Fire Flare

by Chris Ward

  ‘Put us down,’ Paul said.

  Harlan5 turned. ‘We are still some way short of the Matilda,’ Harlan5 said. ‘My programming suggests we have very little time—’

  ‘I’m in command,’ Paul said. ‘Put us down right there.’ He pointed to a flat valley not far from a deep fissure. ‘By that rock, the one with the overhang.’

  ‘As you command.’

  Harlan5 brought the ship down. Paul leaned forward, staring out of the view-screens. From the stoicism in his eyes he appeared recovered from his ordeal, even if he had several flesh wounds which would need tending.

  ‘Scan the ground for lifeforms,’ Paul said. ‘Can this ship do that?’

  ‘It had a heat sensor,’ Harlan5 said. ‘But it’s coming up with nothing. A few small animals, but nothing else.’

  Paul stared at the view-screens for a moment, then gave a brief nod. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘You did me a good turn. I’m sorry I couldn’t do you one in return.’ With a deep breath, he turned to Harlan5. ‘We’re good. Take us on,’ he said.

  The hillside where they had hidden the Matilda came up on the view-screens, appearing out of the sleet like a black apparition. They had chosen wisely, picking an area where the seismic activity was less, even though aftershocks of the more powerful earthquakes had caused part of the hill to collapse. Harlan5’s programming felt an almost human-like sense of relief as the Matilda appeared on the view-screens, now out in the open, the cave having collapsed around it. The lower hatch was open, though, with signs in the earth around it of the passage of people.

  ‘I’ll need those blasters now,’ Paul said. ‘No one steals my ship and gets away with it.’

  Harlan5, resisting the urge to point out that until Caladan’s death was confirmed, Paul was technically a lower crew member, took the gunship down, landing it a short distance from the Matilda. Together, they headed for the exit hatch. With no time for Paul to don a new spacesuit, he grabbed a respirator mask and then climbed up on Harlan5’s back.

  ‘It’s cold outside,’ Harlan5 said. ‘Are you ready for this?’

  Paul spun one of the blasters on his finger, then slid it into his belt. ‘I was born ready. Let’s go kick up a real storm.’

  The wind was ragging everything not yet torn out of the ground, but what was left of the hill provided some shelter. Harlan5 held on to Paul with his remaining arm to prevent the wind ripping his companion away. With his eye light blocked by icy sleet, he made it to the Matilda’s hatch and staggered inside, hitting the door control, using his code to override the Matilda’s security system, which had refused to close the hatch for the intruders, thereby preventing an autopilot takeoff.

  As the temperature and gravity in the lower hangar stabilized, Paul climbed down off Harlan5’s back. Wiping sleet out of his face as he pulled off his respirator and attached it to his belt, he turned to Harlan5.

  ‘It might be better if you stayed here,’ he said. ‘This could be brutal.’

  He took a step towards the hangar’s exit into the lower corridor, and nearly fell on his face.

  ‘It might be best if I come,’ Harlan5 said. ‘My programming suggests that you might require backup.’

  Paul looked back over his shoulder. His skin had taken on a green pallor, as though he was about to vomit. ‘You can clear up the mess,’ he said, giving a grim nod, leaving Harlan5 unsure as to which mess he was referring. ‘Come on, robot. Let’s finish this.’

  They headed into the ship’s lower levels. Paul went first, with Harlan5 coming behind, awkwardly carrying a blaster designed for a human in place of his damaged shoulder cannon. Whoever had broken into the ship had left no one on guard, and they made it to the central elevator—finally fixed by Teer Flint’s mastery—without alarm.

  ‘Are you hanging in there?’ Paul said, holding the barrel of his blaster against his face as he activated the elevator control.

  ‘Ready to sling my guns,’ Harlan5 said, recalling an old Earth movie from his memory vaults which included wide-brimmed hats and primitive, four-legged creatures called horses. ‘I’ve got your back, partner.’

  Paul smiled. ‘Whoever’s in there is either with us or against us,’ he said. ‘Most likely against us. If there’s trouble, don’t hesitate.’

  Harlan5’s eye light twinkled. After what he had been through, his programming considered the prospect of a firefight to be almost mundane. Paul, however, looked focused, his eyes hard, trigger finger ready to unleash mayhem.

  The elevator stopped on the flight deck level. Paul pressed against the wall as the doors slid open, then jumped out, training his gun on an empty corridor.

  The flight deck lay ahead, past a small recreation area, behind a closed door. Paul waved Harlan5 to one side, then leaned back against the wall on the other, before reaching around to activate the door control.

  He jumped inside as the door opened, Harlan5 close behind.

  ‘What in Vantar’s Seven Hells?’

  A four-legged, two-armed Jeeeb lay face down on the ground, its powerful front arms held behind its canine head. Sitting nearby was a much smaller, cat-like Ween, eyes darting around out of its furry face. A box sat on its lap, inside which something shifted within a luminous green solution.

  Paul frowned. ‘What’s going on here?’

  A shadow fell over them as a figure stepped out from behind a row of storage lockers. Teer Flint, two legs reduced to stumps wrapped in bloodied bandages and with a few cuts to his face, gave them a grim smile. He held a blaster in each hand.

  ‘Welcome back,’ he said. ‘I was hoping someone would show up sooner rather than later.’

  Paul’s face split into a wide grin. ‘Teer, my main man! We went back for you, but … you made it.’

  To Harlan5’s great surprise—and clearly that of Teer Flint’s, as his eyes widened—Paul reached across and pulled the off-worlder mechanic into a hug. Harlan5 made sure his blaster was trained on the prisoners as Paul’s boisterous show of delight threw off both of those held by Teer Flint.

  ‘I appreciate the sentiment. You were gone a long time, and I decided there had to be a better place to die than this dump. I managed to drag myself back to the ship. I was just about to climb into the recuperation tank when these three clowns showed up and tried to fly her off.’

  Paul turned to look at the prisoners. ‘Three?’

  The Ween hissed, one hand running over the box. On the ground, the Jeeeb groaned in pain.

  ‘They claim to be with the Defenders of the Free,’ Teer Flint said. ‘The dog is Captain Adams, and the cat thing is Revel Sind. And in the box is General Grogood. What’s left of him.’

  Paul stared. ‘General….’

  The Ween hissed again as Paul took a step closer. Harlan5 heard him gasp, then caught sight of what Paul had seen. Something in the luminous solution twisted around. A human head, connected to the tank by a series of wires.

  ‘It had a speaker on the top, but I blew it off,’ Teer Flint explained. ‘I got tired of listening to their revolutionary crap. They tried to steal the Matilda. The only reason they’re alive is because I might have needed them to fly it if you never came back.’

  Paul knelt down in front of the box, wearing a frown so deep it could have passed for a thundercloud. His face was set hard, but as Harlan5 watched, something unexpected happened.

  A single tear popped from his right eye and dribbled down his cheek.

  ‘General Grogood,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time … Dad.’

  Harlan5, for once his programming generally surprised, glanced at Teer Flint, whose expression returned his feeling of shock. The Ween hissed again, but with less conviction, while Captain Adams just let out another groan.

  ‘I can connect to the box’s speaker,’ Harlan5 said. ‘The General is trying to respond.’

  Paul looked up. ‘Please,’ he said.

  Harlan5 adjusted his frequency until it matched the transmitter no longer connected to the speaker.

  �
�I’ve missed you, son,’ he said, making his voice a little deeper, an older version of Paul’s. His programming thought it made a nice effect, since the actual sound trying to escape the broken speaker was a chalkboard screech. ‘I see you’ve grown.’

  21

  Caladan

  Caladan hadn’t realised just how warm his beard had made his face until he was hauled out into Dynis Moon’s freezing eternal night. Even with a skin-fitting spacesuit bearing the brunt of the conditions, he could feel the chill through its thin surface, the cold making his jaw ache, the wind rattling his teeth. The weather hadn’t let up; the wind rushing down from the ridgeline was strong enough to strip the moon’s surface clean, the sleety rain creating rivers of slush to wash away whatever dirt was left. Led by the hardy Lorks, for whom he was gaining a greater appreciation with each passing minute, they stumbled, struggled, and staggered their way along a rocky track leading up a barren, rain-drenched hillside.

  With no other way of letting his frustration free, he berated and insulted the closest guards with each step, even if his voice was indistinguishable over the howling wind. However, before they had gone halfway, the convoy paused. As a group near the front huddled together in consultation, the mood among the guards around him changed. They shifted from foot to foot, becoming more irritable as the wind and rain hammered them, perhaps expecting some sort of mutiny.

  There appeared to be a sense of discontent that the command group had earlier broken away. Their convoy had barely left the safety of the downed battleship when the Ween had abruptly climbed up onto Captain Adams’s back, still carrying General Grogood’s head in the box, held tightly in his arms. With a sharp word to those left in charge which Caladan couldn’t make out through the storm, Captain Adams had bounded away down the hillside, moving in an awkward, lolloping gait, his back legs kicking off the earth, his powerful front arms cushioning him as he landed, with his middle legs providing balance. The Ween, holding on to patches of the captain’s drenched fur, leaned over the top of the box containing General Grogood’s head to protect it.

  Now, a couple of hours since their departure, commanded by their own officers, the line of Lork guards continued the grueling march to the ridgeline. As they headed through a small bowl just before the peak, where for a couple of minutes they were given a little shelter from the relentless wind and rain, Caladan caught sight of Beth farther ahead. The girl looked in better shape than he felt, each arm secured by a bond held by guards walking to either side. As though aware he was watching, she glanced back and flashed a brief smile.

  They were just a hundred metres from the peak when an earsplitting droning began overhead. With a swirl of grey and black the clouds parted, and a massive ship appeared, blocking the worst of the rain as it lowered over the peak. Several hundred metres across, it turned the sky dark and clear at the same time. With a central circular core, it was surrounded by dozens of long, needle-like points, a giant, hovering pin-cushion. As Caladan watched, they began to blur, then thicken, and he realised they had been spinning at an incredible speed, the downdraft lost in the wind. Dropping to a speed that was visible to the naked eye, he realised there were actually nine pointed arms, spinning propeller-like to keep the ship airborne.

  A Shadowman surface lander. He had seen pictures, but never one up close. It looked like a giant spinning saw. However, while he wished the wind would catch the Shadowman lander at the wrong angle and dash it into the hillside, he appreciated the break from the rain.

  A hatch opened in the central core and a glass tube descended, glowing dark like a strip light wrapped in thin black paper. From a distance it appeared fragile, but as it came to a halt just off the ground Caladan realised it was easily twenty metres in diameter. Two sliding doors opened, and a cluster of towering, spindly creatures appeared behind a glass screen. Caladan felt a shiver of terror. The only good Shadowman was one in pieces, but now he was about to be taken onboard this ship, taken up to a command vessel, and subjected to hideous experiments that didn’t bear thinking about.

  He was still lost in a hellish daydream when a flash of blaster fire lit up the sky. One of the Lorks fell, rolling downslope, then getting caught up by the wind and tumbling like an organic boulder, bouncing out of sight. Others rushed to find defensive positions as a waiflike figure spun, blasters flashing in both hands. One blast struck the front of the lander’s hatch, sending up a cloud of sparks, forcing the creatures inside to dive for cover. Caladan shivered at the way they moved, flexing and stretching as though made of cobalt-grey plastic. He was still staring when hands grabbed him from behind, spinning him around.

  Beth’s face was wildly ecstatic. ‘Call this a rescue,’ she said, close enough that he could hear over the wind. ‘I talked around my guards. Come on, move.’

  A knife sliced through the bonds securing his arm. It flopped uselessly at his side, tingling as blood began to flow again.

  The Lorks had broken into two groups. One group fired on the other, which quickly returned fire. One by one they picked each other off, until only a handful remained. Caladan was still staring when a blast came so close to his face he felt its warmth. Beth pulled him around.

  ‘That way. Go.’

  Close together, they ran downhill, the sound of the firefight soon lost beneath the raging wind. Behind them, the lander’s propeller began to spin. The tube retracted back into the hatch, taking its frightening host with it.

  ‘Do you have a plan here?’ he screamed at Beth as they passed out of the lander’s shadow, back into the thundering rain.

  ‘That settlement, I saw it on a map. Vintol City. There might be a transport there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ he said, as from up ahead, a plume of lava blasted up into the sky. ‘Did you see that? It came from that downed battleship. The mega-volcano—’

  ‘I think we’ll know when that erupts,’ Beth said. ‘Move.’

  They were running between rock stacks left behind after the vegetation had been stripped clear. Behind them, the lander was slowly turning, moving in pursuit.

  ‘How in Vantar’s Seven Hells did you manage to get free?’ Caladan gasped as they ran.

  ‘After the general and his friends abandoned us, I just told my guards what was obvious, that they’d been left to die. The commanding officers, convinced the general was coming back, ordered them to press on. My guards disagreed. These people are Dynis Moon natives. They never really accepted General Grogood as one of them.’

  ‘And you figured all that out?’

  ‘I had a lot of time to think.’

  ‘I wish you’d thought out our escape route a little better,’ he said, as a massive blast of cannon fire exploded among the rocks nearby.

  ‘If they wanted us dead, they wouldn’t have missed,’ Beth said. ‘Keep running.’

  ‘Do you know how hard it is to run with only one arm?’

  As another blast destroyed a rock stack to their right, Beth shouted, ‘Better one than none.’

  ‘Point taken. Hurry up, won’t you?’

  They cut through a stand of thick-trunked trees with low, spread canopies which had somehow survived the weather’s constant barrage. As they emerged into a clearing, Caladan stopped.

  Beth came up beside him, breathing hard. ‘What the … oh.’

  They had found the city … or what was left of it, little more than a cluster of ruined buildings set among ragged holes in the ground where trees had once stood. In a clearing, a battered transport shuttle stood off-kilter on broken landing gear, propped up at one end by rocks. Dozens of bedraggled Lork civilians stood huddled in its shadow: mothers clutching children, old men and women, even babies wrapped in blankets. The ship’s hatch stood open, and several more able-bodied men worked inside, trying to get the ship operational. As Caladan stared, another plume of lava lit up the sky, followed by a huge shadow falling over them as the lander came overhead.

  He turned to Beth, who had dropped into a crouch and lifted her blasters, traini
ng them on the massive ship. He looked at her, her face filled with anger and despair, then back at the soaked, huddled people, the last refugees on this doomed moon. Closing his eyes for a moment, he thought of Lia, wishing she were here with him to make him feel a little braver, but knowing without a doubt what she would do.

  ‘No.’ He reached out, gently pushing Beth’s arms down. ‘We can’t win this, but those people can lose. The Shadowmen think I’m General Grogood, remember? Maybe those skinny monsters will let us strike a deal.’

  ‘I’ll never go on board that ship—’

  He recognized the fear in her eyes that he only partially felt, remembering as a Farsi he was a subspecies, not fully human. He feared the Shadowmen in a way he feared little else, but what Beth felt was pure, distilled storybook terror.

  ‘Don’t forget me,’ he said, flashing a grin. ‘And I’m very sorry about this, but it might be the only way.’ As she frowned, he clenched his fist and clubbed her in the side of the head, hitting her hard enough to make his morals shake, the very core of his being prickle with disgust. Her eyes rolled and she slumped sideways, crashing into the ground. He picked up one of her blasters and fired it into the ground close to her face, splattering her with mud, the blast close enough he hoped to fool the Shadowmen as their evil tube came down. Then he tossed the blaster away, lifted his arm in a gesture of surrender, and turned to face his fate.

  The tube came to rest just off the ground a few paces away from him. ‘Leave them!’ he shouted as he walked forward. ‘They’ll die anyway. I’ll come without trouble if you give them a few more minutes with their families.’

  The Shadowmen behind the glass screen wavered and shifted, faces turning towards each other, heads so large on their tiny necks he couldn’t understand why they didn’t overbalance and snap. He approached the entrance at the bottom of the tube, hoping his compliance would convince them, not daring to look back, not just fearful that Beth was dead, but that she might wake up and reveal herself.