Tabitha Chirrick - Overshadowed

“I’m not sure about this,” Tayel said.

“How many weapons do you have in that ship of yours?” Fehn asked.

Shy shrugged. “I packed for the worst. You’ll get your training in, too, don’t worry.”

“Just remember it will be harder to sneak back in if you break her legs.”

Tayel glared at him. “Hey.”

“I’m not going to break anything.” Shy gave her staff a spin and fell into an experienced-looking stance.

Tayel could see Shy as a hero — or maybe a villain — in a movie. She held herself up like a convincing warrior, and after the fierce magball match they’d had, Tayel figured that was probably true.

“You going to stand there or are you going to try and hit me?” Shy asked.

“You want me to hit you?” Tayel asked.

“I want you to try and hit me.”

Tayel bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping. Talk was cheap. She took a breath. Nervous butterflies made her chest light, but she forgot her fear for as long as it took to leap.

She swiped through the air where Shy had been a second before and hit the ground instead. Her arms wobbled with the impact. Shy landed a hit, and Tayel grimaced at the lash of pain in her shoulder. She stepped backward. Tried a swing from another angle. Still missed.

The polestaff whacked the back of her knee. She winced through the pain and swung ahead of the other woman’s movement, but the raider sidestepped out of the way. Tayel shuffled out of the polestaff’s range and mustered enough power to thrust the baton forward again. Shy jumped back.

“Close,” she said with a smirk.

She lifted the pole and brought it down hard. Tayel swung the baton skyward and the two weapons collided in a crunch that shook her whole body. Shy pulled back and swung the staff under Tayel’s ankles.

“Xite!” Tayel cried. Her butt collided with the grass. She dropped the baton, and held up her hands.

“Not bad,” Fehn said.

“Who’re you talking to?” Tayel huffed.

Shy extended her hand. “Probably me.”

Tayel stood without help. She dusted off her pants, trying to keep her breathing steady so it didn’t seem like she’d been beat as bad as she had.

“Still a sore loser?” Shy asked.

Tayel grunted, avoiding the woman’s stare.

“Listen. This was just to assess your current ability. You’ll have plenty more time to train. If you’re lucky, you might even get a hit in. Next I’ll have to find a weapon for Fehn.”

“I’ll take a gun, please,” he said.

“You realize shielding is a thing, right? Guns are great until the enemy has a velocity-reducing body shield, and then you’re done for.”

He eyed his open palm, clenching and un-clenching his fist a few times. “Maybe I’ll have a concealed melee weapon.”

“My, aren’t you just brimming with testosterone?” Shy rolled her eyes. “Let’s pack up for the day. I think we’ve done enough.”

At her instruction, Tayel stored the baton back in its case. Jace wouldn’t have done well with any of this: stealing, training, learning to fight. Shy probably would have made him practice using aether. No wonder he didn’t come along.

Tayel would have to convince him to join up once they’d accomplished all the dirty work. She’d have to find him first, though. He hadn’t made an appearance since the night Shy told them her plan to leave Elsha, but he was determined to stay in camp and wait for his parents, at least. That was enough to keep Tayel’s worry at bay. Sort of. She let Fehn and Shy walk ahead of her as they started back down the mountain.

Jace had never been this mad at Tayel before. It wasn’t like him. The worst fight they’d ever had was over a card game. They’d had a doubles match against two mutual friends and, while he hardly ever acted competitive, losing that game made him go over the deep end. They’d exchanged blame, argued the finer points of the rules, and disagreed on how important the card game was in the first place. He’d left, but an hour later he showed up at her apartment with a movie. They watched the whole thing from beginning to end without saying a word, and when it was over, they laughed the whole argument away. Tayel hoped they could look back on this one day and just laugh.

“I’ve thought of a way to get inside Castle Aishan, by the way,” Shy said.

“Why do we have to do that again?” Fehn asked.

“We need a Faster Than Light drive. We could technically leave without it and just rely on fuel, but it would become a longer trip. And if we had an emergency mid-travel, well, diverting would be an issue. Anyway, you both know they recruit people for the Elshan military at the docks?”

“Yeah,” Fehn said.

“I went to one of the recruiting announcements. The guards ask refugees who sign up to meet at their meal area in the evening, and then officials call out recruit names. The chosen are taken to the castle to be trained or sorted — it doesn’t matter. It’s a way in.”

Fehn’s shoulders tensed. “Wait. You want us to sign up for the military?”

“Only for the chance of being called to the castle. Signing up isn’t a problem; they just do a medical test at registration and then who they call is random. Whichever of us is selected can break in, steal an FTL drive, and get out.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Tayel murmured.

“Isn’t that risky? Why not just go through the woods?” Fehn asked. “Take the tunnel like we’re doing now and go the long way around to the back of the castle.”

“The place is heavily guarded,” Shy said. “Especially now at the height of war.”

Fehn gave a short laugh. “So you think sneaking in as a military recruit is better?”

“They’ll deliver you inside the castle.”

“Well, I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t ? Listen, we don’t have all the time in the world. If either of you gets called, you’ll have to figure it out from there. I realize it would be best if I was recruited, but we need the odds to be in our favor. Three is better than one.”

“I won’t,” Fehn said. He stopped walking.

Tayel thought she saw a shadow wind around his clenched fist, but it must have been a trick of the dark. She wiped sleep out of her eyes.

Fehn blew a deep breath. “I refuse to be examined like a lab rat.”

Shy looked at him like he’d kicked a small pet. “Are you serious? It’s a basic physical. What, you think you aren’t going to pass?”

“Don’t press me on this.”

He and Shy stared each other down. Tayel flicked her gaze between them.

“Fine,” Shy said. “This will guarantee that Fehn can prepare the ship if you or I — or both of us are called, Tayel. I’d really like to know why you can’t let them take your height and weight for five minutes,” she said to Fehn.

“Maybe I’ll tell you if you get us off Elsha alive, princess .”

Shy scoffed, and without another word, led the way back to camp.

The Elshan military representative stood at the head of the seated crowd, bonfire logs being stacked in the pit behind him as he read names from a ledger. It had been almost two weeks since signing up for military recruitment, but Tayel and Shy hadn’t a speck of luck. The whole ordeal reminded Tayel of waiting in line to read magball tryout results. In this case, though, she wasn’t nearly as confident.

Another name, but not one of theirs. She pulled a frustrated wad of grass out of the earth.

“These are all the candidates being called today,” the representative said as the recruits gathered around him. “The next calling will be tomorrow, same time, same place as usual.” He stepped off his makeshift podium, and was lost in the sea of people coming to a stand.