6
Drake could barely breathe as they passed the last planet and circled around it. All of them, the entire pitiful little crew, were now gathered on the bridge.
Blade said, “He said that the only way in was out, and the only way out was in. You said you didn’t make it this far before. So it seems we come to an impasse.”
Drake nodded. Weariness had set in. “I told you I have no idea how to open the door.”
Talon spoke harshly. “I see no door.”
Margie stepped forward. The small ball of her belly rested inside the tunic that she wore, and she put her hands to it, a faraway expression coming up on her lovely face. “It’s there. Tell them where, Drake.”
His shoulders slumped. “We have to go back the way we came, back to the fire planet. Once we arrive there, the door will be in sight.”
Jessica let out a low cry of rage. “You could’ve seen fit to tell us that in the first place! You want us to make this trip twice? Already Talon is tired, and so are the rest of us.”
Drake drew himself up. His expression was placid; the anger lurked beneath it. “Nobody ever said this was easy. If it was easy, then anyone could do it. Do you want your names to go down in history or do you wish to simply float around out here in space where there is nothing and nowhere to go for the rest of your miserable lives?”
Talon drew a weapon. Drake faced him down without flinching. His voice didn’t quiver. “You can kill me if you like for speaking to your woman that way but it will not help you now. The true secret to the door is the one that I will tell you now. Space and time mean nothing here. Somehow they, the race that we all call the Speakers, folded it. They changed it and turned it in and on itself. I don’t know how they did it. How could I? That is exactly what they’ve done.”
Marik spoke. “You have seen it?”
Drake nodded. “I have. Only I had no idea how to open it. It will take more than just me, because by the time I reached that door, the number of my crew had dwindled mightily. Those who were left were worth nothing as far as their being willing or able to go through that doorway.”
Jeval spoke. “Then we turn around and go back. Talon, you are tired. Rest until we get to the planet made of water. That’s an order, by the way.”
Talon bristled. “Since when do you give me orders?”
Drake spoke into the tense silence. “Since he is your elder brother.”
The tension softened but did not break. Blade entered into that conversation with the mild comment, “Does this mean I get to order you around now, little brother?”
Little brother. How long had he waited to hear Blade say those words to him? That Blade was only speaking them in jest didn’t change the fact that he had used those words. Drake decided to roll with it, to try to help ease the thickening anger in the room. “I suppose it does. Just don’t get carried away.”
The tension snapped then, like a fine wire that had been pulled too tightly between two poles. Jessica reached for Talon. “He’s right. You need rest. It won’t be long until we get back to the planet made of water and then they will need you more than ever. Come on; let’s go get you a quiet place where you can lay your head down for a little while.”
Talon looked entirely offended by the suggestion, but the lines of fatigue on his face and the dark circles under his eyes said that rest was indeed something he actually needed at that moment. His shoulders slumped a bit, and he nodded. He said to Drake, “Do not destroy my ship. If you do, you had better die before I find you.”
Drake said, “I will keep that in mind.”
Drake and Blade went back to the controls, and eventually, all of the others left the bridge, leaving them alone. Silence drew out as they carefully navigated their way back around the dark side of the seventh planet in that line and headed toward the fiery one at the beginning of the system.
Blade spoke softly, “There is just something about space, isn’t there? From the moment I first flew, I understood how insignificant I am as a person. I also understood just how powerful the Federation is, to rule all of this emptiness and silence. To have full control of this vast and lethal but beautiful thing. To have control of space.”
Drake didn’t dare look away from the track that he was setting the ship onto. He said, “As I recall, you always did love to fly and love to fight more.”
Blade snorted. “As I recall, you were the one who was always fighting. I was the weakling and ill child when you first came into the household.”
Drake didn’t try to protest that. It was the truth; they both knew it. “That changed rather rapidly.”
“I imagine it would have changed for you too if you’d been in my shoes.”
Drake shot his older brother a look. “I would’ve given anything to have been in your shoes. I begged for that chance. I wanted nothing more than to prove to him that I was just as capable as you of surviving that challenge.”
Blade slid him a sidelong glance. “Then you’re a fool.”
Drake said, “I won’t argue that with you. I was a fool for ever thinking that in your absence he’d grow fond of me and see me as the son he could be proud of.”
Why was this happening? This was not something he wanted to do, and he certainly didn’t want to do it now.
