The Jeep’s engine growled to life behind them. Lieutenant Johansson was driving with Dana Yurkutz sitting beside her. Every spare inch of the Jeep was loaded down with what they could salvage from the ship.
“You really should be riding with them,” Grey jerked her thumb toward the vehicle.
“Not the first time I got knocked in the head,” Paul said, tapping his forehead. “Fresh air’s what I need, though it’s debatable there is any around here.”
Commander March sent off a whistle, and all eyes turned toward her.
“You all know our mission,” she said in a loud voice. “Stick together, and pace yourselves. We’ll get as far as we can and make camp at nightfall. Lieutenant Johansson will lead us. Any questions?”
When no one spoke up, Mrs. March pointed forward and waved the Jeep on. They had five blueflare rifles and three violetflare handguns to defend themselves against anything they faced. Grey had one of the violetflares holstered to her belt. The rest were dispersed between Mrs. March, Sergeant Lennox, Lieutenant Johansson, Mom, Dad, and two civilians.
“I’ll see you around,” Paul said with a salute and began walking with the others behind the Jeep.
Grey and Rin would bring up the rear on the zorses.
“It’s beautiful in its own way,” Rin said.
Grey watched the Jeep bump and rock across the terrain as she replayed her conversation with Johansson. The lieutenant had warned her to watch herself. Did she know about the mole too? Grey tried to assess every person in their company, checking off Mrs. March and her parents as definite Yien loyalists. There was no way they’d betray her or anyone else.
But a snippet of doubt slipped into her mind, and she hated herself for thinking it. Did she really know her parents anymore? What if somehow Mazdaar had gotten hold of them, convincing them the Yien cause of individual freedom and inalienable rights was somehow flawed? Isn’t that what happened with Dana? No one had guessed she’d turn either.
“You really didn’t suspect Dana would betray us, did you?”
Rin seemed more relaxed on Trif than Grey had seen her in days. “I only met her a few days ago, but no. She seemed as devoted as anyone to get you safely home.”
“That scares me, Rin.”
“Why?”
She’d have to tread carefully here. Grey waved toward the others. “How do we know we can trust any of these people?”
“I guess we don’t.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Rin shrugged. “What choice do we have?”
Unfortunately, her sister was right.
Chapter 25
With her wheelchair stowed, Dana felt helpless strapped into the Jeep’s seat. She glanced back at the rag-tag band following in the vehicle’s wake. She’d rather be walking out there in handcuffs than sitting here with Lieutenant Marie Johansson, and she wasn’t even sure why.
“You look nervous.”
Was she that transparent?
“Why didn’t you restrain me?” Dana asked.
“Do I need to?”
She shouldn’t push her luck here. If the opportunity for escape presented itself, Dana couldn’t deny she’d consider taking it. But she wasn’t going far without the complete use of her legs.
Dana recalled her Yien briefing back on Earth, before they traveled here to rescue Grey, about Jupiter’s varied landscapes. Their knowledge of the planet was minuscule, but Dana had known to expect extinct animals and weird foliage. She’d never heard anything about this fog that looked like mountains but moved like a snake.
Johansson glanced over at Dana. “Wish you’d never defected from Mazdaar?”
Dana shifted in her seat. “I’m not going to incriminate myself if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s a real question.”
“What difference does it make?”
“It’s hard to tell which side you’re on, Dana. You’ve been on both.”
The lieutenant’s voice was low, her eyes focused straight ahead at the grove of trees as tall as Mazdaar City skyscrapers. If Dana remembered correctly from her briefing, their honey-colored leaves would be as large as elephant ears when they got closer.
Dana thought back to her life growing up in Evangeline Yurkutz’s shadow, rarely seeing her mother in private but always watching her from afar. Dana had been raised by nannies and caretakers who saw her as a steady paycheck. She couldn’t remember any of them spending time with her because they truly cared.
The one person who had actually cared—the guard who helped her defect—was executed for it, and Dana had never really forgiven herself for that. March told her it wasn’t her fault, that the guard knew what he was getting into by helping her, but it was something she tried not to think about.
Dana squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. March again. She couldn’t seem to escape that woman.
“Nothing to say?”
She opened her eyes but kept her mouth shut.
“Pride will get you nowhere. You should’ve learned that by now.”
“I’ve learned a lot of things,” Dana said. “Including not to trust every Yien soldier I meet.”
That made the lieutenant laugh. “Well said.”
Dana saw nothing funny.
“They told me to give up on you, but I’m glad I didn’t,” Johansson said, slowly bringing the Jeep to a stop and gesturing out the window for Corporal Lennox to come over. “You have potential, though it may take a little re-education. I just have one more question for you. Whose side are you really on?”
“Why are we stopping?”
Lennox approached the Jeep as Johansson’s hand touched the butt of the violetflare pistol holstered to her thigh. A sinking feeling hit Dana in the stomach. “Lieutenant, what are you doing?”
Marie Johansson pressed a button on her door, and the window unrolled.
# # #
“What’s going on up there?” Grey said.
The Jeep had stopped, and so had everyone else. They hadn’t even traveled a mile and there was already a holdup? She and Rin had drifted further back from the group than she’d realized.
“Something isn’t right,” Rin said.
Growing up in a wilderness like the Preserve where the laws of nature ruled had long ago honed the intuition of the sisters, and they’d learned to trust their guts more than any form of reason. Grey agreed with Rin. Something wasn’t right.
Tram and Trif jigged in nervous anticipation, and Grey tried to see what could be the problem. It looked like Lennox was talking with Lieutenant Johansson, and Mrs. March and their parents were off to the side of the group about thirty feet away. The commander headed toward the Jeep as Grey urged Tram forward with a slight squeeze of her calves.
“Let’s find out,” Grey said.
# # #
Lennox ducked his head in the Jeep window. “Is there a problem, Lieutenant?”
“Engine sounds weird,” Johansson replied.
Lennox glanced at the hood. “What kind of weird?”
“Better take a look.”
As Corporal Lennox walked around to the front of the Jeep, Dana felt herself growing frantic. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t the engine.
Lieutenant Johansson popped the hood and moved to climb out, but Dana grabbed her by the arm. “What are you doing?”
Johansson jerked herself free and glared at Dana. “Choosing my side.”
And then without another word she got out and joined Lennox in front of the Jeep, standing behind him. As Lennox reached to lift the hood, the lieutenant unholstered her violetflare. She pressed the pistol into the back of Lennox’s head and fired.
# # #
Grey flinched at the sudden whoosh of a laser blast somewhere in front of them. As she tried to figure out which direction it came from, Lennox slumped over the hood of the Jeep, and Lieutenant Johansson shoved him to the ground, her violetflare brandished.
Lieutenant Johansson is the mole.
Dread crashed down on
Grey’s shoulders even as a deep rumbling throbbed through the air. She twisted her face upward to see what looked like a massive, raven bird diving from the heavens. But birds didn’t have Mazdaar stars painted on their bellies.
“What’s happening?” Rin screamed as the Mazdaar catch ship dove straight for them.
Tram spun around so quickly Grey nearly flew off his back. They were about to die, that’s what was happening.
“Run, girls! Run!”
Mom and Dad were waving their hands and yelling at the top of their lungs.
“While you can! Go!”
Trif reared, but Rin leaned forward as his front legs came up. “We can’t leave them!”
Grey twined her fingers into Tram’s mane.
The ship descended, ready to annihilate.
They’d been set up.
There was no time for good-byes. No way to take their parents with them. They could stay and be captured or make a run for it now and somehow go for help. Is this why Mrs. March gave Grey the discs? Had she known this would happen?
“Grey, please! Save your sister!” Mom’s anguished voice begged, and Grey realized she’d never hug her parents again. They were about to truly become the orphans they thought they had been for five years.
Rin pulled Trif’s reins, turning him toward the terrified group, and Grey knew what her sister was planning. She wouldn’t abandon Mom and Dad, and that loyalty would kill her.
Thirty feet separated them, but she caught her mother’s eye and nodded her head to show she’d heard. Then Grey kicked Tram with her heels. He surged forward right up to Trif. Grey yanked the reins out of her sister’s hands and over Trif’s head. She had fallen into the hands of Mazdaar once, and she wasn’t going to let her sister suffer the same fate.
Rin tried to grab the reins back from her. “No!”
“Hold on,” Grey said. Then with one more glance at her parents she kicked Tram and pointed him toward the trees, holding on to Trif’s reins with one hand, Tram’s mane with the other.
That’s all the urging the zorses needed. Tram jumped into a lope and then a gallop in less than five strides, and a frightened Trif followed. Would Mazdaar shoot them in the backs even as they ran?
Grey focused on the trees. She couldn’t look back.
“Grey, stop!”
She forced herself to ignore her sister’s pleas as tears spilled down her own cheeks.
A laser beam split a rock directly in front of them, and the zorses swerved as one, barely missing it. She clamped her legs around Tram’s barrel, praying she wouldn’t fall. They had to make it to those trees. Mazdaar might know where they were, but they wouldn’t be able to follow.
The zorses’ hooves ate up the ground, in their element, all their pent-up energy flowing out of their muscular bodies like a raging river.
Dust flew into Grey’s face, stinging her eyes.
Chapter 26
Everything made sense as a sickening wave of reality washed over Dana. She grabbed her leg by the fabric of her jumpsuit. Move! Obey me! She flung open her door and pushed her legs out, hanging on to the frame. She was holding half her weight up with her arms, but at least her legs didn’t completely buckle.
The Mazdaar catch ship hovered directly above them, heat radiating down, and the blast from their reverse thrusters flapped her clothes against her.
She’d seen Grey and Rin Alexander escape on the zorses. She strained to see if they’d made it but lost sight of them when they cleared the ridge.
The ship dropped to the ground with a thud that reverberated up Dana’s body. A ramp lowered, and over two dozen soldiers with the red Mazdaar star emblazoned on their chests poured out, rifles ready.
Lieutenant Johansson raised her hand in a three-fingered Mazdaar salute right as a zing of laser fire burst from behind them, and Dana turned to see one of the civilians shooting at the soldiers.
“Hold your fire!” Commander March’s voice ordered, but not before a Mazdaar soldier responded with a shot of his own. The civilian dropped, clutching his instantly bloody neck.
“I said hold your fire!”
“Good call, Commander.” Johansson stepped over Lennox’s body. His chest was still.
Dana clung to the car door. March had frozen before reaching the vehicle. She held her own violetflare and pointed it directly at Johansson. Sue and Tanner Alexander flanked the commander, blueflares poised.
The Mazdaar soldiers spread out while a man wearing a gold colonel’s helmet and a green cape flowing down his back walked toward them. His steel-gray beard made him look old, but Dana nearly gasped when she saw his face. She knew this man. He’d been one of her mother’s closest advisors.
March zeroed in on Lieutenant Johansson. “So it was you,” she said. Johansson took a step forward, but March’s arm straightened. “Don’t come near us, Lieutenant.”
“It’s too late.” Johansson shot a look at the Mazdaar colonel. “Drop your weapons, or all these people you care so much about will die.”
March’s eyes met Dana’s, and a look of resignation Dana wouldn’t soon forget passed across the old woman’s features. For all the years she’d known March, she’d never seen her give up on anything. But not even Fleur March could get out of this, and she seemed to know it.
“I will give myself up willingly if you let the others go,” Commander March said, her voice strong. “I’m who you want anyway.”
Johansson started laughing, and the Mazdaar colonel joined in. Then the lieutenant raised her violetflare and pointed it at Dana’s chest.
“No deal,” Johansson said. “In fact, if you don’t lay down your weapons in the next ten seconds, Dana Yurkutz’s blood will be on your hands.”
March took one more look at Dana and reluctantly lowered her pistol, gesturing for the others to do the same with their weapons, and Dana cursed the commander for it. It would be easy to hate someone who hated back, but no matter how hard she tried to push March away, she never retaliated.
“I knew you were a wise woman,” Johansson said.
The soldiers moved in, swarming the Yien refugees and tying their hands behind their backs with shock wire. Without fanfare, the soldiers pushed everyone including Commander Fleur March toward the ship’s ramp.
Only then did Johansson greet the Mazdaar colonel. She faced the man who stood a head taller than her.
“At ease, Lieutenant,” he said in a rich baritone.
And then Johansson hugged him, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’ve missed you, Daddy.”
# # #
Grey didn’t let go of Trif’s reins until they burst through the trees and had to slow to a trot to navigate the trunks and low-hanging branches. Leaves the size of the zorses’ heads slapped at them, but they continued on until Grey could feel sweat soaking Tram’s body under her legs. The last thing she wanted to do was kill these devoted animals, so Grey finally halted and slipped off Tram’s back.
Rin was sobbing, and Grey went over to comfort her, but her sister shoved her away.
“How could you just leave them!” Rin fell to her knees, covering her face with her hands. “How could you?”
“It’s what they wanted,” Grey said in a near whisper.
“That doesn’t mean you had to do it!” Rin glared up at her.
Grey’s throat constricted with a grief she knew would overpower her if she didn’t keep it at bay, and she turned away from her sister. They were alive. That’s what she had to focus on. Rin would thank her some day, but even if she never did, Grey would do it again.
“We should walk them,” Grey finally said, handing Trif’s reins to Rin again.
Without a word Rin took them, and they pushed through the dense foliage. Yes, they were still breathing, but they had no food, water, or supplies. Had they survived one death only to die from starvation or exposure?
After a few minutes of silence, Grey risked touching her sister on the shoulder. Rin didn’t recoil.
“How did they find us?” R
in finally said.
Her promise to keep silent suddenly seemed moot, and Grey knew Mom wouldn’t hold her to it anymore.
“There was a mole,” Grey said.
“The lieutenant.”
“I think so. She shot Lennox.”
Rin kicked at a dried leaf. It split in two. Her fingers bunched into fists, and she swung around toward Grey. “They’ve taken everything from us. I hate them!”
All Grey could do was nod. She understood exactly what her sister was feeling, but anger wasn’t going to find them shelter or help them fulfill Mrs. March’s last orders.
Stuffing her hand in her pocket, Grey pulled out the discs.
“What are those?”
She touched the activation notch in the first, and a holographic map bloomed in front of them in full color. Pulsing in red was a small dot. That would be Benton’s alleged location. What she didn’t know yet was how far they were from it. She could see the forest marked and some other topography, but she’d never been good at reading maps.
Grey dropped the second disc back into her pocket. The message wasn’t hers to hear.
“We have to try to find Benton.”
Her sister wiped her sleeve across her forehead. “Do we?”
“It’s what Mrs. March wanted.”
“But what do we want?” Rin’s eyes filled with tears again. “Why doesn’t anyone ever think of that?”
Grey let her sister express her feelings without contradiction. Hadn’t she felt the same way herself? She’d pledged to a cause she didn’t fully understand, and sometimes it felt like she was being chewed up and spit out. Used like a pawn.
“We have to go back,” Rin said.
“We can’t.”
“But what if they’re hurt or dying? I’d never forgive myself.”
Grey shook her head, failing to keep her own emotions in check. At least when they were children and Mom and Dad first disappeared, they hadn’t seen it happen. Her parents left on a supposed scouting trip and never came back. Mrs. March had stayed with them those first few weeks, teaching them about edible plants and taking them on exhausting treks through the Preserve. Grey now realized it had all been her way to help them through their grief. Now Mrs. March was gone too.
Jupiter Storm (Jupiter Winds series Book 2) Page 11