Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (29 page)

A hulk of bronze interrupts his
sight: Velric stands in front of him. He can't feel the trigger; he
can't feel his fingers. Something is wrong, this isn't him. And God
-- his leg pulsates with pain. He needs another drink. Now.
Something to bring back the man he was before; bring back the
soldier, the Admiral.

He can't stand; his legs give
out beneath him. Something has happened, he’s fired the gun, so why
was he the one going down?

Annika peers around the
Belovore's side, a look of sadness pulling the grin away from her
lips. Perhaps that’s the look she'd always worn. She isn't growling
at him, nor is she mocking him. She isn't the girl he'd seen at
all. Her blonde hair hangs light over her soft, supple neck,
teasing a face adorned with fear. Her frame is small and slender,
frail. Her eyes well up with tears as Perry watches her lips mumble
something he can't hear.

Velric kneels down beside the
Admiral; the creature's form shifts back and forth in fluid motion
as the Admiral's sight blurs. His leg throbs from the thigh down to
his toes. "Your people, they'll die out there; I sent them to their
deaths," Admiral Perry whispers, believing that each word was
something he shouldn't hold on to. "I'm sorry."

Velric leans in close; Perry
notices a small bullet sized indention on the Belovore's chest,
right above where a human's heart would be. The hole didn't
penetrate the armour, and the bullet wasn't there.

Velric places a hand on the
Admiral's shoulder. It’s strangely soft, feathery, and even through
the Belovore's thick plating it feels like there’s something kind
and gentle . Two guards fumble about his body, ripping through his
uniform and groping at the part of his leg that throbs with a pain
that Perry's anguished mind can't comprehend. It reminds him of his
early days in the Earth Militia, long before he'd known that Irene
was a ship destined for his command. It triggers the scent of
gunpowder, old and ancient; it brings out the taste of acrylic
flash powder, the kind used in more modern firearms.

"You're going to be fine
Admiral," Russell says while Benn cuts off the leg of Perry's
pants. Benn wraps a long stretch of fabric around the bulk of his
thigh. He catches stray strands of phrases mumbled by voices he
can't place: "Damn, the bullet bounced back and hit you… had to put
it on full power, didn't you … Well, at least Velric slowed it
down…"

He watches Velric lean in
again, stealing Perry's attention from his periphery. He can’t
believe the bullet bounced off the Belovore and hit him – though he
knows he deserves it. "We are stronger than you give us credit for,
Langston Perry. Annika took your blame; the burden of our fate is
no longer yours to carry.”

Admiral Perry sets his head
back on the floor and closes his tired eyes. He drowns out the
pain, the sound of the room, the murmurings of his lieutenant and
the panicked voices of the crowd, to focus on the only memory he
can muster: Velric walking into the Irene that first day, asking to
touch the ship that they couldn’t believe existed. They’d had the
future before them, the belief that they could make their new home
a better place. In the crowded foyer, Admiral Perry inhales the
first deep breath he can muster through the pain, and weeps.

He is forgiven. As are we
all.

After we’d
finished reading the
story Davion had
written, we sat in silence.

‘
We wouldn’t
be alive now without her,’ Davion’s words echoed off the walls. I
could hear them in the back recesses of my mind, but I couldn’t
fathom what kind of damage they’d done to Annalise. If we were to
be rescued by whatever Father Corin and his Forgiven planned, the
first place to look was in the book. The answers were there, true.
But we could only sense the shape they’d hoped to make. If you can
only see the shape now too, then maybe there is hope for my own
salvation after all. But one thing was absolutely clear in that
moment: if Annalise was to be saved from the fears and anger from
the responsibilities now foisted upon her, then I had to save
her.

Chapter
Eleven:

Confrontation

After
Annalise, Kayt, and I
examined Davion’s
book, we had time. None of us wanted to talk, so we sat on the beds
and closed our eyes. I was more concerned with Annalise than Kayt.
I could see that Kayt wanted revenge for Lancaster now, and had put
the urge to blame herself to the side. Every sound from the
corridor made her twitch, and she clenched her fists together in
her lap. Annalise sat still, perfectly silent. Even when a large
crate was dropped near our door, clamouring loudly against the
stone, Kayt and I jumped – but Annalise acted as if nothing had
happened.

The room wasn’t cold; however,
it was not as cold as it could have been. An internal heating
system piped in warm air from a vent on the floor next to the bed I
sat on. I couldn’t imagine the vent systems built under all the
stone and rocks that made the foundation. My mind drifted inwards
as I shifted my weight around and rested on the bed. An unspoken
thought rebounded through all of us, and maybe that’s why we
couldn’t look at each other: the night would be very long if we
were left alone.

We all sat in silence; we
waited for Davion or Father Corin to return. I fell asleep without
realizing it, completely oblivious to how tired I was.

Ever
since
International Aeronautics
re-pioneered
the
commercial spaceflight industry, travel has gone in three segments
– provided you’ve booked a one way flight. The first is transport
to the main ship, the second is the journey, and the third is the
disembarkation flight. Each ship is modified and geared towards its
task, but you don’t pay extra unless you want a fancier suite on
the primary flight. Many people experience long nights on the
primary. It makes me think of an academic paper I read long ago,
before St. Michel’s, about the sudden influx of topics such as ‘My
First Star-Flight’ and ‘What I Did While Waiting For The
Dis-Embarking’ on grade school papers, even up to grad school. A
by-product of cultural change, the paper called it. They were all
focused on how much time there was to think on-board. I understood
exactly what that meant when I first left Earth, and hopped on
board the
Korsikov
bound for Sondranos – many things could seem long, but when
you have no sunrise or sunset, it feels like time has ceased to
exist.

I’d been
sitting in the air terminal, waiting for them to call the Sondranos
ticket. I was surprisingly calm – my mind was still solidly made up
that leaving Earth was a good idea, and that I had to get out
before everything I loved was gone or downgraded. When they called
it, I boarded one of the sixteen world-wide transports bound for
the star-liner
Korsikov
. I was upgraded to business class for a small sum when the
airline personnel discovered that only seven people would be making
the flight. I asked the ticketing agent why the flight was still
going, and the answer was succinct:

‘
You don’t
fly if you have no people these days, Mr Bishop,’ the ticketing
agent scanned my ticket, checked my ID. ‘Colonies don’t run on warm
bodies.’

Feeling awkward, but grateful
for the distraction, I boarded.

I boarded with a family of
three: a mother, father, and their teenage son. The boy wanted to
be anywhere else but there. It could only have been a family
vacation. Transport seats are naturally small, but smaller if you
have a carry-on. I didn’t, so I enjoyed the leg room and the lack
of something looming overhead on the wire rack. The family balanced
three large suitcases and two smaller bags in the seats
surrounding. I didn’t speak to them, and they didn’t speak to
me.

I would be remiss to say that I
didn’t consider what I left behind. Occasionally, my mind drifted
alongside what I would be leaving behind: Daniel, St. Michel’s, and
my rent payments. Taxes would build up, and so would late-payments,
especially if they had to declare me as a delinquent on account of
having abandoned the place. It would take Daniel less than
twenty-four hours to know I was gone. I pulled out the computer
touchpad situated in the armrest, and switched it on. That was when
I started transferring money and put a hold on my Earth account.
Daniel knew the password to my online information, and would have
easily been able to see that I’d bought a ticket to Sondranos –
however, locking the account froze all activity, blocking recent
purchases from sight.

The
Korsikov
was the
quintessential
International
Aeronautics
vessel. Long and sleek,
nothing like the bulky ancient derelicts or colony vessels. Two
large beams stretched from port to stern, and the command bridge
stared out from the front end with two large spotlights. The lights
came from visual sensors which projected the surroundings to the
bridge. Dozens of the same lights lined the top and bottom of the
ship. Two on the bottom flickered sporadically, and I could already
see repair crews in EVA suits fumbling out of a hatch to fix
them.

When I would
see the
Irene
descending on Sondranos some time later, I wouldn’t even
consider that they’d come from the same shipyard only four hundred
some-odd years apart.

The Captain
greeted us at the
Korsikov’s
hatch. The other passenger transports had been
staggered for the last six hours. When we arrived, he’d received us
with a book clenched in his hand and a tired look pulling down his
features. His smile was the only thing about him that seemed
welcoming – the rest was precise and methodical. I felt safe
looking at him, which is exactly what I was supposed to
feel.

‘
Going
straight to, or connecting?’ he asked.

‘
Connecting
where?’

‘
You’re
either going to visit Sondranos proper, or going to the Munich
colonies half a dozen clicks away.’

‘
Ah. Straight
to Sondranos.’

‘
Good man,’
he clapped me on the back. I wouldn’t see him beyond this moment,
unless you count hearing his voice on ship updates or the videos
they posted through the entertainment system, where he gave visual
tours of the bridge and a couple instructional videos on
spaceflight for the younger generation.

I started through the cabin
hatchway and looked into the next compartment. Dozens of seats
lined the wall, a couple with monitors attached to thin rods.
Again, no windows. This was the waiting room. Beyond it was crew
quarters, followed by recreational rooms, a theatre, a casual
dining hall, a formal dining hall, and then the passenger quarters.
On nearly every deck below us, –– this was repeated, save for the
theatre.

Each floor had something
different in place of the theatre. Ten decks and that was the only
variation. My quarters were on the second floor, where the theatre
space had been turned into a kennel. You might be wondering why
they took off – much as I did. It took six days for me to learn why
the Korsikov took off with such a small amount of people on board.
Aside from crew, roughly eighty percent of the passenger quarters
had been gutted and filled with anything the Munich colonies needed
to rebuild after a powerful solar tropical storm. Giant locks were
situated on the doors, and I only caught a glimpse when a crewman
slipped inside to check on the foodstuffs.

Ironically, now that I think of
it, there were enough raw materials and basics on the Korsikov that
voyage to rebuild Sondranos into the Stone Age. If only they’d had
the ability to shorten travel to a few weeks back when the colony
was founded, ships like the Korsikov would have prevented the
attack from ever happening. Then again, just like what I’m doing
now, afterthought can serve as the answer to anything if you dwell
on it long enough.

I turned back to the Captain
before heading down the hallway to find my quarters, ‘Is it nice
there?’

With nobody behind me, he’d
opened his book. He looked up from it, beyond the rim of his
glasses. ‘On Sondranos? Sure. Self-sustaining, so you don’t need to
worry about going hungry. Wonderful night-life. If I wasn’t
charging forward after disembarkation, I’d love to go down there
for a night or two. There’s this wonderful little place called the
Davies’ Pub. You should try it. Blend of old Earth cuisine with a
high content nutrient base. You’ll be full for hours.’

‘
What about
activities?’

‘
Well,
depends on your pleasure. Do you like escapism, or
involvement?’

I held back a nervous laugh.
‘Escapism, I suppose.’

The Captain brandished his
book. I’m sure I would have recognized it if I’d looked. ‘Good,
then you’ll want to visit the literary quarter. Apparently,
Sondranos has a large collection of literature from the colonies
and Earth. They say it’s how the colony was founded - on the backs
of books. These things got spines that last for longer than you
might think. Don’t know how it shaped them, though. Don’t much care
as long as they keep doing what they do. They’re mostly digital,
but they can print a book out for you if you haven’t got the device
yet. It’s where I got this one.’

‘
Thanks,’ I
said. I started down the rest of the hatchway and smelled something
cooking. I’d supposed it was breakfast time somewhere, and I hadn’t
bothered with checking the time since the transport up.