“Freedom is dangerous,” the General growled. “Fairness is better.”
She blinked back tears. “I wanted to get into the military. I wanted to make you proud of me.”
For the first time Aerie could ever remember, her father’s eyes softened. “Aeris …”
“And I wanted to show the rest of the family unit, too,” she added. “They’re never going to take me seriously if I work in communications.”
The General’s gaze corrected its lapse. “It would be no more than you deserve,” he said, shocking her with his cold tone. “You were lucky that I was there to protect you, otherwise the State would have punished you. They know, Aeris, about your visits to the Memory Tree.”
Aerie knew from the General’s expression her eyes easily betrayed her guilt.
“Yes, I know about that,” he said. He gestured to the lump in her uniform. “Did you bring another cat down here?”
“No,” Aerie quickly lied, mentally shouting at Moona to remain still. She put a protective hand over the bulge and said, “I had to pick up … some female things from our unit’s storage today.”
He frowned. “After you brought the last cat down, I had to file all sorts of papers to make sure you would graduate. Director Phoebe was angry.”
“I didn’t know about that,” Aerie admitted softly, grimacing further at thought of displeasing her stepmother. Phoebe was a kind and gentle figure, so mindlessly graceful her presence was often overlooked, even by her husband and stepchildren.
“Listen, Aeris,” the General said. “You are much more like your mother”—his jaw tightened and his face flushed over at his use of the term—“than me and the rest of us in the housing unit. She liked plants and animals too, and that was why they put her in the marriage career program. They thought her talent in nurturing would make her a good breeder.”
He paused, glaring at her. “I know how you feel about that particular career. You’re lucky you didn’t end up there.”
Aerie knew the General was right. I don’t want to end up in a situation like Mom did, or what Phoebe has to deal with now. What is the point of having a marriage if you aren’t loved?
Shame colored her cheeks. Love wasn’t necessary for survival; it was just a poor term for pleasure in many cases.
Well, if you’re not going to have pleasure from a family, why have one anyway?
Her familiar confusion with her thoughts about the unit/family situation were wiped away as her father continued.
“—heard Dictator Osgood earlier. We’re up against a persistent enemy, and we need to focus on survival. Completely changing the project you are assigned by the State is wrong,” he insisted. “You cannot win by making up your own rules.”
“This isn’t supposed to be a game,” Aerie argued.
“Survival is not a game,” he agreed, “so stop treating it like one.”
“I’m not!”
“Fine. Then you will put in your time for your disintegration and nonconformity. You will work at the Comms Sec, and if you put in a good year of it, I will see to it that you have another chance to petition for the Military Academy.”
“A whole year?”
That long?!
“It would be good for you, Aeris,” he told her, surprising her with a softened, almost sympathetic, tone. “There have been a lot of developments with our communications program. The URS just released the newest version of NETech.”
“NETech? You mean the NET?” Aerie asked. She frowned, recalling the various lectures she had attended on it. The technology had been specially designed with her horticulture instructor, Master Specter, as a lead consultant on the project.
“Yes. With your background in research and plants, it would be good for you to go and work with the Comms Sector. It’s being further integrated in our battle gear as we speak.” The General sighed. “That, of course, is classified information. But it could change our situation with the ghost of Captain Chainsword and our other enemies. Caledon and Dorian have tested it. Serena’s even used it for Med Comms. I want you to get in where you can help not only the URS, but our unit as well.”
The General’s reasoning, while it was intended to make her feel better (she assumed), didn’t sound promising. Instead, it made her feel used.
“Starting tomorrow, at 800 hours, young lady. Go get the address and stop by the uniform center for a proper worker’s suit before you leave.”
Aerie ducked her head in shame and reluctant obedience. What other choice do I have? “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll see you in the dining hall with the other unit members. We’ll celebrate your graduation and assignment.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“The rest of our unit will find out your assignment soon enough,” the General told her. “You might as well show some humility. Remember, there is no reason to feel as though you have failed. You will be placed in a job where you will be of most use to the Revolutionary States until you will be considered for reassignment.”
“I still don’t want to eat with the family.”
“Aeris.”
The warning made her dip her head in quick apology. The terminological difference between "family" and "unit" had been permanently sealed off for discussion.
“I should hate to think you deserve to go to the Reeducation Center after all,” the General remarked. Then surprisingly, his voice softened. “Why don’t you invite Comrade Rearden to dinner? He’s your best friend, isn’t he? He’s a good fighter. He’s been given a ship in the same pilot test program Caledon and Dorian are in.”
Aerie was a bit surprised by the suggestion, and even more by the realization the General knew Brock’s name.
Brock’s dreams came true. Seeing him at dinner, where her unit would look on her with proud disappointment, was too much to contemplate.
Aerie slumped over as she realized she wouldn’t be able to go to the ball with him without embarrassing him.
She pursed her lips together tightly before abruptly turning around and hurrying away. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to give in to the pressure to release them.
“Aeris, wait.”
“General St. Cloud, sir,” a voice called out from down the hall. Aerie could see a woman in uniform headed toward him. “Victor, we need you for the next PAR.”
Aerie could barely hear the General’s sigh as he turned away; she didn’t have to look back to know he would let her go.
After her mother had died, he always managed to find a way to leave her.
It worked out for the best. She had no intention of following orders. At least, not right away.
“Aerie!” Brock’s voice called out as he came up to her and took her hand, gripping it excitedly. “Did you hear? I’ve been accepted into the Academy, and I’ve performed enough in school to get preferential treatment. I begin pilot training tomorrow!”
“That’s great, Brock.” Aerie pulled away from him. “You’ll have to tell me all about it sometime.”
“Before you know it, I’ll get a chance to blast Captain Chainsword right out of the sky!”
“I’m sure you will.”
“This is the best day,” Brock said with a grin. “Did you get your assignment?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s not exactly what I wanted.”
“You can still come with me to the Academy Ball, though, right?” His hand found hers once again. “Now that everything’s finally settled, I can be a bit more open with you. I was worried if I told you that I wanted to escort you to the ball earlier, your—er, General St. Cloud—might have found a way to keep me from the military.”
“What are you talking about?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “General St. Cloud has certain standards for the people that he lets you spend time with. I thought it was better to make sure my career was stable before I asked you to the ball.”
“Wait, the General has standards for people who spend time with me? And you’re asking me to the military ball?” Aeri
e blushed. “But I’m—”
“I mean, only if it’s okay with General St. Cloud, of course. I wouldn’t want to upset him. You’re his youngest charge, and I know he probably isn’t happy about just anyone taking you out.”
Aerie tightened her hand around his, briefly, before letting go. “I’ll have to ask him about that,” she said, before the pressure behind her eyes was too much. “Excuse me.”
She rushed off before he could see her cry.
♦6♦
For the longest moment of her life, all she could think about was jumping.
Aerie didn’t know when she started to contemplate that idea, but once she realized it, all the hurt and disappointment that had slowly seeped into her heart reached full maturation.
“Stupid. Don’t think like that. Stupid.” Aerie put her head in her hands, upset but still maintaining her balance perfectly on the upper branches of the Memory Tree. Her body adjusted into the large tree’s sloppy hug, the pain of the tree’s ridges more comforting to her than any pleasure she’d known.
The Memory Tree was a place of happiness for her. There was nothing she loved to do more than climb its limbs, take refuge under its wide branches, and curl up beside its strong trunk.
She traced the hardened bark, letting her fingers brush over some new lichens beginning to take root along the acid stains and patches where pollution had sunken in, almost as if her mother’s memory would absorb her pain.
It was supposed to be a happy day.
She recoiled with shame, playing back the events of the day: The lackluster graduation, the intolerable PAR, her father’s rebuke, Brock’s attempts at securing a date and a future, and the nonexistent chances of accepting his invitation to the military ball …
Ending it, permanently, would just add to the overall horror.
And there was another reason why jumping would be idiotic, she thought. The General and the rest of her family unit would know she’d done it deliberately, especially after all the times they saw her climb in combat class. Then they would have even more reasons to hide their faces from public scrutiny at her wasted death.
Especially after today, she thought. Doomed to work in the Comms Sec!
Thunder crackled around her, startling Moona and making Aerie flinch.
Of course.
Of course it was going to rain, and of course she’d forgotten all about that from earlier. The rest of the day had been particularly and devastatingly uncooperative. Why not the weather, too?
Aerie gazed up through the tree branches, peering at the clouds. Their shadows darkened with the oncoming night. The air was not as sharp as she would have expected, but the rumbling in the distance could only mean rain.
Someone had once said that half of Earth should have been kept safe from human activity, protected from all human interaction. If the war of the Old Republic hadn’t broken out, would most of the remaining humans still have found their way underground, leaving the top of the world to be largely reclaimed by nature?
She could only wonder as the sky darkened ominously.
The buildings, covered with their rusty moss and climbing vines, reflected off fragmented beams, making the world around her into a mirror of sorts, intensifying the hollowness surrounding her.
But all the loneliness in the empty world around her was more welcoming than the prospect of eating the evening meal with her housing unit. She knew what would happen. Her two older unit members, her brothers Dorian and Caledon, would come home from the military bases where they worked, and Serena, still working through her final year of military training, would stop by long enough to pretend she had nowhere else to go. Later, she would slip away to meet up with her friends or one of her many admirers.
They would find out Aerie failed to get into the academy, as she had been proclaiming she would do since she was twelve, and spend the rest of the time making slighted and veiled jabs at her. (In-fighting was discouraged by the State.)
It was even possible Brock would stop by, as he had been a frequent guest in the past two years. After finding out she was not accepted into the military, he’d probably promptly wish her a grand life and take his leave.
He might even offer his sympathies to the General on his way out, too.
Aerie paused in her critique. He seemed interested in asking her to the ball. Was it possible she was judging Brock too harshly? Aerie wondered.
Was it true what her Master Instructor said? Did she daydream too much? Too much to see the real world for what it really was?
“What do you think, Moona?” she asked, petting the kitten who once more purred out pure affection in her lap.
“Mew,” was the only response she received, but Aerie embraced it.
“You’re right,” she agreed. “There has to be more to the world than just … this.” Daydreaming is necessary to see the world as it could be.
Of course, there were other nation-states under the URS. Perhaps she could go live in one of those towns. They were not as centralized or militarized as the capital. Surely, out there, among all the other regions, there were places where housing units went by the actual name of “family,” and no one bothered to correct her with a tone drenched in disgust when she called it such.
But how to get there? And what would happen if she couldn’t find any place to truly call home?
She sighed. It was better to live with the hope of freedom than to actually go and try to find it.
Wasn’t it?
A crackle of thunder rumbled across the sky, as lightning flashed, as if to answer her question.
Aerie winced. “Come on, Moona,” she said, picking up the cat. “I can’t take you down to weather out the storm with me, but I can try to find you a safe place before the storm hits.”
Moona objected, swiping her claws at Aerie as she tried to move her.
“Hey!” Aerie frowned. “Come on, Moona, don’t be like that.”
Moona hissed at her, and then launched off Aerie’s shoulder, heading up higher into the tree branches.
“Come back here!” Aerie demanded. She felt the wind pick up, and thunder roared in her ears. Her fingers tingled, and suddenly fear began to trickle through her. “Moona!” Her voice nearly cracked as she called.
Aerie glanced down at the ground, and then back up at her wayward cat, weighing her options.
“Mew,” the kitten replied, nearly ten feet higher up in the tree.
Aerie sighed. “Hold still,” she ordered in a tight voice. “I’m coming for you.”
The smug expression on the kitten’s face made Aerie frown, but a moment later she emerged triumphant. “Ah-ha! Got you!”
Sirens from the Military Base suddenly began to sound.
The thunder grew sharper, and its booming dwindled down into a piercing cry. Aerie almost dropped Moona as a gust of wind blew into the buildings around her; at the last second, she swiveled around and ducked into a small dip in the Memory Tree’s trunk, fighting hard to breathe as dust and shards of all materials went flying by.
Several shots and missiles plunged into the nearby buildings, sending them crashing down to the ground below.
Aerie coughed and sputtered as ash and soot were slung into her mouth. Before she could move, a fireball came sprouting up behind her. The ground trembled and shook as the dust refused to settle down.
The familiar shriek of a URS fighter jet scorched through the air above as more bombs dropped around her.
“No,” she gasped, tightening her grip on the tree. Moona struggled against her, but Aerie managed to tuck the kitten into her uniform jacket once more. “Stay!” she sputtered, as she scrambled to get a better look at the sight before her.
With the wind still pummeling her, Aerie started climbing up to the top of the branches. She glanced down to see the slightest shadow of dirt and ground. A moment of vertigo set in, and she shut her eyes. To think she’d thought about jumping not twenty minutes before!
Of course, climbing up the tree had to be just as stu
pid as jumping from it.
As she finally caught a glimpse of the sight before her, she knew all the reason in the world could not have stopped her when it came to satisfying her curiosity.
A gray space shuttle was speeding through the fire and wreckage toward the Memory Tree. Aerie started to scream as death came hurdling toward her.
Suddenly, the shuttle’s nose opened up to reveal several serrated drills, before it launched vigorously into the ground.
For a moment, Aerie’s scream went silent, choked back by uncertainty. What is going on?!
The New Hope Military Base was off on the other side of the city, and the education and living quarters were scattered throughout underground. The only thing of any real importance around here was …
“No!” Aerie called out, as the tree underneath her buckled and started to fall over. The shuttle’s impressive power surged underground, scooping up the roots of the tree, scattering its home from the dirt, and desecrating the rocks and sediment that harbored the source of its life.
Aerie clung to the tree as it shifted under the pressure. Her hands gripped onto the smaller branches as others snapped under the applied force. She almost thought of yelling for help, but between the dashes of darkness and the spurts of light and battle, she didn’t know if she would survive—or if survival was even the better option between imprisonment and torture from the ghost of Captain Chainsword and his MENACE supporters.
A gush of air rushed out of the enemy’s shuttle as its payload bay doors burst open and a large excavator unfolded.
Above all the noise—the sirens, the sky fighters, the rumbling of the earth, the crying of the sky, the last tremble of the Memory Tree as its top branches snapped—nothing was able to drown out his voice.
“Crush its heart!”
Aerie felt her own heart crumble in the process, and the tears she’d clung to so ardently before were released. “No,” she whispered.
Several soldiers appeared, forming a circular barrier around the tree. Their weapons, ranging from smaller guns to larger bazookas, were all trained on the jets scorching the skies around them.