by Natalie Grey
“Sir.” Peace again. “What if they really do just want to talk to Manes?”
“Shut up, Peace.” He saw her open her mouth again and jabbed a finger at her. “I said shut up. We let them into this compound, we’re not getting out alive.”
He had better hope that the airlock doors and thick rock walls convinced the Dragons that this was too much work. Clearly, they’d found out about the slaves on the lower levels, and they were here to make the rest of his life short and extremely unpleasant.
And if they were going to do that, well … he was going to make sure they didn’t get Manes to testify against him, or whatever the hell it was they wanted that guy for. Fuck them.
“Go get Manes into the inner rooms as well,” he told Peace. “And everyone, hurry the fuck up. I’m not holding the doors for you.”
Peace looked after him as he stomped away, and then shot a glance at Jilly. The woman was punching commands into the computer systems with ferocity.
“Hurry it up,” she echoed, when she saw Peace watching her. “He’s not kidding, he won’t hold the doors for you.” She shoved her chair back and strode out of the room without a backwards glance.
Peace looked at her, looked at the targeting on the screen, and considered her options. Kochinski was scared of the Dragons for some reason, clearly, but as far as Peace was concerned, their odds were much better if they let the Dragons in.
She had just decided that he probably knew what he was talking about when she heard the slam of the heavy airlock doors, and Jilly’s shout of frustration. He’d locked them out of the main rooms. He thought they were going to die, and he’d locked them out anyway.
Well, that settled it.
The Ariane wove and banked sharply, once or twice spiraling tightly enough that the artificial gravity lost its way for a moment or two. Talon, with the very strong suspicion that Tersi was doing loopdeloops for the hell of it, hung on and listened to the crew joking with one another.
He wasn’t worried about being shot down. From the laughter coming out of the cockpit, Tersi and Mars weren’t even at the limits of their ability—or the ship’s capabilities. Different commanders looked for different things in their ships, but the Ariane was exquisitely maneuverable, something Talon had always insisted on.
The proximity alerts rose in tempo and fell again as the missiles shot harmlessly past the ship, and eventually, Talon noticed that they had faded away entirely.
“We’re being hailed, boss.”
“Blast.” After the past couple of weeks he’d had, Talon had been looking forward to a shoot-out. Anyone who took on the Dragons deserved as good as they got, in his opinion, and kicking in doors had a certain satisfaction to it. He wasn’t going to shoot it out with people who were trying to surrender, though. “Well, put them on.”
“This is Peace Merryweather.” The voice was young. Several of the team exchanged glances at the name. “It’s only the syndicate leader who doesn’t want to surrender. He’s holed up with Manes in one of the inner chambers. I’ve turned off the guns, but he might turn some others on. I’ve sent his location to you. Please—the rest of us won’t put up a fight.” There was the sound of a scuffle, and some yelling, and the transmission cut off.
“Disloyal bitch,” Camorra muttered.
“He doesn’t have their loyalty, he doesn’t deserve it.” Talon considered. “Plus, it kind of sounds like he went to go hide, and fucked the rest of them over. That’s probably why they’re selling him out.”
Camorra only gave a disgusted shrug back. She was uncompromising when it came to loyalty, Talon knew. Young people were like that, though. He wondered if she’d mellow with age, and then remembered that Dragons tended not to be the mellowing-with-age type.
“Don’t take your finger too far off the trigger,” Talon advised Tersi, “but do land to her instructions. Let’s see what she—”
There was a boom and an explosion of cursing from the cockpit. The Ariane banked sideways quickly enough that the team—having let go of their handholds—stumbled and went sprawling. Nyx, with one hand on a bracing bar, held onto Camorra as the gravity went, and a pile of Dragons accumulated in the far corner of the room.
Rather like heavily armed tumbleweeds, Talon thought.
“All right. What the fuck was that?”
When Mars came on, he was panting slightly. “Well, assuming she was telling the truth about where the syndicate leader and Manes were … we don’t have anyone to interview anymore.”
“Fucking hell.” Talon rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Cowardly, stupid as shit, useless, ball-sucking—”
“Not to interrupt, boss, but should I take us in?”
“—shit-canoe cockroach,” Talon finished. “Yes, take us in.”
“What’s a shit canoe?”
“A canoe made of shit.”
“I thought it was a canoe you used for paddling through shit,” Nyx said thoughtfully.
“Why would that be an insult?” Talon frowned at her.
“I don’t know. When you really get going, you don’t make much sense. Although you do retain a surprising amount of grammatical accuracy.”
“You know, it’s nice that you’re all so loyal, but I could do with a bit more deference.”
“Yes, boss.” Nyx waved a hand at the Dragons. “You lot. Stand up and get ready to shoot at any remaining shit-canoes.”
13
The docking bays on Mullia were all clear except one, which had a ship so old and rickety that it was a wonder they had managed to get it onto the asteroid in the first place.
“What a piece of junk,” Jester said. The best pilot on the team by far, he took a deep joy in flying, and seemed personally offended by the state of the ship. He squinted at the name. “Millenium Falcon. What does that even mean? Isn’t a falcon a bird?”
“People refer to ships as birds,” Sphinx offered.
“Okay, but the ‘Millenium’ bit.”
“I didn’t name it!”
“I’d like to remind everyone,” Nyx said, “that this place could be booby-trapped to hell and back, and none of you are looking where you’re stepping.”
“Now you’ve all done it,” Mars said, over the comm units. “Mom’s angry.”
“Yeah, yeah. But seriously.” She raised an eyebrow and gave them all a look. “I don’t want to be cleaning blood off my armor.”
Talon grinned as he made his way up the steep path to the main building. The old adage went that unless the entire crew hated the XO, they weren’t doing their job. Somehow, he’d managed to snag one who got people to stay on their game without inspiring their enduring hatred.
All of his team was good, though. The type of person who would slack off and resent their commanding officers for calling them on it, would never last on Team 9.
He thought of the kid they’d seen in Dragon selection and sighed. Nyx was right, Talon wanted him on the team. That sort of speed and chaos—the kid was made to fight—only came around rarely. Talon had been lucky enough to snag Cade when he saw it the first time, and now he was hard-pressed not to fly back to Seneca and see if Dragon Central Command would allow him to have a 17-member team.
He knew they wouldn’t, of course, but maybe he could just snag the kid and jet out of there before anyone noticed.
Who was he kidding? Loki had probably been snapped up already, by—Talon allowed himself to be bitchy for a moment—some commander who wouldn’t have the first idea what to do with him. Maybe he’d be able to recruit him over in a few years if someone moved on, though that someone was likely to be Nyx, and the thought just made him sad.
Up ahead, two figures appeared. The thick plastic that lay between them and the vacuum of space allowed the area to be lit with not-too-distant starlight. They were both female, Talon saw, and reasonably clean. This hadn’t been the normal type of mining operation with the whole crew living off protein rations, then.
Although something was clearly different from normal, given t
he rubble-cloud emerging from Kochinski’s hideout.
What had the man been up to?
Talon kept his weapon holstered as he approached the two women. He didn’t need to use the infrared overlay in his visor that would show him that both of them were armed, as it was easy enough to see the distortion in their clothing. He simply had no fear that either of them could draw fast enough to shoot him—or that either of them were carrying something good enough to get through his armor.
He nodded at the younger one. “Are you Peace Merryweather?”
“Yes.” She gestured to the older woman, who was glowering. “This is Jilly.”
“Mmm. And your boss is….”
“Dead,” Jilly said flatly. “Because someone turned all our defenses off.” She gave the younger woman a look.
“I don’t suppose you’d know why he killed himself,” Talon said blandly. When he saw the flash of fear in her eyes, he knew he had her. “You see, your colleague here had the right idea. I don’t kill people just for the fuck of it. I wasn’t intending to kill your boss. But the fact that he took the guy you were planning to execute, and blew both of ‘em up? That makes me a bit curious.”
She swallowed and looked away. “Maybe you should think about the fact that people would die rather than talk to a Dragon team.”
“Did you not hear what I just said? I am thinking about it. So, tell me—why do you think Konchinski would rather die than talk to me?”
She said nothing for long enough that Talon took out his sidearm and took the safety off.
“I really don’t have infinite time, you know.” To the younger woman, who looked completely horrified, he added: “I said I don’t kill people just for the fuck of it. I kill them when they deserve it, though.”
“But she doesn’t deserve it!”
“Doesn’t she? Seems like she knew something was going on. Come on, Jilly. What was it? Smuggling? Hacking? You steal some Alliance equipment?”
Jilly’s throat bobbed. She was clearly trying to make the decision of whether talking to him or not talking to him would be better for her.
“Seems to me there’s two options here,” Talon said conversationally. “Either it’s not as bad as you think—which is actually a possibility—and I just let you go, or it’s as bad as you think, in which case, when I find out what it is, and I will find out, I will be even more upset that you wasted my time by not telling me.”
Jilly’s face was a greyish color by now.
“He was keeping slaves.” Her shoulders hunched. “He leased them. One of our machines broke down and he couldn’t get a new one cheap enough, so….”
“I see.” Talon took a moment to look at Peace’s horrified expression. He had no doubt that she was unaware of what had been going on, and she was naive enough that he almost hated to execute Jilly in front of her.
Almost. He lifted his gun and shot in one smooth movement. Jilly collapsed, and Peace screamed. She ran to the other woman’s side, to press her hand over the wound in Jilly’s chest. Both of them looked up at Talon.
“There’s a lot of things I can’t be bothered to care about,” Talon said. “But slaves? Yeah, you know about slaves and do nothing, and I’ll make sure you pay.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Jilly looked at him wildly, and then down the trail at the other Dragons. “You’re not going to let me die, are you?”
“If I didn’t want you to die, I wouldn’t have shot you.” Every time he credited people with having the barest amount of sense…. “And I wanted you to know why you were dying before you did.”
The look she gave him was full of hatred.
“Hate me all you want,” Talon said with a shrug. “Go to your grave thinking you did nothing wrong, for all I care. But you know that none of the slaves down on those lower levels would give a damn about your excuses—and neither do I. You. Peace. How would we get them out of those levels?”
“I … I….” She looked like she was going to faint.
“Boss.” Nyx was at his side. “I’ll take care of that, you head back to the docking bays. There’s another Dragon ship coming in. Mase. Asked to speak to you specifically.”
“Ah, good.” Mase Hernandez, commander of Team 8, was one of the people Talon had hoped to speak to about the Warlord. “Radio back to the ship when you figure out how many slaves there are. We’ll need someone to get them before whoever leased them out—” his voice was heavy with disgust “—comes back to pick them up.”
He resisted the urge to spit on Jilly’s body as he walked away. Peace might be horrified by her death, but Jilly would never have done anything about the slaves. Talon was sure of that. She’d made her choice, and the death he’d given her was far more merciful than the slaves could have expected if he hadn’t come along.
It was five days after the transmission, when both hope and panic had blessedly faded away, when Arlon strode into the main cavern in a towering rage.
Samara looked up from where she was poring over the schematics for the district walls, and felt a sudden chill in the air. There was no doubt about who Arlon was glaring at, and she could tell that the rest of the people in the cavern wanted to be literally anywhere else right now.
“Yes?” She was proud of how steady her voice was.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” Arlon spat the words at her.
“No.” It only seemed to make him angrier, though she knew that literally anything she said would have had the same effect.
“What about the weapons deal you tried to set up?” He stalked towards her and the people in his way scattered, looking between him and Samara worriedly. “You don’t want to tell me about that?”
“Not particularly.” She should be more deferential, she knew, but she found she was more angry than anything else. He had come here when the cavern was full on purpose. He wanted to humiliate her.
Dammit, at least she’d tried to do something. At least they would have had a fighting chance if she had succeeded.
“You tried to call off planet.” He pointed at her, and his finger was shaking. “You could have gotten us all killed!”
Samara said nothing. The people here were trying to pretend they weren’t here … but they were listening. And she wanted them to listen.
“You went to the launch pad,” Arlon accused her. “You snuck out of the district, you knew how risky it was! And you tried to call off-planet. And they heard. The clampdown they’ve put on us this week? That was your fault, wasn’t it?”
There was an indrawn breath from the watchers. They had all learned, over the years, to fear the Warlord seeing anything at all of their lives. Even in their own homes, they spoke in whispers. Who knew what a guard might take offense to?
Samara’s fists clenched. She did not look over to where Eytan was wedged miserably in a corner. He had told, that much was clear. She’d done it, though. She wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t, or get angry at him for tattling like a child. She had done it.
“We don’t have enough weapons,” she said quietly. “You know that. Jacinta knew it.” She gestured to the schematics. “Even when we get the walls down, we won’t have enough, and we can’t count on being able to get them from the guards. It’s too slow, we need to move fast.”
“Forget the walls! I told you not to do this. I specifically told you not to. I said it was too risky.” His eyes narrowed. “And so did Jacinta. Don’t you throw her in my face.”
“Jacinta didn’t think there was a chance,” Samara agreed.
“So? You think you know better than her?”
There was a pause, while Samara tried not to say the truth. It wormed its way out anyway, though: “Yes.” She didn’t look around. She was sure they would be staring at her in horror. “Jacinta got caught. She was cautious, and she got caught. I don’t think there’s any way to be cautious enough, and I don’t think we have a good chance of surviving very long on this planet no matter what we do. I took a chance, so that when we went through t
hose walls—”
“I said forget the walls.”
“Why?” Samara slapped her hand down on the schematics. “It’s the best chance we have. It’s the best chance we’ve ever had. If we don’t move soon, they’ll fix the vulnerability.”
There was a silence.
And she knew.
“They fixed it.” She stared at him. “Didn’t they?”
“Last night.” He had the grace to look ashamed, but she didn’t care. And then he lifted his chin. “And it’s just as well. It was too risky.”
“Too risky.” Her pulse was pounding so loudly in her ears that she wasn’t even sure she’d heard him correctly. “Did I just hear you correctly?”
The rest of the people in the cave fell back even further.
“Yes.” Arlon crossed his arms. “Just like your plan. We need to find a way to attack that—”
“We won’t.”
“You’re not thinking clearly,” Arlon said. “The most important thing is staying safe.”
“There is no staying safe!” Samara flung back at him. “None. We lost that chance when we got born on Ymir. We’ve never been safe.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to understand what you’re doing! You’re leading the resistance, Arlon. We’re all marked. We all agreed to die. What don’t you get about that?” There were tears in her eyes and she dashed them away angrily. “We finally had a chance. We could have gotten through those walls and into the central district before they could mobilize. We’d been waiting years for something like that. And you threw the chance away.”
There was a ringing silence.
“I will not be questioned,” Arlon said finally. “If you aren’t willing to follow me, then you can leave.”
“No.” Samara drew herself up straighter. She felt her indecision fall away, and was suddenly aware of how free she was now. She knew what she had to do. Why hadn’t she realized it before? “This is how it’s going to go. If you aren’t willing to take action, if you want to be safe, you can go back to being just a citizen. You can go work in the mines.”
