“How long is it?”
“It’s far,” her father said. His voice was musical too. It was how her parents had met; folks sang together in those days. “So far that we have to go to sleep.”
“Why do we have to go so far?”
“It’s what people do,” her mother said. She always had this answer, no matter the question. “People move. There are better places out there. A better home for us.”
“We had a home.”
“This one will be better.”
“Why?”
The cough again. The collective flinch. “You trust us, doncha, Davina?”
“Yes.” Said too quickly. To cover the lie.
“What we had was not a good home.” Her father hung his head, spoke into his chest. “Maybe it was at one time, but ain’t no more.”
“So everyone is going to leave?”
They looked at each other. Then her mother looked away. Her father frowned and met her eyes. “No.” His face darkened, his voice became smoke. “We have to leave them.”
“Why?”
A bad energy grew in the space around her. Rows of beds like the one she was sitting in. Beds that were cylinders, beds that had covers on them. Anxiety in the air. In the hurried voices, the commands in the distance, echoing around the massive chamber. Drawing her parents’ attention. Causing them to glance. To fidget. To cower.
“Lay down now, Davina,” her mother said. “Don’t make no trouble, just lay down and it will be over fast.”
“Why do we have to leave them?”
Her father’s strong hand on her chest. Flattening her into the tight cylinder-bed, like stowing something into a cupboard. The eyes bearing down, pinning her into place. The eyes that would not be argued with.
“Because we’re lucky, Davina.”
She hadn’t trusted them. All they did was lie. Lie to her about how things would be okay, how things would get better.
Her mistrust had been justified. When she woke up, they were gone. And there was no home.
Nine days with those ghosts. Nine days of seeing them and losing them. Crossing and re-crossing the border between their presence and their absence.
To hide from them, Dava thought about the more recent betrayals. The snakes in her own house. Kindled that fire, forcing it to grow, refusing to let it fade. Then they docked with the base and took the first step out of the ship, and there it went. Smothered into smoke by the heavy air of failure and loss. The half-gravity of the slow swing of the station’s arms pulled heavier than the fattest of planets.
The welcome from Space Waste was not warm. Which was just fine by Dava, since she’d come looking to pick a fight. But it was so cold there, she was unable to rile anyone she came across. Those that had survived the assault had become living dead. No one was excited to see that she and Thompson-Gun and Lucky Jerk were still alive. Nor were they disappointed. They were just nothing.
As the coals smoldered, she pushed herself to storm for Rando Jansen. She wanted explanations. But he was locked away. Planning another attack, was the word. And Dava wasn’t allowed in, according to the malaise-laden guard posted outside the war room. She’d been demoted. No longer a capo. For her failure in the assault, though the guard didn’t reveal that much out loud.
Finally, she managed to corner Captain 2-Bit at the drinking hole. He blinked when he saw her – it’d been the biggest reaction she’d gotten since her arrival.
“Captain,” she said, drawing close under the dim lights. “Tell me what he’s planning.”
He frowned at her, then motioned to the bartender. “Sorry about the demotion, Dava.” He glanced at her glass.
She was drinking a well-aged whiskey. “Yes, the demotion came with a diet. But Moora didn’t have the heart to enforce it.”
Moora the bartender silently slid a skinny glass of yellow ale in front of 2-Bit and turned away.
“There’s D-K,” he said after taking a small sip from the top. Eyes still on his beer. “Lots of it around.”
That would explain all the disconnected faces. “What happened in the war room?”
He sighed, trying to hang his shoulders heavy with the weight, then snuck a sideways glance at her and winced. “Top secret.”
2-Bit was a good leader, always looked up to by the grunts and the flyboys, but he was naive – almost intentionally so. It was a quality Dava respected: she knew he preferred everything to be straight. But 2-Bit wasn’t stupid, in that he was well aware of his own weaknesses. So he played along with games of deceit as best he could. Given the choice, he’d prefer bold truth over subtlety or riddle.
“Captain,” she said. “We’ve known each other a long time.”
“Eight years,” he said without hesitation.
“Moses was taken prisoner.”
He blew out a sigh and took a hard drink. “We figured.”
“A lot of us were taken prisoner,” she said. “Are we going to get them back?”
He stared into his beer until she touched him on the shoulder. He looked at her and looked down. “RJ,” he said. “Underboss Jansen says it’s time to press on. That ModPol ain’t expecting us to make another move right now.”
“So it’s a good time for us to make another move.” Against the warning in her chest, she prayed this meant a move to go after Moses.
“Yes.”
She drained her whiskey and tilted the empty tumbler at Moora. “Captain, I know I got busted down.”
“Dava …”
He shriveled as Moora came by and refilled her glass. “You can still tell me anything, Captain. Look around at who’s left. You and I have been here the longest.”
He glanced up at her, then took a swallow of beer. He nodded and looked up to the ceiling and became suddenly lost in some unseen clouds. “Of course, girl. Of course, Dava. Such a young girl when I met you. But always strong. So strong. Should be you leading these people. Not me, not RJ. Not Moses.”
“Hey,” she said, feeling her face grow hot and her hands grow tight. “Moses—”
“Moses,” 2-Bit said back to her with an unexpected fire in his eyes that stunned her into silence. The rare anger faded quickly and he looked up again. “He’s just a little lost, is all. He’s old, like me. We don’t know what to do any more. We don’t know what it’s for sometimes.”
She caught herself trembling as she raised her glass to her mouth, as the warm liquid graced her lips. Anger, or fear? Moses could preach. Had she mistaken a gift of the tongue for drive, for purpose? No. He always had a plan.
“I want you to tell me what RJ is planning,” she said firmly.
2-Bit took a deep breath. “It’s another assault,” he said. “This time, on the mining colony of Ipo. A little moon. You know it?”
“No.” She leaned back slightly. “Captain, look at what’s left of us. How can we do another assault?”
“Fresh crop,” he said, bobbing his head in a rehearsed compliance. “More recruits just come in.”
“From where?”
“Jansen convinced the Misters to join us. Convinced them that it’s