by Jaleta Clegg
“Fine. I’m an android. I work undercover for the Patrol. I’m also the Emperor’s mother. Happy?” I didn’t wait for his answer. I shuffled down the lit tunnel, my hand pressed to my side.
The tunnel wound away, curving so it was hard to see very far ahead. I kept going, though my side was on fire. Whatever temporary relief I’d been given, it was gone. The tunnel kept going. I kept walking. Wade followed behind me. The lights came on in front of me and died behind me. There weren’t any intersections. The air smelled of wet stone.
What energy I still had was rapidly dwindling. I clamped an arm against my side and kept moving. If I stopped, I wasn’t sure I could get started again. I was so lost in my own misery that I forgot about Wade. The tunnel curved to the right and bent upwards. I stumbled when it changed slope. Wade caught me before I hit the stone underfoot. He grabbed my shoulders. No blue sparks exploded between us.
He wouldn’t look at me as he cradled me against him. He waited until I’d got my balance back and then let go. But after that he walked next to me one hand ready to steady my faltering steps. We started up the slope.
It flattened out at the top. A steep stair, cut into the native rock by a cruder method than whatever carved the tunnels, climbed up at the end of the tunnel. The blue lights lined it for only a few feet past where we stood at the top of the ramp. The air was noticeably fresher.
“The way out.” I had to lean against the wall. I was breathing shallowly, trying not to jar my ribs.
Wade waited, watching me. His face was pinched and hard, he was trying to hide something. He finally let it go, breathing out a long sigh and relaxing. “So who are you really, Dace? What happened back there?”
“I'm exactly who I said I was. I can’t describe what happened on the couch.”
“Why didn’t I feel it? Smell it, or whatever.”
“Who knows?” I was too tired to try to make sense of it.
“Are you ready to go on?”
“We’d better,” I said, pushing myself away from the wall with the hand not holding my ribs together. Neither of us mentioned that we might be too late, we might emerge to find the ships gone and us alone with the golden men.
I stumbled to the stairs, groaning as I lifted my foot to the first one. They were hard to climb, the heights were uneven, the stone cut crudely. I stumbled more than once. I kept my free hand on the wall. The light grew dimmer the higher we climbed until we were feeling our way in the dark. The stairway curved around itself several times. We fumbled our way to the top. I stretched one foot out and almost tripped when the stair I expected wasn’t there.
“I think we’re at the top,” I said.
A light flared in front of us, shining a bright beam into my face. I put up my good hand to shield my eyes. It was the familiar yellow of a handlight.
“That you, Dace?” The beam dropped to the floor. I saw a group of three people in the reflected light.
“Who’s that?” Wade called from behind me.
“Darus,” he answered as he came closer. “I’ve got Fya and Aramis with me. We just found Commander Hovart and the others. They’re on their way to find out if the rest made it up the cliffs. What happened to turning the generators off?”
“We haven’t found them yet,” I answered.
“Then we better get moving,” Darus said. “Less than an hour until dawn.”
“Where do you suggest we look?” I was tired and in pain and I’d failed. No one was going to be leaving.
“Back here,” Fya said from the gloom behind Darus.
Darus turned and shone the light back the way he’d come. I saw a brief glimpse of more rough stone walls before the light found Fya. He stood in what looked like just another crack in the wall.
Aramis stuck his head out from behind Fya. “There’s some kind of door back here. It’s locked.”
“Then let Dace take care of it,” Wade said.
Three sets of eyes turned to me. I wondered how much of a secret my lockpicks were going to be when I finally did manage to get off the planet.
“Don’t ask,” I said as I shuffled past Darus. “Where’s the door?”
He moved aside. I entered the crack and found it to be a tunnel just wide enough to walk through. Aramis squeezed to one side so I could get past him. The very end of the passage bulged to accommodate the door. I slid past Aramis, wincing when he jogged my arm that held my ribs still. I got to the end and turned to face the door.
It was a lot simpler looking than the ones I’d picked, smashed, and opened already. I lowered myself to the sandy floor of the cave and pulled out my lockpicks. I could almost hear Aramis raise his eyebrows behind me.
“I need some light,” I said.
The handlight was passed forward. Aramis stood over me with it and pointed it at the lock on the door. A series of lights blinked around one big hole in the middle. The lights flashed in a circle, first red, then yellow, then green, blue, violet, and back to red. The pattern repeated. I watched it stupidly for a minute, trying to think. The warm fuzzy energy tried to worm its way into my head, but it was weak and faint up here. I pushed it away and suddenly knew how to unlock the door.
I pushed the lights in a quick sequence, opposite to the direction they were flashing, and then stuck my finger in the hole in the middle. The door slid open. I gathered the lockpicks I hadn’t needed and put them back in their pocket.
Aramis stepped over me into the space beyond. Lights flickered as they switched on, as if they hadn't been used in a long time. I looked in, not attempting to get to my feet yet. The room was filled with banks of mismatched equipment. Control panels blinked on and off, lights flashing yellow and white. They looked almost familiar, some of them. I screwed my eyes shut, it could have just been the fuzzy energy stream making it look familiar when it wasn’t really.
Someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up into Fya’s face. The swirls on his cheek were more pronounced in the dimness. He looked alien and strange, but mostly concerned.
“Are you well?” He offered me a hand.
His hand was cool and smooth around mine. He lifted me to my feet without apparent effort.
“Thanks. Just a cracked rib or two. And no food or sleep for several days.”
He grinned, and the strangeness was gone. He wasn’t human, I saw the tiny scales on his skin, but he wasn’t alien any more. The last breath of strangely colored scented energy floated away. I turned away from him and entered the cramped control area beyond the door.
Chapter 30
The five of us stood in the room, just staring. Lights flickered and played across the boards.
“Do you have any idea where to start?” Darus asked me.
“Where’s Lovar when you need him?” Aramis asked.
“Not far,” Fya answered. “Want me to get him?”
“I don’t think we need to.” Aramis pointed at Wade.
Wade stood in front of one system, watching lights run over the panel. He touched a series of buttons. The lights froze in one pattern.
“Why don’t we just blow all of them?” Darus asked.
“Because that would destroy everything here,” I said.
“Serve them right,” Darus grumbled.
“What good will it do to just turn them off?” Fya asked Wade. “What will stop them from turning it back on?”
“Once we figure out which ones to turn off, we can permanently shut them down.” Wade turned to grin, a nasty grin that had no humor in it. “No more fake distress calls, no more tractor beams, no more force fields. Only the one to hold the atmosphere in.” He looked again at the frozen pattern in front of him. Then moved to the side of the control box. “You have any tools, anyone?”
Fya stepped forward and pulled a stunner from his pocket. Wade gave it a disgusted look. Fya aimed it at the control panel and held it steady for a moment. The control panel threw off sparks and smoke. It exploded with a bang that deafened me. The lights on the panel were off, cracked and charred by the explosio
n.
“It’s a bit altered,” Fya said.
Wade grinned.
“Wait a minute,” Darus said. “What did you just blow up?”
“If I’m guessing right, that was the distress beacon.” Wade reached down beside the control box and yanked something loose. He held it out. It was recognizable as a ship transponder, it even had a Patrol logo still legible on the top.
“Good guess,” Darus said.
I turned to study the panels behind me. One of them was definitely native to whoever the golden people were. I skipped it and moved to the next one. I saw parts of a cannibalized shielding control from an obsolete ship type.
“I’d bet this one is part of the force shield,” I said.
“The atmosphere one?” Darus asked behind me.
“I doubt it.” I pointed at the hodgepodge of boards wired together to make the controls. “That’s from an old Starfire class ship. Force shield controls, mostly for asteroids.”
“You an engineer now, too?” Wade asked.
“I earned an assistant's engineer rating along with my pilot's license. I flew a Starfire for a while. The engineer wanted to further my education. I got to help fix it.”
“Well, blow it up, Fya,” Darus said.
“With great pleasure.” Fya repeated the trick with the stunner. Darus finished the destruction by yanking all the boards out and stomping on them.
“This set is the tractor beam,” Wade announced from the far end of the room.
Fya blew those up next. They started to burn, flickering with flames that turned green and blue.
“What’s left?” Darus asked.
“Three units,” I said. “None of them look like parts from ships I know. They match what we saw in the colony ship.”
“You were inside it?” Fya asked me.
“That’s where we went first. Didn’t Hovart tell you about it?”
“No time,” Fya said, shaking his head.
“Speaking of no time,” Aramis put in from the doorway, “we’ve got to move it. They’re assembling out there and daylight is breaking.”
“Anything else?” Fya demanded of Wade.
“Yank the wires.” Wade grabbed a fistful from the still burning control units and pulled. The wires gave with a loud crack. The flames flickered and died.
I headed for the door, letting them finish destroying the controls. Darus was right behind me.
“Good work,” he said as we squeezed our way down the narrow tunnel.
“On what? Getting lost and captured? I don’t know what I did that someone else couldn’t have done better.” I was really tired and cranky. And I was unsure what I felt about him. He was my father. Why had he deserted me on Tivor? I ruthlessly shoved that small voice away. I couldn’t deal with it right now. I didn’t want to lose control and I was perilously close as it was.
“But nobody else did it, Dace, you did,” he said, sounding miffed.
Aramis waited for us in the larger cave. Reflected daylight glimmered on the floor behind him. “Unless you want to fight your way past the whole population, we have to go now. And quietly.”
Wade and Fya exited the narrow tunnel, each of them trailed a handful of wiring. They dropped the tangles to the cave floor.
Aramis led us to the entrance of the cave. It was high up the slope of the wall, hidden by a screen of brush and piles of rocks. We followed Aramis out one side and along a hidden path. It was narrow, rocky, and clung to the side of the cliff with barely enough room to walk. We had to crouch to stay out of sight of the golden men gathered below. It hurt to move that way, but I bit my lip and kept going. We were almost out, almost free.
Daybreak lit the sky. The purple shield was already fading. The daytime breeze built strength. It ruffled my hair and stirred grit on the trail.
The golden men muddled around uncertainly. They had a large assortment of boxes and equipment spread everywhere across the sandy ground. I recognized several of the black boxes, opened with their insides torn loose. The men argued over them. Their white tunics gleamed in the early light. I caught a glimpse of the women and children huddled near the bushes not far away. Not a single child cried, though. We edged past them, following the rough trail around the cliff face and back to the main valley. I straightened with relief once we were out of sight.
“How do we get down?” Darus asked from behind me. I was in the middle. Aramis led, with Wade right behind him. Fya brought up the rear of our group.
“Jump,” Wade suggested.
“There’s a spot we can climb just ahead,” Fya answered.
We kept going. I held on to my side and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I wasn’t sure how much farther I could go.
The first ship lifted from the distant cliff top. We all stopped to watch as it blazed its way into the air. It kept going, until it was lost in the wild sky above. I breathed out the breath I’d held.
“It worked,” Wade said. “It worked!” He gave a whoop of triumph.
“But we’re still over here,” I said.
“Will they wait?” Wade asked.
“They’d better,” I muttered.
“Move faster,” Darus said.
I tried. The trail was too rough, it was still slow going. If we hurried any faster, we risked falling fifty feet to the valley floor below. Aramis stopped when he came to a very steep canyon that cut across the cliff face. He glanced back at us and then swung himself over the edge of the path. Wade didn’t hesitate, he dropped down the slot behind Aramis. I came to the edge and balked.
The slot was barely seven feet wide where we were, it narrowed considerably not far below. And then it dropped straight down. I saw the sand of the trail that ran at the base of the cliff looking very far away. I couldn’t do it.
Darus nudged me. “Dace, you’ve got to move. Now.”
“I can’t,” I said. It came out strangled.
“There isn’t any other way to go right now. And we don’t have any rope. You’re going to have to.”
I turned around and looked at him. His eyes, so similar to mine, except they were a lighter shade of hazel instead of muddy brown, encouraged me. I swallowed a nervous lump and backed down, grabbing with my hands at anything that stuck up. My side was on fire, pain from my cracked ribs weakened my grip. I started to slip.
I wedged my fingers into cracks, holding onto ripples in the rock. I didn’t have a choice. If I fell, I’d probably die, and after everything I’d already done, it would be stupid to die this close to getting free. I made myself angry, using that to help drown out the pain. I clutched a rock and lowered myself to the next hold.
I made it to the narrow part and stopped. I couldn’t find toeholds in the smooth chimney of rock.
“Wedge yourself against the sides and scoot down that way,” Darus said above me. “Just like climbing through an engine tube.”
I tried what he suggested, sliding into the slot until my back was against one side and my feet against the other. I had to push hard to keep myself up. It was pure agony. I spread my arms out, using them while I shifted my feet down. It was slow and so painful I kept having to stop while my vision cleared. I was still ten feet from the bottom when I couldn’t do it anymore. I lost my hold and fell.
I landed on Wade. I think he stood under me on purpose. He broke my fall. We both landed on the sand, me on top. I couldn’t move, it hurt too much. He shifted me to one side, out of the way of anyone else who might fall. I lay on the ground, just concentrating on breathing while Darus and Fya climbed down the rest of the way.
“Is she all right?” I heard Darus ask above my head.
“Probably,” Wade said, sounding very unconcerned.
“Then why is she lying there like that?” Darus demanded.
“Just shut up and help me up,” I said. I held up my good arm, my other one was a dead weight, completely numb. Darus was the one who pulled me to my feet. He opened his mouth, preparing to question me or lecture me or something.
I wasn’t in the mood to listen. “I cracked a few ribs earlier. I’ll be fine once we get moving.”
Another ship lifted off. And two more almost at the same time.
“That’s six,” said Aramis. I must have missed a couple of them while I was climbing down.
“We have to move, or they’ll all leave before we even get there,” Darus said.
We took off at a trot across the wide valley floor. Darus kept hold of my arm. Wade came up on my other side and stayed there, ready to help if I needed it. It made me irritable. I hated being helpless. I hated needing someone to hang onto me to keep me going. I would have shaken them both off except I knew I couldn’t move by myself. Without Darus dragging me and Wade right behind me, I would have collapsed.
The sun climbed higher as we ran. More ships lifted off. We heard the rumble of their engines. I did my best to ignore the jarring waves of pain that came with every step. I moved in a daze, propelled by Darus and Wade. Somewhere about the middle of the canyon, when we splashed through one of the larger streams, Wade took over from Darus. He put his arm around my waist, half carrying me across the tumbled rocks of the stream. He didn’t let go when we came out the far side. I wasn’t capable of objecting.
The day grew hotter. I stumbled more than walked. I don’t know if the others were in much better shape. Time was running out on us. More and more of the ships lifted. How many ships had still been able to lift? I tried to remember and couldn’t. I hoped Jasyn and Clark would still be waiting for me.
We broke out of the trees onto the grassy slope that led up to the cliff. We stopped at the last stream for a drink. I dropped to the ground and slurped up water. And then found that I couldn’t move. I rolled over on the bank and lay still, breathing in shallow gasps against the pain in my ribs.
“Come on,” Wade encouraged me. “Just up that hill and you can lie down all you want.”
“That’s a lie and you know it,” I panted.
“Just believe it, Dace,” he said and pulled me back to my feet. I swayed and almost fell. He caught me and started dragging me up the trail. Darus was right behind him. Aramis and Fya flanked us on either end. Aramis watched to make sure we were moving and took off up the trail at a run.
