Titans
[53] ATARA

April 6th, 2122 [22:15]

Location: The Hermes Starship

There is silence when I finish speaking, filling in the final gaps in their memories. Nothing moves. Nothing changes. Both within and without the ship, the universe is stagnant.

Then Lilith stands up, nearly tripping over in her haste to back away from me. Her mouth is open and I can almost see the thousands of angry, cutting remarks that cross her mind. But for the first time, she doesn’t say a single one.

Instead it’s Merc who finds his voice first, his eyes brimming with the weight of all this newly unearthed knowledge. If I look hard enough however, I can recognise the twinge of sympathy, the deeper understanding etched subtly onto his features. When he says my name, it sounds like forgiveness. He breathes, “Atara,” and I hear, I’m with you.

Then Cal says, “We’re still trapped in the portal.” It’s a general statement, but I know it’s directed at me. So far he’s the only one to have caught on – to have understood the true depths of what I’ve told them and what they’ve witnessed. He gives me a pointed look, and I know for sure: it isn’t a statement. It’s a test.

I look inside myself, feel the places where I’m holding on, where I’m dragging the cover of darkness as protection and work them loose. It’s clear now why Cal had no good explanation for why we were stuck in the space-time rift. It wasn’t a naturally occurring phenomenon – it was deliberate. It was engineered. And I was the unwitting cause.

“Have no fear,” Lilith mocks, “Atara Brown is here.”

And with a subtle whoosh, the curtain of darkness is swept away, revealing a hoard of stars – trillions and trillions of them, burning blue and red, orange and white. Constellations and nebulas and distant galaxies. And they’re at once deeply familiar. I can locate star-systems with my eyes, spot and name all the rings of the Milky Way. We’d spent so long in darkness that I’d almost forgotten what a starry sky looked like. And it blows my breath away.

Merc looks at me. “What are these powers of yours, Atara, and where did they come from?” His voice is light, curious, full of awe. But I don’t have an answer for him.

“What does it matter?” Lilith says, her anger momentarily eclipsed by wonder and excitement. “We’re going home.”

There’s a pause. “We’re going home,” Cal parrots, only with less vigour. There’s quiet as the implications of the statement settles on us, as the full weight of those three words presses down. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the FɪndNovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

We’re going home. Home to a USO facility lead by a dangerous and corrupt Commander. Home to a planet where we’re no doubt wanted for the theft of USO property, the endangerment and successful sabotage of a billion-dollar intergalactic operation, and a dozen other – both invented and real – crimes. If we don’t get the death sentence, we’ll be interrogated and trialled and locked away for life.

And then there’s still the issue of what we left Earth illegally to do – the mission we never completed. Who will complete it now? Commander Garen’s crooked replacement team? I loathe to think what might become of the world in their dishonourable hands.

“We can’t tell them what happened,” Cal says, and the weight presses down harder, crushing our futures into dust like the slam of a gavel. “They’d never believe it.”

“Or worse,” Merc interjects, “they do, and Atara becomes a science experiment, a lab rat, a–”

“Right here, Merc.”

Lilith, who’s been abnormally silent, mutters, “Maybe she deserves it.”

I shoot her a look but her eyes don’t carry the heat I’m used to. In its place I find a fragile sympathy and a growing concern, like she knows something we don’t. She seems to be trying to signal something with her gaze but its undecipherable. Meanwhile, the echoes of her words hang in the air, drawing us back into our recently-returned memories. I see a flash of all the crimes I committed against them while under the influence of the strange, alien powers ever-churning within me. I try not to dwell too much on what everyone else sees. Just the thought of it is enough to strike self-loathing deep within my heart.

“Don’t be an ass, Lilith.” Merc, seemingly incapable of hating me, is the first to my defence. I swim out of the well of memories and back to the present. “She’s saved us more times than you can count.”

“All I’m saying is, she’s saved our asses just as much as she’s put them in danger. All our problems start and end with her, and we all know it.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Cal leans forward in his seat, pensive. “None of it matters. We’re a team now. We’re bound together for life. Even once we’re back, it’s only ever going to be the four of us. We can’t trust a single soul outside of this circle.”

“So we lie? About all of this?”

“About the parts that relate to Atara. We don’t know what the knowledge of her abilities could do to the world.”

“Abilities?” The word is like a foul-tasting lie on my tongue. “Call them what they are – a curse.”

“Whatever they are, the knowledge of them stays with us.”

After a minute of silence, I get up and move into the pilot’s chair. From there, I set a course for Earth and switch the starship to autopilot. The engines hum in response, the gentle vibrations that accompany acceleration rocking through the ship. When we breech light-speed, the stars outside the window blur into a glowing fog. It is like travelling through a pool of light.

I turn back to the rest of the crew who watch the universe in silence. Lilith, who up until this point has been standing, slumps in one of the crew seats. “These secrets will be the death of us, Cal.”

“Yes,” he replies frankly, “but the truth would burn us in hell.”

Merc exhales, the starlight reflecting in his eyes as he looks at me. Just me. “Then let’s get our stories straight.”

Much later, after we’ve dispersed around the ship, Lilith finds me in my quarters sitting with a book.

“We need to talk about what happened.”

I look up, book-marking my page as I set the novel aside. “Please be specific, Lilith. A lot has happened.”

“On the Hermes. Before we lost our memories.” When I still don’t comprehend her, she adds irritably, “In the hallway.”

It rushes back to me in an instant. The darkness after the power went out. Lilith’s voice bouncing off the metal walls as she caught up to me. The confrontation. The panic. The alien energy heating my blood. And then–

I swallow. “You’re not going to say anything, are you?”

“I don’t know.” I can tell from her expression it’s the truth.

“Lilith, if you tell anyone – it would change everything.”

“I know.”

“And?”

“And I don’t know!” She throws up her hands. “What do you expect me to say? You’ve thrown me a grenade and expect me to stop it from exploding. I can only do so much.”

She’s hit a sore spot. I shift uncomfortably on the edge of my bed. “I’m not a grenade.”

“No, you’re right.” If she notices my change in tone, she doesn’t show it – or doesn’t care. No mercy with Lilith. Not ever. “You’re a nuclear bomb. I should shoot you right now.”

I meet her gaze. “Why don’t you?”

She fumbles for words and I realise I’ve thrown her off-guard. “Because…” The sentence dies in her mouth. She clears her throat; starts again. “We’re allies, Brown. We’ve survived life together.”

“That didn’t stop you the first time. Or the second.”

A flash of emotion passes over her face. “That was different. I was – the first time I thought I was protecting the mission, the crew, myself. The second was just instincts. I didn’t even know what I was doing.”

“You knew well enough to shoot me in the shoulder.”

“This is besides the point!” she groans, exasperation changing the landscape of her face. Whatever flicker of emotion I’d seen in her eyes goes out like a light. “I didn’t come here to squabble over past wrongs.”

“Then why did you come here, Lilith?

Up until this point she’d been leaning in the doorway. Now she steps into the room, squares her shoulders. Stands her ground.

“To make sure you have a plan, when the inevitable happens.”

Our eyes meet and a mutual understanding passes between us, an invisible current of thought rippling through the air.

“I can help, if you need me. I can–”

“No.” My voice is firm, hard. A miracle, considering how everything inside me is shattering.

Then Merc rounds the corner into my quarters. He sees me first, then he sees Lilith. This makes him pause. “Sorry, am I interrupting?”

“It’s fine,” Lilith replies, eyes on mine. “I was about to leave anyway.” She turns and exits the room, her walk stiff and formal – a soldier’s walk. I watch her go, even after she’s already disappeared around the corner, my mind caught on the thorns of our conversation.

“Is everything alright?” Merc asks from the doorway.

I snap back into focus. “It’s fine,” I reply, and release a pent-up breath. “Just Lilith. You know.”

He grins, moving into the room. “Oh, I know.” The mattress shifts beneath me as he takes a seat at my side. He’s wearing black combat boots and dark kaki fatigues with the USO logo on the breast. The patriotism feels uncomfortable. We may stand for the same values that the United Space Organisation was founded on, but with Erik in charge, their values have since changed. In his eyes, and presumably in the eyes of the new USO, we stand for nothing.

I look at Merc. “What’s up?”

“Cal wants you to know he doesn’t hate you.”

I frown. “Can’t Cal tell me that?”

“Well, he didn’t use those exact words.” I send him a look. Really? “Alright, he didn’t use any words. But honestly, I don’t think he knows how.”

“That’s understandable.”

“The point is, we’re with you, Atara. Always. We’ll get through this.”

I let my gaze fall into my lap, where my hands rest on my knees. “We don’t even know what this is,” I say quietly.

“Hey,” he whispers. Gently, he touches his fingers to my chin and turns my face towards him. “Whatever it is, you’re strong enough to beat it. We conquered the beginning of the universe. We can conquer this too.”

For a moment, everything drops away. His fingers are still on my skin, heat blossoming underneath his touch. Slowly, he traces up the side of my face, leaving a trail of tingles, and brushes back a stray strand of hair. “Merc,” I say.

His hand drops to his side. The moment that bound us is over.

“That’s all I came here to say,” he exhales, standing. The space beside me suddenly feels cold and empty without him occupying it. “I’ll let you get some rest.”

He heads for the door, pausing for a moment in the doorway like there’s something more he wants to say. But he must decide better of it, because the next moment, he’s gone.

One week later and we get our first sight of Earth.

I’m halfway through breakfast when Cal’s voice comes over on the PA, announcing, “All crew, please return to Control for docking.” I drop what I’m doing instantly and head quickly down the hall, nerves and excitement stirring in my gut.

Everyone’s already there when I arrive, taking their seats. I move up to the Pilot’s chair and then I see it: the blue and green marble we call home. Our comms channel flares to life as I sit.

“…in, Hermes. Come in. Please report for landing. I repeat, please report for landing.”

It’s my job to answer the call, but my fingers hover over the button for the mic, unwilling to press down. Some part of me knows we’ve reached a turning point. From here we have two options. Reply to the call, dock at the USO Station and face the consequences. Or turn on our heels and run. This moment is a knife, dividing time in half, before and after falling away on either side. We are on the cusp, caught between future and past.

Everyone else feels it too. There is a hum on the air, an atmosphere of tension, of holding on just a little longer before the inevitable release. We still have right now, this last instant of freedom before the world clamps down and swallows us whole.

The Hermes travels forward, slicing effortlessly through space. Stay or go. Confront or flee. There’s no choice, really; we’ve already decided.

“Are we ready for this?” Merc asks.

Despite everything, all the obstacles and challenges thrown our way, we made it. We escaped a dying planet. We survived an exploding universe. We stuck together, even after my alien curse threatened to tear us apart. We are explorers, healers, fighters, mysteries. We are Titans, come down to Earth.

I press down on the mic. “This is Hermes, reporting for landing.”

Are we ready for this?

I know we are.

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