by Lucas Bale
Gant seemed surprised by this last remark. You’ve no idea who this man is, do you? Weaver thought. You thought he was one thing, and now you’re wondering how you could have been so blind. Yes, I know exactly how you feel. But he’s no stranger to war. Eventually, Gant settled for nodding, and headed for the door. Weaver followed, still half-expecting a rifle projectile to burrow into his back and through his spine. However, none came.
‘Are you ready to see some of your people die?’ Weaver asked as they walked. ‘Some that may already be dead?’
Gant didn’t reply. Instead he continued wordlessly along the path. Weaver saw emotion bleed across his face, but the path narrowed, and Gant quickened his pace to take the lead.
The new day had dawned fully now, and a white sun burned the crimson sky. The heat sapped Weaver’s strength. He understood now why the chukiri had set the heat so high in the Astratus—it was an easy weapon, manipulating the battlefield to their advantage. They were used to the heat, and could operate comfortably in conditions that would unsettle, even distract, others. They were clever, resourceful warriors, men to be respected and, Weaver thought, even feared. But they could be killed, too.
Remember, you’re not here for revenge, he warned himself. You’re here for answers. You’re here to find the next turn in this winding road. You must not lose focus.
‘What you said back there,’ Gant asked eventually, when Weaver caught up after a short climb. ‘You said “This one already knows what to do next.” What did you mean by that?’
‘You don’t know anything about him, do you?’
‘No, he keeps to himself. Works when we ask him to. Doesn’t say much.’
‘Did he turn up with the others?’
Gant looked like he was trying to remember. ‘I think so. A year ago, maybe. With a few others.’
‘But none of them really know each other before they’re released to run?’
‘Some talk through the cell walls, but there’s plenty who said they never met anyone else before their run.’
‘You ever see him move that fast before?’
‘No.’
‘He’s trained,’ Weaver said. ‘Just as the chukiri are trained—and as Peacekeepers are trained. He understands war. He understands how to fight, and he isn’t afraid of it. He’s a soldier. Or he was at some point.’
‘His tattoos are fleet tattoos,’ Gant said, narrowing his eyes. ‘I recognise the affiliations.’
‘You think fleet ink can’t be faked?’
‘Why would anyone do that? Get themselves sent here, deliberately?’
‘Now that is something of a question,’ Weaver said. ‘Peacekeepers don’t go to Kolyma. If a Peacekeeper commits the sort of crime that warrants a sentence of imprisonment, there are other places they will take him. Kolyma has plenty of fighters—plenty of men and women who understand how to kill, as you once told me. What it doesn’t have are people the Magistratus have trained to kill. The Quorum is too clever for that; putting highly trained, potentially disgruntled and unstable weapons of war in a prison environment is ill advised. The Magistratus are anything but foolish.’
‘Can I trust him with my people?’
‘I think we’ll find out soon enough.’
‘That’s not good enough for me.’
‘It’ll have to be.’
Weaver stared at Gant, wondering if he was going to come apart, if the stress was too much for him. But he looked solid enough. Guess you don’t climb mountains like Gant does without something in the way of resolve and an acceptance of potentially fatal risk.
‘Right now,’ Weaver said, ‘we need to get everyone into the mountains and on the trail towards that freighter. That’s all there is. You let me keep an eye on Abraham.’
‘Can I trust you?’
‘I think we’ll both be dead long before you know the answer to that.’
When Weaver saw them approach, he knew immediately. It was a small group—no more than twenty or thirty—and all of them were wounded and exhausted, probably from running and fighting. He saw Gant shout to one of them, a woman, who on seeing Gant ran towards him. Behind her, a young man holding a long rifle also broke into a run.
Gant smothered her in his arms, and Weaver saw tears glisten in his eyes. He kept saying her name: Kayt. It was all Weaver could hear him say. Gant pulled her away and held her shoulders. He stared at her, seemingly not wanting to let her go. ‘Where are the others?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘This is all there is,’ she said. Gant’s shoulders dropped and his head tilted slightly. ‘Nikolaj came back and evacuated the first three huts, including Bradman’s. He saw Henrik with the chukiri and didn’t know what else to do.’
Gant looked at Nikolaj and smiled with relief. He turned back to Kayt. ‘And the others?’
‘The chukiri went straight to Henrik’s hut. After that, they came for us. We fought, but there were too many, and they were too well armed. So we ran. This is all that’s left of us.’ She looked at Gant. ‘What about Henrik? Have you seen him? Where is he?’
For a long time, Gant didn’t move. He didn’t speak. Then he shook his head and looked away from her. Weaver saw a hardness in his face. ‘There’s nothing we can do for him.’
Kayt took his face in her hands and pulled his gaze back to her. ‘He may still be alive,’ she said, her voice shaking.
Gant looked hard at her. ‘I have to concentrate on those I know I can save.’
‘You can’t mean that,’ she said, shaking her head, fists clenched. ‘He’s one of us. That’s not who we are.’
‘Kayt, Bradman made his own choice, and in doing that he put us all at risk. If I can help him I will, but I won’t risk more lives.’
Weaver watched the air between them cool, and his eyes narrowed. We all have to make hard choices, Gant. People die. You’re right to save as many as you can. The woman nodded slowly, unconvinced, and Weaver noted that she refused to look at Gant. She turned away and went back to the group, which was gathering on the side of the trail. Gant’s gaze followed after her, and Weaver saw pain in his eyes.
‘What now, Will?’ It was the young man, whom Weaver took to be Nikolaj. He seemed uncertain. He tried to stand up straight, pushing his shoulders back. There was a bloody gash on one of his arms, and his face was bruised and dirty.
Gant breathed in deeply and then let the air out of his lungs slowly. He waited while Kayt brought the rest of the group up to them. Then he spoke. ‘The freighter was his,’ Gant said, indicating Weaver. ‘We need to reach it. Abraham thinks he can get it flying, but we need to fight the chukiri in order to reach it. And we need to go now before the rest of them catch up.’
‘We can’t fight them, Will,’ Kayt said angrily. ‘Too many more of us will die.’
‘If we don’t fight them,’ Gant replied firmly, ‘we’ll all die. The chukiri aren’t our only problem. The Magistratus is coming, and we don’t want to be here when they arrive.’
‘How far behind you are they?’ Weaver asked.
The woman levelled a mistrustful look at him. ‘Not far. A few hours at most. They searched each hut and destroyed them after we evacuated. They knew we didn’t have anywhere to go. The huts are more important to them than us—that’s their victory. They know we won’t survive long in the mountains, that we’ll be forced to find caves to seek shelter in. Then they can take their time finding us.’
‘Then we need to get moving,’ Weaver said. ‘We pick up the rest on the way and every weapon we can carry. The freighter is several hours from here, and we need to be ready to fight when we get there. The chukiri won’t be far behind, and they’ll be gaining ground on us every minute. We need to move fast, and we need to be in the air before they arrive.’
C H A P T E R 17
THEY TRUDGED along the pass, huddled against the cold and the wind, a long line of silent pilgrims making their way to an uncertain salvation. Some of them carried rifles or pistols, while others clutched makeshift weapons or
tools that might conceivably be used as weapons. Gant led them, a little way ahead, with Weaver just behind him. Nikolaj had volunteered to take the rear, and Gant had been visibly grateful to have someone he could trust to watch for the pursuing chukiri.
Not all of them were comfortable in the mountains; Gant had said that only a few of the colonists had ever ventured this deep into the higher ranges. As the temperature plummeted, and the terrain became less forgiving of their exhausted mistakes, their progress slowed. Most were wrapped in blankets and extra coats that still failed to keep out the biting wind, but Weaver doubted many would make it to the freighter, let alone be in a condition to fight for their freedom when they arrived.
Yet survival was instinctive, almost animalistic. Invaders could be turned back by a weaker force because the latter were motivated by the limitless dread of knowing their failure would mean the end of their existence. A man or woman fighting for their lives, and unburdened by moral restraints, was driven by desperation—an urge to survive more deeply rooted than that of an invader. Weaver had seen it. But these people were not warriors. They were disorganised, frightened, and Weaver wondered what it would take to send them over the edge.
He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
It was Gant who first saw the totems. Three sunken figures, wretched and disfigured, hanging from stakes hammered into the stony ground beside the trail. Weaver didn’t need to see the recognition in Gant’s face to know that these were Bradman and his men. Their contorted, agonised faces had been frozen by death and the frigid wind; but although they were cut and bruised, they were still relatively clean.
Of course the faces have been left almost untouched, Weaver thought. The chukiri wanted these men to be recognised.
Not so the rest of the bodies, which now resembled nothing human. Skin flayed, muscles and tendons torn, bones fractured or snapped like dry twigs.
Weaver grimly appreciated the insight the chukiri possessed, the way in which they instinctively knew how to unsettle their prey. The psychological war they fought, alongside the physical one, made them potent weapons. He saw it, and knew then that they had been trained that way. That was the truth of this place—that they had been trained not only to be Peacekeepers, but to be merciless and savage with their enemies. To perpetrate a complete and psychological war, unhindered by emotion or pity. The next evolution of the Peacekeeper model.
‘You’ve seen them before? Bodies like this?’ Weaver said as he drew alongside Gant.
Gant stood in front of one of the totems, his stare fixed on the face of the dead man. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘But only once before was it someone I knew. The rest were runners from the compound. People who couldn’t escape.’
‘They know we’re coming. They did this because they knew we would pass here. They anticipated the effect it would have on your people.’
‘But not on you.’ Gant didn’t turn to look at him, just continued to stare at the dull, empty eyes.
Weaver was silent for moment before he responded. ‘It unsettles me, yes,’ he said quietly. ‘But I know we can’t afford to lose focus. I imagine I’ve seen worse. It all becomes a blur eventually. I think there comes a point where you learn to block it out in order to function.’ He laid a hand on Gant’s shoulder. ‘The ship is down there, and without it, your people will end up under their control. I have no doubt you know what that means.’
Gant nodded. ‘We should keep moving.’
There was no way to prevent the colonists from seeing the totems as they passed. Gant tried to move his people along, tried to protect them from the horrific sculptures, but Weaver saw the resolve drain from their eyes. Their shoulders sank and trembled, their mouths sagged. Exhaustion was replaced by a visceral panic. Each of them imagined themselves hanging from those stakes, lacerated and defiled as these three men had been. Every moment of the agony that Bradman and his men had so obviously experienced seeped beneath these people’s skin, and they crumpled. The stronger ones tried to help the weakest, stifling screams and holding their shaking bodies close, but in the end the only way to keep them moving was to almost drag them away.
When eventually they reached a shallow depression before the long, winding trail led up to the col and then down to the basin—to the freighter—Gant stopped and indicated for the others to spread out and rest. Weaver rested himself, leaning against the cold stone of a boulder. Heat fled from his body, and soon he began to shiver. He was tiring. He pulled some food from his pack—food he’d taken from one of the huts—and began to eat. A plan had begun to form in his mind as they trekked along the narrow trail—a way he might be able to slow the pursuing chukiri down.
Gant was an unwilling leader, he observed, but they followed him nonetheless. They looked to him for guidance up here in the mountains, and Weaver understood well enough why they would—Gant knew this place well, and was a skilled climber—yet they had looked to him for answers back in the huts, too. It had discomfited Gant, despite it seemingly being a situation that wasn’t new to him.
Weaver turned his attention to Abraham. The small man didn’t seem as tired as the rest of them. He tried to hide the fact, but Weaver had been watching him closely as they walked. The man appeared older, but he walked easily across the rough terrain. The cold didn’t seem to bother him either. There was something about him, the way he carried himself, his movements and his attitude, that bothered Weaver.
He was still thinking about it when the boy, Nikolaj, came running through the thin mist and down the path towards them. He must have dropped back from the main group; Weaver hadn’t noticed he wasn’t with them. The boy ran to Gant, and Weaver shoved himself from the boulder to join them.
‘They’re coming,’ Nikolaj said, breathlessly. ‘Perhaps thirty minutes behind us.’
‘They caught up quickly,’ Gant said.
‘They know what’s at stake,’ Weaver said.
‘We can’t fight them,’ Gant replied. ‘They’re wearing armour. They have better weapons. They’re trained.’
Weaver turned to the boy. He pointed to a boulder far enough away that the boy wouldn’t hear their conversation. ‘Go sit,’ he said. ‘Gather your breath. Get some rest.’ The boy was about to remonstrate, but thought better of it and complied. When he was out of earshot, Weaver turned back to Gant.
‘They’re trained, but we’re desperate,’ he said. ‘That’s a powerful motivation. Some of your people will die, Gant. It’ll be all you can do to get as many of them out of here as you can. You will have to sacrifice some. Are you ready for that?’
‘Like I sacrificed Henrik Bradman?’
‘Back in the hut, you said Bradman made his own choice. He was captured, and they tortured him to discover the location of your huts.’
‘We could have done something—’
‘Done what? Taken them on alone, to rescue men who put your entire colony at risk? You’re their leader. You may not want it, but that’s the truth of it. And leaders make sacrifices. You save as many as you can, but some will die.’
‘You’re that callous?’
‘I’m realistic. Your boy—can he shoot?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘There are a few.’
‘Get them up high on the ridges surrounding the basin, somewhere secluded. Somewhere they have a good view of the freighter and the terrain around it. Tell them to make every shot count. Use the high ground, it’s the only advantage you have. The chukiri need to be down in the basin to protect the freighter. They’ll be behind cover, but so will you. Attack from more than one side—divide their focus.’
But Gant seemed not to be listening. ‘Don’t take him.’
‘The boy is coming with me.’
Gant shook his head. ‘No, he can’t—’
‘We need to hold them off, Gant. The trail back there is tight. There are narrow places where we can create a bottleneck and hold them up. It will give you time to take the freighter. It’s the only a
dvantage we have. I need someone who can shoot.’
‘He’s just a boy.’
‘Not anymore.’
Gant frowned, and Weaver knew he had realised. That he now understood.
‘We won’t leave without you,’ Gant said.
‘Not if the boy’s with me, you won’t. And if someone doesn’t hold them back, they’ll reach us soon enough. They’ll come at us from behind and we won’t survive. You’re a criminal, Gant. Let’s not forget that. I don’t trust you, and I doubt you trust me. The boy comes with me. Now go get your people ready.’
Weaver turned away and left him there. He walked over to the boy. ‘Come with me,’ he said.
Nikolaj looked at him, confused, and then over to Gant. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To buy the rest of your people some time.’
‘How?’
‘There are several high passes between where I estimate the chukiri must be and where we are now. We can get to a position above one of them, try to pin them down. Buy some time.’
Nikolaj seemed to consider this. ‘If we move quickly.’
Weaver nodded. ‘The two of us can hold one of those passes,’ he said. ‘We conserve ammunition, keep them pinned back. They’ll improvise—they’re clever—but we’ll have to be ready for it. The moment they’re through the pass, we retreat back to the basin where the freighter is. We don’t wait. Clear?’
Nikolaj nodded.
Gant watched Nikolaj and the Caestor disappear into the fog that clung to the summits and rolled in cold waves across the col. A knot of tension tightened in his stomach.
‘The Caestor has it right,’ Abraham said. Gant hadn’t noticed him approach. Despite the cold, he had loosened his scarf. He wore no gloves either. In his hands he carried one of their rifles. ‘They need to hold the chukiri off as long as they can. And the time has come for us to go.’