The warden came right to the point. “You’re a JoJo?” He glanced down at her lack of uniform for emphasis.
“No.”
“You’re a psion.”
“Yes, but not all of us are JoJos.”
His eyes narrowed. She watched, waiting, knowing that sooner or later it would come to him. Revelation came sooner.
“You were the JoJo captured by the Kronners.” Before she could reply, he added, “Why are you here?” Again, she didn’t have the chance to answer. “The Orgoran you were with was sentenced here.” The Ellinod nodded his head. “It all makes sense now. You came to help him escape.”
It was time for honesty. Any lie she told now would not help her or Safan, and could actually make matters worse. “Yes.” The one word was enough.
“Where is he?”
She threw a thumb over her shoulder. “There’s a small crevasse in the rock near the gates. He’s watching over three injured guards and waiting for my signal.”
“There were survivors?”
“Just the three, as far as we know. I don’t know how the prisoners managed to blow the doors, or how many more are still down in the mines.”
“We’ll do a quick head count. Were you here during the initial riots?”
“No.”
“So it was happenstance that you came to help free him when the riots took place?”
Time for more honesty. “Not quite. When I found out about the riots, I came to take advantage of the confusion. It was happenstance that I was here when the prisoners blew the mine doors.”
“Yet you stayed. After the prisoners escaped, you stayed to help when you and the Orgoran could have already made your way off-planet by the time we arrived.”
She opened her mouth to reply when she realized he was right. She had the power to take Safan and herself away from this place and could have left the prisoners and guards to fight.
The Ellinod studied her thoughtfully. Maurra tried to see if she could read him. Instead she felt a thread of trepidation and turned to see Safan emerge from hiding, carrying one of the injured guards. He remained weaponless, but two replacement guards followed closely behind while two others went to retrieve the other injured Ellinod.
She watched as they led Safan over to where the guards were dumping the unconscious prisoners in the center of the crater. More guards converged on the mine entrance where several began jury-rigging harnesses to take them down into the tunnels. One guard bearing crests on his epaulettes ran over to get orders from the warden, who had been joined by someone Maurra assumed was a physician.
Since the warden had momentarily forgotten her, Maurra drew her power back into herself and turned around in time to see an armed guard order Safan to place the injured Ellinod into one of the land speeders. Once Safan had obeyed, the guard gave him another order. Safan turned, spotted her and paused. Without warning, the guard whipped his weapon around and punched Safan twice, once in the side of the face, followed by a hard blow to the chest. Punishment for not obeying quickly enough.
Maurra screamed and bolted toward him as he fell to his knees, but she underestimated Safan’s strength and endurance. He grabbed the guard’s gun and wrenched it from the Ellinod’s grasp. The guard stumbled, pulling out another smaller pistol to aim at Safan.
She acted without thinking, sending a bolt of pure energy at the guard, who went stiff. The pistol fell from unfeeling fingers, and the Ellinod toppled over like a rock. Within seconds the entire force went on alert, and every gun turned on her and Safan. Pivoting, she opened herself once more, relief making her stronger when she felt Safan’s hand at the small of her back.
“Call off your guards!” she yelled. “Drop your weapons, or I’ll drop you!”
The warden motioned for the guards to step down and stared at her for a long moment. “Don’t be stupid, psion. The Ellinod is a convicted criminal. He belongs here. You don’t, so you’re free to leave.”
“I’m not leaving without him.”
The standoff might have continued, but she spotted the door to the tower at the far end of the crater suddenly swinging open. The leader of the revolt and his men ran out, weapons firing. The prisoners headed straight for the gates, which had not been turned back on. Throwing back her arms, she gathered her power into one enormous band of energy and launched the glowing ribbon at the escapees. Watching the half dozen prisoners get overtaken by the blue field was particularly satisfying.
The glow had barely faded away when the warden stood from where he’d been crouching behind his patrol vehicle and yelled for the gates to be turned back on, in the event another prisoner untouched by Maurra’s power tried to make a break for it. Once he was certain order had been restored, the warden looked around and motioned toward the craft. “Let’s talk in here. Bring the Orgoran with you.”
Maurra stepped down her psychic energy. Behind her, Safan slowly lowered the guard’s weapon and left it on the ground. Together they approached the vehicle with the warden already seated in front. They climbed inside, and the doors sealed shut. The warden got straight to the point.
“I owe you a huge debt. I could have lost many more guards, not counting the ones you saved earlier.” He nodded at Safan. “From what I’ve seen, Orgoran, you don’t belong here either, but I can’t negate what our laws have decreed.”
“And I won’t let Safan stay here and rot.” She stepped closer to Safan to prove her point.
“I believe you, and unfortunately for me, you have the ability to back your words.” He glanced out the front viewscreen at the armed squadron of guards watching and waiting with weapons primed. Well-trained men who would not hesitate to shoot at his signal, or if they believed he couldn’t give them one. “If you’re willing to trust me, I have an idea.”
Maurra looked over at Safan, who gave her a nod. “We’re listening.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The warden started up the craft and slowly drove the land speeder past his armed guards, past the unconscious figures of the stunned prisoners and up to the pulsar gates. He punched a code into the ship’s computer, shutting off the force field beams and allowing him to glide out of the crater. As soon as they were clear, he reinstated the gates.
“Listen carefully because there won’t be time to repeat anything.” He put the speeder into high gear. “You’ve taken me hostage, but you promised nothing would happen to me as long as I took you straight to the landing pad and dropped you off there.” He paused to swallow, and she realized he was more nervous than he appeared. “I take it your ship is nearby?”
“It’s some distance away from the landing pad, on the dark side. I feigned engine trouble, so I was instructed to land there in case they blew.”
The warden nodded. “As soon as I send a signal, my men will converge on this ship. You’ll have to jump before then.”
“Got it.”
“By the way, how long will those prisoners be unconscious?”
“Eighty microns. Maybe more, maybe less. Depends on each one’s stamina and physical health.”
“You understand why I’m doing this, don’t you?” He never took his eyes off the controls or from the viewscreen. A flashing light on his communications console gave evidence that his squadron was trying to reach him. The longer he remained incommunicado, the more feasible the story of him being a hostage would appear.
“Some.”
“I have a wife and two children. I have sixteen more orbits before my time is up on this rock, and I can take a safer and more comfortable position back on my home world. You saved me back there. You saved my guards. And although I don’t condone what you and the Orgoran did, I count myself among the many who believe you had no choice but to obey the Kronners or die.”
“They told us we should have died,” Safan growled, finally speaking up. “They told us our lives meant nothing if we broke the very laws we were supposed to uphold.”
“It is the way of our world. If those of us who are stanchions of the law br
eak the rules we make everyone else abide by, then we are worse offenders than they are. Therefore our punishment should be greater, to prove to the populace that we take our jobs and our duties seriously.”
“That’s crat shit and you know it.” Maurra dismissed his comment with a wave of her hand. “Your laws are no different than the laws I gave my word to uphold. But all of those laws, all of them, were created to prevent people and creatures like us from voluntarily choosing to break them. Nowhere is it taken into account that someone may force another to break the rules. To me, that makes Safan and me victims, not criminals.”
The warden chanced a glance sideways at her. “That is exactly why I will give you this one chance. Use it wisely and don’t ever venture back to this quadrant of space again. When a prisoner is given a life sentence, it means life.”
They drew nearer to the landing area, close enough to see the individual buildings, the living quarters and offices and the large warehouses and hangars where some of the ships docked overnight. Two smaller flyjets raced past them to land at the pad and disgorged several armed guards, who took a stance at the end of the pad to await the warden’s arrival. A welcoming committee.
“You know they won’t hesitate to kill you too, don’t you?” she asked the warden.
“I know that. Are you ready to jump ship? As soon as you’re gone, I’ll continue on all the way to the pad, where I’ll make a full report.”
“As soon as you land, your guards will come after us,” Safan observed.
“Then you had better run as fast as you can and hope you reach your ship before they reach you.”
She stared at the landscape growing larger in the viewscreen. “What if I blast them?”
“There’s too many of them, and they’ll be coming at you from all directions.”
“Then you don’t know psions.”
The warden shrugged. “Maybe not, but why make things worse than they already are? Run for it, psion, and take the Orgoran with you. Find another solar system or another galaxy, but leave this one. Find a new home, and create new identities, and live the rest of your lives as escapees.”
Safan nodded. “It will be a life. And it will be a longer one than what I would have had in the mines.”
She looked over to see him staring at her. They had a lot to talk about, but it would have to wait.
The warden made some adjustments at the console, then gestured toward the back of the ship. “There’s a rear exit door. Keep down to stay below the engines. Are you ready?”
She launched herself over the back seats to where a narrow cargo hatch was located. Safan pressed up behind her, ready to follow her out the moment she jumped. At the sound of the latch clicking, she shoved the door upward and together they leaped as one.
The warden had maneuvered the land speeder as close to the moon’s surface as he could manage at the speed he was traveling. In spite of that, hitting the packed dirt knocked the breath from them as they tumbled and rolled for several meters. Maurra gasped for air as she got to her knees and crawled over to where Safan had ended up on his stomach. Managing to stand on unsteady legs, she grabbed his arm to help him to his feet. He jerked away from her grasp.
“I can manage. Go! Go!”
She took a quick look in the distance at the warden’s land speeder. She could see the rear engines flaring as it was getting ready to land. Whirling around, she stared at the dark, barren horizon and tried to remember where she’d left the cruiser.
“Maurra, which way’s the ship?”
“I’m trying to get my bearings, damn it!” They were close. She would swear they were. But the guards would soon be on them if they didn’t take off running now. “Which way?” Oh, dearest gods, which way?
Struggling to remember, she bent over and clasped her knees to clear her head when she felt something pinch the sensitive flesh above her right rib cage.
The remote.
Reaching under her blouse, she peeled the little cylinder from underneath her breast and stared at it for a split second. “Lorri, can you hear me? Lorri! Lorri, I need your coordinates and a pickup up now!”
Miraculously, a tiny voice answered, “On my way, Captain!”
“I’ll meet you in the middle! Show me where to go!”
In answer, a small flare burst like a yellow incandescent sun on the horizon to their right. She and Safan took off toward it, running as fast as they could, although she could tell he was no longer in peak condition. He may have only spent a couple of weeks in that pit, but it had been long enough to already leave its mark. He was tiring quickly. She slowed to keep even with him and he shot her an angry look.
“If it means leaving me behind, save yourself, Maurra.”
“Shut up and run, Orgoran!”
Another glance over her shoulder revealed several patrol craft racing toward them. They were gaining, and gaining fast. If there was one thing to be grateful for, it was the fact that the guards wouldn’t shoot at them until they were close enough to ensure a direct hit.
“Lorri, move your ass!”
“I’m hurrying. Where shall I land?”
“Fuck the landing! Come along beside and lower us a ladder!”
“Very well, Captain.”
Her legs felt like they were wearing lead weights. Her lungs were on fire, and her whole body ached. She could not imagine how Safan was faring, but it had to be many times worse. Once he stumbled, almost falling over his own bare feet, but managed to right himself in time. His face was a sickly shade of gray, and sweat was rolling off of him. He struggled for air so loudly she could barely hear the sounds of the patrol cruisers drawing nearer.
The little ship swooped down from overhead, startling them at its sudden appearance. As instructed, it dropped its short landing ladder and kept pace with them as Maurra leaped for the handrail. Pivoting around, she wrapped one leg over a support strut and bent down to offer both hands. Safan reached for her, stumbled again and lost ground.
“Haul it, Safan! Lorri!”
“Adjusting,” the ship said.
This time she managed to grab the remnants of his shirt at the shoulders. The abused fabric ripped loudly as two enormous hands grasped her upper arms. She let the ship’s momentum help swing him onto the ladder and up into the hold with her. For a few seconds they stood clutching each other and gasping for breath as the ship sealed its hull.
“Captain, you’re being hailed by the committee following us. Shall I respond?”
Maurra raised her face from where she had been resting her forehead on Safan’s chest. The sound of his rapid heartbeat reminded her of the first time she had listened to its rhythm. Looking up, she saw him staring at her with an unfathomable expression on his face.
“Captain?”
“No. No, don’t answer. Just get us the fuck out of here.”
“Coordinates?”
“I don’t care. Out of this galaxy. Out of this system. Anywhere that’s safe. Any suggestions?”
“Well, the Peldinar system is three chrono days from here. Vias Daruggah has a large merchant shipyard—”
“And supplies and anything else we may need. Sounds good, Lorri. Set a course for the Peldinar system and Vias Daruggah.”
“And then what?” Safan finally whispered, breaking his silence. “What do we do now, Maurra?”
“I have a plan.”
His brow ridge rose in query above green eyes. “Oh? Another one?”
“Yeah. We’re going after that son of a treegrit slime slug who orchestrated our kidnapping.”
The Ellinod smiled, chuckling softly. “And when we catch him, then what?”
Maurra smiled back. He had no doubt they would find Vol Brod. “Then? I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead. Why? Got any ideas?”
“Not regarding Vol Brod.” He leaned over and kissed her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was the sweetest and softest kiss she’d ever received. He wasn’t an expert in the art, but his lips were
firm, and she kissed him back. She held her breath, enthralled by his gentle yet passionate mouth.
He was kissing her. He had instigated it. The wonder of that blinded her, left her unable to think.
She reached up with one hand to cup the side of his face and felt something warm and sticky. Not sweat. She looked at her hand. Blood. Upon further examination, she noticed another trickle rolling down his temple and through her handprint.
“You’re hurt. You’re bleeding above the ear. Are you in pain?”
“I can’t hear from that side.”
“Come inside.” She tugged on his arm. “Let me medicate that.”
Maurra led him into the small living quarters of the ship. With him there, the area appeared smaller and more cramped. Safan collapsed in the command chair and watched as she searched the lockers in the galley for the small medical kit she had uncovered earlier.
“Is there anything to eat?”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. Damn. She should have thought of his other needs. She wasn’t accustomed to having a partner or having to take care of anyone else but herself.
Having a partner. Guess I’m gonna have to get used to it.
She tossed several ration packets into his lap. “Enjoy. It’s all we have until we can restock somewhere.”
Safan ripped open a packet and stuffed the yellow bruulu into his mouth. “Got any creds?” he managed to ask around his chewing.
She shook her head. “I’m flat broke. I used all that I had to buy this ship. The Jora claimed my banking account, along with everything else I owned, when they kicked me off the force. The only things they couldn’t take were my personal, non-JoJo-related things. I was left with what I had in my pocket.”
The cut wasn’t deep, but head wounds tended to bleed profusely. She quickly cleaned the spot, applied a numbing medicant and sprayed a protective sealant over that. After putting up the kit, she brought him another handful of food ration packets and a couple of liquids. He devoured the contents as she walked up to the bridge console to check the navigational grid.
Captive Surrender Page 13