The Gauntlet

by Megan Shepherd

  Cora rolled her eyes. “Knowing what a suck-up you are, I’m not surprised you found a way into her good graces.”

  He glanced at the other deputies. “Why isn’t Lucky with you?” His voice lingered on the name.

  Pain clenched Cora’s heart. She couldn’t help but think of the blood staining the ship’s floor, wherever Bonebreak had disappeared to. Dane had taken a close interest in Lucky in the Hunt. One that might have been romantic, if Lucky were into boys and if Dane hadn’t been such a bastard.

  “Lucky?” Her voice came out hollow. “He’s gone.”

  Dane’s eyes went wide.

  “Mosca killed him,” she added, feeling a pang at the memory. “He was trying to help us escape the station. He never gave up on freeing the humans there, and the animals, too. On getting home.”

  Dane’s face went slack, and he closed his eyes while he took a few deep breaths. For a second Cora felt sorry for him. The only time he’d ever shown any kindness had been with Lucky. She touched the interior pocket of her safari uniform surreptitiously, glad they hadn’t yet been searched by Ellis’s deputies. She took the opportunity to quietly move Lucky’s journal from her pocket to the back waistband of her pants, where it might be overlooked.

  The truck stopped.

  Dane opened his eyes and looked up. The sadness was fading from his eyes, and with it went Cora’s sympathy for him. “We’re here,” he said coldly.

  THE TOWN LOOKED DIFFERENT now that Cora inspected it more closely. When they had first found it after the dust storm, she had been heartened to see flowers in the window boxes and the town square cheerfully decorated as though for a dance. Now she saw that the flowers were artificial and the dance posters were ancient, for a dance that probably never happened.

  “The town’s mostly just props,” Dane explained. “We use the sheriff’s office, but everything else is for show so that when the Kindred come, we can display what looks like a thriving community. A happy village. They wouldn’t be pleased if they knew it was a dictatorship. They think they rescued us from barbaric systems like that.”

  “They aren’t stupid. They have to know.”

  “Probably,” he said. “But all they care about is how things appear for their reports.” He pointed toward a large group of canvas tents in the valley beyond, which the storm had previously obscured. “That encampment is where we actually live. Ellis’s command center is the tallest tent. Deputies sleep in the little tents—the higher the rank, the closer to the river. There are two types of deputies, mine guards who oversee the root mine, and tent guards, who are in charge of the wives. That big, low tent in the valley . . .” His nose wrinkled in disdain. “That’s the slave barracks. And there’s the transport hub, but only the Kindred use that. Don’t even think about going near it—the steam coming out of the vents will burn you alive.”

  The trucks stopped in front of the artificial sheriff’s office. The deputies jumped down, motioning for Cora and Nok to climb out of the back. Once they were inside the building and Cora’s eyes adjusted to the shade, she found Rolf and Leon already there. A husky deputy dug through Rolf’s pockets, frowning as he turned up only papers scribbled with mathematical equations. Another was popping the buttons off Leon’s shirt one by one, stripping the captives of anything even remotely valuable. The deputy tried to tug the Mosca shielding off Leon’s arm, but it was sewn on. Leon let out a low growl and the deputy backed away.

  Ellis folded her arms as she supervised the scene.

  “Put the girls over there,” she ordered, pointing toward the opposite wall. “Check their heads for lice and their teeth for rot.”

  Hands started patting her down. Cora shifted subtly, trying to keep their fingers away from Lucky’s journal tucked in her pants. A young deputy felt Nok’s belly beneath the apron, frowned in surprise, and opened his mouth.

  “Carbs,” Nok said quickly, surprising the young man. She gave a dismissive kind of laugh. “This is what all that time in space does to me. It’s the changing pressure, yeah? And all the carbs in the Kindred’s food. Makes me bloat like a balloon.”

  The deputy, a weak-chinned younger man, seemed to accept this, or else was too intimidated by Nok’s fierce beauty to challenge her. Cora was glad Ellis was too busy inspecting Rolf to have heard—Ellis wasn’t dumb enough to let such a lie slip.

  “Slave,” Ellis pronounced, squeezing Rolf’s biceps. “Mark that down, Dane.”

  Dane picked up a pencil and the ledger.

  “He’s brilliant,” Nok argued. “A genius. He’d be wasted doing manual labor.”

  “We’ve no need for geniuses here,” Ellis said. “Only sets of hands.” She moved on to Leon and pinched his cheeks like he was a puppy. “I like your spirit,” she said. “You were foolish out there today, trying to threaten me, and it was amusing. You’ll make a fine wife.”

  “Wife?” Leon sputtered from between his squished cheeks.

  Ellis smiled grimly. “It’s a broad term—we don’t concern ourselves with gender roles here. This isn’t Earth, if you haven’t noticed.” She glanced at Nok, assessing her quickly. “Mark the tall girl down as a wife, too. The men will like her.”

  Nok’s face remained passive outwardly, but Cora could only imagine the rage roiling with her. On Earth, back in London, Nok had been a model for a seedy talent agency, just one step above a prostitute, prevented from returning to her family in Thailand. She’d sworn never to be a victim like that again.

  Ellis approached Cora next.

  “That only leaves you. Dane says you’re clever. And I hate clever. Clever only leads to trouble.” She signaled to Dane. “Mark her as a slave too. And take them away.” Without so much as a second glance, Ellis went to peruse the basket of buttons and other objects the deputies had stripped off them.

  It was a short ride from the artificial town to the real living quarters, the tent encampment. Cora tried to take in as many details as she could during the drive, but everything was frustratingly bland. Brown canvas tents that varied only in size. Deputies guarding tents and the riverbed, where a small trickle flowed. As soon as they were out of the trucks, two deputies came to take Leon and Nok away to the wives’ tent.

  “Wait!” Rolf said, moving closer to Nok. “I can’t let you separate us.”

  “Your girlfriend?” the deputy with the gun sneered, and then gave Nok a hungry look. “Mine, now.”

  Rolf threw himself at the deputy. A sound like a snarl came from his lips, and his fingers curled into tight fists that raised and started to pummel the air. But Dane lunged forward and caught Rolf’s fists, twisting them around his back. The deputies laughed.

  Nok pushed forward as she laid a quick hand on Rolf’s cheek.

  “Don’t fight them,” she said. “I can take care of myself. They won’t lay a hand on me, I promise—”

  Dane dragged Rolf away from her before she could finish. The guards reached out to grab her, but she dodged them with a quick step to the side, hands held up in surrender.

  They gave one last laugh before leading Nok and Leon away.

  “Come on, you two.” Dane signaled for Cora and Rolf to follow him to the slave barracks. “You’ll have to go through quarantine. Most of us don’t because we’ve been through Kindred processing before coming here. But we have no idea where you’ve been. Which means two weeks sequestered in the quarantine section of the slave tent, more if you show signs of sickness. Enjoy the downtime while you can. After you’re cleared for work, it’s the mines for you both.”

  Dane lifted the flap with his trademark smirk. Cora stepped inside, immediately covering her nose against the stink of unwashed humans. She blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dark. What she had taken at first for a lumpy floor was actually a hundred sleeping bodies, maybe more, packed tightly. Two oil lamps flickered from either end.

  Two weeks trapped here? Impossible. The next Gauntlet, the one on the Mosca planet of Drogane, started in just forty days.

  She spun back to the
opening. “Dane, you can’t just leave us here. You owe me. You were going to let Roshian kill me.”

  His face was fixed into an indifferent mask, but Cora could tell from the clench of his jaw he wasn’t as emotionless as he let on. “You didn’t give me much choice,” he said, his voice a little softer, but then his hand curled tightly on the tent flap. “You were trouble then, and as far as I can tell, you still are. Lucky never understood that, and now look where he is. People die when they get close to you, songbird. I’m not taking any chances.”

  He led them to a barred, empty cell that sectioned off one corner of the tent from the main area. Dane took out a key and opened the gate. “Welcome to quarantine.”

  “Strictly speaking,” Rolf observed, “it isn’t a very effective quarantine. We share the air with the other slaves.”

  “Ellis doesn’t care if the other slaves get sick. She only gives a damn about herself and her deputies, and they won’t be coming anywhere near you. Go on. In.”

  He locked the cell behind them, then stepped over the sleeping slaves as he left.

  “He’s certainly not going to be any help,” Rolf observed.

  “You think?” Cora asked dryly.

  “So this is it?” Rolf shook his head. “All that work, all that training, and we end up slaves on some half-dead moon for the rest of our lives? No way. You have to get us out of this. Cora, I’m going to be a father. I’m responsible for our baby. For Sparrow. And for Nok, too. She can’t give birth in a place like this.” His voice was rising in fear.

  “Maybe you two should have thought about that before getting pregnant,” Cora said tightly. “Where did you possibly think it would be a safe place to raise a child? On a Kindred station? On a Mosca planet? At least here there are other humans. There’s air a baby can breathe. There’s food and water. Who knows what the rest of the world is like off this moon.”

  Rolf looked as though she’d slapped him.

  She immediately regretted her harsh tone. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just worried about Sparrow. I am too.”

  Rolf sniffed. “Well, you could act more like it.” He went to lie down in the corner.

  Cora went to the opposite side of the cell and curled up close to the oil lamp, hugging her knees. Could she really blame Rolf for trying to take care of his loved ones?

  She thought of Cassian. She’d called him a monster once, but he wasn’t at all. He’d turned himself in for a crime he hadn’t committed in order to save her life. She closed her eyes, pained at the memory. The last time she’d seen him, she and Mali had been crawling through the station tunnels. She’d glimpsed Cassian through a crack; he’d been strapped down to a table, interrogated by Kindred doctors with equipment that snaked into his veins and ripped apart his memories. She could still hear the echo of his screams deep in her mind. She pressed a hand to her mouth, silencing her own sobs.

  How did she know he was even still alive? He had told her that if anything went wrong with their plan, the Fifth of Five, a secret organization of Kindred who were sympathetic to humans, would rise up and try to free humans by force. Had that happened? Was it war now on the station?

  “Cassian,” she whispered to herself, “I’m sorry.”

  Before arriving on Drogane, Cora and Mali had devised a plan to save him, though now, enslaved, it seemed hopeless. They had intended to separate once on Armstrong: Mali and Leon would sneak off and board one of the Kindred supply ships, which would take them back to the station. They would find a way to free Cassian and then meet Cora on Drogane.

  But Mali was missing. And Leon was just as trapped as Cora was.

  Cora wiped her thumb beneath her eyes—it should be her rescuing Cassian, anyway. Mali and Leon had agreed to it because Cora was a wanted fugitive and they weren’t—the minute Cora stepped foot on the station, she’d be arrested. And yet it itched at her, the need to help Cassian. He had saved her. It was her turn to save him.

  She hugged her legs harder.

  Back home, she had survived Bay Pines detention center by keeping her head down and waiting out the eighteen-month sentence. During the day, she’d written letters to her parents about her classes and her roommate, Queenie. At night, she’d written song lyrics for herself. Songs about strength, about stars, about hope. They had helped her endure the time.

  “Have to stay strong . . . ,” she sang under her breath. “Have to hold on. . . .”

  But her voice faded. The reek of the slaves was overpowering.

  She pressed her face into her hands.

  There was no eighteen months to wait out, now. There were no parents to pick her up at the end and take her back to her bedroom and her waiting dog.

  There was only Armstrong.

  For weeks, then for months . . . maybe forever.

  3

  Mali

  MALI PACED IN FRONT of the ship’s viewing screen.

  Beyond, the red curve of Armstrong’s shape loomed as they orbited at a low altitude. They were too far away to see the town, even with the viewing screen’s powerful magnifier, and likewise, none of the people on Armstrong would be able to see them. The lights of the ship would look like just another bright star.

  “We must return for them,” Mali said.

  Anya sat in the second pilot’s chair, hugging her knees tight, eyes big. Mali’s heart softened. Anya was a genius, yes, but she was also a ten-year-old girl who’d just seen her friends captured.

  Bonebreak snorted as he checked the orbital velocity. Behind the thick mask he wore, Mali couldn’t see his face, only his hunchback and his grotesquely twisted limbs clothed in Mosca shielding. “Forget them. They’re . . . what’s the human word? Oh, yes. Toast.”

  Anya twisted to him with even wider eyes. “Don’t say that!”

  Mali folded her arms tightly, narrowing her eyes at Bonebreak. “Anya’s right. We can’t give up on them.”

  It hadn’t been either her or Anya’s choice to leave the moon. When they’d watched through the viewing screen as those trucks drove toward their friends, they had frantically tried to figure out the ship’s controls and managed to zoom in the magnifier. They had seen the fear on Nok’s face. A dark-haired woman with a handkerchief covering her mouth. Even Leon had looked worried—Leon, who was the toughest boy Mali knew, not to mention handsome, who had an annoying way of making her short of breath. And then Bonebreak had returned to the ship, anxious and hurried, as he’d shoved them away from the controls. The next thing Mali knew, they were high above the moon.

  “Those soldiers are bad people,” Mali said. “One of them is a boy I knew in the Hunt. Dane. He cannot be trusted.”

  Bonebreak flicked a finger toward the moon on the viewing screen. “I’ve heard about that sheriff with the metal badge on her face. Ellis. She’s got a nasty reputation. Mosca used to come here to trade in black market human wards, but that came to an end when Ellis butchered six Mosca captains in a row. For no other reason than she didn’t like the way we smelled!” He sniffed at his armpits as though reassuring himself of his delicate odor. “She’s not someone to be trifled with, especially seeing as we have nothing of value to trade.” He turned to Anya. “You seem smart for a small little childs. You agree with me, yes?”

  There was the slightest undercurrent of fear in his voice. It was clear that Bonebreak was afraid of Anya, ever since she had proven she could not only control a gun through telekinesis, but also control him.

  Anya didn’t answer at first. Mali eyed her sidelong. It had been several years since they’d last spoken, and the Anya she had known then—just seven years old—had held a child’s black-and-white sense of morality. Now that she was older, had she learned that not everything was so straightforward?

  “The wolves are strong,” Mali whispered to Anya, “but the rabbits are clever.”

  Anya’s eyes lit up at the words. That was the motto, taken from a fairy tale, that Anya had used during their escape three years ago from a private owner. It meant the Kindred might be power
ful, but humans were clever. The motto had spread throughout the network of privately owned humans, even into the menageries, whispered as a seemingly innocent fairy tale so the Kindred wouldn’t be suspicious. It had just begun to swell in force when Kindred guards had come for Anya, drugged her, and locked her in the Temple before her whisperings could incite any uprisings.

  Anya grinned at Mali. “The rabbits are very clever.” She turned to Bonebreak. “Does this ship have weapons?”

  Bonebreak dabbed a cloth over his sweating forehead, shaking his head. “It’s only a cruiser. A transport.”

  Anya tapped a finger over her lips as she looked over the steerage panel. “There might be a way to modify the controls. Reconfigure the propulsion system as a weapon.” She shrugged. “At the least, we could use the ship as a battering ram. Return to Armstrong’s surface and crash it into the main tent.” She smacked her hands together, mimicking an explosion.

  “Don’t you dare!” Bonebreak gasped. “This ship cost eight thousand tokens!” He looked to Mali as though pleading for help.

  “He’s right,” Mali said reluctantly. “We cannot crash it. We will need it eventually to get to Drogane.” She paced, careful to give a wide berth to Lucky’s body beneath the tarp, and then looked at Bonebreak. “You said the sheriff has worked with traders before. What if you approached her, claiming to be an exotic species trader, and offered to buy Cora and the others?”

  Bonebreak groaned behind his mask. “Did you not hear me, little childs? Ellis killed the last six Mosca captains who approached her for a trade!” He rested his face in his hands, shaking his head. “It wouldn’t work, anyway. They’ve seen our ship. It’s a piece of junk. They know we’re as poor as cave rats. That sheriff wouldn’t even sit for a meeting.”

  Anya’s big eyes danced with mischief. “Not if we had a different ship—a really impressive one. Didn’t we pass a trade outpost a while back?”