Starfire

Chapter 10: -The FF-

   Najma haltingly retold his story. He forced himself to turn it into a list of facts that he could list off in order, rather than seeing them as the events that they had been. If he could try to imagine that they hadn't happened to him, maybe it would be easier to bare.

   When he had finished, he looked across the desk at Garter, finally meeting her gaze again. He expected her to grow wary of him, after she learned that he'd been lying since meeting her. The opposite occurred. Her eyes glowed brighter, and she nudged the paper.

"We'll do great things together, Anlur. You'll do what you were born to do. The fates are giving you another chance." A rasp grated within her throat as her voice lowered. Hadn't he just told himself the same thing? She was confirming his thoughts even as they solidified into resolve. "Giving us another chance. And I always take the chances that I can."

What he needed was purpose. To keep him distracted, to help him move on. And hope— hope that he could do something other than survive. That was exactly what she was offering.

He signed the paper without reading it.

Garter slid the contract back towards herself and took a moment to survey his signature. Laws might not have a strong grip on Beyarm 4, but words were powerful currency regardless of where they were spoken or signed. It would be enough to hold up in the very courts he used to walk through.

Garter stood to salute him. He returned the gesture rather uncertainly.

At her command, a large alien entered. He must have been waiting at the door. He led Najma back into the clean front room and through a different doorway. They walked down at least four flights of chunky, rough-hewn stairs, and when they reached the bottom, they were suddenly standing in a cavernous underground bunker, probably carved straight out of the rock during the strip-mining of the last great boom on Beyarm 4, if the streaky, uneven marks left on the walls from the mining process were any indication. Lights were strung from the ceiling in a seemingly random pattern, anywhere that they could be attached. It seemed that a whole mountain had been hollowed out into a shell to fit such a space.

At least fourteen starships dotted the giant room, and people milled around, numbering several hundred, if not a thousand or more. This was a bigger operation than he had thought... and if each of these people carried the same poise and efficiency as those in the room above, it would be a force to be reckoned with. They would be able to make a difference.

He could see distant activity in every corner of the room. Sparks flew in one eye-catching display of flame from across the wide space. Someone yelled instructions made unclear by distance and noise pollution to a crew of mechanics working on one of the ships. A crate was lowered slowly to the stone floor by a huge crane. In a far corner, smoke drifted lazily into vents from an open kitchen crawling with movement. Sounds to match the throng met his ears. The cavern was so large that it was hard to make out what was happening on the other side very clearly.

The closest hub of activity was a roped-off section of sanded ground filled with sparring soldiers. He could tell by just glancing at them that they were training, and if they were training in violence, that meant Garter intended to use that violence to at least some degree in order to take the place and keep the peace of the Yu-Liang.

He felt a brief snag of hesitation as he was pushed into the very same ring of fighters, but he brushed it off. Of course, they'd need to back up their decisions with a bit of force at first. No one would be happy with such an abrupt change. And there might be other groups exactly like The Alliance of the Shooting Stars that wanted a bit of the glory.

He stood there, half-tempted to shy away from the fighting pairs around him as punches and jabs flew every which way. He was no coward, but this had never been a part of his schooling. It was always peace first; negotiations and parley and impartiality. But his life had changed drastically, and he had to convince himself to change, too.