FORT LIBERTY: VOLUME ONE

by M. ORENDA

“Nothings gonna change,” she murmurs, like it’s comfort, like she’s not gonna let it happen any other way. “Same as all the times before.”

  Voss watches the girl, searching for some flicker of consciousness. Niri drifts in zero G, released from the heavy canvas sack they’d bound her in, her hands now floating free, her hair forming a dark halo around her face. There’s no hint of the tortured wunderkind, her features now smooth, glowing, a drowning victim suspended in bright water.

  Not like the others we’ve rescued. Something else, something darker…

  His gaze strays, catching a thoughtful look from Wyatt. After so many years, the man can read him without much effort, and share his own thoughts without saying a word. A raised brow. A cocky grin. Look at the shit we’re in this time, Col. How we gonna keep a handle on this?

  Voss shakes his head, cutting his gaze to Logan. The kid’s a good medic, better than most, with a fair amount of time served in the both field and surgical rotations. He looks lost in zero G, hands constantly gripping onto things, his body bouncing off walls when he gets too close… first time in big sky.

  “Can we keep her sedated?” Voss asks.

  Logan glances at the girl and frowns. “For three weeks? I dunno. Maybe. I’ve got my kit. We can keep her at really small doses… and yeah, maybe it’ll last. Still, I mean, it isn’t good. You run the risk of creating damage, or turning her into a serious addict. She’s really that mental?”

  “Came after Voss with a knife,” Wyatt says.

  “C’mon,” Gojo scoffs. “Not the first woman to do that.”

  Wyatt laughs.

  Logan doesn’t even crack a smile, his eyes suddenly wide. “We got a lot of knives in here. And guns. And ammunition.”

  It’s a good point.

  “Wyatt,” Voss says. “Find a secure location to cache the weapons. Nothing stays in this cabin. We need a guard schedule.”

  “On it, sir,” Wyatt acknowledges the order.

  Logan, though, is still in the dark. “But, sir… that brings us right back to the question of what to do with her. She could wake up any minute.”

  “You have to keep her quiet.”

  “Which means what, sir? We sedate her, despite the risks?”

  “Absolutely,” Voss says it without hesitation, knowing there isn’t any choice, and it’s the call that needs to be made. “That’s exactly what we do. Keep her calm. No one on this ship can know about this girl, not the crew, not the captain. We’ve just logged a false position with command, put our names on the cruiser manifest and blinked out of real time because I don’t want us tracked through big sky. If this woman starts screaming, we’re done.”

  “We got the right ship, Colonel.” Gojo chimes in. “Enough contraband hidden in the cargo hold to supply half the willow houses in Red Filter. These guys might be actual transporters, but they’re damn good smugglers. Odds are, this crew will sail us straight through all the checkpoints, no problem.”

  Voss nods, hoping that proves true. “In the meantime, Logan, I need you to test this girl’s blood. You’ve got scanners for pathogens and analysis… ”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll run it all.”

  “And Gojo,” Voss shifts his gaze. “I need you monitoring the ship comms. I want to know immediately if there’s chatter.”

  “Sir,” Gojo says.

  Wyatt nods. “What about the Captain? He the inquisitive type?”

  “She.” Voss corrects.

  “She?”

  Now Wyatt, the entire team, is interested.

  Voss sits there, waiting for it.

  And here it comes.

  Big grins, some laughter.

  “The Captain’s hot, or what?” Gojo asks.

  “Not bad,” Voss replies, knowing that it’s a significant understatement. “But not friendly either.”

  “I can work on that,” Gojo volunteers.

  “Easy, Go Poke,” Wyatt says. “You’re not so good with the smart ones.” He cuts his gaze to Voss, eyebrows raised. “What about you, Col? She’s already laid eyes on ya. Did she approve of what she saw?”

  Voss doesn’t like the question, but he knows the answer, those dark eyes still sizing him up in the back of his mind. “She wasn’t horrified.”

  “Then it might be time to turn on the charm.”

  “She’s getting paid three times what this vessel is worth. That’s charming.”

  “Doesn’t guarantee our security though, does it?”

  Voss tries not grimace. “You’re suggesting I distract her.”

  “From the woman we’re hiding… the one everyone wants to find and kill? Uh… yes… God, yes, but also soften her up a little. We can’t afford a ‘not friendly’ captain. The way this mission is going, we need her friendly. We need her very, very friendly. We need her in our pocket.”

  “Ambitious.”

  “C’mon, Col,” Wyatt says, his voice a little lower, conspiratorial, his expression carrying the weight of shared memories. “Once upon a time, you enjoyed this kind of hunt, remember? Had ‘em falling all over you.”

  Of course, he’s referring to the Voss of about one million years ago. a kid—a thief—recruited from the ghettos of old Angeles and reborn under company contract, forged into an Assaulter through an excess of sweat, brass and blood, rising up through the ranks, cocky and grinning, larger than life, addicted to combat and flying high on ambition.

  Hit the bar at the base and it’s all there, all that arrogance, the smiling superhero that no woman can resist. He’s been that, and he’s also been the flip side of that, the haunted, hollowed out soul, too drunk, too quick to anger, to throw punches and crush heads against the floor.

  Everything has a price. Becoming a creature of wrath has a price, continuing to live when others die has a price. Years in the fray changes body and soul, able to spin pride into moments of pure self-loathing, grand ideologies to shattered hulls, fiery resolutions to the kind of grey horizon that becomes lethal.

  At some point, he shut it all down.

  Outside the wire, there’s no problem. Destroying drones and hunting gunmen fills the void with the bright high of engagement, rhythms of adrenaline and exhaustion which keep him focused, rooted in the present.

  Living inside compounds… interaction with civilians… those things now require significant barriers. Other guys go to bars. Other guys do the charming, the boasting, the brawling and the fucking. He’s still got it in him, in spades, and that’s the danger. So he buries the urge, exhausting himself with weights, with training and planning as much as he can, seeking battered refuge in Rhys Corp’s vast digital library, in strategy simulations, or in whatever philosophy, creed or furtive distraction that will get him through the night.

  There are good days, and there hellish ones, but he’s maintained his sanity through distance, and it’s simply worked for too many years… no longer a switch to be flipped, or a vest that can be unstrapped. He’s not the guy to cajole a defensive woman, earn her trust, or her loyalty.

  He doesn’t want any of it.

  “I didn’t suggest you marry her,” Wyatt adds, as if it’s a compelling point. “Just be nice. You can be nice. Keep her looking at you, and not at us. We need her happy and on our side. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll shut up, Colonel.”

  Wrong? For pointing out the obvious?

  Voss relents, because he has to. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Tough, I know, you being a monk now and all,” Wyatt’s suddenly grinning again, enjoying this way too much to hide it. “But with all due respect, sir, sometimes you just gotta take one for the team.”

  Accelerators thrum along the inside of a ship, through cable trays, access tubes and cabin walls, but on the outside, they’re soundless, a triple glare of thrust, flaring at precise intervals to hurtle an object through an infinite field of stars, ice, and heat, radiation and phenomena that humans may calculate the depths of, but never see. Big sky. The shadow road… the haul that can break a mind, or a heart, with nothing
more than the relentless accumulation of hours.

  Shadow road’s got its ghosts. People who went out and didn’t come back, good smugglers lost to bad engines, defects and malfunctions that cast them adrift, sometimes even mutiny, or murder, bodies found throat-cut in the deep freeze of dark ships, or never found at all.

  And shadow road’s got its monsters, tales to rival any told by the ancient sailors who took to the early seas of Earth, chasing light on a flat horizon and seeing beasts and mermaids in every spin of froth.

  Haulers in big sky see all kinds of things, either because they do, or because they want to, or because they go mad and got no choice. Whatever way it happens, there’s the lights that dart, the hooded figures that lurk through tubes on doomed ships, the mystery pulses that take out accelerators, the whispers that bring dreams and nightmares during sleep… whatever can be imagined gets regular lip service from those who cross big sky and set to drinking too much at Midstation.

  Far better to simply drink too much during flight, and avoid the demons altogether, avoid lengthy contemplation of dimly lit walls and the abyss peering back through every window.

  Many kinds of vodka alleviate stress, and the most common—the least expensive—is still made by those who occupy the old Russian ghettos. It tastes like fire, and that’s a delicacy for some, but the vodka liquors are where the heaven comes in.

  Sugary, and flavored with grapefruit, lime, or any other rarified candy, it’s one sip after the other, with bliss soon to follow. And now, what with cargo loaded and accelerators lit, muscles aching and a head full of pain, mind dumbed down by exhaustion… the liquor, and the drift, are well in order.

  So in between burns, Petra drifts as the ship coasts the void. And it’s an art, touching no walls, just floating, with the occasional guiding of the squeeze bottle straw to the mouth, the gulp of sweet alcohol, a friendly burning sensation slipping all the way to the stomach.

  There is no resistance. The heart beats. Arms and legs hang passively in eternity, thoughts slip away, fading into dreamland.

  Images surface from the murk of half-sleep, old memories, incomplete and hollowed of emotion. Cold wind, blasts of iron sand tearing at the armored plate of an old Martian transport track, all 68 tons of her stuck in the rocks with a crumpled hull and emergency power for light and air, Petra’s own hand splayed desperate against the glass of chilled window.

  See you on Mars, Petra.

  She frowns, opening her eyes to the cast of shadows spread across the ceiling… and the presence of something that shouldn’t be.

  The realization takes a moment. She turns her head to see the Assaulter filling up the hatchway. He’s been watching—for how long there’s no telling—and it occurs to her that it’s reason enough to make him sorrier than he’s ever been, and order him out of quarters which are solely for the Captain’s use. Only she’s not in those quarters. She’s been drinking in the rec cabin, as it now becomes clear, and he’s got as much reason as anyone to be here.

  She grimaces. “Voss.”

  “Didn’t mean to… interrupt.”

  “Interrupt what?”

  He looks at her askance, like maybe he’s got special Assaulter senses that can pick up the presence of bad dreams and memories which got no mercy. And maybe he does. After all, Assaulters surely have their own share of ghosts, being instruments of war and dark purpose.

  Sliding her fingertips along the ceiling, she pushes against it, drifting down into a more captain-like pose, upright, vodka bottle in hand. “Suppose I can offer you a drink, considering what freight you’re paying.”

  “That’s vodka?”

  “What’s banned in Red Filter, true enough. And smooth. One bottle from the hundreds we got chilled in the hold.”

  “All destined to be sold to the highest bidder.”

  “Unless we drink ‘em first.” She shrugs, unrepentant. “No news to you what kind of ship you boarded, and no particular concern either, considering what friends we have at all the checkpoints, all well paid to let us through. Been doing this for some time, after all. No… you got your way, headed for Mars on a vessel that no one cares about and nothing to do now but count the days, each one longer and slower than the last—literally—for those who do accelerator equations.”

  “I think I will have a drink,” he says.

  “Best remedy for shadow road contemplation.” She pushes the bottle off her fingers, sending it gently floating his way. “Not exactly the kind of watch you an’ your men were trained for. Not much excitement, unless something breaks that we can’t fix, which only ever happened twice.”

  He catches the bottle, showing no hesitation before raising it to his mouth and sucking on the same straw she’s been nursing for the past half hour, which is a mark in his favor, to her mind. Also, he looks better, maybe for the warm swim of alcohol, or the softer light that lingers in the rec cabin, the comfort of a good ship and one clear wall to frame the stars with, a sight to make two strangers seem infinitely small, and a moment passing between them more meaningful that it should be.

  “Never thought to lay eyes on an Assaulter,” she says.

  “No reason for you to.”

  “No… ’cept I might be a criminal.”

  “Might be?” His mouth crooks, his eyes lit… amused. “A peddler of small vices and petty vanities.”

  “Expensive vanities,” she corrects, out of pride.

  “You’re safe from me. Not exactly our focus. I suspect most of your clients in Martian filter are untouchable anyway.”

  “Could be,” she admits.

  “Government suits, corporate executives.”

  “They do like their vodka.”

  “Girl vodka, by the taste.” He laughs, pausing to suck down another good swallow like it’s water, like the sting doesn’t register. “Flavored like… I don’t even know what.”

  “Grapefruit.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “An expensive vice.”

  “And you get drunk from this?”

  She frowns, realizing that Assaulters might not be accustomed to the luxuries their employers enjoy, and maybe it’s moonshine from jet fuel that he expected. “Best vodka is the stuff of legends, made with love, no hangovers. You won’t feel it kick in until you’re well and gone.”

  “Hmm,” he says, maybe believing that, and maybe not.

  “I guess they don’t let you indulge in the finer things much.” She sighs, looking out at the stars. “Best to keep a tight leash on those who protect the money, the supply lines, the factories and the stations, stand watch over the last remnants of the old civilization for the sake of the unfortunates still living there… and those who still keep the wheels turning from afar.”

  “That’s… concise.”

  “Never set foot on Earth, but always wondered.”

  “Wondered what?”

  “I… ”

  He waits, watching her search for words. Of course, she’s drunk, and so finding those words is the hard part, but still, they discover a way to roll off her tongue, hazy, awkward, and more personal than Captain’s talk should ever be. “Must be like walking through no man’s land and seeing all the things which were once so great, and all the people who got left to suffer after the War of Last Nations turned it all to rubble. Know what they’re called in Red Filter? The Earthbound are called ‘the de-evolved’, those who can be nothing else but tyrants or wretches, and no help for it. Souls born there with brains, or talent, the NRM and the Block 12 will take as their own, as what belongs to them… like you. The rest they supply to, sell to, but leave behind because they’re the zombies, the mindless ones, that which would destroy civilization again, given half the chance.”

  He doesn’t look away, just listens, with no particular sign of agreement.

  “And you… ” She goes on, pushing further into unwise territory. “In Red Filter, Assaulters got the esteem saved for gods, heroes and super humans that defend order and justice, like the soldier
s of the old republic, those who went into deserts and fought the monsters that wanted to kill everyone. Fair enough, though you seem like flesh and blood up close, tattoos, tight beard, and that knife.”

  “You like the knife?” he asks, softly teasing.

  Like? Like…She tries to focus. “I… Do you know where you are? You’re in big sky. Assaulters don’t belong in big sky, or on Mars. No place for heroes here. Been from gutter to glitter, and back again, been all across Red Filter and the shadow road more times than I can count. Been in trouble that no one should be in… and never seen any heroes at work, only the greed that keeps the filters pure.”

  His expression changes, not offended—as maybe he has the right to be—but focused solely on what bits are of interest to him, for reasons tactical or otherwise. “You want to tell me more about that trouble?”

  “No.”

  He nods, like he expected as much, and takes another sip of vodka, settling his gaze on the stars. “Okay, so you want to tell me how a woman from the protected environs of Red Filter becomes a smuggler in the first place? Unless, of course, that’s a secret too… ”

  Petra frowns. It’s a question that deserves a good comeback, and no real consideration, though for some reason, the truth slips out first. “She might have made some mistakes.”

  He smiles.

  And she keeps talking. Like an idiot. “Might have gotten too close to what was criminal because all other doors were closed… might have gotten too close to the one smuggler what beat all smugglers, and picked up where he left off once he was killed, and no one else to argue. Original crew all dead.”

  “The crew of this ship?”

  “More to a crew than one ship.”

  “So we’re talking about an organization?”

  “Handful of talented individuals, more like, that work the buyers and sellers, a ship like this, plus a few transport tracks what run across red plain, between stations and grand capitals.”

  “That’s… more extensive than I thought.”

  “That’s vice in Red Filter.”

  He looks at her, taking the statement more seriously than she thought he would, an Assaulter’s gaze seeing more than what she set out to show. Then, just as unexpectedly, he looks away, letting it go, or seeming to.