• • Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way
• May 31, 2025

Sunset: Heroes of the Milky Way (Chapter 20)

Alloya Ra’non

Limo Ride

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Terra, Aleti, and I get back in the car, collectively deciding to leave the party early. It definitely wasn’t just me. Terra gives some excuse about time dissonance, and I smile and wave.

I bitch as I plump down into my seat, “Now I remember why I hate parties.”

Aleti plops down next to me, and remains far more positive than me. “At least we got some information. I don’t know what to do with it though.”

Lucky you, for a shut in, she was good at talking to people. Now, I just need to get her to talk to people her own age.

As Terra sits down in the back he tells her, “You could start by telling us what you learned.” 

“We just got in the car. Can’t a lady get a chance to get situated?”

“No. She can’t,” I tell her.

“Eh, someone’s in a bad mood,” Aleti mutters. Then in a hush tone, “Maybe that someone should start sharing first?” Aleti looks at me with a glint in her eye as she tries to pour herself a drink from the alcohol we were given.

“Fine,” I mutter as I take the drink from her, “in a couple more years.” Oh the pout, never stops being cute. 

I don’t waste time after that, relaying to them my whole conversation with the Prime Minister. Slipping a few extremities here and there about how I’d like to throw him into a grinder. Terra smiles when I finish. 

“What are you happy about?” I demand from him.

He shakes his head at me. “Based on what you said, Womby is under his control. That means any hostility towards us, bad will, it’s not really him. He’s probably not really angry with us. He’s not really angry with you.”

While that is a preferred possibility, I’m not much for hopeful thinking, that’s the best reason to have Terra around. If Womby is being controlled in some kind of way, then maybe there won’t be so much apologizing and making up to do, but then a fight is rather inevitable. 

I do ask Terra out of curiosity, “If he’s being controlled, not just changed or blackmailed, then what about our apologies when we dropped the Shatter Drive?”

“I’d like to believe that that was a part of him trying to eek out to us,” Terra replies. I can’t tell from his voice if he really believes that, or is only being optimistic. We’ve been led to believe that Lamberine has had Womby under his control for at least a week, but what if that’s not true? It’s hard to believe that a week is long enough to brainwash someone, but who knows who Lamberine is working with and what technology he has.

Underestimating the threat led us into a trouble alot in the old days. Rogar used to come up with a new gadget, suit, or something every week to fight us. What the Regnorian Republic would have in their arsenal if he hadn’t gone down with the metaphorical ship years ago.

“I guess we’ll have to find out if he’s being physically controlled or blackmailed,” I tell Terra as I rub my temple.

He then gives me the idea that, “Then we should start to look for his parents, see if we can get any information from them, or about them. If someone wants to blackmail Womby, that would be how to do it.”

I nod my head in agreement, then shift my gaze to Aleti who started drinking some kind of wine when I wasn’t looking. As I grab the glass away I say, “What did I say?! You still have to tell us what you heard, this isn’t the moment to stop taking this shit seriously.”

She grows rather meek at being yelled at. “It’s not like I’m going to get drunk off of wine.”

“Oh, and how would you know?” I ask her.

“I was the class loser, not a wallflower, it wasn’t hard to buy a fake ID.” 

As my eyes flare at her, her own go wide. She tries to nervously change the topic to business like I’m going to forget this conversation later. “I don’t think I have anything necessarily good or bad news, just information the Rango could get if it was connected to Rivertan’s internet.

“First thing, and probably the worst, Womby is going to compete in the Ruleden Tourney for the Riverti, though that may not be surprising at this point.” Womby is a pretty much a guaranteed win, but that’s not why he is participating. The Riverti don’t need him to win, I would bet the Rango that Lamberine wants to send a message of where their Guardian’s loyalties lie. 

“Second,” she continues, “the Tourney is next week, so we have barely any time.” I can’t help but give a low growl to myself. 

I should have known that. The only reason I didn’t is because the Rango is too advanced to understand the local internet. The Rivertan Powers haven’t even invented space travel, they shouldn’t be to keep me from seeing my fucking calendar just because they run on what amounts to analog.

“Third, the Watree have been preparing this guy named Rom. Supposed to be pretty big for a Rivertan, and is pretty much guaranteed to win the Battle challenge. The problem is they haven’t trained anyone to beat the Mental and Endurance challenge, so they’re already thinking that they’re going to lose, at least that’s what the douches I was talking to said.”

Terra starts to ask, “Could one of us volunteer to participate?”

“No, apparently there had to be a rule against non-Rivertans since the Riverti once used a Leonard. They had a good laugh when it dismembered a Watree in the Battle challenge.” I could hear the contempt in her voice. She must have been holding that in all night. “Because of that rule, and that the Watree only having one planned victory, I don’t know what we could do with the information about this Rom.”

I agree with her that it seems strange to spend time on getting one man ready to win one challenge out of three. “Do you know on how they are preparing Rom?”

“The only thing these guys knew was that he’s apparently pretty tall for a Rivertan. Six feet.”

“We’ll see,” Terra says skeptically, “wouldn’t be the first species to lie about how tall they are.” 

Terra’s not wrong, the tallest usually only make 5’9”. Rivertans aren’t a particularly large species in anyway from what I know.

While they talk about the likelihood of Rom’s physique, I do wonder to myself why a group of people would get together and suffer more to give someone else an edge. The edge isn’t something that’s going to improve their lives, or give them an edge in the long run. 

Or will it?

I think about it, I think about the last time I went down and visited the Watree. The Riverti all feel like they’re living in the stone age, but technically the Rivertan Powers have reached their Information Age. They have television, internet, motorized transportation and instantaneous communication.

But the Watree lived like they had just recovered from an apocalypse, with the trash the Riverti allow them. Even their homes are made with clay, not even plaster or wood. Forget steel beams to hold everything together. 

Those that lived under cities had it worse. In the countryside, or I guess under the ocean here, they had more freedoms. They could have their own towns and go to the surface whenever they wanted, they just couldn’t enter Riverti towns. Those who lived under a city have to go without the sun. I couldn’t imagine that.

The Ruleden seems crazy as a concept, a tournament to decide an apartheid, but I can see it working, especially for ancient tribes. Prove you’re the strongest and that you can rule, and you terrify those who lost. It also quells them, makes them feel like they deserve their lot in life, and teaches them to teach their children the same. 

If by some miracle the Watree really won, there would need to be a third-party to enforce the change, or at least someone who could make sure they get a chance to sit at the table and reform this hellhole.

That’s what a Guardian is supposed to do, but with Womby at the Prime Minister’s side, that isn’t happening… 

If things are going to change, it has to be because the Watree cause it, and for people to change things, they need hope.

We need to be assurance.

“I’d like to know what the majority of Watree think of Rom,” I announce to them both.  “I want to know if anyone really believes in him, or think if they just think he’s a waste of time and energy.” 

“Why?” Terra asks.

“Something tells me that if Rom is to important to these people, that should help us help them somehow. We know we can’t help them win for now, but what if Rom can help them want to do more than win?” 

Terra narrows his eyes at me like he can predict what kind of idea I’m planning. 

“Don’t look at me like that. Rom is probably a waste of time. But sometimes, what we think is wasting time helps us figure out what we should be doing instead.”

“Was that supposed to be a lesson for Aleti?” he scoffs.

“It’s not less obvious if you don’t look at me,” she chides me too in turn.

“Can’t I just say something inspiring and clever?”

“Not if it belows on the back of a cereal box,” she says.

Terra purses his brow. “They put that on the back of cereal boxes?”