Empire of Dust

by Jacey Bedford

A blast of pure panic from psi-techs in the tank farm cut through, threatening to drown all other communication. It held many voices, but barely anything was coherent or recognizable.

  There was pain, panic, and fear—each emotion powerful enough to overwhelm the unwary.

  *I’m on it,* Cas said and split off from the whole.

  Cara felt a wave of relief. Cas would monitor the disaster area to act as a lifeline for those inside it. Freed of that responsibility, Cara slammed down a shield between the gestalt and the psi-tech distress from the burning area. The thin plume of smoke was now a sticky black column billowing upward. Flames licked through the sections of roof that had already melted and dropped. Emergency vehicles doused the area with fire depressant from the air and water from the ground. Cara could see a corral of med vehicles surrounding an instant riser that inflated and formed an on-site emergency room. Ronan’s people would already be in action beneath its cover. Damn, but they’d be missing Anna.

  Gen circled the site above the level of the airborne firefighters, and Cara looked down. A bioplas structure should be resistant to flame. It didn’t burn like that without help.

  • • •

  Ben let his flitter’s height bleed away, circling a short way above Gen and Cara. Beside him, Danny bounced up and down in his seat harness.

  “It’s not fair, Commander Ben. Not fair. People get hurt. Nasty, dangerous fire. Not fair.”

  Ben shut Danny out of his consciousness, keeping track of the situation through the gestalt. Gupta’s men already had the flames under control, but estimated casualties were high. There had been at least twenty psi-techs on site, though not all in the main building. Ronan had only accounted for thirteen of them so far, and one of those was already dead.

  “It was naughty. Very naughty. They shouldn’t play with fire, should they?” Danny was still babbling, getting incoherent and tearful.

  “Steady on, Danny. We can’t help anyone like this.” Ben took a few seconds to calm him down.

  “It was bad. Mr. Colchek is a retard.” Danny picked the worst insult he had in his vocabulary.

  “Who?” Ben was suddenly interested.

  “Mr. Colchek and Taris. I saw them down there on the road.” Danny pointed to the Timbertown road. “They’re both bad men. I don’t like them. My Dad likes them, but I don’t.”

  “What have they done, Danny?”

  Danny shook his head and put his face in his hands melodramatically. “Oh, Commander Ben, don’t get mad with me. They’re the ones who get rid of the horrible things.”

  “Horrible things?”

  “You know, clones and ’bominations.”

  Ben did know.

  “Where did you see them?”

  “Down there as we came to see the fire.” Danny pointed again to the Timbertown Road.

  “You’re sure?”

  “They were on horses. Taris has very white hair. That’s why I noticed.”

  Ben circled the flitter and aimed it toward where Danny pointed.

  *Cara, did you catch all that?*

  *Yes. I’m with you.*

  *Gupta, who can you spare?* Ben asked.

  *Three groundcars are on their way, Green Four, Five, and Six.*

  *Thanks.*

  Cara opened up a link between Ben and each of the three groundcar drivers and their crews.

  *What are we looking for?* Green Four asked.

  *Two men, heading toward Timbertown on horseback. One is white-blond.* Ben looked into the distance. *They can’t have gone far, but let’s be sure. Groundcars make all possible speed to Timbertown. If you don’t spot them, set up a roadblock and check everyone passing through. We’ll fly the road. Cara, with me. See if we can catch them in a pincer.*

  It was hard to spot two riders in the steady traffic that rolled between Timbertown and Landing each day, but Ben flew low to one side of the road, and hovered on the antigravs while they checked every face. Danny pressed his nose against the plasglass and kept up a running commentary. Gen and Cara went out on the left wing to make sure no one broke away.

  “There.” Danny saw the two horsemen and started to get excited.

  They were on the road, trying to hide themselves between two grain wagons. Ben came in low behind them. Cara to the front. The two riders broke away from their fellow travelers and pushed their mounts forward into a gallop across the grassy plain, but Green Five and Six roared past them and circled back. Caught, they pulled up while Green Four closed the circle. The two flitters came in close, whining on their antigravs. The horses danced nervously.

  *Tranqs.* Ben checked the tranq gun carried on every flitter for unexpected encounters with any of the native nasties. He calibrated the dosage for a human. Danny bobbed and swayed against his safety harness in a state of high excitement. “Danny, sit still and don’t move, do you hear me?”

  “Sit still.” Danny nodded, scrunching down into his seat. “Don’t move.”

  With the tranq gun in the holder and both hands on the controls, Ben dropped the flitter to the ground and abruptly cut the antigravs.

  “Stay where you are, Danny.” He hit his own harness release, threw up the bubble canopy and jumped up on his seat with the tranq gun in hand. Both riders broke for different gaps at the same time. The white-haired one, Taris, aimed for the other side of Cara and Gen’s flitter and the dark one, Colchek, aimed between Ben and Green Four’s groundcar.

  Ben recalibrated for a horse and fired. His air-dart smacked into the rump of Colchek’s mount; the animal ran on a few paces before it stumbled and fell. Behind him, he felt Cara’s mind-link close down and he glanced back to check on her. The second horse was down as well, and he had a brief image of Cara launching herself over the wing of the flitter with Gen standing in the copilot’s seat, a tranq gun firmly held in a two-handed grip.

  The second crewman from Green Four jumped out of his groundcar and onto the downed rider. He yelled and rolled back. Ben saw blood spurting from a knife wound high on his inner arm.

  Leaving Danny still strapped into his seat, Ben launched himself at Colchek, who was stumbling to his feet by the prone body of his horse, knife still in his grasp. Ben didn’t stop. He went for the knife hand before the man could get a proper grip or stance. He twisted it viciously and heard the satisfying crack of bone. The man screamed.

  “Keep still, you bastard, or you won’t live to answer for what you’ve done.”

  The crew of Green Six was there within seconds. Ben looked up. Where was Cara?

  • • •

  Everything happened in slowmo. Cara was aware of Ben going for the other fugitive, but she focused on her own quarry.

  The white-haired man, Taris, hit the ground running as Gen’s tranq dart stopped his horse in mid-stride. He ran like a whippet, but Cara leaped over the flitter’s wing, dropped to the ground, and pounded after him, in front of the Greens by twenty paces. She got close enough and sprang to bring Taris down with a classic tackle. There was a brief moment when she knew she’d mistimed it, then she was too busy trying to deal with the consequences. She went down heavily with her chest on the back of Taris’ booted feet. The air whooshed out of her lungs and she gasped, trying to ignore the pain in her breast. She crouched to bring her own feet under her trying to get a balance.

  Taris recovered before she did. He was good. Good enough to have been combat trained—unusual for a settler. They were both still on the floor when he rolled round and shoved a weapon up to her head.

  “That’s far enough.” Taris grasped her shoulder tightly with his free hand. “Get up quietly. Don’t make any sudden moves.”

  She locked away panic and did as she was told. He rose with her and then shifted the gun’s position and buried the muzzle in the side of her neck. It wasn’t a tranq gun, in fact, it felt heavy enough to be a bolt gun. Briefly, she wondered how he’d obtained one of those. They were illegal on most civilized worlds, and doubly so on Olyanda where the biggest weapons the settlers had were crossbows and a va
riety of hunting blades. Even the psi-techs were strictly limited to tranquilizing smart-darts.

  Taris transferred his grip to Cara’s left arm and shoved her in front of him as the Greens approached with Ben close behind them.

  The moment was frozen. Cara opened up to the psi-techs. She felt Ben’s surge of fear for her before he subdued it. In any critical situation fear could be useful, but it was too damaging if you let it get the upper hand.

  “Get back,” Taris yelled and he pushed Cara forward within a few meters of her flitter, always keeping her between himself and the approaching Greens. Gen was still standing on the seat, tranq gun in hand.

  “Drop that,” he said. “Set the drive on standby and climb down.”

  *Take your time, Gen.* Ben edged forward slowly.

  “Climb down, unless you want to come along instead.”

  Slowly Gen climbed onto the wing-step, taking her time, exaggerating her movements.

  *Good girl,* Cara thought. Anything was worth a try if it distracted him for even a second.

  Cara fought for breath, dizzy with pain, but she didn’t think she’d broken anything. She felt the way Taris had his weight distributed; she leaned slightly, testing for weakness; looking for some way she could overbalance him without his finger jerking automatically on the trigger.

  “Mister Taris, that’s bad.” Danny Lorient released his harness and bobbed up in the passenger seat of Ben’s flitter like a target at a fairground shooting gallery. Cara felt shock run through Taris’ body. Maybe he thought Danny’s pointing arm held a gun—whatever his reasoning, he swung around in alarm, aimed, and fired. Cara had no inkling of his intentions. She felt him move and a crack jarred her eardrum. She saw Danny fly back and fall slack in his seat while at the same time Ben yelled, *Down!*

  She flung herself away as hard as she could, twisting to one side. The Greens, between Ben and Cara, dropped without question as Ben hurled something, then launched himself forward to follow it up. A knife flashed through the air above Cara’s head and buried itself up to the hilt in Taris’ shoulder. The gun fell from useless fingers. Cara rolled away and came to her feet as the Greens closed in.

  Ben lunged forward. She flung her arms around him, partly because she needed to and partly because she saw the look in his eyes.

  *Let the Greens see to him,* she said. *Danny . . . *

  Danny’s body lay crumpled and broken in the passenger seat, a black-and-bloody burn rupturing the upper half of his chest, his head thrown back and his breath coming in ragged gasps.

  • • •

  Cara’s arms and the Greens’ efficiency came between Ben and murder. Or would it have been justice? Ben’s head swam with the horror of it. He thought that seeing red was just a figure of speech, but his vision darkened and red blood pulsed in his vision.

  The choking smell of burned flesh would stay with Ben forever. Bile rose in his throat, and he swallowed convulsively. He felt Cara shaking against him. Neither of them moved for what seemed like an age until Cara eased herself free of his protective arm. The paramedics had arrived quickly and were doing their best, but emergency cryo wasn’t an option for Danny.

  “Get a message to the Lorients.” Ben said.

  “There’s no psi-tech in Timbertown. Lorient sent Saedi back, remember?”

  “They should be with their son.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed up his eyes against tears that were close to the surface.

  Cara tried the mechanical comm in her flitter, but the static washed out the signal.

  “Get a message to Jack,” Cara said. “Let him tell them.”

  “No. I feel useless here. Let’s go. By the time the paramedics get Danny to the med-center, we can have the Lorients in Landing.”

  Cara grabbed his hands and dragged him a few paces away from the medics. “It’s not your fault!” Her voice was full of anger. “Did you pull the trigger?”

  “I put him in harm’s way.”

  Cara pushed him, hard. “You can’t see the future. Taris shouldn’t have had access to that kind of weapon. If he did, it was because someone allowed it to be brought here against colony regulations.”

  “If I hadn’t given the kid a lift . . .”

  “He might have wandered over to the tank farm and been caught in the fire. He might have fallen from a horse and broken his neck.”

  “And he might have walked home safely. And lived to a ripe old age.”

  “He might. Would that have been your fault, too? He’s not dead yet. Ben, you can’t take on the guilt for this. If you carry the souls of everyone you’ve ever lost on your shoulders, you’ll end up collapsing under the burden. You’re still dragging the weight of all your dead crew from Hera-3—and Anna, Cooksey, and Coburg, no doubt. And likely Lee Gardham as well. You can’t save everybody, no matter how hard you try. We’re in a dangerous business. People get hurt out here in the vast deeps where there’s precious little law and no backup. And, as commander, you’re the one who has to bury them.” She scrubbed tears away with the heel of her hand. “But then you need to let them go. Let them sleep easy in your memory. You’re not to blame for Danny. You couldn’t have known about the bolt gun; couldn’t have known about Taris. Cut yourself some slack.”

  He shook his head. He couldn’t afford to cut himself any slack. There were too many people depending on him.

  • • •

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of hurry-up-and-wait.

  The Lorients allowed themselves to be shuttled to the med-center and such was their distress at Danny’s condition that contrary to Cara’s expectations there was not a single word of recrimination. It would come later, no doubt, but for now all their concern was for Danny.

  Ben and Cara sat in the med-center lobby while Danny was in surgery. When he was transferred to a high-dependency room, the Lorients were admitted and Ben and Cara dismissed by Ronan.

  “Go and get some rest, both of you,” he said. “We’re at full capacity here with the casualties from the fire. Get out from under my feet.”

  Saedi transferred back to Timbertown at Jack Mario’s request. Jack took up the reins from Victor seamlessly.

  A day passed.

  Ronan had said if Danny could get through the first day he stood some kind of a fighting chance. Rena and Victor never left his bedside, though he wasn’t conscious.

  Cara began to hope that Ronan was a miracle worker. He spent some of his off-duty time at the boy’s bedside, putting in a fix, as far as he could. The bolt gun had damaged Danny’s heart, and there was no alternative but to replace it with an artificial one, a short-term solution which would not be sustainable once the psi-techs left the planet. But it was not only Danny’s heart; his lungs were compromised, too.

  Partway through the second day, Lorient asked to see Ben.

  “Shall I come?” Cara asked, half hoping Ben would say no. She wasn’t sure she could face the overwhelming emotion that Lorient would be likely to be transmitting.

  In answer, Ben kissed her on the forehead and left alone, returning barely half an hour later looking strained.

  “Bad?” she asked.

  “Bad enough. He’s in shock, barely knows which way is up.”

  “He knows about Taris and Colchek?”

  Ben nodded, “But I don’t think Rena’s aware. If she finds out . . .”

  • • •

  After three days, Victor began to hope that Danny would pull through. He didn’t remember a time when he’d not been sitting by the boy’s bedside, watching the machines like a hawk in case there was some kind of change.

  Rena sat on the opposite side of the bed, her hand on Danny’s, though the boy wasn’t aware.

  Dr. Wolfe had said this was a medically induced coma, for Danny’s own well-being. It kept him pain-free and gave him the best chance of recovery. Their other alternative would be to put him into cryo and ship him back to Earth. However, given his previous reaction to cryo, that would likely kill him anyway.
>
  Victor had brought one of their own medics in for a second opinion and had been told in no uncertain terms that the psi-techs had the best chance of getting Danny through this and to agree to whatever they offered in terms of tech if he wanted his son to live.

  “We’ve done everything we can,” Dr. Wolfe had told him. “It’s up to Danny now.”

  Victor had been so distraught he’d even forgotten to keep the numbers running in his head.

  Dr. Wolfe had called regularly, not getting too close, but sitting quietly in the room, his eyes closed. What was all that about? He’d asked the nurse and had been told that Dr. Wolfe was a psi-tech Healer. Victor’s first reaction had been to tell him to get out, but seeing Rena’s face as she held Danny’s hand, he thought that any chance was better than none.

  Rena hardly spoke. Did she suspect?

  Victor felt a sick dread rise to choke him. Taris and Colchek. How could it all have gone so badly wrong? He’d never intended . . .

  But he’d never curbed them, either.

  On the fourth day, Dr. Wolfe asked if he could speak to them both together.

  “Will he live?” Rena had asked, her eyes hollow and dark with lack of sleep and pain.

  “There’s been no improvement. It’s time to bring him around and see what happens. It could go either way.”

  Rena looked at Victor.

  He couldn’t read her expression. Did she blame him?

  “He could die,” Rena said.

  Dr. Wolfe nodded. “He could live.”

  “Will he be in pain?”

  He shook his head. “No, though there may be some discomfort. That’s no bad thing. He needs to fight. Sometimes a patient’s conscious will to live makes all the difference. We think it’s the best chance Danny has.”

  “Will he know us?” Victor felt as though his own heart was trying to rise in his throat and choke him.

  “He should.”

  Rena nodded. “Then let’s do it.”

  Victor found himself nodding.

  Dr. Wolfe made some adjustments to the drips that fed into Danny’s cannula. “You should be the first people he sees when he wakes. Tell him—”

  “We know what to tell him,” Rena said.