AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
COSMA
“All hands on deck!”Tayla shouted, bringing everyone on the ship to attention at once.
I remained seated, watching and waiting. I’d been aboard Tayla’s ship for a little over three months, and I had the hang of things, more or less. The one thing I knew was that whenever our fearless leader said those words, it meant we were about to have a showdown. The first few times, I stayed back. I wasn’t ready for combat. I wasn’t ready to face the reality of what the Patrol was putting those women through. If I was being honest, I was still dealing with my own shit after leaving Kychek behind.
But this time was different.
This time I had my weapons ready to go, and I was ready to fight for those who couldn’t save themselves. More than anything, I was ready to kick some Patrol ass. After what they did to Kychek over all those years, I was more than ready. And I knew if I didn’t take the chance to do something wild now, I might never get another one.
“What are we up against, Captain?” Soleil piped up. She was a true warrior, and we were lucky to have her. Tayla and Adreax found her on one of their first runs, and she’d been loyal to them ever since.
“Just got a report of an outpost. It’s heavily armed and swarming with activity. Things are going to be a little different this time around. We’re going to be fighting on the ground and they’re going to have the upper hand. They’ll see us coming and they aren’t just going to invite us in. We need to be ready to drop in and run while the pilots move the ship to a safe distance. They’ll come back around to get us when I send the signal.”
“How many women are there?” I asked, finding my voice.
“We can’t be sure. It’s a large facility, but our intel suggests that they’re housing both male and female prisoners down there.”
There was a murmur among the ship’s crew at this revelation. We knew the Patrol was stealing women to use for their evil experiments, attempting to breed superior offspring, but this was the first any of us had heard of male prisoners.
“Will the men be joining us?” Someone else asked hesitantly.
Tayla and Adreax shared a silent look, communicating the way only couples do, before she cleared her throat and answered.
“If they are housed in the same facility and can be easily freed, they are welcome to join us. However, we are working on a tight schedule, and we can’t afford to make any detours.”
There was an uneasy moment after she finished speaking, and I imagined we were all thinking the same thing. It wasn’t fair to leave the men behind, but whatever the Patrol was holding them for, it couldn’t be as bad as what they were doing to the women. If we wanted to succeed, we had to prioritize, and that meant taking only the prisoners we could get to on our first pass.
“All right. We have a few hours to go over our plans and get ready. You all know where you need to be.”
“Um…” I, of course, did not know where I needed to be. And that everyone around me jumped into action immediately only made me that much more unsure of myself. I’d spent days talking myself up to this moment, telling myself that I was finally ready to pull on my big girl panties and make a difference in this universe, but now that the moment was upon me, I felt pretty lost.
“You’re with me, Cosma” Soleil said, giving me a friendly nudge to the shoulder.
When I looked up, she was beaming down at me and I could practically see the fire in her eyes. She was revved up and ready to go. I had no doubt that if Tayla told her to jump out the cargo hatch at that very instant, she would happily go, guns blazing all the way down. I supposed when it came time to face off with the bad guys, I would come to appreciate that extra bit of courage, but at the moment, it was nothing short of intimidating.
“You want me? But I’ve never-”
“Gotta start somewhere, sunshine! And I heard you have a good long list of frustrations to get out of your system. I think you’re just who I need to watch my back. Come on, let’s go see what we can dig up on this place. I’m going straight for the throat.”
I followed Soleil back to a console where a grainy image of the outpost was already uploaded. As I watched over her shoulder, she began tapping and zooming, mumbling to herself as she went. To me, it all looked like a fuzzy mass. I couldn’t tell the difference between the buildings and the vast expanses of sand surrounding them. Every once in a while I would see a dark dot that might have been a transport vehicle or maybe a guard, but I could not make sense of what I was seeing or how it might be of use to us.
“Ah-ha! That’s what we’re looking for.”
I frowned, squinting at the image as if I might discover the hidden secret that was so obvious to my companion. No luck. “I’m sorry, but what are we looking for?”
Soleil laughed, a hearty sound that made me smile despite my confusion. “Look, here.” She pointed at an area of the image that was two shades darker than the rest. “This shadowy area tells us the direction of the sun’s movement, and it gives me a good idea of the tallest point of the facility. It’s not foolproof, but the tallest tower is usually where the top brass sits and monitors things. When we go down there, we’re going to run straight for this building and climb the first set of stairs we see. We don’t stop climbing until we get all the way to the top. Got it?”
I nodded. “What about everyone else?”
“They’re going to find the prisoners. Our job is to keep the guards busy long enough for them to get out. First in, last out.”
I swallowed hard. When I’d told Tayla I was ready to join the next mission, I hadn’t expected her to throw me straight into the front lines. But with Soleil staring up at me expectantly, I couldn’t back down. I’d spent every day on Kychek wishing I could break free of the mundane life that I’d grown up in, and this was finally my chance. I would not shy away from it now.
“Let’s do it,” I said at last, taking a deep breath and steadying myself. Tayla was going to be counting on us, and I wanted nothing more than to show her that I could do this. I could handle it.
Soleil looked at her console and turned back to me. “You should get some rest. We have a little time, and you’re going to need all the strength you can muster. Trust me.”
