by C. C. Ekeke
Images of Earth burning, and refugees fleeing the planet in thousands of ships were fresh in Habraum’s mind as if it had happened yesterday and not 26 years ago. Nor could the Cerc ever forget his own father’s heartbreaking grief. Almost all of Samuel Nwosu’s family still lived on Earth, except for a younger brother, a crimsonborn wife and his six children including Habraum. It had taken Habraum’s father years to make peace with the fact that the Korvenite race as a whole shouldn’t be punished for the stupidity of a few. Habraum pushed those memories away and focused on his son. “Remember how Earth’s atmosphere was a wreck from centuries of pollution and World War 3 back in the 21st century?”
Jeremy nodded his head fervently. “Yep.”
“We say ‘yes,’ remember?” Habraum corrected him gently.
“Sorry,” Jeremy said contritely. “Yes.”
“Whatever went wrong with the Korvenite’s ship and Earth’s defense arrays,” Habraum knelt down at Jeremy’s level to make sure his son grasped the severity of what he was telling him, “ignited most of the atmosphere…killing over half of Earth’s citizens. Back then, the population was about 15-16 billion.” In recent history, Habraum could only recall the last of the Terminus Wars producing a greater death toll than the Earth Holocaust. “And now Earth is uninhabitable,” he said, barely suppressing a shudder.
Jeremy gasped at the disturbing information. “That doesn’t sound like an accident, Daddy,” he replied, using his most hushed inside voice.
“But it was,” Habraum countered. “No one was supposed to even get hurt.”
“How do you know?” the boy challenged, curious as always.
The Cerc let out a bittersweet chuckle. For weeks after the Earth Holocaust, he and his twin brother Heithoniel had scoured every data source they could find on the TransNet to make sense of the tragedy. And what they found had kept them from hating the Korvenites unlike many others then. “Actually the culprits stole a ship and left no record of their trip to Earth. The Korvenites as a species had nothing to do with their actions.”
“But did they find whoever caused the Earth Holocaust?” Jeremy asked.
The question reignited Habraum’s long cooled anger over the massively stupid choice the Korvenites made, which sealed their collective fate. “The Korvenites wouldn’t give up the culprits, which made any denials of their involvement seem like lies. And with that, most of them got rounded up and thrown into off-the-grid internment camps. The ones that tried to defend themselves…” Knowing what had happened to the poor souls who fought back, Habraum went cold all over. “…they didn’t survive.”
Jeremy didn’t look too convinced by this revelation. “But in school they said the Korvenites were just kicked out of Union Space,” the boy insisted.
Habraum sucked on his teeth, irritated. “Rogguts, the dreg they teach you sprouts in school nowadays.” He stopped directly in Jeremy’s path, meeting his gaze. “Jeremy, would I lie to you?”
The boy shook his head. “No.”
“Sometimes, what you learn in school is just a wee bit of the whole story. You understand?”
Jeremy was about to nod again, until something behind his father…or someone made the boy light up like a halolamp. Habraum chuckled, not even having to guess who it was.
He spun around—right as somebody tried to jump on him in a whoosh of air. Suddenly Habraum collided into an earful of bawdy laughter and a face full of ample cleavage.
He heard Jeremy joining in on the peals of hilarity as his ‘attacker’ wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. But Habraum kept a composed head, despite its current location. She smelled of vanilla firespice, a sinfully heady fragrance he’d recognize anywhere. Getting a good grip on her waist, the Cerc pried his face out and looked up at the woman.
“Hiyoo goldilocks,” he grinned, not remotely surprised by this inspired entrance.
“Habraum! Hullo!” Sam gushed, brushing back loose and messy waves of lemony-blonde hair falling past her shoulders. She swooped in, kissed Habraum fiercely on both cheeks and once on the throat. The Cerc blinked with bemusement; his skin tingled on all the spots her pillowy lips had touched. Once Sam dismounted him, Habraum towered over her by nearly a foot. He enjoyed a good long look at how the woman’s simple white v-neck tee and indigo denims clung to her curves with figure-hugging eagerness. Sam’s top rode up a bit at the midriff, teasing at the tattoo on her tight-as-a-drum abdomen—a thin black circular outline rimmed with spikes, wreathing her belly button—some Kedri lettering with a meaning the Cerc was too diverted to properly recall.
Careful there. Your son’s watching. Habraum forced himself to make eye contact.
“How is my favorite Cerc?” she purred. Sam had a low voice, husky yet invitingly sultry.
“Better, actually,” Habraum admitted freely, warmed as much her words as he was by seeing her.
“Now that I’m here, right?” Sam added, her lopsided grin coming easily and often.
Absolutely, he nearly said. Since returning to Union Space months ago…each time Habraum had been in Sam’s company was the closest he’d felt to being whole or happy again. Right now was no different. Habraum gazed deep into his friend’s large brown eyes and winked. “What do you think?”
Sam blushed and immediately looked away. The Cerc smirked, pleased by the particular effect he still had on her. She slid her hands around his waist, gave him a firm squeeze. “I missed you,” she cooed. Habraum closed his eyes and relished in his friend’s warmth, her head resting under his chin. A small part of him regretted how freely he reciprocated Sam’s embrace. Deep down, this felt like a betrayal to Jenn…as most of his overly familiar exchanges with Sam had in the past. But as anyone she called friend could attest, her affection and joy was…intoxicating. During their shared tenure in Star Brigade, Habraum and Sam had trained together, fought together, commiserate together and almost died together more times than there were stars in the sky. To Habraum, referring to Samantha D’Urso as just his best friend demeaned the intricate bond they had formed over the years.
Still, seeing her again left his mind churning, the memories tied to Sam inescapable—of his former combat team, his failure, the festering guilt he had carried for the past year since leaving Star Brigade.
Not today. Habraum opened his eyes, focusing on here and now…
…right as Sam pulled back and drilled a hard elbow into his ribs. “OW! What the hazik?” Habraum backpedaled in surprise and grabbed at his midsection.
“Think I’ve forgotten your hermit act, flyboy?” Sam snapped, not looking as annoyed as she sounded. “I can’t believe it took over a month, a MONTH, to see me again! Christ.”
Habraum stared down at her ruefully. He had no excuse. The Cerc knew Sam was fearsome when incensed, her willfulness hardly tempered since they had met eight years prior. Yet at the end of the day, this earthborn woman— all brazen and foul-mouthed at times, would go to the ends of the universe and back for her loved ones. As Sammie has many times for me, Habraum reminded himself, which wasn’t the first time he had done so. But Sam had already moved on to her biggest fan, jumping up and down to grab her attention. “Aunt Sammie! Aunt Sammie!”
“You!” she beamed at Jeremy. “Come here!” Sam kneeled and engulfed him in a hug as he sprang at her. After showering the child with kisses, she looked him over. “W-O-W. You’re getting tall, Jerm!”
Jeremy pulled himself up to his full, not-so-imposing height. “Daddy says I’m a growing sprout.”
“Yes, you are, my little love.” Sam playfully poked him in the belly, winning laughter out of the boy.
The two of them made funny faces at each other until both ended up breathless with laughter. Habraum watched them and smiled, his heart lighter than air. Jeremy’s happy, for starters. Sam with her sun-kissed complexion and striking features was still dazzling, looking to be in her mid-twenties despite having four years on Habraum. The Cerc, now in his early thirties, was seeing the softness of youth give
way to chiseled leanness on himself. This nightmarish year alone had done him no favors, leaving dark circles under his eyes from sleepless nights and the first shoots of grey hair in his goatee.
After Sam and Jeremy finally got a hold of themselves, the trio headed for the zoo’s commons. Habraum and Sam were catching up swiftly, while Jeremy happily used their arms to swing between them.
“I’ve been doing guest lectures at some of the UComm AeroFleet Academies for a bit,” Habraum continued. “The ones here on Terra Sollus are a romp to do.”
“Is the pay any good?” Sam asked.
“AGAIN!” Jeremy squealed after a particularly high swing.
Habraum shrugged, annoyed at the lack of no empty tables in the zoo commons. He and Sam swung Jeremy up one last time. “Very, but I like being able to help the rookies become better pilots.”
Jeremy finally planted himself on the ground and just walked with the two adults. “We’re going to Cercidale! During the summer! Daddy’s gonna teach there!” Jeremy gleefully blurted out.
“Jeremy....” Habraum started to scold the youngster, feeling a flush creep into his cheeks.
Sam’s amused look bounced from Jeremy back to Habraum. “Heading back to the Nwosu family ranch, while you teach on the ‘Big Red Rock?’ How long are you staying?”
Habraum, dreading when this would come up, braced himself as he said, “I’d be moving there.”
Sam’s smile froze on her face, as if she was having trouble sustaining it. “Oh,” her voice softened. She turned away from him, staring blankly at the ground. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I haven’t accepted the offer yet,” Habraum replied, scratching the back of his bald head nervously. Outside of parenting Jeremy, his life had been so rudderless since leaving the Brigade. Teaching and moving back to Cercidale was his way of grabbing onto some direction…regardless of how far away it took him. And how ultimately…unfulfilling. “But if it happens, I’d do it after Jeremy finishes the school year. This would also be good for him to grow up on Cercidale where life is simpler, away from the crazy Union politics, away—.”
“Away from Star Brigade,” Sam finished. There was no hint of a smile now, forced or sincere.
“No,” Habraum said firmly, glancing down at Jeremy, thankfully in his own happy-go-lucky world. “That’s not it. You know I’ve never been dazzled by living on Terra Sollus. I only did it for Jennica and the Brigade. Now it’d be good for a change in scenery.
“Besides,” he added gently. “It’s not like we be strangers. We’d visit each other.”
“Right. Well, if you’re happy.” Sam turned back to him, stray strands of hair dancing in front of her face. “So am I.” The faint grin returning to her lips didn’t reach her eyes, which told another tale.
After a few moments of silence, Habraum’s gaze fell upon a free table at the edge of a lush expanse in the commons. A large throng of humans met several metrids away. “Finally!” Habraum exclaimed, and the trio moved toward the table, which floated off the ground via mini-repulsor lifts, as did the seats.
“Flickerflies!” Jeremy squealed. A sphere-shaped swirl of the gleaming insects hovered about a metrid away. Jeremy immediately broke from Sam and Habraum to chase them.
“Don’t wander off!” Habraum called after Jeremy, who nodded dutifully right before jumping up to grab at a flickerfly. Rhyne’s light cast a glittery stretch of warmth over the surrounding grassy slopes.
“Christ on a comet, how adorable is that kid, Braum??” Sam’s slid into a seat next to the Cerc, her eyes twinkling as she watched the boy. “Girls are gonna claw each other’s eyes out trying to date him when he hits puberty.”
Habraum raised his eyebrows. “Rogguts, Sammie. Why would you put that out in the universe?”
“Keeping you on your toes is what I’m here for.”
“Right then,” Habraum gestured at her as he leaned in, keeping one eye on Jeremy. “So enough about my luggage. How goes your Korvenite crusade and all that?”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Blockade after blockade and higher-than-normal bureaucratic stonewalling,” she replied rather heatedly. “The Korvenite race is still getting crucified because of what a few idiots did almost three decades ago! I mean, move on a little. Let it go! Everywhere in the Diktat District, every government official I talk to, I argue my case until I’m blue in the face and then endure their tediously patronizing shit until I’m red in the face. But lately,” Sam fumed, clasping her hands together and sucking in a deep breath, “They cut out the second part and just slam the door in my face.”
Habraum watched her with concern. He remembered being incredulous almost two years ago when she took up this campaign of pushing the Union government to free the Korvenites from their deplorable situation—which was just shy of slavery.. But even now after all her setbacks, the Cerc didn’t have the heart to try dissuading her. “Sorry, Sammie,” he reached out and squeezed her hands. “If it’d help, I’d crack those lackwits’ skulls together for ya.”
Sam laughed her big, loud laugh that Habraum enjoyed hearing. “Probably not. Seeing you is helping enough. But right now, everyone’s got a hard-on for the Union-Imperium Trade Merger coming up.”
“If I see another lolly-brained plug for that rubbish,” Habraum grumbled. Everywhere one looked now, from here on Terra Sollus to Seredonia at the Union borders was some news stream, holobanner or adflash promoting the merger.
“The feeling is mutual apparently,” Sam replied, arching an eyebrow. “Some Imperium contacts of mine say that this alliance is causing a shitstorm amongst the Kedri castes—as in the ‘close to civil war’ type of shitstorm.”
Habraum scoffed loudly. Where in the galaxy doesn’t Sammie have contacts? “Well, most Kedri loathe anything they can’t fight or fuck, so there’s that,” he snarked, causing both of them to laugh. “But back to your luggage.” The Cerc reined in his chuckling and leaned closer to Sam. “I’m guessing that little prison ship attack outside Commerce Sector didn’t help your cause, yea?”
Sam stared at him, also no longer smiling. “You heard about that?” she asked, lowering her voice.
Taking the hint, Habraum spoke more softly as well. Form the corner of his eyes he spied Jeremy, still close by and covered in dust from trying to get flickerflies. “The second one sacked in two weeks,” Habraum muttered, catching Sam’s incredulous look. “I’m on sabbatical, not retirement. I still get some UIB reports.” That habit, he never tried to break. “They think it’s the Korvenite Independence Front?”
Sam shrugged. “They’re the only logical culprit, but any footage from the attacked internment camps is ruined beyond salvage. And the KIF imploded after their leader was killed. Maybe it’s someone new.”
“The Kedri-GUPR Alliance is an evil that must be stopped my human kin! Even in the stink of this contaminated zoo, we’ll hammer home this message!”
The words boomed in Habraum’s ears as if someone suddenly upped the volume. At the same time his and Sam’s head snapped in the direction of the gathering in the grassy area of the commons, near the park’s edge. A gathering of humans circled around a dapper, young human with short red hair. Full of righteous anger, he spewed his pro-human rhetoric through the sonor-amp in front of him.
“We have allowed Earth’s children to be marginalized by wave upon wave of offworlders that leech away the land that is rightfully ours. But now the Union government wants to merge resources with a race like the Kedri, renowned for its hostility and bloodthirsty nature! Don’t you think that the Union would have learned its lesson with those accursed Korvies twenty-six years ago?”
The crowd around the speaker roared with approval. There were some that were not in such agreement, but that last sentence hit a chord in everyone present. Several of the sentients at tables nearby got up and left in a huff. Others chose to ignore them, though that thunderous sonor-amp made it hard.
The insignias, uniforms and rhetoric instantly caught Habraum’
s attention. One look at Sam’s livid expression told him that she recognized it, too.
The Children of Earth, a prominent human supremacist group, called for Earth’s descendants to cut ties with non-human races if they couldn’t increase their position of power amongst them. The faction had no teeth until the Earth Holocaust, after which their random VNet shriking attacks were bolstered by a formidable paramilitary arm and a surge in earthborn recruits. The UComm authorities couldn’t do much directly about the CoE, who were specialists at covering their tracks and making evidence disappear.
Sam shot a murderous look at the chiefly-human crowd. “Ohmi-jesus, someone shut him up!”
“Jeremy,” Habraum called his son back and he instantly skipped over. “Stay close, yea?”
“Who are they, Daddy? They seem mad,” Jeremy watched the crowd curiously.
“A bunch of chin-wagging squits we want no part of. Come here,” he took Jeremy by the hand and sat the child next to him. The Children of Earth continued booming in the background, but Habraum just ignored the rubbish. “Look at you,” he scolded at the mess Jeremy had made of himself. “Back to the internment camp break-ins,” he gave Sam a sidelong glance while brushing off small clouds of dust on Jeremy. “Has Star Brigade been tasked to stop whoever’s behind this?”
Sam’s face darkened. “No.”
Habraum frowned. “Why not? The Brigade was made to counter threats like this.”
“Believe me, I know,” Sam said with a toss of her blonde mane. “With all that’s going on in prep for the Trade Merger, Union Command wants to handle this themselves. Not much we can say to that, right?”
Habraum studied her through wary eyes. No matter how sincere Sam sounded, he could always tell when she was hiding something. Habraum’s first impulse was to push for an explanation.
But Star Brigade wasn’t his business anymore. More sooty clouds rose off Jeremy as Habraum brushed at the child’s clothing. “Rogguts Jeremy, did you take a bath in dirt while you were over there?” The Cerc sucked on his teeth irately at the boy’s filth.