Chapter 72

It did not take long for Drex to orient himself to their location.  He looked at the sun’s position turned his back to it and immediately the whole group saw the smoke coming from the plaza.  “That way.  Shouldn’t take us too much longer.”  He looked at Lillian.  “How are you doing?”

“I’ve been better,” the princess smiled.

“Okay,” Evan said, “then let’s get you home.”

Katherine wrapped one of Lillian’s arms over her shoulder, and they began to make their way toward the smoke.  The limping quartet got to the end of the city block, made a turn to the east, and were halfway up the street when a troop of Coelluem soldiers turned toward them.  There was nowhere to hide and had no way to avoid the soldiers without looking suspicious.  Evan slowed to a stop, and they waited for the inevitable.

The Coellum approached the foursome.  A stone-faced commander looked them over and asked, “Where are you headed?”  But before they could answer, a different soldier tapped the leader on the shoulder and pointed at Lillian.  “Right,” the leader said.  He called over his shoulder without taking his eyes off his princess, “Take them into custody.  Tell Voss we found her.  Get a transport on the double.  We’ll take them back to base and see what we’re dealing with there.”

Katherine watched the soldiers quickly take care of all the commander’s orders without delay.  She wondered if this is how men are and how they like to be obeyed.  But what about questions, she wondered.  What about reasonable dissent?  If Evan, or maybe even Lillian, expected her to hop on every request like her life depended on it, well, she just didn’t know.  Confidence she could show, encouragement she could give, but unquestioned obedience?  She just didn’t know.

The troop leader remained in front of them like a wall until the transport arrived.  While they waited, two other soldiers checked on the general health of the group while another two whisked Lillian away to what Katherine hoped was specialized care.  She was with her people now.  That’s all that mattered.  Or, at least, Katherine hoped that was all that mattered.  She assumed the Dol government was in disarray, so Amnon and Keetha had their goal met.  Lillian was safely back with the Coellum, so Evan’s white knight duties were finished.  Now, it was her turn.  Now, it was time for them to go home if such a thing was still possible.  Katherine realized she’d made assumptions that these aliens had the ability to send her back home, but more than that, she had assumed Lillian was a person who would be gracious enough to grant that request.  For the first time, doubt began to creep around the edges of her mind.

Lillian was in no condition to give commands, so Evan and Katherine would need to survive whatever this soldier told his leaders about them long enough for Lillian to prove if she was trustworthy.

The transport arrived, and Drex, Evan, and Katherine were herded inside.  Lillian was not with them.  Katherine hoped she was being taken care of.  She was not allowed to tell whoever was tending to the princess what she’d been through to speed up their diagnosis before treatment.  Katherine sat in silence next to Evan.  He reached out his hand for hers.  She squeezed it and enjoyed the familiar warms of his grasp.  It helped her believe things would turn out alright while much of her mind was working overtime to convince her of the opposite.

The transport came to a stop in the center of the Plaza.  Smoke still billowed from Dol’s tower, but the screens that showed Keetha’s heroic death were turned off.  Katherine saw many Coellum soldiers jogging here and there, tending to this and that.  The scene reminded her of the times she’d seen people come together after a tornado or fire.  There was calm amid the devastation.  There was energy in putting things back into order.  The trio were hustled off the transport and into a temporary shelter.  Once inside, soldiers took Katherine and the others and guided them to a makeshift structure with space divided by think partitions.  A soldier waited at unflinching attention and arm’s length from her.

Katherine sat in her room without speaking.  Though the particulars were quite different, Katherine’s mind couldn’t help but rush back to when she and Evan sat in a similar room when they first arrived in Merlain.  How long ago was that now?  She tried to count the days but found it impossible.  Everything since she and Amnon fell into Saw Yatha’s torture chamber had been such a blur, if someone had told her it had been a year, Katherine would have had no choice but to believe them.  Her body felt like it at been at least a year, if not ten.  

She suspected Evan and Drex were nearby her getting questioned.  Katherine strained her hearing to discover anything, but either the thickness of the partition walls or some other alien technology kept the space she occupied as silent as a tomb.  Her mind drifted to Lillian.  How was she?  Would she speak up for them?  Would that be enough?  Katherine remembered Evan telling her of certain officers with the Athens police force that, should the criminal’s offenses be deemed bad enough, would invent more crimes to charge them with.  Even when evidence or a character witness shone a different light on the situation, the desire to put a bad guy away overrode the other side of the picture.

They had the Coellum princess in their possession, and she didn’t look well.  None of them were Coellum, and one of them was Merlain.  Though Katherine knew the truth, she knew it would be a stretch for any Coellum to believe her or any of them.  It was all too bizarre.

After a long wait, she felt a presence enter the room, and the guard stiffened.  A solder she’d never seen before sauntered into the room and, without looking at Katherine, sat behind a table across from her.

“You’re Katherine Gold?” the soldier asked.  Only after asking her name did he choose to make eye contact with her.

Katherine looked back at him and remained silent.  The guard gave a pained smile and returned to the notes on his device.

“Sounds like you’ve had quite the adventure.  I just spoke to your husband and the Merlain man, Drex, you were found with.”

Katherine remained silent.

“Who was the other woman with you?”

“Am I accused of anything?” Katherine dared.

“Should you be?”  The soldier’s icy stare unsettled Katherine.  Where was the direction toward safety?  “Who was the other woman?” the soldier asked again.

“You know who she is.”

“Mm-hmm, I do.  Do you?”

Katherine remembered something Evan told her about criminals under interrogation: The ones who make things up end up in more trouble than the honest ones.  But only answer the question; don’t add information.

“Her name is Lillian.”

“Okay,” the soldier said.  “Do you know who she is?”

“She’s your princess.”

The soldier nodded.  “And how did you three end up with the princess?”

Katherine almost broke down at the weight of that thought.  She didn’t know if she had the energy to tell the whole story, yet maybe if she did, some of the weight of all she’d been through would fall from her.

“How much time do you have?”

The soldier smiled for the first time, “I have all the time, but I don’t know about your husband and the other one.  You see, I’m just the first of many people you will likely talk to.  As you can imagine, getting our princess back is important for us, and learning if you three are heroes or villains is also important.  If it helps, I’ve already heard from the other two, so be as detailed as you need.”

Did what she could to recount everything that happened, from that awful night in Evan’s apartment when Saw Yatha shot her and recaptured Lillian to attempting to free her with Amnon Saxe but failing because Evan had done it behind their backs to shutting down the Central Processing Unit to running for their lives through the streets of Merlain.  Katherine broke down into tears a few times, especially as she remembered Amnon and Keetha.  It had been such a long, arduous road, and all she wanted to do was go back home, back to Athens.

The interrogator listened to her story somewhat dispassionately, Katherine thought.  Occasionally, he made notes on his device or asked a clarifying question, but for the majority of the time he let Katherine get the whole story out.  When she finished, she crossed her arms and straightened her spine, daring him to call her a liar.  He inputted the last of his notes before pushing the device away from him and saying, “Okay.”  Then he stared at Katherine for a while as if trying to evaluate his next move.

“Do you not believe me?”

The soldier shrugged.  “It doesn’t matter if I believe you.  That’s for other people to figure out.”  He crossed her arms and mirrored her position.  “I’ll say this: your stories mostly fit together.  I mean, there are some inconsistencies, but that’s to be expected.”

“Do you think I would lie about -?”

The soldier cut her off with a gesture.  “You don’t have to convince me.  We’re just collecting the stories and waiting on the princess to be alert enough to corroborate.”

“Who is Voss?” Katherine asked, remembering a name one of the soldiers who picked them up mentioned.

“Voss?” the soldier scoffed.  “You want to know who Voss is?  You don’t know who Voss is?”  When he realized she didn’t, he leaned forward and said, “He’s my boss.  He’s everyone’s boss, actually.”

“I want to see him,” Katherine blurted.  She didn’t know what she was saying or why.  Her adrenaline was getting the best of her.

The soldier laughed.  “You want to see Commander Voss?  You and two other vagrants are meandering the streets of Merlain with our princess, the second-in-command of our people, who has been lost to us for a long time, who we feared to be dead, and you think you get an audience with the head commander?”

“If not me, then who?  I might have knowledge about Saw Yatha, which would be helpful.”

“Knowledge you chose not to tell me just now?”

“I might,” Katherine said.

“Well, just tell me now,” the soldier brought his device close to him.

Katherine shook her head.  “I want to see Commander Voss.”

The soldier stared at Katherine for a long time before diverting his eyes briefly to the one standing by the door.  After a quick nod, the guard turned and left the room.

“Where’s he going?” Katherine asked.

“To get the commander,” he said.  “You better hope he’s in a good mood.”