The Exiled Earthborn (20 page)

“I don’t care,” Lucas said angrily. “I’m not a barbarian. I don’t need this.” He turned, but stopped as Maston called again.

“You really should see this,” he said. “Don’t you want to witness your companion’s triumph?”

Lucas turned back and saw a holoscreen being projected into the middle of the room. It was so large, the three-dimensional figures in it were actually life size, and rested on the ground where Asha and Kiati’s fight had taken place. Asha watched the reenaction of her own bout intently, nervously glancing up at Lucas periodically.

After going blow for blow, each side battered and bloody, Asha finally landed a knockout kick under Kiati’s jaw that sent her sprawling. Again, Maston approached her with the gun and uttered similar words to her as he had to him.

Lucas didn’t want to see this, but he was rooted, unable to tear himself away. For what seemed like a year, she leveled the gun at Kiati’s head, shaking as he had. Then, without warning, it fired. The recorded echo boomed throughout the chamber as it assuredly had when it was live. Asha staggered backward, dropping the gun. But then Lucas saw something that almost knocked him over.

Kiati slowly rose up from the ground, unharmed by a blast that didn’t actually fire a thing at her. The image disappeared and Maston walked into the center of the chamber.

“Rewired test fire mode,” he said, pointing to an indicator on his gun. “Says it’s live, but no energy output.”

Lucas felt even more sick.

“Of course I wouldn’t sacrifice a single Guardian to either of you, are you mad?”

He was almost laughing now.

“But it proves you lack the will to make the hard choices. Out there, mercy will get you killed. Will get all of us killed, or worse. And that is why you will
never
be one of us.”

“Do it,”
she’d said. She tried to tell him it was all a ruse, but he didn’t understand. But how had
she
done it, believing it would kill the woman in front of her? It was hard to believe. And it was ugly. Very ugly.

In the med bay a short while later, Alpha was treating Lucas’s wounds, which were numerous, though he wasn’t on the brink of death like a few weeks ago. Three beds down was Kiati, sleeping off her injuries sustained during her encounter with Asha, but still very much alive.

“These Sorans,” Alpha said as he shot cauterizing gel into a cut on Lucas’s chest, “their cruelty almost rivals that of the Xalans. Though in Paragon training, death would not have been a mere illusion.”

“I’m done with them,” Lucas said. “All of them.”

“All of them?” came a voice in the doorway.

It was Asha. She wore fresh fatigues with a winged Guardian emblem stamped on the sleeve. An emblem both their uniforms had long been missing.

“I shall leave you two to discuss present circumstances,” said Alpha as he shuffled past her and out of the room.

“I told you to do it,” she said. “I wasn’t supposed to come back, but I had to try and let you know.”

“And who told
you
to do it?” Lucas asked, his question laced with anger. “You had every reason to believe you’d kill her,” he said, motioning to the unconscious Kiati nearby.

“And how many times did you pull the trigger in that situation back on Earth?” she shot back.

“I didn’t with you.”

“Only because Alpha stopped you. I saw the look in your eyes. You would have left me in that crater with a hole in my head without a second thought.”

Lucas wasn’t sure he could deny that, given the situation at the time, but he pressed on undeterred.

“This was different. This wasn’t about survival. This was about joining their little murderous club.”

“Are we honestly going to lecture each other about murder here?” she said, annoyed.

“Kiati and Silo are not cannibals or separatists trying to kill us.”

“You think they’re our friends?” she was shouting now. “You think they would have hesitated to snap our necks if Maston ordered them to?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, “I’ve seen what Maston’s orders can do.”

“He was teaching you,” Asha said. “You were stronger than you ever were after that ordeal.”

“Now you’re defending Mars Maston?” Lucas said in disbelief. “A man who ordered me to be beaten half to death and did god knows what on Vitalla?”

“Vitalla wasn’t his fault!” Asha blurted out, almost immediately realizing her mistake.

The resulting pause was an eternity.

“He told you about Vitalla?” Lucas asked slowly. “And you didn’t tell me? What’s he done to you?”

Asha remained silent.

“After this, I’m going straight into cryo for the last week of the trip,” he said. “I’ll see you on Makari. Have fun with your new squad.”

By the time he finished, she was already storming out the door.

The anger didn’t leave Lucas as he fled the med bay and rushed upstairs to the vast cryo room that housed the sleeping pods for the entire crew. Most were already full. The Guardians who slept there had been on ice for months, the rest were vacant, meant for him, Asha, and their training squad. They slept there each night, but not under “deep ice” as the Sorans called it, which was for prolonged unconsciousness lasting weeks, months, or even years. But that’s the sort of asylum he was seeking now.

Alone in the room, it felt like a cemetery. The only light came from the closed pods where other Guardians rested. He didn’t care to say goodbye to Asha, to Silo, to any of them. He’d had it with this whole damnable ship and crew and wanted nothing more than to shut the entire events of the day out of his mind in deep sleep until they finally reached this wretched planet. He figured he would have probably been better off just spending the whole trip in cryo like so many of the others onboard.

He stripped down to nothing but a pressurized mesh bodysuit, the standard outfit for deep ice as the system needed direct access to all the vital organs to keep everything running smoothly in hibernation. In his “personal effects” compartment he crammed Omicron’s glass device, the only thing of value he had with him. Additionally, he’d quickly swung by the armory to grab his most trusted ally on the ship, Natalie. It was against regulation, but he pulled her into the pod anyway. There was no telling who might attempt to steal or dismantle her while he slept. He didn’t trust anyone here anymore. Rage was perhaps tipping him into paranoia, but he didn’t care. Lying down inside the chamber, he tapped the control sequence on the interior wall that would automatically wake him when they arrived. Natalie lay upright near his feet (deactivated of course), taking up precious space in the cramped area.

The machine started to spool up and a series of restraints threaded themselves across him, securing him in place. The device doubled as an emergency lifepod should the moment call for it. Next, cables snaked out of the walls, and Lucas winced when they dug into his skin at various points all over his body. None of this was necessary as a precursor to nightly sleep, but it was mandated for long-term rest. If it weren’t for the madness-inducing nightmares, he much preferred the comfortable setup of the Xalan pods with their gel backing and simple halo. This seemed downright medieval in comparison.

The last stage of the process was the lid, which slowly lowered down with a creak. The rest of the chamber became obscured behind the frosted glass.

Lucas felt liquid relaxation flood into his veins. His anger was washed away in minutes, and he watched a blue substance work its way into his arms and legs. Soon after, the liquid switched to green, and his head started to grow fuzzy. He embraced the darkness in which he’d rest for the next ten days until they landed. At last he’d have some peace.

Mercifully, the dream that followed was far more placid than the ones he usually endured.

He sat on a platform, a broken-off piece of pavement floating in space all by itself. Sparkling stars surrounded him, but the vision ahead was an even lovelier sight.

It was Earth. Old Earth. Facing forward, the planet took up almost his entire field of vision and was a spectacular painting of blue, green, and white, the colors it had once been known for. North America was in front of him, and he could see its southern counterpart curving under the globe down by his feet. The entire planet turned ever so slowly in front of him.

After what seemed like an eternity of staring at the sphere, the platform suddenly buckled and sent him tumbling toward the Earth. He’d had this dream before, and he’d ended up in the Portland crater. He had no desire to return there, but as he sped through the atmosphere, found he was heading a little farther south. California.

Opening his eyes, Lucas found a different vision in front of him. Bacon sizzling in a pan he was holding. He blinked and looked around the room. The kitchen was large and full of dark-wooded cabinets with glass fronts and granite countertops. Bright morning light streamed in through the windows. It was a place he’d never been before.

A little boy wandered sleepily into the room from the hallway and took a seat at the table across from the counter.

“Daddy, is breakfast ready yet?”

Lucas stared at him. It was Noah, probably about three years old, but still very much recognizable with bright blue eyes and distinctive blond locks. His arm had no burns that Lucas could see.

“Daddy!”

“Um, uh, almost,” Lucas stammered as he poked the bacon around. A stack of steaming pancakes sat on the counter a few feet away. Looking around, he could see that the house he was in was gorgeous, with lofted ceilings that gave way to skylights. Massive couches sprawled across the living room, gathered around a stone fireplace devoid of a fire.

Lucas saw the bacon starting to burn and quickly pried it off the pan and onto a nearby plate. He brought it and the pancakes over to the table where Noah eyed them hungrily.

“I swear you’re going to make us all fat.”

The voice was one he knew instinctively. He turned and saw Asha descending from a spiral staircase nearby. She wore a form-fitting navy dress and heels with an oversize necklace. She also had an enormous diamond ring on her finger. Lucas looked down at his own hand and saw that he too wore a band.

In Asha’s arms was an even younger child, little more than an infant. One with wispy dark hair, her eyes, and his nose. Their other son, one not yet given a name. She set him down in a high chair across from Noah and then grabbed a couple nearby oranges from a bowl and started peeling. Lucas just stood at the table in shock.

“What are you staring at?” she said. “Start eating! I’m on set today after dropping these two off, and you’ve got that huge meeting in what, like an hour?” She looked at her watch.

“Uh, yeah, right,” Lucas said, not sure what she was talking about. He looked down at his own outfit and saw he was wearing a slim gray suit with a sapphire tie. He slowly sat down and started eating breakfast. The pancakes tasted as good as they ever had when he used to make them years earlier. The baby in the high chair waved his arms around and babbled until Asha fed him a tiny piece of orange. He grinned happily.

Noah was drawing on a piece of paper with crayon in between bites of bacon.

“What are you working on there?” Lucas asked him.

Noah slid the paper over to him. On it was a simple drawing of a stick-figured family, their own, judging by the hair colors, and then a larger figure with slightly elongated arms and an oblong head.

“Who’s this?”

Noah looked exasperated.

“Uncle Alpha!”

Lucas’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he didn’t miss a beat.

“Ah yes, of course. It’s a really good picture of him. I must have had something in my eye. And what’s this?” Lucas asked, pointing to a black scribble with neon blue circles on its right edge.

“His spaceship, it was
soooo
fun riding in it last week!”

Lucas played along.

“Yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

Asha laughed.

“I’m surprised I even still have a job,” she said. “Why would anyone want to watch movies anymore with them here?”

For the first time, Lucas looked out the window in the living room. When he saw what was there, panic surged through him. A mothership hung in the distance over downtown Los Angeles.

But then he kept looking. Walking down the street were two Xalans. Not dressed in power armor, but in their natural greys. As they passed, another walked by, this time talking with a woman walking her dog.
What the hell?

Lucas slowly shifted his view to the fireplace. A photo sat framed with a plaque next to it. It was of him and Alpha shaking hands. The engraving read:

“This commendation recognizes the outstanding work you have done on behalf of the Interspecies Initiative after first contact. The citizens of two worlds thank you for your invaluable assistance.”

“Everything okay?” called Asha from the table. The baby and Noah had turned to look at him as well.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, noticing an ID badge on the counter with his picture on it. Underneath his name it had his title, “Director of Interplanetary Relations, North America.” A US government seal followed.

“Alright, well, that’s enough pancakes for you,” Asha said.

“But I want another one!” Noah moaned.

“Nope, we’re going to be late. A little help here?”

“Sure.”

Lucas cleared the table and hoisted the baby out of his high chair. He passed him off to Asha, who scooped up a large purse and took Noah by her other hand. Lucas followed them out onto the driveway. After the boys were buckled into car seats in a silver SUV, Asha turned to Lucas and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him, letting her lips linger far longer than any unhappy housewife would. He felt … passion.

“Alright, don’t be too late tonight,” she said as she released him. “And don’t let that Ambassador Omicron boss you around; he’s a prick.”

“He is …” Lucas said, his head still swimming.

“Bye, I love you.”

Lucas was stunned at his own words, ones that had never actually left his lips when speaking to Asha.

“I love you too.”

And ones that had never left hers either.