Bloody Choices by Julie Steimle (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) 📕

“Just remember—when you think all is lost, the future remains.”—Robert H. Goddard—

Sitting on an evacuee cot, Jafarr waited with his head in his hands. He could not sleep and it did not help to try. Every time he did close his eyes, his dreams took him to a room that reminded him of the great hall. There he would invariably meet with Zeldar Tarrn to talk about the rebellion. And every time he did, that blonde flymite would suddenly arrive (or sometimes she was there first) interjecting snotty remarks that he didn’t know what he was talking about, especially in regards to Tarrns. Those dreams often came when he was tense…and right now he was incredibly tense.

Ka’rren had been explicit about his plans for that evening. They had run out of fuel for their weapons, and another raid (according to Ka’rren) was necessary. Jafarr just did not think so.

The rest of the cot-filled hall was empty. The others were preparing for the raid, packing bombs and guns, many already gathering in the uppercity for the attack. Jafarr had stayed behind. He remembered his and Ka’rren’s very public argument and just could not resolve his feelings of doubt and fear that many people were going to die because of Ka’rren’s rashness. He halted before calling it a premonition. His seer gifts made people nervous.

“You stay here then!” Ka’rren had yelled at him.

“Fine!” Jafarr had barked back, “I’ll stay and watch base. I’ll stay and pray that you are right and I’m wrong.”

Ka’rren had glowered at him and shaken his head. “I never thought you were a coward, Jafarr. Your father wasn’t a coward.”

Crowds had stared at them as they argued the day before. Jafarr just could not convince Ka’rren that his plan was the worst decision, a disaster for the rebellion if he carried it out. Orrlar Aflov and Eergvin Dolvar had just watched with closed mouths, though in silence they had agreed with him. That was how the leadership of the rebellion had been working in those recent years. Everyone would have followed Ka’rren anyway. The man was too charismatic.

Only Alzdar had stood by Jafarr during the argument, offering good reasons why they should listen to his advice. But Ka’rren brushed him off, calling them both schoolboys—refraining from calling Alzdar inexperienced. Everyone knew Alzdar had spent his whole life in the rebellion—but schoolboy? Yes, they all saw him that way too, and Alzdar clammed up with a step back, cowed.

Jafarr, however, had remained where he was, refusing to participate in a futile and worthless effort despite how everyone gathered on Ka’rren’s side to support him. So, Ka’rren ‘magnanimously’ assigned Jafarr to remain at the one base to watch out with the invalids and children. It was the first time Ka’rren has spoken disdainfully to him, though the man held a revelatory sneer as if he were looking at Jafarr’s father Jamenth, or perhaps the product of Jamenth’s thinking that Ka’rren had always regarded as weak.

“Can’t sleep?” Orrlar’s voice broke the silence from the right corner.

Jafarr looked up then nodded at the man standing in the steel framed archway, running his hands down his face.

Orrlar came in and sat next to Jafarr on the cot. He glanced up and around in the room with a shake of his head. Smiling sympathetically at Jafarr, Orrlar sighed. “Your father and I used to sit and talk like this sometimes. He used to tell me about his troubles, his hopes, things that were on his mind.”

Jafarr nodded but just peered at his hands.

“He did a lot of bragging about you. Jamenth used to say you were the joy of his life, the only thing worth living for.” Orrlar gazed at Jafarr’s worry-lined face and sighed again. “He would have done anything to keep far away from this.” Orrlar then laughed with pain. “He had to fight off Larran Demmon’s persistent begging that he let you into the rebellion.”

“And mine,” Jafarr said shaking his head with a sigh.

Orrlar looked at him, nodding. “He said that too. He didn’t want you to have this life,” motioning around them.

Jafarr closed his eyes. “But I did.”

The older man nodded again, exhaling softly. Orrlar had become tenderer to Jafarr since the boy’s near death experience in ISIC. It was like he at last understood Jafarr, if only a little.

They sat in silence for several minutes, mostly listening to the echo of the machine hum from the nearby room, waiting.

Alzdar stuck his head inside the room from a side hatch. With a grin, seeing the both of them, he stopped before speaking. Jafarr glanced up at the sound of the creaking hinge. The friends exchanged glances before Orrlar looked up.

“Oh, Alzdar. Didn’t see you there. What is it?” Orrlar asked.

“Actually I came to see if Jafarr was awake.” Alzdar climbed into the room. “My shift is over in the com room, and Eergvin is waiting for him to start.”

Jafarr stood up, taking that as a hint to get a move on. He glanced back at Orrlar with a parting nod. “Gotta go. Nice talking with you.”

Orrlar watched him and his friend exit the hall, his eyes peering quizzically at the pairing, mostly wondering at Jafarr and the instinctive, way he went about everything as if a mysterious Seer Class entity stirred in him. Alzdar looked like he was watching Jafarr’s back, winking at Orrlar when the boys both climbed into the side hatch again. Orrlar didn’t know which was worse, Jamenth’s brilliant son dragged into a war unaware of the danger of his gifts: or his friend who believed Jafarr was the prophesied Leader-of-Many and didn’t hide that from anyone except his pal. Shaking his head, Orrlar only hoped Jafarr would survive it all when his father could not.

Jafarr worked on the hairline communicator, listing to calls and reporting P.M. activity for nearly an hour. The raiding party was supposedly already inside the P.M. barrack, sneaking out weapons and fuel. It would only be minutes before they were to return, and so far, Jafarr heard no suspicious activity on the hairline that would indicate that the P.M.s were aware of their raid. Jafarr hoped he was wrong about the raid. He prayed he was mistaken.

<< …in section one-forty-one, all clear,>> one side called.

<<Some minor disturbance in middlecity transit hall ninety-seven. Groupies spotted in north metro tunnel. Need assistance,>> another said.

<<Noted. Assistance is being sent.>>

Jafarr shook his head. It was too casual. It was too…. He did not trust it.

<<Numbers are more than expected,>> that voice said more directly.

Jafarr gasped. It couldn’t be. His own experience with the People’s Military told him that something was up. Either the P.M.s were now talking in code or they were sending false messages.

<<Counted. Keep watch. Groupies can be tricky.>>

Jafarr threw down the headset and ran his fingers through his hair. The middlecity transit tunnel was on the escape route Ka’rren planned for that night. He knew it. It was a code. It was his people.

Searching around the empty cavern hall for someone else in authority, Jafarr’s heart rate went up. Eergvin had gone to another cavern carrying a shipment of power cells, and Alzdar had gone to a different one though Jafarr didn’t know which. All he saw in the area were several fugitive children sleeping in cots and hammocks. No one in authority was around, and he did not know where Orrlar had gone to. Pacing, Jafarr tried to decide what to do. Only he knew about the P.M.s being onto them—and it would be only minutes before the P.M.s might attack.

Running over to the tunnel next to the generators Jafarr stepped quickly over the thick bolts, trying not to miss a step. He then scrambled into the room with a leap up to the vent system, kicking open the panel door. Pulling himself inside the opening, he rushed through the long metal passage, scraping his knees and feet against the metal shielding until he could find the other vent door, popping out into the map room with a bang. He looked across the room. No one was there.

Wincing with a glance at his scraped palm, Jafarr was about to pull back in the vent but stopped, glancing at the piles of maps that Orrlar, Eergvin and he had been working on. Already his mind worked out what would happen to rebellion if the P.M.s found this room, and with a drop inside, Jafarr lurched to the stack of maps, grabbing the new ones from the pile and rolling them up. He stuffed them in his jacket, fastening it up to hold them inside. Then darting back to the vent opening, he pulled himself back inside.

Jafarr scrambled again to get back into the main hall. As soon as he dropped into the open room and ran back over the bolts past the machinery to the com room, he looked down at the sleeping children. Rushing to the first one, he shook him hard.

 “Wake up!” Jafarr said in a loud voice, nearly pinching him. “You all have to get up. The P.M.s are coming.”

One little boy’s head popped up at the mention of P.M.s. He looked over at Jafarr’s urgent pale face and then pushed his brother awake. The others awoke, rubbing their eyes.

“We have to get out now,” Jafarr said, shaking several others awake.

The children quickly climbed out of bed, remembering the nights they all fled from their homes from P.M. attack. When he had all their attention Jafarr ran over to the stone access door and opened it. “Go inside. Take the grid tunnel to the hideaway in the warehouse hall sky. Skiinas, do you know the way?”

Ka’rren’s twelve-year-old son nodded and grabbed his little brother’s hand. Jafarr waved them into the tunnel.

“Go.”

Skiinas nodded. He turned to the others. “Follow me.”

As he climbed into the tunnel, dragging his little brother right behind him, Jafarr pulled a ten-year-old redhead to the side kneeling to look the boy in the eyes. “Will you make sure all of them make it? Watch their backs?”

The redheaded kid nodded, though his eyes bulged in terror. Jafarr let him go. The child went right to work, making sure the others climbed into the tunnel before him. Watching them until near the end of the group, Jafarr took two steps back then looked around for the other doors to other rooms. He turned with another glance at the kids to make sure things were all right, then Jafarr climbed into another portal hatch that opened into a vertical space along the stone face. The air was cold and thin here.

He climbed up.

Emerging on a higher level where other cots were set up, Jafarr found it half-full of sleeping adults, many of them sick with the fever. Rushing to the nearest one, he found Alzdar’s father.

“Wake up! We need to evacuate,” Jafarr said, shaking the man’s shoulder.

Mr. Demmon opened his eyes with a blink. “Is this for real?”

Looking at the crowd of the ill, Jafarr set his teeth together in a cringe. He rose. “Wake up everybody. We have to evacuate.”

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