Siege of Praetar (Tales of a Dying Star Book 1) (5 page)

The line crept forward until Mira finally stood at the foreman’s desk. Jin was bald and stocky, with crystal blue eyes that were foreign on Praetar. They would have been attractive, Mira thought idly, if they’d held any warmth. He was flanked on either side by guards, should the workers become unruly while receiving their pay.

“Mira, age twenty-three, two children,” he read from the computer screen. He inspected her with his eyes, as if searching for some flaw. He must have found none, for he pulled his gaze away and opened a drawer. Grooves held rows of glass discs inside, each the size of a fingernail. Jin removed a full row and counted out twenty-one discs on the desk, arranging them in three neat stacks. He closed the drawer and looked at her again, and only after a long moment did he finally say, “You may go.”

She scooped up the food credits and stuffed them into her pocket before fleeing the office. Elena still waited in line; Mira felt the woman’s eyes as she walked by. She still had her job, though she did not know for how long.

The air outside was almost as acrid as the factory. Somewhere above the sun still shined, but the thick clouds that enveloped Praetar blocked most of its light, leaving a yellowish haze across the planet. The Melisao complained about it, but Mira couldn’t imagine any other landscape.

There was only one city on Praetar, spread along a tiny strip of land between the sulphuric oceans and the desert. She gazed south, toward the tall dunes of sand. The desert people survived out there, somehow. She didn’t understand how, without food or water. Not to mention the long, coiling monsters that slithered under the sand. But more Praetari wandered into the desert every day, looking for an escape from the Melisao occupation. It would have been tempting if not for her daughters.

One long street ran along the city like a spine, stretching away from the factory in either direction. Mira turned right, picking her steps carefully to avoid cutting her bare feet on the debris scattered across the dirt.

A pair of boys armed with pieces of metal stood at the edge of an alley. They stopped their conversation to watch her. She quickened her step along the pavement, keeping her head down and watching them at the edge of her vision, ready to bolt. On pay days she usually needed to run home, but today she wasn’t sure if her legs had the strength. To her relief the boys made no move.

Her feet ached by the time she reached the market only six blocks away. It was a true market once, with stalls of every kind of food and good for sale. But ever since the Melisao came it was a place for them to dispense a trickle of food to the populace: thick bread, thin soup, and strips of manufactured meat.

Again she waited in line. When she reached the front the peacekeeper stared at her implacably from behind a tinted helmet. His uniform was white, pristine. She pointed to the container of bread and held up three fingers and pulled three credits from her pocket. She agonized over the discs in her trembling hand, so small and precious, before returning one to her pocket. The others she dropped onto the countertop. Only then did the soldier place two cylinder-shaped loaves in front of her. He quickly pulled his hand back, as if afraid her touch might soil his uniform.

She walked for another hour with the bread clutched to her chest. It was dark by the time she reached a nine-floored building at the edge of town. It was a shell of a structure, grey and bleak and half-destroyed from the invasion. It leaned ever so slightly, as if it might collapse at any moment. A few children played in the street, and three women with colorful face makeup sat on the curb. The children begged Mira for food, but the women only watched her walk inside. Mira’s feet carried her up the cement stairs to the fourth floor, to the small room that belonged to her.

“Mama!” her girls cried when she entered, wrapping themselves around her legs. They were smaller than they should be for their age, with thin, brittle hair. She held them tight, saying a silent prayer that they had stayed safe, as she did whenever she returned from the factory. Ami was still too young to wander far, but Kaela was seven and grew more restless every day. Mira feared she would disobey her and venture outside.

Their room would have been cramped for just one person with barely enough room to lay flat on the floor. The walls were made of the same yellow, flakey bricks that most of Praetar was built with. A layer of dust covered the floor. The room had the remains of a window that gave a view of the street below and the hazy sky above.

She broke one of the loaves in half, then into fourths, and gave each girl a piece. “Eat it slowly,” she warned, but the girls sat on the floor and tore into it eagerly. Ami wheezed between bites.

Mira was too weary to stop them. Instead she went to the corner where they slept. She knelt at the wall and removed a square of loose stone, revealing a cubby hole just large enough for the square box inside. She slid it out and emptied her pockets, adding the twenty-one credits to the collection, which now filled half the box. She took care not to make any noise.
A few more weeks
, she thought, before returning the box to the hole and replacing the stone.

She joined her daughters on the floor and ate her own piece of bread, taking small bites to make the meal last longer. It was hard, nutritionally dense and flavorless, but when she was done she eyed the remaining piece. She placed it and the second loaf on the jutting brick that served as a shelf, above the girls’ reach, to keep herself from looking at it too long.

“Tell us a story,” Kaela said, curling up in the corner.

“Which one do you want to hear?” Mira asked. She sat back down with her back against the wall. “How about Oasis, the paradise in the sky we’ll one day visit?”

“I want to... hear about... Big Father Zitro... fighting the striped monsters.” The words came out slowly, as Ami needed to pause to breathe between every few words. Mira cringed at how weak she sounded, but forced a smile.

They’d heard the story a hundred times, but Mira told it again anyway. The girls were snoring softly by the time Zitro scared away the monsters with his club. She laid them down underneath their blankets and joined them, and stared at the loose rock covering her hiding place until she too fell asleep.

Chapter 5

Mira felt the coughs before she heard them. She opened her eyes to find Ami convulsing violently under their blanket. Darkness still showed through the broken window above them.

Kaela was already awake, kneeling over her little sister. “Mama? What’s wrong?”

She threw the blankets off and turned Ami over. Her face was a terrible shade of red. Her cheeks puffed out as the coughs came deep from within her lungs. Normally Mira would smooth her daughter’s hair and sing to her softly until the spasms passed, but this was worse than usual. She wheezed in between fits, her chest heaving with false-breaths. Scared, bloodshot eyes stared up at her mother.
She can’t breathe
.

“What’s wrong?” Kaela repeated, mirroring their fear.

“Everything’s fine,” Mira said, but her voice gave her away. Kaela’s eyes widened. “Stay here. I’ll return soon.” She scooped Ami into her arms and carried her from the building.

Even at night the yellow haze was thick in the air, illuminated by the street lamps that somehow weren’t destroyed in the invasion. The low clouds seemed to reflect it back down, giving the city a constant semblance of twilight. The clouds reflected blue and green to the west though, which was the direction Mira ran.

A gang of six boys laughed at one-another from an open alley, watching with curiosity as she passed. Her daughter was heavy enough that Mira couldn’t move fast. The heels of her feet ached almost immediately. Ignoring the pain she continued on past row after row of broken apartments and factories. Ami made pitiful noises from her arms, urging Mira faster.

She reached the Station after only a few minutes. The Station was one central building surrounded by a scattering of smaller square-shaped huts erected after the occupation, so named because it was a terminal for ground and air transportation before the occupation. Now, it was claimed by Bruno and his men, and for whatever reason the Melisao allowed it. Signs glowing in bright colors advertised food and drink and every manner of illicit activity. The steady pumping of music drifted out from the main building.

Mira approached the open gate along a haphazard fence of interlocking metal surrounding the Station. Four guards wearing bits of leather and chain were on duty. She kept her head down to avoid stirring their boredom. Two held only clubs, but the others had guns, and raised them slightly at her approach. Once she was through she quickened her step again.

The room she sought was in the central building. Lights swirled and spun inside the entrance hallway, blinding her with alternating shades of blue and red and green. The music was deafening. People crowded the hall dancing, and Mira held her daughter close. Two women with white legs and colorful makeup writhed against one-another, sneering as Mira passed.

At the end of the hallway was a huge steel door, rimmed with bolts the size of her fist. Mira stopped at a door before then, this one smaller and marked with an innocent blue X. She banged on it with her palm. When nobody answered she banged again, more desperate this time. The people dancing in the hallway shot annoyed looks at her, but she didn’t care. Ami still whimpered in her arms.

She was about to knock a third time when the door finally opened, only a crack. Half a face was visible, one eye searching around before finally settling on Mira.

“Huh?” was all he said.

Mira held up Ami, and poured all her desperation into her voice. “My daughter is sick. Please,
help me
.”

The doctor looked at them a moment longer before slamming the door closed.

Mira gaped. She stared at the door, wondering if she should knock and plead some more. She looked around the hallway to see if anyone might help, but everyone ignored her, intent on their own activities. She glanced at the big door at the end of the hall. If she went to Bruno for help, what would he say? Worse, what would his price be?

But then several locks clicked and the doctor’s door opened. He pulled them inside and swung it shut, not bothering to lock it behind them.

He was bare from the waist up, with a yellow tail of hair running down an otherwise bald head. The thinness of his chest and limbs hinted at addiction, with a sunken look to his eyes. “How long has she been like this?” he asked, taking Ami from her arms.

“Less than an hour. She woke like this, in the night.”

Mira looked around the room, which was cluttered with dirty boxes and crates. Along one wall was a wooden bed piled with blankets, with a colorful woman on her back, passed out. The opposite wall was tidy, with pristine counters and cabinets that still held unbroken glass, showing neat rows of jars and vials behind.

In the center of the room was an examination table on which the doctor laid Ami. He reached above and flicked a light that hung from the low ceiling. “Not like this. How long has she had the cough altogether? A week? Two?”

“A month,” she admitted.

“She should have been brought here sooner.” He shook his head and prodded the child’s temple with his fingers.

“We didn’t have the credits,” Mira said. Ami stared up at the doctor’s unfamiliar face and began to kick and wheeze. Mira held her hand. “It was never bad until tonight.”

“You have the credits now, I hope,” he said, still focused on her daughter. “She needs medicine to open her airway or she won’t survive the night.”

“How many?”

“Five credits for my time, and fifty for the medicine.”

Mira’s heart sank. That was more than half her savings. Still, there was no decision to make. She answered immediately. “Agreed. I’ll return with them in the morning.”

The doctor looked up from the table and barked a laugh. “If I had a credit for every time someone
promised
me payment, I’d be richer than Bruno. You’ll bring the credits now, or you’d better fetch the priest instead.”

Mira stared at Ami agonizingly, and her own throat constricted. “You would let her die here, in front of you?”

“I don’t know you,” he said, putting his hands up, “and I can’t risk myself for a stranger.”

If he was sorry he showed no sign. Mira quickly kissed Ami on the forehead and whispered, “I’ll be back,” before running from the office.