by Melissa Good
“You one of them?” The boy asked, after a pause.
“I was,” April responded. “Now I’m Interforce.”
The boy refocused on Jess. “So we weren’t gonna let them do it again. Why’d you get all up in the biz?”
Why? Jess rolled her eyes in Dev’s direction. Dev returned the look noncommittally. “Didn’t look like a two-sided fight to me,” Jess said. “When we came over the horizon, we saw wagons getting blown up by high power blasters.”
The boy looked down at his boots.
“Unlicensed blasters,” Jess said.
“Had to get something,” the boy muttered. “Anyway we paid for it. Was six of us in there.”
Jess stood up, towering over him. “Where’d the blasters come from? Who’d you buy them from?”
He shook his head. “Dunno.”
Jess had her hands in her pockets, and she stood there in silence, regarding him. He was thin and weedy, reminding her a little of her youngest brother. “Dev, contact Cooper’s Rock holding. Ask for whoever runs the place. I want to talk to them.”
“Yes.” Dev put her cup in her ear and turned to comms, adjusting the frequencies as she called up the local civ list. “Cooper’s Rock stakehold, this is Interforce flight BR270006 calling. Please respond.”
The kid swallowed.
“They know you’re out here?” April asked.
He shook his head.
Dev waited, then repeated her hail, her eyes glancing over the scanning results as she did. The wagons remained in place outside, and her wiremaps showed no moving life around them. No doubt the nomads were sheltering from the rain just as they were.
“No answer?” Doug asked in a low voice.
Dev shook her head and repeated the hail a third time.
“That’s some stupid people,” Doug said. “Let me tell ya, where I come from? They teach you to answer an Interforce hail even if you’re tied up and dead.”
“Hm.”
“Or having sex,” Doug added, as an afterthought. “You just don’t blow ’em off, you know?”
None of that really made sense to Dev, so she concentrated on comms, fitting her ear cup a little more firmly and tuning the receiver a little as the faint sound of a carrier opening came to her. She unconsciously leaned closer to the console, half closing her eyes to concentrate.
There was the sound of activity in the far off background, then a strong, female voice answered in her ear. “This is Cooper’s. Who’s calling?”
Ah. That seemed more correct. “Cooper’s Rock this is Interforce flight BR270006. Flight leader requests to speak with person in charge there.” Dev settled back in her chair.
Momentary silence. “You’re speaking to them. This is Darana Cooper.”
“Please stand by,” Dev half turned. “Jess, we have the person you requested on comm.”
Jess nodded. “Gimme.” She indicated her board.
Dev transferred the comms back then started a deep scan on the nomad wagons. “There seems to be a good deal of energy weapons inside those vehicles,” she commented to Doug.
“Oh yeah.” He squirmed around to look at the screens. “Those guys are crazy vicious. They’ll shoot ya and not even ask.”
Jess cleared her throat a little. “This is Jess Drake,” she said into comms. “Who’s speaking?”
“Dee Cooper. Hello, Jess. Long, long time no talk.”
“Has been,” Jess acknowledged. “When I’m done you’ll wish it was longer. We flew right into a firefight over here near the old west road.”
Cooper cursed under her breath. “Those fucking guns.”
“Those fucking guns,” Jess agreed. “Which I blew into particles along with a half dozen trigger fingers.”
“Shit! I knew that would end like crap. But with all the stories we heard about you bunch being overrun we had to put something in,” Cooper said. “I heard about North, and all the damage at Ten.”
Jess listened in silence. “Hm,” she finally responded. “That’s now the third story I’ve heard around those guns. Wonder when I’m going to hear the real one.” She felt a mental tickling. “We’ll drop the surviving punk over there.”
Cooper sounded surprised. “Don’t know what you’re talking about there, Jess. But it is what it is. C’mon by. You on patrol?” she asked, curiously. “I thought I heard you made senior.”
“On my way back from council,” Jess said. “Surprised you weren’t there.”
“What the hell?”
“You’re behind in the gossip, Dee.” Jess smiled. “I took over at the Bay. Shares screwup.”
Cooper snorted audibly. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. Found out my brother was running dark. We processed him out yesterday,” Jess said. “C’mon by some time. It’s been a while.”
There was a brief silence. “Well, crap, Jess. You’re right. I should have gone to council. I just had a sitch I had to take care of. I will swing by. We should talk.”
“Drake out.” Jess cut the connection and swung her seat around. “Take him with you,” she told April. “We’re going to chase this seal hair poking my neck.” She tapped on her board. “Sending you coordinates, Devvie.”
“Yes.” Dev took them and plotted their course, as April grabbed the kid and Doug stood up to join them. “Jess, there is someone approaching this vehicle.”
“Now they decide to move their asses,” April muttered. “Figures.” She shifted her rifle. “Want me to put them off?” she asked Jess. “Might have some cousins in there.”
Jess stood up. “No. Take him to your rig, wait for us. I’ll talk to them.” She put her jacket on and pulled the hood up, moving to the hatch. “Open her up, Dev. This shouldn’t take long.”
THE NOMAD LEADER had a heavy sealskin overjacket on, with a fur lined hood that protected his face. He stood in an aggressive stance halfway between the wagons and the carrier, and Jess took her time walking over to meet up with him.
Behind her she heard the kid being dragged over to April and Doug’s bus, and she knew if she looked over her shoulder she would see Dev’s face in the window, watching her with serious intent, the sound of the open link between them echoing softly in her ear. “Anything happening in there, Devvie?”
“There are two persons on the other side of the wagon who appear to be watching us,” Dev answered. “There are another two who are trying to move the damaged vehicle.”
“No one pointing anything?”
“No.”
Good sign. Jess slowed her pace, stopping a body length from the nomad and waiting.
“Agent,” he finally addressed her, taking a step or two closer. “Don’t want no debt to you. What that cost me?”
“Cost you the truth. Who started it?”
The man smiled, a flash of white inside his thick, black beard. “Cheap enough.” He studied her face. “You local?”
“Drake,” Jess said. “Drake’s Bay,” she added, somewhat unnecessarily.
“Ah.” He sobered. “You coming back from council then? Heard the Bay got take over something like.”
“Who started it?” Jess countered, but with a smile.
The nomad chuckled under his breath. “You know already, Drake. We bare had time to put the defense on. We were thinking of shelter when my scout bike got blown out of the air with a kid on it.” He indicated the ridge. “We heard ”˜em laughing.”
“Kids,” Jess said. “We caught two of them. From Cooper’s Rock.”
“Yah, figures. Woman there let’s ”˜em run wild. I should file a suit against ”˜em for it.” the man said. He redirected the conversation. “The Bay going to be an outpost now, Drake? Tit for tat.”
“Something like.” Jess responded. “What family are you?”
“Brogan,” he said. “We were at the Bay two weeks back. Heard lots of things there.” He watched Jess’s face intently. “Lots of things.”
Jess shrugged. “I’ve only been back there a couple days.” She lifted a h
and and started to back away. “Got work to do. Good traveling.”
“We’re good traders, Drake,” the nomad said. “If you’ve got like to trade.”
“Heard that.” Jess headed back to the carrier, hearing the low whine of the engines spooling as Dev saw her approach and opened the hatch. She jumped up onto the deck and hit the close, taking the time to take her jacket off as she felt the carrier move under her. “Let’s go, Dev.”
“That person seemed in discomfort,” Dev said. “There was another individual behind the first conveyance with a weapon.”
“Yeah. I saw him.” Jess sat down and exhaled. “We need some intel. Got the feeling everyone around here knows more than we do.” She pulled over her screen and triggered comms. “Tac two, Tac one.”
“Ack.”
“Fast run, just drop,” Jess said. “Recon.”
“Ack.” Doug sounded somewhat relieved. “Stand for lift.”
“Go.” Jess closed the channel and belatedly fastened her restraints. “Go back to the Bay, Dev. Something’s going on here.”
Dev boosted up without comment, shifting the carrier up and over the wagons and gaining altitude quickly. In her screen she saw the aft sensors still capturing the solitary figure of the nomad standing in the rain watching them.
Then she cut in the mains, and he was left far behind as they swiftly accelerated through the speed of sound, a soft boom trailing behind them.
IT WAS STILL raining hard when they came through the pass and circled around to the landing bays. They found the upper bay open to receive them, and inside a senior transport was visible.
“Alters is still here,” Jess said, as they braked. “Don’t see anyone else yet.”
“No,” Dev said. “Just the one transport and the two carriers that accompanied it.” She aimed for the landing bay, her eyes flicking to the scanner. The bay operations comms hadn’t seemed unusual or wary, but you never knew.
She’d learned that in her short time at Interforce. Things you trusted and things you expected could turn completely around when you least expected it. “BR270006 to Drake’s Bay control. We are inbound to pad two.”
“See ya there, BR,” the casual response came back. “Glad to see ya back.”
Were they, actually? Dev cut the mains as they came into the landing bay, hovering a little as she moved to one side around the transport and settled onto the steel layered pad. She secured systems and opened the power hatch, hearing the slither and thunk as they were hooked up to the Bay’s batteries.
Jess got up from the jumpseat, patting Dev’s leg as she stood. “I’m going to go talk to Alters. See where his plans got to. Those eggheads he brought with him should be done with their review by now.”
Dev nodded. “I think I will do some work on this vehicle. There is not much to do in the space they assigned us, and we did take a little damage in that explosion.” She got up and went to the equipment locker, opening it to reveal her comprehensive toolkit.
“Yeah, that’s kind of a crappy spot, huh?” Jess opened the hatch, but paused in it to watch her.
“I’ll see if they can find something else for us, now that we’re gonna be around for a while.” She ducked outside and headed past the transport.
Dev sighed and opened up a console, taking a seat on the floor and sliding inside. The last adjustment was almost done when she peeked out to see Doug enter with a circuit board in his hands. “Hello.”
“Hey, Rocket.” He sat down. “You got any spare A2s? I blew mine when we had to pop off from that boom.”
“I think so.” Dev squirmed out and opened the lower cabinet. “We took some damage as well.”
“Hey, so I was talking to the transport driver on the way here.” Doug leaned closer and lowered his voice. “There’s some seriously funky stuff going on here. Like besides all the stuff we saw, there’s some people missing from the guy Jess offed’s family.”
“Really?”
Doug nodded. “His wife and two kids,” he said. “The reason we know one of the kids is really missing is he didn’t turn up to be taken in.”
Dev propped herself up on one elbow. “Tayler,” she said. “The little boy.”
“That his name? You seen him?”
“I did,” Dev said. “He showed me a starfish when I was here last. I showed him a vid of a bear I saw in the north.”
Doug twirled the card in his fingers. “Driver said he heard base talking to the commander. Some mucky mucks are headed here to check it all out.”
Dev sighed. “I don’t think Jess is going to like that.”
“Not much she can do.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “But hey, maybe they’ll decide to take over and we can go back to the base. I hope so. I get the creeps here, a little.”
“Me too.” Dev located the replacement card and handed it over to him. “I would rather go back to the base myself.”
ALTERS INTERCEPTED HER on the way down the steps, and they moved aside into one of the storage rooms on the fourth level.
“How’d it go?” he asked, as they sealed the door behind them.
“Not bad,” Jess said. “Council was pissed, but they realized pretty quick they couldn’t do anything about it so they just moved on.” She took a seat on one of the boxes. “Bunch of pointless crap after that, but Jimmy must have spilled to a lot of people because all of ”˜em wanted to talk to me.”
Alters nodded. “Figured that.” He sat down across from her. “This is a mess.”
“Wasn’t intended.”
“No one said it was,” he replied, mildly. “Some of the science derps from base are due here any minute to try and figure out what that glowing rock’s all about.” He glanced aside. “See if this is a single source for it.”
“What if it is?”
Alters looked a bit uncomfortable. “Well, let’s see what happens first. No sense in speculating. Anyway it’s pretty obvious though that the materials for this came from topside.”
Jess nodded. “Dev thinks so. She recognized the seed stock.”
He smiled. “Except that no one official there will admit to doing a deal. Not with him, not with anyone. We asked. Sent them the material scans. They say they know nothing about it.”
There was a little silence. “Someone’s lying,” Jess said.
Alters nodded. “Intel thinks so. They think it’s possible something’s going on up there, and HQ suggested we need to find out.”
Jess knew where this was going. “Yeah.”
“Since they already want to see you and your partner, it made sense to me to tell HQ you’d be the ones we’d send up to check them out,” Alters said. “So there’ll be a shuttle here tomorrow.”
“Thought I was supposed to be in charge of something here,” Jess said, after a pause.
“Plans change. HQ wants answers,” Alters said. “This place and the resident squad’ll be here when you get back.” His voice took on a slightly conciliatory tone. “C’mon, Drake. We both know you’d be the one they’d send anyway.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t looking forward to getting stuck here,” she admitted. “I’d rather be out in the field.”
Alters smiled. “Glad you see it that way, Drake. I know this is crunchy. So get you and your driver ready and go fly in space for a week. I’ll do my best to get this sorted out here before you get back.”
Jess eyed him. “You?”
He made a slight, knowing face. “I don’t really want to hang out here either, so nail them, wouldja? HQ doesn’t want me to leave until the science people weigh in.” He had the grace to look a bit apologetic. “No offense to you, Drake.”
On the verge of being offended, Jess paused and thought. “None taken. I’m field ops. I’d never have been in the line if this hadn’t been my homestead.” She got up. “Let me go ask Dev what she wants to do.”
Alters cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“She really didn’t want to go back up to station,” Jess said, evenly. “So I’
m not gonna make her.”
The commander blinked. “Drake. That’s a bio alt. She’s got no choice in this.”
She nodded slightly. “My partner. My pilot. Base Ten still stands because of her. She doesn’t want to ride up to where they may treat her like what she is? Not gonna force her.”
Alters got up and walked over to her, studying the still, angular features. “They want to see her.”
“Don’t give a shit.”
He smiled a little. “Drake, you’re a piece of work, you know that?” He sighed. “This is not going to make you any friends. No one likes ops who refuse to take orders. Understand?” He lifted his eyes to meet hers, and then looked away again. “Don’t screw things up for yourself.”
Jess just nodded and left the room before the temper she felt building got her in more trouble. She headed for the steps and was halfway down another flight when she spotted Dev trotting up to meet her.
Determined looking, a tiny frown on her face, body moving as smoothly as she had that carrier’s systems running.
It made her smile grudgingly and took away the gnawing in the pit of her stomach. She sped up her own pace so she ended up on the first level just as Dev reached it. “Hey.”
“Jess,” her brother Jake interrupted the reunion, appearing from the family quarters with a harassed look on his face. “Hey listen.”
Jess almost ignored him. Then she turned. “What?”
“Okay so, not to be an asshole, but can you tell your watchdog to stop shooting at staff? They’re just trying to move you to nicer quarters.”
Dev exhaled. “That’s why I was trying to find you,” she told Jess. “Someone was in the space we were assigned, moving our things. April did not think that was a good idea.”
Jess regarded her then looked at Jake. “Eleven generations of us in service and someone thought that was a good idea?”
Jake sighed. “They were just trying to show some courtesy.”
Dev handed Jess a comm link, and she put it in her ear and tapped it. “Tac two, Tac one.”
“Tac two,” April answered promptly.
“Stand down,” Jess said. “My idiot family is trying to do something nice for us.”