What Happens in Orbit Pt. 21

"You want... to join us?"

There were some non-committal murmurs, but most of the crowd was nodding. There were quite a few children, all of them with freshly cropped ears. "We won't be a burden. There's- we brought a good bit of stuff with us. Traps, weapons, food. You know. Stuff to make us less of a burden."

Loyma leaned to the side, taking stock of everyone and everything thing they'd brought. Impressed, she slowly nodded. "You're all welcome here. However. You realize you can't return, right? What you're wanting is in direct violation of law. You'll become a target with the rest of us."

Lorra closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself. "Look, look what they did to our babies. Took them from us and... did that. Look at them. They did that after saying for journeys that long ears were acceptable. Last rotation, we got a notice that any, uh, Melo, what did it say?"

Her mate looked up, thinking. "It said, 'Any actions, speech, or appearances that are associated with hazardous colony behavior are to be avoided and corrected by the end of our journey's sixth rotation.'"

"And we didn't, because since when are ears hazardous?"

Loyma nodded. "We'd seen that coming. They want us to be forgotten."

"And, uh, I know this is scary, but we're not the first city to do this."

Della sidled up to Loyma, nervous. "Pardon me for asking, but, uh, can I ask where Cora is?"

Loyma gave him a funny look, shaking her head. "She's taking care of something for me. She'll be back in a while." Della refused to move. "I'm sorry- I don't wanna be disrespectful, but-" She relented, sighing sharply. "Cora was carrying. Right now, she's resting."

He froze, doing obvious mental math.

"Oh," he whispered.

The newcomers were being divided among the houses remaining from the colony's last major exodus. There would almost be enough. Della stood next to her wordlessly, watching the stragglers find their way.

Fidgeting, he looked at Loyma one more time.

"Yes," she sighed. "We'll keep the egg as safe as one of our own. She can return in a rotation to retrieve her child."

Della took a few steps before breaking into a lopsided run. He knew he shouldn't, but his injured body was going much faster than his mind.

"Tai!" He slammed the door shut behind him, startling the gray Roshak out of his seat. Tai fumbled, narrowly avoiding dropping his now-awake daughter. "You've got no reason to be running on that leg, Della, it'll never hea-"

"Zip it! Did you know she was carrying?"

To Della's satisfaction, Tai went through the same bewildered thought process that he did. "So, Mar might have- Wait, what about-"

"Loyma has it, we come back in a rotation. Or send Mar. That sounds like a better idea." His leg gave out, forcing him to flop over a large floor cushion. "Augh- can you believe them?"

Tai rolled his eyes. "Yes, I can. At this rate, we're going to have to find a place to settle down. Of course," he added hastily, "That's a conversation for the entire crew to have."

Della groaned. "Four kids."

Waving a hand at him, Tai scoffed. "That's nothing and you know it."

At this, Della rolled to face him, skeptical. "Four kids for five fugitives?" When Tai deadpanned, he sighed. "Yeah, see. You realize we're in a jam."

When Cora returned, happy and well-rested, they said nothing.

The trip back was easier than the trip there. As the train hummed above the tree line, something caught Cora's eye. "Hey, guys? What do you think that is?"

A thick, dark plume of smoke was rising from a distant cluster of tall buildings.

"Oh, no." Ora pulled out a small tablet, typing something. After a few moments, she spoke again. "Work chat says there's rioting over in Mortak. And- Whoa. One of the small communities in the mountains was found completely abandoned this morning. Nobody to continue the deliveries to other side."

Tai tilted his head, thinking. "Hm. Mortak is the city that Loyma's mother had a deal with. I doubt it's related, but I'm sure they'll welcome the distraction."

"Well, whatever's going on, I just hope it doesn't affect my job. I can't make my little boy move again." Ora sighed, leaning back to watch the smoke spread across the sky.

After leaving Della at Meli's house, Cora and Tai headed into the forest to check on Tor and Mar. To Cora's relief, all the exterior panels on the ship had been replaced and the main door was open. Music echoed quietly from within, along with the rhythmic hiss-clack of a rivet gun. Mar was holding a sheet of metal over the broken door, keeping it still while Tor secured it.

"You're back," said Mar, trying and failing to sound upbeat. There were dark purple shadows under his eyes.

"We are." Cora sidled up to Tor, waiting for him to finish. He kept his focus on the door until he'd placed the last red-gold rivet.

"Guess you want to talk to me," he muttered, low enough that Mar couldn't hear. Cora wasn't sure if she liked his tone. He's tired, calm down. They're both a mess. The whole time we were gone, they've been working their asses off. She took a deep breath. "Yeah."

Outside the ship, Tor walked with her to the water's edge. "How was your trip?"

Cora shuddered. "A fucking mess from start to finish. Did you know Tai already had a mate?"

For a moment, there was rage in his soft green eyes. It swiftly evaporated, replaced once again with exhaustion. "No. I would have told you. I'm happy that he didn't come back without you."

Cora laughed. "We almost came back without him. I'm not sure who was angrier, me or Della. But... there was something else."

Tor regarded her levelly. "You were carrying again."

Cora cringed. Of course he'd figured that out. "I know, I can't hide anything from you."

He sat down on the cool sand with a huff. "It's- Nothing is hidden. Mar and I were talking about it. We're fugitives. What are we doing with kids?" Eyeing the damp sand around him, Cora picked a dry patch nearby. He was right, as usual.

"There's nowhere safe here, unless something changes soon."

Tor looked up sharply. "Unless something changes?"

She fiddled with the sand, dragging a finger through the gray-brown granules. "Well, the war. A lot of this planet's problems are from Foshar influence. I know the Sheevae are on our side, more or less."

He shifted uncomfortably. "I... I don't want to trust them. They respect the interplanetary regulations even less than the Foshar. The only difference is that their queen is obsessed with you."

Cora waited. He'd ended his sentence with an odd tone, like he had more to say. It often took Tor a while to gather his words. After a long pause, he spoke again.

"There's something coming up. A meeting, kind of." He shuffled forward, reaching for a particularly smooth stone. "They were supposed to be held regularly, but none of the planet leaders could settle on whose time system to use." He picked up another rock, comparing the two. "All the spaceports use the Yarlott time system, and most official Roshak and Foshar things use it, too. You know, the marks and rotations."

She nodded.

"I got off-track. There's a meeting coming up that'll have all the leaders. The Noxis are tired of their business being disrupted, and a Yarlott asteroid mine was caught in the crossfire. Of the fighting."

Cora wasn't sure what a Yarlott looked like. But Tor was exhausted and struggling to focus, so she saved that for Tai or Mar. "Do the other planets have enough power to do anything about it?"

Tor grimaced. "Most of them are evenly matched. Many of them even share the same technology. Something else is going on," he quickly added, startling her. "The Queen is claiming to be bringing an 'interesting topic of discussion'. Says she wants a trial." He'd managed to gather a satisfying handful of smooth, round rocks.

Cora watched him stack them in the sand. "A trial?"

The beginnings of a pyramid were visible. "No idea. She wants to talk to you before, though. That's why I'm rushing to get the ship spaceworthy."

She started to ask when the meeting was but didn't want him to get off-topic again. "When are we leaving?"

He finished the pyramid at ankle-height. "When Della's back."

"That reminds me," she struggled to find the words, pausing for several moments. "Do I tell him?"

Tor shook his head. "Not until there's something to tell. Don't make him grieve twice."

"Tor, I'm not saying that I don't trust your mother, but I- did we have to leave all the kids with her?" Tai fidgeted with his tablet, pretending to be looking at something.

Mar cut in sharply. "Would you have brought them to Koramin? You want them around her?" His tone was unnecessarily hostile, but Cora didn't correct him. A small part of her took satisfaction in the way Tai shrunk into his chair.

And then she felt bad. He'd already had plenty of consequences. His eyes were still bloodshot, his head still lopsided and swollen. "Mar," she whispered, giving him a firm glance. When he glanced up at her, poised to argue, she held a hand out.

That's enough.

Mar sighed.

"Don't worry about it," said Tor. "It's safer here. There's no royal authority in the city anymore. The prison's empty." His laugh had a bitter edge. "It'll be gone when we get back."

"Wait, what happened?"

Tor tapped Mar on the back, not looking up from the checklist on his tablet. Mar looked up. "Oh," he cleared his throat. "There's a Sheevae blockade around the planet. We won't have any interference from the Foshar for a while."

He didn't sound particularly pleased about this.

"Hey, Mar?" Tai's voice echoed from the pilot room. "We have a problem."

Cora followed Mar, peeking around the door. There was a barely-visible ship alongside them, a voice coming from a speaker on the controls. It wasn't speaking Roshak.

But Cora knew that language. It was her mother's, and her grandmother's. How could she forget?

"Wha- Hey!" she whispered, incredibly confused. "Who is that?"

A bewildered Tai turned around. "It's a Yarlott patrol ship."

Sure, but why were they speaking Spanish?

Uncertain, Cora walked up to the speaker. "Excuse me, hello?" She'd never expected to use any of these words again.

"Hello! You are Cora, right?"

"...Yes. How can I help you?" Internally, she cringed. The influence of three years' retail experience had left its mark.

"Disengage your ship's engines, then come aboard. Alone."

She frowned. "You can understand why I don't like that request, right?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, I don't make requests. I give orders."

Sighing, Cora looked up at the ship. "Go ahead." It took her a moment to switch back to Roshak. "They're boarding. I'll go talk to the asshole in charge, then be right back. Nope. No arguing. This isn't some random patrol ship, I'm sure of it." Nobody moved.

She remembered her conversation with Tor. Odds were that this was someone high-ranking, trying to learn more before the big meeting. Within seconds, their ship was enveloped in a greyish field.

"We've prepared measures to ensure you won't die, Cora. Please, step outside."

Cora walked over to the airlock, warily eyeing the pressure gauge. Slowly, the line traveled upward until it came to rest in the blue zone. Safe. She brushed at her clothes.

The door came open without even a hiss. A bridge was waiting for her, interlocked hexagons of some dark gray metal.

Two hornets were waiting for her.

Hornets. Dark red and yellow, black bristles, and massive oblong compound eyes. They stood at Cora's height.

Dear God, if you can hear me, I have a question: WHAT THE FUCK?

Cora steadied herself, raising her head and walking between them. Their first pair of limbs gripped cruel-looking spears. Her heart beat out a frenzied rhythm as she passed through the doorway.

The ship was well-lit, but she would have preferred it wasn't.

She came to a stop in a massive atrium, flanked by at least fifty other wasp-like creatures. They all differed slightly, some shorter and fuzzier, with countless different stripes and colorations.

"Welcome!"

Out of the crowd, the voice's owner appeared. Insect-like in build, but strangely humanoid. His limbs were dark and shiny, tapering in odd places. His head, though, was exactly that of a honeybee, down to the mandibles. His voice hummed out from somewhere she couldn't see.

"Oh, yes," he buzzed. "You're certainly not human anymore." Cora stood still, unflinching as he circled her.

"Koramin was not lying, no, no, no."

As he walked back in front of her, Cora spoke carefully. "Do you know much about humans?"

He paused, humming. "Yes. We have some dealings with them."

Why does this guy sound Argentinian?

"What can I help you with?" She spoke on eggshells, unwilling to stir up the giant stinging bug convention she'd walked into.

"I have some questions to ask you. Koramin is dishonest, usually, and I do not trust that she has told us the complete truth."

Cora sat at a low table, just her and the bee guy in charge. I should probably ask his name. I might accidentally call him Bee Guy. She'd told him a cleaned-up version of her time off Earth, and he'd taken a concerning amount of notes on a thin gray-white rectangle. Upon further inspection, it was an electronic tablet, just different from the ones she was used to. He held a stylus in one of his many hands, writing in a script that was startlingly familiar. Shit, it's been forever since I've actually written anything.

"You said you saw humans at another spaceport?"

Cora nodded.

He made a sharp buzz, tapping his stylus against his head. "I wish, I wish we could standardize time already. I want to ask you when, but your answer won't help me, if you even can."

She thought hard, squinting at the ceiling. The honeycomb pattern on every flat surface was a bit on-the-nose. "It would have been about three rotations ago; I think they're like months. Does that help at all?"

He scribbled furiously. "Perhaps. Let me tell you something. It wasn't me, but our previous emperor. We fought for the rights of humans, their right to remain completely undisturbed. Obviously, that didn't happen. I'm not innocent in this situation, but we've received disturbing information. Humans being abducted, to be used for experiments."

Against her better judgement, Cora giggled. "You wouldn't believe how many humans prefer the idea of abduction to staying on Earth."

As sheepish as a bug could possibly look, he shifted in his seat. "About that..."

"Hm?"

"Among our people, we have a large number of human families. They're refugees, not abductees, but I don't want to defend that statement to my fellow... hypocrites."

Cora's train of thought switched tracks entirely on its own. "Your Spanish is really good. Did you live on Earth at all? Maybe in Argentina?"

His antennae twitched. "How did you know?"

"Your accent. But why? You're the emperor, right?"

"It's not like being a queen, or matriarch. Not like other societies. My bloodline has the privilege, ability, curse of having access to and influence over the minds of our people. I fled to Earth and hid from the influence of my older brother when he came into power. He was a tyrant. That's- that's why he didn't want contact with humans. He didn't want our world knowing there was a life outside of his control."

Cora shifted, getting comfortable. "You weren't able to disguise yourself?"

His voice pitched upwards as if speaking through a laugh. "No! I was young and stupid. I owe humans the debt of my life. I was an invader, but they taught me their language. Gave me a home. And when I could finally tell them why I was there, they wanted to help. I could have been lying, only there to steal their lithium, but they didn't care."

In Cora's mind, this group of humans were college students, for some reason.

"They were young, for humans, they were maybe a fifth of the way through their total lifespan."

Damn, I'm good. Cora became faintly aware of jazz playing from the emperor's tablet.

"My brother sent a small group of fighters to bring me back. The humans defeated them for me. They worked to fix the ship my captors brought, changing it to be suitable for humans. I had no idea! To this day, I'm still amazed at their intelligence."

Cora imagined being a grad student, owing money for an expensive engineering degree. She wasn't exactly sure how college worked in Argentina, but it had to be similar to the US. I'd fuck up a bunch of giant bugs for the chance to get out of debt.

"I was humbled. I spent years on Earth, thinking I'd simply wait for someone to retrieve me when the time came for me to rule. I abandoned my family and my world to be ruled over by my brother." He looked back down at his tablet. "Before these humans, we didn't have a spoken or written language. We never needed one until recently. Roshak has tones that we can't make. Sheevae is- it has these noises. Anyway. I hesitate to announce the human presence in our society. It will make us a target."

Cora nodded. She was fascinated by the way he spoke; instead of rolling his r's like she did, he was changing the way his voice buzzed, slowing the hum down to a purr. It worked well. These guys don't have mouths. I wonder how they speak.

"How many humans live with you?"

The emperor referred to a different file on his tablet, the words bolder and more neatly written. "One-thousand forty-seven."

Cora was shocked into silence. That was a lot. Did nobody notice that many humans gone?

"If you ever wanted to visit our planet, the atmosphere is mostly oxygen, good for humans." Something occurred to the emperor, making him pause and tilt his head. He went back to his tablet, looking for something. "I can't say the same for Roshak. Have you been living there?"

"Yes, I have. What's the atmosphere made of?"

He tapped his stylus against the table. "It's maybe forty percent oxygen, the rest is helium and neon. Some nitrogen, of course."

"Oh. Yeah, whatever they did to me, it made me need less oxygen."

He nodded, quickly flipping back to his notes and writing that down. "Interesting. Cora, would you mind if I mentioned what you've told me at the upcoming meeting? I'm sure that Koramin is already aware of all this."

She thought for a second, eventually nodding. "Yes, but... Is she going to be angry at me for discussing this with you? The way you talk about her, I don't think you two are friends."

The emperor made a harsh rasp with his voice, tapping the table. "It's unlikely. As long as you don't keep this conversation a secret from her."

Cora did not. In fact, she interrupted the queen's greeting in her haste to tell her, all in a single breath. With an amused expression, Koramin held up a hand. "I understand you had an interesting trip?"

"Sorry," Cora wheezed. "Yes."

"None of you were hurt or attacked by them, yes?" She looked up, glancing over each of the Roshak standing in front of her. Tor shook his head. "No. She's just terrified of anything that looks like the 'insects' from her home planet."

Koramin nodded, visibly relieved. "Good. Cora, I must speak with you."

"Mm-hmm?" She sat up, fighting the shivers that'd set in shortly after she'd left the Yarlott patrol ship.

"You all may leave now, except Cora."

Behind the queen's back, Cora shooed them away. Otherwise, they would have hesitated. Her mood seemed bright and pleasant, but there was a nasty edge to it. Underneath the surface, Cora could tell. She was hiding something.

Down in the bright, clean lab, Cora perched uncertainly on a metal stool. There were several other Sheevae there, clothed in pale blue robes, paired with matching loose pants. It looked comfortable.