Double Jeopardy - By David Sherman & Dan Cragg Page 0,1

the long run back to the prison camp, but there was too great a chance that the Naked Ones would notice they were missing in the morning. So, heavily laden, they ran until they were within half a kilometer of the camp, where they hid the weapons and ammunition in a place Mercury and Hind Claw had prepared over the previous several nights.

They only had an hour’s sleep before the Naked Ones roused the camp for the day’s labor in the mines.

After the night’s exertions, the day was difficult for Mercury and his small team. But they took every opportunity they could to dig into the roof of the tunnel for grubs, worms, tubers, and anything else they could eat to give themselves energy; tonight would be just as difficult as last, even if they wouldn’t have to run for hours carrying their own weight in weapons and ammunition. Last night they would have died if they had been caught; tonight they might die regardless.

Mercury already knew who the other eight he wanted to recruit were. Over the previous several weeks he’d listened carefully to the guarded grumblings of his fellow prisoners and sounded out those who seemed most realistic about what they’d do if the opportunity arose. The eight were also males alongside whom he’d fought the Moon Flowers or other clans with whom the Bright Sun Clan had been in conflict. During the day he and Hind Claw approached each of the eight and told them to slip from their cages after moon fall and meet at a specific location.

The two did not tell the eight why.

It was half an hour after the moon set before all fourteen were assembled. Even then, Mercury didn’t tell them why—although their restrained excitement showed that they were sure of what was up.

“Follow me,” Mercury whispered to his squad. “Keep your tails low until you see mine go up, then run as fast as you can to keep up with me.” Mercury was well named; he was a very speedy runner.

Without another word, they followed their leader at a safe distance past a drowsy guard post, dropped to all fours to lope through the scrub, then galloped tails high when Mercury began his sprint.

It wasn’t a long sprint; the weapons cache was only a half kilometer from the ill-guarded camp. Mercury whispered orders while he distributed the weapons and ammunition. The eight newcomers who joined Mercury’s original half dozen grinned while they armed themselves and listened, memorizing their parts in the upcoming action.

Fourteen males. Not many to free an entire clan. But they would strike with speed and surprise, as had the Naked Ones when they first attacked. And the Naked Ones had become overly confident; they’d recently reduced the size of the force guarding the twin camps, one for the males and one for the females, in which they’d imprisoned the Bright Sun Clan.

The Naked Ones would pay dearly for that complacency.

Armed and with their instructions committed to memory, the fourteen spread out, going in pairs to their assigned attack positions, six of the positions within two hundred meters of a guard post. The mortar team remained farther out; its weapon had greater range and was to take out the camp office and the guard barracks.

None of them had a timepiece; those were among the personal items confiscated when they were interned in the camps. But everyone in the squad had put in his army time, and they were familiar with the heavens. The planet the Naked Ones called Opal was high in the night sky. When it entered the constellation of the Two-step Asp they were to listen for the mortar team to fire the shot that would launch the attack. Then they would fire on the guards in their stations and charge to kill them or drive them from their posts into the trenches the Naked Ones forced the People to dig as protection for the garrison. That was when the canisters marked with the red skull of the weapons of lingering death would come into play.

Mercury wasn’t his real name. That was what he was called by the Naked Ones—at least by the Naked Ones who could tell the People apart. And Naked Ones was an ironic name, since they were not naked: They wore garments that covered all of their bodies except their heads and forearms. They were called the Naked Ones because they had no fur other than a short, thick thatch on the top of