Heart of the Nebula (24 page)

Jessica took a deep breath and smiled, but
there were tears in the corners of her eyes. “Well, it’s good to
have a girl in the house again,” she said, reaching out to take
Kyla’s hand warmly in her own.

Is this what my mother
would have been like?
Kyla wondered. Her
memories were dim, but she could feel them rising within her. Her
father had been a lot like Adam, firm and austere, but loving in
his own sort of way. He’d died when the Hameji had first taken
over—Kyla couldn’t remember exactly how—and that had left her and
her mother alone. That was when the hard times had come, and
everything had fallen apart. But before that, she had a family
where she felt safe and loved.

Why are they opening their
home to me like this?
she thought, her
hands shaking ever so slightly.
I’m not in
their family. They don’t owe me any of this. Why are they being so
kind to me?

“
Is there anything else
about you we should know?” Adam asked, a little gruffly. His
expression was not unkind, though.

Kyla bit her lip. “I-I don’t know,” she
said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

“
What was that?”

“
She said she doesn’t know,
Dad,” James answered.

“
Well, we’ll take care of
you as best we can,” said Jessica.

“
Why?” Kyla
blurted.

The others frowned and looked at her. “What
do you mean?”

Kyla’s arms started shaking, and she found
it suddenly hard to breathe. “Why are you doing all this for
me?”

Instead of answering her with words, Jessica
stood up and gave her a hug. The last of Kyla’s defenses broke
down, and she began to quietly sob. It was as if her life before
had been a nightmare, and only now was she finally waking up.

I don’t deserve any of
this,
she thought to herself.
I’ll never be able to pay them back.
Somehow, though, none of that really mattered.
What mattered was that she’d found a home.

James’s wrist console beeped, and he set
down his fork to check it. Instantly, he was on his feet.

“
Sorry, Mom and Dad. I have
to go.”

“
Are you sure it can’t
wait, son?” Adam asked. “We hardly ever see you these
days.”

“
I’m sure, Dad.
Sorry.”

He gave each of his parents a hug before
quite literally running out the door. Kyla watched it slowly shut
behind him and wondered why he would ever want to leave this
place.

“
James has so many duties,”
Jessica told her, as if she could read her mind. “We’re very proud
of him, even if we don’t get to see him very often.”

“
He’s the last one we have
left,” Adam muttered.

“
Not anymore,” said
Jessica, giving Kyla another hug.

Kyla’s lip was quivering
too much for her to answer, but she nodded and returned the
hug.
Thank you,
she thought inwardly.
Thank you for
giving me a home.

* * * * *

James half-ran, half-walked down the narrow
corridor towards the nearest elevator shaft. He hated to leave his
parents in the middle of family dinner, especially when he was
supposed to be introducing them to Kyla, but this was urgent.

A Hameji outrider had arrived unexpectedly
not half an hour ago. It was too small to be the advance force of a
strike team, but too unusual to ignore. James’s contacts in the
Defense Corps had notified him immediately, but he’d left it for
them to handle.

Until the outrider had docked, that was. The
pilot was Jahan, and he’d requested a personal meeting with James
at once.

He tapped his feet impatiently as the
elevator descended toward the spaceport at the lowest level of the
station. Why did these things have to be so unbearably slow?
Fortunately, no one stopped to get on.

His wrist console chimed. It was Lars.

“
Hello, James?” Lars said
as he answered the call. “Are you there?”

James sighed. “What is it, Lars?”

“
Have you been following
the discussion forums in the General Assembly? All the centralists
have gone unusually silent, while the patrician’s office has been
holding closed-channel discussions with them. It looks like the
patrician is up to something.”

“
Lars, can we talk later?
Now isn’t a good time.”

“
I know, you’ve got your
family dinner, but I saw that you stepped out for a minute and
thought that we could chat.”

James frowned and checked the privacy
settings on his console. Sure enough, he’d forgotten to turn them
off.

“
You seem to have an in
with them,” Lars continued. “The patrician’s inner circle, I mean.
Remember how we talked about it on the
Freedom’s Star?
”

“
Yes, Lars, but now is
really not a good time. Can we talk later?”

Lars paused. “All right. How about we talk
over lunch sometime?”

“
That would be
great.”

“
Can you do
tomorrow?”

“
Yeah, sure,” said James.
The elevator slowed as it reached the lower level.

“
Tomorrow upshift at
eleven?”

“
Of course. Bye,
Lars.”

He cut the connection and hurried onto the
concourse. There weren’t many people on this side of the spaceport,
but he still drew stares from some of the bar patrons as he broke
into a run. If Jahan had come all this way to meet with him, it
meant that the Hameji were up to something—and he doubted that that
was good.

Sterling was waiting for him by the
spaceport entrance. His eyes widened as James all but barreled into
him.

“
Hello, Lieu—I mean,
Commander,” he said, stepping back as he gave a salute. “We have a
visitor, sir—someone who wants to speak with you.”

“
Of course,” said James as
he hastily returned the salute. “Where is he?”

“
We, ah, commandeered one
of the vacant offices for a meeting space. He’s waiting there for
you now.”

“
Take me to
him.”

“
Right away, sir,” said
Sterling. He turned and set off at an awkward half-run, James
following close behind.

When they reached the vacant office—behind a
customs booth that had been gathering dust for some time—James
stepped over the DO NOT ENTER tape and went straight for the
office. The door was propped open by a metal beam, and the display
monitors on the computer terminal had been removed, leaving the
wiring exposed. There was still a desk, though, with a smooth
basalt finish, and an overstuffed couch beneath the window. Jahan
sat in the center of it.

I remember you,
James thought as the young boy stood up.
You were the one who took me to see my sister
back at Gaia Nova.
He was dressed in the
typical Hameji officer’s uniform, a flat gray canvas shirt with a
green sash cutting diagonally across his chest. As James entered,
he stood up to his full height, which barely came up to the middle
of James’s chest. The austere expression on his boyish face would
have been comical, except for the unusual circumstances of their
meeting.

“
Master Jahan,” said James,
bowing. Sterling did the same.

Jahan scowled at Sterling and flicked his
wrist at him. “Send servant away,” he said in his thick Hameji
accent. It was clear that he didn’t speak the language of the
conquered territories very well.

He’s not my servant, he’s
my wingman,
James wanted to retort. Even
so, he nodded to Sterling, who stepped out.

“
Good,” said Jahan. “I
bring message for you.”

“
What sort of
message?”

“
From Sholpan,” Jahan
continued, as if James hadn’t spoken. “You will take family and
come my ship. You will do now.”

James frowned. “What the hell are you
talking about?”

The scowl on Master Jahan’s boyish face
widened—apparently, his limited vocabulary included profanity. “Is
no time for argue. You will do as say and take family my ship.”

“
Why? What’s going
on?”

“
Is Sholpan’s orders,” said
Jahan. “I go, I save you from Tagatai. Is coming big fleet, come
very soon for war.”

James’s legs stiffened, and his cheeks began
to pale. “You said a Hameji battle fleet is coming?”

“
Is coming, yes. Is killing
you all, is reason Sholpan command me come. You take family my
ship, you come now.”

Stars of Earth,
James thought. A sudden wave of dizziness came
over him, and he steadied himself against the desk.

“
Why you wait? You come,
you take—”

“
I can’t do that, Master
Jahan. I have to stay.”

Jahan frowned. “You stupid? If stay, will
die.

Not if I have anything to do with it.

“
I appreciate the offer,
Master Jahan, but I have to stay with my people. I’m sure you can
understand.”

“
No. Not
understand.”

James put a hand on his shoulder and gently
herded him toward the door. Jahan tried to fight back, but he was
too small to shrug off James’s grasp.

“
Stop!” he shouted. “What
you do?”

“
I’m sending you back to
your ship,” said James. “Go back and get out of here, before
Tagatai’s men find out what you were up to.”

“
But what tell Sholpan? She
give orders!”

“
Tell her that I’m going to
be okay. Tell her that I’ll take care of the family.”

“
Unacceptable. She say take
family and go!”

That’s because she’s just
as stubborn as I am,
James thought, smiling
in spite of himself.
Stars, I’m going to
miss her.

“
I am taking the family,
Jahan. I’m just not taking them with you.”

They stepped through the door and out into
the terminal, gathering some strange looks from a couple of nearby
guards.

“
Unacceptable!
You—”

“
Get back to your ship,”
said James. “I’m not coming with you—not if you force me at
gunpoint.”

Master Jahan’s face went red, and he stood
up straight as if to size up his opponent. For a hair’s breadth of
a moment, James thought the kid would actually pull a gun and try
him at his word. Instead, he turned and left in a huff.

“
What was that about?”
asked Sterling, his face darkened in concern. “It sounded as
if—”

“
Double the watch,
Sterling. Put everything we’ve got on those scanners—if anything
shows up, let me know.”

Sterling frowned. “What? Sir, what’s going
on?”

But James was already running back to the
elevator.

* * * * *

Sara didn’t think she could stand any more
meetings. Her father had scheduled her to meet with virtually every
centralist think tank in order to drum up support for their PR
campaign, but hadn’t authorized her to reveal anything. As a
result, she felt like an overdressed cheerleader in front of a
crowd of skeptics. Fortunately, the dayshift was over, and she
didn’t have to endure another political event until the next
one.

“
Incoming call,” Nina said
as Sara collapsed on her apartment’s couch. She groaned and
resisted the urge to bury her face in a pillow.

“
Tell them I’m busy,
Nina.”

“
The caller is Commander
McCoy, mistress. Shall I tell him to try later?”

James?
Sara thought, perking up at once.

“
Never mind, Nina. I’ll
take the call.”

The apartment speakers chimed, and James’s
voice came through. “Hello? Sara?”

“
Hi, James,” said Sara,
sitting up and leaning forward. “What’s up?”

“
We’ve got a problem, Sara.
The Hameji are coming and could be here any moment. We need to get
ready to jump out—now.”

Sara covered her face and groaned—quietly,
though, so that James couldn’t hear. For the briefest of moments,
she’d thought that he was making a personal call. But no, it was
only another crisis that had driven him to her.

“
What makes you say that,
James?”

“
A Hameji outrider just
arrived from my sister to take me and my family away. The pilot
said that an attack was imminent, and if we stayed, we’d all
die.”

“
Okay,” said Sara, her
hands beginning to shake. “What should we do?”

“
We should get everything
ready and jump out as soon as we can.”

Bypass the General Assembly with no sign of
danger? We might as well hand the opposition my father’s head on a
platter.

“
Hold on, James. Let’s take
some time and think about this.”

“
We don’t have time,” he
told her. “If we’re still here when the Hameji show up, they’ll
blow the Colony to pieces.”

“
But we haven’t launched
the PR campaign yet. If we bypass the General Assembly without any
sign of danger, the opposition will rip us to shreds.”

“
But if we don’t, we’ll all
be dead.”

“
Just—just calm down for a
second,” she said, scrambling to come up with a reason that would
satisfy him. “There’s still a shift of workers out in the smelters
and asteroid mines. If we leave before they get back, they’ll all
be killed.”