Echoes of Avarice

by Brendan O'Neill

  “Nice of you to join us,” he said. “Connor and Charisma, you two are in the front left. Jason, you’re in the front right next to me. You’ll find your gear on your seats. Get in and gear up ASAP. And don’t forget to wear your body armor under your shirt. We’ll be touching down in thirty minutes.”

  Connor found his seat. Upon it was a pistol in a tactical harness, another smaller pistol in an ankle holster, a combat knife, folding knife, two canteens of water, a handful of meal bars, a shemagh, and body armor. It took him less than five minutes to strap everything on; it was something he did every day while training under Wild Bill.

  He turned to help Charisma with her gear while casting a glance at Heyerdahl. The man was white as a ghost, and Wild Bill almost had to put the man’s tech equipment, weapons, and body armor on for him. The shuttle suddenly jerked bolting up and forward out of the cargo bay. Stomachs shot into throats as the small ship dropped through the planet’s atmosphere.

  “While in Sanctuary…” Wild Bill called out over the engines, “…we refer to each other by our first names. We want to blend in. The worst of the human race is here, so we don’t want any more attention than necessary. Understood?”

  Two volunteers nodded, but Heyerdahl just sat with his eyes clenched shut, lips crushed together in silent terror. His breathing was fast and shallow. Both Connor and Charisma shared a look of worry. If he kept that up, he’d pass out.

  “Jason,” Charisma called gently over the whine of the engines as they fought the planet’s gravity. “I don’t understand how jump engines work.”

  Heyerdahl’s eyes fluttered open for a moment, then caught a glimpse of clouds racing toward them and shut tight again.

  “Tell me how they work, Jason,” she said. “Why do we have to jump into a system so far away from the planet we’re headed to?”

  A few sounds escaped Heyerdahl before he finally managed actual words. “It’s matter,” was all he said.

  “Yes, it matters,” Charisma responded.

  “No, I mean it has to do with matter,” Heyerdahl squeaked out. He was so terrified he was stammering. “Jump engines f-fold space, combining two points into one for less than a thousandth of a nanosecond. In order to make it work, the engines can only t-transfer so much mass and only in one direction. If there is more mass than the amount the engines are designed for, the jump fails. In some cases, it overloads the engines. Even the relatively minimal mass of a nebula or comet will cause the engines to fail.”

  “Ok,” Charisma said. “That makes sense. But how much space does it really affect? I mean, once we jumped into the system it was still four days to the planet with standard engines.”

  “Depends.”

  “Depends on what, Jason?” she called

  “Depends on the engine.” Heyerdahl’s voice was getting stronger; there was far less tremor in it than before. “The Prometheus is obsolete. So is its jump engine. It needs about a three-million-kilometer radius of vacuum. But the Pegasus is next generation technology. I haven’t finished checking its specs, but I’m guessing it needs less than a million.”

  Heyerdahl’s voice was steady now and his eyes were open, although he was still a little pale. His breathing had calmed substantially, and Wild Bill tossed Charisma an approving smile.

  “We’re almost down!” called Tejeda from the pilot’s seat. “Thirty seconds!”

  Thirty seconds felt like thirty minutes as the ship leveled out and started to decelerate. Their stomachs dropped from throats to feet. Heyerdahl had closed his eyes again, but no longer was in danger of hyperventilating. Charisma was enjoying the freefall, sharing smiles with Lavi in the copilot seat. Connor did his best to pretend disinterest, but he found it hard to ignore the teeth-like arid mountains rushing past the windows. In fact, the mountains so reminded him of teeth that it was hard to imagine they weren’t being swallowed by some great beast. It wasn’t until Charisma tried to shake her hand free that he realized he had it in a vice-like grip.

  Then, just as suddenly as the flight had begun, the shuttle touched down with a bone jarring jerk.

  “Shit!” Connor said. “Are landings always that rough?”

  “Not usually,” Tejeda said. “But the longer we stay visual, the better chance the shuttle will be discovered. I probably should have mentioned the high-speed freefall ahead of time.”

  “Yeah, that might have been a good idea,” Charisma answered with a smile. She seemed the only volunteer to have enjoyed the shuttle ride.

  Wild Bill unbuckled his seat-straps and stood next to the doorway looking at the volunteers. “Assuming we landed where we planned to,” he glanced at Tejeda who nodded back, “then we’re about five miles outside Sanctuary.”

  “I thought the planet was Sanctuary,” Connor said.

  “The planet is Markab 2. The settlement is called Sanctuary,” said Wild Bill. Then he spoke to the group. “Remember, once we get to town, we keep low profiles. You don’t speak to others, and no one leaves the group for any reason.”

  Wild Bill handed out three small devices the size of a pinky nail. “Radios,” he explained. “Put them in your ear and each of us is connected to the others at all times. They’re completely hands free, both sending and receiving at all times.”

  He pointed at Tejeda. “The shuttle stays here in the mountains where it’s less likely to be discovered. Danielle stays with it so we’ll have a fast evac, if necessary.” Then he reached to his left and opened a panel on the shuttle wall revealing five of the boxy assault weapons Connor had trained with. “If we return under fire, we have five P90s loaded and ready.”

  “If taking fire is a danger, shouldn’t we bring them?” Connor asked.

  Wild Bill shook his head. “We don’t want that kind of attention. The locals won’t bat an eye at sidearms. Everybody’s got a pistol, but assault rifles are scarce. They stay here.” He looked at each of their faces. “Time to go.” The Texan pressed a button and the door lowered, its paneling changing form to act as stairs.

  Connor stared out into the reddish brown parched mountains of Markab 2. Its oppressive heat stole the air from his lungs and wind swirled dust into a thin reddish fog, beckoning them into a choking oblivion. One by one, the team disappeared into the hazy abyss.

  Chapter 16:

  Choking red dust caked the group as they labored toward Sanctuary. The haze of blown dust had exploded into a massive sandstorm thirty minutes into their journey. It forced eyes almost completely shut and tore at exposed skin. The sun was just a dim red glow in the sky, a weak beacon of life. The intensity of the sandstorm compromised breathing and slowed progress to a crawl. Several times the group had to stop and search because one of the volunteers disappeared in the sandstorm.

  They pulled the shemaghs around their necks over their mouths. It helped to keep the abrasive sand out of their lungs, but the ultra-fine particulates still got into to their mouths. Every so often they had to spit out congealed red mud. Linked hand in hand, they were debating whether to turn around or push on when the storm suddenly lifted.

  “Everyone alright?” Wild Bill coughed out.

  His response came in the form of nodding heads as the others also coughed dust out of their lungs. After a couple of minutes to compose, they set off again in relative silence.

  Connor’s ears were ringing from the heat, and his head swam as the merciless sun beat down upon the group. His mouth hung open, along with the mouths of the other volunteers, as they trudged forward. Time became fluid, and distance became immaterial as they forced their way across the murderous barren ground.

  “I don’t think this water is going to last to Sanctuary,” Heyerdahl finally gasped. Five minutes or five hours later, Connor couldn’t tell. “I’m almost already through my last canteen.”

  Connor had to nod in agreement. His throat burned, and water gave only the slightest respite. He knew the planet was dry, but he’d never expected this.

  “If you don’t make your water last, then you won’t
either,” Lavi called back. She was into her second canteen herself.

  “We’ve only been out an hour,” Connor said. “How can we possibly be going through water this fast?”

  “There’s no water on Markab,” Heyerdahl said, taking yet another big gup of water. “Anywhere. It’s a dry planet. In a regular desert like you would find on Earth, there’s still water in the atmosphere, however little. Without atmospheric moisture, you dehydrate at an extremely accelerated rate. I figure we have to be losing water about three times faster than we would in the Sahara.”

  “Closer to five times,” Charisma said with a worried look. “Will our water hold out?”

  “It should,” Wild Bill said from the front of the group. He checked a small display attached to the back of his forearm. “We’re almost there.”

  When the town did come into view, Connor was shocked. He’d expected a run-down ramshackle town vaguely reminiscent of the old westerns on his televids. Bad paint, old wood, and genteel residents.

  Instead, Sanctuary looked like a starship boneyard. Ships of all shapes and sizes that were atmosphere capable had been landed and converted into makeshift buildings. Many had hand painted signs and awnings made from whatever materials available hanging outside.

  There was a distinct stench to the community as they entered, strong enough to drown any pleasant smells that might have been present. Sanctuary’s inhabitants, if you could call them that, skittered from place to place like rodents in an alley. They, like the ships and planet, were worn, dirty, and ugly.

  Here and there merchants sold their wares, women sold their bodies, and neither seemed to be having much luck. The group paused at several stalls, thick red dust on everything, but moved on just as quickly.

  At one point, Connor and Lavi had fallen somewhat behind the rest of the group, pretending to be interested in some metallic junk a vendor was selling. As they moved away from the ramshackle stand, he caught sight of a young woman as she was grabbed by three men. They pulled her into an exposed alley between two ships.

  “No, Connor,” Lavi said as he instinctively moved to help. “We can’t get involved. It would attract too much attention and put us in considerable danger.” She saw the look of helpless indecision in his eyes and added, “Believe me, I wish we could.” She grabbed his shoulder to make sure he didn’t chase after the poor girl and pulled him along.

  He wanted to argue, but this place… it was the most horrible and despicable place he’d ever experienced. The air of defeat and helplessness in Sanctuary was more oppressive than the sandstorm that almost swallowed them. As much as he wanted to help the girl, he was sure Lavi was right about the danger. He cast one last look at the poor unfortunate, just in time to see the men rip the last of her clothes away and paw at her naked body. All the townspeople ignored the girl’s plaintive sobs as she was assaulted before them.

  Charisma might not have seen the attack, but she acutely sensed the danger in the town as though she had. She glanced at Connor, relief at seeing him back with the group. “Stay with the group, remember?” Charisma chided him in a whisper, then turned to Heyerdahl. “Where are we going?”

  “Uh, he said he would meet us at some place called Celeste,” the tech answered. “Do we know where that is?”

  “Nope,” Wild Bill answered. “But there’s one way to find out.” He nodded to Lavi who approached the nearest resident, a half-naked woman under an awning.

  “Ten milliliters,” the woman said with a vulgar smile while she eyed Lavi’s body, “and I’ll make your dreams come true.”

  Connor leaned toward Wild Bill. “Milliliters of what?” he whispered.

  “The only thing really valuable on a dry planet,” came the drawled response.

  Lavi removed her canteen and opened it, looking inside. “Must be close to twenty left in here. Where’s the Celeste?”

  The woman held out her hand. Lavi made a point of resting a hand on her sidearm before turning the canteen over. Another vulgar smile crossed the woman’s face after she examined and smelled the canteens contents. She jerked a thumb toward a massive ship at the distant fringe of Sanctuary, then flaunted off to peddle herself to someone else.

  Connor looked back at the half-naked woman as they marched off. She was already hanging off the shoulder of a passerby, with a hand in his pants. “Maybe we should have brought Tejeda after all,” he mused to the group before turning away. Nobody smiled, but then it was a weak attempt to lighten the group’s oppressive mode.

  The Celeste was larger than any other ship they’d seen in Sanctuary so far. It looked like a six-legged spider, except with the legs curled upward so that it rested on its belly. Numerous latticed booms reached out at all angles and lengths from its hull, like wicked spikes.

  “That looks nasty,” Charisma commented as they approached.

  “It’s a terraformer,” Lavi said, a reverence in her voice. “Those six jointed pylons that look like legs are used for anything from sensors, to water syphoning. The booms on its hull also work as sensors, as well as both emitting and assimilating energy and vapor. These things are made to do exactly what the complex on New Kathmandu did with only a handful of crewmembers and half the resources. They’re a marvel of engineering.”

  “So how did it end up here?” Connor asked.

  “Golden question,” Wild Bill responded as he looked through a view screen to an interior that had been converted into a saloon. “But not what we’re here for.” He grabbed the handle of the door and looked back to the group. “Watch yourselves and stay together.”

  The Celeste’s interior was dark and dank, stinking of cheap alcohol and unwashed bodies. The room was enormous, housing a seventy-foot bar, a stage, and forty tables. Several dozen naked men and women danced on poles, tables, or walked the interior searching for amorous customers. Tobacco smoke hovered in the air like thin blue-white clouds, its tendrils snaking around the inhabitants with the slightest movement.

  Wild Bill motioned for Lavi and Heyerdahl to check the right side of the saloon, while he, Connor, and Charisma moved left. Drunken laughter roared through the saloon as the two groups picked their way through the islands of drunken, filthy, and groping slobs. Dirty glasses were lined up on a stained bar and filled with a thick brown liquor.

  Connor was the first to notice the man they were looking for, sitting at a table in the far corner with a naked woman on his lap. Another man sat across from him, each with an almost empty glass of liquor in front of them. He raised his hand to point, but Wild Bill caught his wrist. The quick shake of a Texas head told Connor pointing was a bad idea, so Connor indicated with his eyes. Wild Bill caught Lavi’s eye, and the two groups ran the gauntlet of disgusting perverts to the two men.

  “You must be soldiers,” Jack said as his whole face broke into a huge grin. Unlike the picture Connor had looked at, this Jack Van Dorn had a shaved head. His ash-gray overcoat spilled out the side of his badly made seat, and a black fedora rested on the table next to him. He wore a holster on his right hip that housed a simple semiautomatic pistol, and a survival knife on his left.

  “That obvious, are we?” Wild Bill replied as he sat down. A small smile spread on his face. A smile devoid of humor, only business.

  “You and one of the rather beautiful young ladies,” Van Dorn said waving a finger from the hand holding his glass of alcohol toward Lavi. “The others look more like… well, I wouldn’t leave them alone around here.”

  “You must be Jack Van Dorn,” Lavi said as she pulled up a seat.

  “Jackie, if you don’t mind,” Van Dorn replied with an amiable nod. He nudged the woman off his lap and followed up with a dismissive slap on her ass. Then he nodded toward his adjacent friend “This is Akshay Ghale.”

  Akshay didn’t bother with a smile, just a curt nod. His black hair was dirty and unkempt, but his dark eyes were clear and darted constantly among every face in the room. He wore a linen jacket and faded cargo pants both stained reddish brown from the dusts in Sa
nctuary. While the others barely paid him any attention, Connor found the man malevolently captivating. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Until Akshay fixed him with a predatory stare.

  A bolt of fear shot up and down Connor’s spine like an electric current. He went rigid and turned away, focusing his gaze on the others at the table. Connor’s heart pounded in his ears as watched Akshay from the corner of his eye, but the man seemed lose interest in him immediately. His attention returned to everyone else in the room.

  Wild Bill was in the middle of introductions when Connor turned his attention back to the group. “I understand you can connect us with someone who has what we’re looking for,” Wild Bill said at last.

  “I can,” Jackie said with a raised eyebrow. He caught the attention of a half-naked barmaid and waved at his glass then everyone else at the table. “But it’ll cost you.”

  Lavi’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Are you shaking us down?”

  “You misunderstand, my beauty,” Jackie said leaning forward bathing them in his easy smile. “My payment’s already been negotiated. As long as me, Akshay, and three others leave with you, we’re all good.” Jackie leaned back and spread his hands at them as a blank faced barmaid started handing out drinks. “Your problem is the owner of said bridges.”

  “We brought plenty of trade-goods,” Lavi said waving off the barmaid who’d brought their drinks.

  The woman started to turn away, when Jackie interrupted. “They’re very thirsty,” he said, shooting a look at Lavi. “I’m sure they want their drinks.” When Lavi made no move to refuse, the woman passed out the drinks.

  “If I can spot you as military, so can someone else and I don’t want to be labeled an informer,” Jackie said. “At least now I can say we just shared a drink.”

  “You think anyone will buy that?” Wild Bill asked with a wry smile.

  “I’ve talked my way out of worse.”

  Connor looked to his drink, holding it up to the light. His glass was spotted, smudged, and just a little sticky. The liquid on the other hand had long legs and a deep amber hue. Unfortunately, it also had a collection of unidentifiable floaters dancing in it like the flakes of a snow globe.