Alright, I figure if I don't post this now, I never will. This is the story of Salem, my character in the
Galaxy's Edge Space Bar. The finished story will likely be quite long.
Hopefully someone enjoys this. Constructive feedback is always appreciated
This is the prologue. Just to be clear here, this is most definitely
not the Animorphs universe. That's for later
[spoiler=Prologue]
AaronTobias's blood pounded in his ears. His hands gripped the rail as if his life depended on it. His breathing was deliberately slow, but each time he exhaled, his tension could be heard in the way the sound shook.
He stared out the window at the receding blue orb that had been their home. Already, he'd be able to cover it with a hand held at arm's length. From this distance, the devastation caused by the Mohemians was hardly evident.
“Wave bye-bye to Earth, Aaron!” said Hannah. Out of the corner of his eye, Tobias saw her raise the boy's hand and wave it at the planet.
“Bye-bye!” exclaimed the toddler in her lap, taking over the waving enthusiastically. Hannah laughed, enjoying his energy. Tobias couldn't understand how she could still be this at-ease after the last few hours.
“Jaron,” he said tersely, frowning over at her. “His name is Jaron now, Hannah.”
Hannah made a face, “I’m never going to get used to that.” She struggled to hold on to Jaron as the boy struggled to climb down to the floor, where his toys were.
“You don’t have a choice,” snapped Tobias. “We have to be discreet.”
Hannah smirked and let the squirming toddler down, and watched for a moment as he ran over to his toys- animated, seemingly almost-living, stuffed versions of ancient Earth dinosaurs. Jaron picked up a stegosaurus and a tyrannosaurus, then shouted “Rawrawrawr!” as he threw both of them across the room. In spite of himself, Tobias managed a short laugh.
Hannah stood and walked over to him. She took his hands gently off the rail, smiling warmly now. “There’s my Michael. Since when are you the serious one of this bunch anyway?”
“I’m Tobias now,” Tobias said automatically. He’d corrected her so many times in the last few weeks that when he said it now, it hardly registered for either of them. He glanced out the window, scanning the empty space for perhaps the hundredth time, then returned his gaze to her, concern in his eyes.
Hannah sighed and, with a movement that was almost too quick to see, darted in and kissed him on the lips. She was back and laughing at the bewildered look on his face before he’d had a chance to move. “You’ll always be Michael to me.”
Tobias grinned. She was trying to get him to stop worrying, and it was almost working.
Almost.
He stepped over, took her into his arms, and kissed her- a real, proper kiss this time. “And you’ll always be Gina to me, but we have to learn to be Tobias and Hannah now.” He let her go and turned back to the window, his hands returning to their now-familiar positions on the handrail, holding on as though his life depended on it. After a moment, he said, quietly, slyly, “Besides, Hannah’s every bit as clever and beautiful as Gina ever was.”
She smiled and turned to look outside. She always downplayed how much she loved it when he flattered her like that, but he could tell by the way she became just a little bit shyer, and a little bit redder.
As she stood looking out the window, he put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. He closed his eyes, trying, for just a moment, to slow his pounding heart. He realized he was probably holding her just a little too tightly, but she didn’t seem to mind.
A moment later, their ship activated its main engines. There was a very slight sensation of acceleration as their velocity kicked up to the multiple-c range, but overall the ride was quite smooth for a ship this old. The Earth quickly disappeared, and even the sun that had illuminated their home for the last few years was receding to nothing more than another point of light before their eyes.
“Finally,” muttered Hannah, echoing his own thoughts. She’d been hiding her own tension well, but Tobias could feel her relief in her posture and hear it in her voice. If the captain felt secure enough to activate their main engines, he must think they’d be able to get out of the system undetected.
“Thank goodness for stealthy ships, eh?” he asked, giving her a squeeze. He slowly let out a breath, trying to let go of the fear that had hung over him for the last few hours. They were going to make it.
She turned and looked into his eyes- the light green eyes that, as far as he could tell, were the only thing he’d given to Jaron. For the most part, the boy had gotten her features- the gorgeous, dark, shiny hair; the adorable nose; even the baby-toothed version of her dazzling smile- but those eyes had clearly come from his father. With a contented sigh she wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his shoulder.
For a few moments they simply stood, holding each other and staring out the window, as their son continued making dinosaur noises from the floor. Tobias closed his eyes contentedly. Now that they were actually moving to the station, there was a possibility that they could actually open their little restaurant. They had the savings tucked away, and there’d never be a better time. They’d talked about it so many times, he could practically taste the food. Even with all the planning they’d done, though, he still didn’t feel anywhere near ready. The thing that had been holding them up recently was the name. He wanted to call it “Bonjour La Terre!” but she seemed to think that using the language of a little backwater world like Earth would be a turn-off to interplanetary travelers. He was going to win this one, though. They’d be serving a lot of French cuisine, and they’d be using it as a place to introduce...
He jumped, startled out of his daydream by the sound of a alarm blaring from the PA system. His heart leapt into his throat. They’d been spotted.
Jaron had dropped his toys and started crying at the sound of the alarm. Hannah walked over and pressed the button on the wall to silence the PA system. She picked up her son and began bouncing him up and down, trying to calm him.
A moment later, the doorbell for their room rang shrilly. It rang again twice more before Tobias had even had a chance to reach the door. He opened it, letting the sound of the alarm into the room again from the hallway. At least out there it was kept at a more manageable volume.
“What is it?” he asked, more sharply than he’d intended.
If the shrieking alarm and the urgent ringing of the doorbell hadn’t been enough to set him on edge, the frightened look on the face of the Vondanod outside the door certainly would have done the trick. Its two compound eyes that were facing Tobias about as wide as he’d ever seen Vondanod eyes, and blinking rapidly. The Vondanod tended to straighten their necks and raise their heads in tense situations- this one’s neck looked to be about at the breaking point.
“I’m told one of you is a pilot,” the Vondanod said urgently, speaking so quickly that its dual, mouthless voices almost blended into one.
Behind the Vondanod, Tobias could see people running through the corridor. This was a small transport, and the few families aboard- mostly Radon, of course- were rushing to find each other. Aside from that, crew and non-family passengers were rushing to see what could be done.
Tobias opened his mouth to answer, but Hannah cut him off, calling over Jaron’s cries, “I am. What’s wrong?”
The Vondanod seemed slightly surprised at being answered so quickly. “You are Gina Zhang?”
“Saunders,” Tobias responded automatically, glowering a little. Then he blinked and corrected himself, “Her name is Hannah Dawn.”
With a glance at Tobias, the Vondanod lowered its voice, “We’ve run across a cruiser. We’re jamming its communications, but we can’t outrun it or outfight it.”
Hannah groaned and hugged Jaron to her chest, “Iron class?”
“Reverence.”
Hannah paused for only a second, the barest hint of worry crossing her face, but then it was gone, and she was confident once again. She shrugged, “Give me a moment.” Jaron already seemed to be calming down, oblivious to the danger they were now in. She set him down. He immediately wiped his nose on his sleeve, toddled back to his toys, and held up a triceratops, saying “revence!” excitedly a few times.
The Vondanod looked at the boy, then nodded at Hannah- a habit some Vondanod had picked up from humans. It stepped out and allowed the door to swing shut. For the moment, the sound of the alarm through the door seemed distant.
Tobias stared at her for a moment, then spoke, his voice shaking, “You can’t...”
She put her finger gently to his lips, “I have to, or everyone here dies or ends up in prison.” She stepped to his nightstand and grabbed his communicator- an archaic device he still used only because of the meaning it held for him. She stepped back and pressed it into his hands. “Call me if you’re nervous.”
Tobias shook his head, holding her hand to his chest with both of his. This was happening too quickly. This was his wife... but there was something else there, too. Someone he didn’t know. She’d always been confident, but now she seemed... sharp. Calculating. Ready.
He knew she’d been a pilot during the war, of course. He’d heard the stories. Everyone had heard those stories, but to him it always seemed like someone else. A legend. Not the woman he knew. He’d never thought he’d actually have to watch her... do what? Go into battle? Fight for their freedom? Maybe their lives? The days of fighting were supposed to be over.
He felt his heart sinking. He knew that she would go. That she had to go. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Hannah, you’re going to take a crappy fighter stolen from a junk heap out there against a cutting-edge IPA war ship?” he said, his voice rising now. He sounded angry, “You expect me to just let you...”
She cut him off again, “Michael, there are two of us from Cess’s squadron aboard this ship. If we can’t stop one little cruiser, we’re not worthy of her name.” She put her free finger to his lips once more as he tried to speak again and flashed that smile of hers, “Come on, this is me you’re talking to. I’ll be fine.”
She seemed so at ease, so strong, but he knew her too well. He could feel her tension, and see the fear in those beautiful dark eyes. He didn’t want to let her go. He wanted to tell her to stay, here, with him.
Instead he took her hand from his lips and said, “Be safe.”
She grinned and gave him a quick hug. “Always!” she chirped, and was out the door without another word, leaving Tobias cradling his communicator.
He turned towards the bank of windows that made up one wall of the room and started. Where before there’d been only stars, there was now the sinister approaching form of a new IPA cruiser. The design was an indicator of just how much had changed within the IPA. The alliance had once designed ships to appear friendly and inviting. This one was similar in shape to some of the more intimidating Mohemian craft, bristling with forward spikes and visible weapons, with the main command center flanked by four giant, mantis-like claws. The coloring was still the IPA’s diplomatic silver and white, emblazoned with the IPA’s blue-and-yellow insignia, but nearly everything else seemed remarkably alien.
The IPA ship... he could just make out the name “Skywolf” on the side... had flown to within visual range of their transport; it certainly must not feel threatened, even with its communications jammed. And it had no reason to. This transport was only lightly armed. If the cruiser opened fire, they wouldn’t last a minute. The transport would be disabled, and boarded, and Tobias and Hannah would spend their lives in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.
Tobias imagined the captain, up in his cramped control room, negotiating with the IPA cruiser. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, they could talk their way out of this. Then Hannah could come back the room and they could be on their way.
That hope was dashed when the world outside flickered- the transport’s force field being activated. Seconds later, a beam of green light lanced forth from one of the “mantis claws” on the front of the distant cruiser, impacting the transport. The floor under Tobias rocked, but only a little. Jaron rolled onto his back, still holding his dinosaurs, and seemed entirely undaunted. He was still at the stage, just learning to walk, where taking little falls was part of everyday life.
Tobias’s breath caught in his throat; he could feel a slight shudder through the deck as a fighter launched. Three more followed, in quick succession, and in a moment, he could see a mismatched wing of four small ships rocketing towards the sinister shape of the Skywolf. Not one of the four spacecraft looked like it could survive a fight with an angry drunk, let alone the perched, state-of-the-art cruiser bearing down on them.
It would be easy to keep track of which one was which, he saw; each ship had a distinct exhaust color. One was bright blue, one was white-orange, one was white trailing dull sparks, and one was tinted slightly red. He wished he could tell which one was hers.
It seemed almost lazy, the way the cruiser twisted slightly and fired a beam into the group of approaching ships. Three of the craft dodged away, but the one trailing sparks was too slow- half of the craft was shorn away, leaving what was left of the engines to sputter out. The edge that remained where most of the ship had been vaporized glowed red.
“No!” gasped Tobias. His knuckles were white from gripping the rail, his face now nearly touching the glass, but he didn’t seem to notice.
The cruiser fired twice more, missing the nimble smaller ships each time. As if deciding it had had enough, it unleashed what seemed like an impossible cloud of small objects, glowing the same light blue as the engines of the cruiser itself... missiles, Tobias realized. Hundreds of tiny guided missiles, headed right for the three ships flying its way. “Why aren’t you shooting?” he wondered aloud through gritted teeth. The tiny ships had been in range since they launched from the bay, but had yet to fire a shot.
As if in reply, the ship trailing the faintly orange glow launched a missile into space, visible only from the glow of its own booster. The missile easily made it through the approaching projectile swarm, but hadn’t even made it halfway to the cruiser when a stab of green light struck from the larger ship. The glow died instantly.
As they approached the swarm of missiles, Tobias could see the other two ships move closer together together. As if they were one, they began to spiral around each other, and even from here he could sense an almost imperceptible wobble in the swarm as it struggled to keep a bead on them... bunching tighter, closer together, he realized.
Then, they were in the swarm- it seemed to close in around them, consuming them. There was a bright flash, then another, and another, until a wave of light seemed to erupt slowly across the closing swarm. Tobias shielded his eyes, and when he looked back, he could see a fireball where once there had been a ship.
“No!” he whispered, now actually pressing his nose against the glass. But there... two glows could still be seen against the darkness. The blue one and the whitish-red one. One of those had to be her, right? He was so focused on them that he didn’t notice the beams from the cruiser until it was too late.
The world tore itself from under his feet. What few possessions they’d unpacked tumbled across the room. Tobias found himself lying on the floor halfway to the door, but he scrambled back up, hardly noticing the pain in his arm where it had struck the dresser. The room was filled with a panicked cacophony. A new alarm was blaring from the PA- this one signalling a hull breach and partial decompression- and Jaron was bawling. Tobias glanced at the boy- he seemed to have fallen into a pile of clothes. Scared rather than hurt, Tobias surmised. He knew he should comfort him, but at the moment all he could think about was what was happening outside.
He could see, finally, beams of light from the two fighters. They were tiny, almost pinpricks next to the massive shafts of light that had come from the cruiser itself, but they must have been doing something, because now the Skywolf was turning away from the transport, trying to bring its weapons to bear on the two tiny ships.
They probed for a few moments before one of them seemed to find purchase- an explosion ripped the tip of one of the giant ‘mantis claws’ clean off the cruiser, which couldn’t turn fast enough to target the two ships intent on staying in its blind spot. Six silver, triangular shapes drifted into space, released by the cruiser, and then lit their own engines, these glowing brilliant white.
Tobias’s heart leapt again. He recognized those. They were the new generation of IPA fighter that his wife had been affectionately referring to as “peckers.” Damned if he couldn’t remember the real name... what he could remember was her practically drooling while describing their capabilities. Most of it had been technical nonsense to him, but even he understood enough to know that just one should be more than a match for this transport and all four fighters it had launched. The fact that the cruiser had seen fit to launch all six it carried was a compliment in itself.
It took less than thirty seconds. What happened couldn’t even be called a dogfight so much as a massacre. The two tiny, secondhand ships, working together, managed to make the six agile, state-of-the-art starfighters look like a herd of lumbering cows, all without ever coming within view of the slowly-turning cruiser’s deadly front side. They both fired, again and again, and one by one, the IPA fighters exploded or disintegrated or simply died out and drifted away. The few shots that they did manage to fire at the two smaller ships seemed absurdly off-the-mark by comparison.
Within a few moments, it was over, and the two ships returned to methodically blowing up the cruiser’s weapons and engines and communications array as if nothing had happened. After the whirlwind of destruction he’d just seen, this part looked almost routine. It would probably only take a few minutes for the terrifying warship to be reduced to a useless shell. Though Tobias couldn’t see them from this distance, he imagined the crew inside standing at the windows and shaking their fists in rage. They’d be left to drift there until they could work out a way to call for help- hopefully long after the transport was out of range.
The communicator, still clutched tightly in his hand, crackled to life. “And you thought you should be worried!” Hannah’s voice said. She sounded like she was out of breath, and almost laughing. Tobias felt a wave of relief wash over him. He let out a breath, feeling faint. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding it in. With one hand he reached over and silenced the shrieking alarm.
“Don’t do that to me! You could have been killed!” he shouted into the microphone over the sound of Jaron’s cries.
“Is that Aaron crying? Michael, tell your son that story he likes. The one with the boats and stuff. And we should decide what we want for dinner. For some weird reason I’m craving duck.”
“Tobias,” he corrected automatically. “I’ll see if the kitchen thought to stock some duck.” He sighed, allowing himself a small smile. He was shaking, he realized. He bent down and picked up Jaron, who was still sobbing on the floor, though far less violently now that the blaring of the alarm had been stopped. For a moment he simply held the boy, bouncing him up and down and whispering that “everything’s alright now, buddy. Shh-shh-shh. It’s alright.”
“...wanted the best ships. Like flying a junker in civilian clothes would be the same as flying a trainer in a flight suit. I told those two idiots not to come,” Gina’s voice continued over the communicator, ranting now about the two pilots from their transport that had been lost. She sounded angry. “They insisted that Special Forces training qualified them for this. Useless, incompetent bunch of sorry-ass...” she kept on.
Tobias rolled his eyes and smiled. She was definitely still herself after all that. Out of everyone he’d ever met, she was the only one who would even dream of calling IPA Special Forces incompetent.
“Gina, I love you,” he said, cutting her off.
He could practically hear her smile, “I love you too, Tobias.”
The two tiny spacecraft had finished their work and were now moving back towards the transport. The remnants of the once-intimidating cruiser drifted behind them. One instant, it looked dead, and the next, it was vaporized in a blinding flash. The shockwave expanded outwards in an instant, engulfing the two fighters.
There was less than a second before the shockwave hit the transport, rocking it and throwing him to the ground once again. As he fell, he held Aaron’s head protectively, turning so that he fell onto his back. Even so, the impact of the ground jarred the toddler, who began crying again. This was not helped by the reintroduction of the screeching alarm from the PA system.
Michael scrambled to his feet, still holding his bawling son protectively. “I didn’t just see that,” he whispered. “Please tell me I didn’t just see that.”
He looked around- the communicator was lying on the floor near the bed. He gently set Jaron down on the floor, where the toddler continued to cry, and picked up the device.
“Hannah?” he asked tentatively into the device. After a moment he tried again, his voice shaking “Hannah, you okay?”
He could feel his throat tightening. The world seemed to roll under his feet. Why wasn’t she answering? “Gina? You alright?” She was probably distracted, flying her little ship into the docking bay. “Gina, you need to answer me.” Maybe she was having a problem with her communicator. “Gina, please, I need you to answer me.” He peered out into space, searching for the two glowing engines... for the shapes of the small fighters... anything...
He felt his eyes beginning to tear up. He had to hold it together. Had to keep from freaking out. She’d be back and laughing at him any minute. He took a breath, trying to steady himself, and wiped his eyes. He managed to keep from breaking down until the alarm stopped, and he felt the transport begin to move away.
“No. Come on, Gina, don’t do this,” he said into the communicator. Real tears were beginning to run down his face. No... no, he had to keep it together. But it had been Gina who’d made him strong, hadn’t it? Before her... had he ever been able to keep himself together?
She’d been coming back. It had been finished. She’d been coming back to the ship and they were going to eat cornmeal and pretend it was duck and they were going to escape to the Coalition and open a restaurant. There was no way she was gone.
“No, Gina, don’t do this,” he pleaded out the window, towards the sparkling remains of the cruiser. “Gina, answer me,” he said, his voice rising shrilly. “No, Gina, answer me!” He was shouting now. “Gina, No!” He pounded the glass, his communicator dropping unnoticed to the floor. “Gina! No!” He pounded the glass again, harder, sobbed once, then began pounding, again and again and again, crying openly and shouting “No! Gina! No! No! Gina!” over and over again.
Jaron may have been upset by being thrown around, and the blaring alarms might have been frightening, but the to see an adult crying and pounding on the window- and his daddy, no less, not just any adult-
that was downright terrifying. The boy cried now, harder than ever, tears and snot running down his face.
Being as young as he was, Jaron didn’t yet associate “Gina” with “mommy,” but he did know that mommy would make everything better. Mommy always made everything better. As he cried, he called out for mommy, hoping for some comfort, someone to put the world back the way it should be.
Tobias eventually collapsed, sobbing, against the wall, oblivious to Jaron’s cries. Jaron crawled, still crying, into the corner of the room, as far from his weeping father as possible, and picked up his tyrannosaurus. He held it, the way his mommy held him when he was scared, and whispered, “Shh. Shh. Aw right. Shh.”
Tobias continued to cry for a few more minutes, but eventually he stopped, and sat, staring at the floor, hearing only the ringing in his ears.
Finally, he turned and looked at his son, who was in the corner, cradling his dinosaur, telling it that everything was alright. The boy was no longer crying, but his face was a mess. Tobias pushed himself off the floor, walked over, and gathered the boy into his arms. He wiped Jaron’s face gently with his own sleeve. He looked so much like her. Tobias carried his son to the crib, where he laid him down. Weakly, he echoed the toddler’s own words, “That’s right, buddy. Everything is alright.” He felt a pang in his stomach. Her words. Those were her words to him.
Jaron stood up at the edge of the crib and watched as his father walked, silent and numb, out into the corridor.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Table of Contents]
Chapter 1: TobiasChapter 2: SalemChapter 3: JaronChapter 4: SalemChapter 5: PallasChapter 6: SalemChapter 7: PallasChapter 8: WinstonChapter 9: SalemChapter 10: PallasChapter 11: WinstonChapter 12: JaronChapter 13: SalemChapter 14: WinstonChapter 15: PallasChapter 16: SalemChapter 17: KeuralChapter 18: WinstonChapter 19: PallasChapter 20: JaronChapter 21: WinstonChapter 22: KeuralChapter 23: DominoChapter 24: SalemChapter 25: TobiasChapter 26: Jaron[/spoiler]