CH3: Breakout, Part 1

“If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.” -Charles Bukowski 

Mara sits cross-legged in the dark, a carbine in her lap, knees brushing up against steel walls. Fir sits across from her, the fur of his legs brushing up against her. The air in the box is stiflingly hot, but she endures. She has endured worse then this, she keeps reminding herself, and will endure worse yet.

The rumbling of the carryall stops, her head swinging forward as it stutters to a halt. She holds her breath, picturing IntSec soldiers outside, wondering if this will be the one time they decide to search the cargo. They never have before, not in the two months they've watched them, but she worries anyway, and holds her gun tighter. But, after a few minutes of silent agony, the carryall grinds forward again.

She hates to admit it, but they're banking on the laxity of the palace guards. If this had been the First Palace, where the Autarch lives, the infrared scanner would have picked them up at the second checkpoint, if the sniffer missed somehow them at the first. But no one lives at the Urban Palace anymore except for a handful of minor family members who can't show their face at court. Some of them might as well be under house arrest. And, of course, one of them is under house arrest.

But not for much longer.

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