Bringing Stella Home (30 page)

“
Hameji warships, Ensign,”
she said. “Don’t worry; we’ll be careful not to provoke them.
Right, Ayvazyan?”

“
They’ll never see us
coming,” said Ilya.

“
What about Ben and
Stella?” James asked. “How long will it take to find
them?”

I doubt we ever
will,
thought Danica. Instead, she turned
to Ilya. “Well, Ayvazyan?”

“
Just give me a couple
hours,” he muttered. “If they’re alive, I’ll find them.”

“
Good. Sikorsky, keep your
eye on those warships. If anything seems fishy to you, let me know
at once.”

“
Yes, Captain.”

Danica slipped on a headset and pulled
the microphone to her mouth as she typed commands on the keyboard
in front of her. “I’m opening a channel to the port authority,” she
announced. “All hands, stand by.”

Static briefly filled the air,
followed by silence. A red light blinked on her main console,
indicating that the transmission was live.

“
Kardunash
IV
,” she said, “this is the
Catriona
, requesting to
dock for fuel and supplies, over.”

Out of mental habit, she
counted the seconds for the return transmission.
Five, six, seven…

“
Roger,
Catriona
, this is K-4 port
authority,” came a voice over the main speaker on the bridge. “We
read you loud and clear. Docking space is available in our main
bay. Please transmit your flight plans for confirmation of
approach.”

Danica glanced at Ilya and nodded
once. He returned the gesture.

“
Transmitting our flight
plans now.”

Two, three, four,
five…

“
We’ve got a connection,”
said Ilya. “Mole successfully embedded. I’m mapping the Hameji
network now.”

“
What do you see so
far?”

“
They’ve got a couple
firewalls, some high level encryption going on, but nothing I can’t
crack in a couple days. Frankly, I’m surprised their security
measures are so poor.”

That’s because only an
idiot would try what we’re doing,
Danica
thought silently to herself.
That’s why
we’re going to get away with it.

“
How large is the
network?”

“
Hard to say,” said Ilya.
“From the looks of it, though, I’m guessing it’s
system-wide.”

“
Does that mean they’re
here?” James blurted.

“
We don’t know yet,
Ensign,” said Danica. “Ayvazyan, I want you working on this round
the clock. Find what we need as soon as you can, and remove any
trace that you were there.”

“
Gotcha.”

“
We’ll be at port no longer
than forty-eight hours,” she said glancing at Anya to make sure she
heard as well. “I want a skeleton crew on the ship at all times,
and anyone going off-ship must leave their weapons
behind.”

“
What if they’re on one of
those ships?” James asked, frowning. “What then?”

“
We follow our scheduled
itinerary until I decide otherwise.”

“
But if—”

“
No
‘if
’
s,
Ensign. We don’t go in until we have a solid plan of action. If
that means flying halfway to Kardunash III before turning around to
get them, so be it.”

James’s face fell. He bit his lip and
stared at the screens.

Reckless,
Danica thought to herself.
That boy wouldn’t last a day if he were trying this on his
own.
Then again, even with her help, there
was no guarantee that things would work out for him. She only hoped
that when it was over, all of her men were still alive.

* * * * *

The rhythmic march soothed the
collective pathos of the platoon. Still, the boy without a name
felt a lingering hint of anxiety that their unity could not pacify.
Today’s march was not a routine exercise; it was
different.

They assembled in the main hall at the
bow of the training ship. The magnificent observation windows
offered a stunning view of the brilliant deep-space starfield,
though no one bothered to admire it. Without thinking, they formed
ranks, moving as a single unit. None of them so much as
fidgeted.

Sergeant Voche marched up to the
front. He turned smartly, his razor thin beard sharply outlining
his long chin and narrow face. The boy watched him out of the
corner of his eyes as he and his brethren waited anxiously for the
sergeant to speak.

“
Soldiers of the Red
Dragon,” Voche bellowed, “when you came to us, you were broken and
dejected. We stripped you of your weakness and turned you into men.
We taught you how to fight and gave you back your honor. Now, you
stand together, perfectly united—ready to defeat any enemy that may
face you!”

A tremor of excitement passed through
them all. The boy without a name felt tears come to his
eyes.

“
As you begin your first
tour of duty in the Hameji Empath Corps,” Voche continued,
“remember that the enemy fears you more than you fear them, for
they are weak and disunited. You are stronger than them. Victory
over the weak is your destiny—it is the destiny of all
Hameji!”

The boy lifted up his fist and let out
a tremendous war cry. His voice mingled in unison with those of his
platoon brothers, who soon followed suit. The sound of their
combined voices resounded throughout the hall, echoing off of the
star-filled windows.

Your first tour of
duty,
he thought with eager anticipation.
He could hardly wait to begin.

* * * * *

James walked alone down the main
thoroughfare of the station, drifting down the nearly empty street
in a state of shock. Most of the other mercenaries were back at the
docks, touring the bars and brothels. James, of course, had no
interest in any of that. He wanted to see the devastation of war
for himself—to see if it was actually real.

It was.

The upscale commercial district was in
utter shambles. The once-bustling street filled with hundreds of
small shops and boutiques was now all but deserted. Garbage,
shattered glass, and broken merchandise lay strewn about the
ground. The shops were all boarded up, with gaping holes in the
doors and windows where the looters had gotten through. Black
scorch marks streaked some of the walls, while specks of dried
blood could be seen in places, mingled with the garbage and debris.
The enormous lights hanging from the station’s skyroof barely
illuminated the scene. Several of them had been blown out in the
chaos, and the few that remained now flickered haphazardly, giving
the neighborhood an eerie twilight feel.

The few remaining people in this part
of the station either huddled in the alleys or slouched along the
walls. They stared at him with dark, suspicious eyes as he passed
them.

James swallowed hard and walked
faster. It all felt surreal, like something from a bad dream.
Kardunash IV, the Colony, and now this station—all the universe was
falling to pieces around him, and he couldn’t do anything about
it.

No,
he told himself,
I can do something.
I can save Ben and Stella.

“
Spare a little food, sir?”
said a woman near the side of the road. She stepped in front of his
path, forcing him to stop. “Please, just a little
something?”

“
I’m sorry,” said James,
holding up his hands. His father had always told him not to give to
beggars.

The woman fell to her knees and
started weeping. “Please,” she cried, “I have two daughters who are
starving—they took my husband—we can’t afford passage—”

James bit his lip and reluctantly
reached into his pocket. “Just a second,” he said, “I might have
something—”

“
Is it food?” the woman
asked, her eyes lighting up.

James pulled out a cash datachip,
loaded with about twenty Gaian credits. “Here,” he said, offering
it to her. “It’s not much, but it should buy you at
least—”

The woman took it and threw it to the
ground. “Twenty credits?” she shrieked. “I can’t buy a packet of
cereal for that!”

“
What are you talking
about?” James asked. About a dozen people began to gather from the
broken shops and alleys, curious to see what was going
on.

“
Just an energy bar,” the
woman said, grabbing James’s leg. “Just that much—it’s all I
ask.”

James shook her off and stepped back,
glancing nervously around him. The crowd of beggars had him
surrounded now, and soon they would converge on him. They eyed him
hungrily, the same desperate look on their faces.

“
I don’t have any food,” he
told them. “I just have a little money—take my money!”

“
Can’t eat money,” grunted
the nearest one, a young man with a scar across his cheek. He
stepped closer.

“
Look,” said James, “let’s
not do anything hasty. I—”

“
He’s from the docks,”
shouted another. “He’s got food!”

“
No I don’t,” James
shrieked. “I don’t, I swear!”

“
He’s lying!”

James balled his hands into fists and
darted forward, striking the person closest to him with a punch to
the face. The blow connected with a sickening crunch, and the
victim—a young, half-starved woman barely older than Stella—fell to
the ground with a moan.

James stared down at her and instantly
felt ashamed of himself. In another time and place, she could have
been a well-off stationer’s daughter. Her clothes—a brown,
embroidered tunic with a wide leather belt—betrayed her
middle-class background. Before the invasion, she would have
frequented these avenues as a regular customer at the small
boutiques. Now, her clothes tattered and dirty, she—

“
You hit her!” the voice
called out. “Why did you hit her? What did she—”

“
Stand back!” James
shouted, spinning around. The beggars shrieked in fright and gave
him his space.

“
I don’t want to hurt you,”
James pleaded with them. “Just let me through.”

They stood just out of range, but none
of them ran away.

“
I don’t have what you’re
looking for,” James shrieked. “I don’t have anything!”

“
We don’t believe
you.”

“
I don’t care. Let me
go!”

“
What if we
don’t?”

James raised his fists and tried to
ignore the sweat on the back of his neck. Alone, he could destroy
any one of them, but together, he didn’t know what would happen.
Maybe, if he let go like Danica had told him—but he’d have to
strike first, and strike hard. The half-starved girl lying on the
ground was just the first casualty of many.

Before either side could strike,
however, the sound of marching boots came from down the street. The
beggars scattered for the alleys, leaving James alone. As they
cleared, he caught sight of a squad of black-clad Hameji soldiers
headed straight for him, weapons drawn and in their
hands.

A surge of panic rushed through him,
and he took cover behind a dead tree on the side of the road. From
there, he watched as the soldiers marched double-quick down the
street. To his relief, they passed him by without even giving him a
glance.

James soon realized that the soldiers
were escorting someone of high importance: an officer in a gray
uniform riding a hoverbike. From his vantage point, he got a good
look at the Hameji officer. His face was dark, his beard thick and
black. His eyes were narrowed, mouth turned slightly down. His eyes
were a deep hazel that blended in with the black of his pupils,
giving him the appearance of an animal.

If I had a gun, I could
kill this man,
James realized, adrenaline
still flowing from the confrontation with the beggars. His muscles
tightened, and the hair on his arms prickled upward. All it would
take was a shot to the head.

The officer and his guard soon passed,
the sound of their boots fading off into the distance. Slowly, the
natives slunk out from the alleys and byways. Before the beggars
could return for him, James ran as hard as he could, heart pounding
as sweat dribbled down his forehead, into his eyes. The sounds of
shouting and pursuit followed him a short distance, but they were
too late to catch him. He ran until he was almost half a mile
away.

As he stopped to catch his
breath, Danica’s words echoed in his mind.
Have you ever killed a man? Do you think you ever
could?
James fingered the empty holster on
his belt and wondered what would have happened if he had been
armed. Would he have killed the beggar girl instead of punching
her? Would he have taken the shot at the Hameji officer?

If you want to fight a
wolf, you have to become one.

James turned and ran down the
refuse-ridden street towards the docks. Running helped distract him
somewhat, but still his questions tortured him. The worst part of
it all was not knowing what he would have done.