Survival Aptitude Test_Hope's Graveyard

by Mike Sheriff

  The chamber resolved with dizzying speed. It stretched as far as he could see, but its width barely exceeded twenty feet. An elevated concourse middled its length, ranging above two rows of walled pens. Ladders interspersed the concourse every one hundred feet, descending to the pen level. A rancid odor wafted up and stained the air—a mixture of blood, feces, and urine.

  And fear.

  Laoshi took a dozen unsteady paces along the concourse. He halted and looked down.

  Thirty feet below, a narrow walkway separated two rows of pens. Each pen measured fifty square-feet. Each contained a six-by-six glass slab laden with an elongated bundle of squalid rags. The pens were obviously designed to house something more than flexglass rags, but what?

  Movement snared his attention. He scanned the pen directly below the concourse. Had the bundle on its slab shifted?

  Laoshi gazed at the bundle for a few more seconds, but it didn’t move. He must have—

  The bundle rolled over. A soiled face resolved among a swirl of filthy flexglass.

  Laoshi blinked, unsure whether he was imagining the face. Humans often saw patterns when none existed. He might be—

  A pair of green eyes opened. They blinked beneath a brown tangle of grease-matted hair . . . and widened.

  The rifle slipped from Laoshi’s trembling hands.

  The eyes belonged to a young woman.

  4

  Choices

  LAOSHI PICKED UP the sonic rifle and scanned the pens below the concourse.

  Hundreds of filthy bundles on hundreds of glass slabs took on a new, sinister meaning—as did the discordant hum souring the air. He scrambled down the nearest ladder and alighted on the walkway.

  He unslung the rifle and crept along the walkway. Narrow openings permitted entry to each pen. Inside, women huddled on the slabs. Caucasoids. Indonoids. Africoids. Asianoids. All appeared young, though their grimy skin made it difficult to assess their true age. Some reached out to him as he passed. Some gazed at him with deadened eyes. Some displayed no reaction. Most shared a common physical trait.

  Bulging bellies.

  He reached the green-eyed woman’s pen and peered inside.

  She lay on her side upon the slab. A glass chain led from an anchor point on a wall to a manacle around her ankle. The chain offered little slack.

  He stepped through the opening. The cloying stench of sweat and excrement induced a gag.

  The woman’s eyes grew wider and wider as if encountering an apparition. “Are . . . are you real?”

  Her echo-thin voice slapped Laoshi’s ears. It seemed impossible that something so wretched could produce such an exquisite lilt . . . that it could produce any sound at all.

  “Are you real?” she repeated.

  Laoshi shook his head—what sort of question was that? “Yes.”

  She lifted her head from the slab. Matted hair clotted her brow and clumped around her bony shoulders. Her belly showed no sign of distention—quite the contrary. Ambient light fell across wizened cheeks and thin-set lips, casting cruel shadows across her jawline.

  He gasped. She was eighteen years old at most. A Slavv if her proud cheekbones and delicate nose were any indication. He inched forward and kneeled before her.

  She recoiled. The chain on her ankle went taut, its links clinking against the slab.

  Laoshi raised a hand. “I’m not here to hurt you.” He set the sonic rifle on the grated floor. “What is this place?”

  Her furrowed brow bespoke genuine confusion. “This is my home.”

  “What do you mean, home?”

  “Exactly that.”

  “You live in here.”

  “This is my home.”

  “But what’s your role?” he asked. “What do you do for the mongrels?”

  She cocked her head as if the answer should be obvious. “We’re breeders.”

  “Breeders?”

  “We supply a vital resource for Havoc.”

  “You mean you supply babies.”

  Her gaze fell to the floor. “We don’t call them that.”

  “What do you call them?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “They don’t belong to us. They belong to Havoc.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  Her downcast eyes narrowed. Her mouth opened, but it took ages for the name to pass her lips. “Odessa.”

  “You’re a Slavv, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” She pointed at the sonic rifle. “Is that a weapon?”

  “Yes.”

  A tear tracked down her cheek. A joyless smile curled her lips. “Then for Sha’s mercy, cull me.”

  Laoshi blinked. “What?”

  She looked up. Her gaze cut through him like a sonic round through an aeroshrike. “Cull me.”

  “I . . . I can’t do that.”

  “Cull me!”

  The confining walls amplified her shout. It propagated higher, blending with the wails of the other women. A more ominous sound cut through the mix.

  Heavy footfalls.

  Laoshi’s chest tightened. Someone was approaching.

  He snatched his sonic rifle and trained it toward the overhead archway. He curled his finger around the trigger and steadied his breathing.

  Dominus inched through the archway’s opening, helmet’s faceplate raised. His own sonic rifle swept for targets.

  Laoshi released a whooshing breath and lowered his rifle. “Down here!”

  Dominus gazed down from the concourse. Relief rinsed his face. “Sapient Sha! I thought you’d been captured!”

  “I came inside to investigate the sound,” Laoshi said, standing. He motioned to Odessa. “The mongrels are using these woman for—”

  “Forget them,” Dominus said. “Commander Nehjal’s assembling the team. We’re moving out in a few minutes.”

  “Don’t leave me here!” Odessa’s green eyes pooled. Tears scored twin tracks in her grimy cheeks. “Please . . . I beg of you!”

  For a fleeting moment, Laoshi weighed the prospect of ending her miserable existence. One pull of the trigger would put a sonic round through her head. It would be over in an instant . . . and merciful.

  “Come on, Laoshi!” Dominus called down.

  Laoshi exhaled, still staring into her swimming eyes. He couldn’t do it. “I’m sorry.”

  He backed out of the pen and climbed the closest ladder. The last thing he heard before he exited the miserable chamber was Odessa’s wrenching scream of despair.

  LAOSHI AND DOMINUS joined Commander Nehjal and the other Jireni at the ventilation complex. Laoshi tried to purge the events of the last five minutes from his mind. Odessa’s wrenching cry made it impossible.

  Nehjal kneeled in the center of the group and extracted a quantum tile from her webbing. Its screen displayed a low-light map of Havoc’s southern sector. “We’re a five-minute tactical advance from the relay center,” she said, running a gloved finger across the screen to trace the route. “We have ten minutes until the mongrel’s watch turnover, which leaves five minutes to resolve the problem with the entry plan.”

  The others members of the team nodded as if the statement made perfect sense. One by one, they shifted their focus onto Laoshi.

  His skin shrank. “Problem?”

  “Yes,” Nehjal said. “Accessing the relay center.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “How do we do that? Through a ventilation shaft?”

  Jiren Vandarian scoffed. “Not even mongrels are so dim that they build ventilation shafts large enough to accommodate a man.”

  Nehjal manipulated the tile and placed it on the ground. A tap of its screen converted the two-dimensional display to a three-dimensional plasmonic projection.

  A gray-light model of the objective appeared, floating inches above the tile. It rendered the relay center with lossless accuracy. The squat, octagonal structure rotated.

  “The rela
y center has two access points.” Nehjal pointed out two entrances as they rotated in and out of view. “Through the front entrance in the north or through a service entrance in the southern face . . . here.”

  Laoshi squinted. Neither entry method looked or sounded viable. Did she expect the mongrels to let a Jireni assault team stroll inside unchallenged?

  “The service entry is locked and access controlled.” Nehjal looked up at Laoshi. “It can only be unlocked from inside.”

  “So the front entrance is the only way in,” he said.

  Tor pounded her fist into his shoulder. “I knew you’d agree to do it.”

  Laoshi gawked at her. “Agree to do what?”

  Tor dropped a flexglass drop-pack at Laoshi’s feet—the bulky one that Szeto had been carrying. “Open it.”

  Laoshi kneeled and unfastened the drop-pack’s closures. His heart fluttered.

  It didn’t contain comms equipment. It contained a uniform.

  Black toroidal links—each no bigger than a fingernail—coated a tunic’s gray burrglass fabric. The anechoic material was designed to absorb acoustic energy. Thick segments of flexible armor studded the tunic’s shoulders and arms. A pair of quilted over-trousers and mid-calf boots completed the garb. The kind of garb worn by mongrel shocktroops. A bianfu.

  He glanced up at Tor. “This is a mongrel bianfu.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said. “For a second I thought Szeto had packed his finest formal shenyi.”

  Laoshi’s stunned gaze found Nehjal. He scanned her face for answers, dreading what they might reveal.

  “Jiren Szeto was tasked with infiltrating the center,” Nehjal said. “You’re our only alternative.”

  A jolt of adrenaline wracked his spine. “You’re asking me to disguise myself as a mongrel and walk into the relay center?”

  “Not asking. Ordering.”

  A thousand conflicting thoughts whirled through Laoshi’s mind. The best his mouth could muster was an unintelligible stammer.

  “You’re the only other Asianoid Jiren,” Vandarian said. “There’s a passkey in the drop-pack. It was recovered from one of mongrels culled during last week’s aerial battle. It identifies the carrier as an Asianoid—one with access to the relay centers.”

  “I’m Asianoid-Caucasoid,” Laoshi said.

  “Close enough for Jireni work,” Vandarian said. “The mongrels probably don’t check these things too closely.”

  “How would you know? What if the dead mongrel worked in one of the other relay centers?”

  “One in four odds,” Tor said. “Perhaps Sha will smile upon you.”

  He weighed the odds. The answer failed to yield a good portent.

  “There’s no other option, Jiren Laoshi,” Nehjal said. “Will you carry out this order?”

  Her hand fell on her hip, near the handle of her crystal dagger. He received the signal without distortion; a refusal now would earn more than a nose-flick.

  “If I may, sireen,” Dominus said. “Could I have a minute alone with Jiren Laoshi?”

  Nehjal glanced at her chronoglyph. “Make it half-a-minute.”

  “My thanks, sireen.”

  He grabbed Laoshi’s arm and pulled him to his feet. They retreated twenty feet from the others, out of earshot. “You seem hesitant about this order, my friend.”

  “This is insane,” Laoshi said, voice a hoarse whisper. “Szeto trained for this task. I don’t have the skills needed to bluff my way inside.”

  “You’re a qualified Jiren. You have all the skills you need but one.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Confidence.”

  Laoshi snorted. “If confidence is what they need, they should task you to do it.”

  Dominus sighed before falling silent. He shook his head. “It’s an illusion.”

  “What is?”

  “My confidence.” His gaze dropped to the hard-packed sand beneath his feet. “I’ve always envied your reticence. Ever since we were kids, playing Jireni and Slags or climbing Rhyger’s Cliffs, I wished I could be as calm and serene as you under pressure.” He looked up. “I’ve always felt inferior in that regard.”

  Laoshi studied his friend’s expression for signs of insincerity. He saw none. “You lack confidence?”

  “In every aspect of my life,” Dominus said. “You think it was my idea to enter union and start a family? If it wasn’t for Myra, little Cordelia wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have a family. I wouldn’t be here asking you to do the impossible to help protect them.”

  Laoshi let the admission sink in. He’d never once suspected Dominus of harboring self-doubt; he’d masked the emotion masterfully. “What made you decide to join the Jireni?”

  “I assumed you were going to join.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want you to take all the glory.”

  Laoshi released a bitter gasp. “Sapient Sha—I only joined because you’d joined!”

  Dominus grinned. “Guess that makes us accidental Jireni.”

  “Along with Tor.” Laoshi glanced at the others. “Perhaps we’re all accidental Jireni.”

  “Even Commander Nehjal?”

  “Perhaps not. They likely assembled her out of—”

  “I said half-a-minute, not half-an-hour,” Nehjal called over, voice a whisper-shout. “Make your choice, Jiren Laoshi. And make it now.”

  Dominus grabbed Laoshi’s shoulder and gazed into his eyes. “If any of us can pull off this feat, it’s you. Imagine how good a tale this will make. In forty years, we’ll be telling our grandchildren about it—assuming we’re not senile old cudds by then.”

  “I’ll need to live long enough to have children who can bear my grandchildren.”

  “You will, my friend. I’ll wager you’ll have a dozen.”

  Laoshi grasped Dominus’ hand. They shook; one palm up, one palm down. It represented their bond—in words and deeds.

  Dominus smirked. “Here’s to two fids who don’t know their glassholes from their elbows.”

  They marched back to the others. Nehjal’s hand still rested near her dagger-sheath.

  Laoshi crouched and pulled the mongrel tunic from the drop-pack. He glanced up at her. “I hope it fits.”

  5

  Infiltration

  LAOSHI TUGGED AT his crotch as he paced along the laneway. The mongrel over-trousers were too short. They chaffed his groin, making his advance toward the relay center uncomfortable on a whole new level.

  The tunic fit well enough—though its layered armor made it heavy. All told, the bianfu topped ten pounds. Combined with his jump suit, it contributed to a clingy film of sweat. Angst only added fuel to the sticky carapace.

  He swiped his upper lip, hoping it erased the sheen of worry. Missing from the weighty gear was his sonic rifle. The mongrels used an adapted version—one with a stubbier shoulder stock and shorter barrel. Strolling into the relay center with a Jireni rifle would betray the subterfuge, but surrendering his primary weapon to Commander Nehjal hadn’t come easy.

  His personal dagger was now his sole weapon. It sat in its belt sheath, which sat beneath the tunic. The mongrel’s favored long tunics—its lower hem stretched to his knees. Twelve mid-torso closures bound it to his upper body like a second skin. To use the dagger in an emergency, he’d have to hoist the tunic by its hem with one hand and draw the weapon with the other. Not ideal if he needed speed or surprise to survive.

  He pushed the unwelcome thought aside and concentrated on the name he’d inherited for the task.

  Bublefann.

  The passkey recovered from the dead mongrel listed it as the name. He rolled it back and forth in his head, shifting the accent into different positions.

  BUblefann . . . BuBLEfann . . . BubleFANN. . . .

  Its pronunciation was a mystery. Did the mongrels in Havoc have their own dialect? Did Bublefann have colleagues guarding the relay center’s entrance? Ones who might recognize a sweaty Jiren with a Daqini accent trying to pass himself off as their friend?

/>   As Laoshi approached the intersection leading to the center’s northern entrance, he realized with unnerving clarity how little he knew about the enemy. As early as he could remember, their lore had fascinated him. Mongrels occupied mythical status in Daqin Guojin. The fact that he’d been in Havoc for nearly two hours and had yet to see one only elevated their stature.

  It wasn’t surprising. The mongrels spent most of their time underground. Like their structures, only a fraction of their existence broached the surface. It made sense in terms of self-preservation.

  The mongrel colonies had made few indigenous advances over the centuries. They relied on small-scale incursions and expeditionary raids to augment their technological resources. Their weapons proved no match for the Jireni’s arsenal. Their tactics favored hit-and-run strikes and eschewed direct conflict whenever possible. The few times they’d attacked Daqin Guojin, they’d been repelled at its northern border. No mongrel incursion had ever penetrated the border wall in force, though smaller raiding parties had infiltrated the city-state by disguising themselves as denizens.

  The novelty of the situation brought a small measure of relief. For once, the Jireni were taking a page out of the mongrel’s book of tactics. On this night, he was the infiltrator.

  Laoshi reached the end of the laneway. He halted and surveyed the expansive intersection before him.

  Three levicarts occupied the intersection’s northeast corner. Their blocky hullforms rested on the hard-packed sand, their gimbaled varinozzles inactive. No light sources were visible through the vehicles’ armored-glass windows.

  To their right, an octagonal structure rose forty feet above the ground. Its diameter spanned five hundred feet. Data cabling penetrated the uppermost nullglass panels, radiating from all points of the compass. Red tactical lighting outlined the throat of the arched entrance in its northern face.

  Laoshi boxed his breathing and took a step forward. He took three more paces before jerking to a stop.

  Four figures emerged from the relay center. They wore the same bianfu as him.