Chapter 15

"I can't believe I found you! I thought I'd lost you for good," cried Cora from a distance.

She was lying on the ground on the other side of the wall, next to the tiny grill that let air into Levi's cell. She had her body pressed deep into the shadow of the wall. She hoped, at least at a quick glance, that no one would notice her there. But the penal base was quiet at this time of night, so her chances of being detected were slim.

"I'm so glad you found me, sweet Cora," Levi replied.

"I am, too. I don't know what I would have done if something happened to you," she said through the grate, distraught at not being able to see him, only to hear his voice. "How are we going to get you out?"

"I've had a little bit of time to bang my head against the wall thinking about it," he joked.

"Is the wall weak enough for that to work?"

"If it were, I'd be out by now. Unfortunately, no. The Jorvlens may be foul, but they're not stupid, unfortunately. This prison is as fortified as it gets."

"So, what do we do with only this useless vent? Well, useless for escape. And a tiny, impenetrable window with electric bars. Thank God we can hear each other through it. Do I break in and try to find a key?"

"In this place? I don't think it's possible. Even if you did break in—and that's a big if—how would you disguise yourself? And how would you even find the right key? It's not possible."

"Are you sure? I don't know. What if I could stuff something under my clothes to look bigger?"

"But where would you get it? You'd have to go out to a town to begin with, and if you do, you may as well figure out another way."

"So, what then?"

"I think explosives are the only solution."

"Explosives? Really? How do we find those?" She blanched at the idea of handling explosives. She was a computer technician, not a weapons or explosives expert. She always considered herself more of an inside girl. And now she was being asked not only to use a bomb, but to use one that hit the sweet spot of being large enough to tear down a wall but not large enough to kill the being inside who she had come to care about more than anyone she'd ever met.

"We have two options, I think. Either finding a cache of weapons for the military or police, which seems unlikely, given the Jorvlen obsession with security. The other is finding a place that has the right materials for one. Anything related to transit seems like the best bet."

Cora wondered why transit, and then she remembered that to get a vehicle moving, especially out of the atmosphere, you needed propulsion, which meant sparks and fuel. In other words, raw materials for an incendiary device.

That's when she remembered lore she had heard from ancient days on Earth about a way of making bombs when there weren't sophisticated materials. Revolutionaries concocted explosives in desperate times that were easy to make with materials that were easy to find, and a method that made them easy to deploy.

"Right, I was thinking we'd have to find advanced weapons technology. But you made me remember something. On Earth in ancient times, they had these things, Molotov cocktails."

"Is that a drink? What's that have to do with explosives?"

"The Molotov part is after some government official. But for the cocktail, it's because it's made in a glass bottle. Fill it with fuel, stick in a rag, light it like a fuse, and bottoms up. Boom! Maybe I'll get lucky and find better materials. At the very least, I bet I can get a closed container and fuel. If nothing else, I'll rip off my clothes for the fuse."

"That has the added bonus of creating a beautiful diversion."

She and Levi laughed on opposite sides of the wall, keeping her warm as the sun set all around her. "I promise I'll be back, Levi."

"I have total faith. I've never had more faith in anyone or anything."

She hoped she would deserve it. "All right, my dearest Lorr warrior. Time to orchestrate a prison break."

She found it easy to move around the bleak plain that surrounded the jail. Without the bright sun and clouds of dust, Cora could see the fires of a small town in the distance, and she followed it.

As she approached the outskirts of the town in the twilight, she found more places to hide but also more beings wandering around, and she knew she would stick out as a human. She ducked in and out of alleys as she waited for the gray dusk to turn to the black of night. She got more nervous each time she dived behind a column or vehicle, terrified of being found. She tripped over a grating on the ground and discovered it was an abandoned bunker with old metal shelving near the entrance. She pulled it across the open doorway so anybody trying to get in would have to make a noise doing it.

Once she was certain the sun had fallen, she moved the metal shelving and began to emerge.

"Well, it's now or never," she said quietly to herself. "Let's make some fireworks."

The night was dark and cool when she stepped out into it.

Smatterings of beings were walking around the street, but they became increasingly empty as workers went home. Several times she had to duck out of the way so as not to be spotted. As she hid behind a small transporter, she overheard the grumbles of two disgruntled Jorvlen laborers.

"All day, it's like the fires of hell there in starship parts manufacturing. I breathe in these toxic fumes at the parts factory, and I'm sick of it. I'm so fed up. I work late, and they don't pay me."

"At least it's a job, Dil. They're getting hard to come by," the second voice said.

"I spent the entire day filling containers of rocket fuel today for shipment off-planet."

Jackpot.