“No one's coming,” Jet repeated numbly. It wasn't really a question.
He shook his head, his eyes sharp once more, studying hers. He patted the grass again.
After the faintest pause, she lowered her weight to the grass next to him.
“So what are we doing out here?” she said.
Before she could go on, he startled her, catching hold of the back of her head and pulling her to him. She didn't have time to take a breath before he kissed her, wrapping his other arm around her shoulder. The kiss was warm, but he leaned into it, and she felt his pulse leap under her hand when her fingers touched his neck.
After another few seconds, she pushed him away.
“What are you doing?” she snapped.
He grinned at her, touching her face briefly with one hand. “Sorry. I've been wanting to do that all day...ever since the venom wore off anyway.”
Jet could only stare at him, still fighting to get her breath back.
“...And sorry I had to yell at you earlier,” he added. “They already don't trust me, so I thought I'd better stay in character. I was hoping it might make them trust you more, too...” Anaze's smile widened, even as he caressed her hand where it rested on her knee. “Jet...I saw you in the demo. You were amazing! Absolutely amazing. You really didn't know it was a sham, did you? I can't believe how well you did, given that...I was blown away. Really.”
“What is going on, Anaze?” Jet hissed. She had to fight to keep her voice low again...and to contain her anger, which only worsened as her confusion at his words mounted. “What am I doing out here, if we aren't leaving?”
Her jaw tightened more when he frowned.
“...And who the hell are you?” she snapped. “Do I even know you?”
He frowned a little, but the sharpness remained in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean! Who do you work for, Anaze?”
He hesitated a bare instant, as if bracing himself, then he spoke even lower.
“My father.”
“Your father?” Jet frowned, confused enough to lose her anger briefly. “I thought you said you didn't know who your father was.”
Anaze shrugged, his eyes flat. “I lied.” Seeing her eyes harden, he touched her hand again, flinching a little when she pulled it back sharply. “Look, Jet. I had to. I had to lie. Don't you see?”
“No,” she snapped. “I don't see. Who is your father?”
“Richter.”
Jet gaped at him for a few seconds. “Richter? Your father is Richter?”
He motioned for her to keep her voice down, glancing around them briefly.
“Yes,” he said, frowning again. “Look. I don't have a lot of time to explain this––”
“But that's not possible!”
“He's a lot older than he looks,” Anaze said. “And he met my mother young. He was maybe seventeen when they had me...”
“But he had his Nirreth thugs pick you up!” she spat angrily, again keeping her voice down with an effort. When he gave her another warning look, she forced her voice lower still. “Anaze! Look at you...” She motioned to the sting marks on his arms, the bruise on his face. “Your own father let them do that? Why? Why would you, if you work for him?”
“He didn't want you to know everything until after the Nirreth had run you through their security protocols.”
“You've worked for him all this time?” she said, still fighting to process this much. “How is that even possible?”
“Look, Jet!” He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her still.
Jet tensed under his hands, but didn't try to get away, forcing herself silent as she stared at his warning expression. Biting her lip, she forced herself to remain silent, too.
“I don't have a lot of time to explain this,” he said, exasperated. “So if you want to be mad at me, do it later, okay? Just let me get this out first, so you'll know the score. They only gave me about thirty minutes before the next window with the locks.”
Turning his words over, Jet nodded. “I'm listening.”
“Good,” he said, releasing her shoulders with a sigh. “Okay. Well, here it is. Richter isn't what he seems. He is a part of the rebellion.”
“Then what is he –– “
“He's simply got different alliances formed now,” Anaze said, holding up a hand, his voice warning. “He's working with some of the Nirreth now.”
“What does that mean?” Jet said, forcing her voice to remain low.
“It means not all of the Nirreth like the rulership of the Royals, Jet,” he said patiently. “There are some among them who want to self-govern, okay?” He grinned a little. “Kind of like a democratic uprising, you know? They don't like the strict hierarchies of the old rule. They also aren't big on the whole colonialism thing, of their own peoples, or of other species, like us. So they approached Richter a number of years ago...proposed an alliance.”
“Laksri,” Jet muttered. “Is he one of them? One of the rebels?”
Anaze nodded. “He's their leader, really. He pretends to work for Richter...but they're more like partners. Laksri's got his own reasons for wanting to fly under the radar. I don't know the whole story, but he's living under some kind of alias. Apparently he got into trouble in the home world...something to do with his political beliefs, even before he started the rebellion. He went underground for a number of years...came back with a new identity.”
“And he and Richter...”
“They're partners,” Anaze repeated patiently. “They've been working together for a number of years now, finding ways to plant supporters and instigators of different kinds in the Green Zones. But they really needed someone with access to the Royals.”
“So they picked me,” Jet said angrily.
Anaze nodded. Then his eyes shifted sideways, and he shrugged. “Well...sort of.”
“What do you mean, 'sort of'? Isn’t that why I'm here?”
“Oh, it's why you're here all right,” Anaze confirmed. His skin seemed to darken in the low light, then he shrugged. “It's just...it wasn't them who picked you, Jet. It was me. Richter told me to find someone tough. Someone smart, who could survive in here, who the Nirreth would value. He told me to find a female, if possible...”
Jet gaped at him again. Then her mouth shut with an angry snap.
“You told that culler ship I'd be there!” she said furiously.
Anaze held up his hands, shushing her again. “Yes. Jet, look, I'm sorry––”
“And that crap about you trying to 'help' me?” she said, the words practically exploding out of her. “By waving me over to that manhole? You prick! You were just drawing me out into the open! You did that on purpose, so they could catch me!”
“Yes!” Anaze said angrily, catching hold of her shoulders once more. “Jet. I couldn't tell you anything until now. You have to understand that. You never would have made it through the security protocols if I had!”
“What security protocols! No one has asked me anything!”
“They've been doing scans on you since you first got here. The medical examination was primarily that...they did brain scans of you during the demo, too.”
“And what makes you think they won't do that again?”
“They'll try, definitely,” Anaze chuckled, releasing her again. “But Richter got them to agree to keep Laksri on as a guardian and translator. He should be able to protect you from the worst of it. Or at least get to you first, to make sure you aren't able to tell them anything.”
Jet's mind continued to spin around Anaze's words. “How long?”
At his puzzled look, she felt her jaw harden further.
“How long has this been going on, Anaze? How long since you 'picked' me to do this?”
Anaze shrugged, his face showing discomfort.
“About six months,” he said. “After that last raid, I knew. The way you ran into that fight....” He shook his head. “No one else in the camp did that. No one else in the camp would have
done that, Jet. And I knew your main issue with those joke rebels were that they were hypocrites and liars...and because they sold people to the Nirreth as slaves. I knew you didn't disagree with the idea of rebellion in principle...”
“Bullshit!” Jet snapped furiously, even as tears stung her eyes.
She remembered all of those talks they'd had together, while walking in the woods. While setting traps, and working in the gardens...while working on expanding the underground caverns. While eating meals together. She'd trusted Anaze, told him everything about how she felt, her worries about the future, about her brother, what she wanted for the world.
She'd trusted him.
“I can't believe you,” she said, shaking her head. Tears threatened, but they were as much from anger as grief. “I really can't believe you, Anaze. I can't believe you did this...”
“I spent months assessing your political beliefs, Jet,” he said, raising his voice slightly to get her to look at him. “They aligned with ours almost exactly...in every particular. You've got heart, courage...you were the best fighter of the settlement. You're smarter than just about anyone I know, except maybe my dad...”
When she glared at him at this, wiping her face with the back of her hand, his eyes softened. He touched her face, letting his hand fall to her shoulder when she jerked her chin away.
“You're one of us, Jet,” he said, sounding frustrated again, but also a little fearful. “Jet, you are one of us...I swear it. I would never have dragged you into this if I didn't think you would want to be a part of this fight. I love you, Jet. I wouldn't have done that...you know I wouldn't have.”
“Do I?” she retorted, glaring at him. “How can I believe anything you say now?”
“Because you know me, Jet!” he said, exasperated. “You can pretend you don't, but you do. You know when I'm telling the truth...just like you knew I loved you before I said it just now. Don't even try to deny it...”
When she shook her head angrily, wiping her face again, he softened his voice.
“You're one of us, Jet,” he repeated. He clasped her hand in his, gripping tighter when she tried to pull away. “I promise you, Jet...you are. You just didn't know it yet.”
For a long moment, she couldn't make herself speak.
Anger warred in her mind with another feeling, something that peered out through the betrayal and the being lied to and the fury that Anaze had turned her into a slave for his father and some twisted cause. She felt the conflict worsen even as she thought of her mother and her brother, about the fact that he'd also essentially left them defenseless and alone. But even the thought of her family couldn't entirely quell the other feeling that was trying to take over her being, to push past the rest of her, which wanted to stay angry and resentful.
It took her a long time to know what that feeling was, to even admit it to herself.
Eventually though, she realized in some shock that the feeling was hope.
Anaze's words had filled her with a kind of disbelieving hope.
There was a rebellion. A real one. Richter had Nirreth fighting with him now...Nirreth who wanted to give their world back to them maybe, or at least let them live in it without having to hunker down in toxic caves, or sell themselves as slaves.
Nirreth they might actually be able to live in peace with, something Jet hadn't thought possible before the events of the past few days.
If Anaze was telling the truth, there may actually be a side worth fighting on.
He'd been right about her, she realized.
Jet hadn't scorned working with the rebels because she didn't believe in fighting...she just hadn't believed in them. She'd known they couldn't be trusted. She'd seen their hypocrisy, their willingness to sacrifice skags for their glorious cause...their willingness to let a whole community be destroyed for something they'd done. She'd known they couldn't be trusted with her or her brother's or her mother's lives.
She'd thought they weren't worth it, that they couldn't win.
She'd thought Richter was just as bad, with his raids on the skags, his extortion for medical supplies...but mostly because he'd seemed to end his war against the Nirreth altogether. He'd had the most military training, but he'd given up, left the rest of them to fend for themselves.
Now, if she could believe Anaze, he hadn't given up...he'd merely changed his tactics.
That still didn't explain why he'd raided the skag communities, or treated them all like marks with his inflated medicines and tech and weapons. It didn't explain what the Nirreth rebels wanted with them either, or whether they would honor any of their promises if they actually won, or just turn around and abuse them worse than their predecessors.
Jet still didn't trust any of them. Not really.
Her mind didn't, anyway.
But Anaze's words resonated in some part of her that went deeper than the more rational part of her mind. That resonance created the bizarre feeling of hope. Jet couldn't trust that feeling, not for a second. She knew she couldn't, but she also knew she would act on it, at least for now.
After all, the other choice was, resigning herself to being a slave.
Or trying to escape on her own, and probably getting killed for her trouble.
When she looked up at Anaze next, she saw him watching her, that wary look back on his face, especially in the sharpness of his eyes. His dark head tilted sideways, his green irises shining slightly in the light from the moon under the dome of the Nirreth's created world. Jet could feel the question in him, just as clearly as if he'd spoken it aloud. Even so, her own answer to that question still managed to surprise her.
“All right,” she said, her voice strangely calm. “What is the plan?”
There was a silence.
When Jet glanced up next, Anaze's eyes were shining, filled with a complicated sort of relief, even as he broke out in the smile that was so familiar to her. Familiar, yet completely alien, she realized. She didn't know him at all, really...nothing she'd ever thought about him had actually been true.
Before she could think about that any more, he leaned towards her again, kissing her on the mouth, that time with a heat that took her breath away. She found herself letting him, for a few seconds at least, even kissing him back, more out of reflex than anything, or so she told herself afterwards. She kissed him long enough for her body to react to the contact, for her fingers to tighten on her own knees.
Then she pushed at his chest, shoving him back, hard.
At the same time, she turned her head, staring at the ground, her expression hard.
“And there'll be no more of that,” she said warningly, glaring at him.
She saw something in his eyes react, but he nodded, right before his expression turned business-like.
“Understood,” he said, as if she'd just given him an order. Still looking at her, he made his voice cautious. “Are you with us then, Jet? Can we count on you?”
“Count on me?” She snorted. “No. Can I count on you?”
“Always,” he said seriously. “You can, Jet. I'll get you out of here alive if it's the last thing I do. I mean it.”
She felt something in her chest react at this, even as she shook her head.
She couldn't let herself believe anything out of him, not now.
“Are you with us, Jet?” Anaze asked again, once more scrutinizing her face.
Jet hesitated, her hands propped on her knees as she stared down the grassy hill to the mirror-like pond. Looking at the reflection of the moon on its glass like surface, she nodded after a long-seeming pause.
“Yeah,” she said, looking back at him. “I don't know if I'm 'with you'...but I'm in.”
She saw emotion rise again to Anaze's eyes, even as that smile touched his lips.
Again, though, looking at him, she felt like she didn't know him at all, like they were meeting for the first time.
He was Richter's son. He'd been a rebel, a real one, all this time.
In any case, that time, he didn't kiss her
.
Jet wasn't sure if she was relieved at that, or disappointed.
~ END OF PART I ~
THE ROYALS
Alien Apocalypse Part II
Dedicated to April Aasheim
...writing buddy and
ninja extraordinaire
THE ROYALS
Jet folded her arms, trying to keep the impatience off her face, or at least where the young Nirreth wouldn’t see it. When she glanced at Laksri, however, she saw his deep black eyes studying her in a way that told her he had…noticed, that is…even if the boy hadn’t.
She couldn’t tell what Laksri’s expression meant exactly, though.
Jet knew he studied her to see how she fared with the Nirreth prince. She expected to get those looks from him by now; he watched her like a hawk most days, as if examining every word she spoke and every gesture she made. Yet, rather than disapproving, the look on his face now held flickers of the facial ticks she’d begun to associate with Nirreth amusement…as much as she could discern anything on a Nirreth’s midnight blue skin and elongated features, that is.
Laksri taught her some of those facial expressions himself, as part of her ‘cultural assimilation’ classes. She picked up even more just from watching the Nirreth that surrounded her daily, including Laksri himself.
She’d seen that particular expression on his face a lot the past week.
“Come here!” the Nirreth prince demanded, seemingly oblivious to the looks exchanged between Jet and the older Nirreth.
Sighing a little, Jet avoided the kid’s eyes.
She didn’t want to give him the impression she would in any way jump because he said jump. She didn’t even want him thinking that raising his voice would be more likely to get her to look at him. She’d already made that mistake a few times in the weeks she’d been there, caving to whims of his to keep him quiet. She’d learned he could be managed easier if she didn’t think too closely about the fact that his parents could order her killed for sneezing on the kid.
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