Rence Malnix Archives - S.C. Davenport

Chapter Six: Fallout

August 21, 2023August 22, 2023 S.C. Davenport Leave a comment

Jahenna gasped, suddenly awake.

There was no transitory period for her; the moment she awoke was the same that she began to assess the situation: she was alone, in a small, well lit room, presently in a state of free-fall, and injured. Her face felt bruised and she couldn’t feel her left arm. Flexing her right arm, she discovered she was not only velcroed against a surface of some sort, something jabbed inside her arm as she moved it—an IV of some sort, most likely.

The room evoked emotions from the ‘Dash just a few days ago, and she felt her skin crawl uncomfortably atop her bones as she twitched and shivered.

Jahenna twitched against her restraints, and something began beeping steadily from her right side. She tried to turn her head, and found it restrained just like the rest of her body.

Where am I? She managed to finally think, the mental words sounding disjointed and distant inside her. What was with that…dream? I was back…in training again…

Where was the forrest?

What happened to Rence?

Jahenna grunted in an effort to clear her throat, then realized a tube had been shoved down it.

A door she hadn’t noticed before opened, and a nearly bald man in tan scrubs drifted towards her with a look of deep concern in his face.

“Easy,” the man said, pulling himself to whatever it was that was beeping on her right. “Easy, Spacy. Easy. You’re safe; you’re alive. I’m going to adjust some of the management settings here, just hang on, all right? Just…hang on.”

Jahenna pulled sharply against her restraints, and another series of beeps began sounding above her—these sounding far more urgent and attention-grabbing.

You piece of shit, she thought, directing it at the man mentally, let me go! LET ME GO!

“Listen to my voice,” the man continued, oblivious to her thoughts as he moved himself directly in front of her face. “Listen to me; focus on my voice. You’re alright. You’re safe. You need to try to relax or you’re going to hurt yourself.”

She tried to shake her head.

I don’t care that I’m safe—I have to find Rence! I have to find him! He got hit by the trees and the blast—

Jahenna suddenly stopped resisting as she began to remember.

He…got hit by the…trees…

The last memories she had of her brother began swimming through her thoughts as she remembered. Cold, unsettling truths began filling in around her eyes, and she felt herself go numb to the world all at once.

“That’s it,” the man said to her softly as she began to weep. “You’re safe. It’s all right. Just rest, Spacy. Just rest.”

Her vision grew blurry as tears swelled and gathered around her eyes in the zero-g environment. The man applied a small piece of cloth to her eyes, clearing her vision almost instantly as tears were absorbed away.

Everything felt so wrong, right now.

Rence couldn’t be dead.

If she was alive, he had to be as well.

She hadn’t patched things up only for them to get torn down so…

No.

No, he was alive.

No body? No death.

Yes. That was it.

It didn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

Rence couldn’t be dead until she saw his body.

No body, no death.

Jahenna became aware of a cold, melancholic darkness that had begun devouring her from the inside-out, pulling her away from the well lit room, away from all the beeping, away from the balding man…

Away from everything; away from all of it.

That was fine by her.

She relaxed, letting whatever had grabbed her by her heart drag her away to lands unknown.

So long as it took her far away from here, Jahenna didn’t much care.

Maybe she’d find Rence there.

She hoped she’d find Rence there.

The darkness enveloped her.

* * *

When she woke up, she was still in the same white room…except this time there were two figures floating just off to the side.

One of them was the man from before, who she now presumed to be a nurse by his continued presence. The other was a woman with violently purple hair bound in a tight ball on the back of her head like a pin cushion. Unlike the nurses’ tan scrubs, she wore scrubs a shade of medical pink that almost clashed with her hair. A small holographic imager was suspended just above her right eye, and her forearms were covered in velcro sleeves littered with medical instruments like they were bracelet accessories.

“She’s coming around,” the man said, gesturing to Jahenna.

The purple haired woman looked over at her, and smiled warmly. “Hey there,” she said. “Can you tell me your name?”

Jahenna noticed her mouth felt more open than before.

She swallowed, and noticed she couldn’t feel the tube like she had earlier.

“Jah…hen—na,” she managed to breathe out. “Where…?”

“You’re onboard the PCMSD Unsparing Storm,” Purple Hair said slowly. “Are you in any pain? How do you feel?”

Jahenna blinked at her, struggling to find the right words.

How did she feel?

She felt groggy. Confused.

How long had she been there? When had she even arrived? How? Where was Ren—

…Oh.

Right.

“Where’s…my brother?” Jahenna asked anyway, her voice thick and slurred with uncooperative lips.

“How do you feel?” Purple Hair asked again.

“Groggy,” Jahenna said. “My head…hurts. Where is my brother?”

Purple Hair nodded her head at her as she shifted her attention back to a display Jahenna couldn’t see. “Adjust her saprezin levels by ten cc’s,” she said to the nurse before turning back to Jahenna. “Now, do you know where you are?”

“The…you just told me I was…on the…the Storm-whatever. Strormship. Unsparing Storm, thats it,” Jahenna slurred, confused.

“And your name?”

“Ja-hen-na,” she huffed out, a little more put together. “I just told you. Why are you asking me…again?”

“I’m monitoring the synapses in your brain as they fire,” Purple Hair said, glancing quickly at the display one final time. “Just making sure you’re good to go upstairs, Spacy. My name is Doctor Ferin-La. Do you remember what happened?”

“We were…camping,” Jahenna said slowly. “There was a…blast. Where is my brother? What happened to him?”

“We’ll talk about him in a little bit,” Ferin-La said. “Right now I want to focus on you. Can you remember anything else?”

“I remember waking up to Baldo over there,” she said, gesturing at the nearby floating nurse with her head. He didn’t react at her comment, and Ferin-La didn’t seem phased by it either. “I had a tube down my throat,” Jahenna continued. “What happened to me?”

“You were severely injured in one of several dozen blasts, as were millions more across the planet,” Ferin-La said. “We’ve spent the past three weeks rebuilding your left arm and both of your legs.”

“Three weeks?!” Jahenna asked. “What do you mean ‘three weeks’?! What happened? Where is my brother? What happ—”

“We were…attacked,” Ferin-La said carefully, pulling herself into a position so she could float closer to Jahenna’s face for the conversation. “Three weeks ago,” she began slowly, “Two hundred-plus ships emerged from Null-Jumps all across the system, the majority of which were concentrated around Faria. Within minutes of their emergence, the ships nearest Faria opened fire on the planet from orbit. We don’t know…what they hit it with, but initial reports suggest anti-matter tipped rail-gun impactors.”

Jahenna felt her stomach tighten.

Rail-gun impactors were bad enough for orbital bombardment, having the destructive energy equivalent to a nuclear strike but without any of the fallout—but strapping bits of anti-matter to the tips?

The resulting impact would make nuclear weapons seem like low-yield breaching charges.

“They hit—by accident or intention—the central power matrix core on the surface.” Ferin-La paused another moment, visibly working out how to summarize the events in a way that made sense. “The resulting…detonation, for lack of a better word, cracked the planet. It’s more of a debris field now, with several chunks of ejecta already having impacted on Prime…or at least what’s still standing on Prime.”

Jahenna felt herself go limp against her restraints on the wall.

She thought of the light she’d seen in the sky that day, of all the things she thought it could have been…

She thought of her brothers on-again, off-again girlfriend Gillory, who was going for a new promotion on Faria.

…she was dead now.

Among countless millions of others, all dead.

“The blast that hit you and your brother was from a more…local event,” Ferin-La went on to explain. “Ships nearest to Prime and Artigau engaged targets of opportunity, opening fire on infrastructure, military ships, facilities, and transportation hubs. The entire east coast of the continent is a marshland, now; they flash-vaporized the Comet Sea from orbit.”

“Dear God,” Jahenna whimpered, instantly thinking about Harrows Landing and the Recruitment Depot. “How…many?” She asked slowly, still processing the details.

How many of her friends and people she knew had died?

“Over two million so far,” Ferin-La said. “We can brief you on the details when you’re cleared to return to duty.”

“…return?” Jahenna asked, feeling a rage she’d never felt before swell inside her like a cresting wave. “What about my arm? A-and my legs? What happened? What happened to me? Where is my brother?!”

Ferin-La’s face became grim, but she didn’t say anything.

“Where?!” Jahenna repeated. “Where is he? Is he dead? Am I dead? What the hell happened to me?”

The doctor turned back to the nurse and mumbled something Jahenna didn’t catch.

“What did you say to him?!” She screamed. “TELL ME! TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BROTHER!”

“Your brother is dead,” Ferin-La said curtly. “I’m sorry.”

The news cut Jahenna to the core, slashing through reality and into all the spaces in-between. She hung in her restraints against the wall, floating.

She knew. She already knew.

She refused to accept it, but she knew.

But now…

“He died instantly, from what we can tell,” Ferin-La said mercifully, giving Jahenna a pause to process the news. “He didn’t suffer.”

She felt cold inside, her spine and intestines transfigured into glacial comet ice.

“Your arm and legs were shattered in four different places each,” Ferin-La said after another pause, “you’ve been undergoing bone and muscle regrowth therapy here in the zero-g ward since we found you. Frankly, you’re lucky to be alive. We hardly found anyone still alive that close to the Sea, and the only reason we found you was because of the transmitter on your tablet.”

“…who?” Jahenna whispered. “Who would do this?”

“We don’t…actually know that yet,” Ferin-La said nervously. “We have a strong suspicion it’s Tau-Ceti, but it hasn’t been long enough to hear anything from Centerpoint. For all we know, they got hit too. We’ve received no recent, relevant flash traffic from messenger drones from Sol or any of the other colonies.”

“So we’re in the dark,” Jahenna said. “How…do we know it’s them? Tau-Ceti?”

“That’s above my pay-grade,” Ferin-La said. “But that’s all you’re getting out of me anyway, Spacy. At least for today.”

“Please,” Jahenna said. “Please, tell me. I need to know. Was this Tau-Ceti?”

“You need to rest.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead; I need to know. Please. Tell me.”

Ferin-La looked over to the nurse, who finally glanced away from the display he’d been reading during the entire exchange and looked at her. She nodded at him, and he moved back to the still open doorway, and floated out into the corridor beyond.

“I can bring a chaplain,” Ferin-La said, turning her attention back to Jahenna, “but you need to rest. I don’t know all the details myself. What I do know is I’m administering care to about fifty other critical cases much like your own, and that’s just in the zero-g ward. We’ve got wounded all over the ship.”

“I just…I need to know,” Jahenna repeated. “I feel like I don’t know how to process anything right now, and I don’t know what to do. I feel lost.”

Ferin-La looked at her, and put her hand gently on Jahenna’s arm. “I’ll get the chaplain,” she said. “For now, just rest…or try to. I know it’s hard. Everyone’s lost someone from this, and you’re not the only one feeling what you’re feeling right now.”

Jahenna said nothing, as tears—tears she’d been ignoring for the last few minutes—overwhelmed her. Her vision blurred and her eyes stung. Ferin-La wiped at her eyes for her with another waif of cloth, then adjusted a small breather fan to blow more air across Jahenna’s brow.

“Hang in there, Spacy,” the doctor said to her. “Rest easy. Help is already here. Whoever it was that did this to us, we are not going to take this lying down—of that, I can assure you.”

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Chapter Four: Breakfast

August 7, 2023August 22, 2023 S.C. Davenport Leave a comment

When Jahenna awoke, she found that not only had Rence finished setting up the campsite without her, he’d made significant improvements to it.

A stack of wood lay in a neat pile off to the side, next to what looked like a dedicated chopping station complete with a hand ax. The folding table they’d found in the back of the rental had been unfolded, and was laden with both a tablecloth and a decorative collection of rocks for wind weights. The small campfire that she’d gone to bed to had morphed into an open-stone flame pit, easily a meter in diameter—complete with two thick, old logs for easy, cozy campfire sitting.

Something hissed and sizzled in a cast-iron skillet parked on the naked, lightly glowing coals in the fire, and judging by the smell alone…Jahenna was pretty sure it was bacon.

Real bacon.

Like, from an actual pig.

“Oh merciful God,” she mumbled in her half-awake state, stumbling barefoot out of her tent still wearing the same clothes she’d worn the previous day, “that smells amazing.”

Rence wore a simple t-shirt with a loose, open button-down casual look that swayed lightly in the breeze. He lifted the skillet off the coals and moved it to an elevated rock next to the fire, where he gave the eggs and sausage a gentle poke with a metal spatula before flipping the bacon over as Jahenna moved up next to him, taking a plate from a small box on the ground.

“Where did you get this?” She asked.

“I threw it in the cart when you weren’t looking,” Rence said, grinning. “The hard part was timing it so you’d wake up to it just in time.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“The nose knows,” he said, picking up some bacon with the spatula and depositing it on her plate. “Even if you don’t, it does.”

“I like the way you think, Rence,” she said, gently taking the spatula as he handed it over to her, and began loading her plate up with eggs and sausage to go with her bacon.

He smiled at her as she moved to the other log, and immediately began shoveling bits of egg into her mouth with just her fingers.

“They teach you manners in the Espatiers?”

“Nope,” she said with a ruffled mouthful of food, this time reaching for a strip of bacon. “But they did teach us to use what we have on hand. That, and I’m starving.”

“You should be; you slept for fourteen hours,” Rence said, watching his sister ravage the breakfast plate. He picked up another plate and a fork from the same box Jahenna had, and began fixing a plate of his own as he looked past the campfire to the forests and mountains beyond.

They were maybe a hundred kilometers south from the recruitment depot, nestled along the foothills of the Cartusian mountains. Here, trees—some of which were part of the original forestation mission in the early 2200s—covered the mountain range, evoking images of the ancient, now long-gone forests of Earth in centuries past.

“Between the view and the food,” Jahenna mouthed as she devoured another strip of bacon, “I had to have died in basic; this is absolute heaven.”

“Oh, I assure you,” her brother said, hefting some eggs onto his fork, “you are quite, very much alive. You may have slept like the dead, but you are A-L-I-V-E.”

Jahenna grimaced a moment, then shoveled another egg bit into her mouth with her hand. “Way better than Harrow’s Landing,” she said, nodding to him. “Ten times better. A hundred. How did you know?”

“I’m telling you, it’s from being cooped up for so long in a sanitized, low-g cabin,” he said. “Like, a beach would have been fine too…but beaches don’t have all of this,” Rence continued, gesturing to the trees around them.

“I never would have thought two places could be so different,” she mumbled. “Like…you’d think they’d be pretty close, but no. I was wrong. Dead-ass wrong.”

“You’ll grow out of it,” Rence muttered with a grin, reaching down to take a sip from a hidden cup of coffee.

Jahenna’s eyes went wide at the sight of his mug. “You have coffee and you didn’t tell me?!”

“You didn’t ask,” he said. “Don’t worry! There’s a cup on the other side of the table, one literally with your name on it.”

Jahenna stood up and moved to the table, setting her empty plate on the table as she located a simple aluminum camp mug that read “JANA” on the side in bright pink lettering.

“Oh you bastard,” she said, laughing. “You couldn’t even get my name right.”

“It’s all they had!” He said. “That, and by the time I saw it was the wrong name, you’d already turned around and come back—I couldn’t fix it! I was stuck!”

“God damnit, Rence,” Jahenna cursed, taking a sip of coffee from her new mug. It smelled of hazelnuts and honey, and all the colors of autumn on a cold Saturday afternoon.

“This is…” she began, taking another sip, “…so much better than the sludge I’m used to.”

“Glad you approve.”

She moved back to the log next to the fire, taking another sip before making herself comfortable on the log.

“How’d you do all this?” She asked.

“All of what?”

“…this,” she said, gesturing to the campsite around them. “Did you did all of this alone? While I was out?”

“…I needed the gravity therapy,” Rence said with a shrug. “Besides, what else was I going to do while you were out cold?”

“…go for a hike?” She offered. “I’m not mad, just sorry I wasn’t there to help. I’m impressed.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I needed it. Gets the blood going, let me tell you.”

She chuckled, then slid herself down the front of the log onto the ground where she then stretched awkwardly out, basking in the warmth of a fire before going limp.

“Are you alright, down there?” Rence asked, watching her slide sideways off the log and onto her side on the ground with a look of concern and curiosity.

“A little sore,” she said, “but this is…perfect,” she said, stretching her arms out again where she lay. She was conscious enough of the fire to keep away from it, but every joint and muscle popped and tensed and relaxed in an orchestra of absolute relaxation she hadn’t felt in months. The muscles in her arms flexed as she stretched her legs out again, then fell limp as she sighed contently.

“You keep rolling on the ground like that and you’re gonna roll into the fire.”

“I don’t care,” she purred. “I’m so comfortable right now. I haven’t felt like this in forever.”

“You want more food?” Her brother offered, changing the subject. “We still have a little more bacon, and about four more eggs. I can whip up more for you if you want.”

She curled upright, bracing an arm behind her as she moved to stand up. “Nah,” she said. “What about a hike instead?” She asked.

“Maybe in a bit,” Rence said. “I need a bit to digest for a bit what I just ate. I’m getting old.”

“You’re not even thirty yet,” Jahenna protested. “Besides, it’s not like we’re gonna go do a tenner or something.”

“A what-now?” He asked. “What’s a ‘tenner’?”

“Ten…kilometers?” she asked. “You know, something simple? Not really a big deal?”

“A ten kilometer run isn’t a big deal?” He asked, a little struck.

“What?” she asked with a grin, “you afraid of a little sweat? You built this camp by yourself; you shouldn’t have any trouble keeping up with me.”

Before he could answer, Jahenna heard something vibrate loudly in the nearby vicinity, followed by a muffled siren wail from her tent.

Rence looked at her funny, and she groaned in annoyance.

“It’s my tablet,” she said, propping herself back down on the log again. “It’s going to beep and buzz from time to time…surprised you didn’t hear it before while I was out.”

“I didn’t hear it while you were out,” Rence said. “Why is it making sounds?”

“Training thing,” Jahenna mumbled, standing up to go move back to her tent. “Random order-flashes to simulate the ‘get-up-and-go’ nature of being an Espatier…as if basic wasn’t enough of a trainer…”

Behind her, Rence moved his free hand into his pocket, producing a small buzzing tablet of his own.

“Uhh…sis?” He called out anxiously.

“What?” She said at the tent door, not looking back.

Rence started to stammer a response—

And a bright flash of light erupted silently in the sky.

Birds screamed and flew from their nests in the trees in a wild chorus of wing flapping and wind churning. Harsh light burned Jahenna’s eyes just as she reached for the tent flap, forcing her to squeeze them close. She instinctively dropped to the ground, burying her face into the crook of her arm as Rence started yelling something incoherent behind her.

“RENCE!” She screamed frantically at him, “DROP TO THE GROUND! TAKE COVER!”

She heard her brother fall to the ground with a grunt that did little to mute his screams.

“My eyes!” He cried out. “My eyes! I can’t see!”

“Stay calm!” She yelled back. “Stay low, close your eyes, and just stay down! Brace for a shockwave or something!”

“A shockwave?!” He yelled, his voice wincing in panic now in addition to pain. “What was that?!”

“I don’t know!” She yelled back at him again. “Just…stay down! We’ll figure this out!”

For several brief, horrifying moments, she continued to mash her head into the crook of her arm while listening for anything that could tell her more about the flash: an explosion, a thunder crack, an enormous boom…

…then she realized that her skin wasn’t burning off.

She listened for a few more moments, waiting, and then realized the ground beneath her wasn’t trembling or vibrating either.

“…Rence?” She tentatively asked. “You still there?”

“Really wish I wasn’t,” he scoffed from behind her.

“Are you injured?” She asked, more calmly than she realized; the training was taking over.

“Of course I’m injured; I’m fucking blind!”

“Alright, hang on a second,” she said, slowly pulling her head out from the crook of her arm, and while still looking down, opened her eyes. Normal, undisturbed shadows danced against the bare skin of her arm. Out of the corner of one of her eyes, bright, unfettered sunlight washed against the outer wall of her tent as shadows playfully danced silhouettes from the trees.

Moving to a crouch now, she carefully raised her head and looked around.

The bright flash had faded, though there was still an unsettling glow that hung in the sky like Toliman on Kasper.

That’s…not good, she thought to herself, mentally thinking of all the many, many was that something could linger and glow like that in the sky during daylight.

That’s…really, really not good…

“Jahenna?” Rence called out to her, “where are you?”

“Right here,” she said, turning her attention to where he lay on the ground. “Hang on, I’m coming over to you.”

She found him curled up in a fetal ball with his back to the campfire, wedged between it and the log he’d been sitting on. His face was gripped tightly between his hands, and as she approached he cowered at the sound of her footsteps.

“Can you see?” He asked, his voice barely holding back the terror she knew he felt.

“I was looking the other way,” she said as she crouched down next to her brother. “Hang on, Rence,” she whispered, giving him a quick visual checkout: no cuts, no abrasions, no breaks. “I’m going to look into your eyes really quick, okay? Don’t be afraid. This isn’t going to hurt.”

“Okay,” he whimpered. “I’m…I’m scared, Jahenna. I’m really not okay right now.”

“Me too,” she said. “Believe me, I am absolutely terrified right now…”

“What if I can’t see anymore?” He asked her as she started to examine his eyes.

“We’ll deal with it if that’s the case,” she said simply, studying his pupils. They weren’t reactive, but they seemed exceptionally stimulated.

“Looks like flash blindness,” she said. “That’s good. You’ll probably be able to see again.”

“‘Probably’?!”

“Could be a few minutes, could be a few hours,” Jahenna said. “I’m no doctor, but you’ll probably be okay. Just keep your eyes closed for now.”

“O…O-Okay,” he said, his voice betraying a growing sense of worry. “What…do you know what happened?”

Jahenna looked back up into the sky and gazed carefully at the faintly glowing ball that hung like a second star. “Some sort of explosion in orbit, if I had to guess,” she said. “Big, big explosion…it’s still burning right now; it looks like Toliman does from Kasper.”

Rence sat mute on the ground, slowly collecting himself upright into a sitting position. “Jahenna,” he said, “I…before the flash…there was an emergency alert…on my tablet…”

Tablet.

Her tablet.

She suddenly became aware that despite everything that had happened in the past five or ten minutes, her tablet had not stopped its siren.

“Hang on a second,” she said to him, quickly standing up and moving back over to her tent.

“Where are you going?” He called out. “My tablet—”

“I’ll be right back,” she said, opening the tent flap. “I’m confirming a very bad feeling.”

She located her duffel inside and began digging into it, pulling out the thick and robust Confederation-issue tablet.

The tablet unlocked after identifying her, then proceeded to show a flash priority message just as its siren turned off:

EMERGENCY ACTIVATION ORDERS:
PVT. MALNIX, JAHENNA A.
DOB: 6/23/2684
SERIAL: 56D-45F-32SW-545421-B5

MESSAGES BEGINS:

LIBERTY CANCELED; APPEAR AT LANDING PAD 3C FOR IMMEDIATE PROCESSING AT BAR-HASSAN STATION.

She read the words “emergency activation orders” again, and again, and again…

This was not good.

Really, really, not good.

“Jahenna?” She heard Rence call out behind her. “Jahenna? Where’d you…where’d you go?”

She lowered the tablet as she turned around to witness him pawing at the log, trying to stand upright. His face and empty eyes stared helplessly into the infinite, and he looked absolutely ragged; a stark contrast to the person she’d shared breakfast with not even half an hour ago.

“I’m still here,” she said meekly, unsure of what to actually say or do. “I’ll be right there, Rence. Hang on.”

What could she do?

What could she possibly do right now—for him or herself?

She literally had new orders to report for active duty!

Her brother was blind. It didn’t look like he had any other injuries, but she didn’t know if the blindness was permanent.

What the hell was going on?!

There was another, louder series of whoops and sirens from the tablet now that it was free from the confines of her duffel, and another new flash priority message appeared across the screen:

EMERGENCY ACTIVATION ORDERS:
PVT. MALNIX, JAHENNA A.
DOB: 6/23/2684
SERIAL: 56D-45F-32SW-545421-B5

MESSAGE BEGINS:

BAR-HASSAN STATION UNDER ATTACK. DO NOT APPROACH. SEEK SHELTER. AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

She stared at the message again, reading it over and over like she did with the first one.

…under attack…

…seek shelter…

Jahenna looked up at the glowing orb in the sky, then to Rence, then back to her tablet.

Oh, shit.

Oh shit-fuck.

“Jahenna…?”

She looked up to find Rence had crawled from the log where he’d been holding himself upright to within a few meters of where she stood near her tent.

“I’m here,” she said, crouching down and shuffling her shorts against her thighs as she bent down, so he could hear and follow where she was. “I’m right here, Rence.”

“Your…tablet beeped again,” he said slowly.

“Yeah,” Jahenna said meekly, defeated.

“The…the alert…on mine…it said something about ‘take shelter’? Something…about an attack?”

“I figured,” she said, practically a whisper as she felt her eyes begin to sting.

“Was…that flash. Was that a nuclear—”

“I don’t think thats what it was,” she said quickly, cutting him off like the horrible nightmare she was trying so very hard not to think about.

“You said it was in orbit?” Her brother asked. “What if it was a…reactor or something going critical? Like a…a freak accident or something?”

Because if it was a freak accident, I wouldn’t have gotten a Do-Not-Approach message, she thought to herself.

Tell him, she heard herself say mentally. You need to tell him. You have to go. You need to tell him that you’re going to kick whoever’s ass did this to him, and hundreds of millions of others.

“Rence,” she began, “I…think we were—”

Streaks and flashes started lighting up the surrounding sky closer to the horizon, cutting and carving the landscape apart in streaks of fire like a razor.

Thunder started to fill her ears, and instinct quickly took over again as she started to feel the ground vibrate beneath her.

“…Jahenna!” Rence said in a rising, panicked voice, “what’s…what’s going on?!”

For a split second, something flashed down from the sky out of the corner of her eye. Ungodly bright, it tore the blue sky apart much like its brethren in the distance…but this one was closer.

Much closer.

Before she could even begin to process how close, the bright streak flew behind a tree, and a disjointed, distant roar filled the air as the sky exploded around her in a cacophony of noise, light, color and dust. Trees were lifted up in front of her like twigs, and when the blast wave finally hit, it picked her up like a toy doll.

The last thing she remembered seeing was Rence rag-doll against a tree in the blast wave, his body wrapping around it like paper.

Everything went dark after that.

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Chapter Three: Traveling Companions

August 2, 2023August 22, 2023 S.C. Davenport Leave a comment

“So…what exactly is an ‘Espatier’?” Rence asked jokingly as they walked through the auxiliary parking lot beside her. “A big, glorified Space Marine?”

Jahenna gave her brother a look that could peel paint at twenty meters, laden with enough weaponized sibling hate and malice that the promise of death was the only conceivable escape.

“How can I put this in ‘simple’ terms for you to understand?” She mused, walking in the hot sun just behind him. “An Espatier is a Space Marine in the same way…a business loan is to an insurance policy.”

“That…doesn’t make any sense,” Rence said.

“Neither does your comparison,” Jahenna quipped. “Marines, for example, don’t work in space; they work on the ground, and dominate the air, land, and sea of the planet they’re stationed on.”

“That’s what I said,” Rence argued.

“That is not what you said,” she quipped again. “Espatiers, on the other hand, don’t just work in space, they live in space; they own the stars, orbits, and everything beneath.”

“…what’s the difference?”

“Marines chew crayons,” she said. “Espatiers chew vacuum. Brother, I love you, but you’re venturing down a path that will not end very well for you if you keep going.”

“Really?” He asked not-so-innocently. “How so?”

“…do you really want to find out?” She asked. “Bear in mind, I know how to kill people with my finger.”

It dawned on him then that, although he’d been joking…perhaps she wasn’t.

“…maybe not.”

Jahenna shook her head as she smiled.

“You…erm…sure you don’t need any help with that?” He asked her again, after watching her haul the canvas duffel over her shoulder past another car.

“I got it,” she said. “Why, you think I can’t?”

“I didn’t say that,” he countered. “I just…I hope you’re not thinking I couldn’t in this gravity,” he protested.

“Why would I think that?” Jahenna asked.

“Gravity was…always a bit much for me here.”

“Well of course it would be a bit much on you,” she said. “You grew up on Kasper, in a third of the gravity of this place.”

“Oh yeah,” he quipped, his own voice suddenly becoming cheery. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“Rence, do you ever stop with the bad jokes?” She asked. “Because in the past fifteen minutes I’ve only wanted to choke you out three times. How is it that nobody has murdered you yet?”

“Armed security officers in my apartment complex,” he stated matter-of-factly. “When you’re a bank manager like I am, you tend to get perks like that.”

“I bet,” she mumbled, silently cursing out her Dad’s nepotism for her brother.

After walking a few more rows, Rence approached a large, six-seated blue monstrosity that promised a fully automated driving experience, complete with luxury comforts only found in the latest of land-based autonomous vehicles.

“Nice rental,” Jahenna said as Rence opened one of the doors for her. She tossed the canvas bag inside, leaping in behind it.

“Thanks,” he said, climbing up into the chair closest to the door with a labored grunt. He sat for a moment, breathing deeply, before dialing in commands to the vehicle’s interface.

“You alright?” She asked him nervously, reaching into the duffel and for her tablet.

“Fine,” he said, still panting a little. “Just…did some extra gravity therapy earlier today, before I caught your graduation parade and met up with you. Between all that and the walk back out to the car…I’m just beat.”

He tapped the ‘engage’ icon on the interface, and the rental began rolling itself out of the parking space to the exit. It accelerated once it cleared the parking lot, moving quickly along various connecting roads to the the onramp, before merging into traffic on the highway.

“Not to pry,” Jahenna asked nervously, “but you…haven’t talked to Dad still, right?”

There was the briefest note of hesitation in Rence’s eyes.

“No,” he said, uneasy about the subject. “No, I haven’t talked to him.”

“Sorry to bring it up,” she said. “He…ended up doing the same thing to me that he did to you when you went back to Kasper. When I joined the Espatiers, I mean.”

“When’s the last time you spoke to him?” Her brother asked.

“Enlistment processing.” She said. “Had to tell him I ‘arrived safely’ to the Recruit Depot. We couldn’t say much. All he said was ‘good’ and hung up.”

Rence closed his eyes and rolled his head back against the headrest.

“Not to keep bringing it up, but…when I wrote to you two, I didn’t expect any letters back from him, not after what he said before or during that forced phone call…but I just…I hoped I could just convince him that I wasn’t…choosing to hurt him; I just wanted to earn my own way. I wanted to make him understand that, and I guess I let that hope get to me.”

“I hear you,” he said. “I hear you loud and clear…but these days I think he’s just incapable of hearing anything that contradicts him. I haven’t been keeping a close eye, but I heard he’s fallen ‘out of favor’ at the university as of late.”

“Yeah,” Jahenna said with a knowing grin and sigh, “yeah he’s…had some interesting ideas about the ancient alien life here. Things that didn’t really sit well with the rest of the faculty.”

“‘Sit well’?” Rence asked. “He practically called them all frauds.”

She cracked a smile, remembering the fallout from only a year ago.

It had been the beginning of the end of their relationship; the first few cracks in the dam.

She felt sad about it.

“For what it’s worth,” her brother added solemnly, “I’m sorry he did that to you. I’m sorry you had to go through that, then go through Basic. Being on my own and finishing my BA on Kasper was one thing, but I had you to fall back on; you didn’t have anyone…”

He trailed off as the rental continued speeding down the highway.

“I’m really sorry I left you out to dry like that,” he said. “I didn’t know about you and Dad.”

“We already talked about it,” Jahenna said. “It’s alright.”

Rence wiped at his face with his hand, then leaned back into his chair.

“Thank you,” he said.

As the silent moment turned into another, Jahenna turned away to look out the window. The landscape outside had shifted from the quiet but well lived-in urban environment near the Recruitment Depot to a semi-flat desert landscape that stretched for miles. Proxima Prime wasn’t necessarily a uniform biome, but its principal one was a desert. Even bugs were sparse.

“So,” Rence asked, sitting up and eager to start a new subject, ”’two standard weeks’ you say?”

“Three hundred, thirty-six hours,” she said, clarifying the exact conditions of her liberty. “After that, I’m to report to Bar-Hassan for the next stage of my training. And after that, I get to find out what I’ll be doing for the next six years.”

“Wait,” Rence asked suddenly. “Six? I thought you’d be in for four.”

“They tack on two years for travel and light lag,” she explained. “Not much I can do about it. If I happen to see stuff on the way it’s not so bad, I guess. Learn new skills and see weird things.”

“Assuming Tau Ceti plays ball,” Rence said.

“Pfffff,” Jahenna scoffed. “Tau Ceti can suck my dick,” she said in an angry, dismissive groan. “We’d wipe the floor with them the moment they tried anything.”

Rence looked at her with a wily expression of surprise at her reaction.

“Wh—” he stopped himself, trying not to suddenly start laughing. “What did you say?”

“You heard me,” she said. “They can kiss my ass; they can pound sand. They’ve been posturing for years; we don’t have anything to worry about from them. Not one iota.”

“They’ve managed an information blackout for the past three months,” he said. “That’s not exactly easy.”

“It’s not exactly hard either,” Jahenna said, adjusting her seat to face her brother more directly. “All you need to do is stop sending messenger drones.”

“Yeah but…ships that travel through Consortium space haven’t been seen coming out,” he continued. “They’re like a black hole; nothing comes out, I mean.”

“If Tau Ceti wants to play isolationist again, let them,” Jahenna said, her voice growing more irate.

“Still, the information blackout has a lot of people…well, worried,” Rence added hesitantly. “Myself included.”

“So we’ve stopped hearing them boast, moan and threaten us—what’s not to like?”

“That…they might attack?”

“And what are they going to hit us with?!” She asked, suddenly cutting him off at the knees.

She’d had enough.

“They’re over a century behind us in ship design, engine efficiency, and weapons,” Jahenna said angrily. “They still use antimatter! They don’t even have subliminal warp!”

“They figured out how to pull off a Null-Jump,” Rence said. “They’re not stupid.”

Jahenna sighed. “No, but they only figured it out after salvaging enough of our messenger drones to figure out the basics,” she countered.

“It took us almost two hundred years to figure out how to jump across the stars—they did it in just forty. That has to count for something.”

“It took us that long because we weren’t even sure it could be done at all!” Jahenna said sharply. “They did it in forty because they saw us doing it, they just didn’t know how until they figured it out! You’re convinced they’re going to attack, and I’m trying to tell you there’s no way—no way in hell—that they would do that.” She reiterated. “It doesn’t make any sense. What would they gain from it? We’d decimate them the moment we saw their engine blooms or mass wake from a jump.”

“But—“

“—Their ships are literally tin cans, Rence! You could sneeze at them and they’d explode! They know this!”

“Alright, alright,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Sorry to argue. I just…I guess I’m just worried over nothing, then.”

Silence filled the cabin again as the two siblings stood down from their respective sides.

The rental continued on, and Jahenna went back to looking out the window.

“You know what,” Jahenna announced suddenly, “I don’t want to think about Dad or Tau Ceti or even the Espatiers for the next two weeks; is that possible? Can we do that?”

Rence snapped his fingers. “Done,” he said, his smile filling his face.

An idea crossed Jahenna’s mind.

“…what if we meet up with Greveen or Vijer?” She asked, turning around again to face her brother. “Maybe they could come camping with us?”

Rence paused for a moment, a hesitant look hanging on his face.

“What?” Jahenna asked.

“I…thought they would have written you or something,” he said. “Greveen went off-world to Kasper for University four months ago. Vijer is…I haven’t heard from them since you left. I think they said something about going to Undjunjar, but that’s all I know.”

Jahenna’s face became sullen. “Oh,” she said, defeated.

“…sorry to break the bad news,” Rence said.

“It’s alright,” she said. “Had to find out anyhow. What about you and Gillory? I haven’t seen her in a long time, and you two were…you know…”

Rence smiled. “We…um…decided to take some time apart.“

“Oh,” she said again. “I’m sorry. Didn’t know that.”

“How could you?” Rence laughed. “It’s alright. We’re not fighting or anything; she just said she needed some space and I was getting beat up under pressure from the bank anyhow. We still talk—it’s just a distance thing for now. She’s actually nearby on Faria right now working on one of the new crystal lattice arrays for one of the lasers.”

“Huh,” Jahenna said. “Well…um, okay then.”

Rence chuckled a little, though a tint of moroseness hid in his voice. “She’s…bucking for a new contract with the power company over that array. Supposed to get twenty percent more efficiency with less focal burn out.”

“Hope it works out for her,” Jahenna said.

Silence again.

The sound of kevlar tires rolling down the highway wasn’t exactly deafening in the luxury cabin, but it was audible enough to fill the empty void between them.

Jahenna went back to staring out the window, where bleached rocks were already staring back at her as they passed by.

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Chapter Two: Siblings

July 24, 2023August 22, 2023 S.C. Davenport Leave a comment

Packing her neatly rolled uniform into the large canvas duffle, Jahenna folded the bag closed and firmly tightened the string clasp. She looked around the barracks room she’d spent the last six months in, and allowed herself a brief moment of farewell.

She’d changed so much here…

Between the rows of bunks so awkwardly far away from the windows and cabinets that served as both divider and wardrobe for each bunk “bay,” it was not a place she wanted to stay in anymore…

…but after being called “home” for half a year, she couldn’t leave without at least saying goodbye to it. It felt silly, but it also felt right.

That was just the way she was.

With her hand faintly running along the bare mattress on the bottom bunk, she scooped up the canvas duffle by its handle, and slung the strap over her right shoulder. “So long, Bay Twenty-Two,” she mumbled, giving one last glance over her little corner of hell.

“And may I never see you again.”

Duffel over her shoulder, Jahenna maneuvered out of the barracks and into the open sunlight of an afternoon Proxima sun.

She wore the best approximation of civilian clothing she could find at the PX: an athletic slate gray shirt branded “Espatier Corps,” with the Sword and Sextant emblem on the front, and a pair of black shorts. It wasn’t what she’d normally wear, but it would do the job while she traveled.

For the next three hundred, thirty-six hours, she was on liberty; a vacation. It was a chance to seriously recover from all of the hell and torment from Espatier training, and a chance to heal wounds that had only been bandaged and patched up rather than allowed to fully mend.

For two whole standard weeks, she could go where she pleased, wearing what she wanted, while eating whatever she liked…after that, it was on to Bar-Hassan Station, where she’d begin the next phase of her training: Light Orbital Mechanized Infantry Training, or “LOMIT school,” as everyone called it.

Back to uniforms and a rote hierarchal organization.

Back to stale air and bland food.

Back…to the Espatiers.

She’d endure being a soldier; she’d live the life and the experience, and be better for it, she had decided…but she also recognized how it would change her. Had changed her. She was a different person now than she was six months ago, and although she still had the same sense of wonder and curiosity about the alien ruins and fossils here on Proxima Prime, everything seemed so…distant now.

This wasn’t what she wanted to do.

Yet, here she was doing it anyway.

The ends never justify the means, as the saying went.

It was going to be a long bus ride to the small hamlet she was spending her liberty. Harrow’s Landing may have been nothing more than a town with a beach, but it was also only an hour away; if she was going to be spending the majority of the next six years stuck aboard ships or trapped on a space station, she wanted to soak up as much sunlight and open sky as she could.

She was halfway to the Recruitment Depot’s transport station when a semi-familiar voice called out to her from behind: “Jahenna? Is that you?”

She turned to look, then nearly fell backwards.

Rence Malnix, her older brother, walked briskly to catch up her from behind. He wore a crisp white button-down shirt with an open collar, and wore dark, pressed slacks with shined shoes. His dark brown hair was still styled into spikes with frosted blonde tips, and his skin looked somehow more uncomfortably pale than she remembered him.

“Rence?” She asked, surprised. “Is that…you?”

“In the flesh,” he said with a grin, holding his arms out.

Jahenna dropped her duffel softly to the ground and gave her brother an unexpected, pre-programmed sisterly hug.

“I…I didn’t…you…but…”

“I wanted to surprise you!” He said, embracing her as she stammered.

“But…you didn’t…!” She protested. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Because I wanted to surprise you,” he repeated. “Are you okay?”

“…n—no!” She said, despite the smile forming on her face, and the fire went out of Rence’s eyes. “I’m…I didn’t get any return mail! From either of you!”

“I know,” he said meekly. “I just…I didn’t have time to write back.”

“…what were you doing?” She asked, the hurt making her feel bitter. “Were you trying to get Dad to sign on to some new investment plan for the building commission?”

“Jahenna—”

“Do you know what I went through?” She asked, her voice sharp and pointed. “Do you have any idea about the things I’ve done? The things I had to do? Do you understand how hard it was? And to do all of that…alone? Without any support from what little family I actually have—or had? Do you have any idea how hard it was for me?”

Rence looked at her silently, but she could see his eyes working desperately trying to find something—anything—to say to her.

Absolutely pathetic.

“Now you tell me you couldn’t find time to write—not even dictate—a single letterback to me?!” She asked. “After I did that for you while you finished your BA coursework on Kasper?!”

Rence’s eyes were hard now. Hard and morose. “I made a mistake—”

“Don’t you dare,” she snapped furiously, stepping back. “Don’t you dare try to tell me you made a mistake and expect to get out of this like Dad—and God help you if you’re like Dad and thought I was just off playing a stupid game.”

He held his hands up defensively at that.

“Wait!” He protested sharply, “wait a second, I do not think you did this for…for attention or for fun or for anything like that—”

“Then what?” She asked, razor wire in her throat. “What made you so damn busy you couldn’t even spare five minutes for me? Were you dying? Were you sick? Because thats what I’m expecting to hear, and if it’s not, it better be a damn good reason why it’s neither of those things.”

“I was traveling,” he said. “I’m a shit for not being better about it, but I was traveling for the bank.”

Jahenna scoffed.

“I’ve been to Proxima, Kentarus, Sol, Bonfils, and back again over the past four months,” he pleaded.

“Not my problem,” she said, shaking her head and stepping further backward to where her duffel lay on the ground.

“I fucked up,” he said, louder this time. “I admit it. I fucked up. I really fucked up, and I know it. I had the entirety of my travel time to write you, the downtime between meetings and prep work to write you, the loading time, the transit time—even the freaking calibration time to write you back…and I just didn’t. And the only excuse I have is that I just kept putting it off because your training cycle was just so bloody long…”

Jahenna saw a tear roll silently out of one of his eyes, tracing a clear saline road down the faint stubble of his cheek.

“I wanted to write back to you, Jahenna, honest to God I did; I just fucked it up. I kept putting it off and off and off…until one day I looked at the calendar and saw we were already at your graduation date. I made a mistake, and…and rather than just admit it or call myself out with it, I—

“Rence,” Jahenna interrupted as she clenched her fist at her side, “if the next words out of your mouth are not ‘I’m sorry,’ and ‘I promise not to fuck up like this again,’ I will never speak another kind word to you for as long as you are alive. Do you understand?”

He stood there frozen, his eyes blinking tears that dribbled down his cheeks in the hot Proxima sun, absolutely unsure how to process what she’d said. Was it a threat? Was it a warning? A promise?

Did Jahenna herself even know?

“I’m sorry,” her brother said after what seemed like an eternity. “I promise not to fuck up like this again—or ever again, for that matter.”

The world around them continued on as if they were in a bubble of their own making; a private, shared universe of hidden trauma and sub-surface abuse that stretched as far as the horizon, and ended to where the sky began. The lawn around the walkway they stood on blew lazily in the breeze, and trees swayed in the distance.

“Are you actually sorry?” She asked. “Do you know how much this hurt?”

“…yes,” he said. “Yes, I do. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me. I’m here now, but that doesn’t excuse what I did—I need you to understand that. I need you to; I’m not like Dad. I—”

He stopped himself before he started to ramble much further—another trait of their father’s, one he had always been especially prone to when he was nervous.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I really am.”

He forced a smile at her, one laden with apologetic appreciation and acceptance.

“Congratulations on your achievement,” he said, then turned to leave.

Watching him turn to go after hearing him confess, Jahenna felt something shift inside her. She was still angry—pissed was the better word to describe what she felt—but for as much as she wanted to make him suffer, for as glad as she was to see him feel the hurt and remorse over what he’d done…it felt wrong.

It was wrong.

It was just like the barracks bay earlier.

That’s just how she was.

Rence may be an idiot, but you know he didn’t do this on purpose, she heard herself think. He was trying to make it right by showing up unannounced; he knows messed up, and he was trying to both fix it and apologize. He still wants to fix it. He knows he made the mistake, he knows how much it hurt, and he’s not trying to fix it to benefit himself; he’s not like Dad.

With a sigh, Jahenna relaxed her clenched fist.

“Rence,” she called out softly.

He didn’t turn around as he continued to walk away.

“Rence!” She said louder.

“No,” he called out to her flatly from behind, “I’ve done enough harm today. I’m sorry I hurt you, but I’m leaving before I find another way to make things worse.”

“Then don’t leave,” she said. “You may have fucked up, but in the end you still made the time to show up. That counts for something—don’t throw that away too by leaving.”

That stopped him in his tracks, and he tentatively turned around to look at her.

“I’d like to try again,” she continued, looking at his hopeful, teary eyes. “Besides, it’s…it’s good to see you.”

They stood silently for a moment in the middle of the battalion quad, each staring at the other under the hot sun, waiting for the other to react.

“You…really mean that?” Rence asked.

Jahenna flew herself at her brother, wrapping him in her arms as she cried.

“You asshole,” she sobbed. “You fucking stupid asshole…God I missed you.”

“I…missed you too, sis,” he said faintly, more confused than he probably intended to sound. He wrapped his own arms around her, and the two held each other as they both processed their grief.

It was minutes before they finally released each other, Jahenna’s face red and swollen with tears, and Rence’s with a pained and guilty look in his eyes.

“I…I made it,” she said wistfully, trying to change the subject to a happier one. “I’m an Espatier, now. I did it.”

“I always knew you could,” he said. “Even if I never said it, I knew you could do it. I’m proud of you, ‘Jenna.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Hey um…how much time do you have? Before you have to go, I mean.”

“As far as the bank is concerned, I’m on some well-earned PTO,” he said. “I was…well, hoping I could spend some of it with you before you move on to the next leg of your training.”

Jahenna smiled. “I’d like that, actually,” she said. “I was…I have a small cottage booked out by Harrow’s Landing for the next two standard weeks,” she explained. “I was planning on just relaxing before LOMIT school, but I’m sure you could come with me if you wanted; I’m pretty sure I can amend the booking and—”

“What if,” he offered instead, “instead of Harrow’s Landing, we went camping?”

She looked at her brother with questioning eyes.

“Camping?”

“Yeah,” he said, the charisma coming back into his voice. “Do you remember? Like when we were kids?”

“…vaguely,” she answered.

“Dad was always running off to some nearby fault line,” Rence said, still trying to sell the idea, “Mom was always off by the creek…it was just us, tear-assing through the campsite, living in the sun and trees. Do you remember any of that?”

“…yeah,” she said, the memories coming back slowly. “Actually, yeah I do remember. I was…little, though. I haven’t thought about that in forever.”

“Look,” he said, “this is your vacation. You’ve earned it. I’d love to spend some time with you if you’ll have me, but you pick: Harrows Landing, a quiet little beach hamlet—which is also in its off-season right now, so mostly everything is closed up…or camping, something you haven’t thought of doing since…what, since Mom died?”

“Just about,” Jahenna said. “Maybe I just want something simple. Maybe I don’t care that most of everything is closed up because it’s the off-season; it’s cheap and there aren’t any obnoxious tourists to deal with. Maybe I just want to curl up on a lounge with an ocean view, a drink, and a good book—that thought ever occur to you?”

“Well…yes,” Rence admitted, “but consider this: you can easily curl up in a lounge, with a simulated ocean view, sip a drink and read a good book on deployment…but you can’t do any of that with your brother.”

“You could just come with me,” she repeated. “It’s really alright.

“Yeah, but…c’mon,” he said. “It’ll be fun! S’mores? Cookouts? Hikes? You can show me all sorts of cool Espatier survival tricks, I bet!”

Jahenna shook her head and groaned.

“I’ve been cooped up in a ship cabin for far, far too long,” Rence said. “I need to hear the wind through the trees again and feel the sun on my face. I’ll go with you to the beach if you really, really want to, but take it from someone who’s been hugging light for the past few months: you can simulate a beachfront easier than a forest.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped herself. He had a point, as much as she hated to admit it.

“Another thing to consider,” Rence continued, “is that camping might be good for us. Ever since I finished my BA and got that bank job, we’ve fallen out of touch…and I really screwed up not writing to you.”

“You really did,” she said, thinking. “Ohh…fine, you convinced me.”

“Convinced you?”

“Let’s go camping,” she said. “As long as I can sleep under the stars.”

“If you want to wake up to bug bites,” Rence said, “I won’t stop you.”

She smiled as she finally moved back to her duffel and picked it up. “I just need to cancel my booking,” she said, opening the canvas top and reaching inside for her tablet.

“We can do it from my rental,” he said. “C’mon. It’s hot and I’m parked not too far from here.”

Jahenna looked at him, then back out to where he pointed.

“Well, lead on then,” she said, closing the duffel and hoisting it back over her shoulder.

She grunted as the weight settled onto her shoulder again, but held steady as she began walking back to where her brother stood waiting.

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