by Celeste Raye
He said, “She had been looking for him. Is it possible that when he showed up that he said something that caused her to not want to go with him? Could he have told her his plans perhaps?”
Talon said. “There are so many pouring in the doors every single day that we don’t get a chance to check all of them. That’s something that we need to work on. Unfortunately, everyone who was in the room with them was part of the Rovers so we have no idea of what he may have said to her before he knocked her out and took her.”
Marik asked, “Do any remain alive?”
Talon nodded. “But I think he’s too far gone to question.”
Marik looked down at his leg. The pain was still there, and he knew it would slow him down some, but he had to get busy and try to save Jenny and soon. It could not afford to wait. “Show me where he is.”
Weapon fire had shattered interior walls, and there was rubble everywhere. Talon had to assist Marik in stepping over a large pile of shattered plaster and fragmented stairs. With every step, his leg pained him more and more, but he just kept going. There were other things that were far more important right now.
The injured Rover lay in a courtyard. More anger hit. Yes, the man was an enemy, but to throw him outside like trash? He shot a furious glare at Talon who merely said, “We don’t know if he is dangerous still.”
One look down told Marik that the man was too far gone to be dangerous to anybody. He shoved his anger at Talon’s callousness aside. This was war whether he liked it or not. Whether Talon liked it or not. He knelt beside the Rover. His hands went to the man’s chest and the gaping wound there. Nothing would save his life. All Marik needed was to know the location of the Rover hideout.
He said, “I think I can wake him. The only thing I might be able to get from him is an exact location. We can match it with your intel. I’m sure your intel is good, but we need to be precise. All things considered, we can’t afford even one mistake. We can’t even be one building off. They’ll see us coming if we go into the wrong building and they are likely to kill her then and there if they think we’re going to try to get her back by force.”
Talon said, “Do what you have to but don’t waste yourself.”
Marik had no intention of doing that. He brought his fingers together and let the power rest there in the palms of his hands. Heat blossomed and bloomed. He felt it run from his palms to his wrists and up along his arm before spreading into his shoulders and then his chest and lower still. His own body would heal faster if he did not do this but he had to. Even if it meant never being able to use his leg again, he had to find Jenny.
His hands went to the Rover’s chest. The Rover gasped and jerked. His eyes flew open. Death still stalked him and would take him soon, but he was awake now. The pain was horrific, and Marik could see that he was in pain. He hated to leave the man in such agony, but the agony was what had brought him out of unconsciousness.
Marik said, “I know you are hurting and I’m sorry. I will help you, but first I need to know where they took the healer.”
Now that he was leaning closer to the man’s face, he could see that he was very young. Maybe twenty human years. How had this human come to the decision to join the band of Rovers, those thieving and murderous humans who were gleefully taking advantage of and allowing other members of their own race to die simply to ensure their own survival?
The Rover whispered, “Let me die. It hurts so much. Please stop.”
Marik did not lift his hands away from the Rover’s chest. “Listen to me; I need you to hear me now. I need to know where they took the healer. Answer me, and it will all be over very quickly.”
The young Rover began to weep silently. Long silvery tears rolled down his cheeks. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Dammit! Marik didn’t have time for the young man to regret his life choices and decisions. “Where is the healer going to be held?”
The young man gulped. “We were hungry, that’s all. My dad and me. We were sitting on the…” His eyes misted over. His mouth hung open.
Marik wasn’t willing to let go yet. He pressed his fingers firmly against the young man’s flesh, and the young man’s eyes jolted open again. Sweat covered his face, and his hands came up and then beat against the ground. His breath came in short and fast inhales and exhales that sent little bubbles of blood dripping down his chin.
Marik said, “If I have to keep you alive for a hundred years to ask you the same question over and over again, that I will. You will suffer for eternity if you do not answer me.”
He hated himself for saying those words, but he had to. Jenny’s life was at stake, and this young man’s was already gone.
The Rover gulped out. “They said if we came along, that if we helped, they would give us food and credits. That we would be hungry no more.”
Pity surfaced, but Marik could not afford pity just then. “Tell me.”
The young man’s eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks. His voice was faint. “That house that belonged to…to the man that used to trade in exotic furs. That’s where they’re all staying. Not above, Below. They are in the rooms below the others.”
Marik said, “Rest now.”
He took his hand away and looked over toward Talon. Talon nodded his head and pulled his weapon. The young man’s eyes were still closed. The pity that Marik felt for him made him have to turn his head as Talon fired the weapon directly toward the young man’s skull.
He said, “Do you have any idea where the houses he spoke of are?”
Talon said, “Yes. It’s a good thing you pressed for more intel too, because we would’ve been at the wrong place. Our information had them one street over.”
Marik felt more tired than he could even bear but he had to bear it. “I will go with you.”
Talon said, “You must rest now.”
Marik shook his head emphatically. “Hell no. I am going with you, Talon.”
Talon said, “They have not yet made a ransom demand. We know that is what they want because they left a note behind. We will wait for them to demand a ransom. In the meantime, you can do something about that leg of yours.”
Marik’s hands balled into fists. A long vein appeared and stood up along his forehead. “We can’t just sit here and do nothing while they hold her prisoner.”
Talon said, “We are not doing nothing. I have to get the ship back to the dock. That will take some hours. We have to move. We have to get as many people as want to go on that ship.”
Marik’s mouth fell open. “Are you serious?”
Talon gave him a humorless grin. “Well, you said you wanted to populate the planet right? I see no better way. Honestly, I think the only way to fight against what is happening here now is to fight against the Federation. We can’t save them all. We have done all that we can here. Maybe the best thing that we can do is take as many as we can, as many as want to go, with us when we leave.
“We will only be able to take from this city, however. There is no way in hell I am risking taking my ship over the other cities on this wretched planet. They may shoot me out the very sky for sheer spite.”
Marik looked down at his feet. “I see.”
Talon’s hand rested on his upper arm. “I know this is not what we planned. I know we plan to come back here and help as much as possible. I thought that perhaps having more healers here would make a difference but the truth of the matter is we would be better off taking the healers from here and putting them on our own planet. Taking the people who want a better life from here and putting them on their own planet. Those who would sit here and continue to rebuild even though it’s futile won’t change their minds. This is home to them; it will always be home to them. They will never leave.”
Marik knew that was true. His heart bled anyway. He said, “I wonder what would’ve happened if anyone had offered us assistance when our home planet was being destroyed. Would we have taken it, Talon?”
Talon said, “Circumstances are entirely d
ifferent.”
Marik’s eyes met his squarely. “Are they? What if the planet had not been destroyed but merely leveled like this one has been? Would those who were left behind when the ships left have done the same thing that these people are doing? Are we so very different from these humans? I don’t know that I can just leave them here.”
Talon said, “It’s the last thing I want to do, but it is the only logical thing to do at this point. We have to fight the Federation. We have got to make people see that they cannot depend upon the Federation anymore. It’s broken. They care only for themselves. They make promises they never keep and they let people die by the millions. Not just humans but every race. If we are going to restore a real peace and safety to this universe, the Federation has to be crumbled.”
Marik knew in his heart that that was true. It didn’t make it any easier to take. Jenny was a human, and he had no idea if she would leave or not. If she didn’t, he would have no choice but to leave her. Leave her or stay here and try to help for the rest of his life.
He would cross that bridge when he got to it.
Right now, all he wanted to do was make sure that she was not murdered by her former lover.
Chapter 9 - Marik
Jenny’s eyes fluttered open as consciousness came back. She had no idea where she was. Her body was resting on a cold stone floor, and everything was dim and dark. Horror rushed into her. Had it finally happened? Had that long and sweet dream that she had been having finally broken? Had she awoken back in the tiny space that had been allocated to her family there in the Below?
Her hands flew out, and her fingers touched the floor. She levered herself up slowly. Her eyes scanned her surroundings and despair hit her hard as the events that had recently unfolded came back to her. Ben stood nearby, one hand holding a protein bar that he had obviously stolen while in the hospital and the other one holding a refresher bottle that he was drinking from greedily.
She spoke. “What is happening?”
Ben gave her a smile; it was razor-sharp and filled with malice. “I thought I already told you what I want. Maybe I gave you a harder knock on the head than I intended to. Have you already forgotten?”
She shook her head and as she did, a small lance of pain flew through her temples. She put her fingertips to it and rubbed lightly. Immediately the pain went away. That startled her a bit, but she ignored it. There were other things that she had to consider right now; a headache was the least of her worries.
She asked, “Do you really think they will ransom for me, Ben?”
He said, “Yes. I do. They think of you as a healer, and they thought enough of you to first rescue you from a slave ship and take you to their home planet, didn’t they?”
Yes. They had. She sighed. “It isn’t what you think, Ben. Their race is not like ours. Theirs is a very rational and logical race, but they also have a huge depth of compassion.”
He sneered at her. “Let’s see if they have enough compassion for you to hand over that stack of credits that I know they are hoarding.”
She asked, “How could I not have known that this is who you are?”
Ben looked at her. His eyes glittered in the dimness. “I don’t know Jenny. You grew up in the Below. You know how things are. It’s everyone for themselves. You get whatever you can take, and you keep what you have. That is, if you want to live.”
She did want to live but not if it meant killing someone else or causing them to suffer. She looked down at her hands. “Ben, did you ever love me?”
He snorted. “There’s no such thing as love, you little idiot. I kept you safe because you had value. I had thought that I could pawn you at some point. Especially after your parents were gone and you had no family to speak up for you. I still don’t know how you managed to get yourself captured and put on that ship. But I will say that you did it mere hours before I was to go to the pawn shop and have you taken.”
Hatred started in her chest. “I loved you. At least I thought I did. But then again, what did I know of love?”
She closed her eyes. The image of her little hut on the hill came back to her, soothing her. She could picture every object on her shelves and the small bed that she slept in at night. She could hear the sound of the waves crashing on the shore and feel the sunlight on her face.
With those things came something else. A strong and sure determination that she had never known she could or would ever possess. She was going to live. She was going to fight if she had to. She was going to live if there was any way, any way at all, that she could get out of whatever this place was that Ben had brought her to and get back to the hospital; she would take that way.
She did not want to go just back to the hospital though. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go home, and she wanted to see Marik, the one that she truly did love.
That was what all those emotions and feelings that she constantly felt near him were. They were all precursors of the love that she had been unwilling to admit. They were the sure signs of her affection for him, and she had thrust them away carelessly and ignored them out of fear and commitment to this horrible man who had never cared for her at all.
Well, so be it.
Knowing that he had no love for her and never had simplified things in a way that made it possible for her to think more clearly. She had no doubt that Ben would use her to get the ransom and then kill her. If he did not kill her, that he would find some other use for her, and she was sure whatever that use was, it would not be pleasant.
Home.
She had to get out of there and away from him. She had to find Marik and tell him how she felt. She had to go home.
This planet was not her home. She came back here to try to help, and she had done that. It was not enough, but it would never be enough. She could live several lifetimes and never be able to do enough for this planet.
Ben tossed her the refresher bottle. A scant swallow remained in the bottom. She set it aside, not willing to put her lips on the same object that his lips had touched. He ignored the fact that she did not drink from it.
He said, “You know, this planet that they took you to. There are some here, those who lived above and have flight training, who want to take that ship and go find that planet. If we have large enough numbers, we could.”
Shock raced all across her system. Was he insane? One look at his face told her that he was not so much insane as he was power-hungry. He was no better than the Federation’s top officers, those who disregarded life because it was of far less value to them than wealth and power.
She said, “They are warriors there. They will kill you before the ship even lands.”
His eyebrow lifted. “I have had spies in and out of that hospital for weeks now. I have heard all of the stories of that planet. It sounds as if there are few creatures on it that we would have to fight and plenty of resources. A man could be king there.”
King? What was the king?
She had no idea, but the term seemed ominous and frightening. She looked back down at her hands to avoid looking at his face. There was something absolutely terrifying about his visage now. “You can’t do this, Ben.”
He snorted. “Those who have flight training can absolutely fly that ship. Once we have a ship, we can get there. Once we get there, we can take it over. It will be ours. You would do well to remember who I am in this new world that we have here, Jenny. You would do well to remember that I am now a master of everything that I see. These people, they follow me. They believe in me.”
Oh, God. He really was power-hungry. Not just that though: he was drunk on power. Whatever power he had been given, he had probably won it by force. She had seen for herself that he was willing to murder. She knew from the stories that she had heard about the Rovers that they had started off picking off the weakest and sickest. That they had plundered and looted every building that they could regardless of whether or not that meant killing those who had taken shelter within it. They had built their pack by demanding that peopl
e either join or die.
She did not know what to say or if there even was anything to say. She stayed silent. Ben began to pace back and forth, his booted feet echoing on the cold floor. He said, “This planet is a mess. It’s ruined and not any good anyway. I hear that you have been living on a planet in such splendor while we’ve been down here struggling just to eat. It will give us everything we ever needed and dreamed of. We can live there and feast every single day. We can have clean water whenever we want it.
“I could charge a great deal of money to people who wanted to come there. They would have to pay a heavy and high entrance tax. They would gladly pay it to have such riches.”
Her heart froze. Not so long ago she had been thinking that the planet was safe from such things simply because it was so out of the way and so small, but it was clear that she had been mistaken. Would war come to that planet as well? Would there come a time when they would have to fight for their home?
Ben stopped pacing. “I just sent the ransom demand. It will take a couple of hours to get there because the city is in such chaos.”
She said, “What will you do with me?”
Ben said, “I told you already. I have not quite decided yet. I don’t know if you can be loyal to me. I demand complete loyalty from everyone who joins me. You may already be loyal to them. If that’s true then how can I trust you? What if I put you on the ship to go with us to that planet and you somehow signal them that we’re coming?”
She would. If she managed to get on that ship, if he and his despicable crew managed to take it, she would absolutely signal her home and tell the people there, the people that she loved, that they were about to be set upon by humans who were no better than feral dogs.
He said, “I have things to attend to. So I will see to you later. By then, I should’ve made my decision.”
He walked away and she sat there with her head lowered until she heard the clang of a door. Her head jerked up, and she gazed at the door at the far end of the room. She stood and managed to walk over to it. It was locked from the outside, and there was no way to open it. She tried a few times and then gave up. Maybe there was another way out.
