Joston
You’d think Niya Redmor was a professional strategist for Engra’s royal troops, yet even though her plan has many workable elements, it has many gaping holes as well, which holes Nik, Aymee, and I work on filling in on our way to the transport raft.
Ozker, who I have to apologize to later for having even suspected him of betrayal, has already talked with Nik and Aymee about today, so he’s ready for everything and anything that we’re about to do.
Aymee and her newborn daughter stay behind at the airfield, but only after a heated argument, one that I’m happy to report Nik, Niya, and I won, although it took all three of us together. I’m afraid even two of us wouldn’t’ve been enough of a force against Aymee’s impressive arguments. Yet hypercalculation and the skills of a master engineer aren’t what’s called for here, and her baby, who doesn’t get a vote, needs her.
We get into the transport raft—I pilot, Nik copilots, and Niya works the navigation, which she’s very familiar with, especially after her stint as amateur pilot—and Ozker gives us the go-ahead.
I comm my newfound friend, Engra revolutionary and fellow daredevil, Wilm. He was so amused that my name’s Joston that he whispered his name to me, swearing me to secrecy. I’m not allowed to tell Chlo until we’re safely away, after the black shift.
Wilm. Odd that it’s the same name I’ve had picked out for my nonexistent unborn son, and as soon as I heard it I felt it was a good omen.
Over the comm, Wilm and I discuss things for a minute, just long enough that no one can possibly intercept us, then I sign off.
“How is it you’re not worried about talking with him over the comm?” Niya says. “Couldn’t the troopers be listening in?”
“He’s got a special protected channel,” I say, not wanting to reveal any more than that. “And we’re limiting our conversation.”
“Oh,” Niya says. “That explains nothing.”
But I don’t want to explain anything else. Because although I’m going into this sure that we’ll all end up back on the Marinax and that none of us is going to be caught, I have to protect Niya. She may not be my real life mate, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep her safe. And knowing about Lasson’s involvement with the Engra revolution is not information she should have. Ignorance on this matter could save her life. And Lasson’s.
Bad enough that I know how far Lasson’s support of the rebels goes. Even Chlo has no clue that Lasson’s been working on this for months. Nik doesn’t know anything either, although he passes me a look that says, There’s something you’re not telling me, you bastard. So I gather he has an idea.
I know only because of one drunken night Lasson and I spent together after the Marinax made a delivery on Gadnon—may I never set foot on that dreadful, disgusting world again—and the two of us could expunge our experience there only by drowning it in cheap booze. The good stuff would’ve left us too coherent, and that wasn’t what we were after.
About two thirds of the way into our drunk, Lasson started telling me about how he, his sister, Kaera, her life mate, Fitch, and a few others on Choryn had been secretly financing and supplying the Engra revolutionaries for the last few months.
Lasson was planning to use his meeting with the Engra officials about a comm deal as a cover for getting time to talk with the rebels in person.
And of course he was going to work on getting Chlo’s medical credentials restored. Although after the royals are defeated and the rebels take over, Chlo will no longer have such difficulties.
Yet we don’t know what’s happening out there right now. All we know is what the newsfeed said—that martial law is in effect. Is this because the royal troops are defeating the rebels? Or because they’re losing to them?
My instinct is to fly at speed to the palace, swoop around a few times to scope the place out, and then perhaps use the spark ray cannons that are hidden in the belly of the transport raft to help out when and where I can.
But I can’t do this. Our friends’ lives are at stake here, not just the Engra revolution, and I don’t want to fuck up either. So I fly a circuitous route, helped along by an occasional comm from Ozker, who’s monitoring the airspace around the palace for me.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Niya says.
“Have to,” I say.
“Okay,” she says.
The three of us are quiet for a while as we make our way much much much too slowly to the prison and palace.
“What are you going to name your daughter?” Niya says to Nik.
“Haven’t decided yet,” Nik says. “We were both sure it was going to be a boy, so we didn’t have any names picked out.”
“Easy to name a boy,” I say. “Joston.”
“Shut up,” Niya says. “That’s not funny at all.” Yet Nik and I are both laughing.
“Yeah,” Nik says. “That’s exactly the name we had picked out. Aymee really loves it.”
Now Niya starts laughing too, and the tension that’s killing all three of us breaks up a bit.
But just as quickly as it dissipated, it’s back again, in full force. Because now, in the distance, all of us see the flash of cannons from the palace grounds. Only, unlike last night when the fire was sporadic, this is constant.
Niya
There’s a war going on at the palace. Not just a skirmish or a small fight. An all-out war. No wonder they declared martial law—the government wants everyone who could possibly help out the rebels to stay at home so they can have a chance.
But from what I’m seeing, the government doesn’t have a chance. They’re surrounded, and if what I’m seeing is right, the rebels have an impressive artillery.
“Where did they get all those arms?” I say, almost to myself. It’s a rhetorical question.
“Ahem,” Nik says. “Speak up, Lieutenant Lynar.”
“So I’m a lieutenant now, am I?” Joston says. I look up from the nav controls to see him smiling.
“Battlefield commission,” Nik says. “Might not stick.”
“Fuck that,” Joston says.
“Do you know something?” I say to Joston.
“I might,” he says, “but I can’t say anything about it. Not until Chlo and Lasson are safely back on the Marinax and we’re out of Engra’s sector.”
“Spill it. That’s an order, Lieutenant,” First Officer Arca says.
“You can demote me right now, because I’m not answering,” Joston says.
If I didn’t love this reckless pilot before, I just fell in love with him forever. There’s nothing more appealing to me than someone who will do what’s right, no matter what.
That’s why I love Chlo so much. She’s the same way.
Aeryen is like that as well. And maybe I am a little too.
“Yeah, good,” Joston says, talking into his comm. Then he turns to Nik and looks back at me for a moment. “Friends, the rebels are blowing the east wall of the prison in five minutes. So our plans have to change again.”
“Is that where Lasson and Chlo are?” I say.
“Most likely, it is,” Joston says. “According to my sources. But we can’t be certain.”
“I liked the plan where I went to visit them and we escaped,” I say.
“Too bad,” Nik says. “Not going to happen.”
“I know,” I say.
“Take over the controls, Nik,” Joston says as he climbs out of the pilot’s seat and edges past me, then moves to the back of the raft and drops down into the hold.
“That damned Chorynean must think he just got a battlefield promotion to general,” Nik says, laughing, and I laugh too. Might as well. It’s possible we’re all going to be dead in a few minutes. No point spending them in fear or regret.
“What do you think he knows that he’s not telling us?” I say while Joston’s gone.
“I’m guessing Lasson is involved with the rebels—more involved than anything we might suspect. Maybe he’s funding them or supplying them—or both.”
“Chlo never said anything about that.”
“He wouldn’t tell her,” Nik says. “It’d put her in too much danger. Just like it’d put you and me in too much danger right now. Better we don’t know.”
“But you suspect.”
“I do,” Nik says. “Lasson has a strong desire to make everything perfect on Engra so Chlo will be able to return here whenever she wants. And getting rid of the monarchy is a big step in that direction.”
“I was so happy when I learned that Chlo had mated with Lasson. I knew she loves him, but I had no idea he felt so deeply about her.”
“There’s something about Choryneans, I think,” Nik says. “Chlo and I are both mated to one. And I think you may have noticed it yourself. Because you and Joston—”
Nik shuts up when Joston returns. His hair’s tousled and there’re grease stains on his hands, which he rubs off onto his pants.
“Gossiping behind my back, were you?” Joston says as he takes over the controls again.
“I’ll gossip right in front of you, General Lynar,” Nik says.
“That’s a much better rank,” Joston says. “I’ll be expecting a hefty pay increase.”
Then he does a maneuver with the raft that I hope he never does again—at least not with me inside it. Because I’m about to lose what little I ate for breakfast.
“Brace yourself,” Joston says just a little too late, but I do anyway.
“The spark ray cannons?” Nik says.
“You’re damn right,” Joston says. “Hold on, everyone.”
If I didn’t know that Joston was such a superior pilot—the landing he made at the airfield was the most daring, most impressive, most difficult landing I’ve ever seen in the entire time I’ve worked there—I’d be terrified.
Because we’re now flying so low we might as well be on the ground in an s-car.
“Don’t worry, Niya,” Joston says as he swoops down farther still. “I used to be an aircar pilot. This is easy.”
“You are forbidden to ever teach this maneuver to Aeryen,” I say, trying to keep the mood light, but also laying down the law.
“Ah, that’s not until lesson five,” Joston says as he unleashes the spark ray cannons on the palace troops just below us. I can see their faces—we’re that close. And I can see them fall. Even though they’re the enemy, my heart sinks.
“Knockout, not kill,” Joston says, reassuring us that we’re not in the business of murder.
“You have to love a good revolution,” Nik says.
“Especially one you can win,” Joston says as he swerves around the palace, strafing the troops below us.
A tremendous explosion at the prison sends a shockwave through the raft, and I stand up in order to get a better view of the collapsing wall just below us.
“Sit!” Joston says.
No time for niceties.
I sit.
But that doesn’t make the landing any less bone-jarringly dramatic.
Yet when I see my dear friend Chlo running toward us, I forget everything else.
Because our rescue is working.