Chapter 11:
It was chaos. Jenny rushed down to help as people crowded close, desperate to get on the ship and off the surface of the planet that was no longer home for them. Those who had lived above were still fighting, still demanding first passage for the most part. That sickened her but did not surprise her. She called out, “We are taking the elderly and the youngest first!”
Talon called out, “Those of you with small children, come forward! Those of you who are family to the elderly and have your elderly with you, come forward.”
As Jenny watched a sharp-faced woman who wore the stained and torn robes that marked her station as having been from above snatched a small child from an obviously injured young woman wearing the faded and filthy tunic and trousers worn by those who came from Below. The sharp-faced woman rushed forward, the child held high in the air. She called out, “I have a child! I have a child!”
The young woman wearing the tunic and trousers tried to cry out, but she was lost in the crowd. Jenny darted forward and snatched the child from the woman, passing the child back to one of the crew members. Her hand came up, and she shoved the woman to the ground. That rage boiled up again, and she felt that light within her trying to come forth.
The woman, on the ground and on her bottom now, began to scrabble backward as she looked up and saw deadly intent written all across Jenny’s features.
Jenny said, “Why can’t you ever learn? Why can’t you ever learn that birth does not dictate what kind of person you are? Why can’t you learn that people are equal? Why can’t you, even now, see that just because you were born to wealth and privilege makes you no better than everyone else? Why can you not let someone else go first?”
The woman began to weep. Talon drew his weapon and approached. “Is there a problem here?”
The woman shrieked, “I’m afraid, and I want to leave!”
Talon said, “You will get your chance.”
Jenny pointed to the child’s mother, and Talon shouldered his way through the crowd, picked the young girl up, and slung her over his shoulders and carried her through the crowd. He took her up the ramp that led up to the bay. Her child stood screaming in the doorway, and the mother rushed to the child, dropping to her knees to hold the child close and cuddle it.
They began loading people on. Jenny helped with the elderly who could barely hobble, along and those with children to reach the ship. Her heart ached as she saw that some of the children were from Below, and obviously so, while others were from above. Many, far too many, were without parents.
Their parents were dead or missing, and they would probably never see each other again. It was incomprehensible, the effects of war. It was something she hoped she never had to see again, but she knew that she would. There was no way around it. War was everywhere, and war would only continue until the Federation and its poisonous grip on the universe could be broken forever.
Even as she helped load them onto the ship her heart hurt. She had told Marik that she hated him and she had lied. Part of her hated what he had done, but she did not hate him.
Despite everything, she still loved him. How that was possible she did not know. She should hate him. She truly should, and she had said those words hoping that they would bring up that emotion in her.
They hadn’t.
All they had done was make her aware of just how deeply he had betrayed her and how deeply she was hurt over that betrayal.
She thought it could get no worse, but it did. The other ships touched down and people loaded into them as well and the docks were crowded with would-be refugees.
As each ship was declared full, more people gathered. Screams and tears began as doors started to shut. Jenny stood on the observation deck, her hands against the chilled panes, watching with tears streaming down her own face as people tried to batter the way through the crowd, their hands and their faces upturned as they begged and pleaded not to be left behind.
Talon had promised to try to hire on more ships, or to return. That might not happen though. They could only do so much. They had done all they could for the moment.
Word had just reached them that war had broken out all along the universe and this trip might very well be the last one they could make for some time.
They would have to stop for supplies along the way and hope that many of the outlying planets that were not yet involved in war were still trading enough to give them what they needed to help take care of these thousands of people that they were transporting off the Earth’s surface and to Revant.
Jessica tapped her on the shoulder. Jenny turned around. Jessica said, “You should go to Marik now. He may not last the night.”
Terrified at the thought, Jenny turned away from the sight of her fellow humans down there, abandoned and hopeless now, and ran to the med-bay where Marik lay.
A silent prayer filled her mind. He had seemed to be okay, weak but okay, when she had left the med-bay, but she knew that looks could be deceiving. That natural healing gift that he had would not help him heal himself, not now. Touch healing someone who had been as close to death as she had been meant taking on everything that that person had been through and all of the weakness of their body. She had his strength, and all he had was her weakness.
Praying, hoping against hope, she raced into the med-bay to his side.
She placed a hand down on his body, and she whispered, “Heal for me.”
A slim band of golden light appeared on her finger, and she placed it on his lips. His eyes opened, and he said, “Don’t. We both might end up dead.”
He drifted off again. She stood there staring at his closed eyes, her fingertips still glowing. “I don’t want to live without you.”
The ship landed on Revant Two, and nothing had been resolved. Marik had healed but the hurtful and hateful words that she had said to him stood between them, and she had been unable to face him. She spent most of her time dealing with the injured and the sick, as did he. There were a great many of them. They lost three dozen of the passengers, those who were so gravely ill or just too elderly to make the trip.
