by Layla Stone
Jandy flicked the side of her face, and Sasha hissed in annoyance.
“You don’t understand,” Jandy said, pointing a warning finger. “Just because you are a work slave today, does not mean that you will always be one. At any time, you could be taken into the lay-houses and forced to work there.”
Their worst nightmare said out loud. “Yeah,” Sasha said, “that could happen. Which is why I bought this hopper. To enjoy my life while I still have some left in me. And you standing there acting like we have any control over what happens to us is pointless. Whatever happens tomorrow, I will deal with it.”
Sasha could see the walls of Jandy’s defenses start to crumble. She seized the opportunity. “If these are the last moments we get to spend with each other before we’re forced to work on our backs for the rest of our lives, don’t you think we should live it up by having some fun?”
Jandy bit her lip and started shaking her head. Sasha smiled. She knew that look, and she knew she had won.
Sasha scooted up on the long banana seat so Jandy could sit comfortably behind her. She felt Jandy grab the hairband holding Sasha’s shoulder-length, blond hair. Abruptly, Sasha’s locks fell into her face as Jandy took the hairband and used it to secure her midnight cascade into a tight ponytail. “My hair is longer. I need it more than you. I hate it flying into my face.”
Without the hair tie, the flight would be distracting, but it wouldn’t take away even an ounce of fun. Sasha tapped the control panel to change gears from idle to thrust. "Flying fast does not automatically make it unsafe, Ms. Hair Tie Stealer. This beauty has the best reviews. Everyone in the Federation's galaxy has one."
"Yes, but they can drive theirs legally with an actual license to do so. You were never officially trained. That is what makes this unsafe." Jandy rounded her hands loosely around Sasha’s middle and adjusted her feet on the lower footrest that guarded the flying occupants against the high temperatures of the jet engines underneath.
Sasha scoffed at her friend’s protests. She could fly anything she wanted and had been practicing on cheap knockoffs like this ever since she was old enough to buy them from scrapyards. She took her hand off the brake, gaining immediate motion.
Sasha enjoyed fast speeds. Life came into focus the faster she flew.
Moments after takeoff, Jandy said, "If I live, you owe me pie."
Chuckling, Sasha turned off the paved street and onto the dirt path leading toward the mountains. "Do you know how long it takes to make a pie from scratch?"
Jandy pinched Sasha in the side when she started to go faster, whizzing past the trees as if she were flying in a real ship. "Wo hen pa," Jandy screamed.
Sasha grinned. "Don't be scared. Be happy. It's a choice, Jandy."
Sasha didn't slow down as she spotted a dark, black spot ahead of her, even though it could be a guard. Traveling without papers was illegal. Where Allure assigned you to live was where you stayed. Sasha lived in the far west corner of the city. Jandy lived in the forbidden part, the Dowach. They had met ten years ago because they were neighbors, but Jandy’s mom became ill from working in the lay-houses and was sent to live out her life in the Dowach with the other diseased and unwanted.
To keep from getting caught, Sasha veered off the trail into the trees, hoping to go around the possible checkpoint.
Fifty feet in, a wild pig jumped out from between two trees. Sasha jerked the hopper to the left to avoid ramming the beast in the ribcage. More wild pigs ran out with high shrills and squeaks. Behind one pig was several smaller babies. The piglets kept close to their mama, tripping her twice as they darted back and forth. Sasha navigated through the family, keeping the jet engine from burning the animals, which wasn’t easy. The little buggers changed directions for no reason.
Ignoring the path altogether, Sasha kept heading east toward the overgrown and unused mountain pass. She could see the small hollow between the sheer faces. The mountain almost looked like someone had taken a large knife or atom cutter and sliced the behemoth in half. Both sides were smooth.
Yet there were jagged cracks that lined the walls. Sasha had always wanted to crack-climb the mountain. It looked like it would be fun.
Exiting the dense forest, they crossed ten feet of clear space before they entered the ravine, a crevasse that was only about five-feet wide. There were several broken boulders on the road, so Sasha pushed the hopper to a higher altitude. She wanted to fly midway between the ground and the cliff to keep the vibrations of the engines from causing a potential landslide.
The mountain pass was a mile long.
Sasha felt the fine dust and pebbles on her shoulder. She kept one hand on the thrusters as she lifted her head and scanned the ridge. So far, so good. It was probably just the noise and vibration of the hopper.
A quarter-way through the pass, Sasha lowered the altitude to avoid a thick tree root that protruded from the left side of the mountain. As they moved under it, she heard a hiss. She’d mistaken the camouflaged snake as one of the thinner, fibrous roots.
Behind her, Jandy screamed and pushed back from the grey, scaly creature with black marks. The weight on the hopper changed, and Jandy lost her hold on Sasha’s middle. It felt as if everything slowed down as Sasha watched her friend teeter precariously off the back of the hopper. In milli-seconds, Jandy would be burned to death by the jet engine. Reflexively, Sasha steered into the sheer face, keeping her friend safe from the fire, then turned off the power to stall her machine so that gravity would pull her down at the same rate with which Jandy fell.
Hooking her foot under the footrest, Sasha leaned off the hopper and clasped Jandy’s outstretched hand. Pulling her friend toward her chest, she used her elbow to start the hopper before they both died from the sudden impact.
The engine sputtered once before roaring to life and thrusting them forward. The movement jerked them back to where Jandy crumpled on top of Sasha’s chest while Sasha’s back smacked against the double seat.
“Can’t breathe, Jandy. Get up.”
Eyes wide with fear, Jandy frantically nodded and scrambled to sit up without falling off the hopper. Sasha hoped her friend would get over the incident fast enough for them to salvage this before they crashed. She pushed Jandy off her chest and onto her lap just as a cloud of dust fell into her eyes. Blinking past the pain, Sasha peeked out through gritty and tear-filled eyes and saw a massive boulder falling straight toward them.
With a hyper-focus she didn’t know she possessed, Sasha felt for the thrusters and flipped the hopper upside down, holding Jandy against the steering bars. Jandy let out a terrified scream, but there was no time to reassure her best friend. The afterburners’ powerful thrust pushed the massive boulder away from the hopper.
Jandy let out another frightened whimper as the hopper scraped the side of the mountain. Then, finally, they moved downward, out of range of any other boulders. But they weren’t out of danger yet. Moments before they hit the ground, Sasha righted the hopper, gained some altitude, and zipped through the ravine without the usual caution she normally exhibited. Not that she ever exhibited much, but they had to get the hell out of there. Sasha’s senses focused the faster she flew the hopper.
Everything became clearer as she increased their speed.
Jandy yelled something, but the sound didn't carry.
When they reached the end, Sasha finally slowed up, and Jandy punched her shoulder. "Get me off this thing, now!"
Sasha knew it would be totally inappropriate to smile after what they’d just been through, but the rush from the double near-death experiences made her nerves tingle with pent-up adrenaline.
“You are crazy! This is crazy! We almost DIED.” The tears in her friend’s eyed sobered Sasha quickly.
She powered down the hopper and got off. “We can take the long way back.”
Jandy screamed with her fists tight against her temples.
Sasha frowned but at least had the sensitivity to keep her mouth shut.
> She really didn’t think it was that scary, but she had to acknowledge that she was crazier than most. A real adrenaline junkie. Maybe sensitivity at this moment for Jandy’s sake was better than reveling in the rush.
“What is wrong with you?” Jandy said.
Or she could go for indifference.
Sasha shrugged. “I know. I should probably be hungry by now. I did skip breakfast.” She was able to keep her face impassive even after her friend’s jaw dropped. Five seconds later, she turned toward the city. “Walking back to the Dowach will take all night. Not to mention all the animals the forest is crawling with.” Jandy didn’t respond to her. In fact, she turned and started walking toward the path that led around the mountain.
The fun, it seemed, was over. Sasha let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll take the long way home. Come back.”
“I’m not getting on that thing again.”
Sasha let out a long breath through her cheeks. Think, Sasha. Her mind refused to think of something she could say that would make her friend feel better. She wasn’t going to let Jandy walk home. That was never going to happen. But grabbing Jandy and forcing her to get back on the hopper might strain their friendship even more than her recent recklessness already had.
“How about I make you two pies, and you get back on the hopper?”
“Forget it,” Jandy said as she stomped through a thicket of ground crawling with ivy.
“Ah! What will make you come back? You can’t walk home. It’s too dangerous.” The words sounded foreign on her tongue. And they tasted bad.
Jandy slowed. She waited several heartbeats before she turned around, hooked her hands on her hips, and said, “If I get back on, you have to promise you will never ask me to get on that thing ever again.”
“No problem.”
“And,”—she held up her index finger—“you and I go back to finding a way off this planet.”
“Fine.” But Sasha didn’t think there was a way to get off the planet. Madame Allure had the entrances and exits guarded too tightly. The only ships that didn’t have to submit to being scanned were owned by the Federation.
“And you still owe me two pies.”
Greedy, Sasha thought to herself. “Deal! Now, get on.”
***
Jandy had been silent the whole way back. Once Sasha pulled to the side of her house she asked, "Hungry? I’m sure my mom already made dinner."
"Sure."
"Don’t sound too excited." Sasha snickered as she throttled down and turned off the hopper.
“We almost died.”
They’d come close. But neither of them had even a scratch. That counted as a win. "You have a poor habit of wanting to stay alive and stuff."
Jandy narrowed her eyes. Sasha laughed, inviting her friend inside.
Walking through the back door, she heard her mom call out, "Sasha?"
"It's me and Jandy," Sasha said.
Sasha motioned for Jandy to head to the galley while she went to find out what her mother wanted. The second she saw her mother, she noticed the concerned look.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
Her mom’s subdued expression disappeared behind a big, giant smile. Reaching to the side of the couch, her mom pulled out a gift bag. “Surprise!”
Sasha mirrored her mother’s grin. “What is it?”
Laughing, her mom moved closer. “You have to open it.”
Enthusiastically grabbing the bag, Sasha pulled out the colorful streams of thin paper. Her hand reached inside and felt something thick and firm. It was made from a material that felt foreign.
Pulling the item free, she fell back on her butt. “No way! NO WAY!” A white leather jacket. She’d wanted one since she was a small girl. She had seen a street race when she was a teenager, and a woman with deep, red-wine hair wore a white leather jacket just like the one she now held in her hand. That woman had smashed her competition in the race by three lengths.
“This is amazing! You’re amazing.” Sasha pushed off the ground, grabbed her mom, and pulled her into a giant hug. “How did you find the leather?”
With her mom-look she said, “Why? Are you going to take it back?”
“Heck no!” She couldn’t take the anticipation any longer and had to try it on. She needed to feel the leather against her. She shoved one arm in and then the other. It wasn’t a tight fit. It gave when she bent her elbows, but there was a snugness to it.
She sang out, “It. Is. AMAAAAAAAZING.”
Her mom pulled the middle together. “Fits perfectly. I’m good, aren’t I?”
A rhetorical statement, but it still deserved another hug. The white leather jacket made Sasha feel like she was worth a million keleps. No one wore leather anymore. It was an old Terran style that Sasha loved. Her mom thought she was silly for liking something so vintage.
Her mom was sweet like that. She always found a way to give Sasha the world. Her mom sniffed and wiped away some tears.
“Why are you crying?” The jacket was awesome, but Sasha didn’t think it warranted tears.
Her mom tried smiling, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just happy."
Her mom, Joan, was a seamstress and she designed clothes day in and day out. It’s what Allure had designated her to be when she first arrived. At the time, her mom had been seven months pregnant, looking for a place to raise her daughter. She’d had no idea when she landed that she would be unable to leave, forced to work for free for the madame who ran the planet.
"I’m happy, too. I love your gift, " Sasha said.
Her mom gave her a hesitant look before saying, "Um, I’m also happy because I have…well, I got you a job." Before Sasha could even respond, her mom added, "Off-planet. For the Federation."
The Federation?
"How did you manage that? Did you get us transfer papers?" She was not only completely taken aback by this development, she worried about what her mom had done to get those papers. Transfer papers were impossible to simply purchase. Sasha didn’t know anyone who got them.
But at the same time, she was feeling the same raw emotions her mother must be feeling. Tears pricked her eyes. Was she really getting off the planet? Even more amazing, was the opportunity to work for the Federation. The safest place to work. Sasha had tried to apply when she turned eighteen. She’d snuck into the computer room of one of the houses she cleaned and used the Minky pad to fill out the application and take the entrance exam.
She had been rejected for failing to know the basic Federation laws.
Her mom looked at the front door before answering. "I met a captain who was looking for a pilot. Their transporter’s piloting system is broken, and they need another pilot to keep from burn-out. He was willing to take you on as a FAVII."
How in the hell had her mom swung a FAVII? FAVIIs, Federation Ascension Vital to the Interspace Interest, were non-Federation civilians who earned their citizenship by completing Federation service. It was ludicrous. It was brilliant. "How did you convince him that I qualified as a FAVII?"
As a pilot.
"I told him I knew a lady who flew everything that had propulsion."
“And he believed you?” Sasha asked.
"Baby, you need to go now if we’re going to make it to the spaceport by seven."
Sasha scanned the room, looking for a clock. Not finding one, she grabbed her mom's wrist to view the time.
"That's in forty-five minutes,” Jandy said from the door frame, where she had been watching and listening.
That was not enough time for Sasha to gather her things and get to the port. “It takes thirty minutes to get there. And what job will you be doing?" Sasha asked.
“What I always do. I’ll be a seamstress.”
Huh. Sasha didn’t realize that the Federation even had seamstresses.
“We still need papers, Mom.” When her mom didn’t respond quickly enough, she pointily said, “Please tell me you have t
hem and that you didn’t have to get them by sleeping with someone.”
Her mom shook her head nervously and looked at the front door again. Gently, she started pushing Sasha toward the back door. "We’re leaving in a Federation transporter; we don't need papers. When we get there, we just have to tell the guards that you are there to see the captain.”
Okay. Seemed simple enough. If Sasha were taking a job with the Federation, she would be exempt from needing off-planet papers. The only problem was. . . Jandy. She didn’t want to leave her friend.
Jandy moved from the hallway with the same sad expression. "I can take you and Joan. I know a shortcut to the ports through the forgotten city."
Her mom looked sad when she nodded. Maybe she too was feeling the loss of having to leave Jandy. There had to be a way to bring her friend.
Her mom moved to the peephole in the door, sucked in a gasp, and turned to Sasha, ushering her in the other direction with grim determination. "Donil is heading up the walkway. We have to go now and get to the spaceport before seven."
"What does Donil want?" And why was her mom so scared? "Are he…and you? No. No, Mom!" Sasha immediately assumed that her mother had been selling herself on the side to make more money. Madame Allure had increased taxes on everyone who didn’t work in the lay-houses.
Her mom pointed at the back door with vehemence. "Of course, not! He's here for you. Let’s go!"
Still confused, Sasha followed Jandy out the back door, then down an alley and into a tangled web of narrow backstreets and incredibly thin houses that lined the wasted, forgotten city called Dowach. It was a makeshift area for outcasts and the diseased. "Why is Donil looking for me?"
Sasha expected her mother to answer, but it was Jandy who spoke up instead. "Donil proposed to buy you for his use when you turned sixteen. Joan and the madame said that for a Terran, that was too young. Joan—" Jandy paused to jump over a tin wall, helping Sasha over, then her mom. "Your mom said she would consider twenty-one a mature age. The madame agreed to wait until you turned eighteen."
Something foul stung Sasha’s nostrils, and she covered her mouth to keep from vomiting right in the middle of the broken, unpaved street. Jandy turned around and motioned for her to follow. "It will get worse as we go farther into the city."
