This is a Darkened planet. Crenellia. The Hole. I do not feel at home here, even though I was born only a few leagues from where I stood on this moonless night, my back pressed against the alley wall, my skinny frame lost in the shadows. But I know my way around, and I know what I'm doing. I've survived long enough that I certainly don't intend to quit now.
Metal gleamed silver-white in the blackness beyond the pools of light from the odd, still-unbroken street lamp. It was a slender spike, as long as my index finger and half as wide. It flicked in and out of its handle, dwarfed in the big, sinewy fist of the man who waited, leaning against the wall opposite the one I crouched against.
Tibian. Silver-steel. It's the most highly valued metal in the galaxy, stronger than any other and prettier to look at than polished silver. You can bash it on anything you want and not mar the edge, not dint the surface. If you have the strength you can slice it through rock, and I'm not talking air-filled volcanic rock, like pumice or something. I'm talking metamorphic rock. Marble. Limestone. Granite.
Tibian is hard to miss, though, 'cause it's so beautiful. You can always tell when an enemy possesses some--it's got that distinctive moon-glow. It almost shines by itself. If you're stalking someone with a tibian blade, it's best to keep it hidden until just before you strike.
It's very, very rare and very, very expensive. And this chrak had a shiv made with the stuff. If I weren't who I am, I would have been terrified.
Quick bio? My name is Kri. I'm a street brat. Thirteen years old, survived the streets for almost fifteen months now. Yeah, yeah, make all the noises you want about how young I am, and how horrible the streets of a Darkened planet are for kid like me. I know how horrible they are, more than you ever will. I make out okay. I'm more worried about the children.
It was the children I was worried about then, too, as I waited in the darkness for the Enforcer to leave. The garbage bin that cast the shadow I hid in concealed a cubit-high hole in the brick alley wall, through which we made our way each night into the crawlspace we slept in. It's safe, or as safe as anything is for homeless street kids.
If this nasty teenage grunt found it, though, all the safety would be stripped away as if it had never been. Because of the Verna's new ordinance, homeless persons found trespassing can be shot, killed, the moment they are discovered. No messy justice proceedings, no warm prison to stay in for awhile, no humanity, no mercy. Just death, sudden and final.
Sometimes part of me wonders if such a death might not be a mercy itself, though. There are a thousand predators of the street, a thousand forms of slow, agonizing death stalking the small children I'm trying to care for. Cold. Hunger. Exposure. Disease. Rats.
Other kids.
These Enforcers, adolescents employed by the government to flesh out their constabulary force, especially in rough parts of cities like this one. For keeping us out of the shelter of abandoned warehouses, killing trespassers, and generally oppressing the helpless, they receive food and clothes, coin and drugs, and a place to stay the night. Some are brainwashed, some are not. All are vicious, and determined to deny us any safe place.
So I waited in the darkness outside the safety of the crawlspace, watching the Enforcer play with his tibian flickshiv. The other kids were inside, unaware of why I had remained without. There was no need to frighten the little ones, and they were all still and silent anyway, wariness drilled into them by months or years of surviving the deadly streets.
It makes my heart hurt, sometimes, how unchildlike the little ones act. They almost never play or laugh, and talk only quietly. Mostly, if they aren't hiding or looking for food, they're sitting quietly to conserve energy.
I remember a different childhood, and so do many of them. I had been an only child, but my parents were social workers, and we visited lots of orphanages and youth homes, before Verna Agyrl came into office. Children played together, they laughed and ran and chased each other, in grass that was green, under a sky that was blue.
Verna Agyrl closed all those refuges, and when my parents protested, they were...
Sorry.
Excuse me. Sorry, I can give you any other background info you want, I can talk about anything else, I can go on for hours about tibian and the streets and my friends, but that... I can't. Not yet.
Okay, okay, cut it out. Stars, don't cry for me. Put away that hankie, lady, I mean it. Yeah, it hurts to talk about my parents, yeah, sometimes at night my chest is so tight I can hardly breathe. But you just don't get it, do you? What happened to me, what I went through, is the least of the stories I could tell you. Some of these kids I take care of saw their parents tortured. Some endured it themselves. Some escaped from slavery, from slavery in brothels. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Don't waste your tears on me.
Anyway, now the youth homes are gone. There is no grass, only black pavement. Blue sky is gray and cloudy, dirtied with pollution. We kids are on our own.
The Enforcers wanted me to join them, back when I turned thirteen. All teenagers are welcome in their ranks, even those that had been homeless. I could have gone to a gov facility and gotten food and clothes and a bed, been treated like a person, an employee, instead of garbage to be stepped on and shoved out of sight. I could have had opportunities for promotion, for a better life far away from the streets.
And a gun. They would have given me a beamer for killing trespassers. If I had refused at first I would have been brainwashed, my self, my true eaten away as by acid.
No thanks, mister. I prefer the streets, if it's all the same to you. So I stuck with the little group of children I had begun to gather together, trying to care for as many as possible.
You do understand that I'm putting the kids in danger by telling you about them and the crawlspace and my name and all? Could you change the names for privacy, and maybe air this only off planet?
Oh, okay. Whew. For a moment there... These kids mean a lot to me, more than, well, more than my own safety.
And that's why I was outside, watching Rystel play with his flickshiv. I could have crept into the crawlspace with the others, but I wanted to make sure he wouldn't find it. Maybe I could lure him away or something. I knew this creep pretty well; he had been the neighborhood bully near my house, growing up. I know his dad beat up on him, but that's no excuse. Every choice you make is your own--you can't blame anyone else.
I didn't know who or what Rystel was waiting for, but I knew it was nothing I wanted to be involved in. So I tried to make myself as small as possible, cringing like a cur against the garbage bin. When I was little I used to be afraid of the dark, but when I landed on the street I got over that pretty quickly. When you're small and helpless and alone, you learn fast, or you die. The dark is my friend, my ally. Comforter. Protector, only one I've got, 'sides maybe the Maker, if He's real.
But Rystel had one of those little pinlights you clip to a finger, issued by the government. After playing with the flickshiv for a quarter of a watch or so, he put it away on his belt and activated the pinlight. Idly he swung it around alley, as if participating in a game, whistling a tavern ditty through his teeth. I sucked in a breath and pressed myself tighter against the garbage bin, but the laser-thin beam of light found me anyway.
Rystel stopped whistling, and I felt his grin, jagged yellow in the darkness. "Well, well, look what I found," he said in a kind of singsong, sounding very pleased with himself.
He shone the sharp white pinlight right in my eyes and I threw up a forearm to shade them, squinting and blinking. My heartbeat sped up, playing catch-bounce on my ribs. I couldn't let him see, I had to seem bold and strong and tough.
"If it isn't the rat-leader. Where's your pack, street rat?" Rystel grabbed me by the hair and dragged me into the middle of the alley. I bit my lip to keep from yelling.
"None of your business, Enforcer," I snarled, making the title sound like a bad word. "If we've found a shopkeeper over on Tairan Street that'll let us sleep in the storeroom when the shop's closed, what's that to you?"
I was bluffing. If only a shopkeeper were so benevolent! Still I stared defiantly up at the big youth, trying to hide my anxiety as he held the light in my eyes.
Rystel laughed. "Yeah, right! And Verna Agyrl has opened his mansion to be a home for the sick and dying!" He shrugged. "Oh, well, who cares? Come on, Kri-rat, we have a use for you."
He had me by the collar of my threadbare tunic and was jerking me toward the entrance of the alley. I heard fabric rip. I fought him, though I was glad we were moving away from the garbage bin and the hidden hole in the wall.
"Where are you taking me?" I protested, pointlessly. "What do you want? What's the 'use' you have for me? Let go!"
"I was supposed to be standing watch, but Harding said if I caught a rat, I should bring it in. Ladies are suckers for little kids with big, scared eyes."
I had no doubt my eyes were big, and maybe I am a kid, but I sure hoped I didn't look scared. "What do ladies have to do with anything? Let go, you're hurting my neck!"
Rystel just laughed that mean laugh of his and twisted my collar tighter, choking me. I couldn't breathe. "Stop fighting and it won't hurt as much, you little idiot. You'll see soon enough what ladies have to do with it."
My air was cut off. My peripheral vision was beginning to close in on blackness, and I gasped soundlessly. I swung at Rystel, but didn't connect, and I heard his laughter as if through furlongs of thick, murky water. Too long, too long, I needed air right away!
We were on the street, now, Rystel dragging my fast fading body along. I stumbled and almost fell, but he held me up. I was losing it, blacking out...
"What's this?"
Suddenly the pressure on my neck eased. I gasped and wheezed, pulling in deep grateful gulps of air that was ninety-percent smog. Spots danced in front of my eyes as I looked up, trying to make out the form of my rescuer.
It was a man in a dark purple captain's uniform, his features craggy as a water-carved ravine. His calloused hands were on my shoulders, holding me up. I fought for oxygen and coughed breathlessly, my throat aching.
"Here's a rat, sir," Rystel said proudly, as if I was just a big fish he'd caught on a pleasure excursion. "You told me to bring it in, if I found one."
"I didn't tell you choke it to death, though," the captain gritted, his eyes seething black cauldrons with steam creeping from under their covers. "You've half killed the boy!"
Rystel's face fell. I could almost find it in myself to feel sorry for him. "Sorry, Captain Harding, sir," he muttered.
"Give me back that tibian flickshiv," Harding ordered gruffly. "It was to be a reward for a job well done, not a payment for needless cruelty."
Rystel's eyes were resentful as he obeyed, slapping the leather-bound handle into the gov agent's hand. The Enforcer glared at me as if it was my fault, and I could only blink at him, my chest still heaving desperately.
"Now get back to your post, and don't leave it again."
Rystel stalked off and I watched him go, somewhat worried. But I was willing to bet that after this scene he would be too busy nursing his bruised ego to notice anything around him. And my two friends would know to keep the kids quiet in my absence.
I looked back at Harding and he was smiling at me in what he no doubt thought was a soothing manner, his hand friendly on my quivering shoulders.
"Well, fare ye well to foulness," he said in a companionable tone. I almost wished Rystel was around to hear the old saying, adding insult to insult, so to speak. "What's your name, my boy?"
"Kri," I rasped, feeling slightly safer, paradoxically. I didn't know what this gov man wanted with me, but at least he wasn't going to be as casually brutal as the Enforcers. He obviously wanted my trust, and that I wasn't about to give, but I was willing to play along until I found out what was going on.
"Well, Kri, I am Captain Harding. I'm on a special mission here in Rismyne. Would you care to hear what it is?"
He was talking to me as if I was four years old. I nodded as eagerly as any toddler, trying to perpetuate his delusion. Better he underestimate me, which is hard to do anyway. And I am a little undersized. My breathing was almost back to normal now, but my throat still hurt.
"Well, you know that Verna Agyrl is trying to make the planet safe by purging it of undesirables. He wants only Crenellian born Humans here, no aliens, no Elves and Dwarves, no foreigners."
Harding acted as if this was the best thing since reconstituted bread. I nodded as eagerly as before, keeping my disgust off my face. I knew where that plan went. Orphanages closed, emptied of 'undesirables.' 'Desirable' but unwilling teens brainwashed into submission. Adult dissenters slain...
"Well, there are some on Crenellia that don't like that plan!" Harding widened his eyes in exaggerated shock. I mirrored him. "There are reporters, foreign reporters, who would tell lies about good Verna Agyrl. Stories that he ordered people killed, that he has bad methods for purging undesirables! Stupid lies--you and I would never, ever believe them"
I shook my head incredulously. My amazement was unfeigned. Harding had no idea who I was, how I had ended up a street brat.
"Well, these foreign reporters have a whole bunch of fake evidence they concocted. Tonight they're going to take a transport off Crenellia, and spread those nasty lies all over the galaxy! We can't let that happen, Kri. So we are going to stop them."
I nodded proudly and even puffed out my chest a little, as if delighted to be part of such a grand scheme. Then I pretended to deflate. "But, but what do you want with me, Captain Harding, sir?" I asked plaintively. My voice was still a little hoarse, but much better. "I'm just a street kid. I can't do anything."
The captain grinned. He thought he had me, easy as cherry pudding. "Why, you don't need to do anything, my boy, just be yourself. You see that groundskimmer over there?"
I looked to where he pointed, and nodded. It was Black Marskela, a vehicle used to haul prisoners.
"Inside are a number of citizens we've--ahem--recruited from the streets. You will join them. See, to fool the stupid foreigners, we will take you all to the launch site and line you up there, and tell the reporters that if they do not give us the fake evidence and the story lies they've made up, we'll kill you."
I tried to look alarmed, but I'd been expecting this. "Really?"
"But of course we won't," he said hastily. "We would never harm our precious citizens. But it will fool the stupid foreigners."
Stupid Harding, I thought contemptuously. How dumb do you think I am?
I grinned. "Oh, that's a good plan, Captain."
He looked regretful. "I'm afraid you'll have to be in cuffs. You won't mind, will you? Of course not. Brave boy! But you must act as terrified as possible to melt the hearts of the lady reporters. I'm certain you'll do a marvelous job, as will all our other citizen actors!"
"Yes sir, Captain Harding," I said excitedly, throwing a fake salute. I knew how to do the real one, but gave him the little kids' version, open palm out on chest, fingers splayed askew instead of folded together, knife-like.
He laughed delightedly. "Wonderful!"
At that moment two other gov men were dragging a cuffed vino to the Black Marskela. He had heard most of it and yelled to me harshly, "Don't be such an idiot, kid! He wants you cooperative!"
One of the men dragging him brained him with a rubclub, and Harding laughed again. "My, isn't he a good actor?"
I nodded, grinning, but I felt very sick inside.
"Come, let's get you a pair of cuffs and you can join the other actors in the groundskimmer."
It was dark inside the Black Marskela, but enough light came from a single ceiling lightpanel for me to vaguely see my fellow prisoners. We were a pitiful lot, all homeless street people. The vino I had met earlier was on my right, moaning from the knot the rubclub had raised on his head and looking at me with a kind of queasy pity. On my left was desperate-eyed young woman trying to cradle her one-year-old daughter with her cuffed hands. The baby was cuffed too, attached to her mother.
The rest of the Black Marskela held the most pathetic-looking bunch the gov men could find. Old folks and skinny, skinny, middle-agers, sobbing kids--none of mine, fortunately--and one angry-looking young man, his face covered with cuts and bruises, his left eye swollen shut. All had their hands cuffed in front of them, and most looked to be in utter despair, certain they were going to die tonight.
I nodded to the vino, who was still looking at me pityingly. "Hi." I swallowed some spit to moisten my raw throat. "They just grab you for no reason, like they did me?"
He looked surprised, then suspicious, his bleary eyes narrowing. "Are you the same kid I saw talking to Harding outside?"
"Yes."
He shook his head. "You don't sound like him. Don't act like him either. And in this light, who can tell if you look like him?"
I smiled, even chuckled a little bit. "You have a point, mister. But I'm the same person. You were supposed to be acting out there? Well, I was."
Surprise returned, and then a kind of shocked, beaming glee, spreading a grin across his entire face. It changed his rough, unshaven visage into something quite different, almost pleasant. The face of a friend.
The vino chuckled softly and slapped his knee with a cuffed hand. "Well, I'll be a razor-toothed iguadon. Put 'er there, kid." He held out his hands, right stretched for a shake. "You had that old stink-devil completely fooled, while he thought he had you."
I shook his hand, smiling warmly. "I'm Kri, and I don't like this fix we're in one little bit."
"I'm Kiv, and I don't like it any better."
We sighed in unison, which elicited some gloomy chuckles from our companions. I turned to the young woman beside me, who was still struggling to settle her fussing little girl.
"Here, ma'am, perhaps I can help. Little ones seem to like me."
Sure enough the baby responded to my touch, and laid down on her mother's shoulder with a tiny sigh. The young woman laid her encumbered hands on her daughter's back and gave me a weary smile. "Thank you, Kri. My name is Akir, and my child is Jaly."
"What did the gov man tell you, Kri?" asked a quavering elderly voice toward the front. "We know only that he means no good."
"I thought they wanted me for my rebellious activities," said the young man with the purple eye, nodding, "but I don't think they even knew of them. I was chosen at random, apparently for my pitiful appearance, though it was a disguise." He indicated his battered face. "My struggles were punished though, regardless." A crooked smile, endearingly roguish. "I am Banik Navish."
I told them what Captain Harding had explained to me, minus the propaganda spin. Most of my fellow prisoners were outraged--some were simply sunk too far in despair to care.
"We can't let Harding have his way," Banik said vehemently, clenching his hands into useless fists. "The truth has to get out to the rest of the galaxy. It's the only chance we have for justice!"
"How do you intend to stop him, friend?" Kiv asked, lifting his hands to emphasize the fact that they were cuffed.
"I don't know. I'm not good at planning." The young man looked at me, as if I was some kind of leader or something. "You agree with me, don't you, Kri? We can't let this happen!"
I blinked at him and shook my head. "I agree with you, Banik, but Kiv is right. There's not a whole lot we can do."
"There must be something," Akir murmured, lowering her temple to rest on her baby's head. "I don't want this to happen."
I just shook my head despairingly. "I can't think of anything, except maybe if we all managed to kill ourselves before we reach the launch site. Then they wouldn't have any hostages to bargain with, only naked force."
The groundskimmer began to move, and we all felt the slight lurch that began us on our smooth, silent, electrically powered way. For several minutes, everyone was quiet, stilled by my words. I was fighting despair--there had to be some way!
At last Banik Navish shook his head in decision. "Unacceptable." He looked around, catching the eyes of as many people as possible. "When the shooting starts, hug the ground."
Kiv stared at him with bleary hope. The thin, ragged derelict was looking more sober by the second. "You got somethin', young fella?"
"A transponder, hidden in the sole of my boot. I just activated it." Banik grinned. "It's for emergency use only, so I didn't think of it at first. My comrades will track our location, and I do not think they will not interfere."
"But transponders are illegal now," Akir protested, eyes wide.
If possible, the young man's grin got even wider. "Like we're gonna listen to Agyrl and his policies, banning useful technology."
"You're with the CRF," I stated flatly, not sure whether to be pleased or not.
Banik nodded, and I flattened my lips into a straight line. The Crenellian Resistance Front have a reputation for wildness and unpredictability. Badly organized and poorly protected, they're mostly kids like me out for revenge for the deaths of dissenting loved ones. They might have weapons--old beamers, antique projectile weapons, homemade incendiaries--but I wasn't sure I wanted such a bunch coming to my rescue.
But they were the only ones who would.
Our only chance. I forced myself to smile at the others. "When we get there, I'm going back into my stupid kid act. Don't act surprised or you'll get me killed."
They nodded. Akir looked impressed with my bravery, which made me feel nauseated. I wanted to tell her what an idiot I am, how I let Rystel take me so easily, with almost no fight, and how pretending to be duped by Harding was a coward's path. It was easier than the defiance that would have earned me blows, and cuffs much tighter than the ones that loosely held my wrists.
I held my peace. So did everyone else in the groundskimmer, except a couple of terrified little children who couldn't stop sniveling. I wished my hands were free so I could take them in my arms and comfort them the way I do my own kids, in the nights when the bad dreams return. I could almost feel the blipping of the unseen in transponder in Banik's boot, I was so intensely aware of it.
The ride wasn't long, but it seemed to last an age. Stars, what a cliché that is, huh? But it's true. You never realize how slow time can crawl until you're trapped in a dark vehicle with no way to tell time, being hurried along to your death.
No, I don't wanna discuss what I was thinking about on that trip. Keep your personal questions to yourself, pal.
At the launch site they hauled us out of the groundskimmer and lined us up, each with a gov beamer held to a conveniently lethal portion of anatomy. We were twelve prisoners all together, including baby Jaly, all rat-skinny, clothed in rags, and absolutely heart-wrenching to look at for soft-hearted foreigners. Akir was gray under her dark brown skin, and Banik looked faintly triumphant, as if his CRF friends had already won. Kiv looked as sick as I felt.
The transport was all ready in the launch pit, and the four geothermic slingshot towers glowed with power, as if the countdown had been halted just before zero. But the transport hatch was open, and the five foreign reporters stood there--an Elven woman, a Scirlan man, and three non-Crenellian humans, a woman and two men. The Scirlan and one of the non-Crenellian men held image recorders and audio equipment, the other three had badges testifying to which galactic newsservice they were affiliated. All looked shocked and very, very unhappy about the man in the purple captain's uniform who was standing in front of them.
Captain Harding had evidently already issued his ultimatum, for he gestured at us. "See, here are the hostages, as I said." In his hand was some kind of remote control device, and I felt a bad tingling at the back of my skull.
Danger. That remote was danger and death. And not just for me.
Harding saw me and busted into a big grin. I just stared back at him with big wide eyes like an innocent kid. I exaggerated an expression of fright that would fool no one, 'pretending' to be scared, to fool Harding.
It's a twisted world, isn't it?
Harding seemed to like it. He chuckled a little, and came over to take me from the agent who was sticking a muzzle into the soft flesh under my left shoulder blade. "I'll take this lad, Nyison," he said to his subordinate, and gently but firmly gripped my upper arm. "Come, my boy," he said to me, and led me back over to the reporters.
I went willingly, but if I had resisted I'm sure he would have had no trouble dragging me, however I struggled. I could feel the reserved strength in his almost fleshless fingers. I stared at the reporters with wildly overdone fear, so fake they had to catch it.
Harding gently placed his beamer against my temple, and I heard the safety click off, a loud click that vibrated through the bones of my face. It was a Lumagun, a particularly nasty model that combined the usual laser blast with a deadly dose of radiation. It would take me several minutes to die, my flesh boiled away from the inside out.
"This innocent youngster will be the first to go, if you refuse," he said softly. The quietness of his voice only magnified the malice in it. "Start bringing out the evidence you have hidden in the transport. You have three minutes to think it over."
Sweat popped out on my forehead, but I forced my to stay relaxed in his grip. Surprise was my only asset. Harding must not, he must not know I was preparing twist away until I had already done it, and was free.
The Elven reporter pursed her lips, fair features calm and cool despite the compassionate anxiety I detected in her eyes. I was close enough to read her badge now--Disa Velms, United News. "Sir, I am afraid that we cannot comply. The galaxy must know what has truly happened here on Crenellia, and we are the only messengers."
Her apparent serenity riled Harding out of his false suaveness. "Then you are murdering these people!" he snarled, shaking me roughly and jamming the gun into my skin. He could not see my face so I didn't wince, but just set my teeth and kept myself relaxed.
"Their blood will be on your hands, elf-freak," he repeated harshly, and his bony fingers bit into my arm.
Velms shook her heavy-maned head. "No. You alone bear responsibility for your actions."
"But you can prevent them, woman!"
Harding had put the remote in his pocket to hold the Lumagun on me. Now he reholstered the weapon and retrieved the device. Again I felt the warning tingle. This was bad.
"Do you know what this is for, Velms?" the gov man said tauntingly, waving the metal box under her nose. "It's an activator. In the cuffs of each prisoner is a small amount of plastic explosives, just enough to kill the person wearing them. They will die slowly and in agony, their abdomens ripped open. All I need do is tell my men to back away three or four paces, then flip this lever."
I don't know why he bothered. Weren't the beamers enough of a threat to our lives? Maybe he's just one those people that get a kick a out of things blowing up and people dying in screaming agony.
Still the elf-reporter hesitated, blinking solemnly at Harding's twisted face. I swallowed in real fear. He could shove me into her arms and hit the button faster than we could react, and she would die as well. I couldn't let that happen.
Disa Velms waited just a heartbeat longer, and Harding was fed up. "Back away!" he called to his men, and they did, shoving the hostages into a disorganized huddle.
He shifted his hold to my neck, keeping my body between him and my cuffs. "It's just as well," he growled. "I enjoy battling my way into ships, and this will be twelve less vermin to mar the fair streets of Rismyne."
And then came the wild war whoops of the CRF, and perhaps a score of young men and women swarmed into the launch area from the cover of the slingshot towers, firing their guns, no two alike. In the half-heartbeat of surprise, I spun out of Harding's grip, then spun back and kicked the remote from his hand and the Lumagun from his holster. I heard Banik yelling for the other prisoners to get down, but I was already running over to the remote to stomp on it, jumping with both feet. Laser smoke stung my eyes and the insides of my nostrils.
The remote was made of durable materials, and I wasn't heavy enough to crush it with one jump. My attention was absorbed for several moments before I felt the plastic assembly parts cracking under my heel, the pieces scattering on the ground. Then a wall of iron seemed to batter me aside like a giant hand, and I went down hard, cracking my elbow on the 'crete, jerking tears from my eyes. I smelled blood and ozone.
Captain Harding was on his knees by the remote, trying to gather it up, but he quickly saw that it was useless. He stood up, heedless of the CRF bullets and laser speeding around, and screamed to his men, "Kill them! Kill them all!"
I rolled over and lurched to my feet, looking for Disa Velms. She and the other foreigners had ducked into the transport, perhaps to flee. I hoped they would--the slingshot towers were ready to release, snapping the ship into orbit, from which it could head out to inhabited planets or ports unknown.
Isn't that a great phrase, ports unknown? Someday I want to visit a few of those.
A CRF fighter had gotten to the prisoners and was unsnapping cuffs. Most people stayed down even after being freed, a wise action. But a few stood up to join the fight, Kiv and Banik among them. The cuffs were left where they had fallen, no threat with remote destroyed.
"You!" Harding screamed.
I snapped my head around and knew a stab of fear. The captain was running toward me, craggy face twisted and red, tibian flickshiv outstretched, silver blade extended. I was completely defenseless.
But I haven't survived these streets as long as I have for nothing. As he reached me I fell over backwards, kicking up my feet to get him in the stomach as I raised my cuffed hands to ward off the blade. Better a severed finger than a skewered heart.
The shiv met the chain that attached my cuffs--and passed right on, only slightly slowed, a needle through cheese. My feet caught Harding's abdomen, though, shortening his reach so the tibian blade only gouged a furrow in my chest and arm, and didn't kill me. Harding whuffed out his breath in a massive grunt and rolled off me, doubled over on the ground.
I scrambled to my knees and knocked the flickshiv from his weakened grip, then looked around frantically. The Lumagun, where was the Lumagun? There, a dozen paces away, by a slingshot tower that pulsed blue with waiting energy. I didn't want to use it, but I needed something to defend myself with.
I climbed unsteadily to my feet to retrieve it, but suddenly Harding loomed before me, leering wolfishly. I had not knocked him out, only winded him. I recoiled with a gasp and sidestepped, putting my back to the tower and the Lumagun.
"You're a clever little brat," the captain sneered in a low, dangerous voice. His hand lashed out open and I tried to block it, but wasn't fast enough. It caught me hard across the face and I reeled, stepping back.
"You had me completely fooled." Again the lightning fist, too fast for me to counter. I felt a rib go as it smashed against my chest, and I stumbled backward, only barely keeping my feet.
"I should just execute you, but I won't." This time the fist slammed my upper arm where he had bruised me earlier. I could not trap the cry of pain that escaped me. I kept retreating.
"I'm going to keep you alive, perhaps as a house slave." He grinned evilly. "Yes, that sounds good." The blow to the temple almost crushed me to darkness. This man was strong. I just kept backing away, not even trying to block his hands anymore.
"I will punish you severely, foolish, clever little rat. You will desire death, but I will not give it to you."
The blows kept coming and I kept backpedaling, trying not to weep from the pain. I could feel the tingle of energy at my back from the supercharged tower. Almost there... please, Maker, let me make it before I pass out, he hits so hard...
I'm there! The tower is at my back! Now, if I could just scoop up the gun and get it around before he could stop me...
No! Harding's rigid fingers found the gash he had made on my chest and arm and ripped through it, rousing exposed nerves to excruciating pain. I screamed, black in my vision, my body falling on top of the Lumagun that was supposed to save me...
Kiv, behind Harding--somewhere he had gotten hold of a gov-issue beamer. "No, Kiv! Get down--they're aiming for you--"
Too late! Kiv fell... But as he fell, he pulled the trigger, and Captain Harding fell also, on top of me.
Sobbing, I heaved the limp body off and crawled over to Kiv. His eyes were dimming. I grabbed his hand.
"Oh, Kiv--no! He wasn't even going to kill me! Just slavery and beatings, that's all!"
Kiv coughed, and smiled painfully. His scruffy face was the face of a friend. "Just a worthless vino..." he whispered. "Not worth your tears..."
"No, Kiv, no! My fault, all my fault..."
"No... my choices are my own. And your choices are yours. Thank you, Kri, for making my death less worthless than my life..."
And he was gone.
"No life is worthless," I whispered forcefully.
I had known him for perhaps half a watch. Who was he, this Kiv? Who had he been before Verna Agyrl made so many homeless, with only vine for comfort? What could he have been in the future, if he had made it to the other side of this battle?
I will never know.
Excuse me.
You know the rest--how the CRF fighters had surrounded the prisoners, faces outwards, firing all the while. You inside the ship channeled the slingshot tower energy to weapons, and drove off the gov men. They left eight fallen, including Captain Harding, and the CRF lost three, with six wounded. Banik won't be walking too well for awhile, and Kiv is dead...
Later you came out and found me, still sitting by Kiv, holding his cold hand. Harding came around and began to moan--only wounded, not dead. The CRF fighters will dump him at the nearest gov facility, when you have finished recording their stories.
You did not lose anything, but instead are gaining more stories for your collection. As you asked, I have told you all about the street and what is happening there, where I have come from, what I am doing. There is more I could say, much more.
I can hear the whine of the slingshot towers, and I know they are almost all charged up again, ready for launch. Please find good homes for those that are escaping Crenellia with you. Akir and Jaly, the frightened children...
And thank you for the offer of passage to another planet, but I'm staying here. So is Banik. We both have things to do, crusades to fight, people to protect. The children need me, as they needed my parents.
Thanks for patching up my wounds, and thanks for the medkit. It will find good use in the crawlspace behind the garbage bin, believe me. Perhaps disease will not be so dangerous a predator for awhile.
Yes, I plan to keep the flickshiv, as I reminder if nothing else. I don't know how to use a shiv, and I could never, ever afford tibian of this quality--or any quality, for that matter--but I will always remember. No life is worthless.
Please tell the galaxy what is happening here. Let the people know how things truly stand on Crenellia. Only the truth can set us free, the truth and the involvement of those on the side of right.
Good-bye, Miss Velms, Mister Noff the Scirlan. Perhaps I will see you again, someday.
End notes: Kri walked away without looking back, his slender young shoulders set in determination, the medkit slung over his unbandaged arm. He was right--the towers are almost at full charge now, and we will be leaving soon. This reporter does not regret leaving Crenellia, planet of corruption and sorrow, but she regrets what was not done. Too much suffering is left unrelieved here. Perhaps others will return to carry on the 'involvement of the right,' now that we know the truth.
Disa Velms, United News, signing off.
Comments: Welcome to my laboratory.
This story is an experiment. I've been writing for as long as I can
remember, and I've had my own fantasy world, Maychoria, since I was
thirteen. But this is my first attempt at original science fiction. I've written
quite a bit for Star Wars, at www.swstory.com, and while thinking
about that, I realized that I wanted to expand some of my stories there,
develop the characters more fully. I was miffed that the stories I had written
these characters for were closed, finished.
Then I realized something. Hey, these are my characters--I can do what I
want with them!
So I moved Maychoria several millenia into the future and started
writing, transfering my favorite original Star Wars characters over to my own
universe, which I have tentaively begun calling Darkened Planet.
Someday this may grow into a novel. Right now the whole thing is still
under construction. This short story is meant to introduce my protagonist,
Kri, and his environment, giving quite a lot of background which is probably
pretty boring.
I think I may have taken a bit too long getting into the main story, talking
too much about the streets and everything. If your attention wavered in the
set-up (which was far too long, more than 1,000 words) please let me know,
and I'll see about it cutting it up.
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