by Paul Tassi
“I’m glad to see you up and about, Asha,” Talis continued. “I wanted to personally come and apologize for your treatment at the hands of my … countrymen.”
Asha waved her off.
“I was just telling him, it was nothing.”
“If that was nothing, I can’t imagine what your Earth must have been like.”
“Well, the last few years certainly weren’t great, as you’ve heard.”
Asha paused, and her tone shifted into something more subdued.
“I was sorry to hear about your daughter.”
Talis nodded.
“Thank you, though I suppose if anyone can share my pain, it’s the pair of you. We three seem to have lost everyone over the past few years. It’s a lonely place to be, but you should be thankful you have each other to help you through.”
Lucas and Asha glanced at one other. If someone had told Lucas years ago that he’d fall for the woman who shot him and left him for dead in hundred-degree heat, he’d have laughed in their face. What a strange journey it had been.
“Also,” Talis continued, “I have a humble request of the pair of you.”
Talis’s last request almost got him killed when he tried to stop Maston from executing Hex Tulwar. What would it be this time?
“If both of you are feeling well enough after your most recent ordeal, I’d like for you to discover a more pleasant side of Sora. One that doesn’t involve imprisonment, war, or bloodshed of any kind. I want you to experience the best of our world, not just the worst.”
They were both taken aback.
“Uh, what did you have in mind?” Lucas asked.
A few hours later they were speeding through the air in a luxury hovercraft far larger than others Lucas could see. It was the size of a small room and had a full array of drinks and beverages on a central table surrounded by plush seating that wrapped its way around the cabin. The windows were only tinted from the outside this time, and they had an amazing view of the surrounding countryside, which showcased vibrant forests of twisted trees and crisp blue mountains that surrounded the glimmering cityscape of Elyria. A constant feed of the Stream was plastered against the far wall of the vehicle, and it was tuned to a local sporting event instead of the news broadcasts that were usually focused on the war or, more recently, the two of them.
Lucas didn’t understand the rules of the game onscreen. Two teams were flying through the air in colorful armored jet suits, clutching electric melee stun weapons, which they frequently used to incapacitate each other. There was a glowing, floating ball they batted around between them, and the object of the game appeared to be to get it into one of four light spheres hovering around the arena.
“Hey Silo, what’s this called again?” Lucas called up to the front.
“Sakala,” the large man replied from the driver’s seat. “I played it in prime school before the SDI. We won the provincial championship three years in a row.”
Silo had volunteered to head up Lucas and Asha’s security detail on the trip into Elyria that Talis had arranged. Flying adjacent to all four corners of their craft were smaller armored vessels full of non-Guardian, palace-issue bodyguards meant to ensure their safe passage to and from the metropolis up ahead. The menacing gun barrels poking out from all angles of their crafts ensured there was no competing traffic within a few hundred yards of them.
“Try these,” Asha said, tossing Lucas a bundle of orange fruit. They were attached to a central stem like grapes. They were completely round and almost translucent. Lucas popped one in his mouth.
“Not bad. It’s like, mango … cherry?”
“I haven’t tasted one thing here I can actually place,” Asha said, tearing off a piece of oval-shaped bread and dipping it into a bowl of blue syrup. “But it’s all fantastic.”
Perhaps they were just used to eating cockroaches and dead Xalans for too many years, but the spread before them was undeniably spectacular.
“Don’t eat too much,” Silo said from the front. “You’ve got dinner reservations at the Golden Leaf later.”
“Any good?” Lucas asked, his mouth full of orange pulp.
“The waiting list is several years long and a meal there costs more than I make in month, so yeah, it’s good.”
Silo had been somewhat friendly to him previously but was much more jovial off-mission. Another armored man sat up in the cockpit with him. His shoulder armor had a palace security emblem stamped on it. He never turned around or spoke.
“Well, maybe you can take Kiati there some time,” Lucas said. Silo erupted with laughter.
“That’ll be the day. Against regulation.”
“Officially?” Lucas said with a raised eyebrow.
“Officially,” Silo said with a broad smile and a quick wink.
Asha looked up from her syrup-soaked bread.
“Who’s Kiati?” she asked.
“You missed a lot while you were busy being kidnapped,” Lucas taunted. She ignored him and sipped a goblet of sparkling water she scooped off the table. Lucas did the same and found it wasn’t water after all. He forced himself to set it down and gazed out into the magnificent metropolis that surrounded them.
Elyria was even more remarkable up close than it was from afar. The hovercraft drifted lazily in and out of buildings that shot up thousands of feet in the air from the floor of the city. Each was probably twice as tall and wide as even Earth’s largest structures. Silo, doubling as their tour guide in addition to running security, pointed out which were residential, commercial, or owned by the government. Other hovercraft darted by them, most without anyone at the wheel. Pre-programmed routes through the sky took the citizens of the city to and from their various destinations, though after the Machine War, they were told, that was about as advanced as AI-controlled tech was allowed to be.
“Check this out.”
Lucas motioned for Asha to come to his window and pointed toward a particularly busy corridor that seemed to be clogged in an aerial traffic jam. Her eyes scanned the vista until she saw what he was referring to. It was hard to miss.
To their left was a thirty-story-high digital billboard that showed a picture of Asha in the woven white dress she’d worn to the announcement ceremony days ago. Next to her was Lucas in his dark, high-collared suit. The photo appeared to have been taken as they made their way to the podium on the promenade’s stage. The glyphic Soran symbols spelled out a tagline:
Earthborn—by Jolo Houzan. Worth a trip across the galaxy.
Asha sighed.
“Back to modeling again,” she said, exasperated.
Lucas called up to Silo.
“Shouldn’t we be getting some royalties for that?”
Silo glanced at the billboard.
“Not my department,” he said, digging around in his suit. “But that reminds me. Courtesy of the High Chancellor.”
He tossed a pair of chips toward them, which Lucas caught in his lap.
“Spending marks.”
Lucas tapped the chip and a tiny indicator was projected from it.
AVAILABLE BALANCE—50,000M.
Asha found hers read the same.
“Is this a lot?” she asked.
“How much are on them?” Silo replied.
“Fifty thousand each.”
Silo let out a low whistle.
“Damn, I wish I was an alien.”
Too often in recent years, Lucas’s most vibrant memories had been forged out of horrific events back on Earth or in space. Too many still haunted him daily, from the Xalan invasion, to the American wastelands, to the horrors of Kvaløya, to Omicron’s onslaught. Today, however, was a unique experience. It was a time he would never forget, for all the right reasons.
Lunch was a served in an eatery nestled inside a massive aquarium. The menu consisted of the fish that swam all around them, each completely unique from any they’d seen on Earth. All of them wore holographic tags that, when pointed to, would produce information about the species along wit
h preparation options. Lucas took the chef’s recommendation of “seared Rostin,” which was a shark-like behemoth with eight fins and four rows of teeth. After the meal arrived, Asha kept stealing bites from his plate when he wasn’t looking. Apparently her “grilled Vorkal” didn’t suit her quite as much.
They were then whisked away to a private show of the town’s hottest stage performance, Sora D’lorata Mus’tovi, which loosely translated to “The Lost Lovers of Sora.” The stage was a circular ring of ornate wood and metal that wrapped around the audience, and holographic backgrounds made it almost seem like they were living out a three-dimensional film. The story followed a soldier sent off to war who left his young love behind. When he returned, she had been forced to marry a cruel provincial tyrant who framed the soldier for murder after he attempted to win her back. The costumes indicated it was from a time period that pre-dated space travel, and Lucas could have sworn he saw a glimmer of a tear in the forever stoic Asha’s eye as the soldier lay dying in his lover’s arms in the production’s final moments. Afterward, despite the show being performed by reportedly the most popular actors on the continent, it was the cast who wanted their pictures taken with the famed Earthborn, rather than the other way around.
Dinner at the Golden Leaf was a breathtaking event, mainly because the restaurant was on top of the tallest superscraper in the city, Stoller Tower. They could see for hundreds of miles in every direction, and a brilliant span of stars greeted them overhead while an invisible energy field kept the winds at bay. A staff of dozens waited on them hand and foot, and Lucas lost track of how many courses populated their meal as surrounding patrons looked over at them in wonder and envy. Lucas insisted that the ever-present palace security staff be given a meal as well, and though they refused initially, by the end of the night they were wolfing down thousand-mark plates of rare meat at an adjoining table. Silo couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear after he finished his enormous rack of Yutta ribs. Marveling at their size, Lucas wondered what sort of creature they were once attached to.
The final destination of the exhausting, enjoyable day was a return to the Grand Palace itself. Silo informed them that the mammoth structure had been destroyed and rebuilt a half dozen times over the lifespan of civilized Sora. Now, it stood as an amalgam of ancient architecture and state-of-the-art defensive tech. The tower was an impregnable fortress, daring anyone to try and knock it down again. Well, nearly impregnable, it seemed, given recent events.
As twilight descended, Silo left them at the hovercraft hangar, bidding them a good evening, not noticing the mark chip Lucas slipped into one of the pockets that hung off his armor as they departed. Despite the extravagance of the locales they had visited, everyone they encountered bent over backward to offer them everything on the house. With barely a mark spent, Lucas thought Silo could make better use of the funds.
Malorious Auran greeted them as they entered and escorted them to the highest levels of the palace. He explained this had been where they were meant to reside before the “unfortunate business with the Order,” as he put it.
When the lift opened, a pair of enormous frosted glass doors stood before them. As they approached, elaborate carvings began to reveal themselves in the material. Lined faces of men wearing crowns, women with long flowing hair and sly smiles. Portraits of empires, risen and fallen long ago. Auran confirmed what the door suggested.
“The Eternity Room has been occupied by some of the most distinguished figures in Soran history when they came to visit the royal families or, more recently, the High Chancellors. Lords, kings, emperors, generals, heroes, and sometimes villains have all rested in comfort here, or in one of its many iterations throughout the ages.”
He struggled with the heavy doors, and with an assist from Lucas, flung them open.
“And though you surely deserve a place among such legends, I beseech you not to break anything,” he said with pleading eyes.
The room before them was more astonishing than anything they’d witnessed in Elyria. The ceilings were easily three stories high and completely covered in an elaborate mural. Figures that could have been kings or gods were locked in an epic struggle with celestial armies at their command, soaring through swirls of painted stars and planets.
On the ground, the floor was covered with a shimmering stone that almost looked wet, but was completely dry to the touch. Furniture was carved out of assuredly antique wood and inlaid with precious metals and fabrics. A kitchen area presented yet another cornucopia of food, though Lucas was far too stuffed to even think about sampling from it. Every few feet a new painting hung on the wall. None of them were the modern holographic art Lucas had seen around the palace. He ran his hand over a jewel-encrusted longsword that sat on a nearby table. An identifier said the weapon was nearly forty thousand years old, but the blade shone as if it had been crafted yesterday. Everything in the room was simultaneously old and brand new, artifacts somehow preserved precisely in their original state through science he couldn’t fathom. As they drifted inside, enraptured by their surroundings, Auran stayed at the entrance.
“I won’t bore you with further history,” he said. “Though I could compose a novel about nearly every object in this room. I wish you two a good night, and do not hesitate to call if you need anything.”
He tapped the communicator badge attached to his robes, and gracefully backed out of the room, closing the towering doors as he went.
Alone in silence, despite all the invaluable treasures that adorned the room, Lucas was only looking at one thing.
Her.
Asha stood facing him, wearing a bronze one-shouldered dress one of her many stylists had deemed appropriate for their night on the town. The lights had dimmed since Auran’s departure, sensing it was far past the usual bedtime hour, and the room was soaked in moonlight from the wall of windows across from them. Asha was radiant. Ethereal.
The silence spoke more than words could. After six months of imprisonment and being torn apart, it was the first time they were truly alone and unencumbered since those sleepless nights aboard the Ark.
His buttonless jacket was flung across a twenty-sixth-century armchair, with his shirt not far behind. Her unclasped dress dropped to the floor and pooled out around her like water. As she kissed him, an old vein of passion ran through him with such ferocity it stole the breath from his lungs. She ran her hands across his chest, tracing the long, curved scar that ran all the way down to his hip. Her own skin was a familiar map of old battle wounds, long healed, one he’d memorized by touch. But here, now, it was like he was rediscovering her all over again, the way he had that first unreal night in the water chamber. It had been so long.
An hour passed before they even bothered finding the bed, tucked into another ornately decorated section of the suite. It was another two before sleep found them, and afterward they lay intertwined in the liquid sheets, the last king and queen of a dead planet.
Despite complete and utter exhaustion from the events of the day, and the activities of the night, Lucas awoke when a draft shook him. He felt around the bed and, as his eyes adjusted, saw an all-too-familiar sight. Asha was gone, still not comfortable enough to share a full night’s sleep. With all she’d been through, it was hard to blame her, but still, it disappointed Lucas the way it always had on the Ark.
Here however, her disappearance was a bit more worrisome. The Ark was a shoebox compared to the palace, and a search of the entire room revealed she hadn’t relocated to another section. Lucas felt panic rising in his chest and considered contacting palace security.
Stopping to collect himself, he decided against such a reaction. She hadn’t been taken again. Not here, not in silence. He had an idea of where she might be.
The elevator ride was a long one, going from one of the highest floors of the palace to one of the lowest, several thousand feet underground. When he reached his desired level, the attendant stationed there recognized him immediately and waved him through. When Lucas asked if he’
d seen a half-dressed Earth-girl come by, he replied with a sheepish smile and a nod toward the direction of the floating text over the adjacent entryway:
EARTH ARCHIVE
The doors parted and Lucas found himself once more among the rows of glass cases full of his old possessions from the Ark. Hearing footsteps on the other side of the room, he moved toward the section where he knew he’d find her.
But she wasn’t there. The armory rows sat empty, displaying all their appropriated guns along with their current loadouts. Natalie sat mounted next to Asha’s Magnum and sword. She hadn’t come for them after all. What’s she doing here?
The room was so deathly silent he could actually hear her breathing the next row over. When he turned the corner and saw her, he understood.
It was the book section, filled with collected Earth tomes from Milton to Rowling. But she wasn’t reading. Rather, the enclosure she was looking into held only two pieces of paper. Photos.
The first was charred around the edges, but clearly displayed its subjects. In it, Asha smiled peacefully with a glittering ring on her finger, wrapped in the arms of a handsome young man with blue eyes. Below that was another picture, one far more mangled. Only faint traces of a woman and her child could be seen. Lucas’s wife. His son.
Upon seeing the photo, one he had thought lost a long while ago, the same feelings stirred in him that were surely storming inside her. Pain, sorrow, love, things buried away for years now. It was a life lived so long ago, it felt like fiction most days. But not now, not in a moment when he could look into their eyes again.
“I don’t know if it will ever stop,” she said solemnly, not looking at him as he stood next to her.
“It won’t,” Lucas said as he brushed his fingers against the glass separating him from his family.
“It’s not just Christian, it’s all of them. Everyone I lost. Out there, you couldn’t think about it. Each day was all about your next drink, your next meal, your next near-death experience. There was no room for them in your head. But here?”