“They’ll wait for orders before they intervene, right?”
“Of course.”
“By then it will be too late.” She considered the ramifications. “Shit, if Marston’s people kill a bunch of soft meat, it’ll split this community right down the center.”
Talina took a deep breath, then sat up and threw her hair over her shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed. I’m going to go stop this idiocy before it gets started.”
Cap rolled off his side of the bed and flicked on the lights before reaching for his shirt and pants. “Then you’d better have backup. Your people might take you at your word, but the soft meat won’t. They’ll mouth off, and you’ll shoot one before you think of the consequences.”
“And that’s bad?” she asked angrily. “Maybe they better figure out who the law is around here. Might keep a bunch of their sorry asses alive for more than a week or two.”
“That’s my Tal,” Cap muttered dryly.
She slapped her belt around her hips, the pistol’s weight reassuring. “And what about you, Cap? Showing up at my side? Sort of puts you in the middle, doesn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“Aren’t enough people looking for a piece of your hide? And didn’t you tell me that Oman and Paloduro made threats?”
“Yep.”
“So, you want to just walk out there and make a target of yourself?”
“Be sure of it. If they’re targeting me, and I’ve got your back, that keeps you safe.”
“Why do I need to be safe?”
“Because I want to get you home in one piece again tonight so I can have seconds when it comes to ripping your clothes off.” A flash of lightning illuminated his grin. “And then I want to sleep for the rest of the night with you curled safely in my arms.”
They had just stepped out into the dark and drizzle when the sound of shouts and a shot carried from the direction of the shuttle landing field.
61
Kalico paced before Margo Abibi as the captain sat at one of the tables in the crew mess. The woman’s light brown eyes followed Kalico as she spun and stalked her way back along the rank of chairs pulled neatly under the long table across from Abibi.
“I woke up from a dream this morning,” Kalico told the captain. “Everything was so vivid: home. My apartment atop the Transluna skyline. So much space, the elegance, surrounded by art, the soaring columns supporting the transparency that allowed me to look down upon the whole thriving city.”
She spread her arms, crying, “And, God, the food! Culinary miracles from every corner of Earth. The tastes, like magic in my mouth. I wore the finest of fabric, gossamer, like a caress to the skin.”
She fixed her hard stare on Abibi. “I ran the damn Board! They came to me.” She knotted a fist. “And beyond the splendor, the fawning Boardmembers, I could feel Solar System. It’s expectant, waiting for my orders. I am Solar System.
“And just as I know this for certain, as I am about to order it all to function, to produce, and for all the people and machinery to commence their perfect operation, the door to my apartment smashes open. Everything stops as Shig Mosadek, that Yvette woman, and Perez burst in. In that instant, Solar System begins to shiver.”
Kalico flung her arms wide. “And boom! The whole pus-sucking Solar System explodes. I pop awake. And where am I? Staring at the ceiling in my personal quarters on Turalon.”
Abibi shoved her chair back far enough to extend her leg as if to ease a cramp. With her left hand, she rotated a zero-g cup around in circles on the tabletop. “I watched the holo record of the meeting you had with Marston, Shankara, and Meyers. What are you going to do? You’ve got two days.”
“After the way they talked to me? I could send the marines down to kill them. That, or round them up and transport them off to one of those abandoned stations out in the bush and strand them.”
“Violate the sacred Corporate contract?”
Kalico placed her hands to her face, pressing on her cheeks as if she could force some kind of sense into her frantic brain. “This is a world full of lunatics, all of them. Mentally disturbed and insisting they’re sane.”
“Are you going to space us for home?” Abibi asked softly, sympathy in her brown eyes. “It would be so much simpler if we just knew. Part of the desertions? It’s the uncertainty. Order us to space, and I’ll have the transportees shuttled up and we’ll be headed out within six hours.”
“Headed to what?” Kalico whispered. “That’s the nightmare. As you said, the uncertainty.”
Abibi nodded. “You ever read No Exit? It’s an old play they make people read in university. A Frenchman named Sartre was the author. It’s a story about being stuck in a room in Hell. That’s what Donovan is. Like No Exit, there’s a door out. You just don’t know where it goes. It could be salvation, or it could just be another, deeper, and more horrible level of Hell.”
Kalico raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Tell me the truth, how many have deserted?”
“About a third. I have sixty-seven officers and crew left.” Abibi smiled. “And yes, I can space the ship. As soon as I do, those transportees are going to be in training for ship’s duty. If they’ve survived Donovan for this long, they must be smart enough to learn reactor maintenance, electrical, even the finer arts of astrogation and field theory.”
Kalico tried to see past the woman’s light brown gaze. “What do you want to do? Off the record, Margo. Give it to me straight.”
Abibi studied her coffee cup for a moment, looked for all the world to be at complete peace with herself. “I’m for spacing, ma’am. That’s just who I am. What I’ve always been. Turalon’s my ship. Whatever voodoo mathematics they programmed into the qubit computers, they got us here. Unlike those fools dirtside, I’m staking my future in the stars.”
Kalico felt a shiver run through her. She thinks she can make it. The effect hit her like the cold hammer of doom. She took a breath, struggling to keep the room from swaying.
When did I convince myself that she was going to urge me to stay?
“Captain, ma’am.” A voice caused her to turn. Astrogation Officer Nandi stood uncertainly at the main hatch. “If this is a bad time . . .”
“No, come in, Nandi,” Abibi called.
Nandi walked up, saluted, that glass-brittle look still behind her eyes. “Got the final report on Freelander, ma’am. Chief engineer Hans says she’s stabilized. Reactors are synchronized and running at ten percent. She’ll remain in orbit at The Corporation’s beck and call for as long as it takes to get a salvage crew on her.”
“Thank you, A. O.” Abibi hesitated. “Nandi? Chan just found another log. Thought you might want to know that it mentioned Kenji.”
Kalico watched Nandi stiffen, panic seeping into her expression.
Abibi seemed not to notice, a wistful smile on her lips as she toyed with her coffee mug. “I’m sorry, Nandi, but he was one of the first ones they eliminated. It’s a short reference, just that Kenji, Sampson, and Putchulsky acted in defiance of orders. They were apprehended and killed while on the way to warn the transportees.”
Nandi’s head had pulled back, as if the muscles in the back of her neck were contracting.
“That’s all there was,” Abibi said gently. “I’m so sorry.”
Nandi swallowed hard, and then as though a cool breeze washed through her, she relaxed, almost smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Dismissed,” Abibi told her. “Tell the crew to prepare to space upon orders.” She glanced at Kalico. “That is correct, is it not, Supervisor?”
Fear ran cold through Kalico’s nerves. “Yes, Captain. Correct.”
But the way she said it, it felt like ordering herself to a death by slow torture.
Nandi saluted, spun on a heel, and marched, back straight, to exit the room.
“It’s all right to be frightened, isn’t it?” Abibi asked after the woman stepped out. “Makes life sweeter, every moment like a tonic.”
“Perhaps,” Kalico whispered. “Chan really find Kenji’s name in the log?”
“No.” Abibi gave her a conspiratorial wink. “But Nandi didn’t need to know that, did she?”
“No. I suppose not.”
“Part of being good at my job, Supervisor, is making sure that people in crisis have a way out that doesn’t destroy them and others around them. That’s how a good captain saves her ship and crew.”
“Well . . . we all need to do what we need to do, Captain.”
Kalico turned, nerved her muscles to support her, and walked with as much dignity as she could muster from the mess.
I am in Hell, and there is no way out.
“Damn you, Abibi.”
62
Marsten’s people had piled their belongings in the narrow gap between the high chain-link fence that separated the shuttle field from the town and the back of one of the warehouses. The piled crates and storage chests created a breastwork that couldn’t be flanked. Not the sort of place a mob would want to attack. And it was dark—a shadowy area between the white cones of light where they illuminated the falling drizzle.
For the moment, the attackers had broken off, shouting insults. The people behind the barrier waited silently, dark forms that stood resolutely, their hats gleaming slightly as they shed water.
Cap drove into the melee, shouting, “Break it up! You are in violation of Civil Order 117, violence and inciting disorder! I’ll have all of you rounded up and jailed!”
Dark as it was in the crowded space between the dome wall and the high shuttle field fence, the fighting, screaming brawlers had no clue who he was.
The soft meat—trained as they were to obey the voice of authority—broke off immediately. Dark forms shuffled back into the shadowy recesses.
“You assholes, stand down!” Talina bellowed, “or by God I’m going to do some ass-kicking like you maggots have never seen!”
“Tal? That you?” a voice called from behind a stack of duraplast crates.
“You bet your ass it’s me, Marston. Want me to come back there and smack you on the side of the head so that you know for sure?”
“We didn’t start this,” Marston called uneasily. “They came out of the night. Told us to leave.”
“That right?” Cap demanded, stalking toward the furtive figures who now backed away and filtered into the dark gap between the domes.
“That you, Taggart?” a voice called from the other side of the fence.
“Yeah. Spiro?” He saw the faint gleam of armor through the chain-link. A flicker of distant lightning left no doubt. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Mister Taggart, it’s like Marston says. This mob came out of the night, tried to run Marston’s group off.”
From the dark gap in between the buildings, Paloduro’s voice called, “You haven’t heard the end of this, Taggart. You said you weren’t taking sides.”
“I’m not, you three-fingered fool. Get your people out of here, and don’t come back.”
Someone groaned, and Tal illuminated the form with her flashlight. And then another, and another. All told, seven people lay on the wet clay. Three weren’t moving.
Cap bent down, checking the first casualty. Thick blood on his chest was already cooling. In the light of Tal’s flash, he touched the man’s eyeball. Got no reaction. “One dead.”
Talina leaned over another, calling, “Bullet wound in the upper shoulder.” She bent her head to her mic, “We need a medevac at the shuttle field fence. Roust Raya out of her bed and anyone else handy. Looks like four wounded.”
“What the hell were they doing?” Marston called from behind his barricade of crates. “The way they tried to drive us off? These are our things! Our property and plunder.”
“You’re getting in someone’s way,” Talina told him, bending over another still form. “Shot this one through the head. Shit.”
Cap walked over to the chain-link. “Lieutenant, what happened here?”
“Just like Marston said, Mister Taggart. They came out of the night. The bunch of them. Armed with clubs and kitchen knives. Told the returnees to get the hell away from the fence. Started to climb over the crates to force them out, and bam. The returnees started shooting.”
“You were watching all this through night vision? Damn, Deb, why didn’t you stop it?”
“Didn’t have orders,” she told him, a frigid tone in her voice. “Remember orders? Or have you forgotten those along with everything you once knew about responsibility, loyalty, and respect?”
From the darkness, another marine snorted agreement.
“So you let them kill each other?”
Spiro chuckled hollowly. “The Supervisor tasked us with the protection of Corporate assets. The returnees are all out of contract. Legally they are not our people to protect, only to transport. The transportees requesting transportation back to Transluna because their jobs were no longer available here, they are our responsibility. As events unfolded, I monitored the situation. Had the rioters threatened them, we would have taken action.”
“Uh-huh, and most of your rioters are still under contract.”
“They have been assigned jobs by the triumvirate. Technically they’re not working for us. It’s a gray area.”
“Fucking space lawyer, what the hell happened to you, Deb? Use your head. We’ve got people dead and wounded. Where’s your humanity?” He raised his voice, calling out to the dark figures. “And what about the rest of you? You’re all marines. You took an oath.”
“Don’t lecture us about oaths, Mister Taggart. You walked out on all of us,” Talbot called from the darkness.
“Sir!” Spiro snapped. “You are a civilian. As such, you will not address my personnel. Any conversation will be with me, with my permission. You do not, at this time, have that permission, so turn your ass around and do whatever it is that you civilians do.”
“You hate me that much?”
“You walked out on us. I’d as soon cut your throat.”
Cap sighed and shook his head, knowing she could see the disgust in his expression with perfect clarity. Worse, what the hell was she doing on the other side of the fence? Did she think her tech was going to give her the edge on the chance quetzal that might be prowling across the shuttle field?
Stepping over, he found Talina was rendering aid to the third casualty.
In her flashlight, a young man was grimacing, sweat popping on his pale face. A bullet had nearly torn his upper arm in two. His blood had pooled on the clay, streaks of it where the arteries had squirted.
“The cart’s on the way,” she said. “Fortunately Two Spots was on the com. He’s drafted the night cleaning crew to help. In fact, that should be them.”
Cap glanced up where lights bobbed as they rounded the admin dome.
“Well, something still works around here,” Cap said with a sigh. His heart was thumping sullenly in his chest. Damn it, those were his people. His marines. He’d trained them for two straight years. Kept their morale up, built a sense of unit pride. And they treated him like this?
“Gotta see it from their side,” Tal told him, as if reading his mind. “But still, orders or no, they could have stopped this before it got started.”
“Yeah,” Cap whispered, a slow sense of dread building. “But now that Paloduro and Oman’s people have taken casualties, what happens next? How do we put the genie back in the bottle?”
“I’ve never understood that metaphor.” Tal’s bloody hands kept the tourniquet in place on the young man’s arm.
“It’s old,” Cap told her. “Comes from the deserts back on Earth. Arabic I think.”
Two Spots rolled the cart up. The people with him—dr
essed in coveralls and smelling of bleach—gaped at the dead and wounded displayed in the flashlight’s white light.
Two Spots said, “Raya’s on the way to the hospital. Whatcha got, Tal?”
“Help me get them lifted. Careful here. Keep this tourniquet tight, or we’re going to lose him.”
Cap helped load the three living, started along to help, but hesitated when Marston called from the dark crates, “Tal? You need anything from us? We square on this?”
“Yeah, Lee. We’re square. I heard it from the lieutenant. They attacked you. It was self-defense. You did what you had to. But do me a favor, keep an eye on the dead. I’ll be back for them just as soon as we get the wounded taken care of.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Marston replied.
“Come on, Cap,” she told him. “Something tells me it’s going to be a long night.”
He started after her, hearing a snicker from one of the shadowy marines on the other side of the fence.
“Hope a quetzal gets him,” Tal muttered under her breath.
“Yeah,” Cap whispered, feeling his own sense of cold betrayal deep in his breast.
“I’d cut your throat.” The words lingered like a curse.
Spiro had meant it.
63
Dan Wirth nodded to Step Allenovich as he strode saucily down the hall and approached the door to the admin dome conference room. Allenovich—dressed in quetzal chic—stood with a booted leg thrust forward, a large rifle tucked in the crook of his arm. That he’d been posted as a guard for the door, more than anything else, indicated the gravity of the situation.
“Hey, Step.”
“Dan. Glad you could make it. They’re inside.”
In a fit of irreverence, Dan flicked fingers to his forehead in a mock salute.
Inside, the room smelled of freshly boiled coffee. The place was small and shabby, with a scarred duraplast table and seven molded chairs. Maps covered the walls; a single dirty window in the back opened onto the chain-link fence and the shuttle port beyond with its crazily piled containers.
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