Endosymbiosis

37. Tremble

The next noxdiem we landed on the planet's surface and set up camp on the edge of a winter forest. As the rebel soldiers pitched tents in the enemy world, I carried a few iatric supply crates to where they should be, wondering if we could have settled somewhere warmer; but the infinite cold in that part of the planet made it perfectly uninhabited... A wound through which we could enter.

I set the boxes down in the snow and let my eyes travel across the frigid landscape until my eyes dropped into the valley between snowy mountains that connected our camp to the nearest town, filled with pale trees that became more and more sparse as you reached the top. That landscape was calm as a painting, but I knew that deep down it was dangerous – because sometimes what we had to fear most was not what it seemed. I gathered up the supplies and took them to one of the raised tents, warm, cozy and filled with empty stretchers for the unfortunate soldiers of the coming battle.

"You shouldn't be here, sapiens..." Korrok hissed as he passed by me. "You are not a soldier." Everyone made sure I knew that I was more valuable protected and hidden in Venena, but I knew that, only here, I could help one of those soldiers, as an iatric should do. And here alone, I could be more than a blood bank forgotten on the shelf.

"You will thank me after I save your neck."

Korrok let out a ragged laugh and scoffed at one of the other creatures in the tent:

"Did you hear that, Deinos? She thinks I would need help." Convinced.

"Not from a human, that's for sure." The espinero laughed. "But I applaud you, Donecea. A Gaxy helping our fight is a big change."

Korrok then kicked Deinos, who bit his tongue.

What did he mean by change? I thought my mother was helping the cause of the rebellion before creating the cure, just as the metriona told me. But apparently one piece of information was missing. And Korrok reminded Deinos that he shouldn't give it to me.

The vorrampe sent a fatal look to the espinero and walked away, leaving me with Deinos, embarrassed by his slip, and the certainty that I would receive no answers.

"Why are you in the rebellion?" I started a conversation, changing the subject.

"Why are you?"

"Justice. Or curiosity. Whatever that bothers me the most at the moment." I shrugged. But I knew that something bad was coming, and that the answers to everything were in the rebellion, so close I could almost touch them. I couldn't go anywhere. "And whatever is easier to achieve, too."

"Many things are difficult to achieve for beings like you, I imagine." He muttered, closer to the truth than it should be. And, in front of my wounded silence, Deinos revealed: "I was an Aulic soldier before... And for many years I served and trained for a great war that never came..." My eyebrows rose and I leaned in, curious to know his story. "I participated in many missions against the revolution... But most of them were to collect from the peoples of Itopis the Empire's taxes and eliminate those who were not fulfilling their duty to Itopis. Still, all of these missions felt... Secondary." He took a deep breath. "Our main function was to make the Empire's army as large as possible, as strong as possible, as powerful as possible... Because of a war that never came."

"So you couldn't take the pressure anymore? And that's why you abandoned the Aulics?" He laughed.

"The pressure is much greater here in the revolution's army, Donecea, where no victory is guaranteed and every defeat is a sentence." His cutting words gave me the chills. "I turned my back on the Aulics because they ordered my team to kill my family, just because they were late in their payments to the Empire's army..." The breath left my chest. How could the same Aulics my mother had belonged to be so cruel? So systematically ruthless? I wouldn't have believed him if the pain in his eyes wasn't so real. "And then I killed every one of them. Those I once called friends..."