“Full enough for a while yet,” he said.
Drake nodded, glad no one would have to risk taking it into Zelos and recharging it for a while. Especially since it was usually he who did it, with the hidden, highly illegal charging dock behind the portrait of his mother which appeared from the outside to be fastened firmly to the wall above the bar. The wall that was one of two still standing, Dek had told him. It didn’t matter. That part of his life was over, and he wouldn’t miss it except for the relative safety it had provided his family.
The reader screen came to life and showed the contents of the chip: one holographic recording and a single file that appeared to be text-based. It bore the title Tactical Stratagems for Dealing With Overwhelming Force. That could be of interest, but it would be wisest to run the holograph first, while the battery was at its strongest. Even as he thought it, Brander hit the button to do just that.
An image appeared above the device. It was slightly misshapen, and given to the slight skips the worse-for-wear device was prone to, but it was clear enough to see and hear.
The man in the Coalition uniform of a general looked a bit stiff, as if he were not used to having to make such recordings. Then he spoke, the skips breaking his words into staccato bursts. But the meaning was clear, and Drake thought they all must have gasped.
The device spat out a burst of static and the image vanished. Stunned, Drake still stared at the spot where it had been. His heart was hammering in his chest.
“Holy Eos,” Brander whispered.
Drake looked up then. His head still ached slightly, but it was nothing compared to this. There was an even fiercer fire in his eyes, a new determination surging through him. Possibilities were exploding through his mind, and he knew this was the key they’d needed.
He surged to his feet, ignoring the slight wobble. Kye was beside him in an instant, her steady arm supporting him.
“Can you manage something to provide a bigger image?” he asked Brander.
As usual, his second did not ask why, just immediately went to the logistics. “How big?”
“Enough for all to see it in the gathering room.”
Brander drew back slightly, and he could see him thinking of the effects seeing this holograph would have. “I . . . think I can rig something, but—”
“It only has to last once through that holograph. If it blows up after that, it does not matter.”
Brander nodded and grabbed up the projector. He left his quarters, clearly headed for his workbench in the main room.
“It’s real,” Eirlys whispered.
Drake looked at his sister. He remembered Kye telling him of the day when she had brought up the tales of Trios, the stories he had always dismissed as myth. He felt Kye’s gaze, turned to meet it, and saw she was thinking of the same.
“I wish,” said a quiet voice behind him, “that your father had lived to see this day.”
He turned to look at his mother. “I wish it as well,” he said softly.
She nodded. “But now . . . you must become the Raider once more. And I,” she added with a glance at the twins that was so close to wary he almost laughed, “must convince those two to consider the possibility that we are related.”
“Good luck,” he said. And found he meant it.
She crossed to the twins, who eyed her nearly as warily as she was looking at them. Kye, who had given them space, now came and took his arm. “She will have a difficult time, persuading them to accept her.”
“Yes.”
“But you have?”
“Accepted, yes. Forgiven? Still working on that.”
“As am I.”
He gave her a sideways look. “I should tell you what she did up on the ridge.”
She lifted a brow at him. He wasn’t sure how to even describe what had happened, and before he could find the place to start, Brander reappeared.
“Got it,” he said.
“You’d best think of what you will say, then,” Kye said. And then kissed him, a kiss so full of promise it scrambled his thoughts and made him wonder if he could come up with a coherent sentence ever again.
Chapter 56
IN THE END, HE gave up the effort and decided to let his heart choose his words.
“I am not a speech giver,” he said as he stood before the crowd amassed in the gathering room. “I am a fighter.”
He had to pause for the raucous round of cheers to ebb before going on.
“But you have the right to know this. It is not over. We have not won. We have lost compatriots. Some of you have been hurt. But we have also hurt them. And they will wish to hurt us in return. Before long they will begin taking it out on those who do not fight, because they cannot get to us.”
He heard the murmur go through the crowd, the unease.
“We will protect them as best we can, but if you cannot face this, if it is too much to ask, leave now. No one will hold it against you, for you have all already given more than should be asked of anyone. If you wish to escape Zelos, we will help you and those you love as best we can, to get over Highridge to the badlands. It will not be easy, nor a swift journey on foot, but you will be safer there.”
For now.
No one moved.
“How will we protect them that stay?”
He looked out at them, and let a grin loose. “It will take the . . . least notorious among us.”
Laughter.
“There will be a dozen of us in and around Zelos at all times. And we have communications now.”
“Thanks to the brilliant Eirlys Davorin’s brilliant birds,” Brander put in from where he stood a few feet away. “Far beneath Coalition notice.”
Drake saw his sister smile, looking quite pleased.
“And you all know who is with us now,” he added, gesturing to where his mother stood off to one side. The slight figure in the white robes with the flaming hair spilling down her back stood out even in the flickering light of the flame-lit room. “And if the presence of the Spirit is not enough to inspire you to fight on—”
“And the return from death of the Raider!” someone shouted.
“Drake Davorin, you mean!” called out Pryl, who had been one of those who, he’d learned, had guessed some time ago.
A cheer rose from the assemblage. Drake felt Kye’s gaze on him, glanced at her, and saw her smile. He had to admit this was balm to his soul, a soul battered by the disgust and antipathy of his own people when he had been but the lowly, beaten, cowardly taproom keeper. Many, in fact most, had apologized to him, said they should have known Drake Davorin would never buckle to the Coalition. Brander had turned that into praise for how well he had played the unwanted role.
Some had approached him with wary looks, as if they weren’t quite sure what to think of his miraculous recovery; others were simply grateful he’d survived.
As am I, he’d thought, relinquishing once and for all the wishes he’d once had for it all to end, even if the only way was death.
When the cheering at length died down, he began again. “There is something you must know,” he said. “For it makes all the difference.”
He nodded at Brander, who reached out and twice tapped something on the imager he’d managed to rig together. For a moment, nothing happened, but then the image of the Coalition general leapt to light in the air above the machine. A gasp at the sight of a Coalition officer larger than life swept the room. Drake had expected this, and as requested, Brander had set it so that the message would freeze at first.
“Please,” Drake said. “I want you all to see this, hear this.”
The room went quiet. Brander tapped the same button, only once this time. And the holographic recording began to play.
Not one person in the jammed room made a sound as they watched the man in the Coali
tion uniform speak. Now, in this larger version, Drake could see the man’s expression more clearly. He was worried, and it was obvious.
“Major Paledan,” he began, and everyone in the room leaned in. “This message . . . confidential and of highest urgency . . . a warning . . . could be headed your way soon . . . circulating among the rebels in this quadrant . . . Claxton’s Treatise—” a gasp went up around the room at the familiar name “—adapted for small forces … already been found . . among Clarion rebels, and . . . Zenox . . . it is spreading . . . rebel groups . . . suspects the traitor Claxton . . . masterminded . . . used Dax’s skypirate contacts . . . Triotian—” another gasp, even louder this time, at the mention of the infamous Dax and the world they’d half-believed was a myth, Drake most of all “—communications and ships . . . command of the king . . . and prince . . . disseminating it. Legion Command has ordered . . . copies destroyed. Possession is grounds . . . immediate . . . execution. The file . . . this chip . . . facsimile of the primitive version . . . paper. Keep . . . eyes open, Major. Don’t need . . . tell you . . . chaos their knowing . . . tactics could cause . . . after losing . . . Triotian sector. Rebellion is spreading . . .”
At the end, the image again snapped out of existence, but the last words seemed to echo in the cavernous room.
“Rebellion is spreading . . .”
“And so this is what you must know,” Drake said, putting every bit of power he had into his voice. “Trios, her king and his son, the skypirate, Claxton—it’s all real. They beat them. And it’s spreading. There are rebels on Clarion, on Zenox.”
He scanned the room, looked out over all the Sentinels who had fought so hard even when the odds had been so stacked against them, even when there was no hope of success, when they knew they were already beaten. And he spoke the words that would change everything.
“We are not alone.”
There was no explosion of cheers. No round of applause. Not even a whistle of approval. What he saw, looking out over the fighters of Ziem was a sense of awe at what they had just seen.
And more importantly, hope.
And for once, he did not quash it with the reminder that they were to think of themselves as already dead. For he looked at Kye, and accepted what he had finally realized. That a willingness to die for freedom was only the beginning.
It was much better to have something to live for.
The End
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About the Author
“Some people call me a writer, some an author, some a novelist. I just say I’m a storyteller.”
—Justine Dare Davis
Author of more than 60 books (she sold her first ten in less than two years), Justine Dare Davis is a four-time winner of the coveted Romance Writers of America RITA Award, and has been inducted into the RWA Hall of Fame. Her books have appeared on national bestseller lists, including USA Today. She has been featured on CNN, as well as taught at several national and international conferences and at the UCLA writer’s program.
After years of working in law enforcement, and more years doing both, Justine now writes full-time. She lives near beautiful Puget Sound in Washington State, peacefully coexisting with deer, bears, a tailless raccoon, a pair of bald eagles, and her beloved ‘67 Corvette roadster. When she’s not writing, taking photographs, looking for music to blast in said roadster, or driving said roadster, she tends to her knitting. Literally.
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