Chapter 12 #2
"Next station," Violet said, pulling me from my reverie.
I blinked and smiled. "Of course." I looked up at the station name as we pulled into it.
We stood and got off at the station. As we stepped onto the platform, the men who had caught my eye got off with us.
If Violet noticed, she showed no signs, and we peacefully stepped off.
"This way," she said, leading me up and out of the station with the familiarity of someone who had come this route thousands of times.
"Did you live with your master previously?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. She took me in. My parents were farmers and ended up having some rough times. Master bailed them out and helped them re-establish themselves. Of course, she did so without asking for anything beyond simple and fairly easy repayment terms."
"Not for free?" I asked.
"As a warrior, she believed people needed to work and that being handed too much without work spoiled the satisfaction and the kikai," Violet intoned.
"She sounds like quite the idealist," I said.
"Quite the opposite. I'd say she was pragmatic to a fault.
Her greatest political opponents were those who wanted major reform.
She would often say that while their ideals were noble, they weren't founded in the fundamentals of people's actual lives, and thus, they were doomed to fail.
" Violet had the familiar look on her face she got when she talked about her master. She so clearly idolized her.
Yet as we spoke and walked, I couldn't help but glance over my shoulder, spotting several of the men from the train still following us. "Violet, I think we might have some company of the kind we'd rather not," I told her.
She was far more obvious about glancing over her shoulder, spotted them, then shrugged. "We could be going the same direction. Besides, I don't think they're any threat," she said, her tail swishing lazily behind her.
This area of the city was vastly different from the parts we'd been in. The buildings were far lower, and in the distance, bustling agricultural fields could be seen alongside green mountains with ordered waterways winding down them.
"My parents' farm was up there." She gestured toward the mountains.
"Are we going to visit them, too?" I asked.
Violet shook her head. "No. They died some years ago, before my master." She paused. "All that's left up there are corporate farms that took over what used to be family ones."
As I gazed around the low buildings, I noticed some manufacturing, but the more I looked, the more certain signs became vaguely familiar. I frowned, trying to place them, until it hit me like a bell to the head.
"That's the gambling company, Perez," I said, pointing.
My distaste was palpable. After what I'd seen gambling do to Brick, the way he'd acted like he'd mainlined something, it left a bad taste.
Then again, that wasn't entirely surprising given what Melgara had told me about his people's particular struggles with gambling, which only made it worse that they'd targeted him so clearly from the moment we'd set foot on this planet.
"Huh," Violet said. "My master's place should be somewhere around here." She squinted over the skyline, expecting something to crop up.
I took her by the hand. "Let's keep moving." I’d rather not loiter after those men had followed us off the train.
Violet shrugged, and we wound our way through the city until she suddenly pulled me into an alley.
"That can't be right," she muttered, scaling past a cluster of industrial equipment, rocks pouring up and over conveyor belts labeled with the near-ever-present Perez logo.
We didn't even make it all the way through before a blaster bolt flew over my shoulder.
"Stop!" someone demanded.
It was an unwise decision, but I actually listened. The threat of a blaster shot to the back was enough to freeze most people. I paused in the rather open alley, knowing it would be nearly impossible to dodge should more gunfire follow. I turned to the blaster in question.
The weapon appeared to be barely cobbled together from spare parts, and I squinted, genuinely wondering if it would be able to fire a second time. "Well, don't keep us in suspense," I said.
The sun was at their backs, but by their profile, I already knew. It was the men who had followed us off the subway.
Violet glanced at them and frowned. "I suggest you put that down, unless you'd like to have an accident." Her hand reached into her dress, and she pulled out her beam saber, flicking it to life in the blink of an eye.
Meanwhile, I stood behind her, hands up, wearing my best disarming smile. Unfortunately, the way the blasters continued to point at my smiling face told me it wasn't as effective as I'd hoped.
"What is it you want?" Violet asked.
"Empty your pockets." The man who had stopped us jerked his blaster toward us. "Do that, and no one has to get hurt."
I chuckled. "Unfortunately, we're in dire need of money ourselves. You see, our neutron engine—"
A blaster bolt nearly clipped my ear.
"Shut up. People who need money don't walk around looking like that." He gestured at me as if I were some pinnacle of wealth, which I most certainly was not. Then again, he might not be the sharpest tool in the shed.
Violet had said that bad people were made of a lack of good in their lives, rather than any sort of desire for evil. If that was the case, these guys must have had a shit life.
"You probably don't want to do this," I said quickly.
I hadn't seen Violet in action during the fight on our ship, and I'd been in less than great condition during the Wentworth escape.
But Lily seemed to respect her fighting capabilities, which made me suspect Violet was far more capable than I was even currently estimating.
So I took a slow step back, hoping to put Violet, and most importantly her beam saber, between our opponents and me.
"Hiding behind a woman," one of the kikai tried to mock me.
Unfortunately for him, my desire for self-preservation was far greater than my ego. "She's the one with the beam saber out right now," I said, which made plenty of sense to me.
The man frowned and fired at my shoulder. Violet twisted her wrist in what felt like a simple, casual motion, catching the blaster bolt and sending it harmlessly into the side of the building.
"Fire!" he shouted.
I watched as Violet, using as little motion as possible, got her beam saber in front of each and every bolt, using the direction the ions spun to her advantage.
It felt like she had done this a million times, and perhaps she had, as she deftly blocked the incoming fire before standing stock still, waiting for the next shot.
It didn't come, at least not right away.
The man seemed shaken by her skill, and if I hadn't already been so thoroughly impressed by Lily, I probably would have been more visibly impressed myself.
Violet was fast, precise, and every bit the consummate warrior.
Perhaps this was why the madam had been so interested in her assistance training her nephew.
Either way, the fact that she could catch and deflect dozens of blaster shots in the blink of an eye was impressive enough for me to feel very comfortable standing behind her.
"Cease your attack," she ground out.
"She can't do anything to us," the leader said, holding his pistol aloft. "She so much as steps away from that man and we'll fill him with holes. All we have to do is tire her out." He sighted down his pistol at me.
I glanced at Violet. "Go. I may not be quite as good as you at this, but I'll have you know I was once an expert at beatsaber." Sadly, Gallicard didn’t work much on deflecting shots. Most of the time, he said if it was a fight with a beam saber versus a blaster, you’d already lost.
Violet frowned but didn't turn to regard my nonsense, keeping her focus forward the entire time. "If you get hurt, Lily will kill me." She paused. "If I step away, promise me you'll prioritize protecting yourself."
"Scout's honor," I said and could tell immediately the statement did not have the desired effect of making her feel any more comfortable.
She just seemed confused.
"It's a promise. A type of oath," I told her.
That clarification seemed to be enough. She darted forward, running down the alley as blaster bolts flung after her, deftly deflecting those she could. However, she couldn't get all of them, and several flew down the alley toward me.
I took a breath as they came soaring in.
"Just a game," I said, more to myself than anyone else.