They were halfway to Pluvios when the news reached them. It was Evor who first heard it on the holoflux. Some unknown alien species had struck several rimworlds, leaving no witness alive. The largest death toll so far had been on Ovkan, but it would likely rise as they were headed toward the heart of the Imperium.

Val had blanched upon hearing this.

“Ovkan?” she asked, sitting straight in her chair.

“That’s what I heard,” said Evor.

“We’ve got to go get Kaine!”

Peter grimaced. “They said no one survived. I’m sorry, Val.”

“How would they know?” she snapped. “Besides, didn’t you say something about an evacuation?”

“Not many got out before the planet got hit, but a few did,” conceded the younger rebel.

“I hope your friend was among them,” said Peter, “but if he was, he wouldn’t be on Ovkan anymore.”

“I don’t care! I need to see this for myself, can’t you understand?”

He sighed and looked at Evor. “I take it the aliens are no longer there?”

“They’ve moved on. The Impies are all over the place now, though. I doubt it’d be safe for us to show up there.”

“He has a point,” said Peter. “You should drop us off first.”

“We’re closer to Ovkan than we are to Pluvios. I could drop you off somewhere else... Nim! What’s the closest inhabited world?”

“Proxinis. But it’s a small colony with few amenities. The nearest after that is Ovkan.”

Peter grunted. “Sounds like we don’t have much of a choice.”

“Just stay on the ship until I’ve found him,” said Val as she set the new course.

“What if you don’t find him?”

She frowned. “If he’s no longer on the planet, I’ll track him down. They have to be keeping records.”

Val knew that wasn’t what her brother had meant, but she didn’t want to think about the alternative. Thankfully, he was smart enough not to press the issue.

“Do you think these aliens are the ones the drifter told us about?” asked Kesh.

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Peter grunted. “Probably. I’ll go chat with him. Maybe he knows something that could help us.”

The rebels all left, except for Lartha who sat in the chair next to her—the one Kaine used to sit in.

They didn’t speak for a while as Val focused on piloting the ship. It wasn’t required, Starrider was fully automated and Nim was quite capable of taking them anywhere she wanted; but she enjoyed the feeling. And, right now, she needed to feel like she had control over something.

The rebel woman’s voice startled her.

“You know, when I was a child, I lived in a small village on Ubarath. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. It’s not in the rim, much closer to the center of the Imperium, but it’s too wild of a place to attract much attention. Beautiful, but dangerous. We don’t have much technology there. We could, mind you. I mean, it was settled in the days of Hassan the Conqueror, at a time when scientists were still honored and respected. But the settlers who went there were lovers of nature. That was the draw for them in the first place. They wanted to live as had our ancestors—in communion with the wildlife.”

Val glanced at the other woman. “How did that work out for you?”

Lartha chuckled. “I think we all, to some degree, yearn for what we don’t have. It certainly was my case. I dreamed of the stars, of other worlds... of technology, even. That’s not to say I didn’t love my home. I did.” She fell quiet for a moment, staring at the stars displayed on the screen before them. “My village is in the jungle. There is a waterfall nearby, with this steep, impossible cliff. It doesn’t go straight up, but slopes outward as it reaches the top. The cliff is made of red rock that becomes extremely hot in the summer, to the point where touching it with your bare hands creates blisters in a few minutes. The fissures that crack the wall are home to poisonous lizards and spiders big as a fist. But every year, the youth of Aslathar make it a point to climb that cliff.”

“Why?”

A smile. “Why not? It is a challenge. A way to tell the planet that we will not let it intimidate us. To prove we can live our lives on our own terms. That this is our home.”

“I assume many died in this pursuit?”

“You’d be surprised. Granted, accidents became less frequent as the years passed and we became more adept at the exercise. But even before that, we only had a couple of fatalities. Wounds were common, though, and still are. I got bit by a lizard myself, and had a few blisters, but Ubarath provides remedies for all its poisons.”

Val stared at the other woman. “You climbed the cliff?”

“I did.”

“That’s... How? I mean, why would you do that?”

“I was at a point in my life when I needed to make that claim. I needed to feel connected to the world. That I belonged there. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Why would I want to belong to a place like that when I was dreaming of the stars?” She shrugged. “I was young and foolish. I thought I would never leave, that I’d spend all my life in that small village. Rather than lose hope, I thought I should embrace my destiny. And so I climbed the cliff. Best thing I ever did.”

“Really? Why?”

Lartha grinned. “Because it opened my eyes. If I could do that, then why the hell couldn’t I leave that place? I was gone within a year.”

Val shook her head as she looked back at the dashboard. “Did you have a point?”

“Four hundred years ago, people said it was impossible to climb that cliff. Heck, our grandfathers’ grandfathers still thought it was insane to even attempt something like that. And yet, here we are. We humans can achieve anything when we put our mind to it.”

They fell quiet as Val pondered on the rebel’s words.

A couple more hours and they would reach Ovkan. Facing what awaited her there had felt insurmountable a few minutes ago.

Not so much now.