by Gun Brooke
Kellen and Corgan pushed the door open and found the room pitch black and reeking of urine. “Hello,” Kellen called, making sure her voice was gentle. “We’ve come to get you out. We won’t hurt you.”
“Hello?” a raspy, weak voice said from the far end.
“We need light in here. Cover your eyes.” Corgan took a bottle from his belt. “Here we go.” He clicked two small stones with his right hand, and Kellen had to admire how swiftly he set the powder on fire.
The room brightened, but at first Kellen couldn’t see anyone. In one corner stood a bucket, most likely responsible for the horrible stench. Then she saw a small bundle of blankets in the corner, which she realized must be the prisoner’s bed. “Bed” was too kind a word, for it was two or three blankets directly on the floor. Kellen hurried over to the corner and fell to her knees. “My name is Kellen. We have to hurry. Let me help you up.”
“Kellen…” Corgan said warningly.
“I know.” Kellen didn’t look away. She peeled the blanket back, and what she saw brought instant tears to her eyes. A small woman, it was impossible to judge her age, trembled under the blanket, her eyes squeezed shut. Her long, blond hair was mashed to her head, and she was beyond thin. “Oh, Gods…Come here.” Kellen didn’t care if the woman smelled; she just wanted her out of there. She reached down and lifted her. “Corgan, one of the clean blankets?”
“Here.” Corgan placed the blanket he’d carried slung across his shoulders over the woman. “I’m Corgan. Who are you, child?”
Child? Kellen looked at the almost-weightless burden in her arms. Now when Corgan held the bottle-lamp closer, she saw that this woman wasn’t very old.
“I’m Eren,” she whispered, her voice clearly unused for a long time.
“Come on then, Eren,” Kellen said. “Some people will carry you upstairs. We’re leaving.”
Eren closed her eyes and nodded, apparently too stunned to say another word. Outside, Kellen handed her over to another woman, who tucked the blanket tenderly around her. “I’ve got you, dear.”
“We need help!” voices called out, and Kellen saw Doc enter a room four doors down. She hurried over and ducked her head as she entered the room. Three other people were already in there, so she stopped just inside the door. “What’s wrong, Doc?”
“We have a problem.” Doc’s voice was strained. “This is…a whole new version of Onotharian cruelty.”
Kellen frowned, and as she pushed between the two men who’d entered the room first, she heard one of them murmur a Gantharian prayer. Kneeling next to Doc, Kellen looked at what had to be a preview of hell. “Doc—”
“I know. I know.”
“Can you do anything?”
He ran his medical scanner over the shivering bundle on the blankets. “For her, perhaps. For the child, I don’t know.”
“I have…breastfed…him.” The woman in the death cell was breathing fast and shallow. “I know…I have no nourishment to offer him. But fluid. At least.”
“She’s right.” Doc scanned the baby again. “What’s your name?”
“Illina.”
“Illina, how old is your child?”
“I’m not…sure.” Several breaths later she continued. “No sense of time. Maybe five days? A week?”
“You gave birth to him here, on your own. I can see from all the dried blood on your blankets. You’re a brave woman. Let’s get you out.” Doc reached for the child, but the woman held on to her baby and stared at them with blue-rimmed eyes. “No.”
A tall man stepped forward. “I can carry both of them. Hold on to your baby with one hand and me with the other, all right?”
The woman nodded slowly and raised her free arm, then clung to the man’s neck. Another man tucked a clean blanket around them as they walked outside.
“We’d better hurry, even though we need to be careful with these people,” Kellen said. “I’m sure the Onotharians monitor their death-cells so they know when their victims die. They probably have people on a waiting list for this sort of punishment.”
“Yes, come on, before we have company we’re not ready for.”
They managed to get six more people out before they found a deceased older man, then two other corpses—of a boy and a young woman. They rolled the remains into blankets and put them on an unhinged door, carried by several individuals.
Altogether they had rescued twelve live individuals, plus one unexpected male infant. Kellen gave orders to ascend through the narrow circular staircase, and they reached the main level where most of the prisoners were waiting in complete silence. As the men and women who carried a precious burden walked through the crowd, a low hum began and stayed mellow, out of respect. Soon, Kellen recognized the words of a famous and popular hymn. She remembered writing it while in the Academy of Pilots and knew that nobody was aware that she had composed it.
The light in Your eyes
Brings glory to our soul.
We look with worship unto Them
Who keep us whole.
Our faith in our Gods
Is eternal and true.
Through prayers in the night
We will live anew.
Kellen sang in a low voice as she hurried to their vantage point just outside the monitored area. Detecting a faint rustling sound, she was afraid the guards were on their way. The hymn faded after the third verse, and then Kellen was sure she heard steps approaching from the tunnel.
“Light up!” Her voice boomed in the corridor, and she heard the clicking of hundreds of stones. The sparks ignited the powder, which illuminated the tunnel. Kellen held two bottles in her left hand, the walls of each bottle containing the steadily glowing powder.
The sound of clattering boots escalated, and Kellen tried to estimate how many guards approached. She knew that Kovos wasn’t as heavily supervised as Vaksses, but the ones who worked here were heavily armed. She feared they would lose people at the front.
When the first guard appeared at the tunnel exit, just outside the detector arch, Kellen clutched the ignited bottles, but knew she had to get all of the Onotharians inside before they could launch their surprise attack.
The guards, obviously sure that the rebels posed no threat, stepped through the arch one after another until all eight were inside and stared at them.
“Now!” Kellen shouted, and suddenly burning bottles hit the guards from all directions. They backed up, but they had moved too far inside and couldn’t reach the arch. Caught against a wall, they tried to raise their weapons and fire, but the bottles flew at them, several at a time. The flames spread and soon reached their boots, rose, and caught on their uniform pants. They stomped and tried to extinguish the flames with their hands.
“Come on! Disarm them!” Kellen ran forward, her right arm stretched out and her left in a fist with her elbow sticking out. She stepped through the flames, mindless of how they licked at her thin soles and pants, and yanked a weapon out of a guard’s hands. He was young, merely a boy, and stared at her with eyes huge with fear. Kellen pushed him, and he landed on his back far away from the fire, where more rebels made sure he had no more weapons on him.
The bottles burned bright, but also fast once they’d crashed to the floor. The first line of rebels stomped out the remaining flames and moved forward to disarm the guards, several of whom managed to fire their weapons, and Kellen saw two of the rebels at the far left fall. Anger shot through her and she leapt forward, twirled in the air, and slammed the outside of her foot on the closest Onotharian’s chin. She felt his neck crack, and when he slumped to the ground, she grabbed his weapon. The fire on the floor had burned out, but the remains of the powder were still melting the soles of her shoes. Taught to ignore pain while in battle, Kellen kept going. She fired at the base of the arch, and sparks rained through the air.
Tremors shook the floor, and at first Kellen was surprised that her gunfire could have such repercussions; then she realized that backup was arriving. Her heart hammered, and s
he pushed forward, grunting as two other guards slammed into her. Breathless, she used the plasma-pulse rifle to push them far enough away to hold them at gunpoint. Her blood simmered, igniting every cell in her body, until all she knew was the battle and the thirst for revenge. She acted purely by instinct when she used the back end of the rifle against the guards’ temples, quickly, first one thud and then another. They fell to the floor, listless, perhaps dead, and at that moment, she didn’t care.
“Kellen! We need to get through the outer chambers while the doors are open!” Doc shouted next to her. “Run!”
Still operating on instinct, Kellen jumped over the Onotharians’ fallen bodies and dashed through the arch. The area beyond it was empty, but rebels smelling freedom filled it rapidly. Ahead of them loomed two large metal doors, one of them open a fraction. Kellen pushed through it with her weapon ready, set to kill. She’d gone into the fight with the same creed as the rest of the rebels, to avoid harming civilians, but the enemies here weren’t soft targets…yet the face of the young Onotharian she’d spared and pushed out of the way said otherwise.
“Careful,” Doc yelled as Kellen rushed toward another, larger door, which she surmised was the outer one. “I just felt the ship dock. They may blast their way in here. Don’t get caught in the explosion.”
“I won’t,” Kellen growled, adrenalin pumping and intent on seeing this mission through. Armeo’s future and safety depended on it; it was her duty. Hearing faint scraping on the other side of the massive door, she ducked to the side. She couldn’t contact their backup, but she could get out of the way.
“Stay away, everyone!” Doc yelled, and with Corgan’s and Bellish’s help, he kept the crowd under control. Kellen couldn’t see Mikael, but hoped he was nearby. He has to be. We can’t lose him now.
The blast echoed through the large cave and forced many of the older rebels to their knees, though by standing close to the wall, Kellen didn’t feel the impact as much as some of the others did. Smoke billowed out for a moment, but ventilation and the cave’s height made it disappear quickly.
Marines streamed through the hole in the door, lining up before the tattered crowd, weapons raised. Kellen surmised they looked more alien to the Gantharians than they realized, with their black survival outfits and elaborate headgear. Stepping forward she spoke to the closest one. “I’m Commander Kellen O’Dal. Protector of the Realm. Verify this with Admiral Jacelon.”
“I don’t have to, ma’am. I’d recognize you anywhere. Good to see you alive.”
Doc stepped up and stood next to Kellen. “We have casualties that need to be evacuated first. Several of them—”
Several screams interrupted him, and the marine lieutenant aimed his weapon at the source of the noise.
“Don’t even try!” someone yelled, and the crowd parted as a young woman pushed an Onotharian soldier in front of her, locking his arms behind him. “This one tried to get away. I think they have several emergency exits with shuttles waiting, just in case,” Ayahliss said, and pushed the young man to his knees. Kellen recognized him as the guard she’d spared earlier who looked barely twenty years old.
“You’re scaring him,” Doc said calmly. “You can let go of him now, before you fracture his arms.”
Ayahliss glared suspiciously at the pale boy. “All right,” she muttered, and released him.
He slumped to the floor, clutching his left shoulder.
“I take that back,” Doc said. “I think you, or someone else, broke his clavicle.”
Ayahliss looked pleased, but Kellen sighed inwardly. The girl was dangerous, half-taught, diving into situations with more motivation than calculation.
The marine lieutenant called for medics, and people in civilian attire from Paladin’s ships entered and spread out through the crowd with stretchers.
“Kellen.” A hand on Kellen’s shoulder made her jump and grip her weapon tighter. Rae stood next to her, her eyes glistening with unspoken emotions. “You pulled it off against such incredible odds.”
“I had help.”
“I realize that. These are quite some people, these rebels. I’m impressed with how they’ve kept a kind of command structure within the prisons. A survival thing, I suppose.”
“This is Corgan and Bellish O’Gesta, the unofficial leaders among the rebels and other incarcerated people here. Corgan, Bellish, this is Admiral Rae Jacelon, of the SC. Rae is also my wife.”
“Nice to meet you, especially under these circumstances.” Rae pressed a hand to her chest and bowed slightly. “You won’t be here much longer. Once the medics have carried the injured and sick onto their ship, the traders waiting outside will carry you home.”
“Thank you, Admiral. We can never thank you enough.”
“No need. This mission is purely Kellen’s plan. Without her…” Rae shrugged.
Kellen felt a tug at her sleeve and turned to Ayahliss, who’d walked up to her. “Yes?”
“The old man over there, I thought you had some vested interest in his well-being. He looks like he’s going to faint.”
Kellen snapped her eyes to the right, where Mikael O’Landha was swaying while trying to remain on his feet. “Help me.” She rushed over to him, with Ayahliss right behind her, and caught Mikael just as his knees collapsed. She lifted him with ease while Ayahliss guided his head, which seemed too heavy for him.
Bellish met them halfway, frowning. “Oh, Gods. How’s he doing?”
“He’s doing all right, thank you,” Mikael said huskily, but with definite sarcasm. “I’m just a bit tired. I’m an old man, remember. And human. We aren’t as strong as you Gantharians, you know.”
“Human?” Rae came up to them.
“This is Mikael O’Landha,” Kellen introduced. “We know his daughter,” she added in a warning voice. They still had to be careful when they talked about people’s real names.
Rae seemed speechless. “Yes, we do,” she finally said. “We do. And I’m so glad to meet you, Mikael.”
The man, obviously fatigued, nodded and barely smiled.
“We need a stretcher over here,” Doc called out when he spotted the medics. “You need fluids and a nutritional infusion, Mikael.”
“Very well,” he whispered. “If you insist.”
After Kellen placed Mikael carefully on a stretcher, she patted his arm reassuringly before they carried him away. “We’ll see you soon.”
*
Kellen boarded the Gallant with Rae and entered the captain’s quarters with a sigh of relief.
“Hello there.” Rae ducked under Kellen’s outstretched arm and stepped close. “You’re back safe. Thank the stars,” Rae said with a small catch in her voice. “I missed you.” She embraced Kellen with warmth.
“I stink.”
“Yes, you do, but I don’t care. Honestly, I don’t.” Rae looked up at her. “I don’t think you understand what you just pulled off here. I was facing a future without the woman I love more than anything, and to know she was in the same hellhole that we’ve both had nightmares about almost drove me crazy.”
“But now I’m here.” Kellen kissed Rae’s lips, as always enthralled by their softness. “And so are you. Your timing was perfect.”
“I rushed here from Vaksses, where we were successful too, by the way.”
Kellen cupped Rae’s cheeks and kissed her lingeringly. “I love you. Thank you for carrying out your part of the mission with such good judgment.”
“You’re welcome. Why don’t you clean up and put on some fresh clothes?”
“I think I will.” Kellen began to unfasten the coarse shirt, glad to get rid of the itchy garment.
“I’ll be on the bridge. We should be able to leave within fifteen minutes. Paladin’s transporter and carriers are swallowing all the prisoners faster than predicted.”
“All right.” Kellen began unfastening her pants while she walked toward the small bathroom. It would be wonderful to be clean again. Now that she’d had time to calm down, the fo
ul smell from her clothes and her hair really bothered her. “See you in a minute.”
In the bathroom she shed her last garment and entered the ionic-resonance shower, where the grime, soot, and sweat disappeared like magic, and small puffs of disinfectant made sure no superficial foreign bodies would bother her. She ached all over, but being back with Rae, fighting this battle side by side, was enough to re-energize her.
Now all they had to do to call this mission a success was deliver the rebels to their homes. Kellen hoped that as many of the resistance members as possible could return to fighting status right away. The Supreme Constellations forces would especially need their guidance around Ganath, the Onotharians’ stronghold.
Kellen stretched and rolled her shoulders, first both and then one at a time, continuously, until the almost meditative exercise calmed her. She had to stay sharp while performing her duties, or she’d risk getting herself or, worse, someone else killed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As they stood close together in the small elevator onboard the Iktysos, Andreia was mildly annoyed with Roshan, who had insisted on asking the doctor why she was so affected by her assignment. The doctor had assured them that it was a minor case of smoke inhalation and stress. He handed her an alveoli-cleansing inhaler, and told her to use it three times daily for the upcoming week, to cure the smoke-inhalation damage. Now they were on their way to Roshan’s quarters.
“Did you have to sound like I was an insolent child, set on defying the doctor and not knowing what was in my best interests?” Andreia sighed. “I’m perfectly able to take care of myself.”
“You’re stubborn and you ignore your health sometimes.” Roshan pressed her lips together. “I had to be sure—”
“Of what? You can see that I’m tired, which is hardly a surprise. I haven’t had any sleep in days!”
“I needed to know if you were going to collapse again.”
“I didn’t collapse! I staggered, stumbled even, because, one, I’m tired; two, I’d been blasted to hell only minutes before; and three, I’d inhaled more smoke than if the Sororra tobacco industry had gone up in flames!”
