by Allen Ivers
“We’ve been a bit frantic since the exodus,” Talania sighed, “And many families weren’t sure how to think about their futures. They came here seeking a life and then... many believed the Empire had turned their backs on us.”
That was a naive assertion, Aaron thought, to think the Empire had ever been there for them in the first place. It was there for the whole, perhaps that could be argued, but for them personally?
Individuals were disposable, statistics on balance sheets.
“Colonel Riley…” Talania intoned with every diplomatic bone in her body, failing to hide the venom tainting every word, “Stayed to provide security, but that didn’t do much for people’s spirits.”
She stopped, pivoting on one heel like the ring leader she was. Aaron preempted her, “Cue the heroism.”
The finger guns from a grown woman betrayed her young age, “Bullseye.”
“You’re from a Press Office, aren’t you?” He asked, eyes narrowing.
She lost some of the air buoying her actions, but she didn’t lose her stance, “When there used to be one.”
Aaron sighed. Of course, all of the repairs had a cost attached. He wasn’t a person; he was a Capital. He was munitions. He was not expensive, and they had spent quite a bit.
In fairness, they had saved him. A little payback wasn’t out of line. “What do you need me to do?”
She dropped her act, hands flopping to her sides, “I was going to do a whole routine.”
“I’m direct.”
“This doesn’t have to be a transaction.” The creeping smile told him that she was enjoying the patter though, a curve at the corner of her lips. She sparred with everyone she met and enjoyed every worthy opponent.
“What were you going to call it?” Aaron fished.
“Quid pro quo?” She offered with a shrug, “We donate medical, you donate a few words. It would do wonders for the people, let them know they’re going to live out the year.”
Yeah, but they might not.
“I’ve got a few events we can set up, nothing in stone though,” Talania hedged, inching toward him, as though she was afraid to over-pressure him. She reached out, her slender fingers working against his shoulder, coaxing the yes out. “I could work with you and we’ll build something with minimal stress. You are recovering still, after all.”
“What about my team?”
Talania nodded, “We could use them.”
That’s not what he meant.
A crisp thud, metal on flesh. He knew that sound all too well, the cushioned blow of a baton striking a forearm, or that of ribs curling around a steel truncheon.
Aaron turned, searching for the source. It was out of sight, somewhere hidden in the gestalt of the city’s preoccupied masses. His were the only eyes that pricked up, as the civilians elected to instead quicken their steps and lower their heads.
Slaves avoiding the master’s whip. The shadow in their eyes and the hollow in their chests looked all too familiar to him. No one wanted to have the Sight fall on their shoulders.
Talania's grip on his shoulder tightened, her own unconscious danger sense, "What do you say?"
No. Aaron wasn't going to be distracted.
The beating was coming somewhere to his left, down a bouncy plastic boulevard a few dozen feet off, shrouded from the lights and the traffic. Aaron let his feet lead him towards the noise.
Talania half-mumbled his name as she tried to guide him away, but he would not be deterred, pushing through her grasp and towards the threat.
With each successive step, the happy din of the city’s life seemed to fall away. The light dimmed and cooled, as the mirrored daylight could find no way into this tight corridor. Aaron had to rely entirely on the neon store lights of nearby establishments.
He passed two separate store clerks on the street side who not only paid no heed to the repeated wet thuds cracking the air, but they also couldn’t meet Aaron’s gaze as he advanced toward the sounds.
They were ashamed, afraid, a cocktail of both.
He stepped over the threshold into the alley, and to her credit, Talania was only a few strides behind him, like she was following him into the mouth of a cave -- but she was following.
He saw them then, not even trying to hide. Two Army Regulars -- they wore pristine dress greens, with high collars and a meager spackling of medals and ribbons on their shoulders -- stood over a middle-aged man. The gaunt drifter lay crumpled on the ground, a dribble of blood rolling off his lip and down his linen shirt.
Aaron knew immediately why this particular man had received such singular focus: the beaten man’s blonde hair was cut shallow to one side, left to grow long to his shoulder on the opposite. His scratchy beard was cut evenly across but lacking in precision or choice.
The designs on his clothes blocky and geometric, but intricate and hand-stitched with a thick thread. Everything he owned was made by himself or friends, and every style done by the same unskilled hands.
He was poor, possibly homeless, a vagrant.
A deck of playing cards scattered on the ground.
The Regulars loomed over him, their stun batons out but not primed – preferring the kinetic satisfaction of the polymer. Wide stances, pushing their faces forward.
They weren’t detaining this man or apprehending him. They were hitting him because they liked hitting him.
It was in that instant, Aaron recognized them -- Anatoly and Kipling, two guards from the Capital Apartments. They had been so approachable, portly and lanky duo, with goods to trade and warm smiles.
They were the good ones; they sang a different song these days.
“You goin’ to answer my question, skel? Eh?” Anatoly jeered at his prey, “How much you made? You out here, conning the good people?”
Talania pulled on Aaron’s shoulder, but he refused to move. He wanted to see this, and he doubted the Regulars would like a witness.
Anatoly brought his club down onto the Vagrant’s leg, hard enough to leave a bright red welt, “There’s a safety reg, skel. No loitering. Do you know what that means?”
“No,” Kipling chimed in, “You know the facts about these colonials. Their ears are stopped up, all dirt and dust.”
A chuckle, as Anatoly tapped the Vagrant about the ears with his baton, pushing his head from side to side, “You got dust in the ears. Is that it? Dust in your ears?”
No more.
“What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” It really was more question than objection, but Aaron’s voice echoed in the space.
The two Regulars looked up, stiffening at the two silhouettes at the end of the alley. “We’re enforcing the law, citizen. Go back to your business.”
“I'm no citizen,” Aaron sneered. “This what you volunteered for?”
Talania sighed, all escape lost now. She muttered curses, as she reached for the taser on her waistband.
The Regulars abandoned their quarry and marched on Aaron. They split wide, one to each side. Kipling sneered at him, “You volunteering for a lesson?”
“I think he’s goin’ to die.” Anatoly snarled.
Aaron wasn’t fazed, “We’re all going to die. Just looking for a good enough reason to.”
They didn’t recognize him. The surroundings, the costuming, and the bearings were all absent. There was no clue to indicate all the past history they had.
No memories kicked up about cartons of cigarettes, or a bottle of Kevorkian Whiskey, or half a dozen pin-ups, or medical tape. These grey market dealers had forgotten one of their biggest customers because of time and place.
“I’m Government and this is my charge. Trust me, you don’t want to do this, boys.” Talania put some convincing steel behind that threat.
But the Regulars had the taste for it now. They were ready to take some chances. They were untouchables, heroes by ego alone.
Just as they were ready to pounce, Kipling’s brains finally connected some dots, “Did you come by way of Hospital?”
&n
bsp; “Yeah. You want to see the inside of it?” Aaron hissed at the genius.
“He really eager for some pain.” Anatoly shot back.
"I'm sorry," Talania interjected, "If you're going to threaten us, maybe do it without whistling through your teeth. It kinda undercuts your whole strongman routine."
Oh my god. He did whistle through his teeth. He'd done it since the day they met and Aaron had never noticed. Aaron almost broke up laughing on the spot.
They didn't like that mockery one bit. "Give me your name, brat," Kipling spat, "So I know what to put on your tombstone."
The charismatic Talania knew when to make her introductions, firing for maximum effect, “Name's Talania Dedria, jackass." Their smirks dropped in an instant – yeah, they knew who she was and what that could mean for them. "And this is Aaron Havenes, hero of the Rimpau Homestead. Killed a dozen Jergad drones and butchered the last one with his bare hands.”
“Well, that last part’s not strictly true,” Aaron chimed in, “I had a knife. Got a knife for me?”
Talania shook her head, crackling her taser in the air, “I got fifty thousand volts looking for a home.”
“We’ll make due,” Aaron said, as he turned back to the grunts.
But they had dropped their hostile stance, Anatoly even holstering his baton. They stared at him, slack-jawed and brows furrowed. “…626?”
Aaron nodded, his fists tightening. He prayed this new leg would hold out.
“You…” Anatoly said, “You’ve seen those things?”
Aaron paused, studying the man’s face. The grunt couldn’t be older than twenty-five, but his bright eyes and clean face more resembled a child. There wasn’t fear in his face, but awe.
Aaron nodded. Anatoly blinked a few times, processing that before speaking, “What was it like? Killing 'em?”
There it was, that moment's fear retreating in the face of a thirst, a hunger for glory and bloodshed. He wanted fearsome tales of valor and daring more common in propaganda than reality. In Aaron, he didn’t see property or a prisoner or a soldier: he saw a paragon. Something to emulate, to admire and aspire to.
To revere.
The Vagrant struggled to his feet, stumbling away further down the alley. Aaron watched him go, as the two officers were too occupied with Aaron’s battle-lore to care about their victim anymore.
This is who he was told to die for? Anatoly? Kipling? These were the examples of someone too valuable to lose, more expensive than Jensen or Nora? Or Quinn?
Huah.
11
Riley
“Is she trying to start riots?” Riley pushed the monitor down into his desktop, closing off the view of the last few seconds of annoying footage, “Because this is how you get riots.”
Talania had worked quickly and brought her bright-eyed war hero under as many spotlights as she could lash together.
To his credit, Aaron took to public speaking like he had been born in front of TV cameras. He may as well have been wrought from factory steel to be a sympathetic hero, and the crowds of Vanguard ate him up. He spoke of the Capitals and their struggles, their flaws and their desires, their dream of citizenship and what they were willing to sacrifice for it.
This was someone the Empire had deemed not worthy, not safe, not even human. This evidence ran counter to everything the people had ever known.
Contrarian evidence was dangerous.
“She’s doing her job,” Holmst muttered from his chair, eyes buried in the map that he has projected on the wall.
"Her job," Riley began, "As I recall, is to run the civilian Government. Not stage campaign events that undercut support for Security."
Holmst bit his tongue, choosing to look over parts of his map he'd already looked at. It had the unmistakable look of a child who knew a secret.
Riley's eyes narrowed, "Say it."
Holmst closed the map, tucking the hologram into his wrist, and whirling about like a rubber band had snapped, "She's a small-town debutante who writes op-eds about people being mean to her. The more credit you give her, the more powerful she becomes."
The message was loud & clear: stop being so emotional, so childish. Think like a soldier.
Riley worked out his jaw, "I'm supposed to do… what about it?"
“Not a goddamn thing. She wants to keep tilting at windmills, let her. She's an empty shirt using the ammo you give her. Don't blitz every down. Let her have the underneath game.”
“I give her the nickel and dimes, eventually she owns the store."
"Yeah," Holmst accepted, "But she's gotta save up for it. Meanwhile…"
Riley nodded. It was a solid approach: letting Talania have small victories kept her from making attempts at larger strides to undermine the colonial stability. It would keep her busy in smaller affairs, but it was the persistence that got under his skin the most. "What’s your recommendation for Specialists No Neck and Numbskull?”
“Anatoly is taking full responsibility. He’ll receive a demerit, and both men will be rotated out to a Wall prefecture.”
Riley raised an eyebrow, “They aren’t going to be so bored anymore. I like it. I'd have gone with a good thrashing in the public square, taste of their own medicine."
"This is more poetic."
"Yeah, it is." Riley nodded, "We’re going to want to loosen the curfew, let everyone cool off a skosh.”
“I’ll amend the Press Release and inform the Top Shirts. We need a repeat of yesterday like we need a hole in the head.”
Riley leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling like he might bore through it to freedom. He never noticed that the dots in the ceiling tiles were actually symmetrical. “If Princess calls about it, I’m up at the Fort. If she calls more than three times, I’m pulling her transponder.”
“Sir, I mean this with all due respect: You have an unhealthy fixation on that woman.”
Riley nodded, rubbing his face like it was bread dough, hoping to push all of his stress out and push on to the next of the ten thousand problems on his desk, “I usually focus on anybody doing the shooting at me. But, like you said -- next thing. Brief me.”
Holmst slid his fingers along his wristwatch, 'throwing' his map back up on the wall and blowing the image up wide enough for Riley to see: a topographical display of the colony and surrounding lands, all tinted a pleasant golden yellow.
“Echomapping by thumpers along the Pierson Corridor confirms the prevailing theory. There is a deep network of tunnels in the mountains outside the Basin.”
As he spoke, Holmst clicked a key, allowing the image to slide forward: a cross-section of the mountains with jagged lines crisscrossing toward a central point like the veins on a maple leaf.
Riley leaned forward, still rubbing the tension out of his jaw, “Thermal or LADAR pick up anything of note?”
Holmst tabbed his little slideshow forward again, adding a rather aggressive color layer to the map which burned the eyes. No wonder the amber glow was the default. This hurt to look at.
“There’s a sixty-kilometer block of the mountain range that runs four degrees hotter than the rest, but nothing focused. And LADAR can’t grab any useful readings.”
Riley stuck his hand into the projection beam, cutting the presentation short. The map retreated into Holmst's wrist like it was afraid to be touched, “That’s a lot of maybe, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah,” Holmst conceded, “Which is why I ran down the after-action reports for the last six months. They’ve been hitting us from all sides, probing the Wall for weaknesses, but wouldn’t you know it, they seem to hit the Northeast corner with a bit more regularity. Four times more regular.”
“Shorter hike?” Riley mused, with a soft smirk.
“Smoking gun, sir. They’re coming from the hot spot.”
“Okay… give me your gut instinct: have we found the nest?”
“Or a forward outpost,” Holmst confirmed, “Sir, these things aren't rocket scientists. They want to get somewhere, they have to w
alk. They have to be coming from somewhere.”
Riley stared at the wall, where the map had once been, but his memory could recall it all like he was looking in the mirror. “What’s your play?”
Holmst tabs his wrist, bringing the image forward again, zooming in on a cross-section of mountain, a series of red dots popping up, “Thor's Hammer can’t bombard from orbit with any kind of kill confirmation. We could drop CN-20 nerve canisters, but without knowing the volume of the space, we can’t get an acceptable air density.”
It was deep past the Wall, far beyond any support or rescue. The solid rock of the mountains might inhibit the Drones’ freedom of movement, but they certainly had defenses in place. Holmst knew exactly what we he was asking, and with compartmentalization, he was the only other soldier on the planet who understood how completely short-handed they really were.
“I don’t like where this is going,” Riley murmured.
“Sir, we can’t play defense all the way till the Empire comes home. At some point, we gotta go make them host the party.”
Riley shook his head, more like a quiver than a clean rejection, “Their house, home field advantage. You go into their ground, and you surrender the one strength we have.”
“Sir, we’re going to keep bleeding until we step up in the pocket. Small casualties here and there, disputes between factions. How long will the Capitals stay loyal? The critters will wear us down, shave off folk wherever they can, until we’re down to the bone. Let’s go deep, make these little bastards back up out of our face.”
Riley took a deep breath. It wouldn’t be the first risk he’d taken since manning this post, but the dice have a way of turning on their shooter. “A recon mission.”
“Yes, sir.” Holmst pointed at a mountainside. “I’ll take a small team, fleshed out with Capitals. We wait for a Jergad attack on the Wall, they make ‘em three times a week. With the body of the horde on walkabout, we make our move. We insert here, laying thumpers as we go and extract before they come home for dinner. Ideally, we don’t even make contact. The thumpers will relay data back to Thor and give us a better idea of what we’re looking at. Total mission time no longer than four hours.”