by Adam Peled
Every evening, a summary of the day’s attacks by the rebels was projected on giant screens on every planet. It was amazing to Rettoul that the reports didn’t include any information about the perpetrator’s past. No one talked about the family they left behind or where they came from. Who were the parents? It was as if they didn’t have a family history or belonging at all. The terrorist reports noted the number of people for whose deaths they were responsible, and in which terror attacks they participated.
The large number of attacks turned everything into statistics. The galactic elders met every week, their faces expressionless when they arrived and when they left. A list of the rebels most wanted and future steps to be taken to try to prevent attacks were announced at the end of each meeting.
For five years, Dot headed the most-wanted list. Some said he’d died long ago in one of the terrorist attacks he organized; others said he was living a peaceful life away from the battles and only gave orders. But no one could say anything for certain about him.
***
The weeks passed, followed by months, and the length of the most-wanted list was reduced. Security forces were able to suppress the terrorism, though not completely. Members of Rettoul’s Gang—the name given to the entire group of graduates of that training class—were integrated into the elite units responsible for the most and the best operations against the rebels. Their names were rarely mentioned, but insiders knew those 13 young men were involved in every successful operation.
A galactic announcement was made one day that most of the troops would be returning home. The rebellion was determined to have been put down and the security forces were thinned to a tenth of their highest numbers. The dispersal point, like the starting point, was Kantara. The fighters had one or two weeks of recuperation in vacation-like conditions, and then each returned to his planet.
***
Rettoul arrived at Kantara emotionally drained. The only thing sustaining him during the previous year were Benaya’s letters. She didn’t write about her yearning or speak of his longing to return home—she reminded him of forgotten events from his childhood. She also didn’t mention a word about what he might do with the rest of his life.
He wanted to return home immediately, without the recuperative delay. The pools, the movies, the good food—everything paled beside the memories of the aromas of home. Rapid galactic shuttles left Kantara every day, and he meant to be on the first one possible.
Rettoul didn’t want to go home in uniform, but his quest for a hasty departure made him realize that he didn’t have any suitable clothes. Nothing but uniforms decorated with badges for achievement and participation in bitter battles were in his wardrobe. He packed his backpack with them anyway—the same one that left his home on Falcon six years previously. He cut a ridiculous figure on his way to the galactic shuttle: an imposing man wearing a bright dress uniform carrying a ragged school backpack.
Too early for the shuttle to Falcon, he sat on a bench and dropped the backpack at his feet. Someone next to him kicked it intentionally. “Haven’t you got rid of that bag yet?”
The sound of Mattoui’s voice flooded him with relief. “All I wanted was that you would stay alive and someday stand in front of me on your own two legs.” Rettoul smiled at his best friend.
“Hey, show me your chest. Do you have a record of your heroic action against Dot?” Mattoui placed a warm hand on his friend’s shoulder. “They say Dot waited to be killed by one of us. I’m glad it was you.”
Mattoui embraced Rettoul. “I missed you! Whenever I was identified, someone asked about you. I felt a bit awkward telling them that my best friend was so busy he didn’t even talk to me.”
“Come on! Someone would think you were busy!”
“Every day I thought about what you once said to me: ‘But first, let’s get through today.’ ” A broad smile spread over Rettoul’s face. “You still owe me Sinta,” Mattoui said just as the departure of the shuttle to Bucha was announced.
“I’ll come and visit you just for that.” Rettoul embraced his friend and said good-bye again. This time he felt some of his soul remained with Mattoui, but he was sure they would meet again to repay what they owed each other.
Chapter 6: The Takeover
Cool autumn breezes had already forced the Kantarans to don their warmer clothing, with the planet’s flag waving firmly and elegantly above the mostly-deserted base. The wind caressed the cloth and gently sent waves along its length until its symbols were clearly exposed—two skulls, drawn slashing Rolls, a jet fighter, and silhouettes of two beasts of prey. Kantara was no longer an active and vibrant training base. The rebels’ bases fell one after the other, their leaders were captured, killed, or disappeared, and no one was certain of their location. Everyone assumed they’d been killed in battle or escaped.
The daily announcements regarding the rebels and the battles against them had been replaced by less-frequent ones that mainly described the ongoing operations of the planets and the quality of life on them. From time to time, the rebellion was mentioned, particularly when a brave soldier returned with stories of heroism. The Kantarans were always proud of a heroic son returning home and told his life story from his childhood until his return in great detail and with much emotion.
***
Coldor’s son’s room had once been very elegant and fancy. One could still see the quality of the leather armchairs despite the alcohol and bloodstains ruining their splendor. The heavy carved table had long ago lost its impressive appearance, marred by copious cigarette burns—as if it had been used as an ashtray—and wounds from broken bottles carved painfully into the wood.
The room was full of the smell of Sinta and alcohol. Liquor bottles littered the room, rolling on the floor or on the table, their remnants dripping out.
Zoron had received the room from his father, who hoped his son would be his successor. Despite Coldor’s hopes, though, Zoron treated it as his private playroom, his friends settling in permanently and no one feeling the need to maintain it. On the contrary, they had a fondness for ruin and destruction.
Zoron’s friends were pampered, like him. All but one, Maul, took their lives for granted. They’d received certificates indicating their education was complete, but the lie only sprang from their parents’ ties, rather than from spending time in the halls of culture and education like other students. And without exception, they’d been granted permission to wear an army uniform with one or two badges boasting of admission into elite units and operations—every mission overseen by Coldor, who didn’t wish to chance Zoron’s life and allowed him to be surrounded by his pampered friends.
The group was nothing but a bunch of hedonists—uniformed but sloppily, wearing symbols of rank, eating a lot, drinking a lot, and sleeping a lot. Without a goal or a purpose.
Coldor wasn’t happy with his son and his gang, but had no power to change it. Sometimes he believed it was preferable to leave the situation as it was, because otherwise he wouldn’t know what to expect.
Coldor’s presence in the room surprised the young men. Bodies stumbled to their feet in the haze of smoke and reek of alcohol, trying to stand erect and not fail in the attempt before the legendary Coldor, to whom they owed so much.
Coldor made a path across the filthy hardwood floor. Sometimes he didn’t understand how he could’ve raised such a son—someone who wasn’t like him in the least. Some nights shame ate at him because some of the things he’d seen only in movies and in rebels’ burrows, he’d also seen in Zoron’s room. Looking disgustedly at the company around his son, he could understand how Zoron had grown up to be who he was. Rod Coldor, the most influential galactic military leader, had no influence at home and gave in to the whims of his only son.
He sat with his back to the giant video screen that nobody turned off. Those seated—the ones who hadn’t been able to get up—looked at him, but the images on the screen drew their gazes away to the beautiful naked women behind him.
“Someon
e stop this filth,” shouted Coldor. The young men looked at him silently until Zoron spoke up.
“Dad, I want to tell you what happened in Bucha last month! You would’ve been proud of me.” Zoron’s eyes shone. “But I’m sure you’ve already received reports of what your son did!”
Coldor nodded, knowing that Zoron exaggerated his stories and adopted the achievements of others: battles in which he participated as a leader, prisoners he took by himself, rebels he killed with his weapon. His father knew the facts and was not impressed. Zoron quickly changed the subject.
“You know, I had to leave because of Laura. She can’t be alone for more than two or three days, and participation in these activities sometimes requires a month’s absence from home. Then there’s a scene. It’s not worth having a scene with women; you always lose.” He laughed loudly and his friends joined in.
Coldor remembered Laura from their first meeting. A beautiful blonde with intelligent eyes, she asked to meet him and his guards refused. Then she said they should tell the commander it was about his son Zoron and that she wanted to talk to him.
He’d cleared a few minutes of his time, assuming she’d been hurt by his son and had demands after discovering who his father was. How surprised he was when he met an intelligent young woman with a sharp sense of humor and an impressive ability to verbalize. The girl loved his no-good son unconditionally, with no demands of his father or of his genealogical pedigree. And the thing that most impressed him was the reason she’d come: she was very worried about Zoron.
She told his father, “He spends his nights—especially the nights before the biggest battles—in the den. He comes home drunk and goes out in the morning to fight. He and his friends can’t distinguish between right and wrong after a night in the den.” She shook her head. “I know,” she continued, “that there are other women at the den, but they don’t worry me. I’m not afraid of them because he always comes home to me, but I’ll lose him in one of these battles he goes to without knowing exactly who he’s shooting or what he’s doing. And there’s this event that still haunts him…” She fell silent.
“What event?”
Laura swallowed. “He lost his Jorash in a battle with a cadet from Kantara.”
Coldor couldn’t hide his anger. “Thank you for telling me. I will certainly take care of it,” he assured her.
That same evening Coldor appeared in the den where a bunch of punks sat getting thoroughly drunk. When he entered, Zoron was in the bathroom. Coldor waited and surprised him. Zoron froze in place. His friends, as well as the others there, watched in fear. The musicians stopped playing for a moment, but seeing Coldor’s glare, they continued hesitantly.
Coldor smashed his son’s head against the wall, pulled out his Roll, and held the blade against Zoron’s bare throat. “You’re lucky.” He glared at his son. “I know exactly what this is capable of,” he said, referring to the exposed weapon. “You’d better wean yourself of this barbaric custom,” he said, glancing around. “If I hear you were in the den even once more, I’ll take care of you as only I can. You’ve shamed yourself and me enough, you fool.”
Zoron started crying like a little boy. “I’m sorry, sir. Really sorry.”
Coldor looked at his son with disdain and didn’t add another word. Now, sitting in Zoron’s room and seeing the same behavior, he had nothing left to say. Silently he rose and walked out. He needed to leave for Falcon for a planned meeting with Bergin, Lunia, Bar, and Yona.
***
The huge conference room seemed empty. The presence of heavy-set Bergin, Lunia—with his distinguished looks—and Yona and Bar with their heads bent didn’t add to the vitality that was missing. Coldor entered with confident footsteps as everyone’s head rose.
“I’m glad you made it, Coldor,” said Bergin in his authoritative voice. Coldor didn’t even look at him. The contempt he felt for these men was strongly evident in moments like this. Bergin continued. “How are our returned soldiers?”
“Tired.”
Bergin, who saw that Coldor was in a worse and more aggressive mood than usual, decided to skip the small talk and moved on to the reasons for the meeting. “Yona, you’re responsible for conveying the message to all the remaining military leaders, as Lunia will close the matter of the water supply to Falcon. He’ll come to Saturn next week and we’ll discuss the topic there.”
Yona raised his voice in anger. “Why should Lunia do that?”
He wanted to continue, but Coldor thundered, “It won’t hurt you to get a second opinion. Until now, you’ve managed everything alone. From now on, you’ll get help. I hope you agree,” he mocked.
Yona nodded. Lunia was a puppet on a string as far as he—and the others—were concerned. Lunia would carry out orders, but he was not strong enough to fight Coldor. In any case, most of the water had been pumped out long ago. Lunia wouldn’t lose any water, but he was liable to lose the lives of his planet’s residents. He had no one to talk to, and it seemed that Coldor’s nervousness—and the decisions that had already been made—wouldn’t change if he said anything now. The situation would only get worse.
A few days later, the rest of the galactic armies—and especially from Brisker, who represented the majority of the planets that preferred not to fight—began to move toward Saturn, determined to eliminate Lunia and Bergin and extract as much mineral ore as possible.
A horrible stench of dried fish hung in the air as huge shuttles landed, depositing thousands of water sleds and hundreds of thousands of galactic soldiers. After realizing the planet was half dried up, the equipment was unloaded from their vehicles. At the base of each water sled was a hovercraft motor that moved in a circular direction, behind which were two holes for turbines that pushed them in the water.
There were about 30 fighters in each water sled. They were on their way to Yona’s palace, having divided the sectors between the armies. They wore waterproof underclothes, leaving the top layer with the diving cylinders and regulators by the vehicles. They marched onward on what was left of the water planet, which now looked like a dried marsh filled with bodies of fish and larger aquatic animals, like whales. There were celebrations on the communications network—each general reported a conquest using little violence, and Pandor conducted the orchestra.
All the military leaders met at the palace entrance with hundreds of thousands of soldiers behind them. The leaders wanted to show the common soldiers they hadn’t lost their combat capabilities over the years. They signaled to each other and broke down the door of the palace.
Pandor wore a black rubber undergarment, a wool shirt, and furry black vest. On his head sat his famous battle helmet—round with a backward-facing horn on each side, with ends like ice picks. He ran ahead like a man driven, followed by the generals and the officers. The soldiers stayed outside to protect the leaders. The palace was star-shaped, like a small ball with a hollow plate around it, and at the plate’s lowest point was the palace door, built of small glass squares.
The entrance looked new, with a white marble floor and round ceiling decorated with paintings of water and aquatic animals. Quiet, relaxing music was heard. After rushing through several rooms, the band of leaders came into the main room, the conference room, with a large oval table that could accommodate up to 30 people on each side. On the right side of the room was a giant screen, displaying the planets of the galaxy, and at the center was a symbol of a wooden swordfish—Saturn’s symbol.
Yona sat lifeless in his black upholstered chair, his head turned backward. Lunia, the commander of Rosten—the man with the mighty past in development and fighting—knelt next to him, crying. Pandor approached him slowly, removed his helmet, and put it gently on the bloodstained table. Lunia raised his head and said, “What have we come to?”
Wearing the clothes he’d worn since his exile to Falcon, he cried, “He would have killed tula! He would have killed her. I’m sorry, my friends. I should’ve known better.” Lunia pushed Pandor away with hands covered
in Yona’s blood and, with a cry of despair, pressed a black button on the square remote control he held.
The nitrogen bomb swallowed Saturn, along with all the residents and the armies on it. Within a few minutes, there was no sign of the famous planet that had contributed such resources to the galaxy.
Crushing Saturn was a signal for additional explosions on the rest of the planets by the Falconite army. But this time the planets were almost uninhabited. Their residents had moved to safer planets, ones whose military leaders were strong, such as Falcon, Darfol, Brisker, Kantara, Moran, and Levi.
***
Rettoul, a man well-versed in combat, returned to his ancestral origins. Falcon was illuminated in the twilight with many lightbulbs, as if in his honor. His spirit had been deflated by the war—and something else, but he didn’t know what. His homesickness was tremendous, but he was also scared. He’d never felt any fear of his home, but now… Something bothered him and scared him as if… As if what? He didn’t know. His discomfort regarding the future nibbled at him.
Falcon’s streets hadn’t changed, but their appearance had: everything was much greener, more alive than he remembered. Falcon had always been short of water, which was strictly rationed. Now it poured out unchecked.
His journey home was bright and inviting. People made way for him, as befitted a hero returning from war. Women welcomed him, men nodded toward him, and cheering children met him. He returned home a hero, but no one recognized Rettoul as the lad they had known.
With nightfall, he arrived home and found it completely dark. Usually a light was on inside, or on the balcony. The darkness boded ill, but he pushed his thoughts away. Benaya doesn’t know I’m coming, so she isn’t waiting for me. She must’ve gone out and will come back soon.