by Daniel Gibbs
Andreas didn’t want to cause a riot, but having TCFE’s officers clean the camp was the only way he could see to separate the people seeking a new life from those abusing them. The predators were caged with the prey.
It also didn’t help that Andreas saw fewer and fewer people using the drugs. The kind making its way around the camp must have been very addictive because withdrawal seemed to be driving the already desperate refugees mad with symptoms he was sure would kill them. Even then, a brawl broke out on the edge of the crowd, drawing fifty men and women into a wild melee. Everything was a weapon—boxes, belts, tent poles—but he saw the glint of metal from knives.
“Smoke!” a woman cried.
Suppression smoke, again. Shouts rippled through the crowds. The heightened cries overwhelmed Andreas as he slammed into several people, hands shoving. The tangle of limbs threatened to trample many.
Jian shoved a torn cloth into Andreas’s hands. Andreas pressed it to his face, body odor choking him. The sickly mist blew across the crowd. He gagged as the smoke seeped around his makeshift mask, but it wasn’t enough of a dose to affect his nervous system. People convulsed all around him as the herd broke, everyone pushing to get as far away as they could. They dropped in pairs and trios, limbs trembling but refusing commands from their nervous systems.
Jian coughed, his body wracked with spasms, but Andreas led him through a gap in the mob. He supported his friend’s arm over his shoulder.
“Hold your breath until we are clear!” Andreas urged. “Not much farther.”
Only when they both slumped against a hard-sided shelter did Jian finally suck down air, the coughs subsiding. His legs shook, but it seemed he still had control of them. Hundreds flopped in the dirt, stricken by suppression gas until they resembled dying fish left on a drought-ravaged shore. A half dozen more lay still, their bodies surrounded by spreading pools of darkness. They’d been caught in the brawl at the edge of the mob, where Andreas had seen the makeshift cudgels—and the blades.
Andreas held his head in his hands. What more can I do? He was powerless. At least under the League’s watchful, oppressive eye, he could act when needed to protect his family or provide for their table, even if he had to do so in secret. There, he was just a prisoner, not a citizen of any country.
How in the universe did the Terrans put any stock on an all-powerful deity when situations like this happened? How could they stand by and let them happen? Where was their so-called God?
All that, with trucks bearing the Compassionate Stars logo sitting outside the fence, as the NGO representatives argued with guards.
“I only want to see my family again,” Andreas murmured.
“Take heart.” Jian rasped. He cleared his throat and nodded in thanks when Andreas handed him a water bag. Jian slurped greedily. “We’ll see them yet. There’s hope for us all when we continue to band together like this. I, for one, won’t let the scum infesting our ranks spread. Will you stand with me?”
“I will try. For Yira.”
More shouts, from nearer the Kolossi terminal.
Now what? Andreas wanted to curl up and rest, finally rest, but he knew if it was yet another instance of thugs hidden among the refugees, trying to steal goods, he would join Jian and others in fighting back.
“Children! They’ve found children who were taken!” The woman’s words tore past Andreas like a receding siren as she ran toward the terminal.
Jian and Andreas stared at each other. They helped each other up and jogged as best they could in the direction, as did nearly a hundred more, with Jian limping as he shook off the effects of the suppression smoke.
What was the woman so frantic about? Had children truly been recovered? Need pressed Andreas along until he was practically dragging his friend.
There. A TCFE shuttle hunkered by the terminal. Twenty officers cordoned the area just outside the fences as the ramp lowered. Dozens of young people, none older than twenty by Andreas’s reckoning, disembarked in groups of six or seven, each one led off by an officer.
“Get them into the south holding zone,” an officer instructed. “We’re going to have a devil of a time confirming IDs. Check into the complaints list—I want to know if anyone has lodged a missing person report with specific names.”
Some of the children were in tears. A few openly sobbed. A pair of young boys started a shouting match with TCFE until the officers took them to the ground and bound their wrists behind their backs.
“Our children! Let them in! We’re here!” The woman rattled the fence.
Dozens more mothers, fathers, and even grandparents joined in a wailing, chanting press. It was the mirror of the mob Andreas had just left.
“South holding area,” Jian muttered. “I haven’t heard such a site mentioned before.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. I only—”
“Baba!”
Yira? Andreas’s fingers squeezed around the fence links until he thought he’d cut them off.
It was Yira. She was among a dozen children who trailed three officers approaching from around the side of the terminal, where several vehicle bays sat shut, just beyond line of sight from the camp.
“The hell are you doing, bringing them out here, Travers?” the officer in charge barked. “I’ve got forty-six incoming brats, and you decide it’s a good time to take kindergarten for a stroll?”
“Sorry, sir.” The younger man, who was in front of the children, seemed puzzled. “I had it radioed in we were supposed to bring these ones recovered out to meet the barge—”
“They’re from the other batch! And these are joining them. Turn around, Travers. I don’t need another damned scene.”
“Yes, sir, sorry.”
The guards waved at their charges, sending them back the direction they’d come.
“No! Baba is here!” Yira ran for the fence.
“Yira! You’re safe!” Andreas thrust his fingers through the gaps.
“Stay inside!” A guard’s truncheon whacked him across the knuckles. Andreas withdrew, cursing as the man scooped up his daughter. She screamed, tears soaking the TCFE uniform as he carried her back to the holding area where the rest of the youth were being taken.
“Bring her back! Give me my child!” Andreas’s anguished shouts were drowned by the rest rising around him as refugees lent their voices to the clamor. He was so close. She’d almost touched him.
“Clear these people out!” the lead guard snapped. “I want them back—”
Gunfire snapped. A crimson stain burst from the man’s shoulder. Another guard went down, screaming, his shin a bloody mess.
“Andreas! Get down!” Jian grabbed him, tried to pull him away from the fence.
Shots came from all directions—inside the fence. Refugees scattered, some hunkering together rather than taking the chance at getting hit while running. Finally, the far gates opened, and scout 4x4s raced in, each carrying six TCFE officers. They laid down fire from their weapons.
Andreas saw two women hit immediately but no blood. Stun rounds?
A gun lay in the dirt.
Jian gasped. Andreas caught him, again, wondering if he was still suffering from the suppression gas. But Andreas’s hand was damp where it touched Jian’s chest. His fingers came away sticky with blood.
“S-stop this…” Jian sagged into him.
Andreas cried for help as the mayhem swirled around him, unsure anyone would hear or care.
Jackson scowled at the images flicking across his wrist unit, miniature scenes of devastation. TCFE had finally lost their patience. They’d stormed the camp, strafing with stun rounds and gassing as they went. Hundreds were injured. Dozens of refugees dead in the ensuing stampedes. Twenty-nine TCFE officers killed, too, shot or stabbed.
“It’s death come to purgatory,” Brant lamented. “It’s all getting passed up the chain too. No way CDF lets this slide.”
“They’ll have to send Fleet elements in. The Spencer administration has to boost public confidence with Fro
ntier Enforcement under the gun, literally, and the confirmation of human trafficking won’t help their reputation.” Jackson muttered under his breath as he guided the skimmer toward Salvatore’s. He spotted the shop’s neon sign up the block.
Euke waved as he rode his skimmer through the front garage door, returning from a lunch pickup. A food truck, he’d said. Great Greek cuisine.
“Get on the link to Oxford, and see if they—”
The explosion threw Jackson’s skimmer like it was a kite caught in a gust. The automatic safety bags burst open the moment the vehicle went sideways, bouncing Jackson onto the pavement. He tumbled head over heels, tucking his arms around his head. Heat raked his body. Broken glass and shattered concrete scraped his exposed skin.
Brant shouted in his ear, but the buzzing and ringing made it impossible to decipher. Jackson lay on the sidewalk, his limbs aching, a sharp pain in his head. He wiped blood from his eyes—a superficial cut on his forehead.
The garage lay in ruins. The blast had torn through the garage, ripping up into the office and apartment on the second floor. Flames shot from the roof, generating a column of black smoke. Charred debris littered the street, wrecked vehicles and burned bodies too. Salvatore’s sign was a twisted, melted version of its neon self, protruding from the wall of the building behind Jackson.
He triggered the emergency transponder on his wrist and prayed for the best.
16
Kolossi
Aphendrika—Terran Coalition
24 July 2464
Jackson blinked away the fuzzy, bright light. His head spun, and his body ached, but otherwise, he felt no worse than if he’d been out far too late and had way too much fun. Memories of the horrific explosion trickled into his consciousness. Fun was the last thing on his mind. He had to fix it. But when he tried to sit up, a wave of nausea rolled through him.
“Hey, easy there, Cap’n.” Dwyer, clad in civilian coveralls and a short-sleeved shirt, stopped his rise with a hand to the shoulder. “Doc’s orders. You’ve got enough drugs pumped through you to knock out a whole herd of your family’s cattle. Plus, I’m not keen on you ralphin’ all over the upholstery.”
Upholstery? Jackson squinted at his surroundings. He was in the back of a well-appointed off-road truck, one built with comfort in mind and enough seating for eight. Half those seats, though, had been stowed for a makeshift cot to which he’d been secured with straps and cushions. A medical scanner was lodged to his left. An IV dripped whatever meds he was on through a clear tube into his left arm.
“Awake?” Sev drove as if he were searching for a parking spot at a busy shopping complex, seemingly unhurried, but Jackson recognized the tension in his movements.
“Yeah, he’s up. Got a minor concussion and contusions out the wazoo, not to mention bruised bones. I mended those as best I could, but short of Oxford’s sick bay, you’re gonna have to take it easy, okay?”
“Doesn’t sound like that’s an option, Warrant.” Jackson winced. He was right about the concussion. “How’s it look back there?”
“Bad, Cap’n. The shop’s toast. Your boy Euke? They’re peeling his DNA up off the streets—at least, the LT says that’s what’s in the local LEO’s databases. He’s vacuuming up as much comms traffic as he can, with Tamir and Eldred feeding him cross-system traffic.”
“Then the word’s getting out.”
“Everywhere,” Sev muttered.
“That’s a ten-four.” Dwyer adjusted the medication level on Jackson’s IV regulator.
Jackson’s pain immediately lessened.
“News hacks are already tryin’ to figure out if the same goons who shot up the refugee camp are the ones who blew up Salvatore’s and the other shops.”
“What other shops?”
“Hang on.” Dwyer reached ahead and tapped Sev on the shoulder. “Take a right on Two Twenty-First and go up to Maroni Street. Gina’s waiting around back.”
Jackson reclined, letting the meds do their work as buildings flashed by on either side of the truck. They stopped a few minutes later by a two-story house with a rental sign glowing in the front window. Sev seemed to be waiting for something then abruptly cocked his head to the side, as if hearing a dog whistle. He drove down to the next block, took a right, then another right into the alley. Backside of the house, Jackson realized.
Darkness enveloped the compartment as Sev backed the truck into a garage bay. The rear door cracked open. Jackson gazed into Gina’s upside-down face—smiling, which due to his inverted perspective, meant she was actually frowning. “Well, you’re not dead.”
“Disappointed?”
“Don’t be an idiot.” She and Dwyer pulled him out on a slab—a paramedic’s carry slab. No wonder it felt like he was lying on plastic.
“Let me get off this thing.” Jackson swung his feet over the edge—slowly—and waited for the garage to quit spinning before he attempted standing. So far, so good. He held back bile.
“Yes, a great idea. Why not run a few sprints around the block, lift weights, enroll in martial arts?” Gina made a face. “Sparks, slap the man if he tries to exert himself. I’ll be upstairs with Brant.”
Dwyer shook his head, grinning as she went. “Yes, ma’am. If I were you, Cap’n, I’d heed her advice.”
Pain lanced through Jackson’s skull as he nodded. Sev took up position beside him, his face stony in either concern or apathy.
“Why don’t you two get me upstairs onto whatever passes for a couch so I can start solving this mess before it gets any worse?”
Upstairs was a home in dire need of renovation, with peeling paint and sloughing insulation panels. The door controls blinked at random intervals. Brant muttered a long string of Tagalog as he fiddled with a trio of cables connecting his portable tablet, decrypt-encrypt box, and sensor rig to the home’s power source. He’d turned an old parlor by a bay window into his office.
“He’s here.” Gina poured mugs of tea in the kitchen. “And he’s not dead. What have you got for me?”
“Captain?” Brant stood in front of Jackson as Dwyer and Sev helped him onto the couch. “Feeling okay?”
Jackson grimaced at the newfound ache in his lower back muscles. “No. Report.”
“Four hundred eight wounded at Kolossi fields, with fifty-three more dead among the refugees and whoever the criminal element are in their ranks. Thirty-one TCFE officers and support personnel dead, either killed in the shoot-outs or succumbed to their wounds. The reports are messy, but TCFE is claiming they were using stun rounds until they took live fire from elements among the refugees. They shot back accordingly. Looks like drone surveillance backs them, but good luck getting the hard facts out past sensational headlines.”
“Damn. And Salvatore’s?”
“PD confirmed Euke Till is among the deceased. Salvatore was in the back half of the building, not his apartment or office. The front half of the building, both floors, is a total loss. The back half suffered structural collapse, but Salvatore survived. He’s in Emerald Emergency Center downtown with a police guard.”
“They think he was targeted.”
Brant nodded. “Red Ring is suspected, given, uh, their recent attacks on Demir and Salvatore’s suspected ties with the latter.”
“How likely is that? Raids on competitors are one thing—blowing up a shady businessman is another.”
“I didn’t buy it either.” Brant returned to his setup and enlarged the picture on his tablet. “Gina grabbed me scans from across the street, supplementing the drones’ overhead view. PD’s initial findings and comments to the press suggest a bomb planted inside.”
“They’re wrong.” Gina handed Jackson a steaming mug of tea. It smelled strongly of mint. “Mind the temperature. The flash point was a skimmer.”
“Euke’s.” Jackson felt newly ill. The sensation had nothing to do with his injuries or the medicine. “His was the last ride to enter, right before the explosion.”
“Makes sense.” Dwyer leaned over Br
ant’s shoulder. “If you take the ignition temps, see? Ain’t no chance it was deep inside the structure. Would’ve been hotter at the ten-second mark. Well, it wasn’t planted. It was carried in, like you all said, on the skimmer. Explains why there’s nothing left of Euke’s ride. Shaped charge. I’d bet real money on it being League design. I saw those deployed during the war, when ESS was embedded with regular military units and running disruption operations along the border. Small, hard-to-trace, high-yield explosives meant to obliterate a target but keep the damage focused.”
“The reconstruct is pretty clear,” Brant said. “Pulling local surveillance footage from the bar down the street and the shop a couple of doors up from Salvatore’s gave me all the details I needed. Sorry.”
Jackson rubbed at his forehead. Fatigue threatened to push him back down. “For what?”
“Well… the guy, Euke. You’d made a good connection with him.”
Euke. With financial trouble stemming from two divorces and his father’s estate. He’d made the perfect target to gain Jackson access to the criminal enterprises and uncovering those enterprises’ links to the League. Except he was dead.
“He made the call, Jack.” Gina crossed her arms. She watched Jackson intently, as if he might fight or flee—or pass out. “Brant worked the signal back to its source. It wasn’t difficult to decrypt.”
“And if I did it so easily, some League goons working half as hard would have done it by now too.” Brant didn’t seem comforted by the notion.
Jackson could kid himself all he wanted about responsibility. Calling the cops on the human trafficking operation had been Euke’s decision—and it had been a hell of a decision. He was a man who’d made the wrong choices, wound up deep in a criminal operation, yet saw innocents suffering and took a stand in his own way. Jackson considered whether he could leak information to the news networks about Euke’s call, but retaliation against Euke’s remaining family was a real possibility.
Who’s to say my presence at the meet the other night didn’t trigger Demir’s suspicions? Or the League’s? Maybe Euke wouldn’t have made the same call some other night, on a courier run without Jackson, if Oswald hadn’t been incapacitated. Consequences. Like a flash flood in a dry canyon. They start out from the smallest of drops, each action, compounding until the effects touch everything in their path. He allowed himself a handful of quiet seconds. Enough. Jackson looked up at the rest of his team, expression firm. “Okay. Our next priority is to find a way into Demir. My cover should be secure. Brant, tap into Demir—”