Star Brigade: Odysseys - An Anthology (19 page)

Sam swayed at his touch, and slowly inclined her head toward his. For a searing instant Habraum thought she might kiss him. His body tensed.
Should I stop this or not?

Instead, she rested her forehead against his and lingered there.

Habraum sighed in quiet relief. They remained like this a long while, eyes closed. He heard the raggedness in her breaths settling now. Sam’s nearness, the unnatural warmth of her body soothed away his sorrows. Habraum’s heart pounded, his hands slipped unbidden along her sumptuous waist and hips. The blissful scent of her vanilla firespice fragrance flooded his nostrils in disquieting ways. It would be so easy to pull her in and—

No,
Habraum turned his head, cursing his own weakness.
Not when we’re so raw.
The thought of Jennica and the ugly mockery Maelstrom made of her memory intensified his guilt even more.

Sam didn’t seem to notice. She melted atop him and slid both arms around his waist, nuzzling her face against his neck. Habraum gathered Sam up in his arms, and she gave a little moan.

“You disappeared on me last week,” he whispered.

“I know. Sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Habraum whispered again.

“I know.” Sam brushed her lips by his ear, sending another jolt through him. “You feel like home,” her murmur was thick with longing. She kissed his throat softly and the strength seemed to go out of her. Soon Habraum heard gentle snoring.

Habraum let his cheek rest against hers, feeling the world fade away…and woke up abruptly.

He didn’t know whether it was Sam’s balmy warmth on top of him or her increasingly loud snores. They’d both been out for a few orvs, just enough to restore his clarity.

And now that she was here, Habraum recalled what they both needed to do still. For Honaa.

“Sammie,” he murmured in her ear, squeezing her arm for extra emphasis.

Sam stirred at the sound of his voice. “Mmmmm…” Then she went still.

Habraum shook her again by the shoulders. “Samantha,” he said right in her ear.

“Whaaat?” She jerked her head up, leveling a drowsy-eyed glare at him.

“We need to go pay our respects.”

That woke Sam up. “I’m not ready.” Her abrupt tone permitted no further discussion.

“Nor am I,” sighed Habraum, expecting this reaction. “We have to.”

Sam jerked back into a straddled position. “Habraum—” she warned.

“Samantha,” Habraum overrode her tantrum, barely raising his voice. “We still have to.”

Five macroms and a brief squabble later, Habraum and Sam stood side by side inside a translifter briskly weaving its way down and right and diagonally toward their destination.

Neither said a word during the entire ride. The Cerc’s stomach was in a tight, uncomfortable knot, just like the last time he’d come down to give tribute to the other teammates and friends he had lost over a year ago. Habraum sure as
hazik
didn’t want to go there, but it had to be done. This was the tradition for any Star Brigadier killed in combat.

He stole a glance at Sam. She glared straight ahead, lost in her own separate pain.

Before Habraum knew it, the translifter stopped, its doors hissing open. They had arrived.

He clutched for Sam’s hand tightly, not so much to keep her from bolting but to fortify his own resolve. Ripping open a still fresh wound was not on Habraum’s list of enjoyables. Sam gave his hand a squeeze. Suddenly Habraum felt a rush of courage that forced his legs forward.

The Memorial Hall loomed imperiously before them. Habraum wasted no time standing in front of it, hesitating and contemplating. He steeled himself against the expected waves of pain and led Sam forward.  The doors slid open, and halolights switched on.

They were all there: close to a hundred or more Star Brigadiers dating back to Leonardo Osawa of the first Star Brigade combat team twenty-seven years ago. More recent additions, the eleven murdered last year on Beridaas stood in the forefront. The tenures of every Star Brigadier was recorded in Star Brigade archives. Only those active Brigadiers killed in combat were immortalized via 3D holograms in the Memorial Hall, as well as the Remembrance Wall outside Star Brigade’s Command Center.

The knots in Habraum’s stomach tightened to the point of nausea. Visiting the Memorial Hall before to honor the teammates he’d lost over a year ago, that had been a slow-roasting hell. Having to do the same with Honaa Ishliba felt worse.

A single silvery empty platform was situated in a clearing amidst these life-sized holos.

Habraum released Sam’s hand and limped forward through the holos, fiddling for the datacard in his pocket. He focused on that platform. Something in Habraum would break if he stopped to behold Jovian or Ariel or Dr. Pel or any of his old team.

All the holograms of dead Brigadiers were silent specters as he slid a small, razor-thin datacard into a slot at the base of the circular platform.

“Activate,” the Cerc whispered and backpedaled to Sam’s side, wincing at his own haste to distance himself from these ghosts.

An instant later, Honaa Ishliba’s life-sized holo blossomed into being. The height, the sinewy build and maroon scales, the tail length and thickness, even the cutting amber eyes were immaculate.

Habraum’s breath caught, convinced in a moment of deluded grief it was actually the Rothorid.

He knew better. On command, the holo could speak or produce a data scroll of Honaa’s career with Star Brigade, his whole life in fact, as well as how he died.

But it would never be Honaa.

“Let’s do this,” the Cerc muttered. Together with Sam, he began the words recited for any Brigadier entered into Memorial Hall: “Captain Honaa Ishliba, you fought with courage. You fought with merit. You gave your all in the name of Star Brigade and the Galactic Union. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten, Star Brigadier.”
The epitaph I should’ve given my old teammates.

They finished and the room answered with tomb-like silence. The knots inside loosened just enough, and Habraum could breathe again. He watched Honaa’s holo, foolishly hoping against hope it could speak Honaa’s words, give Honaa’s guidance.

Nothing. All Habraum had now besides this life-sized holo were his own memories and years of the Rothorid’s holorecords.
Not enough
, he thought bitterly. That would never be enough.

A sharp intake of breath pulled Habraum from his inner perdition. He turned to see Sam squeezing her eyes shut, quivering like a leaf, fighting with all her strength to hold it together.

Habraum’s heart ached for her. He placed a hand on the small of her back, stroking up and down. “It’s alright, Sammie,” he said softly. “It’s alright. Let it out.”

After a long moment she finally did, turning and collapsing into Habraum’s waiting arms. In the privacy of the Memorial Hall, Sam D’Urso began sobbing. She buried her face in Habraum’s chest, streams of tears saturating his shirt. The desperate way she’d held onto his waist felt as if Sam was terrified to let Habraum go. He tenderly kissed the crown of her head to reassure her otherwise.

Habraum recalled Honaa’s last words, as if the hologram was speaking to him. “Lead them well.”

I will, Honaa.
Fresh tears began to blur Habraum’s vision. Another sob shuddered through Sam’s body. The Cerc held her closer. 
I promise.

Kasiaph had never stayed in a Medcenter recovery room before.

Then again, he’d never purposely plunged a spreader knife through his lower left arm before either.

By now, the nine-year old Nnaxan and his family should have arrived at Hyperion Interplanetary Spaceport on Terra Sollus.

Instead Kasiaph was still on Terra Gima, in East Poston city-state to be exact. The Nnaxan sat glumly on the bed of a recovery room in a fourth-rate medcenter, the closest his family could find. His lemony complexion was pale from blood loss, his still-growing craniowhisks limp. The sight of where he’d stabbed his lower right forearm was now just a dark, fading bruise. Three small square holoscreens floated like disembodied ghosts around his bed: one monitoring cardiac rhythm and blood pressure, another observing respiratory function, the third neurological function.

Kasiaph bristled at the latter holoscreen. He was
not
crazy. At least…he didn’t think so.

Rhyne’s morning light, partially shrouded by clouds, streaked through the viewport and gave the room a lukewarm glow. “I’m in big trouble such,” the Nnaxan boy muttered under his breath.

The boy knew this by how his paternal’s long and thick craniowhisks had gone rigid with anger. The way his maternal just glared at him from across the room, eyes full of such disappointment. Her own craniowhisks hung limp with sorrow, all four arms wrapped fretfully around her slender, cobalt blue-skinned frame.

Kasiaph stared out the window at the crisscrosses of hovercar traffic passing near downtown East Poston’s anemic skyline. He thought of his older sisters Kaccia and Kecienne. They would have murdered him damn near if his paternals hadn’t kept them at home. Kasiaph couldn’t fault them for that. As it was, the air in the recovery room was thick with fury and resentment.

But the Nnaxan youngster had thought long about what he had done, and the havoc his actions had wreaked on his family.

The pain had exploded straight up Kasiaph’s arm, through his craniowhisks, and needled into his brain, making his knees give out. He stayed conscious, barely. Blood squirted everywhere, painting the family living room floor with splatters of rusty orange.

Still, Kasiaph believed he had done the right thing.

I have no choice
, was the single-minded thought that had driven his gory actions.

“Matee. Patee,” Kasiaph implored his paternities. “I’m sorry.” Actually, the boy lied. He felt no sorrow for making his family miss the event, just for the dismay this caused them.

Kasiaph’s father leveled a hateful glare at him, seeing through the lie. “No you’re not,” he snarled.

Matee gaped, her braided craniowhisks unraveling in surprise. “Louruus!” she chided her husband.

But Kasiaph’s paternal would not contain his fury. “A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!” Patee’s dark grey complexion was actually turning a shade darker in anger. “I paid a small fortune for those tickets! And you
ruined
it for your family! Why?! Just to get attention
more
!”

As expected, his maternal shrank before Patee’s towering anger. But for the first time, Kasiaph did not. Rage blossomed inside him like wildfire. He never asked for these visions. The least the Nnaxan could do with them was save his family. “But if we went to Terra Sollus we would die!”

“
No one would have
died
!” Patee roared so loudly, Kasiaph felt the vibrations through his craniowhisks. “Spare me your false predictions!” His paternal spun around, craniowhisks rigid so much they barely even moved as he stormed out of the room—leaving Kasiaph and his maternal to stare uncomfortably at each other.

The boy turned again to the viewport, his lip quivering. Somehow he kept himself from crying. No way would Kasiaph let anyone see him cry, not when he was half grown.  But his eyes stung, blurring East Poston and its traffic. Kasiaph knew how much his paternal had spent on those family pack tickets to Terra Sollus for the Union-Imperium trade merger celebration.

But Kasiaph could not have cared less about who was merging. As much as his paternal’s anger stung, the Nnaxan boy was grateful just to have his family all alive and safe still.

If his family had travelled to Terra Sollus as planned, they all would have died.

The reminder shook Kasiaph to his core, and suddenly the memories burst through his mind.

For a month Kasiaph started seeing his family in these dreams—no,
nightmares
—that had been plaguing him. 

….He and his family on Terra Sollus, watching the Kedri Sovereign and the Union Chouncilor finalize their historic trade deal… heat from Terra Sollus’s sun Rhyne beating down on him….

…then, a massive station blotted out the sun, spitting jets of heavenly fire down onto the crowds… 

… screams of terror in far too many dialects to count, the nauseating smells of living flesh burning…

…before he too was consumed by the flames, Kasiaph watched his family burning and screaming as white-hot fire reduced them to ash…

At first, Kasiaph thought these were just bad dreams. But every night, dreaming the same dream, seeing the same horror, dying the same way…it never once deviated.

The only aspect that kept changing for Kasiaph was remembering more details each time he woke up—like the region of Conuropolis’ Diktat District, between downtown and Earthtown, where heavenly fire had incinerated his family. That location was displayed big and boldly on the event tickets his paternal had bought. The fancy clothing his maternal had bought for the Trade Merger event not two weeks ago? The very clothes they and his siblings wore in the dream.

The final detail that pushed him over the edge was when a first look at the joint Galactic Union/Kedri Imperium space station was unveiled on a holoview military channel a week ago—matching the silhouette of the very same station in Kasiaph’s dreams that would slaughter millions.

Waves of fear threatened to drown the boy since then. Kasiaph never believed really in the silly creed of his paternities, the Church of the Holy Gemini, but maybe he should now.

Kasiaph had warned his family everything about these bad dreams every day for a week.

No one believed him.

His paternities wrote it off as his imagination running wild, while Kaccia and Kecienne ridiculed of him relentlessly.

Telling anyone at school was out of the question. Most kids at school actually envied Kasiaph for being able to go. Plus, his family had moved to Terra Gima from the Nnaxan homeworld Hommodus less than three months ago. Kasiaph had just started making friends. No need to be called ‘crazy boy.’

“The Kedri Sovereign will be there with a small contingent of his army and advisors,” his paternal had said last night after Kasiaph pleaded for them not to go. But his patience was waning visibly. “Same with the Chouncilor. He’ll have his Honor Guard plus the might of the UComm Armada. Conuropolis will be the safest place in the known galaxy. Now stop this nonsense before I get angry.”

That should have made Kasiaph feel better much. But last night’s dreams were so real—the death cries from the crowd as the fire from heaven took them, smelling the flesh burn off his paternities and sisters, the blinding flash of light from above before his own end was upon him—Kasiaph had woken up shrieking at the top of his lungs.

So this morning, as Kasiaph and his family had prepared to leave…and meet their end…the scared boy had taken action—and jammed a butter knife through his lower right forearm.

Thank the Gemini their dwelling sat near a short-range transmatter hub or…let’s just say Kasiaph might not have made it to the Medcenter.

The Nnaxan child was drawn back into the present by the sound of his maternal’s irritated bleating. She defended Patee, of course. She took his side
always
, no matter how wrong he was. “You do this to everyone, how? You know your Patee and siblings were looking forward to this, much!”

His maternal kept blathering on. Kasiaph ignored her, but not out of spite. A hush had fallen over the bustle outside his recovery room, the only sound being news streamcaster voices in various dialects blaring on top of one another in a smearing roar.

Matee was still yapping her mouth off when Kasiaph’s paternal reentered the room, his face painting a picture of horror. His craniowhisks trembled in fearful little ripples, all four arms hanging at his sides like dead things.

Kasiaph knew something was off. He had never seen his paternal this scared, even after the spreader knife incident this morning.

“Patee?” the boy asked. His paternal turned to his young son and stared.

The mix of disbelief and fear and regret in his almond-shaped orange eyes told Kasiaph everything.

“Matee, can you please turn on the HV?” the Nnaxan boy asked, a chill flooding every part of him.

“Why?” Matee asked, swiveling back and forth between the two males, her limp craniowhisks whipping about. “What’s—”

“Iobe, do it just!” Kasiaph’s paternal barked.

Somehow Kasiaph already knew what the holoview would show him. His maternal griped to an audience consisting of herself before uttering a few commands for a holoview screen.

A large 67-inch holoscreen appeared out of thin air in front of the boy—presenting a collage of horrific destruction.

The massive station thought to be a symbol of unity between the Galactic Union and the Kedri Imperium blotted out the sky, raining down white-hot fire onto Conuropolis, the capital city-state’s most majestic buildings that scraped the stars imploding before the barrage. Massive Korvenite statues that once stood as silent, majestic guardians at the borders of Conuropolis now animated and stomping through the streets of their patron city-state with nihilistic abandon; the abnormal, seemingly impenetrable golden forcefield covering Conuropolis. Clearly the Kedri weren’t behind the attack, as the news stream footage effusively showed their warships viciously firing on the forcefield alongside UComm vessels. One stretch of footage highlighted the far-flung civilian section where Kasiaph and his family would have sat to watch the event on massive skyview screens.

The section, meant to hold at least 300,000 occupants, had been scorched black by torrents of energy from the renegade space station. Not even skeletons remained of the corpses on the scalded earth.

Sobs and gasps erupted then outside of Kasiaph’s room. Doctors and nurses along with patients and their loved ones were all watching floating holoscreens in Medcenter recovery rooms and hallways that showcased the devastation on Terra Sollus. Everyone was digesting the horror of the terrorist attack on the Union capital world in varying degrees.

Tears trickled down Matee’s face as her whole body shook with sobs. Kasiaph could not take any of it, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his earholes.
I was right.
But the validation left Kasiaph so drained and sad. “I should have said something. I could have prevented—”

“NO,” Patee cut him off. All of a sudden, the firm pressure of four burly arms had wreathed around Kasiaph’s little frame, causing his eyes to snap open in surprise.

“My sorrows, child! My sorrows!” his paternal pleaded, enveloping his son with a firm hug.

Kasiaph rarely saw such emotion from his paternal, which made his apology hit that much harder. He gripped his father desperately and soon his maternal as she joined in on the hug.

“What do we do now?” the boy asked, a tremor of fear making his voice crack.

Kasiaph’s paternities said nothing, answering only by embracing their son tighter.

Over the next several days, the only thing on the news streams and the holoview entertainment channels was nonstop coverage of the attack on Conuropolis.

More and more information emerged. A group of Korvenite fundamentalists were behind the attack, many of them captured or killed. But the damage had been done, both literally and politically.

Most of downtown Conuropolis, the Diktat District in particular, was destroyed. The death toll had climbed into the millions. Both Union and Imperium governments had been humiliated by this breach in security. But the news that hit like a megaton explosion had to be the Kedri had withdrawn from the Trade Merger and was closing their borders to the Union for the foreseeable future.

What did this mean to nine-year-old Kasiaph, who had seen this devastation all coming?

First off, his family totally forgave him. The news streams hammered home their potential fate with graphic footage of the smoldering hulks of wreckage that was the Galactic Union’s greatest city-state. All that death and destruction left Kasiaph’s maternal a bawling mess. His sisters weren’t much better.

Secondly, the dreams of a ruined Conuropolis had finally stopped.  Kasiaph’s slumber was dreamless for the first time in over a month.

Thirdly, Kasiaph’s paternities took him to get tested. Blood tests, psychological tests, physical tests, any test that could determine the cause of his prophetic dreams.

His paternities insisted on heading back to the Medcenter for a battery of tests the day after the Conuropolis attack. Kasiaph fought with all his heart to stay numb throughout this whole period. Too overwhelmed to shout or cry or scream angrily, he went along with everything asked of him. Any action that required more mental energy and the young boy felt like his head might explode.