It seemed that virtually every private vehicle had been pressed into service by the occupiers. So renting or buying one on a moment’s notice simply wasn’t in the cards, and stealing one with all this military presence was far from practical. So public transport it was.
A very quick bit of research showed them the way to the local train station, and soon enough they merged with a stream of pedestrians. The people carried their general fatigue like a heavy overcoat, plodding along with dragging feet and dull eyes. It was ideal hunting ground for a pickpocket, and soon enough Ayna did indeed have some local currency safely tucked away. Saketa didn’t like stealing from people who had plenty of problems already, but this simply wasn’t the time to make a moral stand.
Yvenna had accustomed her to people openly wearing swords, but Ciinto Res was a very different place. If there ever had been any kind of weapon culture here then the Authority had stamped it out. She was very conscious of Nara’s sword, and her own lacklustre skill at concealment. The stressed, worn-down people all around her seemed strongly conditioned to mind their own business, but the Authority soldiers and their various automated machines were a distressingly common sight.
The train station was visible up ahead, on a rise in the landscape, as the group passed by a scene of violence. A platoon of soldiers had converged around a small house and were literally dragging the residents out onto the street. The people screamed with fear, the soldiers screamed with rage, and there was the sound of a vicious beating somewhere out of sight. The pedestrians simply flowed around the scene like water around a rock.
A Warden protects, Saketa thought as she passed right by the whole thing, and her body tensed for a fight. She felt like a beast whose predatory instincts had been triggered, but was held back by a chain. Every link was a separate reason why she couldn’t incur the Authority’s wrath right now. All of them solid and undeniable, and yet they did nothing to wash the bad taste from her mouth.
She turned her hard eyes forward, and in the corner of her eyes she saw Vanaka look upon the scene with wide eyes. Losan reached out and touched his mistress’s chin, and gently turned her face forward.
“Fun, fun, fun…” Ayna muttered under her breath.
The sounds of violence, rage and fear continued until the clamour of the train station drowned it all out.
There weren’t weapon scanners by the entrance, at least not visible ones, but there was a big, congested cluster of people before an adjustable gate that had been narrowed to a single-person opening. Glowing up above it was a message in a script that Saketa didn’t understand. She kept her eyes on it as the stream slowed down and joined with the throng, hoping to see it switch between languages, but it didn’t.
“Excuse me, need to borrow a little bit of height,” Ayna said to Losan as she moved behind him, then climbed. Vanaka managed a nervous hint of laughter as the ansoti stood still and stone-faced. Ayna put her hands on his shoulder and pushed herself up, gaining a view up ahead.
“Ah, alright.”
She let herself drop.
“You really put work into those shoulders, don’t you? Anyway, uh, people are having to show some sort of slip to get through.”
“Of course,” Fredrak whispered. “Tightened security.”
“It must be a… process, getting one of those,” Vanaka said.
“One we can’t afford, can we?” Ayna said. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll see what I can… just hold on.”
Ayna awkwardly separated from the group, in the ever-tightening throng. Crowds were the natural element of a pickpocket, but of course one needed space to move in. Saketa lost sight of the slim little Dwyyk among taller bodies, and decided that actively scanning for her might draw attention.
There was no more talk. Saketa, Fredrak, Vanaka and Losan simply waited, and were in silent agreement to delay for as long as possible. It was a tricky, subtle kind of fight. A crowd possessed a unique power and a momentum that would not be denied. Little by little they were nudged forward, earning ill will along the way as they did their best to hold their ground.
Ayna got through it all, perhaps enabled by that odd flexibility, and pushed something into Fredrak’s hand. He passed it along to Losan, who had ended up at the front of their group. On they inched, and the crowd got even tighter. Still Ayna somehow made it through, and now had two offerings. Fredrak kept one and gave the other to Vanaka.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Saketa was at the back now, as the crush was funnelled to that narrow entrance. She felt the sword press painfully into her body, between her and a heavy man who thankfully didn’t seem to take special notice.
A squad of soldiers stood on the other side of the gate, holding rifles at the ready. Saketa’s thoughts turned to all the weapons the man was carrying, as his turn came. He showed his slip to an exhausted-looking worker.
This was it. If an alarm would go off, this was the moment, and Saketa would have to Shift across to disable those soldiers. But the bodyguard was simply waved through and the soldiers ignored him as he passed by.
It was the same for Vanaka, and for the three other people who got through before it was Fredrak’s turn.
Saketa was at a point where she could only resist the push by being extremely obvious about it, and those soldiers had her in their line of sight. She ran through her available options: She could of course Shift, but surely people would notice. The only other measure that occurred was to try to talk her way past the gatekeeper, which was well outside of her skillset.
But the crowd did not care about her troubles, and it pushed her within an arm’s length of the gate. A moment’s hesitation on her part allowed another to go on ahead and bought her a few more seconds. Just then a small hand touched up against her own and Saketa grasped a crumpled-up slip.
She held it up to the still-bored and baggy-eyed keeper. The man gave it a two-second glance and said something she didn’t understand. Saketa risked a nod, and the man waved her on.
She passed by the soldiers, hoping that she didn’t look too evasive, and in a few seconds she was amidst the slightly more spaced-out mob beyond the gate. Fredrak, Vanaka and Losan had gathered by a support pillar and waited as she joined them. It wasn’t until then that Saketa turned around and looked for Ayna. The girl was nowhere to be seen.
“Did she get a slip of her own?” Vanaka asked quietly.
“I didn’t see,” Saketa replied.
“We’d best be off before people notice the thefts,” Losan said meaningfully.
“Yes,” Saketa said. “But she took from the back. Probably for that very purpose. I-”
“Right here,” Ayna said, as she materialised from behind a passing group of people.
“So you got a slip?” Fredrak said.
“No. So let’s keep going.”
They paid for their rides with the stolen money. The trains were plain affairs. The car interiors hinted at facilities having been removed to make more space for passengers. Considering the loss of other travel options, it made perfect sense.
There was no real privacy to be had, but their group found themselves something of a booth by the end of one car, and sat down on a narrow, uncomfortable bench.
From what Saketa could tell, there were no soldiers or other authority figures on board, but she still felt the need to keep the sword hidden. There would be no relaxing on this ride.
“That was a real boon,” Vanaka said to Ayna. “You saved us all a whole lot of trouble.”
“I guess I did,” the Dwyyk said, and smiled in spite of nervousness shining in her eyes.
Vanaka reached across Losan's lap and patted the girl’s arm.
“I’m glad you came along,” the Vylak said.
“Yeah, you lot would be lost without little old me, wouldn’t you?”
Saketa allowed herself a smile, at a little bit of human positivity between people she liked, while she quietly hoped that Vanaka wouldn’t grow too fond of the Dwyyk.
The train started moving, and she soon found herself disappointed in the velocity. She supposed the occupiers were sucking up every spare bit of energy for the war production. Still, it certainly beat walking, or any land vehicle they might have gotten their hands on.
They left the city behind, and Saketa got a better view of the heat shimmer all that production was spawning. The area outside the city featured hardy-looking grass, and something of a shantytown. Tents and the plainest of portable huts were huddled together on either side of a wild stream, and the place surely housed at least a couple of thousand people.
“That’s depressing,” Vanaka said, gazing sadly out a window.
“It’s safer than being in a population centre,” Losan pointed out. “These days.”
“I suppose.”
The grass was replaced by a flat plain, dry and cracked in the equatorial heat. In the distance Saketa saw something she thought might be a pipeline of some sort, but as the track veered a bit closer she realised it was a long row of people, marching west. They had just vanished from sight when, within the general, muted chatter, one voice rose above the rest, loud and intense.
The tone travelled like a fast-spreading virus, and soon had almost everyone in the car chattering over one another. Saketa’s face hardened. She turned to Fredrak. The FedCom agent had spent the ride the same way he’d spent the walk to the station: Quietly observing people’s communications. She remembered his seeming knack for languages.
“The Sixth Fleet has arrived,” he said quietly, so only their little group could hear. “Word is spreading around the planet, despite the Authority’s best efforts. In my defence, it was just a prediction.”
“I know,” Saketa said.
It had begun, then. She turned in her seat, so she could kneel and look up into the sky. The Authority fleets would come together in whatever response plan had been prepared. Scouts would be sent to deliver the news to other fleets, in the hopes that the planet would hold out long enough for reinforcements to make a difference. Nara and Pietr would waste no time, Shifting onto the larger ships and causing mayhem, crippling and confusing much of the fleet, freeing the Sixth up for a charge straight at Ciinto Res itself.
And somewhere to the west waited the Exile, Avanon, readying his blow.