Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3)

by Casey Calouette

  “I can walk,” she whispered.

  Bark snapped her head back and helped Natyasha to her feet. The pair huddled against a concrete wall. Behind them the smoking wreckage of the touring car lay mangled with the nose punched out by a heavy slug. Gunfire raged with the sing of ricochets whining through the air.

  Bark looked relaxed, downright placid. Her arms rested on her hips, the dull alloy offset by the black trousers.

  Natyasha looked down the line and felt anger mixed with despair. She snapped her head and looked across the wide concrete pad. She followed groups of militia sprinting away, sprinting without weapons or order. It was a rout and it hit her, right in the gut. “Bark, what are we doing?”

  Bark glanced over her shoulder. “Waiting for another transport.”

  “Can we wait somewhere else?”

  “You pay me to keep you out of trouble, that’s what we’re doing here.”

  “Helluva job.”

  “I didn’t invite them down with a troopship.”

  Natyasha remained silent. Her insides ached, like she’d just gotten kicked in the chest. Every breath reminded her that something bad was happening.

  She wondered if they would shoot the leaders. Everyone? There must be some value to a person in charge. Or maybe they wanted a fresh start and she’d be shot on sight. She’d not only misplayed her cards, she knew she hadn’t even been playing with the right deck.

  Autocannon rounds smacked into the heavy concrete embankment behind Bark and Natyasha spraying chips of rock and grit into the air.

  Bark flinched and tucked her head down. “We need to move,” she said.

  Natyasha snapped her head to the other side and saw nothing. “Where?”

  “Somewhere else!” Bark hissed and grabbed onto Natyasha’s hand.

  Natyasha found herself drug behind with the cold alloy grip squeezing tighter than she’d like. She wanted to cry out, to tell her to stop, but knew better. Not now, not here. Get out alive.

  They passed the wreckage of the transport and crouched behind the crumpled front end. The smell of burning plastic and torched resin was overpowering. The rapid sound of small arms fire drifted away while occasional thumps still echoed out.

  “Wait,” Bark shook her head at Natyasha. “They’re looking our way.”

  “How do you know?” Natyasha turned her head and looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t see anything beyond the rising smoke.

  “I’ve got a sniper observing,” Bark mumbled and leaned forward.

  “Why isn’t he shooting them?”

  Bark leaned back. “It wasn’t doing anything, he’s more valuable keeping an eye out for us.”

  Natyasha felt even more helpless. They couldn’t touch the giants, what military force she had was scattered. Only the thugs and police remained. Her thugs, and her police, she thought. “Can he see the Ambassador?”

  Bark spoke low into her mic and shook her head. “Negative. There’s another elevator car coming down.”

  “We need to get out of here!” Natyasha said.

  “I’m working on it!”

  The sounds of the Hun giants echoed through the containers. Each step like an elephant with the clanging of armor. The pace was slow, steady, unnerving in its tone. Each step was just far enough apart that it seemed as if they stopped, only to start once more a split second later.

  “The Ambassador is out.”

  “Shoot him,” Natyasha growled.

  Bark called it in and the sound of a single shot cracked through the air. She clicked her teeth and looked at Natyasha. “We’ve got to go.”

  Natyasha looked at Bark angrily and heard the sound of the approaching attackers. “What? What the fuck? Did he miss?”

  “They’ve got a grav shield down there,” Bark said. She crawled to the front of the wreckage. “Can you run?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re going to have a distraction, get to the next line of cargo containers, I’ll be right behind you. Got it?”

  Natyasha nodded quickly and trembled with fear. Fear like she hadn’t known in a very long time. Her skin tingled and her mouth tasted like steel. The feeling of soreness disappeared and she edged next to Bark. She glanced over and saw how small Bark was, all muscle and alloy, and not much else.

  Bark nodded at Natyasha. “Go!”

  The pair broke out from behind the cover of the wreck. Legs pumped and arms swung as feet slammed down into puddles of dirt and concrete rubble. A wall of gunfire erupted from the edge of elevator complex. The troops who had fled now had positions far away and were laying down what fire they could. The crack of nanite rounds was interspersed with the boom of conventional gunpowder.

  In response the Hun troops leveled more fire. The rattle of the autocannons reflected off the low cloud cover, making it sound like twice as many were firing. Then a new sound came. A heavy whine with a screeching and crunching of concrete behind it.

  Natyasha turned her head to look and stumbled. Bark snatched her arm and caught her before she sprawled out. She could see a pair of the Hun giants firing away from them. She wanted to ask Bark what the noise was but didn’t have enough breath.

  “Go!” Bark yelled. Her alloy hand pushed Natyasha forward.

  The new sound paused and then a rumbling boom shattered through the air. The concussion was massive, deep, penetrating. Nearby puddles shuddered and shook with dancing ripples bouncing in the center.

  Natyasha stumbled again at the sound and felt the fear rising. Almost, she thought. Almost. Her feet pounded against the rough concrete. Her lungs burned, it was a ripping and tearing feeling with each sucking breath. There it was, so close, another fifty meters to cover.

  Silhouettes of militia appeared through the haze. Bursts of gunfire zinged by and then the whining crunching sound started again.

  She saw the next shot out of the corner of her eye. Fear rose like nothing she’d felt before, an animal fear.

  It was a massive concussion that shocked the edge of the complex. Air rippled and steel buckled. The immense roar slammed into them a second later and Bark tumbled and rolled. Natyasha wasn’t as graceful and crashed forward into a heap. One of the giants turned and swung the tree trunk barrel sideways and poured rapid fire at the containers before them.

  “Get up!” Bark yelled. She sprinted and grabbed onto Natyasha’s arm.

  Natyasha rolled and looked up into the sky. She shrieked as rounds skipped nearby. She knew she had to stand and run, she knew if she stayed she’d die. But she couldn’t do it. The fear was so deep, so tight, like a net that held her down. All she wanted to do was crawl and curl into a ball. She could feel the gravel against her cheek as she turned her head towards the pair of giants.

  One continued to level fire at the edges of the terminal. The other held his barrel slightly higher and raked streams of autocannon rounds above her head. The muzzle flashed and a moment later the sound reached them. Then the tank crunched around the corner..

  It had a set of four tracks, each independent from the rest. The upper chassis was low, slender, and drooped inside of the tracks. On the top a bulbous blister grew out with a rectangular barrel a few meters long. The barrel was massively thick with a cloud of steam rising from the end. It stopped, the turret turned slightly, and fired once more.

  Natyasha cried out in pain. The concussion was amazing, the force of the blow beyond anything she’d ever felt. She looked and saw the tangled steel and tumbled containers. They had no chance. She could see it. How could they fight that? Far above she saw motion, something in the mist, and decided now was the time to stop.

  “Bark. Stand me up,” Natyasha said, trying to stand. The fear was gone and now something else came—a sense of inevitability.

  She loved Winterthur, she loved the people. To see them slaughtered like this was too much. Her plan had fallen apart into so many pieces of broken glass.

  “We’ve got to go now!” Bark yelled. She hunched and tugged on Natyasha’s arm.

  “
Go,” Natyasha said, stripping her arm away from the alloy grip. “Go.”

  Bark spun and tumbled backward rolling herself and covering the gap between her and the concrete wall. Her face was tight with pain and bore a hurt look.

  Natyasha felt the ground shift and sway beneath her feet. The first step would be the hardest. She willed one step and felt her toes crunch as they came down. It was as if a weight was lifted, just by one step. The second step came easier.

  The giant continued to rake fire above her. It seemed oblivious to her stumbling ahead.

  She raised both hands above her and showed her palms, wide open and empty. It was like this, or die trying. Her hair blasted back as the cannon fired once more. The concussion made her stumble , but she caught herself and dropped to a knee. The raw pain of the concrete cutting through snapped her awake again.

  “Move,” she said through gritted teeth and stood herself up again. She locked eyes with the giant and stepped closer.

  The giant’s visor was almost totally dark but a set of deep eyes, like whales eyes stared back through it. It was human, or at least human derived. The proportions were close, but everything was off a bit. The shoulders slumped oddly, the angles of the arms off, while the steps were awkward.

  The sight of the hands shook her. They had no opposable thumbs. She saw the features and knew it was not natural.

  “Hold you fire!” she cried. Did it hear? Did it know?

  It leveled the barrel towards her. One of the hands tensed on a paddle trigger and hovered in place. She stared down the black pit of the barrel and watched the steam roll out. She licked her lips. Her arms were getting heavy. “Hold your fire!”

  Around her the rolling fire of the autocannons mostly ceased. She looked away from the eyes of the giant and stared in horror. Bodies were lumped and scattered across the old and broken concrete. The giants had advanced but didn’t press any farther. Then she realized there was no fire coming from the edges. The militia had fled.

  The Hun giant took a single plodding step closer and dropped the tip of the massive barrel onto the ground. Chips sprayed from the impact point and it stared down the length at Natyasha. Its eyes were wide, placid, simple.

  A low armored car crept around the corner and stopped next to the giant. On the peak of the roof a blister turret scanned from side to side. A set of racking along the back was empty with wires trailing down. A door slid open from the side and Ambassador Myint stepped out.

  The Ambassador wore a uniform with slashes of gray across the shoulders. He looked confident, but not arrogant, with a hint of boredom. “Do you surrender?”

  The words hit her in the gut: no banter, no wordplay, but a single binary decision. She snapped her eyes from the Ambassador to the tank and one of the giants before settling them back on Myint. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “There are riot control drones out.” The Ambassador rocked back and sighed. “Now do you surrender?” He stepped closer and ran a hand onto the mailed glove of the Hun giant.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “What?” he shouted.

  “Yes,” she said louder. “Winterthur surrenders.”

  Ambassador Myint nodded slowly and patted the giant’s hand. “Come, Ms. Dousman, there’s much we need to discuss.”

  The wind shifted and brought sounds of shrieks and screams. The wailing sirens of the riot control drones ebbed and flowed as the wind drifted.

  Natyasha stumbled and caught herself. The drones? What of the drones? What of her people? “Ambassador? The drones? Recall them.”

  Ambassador Myint turned crisply and stepped next to the armored car. “No. Not yet, there’s an education being earned right now.” He stepped inside of the car and leaned out. “Now come.”

  Natyasha saw the beginning of an agreement she was sure she didn’t like. But the edges of the rationale were coming into sight. She couldn’t do much good dead, and her voice was more valuable speaking with the Ambassador than as a peasant prisoner. She straightened herself out and entered the darkness of the APC. The sounds of the drones sickened her. The thing that bothered her the most was that she could understand the reasoning in the violence.

  “Also, Ms. Dousman, none of this Ambassador business. Governor is more fitting to my role,” Myint said, settling back into his seat.

  Natyasha looked at the new Governor of Winterthur and wanted to be sick. The insult was like salt in a raw wound. She didn’t know how, or when, but one way or another Myint was going to pay. That was her new goal in life.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Emilie was sure the room was designed specifically for boredom and bureaucracy. Against one wall leaned a broken customs panel while the other held data slates with dead batteries. The table had a look of dull permanence, while the chairs squeaked and flexed with every movement.

  The woman on the other side of the table had a face like a putty ball. It was as if her emotions were blended with a torch and set slowly into a caricature of reality. She looked neither happy, sad, or even concerned.

  “Now, Emilie,” she said, “if you could explain to me once more.”

  Emilie felt her nerves stretch tight. Four hours of this, even her hairs seemed bored. She knew the woman wasn’t the sort she could bribe. She had the manner of upper management, not some lowly clerk. “I was inspecting assets.”

  “You own a monastery? That is a UC property, it’s a heritage site.”

  “I own the contract to service the monastery. I don’t care who owns it,” Emilie said.

  The woman nodded and looked down at her own ragged tablet. The backside was scratched and dull with a line of barcodes zinging along the top. She tapped the screen and her eyes snapped back and forth as she read something.

  Emilie saw the shift, a tiny change in facial posture. She’d attended days of negotiation training that helped her identify just that sort of reaction. Trouble. She shifted in her chair and rested her hands onto her lap. “Could I get some filtered water? With ice, please?”

  The woman’s eyes snapped up and she blinked quickly. “I, uh, one moment, we’re almost done.”

  Emilie smiled just politely enough to show she cared, but not enough to be friendly. She’d posed a simple question, a non-offensive query to see what the woman’s mindset was. The reaction made her heart rate rise. Whatever the woman was reading was outside of her norm. “Of course.”

  The woman dropped her chin lower and looked down at the tablet. Her eyes darted up to the door and back down again. Up once more and back down. A thin bead of perspiration rolled down a waxy crease.

  Emilie tensed and did her best not to show it. She could tell that the woman had received a message and was waiting for someone. Someone who was going to come in behind her.

  She turned slightly in her chair and uncrossed her legs. She edged one toe against the table and braced herself. Her heartbeat climbed higher while the room felt warmer. She locked her eyes onto the woman and waited for the moment. The moment when someone would come in for her.

  The woman looked up once more and placed her hands onto the table as if to stand. Her face was bare of anything, but a hint of fear was poking through.

  The door slammed open and two men pushed inside. Each wore a dull gray uniform, neither looked like a customs officer, but more like a professional rental cop. One of the men was unarmed while the other held a stubby baton.

  The waxy faced woman slid back her chair. “Now, Ms. Rose, if you would please relax.”

  The lead man placed both hands onto Emilie’s shoulders while the other stood to the side with the baton in his hand.

  Emilie saw the bulge in the jackets of both men. Pistols, probably—rough additive types, or maybe confiscated Core stocks. Didn’t much matter, she thought, they’d both shoot.

  Then the rumble of gunfire sounded in the distance. They all turned and looked, heads craned slightly as they took in the sound. It was a rapid tut-tut-tut followed by the higher pitched crack of gunfire. The soun
d was oddly distant as it echoed down the hallways.

  The waxed faced woman stood quickly. The chair skittered back and she shrieked when it hit the wall. “What is it? What is it?”

  Emilie felt the grip loosen and she stood quickly standing next to the line of broken data slates. She felt the urge to get out, to move, to escape. Her eyes scanned the two men and decided the one with the baton was the threat.

  “Just hit her and lock the lady up!” the unarmed man said.

  The man with the baton took one step and hefted the baton.

  Emilie spun to the side and jabbed two fingers into the man’s neck. She slammed her heel into the side of his knee and he screamed. She didn’t wait for the man to fall before stepping forward and smashing her palm into the face of the unarmed man.

  “Oh my god!” the woman behind her yelled. “Help! Help!”

  The baton tumbled to the floor with a clatter that followed the slump of both men. The first writhed on the floor with one hand on his throat and the other on his leg. The unarmed man was sprawled out and silent. A trickle of blood rolled down each of his cheeks.

  Emilie knelt down and ripped the gun out from the first man’s holster. He tried to grab her hand but she shoved him back with the barrel. The pistol felt rough in her hand, not like an authentic weapon, but a cheap counterfeit replicated in some backroom additive cell. Shit, she thought, what now?

  The woman whimpered and stumbled against the wall. Her hands raised up and tears streamed down her cheeks. Emilie grabbed a handful of charging cables and tied the woman to the chair. She kept an eye on the men but neither one looked to be in any shape to do anything. The first man mewed and squirmed.

  Gunfire snapped her out of the moment and she moved closer to the door. The sound grew louder. She peaked out and scanned down the hallways. It was empty, everyone seemed to have disappeared, the only thing that made it seem alive was the smell of java. She took one glance back at the whimpering woman and set off, away from the gunfire.

  The first hallway opened up into a wide reception area, the type where planetary travelers normally arrive. Lanes and stalls were bracketed by high booths with glass windows. The area was empty. She passed through quietly at a brisk walk.