by Jack Porter
Chapter 5
They led me the rest of the way to the remains of the transport, each of them keeping their distance and staying quiet.
For my part, I didn’t much mind. My immediate need was water, and as long as I got enough of that to slake my thirst, then I was happy to let whatever came next to look after itself.
In the time I’d been walking, my dehydration had grown from mild to something more urgent, and I was starting to suffer as a result.
My muscles were beginning to shake, and the headache I had woken with was getting steadily worse.
If these women hadn’t had a supply of water with them, I might have been in real trouble.
No one offered a hand as I stumbled up the mound of broken earth that the transport had displaced. When I got to the top, I could see for the first time more than just the top part of the ship.
It was massive, as all such transports were massive, made of heavy alloy armor designed to withstand the ravages of space. Perhaps two hundred paces long and half of that wide, that armor had done a relatively good job.
Or so it seemed at first. The girls kept walking, and I followed as best as I could, all the way to the far side.
Which was missing.
The ship had been torn open, armor be damned, so that I was looking at a gaping hole.
“Fuck,” I exclaimed.
I couldn’t help myself. For anyone to have survived such an impact was a miracle. And for five to have done so?
Turns out, I wasn’t the only lucky son of a bitch in this part of the galaxy.
The tall, athletic woman I’d first spoken to caught my exclamation and responded with a quiet laugh.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “She saved our lives, but it doesn’t look like she’ll be flying again.”
“Water is there,” the not-Captain said. “With the rest of the salvage.”
She gestured toward a small pile of goods that included the med kit, a couple of boxes of rations, and a large, oddly-shaped container with H2O stenciled on the side.
The small woman with her arm in the sling made a disgusted noise and stormed away, only to stop nearby as if she didn’t know where to go. They ignored her.
“Is this it?” I asked.
The container normally hid within the walls of the transport, and typically held about a hundred and sixty gallons. I wondered how the women had managed to maneuver it out of the wreckage, but didn’t ask.
It wasn’t full.
“So far. There was another water container as well, but it ruptured. And there’s a reclaimer in the back, but without power, it’s useless.” The not-Captain woman shrugged.
I nodded. Somewhere less than a hundred and sixty gallons split between six people. In this hot, desert-like environment.
It would last us only a handful of days.
“You have a cup?” I asked.
The athletic woman found me one, a battered, metal object that had seen better days, and I unscrewed the top of the water container and dipped it inside.
The water tasted stale and a little brackish, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many light years it had travelled before reaching this place. I drained my cup in just a few seconds, then refilled it, before taking a seat on the ground.
Savoring the contents as if it was the finest beverage ever made, I looked around.
“So. You know my name. Who are you?” I asked.
The not-Captain spoke first. “Uma Reynolds,” she said. “Commander of…” she gestured at the wreck. “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
I nodded, storing her name away, and looked to the tall, athletic woman who had first approached me.
“Deeve Thorne,” she supplied. “I was supposed to be heading home. Just a short hop between systems, and then I was going to help out on the farm for a while.”
The big-eyed woman with alien blood in her veins spoke next.
“Kia Pilou,” she said. By her accent I picked her as a resident of one of the city worlds.
“You’re psychic,” I said to her.
She colored as if I had spoken a secret, her cheeks turning almost as red as her hair, and glanced around at the others before nodding.
“And you didn’t see this?” I said. “You didn’t see the crash?”
She knew what I was asking. “Short term visions, mostly, but I didn’t want to come on this trip. Something felt wrong with it. But no, no true vision.” She shrugged. “At least, not when it would have helped. I remember dreams during cryo sleep … but by then, it was too late.”
The shorter woman with the smile lines around her eyes spoke next.
“I’m Sydney Jones,” she said. “Environmental scientist. I study pollution and its effects on the environment. I was heading to one of the outer rim worlds to pick up a contract.” Then, to my surprise, she offered a laugh. “Can’t get much more outer rim than this, I suppose.”
I nodded, and she watched as I looked toward the woman with her arm in the sling.
“That’s Jayloo Tang,” Sydney supplied. “She’s just a bit scared is all.”
At this, Kia made a noise. “Aren’t we all?” she said.
It was a fair point. I was starting to feel better, the cool water doing its job. But there was still much more to do. I looked to the Commander.
“How many?” I asked her.
She knew what I meant. “We started the journey with twenty-seven on board. Four crew, twenty-two paying passengers, including your guards, and you.”
Twenty-seven. And from that number, only six remained.
“And you’ve checked everything?” I asked.
“For survivors? Yes. This is it. We thought—I thought—you were to be counted among the dead.”
“And there is no possibility of others?”
She made a rude noise. “You’re welcome to check the cryo pods for yourself, if you wish. Count them. Although I warn you, some of them aren’t pretty.”
I decided I would accept her word for it.
“So, this is it. The six of us, stranded on this world. No hope of rescue.”
She nodded, and I could tell that she at least understood the gravity of the situation, and was already carrying the weight of it on her shoulders.
In her own words, these people, me included, were her responsibility.
I found myself giving the woman a smile. I placed my empty cup on the sand before me, and held out my hands.
“Well, Commander Reynolds, do you have anything on board that might help me get out of these?”
The woman made no move to do so. “You were given those restraints for a reason,” she said. “You still haven’t told us what that reason was.”
I kept my hands where they were for just a few seconds, then let them drop as if it was of no real importance.
“If I told you I killed fifty people, you would say I was too dangerous to free. But if I told you I was the victim of a Company set up, you wouldn’t believe me. So, what value is there in telling you anything? All that matters is that you need me. You need my help. And I can help much better if I’m free to move.”
I could sense my words having an impact. Not just with the Commander, but with the others who had chosen to stay close by. Each of the women was weighing my words, seeking the truth within them.
Only Kia seemed distracted. Where the others were focused on me, she kept glancing out into the wastelands.
“How can we trust you?” Uma asked.
I shook my head. “Wrong question. You have to trust me. You don’t have a choice.”
My words hung in the air, but I knew even before the Commander started to shake her head that they weren’t enough.
To forestall any final decision, I gestured to the small pile of salvage. As well as the water container, there were smaller containers, lengths of metal tubing, what looked like a med kit and a toolbox that had already caught my interest. Perhaps, I thought, there was something in the latter that I could use to my advantage.
“Why
have you brought everything out here?” I asked. “Why not just leave it in the ship, and use that for shelter?”
It was Deeve who answered. “The ship is unstable. It’s sinking into the sand. We don’t know how long we have until it is inaccessible.”
It was a good answer. “Well, then. Why are we still talking?” I stood, feeling much stronger before. The rest and the water had done their job well.
But at my movement, Jayloo and Sydney both flinched back. Uma Reynolds, though, did not. She stayed put, and I had to admire her for it.
These women thought me dangerous, but the Commander had no give in her. It spoke highly of her for both her confidence and capabilities.
“We have work to do,” I said with a grin, trying to put them at ease. “Let’s see what else we can find that might come in handy.”
I didn’t wait for permission. I simply shuffled toward the gaping hole in the transport, intending to see what I could find, effectively making myself part of the group.
Chapter 6
On the face of it, there wasn’t much left to salvage. The women had already gathered the obvious items, and much of the rest was broken and of little use.
But perhaps they weren’t looking at things in quite the same way I was.
After a quick look around, I headed immediately to a damaged panel, ripped it further away from the wall, and started pulling out some of the heavier cables I found behind it.
Deeve watched me for a moment. “Power cables?” she said.
I nodded, but continued what I was doing.
“You never know when you might come across a random power supply on these worlds. What if you had everything you needed to string up some lights, but were just short of a bit of wire?” I asked.
She didn’t laugh, not exactly, but understood that my answer wasn’t exactly serious. “You’re kidding,” she said.
I flashed her a grin, doing everything I could to win her acceptance. It wasn’t accidental, my joking and smiling. I figured if I was ever going to get out of these chains, I would do well to have at least some of these women on my side.
And besides, realistically, the situation was desperate. But that didn’t mean we should act all doom and gloom about it.
“Yes, I’m kidding. I’m thinking more in terms of rope. For example, those supplies out there. Gathering them together is one thing, but moving them is another. Unless the plan is to simply camp here even once the transport sinks out of sight?”
The question caught her off guard.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess we hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
I didn’t respond, but instead continued to pull what cables I could from the walls, curling them up into useful spools and as I went.
At the same time, I was surprised they hadn’t thought that far ahead. So far, this world had proved inhospitable. How did they intend to survive?
Deeve watched me as I worked. “You’ve been augmented,” she stated after a while.
I turned to look at her, and she explained why she’d said it.
“The way you move. The ease with which you’re pulling this ship apart. You’re stronger than you ought to be.”
I still didn’t say anything.
“I’ve seen guys like you before.” Then, surprisingly, she gestured to herself. “And me as well.”
“You?” I asked.
She seemed hesitant to say anything more. I didn’t press her, but rather let the silence continue.
“When I was born, my legs didn’t work right,” she said finally. “There was a problem with the nerves or something. The doctors gave me the same sort of augmentation they give to soldiers and the like. To make them strong, and fast. Is that what you are? A soldier?”
I chuckled to myself. “No. I’m something else.”
“What?”
I was aware that instead of moving through the ship on their own, looking for things to salvage, both Uma and Sydney had drifted back to join us. I wasn’t sure that I wanted them to know all of my secrets, but in the interest of building trust, I answered.
“I’m an Assessor for the Company. Or at least, I was.”
“An assessor?” Deeve said, not recognizing what I meant.
But Uma understood. “You’re a Canary,” she said.
“That’s what most people call those like me,” I agreed.
But Deeve hadn’t heard the term, at least in how it related to me.
“A canary? One of those yellow songbirds?”
I kept pulling cords out of the walls, but at the same time, I was looking for anything else that might prove useful.
“Back in the early years, pre-expansion, coal miners used to keep a canary with them in a little cage. They used them to detect pockets of gas, areas in the mine that were too dangerous for the miners to go.”
My explanation seemed to add to Deeve’s confusion, but Sydney understood.
“The company sends you to into places they’re not sure are safe,” she said.
I nodded. “Rim worlds, mostly. Bits of rock they want to assess. They send me in to see how hostile these places are, and whether or not others would be able to survive.”
“And from there, the Company decides whether to move in or not,” Sydney said.
“There’s more to it than that. But effectively, yeah. My report goes to the bean counters, to figure out how much it would cost to keep people alive and how much the world might be worth. But by the time they come out with an answer, they’ve usually shipped me off somewhere else.”
Deeve was more curious about the enhancements than what it might mean.
“So, what have they done? Bacterial augmentation? Given your mitochondria a boost?”
I nodded. “And more. Reinforced my bones, enhanced musculature. There’s even a thin carbon fiber weave beneath much of my skin. And the optics, of course. I can see dangers coming from a long way off, can react fast enough to avoid them, and am damn hard to kill.”
It was Uma who made the connections.
“They put you on hostile worlds, expecting you to be able to deal with anything that comes up,” she said. “You’re a survivor.”
I turned to her and gave her a grin. “Exactly.”
I could have left it there, could have let the implications percolate a bit more. I could be useful. Especially in a situation like this.
But in the interest of honesty, I decided to clarify the situation a bit more.
“It’s not quite what you think, though. I haven’t been trained in all aspects of survival. Always before, I’ve had back up when I needed it.”
“But you’ve picked up a few tricks,” Deeve said. It wasn’t a question.
I turned to her. “But I’ve picked up a few tricks,” I agreed.
Uma might have said something more, or perhaps Deeve or Sydney. But Kia chose that moment to join us.
Her big eyes were wide and full of fear. “There’s something out there,” she blurted. “Something dangerous.”
“Did you see it?” Uma asked her.
The psychic shook her head. “No. But I’m sure.”
It seemed for a moment that nobody knew what to do. So I asked the obvious question.
“Do you have any weapons?”
Uma didn’t want to answer. Perhaps she didn’t want me to know. At the same time, she didn’t have any choice.
“No,” she said.
“Well, pick up a piece of metal or something, and let’s go have a look.”
I kept my voice calm, as if I dealt with this type of thing all the time. But in truth, while these women might not have any weapons on them, I usually did.
I wondered idly about the guards who’d been assigned to me. Likely, they’d had weapons of some sort with them. Not that it mattered. That whole section of the transport was no more than a burnt-out ruin, even if it was close enough to do any good.
Matching my actions to my words, I found part of a bulkhead that would serve my purpose. Cylindrical, about t
he length of a baseball bat, and the fat, heavy end came with a built-in spike.
I hefted my makeshift weapon, feeling that perhaps a knight from the middle ages might have wielded a similar object, and without waiting for the others, shuffled my way back out into the light.
At first, I could see nothing. Just the barren land, a few chunks of rock, a broken section of metal. But when I glanced Kia’s way, she answered.
“They’re out there,” she said.
“They?” I asked.
The psychic woman didn’t respond. Nor did she have to. I toggled the sensors built into my eyes once again and looked around.
“They’re out there,” I agreed. “Seven of them. Like wolves, but bigger. More sinuous. Black, full of spines. They’re heading this way.”
So saying, I took a position out in front of the salvaged supplies and planted myself firmly. Moments later, Uma Reynolds took up a position to my left, with Deeve on my right.
The Commander had chosen a club much like mine, but Deeve had gripped two shards of metal as if they were knives, holding on to them with hands wrapped in cloth.
She took a pose that told me all I needed to know. Deeve had some sort of fighting training behind her, and likely knew what she was doing with her blades.
But she and Uma weren’t the only survivors I had to consider.
“Where’s Jayloo?” I said.
Uma Reynolds looked quickly about, and swore under her breath. “Kia?” she called out, and somehow, the psychic woman knew.
“She’s around the other side of the ship. She isn’t happy Adam’s here.”
“We don’t have time for her to be happy or not,” I said, grimly aware that the pack of wolf-things was heading towards us as if they had caught our scent. “Find her. If she isn’t going to help with the fight, get her inside.”
Then I cast a glance at Uma. “This would be a lot easier if not for these chains,” I said.
The Commander hesitated for a moment. “There’s a power cutter in the tool box.”
It was all I needed to hear. Right away, I whirled and shuffled to the pile of salvaged items, dropping my makeshift club and pulling out the tool box. Knowing that time was of the essence, I quickly threw open the lid and looked for the power cutter.