Romney Balvance and the Katarin Stone

by J Jordan

  “Any other requests?”

  Victoria nudged Romney. He couldn’t think of anything metal, because he didn’t listen to it. He tried to think of a song he knew that might have a difficult drumline.

  “What about ‘Monday’s for Tango?’”

  Cora’s sudden burst of laughter said that this was not the right choice. Victoria’s hearty chuckle confirmed it.

  “That’s pretty lame,” said Cora. “Do you really listen to that kind of music?”

  “What? And you listen to death metal all the time?”

  “Not all the time. Just when the mood strikes me.”

  “So, this whole time I’ve known you, there was always a chance you were listening to death metal.”

  “Actually,” she said, “I listened to ‘Dark Lord Massacre’ on the way to the bus this morning.”

  “Yes,” said Victoria, “a classic.”

  “This whole time,” said Romney, “I thought you listened to classical music and studied for your exams, but you were raging to death metal the whole time. Unbelievable.”

  “You don’t know Cora Queldin,” said Victoria. “At least not the old one.”

  “Give me something else. Come on.”

  “No,” said Victoria, “we need to start preparing for the trip. Pack warm and light. We leave by one thirty.”

  “Not today,” said Cora. “It’s a six-hour drive.”

  “We’re not going to the pyramids.”

  Romney Balvance and Modern Military Checkpoints

  The journey to Hirna Andrea is a difficult one, even in the Modern era. Priestesses don’t have to make the journey to the base of the mountain by horse anymore. The paved two-lane road was an addition made in the late 1950s, and the rest stop was also a nice touch, erected in 1962. These enhancements made their pilgrimages faster and friendlier to the elderly priestesses. The Andaran military’s security checkpoints built in 2009 were considered a good idea at the time. Now, as their SUV approached the first, the newest high priestess was cursing them up and down. Romney watched from the passenger seat as Victoria gripped the steering wheel.

  “There’s no problem, right?” said Romney. “We’re just visiting a holy site, on official business. We have every right to be here.”

  “Yes,” she said, “except that I am, technically speaking, a wanted terrorist.”

  “Wait,” said Cora from the back seat, “you say ‘wanted terrorist.’ Wanted for what, exactly?”

  “Political dissidence,” said Victoria, wringing the wheel. “Also possession of explosives with malicious intent. And discharging firearms at corrupt police and military officials. Theft of military hardware, including assault weapons. And other false charges.”

  There was a brief silence as the realization set in. The three associates were now Partisans, by association. Now they were wanted bank robbers and wanted terrorists.

  “I mean,” said Victoria, “is it really kidnapping if you only keep him for twenty minutes? I would really like to see the specifics on the legal definition someday.”

  There was another pause. How much time should pass before someone is legally considered kidnapped? Tykeso was the first to snap out of it.

  “I thought you were all puff and no substance.”

  “You really should have laid this all out,” said Romney. “We could have come up with a better plan than driving straight at the checkpoint.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Victoria. “They can’t arrest us if they can’t catch us.”

  With one last wring, Victoria pulled the steering wheel to the right and wove the cumbersome SUV through a space in the guardrails. There was a large bump that nearly brought Romney’s head to the low ceiling, followed by the heavy rattling of untamed ground. They blazed a trail across the desert, leaving dust and loose rock in their wake, riding parallel to the road.

  The guards at the checkpoint thought nothing of this. This was probably troubled youths again, playing chicken with a military checkpoint in someone’s new vehicle, which was probably stolen. It happened more often then they liked to admit. And they were ready to accept this and move on, until they noticed it passing them along the desert.

  “They saw us,” said Victoria. “They looked right at us.”

  Cora twisted in her seat to look out the back window.

  “But they aren’t doing anything about it.”

  “They don’t need to,” said Tykeso.

  He pointed to the scene unfolding before them. Three shapes detached from the small encampment in the distance and moved out into the desert, heading toward them. They were SUVs of the same make and color as theirs, but these had raised suspension and mounted guns on top. Why couldn’t this high priestess have the all-terrain option for her military vehicle? Romney asked to the heavens at large. He envisioned Katrese giving him another strained smile and shrugging her shoulders.

  “Hang on.”

  This is the signal that the hero is about to do something bold and utterly courageous. Also, something that will inflict bodily harm on the passengers. But the passengers will always brace for whatever is about to happen, because they trust that the hero has it all figured out. Ultimately, whatever it was, it would get them out of their predicament. Victoria’s courageous move was to charge the oncoming vehicles.

  The three oncoming vehicles converged, becoming a barricade of dust and roaring machinery. Victoria pressed the gas pedal farther into the floor, the roar of the engine lost in the upheaval of dust and gravel. The Andaran Army approached. Victoria wrung once more, her determined glare fixed at the center of the barricade. She had banked on the center driver losing his cool first, but Romney had been watching him since they approached. The soldier was wearing dark sunglasses, the cool indifference at home on his face. He would not be the chicken in this game.

  But Romney had a good look at the other two drivers. The one on the left shared the same cool confidence, and so did the one on the right. But as they approached, Romney could see uncertainty creeping up on his face. Romney reached out, grabbed the steering wheel in Victoria’s hands, and yanked hard right. The Partisan SUV swerved, kicking up more dirt and nearly clipping the rightmost Humvee as it moved to avoid them. Victoria corrected their course, slowed to regain traction, and then veered left.

  Romney was watching the aftermath from his rearview mirror. The rightmost SUV had clipped the center one, which had veered into the leftmost Humvee. They were now locked and drifting into a guardrail along the road. Like dominoes, only with large, expensive, military equipment. Victoria swiped at his arm.

  “¡Estupído!”

  “We’re alive, aren’t we?”

  “Get down.”

  Tykeso pulled Cora down and covered her as gunfire pinged off the rear body. Two of the pursuers had abandoned their own vehicle and were firing from the ground. Victoria drove a serpentine pattern, weaving through a second patrol. These were light vehicles, no match against the heavier frame, scattering in all directions as the Partisan SUV charged on. But they were quick to recover.

  “I have a gun under your seat, Romney,” said Victoria.

  “Do not shoot back,” barked Tykeso. “They’re trying to disable the vehicle. If we return fire, that gives them the right to take us out.”

  “He’s got a point,” said Romney.

  “It’s standard practice,” said Tykeso. “You should consider looking into that sort of thing.”

  “Hang on.”

  Romney pulled the steering wheel left, bringing the SUV around an approaching dune buggy, nearly clipping it in the process.

  “How much farther?”

  “Four checkpoints,” said Victoria. “Here comes the third.”

  There was a thud and a loud pop on the driver’s side. Victoria started fighting the wheel back to the right as it convulsed in her hands. Romney gripped the steering wheel with her, trying to keep the Humvee moving straight.

  “We’re not going to make it!” Victoria shouted.

  “De
ad ahead.”

  It was a long truck this time, a troop transport, and it had appeared out of nowhere. Romney and Victoria pulled right together. The Partisan vehicle caught the front bumper of the truck and pirouetted, then came to a stop, facing the other SUVs approaching from the rear. A dazed soldier dropped out of the truck’s cabin, tumbled toward the front of his vehicle and shouted something in Andaran. His gun was raised.

  Romney looked up from the airbag in his face. He pressed the new cut on his eyebrow with a finger. The pain was slowly creeping into his face. He looked to Victoria. She was lulled over her seatbelt, head resting on her own inflated steering pillow. Cora groaned from the back seat.

  “They want us to get out with our hands up,” she said.

  Romney had imagined being arrested for his crimes, but it was nothing like this. He had heard things about foreign prisons, things that made eyes water just hearing them described, the kind of things that could break a man in more ways than one. No, thought Romney in the outstretched second of that moment, he would not go to prison today. He hooked his fingers around the steering wheel, and then pulled himself toward the steering column, his seatbelt pressing into his sternum. He fumbled for the ignition. Then he stretched his leg and tested the first pedal he could reach. It sounded like the gas. The next one over was the brakes. He pressed down on the brake and grabbed for the stick shift underneath him. The last position was park, most likely. He twisted the key in the ignition switch.

  The engine made a sad winding noise, like a droopy hound dog with bronchitis. Romney pumped on the gas and twisted the ignition switch again. The cough sounded better this time. He ignored the frantic yelling of the soldier, who was starting to gather friends from the other SUVs.

  “They are threatening to shoot us,” said Cora.

  Romney twisted the key once more. The SUV whined, popped, and came to life.

  “The middle one is distraught now,” said Cora, “and saying some very nasty things about our mothers. Please do something.”

  Romney shifted the SUV into gear and hammered on the gas. It lurched forward, and then gained traction with its three remaining wheels. This provoked a burst of gunfire from the wall of soldiers, which only managed to make louder noises in the engine compartment. And then the soldiers were in full retreat. The SUV broke through the line, turned wide, and clipped another vehicle on its way out. Romney spun the steering wheel around, then corrected their course toward the mountains.

  In the turn, Victoria’s head slipped off her airbag and against the driver’s side window. She started. It took her a moment to process the new situation. Romney was stretched over her, one hand on the steering wheel, the other fighting the seatbelt locked around his chest.

  “What happened?”

  She pulled a knife from her boot and stabbed up at her airbag. The powder inside dusted them both. Then she took control of the vehicle.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Romney. He twisted back to look at Tykeso and Cora, who were both dazed and nursing their own bruises.

  “We’re good,” said Tykeso.

  The SUV chimed into the debate with a sudden roar. Victoria wiped the dust off of the instrument panel and scanned the gauges.

  “We’re overheating.”

  “And they’re gaining on us,” added Tykeso.

  “We’re almost at the gate,” said Romney. “Keep going.”

  The Partisan SUV veered back onto the paved road, just past the third checkpoint. It roared as it continued down the line, followed closely by four more vehicles and a troop transport with a face-lift. The fourth and final checkpoint was a large wall with an adobe texture, reinforced with steel and cement underneath. Two overlapping gates stood at the center opening, likely made of steel and some other hard metals. Romney had a hard time judging these qualities over the roar of the engine and the new sound of metal scraping against pavement at 120 kilometers per hour. The SUV shivered. Victoria clamped the steering wheel and gritted her teeth. Romney gripped the door.

  As they approached, the metal gates slid away and revealed the opening. But the roar of the engine was fading, along with their speed. Smoke billowed out from the edges of the hood, clouding their vision of the goal.

  “We’re losing speed,” cried Victoria.

  Their pursuers were gaining ground. One soldier had the foresight to lean out of his window and try to shoot at the rear tires. Luckily, he didn’t have the skill. The gunfire forced Cora and Tykeso to crouch in their seats.

  “They’re right on our tail,” said Tykeso. “We need to do something.”

  “We’re almost there,” said Romney. “I can see the other side.”

  The two gates stopped opening. The soldier in the troop transport had the better foresight to radio the checkpoint and tell them to close off the gates. Unfortunately for him, he was too late to reverse the order. And this is a shame, because the opening had just enough room to fit one SUV as it barreled through. It didn’t have room for the four riding its bumper in wedge formation. And there was no way in any hell they were getting the truck through.

  Lucky was the dune buggy, that had been trailing behind the whole time. Although one might not use the term lucky, since the driver got a front-row seat to the resulting catastrophe.

  Unfortunately for the Partisan SUV, the guards had erected cement barriers just beyond the gate. A top-of-the-line SUV, maintaining 120 kilometers an hour, could easily break through the first and heavily damage the second, without ever touching the third and fourth. There were tests involved with this sort of thing. The Partisan SUV had fallen below thirty kilometers an hour when it collided with the first, cracking the concrete in a few places. But it didn’t break through.

  Romney decided against another restart for two reasons. One involved the line of soldiers standing behind the fourth barrier, weapons drawn and pointed at their vehicle. The second was the fire slowly crawling out from under the hood. And now that Romney could see the area in front of him, he came up with more reasons. The guard towers, the line of barracks to their right, the mounted machine guns along the inside of the massive stone walls that had just swiveled around to face them, and the armored personnel carrier that pulled up behind the fourth barrier. A soldier appeared with a megaphone and began broadcasting in Ontaran.

  “Get out of the vehicle and lie on the ground.”

  Another soldier tapped her shoulder and whispered something. She cleared her throat before continuing.

  “Lie on the ground. Throw your weapons out of the vehicle first and then lie on the ground.”

  Tykeso threw an assault rifle out of his window. No one else joined in.

  “We should comply,” he said. “Each time we don’t, they add a separate charge for insubordination during arrest. A month for each charge.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I read it,” said Tykeso. “Andar has very specific rules about arrest. They have to treat you fairly if you follow their orders.”

  “But does that apply to their army?”

  Tykeso was silent as he lowered himself to the ground. Cora lay beside him.

  “Driver and passenger, on the ground please.”

  Romney and Victoria got out and were on their knees when the megaphone sounded again.

  “Thank you, but please move away from the vehicle now. It is on fire.”

  Wyvern on Approach

  No one noticed the large C-120 cargo plane as it circled the base. This was because the plane had a valid call sign and the correct paint scheme. The Andaran Army used green apple for the base coat with olive patches in specific shapes in certain areas. The coloring was spot-on. It was a shame no one noticed.

  It was also a shame that no one bothered to verify the call sign. It looked valid. However, if someone had investigated the string of letters and numbers, they would see that same call sign belonged to another cargo plane that was mothballed in 1999. There was no possible way it could be the same plane, because the original “Legarto
11-Alpha” was in three different pieces. And yet, Legarto 11-Alpha was also currently in a holding pattern, circling the Prophet’s Mountains, awaiting clearance to land.

  It was also a shame that no one praised the pilot for his perfect Andaran. He could be mistaken for a native of Andarametra, particularly the Centrometra region of the city. His intonations were spot-on. He could even roll his r’s. This pilot had practiced all night for this moment, and the controller on the other end didn’t notice his mastery.

  And during the fire drill below, no one noticed that Legarto 11-Alpha had broken its flight pattern and started moving north. No one saw its cargo: a woman in her early twenties, armed to the teeth. No one saw her jump from the rear of the plane, deploy a parachute, and land quietly in the southern loading bay. That was downright tragic.

  Romney Balvance and the Andaran Military

  “Which of you is Victoria Costa?”

  Romney looked back to Victoria, and then over to Tykeso and Cora on the other side of the main yard, separated by a growing engine fire. A soldier pointed this out to the keeper of the megaphone. She seemed to remember it now, even though she had pointed it out to begin with. It was plain to tell she had many different things on her mind.

  “Take them to the holding cells. But put the fire out too.”

  A group of five split off from the main group to detain them while the remaining six stood guard, rifles aimed in their direction.

  “What are you doing? Put out the fire.”

  This caused two to break from the firing line, likely in search of a fire extinguisher, in opposite directions.

  “No, it’s over there! ¡Ahí!”

  They both converged in the right direction. The engine made a loud pop, followed by several more in succession.

  But Romney and his associates didn’t get to see the remainder of this scene. The soldiers led them away from their burning ride, toward a large hangar at the center of the base. As they entered, Romney caught glimpses of several more SUVs in various states of repair and something Romney had trouble understanding.