Jupiter Storm

by C. J. Darlington

  She’d need to be careful. The only asset she had was the information they apparently sought.

  “Is she still alive?” Dana asked.

  Marie rested her arms on the table. “I am not sure if she’s happy about it.”

  Dana knew the statement was meant to get a reaction out of her either way. She resisted the bait. “I know her well enough.”

  The server moved around the table, piling each of their plates with food that made Dana’s stomach gurgle in anticipation. She hadn’t eaten since morning, and that was only a dry ration that hardly satisfied.

  She must’ve reacted to the delicious aroma, because the colonel laughed again. “Mazdaar’s finest braised pork, baked pears, walnut salad, and buttered yams. Bet you haven’t tasted food like this in quite some time.”

  “I haven’t,” Dana said, forking a bite into her mouth. Even in the Alamo Republic where she’d been stationed with Yien, food like this was hard to come by.

  “We’ll need you to testify against her,” Nathaniel said.

  Dana chewed and swallowed. “Regarding?”

  “Her manipulation of you, among other things,” he said.

  She should’ve expected this. The capture of Fleur March would be a feather in anyone’s cap. The food suddenly didn’t look so appetizing.

  Nathaniel raised his glass. “But let’s not ruin the moment. Tonight is a celebration.” He tapped his daughter’s glass. “You have succeeded, my dear Marie. I am sure a commendation will be forthcoming.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What about the others?” Dana set down her fork. “What will to happen to them?”

  “Not your concern,” Marie said.

  Her father waved her off. “No, it is good for her to know.”

  Had she passed some test?

  “I will answer you with complete candor,” he said, his cheek bulging. “They will be interrogated once we reach Earth. Then we will deal with them accordingly.”

  “Excuse me?” Dana nearly spit out her food. “Earth?”

  “Did you not tell her?” Nathaniel took another sip from his glass. “Yes, Dana. Earth. Your home. We will reach Mazdaar City in twenty-four hours.”

  Chapter 29

  Why do we always end up alone, Grey?” Back home Rin would spend entire rides chattering on about whatever came to her head. Grey would nod and sometimes ask a question to keep her going, but Rin knew that right now her older sister was only half listening.

  “Are you even hearing me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not a child, you know,” Rin said.

  “Then grow up and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Light was slowly filling the swirling sky, allowing them to travel faster on the zorses and see each other. Rin glanced over at her sister, whose face looked strained with exhaustion. She could barely keep her eyes open herself and found the only way was to talk.

  “It’s your fault we’re even here,” Rin mumbled.

  Grey abruptly reined Tram to a stop. “You’ve got a lot of nerve to say that.”

  “I wouldn’t have left Mom and Dad.”

  “And you’d be dead!”

  “You said they weren’t dead.”

  Grey’s nostrils flared. “What good would you be to anyone as a Mazdaar prisoner?”

  “And what good are we doing out here?”

  Her sister shook her head then glanced away, and Rin knew Grey was fighting back tears. She hated to make Grey cry, but they needed to face the truth and be honest with each other. Isn’t that what they’d promised?

  “Seriously,” Rin said, waving toward the nearest tree. The forest had morphed from sapling-narrow trunks to monsters as wide as boulders with thick, craggy bark. “Nothing matters anymore except surviving. Mrs. March would understand.”

  “I made a promise, and I can’t just go back on it.”

  “We might never see her or Mom and Dad again. Grey, you want me to grow up. I want you to open your eyes. We don’t even know if we’re going in the right direction!”

  Grey looked over at her, and even in the poor light Rin saw how bloodshot her eyes were. “Do you really think this is my fault?”

  Rin stared down at her hands, loosely holding the reins. “For all my life I’ve wanted to be like you. Do you have any idea what it’s like to try and follow in your footsteps?”

  “I’ve only ever wanted what’s best for you,” Grey said.

  “But you’re not my mother.”

  Grey slid off Tram’s back and stood with slumped shoulders, rubbing her fingers into the zorse’s withers. Rin expected her older sister to bristle or argue or something, but instead Grey covered her face with her hands and started sobbing. Rin dismounted from Trif and went over to her.

  But Grey turned away. When would Grey realize that she didn’t care if she cried or showed weakness sometimes?

  Rin gently touched her shoulder. “Grey, I’m sorry.”

  “No.” Her sister shook her head. “I want to know how you feel.”

  “I shouldn’t have said it was your fault.”

  Grey raised her eyes to the tops of the trees, her cheeks wet. “If I hadn’t gotten captured in the first place, we’d both be safe at home. No one would’ve had to rescue me, and Dana wouldn’t have kidnapped you.”

  “We wouldn’t have seen Mom and Dad again either.”

  Grey’s lip quivered. “I don’t know if we ever will again.”

  It scared her to see her sister like this, but Rin kept up a brave front. If she was going to demand to be treated as an equal, as an adult, she needed to take the hard truth.

  “They’re fighters,” Rin finally said. “So are we.”

  “I’m just so tired.” Grey rested against Tram, and for a second it looked like she was going to collapse.

  A wave of guilt washed over Rin. Sisters were supposed to help each other. When one was weak, the other could be strong. But now, when Grey needed her, Rin had whined like the child she was trying so hard to leave behind. Now was not the time to tear her sister down.

  “We should rest a little,” Rin said, taking Tram’s reins from her sister. She tied the zorses, who were more than ready to sleep too. Rin guided Grey over to a mossy bed beneath one of the trees.

  “I’ll take the first watch.” Rin reached for Grey’s violetflare, and her sister didn’t protest. “You lie down.”

  “I’m fine. I can watch.”

  But Rin wouldn’t be deterred. “You’ll do no good to either of us if you can’t even stand up.”

  Grey didn’t put up much of a fight. She lay down on her side, and within a minute Rin watched her breathing slow. Rin remained standing, knowing if she sat down she would risk drifting off herself. The last thing they needed was to be ambushed by one of Jupiter’s wild animals.

  She hadn’t seen the saber-tooth cat or the Tasmanian tigers, but she’d heard about them and seen pictures from the book Mrs. March gave her growing up. That was enough. No one seemed to know why animals that were extinct on Earth were here in abundance, but Rin figured if God had created them on Earth, why not on Jupiter too? Man was the one who’d made them extinct for the most part. With few humans here, it made sense that there would be creatures unseen by human eyes for centuries.

  Rin paced a few steps away and scanned the forest. They had been traveling for hours. The holographic map was limited and didn’t show all the vegetation. It would be fully light soon, which would allow them to move faster, but without food and water there was no way for them to recharge the way they needed.

  God, we need some help.

  She’d gotten better about praying, but she realized this was the first time she’d asked God for help since they’d left Orion Settlement. Everything had happened so fast, and she’d been worried about so much.

  Rin turned the violetflare pistol over in her hands and touched the knife sheath on her leg, remembering how her father had talked about the real enemy they faced.

  The greater enemy
is the darkness that would overtake your soul.

  The last thing she wanted was for Mazdaar’s darkness to creep into her heart. And yet she’d just blamed her sister for their predicament when she knew full well Grey had only been trying to protect her. Was she allowing the influence of Mazdaar to spread into her soul?

  She took in a deep breath and was hit with the familiar scent of ozone before a storm. Great. The winds were coming. Rin stuffed the violetflare into the back of her pants and ran over to Tram and Trif, holding their lead ropes with both hands. They might be too exhausted to spook, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  This time the winds were different. They came suddenly as usual, but their strength seemed to somehow be tempered by the forest. Rin glanced up at the trees and felt a rush of vertigo as she watched their trunks sway. She didn’t see much deadfall, but if a gust was strong enough, she was sure one of the trees could come down. Whistling through the bows, the wind lasted for about thirty seconds, and amazingly Grey slept through it all. Tram and Trif raised their heads, ears erect, but they didn’t run.

  “Good boys,” Rin whispered as the wind ceased.

  In a flash, directly in front of her Rin saw a stream, crystal clear, flowing through a gully, splashing over rocks and meandering across a desert.

  Then it disappeared.

  Rin wasn’t as startled this time, and she gazed into Trif’s chocolate eyes knowing somehow it had come from him. Zebra and horses both had a powerful sense of smell. Were the zorses trying to tell her water was nearby?

  She gave Grey an hour of sleep then gently shook her shoulder. Her sister awoke with a jolt, hitching her breath, eyes wide.

  “It’s just me,” Rin said.

  Grey stumbled to her feet.

  Rin handed her sister the violetflare. “I have an idea.”

  Chapter 30

  Dana waited until dessert was served to ask any more questions. She chewed a small bite of baklava as she weighed her options.

  “Enlighten me on Fleur March,” Dana finally said. “What is her value to Mazdaar?”

  Marie’s eyebrow rose. “You really do not know?”

  She glared at the woman. It was important not to falter as she was already weak physically. “I wouldn’t have asked you if I knew.”

  Nathaniel licked his fingers. “Why don’t you tell us what you do know, and we will fill in the blanks.”

  Dana took another bite of baklava to buy a moment. She wanted information from them, not the other way around. Commander Fleur March was not an easy woman to categorize. When Dana had first met her she’d been thoroughly intimidated after all the stories she’d heard, but March had welcomed her like she was a long lost child, taking time to debrief her personally and make sure she was settled in a temporary safe house bunker in the Preserve. March had checked in with her on a weekly basis after that, always freely answering her questions.

  She broke off another piece of the sweet pastry. Was it really all a ruse? Could March really be the enemy? It hadn’t felt that way at the time.

  “I have known of Fleur March since I was a child,” Dana said. “Who hasn’t?”

  Nathaniel nodded. “Your mother taught you well.”

  “And you were one of my mother’s advisors, were you not?”

  He grinned, his teeth practically glowing with dental enhancement. “You remember.”

  “Not well, but yes.”

  Another vague childhood memory surfaced in Dana’s mind. She’d seen this man somewhere else too. Like a dream, the image was hazy, but she remembered walking into her mother’s bedroom late one night and seeing him and her mother doing something she shouldn’t have seen. Two and two added up, and Dana stared intensely at Colonel Nathaniel Hutchison.

  “The list of Fleur March’s crimes is extensive,” he said. “She will be brought to justice, I can assure you.”

  “Before the Mazdaar High Council, I gather.”

  “Most certainly.”

  Dana set down her fork. “I would like to speak with her.”

  “Impossible,” Marie said, pushing aside her plate.

  “She thinks I’m deceived,” Dana said. “But she also believes I’m still salvageable. She would talk to me when she wouldn’t talk to you.”

  Nathaniel exchanged glances with his daughter.

  “The idea has merit.” Nathaniel stuffed the remaining chunk of his dessert into his mouth and spoke between chews. “I will allow it, but only if you are closely monitored. Marie, see that it happens tonight and report to me directly afterward.”

  # # #

  “Just give them a chance,” Rin said.

  They’d mounted the zorses again and per Rin’s suggestion given them complete free rein. If they veered off the path Grey thought they were supposed to take, then so be it. Because Rin had a feeling they were close.

  Trif, usually the follower, had taken the lead, and Rin tried not to influence him with her legs or hands. They were going downhill now, which she took as a good sign. A way to discover water in the wilderness was to follow the topography. Water flowed downhill.

  The zorses were speeding up, also a good sign. Maybe they sensed they were close too?

  “What did it look like again?” Grey asked.

  Rin leaned back to take her weight off Trif’s forehand. “Like a snapshot in living color.”

  “But you saw a stream and the water flowing?”

  “Yeah, and it was as if it was coming from Trif.”

  “I guess we have nothing to lose.”

  Rin peered through the foliage, hoping to spot a shimmer or a reflection to indicate a spring or a brook. They’d have to figure out how to filter it, but that wasn’t important until they found the water itself.

  “About earlier,” Grey said. “I want you to know I heard you.”

  “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  “I didn’t realize that’s how you felt, Rin.” Her brief respite seemed to have rejuvenated Grey a little, and she’d been open to Rin’s idea to let the zorses lead them to water. “I’ll try to let go a little.”

  She shot her sister a smile. “But not much, okay?”

  “Deal.”

  They rode on, climbing over piles of dead leaves, a fallen log they had to completely circumvent it was so high, all the while watching for any sign from the animals that would indicate Rin’s vision was real.

  She was about to admit she’d been wrong when Trif put on the brakes in the middle of a small clearing. Tram did the same beside him and the girls looked at each other.

  “Should we get off?” Grey said.

  Trif started pawing at the ground, throwing dirt and sand, as if he was about to roll. But he didn’t roll. Tram let out a loud snort and pawed too.

  “What are they doing?”

  Rin slid off Trif and landed on her feet. “Take my reins for a second.” She handed them off to Grey and searched for a stick or rock she could use to dig.

  She found a piece of dried wood the size of her arm and pulled out her knife, whittling the end into a flat spade.

  “Let’s clear some of this away.” She kicked away fallen debris around Tram and Trif and pulled up a few dark green ferns by the roots. The dirt here was dark and mixed with something like peat moss. It felt heavy and almost wet in her hands.

  Rin started digging with her makeshift shovel. It didn’t take long for her to break a sweat, and Grey switched with her after a while. Soon they’d dug down close to a foot. With every inch the dirt got darker, and Rin squealed when it began to seem like mud.

  “Look!” She was on her knees staring down into the hole. Her hands were covered in dirt, and probably her face too. She pointed as the muddy bottom of the hole got wetter and wetter.

  Grey clapped her on the back.

  “It’s thanks to them.” She got up and led the zorses closer. They started chomping and smacking their lips.

  “Think it’s safe?”

  “We’ll have to risk it.”

  Th
ey waited for what felt like an hour as the hole slowly filled with an ugly brownish liquid.

  “Mom said Jupiter water had some sort of oil in it, but it doesn’t look like that here.”

  “Maybe the ground is a natural filter.”

  “I hate to make them the guinea pigs.” Grey gestured toward Tram and Trif.

  She did too, but they didn’t have any other option. She hoped they would sense not to drink it if it was bad.

  “Go for it, boys.”

  Rin gave them slack and they pushed their noses toward the water, reaching it at the same time. Their ears twitched with each swallow, and they quickly emptied the hole.

  “Let’s hope it fills again,” Grey said.

  When it did, they scooped it into their hands and drank before they could talk themselves out of it. It tasted like chalk and left a weird coating in their mouths, but Rin knew they had to have it. She tried not to think about food.

  It took longer for the hole to fill a third time, and they gave it to the zorses who didn’t seem to mind the taste. Tram sighed when he’d finally had his fill, and Rin beamed when Grey held his head against her chest and Tram let her. Her sister wasn’t always affectionate toward the animals, so she must have been feeling something deeply.

  “I’m proud of you, Rin,” Grey said.

  She dug at the ground with the toe of her boot, unable to express how much her sister’s approval meant.

  Chapter 31

  Marie pushed Dana’s wheelchair without a word toward the interrogation room, and Dana felt like she was the one about to be interrogated.

  “You worry me,” Marie finally said.

  “I thought you believed in me. Your father certainly does.”

  That hit a nerve like she knew it would. She didn’t have to see Marie to picture her pinched expression.

  “I will be watching and advising as you go.”

  “Didn’t expect anything less.”

  There was ample evidence already against March, but Dana had banked on the possibility of a taped confession being a temptation Mazdaar couldn’t resist. It was probably the only reason they were allowing her to do this. All Dana knew was that she had to see March one last time, and this was the only way it could happen.