The Xarren Escape (Plundering the Stars Book 2)

by James David Victor

  “So,” Rayvan started, “what will you do now?”

  “We need to find our friends. Rescue Yan from the Elexaes.”

  Amara put her hands up. “Woah, slow down there, Jinx.”

  I frowned at her. “You disagree?”

  “I don’t disagree, but we don’t even know if Yan is alive, or K and Pivek, for that matter. We need to think things through and not rush to any hasty decisions.”

  “Yan is alive, Amara, I just know it.”

  She sighed. “It’s not like I don’t want him to be, Jinx. but we need to be realistic here. We can’t just break into Xarren’s estate, again, on the off chance that Yan might be alive. We need a plan and we need information.”

  “If I may weigh in,” Rayvan said, making us both look to her. “Xarren is notorious for his enjoyment of torture and making his prisoners fight each other. If your friend did something to piss him off, especially on a repeated basis, then I have no doubt that Xarren has him alive. Unless he dies in a fight to the death.”

  “Well, that’s grim,” Amara said.

  “But he could be alive.”

  “That still isn’t a guarantee, Jinx.”

  “Maybe not completely, but we have a better sense of the situation.” I leaned in close so that our foreheads were a breath apart and took her hands in mine. “If there’s even a chance, I have to take it. I can’t do nothing. I just… I just can’t.”

  Amara let out a breath and dropped her head. “I know.” She let go of my hands and leaned back. Took a sip of her tea. “Fine, we’ll try to get him out if he’s alive, but we need to plan first.”

  “Good, I—”

  “And we need to find Pivek and K if they’re still alive. We’ll need them and the ship.”

  “Okay, I agree.” I was eager to hear from them too. I hoped they were alive. K was the finest pilot in the galaxy, so I had little doubt that he escaped from that imperial cruiser. Though I was worried that that junker wasn’t agile enough to outmaneuver the cruiser and its fighters.

  “I’ve been trying to contact them, but haven’t had any luck so far.”

  “Well, then that’s our first priority. What do we have to do?”

  “I have some ideas on that,” added Rayvan.

  “You’ll help us?” Amara asked.

  “As I told Jinx a few days ago, the Elexaes have hurt enough people. If I can save someone and stick it to that despicable man and his organization, then I’m all for it. Beleak and I are at your service.”

  Amara nodded and cracked a grin. “Excellent then. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

  I raised my mug. “Let’s get started.”

  We clinked our cups together.

  7

  Chapter 7 (YAN)

  I sat on a snowy hill, which I found odd because I’d never seen actual snow before. It wasn’t as white I’d expected it to be, and it was a little too warm, but as I looked down at my thick winter coat, I figured the warmth was due to that. Which was good. I was supposed to stay warm in the snow, right?

  Ahead of me was a vast, dark field, the details of which I couldn’t quite make out. Maybe wheat? Swaying in the wind on a moonless night. There were no stars above either. Maybe it was cloudy.

  Still, it was nice out. Snowflakes fell around me and accumulated on my coat and boots, which made me smile since I’d never seen snow.

  Someone crunched in the snow beside me. I turned. It was Jinx standing over me, her gaze distant. Her red hair was tied back in a sheer scarf, dirty and moth-bitten. She wore a coat like mine, but hers was old and too small on her. I didn’t understand why mine was nice and hers wasn’t. We’d completed the heist after all. All our things were nice now.

  Even so, as she surveyed the scene, she sat down and took my hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. Jinx smiled beside me, her eyes glistening with tears and still so distant. I gulped. I hated to see her cry. I only wanted to see her laugh and smile every minute of every day.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She shook her head, still distant, not looking at me. “I’ll miss this, Yan. I really will.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?

  “We’re out of time, you and I.”

  Nothing about that sounded good. But it also made no sense. “We have all the time in the world,” I assured her. “We can do whatever we want.”

  We’d pulled it off, after all. We’d robbed Xarren Elexae, paid my father’s debts, freed my sister, and got my mom the best medicine money could buy. Now Jinx had a ship and crew of her own along with K, Pivek, Amara, and I, and we were going to torch all the slavers from this galaxy.

  So why the frown?

  Her smile grew bigger and yet even sadder at the same time. “Oh, Yan…” she breathed. She turned to me fully and stepped into me so that there was no space between us. Her amethyst eyes stared into my own, and I my heart thudded loudly as I peered back into the depths of her soul. Before I could think, Jinx leaned in and kissed me lightly on the lips. Just a soft brush of her lips, a whisper, but it was enough to set my nerves on fire and make every hair on my body stand straight up.

  “What was that for?” I asked with a nervous smile.

  Her smile faded as she pursed her lips and huffed. “That was a good-bye.”

  Panic gripped me. “Stop saying that! We won! We have everything we need. You’re not going anywhere!”

  Those eyes of hers held so much pity and sadness that it made me want to scream. Why?

  “Oh, Yan, I’m already gone.”

  “What?”

  “Look around.”

  I did. My throat seized. Fires blazed all around us. The trees ablaze, the dark field suddenly burning. Just then, I realized that we weren’t standing in snow at all. The flakes falling from the sky weren’t snow, but ash. Ash everywhere. No wonder it was so hot. But why was everything on fire? What was happening? Why, why, why?

  I turned back to Jinx and screamed.

  She was on fire.

  Through the flames, she smiled at me, as if she couldn’t feel a thing. The tongues of fire licked her skin and burned her up until she was crumbling into ash. It started at her feet and slowly worked up. I grasped for her, but I found I couldn’t move.

  “Jinx!” I cried, my throat raw as tears flooded down my cheeks.

  She gave me one last smile—a wide, bright smile so full of joy and love that my heart broke knowing that this would be the last time I ever saw it.

  “Good-bye, Yan.”

  Then the fire consumed her completely and she became ash.

  “No!” I roared and lunged forward in one futile effort. I moved, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. I was never enough. Never, ever enough.

  I gasped as I came awake. Panic struck as darkness enveloped me and I couldn’t move, but then I heard the rattle of my chains, that ever-present dripping from the ceiling, felt the cold stone against my back, saw the hallway beyond my cell as my eyes adjusted to the dim torch outside. It was then that I remembered where I was: chained to a wall in the dungeon of Xarren Elexae waiting to be tortured.

  Oh yeah, joy for me.

  And it was just a dream, another nightmare taunting me with Jinx’s death, leaving me with an aching, drumming heart and a layer of sweat that left me freezing. Would they continue? Every night until my death? Though admittedly, that probably wouldn’t be too long from now. It was bad enough that I had to endure Xarren’s physical torments, but now I couldn’t even get a good night’s sleep.

  He broke my legs yesterday and carved up my arms, but now I felt fine aside from some mild discomfort. Whatever medicine he had was way beyond biogel. The day before, he’d had one of his thugs break each of my fingers trying to get me to tell him in detail each of the times that I’d stolen from him, even though he knew damn well how many times I had.

  The answer was seven.

  And the day before that one, he resorted to a good old-fashioned beating, which resulted in a broken nose, two black ey
es, a chipped tooth and another knocked out completely. Those weren’t severe so he didn’t even bother to fix me from that. My eyes were still swollen but had settled enough for me to see. My nose still hurt, but Jax had given me the courtesy of snapping it back into place so that wasn’t so bad. I’d broken it plenty times before anyway.

  As for my teeth, well, there was no medicine that I knew of that could regrow bones and teeth, though I would have been happy for a simple false tooth, but I didn’t think he’d give me that luxury.

  So no, I just sat here every day getting the hell beat out of me, hoping I’d die so it would end. But then he healed me and I’d have nightmares and repeat that. Of course, he’d also left me no openings whatsoever for any sort of escape or retaliation. He was a cautious man. Smart on his part.

  “You okay there, friend?” asked Jax from somewhere in the darkness.

  I took a deep breath to settle my pounding heart. Nothing I could do about all the sweat though. “Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. It was just a nightmare.”

  He nodded with sympathy. “I used to get nightmares a lot. Reliving my lowest points, most involving my slave days. Pretty traumatic stuff. The brain has a weird knack for making its host suffer for no reason.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Do you have nightmares a lot?”

  I shook my head. “Never. I’m usually an uneventful sleeper. I hardly even have regular dreams. But since the heist… Well, my friend was killed, or so says Xarren Elexae and of course the bastard who shot her.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thanks.” I sighed and closed my eyes. Took a long breath. “A part of me knows I shouldn’t take their words for it. But they also seem so certain. And Xarren claims to have video proof. I hope she’s alive, but if I allowed him to see that hope, he could crush me.”

  Jax stroked his chin, his chains jingling. “We Torgorans believe hope is the greatest thing in this life.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I know.” Jinx had said the same thing, even spoke it in Old Torgoran, which she rarely did.

  “How can you be certain she’s dead?” he asked.

  “One of my crew, Rowan, betrayed us to the Elexaes. Or more accurately, he’d been working with them the whole time. He knew the whole plan, every detail of it. He would have known exactly where Jinx was supposed to be, and she would have trusted him completely. We were friends, and he betrayed us. So if he says he killed her, I feel like he was telling the truth.”

  Jax bit his lip and cursed. “Betrayal. Nothing viler than a friend stabbing you in the back. My apologies, Yan.”

  “I try to think back on any signs that he was the enemy, any hints or clues that I could have spotted to prevent this, but for the life of me, I can’t think of anything.”

  “That’s why betrayal hurts, because it’s right under your nose and there’s nothing you can or could do.”

  “You’re right. Thanks for the cheery words.”

  He laughed. “Sorry again.”

  I managed a smile. Jax was a good man. A new friend, for however short our lives would be before Xarren grew tired of us. Nothing could replace Jinx, but at least Jax could replace Rowan. I’d lost two friends, for two very different reasons. And I didn’t even want to think about Amara, K, and Pivek. I still strove to believe that they were alive and long gone. Far from me, but at least alive.

  Jax laid back down in the shadows and went still and silent for a long time. I did too, and just assumed he’d gone back to sleep. I didn’t want to sleep, afraid of the nightmares waiting for me, but no sleep at all wouldn’t do me any good either.

  But then Jax sat up, a serious thought plain in his eyes. “Jinx, huh? Sounds like a Torgoran name.”

  Random, but okay. I nodded. “She was Torgoran. You two actually look a lot alike. She was a slave too. As unfortunate as that fact may be.”

  A shiver went through him. His lips curved into a frown. His eyes appeared to glaze over. “This Jinx… Did she have deep red hair and gemstone eyes? Like amethyst?”

  I narrowed my gaze at him. “She did, yes.” Could he have known her? Her features were rare but certainly not unheard of for Torgorans. Though I didn’t know how many Torgoran slaves there were out in the galaxy. There hadn’t been any before I was born, but around that time, twenty or so years ago, the royal family was overthrown in a coup and many peasant Torgorans were enslaved by the new regime.

  So it was possible they could have known one another.

  He ran a hand over his face and held it over his mouth for a second as he gathered his wits. “Did she… Did she ever mention where she was enslaved at?”

  “I rescued her years ago from a pleasure house on Bathi Station. Real nasty place. She was far too young, but that doesn’t matter in deep space. I was still starting out as a big-time thief, was on one of my first jobs there. Had to steal a family heirloom from a mark. I found him with her and… Well, that was the first time I’d ever killed someone.”

  I didn’t regret it. I thought about everyone I’d ever killed, and thankfully, that number could be counted on two hands. Deserving or not, I didn’t like it, but I wouldn’t change what I did that night if I could.

  “Jinx… She didn’t have any life in her eyes that night. She was a hollow shell. I practically had to kidnap her to get her away. Almost cost me my life, and my boss was so pissed at me for blowing the heist that he beat me and booted me from the crew, but it was the best decision I’ve ever made. She’s been my closest friend since. But if she mentioned life before the brothel, she never gave hard details, never gave names or anything.”

  I looked at Jax, but his eyes were distant. And he was shaking with rage. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

  “Jax?”

  “My-my friend Jinx was sold to a merchant from Bathi Station six years ago.”

  My heart sunk. “Oh…”

  “Obviously, there was nothing I could do, but if I’d known that they were going to…going to put a little girl in a whorehouse?”

  He suddenly roared and punched the wall with all his might. The stone cracked beneath his strength, but even so, I could hear the bones in his knuckles crack. He didn’t even seem fazed by it. Blood seeped from between his fingers and dripped onto the floor.

  Just then Elvonna stirred, confused, as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. “Wha—”

  “If I ever get out of here,” Jax continued, seething now, his eyes filled with bloodlust, “if we get out of here, you’re taking me to that place and I’m gonna kill the bastard who bought her. You understand me?”

  I blinked at him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Bathi Station had been wiped out by Scolaren Plague, or that we probably wouldn’t escape this dungeon alive, but just nodded back to him. I understood what he must’ve been feeling.

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  He took deep, angry breaths, then finally settled down. “Thank you.”

  “Okay so, clearly I missed an intense conversation,” said El, though neither Jax nor I graced that with a response.

  Jax closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. “Thank you, Yan, for getting her out of that place and taking care of her all these years.”

  I nodded sternly. “Don’t mention it.”

  “I only wish she could have had a longer, happier life.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  El scooted out of the deep shadows of her corner and cleared her throat. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what are we talking about?”

  “My friend was killed by the Elexaes when our heist went belly up, hence why I’m in here. Turns out Jax and her knew each as kids when they were slaves. They were friends.”

  Her expression dropped. “Oh. I’m sorry. My condolences.”

  Jax waved her off. “Don’t worry yourself.”

  “She must’ve been amazing if you two cared so much for her.”

  Yeah, that was an understatement. She was the gentlest and kindest person I knew, the most
understanding, the smartest, the best. Having a life like the one she grew up with would have ruined about 99% of people, but she came out stronger. She was the best person I knew, a beacon of light in a dark galaxy.

  And now that light was extinguished.

  “Yeah, she was,” Jax said in a solemn whisper.

  “She would have made you proud, Jax. Her dream was to have a ship and crew of her own and fight to free slaves anywhere she could. If we would have completed the heist, that’s what she was going to use her share on.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad she had that drive in her.”

  “She was the best of us.”

  “Seems a shame we don’t have anything to toast with,” added Elvonna. Yeah, it was a shame. But alcohol was a luxury.

  And yet, as if the saints were smiling on us, boots hammered down the hall toward us, and two Elexae guards appeared with our morning (evening?) meals and water.

  “Eat up, you miserable skivs,” one of them said through a crooked-toothed sneer. Despite his obvious dislike of us, he placed our trays on the floor without a mess and his comrade did the same with our water. My first night down here, they’d thrown our food on the floor, but there must’ve been cameras where Xarren could see, because they didn’t do it again. He had to keep us well fed and healed to maximize our torture.

  Once the guards left, El whistled. “Well, that’s convenient.”

  I shrugged and smirked. “A toast then.”

  Jax grabbed my glass and handed it to me. I had to clasp it in both hands since my wrists were bound together. Once I had it, we raised our glasses.

  “To Jinx,” I said. “The best friend anyone could ask for.”

  “To Jinx,” my cellmates echoed. And we drank our water like we would our alcohol. Fast and ferocious.

  8

  Chapter 8 (YAN)

  It wasn’t long after we finished our meals that the guards came back, only this time it was a half a dozen and they took all of us from the cell, together. Xarren usually tormented us separately, but I supposed he wanted to have us see each other. I’ll be honest, I didn’t like the idea of watching him beat and torture and do all manner of ghoulish things to Jax and El. Sure I didn’t know them all that well, but they were good people and didn’t deserve this.