Liberation, page 5
part #3 of Tribari Freedom Chronicles Series
Tig seemed more embarrassed by that, though. “It’s – it’s fine, Tal. I mean, it happens, right?”
“He didn’t – didn’t get me, Tig. He tried, but the lockdown started. Dre interrupted before – well, before anything happened.”
“Oh.” Tig nodded, an expression of relief fighting for supremacy on his features. “Good.”
“Yeah. That’s…that’s why I’m going now.”
He nodded again. “Can I come with you?”
“Of course.” Tig was the nearest thing to a friend Tal had on this godsforsaken planet. He’d wanted him to stay because he’d already served out half his sentence. He wanted him to stay so that he could live. But that was before he knew what staying entailed. “You should eat, though, before we go. And let’s take this bastard’s coat and gloves. See if we can find any more supplies.”
Chapter Nine
Nikia drank the water she’d been given and tried not to flinch. Her efforts proved less successful than she’d hoped, though, as the physician sighed. “You need to stay still.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “It just…hurts.”
“You were shot. Of course it hurts. A few inches closer, and you’d be dead now.”
Nikia didn’t take his tone personally. Dr. Ort had already tended those of their party whose injuries were more serious. He’d declared three men, two women, and a boy dead. He wasn’t hopeful about the odds for another two.
They’d taken losses before, but this was different. They’d entered the House of Parliament with their weapons secured. By long tradition, this space, like the City’s temples, was a fire free zone. It was a pact that Tribari had made eons ago, that whatever their differences, it wouldn’t end in bloody battle. Not in those halls.
On the old world, it had not always been so. On the old world, there had been bloody coups and violent uprisings as governments shifted or after kings died. It wasn’t supposed to be that way on Central.
And yet, Presider Denis had called troops into the House of Contributors. She frowned in thought. He’d violated that understanding. When he’d lost the support of the populace, he’d been willing to hold onto power at the end of a barrel.
She’d have given anything, in that moment, for Grel’s counsel, for his thoughtful, sensible response.
“You alright?” Giya’s voice sounded beside her.
She glanced up to see her friend watching her with careful eyes. “Yes,” she said.
At the same time, the doctor answered, “No.”
One of Giya’s eyebrows rose.
“I was shot,” Nikia explained. “Obviously. But I’m fine.”
“No, she’s not,” Dr. Ort contradicted. “She’s lost a lot of blood. And taken a blast of energy.” He turned stern eyes to her. “You’re pregnant, Nikia Idan. That could have killed you. Or the fetus.”
“I wasn’t trying to get shot,” she protested.
“No. But you shouldn’t be on the frontlines.”
“I didn’t expect them to have protectors in there.”
“You’ve been on the frontlines since Ridi’s funeral.”
That was true enough, and she had no answer to it. She’d been on the frontlines there, when half of the planet’s protectors were gathered together. The fact was, she hadn’t expected to survive the confrontation. Not really.
“It’s dangerous.”
“It’s a revolution, doctor,” Giya snorted. “Of course it’s dangerous.”
“I can’t ask these people to put themselves on the frontlines if I’m not willing to do it myself,” she added.
“A revolution is no place for a pregnant woman.”
She frowned. “It’s the only place for me, doctor. I won’t bring my child into a world like this.”
He shook his balding head. “Yes, I heard your speech. Very pretty words, Nikia. But are they worth dying over?”
She flushed. He was referring to the impromptu address she’d given, two days earlier, as they marched to apprehend Sergeant Dru. They hadn’t been pretty words. They’d been words from her heart, and she meant them as much now as she did then. “Yes, doctor. They are. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Sir,” Ensign Vor said, “we’re being hailed by the Night Dragon.”
“Patch them through, Ensign.”
“Aye-aye.”
In a moment, Captain Le’s face appeared onscreen. He was a younger man than Elgin, not quite as seasoned, not quite as decorated, and not quite as experienced. He’d been given command of the TS-Night Dragon about two months ago, which was rather a lot of responsibility for a junior grade captain. Everything Elgin had seen from him so far indicated that he was a man intent on proving himself.
What that would mean for this conversation – whether his eagerness would manifest as gratitude to central command’s orders, or loyalty to the people – he wasn’t about to speculate. He’d learned his lesson already on that score with Dagir. “Captain Le,” he greeted. “What can I do for you?”
“You can surrender, sir.”
Well, so much for that. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Drake Elgin, former Captain of the TS-Supernova, I’m ordering you to surrender yourself to my custody immediately.”
Elgin laughed. No one called him Drake. Hell, not even his parents called him that. He’d always been ‘D’ to them. He brushed the thought aside. It was an odd memory to have in mind at a time like this. “I’m sorry, Jai. But that’s not going to happen.”
The junior officer bristled at the use of his proper name. “I’ve been empowered by Admiral Lenksha and Supreme Leader Velk to-”
“You’re following the orders of men who have directly violated the constitution you swore to uphold,” Elgin interrupted. “I really don’t give a damn what authorizations they’ve given you. You’ve chosen to betray your oath of service, Captain.”
Jai Le’s cheeks burned. “Crew of the Supernova,” he snapped, “you have fifteen minutes to turn this traitor over, or you will all be targeted for destruction. Surrender him, and no charges of complicity will be brought. I expect you to remember your own oaths of service.”
The screen went dark. A hush settled on the bridge. “Well,” Elgin said in a minute, “what a prat.”
A few nervous chuckles met his pronouncement.
“Tactical, I want defense grids online. Weapons too. Helm, I want you ready to move this ship the instant Night Dragon powers her weapons. Understand?”
“Yessir.”
“Sir?” Lt. Fal asked.
“Yes?”
“Are we…are we really going to target our own ships?”
Elgin considered his response for a moment. “I won’t fire first, Lieutenant. But I won’t let this crew die, either. I won’t let the people of Central die.”
“No sir. Of course not.”
“But, I will give all of you the chance, now, to disembark. You don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to account for your reasons. I know you’ve all got them – kids, parents, family. Hell, a pet dog. Whatever your reason is, if you don’t want to stay, you don’t have to.
“Because, the truth is, I don’t know how many ships Le’s got. It might be just the Dragon. It might be the whole damned fleet.”
He cast a glance around the bridge. “There’s shuttles in the bay. I’m going to my ready room. I’ll give you five minutes to be off the ship – anyone who wants to go. If you’re still here when I get back, well, then we get to work. Clear?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Vor, send the order ship-wide. Make sure everyone has a chance to get off, if that’s what they want.”
“Aye-aye.”
Chapter Ten
“So what’s the plan?” Tig asked, shrugging the protector’s great coat over his slim shoulders.
Plan was a generous word for it. “I was thinking I’d carry him to the door, buzz in, grab some supplies, and head out.”
“Head out where?”
“Umm…out of camp. Toward the mountains north of here.”
Tig shivered. “North? It’s not cold enough for you?”
It was a forced levity. His friend’s manner had been strained since their earlier words. But Tal grinned along. “It is. But there’s just tundra south. Nowhere to hole up. Nowhere to hide. Nothing but wolves out there. In the mountains, there’ll be game and maybe shelter.”
His companion nodded slowly. “Alright. North it is, I guess.”
“We’ll need another gun for you. As much food and water as we can grab without getting caught.”
“Tal, I’ve got an idea.”
He glanced up from the desk drawer he was rummaging through. “Oh?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. What I’d do, if I escaped.”
“You have?” As far as Tal knew, Tig was dead set against the idea of running.
He nodded. “Yeah. Why do people die out there?”
“Uh…the cold?”
“Yeah, but it’s cold here too. It’s cold in the mines. What’s the difference?”
“Shelter?”
“Exactly. And when the protectors venture out, they don’t do it on foot. Because on foot, it’s suicide.”
Tal nodded slowly. “Are you thinking…steal a rover?”
Tig grinned. “I thought it was crazy, because we’d need someone to palm us in.” He gestured at Dre Baltir’s prostrate form. “But you took care of that piece.”
Tal grinned again too. “That’s genius, Tig. But it’ll be risky – they’re going to have another guard there, at least.”
“I know. But you’ve got a gun now. And you know how to use it, which is better than I can do. That shifts the odds in our favor, doesn’t it?”
“You’re damned right it does.”
“I’d rather take my chances against another guard than out there without a rover.”
Tal nodded. “Me too.”
“So are we still going to the barracks?”
He considered for a moment. “I don’t know. It seems like added risk. The garage will have some supplies. We could grab them. Take the guards ’ guns and ammo.”
“No sense breaking into two buildings,” Tig agreed. “Double the risk, for the same payoff.”
“Alright. Then, looks like this is everything I can find here. You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Okay. Then I’ll get this son-of-a-bitch. You get the door.”
“Roger that, Captain,” Tig declared airily – as if they weren’t, both of them, on the run from a monster; as if they weren’t about to forge into the frozen hellscape of the world beyond; as if they weren’t about to gamble their lives on the craziest yet most brilliant plan he’d ever heard.
Tal hoisted the unconscious protector to his shoulders, and Tig got the door. A blast of frigid air slammed into the pair of them, and both men shivered visibly. “Let’s go.”
His friend took the lead, cutting a path through the snow and serving as a kind of wind block. Of the pair of them, Tal was the strongest, so carrying the unconscious man had fallen to him. Since Tig would be taking point and absorbing the full fury of the storm, he’d got the protector’s coat.
They moved as quickly as the conditions and their burden would allow. The garage was past the barracks, on the far end of the camp. Even behind Tig, his teeth were chattering before they’d crossed half the distance.
He thought, now, of what a fool he’d been to think he could make it out here without some kind of transportation.
In a sense, the storm was something of a blessing. Without it, they would never have gone undetected as long as they had. It would also cover their tracks as they went, hiding the rover’s path from sight.
He gritted his teeth, peering into the veritable wall of white in front of him. He could make out nothing. They’d passed the barracks already, and for all the he could see, there was nothing left but snow and wind. He hoped Tig’s sense of direction was reliable, because, at the moment, his was not.
Brek had hobbled along a stretch of uneven passage, taking breaks now and then, until he found himself in another cavern. This, though, was not like the ones he’d reached before.
He lifted a hand to shield his eyes. Some hundred or so meters from him was a great, glowing body of blue. His head hurt at the sight. So long had he been in the dark that such a source of illumination made him cringe.
Slowly but surely, he was able to turn his eyes toward it, first by squinting and finally without reservation.
It was huge, stretching out deep into the darkness: a great, placid plane of glowing blue. He stared in stupefaction. The color was similar to the glowworms overhead, but more brilliant and – more notably – solid. This was no gathering of larvae, each making their own slow way from one point to another. This was a stretch of luminescent blue, as far as the eye could see.
Still, from his current vantage, that was about all that Brek could ascertain.
He passed a dry tongue over his lips. Something about the sight frightened him. It was so foreign, so unlike anything he’d ever seen before, like melted wax glowing iridescent, seeming one moment darker than the next, then lighter. It was positively eerie.
And yet – so beautiful. There was an aura around it, like a kind of halo, casting the walls of the cavern in light.
What was this wonder? Was he in hell after all, wandering toward a pit of lost souls, lured on to his own doom? Had he found the gates to paradise, that soft light a promise of the world beyond that he had but to reach out and join? Or was it some delusion brought on by cold and starvation, some madness in his final hours of life?
He had to know.
He pushed forward, ignoring the throbbing in his ankle. Meter by meter, the distance fell away. The glow got brighter, bigger.
There were two other changes as well, though at first each was subtle. The further into the chamber Brek pushed, the higher the temperature rose. He barely noticed it until he’d covered half the distance. A kind of tingling began in his digits and across the surface of his skin. He thought, at first, he was imagining it, but he’d been so long without heat that the sensation of pin prickles as he warmed was unmistakable.
The second was an odor like the stink given off by phigon eggs left out too long, a kind of pungent, sulfuric smell. It, too, grew worse as he neared. What in the hell?
The closer he got, the stranger that shimmering blue got. It was not a solid, unmoving surface as he’d first believed. It rippled and undulated in a mesmerizing fashion.
When a form, pale and long, leaped up, Brek lost his footing in sheer surprise. Gasping, he jumped backward, and landed in a painful heap. A fresh wave of hurt swarmed his thoughts, but a more pressing realization took command of his senses. My gods. It’s water.
It was indeed water, and the thing he’d seen – that grotesque, pale body – some manner of fish or eel. He couldn’t be sure which. He’d seen a glimpse of fins and a long, colorless form, but little else. It was the sound it made as it disappeared, though, that really caught his attention.
It was a sound he hadn’t heard in far too many days: the sound of water, splashing freely. This strange, glowing mass was an underground lake. He’d found water.
And in that water was some kind of animal – something he could eat. For the first time in days, Brek Trigan felt hope swell in his chest.
He pushed forward heedless of the pain, forcing himself on to the edge of that lake. When he reached it, he stretched out cupped hand to scoop up water to drink.
But he froze, his palms inches from the water. This water was the source of the heat he’d felt earlier. Warmth was radiating off the lake, intense against his still chilled fingers.
Carefully, gingerly, he reached down to the water. His hand hovered right above the surface, and he held it there for a moment, letting his skin adjust to the warmth.
After a space, he stuck a finger into the pool. Hissing out loud, he retracted it as quickly. It felt like fire on his flesh.
But, then, the feeling passed, and he realized that it wasn’t scalding. He was reacting to the starkness of the different temperatures between himself and the water, and nothing more sinister.
He reached in again, this time dipping his entire hand in. His senses tingled and flamed. Warmth shot up his arm, and he shivered violently at the sensation. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be warm.
Barely remembering to pull off his boots first, Brek waded into the water, immersing himself in its heat. Like jumping into the lake clothed, removing the shoe from his swollen ankle might have been a mistake, he thought too late. But it was done, and no sooner than had it been done was his attention focused on an entirely different front.
A feeling, like a thousand pin pricks across the surface of his body, hit him. He reeled at the sheer force of it, and his senses swam. Then, slowly, it eased. The chill receded bit by bit.
Oddly enough, the warmer Brek got, the more he seemed to shake with cold. It was as if being reintroduced to heat forced his body to remember just how cold it actually was.
Chapter Eleven
Elgin had waited the promised five minutes, and now he was stepping back onto the bridge. He half expected to see it deserted, or to find an armed escort waiting for him, prepared to take him into custody.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the bridge crew where he’d left them. He paused, taking the thought back. Lt. Fal was gone, and in his place stood a young woman, an ensign from second shift. Kerel, he remembered. Ensign Kerel.
“Captain on deck,” Vor called.
“Sir,” Kerel said, rising to her feet and offering a brisk salute. “Ensign Kerel, reporting for duty.”
“At ease, Ensign. And – thank you. All of you, for staying.”
Grins broke out across the deck. “Wouldn’t miss it for all the silver on Central, sir,” Vor said.
Despite the situation, Elgin smiled. If they lived through this and didn’t end up sentenced to death or life in the penal colonies, there’d be some promotions in order after today. His smile faded. As he reflected on it, it was a grimmer thought than he’d originally intended.
