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malarkay · 1 year

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Inside the Wire Chapter 11

Summary: During their final battle with the Storm Hawks, Cyclonis is stopped just short of destroying the Dark Ace. Victory, however, eludes them. With Cyclonia fallen, and escape to the Farside cut off, they're forced to confront the consequences of their actions.

Cyclonis was locked in the smallest cell she’d ever seen. There was space for the necessities, but beyond that she could only walk a few steps in any direction before having to turn around.

Not that it mattered. She was too uncomfortable to move around much. But sitting or lying on her back was downright painful, especially since the shelf that served as a bed lacked any padding. She tried using her blanket as a makeshift mattress, but it didn’t help. Besides, she needed it to stay warm. Mr. Moss, already stingy when it came to heating the main cellblock, apparently didn’t believe in heating the isolation unit at all.

All she could do for the first few days was lie on her stomach, head pillowed by her arm, and try to catch snatches of sleep. Mealtimes did nothing to break up the monotony; her rations were once again limited to bread and water.

Worse, she felt sicker and sicker every day, to the point where by day three, she could no longer pretend that she hadn’t caught the flu. It just figured. Her decade-long run of perfect health would end at the most inconvenient time, wouldn’t it?

On day four, the bread and water punishment ended, which should have been a happy occasion, except the food that replaced it was somehow even worse. Breakfast became thin, grayish oatmeal and juice so diluted that it was little more than vaguely fruit-flavoured water. Lunch was still bread and water, but a cup of broth came with it. That was the best meal of the day, as what the broth lacked in salt, it made up for in warmth. It was the only bit of food that managed to arrive hot, and it offered some temporary comfort to her throat, which by now felt like she had swallowed broken glass. Dinner was a slice of…she hesitated to call it meatloaf, but it was meatloaf adjacent. It tasted like what she imagined despair would taste like if it had a taste. It was hard to get down and it settled in her stomach like lead. By the third day of that, she actually started dreading dinnertime. When she got out of isolation, if Mr. Moss ever let her out, she swore she’d never have another snide word to say about the usual cafeteria fare again.

At least the meals were distinct enough to allow her to keep track of time. That was an improvement over her stint in the Stockade’s isolation unit. The only improvement.

By day eight, she was sick enough of being sick to ask to see a medic. She received no response, and no medic came that day. The next morning, she again asked for a medic so she could get some medication for her cough. It was getting worse instead of better; she’d barely slept the night before because of it. Again, she was ignored. When her request was ignored the next day, too, she gave up. She’d just have to tough it out.

After dinner, she pulled out her stack of photos, slowly looking through them as she had every night since the Storm Hawks had given them to her. Returning the pictures to the safety of her pocket, she closed her eyes and thought of better days…

-And opened them again when she heard the faint strains of a melody she hadn’t thought of in years. It was an old song, so old that it predated The Great Storms. At least, that’s what her father had told her. It was one of his favourites because it had been one of her mother’s favourites. He had played it every night as he got her ready for bed, a way to connect her to the mother she’d never get to know. It was one of the few clear memories she had of him. She’d been so young when he died; she knew she was lucky to have any memories of him at all.

She stood and walked to the door, which opened as she approached. She didn’t think it weird, not even when she stepped out of the cell and right into the halls of the Citadel of Cyclonia. She followed the music, which sounded strangely haunting as it echoed through the empty, silent halls. The Citadel was never empty and rarely so quiet.

Here’s to the songs we used to sing,

And here’s to the times we used to know.

It’s hard to hold them in our arms again,

But hard to let them go.

It led her to her old room. The one she had before she became the Master. Her father stood at the window. He was dressed for diplomacy, without weapons or armour. Instead he wore a black cavalier cape draped over a deep purple coat, a Cyclonian raven forged from pure silver pinned to his lapel.

“Lark,” he smiled when he saw her and held out his hand. “Care to dance?”

She gave a small, incredulous laugh. “I don’t dance.”

“Since when?”

“Since…I don’t know. I just don’t. Dancing is a frivolous waste of time-”

“-that is better spent on more productive pursuits. Your grandmother taught you well, I see. I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“I never wanted this for you. This life. This war.”

She lowered her head, unable to look him in the eye as she confessed, “It’s over now, anyway. I failed. We lost.”

He strode over to her and wrapped her in a tight hug that she knew she didn’t deserve but couldn’t bring herself not to return. “No, I failed. I was going to put an end to this conflict.”

“You had a plan to win the war?”

He pulled away from the embrace but kept his hands on her shoulders. “No one ever wins a war. They just lose less badly than the other side.”

“I feel like I’ve heard that before,” she said, his words stirring up the ghost of a memory.

“You have. You were there when I said it to your grandmother right before I pitched my proposal to her. I shouldn’t have brought you. I thought having you there would make her more willing to see where I was coming from, but it didn’t. And some words were spoken that weren't appropriate for little ears.”

Tendrils of dread wrapped around her heart as he spoke, but she didn’t know why. “I don’t understand. What was your proposal?” she asked. But she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to understand. And that scared her even more, because she always wanted to understand everything. Before he could answer, she jolted awake.

Her heart pounded like she had just awoken from a nightmare, and she was cold. So cold. Teeth chattering, she wrapped her blanket around herself as tightly as she could.

What wasn’t she remembering?

~*~*~

“I don’t understand. Why aren’t we cleared to land?” Aerrow asked suspiciously, speaking to the Zartaclan radio operator on the other end of the line.

“Your visit for today has been cancelled.”

“Says who?”

“The warden.”

“He can’t do that. We’re not here to socialize; we have a job to do.”

“Not today, you don’t.”

“Unless you give me one good reason why today’s visit’s been cancelled, we’re landing this ship.”

He lifted his thumb off the handset’s talk button. “They’re hiding something,” he said.

“Plague quarantine,” Stork said, sounding hopeful.

“Riot?” Piper guessed.

He shook his head. “No, the operator wouldn’t sound so calm if there was a riot. Plus, everything looks fine down there.”

From where he stood with his hands and face pressed against the windshield, Radarr squawked.

“Escape?” he guessed. Communication with Radarr could be pretty hit or miss, so he was pleased when Radarr nodded his affirmation. Huh. That could definitely have Mr. Moss in a panic and trying to avoid them.

“Could be, but I hope not,” he answered grimly. The longer there was radio silence from Zartacla’s end, though, the more worried he became.

“Daggone, son, d’you have to make everything difficult?” the voice of Mr. Moss finally came through the radio.

“Sorry, Warden, but I don’t think I’m the difficult one here. Why’d you cancel our visit, and why did you wait until just now to tell us about it?”

“Honestly, I plumb forgot there was a visit scheduled for today. I’m cancelling it because Cyclonis is in isolation right now. No visitors allowed.”

“What’d she do?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

He exchanged looks with the others. Radarr crossed his arms, looking smug. The message was clear. ‘I told you so.’

“We need to see her to confirm that she’s here.”

“I’m telling you she is.”

“If you won’t let us see her, then at least let us talk to Dark Ace.”

“That’s not happening, either.”

“Let me guess. He’s in isolation, too?”

“You catch on quick, son.”

“This doesn’t sound like a conversation we should be having over the radio, Warden. We’re landing.” He clicked off the radio before Mr. Moss could protest any further and nodded to Stork. “Take us down.”

He and Piper headed for the skimmer bay. Finn and Junko, curious about why they had circled the terra for so long instead of just landing, joined them along the way.

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” he said in response to their questions. Opening the bay door, they headed down the ramp to meet Mr. Moss, who stood waiting for them with his hands on his hips.

“Boy, you’re lucky I didn’t shoot you out of the sky,” he fumed. “You were told you didn’t have permission to land.”

“Good luck explaining that to the Council if you had,” he answered lightly.

“You’re too cocky for your own good.”

Aerrow just grinned, even more so when he got a good look at Mr. Moss. “Ouch, Warden, that looks like it must’ve hurt.” There was a healing gash on his cheek that looked about ready to have the stitches removed and light bruising around his eye. Whatever went down here must have happened just a day or two after their last visit. “That wouldn’t have anything to do with why Cyclonis and the Dark Ace are supposedly in solitary, would it?”

“Watch your tone. And there’s nothing supposed about it. That’s where they are and where they’re staying until I say otherwise.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. So, how close did they come to escaping, and why haven’t you told the Council about it?” he asked, fishing for confirmation that their theory was correct.

Mr. Moss looked annoyed, but he didn’t deny it. “They tried. They failed. And the Council didn’t need to be told about it because nothing happened. I dealt with it.”

“Was anyone hurt?” he asked. The last time those two tried to escape, four innocent men had died. If he closed his eyes now, he could pull up the image of them lying on that garage floor with perfect clarity.

“Just poor Milo,” Hamish said sadly, and they all jumped.

“What did I tell you about sneaking up on people?” Mr. Moss said. “You’re gonna give someone a heart attack one of these days.”

“Sorry, Mr. Moss.”

“Who’s Milo? What happened?” Piper asked.

“Milo was one of the Tracker Beasts,” Hamish said. Sniffing, he pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed at his eyes. “He always was my favourite. He hardly ever tried to eat me when I fed him, or cleaned his cage, or took him on walks. I wasn’t here that night; so I never even got to say goodbye!”

“Dude, not cool,” Finn said. “Sorry about your…beast.”

“Thanks,” Hamish said, turning away from them to blow his nose loudly.

“Yes, very sad,” Mr. Moss said. “Hamish, what do you want? Make it quick; I’m in the middle of something here.”

“The captain of the supply barge wants to know why we’re rejecting the crate of foil that-”

“Wait, Tracker Beasts?” Aerrow asked, cutting Hamish off. “Did they make it outside the wall? That’s kind of a big deal, Warden.”

“Don’t get your britches in a twist,” Mr. Moss said. “Ace briefly made it outside the inner wall and was quickly apprehended. Cyclonis didn’t even get that far.”

“It feels like there’s a lot you’re leaving out. Just let us see them. Because right now, I’m not convinced they didn’t escape, and you’re just covering for them.”

“Never question my integrity when it comes to the security of this prison,” Mr. Moss said through his teeth, invading his personal space to jab a finger into his chest. “When you and your hooligan friends cleared this place out, know what I did? I went to Cyclonia, hat in hand, and personally explained to Cyclonis what happened. D’you think that was fun for me? It wasn’t! But it had to be done. If Cyclonis, the Dark Ace, or anyone else in this prison ever managed to escape, I’d do the same for the Sky Knight Council. Don’t think that I wouldn’t.”

“Then why not let us confirm that story with Cyclonis herself?”

“Because she is being punished,” Mr. Moss drawled out slowly. “Supposing I bring y’all down there? She and your little girlfriend here are gonna get to chit-chattin’, as they do, and then I might as well bring y’all cookies and hot cocoa while you catch up. Maybe you can ask her why we can’t have foil here anymore. I’m sure she’s real proud of that.”

“Oh, aheh, Piper’s not my girlfriend,” Aerrow said. It might be nice if she was, though, wouldn’t it? He glanced over at her to gauge her reaction to either comment, but she looked deep in thought. He shook his head. He was getting distracted. “Besides, we know how to keep things professional. We’ll be in and out.”

That would sound more believable if his squad didn’t choose that moment to all start speaking at once.

“Foil?” Piper said, in the same curious tone she usually reserved for unusual crystals she’d never come across before. He wasn’t sure if she was asking Mr. Moss for clarification or just talking to herself.

“Do you really have cookies and cocoa? Can we have some, please?” Junko asked.

Piper kept repeating the word ‘foil’ with varying levels of befuddlement. She was definitely just thinking out loud, then.

“Did she make a shiv out of the foil or something? Is that what cut you? Because that would be awesome! I mean, that would be bad. But also kinda awesome, right?” Finn said excitedly. “And I’m with Junko on this; cookies and cocoa would really hit the spot right about now.”

“Oh my gosh, foil!” Piper practically yelled, grabbing her head. “I never thought of that! How did I never think of that? It’s such a simple solution to the problem.”

“I think I know why you never thought of it, then,” Finn said, and she shushed him.

“How did she not get away?” she asked Mr. Moss, amazed. “How was no one hurt?”

“Dude, the warden got shanked with a foil shiv! I’d call that a little hurt.”

“Boy, that ain’t what happened. And they didn’t get away because me and my staff are good at what we do,” Mr. Moss said, the pride on his face twisting into anger when Piper burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” Piper covered her mouth to stifle more giggles. “I’m sure that played a part. Sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I’m just thinking about how bad it would be if they ever got away. It’s nervous laughter, I promise.”

“Someone mind filling the rest of us in?” he asked.

“Apparently, you can just wrap them fancy shackles up real good in foil and stop ‘em from working,” Mr. Moss said.

“Hold on; she found a way to use crystals again? And she didn’t get away?” he asked, shocked. “The odds of that are….” he trailed off. They were-

“Infinitesimal!” Piper burst out. “Exactly! I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. You lucked out, Warden.”

“Luck had nothin’ to do with it,” Mr. Moss said, crossing his arms with an annoyed frown.

The suspicion he felt earlier returned with a vengeance. Now that he knew that Cyclonis had access to her powers during the escape attempt, he couldn’t help but wonder if Mr. Moss was lying about recapturing them after all. He sure wasn’t going to take the man's word for it. He needed confirmation, and if Mr. Moss wasn’t cooperating, he’d have to find someone who would.

“I need to talk to Ravess and Snipe.”

~*~*~

“Peace?” her grandmother said, the word spoken like a curse. Spat like it was poison.

No. No, no, no, she didn’t want to be here. She watched as her father squared off against her grandmother, a silent observer in her own…memory? Her younger self clung to her father’s leg, looking up at them with wide, worried eyes.

“There will be peace when the Free Atmos submits or is reduced to a pile of ash. I don’t care which.”

“Mother-”

“No. I won’t permit it.”

“I wasn’t asking your permission. This time next month, I will be the Master of Cyclonia, and I will rule my empire as I see fit.”

“By surrendering it to Atmosia?”

“I’m not surrendering; I’m proposing a ceasefire. We’ll retain all our current holdings. The Empire will remain intact.”

“The Empire isn��t intact now. And if you legitimize Atmosia’s independence, it never will be.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“I’m not the one betraying our home. Betraying this family! Have you forgotten what happened to your father?”

“I haven’t forgotten; I am well aware of everything our family has lost in pursuing this unjust war,” came his quick, harsh reply. “That’s why I’m doing this.”

Her grandmother recoiled as if struck. “Unjust?”

“I know you’ve read the writings of-”

“Don’t you dare speak his name! You would destroy all that we hold dear over the rantings of a bitter madman?” her grandmother raged.

The conversation quickly broke down from there, devolving into a screaming match, with accusations and even insults being thrown by both sides. She’d never seen either of them lose their cool like this before. Eventually, her father scooped up her younger self and stormed out of the room.

She followed them out and was suddenly back in her cell. Her father sat on the bed, alone.

“This is just a dream,” she said, partially seeking confirmation, partly to reassure herself that what she had just seen hadn’t really happened.

“Is that all it is?”

So much for reassurance.

“It has to be. This is stupid. You weren’t a traitor,” she insisted, pleading with him to agree.

“Lark, I need you to understand that what I was proposing wasn’t treason. All I wanted was to bring peace to Cyclonia. I wanted you to be able to have a real childhood. I didn’t want you to inherit a pointless, endless war.”

“It wasn’t pointless.”

“You sound like your grandmother.”

“And you sound like some idiotic Sky Knight.”

He sighed.

“I don’t suppose you’re familiar with the book The Great Myth?”

She shook her head.

“I’m not surprised. She probably burned my copy of it after I was gone. You should track it down and read it.”

“Why?”

“It will help you understand. You asked me that night what I meant when I called the war unjust. I told you that you were too young to understand, but I’d have you read that book when you were older so you’d learn the true history of Cyclonia.”

“Sounds like more Atmosian propaganda,” she said dismissively.

“Hardly. A great-granduncle of ours wrote it.”

That caught her off guard, and next she knew, she was blinking her eyes open. She was still freezing and so, so tired. And thirsty. Sitting up, she waited for the room to stop spinning. It never did, but it slowed down enough that she was able to retrieve the cup of broth that sat on a tray by the door. It was cold, but she gulped it down anyway. She did the same with the water.

Another coughing fit followed. It was painful and left her out of breath, and she had to lie down again the moment it passed. She fought to keep her eyes open. As exhausted as she was, she was afraid to go back to sleep. This illness was warping her dreams and distorting vague memories of her past, making her believe crazy things about the only people she’d ever loved. It was her fault for looking at the photos and getting old memories stuck in her head. She resolved not to look at them again until she felt better. If she didn’t look at them, she wouldn’t think about them, and then she wouldn’t dream about them. Simple.

~*~*~

“Eww, Storm Hawks! What’re you doing here?” Snipe asked as he plunked himself down into a seat across the table from their old adversaries.

Ravess sat more slowly, eyeing them with suspicion. She wondered the same thing, though she could guess. Today was one of the days they usually came to check on Cyclonis, but Mr. Moss still had her locked up in solitary. The fact that the Storm Hawks had still shown up today suggested that they had been kept in the dark about the escape attempt until now.

“We have a few questions we thought you might be able to answer for us,” Aerrow answered, taking the lead.

“Is this about Cyclonis and Ace?”

“What about them?” he asked innocently.

“Let’s not beat around the bush. You must have heard about their botched escape attempt by now.”

“So they did fail?”

Oh, that was their concern; they didn’t trust Mr. Moss to tell them the truth. But they trusted her? She almost laughed. These were strange times.

“Humiliatingly so,” she grinned. It served them right, getting recaptured. Maybe if they weren’t so full of themselves, they would have seen the wisdom in including her in their plan. The three of them together wouldn’t have failed. She was sure of it.

“You’re sure? You’d tell us if they got away?”

She did laugh then. “If they had gotten away, not only would I tell you, I’d volunteer to help you hunt them down.”

“And you’ve seen them since then? You’re not just relying on what Mr. Moss or the guards said happened?” the Storm Hawks’ crystal mage asked. From what she had heard, she was the one who had managed to take Cyclonis down and the one keeping her powerless now. Yet somehow, Cyclonis never seemed particularly bothered by their visits. She didn’t get it. Being forced to meet regularly with someone who ruined her life would drive her crazy. Strange times, indeed.

“Yes. Right after their recapture, before they were sent to solitary. Now that that’s out of the way, I’d rather not waste any more of my time speaking with the likes of you.”

“They brought them back to their regular cells before sending them to solitary?” Aerrow asked, ignoring her barb. “Isn’t that unusual?”

“Nah, we were-” Snipe began, and she kicked him. “Ow! Why’d you kick me?”

“I didn’t,” she lied. She’d given them the answer to their most pressing question. They didn’t need a play-by-play of that night.

She had been beside herself with glee when she stepped into The Courtyard and saw Cyclonis bound to that post. Finally, that brat was going to get what she so richly deserved. It was about time. Past due, even. Someone should have turned her over their knee years ago. Then maybe she wouldn’t have become such a demanding little nightmare to work under. Perhaps it would have taught her the value of actually listening to someone older and wiser than her.

But the reality had been less fulfilling than she imagined. Even watching her finally break had felt like a hollow victory. It wasn’t that she felt sorry for her. She just finally understood that she couldn’t rely on others to be the instrument of her revenge. If she wanted satisfaction, it seemed she’d just have to kick Cyclonis’ scrawny little butt herself.

And that brought her back to the Storm Hawks. She hated them as much as she hated Cyclonis. The only reason she’d tell them about that night would be to embarrass the kid, but she knew now that wouldn’t make her happy. So, as far as she was concerned, they didn’t need to know all the gory little details.

“What were you going to say, Snipe?” Aerrow prompted him.

Snipe opened his mouth, and she kicked him again. He kicked her back, the petulant oaf, but seemed to get the message. “Nothing.”

It was Aerrow’s turn to regard them with suspicion. “There’s something you’re not telling us. Something no one is telling us.”

“I know how to make them talk,” the blond one finally spoke up, trying to sound ominous. She wasn’t impressed. Neither, it seemed, was his squad. They all looked at him in confusion. But he wasn’t deterred. “C’mon, guys, I have an idea.” He stood and headed for the door. Bewildered, the others followed.

The idiot boy stopped at the door and turned back to her and Snipe. “Uhh, this might take a while. You guys can go do whatever it is you do around here.” Pointing a dramatic finger at them, he added, “But when we get back, you will talk!”

“Right,” she said slowly, rolling her eyes.

Several hours later, the Storm Hawks returned, and they were called back to the visiting room. Once they took their seats, Aerrow said, “Okay, Finn, this was your idea. You explain it.”

“Alright, it’s really simple. The first one to spill about what happened that night gets something they want.”

“That’s your master plan? Bribery?” These children thought they could just buy their cooperation, did they? How easily manipulated did they think they were?

Finn just smirked at her before reaching for something behind him. Turning back around, he placed two items on the table in front of him. One was a giant bag emblazoned with the logo of the most famous greasy spoon in the sector. The other was a violin. Nothing fancy, but it looked functional.

“Snipe, dude, you’re looking a little thin,” Finn told him. “This bag has your name on it.” He wasn’t speaking metaphorically. He had actually written Snipe’s name on the bag, but seemed to be second-guessing his ability to read.

She looked at Snipe. He looked at her. She shook her head. He got that mulish look on his face that he always did whenever he was about to do the opposite of what she told him.

“Who’s gonna crack first?” Finn said. “I can sweeten the deal if that’ll help.” He added two large takeaway cups to the table. “You guys like milkshakes? Course you do; who doesn’t? Snipe, yours is chocolate. Ravess, I’m guessing you’re more of a vanilla fan. Am I right?”

She didn’t even have to look at Snipe this time to know that he was about to fold. And she’d be damned if she was going to watch him feast while she walked away empty-handed.

They began speaking simultaneously, talking over each other faster and louder until Aerrow interrupted them to tell them that they could keep everything so long as they slowed down and started again from the beginning.

~*~*~

Lark couldn’t sleep. She was too upset over the fight, and all her father’s reassurances hadn’t soothed her worries. She wanted to see her grandmother, to make sure she wasn’t still angry. Maybe then she’d be able to sleep.

She snuck out of her room and into her grandmother’s but didn’t find her there. She was about to leave, to look for her in the throne room, when she heard voices out in the hall. One was her grandmother’s. Suddenly scared that she’d be in trouble for being here alone in the middle of the night, she hid under the bed.

“-but this couldn’t wait,” her grandmother said as she closed the door behind her. “I have a delicate task for you that requires the utmost discretion.”

“Consider it already done, Master,” came the vaguely inhuman-sounding reply of her grandmother’s companion.

She lifted the dust ruffle to get a better look at what was going on. Her grandmother stood with her back to the bed. Beyond her stood Strix, the red-eyed commander of the Nightcrawlers.

“I fear that my son has proven himself to lack the proper temperament needed to rule the Empire.”

“You’ve decided to postpone stepping down, then?”

“It’s not that simple. He intends to fly to Atmosia tomorrow to broach the topic of peace with the Sky Knight Council.”

“I see,” Strix hissed.

“It pains me to have to make this decision, but I obviously cannot allow that to happen.”

She whimpered. She had been right to worry; her grandmother was still mad. Strix’s gaze shot to the bed, and their eyes met before she yanked the dust ruffle down and scooted farther back.

“You appear to have a small spy hiding underneath your bed, Master,” he said. He sounded like he thought it was funny.

“Calandra, come out from there this instant,” her grandmother commanded.

Her lower lip trembled. Her grandmother was using her In Trouble Name. She was mad at her now, too. She crawled out from under the bed and stood to find her grandmother frowning down at her.

“Gramma, I-”

“Grandmother,” she corrected her.

“Grand-” her voice hitched, and she started over. “Grandmother, I…I didn’t want…I…I-”

“Stop snivelling; it’s unbecoming. Why were you skulking about?”

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves before answering. “I can’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“You’re mad at daddy.”

Her grandmother and Strix looked at each other, then her grandmother took a seat on the bed, patting the spot next to her. “Come here.”

She climbed up onto her lap. Her grandmother picked her up and moved her to the bed, then turned slightly to face her. “Your father and I are having a disagreement. It has nothing to do with you, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“When are you gonna stop being mad?”

“When your father comes to his senses.”

“Oh. Can I sleep here tonight?”

Her grandmother thought about it, then nodded. “Very well. But we must be up early tomorrow to see your father off on his fool’s errand.”

“But you said he couldn’t go.”

“I said I wish he wouldn’t,” her grandmother replied smoothly.

“Nah-uh, you just said you wouldn’t let him.”

“For goodness sake, Calanda! He’s a grown man. If he insists on going, I cannot stop him.”

“Sorry,” she said in a small voice. She hadn’t meant to upset her more. Her thumb found her mouth, worried that she would be sent back to her room alone now. Then she remembered that her grandmother said thumbsucking was for babies, so she chewed on her nail, instead. Her grandmother still took her by the wrist and pulled her hand down.

“It’s alright,” she told her before turning to the Nightcrawler, “You are dismissed. I’m sure you have much to do.”

“Yes, Master. But before I go, to be sure I’ve not misunderstood-”

“I made my intentions clear before we were interrupted.”

��Yes, Master.”

The following day, they gathered in the hangar bay that held her father’s ship.

“I am asking you one last time, as your empress and as your mother, to reconsider.”

“I have to do this. If we start now, I might be able to announce the peace accord as early as the day of my coronation. It truly will be the beginning of a new era,” he said, smiling.

“And then what? Have you considered the consequences? The impact this will have on our economy alone will be devastating.”

“I understand that the transition will be difficult. But I have faith in our people; we will adapt. This agreement will open so many new doors for us. Cyclonia will come out of this stronger than ever.”

“I didn’t raise you to be this naïve.”

“Mother,” he sighed. “I’m doing this with or without your blessing. I would prefer the former.”

“I cannot give it.”

Her father’s jaw clenched. “So be it.”

Her grandmother stepped forward, resting her palm on his cheek. “I love you, but I cannot condone this foolishness.”

“I love you, too. But I’m not changing my mind,” he said, and after a moment, her grandmother let her hand drop. He turned to her. “I love you even more,” he told her, holding out his arms. She ran to him, and he swept her up into a tight hug.

“I wanna go with you.”

“I’d like to take you with me, but it’s just going to be a bunch of grownups sitting around talking. You’ll be bored.”

“No, I won’t,” she promised.

“Your father’s right,” her grandmother said. “You’re going to stay here with me.”

“Awww.”

“None of that. A shipment from the mines on Terra Krustallos is coming in later today,” her grandmother informed her, and she gasped.

“Ohhh, shinies,” her father grinned at her. “That sounds a lot more interesting, doesn’t it?” She nodded enthusiastically.

She threw her arms around his neck. “Love you, bye!”

“Bye,” he laughed, setting her down, and she immediately ran off searching for crates of crystals that had yet to arrive.

Back in the here and now, tears leaked from her closed eyes as she lay shivering in her cell. That was the last time she saw her father alive. His ship crashed before it ever got out of Cyclonian airspace. By the time anyone realized there was a problem, it was too late to abandon the ship. There were no survivors.

Catastrophic equipment failure. That was the official story. A tragic, freak accident. She’d gone her entire life believing that. She hadn’t understood what she had overheard that night. She was too young, her grandmother’s words too subtle. And soon enough, she forgot about it entirely. But now, as she remembered, or imagined that she did, she knew exactly what her grandmother and that Nightcrawler had discussed.

She didn’t want it to be true but feared that it was. It felt more like a memory than a dream. She understood her grandmother’s concerns. She understood how foolish her father’s actions had been. And while she wasn’t sure what she would have done in her grandmother’s place, she knew what she wouldn’t have done. She wouldn’t; she couldn’t have ordered his death.

~*~*~

The mood aboard the Condor was sober as they made their way back to Atmosia.

“I don’t see why everyone seems so surprised,“ Stork said. “We learned at the trial that Cyclonian prisons still use corporal punishment. They knew the risk they were taking when they planned their escape.”

“Zartacla isn’t supposed to be run like a Cyclonian prison anymore,” Aerrow pointed out.

“Meh,” Stork said. “Even Atmosian prisons used to use it.”

“Used to. They outlawed it decades ago,” Piper pointed out, brusquely. Aerrow was used to her preaching to the choir about how Cyclonis needed to be held accountable and made to pay for her many misdeeds. And Stork was right. Cyclonis probably had known the consequences of failing, but she had gone through with the attempt, anyway. With that in mind, he had half expected Piper to take what Ravess and Snipe had told them with the same pragmatism Stork was showing now. But no, she was furious.

“You weren’t there, Stork. If you had heard Ravess, you’d know that what went down that night wasn’t right.”

The moment he had told them that they could both keep what they had brought them, Snipe had grabbed the bag of food and practically inhaled it, leaving his sister to do the talking. That was probably for the best. Apparently, he had been pretty sick at the time and had spent the next three days believing he had imagined the whole thing, making Ravess the more reliable narrator of the two.

“Oh, so we’re just trusting everything Ravess says now? I missed that memo.”

Aerrow exhaled sharply through his nose. “Look, Ravess really doesn’t like Cyclonis. If anything, I’d expect her to downplay what happened, not make it sound worse.”

“I suppose you’re going straight to the Council about this when we get back to Atmosia? Because that went sooo well for you last time.”

“You don’t think I should?”

“I think that if you didn’t, we’d have to tie you up and check you for mind control crystals. Been there, done that, don’t need to relive the experience.”

~*~*~

Chairman Tern sat with the rest of the Council, listening to Aerrow as he brought forward his grievance against Mr. Moss.

He was of two minds on the matter. On the one hand, he was having a difficult time feeling any sympathy for the Cyclonians. Cyclonis had her chance to reform Zartacla under her rule, to do away with the barbaric practices left in place by her predecessors. She had not, and as the saying went, you reap what you sow.

On the other hand, Zartacla had provided them with a detailed account of how the prison would be run as a new member of the Free Atmos. There was an entire section devoted to discipline, which made no mention of flogging. He was also less than pleased that the warden would fail to report significant events, such as the attempted escape of his two highest security inmates. It made him wonder what else he was hiding. Perhaps it would be beneficial to remind Mr. Moss that he wasn’t a power unto himself. He worked for them, and he needed to act accordingly. They could not be kept in the dark regarding such matters.

“Cyclonian inmates being subjected to Cyclonian disciplinary measures? Many would call that justice,” Councilman Canastero said once Aerrow had finished, echoing his initial thoughts.

“It didn’t sound like discipline. Or justice. It sounded like Mr. Moss was mad and decided to take his anger out on them,” Aerrow argued.

“I can certainly sympathize,” Tern said to himself. He didn’t mean for Aerrow to overhear, but the boy’s face hardened.

“Sir!” he said, sounding scandalized and disappointed.

He sighed. “My apologies; that was uncalled for.”

“Listen, I get it. They fight dirty, and it’s easy to want to stoop to their level. I remember how it felt to have them taunt me while they hurt me and my friends, how tempting it was to hurt them back, to hit them harder than I’d need to in order to win the fight,” Aerrow said, his hands balling into fists. “To want to kick them when they were down.”

“But,” he prompted, sensing one was coming.

“But I never did,” Aerrow finished. “It wouldn’t have been right. Just like it’s not right to tie them down and beat them after they’re no longer a threat. Zartacla isn’t Cyclonian anymore. So why would you let Mr. Moss run the place like it is?”

He smiled. Lightning Strike would be proud of the man his son was becoming. He was a true Sky Knight, in word and deed.

“You’ve made your point. We will send someone to Zartacla to investigate the claims made against Mr. Moss and to take the appropriate steps to correct any issues they find.”

“Who?”

“Someone who knows how to run a prison to Atmosian standards.”

~*~*~

“Ethan Swift, as I live and breathe,” he said, forcing a smile as he shook the man’s hand. Damn Ravess, running her mouth. She had already lost her place as his favourite informant when she failed to uncover and report the escape plan. Talking to the Storm Hawks was downright beyond the pale. She was gonna learn. “Still playin’ second fiddle to Jacamar?”

“Cormorant now, actually,” was Swift’s mild reply.

He laughed. “Didn’t I tell you you’d never run that place? You’re too soft.”

“Is this really how you want to start this inquiry, Jebediah? You already know you’ve messed up. I can see it in your eyes. Don’t dig the hole any deeper.”

“You know each other?” Hamish asked.

“We met at the annual Corrections Conference on Terra Greemus a fair few years ago,” he answered, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops. “Back when he was just a skinny little twerp like you.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. We were both skinny little twerps back then,” Swift said without missing a beat. Then, to Hamish, “And I’ve had the misfortune of running into him there every year since. Though for the life of me, I don’t know why he bothers showing up. He’s always thought he knows more than any of the speakers.”

Hamish grinned, but a frown from him had him wiping that stupid smile off his face. “Council didn’t send you here to reminisce,” he said to Swift. “So let’s get down to brass tacks. What do you need from us?”

“I’d like to get started by looking through Cyclonis’ and Dark Ace’s files.”

“Hamish will take you to the records room.”

“No, you will.”

So that’s how this was going to go? Swift thought he’d come into his prison and run roughshod over him? He’d be impressed if he wasn’t so annoyed. He didn’t know he had it in him.

“Right this way.”

“Here’s what I hope to accomplish on day one,” Swift began as they walked.

“Day one? Just how long do you think this will take?” he asked. He could already feel his blood pressure rising.

“That depends on how today goes. As I was saying, I need to review their records. I’ll also need the names of every guard on staff that night. I want to interview each of them separately. Ravess and Snipe, too. You’re also going to take me on a tour of the prison. The full tour, not the sanitized version you’ve given every other Atmosian official who’s visited. But before all that, I’ll need to see Cyclonis and the Dark Ace.”

“Today? Negativo, they’re still in isolation.”

“I’m aware. How many days has it been?”

“Thirteen.”

“You realize that violates Atmosian law?” Swift asked as they reached the records room.

He sighed heavily as he went to the first cabinet and began rifling through inmate records filed under ‘C.’ Atmosia and its regulations. It was sick the way they insisted on mollycoddling criminals. “Having trouble counting, Swift? Thirteen’s less than fourteen.”

“The limit’s seven days for minors. How old is Cyclonis?”

Like he was supposed to know that off the top of his head?

“Why’re you asking me? Don’t you know?”

“I do,” Swift said. “But you seem to need a reminder.”

He found her file and pulled it out, flipping it open to her demographics page to check her birthday. “Fifteen.”

“Fifteen’s less than eighteen,” Swift said, throwing his words back at him. “She’s been in there nearly twice as long as she should have been. She’s probably climbing the walls.” Swift held out his hand for the file, and he passed it over. “Isolation ends today. For both of them.”

He huffed as he turned back to the file cabinet and searched for Ace’s file.

“I see you have isolation listed as the punishment for the infraction, but there’s no sentence length recorded.”

“Must be a clerical error.”

“There’s no excuse for sloppy recordkeeping. If someone who didn’t know any better saw this, they might think you intended to keep her there indefinitely.”

Passive-aggressive little…

Finding Ace’s file, he opened it to the last page and jotted down a quick ‘14 days’ in the blank space provided under sentence duration. Slipping his pen back into his pocket as he closed the file, he turned and offered it to Swift. He took it and put it underneath Cyclonis’, which he still had open.

“I’ll remind my men to be more careful.”

“This is your handwriting.”

He chuckled, though he didn’t find any of this funny. “Well, begging your pardon.”

“There’s also no mention of any corporal punishment. Why?”

“It’s redundant. The inmates know that if they screw up bad enough to get sent to isolation, they’ll get a little taste of the lash first.”

“So you didn’t intentionally leave it out of your report because you knew the Council wouldn’t approve?”

“Listen, Swift, maybe the inmates you work with are weak enough to be cowed by a stern talking to and the threat of being sent to bed without supper, but I’ve got a prison full of Cyclonians I’ve gotta keep in line,” he exploded. “If I were to spare the rod, it’d be a zoo here.”

“Or maybe you only think they’d act like wild animals because that’s how you treat them. We had the same bunch of Cyclonians in our custody not too long ago, a lot of them for months. Somehow we managed to control them just fine without having to beat a single one of them.”

The man truly was insufferable.

“Good for you.”

“I don’t think you get it. Corporal punishment is disallowed under Atmosian law, a fact that I suspect you were already well aware of. If we get any more reports of inmates being hit as punishment after today, not only will you be replaced as warden, but you’ll be brought up on assault charges, too.”

Dammit all to hell.

“Understood.”

“Good,” Swift said, tucking both files under his arm. “You’ll get these back when I’ve finished my investigation. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll find my own way to the isolation unit.”

~*~*~

“Open the door,” Swift ordered.

The Zartaclan guard balked. “But-”

“Open the door,” he repeated himself. He was in no mood for any arguments. The guard, sensing that, wisely unlocked and opened the door.

The cell was small. Too small. Cyclonis was curled up on the bed, looking sick as hell. He knew from her time on Atmosia that she tended to be a light sleeper, but she didn’t rouse when the door opened.

“How long has she been ill?”

The guard shrugged. “She first claimed to be sick sometime last week, I think? I don’t remember the exact day.”

“Strange. I didn’t see any medical reports other than her intake evaluation in her file.”

“She didn’t see a medic.”

“Why not?” It was a struggle to keep his tone professional.

“Prisoners in isolation don’t get medic visits. Warden’s orders. Otherwise, they malinger just to talk to someone.”

“Does it look like she’s faking?”

The guard, infuriatingly, shrugged again.

“Go get a medic,” he said sharply. Once the guard had gone, he stepped into the cell. He pressed his hand against her forehead and could feel the heat radiating off of her before he even made contact.

He pulled the blanket away from her, and she stirred for the first time with a wordless noise of protest.

“This blanket is doing you more harm than good right now. We need to get that fever down. Can you sit up?”

She sat up slowly and immediately started coughing. It sounded awful, like she was going to hack up a lung, and it took almost two full minutes for her to get it under control. Once she had, she fixed him with an unfocused gaze. “Dad?”

“Sorry, kiddo, your dad’s not here. But I’ll make sure you get taken care of, okay?”

He didn’t think she was altogether there enough to understand because her only reply was to mumble, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Repeating the apology over and over, it was clear that she was lost in delirium. He figured there was no harm in playing along.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he told her, sitting beside her. What could she possibly have to apologize to her father about? He remembered the news report of the man’s death, more than a decade ago now. She couldn’t have been more than three when it happened. Maybe a very young four. “It’s not your fault.”

He repeated his reassurances until she finally quieted, then patted her on the shoulder. That reminded him of why he was here.

“I need to check your back if that’s alright.”

She stared at him for a moment with a confused frown; then something seemed to click. “Swift?” She sounded like she had just realized someone else was in the room with her. “What’re you doing here?”

“Did you think you could come as close as you did to escaping and not have word get back to Atmosia? I was sent as a liaison to investigate the incident and debrief the Sky Knight Council.”

She made a small noise that might have been understanding but probably wasn’t as she closed her eyes and listed to the side, coming to rest against him with her head on his shoulder.

He wasn’t sure what he had expected. No matter how sharp she usually was, she was barely clinging to lucidity or consciousness. He’d have to keep things simple.

He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Hey, sit up straight. I need to look at your back.”

“Why?” she asked, pushing away from him to sit under her own power, gripping the edge of the bed to keep herself propped up.

“The Council heard about what Mr. Moss did. They aren’t happy. I was sent to see if it’s true.”

The mention of Moss got her attention. She seemed a little more awake now. A little more grounded.

“They don’t care,” she said flatly.

“If they didn’t care, I wouldn’t be here.”

She didn’t have an argument for that, which was either a miracle or a testament to how bad she was feeling. Wordlessly, she undid the top of her jumpsuit, pulling it down, and he raised the back of her undershirt. He had expected any signs of the beating to have faded to next to nothing by now. He did not expect the extensive bruising that remained, splotches of purple still liberally interspersed among patches of livid yellow-green.

He felt his shoulders tense in anger. Moss had to have shown no restraint to have left such lasting evidence. This wasn’t discipline. It was cruelty, plain and simple. “That bastard.”

That shocked a laugh out of her, which turned into another round of coughing. “That bad?” she asked once it had passed. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“That’s not the point. How far down do these bruises go?”

She gestured to the level of her knees. He was going to have more words with Moss later. By the time she got the top of her jumpsuit back on, the guard had returned with a medic. She introduced herself as Alba and got right down to the business of assessing her patient.

“Can you read the temperature for me?” Alba asked him a couple minutes later while she was busy listening to Cyclonis’ lungs.

He took the thermometer from her mouth. “40.3,” he reported, brandishing it at the guard. “Still think she’s faking?”

“Hey, I was just following orders,” the guard defended himself.

He shook his head in disgust and returned his attention to Alba. When it looked like she had completed her exam, he asked, “Well? What’s the verdict?”

“Probably flu, originally. But it sounds like it’s progressed to pneumonia.”

“I want her brought to the infirmary and kept there until she’s turned the corner on this. Have the Dark Ace brought, too. I want them both examined and reports written up detailing every mark left by the warden’s so-called disciplinary tactics.”

“With all due respect, none of us have the authority to remove prisoners from isolation without Mr. Moss’ approval.”

“With all due respect to Mr. Moss,” he said, trying to keep any hint of irony from his tone. “I do have that authority. Do it.”

~*~*~

Swift’s mood had not improved by the time he left the infirmary.

While he was there, he had interviewed Petrel, the medic who was on staff the night of the escape attempt, out of earshot of Cyclonis and the Dark Ace. He filled him in on the rules surrounding how such punishments were meant to be conducted and where things went wrong that night.

In Petrel’s opinion, Moss’ treatment of Cyclonis had been appalling, primarily motivated by anger over her giving him that cut on his face. Because of his personal involvement, Moss should have been disqualified from wielding the strap, and the job should have fallen to another, more neutral guard. But Moss overrode that rule, and the resultant beating had gone on longer and was delivered harder than it should have been.

The flogging of the Dark Ace hadn’t gone by the book, either. Ace had been injured during his recapture. A medical exam should have been performed in advance to ensure that he was fit enough to withstand a whipping without it exacerbating his injuries and causing lasting harm. That exam hadn’t happened.

“Have you witnessed a lot of whippings that haven’t caused harm?” he asked. It was a sarcastic question, but Petrel answered it earnestly.

“Yes. Maimings here are rare. These punishments are designed to hurt inmates, not injure them.” It was a fundamentally different take than his on what the goal of discipline should be, and this young man delivered it in such a matter-of-fact manner. He was beginning to suspect there was something in the Cyclonian water supply.

“I see. Please continue.”

Petrel explained how ten lashes could be delivered with little to no skin getting stripped off as long as the person swinging the whip was experienced, which Moss was. “It’s still plenty painful enough to make a man think twice before stepping out of line again,” he assured him. But Moss had wanted to ‘leave an impression’. And leave an impression he had. While the cuts on Ace’s back were healing well, a few looked likely to leave scars.

“So you just stood by and watched while Mr. Moss abused two inmates, all the while knowing that what he was doing was wrong?” he asked once the man had finished talking. “At the Stockade, a medic’s word is law. Even the head warden listens to what they say when the health and safety of an inmate is on the line.”

“Around here, only Mr. Moss’ word is law. And I didn’t want to be next,” Petrel said. At least he had the decency to look ashamed about it.

Swift stepped out after that to get some air and clear his head. As he walked the grounds, his wandering brought him to Moss’ office. With only a perfunctory knock, he let himself in.

Seated at his desk, Moss looked up at him with undisguised annoyance at the intrusion. “Got that list of guards you asked for,” he said, shoving a piece of paper across the desk. “Along with their schedules so you’ll know when and where you can find ‘em.”

“Thank you,” he said, folding up the page and tucking it into a pocket. “I’d like to see where you carry out your floggings now before it starts getting dark.”

Moss stood and led him to a door near the corner of the back wall, then out into a moderately sized courtyard.

“I still think it’s convenient how you never included this place in any of the inspections that took place before the prison reopened,” he said, frowning up at the whipping post that served as the focal point of the otherwise barren yard.

“Well, I didn’t want to upset the delicate sensibilities of Atmosian bureaucrats.”

“How considerate.”

He walked over to the nearby pillar, taking the strap down. It was heavier than he expected.

“Nice, ain’t it? You can give it a little swing if you like. You might decide the Stockade could use one of its own, after all.”

“I already told you that hitting inmates is unacceptable. There are better ways to correct undesirable behaviour.”

“I tell you what; none of them work as quick as this one. Stop being such a Sky Scout.”

He gave the strap an experimental swing, striking the whipping post, and Moss laughed. “You’re not gonna hurt the post; swing it like you mean it.”

He swung again, harder this time. It made a loud slapping noise as it hit the post, and the force of the impact caused his hand to tingle.

“Now that’s more like it. How’d that make you feel?”

He imagined what it would be like if the post had been a defenseless person, instead. The exercise soured his stomach.

“Like I’m not going to change my mind about this.”

Moss scoffed. “Can’t say I’m not disappointed. All these years, and you still haven’t figured out that some people just don’t respond to anything other than good old-fashioned violence.”

Moss turned his back on him to go back inside, and he really shouldn’t have done that. Just like he knew that he shouldn’t do what he was about to do. But all the anger he felt over everything he had seen and heard that afternoon was boiling too close to the surface. And maybe Moss was right, after all. Maybe some people didn’t respond to anything but violence. People like Moss himself.

So he swung the strap like he meant it.

It struck Moss across the shoulder blades, staggering him. “How’d that make you feel?” Before Moss could respond, before he could even steady himself, he struck him again. “How would it feel if I was twice your size?”

Moss recovered his footing and whirled on him, reaching for the whip at his hip. “You crazy motherf-aaahhhh!”

Swift had swung the strap a third time. It cracked across Moss’ palm, putting a quick end to him going for his weapon.

Moss doubled over, his good hand clutching the wrist of the injured one. “You broke my hand!” Panting in pain, he tried flexing and extending his fingers, with only limited success. “Son of a bitch! You broke it good!”

He stepped closer, looming over Moss’ hunched form. “You’ll live. I’ve decided that a full audit of the prison is necessary. I’ll inform the Council of my decision immediately. Things are going to change for the better around here. Starting with that,” he said, pointing a thumb behind him toward the whipping post. “I’ll be back bright and early tomorrow morning. It better be gone by then. Do we understand each other now?”

Moss glared at him but nodded. Tossing the strap at his feet, he went back inside.

#storm hawks #master cyclonis #storm hawks aerrow #storm hawks piper #storm hawks mr. moss #storm hawks ravess #storm hawks snipe #storm hawks fanfic

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malarkay · 1 year

Text

Inside the Wire Chapter 10

It had been a month since she and Dark Ace had arrived at Zartacla. Every day, Mr. Moss found a reason to punish at least one of them for some infraction, real or imagined, using it as an excuse to keep them all on lockdown. It was usually her, though Snipe wasn’t an infrequent target, either. Even Ace and Ravess had drawn his ire a few times, as tempers were boiling over more frequently the longer they were forced to live like this. They had nothing but Mr. Moss’ tasks to occupy their time with and were only let out of their cells for half an hour every other day to shower. It was wearing on them all.

It had been a relief when, the week before, the Storm Hawks had come for another checkup. Both Aerrow and Piper seemed a bit bewildered by her willingness to be genuinely civil toward them, but she deflected when Piper asked her about it outright. She wasn’t about to admit that she was happy to see them, if only because it allowed her to stretch her legs and interact face-to-face with people who weren’t actively trying to humiliate her. How pathetic would that sound?

Speaking of humiliation, she was currently standing in the common area of the cell block writing, ‘I must not mock or insult Mr. Moss’ a thousand times on a large chalkboard he had brought up.

At first, she wondered how he found out about that transgression. She had voiced some harsh opinions about him while venting her frustrations to Ace the night before, but not before peering out of the slot in her door to confirm that there were no guards around. But now, after enduring hours of Ravess’ mockery at her current predicament, she could make a fairly educated guess about who had ratted her out.

The combination of being given a child’s punishment, Ravess’ barbs, and the cramping in her hand and arm put her in an even worse mood than usual. So when, with her just one line away from completing her task, Mr. Moss dragged an eraser diagonally from one end of the chalkboard to the other and declared that her last twenty-five lines were illegible and would have to be redone, she couldn’t stop an angry tear from falling.

She tried to dash it away before he saw it, but wasn’t fast enough.

“Well, what d’you know, looks like all the lessons might finally be sinking in,” he chuckled, throwing the eraser at her. “Erase that mess and redo it, then get back in your cell,” he said before raising his voice so the others would hear. “Lockdown ends tomorrow. Don’t make me regret it.”

~*~*~

Cyclonis expected Mr. Moss to go back on his word this morning, to mess with them, and for the lockdown to continue indefinitely. So she was surprised when the guards had them line up outside their cells instead.

It was her first time seeing Ravess and Snipe fully since their arrival. Their jumpsuits were a lighter red than the maroon she and Ace wore, and she realized she didn’t know how long a sentence they had been given. Based on the colour coding, she assumed they had managed to avoid life imprisonment, at least.

Snipe, while still broad, looked a little slimmer than when she had last seen him, his hair trimmed similarly to Ace’s. Ravess looked much the same as she always did, though her gaze unsurprisingly lacked the obsequence she was used to seeing from her when their eyes met.

Their name tapes read S. Fortier and R. Fortier, respectively. House Fortier was one of the oldest and most influential noble families in the Empire. Ravess and Snipe were a discredit to the name. All the anger she had felt towards them when she banished them was getting stirred up at the sight of them. She should have been able to count on them, yet they had failed her time and time again. They were emblematic of the decay within the Empire she had had to fight against nearly as much as she had had to fight the Free Atmos, and it made her sick just looking at them.

“If you pick a fight with Ravess and get us locked down again, I will have some choice words for you,” Ace told her, his tone only half joking.

“I’m not going to,” she snapped at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You were staring at her so hard; she’s lucky she wasn’t vaporized on the spot.”

“Eyes forward, no talking,” the guard added.

When they had complied, the guard escorted them to the cafeteria.

A few dozen inmates, all in the same shade of red as Ravess and Snipe, were already there. Some were seated, having already gotten their breakfast, while others were still getting food from a long counter that separated the dining area from the kitchen. Half a dozen other inmates, all dressed in green, were working behind the counter, dishing up the meals.

The room got quiet when they entered. They were the center of attention, although everyone tried not to blatantly stare. At least until one of the guards gave a sharp whistle and ordered everyone to mind their business. That didn’t stop the glances entirely, but the noise level in the room did go back to a low buzz, and they were ushered forward to get into the breakfast line.

Trays, plates, and cutlery were stationed at the end of the counter, free for the taking. Complete sets of actual metal cutlery! She hadn’t had access to more than a spoon since her first day on Atmosia. Acting on impulse, she grabbed a second knife along with the rest of her utensils, slipping it into her pocket as she took a tray and plate and continued down the line.

She worried for a moment that someone had seen and would call her out, but Snipe proved himself useful as an unwitting distraction. As soon as they got in line he loudly began talking about what he hoped was being served, and as they went down the line, he kept demanding double or even triple portions of every item. The cafeteria workers and nearest guards had their hands full, explaining to him that he was only allowed single portions.

She and Dark Ace made their way to an empty table. She had noticed people sitting at it when they came in, but it had conspicuously been wiped down and vacated by the time they made it through the line. At least some people still knew how to show respect for their betters. Sitting, she draped her napkin across her lap, slipping the knife out of her pocket as she did so and tucking it into her sock.

While a table knife was useless as a weapon, it could potentially pry the leecher crystals free from their cuffs. She and Ace could be out of here in less than 24 hours.

“What are you smiling about?” Ravess asked suspiciously as she took a seat across from her.

“What makes you think you can sit here?” she shot back, scowling at her.

“I’ll sit wherever I please, you little-“

“Everyone here’s so mean!” Snipe whined as he dropped onto the bench next to Ravess. “No one cares that Snipe’s gonna starve to death!”

He reached over to steal food off Ravess’ plate but hastily snatched his hand back when she tried to stab him with her fork.

“Even Snipe’s sister doesn’t care that he’s gonna starve to death!” he complained.

“Here,” she said, pushing her tray across the table to him.

Ace made a disgruntled noise and pulled her tray back toward her.

“Thank you, Ma-aww, no takebacks!” Snipe pounded his fist on the table and glared at Ace, but backed down when Ace glared right back at him.

“Now I know you’re up to something,” Ravess said.

“You’re right, I am. I’m trying to shut Snipe up. His incessant whining is giving me a headache.”

“You need to eat,” Ace said between bites of his breakfast.

“I need quiet more than I need whatever this is,” she said.

“It’s food,” Snipe supplied helpfully.

“Debatable.”

One of the guards walked up to the table. “Am I going to have to write up the four of you on your first day out of lockdown?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” she answered for them all.

“Good. I hate paperwork. So, to keep us all happy, I’ll remind everyone of the mess hall rules. No sharing food. No stealing food. No violence. Got it?”

They nodded, and the guard moved on.

Everyone ate in silence after his departure, allowing her to fantasize about disabling the leecher cuffs in peace. If she couldn’t use the knife to pry the crystals free, she’d move on to trying to break the locking mechanism. And if that failed, she could perhaps use the butt of the handle to shatter the crystals. She had several options and all the time in the world to try them out.

Once breakfast was over, she turned in her tray and cutlery and lined up with the others to leave the cafeteria. It was there that her little fantasy was shattered when the guards began searching every prisoner.

She glanced around her for a place to ditch the knife, but her options were limited. Dark Ace was in front of her. She could slip it into his pocket, but she wouldn’t resort to him taking the fall for her if there was another way out. Ravess was behind her, but it would be impossible to plant the knife on her without her noticing.

Her only real option was to quietly hand off the knife to Ace and have him plant it in the pocket of the prisoner in front of him. She shifted to see who that was and recognized him as…well, she couldn’t remember his name, but she knew his face. The commander with the scar. Perfect. He’d do nicely.

But before she could put her plan into action, a guard appeared at her side. Some guards had started their search at the back of the line to speed things along. She hadn’t noticed. The guard ordered her to hold her arms out to her sides and began his pat down. She held her breath as he got closer to discovering the knife, only to let it out when, with only the briefest hesitation when he first felt the metal, he smoothly took the knife away from her and slipped it up his sleeve.

Straightening back up, he bent closer to her as he ostensibly double-checked her sleeves. “Do you know what Mr. Moss would do to you if you were caught with a weapon, Master?” he asked lowly.

“Am I about to find out?” she asked, just as quietly.

“Not today.”

She glanced over at her unexpected saviour, memorizing his face and name. Officer H. Martlet.

“Some of us are still loyal, but we can only help you so much. This can’t happen again. We-“

“Count’s off! One knife’s missing!” called one of the cafeteria workers behind them.

“Alright, inmates, hands on your heads. Nobody moves, nobody talks,” shouted the guard who had spoken to them earlier. “Front of the room guards, continue your search of the prisoners. Back of the room guards search the tables. Nobody leaves this mess hall until that knife turns up.”

Martlet cocked an eyebrow at her as if to say, ‘See?’

He went off with the others to search the cafeteria, and after a tense few minutes, he ‘discovered’ the knife on the floor under one of the tables.

“Found it!” he called, holding it up. “One of these no ‘counts must’ve dropped it.” He returned the knife to the cafeteria workers.

The guard who had taken charge nodded. “Repeat your count,” he ordered the workers. “Inmates, you are responsible for returning all cutlery at the end of every meal. If you drop something, pick it up. If this happens again, you’re all getting smoked. Including you!” he said, pointing to the cafeteria workers.

“Boss, that ain’t fair!” one of them protested.

“It is when it’s your job to make sure everyone turns everything back in.”

“But everyone did turn everything back in!”

The guard scoffed. “I’m sick of your whining, McNair. Next time you open your mouth, you’re off this cushy detail, and we’ll have you digging ditches outside the wall. How’s that sound?”

McNair snapped his mouth shut and shook his head.

“Thought so. All clear?”

“Yeah, the count’s good,” another worker announced.

“Excellent. Everyone back to your housing units!”

~*~*~

The next several months passed uneventfully as they settled into a routine. Wake up, attend morning count, go to breakfast, back to their cells until lunch. After lunch, they went out to the yard, which for them was the flat, razor-wire-enclosed rooftop of the prison. After an hour outside, they had time to shower or do laundry; then it was back to the cells until dinner. After dinner, their cell doors remained unlocked for an hour, and they could spend time in the cell block’s common area if they wanted. Then it was time for the evening count before being locked in for the night.

Every two weeks, Piper and Aerrow would visit. Their conversations, for the most part, remained cooly polite. After a few visits, Piper began to talk about some of the projects she was working on and the problems she was running into. When it became clear that she wouldn’t volunteer to brainstorm solutions with her, Piper became more direct.

“So?”

“Don’t be a jerk; you know what I’m asking. What do you think?“

“I think you were already given a chance to work with me, and you threw the offer back in my face. Why should I help you now?”

“You wanted me to help you conquer the world. You can’t compare that to what I’m asking.”

She shrugged.

“Aren’t you bored in here? If I were you, I’d jump at the chance to do something useful.”

Did Piper think she could dangle a puzzle in front of her face and expect her to trip over herself to solve it? That was just irritating.

“Bored? Not at all. I’ve found being here to be a welcome change of pace. It’s relaxing.”

Piper scoffed. “You’re such a liar!”

She just smirked at her.

“You’re not going to help me?“

“No.”

Despite her rejection, Piper kept regaling her with tales of what she was working on at their next visit, and the one after that, and the one after that. Sometimes she would try to get her to help her with a problem. Sometimes she wouldn’t. As time passed, it got harder to say no to those requests. There was something almost charming about how Piper spoke about her projects, an infectious enthusiasm that was difficult to avoid getting swept up in.

“I have a problem,” Piper told her towards the end of one of their visits.

“You have five of them,” she agreed. “I tried to get rid of them for you. Sadly, I was unsuccessful.”

“Keep it up,” Piper said with false brightness. “One of these days, jokes about trying to kill my friends might actually be funny.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Well, it’s a little embarrassing,” Piper hedged.

That made her grin and sit forward, resting her forearms on the table. “Ohhh, so it’s a personal problem. Why didn’t you say so? Should Aerrow wait outside?”

“No, he can stay. The problem is Finn. He keeps breaking into my diary to read it.”

That surprised a laugh out of her. “You keep a diary?” she snickered.

“What’s so funny about that?” Piper asked with an offended edge to her voice.

“It just seems so frivolous.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us have a giant stick up our-“

“Erm, what Piper is trying to say is that we’ve tried a million things to get him to stop, and nothing’s worked,” Aerrow spoke up.

“Can’t you just get a lock for it?”

“It’s not a physical book. I record it on a memory crystal. I tried hiding it in a locked box, but he still managed to get to it.”

“Well then, just imprint yourself on the crystal.”

“What do you mean, imprint on the crystal?”

She smiled. One of the rarer features of a memory crystal was its ability to be keyed to a specific person, rendering it nothing more than a shiny rock to anyone else trying to access its contents. She felt a certain amount of vindication at the fact that Piper seemed unaware of that little bit of trivia. For a moment, she considered keeping the mechanics behind it to herself. But the blond Storm Hawk was the most obnoxious of the bunch, and she sympathized with Piper’s desire to protect her innermost thoughts from his prying eyes. So she taught her how to lock a memory crystal and the kind of keys that she could use to unlock it. Something unique to her, like fingerprints.

“But it would be too easy to lift a fingerprint off something I’ve touched and use it to unlock the crystal. Aren’t there other things the crystal can use as a key? Something more secure?”

“Sure, but I’m not going to do all your thinking for you. You’ll figure something out.”

Piper nodded slowly before smiling. “This has been helpful. Thank you.”

She shrugged off the thanks, glancing over to the guard by the door, who tapped his watch when he saw her looking.

“Looks like we’re out of time,” she said, standing. The other two stood as well; then Piper surprised her by coming around to her side of the table and throwing her arms around her.

She stood awkwardly frozen to the spot for the duration of the hug, arms stiff at her sides. “Thanks again,” Piper said before stepping away when the guard reminded her that she wasn’t supposed to do that.

“Okay,” she said, the only words her stupid brain was offering up at the moment.

“I’ll let you know if it works at our next meeting!”

~*~*~

The walk back to the Condor was short but awkward. At least for him. Piper walked along with a spring in her step and a grin on her face, acting like everything was perfectly normal.

“So,” he said slowly once they were back onboard. “What the heck was that?”

“What?” Piper asked, glancing over at him curiously.

“The hug?”

“Oh!” She stopped and held her hand up, thumb and pointer finger pinched together, smiling triumphantly.

“Huh?”

“The key! Or, well, the key to the key. Probably. Maybe. I think, anyway.”

He looked closer, realizing she was holding up a strand of hair.

“She said it had to be something unique to a person. Well, what could be more unique?”

“Than hair?” he asked skeptically.

She rolled her eyes. “Think about it.”

“DNA?” he asked after a moment’s thought.

“Yep!”

He grinned, feeling his shoulders relax. “That was quick thinking. There wasn’t a less awkward way to get that, though?”

“Anything else would have made what I was doing too obvious. Anyway, why do you look so relieved? You weren’t jealous, were you?” she teased.

He laughed. “Jealous? Nah.” Of his best friend hugging their mutual worst enemy? Of course not!

Grinning, she held out her arms, and he gladly stepped into her embrace, hugging her back. They stayed locked together for a long moment until Piper joked, “Good. Besides, you’re a much better hugger.”

They continued walking until they got to her room.

“So how does this work? Do you wave the hair in front of the memory crystal and hope it recognizes it?”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that simple,” she said, opening her door and rummaging through her things until she came across Cyclonis’ memory crystal. Despite her words, she tried what he suggested. Nothing happened. Nothing happened when she tried brushing the hair against the crystal, either.

“What I’m probably going to have to do is find a way to amplify her DNA within some sort of crystalline simulacrum that I can use to trick the memory crystal into thinking she’s the one trying to activate it.”

“Just don’t accidentally clone her or something. One Cyclonis is more than enough,” he told her with a smirk.

~*~*~

Within a few months, Cyclonis had compiled a comprehensive list of the guards on her side. If she was going to escape from this place, she would need their cooperation. In the meantime, they were proving themselves valuable in other ways.

When one of them was on shift, life was a little bit easier. Extra food would find its way into her pocket after dinner during the search, an apple or an orange or an extra bread roll. The hot water would last through an entire shower instead of ‘running out’ halfway through or not working at all. As winter approached, she found an extra blanket stashed in her footlocker. Terra Zartacla wasn’t known for its cold. There hadn’t been any snowfall recorded in nearly thirty years. But overnight temperatures during the winter could fall to near freezing, and not much effort was put into heating and cooling the prison. Not in the cellblocks, anyway.

Their loyalty would not go unrewarded. Once she found a way out of this place and reclaimed her throne, they could look forward to generous promotions and their choice of assignments. The only problem was that she hadn’t found a way out yet.

“-eat it this way, instead of this way, and you can eat the whole thing! Hey, is anyone listening? This is important!”

She looked up from her bowl of the shockingly bland soup the kitchen staff called chilli, and Snipe’s face brightened at finally having someone’s attention.

“Master, watch! I invented a way to eat the whole apple,” he said excitedly, chomping down on his apple from the top, biting clean through the core.

“Game changer,” she deadpanned.

“Mmm-hmm!” Snipe agreed as he chewed.

“And stop calling me that. You remember what happened last time.”

Mr. Moss had caught wind of Snipe’s bad habit of addressing her by her old title and had locked him down in his cell for three days. And then he had turned around and locked her down, too, for allowing it. As an extra turn of the screw, he’d reduced their rations to bread and water for the duration. It hadn’t been her favourite way to spend a long weekend.

Snipe frowned at the reminder. Setting down his apple, he removed his piece of cornbread from its foil wrapping and fashioned the foil into a hat, setting it on his head. Ace rolled his eyes with a sigh.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping the guards from reading my mind.”

“I wasn’t aware there was anything to read,” Ravess smirked at him.

“How do they know what we say when they aren't around, then?”

She glanced at Ravess from the corner of her eye, wondering how Snipe could be thick enough not to realize that his sister was a snitch. She wasn’t sure what she was getting out of her role of informant, whether there was some material gain involved or if she was doing it for her own amusement. It didn’t really matter. All they could do about it was watch what they said around her, something she and Ace were already doing. At least Snipe was finally starting to ask the right questions, even if he was coming to wildly incorrect conclusions. He’d figure out the truth eventually.

“They can’t read your mind, Snipe. And even if they could, that hat won’t stop them. Take it off,” she told him.

“No, foil stops the rays from getting through! Everyone knows that!”

“For that to work, you’d need to have your entire head encased in the foil. Your hat that…”

She knew how to get out of here!

She fought to keep from smiling and continued, hoping Ravess didn’t notice anything strange about the brief mid-sentence pause.

“-that doesn’t even fit right isn’t doing anything.”

Pouting, Snipe took the foil hat off his head and threw it down on the table. They continued their meal with no more talk of mind reading or foil hats. She scoped out the cafeteria as she ate and noticed two of her favourite guards were on duty, including Martlet. Perfect.

At the end of the meal, she began collecting everyone’s trays, stacking them on top of one another.

“What are you doing?” Ravess asked, eyes narrowing.

“Helping.”

Ravess laughed. “No, really.”

“Really. I’ve got this. The rest of you can go line up.”

Before Ravess could protest further, Ace put a hand on her shoulder and started steering her toward the line.

She took the trays over to the trash. A quick scan of the room showed the guards otherwise occupied and Ravess saying something to Martlet, not even being subtle about it. Too bad for Ravess, she chose the wrong guard, and she would win this round because of it. Quickly, she shoved all the foil she had collected at the table into her pocket, tossed the napkins, turned everything else in to the kitchen staff, then got in line.

Predictably, Martlet came up to her immediately for a pat down.

“Got reasonable suspicion to believe you’ve got contraband on you,” he said, loudly enough for the next nearest guard and every prisoner in between to hear. “Hands on your head!”

He was rough with his search, but he had to put on a convincing show.

“Huh,” he scoffed, stepping back once he was done, empty-handed. He shook his head and told his fellow guard, “False alarm.”

Once back in her cell for the night, she carefully smoothed out her pieces of foil, inspecting each one to ensure they were all intact. Then she hid them at the bottom of her footlocker and laid down, running calculations in her head until she fell asleep.

~*~*~

It was done.

Piper held her newest creation up to the light. It was a cloudy white crystal the size of her fist, and if she was correct, it would allow her to access the information stored on Cyclonis’ memory crystal.

The moment of truth finally here, she eagerly retrieved the memory crystal, setting it atop her workbench. Bringing the new crystal closer, she activated it. A white glow surrounded it, and after a moment, an answering light surrounded the memory crystal as it flared to life.

“Yes!”

She punched the air as the memory crystal projected a holographic image of the first bit of information stored within it. But her enthusiasm was dampened when she looked at what was in front of her.

“Wha-?”

Where she had expected to see schematics of a weapon to rival the Storm Engine, or pages of arcane knowledge on crystal magic, or even the most closely guarded state secrets of Cyclonia, there was a photograph instead.

“No way.”

She cycled through the rest of what was on the crystal, confident she’d find what she had expected hidden somewhere.

“There’s just no way!”

It was all photographs! Cyclonis had hunted them down, ripped a hole in their ship, trounced 5/6ths of the team, and almost got herself captured, and for what? To fix a broken photo album?

She scrolled back to the first photo, just in case she had missed something. She hadn’t.

“She’s insane!”

There was a knock on her door. “Uhh, you okay in there?” Finn’s voice asked.

She opened the door. “I’m flabbergasted,” she told him.

“Oh. I bet Stork has something you can take for that.”

She shook her head with a laugh.

“What’s that?” he asked, not waiting for an answer before coming into her room and looking at the picture floating above her workstation. He made a face, recoiling slightly. “She seems nice,” he joked. Then, “Is that Cyclonis?”

Piper realized she hadn’t paid much attention to the pictures in her search. She looked now, at a small Cyclonis clutching Atmos’ creepiest-looking doll, then up at the woman who accompanied her. A chill went up her spine as she met the hard, pitiless stare of Cyclonis’ predecessor. The woman didn’t look like she had an ounce of warmth or kindness in her body. This was who raised Cyclonis? No wonder she was so messed up.

“Yeah, it is,” she said, scrolling to the next picture.

“Aww!“ Finn laughed, and she couldn’t help but smile, too. It was another picture of a very young Cyclonis, hamming it up for the camera. She looked so much happier than in the first photo. She sat atop the shoulders of a man who looked about thirty, whose resemblance to both the woman in the first picture and Cyclonis herself was unmistakable. He had his mother’s high cheekbones and his daughter’s crooked grin.

But there was something else about him that was unsettlingly familiar. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, with a sparse smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, he looked a lot like a grown, masculine version of Cyclonis’ Lark disguise. She wondered if that had been deliberate or if she had done it subconsciously.

The following two pictures featured him, as well. The first was of him with a woman. Tall, slender, with raven hair and indigo eyes. Cyclonis’ mother. They looked happy. She frowned when she realized there were no pictures of this woman with Cyclonis. What happened to Cyclonis’ mother was not a matter of public record, at least not on Atmosia, but she could make an educated guess.

She moved on.

Cyclonis’ father was younger in the last picture to feature him, maybe twenty, sitting sideways on his Switchblade like he was waiting for someone. His hair was wind tousled, his pose and expression casually confident. He looked, she hated to admit it, very cool.

The last picture was of Cyclonis’ grandmother in her prime, standing before her throne in full imperial regalia. She looked less ice cold than in the first photo, but not by much.

She scrolled again, and it brought her back to the first photo.

“Dude, where did you get these?” Finn asked, and she started. She had forgotten he was there.

“Cyclonis’ memory crystal.”

Finn laughed. “Seriously? This is all that’s on there? Oh man, you must feel so stupid right now.”

“Gee, thanks, Finn.”

“No problem. We should show the others!”

She grabbed the crystal before he could. “I dunno about that. These seem kinda…personal?”

“Oh, come on! Now you feel bad about going through her stuff?”

“Kinda. I mean, obviously these are important to her, and she didn’t want anyone else looking at them.”

“Pfft, too late!” He snatched the crystals from her hands and ran off down the hall. Exasperated, she went after him at a slower pace. By the time she got to bridge, he was already showing off the pictures to Stork, Junko, and Radarr.

A few minutes later, Aerrow and Starling wandered in; towels slung over their shoulders and water bottles in hand. They had spent the better part of the afternoon training together.

Starling had returned to Terra Mesa after the tribunal members were released from their duties but promised to come to visit them more often. So far, she had kept that promise, coming to stay on the Condor for a few days once a month. It was nice having her around semi-regularly. It’d be nicer if she stayed full-time, but they’d take what they could get.

“Whatcha doing?” Aerrow asked.

“Looking at pictures,” Finn grinned.

“Who is that? He’s fit,” Starling said, taking a swig of water. The crystal was currently displaying the second to last picture.

Piper couldn’t help the strangled noise she made. Starling wasn’t usually one to make such comments. Whether it was because she was naturally reserved or because she considered them too young to talk that way around, she wasn’t sure. Finn’s grin grew diabolical. “Cyclonis’ dad.”

Starling choked on her water, and Aerrow pounded her on the back until the coughing subsided.

“You okay?” he asked her.

Red-faced either from the choking or embarrassment, Starling nodded. “The one time I say anything,” she muttered, mopping water off herself with her towel.

Aerrow grinned before turning his attention back to the photos. “Is this all that’s on the crystal?” he asked as he scrolled through them.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

“I wish I was!”

“And you’re sure this is what she used the Nil crystal on?”

“I’m positive.”

“Huh,” he said with a hint of a smirk.

“You’re not upset?”

“Nah, I’m kinda impressed. Reckless and sentimental aren’t words I’d use to describe Cyclonis before now. Are you upset you wasted so much time on this?”

“Actually, no, I learned a lot from this project.”

“So what do we do now?” Junko asked. “Do you think she’d want this back?”

“There’s only one problem with that,” Stork pointed out. “She can’t have any crystals without-“ he gestured with his hands, simulating an explosion.

“Stork’s right. She can’t have this crystal back,” she said. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t have the pictures.

~*~*~

Things were coming along nicely. Cyclonis had filled in the Dark Ace and Martlet about her escape plan while keeping Ravess and Snipe in the dark, and they were fully onboard.

They would choose a day when Martlet was assigned the graveyard shift in their section. He’d leave their doors unlocked at lights out, and once the others were asleep, he’d leave his post long enough for them to slip out. Getting down to the ground floor would be the trickiest part. They couldn’t hand-pick the entire staff, after all. There might be one or two who would look the other way, but they’d need to be quick and decisive in their takedown of the others. They couldn’t let them raise the alarm. And besides, they’d need uniforms.

Once dressed as guards, they’d have an easier time moving freely. Ace would go ahead to clear a path and open the gates while she stole Mr. Moss’ ride. She’d walk it to the outer gate where Ace would be waiting, they’d push it far enough out into the forest that no one would hear the engine start, and they’d fly their way to freedom before anyone even knew they were missing.

But first, she needed enough foil and plastic wrap to construct energy-blocking shields for the cuffs. That would allow her to escape on the Heliblade safely and perhaps even use her powers to a limited extent.

Martlet was helping her with that, too. Between the two of them, her collection was quickly growing. Soon she’d have enough foil to cut the leech crystals off from the outside world.

It wouldn’t be long, now.

~*~*~

“I have a confession to make,” Piper said, watching Cyclonis to gauge her reaction. They were halfway through their visit, and she had seemed unusually disengaged the entire time. Piper thought they were past this.

Maybe she was coming down with something. Winter had hit the ground running this year, and word around the prison was that the flu was spreading like wildfire across Zartacla and Seraph, a small terra about ten klicks to the east, where the guards and their families lived. Even Mr. Moss had sounded sniffly and congested when he greeted them.

“Oh?” Cyclonis asked, clearly disinterested.

She could fix that.

“I can’t make heads or tails out of this idea of yours,” she said, holding out a rough sketch torn from one of Cyclonis’ notebooks.

Cyclonis snatched the page away from her, glancing down at it and then back up at her, gaze sharp. “Where did you get this?”

“The ruins of Cyclonia.”

A pained look flit across Cyclonis’ face at the mention of Cyclonia and ruins in the same sentence but was quickly suppressed. “You’ve been down there?”

“We had to make sure there was nothing left that could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.”

“What a clever way to justify looting.”

“Pot, kettle.”

“Yet only one of us is behind bars for it.”

Aerrow decided to step in before things could get heated. “We’re getting off track here.”

“There was a point to this?”

“Yes,” she told her. “I thought you might be interested in finishing this. This and other projects in your notebooks. We can work together to make them a reality.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

“Because they’re your projects!”

“That you’ll take all the credit for? No thanks.”

“We’ll share the credit. And it’s not about that, anyway. You said you wanted to take over the Atmos to make it a better place. The plans and sketches I’ve seen? Some of those inventions could do that! If there is any truth to what you claim motivated your megalomania, now’s your chance to prove it.”

Cyclonis sneered and threw the page back towards her, but she pushed it back to her side of the table and tossed a pencil down on top of it. “Keep it. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

At first, she thought she’d refuse, but she angrily folded up the page and shoved it and the pencil into her pocket. “Happy now? Are we done?”

“Actually, I have one more thing for you. But I’m not sure you deserve it now.”

“Keep it, then. I don’t want it,” Cyclonis shot back flippantly.

“Trust me, you do,” Aerrow stepped in again.

Surprisingly, that shut Cyclonis up long enough for her to slide the envelope over to her. “You might want to handle that a little more gently than you did the other paper.”

“Is it a full pardon from the Sky Knight Council? Because if so, you should have led with that.”

“The Chairman is old, not senile,” she joked, and at least that drew a smirk from the other girl. A smirk that faded as she opened the envelope and removed the photographs within. It was replaced with the softest, tenderest expression she’d ever seen grace Cyclonis’ face. Slowly, carefully, she shuffled through the short stack of photos.

“Umm,” she began, pausing to clear her throat when it came out thicker with emotion than she probably intended. “How?” she asked, furrowing her brow as she looked back up at them.

“I might have lied about my diary troubles,” she shrugged. She could almost see all the questions taking shape behind Cyclonis’ eyes and held up a forestalling hand. “We don’t have enough time left to get into the technical details of how I managed to hack your memory crystal. Your questions will have to wait until next time.”

Cyclonis nodded, slipping the photographs back into the envelope. “Next time,” she echoed before looking over to the guard, who held up five fingers. “Although, we do have enough time for one question.”

“Sure,” she agreed.

“Why? You didn’t have to give these to me. You could have let me believe they were lost forever.”

“I could have, but that didn’t feel right.”

Cyclonis was silent for nearly a full minute. And then, in a move that shocked Piper, she quietly thanked them.

On their way back to the Condor, Aerrow looked over at her with an incredulous, “She said thank you.”

“Sometimes wonders never cease.”

~*~*~

Two days later, it was time.

Cyclonis had the materials she needed to construct her shields, and, in a stroke of good luck, half the guards assigned to Section A of the prison that night were loyalists.

The moment Martlet ‘locked’ them in for the night, she got to work.

First, she wrapped the cuffs in plastic wrap, fully insulating them before she began to encase them in layers of foil. She worked carefully to ensure that there were no gaps in coverage and that the foil layer was of sufficient thickness with no weak spots. She would feel more confident if she had something to measure with, but she didn’t. Eyeballing it would have to be good enough.

Once that was done, she retrieved the photographs Piper had given her out of her locker and tucked them into her pocket. They were the only thing in this gods-forsaken place she cared to keep. Days later, she still felt a combination of confusion and wonder when she thought of what Piper had done for her. The Storm Hawk could have chucked the crystal back into the Wastelands once she learned that it contained nothing of any use to her, and she would have been none the wiser. Instead, she had gone to the trouble of having the photos printed off and handed them over to her without asking for anything in return.

Would she have done the same thing in her place? Definitely not. It annoyed her that that realization bothered her just a little. And it bothered her even more that, despite Piper asking for nothing in return, she still felt like she owed her something. And that was how she found herself jotting down notes and equations on the page Piper had given her, working by the light that filtered into her cell from the hallway in the hours leading up to her escape. She wasn’t going to have time to finish her work on this project, far from it, but she could at least start it and trust Piper to figure out the rest.

When Martlet passed by on his rounds and gave her the nod that signalled it was almost time to make their move, she scribbled a hasty ‘For Piper’ on the top of the page, placed it atop her cot, and moved to the door in anticipation. Once she heard the main gate of the cellblock open, she counted to ten and then slowly pushed open her door. Martlet had freshly oiled the hinges to prevent any squeaking that might awaken Ravess or Snipe, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

She froze when the snoring coming from Snipe’s cell stopped abruptly, replaced by a violent coughing fit. The virus going around had hit him pretty hard. She had been studiously ignoring her headache and the tickle in her throat that had started earlier that afternoon. She never got sick, and she didn’t intend to start now.

Snipe’s cough quieted, the snoring resumed, and she slipped out of her cell, closing the door quietly behind her. Ace was already waiting for her outside his door, and together they moved silently toward the exit. Peeking out, she saw Martlet talking to another one of the guards, one who wasn’t with them. Martlet had maneuvered them so he was facing the cellblock, leaving the other guard’s back turned away from them and the stairs they needed to reach.

They made it to the stairs undetected and moved down to the second level. From here, they needed to get down the hallway to the other stairs leading to the first floor. This would be the most treacherous section of their journey, as a look toward the guard post showed that neither of the guards stationed on this floor was in on their plan.

They ducked into a supply closet and waited for the guards to make their rounds again. They didn’t have long to wait. As soon as one of the guards passed by, Ace grabbed him in a chokehold and dragged him into the closet. The guard’s struggles grew weaker and weaker until, after what felt like an eternity, he went limp. Ace waited a little longer before releasing him and letting him fall to the ground. Together they stripped him and, after pressing her fingers to his throat and feeling a pulse, bound and gagged him.

The guard was on the smaller side, so she got his uniform. It was a bit baggy on her, even with her wearing her jumpsuit underneath, but in the dark, it would come close enough to passing muster.

Twisting up her hair, she tucked it underneath the guard’s cap, then picked up his baton, which was armed with a stunner. She activated it, watching how the energy swirled within and around the crystal. Most people only saw a glow emanating from crystals, like a lightbulb. But the trained crystal mage could see the wispy strands of power that infused each crystal. It was these that they could manipulate directly, that they bent to their will. She watched for any sign of the leechers siphoning power from the stunner but saw none. With a smirk, she deactivated the crystal and nodded to Ace, then signalled for him to wait here.

Stepping out into the hall, she kept her head down as she walked toward the guard station.

“Thought you got lost,” the second guard joked as she approached. When she didn’t reply, he asked, “Aguilar? You alright, man?”

She activated the baton once she got within range of the other guard and thrust it toward his chest.

“Hey!”

He grabbed at her wrist just as the crystal discharged, and he slumped in his seat. Unfortunately, his effort to save himself ripped a hole through several layers of foil, weakening the shield enough to allow a trickle of energy to flow from the stunner to the leecher. She let the baton clatter to the ground as Ace came up behind her and hoisted the unconscious guard over his shoulder. They brought him back to the supply closet.

She did her best to repair the damage while Ace assessed the second guard’s build. “This isn’t going to work,” he said. “He’s too short.” He bound and gagged the guard, then looked at her, pointing to her wrist. “Is that going to be a problem?”

She shook her head. “It’s a minor inconvenience. We can still go through with the plan.” She hoped.

“Who’s left? Drongo and Wilder?”

She nodded.

Drongo was a Wallop. A particularly large Wallop. They were lucky he was with them rather than against them, but his uniform wouldn’t fit Ace, either. “Wilder it is,” Ace said. “Let’s go.”

Down on the ground floor, they motioned for Drongo and Wilder to follow them, leading them out of the cellblock and into the guard’s locker room.

“Strip,” Ace told Wilder without preamble.

“Whoa, what? That wasn’t part of the plan,” he said.

“I need your uniform.”

“How are we gonna explain that to Mr. Moss? Martlet said you were just gonna sneak by us.”

“Just say we snuck up behind you and hit you with this,” Ace said, holding up the baton he took from the second guard upstairs.

Drongo snorted.

“Problem?”

“Aye. Go ‘head and give it yer best shot.”

Ace activated the baton and jabbed it dead center in the middle of Drongo’s chest. The Wallop didn’t even flinch, not even when Ace held it there for several long seconds.

That did pose a problem. How would they explain how Wilder was taken down without Drongo noticing and raising the alarm or simply stopping them himself?

“We don’t have time for this,” she said. “Drongo, you’ve caught the flu. It upset your stomach. You’ve spent the last hour in the bathroom. You didn’t see or hear anything. Go.”

Drongo left, grumbling about the indignity of that cover story.

They both returned their attention to Wilder.

“Your uniform now, if you please,” Ace prompted.

“What? Right here in front of her?” He leaned in closer to Ace and lowered his voice. “I don’t wear…uhh….” His face flushed red as he trailed off.

Eww.

“She doesn’t care,” Ace said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Yes, what is that supposed to mean?”

Ace sighed. “Just…wait outside?”

Rolling her eyes, she did as he asked. A few minutes later, he came out wearing Wilder’s uniform and carrying two pairs of dark adaptor goggles. He handed one pair to her, and she put them on.

They moved on, past the cafeteria, the infirmary, the visiting room, and intake. Using the keys pilfered from one of the guards, they opened the front door and stepped out into the night.

They crept past the tracker beast cages, fearful of waking them up. They didn’t need their baying raising any suspicions. Once past them, they went their separate ways, him to deal with the guards in their towers while she headed around back.

That was where the warden’s two-story building sat. The entire first floor was one large office. The second floor was a fully furnished apartment. The warden had a house on Seraph, of course. The largest one on the terra. But Mr. Moss preferred to stay on Zartacla.

Behind the building, walled off between it and the wall surrounding the prison, was The Courtyard. And off to the side was a separate garage. That’s where his beloved Bessy would be.

She passed a patrolling guard along the way. They nodded to each other, and he walked on by, but then he stopped and called out, “Wait!”

Damn.

She stopped and faced him, tensing for a fight. She hoped it didn’t come to that. That could draw the attention of other guards.

“What’re you doing here? This is my route.”

“It surely is,” she said brightly, adopting the prevalent accent of the region. “I was just bringin’ some cough medicine over to Mr. Moss. He called the infirmary sayin’ he was out and needed s’more.”

“Drew the short straw, huh?”

She laughed. “Oh, I don’t mind.”

“Tch, it’s freezing out here. Why don’t you hand it on over? I’ll take it to him, and you can go back inside where it’s warmer.”

“Well, bless your heart; chivalry ain’t dead, after all. But I’ve come all this way already; what’s a little farther?”

“Suit yourself.”

He gave a jaunty little salute, turned, and went on his way. Breathing a sigh of relief, she continued to her destination.

No lights were on in the main building. Mr. Moss must be asleep. Good. Even better, the garage was unlocked. As quietly as she could, she rolled it open. She uncovered Moss’ Heliblade and checked the fuel compartment, finding it ready to go with new engine crystals. She closed the compartment door and took a seat. Gripping the handlebars, she focused her attention on the cuff with the compromised shield, on the alert for any sign that the leecher was siphoning energy from the crystals. But it seemed to be holding.

The only problem now was that the key wasn’t in the ignition. Of course, nothing could ever be simple. She got up and began looking around the garage for the key, but it was nowhere to be found. With a sigh, she realized she’d have to search the office.

Wishing she had kept the baton, she grabbed a crowbar as a tool and weapon and headed for the main building. Unlike the garage, the door was locked. With a little effort, she pried it open with the crowbar and slipped inside. Closing the door behind her, she paused and listened for any sounds that would indicate that the noise of the break-in had woken up Mr. Moss. But all was quiet. She relaxed a little.

The front of the office was faintly illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the front windows. But the further into the office she ventured, the darker it got. There were no windows along the back wall where the desk sat. But she dared not turn on a light and risk tipping Mr. Moss off that someone was here if he were to awaken. At least it wasn’t pitch black.

She slid open one of the desk drawers, freezing when she heard him cough from upstairs. The tickle in her throat, the one she’d done such a good job ignoring up until this point, intensified at the sound, and she choked back a cough. Now was not the time!

Once she had it under control, she squinted through the darkness at the drawer's contents. Her priority was the skimmer key, but she kept an eye out for the cuff keys, as well. If she could rid herself of the cuffs here and now, she wouldn’t have to worry about the integrity of her makeshift shields.

The first drawer didn’t yield anything she was looking for. Neither did the second. As she opened the third, another, more violent cough came from upstairs, followed by loud grumbling and a light flicking on.

She searched the third and fourth drawers, found the skimmer key, and grabbed it. She was halfway to the door when another light flicked on, and footsteps started down the stairs. She dove behind an armchair, poking her head around it just far enough to see Mr. Moss. He was dressed in his uniform slacks, with his shirt unbuttoned over an undershirt and no boots. As she watched, he walked over to his desk, sat down, and turned on his desk lamp. She ducked back behind the chair.

She had hoped that he had just come down to grab something off his desk and return upstairs, but a full five minutes dragged by and he didn’t move. She chanced another glance and saw him reading some reports. She’d never been one to subscribe to the childish notion that good things happened to good people and bad things happened to bad people. Even the idea that people could be categorized as good or bad was a gross oversimplification, as far as she was concerned. But she knew what column she fell under in the minds of the general populace of Atmosia. As she sat trapped here without any useful crystals in sight and no plan for this contingency, time ticking away, she was starting to rethink her dismissal of that philosophy.

Even more so when Mr. Moss suddenly spoke aloud, “Why in the blue blazes is it so cold in here?”

Mr. Moss got up and went to the door, and her gaze followed him. She must have damaged it more than she thought when she pried it open. It hadn’t latched fully when she closed it behind her, and now it stood just slightly ajar, letting in a draft. Opening the door wider, he peered out into the darkness. It was the best opening she was going to get. She stood, tightly gripping the crowbar with both hands. But before she could rush him, he whirled around to face her, and she hesitated. If she attacked now, having lost the element of surprise, it would be far too easy for him to disarm her. And then what?

“Well, well, well, what have we here? I knew it was only a matter of time before you tried to fly the coop. Why don’t you put the crowbar down, and we can have a rational discussion.”

Her disguise, such as it was, hadn’t fooled him for a second.

“There’s nothing to discuss.”

Mr. Moss moved so that his back was no longer to the open door. He must suspect she wasn’t alone and didn’t want anyone sneaking up on him. “We’ve got plenty to discuss. Like how much trouble you’re in. Care to take a wild guess?” When she didn’t respond, he grinned. “The answer’s gonna surprise you. You’re not. On one condition.”

She laughed skeptically, and he continued. “I mean it. I know I’ve been hard on you. I’m not gonna apologize for it. I knew from the start that you’d need a firm hand, and I was right. But let’s forget all that, just this once. If you come along quietly back to your cell, I’ll forgive this transgression. That goes for the Dark Ace, too, since I’m sure he’s skulking around somewhere.”

Even if she believed him, she had no intention of just giving up now. Not when her key to freedom was quite literally in her possession. And not when his overabundance of caution had given her a free path to the door. With all her might, she threw the crowbar right at his face. He tried to dodge out of the way but wasn’t fast enough. While he was spared a crushed nose, the crowbar struck a glancing blow that lacerated his cheek. His hand flew up to his bleeding face as he unleashed a howl that was half pain, half rage.

It was time to go.

She ran for the door. He lunged at her but missed, and she took off toward the garage. “You little hellcat!” he yelled. “Imma tan your hide for that!”

That she believed, but he would have to catch her first.

She fished the key out of her pocket once she reached the garage. Hopping onto the Heliblade, she wasted no time starting her up. Shifting into first gear, she rolled on the throttle, riding out of the garage and right into the path of a crowbar-wielding Mr. Moss.

She turned to go around him, bracing herself for the swing he would undoubtedly try to take at her as she passed. Instead, he threw the crowbar through the spokes of the bike’s front wheel, bringing her to an abrupt halt. She rolled out of the way as the bike toppled over, not wanting to be dragged with it as it skidded to a stop a few meters away.

“Look what you made me do to Bessy!” Mr. Moss seethed as he stomped toward her. She scrambled over to the fallen Heliblade, ripping open the fuel compartment door and grabbing two engine crystals.

Standing, she ran to put some distance between her and Mr. Moss. As she did, she forced the energy from one of the engine crystals into the second, overloading it. When it grew hot in her hand, she turned and threw it at Mr. Moss.

Unfortunately, she miscalculated the timing, and the crystal exploded in midair between them. The force of it knocked them both back.

By this point, the commotion had drawn the attention of the nearest guard tower. Ace’s job had been to target the guards at the front of the prison. They hadn’t thought they’d need to take out the ones near the rear.

The tower’s searchlight found them, and the alarm sounded, muffled at first but slowly growing louder.

Younger and healthier, she was the first to recover. She pushed herself to her feet while Mr. Moss was still on the ground. All the exertion had triggered another coughing fit in him. “Don’t just…stand there!” he spluttered, red-faced behind the mask of blood still flowing from the gash on his cheek.

She whirled to find the guard she had spoken to earlier swinging his baton at her. She caught it, closing her hand around the stunner crystal.

The guard gave an incredulous laugh. “You can’t be that stupid,” he said and pressed the button to activate the crystal. Nothing happened.

“I’m not,” she smirked. A couple of seconds was all she needed to render the crystal powerless. His eyes widened as it finally dawned on him who he was dealing with. To his credit, he didn’t back down, and they grappled together for control of the baton.

At least they did until Mr. Moss grabbed her from behind. The guard wrenched the baton free from her grasp as she struggled against Moss’ attempts to pin her arms behind her back.

“Take the fight out of her,” Mr. Moss ordered. The guard drove the baton forward, landing a hard, perfectly aimed hit to her solar plexus. Her knees buckled as she fought to draw in a breath with lungs that refused to work.

Mr. Moss grabbed one of her arms, shoving up her sleeve. “Think you’re slick, figurin’ out how to stop the cuffs from working, dontcha?”

She shook her head, breathless and unable to speak. Panic gripped her, and she broke out in a cold sweat. She was only vaguely aware of Mr. Moss tearing away pieces of foil and plastic, uncovering the leecher cuff. The guard followed suit, destroying the shield surrounding the other cuff.

They had stripped her of the guard uniform, and three more guards had shown up to point their crystal-tipped staves at her by the time she took her first gasp of air. The black specks that had begun to overtake her vision slowly faded, and she looked up to see Mr. Moss glaring down at her; a handkerchief pressed tightly to his cheek.

“You gon’ live?” he asked.

She made a sound that was definitely not words, which didn’t seem to satisfy him as an answer.

“Are you going to live?” he asked again, annoyed that he had to repeat himself.

She drew in a shaky breath and tried again. “Yes.”

“Good. Would ruin my fun if you died now.”

Two guards grabbed her and dragged her to her feet as Mr. Moss began barking orders.

“Release the Occucrows and the Tracker Beasts. There ain’t no way she was working alone. The Dark Ace is out there somewhere. Put together a team and scour every square centimetre of this terra if you have to,” he ordered one of the guards, who saluted and ran off.

“Go to the infirmary and tell the medic to get his ass out here and bring his kit. Then I want every guard assigned to Section A tonight to assemble in The Courtyard. Hell, bring the other prisoners from 3A with you, too, assuming they’re still there,” he told another. “If not, I want them hunted down within the hour, along with the Dark Ace.”

Then he turned his attention to the two guards holding her. “This one has a date with the strap. Make sure she gets there.” Then, to her, “You’re gonna wish you had taken me up on my offer.”

The two guards roughly escorted her to The Courtyard. The yard itself was nothing more than a large patch of barren dirt. In the center of the yard stood a whipping post. Not far from it stood another, shorter wooden pillar with two large nails driven into it. A red bag hung from one of the nails, and a wide strap of thick leather hung from the other.

She dug her heels in, but it barely slowed them down as they dragged her over to the post. One of them let her go long enough to unbutton her jumpsuit and pull it down, tying the sleeves like a belt around her waist to secure it. The thin, short-sleeved undershirt she was left with offered scant protection from the cold and would offer even less against what was to come. She was already shaking from earlier, and the cold didn’t make it any better. The chains rattled when they shackled her to the post. Gritting her teeth, she gripped the chains and willed herself to be still. She didn’t want them to think she was afraid.

“-need stitches,” came the insistent voice of someone new entering The Courtyard a few minutes later.

“Not now, I said! All I need from you now is something to stop this blasted bleeding. Glue it if you have to,” Mr. Moss’ voice answered before he bellowed, “Where is everyone? One of you get over to Section A and light a fire under them. I ain’t waiting around here all night.”

There was quiet for several minutes while the medic patched up Mr. Moss’ face as best he could. She spent that time trying to control her breathing, which sounded too fast, too loud, and too uneven to her ears. Maybe it was just her imagination. But then Mr. Moss was beside her, regarding her with a grin that was not at all friendly. “Scared?”

No good could come of responding to him. It would be better to keep her mouth shut.

“Should I be?” she sneered instead. “I’ve heard some people enjoy this sort of thing.”

“That so?” Mr. Moss asked, sounding a little too calm. “Think you’re one of them?”

He went over to the pillar and retrieved the strap, then disappeared somewhere behind her. A moment later, she was struck across the back with such force that she would have been knocked off her feet if not for the shackles and the post in front of her holding her up. She’d been in her share of fights and taken her share of hits, but this bore little resemblance to any of those. She wasn’t sure which was worse, the stinging pain of the blow itself or her helpless inability to defend herself.

He walked back around to where she could see him. “What do you think now?” He sounded so smug that she wished she had a smart reply for him, but she didn’t. Before he could say anything else to her, his attention was drawn back to the entrance. “It’s about time! Muster up! Guards on one side, you two on the other!”

Ravess’ laughter set her teeth on edge. “Now, this makes being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night worth it!”

Mr. Moss glared at Ravess. She turned her head in time to watch as her laughter died and her grin faded. Swallowing hard, Ravess lowered her gaze to the ground in front of her feet. She missed being the one who could quell the other woman with such a look.

Beside Ravess, Snipe didn’t look like he wanted to be here, either, but for different reasons. He was flushed and shivering, his breathing raspy, and he wasn’t complaining. He had to feel pretty miserable if he didn’t have the energy to complain.

On the other side of the yard, the guards stood at attention. Aguilar was still in nothing but his undergarments, while someone had thankfully found a spare pair of pants for Wilder to throw on before coming out here.

Mr. Moss raised his voice to be heard by all assembled. “As I am sure you are all aware by now, an escape attempt was allowed to be planned and carried out under your noses! How the hell could you let this happen? I want an account of what went down tonight in your section, and I want it now. Starting with you.” He pointed to Wilder.

Each guard gave a short briefing, and Mr. Moss zeroed in on Martlet and Argus, the other guard assigned to 3A for the night.

“There’s no way they could’ve got out of their cells on their own and snuck by you without you noticing. Either there was some serious dereliction of duty going on up there, or you two helped them,” he said with certainty. “If I were a bettin’ man, I’d wager it’s the second.”

“Sir, I would never, I swear!” Argus argued, and Martlet echoed his denial.

“We’ll see,” Mr. Moss said, then looked at her. “Tell me who helped you, and you can go back to your cell right now. Things don’t need to get any uglier. Not for you, not for Ace when we find him. And we will find him; make no mistake about that.”

It was a clever ploy, and an insulting one. He was so confident that she would betray the guards who had helped her to save her skin. But she couldn’t. If she turned on them now, word would spread. She would lose the loyalty of every guard who still showed allegiance to her. And for what? To spare herself some pain? Was that worth all she would lose and the scorn that would rightfully follow her for the rest of her time here?

“No one helped us.”

“Hogwash,” he hollered. He disappeared from view, and she braced herself. The second strike of the strap came down even harder than the first, and she stifled a yelp. She wasn’t going to cry out. Not in front of Ravess and Snipe.

“That jog your memory?”

“Ace and I worked alone,” she insisted through gritted teeth.

Frustrated, he stalked to where Martlet and Argus stood. “You’re either traitors, and she’s covering for you, or you’re idiots. I can’t prove the first, so I have to assume the second. And since I already employ one idiot here and don’t need two more, you’re fired! When we’re done here, you’ll be escorted to the first transport ship off this terra. If I ever see either of you disgraces again past sunrise, you’ll become my permanent guest here.”

Stepping back, he said, “The rest of you are on thin ice. If anything like this happens again on your watch, you’re out.”

He crossed to the other side of the yard. “As for you two, pay attention. Consider this an object lesson in what happens when you cross me.”

“And you,” he said as he came around to face her again. “This ends when you apologize, and I believe it.”

“Sir,” the medic spoke up. “Policy dictates that for female prisoners, a maximum of twelve strikes with the strap be administered at any one time, and-“

“This ain’t my first rodeo!” Mr. Moss interrupted him angrily. “I know what the policy is. I’m making an exception.”

“That’s not-“

“Not what?” Mr. Moss demanded, brandishing the strap at the medic, who raised his hands in surrender. “That’s what I thought. Now let’s begin.”

The first strike landed right below her shoulder blades. The second one below that. The third below that. That one made it particularly hard to keep her promise to herself. It landed where one of the earlier blows had and was already tender. She choked back a whimper.

“You’re too quiet,” Mr. Moss commented, laying down the fourth strike in his methodical march down her back. “What number was that?”

“Four,” she answered tightly.

“Keep counting,” he ordered.

The strapping continued until he reached the back of her knees.

“Eight!” she counted, hating how her voice rose in pitch at the end.

“Where’s my apology?”

“I’m not sorry!” she told him stubbornly. To have an apology forced from her would be even more humiliating than the strapping itself. She wasn’t going to humour him.

“Well, we’ll see how you feel after eight more.”

The second round was so much worse than the first. He didn’t let up even a little. He continued to put his full strength behind every swing as he layered new strikes over old, making her feel like she was on fire. By the time they got to sixteen, her eyes were tearing up so badly that everything was blurry, and she was shaking from the effort it took to suppress her reactions.

“My apology?” Mr. Moss prompted.

“You’re not getting one,” she told him, and to her shame, even her voice was shaking.

“This is ridiculous,” Ravess spoke up. “Just apologize.”

“Stay out of it,” she spat. “I’m sure you’re loving this.”

“I would be, but you’re ruining it with your stupid, stubborn pride. If you’re not going to make this at least a little entertaining, I’d rather go back to bed.”

“Enough! Do you want me to add your name to the list of people getting whupped tonight? No? Then keep your mouth shut,” Mr. Moss said to Ravess before returning his attention to her. “You sure you don’t have an apology for me? Alright, then, round three it is.” The strap cracked across her back once more.

They were halfway through round three when a commotion interrupted them. “Aha, the Dark Ace,” Mr. Moss said. “About time you joined us. Put him over there where they can see each other.”

Four guards dragged a bloodied, struggling Dark Ace into her field of view before forcing him to his knees. Her heart sank. He hadn’t gotten away. This had all been for nothing.

“Whoo, boy!” Mr. Moss laughed. “I was gonna say you missed out on most of the fun, but you look like you’ve been through the wringer!”

There was a still bleeding gash over one of Ace’s eyebrows, along with several other cuts and red marks that looked like they would be bruises tomorrow. The eye under the cut was already starting to swell shut. One sleeve was ripped to shreds, and his arm covered in bite marks. And that was just what was visible.

“Strip him to the waist,” Mr. Moss ordered the guards. “I need to finish up here. What number are we on?”

“Twenty-one,” she answered bleakly.

“See, this is why I hate getting interrupted. That number don’t sound right to me. Let’s start back at seventeen, to be sure.”

“Wait! I’m sorry, alright?” she said before he could begin again. “For trying to escape. And for the crowbar incident.”

“And Bessy?”

“And for crashing Bessy. We’re sorry for everything that happened tonight.”

Mr. Moss chuckled. “Oh no, your window of opportunity to apologize for Ace has closed. Tell you what, though. I’m willing to be merciful this time on account of how it looks like he’s already most of the way to learning his lesson. I think ten lashes should get him the rest of the way there. But let’s not worry about that now; we were on seventeen, weren’t we?”

“I apologized!”

“That you did. But if you recall, I have to believe it.”

She was a sobbing mess by the time they reached twenty-four, but she could hardly bring herself to care. Dignity be damned. Ravess was right. It was sheer, stubborn pride that made her try to pretend this didn’t hurt like hell, and it had done nothing but lead to more pain.

“Well?” Mr. Moss asked after allowing her a moment to pull herself together enough to give a coherent response.

“I’m sorry.”

And she was sorry. Sorry they failed. Again.

“I accept your apology,” he told her with a ‘friendly’ pat on the back that made her flinch. “Oops. Honest mistake,” he smirked. “Anyway, now that I’m all warmed up, time to let the cat out of the bag.” He nodded to the guards holding down Ace, and they hauled him to his feet. She was unshackled and pushed off to the side to where Ravess and Snipe stood as Ace replaced her at the whipping post.

“You deserved that,” Ravess hissed at her as she pulled the top of her jumpsuit back on and buttoned it with still trembling fingers. “I can’t believe you and Ace tried to escape without us.”

“You couldn’t be trusted.”

“Please. Do you think I would have sabotaged my own chance to get out of here just to hurt you? You’re as self-absorbed as ever.”

“Ladies, is it social hour?” Mr. Moss asked with a hint of warning in his voice. He stood raking his fingers through the knotted cords of the cat o’ nine tails he now held, untangling them.

“This isn’t over,” Ravess told her.

Satisfied once everyone was quiet, Mr. Moss turned his attention back to Ace.

“I find myself faced with a quandary, Ace. Will a few welts be enough to teach you the lesson I’m aiming to teach, or do I need to leave a more lasting impression?”

Ace just glared at him without answering, refusing to play his game. Mr. Moss was undeterred.

“You’re right, of course. Nothing worth doing is worth doing by half measures.”

He positioned himself behind and just off to the side of Ace, giving the whip a final little shake out as he leaned onto his back foot. Then shifting all his weight to his front foot, he delivered the first lash with a full-armed swing. Ace grunted as the cords struck him, leaving angry red marks against the pale skin of his back.

Mr. Moss took his time returning to his starting position. “Now I know I can do better than that,” he said as he studied his handiwork. The second and third lashes looked much the same as the first. The fourth through sixth left angry, raised welts in their wake. Mr. Moss worked at a leisurely pace, really drawing the flogging out.

The seventh lash took some skin with it. The pained noise it drew from Ace, while still subdued, was the loudest sound he’d allowed himself to make the whole time. Mr. Moss smiled, encouraged.

The last three lashes left more abrasions. Blood trickled down Ace’s back from at least a dozen cuts, but he had refused to give Mr. Moss the satisfaction of crying out any further. Nevertheless, the warden seemed pleased with the job he had done. He handed the whip to one of the guards to clean up and put away.

“We’re done here. Pair off,” he told the guards. “First pair, escort your former colleagues to the docks and get them off my terra. Second pair, take Cyclonis to solitary. If you lose her along the way, you will not like the consequences. Third pair, take Ace to the infirmary to get cleaned up, then straight to solitary afterwards. Don’t lose him, either. As for the rest of you, take the other two prisoners back to their cells and lock ‘em down for twenty-four hours. They can spend the time contemplating tonight’s lesson on the futility of trying to escape.”

#storm hawks #storm hawks fanfic #storm hawks master cyclonis #storm hawks dark ace #storm hawks ravess #storm hawks snipe #storm hawks mr. moss #storm hawks piper

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