by Scott Moon
Perhaps humans and Ungloks were smarter than Maximus. They could explain such things. But they still said one thing and did the opposite. Or hurt their own people. Or ate when there was no need.
Maximus also believed they held their bodily functions in check for too long. Why wait to pass gas? Life was too short, even though the two legs lived much longer than Maximus would.
He plodded into the disgusting ground-cloud wondering what the humans meant when they said dog or pig or any of their other words. How did they make such interesting sounds and understand the sounds of their kind?
A sand dune that had grown during a night storm had claimed a motorized buggy. Only one wheel and part of the frame was visible. Maximus sniffed around it and did not detect the human girl called Ruby. She had many names, including skinny bitch, tight-ass rich girl, and prima-donna. Maximus, who knew many things he could not explain without his own words, did not know what any of those human sound patterns meant. He heard them a lot and that was all.
He continued, never looking sideways or changing his course. Perhaps he smelled the girl, or heard her, or something else. None of it mattered. All that was important to Maximus was that he had no doubt of his destination.
As night fell, he came across the girl. She had tied herself to a rock formation.
Maximus thought that was a good idea and wished he could tie knots or use tools like the humans and Ungloks. The girl wouldn’t wake up, so he licked his snout and pushed it against her mouth and eyes.
That always worked.
She didn’t even flinch.
Maximus farted several times. He snorted and made a sound between a bark and a howl. The effort hurt his throat so he resorted to pushing his wet nose against her again and again as he snort-barked.
* * *
Ruby coughed and gagged without knowing why. “Maximus? Stop that!”
Maximus backed up and stared at her.
“Don’t you fart, you disgusting animal,” she said, voice hoarse and dry.
Maximus lay down and put his bucket head between his feet.
Her canteen was empty and her body trembled from the cold nights spent without shelter. Wind-born grit had blasted her face raw. She remembered trying to eat sand.
Maximus watched her tremble and shake for a time. She was poking at scrapes on her knees and elbows when the animal stood and walked into the thinning mist.
She followed.
CHAPTER TWELVE: Evasion
“Don’t move, dog,” Ruby said.
Maximus stopped without looking around. His attention seemed focused on his destination without concern for the airship that had passed over them twice.
Ruby moved toward a clump of rocks without any hope of finding concealment. All she wanted was not to be in the last place the crew of the ship might have seen her. Maximus stood like a statue facing a direction she thought was east toward Darklanding.
The airship came again, this time so low that she saw the glow of its engines as they flared for landing in the area the dog-pig had revived her.
“Stay,” she said.
Maximus dropped to the ground and stared at his objective.
She heard him snort as she crept toward the strange ship. The distance was greater than she expected but not as much as she feared. Before long, she was lying on a dune watching a squad of armed men wearing outdated combat armor. They searched all the way back to the abandoned dune buggy.
She couldn’t see what was slowing them up. Each time the mist shifted, she thought she saw them standing in a guard formation with their leader almost out of view from her vantage point.
“The dune buggy is stolen,” a familiar voice said at the edge of her vision.
She looked over her shoulder and saw the sheriff’s dog lying like a pile of rocks where she had left him.
“I told you to go back to Darklanding. Let the local scavengers do their thing. Let us do ours,” one of the mercenary types said.
“Can’t do that,” Sheriff Fry said. “Someone has to pay restitution for this buggy. It’s a total loss. I suspect she might have stolen my dog as well.”
“Dog?” the mercenary leader said. “That isn’t a dog. You insult dogs by calling it a dog.”
The rest of what they said was covered by the sound of four new airships sweeping toward the mag-train derailment. Ruby only saw bits and pieces. She recognized the white skulls painted on the fronts of each ship.
* * *
Thad played it cool. Maximus and Ruby were nearby—had to be from the condition of the abandoned buggy and the campsite he’d found earlier. He thought he could feel Maximus complaining.
Where are you, you stupid mutt?
He waited for the new ships to disappear into Transport Canyon without commenting on them. That didn’t change the dread he felt inside, but this was like playing poker close to the vest. “What are you looking for? None of you are miners or freight haulers.”
“We’re the security team,” the leader said.
Thad stared him down. “All right. I’ll mark this and head back to my ship. Not sure the Company Man will pay this much overtime anyway. I have to warn you that she’s likely to be upset when I tell her you’re here.”
The man didn’t respond.
He attached a locating device to the half-buried vehicle and headed back to Raven’s Haven. A pair of the mercenary raiders followed him for a while, then returned to their ship.
“Ruby Miranda, if you’re out there, come to the sound of my voice. Transport Canyon is a dangerous place.” He didn’t think she would listen even if she was near enough to hear him. Maximus was definitely ignoring him.
“I figured out part of what they’re after and I have to go back. Show yourself. I can take you back to Darklanding. Might even be food and a bath for you.”
No response.
He jogged toward Raven’s Haven and hoped he was wrong this time.
Thad did not have any training as an investigator. Sometimes it was a good thing. He had read fiction during long deployments and security blackouts. As he jogged towards the town, he remembered thinking that cop instinct had to be a myth. At the time, he had just been looking to entertain himself and had let it go.
Now his own bullshit detector had gone off when the mercenary leader claimed to be nothing more than security. What were the facts? First of all, these men had obviously caused the train derailment. Thad didn’t know how or why. There would be time later to work out the logistics of their operation.
What he knew was that they didn’t have a way to scoop up all of the valuable minerals and exotic ores from the floor of Transport Canyon. Ryan and Amanda were already attempting this. Thad had a feeling they wouldn’t be keeping their loot very long.
The mercenaries of Transport Canyon were going to make the townsfolk do all the heavy lifting. That wasn’t his revelation, however.
Frontier types were stubborn and self-sufficient to a fault. Thaddeus Fry had seen bad things during war. He knew there was always one thing that would motivate a reluctant ally or intimidate a stalwart enemy.
The welfare of their children.
Thaddeus muttered curses under his breath as he stood where the town should be. A19 had descended all the way to the ground. During the prior days of his canyon adventure, it had always been more fluid—shifted by an almost pleasant breeze during the day and slammed around the harsh landscape by night storms. During this most inconvenient moment, a lack of wind allowed the slightly metallic vapor to fill the low-lying areas and render the town invisible.
He put both hands on his hips and looked at his boots. He counted to three, then looked up and around. Wait for it, he thought.
There was no reason for climate change during his pursuit of Ruby and Max. Yet after what seemed an eternity, a cool breeze touched his face. He held himself motionless as though attempting to catch a rare butterfly on an alien planet.
The cloud of A19 parted, revealing one of the prefabricated structures. As he wat
ched in frustration, Ryan and Amanda hustled a large group of children from the bunker and toward his ship as the attack on the town began.
“Don’t steal my ship!” He started running.
Instincts remembered from his military days fired up his nervous system. He dove to the ground even as he heard the black airship’s engines roaring overhead. Red sand blasted his face, filling his nostrils and getting into his mouth as he covered his ears.
He sprang to his feet the moment the airship was past him. Sprinting toward the unfolding scene, he knew he was going to be too late. He also thought he might be about to get his ass kicked.
Children ran in every direction. Ryan was lying flat on his back near Thad’s ship, blood seeping from one ear. The thrusters of the raiders’ airship churned the mist into a manmade storm of confusion. Thad held his left hand up to shield his eyes as he squinted into the chaos.
Blaster fire boomed. Lights flashed in the haze. A piece of shrapnel spun through the air, screeching like a bandsaw. He ducked his head and moved forward in a tactical crouch.
“I told you to go back to Darklanding, Sheriff. I guess you’ll have to walk,” shouted a voice.
Thad pivoted and fired without thinking. A blaster bolt striking body armor wasn’t a sound easily forgotten. He moved a split-second before several of the mercenary commandos returned fire.
He knew without seeing that he had struck the target, but self-congratulation wasn’t his priority at the moment. Finding cover and planning his next move dominated his thoughts as he charged toward the corner of a squat, prefabricated structure.
A19 mist began to clear for no reason that made sense to him except that it would be just his luck to lose concealment. An image of finding himself surrounded by heavily armed and armored commandos flashed into his mind.
He ditched the thought and slid on one leg, popping back to his feet like a professional athlete as he reached his destination. Turning, aiming, firing three times in rapid succession, he ducked down and darted to another structure.
The mercenary raiders were good. They understood what he was doing and bounded forward in squads and fire teams to block him.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, he thought as his enemies surrounded him with an impenetrable perimeter.
Movement blurred the swirling A19 to his right. Someone tackled him from his left. He hit the ground hard. Any soldier, human or otherwise, in combat armor weighed two or three times that of a grown man, depending on the model and the natural size of the operator.
Thad tucked his right hand close to his body to protect his blaster and reached out to slow his fall with his left hand. He tried to roll but got smashed instead. Two more of the goons jumped on and started throwing knees and elbows at his exposed body parts.
He twisted to avoid direct strikes when he could. He hit one in the throat with the barrel of his blaster and wished he had time to reload. Armor defeated the throat smash. He lacked the leverage to transfer sufficient force with the strike. Throat punching normally worked a lot better.
“Hey,” he grunted. “I need to reload. Give me a minute.”
One of them laughed—in a seriously unfriendly way—while the other beat him like a rented mule.
“Balls! Do I owe you guys money?”
The largest of his three assailants stood, cocked back his right arm, and dropped his elbow down with the full weight of his body behind it.
Thad felt the hammer-like blow to his head. The world blurred. He felt himself getting tossed around. Someone took his blaster.
The beating ended.
A tall shadow stood over him.
“I’m losing patience with you, Sheriff. Next time, I’m taking the Raven’s Haven kids and your head.” The mercenary leader’s voice sounded strained.
Airships lifted off, climbing higher than when they had come in. As quickly as the confrontation had begun, it ended.
Thad went to his ship. Amanda had Ryan sitting up as she applied a pressure bandage to his head. Children straggled in from the storm, gathering at their feet. Some cried, others stared at nothing in shell-shocked silence. Some of the older kids clenched their fists and glared at Thad.
“Leave him be,” Amanda said. “He didn’t cause this.” The way she looked at Ryan, Thad thought she blamed him despite her words.
Thad opened and closed his hands, convinced he had broken all of his fingers during the fight. Pain throbbed through his head and he tasted blood. “Did either of you know the old sheriff?”
Amanda tried to stifle a snort, before starting to cry.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: White Skull
Sledge had learned how to fly small vehicles, especially the requisitioned kind, during training in a previous life. He surprised his instructors, none of whom took the time to think about where he had grown up or what ranchers did in this day and age. He could fly fixed wings, helicopters, and freight-hauling dropships before he received his driver’s license. He had learned to drive tractors and combines before he was eight. And just like his brothers and sisters, he was in the saddle before he could walk.
The motorized T-glider didn’t have much power and was at the mercy of wind gusts and updrafts. He had launched from the mesa of Darklanding and dropped roughly into Transport Canyon what felt like an eternity ago. All he wanted now was to make it to rock bottom.
Sand and other debris sprayed against the pseudo-glass window. The tail end of a night storm slammed the tiny craft side to side and up and down. The motion grew worse the closer he came to the ground. Michael “Sledge” Hammer whistled an old song as he worked the controls.
The struts made contact with the blood red sandflat, slamming him forward in the seat as he relaxed his grip on the controls just enough to keep from digging a hole in the red grit with his tiny ship.
Ungwilook’s A19 storm possessed an ominous appearance down there. It was as though the atmosphere was a living creature that had withdrawn its wrath and was now settling down to eat.
Raven’s Haven was a typical frontier settlement operating without a license. The first thing Sledge had done after arriving on the planet was to get a list of all such places. He located thirty-seven through official records, rumor, and confidential informants.
After Dixie gave him the tip about Ruby, he had checked two others. Raven’s Haven was the last possible place he could find Ruby based on Dixie’s information.
Sand and other debris, some of it local trash and some of it parts of the train wreck, had been thrust against the foundations of the temporary shelters by the night storm. He looked at the sad buildings and wondered how long they had been there. Like most worlds designed to be pillaged and forgotten, he suspected they would be here until the end.
Doors and natural points of cover such as corners and loading docks were marked with evidence of blaster and kinetic weapons. He didn’t bother looking for bodies or blood. There was one street that divided the residences and more utilitarian structures, although he didn’t see much difference between the two. At the end of the road was a science building.
A caravan of ground vehicles powered by simple combustion engines arrived. Work crews climbed down from the high-wheeled vehicles. Children rushed toward them.
Sledge slowed his pace, hoping he could draw out the moment. Once they saw him, tensions would rise. There was one particular group of individuals that interested him. A man and a woman, probably scientists, stood over Sheriff Thaddeus Fry, who sat on an all-purpose storage crate holding an ice pack to the side of his head. He wore bandages that weren’t new, but seemed to have been well cared for and clean since his injuries.
Sledge enjoyed the family reunions for as long as he could. Before he knew it, he was standing over the sheriff. “Looks like somebody rolled you,” he laughed.
Thaddeus saluted him with one finger.
“I didn’t expect to find you here. What’d you do, piss off the locals?”
“I’d like to see how you do against a squad of ground pound
ers in full exoskeleton armor,” Thaddeus said.
Sledge did a three-point check of his tactical gear without having to look. First, he touched the butt of his blaster where it hung in his thigh holster, then the extra charge magazines clipped to the back of his belt out of sight, and finally the short-barreled blaster hanging down his back under his coat.
The sheriff looked at him, realizing what type of elements he carried. Sledge hadn’t wanted him to know he was ready for war, and was always ready, but such was life.
“You travel pretty well-heeled for an SI,” Thaddeus said.
“I do.” Sledge nodded. He looked around, assessing the terrain and where he would move if an attack came. “Nothing I have on me will stop armored grunts.”
“What branch did you serve in?” the sheriff asked.
Sledge ignored the question. “You should have tried negotiation.”
The sheriff laughed and winced at the pain this caused. “I tried that. This is what negotiation looks like on Ungwilook. Let me ask you a question. I know special investigators for SagCon are well-informed. What can you tell me about my predecessor?”
Sledge laughed. “That’s not really part of my mission here. And I don’t think you want to hear it anyway.”
The sheriff stood, leaned forward, moving more smoothly as he warmed up his joints and got past the pain of his wounds. “The leader of these outlaws claims to be the brother of my predecessor. No one in Darklanding wants to talk about them, so I haven’t got a good feel for what I’m dealing with. The mercenary leader that has been raiding this town has a personality that would get somebody a surprise gift of explosives. But just knowing he’s a jerk doesn’t help me much.”
Sledge didn’t want to be involved in local drama. Everyone he met, and even people who knew him, misjudged him. He was more than just a brute. “Do you read?”
“It’s been a while,” the sheriff said.