Liberty (2 page)

They thought I was in danger. They were reaching out to me. I screamed for them to back off, but they wouldn’t listen. Their fingertips were nearly touching me when I woke up with a start, my knife drawn and sweat running into my eyes.

Fortunately for my reputation, I managed to sneak to the bathroom before my crew woke up. I splashed cold water on my face and inspected my current disguise. Blue contacts, false fingertips, the usual tricks to get around security scanners. In the cracked and dirty mirror I could see my brown roots starting to show through the bleach blonde dye.

Flark.

I made a mental note to fix the hair as soon as we were airborne.

“Captain?
Captain Loveless
! ’Ello, are you in there, Trudy?”

M y thoughts snapped back to the present as Bell knocked me on the head.

“Hey! What gives?”

She put a hand on my shoulder and stopped me in my tracks. “What are you not telling me?”

“Oh, so much.” I grinned at her and broke into a run, my boots kicking up the dust behind me. With a spring, I landed on the creaking metal planks surrounding Williamson’s Dive, the tavern where my crew and I always stayed when we came to Mars. The planks, like most of the buildings on Mars, were painted to look like wood, but the desert had scoured away large sections of the finish. As I walked around to the back of the tavern, I could hear the rusted planks groan beneath my feet. I leaned on a post, examining the strange visual interplay between the shine of metal and the softness of the fake wood finish while I waited for Bell to catch up. People had cared about Mars once, but that was years before I came along.

So nice of the SUN to invest in civil upkeep.

The Martian sunlight beat down on me and beads of sweat formed on my forehead as I entertained melodramatic thoughts of how I would rain down angry sunshine too if I had the chance.

“It is too early in the morning to run,” said Bell. “Next time, make ‘Obson check the cargo with you.”

“Should I make Hobson first mate too?” I asked.

She glared at me. “
Vous prétenti
—”

“I love you too, mawn cherry.” I held in a laugh as Bell shot me her best look of death. “Let’s go wake up the crew.”

I made my way up the precarious stairs at the back entrance of the tavern and paused on the landing halfway up.

“Careful, Bell, the next step after the landing is almost rusted through,” I yelled.

“Wait! I need ... air!” wheezed Bell as she scampered up behind me.

“Wimp.”

“Maniac!”

I nodded. “That’s fair.”

Just as Bell stepped on the landing, we heard a sickening crack. We turned our heads to see the stairs behind us collapsing in rapid succession, sending clouds of dust into the air as each piece of metal hit the ground.

“Run!” I yelled. Bell and I tore up the remaining steps. I leapt onto the upper landing and whirled around just in time to catch Bell’s hand as the final hunk of metal disintegrated with a high-pitched squeal.

“Next time,” I grumbled as I helped her to safety, “no breaks.”

Bell panted as she looked at me, then back at where the stairs had been. We both started to laugh, then threw our arms around each other.

“Well, that was fun,” I said.

“Yes, ‘ow about we avoid that kind of fun in the future?” asked Bell.

“I make no guarantees,” I said. “We really need to talk to Jake about fixing this place up a little.”

Bell snorted. “And by a little, you mean a complete over’aul.”

“Preseeeso, mawn amee.”

“Oh, for the love of all that is ‘oly, please stop attempting to speak my language. You wound my ears.”

I chuckled as I placed my finger over the scanner next to our bedroom door and leaned down toward the retinal scanner. The door unlocked with a pop and slowly creaked open. Bell and I picked our way over my zonked out crew.

Bell snorted. “Uh, Cap?”

“What?”

“Your ‘air looks a bit like a pile of ‘ay after a ‘urricane.”

I gave her my best scowl. “I’m not gonna dignify that with a response. Give me a minute?” I whispered.

“Aye, Cap.”

“Thanks.”

I ignored her muffled giggles, grabbed my knapsack off the floor, and let myself into the tiny bathroom. I splashed tepid water on my face and toweled off. Pale light streaked in through a narrow window above the cracked, decaying shower. The early morning rays made the chain around my neck glisten. I pulled at it until the vial attached to the chain was dangling in front of me. The silver liquid inside sparkled, just like in my nightmares.

Anxiety prickled through me as I watched the shimmering fluid in the glass. It was called Eternigen, a drug capable of temporarily altering the chemistry of my body. It would allow me to travel beyond the solar system. Nothing moved me as much as my desire to be truly free of the world that stole my family from me. The drug in the vial was the key.

It was also the cause.

Guilt swept over me, and I dropped the vial back down my shirt.

I ran my fingers through the wild mayhem of my bobbed hair in a futile attempt to settle it, swearing under my breath when my mother’s diamond ring got snagged in the tangles. Giving up, I knelt down on the floor, rummaged around in my bag, and pulled out my copy of
The Unauthorized History of the Third War.
It seemed a little obvious to be using for coded messages, but the Underground had already gone through most of the classics.

I pulled out the sequin-infested bookmark Bell had made me and sat on the floor to decode my latest letter. Hand delivered letters were the only way to guarantee safe communication unmonitored by the System of United Nations. Even then, if you were caught, you were dead, or worse, never heard from again. Everything on a Cuff was online, and everything online could be watched. Paper was safe, but it was scarce—and incredibly expensive.

I had been saving this particular letter for a while, waiting for a moment when I could be completely alone. It’s hard to be alone when you captain a tiny cargo ship with halls only large enough for one person to walk through at a time.

I ripped open my letter and began decoding my message. The first set of numbers was 1:14. Page one, word fourteen ...
My.

Page five, word thirty-six ...
girl.

I flipped through the pages and counted out words, ravenously devouring every decoded sentence.

My girl,

I hope business continues to go well. I hear news of the dangers of running cargo from the merchants. I pray you are safe. Remember to use your head. In your last letter you mentioned Mars. Take the opportunity to visit the Governor’s mansion there. It has quite a history. Some of our earliest adventures in terraforming are recorded in the paintings hanging in the gallery.

Things here on Titan continue to go well, despite unfavorable circumstances. So many children are forced to leave before graduation. Primary school is out and my summer is filled to capacity with activities. There are opportunities to help all around.

I am looking forward to getting to know my new students in the fall. Somehow, I am always reminded of my favorite student when I see the brightness shining in the eyes of each new class. Write when you can, my girl. I know the path you are on is not the one you would have chosen, but if you continue to give it your best, things will work out in the end. All my best hopes and wishes go with you. Be careful.

Follow your dreams,

Me

I read the letter again, twisting my mother’s ring back and forth on my finger. Mrs. Ford was the closest thing I had to a mother now.

Maybe someday I’ll actually get to talk to her again. Maybe, if everything works out like she says, I’ll get to live like I want. Away from all this skud. My own rules, real freedom.

I wanted and feared real freedom at the same time. It’s easier to let go of something you never really had in the first place. I opened my eyes and put my dreams back inside my carefully guarded heart.

Stupid, flarking SUN.

I pulled a lighter from my pack, ignited the letter, and dropped it into the sink. I watched the flames wrap themselves around the paper until there was nothing to see but a bright flash of fire. It faded quickly enough, and I washed the ashes down the sink.

I pulled up my sleeve to look at my Cuff, running my fingers deftly across the two-inch touch screen. I checked the weather and the flight plans for takeoff later that morning. Everything looked normal. Well, as normal as it could look through the cracked, beat-up screen. I’d had the same Cuff for years. Children in the SUN were issued one when we went to secondary school, and we were expected to make it last for as long as possible. The Cuff charged on the pulse in the wrist, and my job never failed to keep my heart pumping. The screen was exceptionally bright after my narrow escape from the Doom Steps.

I heard somewhere that, once upon a time, women in the old United States had to stop wearing tights or something to support a war effort. When the Third War broke out, the governments of Earth informed the populace they had to give things up too. Factories had been leveled, resources invested completely into military endeavors and the ultimate space race. There was little left over to invest in anything more than survival by the time it was all over.

All the technological resources of the SUN went to more important things, like maintaining the good morale of the system. That, and a massive army designed to help us all ‘get along’.

I reached into my right pants pocket and pushed my hand through the hole I had cut inside. My fingers stretched for the thigh holster I had strapped to my right leg. I felt reassured by the cold handle of my silver Colt 45. Army-schmarmy. I would have my freedom and chase my dreams, whatever rules I had to break, whatever price I had to pay. I grinned as I remembered how impressed with myself I had been when I figured out how to hide my thigh rig beneath my baggy cargo pants. I glanced once more into the mirror before I opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the drab and dusty bedroom.

Light filtered in through the dirty window and spilled over my zonked out crew. Bell had perched herself on the arm of the dingy couch and was engrossed by her own Cuff. I smiled as I watched my little crew of misfits sleep. I wasn’t sure how I got so lucky, but I didn’t care. I had the best crew in the flarking universe.

Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to thoroughly enjoy waking them all up.

“G
UYS?
GUYS.
TIME TO GET UP.” I GRABBED MY LEATHER VEST
from the back of the chair I had crashed on the night before.

“Mph, don’ wanna,” mumbled Chiu Chin Adams.

“Don’t care,” I said. “Up and at ‘em, CiCi. We gotta get Mr. Salazar and his cargo to Earth by 2000 hours.”

My lethargic little mechanic curled into an even tinier ball on the couch, grabbed her windbreaker, and pulled it over her head.

“Come on, Ceese. Don’t make me pour water on your head.”

CiCi sat bolt upright and started stuffing the windbreaker into her pack.

Bell shook her head. “It is so disgusting in ‘ere. ‘Ow can any of you still sleep when it’s this ‘ot? Also, I call dibs on the bathroom.”

“Hurry up, then,” said Diego Rivera. “Anybody wake up the sleaze?” He grabbed one of his guns from under his pillow and wrapped his holster around his waist.

“He is not a sleaze, he’s a paying customer, and don’t talk so loud, you goon. He’s next door, and these walls aren’t exactly soundproof,” I said.

“Hmph. I don’t like him,” muttered Rivera.

“Well, tough, seeing as you’re the bouncer, not the guy putting names on the list.”

“Easy, you two. Diego, you just need some breakfast,” said Miriam Porch. I rolled my eyes. Miriam drove me crazy with her gentle-fuzzy-feelings skud, but Rivera thought our resident healer was the cure for his love fever. Instantly, he went from gun-slinging tough guy to cuddly kitten. He gave her an awkward smile and slid off the bed and into the bathroom.

It was sickening.

Bell suddenly realized Rivera had cut in line and started banging on the bathroom door. “‘Ey! I don’t care if you are ‘eavily armed, I called dibs! Rivera, this is so unfair!”

“You snooze, you lose, Bell. Now shut up! How am I supposed to pee while you’re yelling at me?”

I concealed my smile with a fake cough, stunned that Hobson, my best friend, was managing to sleep through the morning mayhem.

I knelt down next to him and gently shook his shoulder. “Hobs?
Hobs.”
He was snoring, sprawled out like a starfish under a thin blanket on the floor, his head resting on his jacket. I patted his cheek. “
Hobson
!”

No response.

Time to take things to the next level.

“CiCi, hand me my canteen, will ya?”

“You’re not serious.”

I raised one eyebrow at her, and CiCi rolled off the couch and tossed me my canteen. I unscrewed the cap, bent over Hobs, and dumped the water on his face. “Wake up!”

“Ack! Rflge larn snortfuzzle,” he spluttered.

I grinned. “Oh really?”

He swatted me away and wiped his face off.

“‘Mupalready.”

“Sure you are. Get moving. I’ll meet you all downstairs. I’m gonna go make sure Salazar’s up. If we’re gonna make Earth at 2000, we need to hustle.”

I extended my fist toward Hobs, who was now at least sitting up. “Live free or die?” I asked.

He half-heartedly pumped his fist into mine. “Live free or please-for-the-love let me go back to sleep?”

I laughed as I patted him on the shoulder. “Not a chance, Hobs.”

I threw my knapsack over my shoulder, closed the door on my stirring crew, and knocked on the door next to ours.

“Salazar?”

No answer. I walked through the smoky hall and down a set of carpeted stairs so worn that the faux wood was beginning to peek through. I figured Salazar had either died in his sleep or was sipping on coffee down in the tavern. Fortunately for me, he was sipping coffee—dead guys don’t pay well. I sat at the table next to him and ordered a wheat roll with strawberry jam and an orange juice.