Solara 1 #3
He lifts his hands and walks to the cabinet for a plate.
“You know you’re all going to have to get your augments from someone else in the office,” I remark, slinging my bag over my shoulder.
A growl leaves Tasia as she charges for me. “If you had just followed the family rules, we wouldn’t have to...”
I’m tired from working all day. Apathy and emptiness are all I feel now. There’s a side of me that my family has never seen for my father’s sake.
I take Tasia’s shoe and fling it at her. She dodges in shock and looks back at where it punches, heel-first, in the wall.
Even my mother stills.
They don’t train. They don’t worry about aliens or invasions, or alien banshees wailing them into madness, but they should.
“You want free augments, but you won’t donate to help species on the brink of extinction or suffering from Nebulous and Denarso attacks.
Where do you think money comes from? It comes from those of us working, generating the products to be sold.
“You live off of a human-powered machine that Dad built, an industry that was supposed to help people! And one of these days, the empire will come for all of us if we don’t fight tooth and nail for our freedom now.
But we can’t do it alone. We have to work together.
But you wouldn’t know that because you all live in a fucking bubble! ”
Rage boils up in me and simmers in my blood. “You take and take without lifting a finger. You all make me ill just being close to you!”
I don’t need anything from any of them. I have my own credits, my own place, and plans to leave this world for good. I haven’t belonged here since the invasion on Planet Dalsfein, years ago.
And releasing the pent-up frustration from years of serving them and doing what they ask because I was trying to hold onto what was left of my father, my good-hearted, courageous, fighter of a father, feels amazing.
There is no desire in me to take a last look at any of them. I tried to hold it together for Dad for a long time, but I can’t do it anymore. My mother has wrecked everything he built.
I storm out of the house and slam the door so hard it cracks the glass.
The mansion used to be much smaller, humble, and filled with my father’s love.
I wipe tears from my eyes. “I’m sorry, Dad.
” But I will share what you taught me with others.
I will help somewhere else. Somewhere that my help is needed and appreciated, where I can save souls that will save others. That, I promise you.
A soft, crazed laugh escapes me in my emotional distress as I climb into my hovercar. “Good luck without me, Mom.”
Cavika calls me again. I silence the call as I head for home. She forces the call through, and her hologram appears in my passenger seat.
“What?” I snarl.
“So your mother just fired you? What the fuck, Solara? I can’t take Thasse’s client tomorrow! I have my own!”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t control her. All I can say is I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry?” she screams.
She goes on a rant about how she’s going to have to run the whole damn shop tomorrow, but I don’t care. I tune her out.
Thasse’s message about me being fired comes through as a pop-up window over Cavika’s face while she continues in the seat beside me, wearing on my nerves.
I hover a finger over the end call button. “Cavika…”
She turns to me and points a stern finger at me. “Don’t you dare cut me off!”
I’m beyond irritated. “Plenty of species in this galaxy work until their hands bleed just for a cup of water, a meal, and a place to lie down. So shut...the fuck...up. Goodbye.”
I end the call and block her number as a headache rises in the back of my head and pounds toward the front. It hits me hard like that first explosion years back in the camp. Fire and rain made of rocks and metal debris batter my thoughts.
A horn blares at me. Autopilot takes over.
“Solara,” a gentle artificial voice says. “You are in distress. Would you like me to take you home?”
“No.” I don’t want to go back to my apartment. The stuff that’s there means nothing to me. I carry the important things with me all the time. “Pull up the list of Neb and Myndrous affected areas on Earth.”
I need to do some good to get my mind off of this shit.
It scrolls on my screen. “Please take me to the HalfHaven Camp.”
“Not your apartment?”
“No. It will be crawling with cameradrones by now.”
“My pleasure.”
The hovercar banks to the left and zooms past the edge of town.
Nothing is keeping me here anymore, so I sort through all of my accounts, remove all connections to my family, block their numbers, their social feeds, everything.
I transfer my remaining credits to my external Earth account and close every one that ever got a deposit from my mother.
This time, I’m not hanging onto hope we can make things work or that I can have a life here. I tried that and hated every second. They’ve walked on my heart for the last time. I’m going to do what I wanted to do in the first place—help those who need it and actually deserve it.