Siege of Praetar (Tales of a Dying Star Book 1) by David Kristoph Page B

themselves by interfering.
    She didn’t know if she even needed to run, but she didn’t want to take the chance. The workers at the factory had watched her leave the foreman’s office and walk straight out the door. They probably thought she lost her job, despite not being escorted from the building by peacekeepers. The foreman may not even realize that she, and the food credits, were gone until the next day. And she had plenty of time to gather her girls and get to the Station in time.
    But she ran, because it felt safer than walking.
    Her feet slowed when she neared her home, almost an hour later. She left the main street and slipped down an alley, stepping over sleeping people who had no shelter of their own. The alley twisted and turned until it finally opened back out on the main street. Mira stopped. With care she tilted her head around the corner until her building came into view. And so did they: the gang of boys sat on the curb outside, lazily tossing rocks at one-another. They’d loitered around her building for the past few days, forcing Mira to scale the rear wall to reach her room. But the pocket of credits was heavy on her back, and she didn’t think she could navigate the meager footholds to the fourth floor with bloodied feet.
    Instead she turned back into the alley. She found another road surrounded by apartments, running parallel to the main street. It opened onto a side street that bordered her building. She followed the wall until she was at the corner by the entrance. She could hear them now, laughing and taunting the three prostitutes that sat on the steps by the door.
    She couldn’t slip inside while their attention was on the doorway, so she hugged the wall and waited.
    She watched the sand dunes to the south. She imagined she could see one shrink while another grew, the sand shifted by the constant wind. If she squinted she even thought she could see people along the top, tiny black specks from that distance. The longer she watched the more she realized how tired she was. Her eyes were playing tricks on her.
    The dying sun drifted through the hazy sky but the boys stayed outside her building. There was a window next to Mira that she considered entering before dismissing the idea. The only people who dared live on the ground floor were those who could defend themselves, and they would likely kill her before asking her intentions. It would be safer trying to climb the wall with bloody feet.
    Finally it grew quiet. She peered around the corner. The boys were still there in the street, but they had moved away from the door. They were gathered in a circle, poking and prodding something on the ground. A bug, or an animal. Something distracting. She wondered if it was enough, but her time was growing short.
    She mustered what courage she could and rounded the corner. It felt like a death march, walking the twenty feet from the corner to the door. She looked straight ahead, as if that might help. The boys kept their backs turned to her. She watched them at the edge of her vision with a lump in her throat. The prostitutes looked up at her approach, but to Mira’s relief didn’t care enough to acknowledge her.
    She was on the steps, just a few short strides from safety, when one of the boys yelled, “There she is!”
    She bolted through the doorway and up the winding stairs. She moaned as she counted, floor two, floor three, until she reached the fourth. She was hobbling down her hallway then, the gashes on her feet even worse than before. There were sounds behind her, urging her faster. She felt like they were just behind, almost within reach of her.
    She burst into her room. Her daughters yelled but she didn’t care. She slammed the door and fell to the ground, leaning her back against the rotten wood. It had no lock, and her weight would hardly hold the door against their strength, so she put a finger to her lips to silence the girls.
    She twisted her head, listening for anything in the hallway, but