Chapter 25: Of Heavy Thoughts and Gravity
Little Cato dropped into the gunner's seat in the upper turret, letting out a little huff as he leaned back in the cushioned seat. Through the canopy above he could see five of Zee Secundus' moons wheeling across a sky that had darkened from salmon to burnt umber. With three suns and twenty-three moons, actual, pitch-black night time was an almost unheard-of event on this planet, while solar and lunar eclipses were a daily routine. The closest Little Cato had seen to genuine darkness here was a heavy dusk, like right now, and even this wouldn't last more than a few hours. The cool air was a nice break from the constant heat and relentless brightness of the day.
What was nice, too, was that in the turret, one of the windows could actually be opened to the outside, a common feature on lightrunners to allow access to the top of the ship. Though he had no intention of leaving the Crimson Light, it was a treat to breathe unfiltered air and see the sky for himself and not on a screen. And so he propped the window open and lay back in the gunner's seat with his eyes closed and let the fresh air come to him.
"Little Cato," warned AVA.
"I'm not going anywhere," he assured the AI. "I just . . . need some time to think."
"No going outside," was the firm reminder.
"Not gonna." He smirked. "But even if I did, I'd still be on the ship."
"Cute," AVA replied, clearly finding him anything but at the moment. "Try it and you'll have two dads on your tail."
"Tell me something I don't know." Little Cato sighed. "I got a lot to think about, AVA."
"Hard day?" she pressed, annoyance turning to concern.
"Not hard – heavy. I never really had a time with two parents together. Like, at once. It's good but it's really different, too. It's a lot to take in. I just want some time to think and get my head sorted."
"Understood."
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"Lookee. Red lightrunner. There's a hole in the sensor shield."
"Whoopty," was the unimpressed reply from Tieg. "We care why?"
"First time it's happened. It's been here days. Looks just about brand new. They been spending money like they got no end of it. Supplies, equipment, food. Lots of food."
"So they're hungry. I am, too."
"I only ever seed three of 'em. They can't eat as much as they're buying."
"Stocking up for a long run?"
"Uh-uh. It's all fresh food. Good stuff, too. Expensive. Tells me there's more people on that ship. People who ain't showin' themselves. Maybe important."
"Or poxed."
He snorted. "What's a Tryvuulian doing hanging with a human and a Serpentian? And they got a few things on that ship I ain't never seed before – some floaty green blob and a hairy, giant pink thing."
"Again, we care why, Korg?"
"Because we're slavers and they might have someone worth grabbing. Someone we can ransom for more than they'd give us on the market. Gimme them glasses, Tieg. We got any scanners?"
The glasses were handed over with a sigh. "No. The last one got smashed when the mark spotted it, remember?" He watched as Korg held the range glasses to his eye. "We got almost a full complement ready to ship out. Let's just go before the locals catch on to us."
"And what kinda welcome you think we gonna get from Saa if we show up with empty cages? He'll just toss some of us in there and sell us off like he did to Terk's crew. Remember that?"
"I'm just saying we've taken enough people from one place. Any more and they're going to notice."
"We take the ones people won't miss. What's a few more?"
"Well, we take someone off that lightrunner, they're sure as hell gonna notice."
"Only if we get caught. I – spanget! They got a Ventrexian onboard that ship! Looks like a kid, too."
Finally interested, knowing what this could mean for this run, Tieg sat up and gave the lightrunner a hard look. Ventrexians were a rare sight on the slave market. Known (and envied) for the cultural elitism, they were intelligent, strong, and highly civilized, not to mention some of the most renowned fighters in the universe. Difficult at best to capture, they rarely traveled alone, but fetched excellent prices in every market from gladiatorial fighters to laborers to pillow slaves. The available bodies could not meet the demand, especially since the Lord Commander had tapped a Ventrexian to be his second in command.
And thanks to General Avocato, not only were they feared, but Ventrexians were also the new sexy.
"Male? Female?" pressed Tieg.
"Can't tell. Male, I think. Not that it matters to them," muttered Korg. Except when it came to fashion and reproduction, Ventrexians made little to no distinction between the roles of males and females. "Won't matter to Saa, either. You know what a high-class brothel or one of them spoiled little princes from the galactic hub would pay for a young Ventrexian?"
"Yeah. Thing is, if there's a kid, you know the parents are close by. They don't ever travel alone."
"So we get the kid and we get out of here as soon as the ship is fixed."
"It ain't getting fixed overnight."
"We can hold and hide one kid for a day."
"If we can get 'em."
"Oh, we gonna get 'em," promised Korg.
"How?"
"Gravity bind."
"On a kid?"
"Ventrexians are tough. He can take it."
Tieg made a nervous sound and muttered unhappily, "Just pray mama and papa don't find out first."
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
He watched without registering a fantastical, ringed moon wheeling across the sky, its surface cracked by active volcanoes and dotted with fires as lava flowed across the surface in an endless cycle. Little Cato's eyes were open, but his mind was so wrapped up in recent events that he saw nothing but the image in his mind's eye of his dads sitting leaning against one another in the hall outside the engine room, taking a nap. He had to agree with Ash's opinion - his dads were downright cute together, were highly entertaining to watch as they both came to the realization they had the hots for each other, and they made a very good team. Little Cato had only ever seen them together - really together, as Avocato and Gary Goodspeed complete with memories intact and no spiritual hitchhikers onboard - on Zetakron Alpha, but that brief episode had told him a lot about both men.
For a moment, memories of what had happened on Zetakron Alpha threatened to overwhelm him; attacking, gaining, then losing his father seemed to be a pattern he hadn't broken free of yet. Closing his eyes, Little Cato took a deep breath, centering and settling himself as he thought back on advice his father had shared with him. Avocato had been prepping to bring the fleet through combat training, and Little Cato had helped him get into his gear, talking all the while. He clearly remembered being anxious about a nightmare he'd had and hadn't been able to dismiss, and despite his efforts, nine-year-old Little Cato had failed at all attempts to hide his unease. His father, who had the entire military force of one of the largest empires in existence waiting for his arrival, had stopped all preparations, waived his hovering staff away to give them some privacy, and knelt before his son to listen to his worries.
"I know dreams like that can be frightening," Avocato said, his hands warm as he cupped Little Cato's cheeks. "They seem so real when they're happening."
"You get nightmares, Dad?" he asked, shocked by such a confession and the notion that his father the warlord could have a weakness.
"Yes. But I've learned not to dwell on them."
"I'm trying not to, but I can't seem to think about anything else."
His father nodded, understanding. "When my brain tries to push me into bad memories, I remember the good things instead. Like like the day Nikos taught me and Kedi how to swim. It was a burning hot day and the banks of the Sann were lush and green all the way to the river. You could smell the rain forest and the river and there were lilies blooming all in the trees. I never knew water could feel so good. Or running on the ice fields with all six of the Kotik brothers. Dancing with your mother. Holding you for the first time. That was the best and scariest moment of my life."
Little Cato made a skeptical face.
"You were this big," explained his father, holding up his hands, "and weighed less than my boot. I was never so thrilled and terrified at once. What if I dropped you? What if you did something? Moved? Made a noise? Purrsis just sat and laughed at me. I had no idea of what to do. I just knew you were mine and that I would stand against the whole universe to keep you safe." He smiled gently, something he was doing far less often of late. "So don't let the nightmare win. Think back on the good stuff: winning the thimbles tournament, those spicy pastries you like to get from the market, what it feels like to slide down the banister in the mansion -"
"You know about that?"
"Do now."
His smile widened, and Little Cato realized he had told on himself. Instead of being mad, though, his father was amused, and Little Cato found himself laughing in relief. It was good advice. Already he felt better, and he suspect that for the first time, he wouldn't be so anxious when his father left.
What Avocato couldn't have known, but that moment was once of the good times Little Cato called upon in this life and his life in the time shard when he wanted to conquer his nightmares. He could not remember the next time his father smiled, genuinely smiled, between that day on Tera Con Prime and returning to himself on Zetakron Alpha. Little Cato had been possessed then, just like his father was now, and since the Lord Commander had been powered by Invictus, he figured it had been something of an indirect possession. He remembered flashes of being under another person's sway, helpless to help himself or stop himself from speaking and acting. But his father had overwhelmed the Lord Commander with a greater power than hate. Closing his eyes, he relived the moment of waking up, trying to fix every aspect of it in his memory.
They were sitting in the rain amidst the ruined prison, his father's rich, warm laugh in his ears, his arms and body wrapped around Little Cato in a fierce hug. He could smell rain and burned metal, musk and gun polish, feel the heat of his father's hold and cold points as raindrops hit his back, the ache in his knuckles from where he had punched his father. The pain was proof he was alive. He was free. He was tired. He was energized, hungry, and dirty and for one glorious moment, perfectly happy. He had known, always, always known his father would not abandon him.
He stood up, determined to go find his father and his dad to talk over what had happened on Kanopis Prime. All of it, the good and the bad and the traumatic. This father was blameless, but he was still Avocato. Maybe, just maybe, talking things out now could help his father down the line and give them all hope that Invictus could be exorcised from his father, just as the Lord Commander had been banished from Little Cato.
Reaching down to close the turret's canopy and reseal the Crimson Light's shield integrity, Little Cato frowned when something small and metallic-sounding landed on the hull of the ship. Things landing on the ship was nothing unusual - the flying fish contributed feathers and droppings (much to AVA's disgust), the sandstone walls showered them with dust and pebbles, the fuzzy palm trees lost fronds and berries and pollen. Metal, though, was unusual, and Little Cato was instantly suspicious. Though he could (and in the past, had) fit through the window with ease, he did not step outside the ship. Instead he did look in the direction of the sound, trying to spot the source of the unusual sound. His eyes zeroed in on a small sphere an arm's length away from the turret that was too perfectly shaped and shiny to be natural.
Then it glowed.
"What the-? Hey, A-"
He tried to slam the port closed, but an energy field engulfed him, snatching him through the opening and trapping him in the air above the sphere. He recognized the device. It was a gravity bind, the same thing that had been used to capture his father on Tera Con Prime. Despite himself and what he knew about these traps, he tried to struggle, to call out or escape or give some kind of warning. Nothing. He could no more move than he could talk. Or escape.
And then they took him.