Liberty

by Annie Laurie Cechini

  “They all call her CiCi,” said Berrett.

  She let go of us to shake everyone’s hands. “It’s so nice to meet you all.”

  “Captain, listen to this,” said Bell, looking up from her Cuff. “GSP was President Forsythe’s largest campaign contributor in the last election.”

  “Well, that would explain a few things,” I said.

  “Like how she has unlimited access to the SUN’s resources,” said Hobs. “Makes sense to support your family, I guess, even if they are the scum of the universe.”

  “Speaking of Eira,” Mama B. said as she turned to me and pulled a small piece of paper out of her back pocket. “I have a letter for you.”

  My eyes widened as I took the beautiful, thick stationary from her hands. “How did she get this to you?”

  “The usual channels for letters like this.”

  “Merchants. Sneaky little underground postal service.” I tore open the letter.

  Tabitha,

  I know. I get it. I understand, I really do. You and I are more alike than you realize. Like you, I want to make a difference in the world. Like you, I feel that my way of doing things is the best way, the only way, in fact, to guarantee safety for our society. See? We are not so dissimilar. Now, if you would just give me the vial, I could stop hunting you and hurting your former clients. If you don’t, I promise you will beg for your own death before I am done. I will find you, and when I do, you will watch everyone you love die slowly and painfully if you don’t hand over the Eternigen.

  “I’m really starting to hate this woman.”

  “What’d she say?” asked Hobs.

  “She says she is going to kill all of you if I don’t give her the vial.”

  “What?” yelled Hobs.

  “Don’t give it to her, Cap!”

  “What a ‘orrible woman!”

  Mama B. quieted the others down. “So, what’s your plan? I saw your sailboards. Is that your method of escape? It won’t get us off-world.”

  “No, ma’am,” said Bell. “But the sailboards will get us back to our ship. She is docked outside the city.”

  Mama B. nodded. “Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve been sailboarding. I used to be pretty good at it, but—”

  Just then, a loud bang sounded against the door.

  “System Police! Open up!”

  “What?” I whispered. “How’d they find us so fast?”

  “Gotta be a tracking dot,” said Hobs.

  “How?”

  “Now can I check the shuttle?” whined CiCi.

  I grimaced. We could have been spared all of this if I had just listened to CiCi.

  Flarkety-flark-flark.

  “The more relevant question is how we get to the sailboards.” Hobs said. “They’re all parked outside the front door.”

  There was more insistent pounding on the door.

  “Open up or we will force the door down!”

  Mama B. nodded to the back of the room. “This place is more maze than malt shop. Come with me.” She opened a closet door, and then kicked the back plaster walls until they crumbled.

  On the other side was a narrow tunnel, moist and drippy and covered with rust and cobwebs. I climbed into the shaft after Mama B., the dampness of the air filling my lungs and the cold on my skin drawing up goose bumps.

  “Where does this lead?” I whispered.

  “Out the front, I think,” said Mama B. “Hopefully we’ll have time to get a head start on those sailboards of yours. Jordan, am I flying or are you?”

  Even in the darkness I could hear the grin in Berrett’s voice.

  “It’s all yours, Mama.”

  I used my Cuff for a little illumination and pressed forward into the passage. I tried not to think about the cobwebs that danced playfully against my skin as I walked. At last we came to the end of the passage. I pushed on the door in front of me, opening it just enough to see out the crack and into the busy street. “Nothing shady,” I whispered.

  “Go for it,” said Mama B.

  We crept from our alternate exit and mounted the sailboards one by one. We rode as calmly and slowly as we could through the city streets. About five minutes into the ride, I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I turned around and saw another sailboard—SUN standard issue. It was tailing us, slowly gaining ground. I swore under my breath.

  “We’ve got company,” I said. “Split up until we hit the outskirts of the city.”

  I turned my sailboard hard to the left and bolted down an alley. I looked behind me in time to see my crew sail past as the SUN agent turned to follow close behind me. I wove in and out of the crates and piles of rubble, trying to lose the skudbucket who was still hanging on my tail. At last I reached the city limits. I saw Bell and CiCi flying between buildings to my right, and Mama B. and Berrett just ahead of them.

  I couldn’t help but notice how Mama B. was flying her sailboard. It wasn’t flying so much as it was art, like she was dancing, weaving a tapestry of air that no one else could see. I was impressed, and at that particular point in my life, that was no small thing. I looked around for the last missing member of my crew.

  “Where the flark is Hobson?” I muttered to myself.

  I turned back and saw him wobbling away, bringing up the rear.

  Along with three SUN agents.

  “Hobson, hustle!” I yelled. “Everyone, pull in and speed up!”

  We flocked together and sped up. I stayed back, grabbed my knife, and flung it into the gears of the lead sailboard. It went flying into the earth and threw the rider into the dust.

  A sharp sting clawed up my arm and into my shoulder. I looked down to see the sleeve of my shirt staining red.

  “Skud. Berrett, Bell, we’re under fire!” I looked back, and instead of seeing the two SUN sailboards I was expecting, I saw five.

  “Flarking skud. Berrett, tell me you built a magic death ray into these things,” I yelled.

  “No such luck!” Berrett and Mama B. pulled their sailboard hard to the right, barely dodging a bullet.

  “Oh, no you did not!” I yelled. I pulled my gun from my thigh rig and fired over my shoulder.

  Hobs gave me a look of alarm. “Dix, what are you—”

  Before he could finish, I fell to the back of the group. Now, I’m not normally one to brag, but I have to say, what happened next was pretty flarking amazing.

  I spun my sailboard around backward so that I was facing our attackers, simultaneously throwing it into reverse. I was now flying full speed in the same direction as the rest of my crew while facing the bad guys with guns. I swerved violently, trying to avoid their gunfire until just the right moment. As soon as I thought I could risk it, I pulled into a barrel roll. While I was in the barrel roll, I aimed and shot the engines out of three of the five sailboards. As I came out of the roll, I kept my gun aimed at the attackers, but in the end it wasn’t necessary. The three sailboards whose engines I had shot out crashed and collided with the other two, but not before one of the agents got off one last shot. It hit Bell’s engine and her sailboard started wobbling. I spun around and threw the sailboard out of reverse, racing past the other members of my crew to get to Bell. Seconds before she crashed, I grabbed her hand and pulled her onto my sailboard.

  “That was close,” said Bell.

  “You’re welcome,” I replied.

  “You okay?” yelled Berrett.

  “Fine!” I cried. “I think.”

  I tried really hard not to think about my arm at all. At least, not until Liberty was in sight and we were safe inside her.

  Mama B. allowed me to get Liberty airborne, but as soon as we took off she dragged me over to the infirmary.

  “Holy stars, Jordan, I can’t believe this is the Aventine,” said Mama B. “I mean, the interior is still gorgeous, but outside it looks so ....”

  “Awful?” I suggested.

  Mama B. nodded. “Awful.”

  Berrett nodded. “CiCi’s a genius.”


  “Awkward as anything, but a genius,” I added. “Mama B., where the fl—uh, how’d you learn to fly a sailboard like that?”

  Mama B. shot me a wicked smile. “You think Jordan learned to fly from his dad? Oh no, honey, Jordan got his taste for daring from me.”

  My jaw hung loose. “Really? You seem ... I mean, I ... what do you do, anyway?”

  “Well, I was going to be a healer.”

  I laughed in spite of the burning pain in my arm.

  “It’s true!” she said with a grin. “I spent a lot of time with them while I was a kid, getting patched up from some avoidable bit of mayhem.” She winked at me.

  “There. You’re lucky it was just a graze.” She finished bandaging me up and headed for the galley.

  “Well, that’s some crazy skud,” I said.

  Berrett smiled. “She’s something else, huh?”

  I nodded. “Something else. You’re lucky to have her.”

  Berrett looked inquisitively into my face. “You know, you have her now too. They might not be yours biologically, but you’ve created a family here, with your crew.”

  And that’s when it hit me. The reason that I wanted my freedom wasn’t so much about not having any rules or not having to deal with the SUN. It was because without freedom, I could never be sure my little family would be safe. Curse or not, I had come to love them all.

  The glib response I had planned oozed out my ears. I had absolutely nothing safe to say. Thankfully, at that moment I heard the quick clickety-clack of Bell’s favorite knee-high boots.

  “Captain?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think per’aps you should come see this.”

  “See what?”

  “Three SUN starships and Eira’s cruiser on our tail. They are coming at us from different directions.”

  I slapped my palm to my forehead. “Because that is exactly what I need right now.”

  We tore through the ship and into the cockpit.

  “Flarking skud. Can we make it to Neptune?”

  “The window for landing is closing, but if we ‘urry, we might be able to make the jump gates in time.”

  “Right. Let’s do it.”

  Bell and I engaged the thrusters and headed for the jump gates.

  “Here’s hoping that Max’s papers are still good,” I muttered.

  “Max’s papers?” asked Bell.

  “I’ll catch you up on Neptune, assuming we make it there.”

  “Never assume, Captain.” Bell gave me a wink.

  I smiled and nodded, then turned all my focus toward getting Liberty through the jump gates before our pursuers could catch up.

  The communications monitor screen lit up. “Where is your destination?”

  “Neptune,” I said.

  “Prepare for jump gate in five, four, three, two ....”

  Just before we cleared the gate, I felt Liberty rattle beneath me. Eira had open fire.

  Once we were on the other side of the jump gate, I turned on the hull cameras to see what the damage was.

  “It looks as though Liberty’s C-thruster is damaged,” observed Bell. “See the crack?”

  I nodded. “You think Ceese can fix it while we’re on Neptune?”

  “Sure, if she ‘as access to the right parts.”

  I frowned. I wasn’t sure how stocked up on ship parts Miriam’s planet would be. Neptune was a funny place, a sanctuary planet where no one government had any sway. It was a spiritual place, a retreat, and the planet where all the healers were trained.

  Oh, goodie, I thought as we prepared to land. My own personal hell.

  “Uh, Dix?” Berrett’s voice crackled over the ship’s intercom. “Hobs and I have something to show you.”

  “Not now, Berrett, I’m trying to figure out the best way to bring down Liber—”

  “CiCi’s headed your way. You need to take a look at this.”

  A second later, CiCi was in the cockpit, holding a small tracking dot in her hand.

  “Flarking piece of—”

  “So that is how they found us!” cried Bell. “Where was it?”

  “On the shuttle, mixed in with the bullets, like I said it would be,” said CiCi.

  I bit down on my lower lip. “I’ll apologize when we land, Ceese, but right now we don’t have a functioning C-thruster and the bad guys are right behind us. Aw, flark! Bell, engage the A- and B-thrusters and get us down there ASAP. I’ll be right back. CiCi, come with me.”

  I ran down through the hold and into the crew quarters. “Hobs! I need you!”

  “What’s the matter, Cap?” asked Hobs.

  “We’re gonna have company and I don’t have a gunner. I need you two to man the station.”

  Hobs nodded. “We’re on it.”

  “We are?” asked CiCi.

  Hobs glared at her.

  “I mean, of course we are. Gunning, right away, Cap.”

  We ran back to the front of the ship, but halfway there we felt her shiver beneath our feet.

  “Hustle!” I yelled.

  Bell had engaged the remaining thrusters, but Liberty was no match for Eira’s massive ship and the SUN starships. We set our trajectory to land on Neptune. If we could just get there in time, we could claim sanctuary. Then no one could touch us.

  Not Eira. Not the SUN.

  We would be safe.

  Assuming we could live long enough to land. Another shot shook Liberty.

  I sat down in my chair and took the yoke. “Damage report.”

  “C-thrusters non-functional, hull cameras out, emergency shields at twenty-five percent,” replied Bell. “Twenty—”

  Another rattling shockwave.

  “Ah! Make that ten, Captain.”

  “Great. Just great. Well, screw this. Hopefully we’ll end up in the right place.”

  I pointed Liberty down and powered the ship toward the stormy surface of Neptune.

  RETURN OF THE EYEROLL 22

  “CICI, GET US OUT OF THIS!”

  “I can’t do anything about the C-thruster until we’re on the ground!”

  Eira and the SUN were bearing down hard on our tail.

  “We may never get that far,” I muttered. “Alright, fine. Bell, you remember how we won the flight challenge at the Académie?”

  Bell flashed me an evil grin. “Make the competition blind.”

  I nodded. “Last year they made it a System offense. We could be imprisoned for life.”

  “Aren’t we already sort of ‘eaded in that direction, Cap?”

  I frowned. “I was, but I didn’t want to hurt any of you.”

  Bell laughed. “We all signed up to fly with you, you know. We knew it would be a living nightmare, but it was our choice, and I don’t think that any of us regret it.”

  I smiled at them in spite of myself. “Okay. CiCi?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember the EMP generator we had you install?”

  “Yeah ....”

  “The one I told you we’d never touch unless it was absolutely necessary?”

  “Yeah ....”

  “Hit the button.”

  “Are you—”

  “Hit it!”

  Berrett, Mama B., and Hobs all crammed into the cockpit to see the results on the monitors. CiCi hit the EMP button and, one by one, the lights on the four ships fluttered and went dark. As their engines died, they slowed behind us, shrinking into barely visible specks as we entered the safety of Neptune’s orbit.

  Hugs and cries of delight were exchanged all around.

  “Well, kids, I think you’ve bought yourself a little time,” said Mama B. “You’ll be safe as long as you are on Neptune.”

  “It is not so different from prison. A very beautiful one, per’aps, but still a prison,” said Bell. Her pretty little mouth formed a perfect Parisian pout.

  Mama B. put a hand on her shoulder. “Trust me, Bell, this is nothing like the kind of prison those creatures following us would put us in.”

  “I sti
ll don’t like it,” muttered Bell.

  “I can appreciate the sentiment,” I said. “We need to get Miriam and Rivera, give Hobs time to get the Eternigen figured out, and then we’ll make our way to the edge of the System.”

  Bell and I set Liberty down on the biggest landing dock we could find. Miriam Porch and a nearly unrecognizable Diego Rivera were waiting for us.

  “How’d you know where to find us?” I asked.

  “Heard you comin’ in,” said Rivera. “We were listening for you.” I eyed his sherwani and shalwar kameez ensemble, silken and covered in brocade, and shook my head.

  “What’d she do to you, Rivera?” I asked.

  “Nice to see you too, Captain,” said Miriam dryly.

  Rivera, who had to be in some kind of drug-induced delirium, grinned. “I think I look gorgeous.”

  “Oh brother,” I said. “Do you even know where your gun is?”

  Rivera turned a shocked face to Miriam. “I have a gun?”

  I looked Miriam straight in the eyes. “What have you done?”

  “Easy, Captain. Diego is detoxing. It’s a difficult process, and we’re offsetting some of the effects with anti-anxiety meds. In another week or so he’ll be back to his old self, only better.”

  Rivera, who was standing unusually close to Bell, was engrossed by one of her earrings. “It’s so ... sparkly.”

  Bell leaned as far away from Rivera as she could. “Uh, Cap? A little ‘elp ‘ere?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Great. Just great. Do something already, healer.”

  Miriam took Rivera’s hand away from Bell’s earring. “I promise, he’ll be fine. Everyone, please board the cruiser and we’ll head back to my house. There’s food and lodging and ...,” she sniffed me, her face crinkling like a grape in the sun, “showers.”

  Hobson laughed.

  “What?” I cried.

  He patted me on the head as we piled into the cruiser. I tried not to notice when Bell slid into the seat nearest Berrett.

  The countryside we drove through was unparalleled. The hills were the brightest shade of green I had ever seen. Farmers had cut into the sides of the hills to make space for crops, and the patterns of their fields fascinated me. Herds of sheep grazed on a foothill that butted up against an impressive array of mountains. The skyscrapers of New York City look like model toys in comparison. After driving the cruiser through a lush forest, we turned onto a narrow path and pulled in through a set of large, wrought iron gates. We followed the path up into an ornately tiled cul de sac, across from which sat an incredible house that blended the Taj Mahal with Buckingham Palace. We piled out of the cruiser and walked through an archway into a sprawling courtyard with a fountain in the center.