Last Man Out (Poor Man's Fight Book 5)

by Elliott Kay

  Dylan tapped her earpiece to tie her in with everyone on both Vanguards. “We’re here to talk,” she said. “Do not fire unless I give the order. Even if somebody turns and runs, you do not fire. This is not a regulation enforcement sweep. Is that understood?”

  She waited for clear acknowledgment. Even elite troopers could get a little too comfortable with the support they received from the company and their employers. She didn’t want anyone’s jumpy trigger fingers or volatile sense of authority getting in the way here.

  * * *

  Troopers in body armor and harnesses bristling with weapons and gear offloaded and spread out from the Vanguards. They didn’t strike up anything like a combat posture. Most still had the visors of their helmets up.

  Tanner saw scowls. Lots of scowls. Firm, serious, military scowls that meant extra-serious military business, but he didn’t see animated motion or tactical positions.

  He got back to work. The sides of the artifact grew narrow as he dug deeper. He wondered if that meant he might be getting to the bottom. Too much ash and earth clung to the sides to reveal any decorations or carvings. He wasn’t supposed to clear it all off until he had the artifact in a controlled environment with more precise tools.

  “Tanner Malone?” asked a woman’s voice. He glanced up once, seeing a tall, fit woman with short dark hair. She was less loaded up with gear than her troops, but her clothes evoked the same uniform aesthetic. He thought the beret gave her a touch of authority, though her stepping forward and speaking was a stronger case for it. “I’m Major Dylan.”

  “Hi. The professor is down in the canyon.” Tanner gestured off to the lip of the ridge. “You can walk down the walls on a path starting over there. We’ve got it marked out.”

  “Your professor isn’t my first priority,” said Dylan.

  “He’s not gonna find that very flattering.”

  “Do you want to look me in the eye and tell me why you’re here?” she asked.

  “Not particularly,” Tanner replied. “I want to get this thing out of the ground. But it’s delicate work, so I’ve gotta take my time.”

  “Why is Tanner Malone here on a planet with a corporate government and a growing insurgency?”

  “Oh, man, are they growing? Usually the party line on a thing like that is they’re a small group of malcontents and the headlines are blown out of proportion.” He kept working. Whatever the major and her goons wanted, Tanner still needed to get this pot out of the ground. “I guess getting blown out of the sky puts the propaganda into perspective, doesn’t it?”

  “So you’re familiar with the situation.”

  “I read.”

  “Why are you of all people here on this planet?”

  Tanner rolled his eyes. He looked up at her stern face. “I’m here on a field school for my xenoarchaeology classes,” said Tanner. “I’m the intern for the assistant field school leader. It’s a bucket of class credits.”

  Dylan watched him, slowly giving a nod that betrayed nothing about her thoughts.

  “You realize I got asked that question about ninety-eight times by your planetary police in that endless ‘interview,’ right? I imagine you saw the video.”

  “That’s between you and them,” said Dylan. “You came in right as I arrived on Qin Kai for meetings and conferences. Otherwise you’d have met me first. I prefer to ask these questions in person.”

  “You got a keen sense of somebody lying to you, major?” He turned back to clearing away the earth around his pot.

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, they trained us on that in the Navy, too. Master-at-Arms stuff. I felt pretty solid about it for a long time. Then somebody pointed out to me that most of the verbal and body language ‘tells’ for lying are pretty much all the same signs of stress or social anxiety. Kinda makes the whole thing pointless.”

  “So you’re saying you could be lying to me right now?” asked Dylan. He didn’t look back at her, but he could practically hear her eyebrow rise.

  “Do I look stressed or anxious to you?” Tanner chuckled.

  “Hey, dipshit.” One of her goons loomed in, dangling his rifle barrel in Tanner’s face. A boot came to rest on the obsidian pot. “You ought to look at the major when she’s talkin’ to you.”

  "Don't dangle your inadequacies over the priceless ancient alien artifact.”

  “You gonna do somethin’ about it? Are you stressed, boy?”

  Tanner sighed. “No, but I am tired of pretending to be afraid of chumps with guns.”

  The man’s eyes flared. “Who the fuck are you calling a chump?”

  “You can extrapolate it from the available data if you try. I believe in you.”

  “Malone,” said Dylan. “Say it again.”

  He looked to the major. “I’m here on a field school for my university. I’m gonna dig around out here in the desert and then leave. That’s all.”

  Her lips turned to a frown. “College credits.”

  “You wanna see my course plan? Oh hey, y’know what, it’s on my holocom. You can look for it right there yourself since your guys stripped out all the security programs on it. Check out all my mail and my pictures and my library, too. Have a ball.”

  The other goon took his foot off the pot. Tanner brushed away the dust from his treads.

  “It’s standard procedure for new arrivals,” said Dylan. “You can always pick up new security files certified by Minos Enterprises.”

  “No thanks. Is the multiple interrogation stuff part of standard procedure, too?”

  “Of course not. You’re not a standard visitor. Hence the interviews and the in-person visits from people like me. We wouldn’t want you to feel like you’re being ignored. And as I said, I like to verify these things myself. I don’t want to rely too much on my colleagues in the police. Due diligence, you understand.”

  “Y’know, the problem with having faith in your ability to sense a lie is sometimes you have to accept a truth you might not want.”

  “Oh, I’m more than happy to accept this if it’s the truth. So you have no intent to contact the insurgency?”

  “No. I already told them to fuck off.”

  Her head twitched. “What?”

  “Somebody approached me right outside your police headquarters. He wanted to talk to me about the insurgency. I told him no. That went back and forth. The time and place seemed crazy to me, but sometimes people do crazy shit to show what they can pull off. Sometimes they’ve seen too many movies. Who knows?

  “Anyway, I figured either he’s an actual insurgent, in which case I’m not interested and he’s better off without me, or he’s only posing as an insurgent and he’s actually some criminal or whatever trying to lure me into something, in which case I’m really not interested. Or he’s an undercover agent probing my intentions or testing to see if I’ll report the contact. So, here I am, reporting it. No sweat off my back.”

  “And this is the first time you’re telling us?” snapped her right-hand goon.

  “I could’ve called it in on my holocom, but I’m kinda lacking any security files on that thing. Wouldn’t want any insurgents eavesdropping.”

  “Who was he?” asked Dylan. “Did he give you a name? What did he look like?”

  “If he gave a name, I already forgot it. I’m not here to gather intel. As far as his description? I dunno, male, Asian descent, kinda dark complexion but not really dark, medium height, medium build, kinda nondescript.” Tanner shrugged. “That help?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, I tried.”

  “I don’t think you did. What else? Scars, tattoos, jewelry, hairstyle? Facial hair? Did he say anything that stood out?”

  “Didn’t see any of those. His hair was buzzed down. Clean shave. Said the hit on that shuttle over the city wasn’t authorized and it wouldn’t happen again.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Dylan’s jaw clenched. “Was his name Chen?”

  That put a smirk on Tanner’s face. “Oh, you know
him?”

  “He’s a pissed-off schoolteacher who thinks he’s a revolutionary.”

  “What’d he teach? Social studies?” His smirk turned into a grin as Dylan scowled deeper. “Have fun with that. Anyway, he tried to recruit me. I said no. Or one of your guys tried to catch me in a sting and I said no. I’m not interested. I’ve got pottery to dig up.”

  Tanner scraped up another layer of earth from around the pot. Care and attention to detail were important, even if the task was tedious. He started at another layer without interruption and wondered how long the major and her guys would watch.

  “So you’re hiding out here?” Dylan asked. “Like you’re hiding by not looking at me now?”

  “Last person to call me out for hiding was trying to be a friend. You’re not. I’m not big on responding to challenges to my ego. If what I’m doing is hiding, that’s fine by me. Less shit blows up that way.”

  He scraped dirt with his trowel and fingers. The wind blew.

  “Are your people watching the weather?” asked Dylan.

  That seemed like a different tack. “I haven’t looked since this morning,” said Tanner.

  “Sandstorms brew up fast this time of year. The conditions are already falling into place. We should see a big one by the end of the week.”

  “All our shelters are rated for the storms out here by your company’s standards. They’re all down in the canyon, too, so that should help. We’ll be fine.”

  “Minos Enterprises isn’t my company.”

  “Okay.” Tanner shrugged.

  “So you don’t plan to return to the city during weather events?”

  “Do we have to? We planned for this. And we just got all our stuff unpacked.”

  “The sandstorms out here are intense.”

  “I grew up in a desert. I know how it goes.”

  “I don’t think you do, Malone. Sandstorms anywhere else don’t blind the satellites. They don’t reduce signals and scanner range down to arm’s length. Bad things happen in the storms here.”

  He stopped digging and sat straight. “Like what?”

  “The insurgents get ambitious under the cover of the storms. Unaffiliated criminals, too. Everyone who has something to hide takes the opportunity. Attacks. Sabotage. Abductions. A clutch of students from off-world could make a tempting target for kidnappers. You’re out here on your own with a bunch of expensive gear. I thought I’d bring in some professional protection to look after you all.”

  Tanner looked around at her guys. “Okay. When do they get here?”

  Her head goon snickered in contempt. “You really want to start shit, don’t you?”

  “Not so much. It’s just nice to be honest. Kinda freeing.”

  “Your professor is down in the canyon? Vandenberg?” asked Dylan.

  “Yes,” said Tanner.

  “I’ll go talk to him. Hopefully he’ll be a little more cordial. Besides, you seem devoted to your work. Smith, Jones, how about you both stay up here with Mr. Malone until he’s finished? We don’t want to leave him all alone and exposed.”

  Tanner watched Dylan and the rest head down. Despite their weapons, these goons showed no indication of being a death squad or an extortion racket. He didn’t worry about them hurting anyone else. Dylan made her priorities clear. If they’d wanted to lock him up, kick him off the planet, or shoot him, he would know by now.

  Vandenberg wanted to handle these interactions himself. Tanner decided to let him.

  The two goons left on the canyon edge took up spots watching him at ninety degrees apart. Both kept their weapons slung low and ready to grip quickly.

  Tanner returned to work with his trowel, his brush, and his fingers. Three centimeters later, one of his new watchers spoke up: “Isn’t there a quicker way to do that sort of shit? Like with lasers or pouring water around it or something?”

  “This is delicate, skilled labor here,” Tanner grunted. “Gotta be careful.”

  “How long is careful gonna take?”

  “As long as it takes. I went to college to learn how to do this.”

  “You’re digging in the dirt with your fingers. We could be out here all fuckin’ day.”

  Tanner straightened up on his knees to look directly at his guard. He flipped his tools out of the hole and stared at the guy as he dragged his fingertips around the buried edges of the pot.

  Slowly.

  “Yep,” he answered.

  * * *

  “Naomi? Naomi!”

  She looked up at the sound of her name, though she had to stand to her full height to see over the edge of her test pit. Splotches of mud stained her clothes from shoulders to knees, with her gloved hands and her boots completely covered. The test pit was only a couple of meters from the water’s edge. The saturated ground kept producing pieces of worked stone. Her finds were too broken up to identify by sight and handling alone, but the wealth of pieces kept her digging. Right until she heard her name, anyway.

  A handful of students walked the shallower edges of the springs on another sweep. A couple of others dug more test pits. Jishen and Grace sifted through a pile of sediment from some landslide or collapse. It was Kim who called her, working another pit opposite Jishen and Grace, but when she saw him, he pointed up to their trail on the canyon wall.

  The men and women in combat gear and body armor gave her an instant shot of worry. With a second breath, however, she noted their pace and their posture. They seemed calm enough.

  Her first thought was to find Tanner. Standards and responsibilities quickly overrode that, with a voice in her head reminding her Vandenberg was in charge. He was already out of the pit, brushing himself off. The professor already knew of the soldiers.

  Naomi returned to that first thought, keying up her holocom. Thankfully, he answered. “Yeah, hi,” said Tanner.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “I’m still up here working on the pot. Got a couple of visitors. I guess you see their friends?”

  “Yes. Just now. You didn’t call me?”

  “Sorry. Didn’t get the chance before they started walking down the path. By then I figured somebody down there would’ve seen. They say they want to talk about sandstorm safety and such. Some of them might stick around for a few days.”

  “Uh-huh. Is that all?” Naomi asked.

  “Y’know, I’ve got two of them right here watching this conversation if you want to talk to either of them. They’re looking right at me.”

  Naomi got the message. He couldn’t speak freely. “Yeah. Okay. Well, keep at it, I guess.”

  By the time she got out of her pit and around the deep end of the springs, the soldiers were already in the camp. Vandenberg spoke with a woman Naomi took for their leader. The rest of the class either made half-hearted attempts to look busy while watching and listening or didn’t bother faking it at all. Naomi didn’t blame any of them.

  “…sure that isn’t necessary, Major Dylan,” the professor said as Naomi joined him. “I’ve been through sandstorms here before. My last expedition was only three years ago. We’re prepared for the weather, particularly if we have almost a week to prepare. The canyon should give us plenty of extra shelter.”

  “I understand, professor,” said Dylan. “I’m aware of your experience and I can see your gear is adequate. Unfortunately, conditions have changed since your last visit. It’s not only a matter of the weather. Criminal elements use these storms as cover. You’re vulnerable. We have to look out for visitors. It’s non-negotiable.”

  Vandenberg sighed. “Very well.”

  “Professor?” asked Naomi. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Ah. Major Dylan, this is Naomi, my assistant expedition leader. Naomi, we were discussing a little extra security.”

  Naomi looked to the major. “I assume your people have their own shelters and supplies?”

  “Yes. They’re used to roughing it. They’ll set up out of your way.” Dylan took in the area around them. “So, what do you
expect to find here? Why this spot? I take it the water drew you down here?”

  “The natural water source makes it a likely spot for habitation, yes,” said Vandenberg. “We’ve already found a few artifacts suggesting ancient traffic, if not settlement.”

  “How is it nobody has come through here before?”

  “Oh, I have. Briefly, at the end of my last expedition. That’s why we chose this spot. As to why no one else has come here, I’d imagine it’s the same reason Minos Enterprises hasn’t established a settlement out this way. The region around us is harsh, lacking in vegetation…er, Naomi, would you be so kind as to make the rounds of the others? Let them know what’s going on. No reason to be nervous.” He flashed a disarming smile at the major. “Most of my students aren’t used to seeing armed soldiers.”

  “Or pirates?” said Dylan.

  “Ah. No, that was well outside everyone’s experience, too. Almost everyone’s.”

  “That’s why we’re here, professor,” said the major. “We don’t want you to worry about that kind of trouble anymore.”

  Naomi looked back up to the ridge. She caught the subtle bite in Dylan’s words. Pirates weren’t the sort of trouble on the major’s mind.

  * * *

  “I need to see Mr. Geisler, please. He should be expecting me.” Dylan cut off the mic on her holocom. Audio-only let her scowl and lip-sync to the voice of Geisler’s personal secretary.

  “Yes, Major. Mr. Geisler told me to watch for your call. You’re invited to join him in the Sunset Lounge.”

  Dylan had the secretary down word for word. She was already in the elevator to the lounge before she called. “Asshole might as well buy a robot for her job,” said Dylan. “The language algorithms would at least induce a little variety.”

  “You could always apply for the job yourself. I think he likes you.”

  The major’s eyes slid sideways to her uniformed companion. “I could throw you out one of these windows.”

  “Try it, major.”