by A. B. Keuser
With the destruction of her moon and Geo’s disappearance again, Sophia had forgotten the miners from Horza. It wasn’t any wonder the tunnel was all but pristine. She’d never hired sub-par help.
A tremor struck at that moment. Nothing large enough to worry about, but a plaster covered rock fell from the ceiling, knocking her hand and she dropped the lamp.
It flickered.
Failed.
Dropping to her knees, she patted around in the rubble for it.
“Leave it, we’ll go back and get another one… and wait for Banks.”
“Even if it doesn’t work, I’m not going to leave trash just because it’s more convenient.”
Her fingers found the hard plastic, and she shook it, tried the switch again, then popped the lens off. Somehow, in the fall, the drivers had been smashed.
There was enough light from behind she could make out the direction, and the path was still flat.
“Banks would tell us to turn around.” Maggie’s tone was dull—information, not a warning.
“Banks isn’t here.”
It was about a mile later that she questioned her choice… that she reached what was ostensibly the terminus of the tunnel.
The ground hadn’t been completely smoothed here, jumbled rocks lay across the floor of the cavernous space like an uneven carpet, but as her eyes adjusted to the low light from the small ventilation shaft in the dome, she could move more freely. And she saw what the enormous cavern had been carved out to hold.
Saw the lights swinging overhead as another micro-tremor vibrated all around her.
Cursing, she tried to see into the dark edges of the space, tried to see where there might be a switch for those lights.
There should have been one next to the tunnel entrance, but the walls there were bare.
Maggie placed a hand on her arm. “Stay put. I’ll poke around and see if I can’t get us some light.”
Sophia had seen caverns like this one before. She’d taken a few tours of the mines, and had seen spaces like it used for storage by other farms. She hadn’t known this one was here… and that was a problem she would have to take up with one of her department heads… just as soon as she got back to Capo.
What little light filtered in, showed her something tall, and metallic.
Stepping further into the cavern, she heard the scuff of a boot, but before she had the chance to turn, they’d reached her.
The metal was cold at the base of her skull and she froze, hands at the level of her shoulders.
There were a hundred possibilities of who was holding that gun, but she knew how her luck ran.
“Glad to see you made it off the lunar surface in one piece, Mr. Monroe.
“Phee?” Putty’s voice came from the far side of the space, but then she’d never expected him to be the one holding the gun.
He’d already demonstrated that his weapons of choice went “boom,” not “bang.”
“So glad you could join me, but I’d much rather have this conversation face to face.”
Flynn didn’t move behind her.
And when the lights came on, she flinched away from the brightness.
“Holster it, Flynn.” Drea Saguas crossed the cleared floor toward them, and pulled her away from Putty’s brother.
Toward the machine.
At least, she hoped it was a machine. Industrial art installations had no place inside the mines.
“What are you doing with this, Sophia?” Putty stared at the machine as though he’d given it her name.
“That.” She waved her hand at the machine, but didn’t take her eyes from Flynn. “Isn’t mine.
“Funny, it has RTF written all over it.”
He wasn't wrong. There were a hundred or more parts and boxes with her company’s name sprayed on them.
“Whatever it is. I didn’t put it here.” But she had a good feeling she knew who did. “I have a crew investigating the actions of a group of men who were working on my property last night. I don’t know what they were doing, but it wasn’t sanctioned by me. They’re probably behind this too.”
Putty scowled at her. “And why were you skulking around in the dark?”
She nodded toward the tunnel opposite the one they’d come through. “We were investigating why someone had bored an illegal tunnel under my property, and hadn’t found the light switch yet.”
Flynn didn’t look like he believed her.
“I broke my flashlight in one of the microtremors.” She tossed it to him. Let him confirm for himself.
“The group you saw last night.” Flynn glanced at Maggie and then back to her. “What were they doing?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I sent people out after them. They had shovels and guns.”
“Describe them.”
If he’d intended to remind her that he’d been in charge in a previous occupation, he was laying it on a little thick. Sharing a glance with Maggie, she only managed to keep from rolling her eyes by closing them.
“Men, about a half dozen of them—”
He stopped her with a glare. “Hair color, build, etcetera?”
“I have no idea.” She considered making him ask. Considered waiting until he had to drag the information out of her, but his hand was still on the hilt of his gun and she wasn’t certain ill tempers didn’t run in the family. “It was the middle of the night, there was one less moon reflecting light, and I was looking through a tactical scope. They were all yellow and pink heat blooms.
Jaw twitching, Flynn finally turned away from her. “Fair enough.”
It was Putty who spoke next. He was right beside her, though she hadn’t noticed him closing the distance between them.
He grabbed her arm, and she waved Maggie back as he pulled her toward the dark edge of the circular space. “What’s going on, phee?”
“You’re willing to hear my side of the story now that you’ve thrown a tantrum and blown up my moon?”
She hadn’t tried to be quiet, so she wasn’t surprised when Putty wasn’t the one who responded.
Flynn sighed as he snapped the hook on his gun’s holster. “You have three more here and who knows how many elsewhere.”
“That’s not the point.” She snapped at him before turning back to Putty. “Do you know how many people you killed up there?”
Putty had the decency to look worried as he shot a glance at those around them. “They said the base had been minimally staffed… that everyone got off.”
“Did you know they’d be able to before you blew it up? Did you think about the gravitational issues destroying a satellite might cause?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
He lashed out as he turned, and she managed to step back in time—thanks to Banks drilling the evasionary tactics into her head. He didn’t hit her. But she almost wished she’d let him. Let him feel like an asshole.
Because that’s how he was acting.
Maggie stepped between them and Sophia could imagine the look she gave him from the way Putty straightened.
Maggie turned sharply to Drea. “Please control your people. You are on Refuti land, and we are cooperating to get this dealt with and sorted.”
“And I appreciate that. I know the Captains and Henri will as well.” She dragged Putty back, shoving him toward the machine. “You’re being paid to fix our problems, not start fights with the locals.”
Putty muttered something, but whatever it was, Sophia didn’t hear it.
However Flynn chuckled, so she could only imagine.
She didn’t have time for this—or him—whatever was going on was bigger than that.
“The moon doesn’t matter right now, what matters is that we’re looking at a piece of machinery that shouldn’t be here… and I, for one, have no idea what it does.”
“It’s got a string driven mud pump?” Putty scowled at it as though it was a puzzle.
“And what does a mud pump do for the Lazarai?”
“It’s not as f
limsy as it sounds. That string would have been thicker than my arm. As for what it’s going to do, I’d guess it’s going to make a crater where the Redlands used to be.”
Flynn had moved to his brother’s side and was now cursing at the metal… bird’s skeleton.
“It’s a core mining device?” Drea said. She kept her distance, a clear path between her and the exit.
“Like the one the Colarium lost.” Maggie didn’t sound unsure at all. “The one they speculate the Lazarai got their hands on?”
She’d asked the question of Flynn and he shrugged in response. “If Archie had this, he never told me about it. But I know he’d want it.”
“What about your sister?” Maggie asked.
Looking between the brothers, Sophia didn’t expect the answer to come from her left.
“She didn’t know he had this.” Drea stared at the machine, oblivious to the information she’d just let slip
“Am I missing something?” Putty asked, finally pulling away from the fascination of the machine.
Snapping out of her horrified trance, Drea looked at him, blinked. And then composed herself. “We’ve met. Briefly.”
One glance around the room told her that Flynn was the only other one who knew his sister had been there.
A moment later, she wasn’t the focus of Putty’s scrutiny. Flynn was, though he asked Drea the question. “Where was that?”
“We can talk about her later if you want,” Sophia said, pushing her way through the two of them and moving to the machine’s side. “Right now, I want to know why it’s here, and how we get rid of it.”
“Don’t try to dismantle it.” Putty held out a hand as if she’d been ready to pick up a wrench. “Flynn, toss me the laser depth meter.”
When Flynn tossed him the green gun—that looked like a toy taser—Putty dropped onto his belly and wiggled under the cage-like body.
He wriggled back out, cursing.
“The borehole is a foot in diameter and about five miles deep.”
The calculations came quickly. “That would have displaced nearly five hundred and ninety cubic meters of material.” Looking at the empty room, and then to Drea, she asked “Where would they have put that much matter? There’s no chance they sent it through my farm. That would be noticed… and logged. I would have seen the flag.”
“The waste…” Drea turned sharply to Flynn and from the look on his face, he knew where the captain was going. “They had to connect it to the mine to get the waste out. Flynn noticed excess hydrogen levels in the processing belt’s refuse a while ago. We never determined what it was from.”
“Was the hydrogen important?”
Putty was behind the machine now, but his voice was loud and clear. “Any material dredged up from that far down would be saturated with it. And the temperature…”
“But what does that mean as far as our potential crater?”
“With the amount of UPD-5 on the planet, there won’t be a crater.” Drea stared at the machine as if she hoped it would get up and walk away.
Putty came back into view glaring down at a datapad. “It will make what I did to your moon look like a chisel mark. There won’t be a planet left for you to farm.”
Sophia tried not to let the cold shiver affect her. She hated that feeling, hated the way Drea had gone pale. Hated knowing that her complacency had let this come to be.
But when she looked at Flynn she flinched. She hadn’t thought he’d possessed an expression other than bored irritation.
That was what kicked her brain back into gear, what made her the first one to break the silence.
“What do we do to stop it?”
A commotion from the other tunnel made them all stop. Maggie and Flynn both drew their guns, but Maggie’s immediately lowered.
Flynn’s didn’t. But then, neither did Banks’.
“You okay?” Banks asked, shooting a questioning glance her way.
“Fine enough, considering what we’ve found.” She reached up as he stepped beside her and gently pushed his gun down. “You can put those away. If they were going to kill us, they’ve had ample opportunity.”
Banks complied with her suggested order, though not quickly and not before Flynn had started to do the same.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, low enough she’d be the only one to hear. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t go anywhere.”
The last was punctuated by a sharp glare at Maggie.
“Sometimes the situation calls for a change of plans. This one did.”
With a scowl, he nodded in agreement and turned to look at the ugly machine. She watched his face, saw when he recognized it from the drawings. Thanked the Great Mother he didn’t mention the familiarity.
“How do we shut it down?” she asked Putty, not meeting Banks’ now questioning glance.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure how it’s put together.” Putty had all but turned upside down while studying it.
She didn’t have a choice. Turning to Banks, she made sure her words were quiet, but not so low it sounded like she was trying to keep things from the others. “Did we bring the plans down from the base?”
Banks nodded, “They should be in your office.”
“Where did you get these plans?” Flynn glared at her, but Banks stepped between them.
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that they might help us save the planet and everyone on it.”
Turning her back on him, though it went against everything Banks had trained her to do, she started back toward the tunnel and stumbled to a stop when she saw the figure at its start.
“What are you doing?” Geo stood in the entrance to the tunnel, his fists clenched, his brows twisted.
“And now that everyone’s here…” Banks said under his breath.
Shooting banks a deathly glare, Geo hurried to her side.
He snatched up her hand and gently squeezed. “It’s your birthday present, Soph. You can’t dismantle it.”
She knew she should feel sick… angry… anything.
But there was only that tingle of stillness.
When had she become numb to his stupidity? “Why would you think I want this?”
“It’s going to make us rich,” he said it low, eyes bright as though sharing a secret. “It’s going to extract every last piece of UPD-5 for ten miles and draw it here like an enormous magnet!”
Sophia pulled her hand from his, the air tasted sour, and for a moment she thought the planet’s rotation might have caught up to her.
“Even if it did that, I wouldn’t want it.”
“You could buy Oblivion if you wanted, don’t you see.”
Clearly, she wasn’t the one who had a problem seeing…
“It’s never been about the money.”
Flynn made a noise of disbelief and she shot him a hard look.
“The money just makes it easy to do the things I want and need to.” She looked at the monstrosity he’d allowed others to build. “This is going to destroy everything, Geo. What we’ve built, the UPD-5. The whole damn planet.”
He shook his head, violently. “They’re lying to you. They work for the miners. They don’t want you to have what you’re owed. You’ve put so much into making this place livable for them and people who’ll come after and they don’t give one damn. Did you know they have rules about when our people can even go into town?”
“Where are those damned plans?” Flynn asked through clenched teeth.
Putty hadn’t said a word since her men had arrived. He stared at her coldly. No, he stared at Banks as if the man was the most vile person he’d ever seen.
“We’ll go get them.” She grabbed her brother by the arm, trying to drag him out too, but he wrenched his arm free from her grasp.
“I’m not going anywhere. I won’t let them tear this down.”
Shooting a glance at Banks, she turned back to the Monroe brothers. “If either of you hurt him, I will not be responsible for what happens t
o you.”
And then, she let Banks lead the way through a branching tunnel.
“Do you think Putty can stop it if we get him the plans?” Sophia didn’t want to ask, but she couldn’t stop herself.
“Maybe your brother can… if we can just convince him.”
She shook her head. “The Lazarai would never give him a kill code. You know that just as well as I do. He’d never ask for one. He wouldn’t know he’d need it. Not if he honestly believes the machine does what they said it would.”
“So what do we do?” Banks helped her through a broken gate that screened a sloping tunnel.
“We see this through. Deal with the immediate threat and figure out how to minimize our damage until we can find a way to get him out of it.” Sophia glanced back down into the shadows. She just hoped they could do it all.
And in time.
“My job is to keep you safe. If he continues to place you in danger, I will not hesitate to remove him from a position to do so.”
A cold slither ran through her at the menace in his tone. “And if that means killing him?”
He hesitated for a moment too long. “I will do everything in my power to make sure it never gets to that point.”
She believed he’d try to keep that promise. She had no idea what she’d do if he couldn’t.
Forty-One - Flynn
Sophia had disappeared, and Flynn was glad to be rid of her. He needed Putty’s full focus on mud pump and as shitty as he knew it was to blame her. She was a distraction.
Her brother, at least, he could deal with. Not even Sophia’s staff seemed to care if he held a gun to Giuseppe’s head.
But the man in the terrible suit wasn’t the only one he had to keep an eye on. By now, Drea had to know that the man had tried to kill her kid. And he wouldn’t, for a moment, put violence past her where Seamus was concerned.
“Flynn!” Putty called out from the base of the machine. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
The machine filled half the cavernous space. It had to have been brought in in pieces and assembled. There was no other way to explain how something so big had gone unnoticed for so long.
The crates around them were probably copious enough to have managed it, but only Putty or the men who’d brought them in would know.