A Shroud of Night and Tears (Beyond the Wall Book 3)

by Lucas Bale

  Beneath his feet the grating vibrated as the carrier’s thrusters engaged. The floor rocked as the ship lifted from the platform. A shallow howl filled the chamber in which they all sat, followed by a heavy growl, and then they were headed upwards towards the breach.

  C H A P T E R 56

  SHEPHERD FOUGHT when they took him back down to the hold. He caught them off guard and broke free, managing to take down two of them with his fists. Eventually though, as he knew they would, they overcame him. And then they beat him. They took turns punching and kicking him in the torso and legs until he drooled blood onto the aluminium grating that pressed into his face. It had been a reckless and futile protest that had achieved nothing beyond a little added suffering. He had known it would be, but he did it anyway. At least some of the blood on the floor had been theirs. Now something ached in his side, likely a broken rib, or several, and he found it hard to breathe.

  Choices, he thought. It’s all about our choices. Through the pain, he smiled.

  He managed to find a position where he could sleep. It ought to have surprised him, he supposed, that he could sleep at all as Skoryk’s guerrillas stalked the corridors of his ship. His home. But he needed the rest. His eyes were so damn heavy he could hardly keep them open. The adrenaline of his useless gesture had long ago bled from his muscles, and now he felt weak like a newborn. But hell, he’d enjoyed giving them something back.

  Eventually, still smiling, he slept.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when the orange loading bay lights came on. He opened his eyes, but the light stung them so badly he grimaced and clamped them shut.

  ‘You look like shit,’ a voice whispered by his ear. A woman’s voice. ‘What did you do?’ Then a pause before she said, ‘Come on, we need to go.’

  He raised his head towards the voice and saw Natasha’s pale face and blood-red eyes staring at him. Sweat seeped from her skin and she blinked too much. She was coming down from the stim and feeling it hard.

  He heard a grinding sound, like metal on metal, behind him. He looked back and saw that the preacher stood over Shepherd’s chains with a bolt cutter in his hands.

  ‘They’re leaving.’ It was Jordi’s voice this time, whispered and nervous. ‘I overheard them talking. They’re prepping the navigation systems right now.’

  Shepherd turned to him and smiled. ‘Kid, I never thought I’d be so glad to see you.’ He felt the guilt of his anger then, and he almost wanted to hug the boy.

  ‘We have to go, Shepherd,’ Natasha said.

  ‘I can’t leave her,’ Shepherd said, shaking his head. ‘Not now.’ He tried to stand, flinching at the pain in his ribs.

  ‘You don’t have a choice,’ the preacher said. ‘We have no weapons. There is no way we can take back Soteria. It appears you’ve already tried to prove that. But if we leave now, then recovering her remains possible. And stopping Skoryk remains possible.’

  Shepherd gazed around the hold. She could see him now, he was sure of it. And she would see him leaving her with Skoryk. She would know he was abandoning her. But shit, the preacher’s right, he told himself. You can’t do anything for her dead. Maybe she’ll get that.

  He closed his eyes and winced. Then he nodded. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. He held his hand out to the boy.

  ‘I’m not going with you,’ Jordi said. ‘I have to stay with them.’

  Shepherd stared straight at him. ‘Don’t be stupid. You’re not thinking straight.’

  Jordi flinched. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ he said.

  ‘Look, kid, I’ve been hard on you, I know—’ Shepherd reached for him, but Jordi pulled away.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with that.’

  ‘I’m angry,’ Shepherd said. ‘But not at you. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘You can’t go with them. You’ll end up dead.’

  ‘You know what they took from me,’ Jordi said, his face rippling with pain and resentment. ‘You were there. They hung my brother up in the street for me to see. They murdered friends of mine—people I’d lived with my whole life. They came for them in the middle of the night and never gave them a chance.’

  ‘Revenge isn’t the way, Jordi. You won’t find what you’re looking for there. It’ll eat away at you inside, and you’ll change. You’ll become something you don’t want to be.’

  Jordi straightened. ‘What other justice is there?’

  ‘They’ll know you helped us escape,’ Shepherd said. ‘They’ll kill you for that.’

  ‘That’s a risk I’m willing to take,’ Jordi said. ‘And I know her. She won’t let them kill me. I’ll tell them that. I believe in her, just like you do now.’

  ‘Shit, kid, it doesn’t work like that—’

  ‘We have to leave,’ the preacher said. ‘The boy has made his choice. He must live with wherever it takes him.’

  ‘This isn’t a sermon, preacher,’ Shepherd spat. ‘He’s still grieving. He’s not thinking straight. He can’t make that decision.’

  Natasha hit the button to open the hold. ‘He’s given us a chance, Shepherd. We can’t waste it.’

  ‘Now, Shepherd,’ the preacher said. ‘We’re leaving now, with or without you.’

  ‘Good luck, Jordi,’ Natasha said.

  ‘I told you I wasn’t afraid,’ Jordi said to her, and she gave him a quick half smile.

  ‘I know,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Will you be okay?’ he asked her. She didn’t reply. Instead she turned away and walked down the loading ramp. As Shepherd watched her go, he doubted if she knew the answer to the boy’s question herself.

  The preacher followed her down the ramp.

  ‘You need to go,’ Jordi said.

  Shepherd considered making a grab for him, dragging him off the ship. But the preacher was right. It was the boy’s choice, and it wasn’t for them to interfere with it, no matter how wrong Shepherd thought it was.

  ‘Take care of yourself, kid,’ he said, and turned away.

  He wondered then if he’d ever see his ship, or the boy, again.

  They ran from the landing platform and along the industrial passageways, putting as much distance between themselves and the freighter as they could. Through the windows, Shepherd watched his ship take off, the blue light from her drives throbbing as they spooled up in anticipation of the burst up and away through the atmosphere. He felt an overwhelming sensation of loss, as though more than one part of him had been torn away. He stopped and watched Soteria evaporate into a dwindling pool of blue; and then she was gone.

  He felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Natasha standing next to him. ‘It’s not over,’ she said. In the harsh light of the passage, her skin was flushed and yellow. She coughed hard and raised her arm to her mouth. Something congealed and bloody stained the fabric when it came away. She was really struggling now; he could see it clearly. The withdrawal would get worse, and soon she’d collapse into it. Where the hell did that leave them? One thing at a time, he told himself. You’re alive, and so is she. He didn’t want to ask himself why he cared so much. Yet still his fingers balled into fists and his ribs ached, or maybe it was something else. He couldn’t tell.

  ‘It’s my fault he stayed with them,’ Shepherd said. ‘I pushed him away when he needed me—’ He sighed and bit his lip until he tasted blood. ‘I was angry.’

  ‘Maybe it was your fault,’ she said quietly. ‘Or maybe he would’ve made that choice no matter what. Either way, we have work to do if you want to keep your ship, and him, safe.’ She coughed again and spat something onto the floor.

  Shepherd nodded. Of course she was right, but how did that make it any easier? ‘There are ships here,’ he said finally. ‘Plenty of them. Some in better condition than others. There’ll be one that can fly.’

  ‘It could take us weeks to find one,’ Natasha said, breathing hard. ‘To get it running. You a good enough grease monkey for that?’

  �
�Can you get through a few weeks here?’ he replied gently.

  At first she flushed and her eyes grew angry, but then, maybe seeing the truth of his concern, she relented. ‘I’ll get through it.’

  ‘I can access their systems,’ the preacher said. ‘They have rosters explaining what to salvage, what ships they think they can sell. I know where to look for them. But we need to go now.’

  ‘How?’ Shepherd said. ‘How do you know how to do that?’

  ‘I’ve done it before,’ the preacher replied, his face a cool void. ‘When I built Soteria.’ And he turned and walked away.

  Shepherd stared after him, at first too stunned to speak. Then slowly, as the answers began to click into place, he relaxed. He reached a hand to his aching ribs and smiled. He understood now. It was time to accept what was done—and fight back.

  THE CONCLUSION

  OF THE

  BEYOND THE WALL

  SERIES

  IS

  COMING SOON

  Help Others Find My Books

  It’s a special thing that you chose to read my book. All those hours creating, writing, editing and publishing were worth every second. Without people like you, choosing to read my work, I couldn’t continue. Now you’ve finished, you’ll be wondering whether you should leave a review and tell others how great it was.

  Please, please consider doing so.

  It’s so important. That two or three minutes you spend writing it has a huge impact on my ability to produce yet more stories that you will love. Seriously – would you buy a book that had no reviews?

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I remember, when I wrote The Heretic, that there were so many people to thank. I wanted to write words that conveyed to them just how much their support and sacrifice meant to me. That was almost exactly a year ago now. My debut novel, my inaugural experience of self-publishing. How long ago that seems.

  Not much has changed in that time, and yet everything has changed. Looking back at what I expected in June 2014, I am probably a little conflicted in how I feel about the last twelve months.

  I wrote three novels. Three parts to this epic, hard science-fiction space opera known as Beyond the Wall. I wrote a standalone short when I found out my wife had cancer. It was the only way I could cope with the news. She beat the cancer and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. My boys still had a mother and I still had a partner. How quickly we realise, after events like that, what a fickle, precious thing life is.

  Since then, I have written three shorts which have either been included in anthologies (No Way Home and Tales of Tinfoil) or are about to be (The Time Travel Chronicles). I was invited to contribute to two more anthologies, and I am in the process of curating a second anthology, Crime and Punishment, with the same authors who contributed to No Way Home. I am researching and planning for a series I’ll be writing with Alex Roddie, writing as A.S. Sinclair, and I will be finishing up Beyond the Wall and starting a new series myself.

  I had no idea I would be this busy.

  What did this year teach me? That you need a thick skin as an author. And you need to produce excellent stories. You need to get those stories out there and do everything you can to make them visible. When luck comes, and you make a lot of it yourself, I assure you, you need to see it and use it. Above all, you need to remember that success is fleeting. There’s always someone else writing behind you and your readers want more from you.

  This coming year, I want to give everyone who enjoys my work even more of it.

  However, without the people who made The Heretic possible, and Defiance, and everything else I have written, how could I possibly continue? So to my family, my partner and my boys, my mother and father, and all my friends – thank you from the bottom of my heart. For listening to my woes and dreams, and for making me tea.

  To alpha and beta readers, those utterly invaluable people who read a book when it is rough and ugly, and barely compete, just to critique it – I would be nowhere without you. Alex Roddie, Sandra Fairbrother, Harry Manners, Steph Lehenbauer, Eleonora Mignoli, and Ted Cross. This book is what it is because of you.

  And to every reader who emails me to tell me about the awesome experience they’ve had reading my work – never stop. They make me want to write more.

  Lucas Bale

  Copenhagen, Denmark

  May 25th, 2015

  About the Author

  Lucas Bale writes the sort of intense, gripping science-fiction thrillers which make you miss your train. Stories which dig into what makes us human and scrape at the darkness which hides inside every one of us.

  His bestselling debut novel, THE HERETIC, is the gateway to the award-winning BEYOND THE WALL series, an epic hard science-fiction space opera about the future of humanity and the discovery of the truth of its past.

  He wasn't always a writer. He was a criminal lawyer for fifteen years before he discovered crime doesn't pay and turned to something which actually pays even less. No one ever said he was smart, but at least he's happy. He blushes when people mention him in the same sentence as Banks, Heinlein or Martin, bless him.

  His new releases are always priced at promotional rates for the first few days of their release. To be notified of those future releases, get selected short stories for free, and apply to receive advance copies of Lucas’s work, sign up to his mailing list here: http://bit.ly/1yRjxRS

  No spam. Ever.

  If twitter is your thing, find him at @balespen