Dark Space: Avilon (25 page)
Read Dark Space: Avilon Online
Authors: Jasper T. Scott
Tags: #Children's Books, #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Alien Invasion, #Cyberpunk, #First Contact, #Galactic Empire, #Military, #Space Fleet, #Space Opera, #Children's eBooks, #Metaphysical & Visionary, #Science Fiction
She hurried from the room, passing quickly down the dark hallway leading to their quarters.
“Excuse me, Captain,” Atton said. “I need to go say goodbye.”
“I understand.”
Atton hurried after Ceyla. In the hallway he noticed more abstract light paintings like the ones they’d seen in the mansion on the top level of Destiny Tower. Unlike those ones, which he’d seen as a series of smiling, joyous faces, these paintings depicted lurid scenes of naked bodies writhing in ecstasy. Atton eyed them curiously. Destiny Tower had been built with Avilonian children in mind, not adults. It seemed inappropriate to put such paintings here.
He wondered where Ceyla had gone, and his ARC display obligingly pointed the way by showing which rooms were occupied and which ones were not. Only one of the rooms was occupied, and he could actually see Ceyla through the nearest wall, painted as a bright blue silhouette. She was sitting down, her head in her hands.
Atton frowned as he stopped before the door. He was about to knock, but the door
swished
open for him. Ceyla sat on the edge of the nearest bed, her face buried in her hands, sobbing quietly.
She didn’t even look up as he approached. Maybe she hadn’t heard him come in. “Ceyla?” he asked as he sat down beside her.
She flinched and looked up suddenly. Then recognition flashed in her bloodshot eyes. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I wanted to know if you’re okay.”
“Of course I’m not okay! Atton, why? Why are you so ready to throw your life away?”
He shook his head. “We don’t know that’s what I’ll be doing.”
“
I
do. We could have been so happy,” she said, shaking her head.
“We?” He took her hand and held it between both of his. “I didn’t realize you had feelings for me,” he said, swallowing thickly past that lie.
“Don’t be a skriff, of course I do! You’re not like the others, Atton. You pretend not to care, but you do. Iceman . . .”
She snorted, shaking her head as she recalled his call sign. “You saved my life up there. I’ll never forget that.”
It felt like forever ago. During the battle over Avilon he’d chosen to rescue her instead of his own wingmate, Gina Giord. Gina had subsequently succumbed to enemy fire and died, while Ceyla had punched out and lived. Atton remembered looking into the accusing eyes of Gina’s clone, and he shuddered.
“Ceyla, I—”
She didn’t let him finish that sentence. Instead she pulled him close and kissed him. Her tongue forced his lips open and her hands ran quickly through his hair, raking over his shoulders and back. Before he knew what was happening, she’d pulled open his Celestial Robes and pushed him flat against the bed where they were sitting. She crawled on top of him, still kissing him. He reveled in the sweet fragrance of her breath and lost himself in a sea of bliss that had nothing to do with drugs.
Then something occurred to him, and his eyes opened and flicked sideways to the door where he’d come in. There were at least half a dozen other beds in the room, and someone else could come in at any moment.
“Ceyla . . .” He began to object.
But she shook her head and pulled open her own robes. He gaped at her for a moment, suddenly distracted by the sight of her half-naked body.
Her lips and tongue met with his once more. The heat of her kisses and the salty tang of her tears were electrifying. Before he knew it, he’d rolled her over and he was kissing
her.
His hands fumbled to remove her underwear beneath her robes. Then their naked bodies met, finding each other with surprising familiarity, as if they used to be one and were only now returning to that state after a long time apart. It wasn’t what he’d expected.
It was better. Ceyla gasped and her eyes rolled as he went in. For a moment he thought she was in pain, but she silenced his objections with a fierce kiss, biting his lip and running her hands through his hair once more.
Time ceased to have all meaning and Atton lost himself in her, for the moment forgetting about The Choosing, the Sythians, Omnius, Avilon . . . everything. In that moment he would have given anything just to be with her, like this, forever. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice insisted that he could, and that he already knew what to do in order to have her with him for eternity.
Atton smiled as her body arched against his and the world exploded in bright streaks of light. Her nails scratched fiery lines down his back, and then they lay together breathless and spent.
“I love you, Atton,” she whispered in his ear.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. He felt something powerful stirring inside of him, but was that love?
He wasn’t even sure he knew what love was yet, but he said it anyway, and after that, they made love again. Dinner was forgotten, and the night—or day, Atton wasn’t sure which—stretched out endlessly with the two of them caught up in the novelty of one another until they were too exhausted to do anything but lie in each other’s arms. Ceyla fell asleep with her head on his chest, and Atton lay staring up at the ceiling, trying to work out a way that he could convince her to join him in Etheria.
Maybe she won’t need convincing,
he thought.
Maybe I’m enough.
* * *
That night Ethan went to bed with a heavy heart and an empty stomach. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Atton that he’d lost his appetite, but it wasn’t just because of Atton’s choice. He was secretly even more worried about Alara’s.
She hadn’t spoken much since the tour had ended, and they’d eaten dinner in silence. He remembered at some point noticing that Atton and Ceyla didn’t join them, but he was also smart enough to know why. Ceyla was using the one thing she had left to sway Atton’s decision, and Ethan wasn’t about to let anyone interfere with that. He’d noted which door they’d both taken, and hinted to the others that that room should be off limits until Atton and Ceyla worked out their differences.
Ethan hoped it worked, but now he had to worry about a more immediate concern. Neither he nor Alara had spoken about what was coming, and they were out of time to make up their minds. Rovik had come in at the end of dinner to remind them all that they would be making their choices early tomorrow morning.
Now Ethan was desperate to know what Alara’s choice would be. He watched her go to bathroom and take a shower. Once again, because they were married they’d been assigned a private room. When Alara returned from the bathroom, he was sitting up on the bed, waiting for her.
“Hey there beautiful,” he said.
She shot him a wry grin. “Not tonight.”
“What, just because a guy compliments you, you automatically assume he’s after something?”
“I just know my husband. A brick could fall on your head and you’d still be trying your luck.”
Ethan grinned. “Only with you, darling.”
“Better be, otherwise I’ll be the one dropping that brick.”
Ethan chuckled and smiled as she climbed into bed next to him. “You’re the best wife a man could ever have.”
“Really? I’m your second.”
“Exactly, so I should know what I’m talking about.”
“You always have the right answers.”
“Yeah . . . I do. Mostly. I hate to spoil the mood—especially when I’m about to get lucky for being so damned charming—but there is one answer I don’t have that I could really use right now.”
“What’s that?”
“What are you going to do tomorrow?”
Alara arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re not seriously asking me that.”
“I am.”
“What are
you
going to choose?” she countered.
“I asked first.”
“Fine. I already know what you’re going to do, and you’re right. I know you’re right, but I’m scared. I want what’s best for our daughter, and I want that so badly that I can’t really think about myself, or even us, but when she turns eight she’ll have to decide for herself anyway.”
“So . . .”
“So, I’m not leaving you, Ethan. Not now, not ever. We made promises to each other, remember? I can’t leave you for a better life in Etheria any more than I could leave my own skin.”
“Actually, you
can
leave your—”
She stopped him with an upraised hand. “I know, not the best analogy.”
He smiled tightly, touched by her commitment to him. “You and me, Kiddie,” he said, grabbing her hand.
“You, me, and Trinity,” she replied, placing his hand on her belly.
Ethan lay back with a sigh, his hand still on her belly. “We’re going to be okay, Kiddie. I promise. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“I know,” she said, and turned out the lights with a verbal command. She rolled over and he wrapped his arm around her, molding his body to hers.
As they fell asleep, Ethan wondered whether she was agreeing that everything would be okay, or that he would do whatever it took to make things okay. Then he began wondering whether he would be able to keep that promise . . .
His thoughts floated away in a dreamy haze, and he saw Alara in his mind’s eye, naked and beckoning. Some part of him absently noted that it was a dream, but for once it wasn’t one of Omnius’s instructional nightmares, so he decided to go with it. Besides, the way things were going, he wasn’t about to find another time to be with his wife.
Alara straddled him on the bed, and he found her breasts in his hands. She kissed his lips passionately and he kissed back, but by the time she withdrew, he saw that it wasn’t Alara straddling him, but some other woman. She was unusually stunning, with hair like black silk and bright turquoise eyes, the color of a tropical sea, but she wasn’t his wife.
Ethan’s eyes grew wide with horror at that realization. He shook his head quickly. “Get off,” he managed.
The other woman’s lips curved wryly. “Why? Don’t pretend you don’t like it.” She kissed him again. A part of him surrendered to it, but then he found the strength to resist once more, and pushed her off.
She began laughing. “It’s too late to push me away now. Alara will never forgive you.”
Ethan had to restrain himself from slapping the grin off that woman’s face. He’d never hit a woman before, but in that moment, he was sorely tempted.
Suddenly she was back on top of him as if she’d teleported there. She pressed her body against his in all the right places, and he tried once more to resist, but this time he found that his body wouldn’t obey his commands.
Instead, he focused on waking up, using his outrage and indignation to do so, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t open his eyes.
The woman smiled, as if she knew she’d won. “You like it, don’t you?” she asked. “I told you.”
Ethan was unable to deny that, but he hated himself for it, and he hated her even more. At last, just before he might have enjoyed himself too much, he woke up and lay staring up at the ceiling, feeling enraged and violated, bathed in a cold sweat, and painfully aroused.
As he lay there, a quiet voice ran through his head,
I told you you would cheat.
Chapter 20
D
estra arrived at the captain’s office with Atta in tow. The guards standing there moved to block her way as she approached—yet another sign of Covani’s defiance.
“I’d like to see the captain, please,” she said.
The guard looked uncomfortable, and his eyes briefly flicked to Atta, perhaps noting the presence of a child as something out of place. Destra in turn noted that he was a high-ranking sentinel, a master sergeant.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he said. “The captain asked not to be disturbed. And you should be on your way to the . . .” He trailed off and glanced at Atta again. “Well, I’m sure you know the way,” he finished. Destra realized he was sparing her daughter the knowledge that they were going into hibernation, and maybe never coming out.
Destra loomed closer to the pair of guards. The master sergeant held his ground. “You realize I’m your superior, not to mention the captain’s. I give the orders here.”
“With respect, Ma’am, you are a civilian and have no rank.”
“You and I both know that civilian branches of authority command the fleet. At least they did until recently.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Times change.”
“One person should not be solely responsible for commanding the last remnant of humanity,” she insisted.
The sergeant took a breath and shook his head. “The command structure is clear, and my duty is clear.”
“At least let me in to speak with him. If the captain doesn’t change his mind, what’s the worst that could happen? You can’t be court-martialed. We’re short enough on active personnel as it is.”
“I could be sent . . . with you, Ma’am.”
“So that’s it? You’re afraid? I can see this military dictatorship is already working nicely.”
The sergeant pressed his lips into a firm line and hesitated. His eyes darted to Atta and back again. “Make it quick. He orders me to take you out, and I will. But I’d rather not make a scene in front of your daughter, Ma’am.”
“Fair enough.”
“I have to search you first.”
She nodded and submitted to a pat down search as well as a thorough scan with a wand. After that, both sentinels stepped aside, and the sergeant keyed the doors open by waving his wrist across the scanner.
The doors
swished
open, revealing Captain Covani sitting in the dark behind a big, glossy black table. A holomap was rising from that table, bathing him and the room in a cold blue light.
“Covani,” she said.
He looked up with a scowl. “What is she doing in here? I told you no interruptions! Take her to the stasis rooms!” Belatedly he seemed to notice Atta standing there, looking scared, and he frowned. “Mrs Ortane, please take your daughter and head below decks to the med bay.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you’ve heard me.”
“Then talk fast,” Covani growled.
“You’re treading on dangerous territory. Maybe you think you’re best suited to leading us to safety, and maybe you’re right, but what about the man or woman who takes your place? And the one after that? You’re dismantling representative government, and with it, our foundation for the future.”
“I’m not the power-hungry dictator you seem to think I am. As soon as we’ve found a place to settle, we will establish a proper government to take my place.”
“Power is addictive. You would be better off making provisions for that government now.”
The captain shook his head. “I won’t cloud all of our decisions by subjecting them to debate. Just one wrong move could be the end of us. Emergency war measures exist for a reason, Councilor. You will be reinstated to help set up the new government as soon as there is room for one.”
“You need your advisers now more than ever, Captain.”
“Really? You want us to go to Noctune and save the Gors! I can’t think of a more foolish way to squander our resources and our chances of survival! Yes, let’s use humanity’s dying breath to help the species that drove us to extinction.”
“The Gors are as much the victims of this war as we are. But I think we can agree to a compromise. Let’s set up a colony and
then
send the
Baroness.
We’ll go
as soon as we can afford to spare her.”
“We don’t have the fuel for a two way trip.”
“The Gors do, if we re-allocate some of it. Their ships run on dymium, too.”
“The dymium they use would take refining.”
“To make it more efficient, not to make it work for our purposes.”
“We could lose the only vessel we have to defend ourselves—not to mention the only advanced technology we have left.”
“We have the Gors. An entire fleet of protection and advanced technology. If we abandon them, we’ll be on our own.”
“Yes. Exactly! Your mistake is assuming that’s a bad thing. What happens if the planet we find doesn’t have room and resources for both humans and Gors to co-exist? It’s more likely than not we’ll end up fighting each other, and they outnumber us badly. Let them go to Noctune. Maybe the Sythians will kill what’s left of them before they turn on us again.”
Destra gritted her teeth and shook her head. “You’re determined to do this your way.”
“I am.”
“Then I have nothing left to say.”
“You shouldn’t have wasted your breath to begin with.” The captain stabbed a button on the table and the doors
swished
open behind her. “Sergeant!”
Destra turned to see the sentinel she’d been speaking with a few minutes ago.
“Sir?”
“Please escort these two to the med bay. Make sure they are placed in hibernation safely. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to the councilor.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, stepping forward to take Destra by the arm and guide her out.
“I hope you don’t regret the decisions you’re making, Captain,” Destra said on her way out.
The doors
swished
shut behind them, and Atta began tugging on her other arm, making her presence known.
“Mom . . .”
“Yes, dear?”
“What’s stasis?”
Destra grimaced but quickly covered it with a bright smile, which she used to regard her daughter. “It’s like sleep, but better, because there are no nightmares in stasis.”
“Oh. Why don’t we always go to stasis then?”
“Because it’s harder to go into stasis than it is to go to sleep. We keep it for special occasions.”
“What’s special about now?”
“We’re celebrating the discovery of our new home.”
“Really? What’s it look like?”
“Nothing like here. There are forests and trees, rivers and lakes . . . Mountains. Blue skies and warm, sandy beaches.”
“Wow. Like on Karpathia?”
Destra smiled. Atta had grown up on starships her whole life until just recently. She’d gone to live on Karpathia with Destra when Hoff had appointed her as the planet’s high councilor, but their time on Karpathia had only lasted a few months before the Sythians had invaded again.
“Even better than Karpathia, sweetheart.”
“I want to see it!”
“I know, dear, but you can’t yet.”
“Why not?”
“We have to go into stasis first. When you wake up you’ll see it.”
“Okay!” Atta beamed. There was a bounce in her step that hadn’t been there before. The sergeant traded a grim smile with Destra as they reached a bank of lift tubes and waited for one to arrive. As soon as it did, Atta ran into the lift. Destra let go of her hand, giving Atta some time to get her energy out. She wouldn’t be able to bounce around while she was hibernating in a tube the size of a coffin.
The lift doors slid shut and the sentinel keyed in their destination. Looking out the small windows in the sides of the lift, she could see passing glow panels turning into blurry golden streaks as they raced down through the ship’s 18 decks.
“Will Daddy be there?” Atta asked suddenly.
Destra turned to Atta, momentarily shocked by the question. A scene of her husband’s execution flickered into her mind’s eye—him kneeling in the airlock, his battered face and bleeding lips twisted into a broken smile as he saluted the camera recording his death, and then the outer doors opened, and a sudden violent wind ripped him off the deck and he became nothing but a dwindling speck against the starry blackness of space. . . .
She shook herself out of the memory and fought back the tears that threatened to give her away. “I don’t know, darling,” she said, affecting a smile. “Daddy is on a very important mission. We don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“I miss him,” Atta said.
Destra nodded. “So do I.”
The lift came to a stop and the sergeant gently ushered them out. Ten minutes later they were being whisked through med bay and into the prep room for injections. Atta cried when she saw the needle. Destra had to hold her still for the corpsman. Atta screamed as the needle went in. Then they were ushered into one of the stasis rooms. Theirs was already crowded with at least a dozen others, all of them women. They were stripping naked and folding their clothes into neat piles for the attendants to place in nearby lockers. Then they lined up on both sides of the room in front of the stasis tubes and waited for the medic to finish configuring them.
Atta was still crying as she folded her clothes. She wasn’t old enough to mind much about stripping naked in front of a bunch of strangers. The sergeant who had escorted them was waiting outside the doors to the stasis room.
“Mom, w-why do we have to sleep naked?” Atta asked, shivering, as the female corpsman attending them took her pile of clothes. The stasis room was cold. They always were.
“Shhh. No more questions for a while, okay, sweetheart?”
The corpsman took Destra’s clothes next, and they were told to stand in line with the others. The medic in charge of configuring the stasis tubes guided the woman at the front of their line to an open tube.
Atta stepped out of line to watch. “We’re going to sleep in those?” she said, a slight tremor creeping into her voice. “Why don’t we get beds?”
“Because that’s how stasis works.”
“I don’t want to go to stasis anymore,” Atta said. “I’m going to sleep in my room.” Atta was already on her way to the exit, so determined to leave that she was going without her clothes.
Destra took a long step to catch her daughter by the arm. “Atta, you can’t leave, okay?”
“Let me go!”
Destra wrestled Atta back into line, and the female corpsman attending them suddenly reappeared, as if out of thin air.
“Is there a problem here?”
“Not at all.”
“I don’t want to go,” Atta said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I can give her an additional sedative,” the corpsman suggested, ignoring Atta.
“No, that’s okay.” Destra knew the risks. Too much sedative made waking up more disorienting and hibernation sickness more likely.
“Let me know,” the corpsman replied, sending Atta a dubious look as she left.
As soon as the corpsman’s back was turned, Atta tried to break free again, but Destra held her fast, squeezing Atta’s arms until her hands hurt. “Stop it.”
Atta settled for whimpering instead. They were almost at the back of the line, so it was a long wait. More people kept entering the room all the time, and soon they were at the front of another long line of women. When it was their turn to go, Destra insisted they take Atta first. She held her daughter’s hand as long as she could, only letting go as the transpiranium cover began to swing shut.
“I’m scared!” Atta cried. They’d used thick restraints to hold her in place, pinning her arms to her sides. Now she was trying desperately to wriggle out of them. “I don’t like stasis!”
“You’ll wake up soon, okay?”
Atta shook her head and went on struggling. The cover shut and Destra placed a hand against it as a poor substitute for real human contact. Then the medic pressed a button and cold gas began hissing into the stasis tube, frosting the transpiranium cover. Atta’s eyes rolled up in her head, and her body went limp.
“How long are we going in for?” Destra asked as the medic led her to the next tube in line and helped her inside. The medic buckled restraints over Destra’s naked legs and torso. The straps were padded, but cold, and she gasped as they touched her skin. When it appeared that the medic wasn’t going to answer her question, Destra repeated it.
“Indefinitely, Ma’am,” the medic said without looking up.
Destra gaped at her. “Indefinitely? That’s against fleet regulations!”
Her stasis tube cover began swinging shut with a slow groan, and Destra’s heart began pounding
hard
in her chest. Each beat felt labored as adrenaline fought the stasis preparation they’d injected into her bloodstream.
“Captain’s orders, Ma’am. We don’t know when we’ll arrive, and we can’t risk people waking up too soon. Ma’am . . . please try to relax. Your vitals are spiking dangerously.”
“Relax! How dare you tell me to . . .” She trailed off as a wave of dizziness and exhaustion swept over her.
The cover of the stasis tube met the frame with a muffled
thud
. Destra glared at the medic as she pressed the button. Close beside her ears came a hiss of frigid gas, and she shivered despite the pleasant numbness that was already creeping through her. Destra felt an overpowering urge to shut her eyes and sleep, but she fought against it as long as she could.