The next noxdiem we landed on the planet's surface and set up camp on the edge of a winter forest. As the rebel soldiers pitched tents in the enemy world, I carried a few iatric supply crates to where they should be, wondering if we could have settled somewhere warmer; but the infinite cold in that part of the planet made it perfectly uninhabited... A wound through which we could enter.
I set the boxes down in the snow and let my eyes travel across the frigid landscape until my eyes dropped into the valley between snowy mountains that connected our camp to the nearest town, filled with pale trees that became more and more sparse as you reached the top. That landscape was calm as a painting, but I knew that deep down it was dangerous – because sometimes what we had to fear most was not what it seemed. I gathered up the supplies and took them to one of the raised tents, warm, cozy and filled with empty stretchers for the unfortunate soldiers of the coming battle.
"You shouldn't be here, sapiens..." Korrok hissed as he passed by me. "You are not a soldier." Everyone made sure I knew that I was more valuable protected and hidden in Venena, but I knew that, only here, I could help one of those soldiers, as an iatric should do. And here alone, I could be more than a blood bank forgotten on the shelf.
"You will thank me after I save your neck."
Korrok let out a ragged laugh and scoffed at one of the other creatures in the tent:
"Did you hear that, Deinos? She thinks I would need help." Convinced.
"Not from a human, that's for sure." The espinero laughed. "But I applaud you, Donecea. A Gaxy helping our fight is a big change."
Korrok then kicked Deinos, who bit his tongue.
What did he mean by change? I thought my mother was helping the cause of the rebellion before creating the cure, just as the metriona told me. But apparently one piece of information was missing. And Korrok reminded Deinos that he shouldn't give it to me.
The vorrampe sent a fatal look to the espinero and walked away, leaving me with Deinos, embarrassed by his slip, and the certainty that I would receive no answers.
"Why are you in the rebellion?" I started a conversation, changing the subject.
"Why are you?"
"Justice. Or curiosity. Whatever that bothers me the most at the moment." I shrugged. But I knew that something bad was coming, and that the answers to everything were in the rebellion, so close I could almost touch them. I couldn't go anywhere. "And whatever is easier to achieve, too."
"Many things are difficult to achieve for beings like you, I imagine." He muttered, closer to the truth than it should be. And, in front of my wounded silence, Deinos revealed: "I was an Aulic soldier before... And for many years I served and trained for a great war that never came..." My eyebrows rose and I leaned in, curious to know his story. "I participated in many missions against the revolution... But most of them were to collect from the peoples of Itopis the Empire's taxes and eliminate those who were not fulfilling their duty to Itopis. Still, all of these missions felt... Secondary." He took a deep breath. "Our main function was to make the Empire's army as large as possible, as strong as possible, as powerful as possible... Because of a war that never came."
"So you couldn't take the pressure anymore? And that's why you abandoned the Aulics?" He laughed.
"The pressure is much greater here in the revolution's army, Donecea, where no victory is guaranteed and every defeat is a sentence." His cutting words gave me the chills. "I turned my back on the Aulics because they ordered my team to kill my family, just because they were late in their payments to the Empire's army..." The breath left my chest. How could the same Aulics my mother had belonged to be so cruel? So systematically ruthless? I wouldn't have believed him if the pain in his eyes wasn't so real. "And then I killed every one of them. Those I once called friends..."
"I'm sorry..." This was all I managed to say, in a weak but sincere whisper.
"Don't be. This happened many decades ago." Deinos revealed, almost as if he was no longer able to be shaken by this. "The memories don't hurt me anymore... But they keep me on this side of the war."
And I still wondered if this was the right side for me...
With those last words, Deinos turned and walked out of the tent, just as Arkadi entered it.
I flew my eyes back to work, organizing the iatric supplies in an attempt to pretend that there was no one there with me. But Arkadi wanted to be noticed.
He sat down on the gurney I was lining, with a petulant look in his eyes that was impossible to ignore.
"I imagine that if my neck is in danger, you won't save me." My eyes glared at him, but his smile was bulletproof.
"My job doesn't care about my preferences." I pushed him out of the way. "I wouldn't let you die... Even though I hate you."
"I'll try not to get to that point."
I sent him a look over my shoulder.
"Why are you going in the first place?"
"I would not accept a reward that I had not fought to deserve." He replied, probably lying.
"You should let the fevino fight in your place, then. He's better at saving you both than you are." I tried to mask my attempt to protect him with the offense, but he did not care.
"He wouldn't know how to differentiate enemies from allies. So better save him for emergencies..." As if a battle wasn't emergency enough. But I wasn't going to say it out loud.
Silence fell in the tent as I paced back and forth, arranging everything for the future wounded.
When I thought Arkadi was gone, he muttered:
"Speaking of fevino... I should take my next dose today..."
I stared at him.
"So that's why you remembered me today? To use me?" Deep down, I knew I didn't care that he needed me... But that he hadn't needed me until now.
"Don't act like you're not using me either. I only learned from the best."
I snorted and moved away to line a gurney on the other side of the tent.
"I said humans are great parasites, Arkadi. You should have gotten used already to your own nature."
"And now that you don't need me anymore, I'm worth as much as dead to you, don't I?" He growled and, silently, I squeezed the fabric until my knuckles turned just as white.
Arkadi let out a frustrated sigh and turned to leave the tent, but then I felt a great weight sink in my consciousness. How could I let him go like that, given the chance he might never come back? I closed my eyes tightly and let the words escape me before he could leave:
"I'll give you the dose." I heard his footsteps stop. "If you survive."
And then he left.
• • • ֍ • • •
That night everyone had to sleep huddled together in a white tent that was bigger than the rest. Parts of the fabric on the ceiling had been replaced with clear plastic so we could see the sky when enemy ships crossed our camp, and it wasn't long before the very glow of the stars made me nauseous.
The lull was fragile, temporary... As if, at any moment, some ship scrutinizing this world would distrust the white patterns on the snow and fire at us until nothing but our blood was left to paint the winter white. If they saw us, there would be nothing we could do but die. And the more I stared up at the stars from where our end could come at any moment, the more I got nauseous.
When I laid there, I swore that the presence of the soldiers, asleep with their arms wrapped around weapons, would bring me some security... But they just reminded me of how helpless I was in that universe of merciless beasts – too small, too weak.
At some point I couldn't breathe anymore. My entire body was shivering, icy, as sweat trickled down my neck. My mouth was dry, my eyes swallowing the darkness and my chest being crushed by all those layers of atmosphere above.
I got up and ran as fast as I could to the exit of the tent. I stumbled through the gap and crawled out, emerging from the darkness as if born again... And the coolness of the frigid night air seemed to fill me with life once more. But I didn't like the cold – it made me too comfortable.
"Are you okay?" Arkadi whispered, making me jump in fright. "You're so pale... More than usual, at least." He tried to make me laugh, but I just glared at him.
Arkadi was sitting beside one of the tents, snowflakes on his eyelashes, nose flushed and elbow propped up on a weapon bigger than himself. Perhaps he was awake because of the mission to prowl the camp; or maybe because he couldn't sleep in nights before days like the ones to come.
"I lost sleep." I replied.
"Was the 'symphony' inside too loud?"
My traitorous lip curled up a little, but I soon pushed it back down.
"The problem is the silence..." I confessed. "Everything is quiet as death... As if, at any moment, the calm will disappear and the chaos will explode in our faces..."
Arkadi watched me, his fingers tightly around the weapon, telling me I wasn't the only one who felt that way.
"Do not worry about it." And then, winking at me, he whispered: "We are chaos."
I didn't know which was worse, actually.
He nodded to one of the chairs beside him, silently inviting me; but his company was not quite what I had in mind at the moment. I thought about turning and heading back to the tent, but I could feel my chest running out of breath just by imagining myself trapped between those soldiers and the distant sky... So I decided to sit next to Arkadi.
"You would have liked me better if you had known me on Earth before the Empire..." He whispered, his eyes on the stars and greenish lights that danced across the horizon. "Everything would have been very different in a life like that..."
"You wouldn't be contaminated with a dangerous fevino..."
"And you wouldn't want to go to the galaxy's core."
"Maybe you would have spent more time in the hospital because of that shot..."
"And maybe I would have the courage to ask you to go for a coffee."
"But I would say no, because I don't like coffee."
"No problem. I would think of something else." He shrugged, pulling a smile out of me. "It would have been so simple..."
"It would." I sighed. "Maybe in another life..."
I didn't look at him, but I could feel his gaze on me.
"In another life then."
So, in the secret of our two-believer religion, we surrender to the silence.
• • • ֍ • • •
When the next morning arrived, it was the day that the revolution would attack that part of the Empire, starting with the concentration on the other side of the valley.
The soldiers – mostly vorrampes – gathered in the open space between the tents and Korrok joined them, every step drawing our attention to his power until no one could look in the other direction. And as he roared at each of us, the whole world seemed to tremble under our feet:
"They took our riches, our homes, our families..." The silence was frighteningly deep as Korrok ran his eyes over each of those beings who trusted him with their destinies and then growled, filling me with shivers: "But they still haven't taken our LIVES! They are ours to give to what we want! And now I ask you: are you willing to give them away for this REVOLUTION?!
They all roared in response, giving every fiber of their bodies for that cause, for that revenge, for the spark of hope that the revolution still fueled, after their hatred grown so hungry. Korrok opened the smile of someone who believed the war was already won – just because he knew he was no longer alone – and then, with a voracity capable of devouring planets, he exploded into the world:
"THEN LET'S RECLAIM OUR EMPIRE!"
The soldiers marched into the forest. I couldn't escape the desire to follow them... Because, with my improvement, maybe I could help more on the battlefront than in the iatric tents, waiting for the soldiers' remains for me to patch and send back into the chaos. ... Perhaps, in battle, I could prevent them from reaching that point; and maybe I could help them win...
Apparently that idea was stamped on my face, because as soon as Deinos walked by me, he said:
"Maybe after training, Donecea." I curled up inside the iatric tent. "And cover me if I return alive."
So the troops disappeared into the snow.
And Arkadi was among them.