Will was excited about getting posted to a starship and seeing some action, but at the same time, he thought, a change of scenery might be a good opportunity to take a long, hard look at his own life. It might just be,he thought, that it’s time to make some changes.
Chapter 29
More than a year had passed since Kyle Riker had last seen Earth, and the sight of his home planet filling the shuttle’s viewscreen filled him with a sense of joy that took him by surprise. He knew there were still dangers ahead, and difficult times, but he would meet them on his home turf and face them in a way that he hadn’t been equipped for when he had let them drive him away before.
Getting to this point had been a challenge, to be sure. The night Michelle died had ranked right up there with the worst nights of his life. The police had been out in force that night, he remembered, clustered together in groups on street corners, armored and tense. They had stared at him as he passed by, a ragged-looking man with what might have been blood sprayed across his face and clothing, but they hadn’t stopped him. He figured he looked too beaten down to be much of a threat.
Kyle knew that when things went downhill they would happen fast, but even he was unprepared for the velocity and brutality of the next morning’s events. Instead of waiting for Cetra and the others to give themselves up, the army simply returned to The End in full force, with far more soldiers and machines than they had used the day before. The tanks rumbled into the old part of Cozzen five abreast, not paying attention to where the roads wound. They made their own roads. The ancient buildings barely slowed them down. When they approached one that looked more substantial than the rest they simply fired upon it before they got to it, their energy beams lancing across the early morning landscape and blowing huge chunks from the walls. Then the tanks rolled forward, their sheer mass finishing the job their guns had started. Soldiers, on foot and in troop carriers, came behind, using their handheld weapons on any who survived the destruction of their homes. Smaller and weaker structures were merely ground into dust by the big machines.
Kyle had finally fallen asleep in an alley, but the thunder and crash of the army’s advance woke him up early. It took a few moments to get his bearings—he felt hungover, though this hangover had only to do with grief, not with drink—but once he figured out where he was, he ran through the chaotic streets to Cetra’s place to warn her. When he got there, he saw that a police unit had already raided her place. As Kyle watched, helpless to stop it, Cetra was led out of the building with her hands in shackles by five uniformed police officers, the shortest of whom towered over her by half a meter. Another dozen stood outside the building around an armored vehicle, as casually as if this were any other day, any other job.
“Cetra!” Kyle cried, oblivious to the risk this raised for him.
“It’s okay, Joe,” she said, tossing him her most gentle, motherly smile. “You can’t worry about me. You take care of what you can.” The police led her into the vehicle and slammed the doors.
Taking care of what he could was his intention, although he thought it might sadden Cetra to know that his goal had nothing to do with Cyre, or Hazimot. Michelle had come to the conclusion long ago that her future was here on Hazimot— such as it was,he thought bitterly—but that Kyle belonged back on Earth. He never had told her any details of his troubles there, but she insisted that the time would come when he’d have to go back and face them. “You’ll never be really at peace until you do,” she said. “Even with me, you’ll always be unhappy, unfinished. I’d hate for you to leave me, but you need to return there someday.”
He had remembered that conversation, last night, even through the anguish he felt at her death. He had decided that she was right, that he needed to go back and take care of things at home. Only by accomplishing that could he be the kind of man Michelle deserved. And even though she would no longer know it, that was the kind of man he meant to become.
Seeing that to try to act against the police who had taken Cetra was purely suicidal, he turned and ran toward home. There were things hidden in his apartment that he would need, if only he could get to them before the building was flattened. Michelle had helped him acquire authentic identification papers in the name of Joe Brady, and a second set in the name of Henry Blue in case the Brady name became compromised somehow. And there was some cash set aside there, since Hazimot operated on a largely monetary basis, and he would need that as well.
The streets were almost impassable now. Everywhere, buildings Kyle had grown accustomed to were burning. Fire licked at the edges of windows or spat high through broken roofs, all accompanied by a crackling roar. Instead of dissipating the smoke, the omnipresent winds just fanned the flames and spread smoke everyplace. Kyle inhaled great hot lungfuls of it and began coughing before he even reached home. Refugees, driven out of their own last-resort housing, clogged the streets, clutching infants and threadbare belongings to their breasts, holding children and lovers by the hands. Many were weeping openly, others angry and scared, readying weapons or looking for an escape route. The thunder of heavy artillery filled Kyle’s ears, and the concussive shock of explosions rattled his bones. He felt much as he had that day on Starbase 311—terrified, overwhelmed, and bordering on hopeless. However, he was not experiencing any flashbacks. None of the crowd turned into Tholians, the noises around him sounded like artillery, not those awful Tholian hand-weapons. Under other circumstances, he might be pleased by this, but not right now.
After working his way through the crowd, clenching his lips against the grit and smoke and dust that filled the air, he finally made his way to the building in which he’d lived these many months. The building in which he’d met Michelle, and loved her so powerfully. It stood there, dun colored through the thick smoke, its few remaining windows shattered by the blasts and gaping dumbly at him, and he ran for it as if it offered shelter from the insanity that surrounded him.
Of course, it didn’t.
Inside, he couldn’t see any of the residents, just a pack of looters, youthful Cyrians, mostly, who were busily trying to make off with what few possessions of value had been left behind. Kyle felt he should challenge them, but then common sense won out. Anything not already claimed would be rubble anyway, soon enough, when this building was flattened like the rest of The End. Instead of confronting the looters, he just shoved past them and dashed up the stairs, hoping they hadn’t yet raided his apartment.
In fact, when he burst through his door there were three muscular Cyrian males ransacking his place. “Get out!” he snarled at them. They spun around to face him, one dropping an armload of his clothing on the floor.
“This one’s ours,” he said, almost calmly. “There are plenty of other places you can pilfer.”
“No!” Kyle shot back. “This one’s mine. All that stuff is mine. Like you say, there are plenty of other places—leave my things alone.”
One of the Cyrians laughed out loud. “Yours? You lost any claim to this place when you walked out the door. You don’t defend what’s yours, it’s not yours any longer.” He bunched his huge hands into fists.
Kyle normally didn’t care much about material possessions—he had left behind an apartment full of them on Earth, almost two years ago now—but this was quickly becoming a matter of principle as well as survival. “You know what?” he asked, feeling the tension flow out of him and a remarkable sense of peace take its place. “I’m having a bad day. A very bad day, in fact. The woman I loved died, my neighborhood is being taken apart piece by piece, and all my friends are either under arrest or missing. There’s nothing I’d love more right now than to tear you all apart, one by one.