The Days of the Golden Moons (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 5)

The Two Moons of
Rehnor

Book 5

The Days of the Golden Moons

By

J. Naomi Ay

Published by
Ayzenberg, Inc.

Copyright 2012-2016
Ayzenberg, Inc.

All Rights
Reserved

011116

Cover Art by Robert
W. Cabell

Also by J. Naomi
Ay

The Two Moons of
Rehnor series

The Boy who Lit up
the Sky (Book 1)

My Enemy's Son
(Book 2)

Of Blood and
Angels (Book 3)

Firestone Rings
(Book 4)

The Days of the
Golden Moons (Book 5)

Golden's Quest
(Book 6)

Metamorphosis
(Book 7)

The Choice (Book
8)

Treasure Hunt
(Book 9)

Space Chase (Book
10)

Imperial
Masquerade (Book 11)

Rivalry (Book 12)

Thirteen (Book 13)

Betrayal (Book 14)

Fairy Tales (Book
15)

Gone for a Spin
(Book 16)

The Firesetter
Series

A Thread of Time

Amyr’s Command

Three Kings

Exceeding
Expectations

Table of
Contents

Chapter
1 – Jerry

Chapter
2 –Katie

Chapter
3 – Caroline

Chapter
4 – Jerry

Chapter
5 – Taner

Chapter
6 – Jerry

Chapter
7 – Shika

Chapter
8 – Jerry

Chapter
9 – Shelly

Chapter
10 – Jerry

Chapter
11-Katie

Chapter
12-Tuman

Chapter
13-Caroline

Chapter
14-Shika

Chapter
15 – Jerry

Chapter
16 – Katie

Chapter
17 – Tuman

Chapter
18 – Sorkan

Chapter
19 – Katie

Chapter
20 – Tuman

Chapter
21 – Taner

Chapter
22 – Katie

Chapter
23 – Sorkan

Chapter
24 – Katie

Chapter
25 – Garinka

Chapter
26 – Katie

Chapter
27 – Sorkan

Chapter
28 – Katie

Chapter
29 – Moira

Chapter
30 – Shelly

Chapter
31 – Katie

Chapter
32 - Shelly

For Mick, Ben & Rachel

Never stop reaching for the stars.

Chapter 1

Jerry

I
couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t marry Janet.  It wasn’t that I didn’t love her
because I did, or at least I thought I did. 

She
was like my family.  She reminded me of my grandmother and all my aunts and
uncles who I hadn’t seen since I went to space twenty-five years ago. 

When
I was a kid, we would sit down at the dinner table and everyone would stab at
the food with their forks, grabbing whatever they could as fast as they could. 
You would have thought that someone was going to take it all away before they
had a chance to shove it in their mouths.  Janet would talk with her mouth full
of food too, just like them.  Every conversation was a shouting match and every
meal was a free for all.  She felt like home.  I just didn’t want to go home.

“I’m
going with Thad,” I said.  “I’m going to Derius II to find Katie.” 

“The
hell you are,” Janet replied and threw her napkin at me.  I was lucky it wasn’t
her fist. 

Thad
said I didn’t need to go and he wouldn’t take me so I went by myself. 

First,
I returned the tuxedo.  I didn’t want it anyway.  I certainly didn’t need a
tuxedo where I was going.  I didn’t ask for the ring back.  I supposed it was
Janet’s right to flush it down the toilet or throw it in the ocean.  If she
pawned it and made some money off of it, I figured it was the least I could
do.  She returned that pink tulle dress because I saw the credit come through
on my visa card.  I never liked it anyway.  It made her butt look big.

I
had plenty of money for just me.  I had a pension from Spaceforce and savings
from working at SdK Rozari for the last seven years while living in an
inexpensive flat and eating mostly takeout.  I took a leave of absence from the
hospital and bought a spaceplane ticket to Derius, intending to go find the
Spaceforce mental hospital on the north continent before Thad did. 

I
found it alright, but I was a week too late.  The director, a guy named Weimar
had swallowed a handful of pills and killed himself after a bunch of patients
escaped.  Asking around the local town, I found a guy who had been an orderly
there and lost his hand to a laser burst when the patients broke out.  He was
shot by a small blonde woman who went by the name of Anna and whose weapon of
choice was a Glock although she was obviously proficient with a laser.

“Nobody
knew that zombie could shoot,” he told me, tears falling from his eyes as he
studied the gauze wrapped stump of his arm.

“I
knew,” I mumbled and gave him some money for his time.  He asked me for more,
claiming he needed a lot of rehabilitation, so I gave him another hundred and
told him to go sue the Emperor. 

After
that, I lost Katie’s trail.  I didn’t know if she was still on this planet or
ran off to another.  I figured she never returned to Rehnor because it would
have been all over the Galaxy News Service.  I wasn’t much of a detective
except when it came to medical diagnosis, so I didn’t know where to head or
what to do next.  I had no desire to go back to Rozari though.  Janet had
probably booby-trapped my apartment and frankly, I really hated the weather
there.  It was hot and dry and rained only occasionally.  On top of that, I was
paranoid about the radioactive residue in the dirt and the dust.  Sure, the
government claimed it was well under exposure limits, but after all those years
in Spaceforce, I had learned never to trust anything any government said.

On
the other hand, if I had a house like Katie’s, I would have been willing to
risk it.  Janet and I had once taken a drive out to the big villa on the
coast.  We couldn’t land because the place was protected by a security bubble
but even from the air you could see it was like a tropical oasis in the middle
of a barren desert. 

“I
could live there,” Janet had said.  “Build me something like that, Jerry.”  I
remember making some lame joke about getting Ron to sell it to us.

“Nah,”
she replied.  “He’s keeping it so after he invades Rozari, he can come back and
live there again.  Furthermore, I don’t like Captain Perfect’s decorating
style.  I want to pick out my own drapes.”

The
house was way too big for us anyway.  It had all these other buildings where
all his staff and retainers lived and frankly, it looked like a small palace
which was probably what it was supposed to be all along.  Janet and I just
needed a little place with some space for a garden.  I reminded myself now we
didn’t need anything.  It wasn’t Janet and me anymore.  It was back to just me.

I
decided to stay on Derius II and sent in my resignation to Thad.  It wasn’t a bad
planet.  The natives were basically humanoid, and there were a lot of Earth
ex-pats around too, so I felt almost at home.  The Empire was taking over the
planet which didn’t bother me.  I stayed out of politics for the most part.  I
paid my taxes and saved my money and as long as the government let me live my
life without conscripting me into the service or confiscating every dime, I had
no problem with them regardless of who they were. 

I
booked myself into a hotel with a weekly rate and got myself a speeder.  I
spent the next month flying around the continent trying to figure out where I
wanted to live and what I wanted to do.  Nothing really rang my bell and so I
checked out of the hotel and went on to the southern continent.  I found a
little place on the western shore that had crystal clear blue water and sugar
sand beaches.  The temperatures hovered in the mid 80’s every day, and if it
got too hot, the trade winds would kick up and cool us off all afternoon. 

It
seemed just about perfect, so I rented myself a flat in the middle of a small
town with a nice view of the ocean and a deck to sit on and watch the sunsets. 
In the back of my mind, I was still searching for Katie, but in the front of my
mind, I figured I was retired and if I had to spend the rest of my life alone,
here was a good place to do it.

Chapter 2

Katie

It
was pretty stupid of me and maybe I was a little crazy besides.  I had some
pretty heavy duty psychotic drugs in my system for the last eight years, so I
probably wasn’t thinking straight.  Here I was, lost in some damn forest on the
southern continent of whatever planet this was, and all I had was a couple of
guns.  No money, no food, no change of clothes and certainly no cell, not that
I'd want to call anybody anyway.  Actually, if I had a cell, they'd be tracking
my signal and then what would be the point of this?

I
had been out in the forest for two nights after escaping the hospital and
leaving Caroline and the others to wait for Thad.  The first night I didn't
sleep at all.  I heard something that sounded like a bear snuffling around me. 
I could have blasted it with the laser but then what?  I wasn't about to gut it
and eat it, and it wasn't like I had a knife to do that with anyway, so all I
would have ended up with was a partially fried bear that would attract all
sorts of other carrion.  Instead, I climbed the only tree that had branches low
enough for me to reach and spent the night sitting there in the dark watching
whatever it was move around beneath me.

I
ended up sleeping half the next day at the base of another tree because I was
simply exhausted.  All I had eaten in three days was wild berries and a few
unripe apples.  I was tempted to start carving up a white birch if I could find
one.  The inner bark tasted like chicken.  Actually, it didn't.  It tasted like
bitter cardboard, but I figured since I was hungry enough, I could pretend it
was anything.  I’d been licking off water from large maple leaves until I came
to a creek that ran fast enough, I figured my chance of catching worms was
fairly small.  I was tired, and my legs ached, but I kept walking because I
wasn’t sure what else to do. 

Easily,
I could have turned myself in at the first town I came to and found myself
whisked back to Mishnah.  I wasn’t ready to do that though.  I didn’t know if I
would ever be ready to do that. 

Here,
as difficult as it was I was free to go this way or that and decide for myself
what my next step would be.  I felt horrible about neglecting Shika, but I couldn’t
imagine he needed me anymore now anyway.  He was fifteen and had spent more
than half his life raised in the Palace as a prince.  I imagined he'd look down
his nose at me, this wretched wreck of an insane asylum escapee who was his
mother. 

And
Senya?  I despised him.  I know I didn't listen to him when he told me not to
leave but still he didn't stop me.  He had to have known where and how I would
end up because he always knew everything.  He didn't send the Imperial Guard or
the Imperial Intelligence Services to rescue me.  Instead, he had virtually
taken over half the galaxy in my absence.  I considered that this was probably
his plan all along.

While
sitting in a tree surveying this foreign landscape, I decided it was better to
stay here and start over.  I would close my eyes and would not look at how the
Alliance I supported for twenty years had crumbled and been replaced by the
Empire.  It was really best for me not to be involved in intergalactic politics
at all.  Instead, I would find a shack near a beach and grow tomatoes to sell
in the farmer's market.  I would wear jeans, t-shirts and a baseball cap.  I
had more than enough of dressing in silk gowns with cloth of gold embroidery.  I
would do crossword puzzles and read books at night.  I wouldn’t even own a vid
or a tablet.  I would get a puppy, no a vicious dog with big teeth, and I would
train him to growl at everyone who came near.  I would cook whatever I grew and
could buy in the market.  I would be lonely for sure because I would never find
anyone who could compare to Sehron de Kudisha, but I wouldn’t even try.  Right
now, I would live just for myself.

I
walked for four days until I got to a town and there I pawned the Glock.  I got
enough money for a decent meal and a bus ticket across the continent.  When I
arrived on the western shore, I pawned the laser and bought some clothes, some
food and two month's rent in a decrepit cottage on the beach. 

The
first night I spent in the cottage, I couldn’t sleep at all.  The moon was high
in the sky, and it was a beautiful night reminiscent of thousands of beautiful
nights I had spent on the beach in Takira-hahr and later in Mishnah.  After
hours of tossing and turning on a mattress that smelled musty and was slightly
damp, I got up and walked on the beach.  I was tired and angry, and I cursed
him to the sea.  I damned him for all eternity for leaving me here alone and
for letting me fly away when he knew I wouldn’t come back.

A
ship or a satellite lit up the sky overhead and the warm ocean rushed upon my
feet.  For a brief moment, I had a vision, a memory, and I saw what had
happened.  I remembered the ship falling apart and plummeting through the
atmosphere, the heat in the cabin reaching enough to boil our blood were we
there for more than a few seconds.  Then we dropped like a stone into the vast
sea of this planet and at the same moment, the cabin cooled, and we were
flooded with water. 

The
water surrounded us.  Somehow I released my safety belt and pushed myself away
from the cabin towards the light above me.  Zem didn’t move though.  I couldn’t
leave Zem.  I crawled back and released his belt.  He fell forward, but I grabbed
his hair.  I couldn’t swim.  My legs wouldn't respond, so with only one free
arm, I pulled myself and Zem from the cabin through what used to be the cockpit
window.  My lungs were bursting, and my strength was gone.  We were both going
to die down here on the sea floor.  Then a miracle happened and the ocean rose
up in a great wave, tossing us on to a beach and into the sand.  I gasped and
took in as much air as I possibly could while the warm sun of this planet shone
upon my face.  Zem lay next to me, his skin dark green, his lips turning blue.

"Zem!"
I screamed and tried to twist around to help him, but I couldn't move.  I could
only lie there uselessly.  A sparkling silver light shone upon us then, and a
man appeared.  He knelt on the sand and pressed his hands upon Zem’s chest. 
Zem gasped, spouted water and started to cough.

The
feeling in my legs and back returned, and the pain was incredible.  The man in
the silver light put his hand on my forehead.

"Sleep,
Sister," he said and after that I can remember nothing more until I saw
Caroline's face peering into mine, and eight years of my life were gone, and I was
living in a nineteenth century hell hole.

I
looked for a job.  It was a little difficult.  I didn’t speak the language. 
Not too many here spoke English.  Nobody spoke Rozarian, and while they were
starting to use Mishnese, which I could speak passably well, I discovered that
I knew only the Noble Mishnese dialect.  I couldn’t exactly work in a drive-thru
and take orders speaking Noble Mishnese. 

I
worked one day in a flower shop, and when the owner didn't like the way I
arranged the daisies next to the dahlias, I was out the door.

“Screw
him,” I thought.  It was tough to be a former starship Captain and a former
Empress and be told that I was inadequate at putting flowers in a vase. 

As
I was rapidly running out of money and supplies, I needed to get a job and some
income soon.  I could go on welfare for a bit which would be my option of last
resort.  The Empire's welfare plan allowed for up to two months of assistance
but required that we take any job they found suitable for us.  I might end up
doing laundry again or digging ditches. 

I
applied for lunch duty at a local school.  I figured dropping slop on kids’
trays wouldn't require a vast knowledge of the local language and the kids
learning Mishnese wouldn't notice if I used the royal
We
when referring
to myself.  That worked for a little while. 

During
that period, I had my share of tater tots thrown at me, trays returned to me
covered in vomit, kids picking noses and putting the discards in their food.  In
addition, I was yelled at continuously by the enormous woman who ran this place
for just about anything and everything I did.  Fortunately, I didn't understand
most of what she said otherwise, I surely would have gone out and bought a new
pistol. 

After
I had been there for about three weeks, the Derian planets officially joined
the Empire.  A holiday was declared, parades and celebrations happened in every
town, and so I hid in my shack until things calmed down and the kids went back
to school. 

My
first morning back, I discovered that a large portrait of the Great Emperor and
me was now hanging in the front lobby on the school.  Overnight, this same
portrait had become a mainstay in all public buildings.  I guess I hadn’t been
divorced after all.  I walked in to the school at 7:30AM that morning to
discover me in my imperial best smiling with giddiness.  I remembered when this
pic was taken because it was the only time I had opened the Imperial Council
and I was extremely nervous.  The dress was heavy and hot, and I needed to go
to the bathroom, but it would have taken easily thirty minutes just to get out
of this gown.  Senya had leaned down and whispered in my ear that we were going
to play chess as soon as this event was over.

“Why
would we do that?”  I had snapped back.  I was anxious and mad at him because I
hadn't seen him in more than a month.

“Don't
be nervous,” he replied calmly putting his hands on my shoulders.  “Think on
this.  I am the black king, and you are the white queen, and when we are
finished here we will skip to the end of the game and go straight to the mating
part, yes?”  He pulled me against him and kissed me and I forgot all my other
problems even though all his fancy gold buttons, braid, and medallions were
poking holes in my chest.

“I
think you told me that once before and I slapped you or something,” I said.

“I
think you did,” he agreed and would have kissed me again except we had to go
into the council chamber. 

He
held my hand as we went in, and I don't think I took my eyes off of him once
the whole time.  I looked at the portrait now and realized how incredibly
beautiful he was, especially all decked out.  Even I looked beautiful too.  I
know I wasn't seeing that then.  I know that when I stared at him all through
the ceremony, I was seeing Senya, that wicked, naughty boy who I had fallen in
love with when I was nine.

“You're
getting your fingerprints on the picture.”  Some little urchin stood next to me
and pointed at my hand. I didn’t realize my hand was on the picture on Senya’s
face.  Quickly I pulled it away, burying it in my pocket.

“Is
that you?”  The little one asked in surprisingly good Mishnese.

“What
do you think?”  I swiped at my eyes.

“I
think you had a better dress in that picture.”

“I
did,” I agreed and smoothed down my lunch lady smock.

“I
like your crown,” she said.  “Can I see it?”

“I
don't have any with me here.”  

The
little girl studied me curiously and thought about that for a moment.

“You
talk funny,” she decided.

“I
know.”

“He's
scary.”  She pointed at Senya.  “I don't like him.”

“He
is scary,” I agreed.  “But sometimes, he's very nice too.” 

She
thought about that for another moment, pursing her lips and nodding her head.

“Do
you have a little girl?”  She asked after a time.

“No. 
We had a little boy, but he's all grown up now.” 

“Do
you miss your little boy?”

“I
do,” I nodded.

“Why
do you want to be a lunch lady instead of the Empress?  Is it because he's so
scary?”

“I
don't know,” I replied honestly.  “Maybe.”

She
frowned and then shrugged.  “Okay.  You’re a good lunch lady.”

“Thank
you.”  I watched her walk down the hall to her classroom and then I turned and
left the building.