Retribution (The Long Haul Book 2)

by Geoff North

  “Not if we don’t get our asses out of these tunnels, and back into our beds,” Leanna said. “My husband’s one of Hegstad’s men, remember? If Raleph even suspected I was a revolutionist… I shouldn’t be here. We have to stop meeting like this.”

  “We won’t have to meet in secret much longer.” Tarrace zipped her coat back up and pulled the hood over her head. “Soon we’ll have the entire planet to ourselves. We can start over again.”

  Victor Brand and the others mumbled in agreement. Leanna Green remained silent and fearful looking.

  Loke stepped back into his sister when their mother and the adults started to leave. The tiny concrete room went dark. Personal flashlights flicked on, bobbing their dancing beams off the tunnel walls. The twins retreated around the corner and hid in the blackness of shadows. One by one the revolutionists departed, disappearing in pairs down opposite ends of the sewage tunnels. Loke and Charm waited in the dark for another full minute, their teeth chattering. When he was certain they were finally alone, Loke took Charm’s hand, and they started away.

  A bright light flashed in their faces.

  “I knew you two were following me less than a block from home.”

  Loke squinted down at his boots, the heels half sunken in brown sludge. “It wasn’t Charm’s fault. I wanted to see where you were going, what you were doing… she followed because she was too scared to be left alone.”

  “I wasn’t scared,” Charm blurted. “Mom… are you a terrorist or not?””

  Loke punched her shoulder. “I told you she’s not. Quit saying that.”

  Tarrace started back down the tunnel her children had followed her through. “Come along then. Let’s go home. It’s time I told you the truth.”

  The twins followed. A gnawing ache grew in the pit of Loke’s stomach, and it hadn’t come from the stench of the sewage tunnels. Twice they had asked if she was terrorist, right to her face. She hadn’t denied it.

  Chapter 11

  A quarter of the people that had stepped off the Alderamin transport ship were now dead. The three hundred meter walk in freezing wind and choking atmosphere had killed ten of them. Seven had succumbed to the elements outside, finally falling off the narrow bridge, and dying before they’d disappeared into the methane fogs below. Three more had died inside during the last half hour due to a combination of hypothermia and the poisonous gases trapped in their lungs.

  It was all Ly Sulafat could do to restrain himself from beating Jule Adeen’s skull into the wall. The Pegan was still with the survivors. As the thirty prisoners clustered together, shivering and holding on to one another for warmth, Jule watched them from ten meters away—still bundled up in the environment suit she’d been given—with what appeared to be a pitying expression on her face. Pity for his people, Sulafat wondered? Or was it disappointment that more of them had made it than she expected?

  “It wasn’t her fault, Captain,” Hadar Cen said. “She warned us what it would be like. She tried to prepare us.”

  “Bringing us to the Alderamin system wasn’t covered anywhere in the terms of our surrender,” Sulafat shot back. “The Pegans are just as guilty for their deaths as the Hunn are. We’ll all die soon enough if something isn’t done.” A wracking spasm swept through his body. His limbs shuddered. It felt as if his ears were on fire, and someone was pricking the ends of all his fingers and toes with needles.

  “I think that was the point of the walk. There’s nothing we can do, nowhere for us to go. We’re stuck on this planet for good.”

  Sulafat looked beyond his people, past Jule and the Hunn guards still with her. He studied the auditorium-sized room they’d been brought into. It was completely featureless and grey, dome-shaped and depressing. Another uncontrollable wave of shivering overtook him. The door behind them was still open. Clouds of crystalized methane were filtering inside, drifting along the floor in mucus-colored wisps. The wind howled, pushing more of the snow closer towards them.

  “Can you at least close that goddamned door?” Sulafat yelled.

  Jule mumbled something to one of the Hunn standing next to her. The door rumbled shut. Moments later, a second door opened directly behind her. The opening was much smaller; less than two meters high by a meter wide. A tight squeeze for a human, but comfortable enough for a Hunn-ephei.

  “You’ll be disinfected and taken to your living quarters now,” Jule announced.

  No one argued as four of the small grey beings stepped forward and began leading them through the second doorway. They were in too much discomfort to fight; their bodies numb, aching, and slow. The resistance their captain had demanded they show was gone.

  Sulafat went last, following Wez Canis down a narrow corridor into a brightly lit room. A hundred metallic nozzles stuck out from the ceiling like silver teeth. More Hunn were waiting inside. They began stripping the humans out of their thin covering of clothes, ripping the flesh-colored fabric from their bodies, and discarding the pieces into trash receptacles built into the walls.

  A Hunn took hold of Tor Emin’s arm and tried to force him down. The big man didn’t move. He merely stared into the being’s glistening black eyes and sneered.

  “All of you on your knees,” Jule said. “The cleansing process will only last a few moments.”

  Emin looked to his captain. Sulafat nodded and dropped slowly to his knees. The nozzles extended further out from the ceiling. They twisted down like snakes, curling towards the men and women. Sulafat could feel the floor beneath his knees begin to vibrate. The nozzles started to hum. A blast of hot air erupted from the nozzle less than a foot above his head. Orange steam poured over his skull and shoulders.

  “Breathe the gas in,” Jule called over the hiss. “It will purge your lungs of the methane, and help your bodies adjust to the new atmospheric temperature.”

  Sulafat didn’t care what effect it had on him. He gasped at the fumes, inhaling the warmth into his lungs, feeling it spread almost instantly through his limbs. The nozzles snapped shut seconds later and shot back up into the ceiling.

  They were supplied with new clothing, basic brown work suits, not much warmer and thicker than the last. It would be enough to keep them alive, Sulafat thought, as they were led from the disinfection chambers further into the alien city.

  They stepped into another massive dome-shaped area. The curved walls seemed almost alive, wet and pulsating, shifting in dull shades of light colored grey and sickly pink. Thick red cables hung down from hundreds of locations high overhead, like throbbing arteries connected to walkways and work stations. Pegan laborers were moving along them, shuffling from one level to the next, under the constant supervision of Hunn.

  Hadar was walking beside Jule now, his head craned back, his mouth open, taking in their new surroundings. “You lied to me, Jule,” he whispered. “You promised me a new home on Pega. This… this isn’t Pega.”

  “I did everything I could possibly do, you have to believe me.”

  “I believed you. I trusted you. I thought there was something between us once.”

  Sulafat was walking a few feet behind them, listening in the best he could to what they thought was a private conversation. He glanced down, saw Jule’s fingers touching the back of Hadar’s hand.

  “There is something between us. You just have to give me… give the Council some more time. We are working on getting you out of here.”

  Hadar pulled his hand away from her without speaking another word.

  They were led from the work area into a narrow corridor with multiple doors on either side. The Hunn guards began separating them here, pushing them by pairs into tiny rooms. “These are your living quarters,” Jule announced. “When your work shifts are done, you will be brought back here. You will be fed, hydrated, and allowed six hours of sleep until your next shift begins.”

  Two Hunn guards pushed Wez Canis’s bulky form through one of the low doorways. It took the squadron boss all of three seconds to survey his new home. It consisted of two narrow
beds stacked one on top of the other, a wash basin, and a single toilet. “Nice place,” he growled, as Hadar was pushed in with him. “Looks like we’re gonna be roommates. I’m taking the top bunk.”

  Sulafat worked his way back through the men and women still waiting to be assigned to their rooms. He found Tor Emin and grabbed onto his arm. “I want you with me.”

  “Thought I’d be the last person you’d want to bunk with.”

  “Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t be my first choice.” They entered their small home for the first time. “But I’ll need someone like you close by when the time comes.”

  Tor sat on the bottom bed. “When the time comes for what? Escape? I think that opportunity has passed us by.”

  “There will always be opportunities, General Emin. We just have to keep our eyes ope—”

  “Captain Sulafat.” Jule was standing in their doorway. “You need to come with me.”

  Tor called out to him as they started to leave. “That’s the first time you’ve called me General since Ambition.”

  Sulafat paused in the corridor. “It was a regrettable promotion.” His fingers touched the center of his chest where the side cannon discharge had blasted a hole clear through the other side. “But perhaps you’ll still be able to prove it was justified.”

  One of the Hunn guards pressed something sharp into Sulafat’s neck. The captain’s vision began to blur. Seconds later, everything went black.

  Can you hear me, Ly?

  “Who… Who’s speaking to me? Where are you?”

  Open your eyes. I’m right in front of you.

  Sulafat opened his eyes. The black turned to a not much lighter shade of grey. Before him was a line of Hunn-ephei. They were seated on small pedestals, facing him. He turned to his left, and then to his right. They were sitting all around him in a circle. Their wet black eyes didn’t blink. Their tiny mouths didn’t move.

  “I… I still can’t see you.” He wasn’t seated on a tiny stool like the Hunn surrounding him. Sulafat was on his knees, leaning back, his buttocks resting against his ankles. “It wasn’t any of you that spoke to me. Show yourself.”

  An orb of light began to grow behind three of the Hunn seated directly in front of him. Something large and hulking was at the center of the light. Sulafat could see long arms at its sides, an immense skull atop its wide shoulders. The light brightened until the features of its face—if that’s what it could be called—came into focus. There were no eyes, no nose, no mouth. There was nothing but mottled grey skin stretched tight over a confusion of ridges and bumps of bone.

  Here I am, Ly.

  “I don’t like being spoken to inside my head.”

  As you can see, there really is no other way for me to communicate. The Hunn Prime have evolved beyond physical orifices to communicate.

  Sulafat rose to his feet. His legs were numb and his head was spinning. He waited a few more seconds before speaking again until he was sure he wouldn’t drop back down to his knees. “What is Hunn Prime?”

  The creature started to move. It shambled slowly behind the line of seated Hunn-ephei. The light moved with it. Hunn Prime was the first of two sentient species born within the Alderamin system. We have been here for more than one hundred million of your solar years. The second species, that which the people of Earth identify as homo-sapiens, came many millions of years later.

  Sulafat remained standing where he was, shuffling gradually on the spot to keep the Hunn Prime within view. “You are mistaken. Homo-sapiens evolved on Earth.”

  So your people believe. It is true that many sub-categories of primates originated on Sol’s third planet. Their evolution was slow. Their spread was constantly threatened and limited by geological events and disease. They did not possess the intelligence required to overcome such hardships.

  “They did overcome those hardships. I’m living proof of mankind’s success on Earth.”

  The giant being stopped. And it is an honor having you with us, Ly. The very first of our Sol star children to come home after so long. I’m so looking forward to knowing you… every little bit of you.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Then allow me to explain further, Captain.” A second, smaller figure emerged from the light. Jule Adeen stood next to the Hunn Prime. “Your people, my people from Pega… we all came from the Alderamin system originally.”

  Humans and Pegans were created by us.

  “It’s true.” Jule stepped between two of the seated Hunn-ephei and stood beside Sulafat. She cupped one of his hands in both of hers and talked in a soft voice. “Your people, Captain, and mine, came from this planet more than ten million years ago. The Hunn Prime planted our earliest ancestors on Pega first, and then brought more to Earth not long after. They’ve been watching us, monitoring our progress ever since.”

  Sulafat pulled his hand away from her. “You would do anything for these monsters, wouldn’t you? You would say anything for them. How could you lie about the very origin of your species… of my species?”

  “It isn’t a lie, it is the truth. We all came from Alderamin 4 in the beginning.”

  The Hunn Prime had resumed its slow shamble behind the ring of Hunn-ephei once again. I understand your unwillingness to believe. It will take time.

  “Quit calling me Ly! I’m not some distant star-child of yours. My ancestors came from the Sol system. They originated on Earth.” But everything the two had said in the last minute was beginning to make sense. There had still been no definitive link made between early primates and modern man. The fact that people from Earth and people from Pega were alike in so many ways also lended to their argument.

  Sulafat rubbed at his temples. His head had begun to ache. It was too much information to absorb after everything they’d already been through; the Pegan war, their imprisonment and eventual transport to Alderamin. There was a ringing behind his ears, a growing buzz.

  The light-headed sensation returned. Sulafat started to lose his balance in a sudden wave of vertigo. He staggered forward a step, dimly aware that Jule had taken a hold of his arm to stop him from falling flat on his face.

  “Listen to reason,” she whispered in his ear.

  The buzzing intensified. The Hunn Prime and its moving orb of light were nowhere to be seen. All he could see before him were the Hunn-ephei. They were still seated on their tiny stools, glaring at him with their oily black eyes. Sulafat reached out, attempting to claw at the eyes closest to him. He had to make them stop staring at him—stop digging into his brain. His hand was an immense weight at the end of his arm. It fell to the floor with a thud. When had he sunken down to his knees again?

  “They’re… inside me,” he gasped. “Trying to make me… believe your lies.”

  “Don’t fight them,” a second female voice soothed. “Let down the barriers. Let them think your resolve is breaking. They don’t know the real truth. You must keep it secret, Sully.”

  Sully?

  The pain had spread from inside his ears to the back of his eyes. He looked up and saw Jule still standing above him, staring straight ahead with a blank expression on her face. Another woman was down on her knees beside him. A woman he once knew. The only woman he had loved. “Sh-Sheratan?”

  “I’m here, you silly old fool.” She shot him a thin-lipped smile that had made lower-ranking officers serving aboard Ambition cringe. Sulafat had never cringed. One time in their lives—when he wasn’t a captain, and she wasn’t a command second—that same smile meant so much more between the two. “I’ve always been here, Sully.”

  “No… No. I saw you die—torn from my arms, sucked out into space. You can’t be here.”

  “And yet here I am, still at your side, helping you through the most difficult times.”

  Sulafat closed his eyes and shook his head. “You can’t be here.”

  He opened his eyes. Jule was standing motionless to his left, staring expressionlessly at the Hunn-ephei seated befo
re them. Sheratan Ries was still there too, scrunched up against his right side, smiling. “You won’t lose me again so easily.”

  Something hard tapped at the back of Sulafat’s skull. Cold fingers wrapped around the entirety of his neck and throat. He was hoisted up off his knees and lifted into the air until the tips of his toes no longer touched the ground.

  You’re mumbling, Ly. The Hunn Prime screamed inside his head. You are attempting to hide your thoughts from us… from me!

  Sulafat was thrown violently back down. His body rolled and slid across the floor, slamming into three of the Hunn-ephei and their stools. The smaller beings began scrambling away immediately, disappearing into the shadows. Jule Adeen moved back slowly, warily, as the Hunn Prime placed one massive foot against Sulafat’s chest. Sheratan was gone.

  What were you saying? Its voice had quietened in Sulafat’s mind, but an intense feeling of threat was still there. Who were you talking to?

  “I was talking to myself.” The pressure on his chest intensified. Sulafat could feel his ribs beginning to bend inwards. “A bad habit… an evolutionary aberration… your Hunn Prime ancestors obviously never corrected.”

  It stepped off his chest and squatted down next to him. Humor. That is something we experience very little of here on Alderamin 4, but it isn’t unappreciated.

  “Why have you brought me here?”

  I thought that would’ve been obvious. We wanted to welcome you home, Ly. Tell your people what you’ve learned here. It will make them more cooperative. It will help them adapt faster.

  Sulafat sat up, rubbed his aching ribs. “It doesn’t matter if this is where we all came from in the beginning. We’re still prisoners. Holding us against our will and turning us into slaves won’t make any of this better. My people will resist you. I’ll resist you.”

  Then you and your people will only die faster. The Hunn Prime leaned in until its gargantuan head was inches from his face. You are the first to return home, Ly. Make no mistake, there will be more.