by Adam Carter
Valentine understood the threat without the need for Hunter to elaborate. Everyone knew the power of the Jovian system, simply because it had so many moons. If the Jovians ever decided to invade another system, they would very likely succeed. Valentine liked to think there was too much history on Earth for anyone to risk destroying it, but people didn’t care enough for history any more for it to much matter. Nor did they feel much affinity for the world they had all left so many generations ago to colonise their own worlds; no more than Americans or Australians much thought about their origins in England; no more than anyone considered their species’ origins in Africa.
In war, people tended to forget quite easily.
He understood entirely now why Hunter had asked him for this drink. She wanted to threaten him in a neutral area which encouraged freedom of speech and thought. She wanted him to know she could kill him any time she wanted to, but that for the moment she was restraining herself. She was, it turned out, very different to Aura Torrance indeed. It was good to know, yet he wanted more than ever now to be rid of these people as soon as humanly possible.
At his belt his radio crackled and Valentine was thankful for the distraction. “Valentine.”
“Boss,” his bodyguard, Stone, said from the other end. “We need you down here.”
He felt relief wash over him and was almost out of his seat before he realised he should ask what the problem was first, just so he wasn’t painting a bad picture of himself for Private Hunter. “Anything serious?”
“And then some,” Stone grunted. “There’s some creature running around down here. Torn two people apart already.”
“Creature?” Suddenly Valentine did not care at all for Hunter’s company or finding an excuse to leave her. “What creature? Are the doors secure?”
“Didn’t come from the outside, boss. It’s that red crocodile thing from downstairs. Looks like it’s broken out of its cell.”
“All right, I’m on my way.”
It had never happened before. Zebadiah was such a good custodian of the animals that the very notion he would leave a door unlocked was ludicrous. On a plus note, Valentine’s sociopathic mind interjected, it would make the betting on its fight all the stronger, assuming they could recapture it alive. But the creature was messing with Valentine’s natural order of things, and there were far too many security procedures to ever allow this sort of thing to happen.
“I’d love to help,” Hunter said dryly, taking another sip of her beer, “but Jupiter has to remain neutral in Earthen affairs. You know, I’m getting used to this beer of yours.”
Halfway to his feet, Valentine froze. She was too calm, too silently pleased, for her not to have had something to do with this. He could not accuse her of course, for even if he was right there would have to be an investigation and that would mean her people staying even longer, and bringing more soldiers in. But he did not need proof to wholeheartedly believe she had let the beast free. In that way he knew was their entire species linked.
He gripped the table fiercely to fight his rising anger. “Perhaps you should return to your chambers until this matter is settled.”
She shrugged. “Kind of like it here. Don’t worry, I won’t exhaust your entire ration.”
“Private, I must insist.”
“Sure. Don’t you have ... I don’t know ... a creature to stop?” She raised her eyebrows and Valentine turned his back on her and marched out of the bar before he could respond with something less verbal and more physical. He had known from the beginning these people would be bad for his routines, but now he just wanted them gone. Any way possible.
CHAPTER NINE
Private Aura Torrance was young and beautiful. Beneath her armour she no doubt had maintained a slim, toned body in line with her military training. She had a smile which lit up her entire face, while her bright, blue eyes were ever inquisitive and curious. She had exchanged almost furtive glances with Valentine; probably would have even laughed at the man’s jokes if he ever made any.
Aubrey Whitsmith hated everything about her.
Bringing up their rear, the one-woman powerhouse that was Katie Hudson kept one eye upon them, the other upon the swamp. Whitsmith had no fear of being attacked from any direction, for nothing would get past Hudson. That left Whitsmith and Torrance in the lead, which made for some silent conversation. Torrance had said she had wanted to see where the creature had been spotted, but Whitsmith did not fancy going all the way there. She was tired, footsore and famished: a second long trek into the swamp was simply out of the question. Torrance had no idea where Whitsmith had tangled with the creature, which meant Whitsmith could show her just about anywhere. She even felt Hudson would back her up, or at least remain silent on the matter. Had this been Valentine or anyone else back at the institution, Whitsmith would of course have taken them the full way, but she owed these soldiers nothing and knew they only meant everyone ill. Valentine was playing nice with them up to a point, but underneath he was scared of them upsetting his little world.
If he paid less attention to the young blonde and more to his own work, perhaps he might even make it through unscathed.
“We’re here,” Whitsmith said, stopping and casting a glance to their rear. Hudson raised an eyebrow, but not so Torrance could see it.
“That wasn’t far,” Torrance said.
“I never said it was.”
Torrance did not question further and removed some equipment from her belt. Whitsmith assumed it was some form of handheld scanner, but nothing like that lived very long in the swamp so she doubted it would work. Nor did she much care either way.
Whitsmith looked about her. The ground was still pretty level and hard, the nearest marshy ground about fifty metres in any direction. There were clumps of bushes about them, within which any number of crocodiles could have been lurking, and there were trees towering above them. The trees in the swamp were all sickly, so far as Whitsmith was concerned: as though even they disliked the foulness of the mire.
“You don’t much like this place do you?” Torrance asked from where she was crouched, taking readings from the ground.
“The swamp? Who would?”
“You could always leave.”
“We have a job to do,” Whitsmith lied.
“I meant leave the swamp. If you’re studying the wildlife you can do it just as easily from the mountains or the plains or something.”
Whitsmith did not mind the conversation, for Hudson already knew of the existence of the outside world. “How much of this rock have you seen?” Whitsmith asked.
“Aside from the swamp? A fair bit. We’ve been on the move for a while now.”
“Why?”
Torrance glanced at her. “A direct question deserves a blunt answer, Whitsmith.”
“You’re a funny kid.”
“I’m nineteen, grandma.”
Whitsmith narrowed her eyes. She was only six years older than Torrance but the gap was wide enough for the comment to annoy her.
“So what’s out there?” Whitsmith asked, determined not to let that annoyance show. “Past the mountains I mean.”
“Forest mainly,” Torrance said without looking up. Her scanner had lights flashing across it and she gave it a bash on the side. That would be the swamp water, Whitsmith thought with satisfaction. “Lots and lots of trees.”
“What kind of animals are out there?”
“Pack animals. Coelophysis and utahraptors. A few daspeltosauri and a lot of herbivores.” She looked at Whitsmith now. “So tell me, dinosaur expert, a fact about each of those.”
Whitsmith narrowed her eyes. She knew Valentine had laid down a cover as their being a research expedition, but the truth was Whitsmith did know a lot about dinosaurs; and Torrance’s attitude was only grating further on her nerves. “The daspletosaurus was smaller than the T. rex,” Whitsmith said snidely, “but its teeth were larger and its skull probably thicker. The utahraptor was a raptor found in Utah, obviously. The coelophysi
s was the first dinosaur in space.”
“Say what?”
Whitsmith folded her arms and raised one side of her mouth in snide victory. “You forget you’re talking to an expert.”
Torrance went back to her scans, but Whitsmith could tell she had annoyed her in return. It felt incredibly good.
“Is there anyone else out there?” Hudson asked. Whitsmith had almost forgotten she was even with them.
“No,” Torrance said without looking up.
“Not even your unit?”
Torrance stopped fiddling with her scanner and looked back up at both women. She knew she was being interrogated and didn’t like it one bit. “Well of course my unit’s out there. But aside from that, no.” She went back to her work.
Whitsmith stepped away from her, indicating with a jerk of her head that she wanted to talk to Hudson alone. The two women moved a short distance away and Whitsmith whispered, “I think this is a good opportunity to find out what these people are doing here.”
“Was hoping you’d ask that. But it would have been better if we’d moved farther away. They can probably still hear her screams from here.”
“I didn’t mean torture her.”
“How else do you want to find out anything? Promise her a daisy chain? Wise up, Whitsmith. We’re escaped convicts who’ve murdered our guards. These soldiers are either aware of that or they’re not. If they are, they’re here to arrest us; if they’re not, they’re going to mention us in their report. We can’t let any of them leave this place, so at the very least we need to know their numbers. Personally I think it’s just the three of them, which is fine. Torrance dies out here, which leaves only two back at the prison. Communications are bad around here, so even if they have one or two others back at their shuttle they won’t get a message through. Then we take the shuttle and get the hell off this rock for good.”
Hudson had spoken slowly and each word punched through Whitsmith’s brain. They made sense, every single one of them, but Whitsmith did not like the idea of murdering three people, no matter the reason. But nor could they allow them to leave the prison. She looked back over to where Torrance was still having problems with her scanner. She did not like the young woman, did not like her at all; yet to kill her and leave her body to sink into the swamp was not an idea which made Whitsmith feel especially good about herself.
“I was just beginning to respect you, Aubrey,” Hudson said. “Don’t wimp out on me now.”
But wimping out would mean tossing away her morality simply because she was afraid, and that was not something Whitsmith was prepared to do. “We’ll interrogate her,” she said, “and we’ll take it from there. But,” she added when Hudson grunted, “we do it without beating her up.”
Hudson shook her head, but it was not her call to make. Hudson survived in the prison by recognising the hierarchy. It had been good to her and she had prospered because of it, perhaps more than anyone. She would not risk all of that now just so she could drown someone in the swamp.
“This stupid thing’s conked out,” Torrance said, shaking the scanner now even as she rose back to her feet.
“This isn’t the forest,” Whitsmith told her. “Most of your equipment will be dead by now.”
“How do you live in this place? Better yet, why?”
“Because it’s home.”
“Well it’s a stupid home.”
“No argument there. Where’s your shuttle parked?”
“What shuttle?” Torrance asked absently.
“The one you came down in.”
“Oh. North somewhere I think. I don’t see any tracks of the creature.”
“Maybe it cleared them away.”
“Normally, yeah, but you killed it and threw it in the swamp.”
“Hmm,” Whitsmith mused. “Sort of lied about that.”
Torrance rounded on her. “You what?”
“So what precisely do you mean by ‘normally, yeah’?”
“It’s still alive?”
“You’re evading my question,” Whitsmith said. “You know what these things are, you’ve fought them before. Hell, you’ve likely brought them here with you since we’ve never seen sight of them before. You’re chasing them aren’t you? Hunting them?”
“We have to get back to the prison, we have to get back right now.”
“No so fast,” Whitsmith said, grabbing the soldier’s arm as she made to rush past her. “First you’re giving us some answers.”
“You stupid cow,” Torrance spat. “If that thing’s still out there, we’re in dan ...”
Whitsmith’s fist slammed into the soldier’s stomach, doubling her over despite the armour she was wearing. Pain shot through Whitsmith’s knuckles, but she ignored it and cracked her left fist across the younger woman’s face. Blood spattered from a split lip, spraying against her perfect blonde hair even as Torrance’s face hit the mud. Whitsmith stamped her foot down upon her cheek, grinding her face into the dirt.
And then Whitsmith was falling, landing heavily on her backside as Torrance cut her legs away from her. The young soldier stared dripping hatred at her, her bloody teeth bared, her blue eyes afire. Her face was streaked with blood and mud, a nasty graze and the impression of a boot-print across her face.
Whitsmith suddenly remembered that she may have been young and obnoxious, but Torrance was also a trained killer.
Torrance leaped at her, her hands grasping for the other woman’s throat, and Whitsmith met the woman’s rage with her own. The two punched out at each other, and Whitsmith felt a metal elbow slam into her nose. She grit her teeth, punching Torrance in the face since this was her only unprotected area. Torrance roared like an animal gone mad and Whitsmith raised her arm to block whatever attack she was about to make, so Torrance bit into her arm. Hard.
Whitsmith screamed, surprised at the nature of the assault and in terrible pain. Her free hand flailed, caught a handful of the perfect blonde hair and yanked hard. She had messed up the girl’s face and if she could mess up her hair the fight would have been well worth it.
Torrance released a stream of curses only a teenager in the army would know as she struggled to clasp her hands about Whitsmith’s throat. Whitsmith tugged harder at the other woman’s hair even as she felt hot, dirty fingers clutching at her windpipe. She heard something tear and hoped it was hair, then kicked out with her knee, catching Torrance in the stomach and sending her off-balance. The two women rolled in the muddy ground, hands tightening about one another’s throats. Whitsmith found herself on top and yanked her hand up and down to repeatedly slam Torrance’s head into the ground, but with a roar of rage Torrance spun them again to reverse their positions.
Suddenly an explosion rocked the swamp, loud enough to scatter a flock of birds into flight and send several creatures slipping into the brackish waters in fear. The two women froze where they lay, their bodies covered with the filth of mud, sweat and blood in equal parts from both of them. They looked over to where Katie Hudson sat upon a rock, calmly reloading her rifle. There was a look of disdain upon her face and she did not meet either of their gazes.
“You do realise,” Hudson said slowly, “how pathetic it is to catfight over a man?”
Her adrenalin rush had been intense, although as the words filtered through Whitsmith’s brain she realised Hudson was right. She pushed herself away from Torrance, stumbling to her feet and slipping in the mud to fall upon her backside once more. Torrance rose also, more slowly, her eyes narrowed in hatred, her face a mess of blood and rage.
“You’re welcome to him,” Torrance said snottily. “He’s not worth the trouble.” She reached for the gun she had dropped in the fight when they both heard the click of a rifle being cocked. Torrance raised her eyes, her hand halfway to her gun, to find Hudson aiming the weapon at her.
“We still need some answers,” Hudson said flatly. “So you’re going to tell us what we want to know or I’m going to shoot you.”
Whitsmith took the opportuni
ty to assess her own wounds. She was covered in various levels of filth, although sometime during her struggle a light rain had set in. It would make the ground muddier, but if the rain came down strong enough she might be able to use it to wash the dirt from her skin. She knew full well how quickly the rains could come on this world and did not fancy being out during a downpour.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” Torrance told Hudson calmly.
“Yep,” Whitsmith said, tentatively touching her arm where Torrance had bitten her, “she is.”
Torrance looked uncertain now, and for the first time since they had met did Whitsmith at last feel in control over her. It felt good, even if it was mainly due to Hudson and her rifle.
“The armour,” Hudson said. “Take it off.”
“Take off my armour?” Torrance asked, horrified. “You don’t understand. That creature is still out here. If you didn’t kill it, it’s watching us right this minute and we have to ...”
“Armour,” Hudson said. “I’m going to count to five. If you haven’t made a nice pile of metal on the ground I’m going to shoot you in the head.” She raised her eyebrows as if to dare the soldier to think she was joking.
Whitsmith felt an unreasonable sense of elation as Torrance grit her teeth and unfastened the straps holding her gauntlets to her arms.
“Slowly,” Hudson warned her.
Torrance spent the next two minutes shrugging out of her armour. Whitsmith noted with no small amount of pride that the breastplate was actually slightly dented, which probably accounted for the tremendous aching sensation coursing through Whitsmith’s knuckles. Finally Torrance tossed the last of her armour to the side and stood before them, exposed to the elements. Whitsmith had not known what she had expected Torrance to have been wearing under the armour, but it was not her underwear, nor was it standard army-issue garb. Torrance was dressed in some form of pale blue flight suit, by the looks of it. It was tight, hugging her curves as though it was a lecher’s hands, and lacked any footwear at all, forcing Torrance to go barefoot. There were tears in the attire which could well have been caused through their brawl, and already the rain was splashing dirt up her legs even while it plastered her now scraggly blonde hair to her face.