Talon was angry with himself, but he was also angry with Jessica. She and her friend Yori talked a good game but neither of them seemed truly interested in doing the one thing that would start the revolution that they truly seemed to want and, what was more, neither of them seemed to take into account the fact that maybe those above ground did not deserve to be on those ships away from the planet.

Of course, Yori would not have thought that. He was from above ground.

Talon said, “Are you angry with me?”

“Of course I’m mad at you. Innocent people are going to die now. The Capo are going to kill as many as they can. You’ve just incited them to violence. They’re going to go above, and there’s no telling what they may do to the people there.”

He regarded her for a moment. “Does it really matter? Do you not think that the people below deserve some justice? Do you not think that they’ve had a long-simmering hatred for the people who live above? Do you think that they have spent an entire lifetime living below ground like a mole without longing to see the sun?”

Her head jerked up and turned toward him. Her mouth held no color, and it was flat with her rage. “I come from below. I know exactly what it is like. Your brother's mate comes from below. She also knows what it is like. Yes, we hate those who live above. We know that we are nothing to them. We know that they get the best of everything while we get scraps. You are not telling me anything I do not know.”

He rocked back in the seat. “But you were a Capo.”

Her tone was venomous. “Yes, and I told you that my father pawned me into service when it couldn’t pay a debt. Did you believe that people who live above pawn their daughters and wives?”

Talon said, “It would not shock me.”

To his relief, her body relaxed. Her fingers plucked in her lap. “It shouldn’t. They do. But only in the direst of circumstances.”

Talon said, “I would be willing to bet that dire circumstances above are not nearly as dire as normal circumstances are below.”

She leaned forward, her elbows meeting her knees. Her head rested in her hand. Her voice was muffled. “You’d win that bet.”

He was torn all over again. She had said that she cared for him, but now after the way she had defended Yori, who was clearly one of the leaders of the resistance and worried over him, he found himself wondering again if the two of them were lovers and allies. Again, that spike of jealousy drove itself into his heart.

The hovercraft stopped at the docking station several ships below theirs. Jessica had probably deliberately misled the hovercraft, and he had to admit that was a smart move on her part.

They dashed onto the ship. Jessica tossed the package to Caleb saying, “You better use those well or we are all going to die.”

Talon went to the controls. His fast hands targeted an opening in the air traffic and the ship lifted and then shot away from the docking station, heading straight toward the prison.

The prison was a forbidding structure of stone and metal that soared nearly ten stories high. It was surrounded by a high-energy beam fence as well as a gravitational pull. Caleb did use the documents that Yori had procured for them very well indeed because they had no trouble at all getting into the prison.

Talon had to admit that he was worried less about getting in than he was about getting out, however.

As soon as they docked, Talon, Jessica, and Caleb, as well as the rest of the crew, gathered their arms and gave each other grim looks.

Talon said, “Jessica, you are with me. You might know who it is that we need to release first.”

Caleb asked, “What about the rest of us, boss?”

Talon gave them all a steady look. “My suggestion would be that you lay down as much cover for us as you can, but if things go bad, get back to the ship and get gone. The rest of you, protect Caleb with your lives because without him, you’re stuck here. He’s the only one who can fly besides me.”

Jessica’s warm body leaned into his for just a moment as she reached for a weapon that someone had extended to her. Talon’s heart made a little leap in his chest as it always did when she was near. When all of this was over, they were going to have to decide what they were to each other. If they lived through this.

Well then. It would be a damn shame to die without knowing whether or not the woman that he loved truly loved him back, now wouldn’t it?

They headed into the prison, not even bothering to keep up the ruse that they were there on Federation business. Weapons blasted, and guards either ran or stood and fought only to die. It did not shock Talon at all that most of the guards ran. It had long been his experience that those who enslaved others were bullies who, once the violence turned toward them, always ran from it.

These cells were miserable, cramped things made of ionized bars. The prisoners had no choice but to stay in one spot or risk losing a limb to those bars. Talon grabbed one guard who was attempting to flee and shook him like a ragdoll.

Talon shouted, “Where are the controls for the bars?”

The guard, obviously terrified, and shook his head and blubbered out, “I can’t tell you that. I can’t! I will be executed by the Federation!”

Jessica stuck a blaster to the guard’s temple. Her face held no expression. “If you do not tell us, you face being executed by me. Right here. Right now. Where are the controls?”

The guard whimpered, “On the third floor. In the large room to the right after you leave the up tube.”

Talon released the guard. The guard fumbled for his weapon. Jessica said, “I do not want to kill you. My fight is not with you. Go and go now if you want to live.”

The guard forgot all about his weapon. He dropped all pretense of trying to stay and fight. He ran like a waddling duck, which would’ve been funny under any other circumstances.

The prisoners had realized that they were in the middle of a takeover. They shouted and screamed from inside their cages. Some he even risked throwing objects into the ionized bars. Talon had to duck when one object flew between the bars, shattered, and left a shower of dust and debris flying around the hallway.

Jessica said, “I don’t trust the up tube.”

Talon said, “We have no choice. There are no stairs. Look.”

She did look around in her face registered dismay. “If they catch us in the up tube, they can trap us.”

Talon said, “I know. I think I have an idea.”

He hastened toward the end of the hall and stood looking upward. The bottom of the second tier of cells jutted out slightly, forming a small walkway. He said, “I think I can just make it.”

Jessica gave him a look that mingled both amusement and disbelief. “What are you going to do? Jump for it?”

Talon said, “Yes.”

Then he backed up and took off running back toward the wall fast as he could: his legs pumping in his arms moving rapidly at his sides. His feet left the floor, and his fingertips brushed the underside of the walkway. For a moment, he was sure that he had made it. For another second he was sure he hadn’t. Then his abnormally long fingers closed around a small metal bar just enough for him to catch a grip on it.

His body swung there back and forth like a pendulum, and it took several tries before he could settle his hand into a position that would allow him better leverage and balance. Eventually, he got it, and he managed to pull himself up. Once on the second floor, he found himself faced with a new conundrum, however. There was no way to back up and run from the edge of the walkway to the other. He climbed to the top of the railing and managed to grip a railing on the third floor, suddenly finding himself incredibly grateful for his elongated height.

He was now on the third floor. Jessica still stood below. He called her, “You take the tubes. I’ll be right here holding off anyone who attempts to hijack it.”

He raced towards the tube station, not bothering to look down or to wait for an answer from those who were still below. The truth was if whoever was in the control room could control the up tube, they could take that tube all the way to whatever floor they wanted to, and that was nothing he could do about it.

The tube was swift however, and Jessica and the others were on the floor and with him in a matter of seconds. They stormed down the hallway, ignoring the screams from the prisoners as they searched for the control room. The sound of weapon fire continued as more and more of the crew did away with what few guards were willing to try to fight it out with them.

The control room was locked. Talon blasted the door open with the last bit of fire from his weapon. He dropped the weapon on the floor, knowing that carrying it would be useless and it would just slow him down now.

The men inside the control room were pale and very shaken. One of them immediately threw his hands up and screamed, “We are prisoners here too! We are not trying to stop you! The Federation bred us to run this control, and we have no quarrel with you.”

Talon’s jaw sagged open. “What do you mean they bred you for this job?”

One of the men spoke in a slow and tremulous voice. “We’ve never been outside this prison. We were born here. The women’s side is opposite this one, and they breed them whenever control room operators and guards start getting low.”

An absolute rage started within Talon. He had to kill the guards that were standing in their way, and it was as wrong as anything else. These guards had never been out of the prison? They had been born there and basically enslaved into its walls? No wonder they had put in such a fight! They were probably not fleeing for their lives simply because an armed group of people had stormed in, but because they had never known a life outside that prison and now they had the opportunity to see something besides those walls.

Jessica pointed her weapon at one of the control room operators. “Open the cells for those who fought in the resistance.”

Talon said, “Open all the cells.”

Jessica gaped at him. “Talon! Some of the people within this prison are killers!”

Talon said, “I wouldn’t mind having a few killers on my team.”

One of the men who operated the control spoke in a squeaky voice. “There are several that you don’t want, if you don’t mind my saying so. They kill only for pleasure. They wouldn’t fall under your order, or anyone else’s either. They live to eat flesh, human flesh some of them, and some of them are just child killers or women killers. I know which cells are which. I can show you which cells we’re opening.”

Jessica and Talon stood behind them as the men sat at their long thinks of controls. Files came up, showing what each person was in the prison for. Jessica easily picked out members of the resistance party and Talon quickly scanned records for those who were in for petty theft and so forth and demanded that those bars be opened as well.

He could hear noise, screaming, and fighting from below, and he knew that those whose bars had been released were now fleeing. There was only one place for them to go, which was onto the ship. He looked over to see Jessica staring at him with a question in her eyes. Talon looked down at the men and asked them, “Would you want to see what lies beyond these walls?”

Jessica hissed in a breath. “We can’t trust them. We should kill them!”

Two of the men bowed their heads and said that they did not want to leave. The man who spoke in a squeaky voice exhorted them to do so, saying that the Federation would kill them anyway now that they had betrayed their owners so seriously. Talon could tell from Jessica’s face that she wanted, badly, to either shoot them or incapacitate them to a point where they could make their getaway, but he couldn’t see that happening to them.

He said, “If you want to come with me, then come with me.”

He started backing up toward the door. Jessica walked face forward with her gun up, guarding his back as he was guarding hers. There was something so amazing about the fact that she was a woman who was capable and willing to always have his back in battle.

They made the ship. Talon race to the controls and jerked the ship away from the prisons docking station, angling it upward and toward space. Jessica shouted, “What are you doing? We can’t leave Old Earth right now! We have to go back and fight for and with them!”

Talon said, “We are. But first, we need a better ship.”

Her mouth hung open. “What are you talking about?”

Talon said, “I’m talking about the fact that there is a Federation warship not far from here. And I intend to take it.”

Jessica looked from him to the resistance prisoners and the men who had left the control room to join up with this raggedy band of misfits and miscreants. The crew stared at him as if he had grown two heads and he gave them all his most charming smile.

“We need a warship.”

Jessica sputtered, “How in the name of all that is holy do you expect us to be able to take a Federation warship?”

One of the men from the control room spoke up. “If you could disable its flight controls momentarily, that would buy you time to get on the ship and to take it over as well.”

Talon gave the man a measuring glance. “Interesting idea.”

Jessica said, “No! It is not an interesting idea, dammit! It’s crazy! We have a ship, and we have to get down there right now! You caused the populace to rise up, and they’re down there in the streets fighting and dying while we’re floating around in space! That’s not fair! We can’t just leave them to die because of the consequences of your actions!”

One of the women who had been held prisoner for her part in the resistance got up off the floor and stood. Her filthy hands pushed her tangled hair away from her face as she peered at Jessica. “It is you. I almost didn’t recognize you because your hair is darker now. But it is you.”

Jessica said, “It is me! And there’s a revolution below.”

Cheers broke out of the mouths of those who had been imprisoned for being a part of the resistance. Talon let them have that moment, but only a moment because they had far more pressing issues than whether or not those who lived below were revolting against those who lived above. “I hate to tell you this. That is the least of your worries. The Gorlites are on their way, and the Federation has given them your planet.”

The entire deck went silent. Then one of the men they had rescued from the control room stood. He said, “Why? Why would they do such a thing?”

“Because there are those who would like to overthrow the Federation.”

A man stood. He looked at Jessica. “Is he telling the truth?”

“Yes, John, he is.” Jessica drew a deep breath. “It comes down to we fight on the side of the people now, and the Federation later—maybe—in order to keep that from happening, or we lose the planet forever.”

John turned to the woman next to him. “What do you say, Helen?”

Helen regarded Talon. The grime on her face and the bruises there too showed the ordeal she had been through. Her eyes went to the men they had taken from the control room. “They are Federation pawns. How do you know we are not being watched right now?”

“Then the Federation just discovered that they have an enemy within them,” Talon said.

One of the men stood. His voice was weak but grew in strength. “I don’t have any reason to fight for the planet or the Federation, in truth. My name is Five because I am the fifth born to my mother, by the way. But—but I have always wanted to do anything but stay in the control room of the prison and the bunks beyond. I want to be out of there, and if I fight just to end up there again, I don’t see any reason to fight.”

Talon felt for the man, and he knew an opportunity when he saw it. “If you fight and live, I will swear to you that you will never go back to the control room ever again.”

Five looked at the other man. “Seven?”

Brothers. Talon’s stomach churned as he finally saw the resemblance on their faces. That was why they had left together. They were brothers. Seven said, “If you swear we will never have to be there again, I will fight with you.”

“I swear.” Talon nodded at the two. “Maybe you can help us. What do you know about controls for ships?”

Five gave him a wide smile that exposed teeth that were too small and revealed the lack of nutrition in what diet he had been fed during his lifetime. “Oh, sir, we know everything about every control panel ever made for ships. They are made at the prison, you know.”

Talon hadn’t known that. His mouth sagged open. Helen sucked in a large breath. John put his hand out, and the two of them looked at the other resistance fighters.

John said, “You mean to take that warship, then.”

Talon looked at Jessica. Her face wore an expression of both hope and anger. His heart ached. He knew she would be angry before he ever pulled that trigger up on that rooftop, but he had done what he had needed to do, and now he had an asset he had never planned on having—an invaluable one at that.

He said, “Then let’s talk about that warship. It’s not far. Twelve hours from here.”

“We don’t have that much time,” Jessica said in a strained voice “The Gorlites—”

“We will have two ships and two crews which will be better to fight them with. I am hoping that when the Federation troops on the warship realize an entire planet is about to be taken and their precious Federation toppled, they will join with us.”

The deck went silent again. Talon said, “I know that for many of you, my crew, this is not your fight. If you want out, then I will have Caleb send you out on the pods to the nearest planet where you can enjoy your credits and lives. Or at least you will be able to until the Federation falls and the tyrannical despot who wants to take it over takes full control of the universe. What will happen then is anyone’s guess.”

Caleb said, “Well, you’re right about it not being my fight, boss, but I have to tell you something. The Federation is a shit thing that should die, but not if it means something worse comes in its place.”

Agreement rang out. Heads nodded. People voiced their support, as he had known they would. What else could they do? The enemy of their enemy was not their friend—not this time anyway.

Talon said, “Then we agree. Caleb, head us toward that Federation ship. Seven and Five, I need to talk to you, but not yet. Right now, I need to see you in my chambers, Jessica.”

Mutiny showed in her eyes, but she gave him a curt nod.

He turned and headed off the deck, wondering just what the hell he was thinking.

Taking a Federation warship was not at all like taking a small Federation supply ship.

And Jessica was angry as hell at him right then.

They stepped into his chamber in the same silence that had stalked them as they walked down the hallways to his chamber.

The door slid shut. He asked, “Is it because you fear Yori will be killed that you are so angry?”

Her eyes flashed. “Of course, but it is not just him. I have family down there, Talon, and people I hold dear. That is my planet and those people below have suffered for so long—I know it had to happen. I just always thought we were going to be able to effect change by doing something else, something besides bloody civil war.”

“That civil war won’t last long, and you know it. They will unite once the Gorlites hit the atmosphere.”

“Or the above grounders will simply kill off all the below grounders they can in an effort to save their sorry asses,” she retorted bitterly.

“Then nothing will have changed except that they had a chance to save themselves they might not have had otherwise.”

Jessica stared at him. He was right, and she knew it, but that anger within her was not just made up of rage at the system or the fact that he had fired those shots. It was complicated by her own complicity in so many atrocities that the above grounders had committed. She had done so much to help those below, but she had also done so much to keep them down there and starving and oppressed.

Tears spilled down her face. “You will never understand.”

“That you feel guilt over being a Capo? That you wish you had done less of what you did that was harmful?”

Surprise hit. “Are you reading my mind?”

“No, I am reading your face.” He came closer. His eyes bored into hers. “Jessica, I want more than just this. I want a life beyond this fight and whatever other fight we have to fight. I won’t lie to you; I am sick of war and blood and fear and despair. I want more. I want children and a life. I want you. If your heart belongs elsewhere, then please tell me that and—”

“I love you.” The words came from her mouth in a rush. “I do. Oh my God, you have no idea. I want peace and happiness and a life that isn’t torn by war too.”

She did. She wanted it desperately. Her chin quivered as she told him the rest of it. “I just don’t know if I deserve it.”

Talon said, “Jessica, I have far more blood on my hands than you do. I had good intentions when I started this whole thing. I had a real reason to need revenge, and I still do, but…but I am tired of it now. This: all of it. I still love to fly, but I don’t love the rest of it. Not anymore.”

His arms came up and around her. Her body sagged against his, her breasts flattening against his chest. Their mouths met. There was a promise in that kiss and heat too.

Jessica whispered, “We don’t have time…”

They didn’t. The entire universe was falling apart all around them, and they had to get out there and fight that fight or watch it all fall.

Talon’s fingers stripped her clothes away. “We will make the time. Right here and now because there might not be time later.” She knew that. They might die taking that ship, and they might die fighting the Gorlite fleet, and they could even possibly die down on the planet now in the first grip of a civil war, a war that Talon had started.

His teeth caught her bottom lip and tugged at it, sending more heat into her body. Her toes curled inside her boots, and her nipples stiffened under her tunic. His fingers found those peaks and stroked them. She kicked her trousers down and off one leg but her boots were still on her feet when he picked her up and laid her down on the bed.

Her fingers found the buttons on his trousers, and he filled her palm with his insistent and thick flesh. Her fingers curled around that staff and her hips arched. Her body arched higher, her heels digging into the mattress.

He entered her in one long and unapologetic thrust that sent her toppling into a loss of everything but her basest senses. His body was warm and heavy, his organ long and thick and rigid as it plunged in and out of her wet folds. His fingers found her clit and stroked across it, building a stronger sensation that culminated in a mingling of friction and tension that broke into a throbbing and aching orgasm that left her gasping and panting out his name as he strained forward again, hips bucking and pumping hard. He came inside her, his seed spilling along her inner walls and then he collapsed on top of her, breathing hard.

He wiped a hand over his face and murmured, “We should get back out there.”

“We should.” Her body was sated, but she wanted more. She took a breath as his weight left her body and she felt an immediate and urgent pang of absence. She got up, and they dressed quickly then headed back to the deck.

She found herself standing near the windows again, and she frowned. That odd sensation that something was horribly wrong came back. It was déjà vu, that feeling. She had felt that same feeling not so long ago standing at the same windows, and right after she had talked Talon into going after a federation ship.

What was it?

What was wrong?

The ripple came again, just a brief disturbance in the space near the ship. It was so slight that she thought, for a moment, that she was mistaken. That she could not possibly have seen that.

Only she had and, as she watched, she saw another ripple further out.

Her heart leaped into her throat.

“Talon! Talon! Forget taking the Federation ship!”

Her head turned. Tears ran down her face as her hands reached for her weapons. Talon looked up from the controls, and then he saw what she saw. His face registered resignation and bravery at the same time.

He called out, “Ready all weapons. The war begins here!”

The war was there and real. The Gorlites had been there all along, cloaking themselves just outside of Old Earth’s airspace and waiting for the signal that would allow them to descend onto the planet and take it over.

Jessica’s laser shone brightly. Her back met Talon’s as the Gorlites, seeing that the weapons were up and on and aimed at them by the ship streaking along beside them, dropped their cloaking devices.

The first shot rocked the ship. Talon’s back held her steady.

They’d fight until they died or until they could get back to Old Earth and get reinforcements so they could fight some more.

They had no other choice.

The war had begun.