Chapter Two
My mother wakes me in the morning, gently brushing my hair with her fingers. I’ve been sleeping at the kitchen table, head slumped forward on the cold granite.
“What time is it?” I ask her.
“Only yet five,” she says back to me, whispering, calm. Hail hammers the rounded window. It still looks like midnight out there. It looks like space.
My mother puts a mug of black coffee on the table and sits down across from me with her own. The coffee is gloriously hot. The room feels cozy, illuminated and gentle while the cold rages outside. Home is better than anything.
“You must be tired,” she says. I smile.
“How’d you guess?”
She sips her coffee and hums softy to herself. It’s the song she used to sing to me every night. It is stupid of me, but the words bring tears to my eyes.
...Even though you
Are all alone
You'll stay strong
My light, my own...
Because I’m not strong, I don’t stay strong. I have fought wars, destroyed cities with my own hands. I’ve flown ships powered by Kind and ignored the guilt of it. I’ve watched the dry air of Damascene ignite as hot ripples of plasma rained down from my stonefrigate. I’ve poured squadrons of raging Porcelain Helmets out to fight in angry battle on the pocked streets of Nakul and Nidris.
All that to lose the war. All the death and suffering I’ve caused. I’ve had a thousand chances not to do these things. And all of it for nothing, in the end. A war lost. A life wasted. A million lives wasted.
My mother holds my hand.
“You’re thinking of Damascene, aren’t you.”
I nod. I brush tears and hair from my face.
“You did what you had to do, my Kira.”
But I didn’t have to do all of it. Oh, God, not all of it.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she whispers.
“I’m not a good person,” I say. “You think I’m good. You think I try to do the right thing. I’m only a coward.”
I try not to cry. I try hard. I cry anyway, choking, like a child.
“You have been in hard places,” says my mother. “It doesn’t make you a bad person. There are dark necessities in war.”
That’s what everybody says. I hate it. Maybe they’re right. But I hate it all the same.
“When we left Damascene, when we left the last time, the orders were simple,” I say.
“Retreat. That was all they said.”
“Is that what you did?”
“We were in Nakul,” I say. Nakul’s the biggest city on Damascene. A crucial port city by the mines. Our last stand was there. The insurgents took the moon and used it to secure strategic advances across Damascene. There wasn’t time to call for reinforcements. The Porcelain Empire knows when it has lost a war, so we were ordered to retreat. Stonefrigates like a swarm of wasps in the dry air. None of the higher-ups left on the ground with us. I was in command, technically, like I am now.
“Brance was with me, too. He said he wished we could have hurt them more before we left. I was so angry, Mother.”
“You had every right to be angry,“ she says. ”It was war.“
“This was destruction,” I say. “I destroyed Nakul. I destroyed Nidris too. I destroyed the Great Mines. I did it. Just me. Like God.”
“You never told me any of this,” says my mother. She holds me. I’m a child again. “It wasn’t in any of the histories.”
I am weeping now. “It felt good, but I knew it was wrong. It felt guilty.”
She gets up and comes to sit beside me. She will love me no matter what. I can’t bear it, it hurts too much. She shouldn’t love me.
“It was so easy. And none of the higher-ups said anything about it. Nobody said anything about it. They were all glad I did it.”
My mother doesn’t say anything. Maybe, finally, she realizes what I am. What a monster I am.
“You gave the order?“
“No,“ I say. ”But I didn’t stop them. It was so easy, Mother. So easy to watch and do nothing and just…let them fire. I thought it was revenge, and justice.” It was all white, when we got to space. The surface of Damascene, scarred with a trail of white-hot fire. The whole fleet must have seen it before we left.
“You are good, Kira,“ she says to me. “I believe this. You need to believe this. You are my daughter, and you are a good person. You will do the right thing, Kira. You will.” But I didn’t. I didn’t. People died. So many people died.
The hour chimes softly, and my mother wipes my face clean. I notice a wet sparkle in her own eye. She hugs me. We eat breakfast, delicious fried ham and fruity homemade syrup on toast. My mother can cook anything. I tell her I have today off.
“Then we’ll decorate today,” she says. “For Christmas.”
“Is Christmas so soon?” I remember the Korsian ambassador’s tie. I haven’t done anything for Christmas in a long, long time. There was never time, on Damascene. And here, in Koriograf, they’ve kept me busy. I only came back here to my mother last year, and she’d already decorated.
We are pulling old ribbons and Christmas things from a bin when the door chimes. Everything in here is cozy, even the doorbell, soft and echoing and angelic.
“I’ll get it,” I say. The screen pops up a video to show who’s there.
“It’s Brance,” I say, some surprise in my voice.
“Thought he was married,” mutters my mother.
I laugh. “He is. Probably just something about the battalions. Or the Korsians.”
Commander Brance has an aiform guard contingent with him, three metallic soldiers standing statuesque in the corridor. They try to follow him in. “No need,” I say, waving them away. They know my face and my uniform, and obey me, backing up to stand sullenly against the wall, rubbery torsion muscles tense, faces stretched and grim. They always look grim to me, even when they try to smile.
Brance brings in a burst of cold air as he enters. “You’re going to have to come back to Alpha,” he says, looking around, seeing my mother, seeing the open box of Christmas. “Christmastime already?”
Brance doesn’t celebrate Christmas. He doesn’t do old-world stuff. It’s nice of him to pretend, though. He’s nice to everyone. He should be the one who has to talk to the Korsians, not me.
“I’m off,” I tell him, firmly. “Not coming back.”
“It’s important,” he says, voice low. “Top priority.”
“I’m off.” But my heart is dropping, because if it’s important, it can only mean one thing. They need a pilot. Not just any pilot, one with experience. They’re doing a combat drop.
My mother must have realized the same thing. She drapes a red-and-green scarf around my neck and knots it. She kisses my cheek without a word.
“You have to go,” she tells me.
I don’t want to leave. This feels like home, and it feels safe. There is no guilt here. No danger of being cowardly again.
“You are my daughter,” says my mother. “You will do the right things, Kira. I trust you.” She gives me the last piece of toast, slathered in syrup. I meet her eyes, clear and green, and I think how old she looks. Old as the Korsian ambassador. And still taking care of me. I must seem such a child to her.
“Goodbye,” I tell her. She hugs me. I don’t want to let go.
I eat the toast as Brance briefs me in the car, savoring that last taste of home.
“It’s Kors,” he tells me, right away. He knows me, knows I want it straight, and he’s kind enough to give it to me that way. “It’s orders from Admiral Bellgrath. We’re losing the war over at Satamos.”
“You got news from there?” Satamos is a small outpost world. A final stop between Koriograf and the rest of the Porcelain Empire worlds.
“Yeah. Missive came through a couple hours ago. Right after Levas left, actually, and right before Bellgrath’s orders. We’re at a disadvantage there. We’ll have to pull out as soon as possible, but it’s going to happen again. There will be . . . more attacks.”
“You mean after Satamos?”
“They won’t stop there,” says Brance. He meets my eyes, and I know what he doesn’t want to say. After the rebels get Satamos and regroup, they’ll come here, to Koriograf. “We need an advantage,” he says.
“You said this was about Kors.” Kors, our moon, a dark blot somewhere in the sky. Kors is a secluded world of pure darkness. We get precious little light here at Koriograf as it is. I can’t imagine living on a truly lightless world.
“It is about Kors, Kira.”
My heart drops and I suddenly have an idea of what he means. Behind us, the aiforms are unnervingly still, like cold muscular statues in the car’s cargo row, programmed to await human commands. I tilt my head to them, asking if it’s alright for them to hear this conversation.
“They’re fine,” says Brance.
“So they want us to raid Kors,” I say, “and take Korsian soldiers.”
“With Korsian manpower,” says Brance, “we’d have extensive night-fighting capabilities. We could protect Koriograf, even go offensive if necessary. We’d have an advantage the rebels won’t. And the Empire doesn’t have resources to spare on us. We need them, the Korsians.”
I hate things like this. The dark parts of the Porcelain Empire. Things that people tell me are necessities, things we can’t avoid, lesser evils. I hate it all. Yet here I am, a part of it.
“We protect them,” I whisper. “We have a treaty. We can’t just go enslave them.”
“We’ll be pressing them. It’s legal, under Porcelain Empire law. They’re not protected from it.”
“Pressmen, slaves. Same thing.”
But Brance knows I will do it. I always do it, whatever they say. I flip through the paper sheaf of orders, warm from being in his pocket. Hail thumps my window as the car climbs to Base Alpha and docks in a wide military garage cut like a slot into the immense column of the building.
I go to the edge of the garage opening and stand on the brink of the storm. Hail pelts in and bounces on the stony floor. Cargo vehicles stream like meteors around the pillar of Base Alpha, ferrying men and weapons and aiforms up to the stonefrigates lurking like hulking islands above the storms. I let the wind slap me in the face, one more time, and grab a handful of hail from the ground. My Christmas scarf flutters in the wind as I follow Brance inside. The scarf looks good on the porcelain-cream color of my commander’s uniform.
The aiforms follow me, their feet clattering on the stone floor.
There are two full battalions of Porcelain Helmets here at Koriograf. Me and Brance are the two battalion commanders. I have only ever been a pilot, but Brance is a real commander. He was a Porcelain Helmet infantryman, long ago. He uses a staff pilot to fly his stonefrigate. It is unusual for me to hold such a high rank and also fly combat missions, but I am a strange case. A pilot promoted far above her rank. I am in command of an entire battalion of Porcelain Helmets, but it doesn’t feel like it. I’ve never acted as commander. I’ve only ever been the pilot.
I wait in one of the ready-rooms high in Base Alpha’s spire. There are no windows. Other crew members strap armor and weapons and technology onto their bodies around me. I just stand in my simple uniform and wait and crunch the last pieces of hail between my teeth. The stonefrigate will be my armor, its plasma-casters my weapons. People comment on the Christmas scarf. They say they didn’t know I was an old worlder. I don’t correct them.
Once I felt at home in groups like this. I laughed with all of them. I feel old now, old and tired, and the others seem almost children to me.
The whole flight crew rides together up to the stonefrigate, crowding together in a cargo-craft. There are no windows here, either, just cold hard metal and cargo straps and grab-bars to hang onto while the craft jolts its way upward, following a guidance beam from the stonefrigate above.
The cargo-craft lurches to a halt like a broken elevator, knocking some people to the ground. I do not fall. I have been on far rougher flights. The door opens, exposing us to the rear loading ramp of the stonefrigate. The ramp is several hundred feet wide, a massive surface of sloped concrete crowded with squat square cargo-craft. Torrents of Porcelain Helmets, already in their full armor, march swiftly under the watchful eyes of their officers. Stocky, muscular-looking aiforms move around the ramp, moving weapons and vehicles and supplies. They are not the fighting kind and we will leave them here at Koriograf. This is to be a surprise raid. We are taking every single fighter from Koriograf. Every Porcelain Helmet, every fighting aiform. This raid needs to be an instant success if we are to successfully make pressmen of Korsian soldiers. The stonefrigate is a vast ship, almost difficult to comprehend. It is solid and unmoving under my feet, not at all like something suspended thousands of feet in the air. I stand on the ramp a moment, feeling the dim, dim sunlight on my skin. Up here, no hail falls. Up here, the air is dry and dark.
It reminds me of Damascene at night.
I read through my orders again, sitting alone in the cockpit as they load the ship around me. The orders are simple and somewhat unclear. Intelligence reports of an ongoing war on Kors. We are to join forces with a potentate called Veras, and move our forces alongside Korsian ones. I am ordered to then capture and make pressmen of as many Korsian soldiers as I can.
The Korsians will think we of the Porcelain Empire are here to help them. It is a cold thing that we will do.
The Empire needs them, I tell myself. Koriograf needs them. We will need this advantage if Koriograf is attacked. It is a clever move, capturing Korsians. They keep to themselves, they fight their own wars. All in the perfect darkness of their world. They have tactics, weapons, and experience that our Porcelain Helmets can only dream of. They have been left alone, warring on their isolated world, for hundreds of years now, unmolested because of their treaty with the Porcelain Empire. The treaty is the only reason we haven’t tried to take things from them before.
But now war is on its way to Koriograf, and they will be forced to fight for us. I push it from my mind. It’s not something I want to think about. I think about my mother, instead. I must keep her safe. The Korsians will help with that.
I cannot stop thinking of them.
I touch the myriad controls around me, gradually waking the ship, readying it. I get a feel for the response time of the engines, the weapons, the doors and ramps. Exterior camera arrays and sensors feed information to my helmet. I flick through them to see a view of the stonefrigate from one of the outboard drones a dozen miles away. It is a terrifying thing, this ship. An image of carved stone, hanging like a dark cloud above the hail-pelted columns and spires of Koriograf below. My mother’s song comes unbidden to my mind.
When the sky fills
With stone
And the earth shakes
Far below
Even though you
Are all alone
You’ll stay strong,
My light, my own
The sight of such a craft, paired with the knowledge that it is me, that it will do as I command, never fails to give me cold shivers, even after twenty years of piloting. I think about war and I think about it coming here. My resolve to follow my orders strengthens. I cannot allow that to happen.
Brance’s voice patches in from the other stonefrigate, stationed some hundred miles south of here, over the opposite end of Koriograf. ”Commander Jaunt, do you read?“
“I read you,” I answer. “And you can call me Kira.”
“Good,” says Brance. “Launch time finally came through. We’re launching at high noon. We’ll pull upward and come around in the shadow of Koriograf, then on up to Kors.”
I do some math in my head.
“Three days.”
“Without the Kind drives,” says Brance, “it’s three days.”
I feel anger rising in my voice. “Are we to use—”
“Nothing to worry about,” interrupts Brance. “Orders say no need to use Kind.”
Unnecessary, specially for a short hop like this. I don’t want to do it, and Brance knows that. I’m glad for the orders. I wonder if he is, too.
“You all good, Kira?” Maybe Brance heard something in my voice. Maybe he knows how much I already hate this mission. Maybe he knows that Damascene is all I think about. I want to ask him if he ever thinks about it.
“All good.”
“Didn’t know your family were old-worlders,” he says jokingly. He’s trying to lighten the conversation.
I don’t engage. “Merry Christmas, Brance.”
His laughter comes back from his stonefrigate a hundred miles away.
“Who’s your pilot?” I ask.
“A Lieutenant Jennsen. You know him.”
“Should have got an aiform,” I groan. Jennsen is a decent pilot. We trained together for a while. Fought together, too, which is when I decided he might actually be a robot. He has precision, but no finesse, no intuition about things.
Brance is still laughing.
“I guess I’ll be leading the attack,” I say.
“This is different,” says Brance, clearing his throat. “We don’t want to look like an attack formation, you know—“
“We’ll land together then.” Not land. Stonefrigates never land. But we’ll come close to the ground, close enough to unload. Close enough to take on cargo. To take on the Korsian soldiers we’re going to betray and kidnap.
“This doesn’t feel good,” I whisper to myself, communications turned off. Cold ice settles like hail in my heart.