“Your ship, he survived?” Shima said sharply. “He has gone for help?”
“We lost contact, but believe she has, yes.”
“Huh, she is it?”
James nodded.
“Very sensible,” Shima opined and everyone laughed. She ignored them. “You were waiting for me?”
James shrugged. “I was walking. I do that a lot to meet people and find out things. I heard you had arrived and wanted to see you, but I don’t want to delay your meeting with Chailen. We can talk later.”
Shima released his hand. “You know my sib?”
“Know of her, yes. She’s well known here because of you.”
Shima groaned and turned toward Kazim who raised a hand in apology. He still held his camera as it recorded her first meeting with a Human.
She turned back to James after a moment. “Would you have time to meet Chailen?” James nodded but then wondered if Shima knew what his gesture meant, but then she said, “Good. She would enjoy meeting you.”
“And she won’t chastise you for your tardiness,” Kazim interjected, still filming. “Good plan.”
Shima pointed one finger at Kazim, right between his eyes. She held the gesture in silence with her teeth bared. Kazim laughed, but didn’t say anything more. James grinned at the familiar by-play. The broadcasts had prepared him, but in person, Shima and Kazim were even funnier.
25 ~ Rescue
Aboard ASN Canada, Shan System
“Is this everyone? You’re sure?” Colgan said. Forty-three weary looking Shan stood before him. Forty-three from a crew of hundreds.
“This is everyone,” Tei’Varyk said with slumped shoulders.
Colgan waved his people forward to see to the wounded. He took his friend’s arm to ease him out of the way. He watched Tarjei being rushed to surgery. Others were given similar treatment leaving the walking wounded standing silently slumped and dejected in their defeat. Tei’Varyk watched his people leave until he was left with fifteen uninjured including himself.
“Your people will be shown to a place to rest,” Colgan said.
Tei’Varyk gestured to his people. “Go with the Humans. You will be cared for.”
The Shan bowed once and followed Baz Riley to quarters, but it was obvious they were far from happy about it.
“Come to my quarters, Tei. We need to decide what to do.” Colgan set off with his friend by his side. “You know Canada is the only ship left?”
“Yes.”
“You know that I can’t stop the Merkiaari?”
“Yes.”
They entered his quarters. “Take a seat. Or on the floor if you prefer.”
Tei’Varyk threw a cushion from the chair onto the deck, and sat staring at nothing. Or perhaps he was seeing again the last transmission from his homeworld, as the Merkiaari landed looking to kill his people.
Harmony’s orbital defence net had lasted no longer than the time it took to target the fortresses. The fighting at the landing zones had been ferocious, and was still being waged. The Shan had been unable to predict where they would land, so any kind of defence had to be mobile. Entrenching Shan warriors had simply been impossible. They had met the Merki without the benefit of fixed defences, and their losses had been simply staggering. Hundreds of thousands of Shan warriors and civilians had died within minutes, and the war had only just begun. Neither side would stop until one or the other was utterly destroyed. Missile installations had targeted the landers and knocked down some of them, but such victories were few.
Far too few.
Colgan sat cross-legged in front of his friend, and saw the despair there. The flattened ears, the claws working in and out of their sheaths, the restless tail tip. It was the posture of a defeated man—Shan.
“I can’t take you home, Tei,” he said quietly.
“Tarjei is dying.”
Colgan drew a sharp breath. “Perhaps not my friend. Our medics have been studying with your healers. Doctor Ambrai is very good.”
“No. I know when one of my people will die. Send me home to die with them, with her.”
“I can’t, I won’t! You and your crew might be all that’s left of the Harmony of Shan soon. Think about that.”
“I am thinking of it,” Tei’Varyk said with his eyes blazing. “Don’t you think I know the Murderers will do their evil work right this time? I do know it.”
“Well then. It’s your duty to save what you can. This ship is a wreck, but it’s still jump capable. I can’t take you home Tei, the Merki would destroy me before I came close, but I can take you to my home.”
Tei’Varyk’s ears were quivering, and almost flat to his skull. His eyes were white-rimmed. His fur was standing up making him seem larger. He was on the killing edge.
Colgan went still, trying to appear harmless. After a few seconds, that to Colgan felt like hours, Tei’Varyk spat dryly and his ears struggled erect. Slowly his eyes returned to normal.
“Take the others, but give me a lander. I’ll get there.”
“I haven’t got one, Tei. James and the others are marooned on Child of Harmony with the only one not destroyed. Even if I did have one, I wouldn’t give it to you. I don’t hold with suicide.”
“No? Then what was that attack if not suicide?”
Colgan shifted uncomfortably. “I calculated the risks and they were favourable. Putting you in a lander is not. You have no choice. This ship is jumping outsystem as soon as I give the word, but I wanted you to agree.”
“Then, as I have no real choice, you have my agreement for what it’s worth.”
“It’s worth something to me, Tei.” Colgan rose to his feet. “Come to the bridge with me.”
Colgan led the way to the bridge, and asked Tei’Varyk to sit in the observer seat. He racked his helmet beside his command station and slumped into it. He was tired, but he couldn’t rest yet.
“Prepare for jump.”
“Jump drive hot, Skipper, all jump stations report manned and ready,” Lieutenant Wesley reported.
“Referent?”
“Referent locked in, destination Sol.”
Colgan glanced at Tei’Varyk where he sat staring at his homeworld on the view-screen. “Execute!”
ASN Canada twisted and was gone. Where she had been, empty space remained.
26 ~ Blown
Deep Jungle, Planet Thurston, 01:00
Eric crossed the open compound appearing casual and uninterested in anything going on. It was the middle of the night, but you wouldn’t know it by the activity under the harsh white floodlights on the towers. Night was when the work was done; daytime was for sleep and relaxation.
The buildings, shacks at best, were constructed of materials scavenged from the jungle locally. A matter of both convenience and security. There was always the chance that supplies could be traced to the base, though Eric found it unlikely. It was impressive foresight regardless.
All the important equipment was kept underground in the old mine itself. The command centre, barracks, motor pool, commissary... all were in the various tunnels and caverns protected from dinos and discovery both. Above ground, the shacks contained various stores mostly awaiting use in raids or shipment elsewhere. The only way in or out of the compound was by road, the only one was little more than a single lane dirt track. From the air it was invisible until it joined a properly paved road leading from active mining facilities to the east. From there it led to a small airfield able to handle transports and shuttles. He had travelled that route to reach the base.
Eric kept his steps casual. He was a well-known face and people nodded or raised a hand in greeting as he walked by. He smiled and nodded in return, or gave a brief wink and grin if it was a pretty girl. He was liked, and he made sure never to destroy that image. He blended. He was one of them. They trusted him, and were even a little in awe of his skills because when they went on raids he planned, no one got dead. He was indispensable now. As planned.
Eric paused as his sensors detected a wea
pon system coming online. He turned slowly, making it seem he was looking for someone. In reality, he was turning to watch as the sentry guns powered up. There wasn’t a test scheduled as far as he knew, and he made it his business to know such things.
He squinted in the bright light of the floods, and watched.
The guns were tracking something, but the jerking hesitating way they moved told Eric this was a malfunction not a test. He readied himself to run for cover, but then he realised the guns really were tracking, but not firing. Not a malfunction then. He ordered his processor to run a sensor sweep. Multiple unknowns dotted his display and they were close! His right hand twitched, but he managed not to pull his gun. The unknowns had to be native wildlife, some kind of nocturnal flying dinosaur or bat. Did Thurston even have bats? He had no idea.
He watched the sentry guns tracking the sources of his unease and knew what the problem was. The gun’s sensitivity had been dialled way down because they had kept fragging the wildlife and getting on everyone’s nerves. Sentry guns were noisy and burned through ammo at a horrendous rate. Now though, an unknown threat had been detected within a hundred meters and the gun’s programming said threats must be eliminated, but the sources were smaller than the new limits that had been imposed to prevent false alarms. The guns were stuck in a logic loop. They tracked, tried to fire, were prevented from firing, tried to power down, and looped back to detecting a threat and tracking again. That was why they were moving spasmodically when normally they would be smooth.
“God damned junk!” someone cried heading toward one of the sentry gun towers.
Eric nodded as if he agreed, but in fact he didn’t agree. Those guns were good tech and dangerous in professional hands. It wasn’t their fault they had been deployed in the wrong environment. Even here in the jungle they would do the job, they just needed a little care and tinkering. He could have had them running as smooth as can be in a few hours, or he could tell the techs here how to do it. He wouldn’t though. He wasn’t here to help them; he was here to bring them crashing down. He was here to end them, and had spent months here putting a plan together to do just that.
Killing everyone here would be a short term solution. He had considered it a few times, but he wanted long term. He was tired of people making the same mistakes over and over, undoing his work and making him come back for a do over. He needed to change the political system, or aid President Thurston in his efforts to do so. A simple massacre here wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t even make the evening news. He needed a big splash, something big enough to tip the government over the edge and force them to take the leap into full Alliance membership instead of just talking the matter to death in Parliament.
Eric turned back to his walk, letting his sensors map the minefield as he walked the perimeter. It was stifling hot under the camo netting and the nano net beneath it. Simple is efficient, Eric mused, taking a moment to look up. Funny how such a low tech solution as netting strung overhead could fool high tech observation from satellites or navy air patrols. The camo netting fooled the eye, and the nano nets fooled any sensors that relied upon heat, magnetic, or electrical emissions.
When he had climbed aboard that transport at Zhang’s factory months ago and headed for the port, he had wondered then how the Freedom Movement had managed to hide a base on a planet with modern satellite communications and its attendant surveillance capabilities.
What impressed him about the Freedom Movement’s solution was that the old mining facility had been hidden years ago, long before the Freedom Movement even existed. King had been planning and scheming for decades. He must have hidden the place in case he ever needed it, and somehow destroyed any record it had ever existed. To do all that just in case? Amazing.
Had King always intended to overthrow the government, even as a young man? Why? Back then, democracy on Thurston had been a distant dream; not even that. President Thurston’s father had been a dictator, one of a handful of men who owned the company which in turn owned most of the below ground resources of the planet. He’d had no intention of ever joining the Alliance and must be spinning in his grave at his son’s antics. Writing a constitution based upon the Alliance constitution and then upholding it! Ye gods. He’d even given away his own lifetime Presidency in favour of a five year term and proper elections!
So King didn’t want Thurston to join the Alliance; what did he want?
Eric had no idea, but he had used his time trying to find out, and had learned a great many things. He now knew names in the government secretly dealing with King and helping the Freedom Movement, he knew everything there was to know about the base here and its resources. He knew where all the terrorist cells were located and what their missions were, but he still had not fathomed King’s motivation. It didn’t matter. All that did was Stein’s Marines taking King and the other government conspirators out. And they would. As soon as he reported in, Stein would move. Just a matter of time now.
Timing was the thing.
He hadn’t reported in yet, because he didn’t have a long term solution to the government’s dithering. If Stein moved now and decapitated the Movement, the underlings would fade away only to re-emerge years later, probably stronger, certainly wiser from experience, but worse than that would be the government’s reaction.
He could see it clearly.
They would relax; believing the emergency over, they would go back to business as usual. Might even withdraw their application to join the Alliance, probably would because what need now eh? Now the emergency was over and the terrorists taken care of? Foolish to think that way, but Eric had seen it many times. Easy to forget when immediate danger passes.
So he held back his data, stalled the Marines leaving them in a guard position and reacting to events instead of pre-empting them. Not something they liked, to be sure. Marines preferred well defined goals... go here, destroy that. Take that hill. They were damned good at it.
“Hey Eric, give a hand here could you?” Reiner said from across the compound.
Eric lifted a hand and went to join him. “What’s up?”
“Got to get this stuff squared away,” Reiner said struggling to drag a crate off the battered loader’s forks. “God-damned pile of junk ran dry before I finished.”
“Power cell dead again? Should have charged the mother before you started, my man. You know what this heat does to a cell’s efficiency,” Eric said getting a grip on the other side of the wooden crate and lifting. He groaned and cursed for effect, when in reality he could have carried it alone with ease. “Damn me, what’s in it?”
“Ammo,” Reiner grunted, his voice strained. “Over there with the others.”
Eric shuffled in time with the man. Ammo stores was a simple shack with canvas roof, and was stacked high with all kinds of crates; some wooden like this one, others metal, but most were the olive green fireproof plastic cases that told an experienced eye they were out of an off-world Alliance weapon’s factory. The codes were in Eric’s database. The sight of so many RPGs and SAMs stockpiled had angered him when he first realised how well supplied the Movement was. They were for killing Marines and navy pilots, especially the SAMs.
Off world backing again. He saw the like more and more
They manoeuvred down a lane left open between stacks for the purpose of moving stuff around, and had just navigated the corner safely when Reiner tripped. Staggering backwards he let go of the crate, trying to keep his feet out from under it.
Eric should have held the weight easily, but the suddenly unbalanced load bit into his hands and tipped. Before he knew it, the crate had smashed upon the ground spilling cases of loose rounds onto the dirt floor. Hot blood scolded his palms and he scowled at his hands.
Bloody wooden crates in this day and age. Bloody Border Worlds in the bloody Border Zone, bloody primitives...
He muttered curses as he pulled out the long slivers of wood. He didn’t notice Reiner staring at him, at first. He looked up from his ripped flesh and saw Reiner s
taring at his hands. Eric looked down again and... oh shit. The synthskin glove on his right hand was ripped and the gold contacts of his weapon’s bus were clearly visible.
Dammit, not now! He wasn’t ready. Ready or not, his cover just went bye bye.
“You’re a—” Reiner began, shocked and horrified. Eric leapt forward and broke his neck.
Eric held the body sagging in his arms; maybe he could salvage this. He could hide the body; dump it in the jungle as a free meal for passing dinosaurs. The others would miss Reiner eventually, but maybe they would think the wildlife got him. It would be the truth...
A shout, and the sound of running feet had Eric spinning in place, but it was too late. Another man was running for his life and screaming the alarm. Eric cursed, dropped Reiner, and hurried deeper into the ammo store heading for the far wall.
He kicked his way through the wall and ran for the wire fence. It was a simple chain link affair, not meant to keep men in or out, just the smaller jungle creatures attracted by the chance of easy food. He chose a blind spot in the fence, a section the sentry guns didn’t cover very well, and ripped it down with his bare hands. He called up his map of the minefield, and started picking his meandering way through.
In a matter of moments, he was into the minefield following his safe route. Safe was a relative term, but his sensor sweeps had been thorough. He had everything well mapped and knew his own abilities. He could pass through, but his pursuers would need to turn the field off before they could follow. They must have realised, because they stopped at the boundary and ordered him to stop. He didn’t of course and they fired a warning shot. He kept going.
Eric leapt over the last mines and ducked into the trees just as the enemy finally organised itself and opened up on him. He put the trees at his back and ran. Hard. No one could catch a viper in flight, but they didn’t know what he was and would try. He watched them on his sensors as they entered the minefield. They didn’t know what he was or why he had killed Reiner, but they didn’t need to. All they needed to know was that he was running away with knowledge they couldn’t let him spread.
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