CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LIGHT RIPPLED from the water outside the great globe of glass that served as the Council chambers. Submerged in the Meridian Sea, the globe was a place of beauty, calm and isolation. Or at least it used to be. Above the ocean surface, warships prowled the seas, and beneath the surface the Council was fighting for its political survival.
Caina’s high-collared gown swept behind her as she followed her father, also dressed in formal attire. He had aged the year since her mother’s death and Joshua’s disappearance, his mouth more sunken and his eyes shadowed by grief.
Their footsteps echoed against the curved glass walls. Fish flickered into view and disappeared into the dark blue water.
She stepped up to the dais to face the Council, and closed her cold hands. She and her father might be the only ones to appear before the Council in this empty chamber today, but they were being watched by millions across the two galaxies. In a way, standing together in the ethereal loneliness of this place felt very much like what they had been doing for a year, taking one step at a time, alone, together.
Always, there was a sense that she and her father moved around the empty space where the two other people in their family should be. Caina didn’t dare to reminisce about what life had been like before the Nostekoi came. The bitter hole that ate away at her would grow and consume her if she wallowed in the magical fantasyland that her past had become.
At first, when her father had petitioned the Council on Joshua’s behalf, it had taken months for anyone to respond. Eventually, a beleaguered council staff member had informed her father that there were so many appeals for assistance across the galaxy that the Council had been overwhelmed. Then came the string of Council assassinations that rocked planetary alliances and crippled the Council’s ability to function. Even more insidious, some of the colonists were joining the Nostekoi. From a shroud of secrecy, rumors of a desire for a military began to surface, along with stories of the alien attacks on galaxies outside Castor and Pollux. Split second vids of survivors barricading themselves against an unseen enemy circulated, though no one knew if the vids were real.
Castellan headed the Council, an older man with a soft jowl and a balding head. He’d survived two attempts on his life, and though he should rightfully be able to retire, his familiar face gave the Council much needed stability. He stood at the head of the circle of twenty-five holopads, where the images of most of the representatives flickered. There were only four physically present.
When she and her father were in the center of the dais, Castellan addressed them.
“Stewart West, you have come here on behalf of the Remington Colony and your family to contest your resignation. Your claim that it was offered under duress has been accepted by the Steppen Bio-Analysis Accord.”
Her father’s petition had been submitted to a biotech attorney, and the attorney’s analysis had been forwarded to the Council. Lies and truth were a matter of science, not artful debate. Biotechnology had revolutionized legal proceedings a century ago. The analysis was less about what her father had said, and more about the physical readings that either testified that her father spoke the truth or he did not.
The current premier of Remington, probably appointed by the shadowy Nostekoi, ignored the Council’s court summons and refused to attend the hearing.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” her father replied.
Castellan’s rheumy eyes fixed on him. “As you are aware, before you lost your wife and son to the Nostekoi, other premiers were being coerced into relinquishing their properties through similar extortion and murder. There are no colonies that have escaped this crude tactic.” Castellan continued, and Caina knew he wasn’t just speaking to them, but to the billions of colonists waiting to hear the Council’s verdict.
“Our political system has been stolen from us. If we do not act now to deny the validity of these machinations, there will be no governing body, no Council, no planetary unity to rely on in the face of the tyranny that has claimed our laws and our rights. For ages we’ve had the freedom to choose how we wish to be governed, but that will end if we don’t fight. For the first time, the Council is advocating military action.”
Her heart beat faster as she looked over at her father. She didn’t know why the Council had chosen the West petition as the call for war, or if she even wanted that kind of notoriety.
Castellan turned his gaze to the view of the Council on the large screen. From the articulate grace of Simon Cast, president of Licentia to the hot invective of young Skeel, grandson of the communist Czar on Tesla, all of them had debated the war for months. The hush was more than just audible; she could feel it prickle the back of her neck.
Castellan nodded his head. “Signify.”
It did not take long. Twenty-five lights lit up the dais. A mechanical voice confirmed, “The decision is unanimous.”
They had no other choice, Caina knew. As it was, the Council barely existed. The extortion cancer had spread deep into the heart of the twenty-five colonial planets. They either fought the Nostekoi or surrendered their authority.
She turned to her father, and he took her hand. The warm gesture did not reach his distant gaze, however. She recognized the familiar attempt to comfort her when he had no comfort to give. She’d done the same for him many times. Though the Council had finally found the backbone necessary to save itself, she and her father were already casualties of a war before it had begun.
When the session concluded, some of the Council representatives made a request to speak with Caina’s father. Standing next to Simon Cast, who was present through a holograph, her father first spoke to Castellan.
“Whatever I can do, I will.”
Castellan put a wrinkled hand on her father’s arm. “Stewart, we wouldn’t dare ask anything from you if we weren’t in these circumstances. But I do have a request—we need your leadership on a new commission of colony holders, those that are left.”
Her father opened his hands. “I am at your service. My resources vary from day to day, as you know, but I would like to help.”
The battle over the West fortune had split the financial community. There was a vast amount of monetary resources, but no one was sure who it belonged to. Some of the banks were denying the Council’s claim to authority, choosing to side with the Nostekoi, some of them possibly already owned by the organization. Only a portion of the West fortune was available to her family. They’d been living with her cousins while their bank accounts fluctuated between nearly nothing and its staggering former sum.
Simon spoke up, his gaze sincere. “Stewart, the Licentia colony has agreed to honor your financial accounts as they were before the Nostekoi came. We wanted you to know that. You have a home with us, if you wish.”
Caina looked over at her father. They’d talked about someday going back to Remington, when it was safe, but Licentia’s offer was generous.
“Thank you, Simon. I’m not sure what I’m doing, but that means a lot to me.”
An elegant woman in a flowing purple gown swept into their conversation. Her dark skin was accentuated by lavender makeup, her lips a dark pink. Caina recognized her as Zerina, the new premier for Apollux.
“I understand how much courage it took for you to stand with the Alliance.” Though Apollux was now owned by the Nostekoi in a legal sense, the Council fought back by appointing new premiers. Few of the old premiers wanted to endanger their families by defying the Nostekoi. The new ones like Zerina were taking a serious risk.
“I can say the same for you,” Caina’s father said. “My son and daughter stayed on your colony at one of your medical clinics for a brief time when the Nostekoi first took over the Remington colony. Your colony’s hospitality to him will not be forgotten. “
Zerina shook her head. “I cannot take credit. The compassion of the Arin Medical staff is their own. They’re already sending some of the staff to the Council military. At least, while they can. We know it is only a matter of time before the Nostekoi take everything. We’ll hold out as long as we can.”
Her father looked tired. “I don’t know how an army of that size could have developed with such secrecy. How did no one know?”
Castellan shrugged. “It answers the question we never asked. If you believe evil no longer exists, you stop building walls. All of us thought that because we didn’t build walls then we wouldn’t need them.”
Zerina shook her head. “If we doubted it, we know it now. Monsters are real.”
One month after the Council’s declaration of war on the Nostekoi, Caina put on her uniform for the first time. She made the decision to be a soldier in the Alliance military against her father’s advice, but she needed to fight. The choice for most of those who could serve was easy, though there was still an alarming number that slipped away to find the Nostekoi. Colonies reeled with defections.
A few weeks into training, rain beat down on the windows of her barracks as she prepared for the usual morning run with everyone else.
Her new, temporary home used to be a hangar for luxury craft construction, but it had been turned into barracks. The women’s quarters were partitioned off from the men’s by lightweight plasticrete walls. Her fingernails were blue from the chill. Organizing this many soldiers so quickly had proved a logistical challenge, one of them being makeshift barracks and equipment that didn’t always work, like heating systems.
She stepped into her boots and stamped her heel in. The other women around her were making similar preparations, some of them bantering with one another.
The commanding officer barked out a call for attention, hastening the activity to leave the barracks. She joined the ranks lined up at the entrance of the hangar. In one of the many lines, Brian and Geoff stood at attention. They’d never said anything about it, but she knew her cousins had probably requested her squadron to keep an eye on her.
Geoff did it in his usual taciturn manner, as if he just happened to be in the same squadron. He almost managed to look surprised when he met her during orientation. Slightly taller than average with wiry hair and a bony build, he was a quiet young man who did not attract much attention.
Brian didn’t bother with pretense, openly admitting that he was there to watch over her. They’d been there at her mother’s funeral, Brian steadfastly at her side, filling in the space where Joshua would have been.
The doors to the hangar opened, and she followed the rest of the barracks out into the rain. Her boots hit the tarmac, splashing through the occasional puddle. In the distance, a few trees stood at the edge of the airfield, and long green grass bowed in the rain. It had been raining since she arrived, the weather cold and gloomy.
A pair of footsteps marched in cadence with her own. She looked across at Brian. His pale hair was shaved short, his forehead white where his long hair used to lay. His dark blue gaze caught hers for a moment, a sad, teasing glint as he mimicked her run. He could have passed her easily, but he ran at her side.
She let herself smile back at him, a drop of water sliding between her lips and to her tongue. She picked up her pace, moving past another girl.
Brian kept the same tempo, even edging ahead of her a little. He had to shorten his strides, his long legs outreaching hers.
Being a dancer had some advantages, though. Other than a lean body, her slight frame concealed a capacity for endurance. She could afford to go a little faster if she wanted. She moved ahead of him, passing someone else. Before she knew it she was ahead of all the women, her breath still coming easily.
She stretched out her legs and pushed herself to lengthen her stride. What should have been drudgery felt like release. Reckless with the energy uncoiling in her muscles, she sprinted ahead of Brian, her eyes fixed on the steady figure of Geoff. His head was bent into the rain, his shoulders rounded with the effort of fighting the weather. His gait was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen, but his long legs ate up distances with surprising speed.
Water ran down the back of her neck as she sprinted forward, her thin jumpsuit clinging to her legs. Footsteps matched her own, but she did not look back to find Brian. She knew he was beside her.
Geoff’s dark eyes slid over to her as she caught up with him, her lungs burning now. She slowed to his pace, though it wasn’t slow enough for her to fully catch her breath. She ran in tandem with Geoff, Brian on her other side. As their feet pounded together she got lost in the rhythm. She couldn’t hear her own footsteps anymore. Her feet hit the ground with theirs. Suddenly, she realized the constant loneliness she felt had been replaced by a sense of belonging. Tears stung her eyes, though she wasn’t sure why. Shouldn’t she feel as if she belonged, as least sometimes?
She licked the tears off her lips as if they were rain, swallowing the salty taste. She had to slow her pace, unable to breathe. Two bodies slowed with her, their steps losing her unsteady cadence for only a brief moment before finding it again.
On the last mile, her mind went as numb as her legs. At the end of the run, she bent down over her knees, breathing hard.
“Not bad,” Brian said, as breathless as she was. “For a girl.”
She smiled, wiping the water from her eyes. “That’s no way to talk about your brother.”
Geoff’s stern face cracked slightly, his lips turning in a smile.
Their commanding officer barked out a time limit for showers as they headed inside the hangar.
“There better be hot water,” Brian said.
“We’ve had hot water ever since we got here,” Caina pointed out. “So if there isn’t any today, I’m coming after you, Jinx-Boy.”
“I’m just saying…” Brian said.
Fortunately Brian’s fears were unfounded. The women’s shower room was filled with steam. Caina let the scalding hot water run over her chilled skin. She scrubbed at her long hair. She’d thought about cutting it, but if she ever saw Cristian again, she wanted him to be able to recognize her. Plus her mother had always loved her long hair. She washed the soap out of her hair, running the wet strands through her fingers. There was no reason to hope that Cristian was still alive, but she could not reconcile herself to a life without his return.
And if he did…she gave in to the few seconds of fantasy. He would step out of the Suki, standing in the light between night and day, and his eyes would find her. He would hold her tight against him until she couldn’t breathe. And the way he kissed her…it would be the same as it was on the beach. She turned the water off and stepped out of the warmth, grabbing her towel off the hook next to the shower. Her mind made him so real she almost felt as if he were there. Hope might be ridiculous, but it made her feel alive. Despair didn’t do anything but make her tired.
She wrapped the towel around her and stepped under the dryer, shaking her hair out. When it was dry, she dressed in the thick khaki jumpsuit that was the standard uniform, and twisted her hair behind her neck.
As the women all left the plasticrete partitions for the dining hall at the other end of the hangar, no one asked her to sit with them. They had at first, but she always sat with Geoff and Brian. She wondered if it was a mistake. She didn’t mean to close herself off from them, but her inner life seemed to take up everything. Geoff and Brian were okay with her silence.
Standing in line next to her, Geoff slid a tray in her direction. She caught it lazily, glancing up at him. He took a hot bowl of grain cereal and passed it to her, taking two for himself. Brian cut in line between them, his feet sliding on the floor and hitting the counter.
Geoff reached out a lanky arm and nabbed a tray for his brother. “You’re late.”
“Writing to my girlfriend,” Brian said, taking two bowls of cereal.
Caina dispensed a generous helping of sugar into her bowl. She liked it sweet. “Which one?”
“Shannon and Tonya. They’re my favorites—they write back right away.”
Caina wasn’t so sure either of the girls took Brian that seriously. Collecting servicemen was rapidly turning into a new fad for young girls. The more they wrote to the better.
Brian’s wrist cell vibrated on his arm, and he grinned, flipping it around so they could see the message light. “Shannon. She misses me.”
“Good morning,” a familiar, authoritative voice came from behind them.
The three of them turned around to look at the older man. Caina recognized the principal of Sterling Academy, President Lenoir. He’d since been promoted to a colonel in the gathering new forces of the Council military. “Aren’t you Caina West?”
“Yes, sir.”
His weathered face softened. “I’m sorry about your mother and Joshua. Your brother was extraordinary.”
She felt a stab of pride and pain. “Yes, he was. Thank you.”
He glanced at Geoff and Brian. “These are your cousins?”
Geoff answered for her, his voice rusty. “Yes, sir.”
“Your commanding officers have recommended all of you for accelerated training. Would you be willing to participate in a new program on Hades?”
Caina could not speak for the boys, but she was thrilled at the idea. “I’d be honored, sir.”
Geoff and Brian spoke at the same time. “So would we.”
“Excellent.” The former principal clapped a surprisingly hearty hand on Brian’s arm. “We leave in two days.”