Blood Impulse

Part 9.1 - THE VETERAN

Homebound Sector, Haven System, Ariea, Kansa

Ron and Anabelle Parker had sloshed through the torrential rains of the previous night to make it back home. Their old farmhouse was for the most part watertight, though creaky. The white paint of the front porch was chipping off and the curtains were faded and musty, but it was home.

The sunlight came though the cloudy windows of the house's second floor. The morning was clear, a sign of another warm autumn day. Ron was grateful for that as he sat on the edge of Anabelle's bed.

His daughter turned fitfully in her sleep. He checked her forehead again, finding it hot underneath his fingers. Her fever gotten worse. The illness had found her the previous evening, in the midst of the cold fall rain.

Dammit. He should have known. He should have realized that she would get sick and not worried about the Amelia Kleinfelter and her son.

Anabelle took after her mother. She got sick easily, and struggled to recover. There had come a point when her mother had not recovered. A regular illness, the yearly flu, had killed her. In Kansa, such things were not always treatable.

Ron could only hope that Anabelle would recover on her own. He poured another dose of medicine for her, knowing it would only treat the symptoms, not the sickness itself. Still, when she woke, he didn't want Anabelle to be miserable. He left the medicine with a note, and headed out to work the fields.

Ron could not afford to overreact to this illness. It would take time, but Anabelle would probably recover. She always did, though the memories of how he had lost his wife were difficult to suppress as he left the farmhouse and headed for the barn.

Bessie waited in there, and he walked over to her, boots crunching in the dirt. Contrary to the neighbors' assumptions, Bessie was not the family cow. She was a military grade Rhino transport that Anabelle had elected to rename.

Formerly known as Rhino Five-Eight-Three of the Flagship Olympia, Ron had flown her off the flagship and turned himself into a renegade soldier several months ago. Bessie had stayed in the barn ever since, shielded from prying eyes and the elements. The barn's old wooden structure had managed to ward off the monsoon-like rains of the night before.

Still, Ron only paid Bessie enough heed to acknowledge that the ship was still there and grabbed a cannister of gas, pouring it into the tank of the tractor that sat beside the transport ship. The pungent smell of fuel filled the air, but when the can was empty, Ron tossed it into the pile of similarly emptied cans in the corner, ignoring the noisy clatter. He secured his wide-brimmed work hat and climbed onto the old, rusty seat of the farming equipment.

Farming was their survival out here, and it was important to ensure that the crops were well taken care of. If the fields failed to yield, then they would go hungry. Life here was rougher than it was in more economically developed countries like Valkar.

The Parkers kept no livestock and traded fresh ears of corn for local milkman's day-old leftovers. Ron hunted regularly in the shipyards for deer. The dense vegetation was an ideal habitat for them, and that was the only meat they could afford. Yesterday, his hunt had been a bust, but the guns he'd looted would sell for a handsome sum. It would be enough to get them through the coming winter.

The tractor lurched out of the dimly lit barn, its wheels uneven, and Ron fell into the melodic work of tending the crops. It was easy to let his mind wander a bit as he plowed alongside the shipyards' artificial jungle. On the other side of that forsaken infrastructure lay the cabin where he'd left the Kleinfelters.