Jax looked over the sands of Treble but saw only gold. The feeble inhabitants had no imagination, couldn’t see how lucrative their backwater planet was.
Stepping around the charred remains of the greeting committee, he circled his arm in the air. “Get digging.” Commotion followed behind him, his contingent resetting the Raven Breath and unloading diggers from the ships. Soon the shouts became grinding and whirring, the coarse sand shuddering with the efforts of heavy equipment.
“Commander.”
Jax turned, finding his young lieutenant. Quaid straightened his red leather jacket, Raven Flame emblem catching the afternoon sun. He stood at attention, hands behind his back and chin up.
“Problem?”
“No, sir.” His broad shoulders gave him presence, but courage wavered in his eyes.
Jax smirked. He remembered those days. A lower tier officer seeking approval and promotion from feeble-minded commanders. Men with less imagination than these desert-dwellers. They sent him on missions of conquest, stealing treasure and hijacking ships. Lucrative efforts that never lasted or satisfied. But his life on Eden taught him one important lesson.
His grin faded, thoughts of his smiling wife flickering at the edges of his mind. He turned to the expanse, wondering if more dwellers would attempt assault. “You’re allowed to speak, lieutenant.”
After a moment, he said, “Sir, what are we to gain from this world? There’s no wealth.”
Jax’s boots sifted the sand as he faced his protege. “Think beyond gold and jewels. What else is here?”
Quaid’s eyes swiveled, head remaining straight as he sorted out a response. “Sand.”
“And?”
Silence. “The scanners picked up some kind of ore.”
“Better.” Jax walked toward the black and red scout ships, mounds of sand piling near the landing gear. “Keep going.”
“Ships rarely explore this galaxy, especially this planet. Could be a good outpost hidden from the Daiku.”
“Not to mention from competing smugglers.”
“The sand could be sold for glassmaking, the ore used for ship building. Who knows about the outcroppings beyond the valley; they could be useful.”
Jax grinned, watching his men crawl out of the holes with yips and hollers. Some held chunks of black metal while others pushed hover carts toward the fresh mines. “The greatest treasure is resources.”
“But the Raven Flame don’t occupy worlds. We don’t have the manpower.”
So close. Jax shut his eyes as he turned. Quaid had a loyalty he admired, but his heritage on an industrialized world confined his thinking to basic operations. Work for gold, buy resources with gold, repeat. It’d taken months to free him from his tablet, a constant slew of Raven Flame propaganda.
Breathing in the dusty air, Jax replied, “There are ways to increase our numbers. As there are ways to enslave a world without setting a guard at every door. We merely need to show our might, that we’re willing to do whatever is necessary.”
Quaid flinched, brow falling ever so slightly. “Did the leaders approve this action?”
The flickers returned, Olive’s twinkling laugh tickling Jax’s ears. He bent his head, biting his tongue to quell the pain the memories brought. When the tightening left his chest, he raised his head. “What do you want your legacy to be?”
“Sir?”
“Your legacy. Do you wish to be a pirate, stealing ships and gold rings to fatten lazy pigs at the top? Or do you want to accumulate your own power, command forces that worship the ground you walk upon? The leaders are too stupid to realize what Raven Flame can become. I have a vision for our operation, a future where we control our fates and those around us. Not even the gods could deny our requests.”
Perhaps he’d said too much, Quaid’s form growing rigid. The lieutenant never displayed surprise or fear, but his eyes held these and more.
Jax waved him off. “Another time. Supervise the others.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alone on the golden dunes, he traced the perfect horizon of blue. He couldn’t remember Eden, the lush farmlands and trodden paths. He’d seen too many worlds to attribute one characteristic or another to his former home world.
But he could never forget Olive. Her perfect smile and twinkling laugh. Her caring eyes and sinuous frame. Yet these memories couldn’t be separated from atrocity. The day she went to the market and never came home.
Jaw locking and heart clenching, he eyed the sky. Tried to see across the galaxies, past moons, space ports, and stars. To the planet he’d called home, to the farm where his brother lived. Where his son now grew.
“I will return. Once I’m worthy of you, I will return.”