Banshee

15. Family Reminiscing

And just like that, I owned Karina...

While the captain's verdict made sense, it still felt very strange... and a little uncomfortable. Since I had been in Karina's charge, I had come to know her as a person, with her own personality, strengths, weaknesses... the whole thing had a ring of slavery to it... And the worst thing was that this would be the only thing protecting Karina from the crew. Knowing that she belonged to a human was supposed to keep them from killing her on the spot...

I suspected that the captain had his own reasons for giving her to me. I was pretty sure that he still needed her for information, and the way he had looked at us during the trial, he might just have figured out that I would not be able to kill her... I would have to talk to the captain about this soon.

At least I've already been accepted to stay on the ship...

As tense as things might become here for the who knew how long, it would still be safer here than outside... Being out there with Karina would make them a clear target for anti-alien groups, and I had no intention of returning to the aliens and their city-ship.

I could try and find my family though... not that I had much of a family left... My parents had been killed by the Trena during the first moments of the invasion in Zevendorp... my sister had all but defected to them, leaving with them when we chased them out of town... before Karina showed up with her army...

Erin...

I missed her... We had been in a relationship for well over a year when the Kanarr invaded... and she hadn't taken too well to the new situation. Erin is a great girl, and I love her to death... but she had always liked a comfortable life... Being chased and captured by aliens did not fit that picture. Driving the aliens from Zevendorp did not make her very happy either... too much violence for her liking...

Lucius, her twin brother, was a different story. He had a job at a scrap mill in the city, wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty if that was needed... We had known each other since we were 4 years old, when his family moved into the house next to mine.

Then there was their younger sister Grace... She was 15, 3 years younger than me an her siblings. I'd say her personality is brighter than Erin's, but then again she's also younger. She tended to hang out with Lucius more than Erin though, could be boyish at times, but she could be such a girl at times too.

Their father was away on business when the Kanarr had invaded. I don't know what ever happened to him. Their mother, however, had been captured by Trena troops... we found her body outside the town hall later... mauled beyond recognition except for her face... a Trena demoralisation tactic...

Erin had blamed Grace for us having been captured, even though Grace had been separated from the rest of us well before we were actually captured...

Probably stress...

Grace hid behind Lucius, who had her back. Erin tried to hide behind me, but the situation wasn't worth getting in fight over... let alone with my best friend.

When Karina had attacked Zevendorp, the siblings had fled with the other innocents civilians. Lucius wanted to stay... so did Grace, but I managed to persuade them to go just before the Trena crossed the bridge. They had fled east... hopefully they had managed to stay out of Kanarr hands...

I could ask the captain if he'd be okay with killing aliens in the Low Countries for a change...

I heard a door open. Karina came into the room. A question popped into my head...

"Karina?" I asked.
"Yes..." was her inquisitive response.
"This is a Silcarin ship right?"
"It is..."
"And do all Silcarin warships come with apartment sized accomodations for crew members?"
"Except for the smallest ones, yes."
"Seems like a lot of wasted space though... to have enough two-bedroom apartments on the ship to accommodate for a full crew of... what was it again?"
"150."

Damn...

"It was not uncommon among my people to have whole families enter into the same professions. So while some of these quarters could fit two to four regular crew members, they were primarily designed to accommodate for family units." Karina explained.

"Was your family stationed on one of these ships?"

"My parents were... They both came from noble houses and had to share quarters due to them both being the only ones of their families on that particular ship."

"How did that go?"

"As could probably be expected; they grew close to each other. The families also agreed. My father was next in line to become viceroy of Efaresta. My mother's father was the chief advisor to the king. It was considered a good match."

"When you put it like that, it almost sounds political."

"The match was as much political as it was genuine... having both families' blessings was crucial if they wanted to spend their lives together, the more highborn you are, the more important the familiy blessing is..."

"So there is a drawback to being rich and powerful after all?" I joked.

"Aside from having a lot to lose, yes there is... But one might say that it also saved my life in the end..."

"How so?"

"When Okarron found me... I was dirty, I was disheveled, but I was still very recognizable as being highborn... I know that the Kanarr would not have gone through the effort of taking and training any Silcar for so many years. He never said this to me outright, but I know that he chose me because he wanted a Silcar operative who could command respect among her own people, and social status plays a large role in that."

"If that was the case, then why didn't he just take someone from the royal family?" I asked.

"The last king had no brethren or sisters, nor was he married with children to speak of. And even if the royal family would have had scions young enough to undergo the amount of training that I underwent, they would have had commanded too much respect among the surviving Silcar. A viceroy's family would remove this complication for the Kanarr, but still have a respectable individual to work with."

"So your social status basically dictated your whole life for you?"

"Basically..." Karina exhaled deeply... "When Okarron released me, and sent you with me, I thought that I was free of it... that I could dictate my own life myself... but ironically it is right now that I am more free than I ever was... Even as a prisoner of your people, no one is dictating me how I should live my life, aside from you perhaps. There are no more expectations of greatness for me to live up to... only the expectation to provide information to stay alive..."

She's enjoying this...?

"You're not actually enjoying your current predicament, are you?"

"I am not sure yet... but for now I do not truly hate it either..."