by Scott Moon
A mag-rail train belonging to EMC-S (Exotic Mineral Corporation - SagCon) shot down a steep mountain at fantastic speeds. Four hundred titanium-walled boxcars were pulled by a front engine and pushed by a rear engine. The arrangement was maximized efficiency, relying on gravity to initiate the launch. Both the mines and the spaceport at Darklanding were higher than this desert corridor. Either place could launch or receive the bullet train.
A sonic boom rippled behind the freight train and water sprayed up from the lazy river, momentarily flattening fields of flowers. Nothing taller than scrub grass grew within a kilometer of the rail system. It moved like a projectile fired from an ancient gun, completely out of control if not for the industrial-strength monorail the cars glided upon. The fore and aft engines were needed only for the brief climb at the end of the journey or to stop in case of emergency—most of their mechanical mass was brakes.
A pair of airships lifted from the top of the mesa and turned toward the canyon. Heat contrails followed their engines as they accelerated to catch up with their quarry. Neither ship was new, and neither ship bore identifying numbers. Exaggerated white skulls were painted on the nose of the identical craft with the pockmarked damage of small-arms blaster fire decorating the areas around the side doors.
The two ships reached the end of the train and separated. One crept over the train’s tail, slowly advancing to what looked like a predetermined point. The other airship punched its afterburners and fought to reach the front engine of the EMC-S material transport locomotive. When it arrived, the two ships hovered as though following a plan and then carefully descended until the side doors were only a meter off the top of the train.
Twelve humanoid shapes wearing armor with magnetic boots and tightly gripping long blasters dropped from each airship. Rather than accelerate, the short-winged craft slowly decreased speed so that each individual was dropped a meter from each other. When all shapes descended, twenty-four in total, the two craft veered away and established a pursuit vector.
The breaching teams knelt and pressed sticky bundles of explosives on the ceilings of the two engines. Using hand signals, they motioned their teams to back up and form security rings. The heavily-armed raiders formed a perimeter, facing outward with their weapons ready and every sensor on alert. The chances of them being attacked at this point in the operation were nonexistent. Even if a rival or a regulatory enforcement agency wanted to stop them, the train was moving too fast and was impossible to access without highly skilled dropship teams.
The commander of these operators had to know there was no one else on the planet able to do what they were doing now.
One of the armored humanoids lost his balance and was nearly carried away by the wind. The strong magnetic force of his boot soles saved him, but looked painful as his knee twisted against the immovable position. The entire team held steady and waited for him to correct himself.
They could probably communicate through their helmet radios, but didn’t seem to rely on words. Professionals at this level didn’t need to talk. A comparable military squad would have run the drill dozens of times before executing it.
The breaching charges blew holes in the fore and aft engine cars and the two twelve-man teams descended quickly. What they did inside the engines was difficult to determine from such a great distance.
Whatever it was, it didn’t take long.
The teams emerged and were scooped up by the airships.
The mag-rail train, which had never failed in the history of the mining operation, shuddered and twisted. For a fraction of a second it seemed to accelerate, then twisted violently on the rail and flew apart. Hundreds of the titanium-walled boxcars twisted and collided with each other as they slammed into the floor of the canyon.
Ryan G. Gulliver stepped back from his telescopic camera in shock. “So much for my postcard business,” he mumbled.
Thinking quickly, he put one hand over the lens to protect it from multiple shockwaves crossing the high desert terrain. The morning air was cold and it buffeted him, blowing back his slightly long sandy hair and forcing him to widen his stance to avoid being knocked over.
He looked for the airships but could not find them. He wasn’t even sure where they had come from. He did a quick review of what his camera had captured. The images were shaky and full of debris flying into the air as the train came apart.
“Amanda, come in,” he said as he held his radio as close to his mouth as possible.
“Ryan, what are you doing on the channel this early?” a female voice asked. “What’s going on out there? It sounds like there was an earthquake.”
Ryan struggled to catch his breath. Debris continued to rain from the sky. The entire scene before him was a churning cloud of dust for several kilometers. “There’s been a train derailment. We need to get some teams ready. How many trucks do we have on the up-line?”
“What are you talking about?” Amanda asked.
Ryan shook his head in frustration without even feeling ridiculous that no one could see him. “There are exotic and non-exotic minerals scattered all the way across the canyon. We need to start gathering up what we can. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Amanda laughed softly over the radio channel. “Who do you think’s going to clean this mess up? Everyone knows how valuable it is, but it’s not like this has ever happened before. Do you think there will be looters with the ability to transport the exotics?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”
CHAPTER TWO: Twist of Fate
Shaunte sang a medley of her favorite pop songs as she prepared her hair in front of the holo-mirror. The device was the best thing she had purchased for over a year. She couldn’t believe how easy it was to address various angles and layers of her new look with the three-dimensional reflection. If her relative success at the mining collapse had put her in a more confident mood, the glowing report of the SagCon Board of Directors after the labor dispute had taken her straight to cloud nine.
She had not told them about her secret deal with the local human and Unglok miners, of course.
The arrangement cost her money, but the return on investment was astounding. She’d never made this kind of profit during her short career as the Company Man of Darklanding. Success was intoxicating. More than one of the board had asked what her secret was, and she had only smiled.
Hair completed, she finished dressing and strutted across the living room of her apartment. She did a little turn, did a little dance, and laughed in pure delight. Sunlight streamed in through the window of her corner office. She stopped for a second to make sure that her ego wasn’t running away with her. You know what they say, what have you done for me today? It is a new day with new challenges, at least I can be happy for now.
She crossed to the desk and boldly flipped on her computer display. What she saw didn’t even register for several seconds. The melody on her lips stuttered to a halt and she faced the news in grim silence.
Images of a mag-rail train plowing into the red sand of the badlands between Darklanding and the upland mines filled the screen. The action sequence repeated in a loop. Numbers scrolled across the bottom of the display. She barely saw them, already having calculated the financial loss in her head.
Time passed slowly, like a dream. The tears that formed in the corner of her eyes were not for loss of money or company property, but for the obvious loss of life such a wreck must have caused. She bent to her keyboard, not trusting her voice to give commands, and hammered away with lightning precision. Reports pulled up. The manifest was a cascade of numbers and scientific names for minerals and gases. After several tense moments, she confirmed the train was automated.
No one had been on it.
When she had seen the video of the train robbers cutting holes in the fore and aft engines, she had imagined them murdering the crew. Then she imagined everyone dying when the kilometer-long train broke up and slammed into the floor of the desert valley at supersonic speeds
.
No deaths. That was a nice change.
On the video, multiple dust plumes reached for the sky and that was when she realized how much of Exotic A19 had been on board. One of thirty exotics unobtainable on Earth and similar terrestrial planets, Exotic A19 had the rare quality of being extremely fine dust. Once exposed to atmosphere, it was essentially worthless, turning for all practicable purposes into a gas-like particulate.
The video quality quickly degraded as the atmosphere in the valley was polluted by A19.
Wiping her eyes and straightening her blouse and slacks, she powered down the computer and closed the ultra-thin screen. She went to the window and saw the deteriorating air quality of the entire hemisphere with her own eyes.
Such events were not unknown, but none, to her knowledge, had ever been caused by an act of grand larceny or terrorism. Her mind was moving quickly. She never wanted to feel that kind of shock, but there it was. The mine collapse. An attack on a train.
For every high there is a comparable low, she thought as she sighed heavily.
There was no reason for a terror attack on Ungwilook. The motivation had to be theft. Which meant there had to be someone who thought they could salvage the spilled contents of the train and hide them until they could be sold.
Which was absolutely, completely impossible. The loot was scattered over several kilometers and no ship could fly on this planet without her authority.
Doubt flickered in the back of her mind. How strict had previous Company Men been? Were there shadow corporations or private armadas in the Wilok system? On the planet?
She tapped the panel on her desk. “Sheriff Fry, my office, right now.”
She sat in her chair, throwing her feet up on the desk but immediately realizing she was too restless for the posture. Sitting straighter, she swiveled several times in the chair, stopped, and began tapping her fingers on the desk.
The sheriff entered without knocking a short time later. Tall, broad-shouldered, and smelling like dirt and tractor tires, he was the same old Thaddeus Fry—rough and ready to go.
“Where’s the fire, Shaunte?”
“You won’t be smiling when I tell you what has happened,” she said.
He leaned against the door frame and waited for her to tell him.
“A train derailed in the middle of Transport Canyon.”
He looked at his fingernails. “Is that something the Sheriff of Darklanding normally handles?”
“Do you have something better to do?” Thoughts of secret company mergers and corporate sabotage flooded her imagination. Calling Fry in had been a mistake. She needed him as far away from this as possible until she understood what she was dealing with. “On second thought, forget about it. Go back to wrestling that thing you call a pet and hitting tires with wrenches.”
“Hammers,” he said.
“Whatever.”
“You should come out and try it. I’m back to flipping the tires and found some old climbing ropes. Might help you relieve stress.”
She stared at him, clenching her teeth. “That will never happen.”
“It might.”
“A woman of my status doesn’t have time to play on the jungle gym!”
“Why am I here, Shaunte?”
She moved around the desk to face him. “I only wanted to inform you of the incident in case we see an increase in looted materials on the black market. That is against company policy and the law in Darklanding. Don’t allow it to happen.” She watched him through narrowed eyes as he studied her. She understood that he knew she wasn’t telling him the whole story.
Now wasn’t the time, but soon.
CHAPTER THREE: Mast Jotham
“I have already completed a spirit quest,” Mast protested.
Lingviat’s sour face didn’t change. He stared into Mast’s eyes.
Mast shifted uncomfortably under the pressure of Lingviat’s deliberate rudeness. He sensed the opening to the cave wall several hundred meters behind him. Dawn light struggled through the dirty haze that had arisen from the valley, then shyly peeked into the narrow corridor that descended at a slight decline from the cave opening.
Even with the pollution in the air, the atmosphere of the First Shrine brought him a measure of peace. If Lingviat would stop assaulting him with questions, Mast would be muchly relaxed. Oftentimes, he only needed to reach the First Shrine to find a year’s worth of inner balance.
Getting to the sacred place in the side of the Grand Mesa had taken him two days of careful climbing and hiking. Humans didn’t know and could never be allowed to know of the shrines where Ungloks made their annual pilgrimages. Sheriff Thaddeus had been understanding and quickly granted him days off—with pay, if his words were to be greatly believed.
“I must return at the beginning of tomorrow or my human employees will be muchly curious of my whereabouts,” Mast said.
Lingviat snorted. “You spend too much time on them. You know too much and feel far too acutely. The spirit quest of which you speak was from your youth. It is time for you to make a greater sacrifice and bring your full value to the community.”
Mast felt his heart rate increase. Lingviat was not known for his mercy. A hard master, he had led their people since before the humans came with their machines and insatiable desire for exotic ores. He also spoke the human language better than Mast ever would and didn’t seem willing to let them know. With his masterful speaking, Lingviat could cross many bridges if he chose.
“I am not your concern.” Lingviat watched Mast closely.
A shiver ran up Mast’s spine. “You read my body language like a page of words.”
“I do,” Lingviat said. “It is simple and muchly easy.” He used the misplaced adverb with heavy sarcasm.
Mast lowered his head. “You shame me.”
“There is no shame. You have truly been away too long if you have forgotten that fact,” Lingviat replied.
Mast folded his hands according to the ritual and did not respond. After a moment, he realized his mistake and said the words of acknowledgment, “Wilug-Kibem-Monolo.” It was a rote response, something he had fallen out of the habit of using in recent years.
“Why do you stall, Mast Jotham?” Lingviat asked.
Mast raised his head and looked the wise master in the eyes. “There has been some human tragedy in the lower canyon.”
“Yes, I see poison in the air. Perhaps it does not kill the humans. Would you be a foolish one and go into the dust cloud?” Lingviat cocked his head as he waited for an answer.
Mast looked down, thinking of humility in the hopes that he might be humble. “We face worst dangers in the mines.”
“But less often now, I think. You work for the sheriff above ground.”
Mast could not help himself. He raised his head and faced the wise one. “Yes, I do. If he needs me, then I will face the danger. He will not call me into the clouds if he knows what the dust does to our people. Whatever has happened, I must help.”
Lingviat smiled. “First, you must ascend the ladder of many trials.”
* * *
Mast looked down into the vertical shaft. Eons ago, some force had cut this hole into the core of the earth. It was as straight and perfect as one of the humans’ railroad lines. No one pretended to understand where it came from. It was there, and had always been there.
At the lip of the vertical shaft was a ladder. Mast held a torch over the edge to see where it went. The bottom was far beyond the power of the flames.
Lingviat stood behind him, looking solemn. “You cannot carry the torch during the descent without burning yourself.”
Mast heard the words, but was not willing to admit they were true. After pondering what he could or could not do with a torch, he dropped it and watched it spiral down into nothing. He saw, as the torch tumbled, bits and pieces of the ladder which did not run perfectly straight. It spiraled around the wall of the shaft as it descended.
“How will I ever reach the bottom?” Ma
st asked.
“You won’t.”
“Then what am I looking for?”
Lingviat lifted his hands high enough that they could be seen in the thick, wide sleeves of his ceremonial robe. “Your spirit.”
“Could my spirit, perhaps, not be found right here?” Mast asked.
Lingviat lowered his hands and clasped them before his embroidered belt. His sleeves once again covered his hands. He said nothing.
Mast reached for the top rung and started to climb down the ladder, pausing once he was out of sight. “I am not muchly fond of this darkness.”
CHAPTER FOUR: Faker
This was the part of the job that Dixie hated most. Breaking in a new girl was always hard, especially if they had no prior experience. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up toward the dormitory-style rooms where the girls stayed. She knew at least three were pretending to be sick to get out of working the floor. How many times had she told them being friendly was half of what brought people to the Mother Lode? Going upstairs was only for people who could afford it and whom she had screened.
The older she got, the more she wished that second part of it wasn’t so essential to business. Charm and beauty should be the most important things. And the ability to act. If the girls followed her instruction, they didn’t really have to do much of anything.
Who am I kidding, she thought. These dirty miners just wanted a warm body. Maybe one out of ten would want a little cuddle now and then and a chance to cry on a woman’s shoulder.
The automated piano in the corner suddenly seemed too loud and the smoke in the room became too thick. She lifted her skirt far enough to hurry up the stairs. If she had thought she was going to be making this trip so many times, she would’ve worn something less formfitting and maybe flats instead of heels.