“It’s time, and nobody’s here yet.”
Jessica managed to squash her impatience as she peeked around the corner of the banquelle, a tall standing bridge that arched over the wide underground river that was harvested by above grounders through the hard labor of the below grounders, who were not allowed to drink of it, or to bathe in it either.
The below grounders had a recycle water facility that pumped used water from the above grounders and into the below sinks and toilets. The penalty for drinking from the river was automatic death. The surface of the water had been electrified, and any who dared to dip even a hand into it died as soon as their fingers or cups touched that shimmering surface.
Just one more injustice she had always wanted to right.
Once upon a time she had wanted to save that planet from its cruel caste system and its federation overseers. Now she wanted to save it from an even worse fate. So where were the goddamn stamps she needed?
“Worker above, watch your heads, nobody can cross the banquelle due to work.”
The words were muffled and came from above. Her eyes went up. A worker swung along the beams, his booted feet resting on a slim metal knot in the long cord that the workers used to climb.
She blinked and looked away. A small packet fluttered in the air, and she grabbed at it, cupping her palm to conceal that packet as the worker went by then upward, climbing fast toward the spiked upper walkway.
“Let’s go.”
Talon had seen the exchange, and they headed off quickly. Her shoulders tensed constantly. The below was a mass of stores with no credit but real credit signs in the windows, recruiter offices for work labor, pawn buildings—many with women and children standing in front of them in ragged lines.
Talon asked, “Why do they let men pawn but not women?”
Her smile was bitter. “Good question. One I never understood. Women and kids can be pawned or outright sold but men, unless they’re minor boys, can’t be and the only ones who can pawn their kids are men. Maybe it’s because most women would not pawn their children and the Federation knows it. My father burned his hand and was unable to work, and he pawned me for a year’s service to get the credits he needed to have it rapi-healed so he could work.”
His hand touched the small of her back. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I got a job working in those tunnels, cleaning trash. That’s how I met our friend. I saved him and some of his friends after one of them decided it would be a lot of fun to see if the tunnels they had heard of were real or not.”
“That’s why you hate those rats.”
His hand rested on her arm again, and her heart hurt almost as much as her memories. “Yes. I saw three adults die my first day down there when they got scared, and their fear drew a massive swarm. I ran. I ran away, up the ropes into the perches where the rats could not climb and I…I just watched them die.”
Talon stopped walking. His hand stopped her feet as well. He turned her to face him. His voice was soft. “It wasn’t your fault.”
The hard lump in her throat was salty and bitter. “I should have helped them to live.”
“How old were you?”
Her throat worked, but the lump did not go down at all. “Seven.”
“And they were grownups, Jessica. You were a child. You had no weapons and no skills, and all you could do was save yourself. You did that and because you did that you have been able to save a great many people. Stop blaming yourself for their deaths.”
How had he known that she did? Nobody knew that. Not Yori, not anyone. “I…I don’t know if I can.”
He drew her into a small alley between a drink house and a washaterium. “Do you know how many people I saw die when my planet died? I saw children swept into the sea. I saw men I knew go deep into the earth that split open and swallowed them, and women and more children died that way too. I stood in med-bays and heard them screaming in pain and dying. I watched those who could not get aboard before the warp happened to try to make it to ships already lifted off and leaving them behind and I have never, not once, forgotten those faces or the sound of their voices. I understand how you feel.”
Jessica had known that Talon had seen his home planet destroyed, but it had never occurred to her until just that moment that he would have seen so many of his people die. He did know how she felt. How could he not?
His fingers traced along her face and she shivered. His face was so close to hers, and his mouth parted slightly in what seemed an invitation for a kiss.
That was an invitation that she could not resist and did not resist. Her mouth found his, and her lips parted as his tongue stroked past her teeth and found her tongue. Her body pressed closer to his as her breath left her lungs in a slow breathy exhale.
The kiss lingered. It was passionate but soft and tender at the same time, and it soothed away the anguish of her memories: a welcome thing.
It was Talon who broke the kiss off. She stared at him as he said, “I’m sorry. I know you and Yori are… Well, I don’t know what you are… And I know that you don’t care about me. I care for you though, Jessica. Very much. If we manage to live through this, any of this, I would hope that one day you could care for me as well.”
An incredulous laugh sprang from her mouth. “I do care for you. I thought you cared nothing for me. No, that’s not right. I thought you regarded me with the same affection as you regard the rest of the crew. I thought you respected me as a warrior but had no want for me as a woman.”
His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “I would’ve thought that thing in the shower would’ve told you how much I want you.”
Her cheeks heated slightly. “I might owe you an apology for that. I truly didn’t mean to just walk into your chamber and seduce you.”
Talon gave her a wicked grin. “Oh, I didn’t mind. In fact, for a minute there I was pretty sure that I was just dreaming it was happening. It would not have been the first time that I dreamed it.”
She gawked at him, hope and joy lifting some of the despair away from her heart. “I wish we could stand here all day and talk to each other about this, but we can’t. We have to get moving.”
His head inclined forward and then affirmative gesture. “We do. Show me the way back to the ship so we can get this done.”
Done?
Until those who were trying to overthrow the Federation were removed from power and until the Gorlites were eradicated from the universe they had terrorized for so many centuries, this would never be done.
And even after that happened, it would still not be done. She would forever be wanted by the Federation, and so would he. They could go back to that planet that he had purchased along with his siblings and live outside of the Federation rule, but once they did that there would be no more flight for him.
That bothered her greatly.
Talon lived to fly, and she could not imagine him not being able to, or him ever being happy without a ship to guide through space.
There were shouts on the narrow roadway ahead of the alley. Jessica and Talon instinctively flattened themselves against the wall and then sidled down it, heading toward a shadowy L-shaped corner that might provide them more cover.
They had no sooner ducked into the cover provided by a large trash receptacle than bright lights flashed from the head of the alley, pointing toward the blind wall nearby and the walls of the buildings that formed the small alley.
A querulous voice cried out, “Capo! I saw her! I’m telling you, it is her! I saw them come from over there!”
More voices floated into the alley. Some were raised in jeers of derision. “Capo, you can’t believe a word that old-timer says! He’s been drinking too much wheat-fire!”
Talon’s fingers tapped on her arm, a signal they had worked out several months before when they needed silence but also to communicate. Three taps. That meant get ready to fire. Jessica’s hands slid her weapons from the holsters with slow and silent movements. Her entire body went rigid with tension, and her heartbeat first sped up and then slowed considerably as she forced herself to breathe and relax her muscles so that she would be ready to spring into action and would not be hampered by muscles too stiff to move.
The lights continued to probe into the alley. Jessica didn’t dare peek over the trash receptacle or around it for fear that her shadow or her hair would give her away. Instead, she directed her eyes toward the walls of the buildings beside them and watched the shadows move across the brightly lit walls.
Talon was doing the same thing. He didn’t move anything but his fingers. He spread four of them across her forearm and pressed down wiggling them a bit so that she could be sure of what he meant.
Four Capos in the alley, and who knew how many more on the street.
She should shoot that damn old man herself!
A great hue and cry went up. Someone screamed, “There she goes! And that alien with her! There! Off toward the tenth exit! They’re probably headed for the tubes!”
Jessica held her breath. She did not know who was pointing the Capo in the wrong direction, whether it was a friend trying to ensure her survival or just a citizen caught up in the excitement and seeing ghosts. It didn’t really matter either way. All that mattered was that the lights suddenly went off and the sound of heavy footsteps heading away from their hiding place rang out.
A door placed at the rear of the building and obviously used by whoever had to dump the trash opening. A familiar voice hissed, “Hurry, please! I had a friend distract them and point them in the other direction, but they won’t stay on the wrong track for long. You should know this.”
Talon went taut with tension, and she whispered, “Go. Selena is a friend.”
They dashed into the building and Selena, a tall and emaciated woman with deep-brown eyes and hair that had gone solid gray, whispered, “To the roof. They’re on the streets, and on the streets, they’ll stay. You’ll have to take the hard way.”
Talon balked. “How did you know we were in the alley?”
Selena’s eyes narrowed. “Did my man not get you what you asked for when you were waiting at the banquelle earlier? Do you think I don’t know everything that happens below?”
Jessica understood why Talon was so jumpy. It was hard to know who to trust. Yori had told them that the back of the resistance had been broken, and it seemed it had been but there were some who still went undetected.
Talon nodded, but his hands stayed very close to his weapons. Selena hissed again, “Go! We have risked our very lives for you this evening. Do not forget us.”
Jessica said, “You have risked far too much far too often for me to forget you, Selena.”
They took the stairs, treading as softly as possible. Jessica’s hands found the latch for the roof, and they stepped out on it as she closed the latch. A volley of voices and what sounded like weapon fire made them drop to their bellies and crawl to the edge of the roof so they could peer down.
An old man lay in the middle of the narrow and dim street, one hand thrown up over his head as if he were still protesting the taking of his life. Anger boiled up in her as one of the uniformed Capo landed a kick in the old man’s ribs.
She’d wanted to kill the old man herself for betraying her, but his betrayal was something she could understand. Kicking an old man after he was already down and dead was not something she would ever understand.
She heard Talon’s weapon move. She heard the chink and slight scrape of its body meeting the brick of the roof but she did not understand what he was going to do until four laser streaks jetted from his weapon and all of the Capo standing over the dead man’s body also lay dead.
People screamed and began to run. Jessica grabbed Talon’s arm. Anger blazed even higher as she shouted, “Why did you do that? Now the Capo will come in here and kill them all! What were you thinking?”
Talon leaped to his feet. He directed a laser blast at one of the surveillance nodules located further along the street. It went up in a puff of smoke and fire. He then blasted out the windows of one of the Federation’s pawnshops, just as one of the Federation pawn officers came walking through the door with a set of keys in his hand.
The Federation officer’s body was neatly severed by the ferocity of the blast that Talon leveled. Jessica’s hands went to her mouth as she staggered to her feet. What was he doing? He was sabotaging the entire operation that had barely had a chance to begin! She screamed, “What are you doing?”
Talon pointed his chin toward the pawnshop. Wide-eyed women and children, obvious pawns who had been standing nearby began to break and run as the pawnshop went up in a ball of flame. Talon said, “I imagine by the time they sort all this out, it will be too late for them to find the poor souls who were pawned, don’t you?”
On the street, people ran toward the dead Capo. Quiet fell, and Talon stepped to the end of the roof with his weapons and his hands. His voice rang out strong and proud. “The Gorlites are coming in two days to take this planet. Those above already know this. They would have left you in ignorance until the very moment that those monsters descended upon you to murder you all or to sell you into whatever slavery they could.
“We can fight them. We can. But we have to fight those above first. They will take every available ship off the surface of this planet if you do not stop them. They are already fleeing, and they intend to leave you here to die. Will you not stand up now? Will you continue to be forced to live below ground like mere slugs? Or will you fight?”
Murmurs began and then swelled into angry shouts. Jessica said, “What have you done?”
Talon’s silver eyes glinted as he replied. “I’ve made them aware of the situation. They needed to be aware. All this talk of patching in is stupid. I would not have said so to your friend because it’s clear that he runs the resistance from an ivory tower of sorts. He’s never been out here, and he doesn’t know how to raise an army. He thinks he can do it from some impersonal distance and you can’t.”
Her mouth hung open. “You planned this the whole time! You didn’t care about getting the paperwork for the ship at all!”
Talon shook his head. “I didn’t know what the below looks like or what it was about until I got here. And I do care about those stamps. I do care about breaking experienced fighters out of the prison. We need them. Now we have the perfect diversion to get back to the ship and get the ship to the prison.”
Jessica knew he was right, but they didn’t lessen her anger. “Don’t you understand? Yori will die for this!”
Talon said, “We have to move.”
They did move. She moved far back from the edge of the roof and then took a running start, elongating her body and pumping her arms and legs fast as she sailed over the rooftop and onto the next one. Talon came in right behind her. Soon they were making their way across the below, rooftop to rooftop.
Jessica could not help but look toward the streets below. Riots had broken out, and the Capo were charging in. Normally when the Capo came, and people scurried before them, they ran from them and did their best to protect their loved ones. Not now. They were meeting the armed capo with whatever weapons they could pick up find, and she paused for a moment, realizing that Talon had, with one simple gesture, managed to do the one thing that she and the rest of the resistance had never been able to do.
He had encouraged the population to fight back.
They came to the exit. Talon took aim at a surveillance nodule from the rooftop upon which they stood, and he blasted it into smithereens. They scrambled down the side of the building, using the old gutter pipes to make the descent.
There didn’t seem to be much use in trying to hide as all of those people swarming the gates now were also trying to get out of the below. Jessica heard bloodlust in their voices. A shudder worked its way through her body. They had been denied the right to live above for so long, and now they had every reason to hate those who did live above even more. There was going to be war and destruction all around her, and while she had long wanted the awful caste system to be brought down to its knees, she had somehow never expected it to happen in such a way.
They made their way out of the gate and into a hovercraft. Jessica plugged credits into the slot and typed in the coordinates. The hovercraft zoomed upward and away from the above, headed toward the docking stations. Her entire body shook with both anger and triumph as they flew their way back toward the ship.