by Celeste Raye
Talon was doing the same thing. He didn’t move anything but his fingers. He spread four of them across her forearm and pressed down wiggling them a bit so that she could be sure of what he meant.
Four Capos in the alley, and who knew how many more on the street.
She should shoot that damn old man herself!
A great hue and cry went up. Someone screamed, “There she goes! And that alien with her! There! Off toward the tenth exit! They’re probably headed for the tubes!”
Jessica held her breath. She did not know who was pointing the Capo in the wrong direction, whether it was a friend trying to ensure her survival or just a citizen caught up in the excitement and seeing ghosts. It didn’t really matter either way. All that mattered was that the lights suddenly went off and the sound of heavy footsteps heading away from their hiding place rang out.
A door placed at the rear of the building and obviously used by whoever had to dump the trash opening. A familiar voice hissed, “Hurry, please! I had a friend distract them and point them in the other direction, but they won’t stay on the wrong track for long. You should know this.”
Talon went taut with tension, and she whispered, “Go. Selena is a friend.”
They dashed into the building and Selena, a tall and emaciated woman with deep-brown eyes and hair that had gone solid gray, whispered, “To the roof. They’re on the streets, and on the streets, they’ll stay. You’ll have to take the hard way.”
Talon balked. “How did you know we were in the alley?”
Selena’s eyes narrowed. “Did my man not get you what you asked for when you were waiting at the banquelle earlier? Do you think I don’t know everything that happens below?”
Jessica understood why Talon was so jumpy. It was hard to know who to trust. Yori had told them that the back of the resistance had been broken, and it seemed it had been but there were some who still went undetected.
Talon nodded, but his hands stayed very close to his weapons. Selena hissed again, “Go! We have risked our very lives for you this evening. Do not forget us.”
Jessica said, “You have risked far too much far too often for me to forget you, Selena.”
They took the stairs, treading as softly as possible. Jessica’s hands found the latch for the roof, and they stepped out on it as she closed the latch. A volley of voices and what sounded like weapon fire made them drop to their bellies and crawl to the edge of the roof so they could peer down.
An old man lay in the middle of the narrow and dim street, one hand thrown up over his head as if he were still protesting the taking of his life. Anger boiled up in her as one of the uniformed Capo landed a kick in the old man’s ribs.
She’d wanted to kill the old man herself for betraying her, but his betrayal was something she could understand. Kicking an old man after he was already down and dead was not something she would ever understand.
She heard Talon’s weapon move. She heard the chink and slight scrape of its body meeting the brick of the roof but she did not understand what he was going to do until four laser streaks jetted from his weapon and all of the Capo standing over the dead man’s body also lay dead.
People screamed and began to run. Jessica grabbed Talon’s arm. Anger blazed even higher as she shouted, “Why did you do that? Now the Capo will come in here and kill them all! What were you thinking?”
Talon leaped to his feet. He directed a laser blast at one of the surveillance nodules located further along the street. It went up in a puff of smoke and fire. He then blasted out the windows of one of the Federation’s pawnshops, just as one of the Federation pawn officers came walking through the door with a set of keys in his hand.
The Federation officer’s body was neatly severed by the ferocity of the blast that Talon leveled. Jessica’s hands went to her mouth as she staggered to her feet. What was he doing? He was sabotaging the entire operation that had barely had a chance to begin! She screamed, “What are you doing?”
Talon pointed his chin toward the pawnshop. Wide-eyed women and children, obvious pawns who had been standing nearby began to break and run as the pawnshop went up in a ball of flame. Talon said, “I imagine by the time they sort all this out, it will be too late for them to find the poor souls who were pawned, don’t you?”
On the street, people ran toward the dead Capo. Quiet fell, and Talon stepped to the end of the roof with his weapons and his hands. His voice rang out strong and proud. “The Gorlites are coming in two days to take this planet. Those above already know this. They would have left you in ignorance until the very moment that those monsters descended upon you to murder you all or to sell you into whatever slavery they could.
“We can fight them. We can. But we have to fight those above first. They will take every available ship off the surface of this planet if you do not stop them. They are already fleeing, and they intend to leave you here to die. Will you not stand up now? Will you continue to be forced to live below ground like mere slugs? Or will you fight?”
Murmurs began and then swelled into angry shouts. Jessica said, “What have you done?”
Talon’s silver eyes glinted as he replied. “I’ve made them aware of the situation. They needed to be aware. All this talk of patching in is stupid. I would not have said so to your friend because it’s clear that he runs the resistance from an ivory tower of sorts. He’s never been out here, and he doesn’t know how to raise an army. He thinks he can do it from some impersonal distance and you can’t.”
Her mouth hung open. “You planned this the whole time! You didn’t care about getting the paperwork for the ship at all!”
Talon shook his head. “I didn’t know what the below looks like or what it was about until I got here. And I do care about those stamps. I do care about breaking experienced fighters out of the prison. We need them. Now we have the perfect diversion to get back to the ship and get the ship to the prison.”
Jessica knew he was right, but they didn’t lessen her anger. “Don’t you understand? Yori will die for this!”
Talon said, “We have to move.”
They did move. She moved far back from the edge of the roof and then took a running start, elongating her body and pumping her arms and legs fast as she sailed over the rooftop and onto the next one. Talon came in right behind her. Soon they were making their way across the below, rooftop to rooftop.
Jessica could not help but look toward the streets below. Riots had broken out, and the Capo were charging in. Normally when the Capo came, and people scurried before them, they ran from them and did their best to protect their loved ones. Not now. They were meeting the armed capo with whatever weapons they could pick up find, and she paused for a moment, realizing that Talon had, with one simple gesture, managed to do the one thing that she and the rest of the resistance had never been able to do.
He had encouraged the population to fight back.
They came to the exit. Talon took aim at a surveillance nodule from the rooftop upon which they stood, and he blasted it into smithereens. They scrambled down the side of the building, using the old gutter pipes to make the descent.
There didn’t seem to be much use in trying to hide as all of those people swarming the gates now were also trying to get out of the below. Jessica heard bloodlust in their voices. A shudder worked its way through her body. They had been denied the right to live above for so long, and now they had every reason to hate those who did live above even more. There was going to be war and destruction all around her, and while she had long wanted the awful caste system to be brought down to its knees, she had somehow never expected it to happen in such a way.
They made their way out of the gate and into a hovercraft. Jessica plugged credits into the slot and typed in the coordinates. The hovercraft zoomed upward and away from the above, headed toward the docking stations. Her entire body shook with both anger and triumph as they flew their way back toward the ship.
Chapter 13:
Talon was angry with himself, but he was
also angry with Jessica. She and her friend Yori talked a good game but neither of them seemed truly interested in doing the one thing that would start the revolution that they truly seemed to want and, what was more, neither of them seemed to take into account the fact that maybe those above ground did not deserve to be on those ships away from the planet.
Of course, Yori would not have thought that. He was from above ground.
Talon said, “Are you angry with me?”
“Of course I’m mad at you. Innocent people are going to die now. The Capo are going to kill as many as they can. You’ve just incited them to violence. They’re going to go above, and there’s no telling what they may do to the people there.”
He regarded her for a moment. “Does it really matter? Do you not think that the people below deserve some justice? Do you not think that they’ve had a long-simmering hatred for the people who live above? Do you think that they have spent an entire lifetime living below ground like a mole without longing to see the sun?”
Her head jerked up and turned toward him. Her mouth held no color, and it was flat with her rage. “I come from below. I know exactly what it is like. Your brother's mate comes from below. She also knows what it is like. Yes, we hate those who live above. We know that we are nothing to them. We know that they get the best of everything while we get scraps. You are not telling me anything I do not know.”
He rocked back in the seat. “But you were a Capo.”
Her tone was venomous. “Yes, and I told you that my father pawned me into service when it couldn’t pay a debt. Did you believe that people who live above pawn their daughters and wives?”
Talon said, “It would not shock me.”
To his relief, her body relaxed. Her fingers plucked in her lap. “It shouldn’t. They do. But only in the direst of circumstances.”
Talon said, “I would be willing to bet that dire circumstances above are not nearly as dire as normal circumstances are below.”
She leaned forward, her elbows meeting her knees. Her head rested in her hand. Her voice was muffled. “You’d win that bet.”
He was torn all over again. She had said that she cared for him, but now after the way she had defended Yori, who was clearly one of the leaders of the resistance and worried over him, he found himself wondering again if the two of them were lovers and allies. Again, that spike of jealousy drove itself into his heart.
The hovercraft stopped at the docking station several ships below theirs. Jessica had probably deliberately misled the hovercraft, and he had to admit that was a smart move on her part.
They dashed onto the ship. Jessica tossed the package to Caleb saying, “You better use those well or we are all going to die.”
Talon went to the controls. His fast hands targeted an opening in the air traffic and the ship lifted and then shot away from the docking station, heading straight toward the prison.
The prison was a forbidding structure of stone and metal that soared nearly ten stories high. It was surrounded by a high-energy beam fence as well as a gravitational pull. Caleb did use the documents that Yori had procured for them very well indeed because they had no trouble at all getting into the prison.
Talon had to admit that he was worried less about getting in than he was about getting out, however.
As soon as they docked, Talon, Jessica, and Caleb, as well as the rest of the crew, gathered their arms and gave each other grim looks.
Talon said, “Jessica, you are with me. You might know who it is that we need to release first.”
Caleb asked, “What about the rest of us, boss?”
Talon gave them all a steady look. “My suggestion would be that you lay down as much cover for us as you can, but if things go bad, get back to the ship and get gone. The rest of you, protect Caleb with your lives because without him, you’re stuck here. He’s the only one who can fly besides me.”
Jessica’s warm body leaned into his for just a moment as she reached for a weapon that someone had extended to her. Talon’s heart made a little leap in his chest as it always did when she was near. When all of this was over, they were going to have to decide what they were to each other. If they lived through this.
Well then. It would be a damn shame to die without knowing whether or not the woman that he loved truly loved him back, now wouldn’t it?
They headed into the prison, not even bothering to keep up the ruse that they were there on Federation business. Weapons blasted, and guards either ran or stood and fought only to die. It did not shock Talon at all that most of the guards ran. It had long been his experience that those who enslaved others were bullies who, once the violence turned toward them, always ran from it.
These cells were miserable, cramped things made of ionized bars. The prisoners had no choice but to stay in one spot or risk losing a limb to those bars. Talon grabbed one guard who was attempting to flee and shook him like a ragdoll.
Talon shouted, “Where are the controls for the bars?”
The guard, obviously terrified, and shook his head and blubbered out, “I can’t tell you that. I can’t! I will be executed by the Federation!”
Jessica stuck a blaster to the guard’s temple. Her face held no expression. “If you do not tell us, you face being executed by me. Right here. Right now. Where are the controls?”
The guard whimpered, “On the third floor. In the large room to the right after you leave the up tube.”
Talon released the guard. The guard fumbled for his weapon. Jessica said, “I do not want to kill you. My fight is not with you. Go and go now if you want to live.”
The guard forgot all about his weapon. He dropped all pretense of trying to stay and fight. He ran like a waddling duck, which would’ve been funny under any other circumstances.
The prisoners had realized that they were in the middle of a takeover. They shouted and screamed from inside their cages. Some he even risked throwing objects into the ionized bars. Talon had to duck when one object flew between the bars, shattered, and left a shower of dust and debris flying around the hallway.
Jessica said, “I don’t trust the up tube.”
Talon said, “We have no choice. There are no stairs. Look.”
She did look around in her face registered dismay. “If they catch us in the up tube, they can trap us.”
Talon said, “I know. I think I have an idea.”
He hastened toward the end of the hall and stood looking upward. The bottom of the second tier of cells jutted out slightly, forming a small walkway. He said, “I think I can just make it.”
Jessica gave him a look that mingled both amusement and disbelief. “What are you going to do? Jump for it?”
Talon said, “Yes.”
Then he backed up and took off running back toward the wall fast as he could: his legs pumping in his arms moving rapidly at his sides. His feet left the floor, and his fingertips brushed the underside of the walkway. For a moment, he was sure that he had made it. For another second he was sure he hadn’t. Then his abnormally long fingers closed around a small metal bar just enough for him to catch a grip on it.
His body swung there back and forth like a pendulum, and it took several tries before he could settle his hand into a position that would allow him better leverage and balance. Eventually, he got it, and he managed to pull himself up. Once on the second floor, he found himself faced with a new conundrum, however. There was no way to back up and run from the edge of the walkway to the other. He climbed to the top of the railing and managed to grip a railing on the third floor, suddenly finding himself incredibly grateful for his elongated height.
He was now on the third floor. Jessica still stood below. He called her, “You take the tubes. I’ll be right here holding off anyone who attempts to hijack it.”
He raced towards the tube station, not bothering to look down or to wait for an answer from those who were still below. The truth was if whoever was in the control room could control the up tube, they could take that tube all the way
to whatever floor they wanted to, and that was nothing he could do about it.
The tube was swift however, and Jessica and the others were on the floor and with him in a matter of seconds. They stormed down the hallway, ignoring the screams from the prisoners as they searched for the control room. The sound of weapon fire continued as more and more of the crew did away with what few guards were willing to try to fight it out with them.
The control room was locked. Talon blasted the door open with the last bit of fire from his weapon. He dropped the weapon on the floor, knowing that carrying it would be useless and it would just slow him down now.
The men inside the control room were pale and very shaken. One of them immediately threw his hands up and screamed, “We are prisoners here too! We are not trying to stop you! The Federation bred us to run this control, and we have no quarrel with you.”
Talon’s jaw sagged open. “What do you mean they bred you for this job?”
One of the men spoke in a slow and tremulous voice. “We’ve never been outside this prison. We were born here. The women’s side is opposite this one, and they breed them whenever control room operators and guards start getting low.”
An absolute rage started within Talon. He had to kill the guards that were standing in their way, and it was as wrong as anything else. These guards had never been out of the prison? They had been born there and basically enslaved into its walls? No wonder they had put in such a fight! They were probably not fleeing for their lives simply because an armed group of people had stormed in, but because they had never known a life outside that prison and now they had the opportunity to see something besides those walls.
Jessica pointed her weapon at one of the control room operators. “Open the cells for those who fought in the resistance.”
Talon said, “Open all the cells.”
Jessica gaped at him. “Talon! Some of the people within this prison are killers!”
