Break the Chains

Chapter Six

The cell door slammed open, startling Ripka out of a fretful doze. She jerked upright and squinted against the sunlight’s intrusion, her eyes watering. A flat-faced guard loomed in her doorway, tapping his foot.

“Midday meal. Get up and get out, or don’t eat.”

Though her joints were stiff, she forced herself to straighten and hurry to the opened door – but not too fast. The last thing she needed was another bruise to nurse.

Apparently she hadn’t been alone in isolation throughout the morning meal. Her neighbors were being hauled out of their beds and shoved into an unsteady line along the balcony. Most sported hair mussed from too long abed and wrinkled jumpsuits. Newbies, all of them, their eyes wide and their postures uncertain and guarded.

Enard – or Tender, as that man called him – faced straight out to the rec yard below, dark eyes squinted against the sun’s glare. She endeavored to catch his eye, but he ignored her existence. Blasted man owed her an explanation for his familiarity with the Remnant’s rougher crowd, and she was determined to wring it from him as soon as she could.

The guards arrayed themselves at opposite ends of the balconies, with an additional guard in the center of each line. Ripka’s rude awakener was her row’s centerpoint, and she supposed his broad shoulders and twice-broken nose had something to do with that. Sticking the biggest, meanest-looking guard where everyone had an equal chance to get a good, long look at him was exactly what she’d do if she were in charge.

Her chest surged with a twang of regret. No one would ever let her run a single jail cell, let alone a whole prison, ever again.

“Turn right,” the big guard ordered without so much as a glance down the row.

They turned and shuffled forward as one unit. The guard’s shadow projected over her shoulder, and he shifted his crossbow to keep it pointed at their backs. Lazy, she thought. Worse yet – dangerous. If the stupid man so much as stubbed his toe he risked accidentally discharging his weapon into his wards’ backs.

More importantly, into her back.

Sea mist left the stone balcony sticky beneath her thin shoes, the air chilled enough to rake goosebumps over her arms. They were ushered out into the rec yard, the narrow tables on which they’d had yesterday’s meal already laid out with plates, troughs, and mugs filled with cold, fresh water. No time for a gruel line today.

On the other side of the rec yard smaller tables hosted the established residents. Most gave the new arrivals a wary eye. As Ripka’s row marched by a lopsided table seating three women, every last one watched the procession. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the woman nearest her – a lean thing with a mess of dark pecan hair – let out a shrill whistle.

“Hey, Hessan,” she crooned, wriggling a finger at the big man who’d opened Ripka’s door. “Bring the lil’ one in front of you over here. The fighty one.”

Ripka’s skin itched, but she bit her tongue. The guard paused, letting a gap grow in the line, and leaned his crossbow against his shoulder, pointing it up at the sky. At least that was an improvement.

“I don’t know, Clink. Still a sparrow, after all.”

“Aww, c’mon, we’ll treat the lil’ bird real nice. And look, Kisser is out with the shits, we’re gonna need the extra hand today. Might as well get the girl acquainted, neh?”

The guard let loose the long-suffering sigh of a man who’d had this argument before, and remembered just where it’d gotten him last time.

“You rats rope her into any nasty business, and I’ll punch new holes in you.” He pat the crossbow. “Understand?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? New holes?” Clink leered.

Hessan actually blushed. A seed of anger hardened in Ripka’s chest. Whoever managed training here was a nightmare. Prisoners shouldn’t be able to fluster a guard so easily. Shouldn’t be able to ask to have the rules broken, and be given what they wanted. If she had command of the Remnant, then Hessan would be out on his ass so fast–

“Go on.” Hessan shoved her toward the women’s table. “Eat your meal. Don’t cause no trouble.”

Ripka stumbled but caught herself, dropping into a grappling stance on instinct. She caught Enard’s gaze over Hessan’s shoulder, and though his eyes were wide with interest, he didn’t seem worried. He shrugged and mouthed, “Later.”

Easy for him to say, he was already acquainted with one of the biggest bastards in the place.

Setting aside her desire to dress down Hessan and extract the truth from Enard, she ducked her head and took the seat Clink offered. Cold bit through her jumpsuit’s backside, and she hissed between her teeth. If she regretted anything about this mad scheme of theirs, it was the cursed cold. What she wouldn’t give for a lazy afternoon laying out on the flier’s deck, a pulped cactus drink in her hand.

She eyed the scrubbed-down wooden tabletop. At least the accommodations here were cleaner than on Detan’s flier. Then again, most things were cleaner than anything that man came into contact with.

“Don’t worry, takes all sparrows a while to adjust to the cold,” the woman to Ripka’s left whispered. She was a petite creature, with close-cropped blonde curls framing a rounded face, the corners of her eyes wrinkled deep as an old raisin. She sat with her shoulders hunched, a small, forced smile on her mouth. Ripka wondered what such a shy woman had done to get herself locked up in here.

“More like your ass goes permanently numb,” Clink said, shoveling a chunk of old bread into her mouth. She spoke while she chewed, somehow managing not to choke on the dry crust. “You know my name, now, what’s yours, little birdie?”

“Enkel,” she said, gesturing to the fresh-dyed name on her jumpsuit. Clink’s name had been smeared, or stained, into oblivion. “Ripka Enkel.”

Her first name was common enough, and she wasn’t practiced at responding to fake names, so she’d decided her safest bet was to keep it. Detan had insisted she assume a false last name – an insistence she was grateful for now. Chances were good not a soul on this hunk of rock would have heard of her work in Aransa, but there was always a slim possibility someone she’d crossed once might recognize her. With a false last name emblazoned across her chest, anyone who looked twice at her would assume themselves mistaken. She hoped.

Clink tossed her hair and laughed. “You think my mama named me Clink right out the womb? Come on, girl, what’s your name. Not a lot formal manners to go by here, understand?”

Ripka licked her lips, glancing at the hard faces watching her, and feigned embarrassment to cover the frantic line of her thoughts.

“Who did name you Clink, then?” she asked, giving herself time to think. It had to be something easy, something she’d know to answer to on instinct. An idea hit, and she let herself smile.

Clink pawed through the communal plate for another thick crust. “Never said no one gave it to me, did I?”

“Right,” Ripka said. “None of my business.”

“You’re damned right it ain’t. Now, what do we call you?”

“Captain,” she said without hesitation.

The woman beside Clink leaned forward, dark eyes wide with interest. The curtain of her black hair swung across her cheeks. “You captain a ship or something?”

“Something,” she said, recalling Detan’s admonishment that she was a terrible liar, and to stick to half-truths if at all possible. “Thought that was none of your business?”

They laughed, Clink elbowing her neighbor goodnaturedly in the side, and Ripka relaxed. She reached for a crust of bread and mug of water, and nobody stopped her.

“What’re you in for?” Clink pushed a plate of suspicious cheese toward her.

Ripka snuck a glance at the other women. They were relaxed, eating their meal with as much gusto as one could muster for stale bread and moldy cheese. They paid attention to her, but tension had eased from their faces and bodies. The posturing was over, for now.

“Theft,” Ripka said, which was true enough.

They looked at her as one unit, and a spark of worry wormed through her.

“Don’t get put in a place like this for theft,” the blonde woman said, her voice a whisper. Ripka realized from the soft rasp straining her words that she couldn’t raise her voice any higher.

Ripka shrugged. “You do when you steal information.”

“Ah,” Clink leaned back and pinned Ripka with a narrowed gaze. “Got ourselves a spy, girls.”

“I–”

Clink closed a fist in the air between them, cutting off Ripka’s rejoinder. With a shallow breath, she forced herself to calm. To wait for whatever their ringleader had to say.

“None of my business, but it explains a lot. ’S why I grabbed you over here, truth be told. You never been in a place like this before, neh?”

Ripka gave a slight shake of her head. “City jails. Nothing lasting.”

“Mmmhmm.” She eyed her girls. Each one gave her a nod of assent. “Explains why you were stupid enough to attack a songbird.”

“A what?” Ripka shook visions of punching a lark from her mind. “That fight yesterday? I just broke it up.”

“Sure you did. But you embarrassed that songbird real good when you wrestled her down, and mark me, she’ll hold that against you.”

Ripka caught herself clenching her jaw and loosened it. “What, exactly, is a songbird?”

Clink smirked. “A girl who gets herself sent to prison to be with her man. Comes to sing behind the bars, if you catch my meaning. Naive little shits, mostly. Some of ’em don’t even do the crime that gets them sent here, they just take the fall for it. Last a month or two, till they realize their beloved has had a few on the side since they’ve been away. Then it’s all screeching and tears.”

“It’s one to a cell. How do they even… you know what? I can guess. Never mind.”

The dark-haired woman chuckled. “She gets it.”

“Pits below, the guards here are terrible.”

“True,” Clink said slowly. “Overworked and understaffed, but that’s fine by me. If I’m going to spend the rest of my days rotting here, might as well have a little leeway, neh? But I ain’t called you over here to talk about the Remnant’s staff problems. Called you over to talk about your problems, miss Captain.”

“I don’t even know where you’d begin.”

“I got a place. That songbird you ruffled is paired up with Oiler. Nasty piece, that one. Runs with the Glasseaters, and not low on the pole by any stretch. His birdie is going to be puffed up with a queenie complex for a while, most of ’em are, and she’ll point her bony finger right at you.”

“Great,” Ripka drawled. “So I watch myself. Planned on it anyway, you know.”

Clink dragged her fingers halfway through her hair, then shook it out like she was trying to kick loose a flea infestation. “Look, girl. No one’s a lone shark here. I like the way you moved on the songbird – no hesitation, nothing sloppy in it. Don’t know what you stole – none of my business – but you got pro skills. Me, Forge, Honey, and Kisser–” she nodded to each in turn; the raspy woman was Honey, the raven-haired woman Forge, the empty seat Kisser, “–we could use someone like that around.

“We’re not looking to start fights. Ain’t no one wants to avail themselves of the Remnant’s apothik services. But having people around who can handle a fight has a way of deterring them. Understand? And regardless, girl, you’re going to need a work detail, and you’re not going to want to go that alone. They split us lads and ladies up for that, neh? So you and tall, dark, and scrawny won’t have each other’s backs out there. You get hooked up with the songbird and her cronies, and you won’t see the inside of a week here.”

A shrill whistle cut through the air, jerking Ripka’s head up and cutting off Clink. Only the newbies – the sparrows – looked around wide-eyed and confused. The rest were busy grabbing leftover food as fast as they could chew it or stuff it into their pockets. Ripka took the cue and chugged a gulp of water while reaching for what was left of the bread.

“That’s the work detail warning, next whistle we gotta be up and ready to do our part,” Forge said.

“What’s it gonna be, then? You running with us?” Clink pressed.

Ripka chewed bread as quickly as she could, swallowed hard and gulped water again. She couldn’t seem anxious for their protection, but there wasn’t much choice. If she was going to spend any time here – and it looked like it, with Nouli failing to show himself – then she’d need allies. It couldn’t hurt to have friends in her corner who had some level of control over the guards. And she couldn’t very well count on Enard’s strange past to keep her sheltered for the rest of her stay.

“I’m in.”

The work whistle trilled again, and the women of her newfound coterie stood as one. Ripka followed a little later, scanning the rec yard curiously as the guards urged every last inmate to their feet. Nothing had been explained to her about how life in the prison worked. She’d just been chucked on an airship with the rest, heaped together like moldy grain sacks, and hauled out here to the middle of the sea. Captain Lankal’s orientation on the sparrow’s nest the day before was the only information she had to work with, and that was slim pickings.

Despite her boasts to Tibs and Detan, she was beginning to realize she couldn’t rely on her experience as a watch-captain to muddle her way through. A ten-cell jail meant to hold a prisoner no longer than a few weeks was one thing. This monstrous building, this layer upon layer of cells shoved off to hide the darkest fringe of the empire’s denizens, was something else altogether.

It had seemed so simple, working through the scheme on the deck of the flier with freedom all around them as far as the eye could see. They had a plan.

She wondered if that plan was strong enough to stand up to an institution like this.