Liberate: Starship Renegades, #2

by S. J. Bryant

  "But soon," Piper said. "They'll be moving everyone. They know they're compromised."

  Kari sat shaking her head. She couldn't. They couldn't. It was far too dangerous and it would mean risking Piper's life, again. They couldn't do it. But when she went to argue with Piper she saw flinty determination in her eyes—a look she remembered from childhood. No matter what Kari said now, Piper would do what she wanted. It was just like the time Kari had said they couldn't go to visit their parents on a katium asteroid. Four hours later she found Piper buying a ticket on a rusted space shuttle, just five years old.

  If Kari didn't agree to save those people then she'd have to tie Piper up for the rest of her life, or she'd just go and do it herself.

  "This is a bad idea," Kari said.

  "It's the right thing."

  Kari threw up her hands. Since when did doing the right thing ever get anyone anywhere?

  CHAPTER 21

  Kari shook her head. "This is a bad idea."

  "We're committed now," Wren said.

  Kari frowned as she watched Ghost—and the attached stealth ship—pull away and disappear into the dark sky above. She didn't like the idea of letting anyone—even Ryker—fly her ship, but they couldn't leave it on the moon and someone had to look after Piper. So Ryker had dropped Kari, Wren, and Atticus on a small transport moon, rarely visited by the Imperium. From there, they would catch a transport shuttle to Zenith while Ryker looked after Piper and Ghost.

  The last few hours had passed in a mad blur. The whole time Kari had wished that someone would disagree with the plan, but everyone, even Wren, was okay with them risking almost certain death just to save some strangers back at the facility.

  Kari didn't like one bit of the plan. She hated being away from her ship, hated being away from Piper, and hated the idea of risking her own life for strangers. It's not like they would do the same for her.

  The bustle of the crowd brought Kari back to the present. People pushed and shoved through a packed square while others shouted from the edges. Not much business actually happened on the moon, it was more of a waypoint for people who couldn't afford their own transport. Kari had even come here a few times to pick up passengers, it wasn't great money, but it was easy.

  "If we stay here with our mouths open, someone will notice," Wren said.

  "Fine, lead the way." Kari still hadn't worked out the whole plan yet. She figured they'd go to Zenith and try to find help. Someone in the resistance might be willing to assist them, like Alec. He seemed determined to save the people in the facility, maybe he'd be willing to team up.

  Team up.

  Kari hated the very thought. If life had taught her anything, it was that she was better off doing things for herself, on her own. Other people either got in her way or betrayed her. But this time she didn't have much of a choice. Still, she'd keep her eyes open, and the first sign of trouble, she was getting out of there.

  They shoved their way to the back of a long line that snaked across the moon's surface to the base of a tall shuttle.

  "This is it," Wren said.

  The people in front of them wore clothes, little better than rags, caked with dirt. Their expressions ranged from dejected to hopeless and their shoulders hunched over, as if carrying massive weights.

  Wren had warned Kari and Atticus that they should dress down, disguise themselves, but even in an old shirt with a few holes and a torn pair of jeans, Kari felt overdressed. It had been a long time since she'd had to wait in line at the public shuttle station. The Imperium provided it so that workers could travel from Zenith to the nearer asteroids to assist the crystal hunters with menial labor, but they didn't dedicate any extra money to safety or comfort, and even then, you had to pay for the privilege of riding on it.

  Kari scowled as a woman—better dressed than most other people on the moon—strode past and pushed to the front of the long line. The man selling tickets glanced at a screen as she went past and nodded. She entered a different door to the rest of the passengers.

  "The class system hard at work," Atticus said.

  "And we'll be lucky if we can afford tickets at all," Kari said.

  The line moved at a snail's pace, inching forward every few minutes, just to stop for apparently no reason. Kari fidgeted and kept standing on the tips of her toes to see to the front of the line, but nothing she did made any difference. What was taking so long? The longer they spent here, the greater the chance was of someone noticing or recognizing them, or of someone asking questions about the missing Imperium ship which was still awkwardly attached to Ghost.

  She squinted up at the sky, but of course couldn't see Ghost. She'd given Ryker strict instructions to take her out of radar range and to stay away from any passing ships. She hoped no one flagged them. What would she do if Ryker and Piper got taken? Never forgive herself.

  Kari strained again to see the front of the line and the man there who seemed to be intentionally taking as long as possible.

  "You won't make it any faster, and you're drawing attention," Wren said.

  "Well what's taking so long?" Kari said, flicking her hand toward the front of the line.

  "It's just what it is. At least try to blend in."

  Kari hunched her shoulders but she suspected that anyone who took more than a passing glance at her would see that she was filled with rage rather than desperation. Atticus was doing a better job. He had a natural knack for blending in and going unnoticed, hell, half the time she forgot he was there.

  An eternity later they made it to the front of the line. The man glanced over them with disinterested eyes. "Three? That's thirty tokens."

  "What?" Kari said. The people nearest turned to stare. Wren gave her a hard look and Kari tried to lower her voice. "Thirty tokens? Who has thirty tokens?"

  The man's lips thinned. "You can go into cargo, that will cost six."

  Kari wanted to argue, she wanted to yell and scream, but she couldn't. They'd found some tokens on board the Imperium ship but she was reluctant to use them because she had no way of knowing if they'd been marked, and she had precious few of her own.

  "Well?" he said.

  "Fine," Kari said. She pulled six tokens from her pocket and shoved them at him. He pulled out a stamp and pressed it into each of their cheeks without asking for permission.

  Wren's body went tense, as if ready to spring, and Kari suspected that she'd nearly decapitated the man before he'd pressed the stamp to her. Wren managed to control herself long enough to walk away, but she looked ready to snap at any moment.

  Kari couldn't blame her. The stamp felt like a brand on her cheek. How long would it take to wash out? And she hadn't seen any others get stamped.

  They followed the person in front of them toward the shuttle entrance.

  "Oi! You!"

  Kari stiffened, ready to run. They could try to make it to the other side of the moon and hail Ryker, but their chances of getting away weren't good. She turned slowly, expecting to see enforcers with guns. Instead, she came face-to-face with the ticket collector.

  "Storage is that way," he said, gesturing at a narrow passage to the left of the main entrance. "Don't cause trouble."

  Kari tried to act normal as she slumped through the low doorway and up a set of rusted steps. Atticus and Wren came behind, silent, stiff.

  Kari emerged through a trapdoor into the close confines of the storage bay. Bags and boxes filled most of the space, but between that huddled people, packed so tight together that they couldn't even sit.

  The smell of the place hit Kari like a solid blow; sweat and dirt and human filth swarmed through her nostrils, making her head spin.

  The people nearest the trapdoor grumbled but somehow pressed themselves even tighter to make room for the three of them. All had black stamps on their cheeks; a kind of half-moon with the name of the shuttle company across it. They may as well have been walking billboards… or branded cattle.

  A tightness formed around Kari's chest. She'd forgotten w
hat it was like to be on the very bottom rung of society. And even these poor bastards could at least afford to travel to work. There were others trapped in the tunnels of Zenith who didn't even get that luxury. No doubt Ryker would have some explanation or solution which meant that it wasn't the Imperium's fault, but Kari knew better. These people had to travel every day, packed like animals into the storage bay. It wasn't fair.

  "Keep your head down," Wren hissed.

  Kari blinked. The people nearest were giving her strange looks. Only then did she notice that the haggard and desperate looks she'd seen outside were even more prevalent here. And she'd been glaring up at the ceiling with her head high, she may as well have painted a target on her own back.

  She snapped her head down and glared at the floor instead, hoping that her hair would help hide her expression from anyone watching.

  Heat from all the people packed tight together filled the storage bay, combining with the smell to make it even more unbearable. Sweat trickled down Kari's face and dripped off her nose to dot the floor.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the woman beside her swoon. Her eyes fluttered and she slumped sideways but the press of bodies was so much that they held her up and she stayed standing, despite—Kari suspected—being unconscious. Kari would have tried to help the woman, but she couldn't risk drawing any more attention. She just had to keep her head down and her eyes dull like everyone else.

  An hour later, she felt ready to scream. The shuttle still hadn't moved and the heat was getting into her head until she thought that she might faint too, just like the woman beside her.

  "Soon," Wren said, as if reading Kari's thoughts.

  Sure enough, not ten minutes later, the massive engines roared to life. The sound reverberated around the storage bay so loud that several people cried out and clapped their hands to their ears.

  The noise pumped against Kari's eardrums, threatening to burst through while the low vibrations beat the inside of her head, making her skull shake.

  The noise got louder and then they were pressed into the floor as the shuttle took off. The rockets must have been right beneath the storage bay because heat flooded the floor, soaking through Kari's shoes and threatening to burn her feet.

  She glanced around but no one else seemed worried, even though some of them had no shoes and the heat of it must have been agonizing.

  Sweat poured from Kari's head, sticking strands of hair to her face. She glanced at Wren and Atticus who were similarly drenched. The sweat coming off Atticus' head had made the ink from the stamp run in black streaks down to his chin.

  Kari dreaded to think what she looked like. By the time they got to Zenith she'd probably blend in with the rest of the passengers condemned to steerage.

  She drew a ragged breath, and it was like inhaling inside a furnace.

  Two hours.

  How the hell were they supposed to survive two hours of this?

  CHAPTER 22

  They landed with a shudder that would have knocked Kari to the floor if she wasn't pinned between a tight press of bodies. As soon as the trapdoor in the floor opened, the crowd surged toward it, like water down a drain. It carried Kari along, pulling her away from Atticus and Wren.

  She tried to fight her way through the flow of people but it was like trying to swim up a waterfall and she lost sight of them.

  The trapdoor appeared beneath her and her left foot slipped over the edge. She flailed, catching hold of a rung as she fell through the hole. Her feet dangled in open air, kicking, until they hit the ladder.

  The flow of people didn't stop. A boot appeared above and would have crushed Kari's fingers if she hadn't snatched her hand away and scurried down the rest of the ladder.

  She darted away from the base and into a small alcove, somewhat out of the flow of bodies. They'd landed on the poor side of Zenith, near a narrow tunnel which swallowed the flow of people.

  Orange tinted the horizon, warning that dawn wasn't far away.

  Kari tried not to panic, but the flow of people went on and on and if she were caught above ground when the sun rose… she might as well take a plasma blast to the face.

  A sleek transporter pulled up on the other side of the ship, near the upper-class entrance where the woman who'd pushed to the front of the line had gone. The door hissed open and a moment later the woman reappeared. She glanced at the line of filthy workers pouring into the tunnel, sniffed, and bundled herself into the car.

  It zipped away toward the orange horizon.

  Kari kept her back pressed against the side of the passage entrance and scanned the crowd. Atticus and Wren still hadn't come out of the ship, but at least there weren't any enforcers or any other unfriendlies. Coming back to Zenith was a risk. It would only take one wrong person to recognize them…

  Wren appeared at the top of the ladder and slid down like a stream of water. Atticus came after her, the last person out of the ship.

  "Come on," Wren said. "Dawn's coming. Where are we going?"

  Kari glanced at the horizon. Lines of brilliant yellow had joined the orange. She turned and hurried into the tunnel after the retreating backs of their fellow passengers. "Broken Bottle. We'll meet up with Alec and see if he can help us."

  Wren kept her usual stony silence.

  Atticus followed and Kari had second thoughts about bringing him. It wasn't as though he'd be much good in a fight. But he'd done well with the EMP, could obviously be handy, and so she'd dragged him along. But the way he kept looking around and jumping at every noise like a scared animal made her regret her decision.

  "Stop it," Kari hissed. "Just keep your head down."

  Atticus flinched at her words but after a few seconds bowed his head.

  Kari led them through secret passages and back entrances. Soon the rest of the passengers were gone and it was just the three of them hurrying through the tunnels.

  They smelled of filth and rust and desperation. The floor of dried dirt crunched beneath their feet.

  A few turns later, they entered the refinery district and here Kari's face darkened.

  After their parents died, she and Piper had been forced to do katium refinery to make enough tokens for food. It was hard, dirty work, but it was better than a lot of the jobs on Zenith. Their parents had been crystal hunters, so they knew enough.

  Kari's frown deepened as she glanced through the open door of a refinery and saw an old man bent over a bench, scraping dirt off a geode, the tips of his fingers bloody. She remembered that feeling. Sometimes the crystals were cemented into place and she'd had to scratch and claw to get them out.

  She scurried faster, leaving the refineries behind. A half hour later they came to the Broken Bottle and Kari led the way inside.

  A few familiar patrons waved and she acknowledged them with a bare nod but didn't stop to talk. Instead, she went straight to the bar, Wren and Atticus in tow behind.

  "Hey, Trav," she said. "Is Alec around?"

  Trav's smile faded. "You haven't heard."

  Kari's heart skipped a beat. "Heard what?"

  "Alec is dead."

  "What? That can't be right. I saw him just a few days ago."

  Trav pulled two glasses from beneath the bar and poured a finger of brandy into each. He shoved one to Kari and drained the other. "Poor bastard."

  Kari downed the drink and the burn of it in her throat helped to chase away the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes. "How? Was it the Imperium?"

  Trav's glass clinked as he set it back on the bar. "Nah, at least, it doesn't look that way. Mugging."

  "A mugging? Who would do that?"

  "Dunno," Trav said. "Got a knife in the back. Poor bastard. We all had a lot riding on him."

  Kari slumped onto the nearest stool and stared into the bottom of her glass. The dim overhead lights reflected off the base like distant stars. Alec dead. He couldn't be. But Trav had no reason to lie, and if something happened in the under tunnels of Zenith, Trav knew about it.

&
nbsp; She was vaguely aware of Atticus slipping away to talk to a nearby group of people, but she couldn't bring herself to care. What the hell were they supposed to do now if Alec was dead? And who would kill him? Most of the undercity knew him. No mugger in their right mind would try to hurt him. It had to be the Imperium, it had to be! But someone would have noticed an enforcer stalking Alec. What then?

  Kari's mind raced. They would have done it secretly and then made it look like a mugging, but that would take expert skill—

  A cold chill swept across Kari's skin and she froze. Wren had been in the bar that day, she'd been on a hunt, she'd been sitting right there near the door.

  Kari's eyes traced from her glass, across the bar, to the dark table where Wren had been sitting. She would have had a good view of Alec from there…

  But no. That couldn't be right. Wren knew that Alec was going to help them, surely she wouldn't have killed him. Even she wasn't that cold.

  Kari's gaze slid to Wren's face but it was as unreadable as ever.

  "We can't stay here," Wren said.

  Kari put her glass onto the bar—she didn't trust her shaking hand not to drop it. "Who's taken over from Alec?"

  Trav nodded to a woman sat in the corner. "Eta. She's doing her best, but people are scared. After all, if Alec can be killed like that, what chance have any of the rest of us got?"

  CHAPTER 23

  Kari stopped in front of Eta's table, Wren by her shoulder. Atticus was still off talking to some people by the bar but she paid him no attention.

  "You're Kari," Eta said.

  Kari nodded, hiding her surprise. She'd thought her disguise, and the subsequent sweat and filth she'd collected during the shuttle journey, would hide her identity. Clearly not. Hopefully the Imperium officials weren't so observant.

  "Give us a few minutes," Eta said to the four people at her table. They slid off the benches and went to the bar.

  Eta gestured and Kari and Wren took seats on either side of her.