The Great Grift of Stoto

No one can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Maila not only knows the sound. She’s had to endure it herself, silently watching on as the destruction she caused ran rampant throughout the Stoto star system, echoing in her mind at all hours of the day. She’s made the sound herself. She would empty out her vocal cords from her old rusty ship into the void of space, hoping that the barrage of emotion was able to scrape through and someone would come to rescue her from this honor-bound prison, but it never happened. If she were to get out, she’d have to free herself.

In a very recent life, she would sit in the safety of a rear command ship, watching her people die for her family. The sorrowful sight of combusting friendly ships was begrudgingly familiar to the Harmian princess, and one she had never gotten used to. She was an expert in the strategies and standards of war. She needed to forget it all. Leave this life while there was still room in her young mind for another path.

“What the?” Valenai said as his eyes blinked themselves open. He woke up to a familiar sight, a ship he’d been in hundreds of times before the war ever began. “Did you put a catheter in me?” The ship was traveling at a low pace. He just couldn’t see why. His neck muscles wouldn’t allow him to see out the bridgeport.

Maila looked over her shoulder and sighed. “Well, I didn’t know how long you were gonna be out and I didn’t want piss all over my ship.”

“Did you do anything else while you were down there?”

The pilot's chair sat behind a massive control panel full of buttons, levers, doohickies, and thingamajigs. There was also an orange button to her immediate right that looked like it was installed by an eleven-year-old. She pressed that button.

“OW!” said Valenai as loudly as he could muster. “Hm,” He rubbed his face. “Still have the slapinator I see.” The slapinator was originally called the thingamajig before Maila came to her senses and decided on a more on-theme name.

“Comes in handy when the guy on my bed is being an asshole.” She was still lending most of her attention to the bridgeport, to what he imagined was a view of deep space. He’d been outside the atmosphere enough to tell the difference between the feeling of 100% gravity and an artificial 70%. Stoto 3 and Stoto 4 actually do have slightly different strengths of gravity, but it wasn’t to such a large extent.

He noticed the other orange button that sits just above the nightstand on the other side of the bed. She’d installed the slapinator mark II a few years later. He was shocked his face wasn’t permanently scarred long before it was marked by battle scars. There was another small button above it that he didn’t recognize. He didn’t have the energy to check what it said.

“Being an asshole or- AH. Why?”

“I just knew that sentence wasn’t gonna end well,” she said.

Valenai seemed to accept his pre-punishment. He again rubbed the redness off his face (at least, the redness caused by the slapinator). His fingers caught something he didn’t expect. There was a freshly stitched wound on his left cheek. It stung to the touch, with petite pools of numbness that faded when he rubbed them.

He hadn’t been able to get a look at Maila, but he could easily tell it was her ship. On the ceiling, about a meter to the left of the bed was a poster of The Grove Diggers- Maila’s favorite band. He’d gotten that poster for her 19th birthday. The memory was enough to make him smile.

“So what’s the occasion? How’d I end up back on the SS Unicorn? If this is a surprise party you’re a few months off, and involved way too many catheters. Don’t I have more friends than this?”

His less than extraordinary joke did not amuse her. “We’re leaving.”

“Alright, great. Leaving what?”

Maila leaned on her control panel to get up. Her long black hair slid against the back of her chair. As she stood, Valenai could only see the top of her head. He hadn’t seen her in years, but he still remembered every detail of the princess. She strolled back towards the bed. Each step she took replaced the image in Valenai’s mind with this new, more mature Maila. She had grown an inch or two. Her hips and breasts filled out her tight blue dress. Her eyes were exactly how he remembered- big, brown, and sure of themselves. An annoying combination when they’re on someone as smart as Maila. Her arms looked like they could end him in a second if he got too far out of line. That would need to be something to keep an eye on. It seemed, after all, that she had kidnapped him, restraining him by catheter- a creative but mildly sociopathic method.

She put the back of her hand on his forehead, rubbed the back of her finger against the new stitches, then inspected beneath his short brown hair for anything out of the ordinary. After finishing the inspection she ran her hand through his soft locks, an action that she had performed more times to count. She always loved his hair.

“Does your head hurt at all?” She asked quietly.

“Cuz it’s killing me,” he laughed through it. “Nice try Mai. I’ll never be too tired to see past that one.”

She lightly slapped his forehead. “I’m serious. Do you even remember where you were before this?”

He looked into her big brown eyes, recognizing the rare solemnity. He could only recall seeing this look two times. The first was one of the happiest moments in his life, the other was the worst. His smile faded. He couldn’t remember where he was before this. His last memory was sitting in the Volinian palace on Stoto 4, clicking through all his favorite TV shows, infinitely unsure which one to watch.

He opened his mouth hoping it would force some words out, but nothing happened. Malia stood up off the bed. A cold feeling hit Valenai, as if every joint in his body froze. He already missed how close she had been just a second before. She reached up and grabbed a periscope. She must have installed it after the last time Valenai left the Unicorn. The technology was far more advanced than the slapinator, and even the slapinator mark II. She brought it down and placed it gently over his eyes.

He looked through the scope into the familiar depths of the Stoto star system. Maila’s home planet- Stoto 3- was visible on the distant right and to the left was a massive pile of rubble. He labored his right hand up to the control bar and rotated his wrist to zoom in. “Oh,” he said.

Maila didn’t make a sound. She nodded, knowing well that he couldn’t see her.

“Maila… how did I get here?” He asked with his eyes still on the periscope.

“It doesn’t matter how you got here. The point is you’re not out there anymore.”

He took a minute to rotate the view, zooming in at different points. The ship was traveling slowly enough that he had a good view of it all. “Did we win the battle?” He asked.

Unbeknownst to the Volinian, Maila’s glare didn’t lighten up. It magnified. “Maila?” After awaiting an answer for long enough, he released the periscope. Her eyes locked on his as they emerged from the scope, with all the fires of hell behind her scowl.

“Maila-”

“Are you serious right now?”

“What? That was an incredibly valid question.” He was starting to get defensive. This was a matter of honor now. There had been a battle. The Harmians must have attacked one of Volinia’s deep space stations between Stoto 3 and 4. He would be the one charged with defending those stations. He must have been injured in the battle to the point of amnesia, explaining his first headache. The second could be blamed on the slapinator mark I.

“My god, you’re such a fucking idiot, I found you floating in space, only alive cuz you’re the one Volinian allowed to wear a space suit.”

“I thought you gave up fighting,” he kept a low tone, trying to counteract the princess's anger.

“I did.”

“So why were you out here?”

“I told you. We’re leaving,” she said with authority.

“Leaving what?”

She was really hoping to get to her destination before having this conversation, but the pathway was blocked by remnants of the battle, preventing her from moving to hyperspace. The trip would take almost ten times longer than it would normally. It would have been so much easier if they were already there. “We’re leaving Stoto.”

“Yeah, sure you are.” He seemed relieved. She was obviously messing with him. And if she wasn’t, there was no way she would go through with it.

“What? You think I’ll have a problem leaving?”

“Of course I do!” He said as loudly as his injuries would allow. It ended up coming out as a muted rumble. “Stoto is your home. It has been for 25 years. There was no way you could leave her friends and f-” He caught himself before saying it. He was already naturally at a disadvantage when arguing with Maila. He didn’t want to make it any worse. “You can’t leave your home behind. Where would you even go?”

“Funworld.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“Why Funworld out of all places?” He asked.

“Because Funworld would never get dragged into a ridiculous war with no hope of getting out. Plus they have fondue volcanos and a hundred thousand roller coasters. You’ve been to the candy forest haven’t you?”

“This war isn’t ridiculous,” he said. She looked at him like he was the stupidest prince in the galaxy. To be fair, he very well may have been. He looked back at her trying to show pity, but instead, it just came out as confusion. He hadn’t seen her since the day the war began. Maybe she had learned something in the last five years about the war. He had gotten very involved in the war the day he turned 21 and was allowed to join the military. Anything negative about it was filtered out of anything that entered the Volinian palace. He just didn’t know that yet.

“Val, come on. Why do you think your father declared war in the first place?” She asked.

“Because your kingdom acted as an aggressor and-” Maila joined him in a chorus of big, diplomatic-sounding words. “Took control of Volinian military strongholds in orbit around Stoto 3.” He was a little shocked to hear her harmonize such a specific and not very rhythmic statement.

“Val, why in god’s name would we do that? You and your family came to every celebration we ever held at the palace. You were the guest of honor at my crowning ceremony.”

“That had nothing to do with our kingdom’s relationships though. That was different,” he said.

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT,” she was getting frustrated. She was already frustrated. The last thirty hours were not the easiest, and this just added to her problems. The little vein above her left eye jutted out as if it was trying to do the slapinator’s job for her. “Do you know how many different reasons I’ve heard for why the war started? I almost never hear the same answer from two people. My mother told me that you wanted access to our lithium mines and attacked once we refused. My handmaiden claims that your father simply wanted the glory of war like the kings before him and we were the closest capable opponent. My father never even gave a sure answer. He died fighting in a war that he never fully understood, but once it began he was honor bound to finish it. He regretted losing the relationship with your family and tried to get to the truth of it until his last day. Everyone thought he was crazy for it.”

“Is he not the one who sent the troops to our strongholds?”

“He claimed to know nothing about the battle of the 5th sector, but the soldiers who survived the battle either claim he or a member of the high table gave the order. The full strength of the justice council spent months interviewing soldiers, commanders, and anyone who may or may not have been involved. Their final decision was that my father made the call and lied about it, but since he was the king there was no cause for punishment. Then the war raged to the point of no return, and he died chasing a conspiracy that lost him favor in his own kingdom.”

His expression was blank. He was contemplating what she said. He hadn’t heard news out of Harmia in five years. Could it be true? It was interesting to consider, but the king could have just been lying. Yes, he was honorable, but even the best of us can be corrupted. Until the war though, he had always thought he was immune to the misappropriation of his crown, and definitely incapable of making a poor decision like attacking his closest ally.

“Mai, you know I want to believe you, but I can’t.” The only part of him he had the energy to move was his eyes, which continually found Maila’s and then momentarily glanced up to the ceiling. “Do you know how much time, money, and people we’ve spent on this fight?”

“Val,” this was the fourth time she’d given him that face. It pierced right through him and tied his stomach in a knot.

“Oh yeah, right.” He couldn’t look her in the eyes this time. He suddenly began to reminisce back to school. The beautiful princess was talking to him for some reason. He remembered the good times. The trips to the park on nights with two full moons, days spent preparing dinner for their close friends and families. He would paint her likeness, she would show him different landscapes all over Stoto 3. When they were together the conversation seemed to never end. They would laugh together so much that every once in a while they’d burn out their vocal cords and have to spend the day communicating in ISL (intergalactic sign language). It was as if they were two halves of the same whole, made to find each other. The only thing that ever stood between them was this war. A war into which he had invested every aspect of his life after his 21st birthday. But was it all a lie? Was the one thing that ever stood in between them a ruse perpetrated by someone outside the Harmian palace? That would mean the last 5 years of his life were pointless, lost to the void, but it also meant he might would be able to return to the way it was. What was more important to him?

“How are you even gonna live in Funworld? It’s the most expensive place to live in the galaxy, and last time I checked you didn’t have a job or access to the royal bank.”

She smiled. It was that beautiful smile that she’d shown him so many times. His natural response to seeing it was always to smile right back, but he needed to guard himself a bit. Those white teeth and shining, brown eyes were literally infectious. His lip quivered for half a second, but he was able to control it.

She got up, opened up a drawer on the top of her dresser, and sat back down at the foot of the bed. “Wow,” Val said. She had brought out an item that he had only heard about in legends, and she was keeping it in a sock drawer. “Is that the Hallendale diamond?”

She nodded. “How? I didn’t even know it was real. Wow, it looks exactly like the paintings. Except…” he reached his hand out, and she brought the jewel back towards her body, out of reach of the restrained prince.

“What?” He said. “What am I gonna do with it? I’ve got nowhere to go and a needle in my dick.” She shrugged in agreement and handed the diamond over. Their fingers touched on the transfer and released a pulse of electricity through his body. Though, that wasn’t what he needed to focus on at the moment. He observed the massive rock in his hand. He studied it. He had seen hundreds of paintings of the Hallendale diamond, even copied a few himself. He knew every detail of the apparently very real jewel, and there was something off.

He had Maila lean in to take a look. There was a marking on one side of the diamond. One that hadn’t appeared on any of the paintings. It wasn’t large. It would only be visible to someone who had studied the diamond closely. He didn’t recognize the marking, but Maila did.

“That’s our old family seal. I wonder…” She picked it up in her own hands and focused on the nearly unrecognizable seal. The new seel is an outline of two swimming seels. The old one was only one seel. In the Harmian palace, important rooms are locked by a top-of-the-line system that only the royal family can access. The lock is a copy of the royal seal. To enter, one needs to tap a specific sequence straight onto the seal.

Maila entered the short code. It consisted of five very precisely timed taps. The diamond opened up like a blooming flower. A beam of light shot out the top, and a hologram began playing.

“Rinare?” Said Valenai.

“Father,” whispered the shellshocked princess.