Chapter 53: Chapter 20.4

Now wearing a new shirt and recovered from the shock, I sat with Vicki going through the gear we managed to scrape together in our hurried escape from the capital. Nick joined us in the sitting room, red in the face. Gran followed him out and I looked up at her. “Excuse me, do you have a holoscreen?”

“You kids and your holowhatevers,” she muttered. “Yes, I don’t know how to work it.”

She rummaged around in a drawer and pulled out a control tablet, handing it to me. I activated the tablet and flitted through the controls, looking for a news channel. I clicked on the first one I found and the screen illuminated on the wall over the fireplace. The regular propaganda spewed for a few minutes, then a weather report.

“This is rubbish,” Gran muttered. “All those people believe this crap.”

“With an update to last nights terrorist attack on a maintenance bay, military officials are confirming that nothing was stolen. The captured terrorist, whose name has not been released, has not been cooperating with authorities while a citywide manhunt has begun for the remaining two terrorists seen fleeing the area. From photo and video evidence gathered, the terrorists appear to comprise of a man and a woman, both veterans of military service. These unknown suspects are confirmed to have extensive combat training and are to be considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information on these terrorists is obligated to report to the nearest Military Police station. There is a hundred thousand kredit reward to anyone with information leading to their arrest.”

The news moved onto other subjects and I flipped to another station. More propaganda and then a similar broadcast. After another two broadcasts of a similar nature, I started typing, overriding the government media sanctions and cueing into an underground broadcast.

A blacked out talking head filled the screen, with the background of a resistance flag. “By now many of you are hearing about this ‘terrorist attack’ in the capital, everyone is being lied too. They say nobody was hurt, two of our assets were injured and a dead head sniper killed. A high ranking resistance member was captured, we anticipate they are already torturing him for information as we speak. We ask any of our underground homes to assist our fleeing members in anyway they can. They are trying to get across the front lines and into safety.”

I closed the news down when a warned flashed across the screen about government minders. The room fell silent as the holoscreen powered down and I looked over at Vicki. “Nick and I are fucked,” I said.

“Language, young lady!” Gran snapped.

I looked down, biting back an apology.

“Don’t worry, we’ll avoid towns and I’ll go in if we need anything,” Vicki said.

“You three aren’t leaving here today, the room upstairs in the north corner is yours,” Gran said. “Dinner is at six o’clock, promptly, don’t be late.”

Vicki gathered our stuff and I helped her lug it up to the room, noticing there was one twin bed pushed up against the wall. “So, who gets the bed?” I asked.

“You’re the youngest,” Vicki said. “And injured.”

“Nick’s worse,” I said.

“Yours is on your back,” Vicki said.

“You’ve always complained about back issues,” I said.

“Both of you will fit on the bed,” Nick said walking up behind us. “Share it, I’ll take the floor.”

“Are you sure?” Vicki and I asked in unison.

“Yeah, I’ve slept on worse,” he said. “Trust me, you girls can take the bed.”

“Thank you, Nick,” I said.

“Are you sure you two don’t want to share?” Vicki asked. Her lips twitched as she struggled to contain a smile.

I’m sure I turned deep red, but Nick seemed to find an interesting shade that I didn’t know existed. We resumed sorting through our gear, Vicki tossing some of it into a pile and shaking her head. “We can leave that here, anyone who comes through needing it can have it, it will only weigh us down,” she said pointing to a pile containing heavy duty battle armor and LAJ suits.

“We’re headed straight for the front lines, wouldn’t it make more sense to hold onto the armor?” I asked.

“We should try to stay away from the cities where they are fighting,” Vicki said. “The Axis will be treating us as defectors and the Alliance will treat us as Axis soldiers. It will be easier to surrender if we aren’t being shot at from both sides.”

“And if we can’t avoid going through a warzone?” I asked.

Vicki and Nick looked at each other and then down. “We’ll just avoid the warzones,” Nick said.

Oh gee, wasn’t that comforting...

Dinner that night was the last good meal I ate. She deep fried chicken, like real chicken, and there were these stringy bean things called green beans, and this fluffy white stuff called mashed potatoes, I didn’t care for them very much. Oh, plus these really, fluffy biscuits that steamed when you opened them. Dinner was really, really amazing. That night, I fell asleep in Vicki’s arms, it’s the last good memory I have of being in Axis territory.