Page 1 of Seven Oars
Chapter 1
Their evening meal was quick and finished early. One by one, the women dropped used paper plates into a bag Fawn held open. Rosamma carefully added hers in too.
It was Fawn’s turn to take out the trash.
Rosamma watched her leave the cabin, humming a tune as she went.
Fawn was the most approachable of the group, with a hearty, ready laugh, the kind of person who never met a stranger.
Feeling awkward and decidedly un-Fawn-like, Rosamma settled on her cot and picked up a book, pulling her soft shawl tight around her shoulders for comfort more than warmth. She wanted to finish the book before they left Meeus. Ren had warned they couldn't take too many things with them.
Things. The women in Rosamma’s party worried about leaving things behind. They talked about them and lamented their loss to one another, shaking their heads and wiping the occasional tear.
One woman, Anske, owned a house and liked to describe in detail the meticulous arrangements she’d made for its upkeep in her absence. She repeated every step over and over, as if to reassure herself that everything would be alright. Of all of them, only Anske planned to return to Meeus.
Rosamma’s heart gave a treacherous squeeze. This beautiful planet, Meeus, was their home. And by anyone’s standard—certainly by hers—it wasn’t a bad one. She liked her home and had never sought a different life.
But Ren had.
Instead of reading, Rosamma stared into space. Her fingers found the end of her long, thin braid, a childish habit she’d never quite broken.
The other women quietly went about their evening rituals. There had been fifteen at the start, but only eight remained committed. It was easy to change one’s mind when things didn’t go according to plan. She wished she could say, like those who had dropped out, that the uncertainty had become too great, and she was no longer comfortable taking the risk.
But she couldn’t say that. She was firmly part of this would-be passenger group, waiting to board a spaceship bound for a livable asteroid called Priss.
Unable to concentrate on her book, Rosamma let her eyes wander around the large room, criss-crossed with camp beds. Uneasiness washed over her anew. The women waited on pins and needles for Ren’s new alien friend, Lyle, to take them away from here. That was all they wanted.
But Lyle, their pilot, was so sick…
Fawn’s hearty laughter rang from just outside the door.
“What part of being quiet doesn’t she understand?” Alyesha’s deep, low voice came from the shadowed corner where her bed sat. It was the most private and, therefore, the most coveted spot in the cabin. When they’d first arrived at this place, several women had engaged in a subtle jostling to claim it, and Alyesha had won. Alyesha often won.
Old Gro grumbled something offensive, never looking up from the small screen game she was playing.
“Fawn is so energetic,” Mara offered in her typical peacemaker tone.“It’s hard for young people to stay cooped up for so long.”
The door opened to let Fawn in, her hair windblown and a smile on her face.
“Rosamma!” she hollered.“Your brother’s here.”
“Don’t shout,” Alyesha snapped.
As if mocking her, a long, hooting siren announced a spaceship's departure. The throaty revving of powerful engines rattled the windows, rising into a roar. It continued for several minutes, then the ship took off, taking away the sound and replacing it with the silence that seemed especially deep after this assault on their eardrums.
“Yeah. Don’t shout,” Anske said into the quiet, parroting Alyesha’s earlier words with sarcasm.
Alyesha flopped onto her camp mattress.“You know what I mean! When they are not flying.”
Ships took off from the nearby spaceship depot multiple times a day. Most were quieter, but once in a while, a beast like this one would wake them in the middle of the night. When that happened, Rosamma couldn’t help but imagine herself launching into space, surrounded by all this mighty power that was at the same time… fragile.
“He told us to stay quiet,” Alyesha pointed at Ren, who poked his head in the door.
“I did tell you that,” Ren confirmed.“Voices carry. This is supposed to be an uninhabited zone.”
The women were camped out in what used to be a convention room at an old training camp. The camp had long since closed, and the surrounding area was now designated as a buffer zone between the city and the spaceship depot.
They were squatting in this neglected, musty building because Ren wanted them as close to the spaceship depot as possible without actually crossing into its heavily guarded perimeter. Inside that perimeter was a small ship that Lyle, with Ren’s help, planned to commandeer. When the time came for them to board, seconds would count.
