Under Shadows

by Jason LaPier

  Dava stood and looked out at the dark edges of the dunes around the ark. This had been an attack of opportunity. A scout had seen the half-open door. The information went up the chain, an order came back down: get some nukes inside. If the mission failed, they would find another way to destroy it.

  “Freezer,” she said into her comm. “Talk to me. What’s going on inside?”

  A few seconds passed. “Hey, Boss,” Freezer said. He sounded distracted. “There’s a couple of Earth operators in here, but everyone else is still locked into their tubes. Their system went into some kind of emergency protocol and we can’t get the tubes open.”

  “You can’t get them out?” she said. A flash of memory; trying to crawl out of the cold stasis tube, near-blind and numb and lost. Her breath grew shallow. “What does that mean? They’re still alive, right?”

  Again, it took Freezer a few seconds to reply. “Yeah, yes. For now. We need to get them out. We’ve got a plan, but …”

  She waited for more, but got nothing. “Goddamn it, Frank, what’s the plan? Tell me the short version.”

  “We need to trick some sensors,” he said quickly. She could hear arguing in the background whenever he transmitted. “We need a burst of radiation. We’re going to try to get it from the main power plant, but we … we can’t figure out how … how to make it leak to the right place.”

  She looked down at the bag. “Frank. Listen.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  “I’m coming in. I’m bringing a mini-nuke.”

  A frantic pause. “Well shit, Boss. We’ll meet you in the corridor.”

  Dava leaned down and dug one of the cylinders out of the bag. “You stupid fucks are lucky you didn’t blow yourselves up.”

  “We were supposed to place them and get back out,” the Mister said weakly. “They’re remote detonated.”

  Which meant they could be detonated at any moment. The black maria was made for transporting prisoners and any dangerous equipment they might be carrying. Fortunately, there was a special evidence locker wrapped in a faraday cage: no radio signal could get in or out.

  “Seven,” she said, seeing the outline of the gunslinger approaching. “Get your lights on. And keep your gun on this asshole.”

  A flick and hum, and a band of ambient light appeared around Seven-Pack’s waist. “Got it, Boss.”

  “Wide Mouth, get your ass over here!” Dava yelled. Then she turned to Seven. “Have Wide-Mouth haul these to the black maria, immediately. Tell him they have to go into the evidence lockup. You hear me?” she said, feeling her voice quiver. “We can’t have them remotely detonated. He needs to get them into the faraday cage as fast as he can.”

  In the low light, Seven-Pack’s face looked pale. “Shit. Okay, Boss.”

  “You go with him and take this piece of shit with you.” She paused, seeing the question written on the other woman’s face. So many deaths already. Once it didn’t bother her. So why now? She shook her head. “He stays alive. For now.”

  She held the heavy cylinder against her chest with one arm and ducked through the half-open door. Red lights coated the corridor in crimson. Freezer came jogging at her, followed by Jax and his Terronean companion. Behind them was a tall Earth man. The sight of him stopped her heart. He was gaunt with deep-brown skin, almost identical to her own.

  “Freezer,” she said. “Tell me you got a faraday cage in your kit.”

  He stutter-stepped as his quick-thinking mind put it all together and tried to tell him to run far away from the nuke that could blow at any second. Fortunately, the logical part of his brain came back just as quickly, and he restarted his run.

  He spilled the contents of his pack onto the floor. “Quick, get it in here. The whole bag is lined.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jax said. “This is a nuclear bomb? Where did it come from?”

  “The situation has changed,” Dava said. She couldn’t take her eyes off the Earthling as she talked. “We thought the Misters were just trying to take control of the ark. But now they’re trying to destroy it.”

  “They want to kill us?” the Earth man said. She wanted to learn his name, but it would have to wait.

  “I’m afraid so,” she said softly.

  “Why bring bombs in?” Jax said. “Why not just hit the ark with nukes from a distance?” Before Dava could even process the question, his eyes widened. “Because they wanted to make it look like an accident!”

  “Lucky for us,” Freezer said, tapping the bag with his foot. “This little can of radiation is exactly what we need right now.”

  “I need to take this to the life-support hub,” Jax said, reaching for the pack. “It’s the best place to trigger the radiation sensors.”

  Dava stepped in front of him. “How are you going to get it open, Psycho Jack? You telling me you know all about portable nuclear weapons now?”

  He blinked at her, mouth opening and closing. “I’ll figure it out,” he said, trying to sound determined. “Freezer can walk me through it.”

  “He can walk me through it,” Dava said, picking up the bag.

  “Um,” Freezer said quietly. “Walk through what now?”

  They all jumped at the sudden shrieking sound from the door. Dava turned to see the door sliding up another half-meter, a pair of massive hands wrapped around the bottom of it.

  Johnny Eyeball ducked through and straightened up. “Give it to me,” he rumbled.

  “Johnny!” Freezer said, pointing. “He’s the explosives expert.”

  Dava couldn’t argue with that. “Johnny, you really know how to pop this thing open?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re going to get a huge dose of radiation,” she said.

  His face creased and his good eye winked. “I’ve had worse.”

  “We got anti-rad treatments in prison,” Freezer said quickly. “That shit is still in his system.”

  Dava frowned. There was no time to argue. Unless someone tricked the radiation sensors, a thousand Earthlings were minutes away from suffocating in their sleep tubes. She handed the bag over. “Be careful,” she said softly.

  “Take this,” Freezer said, handing Eyeball a multitool. “It’s my favorite, so don’t break it.”

  Eyeball grunted as he accepted both items. He nodded at the Earthling. “Big man. You’re the guide in these parts?”

  “Amar,” the man said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Eyeball and the Earthling jogged off. Dava could feel Freezer looking at her. She looked back, into pained eyes. She sighed. “Frank, you stupid shit.” Torn between wanting to help his best buddy and completely rational fear of a nuclear weapon. “I order you to go with them.”

  He flinched, then nodded. “Yes, Boss!”

  As Freezer ran off to catch up to Eyeball and the Earthling, the Terronean woman grabbed Jax by the arm. “If this works, we need to make sure everyone can get out of their tubes.”

  Dava saw the touch, the connection between them, and remembered why she knew the woman’s face: she’d been in the holovid flick with Jax. The documentary that revealed Jax’s location, causing ModPol scumbags to come looking for him. That had been when Dava and her team made their move, both rescuing and kidnapping him. Press-ganging him into service for her own paranoid purposes: to have another hacker on the team to keep Basil Roy in check. The paranoia turned out to be justified; but seeing these two together in the flesh, she suddenly questioned whether any of the rest was justified.

  “An accident,” Dava said quietly, then turned to Jax. “You said that’s why they were bringing the nukes in. To blow the ark from the inside.”

  She watched his pale throat bob as he swallowed. “I think … I think they need casualties.”

  “What do you mean,” she said, hearing her voice strain with anger. She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close. “Who needs casualties?”

  He swallowed again and his eyes widened; he’d always been afraid of her. But his face quickly furrowed in anger. It
wasn’t directed at her, she realized as he looked into the distance. She let him go.

  “ModPol,” he said.

  Chapter 21

  Runstom’s foot throbbed in the cold sand. He couldn’t tell if the distant fighting was dying down or coiling back for a burst of action. A final climactic engagement. The defending group – led by the vicious assassin named Dava – appeared to have the upper hand, despite being outnumbered. The attackers were gaining no purchase, haphazardly rushing in and pulling back. Their ranks fractionalized on each effort.

  What Runstom struggled with was whether or not it mattered. ModPol had routed the Space Waste command ship. Defender dropships were inbound. Whoever was left standing when they arrived wasn’t going to be standing for long. The Defenders would cut through the battle-weary with little resistance.

  “If you’re looking for something to pass the time, I could use a hand.”

  He turned to look at the vid-maker. David Granderson. The man responsible for exposing Jax. Later helped to hide him. Runstom had finally heard the full story while he and Jax were on EE-3.

  Granderson was trying to juggle equipment, simultaneously trying to capture parts of the battle with his handheld camera and remotely control the roof-mounted camera.

  “I don’t know how to work any of that stuff,” Runstom muttered and looked away.

  “Well, how about an interview then?” Granderson tried. “Tell the galaxy what you think of this conflict?”

  Runstom sighed and looked at his WrappiMate. A message from MPD Command. “If you want something to film, aim your camera over there.” He pointed off to the left. “Defenders are dropping.”

  “Really?” Granderson fumbled with his equipment excitedly. “Never seen nothin’ like that! Nobody around here has.”

  Neither had Runstom, unless he counted the time he and Jax crashed an out-of-control dropship on the opposite side of this very moon. He didn’t remember much from the experience. Other than being surprised to be alive.

  There was a beep from his comm. The detachable communicator he’d given Jax.

  “Runstom here,” he said.

  “Stan!” Jax sounded panicked, and it spiked Runstom’s heart rate. “I think we figured out how to get the Earthlings out of the stasis chambers.”

  He’d filled in Runstom earlier on the issue with the locked tubes. The technical details had gone over his head. Unfortunately, the situation had meant Jax had been light on details from the battle.

  “Good.”

  “Good, yeah, but something’s not good,” Jax said. “The Misters – that’s the other guys who are fighting with Shadowdown – they had a plan to bring mini-nukes inside the ark.”

  Runstom took a breath. Processed. Shadowdown was what Dava was calling her new gang – Jax had also let him know this before. Ex-Wasters. And the attackers were new recruits for the Wasters. Taking orders from Rando Jansen. The man undercover. ModPol’s man.

  “Mini-nukes?” he said. “Inside?”

  “Yes! Stan, I think they wanted to blow it up.”

  “From the inside?” Runstom chewed it over for a moment. “Made to look like an accident.”

  “It wouldn’t make sense for Space Waste to kill the Earthlings outright,” Jax said. “But someone wants them dead.”

  “Someone,” Runstom said. “You mean – are you saying you think ModPol wants the Earthlings dead?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Or did it? If the Earthlings all died during the conflict – a conflict between two warring gangs – then the security of Terroneous would be thrown into question. The Defenders would show up in time to clean up the mess. Not before nearly a thousand innocent lives were lost. It would send a singular message: if ModPol had been here sooner, those Earthlings would be alive.

  “Dava thinks she’s secured the nukes,” Jax said. “But they might have more.”

  Runstom thought about it. Decided that play was dead. It was a gambit that would have solidified the deal. But it didn’t matter. Just the threat of the nukes was enough. That was all that would come of it. The key moves were well timed. They would not stop.

  “Holy,” Granderson breathed. “Shit.”

  Fat red streaks cut through the sky like slow knife wounds. Dropships.

  “Jax,” Runstom said, raising his voice over the distant noise. “Where is Dava now?”

  “She just went back out of the ark.”

  “You need to let me talk to her.”

  “Stan, I’m not sure—”

  “Jax, goddammit!” Runstom shouted at his comm. “You have to let me talk to Dava.”

  “Okay, okay!”

  There was a pause. The silence was occupied by Granderson’s cooing over the sight of the dropships and the shuddering noises they made as they battered through the atmosphere.

  “Stanford Runstom.” The voice was cold, but Runstom thought he could hear a hint of a smile in the words.

  “Dava, I know you don’t have a good reason to trust me.”

  “No, I don’t. But I trust some people close to you. And I’m going to trust you right now if you tell me why ModPol wants to see our people dead.”

  Our people. He didn’t get what she meant by that.

  “You can’t win this,” he said. “Defenders are dropping. They’re going to sweep through your attackers. And then they’re going to bury you in this desert.”

  There was a pause, then, “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

  Runstom swallowed. “Lay down your arms.”

  “Fuck you.”

  When she didn’t immediately cut the connection, he continued. “I’ll call them off. But if you fire on them, they’ll have every excuse to raze your people to the ground.”

  “And what of our people?”

  He frowned at the comm. Then looked out at the dropships. Whatever it was she was talking about would have to wait. “You listen to me, assassin,” he said, his tongue sour with the acid. “Do whatever the fuck you want. That’s what you Wasters do. I have a job out here. I’m going to do everything I can to stop these Defenders from stomping you into dust. But if you give them a reason to, there will be no stopping them.”

  “And then what?” she said. “They arrest us? Throw us back in prison?”

  “No one is getting arrested,” he said. “ModPol Justice has no jurisdiction on Terroneous. ModPol Defense is here on a special mission to protect this moon. If there’s no threat, their mission is done.”

  No response. She was thinking it over. Fine. He’d said his piece. How much could he back up his promise?

  “Mr. Granderson,” he said. “Pack it up. We’re heading for those dropships.”

  *

  Dava dropped the communicator to the ground. Jax flinched, wanting to reach for it, but not daring to approach.

  Amar’s voice came over the ship’s intercom system. “We’re in place.”

  “Okay,” Isella’s voice responded, also over the intercom. “I’m monitoring the sensors. How is this going to work?”

  “I have a munitions expert here with me,” Amar said. “He’s going to expose the nuclear material in this weapon. We’ll point it right where the sensors are.” There was a pause, then he added. “And we pray.”

  “Okay.” Isella’s voice was tired. “And if it works?”

  “Then we seal the room and get the hell out of here.”

  In the red corridor, Jax looked from Dava to Lealina. The overheard conversations were apparently over: first the one between Dava and Runstom, then the one between Amar and Isella.

  “We should go,” Jax said to Lealina.

  But she didn’t look at him. She stepped toward Dava. “Why are you here?”

  Dava’s eyes slowly lifted to meet Lealina’s. “Why are you?” she said distantly.

  “We all want these innocent people to be safe.”

  Dava nodded. “That sonova bitch wants me to tell my crew to lay
down arms.” She looked at Jax. “Your friend thinks the Fenders won’t slaughter us if we stop fighting. I’m not so convinced.”

  “He can stop them,” Jax said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it.

  “Even if he does,” she said, waving an arm and looking around. “Then what? We just walk away?”

  “No,” Lealina said. “No, you don’t just walk away. You ride with us. Transports are coming. I want you to escort the Earthlings to the nearest city.”

  “And who the fuck are you?”

  Lealina’s eyes narrowed and she straightened her back, which only made her look smaller in a room with a lanky B-fourean and an athletic Earthling. Still, she thrust her chest up with pride. “I’m the director of the TEOB. And I’m a member of the Terroneous Federated Security Committee.”

  Dava actually laughed. “You think your little committee wants anything to do with scum like us?”

  “You protected the Earthlings, Dava,” Jax said. He stepped forward to unite with Lealina. “You may have saved their lives.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Lealina said. “And trust me. If I go back to the FSC and tell them we have protection from – what is it?” she said under her breath, looking at Jax briefly.

  “Shadowdown,” he whispered. Dava arched an eyebrow, as though unsure of whether to be amused at their behavior.

  “I tell the FSC we have protection from Shadowdown,” Lealina said loudly. “And we don’t need ModPol. Do you know how the committee is going to respond to that?”

  Before Dava could respond with something along the lines of not knowing what the fuck some stupid committee on a backwater moon would think, Jax intervened. “I do. They’re going to love it.”

  “Exactly,” Lealina said. “We’ll get you instated as Terroneous Militia.”

  Dava’s face contorted as the realization set in: that someone else believed in her. That someone wasn’t trying to chase her away, or trying to run from her. Jax didn’t truly know Dava, but he knew her well enough to know she needed a family. And a family needed a home.

  “The Earthlings are going to make a home here,” he said. “Probably the last people we’ll ever see come over from the old world. But there’s almost a thousand of them here.”