“No.”
Everyone turned to Phasma.
“We will not stay here,” she continued.
“You will. You’re the Arratu. The people have chosen you, and it can’t be helped. You might control the arena, but I control the gates.”
“I can change that.” Phasma stepped closer, and Vrod took a wary step back.
Phasma’s sword slashed so quickly that it was barely a flash of silver. Siv had forgotten that her leader was still armed. When Phasma stood still again, her sword was wet with blood and a patch of red bloomed against Vrod’s robes.
“But…” he started.
“That is what I think of your Arratu,” Phasma said. “This is no way to rule.”
Vrod fell, his eyes searching the ceiling. Siv squatted beside him and took his hand.
“Where are our things? The ones you took?” she asked.
Vrod pointed toward a corner, and Gosta hurried to it and opened the door. A pile of bags sat within, and Siv recognized her own. Without a word, Gosta brought them to her, and Siv pulled out a detraxor.
“Knew…that tech…might be useful…” Vrod sputtered.
Siv held his hand tightly, knowing his time was short.
“Medicine?” he asked.
“Shh.” His hand was going cold, his lips blue. The rug underneath him was soaked in red.
“Fix me!”
“Some situations have no solution,” Siv whispered as he drew his last breath.
Sending up the prayer, she set about recovering what she could from the fallen man. A great sense of well-being thrummed through her now that she was reunited with her detraxors and able to help her people.
As if reading Siv’s mind, Phasma stepped forward and spoke.
“Gather your things. Eat and take what you need. Collect all the water and food you can carry. We must leave here and be on our way. This place has been poisoned, and there is no saving it. I can see General Hux’s ship from the window, and we’ve a long way to go still.”
Even Brendol nodded agreement. Perhaps it was the borrowed veil of the Arratu, but there was a new power to Phasma, as if she’d become something more in this dying city. As if, in taking the Arratu’s head, she’d also taken his authority.
“Go on. Now,” Phasma snapped, and both the Scyre folk and the stormtroopers hurried to prepare themselves. As for Brendol, he merely continued enjoying the Arratu’s food and drink and took up the quadnocs to look out the window for himself.
Their old clothes were gone, probably tossed out somewhere near the barracks. As Siv finished harvesting Vrod’s essence with her detraxor, Torben found his weapons and Gosta put on her mask, sighing with relief. The stormtroopers strapped their blasters back on, and Brendol left the window and pawed through his own sack in his usual secretive way. Phasma methodically added her blaster, ax, and spear to her costume, although she kept the white helmet on and left her old helmet and her red mask in her pack. They split up the food on the table, wrapping it in whatever bits of cloth they found lying around. There was more than enough of that, after all.
Brendol searched the room until he found a screen like the ones at Terpsichore Station, this one hidden by draperies. After several attempts, he was able to enter the system and study the layout of the large factory. He pointed out the hangar where the GAVs would be waiting, and he and Phasma debated the best way to get there. They still hadn’t seen another person besides Vrod and the servants he’d helpfully sent out.
“Anyone we encounter in the halls must be dispatched silently,” Brendol said.
“Even the innocent ones?” Gosta asked.
Brendol rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to think of yourself as a soldier now. You’re in a war, and no one is innocent. It’s them against us, and they’ve proven that they’ll gladly capture, beat, or kill whoever they want. You heard Vrod. Loss of life is an everyday occurrence here. We’ll only get one chance to break out. After that, we’ll be watched and probably imprisoned. If anyone gets in your way, destroy them.”
“They are an attacking force,” Phasma added. “And you know how we treat attacking forces.”
Gosta nodded, but her lips twisted. The girl was conflicted, and Siv shared her doubts. For all that Vrod and his Sentries had been cruel, the majority of the population was pitiable. When she looked to Torben, she noticed the little furrow between his brows that suggested he wasn’t happy. But she also saw the firm set to his jaw that promised he’d do what had to be done anyway.
Phasma didn’t have to ask if her people were ready. All she had to do was move to the door and tilt her head. Siv still didn’t know how Phasma was functioning after being beaten nearly to death by Wranderous yesterday, but she wasn’t about to ask. Whatever medicine or magic Brendol had saved for that desperate moment had served its purpose. The helmet was becoming Phasma’s new mask, and as long as she was wearing it, Siv wouldn’t incur her wrath by trying to discover the other woman’s feelings. She merely stood, collected the bags containing her things and the detraxors, and took her usual place between Torben and Gosta, her blade and blaster in her hands, ready to fight.
The door slid up smoothly. Outside the room, the servants waited in a row, their backs to the wall and their heads down. Siv wasn’t sure if this was what Brendol meant about people getting in their way, but she understood the moment the troopers began shooting—well, executing—the servants with their blasters, and her heart sank.
“Hurry!”
At Brendol’s call, they looked to Phasma and followed her, just as if they were back home in the Scyre. Phasma jogged ahead easily, blaster and sword in hand, leading the group down the twisting hallways she’d memorized from Brendol’s map. At first, they didn’t encounter anyone. But then Siv heard a soft, “Hey!” and watched a woman’s body slide off Phasma’s spear and crumple to the ground.
So that was how it was now. No questions asked. No one given the chance to sound the alarm.
When she heard footsteps in the hall behind them, Siv spun and sliced the interloper in one smooth motion. She’d long ago learned that the only way to survive was to do whatever Phasma told her to do. Perhaps she’d disobeyed in the arena with Wranderous, who was already dying, but now she would not dare to disappoint. They had to escape and find Brendol’s ship. She had to keep her baby safe no matter what.
They found the hangar door, and Brendol tapped in the code. The door slid up, and all of Vrod’s Sentries looked up from where they sat around a table, playing a game with colorful bits of fabric.
“Where’s Vrod?” someone asked, and that someone took a blaster bolt to the chest.
Siv stepped forward and stood her ground between Torben and Phasma, waiting to see what steps her leader would take. Without a word, Phasma began shooting before Vrod’s people even stood up from their game. The air filled with the sound of blasterfire, bolts of red lighting up clouds of smoke. Soon Siv could smell roasting meat, and there was no one left breathing around that table. The Arratu Sentries’ untouched weapons lay strewn on the ground around them, bits of machines and clubs like those from the Scyre fallen beside ancient blasters on the smooth white floor.
“Get in the GAVs,” Brendol urged as he tapped in a code to open the huge hangar door. “Those three.”
The two stormtroopers unplugged the vehicles, and each of them took the wheel of a spike-covered GAV, with Brendol helming their old, undecorated vehicle. Siv jumped in with one of the stormtroopers, pulling Gosta with her. Torben was with the other trooper, while Phasma rode with Brendol. Gray sand danced in through the open door, swirling across the swept floor as the machines revved and spun out into the desert and the growing darkness. Siv held on tightly, one arm around Gosta and one on the vehicle’s handle. The trooper was driving as if a mob of angry citizens was on their tail, following Brendol at an impossible speed. The open door yawned black behind them as they accelerated into the desert.
It was clear from his path that Brendol was hoping that the farther they
got from the city walls, the less likely they’d be to hit more traps like the one that had claimed both their speeder bikes and, later, Elli’s life. Siv couldn’t help looking back at the city, at that strange dark blot in the middle of the desert, now lit by colorful lanterns, feeling that she’d left some small piece of herself behind. She had not known Elli well, but they’d been soldiers in the same war, breathed the same air and fought the same fights, and she felt some regret that Elli’s body had been left alone to a room full of desperate people instead of receiving the last rites of Siv’s detraxors that would allow the woman to live on by protecting the health of her friends. Brendol and the troopers had not even acknowledged the woman’s death. Siv had not had many regrets before then, but she suspected that the farther they got from the Scyre, the more she would collect. She put a hand on her belly and told herself that it would all be worth it, to successfully deliver a healthy child somewhere among the stars, where none of her ancestors had been for generations.
Siv couldn’t relax, not as long as Arratu’s walls were visible. She knew there were traps here, possibly worse ones than the pit they’d encountered, and the afternoon was winding down to a sinister darkness. She also knew that even with Vrod and his Sentries dead, there would be plenty of people in Arratu violently desperate for a way out of their current limbo. She glanced back nervously, scouring the gray horizon for more vehicles or a line of people with torches, screaming and cheering and stomping their feet, hungry for something that life had denied them. How strange, that this part of Parnassos suffered from too many people, whereas the greatest issue facing the people of the Scyre was too few people. There wasn’t much food back home, and every drop of water was hard-earned, but at least everybody was welcome, useful, given meaning. Meaning beyond one’s weight in meat.
Finally, the dunes hid the darkening walls and rising tower of Arratu. No further traps had sprung, and Siv was able to relax, just the smallest bit, and focus on the journey ahead. The sun set like a drop of red fire into a still, gray pool, a rioting rainbow with a foul end that left the world a cold nightmare. Night fell completely, and the desert became a quiet and monochrome place. The drivers slowed their speed and turned up their bright lights; ahead, the cool sands glittered like jewels before disappearing into indigo shadows. Gosta fell asleep against Siv’s shoulder, and after watching the endlessly rolling sands awhile longer, Siv tipped her head over and found her own escape in dreams.
She woke to the last thing she wanted: a fight.
IT STARTED WITH WHISPERED QUARRELING, AND Siv tensed, her senses already on high alert. Her vehicle had stopped, and the stormtrooper who’d driven it was gone. She knew well enough not to jerk awake noticeably, but merely kept her breath even as she waited, curled up against Gosta, and listened.
“The ship is that way, General Hux. I saw it from the tower. As did you.”
“And the last time we went that way, Phasma, we lost one of my soldiers and ended up in a ditch. We were captured by the enemy and lost precious time. You were nearly killed.”
“But I lived, and we escaped. We’ve gone this far without finding another trap. As Vrod said, it’s unlikely the Sentries would range such a distance from their city walls. They are cowards.”
“How would you know what another people might do? You’ve only ever known one people, whereas I have visited and studied hundreds of societies.”
“I only need to know the people of my planet to know what they would do. And you are not of this planet.”
In the tense silence that followed, Siv could hear the troopers somewhere nearby, laughing, and Torben snoring. So they’d stopped to camp. She realized she was holding her breath, and she forced herself to breathe as if asleep so she could continue eavesdropping. For all that she had hopes for Brendol’s ship, there was still so much she didn’t know about what would happen once they reached it.
Finally, Brendol sighed, and she could imagine him rubbing the space between his eyes. “No, I’m not from this pathetic, limping, wounded, rotten rock. I’m a general in the First Order, and I’m the savior who will get you off this miserable planet and give you the chance to become something real, something more than just an animal squabbling among weaker animals for some pathetic bone. But if you are to join me, you must look to your pride, Phasma. You must learn to gracefully accede to a superior’s will.”
“Not if I know I’m right.”
“Would you rather be right or would you rather be alive?”
A long silence suggested eloquently that they both knew who was more deadly and who would survive a one-on-one fight.
“Allow me to appeal to your intellect, then,” Brendol said. “I value subordinates willing to trust my vast training, wisdom, and knowledge instead of challenging me in front of others. That’s who I will need, once my ship comes. That’s what the First Order needs.”
“And I value experience and a firsthand understanding of an environment. I value a backbone and an unwillingness to yield in the face of foolishness and shouting. That might not be what makes the best soldier, but it does make the best leader of soldiers. And you, after all, already have plenty of soldiers.”
Brendol made a humming exhalation, almost a concession but still a warning.
“Do not forget that once we’re off this planet, I am the arbiter of life and death for you and your people.”
“And do not forget that as long as we’re on this planet, I will be the one playing that role.”
Brendol sighed, and Siv could hear him scratching at his scrubby beard. “Perhaps you are right. You would never make a proper soldier. But if you could begin that way, hide your hubris and play by the rules for a while, I feel certain you would rise quickly through the ranks to a position of leadership that would satisfy you. And then, together, we could train the greatest soldiers ever seen. With my simulations and your experience, your dedication, we’d be unstoppable. You are a sword, but even the strongest, sharpest sword requires honing.”
A chuckle from Phasma. “And what would you know of swords?”
“How to obtain them, pay for them, give them to thousands of soldiers, and let them loose on a world that needs subjugating. There’s as much power in controlling the distribution of swords as there is in wielding one.”
“There’s more power in the crucible that forges the weapon.”
“But someone has to pay for that crucible.”
In the long pause that followed, Siv could hear the troopers talking, tearing dried meat with their teeth. It was a still night, and sounds carried. She risked opening her eyes, and in the low light she could barely make out Phasma and Brendol leaning against the hood of her GAV, eating jerky and the small fruits from the Arratu’s tower.
“Perhaps your point is valid,” Phasma said at last. “All my weapons were found things I learned to adapt, not pretty things given to me as a favor. But I tire of politics. The fact remains that the ship is that way, and if we waste any more time, we may find it stripped to nothing by the time we reach it. We are not the only scavengers on Parnassos. And I sense that we’re being followed.”
“By whom? The remaining fools of Arratu?”
Phasma was silent for a beat before saying, “Whoever they are, they’re definitely fools.”
Then, a strange sound: Phasma and Brendol Hux, laughing. Although they were often together, Siv had wondered if their relationship might become more. Their stiff posture and the space between them suggested it had not and never would. The chuckle fell off, and Brendol took up the pair of quadnocs, and Phasma watched him, one hand on her blaster as if she might still be trying to decide whether he was more useful alive or dead.
Brendol put down the quadnocs and tapped his fingers on the GAV’s hood. “As time runs out, so do our options. We’ll go your way. But we’ll send one of the other vehicles out in front to spring any traps that might be lying in wait. The one with your two women and PT-2445. If we have to lose anyone, that’s our best bet.”
“No.
Siv and Torben can ride together. We’ll say that Gosta will need to lie down, so she’ll be the only one of my warriors in that vehicle. Siv has the detraxors, and they may yet be what saves us. The liniment and salve are more powerful than you realize. A great deal of sand still separates us and your salvation.”
Siv went cold to her toes as it sank in that the two leaders were deciding who among their company was expendable. Of only seven people, two had been chosen as an acceptable sacrifice. For all that she was horrified—and insulted that Brendol considered her disposable—Siv could see the wisdom in it. Gosta was young and still sore from the crash, and she had no extraordinary skills. Still, seeing reason didn’t mean it was right. Siv loved Gosta like a sister, and she would try to find a way to keep the girl from being sent out ahead like bait for trouble.
“We’ll ride at sunrise, then,” Brendol said. “Best get sleep while you can.”
Phasma didn’t answer, but Siv could sense annoyance rolling off her leader like heat waves. Most likely, Phasma was practicing the skill he’d requested and not snapping at him for instructing her as if she were some foolish child. Siv began to see why Phasma, the strongest and most daring leader she’d ever met, would bend to such a lesser man. She was banking on getting offplanet, and he was the key to that goal—and any success that followed it.
Brendol walked away, toward the GAV he’d driven. Soon, Siv could hear him tossing and occasionally groaning or sighing as he shifted position. It was ultimately much more comfortable to lean on someone you trusted, she thought, her cheek still on Gosta’s shoulder. But who would Brendol Hux ever trust? Who could he trust? No one. And so he deserved that hard, cold, cramped full seat to himself.