Seeds to the Wind (The Medicean Stars Saga Book 2)

by McCullough Crawford

  “What?” she asks in response to their stunned faces as the blade balances on one of her fingertips. “None of you ever asked about my life before I joined this esteemed organization. I learned to protect myself and how to handle one of these.”

  As she finishes her statement, she flips the blade up over her head and catches it without looking in her other hand.

  William nods slowly, trying to take into account this new side of Jill he had not guessed existed. He is a little ashamed that he had never thought to really get to know his teammates and learn their origins, taking for granted that they had more or less come from the same place he had. His brain starts trying to reevaluate his relationship with her, but before it can go too far down its reflexive pathways and needlessly apply too many stereotypes, he halts and focuses back on the present.

  “You sure you can handle the guards over there?” he asks Jill, locking her eyes with his. “We don’t know how many there are or what they have for weapons.”

  To answer, she simply nods and shrugs showing her now empty palms as the knife has disappeared somewhere into her clothing.

  “We need to set up some kind of distraction. So Jill has the element of surprise,” William continues, but trails off to allow the others to step in with ideas.

  “When I was talking to that group over there, I noticed some large electrical equipment that looks like it powers this whole area,” Florence chimes in. “I bet I could cut the lights for you.”

  “We’ll cause a ruckus by the door,” Jackson adds resting his hand on Antonio’s shoulder. “If we can get our latest set of guards distracted but alert, they might be useful for backup should you run into trouble.”

  “Good idea. Once we can prove we’re trying to stop them and thereby our good intentions, we can call in the cavalry and maybe get ourselves freed from this particular prison.” William smiles at them. “I’ll go with Jill and help as best I can. My parents did make me take martial arts classes for a while.”

  With their plan set, they split up and jog towards opposite sides of the cavern: Florence towards the electrical switchgear, Antonio and Jackson towards the only door into the chamber, and William tailing behind Jill on their way to the air vent. With adrenaline pumping through his veins, they arrive at the vent and pry off its cover.

  William peers inside the shadowed metal cavern. The walls slope sharply inward and up quickly leaving only a duct big enough to crawl through, but just inside the narrow crawlspace there is an access hatch that was left open by the last person to do maintenance in the vent. Through the open hatch, William can hear voices talking quietly and see light reflected off the polished interior of the duct.

  Jill scampers up the vent bracing her feet and hands against opposite walls. Once she reaches the top, she disappears down the hatch and for almost a minute is gone until her face and hand pop through the hatch and she beckons to him.

  “Come on.”

  Looking back across the cavern to the others, William notes that Florence is posed by the electrical gear, radio in hand, ready for his signal. Jackson and Antonio are hastily conversing by the door, but when he waves at them they both give him thumbs up, and he can almost make out their grins despite their previous animosity, the distance, and the dim light. What mischief they have planned he can only guess, but with one more wave to tell them to get it started he ducks into the vent and starts climbing.

  It is not as easy as Jill made it look. The walls are slick, coated with a fine layer of dust, and the sweat on his hands refuses to let him gain any traction on the metal. Eventually he makes it to the top and hops through the hatch, lowering himself down until his feet find something solid to stand on in the dark crawlspace beyond.

  Once he is through the hatch and his eyes have adjusted to the dim light, he finds himself in a cramped, dark access crawlway full of conduits running between the two caverns. William can hear the distant throbbing of the emergency alarm signifying Jackson and Antonio’s success in alerting their current guards. Everything is going according to plan. Jill, her mousy brown hair damp with sweat and dusty from the crawlspace, looks over her shoulder at him, a rakish grin on her face illuminated by the glow coming through the vent opening between them.

  “Signal them,” she says softly. “I’m ready.”

  Through the slats of the vent into the next room, William can make out five pairs of boots and a couple of chairs arranged around a table. The room itself, while undoubtedly listed as a conference room, is in reality barely more than a closet, forcing the people standing in the boots to be clustered together.

  The sound of the emergency alarm seems to have jumpstarted their plans as well, as they are forming up into orderly lines, checking their weapons and sounding off as their leader assesses their preparation. They are completely unaware of the danger lurking behind the grate near their feet.

  William pushes the key on his radio twice, signaling Florence to cut the power. Without a verbal response, the light coming through the vent cuts out. Three seconds pass before the emergency lights kick in, and when their glow illuminates the passageway, Jill is gone, and the vent cover is kicked in.

  Through the opening, there is no sound until a male voice shouts: “Behind you!”

  The sounds of an entire squad of guards turning in confusion are cut short by the staccato burst of gunfire, as one of them is able to bring his weapon to bear on the interloper. The confusion dwindles rapidly as gunfire is interrupted by the thuds of armored bodies hitting the floor. It would seem that the stone knife is serving her quite well in the small confines of the conference room within which the guards are being held.

  William begins to edge closer to the opening to see if he can lend a hand, but before he can reach the edge of the vent, an explosion emanating from the conference room rocks him back against the wall. The crawlspace becomes engulfed in flames. William’s world goes dark as his head connects with the rock wall behind him.

  Chapter 34

  Western Mountains

  Backroads

  Sara feels like a mother goose with her goslings strung out behind her as she leads the rebel patrol down the wooded slope. She is still a little shocked at how easily the men of the patrol had taken her as their leader. Once she had proven her figurative manhood was noticeably larger than their leader’s with her audacious plan to free the workers enslaved in the valley, they had willingly accepted her as an ally.

  The trees clinging to the slope are far from the towering giants of the region she grew up in, but they are adequate to conceal their descent to the valley floor. Having stashed her pack and the motorcycle off to the side of the road, Sara finds herself springing lightly down the slope, jumping from rock outcrop to rock outcrop in an effort to avoid kicking up dust. As the slope levels out, the rocks become farther apart, forcing her to slow to a trot, each step an effort to resist gravity’s incessant pull down the slope.

  Through the trees and across a small stream, the road that they had seen the workers being led up is visible. The road’s worn surface is empty at the moment, but wary of the possibility of a patrol, Sara stays crouched behind a particularly stout tree trunk while she waits for the more cautious approach of the rebels. She has enough time to scan the road and pick out a route across the relatively open area on either side of the stream before the rebels manage to catch up to her.

  As they come trotting up to join her, she grins. They are out of breath and seem tired. She on the other hand feels alive. Something about bounding down the slope with nothing more than a rifle strapped to her back has reawakened the primal delight in her. She has a brief flashback to riding a horse across her uncle’s farm when she was a child, the wind flowing through her air, the feel of the sun upon her cheeks. Somehow she had forgotten how alive she can feel in nature, spending all her time under fluorescent lighting. Up the slope on the other side of the stream lies her prey, a man using his position of power to abuse and mistreat the workers under his care. Her grin is fueled by his i
gnorance to her approach.

  The rebels seem a little uneasy as they approach her, their own faces serious and their eyes glancing at her and quickly away. Not deterred by their apparent discomfort, she beckons them closer so she can sketch out the plan.

  “If we stick to the downhill side of the road, we should be able to follow it up the slope while keeping the trees between us and any patrols,” she explains, miming their course with one arm.

  The rebels, having come to a similar conclusion themselves, nod in agreement and check their weapons to ensure they are loaded and ready.

  “Then let’s get moving,” she says, leading them across the floodplain along the stream. The coarse brown grass is nearly tall enough to shield them from anyone watching the valley floor if they are to crouch. The thick tough stalks rise past Sara’s waist, but she opts to dash quickly between the small scrub trees that dot the area instead of slinking slowly through the grass.

  The grass makes a whispering sound as it brushes across the fabric of Sara’s pants. Her legs pump in time with her heart beat as she springs from cover to cover like a startled deer. She leaves the rebels behind again, but once she makes the shelter of the thicker trees along the edge of the road, she is forced to slow and wait for them again. Hidden in the shadows between the trees, Sara peers through the dappled sunlight to the road. It nearly glows, illuminated by the sunlight shining down onto it, but the slope between her and it is nearly lost in the shadows.

  As she stares longer, shapes begin to resolve themselves out of the shadows and light patches. Out of the darkness, a short cliff materializes, its sharp contours mostly hidden by the stand of trees that runs across it, but clearly illuminated at the top of it is the road that the work party was being led down.

  If it had not been for the rifle slung across her back, she would have probably scaled the cliff face by herself, but the added bulk of the weapon and the proximity of help give her pause. It is, after all, a simple matter for one of the rebels to boost her up to where she can grab onto the roots of one of the small trees running beside the road.

  Without speaking a single word, the rebels approach, taking in the cliff and Sara’s intent in a series of silent glances at one another. The tallest one approaches the cliff and waves Sara over, proffering his hands to cup her foot. With apparent ease, he lifts her overhead, and she is able to slither over the top of the cliff.

  Anchoring her knee around a tree trunk, she leans over to assist the others up behind her. Once they have all made it to the top and are lying prone in the weeds beside the packed earth of the road, their destination becomes clear.

  Sara looks up the gently sloping road, and just before it should start a switchback, it vanishes. The dirt is no longer visible, and the trees that line the sides of the road stop abruptly to be replaced by the pale blue sky. Beyond, the crisp mountain air is speckled with a few distant clouds, but the destination, or at least continuation, of the steeply climbing road is conspicuously missing. Noting that the squad of rebels have followed her gaze and are staring at the road’s sudden termination, Sara sets off at a gentle trot, letting her legs eat up the distance as her mind clears to allow for one focused goal: find out what’s over the edge.

  The rifle strapped to her back seems almost weightless, but she is unusually aware of its presence. Sara’s upbringing, while certainly rougher than some of her peers, was far from the urban nightmare of perpetual murder they would have heard about in the suburbs, and the thought of actually using the beautifully crafted tool on her back for its intended purpose slows her gait significantly as the vanishing point approaches.

  Just before reaching the top, she crouches down onto all fours before lying down on her belly and crawling through the brush along the side of the road. Feeling the earth against her skin is comforting and oddly sensual as she digs her fingers into its rough surface and allows its contours to caress her while she slithers along. The slope is gentle, but the weeds are thick, allowing the sudden emptiness when she reaches ahead again to catch her off guard. The grass she has been crawling through simply vanishes, and as she reaches down to pull herself forward, she realizes the ground too has disappeared.

  Sara retreats slightly to let a screen of grass spring up once more in front of her before bringing the rifle around from her back. Her intention is to use the scope to see across the open chasm before her. The dirt and rock that form the walls of the massive hollow bowl show the striations of the geology clearly, the edges of epochs sharp and crisp, untouched by the weathering forces of wind, water, and flora, which have dulled their lines in the surrounding hills. The bottom of the bowl itself is nearly flat despite the numerous layers of rock that are cut across. It is the geological equivalent of a layer cake cut across the grain by a massive fork.

  Halfway across the hollow, she spies movement as she pans the scope across the ground. Quickly she adjusts the dials on the scope to bring the picture into focus, and several jump-suited figures resolve themselves.

  Three of the figures are standing close together in a line, their hands raised with their backs to Sara’s position. They are far enough away that the writing stenciled across their backs is barely legible despite the powerful scope. The meaning, however, is clear: prisoner. On the ground behind them, a fourth figure is nervously glancing around while holding its ankle, and a fifth member of the work party is hastily bandaging it. The reason for the tension in the scene becomes clear as Sara pans upward to find what the three with their hands raised are staring at.

  The overseer who had been haranguing the work party as they made their way down the road is standing, legs braced wide, with his pistol cupped firmly in both hands, yelling at the group as his face slowly deepens in hue.

  Sara is transfixed. The three standing in a line seem to be shielding the two on the ground from the overseer’s onslaught, their gaze downward but their line unwavering. The overseer steps forward, his gun sweeping down the line, his rage still obviously etched across his face even at this distance. But his words are undoubtedly hushed as his lips are moving much more calmly. He stops once he has halved the distance between himself and the line of workers, his gun coming to rest on the middle one.

  There is a pause. No one seems to move, not even the grasses around Sara rustle in the breeze.

  Sara sees a flash from the overseer’s gun and the middle form topples, slumping to the ground in a discombobulated heap. Then nearly a full heart beat later, she hears the crack issued by the gun. The remaining two in the line flinch as their comrade’s body falls, but they remain standing, resolute.

  The overseer shifts his gaze to the form on the right, continuing to talk calmly, the pistol focused squarely on the form’s head. The form looks up, letting its long hair fall back around its shoulders, its stance reeking of defiance as it looks the overseer in the eyes.

  Once again there is a flash, and the form crumples. To Sara’s stunned senses, the form’s hair seems to billow in slow motion as it falls, gentle waves rippling out from its head.

  The overseer turns to the remaining standing figure, whose fists are clenched at its sides, now trembling slightly as it stares straight ahead, refusing to look at the bodies of its two fallen comrades.

  There is no talking this time, no warning. Within seconds of the second crack reaching her ears, there is a third flash, and a third form crumples to the earth. The overseer strides towards the two figures on the ground, leveling his pistol at them.

  Sara’s heart is pounding in her ears, its beat a thunderous pulsing. The distance from her to the overseer is farther than any shot she has ever made. She has never shot something living before. When as a kid she had the fox that had been stealing chickens from her uncle’s farm in her sights as it jogged through the grass, a hen swinging from its jaws, something had stayed her finger. Instead she simply tracked it across the yard. In the end she had spent the rest of the day helping her uncle rebuild the henhouse, reinforcing its weak points. The overseer is quickly approaching
the kneeling figure, his body language indicating that he has no intent to talk to this pair.

  But none of this flickers through Sara’s mind. She inhales deeply, smoothly bringing the crosshairs to bear on the overseer’s chest. Gently she lets the air escape from her lungs through relaxed lips as she focuses on the point midway between his chin and oversized belt buckle. Her body takes over, returning to the habits ingrained by numerous summers spent shooting bottles in a ravine near her uncle’s house. Without thought, she caresses the trigger, allowing it to glide with the rhythm of her body.

  The unfamiliar gun recoils harder in her arms than she expected, driving its stock into her shoulder and obliterating her sight picture. It is only as she automatically regains her aim that her mind registers the crack of her own rifle and the knowledge of what it means.

  Excited for more?

  Land Fall, part three of the Medicean Stars Saga is coming soon.

  Also available in the Medicean Stars Saga:

  Part One: Dedication.

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