Kartega
Chapter 26

Ashlan’s eyes narrowed to near slits and she strained to see the blue in them shine through. He sat on the cot in the tent with arms crossed tightly over his chest, enraged. She started to inch towards him but stopped short. It was best to leave a bit of distance in case she needed to make a run for it. Behind her, her index finger tested the slit in the opening of the tent’s curtains, gauging how fast it would take her to barrel through it.

“I can’t believe you! I trusted you, Sid! And what? You’re meeting with the enemy this entire time. How could you?”

By the time she made it back, he was already awake and waiting for her impatiently. Outrage coated his face in a steady shield while he tinkered with the droid’s visual recordings on the screen. As it turned out, she wasn’t as good at sneaking out as she thought and when he couldn’t find her, he pulled up the droid’s recordings from the last few days to get an idea on her location. What he found was a lot more than just her GPS coordinates. The droid’s cameras recorded her first interaction with Tann and Nyala, capturing everything to the last gritty detail. She looked over the footage with a frown, noting how friendly she seemed with the people Ashlan resented to the core. The only thing saving her were the broken internal speakers that she never got a chance to tinker with. Ashlan could see her but he couldn’t hear a word. At least the secret of her magic was still safe.

Thanks for the help, Fred.

If he didn’t know about her magic, she might still have a chance of persuading him to stay quiet about this. Though even if he didn’t detain her, she had no idea what he might do with the Freedom Runners. Colton’s son or not, he was still a Starblade.

“Oh, now you’re finally quiet? No smart retorts?” He scoffed, “Why are you meeting the rebels? Are you a part of all of this somehow?”

“I’m not a part of anything!” She yelled back. “And how do you even know they’re rebels? That’s quite a judgement call to make.”

“Because this one right here,” his finger tapped at Nyala’s frozen face on the footage reel, “has been linked to every attack on the trains so far. You want to tell me I’m wrong? Lie some more?”

She kept quiet. So they have clued in.

“Fine. They’re rebels,” she slouched and rolled her eyes, “but it’s not what you think.”

“And what is it that I think, Sid? Please enlighten me!”

“You think I’ve been helping them this entire time and lying to you and that’s just not true.”

Technically, not a lie. All good.

“So what is true?”

“I met them, yes. But only because I was curious. I wanted to know why. You know how I feel about us Domers helping to save the star, helping the queen. I only wanted to know what would make someone change their mind. Make someone want to hurt people. I just don’t understand it. I thought if I could listen to their point of view, I could talk them out of it somehow.”

“Talk them out of it? They’re rebels, Sid! You can’t talk them out of anything!” His voice boomed over the fine folds of the tent’s fabrics and she wondered how many people were outside and close enough to hear him. Was Abbot there? Did he know about this too?

“Stop yelling at me, Starblade! I haven’t done anything wrong!”

Yet.

“You haven’t done anything wrong?” He shouted, “Are you kidding? You did literally everything wrong, Sid! I should report you! I should have you detained!”

A knot twisted in her stomach. He really should do all those things — so why wasn’t he? Something about all of this felt different. If he wanted to have her detained, she’d already be on her knees with a lightline tight against her throat. Maybe he hadn’t made up his mind and if that was the case, she still had a chance to get out of the situation.

“Ash, please, listen to me. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m not on their side, you know me.”

“I don’t know anything about you!”

“Yes, You do. You know that I’m the girl that put her entire job on the line to help you fix your blade.”

“After you broke it,” he scoffed under his breath.

“Yes, after I broke it. But if I was really a rebel like you’re saying, what would I care about your stardamned blade?” She dared to glance his way. “I’m also the girl that came here with you in case you needed help.”

“At the order of the queen!”

“Again, if I was a Freed-” she stopped herself quickly, “a rebel, why would I care what the queen wanted?”

“I don’t know. To trick me, to get closer to me so you can plan your little schemes.”

She stifled a laugh, “To get closer to you? Really”

“Not like that! You know what I mean.”

“I do and it still wouldn’t add up. If I was truly a rebel, don’t you think that the minute I got into the throne room and saw Queen Leona I would at least attempt to assassinate her? The last thing I’d do, if I was a real rebel, is come here to help you hunt down the rest of my supposed team. I mean, it’s so farfetched it’s actually funny!”

His gaze shifted, eyes deepening to a shade of blue that reminded Sid of a night sky on a warm day. Dark and endless.

This is not the time, Sid!

“So you’re actually expecting me to believe that while you snuck away to spend time with the exact rebels we are trying to hunt down, you were simply trying to understand their point of view so you could change it?”

“Well, when you say it that way, it does sound really foolish.”

“It is really foolish and probably a lie.”

“It’s not a lie. I wanted to get to know them.”

Again, technically not a lie.

“And did you? Get to know them?”

“Sort of.”

“And?”

The next thing she said could make or break everything. She could lie and tell him that she managed to sway their opinion and stop their rebellion but that would only put him in danger. She could tell him that they didn’t listen to her or that she didn’t get enough information about the next hit. She could, of course, always tell him the truth. About all of it. The Freedom Runners, her parents, Colton, her magic.

Sid’s heart ached to talk to him. Despite being a Starblade and a tremendous pain in her behind, Ashlan was also kind-hearted and more than that, he was Colton’s son. There might be a chance that he would be sympathetic to the Freedom Runners’ cause if he knew his father had been. That he had saved her to help them. There was also the chance that she didn’t know anything at all and he would betray her before she could part the tent’s screens to escape. She couldn’t take that chance, no matter how slim she thought it might be. There were too many lives on the line. Not just hers and Tann’s — but everyone else on Neostar. All of them would be at risk if the queen knew she still had magic.

Whether or not she trusted Ashlan was not the problem at hand. She didn’t trust herself enough to know which side she’d choose if it came down to it.

“They’re not who I thought they were,” she said finally. “I never should have gone.”

“You need to tell me exactly where you met them. I want every detail. Names, facial features. Stars, I want to know what their favorite food is if you know it!”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Excuse me?” His eyebrows arched and the look of distain on his face was enough to make her want to hurl.

“They’re not who I thought they were but they are still people. They’re my people. I can’t sentence someone to death just because you need answers!”

“Your people? You can’t be serious! You want to know what your people were doing while you were off on your little rendezvous?”

What was he talking about? The Freedom Runners weren’t doing anything. If something was planned they would have let her know at the flat. She shook her head in confusion, a dull ache forming behind her eyes.

“There was an attack in this dome’s core. Someone had tampered with the power in the shop tents. Every business in the dome is shut down for repairs indefinitely and the first four floors of the flats are down too. It seems your people care more about hurting the queen than their own kind. If we can’t get the power back up, half the dome’s population could freeze to death overnight.”

Sid’s head wailed. That wasn’t the Freedom Runners! She wanted to shout, that was all her! She was the one that killed the power in the dome. She was the one that caused the businesses to shut down. She was the one that put the people of those flats in danger. The pudgy face of the little girl flashed before her eyes. Children; she put children in danger.

“Will they be alright?” She asked, voice trembling enough that she barely formed the words.

“I’ve called for more Starblades to come in and bring supplies. We’re setting up temporary tents on the upper floors. It won’t be comfortable but we can keep everyone warm until the ring’s next rotation. We’ll redirect the power to the dome once it passes and kick the power back in.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Sid. Just open your stardamned eyes and figure out what you’re dealing with here. These people need to be stopped before they destroy Neostar.”

“I thought you weren’t a fan of the queen’s way of ruling?” She asked.

“I’m also not a fan of kids dying of hypothermia. The queen isn’t my biggest worry right now.”

“What would you do if you were me?”

He turned away from her, eyes still darker than death. “I would tell the truth.”

“Even if it got people killed?”

“Only those that deserve it.”

“And who decides who deserves it, Ash? You? Me? Leona?”

He stilled for a moment before walking past her to exit the tent. “Those of us who aren’t willing to kill to get our way.” He said quietly and walked out.

The tents taut curtained walls felt like they had crept in on her, their fabrics slowly moving closer to her body until she was sure they were grazing the dirty edges of her boots. She couldn’t breathe. Struggling to unzip the top of her suit she slouched over her knees, taking shallow gasps of air. How did she get here? To this point where the survival of so many people rested on her small shoulders. She wasn’t cut out for this. No one could be, let alone someone that was a complete stranger to this world.

In that moment, Sid hated Colton. Hated his lies for all those years. Hated that he had kept the truth about who she was from her. Hated that the reason she was in this mess was because of him.

Neostar was by far the worst place she’d set foot on — and she’d once set foot in a puddle of her own excrement when the ship’s sewage pipes exploded in the engine room.

She needed to get out of here. Leave Ashlan and Tann and the Freedom Runners behind. Leave the stardamned queen to do her bidding as she pleases. This wasn’t her home; it hadn’t been for years and she was a fool to think it could ever be anything of the sort. Her home was in the stars, orbiting around this sad place, safe and very far away.

Sid didn’t care about the deals she made; not with Ashlan and not with Tann. The only thing she cared about was getting her life back to normal. She could figure out where the ships were kept on her own, without having to worry about which side of the war she was on. It wasn’t even her war to fight in the first place! Let them have their star. Let them kill each other over it. She was done!

Parting the flap carefully, she peered outside, surprised that Ashlan didn’t have someone watching her. There were two Starblades in one of the tents to her right but they seemed to be busy with a game of some sort, neither looking in her direction. This was her chance to get away for good.

With a quick glance at Fred, slumped in the corner of Ashlan’s tent, she parted the curtains and made her way out. The darkness she had wreaked upon the dome was a perfect cover for her escape.

There was only one thought on her mind as Sid made her way out of the dome and back into the jungle. Muck this place and everything that came with it.

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