Rebel's Quest (30 page)

“She’s probably on her way to Vaksses,” Doc murmured. “So, now we know.” He looked at Kellen with an eyebrow raised. “We have quite an eclectic group here to start working with.”

“Yes.” Kellen glanced into the corridor. “I think it’s calmed down enough for us to begin. Ayahliss, can I count on you to keep Mandira and Sarambol safe?”

“Certainly.” Ayahliss looked as if she was ready to take on the entire Onotharian force. “No harm will come to them. I give you my word.”

Kellen wanted to smile at the solemn way the girl spoke, but knew it was wise not to do so. She rose and tucked her water bottle into her waistband as Doc had just done. If she lost it, she’d have nothing to drink until tomorrow.

The roughly carved, winding corridors were still full of people. Some stood in groups, discussing loudly their fate and their accommodations. Very few seemed to consider this a good time to gather their forces and come up with a plan.
How did the Onotharians break them so quickly? How could brave and patriotic rebels become so quarrelsome, small-minded, and scared?

As they moved to the right of the tunnel leading to the arch in the asteroid, the walls became darker, grimier. This was obviously the older part of the prison, and here they found fewer people standing around in agitated groups. Instead, the inhabitants moved slowly and glanced at Kellen and Doc with very little interest, as if newcomers were a common sight, something they really couldn’t bother with.

“What’s with these people?” Kellen asked. “Granted, some of them have been here for years, and it’s understandable that—”

“Hey! You two! Get in here!” a male voice hissed from one of the small caves. “Hurry! Don’t let anyone see you.”

Mystified, Kellen glanced at Doc, who shrugged. It was up to her. “Stay focused,” she said to him before she ducked and entered the cave. Inside, she examined what had obviously been someone’s home for a long time. “Who are you?” she asked, making sure she stood with her back against the wall, near the exit.

“Who I am matters little.” The man spoke Gantharian with a faint accent. “I spotted you two earlier and noticed you aren’t afraid and panicked like the other newcomers.” He stepped into the faint light from the diode lamp next to Kellen. Long, blond hair, kept in a rugged ponytail, ran down his skeletal back, and it was impossible to judge his age. He had blue eyes, like most Gantharians, and boasted a semi-long beard. It was impossible to judge the color of his skin in the muted light. Looking closer, Kellen saw the man’s eyes were clear and intelligent despite his obviously worn state.

“It’s who you are and what you’re doing here that’s important. I’ve been here long enough to distinguish friend from foe. You seem…neither, and that’s impossible. You’re probably here on a mission.” The man scratched his beard. “What mission, I ask myself? Can you be the answer to my prayers, or are you just another set of bad news?”

Kellen decided this might just be the opening she and Doc were looking for. A man who appeared to have been incarcerated here for years couldn’t be on the Onotharians’ good side. “We
are
here to help,” she said cautiously. “My name is Kellen. This is Doc.”

“Those your call signs? You resistance?”

“Yes. We are.” Kellen didn’t elaborate. “It seems you’ve been here a long time, sir.”

The courtesy wasn’t wasted on the man. “Too long. I’ve been on Kovos since right after they attacked and the occupation began.”

Doc stepped closer. “Would you mind if I give you a quick medical scan?”

“Want to make sure that I’m Gantharian?” The man chuckled. “You’re going to be disappointed. I’m not.”

“No?” Doc frowned and turned to Kellen, his eyes darkening.

“Scan him anyway. We need to know if you have any illness that impairs you after such a long time in captivity.”

“Fine.” The man shrugged. “Go ahead, young man.”

Doc scanned the old man’s skinny frame. “You have bronchitis, several digestive tract parasites, and rheumatoid arthritis. These things are easily cured, normally, so I take it the prisoners on Kovos don’t get much medical attention.”

“Only if what we have is contagious enough to pose a danger to the guards who randomly patrol the corridors. They only come a few times during every lunar cycle, except when there’s a drill to educate new guards.” He shrugged, only to grimace at what had to be pain from the movement. “Besides, one has only to use common sense around here to realize that these diseases are unavoidable. We have no medical scanners, derma fusers, or any other medical instruments. It’s been too long since I used them, and I’m sure I wouldn’t even recognize the new technology of today.”

“You’re a physician?” Doc scanned the man again, and now he looked at Kellen with an odd expression on his face. “Gods of Gantharat—”

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Kellen’s heart began racing, because Doc looked as if he’d been hit by a plasma-pulse rifle. She half raised her hands in a defensive gan’thet position.

“He’s human, Kellen. A human physician! Do you realize what that means?”

Kellen frowned and looked at the man. “What’s your name?” she asked again.

“I think your friend here has already figured that out. I was the only human on Gantharat, before I was imprisoned.”

“Your name is Mikael O’Landha,” Doc whispered, a catch in his voice. “You must realize your daughter thinks you’re dead.”

Kellen tried to follow the unexpected thread of conversation. “Please explain what you’re talking about, Doc. How can you know who this is?”

“Paladin’s true identity is Roshan O’Landha. This…” He placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “…is Mikael O’Landha, her father. Paladin thinks he’s been dead for decades. It was what she was told.”

Mikael O’Landha stood rigid in the center of the small cave. “Roshan? You know Roshan?”

“Yes. She’s a resistance leader.”

“I heard from other resistance fighters that she’s a collaborator.” Mikael’s voice became cold. “She’s trading with them.”

“You think of your daughter that badly?” Doc said. “That’s just a front. She uses every credit she makes, more or less, to organize and outfit the resistance. She’s the reason Kellen is here.”

Doc raised questioning eyes to Kellen, who guessed what he was asking. She nodded, knowing they had to convince this patriarch of the Kovos asteroid prison of their true intent. Kellen guessed he pulled a lot of weight around the ones who’d been here a long time, and they needed this break.

“Your daughter is solely responsible for bringing back our last surviving Protector of the Realm, Kellen O’Dal,” Doc said.

“What lies are these?” Mikael sighed, obviously getting fed up with their preposterous statements.

“These are no lies, Dr. O’Landha.” Kellen walked closer and took both his hands in hers. “I am the last of the O’Dals. My father was Bondar O’Dal, resistance leader and Protector of the Realm before me. When he died, during an ambush, your daughter brought him home to me, so I could bury him. I was then responsible for Princess Tereya O’Saral.” Kellen filled the apparently stunned Mikael in on Armeo’s existence.

He let go of her hands and fumbled for a stool, which wobbled precariously as he sat down, listening to how Kellen’s and Armeo’s flight to Supreme Constellations space had been the turning point in the SC’s ongoing debate about whether or not to engage the Onotharians.

“And now, with all these senior rebel fighters in custody, the Onotharians have struck a blow that we need to mitigate,” Kellen said. “Sir, do you realize how important it is that we unite our people, here, and on Vaksses?”

“Protector…” Mikael wiped his forehead. “I’ve heard of this other prison. How do you propose we communicate with Vaksses?” He was in no way scornful; he merely asked a question.

“We have communication devices inserted.” Kellen didn’t reveal where they were located, since she still had some misgivings. She wanted to trust Paladin’s father, wanted to think he was their way to success, but he had been incarcerated for decades, and who knew what the Onotharians had subjected him to? Still, her instincts told her he was a man of strength, and she hoped she’d turn out to be right. “Are you willing to help us organize our fighters?”

“I have nothing to lose,” Mikael said, not even hesitating. “My daughter has obviously risked her life in the resistance for the duration of my imprisonment. My wife is long gone, and if there’s even a remote chance for me to see Roshan again…” His voice broke, but he appeared beyond tears. He rose from the stool with new strength. “I know just who we should talk to. Corgan and Bellish live two caves down this corridor. They are our leaders, something newcomers usually find out quickly.”

“And you think they’ll listen to us?” Kellen asked. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“They won’t listen to you, but they’ll hear me out,” Mikael said confidently. “We’re the same age. They knew me before we were captured, and…they knew Jin-Jin.”

Kellen didn’t have to ask who Jin-Jin was. The love and reverence with which Mikael spoke her name indicated she was his wife. Thoughts of Rae rushed through her mind, and Kellen deliberately transformed the piercing longing for her own wife into strength, a Gan’thet technique crucial to the success of a mission. The consequences of failure were catastrophic, not only for the people of Gantharat, but also for her personally. “Very well. Lead the way.” Kellen motioned to the opening.

Mikael walked over to a shelf chiseled in the wall above his bed and put on a tattered caftan, obviously fashioned from a blanket. “Come with me, it’s just down the corridor.”

He led them away from the prying eyes of the Onotharian surveillance equipment farther up the tunnel. After they had walked for a few minutes, Kellen began to realize how big the prison actually was. Chiseled-out corridors stretched far into the asteroid, and the floor was covered with gravital plating. Kellen felt Doc touch her arm.

“We can’t tell Paladin about this yet,” he said gravely. “She needs to focus on her assignment, and if we tell her about Mikael, she’s likely to lose her edge.”

Kellen knew Doc was right, but it still pained her. “Yes, I agree. We don’t know how she’ll react and far too many lives depend on all of us staying sharp. But we’ll have to let her know as soon as the mission is completed. It’s inhumane not to.”

“I agree. It bothers me to have to lie, but I also think she deserves meeting him face to face the first time.”

They kept walking in silence and passed many other prisoners, who glanced at them suspiciously. Every now and then, people poked their heads out of the low entrances to their caves. Clearly, it was calmer in the old part, but its inhabitants didn’t take anything for granted.

“Is it just me, or is it getting darker?” Doc blinked at the fading light diodes.

“It’s getting darker.”

“This half of the asteroid, the old part, uses old technology. When a diode goes out, they don’t exactly rush in here to change it. And some of the ones that are still functional are fading. We’ve found a way to create light on our own, but we use it sparingly.”

“How?” Kellen tried to envisage how anyone could find auxiliary power in this hellhole.

“Oh, you’d be surprised. The water bottles. One of our engineers found that if you used some of the newer diodes to slowly melt the material, it later could be broken off in smaller pieces and ground into a powder. This powder, in turn, acts almost like an old-fashioned fuse when you set fire to it.”

“You can produce fire up here? How is that possible?” Doc asked, sounding just as incredulous as Kellen.

Mikael laughed, a husky, short sound. “It took us a while, but when we realized how, it was like child’s play.” He bent down and picked something off the corridor floor. “Like so.” He slapped his hands together and produced a big spark that lit up his grinning face. “See? Two asteroid rocks together. Bang, there’s your spark. The trick is to learn how to direct the spark toward the powder, then jump back when it begins to sizzle. It also takes a lot of powder to keep a steady light.”

“Can’t you merely set fire to the bottles the way they are?” Doc was obviously intrigued by the process behind the prisoners’ discovery.

“No. We tried. There’s something in the very slow melting of the bottles that changes the molecular basis of the material, according to the scientific group. It limits the potential toxic fumes as well.”

“And the guards don’t know about this?” Kellen asked.

“If they do, they don’t care. We’ve been producing powder and using it for more than fifteen lunar years. Here we are.” Mikael stopped by an entrance and waved at them to stand next to him. “Let them see your faces.” He ducked his head and leaned into the small opening. “Hello? Corgan? Bellish? I’ve brought company.”

“What company? You never see anyone, you old fool,” a deep voice said. A man with the same tattered look as Mikael showed up, a broad smile on his face. It faded when he saw Mikael wasn’t joking. “Who are they? Why did you bring newcomers here?” He spat the word “newcomers,” making it clear that he didn’t care for strangers.

“Listen to me, Corgan. This is important. Trust our long friendship and let us in, and we’ll explain everything.”

Corgan stood motionless outside his cave, studying the three of them, apparently indecisive.

“Oh, come on! Who’s the fool now?” a female voice sighed behind him. With white haired and stunning violet eyes, she tugged at Corgan’s sleeve. “We can’t stand around here attracting attention.”