CHAPTER 11
Daniel crouched behind Guy, and peered over his shoulder. Orange and white cloth, almost grey in the dim moonlight, fluttered in the trees ahead. A bulbous orange blob balanced precariously on a pile of smashed tree trunks behind it.
Another pod.
Guy's drone buzzed through the trees, dodged between the lines attaching the parachute to the pod, and hovered above it.
“It’s OK,” Guy said, then stood and walked on.
“What is it?”
“Take a look.”
Guy leaned against a tree and slid a long roll-up cigarette into his mouth. He pulled a cylinder from his jacket and pressed a button on the side, next to some exposed red wires. Flame rose from the top, and he used it to light the cigarette.
“What is that?” Daniel said.
“Lighter. Nerds make all kinds of shit from the crap in the pods. Not to mention the emergency supplies they send, real food from home. That’s why smart hunters are more interested in the pods than the newbies that come out of them.”
Daniel crept toward the pod. The parachute lines hung from the smashed branches of the nearby trees, and he pushed them aside as he climbed through them. He glanced back. How could Guy really be sure the inhabitant of the pod wasn’t around?
“Go on,” Guy said, and waved him on.
Daniel clambered on a nearby tree trunk, and pulled himself up the side of the pod until he could see inside. The seat was torn, the foam padding exposed, and pieces scattered around the interior. Loose wires burst from panels in the side of the pod.
And a skeleton lay beneath the straps that had once held a sleeping prisoner in place, among rags that were once their suit.
The bones were scratched, as though something small and sharp had scraped against them. Only a few tiny scraps of flesh remained, and the wires and chips of a skulltop computer were exposed on top of the skull, inside the helmet. The eye sockets were open and empty, as though something had gnawed through them to what lay inside.
Daniel’s stomach twisted again, and he jumped down and strode away. He’d seen more than he ever wanted to.
“What happened?”
“Rat got in, most likely. They do sometimes, then they’re stuck for months until the pod lands. The good news is that whoever was in there was asleep the whole time, and didn’t even notice they were getting eaten alive for weeks.” He puffed on the roll-up. “'Course, some sick fuck's probably gonna get off on the recording of it happening.”
“Don’t they check for rats before they seal the pods?”
Guy shrugged. “What does it matter? We’re all Condemned anyway. They just got theirs early.” He leaned over the edge of the pod and studied the skeleton. “Looks like a girl, so you could say she got lucky.”
Erica.
Daniel's heart triggered as he stared at the skeleton. Could it be? How would he even tell? Was she that tall? No, her head only came up to Daniel's shoulder. His heart slowed. Whoever had been in there, she was taller than that. And the hair darker.
Guy pushed on through the bushes, then crouched between them. They were at the edge of the wood now, and two moons glowed in a cloudless sky full of stars. The scrubland ahead of them sloped gently down toward a river that glittered in the moonlight. Guy pointed that way.
“Kingston’s over the bridge, then a few klicks up the river. The mines ship ore down the river, and the slave market ships slaves up to the mines, and out along the coast. Boats are a lot safer than carts, so long as you avoid the pirates.” He grabbed Daniel’s arm, then pointed into the sky. “Hey, look at that.”
A bright dot crossed the sky and passed the largest moon, then slowly sank down toward the mountains.
“There you are. That’s your ship.”
“How do you know?”
“No-one else comes here, and the automatic defence stations would blow them out of the sky if they did. They don’t want anyone coming out here to rescue their friends. This year’s ship will be collecting the last year of recordings from the satellites, to take back home for the commissars to watch.”
“I’m going home, somehow. I shouldn’t be here.”
“What, you’re going to build a rocket to get you off this place, then a warp drive to get you home? Or capture the next gulag ship, and fly it back? All of that, while the commissars watch everything you do?”
“If it’s a year between ships, that’s a year to get ready, before they know anything. Longer, really, when the ship will take months to return the recordings before anyone can watch.”
Guy laughed as his eyes scanned the area beyond the woods. “Damn, kid, I’m glad I found you. This is the funniest trip I’ve had in years.”
“I just want to go home.”
Back to his comrades, in their barracks at EdCamp. A safe space with no worries about being murdered, or worse, if he turned his back on the wrong man. Real food to eat. He'd obey PubSafe, stop complaining about the World State, graduate, and do what he was told for the rest of his life.
“Kid, you're here for good. You can deal with it, or you can spend your time pining for home until you're ready to just give up and let the next hunter catch you, and eat you.”
He would never do that. He’d find a way to escape. Or, if that failed, find a way to make a good life with good people. If they Condemned him for protesting, there must be others.
“Where are we going?”
Guy pointed toward a dark line running across the scrub, toward the sea. “No more woods from here to the river. That’s what passes for the road to Kingston. Much easier to walk that way than trudge through the scrub. Just keep an eye out for bandits, and get off the road, and in the mud, if anything comes by. If they catch you, you’re on your own.”
“You’ve got guns.”
Guy tapped the revolver on his hip. “Between this and the rifle, I’ve got seven bullets. Then they take about six months to reload. I might have saved you back there, but there are a lot more than seven hunters and slavers between us and the city.”
He stood and strolled across the scrub, still scanning the area as he moved. Daniel stared at the road, his eyes tracing its path from river to sky, then back again. Nothing was moving. He followed, feeling extremely exposed on the open plain, away from the trees. If anyone was out there, he’d be easy to see, even in his new clothes.
“What did you mean earlier, about shinies?”
Guy reached into his belt pouch, and pulled out a rough disk that glittered in the moonlight. He tossed it toward Daniel, who caught it and flipped it over in his hands. Some bumps were bashed into the surface. Triangles in a circle on one side, and some worn-down, undecipherable words on the other.
“What is this?”
“Some shiny thing. We use them like Energy Credits back home. Silver and gold, they say, but I always thought that was just colours. The King dug some out of the mountains after the first landing, then he convinced some that trading for shiny things was better than fighting over the women. Course, that was after he killed most of the men who disagreed.”
“It just grows in the ground?”
“I figure it did back home, too. Just been no-one here to dig it up before us.”
“Then why don't we just dig some up?”
“Because some of the toughest of the King's Guards patrol the mountains. They’d catch us, and kill us. Horribly.”
Daniel flipped the silver shiny over in his hands. Should he keep it? It belonged to Guy, who had guns, a knife, and battle scars. So probably not. He handed it back.
Guy trudged through the mud toward the road, hopping over deep puddles where the rain had accumulated in pits. Daniel followed, looking up at the stars. One of them was home... maybe not one on this side of the planet right now, but one star somewhere up there. How was his barracks doing, with one comrade imprisoned, and another Condemned? It had been a lousy year for them, too.
What was Erica thinking? Did she miss him? Probably not half as much as he missed her
. If he thought about her again, and about how he would never, ever see her unless he did find a way back, he was only going to trigger himself. Better to just think of nice things, and try to forget.
A drone buzzed past, recording them. Would his comrades be watching? No, they'd never get access to the channel. Erica might, and see him struggle to survive. Would she be afraid for him, and hope he found a decent place to live? Or laugh at him, for being Condemned when he tried to impress her?
He waved at the drone's cameras, just in case. “Hello Erica.”
Guy just shook his head.
“Why did you save me?” Daniel said. Why would anyone, if he’d just be more competition for food and women?
“I need help on a job. You seem like a bright kid.”
That didn't sound good. “What kind of a job?”
Guy laughed. “Better job than being a butt-whore. And one that needs brains more than muscles, or I wouldn’t have picked you. That’s about all I can say right now.”
“Why me?”
Guy shrugged. “Maybe I’m just trying to do some good in my life. If someone had helped me when I was a newbie, I might not have ended up in the damn mines.”
Did he mean it? He could have killed Daniel a dozen times before now, if he wanted to. Or kept him tied up, and sold him to slavers. Or eaten him.
Besides, what other choice did he have?
“I guess I’m in.”
Something thumped in the distance. Was that someone shouting, or was he just imagining it? Daniel turned, and stared into the darkness. Something was coming toward them along the track. Something big and fast, surrounded by a swarm of drones.
“Down,” Guy yelled.
Daniel threw himself into the mud. Wood clattered on rocks, and he looked up. A cart approached, a bear in the driver’s seat, a man hanging on beside it, his teeth digging into the bear’s arm. The girl with red and blue hair swung from side to side in a cage in the back of the cart as it bounced along the track. One hand clung to the bars, the other pointed a revolver between them. It boomed as she fired, and the muzzle flash briefly illuminated the track. Then the cart raced past, and rattled away from them, dragging a man behind it, his foot caught in a leather strap dangling from the cage.
Guy stood as the cart disappeared into the darkness, and the noise faded. He brushed the dirt from his leather pants.
“Don’t see that every day.”
CHAPTER 12
“Let me out,” the girl yelled from the cage, and rattled the door. She grabbed the locking bar and shook it, but it still wouldn’t move. She settled for kicking the door.
“Wait a moment,” Brunhilde said. They’d crossed the bridge half an hour ago, and now rolled slowly along the track on the far side of the river. The girl had been complaining most of the time, at least since she stopped screaming when the hauler grew too tired to keep running. The sky beyond the woods was turning red with the first hints of sunrise. One of the moons was sinking toward the sea. How many did it have?
The hauler huffed and puffed in front of her, then let out a loud fart. The smell oozed into Brunhilde's nose, overwhelming the stench of river mud and wet fur. That was as good a reason as any to pull off the track for a moment. She hauled on the reins until the hauler dragged the cart onto the grass, then pulled back hard until it stopped. It snorted loudly, then relaxed as she loosened her grip. It lowered its head and chewed on the plants as she climbed down from the cart.
Dumb creature. When she was a little girl, she’d wanted a pony. She never got one, only the commissars' kids did, but she met a few, and they were smarter than these things. Didn’t have as many legs, either. With eight of them, how did it manage to walk without one getting in the way of another all the time?
Joseph’s body lay beside her on the bench. Blood and brains were smeared around him where she’d had to smash his skull on the seat to stop him biting her. The bites on her arm had almost stopped bleeding, but blood still matted the fur around them.
She’d have thrown him out, but she did need some clothes. She pulled the leather jerkin from his body, and wiped off as much blood and goo as she could on his back. Her arms were almost as wide as his chest, and the pants he wore were barely large enough to work as gloves. She settled for tying the jerkin around her waist as a loincloth. That would have to do for now.
She climbed over the back of the seat, and around to the side of the cage, keeping an eye on the girl. Pretty face, big tits that didn’t flop down when she was naked, and a round ass. She must have had good connections to get a lot of body mods back home. Probably wasn’t a killer, at least, though she’d made a good job of that guard. She still held the gun in her hand, but wasn’t pointing it toward anything.
“Hurry up, please, comrade,” the girl said. Polite, too.
Brunhilde climbed into the back of the cart, and pulled the bar away from the door. It stuck, and she pulled harder. Wood creaked and cracked, then the bar came free. She tossed it over the side of the cart, and pulled the door open.
The girl stepped out, keeping her finger on the trigger of the revolver. Her breasts wobbled as she moved, but didn’t swing and slap like Brunhilde’s did. Definitely body mods. Of course, she should have fixed her height at the same time. Her shoulders were barely above Brunhilde's waist.
“Thank you,” she said. “I hate to think what I'd be doing if you hadn't rescued me from those shitheads.”
“Girl, I wasn't rescuing you. I just needed a ride.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“Don't mean nothing.”
“It's so nice to have a friend in this awful place, isn't it?”
“Don't go getting any ideas. I saw that coffin tattoo on your ass. Back home, I'd have killed any Undertakers who came onto my turf.”
“But here, you didn't.”
“I've got bigger assholes than you to worry about here.”
“Us girls need to stick together.”
She had a point. The planet was full of people who wanted to kill them, or worse, and she could do with all the real friends she could get. But could she trust this one? Hiding behind Brunhilde’s muscles would certainly help Pretty Face here, but what would she gain? The girl had a gun, and could use it, even if she didn’t hit much. Not much else going for her.
“So what are you here for?”
“The Undertakers had me banging the Chief Commissar of Public Safety in New Beirut. I could twist him around his little dick when something needed to be forgotten about.”
“Didn't realize fucking was a capital crime.”
“His other girls found out.”
“Ah.”
“I don't think I need to ask why you're here.”
“I only kill assholes. They all deserved it.”
“And people who annoy you?”
“Same thing. Some people just need killing.” Brunhilde held out a paw, claws retracted. “Brunhilde. I’m not saying anything about friends, but maybe we could hang out together until we figure out what the hell is going on here.”
The girl grabbed one of Brunhilde's fingers in her small hand, and shook it. “I'm Princess.”
“You might want to get a new name. Something that will help scare these assholes away.”
“I was Princess Melony when I was stripping.” She half-grinned, and wiggled her chest from side to side so everything shook. “You know, melons.”
Of course. That was where she'd seen the girl before. But her hair was blonde, back then.
“That's a porn name, really, isn't it?”
The girl looked away, and frowned.
“I saw the one with...” Brunhilde began.
“Yeah, I guess everyone's seen that. Never should have done it, but the Undertakers needed to make some eCreds fast, and I wanted to get in with the gang.”
“That was a great recording. Very... unusual. You're lucky most of the men were sent here too early to have seen it.”
Princess sighed. “The usual stuff is OK fo
r the proles, but commissars expect something special, when they can just watch the Punishment Channel all day. You wouldn't believe some of the recordings they showed me.”
“I couldn't believe you got those things inside you.”
“I'm tougher than I look.”
“But it's still not really a good name, is it?”
“I like it.”
“Well, good luck.”
“I knew I had to end up here one day.” Princess waved the revolver in the air. “I've got a gun. Now I just need to find the other Undertakers on Hades, if there are any. And some clothes.”
Brunhilde grabbed Joseph's legs, and pulled them up over the back of the seat. “Take this guy's pants. There was another asshole round the back of the cart, last I saw. You can have whatever he was wearing.”
She pulled off Joseph's boots, then his pants. Then tossed the body over the side of the cart, into the bushes alongside. They crunched as it landed on top of them, and the body collapsed into a bloody mess. As she tossed the boots and pants toward Princess, a rat scuttled between the bushes, and sniffed around Joseph's smashed head.
Princess looked up over the back of the cart. “He's gone.”
“What do you mean, he's gone?”
Princess held up a frayed leather cord. “That's all that's left.”
“We've been dragging him for over an hour. Probably just wore through the cord. I'm not going back to look for him.”
Princess grabbed the pants, and pulled them on. “Not much point, if that's what it did to the cord. Wouldn't be much left of his clothes, either.” She pulled the boots on. “So, now what?”
Brunhilde looked along the river. “I hadn't really thought that far.” She pointed toward the smoke rising into the sky. It was darker and thicker now they were a few klicks closer. “Where there's smoke, there's someone burning things down. Let's take a look.”
CHAPTER 13
Daniel trudged toward the bridge behind Guy. His feet hurt all over in the ill-fitting boots. If he walked much further in them, would he ever be able to walk again? Maybe they’d stretch.
Condemned (Death Planet Book 1) Page 6