Kara’s Journey by Mike A. Rhodes

Kara’s Journey by Mike A. Rhodes

‘Hey where are we going?’

The pilot didn’t turn around. Instead the shuttle veered suddenly upwards offering a view of grey clouds through the windscreen.

‘Hey,’ Kara demanded again. She banged her fist against the plastic window separating her from the cockpit cab.

The pilot still refused to acknowledge her, but the big man sat next to him, the one who had warned her about the bomb threat and ushered her into the shuttle, slowly twisted his head back to look at her.

‘Don’t you worry yourself,’ he said. His tone was flat. ‘We’ll be there soon enough.’

Kara turned and banged on the shuttle windows. Futile, at this altitude, but it made her feel momentarily better. Less powerless.

‘Hey, hey,’ the big man said. ‘Relax. Enjoy the view. You can leave as soon as we land, if you want.’

Kara turned back around to gaze out the side window at the air-traffic. Overcast sky visible in between skyscrapers and ad hoardings. A giant hologram cowboy hawked a budget beer brand and a video advert for a fast-food joint played on a sky-scraper sized screen.

Kara sat back, a pit forming in her stomach, the realisation that something was wrong slowly claiming sovereignty over her expression, and she realised that for now there was nothing she could do.

A school recess. Children play, the artificially lush grass a vivid contrast to the sun-burned, red-orange rock outside the perimeter fence. Robots monitor the children at play. None are close to optimal. One is more rust than chrome, the same colour as the barren wasteland beyond, the fact it still perfectly operates a minor miracle. Another lists violently to one side, threatening to topple if it encounters a rock or a divot. Another has a small blind-spot in its sensor range. The children know, and make a game of following it, keeping a precise distance to avoid detection and then running away shrieking when the robot, by whatever arcana of its programming, chooses to turn around.

One girl, young and shy, plays alone in a corner of the field. Another child comes over.

‘I like your bag!’ the newcomer says. ‘So, you like the Balthazar Whetstone Intergalactic Super Happy Hour too?’

The first girl looks up, all reticence forgotten. ‘I do! Calriciant is my favourite.’

‘Urgh, he’s just angry all the time. I like Emerald Sapphire, she’s the coolest.’

The first girl looks down bashfully. ‘She’s okay, I guess. Her eyes flicker upwards for a moment. ‘What’s your name? Mine’s Kara.’

‘I’m Evie. Wanna play?’

Kara had only left the hotel for a few minutes because deep down she knew that pouring over her speech again would only work her up needlessly. If she didn’t know it by now, she was never going to, and besides which it was her first time off-world in years. It’d be nice to see some of the capital rather than the hotel lobby. And, she must admit, it had been fun, escaping from her– what were they? Handlers? Council liaisons? Bodyguards?

Whatever they’d been, Kara wished they were here now.

Kara had been frantically thinking about who would want to snatch her off the street, and why. Her family came from a poor neighbourhood on a backwater desert planet, so they were hardly rich. This wasn’t a kidnaping for ransom. Was it even a kidnaping? The big man had said she could go when she landed, if she wanted. Was he just saying that to calm her? Was she being silenced for the traction her reform campaigns were gaining? No corporation would risk snatching her at this point. Would they? Would they?

‘We’re nearly there,’ the big man said, pointing out through the windscreen. ‘Just a couple of minutes out.’

Kara registered what he was pointing at and her heart lurched. She recognised the building from her research.

‘Kyona Corp,’ she whispered to herself.

The shuttle touched down on a landing pad, the concrete lapped by a prim looking lawn. It hadn’t been a long ride.

The doors swung upwards. Kara stayed put. The pilot didn’t move either. The big man got out of his seat, walked around the front of the vehicle and stood outside the open hatch. Kara only made the connection now that the shuttle wasn’t auto-piloted. Her abductors had some money, and at least a pretension of class.

‘Are you going to sit in there all day?’ the big man asked. Kara was starting to think of him as a bodyguard.

‘You could at least tell me what’s happening,’ she said. Her tone was demanding, not asking.

‘Come, take a walk, stretch your legs,’ the bodyguard said.

‘Are you going to make me?’ Kara asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But you aren’t going anywhere, not sat in the back of that shuttle.’

Tentatively, Kara stepped outside. They weren’t far from the city and yet the difference after twenty-four hours in the oppressive sprawl was striking. It was leafy and green out, with the smell of freshly cut grass on the air, and the sounds of birds singing proudly.

The bodyguard started to walk slowly towards a large, clean tower which dominated their surroundings. It appeared to rise out of the ground, a spire rather like a finger trying to touch the hand of God. Kara stepped in alongside him.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing but I have a very important -’ Kara began.
‘Relax,’ the bodyguard said. ‘I’ll have you back in time for the afternoon session.’

‘What if I decide to run?’ she asked.

A sardonic smile spread across the man’s face. ‘Know your way back?’ he replied.

Kara stands at the top of the stairs. Muffled adult voices drift up from below: Dad’s and the Singh’s, there is no doubt about it. Their arrival had woken her up though she’d not long been asleep. She’s excited they’re here; it’s been a long time since their last visit and she wants to hear about their travels. The Singh’s always seem to be away, visiting the capital or off on adventures to distant planets, meeting aliens and visiting landmarks Kara had only ever seen in stills and vids or learned about in class.

Leaning over the balcony rail, listening intently she can pick out odd words, laughter. She wants to go and join them. It’s only just past bed-time and Dad wouldn’t mind if she comes to say hello to Auntie and Uncle Singh (she calls them aunt and uncle even though she knows they aren’t related. They’re just old friends of dads. And mums.) They’re always super-pleased to see her and who knows when they would next be home?

Yet, she remains glued to the top of the stairs. She keeps telling herself she’d go down in a moment. In a second. In the next one.

She stays where she is.

The doorway behind her creaks open. Ross emerges, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He pauses next to her, trying to place the voices, and then his face lights up with recognition and he immediately starts down the stairs.

‘Ross, wait,’ she hisses.

He turns around and looks at her questioningly. Challenged, she can’t articulate what had been holding her back. Something about invading the adult world made her anxious, like breaking a taboo. Perhaps they had important adult things to discuss and didn’t want to be interrupted in their important talk. Maybe they wanted to talk about Kara and Ross without them hearing. It felt like pulling back the curtain without knowing what to expect on the other side.

Ross grows bored of waiting for an answer. ‘Come on,’ he says, turning around, ‘They might have brought us presents back from Usin or Korlth.’

He shoots off down the remaining stairs and vanishes around the corner. Seconds later Kara hears the living room door bursting open and the welcoming cries of the guests.

Kara tiptoes down a few more stairs. She can’t go in right away; it’d look like she was only copying her brother. But she might be missing out on presents, on stories, on hugs, on just listening to the adults talk.

‘Is your sister up?’ she hears Dad ask.

She has no choice now.

She slowly makes her way downstairs.

It had all been rather hurried. A mob outside the hotel; commotion and jostling, the big man with a grave expression approaching her, saying someone had called in a bomb-threat to the hotel but he’d make sure she arrived at the council session safely and on time. Before she could process it all he had an arm around her and she was being guided aboard the shuttle. She cursed herself for being so foolish.

The room she was in now was nice or sterile depending on your view. Rectangular, spacious, clean, containing a conference table and ergonomic chairs. The windows, taking up one long wall, afforded a spectacular view overlooking a sprawling manicured lawn leading to an enormous fountain and the estate was ringed by trees. People hurried back and forth along paths that dissected the grass. The cluster of the city was on the horizon, glimpsed in gaps between tree-branches; the colossal domed senate building dominating the city skyline. The sky itself was brightening now, making the colours of the trees and the white-grey buildings in the city pop and flush in contrast.

Suddenly the door swished open, drawing her attention away from the windows, and in stepped a middle-aged man in a bespoke suit that looked like it cost more than Kara’s home.

‘Sorry to have kept you,’ the man said. He flattened his tie with a hand as he spoke. ‘I would like to apologise for the smoke and mirrors in getting you here.’ His hands went up in a gesture of supplication. ‘That wasn’t my idea.’

The panic and fear of Kara’s clandestine coercion found release in a sudden wave of anger. ‘What do you mean “smoke and mirrors?”’ she snapped. ‘You kidnapped me! If my brother were here -’

She paused, took a breath, found that some of her anger had dissipated. ‘You can’t treat people like this.’

‘Kidnapped?’ the man looked amused. ‘You’re free to leave whenever you like. You’re not restrained, the door was unlocked, we provided you with water. No. We want to make you an exciting offer.’

Kara snorted. ‘Trying to buy my silence? Typical, thinking you can throw money at the problem. We’re not pawns in your little game. I can’t be brought.’

‘Of course not. What good would money do, now? It won’t bring anybody back.’

His candour struck Kara, left her floundering a moment. What he followed up with left her reeling, like a blow to the face.

‘No,’ the man said. ‘We want to offer you a job.’

‘When I was small, I said I wanted to be a rockstar surgeon who wrote games,’ Evie is saying.

‘What do you want to be now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Evie sinks bank onto the bed, scrutinises the ceiling for a moment. ‘My uncle says he’s going to teach me to play the guitar.’

‘I always pictured a big house, with lots of books,’ Kara says. ‘Not datapads, I mean the old-fashioned things you see in those remastered ancient pictures. And I’d have a lot of pets, and go on long walks into the highlands.’

Evie wrinkles her nose. ‘It’s just more rock. Rock and dust.’

‘Who says I’d stay on Freya?’

Evie ponders this. ‘What would you do for a job though?’

Kara was stumped. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I never worked that part out.’

The two girls share a look and then burst out laughing.

As quickly as they’d started, Evie puts a finger to her lips to shush them. ‘Hear that?’ she whispers.

‘What?’ Kara whispers back. Then, loudly: ‘If that’s my weird brother Ross creeping about, I swear I’ll -’

‘A job?’

Kara took a moment. Holding onto a thought was like grabbing a wild cat.

‘Is this a joke?’ she asked.

‘Not at all,’ the man said.

‘All this was to offer me a job? Why not reach out?’

‘You weren’t exactly returning our calls, Miss Wyatt. We think you’d be a fine asset to the Kyona corporation.’

Kara glared icily at him across the table.

The man sat down. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘My apologies again for the subterfuge.’

‘I was terrified.’

‘I can only imagine. And it’s why I advised against such tactics. However, we had to contrive a meeting with you somehow. Had we contacted you any other way you’d have turned us down.’

That was true enough. She stood.

‘Don’t you want to listen to what we have to offer?’ he asked.

‘No.’

She made a move for the door.

‘Please,’ the man said, gesturing at the seats around the table. ‘I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m assistant director MacDonald.’

Kara hesitated in the doorway.

‘The CEO would have loved to meet you, but she’s very busy,’ MacDonald said. ‘She’s personally visiting the upgrade work being carried out at our refinery on Iounn. We want to avoid another Freya disaster. Which is why we want you.’

Kara walked back over to the table like an animal sensing an impending trap. She took a seat opposite MacDonald.

‘It’s personal, isn’t it?’ He asked. ‘You lost someone close to you. You’re here alone?’

‘Don’t,’ Kara snapped. ‘You don’t get to use them as a sales tactic. You’ve no right.’

MacDonald held his hands up in a conciliatory manner. ‘I apologise. I mention it only as a way of bringing up all the work you’ve done.’ He leaned forwards, over the table. ‘Raising awareness of the victims of Freya. Fundraising for their families. Campaigning for increased safety measures, equipment upgrades, maintenance, tighter legislation. You must have appeared in or on every major media outlet in the sector, and beyond. It’s very commendable. And effective – you’ve got every corporation from here to Demeter Prime scrambling to review assets and working practices. I read your article in the Terran Herald. It was impassioned, articulate. Frankly I don’t know how you find the hours in the day. And we want you to carry on doing exactly what you are doing.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘Only for us.’

Kara shook her head. ‘No way.’

‘You could have any role you wanted,’ MacDonald puckered his lips and blew his cheeks out, spread out his arms to emphasise the range of possibilities. ‘Universal sharp-shooter? Safety supervisor? A spokesperson, a lobbyist, an inspector? Hell, you could run community outreach programmes if you wanted.’ He clapped his hands together and leaned towards her again, pointing paired forefingers at her chest. ‘Your remit hasn’t been set, and you could help decide it. Your portfolio could become as wide or as focused as you like.’

‘What time is it?’ Kara wondered.

MacDonald frowned, then realisation dawned. ‘Ah, your speech before the senate. We’re still in good time, don’t worry.’

‘I have to go,’ Kara said, standing again. ‘I came here to do something important. Someone has to speak for the victims. They can’t speak for themselves.’

‘And you can,’ MacDonald said. ‘On every day of the year, not just on one.’

‘And I suppose my first assignment would be to cancel this afternoons’ speech?’

‘What’s better? To raise awareness, or to be in position to actually drive change?’

Kara realised she was playing with her hands, rolling her thumbs over each other. She forced herself to stop. ‘You can do both.’

‘You can,’ MacDonald said. ‘With Kyona. If you think we’re playing you, then they’re using you. All they are is a room of career politicians, just showing their doing their diligence, just taking the opportunity to get on board a popular cause. You’re a hot topic they can use -’

‘And you’re not using me at all, are you?’

‘The difference is, we can use each other. Through us you can actually make a real, tangible difference.’

Kara shook her head. ‘No, if I give the speech before the senate -’

‘You’ll get coverage, sure. But then what? How long before Refinery-F1701 gets lost in the newsfeeds? How long until the next tragedy, campaign opportunity or bandwagon comes along?’ MacDonald reclined into his seat. ‘Just think about our offer. Please.’

‘I’m not sure this is a good idea.’

Evie puts her hands on her hips. ‘Here we go,’ she sighs.

‘We could get into serious trouble, sneaking out.’ Kara looks down at the datapad in her hand.

‘The party is tonight,’ Ross says beseechingly. ‘Coover’s parents are on New Rochester, this is the one chance. You agreed -’

‘I know, I know. What if Dad hears us?’

‘He’s more likely to hear us arguing now. Everyone from class will be there.’

‘I see them all day, why would I want to spend my Friday night with them too?’

It’s Ross’s turn to huff. ‘Look, I’m in, Evie is in. Bembe and Minty and Griggs will be there -’

‘So all of your friends?’ Kara retorts. ‘What if Coover’s parents are still monitoring the house?’

‘Forget about it, they think his brother is looking after the place.’

Kara looks from brother to best-friend and back and realises she is out-numbered. ‘You two go, I’ll stay in and finish my assignment.’

Evie rolls her eyes. ‘Come on Cautious Kara, put the pad down and live a little.’ She gently tugs the pad from Kara’s hand and casts it onto the bed. ‘You don’t have to drink, but you could at least try having some fun.’

‘I appreciate this is a lot to take in right now,’ MacDonald said. ‘And it is a big decision, but in light of your impending speech, you don’t have long to decide.’

Kara’s head buzzed with thoughts and possibilities. MacDonald had done a good job of muddying the waters, that was for sure. Perhaps she could do some real good here. She could review and recommend safety practices, urge Kyona to spend some of its sizable revenue on replacing ageing equipment and upgrading early-warning systems, to ensure there would never be a repeat of the Freya disaster. Perhaps as a safety inspector she could tour facilities, write reports, make recommendations and force genuine change.

On the other hand, it could be all too easy to stifle her this way. Stick her in an office, let her write reports and make recommendations and then bury them. Take them under advisement but never actually act. Supress her with a voice but no agency to act upon it.

Even if they hired her and then let her openly criticise them, how much rope would they give her before they booted her out? It’s unlikely she’d ever get another chance to speak before the senate. And how much would her integrity have been compromised in the public eye by that point?

MacDonald opened his mouth again and she motioned for silence.

There was too much background noise. MacDonald, the sounds of a full office complex at work, the birds outside. She needed some quiet to think.

Quiet.

Quiet.

From that association a thought struck her as violent and as sudden as a gunshot.

‘Are you blocking my calls?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘My handlers,’ Kara said, pushing back her chair with her hands, lifting her head up. ‘The liaisons from the council. No one has been trying to reach me to find out where I am, it has been hours.’

‘Well…I…,’ MacDonald looked flustered, tailed off.

‘You are,’ she said, springing up from her chair.

MacDonald was still groping for words as she bolted for the door.

Evie frowns. ‘I know you look down on the refinery but it’s easy for “Miss scholarship to a Sol university.” I need my own damn way off this rock.’

‘What about your music?’ Kara asks

‘Sure, I’m just one of another billion people hoping the right executive finds the right social feed at the right moment. Until that day, an inter-planetary corporation like Kyona are by far my best bet. You have your own escape plan, this is mine.’

This makes sense. ‘I get it,’ Kara accepts. ‘I do.’

‘Ross will be there, so I can keep an eye on him. And if nothing else I can earn some money to come visit you on Sol.’

Kara grins.

‘My Cautious Kara,’ Evie says. ‘Not so cautious any more. You’re the one to get off this rock and go exploring the galaxy.’

‘I’ll be back for visits,’ Kara says. ‘And it’ll be you soon enough.’

‘One day,’ Evie says. ‘One day.’

Despite taking a couple of wrong turns in the unfamiliar complex Kara made it down to the ground floor quickly enough. However, the slight delay gave MacDonald time to catch up and as she was walking across the entrance lobby he came scurrying up after her.
He called her name. She carried on walking and he stepped in front of her when she didn’t respond.

‘Our offer still stands.’

‘Let me out’ Kara said.

MacDonald went to speak again.

‘Let me out,’ she said firmly.

MacDonald seemed to deflate a little. Then he stepped aside to let her pass.

‘The cars are outside.’

Kara takes a slow, deep breath. ‘Okay.’

‘Take your time,’ Evie says. ‘There’s no rush.’

‘Not like he’s going anywhere, right?’ Kara says quickly. She follows up with a short, sharp, humourless chuckle which risks becoming a sob. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘I want to go. I do. But I also don’t ever want to have to leave this bedroom. Is that normal?’

Evie puts her hands on her friends’ elbows and squeezes. ‘Listen: today, try and take comfort in the fact that a lot of people will tell you how much he meant to them. It’s genuine’

Kara nods.

‘Mostly, just try to get through it, and if you need to afterwards, we’ll go for a walk or a drive around; or eat or go and have shots or do all of those things. Your call.’

‘Thank you. I just can’t believe he’s gone, you know. Everything that’s happened has just been so out of the blue. So sudden.’

Evie squeezes again. ‘I know.’

‘Maybe it’ll all feel less like a dream after this.’

Kara power-walked across the site toward the shuttle pad.

The bodyguard winked as she approached, ‘I said I’d get you back in time.’

Sirens at first. An unfamiliar, agitating, maudlin wail. A little confusion, some concerned voices. Then the explosion. Kara hears rather than sees it, is some way from it, yet heard the roar of the thing like standing next to a great engine. She feels the reverberations.

She heads outdoors, meet neighbours in the street, all looking, semi-dazed, up at the plumes of fire, at the sky turning red. There’s some screams and shouts and a greater sense of panic takes them. A rising commotion. She has a dull thought: are people still in there? And then, fresh on the heels of that, her heart lurches as a follow-up concern hits home: who is in there?

Kara stood behind the podium, bright lights sizzling her eyes. Were they making her so damn hot? She could only see the first handful of rows, and perhaps it was a mercy that when she craned her neck to look up, and up, and up still, she couldn’t get a proper sense of just how many faces were staring down at her.

She cleared her throat. They’d placed a glass of water on her podium and she wanted to reach out for it, take a sip to ease the dryness in her throat, but her hands were shaking so much she knew it’d end in disaster. She placed her hands behind her back and gripped one wrist tightly to steady the tremors.

She cleared her throat again, breathed in and began. ‘Seventeen people were killed in the Kyona Refinery-F1701 disaster on Freya.’ She took a deep breath and plunged right in to the next sentence as if ripping off a band-aid, wanting to be done with it as quickly as possible. ‘Including my lifelong best friend, Evie Maguire.’

For a moment she couldn’t continue. It felt like something had swooped in and removed her ability to speak. However, her pause added an emphasis to her opening statement which listeners could have been mistaken as a deliberate silence for emphasis.

Suddenly she felt as if there had been a release and she was free to go on. She looked up. ‘It left many more with lifelong injuries.’

She took another moment to compose herself. She thought of Ross, watching on recuperating, half a galaxy away and felt a confidence, and a connection across the stars. She felt confident. Caution gone.

‘However, our journey here begins long before that. It begins with a corporate merger over two-hundred years ago; and also, with two small children meeting in a playground on Freya. In many respects, the journey is only just beginning…’

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Mike A. Rhodes 2025