The mood of the people around her was slightly jubilant and yet sorrowful. The Federation had retreated, an amazing thing, but the death toll was high, and they all knew it would just get higher with each battle.
This war was far from finished.
Tara finally fell into a fitful doze but full of horrible dreams. Bloody faces and broken bodies flitted through her dreams. The sound of bombs falling and the rapid rattle of weapons fire and the screams of the dying kept jerking her from that restless slumber.
She woke again, sometime after the sun had finally risen along the horizon, to see Talon and Jessica sleeping nearby, their bodies tangled together. The trill of birdsong came from somewhere, and Tara lay there listening to it, confused by the normalcy of such a thing.
She sat up. Her body was beyond stiff. Her muscles sent off low and throbbing aches and her mouth was dry. Hunger rumbled in her tummy, and she managed to stand. She staggered out of the crude shelter and what she saw made her heart contract and then spring loose, sending a dizzying flow of blood into her system that threatened to topple her where she stood.
So many people. So many wounded.
The dead lay beyond the valley there, the bodies already in a hastily dug mass grave, and she could see from where she stood that that grave was already full. Tears streamed down her face, and she whispered, “Is this the price of freedom?”
“Yes.”
The word made her jump, and her head turned to see General Bates, Blade’s father, staring at her from the tree he stood below. She picked her way over to him carefully. Daylight lay on his face, making every line and wrinkle show, and she asked, “Why?”
“Because when you have something a powerful as the Federation, you have to not only wound it: you have to kill it. They have been through battles for power before and always won. They won because those they fought against looked at the losses and decided it was unbearable.”
“It is unbearable,” she looked back at the mass grave, at the lines of sleeping, wounded, and displaced people. “It is entirely unbearable.”
“It is not unbearable. If it means millions more lives will be lost, that too will be bearable. What is unbearable is the Federation and its ways. They can’t be allowed to continue. Even if we all have to die to make sure the Federation is crushed and broken so that those who come behind us can be free.”
Those who would come after. Tara swallowed hard. “Have you heard from Blade?’
General Bates shook his head, and his eyes went back to the dead and dying. “No. I was hoping he would have returned by now.”
He was willing to sacrifice his own son for freedom. Tara’s fingers picked at each other. “I love him, you know.”
“As do I.” Bates’ eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, and his cheeks were hollowed, and there were dark shadows below his eyes. “Do not ever assume that I do not love my son.”
“I know you love him.” The words leaped from her mouth. “You helped him, all those years you helped him but yet you still stood for the Federation. Why? I mean, why play both sides of the game the way that you did? Why not just decide which side you were on and make your stand there?”
“I believed in the Federation. I loved my son. There was no way I could choose, not until I found the truth.” His eyes regarded her face carefully. “I know I was guilty of many crimes against the Federation long before I decided to fight them, but what would you do for a child you loved?”
“Everything. Anything.” She sighed and let her gaze go back to the sky. The sun was rising, and the sky was a faultless blue. Unlike the land below, the sky showed no memories or effects of the battles that had raged there. “I’m scared. That he’s not here yet and so…”
“Don’t.” His hand pressed against her upper arm. “Just do not say that. Until I see his body before me, he is alive. I don’t know where he is, but I do know that until I am faced with his body and can see for myself that he is dead, he is not.”
The words gave her a blast of hope. Blade had not returned the night before or that morning and time was passing quickly, and still, he was not there. That was terrifying. Most of the ground troops had returned, and there had been some news that a few had followed the retreating Fed ground forces in order to try to decimate their ranks even further. Maybe Blade had been among them, and knowing him, that was likely true.
She leaned against the tree. She asked, “After the Federation falls, what then? Nobody seems to have any idea but…but what happens when all of this is over and done?”
Bates said, “It will take a very long time to figure it all out. We do need a coalition of the planets in our universe. We need trade agreements that fit all. We need an end to caste systems and slavery and the rule of those who are born under one mantle or another. We need an end to the starvation on some planets while other planets throw food away because they have so much of it. There needs to be some sort of fairness and equality. There needs to be, more than those things, justice. Because equality and justice are not the same at all, you know.”
They weren’t. Justice was usually blind and what was just in one world was sometimes unjust in another because equality—that was the sticking point—was often mistaken for justice.
She said, “Whatever he’s doing, I wish he’d just get it done and get back here.”
Bates said, “Me too, but…but I need you to hear something right now. The Federation, this isn’t them.”
She blinked. “What?”
Bates turned to her. His skin on his face was gray, and his eyes held small threads of red running through them. He said, “The Federation, the real Federation, is in hiding. They’re on Tralam. I need you to remember that. Say it. Tralam.”
“Tralam,” she repeated dutifully. “I don’t understand.”
Bates’ head drooped a bit. “I know you don’t. You won’t until you see it for yourself.”
