Page 30 of Triplets for the Barbarians

There’s a lot of uncertainty ahead, the kind that made me renounce my original principles of keeping everything friendly between us. We could die tonight. It’s an undeniable fact. We’re painfully aware of that. Oddly enough, it has made our bond stronger.

“What’s the plan, then?” Dayan, one of our Yellow Gang men, asks me, his gaze occasionally bouncing between the Kreek brothers. “Those drones seem to be moving southward.”

“They are,” Selly, his younger brother, confirms. “For the past hour, I’ve noticed a shift in their pattern. They’re probably thinking you’re headed south toward the Sun River Plateau.”

“We need to get back into the city,” I say, looking toward the northern gates. “That’s for sure.”

We’re wearing Sky Tribe uniforms for the job. We scavenged radio transmission devices from our previous skirmishes, their circuits reconfigured to patch into the Sky Tribe’s main comms lines. We’ve got badges and shoulder tresses that will allow us safe passage into and through Pearl City.

I’ll be secret cargo this time, hiding at the bottom of a peppered wine barrel. Dayan brought one over from the southern Fire Tribe nations. It’s big enough and has a fake bottom to keep me from being seen.

Yossul looks at me hard. “We’ll have to move quickly either way. The Sky Tribe will be suspicious of anybody coming in.”

“Which is why Lieutenants Hass and Kiel are coming back to Pearl City with this gift for Shaytan and Blaze,” I reply with a cold grin, pointing at the barrel. “We know they haven’t reached out to Ruby City about yesterday’s events. They’re too ashamed to admit they literally had me in their clutches and lost me—again. Shaytan won’t be able to bear being embarrassed. They’ve probably kept their communications with Ruby City to a minimum, so seeing Hass and Kiel come in with a barrel of fine wine for the big kahuna won’t be worthy of their suspicion.”

Of course, we’ve been scanning whatever frequencies we could find for this particular matter, and aside from coordinates bouncing back and forth between the lower-level search teams, there has been no mention of my name whatsoever.

“Selly and I should come with you,” Dayan says. “You’ll be in the barrel, and we’ll be assisting Lieutenants Hass and Kiel with the delivery.”

“I appreciate the support, but I need you two, Rupi, Geras, Manny, and Jay-Jay, to stick together and go through the eastern gate. You’ll pose as merchants coming from Emerald City,” I say, looking at the rest of our crew. “You’ve got everything you need, right?”

Rupi opens one of the two coffers they’ll be carting into the city. It’s loaded with precious beads and hand-sewn silks, jade and obsidian combs, fine oils, and other decorative goods we’ve gathered from merchants who move between cities and who have yet to declare their allegiance to either side. Why would they, when they’re happy to take money from both?

“We’re good, yeah,” Rupi says. “I’ve got my northern accent down, as well. They won’t look twice my way, for sure.”

“Jewel has already explained the hangar’s general schematics,” Fadai says, giving me a soft smile before he shifts his focus back to the Yellow Gang. They all look weird and uncomfortable in Sky Tribe colors, but they’re fine with it as long as they get to blow up another starship. The hunger in their eyes is downright palpable. “We need to get to the service door,” he adds, using a stick to draw in the reddish dirt between us. “We’ll be coming down this alley, supposedly headed toward the command center. Given that we already have Pearl City credentials from our first mission, I doubt guards will accompany us all the way through.”

“And what if they’re extra paranoid?” Geras asks.

“Then we’ll kill them,” Fadai replies, “quickly and quietly down one of these alleys.” He points to the northern section of the hangar’s drawn area. “Our main goal is to get there, one way or another. You boys will come through here. You’ve got the explosives underneath all those fancy jewels, and you’ll be the first to access the service door. I suppose you know the drill once you’re in there.”

“We’ll follow the parameters of past missions since we didn’t get eyes inside this one,” Rupi says with an uncomfortable shrug.

“I agree. It’s not the best scenario, but it’s the better of poor options,” Fadai says. We’ll make do. What matters is that you place the explosive charges at all four cardinal points, as close to the fuel tanks and the motherboard circuits as possible. This starship is the same as the others, so at least there’s that.”

I listen quietly as Fadai and Yossul talk the boys through the rest of the mission, admiring their strong, chiseled profiles as they speak. As the minutes pass, anxiety starts creeping its way up from the back of my head to the front, transmitting all kinds of confusing signals to the rest of my body. I shiver as we get up and prepare for what’s next. I’m scared. We’re so close to the finish line. The stakes are so high; it’s an all-or-nothing kind of moment.

Sensing my concerns, Fadai inches closer and gives me a subtle nudge. “It’s going to be fine,” he says in a low voice. “We’ve got you, Jewel.”

“I know you do,” I reply, smiling softly.

It’s their way of reassuring me, and such words are sorely needed. I don’t know if they’ll keep me sane throughout the rest of the mission, though. However, I find comfort in knowing my military brain has a way of kicking my gears into motion when push comes to shove.

My body knows what to do before my reason gets the better of me. Any sane woman would panic at this point. She’d run in the opposite direction as fast as her feet could carry her.

But I’ve got too many people relying on a positive outcome, relying on me.

I think of Amber and her kids, Cynthia and her family, and Alicia and the twins. I think of the Fire Tribe nations and the people they lost while fighting the Sky Tribe—not just for dominance over Sunna but for our safety and our liberty, too.

I think of the few Sunnaite women left in this world and the fear they must be living with on a daily basis. It cannot be easy to wake up in a breeding center and find your womb occupied against your will and forced to bond with the seed of strangers for the survival of your species. It’s wrong, and it’s cruel.

We’re putting an end to that.

Once we’re in our disguises and ready, we head for Pearl City. Rupi takes the crew down a side road leading to the eastern gate while Yossul, Fadai, and I head for the northern gate. My pulse races as I get into the barrel through a fake bottom, briefly soothed by the strong smell of peppered wine.

I would’ve loved to spend the rest of my day drinking this stuff, but perhaps we’ll get to enjoy a fine glass of our own when it’s all done and dusted.

“Hold your breath,” I hear Fadai say as they approach the gates.

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