Ravana's Shadow (19) (Patreon)

Few of Mara’s colonists had ever seen a rocket under construction before. Most Kit asked described them as old technology, the kind of thing reserved for museums and historical dramas of the ancient days in human spaceflight.

In some strange way, that made Kit among the most knowledgeable in something, despite her incredible youth. There was something soothing about walking out to the edge of the topmost environmental dome, where newly built picture windows gave a clear view of the rocket factory.

By lucky positioning, the forest simulation happened to be closest to that side of the Institute. Anyone who wanted to come up and watch would only have to put on a pair of shoes to make it there. Better than the snow and wind of the arctic simulation.

Kit was alone at this hour, except for the camera drone hovering beside her. The last thing Kit needed during a transmission to the Ravana’s skeptical governor was the sound of giggling kids in the background. 

“Ready to transmit,” Forerunner said. “Are you certain this is wise? You could use static images of the workshop and an audio transmission. You don’t need to show yourself as well.” 

Kit’s tail drooped. She’d dressed in a set of overalls today, along with the boots she usually took up into the forest dome.

So long as she didn’t look ahead, it was easy to pretend she was out in the trees somewhere on the ancient homeworld. It was all trees, rocks, and dirt. Ferns swayed with a gentle breeze, carrying the scent of pine and sage. With displays in every other wall, the forest seemed to go on forever. It wasn’t real, though. Kit knew better. She could only walk for a hundred meters before running into a wall. The gentle hills and swaying trees were prisoners here just like she was.

For a little while longer.

Kit’s tail twitched as a stray pine needle landed in it. She shook it free, then stepped closer to the hovering camera drone. With only a single point of view, it was easier to talk to Forerunner. She could almost even imagine he was just another member of the colony, calling up from somewhere below.

“You don’t like the outfit?”

Forerunner didn’t laugh, but she could almost hear the humor in his voice. “You’re dressed like you’re about to go camping with your parents.”

Her tail drooped a little lower. “You’re afraid that looking like this is going to spoil his confidence.”

“He can send us away at any point before launch. We’ve already invested considerable resources in this mission. If that happens, the waste of material would be considerable. We’re committed, Director.”

“I’m aware.” She tugged at the blouse, her fingers lingering near the front. But no matter how much she fussed with it, she wasn’t going to look any older. “Call this an—opposite strategy. I want to remind him every single time we call that if he sends us away, we’re the kids he’s condemning.”

“Governor Garrick knows none of you are the age you look.”

“Maybe.” Kit paced back and forth in front of the window. “But knowing that and feeling that are two different things. I’m not going to pretend I’m something I’m not, that’s what looks pathetic. I want him to see that we’re different, and we’re happy how we are. The Institute isn’t wrong, it’s just new.”

Forerunner didn’t say anything for a long time. “Very well, Director. Transmission open.”

Kit posed beside the window, where she would have a screen behind her instead of composite. The view would be clearer from that side.

“Good morning, Garrick. I’m ready with our next report on rescue mission status. We’ve hit the major milestone I told you was coming up: we’re starting on construction of the first stage. Or… technically, it’s our test of the first stage.” One that relied almost entirely on known technology from Forerunner’s records. Most of the difficult questions were yet to be answered—but those were all in later stages. There were still heated arguments about what to do with the crew capsule.

But the less Garrick knew about their weakness, the better.

His reply came a few seconds later, playing through the drone’s speakers. There was a screen on the front, held almost perfectly still at her eye level. “I can’t see much from this vantage. Where are you, Kit? I thought your planet didn’t have a biosphere.” 

“It doesn’t. This is one of our simulated biospheres. We have a coniferous forest, a tundra, and a desert environment. They’re the only parts of our domes built above the surface, so the only place to get a view of the construction.” 

She gestured at the window. “Forerunner, send the videos of the workshop, along with our technical diagrams. Send the construction footage from the testing site while you’re at it.”

The reply came much slower this time. Not just light lag—her counterpart on Ravana was looking at all the footage of the construction. Probably comparing it with the image with her in it, which would be cryptographically signed. 

Then he reappeared. Garrick had dark shadows under his eyes, and a few pale bandages wrapped around his body. He was shaving, but not often.

Infinitely more than any of Kit’s colonists did.

“You’re actually building it,” he said. “Not out of blocks, either. What are you using for your fuel?”

“Liquid H2 and O2,” she said, grinning into the lens. “Easier when our surface is cryogenic. We have to heat them during storage, not cool them.”

His reply was a muffled profanity. “You’re serious. You really don’t have a starforge. You can’t scrap together a working gravity lens?”

There was that modern technology again—impossibly advanced, inconceivable in Katlin Rowe’s time of origin.

“Unfortunately not,” she replied. “I can’t tell you the first thing about that stuff, but my engineer tells me the Acheron didn’t have any. It used landing craft for that, and all of those were lost before it arrived at Surya. We’re doing this the old-fashioned way.”

“And you’re getting inside.” He was closer to the camera when he spoke this time, so close that his face filled the little display. “Brass balls on you people. Or you’re too young to know better. You sure your parents would approve?”

Kit folded both arms, glaring into the camera herself. “Our parents are all dead, Garrick. We’re citizens of the Pioneering Society, and we’re coming to rescue you. Don’t you dare die before we get there. Or if you do, see it coming. Give us permission anyway, crawl into a freezer, and I’ll have my necromancer zap you back to life when we arrive.”

She stretched, extending her tail all the way up behind her. “They did it to me, and I’d been frozen a few hundred thousand years.” Or more. No one knew how long she’d been floating through the void. The ship’s systems were all dead, so none of them recorded dates. Different techniques had returned different results about separate parts of the ship, none reaching consensus. Kit didn’t really care either way. Numbers like those were so absurd that the specifics didn’t even matter. Everyone she ever cared about was long gone.

“Better question,” Garrick said. He said it so casually that Kit grew instantly tense, one hand curling into a fist. She was right to be worried.

“What if I wanted to change the deal? You could pop up here, print us out a replacement for our persona, then go home again. Would be fun for you, I bet. Little field trip. You say hello, and we go our separate ways.”

Kit remained perfectly still, staring into the camera. Garrick had the authority to refuse them. It wasn’t even the destruction of materials that terrified Kit—it was the mental health of her colonists. Could this one man take their hope away so easily?

“Let me be perfectly clear with you, Garrick.” Kit stared into the camera, unblinking. “My colony is sacrificing half our projected lifespan by helping you. If I even think you’re going back on your word, even one second before we ignite that launch vehicle, I will scrap the mission. I will find the most comfortable chair in the Institute and watch as you die. That is how seriously I take the survival of my colony, Garrick. End transmission.”

She held that pose for another few seconds, before dropping to one knee, grasping at her chest.

She flopped onto her back, shifting her weight only slightly to keep her tail from being crushed into the leaves. “Anything further from him, Forerunner?”

“Text only,” the persona replied. “Should I read it?” At Kit’s nod, he continued. “Ravana is satisfied with your progress and will continue as scheduled. Hardly seems fair though. You might find another way to save your colony. This is the only way to save mine.”

“Reply with this,” Kit said. “I’m saving both. You and your friends will have a future on Mara. If you want to continue the legacy of Ravana, you can do that here. With your mass and our competence, we both have a future.”

No reply came. Kit was alone after that—or she thought she was. Then she heard something behind her, quiet enough that she could’ve easily mistaken it for the sound of wildlife in the dome. Crunching leaves were a common sound—in a real forest, anyway.

The Institute had no wildlife, no pets. In a way, they’d decided to make their colonists pull double duty in that role. Their own relationships would have to serve to keep everyone sane. Which meant...

Kit sat up, head jerking in the direction of the sound. Maybe her human self would’ve had trouble finding it, but with ears that could move like hers—there! A flash of orange poking out of the trees. Kit squinted, and her eyes found what she was looking for. “Sadie, you’re out of physical therapy?”

Someone squealed in surprise, then tumbled. Kit saw them fall, right into a fern. The impact would not hurt much, not in Mara’s feeble gravity. But it certainly looked undignified. 

Kit stood up and made her slow way over to where the cat had fallen. Despite the old adage, this one hadn’t landed on her feet.

Sadie stood up, shaking off bits of torn underbrush from her jumpsuit.

Sadie was different. Of course, Kit knew she would be—she’d seen her half a dozen times over the last month. Some old part of Kit’s mind couldn’t get over it. Maybe she really was as primitive as everyone said. How was she supposed to react to someone getting younger? 

Sadie stood up nervously. She still stood taller than Kit, but now the difference between them was far less. Instead of a head, Sadie had maybe a centimeter on her. Or she was shorter, if Kit held her tail vertically behind her.

“It was either you or Maddie, and she doesn’t climb very much.” There were only a handful of colonists with the permissions to ignore Kit’s reservation on the whole biome for those hours. Most of those would’ve asked her first. “I would’ve let you watch if you wanted to be here.”

She reached for the cat, intending to brush a few pine needles off her jumpsuit. But the cat recoiled from her, whimpering. “You’re scaring me, Director. What you said…”

Kit stiffened. She pulled her arm and took a single step back. There were ways she could try to show her peaceful intentions—lowering her tail, keeping both hands empty and visible. 

“If you’d told me you were going to be here, I would’ve told you what to expect.”

She retreated, pawing at the ground with bare feet. She had a few light scratches there, with little splotches of blue blood visible where her skin split. “Are you really gonna do that? Just sit here and let him die?”

She wobbled, then dropped to her knees. Her tail curled around her leg. She reached for something on her belt—where her bottle would be.

But Sadie wasn’t on duty now. Emma was yet to release her for that, though she was probably getting close.

“Sadie.” Kit dropped to her knees next to her. Not close enough to touch her, or else terrify the little cat. “Before you downclassed, you asked if I thought I could protect everyone. Do you remember?

Sadie nodded weakly, still not looking at her. “S-so?”

“So sometimes that means saying scary things to someone. Not because I want to, but because if I don’t, that human was going to try to make us sacrifice thousands and thousands of years of our supplies for nothing in return." 

Even saying those numbers, none of those years felt real. Governments and organizations didn't exist for that long, let alone people. But to the members of the Institute, those numbers were ordinary, even expected. They weren't abstractions to her. "Garrick, that human, he's not nice. But we have to work with him, he's the Colonial Governor."

Sadie sniffed, then wiped her tears on her sleeve. She thought about this for a long time. Finally, she looked back towards Kit, tilting her head to one side. "But why talk like that? You could talk nice instead, then maybe he would be nice too."

Kit winced. This was Sadie, her security officer. She was one of the few who had ever had to fight, the only one who understood violence. Even she sounded as immature as her appearance implied. Those baseliners are going to eat us alive.

Kit reached towards Sadie, taking both of her hands. "Cat, listen to me, please. I can tell you're a little scared of me sometimes. It's okay to be scared. But next time you see me say or do something that's scary, think about it like this: the things you're scared of are the same ones that make me a good Director."

That gave her pause. She twitched, her tail uncurling from her leg. "That doesn't make any sense. You're so aggressive, Kit. You can say things that I can't even..." She curled up one hand, as though trying to extend claws she didn't have. But the modifications weren't that extensive. She wasn't really a cat. "If I heard a citizen talk to another one like how you just did, I would ask Forerunner to send like a million drones to carry them to Remedial now."

And from her face, Sadie looked like she was seriously considering it. Maybe she was wondering whether Forerunner would obey that request. How long would it take her to realize that he wouldn't?

"You figured it out exactly, Sadie." She moved closer, wrapping her tail tentatively around her. She'd never been big enough to feel comfortable doing that to the cat before—the security officer was so strong, so confident! She didn't need a squirrel's reassurance. But Sadie wasn't those things anymore, so maybe she did. "I'm not talking to another citizen like that. Garrick isn't one of us yet, none of his people are."

Sadie twitched, looked sideways at Kit, then rested up against her. No matter what Sadie said about Remedial, this colonist wanted to trust her. She only needed a little encouragement.

"I'm good for this because I still speak their language," Kit continued. "It's not a way to treat anyone in the Institute. I promise you I never will. And if I do, you can call for Forerunner to send me down to Remedial for treatment right away."

Sadie whimpered again, then wrapped both arms around Kit and squeezed. She didn't say anything exactly, just held on. Maybe for a few minutes, maybe a little longer. Kit lost track. "I know I... I trust you, Director. But 80%, everything is so much more confusing than before. I think I woulda understood. But now—how am I supposed to keep my friends safe on that mission? Even the Director is so scary I don't know what to do!"

Kit already knew the answer, of course—though she wasn't quite willing to speak it aloud to her friend. The cat was already disturbed enough without more reminders. Kit wasn't bringing her for her combat ability, no matter what she thought. That was why Morgan and Chase were on the mission.

Kit didn't know what to do with a struggling colonist—so she did what she imagined she would've done before the Institute transformed her. What did you do with a crying child? Comfort them, obviously.

She held Sadie in her lap, and the cat stopped fighting her. "I don't want you to learn how that world works, Sadie. Don't learn the language of barbarians from the old days. Let me do that, okay? I can be mean enough for all of us."