In Command, page 14
“I do.” I needed him to understand. He was my best friend. By best friend law, he had to understand. “I have to rule these people, and I can’t do that if they hate me and question everything I do. It won’t end well. When people don’t believe or trust their leaders… it’ll be just like SpaceTech to the Earthers. I can’t do that. I can’t be that. And eventually, they’ll revolt. They’ll have to.”
“They might not revolt.” Roan leaned back in his chair. “This isn’t like Earth and you’re not a fucking Murtagh, Am. You’re new to them, and they might—”
Ice it all. He was just as bad as Lorne. I knew exactly where that sentence was going. “Okay. Fine. They might eventually change their mind, but that’s not a given. And I can’t ask the Aunare to risk their lives in this war if they don’t even believe I should rule.” I set down my untouched glass of wyso. I was too worked up to add any caffeine that might amp it, especially on no sleep.
I had to move if I was going to think this through. I started pacing. “I don’t know what I can do to make them see that I’m up for this job. I passed their stupid test. I defended their city. I told them some of my secrets and why I’m angry at them, and maybe that’s the problem. But I already said the words. I can’t unsay them.” I sat on his bed again. “What do I do?”
Roan nodded. “You need an Aunare perspective on this. Why didn’t you ask Lorne?”
I made a face at him.
“Right. You already did, but because he loves you, he thinks everyone else should. And if they don’t, then screw ’em.” Roan shrugged. “I kind of agree with him.” His voice went up at the end, like he expected me to get mad.
Except I wasn’t mad. But I was starting to feel defeated.
“Maybe if you didn’t watch the news feeds every morning then you wouldn’t feel like it mattered.”
“But it does matter. We lived on a planet where the general population hated the people that ruled them. It was awful. I don’t want that for anyone here. So, what can I do?”
“Give it time.”
I snatched his tablet up and used it to turn on his vid screens. Roan’s screen was smaller than Lorne’s and could only fit half as many channels, but it was early enough for some of the morning feeds from the colonies.
Two of the news stations were talking about how I was a potential spy. Another said I’d tricked Lorne into marriage. Two more were talking about how I was going to destroy the Aunare culture, and that the only answer was to overthrow Lorne.
Overthrow Lorne. Because of me.
No. Not happening. I had to do something. But what?
“Holy shit.” Roan drank down more of his wyso. “Don’t they have something more important to talk about than you?”
“I wish. There’s plenty to report on, and yet, they’re stuck on me? Me?” It was beyond absurd. “But I’m supposed to be the High Queen. So, I get it. Apparently, I’m important.”
Roan laughed. “Who’d have thunk it? The scrawny girl from the street was secretly the future High Queen of the Aunare.”
“Yeah, I know, right? The absurdity isn’t lost on me.” I switched them all to mute. “It’s insane, but I guess it’s true. I need them to approve of me, not just because I want them to like me. I couldn’t give a shit. But I need them to follow me into war. I need them not to revolt against Lorne. And I need them to not feel like we did on Earth.”
“Okay.” Roan set down his empty cup. “You have a point.”
“Thank you. So, what do I do? Because I have no ideas and Lorne doesn’t even see this as a problem. I was getting an idea of what to do, but now I forgot and I can’t—” I stopped talking because it wasn’t helping.
“I don’t know what we should do, but I see the problem now. I need a second. Let me get dressed and we’ll figure it out just like we’ve figured out everything else.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I nodded again. “Okay,” this time I said it with some relief.
Roan disappeared into the bathroom, and I kept pacing.
Ten minutes later, he came back with damp hair and with his clothes on for the day. Suddenly, I felt underdressed in leggings and Lorne’s sweater, but Roan was Roan. I didn’t care what I looked like. He’d seen me at my worst, and this wasn’t it.
“Any ideas?” I asked, hoping he had something.
“Not really. I don’t know. I keep circling back to the whole give-them-time thing. They just need to get to know you and understand that you’re not Murtagh. You’re not the bad guy. They’ll see.”
“Maybe.” But I needed it to happen faster because we were nearly out of time. War was inevitable, and they needed to be ready.
I needed them to see the truth and understand who I was, and I thought I’d done that. They’d seen me fight for them at Lorne’s speech and above their capital city.
I’d taken their test, and while I was there I’d told them—
“Wait.” I spun to Roan. “Wait.” There it was. The idea. I needed a second.
Roan held up his hands. “Whatever you need. I’m waiting.”
I paced for a second longer before I froze.
This was it. This was it.
I turned to Roan. “I have an idea, but…”
He winced, and I knew he knew what I was going to say.
“It could totally backfire, but I mean—can it really get worse than this?” I motioned to the vid screen where information about an uncovered assassination plot was breaking.
“I don’t know. I mean, I say no, but we both know that things can always get worse.”
Right. That was true. “Okay. Noted.”
“But tell me your idea anyway.” He sat down again in one of his chairs and motioned me to the other one. “Let’s see if there’s something there that we can work with.”
“Okay.” I let out a nervous breath, but I couldn’t sit. Instead, I stood next to the chair. “Here’s the problem as I see it right now: they don’t know me. I ranted a bit—kind of psycho-esque—in the arena, but I didn’t give them a chance to really understand. I think there’s a disconnect between the truth and what the former High King let them know. And until they really see it, they won’t get it. Telling them didn’t help, and if I put myself in their shoes and someone told me everything I believed was a lie, I might not take their word for it. Especially if that person was a stranger.”
“I think I’m getting you.” Roan sat back in the chair. “Keep going.”
“Lorne was saying something at the market earlier, last night, whatever. That doesn’t matter. But he was saying how he was having trouble understanding what it was like for me exactly, and I could see all these questions bubbling inside him. But it wasn’t the time or the place to really get into it, but I think it’s the same for all of the Aunare. I think they need proof. I think that they need to see what it was like—Liberation Week, all the revolts, the executions. I think I might have to actually show them to get them to believe what I’m saying is true.”
“Okay. Okay, yeah. I’m with you on that. I can see how that might be true. So, how are you going to show them? Do you want me to arrange a speech or something? Or—”
I sat in the chair, thankful that he was getting on board with my plan. But I should’ve known he’d agree, not just because he was my best friend, but because he was an outsider like me. “The interview with Himani is coming up in two days. If you could delay it a couple more to give us some time, then I think we could use that. If I came here early in the morning like this, we could pull clips. We’d need to go through all the footage from Liberation Week, from the execution arenas, from that revolt—”
“Oh, babe. There must be so much they don’t know. I think I’m so with you on this. They need to see it. There’s no way they can watch all of that and not be mad as hell.”
A little zing of excitement hit me. “Right? If we showed them—really showed them and explained everything to them about how it all went down—then we can make all of the Aunare see.”
“Babe. You’re thinking too small. We get this streamed to everyone. Across the universe. Everyone can tune in at once and no one will mess with your clips if it’s streamed live. It’ll hit everyone at once. Even Earthers will see it.”
The idea of being live to that many people made me want to throw up, but he was right. “Okay. Yes. Live is probably better. But if we do this right, I think we can use this interview to turn around the Aunare’s perception of me, of what happened with SpaceTech, and why every single one of them should want this war. Because right now, there’s a good portion of the Aunare who are siding with SpaceTech, and that’s so beyond fucked up that a million light years can’t span the distance.”
Roan huffed. “It really is fucked up, right?”
“For sure.” It was evil how SpaceTech had murdered so many Aunare and then corrupted the minds of the rest. “The hardest part is going to be finding the right footage to get them to really understand what happened. There’s just so much to go through. Most of the original vids—the non-SpaceTech propaganda ones—are going to be on the off-the-grid sites, but we should use some of their stuff, too. The stuff from the original news reports.” Oh my God. This was going to take forever. “I don’t know. Maybe this is a bad idea. It feels like an impossible task to go through everything and there’s no time—”
“No. This is actually really good, and I can help. It’s actually not an impossible task, but it’ll take some time. We’ll start with what you want to say. Let’s get that down.” He reached for his tablet and started typing as he talked. “And then we’ll search for clips to back it up. I can do that when you’re training. Get some stuff pulled for you to look at, and then we’ll edit it down to fit exactly what you need. We’ll make it flow.” He looked up at me. “We will show them who you are, the evil that you—and every Aunare in SpaceTech territory—have endured, and we’ll show them the truth. By the end of it, they’ll be as ready to go to war as you are.”
When he broke it down like that, it sounded easy. I wanted to believe him so bad. I was desperate for hope. “You really think we can do all that?”
“I think you can. I don’t think it’ll be easy, and you’ll have to open yourself up more than you ever wanted to, but I think if anyone can do it, it’s you.” He put down his tablet and looked me in the eyes. “Not messing with you. You can do this.” That tone? It was something I couldn’t ignore. That tone told me he believed those words with everything he had.
“Okay.” I didn’t like that I had to do this, but I would. I would say what needed to be said. It was time for them to see who I was, why I was this way, and for them to understand that they should be just as angry.
I would make them hear me.
I would make them see.
And when I was done, I would make them stand and fight.
Because evil had already come for us, and it was way past time for the Aunare to show what they could do to stop it.
It was time.
Chapter Fourteen
AMIHANNA
In my twenty years of life, there were days when I thought I’d die and days when I was so tired or in pain or without hope that I wished I would die. But now, whole days went by without me ever thinking about dying at all. I was almost getting used to thinking beyond one day at a time, which was a huge step for me.
Except today. Today was going to be a completely iced monkey shit of a day.
Today was the day that Roan and I had been working toward for four days. We’d gone through footage, and I’d practiced what I’d say. I hoped it was enough. I hoped I’d picked the right things that would get through to the Aunare.
Either way, today, right now, I’d give my interview.
There was so much riding on this, and I almost wished I’d shared what I was going to do with Lorne. But I hadn’t.
And now it was too late.
Today, I’d show the Aunare who I was, who I would be, and why I wanted to lead them to war.
I would definitely survive this interview, but I desperately wanted to skip over the next few hours. And thinking that made me feel weighted down in piles of thick, murky guilt. I was going so soft that I was complaining about something that wasn’t even remotely dangerous. Nothing today would threaten my life.
What were a few unpleasant hours when they could help me change everything?
And still, I was sitting on a loveseat next to Lorne, staring at the man sitting in the chair across from me as if he were my opponent instead of my interviewer because, today, he was.
Himani might not truly be my enemy, but he was one of the Aunare’s most famous reporters. Which meant he was really good at uncovering secrets, and I was all too used to holding every secret I had with a death grip.
A death grip that I was about to loosen by choice and calculation.
It was supposed to be a small interview—just me, Lorne, and Himani—but the room was packed. I hadn’t been expecting so many people. No one else seemed surprised, so I guessed I was the clueless one here. Way too many people I didn’t know were peppering me with questions that didn’t matter—like if I was comfortable—which was no, I wasn’t. I was about to go live in front of trillions of people across the known universe. After so many years of trying to avoid cameras and being seen, this was a nightmare—to be stared at by countless people while I was forced to reveal myself—so, no, I wasn’t comfortable. Not even a little bit.
They kept asking if the lights were too bright. Yes, they were. But that didn’t mean that they would turn them down. Because I’d already asked that, and they said no.
But this was my life now. This was my choice. I’d survived too much to back down now. I had to make my life count. I had to make everything I did matter. Starting with this interview.
This was my first step to become the person I wanted to be.
I gritted my teeth to keep from snapping at one of Himani’s many assistants. He was swatting at me with a powder puff again. He grumbled in Aunare and when Lorne snapped sharply at the man, I was sure it was a good thing I didn’t understand Aunare.
I glanced at Lorne as the dude with the puff scrambled away. “Thanks.”
Lorne—skin glowing so soft his fao’ana were only just visible—reached out for my hand, and I took it. We were a team. A united front against our enemy. Only a small coffee table with three glasses of water on top separated us from Himani who was patiently waiting to begin the interview.
Himani was older than my father by at least ten years. His white hair was long and intricately braided in two plaits. He sat relaxed in the chair as if all these people—his crew there to record, not to mention his security, and team of assistants—didn’t bother him in the slightest. And that wasn’t even taking into account my parents standing off to the side, Roan, Fynea,—and then the team of people—both ours and Himani’s—who were there to make sure Lorne and I looked our best. Plus, our guards. So many guards.
Himani raised a brow at me—as if to ask me if I was ready to start.
My heart raced and I gave him a tiny shake of the head. I needed a second before we dove in.
I forced myself to breathe evenly as I took in the room, hoping that looking away from everyone staring would help me calm down. A real fire filled the fireplace beside us, giving off crackles and pops as the wood burned. The armchair Himani was sitting in was made from a metallic material that reflected the flickering firelight. And as I looked around the room, I realized that the placement of every knickknack scattered around the room—some of them Earther, some of them Aunare, and some of them altogether different—tried to give the illusion that this was a normal home, a normal interview, and that we were normal people. It tried and failed, at least to me. This interview was supposed to tell the Aunare people how I might act as their queen, which was so far from normal it wasn’t even in the same universe. But I needed it to do so much more.
I couldn’t rule a people that didn’t believe in me. I wouldn’t do that to the Aunare. I needed them to understand. I needed them to know. I needed them to see me as the one they wanted to be in command.
“You’re going to do great,” Lorne said, and I turned to him again.
The simple ring of gold around Lorne’s head glinted in the light, and I couldn’t help but think about how handsome, official, kingly he seemed right now. He tried to convince me to wear one, too, but I refused. I wasn’t their queen. Not yet. And I wasn’t going to put one on and have them hate me more.
Not when I needed them to see me as I was.
But if I did my job well today, then maybe they’d accept me as their queen. Some might even be glad that I was going to rule.
He squeezed my hand. “You’re going to have to start breathing.”
I took in a laughing, gasping breath. “Right.”
Air was important, but sometimes it was hard for me to remember that when I looked at him. I got lost. The kind of lost where I felt like I was tumbling and falling and spinning, but somehow, it wasn’t terrifying. Because he was here with me, and he made me feel safe anywhere. When I was with him, it was almost as if the last thirteen years hadn’t happened.
Almost.
Loving him didn’t erase the past, but it made it easier.
“You’re going to do great,” Lorne said again.
“Right,” I said again, but this time, I wasn’t sure I believed it.
His faith in me and our destiny together was disarming. It made me feel like I was somehow betraying him when I questioned it, but I couldn’t help it. I had so many questions about the past and the future that it was hard to focus on the present.
And yet, here I was. About to make everyone face the past that I’d lived and argue for saving the future.
There was a tension in the room that felt very similar to the feeling I got right before a fight. It was nervousness combined with a touch of anticipation and a stubborn, never-give-up need to win. I gripped that feeling tight. I would need it if I was going to get through this.
Because today, right now, I was going to show the Aunare exactly who I was.
