Roark (Women Of Earth Book 1) (3 page)

“Did her brother have a tail?” Royal asked, not bothered at all by the prospect.

“I don’t know. Healer Ahnyis was wearing a skirt and I only caught a glimpse of something that looked like a tail poking out from beneath it. Healer Vochem was wearing trousers and there was no way for me to peek, but it would make sense, wouldn’t it? That he would have a tail, too?”

“You could have asked,” the boy reasoned.

“Royal, that would be impolite,” his sister scolded, “Not to mention embarrassing. You wouldn’t like people asking what you hide in your jeans, would you?” She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes, expressing her opinion of her twin. “This new friend of yours, can we meet her?” she asked, and Mira was struck again by how accepting these children were.

They were old enough to remember the time before the war, but they adapted so quickly to whatever this new life brought them. They didn’t seem to mind the loss of the toys and television that had been taken for granted in their early lives. They changed with the wind and were surprised by nothing.

The only loss that affected them was that of their parents. Mira and Wynne had spent many a night holding one or another of them while they cried. That was what they needed most and Mira and Wynne tried their best to give it to them. They need to know that no matter what way the wind blew, someone would be there to love them.

“No, you can’t meet her.” David looked at Mira over the heads of the other children, daring her to disagree. “You can’t meet her again, either. You’ve got to listen to me. You don’t know what’s going on out there. You could be putting us all in danger.”

His eyes slid to the younger children and Mira understood that he wasn’t referring to himself or his sisters. He was worried about the children. It was the first time in a long time that she’d heard a concern from him that wasn’t for himself. Maybe there was hope for him yet. Mira decided to ignore his earlier angry outburst and go with this, more adult consideration.

“I won’t put them in danger, David. I won’t let anyone meet them or tell them who they are until I’m sure they can be trusted. You said it yourself. We don’t know what’s going on out there. Maybe my working at the base will help us find out.” Mira placed her hand on her brother’s arm. “Please, David, let’s give this a chance. There’s a new Commander and Ahnyis swears he’s nothing like his predecessor. I’ve met him. He’s the one who saved me from a worse beating and punished the ones who did it. He’s not like us, but I don’t think he’s bad.” She hoped not, anyway.

David, once more a petulant teenager, shook her hand off. “They’re the enemy and you’ll be seen as a traitor. What will people say?”

What would his friends say was more like it.

“They’ll say, ‘Poor David Donazetto, stuck with a dumb ass sister who won’t listen to reason’.” It didn’t get the smile she hoped for, so she fell back to arguing. “They came to fight the Hahnshin, not us. It’s not the Godans who send their fighters in the middle of the night to blow things up.”

“They don’t do anything to stop it, though, do they?”

As if on cue, the sirens began to wail.

“Get your go-bags,” Mira shouted to the children, “Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

They returned in seconds with their back packs and with Wynne in the lead, they hurried down the stairs to the building’s basement. Mira followed close behind the children until they reached the second floor and she realized one member of their group was missing.

“Bitsy, tell Wynne I’ve gone to get David. We’ll be right down,” she called over the little girl’s shoulder and then turned and ran back up the stairs.

David was probably stuffing his important belongings into his go-bag. While she and Wynne worked so hard to set an example for the children, Mr. I’m-Too-Cool went out of his way to do the opposite. His things were spread all over the corner they’d curtained off for him in the larger of the two bedrooms, the one where the boy’s slept, yet when the sirens sounded, he wouldn’t leave anything behind.

Running up the stairs, Mira’s footsteps echoed the pounding that had restarted in her head. She was so tired of his nonsense. If he wanted to be treated like a man, he needed to start acting like one. Her fury increased when she heard his footsteps far above her. He wasn’t in the apartment. He was headed up to the roof.

She had half a mind to let him go. If the building was hit, or the upper two uninhabitable floors collapsed, so be it. It would be his own damn fault. But her feet kept moving.

No matter how angry she was with him, David was and always would be her baby brother. As her mother lay dying in her arms, Mira had promised to care for and protect her mother’s accidental miracle and she meant to keep that promise as best she could.

She reached the roof as the black shadows of the Hahnshin fighters silently slid across the night sky, the stars winking out and on again as they flew. Streaks of light flashed from their pointed noses. Explosions of orange fire erupted as each streak hit its target. Mira grabbed her brother’s arm and pulled.

“Come away, Davey. Please come away to the basement. It’s too dangerous up here,” she pleaded, forgetting how much he hated the diminutive name.

David turned to her with both fear and hatred blazing in his young eyes. “This is what they’ve done to us, Mira. This is what they’ve made us; cowards who live in dumps and hide in basements. They’ve turned us into rats.”

“I know, Davey, I know.”

She tugged again, but he was too strong now for her to force. He pulled his arm away.

“I hate what they did to Mom and Dad. I hate what they’re doing to you and Wynne. You shouldn’t have to live like this. I shouldn’t let them.”

“I hate it, too, but it’s not your fault, Davey.” The strikes were getting closer and her body shook with the thunder of the explosions. “Please,” she begged, and appealed to his manhood. “Take me downstairs. I’m frightened and I need someone to hold onto.”

It wasn’t a lie. Mira was terrified as she watched the streaks of light, silent as the death they brought with them, flash across the sky.

David started to turn and then stopped and pointed upward. “Look.”

Six silver eagles were flying toward them from the airport on the outskirts of town. That’s what everyone called the fighters the Godans flew, because of the wide spread of the tail and the downward curve of the nose. They saw them all the time, flying overhead on their way to someplace else, but never had they seen them fly in defense of the city.

Earning their nickname, like giant birds of prey they swooped down on the Hahnshin fighters. Two of the dark ships exploded immediately. Warned, the others maneuvered out of range, but the eagles weren’t satisfied with driving the crows away. They gave chase and the airborne dance began.

Mira slid her arm about her brother’s waist as his arm slid around her shoulders. Together they watched the acrobatic ballet of streaking light and silver and shadow until the shapes disappeared into the darkness. There was another explosion of orange in the sky and another that streaked like a meteor toward earth. With one last angry flare, the battle was done.

Mira and David stood, stone statues standing sentinel under the starlit skies. By unspoken agreement, they watched and waited until the silver eagles returned.

“Count them, David. How many do you see?” Mira asked, hoping he saw what she couldn’t.

“Five,” he whispered, the anger in his voice replaced with something else, something not so bitter.

“Five,” Mira whispered back and she let him hear her sadness at the sacrifice. “One of those Godan warriors you called enemy died for us tonight. I think we should wait and see if Ahnyis is right and things will change. I think we owe the pilot that. Don’t you?”

David didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue, either.

Chapter 3

Jaws clenched, eyes blazing, the new First Commander glared at the wavering figure seated in the middle of the com-unit. A decorative light source, Theresian glass goblet, and an open book sat on the table beside the prominent Council member as if this was a social communication and not an unofficial reaming. Roark fought the urge to slam the screen’s lid shut, metaphorically squashing the man it represented. He couldn’t do it.

“You’ve been there less than one lunar revolution and we’ve already received several complaints, all anonymous,” the foot tall figure said in the full toned voice of the six foot man the figure represented.

“How many complaints about Sector Three did you receive before I got here?” Roark asked angrily.

“None.”

“Good. You can take that to mean I’m doing the job I was sent here to do.”

“Your job is not to get called before the Council before your mission is complete. It also does not include hurling expensive statuary at your officers.”

Roark always wondered how the disappointed sag of such tiny shoulders could have such a huge impact on the viewer.

“I didn’t hurl it at them. I hurled it between their heads,” he responded with an impatient sigh of his own. “Had I meant to hit them, I would have. They needed a reminder of who was in charge. Even if it’s temporary,” Roark added before the other could remind him of it.

“That it is temporary is by your own request. There is nothing official,” the figure reminded Roark, refusing to let the subject pass. “It’s time you continued on with your life.” The Councilor offered him a small smile.

“My life is not my choice. That decision was made for me ten years ago.”

“Nonsense. You’re in complete control. You’ve more than proved it with the situations you’ve placed yourself in. Vochem and Harm will always be there if you need them.”

Vochem and Harm, his trusted friends and watchdogs.

“The Confederation Council offered you governorships in the past and rightfully so, but you cannot expect them to keep making the offers if you keep refusing them. We have enemies, Roark, and you’re not getting any younger.” The voice went on after the mouth stopped moving.

It was a glitch that often happened over long distances when transmissions were relayed, but was usually less noticeable in secure communications with Council members or Supreme Command Headquarters. Today, it felt more annoying than usual.

“You won this posting by a narrow margin. There were other applicants, some of whom had Council support. I used my influence to make sure the military had its way.” He raised his hand to stop the forthcoming protest. “Not because of who you are, but because of your skills as a leader. Unfortunately, my power does not extend as far as I’d like. You need the Confederation Council. Your mission should be to keep its members happy.”

The First Commander, whose jaw had become further hardened with each word of the lecture, pounded the desk with his fist, hard enough to make the holoscreen shudder and blink out. He continued to speak as the column of silvery light rose from the center of the black platform and coalesced again into the figure of the man.

“My mission should be to drive the Hahnshin out. I can’t do that with a pack of feather assed officers who treat this place like a leisure club. I’ve been here for three weeks and I have not seen a single squad drilling anywhere on this base. I have pilots who have not seen air time in months and we lost one of them last night because of it. If there is subterfuge here, I will deal with it in the same manner with which I deal with the Hahnshin.”

Last night’s run was slow to muster and sloppy in their formation and execution of what should have been a simple tactical defense.

“The raids are merely harassment and we rarely bother to answer them,” he was later informed by one of the officers in charge. “The base was never in danger.”

That was when he threw the first small bust, shouting that townspeople had died as the thing shattered against the wall. He threw the second, a porcelain goddess figurine, when another officer expressed a lack of concern for the pilot or the town.

“It is a consequence of war,” the man said before his indifferent shrug.

“Then you will face those same consequences when you fly with the next mission, Field Marshal,” Roark had ordered.

He didn’t mention it now, nor would he if the officer in question changed his ways, but the incident report was written and waiting to be filed if necessary and the officer knew it.

“I have machinery still packed in crates that were delivered years ago,” he added to his list of complaints to the seated holo-figure. “I have four tailors, but not a single biomedical engineer.”

“Changes take time and diplomacy.”

“Time?” Roark looked around for something to throw, but Harm had cleared the shelves of anything that might be useful as a missile. “I don’t have time. This sector has a higher casualty rate than any of the others. We’ve lost a third of our territory. A third, and why? Because,” he answered his own question, “the leadership here is nonexistent, because nobody gives a damn if warriors die as long as the bar is fully stocked and the proper wine is served with dinner.

“You and your Council had better hope that incompetent bastard stays lost or someone else finds him twiddling his dick out there in space, because if I find him first I will kill him. Slowly.”

The previous Commander’s small S-class transport had disappeared on a routine flight to join the much larger M-class starship. The M-class, commonly called a Mother ship was to carry him to his home world for a regularly scheduled leave. The Head Healer and four high ranking officers disappeared with him somewhere around the rings of Saturn. Six crewmen were also aboard. They were scheduled to return to the base immediately after the debarkation of their passengers. It was another sword in Roark’s side that officers were afforded this luxury of leave while common warriors were not. This reminded him of yet another sword in his side.

“Diplomacy is your business. Mine is war. Speaking of which, where are my troops? They’re needed here.”

The discipline on this base was in shambles. He needed his unit of seasoned warriors and their officers to form the core of military structure here and set an example of how things should be done. The roving eye of the com-unit followed him as he paced about the office.

“Your troop and supply ships are on their way and should arrive within the next few weeks.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but there was nothing he could do about it. There was no fighting Military rules and regulations. Better to fight the battles he could win.

Harm was sure supplies and equipment were being siphoned off, but could not yet prove it. Vochem suspected that the rations for the local population were being shorted as well. Roark needed more hands and eyes that he could trust if he was going to get to the bottom of what was going on in Sector Three.

“Not soon enough,” he countered. “I have a warehouse filled with delicacies for the officers while the men are served glop.” He used the foot soldier’s term for the highly nutritious, dried and powdered root mixture that could be easily transported and reconstituted in the field. The glutinous concoction was never meant to be served in the Mess. “The troops have been confined to the base since they arrived. Do you know what that does to morale?”

“There has to be a reason for that. I suggest you move carefully until you find out what that reason is.”

The conversation went on, but Roark was bored with the constant reminders to use caution. His eyes strayed to the window that looked out over the central grassy square that formed the hub of the wheel of administrative offices surrounding it. Among the uniformed personnel walked the young woman who’d been injured two weeks before. After the unconscionable beating she’d received, he’d doubted she would return.

“I can see you have other things on your mind, so I will bid you farewell. Take care of yourself, son, and know that my advice is given only because I wish you the rank and high honors you and this House deserve. I am so very proud of you.”

“Thank you, Father, and my apologies for the rant. I’ll try to hold my tongue and my patience, but I make no guarantees. To see this world laid waste by the Hahnshin is a shame. To see it wasted further by our neglect is a crime. There is a natural beauty here worth saving,” Roark said, glancing down at the holo-figure before returning his gaze to the figure walking across the square. “Give Mother my love.”

“Call her. She misses you,” his father laughed, “She worries.”

The holoscreen went dark and Roark’s full attention centered on the woman on the square as she walked along the path that would lead her past his office window.

There was strength in her walk. Spine straight, shoulders back, long legs swinging out the folds of her skirt, she walked with a confidence that surprised him. She showed none of the delicate vulnerability he had felt when she curled herself into his body seeking his comfort and protection.

She was close enough now to see her face. She wasn’t smiling, but her look was pleasant and determined. It had the same confident look as her walk, until she paused to look at the small scrap of paper she held in her hand. It was then he saw it. If he hadn’t been watching her closely he would have missed it. A look of uncertainty clouded her sunny features casting her eyes and the corners of her mouth downward. She took a slow, barely seen breath, and when she raised her eyes again, the pleasantly determined look was back.

She was nervous and feeling vulnerable, but she refused to give in to it or let the world see it. That hinted at an underlying depth of courage. Roark felt the little puff of pride and he smiled at his foolishness. He’d barely met her, yet when she looked up, scanning the row of buildings for the one she was looking for and her eyes met his through the window, his heart stuttered and the strange sensation made him smile.

She smiled too, and it wasn’t one of simple recognition, but of delight. That smile made his heart stutter again, but this time he held back in his smile and simply nodded. Her smile didn’t falter as she nodded back and continued on her way. She didn’t look back, but when she turned to face the door she was looking for, that smile was still in place.

Roark liked that, too. Most of the females he had met over the years would have taken his smile and nod as an invitation. They would have entered his outer office, insisted they see him, and greeted him with bright, cheery, and insincere smiles. They would fawn over him and offer, in subtle and not so subtle ways, their bodies for his pleasure. He’d fallen for it in his younger days until he’d been hurt enough times to realize that such women didn’t want him so much as his purse and power. Their numbers increased along with his advancement in rank.

These were off-world women looking to survive the tides of war. As he aged, those earlier hurts evolved into a greater understanding of their motives, but he no longer opened his pocket or his heart. He began to choose his women more carefully, and made it clear that he offered nothing more than a few hours of pleasure. He had trained himself to want nothing more.

He was a Godan warrior who’d turned away from the path fate awarded him at birth. He was wed to the Goddess of War and he followed her call across the galaxy. He needed no other woman in his life.

~*~

On that first day, Mira accepted Ahnyis’s invitation to eat lunch with her. The offer was repeated on the second day and on the third, Mira just showed up at the clinic door, lunchbox in hand. She learned a lot from these lunchtime conversations and Ahnyis answered all her questions. There was one question, however, Mira couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Children were disappearing and had been for some time. They didn’t vanish. They were taken away by Godan soldiers never to be seen again. They were the unregistered; children without family or ration cards. How the Godan found them, no one knew, but periodically, a group of soldiers would sweep through the neighborhoods and pick them up. People who asked too many questions about where they were taken and why often turned up missing, too, or so rumor had it. Mira couldn’t afford to become one of those missing. Her family wouldn’t survive without her.

Still, she wanted to find out about those children because it might someday be important to her own. This job might provide the opportunity.

The five children Mira and Wynne housed, clothed, fed and loved were all unregistered and so far, they’d been able to keep them safe, but the threat was always there.

Mira also didn’t ask leading questions because she was afraid of the answer. She was growing fond of these strange invaders and couldn’t bear the thought that they might be involved with something she couldn’t live with.

Mira liked her new friend, Ahnyis, who did indeed have a tail, a long, silky one that suited her somewhat catlike appearance. The tail also appeared to hold a sexual appeal for some men much like breasts did for others.

“Vochem is always telling me to tuck it away as if every male who sees it twitch is going to drag me off to some dark corner,” she laughed. “He still sees me as his baby sister.”

As she nibbled away at her cheese and crackers, the healer explained that she and the others learned the language while they slept in the life pods on the starship that brought them to Earth. It wasn’t true sleep, but an induced stasis that kept their bodies from suffering any harmful effects from leaping through space and time. Light years passed in weeks, and during that time, the mind kept working, absorbing any information it was given.