by Ella Young
Nero looked down at his food, disregarding the levian. "So we try again. Unless you plan on trying to stop us?"
Ralot sucked in a breath. "If the Remnant comes for us—"
"Oh, they've come. Just not for you," Nero answered. Ralot barked a laugh.
"You think they've come for you."
"I've come for Toshi," Knight spoke up. Ralot looked at her.
"You? You're Remnant?"
Knight lifted her chin. "Ferrao made a point to say I wasn't here for anyone else."
Ralot's face twisted in anger. "And yet you'll take the humans with you."
"They have a plan. What do you have?"
Ralot's four eyes darted from Nero to Knight, and then they flicked to Ji. He seemed to be deliberating internally, deciding how to respond. Finally, "I have men."
Nero was shocked into silence. He opened his mouth to say something, but then snapped it shut. He had no words. Ji herself couldn't believe what she'd heard from Ralot. Was he offering…to help them? They didn't need to convince him. They didn't need to twist his arm, to use whatever trump card Knight was holding close to her chest.
Knight's lip turned up in a small smile. "We were hoping you'd say that," she said. "Sit down."
Ralot hesitated under the gaze of dozens of human eyes. They all stared back at him, some curious, others judgmental. Finally, awkwardly, he sat down beside Knight. There was tension in the air that could only be cut by a photoshiv.
The guards had taken notice, eyeing the spectacle suspiciously. One approached the group, eyes flicking from Ralot to Nero.
“What’s going on here?”
Nero opened his mouth to respond, but Ralot cut him off. “She’s Remnant,” he said, nodding towards Knight. “I want to know why she’s sitting with the humans.”
“And why are you sitting with the humans?” the guard demanded, turning to Knight.
Knight didn’t look up from her food, and instead replied in a voice filled with faked timidity. “I’m still new here. I don’t know who’s Remnant and who’s not. Too many prisoners here have an issue with me, but not the humans.”
The guard grunted, but seemed to accept this explanation.
“Watch yourself,” he said in a threatening voice, knocking Knight’s shoulder with the butt of his gun. He returned to the periphery of the mess hall. His comrades continued to keep an eye on the group, but made no move to break them up. It seemed that, despite the very recent escape attempt, the guards believed the prisoners to be properly cowed thanks to their recent increase in security. Perhaps, Ji reasoned, they thought escape unthinkable to the prisoners.
“So,” Ralot began, talking around a mouthful of bread. "You have a plan."
Knight looked to Nero, allowing him to fill in the levian. It was his plan, after all. And it was he who had volunteered a group of humans, who had a very real issue with the Remnant, to work with them. Someone needed to mediate this tenuous truce, and it made sense that it would be him.
Nero kept his voice quiet, but ate as he spoke, doing his best to appear normal. The guards quickly lost interest in the group. It was risky, talking about this out in the open. But they were on a tight schedule. It was now or never.
Nero detailed the plan, from the Rock to the radio tower to the armory next to the barracks. Ralot listened intently, not once interrupting.
"If this works, we can get everyone off the asteroid," Nero finished. "The Remnant has so far refused to offer outside help. It's all on us to pull this off."
Ralot leaned back in his seat. "It won't be easy."
"Never said it would be."
"We don't know what to expect in the Rock."
"Nope."
"There's too many variables."
"Yep."
Ralot glanced at Knight. "This is the best you've got?"
"Ferrao was very specific. We're on our own. This is the best you're going to get."
Ralot sighed and stared at the table. There was a tense moment, and Ji could see the sweat beading on Knight's brow. She'd staked everything on this, and Toshi's life depended on his answer. No one spoke. No one breathed. At long last, Ralot broke the silence. "We're in."
Eli choked on his bread. Nero, not wanting to draw attention to the group with some grandiose gesture of peace, merely stood from the table and nodded in Ralot’s direction. It was settled. The Remnant and the Tribe, however delicately, were working together. He exited the mess hall, and the rest of the humans followed their leader not long after.
But this was just one part of the plan. Now they needed to get their guard on board.
"Do you think you'll have the same kind of luck with Kanu?" Ji asked. Knight's smile faded.
"I certainly hope so."
-~-~-~-
Kanu came for Knight again after the midday meal.
"So, what's your plan?" he asked.
Knight told him. Kanu was silent.
"That's an awful lot of hopeful coincidences," he finally said. Knight was prepared for this.
"That's where you come in. A few guards misplaced here, a stolen key card there. You're capable of that."
Kanu chewed his lip. "I really don't have the pull you think I do. I don't have seniority, I don't have authority. I don't even have level two clearance, and you'll need at least level five, if not higher, to get to the Rock."
"The warden has the clearance, and we have access to her office. You just have to make sure the guards aren't where they're supposed to be. I can think of a number of ways for you to do that."
Kanu was shaking his head. "I don't know, Knight. It's risky. It could get us all killed."
"This is war," Knight said, echoing Weinan. "Lots of people are already putting their lives on the line every day. We have no right not to do the same."
The levian stared at her, then up to the second level of the molding building where the smelters were. "And you said Ralot was in on the plan."
"Yes."
More silence. More staring off over her shoulder. More deliberation. "I can't believe I'm saying this," the levian finally said, "but alright."
Knight grinned. Everything was falling into place.
"What's the timeframe?" Kanu wondered.
"As soon as possible. When that is, is up to you. Nero said we'd defer to your judgement."
Kanu nodded and looked at the ground. "For Toshi's sake, it should be within the tenday. We don't have any prisoners coming in this week, which means communication between Arryna and the Hegemony is at a low point. It also means we'll have to wait longer for a transport to take us off this asteroid."
"We'll worry about taking the prison first," Knight said. “If the Hegemony wants to know why Arryna cut off communications, they’ll have to send someone eventually. Could you sneak away to meet with us after curfew?"
Kanu shook his head. "I'll work my end and give you the signal to move. Just make sure the prisoners are prepared."
CHAPTER TWELVE
It took exactly one tenday for Kanu to give them the signal. He had left it up to Knight to explain it all to Nero, who in turn was to explain it to Ralot, who Kanu had noticed had taken to sitting with them for the first part of the dinner hour. Ralot, in turn, was responsible for disseminating the information to the levian and the other Remnant on the asteroid. The prisoners were even more nervous the second time around. As far as Kanu could tell, discussion occurred in passing periods, right beneath the guards' noses. They could have been caught at any time, especially with the heightened security. But the prisoners were smart about when to talk and when to stay silent, doing their best not to act suspicious. And it worked. Kanu’s fellow guards seemed to suspect nothing.
There were actually two signals that Kanu had decided on. One for Knight and Nero, and the other for the Remnant prisoners in the mess hall. It was lunchtime when he gave the first signal. Knight walked with Ji and Ayla, and Nero and Eli and Keith, at the back of the line as the prisoners filed to the mess hall. This was the position Kanu had instru
cted them to maintain for the entirety of the tenday. It wasn't suspicious. No one paid them any mind. The only difference on the day of the jailbreak was the guard who brought up the rear.
Kanu kept pace behind them, one hand on his weapon, the other hanging free. They passed the hygiene facilities, the avian dorm, the levian dorm. Kanu moved up behind the group of six and muttered, "Now," as they passed the human dorm. As one, the six broke off and darted behind the building.
Kanu waited for the group of six to double back and pick their way towards the guard barracks before leaving himself. The rest of the humans had to have noticed his absence, and the absence of the six, but they kept their faces forward. The guards flanking the sides of the line didn't realize as Kanu slipped away. His hearts were pounding in his sides.
Kanu was a relatively new recruit, and at barely twenty-one Cradle years he was one of the youngest to be stationed on Arryna. Initially he'd sought to join the Remnant, hitching a ride off of Hlean to Valiant in search of other rebels. It was not too long after this that the Remnant set their sights on Hlean, and he realized he could be of use elsewhere. They had soldiers; what they needed was someone on the inside. So he joined the Hegemony.
It was hard convincing the Remnant he was genuine, at first. He'd had to slip them some pretty valuable information on Hlean's base defenses in order to gain the admiral's trust. It had been risky, and nearly cost him his cover, but it worked. He continued to feed them whatever information he could (unfortunately not much, given his entry-level status), using encrypted channels and doing his best to not attract the attention of his higher-ups. It was disappointing when he'd been stationed on Arryna— what good could he do there?
Enough, as it turned out. This whole operation, were it successful, would be worth the year he'd spent unable to report much back to the admiral. He would be giving back soldiers the Remnant now desperately needed.
Kanu had never seen combat. He'd flown through basic, but there was no risk when you were training. There was no potential for life-threatening mistakes unless he somehow revealed his Remnant affiliation. But now he had a purpose beyond being a spy, and with the responsibility came increased risk. One slip-up and the plan would fall to pieces, and he'd be facing a firing squad. It was terrifying. Kanu had never thought himself a coward, but today he had to hold the butt of his gun with a white-knuckled grip to keep his hands from shaking.
Regardless of his own inner turmoil, Kanu kept an outward appearance of calm as he marched purposefully through the prison. None of the guards paid him any mind—Kanu had learned long ago that, if you acted like you belonged, no one questioned you. They let you be. This held true even on the prison.
It took Kanu little time to arrive at the barracks, a long, low building, housing everything from guards' bunks to the guarded armory. The warden's quarters were on the second floor of the building. At all hours there were guards, most off duty, killing time until their shifts started. A game of keshin had broken out among them. Some watched along the sidelines, chewing rations, while others actively raced on the makeshift field before the barracks. There was not a whole lot to do on a prison asteroid as it turned out.
As Kanu walked, he caught sight of Knight and the humans, waiting in the wings. Their eyes were on him.
The plan was simple: Kanu would use his key card to open the armory, which every guard had access to, and the warden's office. He would leave them unlocked. Then he would make his way to the radio tower just behind the barracks and destroy it. The distraction would give Knight and the humans enough time to slip to their respective targets. It seemed easy enough, but if Kanu was caught manipulating the locks, well. It would all be over. The humans needed these weapons, and they needed the warden's key card. Failure was not an option.
"Private," one of the four guards outside the armory greeted him.
Kanu nodded to them. "My rifle was firing oddly during training this morning. I was ordered to get a new one before my shift started. Commander Denna should have cleared this," he said. It wasn't wholly a lie. His gun was misfiring every three rounds. What Kanu left out was that he had caused the gun to misfire. The first guard pulled a pad out of his pocket, checking the request.
"You're free to go in," he said at last, and stepped aside. Kanu inclined his head and waved his key card in front of the sensor. The door swished open.
The armory was large and well stocked, for a prison. It was a long hallway, with weapons' racks lining the walls. Boxes of ammunition were pressed flush against the walls. Kanu strode past all of these to the chute at the end of the hall where faulty weapons were discarded for repairs. He dropped the misfiring gun into the chute and listened to it clatter all the way down. Whoever inspected the rifle would know it had been sabotaged on purpose. If this plan failed, it would be traced back to him. But if this plan failed, his gun was the least of his worries.
He turned to the wall and pulled a new gun off the racks. Taking the prison relied heavily on everyone being armed to the teeth. Kanu then grabbed a photoshiv off the wall and cut off a piece of his uniform. It was a small piece, barely half the width of his palm, but it would be enough. As he left the armory, he wedged the fabric into the door jamb. The door fell into place, but it didn't lock. The guards didn't notice.
Kanu did the same thing at the warden's office, on the other side of the building from the armory. It was not one room, but a series of them located on the second floor of the building. Only one door was ever locked: the door at the base of the stairs. And it was not uncommon for a guard to approach the warden, so no one was the wiser as he nonchalantly walked to her end of the barracks. The exterior was not watched as closely as the armory. The warden had her own set of bodyguards, but they usually stuck close to her. He didn't have to explain to a suspicious guard just what he was doing. So far, so good. That just left the radio tower.
The radio tower was behind the barracks—a tall, slender thing that would easily topple if the structural integrity of one of its struts were to be…mysteriously compromised. It was out of the way and far from the prisoners, so there was no reason for there to be many guards around, Kanu reasoned. This assumption held true: all Kanu could see, once he'd circled around the barracks, was a lone guard at the entrance to the radio tower's control room at the base of the spindly structure. He took a deep breath. This was perhaps the most important part of the plan.
It was not the taking over of the prison that was the most challenging, but the getting off. There were ships here, but they were small crafts, not meant for the transportation of many people. They wouldn't do to evacuate Arryna's few hundred prisoners. There were two options here: wait for the Hegemony to notice that the prison had gone radio silent and send an outfit to figure out why, or call Ferrao and inform him of what was going down. So far Kanu had not had a chance to shoot off another message. To Ferrao's knowledge, Knight was still here for Toshi and Toshi alone. Kanu knew he would not be thrilled about the turn of events, but surely he could spare a single troop transport.
"Halt," a guard outside the radio tower said. Kanu stopped. The guard looked him up and down, frowning. "What are you doing here?"
Kanu didn't bother answering. There was no one else around, no one to see what he was about to do. Without warning he jerked up his gun and brought the butt of it down on the guard's head. The man didn't have a chance to act surprised before he crumpled to the ground. Kanu waved his key card in front of the control room's sensor and dragged the guard inside as the door slid open.
He quickly jumped to the control panel, punching in the numbers he had come to memorize. Kanu encrypted the message request and sent it, then waited anxiously for the hail to be answered. It didn't take long.
"Kanu," the admiral's voice carried over the comm. "I was wondering when I'd hear from you. I expected Knight to be back by now."
"There's been a change of plans, sir," Kanu said. His palms were sweating.
“…Oh?" Ferrao's voice had a dangerous note to it.
/> "We're freeing all the prisoners, sir."
Kanu heard the admiral sigh. It was not a happy sound.
"Knight was ordered to just return with Toshi—"
"Toshi went missing over two tendays ago. I was unable to inform you of this fact because of a recent jailbreak attempt. This was the only way to get her back."
"And I suppose you are looking for support?"
"It would be nice," Kanu admitted. The admiral grunted.
"We have no ships to spare. Knight knew she was on her own, and so did you."
Kanu's hearts fell. It was the answer he had anticipated, but it was not the answer he wanted. "Yes, sir."
"May the Divari grant you victory. I truly hope you succeed," the admiral said by way of goodbye. The transmission cut out. Kanu leaned on the control panel. It wasn't the end of their plan. The Hegemony would send ships eventually. They just had to hold out until they arrived.
And there was still the matter of successfully taking the prison. Kanu glanced at the guard lying on the floor. It was only a matter of time until he came to. Kanu had to work quickly. Without another thought, he hurried outside. At the base of the radio tower, he set his gun to overload. It would detonate, and the heat from the blast would easily melt through the tower's support strut. The tower would fall, the prison would be unable to call for help, and the prisoners would be able to take Arryna without worry of Hegemonist reinforcements. The first part of the plan was complete.