Dave
Dave crouched low, trying to remain concealed in the sparse brush. He had no way to know if the headhunters were following him or Sue. He had run as quickly as he could until he reached this place where he’d hoped to hide until the headhunters passed. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, yet he had used the last of his strength. He hadn’t seen or heard them for a while, though. Not yet.
He looked around and, though he couldn’t see it, he could hear a stream some distance away and considered creeping that direction. The dogs were his worst enemy right now; they could probably sniff a man from far off, but if he could just reach the stream, he might throw them off his trail.
Darkness was still a few hours away, and he felt vulnerable where he lay. After going back and forth in his mind, assessing the risk, he decided to move.
He crept slowly, keeping his head down, trying to blend in with the foliage. He bruised his knee on a sharp stone and almost cried out, but he kept moving, face down, steadily closing in on the stream. He was thirsty, too, and his bottle was out of reach. It didn’t matter, though; it was almost empty, anyway. Never mind, he thought. He could drink when he reached the stream, as much as he’d like.
He heard the sharp crack of gunfire, one shot, and then another. He stopped, waiting for that shot that would hit him in the back. Someone shouted, and Dave realized it came from a distance. He craned his neck to get a better sense of its direction.
More shots were fired, now interspersed with shouts and whooping. Something was going on, and Dave had a sinking feeling. He raised his head just a little, enough to see. He immediately saw the closest headhunters, about five hundred meters away, their backs to him. They were looking at something.
Two men came into view, carrying Sue between them. She looked pretty banged up, bloody face and a bloody knee.
Dave reached for his sidearm, only to remember he’d already emptied it and thrown it away. He slowly pulled his hand back. The headhunters were heavily armed, and rushing in to the rescue would serve no purpose other than getting shot or captured.
He realized tears were streaking his dirt-caked cheeks, and he brushed them away.
He felt powerless.
He should do something, anything. But he remained frozen, watching as the headhunters pushed and shoved Sue around, and finally took her away.
Dave had never felt this helpless before in his life.
Chapter 3
Mark
“There is no resistance left, except a small pocket up in the far northeast. The Luna Brigade will take care of that as soon as they are done mopping up with the Janissaries in the areas further west,” the meridian said as his presentation of the current status in the North drew to a close.
“And Hudson?” Mark asked, not looking up from the notes on his infopad.
“Leveled, sir.” Mark looked up sharply, and the meridian continued. “Nothing left, even their underground shelters have been reduced to rubble. The same for all their underground cities, and above-ground towns and villages. We have razed everything.” Mark looked around, waiting for someone to ask the obvious. When nobody else did, he looked down at his notes again as he spoke.
“And the people?” he asked. The meridian changed slides on the big screen, and different colored bars appeared.
“The French are being processed as we speak,” he explained. “Most are dead by now, as you can see from the red bar. The purple bar, the small one to the right, represents those we decided to keep. Twenty thousand, so far. These will be sent off to the Corpus. Not Service of course, there’s no way we could handle so many having the opportunity to earn citizenship. No, just hard labor for them, as long as they are useful to us.”
“And when they are not?” Head Servant Lunde asked, smiling, clearly knowing the question was rhetorical.
“Processed,” the meridian said, matter-of-factly, without revealing any sort of emotion whatsoever. He went on.
“You all see the orange bar here. These are the ones we have yet to process. This takes time, as there are logistical challenges to such an operation. But we expect to be all but done in about a month. We also expect to be able to deliver another twenty thousand to the Corpus.”
The men and women in the room continued discussing the implications of having such a large contingent in the Corpus without the incentive of citizenship, the increased need for whips and headhunters, and a million other minutiae.
Mark bit his lip, his mind wandering to another time, before any of these people were born. He remembered a movie he watched once, lost years ago, of course, about a man saving thousands of people from extinction, back during a war long forgotten. Somehow this all seemed familiar, and more lately. He wanted to scream at them, to tell them it was wrong, that they had no right to sit here and discuss the logistics of mass murder, but he remained silent. There was nothing he could do for the French.
Had he made the wrong choice, all those years ago? What if he had chosen differently? Would this world be any different, or would it just be the same only with different villains? Was there a way to set things right again? He had, once, served justice to someone who deserved it at the time. Could he do it again? Would it make a difference?
Evan
The North was pacified now. Covenant territory now stretched from the Floral Sea in the South to the Arctic Ocean in the North. Evan looked around at the rubble, of what was left. In time, this land would be rebuilt. Actually, most of it might become a natural preserve. Preservation was important to the Moon people. If not for them, many species would have ceased to exist.
Before the Fall, Earth had already seen a mass extinction of plants and animals. And of course, the Fall itself killed off even more species. The people back then hadn’t cared enough about their world, but the Moon people knew how fragile it was. Evan remembered learning about it in school, that preservation and a kinship to nature was one of the foundations of who the Moon people were. They were nature’s stewards, more than anything.
Seeing the destruction left in the wake of war pained Evan to his soul, but he knew it was passing. To consider the actual results, you had to consider it in the scope of decades and centuries. Earth would recover, and Strategos Command had made careful calculations. Even radiation would subside, given time, and previous experience had proven that nature had a way of dealing with massive destruction that had surprised scientists again and again.
Evan sighed when he looked at the people wandering past, herded south by other units for processing. These people were less resilient than the planet they called home, especially in the face of the cruelty of statistics. He knew statistics were the reason most of these people would not be alive just a few days from now. Radiation sickness, exhaustion, starvation, or dehydration would claim a number of them, but the main reason would be statistics. The number of non-citizens in relation to citizens. Calculations of what number of people could be governed effectively at any given time. The number of non-citizens that could be allowed in any given location, before they constituted a threat instead of a resource. Numbers.
It was easier to look away and think how this landscape might look ten, twenty, a hundred years from now. The Moon people could be ruthless to the point of excess when it came to numbers, but they cared deeply for nature. No wonder, Evan thought, coming from the lifeless dust on the Moon. This world was meant to flourish and thrive, and to do that, the Moon people had to take charge. They could not allow this world to fall into the hands of people who thought the world was simply a resource to be harvested. The burden of stewardship had fallen upon the Moon people, and they had assumed it with fervor.
His infopad, strapped to his left arm, vibrated in its protective shell, and he looked at it. Orders.
“Read message,” he instructed. Inside his helmet, a soft female voice spoke.
“Head Tacticus Hordvik, orders from Strategos Petrovic, Strategos Command. You are to report immediately for airship pickup, for transport to Legac
y Spaceport. You will receive new orders once you report in. End of message.” Evan cocked his head before he asked for the message to be repeated. Legacy Spaceport. It wasn’t completely unexpected, but it was a lot faster than he would have thought. He walked over to Keisha, who was his second in command, to let her know she was to take charge of the squad as of right now.
Renee
They were crossing the last plains before the Rift, and Renee was beginning to believe they might actually survive the long trek. A few more days and they would begin moving south, through the mountain pass and across the plains. This far north, they should be able to cross the Rift, where the slopes weren’t too steep. And more importantly, no Wardens would be guarding this area. At least, that was how it had been before the Covenant attacked in force. Now though, she had no way to know how the Covenant would act. In time, this area would likely become part of Warden territory, but for now, the Covenant should have only small patrols of Janissaries out here. Renee knew the Janissaries were busy, though, mopping up further east.
“What’s the status on the sick?” she asked the man standing beside her, a young doctor, one of the villagers she had helped save. He checked his notes and gave her the numbers.
“Two more dead in the last six hours. The number is dwindling, since the worst affected are already dead. About... twelve to fifteen are still worsening. Might see losses among them yet. And of course, some of those who look like they’re improving might have setbacks yet. It’s just too early to tell. But I do think the worst is over. Long-term effects, well that might get us all, who knows.” He lifted his shoulders in a kind of helpless shrug, and Renee nodded. Anything could happen to any of them.
Renee felt sadness, the kind that didn’t let go and tore at her every minute of every day. Seeing her people beaten like this broke her heart, and she feared for them, even if they might find safety once they crossed the Rift. But as strong as the sadness might be, one emotion overwhelmed her and made her want to scream out in frustration.
Anger. No, too weak. There was only one word for it. Hatred.
They had killed her people. Millions of them dead; every city and town and village gone.
She looked around and saw what was left. Broken refugees, with nothing left except what they were wearing. This was it. These people might be the last of the French. She dismissed the doctor.
Dave
It looked like the path forward was clear, but Dave took no chances. He’d been running, dodging the patrols for three days, and he was exhausted. He knew he could easily give himself away by being sloppy, and the chances of that happening were increasing with every hour. He’d been drinking water from streams, clean enough, he hoped, that he wouldn’t get sick. He’d had no food, except for a single energy bar he’d taken from the airship and forgotten about until he found it yesterday.
He crept forward, eyes darting left and right, his tired muscles tense and ready to leap at any sign of headhunters. He’d been moving east, always east, despite long detours in all directions. To the west lay the Rift. It would be too dangerous; Warden territory stretched south halfway down to the Floral Sea, and it would be swarming with Wardens, in addition to a sophisticated electronic surveillance system, detectors spaced throughout the woods. The borderlands south of the Warden territory would be tightly guarded by the Corpus, and there might even be Moon people units there. No, he had to find another way to safety, wherever that may lie. He figured his only option lay to the north. Sooner or later, he’d have to cross the Belt, back into the Covenant proper. He just had to get as far away from where Sue had been captured as possible.
He reached the stream he’d been aiming for and drank thirstily. His belly had stopped rumbling, and the ache from hunger had been replaced by an empty feeling of being drained of strength. He knew he couldn’t keep this up forever, but for now, he figured he had time. Time enough to make a somewhat intelligent decision of where to cross the Belt. The border would be impregnable in some locations, but he knew escapees from the Corpus had been seen in or near Charlestown. If he could make it there, maybe someone could be trusted to hide him. He had thought about this for a while, and he knew for certain he’d stay away from his family. He couldn’t bear the thought of putting them in harm’s way for his sake. But somebody would be able to help him. From there, he had no idea. All his plans and ideas ended in Charlestown.
He looked around. No sign of patrols anywhere. He’d managed to escape the headhunters that first day; now there were scattered patrols. Luckily, he’d seen them first and managed to evade them either by taking detours or by waiting it out until they were gone. He hadn’t seen a patrol since this morning, and they were far away. He’d begun to believe he might actually outsmart them. He grimaced. He had to be careful thinking himself to be safe, because he was far from it.
He wished he could do something for Sue. But all alone against the might of the Corpus, he was powerless. He fought down a lump in his throat, forced the feeling of betrayal away. There was nothing he could do for her now.
Sue
She was a prisoner. She was sitting in a room with no other people, waiting for something to happen. Yesterday, she had been dragged into camp by the headhunters. She was still bruised, and she had a black eye from being beaten. Still, she didn’t think she had suffered any permanent injuries, and she had been surprised that they hadn’t been tougher. The rumors concerning headhunters were that they were all ruthless killers and enjoyed torturing their prisoners. She feared what would come next.
The door opened, and a man walked in, limping. He had dark shadows around his eyes, a few missing teeth, and a tattoo snaking across a shaven skull. The face of someone who had lost all hope.
“Welcome to the Corpus,” he said.
She didn’t reply immediately, so he hobbled over and sat down next to her. He had a pained look on his face as he scooted closer.
“So, you’re new here, right? Didn’t know there was a selection recently. Washed out of the Janissaries, did you? Or the Students. Can’t be the Wardens. We never get those.” He smacked his lips, waiting for her to say something.
“What place is this?” Sue said, ignoring his questions. The man chuckled.
“Well, it’s the mines... Then there’s the factory. Bet you’re going to the mines, though. Factory’s for those who’ve been here a while. Long as you stay quiet and do your job, you’ll get there, though.” He began mumbling quietly to himself, and Sue strained to hear.
“What did you say?” she asked. The man started.
“Oh, sorry. I said it’s too late for me. Too long in the mines, about three years now. The fumes is killing me, see!” He opened his mouth with his fingers and showed her loose and missing teeth, discolored gums, and angry red spots on his tongue. Sue scooted back, and he chuckled.
“Don’t worry. It’s not contagious. It’s the fumes down in the mines. We all get like this after a while. And once it’s this bad, it gets worse fast. Some manage to get out and into the factories before it’s too late. The rest of us, well, most of us, well... We last for as long as we last.”
Sue didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what it was, but she could tell this was a dying man. He extended his hand.
“Bill, here. I’m from up near Bridgewater,” he said. “How about you?” Before Sue could answer, the door opened, and a bare-chested, muscular man with tattoos on his face and a whip in his hand entered. The sick man, Bill, pushed himself against the wall, fear apparent and his eyes downcast. Sue thought she should have averted her eyes, as well, but she couldn’t do it. This man wasn’t a headhunter, he was a Whip or a Whipper, whoever you asked. She had never met anyone who’d survived Corpus Service, so she didn’t know which was the correct term.
“Quiet,” he said in a booming voice.
“Susan Atlas, you’re coming with me.”
Sue got up, as quickly as her sore body would let her. She looked over at Bill and met his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but it
was obvious he didn’t expect to see her again.
Chapter 4
Mark
Mark sat deep in thought, while the men and women around him spoke, discussing everything from the logistics of mass murder to plans for nature preservation and conservation. There were still a couple of enemy pockets left, but in a few days, they would have all been dealt with. Mark was so tired of these meetings, and he was beginning to feel the effects of having avoided treatment for far too long. But there was so much happening right now, and the only way to somehow better the outcome was for him to be present. He wondered how much of a difference it would make, though, in the end. Just hours ago, he had received word of the escapees, Susan Atlas and David Wagner, and how Susan had been captured. He had held such high hopes for them, especially Susan, whom he had believed could change the Covenant for the better. Now the Corpus had her. He expected First Janissary Ivanov would claim her, and when that happened, she would be as good as dead. And David? A good lad, but not someone able to make much of a difference; nothing like the young woman, who was a famous war hero, someone everyone in the Covenant had heard of.
At first, he had felt a great sadness for her. There would be no way to save her this time. And whatever he did, there was nothing Mark could do for young Wagner. He was probably next, all alone deep inside enemy territory.
Mark sighed. All hope now hung on young Hordvik. It could work, of course. Hordvik might be the man to bring reforms from within. How likely would that be? He had no way of knowing, of course, but Hordvik had helped him free Susan from Ivanov’s clutches once before, and he had said things that had led Mark to believe this could be the man to change the future of the Covenant. Of the world. But Evan Hordvik had been ordered to Luna, and Mark had no idea for how long, or the reason for his swift departure. He had watched the pride in Hordvik senior’s entire stance, and wondered if the older man had any idea that he’d been used when Sue was set free from the clutches of Ivanov.
Covenant Page 3