by Drew Avera
“Don’t say anything to anyone about this,” Brendle said.
Arender looked up, tears flowing down his cheeks. “Why not? Don’t people deserve to know the truth?”
Brendle nodded, “You know the truth and that should be enough. If other people find out about this then more people could be hurt by it. Just keep your part about telling Ilium to yourself.”
“But it’s my fault you’re going to die,” Arender said sadly.
Brendle moved to step forward, but he was already too close to the barrier for comfort. “Don’t let it be your fault that you die too,” Brendle warned.
Arender looked up at him and acknowledged that he understood what Brendle had meant.
Behind them the hatch opened and Ilium stepped through.
Speak of the devil, Brendle thought as the man strolled towards them. Brendle imagined him skipping gleefully towards his framed prisoner, ready to poke it with a stick to get a few laughs.
“Arender, I didn’t expect to see you here,” Ilium said. Arender went to say something, but was cut off. “That’s really interesting, but visiting hours are over. Get out,” it was an order.
Arender looked and Brendle and nodded, the faintest smile to say goodbye curled his lips and Brendle returned it.
Ilium waited for Arender to leave the room before he spoke. “Captain Elastra told me you are entitled to a call home before we dispatch you. I said you were a traitor and didn’t deserve it. He said you’re technically a civilian in custody and there were policies regarding such things, blah, blah, blah. I guess he doesn’t want any red ink preventing him from becoming Admiral Elastra, so here I am.” Ilium bent down and skidded the com-unit across the deck and under the electron barrier. Static electricity arched across the metal case as it entered the field, but the case would protect the com-unit. He stood, “The call will be monitored. Captain Elastra also said if you say anything that might reflect poorly on him or the Greshian Navy, then I have permission to toss you into the dark. Be sure I will be very interested in your conversation,” he said with a smile. His eyes burned into Brendle, daring him to say something back.
“Thank you,” Brendle said, as he knelt down to pick up the com-unit. “Do you think you could monitor my call from someplace else? I’d kind of prefer to call home with the illusion of privacy. It makes saying goodbye to your loved ones easier, though I doubt you have any of those.”
“Ensign Quin, the smart-ass til the end,” Ilium jabbed.
“Yeah, something like that,” Brendle replied.
He waited until Ilium was out of the room before he opened the com-unit to place the call. There was some truth to what he had said about privacy, though. It helped to be alone when he loosened the transmitter chip from the device. The com-unit would still work as long as the two parts were touching, but take the transmitter away and that was a tool that might be useful later.
Brendle thumbed the transmitter back into place and made the call home. It would take hours for the message to reach his mother, and by the time a response was sent he might already be stranded. It was almost a guarantee, considering how Ilium was reluctant to let him make the call in the first place. This was just a tease, a way of getting under Brendle’s skin. But it was also an opening, an opportunity for Brendle to take advantage of. The com-unit chimed to let him know it was ready to record his message. He brought the camera up and looked into it.
“Mom, I know you may have heard some things about me and I wish I could explain, but things aren’t looking good for future correspondence. I promise I will try my hardest to contact you again, but if I can’t, I want you to know I love you and miss you. I’m sorry for any residual discomfort and shame this situation may have brought on our family. Goodbye.”
He closed the connection, knelt, and placed the com-unit back inside the protective case, not forgetting to keep the transmitter for himself. Brendle slid the com-unit back out into the space outside his cell and waited for someone to retrieve it. He looked in his hand at the tiny chip that would allow electrical signals to be sent across the far reaches of the galaxy. So much power in such small things, he thought before placing it in his pocket.
Now, all that was left to do was to wait. He knew his time was running out, but he also knew he was better prepared for his future than he was moments before. His father had told him to take advantage of every opportunity as it presented itself. Of course, he had told his son this days before he ran out on his family, leaving Brendle’s mother to cope with the loss of her husband and the burden of being a single parent. Opportunities were a tricky thing. Brendle had thought joining the Greshian Navy was the opportunity of a lifetime, but it didn’t turn out that way. The spitefulness in his heart towards his father made him hope his father’s opportunity had treated him just as unkindly. If it weren’t for bad luck he might have had no luck at all; that was tradition for the Quin family. But bad luck could turn on its head and surprise you. When it did, you had to be ready, and Brendle had been looking for the upside of things for long enough to recognize it when he saw it.
Time quietly ticked by. In his mind, Brendle thought of all the ways he could take advantage of his final moments on the Telran. People liked to romanticize about going out with a bang, fighting your way to freedom, but in the dark there was nowhere to go. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fight, but he wanted to live more. He patted the inner lining of his brown jacket, reminding himself of the broken emergency beacon sewn into place. It was the one he had worn when he joined the Greshian Navy, stepping into his training as a young civilian and thrust into an explosive training regimen that resulted in his commissioning after several months of Navy schooling. He had smuggled the emergency beacon in thinking, he might need to use it, but things didn’t hit rock bottom until it was too late. His rapidly successful career had been a blessing turned curse as he was shipped out on the Telran to conquer people who just wanted to be left alone.
He had a few tools now to try and call for help. It was enough to give him at least a little hope. But one thing he didn’t learn from his father was that most plans failed. The beacon and transmitter were just backups for the plan he hadn’t been presented the opportunity to initiate yet, but there was still time. By the gods, all he had was time.
Chapter 11: Anki
Gravity felt different in the dark expanse of space. Her body moved without the friction of Luthian atmosphere, outside of the gravitational pull of her home world. Sometimes she felt as if she were floating, but there was enough weight on her body to make her movements precise, each landing striking upon the surface she was aiming for. She had never trained in low gravity before and was surprised at how much she perspired despite the increase in endurance she experienced. It wasn’t part of any regimen taught. Perhaps it was because moving felt easier without the pull of defiant force working against you. For Anki, training without full gravity was fun, but also worrisome. If she could maneuver better, then so could the enemy. The Greshians had a leg up in the war. They had destroyed or crippled more worlds throughout the Alorian Galaxy than anyone could ever imagine. They had the tactical advantage of supremacy in warfare. They might lack the ability to hide and sneak up on their opponents, but it was an advantage they had proven they didn’t need time and time again. No one was standing up against them, at least none who could stand and take the fight to them in any significant way. Greshia had seized control of more territory in the sector as years went on, and they didn’t appear to be in much of a hurry. It was the calm, calculated approach of seizing power that was so horrifyingly magnificent. But every strength of their fleet fought to cover a weakness, and if you can take advantage of that weakness then maybe you would have a shot at defeating them, she thought. Stopping Greshia’s expansion wasn’t a question of desire, but necessity. She couldn’t help but wonder how advanced their fighters were compared to hers. The real fear was an even match being impossible, that she would come face-to-face with an enemy who could kill her in their sleep.
Technology had advanced significantly since the beginning of the Alorian Wars, but she wondered if Greshia even depended on technology anymore. They were always referenced as superior beings, almost god-like, but no one wanted say it out loud. To admit the Greshians were like God was like saying God was mortal, imperfect.
She remembered her father, the prayer he said to a god she wasn’t convinced was listening, and her adrenaline spiked. Her combat instructor had taught her to focus on the important things, to find strength in a deep-rooted personal thought or memory to distract from the pain of fighting. He said this over and over as she had been tossed around and beaten. The bruises had bruises at times and she was convinced that his banter was more of a distraction in order to trick her into losing. She thought it was his way to get in her head where victory would be more crippling. That was until she thought about something beyond the kicks and punches wrecking her body. The pain was still there, but it was some sideways thing of lesser importance. The thoughts numbed her until they ran out and she got her ass handed to her again. The distraction of happy memories could only take you so far. Skills and persistence had to carry you the rest of the way. It was a lesson learned with more cuts and bruises, but a lesson learned well. She used the happy memories to chase away her body’s desire to give up when it ached from exertion. It worked for a while, but now was one of those times it didn’t.
Anki looked at the time as she left the gym. She hadn’t realized she had been training for twice the time her body was used to, and it made the weakness of wanting to quit an easier pill to swallow. She made her way through the passageways of the Seratora. Everywhere were other Luthians who had answered the call to arms. Many of them had already made friends or coupled up. It wasn’t hard to tell which crewmembers were interested in the coupling, though. Usually they spoke with their faces close to one another as they whispered about their rendezvous, their eyes darting side to side lest they get caught. Life on a ship is strange in that way. All of these people could potentially die, but the things that made them feel more alive or less alone was against the laws of good order and discipline. She found it hard to rectify the kind of thinking that made such demands on its subordinates. At least she didn’t have to worry about that herself. For all intents and purposes, she was a solo act and could handle her needs herself if she needed to. It wasn’t worth disciplinary action for a few minutes of unromantic romp time. Or maybe she told herself that because she still hadn’t found someone interesting enough to endure. She already felt she was on borrowed time. Flinging into a relationship and intimacy seemed a little irresponsible. Her heart was in the right place exactly where it was, without the distraction of love.
Her stateroom was centered in a busy intersection of passageways. They ran through the ship like blood vessels reaching out to the outer portions of the Seratora, everything leading back to the center of the ship, the heartbeat. Sailors walked on quick feet, moving through the passages on missions to carry out some kind of order from some unseen face. They were all connected in some way, the Luthian Navy owned the sailors and marines onboard, but at the same time they felt like different entities. Their ties were superficial, something beyond a difference in color of their uniforms. Beneath the surface, they were trained to carry out different roles on the battlefield. The sailors fought in the dark, whereas the Marines were dropped into atmosphere and forced to fight their way through the hordes of enemy they came across. So far, the hordes of the enemy did more swarming than the Luthians did. Perhaps the Seratora would have better luck.
There was no day or night in the dark; neither was there a time when the passages were void of people. It was like a city that never slept. That is if cities could carry enough of a payload to wipe out civilization. The coming and going at all times made it difficult to know what time it was. Sometimes it seemed that time dragged slowly by. Other times it passed without much more than the blink of an eye. It was no wonder why so many people came back from the dark changed. If she thought about it too much she might notice a change in herself as well and she was only onboard for a few days or more. It was hard to tell anymore. Still, she craved some semblance of normalcy, but she doubted she would ever find it out here. She might not ever.
The silent drift of Seratora through the dark reminded her of what Surda must have been like before the wars, when the city was the epicenter of trade. History treated Surda as a mythical place, where God’s hand had touched the dirt and sprung forth a species of people to populate all of Luthia. Every world carried a similar tale, each more similar than the differences would imply when those passionate about religion would debate. But there was something that made her pause to question why such similarities could exist in an ever-expanding universe. Did God or something else touch the ground and breathe life into it? Somehow she doubted it, because in the end all of the races would snuff one another out and the gods of those dead worlds would be as dead as the dirt under Greshian feet.
Anki’s stateroom was shiny. It reflected light in a way that was more distracting than beautiful. The fact the light was artificial only made it worse. The bed was nice, though. Plush and large enough to support her body fully-stretched. She had seen the racks for the regular crew, stacked three high with the confining feel of coffins. She imagined falling from the top rack and cracking open her skull on the hard steel deck. Sailors live such confining lives, she thought as she wiped sweat from her face with her towel. Knowing how the sailors lived onboard made her glad she joined the Marines instead, but everything was subject to perspective. They spent several years onboard ships with lengthy careers that allowed some semblance of normalcy, many of them having families who deployed with them. Both officers and enlisted which made many marines envious. For two entities with the same military, the sailors at least had something to look forward to. She, on the other hand, might not live to see her next birthday. Her amenities were temporary because she was a marine combatant, a soldier was just another name for a pawn to those in power, and they didn’t expect her to survive. She imagined the last meal would be something extravagant and filling as well. The captain of the Seratora was known for going out of her way to make soldiers like Anki feel welcomed. Temporary hospitality is what Anki called it. It was easy to be hospitable when it didn’t have to last. Anki was sure Captain Lorec was a nice woman, but she thought the captain might also be a bit insincere as well. The mint on her pillow the day she checked onboard was her first clue. The stenciled smile every time she greeted the sailors and marines was another. If nothing else, it was a mask hiding something. What that something was Anki had no clue. But she was sure there was something turning behind those eyes when no one was looking.
She shook the dark thought out of her head and undressed, the cool air in her stateroom causing goosebumps to rise on her sweaty flesh. Water rations were the same on the Seratora as they were in Port Carreo, but the luxuriousness of the showers was a far cry from what she was used to. Still, she did have her own shower in her stateroom. At least she wasn’t required to stroll through the busy passages in her robe and towel. She was sure that was a show several of the young men might enjoy happening upon, hoping to catch a glimpse of what lay hidden behind her robe, but she wasn’t here for show and tell. Even if that were the case, she would have endured it in order to maintain her training regimen. She needed a consistent schedule, it might be monotonous, but it was something she could latch onto, depend on. It made this part of the trek easier to manage. She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like when they reached their destination, where would they be? She could imagine having to invade a Greshian ship and take over in hopes of saving some other world from destruction. The firefight that ensued would be spectacular. She almost hoped for a low-gravity fight, weapons firing, Greshian blood dripping and floating around them. It would be a defining moment for the Luthian Navy, and for Luthia in general, to bring a Greshian warship to its knees, she thought.
The thoughts were comforting, but also posed more qu
estions. If they defeated the Greshians, what would happen? Would everything change all at once? Or would it be gradual like a stone rippling the water after dropping it? Would the war stretching across the galaxy finally come to an end, or would it elicit other worlds to step in, trying to fill the void left by a waning Greshian Empire? Anki fought the urge to keep thinking about it. In her heart she knew she would find out soon enough and that finding out would only be the beginning of the end. The end of what, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Chapter 12: Brendle
Everything was white. It was odd to Brendle that he was just now noticing the starkness of living on the Telran. The overheads and bulkheads were all white, the only splash of color coming from the deck in different shades of blue and gray depending on which level they were on. The simple fact that the decks were color-coded was another thing he found odd to only now pay attention to. It made him wonder what else he had been ignorant to during his time on the ship. Now the vessel was scheduled to leave him stranded on a moon, probably no more than a rock in the inhabitable zone of the nearest star, and he was concerned about how white everything was.
“Keep moving,” Ilium said behind him. The man was armed with a cannon and it struck Brendle odd that such a weapon was necessary to escort an unarmed prisoner off the ship. Sure, Brendle would be armed before being dropped, but right now his arms were bound and two other men flanked him. Both just as well armed as the Security Officer was.
“I’m walking the same pace I was the last time you said something,” Brendle said under his breath. “Are you in a hurry to drop me off or something? I mean, because I can wait. I’ve got all the time in the world. Maybe grab some chow, or―”.