SERENAYA-12

“Hey, did you hear about the girl in the plane that buzzed the settlement? She’s local, right, I mean from around here?” the crippled man said, anticipating so many answers.

“Well... Maybe she was once a ‘resident’ here long ago, though I can’t be sure. My memory’s not what it used to be,” the old man whispered, almost afraid to be overheard.

“Oh, c’mon now, I’ve heard the rumours,” the other remarked, holding the old man’s gaze.

“Rumours be damned, why do you listen to such hearsay?”

“It’s just, well... Hell, I’ve heard weird things. Look, I heard that she found a plane, ‘that plane’, in the ice pack, frozen solid for a thousand years. The last of its’ kind. Is that true? Who would make such things up? What could they hope to achieve?”

A strained silence fell over the room, punctuated by the sounds of distant battle.

“Okay,” the old man simply said.

“‘Okay’ what?” from the cripple, his eyes now alert. Could this be true? Was he right?

“You’re the only one to have come close. I don’t think you can read my mind but it’s crazy. You guessed right, the girl is my daughter, my own flesh and blood, my only child. She’s 25 years old and fighting for the Twenty Sixth crowd. She found the plane, yes, it’s old, much older than even me. I don’t know how she found it or how she got it working but it is her.” A look of uncertainty passed over the elder’s face. Had he done the right thing letting his friend in? Could the lame man be an assassin for the Stone Collectors? Fate would tell and destiny would soon be calling, for better or for worse.

“Fuckin’ Lord! You ain’t crappin’ me? True? Your daughter? I mean, rumours are rumours but this is madness!“ the cripple shouted, his mind awash with waves of images. He had been right all along.

“If you don’t believe me then I won’t and can’t change your mind. I have work to do. Leave me now. I have told you enough, go now,” the aged man uttered, fatigue showing in his watery eyes. He reached down for a cloth-covered bundle.

“I need to know more, tell me! You know more! Please tell me.”

If the cripple could have stood, he would have done so.

“She is my daughter, her name is Serenaya. Now go.”

The bundle was unwrapped now, the cloth falling to the floor. A small plasma pistol filled his hands. The small size belied its potency. In a sudden move the old man placed the weapon in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The cripple screamed: “No! No!” But it was too late; a beam of plasma blasted the other’s head apart in a shower of cauterised blood, flesh, brains and bone.

A burning smell filled the room and shock filled the cripple’s mind. Serenaya? Was that her name? Now she was the last, she was a bastard, her father now dead. He had to leave before the authorities found him and he had to find her. As quickly as he could, he turned his wheelchair and left the macabre seen. .