by Lisa Lace
"I never said our current course was ideal," Telki said. "But I don't think my people have any options left. Some humans may fall in love with Surtu, but we need more than some. The human line won't go extinct, and neither will the Surtu. We're coming together and forming a new race. Hopefully a better race."
"And what of the Surtu women and human men? What of them? We can't toss them aside like broken toys."
He looked up at the stars through the transparent ceiling. I imagined him searching for his home planet, thinking about the love he left behind.
With the greatest of remorse, he said, "We already have."
My discussion with Telki had inspired me. If he could speak with such remorse, then the rumors of Surtu soldiers fighting for the humans must have some validity.
Jidden wasn't alone in his cause. And neither was I.
I couldn't wait any longer. I had to escape. The only way to do so was to sneak onto a ship headed for Earth and pray the Surtu didn't blow me out of the sky in the process.
I had to get to the docking bay.
It would be difficult because Captain Fore had given strict orders not to let me anywhere near it. I had tried several times before, and they always caught me and punished me. I had to be bolder and more clever.
The tunnels were no longer an option for me. The Surtu had discovered them. Once a means of escape, we used them for storage now. It was a shame, but I wasn't too discouraged. The tunnels had served their purpose. They'd led three hundred women to freedom.
I thought about seducing a soldier. I could give him my integrity in exchange for a favor, but my heart wouldn't let me. I could probably learn to live with myself afterward. At least it would have been my choice.
I couldn't do it to Jidden. Once light bonded, we were always connected. It's how I felt his despair when I was close to sleep. The Surtu said if a person who was light bonded slept with another, their mate could tell. If I seduced a soldier, Jidden would know another man had touched me. He may even know I had given myself willingly, but he wouldn't know why. That would devastate him.
I couldn't use the tunnels, and I couldn't use my body, but there was another way. There was always another way. I just had to find it.
In the end, it was Telki who led me to my freedom.
In the weeks after meeting Telki, I ran into him a few times. We didn't speak as long as we had out in the garden, but he acknowledged me, which was more than I could say for the other soldiers. They looked at me with both desire and hatred as they refused to speak to me.
Telki would call me the little Commander, especially when he was drunk. His drinking got worse as time passed. He only had liquid to fill the hole in his heart. Usually, he would sleep it off in the gardens, but occasionally I found him passed out in the corridor. For his protection, I would put him in the mill pantry or another hiding place somewhere nearby.
I was strong, but the Surtu were larger than the average man. It was impossible to drag Telki far.
One evening, I spotted him walking in front of me. He was moving slowly, like a slug. I assumed he was drunk again, so I followed him. He turned down a corridor where the lights were dimmed so low; it was like walking in a faint shadow. A Lead Officer had complained of faulty wiring in one of the corridors. The corridor we were in was where the electrical problems were occurring.
Telki turned into a room that used to be sleeping quarters. I could only guess what it was now. I waited near the door, listening to the voices of his fellow soldiers. When there was none, I slid it open manually. There was no punch code. It had been removed.
The room was pitch black and the light from the stars shut out. As soon as I entered, my leg bumped into a crate, and I heard the sound of glasses shaking against each other.
"Telki, is that you?" someone hissed.
I froze.
"It's me," Telki answered, quiet but angry. "Next time, don't say my name. What if it was a superior checking in?"
The other man grunted. "The whiskey is running low. I'm going to take these empty bottles with me on my next run. The distillery isn't far from the northern base."
Telki didn't seem interested in the logistics at all. "Don't tell me I risked coming here for nothing. You said you had a bottle you could sell me."
"I do," the man said. A smuggler. I heard him move around. How he knew where he was going was beyond me. The room was dark, and I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. "Here. What will you give me for it?"
"You can have my ration of steak. I don't have much of an appetite these days. Only a thirst."
Fresh meat was difficult to come by on the Fortuna. Soldiers were only awarded it for a particular deed. I didn't know how valuable the whiskey was, but the trade was likely a fair one.
The smuggler accepted, and I heard Telki take the bottle. He opened it immediately and gulped down a swig.
"Don't break the glass," the smuggler warned. "The bottles are hard to come by."
Hearing heavy footsteps, I quickly moved aside. I pressed my calves against the crate I had bumped earlier. Telki swished passed me, already smelling of alcohol, and then he was gone.
I stood in my place, breathing shallowly as the man in the room continued to move around. The clanking of the glass helped to mask my breathing. Only when I was certain he was gone did I inhale properly.
I felt around the room. The Surtu used it for storage. With the wiring out, it wasn't much good for anything else. The smuggler had drawn the shades on purpose to block out all incoming light in case a superior checked into the room. The dark was easy to hide in, as I had just learned.
It was the dark that would save me.
From my exploration of the room, I found three wooden crates full of empty bottles. The bottles were in a neat line divided by placeholders that felt like cardboard, probably from old boxes that were broken down. Like everything the Surtu did, it was efficient.
On top of each crate was a stack of blankets to cushion the glass. The blankets were coarse and smelled of sweat, but freedom wasn't pretty. I tucked myself beneath one of the blankets, ignoring the discomfort of the glass bottles beneath me, and I reached out to slide the top of the crate over me.
I hoped the smuggler was part of the cargo crew that would be departing in the early morning. If not, then my absence would be known as soon as Captain Fore woke without me serving him his breakfast. He would send a man to my bed in the kitchen to beat me, but I wouldn't be there. They would search, and they would ruin my chances of escape.
Trying not to think about it, I fell into an unsettled half-sleep, dreaming of a pack of stray dogs chasing me, foam dripping from their fangs.
A jolt woke me up, but not my own. The crate I was in was moving.
What if I was making noises in my sleep?
Perhaps I had, but it didn't seem to matter. The crate continued to jolt, moving on a motorized trolley. Light filtered in through the cracks in the wood of the crate, as did a white noise I had never been conscious of before. The buzz of the lights overhead. The purr of the motor from the trolley. There was noise, but there were very few voices.
Good. It was still early morning. I wanted to feel hopeful, but I knew better. This was not a time for sentiment. This was a time to listen, think, and stay on my guard. I took solace in knowing that to the smuggler, the secret in the crate was one worth keeping. He did not want anyone to discover his cargo was empty whiskey bottles.
And one stowaway.
I knew the moment we entered the docking bay. Here, the noise was prevalent as soldiers readied their ships. They shouted at one another, loading their cargo.
"The boss assigned me to glider 3A," the smuggler told someone from his seat on the trolley. "I have five crates to load."
I heard fingers tapping against a tablet only inches from me. "Right," a soldier said. "You're on time. Report to the command desk first. We've randomly selected you for screening."
The smuggler was indignant. "What does that mean?" he snapped.
"Fine," the smuggler grumbled, and the trolley backed up.
The little hope I had evaporated.
I thought the crate was going to be my escape, but it was a cage.
"Glider 3A," the smuggler said at the command desk.
There was a squawk of a scanner, and I heard footsteps walking around the stack of crates.
I wasn't sure where I was in the scanning process or what cargo the smuggler carried in the containers that weren't bottles, but I knew my heat waves would be picked up on the scanner. The question wasn't if they would catch me. The question was, what was I going to do? Did I run, did I fight, or did I give in to the sentence the Depraved had given me?
The latter wasn't an option. I could not take being a slave any longer. I would rather die.
Captain Fore had said death was not an option for me because of my light bond, but I was sure that if I killed enough of his men, I would make it an option. I had never taken a life, but I was willing to, now more than ever.
"It looks like you're carrying extra cargo," the soldier who scanned the crates said.
"It's harmless," the smuggler replied confidently.
"How harmless?"
"A steak's worth?"
The man huffed. "Not for this. What you're carrying is big."
"How big?"
I expected him to give me away. Instead, the soldier replied, "All the whiskey I want. And a box of chocolates. Two boxes."
"I can't get chocolate. That's not my department."
"You better, because if you come back empty-handed, I'll tell Captain Fore what I saw here today."
"Fine," the smuggler mumbled. "I'll get what you need."
The soldier slapped something against the side of the crate. "It's about time someone took out the trash," he said. "Staring at it day after day is bad for morale."
"Whatever," the smuggler replied. "Can I go?"
"You can go," the soldier said. "But don't come back unless you have my whiskey and my chocolate." Soon after, I was on the glider – the smaller ships the Surtu used to transport goods.
We took off, heading to Earth and freedom.
The northern base smelled as bad as the blankets in my crate. The Surtu appeared to maintain it as efficiently as the command center, but the men here sweated twice as much. They weren't loading cargo or preparing ammunition, which were relatively easy tasks in war.
They were out on the front lines with their blasters – invading, killing, claiming and conquering. The Surtu took the Fortuna peacefully, but not Earth.
Indentations from laser guns riddled their armor, mechanical suits that looked like armorers created them from heavy metal. I'm sure for every dent in their armor, they fired back a dozen more carefully placed shots. The Surtu tried not to kill women. We were the prize for which they had traveled across the stars. It was not an easy task, especially when half the soldiers who fired back on the Surtu were the femme fatales they wanted to claim.
After the glider had prepared to land on Earth, I snuck out of the crate and hid in a vent. I waited for the glider to be unloaded and abandoned with the other vessels before crawling out. Using the skills Bellona had taught me, I found cover in the shadows and made my way out onto the base, trying not to inhale too deeply.
The base was a network of colossal canvas structures. I didn't know where we were, but I could see skyscrapers towering nearby. The Surtu were trying to break a major city. The frontline would be near the city borders, so my best shot at freedom was to leave in the opposite direction. That's exactly where I started off, but a tent full of women stopped me.
The guards had chained together these women, some in earthly military uniforms, some in house clothes. All were of childbearing age. I recognized the desolation they carried in their hunched posture and sad eyes. I had experienced the same feelings when I was a slave.
I couldn't allow it.
The tent had no sides, leaving the women as exposed as cattle at an open market. Quietly, avoiding the guard at the front of the tent, I hid behind a stack of boxes on the far side. "I can set you free," I whispered to a brunette woman nearby. She wore a military uniform and looked lost in thought. I hoped she was the type who could lead.
She glanced over at me and immediately dropped her head down. "Mmmhmm," she hummed.
Good. She knew better than to draw attention to me.
"Are you all chained together?"
"Mmmhmm."
"Is the chain connected to a pole or any other anchor?"
She didn't answer. That was a no.
"Perfect," I said. "My name is Terra Lynch. I was Commander of the Fortuna before it fell. You can trust me. I'll be back soon. Be ready."
"Mmmhmm."
Retreating to my glider, knowing the smuggler was out gathering whiskey from the distillery, I gathered my thoughts. It wouldn't be enough to free the women if the Surtu would just capture them again. I had to get them to safety, but I didn't know where safety was. I also didn't know how. We were deep inside the base.
I leaned against the wall of the glider. The situation seemed hopeless. It would take a miracle to get the women out. I tapped my hand against the wall, thinking, and then I stopped.
Maybe not a miracle. Maybe just a glider.
I hurried to the dashboard of the glider, my mind racing. The ship was small, the size of four buses, maybe five, but it could accommodate the women in the tent. I was no pilot, but learning to fly had been part of my training for the Fortuna. The glider was Surtu designed, but the science of flying was the same everywhere in the universe. Physics didn't change from planet to planet. Bellona had flown Jidden's ship out of the Fortuna with ease. I had to try, and I had to do it now, during the day, while there was the distraction of the war.
Preparing myself, I took a moment to study the dashboard. The technology was very simple. It made sense. In war, pilots didn't need to be distracted with buttons. They needed to focus on their mission, be it hauling cargo or firing down on enemy lines.
"Nelti, help us," I said, realizing the irony of praying to a Surtu warrior goddess. I did not want to pray to the goddess Fortuna. I had failed her. She would not grant me her luck. But now that my light bond with Jidden made me of the Surtu, I hoped Nelti would listen, because all hell was about to break loose.
I lifted the glider off the ground and hovered above the rest of the ships inside the Surtu base. The glider swayed slightly, tilting the way Telki had when he was drunk. Below me, a soldier waved his hands frantically in the air and mouthed imbecile. He must not have been able to see who was piloting. Otherwise, he'd be doing a lot more than waving his hands. After some maneuvering, I stabilized the glider and circled above the base until I spotted the tent with the women below me.
I lowered the glider over the boxes next to the tent, assuming it was a warehouse, and I opened the loading door. The women were ready. They ran to me as quickly as their chains allowed. The soldier guarding the tent pointed his blaster at them and yelled for them to stop, but he didn't fire. I knew he wouldn't. Women weren't to be killed. I lifted away as soon as the last woman was on board; the loading door was still open.
Other soldiers came and fired on us. They tried to disable our ship, but I flew high and fast, further than their blasters could reach. From my vantage point, I saw a nature reserve in the far distance. I steered there with the aim of setting the glider down in the thick woods.
I heard a loud thud from the back, and the woman I had spoken to earlier joined me at the dashboard, swinging a piece of chain around her wrist. "Are you Terra Lynch?" she asked.
"I am," I answered.
"I thought you were dead."
I huffed. "Ghosts can't pilot gliders."
"No," she agreed, turning to the monitors. "They can't."
/> "Is anyone following us?" I asked, my focus on the nature reserve ahead.
"Strangely enough, no."
It didn't worry me. I considered it fortunate. "The pilots are probably too busy fighting on the front lines. A major city won't fall easily."
"No," the woman said with pride. "It won't."
"What happened to you?"
"There's a small town not far from where the Surtu base is. My unit was in the middle of evacuating the town when the Surtu invaded. The women here – we were claimed. The tent was like a purgatory while those who claimed us sought approval for their light bonding ceremonies."
"And the men?"
Her face turned to steel. "Gone."
"The children?"
"The soldiers sent them away, but I don't know where. I've heard a rumor that the Surtu have set up schoolhouses where they're indoctrinating children to the Surtu propaganda. The boys will grow up to become loyal slaves, and the girls will grow up to become brides."
"At least they're alive. It's better than the alternative." A thought came to me. "You said you thought I was dead. Do you know where the Fortuna women are?"
"No," the woman answered. "I know of you because there is a story going around." She hesitated.
"Go on," I urged.
"I've heard that the women of the Fortuna escaped with the help of a Surtu soldier who turned on his people. A soldier who was light bonded to the Commander."
"The story is true," I said, wondering how the word had spread so quickly. It gave me hope that my sisters had landed safely on Earth. Maybe they had spread the tale.
The woman was astounded. "So you are light bonded?"
"Yes."
"You are the only one."
It was my turn to be in shock. "But you said they claimed some women."
The woman continued to flip through the monitors, scanning for other ships that may be trailing us. "I said we were in purgatory. I don't think the Surtu thought Earth would resist as much as we have. They've realized that many of their men may die. They do not want women to be light bonded to a dead soldier, so they have postponed all light bonding ceremonies until after the war."