Soldier

by David Ryker

  Volchec stared at her as though she hadn’t just said that, and then blinked, processing it, but still said nothing, her usually warm dark skin a grayish pallor. Even her usually coifed hair had lost its bounce.

  “The lead’s all we’ve got,” Everett said, sighing. “We don’t know about Kepler, everyone’s tired, but we’ve still got a job to do. Whoever’s pulling the strings here will be spooked, if they’re not in the wind already. And if they are, we need to chase down this lead before the trail goes totally cold, see what turns up.”

  Volchec swallowed. “Don’t know that we’re in any fit state,” she muttered. “I’m waiting for Greenway to get wind of all this. He’s keeping tabs, so I’m sure it won’t be long. He’s probably going to shut us down — have us court martialed. Ejected.”

  “All the more reason to get this done now. If we can pull something out of it, we’ll at least have something to stand up with,” Everett said, squeezing her shoulder. She was strong, and it was needed right now.

  Volchec looked at me and then Everett, and then back. “You want to do this?” She seemed unsure. All of her confidence had been drained away.

  It was a loaded question. I didn’t want to do anything except put my head on the table like Mac was, but I knew Everett was right, and the last thing that I could bear the thought of was sitting there waiting for Volchec to get word that Alice’s charred corpse had been checked in to one of the morgues. No, at least if I kept moving, kept pushing on, it’d keep my mind busy. Maybe that was selfish, but it was all I could think of. “Yeah,” I said to Volchec, nodding. “I think it’s the best thing we can do.”

  She pulled her hand up to her mouth and gnawed on her thumbnail with straight white teeth. She spat a chunk of it onto the dusty floor and sighed, dropping her hands. “Fine, but stay in touch. Keep me updated.”

  Everett nodded. “Great. Red,” she said, looking at me, “get some rest. We move in thirty.” She spoke with the seasoned confidence of someone who’d been doing this sort of thing for a lot longer than I had. She’d been deployed on missions from the time she transitioned into the Ground Corps, and she’d been in the field a lot longer than she’d been out. Slipping back into that mode of thinking seemed easy for her. Her quiet confidence was reassuring. I didn’t know what she’d be like on a mission, but I didn’t have any doubts.

  I pushed down off the spool and headed toward a pile of rolls of what looked like insulation all stacked up in the corner.

  Everett grabbed her coat and zipped it up to the throat. “I’ll make a quick run back to the Tilt-wing. Be ready when I get back.” She pointed at me authoritatively, likely knowing that if she gave me any wiggle room, I’d lose my nerve and just curl up like Mac. I waved in acknowledgment and slumped down onto the rolls. They were dusty, but soft. They’d do for a quick nap.

  A blast of cold air told me that Everett had slipped out of the back door, and then I heard it clang shut.

  I breathed quietly in the gloom for a minute or two before Fish appeared over me. I opened an eye and stared up at him. “What?” I asked, with a little less patience than I’d meant.

  “I’m…” he started, fins shuddering, “coming with… you.”

  I sighed but didn’t have the energy to argue. “Fine.”

  Two hours later, we were standing in front of the Sazaaron Spaceport. It was in the middle of one of the residential sections of the city, and took up four city blocks. The front half was a domed structure with an arched ceiling, wide flat-tiled floors, and space for thousands of people. The rear right half was occupied by three huge cylinders, sitting in the ground at forty-five degree angles and jutting into the sky. Passengers passed through ticket gates and descended escalators into the bowels of the ports before boarding their ships. Then the cylinders would be sealed and the huge ships fired into orbit. When they were coming into land, the cylinders would open up to form angled pads that would catch the ships as they came in. On the left at the back was the commercial depot, where smaller trade and merchant ships came in to land. Except nothing had landed or taken off tonight. Flights were still suspended on account of the weather.

  There was a spaceport on Telmareen every hundred kilometers, and it was a rare sight to see one so empty — still, it was needed considering what we were about to do.

  The rain was falling in a thin drizzle and the storm had thundered itself out. The lightning had stopped and the low-hanging clouds had dumped all their heavy rain and lifted themselves into the light, beginning to thin in the ever-present warmth there. Everett stared up at them outlined in gold and squinted. We were just at the point in the city where the sun clung to the horizon.

  The spaceport was aglow with neons, but the streets were quiet. I checked my watch and realized that it was the middle of the night. Most people would be sleeping, and the ones who weren’t were still shutting themselves away from what was left of the storm. We had the spaceport practically to ourselves, which was good, because I couldn’t shake the nervous sweat that was clinging to my palms.

  “Ready?” Everett asked.

  I took a breath. “Sure,” I said, though I definitely wasn’t. Nothing had been straightforward so far, and somehow, I didn’t think this would be either.

  She led, pushing through the middle set of humanoid doors, which sat next to the much larger ones suited for bigger species, and into the huge entrance hall. It took up most of the large domed building and was as big as one of the hangars on the Regent Falmouth — when it was flying, that was.

  Our footfalls seemed to echo through the empty room. On both sides, banks of lockers stretched out and cafes and bars sat shuttered between them. Rows of benches cut through the lobby in long, polished lines, and all along the back, arches of bright stone separated the gates that ushered people down to the gangways, except they were all closed.

  Suspended above them was a holographic projection that slowly circled, displaying the words “ALL PORTS CLOSED — ALL SERVICES SUSPENDED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER.”

  We stopped twenty steps in and looked around. In the entire space, there were no more than a few dozen people, all dotted around, of a couple different species. Most were sitting on benches, sleeping, or perched on luggage near the arches. There were two people cleaning in the middle of the floor, a droid just beyond them buffing the section of tiles they’d just mopped. Otherwise, it was just a couple of security guards milling by the doors and near the arches on the far side. Security seemed slack in the absence of any incoming or outgoing flights — though I didn’t think that’d last. Everett nodded to me and I nodded back, peeling off to the right side. She went left and Fish went with her, stopping next to the doors and leaning back against the wall. He folded his arms and stayed there, staring aimlessly into the room. The guards on the other side of the entrance watched him for a minute, but then got bored and went back to their conversation. Telmareen was a melting pot of species. An Eshellite ducking in out of the rain wasn’t anything to raise their suspicion. And though it looked like that’s what he was doing, he was actually watching our backs in case anything went down. Communication between Everett and me was easier, anyway, and if we opened the locker and found something we weren’t expecting, and it attracted some attention, we figured we’d have more chance of explaining it away than Fish would, and that’s if they even had translator chips, which I sorted of doubted Spaceport Security guards would. And that was just it — we had no idea what we’d find when we opened the locker up. We had the combination, we knew we were in the right place, but we didn’t know which locker it was.

  I strode toward the right-hand side of the room and sighed, feeling the biometric scanner heavy on my belt and my Arcram stiff against my ribs. I swallowed and approached the first locker. They were three high — knee height, waist height, and chest height, and were about half a meter by half a meter wide and high. I couldn’t fathom what was going to be in there — files, pictures… Barva’s severed head. It was anyone’s guess and all we had to go on
was an emptied-out garage and a combination scratched into steel with the point of a knife.

  I sighed, trying not to look at the thousands of lockers on my side, and pulled out my scanner. At least a portion of them were out of reach, far too high up and large for a humanoid to get at. I could discount those and focus on what was in reach. Everett had already set them up to read the signatures coded into the lockers. All I had to do was hold them up to the pad, wait for the name to pop up, and let her know when I found Barva’s. I looked over my shoulder at Everett, a dot on the other side of the room, doing the same, and corrected myself. If. If I found his locker. “Fucking hell,” I muttered, flicking the scanner on with my thumb.

  I bent over and held it against the first pad next to my knees, watching as some random, barely readable name and a series of numbers and symbols appeared under it — their Federation genetic signifier, Everett had called it. That first one was a no go, and the next six hundred proved not to be the right ones either.

  I checked my watch, my eyes heavy and bloodshot, arms aching from holding the scanner up for hours. Another random name flashed up and I let it fall to my side. I swallowed, my throat dry and scratchy, and turned to look at Everett. She was sitting against the lockers on the other side of the room, head back. She’d been moving much better, I’d noticed, since we picked up our rigs. She’d dipped away when Alice and I had headed up to Medical, and when she got back to the ship seemed like she’d been completely healed. I hadn’t had any time to ask her about it. I made a note to, wondering if they’d done anything to her on the space station. I didn’t really know much about the Federation’s medical procedures. There were thousands of levels of clearance for as many sub-divisions of Federation technology, but who knew, maybe she’d just tell me if I asked. I let my eyes drift from her across the hall. Fish was still near the door and seemed relatively unphased. I stared at him and wondered what it was an Eshellite thought about — what they were like on the inside. I’d barely gotten two words out of Fish, even with our chips. I stood there for a second, thinking I should spend more time getting to know him — getting to know everyone, considering what we were doing. And then I realized that I was just procrastinating and that there were still hundreds of lockers to scan, and that we didn’t have a lot of time before the place started getting busy again. The weather had cleared and the sign above the arches had changed to display the words “NORMAL SERVICE WILL RESUME SHORTLY,” and even now people were starting to funnel into the main hall.

  I let my eyes rove back until they came to rest on one of the benches level with me. There was a guy sitting there, reading something off a pad. He was looking at me, but as our eyes met, he looked down, coughed and shifted. I narrowed my eyes, studying him for a second.

  I shook it off. I was just procrastinating again. I went back to the lockers and knelt to scan the next one. There wasn’t anything off about him. And yet…

  I turned back to look over my shoulder and he quickly looked down at his pad again. I bit my lip, trying to figure what it was that was striking an off note. I looked at the others in the room. Moving with bags, or in suits — going on vacation, or traveling for business. And yet, this guy wasn’t either. He was in a dark jacket that looked loose, but was covering what I could see was a well-built musculature. He was human, but looked comfortable, sitting back, looking at his screen. He wasn’t wearing anything formal, and he didn’t have a bag with him either — no luggage. Everyone else was either sleeping, or looked grouchy, having been forced to wait hours for their flights. But the guy in the jacket was contented. I stared at him for a while longer and after a while he looked up, saw that I was staring at him, and then immediately looked back down again.

  I turned back to the lockers and touched my finger to the dot behind my ear. “Everett.”

  “Yeah,” she said, her tone dreary. “What’s up?”

  “Probably nothing. Fish, you on the line?”

  A gurgle rang through.

  “You see this guy sitting behind me? Dark jacket, no luggage?”

  I could hear Everett shifting and standing, my comment enough to get her on edge immediately. Fish gurgled again.

  “You see when he came in? Before us? After?”

  He let out a low bubbling sound. “... After…”

  “What is it, Red?” Everett asked quietly.

  “Dunno, like I said, probably nothing, but something just feels off. I mean, he could be waiting for someone, or just waiting for a flight — probably is — but I dunno. Something doesn’t feel right,” I mumbled. I could sense his eyes on me as I went back to scanning.

  “Play it cool, keep going with the scanning. We need to find that locker. Fish, do a walkthrough.” Everett’s voice was like ice. Cool. Collected.

  Fish burbled and pushed off the wall, heading for the other side of the hall, taking a route that would send him right by the guy in the dark jacket.

  Another four duds of lockers and Fish was closing in. He clicked into the mic and I looked over my shoulder. The guy in the jacket was pushing himself to a stance. He left the pad on the bench and headed for me. Fish was on his tail, correcting his course.

  “Stay cool,” Everett said slowly. “Nothing’s amiss. Fish has it and I don’t think this guy’s clocked him. Keep going. We can’t start some shit if there’s nothing to start.” It was the right thing to say, but I still felt shitty with my back to the guy in the dark jacket.

  The next locker came up with another name and I tightened my grip around the scanner to stop my hand shaking, thinking about my reach for the Arcram. I’d drop the scanner, twist low and draw, if necessary. I was on edge. Fuck, why wouldn’t I have been after what had happened? I’d had next to no sleep, my nerves were jangled, Alice was probably dead, and we had every Telmareen guard in the city looking for the mech pilots who’d just tried to knock over an Iskcara shipment. My jaw tensed and my eyes drifted upward to the level that I thought they’d need to be when I turned and drew. I barely noticed what had come up on the screen of my scanner, and drew it up to the next locker, almost missing the name before it changed.

  Rase Barva.

  My brain stuttered and I stopped, taking a second to register. I moved the scanner back down to the bottom locker, number 1172, and froze as the name popped up again. I cleared my throat, searching for my voice. “I’ve found it,” I muttered.

  “Good.” Everett’s voice was jilted and between breaths. She was moving, and quickly. “Open it.”

  I held the scanner to the pad and thumbed it over to the right setting before hitting the trigger. The word ‘EMULATING’ appeared on screen and I reached over and pushed my sleeve up with my other hand. There were eight digits written on my wrist. When the green bar filled the screen, the little screen on the biometric pad lit up and asked me to key in a combination. I punched it in and the locker popped open a few centimeters. I backed up and dug my fingers into the gap, catching a shadow looming over me at the last instant.

  I dove sideways, hoping to avoid a gun to the back of the head, and hoping to hell that Fish was there in time. He didn’t disappoint.

  I turned in the air, landing on my side and sliding away just in time to see a pistol flash. The guy’s jacket swirled, and Fish was next to him. Arms flailed, the gun bounced off the floor, and then the guy in the jacket sagged forward onto Fish’s shoulder, arms draped over his elbows. He looked at me for a second and then turned the guy around so his back was against the lockers, and laid him against them. He’d never even seen it coming, and even if he had, I still doubted he would have had a chance to do anything about it. Fish was fast — I knew that much from experience.

  The guy crumpled to the ground, eyes wide, hands meekly groping at his torso and the quickly growing red patch there, right where his sternum was. Fish knelt in front of him and in one smooth movement pushed the curved knife in his hand back into the sheath on his ribs, and with the other produced a little canister of something. He held it up to the guy’s chest and
sprayed it right into the center of the bloody circle. It was a milky color and bubbled and expanded as it landed on the guy’s shirt and skin, hardening in a second or two.

  The patch stopped spreading. Fish stowed it and looked at me, nodding minutely. I nodded back and watched as he deftly buttoned the guy’s jacket over the blood, then folded his arms across his lap so it looked like he was sleeping. His head was already hung over and he was still. Fish had stabbed him right through the aorta and then sealed the wound. Blood was spilling out of his heart and pooling inside him. The pressure drop was so severe it’d sent him into cardiac arrest and then he’d lost consciousness all in the course of about ten seconds. If he wasn’t dead already, he would have been by the time I stood up.

  Fish had saved my life. The guy was about to shoot me, and if it wasn’t for him, he would have managed it. All of a sudden, I was glad that Fish had my back, and that he’d come. If it’d just been Everett and me, there’d have been a scene. I never would have let the guy get the drop on me, which meant it would have been a shootout… in the middle of a Federation spaceport. At least this way no one had noticed. I looked around but no one was coming over. The security next to the door hadn’t even seen what had happened. There were people slumped over all around the place, sleeping, waiting for service to resume. He was just one more, and by the time anyone figured out anything was amiss we’d be long gone.

  Everett pulled up, walking briskly, and dipped her head toward me, eyebrow raised. She was asking if I was okay. I nodded back and took her proffered hand, getting to my feet. She smiled for an instant in acknowledgement and then turned to Fish. He handed her the pistol the guy had dropped, and she held it in her hands, staring at it.

  I went for the locker and opened the door, feeling it knock against the dead guy’s elbow. I ignored it as best I could and reached for the black duffle bag inside, pulling it onto the floor. I could see Everett out of the corner of my eye, still looking at the gun. Fish was going through the corpse’s jacket.