Margie said, “Because if we survive this war, then those would be good things to know, don’t you think?”
They would be. And perhaps they would be good things to know even if they didn’t survive. He pondered that for a moment. “I love the color of the sky right before the sun sets on our planet. I don’t have flowery words or phrases to describe it; I just know that I like it. I suppose if I had a favorite color it would be that color. It’s actually combination of colors and patterns swirling across the sky, but if I had to choose, I choose that. My favorite drink is clean water. As for food? I never really thought about it before, but I miss, very much, the taste of these little cakes that my mother used to make back before our original planet was destroyed.
“She made them from some sort of seeds and fruits that I’ve never seen anywhere else. She would pound them into this sort of paste and then she’d add in other ingredients and put them outside to harden under the sun.”
He’d never thought of that before. That small and slight loss. Cake. But that loss summed up everything that he had lost when the original Revant had been destroyed. Those things existed nowhere else in the universe and they never would again. He would never know the taste of that little treat, that special thing that his mother made when she knew that his father was coming home again from a long flight and could stay only a few days with his family.
His mother had made those things out of love for his father. Just like Margie had picked figs that she disliked and placed them on the table for him.
Everything in him broke open just then. All the things lost due to The Federation’s greed and far-reaching arms came rushing in at him, unbalancing him. He had lost much, and so had citizens of every planet in every system across that known universe. All in the name of The Federation’s betterment of themselves and their rank. It would never be enough either. The Federation would never have enough.
They would destroy any and everything in their path, and while this mission was not one he wanted to undertake, he understood exactly how important it was that he did. How important it was that they all did. Even Margie.
She too had lost so much under their rule. She’d been sold like a common possession but not before having been tortured and beaten in an attempt to get information from her that she had never possessed. She had seen family members die of starvation and thirst. She had seen them die from heat and lack of fresh air. She had lived a life devoid of sunlight joy because The Federation had declared that she was somehow less than others of its citizens.
So much hurt and so much willful destruction, and all of it stemming from The Federation and its cruel and tyrannical grip on the universe.
Margie said, “I miss the sound of the music that they would play on holidays. It was the one thing they allowed us to share with those who lived Above. They would send it down through the system, and we would all gather there in the center of the square in the middle of the Below. Nobody would speak. We would just stand there and listen to this music that was somehow so pure and so beautiful that made everything around us seem less awful.
“I imagine if I heard it now it would not serve the same purpose. I know there’s a better life now. I know there’s a better way now. I know there’s beauty and air and sunlight and love and family and food and I didn’t know those things then. But I think I would still like it. The music I mean.”
His arm came up and draped itself across her shoulders. He pulled her into him for a moment and then let his arm drop away from her as they entered the section that would lead them to the bridge. “Perhaps we should find you some music then.”
Her head lowered. There was a strain in her voice. “That was the music of Old Earth. I don’t imagine it exists anywhere else. I know there are some humans who came out into the systems, mostly slaves and the like, and maybe some of them remember it. I just don’t know if any of them can make it.”
He didn’t either. Maybe her music, like that cake his mother used to make, was something that would never be seen in the universe again. Maybe that was just one more small but incredibly vast loss that they would have to sustain.
The flight deck was crammed with people. Talon stood at the controls, guiding the ship with real confidence and talent. Jessica, his weapon’s chief, stood nearby at another control panel that allowed her to check the weapons ranged around the ship’s outer shell. Her face was tight and tense, and he didn’t blame her for being that way.
Entering the solar ring was iffy. The larger part of the armada at whose head they flew had taken a sharp bank toward the next set of planets. The last thing they needed to do was ride into outlaw territory with a Federation envoy right behind them, especially one that carried General Bates at its head.
After all, they were going to speak with his son.
The ship began to bank, its solar shields going up in order to offset the heat flares that rose from the first ring. Many a ship had attempted to make that journey without proper shielding and had burned up as soon as they had entered that space. A great wall of orange-red heat flamed toward them, churning and pushing against the ships outer shell. Margie said, “That’s scary.”
Jeval gave her a rueful smile. “It scares the hell out of me every time it happens.”
She said, “I can certainly see why.”
They made it past that first ring and then slid inward, riding space currents that eddied and drifted like waves of the sea. Those waves tossed them more toward the center, toward the four planets that lay within those rings. One wrong move and they would crash. If they made it past the space drifts, then they would have to contend with the asteroids that lay just beyond.
All those natural things were what kept the planets, three of them, wholly uninhabitable, from ever being used. The Federation avoided the place after having lost too many ships to its cranky atmosphere. As only one planet was even inhabitable, and it was a known desolate area The Federation had no use for it.
The Federation was often wrong, and they were completely wrong about that planet being desolate. On its far side, the side that never saw sunlight lay a vast city made up of criminals and fugitives. Space pirates often risked death in order to stop there and refuel and resupply. The most daring of them all exited through all of the lethal things around the planet in order to fetch in supplies and the like, and once they had them back on the planet, they charged a veritable fortune for them.
But space pirates and criminals and fugitives had credits. If they didn’t, they never would have made it there in the first place.
Those pirates and wreckers and other criminals that brought things they were to sell knew that they would get less of a price there than they would anywhere else, but they could also trade with other ships for fuel and printer food supplies, and any credits were better than no credits at all. Also, it provided a safe harbor, a place to do repairs on the ships and rest. Or perhaps safe harbor was a misnomer. They were just as likely to be murdered by the other criminals and crews there as they were to be captured and killed by The Federation.
Talon knew the territory well enough to make it through there. Jeval could recall, with chilling clarity, the first time they had made that trip. He had been unable to stand on the flight deck and watch it happening. He had left, going to his room and praying to whatever old gods his race still held dear that if they had to die, they would at least meet their fate mercifully. That was something none of his siblings had ever let him live down either.
He couldn’t very well leave the flight deck then, though. Margie stood beside him, and it was clear that she was terrified. She was doing a good job of holding it together, but her face was white, and her entire body trembled as they made it past one asteroid belt only to have another come swirling and tumbling toward them. The rocks were shooting off solar flares large enough to crush the ship with one blow.
Finally, the planet came into view. Talon skirted around the uninhabitable front side. That side was constantly exposed to solar flare and burn from the incredibly vast sun that lay directly ahead of it. The planet they were aiming for was second in the little string of planets and on its backside were planets that were sheer rock and total ice. Impenetrable ice. Those planets were so hostile to life due to their frozen solid surface that nothing had ever grown there.
The backside of the second planet, where the city lay, was sheltered away from the solar flares and just far enough away from the other planets that the cold was not quite as killing. The solar flares warmed the front surface of the planet just enough to make the water that raged across it warm enough that it warmed the land behind. But it was a dark and dim place anyway.
They docked. Great drills piercing the planet’s surface and landmasses had cleverly constructed the docks. To dock, one had to duck, literally, right into a hole in the earth. The largest ships would never fit, and that was part of why it made such a good hideout. The little warrens, resembling those used by the giant rabbitlike animals of his home planet and the planet that he now called home, made sure that any Federation ship that somehow managed to get past and through saw nothing but emptiness in that system.
