“Sir, report from above: skies still all clear,” called a voice.
“Excellent! Tell the boats when they’re full the crew needs to board and they must leave immediately for their drop point.”
“Yes, sir.”
With the sound of men grunting and groaning, Alistair prepared the bomb for a countdown. A voice behind him said, “If we set some other explosives near the cargo we can take out the weapons we leave behind.” It was Clever Johnny. Alistair turned and, for the first time he could remember, made eye contact with the man.
“And likely the whole crew with it. No, the ship will be disabled enough from the holes in the hull. The extra weapons we’ll dump ourselves as much as we can.” He turned back around and paid Clever Johnny no more attention. After a moment of silence, Johnny sloshed away through the deepening pool of seawater.
It was a few minutes later, after he went back to the offloading line, when word came down that there were aircraft approaching. The men paused as one.
“How many?” asked Alistair.
“Three that we can see.”
“Back to work, men. Fast as you can,” he urged them and then made for the stairs to the main deck.
Once up top, he saw unarmed rescue vehicles hovering above the Tessa. They were long, silver and almost featureless cigar-shaped craft with flat bottoms and a small cockpit. Their front and back tapered to a smooth round point, and on their sides they bore the official seal of the city of Arcarius.
Oliver came to stand at his side. “What do we do?”
“The attack craft will be on their way in moments. We need to stop unloading weapons and prepare to make cover for our retreat.”
“We’re only half finished—”
“It will be enough.” Alistair turned and grabbed Oliver by his mammoth shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Head back down to the cargo hold and look for crates with X7-42 on the side. Some will be ammo; some will be the anti-aircraft weapon. Grab two of each and bring them back here. If I’m not here when you get back, unpack them and get the guns loaded. It’s an easy process.”
“We’ve got hostages if they try anything,” said Clever Johnny, coming up behind them with a small contingent of his supporters, all of whom had guns pointed at the backs of the three men who had tried to prevent them from accessing the weapons hold. Alistair saw their haggard faces, bruised and speckled with dried blood. One man even had a stream still coming down the side of his face. With their hands on top of their heads, they eyed all around them with fear.
“We’re not playing hostages,” he darkly informed him. “In fact, why don’t you let them go back to their buddies over there?” With a nod of his head, Alistair indicated the front structure where their crew mates were holed up.
“Are you joking, Ashley?” Clever Johnny’s eyes lit up and he bore his teeth like a wolf. “We’ve got the national armed forces ready to bear down on us and you want me to give up hostages?”
Alistair felt a sudden surge of adrenaline and he grabbed Clever Johnny behind his head and pulled it towards him so that they touched foreheads. “Violence escalates,” he said in a curt and clipped manner. “Get that through your head. If we abuse prisoners, they’ll do the same in retaliation.”
“Just the same I think I’ll hold on to some insurance,” Clever Johnny fairly growled.
Alistair released him, exchanged a nod with Oliver who quickly moved off to do his part, and headed for the bridge once again.
Passing the still bound crew members from the bridge, he noticed one was trying to chew threw the bonds of his mate. Like guilty schoolchildren they stopped when they heard him and tried to look nonchalant, but he just ignored them. He burst into the now gusty bridge and, in looking out the window, found himself nearly face to face with one of the rescue craft. He could see the whites of the eyes of the pilot as snowflakes flurried between them.
He searched about for some functioning communications equipment but it was destroyed. Instead, he went to the power switch of a working display and flipped it on and off. The patterns he used were those of the ancient Morse Code, which lingered in use since the Dawn of Technology. They still taught the code to all military recruits, and all pilots were trained by the military.
Men to be rescued in bow. Will not attack rescue craft. He repeated the message twice over until he saw the pilot turn and call back to the other crew members of his rescue craft. Then he turned back around and nodded once to Alistair, a grim nod expressing a reluctant trust. A moment later, the hovering vessel pulled away from the bridge and headed for the bow.
Back out in the hallway, he went to his captives and untied one, ordering him to untie his two mates.
“Your rescue craft are here,” he informed them. “You can head to the bow of the boat.”
“There might be other injured crew members in this section of the ship,” said the Captain while his first mate released his ankles from their bonds. His tone was frank and calm, deliberately so, defiantly without fear yet coolly polite.
Alistair frowned for a moment. “Then search for them and take them with you. Just remember we are armed. No one needs to die here today. Find your men and get out.” He gave the men a stern look before leaving them to their own devices.
***
Emerging from the interior of the control center, Alistair stepped onto the deck. The three rescue craft at the far end were hovering over the bow with rope ladders dangling from their undersides. A couple dozen men made their way up the ladders. He looked over the side of the Tessa. The rebel boats were still passing weapons through the hole in the hull. Cursing, he ran to Oliver who was busy loading one of the X7-42’s. Clever Johnny was standing nearby, guarding his captives.
“Why the hell are they still unloading crates?”
“We decided to stay just a bit longer,” Oliver informed him.
“We need as many weapons as we can get,” Clever Johnny said, his voice more controlled now, his tone smooth and dangerous like usual.
“Goddamn it, Oliver. I said to pull out.”
“No one voted you in charge, little buddy.”
“No, you’re right. No one voted me; it just fell to me because I am the only one who knows what the hell he’s doing. Now goddamn it, start pulling out!”
Oliver rose and gave Alistair a mock salute. “The weapons are loaded,” he curtly said and moved off.
Gnashing his teeth in frustration, Alistair grabbed hold of two men to operate the X7-42’s. They were small cannons mounted on a flexible tripod. They fired small, super heated ammo which exploded on contact and melted anything the shards touched. Affixing the tripod feet to the floor, he gave the men a thirty second demonstration on how to aim and shoot before making for the stairs below deck. As he passed Clever Johnny he turned to him and said, “There are at least three men in that section from the ship’s crew looking for injured comrades. They will be coming out soon to join their men at the bow. When they come out, let these three go with them.”
“This is stupid, Ashley!” Clever Johnny hissed. “Why the hell should we give up hostages?”
Alistair, who had turned from Johnny to head downstairs, spun about now, grabbed the slight man by his shirt, lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the wall of the command structure. “Because I can do this,” he hissed. “We don’t have facilities to take prisoners and we have no right to imprison them if we did. You have your orders.” Releasing the man’s shirt, he let him fall to the ground and, not looking back to see the dark look he got, headed below deck.
***
The water was ankle deep in the cargo hold when Alistair set the countdown, giving them twenty minutes to withdraw. About two thirds of the boats had already left. Alistair ushered the remaining men out of the hold and told the pilots to pick up their crews at the stern.
Suddenly, he heard the screeching wail of a shot from an X7-42. He winced as he remembered he had not prepared the men for the ear-splitting sound. Several more shots screeched
and there was a brief spurt of automatic fire. He rushed back up to the main deck.
The two gunners were firing at some approaching points of light in the sky. Their shots were way off once the glowing bullets dipped, but they gradually corrected for this. The guns continued to scream like a banshee while the rescue craft retreated.
There was a general rush for the stern, but behind the scurrying forms of retreating rebels Alistair saw nine prone forms bleeding on the deck. He recognized the Captain and his first mate as well as the three men taken hostage below deck. Two of the men were still writhing about, but the blood spurting from their wounds foretold a rapidly approaching death.
A thousand images and experiences from his days on Kaldis flashed through his mind. He had been a grunt, outranked and helpless to stop the atrocities, but he was no longer outranked, and as he clenched his fists and ground his teeth he turned with the intention of doing something this time. But he turned right into Oliver’s colossal chest.
“Yes,” said Oliver, “it was Clever Johnny. Can we discuss it later?”
Alistair shoved his friend in the chest; only he could have forced him three steps back as he did. “I’m going to kill him!” There were tears of rage in his eyes.
“Can we please talk about it later?” Oliver implored him, raising his voice to a shout. They were nearly alone on the deck now; the men had made it to the stern and were scampering down the ropes to their boats. Only the two gunners, whose screeching gunfire continued to rend the night air, were with them.
“That son of a bitch!”
“Alistair—”
“I promised those men safe passage!”
“We’ll talk about it later!”
“This is what our government does to Kaldisians, Oliver! Why the hell are we fighting if we’re just going to be what we replace!?”
“Alistair, this isn’t the time!” Oliver pointed at the approaching attack craft that scattered to avoid the gun fire coming at them. None had yet been hit. “If we’re still on this ship in two minutes we’re going to be incinerated! WE’LL TALK LATER! You take out Clever Johnny right now and half the men in this rebellion will either leave it or take you out too!”
Both men stood in a ready stance, chests heaving, snowflakes furiously dancing about their forms and in the clouds of their breath.
“I know this isn’t what we wanted, but sometimes you have to compromise, Alistair.”
The ex marine realized he had raised his fists so he lowered them and he brushed past his friend. The big man sighed in relief, grabbed the two gunners and headed with them to the stern. As they scampered down the ropes, the boomerang shaped aircraft did a flyby, keeping low to the sea as they went. By the time the rebels made it back to their boats and were pushing off each other with paddles, the aircraft had circled back and now peppered them with gunfire.
Splinters and sea spray vaulted into the air. Alistair happened to be looking straight at one man as his chest exploded in a red mist and what remained of him fell limp to the floor. He knew real fear then, not the adrenaline rush that comes from a battle fought from inside a nearly indestructible war suit, but a true, icy fear that comes from the knowledge that any random bullet could end one’s life.
“Scatter when you pull out!” he screamed as Brad Stanson and Oliver paddled their way into the clear, past a sinking boat whose members hopped into theirs. Oliver took his seat at the motor and they were on their way, though the laden boat rode low. In all, two boats were left behind at the stern and three others headed for shore, their hulls breached by the gunfire. The rest moved out into the night, scattering in every different direction.
With the wind lashing at him, Alistair unsteadily moved to the front of the boat as it bounced over and through waves. He searched through the store of weapons and found a rocket launcher, but not a rocket. He settled on a powerful semi-automatic hand cannon with a magazine that held eight shots. Hustling to the back of the boat, he knelt down next to Oliver, facing out the back, and spotted an aircraft heading their way. He was dimly aware of the myriad snowflakes stinging the back of his neck as the boat tore through the growing snowstorm.
“Drive erratically. A couple hits and we’re finished.”
Oliver swerved in an irregular pattern. Alistair sighted the aircraft through his scope and started estimating.
“When the aircraft flies overhead, assuming we’re still alive, straighten your course out.”
The several other rebels, including Brad Stanson and Ryan Wellesley, sat in fear, tightly gripping the edges of their seats or the side of the boat. All eyes were on Alistair as the aircraft drew near and the water around them shot up spray from the bullets tearing into the sea.
“Straighten out!”
As the craft caught up to them it flew directly overhead. Alistair, balancing as the boat went over waves, pulled on the trigger four times in rapid succession, each shot producing such kickback that only a strong male like him could hope to handle the weapon. The large bullets streaked through the space above the boat, and two flashes announced that a pair of shots hit their mark.
The craft did not go down, but it did pull left. When it turned towards the spaceport at the top of Tanard’s Mountain, Alistair breathed a sigh of relief. The others let out a cheer. Seeing the other craft were pursuing other boats, Alistair sank into a seat next to Oliver, allowing himself to relax.
“We have what we need now,” Oliver said with a nod to his friend.
“I suppose we do,” he responded and laid his head back to watch the snowflakes streak by.
Chapter 30
It was a phenomenon dating back to the Dawn of Technology: men in tattered clothing huddled around a fire in a metal barrel. In the diffuse light of the cloudy Aldran dawn, their forms cast indistinct shadows on the walls of the three story, U-shaped building behind them. Huddled in the enveloping arms of the edifice, each held a skewered potato over the fire for the flames to caress. Their voices, though quiet, would have echoed in the flagstone courtyard but for the blanketing snow.
The men barely bothered to notice as Oliver and Bob LaSalle walked up to the building, their boots crunching the white blanket. At the end of the left wing was an entrance, and Oliver tugged at the door with one arm, fighting to pull it open against the ice. Yawning, Bob LaSalle covered his mouth and entered with Oliver close behind him. They were at the end of a hallway with a stairway on the left hand side where a man, wrapped up in winter clothes and with a long, ill-kept beard, seemed to be resting.
“Cakewalk,” said the large rugby player.
“All clear,” the man called out, nodding once.
Above, in the darkness of the stairwell, there was the slight sound of two men sinking back into relaxed positions. Oliver gave the lookout a wink and proceeded to climb the stairs and stride down the third floor hallway. In warmer months, the apartments would teem with seasonal workers but were now officially empty. Two men sat playing dice, a burning pile of something now unrecognizable giving them some meager light and warmth while coating the walls and ceiling with soot. A window was open in a nearby room, and a draft carried some of the smoke out.
“Which one is he in?” Oliver asked.
“Three twenty-two,” Bob almost unintelligibly responded through another yawn.
When he came to the indicated door, Oliver made it shudder with a series of knocks. A moment later it opened to reveal Henry Miller. His tired morning eyes took a second to focus on the gigantic form in front of him, but then a bolt of recognition lit his features and his draw dropped.
“Oliver?”
Oliver’s wide face split into a grin and he crushed Henry in an enthusiastic hug. Henry permitted the embrace for as long as he could stomach it before bringing all his strength to bear to extricate himself. They moved into the empty, featureless, one room apartment and Bob closed the door. There was a prone form in the unheated room just beginning to stir under a pile of blankets.
“When did you get in?”
>
Henry, reeling from the surprise, as well as the nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, struggled to get an answer out. “Rod just brought me last night,” he said with a vague gesture in the direction of his roommate. “Didn’t tell me the place didn’t have heat.”
“You’ll be in worse places soon enough.”
“When did you get in?”
“I’ve been around since damn near the beginning. I was looking through the recruiting lists and saw your name.”
“You’ve been around…” Henry gave a weak smile. “I guess you outrank me.”
“I expect so. Let’s take a walk.”
Bob moved to sit next to Rod Haverly, who was now sitting upright and rubbing his eyes. He dropped a can and a can opener at his feet and, as he sat down, produced a hunk of bread and cheese from his pocket. Rod opened the can while Bob munched on the bread and cheese.
“We’ll be back soon, guys,” Oliver said as he and Henry set out at a brisk pace. When he spoke, Henry winced at the booming voice echoing in the bare hallway and clashing with the early hour.
“I was a bit surprised to find you had joined. What brings you to us?”
“Well…” his voice nearly a whisper by comparison, Henry searched for a reply. It was a question whose answer he had rehearsed, but he imagined giving it to a stranger. Somehow, the principled argument he fabricated didn’t seem appropriate to give to someone who knew him better. “I guess I just got tired of getting pushed around.”
“Was there a specific incident?”
“Not any single incident. I just lost confidence in the State. In the Realists.”
“We were a small group for a long time. We sat around making plans and dreaming and not much else.” The two rounded the corner that took them from the arm to the central portion of the building. Halfway between them and the far end, the dim hallway opened up into a common room with morning light streaming in, illuminating a great tattered rug on the linoleum floor. A few pieces of furniture were scattered about, mainly wooden chairs the squatters brought. “In the end it was hunger that did it.”
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