by Trevor Scott
Nix placed his hands palm down on the table and leaned in. “But what if the Ansarans decided to finish the job?”
“I don’t think they have.”
Nix leaned back and crossed his arms. It was as though the elder was turning a blind eye. Of all people, he should be the one to see the seriousness of the situation. If the Ansarans wanted to, they could destroy the Dinari on a whim. If they caught wind that there was a rebellion brewing, it would give them the motivation they needed to end an impending war before it even began.
“How can you be so sure?”
“It’s been hours since infection and no one else has expressed any symptoms.”
Elder Bartle smiled, content with himself.
Nix retorted, “We were careful, we took precautions.”
Elder Bartle stroked the outside of the light orb with one claw. The hundreds of bright flecks within danced along with his touch. The display was oddly soothing. The elder continued to smile, exemplifying the calm which emanated from the orb.
“You don’t remember what it was really like back then. Not fully. The strain released earlier today is not the same as the one released in your youth. It is weaker. Still deadly, mind you, but not as contagious. If it were, you and your friends would likely already be dead.”
13
“Lieutenant Wilkes, I’d forgotten about him.”
Saturn let an uncomfortable laugh slip out from her mouth, hardly audible through her breathing mask. She wished she could forget about him. Liam hadn’t seen everything she had. Their escape was hardly as clean as she’d let Liam believe. She wondered how much she should tell him. The truth might change their relationship forever.
Liam coughed and more blood flew past his ornamental mask, finding its way to the plastic sheet in the form of tiny droplets which began to trail down the makeshift wall. He wheezed, “Keep going, it’s nice to hear you talk.”
Saturn played with the rough fabric of her pants, tracing the dark patches that might have passed as a desert camouflage, though unintentional in nature. Maybe giving Liam something else to think about apart from the pain was what he needed. She wanted to believe that was the case.
“The lights in the hallway dimmed to simulate night on the Zulu schedule. That’s when things got interesting.”
•
2142 A.D. – Terran Military Vessel Dauntless
Saturn’s eyes shot open when half of the LED lights dimmed in the hallway, casting deep shadows into their cell. She shrugged Liam’s head off her shoulder and rose up from the bench, slowly approaching the door out of caution. From behind her, she could hear Liam’s absentminded protests. She must have fallen asleep somehow. She shouldn’t have let herself fall asleep.
“Hey, I was comfortable,” Liam objected.
“Quiet, someone’s coming.”
The sound of footsteps rang out in the hallway, proceeding at a pace much faster than a walk. A dark figure sprinted up to the Plexiglas and fumbled through the pockets of his gray jumpsuit for something within. His hands and gaunt face were stained with some sort of thick grease. The man’s hair was short like the Lieutenant’s, a typical military cut. However, unlike the Lieutenant, he seemed like he actually worked for a living.
Finally, his fingers found what he was looking for and he pulled out a keycard, which Saturn noticed had a different face emblazoned on it than that of the man before her. The grease monkey wiped the card off on his jumpsuit and inserted it into the slot. The glass quickly slid aside without a sound.
Liam still sat on the bench as though in shock, his gaze rotating between Saturn and the mechanic. Saturn pointed at him and ordered, “Get up. It’s time to go.”
Saturn passed the grungy man on her way out, patting him on the shoulder and thanking him. He only said, “United we reign.”
She’d heard the phrase a number of times before. It was Vesta Corporation’s latest slogan and was blasted to every private console in the solar system. Whenever she powered on her ship, she saw a quick commercial from Vesta. It was always a different ad tailored specifically to her and her tastes, but it always ended with one of their cheesy catchphrases. Whichever one the marketing A.I. thought she’d be most responsive to that day. Perhaps the most maddening part was its near-perfect accuracy.
Liam stumbled out of the cell, his center of balance a little off. He thanked the man in the jumpsuit, who retrieved the card from its slot and took off down the hallway in the opposite direction, without uttering another word.
“I’d ask his name,” Liam said woozily, “But somehow I don’t think he’d have appreciated a Christmas card.”
Saturn shook her head and grabbed her loopy crewmate by his upper arm, leading him down the corridor and passing a number of cells. Most of them were unoccupied, except for the few which housed random ruffians, some of them staring her down as she moved past. Near the end of the hall, one prisoner was pressed up against the glass, her tight blue jumpsuit torn to shreds, seemingly of her own volition.
“Shouldn’t we help them?” Liam asked groggily.
“We have our mission. Besides, we don’t know what they’ve done. For all we know they could be in for a bit more than moving questionable cargo. Murderers are bad for business.”
Liam didn’t argue as Saturn approached the door at the end of the hall and hit the release button. She heard an electronic motor overhead and looked up. A small circular camera was focusing in on her face. She held her breath. A moment later she heard a loud clunk and the thick metal door slid aside. Saturn breathed out the pent-up air in her lungs. It was starting to look like they had friends in all the right places.
“Come on,” Saturn commanded.
Liam’s eyes appeared to be out of focus. He was more concerned with the uninteresting architecture of the ship than minding which way he was going. She led him down a corridor with many angled turns. At each junction, the bulkheads were reinforced with a steel that had been painted, if possible, an even drearier gray than the rest of the ship. Every so often, panels of light shined out into the hall, providing only the minimum brightness needed to keep from tripping. Saturn tried hard to remember which way they’d come on their way in, but the many turns were so similar she couldn’t be sure they were headed in the right direction.
The low light in the hallway confirmed that the military vessel ran on a 24-hour clock. They hadn’t seen anybody since the mechanic who’d set them free. Saturn found it off-putting. She’d seen no less than four cameras since they’d entered the angled corridor and still no alarms. Vesta Corporation must have had their priorities when they decided whom they paid off. She was beginning to wonder just what they were carrying that merited such a coordinated response from Vesta. After all, they were one of easily a thousand supply ships.
Saturn stopped suddenly when she saw the wide cargo lift ahead, blue lights engulfing its interior and flooding out and down the hall. When they were pulled aboard the vessel, the officers had brought them up that lift, she was sure of it. A dark feeling washed over her. Was it doubt? She tightened her grip on Liam’s arm and hazarded a few small steps toward the lift.
She heard voices and halted, pushing her and a dazed Liam against the wall, the deep shadows consumed most of their bodies. Two soldiers came out from a side hallway and entered the lift. They were clad in gray uniforms that conformed tightly to their bodies, bits of hardened armor covering their chests, shoulders, and upper legs. Pulse rifles were slung across their shoulders casually. One looked like the prototypical military man with a chiseled jaw and muscles that filled out his uniform nicely. His counterpart was a rough-looking woman with short blonde hair that was shaved up the left side, the rest hanging down choppily over her right cheek.
“What did LT want?” she asked the military man.
“The same bullshit. He said General Carmine is supposed to meet us on Mars to inspect our unit.”
The blonde soldier cursed, slamming a button on the wall and triggering a cascade of linked m
etal to slide down in front of them.
“Cleaning details again? What do they think they trained us for?”
“Just keep your mouth shut. Cooperate a little longer and you’ll make Sergeant. At least then you won’t have to get your hands quite as dirty.”
The blonde soldier smirked, apparently taking no offense to her superior’s tone. Saturn might have clocked him. No one told her to keep her mouth shut. It occurred to her then that there was a pretty good reason she never joined the military.
The lift began to move and Saturn could see a trace of the blue light descend with them. Liam squinted off toward the elevator before rubbing his eyes vigorously.
“Are you going to make it?” Saturn asked, half-mockingly.
“I’ve got this,” Liam said, breaking free of her grasp and taking a few steps down the hallway. He didn’t take more than five steps before tripping over his own feet, barely managing to save himself from a nasty fall.
Saturn shook her head, stifling a laugh. “Get it together. The lift’s crawling with military so we’re going to have to find another way down.”
Liam’s confusion became more present in his visage with every passing minute. Maybe he’d hit his head harder than she thought. Saturn took Liam’s arm once more and led him down a hallway that jutted to the right just before the intersection which housed the lift. Around the corner was an alcove which was indented into the wall struts in the shape of a half-hexagon. The recess accommodated a thin ladder which ran both up and down through multiple decks.
Saturn remembered the lift taking them up several decks when they’d arrived on the Terran vessel. Getting Liam back down the ladder, however, would prove to be a task. Saturn guided him into the alcove, regularly checking the hallway for movement. She leaned him up against the metal hull and held him by the shoulders. “The shaft is narrow, so if you get tired, lean your back up against the wall. Just don’t let go of the rungs.”
Saturn helped Liam onto the ladder and watched him descend. It might have been crass to make him go first, but she wasn’t about to risk his lifeless body falling on top of her. Politeness had its limits.
After they’d descended one level, Liam started making strange noises below her, the echoes of his growling stomach and wheezes bouncing off the walls of the shaft.
“Quiet,” Saturn whispered urgently.
Then Saturn heard the dreaded noise. Liquid gurgled in Liam’s throat before being expelled from his mouth, coating the shaft below them and continuing to drip from the rungs of the ladder, sending the sickening plips and plops up to Saturn’s revolted ears. It was hard for her to think about a worse situation. As the rancid smell made its way up to her, she finally thought of one way. She could have been below him when it happened.
“Oh God,” Liam said, mortified. “I haven’t thrown up since 2133. It would only have been a few more months to go ‘til ten.”
Saturn looked down and involuntarily gagged. She held her sleeve over her nose and mouth and said through her arm, “Just keep moving. We should only have a few more decks to go.”
Saturn didn’t dare look down again. She heard Liam’s boots begin to clunk off the metal rungs and she continued her descent, happy that at least she had on her leather gloves and doing her best to avoid the vomit. Without keeping an eye on the ladder below, her feet began to slip every so often and she had to force her boots into the sides of the ladder to keep from falling.
Saturn heard Liam’s boots hit the floor and relief overwhelmed her. She hurried her pace and finally cautioned a glance downward. Liam had stepped out from the hexagonal recess below and stopped just beyond, staring off. The floor at the bottom of the shaft was a grated metal that had absorbed most of Liam’s dripping bile. She skipped the last several handholds and jumped down. Saturn wiped her gloves off on her pant legs. They were her favorite and now she doubted if any steam cleaning would make them like new again.
Saturn stood back upright and asked him, “What are you staring at?”
They were in a massive cargo area that housed Saturn’s Hercules-Class freighter as well as two much smaller military vessels with room to spare. Robotic arms were hard at work repairing one of the Terran Interceptors, sleek ships meant for pursuit not only in space but planet-side as well. The bay was mostly devoid of people. Mostly, except for the three soldiers standing before them with weapons drawn, aimed at their chests.
14
2146 A.D. - The Sand’s Edge Bar, Akaru Colony, Planet Surya
“I don’t know if I ever apologized for the ladder.”
Saturn held back a laugh. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“Still,” Liam said through a particularly bloody cough. “Go on, some of it’s starting to come back to me.”
Saturn gazed through the plastic sheet and out the open window. All she could make out was the muffled yellowed sky beginning to turn a deep orange. The wind had started to pick up and even more particles were making their way through the opening.
“The soldiers caught us by surprise, but I should have known we were making too much noise in the shaft.”
•
2142 A.D. – Terran Military Vessel Dauntless
Saturn raised her hands up defensively, ready to turn her flat palms into fists if the opportunity arose. Liam swayed and tried to brace himself against the nearest wall, misjudging the distance and crashing his shoulder into the metal bulkhead. One of the soldiers steadied Liam and brought him upright, throwing Liam’s arm around his shoulder for support.
The tallest of the soldiers approached Saturn. He was a rather rough looking man with several facial scars that appeared to have been caused by an unfortunate run-in with countless bits of shrapnel. When he spoke, his voice was augmented with an implant, making his speech as robotic as his impeccable posture. Saturn noticed that he bore a thick vertical scar down the center of his throat. Bulging up from under his medium brown skin was what looked like an artificial voice box.
“We don’t have much time,” the soldier said, grabbing Saturn by her forearm and unceremoniously shoving her out into the cargo bay. “Proceed to Checkpoint Delta. Even with this setback, Vesta expects their product delivered on time.”
The soldier’s pockmarked skin contorted with his deep grimace. Saturn knew Vesta Corporation had a grip on select members of the Terran Military, but just how far did their influence reach? Apart from the Lieutenant, everyone seemed to be in on the ruse.
Saturn nodded to the gruff soldier and took off toward her ship. The soldiers followed her closely. The one who’d caught Liam threw him over his shoulder to save time, despite her crewmate’s laughable protests. When they were close to her freighter’s loading ramp, she stopped and turned on the leader.
“Why are you helping us? What is Vesta giving you?”
“You know the rules. We don’t discuss our terms.”
“Come on,” Saturn jibed. “No one abides.”
The tall soldier’s hazel eyes avoided making contact with hers. They had a coldness about them that spoke to a lifetime of poor living and hostile situations. He looked to his counterparts as if to judge their integrity. Like Saturn, the soldier didn’t seem to have much love for Vesta.
“Takara,” the soldier finally said, his voice a grating metallic mess. “In order to get my brother out of Vesta’s clutches, I had to make a deal. My position here intrigued them.”
The soldier carrying Liam plopped him back down on his feet. Liam wavered as though resisting a strong breeze. Saturn put a hand on his shoulder to steady him and returned her calculating gaze to the leader.
Her eyes fell to the faded white lettering on his chest plate. It read ‘Hayes.’ The Terran Military ranks were never her strong suit, but judging by the number of strokes on his shoulder she assumed he’d been around a while.
“Sergeant Hayes, then?”
He nodded cautiously.
Saturn extended her hand and replied, “Saturn Vera, and my incapacitated friend here is L
iam Kidd.”
Sergeant Hayes took her hand and shook it firmly. “Maybe next time we’ll meet under better circumstances.”
The Sergeant held onto her hand a second more than was comfortable, looking her up and down hungrily, and Saturn felt her insides fill with ice. Perhaps he’d been avoiding her gaze for a reason. He was animalistic and devoid of higher thought. She took her hand back and stood stunned. He’d changed in an instant. Her mother had warned her about men like Hayes. She gripped Liam’s arm and led him up the ramp, trying to put the mangled Sergeant out of her mind.
Sergeant Hayes called to her, “What is such a pretty girl doing helping Vesta Corporation? Don’t you know how it’ll end? How it always ends?”
Saturn stopped midway up the ramp and looked back at the smug Sergeant. She mustered up every bit of derision she could and shot back, “Everyone has their role. Some are more important than others. Mine happens to line my pockets.”
The soldier’s smile faded and his grim demeanor returned once again. He slapped the chest of the soldier to his right and ordered, “What are you gawking at? Secure the perimeter. Lock down the entrances and get to the safe room so we can open the bay doors.”
Both of Sergeant Hayes’ subordinates carried out his orders without question. He shot Saturn one last jarring look before slinging his pulse rifle over his shoulder and ambling off toward the control room.
Saturn continued up the ramp, telling the computer to close the doors once she and Liam had reached the top. The computer responded instantly to her voice command. The freighter was boxy, essentially one large space for cargo with a cockpit at the front. Because of Vesta’s delivery, the bay was packed with crates strapped diligently to the grated floors and the many holds on the walls and ceiling. The center aisle was barely more than three feet wide, but it seemed tighter with the boxes stacked up over her head.