Her pause was very slight. “I would hand it over.” She didn’t offer a why, or any explanation to support her choice.
“But what if it drastically alters people? What if the war spirals out of control?”
“Right now, there technically is no war.”
“Fine. What if the current not-war we’re fighting spirals out of control?” I asked.
“There’s always a turning point. And no war is won without sacrifice.” She squeezed my shoulders again and then dropped her hands. “What if this is the turning point? Where would we be if no explorer had ever dipped his or her toes into the unknown?”
Probably extinct. On a dead planet. Because, well, nuclear holocaust.
“Make your position clear—that it should be volunteer-based. You are a leader in that world, Tess. You have influence.”
I frowned. “I’m not. I’m nothing. I’m just a Nightchaser who runs supplies in and out.”
Mareeka scoffed. “Stand tall and speak forcefully enough to be heard, and they will listen.”
A hot, prickly feeling grew under my skin. What was she talking about?
“What makes Surral and me able to run this place without ever hitting a child, or even raising our voices?” she asked.
That was an easy answer for someone who’d spent ten years on Starway 8. “Because a disappointed side-eye from one of you is way worse than any lash from a whip.”
“Says someone who’s experienced the whip,” Mareeka pointed out.
I nodded, wondering what she was getting at.
“As a leader, fear will only get you so far, and for so long. Never, in the long history of humanity, has tyranny not ended in revolt. The Overseer would destroy our books and burn our past to hide it, but the outcome is always the same. Always, Tess. Some wars lasted days, some centuries. Some spanned regions, others spanned worlds. There is an ebb and flow. Even if we win this day, for our lifetime and maybe beyond, tyranny will rise again. And then revolt. There will always be those who impose. And there will always be those who would die for the right to self-determination.”
“It sounds hopeless,” I said. “An endless cycle.”
“A cycle in the long span of things, but you are alive now, and this is your time to influence events and outcomes.”
The pressure suddenly felt heavy on my shoulders, and I hadn’t even done anything yet.
“Respect is the key to leadership. You’ve shown it to others, and the inevitable reward is that you’ve gained it for yourself.” Mareeka leveled her piercing blue eyes on me. “The day you decide to lift your voice, do not be surprised when people listen.”
I almost physically recoiled at her implications, somehow mixing in an image of my father spewing his totalitarian crap onto screens across the galaxy. That would never be me, but when I spoke up publicly—if I spoke up—not everyone out there would agree with what I said, either. I would never expect that.
And part of me felt like I was just out of school, just out of Starway 8 and still muddling my way through the start of adulthood, even though eight years had passed. I didn’t want that kind of responsibility. I had it on my own ship, and that was enough. Simply not getting caught or killed was a good day for me, for any rebel space rat. That same part of me wanted to pass off the serum. To get rid of the stuff and make it somebody else’s decision.
“My fight is here,” Mareeka said. “I might not take up arms myself, but don’t think for a second I don’t know how many of the children I raise end up in our not-war.” Her expression didn’t sadden at that, for those lost, or maybe lost, like Gabe. She looked like a general, her eyes on the future, her conviction strong. “My part is to show the difference, to demonstrate that the Overseer’s way is not, in fact, the only path. Every child who comes through here can then choose what to do with that.”
Mareeka was laying things out more plainly than she ever had before, at least in my presence. She wasn’t telling me what to do, but she was letting me know that now was the time to step up my game if I wanted to.
“How has this place not gotten destroyed?” I asked. Not every kid reached their majority and went straight out in search of a rebel crew to join, but plenty of them did. And those who didn’t… Well, they lived out their constricted lives, but