“And if they’re resisted?”
“There were sixty-three people in the Tessavar collective,” I said. “Twelve of them refused to cooperate after the negotiation failed. The Rivonok wanted to set an example, which they did.” I watched her face carefully. “The other fifty-one cooperated, after cleaning up what was left of their colleagues.”
She was very still. “And the other time was the same?”
I nodded. “The second time was smaller. A botanical cultivators’ settlement on the Drev moon. Fewer people, same methodology. Same outcome.” I kept my voice even. “The Rivonok have done this enough times that they’ve refined it. They know how to pressure a community until it complies. They know how to extract cooperation without producing the kind of attention that complicates their operations. They are not amateurs making threats. They are professionals with a system, and the system works.”
Maive said nothing for a moment.
“So they won’t come in and kill everyone,” she said.
“No.” I wished I didn’t have to be blunt about this, but Maive was not listening to reason. “Dead people don’t teach you how to makejunversyrup.”
A shiver moved through her at that.Finally. She absorbed it, and her jaw set, and she looked at me with eyes that had gone very clear and very cold. “Then we will make sure they never get close enough to ‘make an offer.’”
“Maive.” I kept my voice level with extreme effort. “Sending your people to fight professionals is not possible. The villagerswilldie. The only variable is how many, and what atrocities the survivors will have to witness before they finally submit.”
She closed her eyes. “I know what you want me to say.”
“It’s not about whatIwant,” I said, louder. “It’s about self-flecking-preservation.”
“I can’t order these people to just pack up and leave,” she said. “This is their home.”
I could feel my frustration building and as it mixed with panic, it was becoming unsustainable. I could not tolerate being right but also unable to make people see sense. “You haven’t seen what it costs,” I said roughly. “I have. I’ve watched civilians try to hold positions against professional fighters, and I’ve walked through what was left afterward, and I amtellingyou that I know precisely what those costs look like.”
“I believe you,” she said quietly.
“Then how?—?”
“This is our home.” She was watching me with those green-gold eyes, and my thoughts created a vision of seeing the light fade from them. Of blood. Of screams. Of things I knew I could not see or hear or experience again. The words were out of my mouth before I’d decided to say them.
“Belaga,” I blurted. “My home planet. I lost everyone and everything. It wasn’t the Rivonok, but some other group like them. My father first, of course, as he was part of the initial resistance. Then my brothers. Then my mother. I was a child, and they rounded me and the rest of us up and handed us over to the mercenary guild.” I threw my hands up, then brought them down to rub over my face, which felt numb. “That’show I ended up this way. It wasn’t my choice. I don’t want these children to end up…like me.”
The silence after that was different. She let it stay silent for a moment, and I was grateful for it. She didn’t move toward me. She didn’t push closer. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Oh, Gilrox. No one should have to endure that.”
“It was a long time ago,” I said, which was true. Also, not the point. “Please. Please, let me evacuate your people.”
Something shifted in her expression. She had heard what I was actually saying underneath everything else, and she was taking it seriously, and she was still going to say no.
“If it were my choice alone, I would. But this isnotup to just me. The village decides its fate, and I already know what those people are going to say,” she said. “That’s why I’m saying no. This village is not just where we live. Thejunverecology took generations to develop. The birds, mushrooms, trees, all of it managed and tended and passed down. If we leave, even for a season, it begins to unravel, and do you think these Rivonok people will just let us go? Do you think that if they show up here and find us all gone, they’ll just say, ‘oh, well,’ and move along?” She leaned toward me, finger pointed and eyes sharp. “No. They’ll hunt us. They’ll find us, and drag us right back here. And we, Runams, would be enslavedagain. We haven’t forgotten our history, Gilrox.”
Huh. I hadn’t thought about the scenario she described. It wasn’t wrong, though. I wondered if there was a place in the galaxy where I could hide several hundred people from a syndicate with massive resources and the capability of a vast network of spies. Probably not without dividing them up, giving them all new identities and possibly having to alter their appearances, too.
Maive began to pace, flicking her hand with agitation. I’d never seen her like this before. “When our original enslavers abandoned this planet, they left us with nothing. We built everything you see fromnothing. We became a people who build a life of peace and balance with the natural world here. We make our own decisions and are not dominated. That is not something any Runam of Valrim Village will be willing to surrender.” She looked at me. “You cannot evacuate a way of life.”
“You can rebuild a way of life,” I said, because I wasn’t ready to concede to her point. Which was one hundred percent valid. “You cannot rebuild the people who died defending it.”
“We are not fragile,” she said in a louder voice that had turned raspy.
“I’m not saying you’re fragile,” I shot back, though I was. And theywere. “I’m saying you’re outmatched.”
“Perhaps.” She lifted her chin. “What I know is that we will not run. And run, and run, and run.”
“Forflecks’sake,” I said, turning away so she couldn’t see the stricken look on my face. Panic had completely overtaken the frustration.Fear. And it was an old fear that gnawed at my bones and left me with a relentless ache. “I know what’s coming here. I know what will happen and I cannot stand by and watch all that I love be destroyedagain. I simply cannot.Do you understand that?”
“Iunderstand,” she said through her teeth, looking as wild as I probably did, “that you have spent so long moving from one battle to the next that you can’t remember what it feels like to fight for something other than credits.”
The air emptied out of my lungs. That was a low blow by any standard, and she knew it the instant she said it. Her hand clapped over her mouth and her eyes widened. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean that.”
