In the Light of Every Morning (eBook)

Chapter 2 Our Former Glory

The Only Reply

She’s failed. Her mission is over. Tears flow like raindrops down her cheeks, like raindrops down her window when she was a child.

She pushed her tattered little curtain aside and pressed her nose against the cold pane. The rain drizzled down the outside, washing the ever-present grime in twisting black trails. Nanny Mary had told her it was The Maker’s way of washing the world clean.

Lightning struck far away, illuminating the night. Bombed out buildings as far as she could see. And people tried to make their lives in the rubble, just like them. But how much rain would it take to wash this world clean? And what of the dirt inside the people? The hate? The evil?

And why did they hate Nanny Mary, and her mate Uncle Will? They called them halfhanded aliens and other bad names. These nice Earthian POWs refused to abandon her mother even though she freed them so they could return to their home world.

They loved Senitiya as if she was their own child. They said it was healing for them because they had lost their infant son at the beginning of the war. Joshua, they called him. What a funny name. He would’ve been a year older than her, and probably as handsome as his father Will.

She sighed. How nice it would have been to have siblings. Life could be so lonely for an only child. But maybe it was for the best, food was so hard to find after the war. They fed her a little tonight, but her mother and Mary and Will hadn’t eaten in two days.

She pulled away from the window and lay back on her little bed. It was just an old box filled with stuffing, a little too small, she had to bend her legs to keep from sticking out, but it was hers. She pulled her old blanket up over her head. This was her safe place, where she could hide from all the problems.

Someone tears her from sleep and flings her through the air.

The light blinks on in the shipping container.

Boxes rush up at her.

Wham!

Pain shoots through her joints.

Her impact dents the boxes in.

The soldiers are here. The abuse has begun. Must protect the face and the head.

They grind her body into the boxes with horrible force. Lust crazed males who care nothing for a woman can be so brutal, cause so much damage.

A groaning hum vibrates from outside, louder, louder.

They push her harder and harder everywhere.

Wait.

How can they push everywhere?

That’s not hands and bodies.

She strains, barely able to bend her head around enough to see the door. It’s still closed.

She’s still alone.

The groaning vibration from outside gets louder and louder and her body presses harder and harder bending the boxes even more.

That’s G-force.

This is acceleration, hard acceleration.

She’s not on the Psygast anymore. She’s on a cargo ship rocketing away to…

Some far away planet?

Some other space ship?

How much time’s past since she cried herself to sleep? A few hours maybe?

The soldiers didn’t come. Why didn’t they come for her?

Now she’s on a voyage that could take months. She looks around her little room. A few days of oxygen at the very most.

Got to stay calm. Getting hysterical wastes precious oxygen. Got to stay calm.

The vibration and G-force lessen enough that she can move somewhat but she must lean very far forward.

Why didn’t they come for her? They scanned her. She even saw the labels on the boxes glow in the scanner beam.

Strange.

Why’d they glow? It was almost like they were interfacing with the beam.

She slumps back into some boxes, the G-forces pushing hard and heavy.

That’s exactly what they were doing. She pounds a box with her double fist. The scanner beam was some computer program scanning the contents for a shipping inventory. It wasn’t looking for stowaways.

Her heart leaps. I’ve escaped the Psygast.

She shakes her head and sniffs. But now I’ll suffocate in a few days and not be found for months.

Her belly growls so she eats, drinks and naps.

When she wakes the G-force is gone.

Where to go to the bathroom? She uses the empty food and drink containers and seals them back up again. Don’t need to pollute the precious air.

Something, just barely able to hear something. Children singing. Why are children singing?

Got to be a dream.

Or the oxygen’s running out and her mind’s playing tricks.

No, cause they’ve stopped singing and now they’re laughing.

“Hello!” she yells.

The laughing fades.

“Is anyone out there?” she yells into the silence, like the vacuum of outer space.

Silence is the only reply.

Her head’s playing tricks.

Blend into the Crowd

She eats, drinks and naps again.

Boom!

Her room shakes.

Light pours in through the edges of the door.

The door’s ajar.

Her door?

She rubs her eyes.

It’s cracked open?

She blinks and stares.

Moaning and groaning sounds of heavy equipment pours into her little room.

“I told you to stop!” voices from outside yell and curse. “But no, you backed into it!”

She slinks down behind some boxes. Best wait till everyone leaves.

And so, she waits and watches the light shining through her door, her window to sweet freedom, calling to her spirit.

Over time, the light changes. It recedes, not shining as far into her room as before. And the vibrant colors wash out dissolving into harsh intensity.

Her breath sucks out, bearing her spirit with it, out to the living light, the light that changes position and brightness with time. This cannot be the synthetic light that has assaulted her eyes for two years. This is real. This is a dawning from this planet’s illuminary star.

Her heart wells up and drips out her eyes. The image of this beautiful light of freedom wavers through her tears. It’s just right here in front of her, and the sounds outside stopped a while ago.

She peeks out the crack. Is it safe now?

No movement, just other shipping containers.

She pushes on the door and it parts enough for her to squeeze out.

Containers are stacked six high to the sides and behind her. The massive all glass ceiling rises several stories above supported by a superstructure of ornate scrolling iron work. Surely this building was not designed to be a warehouse.

She steps forward into her new bright future.

Crunch, sickening, wet and slimy.

And her heel slides in it.

Roaches scatter across the floor, bugs the size of a fat old man’s nose with the bristly hairs sticking out and twitching.

A shiver ripples through her.

Come-on girl, watch where you step. You’ve seen worse.

Sweet slaps her nose like a wet cloud, but the wrong kind of sweet, the rank kind of sweet, the rotting garbage kind of putrid sweet.

Yuk. Take little breaths.

She sneaks through the container stacks toward what looks like an exit. She passes a wall where workers’ coveralls hang in rows. Two arms, two legs. At least she’s on a bipedal world. That’ll make it a little easier to blend into the crowd.

Blend into the crowd?

Her gaze slumps down her body. Before she left, she’d chosen the most practical and modest attire she could find, but in the sex slave quarters on the Psygast, there were no regular clothes.

She shakes her head. Dressed like an exotic dancer is not the best way to blend into the crowd. The goal here would be to “not” attract attention.

She puts on a pair of the old grey coveralls, rolling the pant cuffs up enough to walk, but still low enough to try to cover her glittering shoes.

Her reflection in a shiny piece of metal screams at her. What to do about the Mercury hair? That really stands out in a crowd. She finds a towel and wraps it tightly around her head as a scarf.

She stands by the exit door, her hands firmly grabbing the latch to her future. What’s on the other side? Forest and field? Meadows and mountains?

Courage, girl. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, but it locks in her throat, putrid sweet. She coughs. Forgot about-

The door yanks her outward.

She stumbles into someone who pushes her aside.

“Out-a my way.” And he steps through the door.

Another pushes her, and another. She bounces back and forth from body to body in the crowded street like a cork bobbing in a turbulent sea. But no one even looks at her. Everyone just pushes through the throngs moving like a great muddy river at flood stage. Masses churning, lifting, falling.

A big sign flashes on the side of a dirty old building. “Mighty King Torgan will return Torune IV to our former glory!” Sparks fly from its side. “Vote for Torgan! Vote for glory!” More sparks and the sign goes dark.

Her gaze runs around the crowd. Upright dog-like people. Torune IV? Why’d she have to come back to this dump? The origin of this whole horrible journey.

The predominant current of the crowd carries her into a big square, open between the old dirty buildings.

A cluster of vehicles flying over the heads of the crowds comes down one street toward the square. The rotor wash from their turbines blasts the crowd below sending dirt, debris and people’s hats flying in all directions.

She grabs the towel-scarf covering her hair. Can’t let that blow off.

The crowd clamors to get out of the way. A little girl falls and is being...