Stolen Valor

by Kal Spriggs

  I had to admit that I hadn’t thought about that. I was smart enough not to say the obvious out loud. Jonna led the way out, her light on her rifle on its lowest setting. I matched that and Osmund fell in behind.

  Jonna led the way into a side passage and I checked it against the maps on my implant. I could see the route she’d planned and how it hugged to the corridors closest to the lift chamber. Hopefully that meant the other patrols would have time to get further out and away.

  We’d only gone a short distance, though, when we heard voices.

  “…sure about this?” A nervous voice asked.

  “Shut up, Gomar,” another voice snapped. “Who’s going to know, anyway? Everyone’s routes should go off in different directions. They don’t have monitors down here. This is our chance to get a little sleep. You keep watch while Rakkis and I sleep, and we’ll spot you out.” I recognized that voice. It was Jarrel. Great.

  We eased up to the next bend, killing our lights. There was just enough light from ahead that we could find our way along the tunnel and Jonna peeked around the corner, then slowly eased back. She gestured at me to come forward and look.

  Just around the bend there was a small chamber, where several corridors intersected. Jerral and two others from Iron Flight had set themselves down. One of the group was already sleeping.

  “Just, what if the patrol master figures out we didn’t—”

  “I’m not going to explain it again, Gomar,” Jerral growled. “Just shut up, keep an eye out and be quiet.”

  I slowly eased back and looked at Jonna, who gestured back down the corridor. We huddled up, “We clearly can’t go through there,” Jonna said, “I think there’s a tunnel that goes around them, but I don’t want us all tramping around in it so close to them if it turns out it won’t work. It’s pretty tight.”

  Neither of us said anything and she headed out, ducking into a low, narrow passage.

  Osmund and I settled in to wait. Not a lot of time had passed when my implant pinged, it seemed Osmund wanted to talk. “Seems like we run into Jerral a lot, huh?” Osmund noted.

  “Yeah,” I answered. Since there wasn’t any point in keeping quiet and I’d probably be deserting, I figured I’d give him an explanation. “Jerral was sponsored by Prince Ladon. Since my survival sort of makes Crown Prince Abrasax look bad, I assume he keeps giving Jerral opportunities to get at me.” I considered it for a long moment, “I’m not sure why he’s not hunting us through the tunnels, though.”

  “Are you kidding?” Osmund asked, the shock evident in his voice. “After how you dealt with him last time?”

  “That fight?” I asked, trying to think back. I was tired enough that it took me a moment. “What about it?”

  “You took him down in a couple of hits, Vars. I mean, you demolished him. In front of everyone,” Osmund shook his head. “No display, no effort. Then you just sat down and ate.” In the dark, I could hear him shift around. “I’ll admit, I thought you were done. I didn’t have anything left. I… I should have tried to help you, but they just looked so ready to pounce on the rest of us if we intervened, you know? And… well, you’re Vars.”

  “Pirate, yeah,” I answered, feeling weary. I wasn’t though. They hated me for something I’d never done, but if I set anyone straight, they’d kill me. “Well, I took care of myself.”

  “You shouldn’t have to take care of yourself,” Osmund protested. “That’s what I’m saying. You’re Jade Flight. I should have had your back. The whole flight should have had your back.”

  I felt tears well up in my eyes. Truth to be told, I didn’t expect anything like that. It would have been something I’d have expected from my section back at the Century Military Academy. I would never have expected to find that kind of loyalty here on Drakkus Prime, at the heart of the Drakkus Empire.

  Perhaps that said as much about me as it did about them.

  “I was so focused on keeping my head down, on getting through Second Screening, that I forgot that it’s about working together,” Osmund told me. “We succeed or fail as one and I’m not going to forget that. Some of the others and I have talked about it. We have your back.”

  “That’s ridiculous, especially with Prince Ladon gunning for me,” I couldn’t help but protest. “It might even be treason if they just order me killed.” I wasn’t sure, but I imagined that if the Crown Prince wanted me dead badly enough, he could just have me executed.

  “There’s rule of law, especially in the Imperial Space Korps,” Osmund protested. “I mean, that kind of thing wouldn’t even fly back home.”

  “On Oberon?” I took the opportunity to change the subject.

  “Yeah,” Osmund answered.

  “What makes you want to join the military? I thought Oberon was a conquered world?” I realized how callus that sounded even as I said it, but I was curious. From the sounds of things, Century was a target for conquest as well. I wanted some perspective from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

  “We’re not just some pathetic subjugated planet,” Osmund told me. “I mean, things aren’t great, right now. There’s the resistance, but most of them are from the old families that lost out the most or people who don’t want to try to make things work in the new system.”

  “Unlike you?” I asked.

  Osmund didn’t answer for a long moment. “Oberon wasn’t exactly a paradise, Vars. Even before the Empire came in, we had fighting and feuding. It wasn’t a voluntary colony like some others, we were settled in waves from prison deportees and refugees. The government we had, they were corrupt, with ties to organized crime. The powerful families that owned everything, if you had something they wanted, they took it. The Guard never helped us. My family had a small business, just an electronics store, nothing much. The local crime boss decided to burn it down because my grandmother didn’t pay enough protection money. My family sided with Drakkus when they invaded and we ended up a little better than we were. They’re building new cities there. Citizens from here and elsewhere in the Empire are getting spots for those cities. I want to earn that for my family. For my wife, for my son.”

  “You’re married?” I asked in surprise.

  “Yeah,” Osmund answered. “I haven’t seen my wife in almost four months. I probably won’t see her until we complete the first year.” Some of Osmund’s attitude, of wanting to keep his head down, made a bit more sense. He wanted to life, to see his family again.

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you,” I told him.

  “My son might,” Osmund admitted. “My wife probably would prefer I don’t come back. It would make things easier on her.” He said it so calmly that I stared at him in shock.

  “It was an arranged marriage, to help my family. As soon as I received my appointment orders, they auctioned a marriage to me among the wealthier families on Oberon and selected my wife for me. She and I consummated the marriage and produced a child as a show of good faith.”

  “I see,” I answered, not really understanding that at all.

  “It helped my family and it earned her a place in one of the new cities. Our child can have a better future, my family received enough money to invest in industry, to pay for schooling so more of my family can enlist or apply for the Institute,” Osmund went on. “It’s very practical.”

  “What about marrying for love?” I asked.

  Osmund didn’t answer for a long time. When he finally did, his voice was thoughtful, “Love is something that the rich and powerful can afford. It’s a privilege for those who don’t need to think about the future or self-indulgence by those who don’t have the discipline to think of consequences. Love is destructive and corrosive.”

  That I didn’t agree with. My parents had loved one another. That hadn’t made their lives easier. They’d had to work for everything they had. But I wasn’t going to argue with him about it. Jonna came back before I had a response anyway, “The path is clear, let’s go.”

  ***

  Chapter 11: My Pla
ns Never Work

  1To my relief, we found the six renegade entrants more or less where we’d left them.

  I was less relieved, though as I saw that only two of them were even able to sit up. Bones, Argur, Vivar, and Hem were laying on the ground, alternating between writing in pain and shivering. Nikki Kenyon and Gell were seated, backs to the wall, both of them looking tired and shaky.

  “Are you sick?” I asked.

  “Probably,” Nikki replied, “but worse than that, withdrawal from the quick heal and the other stuff they put in it.”

  I bit back a curse at that. Others had hinted that taking quick heal every day, plus the chemical cocktail of the various “other” things they added to it, could be addictive. Apparently, it was worse than I’d thought.

  “Did you get the food I’ve been sending?” I asked, looking around.

  “Yeah, when we’re able to keep anything down, we eat,” Nikki told me. “Thanks for that.”

  Osmund shot me a questioning look, but I didn’t want to bring up Lokka or the other civets because that would only lead to more questions.

  “I’ve got an update for your implants,” I told Nikki. “A way to get through spaceport security. It’ll alter your implant codes, they shouldn’t flag with security.”

  “I’m good for that,” She gave me a nod. “Do I want to know how you did that?”

  Jonna shot me a look, this time. She knew just how hard that would be to do, and I had no doubt that she was wondering how I’d pulled that out of nowhere. “I’ve got some resources, but the less anyone knows, the more secure it is. You’ll need to use the new codes sooner rather than later, can they move?” Hah, that shows her, Shadow chortled, I’m awesome!

  Gell shook his head, “No, but it doesn’t matter. Vivar wasn’t able to go back to see if his uncle got the message. We don’t know when to rendezvous. If we go all the way there and his uncle’s already left or hasn’t arrived yet, it’s a wasted trip.”

  Looking at the four of them, two of them curled up in pain, I worried that they wouldn’t survive the trip there and back. I looked at Jonna, “Do we have time to go and check, you think?”

  She bit her lip. We’d lost time going around Jerral and the Iron Flight patrol. We would lose more time going to the spaceport and coming back to get them. If we had to go now, then we’d probably have to carry them to the spaceport.

  “We can check it out,” Osmund surprised both of us. “We can make contact for you and set up a time later on for you to link up.”

  That worked… sort of. The problem was, I wanted to go, too. And if I stayed down here until they were able to move, there’d probably be someone down here searching for me, even if Jonna and Osmund were willing to lie and say something fatal had happened to me.

  “Before he got this bad, he told me the tunnel opens up in the storm drains under one of the cargo transshipment areas. There’s a set of lockers near the entrance. Locker four-fourteen. He said his uncle would set the locker code to seven-seven-three,” Nikki told us.

  This is not a good idea, I thought to myself. Jonna and Osmund didn’t say anything, though. We were short on time, so off we went.

  I took the lead and I started off faster than I probably should have. But we made good time to the area of the tunnel where it joined up with the main access shaft. From there, I started into what was almost a jog. I wanted to be done with this. I was going to go with the deserters when they slipped off-world. If I wasn’t going to endanger Jonna and Osmund, I needed to prevent them from being delayed. If they didn’t make the lift, they’d automatically be under more suspicion when they eventually did come back without me. I didn’t know how accurate the lie detectors were, but I’d wager that under intense enough questioning, and without the help of Shadow, then the two of them would probably be in trouble. Not if I don’t desert, though.

  I banished that thought. I had made my decision. I had to plan for it.

  There’s another route, Shadow whispered to me, you could make the rendezvous without them. Tell Vivar’s uncle that he didn’t make it. You don’t need them to escape.

  I’m not leaving them behind, I was so angry at the very idea that I nearly spoke out loud. Don’t even suggest it.

  I didn’t think you would, but still, it would make things easier. Jonna and Osmund could bring the deserters in as prisoners. The way a few of them look, they may not survive anyway without medical treatment…

  “No,” I growled, this time out loud. I didn’t care if Jonna or Osmund heard me, either. I wasn’t going to abandon these kids, not to be killed, especially not after I had earned their trust.

  “What was that?” Jonna asked from behind me.

  Great, now they’re really going to think you’re crazy, Shadow snorted.

  “I—”

  Lokka saved me, in more ways than one. The civet came rushing down the tunnel from ahead of us, “Flee, hide. Hunters come!”

  I skidded to a halt and Lokka raced past me, diving into a side tunnel. I followed after him and Jonna and Osmund followed, killing our lights and hunkering down out of sight. We’d barely taken cover when I heard the soft sound of bootsteps I didn’t see any lights, but a moment later, I heard a soft sound of voices. “I saw the lights, Kore.”

  I didn’t see any lights. They must be using some kind of night vision or even thermals. I swallowed as I realized that if they were using thermals, we had probably left a visible trail of warmer footprints on the floors. Maybe not, Shadow corrected me, the boots you’re wearing are pretty thick and you’ve been wading through cold water, you may not have much of a thermal presence.

  “I know,” I recognized Kore’s voice from before. “There’s someone down here, but either they caught a glimpse of us and they’re hiding, or we just missed them.” His smooth voice had an underlying tone of frustration.

  “Any word on our team sent to intercept the priority target?” Kore asked.

  “No sign of the patrol, not on the patrol route our informant slipped us,” his partner spoke. “Should I call that team back?”

  “No, tell them to widen their search. If they find anyone, I want them seized. I don’t care if it’s Vars, the girl, or some random entrants on patrol. I want to know if our informant is playing us and anyone we grab will know something.”

  I had to assume they meant Jonna and I. So apparently their informant had followed through. But if Kore and his friend were sitting on the main route to the spaceport, there was no way we’d be able to slip around them, especially not with six sick entrants in tow.

  I’ve got to do something about them. The obvious answer was to open fire on these two… but I didn’t know for sure that they were alone. And I’d seen Hunters in action, they were fast. They figured someone was around, they had night vision equipment of some kind. They might be trying to draw us out.

  I heard a set of soft footsteps as they walked away, but I waited a moment before I started to stand. Before I could, Lokka reached out and clenched a hand around my arm in warning. I settled back to wait. I could hear the civet sniff the air, a soft sound that I hoped wouldn’t carry to any potential ambushers.

  We waited for what felt like an hour but my implant’s chrono assured me was only another minute. Then I heard a soft sigh out in the corridor and Kore’s voice. “They must have gone. A shame, there are far more people down here than there should be, I would have liked to ask our uninvited guests some questions.” I heard him walk away and after a short time, Lokka eased past me to check.

  “Clear,” he whispered softly. “We must go. Many, many Hunters here. You lucky I came for you.”

  “What is that thing?” Osmund asked in a low voice.

  “Civet,” I told him as casually as I could manage. “They’re escaped lab subjects, they live in the Barrens and elsewhere.” I brought up the light on my rifle at its lowest setting and started following Lokka as well as I was able.

  “That one is talking. I mean, it looks like a rodent or something… but it
’s talking.” He sounded nervous, “It’s not an alien, right, I mean, associating with aliens is against Guard law. We could be executed for that.”

  “Not an alien, it’s earth-based, brought out to serve as lab subjects in the drug factories,” Jonna assured him. She didn’t see fit to let him know that they’d been genetically engineered, but in the dim light from our rifles, Osmund’s eyes were big enough around that I didn’t want to spook him any more than he already was, so I kept quiet on that part.

  Lokka led the way to the side tunnel and then gestured for us to go inside. We hadn’t gone far when he paused and hiked his tail. “Oh, man, hurry,” I told Osmund. We ran for it, stumbling and falling a couple times, but even so, the pungent stench of the civet’s spray wafted down the tunnel to us. I really hoped I hadn’t got any on me.

  “Oh, that’s awful,” Osmund rubbed at his eyes. “What is that.”

  “Spray,” Lokka chittered as he caught up to us. “Pray it is enough. Hunters may avoid, the smell is worse for them.”

  I didn’t know how it could be “worse” for them. Civets could defensively spray a musk that was extremely pungent. I knew that better than almost anyone seeing as I’d been sprayed in the face before. But I kept quiet on that. “How many of them are there?” I asked.

  “Many, many,” Lokka growled. “Far too many. They are searching for you and you,” he pointed at Jonna and I. “But they protect boxes and crates. Some come in, some go out.”

  “Smuggling,” Osmund muttered, “Like last time?”

  “This level of activity seems a bit much for that,” I mused. “I mean, one or two boxes, sure, but this?” I looked over at Jonna, who hadn’t said anything. “You know something, don’t you?”

  Jonna didn’t answer, not right away. “Some of the Pirate Houses, they’re not just into smuggling and thieving and murdering. They’ve got deeper agendas.”

  “Like kidnapping you two for some horrible fate?” Osmund panted. “And here everyone said Jade Flight was the place to be.”