Of The Stars

The Unquiet Heaven

Jame
The next week and a half is a montage of battle plans and boredom.

The Jerumatians are a blur of action, running here and there with arms full of important files or shoulders loaded down with weapons. I see the governor and her husband once or twice, usually engaged in what looks like a vital meeting with a horde of men and women I don't recognize.

The freedom fighters from Xilan and the tribes show up midway into the first week, sporting their characteristically serene expressions and brightly colored jumpsuits. Other recruits soon follow, flowing in through Jerumat's airway like its some kind of cosmic homeless shelter. Battle ships litter the streets, parked in every available space because the hangars are all full. We Broenians are all but pushed to the side in the wake of the revolution mania.

The whole thing has taken on a life of its own.

I try to spend as much time as I can with Kenna while we have this interim because there's no way to know how much we will get to see each other over the course of the coming conflicts. We eat all our meals together. We hang out in our room rehashing old times. We tell each other all about our experiences while we were apart. She talks to me about boys and friends and what she learned from Ms. Natalie. I talk to her about distant worlds and neon pink skies and the bizarre clothing of the outer systems.

And our time passes like that...for a week and a half. In a mythical dream state of time spent with Kenna, time spent alone, and time spent planning to go to war.

The only really memorable moment is when I wake up one morning to find Spades sprawled sideways across the armchair in my room. Kenna is gone, her bed left empty and unmade. I feel a bout of annoyance at Spades, as if he ran her off with his presence.

"What do you want?" I sit on the edge of my bed, running my hands through my hair and then rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

"Halsey told me to come get you... There's something you're gonna wanna see."

"Yeah?" I quirk an eyebrow sarcastically.

He blows out a sigh, "Look, man-"

"Shut up and get out of my room."

"Jeez, just listen, would ya? I'm- well I was wrong. About Eden Virdane. I was wrong, and you were right. Can you stop being an asshole now?"

I roll my eyes, "Whatever."

***

My mother always said history was a liar - that it only looked at the bad side of things and often ignored the details. She believed that if you wanted to know the truth about the past - the truth about where we came from - you wouldn't find it in the history books. You'd find it in the ancient novels preserved by fleeing fanatics back in the days when Earth was becoming a hostile environment and everyone thought the world was ending. You'd find it in journals kept in tattered notebooks by people who had lived through those times. But mostly, you would find it in the poetry. She said poetry captured the emotions behind everything, how events like weddings and funerals had held more weight than concerns about pollution and overpopulation. In my mother's eyes nothing was ever as honest or real as poetry.

We had lots of different poetry in our house when I was growing up. We had the modern, half-formed version of poetry, the scribbled copies of Earth Age works slapped down on any available parchment and bartered like it was pure gold, and then we had the real stuff. The genuine, authentic, unchanged, and untouched books. Well, we only had the one book, but it was better than nothing and it felt like a pretty big deal at the time.