by Dave Walsh
“Mr. Krios, I’m not sure what to say, I just—”
“It’s Jace, alright?”
“Yes, Jace,” she said, making a mental note to try her best to call him by his first name, not family name. “Thank you.”
019. Homeward Bound
Jace
Ever since the death of Ro and Jace’s subsequent departure from Andlios he had spent the entirety of his life avoiding everything and anything related to the Andlios Republic. When the plan to return Katrijn and the Old Man back to the planet was being concocted, Jace had done his best to stay disconnected from the conversation until their desire to use the Pequod complicated things for him. There was a good chance that Jace was playing a vital role in the disposing of Cronus Freeman from his throne, which he was conflicted about. Playing a part like that in something that would go down in history felt huge to him; it should have felt cathartic, but instead all he could think of was his vow to never go back home again. He never wanted to return to Andlios and had agreed to drop them off there, but not to hang around on the planet. That was the compromise he made in his head, at least.
The monastery had begun to feel less than adequate for planning the deposing of Cronus Freeman after the addition of Trella and O’Neil to their ranks. It was an eclectic mix by any standards and it felt especially crowded after spending so many cycles aboard the Pequod on his own making runs between planets, moons and stations on the fringes. The monastery was mostly empty; it was one of the newer buildings on Helgun, which meant there were open rooms and that the extra guests weren’t a huge deal, but Jace couldn’t help but feel he was overstaying his welcome.
This was one of the few places he had used to hide out in on Helgun whenever he had trouble, but it was beginning to feel like the last time he’d be able to hide out there. Jol’or’s mercs were able to track him there and while he was able to thwart Jol’or twice now, there was still that lingering fear that he’d keep coming. Everything about this situation was more severe than the jams he had gotten himself into before. Laying low for a week on Helgun might’ve worked when a shipping magistrate got upset at a delay or Republic security came close to catching him avoiding a checkpoint, but harboring insurrectionists? That was new, even for Jace. He still appreciated the gesture, obviously, but was starting to feel regret for getting himself into the situation he was in. It was late into one of the long Helgun days, the already dim sunlight growing dimmer when he went outside and sat down on a bench, staring up at the stars.
“Hey,” he heard Katrijn’s voice behind him, the door to the cabin swinging shut behind her.
“Hey,” he said without turning around.
“Nice night, huh?” she said quietly.
“Sure is.”
“Can I join you?”
“Yeah, why not?” He turned to see her in just a pair of shorts and a tank top, looking at ease for once. Jace tried to ignore how beautiful she looked while he motioned for her to sit down. Jace had done his best to stay out of the way over the past few days, which had in fact helped him bond with the Cymage, Trella, but it had left him feeling a bit unwelcome. He had only known Katrijn for a brief period of time, but they had built up a rapport together that at least made Jace feel like they had bonded somewhat. As soon as the Old Man came into town, though, most of that melted away into cold indifference. He had to admit that it stung.
“Thanks.” She sat down and pulled her knees in tight, her bare feet resting on the bench. “It’s really been pretty crazy since my uncle showed up recently.”
“It sure has,” Jace said, leaning back against the cabin, feeling the logs dig into his back and his aching ribs. “But he seems like an alright guy, nothing like the stories I’ve heard at least.”
“He really does have a reputation, doesn’t he?” she laughed.
“You don’t get to be one of the most powerful men in the known universe without some people fearing and hating you, I’d say. He’s probably one of the most—if not the most—powerful men there is.”
“That’s not entirely true,” she corrected him. “If he was then he’d still be on Andlios doing whatever he did behind the scenes. Instead he’s here.”
“I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said. “I’m still shocked that nobody has checked up on him yet, you know, tried to make things look official and not like he was being exiled.”
“They didn’t even find an office for him. He’s trying to hide it, but it has really been bothering him. My brother isn’t exactly subtle, you know. Cronus wasn’t even his real name, he changed it. His name is Kir.”
“I’m well aware,” he gritted his teeth at the thought of his wife and her fate at Cronus’s hands.
“Oh, right,” Katrijn bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Jace. You know that I—”
“It’s fine,” he said, “let’s just drop it, okay?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thanks.” He fidgeted with his hands, running his left index finger along his palm nervously.
“I should be thanking you, actually.”
“Oh?”
“We’ve intruded on you quite a bit now. In fact, I’ve intruded the most, I’d say. I appreciate it, though.”
“It’s no big deal, really.”
“But it is.” She reached out and grabbed ahold of his hand, and an immediate jolt of lightning ran through his body. “Look, I know this isn’t all easy, but my life pod was out there and you chose to pick me up. You could have just dumped me at Cyngen or worse, you could have turned me in for a reward that would keep you happy for the rest of your life. Instead, you chose to keep helping me.”
“I wasn’t looking for a reward,” he said. “You should know that by now. After Ro died, I was paid off, and didn’t really know what else to do so I took the money and I haven’t been able to live with myself ever since. I’m just happy to be able to stick it to your brother, even if it is just something small.”
“You’ve done a lot more than something small, I’d say.”
“Probably.”
“You are a good friend, Jace,” she was looking at him, but he was just staring down at her hand clutching onto his, trying not to make eye contact and show the tears that were welling up in his eyes. “I’ll never forget that, nor will my uncle or anyone else. I know it’s been kind of weird since my uncle showed up, that we’ve been kind of secretive and I’m sorry about that, it’s just what we are used to is all, we aren’t trying to exclude anyone. Especially you.”
“No, I get it, I really do,” he said. “We’re from different worlds and all, I don’t really have experience with matters of such gravity. I’m just a guy who makes delivery runs on the fringes, after all.”
“We all have our role to play in this, Jace, and yours is pretty important.”
“Hey, you know,” he said, still not making eye contact, “I’m sure it is.”
“It is. Really.”
“Yep.” He was starting to feel irritated at her trying to placate him this much.
“Are you going to be alright with going back to Andlios? I know you haven’t exactly been back there since Ro and all…”
“It’ll be fine,” he lied, doing his best to keep his composure. “I haven’t been back since, but you need a way to get back there and I’m here, so I’m willing to help. I don’t think there is any other way available right now.”
“Not that we’ve seen, no,” she said. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but we really do need you to take us in the Pequod. We can get a contract in place and we’ll have to make sure that your registration papers are in order and everything, but really, you don’t have much of a profile in the core and we need that.”
“I’m glad I can be of use, then,” he quipped, starting to feel agitated.
“Jace,” she tightly gripped his hand, “it’s not like that.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s not.” He picked himself up and stretched out, letting her hand fall out of his. “But really, I think I need s
ome rest before we head out. Is the Old Man having the ship fueled up right now?”
“You know he hates that name,” she said, “but yes, it should be all ready to go for our departure tomorrow morning.”
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll have enough to get me to Gimle after, right?”
“I suppose so,” she said. “If not, I can make sure that uncle leaves you enough credits to get there.”
“Yeah,” he nodded absently. “Thanks.”
“Although, look, you don’t have to go right away.”
“We’ll see, alright?”
“Sure.”
“It’ll actually be pretty weird,” he said, staring off at the setting sun.
“What will?”
“I’ve never had more than two people aboard the Pequod before.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Pretty funny, right? It’s not a huge ship, but it can easily house ten people with everyone getting their own quarters and not bumping into each other.”
“You are a strange man, you know that?”
“I guess so, yeah,” he gave her a nod and walked back into the cabin, heading for his bunk so he could be alone.
Katrijn
When alone with her thoughts it was difficult for Katrijn not to admit to herself that she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to return to Andlios after cycles of exile, she wasn’t ready to walk through the palace she grew up in, or to face her brother who had murdered their father and left the entire Republic in shambles. Katrijn just wasn’t ready. The thought pained her to admit it, especially after seeing how unready Jace was to return home also, and how she had to convince him to go. He was being difficult and insisting that he leave almost immediately, which she wasn’t sure was his fight-or-flight instincts or simply not feeling comfortable being a part of their group.
She couldn’t help feeling like a liar for projecting a confident image to him while she herself felt her stomach being tied up in knots. It was what she had to do, she told herself. They knew they could trust Jace, that he understood and sympathized with their cause. That made him valuable. They weren’t going to find another pilot on short notice who they would be able to trust to the same extent that they could trust Jace, so it was him or nothing. Loren and her uncle were making the final preparations while Katrijn found herself sitting in the cockpit of the Pequod, sitting on the floor, sifting through Jace’s old book collection and placing them on the shelf against the wall in alphabetic order by author’s last name. It was more a task to keep herself busy than anything else, seeing as though the bulk of her work would need to be done when they landed in Krigar.
For a man without a ton of money, he had sure amassed quite a collection of books, she thought to herself, remembering back to her father and his own library. While he had grown up well beyond the age of the printed book, he still chose to gather as many as he could, and he explained to her how valuable they were throughout his lifetime on the Omega Destiny. He’d spend hours explaining the history of certain books, of the authors and sometimes even read from them before returning them to the shelves and instructing her not to touch them. She had snuck into his library many times and thumbed through the old—sometimes ancient—books, not able to feel the magic that her father told her resided inside of them, which had always disappointed her. She understood now, though. They meant something to him, much like these books meant something to Jace and all of those old artifacts meant something to Jol’or back on Cyngen.
“What are you doing with my stuff?” Jace strode into the cockpit, still wearing his boots, which seemed odd considering how he preferred to walk around the ship barefoot usually.
“Just making myself useful, I guess,” she shrugged.
“You’re a princess,” he said. “You don’t have to be useful.”
“So they say.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just not comfortable with people touching my stuff is all, or just not used to it.”
“Sorry. I can stop.”
“I’ll get over it,” he said, settling in behind the control panel, fiddling with the controls. “Ro used to straighten up my stuff, it’s just weird seeing someone else doing it. Plus, with your hair and all of that now, well, you know…”
“Oh, right.” She reached up and felt her hair; it still felt alien to her for it to be as short as it was. “It was your idea.”
“I’m a very stupid man, Katrijn,” he said. “You’ve been with me for long enough to understand that by now, I think.”
“How many stops are we looking at?” She picked herself up off of the floor and slid into the co-pilot’s chair.
“None,” he looked at her and raised his eyebrows, feigning shock.
“That won’t raise any red flags?”
“It was your uncle’s idea, so no.”
“So it’ll just be a straight shot, then?”
“Helgun to Andlios,” he said. “Enough fuel to make it and more to spare, and it’s back to a place I swore I’d never set foot on again. The contract he drew up is legitimate, so there shouldn’t be any questions.”
“I know you aren’t feeling great about it.” She pulled her left knee up toward her and hugged it to her chest. “But you should know I’m not feeling that great about it, either.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” She tucked her hair behind her right ear. “A lot of memories down there, you know? You weren’t the only one who lost someone on Andlios. This isn’t going to be easy for either of us, but we’ve worked well together thus far, and I don’t see this being any different.”
“Yeah, I guess we have.”
“You picked me up,” she said, “now you are stuck with me, like it or not.”
“I’m not complaining,” he said. “In fact, I kind of welcome it. I’d been flying solo for too long and had kind of shut everything else out for a while. I was just…hurt, you know? I was angry and didn’t know what else to do. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but you can’t bring anyone back from the dead, especially those you love.”
“That doesn’t seem entirely true, though.” She tried to imagine what Alva Hedlund looked like, what the girl her father had felt so strongly about was like, but was drawing a blank. “Just like I’m not the only disposed princess, apparently.”
“Good point. I don’t even know if I want to touch that one. I have no problems with the Cymages, I deal with ‘em all the time and they are by and large decent folk, but this matter of bringing someone back to life? I guess I knew they had the ability, but never knew they actually did it.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
They both fell silent for a while, Jace burying himself into the controls and flight calculations, which Katrijn was sure he didn’t need to be that engrossed in, but was just trying to drop the whole subject. A part of her had always wanted to meet Alva Hedlund, whom her father had always referred to as his little sister. Growing up, it felt like she was partially in the shadow of the dead girl, even if her father had done his best to mask the sorrow he felt over her loss. He had told Katrijn that she reminded him of Alva, having that same free spirit and toughness to her that most girls in their position wouldn’t. That led to her feeling like Alva was a kindred spirit of sorts, but it was also easier to reconcile with Alva being “that dead girl” as opposed to the reanimated corpse trying to kill her brother before she could get to him herself.
“So if you could, would you?” She let the question hang in the air, knowing that it came out vague, but she was almost afraid of asking the question directly.
“What?” He wasn’t going to let her off that easily.
“If you could bring her back…”
“Oh.” He paused, no longer paying attention to the console and instead found himself staring off into the display, lost in thought. “I really don’t know. I mean, she died and that has been difficult enough to deal with, but the idea of being able to bring her back after she died? What if she had to live the rest of her life with tho
se crazy Cymage augmentations, with machines keeping her alive, all the while remembering her final moments? She wasn’t anybody special, you know? She wasn’t a head of state, she wasn’t rich, she wasn’t a princess or anything, but she was the only woman I ever loved. She put up with me, she helped to make me better; I don’t know. Fuck. She deserved better than the hand she was dealt, but I’m not sure it would be much of a life at all.”
“Yeah.”
“What about you?”
“What?”
“If you could bring your father back, would you?”
“I’m not sure he would have wanted it that way at all. He wasn’t against the technology of the Cydonians or anything, but he was fascinated with the lower tech end of life more than he was the glitz and glamour that came with the latest and greatest. He never even flew in a ship with a HyperMass drive, believe it or not.”
“Really?” Jace laughed. “Shit, he was the emperor!”
“I know, but he was just old fashioned. But as to if I’d bring him back? I don’t think he’d want that; in fact, in a way I think he wanted to die if that makes any sense.”
“Not really, no.”
“He never wanted the Andlios Republic, he never wanted to be an emperor, it was just a calculation they all made and he was the one who they thought could rally people behind him. Maybe he’d want to be brought back, only not as Emperor Jonah Freeman but just Ingen and live out his life as a regular father and husband. That being said, I’m scared to death about all of this, about my responsibility and what I have to do when we get back to Andlios and I sure would love for him to be back to handle it instead of me. I know that might sound selfish, but it’s the truth.”
020. Calculated Risks
O’Neil
The Pequod was nothing like the ships O’Neil was used to—it was small, cramped, old and not very comfortable. In a way, though, that is what made the whole thing more likely to work. No one would be looking for O’Neil and Katrijn aboard a ship like the Pequod. He was, at one time, the prime minister and both revered and reviled as one of the most powerful men in the known universe. When Peter O’Neil went somewhere, it was subtle but still a show of force to merit his position and power, which was in part why he employed so many covert agents. Loren was at one time one of these covert agents, but now he sat across from O’Neil in the common room of the Pequod dealing a deck of cards.