Jubilee lets her breath out slowly. “God, Cormac. This is—why are you telling me? If we’re ready for them, your people are only going to end up dead.”
My stomach twists, guilt stabbing through it. “He’ll come at you from the town side of the base. He’ll come at you from the town side of base, but not tonight. It’ll take him some time to get organized, which gives you time to increase security there, put out some more patrols, bulk up armaments on the perimeter in a visible way…If he sees you’re anticipating an attack, he won’t risk it. He wants a fight, but he’s not suicidal.”
Jubilee doesn’t respond immediately, pinning me in place with a long, even stare. Then her chin drops a little and she closes her eyes. “Smart,” she admits, lifting her empty hand to rub at her forehead. “Does anyone know you’re here?”
“Hell no.” I try for lighthearted, but in the quiet, in the dark, I just sound small. Every inch as small as McBride claims I am. “I’m not suicidal either.”
Against all odds, I spot the tiniest lift at the corner of Jubilee’s mouth—the tiniest hint of a grin. It’s gone immediately, though, as she sucks in a quick breath and exhales it briskly. “I’ll speak to the commander about security, but you should get back.”
I hesitate, my chest heavy. “I didn’t just come to warn you. Jubilee—”
“It’s Lee,” she replies, her voice sharpening.
“Only when you’re a soldier,” I mutter. “I’m hoping today you’ll be something else.” When I look up, she’s frowning at me. But I have little choice, and I push on. “Look,” I start slowly, “you need to talk to your people. Figure out some small thing that you can give us. Something I can point to and say, ‘See, they’ll talk to us.’ Otherwise McBride’s supporters will only continue to grow.”
“Cormac,” she begins, exasperated, “even if I had the power to do anything about your situation, I wouldn’t, not now. There are reasons behind everything we do. Real, honest security risks we’re trying to avoid. The regulations are there to protect you as much as they are to protect us.”
“Closing the schools? Limiting medical access? Shutting down the HV broadcasts?”
“We didn’t do that,” replies Jubilee quickly. “Avon’s atmosphere interferes with the signals.”
“But you’re the ones who changed all the access codes to TerraDyn’s retransmission satellites. We can’t send or receive a signal at all now—we’re totally cut off. If you could just give us that—not even newscasts. But movies, documentaries, any window beyond this life to show our children.”
Her hand tightens around the grip of her gun. “Do you know how they organized on Verona ten years ago, Cormac? It was clever. They used a kids’ HV show, broadcast across the galaxy. Coded messages out of the mouths of animated mythological creatures.”
“I don’t even know where Verona is,” I retort. “And we’re paying for it here, a decade later, light-years away. We have no sun, no stars, no food or medicine, no power or entertainment for relief, and no one will tell us if it’s ever getting any better. They’ve swatted a fly with a sledgehammer.”
“A fly?” She’s fierce, every line of her tense, holding herself in check with an effort. “That’s what you call the largest rebellion in the last century? They chose the slums of Verona, where people were most crowded. Where there’d be maximum damage. They smuggled guns, dirty bombs, you name it. When the uprising came, whole cities from November through Sierra were up in flames before anybody knew what had happened. Those the rebels didn’t kill, the looters and raiders did. Thousands. Tens of thousands of people—they can’t sing or tell stories at all now.”
I feel like something’s pressing down on my chest and preventing me from taking a proper breath. I can’t imagine a single city that size, let alone half a dozen of them on fire.
She waits for me to respond, and when I don’t, she gives a quick, tight shake of her head. “There are reasons behind every rule, whether you see them or not. Perhaps some of them are too harsh—that’s not my call to make. But if you could spare one child the loss of her parents by swearing an oath, by upholding the law no matter what it took…” She swallows. “Wouldn’t you?”
To hear a trodaire speaking of justice, of protecting people—it makes my head ache. McBride would say she was lying. Sean would say she was blind. Watching her in the meager light from the window, I don’t know what I would say, except that there’s a pain in her words as deep as ours. She’s silent, and as I watch, her features are returning to that neutral composure everyone else is so used to seeing. But an awful certainty is starting to solidify in my thoughts. “Where are you from, Jubilee? Your homeworld?”