Bringing Stella Home (7 page)

Ben watched with a mix of horror and
anger. Ava’s scream turned to a wailing cry, and still the Hameji
bastards didn’t stop. Ben’s hands clenched into fists, but he held
his peace—now was not the time to fight back. Later, when he’d
found Stella. He’d have his chance later.

After nearly a minute, the soldiers
lifted Ava’s husband to his feet and marched him back to his row.
He walked with a limp, a nasty purple splotch spreading rapidly
along his side where his ribs were probably broken. No one made any
attempt to get him medical attention.

Ben and Ava were the last prisoners
out of the cargo hold. The soldiers put them at the end of the last
row, about an arm’s length apart from each other. As soon as the
soldiers released her, Ava collapsed onto her knees, burying her
head in her hands with her black hair spilling over her
shoulders.

Ben worried for a second that the
soldiers would force her to her feet, but they did nothing. He
wanted to comfort her, but no appropriate words came to
mind.

Off to the left, a set of doors
opened, and a group of men in gray uniforms stepped out. Most of
them were young, but they followed a tall, stocky man with short,
gray hair and a sharp goattee. From the authoritative manner with
which he carried himself, Ben figured that he was the ranking
officer—probably a captain. Everyone, including the soldiers,
showed him deference.

The captain and his men moved down the
line, poking and prodding the prisoners one by one. At his command,
the soldiers dragged them off to the front of the room, forming two
groups. A pattern soon emerged—the healthy young men went off to
the right, while everyone else went off to the left. It didn’t take
Ben long to figure out what was going on.

Stella,
he thought to himself.
I
have to find Stella.
He searched the room
with his eyes, but she was nowhere to be found.

The captain was a model of discipline,
but Ben saw the hunger in the eyes of the younger officers. He knew
what they were thinking as they stared at the female prisoners, and
anger burned hot and raw in his chest. It was not hard to imagine
them surrounding Stella, their eyes sweeping lustily over her
naked, defenseless body—

Stop it,
he told himself.
Control
yourself—you’re no good to Stella if you’re dead.

The captain arrived at Ava’s husband.
Ben tensed as Ava caught her breath. The captain took half a minute
to look the man over, and with a wave of his hand gestured for the
soldiers to take him away—to the group on the right. Ben breathed a
sigh of relief, but Ava let out a pitiful cry.

“
It’s okay!” he whispered.
“It’s okay! He’s going to be all right.”

“
Lay your hands off of
him!” she shrieked, her voice almost inhuman. “Christopher!” She
buried her head in her hands, weeping and sobbing.

The captain went through
the row in front of them with terrible speed. In less than a
minute, they were at Ben’s row, coming toward him.
Will they spare me?
he
wondered. He hoped, for Stella’s sake, that they did.

They came to Ava first. At a gesture,
the soldiers lifted her to her feet. Without any regard to basic
decency, the captain reached out and felt her with his hands,
poking and prodding her as if she were cattle. Ava gasped under his
touch, while at the front of the room, her husband yelled out and
started running for her. He got no more than three steps before the
soldiers fell on him with their batons.

Ben’s cheeks flushed with anger, and
he clenched his fists. Rage clouded his vision—rage at the
indignity of this treatment, the injustice of it all. The captain
was only an arm’s length away—it was all he could do to keep from
lashing out at the sick bastard with his fists.

No,
he told himself.
Stella—you must find
Stella.

The soldiers took Ava kicking and
screaming to the group on the left. The captain came to Ben next,
looking him up and down the way an officer would inspect his
troops.

Ben wasn’t paying attention to him,
however. At the front of the room, Ava broke free from her captors
and dashed into the arms of her husband. They had time for only one
quick embrace before the soldiers pried her loose and leveled a
rifle at her chest. The sound of the gunshot echoed throughout the
hangar in a way that Ava’s screams had not.

Something inside of Ben
snapped.

The captain turned to bark orders to
his men. In that instant of momentary distraction, Ben lunged
forward and slugged him across his face.

The captain stumbled and nearly fell,
but before Ben could strike again, the soldiers were on him.
Something hard slammed into his head, sending brilliant shards of
pain across his view. A blow to the stomach knocked the wind out of
him, and he instinctively curled up, but the soldiers forced him to
keep standing. He gasped for breath and winced as the soldier in
front of him raised the baton high above his head.

A quick order from the captain stilled
his hand. The soldier backed off, allowing the captain to step
forward.

Ben lifted his head and stared into
the man’s face. His skin was old and leathery, splotched with age.
The silver hair of his goatee was short and stubby, his teeth
chipped and yellow. His fetid breath reeked of garlic, thick and
foul.

Ben met the man’s eyes without
flinching. From the front of the room, he heard another gunshot,
followed by quickly-stifled screams.

Without thinking, he spat in the man’s
face.

The thick, white mucous and bubbly
saliva oozed down the captain’s cheek. The other officers gasped in
surprise at this unthinkable act, but the captain himself did
nothing, letting the spittle drip down into his stubby facial hair.
He blinked once—only once—and stared at Ben, his expression utterly
unreadable. For some reason he didn’t fully understand, Ben felt a
tremor of fear.

Moving only his hand, the captain
reached up and wiped the spit away, leaving a streak of residual
saliva across his cheek. Then, he smiled. Broadly.
Mischievously.

The next thing Ben knew, his world was
spinning with stars and pain. He lifted his hands as he lost his
balance and fell, but before he hit the ground, his vision turned
to darkness.

Chapter 4

James woke to the low beeping of an
alarm on his computer. He lifted his head at once, blinking to
clear his vision. What he saw on the screen made his groggy eyes
fly open.

“
Dad, would you come up
here?” he said over the shipwide intercom. “I think you should see
this.”

“
What is it?” came his
father’s voice.

“
A transmission from
home.”

In less than a minute, Adam was on the
bridge. Two days worth of stubble covered his chin and neck, and
dark bags of skin ringed his sleepless eyes. In his haste, he had
left his jumpsuit unbuttoned, revealing the matted chest hair
underneath.

“
It’s from the Colony,
alright,” James’s father said in a hoarse voice as he took his
seat. “From the Office of the Patrician.” He hesitated to bring up
the message on the main screen, as if afraid it would contain some
terrible news.

“
Well, go on,” said James.
“What are you waiting for?”

James’s words broke the spell, and his
father brought up the message. The main forward window dimmed and
became a giant, theater-like screen, displaying the text of the
transmission. James held his breath.

Attention,
it read.
This is an
emergency broadcast from Station K-3 L5b to all citizens,
residents, and resident aliens within the Karduna system.
Timestamp: 9.5.3011.

The following is a message
from His Honor the Patrician:

Greetings fellow citizens
and friends, wherever this transmission may find you. As all
civilian news and information services have ceased functioning, we
are broadcasting this update from the Colony as a public
service.

As the words scrolled by on the
screen, James glanced over at his father. The expression on his
face almost made him look like a stranger; helpless and distraught,
completely unlike the authority figure that James knew so well. It
frightened James to see his father this way, and he turned back to
the main screen.

…
have taken complete control of the Karduna system. We have
lost all contact with the Federation Assembly on Kardunash IV and
presume the annihilation of the Kardunasian Defense
Forces.

Hameji forces have also
taken control of K-3 and all surrounding settlements, demanding
unconditional surrender and threatening the total annihilation of
any communities that fail to comply. Considering what they have
already done to K-4, I urge all of our friends and fellow citizens
throughout the system to submit to the Hameji demands.

On behalf of the people of
Station K-3 L5b, I have offered the Hameji our unconditional
surrender, and they have accepted. Additionally, in exchange for
twenty hostages and an annual tribute, they have agreed not to
install a military garrison on our station.

Selecting the twenty
hostages was the most difficult decision of my political career. We
made the decision by means of a random lottery, with all healthy
adult citizens and residents included in the pool. No one was
excepted, including close members of my own family.

The following individuals
were selected to serve as hostages:

As the list scrolled upward, James’s
father gasped for breath and collapsed into his chair, burying his
head in his hands. James looked over with a start.

“
Dad, are you
okay?”

“
Jessica,” he said, his
shoulders shaking as he cried silently into his hands. “Your
mother—thank God they didn’t take her.”

As he watched his father, James found
his own eyes tearing over. He blinked and turned back to the
screen.

In addition to agreeing
not to leave a garrison, the Hameji have promised not to interfere
with our domestic affairs. So long as we pay tribute and offer no
resistance, our democratic constitution and mechanisms of
self-government will be permitted to remain intact.

The next few months will
undoubtedly be the most difficult in our history. In order for our
freedoms to survive these trying times, we must demonstrate
fair-mindedness and equality in all our democratic duties, and
stand together in united support for all final policy decisions.
This is not a time for frivolous speech or petty divisiveness. I
call upon all of you, my fellow citizens, to unite against terror
and work diligently to uphold our sacred, inalienable rights of
self-government. May we survive these dark days to pass on our
sacred constitution to the rising generation, and may they live to
see a brighter day because of our diligence.

End emergency broadcast.
Message will repeat in two minutes.

The words scrolled off the screen, and
the stars gradually came back into view. James’s father sat in his
chair, eerily silent. Not sure what else to do, James rose to his
feet and put a hand on his shoulder.

“
She’s alive,” his father
said, glancing up at him. “Your mother is alive, and we have a home
to return to—thank God.”

James nodded, but his heart still felt
empty. Even if his mother had survived, without Ben and Stella,
they were still only half a family. Tears burned in his eyes as he
thought about it—tears of sorrow, not relief.

“
What’s the
matter?”

“
Ben and Stella,” James
said. “They’re still out there.”

Adam rose to his feet and put an arm
around his son. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing we could have
done.”

James bit his lip, tears giving way to
hot anger. He pushed his father away.

“
Nothing we could have
done? Is that your excuse?”

“
It’s not an excuse, Son.
It’s the truth.”

James clenched his hands into fists.
“I refuse to believe that.”

“
What?”

“
I said, I refuse to
believe it. Ben and Stella can’t be dead—they just can’t! They’re
still alive, and I’ll prove it.”

Adam frowned. “How? James—”

But James was already back in his
seat, hastily bringing up the ship’s automated log. He needed
something he could show his father—some scrap of evidence to prove
that Ben and Stella were still alive.

“
Son, please don’t do this.
You’ll only hurt yourself.”

“
No, Dad—they’re still
alive. I’m sure of it!”

“
Don’t misunderstand me. I
miss Ben and Stella as much as you do. If I could, I would do
anything to get them back. But Son—James, they’re gone.”

“
You don’t know that,” said
James, spinning around in his chair. “What if they weren’t on the
planet when the bombardment happened? What if they were still in
orbit?”

His father shook his head and sighed.
“They were in the middle of a battle zone, on a local ferry
shuttle. Unless they made it to an outbound ship in time, there’s
no way they could have escaped.”