Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) (21 page)

“Captain Elren… he was… the best. He was so smart, and just incredibly talented in tactical thinking and… I never knew anyone else like him. I… I still can’t believe he’s dead. He realized what was happening before anyone else, and he chose to save me. Me! But it should have been me that died instead of him. We needed him for this mission. I’m just a pilot.” At this point, Merlo’s silvery eyes brimmed with barely contained distress as she sniffed back tears. The reciprocal grip on Branwen’s hand tightened almost to the point that it hurt, and staring at her, she knew that Merlo must have been holding all of this inside for months. Now that it was coming out, this young woman, her friend, was truly distraught.

But all Branwen could do was sit and listen, and hold her hand.

“The Altairans picked me up afterwards from where my part of the ship was drifting with the rest of the debris, and when I explained that we didn’t get their warning hails, they were upset, remorseful even, about having blown up our ship.” Raking her other arm across her eyes as she spoke, the comment came out sounding more angry than anything else.

“As if being sorry could make it better. My entire crew was dead! They took me to their planet and said they’d sort it all out. Give me ID and currency and stuff. But then they got to asking questions, and wondering about where I was from. Wanting to know about the
Defiance’s
tech. I wasn’t really comfortable telling them the whole story, but when I said I was from the Phoenix cluster, they investigated, but couldn’t find it on their star maps. Said that they’d never even heard of it.” Branwen watched her snort in disdain and misplaced anger.

“Since the people I talked to had no idea where I was from, they said they’d have to escalate it, or something. Find people who knew more. But from what I saw, they weren’t getting anything done.” Merlo sniffed again and swallowed her anguish, but it appeared to go down hard and transform into anger.

Branwen patted Merlo’s captured hand and finally spoke up again. “You said that they told you that they would make it up to you somehow, though? What happened to land you in that situation on Koltan, then, without any resources of your own?”

Merlo huffed at the distant event. “Don’t get me wrong, the Altairans acted all apologetic, made sure I had food and stuff, but I didn’t really like the thought of just waiting around for them to come drill me with more questions. So instead I asked them what I’d have to do to make it here, and they talked about stuff like getting a job for credits, and things like that. And when a day had gone by and no one had come back with any answers from anyone important, I told them I wanted to find something to do.” She frowned. “I mean, I guess sitting there thinking about what just happened was driving me nuts.” She opened her mouth to continue, but just ended up closing it again and shaking her head.

Branwen nodded, a deep sadness settling onto her to match Merlo’s. “I know how hard things like that can be. I understand.” She gave the small hand she grasped another squeeze. “What happened then?”

“I asked if I was free to go if I wanted, and they said I was. So I decided to try to follow the advice they gave me, and that’s how I got myself in that mess with the Gates on Koltan. I guess you know the rest from there. They haven’t gotten in touch with me since, until now.”

“That is… a sad, incredible tale,” Branwen spoke up after a few moments, letting Merlo’s last words fade away into the empty air of the bridge first. “And I feel for you. I wish that there was more I could do to help.”

Merlo laughed, a short cough of amusement coming out as she wiped her face on the high-tech sleeve of her armored suit. Branwen couldn’t see where the tears went, and wondered if the nanosuit had somehow eaten them. “Captain,” Merlo continued, “You’ve taken me in, given me a place to stay, told me stories, fed me, gave me a job on a damn good ship, and watched my back in some pretty rough situations. And now you’re willing to come help me with this? Captain, you’ve already done far more for me than most people ever have. That’s more than enough for me.” The girl stood, eyeing Branwen with a dubious expression, and it took Branwen a moment to figure out her body language and what she wanted.

“Oh.” Branwen stood from her seat, untangling the remnant of harness straps. Then she watched as Merlo, hesitantly, as if nervous or new to the expression, slowly stepped forward another small step and hugged her.

The friendly embrace lingered for a minute before Merlo spoke, her voice muffled by Branwen’s coat and shoulder. “Thanks for everything, Captain.”

Branwen puffed out a breath, partially in amusement, but mostly because Merlo was holding her pretty tightly. “Hmph. You had as much a hand in all of those things as I did. The only thing I can truly claim credit for is giving you the opportunity.” She patted Merlo firmly on the back, a companionable gesture from her homeland.

“If you say so, Captain. Myself, I’m pretty sure I’d be in jail on Koltan right now if not for you.” After a moment, Merlo followed suit with the patting, and Branwen had to stifle the cough the force of it almost wrung from her. She was certainly glad now that her injuries had healed.

They held on to one another for a long while, but just as Branwen began, with a little embarrassment, to consider telling Merlo to stop squeezing before she caused bruises, the girl abruptly stopped on her own. For a moment, she just stayed there, but then she trembled, and it rapidly transformed into her holding desperately onto Branwen as she shook and cried.

So Branwen held her for several long moments as Merlo buried her face in her chest and wept, as no doubt all the feelings of failure and the loss of her ship and her crew and her previous Captain all collapsed in on her. Branwen understood; she’d seen others in Merlo’s place before, many times. For that matter, she’d
been
in similar situations before. Sometimes, life simply gave a person more than they could handle.

So Merlo clung to her for a couple of minutes, and then it was suddenly over. She straightened abruptly, wiped away the remnants of upset from her face and pretended it had never happened. “Anything else we need to talk about before I go unload cargo, Captain?” Branwen noticed her arm jump, as if she was restraining a salute, and likewise restrained her amusement.

“No, I think we are all right.” Now the bloody girl did salute, turning to leave with hardly a sniffle left behind.

“Then I’ll go make sure everything’s taken care of.” She called back as she strode away. Branwen thoughtfully watched her friend go.

“Yes, I believe we shall be all right,” she repeated quietly to the empty room.

CHAPTER NINE

Conflux of Interests

Branwen

As far as planets went, Altair was
huge
. At least to Branwen, anyway; she struggled to navigate the extremely dense and crowded city structure with only the assistance of the exceedingly thick-headed VI repeatedly popping up from her datapad. She had read that Fade was considered a “Class Four” habitable world, compared to Altair Prime being a “Class Six”. What that meant, past Altair being bigger, she had no idea. Though it figured in a system they invented, that their world had the higher ranking.

Though, in retrospect,
Fade
actually seemed larger the more she pondered about it. On Fade, she had seen huge, open expanses, mighty snow frosted mountains, extensive oceans, and a far, far more boundless sky. What Altair actually felt like was more
claustrophobic
, a large word that she’d recently learned from Zimi, but the description her young medic had given her for the term seemed to fit the place exactly.

There were buildings everywhere they could reasonably be placed, some of which were imposing, sculpted figures of architectural wonder that seemed as tall as any mountain. She would have wondered at the purpose of all of those buildings, if there weren’t also so many people to fill them. Whoever planned these Altairan cities had done a masterful job, because there were always places for the throng to go, and the streets weren’t exactly crowded. But there was a massive number of people, nonetheless, and that was even with Branwen comparing to the marching armies and grand overland campaigns she’d been a part of. At least the Altairan crowds were quieter and more polite than that.

“One hour remaining. Please go left at next junction, and head straight onward to the transit area.” The disembodied voice drifted up from one of Branwen’s datapads, where she clutched it fiercely in one hand. She didn’t want to lose it, become hopelessly lost in the streets of Altair, and starve before she found her ship again. She pushed her way through the crowd, Merlo in tow, Altairans politely moving out of her way when plausible. She saw her opportunity and turned left, following the directives of the formless VI gripped in one hand.

“That is correct. Thank you. Now please continue…” For the moment, she knew where she was going, so she dropped the pad back down to her side and ignored the muffled voice of the VI. She’d turned off its holographic projection early on; the wooden motions and fake emotions of the pretty, polite Altairan image came close at points to disturbing her. Probably because of the similarity to things she’d seen in her past which were entirely unrelated.

“You worried if we’re going to make it, Captain? I mean, we left an hour early.” Merlo raised her voice from behind Branwen. She glanced back at the girl; Merlo, as always, was wearing her suit, a short, silver topped sapling in a forest of Altairans. Branwen had briefly considered wearing nicer attire for this meeting, getting out some of her finer garments from Fade, maybe her coat or cloak from the Tor. But she’d thought better of it. These wanderer’s clothes, these Captain’s clothes, were good enough for her these days, so she’d decided that they should be good enough for anyone else as well.

“We will be fine.” She called back, and then added, “I hope,” under her breath. An hour to cross to the massive heart of the largest city on Altair and meet with some supposedly important and impressive Altairan figure about her pilot’s future? Maybe she should have left three hours early.

She had assumed Altairan transportation in the city was effective, and she hoped that assumption was correct. They’d left the
Destiny
in the capable hands of Zimi and Mr. Leonard, having successfully unloaded and delivered their cargo, making a tidy sum in the process. Branwen was satisfied, at any rate. Altairan cities were very safe, so she had no qualms about leaving the pair of them to watch over the ship while Mr. Leonard conducted his repairs and Zimi sought out further gainful employment. Everyone seemed to be recovering at a good pace from the attack on The Bazaar, though Mr. Leonard still jumped at unexpected noises, even more than usual.

Branwen looked around, soaking up some of the sights as she went quickly toward the transit area. Merlo hurried along behind her, jogging lightly at points. It was easy for Branwen to look around, despite the hurry. Since the Captain was taller than almost any Altairan native she saw, she could easily look over the heads of the crowd while staying on track. It also blinded her a little; the brilliant cerulean sky of Altair brought a sting to her Fade-born eyes, though she understood she that problem was mostly unique to her.

Altair was, to put it mildly, quite interesting to Branwen. Nowhere else had she been in the clusters where technology was so ingrained into daily life. Personal datapads abounded, often disguised as part of clothing or jewelry, while interactive holograms helped draw attention to multitudes of shops, or assisted needy customers. Small robotic things helped keep the streets clean, though the Altairan populace seemed to mostly take care of that on their own.

A set of windows tinted of their own accord as the odd, oblate Altairan star descended far enough to slant its rays across the front of a building. Transports of all shapes and sizes, both wheeled and flying, zipped about like busy insects on their designated pathways, attractively designed barriers keeping them well separate from the large amount of pedestrian traffic. Further overhead, starships small enough to pass through atmosphere landed and took off from sky-scraping towers where strips upon strips of landing space bristled from them like the branches of an evergreen.

Those buildings were so enormous they dominated Branwen’s perceptions. They towered over everything else in the city, dwarfing her, so tall that it dizzied her to look up to their tops. Rounded glasteel and metal alloys descended from their pinnacle into a smooth, poured stone base, and some of them spiraled or curved upward with an elegant, artistic grace. Around each soaring spire sat bunches of smaller buildings, nestled together in precise, measured arrangements. Some of the technological monuments were connected to others by seemingly tiny, distant walkways, suspended high above ground and covered over with more thick glasteel. Branwen found herself torn between hoping they wouldn’t have to use one of those to reach their destination, and longing for the adventure.

She got an adventure she hadn’t quite asked for when she accidentally pushed to the fore of a cluster of pedestrians, Altairans politely resettling all around her in a tiny ripple of motion that echoed through the crowd. Branwen found herself looking off the edge of a platform at a single, metal rail suspended in the air a few feet off of the ground. It ran in both directions as far as she could see, disappearing off into the distance and curving slightly upward as it did so to her right.