[ 07 - CHAPTER SEVEN ]

― all sarosians bleed the same ―

"You needn't cry, my sweet boy," Pandora uttered, her syllables soft and her tone tranquil.

The queen of Saros was the most gracious being in all of creation; Orion was sure of it. He'd just explained to her everything he'd done in the past twenty-four hours. He'd repeated in lucid detail the quarrelings of the court earlier that day, and how he'd been vigilant in his protesting against every word his father and the courtsmen had to offer. He'd recalled sorrowfully how he'd forced Titania's hand into bringing her own army along on his impulsive conquest, even though it would've been obvious to anyone how wary she was about the mere prospect of the idea. And lastly, he'd wailed and yelped about the terrible, horrid defeat of two of Saros' most elite armies, and how it was his actions alone that had caused the loss of so many innocent lives.

And yet, in the face of the abysmal happenings she'd just received a full explanation of, she still rubbed circles on Orion's hunched back as he sobbed into her shoulder. As it happened, she even offered her assistance in Orion's great escape from Saros, a word like "cowardice" never once escaping her lips.

Orion was undeserving of a mother as benign as Pandora. He deserved a proper scolding or two in the least. Forgiveness and understanding, of all things, were sentiments he hadn't deserved in a long while.

"Orion, look at me."

Pandora took a step back from her son and cupped his face in her hands, turning his gaze to hers. She couldn't help but smile. Beneath the streaks of dried blood that outlined his caramel complexion, beneath the unfathomable guilt and iniquity that stained his consciousness, she could only see the giggling, kindhearted little boy he once was.

"If you plan to leave," she began, her voice more solemn than it had been since Orion had arrived at her doorstep. "You must leave now. As I'm sure you know, the only ships fast enough to enable your escape are your father's ships. He's recently installed new actinium-based engines, so all of his ships will be under his guards' observation after midnight, and midnight is approaching quickly."

Orion nodded, a slight smile appearing on his cracked lips as his mother wiped a stray tear off of his cheek. "You are too good to me, mother."

"I do not show more goodness to you than what you deserve," she countered. She made no attempt to hide the grin that crawled onto her face as she handed Orion the sword that was strapped to her side. "In case we run into any trouble."

Orion's brow furrowed. He glanced at the violently shimmering metal that lie in his open hands, wondering why Pandora hadn't ordered him to retrieve a sword from his own arsenal. "What about you? If we do run into trouble, how will you defend yourself?"

Pandora shrugged nonchalantly. "A guard would not dare attack his queen."

Orion could think of nothing to comment, and he didn't even bother trying. Pandora was right. There was no world in which a minuscule guard would attempt to harm his queen - it was treason of the highest order, and Orion doubted the thought would ever cross the minds of any of Saros' guards, especially not with a queen as gracious and regal as the one they had. They often threw themselves at her feet, kneeling in submission to the woman they'd give their lives for in a heartbeat.

It was Orion whose worth they questioned. Striking a prince, even a crown prince, was not worth near as much punishment as striking a queen was. Not to mention, there probably wasn't a guard in the palace that didn't know what Orion had done. Word traveled fast among Sarosians, and Orion was certain that orders to apprehend a treasonous prince would travel much faster than simple gossip did, especially when it was a person as cruel as himself who had a bounty on their head. Any guard who'd been unlucky enough to cross paths with the firstborn son of Castor Atlas would jump at the chance to pounce on him, deadly weaponry in hand.

It didn't take long for the rebellious Atlas duo to begin dashing through the palace halls, the only thought in their minds whether they would make it to the docks before midnight or not. At least, their rapidly diminishing time-frame was the only thought on Pandora's mind. As Orion raced across glistening marble floors, a woman who reminded him so vividly of his sister running next to him, he couldn't help but be drawn back to the horrors of that afternoon. The crimson blood that painted the once-green grass, Cygnus' army triumphantly evacuating the battlefield, the fragments of bone that were likely to remain scattered across Cygnus ground for days to come - it all still haunted him. The silent hauntings simply reinforced his desire to flee his home planet and, consequently, the contemptible punishment that awaited him.

When the two reached the towering gateway that led to the docks, Pandora was nearly out of breath and Orion, despite his years of training in endurance, wasn't that far behind. The journey from the queen's quarters to the docks where Castor's ships were held was an incredibly long one on foot, and if Orion wasn't so desperate to leave Saros, he wouldn't have followed his mother to the nearest evacuation pod.

"We're hijacking father's ship?" Orion whispered, his gaze leaden with trepidation, as if worried someone might already be following them. "Out of all the evacuation pods in this shipyard, you choose his?"

Pandora suddenly ducked behind one of the ship's legs, taking hold of Orion's arm and yanking him behind the leg with her. Orion cautiously peeked around one side of the massive leg in hopes that he would catch a glimpse of what Pandora had felt the need to hide from. It wasn't seconds later when two guards walked over the very ground where Orion and Pandora had just been standing, taking a moment from their patrol routine to glance inside the translucent window of Castor's ship.

Orion ducked back behind the leg, thankful for its momentary shelter as one of the guards grunted, "That's odd. I could've sworn I heard something."

"Me too," the other guard chimed in, his voice much more vivacious than the other man's. "I suppose it's just paranoia. Our crown prince did just murder his entire army, after all, and he's on the loose."

The first guard grunted once more, this time in acknowledgement of what his partner had said. "I knew he was going to end up lashing out. I could tell he was short a few marbles from the start, and with that kind of crazy set free to do what it wants? What did His Majesty really expect?"

Orion couldn't help but recoil as if the words of the guard had struck him across the face. Was that what his people really thought of it? Did they really believe him to be a madman, bound to set his home planet to flames at any moment? Orion didn't realize how tightly his muscles were wound until he felt his mother's hand on his back, and the muscles in his shoulders relaxed.

Pandora's breath tickled Orion's ear as she murmured, "We must go now."

Orion shot her a confused look. The guards were sure to still be standing in front of Castor's ship. If either Orion or Pandora were to move more than an inch, it was practically written in stone that one of the guards would spot them and notify other guards, most likely to request backup. Orion knew militia protocol better than anyone - he knew requesting backup was a guard's top priority in a situation like this.

"Time is running out," Pandora continued. "If we wait too long, we'll be stuck here all night."

Orion took a deep breath. His mother was right, of course. The clock was ticking, and they only had a few minutes left until midnight was upon them. They had to get on the ship, and they had to do it immediately.

◈◈◈

Alarms began ringing throughout the vast palace halls as soon as Orion stepped foot on his father's ship. He assumed it was because the two guards from before had seen him and Pandora climb up the sloped walkway that provided entrance to the ship, but he couldn't be sure, because he could hardly spot them among the other guards that were now scrambling to ready shuttles of their own. By the looks of it, Orion would have to fly at record speeds to outrun the other pilots that were now boarding evacuation pods that contained just as much actinium as Castor's did.

"This is insane," Orion muttered under his breath, his hands a blur as they rushed to flip the switches necessary to start the engine.

"Not insane," his mother piped up. "Intelligent. This ship is the only one we have that has enough supplies in storage for you to make it to the nearest ally planet. I hate to say it, Orion, but with you and your father's past conquests, our allies are few and far between."

Pandora collapsed into the passenger seat of the ship, wasting no time in pulling the seat's harness over her head. "Now go."

"Wait!" Orion shouted. By this time, he'd already managed to get the ship in the air, and his hands hovered over the thrusters as a realization hit him. "You can't come with me. Our people need you!"

"And they will have me."

When Orion didn't answer and instead remained still as other ships began to rise around him, Pandora continued. "Good lord, Orion, I did not raise you to be this one-track minded. That is of your father's influence, not mine. There's a separate evacuation pod in the back that I can leave in once you exit the atmosphere. I've only come with you this far to ensure you would be safe until then."

Once Orion had his assurance that his mother would not unnecessarily become a runaway, he found it in himself to push forward on the thrusters and speed through the open gateway. He could say with full certainty that he wouldn't have done so if his mother was going to stay in the ship with him. No matter what awful, petrifying punishment his father had planned for him, he would risk suffering through it if it meant his mother wouldn't have to run for the rest of her life because of him. He'd caused enough pain already - condemning his mother to a lifetime of fear away from the planet she loved would be too much for his already bloodied conscience to bear.

As his father's pilots started to appear in the empty space behind him, the fleeing prince realized he could not have underestimated them more. They nearly caught up to him once or twice before Orion recognized the attack formations they were using. He chuckled. He didn't think much of his father's men, but even so, he found it difficult to believe they were dull enough to use attack strategies that Orion himself had devised.

The way he glided out of reach of his father's men with ease was not enough to dim the heightened anxiety he felt as he saw his mother in the reflection of the ship's front window. It wasn't her fear that worried him. In fact, she didn't look frightened at all. Quite the contrary, he'd scarcely seen her look so calm in his life, as if she trusted him more than she ever had before as he soared through the thickening clouds, and her blind trust was what scared him most. She knew what he'd done to his own army. She shouldn't trust him with her life at all, especially not as he was fleeing from the king's best men.

Suddenly, the dark clouds that shielded Orion's view of what lay ahead of him cleared, and his vision was flooded with sights of glistening stars. They seemed so unnaturally melancholy when he remembered what had happened last time he'd found himself admiring the stars above.

"Orion."

His mother's voice tore him out of his dreamlike gaze, and his view of the once-beautiful sky was replaced with a view of his mother standing before him, a sorrowful expression masking her face and a bag filled with emergency supplies resting on her back.

"It's time for me to go," she announced.

Orion found himself wrestling with the onslaught of emotion that was flooding through his chest. He didn't want her to leave. Moments earlier, he would have cursed himself for thinking that very thought, but now that the stark reality of her departure was glaring him in the face, he would do anything to have her stay with him. Because somewhere, underneath his negligent exterior and callous behavior, he was scared to be alone. His mother was all he had left, and without her...there was no other person in the entire universe that would claim to love him.

The ship shook, and Orion glanced at the ultrasound monitor on the dashboard to see that his father's pilots were finally catching up with him. He had no choice. Pandora had to leave.

Pandora reached up and ran her hand down the side of her son's face, a bittersweet smile blooming on her lips as she gazed upon his watering eyes. "You'll be alright, baby. You're stronger than you think."

In that one moment, that ardent moment that was tinged with both unimaginable sadness and fleeting happiness, Orion could almost imagine the gleeful reunion he would have with his mother, after all was said and done. He had no idea that he would never again rest his eyes upon her welcoming smile that could heal the world of all its faults and sorrows.

It seemed like an eternity and a fraction of a second all at once when Pandora boarded the evacuation pod and began floating away. All seemed well at first. Everything seemed too well at first. She drifted peacefully past the first line of Orion's pursuers, as they seemed to realize the soul inside the evacuation pod was not one whose well-being should be tampered with. She even made it safely past the second line of pursuers. It was when she hit Saros' atmosphere that things started to go phenomenally wrong.

Orion's pursuers released a rain of laserfire upon his ship. Orion couldn't remember a single moment in his life in which he had trusted the skills of his father's pilots. When a stray laserbeam brushed the side of his mother's ship, he knew it was for good reason.

At first, Orion thought the beam had missed the energy core of his mother's pod, and she would make it safely home. The beam had indeed missed the energy core, but Orion hadn't accounted for the possibility that the beam could have come into contact with the pod's viewing window. Which, of course, it had. The front window had been shattered, leaving nothing but empty space for the toxic Saros atmosphere to stream through.

It only took seconds for the Saros atmosphere to leave a mark that would impact Orion's life for years. There was a reason protective glass was installed on every form of transportation Saros produced, and as Orion watched his mother's soft features shrivel in a wicked display of flames and smoke, he saw for his own eyes the reason that glass was so important. It protected something that could never be replaced.

The torrent of abominable gunfire didn't cease, even when all that was left of Pandora Atlas was ash and vapor. Orion wasn't even sure the other men had seen what consequences their reckless firing caused.

Orion let out a scream more horrendous and pain-stricken than any Sarosian lungs had ever emanated before. He paid no attention to anything but the empty escape pod where his mother's warm body once resided. He didn't even pay attention to the violent quaking of his ship as a beam of laserfire reached one of his engines, successfully sending it into a seemingly neverending spiral as it fell down, further and further, its destination unknown and its pilot too broken to fly it anywhere else.

Orion screamed until his throat felt raw. After that, he sobbed so violently that his whole body shook with heaving force.

The gunfire that once pillaged his ship - and his innocent, undeserving mother - ceased instantaneously, but Orion didn't care. How could he? The one person in the universe who still cared for him was gone, and a joyful reunion was out of the question.

"You fools," Orion wailed, his voice droning into oblivion as his father's ship whirled along with it. "You fools, you've killed her! Look what you've done! You'll pay for this!"

Orion wasn't sure who he was shouting at. He couldn't tell if it was his father, for sending his men on a pointless apprehension mission. His pilots, whose lasers had been the demolition of his mother, a kindhearted woman hadn't deserved a fate as gruesome as the one she was handed. Or himself, for igniting the chain reaction that led to the loss of everything he held dear. Nevertheless, Orion's final thought as he was flung into the atmosphere of an unidentified planet was that he should've been the one to perish instead.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Well. That was it. The end of Act One. I'll admit, it was rather dismal, but I promise it was necessary for Orion's character development. Also, in case anyone was wondering, I purposely left a few minor open-ended questions hidden in this chapter because I plan to tie everything, including the answers to those, together nicely at the end of the book.

I don't have much else to say because I think this chapter spoke for itself, but I did include a meme at the beginning of this author's note that I've been saving for a while, because I knew as soon as I saw it that it perfectly described this chapter.

Q: DO YOU HAVE A JOB? IF SO, WHAT IS IT?