Banshee Screams

by Clay Griffith

  "I sent Miller and Ringo. They took a Hoss and went out early this morning."

  Debbi tightened her lips and nodded curtly. She thought that duty was hers. Obviously, Ross didn't think she could handle it. Then in that same instant she realized a part of her was secretly relieved. She was terrified of facing that kind of fear again.

  Her feelings shamed her, but she remained impassive.

  Ross carefully wiped his knife blade on a cloth. "This gun is more important than some animal. Animals that kill people, hell, I can't swing a stick without hitting one of those around here. But I don't like it when new weapons tech shows up out of the blue in my territory."

  "All right," she said.

  "Dallas, as long as you work for me, you got three jobs and only three. Keep the peace. Protect yourself. And protect the innocent. Those miners were in the wrong. Hate it for 'em, but that's the way it goes."

  Debbi watched her boss' face. That was almost a compliment. But he was just stating a fact. There was no trace of artifice in him. He said what he meant. He was concentrating on replacing his knife in the sheath and was a little startled when he looked up to see her staring at him.

  He said quickly, "Look, you've only been here a few months. I don't doubt you knew your way around your old station, but you still need to establish yourself more in Temptation. Meet folks. Develop contacts. This town is different than when you arrived. And I want to know what this gun is all about."

  "I'll start with the local Hellstromme office."

  "Don't. I don't know how HI acted on your old station, but I don't trust them as far as I can throw them. You let them near that gun and whether they built it or not, they'll take it in for testing and we'll never see it again. No, I want you to start with a pilot by the name of Hickok. Know her?"

  "No sir."

  "She flies for anybody—legit or otherwise. Traders, Reapers, whatever. If these guns are on the market, she'll know. Check the saloons; see if she's in town. She's Chinese, flies a small, space-worthy freighter she calls Dead wood Two."

  "Do you trust her?" she asked.

  "No. You never know which way she'll jump." He paused for a minute, then added, "Pretty woman."

  Debbi almost smiled at the brief glimpse of Ross as a man.

  It was very brief.

  "Something funny?" he asked stiffly.

  Her eyes widened with surprise and she forced her mouth into a straight, emotionless slit. "No, sir."

  "Go to work."

  With the rifle over her shoulder, Debbi walked out into the blinding sun and squinted against the blowing dust. She put on her dark glasses in lieu of the bulky goggles that dangled around her neck.

  The town of Temptation squatted in the high desert so it was constant prey to the savage winds that roared across Banshee. It was the largest human settlement for two hundred miles, with a population that could swell to 10,000 or more if the seasonal travelers, caravaneers, and nomads were counted. It was a town whose identity was linked to hardscrabble survival. It was not kind to the weak.

  Temptation was an eclectic and eye-troubling mixture of the planned, unplanned, and sheer chaos. Some of it consisted of the patched remnants of the town as it had been before the devastating Worldstorm, a mixture of modern, modular, polymetal prefabs and Earth-inspired architecture. Most of the streets in the business district were bordered by covered sidewalks to protect pedestrians from the brutal sun and because of rains that, although infrequent, lasted for days and turned the dusty streets into mud rivers. Some of the town, however, was a makeshift jumble set on top of the ruins.

  Temptation had once been a jewel in the crown of human colonization on Banshee. It was a boomtown, the thriving hub of trade routes where adventurers and prospectors set out to find the precious ghost rock that Earth so badly needed.

  Ghost rock was a versatile and powerful mineral. Discovered on Earth in the mid-19th century, it became the fuel for the Modern Age. It was a mixed blessing though; it sparked the invention of wonderful machines and jump started a thriving, industrial 20th century. By the mid-21st century, however, Earth's natural stores of ghost rock were running out. Then the first deep space explorers found a system they called Faraway and a windswept planet they called Banshee. The planet was covered with towering mountains, sheer buttes, and massive outcroppings of a gleaming black rock called tannis; and in the tannis they found ghost rock.

  As with all empires, the businessmen came first. Then they demanded an army to protect their goods and, in response to the call, the United Nations formed the UN Expeditionary Force, known as EXFOR. The army came to Banshee to suppress the native anouks so ghost rock could be safely mined. Debbi's father was an EXFOR sergeant, and he had seemed to relish the genocidal colonial campaigns against the anouks.

  Debbi was a young girl of seven when the Tunnel malfunctioned in 2081, and the sole means of contact with Earth abruptly ended. She couldn't understand the panic it caused. Banshee was her home and she never felt the urge to go to Earth. The human colonists on Banshee were left to their own devices. They blustered on; fueled by the assumption that contact with Earth soon would be reestablished.

  It was then that the repressed anouks emerged from hiding places in the frozen north and steaming jungles where EXFOR had deigned not to pursue them. With them came the Skinnies, weird and frightening witch doctors to whom the anouks gave unquestioning obedience. The Skinnies were the only thing that ever etched fear in the face of Debbi's father.

  When Debbi came of age, she rejected her father's desires that she join EXFOR and take up the fight against the anouks. Instead, she signed on with the Colonial Rangers. Those independent lawmen had enthralled her since childhood with their lives of adventure and excitement. Her father hated them because they refused to serve under the direct UN authority.

  Debbi used to watch the Rangers stride through frontier streets with an easy confidence she found deliriously attractive. She couldn't imagine anything more wonderful than pinning on that badge and basking in the admiration of colonists. And she knew the Rangers sometimes had contact with anouks on a level other than just killing them. This fed her belief that the only hope Banshee had of surviving was to establish an orderly and peaceful society that would bring humans and anouks together. Then, ironically, after training, she was assigned to an isolated ore-processing space station from which Banshee was visible only as a tiny bluish dot in space. Her only salvation was that her mother got herself assigned there with the medical staff.

  Then six months ago, her station was attacked and overrun. She fled to Banshee in the escape pod and her mother was left behind on the dying station. She quickly found a new home in Temptation among the Colonial Rangers and threw herself into duties that gave her something of substance to cling to during the dark months that followed her retreat from the space station and the loss of her mother.

  Then the Skinnies created the Worldstorm in an effort to eradicate the human colonists.

  When it hit, the Worldstorm scoured the surface of the planet for several long, terrifying weeks. Hurricane winds piled oceans of sand on mining camps, isolated settlements, and towns. Heavy rains drowned areas in devastating floods. EXFOR bugged out, moving all their remaining resources out of harm's way to a massive space flotilla that orbited Banshee. Frightened humans huddled together, fearing it would not end until they were all dead.

  But it did end. And they weren't all dead.

  It was 2094 and Temptation was a flawed and cracked jewel in the tarnished colonial crown, but it was also a bustling center of rebirth as human society struggled to rebuild on Banshee.

  This time of year, the warm summer winds were just whipping up off the plains, replacing the frigid winter winds that tore down from the mountains. Debbi loved the wind and missed it during her years on the station where the stillness of space unnerved and frightened her. The intermittent spring rains hadn't begun and the insufferable summer heat would not set in for several months. This had always been the tradit
ional beginning of caravan season. And it would take more than the destruction caused by the Worldstorm to keep the hardy caravaneers from their business.

  Gangs of teamsters stared at Debbi as she walked into Mo's. She knew they were sizing her up, as a Ranger and as a woman. They made suggestive comments to one another about her, but not to her. She noted this proudly as she strode into the bar and slipped off the dark glasses.

  "Morning, Ranger!" Mo called out enthusiastically. "Coffee?" He liked the Rangers and treated them well. This was their unofficial saloon. It was the best way to insure protection when the many fights broke out, at least those that weren't started by Rangers themselves.

  According to saloon time, early afternoon was still morning. Mo's was only half full. Much of the crowd was actually eating the food; it was cheap and filling. But it was godawful.

  Mo handed Debbi a cup of something that wasn't really coffee, but it was dark and bitter. It was processed from some sort of mold.

  "Thanks." Debbi smiled and drank. She poured in sugar. It wasn't really sugar, but it was white and granular. It was also processed from some sort of mold.

  Debbi leaned back against the bar and scanned the patrons looking for Hickok, but she didn't see a Chinese woman in the crowd.

  Mo grinned and said, "Your boss really kicked ass in here last night. You shoulda been here."

  Debbi glanced over her shoulder at the bartender. "I was here. Standing right behind him."

  "Oh yeah?" Mo stammered. "I guess I didn't see ya behind Ross. He's so...uh...broad-shouldered."

  "Yeah, he's manly. Listen, Mo, I'm looking for a pilot named Hickok. Know her?"

  "Hickok?" Mo muttered. "Oh, gee. I don't know. You know, I really cater to the miner and caravan crowd. That pilot clientele does their drinking at those dives on the other side of the Depot. Near the old spaceport."

  Debbi sipped coffee. "I've just got a few questions for her. Trust me, I don't want to jam her up. And I'll make sure you're not part of it either way. Okay?"

  Mo pretended to think. He snapped his fingers. "Oh. Hickok. Yeah, I know her." He shook his head in amazement. "Good lookin' woman."

  "So I hear." Debbi fought the roll of her eyes at the comment. She drained the cup. "Know where I can find her?"

  "I think she usually hangs at the LAX; it's a crappy saloon just outside the port. You go over—"

  "Yeah, I know where it is." She patted his forearm and winked. "Thanks, Mo. Appreciate it. You have any more problems with those algae tariffs, let me know. I'll straighten it out."

  "Thanks, Ranger."

  She crossed the fringes of the Depot. It was a chaotic zone technically outside the city walls several hundred acres across where caravans loaded and unloaded. The Depot was always choked with dust, unless it was choked with mud. The rising, sun-scorched dust from the Depot made it look as if the western end of the town was a constant blaze.

  The noise was deafening—yelling, screaming, and laughing, motors roaring, animals braying. Marketplaces rose and fell by the day. Shops and stands were set up in clumps and rows. Huge reams of colorful cloth, undulating wildly in the Banshee breezes, were stretched between the stalls offering partial shade. Roving merchants carried bags and trays and carts selling the weird and the peculiar. It was nothing compared to the pre-Worldstorm market, but it was amazing that it had recovered this much so quickly.

  The "port" was the gate to the old Temptation spaceport. It was half demolished now and the remnants were rusted and sandblasted. The occasional spacecraft still landed at the port, but now it was primarily home to vessels that plied the airways of Banshee. They were an odd collection of old, patched-up ships that looked more likely to explode than lift off.

  Debbi found the bar called the LAX and entered. It was open and brighter than Mo's. One wall must've been a large window at one time. Only a sliver of the glass remained; some of it was boarded up but the rest was draped in clear, plastic sheeting. The view beyond the window was the landing zones; no doubt pilots liked to keep a close eye on their ships while they drank.

  Debbi studied the patrons and there, sitting in the corner, was a Chinese woman. She wore blousey canvas trousers with multiple pockets and a leather jacket over a tight jersey. Her jet-black hair was cut shoulder length and tied back. She was a pretty woman of indeterminable age. As Debbi crossed the bar, the woman looked up and watched her.

  Debbi stopped at her table. "Are you Hickok?"

  "Yep." The pilot eyed Debbi. "You Ross's new girl?"

  Just the way Hickok said it made Debbi bristle. "Mind if I sit down?"

  Hickok shrugged and took a drink of something green. Debbi laid the rifle on the table and sat. She noticed Hickok's eyes linger on the rifle before quickly rising to Debbi and then away. Debbi waved off the bartender who was coming near; bartenders always wanted to serve Rangers.

  Hickok raised her eyebrows. "Ross send you to see me?"

  "Let's just say your reputation precedes you." Debbi tapped the needle gun. "Have you ever seen one of these?"

  "A rifle? Sure."

  "This attachment. Have you encountered any of these in your travels? We like to keep tabs on weapons flooding the area."

  "I see one. How's that a flood?" She took another drink and stared out the window, bored.

  Debbi smiled and shook her head. The pilot wasn't taking this seriously. Debbi didn't have any reason to muscle her, but short of pistol-whipping her, she wasn't going to get any respect out of Hickok. Besides, Debbi wasn't really the pistol-whipping type. Nor was she interested in blustering. There was always a way to convince people to help you. Perhaps Hickok had gotten an inflated opinion of her importance and invulnerability from dealing only with Ross, and had little patience for underlings. Or maybe she was just a smart ass who had nothing to lose. But, Debbi thought, everybody has something to lose.

  Ross expected answers this time. Debbi wasn't about to let him down. She jerked her thumb at the window wall. "Your ship out there?"

  Hickok finished her drink and let out an exasperated sigh. "Sure. And my paperwork's all in order."

  Debbi said, "The Deadwood Two. Right?"

  Hickok sat silently.

  Debbi leaned forward. "And as orderly as you may think your paperwork is, I'll find something, somewhere. And I'll lock you down. You may get out from under it. Maybe in a day, maybe a week. But then I'll find something else. And something else. This is what I do for a living. I've got nothing but time to follow up on it. Maybe I'll even get your ship commandeered for Ranger service. Permanently."

  Hickok's jaw was set tight. She breathed hard through her nose, and then looked away.

  Then she turned back, red-faced with anger. "I've seen a few of those things. Usually like that, rigged to older guns."

  "What are they?"

  "I don't know. I've heard them called black guns or black tech. They're just now showing up. They're not on any market; I've never seen one for sale. Whoever's making them is giving them away." Hickok shook her head in baffled amazement. "From what I hear, they show up mainly in settler encampments. Mining outposts in the wastelands."

  "Have you seen anouks or Reapers with them?"

  "Anouks don't make it on the colonial trade routes. But I'm sure they'll get hold of some eventually."

  "Anything else?"

  Hickok eyed Debbi. "Yeah, I don't appreciate being threatened for sport." Hickok's voice quivered with barely held anger. "And tell Ross next time not to send his little sister. Does that answer all your questions?"

  Debbi stood up and coolly took the rifle. "Yes. Thank you for your cooperation. And keep your seat and both hands on the table until I get out."

  Hickok rolled her drink glass between her fingers and watched Debbi leave. Without changing emotion in her face, she threw the glass into the window, shattering the last pane of glass. The bartender glared and got a broom.

  Ty Miller and Ringo weren't as enamored of spring on Banshee as Debbi. Ringo spit grit from his mouth as h
e lay on his stomach. His shoulders were extended out over the edge of a sheer cliff. He used binoculars to peer through the dust straight down to the ground hundreds of yards below.

  Kneeling beside him, Miller peered over the edge and whistled. "You think that monster went down there?"

  "That's what I'm thinking." Ringo adjusted the focus and scanned the distant base of the cliff. It had been hard following the monster once it moved out of the protected mountain passes and into the flatlands. The wind decimated most of the tracks, but Ringo, although young, was a wastelander by birth and an exquisite tracker. His skill had brought them to this precipice.

  He sat up. "I know it went off here. But it must've climbed down. There's no body down there, and nothing could've jumped that distance and walked away. So that makes it big, strong, fast, mean, and agile. Hell, maybe it flew or something. Damn monsters, you never know what they'll do."

  "Hey, what's that?" Miller asked suddenly.

  "What? Where?" Ringo's hand flashed to his sidearm.

  "Out there, Ranger." Miller grinned and pointed out across the vast desert plain at the foot of the plateau where they sat.

  Ringo rolled his eyes at Miller. Then he trained the binoculars out. "Where?"

  Miller held his arm straight out. "About two o'clock."

  "Yeah, I see them. Reapers."

  Five figures rode across the wind-swept desert. Two were human, riding speeder bikes and heavily armed. Following them at thirty yards were three anouks of the Azeel clan, two males and one female. Tall and muscular, they wore very little, breechcloths and ornaments, their tough purple skin hardened against the cutting sand. Their faces were long and flat, noseless, with large, black eyes. Savage spikes protruded from their elbows, which they used for close quarter fighting. They were mounted on large chanouks, all fangs and claws, smooth-skinned, muscular and sinewy with manes and long, lizard-like tails. These creatures loped with a peculiar gait that most found strangely smooth and even, almost gyroscopic. The Azeel carried long black javelins carved from smooth, black, tannis rock.