The Tribari Freedom Chronicles Boxset

by Rachel Ford

  He reached for the headlamp, and when his fingers found purchase on the toggle, he pressed it. But he remained shrouded in darkness. He felt along the bulb casing and grimaced as his fingers traced a shattered front. Dammit.

  For a moment, dazed and battered, he wondered what to do. Then he remembered his pager, and the glare from its screen. It wouldn’t be much, but it might be enough to see. And – if he was very lucky – he’d have a strong enough signal to reach someone above.

  Here, the smoke was not as thick as it had been in the passages, so he could make out something by the dim light of his pager screen. He was in what seemed to be a natural pocket in the rock, a kind of subterranean cavern that stretched beyond the meager reach of his light source.

  He tapped the comm interface on his pager. “Hello,” he called. “Hello?”

  An image, grey and grainy, flashed onto the screen. “Brek? Is that you?” It was the lead he’d talked to earlier.

  He didn’t know the man’s name, but in the instant, it was one of the best sights he could recall. “Thank the gods. There’s been a collapse.”

  “We know. Sensors are showing we’ve lost the entire east tunnel.”

  “There’s a cavern, big by the looks of it. Underneath the pass between quads three and four. I’ve fallen into it.”

  “Anyone with you?”

  “No.”

  “Alright. Sit tight, Trigan. We’ll get on it.”

  The screen went dark, and Brek turned his attention again to his surroundings. But he didn’t move – he didn’t dare, lest he wander outside the range of his device’s reception. He could see little more than he’d glimpsed earlier.

  The minutes ticked away. He checked the clock on his comm unit. Half an hour passed, then an hour, then two hours. Still, there came no sound of drills overhead. There came no further communication.

  Brek could feel a chill setting into his body. He tapped the communicator again, trying to re-initiate a call. There was no response, so he tried again, and then again.

  On the third try, he was answered, this time by Head Daj. “Trigan.”

  “Head Daj,” he said. “I haven’t heard excavations. Is the power back?”

  “The power’s back,” the site manager said evasively.

  “What estimates do they give, until they can reach me?”

  The little display showed Daj squirm. “They’re not going to reach you, Trigan.”

  “What?”

  “The Consortium has made the call to abandon explorations in the easternmost tunnels. Ore levels are too low, and the area’s too porous.”

  “But what about me?”

  Daj’s face grew sterner. “You shouldn’t have been there, Trigan. I told you to send shaft monkeys.”

  “Daj, you’re not saying…you’re going to leave me?”

  “The Consortium can’t afford the time or personnel to stabilize those tunnels for one man.” The Head’s voice was brisk and businesslike. “I’m sorry, Trigan. It’s nothing personal. But you knew the risks when you went down there. You signed the same paperwork as anyone else.”

  “Daj,” he protested, stunned almost into stupefaction, “you can’t leave me. You can’t just leave me.”

  “I’m sorry. Really, I am. But the decision is above my head.”

  And then the screen went dark, and despite his repeated attempts, no one would pick up again.

  Brek got to his feet now, his mind numb. He wandered the cavern, climbing over piles of debris, looking for a way out. But nothing presented itself. The walls were steep and sheer, and he could see no openings above him. Even if he could climb, there was nowhere to climb to.

  Hunger began to gnaw at him, and with it, the reality of his plight. He was trapped, hundreds of meters below the surface. He was abandoned in this great, subterranean tomb.

  The Consortium had left him to die. After all he’d done, all he’d sacrificed, in service of the Consortium, they’d left him to perish by cold, or thirst, or hunger. They’d left him to die alone, the death that all miners feared most.

  Five days ago, he’d basked in the warmth of Central’s star. Now, he would die in the dark, frozen underbelly of Theta. Not in an accident, not because of a decision he’d made. He would die because management hadn’t listened to him in the first place, and had refused to shut down the drills when he’d said. He’d die because management couldn’t spare the time or manpower to save him. He’d die because of the decisions of other men, for the profit of other men.

  There was no profit without risk, he knew. He’d spent his life risking to earn a wage. But where the Consortium was concerned, the risks was all someone else’s, and the profits all theirs. That put lives – his life – in an altogether different light.

  Now, gazing about the great blackness that was destined to be his tomb, Brek Trigan wept silent tears. He wept for his mer and der, whose bodies lay in the soil hundreds of meters above him, decomposing. He wept for all the friends he’d lost over the years, the shaft monkeys who died when he was a kid, the miners and peers who died since. He wept for himself, and for the slow, maddening death that waited. He wept for the life he’d never had a chance to live, and could now live no more.

  Uprising

  Tribari Freedom Chronicles, Book Two

  By Rachel Ford

  Chapter One

  Grel Idan sighed, the yellows of his irises bright in the early morning light. “I don’t know, Nikia,” he said. “I don’t know if it sounds right.”

  “That’s because you’ve been working on it all night,” his wife told him. “You need sleep.”

  “I don’t have time for sleep.”

  She shook her head, kissing him. “You’re lucky I love you, Grel. Because you might just drive me crazy otherwise.”

  He smiled at that, and set his speech aside. She had already donned the pleated grays of her uniform, and her hair was braided in the traditional three braids of a married woman. He let his weary eyes drink in the sight of her, and for a moment his speech was forgotten. Then he saw she was reaching for her overcoat. “Are you heading in already?”

  “I told you, I have to be in by five this morning.”

  He glanced at the clock, and frowned. It was a quarter to five already. “When will I see you?”

  “I’ll be home at the normal time.”

  His frown deepened. That would be fifteen hours from now. “Are they giving you overtime pay?”

  She laughed. “You know the answer to that, love.”

  He did, and it bothered him almost as much as the fact that he’d scarcely have time to see her today. “If they can’t pay, you shouldn’t work.”

  She kissed him again, fixing him in a tender gaze. The gold of her irises was a soft green now. “That works in your pamphlets, love. But in real life, I lose my job. And then neither of us eats.”

  She was right, of course. And it only aggravated him more. “I know. It’s not how it should be.”

  “No. Which is why,” she smiled, “you know I support what you do. But in the meantime, I have to do what I have to do.”

  “I know.” He sighed.

  “I’ve got to go, so I can catch the transport.”

  “Have a good day, Nikia. I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  He watched her go, listening to the swish of her coat and skirt and the ring of her heels on their worn kitchen floor. Then the door closed, and she was gone; and he turned his eyes back to the paper. “Dammit,” he growled into the empty room.

  It wasn’t right. It seemed he saw less of Nikia since he’d lost his job in the east end than he ever did before. And he’d been working sixty-hour weeks then. Things would be different, if he could find another job. They wouldn’t demand as much from her. They wouldn’t dare. But she was the sole breadwinner – and he was almost unemployable.

  No employer on Central would pass up an opportunity like that one, and Nikia’s certainly hadn’t. Her early morning and late night work had started wit
hin days of his termination. She’d been called to make up shifts others missed, to fill in on fifteen minute’s notice. She hadn’t had a day off in a month and a half, and now they were regularly cutting into her home time too.

  He rubbed his temples, staring at the page. It wasn’t right that Nikia had to suffer because of him. “Dammit!” He grabbed the paper, crumpling it into a ball and tossing it into the nearest waste receptacle.

  He got to his feet, grabbing his outercoat. He needed a job. It didn’t matter what. But he needed to be drawing a paycheck, if only for her sake.

  Grel’s feet ached, and his step was slow and weary when he returned home. Their flat was dark. Nikia still wasn’t home. He unlocked the door and trudged inside.

  He’d spent all day wandering the streets of Central, going from business to business. Where he was recognized, he was laughed away. “I might as well close my doors now, as employ a radical like you,” a baker had told him.

  “It’s not that I don’t sympathize with the work you do,” a carter had said. “I do, especially after the guild business. But…I can’t afford trouble with the Protectors. If I hire you, I’m a marked man. And I’ve got a family. I’m sorry.”

  He got a little further with those who didn’t recognize him. “It’s a good work history,” the manager of a financial establishment had agreed. But the interview ended when they’d got to the personal questions. “Where do you go to temple? Are you a registered member of the party?”

  “I’m a good worker,” Grel had argued. “That has nothing to do with my politics.”

  “Ethics are important to us here. How can you expect me to trust someone who doesn’t go to temple? How can you expect me to believe you respect the system when you’re not a member of the party?”

  Grel slumped into his customary seat at the kitchen table, resting his head in his hands. He thought of Nikia, still at work. He thought of all the men and women still at work; and all those, like himself, desperate to find it. He thought of where he’d be without her. He tried not to think of how much better off she might be without him. He wondered what had become of the Tribari.

  And he sunk into a dark, dreamless sleep.

  He woke to find Nikia returned, shaking him gently. Her face was weary and drawn, but her eyes were misty and blue as she surveyed him. “Oh, my Grel. What’s the matter, love?”

  He held her to him, fighting back the swell of tears that threatened to spill out. He waited until his voice was steady to speak, and pulled her onto his lap. “Nothing, love.”

  “Tell me, Grel.”

  “I…I tried to find a job today.”

  “Ah.” She squeezed him tighter. “It did not go well?”

  “Well?” he repeated the word bitterly. “No one will hire me, Nikia. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  She smiled, running the fingers of her hand down his face. “You will keep fighting, my love. Like you always do.”

  “And how much good has it done me, Nik? I’ve lost my job. No one will hire me. If not for you, I’d have starved to death already.”

  “Well, you’ll always have me,” she said. “But that’s what they want, Grel: they want us to be too afraid to fight. But things will be different. People are paying attention, especially after what happened with the guild.”

  “And yet nothing’s changed. The world is still the same mess it’s always been.” He shook his head. “What’s it going to take to change? We should be starting a family now, love, not barely seeing each other for half an hour a day. Not terrified of what happens if you lose your job.”

  She kissed him, first on the cheek, then on the lips. “All the world needs is a few more good men like you, willing to stand up and fight.”

  She got to her feet. “Here. I found this in the trash.” She gestured to the crumpled page he’d discarded that morning. She’d spread it out, and flattened the creases until it was readable. “It will be here for you tomorrow. But now, come. You need to sleep, and so do I. I have to be in early tomorrow so I can get to my doctor’s appointment.”

  Chapter Two

  Nikia woke before the day star rose, and fought to suppress a yawn as she did so. She was tired, but then, she was used to being exhausted these days. Carefully, very carefully, she got out of bed. She didn’t want to wake Grel.

  He hadn’t been sleeping either, although it had been no schedule that kept him up. He was worried. Ever since he’d lost his accounting job in the east end, he’d been worried. Every once in a while, like yesterday, he’d say something, but he didn’t talk about it much. That wasn’t Grel’s way.

  Still, she knew he was concerned that the hours her own job was expecting her to keep now were too much for her. She knew he worried about what happened if she lost her job too. And she knew that he felt all of this the more keenly because he was the male and – no matter how archaic he might think the sentiments – it shamed him to see his wife struggle while he was unemployed.

  Nikia wasn’t shamed, though. Grel hadn’t lost his job because he was a poor worker or for any malfeasance. He’d lost it because of his involvement with the guilds. He’d lost it because he spent his free time organizing protests and agitating for free water and safe working conditions. No, she wasn’t shamed by that. She loved him more for it.

  Grel’s job had been a good one. He’d been comfortable by most standards. Yet he’d put his own security on the line to agitate for those in worse straits. He was a good man, her Grel.

  She only hoped he was bigger than the fight. Some days, she didn’t know. Some days, she believed he could win – she believed he could win anything he set his mind to. Others, the grimness of life on Central got to her, and she didn’t think anyone could ever win. Not even Grel.

  She watched him sleep in the dim light cast by the face of her hour keeper. He seemed at peace. The lines on his forehead had eased, the muscles of his jaw were relaxed. She smiled.

  It had been many moons since he’d been the carefree youth she met. She hadn’t thought, back then, that anything could ever worry Grel. He’d smile cheekily and do what he wanted, and damn the consequences. What other common clerk would have dared approach a Grand Contributor’s daughter? And yet, he’d asked her to court him as if their difference in station didn’t make a jot of difference to him. He hadn’t feared her parents, either. Where she’d fretted and hidden their relationship, he’d argued they should just marry. “They can’t do a damned thing except be angry, love, once we’re married. And that’s their problem, not ours.” He’d been right, of course, though it had taken her awhile to see it in both cases.

  That was an eternity ago now. And how life had changed in the interim, for both of them. The hour keeper ticked away another minute, and she sighed. She had to get dressed. It would be another long day, but she’d see him tonight at least.

  She drew her dress and boots out of the closet, and moved to the door. She’d put them on in the bathroom after her shower, so as not to wake him. But he stirred with her motion, and murmured, “Nikia?”

  “Sleep, love,” she told him.

  But he opened his eyes and sat up. “Are you leaving?”

  “It’s time.”

  He yawned and stretched. “I’ll get up too,” he decided, stepping out of bed.

  “You should sleep, Grel. You need the sleep.”

  But he crossed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her, kissing at the nape of her neck. “I need to see you more.”

  She smiled and kissed his forehead. “I’ve got to shower.”

  “I know. I’ll make breakfast.”

  Breakfast was waiting when she got out of the shower. It smelled good. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal in two days. She’d been too busy to do anything but grab a nutrient supplement or a piece of toast here and there. She drank down her ekta juice, and set to work on her toasted phigon eggs with enthusiasm. “Thanks, Grel. It’s really good.”

  He smiled, taking a seat next to her. “Good.”


  “What about you?” There was no plate for him, she noticed now.

  “I’ll eat afterwards.”

  She felt her brow crease. “You’ve got to eat, love.” Eating, like sleeping, was one of those things her husband would put off when he was preoccupied.

  “I know, I know. I will, once you go.” He smiled. “I want to spend the morning with you, though, while I can.”

  She smiled too. “Hey,” she said, “did you hear the news, by the way?”

  “What news?”

  “About Kilgor and Shawna.” They were members of Grel’s group of activists, and friends of theirs.

  “You mean, about the pregnancy?”

  He said it with enough disapprobation that she paused. “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “Ridiculous.”

  “They’re very excited. It’ll be their first child.”

  “And how will they feed it?” he wondered.

  “I don’t know,” she said. It was a practical concern – both worked long hours, but neither’s employ came with the kind of wage that could support a family. “But they’ll manage. I’m sure they will.”

  “It’s selfish.”

  She blinked. “Is it?”

  “Of course, love. This is no kind of world to bring a child into.” He shook his head again. “Look at us. We’re doing better than they are, and we wouldn’t do that to a kid. It’s not fair.”

  “No,” she demurred, turning her focus back to her eggs. She felt, now, not quite as hungry as she had. “Of course not.”

  “I told him congratulations, of course,” he was continuing. “I didn’t know what else to say. How do you tell someone they’ve made the biggest mistake of their lives?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Breakfast passed too quickly, and before she knew it, she and Grel had parted. But the day languished on slowly after that. Nikia was a contract review specialist for one of the leading construction companies in the city, and though the pay was reasonable, the work was anything but stimulating. It was her job to review each and every line of a contract to ensure that it protected the company’s interests while also accomplishing the client’s goals. It might mean rejecting a contract entirely as too vague or too broad. It might mean a focus as granular as the location of a semicolon, or the use of a comma. It required a clear mind and sharp attention.