Under Shadows

by Jason LaPier

  Dozens of colonies had been constructed in those early days of the mid-twenty-third century. Only those in the systems of Sirius and Barnard’s Star survived. More than survived: they thrived. More and more Earthlings fled the dying old world. They left behind the masses, and the most stubborn of the upper class, still clinging to their plush arcologies in the present day.

  The final message of the play had seemed to be “good riddance” to those that wanted to stay on Earth. The colonies were for the brave and the forward-thinking. The separation effectively created a natural step in evolution for human civilization. The governments that were established were hyper-local. The corporations ensured everyone was employed well enough to meet minimum basic needs, establishing what Jax would later hear described as some kind of socialism through capitalism. The entire third act had been concerned with the struggles and successes of the first colonies, particularly the two that survived.

  What the play hadn’t gone on to demonstrate was how quickly the old world was forgotten. It had reflected Jax’s history education as a child: everything was about the early struggles and subsequent triumphs of the colonies. No one had an interest in the dying planet of generations past. And so he remembered the initial shock that he and everyone around him had felt upon hearing about the Earth Kin Rescue missions – more popularly known as the “doomed to domed” missions.

  Thinking back on it, Jax realized he had never really understood the motivation for those missions. They had always been somewhat controversial, in an embarrassingly isolationist way. In the past year, he’d gotten out of the domes on Barnard-4, seen more of the galaxy, and maybe that was why he was starting to understand it. The overcrowding of Earth was measured in billions, and the populations of the colonies were a fraction, measured in the hundreds of thousands. The resource the colonies had always been short on was people. The same resource that Earth always had too much of.

  So there was a practical reason, one easy to put on paper. Jax had understood that much; it was the justification he’d always heard. It was the people, the Earthlings, that he’d never really connected with. The play from his youth told him they were living in poverty, but he didn’t really get what that meant. What it felt like. And that was the difference threatening to swamp his mind with more recent memories. He did know what it felt like. The way hunger goes from mild discomfort, to nagging pain, to hollowness, and then at a point a couple of days in just disappears. How much of a relief, and yet how terrifying it is to suddenly realize the body isn’t working right any more. Signals are blocked out as the slow death creeps through the veins, and the body begins devouring whatever it can find from the inside out. In that moment, even the fear fades as the shell of shrinking flesh empties of the human within.

  Hundreds of thousands like that on Earth. Millions. Probably billions, depending on how wide his definition of hunger went. And only a couple of thousand that could get on an ark. Throw themselves light-years across the dangers of interstellar space in a desperate bid for … something … anything. Anything would be better than the dragging vacuum of starvation.

  Even being recruited by Space Waste would be a better life for them. But Jax had his opinions on being forced to commit criminal acts just to stay alive.

  He felt helpless in the moment. Lealina and the other members of the FSC were working, frenzied, debating between themselves and making calls out to their home districts, coordinating efforts. Runstom had gone off to report back in, to let ModPol Defense know they had clearance to land in the Low Desert. And so Jax stood there, trying to follow the dozens of simultaneous conversations in the room and failing.

  He zeroed in on Lealina’s voice, rising in frustration. He went over to listen to her argument with Jarvis Wainrite.

  “Jarvis, please!” she said, her hands tightened into reddening balls. “I have to be there! I want to help!”

  “I’m sorry,” Wainrite said. “I’d like to be there too, but it’s too dangerous. We just can’t afford to lose you. And we can’t fly out there because all kinds of debris could be falling out of the sky anyway. We have a limited number of vehicles that can get through the desert.”

  “Damn it,” she said. “What if I enlist in the militia?”

  “Lealina,” he started.

  “It’s important to us,” Jax said, interjecting into the conversation.

  Wainrite shot him a glance. “It’s important to all of us. But I’m only sending trained militia and emergency personnel out there.” He threw his hands up in a half-shrug, half-wave. “Besides, ModPol is going to rain down and rescue our asses.”

  Jax frowned. “You’ll forgive me if my faith in ModPol isn’t what it used to be,” he said in a low voice. He knew it made no difference to Wainrite, who was just as distrusting of ModPol as Jax.

  Lealina continued to plead her case as Wainrite moved away to dispense orders. Jax looked around the walls of the space and saw an empty net-phone. He walked up to it and pulled up the directory. Granderson, David. He dialed.

  He was going on a hunch. Granderson was the filmmaker that had blown Jax’s cover. Not that Jax had been doing such a great job at staying hidden. But it was Granderson that created the documentary around the magnetic flux sensor crisis; the crisis during which Jax met Lealina and helped the Terroneous Environmental Observation Board fix the bugged sensors and avoid an unnecessary evacuation of the moon. Despite what Jax had thought were clear agreements, Granderson had used his name and face on holovid. It was a matter of days before Jared McManus had shown up to arrest him, shortly after which he was stolen by Dava and her crew who’d seen the same holovid.

  The call connected after a couple of minutes of pinging. “Hello? Who the hell is this?”

  “David. This is Jax – Jack Fugere.”

  “Holy shit, Jack? What the hell are you doing calling me on a Terroneous public net-phone?”

  Jax watched Lealina from a distance, being ignored by Wainrite. “Where are you, David?”

  “Well, I’m in goddamn Nuzwick because I got word of your big homecoming,” he said. “I was hoping to revise the film, maybe get another shot at it? It’s a much bigger story now.”

  Jax wanted to rip into the man for even suggesting such a thing, then took a breath. ModPol had let him come back to Terroneous. He was no longer a fugitive. He tried to see it Granderson’s way: there was a good story in it, one that Terroneans would love.

  “So you’re still in Nuzwick?”

  A huff came through the earpiece. “Yeah. Trying to get into this FSC conference. People are demanding to know what’s happening with the ark. The news networks are saying it’s dipping into our gravity. Sounds like they may be trying to land. All the people in the know are in this one room and I just want a few shots, maybe a quick soundbite or two. This is history, happening right now!”

  Lealina had given up on Wainrite. She stood in the middle of the room, shoulders slumping and head drooping.

  “I got something better,” Jax said. “You still have that landrover?”

  Chapter 19

  Dava’s dropship led the way, crashing through the desert night. Lucky Jerk whooped with glee while everyone else gripped their restraints and gritted their teeth. All the way down was a crescendo, a growing rush of atmosphere and ever-increasing shuddering and smothering heat. Just when she thought her insides had been shaken into a puree and her eyes had melted in their sockets, the landing retros blazed and her ass slammed into her guts. Seconds later, a jarring blackness crushed her head downward.

  Adrenaline brought her back from the abyss of unconsciousness. She could move once again, and her voice still worked through the wheezing of her recovering lungs.

  “Report,” she managed.

  There was no immediate answer, and she glanced over at Toom-Toom. The young man’s head lolled.

  “We’re here!” Lucky said through a cough. “Everyone is still alive, according to the vita-stat monitors.”

  “Tooms,” Dava said. “Wake
up, kid. He’s okay?”

  Lucky looked back. “He’s breathing. Just give him a minute.” He glanced at Dava with an enormous grin. “I never dropped one of these before. Damn, that was a rush.”

  Dava nodded back, unable to hide her own smile. “First time for me too,” she said. The shielding had gone up on all the viewports and the entire cabin was dark, save a few indicator lights. She poked at an unresponsive console. “What’s the status of the rest? And where’s the ark?”

  “One sec. The landing caused a power-cycle.” Screens winked to life around her, scrolling green text against black backgrounds. “Here we go.”

  After a minute, Lucky started to pull up visuals on the area. Toom-Toom groaned, reaching for his head. Dava looked at one of the screens. Black sky, without a single star, loomed behind a massive structure whose metal edges glowed red. An arc of flattened, blown sand circled it, dotted all around with hot fragments.

  “That’s her,” Lucky said. “Looks pretty bad.”

  “Looks worse that it is,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as anyone else. “It’s built a lot like this dropship. A one-way trip to the surface. The edges will be a mess, but the cargo should be safe.”

  “Got a report here from Captain 2-Bit,” Toom-Toom said, suddenly alert. “Says ModPol showed up. Jansen gave him the order to pull the Longhorn back.”

  Dava shook her head. “So they aren’t sending any drop ships,” she muttered to herself. “Where’s the rest of Shadowdown?”

  “Controlled descents in progress. The black marias we took from ModPol are the only ships that can actually land on the surface without crashing. The rest are coming through atmo until they can eject.”

  Dava had ordered them all into a one-way mission. “Everyone?”

  Toom-Toom looked at her with a tilt of his head. “Of course, Boss.”

  She looked away, feeling relief and at the same time shame for doubting any of their loyalty. She looked at the ark, which according to the readout was about two hundred meters from their location. “Try to raise the first maria. See if they have visual yet.”

  Lucky tapped for a few seconds. “Okay, got ’em. They too busy for chatting, but I got a feed from their scopes. Check it out.”

  Dava was out of her straps, almost reluctant to leave their safety at first, then feeling a wave of freedom wash over her after shedding them. She came up behind Lucky to look at his screens.

  “Pull back. I want the area all around the ark. A couple of kilometers.” He complied. The scope enhanced the image as best it could with thermal detection and low-light filters, but under the shadow of the gas giant, the desert was utterly black.

  Then dots appeared, like stars in the darkening of dusk, only red from their heat. At first just one, then two, then ten, then dozens. They formed a semicircle around the edges of the view.

  “Zoom in on one of them,” Dava said. She jabbed at the screen. “That cluster there.”

  The screen rushed at them, pulling the ground closer and the dots grew, forming squares, then resolving into vehicles. Trucks or jeeps of some kind. Broad and glinting from their headlights.

  “Locals?” Toom-Toom said as he appeared over Lucky’s other shoulder.

  “No,” the pilot said dourly. “Misters.”

  The cells had been activated. They must have been hiding all over the goddamn moon. She took the control and zoomed back out. So many more than she thought possible. Their network had been growing quietly, cell by cell.

  Lucky looked back at her. “Orders, Boss?”

  The question was for Dava, but it made her wonder what her enemy’s orders were. First order would be to take prisoners, alive. Corpses could not be press-ganged. But that also meant some would die. Threats made real by example.

  If Moses were running the mission, the lives of the Earthlings would be treated like the most valuable materials in the universe. For one, he’d been an Earthling himself, but for another, as ruthless as he was, he’d never taken a civilian life unless given no other choice. Dava feared the Misters might not be so careful. They were following orders, and were probably promised compensation for each soul they brought in.

  She looked at the overhead view. The semi-circle was closing. Tactically, it would be better to come at them from behind their advance, splitting their line. But that would mean pressing them toward the ark itself. They couldn’t know what Shadowdown was or their motives, but they could guess quickly enough, and when pushed, they would start treating the Earthlings as hostages.

  “Tell the first maria to put down right there.” She pointed to a spot just in front of the long side of the ark that faced the closing semi-circle. “Get everyone else to try to land as close as possible. It’s better if they land on the other side of the ark, then press around it and meet at the maria.”

  “Got it.”

  “What about us?” Toom-Toom said.

  Dava stood. “Check on everyone in the back. Tell them to pop their punch-pills. We’re going to secure the landing area.”

  *

  Dava’s squad was nine. She’d spread her capos among the other ships, which left her with Lucky, Toom-Toom, and six tough, but less-experienced grunts. Still, the grunts had all been in the breach-and-board of the ModPol transport in Eridani. Which meant they’d all been captured and taken into the zero-G prison. Which meant they’d fought their way back out of the prison with the rest who made it out. That was a lot of hard lessons learned in a very short time.

  They had no room for a vehicle in the dropship, so they had to pound through the cold, dark sand on foot. They were closer to the ark than the approaching Misters, but the Misters had wheels.

  “Move your goddamn asses!” she screamed at the shrouded desert.

  Her own punch-pill had rushed through her veins. It was a last-resort drug, one that Moses used early in his career, then tapered it off due to detrimental effects on the hearts of frequent users. It wasn’t an addictive drug; in fact most people were repulsed after their first few drops. Crammed with chemical stimulants and concentrated sugar for a sustained burn, with a pinch of an empathy-inhibitor that ramped aggression.

  They fury-stomped over the sand like it had insulted the mothers that had abandoned them.

  The cold night swung hotter as they neared the hull of the steaming ark. It was a massive ship, its side rising above the sand several times Dava’s height. Some unknown percentage of it had plunged below the surface. They approached it near the rear thrusters, the rest of it stretching away, four or five times long as it was tall. Its form blurred in the heated, shimmering air that stung her nostrils with the dour musk of melted metal.

  She stopped for no more than sixty seconds to make sure her team was with her. Then she pressed them on. She wanted to reach the middle-point along the long side of the vessel. There were several access points to the inside, but they couldn’t defend them all.

  Engines revved and as they jogged, she saw the source of the sound. Three trucks bounded over the dunes, heading directly for them.

  “Get low,” she said. It was likely the Misters didn’t expect anyone to greet them. “Weapons ready. Wait until they get close.”

  She saw one of the grunts reach for a grenade on the strap across his chest. She held out a hand, shaking her head silently. With the magnets in them, the grenades were likely to hit the front of a vehicle and then stick. It would be a nice surprise, but those things were made for pushing through the sand and were protected front-wise by thick, metal scoops.

  She gestured with a flat hand. Patience.

  The vehicles pulled closer, their glaring lights gleaming off the surface of the ark’s hull just a few meters from where Dava’s squad crouched in the darkness. She heard doors yawning open. Boots hitting the soft sand.

  She pointed at three to follow her, gestured at the rest to stay. The punch-pills made them quake with anxiety. They would have to hold it until she was ready.

  She took her three out and around, creeping
outward to a point off to the side of the trucks, about thirty meters away. Without the glare of the headlights, she could easily see them. Twelve in all. They moved stiffly, an indication of the durable but cheap armor they’d been supplied. Their guns were more diverse, a hodge-podge of whatever weapons could be scrounged up.

  Most of them began a cautious stalk toward the ark. Three stayed behind with the trucks. She crept up to the closest as she watched them. She could hear the equipment of her grunts clinking behind her. Fortunately, the rumble of the massive gas-powered engines blanketed their stealthlessness.

  With a glance back at them, she unsheathed her knife and nodded. The three grunts looked at each other, and two took out their own blades: one held a jagged-looking dagger and the other a heavy machete. The third flashed the prideful grin of a wannabe boss’s pet, lifting the barrel of his rifle slightly to show off a bayonet that gleamed as though it had never been used.

  Dava drew her blade in front of her neck. She had no idea how well-trained these three were, but she hoped they would do the job as quickly as possible.

  She moved along the rear of the trucks, peeling off two grunts at the first gap – where one driver stood looking toward the ark – and taking the third with her to the next gap. Two drivers awaited them. She nodded at the boy with the bayonet and sprang forward.

  Her blade found the gap between the armor and the helmet like it was returning home. Her victim gurgled, then hissed momentarily before falling away.

  A yelp caused her to turn to the other. The grunt had jammed his bayonet into the driver’s back. He must have used enough force to penetrate the armor, but had missed the spine. The driver flailed, trying to aim his pistol behind but unable to pull away from the blade.

  The grunt began cursing, trying to push the blade further in but only succeeding in pushing the man, who cried out again. Dava ducked the flailing gun and tried to plan a move to the throat, but just then the grunt’s punch-pill got the better of him. He yelled out and pulled the trigger.