Authors: Cidney Swanson
“Oh, aye,” said Wallace. “Please can we discuss that.”
Without even turning to him, the Chancellor uttered an order. “Silence this man.”
With no one there to act upon her order, Wallace continued speaking. “I’m sure I’m honored to have ye at me own humble dwelling, Ma’am,” he said. “Can I offer ye something? Goat cheese griddle cakes, perhaps? Or a lovely bit of goat steak?”
Jessamyn’s heart did a sort of hop as Wallace slipped free of the “restraint” that had attached him to the desk.
“This is your dwelling?” asked Lucca.
“Aye,” said Wallace, grinning proudly. “Me own castle in miniature.”
“I’ll take a coffee. Black. Make it strong.” The Chancellor turned her back to Wallace, dismissing him.
Jessamyn, finding herself with two allies and only one enemy, grasped her head and groaned, as if in pain.
“Aunt Lucca?” called Pavel. “The prisoner seems to be in pain.”
Jessamyn moaned again, swaying her head and collapsing to her knees. “My head,” she cried.
“Go on,” said Pavel’s aunt. “Examine her. Who knows what those idiots in armor did to her before we got here.” She lowered her voice. “I want that body
kept whole
.”
From across the room, Pavel spoke to his aunt. “This cast was inexpertly applied,” he said. “She has untreated burns and a wound to her left arm as well.”
“Fix her,” said Lucca. “I need her alert for questioning.”
Wallace shuffled back from the kitchen, coffee in hand, murmuring about there being a proper storm brewing.
“
My hands,
” whispered Jessamyn to Pavel.
Pavel cut them free with a small scalpel.
“
Let me take you hostage,
” she said.
And then things began to happen very quickly. Wallace presented the Chancellor with a mug of coffee. As soon as Lucca’s hands were occupied and her eyes turned from her nephew, Pavel passed something small into Jessamyn’s hand, tipping his head toward his aunt. Only after this did he give Jess the requested scalpel. She placed the bright instrument at his throat, using the opposite forearm to lock Pavel’s head into her shoulder, which left a hand free to grip the unknown item he’d passed to her. In the moment before Lucca looked up, Jess glanced at the object: a med-patch. What did she need a med-patch for, she wondered? She kept it hidden in her hand.
“Order your guards to set their weapons aside and to lie face-down with their hands clasped over their heads,” Jessamyn said. Thunder rattled the windows.
Lucca, her eyes now upon Jess and Pavel, uttered two short words: “Or
what
?”
Jessamyn blinked in confusion. Could Lucca really be that stupid? “Or I slit your nephew’s throat, obviously.”
“Oh, that,” said Lucca, waving a hand to indicate disregard. She took a slow sip of coffee. “Yes, well, by all means …”
Jess stood, dumbfounded. “I’ll do it,” she said.
“Will you
really
?” asked Lucca, lazily, taking a moment to stare as the rain pelted the windows, a sudden tattoo.
“Call off your guards,” said Jess. “
Now!
”
Wallace made a whimpering kind of sound.
“And you, goat-herder,” said Jess to Wallace, “Stay out of this unless you want the boy’s death on your head.”
Brian Wallace covered his eyes with both hands as if terrified. Another flash of lightning, the snap of thunder close behind.
The Chancellor took a couple of slow steps toward Jessamyn.
“I mean it,” said Jess. She felt Pavel’s breath, warm and rapid upon the hand gripping the blade.
“Do what the terrorist asks,” Pavel said to his aunt.
“No, my dear boy, I don’t think I will,” said Lucca, advancing slowly upon the two. “You see, if she intended to kill you,
I
think she would have done it already.”
Jessamyn swelled with anger at this woman— at Lucca’s seeming disregard for her nephew’s life, at the skill with which Lucca read the situation, at how Lucca stood between life and slow starvation for her world. Something in Jess pulled taut and she said, her tone venomous, “Or
maybe
I’m just waiting for you to come close so I can kill you instead!”
“Give me the knife,” said Lucca Brezhnaya. Her voice, cutting like the wind of a Marsian winter, sent a chill along Jessamyn’s spine.
Jess shook her head. “Come closer,” she whispered. “I dare you.”
The Chancellor did. “The knife,” said Lucca, holding her hand out.
Straining against a fury boiling inside, Jess held her position, the knife at Pavel’s throat becoming the center of her world, the core about which the universe revolved.
“You’re a
child
,” whispered the Chancellor. Lightning revealed for a brief moment her face, white with anger.
Jess saw again the smear of red lipstick upon white tooth. She felt the knife dropping away from Pavel’s throat as if by the sheer force of Lucca’s desire. And then the rage inside Jessamyn exploded outward and she struck at the Chancellor’s outstretched palm with the bright blade.
The windows shook in their casements, and Lucca howled in fury, and Jessamyn, suddenly understanding the power Pavel had placed within her hand, slapped the med-patch hard against the Chancellor’s throat. Gasping in surprise, the Chancellor’s eyes flew wide and then, just as quickly, fluttered closed as Lucca Brezhnaya slumped unconscious to the floor. Jessamyn dropped the bloodied scalpel from her hand.
“It’s a very short acting sedative,” said Pavel as Jess released him.
Wallace shouted, “Go!” to Jessamyn as he aimed a small gun at Pavel.
“Don’t shoot him!” Jess cried. “He’s with me.”
“Right,” said Wallace, lowering the weapon. “Lucky I held off firing then, isn’t it? I contacted Crusty while I was making that creature’s coffee. The ship launches in four minutes and thirty seconds. I suggest ye move quickly.” A coolly efficient Wallace had replaced the whimpering, blustering one. “Can ye bluff past those two outside?” he asked Pavel. “Because this gun will be worthless against their armor.”
“I’ll say my aunt wants Jess aboard the shuttle,” he replied, “And you can carry her, like she’s unconscious.”
Wallace nodded. “That lad’s a good one to have on yer side. Four minutes, ten seconds.”
Wallace scooped Jess up as if she weighed nothing and the three moved outside and into the storm.
Chapter Thirty-One
FOLLOWING ORDERS
“Where are you going with the prisoner?” asked the soldier guarding the door.
The other secure looked up from his inspection of Jessamyn’s stolen vehicle.
“My aunt has ordered me to transport her to the nearest hospital,” said Pavel.
“I’m going to have to confirm that before I let you escort the prisoner any farther,” said the soldier.
“Suit yourself,” said Pavel. “But I should probably warn you, Aunt Lucca’s orders are that no one goes inside until she opens the door. She’s on a private call with the viceroy.”
The secure hesitated. His commander shrugged.
“The Chancellor’s a real pain when her orders are disobeyed,” said Pavel, blinking at the rain striking his face. He smiled sympathetically at both officers. “But you interrupt her call. I’ll wait.”
“Don’t look at me,” said the man guarding the door. “It’s more than my life is worth, disobeying the Chancellor’s orders.”
The commanding officer apparently agreed, motioning Pavel and Wallace forward to Lucca’s ship.
“
Three minutes, forty-five seconds
,” Wallace mumbled.
Pavel released the hatch on the near side of the vehicle and Wallace carried Jessamyn inside. As soon as he closed the door, she dashed for the controls, firing the engines.
“
Shizer, shizer, shizer
!” groaned Pavel.
“Let’s move it!” Brian Wallace shouted to Jess.
“Where’s my brother?” Jess called as she swung the transport up, aiming it toward the Galleon. She threw a glance back at Pavel, who was staring at what looked like a hard-sided travel case, opened and empty. They cleared a slight rise and Jess could see the Galleon, bits of cloaking camouflage on one side, its hover boosters ready to fire.
“Jess,” said Pavel, his voice hollow. “Ethan’s gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Jess felt her heart contract. “You said you had him.”
“I hid your brother in this travel case and he’s
gone
.”
The transport landed in a muck of grass, mud, and ash beside the Red Galleon.
“He must have made a run for your spacecraft,” suggested Wallace. “Smart move, really.”
“He’s got no chance of making it. Jess—aw,
shizer
!” Pavel’s voice had a defeated accent that made Jess’s skin clammy.
“What?” she demanded as she opened the transport’s door.
“Your brother’s in an amputee’s body now. Getting out of that suitcase and off my aunt’s hover-ship? I don’t know how he managed that, but there’s no way he dragged himself five kilometers to this ship. One of his arms is useless, Jess.”
Two minutes forty-five seconds.
Jessamyn’s stomach wrenched and she felt as if her own legs had turned to jelly. “An amputee?” she wheezed. A gust of wind shuddered the Chancellor’s craft.
“His new body has no legs,” said Pavel. “Jess, two minutes to go. What are we doing? My aunt will be awakening any second.”
“You can’t ask me that,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I have to … I’ve got to …” She looked at Pavel, every muscle in her face straining against the horror of the choice before her.
“Tell me what we’re doing,” said Wallace, a hard edge to his voice.
Jessamyn stumbled out of the shuttle. She reached for the Galleon’s hatch, but the door flew wide before she reached it.
“Jess?” It was Crusty. “
Ares,
you’re a welcome sight. I hear it’s just you, then. Ship’s set to lift off in two minutes. Gonna need a pilot for that.”
“Let me go in your place,” said Pavel. “I can fly an old
M-class
like this …” His voice trailed off as he ran his eyes along the ship’s curving surface, evaluating it.
For the space of ten agonizing seconds Jessamyn considered her friend’s offer.
You could stay and find Ethan. Your brother needs you.
And then she remembered her words to Mei Lo—
I won’t fail you
. Remembered the golden light sweeping across the gentle rise of Mount Cha Su Bao. Remembered the people who would perish and see that light no more if she failed them. And she spoke the hardest words she’d ever uttered.
“I made a promise.” Turning to Pavel, she murmured quietly, so quietly, a simple request. “Will you find Ethan?”
“Yes,” he said. “I swear it.”
“Get him a dog. He loves dogs.” Her feet refused to move.
“We’ll get him to safety, lass,” said Wallace. “Yer planet’s counting on ye. Go.”
“Tell him I love him,” she murmured, wind whipping her bright locks into a reddened fury. “Tell him I’ll be back and I’ll find him.”
“Not if ye don’t get yerself on that great ship
now
!” warned Wallace.
Shoulders pulled back, head tilted Mars-ward, her eyes streaming, Jessamyn lifted one foot and then the other from off the water planet.
“Let’s go,” she whispered to Crusty.
Chapter Thirty-Two
AWAKENINGS, RUDE AND PLEASANT
Lucca Brezhnaya, awakening in a manner utterly unlike the one she favored, noted the rain had stopped. She noted as well the unpleasant stink of
dog
as she lifted her head from a worn patch of rug.
“Pavel?”
Hearing no answer, she ran through a series of silent curses.
I need that boy
, she thought. Rising, she glanced out the window. One of the guards—she neither knew nor cared which—remained at his post outside the door. Had the girl snuck out a back way? Were plans afoot to ransom Pavel?
Rage welled up inside her. Lucca needed to kill something. The dog? She looked about her, but the smelly creature was evidently not in residence at the moment. No matter—there were other things soft and worthless nearby. She strode to the front door, head pounding from the sedation—
damn the girl!
—and stormed outside.
“Idiot! Do you realize what you’ve done?” shouted Lucca.
The secure hesitated, evidently weighing the wisdom of responding. “Just following orders, Madam Chancellor,” he said at last, reasoning that the Chancellor liked having her orders followed.
“Give me your weapon,” said Lucca, her voice calmer.
His final act was to follow the Chancellor’s order.
As the soldier fell dead, Lucca smiled at the weapon. She really needed one of these for herself. Feeling rather better, Lucca continued to the small craft Jessamyn had stolen from New Kelen’s hoverport.
The remaining officer was just peering around as Lucca strode into view.
“Madam Chancellor, I thought I heard weapon-fire,” he said.
“Nothing wrong with your hearing, then,” said Lucca, baring her teeth in an artificial smile. “Or, wait, perhaps there’s something wrong with it after all. I don’t suppose you noticed the sound of
my
hover-transport as it flew away?”
“Yes, Madam Chancellor. That would be two minutes ago.”
“I’m surrounded by idiots,” Lucca said softly. She discharged the weapon a second time. She felt much better now. Much better indeed. In the distance, she heard the rumble of thunder. Although she’d mocked the officer lying at her feet for his hesitation to go into the rain, she had no desire to experience it herself. Sighing she turned back to Wallace’s cottage to await transportation.
Then, feeling a shudder that vibrated the very bones of her body, she realized it hadn’t been thunder at all. The inciter’s missile arced across the blue and white sky. Or perhaps it wasn’t a missile at all. “Of course,” she murmured. “A transport. How foolish of me.”
Saying this, she emptied several rounds of ammunition into the sky. The bullets fell far short of their target and she did not feel better.
~ ~ ~
The storm which raged over Skye was passing on to the mainland now, having shifted great swathes of ash in its wake. Clusters of Brian Wallace’s goats searched for the newly revealed patches of green, paying little heed to either the Galleon or to the Chancellor’s craft as both flew past.