Truman seemed very sad most of the time, and always had a physical copy of a romance novel tucked in his pocket. He was socially clumsy and his jokes often fell flat, but his brother Dragos would laugh anyway. He had what looked like a group picture cut from a corporate newsletter that he looked at often, which was when he seemed the saddest.
He was big, but to see how he acted around others you’d think no one had told him so. He didn’t throw his weight around and preferred to work with people and follow someone else’s lead than put his own ideas forward. There was something sinister about him, though. This came out vaguely whenever he got teased.
I’m pretty sure if you went too far and made Truman angry, you’d be sorry.
Dragos was tall and thin, often leaving his long black hair down to partially obscure his face. He had a lot of what looked like military tattoos. Later on, I would discover that he had an electric guitar that he played quietly for a of couple hours a day in his cabin. He was good enough and had the look. I couldn’t see why any melodic death metal band wouldn’t want him.
Watching Dragos was kind of like watching a ghost. Like Ezra, he could just disappear when he wanted and, in case I hadn’t mentioned it enough already, he was extremely protective of Tullia. He seemed honorable to a fault as well, doing exactly what he said he was going to do. Ezra said he had the body language of a trained killer and that he was probably an extremely dangerous individual. I didn’t see it, but there was a lot I wasn’t seeing I guess.
I couldn’t help but like Dragos. He was extremely courteous to me, and during the journey, he made sure my clothes and the linens from the room got washed with his sister’s. It was as if he thought it would be improper for a man’s clothing to touch mine or something. He had a lot of weird ticks, but it seemed like he was just glad to have another woman on board for his sister to talk to.
When we did got underway, I discovered some of the deal which Matthias made. He would squeeze into the pilot’s compartment with Tullia, and Dragos made sure no one was allowed nearby to see, but me for some reason. It was clear Matthias was training Tullia to fly the ship, like she’d just gotten it and didn’t know what she was doing. Dragos had traded a very lucrative job working for Vance Uroboros for flying lessons for his sister.
It was so sweet I cried a little bit when all the pieces clicked into place.
“Why are you hugging me?” Dragos asked as he stood guard in the corridor leading to the pilot’s compartment.
“I think you’re a really nice man,” I replied.
Dragos smiled weakly and put his hand on my back then looked back over at his sister.
“You know what I did then?”
“You traded a chance to make serious money so your sister would be happy and confident doing what she loves,” I said wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my fuzzy-snuzzy.
“Nothing. That is what I would not do for her,” he replied, the warmth in his face draining away.
“If only everyone was so loyal. My friends Silverstein and Ezra are like that,” I said hoping they weren’t around to hear me talking them up.
“When I was in Serbian army, we were to be sequestered. No contact. My little sister hiked through the woods to follow me on maneuvers and make sure I had food to eat when we were cut off. She did not have uniform, so she could go into places and get food when there were no supplies. She got raped doing it. It was my fault. My fault,” Dragos explained, a pained expression crossing his face.
“Why are you telling me this? Seems really personal,” I asked.
“I want my sister to have a friend. I want you to know things about her so you see where she has been when you talk, understand things. During a police action against smugglers, I was caught in an explosion while out in a body of water called the Iron Gate. The boat was torn apart and I was two hundred yards from shore. It was so cold,” Dragos explained.
“How did you survive?” I asked, as he lifted his shirt to show me a long scar along his side.
“Little sister swam out in freezing water to where I was clinging to wreckage. She cut the straps to my equipment and let sink to the bottom of the reservoir. Then, she paddled us both back to shore and made a fire in the snow with her own two hands,” Dragos explained.
“Wow,” I exclaimed.
“She wants to be captain of own transport, like Papa. I will make this happen,” Dragos said, his tone sounding as if the words were carved into stone long ago.
“What about Truman?” I asked, intrigued.
“When his parents and our father died in war, my mother adopted him. He is blood regardless and a good man as long as he is not made to be angry,” Dragos said smiling slightly.
“You seem pretty dangerous yourself,” I said pointing to his tattoos.
“When I get out of the army, I only know how to do one thing,” he replied sadly.
“Play the electric guitar?” I quipped.
“Yes, I love the guitar. I wish I was as good with it as a rifle,” he lamented.
I turned and watched as Matthias patiently instructed Tullia. She seemed frustrated with everything she had to learn, but with what her brother had probably given up, she was determined to learn. Matthias was endlessly patient and kind, the type of man everyone probably wishes they had as a father.
“What happened to your father?” I asked Dragos.
“Military shot down his transport thinking he was a smuggler when I was eight. Tullia was only four. They inspected wreckage and found no contraband. They gave my mother what he would make in a week and a half-uttered apology,” he explained.
“You still went into the service after that?” I asked.
He smiled.
“Yes, you do what you must to feed your family,” Dragos stated bitterly. “Maybe what they did to my father was wrong, but it was mistake. Corporations were putting pressure on government to stop piracy and smuggling. Their money was more important than our lives.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, feeling awful.
“It is okay. I have my revenge,” he replied with a smile.
“When? What did you do?” I asked, wide eyed.
“I have my revenge every day my sister’s transport is in the sky while corporate transports sit defunded at ports that previously wouldn’t answer radio calls from us. Now they thank their God when they see us,” Dragos replied.
The ship wavered slightly, and I could hear Tullia swear in her own language. Matthias patted her gently and gave her a moment before explaining in the most patient way possible what happened and how to avoid it next time. After Matthias was finished teaching Tullia, I wanted a go at learning to fly one of these things.
“From my perspective, I am getting better deal than Matthias. Hurting him or his friends for this man, Vance Uroboros, never felt right to me anyway. Felt too much like what the old corporation would do. Things before people - this, I do not want,” Dragos said curling his lip in disgust.
“What if Uroboros is angry and comes after you?” I asked.
“Hopefully we break orbit before that happens. If not, I will kill him if he gets in my way,” Dragos replied, serious like a heart attack.
I wondered what Dragos would think if he knew Vance Uroboros was already on the transport with him. I had to warn Silverstein to keep his dual identity under lock and key while we were on board. As much as I had grown to like Dragos, it was clear he would kill anyone that he thought was a danger to his sister.
I bid Dragos farewell and headed back to Silverstein’s door and knocked on it. He opened it, one of Truman’s romance novels in hand. I laughed at him mercilessly.
“What? There’s nothing else to read,” Silverstein said just a little bit grumpy.
“Let me in, I want to talk to you,” I said shoving my way past.
“Um, it’s the
maid’s day off,” Silverstein stammered.
“Ha, it’s easy to tell which side you and Matthias sleep on. Messy and neat,” I said pointing to the chaos of Silverstein’s bunk to the order that was where Matthias slept.
Silverstein sighed and sat down on his bunk, offering me a place on Matthias’ side to sit.
“I just got done talking to Dragos,” I said.
“Yeah? Is he the dangerous mercenary killer he looks and acts like?” Silverstein said putting a scrap of paper into his book to mark his place.
“No. He told me a lot of stuff in confidence that I’m not going to repeat. He’s a good guy, however...” I began.
“Hoo boy,” Silverstein said holding his face in his hands.
“I’d make sure you go by Silverstein the entire voyage and not discuss the person you were before losing your memory with anyone,” I explained.
“He thinks that by turning down Vance Uroboros, he and his brother and sister might be in some kind of trouble. That’s why they want to break orbit even at extreme risk,” Silverstein concluded.
“Yeah, basically,” I replied.
“I suspected, but that’s good to know. Can we trust Dragos?” Silverstein asked.
“If he says he’s going to do something, you can be certain he will follow through,” I said pulling out a nail file.
“Even if that means killing or maiming people to get there?” Silverstein asked, somewhat amused.
“No. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have changed the deal and worked with Matthias. I think he’d like everyone to think he’s that way, but when it came down to it, the first chance he had to let Matthias go and be civilized with us, he took it,” I explained.
“Y’know, you need to pick up every speck of finger nail you leave behind over there. Matthias will seriously freak.” Silverstein laughed.
“He needs to be more sensitive to the byproducts of beauty. As a craftsman himself, I think he’d be more understanding,” I rationalized, brushing off the covers to the bunk a little. “Seriously, given the way you are and the state of Matthias’ workshop, you would be the neat one. Maybe I’m finally starting to rub off on you and ...”
Silverstein just smiled and looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“I miss just talking with you like this. Like when we were back in Port Montaigne, when we had to walk everywhere, and you’d fill the time telling me about how I should upgrade my non-existent wardrobe and such,” Silverstein said.
I looked at him. He always felt like he was older than me for some reason. Maybe it was because of how he looked when we first met. This was the first time I felt like were equal in every way, both looking across the bunk at each other.
“If someone were to come into the room right now and ask us if we were a married couple, how would you respond?” I asked, genuinely wondering how Silverstein would react.
“God, I don’t know,” Silverstein said laying back on his bunk.
I stood up and walked over so that I could see his eyes. He was a horrible liar and I knew I’d be able to tell what he really felt, assuming I could coax an answer out of him at all. Silverstein rolled over and looked at the wall.
“C’mon, I want to know what you’d say,” I said climbing over the bunk to smother the life out of him with my fuzzy-snuzzy.
“Do I have to answer now, or will this rhetorical person wait for me to summon the right words?” Silverstein said turning to look at me.
“They’ll wait,” I said smoothing out his hair with my hand.
I stood up and headed for the door, pausing when I heard Silverstein sit upright on the bunk.
“What would you say if you were asked that question?” Silverstein asked, trying to turn the awkwardness around.
“I would tell them the truth, that we weren’t married,” I said walking out into the corridor, nearly running into Ezra as I did.
“Oh, hello, Snuzzy,” he said petting my coat.
“We really do need to make you one, don’t we? Maybe Tullia has cloth we can use?” I laughed.
Ezra and I walked back into the cargo hold where Truman was sitting reading a book. We kept our distance as not to disturb him. The rest of the crew was down in engineering trying to fix something or other.
“If we made you your own coat, what would you want it to have?” I asked Ezra as we sat down in some cargo netting.
“It would need to have secret pockets and it would need to be black,” Ezra said looking down at the tatters he was wearing.
“Hopefully we can find a kids’ coat to use as a basis,” I said, not realizing that would hurt Ezra’s feelings.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“Sorry, I don’t remember you being sensitive about your size before,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to get my foot out of my mouth.
“I’m not, but I don’t know when I’ll be around my own people again. Even then, I’ve never met a pygmy that wasn’t a guy,” Ezra explained.
“I’m only a few inches taller than you, there’s bound to be a lady Drone close to your height. If she really cares about you, your size won’t matter,” I said trying to throw salve on Ezra’s feelings.
“Really?” Ezra replied meeting my gaze.
“You haven’t been reading Truman’s ridiculous romance novels have you?” I asked.
“All the guys in those are always bigger and taller than the female protagonist,” he explained.
“Ezra, what a woman fantasizes about and what she ends up taking home to keep around are rarely the same,” I said with authority.
The ship lurched again, as if there had been some turbulence. Ezra looked up, his ears quivering slightly. “Sensitive” Ezra immediately vanished, and the Drone I was used to appeared suddenly as he grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the cargo bay.
“Someone’s shooting at us,” Ezra said looking around.
The ship lurched violently to one side. Ezra grabbed me around the waist to keep me from falling, his other hand looping around one of the pressure poles. We hung there at an odd angle as the ship began to speed up. The ship shook violently as it slowly evened out.
“Strap in, we’ve got a situation,” Tullia said over the intercom.
“Let’s head to our cabin,” Ezra said setting me down.
I ran along behind him meeting Dragos in the corridor. He looked calm as he checked his rifle and motioned for us to get in our cabin. We did just that, strapping ourselves to the emergency positions on the wall just inside the door. Ezra helped me get the harness on so I wouldn’t be flung about and then he calmly strapped himself in, like he’d done it hundreds of times.
I could feel the ship beginning to slow and that odd feeling you get in your stomach as an elevator descends. There was a lot of shouting outside as the ship’s crew dashed about opening and closing various hatches and doors. It almost sounded like they were trying to hide things before the ship set down.
Moments later, the undercarriage of the transport opened, and the landing apparatus dropped down with a harsh clank. We set down hard, making my teeth clack together on impact. Ezra looked over at me and, seeing I was terrified, reached over and took my hand. His hand was tiny, but it felt like steel wrapped in the softest leather, his claws sitting just beneath the surface of his fingers. They were deadly weapons, but still the greatest comfort I could have asked for in that moment.
Minutes went by before we were escorted out by men sporting long black beards and wearing CGG patches. We were at the edge of what looked like some sort of airfield. The land was low rolling hills with some green vegetation, but there was virtually nothing else nearby. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying.
They were especially rough with Dragos, yelling at him about his tattoos and barking questions as they kick
ed him around. He remained calm through it all and said nothing to them. Every time they knocked him down he would just get back up and quietly meet the gaze of whoever had hit him with their rifle or kicked him.
I looked beside me where Ezra was supposed to be, but he’d slipped his restraints and disappeared. He had his cowl up when they pulled him out of the transport with the others, I don’t think the soldiers realized he was a Drone. After several minutes they escorted us back to a large concrete building that was half buried in the earth.
It was unpowered and it required two of the soldiers to get the door open. They shoved us inside, and then back to a large steel cage past several desks and terminals lit by oil lanterns. They frisked each of us, then unlocked the cage and stuck us all inside with barely enough room to even sit down.
I was terrified. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before and even with Ezra free, there were a lot of soldiers. It was dark, too. That only made my fears and anxiety about our situation worse.
“What happened?” I asked Matthias, shaking a little.
“We strayed within range of a Hungarian CGG base,” Matthias whispered. “It wasn’t on any of the maps. They fired conventional anti-aircraft weaponry at us so I tried to climb out of range. They got us on the radio and said they’d shoot us down if we didn’t land.”
“Oh no, Tullia’s ship,” I said almost ready to cry.
“I know,” Matthias said looking around. “Wait, where’s Ezra?”
“He slipped away when they were kicking Dragos around,” I whispered in reply.
“Be quiet, they will hear you,” Dragos hissed.
I looked over at Dragos, tears already flowing. The whole situation seemed so unfair, considering all he and his sister had already endured. His stony expression softened and he pushed his way over to where I was standing.
“You should give her a hug, she looks like she needs one” Dragos said, nudging Silverstein.
Uroboros Saga Book 2 Page 12