The Only One

for trouble. There was too much at stake as it was, day to day, too high of a probability of loss. One better stick to manufacturing explosives, where one could be the master of one's destiny. Well, mostly the master, Taj admitted, thinking of the pebble's near miss with the radites.
    "Romjha!" she called out.
    His head lifted at the sound of her voice. The dark blond hair bound at the nape of his neck gleamed in the torchlight. Already dressed in topside gear—black shirt tucked into black trousers and boots—the commander gripped a helmet in his hands. At his side was his most experienced raider, his second-in-command. Shorter than Romjha, Petro was built like a tank and had the endurance to match. Taj would bring him along, too, if she were commander.
    Romjha answered the question she didn't have to ask. "We don't know what happened, Taj. The comm's out again."
    Computers, comm equipment, leftover tech—they worked sometimes but more often not, leaving them unable to communicate reliably with anyone topside, let alone the worlds beyond.
    Frowning, the raider commander shoved his fingers into a pair of gloves, one sinewy, battle-roughened hand after the other. "But we're going up to find out."
    He was too careful a leader to allow apprehension for his missing men to show much, but the flicker of worry in his steely gaze was enough to set Taj's heart racing.
    Romjha whipped his black-leather-encased fingers in a tight circle, a silent signal to Petro: Let's move out.
    Both men turned toward the exit.
    Taj thrust an arm toward the group gathered around them. "Throw me a helmet, belt, and gloves." She was going topside, too. A gangly teenaged raider-apprentice tossed her the gear.
    A few women who stood nearby observed the goings-on with disapproval. Taj had grown used to it. The community had never had a female munitions expert before she'd taken over the job. Her choice of career baffled many of them. "You're a woman, not a man," they'd scold—not that she had any doubts about the truth of that statement. If they saw the pleasure with which she used the smidgens of rich, scented lotions or soaps she created in her lab, the way she treated herself to stealthy water cleansings—a rare indulgence and her only vanity—they'd not make that remark anymore.
    Yet, she doubted even then that they'd accept her choice to abandon the more traditional female activities of weaving, teaching, and childrearing. But creating weaponry was the only way Taj knew to influence her existence, and theirs. If one didn't control one's destiny, it controlled you. Didn't they see that?
    In her heart she was a pacifist; she longed for peace. But until there was no more war—a day she doubted would ever come—she would ensure that the weapons her people used were the best and the safest that their limited technology allowed.
    She buckled a heavy weapons belt around her hips. "Rifle, please," she said. Another apprentice shoved a gun into her hands, and she hastened after Romjha and Petro.
    And nearly ran into the raider commander, who'd stopped walking. He towered over her, making the disparity in their sizes all too obvious. "What are you doing, Taj?"
    "Suiting up." She aimed her good ear toward him as she casually fastened her protective vest. Her hands were sweating.
    "Of my raiders, only Petro comes. We'll brief you afterward."
    "I'm not asking to go as a raider." She'd enjoyed the few missions in which she'd been allowed to participate; the rush of adrenaline was addictive. But as a rule, women stayed behind, consigned to indoor activities— though those were often no less dangerous. "I'm coming as the munitions officer. You sent raiders to the skyport to siphon off fuel. By the sound of it, every one of those storage tanks has just blown up. Intentional? I don't think so. We need fuel too badly to waste it. My guess is that there was a premature detonation. An accident." She tried to work moisture into her mouth. "If so, I'll want to see the burn patterns and the ..." Body parts? Would there be torso-sized chunks of flesh or tooth-sized bits of bone? She swallowed. "The evidence."
    "I doubt the bombs malfunctioned. You're better than that."
    "No one's better than the unforeseen, Romjha. With your history, I'd think you would've learned that by now."
    The mood chilled abruptly. A puckered burn scar on his chin stretched taut, like an elastic band as he regarded her, his mouth hard. She wondered how lips that unyielding could ever