Yule Planet Page 2

  "Wiggleworm," Tre muttered, but didn't offer to stop.

  By the time they finally did stop, dusk was turning the blinding white into indigo shadows that tricked the eyes. Tre had said camp, but all Sofia spotted were snowdrifts. She wasn't sure her legs would work ever again—she couldn't feel them anymore. Fire shot up her back. Her butt was half numb. There'd better be a comm office here. Wherever here is.

  Tre patted their chionisaur, swung a leg over, and slid down the feathered shoulder with a little wheee. At the bottom, they tipped their head back. "Come on down. We're here."

  "I don't think I can."

  "Of course you can, sweetie. I'll catch you."

  Sofia swiped at her eyes brimming with frustrated tears. "I can't get my leg over." The snicker-turned-cough only made her angrier. "Well, I can't! I told you how bad it was. This is no way to treat a paying guest!"

  Large person swaggered over. With hood thrown back and goggles perched up top her head, it was easier to see she was a handsome woman with piercing blue eyes. "Problem over here?"

  "Legs didn't hold up well during the ride, apparently." Tre gestured up at Sofia with a sigh. "Our foundling says she can't dismount."

  "Yeah? Well, I've got a crew to get under cover before the temps drop, Miss Paying Customer. You damn well are getting down." With that, large person jumped, grabbed Sofia's near leg, and yanked.

  Sofia tried to hold on, but without Tre in front of her there was only smooth saddle. Arms flailing, she toppled with an outraged shriek and fell face first into the snow. She came up sputtering and furious. "You irresponsible idiot! You could've killed me! I'm reporting you as soon as we get to the resort! What's your name?"

  Large person just raised a ginger eyebrow. "Have fun with that." She turned and stomped away, growling, "Hope she has an inside voice."

  The small person who'd calmed the riding beasts before darted in. She didn't speak to anyone and snagged the harness of Tre's chionisaur. It opened its mouth to display rows of dagger-long teeth and emitted a terrible sound, halfway between tearing cloth and shuttle engine starting up. Snow starting to seep into her boots, Sofia sat frozen in horror, certain quiet person would be snapped up by those monstrous jaws.

  But no, the chionisaur huffed and shambled off beside quiet person, docile as an elderly dog. Quiet person stopped by large person and snagged her chionisaur with her free hand. The rest ambled after as if they were gigantic carnivorous sheep.

  "We're losing the light!" large person bellowed. "Everyone who isn't feeding the bubbies, get your asses inside!"

  "Inside where?" Sofia meant it as a challenge. It came out as a whine. "There's nothing but snowdrifts."

  "Oh ye of little faith." Friendly male voice was back as he hooked an arm around Tre and gave them a scorching kiss. He turned to one of the others—Sofia couldn't be sure which one it was—and gave them an identical kiss. "Follow us, Miss Foundling."

  She followed the triad around what she'd thought was a huge snowbank and stumbled back a step when lights from an opening in the snow suddenly blinded her. The shadows and snow dunes had hidden a—what? Room? Hangar? Cavern? Sofia blinked the spots from her vision as she moved forward. The walls and ceiling were too regular, so not a cavern.

  The male figure threw back his hood to reveal a head of salt-and-pepper hair and a warm smile, and spread his arms to indicate the not-cavern. "Welcome to Camp Three. Come on in. We need to clear the front room for our noble steeds. I'm Petey, by the way. You've met Tre, of course. And this is our lovely Lanel."

  This taller person, the one with sienna skin, pushed off their hood to reveal a definite him with dark, laughing eyes and a shy smile.

  "Fi!" Large person yelled from somewhere deeper inside. "We up yet?"

  "Almost!" someone's muffled voice answered.

  Petey tipped his head toward the voices. "And that's our fearless leader, Shara, and Fiero, getting the systems running. Marta and Hecky are out getting the beasties fed."

  "What do they eat?" Sofia got out on a hard swallow.

  "Generally, whatever they can find." Petey shrugged as he herded them farther inside. "And you are?"

  Someone who shouldn't be here. "Sofia Cancino."

  "I'm sorry. Should we know you?" Lanel's voice was as soft as his laugh. "That is, we've been out of touch. Are you famous?"

  Sofia wrinkled her forehead. "Noooo."

  "The way you said your name. It sounded like we should know it."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Sofia stopped, unwilling to take another sore, limping step without answers. "Who are you people? Why won't you take me back?"

  "Ah. Well." Petey clapped his mittens together and pointed to an alcove off to the right. "That might take more than an introduction. Come keep me company while I make dinner."

  Off balance since she'd expected anger in return for hers, Sofia followed. A mechanical hum started up at the back of the man-made cave, lights came more evenly and at a less eye-watering intensity, and warm air puffed from above.

  "That's done it. Excellent." Petey took packets from cabinets and set them on a center counter, movements somehow both bustling and efficient. "Fi's got the solar gens running. As to who we are—undo that package strap, would you?—we're a bit of flotsam and jetsam, I suppose. Most of us are here on work release."

  "You're criminals?" Sofia squeaked, dropping the packet and spilling smaller packets of something all over her feet.

  "That's all right." Petey waved a hand at the packets as if she were upset about dropping them. "They're just grain. No harm done. I should point out that no one here is a violent criminal. Hmm. Except maybe Marta. She was a little violent."

  Sofia was so flustered, she banged her head on the counter trying to pick up the packets. "But why? I mean… I don't understand."

  Petey shook his head as he pulled a huge pot from a lower cabinet. "Of course not. I'm explaining it so badly. YPRC—the Yule Planet Resort Corporation—goes to great lengths to make certain nothing disturbs the careful theming of the resort. That means that shuttles don't land within sight or hearing of the resort proper. You understand that since they sent you down in a landing pod. However, that also means that the large shipments required to run such an enormous resort can't be dropped nearby either."

  "So they send supplies in landing pods too?" Despite being irritated, exhausted, and a bit scared, Sofia couldn't help being drawn into the logistics. "Doesn't sound cost-effective."

  "Very true. That wouldn't be." He filled the pot with water from a pipe on the wall. "No, regular supply shuttles deliver food, housekeeping items, merchandise, and so on, but out of range. Groups of N A O R P W—" He pronounced each letter. "—Nomadic Aggregates Of Relocated Planetary Workers like us, collect the shipments and bring them to the resort, where they tell the tourists we're indigenous tribes. Bit of offensive fiction, but what can one do?"

  Sofia sank down onto a smooth bench built into the opposite wall. "They use criminals?"

  Petey shot her a quelling glance. "Work-release candidates. These are people who have served their sentences, Ms. Cancino, and have been judged ready to ease back into society. I know most people can't get past the convictions."

  "Because they're criminals," Sofia insisted. She lowered her voice. "What did you do?"

  "Let's see now." Various things went into the pot. Sofia had no idea what, since most of the packets weren't labeled. "Shara ran a ship and shuttle chop shop in the Sirian outer ring. Good business, apparently, but many of the parts were stolen. My Tre and Lanel grew Respite fungus. Unlicensed and a bit too much for personal use, poor dears. Our Sergeant Fiero is ex-Altair Fleet. They don't pay well enough to support dependents, I've heard, and Fi has very elderly parents. She was arrested for petty electronic theft. Hecky will proudly tell you she was convicted for grand theft shuttle. And Marta… oh, our Marta." Petey stopped to shake his head.

  "What? Is she a murderer?"

  "Non-human rights activist. There were break-ins, the
fts of lab animals, and sometimes fires involved. Though I don't believe she ever hurt anyone."

  She was sitting in a den of thieves and possible terrorists. This was deteriorating from bad to worse. "And you?" she whispered.

  "Me? Oh, I was a history professor."

  "A… You went to prison for teaching history?"

  Petey chuckled softly. "No. I suppose one could on certain planets, but no. I was tired of modern life, of teaching at a corporate-run university. Tired and lonely and perhaps a bit romantic. I'm a volunteer. There are a few of us scattered through the work groups."

  "Oh."

  What else could she say to that? What a weird choice and you sound a little crazy both seemed rude. They were both quiet after that except for Petey's polite requests for her to put this away or measure that. Sofia hadn't intended to help with dinner, but he directed so unobtrusively that she didn't realize she had until they were done.

  Her stomach rumbled as she brought a stack of plates to the long table in the main room, while Petey brought the stew. A steel door rolled down across the cavern's opening as the last of the beasts, ten in all, grumbled and roared in with Marta and Hecky herding them. Hecky shed her coat the second the door clanged down and bounded over to the table. Marta took her time, petting noses and checking feet before she joined everyone.

  With protective gear off, Sofia found the people under the camouflaging coats and goggles. Eyes crinkling as she laughed, Shara looked far more human now and less of a threatening hulk, her fire-red hair falling in a thick braid down her back. Tre, white-blond hair cropped short, was slender and graceful, while Lanel was their taller counterpart—willow to their reed. Fiero had big-knuckled hands with the kinds of scars that came from working with machinery, her head sporting only the barest black stubble.

  They were people, but it didn't make Sofia feel any safer with them. Criminals. The lot of them except Petey, though he could've been a pathological liar.

  She waved her spoon at Hecky, who seemed the most ridiculous and therefore the least dangerous. "So Petey was telling me you hijacked a shuttle?"

  "What? Hijacked? Nah, wasn't no one onboard. I wouldna done that." A huge, mad grin blossomed on Hecky's face, brown curls bouncing around her face as she gesticulated with her spoon. "But grand theft shuttle? Fuck, yeah. I did that. Holy flares, that was a ride! Woulda gotten away with it too if I'd stuck the landing better."

  "Heck, you crashed," Fiero broke in sharply.

  "No, no, no. I walked away. That was a hard landing, not a crash."

  "Crash," Lanel murmured to his stew.

  "A hard landing. Don't you listen to them, Ms. Sofia. I was the best."

  Shara smacked Hecky's arm with the back of her hand. "If they didn't arrest you, could you've restarted that engine and flown away?"

  Hecky's bright smile drained away. "Well…no."

  "That's a crash, Hecky."

  She scowled at Shara's pronouncement, but it seemed an old argument no one took seriously. Dinner proceeded with the soft chatter and ribbing of people who'd been together for some time. It sounded like…family. Sofia banished the thought as soon as it surfaced. She'd come here to get away from family, not fall headfirst into someone else's.

  Marta finally joined them, petite, almost delicate without her coat. Her black hair gleamed in the light from the overheads. Her hands moved in quick, sure, darting movements, little brown fish, as she snagged her dinner from the common pot. Sofia let the conversation flow around her as she observed. The others chattered. Marta didn't say a single word. She might as well have been alone at the table, with her lack of reaction to the conversation.

  She gave Sofia the creeps.

  When Marta had scraped her bowl clean, she got up and took her dishes to the kitchen without acknowledging anyone.

  Sofia leaned over to Petey to ask, "Doesn't she talk?"

  "Marta? Oh, yes. Our chatty sparrow. But not around strangers. Not a peep."

  "Why?"

  On her other side, Tre shrugged. "She hasn't ever told us."

  "And it's her business," Fiero added from across the table, fierce and bitter.

  Lanel shrugged and offered Fiero a crooked smile. "Maybe there isn't a reason. Some people always want to look for dark, twisty reasons."

  Now it starts. The arguments. The shouting. An unpleasant part of Sofia felt smug and satisfied. All families were the same, even when they tried to look unified and perfect. Her thoughts slid sideways, greasy and heavy in their unkind packaging as she realized how horrid that sounded. She shrugged off the niggle of guilt quickly, though. These people, these convicts, had kidnapped her.

  Lanel had taken Fiero off to talk quietly in a nook at the back of the cavern. Petey had Tre and Hecky helping him pull bundles out of drawers along one side, which left Sofia alone with Shara at the table.

  Blue eyes bored into Sofia as Shara leaned forward. "Here's how it'll be, Ms. Paying Customer. I've got people counting on me to get us to the pickup site and back on time. So nobody's got time to get you to your nice vacation right now. Gonna give you two options. You can play princess and sulk all you want, and in that case you're baggage. Just another thing we have to deliver. We'll feed you and keep you safe, but you don't talk to or interfere with my crew unless it's a question about where you can sit out of the way."

  Sofia's face burned, humiliation mixed with anger. "Great. Wonderful. What's option two?"

  "You come along as temporary crew. Help where you can. Follow instructions. Be an extra pair of hands." Shara waved her fork between them. "You do that, we're good. You live as part of us and maybe pick up a few extra skills along the way."

  "I paid a lot for this vacation, just so you know. Saved for months," Sofia spat out.

  "Yeah, all snark aside, I get it." Shara took her last bite of stew, chewing while she gazed out into the middle distance. "They'll have to refund it, you know. Bad public relations, since one of their pods went wonky. But it's not my fault or my crew's fault the pod's nav screwed up. And we've got a deadline."

  That had been a running theme since they'd pried her out of the pod. "So I hear. What happens if you miss it?"

  There went that eyebrow again, reaching for the ceiling. "We get two missed delivery times and then we're considered a failed group. They break us up and send us back to the prison colonies for the rest of our sentences. Petey gets left here alone and no one gets paid."

  "Oh." The heat drained from Sofia's face in a sudden rush. "That's… really harsh."

  Shara waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. "All in the contract. No one's forced to do these work-release things, but it takes a good chunk off your sentence, and it's better than the colonies. So, which will it be, Princess?"

  She wanted to be angry. She wanted to refuse to lift a finger. She wanted to rage against incompetence and skewed priorities. But the eyes tracking her struggle from across the table did so with such cynical weariness that Sofia knew she'd already been judged and measured, as if Shara had already made the decision for her.

  "I'll work," she answered with a toss of her head.

  Both eyebrows went up. Score. Though Shara recovered quickly from her surprise. "Good. What do you do, out there in your regular life?"

  "I'm a logistics accountant."

  Shara stared at her for several blinks. "Right, then. I'll call on you if we need anything added up. I'll leave you with Petey for today. We'll see where we need an extra hand tomorrow."

  Left on her own, Sofia wandered over to Petey's group before her isolation grew too awkward, and they set her to work helping to set up sleeping pods for everyone. It was a mindless, easy task. Sofia comforted herself with the knowledge that the arrangement was temporary, and it certainly wouldn't get any worse.

  Chapter Two

  Morning arrived with a sudden onslaught of too-bright overheads. Sofia blinked like an irritated owl as her eyes adjusted and as she tried to recall where she was. The lack of windows didn't help, nor did the lumps of grumb
ling sleeping pods on either side of her. When she turned her head, though, she caught sight of blue-white mounds of feather-fur on the far side of the room, and both location and situation fell back into place with a sickening thud.

  Not home. Not my beautiful, rustic-wood suite at the resort.

  Anger simmered under her skin as she wriggled out of her sleep pod. No luggage. No clean clothes. Expected to work. She had to be careful, though. If she showed her anger too much, she could tick people off, and these people, this prison work gang, might just decide to leave her in the snow after all.

  She turned to Lanel, the first person she saw up and awake as he climbed out of the largest sleeping pod, presumably one he shared with Tre and Petey. "Is there a shower schedule or anything?"

  He stared at her before he let out a huff of laughter. "There's no schedule, mostly because there's no shower."

  "Then how do you—"

  "We don't," Fiero interrupted as she picked her way carefully through the sleeping pods. "Not until we get back to the shuttle base."

  "But that's revolting!" Sofia's nose crinkled, almost of its own accord.

  "Shell casings, woman, not so damn loud before coffee," Fiero grumbled. "Look, it's not great, but it's not forever, either."

  Hands gripped Sofia's arms from behind, and she found herself firmly moved to the side before Marta stalked past without a word, as if Sofia were a piece of furniture. "Good morning to you, too! How rude!"

  "Holy nebulas." Shara kicked her broad-shouldered way free of her sleep pod, emerging in nothing but her underwear. "Shut up. No wonder you go on vacation alone. Nobody can probably stand you after twenty minutes."

  "Me? What about her? Can't even say peep and shoves me out of the way." Sofia pointed to where Marta was waking up the chionisaurs. She snapped her mouth shut as Shara's face flushed crimson, fear replacing anger as the thought hit that she might have crossed a line.