As we finished up, fat and full and happy, Amara looked at me, her amusement gone. “We’ve about run out of food, Yan.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Just take the speeder tomorrow to the city and get supplies. We’re nearly out of everything. Not just food.”
“Well, make me a list then,” I said.
“Can it fit in the speeder?” Jinx asked.
Rayvan nodded from her chair. “The ole’ girl has plenty of room in the trunk, unless we’re buying barrels worth of stuff.”
That we were not. Money wasn’t something we had a lot of at the moment. Not the plan we’d really hoped for, considering the heist we’d undertaken to end up here. We were supposed to be rich beyond our wildest dreams, able to start anew and fulfill any and all dreams we had for ourselves. But the plan went to hell, we were betrayed, scattered, hurt.
We were alive and together now, though, and my family was safe, their debts wiped clean. Everything was alright. So what if we weren’t stinking rich?
Still, we had to buy groceries.
“Let’s knock this out early, okay?” Rayvan said. “I’ll have the speeder up and purring after dawn.”
I groaned. “I don’t love getting up.”
“Then don’t eat.”
I stuck out my tongue. She grinned.
The next morning, sure enough, I was awoken at the crack of dawn. Of course, we had no concept of dawn when in space, so I was usually allowed a standard six-ish hours of sleep. But planet-side, that wasn’t the case. We’d adjusted to the day-night cycle, which on Caelum 3 was a comfortable fifteen hours of daylight and roughly ten or so of night, though Pivek explained that would start to change with the seasons, assuming we stayed that long.
It didn’t help that I’d unwisely drank a bit too much after dinner the night before.
I rolled over with a groan. I opened my eyes to find Jinx staring back at me, her lips curled into a smile.
“Morning, sunshine,” she said. There was still sleep in her eyes and her hair was a mess, but that didn’t keep her from looking as beautiful as ever. I smiled right back. It was such a blessing to be able to wake up next to her every day. I wouldn’t trade any amount of wealth to change a thing.
We dressed and went outside to find Rayvan already in her speeder, her legs kicked up as she thumbed through a data-pad.
It wasn’t the best idea, but Rayvan had been adamant about getting her father’s speeder back. Jinx explained that she’d fixed it up with her late father, so it meant a lot to her. Therefore, we didn’t put up too much argument when she and Beleak wanted to return to Elarra to retrieve it. Neither could pilot so K had to take them, but thankfully, we had two ships—the Sanara and the Diego – the latter of which was not notorious as a ship crewed by thieves, so they were able to return without incident.
I had to admit I was glad they did. It was nice having land transport to get to the larger city on the other side of the savannah. Sure, it would have been much faster to fly to the city for supplies, but there was no need to risk being spotted by bounty hunters. Was it unlikely that there would be any skulking around Caelum 3? Yes, but better to be safe than sorry.
The Sanara was usually loaded with supplies, but with the events of the past few months, the heist and the frequent chases from bounty hunters and being on the run, stopping to buy food had been hard, so it was finally time. Our stores had lasted us a month on this little planet, which was more than we could have asked, considering we picked up four extra mouths and had my family here.
She perked up when she saw us coming. “Good morning, lovebirds!”
I rolled my eyes. Jinx yawned, but smiled wide. “Good morning, Rayvan.”
“I trust you slept well?”
Jinx cheeks turned a furious shade of red. That just made me laugh. “We, uh, yeah, we had a good night’s rest.”
Rayan flashed a wicked grin. “I bet.”
I came up beside her and put my hand on the speeder. “Who’s coming? We’ll need more hands than just us.”
“Don’t worry, Slim Hands, I got you covered,” called Elvonna, our new Elarri friend and former Elexae bouncer. Our history was…colorful to say the least, but we were on good terms now. I may have been the reason why she got locked in Xarren Elexae’s dungeon, but we’d escaped, so bygones and all that.
Like most Elarri, with the notable exception of Rayvan, she towered over others and was layered in muscle, her ochre skin brimming with swirling scar-designs, her arms exposed as always. I was certain that we could have been on a snowy planet and she still would have had her arms bare. I supposed that if I had a physique like hers, I’d show it off too. I was a simple thieving Goon though, a scrawny little man, so no dice.
Behind her came Jax, his violet hair tied back in a messy bun. Another friend I’d picked up the bowels of Xarren’s dungeons, he was a childhood friend of Jinx’s, which as far as coincidences went was a pretty big one. Small galaxy, I guessed.
Rayvan waved them over. “Alright, kids, everyone pile in.”
We were all still tired, but taking a speeder to the port would take an hour, so we could sleep if we wanted.
El sat up front next to her fellow Elarri, while Jinx, Jax, and I crammed into the backseat. Jinx sat in the middle. She wrapped her arm around mine and rested her head against my shoulder. I smiled. She was ready to catch some more sleep before we did our shopping. I had the same idea.
With that, it was time to head out. Without another word, Rayvan took us out, and off we went to civilization.
2
Yan
Calling Veritas City a “city” was a gross overestimation on the locals’ part. I thought it had to be ironic, because the city consisted of a couple of square miles worth of three and four-story buildings all topped with glass domes and a small wall circling the place. A small settlement worth mentioning, but a city it was not. However, that hardly mattered for our purposes. It was the largest settlement on the continent and would have all the supplies we could want.
Rayvan slowed the speeder as we entered the congested streets filled with scores of people, more than I expected. It was mostly non-humans and Elarri since we were still close to imperial space, so we didn’t stick out.
We turned down a few narrow streets before things opened to a wide-open square with the sun shining bright above, illuminating dozens of multicolored tents that flapped in the warm winds. We’d arrived at the market. I smiled seeing all the people and the shade and just the general chaos of things, it was a pickpocket’s dream. Of course, pickpocketing wasn’t my forte, though I could get the job done. Rowan had been the one with that particular gift.
Little good it did him in the end.
Rayvan parked the speeder. “Alright, kiddos. I’ll stay with the speeder, you go grab what we need.”
I saluted her. “Aye, captain.”
She smiled and stuck out her tongue. I liked her. Although, as an Elarri, it would have been preferred for her to come since she was stronger than me and could thus carry more stuff, but I didn’t get to boss people around. So it was up to Jax, Jinx, El, and I. No big deal, I could carry a heavy box or two.
We spent the next hour working the stalls, splitting up to buy food, ingredients, some low-grade medical supplies like gauze and bandages and healing spray. We couldn’t exactly splurge because we were limited on funds, but we had enough to get everything we needed. Amara wouldn’t be able to complain when we got back, that was for sure.
Things were going smoothly, and we actually had a good time. It was nice being out and about with my friends, just running errands—legal errands, that was.
Jinx pointed out a table selling crystal trinkets. She walked up to it with a smile, her arms full of groceries. “When I was a kid, another slave named Alma found a crystal cluster growing in the fields and made some necklaces for the children. I had to hide it when I worked because we couldn’t have nice things, of course.”
She didn’t usually talk abo
ut those times with such warmth, but I was happy to know that there were some good moments to go with all the bad.
“What happened to it?”
Her smile wavered for a moment, as she remembered some of the bad. “The mistress of the house found it. I got a beating for it.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said with a shrug. “It was a long time ago.”
“Well, let me buy you a new one.”
I didn’t let her say no. I paid the Zarthian man selling the crystals and put it around Jinx’s neck. It was an iridescent crystal that changed colors in the sunlight. It was only a few digits, so it obviously wasn’t worth much, but it sure was pretty.
Jinx fingered it. Her lips peeled back to reveal a brilliant smile as her cheeks warmed. “Thanks, Yan. I love it.”
I wanted to kiss her then, but the bulky groceries in our arms made that a bit hard. There’d be time for kisses later.
We turned to leave the table and buy the few remaining things we needed, but something made me pause. I had the sense we were being watched, which was probably paranoia since we were in a crowd of hundreds. But then I felt it, that itch on the back of my neck, that tingle that told me we were in for a fight, that danger was nearby. I turned from the merchant, his words fading as my focus zoned in on a quartet of men walking toward us.
It happened in slow motion. I saw their billowing cloaks and their armor and knew that they didn’t belong. They strode toward us with vicious intent, their eyes locked on us. I saw their hands go to their hips—to the blaster pistols. They grabbed them, aimed, and fired.
It was all I could do to tackle Jinx to the ground as all hell broke loose.
It was a busy market, with hundreds of people. Blaster bolts went flying all around, hitting tables and wares and—I wish it weren’t the case, but—people. I had no time to worry about others. I dragged Jinx, who was still stunned, behind an overturned table as shots rang around us. She cursed.
Nearby, Jax and El both found cover. Neither of them looked hit, which I counted as a blessing. They both pulled blaster pistols of their own and retuned fire, though I could see the hesitation there. They didn’t want to hit any of these innocent people, whereas our attackers didn’t seem to have those same qualms.
I pulled out my blaster. I’d learned long ago that it was unwise to ever be unarmed in public. We had bounties on us, and you never knew when you’d be spotted and shot at. It was just good practice to always be prepared.
I said a prayer to the saints and popped up.
There were four of them. All heavily armored in black-and-gold armor, they fanned out, strong and cold like battle mechs, but these were men. One saw me and shot at me. I ducked just in time. I counted to three, then popped up again and shot. I hit him in the shoulder. He whirled around. That wouldn’t kill him, but before I could shoot again, another shot rang from beside me, and a bolt hit the man in the neck. He went down for good, his neck smoldering.
I turned to find Jinx beside me, eyes determined, blaster in hand. Now that was a surprise. In the past, Jinx had panic attacks in firefights. PTSD. She was useless in a fight, and none of us blamed her for that. She’d been through enough. But now? That timid girl was gone.
I had questions, but those could wait.
As soon as she showed herself, all our assailants shot at her. She yelped and got down in time as bolts blasted against the table. I didn’t know how long that would last, though. These tables likely weren’t built to withstand battle.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She sucked in a breath. Her eyes were wide. “Y-yeah.”
I didn’t know if she’d ever killed someone before. She certainly was shaking like it was the first time. I looked back over to Jax and El, but Jax was gone. El stood to her full height and unloaded her blaster, fearless, like the warrior Elarri that she was.
It took me only a moment to spot my friend. He moved around the perimeter, hiding from table to table, around the fleeing citizens, as he flanked our assailants. They didn’t see him coming. I shot at them a couple of times to draw their fire, but then Jax was there, grav-blade in hand. It was like Xarren’s arena all over again. He was a warrior, an expert of the blade, and he took out one hunter before they could blink.
The second engaged him, but as he and the last turned to deal with the new immediate threat, El and I took them out with our blasters. And that was that.
I sat down and leaned against the table. Deep breaths.
Holy saints. I did not need that type of madness in my life anymore.
Jinx seemed unfazed, more or less. She looked at her hands, which shook terribly. This had obviously hit her hard. It hit me hard too, and I’d killed plenty, though each one hurt me a little more inside. Even if they deserved it.
I helped her to her feet, and we went to El’s side. All around us, the market had cleared out, but there were still screams. Everything was a mess, tarps torn, goods and tables thrown about. I spied a few bodies lying about that didn’t belong to our attackers. I couldn’t tell if they were dead or not, but I prayed they were fine. That wasn’t for us to deal with, though.
Jax stood over our dead assailants. We joined him. We should have hightailed it out of there, but we had to know who was attacking us. It had been hard to tell details when there were four men firing blaster bolts at you and dozens of other people scattered in the chaos. I assumed they were simple bounty hunters that recognized us on coincidence, but that was likely the best-case scenario, right? A random occurrence.
But as we came upon them, I realized that it probably wasn’t.
These weren’t regular bounty hunters. For starters, all four were Torgoran, with gold-tinged skin and violet-hued hair, though not as brilliantly red as Jinx’s. And none had her amethyst eyes, but I’d gathered that to be a rare trait amongst her people. No, these were just four regular Torgoran men, except for the black, pressurized Lavi armor they wore, decked with gold trim and black-and-gold cloaks.
Jax cursed beside me. “This isn’t good.”
I frowned. I didn’t know the significance of the uniforms. “What is it?”
“These are Royal Inquisitors, from Torgoran High Command. They answer only to King Tarvath himself.”
That name sent a tremor through Jinx, and she stiffened. I knew the name well too, as did most people. King Tarvath, the tyrannical ruler of the Torgoran people, who’d staged a coup years ago to seize power. He’d killed the entire old royal family to do it. Since then, Torgorans across the stars had become enslaved, impoverished, and displaced. He did not serve his people’s best interests. He only served himself. But the entire Torgoran military was behind him, and they were a force.
But the question was, why would his inquisitors be here, shooting at us?
“What does this mean?” Elvonna asked.
Jax chewed on his lip as he mulled the question. Jinx was still frozen as she stared at the bodies. No doubt she’d heard horror stories of the king. It was likely she never would have been enslaved if not for him selling whole swaths of his people.
I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. She laced her fingers with mine and squeezed back, though her eyes still didn’t leave the corpses.
“Jax?” El asked again.
“I don’t know,” he answered, “but it isn’t good.” He then looked up and saw the dozens of onlookers that had gathered now that the shooting had stopped. “We should get out of here. These are questions that can wait. And I’d rather not get arrested on some backwater planet. Again.”
Yeah, that I could agree with. Been there, done that. Not a fan.
We gathered up what supplies we’d bought that hadn’t been ruined in the shooting, which was about half of it—what a waste of money—and returned to the speeder. It was already running, with Ray behind the wheel. When she saw us, she jumped out and ran to us.
“What happened? I heard shooting. I tried to come find you, but it was a mess of people trying t
o get out of there.”
We put the supplies in the storage compartment in the back.
“I’ll explain on the way back, but we gotta go,” I said.
She frowned. She knew from my tone that whatever happened had involved us. She nodded, got back in the driver’s seat, and readied to drive. We all piled in behind her. Jinx pressed against me. Her hand still clutched mine, but she had yet to say a word. Her eyes stayed forward. I didn’t know where she was, but her mind was clearly far, far away. I had a feeling it was in a place of pain.
When we were all in, Rayvan took off, and we shot forward. The more distance we put between us and those dead inquisitors, the better I felt.
But only barely. We had new problems on our hands. We had tried to hide from things, but harsh reality had found us yet again.
3
Yan
We returned to the homestead. None of us spoke on the way back, outside of Jax and I explaining what went down. Rayvan took it in stride, though she wasn’t thrilled when she found out that our attackers were inquisitors.
“They’re some of the best hunters in the galaxy,” she’d said. “Why would they target us?”
“That’s the question that needs answering.”
After that, silence. Once we got back to the homestead, we didn’t even bother to unload the supplies. They could wait anyway, none of it would spoil. I gathered everyone into the common room. All nine of us.
Amara could tell from our disheveled looks that something had gone down.
“What happened?” she called to us.
I threw myself onto the couch—which annoyed Amara since she’d been sitting there and didn’t appreciate my legs being draped across her lap. She shoved them off.
“Be serious, you idiot,” she said with a grimace and evil eye. “You look like hell and smell like blaster smoke, so tell me what happened right now.”
The Torgoran Revolt (Plundering the Stars Book 3) Page 2
