Act I
Klaara put the finishing touches on the letter, taking a deep breath as she used her long tongue to seal the adhesive. It tasted strange – somewhat sweet with a bitter aftertaste. She closed the envelope, turning it over and picking up one of Richard's old-fashioned ballpoint pens.
Tomorrow, she was leaving him in charge of the Ghost – the ship the two of them had flown ever since his departure from Earth. For how long? She couldn't say. She had some "soul searching" to do. Answers to find. If she found them, perhaps she could return to her ship. Until then, at least she knew it was in capable – if not always good – hands.
She had painstakingly learned how to write in English; something she was very proud of. Heil, having four-fingered hands, were not used to the curves and slopes in human lettering. Rather, their own language consisted of blocky, angular runes. Learning English – for Richard's sake – had been one of her greatest triumphs; right up there with learning to actually speak it without the aid of a translator.
It is late. The ship's ambient lighting places it at just before sunrise. Richard, for once, is sound asleep in his quarters at the other end of the ship. He doesn't know about her departure. Not yet. She doesn't want to wake him right now. Ever since he'd become Edge – ever since he'd killed Gamerron and Kelmak, in fact – he'd been getting less and less sleep. It was always the same reason: worry.
He worried too much about his sister, for one. She had been formally married to Mindbank Turukaishal almost a month ago and Richard still had problems trusting the Scain. He would sit up for long hours at the desk she now occupied, his ironclad gaze staring at a single picture he kept in the corner of his workstation. It was a photograph of the three Sinclair siblings.
Klaara glanced over at it for a moment, noting that it was taken almost five years ago. Victoria looked very much like she had on the day the two had met: tall and quietly regal, if not somewhat subdued, with long brown hair and emerald eyes. She was dressed in a warm red sweater and blue jeans. Richard wore an almost childish pout, glaring upwards as his elder brother ruffled his black hair. He wore an almost formal suit, as if expecting to be taken to court at any moment.
Rising above the two youngest Sinclairs was Martin, the eldest sibling and a man Klaara was very nervous about ever meeting. He looked very much like he could have been an older Richard (in fact, Richard was starting to look more and more like his sibling as the years passed). He wore a suit as well, but his midnight black hair was showing a few strands of silver. Whereas Richard's hair was combed back over the top of his head, Martin's hung to his jawline in lank, dead strands. Contrasting sharply with this, he wore an exuberant smile on his face as he harassed Richard's hairstyle.
Klaara smiled. It must be nice to have siblings who like you. One of her sisters wanted her dead and the other had only ever had neutral feelings for her (and the feeling was mutual). Her father, too, was despicable. She never wanted to see his face again as long as she lived.
The Heil tore her gaze away from the photograph and picked up the letter, looking down at her handwriting on the envelope. It was so unlike Richard's confident, graceful scrawl. Her handwriting looked as though she had pushed too hard and made the letters slightly too square, but it was legible.
She slipped her boots off her feet, curling her toes on the carpet Richard had installed in his Library. Everywhere else in the ship (save the bedchambers) there were cold steel floors. Klaara only ever took her boots off in here or in her bedroom. She didn't like the feeling of cold metal on her bare soles. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.
Quietly, wincing as she began to walk across the very surface she disliked, she tiptoed from the Library and down the hallway toward Richard's bedroom. The door, like everything else about him, is shut. But, paradoxically, it opens for her when she tries the semicircular handle. Cautiously, just in case her partner was actually still awake, she peered inside before entering.
Richard V. Sinclair was resting calmly on his bed, his hands folded over his chest and his eyes closed. Klaara had never seen someone sleep in such an unnatural position. Ever. It was like he was dead, not simply reclining in peaceful repose. His bed – a memento from Earth – was large and spacious, and yet he slept in it alone.
Klaara felt something between longing and shame rise in her as she realized that, more than once, she wished she could fall asleep beside him. They'd had sex before, but it had been on her terms. The violent Heil customs and procedures overriding anything else. Even though she knew that such things were a part of her, Klaara also knew that Richard had a side he reserved only for Victoria. A gentle and kind side. Something in her – something foreign and alien to the bounty huntress – longed to share in that.
She stared down at his sleeping form, noticing that this was one of the rare (she could remember all three) instances in which Richard's face was relaxed. Normally, he wore something like a dour scowl mixed with a penetrating gaze. If he smiled, it was usually in arrogance, sarcasm or cynicism. Now, though, he looked almost serene.
She smiled, wanting nothing more than to abandon her mission and crawl under his sheets with him, but she knew that it wouldn't end well. They had been through so much together that there were only two possible outcomes, and she wasn't really sure she could handle either of them. Instead, she gently placed the letter on the pillow next to his head and tiptoed back to the door, still wishing that the metal outside wasn't so damn cold.
Tomorrow, she knows, he will be meeting with a team of individuals he's worked with in the past. Klakshan, Kridoria, Bandrumano, Aninay and Borda. The six of them are going to work on establishing a peacekeeping force on Earth to safeguard against any further threats to the planet. They had even talked the Alinteans into allocating one of their Commanders to the cause and an Iharsh-Daraz into aiding them. There was also another Erythian.
Richard would probably not open her letter until after the preliminary meeting with his team, she knew. He was too eager to set things in place. Once the team was put together and stationed, Earth would be a safer place. It was the right thing to do; she had no problem admitting that. If she wasn't so conflicted, she would stay to help. But that was just not something she could do.
She arrived in the shuttle bay, staring at one of the long-range rovers parked there. It hung in its gravitic cradle like some kind of holy icon, descending only after she'd given the command to release the field. It slowly descended, its teardrop-shaped body coming to a rest against the floor in front of her. Klaara, her boots back in place, crossed the gulf of unfeeling metal and climbed into the driver's seat. She had plenty of people she was going to talk to, staring with an old friend on Sovereign.
The engines were completely silent, not that it mattered. The deployment bay on the Ghost was four decks beneath Richard's bedroom and on the other side of the ship. She wasn't worried about waking him up. Whenever he actually fell asleep, it was a deep slumber that took a while to wake up from; probably because he was catching up on all his lost sleep.
As Klaara sped away across the sea of stars, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Richard had already been hurt so much in life (even if he always did his best never to show it) that leaving might harm him further. But that was why she'd chosen this time to go. Even if he opened the letter prior to meeting his little group, he wouldn't drop them to go look for her. It wasn't in him.
Therefore, it was for the better. He would forge on ahead, working with his team, which would give her the time she needed to find answers. Answers to questions she hadn't even realized she'd kept locked away within her bosom; kept in the dark away from the prying light of day.
And what better place to start than the land of her birth? She technically wasn't allowed back on Sovereign, but she and Richard (and his alter-ego, Edge) had never exactly been ones to follow the rules. In fact, the pair had broken more rules than not as it was. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that no one wanted to stop them because they were actually doing some good, she was convinced they'd both have been locked away in Wend or worse for the rest of their lives and then some.
The Ghost was a tiny blip in space, Klaara realized as she looked back at it. Normally, the city-sized craft seemed so empty and alone when it was just her and Richard manning it. Now, as she zoomed away from it, it looked so tiny and lost against the infinite backdrop of space. They had entered geosynchronous orbit above Naudyai, an ocean-and-jungle world where they would be holding their meeting. The tiny world vanished as she engaged her 8th Dimensional Drive, slipping away toward Sovereign; a mere forty-two light-years away.
Behind her, nestled in the embrace of slumber, Richard remained in the same pose she'd left him in. His hands, clenched over his chest, barely moved with the rise and fall of his chest. His mind was racing, even in his sleep, as he dreamed of the faraway world where his sister was married to the leader of an entire race. And above all else, he dreamed of going down to the planet's surface tomorrow with his ever-present partner at his side to fight for the future of Earth.