The Gauntlet

by Megan Shepherd

  Bonebreak and Ironmage climbed out, reaching in a hand to help out Willa, and then Anya, and finally Cora. She climbed out shakily into the garage, hugging her arms for warmth, and then froze.

  Fian stood at the entrance ramp, with the entire Kindred delegation behind him.

  She tried to keep her face calm, not give away how badly her heart was racing. Just the sight of that deep wrinkle in his brow made her feverish with rage. Behind him, six Kindred aides stood at attention. Two more uniformed Kindred flanked him—one Cora didn’t recognize on his left and, on his right, Serassi.

  She immediately straightened. Serassi? What was the medical officer doing as part of the Council political delegation?

  Serassi folded her arms calmly as their eyes met. Cora’s jaw clenched. Once, Serassi had been an ally of theirs, or at least neutral. But the cold look on her face now said that truce had passed.

  The structure creaked. Cora glanced at the high windows of the docking module. The walls swayed slightly. The storm was still pounding outside.

  Bonebreak adjusted his mask and eyed the Kindred delegation. “Where’s your Chief Assessor?”

  The smirk on Fian’s face faded. “Arrowal has been detained on station 10-91, dealing with an . . . irregularity. He sent me in his place. I will serve as the Kindred Chief Assessor.”

  Cora shifted uneasily—Cassian was on station 10-91. It was where Mali and Leon had gone to try to get him back. Could their rescue attempt be connected to this “irregularity”? As though sensing her discomfort, Willa moved closer. She made a small hand gesture that Cora took to be a reassurance that everything would be okay.

  Serassi leaned close to Fian and whispered a few words.

  Fian nodded.

  “Come,” Fian said to Cora and the others as he motioned to a corridor. “The other delegations await us in the central vestibule. I’d hate to keep them waiting, though none of us expect to be here long. We don’t anticipate that you will complete the first round.”

  She tossed him a glare. All around them, the metal walls creaked eerily as the storm pounded, but none of the Mosca or Kindred seemed troubled.

  The corridor opened up to the wide central chamber that she’d seen with Bonebreak, only now it felt closed off and dark, like a tomb. Lights in the ceiling shone gloomily over the dais with its four chairs. Four doors off the central vestibule led to four smaller chambers—the recess rooms. A row of monitors on the wall scrolled with some kind of coded language Cora couldn’t read. As soon as they entered, voices died down.

  The other delegations stood.

  There were about thirty figures in all, a mix of Gatherer, Mosca, and Axion. She tried not to stare at the strange sight of the Gatherer delegation, with their eight-foot-tall frames, long faces, and willowy fingers. They wore simple gray robes with a row of pockets at the base and more pockets at waist level. Monks, Bonebreak had called them. Boring do-gooders. All they’re good for is praying and thinking.

  The Gatherer in the front—Cora couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman—gave a slow, deep nod. “I am called Brother Magga,” it said in a drawling voice. “As established in rule 18, section 10, of the Intelligence Council accords, I will serve as Chief Assessor of the Gatherer delegation.” It swept a hand out toward its eight other robed colleagues. “These are my aides, who shall monitor and observe the proceedings to ensure fairness as established in rule 14—”

  “Yeah, monk,” said Ironmage, rolling his eyes. “We all know the rules.”

  The Mosca delegation sauntered over to clasp hands in greeting with Ironmage and Bonebreak, all of them wearing the same formal crimson masks and shielding that by now felt familiar to Cora. It was crazy that she was starting to think of the Mosca as friends.

  “I am Redrage,” the tallest woman said. “The Mosca Chief Assessor. And my aides.” She waved a hand toward about a half dozen other Mosca. “Your human and primate associates are Mosca property, so they may use our recess room.” She pointed to the third of the four rooms leading off the central vestibule. “From there, we will observe your progress and reconvene with you during the breaks between rounds.”

  Cora nodded.

  That left only the Axion delegation.

  They were standing at the far end of the vestibule, in the shadows behind the dais. She had only seen Axion from a distance, on Fuel Station Theta. She couldn’t help feeling apprehensive; she hadn’t forgotten that they consumed human body parts as part of their bizarre religious beliefs.

  Slowly, they stepped into the light. Cora expected the same creatures she’d seen on Theta: short, gaunt, with white streaks in their hair.

  But they were . . . human.

  She started. They couldn’t actually be human. But they looked human. All of them were of human height, human sizes, with human features, so perfectly human looking that they might have walked out of Armstrong, except for a white streak in their hair.

  “What’s going on?” Cora hissed to Bonebreak. “They look human!”

  “I told you on Theta,” he said, “they are a mercurial species. They can take on any appearance they wish.”

  Cora stared at him. “I think you left that last part out.”

  He shrugged as though it were a technicality.

  One of the Axion men stepped forward, smiling in a charming way. “A pleasure to meet you, Cora Mason.” He reached out a cold hand to clutch Cora’s. “We are wishing you the best. We’ve witnessed human runners before, but never one so young.”

  She felt Willa tense by her side and remembered that the Axion had been the ones who had conducted brutal experiments on her.

  Cora pulled her hand back.

  The Axion man didn’t seem to notice the slight. “I am called Crusader, the Axion Chief Assessor, and these are my aides.”

  An Axion woman stepped forward, smiling. Her light brown hair, with its single streak of white, was pulled back in a lose ponytail. She had a kind face and even a slight gap in her teeth. The very picture of warmth, and it shook something within Cora. Hair so like her mother’s, but a smile that was more sincere than her mother’s ever had been.

  “We have taken on a basic human appearance because it is something you are familiar with,” she said. “We want you to feel comfortable. We’ve left these streaks in our hair, which are true to our natural physical states, so that you can tell us apart from your own kind.”

  Cora hugged her arms tighter, wary of trusting them. Their kindness had a ring of artificiality to it.

  As though sensing her suspicion, the Axion woman’s smile slid to Willa. “How nice to see you again, Willa.” Willa shrank back, whining softly deep in her throat. “We’ve been looking for you ever since you disappeared after failing the Gauntlet. Awful business, that. We feared you were dead.”

  Willa backed up behind Cora, hands pressed to her head as though memories were tearing at her. Cora reached down and scooped her up into her arms. Willa was heavy for a chimp, but she wrapped her arms around Cora’s neck, holding tight.

  Thunder struck overhead, shaking the central vestibule.

  “I don’t trust them either,” Cora whispered to Willa. “Not the Kindred or the Axion. They’re planning something. I just know it.”

  Willa hugged her tighter.

  Thunder struck again outside, harder this time. All eyes rose to the ceiling.

  Fian turned to Redrage. “We should begin.”

  “Assessors,” Redrage said, “take your places. Aides, retire to the recess rooms.”

  The four delegations began to separate. Redrage, Brother Magga, and Crusader moved toward their seats on the dais, as their aide parties sorted themselves in the various rooms designated for each species. Fian was slow to take his seat, hovering near the base of the dais, whispering something to Serassi.

  Cora eyed the two Kindred closely. They were so smug. All those smiles. All that talk about fairness. They were toying with her.

  She needed Mali and Leon. Most of all, she needed Cassian.
>
  She drew in a breath, worried about what Fian had meant by an irregularity on station 10-91. She reached out her mind, fumbling desperately for some sense of Cassian. Had Mali and Leon found him? Were they all okay? She hadn’t realized how used to Cassian’s presence she’d grown. How he had always been with her in spirit, as comforting as the charm necklace she used to wear to remind her of her family.

  She touched her neck. Gone now. And she felt just as bare without him.

  “Are you ready?” Bonebreak asked quietly.

  Cora gently set Willa on the ground and then smoothed a hand over her simple black clothing.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said.

  “Gauntleteer,” Redrage announced from the judge’s chair, “approach the portal door. It is time to begin.”

  Cora drew in a deep breath.

  Ready or not, her time had come.

  21

  Rolf

  NOK PACED BACK AND forth by the window of the old sheriff’s office, twisting a pink strand of hair around one finger. She threw Rolf a worried look, as he sat at the old sheriff’s desk, his notebooks laid out around him. “I’ll never get used to it. Me, sheriff. The whole idea is crazy. Absolutely mental.” She peeked through the blinds at the town beyond, where the former slaves were repairing the schoolhouse roof.

  “I’ve told you, try to think of it as an honorary title.” Rolf concentrated on his notebook, where he was about to finish the latest blueprint he was working on. “Keena’s done a good job of managing everything so far. Besides, it isn’t entirely crazy. You being sheriff, I mean. When you worked in the tents you managed to get all the deputies to hang on your every word. Even the most brutish of the mine guards. Keena said it was like watching someone tame lions into kittens.”

  Nok paced harder. “That was just some stupid trick. Bribing them with sports news and reality television.”

  “Yes,” Rolf pointed out, “but it worked.”

  Nok turned back to the window and chewed on a fingernail.

  Rolf frowned down at his notebooks, wishing he could ease her worries. Weeks had passed since Ellis had died, and tensions had been high ever since. The first day, Keena had rounded up Armstrong’s survivors for a town meeting—four dozen mine guards, three dozen tent guards, and two hundred slaves—to declare a transitional government. She had persuaded Nok, as the official “sheriff,” to be with her for every announcement, though Nok had just stood there looking completely out of place as Keena explained how the new system would work: slaves freed, all residents rotating between two-hour shifts at the mines, two-hour construction shifts, and two-hour shifts cooking or working in the infirmary. A good plan, Rolf thought. Still, not everyone had been happy about the new rules. More than once, Rolf had overheard discontented grumbles, mostly from the mine guards, while he’d walked around the tent encampment.

  “What are you working on, anyway?” Nok asked.

  He set down his pencil. There were no electric lights, since the building had only been used previously as a prop, but a fair amount of sunlight streamed through the windows. He smoothed his hand over the blueprints proudly. While Nok had been stuck in government meetings with Keena, he’d spent days inspecting the old town, making notes for how it could be improved and turned into a real, proper place to raise a daughter. Even better, he’d stumbled upon old blueprints of the Kindred’s transport hub, which indicated there was a reactor core. It was radioactive and protected with layers of reinforced buffers, not to mention the hub emitted scalding steam through vents; but if he could find a safe way to run wires from its auxiliary nodes, he could potentially bring enough electricity into Armstrong’s town for lights and basic communications.

  “It’s a surprise,” he said. A rare flicker of pride filled his chest. Back on Earth, he’d spent countless long nights cooped up in Oxford’s library, stuffing his head with knowledge that was good only for standardized tests and impressing professors. And for what? A father who’d always overlooked his accomplishments in favor of his brother’s track medals? Fellow students who’d resented his grades?

  But everything was different on Armstrong. Here, when he’d first sheepishly showed Keena his plans to rebuild the town, she’d called him a genius. To his surprise, the citizens didn’t tease him for his twitches but, rather, came to him with questions about how best to engineer new water systems.

  Here, he mattered.

  Nok gave him a playful smile. “A surprise? I hope it involves chocolate.”

  She rubbed her hands over her straining belly. Her pregnancy was no longer a secret, thanks to Ellis. And on a moon full of sterilized humans, everyone had developed a sort of fascination with her growing belly. Two middle-aged women, former slaves, had come by this morning and left an offering of flowers and extra gruel by the sheriff’s office door. The mine guards might not love her, but the tent guards practically idolized her.

  Nok peered between the slats again and her smile faded.

  “Oh, great,” she muttered. “Some of the mine guards are congregating by the dance hall. They’re probably plotting to murder me.”

  Rolf pushed up from his chair and went to the window. Outside, Dane was speaking to a few hulking guards under the dance hall awning, their faces hidden in shadows.

  “No one is going to murder anyone. I’ll make sure of it.” His hand found hers and squeezed. “Where’s Keena?”

  Nok sighed. “In bed. Her cough’s gotten worse. Loren says she’s been in and out of consciousness. She’ll need a few days to recover, at least.” Her eyes narrowed as she watched Dane making big, emphatic gestures. “The timing’s not good for her to be sick, with Dane spouting off all his lies. He says he wants peace, but he really wants to be sheriff himself.”

  “No.” Rolf’s voice was quiet and certain. “He wants to be king.”

  Nok turned away from the window, muttering things about sheriffs and Dane and responsibilities and babies. She was so distracted that she didn’t see the strange, snaking line of smoke that appeared over the buildings. Rolf frowned, pushing aside the blinds to see better.

  “Um, Nok?”

  “And he has the nerve to—“

  “Nok.”

  “I mean, who does he think—”

  “Nok.”

  She spun to face him. He pointed at the sky.

  She ran back to the window and peered at the streak of smoke. “What is that?”

  Rolf felt his hands twitching again. At the end of the snaking line of smoke was a small black dot that could be only one thing.

  He swallowed. “It’s a ship.”

  More dots filled the sky. In the next second there were dozens of ships behind the first, which was rapidly headed for the town square where they stood. Nok’s face went slack as she stumbled backward, a hand squeezing over her badge as though clasping a lifeline.

  “Maybe . . . maybe Cora’s come back,” Nok offered. “It could be friends.”

  Rolf braced himself as the first ship grew closer. Through the haze he could just make out the cerulean-blue flashing lights of a Kindred cruiser.

  “Those are not friends.”

  He pushed out into the town square, squinting against the bright sun, hands squeezed into fists. He had so many plans for this town—he’d only just started to realize its potential—and he wasn’t about to let anyone take away his hope.

  Nok joined him in the square. They shaded their eyes as the Kindred cruiser hovered overhead. Frightened citizens of Armstrong poured into the town square, gaping as they all looked up. Dane and his mine guards stood in front of the dance hall, looking up with solemn expressions.

  “I wish Keena was here to handle this,” Nok muttered. “Shit. Look.” She grabbed his hand.

  Rolf felt eyes on them and realized that most of the citizens of Armstrong were staring at them. No. Staring at Nok, their eyes going hesitantly to her badge. A few gazes then shifted to Dane.

  Rolf nudged her. “You’ve got to say something. Take charge.�
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  “Me?”

  Overhead, the ship discharged its thrusters and began to land just outside of town. A nervous energy spread through the crowd, as whispers hissed at the edges. A few citizens ducked into the general store to hide.

  “With Keena unconscious,” Rolf whispered, “these people are going to turn to either you or Dane for leadership. And we have to make sure it’s you.”

  Eyes wide, Nok looked down at her reflection in the gold metal badge.

  The ship landed and began powering down, its blue lights fading slowly. The crowd was growing more fearful, a few anxious cries rising above the chatter.

  Rolf gritted his teeth. Nok needed him—not his brain this time, but his support. He grabbed her hand and pulled them both forward, toward the ship.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “What we have to do,” he answered.

  Slowly, a look of understanding crossed her face. She glanced over her shoulder at the nervous Armstrong citizens, then at Dane. By the time they’d pushed their way to the front of the crowd to stand beneath the ship, she stood a little straighter.

  “Don’t worry, everyone!” she called. “Stay calm!”

  Both of them waited tensely for whoever was inside to emerge. Anything could be inside. Kindred guards. Fian, come back to finish them off. But then Rolf frowned, looking closely at the ship’s tail. “Look at its fin. It’s been singed. And there’s damage to the rear thruster. It almost looks as though it’s been in battle.”

  “Against who?” Nok whispered. “I thought they’d come to attack us.”

  The hatch hissed as it opened, and Rolf braced himself. Overhead, dozens of other ships hovered, ready to land right behind the first. He recognized the shapes as the ones from Serassi’s picture book: Gatherer and Mosca and Kindred ships. Why would they be traveling together?

  Then, strangely, a girl dropped down.

  Rolf went rigid with surprise. It was a human girl with dark brown skin and hair knotted in balls. The girl covered her mouth to cough, waving away dust and exhaust. “It’s okay!” the girl said. “We’re friends!”