I place my right hand on the dash. “I solemnly swear to avoid all obstacles, living and inanimate.”
“That’s no comfort,” Buir responds with a groan.
I lean forward and depress the igniter switch. The engine roars to life and despite my excitement, I can’t help flinching at the sound.
Buir clings to the side of the LunaTrekker in a death clutch that eclipses her white-knuckled grip from this morning. “Are you sure about—”
Her voice mounts to a scream as we lurch forward. “Slow down!” she shrieks.
I barely register what she’s saying. Adrenalin rushes through me, taking over every neural pathway. While it was exhilarating riding in the LunaTrekker this morning with the oremongers, being in control of the vehicle, and feeling the power of an engine in my hands, takes the experience to a whole new level.
It’s all I can do to keep from hollering out with glee as I steer the LunaTrekker down the middle of the main boulevard and out of town. Cweltans dart to either side of the street, shocked expressions on their faces as I drive by. I ignore them and focus instead on keeping the LunaTrekker moving in the direction we need to go.
Once we’re past the outskirts of town, and there’s no danger of running anyone over, I accelerate, grinning at Buir’s predictable yelps each time our tires bump over rocks in our path. The wind whips my hair up around me and I shiver with delight, invigorated by the sensation. As crazy as it seems, I can’t help thinking this is what I was born to do. And more. I want to fly next. I’ve studied every ship’s manual I got my hands on, and spent many an hour in the wrecks in the desert familiarizing myself with the flight decks. Driving the LunaTrekker only makes me hungrier to experience what it’s like to pilot a ship.
All too soon, the retribution hut comes into view. I wish I could keep driving, but Buir’s so pale I don’t think she’ll make it any farther without passing out. After locating the brake pedal, I manage to slow the vehicle down in a series of jerks. We come to an abrupt stop thirty feet from a small guard station to the left of the hut. Buir tumbles out first, strands of shimmering silver-white hair plastered across her sweaty face.
I raise my brows at the sight. I can’t remember ever seeing her look quite this disheveled before. Maybe I shouldn’t mention it, considering her precarious emotional state.
“Just so we’re clear,” she gasps, smoothing out her shamskin. “I’m walking back to town.”
“Hey, harsh! It was my first time!” I say. “I promise the ride back will be better. You can even take a turn driving if you want.”
She lets out a low groan. “I prefer my own two legs beneath me, thanks.”
We greet the guards, and Buir goes inside the station to find some water. I make my way over to the retribution hut. Unlike the other dwellings on Cwelt, it is constructed of heavy wooden posts driven into the ground an inch apart and covered over by a thatched roof. It offers no safety from sand snipers, and no privacy to its inhabitants, which fits its purpose—to serve as a spectacle to Cweltans, reminding them of the consequences of crime. It’s rarely needed. And never for something of this magnitude.
The crew of the Zebulux is huddled together on the floor on the far side of the hut. Velkan jumps to his feet when he sees me, dark skeins of hair flipping over his shoulder. “Did you find the gun?”
Sarth, Ghil and Nipper eye us warily from the floor, but don’t attempt to get up.
I shake my head. “We didn’t have time before my father and Parthelon came on board.”
Velkan looks gutted. The disappointment in his face stirs up the guilt I’m already feeling. I should have worked faster to search the ship. And I shouldn’t have wasted time on the bracelet.
“They’ll confiscate the weapons.” Velkan leans his forehead against the post between us, his holographed tattoo glowing in the fading light. “You’ve got to help us. Can you talk to your father?”
I dart a glance in Sarth’s direction. I can tell she’s listening, but pretending not to.
“There’s nothing we can do for her,” I murmur to Velkan. “She’s guilty as charged. Did you know what you were transporting?”
Velkan lets out a snort. “Of course I knew what it was. Doesn’t mean I had any say in it.”
“What about the other crew members?” I ask.
“They knew all right,” Sarth interjects, getting to her feet. “Can’t hide vats twice the size of LunaTrekkers when you’re loading up.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “You set up the transport. You put your crew’s lives in danger.”
Sarth flashes a hideous grin. “And now we get to die together on your dreary little planet on the fringe.” She spits on the ground and walks back to the others.
A shiver goes through me. How can she treat this as some kind of joke? It’s a very real possibility that the crew will perish with her unless I can figure out a way to free them. Why isn’t she trying to negotiate with me? It makes me wonder what she’s planning. Surely she couldn’t break out of here without help.
“As soon as the vats have been removed from the ship, I’ll go back and look for the gun,” I whisper to Velkan. “I’ll force the guards to turn you loose. I won’t let them execute you.”
He nods but looks unconvinced. “Sarth keeps a laser gun under her bed, strapped to the frame. The other weapons are locked in the safe. I don’t know the combination.”
“I found something else on the ship,” I say, pulling out the chain around my neck. “Recognize this?”
His eyes widen. “You scavenged my things.” He gives a hollow laugh. “I’m not even dead yet.”
“It’s not yours,” I say, reaching into my pocket. I pull out his matching bracelet and hand it to him. “But, yes, I did go through your things looking for the gun.”
Velkan reaches for the bracelet and rubs his thumb gently across it in a familiar gesture that tells me he too has spent many a night clutching it close.
“Were you wearing it when Sarth found you?” I ask quietly.
He gives a wry grin. “That’s all I was wearing, as she likes to remind me.”
Sarth wanders over, her beady eyes glued to the bracelet hanging around my neck. A flash of recognition goes through her eyes. She glances down at Velkan’s bracelet and then stares at me for a long moment.
I stare brazenly back at her. “What planet did you find Velkan on?”
She scratches her bald head for a moment, then tugs the corners of her lips downward. “Can’t say I remember.”
“Try harder!” I snap back.
Quicker than a sand sniper, she whips her fist through the slats and grabs me by my shamskin, rattling me against the slats. The stench of her yellowed teeth washes over me. “Listen, Princess,” she hisses. “No one tells me what to do, especially not some sassy-tongued import from a poverty-stricken planet who prances around like she’s the Syndicate’s gift to Cwelt.” She shakes me loose with a disgruntled snort when Buir and the guards come rushing over from the station, spears poised.
“I’m fine.” I hold out my palms to keep the guards at bay. “Go back to your positions.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Buir asks, breathlessly.
I glare at Sarth. “I’m fine. It was just a misunderstanding of who’s in charge here.”
She watches the guards retreat and then fixes calculating eyes on me. “Let’s try this again. I don’t take orders, but I’ll deal. You want information, and you got something I could use in return.”
I frown at her. “I thought you said you didn’t remember …” I break off when I see the amused smile that plays on her lips.
“Might come back to me, given the right … motivation.” She rubs her jaw, eying me with a bored look.
“What kind of motivation?” I ask.
She edges closer and I take a step backward, not wanting to be yanked into range of her foul breath a second time. She presses her face between the posts. “Get us out of here tonight and I’ll give you the name of the planet.�
��
I open my mouth to respond, and then wince at a stinging pain in my arm. I glance down at Buir’s fingers digging into me. “Don’t do anything stupid, Trattora,” she whispers from behind.
I take a deep breath as I weigh the wisdom of her words against everything that’s at stake. The roar of the Lunatrekker’s engine and the feel of the wind beneath my hair comes rushing back to me, and something inside me rises up and takes over. I study Sarth’s face, a daring plan forming in my head. Hazardous, but not stupid. “I’m willing to deal,” I say, “but first, let’s get something straight. I’m the chieftain’s High Daughter, not a princess, and not the Syndicate’s gift to anyone.”
Sarth splits a grin and claps a hand on Velkan’s shoulder. “See how easy it is to wheel and deal with the friendly folk on the fringe planets?” The smile vanishes from her face as quickly as it formed. She jerks her head in the direction of the guards. “What’s your plan to get us out of here?”
“First,” I say, beckoning her closer, “we discuss my terms.”
She shrugs, leans forward, and peers through the slats at me, her eyes glistening like orbs in the fading light of the day.
“Take me with you, and I’ll get you out of here,” I whisper.
7
Sarth scrutinizes me through half-lidded eyes, calculating and suspicious.
“Take me to the planet where you found Velkan,” I say, jutting my chin out.
She lets out a snort. “You would leave your privileged position on Cwelt to chase some fantasy of finding your family of origin?”
“My birth parents might still be alive.”
“What makes you think they’d want to be found? What if they’re the ones who sold you?” Sarth waves her hand dismissively. “Happens all the time on famine-ridden planets. Lowlife vultures. They’d eat their own children if they couldn’t sell them.”
Buir lets out a horrified gasp.
My insides recoil, but I glue my lips tight in a steely expression. Maybe I am being naive. What if my birth parents turn out to be from some arid terraform where famine turned the inhabitants into savages? It’s no secret the Syndicate has abandoned terraform projects that turned out not to be lucrative, or too dangerous, leaving the settlers to fend for themselves against galactic pirates, Maulers, giant predator birds, face-eating monkeys, and a host of other monstrous species that may be more the stuff of solar myth than fact, for all I know.
“I’ll deal with it,” I say, curtly. “Take me to the planet, and I’ll help you escape.”
Sarth scratches her bald head with a ragged nail and casts a furtive glance through the wooden posts in the direction of the guards.
“I can be useful,” I add. “I understand spaceship technology.” At least in theory.
Sarth’s eyes scan me skeptically one more time, and I’m afraid she’ll see me for what I am: a misfit teenager from a primitive planet, full of grandiose dreams, and a headful of knowledge, but no experience beyond the dirt beneath my feet.
“All right, what’s your plan?” she barks.
I blink, taken aback by her abrupt buy-in to my proposition. I was fully expecting to argue and wrangle until she saw no alternative. I don’t have a plan, yet. But Sarth doesn’t need to know that.
“I’ll tell you when it’s time.” I harden my tone. “One more thing. You’re going to teach me how to fly the Zebulux. I’ve studied all the ships the Syndicate put into production, but I need to practice. Once we reach Aristozonex I’m trading some of that dargonite for a ship of my own.”
Sarth hefts her brows upward and stares at me like I’m a creature to be pitied. “Takes months to learn to pilot a ship like the Zebulux—and years to master it.”
“I can guarantee you’ll only have to show me once,” I say. “If you’d rather stay here, I’ll figure it out myself.”
Her mouth falls open, but before she can counter, I turn around and stride away from the hut, my heart thumping a heightened rhythm that matches the icy solar gusts whipping up around us. I pull up a corner of my shamskin to shield my face from the dust.
Buir hurries after me, her leather boots crunching the gravel beneath. “You can’t go with her.”
I stop abruptly and spin to face her. “Why not?”
Buir’s eyes widen in alarm. “You can’t be serious.”
I shrug. “We need weapons and ships to survive a raid by the Maulers; the chieftain agrees.”
Buir puts a hand on her hip. “He didn’t agree to you helping the prisoners escape.”
“Would you rather see them die?”
“That is for the elders to decide. I can’t be a part of this. You’re going too far, Trattora.” She storms past me and takes off in the direction of the settlement.
I jump into the LunaTrekker, pull on Sarth’s goggles, and start it up. “Wait!” I yell after her as the vehicle surges forward with a deep rumble that drowns out my plea. I drive alongside Buir, trying to shout across to her at the same time. “Will you at least listen to me for just one minute?”
She keeps her eyes fixed in front of her and increases her pace, her arms pumping up and down, her breath like gossamer in the chill Cweltan air.
In desperation, I swing the LunaTrekker around in front of her and jump out. “Buir! This isn’t just about me, or the bracelet,” I plead. “If we trade the dargonite on Aristozonex, we can buy the ships we need to defend Cwelt from the Maulers. If we stay here and do nothing, we’ll end up a slave colony, like Oxtian, or worse.”
Buir grabs me by my shamskin and pulls me close, her eyes flashing an urgency I can’t discount. “Sarth is engaging in illegal cryogenic trading,” she says. “She might be wanted by the Syndicate, for all we know. If you go with her, you might be arrested too.”
A faint whistle from behind distracts me. I spin around, scrunching my eyes up as I hone in on the figure. Someone is running toward us from the direction of the retribution hut. A flicker of apprehension goes through me. The scarlet scarf tied around the runner’s upper arm is a clear indication that something is wrong.
“Jump in,” I mutter to Buir.
This time she doesn’t argue. She slides in next to me and grips the side of the LunaTrekker as I rev the engine and take off in a cloud of dust, thankful for the goggles that protect me from being blinded. Buir raises one arm protectively over her eyes. I plow over rocks and shrubs in our path, straining to keep the vehicle under control. Moments later, we pull up hard by the runner. “What’s wrong?” I yell.
“Mauler warship,” he pants, leaning against the LunaTrekker to catch his breath.
“Have they landed?” I ask, my thoughts somersaulting in a mad panic.
He shakes his head. “On approach. Chieftain’s orders are to flee at once to the underground caves. He’s sent out a search party for you.”
My mind races, trying to piece it all together. “What about the prisoners?”
The runner heaves in another deep breath. “My orders were to leave them and dismiss the guards.”
I grit my teeth and start the LunaTrekker back up. I promised Velkan I wouldn’t let the elders execute him, but leaving him for the Maulers might be a worse fate. “Head for the caves,” I order the runner. “Tell my father we’re on our way.”
He bows and sprints off as I twist the controller and turn the LunaTrekker around.
“What are you doing?” Buir asks, a tremor in her voice. “We need to go to the caves right away.”
I accelerate toward the retribution hut. “We’re not leaving them to die,” I say. “We made a deal with them.”
“That was before we knew the Maulers were coming,” Buir protests.
“Going to the caves will only buy us time, and not much at that,” I say. “If the Maulers land and set up a base on Cwelt, we won’t survive underground more than a few months. What we need are ships to fight back.”
“You can’t do anything about that.”
“I can try.” I glance across at her. “Who else is going
to save Cwelt?”
Buir remains silent for a few minutes as we bump our way over a rocky patch on the trail leading back to the hut. “If you go with Sarth, what’s to stop her from killing you?” she asks in a resigned tone.
I grip the controller tighter. “I’ll need allies on board. Velkan will help me. I can bribe Ghil and Nipper with a share of the dargonite.”
Buir looks increasingly skeptical as the retribution hut comes into view.
“I can drop you at the mouth of the caves on my way to the Zebulux,” I say, swallowing down the lump in my throat at the thought of parting ways with Buir.
She turns to me, a stricken look on her face. “I can’t go down there without you. Your mother would—” She catches herself and gives a hollow laugh. “Not kill me, exactly.” She frowns. “But the grief in her face might. And that would be worse than looking at Sarth’s ugly mug for however long it takes to sell the dargonite and get back here.”
I raise my brows questioningly. “Does that mean you’re coming on a real adventure with me?”
She tilts her delicate chin up. “I want a custom LunaTrekker and my own driver.”
“Done!” I grin across at her as I slam on the brakes and pull up in front of the retribution hut.
It’s empty!
Buir turns rigid beside me, and then glances nervously around. “Do you think the guards took them to the caves?”
“The guards would never go against my father’s orders,” I say. “They must have escaped.” I grit my teeth and make a sharp turn, steering the LunaTrekker back in the direction we came. “We have to reach them before they make it back to the Zebulux.”
Buir yells something to me, but it’s lost as the engine roars and we lurch forward. I’m fairly certain she was urging me to forget the oremongers and disappear underground before it’s too late. But I can’t let that happen. As we rip faster over the trail, rocks spewing behind us, the tires fighting for traction, my thoughts grow darker. If Sarth leaves without me, Cwelt is doomed, and so is my only chance of finding out where I came from. The hope of my future and the clues to my past both lie with the Zebulux. I need to be on that ship when it takes off.
Girl of Fire: The Expulsion Project Book One (A Science Fiction Dystopian Thriller) Page 6