His fingers traced her jaw. “I was about to say the same thing to you.”
She whispered, “When do we go?”
“The ships are already loading.”
No. Not this soon! She shrank back from that, but she knew there was no choice. She had known the day he had told her what he was going to do that war was inevitable and that if she was to stay with him, she would be caught up in it.
The truth was that even if she had not stayed aboard that ship, she would have been caught up in that war.
“Then we should get dressed.”
He nodded, and then he kissed her again. But that time his kiss felt like a kiss given to say goodbye.
Tara ran across burning land and earth. The thick coils of fire from the bomb that had dropped a hundred yards from where she had been standing shot upward toward the sky. She coughed and pulled the top of her tunic over her mouth and nose as she cowered back against a wall just in time to avoid being cut down by laser weapons being aimed at the troops fighting on that side of the street, the rebel troops on whose side she stood.
The battle was pitched and violent. Bodies lay everywhere. She knew Blade was somewhere in the mass of bodies engaging in brutal combat right behind her. She felt the force of Jenny gathering her inner ability, and then soldiers dressed in Federation garb dropped to the ground screaming in agony. Their cries beat against Tara’s ears and heart and soul. She pitied them even as she knew their deaths were necessary.
Jessica’s body shot in front of hers just as a jagged lance of weapon burst struck. Jessica was already on the ground, taking her down too. Tara gasped out, “Thanks.”
Jessica, her face streaked with blood and ash, snapped, “Keep your goddamn head down and your ass covered.”
Then she was gone. Tara crawled onward, trying to get out of the center of the fighting. She knew Jessica had not meant for her words to be unkind, so she ignored the tone of them and took the very good advice, ducking behind a low wall formed of a broken craft and a partial remnant of a stone wall.
She heard death cries and shouts. The rattle of blades as laser weapons lost power and surge and failed and the fighting got even grimmer and even more volatile. The rebels wanted freedom. The Federation wanted everything else.
It was a battle that had to be won, and she crawled onward, her hands stinging from the heat rising up from the ground below her knees and palms.
A body lay nearby, and she recognized the plain clothing as belonging to a citizen of the planet. She turned the body over to see a young man staring at her. Blood ran from his nose and lips, but he was smiling even as his eyes began to cloud over in the first throes of death.
He wheezed out, “We got those bastards, didn’t we? Fuck the Federation. Freedom!”
She ran her hands over his tunic. He had a massive chest wound that he could not survive even if she got him to help right then, and she knew it. She took his hand and said, “You fought like a warrior.”
He grinned again. Blood coated every single tooth. His eyes went wide and stared at her. He garbled out, “Freedom. I’ll die for that.”
He would. He was. There was no way around it. Tears came up, but she held them back.
He whispered, “What’s your name?”
“Tara.” She let her fingers wind around his and impart a little warmth to his chilling flesh. “What’s yours?”
“Gregor. I’m seventeen today. It’s my birthday.” His smile held everything. “I won’t live, will I?”
“No.”
He tried to nod but could not manage it. “We did it. We beat those bast…” he coughed, sending more blood running down his chin. He asked in a voice gone child-like. “Is it over? Did we win?”
“Yes, it is over, and yes we won. The Federation is no more.”
It was a lie, but what did that matter? They were winning, at least for the moment, or so it seemed, but how could she possibly know?
One of his hands went into the air and formed a fist. He screamed then, screamed in a mixture of both pain and victory. “Freedom! Fre…”
He died before he got the word out the second time. His life ended abruptly and without a second of pause. Tara crawled away from him, her heart breaking at the waste. She got back to the wall and looked over it.
Meridia was aflame. The Federation had been furious at the sudden open rebellion against it that was playing out across the universe, and it had sent its warships to every planet that was firing upon it.
Meridia was the epicenter, and the Federation had spared nothing.
