by Natalie Grey
Victoria frowned. “But tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow I’ll fight while I’m in pain. Don’t tell me Dragons don’t do that.”
“Well, I suppose they would, but….” She shook her head. “You need to be at your peak for Selection. None of us can afford to be anything less than perfect.”
“But that’s not—” Liam tried to find words to describe this. “Being a Dragon isn’t about being the strongest, is it? Or the fastest? That’s what she said to me when she knocked me down the second time, that I needed more than talent. If I fight tomorrow and I’m in peak condition, I fight the same way I always fight. If I fight and I’m injured, I have to be cleverer, I have to compensate for my injuries. She didn’t win that fight because she was in better condition, she won it because she was smarter.”
Victoria rested her elbows on her knees. She was frowning, but she didn’t interrupt.
“If I join a Dragon team, they won’t always see me at my best. They’ll have to trust me to have their back when I’m beaten down and exhausted—and who you are when you’re hurting, when it’s easier to quit the field, that’s who you really are.” Liam nodded decisively. The pain hadn’t lessened one bit, but he was already feeling better. “I’m going to train until I can beat her. Until I can, I’m not Dragon material. And until I learn to fight smarter, I can’t beat her.”
“So, what are you going to do?” She was still frowning.
Liam grinned. “You up for another midnight training session?”
10
“You’re sure this will work?” Eytan sounded nervous.
Samara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course she was not sure. There was no surety in anything, least of all trying to mount a rebellion against someone who had all the guns and controlled the cities and the radio frequencies. If Eytan wanted ‘sure,’ he shouldn’t have joined the resistance.
“Yes,” was what she said instead. “I’m sure. Go put this on the outside wall.”
The ships that landed here, it turned out, were more heavily defended than they had anticipated. Though they were easily able to work with the technology they had, from radios to basic computers, they didn’t know enough to get around the firewalls that protected the big ships.
With their hope of embedding a message packet on one of the ships—already risky, for who knew who might find it at the ship’s next stop?—they needed a change of plans. Samara had recruited Eytan, one of the older members of the resistance, who had worked in the factories before those were shut down. He knew more about computers than the rest of them put together.
He’d made the plan, explaining how they could hack the communications inside the hut to send a message directly out into the ether. There had been groups that tried to help Ymir once, he said, and they’d left drop point coordinates and communications frequencies. They’d gone dark over the years, and the people of Ymir had been cut off more and more, but it was a place to start.
It had all seemed very hopeful then—until, of course, he had gotten out of the district and onto the road, and then he’d practically turned into Arlon. Should we really be doing this? What if they catch us? Maybe it won’t work.
It was all Samara could do not to grab him by the collar and shake him while screaming for him to shut up.
She told herself that screaming attracted attention, that bodies were hard to hide, and that a sense of caution was a nice counterweight to her own impulsiveness. On the other hand, she really did want to whack some sense into him. She would have thought that by 37, he would have realized that it was die in the resistance, or die in the mines.
Join the resistance: die in a more meaningful way than a cave in! Samara’s mouth quirked. It probably wasn’t the best slogan, but she’d give anything to see the guards’ faces if she painted that on a wall in the district.
Eytan snuck up to the guard hut and affixed the patched-together little computer to a power coupling on the back of the building. He was shaking and looked a bit green, but he did it.
Samara sighed. He was doing his best, she could see that. He was terrified, and she really should be nicer.
“You’re being very patient,” Stefan assured her in an undertone. “You haven’t yelled at him even once. Or stuffed a sock in his mouth.”
Samara stifled a laugh. Eytan was typing, fiddling with knobs along the side of the machine, and frowning in concentration as he bent his ear to the speaker.
“Hello? Hello?” He shot them a look and motioned for them to come listen.
They piled out of the bushes, all of them grubby and covered in ore dust, none of them caring. In the excitement, Samara didn’t think they would mind if a full convoy of guards showed up.
For the first time in her life, they were speaking to someone on another planet, someone who might help them.
“Who is this?” a voice was saying as Samara got close enough to hear.
“We’re the resistance on Ymir,” she said hastily. “We were told to use this frequency.”
“My God, I thought you were all dead.” The voice sounded old to her. She pictured someone waiting on a lonely old outpost for their call, and decided they probably hadn’t done that. They probably did other things as well.
What was life on other planets like?
Not important.
“We’re not dead,” Samara said. “And we need to strike soon, but we need weapons soon. For payment….” Her voice trailed off. They had nothing.
“We’ll discuss payment later. We know there’s nothing now, but when the mines are under your control, we’ll talk. All right?”
“Right.” Samara gulped. She had just promised something she had no right to.
“How many do you need?”
Samara counted the districts, the estimates of how many members there were in each cell…. “A thousand? 1500?”
There was a whistle. “All right. Do you have ammunition?”
Then they heard it. They all heard it, the click that told them the call was being tapped. They might have missed it before, in the static.
Or they Warlord’s men might have been listening the whole time, and they might be coming for them now.
Samara yanked the machine off the wall. “Run!”
She waved all of them ahead of her, and as she followed them into the underbrush, she found herself hoping that the guards would show up now, and arrest her. Because they were only going to crack down harder, now.
Arlon was right. She had made it worse.
Winston Rooker, known to his friends as Rusty and to the other guard as Rookie—which he hated—stood in the Warlord’s office and waited to die.
He really, really hadn’t wanted to bring this message in. Everyone talked about how the Warlord had a temper. Or, worse, how he didn’t. He never really got angry. He didn’t yell. He just killed people when they did things like disappoint him.
And bringing him a message that said the resistance had managed to break into one of the guard towers and contact people off-planet to buy weapons was bad enough, but Winston couldn’t even tell which guard tower it had been. There was no way to know which security cameras to watch, and they had hung up mid-call.
So it was worse than just bringing the Warlord bad news. Wnston was bringing him incomplete bad news.
He didn’t want to die today. He’d only just started to get proficient in chess, and he’d been thinking lately about settling down with Eliza. He had things to do in life.
The Warlord looked up from the transcript Winston had provided, and Winston devoted all of his attention to not shitting himself. He was fairly sure he was swaying where he stood.
“Thank you,” the Warlord said presently.
Winston waited.
There was a long pause. It was coming. Any moment now. His whole world was filled with regret.
“You may go,” the Warlord said finally.
Winston stared dumbly for a moment.
“Preferably now.” The man was getting annoyed.
WInston stumbled as he turned, and walked to the door with the absolute certainty that he was going to be shot in the back of the head. When he was out in the corridor, he managed to get four or five steps away before his legs almost gave out. He leaned against the wall, shaking.
“Talon.” Nyx stuck her head in the door. “Jester has a call for you from Lesedi. Says to come to the cockpit.”
Talon left his quarters in enough of a hurry that he didn’t close the door, and took the stairs two at a time to the level of the Ariane that held the cockpit. When he got there, he leaned over the seat to stare into the video screen.
“Lesedi. What do you have for me?”
“Something very interesting.” Her eyes were alight with possibilities. “Very interesting, indeed. And, just to prepare you, it’s not about the Warlord.”
Talon’s shoulders slumped. “If it’s not—”
“A call went out for weapons.” Lesedi was practically purring, she was so pleased with herself. “I maintain contacts in the outer systems, and one of them got a call. It was on an old frequency they had set aside back during the first days of the resistance. There used to be much more of a movement around it, you know, before everyone started to accept the Warlord.”
“Lesedi.”
“Oh, fine. In any case, someone on the planet made contact and said they needed 1500 weapons for an attack on the Warlord—soon, apparently.”
Talon whistled.
“You didn’t ask for that information, so I won’t charge you for it.” Lesedi raised an eyebrow. “But I may call in a favor someday.”
“After this mission, you can have all the favors you want. I’ll dance around in the Seneca Opera House in a tutu if that’s what your heart desires.” Talon saw the gleam in her eyes and had the feeling he’d made a terrible mistake. “I’m sure you can think of something better.”
“I’m not sure I can.” Lesedi gave a smile that was not at all reassuring. “And, just so you know, I do record all my calls, so don’t even think of trying to claim later that you never offered.”
She hung up and Talon groaned.
Jester was looking off into space, resolutely trying not to laugh.
“Do not. Say. A word.” Talon jabbed a finger at him. “And don’t you even think of laughing until I am out of earshot.”
Jester made a strangled sort of noise. And he almost made it, Talon had to give him that. The door of Talon’s quarters was just sliding shut when Jester’s laughter came echoing down the hallways.
The call came in on the frequency Ellian now reserved for the Warlord.
He liked to have an idea of who was on the other line before he picked up. He stared at the computer for a moment, trying to compose himself, and then opened the line with a smile.
“The acquisition is—”
“Was it you?” The voice was crisp with fury.
Ellian froze. When he was a child on Osiris, he had learned to go silent when people came to a discussion already angry. Any word or phrase could make things worse, no matter what the issue at hand was. As a businessman, he had rarely had cause to regret the habit.
“I sincerely hope not,” he said, when the Warlord failed to clarify. Whatever he did, even if he seemed flippant, he must not seem afraid. “But I do not know what you are referring to. I assure you, I have not betrayed your confidences or—”
The Warlord was in a rage, however, and not ready to be placated. “Was it you? Were you the one who took the order for weapons? Because one has gone out, and let me tell you, if you think you are going to play both sides in this, you will be very sorry.”
Ellian’s eyebrows shot up. “It was not me.” And, a moment later: “Someone took a request to supply weapons to Ymir?”
“To the resistance.”
“Yes, I understood that.” Ellian remembered who he was speaking to and reined in his temper sharply. “However, there are certain rules. I’ve made certain no one knows you are my client, but no one who traffics in arms should think that Ymir would be unclaimed.”
“I do not care in the slightest about your petty territorial disputes.” The Warlord’s voice had gone scarily quiet. “What I want is for you to shut this down, by any means necessary. And I want something more … far-reaching … than the other weapons I asked for.”
“Nothing’s been purchased yet.”
“No, keep that purchase moving forward. But get me something else, as well.” The Warlord was staring at the screen, eyes burning. “Get me something that can wipe them all out if I need to. This resistance is a cancer, and I will kill the whole workforce if I must, to eradicate it. I can replace them all if I need to.”
The call was broken and Ellian stared at the now-black screen, willing himself to be calm.
He would do this, and he would do it without a single moment of guilt. This was the nature of war: it was constant, it was ugly, and it was always perpetrated by the powerful on the weak. There was no way to escape war, he had seen that on Osiris. Those who thought themselves above the fray were deluded or complicit, and often both at once.
The best one could hope for was to become a powerful enough player to control one’s own destiny—and this, Ellian had done.
At least Aryn would not be there when workforce was exterminated. His fingers tightened. She would be angry. She would grieve, and he already knew he would not be able to make her see the inevitability of all of this.
But at least she would be safe.
11
“Talon?” Tersi hung his head in the doorway. “Lesedi says she’s transferring the coordinates of someone who might have more information on the Warlord.”
Talon looked up, and assessed his crew member’s face. “What’s the catch?”
“She can’t get in touch with them to tell them we’re coming, and she thinks they’re the type who might not be all that glad to see Dragons. Oh, and also….” Tersi’s voice was forcedly casual. “The guy who might know the information we need is kind of their prisoner.”
Talon resisted the urge to beat his head against the desk. “How about we follow up on other leads while she tries to get a bead on them?”
“She said you’d ask that.” Tersi crossed his arms and leaned in the doorway with a grimace. “Apparently, he’s scheduled to be executed.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Not so much. You see, apparently he really likes kids.”
“Who doesn’t like—oh.” Talon gave him a look. “Oh, I see. Well, perhaps if we explain we have no problem with them killing him, we just want to interrogate him first? You know, painfully.”
“I mean, we can try.” Tersi lifted his shoulders. “Also, not everyone likes kids, you know.”
“Why don’t you like kids?” Talon had given up on having children of his own—the idea was ridiculous—but he’d always been fond of his brother’s children. He liked bringing them souvenirs from places he’d been, including a massive hunk of Vorekan sapphire he’d picked up during a shootout in a mine. His brother and sister-in-law had yet to figure out what that was. He was anticipating that call with amusement.
“They’re tiny little terrorists,” Tersi said flatly. “Hell-bent on destruction, their own included. Don’t you remember being a kid?”
Talon shut his mouth on the question of whether Sphinx wanted kids. He was, after all, still pretending he didn’t know about the two of them.
“Ah,” he said. “Well, I’ll trust you all to get the ship where it needs to be. I’ll prepare a first communication, and tell Nyx to get any information she can in the war room—I’ll be along in a bit to start planning.”
Tersi saluted and left, whistling.
Satomi Kreuger fingered the hooked bridge of her nose and jiggled her foot anxiously. In her past life as a smuggler, she had learned one very important truth: morals didn’t pay. It was all well and good to want to help the world, but if you stopped to help every wounded duck you met, you’d find yourself beggared within mon
ths.
Also, potentially in jail—if not executed outright. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the people in power weren’t always the ones who deserved to be in power. Helping the downtrodden was often a shockingly unpopular move with the people who commanded armies and ran cities.
The world wasn’t perfect, but there was no way for any one person to fix it. You got by, and you did what you could not to aid and abet the bad guys, and you accepted there was only so much you could change the world.
Yes, at the ripe old age of 32, she had been jaded and aloof, already world weary and thinking herself very wise.
Then, after one too many nights drinking away the stab of guilt as she turned away deserving clients, and one too many mornings that compounded the guilt with a raging hangover—why did she never learn?—she had chucked that piece of wisdom out the window and started using her talents for the ‘good guys.’
The lost causes. The wounded ducks. The people who didn’t have money or, frankly, a shot in hell of making their dreams a reality. Smuggling, running information, helping people escape—whatever you needed, Satomi Kreuger was one of the people who got it for you.
What happens now is in the hands of God, she had told innumerable people. But I’ve done what I can to give you a shot.
In the decade and a half since, she had learned that the ‘good guys’ lay on a spectrum of grey she would never have anticipated. Fighting against evil, it turned out, didn’t make someone good by default. There were a lot of opinions on what, exactly, was permissible when fighting evil regimes. There were jobs she regretted completing, innocents who had died because of what she had done. More than once, she had considered packing it all up and going back to being the person who sneered at revolutionaries and used her extra money for booze.
But the memory of how her soul felt when she turned people away, desperation in their eyes and death stalking close behind them, kept her going. So she got smarter, and she learned to recognize the fanatical gleam that said someone didn’t really care as much about freeing people or doing the right thing, as they did about making the people in power hurt.
