Banshee Screams

by Clay Griffith

  No answer.

  She pushed the door open. The shadowy interior of the hovel was completely empty. A layer of sand coated the floor and piled up against the far wall. No footprints. No sign of anyone in this cabin for days, probably months or maybe years.

  Hickok shook her head. Hallow had given Debbi this location out in the middle of the godforsaken Musselman Breaks as his residence. It was no surprise to Hickok that the renegade syker lied. After all, he was a deserter from the old Syker Legion and he'd been living the ascetic life of a hermit for years. Why would he let a Colonial Ranger know his true location?

  Still, the pilot felt terribly disappointed. She had wanted to find the syker because Debbi believed Hallow was the key to saving Ross. No matter what the cynical Hickok might say, she wanted to believe it was possible.

  Serves me right for buying into that stupidity, she berated herself. The only question now is whether I get back in my ship and go on my way, or whether I at least tried to tell Debbi what happened. But then that damn Ranger will pull me into some new suicidal scheme. And it would all be for Ross.

  The pilot spit on the ground to clear her mouth. She didn't owe Ross anything. What happened between them was long over. It had been brief and meaningless to begin with. Why should she help Debbi save him? What was in it for her?

  Someone touched Hickok on the shoulder.

  She spun around, bringing her gun up. A firm hand grabbed her wrist and twisted hard. Her pistol flew away.

  The dark eyes of Hallow stared out from the folds of a desert headdress only a foot away from her face.

  "Easy," the syker said, still grasping her hand.

  Hickok drove her left fist into the syker's stomach. His breath whooshed out of his surprised mouth as the pilot yanked her hand away.

  Hallow held out his hands, palms up, and gasped, "Okay. Okay. It's all right!"

  Hickok raced for her gun. She dug it out of the sand and spun to see the syker watching her, rubbing his stomach. She aimed at him.

  Hallow kept one hand out. "Careful, Hickok. We don't want anyone hurt."

  "Maybe you don't," the pilot retorted.

  "I have no quarrel with you. I know now you're here to see me."

  "How do you know—" Hickok stopped. She scowled angrily at the thought of the syker in her head.

  "Sorry," Hallow said. "I can't be too careful when a ship shows up way out here. Let's go in out of the wind." The syker walked into the cabin.

  Hickok kept her gun in hand and, with a deep breath to calm her nerves, followed to the doorway. She stepped in just far enough to be out of the gale. The shack was now furnished with a simple table and chair. A small fire sizzled in a blackened hearth on one wall filling the cabin with the faint, warm smell of burning dung. There was still a layer of sand on the floor, but it was heavily tracked.

  Hickok said, "So is this real now?"

  "Yes. I don't want people knowing I'm here until I know what they want. The deserted look was just a little vision I planted."

  The pilot snarled, "Don't ever go in my head again. Or I'll kill you."

  Hallow nodded seriously as he ladled greasy soup from a pot over the fire into a bowl. "Hungry?"

  "No." Hickok's stomach rumbled greedily despite the rancid smell of the stew. "Who's in the pot?"

  Hallow unwound his violet headdress, revealing his dark, weathered skin and a broad smile. He dished a second helping into a crude, mud-fired bowl. Then he sat down on the floor and sipped his gruel.

  "Well?" Hickok inched toward the bowl on the table under pretense of looking around the cabin. "You read my mind. You know what I want. There's nothing more irritating than a coy syker. What's your answer?"

  "It doesn't work quite that way." Hallow wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "I know you're looking for me. And I don't sense you're looking to do me harm. Or at least you weren't when you arrived. But I don't know what you want with me."

  Hickok crossed her arms. "Dallas sent me from Temptation. She needs you."

  "Why?"

  "Temptation has been taken."

  Hallow eyed the pilot curiously. "Reapers?"

  "No. Remember General Quantrill?"

  The syker's face went pallid. "Of course. He's dead. Been dead for years."

  "Yeah, well, that isn't so much an issue these days. He's back."

  "But he's dead."

  "Temptation has been occupied by a new Syker Legion made up of a couple thousand syker zombies. And if you can believe it, it's actually more unpleasant than it sounds."

  "Are you insane?"

  "Yes, because I'm out here looking for you instead of looking for a place to hide. The Rangers' captain is being psychically controlled by Quantrill."

  "But he's dead," Hallow interrupted.

  "Okay, you're gonna need to get past that," Hickok said irritably. "Quantrill is dead, but he's undead now. He put together an army of dead sykers. They stomped the main Reaper army already and now they're sitting in Temptation planning their next move. Dallas needs to break Ross out of their control before she can make any move against the Legion."

  Hallow looked far away, as if unable to process anything Hickok had said.

  "Hey!" Hickok pounded the table, bringing the syker back to the present. "What is it with you? I thought you sykers were used to weird stuff. C'mon, get up to speed here. The days when we all had the leisure to try to figure out why are over. Dallas needs your help, so grab your—" The pilot looked around the desolate shack. "Well, just come on and let's go."

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  Hickok paused in surprise. "How's that?"

  The syker sipped soup. The bowl trembled slightly in his grip. "I'm not going anywhere with you. What does it have to do with me?"

  "They're sykers. Or were at one time."

  "So what? I don't know what's happening in Temptation, but I want nothing to do with it. I left the Syker Legion long ago."

  Hickok pointed her pistol at the syker. "I don't have time for this crap. Get up! Now!"

  Hallow laughed harshly. "Don't be silly. Put that away. I don't want to hurt you."

  "You are going with me. I promised Dallas."

  "I do have a lot of respect for that Ranger. But I don't see anything I can do to help her." He pretended to turn his attention to some loose thread on his stained robes.

  "You're a coward."

  Hallow blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

  "You're nothing but a coward and a deserter. I haven't met a syker, alive or dead, that was worth the bullet it would take to kill them."

  "Maybe you forget I saved those people in New Hope."

  "You didn't save anybody. We found you hiding in a cellar. Dallas saved those people! She beat a Skinny! You ever beat a Skinny?"

  Hallow's face remained calm, but slivers of energy arced between his eyes. Hickok had to suppress a start and keep herself from taking a step back.

  The syker said in a soft voice, "Maybe the problem is that you're afraid to do what you want to do, which is fly away. You're a deserter too, aren't you? You left EXFOR. And now, you live in fear of being exposed and losing your ship."

  "Shut up. I warned you about getting in my head."

  "I don't have to be a syker to know you and I are the same, Hickok."

  "I don't think so, freak. I'm trying to do something to help. You hide out here like a hermit while the planet goes to hell."

  "Don't play saint, Hickok. It doesn't suit you." The syker rose to his feet. He lifted the ladle out of the stew pot, but seemed to forget what he was doing and dropped it back again. "I've been doing someone else's work since I was a child. On Earth, if you show signs of being a syker, they put you in a home to train you. I was a government killer by the time I was seven. No one ever suspects a poor little lost boy, until it's too late for them. Then when I grew up and couldn't play cute anymore, they sent me here to Banshee with the Legion to kill anouks. Well, I'm tired of killing people. And to tell the truth, I think the reason you're so mad at
me isn't that I won't help. It's because you can't stand to think I can do what you can't. Run away."

  Hickok lowered her weapon. "I never pretended to be a saint. I signed up to come to Faraway and fight. Flew over a hundred missions. I enjoyed watching those Marines pile out of my dropship and hit the enemy. I admit, I've got no love for anouks. Grapes killed a lot of my friends. But flying sykers into villages to kill women and children, even I have limits."

  "Maybe you were my pilot on a mission," Hallow said bitterly, more to himself that to her. "I ran out of the back of enough dropships in my day. Quantrill believed that the best way to defeat the enemy was to use your strength against their strength. And he believed that one of the anouks' greatest strengths was their breeding capacity. So striking at females and children was a logical strategy if we wanted to hold onto Banshee long term. We used to call it degrading their future assets."

  Hickok asked, "Don't you want to pay a little back against the sick bastard? Dallas needs you. And she's offering you a chance to do something right for a change. Just like New Hope."

  Hallow stared into the fire.

  Hickok said, "You're right. I am scared. I don't want to lose my ship. Brother, I'd love nothing more than to run and hide. But I can't. Not anymore. I've done that and it sucks at your soul. I'm a shade away from being nothing but a shadow. I can't live like that anymore. And if you really wanted to hide, you wouldn't have even gone to New Hope in the first place." She holstered her weapon. "Look around you. We're all trapped here. It either works out or we're dead anyway."

  The wind tore across the shack, pushing more sand through the door. The window covering rustled. Hallow ran his hands over his completely hairless scalp and muttered, "Oh God. Quantrill."

  Chapter 7

  Mo's was nearly deserted. It was unnatural.

  During the height of the Worldstorm people had come here to drink. Mo had miraculously stayed open even through the outbreak of marauding undead and the vicious batrat attacks a month before, and people still came to drink.

  However, the undead Legionnaires that walked the streets, particularly at night, reduced in numbers though they were, drove even the heartiest drinkers underground. No one wanted to fall prey to the rumored zombie press gangs that supposedly seized people off the streets, under the noses of the Colonial Rangers, and turned them into the walking dead to fill the ranks of the Legion. The presence of Marat and his decaying cadre were enough to intimidate the populace. Regardless, there were those that felt a new sense of freedom this night.

  A corner of Mo's held a small group of Colonial Rangers.

  Mo wandered the floor with a broom in his hands, a clear sign he was bored. He swept lackadaisically at several piles of dust and a few random teeth that littered the saloon floor. He let out an exhausted sigh and leaned on his broom.

  Debbi looked up at him from her drink. She sat with Stew, Ngoma, Fitz, Miller, and Chennault in the corner that the Rangers typically colonized. Debbi sat very still, but there was a light in her eyes that hadn't been there since the Legion arrived.

  No one but Stew noticed it. He wondered what it was that had her so animated. He knew without a doubt that something was about to break. Why else would she call the core Rangers for an evening drink? He was anxious to know, even though he suspected the reason. He kept it cool though, letting Debbi make the first move.

  Miller managed a weary grin, his attention still on the bar's proprietor, and said, "Mo, all that sweeping is exhausting you. I guess that's why you only do it every couple of years."

  Mo was too bored to retort.

  Miller shook his head in disappointment at the lack of response. He downed his alcohol with a head-tossing flourish. He slammed his glass onto the table and ran a finger along his pencil thin moustache. Then he pushed loose strands of dark hair, slick with high-smelling tonic, back along his head.

  Stew realized how tiresome it truly was in the saloon. He, Ngoma, Fitz, and Mo were all watching Miller's grooming with interest.

  "Stinkin' zombies," Mo finally said. "If they're gonna keep everybody off the street, they could at least come in and buy a drink."

  With a straight face, Stew said, "Why don't you hang a sign out front with walking dead specials?"

  Mo appeared to consider it, then picked up his broom. "Nah. Them stinkin' zombies probably don't even drink." He paused. "Do they?" He wandered off lost in thoughts of new marketing schemes.

  Debbi said to Stew, "Don't make suggestions like that to him. You want to share our saloon with guys who are carrying their own intestines?"

  "Beats the stink of Miller's hair tonic," Fitz said.

  Miller didn't take the bait. He sat lost in thought, shuffling a deck of cards. They had played a few idle hands of poker, but no one's heart was in it.

  They were all thinking of Ringo. A mixture of sorrow and rage consumed Debbi as she pictured the poor kid out in that prison camp. But that was all going to change. That was the reason for this meeting. With most of the Legion gone, it was time to retake what was theirs. She had come up with a workable plan to free Temptation and Ringo along with it. And thanks to Hickok, Ross's salvation was already in the works.

  There had been little chance of winning an outright fight against the entire army, but now it was a whole new deck of cards and Debbi felt lucky tonight. She knew that Marat and his Legionnaires feared the Rangers and their black guns, and with the Legion's numbers reduced, now was the time to strike.

  She had taken the time to learn about her enemy. Through observation, she began to understand the structure of the Legion. In total, it consisted of nearly one thousand troopers. Of course, Quantrill was at the top. There were five "divisions" of approximately two hundred troopers each, each division commanded by a captain, like Marat, and a lieutenant. The officers moved freely at all times and were fairly conversant, except for the mumbler at the prison camp.

  Debbi had never felt a psychic probe from a trooper, only from Quantrill or one of the officers. She was beginning to believe that the dead troopers were not a psychic threat of their own accord, and if the officers could be destroyed, the troopers might well be disabled. She had not shared this thought with any of the other Rangers because she suspected they all were being scanned constantly and, despite her best efforts to train them in some simple resistance skills, she feared they could give away valuable secrets without intending to. And if she was right about the officer-trooper function, and the Legion discovered that the Rangers understood that weakness, it would have forced the Legion's hand.

  Debbi had been surprised over the last month when she compared notes with the other Rangers and found that no one seemed to have the same ability as she did to resist syker probes. It was as if she had suddenly discovered she saw colors differently than everyone else. She assumed this natural proclivity was some peculiar by-product of the horrifying experience of being mentally violated by the Skinny in New Hope. And this special capability only compounded the burden of leadership that fell heavily on her shoulders.

  A Legionnaire walked past the saloon window and Debbi watched it with hooded eyes, silently urging it to keep on walking.

  "What are you thinking about?" Stew asked.

  Debbi was startled. "What? Nothing. Ringo."

  Stew smiled. "Easy. I was just asking. Tell me when you think it's right."

  "No, it was Ringo." Unfortunately, sometimes it was better to lie to her friends in order to protect them.

  "I can't believe that we couldn't get him sprung," Fitz muttered. "Legal channels my ass."

  Miller poured another drink, dribbling it over the edge of the glass. "Stuckey'll be okay. The kid was born out in the wastelands. You think a little time in the desert is gonna hurt him? He'll probably think it's a vacation from city life. He loves the damn heat and the stinking wind." He downed the liquor in one swallow. "Hell, give him six months and he'll be running the joint."

  Miller slammed his glass down again and lapsed into silence.

&nb
sp; Debbi and Stew exchanged glances. They both noticed Miller's slightly slurred speech. Miller was a guy who could normally drink anyone under the table while playing poker all night with tolerable skill and underhanded dexterity. He was a loud mouth braggart, a cheat, a brawler, and frequently a drunk. But never a sloppy one.

  Fitz scrubbed unnecessarily at his hair. "I just can't believe Captain Ross let this happen."

  "He didn't let it happen, Fitz," Debbi said. "It's like I said, Ross is under their control. He has been from day one."

  "But I never would have thought someone could have done that to Ross. I mean . . . he's Ross, nothing fazes him." Fitz slumped in his chair.

  Chennault gave Fitz a quick glance and supportive nod.

  "I think we all wanted to believe everything was normal," Debbi replied.

  "You didn't." Stew observed Debbi though shuttered eyes. "You always knew Ross wasn't himself." Every individual had nuances of behavior and Stew knew that only people who had grown close to each other could really notice them. The fact that Debbi was so intimate with Ross immediately stung Stew, though he hid it well.

  Debbi shrugged sadly. "Not that it made a difference."

  Fitz brought up his Dragoon and lovingly fingered the black gun attached to it. "Oh, I say you made a difference. We've kept those undead creeps in line with just a hint of these. When the day comes, them all standing in a line will just make it easier to shoot 'em down." He sighted down the barrel at another Legionnaire passing by the window.

  "I just feel stupid," Miller groaned. "I trusted that turncoat Ross. He showed up with the Legion after they ran off the Reapers. He saved us from a fate worse than death. Oh no, wait. He didn't."

  "What choice did he have?" Debbi snapped. "You think you could do any better against that many sykers pounding at your brain, Miller?" She felt Stew's hand fall gently on her arm and she swallowed her anger.

  "His brain is probably fried," Fitz commented in a matter-of-fact way. "I've heard what sykers can do. As much as I hate to say it, he's the enemy now, plain and simple. This thing with Ringo is proof of that." He holstered his weapon.