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Rain [MultiFormat]
eBook by Kim Gridwell
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$0.60 |
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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: As a courageous special forces operative for the Resistance, Rexana is accustomed to making tough choices. Today she faces a terrible dilemma when she is given the assignment of executing her estranged father to prevent an interstellar war.
eBook Publisher: Clocktower Books and Far Sector SFFH (magazine), Published: Far Sector SFFH, 2004
Fictionwise Release Date: December 2003
24 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [21 KB]
, ePub (EPUB) [36 KB]
, Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [9 KB]
, Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [60 KB]
, Palm Doc (PDB) [9 KB]
, Microsoft Reader (LIT) [69 KB]
, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [80 KB]
, hiebook (KML) [50 KB]
, Sony Reader (LRF) [59 KB]
, iSilo (PDB) [7 KB]
, Mobipocket (PRC) [9 KB]
, Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [46 KB]
, OEBFF Format (IMP) [16 KB]
Words: 2400
Reading time: 6-9 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
I was born the year it rained.
My mother says I remind her of raindrops. I suspect the truth is I remind her of my father, and of tears. Mother always did love a scoundrel. In that my father never disappointed her, though he disappointed her in everything else. He considered his parental obligations fulfilled at conception, the rest of his obligations he didn't consider. For that she'll never forgive either of us. I'm the kid nobody wants to remember, the skeleton in my family's closet. The name that comes up in hushed conversations quickly silenced. When I last saw my father he was standing in the shuttle bay at Gridwell Spaceport. I remember the event through the warped filter of a child's mind. As we pulled away from the station, I looked for him through the aft porthole, but all I could see was the dock rigging. No one told me I'd never see him again. It's been thirty years since I set foot on my home planet. And though I've only once seen water falling from an open sky, I've developed a deep hatred for rain. Mother told me I have my father's black hair, his mother's violet eyes, and her name, Rexana. I had to take her word for it. She destroyed all their holos. I tried to forget all I knew about my father. Until the resistance handed me the honor of killing him.
* * * *My father's legacy haunted me, no matter what corner of the galaxy I hid in. Holos of prisoners flayed until their skin hung in shreds were the hallmarks of his reign. Criminals of the state, errant servants, unwanted heirs, all perished in the bowels of his dungeons. Reportedly, Gridwellian politics were just as bloody. But, Gridwell was a planet rich in resources, a kingpin of the galaxy's economy. So the inter-stellar government turned a blind eye to his atrocities, in the name of wealth and progress. As his cast-off child and self-appointed defender of the underdog, I hated him. Curiosity tormented me. I longed for a glimpse of the monster. I was born in a sandstone palace on the shore of a dead sea. Dimly, I recalled a walled city where sand permeated everything. It collected in the priceless carpets, worked its way between layers of clothing and into our teeth so that even custard had a gritty crunch. The family home and the riches of my birthright have long since passed to a half brother I've never met. I still have a taste for it, even though I grew up in sterile poverty on every station from here to Centaurus.
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