Bringing Stella Home (52 page)

“
But she’s not coming
home.”

Danica didn’t answer right away. James
cried quietly for a few moments, until he got a hold of himself. He
rubbed his eyes and glanced up. Danica’s expression had changed;
she didn’t seem as angry anymore.

“
Sometimes, you just have
to let go,” she told him. “If you want to do what’s best for those
you love, you have to be willing to sacrifice your wants for their
needs.”

James nodded; there was some truth in
that.

“
You’re not a kid anymore,”
she continued, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve proven that
you’re willing to put everything on the line. In a war-torn
universe, that’s no small thing. You’re not one of the sheep,
James—you’re one of the sheepdogs. You’ve got what it takes to
protect the ones you love.”

James wiped his eyes with the back of
his hand. “What about Stella?”

“
Stella will be fine,” said
Danica. “She’s not a little girl anymore.”

This time, James couldn’t help it.
Tears spilled out of his eyes, but they were good tears, the kind
that left him feeling alive and well. Danica sat down and put an
arm around him, and they stayed together like that for a long time,
joined by a bond stronger than death itself.

* * * * *

Sholpan’s feet felt heavy as she
walked through the station terminal to the tram. An honor guard of
ten of the strongest Hameji soldiers escorted her, to protect her
from would-be assassins. To her, they seemed more like prison
guards escorting her to a new cell.

I could have left all this
behind,
she thought morosely to herself as
the tram sped down the docking arm, taking her to the airlock for
her shuttle.
I could have gone
home.

On board, she settled down
in the ostentatiously furnished passenger cabin. Pillows and
cushions lay scattered across the floor, much like the shuttle that
had taken her from the prisoner ship to the
Lion of Tenguri.
She sighed—back
then, she’d found it incredibly luxurious; now, it was nothing more
than the tacky trappings of half a dozen conquered stars—the
lifeless remains of dozens of conquered and subjugated peoples.
With the hellish redness of Kardunash III shining down through the
window-wall, she felt as if she were in some surreal space between
life and death. It made her shudder.

At that moment, the terminal in the
corner began to chime, announcing the receipt of a private message.
Caught by surprise, Stella stood up to check it out.

The message was written in
New Gaian.
That’s odd.
She checked the sender—perhaps it was Lars, giving her an
update on the situation with her brother.

It wasn’t from Lars, though. It was
from Zeline.

Lady Sholpan,
it began,
I hope this
message finds you well. Qasar always returns from his court
sessions in an awful mood; perhaps your presence helped to
alleviate some of his misery in the necessary duties of governing
the planetborn.

Sholpan frowned and reread the opening
paragraph. What was Zeline trying to say? Was this a
threat?

When you get back, I would
be delighted if you would join me for coffee. I feel that our first
meeting could have gone better, and I would appreciate another
opportunity to show you my hospitality. The other wives still
believe that you orchestrated Borta’s murder—

Meaning, of course, that Zeline
didn’t.

—
but I was quite touched by the gracious way in which you
mediated between Qasar and his son. I admit, I didn’t know what to
think of you at first, but now I look forward to getting to know
you better. I hope the feeling is mutual.

Sincerely,
Zeline.

P.S: You may be interested
to know that I, too, was not born Hameji. Perhaps we can talk about
it over coffee.

Sholpan smiled warmly as she finished
the message. Nestled in the cushions of the couch, she felt a warm
calmness sweep over her—a calmness she hadn’t felt in far too
long.

Her stomach abruptly
flipped as the shuttle made the jump to the
Lion of Tenguri.
The harsh red light
of Kardunash III disappeared, replaced by the dark, cool night of
space.

As the familiar shapes of the Hameji
ships grew closer in the window, Sholpan rose to her feet and paced
the floor in delight. It was all she could do to keep her
jubilation and excitement from bubbling over. She couldn’t wait to
meet with Zeline; something told her that this would be the start
of a close and lasting friendship.

* * * * *

The last Danica saw of
James McCoy was at the Colony’s docking hub. Mikhail, piloting
the
Catriona,
was
already there to pick her up—he had been waiting for almost the
entire two weeks it had taken the
Freedom’s Banner
to arrive, traveling
at sublight speeds. Fortunately, the people of the Colony had been
quite hospitable.

James was visibly quivering as they
came to the door leading into the terminal. Danica wondered how he
felt, after being away from his family for so long. Even though it
was his home, not hers, she felt a bit nervous herself.

The door hissed open, and both of them
stepped through to the sounds of cheering. A man and a
woman—James’s father and mother, apparently—rushed up and gathered
him in their arms. Tears flowed freely as they embraced, while all
around them their friends smiled and cheered.

Danica stood off against the wall,
watching with her arms folded in satisfaction. Banners hung over
the crowd, declaring “Welcome Home James!” and “We Love You!” Here,
among friends and family, he clearly belonged.

James led his parents over to meet
her. “Are you the captain who saved my son?” asked James’s
father.

“
Yes,” said Danica,
offering her hand. He took it in both of his own and gave her the
warmest, most sincere handshake she could ever remember
receiving.

“
Thank you so much,” he
said. “How can we ever repay you?”

“
No payment necessary,”
said Danica. She turned to James’s mother, who walked up and hugged
her in gratitude.

“
Thank you,” she said
simply, tears streaking her cheeks. Despite her carefully
cultivated stoicism, Danica felt herself choke up at the woman’s
honest display of emotion.

“
Anytime,” said Danica. She
turned to James. “Well, McCoy, I guess this is it.”

“
Yes,” he said, smiling.
“Goodbye, Captain.” He reached up and gave her a parting
hug.

“
You are always welcome
here,” said James’s father. “Please—it’s the least we can
do.”

“
I’ll keep that in mind,”
said Danica. “And when I come back, I expect this young man to have
made a name for himself. Am I understood, Ensign?”

“
Yes, Captain,” said James.
The smile on his face was insuppressible.

“
Then goodbye, McCoy.” She
saluted before heading back to the docks. James returned the
salute.

Take care of
yourself,
Danica thought to herself as she
followed Mikhail into the tram that ran down the docking arm. She
smiled and waved goodbye through the window as the car whisked her
away, taking her home to her crew.

Author’s Note

In the winter of 2009, I
took a class at Brigham Young University covering the history of
the Middle East from 500 C.E. to 1800 C.E. The teacher, Professor
Hamblin, was awesome—I filled a notebook with quips like “Obama of
the steppes” and “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean
everyone
isn’t
out to get you.” The best part of the class, though, was when
we studied the Mongol conquests, especially the sacking of Baghdad
in 1258 C.E. Baghdad was the cultural center of civilization and
culture, and the Mongols completely annihilated it! For weeks, that
was all I could talk about—I even started a Facebook group for my
friends called “Joe’s Barbarian Horde.” But the most interesting
thing about that unit was the rationale behind the brutal Mongol
invasion. They believed quite literally that the sky god had given
them the entire world, and since the
Kurultai
had elected Temujin to be
the Great Khan of the Mongols, he was only fulfilling his destiny
by conquering the world.

Being a science fiction
writer, I immediately started wondering what the Mongol conquests
would be like in space. I had already world-built an elaborate
far-future setting for a science fiction series (more on that in
the author’s note to
Desert
Stars
), and my space Mongols fit in
surprisingly well. Assuming that it takes a great investment of
capital to make a planet habitable, it would make sense that the
Outer Reaches of inhabited space would belong to tribes of
starfaring nomads who eked out a meager existence on the margins.
They would be extremely aggressive, since the only way to expand
their living space would be to capture new starships. Also, because
they had no home world, the starships they lived on would also be
their battleships, meaning that they’d have no way to differentiate
between “civilian” and “soldier.” The society would be extremely
hierarchical, with no excuse to waste resources on people who
didn’t fall into line. Either you obeyed the captain, or you got
chucked out the airlock; life in such a society would be a
privilege, not a right.

All of this was fascinating, but it
wasn’t enough to make a novel. I decided to combine this idea with
another one I’d had a couple years previous: the idea of a perfect
techno-democracy. What if internet forums and social networking
technology were combined to make a perfectly democratic society, in
which all of the decisions were made by a general vote of all the
citizens? What would that look like? What sort of values would
these people have? Certainly their worldviews would clash very
sharply with those of the space Mongols!

Around this time, I signed up for
Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 class at BYU. As part of the class,
students are required to write 2,000 words per week. I figured I
had the start of something promising, so I took the ideas and ran
with them. But I still didn’t have any characters—and without
characters, you can’t have a story.

Growing up as the oldest
brother, I was always very protective of my younger sisters. When I
was young, I watched an old Disney Western that had a very profound
effect on me. The basic premise of the story was that a band of
Indians had kidnapped a young girl from a frontier farm and were
going to sacrifice her by shooting her off the edge of a cliff on a
certain day at a certain time. The girl’s brother (I think the
actor played a role in
The Swiss Family
Robison,
not sure) spent the whole
freaking movie trying to rescue her, only to arrive at the top of
the cliff just as the Indian chief loosed his arrow and sent her
tumbling to her death (later I learned that one of the Indian
squaws had traded places with the girl, but that went over my head
at the time).

That movie had a HUGE
impact on me. Not being able to save the people I love is the
scariest thing I can possibly imagine. Even worse would be if
I
could
save
them, but they refused to be saved! For some reason, all of this
came flooding into my mind as I was plotting this novel. It clicked
almost immediately, and I knew what would happen: the main
character would try to rescue his brother and sister from the
Hameji, only to have his brother die in his arms, and his sister
refuse to be rescued.

The first draft was tough,
and not just like all first drafts are. I got a lot of help from
Brandon Sanderson and the writing group from the class, and decided
to take the summer of 2009 off in order to finish it (thank
goodness for scholarships!). When Ben died, I was in a funk for a
few days, and the closer I came to finishing it the more depressed
I became. However, I knew I was doing something right—and after
reading
Legend
by
David Gemmell (one of the most awesome books I’ve ever read), I
knew that I would do these characters a disservice by making their
lives easy. Everyone dies, after all—but not everyone dies
well.

Danica and her band of
mercenaries grew out of my love of Howard Tayler’s
Schlock Mercenary.
The
first attempt failed horribly, so I consulted with some military
friends to figure out exactly how the mercenary unit would be
organized. I then wrote up a few short paragraphs describing who
they are and what are their back-stories. These are just a
few:

Danica Nova

Age: 36

Danica is from the Tajjur
system. She was the daughter of an admiral in the Tajjur navy. In
the war for independence, her father was captured and tortured for
information. Danica left to try and rescue him, but had barely
embarked when a gang of thugs hired by the Imperial occupation
killed her mother, younger brother, and many of her extended
family. Ever since then, she has been tortured with the thought
that perhaps, if she had stayed with her family, she could have
protected them. She knows that she would have died along with them,
but she still feels like she abandoned them.