Fugitive From Asteron Read online

  FUGITIVE

  FROM

  ASTERON

  GEN LAGRECA

  Winged Victory Press

  www.wingedvictorypress.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Genevieve LaGreca

  Cover by Watson Graphics

  Available in print and ebook editions

  Fugitive From Asteron

  ISBN paperback: 978-0-97445792-5

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015907926

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons is purely coincidental.

  Publisher’s email: [email protected]

  OTHER NOVELS BY GEN LAGRECA

  available in print and ebook editions

  NOBLE VISION

  A DREAM OF DARING

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Fugitive From Asteron is actually my first work of fiction, completed before my two previously published novels, Noble Vision (2005) and A Dream of Daring (2013). Now updated to reflect today’s technological advances and tomorrow’s possibilities, it’s my third novel to be published.

  I want to thank Sara Pentz and Randy Saunders for reading an early draft of this novel and offering valuable comments.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 1

  This was to be the day I ended my life.

  The thought jolted me as a cold draft hit my face and brought me back to consciousness. How long had I been out? I wondered. Was there still time to act before the sun rose?

  I knew by the familiar odor of stale vomit that the guards had thrown me into the room for attitude adjustment, a small cell in the men’s section of the space workers’ quarters where I lived. No one had bothered taking me to the detention center, with its tighter security, since I would only have to be moved again in the morning and not much was left of me anyway.

  I lay curled on the concrete floor. When I tried to move, a mass of raw wounds throbbed in protest. Gashes on my back burned against the cement, and my fingers rested on a sticky curd of my blood. A thick metal ring around my neck chained me to a pipe that was supposed to bring heat, but none was wasted on me.

  With effort I pried my eyelids open. Seeping through the bars of the cell’s small window was a yellow tinge of moonlight. There was still time! If I could execute the plan I had devised before I lost consciousness, I would not have to face another day.

  Outside the barred door of my cell, the hallway was dark. The lack of lighting told me that it was the nightly blackout period, a measure taken to save power in the building—and one that would aid my escape. I needed to wait until the guard walked past my cell on his patrol. That would give me the time between his rounds to get away. I remained lying down so that he would think I was still unconscious.

  In the moonlight I could see a pair of eyes staring at me from the room’s only ornament, a poster of our leader, Feran. He wore his kind public face, one that he never bothered to display when dealing with just me. “One People, One Will,” read the slogan above Feran’s head. One will did indeed run things here on the planet of Asteron, and it was not mine.

  In fact, I had no will left to go on. It felt strange to lose everything and have only a vacant space inside me where my dreams had once lived. But there was still one thing I cared about: the place where I would die. That would be of my choosing.

  As I waited in the gloom for the guard to pass, the fog of unconsciousness lifted. For me, to be awake was to be angry, so I felt my fury gaining steam, despite my effort to cool it.

  When someone died on Asteron, people noted the occasion with nothing more than indifference. Could I not feel that way about my own end? Could I not find peaceful acceptance in my final moments? Or would I meet my end without relief from the hot pain of having the things I had lived for ripped from my life?

  I had heard elders talk about another time, forgotten now, when a death brought great sorrow. The elders said that people would gather to recollect the life of the deceased, and that this was called paying one’s respects.

  Memories from my own life were running loose in my mind despite my resolve to lock them down. Was this my way of paying my respects . . . to myself? I wondered. Lying there in the darkness, I thought of the things that had fueled my life and how those very things had also sealed my doom. I thought of that night of the four moons several months ago, when my troubles had begun. . . .

  Chapter 2

  That night, I was in my aircraft on a mission. I saw the four moons of Asteron through the canopy of my plane. Only occasionally were all four of the planet’s satellites visible at once, so they captured my attention.

  During past flights, I would gaze in wonder at the stars and dare to imagine a day when I would be assigned to pilot a craft to a world beyond my homeland. But on this particular night there were other matters on my mind. I had to execute a task new to me, and I could not let anything go wrong.

  I had an important assignment to perform, but my body was rebelling against the job. Dank sweat formed under my flight suit. My right hand tensed in a vise grip over the control stick, even though I was some distance from my target in the calm, pre-dawn sky. My mind was also playing tricks. The spectacular array of glowing instruments surrounding my lone seat in the cockpit seemed ready to close in and swallow me.

  Ahead I could see the deep blue of dawn and the red tint of the sun rising. Below, a thick layer of clouds blanketed the ground in gloom, sparing me the sight of the approaching city that was my destination.

  Interrupting the silence of the sky and the hypnotic hum of the engines, a voice suddenly blared from my headset. The Daily Word was beginning its regular broadcast, a steady stream of messages throughout the day to provide Asteronians with the latest news, along with what our leaders called inspirational thoughts to bolster our morale. These broadcasts were so pervasive—in the streets and buildings of every town and in the fields of every countryside—that people found them unavoidable. Even pilots when not engaged in combat were obliged to listen, so there was no way to shut off the sound. Because I was in no mood for such enlightenment, I turned the volume down to a whisper.

  The narrator began with his usual forced vigor. “People of Asteron, we begin another day of dedication to the ideals that make us the best planet to live on in the galaxy.”

  I had idle time before I would need to descend, too much time in which I could do nothing but agonize. If I failed in my mission, I would never fly again, perhaps never breathe again. To me the two activities—flying and breathing—had become one. How had it happened, I wondered, that flying became the whole of my universe? I could not remember how it started, because it had always been that way. Soaring across the moonlit sky, I thought of the risks I had taken to sit in a cockpit, to grasp a control stick, and to feel the thrill of an aircraft yielding to my command.

  Since childhood, I had wanted to fly to other worlds the way a b
ird flies to trees. I had observed the curious aliens who came here to mine our gold, wondering where they lived and what life was like beyond Asteron. But although those humanoid figures looked like us, we were told they were different inside. The aliens were primitive, whereas we Asteronians had advanced beyond them.

  Our officials prohibited us from having contact with the aliens for fear they might corrupt our ideals, so they remained a mystery to me. Of the educational materials, books, and news sources approved for us, none answered the question that absorbed me: What people and worlds existed beyond Asteron?

  “The first pillar of our society is equality,” droned the narrator of The Daily Word. “There are no winners and losers here, no exploiters and exploited, no rich and poor. We are all winners, all rich in mind and body, all living the same as everybody else in a state of supreme fairness.”

  Why was there no fairness for me, I wondered, when I had finished school and passed the examinations to become a flier? I had scored too high on the tests, so I was disqualified. Fliers were supposed to obey orders without question, like robots in the sky, and high grades made such compliance doubtful.

  I remembered how Feran had yearned to create a robotic fleet of aircraft by buying alien technology unavailable on Asteron. But this was unaffordable because of an issue our rulers did not like to discuss, the growing, unrelenting menace we faced daily: the famine. With resources strained by warding off hunger, Feran’s robotic fleet never came to be, so instead he sought human pilots who best matched his ideal.

  “The second pillar that defines us is unity. The debate about our direction was resolved long ago. Now everyone accepts what we have shown to be the best course for all and rejects the regressive notions of those who try to stir up unrest,” said the narrator. “We are one people with one united will to do good for all Asteronians.”

  One will directed my mission, and I warned myself that I must obey it. Tonight, more than ever before, I must follow orders. My past record on this matter was not very good at all. In fact, my missteps had almost cost me my job as a pilot, but I was given one final chance to redeem myself, and tonight’s mission was it.

  “Our third pillar is security. We defend our homeland against those troublesome aliens who spread doubts, disloyalty, and corruption among us.”

  Had I been corrupted? Even without help from the aliens, I knew I had been. My corruption had started early and was already hard to control by the time I finished school, when the teachers who gave us our work assignments designated me as a train dispatcher. I found in our group a boy of my height and similar appearance named Arial, who wanted a ground job but was assigned to pilot training. Although we were supposed to accept the work given to us without question, Arial was so frightened of flying—and dying—that I persuaded him to switch places with me. Then with the technical skills I had carefully honed, I caused something unexpected to happen. Right after we had received our job assignments, there was a terrible crash of the computer system that recorded them, and in the confusion that followed, no one noticed the change of two boys among hundreds. That was how I got the name Arial and learned to fly.

  “The topic of this morning’s broadcast is ‘character,’ and here to discuss it is our leader, Feran,” continued the narrator.

  Character? Why that of all topics? I wondered. According to my superiors, character was the thing I sorely lacked. They observed that as my flying skills progressed, my attitude regressed. My job became testing aircraft because my commanders could send me out in anything, including the slipshod products manufactured on Asteron, and I somehow always managed to bring my plane back. But I did things that were unacceptable. Recently, when my commander instructed me to test a new plane, I did so, but not according to his protocol. That time my plane was an advanced, alien-made ship, the best craft I had ever seen, an engineering masterpiece equipped to do my bidding. I tested it beyond the commander’s modest protocol and to the limits of its performance and my imagination. I turned, I rolled, I looped, I dived in every possible way. I stalled, dropping from the sky in a whirling spiral, then managing to stabilize as the ground closed in. I flew into the mountains and charged through the canyons at high speed. When I returned, I jumped out, threw my arms up to embrace the fuselage, and kissed the plane that had given me the greatest thrill of my life. I had never before kissed anything or anyone.

  Then I saw the icy eyes of my commander staring at me. I was not surprised that he then had me beaten, only that he spared my life—not because of the value of my life but because of a sudden crisis in a city of Asteron, a crisis requiring the deployment of every skilled pilot. That was why my commander had given me one final chance—today.

  The next voice to filter through my earphones was one of strained calm, but I could sense the anger beneath it.

  “My fellow Asteronians,” said Feran, “The Daily Word today is about character. All of us, especially the citizens of Nubel, need to remember that our security rests on maintaining a peaceful, law-abiding society. I regret that a band of insurgents has poisoned so many in the city of Nubel. Traitors have infected the people there with outmoded, wrongheaded, and dangerous ideas. Poisoned by seditious alien writings smuggled into Nubel, the insurgents have attacked the government. They have reopened debates settled long ago and caused an uprising. Those taking to the streets have been ordered to disband, but they have refused. They show a deplorable lack of character, and they shall be punished. I want to assure you, I will protect your safety. The anarchists of Nubel will be dealt with as the law requires.”

  I flew into the breaking dawn and descended through the clouds. I could now see Nubel clearly. I glanced at a monitor showing an aerial photograph of my target. It was the stretch of road between the clock tower and the bridge.

  Nubel, I knew, was doomed. The people were armed only with their dreams, but Feran had the military. The rebellion in Nubel would be crushed just as all the others like it had been. I told myself that if I failed, Feran would simply order another from his fleet to execute the task. But if I performed the unspeakable deed, I would still have a chance to fly . . . and maybe one day to do the unimaginable . . . to reach another world. The people of Nubel were finished. But was I?

  Feran’s battle cry rang from my headset: “Our spirit is unbreakable. We are one people with one harmonious will! Asteron!”

  I spotted the clock tower. I descended further and located the bridge. My mission was to blanket everything in between. What was in between? A sea of humanity crowded every space in the roadway between the clock tower and the bridge, a sea of placard-waving, fist-raising, shouting people committing the first—and last—unbridled act of their lives. Defying Feran’s demand that they return to their quarters, the protesters of Nubel had increased in numbers overnight, flooding the streets to continue their defiance.

  A knot contracted in my stomach like a fist. I was unbearably warm and sweating feverishly. Would I black out and never have to face the dreaded moment?

  After Feran’s statement, The Daily Word broadcasted comments from what it said were random people gathered outside the studio. They spoke in the monotonous tones of those reciting rehearsed lines. First I heard a female voice. “Our loyalty to Asteron is unshakable. We stand by Feran.”

  Would I smell the burning flesh from here? Would I hear the final screams?

  Next I heard a male voice. “We will defend our homeland against terrorists and anarchists.”

  I descended. There was no resistance of any kind. I descended further until I almost scraped the buildings. The deafening roar of my engines startled the people below. The brown streak of hats I had seen from a distance between the clock tower and the bridge became an unbroken ribbon of ashen faces looking up at my plane. My hand fidgeted on the control stick as I placed my thumb on the weapon-release button.

  The next voice I heard through my headset belonged to a child. “Feran takes care of the children. He will protect us from our enemies.”

  The star
ving, desperate people of Nubel stood their ground. They did not flinch. The thousands of faces between the clock tower and the bridge stared up at me, their bodies fixed in place. They would not run away. They would die standing tall.

  “Press it! Press it!” I screamed to my thumb on the trigger, trying to force it to comply.

  Suddenly I veered right until the haunting faces in the city were replaced by a sea of blue. It seemed that my craft had malfunctioned. My bombs released late, very late, and fell into the Asteronian Sea.

  The Daily Word was abruptly interrupted by the outraged howling of my commander through the headset: “Coward! Traitor! Pig! I will scrape the streets of Nubel with your face!”

  Two aircraft flanked my ship and escorted me back to the base.

  Chapter 3

  The reception I received from my commander left me unable to walk. He discharged me from my pilot’s post for insubordination, cowardice in battle, sabotage, and other crimes—and he argued forcefully for my execution.

  But Feran decided to spare my life. I could only wonder at his reason. His untold acts of violence against real and imagined insurrections had depleted the population, especially the young men like me, causing a scarcity of Asteron’s strongest laborers. Was this why he let me live, I wondered, or was it due to the peculiar interest he seemed to take in breaking my stubborn resistance to his will? In any case, I was given the new job of cargo carrier at the space center, and my specific assignment was to service Feran’s ship.

  I was transferred to the space workers’ quarters and spent my first days in the room for attitude adjustment, where I became a frequent visitor. When I had recovered enough to function, I was released from my cell and assigned a pallet to sleep on in the great room of the men’s section. There I took my place on the straw-covered floor among three hundred others. Keeping us all together in one room promoted equality and fairness, we were told. It also made it easier for the guards to watch us.