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“Kawkaw,” Nemo burbles happily.
I smile at the pair of them. Nemo is just a baby, but he shares life experience with us. He knows the loss of family, and he is currently learning to make a new one. There’s a part of me still afraid we won’t really be able to keep him, that Persinians will come and claim him, and that we will let him go because those are his people, and he is their king. He has a past, just the same as we all do. Sometimes, I feel that past creeping up behind us, sniffing over our shoulders.
But you can’t live in paranoia. You have to live in the moment. So that is what I do. I try to be happy with where I am, and what I have. And what I have is a family. Or at least, all the elements of a family.
Kail loves Nemo. That is clear. The joy in his eyes when he plays with him, the way he is already teaching Nemo how to hunt, strapping the baby to his body and explaining all the ways of the wild to him.
But he will not refer to Nemo as his son, which I understand. I wish I knew more about his family, the ones he lost when the Colony came, but he does not speak of them, and to ask him to do so feels like I would be intruding on the one part of his life that was not taken by them. I am a human, and a colonist. I am still in some way the enemy behind his greatest loss. The guilt I bear for being even some small part of it stays with me no matter how long we spend together, playing house in fresh alien wilds.
* * *
Another six months after finding our little slice of paradise, with Nemo learning to walk, the Colony finds us.
Their presence is heralded as a bright light in the sky, a star brighter than any other. It is so pretty I actually pause for a moment and enjoy it. In the few seconds I take to enjoy it, it grows multiple times larger. Enjoyment turns to dread.
“KAIL!”
I run to him. He already has his armaments ready. He has not been idle. He has prepared these lands for invaders, and he has run drills each and every day since our arrival to ensure his readiness. He plans to stand and fight. I do not like this plan, but now is not the time to argue about it.
Kail had been feeding the baby. At my appearance, he puts Nemo in my arms. “Go,” he says. “Get in the ship and go. I will deal with them.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“You have to. I will not lose another wife and child.”
We have never formalized any of our relationships. I do not think we dare, neither to risk the emotional vulnerability of staking claim of family, or to risk those bonds being known to the universe at large.
There is no time for goodbye. There is no time for anything.
“Kawkaw,” Nemo says as I belt him into his ship’s seat. He’s almost too big for it. We are going to have to upgrade this.
“That’s right, little buddy. We’re doing this for Kawkaw.”
I take the captain’s chair beside him. Nemo has his own little console controls. They don’t do anything, but he’s pretty good at mirroring my actions on his control pad. He’s going to be a very good pilot one day.
Today, I have to be a very good pilot.
We take off in less than sixty seconds after I initially spotted the Colony ship. I pass them on the way up as they head down. I hope, for a brief and stupid second, that they turn around and follow me. I really don’t want Kail to face them alone.
They are in a landing mode, and they can’t stop. We are now all caught in the motion of our own momentum. Decisions have been made. Consequences will be brutal.
Kail
I stand to face my enemy, the enemy who has cost me one family, and who now comes for another. It feels as though they will hunt me to the end of the galaxy to take away what I love most. There is a brief temptation to wonder what I did to deserve this, but the truth is I was just another object in their way. Now they come for me with vengeance in their hearts.
Memories come rushing back from when these animals first took everything away from me.
We knew the animals had landed, but we were not concerned about them. They seemed content building their shelters, and we were happy to share the lands, which were bountiful.
Then came the stories of animal raiding parties, of weapons that could not be countered by spears and stone-tipped arrows. The animals could kill at great distances, many at a time.
I did not believe the stories until I saw their destruction firsthand, visited on my family in my absence.
I returned from the hunt, a kill over my shoulder. I had been gone three days tracking the deer, and I was more than ready to see my home, my mate, my children. The entire tribe would feast on my efforts. I felt pride, anticipation and most of all, love.
Blood greeted me as I stepped through the clearing, the scent of it thick and grotesque mixed with the stench of rotting entrails. They had been dead for at least two days already, corpses swelling, becoming unrecognizable, partly consumed by rodents.
The animals left my family where they had fallen, as if the ones I loved most in all the world were nothing.
