Under Shadows

by Jason LaPier

  The armor might have been thick enough to provide protection at a distance, but at close range, the burst from the automatic rifle shredded his insides and sent chunks of red popping out the front.

  The advancing group was halfway to the ark when they spun around at the sound of gunfire. Dava’s mind rose above them to see the scene. Nine Misters stood between the ark and their trucks. Facing blinding headlights. Dava and three grunts could see them as plain as day. From the other side, five of her squad could see the Misters as stark silhouettes in the headlights.

  “Take them down!” she screamed into both her comm and the night.

  Her laser pistol blazed through the black. A split second later, it was followed by the eruption of every kind of gunfire. Lasers, projectiles, semi- and fully-automatic, burning and explosive ordnance. Less than a minute and it was over. The nine Misters were a crumpled pile of moaning.

  She looked at the grunt. “Bayonet Boy,” she said, unwittingly forever branding him with his new name in that moment. She pointed her gun out at the mound of bodies, some of which were still moving. “Practice your throat-cutting.”

  While he went to work finishing them off, she directed the other two to each take a truck. She took the third. They turned the vehicles around and lined them up. It wasn’t much, but the three heavy scoops now formed a short wall behind which the black maria could set down.

  “Dava!” Lucky yelled as she hopped out of the truck. “Get back! The maria is here!”

  She looked up to see the retros around the bottom of the fat cube of a ship. In the distance beyond, headlights grew all along the horizon. She felt herself grin with an empty anger.

  This was just getting started.

  *

  “We’re too late!” Lealina slapped the dashboard of the rover. “We’re too late!”

  Jax leaned forward from his place in the rear. The massive form of Barnard-5 cast the entire desert in shadow, but here it was lit with orange fire and white electricity.

  “We need to wait for the Defenders,” Runstom said from beside him. He was scrolling through his arm-pad. “They’re closing in. ETA is two hours, thirty-two minutes.”

  “If they aren’t here yet, then who’s fighting?” Jax said.

  “Gotta be militia,” Granderson said.

  Lealina shook her head. “FSC ordered them to convene at the north edge of the Low Desert.” She looked from the window to her handheld pad and back. “They haven’t sent anyone in yet.”

  Jax looked at Runstom, the green skin of his face creased in deep thought. “What is it, Stan? Who’s out there?”

  He drew in a breath. “I think,” he started, then paused. Finally, he said, “I think it’s Space Waste.”

  “Fighting against who?” Granderson said, turning back from the driver’s seat to look at them.

  “Space Waste,” Jax said quietly. Faces flooded into his mind: Moses Down, Rando Jansen, Dava, Basil Roy.

  “You mean, it’s Space Waste against Space Waste. In-fighting.”

  Granderson whistled in appreciation, then turned back to the front and flipped a thin screen down from the ceiling, covering the middle portion of the windshield. He poked at some controls and the screen winked to life. A video image appeared, mirroring the scene beyond. With more working of the controls, the image panned and zoomed.

  “What is this?” Lealina asked.

  “Roof-mounted camera,” he said. “Only 2-D, unfortunately, but it’s got a massive zoom on it. And tons of filters. You guys don’t mind if I get some footage while I’m here, do you? I mean, Space Waste on Space Waste!”

  With those words, the screen went from dark and grainy to bright and clear. It was like looking through a window at a sun-lit day. Heavy-looking wheeled vehicles jounced through the sand, their headlights blazing as they streamed toward a massive structure in the middle of the desert. Granderson panned over to this structure; the ark, undoubtedly. On one side of it was a boxy ship that Jax recognized as the same kind he’d been dragged into by McManus. Several figures were using this as cover and firing at the approaching vehicles. Both sides were trying to blind each other with bright lights. The view panned to the top of the transport for a moment, and Jax could see a massive gun on some kind of tripod, probably recently mounted to the hull. The barrel erupted with a stream of flashing light, illuminating the muscled figure behind the weapon.

  “I think that might be Johnny Eyeball,” Jax said absently.

  “Hey, do you know these guys, Jack?” Granderson said.

  “This roof-camera,” Runstom interrupted. “What does it look like?”

  As soon as the question was asked, Jax could picture the camera in his mind. He’d seen Granderson operate it on several occasions. It was protected by a round shell, like a dome, when not in use. When the camera was active, an opening in the dome appeared. For long-range shots, the lens housing extended, a cylinder that protruded from the dome.

  “A gun!” Jax said before Granderson could answer. “Close it back up! It looks like a g—”

  There was a pop and the screen flickered. The image was replaced by the words INPUT LOST.

  “Heads down!” Runstom shouted.

  Jax reflexively followed the order, then popped his head back up to look at Lealina. Both she and Granderson were bent over, hands clasped above their heads. Jax snapped his head back down and listened to his own panicked breathing.

  For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the inside of the rover was lit by a bright light.

  A speaker crackled to life. “Open the doors slowly. If you’re just civilians, you have nothing to fear.”

  “Should we do what they say?” Granderson said. “I think we should do what they say.”

  “I don’t trust them,” Runstom growled.

  Jax lifted his head just enough to see the light pattern on the ceiling. It was coming through the windows on the left side of the vehicle, where he was. He managed a glance at Lealina. Her head was still down, and her body was visibly shaking.

  “I’m going out,” he said. Before anyone could argue, he added quickly, “If those are Wasters out there, there’s a chance they’ll know me.”

  He popped the door and creaked it open, ignoring the hushed protests from the others. If they didn’t know him, then he would have to hope they were telling the truth about not hurting civilians.

  He stuck his hands out first. “Don’t shoot! We’re not armed.”

  “Come on out of there,” the speaker said.

  He looked back at the others. Lealina’s eyes blazed with terror, her mouth frozen open. He took a deep breath, then slowly slid out of the vehicle.

  He saw a truck a few dozen meters away. It was positioned parallel to the rover, but that was all Jax could make out as some kind of mounted light shone down from the top, flooding his vision.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Jack.” He paused, wondering whether to try to identify himself as Psycho Jack. “Do any of you know a Jack by any chance?”

  Even though the speaker was silent, Jax could hear the mumbles of a confused conversation.

  “Keep your hands up,” the speaker said. “We’re going to inspect your vehicle.”

  Jax raised his hands higher and waited an eternity before two figures emerged from the rear of the truck. They stalked cautiously toward him, each pointing a handgun in his direction. The air was frigid and the night rang with the distant popping of gunfire, only partially drowned out by the sound of the truck’s gas engine. Jax felt his whole body shake.

  About halfway between the vehicles, they stopped. “What the hell is on top of your car?” one of them said.

  “It’s just a camera,” Jax said quickly.

  “A camera.” He lowered his gun by a centimeter and cocked his head, looking up at the roof of the rover.

  “Ohh,” the other one said, gun dropping even further. “I’ve seen this thing before. It’s just a holovid truck. Like a portable recording thingy.”

&nbs
p; “Really?” the first one said. He tensed back up and refocused his gun on Jax. “Prove it.”

  Jax’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “Um, well, I’d love to. But it’s broken.”

  “Broken?”

  “Yeah … because you … shot it.”

  Both of their guns came down. “We shot it?” the first said.

  They looked at each other. A crack supplanted all background noise, and the two figures tossed to the left like plastic bags jostled by a gust of wind. In the cold spotlight, the sand welled red around their twitching bodies.

  Jax dropped to the ground and rolled under the rover. More shots fired, these even closer. Screams rang out from the direction of the truck. Then a fast silence.

  His brain had two seconds of calm thought and he remembered Lealina. He rolled back out from under the rover and began to stand, but only made it to a crouch before he froze at the click of a gun.

  “You’re Psycho Jack.”

  He picked his head up at the sound of the woman’s voice. Her skin’s crimson tone was that of a Poligartian and she was vaguely familiar to him. So many faces had swam by in his short time at the Space Waste base. “I am,” he said quietly.

  “Seven-Pack,” she said. She tilted a massive revolver downward and slid a couple of bullets in. Dark blood oozed from the jagged blade that was attached to the barrel.

  The dreamlike time as a Waster came back to him in pieces. “Right,” he said, slowly straightening to a stand. “You’re a fan of beer.”

  “Yep.” She finished reloading and slapped the chamber back into place. “What the hell are you doing out here, Psycho Jack? You ain’t Mister Jack now are ya?”

  “Mister Jack?” he said dumbly. More bits of the dream surfaced to remind him about some rival gang called the Misters. “Oh, no. Definitely not.”

  She held her gun to her chest, neither pointing it at him, nor holstering it. “You following RJ?”

  “Jansen,” Jax said carefully. In-fighting. Of course, if there was in-fighting, it would be those loyal to Jansen and then some other group. Which side was this Seven-Pack on? He had no good guess. If only he’d spent more time socializing while he was a Waster – such a thought made him nauseous with fear. “Dava brought me in,” he said, with what felt like his safest gamble.

  “So you’re loyal to Dava,” she said evenly.

  Jax blew out a breath. “Yes?”

  She watched him for a second, then cracked a smile. “I know you’re Psycho and all, but maybe you better turn this thing around and get the fuck outta here before you and your friends get minced. Half-Shot says he’s sorry he shot your camera.”

  He flinched at her choice of words, trying hard not to imagine what a human being looked like minced. A flash of bravado pushed him forward.

  “We’re here to help.”

  Her jaw slid as though she were chewing on the statement. “Help who?”

  “The Earthlings,” he said, trying to firm up his shaking voice. “Has anyone been in contact with them? Their life support was badly damaged.”

  She glanced over her shoulder as an explosion rocked a distant truck. “I don’t think so. They aren’t responding to any open channels. We’ve been busy trying to hold off the Misters.”

  “Did Space Waste really split?”

  “Hold on,” she said, listening to her earpiece. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s Psycho Jack. He says the Earthlings lost life support. Okay. Okay, Boss.” She looked at him. “I can get two of you to the ark.”

  She flinched, looking behind Jax. He turned to see the driver’s door of the rover pop open and Lealina climbing over Granderson.

  “I’m going with you,” she said. “You and I are the only people qualified to figure out what’s wrong with the system.”

  He completely disagreed that either of them was qualified to interact with Earth-based tech – especially on that scale – but then he realized that Granderson and Runstom were even less qualified.

  “Okay.” Jax reached for her and took her by the hand. He looked past her at Granderson, then at Runstom as he came out of the back of the rover. “We’re going to go.”

  Runstom put up a hand. “Go. It would be better for me to wait for the Defenders.” He stepped forward and handed Jax a small device. “Just keep me up on what’s happening. And Jax,” he said, fixing him with his eyes. “Keep me up on who’s who. It’s getting hard to tell.”

  Jax knew exactly what he meant. The Wasters had shot down the ark, and yet they were here defending it against some rival gang. And then there was Seven-Pack’s inquiry into his loyalty to Dava.

  “Yes,” Seven-Pack said, and it took Jax a second to realize she was answering his earlier question. “RJ is running Space Waste and he’s got the Misters on his side. Dava wants to protect the Earthlings.”

  “Okay,” Jax said tentatively as he tried to process that information. He looked over the device Runstom had handed him; it was simple, just a voice-only transmitter, and very sleek and silver with small markings on it that told Jax it was custom-made for ModPol. He lifted it up and nodded at Runstom. “I’ll call, Stan.”

  Then he looked at Granderson and opened his mouth to show gratitude, but the other man just waved. “I’m gonna see how bad the damage is,” he said, nodding to the camera mounted to the roof of his rover. “I got some replacement lenses with me. And if that don’t work, I still got my handhelds and my drones.”

  Jax nodded. Granderson was determined to come away with some footage, and Jax wasn’t compelled to stop him. He’d given them a ride out to the site; what he did now was his own concern. And any spare thought burned Jax’s mind as wasted time, time that should’ve been spent getting to the Earthlings in danger.

  He turned to Lealina and Seven-Pack. “Let’s go.”

  *

  Seven-Pack and a tall man with a long rifle named Half-Shot each had small all-terrain vehicles. They’d been on scouting patrol when they’d shot out Granderson’s camera and then subsequently saved Jax’s ass from some Misters. Within minutes, the two ATVs brought Jax and Lealina right up to the side of the ark, and then into the safety of the boxy transport’s shadow, which was lightning-strike strobe-lit from the gun mounted on top.

  Seven-Pack led them through the rear door of the transport, and Jax’s memories hounded him. If it wasn’t the exact same ship that he’d been taken aboard when McManus tracked him down, it was at least the exact same model. He felt his breath growing short as they passed through it.

  Dava was sitting in the small bridge, along with a pilot Jax had met before – his nametag reminding Jax the name was Lucky Jerk – and another Waster that Jax had seen before in passing. The two young men were operating the consoles with Dava passing between them, looking over their shoulders and periodically speaking into her headset.

  “Psycho Jack,” she said when she noticed him. A crooked smile dented her cheek. “You have a way of turning up.”

  “Hi, Dava.” He looked around the cabin sheepishly. “Thanks for not killing me the last time.”

  Her smile grew for a moment, then disappeared into the press of the present. “Seven-Pack told me you can fix the life support on the ark.”

  Jax swallowed. “Well, I hope I can—”

  She stepped up to him, drawing close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath on his cheeks. He wanted to reach behind and blindly seek out Lealina’s hand, but he found he couldn’t move. “Do you know where I’m from?” Dava said.

  “Yes,” he said in a whisper. Earth, his mind said, but he couldn’t get the word out, preoccupied with the glinting blade strapped to Dava’s chest.

  “Those are my people, Jax.” He’d forgotten that he’d asked her to call him that, but as soon as he heard it, a relief came over him. She wasn’t threatening him, she needed him.

  “We can do it,” Lealina said. “We’ll make sure they’re safe. This is their home now.”

  Dava’s face seemed to relax on first hearing Lealina’s voice, then bunc
hed up at the end in a kind of sad anger. She backed away and looked back at one of the consoles.

  “Freezer is almost in, at this door, number five,” she said. “Take him in with you – he’s a better hacker than you are.”

  Jax almost felt hurt, then remembered he never called himself a hacker – that was always their term. “Okay.” He glanced at Lealina, then back at Dava. “Thank you.”

  “I want those people safe,” she said. She turned and faced them again, her face dark and her teeth rigid. “My people. I would go with you, but there’s no one to murder inside the ark. So I’m going to stay out here and murder anyone else that thinks they’re getting in.”

  Jax’s eyes fell to the blade and bounced back to her face. His flesh rose at the sincerity of her promise.

  “Why are the Wasters doing this?” Lealina said. Jax trembled at her brazen question. He wished he could pull her aside and relate some of the things that Dava was capable of, as a way to inform her that this was not a woman anyone should endeavor to spend long amounts of time with in enclosed spaces.

  “The Wasters are recruiting,” Dava said, unperturbed by the challenge. Her voice turned cold and matter-of-fact. “Those idiots in the trucks out there are cells of Misters. Rando Jansen made them some kind of deal, an alliance. He’s out there in the Longhorn. He shot down the ark so the Misters could rush it.”

  “For … recruiting?” Lealina said.

  “That’s why the Wasters and the Misters are here,” Dava said. Her voice lowered. “We’re here to stop them.”

  “We’re Shadowdown,” Lucky Jerk said brightly. Everyone looked at him and he shrugged. “It’s still catching on.”

  Jax finally put it together that Dava was leading this Shadowdown group, while Jansen was leading the rest of Space Waste. Which left a question. “Moses Down?” he said, the quiver in his voice betraying his fear of the answer.

  The two men glanced at Dava and then refocused on their consoles. She looked at Jax, her eyes seeing something light-years distant, then snapping back to the present.