Warden: A Novel

by Gregg Vann

  Barent’s bewilderment grew more akin to exasperation.

  “With the advances you’ve made in technology over the last few centuries, Le’sant could have even launched satellites by now, like those the Olin carried—to monitor the planet’s weather, and to extend your communication capabilities. Then you’d be able to travel all over the planet, avoiding the dangerous storms, and still maintaining contact with the city. Hell, in five hundred years, you could have even sent a probe back to Earth to find out what happened to it. To discover why no other ships ever came to Torvus.” Barent lowered his voice and looked away. “This colony has just stagnated…for centuries.”

  He stomped the snow off his boots and strolled over to the pile of crates, throwing one of them open. “You’ve all lost so much while I slept. And the sad part is, I don’t even think you realize it.”

  “This is the only way we’ve ever known,” Tana replied.

  Her tone wasn’t defensive, but she wanted Barent to understand.

  “I know,” he said. “And it’s not your fault, Tana. But the Collective…”

  He opened up another of the crates and pulled out a plasma rifle. Then Barent detached the power unit from it and held it out to Tana. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “If you begin charging up these weapons, I’ll start a fire for us.”

  “You’re on,” she replied. “But make it a big fire, Barent. It’s freezing in here.”

  * * *

  Twenty kilometers away, the Collective’s communication platform stopped abruptly, struggling to maintain its position in the growing wind. Inside the complex machine a data trigger activated, sending a reset code flooding throughout its programing. Everything in the platform was reset to its original parameters, except for a small set of instructions and a secured memory partition.

  And then the machine drifted back into motion.

  Heading toward Le’sant.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Reunion

  “No,” Tana stated firmly. “I am not letting you go off by yourself.”

  “You have to stay here and continue switching out the power units on the plasma rifles,” Barent countered. “They each have to be primed and cycled through the chargers before our forces arrive. We’ll need every gun we can get our hands on for the coming fight. You know that, Tana.”

  “And what if something happens to you, Barent? Have you thought about that? This war would be over before it even began. This army you’ve cobbled together would fall apart as soon as they found out. Hell, as much they hate each other, they’d probably forget all about the Collective and just start fighting among themselves.”

  Barent chuckled. “I’ll be fine, Tana. I’m a big boy; I can take care of myself.”

  “You haven’t been by yourself since you first woke up,” Tana replied in a biting tone. She hadn’t meant for her voice to sound so harsh, but this was serious, and he needed to treat it as such. “Besides, Barent, you don’t even know the city. You don’t know your way around Le’sant at all.”

  “You are absolutely right,” he agreed. “About everything. And having you by my side has been extremely helpful. But the old breakdown facility is outside the city walls, and there won’t be any Collective forces searching for me there. Le’sant has expanded so much over the years that the yards almost border the Outland now, but they still remain outside the city proper. And that facility hasn’t moved in the last five hundred years, Tana. I know exactly where it is. I won’t get lost, or be captured.”

  Her expression softened, even if Tana’s disapproval hadn’t. But despite her strong opposition to Barent’s plan, she understood that the weapons had to be ready for the attack force when it arrived. She also knew that Barent needed to meet with the Wardens to finish consolidating his forces, and to devise a strategy for the assault on Le’sant—especially now that everything was finally coming together, and it was nearly time to strike. Tana wasn’t the least bit happy about it, but she shrugged, signaling her defeat. She switched out the next series of power units and then wandered over closer to the fire, soaking up the heat as Barent began changing his clothes for the meeting.

  He grabbed a packaged outfit from one of the storage crates and removed the pair of black pants from it, pulling them on. Then he slid the thin shirt included with them down over his head. Barent put the standard issue turtleneck on next, and then began fastening a new set of padded armor over the top of everything. By the time he finished pulling his boots back on and re-fastening his holsters, Barent looked just like any other guard ready to start his shift—albeit five hundred years too late.

  He threw a full-length hooded black cloak over his shoulders and snapped the clasp together at the neck. Then Barent pulled his sleeves down tight, smoothing out the fabric where it had bunched up in a few places. He looked everything over once, and then readjusted his holster until he was satisfied.

  Although the hybrid fur coat he’d taken from the Olin was far more effective against the cold, Barent had no choice but to leave it behind at the hideout. The people of Le’sant—the Wardens, in particular—expected him to look and act a certain way. Barent knew that meeting those expectations would be critical in getting their support, and understood that if he showed up looking like a fur-covered madman from the wasteland, it might be difficult to gain their acceptance.

  “How do I look?” he asked Tana.

  “You look like a very large hard-ass that people shouldn’t mess with,” she replied. Then Tana frowned. “But I still don’t think you should go there alone, Barent. It’s just too dangerous.”

  He walked over and placed his hands around her waist, drawing her in close. “Everything will be fine, Tana. I promise you. And I won’t be alone, I’m meeting with the Wardens.”

  “But how do you even know it was the Wardens you spoke with, Barent? They were using a Collective communications platform, after all.”

  “So why even tell me that? If it was the Collective, they would have done everything in their power to hide any hint of involvement. And they would have known that telling me about a purge of the Wardens would only heighten my concerns about security, making me even more wary—so that doesn’t make any sense either. No, it was definitely the Wardens, Tana. If it had been the Collective, they would have tried to find out where I was so they could kill me outside the city. Somewhere they could make me disappear without a trace, and the people be none the wiser.”

  “Well, the breakdown yards sound like a damn good place to do just that,” Tana pointed out.

  “And I’ll approach the facility with that in mind, and make sure it’s not a trap first, before going in. But you have to trust me, Tana. It really was the Wardens I spoke with, I’m sure of it.”

  “All right,” she said reluctantly. “I guess it is best that we split up, for now.” Then Tana looked up at him and grinned. “I’ve just grown kind of used to having you around, Barent.”

  He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. Then Barent released Tana’s waist to hold her face in his hands. “Believe me, Tana. If I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary, I’d never leave you behind. I like having you around as well.”

  Her grin disappeared just as abruptly as it had arisen, and Tana’s expression turned serious. “Just remember, Barent: if you let anything happen to yourself, I will absolutely kill you.”

  He noted the stern look on her face and Barent fought back a laugh, trying hard to keep his voice sincere. “That seems rather redundant,” he replied. “But I’ll try to remember.”

  “Good,” Tana said, “then I’ll keep working on these rifles. I’ll try to have them all ready to go by the time you get back.”

  “Perfect. And after I get the latest intelligence about the Collective from the Wardens, I’ll bring a few of them back here to help me coordinate the attack.”

  Barent looked around the hideout, revisiting ancient memories from the last time he’d used the location to plan a war. There were Wardens at his side then, too.r />
  It’ll be just like the old days, he thought.

  “S’to and Renik have been riding all night,” Barent continued. “So unless the caravan gets held up for some reason, they should arrive sometime this afternoon; they’ll be able to participate in the planning as well. Once we know what weapons and personnel the Wardens have to offer, we’ll have a much better idea of how and where to launch the attack.”

  “It’s hard to believe that we’re actually going to do this,” Tana said.

  “Believe it. Almost everything is in place now…as best we can manage, anyway. But a lot still hinges on how many Wardens remain active, and what they bring to the table.”

  “Then go find out,” Tana said.

  Barent kissed her again, and then he grabbed one of the plasma rifles before heading toward the door. He paused as his fingers touched the handle, turning his head slightly to look back at Tana. “I know what I said before, but if for any reason I don’t come back…”

  “Baren—”

  “If. Lie to them, Tana. Tell S’to and Renik that I’m waiting for them inside the city…gathering up more forces. You said it yourself, if they think something’s happened to me, they won’t go through with it.”

  “You’ll be back,” Tana said confidently.

  “You’re right,” Barent replied. “I will.”

  Then he pulled the door open and stepped out into the cold.

  * * *

  As he approached the old breakdown yards Barent gazed out intently over the icy terrain, searching for any signs of Le’sant’s police or military forces. But after a thorough examination of the area he felt convinced it was safe—just a barren and lifeless relic from an earlier time in the city’s history. To an untrained observer, it would probably seem as if no one had been there for ages, but Barent’s keen eyes saw an altogether different picture. The door handles on several of the squat buildings bore less snow than other nearby flat surfaces, and Barent even saw a glint of light flashing off the exposed metal of one of them.

  The doors had been used…and recently.

  Barent piloted the snowcraft up to the building he remembered housed the factory’s access shafts and hopped out, jerkily pulling aside one of the two large metal doors to peer inside the structure. To his surprise, he didn’t find anyone waiting to greet him—or in ambush. In fact, Barent didn’t see anyone at all. So he scanned out over the open yards behind him one last time—peering far off into the distance—and then returned to the snowcraft and drove it inside the building.

  Best to keep this out of sight, he thought to himself.

  Just in case the Collective picks today to start searching beyond the city walls.

  Barent shut the snowcraft down and jumped out to pull the door closed behind him, noticing the change in temperature immediately. The much warmer air inside the building threatened to overtake his senses with thick odors of oil and old machinery.

  Tana would love it in here…despite the smell. This place is downright balmy compared to what she’s used to.

  Barent knew the breakdown facility had been excavated out of the frozen ground to provide a stable work area for the prisoners—a productive workspace, isolated from the rugged environment of the planet. As its name implied, the factory had been used to breakdown and repurpose the parts of the ship no longer needed after the long journey from Earth—along with the host of other fabrication necessary to transform the Le’sant from a starfaring vessel, into a habitable city.

  Construction of the facility had begun soon after touchdown. And once completed, the builders tapped into nearby thermal vents to power all of the manufacturing equipment they’d carried with them on the Le’sant. Then they started to build out the city in earnest.

  The versatile operation had been designed to smelt and reshape locally mined minerals—in addition to the raw materials transported on the ship; to forge whatever was needed to expand the colony’s infrastructure as the population grew. But Barent hadn’t lived long enough to witness any actual mining take place on Torvus. And from what he’d seen and learned so far, he doubted it ever had.

  He approached the elevators for a ride down to the facility proper, but it was glaringly obvious from their condition that they no longer worked—and probably hadn’t for some time. So Barent strode over to the wide access stairwell just to the right of the lifts and cautiously began his descent. It didn’t take long to notice that the further down he went, the hotter it became.

  Oh, yes. Tana would definitely love it here.

  As he made his way down the darkened stairwell, Barent listened for sounds and watched for any movement, searching for evidence of occupancy. But other than the occasional plop of dripping fluid, probably melted snow seeping in through the dilapidated structure’s roof, it was absolutely still inside the facility.

  It was that total silence that first raised Barent’s suspicions. And then his acute senses, honed over years of incessant combat, alerted him to a tiny hint of movement on a landing far below him. Barent pulled out both pistols and kept moving downward.

  Someone is in here.

  As he drew closer to the landing, the wall on the right side of the stairwell disappeared, opening up to a massive room beyond. Barent couldn’t discern any detail through the near pitch-blackness enveloping him, but his other senses suggested an enormous open space.

  He’d seen the breakdown facility as it existed long ago, and remembered it being vast even then, but Barent suspected that the factory had grown even larger as he slept.

  “Stop right there, Sergeant Barent.”

  Barent used the man’s voice to train his pistols on the speaker, but he held his fire.

  “Who are you?” Barent demanded.

  “We’ve spoken before, Sergeant. My name is Dura. Now please, come the rest of the way down to the landing…and do it slowly. I should warn you that there are several weapons trained on your chest as we speak. Please don’t do anything foolish.”

  Barent looked down and counted six red pinpoints of light decorating his torso. They bobbled a bit as he moved around, but each held true. He also caught the occasional flashes of their long trails, leading back to different locations spaced around the floor of the facility.

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said to Dura.

  When Barent got close to the landing he saw another set of steps branching off to the right, descending at a gradual angle to the factory floor. The last traces of light from the room above disappeared entirely, and as Barent’s eyes adjusted, he noticed several dark figures crouched on the lower set of stairs.

  He saw the rifles pointing up at him as well.

  Barent carefully holstered his own weapons and stopped in front of the solitary figure waiting for him on the landing. He observed that one of the man’s arms was hanging loosely in a sling.

  “The Collective?” Barent asked.

  “Yes,” Sergeant Dura replied. “So let’s just say that we have every reason to be cautious. Which is why we need to take the steps we’re taking now. I apologize in advance.”

  “What steps?” Barent asked, his voice growing cold.

  “You won’t be harmed, Sergeant Barent. I assure you.”

  Barent leaned in close enough to see Dura’s face clearly, and more importantly, for Dura to see his. “And I assure you, Sergeant, that if you try, I won’t be the only one harmed.”

  Dura’s serious veneer cracked and a thin smile slipped through. “I do believe that, sir. Vane!” he called out.

  A Warden perched on the stairs below lowered his rifle, and one of the red dots disappeared from Barent’s chest. The man smoothly slung the weapon across his back, and then withdrew a small box from one of his pockets, stepping up to Barent.

  “Please bare your arm, sir.”

  Barent stared at the Warden for a moment, and then he threw back his cloak and rolled up one of his sleeves.

  “So… What’s this, then?”

  “A blood test,” Dura explained. “It measur
es the amount of climate treatment remaining in your system. It will tell us definitively if you are who you claim to be. DNA might be faked—it’s difficult, but not impossible—but the treatment the First Ones received decays at a precise rate, dissipating through succeeding generations in a well-documented progression. The effect can’t be duplicated or disguised, and it will date you exactly.”

  “Then by all means,” Barent said. “Go right ahead.”

  Dura nodded. “Proceed, Corporal Vane.”

  Vane took a small circular object from the box and placed it on Barent’s skin. A blue light at the center of coin-sized disk flashed once, and Barent felt a tiny puncture. Then Vane removed the disk and placed it back inside the square housing.

  “That’s it?” Barent asked.

  “That’s it,” Dura replied. “Now we check the results.”

  Eight different colored lights lit up on the front of the box and began blinking in a steady, flowing pattern—moving left to right in a straight line across the tiny machine’s surface. The pace continued to increase until the lights finally exploded into broken patterns of varying intensity and hue.

  And then it was done.

  When the lights stopped flashing, each remained brightly lit, forming a long and unbroken white line. Barent watched Vane’s eyebrows rise, and then the Warden rotated the device so he could share the results with Sergeant Dura, prompting a similar expression from his superior.

  “Stand down!” Dura called out loudly. “Lights up!”

  Barent squinted as the overhead lights sputtered on, illuminating a cavernous room that was nearly twice as large as he remembered. Dozens of Wardens were cautiously stepping out from behind the bulky machinery scattered all around the space—abandoning cover, and lowering their weapons. Then they all began moving toward the stairs.

  “Forgive me, Sergeant Barent,” Dura said sincerely. “We had to be certain.”

  “There is nothing to forgive, Sergeant. I would have done the same thing in your position. And drop the sir, we’re both sergeants.”