by Scott Moon
But she hated seeing them make a fatal mistake. I could be wrong, she thought. But I guess I’ll have a look for myself.
CHAPTER EIGHT: Morning in Raven’s Haven
The accommodations in the science depot were everything Thad expected and less. Gale force winds had picked up throughout the night, and he hadn’t slept much listening to sand and other debris impacting the walls of the prefabricated structure. When morning came, he stepped outside to one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen.
The cloud of A19 and other atmospheric debris had somehow coalesced after the storm blew it back and forth across the canyon. Visibility remained limited, but sunlight streaked underneath the clouds, turning them red and gold and orange. He watched the mist churn like a disturbed space nebula and slowly expand toward the ground. Soon this place would be submerged in darkness once more.
Raven’s Haven was a town so small that wild animals crossed the streets and did their business as they saw fit. He looked down the center of the main road and saw a pack of four-legged creatures running toward a distant stand of trees—some type of oasis in the midst of a cold desert landscape. The lack of precipitation had dried the area out, leaving only tundra.
“I have to quit using my Earth preconceptions of what I see,” Thaddeus said as he sipped coffee from a SagCon mug that had seen better days. Sitting on the porch with the dog-thing was relaxing. He wondered if he should spend more time away from Darklanding in the future.
“Huff,” Maximus said.
Ryan and Amanda emerged a short time later.
“Good morning, Sheriff,” Amanda said. “I apologize for our deficiencies as hosts, but we have some chores that need attending to.”
Ryan nodded but didn’t stop to chitchat. He moved down the street picking up debris without making eye contact with Thaddeus.
Thad raised his coffee cup to Amanda and smiled. “Good morning. Let me know if I can be of assistance.”
He finished his coffee, watching the clouds settle lower and lower until the whole world seemed to be the town and nothing else. He wanted to put away the coffee cup, but worried Amanda and Ryan would think he was snooping around if he went back inside. He found a hook on the railing that was probably for a hat and hung the cup there.
“Maximus, let’s have a walk,” he said.
The dog-thing pulled itself to its feet and followed him. He made a quick tour of the main street buildings, noting there were bullet holes and scorch marks on virtually every structure. He discovered part of the road had a deep gouge that was unlikely to be repaired without resurfacing the entire street. Memories of Centauri Prime began to circle his mind.
There wasn’t much else to see, so he stood near his ship and watched Amanda and Ryan. They did the work of a dozen people. After cleaning up the debris from the night’s storm, they checked each building and secured several of the protective shutters on windows. They checked instruments on the exterior of their science building, then went inside looking exhausted.
He didn’t trust the two scientists, or whatever they were. He also felt bad for them. This town was off the radar, and in a technical sense, a haven for outlaws. They were operating without a SagCon charter and without support. Few frontier settlements were self-sufficient enough to keep them from being vulnerable.
The evidence of frequent raids was hard to miss. What disturbed him more was the fact that there were outlaws in this area capable of doing such damage. Finding their hideout would be his next order of business, right after he figured out what had caused the train derailment. He wasn’t an expert regarding transportation of heavy materials, and Shaunte had not been forthcoming with whatever evidence she had regarding the incident.
Ryan and Amanda would have to provide some answers. He didn’t trust them and they didn’t trust him, so he imagined it would be a long day.
A settlement that was off the grid. Outlaws on a SagCon planet where there shouldn’t be any. A train derailment that shouldn’t have happened. A SagCon special investigator appearing in Darklanding at the same time.
Thad didn’t believe in coincidences.
CHAPTER NINE: Positive Balance
Dixie resented the need to evade the hulking SagCon SI. He was too clever for his own good. Ugly as Maximus, he’d somehow become the favorite of all the girls at the Mother Lode. She knew he’d never taken one upstairs or bought them drinks. The reason for his popularity eluded her.
Twice a month, she checked on her investments. Privacy was her paramount concern. What did it matter that she was curious about the ugly brute? Just because Ruby Miranda had upset her financial safety net didn’t mean she needed to start looking for allies. And if she needed someone other than Pierre or the sheriff, it certainly wouldn’t be a man like Sledge.
The SI thug would be gone in a week, if not sooner. She wasn’t about to trust anyone who worked for the company that had brought her here as a child. Well, maybe not a child exactly, but younger than Ruby and not nearly as resourceful. She saw through his façade. In her experience, men as large as Michael “Sledge” Hammer backpedaled when someone actually stood up to them.
It was pathetic.
The main room of the Mother Lode was half-empty, which made her job difficult and easy at the same time. She descended the stairs and scanned the room, cataloguing all the mistakes her girls were making while she simultaneously looked for her nemesis. Not finding him, she went straight for the front door and stepped outside.
The street was deserted because it was between shifts on a Wednesday. She moved along the broad porch that had been added to the prefabricated building when the Mother Lode was built. Leaning on the railing with both hands as she was prone to do when bored or showing off, she gave the street a second look. She didn’t put it above the man to hide in one of the dark alleys and spy on her establishment. Well, Pierre’s establishment, technically.
After a few minutes, she reached a tenuous balance between impatience and confidence. She moved down the stairs and into the street. She strode forward as though she meant business. Real business, not picking up Johns for the Mother Lode.
After three laps of her evasion course—a switchback path she had designed between buildings and utility boxes, some of which were bigger than the pre-fab buildings—she felt better. Worn, dirty, and neglected, this neighborhood was the best place to lose a tail.
Each time she doubled back, she looked for Sledge. It used to be Pierre she worried about, but he had quit trying to follow her long ago.
All clear, she thought. Something moved on one of the rooftops. Could a man built like an ox even get up there? She thought not.
There was one way to lose a follower for sure, and that was to cross Darklanding during the livestock drive. She’d used the tactic in the past, losing her imagined pursuers in a herd of pigs—or whatever you called a group of them.
The smell wasn’t worth it today and waiting for the herdsmen didn’t appeal to her.
She looked around for a while and grew bored with the game. No one ever caught her and no one ever would. Maybe she had secretly hoped Sledge would offer more of a challenge.
I just thought of him by his nickname, weird. She shook the thought away. He was a special kind of unappealing—too big and hairy for a delicate woman like her to endure. She sighed and walked toward the first of three greenhouses.
One and two produced the disgusting Ungwilook vegetables that smelled like dirty feet and tasted like sour milk. The third, however, was heaven.
She nodded to the Unglok manager but didn’t attempt small talk. He, or maybe it was a she, couldn’t or wouldn’t speak any of the human languages.
The door to her secret greenhouse was unlocked. She stepped back and looked around. The Unglok watched her.
“Why is this unlocked?”
The Unglok manager shrugged.
Dixie harrumphed, then turned to the door. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she stepped inside.
“Hello, Dixie
. I hope you don’t mind. I sampled a few of your peaches,” Special Investigator Michael “Sledge” Hammer said.
“You!”
“I was hoping you might not charge me for the first one. My expense accounts have limits, believe it or not.”
Dixie felt blood rushing to her face but couldn’t speak.
“Maybe this unlicensed venture should be our little secret,” Sledge said. “I would like to know how you smuggled viable seeds and soil past customs, but maybe it’s better I don’t know.”
She crossed her arms and locked her jaw.
“You have a new girl working for you,” Sledge said between bites of his second peach. “Any idea where she might be right now?”
Juice dribbled down his chin, and he used the back of one hairy arm to wipe it off.
CHAPTER TEN: The Silence of Mast Jotham
Thaddeus Fry stayed in Raven’s Haven for two days to gather information on the train derailment. His hosts had a secret and he wanted to learn the truth of it. Ryan and Amanda set him up in one of the smaller domiciles that seemed to have been long abandoned. He admired the way they kept him from exploring the rest of the town.
Maximus, for once, hadn’t grown bored. It seemed as though he would gladly trot up and down the short street forever. He sniffed and snorted and farted like he was made to live in the barren canyon.
The second day was when the trouble began.
He made his coffee and went to the narrow porch that required him to stick his toes over the edge just to sit comfortably in the rocking chair made from fiberglass piping and metal slats. The first sip was too hot. He blew on it. In an effort to kill time and wait for it to cool, he stared out across the floor of Transport Canyon before the debris cloud once again settled.
“Did you hear the wind last night, Maximus?”
Maximus bobbed his head and snorted.
“You like the wind?”
Maximus rolled his eyes and looked away.
Thad took a sip of his coffee and stared into a mirage just at the edge of his vision. It almost looked like two airships coming low and fast under the cloud of A19 and surface dust.
He slowly, but very intentionally, moved his tablet to his ear to use it as a radio. “Fry to Jotham, this is a priority message.”
No response.
“I say again, Fry to Jotham, please respond.”
He wanted to curse and realized it was the first time he had such frustration with the Unglok. When he gave his deputy permission to handle a personal matter, he had clearly stated they needed to stay in radio contact for updates. At the time, he had been thinking Mast would be afraid to ask for extra time that he or his family needed. Now, things had changed.
Thaddeus stood and reached under his coat to feel the butt of his blaster. Taking a sip of his coffee with his left hand, he used his right hand to look for his extra charging magazines. The weapon had been more than sufficient thus far in Darklanding, but now he was longing for armor, air support, and his squad. Not a mirage, the mere fact that such airships existed changed everything.
He couldn’t determine their model, or if they were military surplus or some type of privately produced ship, but they looked fast and heavy at the same time. It was difficult to describe how he recognized a vehicle was armored, but he knew these black, winged vessels were not freighters.
Maximus stood and walked to the steps leading down from the tiny porch, staring intently. The creature, whatever it was, didn’t sniff or snort or any of his usual nonsense. Staring directly at the distant vehicle seemed sufficient.
Thaddeus looked up and down the street, and soon spotted not only Ryan and Amanda, but some of the missing townsfolk. There were nine of them, and they were running.
“We’ve got to get to the bunker and lock ourselves in before they realize we’re here,” Ryan shouted.
Thad didn’t like that idea. Locking himself inside with no way to maneuver and no avenue of escape tortured his tactical senses. He shook his head. “They’ll know I’m here at least,” he said, nodding toward his ship at the end of the street.
He sat down and allowed his fireman’s coat to fall away from his blaster. He put his feet up on the rail and sipped his coffee as the ships rushed madly forward. The closer they came, the more ominous they looked.
Both airships were ground support vessels, designed to deploy a squad of troops each while covering them with heavy blaster and rocket fire if needed. From this distance, he couldn’t tell if they had numbers or not, but doubted it. On the nose of each ship was a sloppily painted white skull.
Before he knew it, the airships were ripping across the main street, circling his ship, then landing on each side of his battered old junker.
The first ship to hit the ground, dropped a ramp, and a squad of twelve soldiers, humanoid in shape, rushed out and surrounded the ship. One of them stuck a breaching charge on the door and blew it open. They swarmed inside.
“I wish they hadn’t done that,” Thad said.
Maximus farted.
Each of the ships were equipped with telescopic sensors and other things he probably couldn’t see. He watched the main hub on the bottom and turret top of the airship that had not deployed troops. What looked like a black glass eye swiveled several times, then stopped, facing him.
He continued to drink his coffee.
Just shy of two minutes later, the squad emerged from his ship and reformed. A figure that had to be the squad leader gave hand signals, and they rushed down the street toward him.
He finished the last of his coffee and rose to his feet, continuing to hold the cup as they surrounded him. A pair of the armored individuals ran out of sight, probably going to the back of the little dwelling he had slept in last night. That was a nice touch, he thought.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” Thad said. “Looks like one of you needs to head back to Darklanding to apply for air traffic permits. And weapons permits, but I can handle approval or denial of those requests right here.”
“You are sheriff?” a deep voice from the leader’s helmet asked. “Sheriff you sheriff.”
Thad didn’t think the voice was real, and if it was, it wasn’t human or Unglok. Few non-human races came this far out. Thad’s money was on a voice synthesizer in the helmet.
“That’s me. Sheriff Thaddeus Fry, at your service. So long as you do everything I say and don’t give me any trouble.”
The leader looked at his squad, possibly checking their positions, maybe stalling for time. “Go back Darklanding, Fry Sheriff.”
“Oh, now that’s pathetic. Can you be a little less melodramatic? I mean, the voice synthesizer is a nice touch, but I can tell you are human. So lose the helmet and tell me what you’re doing out here,” Thad said. “Without the fake accent, if it’s all the same to you.”
Wind blew red dust and reflective A19 gas down the street. A weathervane and a brace of meteorological instruments spun on the science trailer. Most were out of balance and noisy.
The leader removed his helmet without looking at the others, confirming what Thad thought. This man actually was in charge, not a body double. Tall and as human as they came, his tight blond beard matched his hair. Slightly sunburnt, his startling green eyes looked full of energy while his body was calloused and crisscrossed with scars.
“The last sheriff was a lot smarter than you,” the man said.
“How could you know? I am pretty damn smart,” Thad said.
“He was my brother.”
Thad rolled his eyes—resisting the urge to check and see if his dog-thing companion was doing the same thing. He really needed to learn more about his predecessor and why he was blown up. “Did he have a great sense of humor like you?”
The green-eyed, blond-haired warrior stared in silence and seemed as welcome to conversation as did his dusty, well-used armor.
Thad shook his head and looked down at Maximus, but his trusty companion was gone.
“Your pig went into the storm. Must have
a death wish,” the man said. “Do you beat the animal? It seems damaged…mentally.”
“You have a name?” Thad asked.
“Not for you.”
“This is going to be a difficult relationship,” Thad said. “Eventually, I’ll have your DNA and fingerprints when I book you. I think it would be better for everyone if you would just introduce yourself and tell your crew to stand down.”
“Go back to Darklanding, Sheriff Fry. SagCon won’t miss half the ore and exotics that has already been spilled over the canyon. These innocent townsfolk will get most of it because they know the area. We will, however, have our share.”
“We’ll see,” Thad said.
The leader of the raiders pulled on his helmet and gave hand signals to his men. They went house to house kicking open doors and searching inside. Thad, outnumbered twenty-four to one, made another cup of coffee and watched.
When they left, he marked their direction of travel. “Maximus!” Thad called into the growing wind.
The dog-pig-thing didn’t answer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Maximus
Neither humans nor Ungloks were smart. They said one thing and did the opposite. Worst of all, they went down into the canyon where dangerous things hunted during night storms.
He plodded away from the town, never looking away from his path because he knew where he was going. As soon as he realized the young human—a girl, he thought—was alone in the canyon, he went to find her.
The sun was high, so it wasn’t nighttime. There was no storm, but there was the dust cloud that shouldn’t be there. He could not decide if it was a storm or something else. The Thad-human treated the ground cloud differently than he treated storms and nighttime. It did not seem as though he could smell the foulness of the cloud that was neither a cloud nor dust. Not completely.