An old man lay in the middle of the narrow and dim street, one hand thrown up over his head as if he were still protesting the taking of his life. Anger boiled up in her as one of the uniformed Capo landed a kick in the old man’s ribs.
She’d wanted to kill the old man herself for betraying her, but his betrayal was something she could understand. Kicking an old man after he was already down and dead was not something she would ever understand.
She heard Talon’s weapon move. She heard the chink and slight scrape of its body meeting the brick of the roof but she did not understand what he was going to do until four laser streaks jetted from his weapon and all of the Capo standing over the dead man’s body also lay dead.
People screamed and began to run. Jessica grabbed Talon’s arm. Anger blazed even higher as she shouted, “Why did you do that? Now the Capo will come in here and kill them all! What were you thinking?”
Talon leaped to his feet. He directed a laser blast at one of the surveillance nodules located further along the street. It went up in a puff of smoke and fire. He then blasted out the windows of one of the Federation’s pawnshops, just as one of the Federation pawn officers came walking through the door with a set of keys in his hand.
The Federation officer’s body was neatly severed by the ferocity of the blast that Talon leveled. Jessica’s hands went to her mouth as she staggered to her feet. What was he doing? He was sabotaging the entire operation that had barely had a chance to begin! She screamed, “What are you doing?”
Talon pointed his chin toward the pawnshop. Wide-eyed women and children, obvious pawns who had been standing nearby began to break and run as the pawnshop went up in a ball of flame. Talon said, “I imagine by the time they sort all this out, it will be too late for them to find the poor souls who were pawned, don’t you?”
On the street, people ran toward the dead Capo. Quiet fell, and Talon stepped to the end of the roof with his weapons and his hands. His voice rang out strong and proud. “The Gorlites are coming in two days to take this planet. Those above already know this. They would have left you in ignorance until the very moment that those monsters descended upon you to murder you all or to sell you into whatever slavery they could.
“We can fight them. We can. But we have to fight those above first. They will take every available ship off the surface of this planet if you do not stop them. They are already fleeing, and they intend to leave you here to die. Will you not stand up now? Will you continue to be forced to live below ground like mere slugs? Or will you fight?”
Murmurs began and then swelled into angry shouts. Jessica said, “What have you done?”
Talon’s silver eyes glinted as he replied. “I’ve made them aware of the situation. They needed to be aware. All this talk of patching in is stupid. I would not have said so to your friend because it’s clear that he runs the resistance from an ivory tower of sorts. He’s never been out here, and he doesn’t know how to raise an army. He thinks he can do it from some impersonal distance and you can’t.”
Her mouth hung open. “You planned this the whole time! You didn’t care about getting the paperwork for the ship at all!”
Talon shook his head. “I didn’t know what the below looks like or what it was about until I got here. And I do care about those stamps. I do care about breaking experienced fighters out of the prison. We need them. Now we have the perfect diversion to get back to the ship and get the ship to the prison.”
Jessica knew he was right, but they didn’t lessen her anger. “Don’t you understand? Yori will die for this!”
Talon said, “We have to move.”
They did move. She moved far back from the edge of the roof and then took a running start, elongating her body and pumping her arms and legs fast as she sailed over the rooftop and onto the next one. Talon came in right behind her. Soon they were making their way across the below, rooftop to rooftop.
Jessica could not help but look toward the streets below. Riots had broken out, and the Capo were charging in. Normally when the Capo came, and people scurried before them, they ran from them and did their best to protect their loved ones. Not now. They were meeting the armed capo with whatever weapons they could pick up find, and she paused for a moment, realizing that Talon had, with one simple gesture, managed to do the one thing that she and the rest of the resistance had never been able to do.
He had encouraged the population to fight back.
They came to the exit. Talon took aim at a surveillance nodule from the rooftop upon which they stood, and he blasted it into smithereens. They scrambled down the side of the building, using the old gutter pipes to make the descent.
There didn’t seem to be much use in trying to hide as all of those people swarming the gates now were also trying to get out of the below. Jessica heard bloodlust in their voices. A shudder worked its way through her body. They had been denied the right to live above for so long, and now they had every reason to hate those who did live above even more. There was going to be war and destruction all around her, and while she had long wanted the awful caste system to be brought down to its knees, she had somehow never expected it to happen in such a way.
They made their way out of the gate and into a hovercraft. Jessica plugged credits into the slot and typed in the coordinates. The hovercraft zoomed upward and away from the above, headed toward the docking stations. Her entire body shook with both anger and triumph as they flew their way back toward the ship.
