Revenant Slaves Chapter 22: Chapter 21: Luna

Read chapter 22 of Revenant Slaves by Zee on NovelPedia.

Chapter 21: Luna Luna stared at the image now displayed on her terminal. It was aerial footage showing thousands of people gathered. Then it shifted to a recording of a city square under a domed sky, beyond which lay the cold expanse of space and a distant planet. Then it shifted to the insides of a cruise ship, with the huge transparent panels showing the ship was in orbit of a beautiful blue gas giant. The images kept shifting, between borders, planets, solar systems, and between people; the privileged and the deprived. No two settings or the people in them were the same. All these different scenes were united by a single central focus. They were all seeing Luna’s nightmare. She had to give credit to whoever had been recording, even her own nightmares had never managed to project this scene so vividly. Because every frame she saw reflected her own almost lifeless face back at her, and her father's, who was squeezing the life out of her. That was the image that had spread throughout the empire. Her worst humiliation was now the rallying call for everyone in the universe to commit all kinds of atrocities, and they did it in her name. All the while waving flags and images of her collapsing figure, from the noose formed by her father’s hands. She covered her mouth and swallowed hard, willing herself to control the rising bile; her eyes would unfocus, looking anywhere else than the screen in front of her. Luna might have been able to shut them off and hide away, but Yelena couldn’t. She still had 3 more hours of briefings and meetings to attend. Then she had her training sessions with Avraham. “These are some of the images from our sector, Lord Avraham. Most of the breakouts have already been contained. The worst places to be hit were still the outer Systems. Where the Knights maintain a minimal presence. Most of those worlds rely heavily upon the slave population as a key resource.” Niko’s voice was as calm and collected as ever. Luna’s breathing became uneven as Niko kept cycling through the worst of the uprisings and their aftermaths. Up next were the casualty reports from all the different planets that they had seen. Most of the casualties were civilians. In the rare cases when the temple's military forces took losses, or when one of the nobility did, there was no quarter given. In those uprisings, the cost of civilian life would increase tenfold. Luna kept scrolling through those incident reports, each starting with her limp, suspended figure. ‘I hate this, I hate this so much.’ Luna couldn’t look away, even if she wasn’t responsible for sharing those images, even if she hadn’t asked these people to fight. They chose to do so for her. They loved her. More so than her own family and friends ever did. ‘How many of them would die for me?’ She wanted to think she loved them in turn, but for that to be true, she had to know and understand them, which she didn’t. She started recalling a distant memory, her first excursion out of the White Palace with Avraham. She had been 11 at the time. Young and impressionable. It was also the first time she had worn a disguise like the one she was using now; she had been most excited about that. Avraham had taken her to an orphanage and had left her there. He would visit her thrice a day, but mostly she would be left to her own devices. She was excited the first day; she interacted with everyone, always with a smile. She had been quickly ostracized by the other kids because of her overenthusiasm. She almost cried in front of Avraham when he came to visit, and that had all been before lunch. After trying and failing to finish the food they were serving to the children, she walked around observing the other children. She saw that most of the children who hadn’t been at the orphanage long sat near the windows, staring out at the gates. Those children had been more willing to speak to her. They needed comfort, and she was eager to offer it. That’s how her month began with her first friends outside