Wandering Storm

by Steven Anderson

  Seeing it made my cheek hurt. “No. It doesn’t matter.”

  We reached the staircase and I glanced up at Kal before I put my hand on the keypad. He shrugged. “What the hell? It’s not like we have a choice.”

  The door slid open.

  “How’s the arm feeling, Lieutenant?”

  “Like it’s in a mouth full of sharp teeth just about to bite down.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go get our friends.”

  CHAPTER 20

  VOICES

  The guards weren’t expecting a woman carrying a screaming baby and a gun. I could see the surprise in their eyes when Kal blew the door open. I fired first, Kal’s admonition echoing in my head: don’t hesitate, don’t over think, kill anyone that isn’t Hurtado or Kim. I had wanted to go slowly, yell at them to lay down arms, assess the situation, and negotiate. There were only six of them and we had surprise on our side.

  My first shot hit a guard low in the abdomen as he tried to roll out of his chair. Playing cards scattered all over the floor as he went down. I was lining up my second shot for his head and paused. Corporal Kim was shouting something at me that finally penetrated into my consciousness. She had been shouting ever since I’d entered.

  “Damn it, Lieutenant, don’t shoot! Cease fire!”

  “What?” My hands were shaking, and little Evert was letting everyone in the room know how unhappy he was to be there with me.

  “These guys are protecting us.”

  I knelt next to the man I’d tried to kill and he cringed away from me when I touched him. “I’m sorry. My shipmates. I thought I needed to rescue them.”

  One of his friends pushed me out of the way and started first aid. “You’re going to be fine, Jasper. No better place to get hurt than in a hospital, right? Crazy Union bastards can’t hit shit, lucky for you.”

  Jasper looked at me, confusion and pain wrinkling his forehead. “Had a good hand that time. First one all night. Two pair, aces high. Go look.”

  “We’ll believe you this time. Just try to relax while we take you to the surgical bay.”

  I walked backwards away from them until I bumped into the wall, watching them help him onto a stretcher and carry him out the door that we’d blasted apart.

  “Is that Evert you have with you?”

  I nodded to Corporal Kim, unable to get my voice to work.

  “Let me hold him for you. Where’s his mum?”

  “Huh,” was the only sound that would come out of me, a high squeak. I turned to Kal, desperate for reassurance, desperate for him to tell me I’d done the right thing.

  “The Mother went crazy or something and tried to kill her own son. She killed one of the medical attendants and tried to kill the Lieutenant.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. She loved this guy.”

  “I shot her. No choice. I shot her in the back to save Evert.”

  Kim tipped her head and looked at Kal.

  “It’s true. I was there. There was no choice.”

  That was a lie. Kal had still been out in the corridor. I could hear the lie in his voice and so could Kim.

  “That’s hard. What are you planning to do with him, Lieutenant? Leave him here with the hospital staff?”

  “I’m taking him to the Hoog Schelde Yards with me. I have to keep him safe.”

  That got a raised eyebrow and another sideways glance to Kal. “He’ll be fine here, Lieutenant. There are good people running this place.”

  “No. It’s not safe.” I glanced at my watch, not understanding why, but it was important. “We need to hurry.” My arm was starting to ache, pain flowing up from the wrist to my shoulder in sharp spurts. “Haven’t you had enough of me?” I said softly. “I almost killed that man.”

  “Mala Dusa? What are you hearing?”

  I shook my head. “Voices and whispers that I can’t understand. Puca and Merrimac ripping me apart. Time’s up.”

  “Is she…all right?” Kim asked.

  “No, she is not. Long story. We need to get to the roof and fast. Can these guards help us?”

  “Sure…I’ll let them know and find a safe place for Evert. Sergeant Hurtado,” she shouted. “We’re leaving.”

  “Give me the baby, Corporal.”

  She turned to look at me and the color went out of her cheeks. “Lieutenant, have you completely lost your mind?”

  “Mala Dusa, put the gun down.” Kal was trying to sound calm.

  “Not until she gives me Evert. I promised I was going to save him, and damn it, that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Who did you promise?”

  I looked up at him, confused. “I…I don’t remember. Oh, God. I can’t tell if I’m hearing the Puca or Merrimac. How can I tell them apart? How am I supposed to know the plan? It hurts so much, Kal.”

  Everyone was staring at me and my mind was staring to fold in on itself. Kal said the last thing I would have expected from him. “What are your orders, Lieutenant?”

  I stood up straight and pushed hard against the pain, focusing the way Winona had taught me when we’d done the smudging and the sweating. “There’s a shuttle on the roof. You three,” I pointed at the remaining guards. “Take point and get us up there. Sergeant Hurtado, you follow right behind them and then Corporal Kim. Corporal, do not let anything happen to Evert, is that clear?”

  “Crystal, ma’am.”

  “Kal, you watch our tail and make sure no one follows us onto the roof.”

  “Where will you be, Lieutenant?”

  “With the guards at the front. I have an idea of what we’re going to find up there and we can’t let it stop us. We’ll regroup at the shipyard and worry about what comes next when we get there.”

  Kal tapped my shoulder before I could go to join our guards and lowered his voice. “Why Evert? Why is he so important?”

  “I don’t know, but he is.”

  “To the Puca or Merrimac?”

  “I don’t know that either. The Puca think they’re winning.”

  “Are they?”

  I tried to give him my overconfident smile again, but it turned into a shudder so strong that he had to steady me. “Don’t feel bad if you have to shoot me when we’re on the roof. Winn and Sam would understand. She’d forgive you.”

  “Like hell she would. I’d never hear the end of it. And your mother is one cold, scary bitch. I don’t ever want to be on her bad side.”

  “There are so many stories I could tell you.”

  “Later.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath. “I am Second Lieutenant Mala Dusa Holloman, RuComm, on assignment to the Union Aerospace Force.”

  “That’s my Lieutenant. You lead, I’ll cover your rear.”

  The shuttle had its wings deployed for atmospheric flight, providing a dry place for Winona, Sam, and a couple of pieces of the Merrimac colony to wait for us. I stopped thirty meters away and let the hard rain drench me. Hurtado and Kim tried to pass me for the shelter of the shuttle’s wing and I held my arms out to block them.

  “The baby’s getting wet,” Kim protested.

  “Let him. He’ll be OK for a minute.”

  “Mala Dusa,” Sam called to me. It was hard to see him clearly because of the rain. “Hannah wants you and me to join her. The shuttle will drop us off. Her job on Kastanje isn’t done, and she wants our help. Come help me make sure everyone is strapped in and then we can leave. We have to finish the plan together.”

  “We do. I know we do. Come to me here first and kiss me.”

  He laughed. “Unlike you, Winona and I have the sense to stay out of the rain. It should clear in a few minutes and then I’ll come to you. I need to get everyone on board first.”

  I chewed on my lip, trying to sort out the voices, feeling the Puca in the surrounding buildings feeding on me, eating my
pain, uncertainty, and longing.

  “Now or never, Sam. Will you come kiss me right now?”

  “Don’t be like that, Duse. Do the right thing for once in your life,” Winona called back.

  “Thought so.”

  “What are we waiting for, Lieutenant?”

  I looked back at Kal and sighed, praying he’d told me the truth about not shooting me. I dropped and rolled, drawing the pistol from my waistband, and the long bayonet knife from its sheath in one almost smooth motion. I screamed, forcing my left hand to hold on to the hilt of the knife against the feel of teeth ripping me apart. And then the pain stopped, and only what I needed to do remained.

  First shot, last of the slugs. Hit! Center mass of the Puca pretending to be my friend Merrimac. Milky blue blood poured out of him as he thrashed. Second shot, plasma. Clean miss. Third shot, plasma, Puca down in a spray of blue.

  Now for the one pretending to be Winona. Fourth shot, miss, as she ducked down and ran toward me. Something was closing on my left from under the shuttle’s tail. I ignored it, trying to line up my next shot, and was knocked off my feet by forty kilos of simulated German Shepherd. I rolled onto my back, trying to get air back into my lungs, wondering how far away the gun and bayonet knife had slid into the shadows.

  Winona sat on my chest and pinned my hands down with hers. I twisted, trying to bite her.

  “Sam! Hold her head.”

  Not quick enough. My teeth found the inside of her elbow.

  “Shit! That hurt!”

  I tasted salty blood and watched it, bright red in the shuttle’s landing lights. Red. Not blue.

  I stopped fighting. “Winona?” Sam had a tight grip on me and I looked up at him, trying to tip my head. “Hey there, love. Thought you were a Puca.”

  Winona got off my chest and I sat up. Merrimac nuzzled into my lap and I scratched his ears, feeling the deep Tarakana hum. The pain in my wrist faded, but I could still feel it. One Merrimac, ten thousand angry Puca.

  “I’m sorry that I killed two of your pieces. I’ll help you rebuild, I promise. I just need Sam. And a lot of potatoes.”

  “One more thing to do,” he told me. “Be quick.”

  The plan. One more step to go. I got up. “Run.” I looked from Sam to Winn, and then to where Kal and the others were still standing in the rain. “Run!” I shouted it this time. “Or we’re all going to die.”

  I ran, and then waited at the bottom of the ramp while everyone passed me. Sam took my hand and pulled me inside. I sat next to him, listening to the thrusters spooling up while he strapped me into my seat.

  Merrimac was lying across my feet trying to block the Puca from ripping my mind apart. They wanted me dead now. I could feel them wriggling past Merrimac into my brain as the shuttle accelerated away from the hospital. They would come for me, no matter how far I ran. They’d find me and feed off of me, use me until my soul was hollow and only my emotions remained to serve their pleasures.

  Or I could join them. I might join them. Maybe I should. I could start by helping them take back the shipyard, and then–

  The shuttle rocked through heavy turbulence, something extreme enough to overcome the gravity stabilizers.

  “Shuttle six, what was that?” Winona sounded worried, very aware that we still had a long way to go. “Is someone shooting at us?”

  “No Lieutenant.” The AI’s voice was smooth and apologetic. “That was a shock wave from the explosions behind us. I’m so sorry that I was unable to anticipate the severity of the impact.”

  “Explosions? Show view aft on the main display.”

  The center of Oranjestad was on fire. The sun was just breaking the horizon, touching the tops of a big arc of cumulonimbus full of lightning that stretched up the valley. Everything below the clouds was burning. As we watched, streaks of fire fell from the sky, sending fresh eruptions of smoke and flame into the morning light.

  I sighed and snuggled back into my seat, content and happy.

  “MD, are you…smiling?”

  “Uh huh. We made it, Sam. The Puca are dead. All of them. And the plan is completed. You and I are still alive. My arm has stopped hurting because the Puca are all dead. Do you know what that means?” I sighed and reached down to scratch Merrimac’s ears. He was proud of what he had accomplished using me. I closed my eyes, drifting with him between realities.

  “There must be a hundred thousand dead down there.” Sam’s voice. I could hear the goosebumps on his arms in the way his voice broke.

  “More. Twice that maybe.” Winona was stunned, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “How?”

  “My Storm did it,” I answered sleepily, yawning. “She controls all of the Hoog Schelde shipyard now, and all the tugs. She dropped pieces of herself on the Puca to save us. Chunks of Esprit Orageux traveling at fifty kilometers a second. Boom. Boom! BOOM! No more Puca.”

  Something else…something bothering me…Not just Puca dead…

  “No, let it go Little Soul.” Merrimac was in my brain, I could feel him, warm and gentle, urging sleep, telling me that I’d done the right thing, that I was good, and that now it was time to rest. He sang to me.

  “Tarakana haze. Feel it? I’m almost OK about the whole damn thing myself sitting this close to that…that…monster wrapped around her legs. Look at her singing to herself. Samuel, she’s going to need both of us to get her through this with her mind intact.”

  “She’s worth it. She’ll always be worth it, at least to me.”

  Winona sighed. “You were literally made for her, so you can’t help yourself. What’s my excuse?”

  “My Winona loves me,” I sang loudly. “And I love my Winona.”

  “Hush.”

  Lips pressed against my forehead and I opened one eye, expecting to see Winn bent over me. It was Kal, somehow managing to look both worried and amused.

  “And my Kal! I love my Kal so much. He makes me bold and fierce.” I closed my eyes, humming. “What’s a good rhyme for fierce?” Merrimac was singing to me again. I slid deeper into him and slept the rest of the way to the shipyard.

  Sam offered to carry me to the guest quarters Major Zweig had assigned us next to the old room I’d shared with Winona, but I refused. As Lieutenant Mala Dusa Holloman, I had duties to perform, including making sure baby Evert was safe. Evert’s father was working the asteroid Kwasi Boakye as a mining engineer. I called him myself, and explained that his wife Elisabeth had given her life defending their son, and had died a hero. He thanked me, and asked me if I was all right, concerned that I looked exhausted and that there was blood that had run down my cheek and stained my collar. We cried together, and then I collapsed into bed and slept away the rest of the day. Merrimac crawled in and out of my nightmares, whispering to me, taking the hard edges away from my pain.

  Sam woke me late in the afternoon. My brain was dull, and every part of my body was sore and stiff. Sam sat on the edge of the bed, his hand cradling my face while I decided whether or not to fall back asleep.

  “You should wake up now, MD. Take a shower. We’ll get something to eat and you’ll feel better. I’ll help you if you want.”

  I stretched, being careful to keep my cheek pressed into his palm so he couldn’t remove his hand. “Help me eat?”

  He chuckled. “With the shower.”

  “Oh. The showers down the hall where someone might walk in at any time?”

  “I’ll risk it if you will.”

  I was suddenly very awake. “How much time do we have?”

  “It’s just 16:00 now. Dinner is at 18:00. It will be a memorial of sorts for the Marines that we lost and for Captain Rostron.”

  “Our Captain. After finding Winona alive, I had hoped the Captain might be safe too.”

  “Winona was AWOL. She hitched a ride down with some of the shipyard workers not long after yo
u left and then threw herself on Hannah’s mercy. Half of the surviving Merrimac pieces in this sector were on the shuttle with her. Three, to be exact, two of which you managed to kill. When Major Zwieg warned Captain Rostron that there was a danger to her ship, she tried to break Esprit Orageux away from the shipyard. That was irrational. I don’t know what made her think she had enough time. She should have run instead.”

  “She wasn’t much for running.”

  “No. Maybe you should try running away some time. What the hell were you thinking going down to the surface?”

  He rotated me so my feet were on the floor and I was sitting next to him on the bed. I wrinkled my forehead at him. “Rescuing you, of course. What were you doing? I had to clean up the mess you made of the neonatal AI.”

  “That was almost finished, and I was kidnapped.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I was! OK, your mom arranged it. She needed medical aid for some of her friends, so I stuffed my pockets full of what they needed and waited at the café for them. It was supposed to be just a few blocks away and just for a couple of hours. After that I was going to make a daring escape. Then two of the Walvis faction dressed as Handhaving officers tried to take me, so Hannah moved me up into the mountains for safekeeping.”

  “Evert was going to die without you.”

  He sighed, lifting me to my feet. “I know. Thank you for saving him. Brave girl.”

  “No, I’m not. I was terrified, and I’m still scared. As soon as we can, we’re going to run away to some far corner of the universe and we’re going raise our baby there. Somewhere without Tarakana or Puca or people that want to kill us. OK?”

  He wrapped a robe around me, cinched it closed, and handed me a towel. “Absolutely. I want to help Merrimac first, though. He’s establishing a new colony here, one that doesn’t feed on hate and pain.”

  “That’s the same thing we helped him do on Bodens Gate. Merrimac is my friend. I owe him that much.” I grinned up at Sam, knowing exactly what we needed to do to trigger Merrimac into propagating his colony across Kastanje.