he felt did provide her with some solace, at least. He wasn’t crazy, just a bit strange at times. That was why she loved him. She settled back into her chair and reminded herself that she lived in a ship for most of her life, and the rest of the journey would be an easy one. What were a few days in the grand scheme of things?
015. The Return
Alva
Wait,” Alva stood in the cockpit of the ship, tightly gripping a handle overhead. The ship was a smaller freighter, just a cargo ship that had been making regular runs between the fringes and the core without much luxury aboard. The all-Cydonian crew and the presence of Trallex only helped to amplify how important this mission was to the Cydonians. Trallex hadn’t left Cyngen since the death of Ingen, which meant it was not only a vital mission but perhaps the most vital mission for the Cydonian people. She could feel and read her stress levels rising, a still-uncomfortable reality of her new abilities. “So we are going straight to Andlios?”
“Yes, Princess Alva.” Trallex was standing with his arms crossed overlooking the small three-Cydonian crew in the cockpit. He didn’t bother looking back at her. “Surprise is key in an operation like this. The less interaction that is forced the better chance we have of remaining undetected.”
“I’m sure
the leader of the Cydonians and a deceased Krigan princess might raise a few eyebrows, huh?”
“You know that the Cydonians have no true leader,” he said. She imagined him being irritated if he was capable of it. “I am merely a conduit. You are a symbol. These are our roles and we should embody them.”
“I’m more than a symbol,” she said. “I’m a person, a person of importance, apparently. You need me for this mission.”
“Where you are to serve as a symbol.”
“You’ve taught me well, Trallex. But you have to allow me to be myself, that is the only way this works. That’s not me saying that, either, that came from you.”
“So it did.”
“You should have let Trella come with us.” She knew he didn’t want to hear about it again, but she remained steadfast on it.
“You have made yourself clear on that,” he said. “The decision was made and actions were taken. She is doing just fine back on Cyngen and Za’ra is here with you now.”
“No offense to Za’ra,” she said, “but I don’t have an emotional bond to her. If I’m to do this my way—a blend of Krigan and Cydonian—then I need to follow my heart. I miss her, Trallex, and I think she misses me.”
“I am sure she does,” he said.
“You think that is shameful, don’t you? A Cydonian having an emotional bond to another person like that? That’s what gives me power, though—my ability to feel and be rational like a Cydonian. That is what makes me different. You know that I’m going to do everything in my power to find her, don’t you?”
“We would prefer you focus on the mission at hand first,” he sounded as cold as ever. “If things progress in a favorable manner, there might be a chance of bringing her to Andlios. For now, I have heard your argument and Za’ra will not be necessary planetside.”