The Strata Spy

The Strata Spy

Sparks flew from the pistol as the man pressed the barrel into Torren’s head.

Maia froze, her blood turning to ice in her veins as she beheld the scene in front of her. The man hadn’t noticed her there and she prayed that she remembered which panel creaked when stepped on. She swiped her brown curls out of her face and pulled her pilot’s goggles over her eyes. With them on she could see more clearly with the analytical lenses. An easy steal from one of the drunk pilots at Macree’s Bar in the under-wall city of Navrar.

Torren was backed against a tree trunk, holding his breath. Maia tried to see through the shadow that the newcomer had cast over Torren. Something glinted and she realized the knife was pressing into Torren’s shirt. She knew that position. Back-alley life told her with one upward jerk her charge would be dead and so would her chances of getting Rikkie back.

Her grip tightened on the ship’s support spokes. She could feel the hydraulics thrumming through the spokes. On the bright side, the winter air of the mountains hadn’t frozen necessary fluid needed to pull the loading ramp up. If only they could get out of there without anyone getting killed. Why had she trusted Torren to listen to anything that she’d said? Because she was the pilot that’s why! Sure, she was only getting paid to get him from one place to another. They were supposed to stay alive and pay her. What had he said in the bar?

“I’m in a hurry.” He had said to her in the shady corner of a bar the evening before. She had taken an extra swig of ale and slouched in the booth picking her teeth with her dagger.

“Aww, pretty boy in trouble with the law?” Her tone was mocking.

“You could say that.” He didn’t flinch and matched her energy completely, taking a gulp of a strong smelly drink and leaning away from the small candle between them, making the shadows appear more menacing around his face.

“I don’t really care if you get caught or not. She had said matter-of-factly. “Odds are that yu’ll could just get off with only a slap on the wrist. Just flash your grin and whatever money you have and yu’ll get off. Richy lookers like you always do.”

“Aren’t you just supposed to fly the ship?”

“Ya, but I don’t want yu sullying ma reputation and sell’n me out to all yer rickety rich friends.”

“Look either you can help me or you can explain to the Capes why a girl your age is dealing black-market airfare under their noses.”

She barked a laugh. She had heard those threats before and by the looks of this gut he was bluffing. She had seen him stalk by the tavern four times to make sure that it was clean of any Capes. Now that the excitement of the night is fading and the tavern had started to slow down, this new guy hadn’t seen any of the city’s caped Stratarian officers coming in and out in a while.

“Funny. Kinda menacing, I’ll give you that, but funny. Why don’t yu tell me what kinda trouble yer in and I may think about it.”

“I one a personal mission. 500 KR’s for a trip to North Crevnar.”

“700.”

He glared at her. She shrugged.

“Fuel ain’t cheap on that so-called black market. I suggest you don’t haggle with the fastest blackmarket pilot in the Independents.”

He thought for a moment. The tavern door banged open with the wind, and the bartender had to go shut it. He had given Maia a dark look and she began to stand up and walk away.

“700 KRs” He growled.

Maia smirked and turned around. She stretched out her gloved hand. “Maia Beck”

He shook it, his brown eyes meeting hers. He shook her hand with his gloved hand. “Torren Lars.”

Maia had hoisted herself up onto the windowsill and had opened the window to the howling winter wind outside. She looked back after pulling on her pilot goggles and smirked.

“Behind the fields before dawn. 5. Not a moment before. Just make sure you know how to stay alive because that’s yer job.” A lie, yes, but if she wanted the money he had to stay alive. Without another word she had hopped out the window and into the shadows of the alley.

Now, only twenty-four hours later Torren had somehow got himself pinned between a gun and a knife. She hit a button on her goggles to turn on the green night lens. With the night lens on her sight was enhanced in the dark. She zeroed in on the man’s shoulder and the insignia on his collar. She could tell he was speaking but she couldn’t hear him or try to read his lips. Good thing she had picked up shadow walking in that black market of hers. She crept down the landing board and slid her feet through the cold grass. Maia was glad that the grass hadn’t frozen over. That would make getting closer to the men a lot harder. She pulled her knife silently from her sheath and continued to stalk through the shadows. Finally, the insignia on his collar made sense. A skull with a curved blade crossed with a shock pistol under it. He was a bounty hunter. She had dealt with plenty of them on behalf of her charges. This one wouldn’t be any different.

“I wouldn’t use that knife on me if I were you.” the bounty hunter said to her, not turning around.

“I would talk like a man if I were you.” Maia shot back, trying to hide her shock that he had known she was coming. “And turn and face me like one.”

He barked a laugh.

“You don’t want to get in my way, little girl. Jewels are after this spy, and I wouldn’t want you to be associated with him and get yourself caught up in The Strata’s Business."

Maia backed up, stunned. Then his words sank in. The Strata. What kind of fugitive had she picked up?

“I don’t think so.” she snapped. “Not without my money.”

“Yer gettin' off with yer life.” That’s more than generous.” His back-alley accent was thick and weighed down every syllable he spoke.

“How do ya figure?”

“I’m sure a black-market pilot like yourself has a few warrants. I would hate for my fellow tradeswoman to have a price on her head by The Strata.”

“You know if it’s all the same to the both of you girls I would like to go.” Torren said from the front of the shock pistol. Maia could see the man’s grip tighten on the pistol.

“Fine, take him.” she said. “It doesn’t matter to me if he lives or dies. I don't want nothing to do with the Strata. As long as I get my money. You can understand that, I’m sure.”

“Sure kid.” the bounty hunter said as he whipped out the hand cuffs for Torren. “You’ll get yer cut.”

Maia froze. If she let this bounty hunter, her countryman take off with Torren, her big break would be just that. A break. She would break. She met Torren’s eyes. For the first time she realized how much he reminded her of Rikkie[1] . If she did this there was no turning back. She would end up dead, but if she got the money and got Rikkie out, there was no life for her. This was a one way shot. She couldn’t give up this chance. She met Torren’s eyes, lifting her eyebrows.

Torren’s eyebrows shot up. She smirked at the Bounty Hunter’s back. “But turn around and face me with respect.”

“My apologies.” He said with a smirk in his smug voice. She knew he was nothing worthy of respect. Maia knew that he would no sooner kill her than an ant. She knew and she had prepared. This wasn’t the first charge she had with a prize on his head. She knew that bounty hunters from her neck of the woods didn’t hold to honor. Good thing that she didn’t either. As soon as the bounty hunter lowered his shock pistol from Torren’s head, she yanked hers out of her belt and fired the neon green blast. It hit the man in the upper back, and he fell onto the ground twitching with electricity. I was only stunned for a while.

“We don’t have much time. Get yerself into the ship and shut up.”

Torren nodded. Maia did a pre-flight check of the ship. She pulled the red tabs which hung from the ship’s weapon’s system, arming them. If they were going on the run, she might as well be armed.

As she finished, hoping that she didn’t miss anything, she came back to the front of the ship and saw Torren hoisting the bounty hunter onto his shoulder and trying to carry him up the loading plank.

“What do you think yer doin’?” she demanded as he laid the twitching man on the floor of the loading bay.

“He would have frozen out there.” Torren said. As if that was the most important explanation.

“Are you mad?”

“I don’t think so, but I couldn’t leave him out there like that.”

“He nearly killed you and is going to be nothing but trouble.”

“He was going to freeze.”

“So, what yer just too good to let a scrap like him get what he deserves.”

“We all deserve death, but it’s the people-”

“Nevermind, just strap him in and strap yerself in. Once we’re steady you can strip his weapons and valuables and throw him into the hold till we’re far enough out to dump him somewhere where he can’t do any harm.”

Maia climbed into the pilot’s seat and adjusted her pilot’s goggles. She strapped in and hollered at Torren one last time to strap in. Throwing the switches, she gunned the engine and yanked upward on the controls. The ship shot up and she heard a sharp yelp from the back. Soon enough they were coasting on autopilot, low enough to stay off unwanted radar. As the forest green landscape of Kiara passed underneath them, Maia fingered the bracelet on her wrist.

I’m sorry, Rikkie, but you’re more important than my freedom. She thought. Maia pulled on her oversized jacket and climbed out of the pilot’s seat as the first rays of dawn were beginning to peek over the horizon. They had lost time with that bounty hunter. She walked back into the passenger chamber. Torren had already piled the bounty hunter’s belongings on the floor of the passenger chamber. He was lowering the bounty hunter into the brig of the ship. He shut the door hard with a bang. When Torren came back Maia tossed him an item that she had found in the pile of the bounty hunter’s belongings.

He caught it and unfolded the paper. He sighed and crumbled it into his fist. It was his bounty.

“You better explain to me what kinda trouble yer in, Pretty Boy. Otherwise, I'll drop you and the bounty hunter off at the nearest outpost. You have five minutes.” Maia growled.

Torren clenched his jaw, but blanched when he realized that Maia had both the bounty hunter’s shock pistol and her own in her hands with Torren’s lying on the seat behind her.

“Talk.”

“I can’t.”

“Like the tide you can’t. Loosen those lips or lick ‘em in prison.”

Torren looked trapped. Maia pushed her pilot’s goggles up over her head.

“Can I at least have some tea?”

“I’m no barmaid. Speak, Lars.” She flipped the safety off on the shock pistol and the short barrel began to thrum and glow. “Four minutes.”

Torren sat on the floor. She could see now just how tired he was. It didn’t matter. She had just given up everything for this man. For what? Because he reminded her of her cousin?

“I’m a spy for the Union of Crevnar.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Good. Means that the Disappearance Squad has done their job.”

“What did that bounty hunter and The Strata want you for?”

“I was sent to gather information. Crevnar wasn’t sure what exactly, but rumors had been going around about the disappearance of different people throughout the Independent Islands.”

“Why would Crevnar care about the Independent Islands? Especially if they are just rumors?” she demanded.

“We didn’t until The Strata attacked our coastline.”

“Why would they attack you?”

Torren’s eyes met hers, confusion covering them like a shadow.

“Because of the war.”

“What war?” asked Maia. There had never been any news of a war in the eastern cities. There was only peace. Well, whatever counted as peace to the higher heads of Navrar. However, there had never been any news war in any part of the city. Even in the Under Wall.

“The war between the Strata and the rest of the world.”

“There is no war in the Independants.” she said.

“Great grease stains this is worse than we thought.” He exclaimed. Torren tugged down his hood revealing his blonde hair, which he raked with his fingers.

“Maia, what is Crevnar?”

Maia answered slowly. “Crevnar is a continent on the southern part of Kirara.”

“One or two?”

“What?”

“Is there one or two continents?” his voice was searching but that wasn’t what bothered her. It was the unsettling feeling of dread that seized her that mirrored the dread in his eyes.

“One.” she answered.

“Maia, The Strata used the fault line to split the continent of Crevnar. They raided and took over southern Crevnar. The Strata told northern Crevnar to cease all military actions and there would be no more bloodshed. They would leave Northern Crevnar alone and Southern Crevnar would stay as it was. Occupied territory.”

“So, if Northern Crevnar stopped acting the helpless people in southern Crevnar would live, but only as occupied territory?”

“Yes” Torren went on. “In the last fifty years there was a resistance that had formed and acted against The Strata. The Strata heard about their activity, and they attacked the northern beach.”

“What does all of this have to do with people disappearing from the Independents?”

“When The Strata attacked, they demanded four people a penance for the actions of the resistance.”

“Okay, sucks to be them, but what has that got to do with the Independents?”

“I was one of those people.”

Torren explained his story of how The Strata had taken the people, marked them with trackers and had put them to work throughout the Strata’s Nation. He had volunteered to gather information since he was fluent in most Kiaran languages. Anything that the resistance could use to cripple The Strata. He had discovered that the forces that they had were their only forces and the main people of the Stratian Continent were dying.

“They took the Penance because they couldn’t spare anyone else. They were weakened by that. However, I had heard rumors of kidnapped people from all over Kiara that were being used as free labor and to rebuild Stata. I worked with a man who said that he was sent there with a shipment of people from the Independent Islands. They were shipped out every four months.”

“But the Independents have never been at odds with Strata. There has always been peace.” Maia may not have been the most up to date girl in the black market, but war and shipments of people to Strata had never been spoken of.

“That is because the Strata has threatened the higher heads of The Independent Islands with total destruction if they didn’t cooperate.”

“So where are these shipments coming from and how have they gone so unnoticed?” Maia asked.

“Because they are hidden in plain sight.”

“Huh?

“Tell me how the Underhomes work.”

“People go there if they have nowhere else to go. Orphans, addicts, homeless, and elderly all go there to work and live. The longer yer there the more yer worth. Every four or five months they send some residents away to another home to make room for…” She trailed off, realizing what she had just said. Every four or five months. “Wait, so you are telling me that those people, men women and children are sent to The Strata to be slaves?” She demanded. Rikkie’s face flashed through her mind. No… there is no war. He’s safe.

“Yes.”

Maia felt faint. She lowered the shock pistol and sat heavily on the floor.

“All of them?”

“Yes.” It was as though Torren could read her mind and knew what was happening.

“What happens to them if they can’t do the work?”

Torren shook his head.

No… if this was true…

“How can I be sure this is true?” she barked.

“It’s true. And The Strata pays handsomely.” the bounty hunter said, groggily.

That was like a gut punch to Maia.

“Do you know how to stop it?” she asked.

“I have to get back to Northern Crevnar first.”

“Then what?” form a plan and get back to the Independents.”

“And Rik-uh… the people in the homes?” she prayed that Torren had an answer. She fingered her bracelet.

“We’ll fight for their freedom.” Torren

Maia sat back dazed. She didn’t want any part of a war. If she did this, she would be wanted by The Strata, but Rikkie would have a chance to be free. Maia couldn’t give him the life he deserved by being a black-market pilot. If she didn’t, he wouldn’t have a chance at life. She couldn’t be there for it, but he would be free. That’s all that mattered to Maia.

“I’ll help but get some rest. We’ll be there soon.” She yanked her pilot’s goggles down and climbed back into the cockpit. Don’t worry, Rikkie. The Strata won’t hurt you. Not on my watch.

The End.