by Tammy Salyer
The mine goes quiet. Desto and Mason are safe inside the transport thanks to its full-shell armor designed to protect the troops from bullets and buried explosives, but I have no vantage on the soldiers hiding beneath it. The brain bucket has become constricting and is no longer serving the purpose of hiding my identity, so I ditch it and try scaring them out.
“Soldiers under the truck, you’re surrounded. If you come out, we won’t kill you.” I fully intend to kill them, but they don’t need to know that.
There’s no response for several seconds, then one of them yells, “You won’t get away with this.”
Asshole. “I’m giving you to the count of ten.”
“We’ve already got backup on the—”
Before he finishes the sentence, several shots ring out overhead from the direction of the communication room. Instinctively, I duck down before I can zero on exactly where they came from. Then Karl’s voice echoes against the walls, “Two down up here, and their coms are destroyed.”
I barely believe it. He was supposed to stay with the shuttle in the canyon until we secured the site. Obviously, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He must have crawled down from the airshaft that leads to the upper lookout and taken the personnel positioned in the com room by surprise. His initiative probably saved all of us.
“Karl,” I yell, “do you know if they were able to call out?”
“Don’t think so. I’m contacting the Sphynx now.”
“You hear that? You’re cooked. Throw out your weapons and get your asses out from under this truck.” Desto’s voice is thick with menace.
We’d hit four soldiers outside, Mason killed one trying to climb into the truck, three remain beneath it, and Karl says he’s shot two others. Typical security squad size is ten troops, so it’s probable we’ve neutralized the full threat. Still, I’m not going to take the chance that there’s a rogue we haven’t spotted and stay covered behind the equipment. The noise of the lift descending draws my attention and I peer around a ’dozer’s corner to see Karl coming down. He doesn’t share my concern apparently. The lift stops half a meter short of the floor, enough gap that the soldiers under the truck won’t be able to get a shot at him without exposing themselves to me.
Desto drops the cap of a grenade over the edge of the truck as a warning. “We’re not going to ask you again. Move out now, or they’ll be picking your teeth out of the engine block.”
Rifles scrape along the dry concrete of the mine floor as the trapped soldiers give in to their fate. As they drag themselves out and stand up, I move out from behind the equipment, my carbine level to my shoulder, ready to dispatch them. They stand in front of the open door of the vehicle, hands locked on top of their heads. Karl stays in the lift, keeping an eye on things.
Mason places the barrel of his rifle against the base of the middle soldier’s helmet and asks, “How many Corps are on site?”
The solider answers quickly, “There are—were—ten of us.”
“When is your relief scheduled to arrive?”
“We just got here this morning. There isn’t another rotation for a week.”
“You sure?” He jabs hard with the barrel, causing the man’s head to jerk forward.
“Yeah! We’re it. Just don’t shoot us.”
I flick my gaze up, look into Mason’s eyes briefly, and settle the carbine’s barrel firmly against my shoulder. Training the sight on the man farthest to the left, I start to squeeze the trigger.
“Aly, stop!” Karl yells. I turn to look at him, the insistence in his tone catching my attention. He’s loping across the cavern toward me. “You can’t do that.”
I’m surprised, thinking I must have misunderstood him, but his expression makes it clear; he’s not going to let me shoot them.
“Karl, don’t be ridiculous. These guys killed Bodie. They deserve what they’re about to get.”
“We aren’t going to get anything out of killing them. Doug, let’s tie them up. We can lock them in the com room when we leave.”
“Karl! What’s your problem? What about Bodie? Who’s going to pay for that?” My strained tone echoes against the walls, eliciting concerned stares from Mason and Desto.
Karl turns around and steps up closer to me, laying a warm and callused hand on my shoulder. His gaze is unwavering, but there is a gentleness that I rarely see hidden behind the hard shine of his pupils. “Do you really want their blood on your hands? Killing them won’t make any of us feel better. It won’t change anything.”
Slowly, I lower my barrel and take a deep breath that turns into a tremble. It’s hard to look at him, and my eyes fall to his chest. I want to press myself against him and let this all be over, but he turns away and starts walking toward the prisoners, leaving me feeling empty and defeated.
“Let’s get these men secured and start moving supplies out,” Desto says. “V and the crew should be here in half an hour.”
SEVENTEEN
The remaining security squad are locked down in the disabled troop carrier, and Desto waits on the observation platform for the crew to arrive. The rest of us divide up and begin collecting the supplies we’ll need for an extended trip.
I take the control room. Inside, the lingering signs of a gunfight exhibit themselves through broken equipment, and dirt and gravel from the rock walls lie in blasted chunks everywhere. There’s a grit-flecked mahogany smear on the floor near the main bank of monitors that must have been where Bodie had fallen. My eyeballs feel overheated and coated in tears as thick as motor oil as I go through the room. The Corps had taken his body somewhere, but that only makes the impact of losing him harder. How dare they? It wasn’t enough to murder him, but they also took him from us. There can be no funeral, no lasting gravestone in his honor. Just that red stain and our memories.
Once the Sphynx arrives, the crew moves with calibrated quickness, making certain that nothing of potential use is left behind. The Sphynx is crammed full, floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Contraband, weapons, and stolen Admin supplies lie everywhere, with no way to conceal them. It’s not important. If the Admin comes after us, the only thing we can do is run.
The last items we go after are the settlers’ personal belongings, things we know of that are important to them, but there’s no way we can sort through everything. With limited time and space aboard the ship, we don’t bring much. Going through the dwellings shows how busy the Corps has been in the last few days sanitizing the settlement of anything valuable or potentially dangerous. Everything of use has been collected and brought to the mine to be sorted and hauled off. With a mixture of relief and uncertainty, we find no bodies or graves. If anyone besides Bodie had been harmed, the Corps didn’t leave behind any clues.
Eight hours later, I watch Spectra 6 fall away like a particle of dust through the Sphynx’s nav-system’s local display grid. And it hits me. A dropping in my stomach, like the bottom of everything is falling loose. Will I ever see the Beach again? Will I ever know what it feels like to belong somewhere again? My last sight of the mine cavern was a mess of plundered, nonessential items scattered haphazardly around like discarded junk. But it had been our home, and I’m blindsided by a sense of plummeting sadness. I never expected to become so attached. Now that the strings are being severed, I finally understand what it really meant to me.
Once we’ve broken out of atmosphere and our coordinates are set, I leave the flight deck. Neither Vitruzzi or Venus meets my eyes as I excuse myself. I head to my bunk to be alone, but as soon as I lie down, there’s a knock on my door.
“It’s open.”
Karl steps through the doorway and I sit up. Our eyes lock for a moment, his serene brown and mine sapphire blue. “Hey,” he finally says.
“Hey.”
“Mind if I come in?”
I shake my head, indicating it’s okay.
He sits on the bench that doubles as a storage locker across from my bunk, the space so narrow that his knees nearly touch the bed. He le
ans on his elbows, looking at the floor for a minute, and my senses are flooded with him: his smell, cinnamon and leather; his countenance, stern, deeply engraved with sadness; and his presence, solid, determined, unyielding. That feeling of coming undone begins to fade instantly as I realize, without a shred of uncertainty, that he is my home.
“Look, Aly—”
“I want—”
We both stop and I wait for him to go on. “This is hard for me,” he continues after a second. “I think you know how I feel about you. It was a mistake to keep our collaboration with Rajcik a secret. But you have to believe me when I say that it wasn’t meant to hurt you. I didn’t want to lie to you, no one did. I think, maybe…I thought that I was protecting you.” He waits for a second before continuing, hoping I’ll make it easy for him, but I keep my silence. That wound still gapes, raw and hot. “You have to realize we’re only working with him because it is, or was, the best thing for the settlement.”
Was it? I consider asking, but bottle it.
“We really need you behind us on this one. You and David are part of this crew, and we shouldn’t have left you in the dark. I know that. I’m sorry.” He slides forward on the bench and wraps both of my hands in his, drawing me closer to him. “And I don’t want to lose you.”
My skin absorbs the warmth from his palms like a desiccated flower finally being given water. The sorrow in his eyes is clear, devoid of any masked accusations or machismo. Is my return silence just me being stubborn and unreasonable, some kind of punishment for the things he said? The argument we had in the mine was bad, his explosion hurtful and unnecessary, but what good does it do me at this point to hold onto my anger? If I let it go, we may have a chance at working things out.
He looks into my face, and whatever he sees there seems to encourage him. His mouth wrinkles to one side in a half grin. “Why don’t you say something?”
I consider for only a moment, then say, “I’m sorry about what happened with Rob.”
Apparently that was not what he was expecting to hear. Though his expression doesn’t change, the muscles holding his smile twitch. “What do you mean?”
And it hits me. He doesn’t know about the night I’d spent with Rob. How stupid can I be? “I thought you didn’t care, Karl. The things you said…I was hurt.”
Clenching his jaw, he drops my hands and leans back, his torso becoming as straight and rigid as a plinth. “So you fucked your old boyfriend?”
I wince. “Isn’t that what you were accusing me of? What did you think? You can’t treat me like that and not expect me to—” I stop myself. What I was about to say is get even, but is that what sleeping with Rob had been about? No. It’s time to start being honest. I won’t lie to Karl, and I’m done lying to myself. I slept with Rob because it was easier than trying to explain my feelings or make myself vulnerable. But I’m tired of this combat, both with myself and with Karl.
Leaning toward him, trying to take one of his hands, I continue, “Karl, I can’t keep doing this with you. I—” love you. But it’s too late. He stands up and charges from the room, nearly running.
For a minute, I forget to breathe. When I start again, my chest convulses violently, like it’s being crushed under hundreds of pounds of stone, like I’m being buried alive. I fall back onto my bunk, the leaden mass of my loss pushing me against the mat like a tombstone. I’m too empty to resist. Whatever happens now hardly matters. Rescuing the settlers will be the end for me. The Beach is gone, Karl’s gone, and everything that matters—gone. There’s no reason left to run. And nothing left to run to.
EIGHTEEN
“Rob’s agreed to help us,” Vitruzzi announces while standing in the Sphynx’s galley, where she’d called us all. We’re five hours out from landing back on R’Kadia and moving into the next, and most crucial, phase of our plan to rescue the settlers from Keum Libre. “He’s going to smuggle La Mer and a couple more of us into Tunis City, and then go on his way. The risks for him are minimal and Tunis is his next stop anyway.”
Our heads all turn to La Mer, none of us yet understanding why he’d sign up to go to Tunis, the most unlikely place in the system to hide. He begins to explain, but his eyes are on Venus, as if trying to make her understand. “I know people, other wire-rats, on Obal 10, who can help us access the Admin satellites. If I can get back there—without getting caught—we can provide the cover the rest of you will need to get to Keum Libre and save the Beachers. We can call in the threat to T’Kai and show him what we’ve got. Maybe create enough of a distraction.”
So that’s it—keep one of the Hydra’s three heads busy while the rest of the crew slips past. That still leaves the Corps and whatever security exists on Keum Libre. I glance at the others, seeing the same thoughtful look on all of their faces. La Mer’s newness to the crew and the Beach should be enough to ensure his plan is automatically regarded with skepticism. Yet somehow Venus’s devotion and his total absence of guile have endeared La Mer to all of us quickly and thoroughly. I still have to work to convince some of the crew, mostly Brady, that I can be counted on, but La Mer has fit in with ease since almost the beginning.
“These wire-rats—why would they help? It would be crazy for anyone else to volunteer to get involved in this,” Karl says.
La Mer looks away from Venus for the first time, and I catch the glow of fear behind his eyes. He’s well aware of the risks in what he’s proposing. “I know. And they know it, too. But this is a network that has been working against the Admin in secrecy for years. Their goal is to change the system, to erode the Admin’s power any way they can. Once I talk to them and explain what we’ve got, they’ll help us.”
“What will they want in return?” I ask.
“If we can expose the corruption in even one of the Ministries, that’ll be reward enough. And if not”—he shrugs—“we may have to write them an IOU.”
With no one else prepared to offer up a better idea, there’s a pause in the discussion. Eventually Desto breaks the silence: “Sounds shaky, but it’s all we’ve got right now. V, how do you want to divide up?”
“I’m going with Jeremy,” Venus states.
I don’t miss the way Vitruzzi winces, as if slapped. She says, “Venus, we need you to fly the Sphynx.”
Venus’s already pale skin becomes nearly translucent as the blood drains from it. “Karl or Doug can fly it just fine. I’m not going to be separated from him.” She reaches out and grasps one of La Mer’s hands hard enough to make her fragile blue veins stand out.
Vitruzzi’s voice becomes very quiet, a tone that would be soothing under normal circumstances. “Yeah, they can, but what if we get into trouble? No one can make the Sphynx fly the way you can. The Beachers need you. Jeremy can handle things on Obal 10, and he won’t be alone.”
“I’ll be keeping you safe, love,” he says, staring into Venus’s frightened green eyes.
She looks around at the rest of us, searching our faces, and I know I’m not the only one who has trouble meeting her gaze. Her voice tremors at the realization that the decision isn’t hers. “After you send the transmission, how are you going to get off of Obal 10?”
“Don’t worry about that yet. Eleanor is right, you’ll be helping more people if you go to Keum Libre,” Brady says, trying to soothe her, but his words have the opposite effect.
“I don’t care about that!”
“Venus…” La Mer says.
She whirls around without releasing his hand and sweeps her bulging, phosphorescent eyes over the crew. “They’re going to wipe us out. You all know it. What’s the point? They’ll just keep coming until they kill all of us. Like Bodie! Like my parents!”
This time my glance drops to the floor. I can’t help feeling guilty and I don’t know why. She’s probably right. It feels like a lie to try and convince her otherwise.
La Mer wraps her in a hug, folding his long arms around her petite form like a cape. She stands stiffly in his embrace for several seconds but she doesn’t cry.
Like the rest of us, she’s been too hardened by a life that’s already seen too much loss to waste any more tears. After a few seconds, she steps back and says in a husky voice, “I’ll be in the cockpit.”
The galley is quiet for several seconds after she leaves. Each of us contemplate her outburst, the words like a shroud threatening to suffocate our resolve.
Finally, Vitruzzi says, “We only need to send one or two others with La Mer. Think about it and decide for yourselves who’ll go. I’ve already transmitted the plan to Rajcik. We’ll pick him up and leave for Keum Libre at first light tomorrow.”
NINETEEN
Venus plants the Sphynx like a lawn dart outside the mine entrance where Rajcik has taken up residence. Unlike her normal, floating descents, the haphazard way she ratchets the ship between the canyon walls feels like we’re descending on a broken elevator whose cables snap and catch. One second we’re dropping much too fast, the next she’s opening up the reverse thrusters with maximum torque, effectively braking us with the force of a crashing tidal wave. I have to grab the handrail of the galley stairs to keep from breaking my neck, and there’s a crashing sound somewhere inside the ship as unsecured cargo topples. Brady curses in the galley behind me.
Vitruzzi transmitted Rob the coordinates and asked him to move the ’Rize to as near the cave entrance as possible. Two ships the sizes of the Sphynx and the Horizon docked together on this stripped moon will quickly attract any scout ships in the quadrant, so we plan to keep the stop short and to the point. La Mer and the crew going with Rob will load weapons and the equipment they’ll need on Obal 10 aboard the Horizon right after meeting with Rajcik and depart immediately. Everyone else will board the Sphynx and should be back in the air and on the way to Keum Libre early tomorrow morning.