Viktor was taken aback at the question. “Katelyn’s childhood? What does that have to do with anything?”

Iren smiled. “A better question would be what doesn’t it have to do with everything. Tell me what you know, so that I know where to start.”

“Well, I know when she was young her parents died in a hovercar crash, so she grew up mostly on the streets with a few other orphans until she was able to get a job. After that, she was able to get a place for herself and the few others that stayed with her. A few years later, after all the other orphans had moved out and gotten jobs and places of their own, she met me.”

Iren nodded. “I see. That’s mostly correct, but the true story is a little bit different. Katelyn became orphaned at the age of seven, when her parents were killed. She was taken in by a foster home provided by the state, but she hated them. They always treated her like she was below their other children. So when she was twelve, she ran away and started living on the streets.

She somehow made it to her mid-teens, living off dumpster diving and the kindness of strangers. But she realized she wouldn’t make it alone when she was beaten down by a gang of kids for what little food she had. So she started recruiting. She went looking for all the kids who were like she had been and was. All those who were young, afraid, and totally alone. She-”

“Wait a second,” Viktor interrupted. “How do you know all this?”

Iren stared him down as he answered. “Because I was the first. She found me not too long after my drunk of a father tossed me out, saying I needed to provide for myself. I was barely five years old at the time. I would have died if she hadn’t found me.” His eyes grew distant as he recalled the event.

He had been huddled in the corner of an alley, trying to stay warm, hunger pangs tearing through his body. Tears had streamed down his face as he wished with everything he had that someone would come take him away, somewhere he could be warm and fed and safe. Then someone sat down beside him. Looking up, he saw it was a teenage girl, smiling over at him.

“Hello,” She had said. “I’m Kate. What’s your name.” He remembered stammering out his name, not sure what was happening. She smiled again as she heard his name. “Iren? That’s a wonderful name. Would you like to be my little brother?”

Iren shook his head, dismissing the memory. “She gathered us together, finding and bringing out the unique talents we all had. She made us a community that could rely on each other and fend for ourselves. But more than that, she made us into a family. You probably could guess that we often had to resort to less than legal means to get by, and one day we were caught. An inspector had caught onto what we had been doing and laid a trap for us. But he was so impressed with Katelyn’s skills that he made her a deal: work with him, and he would make sure that we were taken care of. She agreed.

“Not long afterwards, we were given a place to stay. We never missed a meal, and we even were given new clothes. But in exchange, Katelyn worked. She never told any of us what exactly she did, but she always came home late at night, and she had a haunted look in her eyes. Whatever it was that she had to do, it left its marks. She put on a brave face whenever we, her ‘family’, were around, but many of us caught her crying when she thought nobody was around.

“Eventually we all grew up and moved on, but none of us ever forgot what she did for us, the sacrifices she made so that we could have a good childhood. We still keep in touch fairly often, those of us that are nearby. Although, I haven’t heard from Jacob for a while…”

Viktors attention snapped onto Iren like a vice grip. “What did you say?” It was probably a coincidence, but…

Viktor’s words broke Iren out of his reverie, and he returned the man’s gaze confusedly. “That I haven’t heard from Jacob for a while. It’s odd because, like me, he was one of the first ones Katelyn took in. And in all these years, I haven’t known Jacob Grace to miss a monthly check in.”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Viktor’s blood boiled at the implication, barely contained rage flowing through his veins.“Do you know where he might be? Any form of contact?”

Iren was taken aback at Viktor’s sudden intensity. “No, not that I know of. Since he missed the check ins, it’s on him to reestablish communication. Why do you look like someone trampled all over your wife’s grave?”

Viktor chuckled humorlessly. “I guess that's not far from the truth. Jacob Grace is the reason Katelyn and I were caught that night. While Kyle may have given the order, in the end Jacob is to blame for her death.”

Iren’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean?”

“He was responsible for our getaway. His job was to get a vehicle and pick us up after we got the stuff. Instead, he showed up with a van full of enforcers and Kyle Logren at his side.”

“But… why would he do that?” Iren was baffled at the news.

“Apparently wanted some benefits when the empire inevitably conquers us using my tech. And unless we stop Logren, he’ll have made the correct choice.”

Iren hung his head, clenching his fists. “I knew he was always a little self-serving, but this? To turn on the person who sacrificed so much to take care of him for all those years…” He trailed off, and when he lifted his head, a fire seemed to be burning in his eyes. “Tell me everything you need. I’ll make sure you get it.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The autocab ride back to Viktor’s workshop was quiet, both of them thinking over the meeting.

Lydia’s mind was whirling with the revelations of her mother’s past. Katelyn had never talked about her past, and whenever Lydia asked her about it, she had been told, “We’ll talk about it when it’s time.” What must she have been forced to do all those years? What could have traumatized her so much that she wouldn’t speak of it to anyone, even those she was closest to?

She was pulled from her thoughts as the autocab arrived at Viktor’s workshop.

Lance was there waiting for them to return.

“So? How’d it go with New Star?”

Viktor grunted as he walked over to a workstation, pulling up schematics and going through them. “He’s on board. He’ll be in contact when arrangements are made. Until then, it’s up to us to prepare everything else we’ll need. When New Star says go, it’ll be go time with whatever we have.”

Lydia tuned them out as they continued to discuss the upcoming mission, going to the picture of her and Katelyn that her mother had included in her letter to Viktor. Her mind kept circling around the secrets her mother had kept. When she was young, she had kept what she had to do to provide a home for her ‘family’ a secret. When she had married Viktor, she had kept Lydia a secret from him. And even when Lydia had grown, she had kept her past a secret, from both Lydia and Viktor. What other secrets had she kept that just hadn’t been revealed yet?

She sat heavily into a chair, her mind spinning as the reality of her last few months finally sank in. A couple of months ago, her mother, the only family she ever knew, died, leaving her with next to nothing but a shattered world. Then she was doing everything she could to make it to Viktor, with a lot of help from Lance. It was weeks of working tirelessly to scrape together enough credits to purchase travel for the several hour journey, with hardly any time to rest. When she had finally gotten here, that first moment she saw Viktor, she almost gave up entirely.

She suspected those first few moments would be forever burned into her mind. The empty look in Viktor’s eyes as he opened the door still sent shivers down her spine. He had looked ready to burn the world. It had taken everything she had in order to say those first few words in the face of his harsh gaze. And then suddenly, she had a family again, albeit a small one.

Now with these new revelations about her mother, it came crashing in how she was now essentially alone among people she didn’t really know, in an unfamiliar place, getting ready to embark on a dangerous mission with her new ‘father’. What was she doing?

She suddenly realized that she was crying, the tears she had been desperately holding back for months now coming in a flood. As she sat there, tears streaming down her face, shoulders silently shaking, Viktor seemed to take notice of her. He paused in what he was doing, a conflicted look passing over his face. Lydia turned her face away, using her hair to obscure her features so that Viktor wouldn’t see. She silently berated herself for crying in front of him. He must have been thinking that she was just a silly little girl. Then she felt a warm, supportive hand rest on her shoulder.

She looked up and saw Viktor, pointedly not looking at her, an uncomfortable look on his face, standing with his hand resting on her shoulder in solidarity. She wasn’t sure, but she thought that for a second she also saw the glimmer of a tear in his own eye. If she did, it was blinked away quickly, and only his gruff exterior remained. But she could feel the message he was trying to send, emanating through that strong, supportive hand on her shoulder.

In that moment, she no longer felt alone, and it was as if her mother was there with them, her hand on Lydia’s other shoulder. Her tears redoubled, and for a while they simply shared the moment, her quietly sobbing in the chair, him standing to the side with one hand on her shoulder, silently showing his support.