Chapter 44
Gemma
R ye Hara’s face crumbled .
His shoulders began to shake. His whole body started trembling. And the sound that emerged from his throat was one I could only describe as animal-like in its wailing.
I began to cry too. Fat, clear droplets that rolled down my cheeks as I watched, as I listened.
I didn’t know how long he cried. I hadn’t seen him break down like this since Mother’s death, his terrible roar echoing outside by the lake, waking me from a dead sleep.
My father wiped his eyes with the heel of his palm. “How…how…how did you find that feed? From the Kylorr you married?”
“Did you know who she was?” I asked. “Did you even know her name?”
His shoulders shook. He dragged in a deep, shuddering breath.
“It was war , Gemma,” he rasped. “It was war! You can never understand the—”
“The war was over,” I said, stepping forward, snatching the Halo orb from the air and pocketing it. “It was over . The victory had already been claimed. You didn’t answer me. Did you know who she was?”
Rye Hara swallowed thickly. I heard it across his office, and he stumbled over to his desk chair, sinking down, his boots crunching over glass.
“She was a war officer. A Uranian Federation officer,” he told me. “Brought on to try to rally the Pe’ji for one last battle against the United Alliance.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “She was a peace ambassador, tasked with negotiating the terms of the victory on behalf of the Pe’ji.”
His head shook. “No. No, that’s not…” He took a deep breath, wiping at his face. His hands were shaking and he reached for a whiskey glass that wasn’t there on his desk. “That’s not what Nb’aru said. I had my orders, Gemma. I was trying to save lives. Human lives. Not Pe’jian lives. So many had already died.”
“The war was already over ,” I repeated, my heart cracking in my chest. “And you made her suffer. Your unit taunted her as she tried to fight back. And you stood there and let them .”
Enough fun, my father had growled at his unit when he’d finally stepped forward on the black feed, raising his plasma gun. Let’s finish this.
His expression shuddered. His eyes were so glassy they were practically glowing like an orb light.
“Her name was Aina,” I informed him, her name gentle in the room, where we’d just witnessed her tragic death all over again. “Her name was Aina of House Sorn. She was my husband’s aunt. His mother’s only sister. Her twin . She was protected by the Kaalium, and you killed her in the darkened streets of Pe’ji and then covered it up.”
My father swayed in his chair before he planted his palm on the smooth desk to steady himself.
“No,” he breathed. “No, it wasn’t like that. We…we were following orders, Gemma. I trusted my superior. This Aina was a war officer. She was coming to try to take back the victory. To deny the United Alliance and the Voperians their dues. And I…I…”
He trailed off, shaking his head, before he dropped it into his hands.
“Did Mother know?” I whispered in the sudden quiet. A question I’d wondered since I’d first seen the video, since I’d first discovered the ugly truth. “Did you tell her what you had done on Pe’ji?”
I couldn’t see his face. I could only hear his rasping breaths as he dragged them in deep.
“Yes,” he answered quietly. “She knew.”
I bit my lip, a fresh wave of pain stabbing me deep in my gut.
“She was horrified,” he said softly, his hands fisting in his graying hair. “Even after all the Pe’jians I had to kill, it was this death that made her not want to look at me anymore. She didn’t have the stomach for war. But she certainly liked the wealth it brought us.”
The bitter words felt me breathless.
Father dissolved into tears again. “I…I’m sorry, Gemma. I shouldn’t have said that. Your mother…she was…”
I went to him, my feet taking me across the room, my thin boots slapping through spilled whiskey on the floor. Placing my hand on his shoulder, I said, “Is that why we were given this estate?”
His body felt like a furnace underneath my touch.
Finally, he said, “ One last task . One last task to win this war. Then you can go home. That’s what Nb’aru told me. He made it clear. Kill the officer…kill Aina”—he shuddered under my touch—“and I would be rewarded. My whole unit would be rewarded for our service to the United Alliance.”
“So it wasn’t you that killed the Pe’jians’ war general during the final battle?”
Which was what we’d always been told was the reason he’d been promoted through the military ranks. Why he’d been called a hero .
The shake of his head was gut-wrenching. “N-No. It was a stray plasma blast that killed the general. We had just been close to him when it happened.”
So everything had been a lie.
My father had been given the estate as a reward for killing Aina. And that realization alone nearly made me want to vomit.
“Where is she?”
Father raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked drained, exhausted. Old . When had the years caught up with him? And why hadn’t I noticed?
“What?”
“What did you do with Aina’s body?”
“Gemma…I can’t ,” he told me, shaking his head, his eyes suddenly fearful. “You don’t understand. I promised my unit we would never tell. If this feed got out…”
“You killed a peace ambassador for the Uranian Federation,” I said. And though I wanted to scream at him, though I wanted to cry with him, I couldn’t. “My husband’s family. It’s too late .”
“What do you mean?” he asked, his watery blinking up at me, quieting. “Gemma, what do you mean?”
“I’m asking you to turn yourself in to War Crimes,” I told him, crouching next to his desk so that we were eye level. I kept my hand on his shoulder, squeezing tight, as the words felt like shards of glass coming up my throat. “I’m asking you to turn yourself in to the High Quadrant Council. Along with your unit. For Aina’s murder. Because that’s what it was, Father, despite what you might think.”
He fell back in his chair, his eyes wide with disbelief and horror. He stared at me.
“You…” He swallowed. “You would turn this feed over to War Crimes? You would put me on trial? Sentence me to live out my life on a prison planet, never to see you again?”
I didn’t point out that he’d already been prepared to never see me again when he’d handed me off to Azur on Nulaxy.
I hated him. I loved him. I felt pity for him while also feeling disgust and anger. I couldn’t make sense of my emotions, and so I focused on his eyes, eyes so much like mine.
I couldn’t let me face crumble. Thankfully, I felt like I was out of my body. I didn’t feel present as I said, “I’m giving you the chance to try to make this right. Even though it can never truly be right.”
“It’s been seventeen years, Gemma,” my father said. “ Seventeen years. And I’ve lived that war every day of my life since. I’ve done my time. I served the United Alliance and I followed orders. I was a solider. Nothing more.”
“You profited off her death,” I pointed out softly.
He blanched. Then he argued, “She was marked for death. Since the moment she arrived on Pe’ji. It would have been done regardless.”
“But it was you ,” my words clipped. “ It. Was. You. ”
He began to cry again and I cried with him, deep wrenching sobs tearing up my throat.
Through my tears, I said, “I’m asking you, as your daughter, to please make this right!”
“I—I don’t think I can,” he breathed.
“For us ,” I whispered, pressing forward. “For Mira and Piper. For Mother. For me. For Aina and her family, who have been kept in the dark for years. You don’t know their pain, but it runs deep to this day. Please , Father. I’m asking you to make this right. Give them her body back. Let them grieve. And let your fate be decided by the law of our universe. You are not above that. ”
“We would lose everything,” he told me raggedly. “We would lose everything. Your sisters…”
“We’ve already lost everything. You don’t see that?” I exclaimed. “Our home is stripped away. Mother is gone . Greed and pain has destroyed us already, and the collectors would have taken everything else.”
He slumped against me. “I know. I know,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Gemma. You will never know how much so.”
Sorry enough to try to borrow again from collectors behind my back, I knew. It was an addiction for him. The credits. He thought it was all he had left. But he couldn’t see what was in front of him. Not anymore.
“Mira and Piper would want you to make this right,” I said, knowing it was the truth. They would be horrified once I told them. Another difficult conversation that would implode their entire reality, just like it had mine. “You haven’t been the same since Pe’ji, have you? This has weighed on you. I know it has.”
His shoulders shook.
“This is your chance to come clean,” I murmured in his ear, holding him close when he sunk into me. “ Please. Please.”
The father I’d known, the father I loved would do the right thing. I knew he would. I knew he would with every part of my soul. That man was still deep inside him, and I needed to know he was still there.
It still hit me like a boulder in the gut when he finally spoke the words. Whispered into my hair, as his arms tightened around me.
“All right,” he said, his voice fractured, his will broken. “I’ll do it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Relief and despair and an aching sadness made the room sway.
His arms were like vines around me, trapping me close.
“I’ll tell you where we buried her,” he said.
I thought of Azur. I thought of Kalia. Of the icy touch in the hallway in the south wing and the moon winds rising in the Kaalium, and I prayed that it would be enough to bring them peace.
“I’ll make this right,” Rye Hara said, his lips pressed to my cheeks as his tears dripped into my hair. “I promise.”