My Kingdom Come book 1: The Saints We See
Chapter 18: Meetings

661 standard years after the signing of the Alliance treaty

Hathu jogged through the snow towards the main school building his plasma rifle bouncing against his back. He was still buttoning his shirt, his breath pluming out in the chilly air in front of him.

“Hathu, you want bread before it’s all gone?” Lateth called as he passed.

“I have a meeting.”

“Well, take some with you.” She tossed a roll at him.

He caught it. “Thanks.” He held it in his teeth while he finished buttoning up his shirt. He took a bite of the roll, ran a hand through his wet hair, and went inside, down the hall to the principle’s office. He swallowed down the last of the bread as he opened the door.

Several adults and older students were gathered around the desk in a variety of chairs that had been dragged into the room over the last few weeks. The principle’s seat was left open for Hathu.

Everyone in the little leadership group was supposed to be equal. All figuring out how to solve problems and coming up with new survival and security ideas together, but in reality, everyone looked to Hathu for the final word in things and relied on him to come up with most of the strategies for keeping the school safe and supplied.

Hathu let out a little sigh. He unslung his rifle, leaned it against the wall with everyone else’s rifles and sat behind the desk. “Good morning.” He said looking around the circle of faces. Everyone looked tired and worn. “Where’s Novina?”

“She’s only fifteen, Hathu. She’s been up half the night on patrol, I sent her to bed.” The woman who had spoken was named Walesa. She had been a guard at the prison. She was at home, off shift, when the prison break happened. Hathu and his rescue teams had gotten to her before Nediz’s slaughter squads.

Hathu stared at her for a moment, then he nodded. “Okay, good.” He leaned back in his chair. “What’s the latest news?”

“They’re building rafts again.” Narish looked exhausted. “This time they are building them in the prison yard.”

Hathu nodded. “Okay. Anything else?”

“Supplies are running low.” Arvah said. “We’re due to have another supply ship come in two weeks, but if it comes it’ll land at the prison docks. That will leave us with nothing and the insurgents with…everything. Plus a ship.

“Food is tight, but the hunting and foraging has been enough to stretch out our supplies and keep us fed and there’s no sign that’s going to change any time soon. It’s the fuel I’m mostly worried about. It’s getting low and if we run out of fuel, we can’t run the generators. We have to have electricity. It’s the middle of winter. We’re going to start losing people to the cold if we don’t figure out what to do about the fuel.”

“Okay. Thank you Arvah.” Hathu made a mental note to speak to Arvah privately after the meeting. He was the youngest member of the leadership group. He carried a lot of responsibility on his shoulders and never complained about anything. He had also lost his only parent in the uprising.

“Anything else?”

Walesa jogged Bakresh with her elbow. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You went hunting alone again last night?” His pleading gaze almost begged Hathu to deny it.

“I did.”

Bakresh swallowed. He glanced at Walesa then looked back at Hathu. “You really can’t be doing this, Hathu. You made the rule yourself, ‘no one leaves the school grounds alone’.”

“Right.” Hathu said briskly. “So if that’s all-”

“Nediz has people out there just waiting for a chance to kill you, Hathu.” Walesa interrupted. “What are the rest of us going to do, if something happens to you?”

The pressure in Hathu’s chest increased another notch. He took a deep breath. “You would figure it out, Walesa. Or have you forgotten that I’m only fifteen too?”

She glared at him. “Okay, then I’m going to forb-”

“What she means, Hathu,” Bakresh interrupted. “Is this is unfair to you. We know that. But let’s be honest, you’re the one who is keeping us alive. We need you. I’m sorry, but it’s true. If it weren’t for you, all of us would already be dead. No one else here has the mind for strategy that you do. When you put yourself at risk, it puts everyone at risk.”

The pressure in Hathu’s chest tightened again. “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.” He rubbed his face. He looked around the desk again at all the tired worried faces “Okay, I was counting on the army to arrive weeks ago. We all were. Novina said that when she pressed the alarm, they called. They said they were on their way. I don’t know what happened but…” He rubbed his forehead and sighed. “I think we’re going to need to go back and try again. We can’t keep going like this. We’re mostly children and non-combatant women.

“We’ve pushed fa- Nediz off the beach twice already. We’ve lost people. We’ve…I think we need to call the army again.” He looked around the table. They looked more hopeful.

“Does anyone have any better ideas, or anything to add?”

No one said anything.

“About the rafts…I’ll think about what we can do about that, everyone think about it, okay?”

Everyone nodded.

“Arvah, can you stay a minute? I want to ask you some more questions.”

Arvah nodded and everyone else got up and started leaving in twos and threes. Hathu looked at Arvah. It was hard to tell how he was feeling. He didn’t show much emotion and he didn’t like looking anyone in the eye. “How are you doing Arvah?”

Arvah shrugged. He looked at a point just past Hathu’s left ear. “Fine, I guess. I miss my dad. Keeping track of the supplies helps keep my mind off missing him. Helps me feel useful.”

“Are you sleeping alright? Getting enough to eat?”

“Are any of us, Hathu? Are you?” His eyes skittered across Hathu’s face and landed on a point just past Hathu’s right ear.

Hathu chuckled softly. “Yeah, you’re right. You’re doing a fantastic job of taking care of things around here. Thank you.”

Arvah gave a sharp nod. “So are you.”

“Do you know exactly when the supply ship is supposed to be here?”

“The ship doesn’t have exact days it comes in. There’s always about a five day window for its arrival. They radio in about a month before and let the head guard at the prison know what the time window is, sometimes they radio again a week out to give a more precise date. If it’s still coming, it should be here in approximately twelve to sixteen days.” Arvah stopped talking and looked at one of the chairs to Hathu’s right.

“Thank you Arvah. Is there anything I can do to make your life easier?”

Arvah cocked his head. “No. I wish my dad were still here. But no one can do anything about that.”

Hathu nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry. If there’s anything you need, please let me know.”

Arvah nodded. “Okay.”

* * *

Hathu lay down on his sleeping mat, laid his rifle on the mat next to him and pulled his blankets up over himself. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, he needed to catch a few hours of rest before he got up for his turn on perimeter watch. Instead he saw the bodies of Korish and his wife lying dead in the street. The pressure in his chest squeezed so hard he couldn’t breath for a moment. He had come across them while he was trying to beat Nediz’s assassination squads to another student’s house. He would never be able to forgive himself for betraying Korish the way he had. Korish had always been kind to him, had always been outspoken against Nediz’s tactics inside and outside the prison and Hathu had sent him back into town unarmed based on nothing more than his anger and a hunch.

I didn’t know he would be killed. But it didn’t matter what he had or had not known. Korish had died when Hathu could have prevented it.

Hathu tried to put it out of his mind, but he couldn’t. Every time he shut his eyes he saw Korish’s face frozen in death, heard his voice saying, ‘I’ll leave, but I swear I did not betray you Hathu. It was someone else’.

Finally he threw his blankets back, got up and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He went in search of Parinka. He finally found her helping hang clean laundry up to dry.

“Parinka, can I talk privately with you for a moment?”

“Sure.” She smiled at him then looked over at the girl she had been working with. “I’ll be right back, Kelateh”

Hathu led Parinka a little ways a way where they wouldn’t be overheard. “Parinka, you were on Novina’s team weren’t you?”

She nodded.

“You went on the run to the prison gate to get the emergency button pushed, right?”

She nodded again.

“I want you to start from when you went out the window and tell me exactly everything that you did on that run.”

* * *

Hathu marched back into the physical combat gymnasium, back to where Novina’s mat was laid out. It was empty. He stormed back out. A group of children was playing just outside the door. “Did you see Novina leave?”

They nodded.

“Where did she go?”

They pointed towards the perimeter of the schoolyard, where the jungle came up to the cleared land. “That way. She said she needed to get some fresh air.”

Hathu stalked off in the direction they had pointed. He began walking the perimeter. The sentries were at their posts watching. No one had seen Novina.

In between sentry posts he heard the rumble of a man speaking quietly. Hathu froze. He heard a softer voice answer. He crouched down and crept closer but he still couldn’t make out what they were saying. He leaned forward and peered through some branches. Novina was talking to an older man that Hathu didn’t recognize. Her gun was slung across her back. She looked cowed, but not overly afraid.

Hathu carefully unslung his rifle and lined up a shot on the man. There was the sound of a twig snapping behind Hathu. He swung around. Walesa was standing behind him with a quizzical expression on her face. Hathu frowned at her and pressed his finger to his lips.

Novina let out a terrified little squeak.

“Who’s there?” The man’s voice called.

Hathu swung back around and peered through the branches again. The man was holding Novina’s back against his front. He had a knife at her throat. Hathu stepped into view, his rifle aimed at the man.

The man laughed. “The great and mighty Hathu.” He mocked.

“How long have you been having secret little meetings with my father’s men, Novina?” Hathu asked bitterly.

“I’m sorry Hathu,” Novina cried. “My mother is serving a sentence in the prison. They threatened her life. I didn’t know what they were planning, I was just supposed to tell them what we did in train-”

“Shut up.” The man growled giving her a little jerk.

“Did you send the emergency alarm to the army?” Hathu asked.

She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.” Tears were running down her face..

“You made the wrong choice, again. Trusted the wrong person.” The man sneered. He reached back with one hand, keeping the knife at Novina’s throat, and pulled a plasma pistol from behind him.

Hathu froze.

Several things happened at once. Novina screamed “No!” She slammed her head back into the man and Walesa fired her plasma rifle. She had aimed to hit the man, but because Novina had moved suddenly the shot hit Novina, went through her and killed both Novina and the man.

Hathu stood there for a moment, his rifle aimed at the empty air. The call didn’t go through. He tried to calm his breathing. Novina betrayed us. Novina is dead. The pressure was rising up, settling in his fangs. He squeezed his eyes shut. No! I won’t be a monster.

Walesa grabbed his shoulder. “You alright, Hathu?”

Hathu snapped. He dropped his gun and rounded on her with a snarl.

Walesa reacted immediately. She slammed her fist into Hathu’s side, at the top of his ribs.

His breath left his body in a rush, he still was moving forward for a moment, then he crumpled to the snow. The animal instinct in his mind was still screaming for him to attack, to rip, tear, bite, but he couldn’t get his body to obey him.

Hathu vaguely heard others come running up. Walesa spoke to them. They left.

Walesa walked away and Hathu lay in the snow struggling, trying to force air into his body. After a few moments she came back dragging the dead man. “I know this is disgusting, but you need to get that venom out or your prime isn’t going to calm down. Bite into him and the venom will drain.”

Hathu felt like he was dying, he still couldn’t breath.

Walesa crouched down on the other side of the dead man. “I’m sorry. I didn’t feel like becoming lunch today. Relax, your nerves are just having a fit right now. They’ll calm in a minute. If you try to come after me though, I’ll hit you again, so don’t do that.”

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, finally Hathu’s chest relaxed a little. He pulled in some air.

“There you go. Don’t try too hard to breath, relax and your body will be able to breath sooner.” Walesa said mater of factly.

The pressure in Hathu’s fangs and the screaming in his mind to attack Walesa was making it impossible for Hathu to relax. He glared at her.

She looked down at him and sighed. “Come on, get that venom out, boy.” She patted the corpse’s leg.

He squeezed his eyes shut. As desperate as he was to attack and bite, some part of him still flinched at the idea of biting into a dead body.

“I know it’s disgusting, but we don’t have a whole lot of options out here.”

Hathu shuddered. He relaxed into the rage in his mind. When he came back to himself, his mouth was full of the bitter taste of Ir’Klahn blood and the even more bitter taste of venom. The corpse’s thigh was savaged. Hathu’s hands and chin were covered in black blood. His eyes filled with tears. “Shit.” He muttered.

“Hey.”

Hathu’s head jerked up, he’d forgotten Walesa was there.

“It’s okay. It’s just part of your physiology to fall to your prime faster than other Ir’Klahn. Clean up with this.” She handed him a square of cloth from one of her pockets.

“What do you mean?” Hathu asked.

“You have purple eyes. It’s an indication that you have a condition where your body overproduces venom. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that before?”

Hathu swallowed. “No.”

She grunted. “Seems like something Nediz wouldn’t think was important for you to know.” She cocked her head. “That’s why you keep going off hunting, isn’t it?”

Hathu was wiping his face and hands clean on the cloth. He nodded.

“Gods, I’m so thick sometimes.” She muttered. “Next time you need to get out, tell me. I’ll go with you.”